"Play fair," whispered the dark elf to himself, "that's what I say. You don't cheat me. You cheat me and you're stealing. You steal from me, and I do you one better; that's just how it's gotta be."

Clothed in black, he shimmied up the drainpipe alongside the house. Holding on with one hand, he found the edge of a window into the upstairs hallway and nudged it up, pushed it open and slunk inside. Staying low, he crept down the hallway. The carpet on the floor was actually rather nice. Not rich by any means, but not bad certainly; comfortable. The hall was dark and all was quiet. Outside he heard some footsteps going by down the cobbled road. Someone always seemed to be up in this city. Not much different from home or, well, what was home.

He moved along the wall to the first door on the right and put his ear to it. He tested the doorknob and sure enough, not locked. He eased the door open, creaking gently but not loudly, peering into the room. Pitch black. He slipped into the room, clicking the door shut behind him quietly. His eyes adjusting even more so to the darkness, he began to see even more clearly. There was the cheating scum, snoring away sleeping deeply. Dirzjra crept up alongside the bed and slid out a knife.

"Payment with interest..."

He leaned over the sleeping man, snoring away. He took the knife, and put it to the cheater's throat. His arm tensed and-

BAM!

The door splintered apart with a crash and a sunrod flew through the door illuminating the room.

"FOUND YOU, YOU B-"

A figure was standing in the splintered doorway, dressed in leathers, long cloak rustling around it, mask covering its face. It had a small, yet menacing crossbow in each hand pointed straight at the man in his bed. The eyes above the mask went wide, seeing more in the room than she expected.

Dirzjra looked at the figure in the doorway, eyes equally wide.

"What the?"

"Who are-?"

The man was lying in the bed, now quite awake, looking at the knife over his throat, eyes bugging out of his skull in surprise, mouth hanging open. He looked at Dirzjra, then at the figure in the doorway. Dirzjra looked at the man. The figure looked at the man. Dirzjra and the figure looked at each other, surprise being the only prevalent feeling in the room. Everything was still for a split second.

Snapping out of it, Dirzjra slashed the bedded fellow's throat, pulling the blood-gushing corpse towards him just as the two crossbows twanged. A bolt blew through the body's shoulder and thudded into the wooden headboard, splinters flying. The second crashed into the dead body's head with a crack and splatter, right where Dirzjra's head was a moment earlier. Dirzjra jumped back from the body looking towards the shooter in the doorway. He pointed his dagger threateningly at the figure. The figure dropped it's bows and pulled out a dagger as well and pointed it in an equally threatening manner.

"Who're you?!" asked the drow.

"Who're you?!" asked the figure in the door, voice appearing to be female.

"I'm settling a debt, what're you here for?!"

"I'm here to take him out, on a job!"

The both looked at each other, eyes narrowed. They both looked at the dead body on the floor, blood pooling under the head, and gaping shoulder wound. They both looked to each other.

"I'm not here for you, whoever you are," said the woman.

"Then put your knife down," said the drow

"You"

"You"

More staring.

They both slowly lowered their knives and sheathed them. Dirzjra looked the woman up and down, then back to the body and finally relaxed a bit. "Bit of a mess, eh?"

"Yeah, gotta say I wasn't expecting that... How'd you get in here so well, I've been staking out the place for about twenty minutes?"

"Through the window just down the hall, just snuck in."

"Ah..." She looked around at the debris by the door.

Dirzjra went over to a bureau and rifled through the man's belongings and found a purse with some gold coins. "We're square" he said to the shocked looking body on the floor.

"Well," he said brightly to the woman "Have a pleasant evening." and left before she could reply. He shimmied out the window and up onto the roof. He waited a while until he saw a dark figure leave, quietly and quickly. She walked through a few alleys, wound through town between houses and entered an abandoned, rundown house. It was large, once very nice but now old, moss covered and boarded up. There was an iron fence around the place, the gate barely hanging on it's old hinges.

He followed the woman inside. She heard voices coming from inside.

"So you got him?"

"Of course. Have I ever failed you?"

She was speaking with a guard in bright plate.

The drow sat just outside the room on the upstairs landing, shifted his weight just a bit and creeaak, the old wood cried into the darkness. The conversation stopped and he heard footsteps come across the floor. Before he realized how close they were, a metal covered hand reached around the doorway, grabbing him and throwing him into the room.

The room was lit by a fire in a small fireplace and over him stood the woman from the man's house and what seemed to be a member of the Shiny Guard who was looking rather grim. "What the?!"

He was about to start whaling on the startled drow when the woman said "DON'T! Don't, Korban, he's alright. I actually ran into him on the hit. He must have followed me. He could have come after me several times, I imagine, but he obviously didn't. Let him be, let him be."

The man called Korban let the drow go, as Dirzjra fell to the floor gasping. "What's your name, dark elf?"

"Dirzjra, my name's Dirzjra. Who in the name of the night are you people? What the Hells is this?"

She looked to the man called Korban, looked at the drow, looked back and went off aside and started whispering and gesturing wildly. Korban looked worried, stuck his fingers up on his ears and jerked his thumb across his throat. The woman looked like she was trying to calm him down. He heaved a sigh and nodded. The woman came over and offered the drow her hand to get up.

"My name is Eliza and this fellow is Korban. We do bounty work. He's a member of the guard. We act as somewhat of a vigilante group within the city. We're not really known to anyone, he simply brings bounties to me, I track them down. Sometimes he helps but that's about the gist of it. Here's the problem though; we like to keep this quiet and honestly, we don't so much know that you'll keep this to yourself. If the guard knew he was assisting in favor of a bounty hunter before the guards got wind of it. So long as the targets get taken care of, though, all is well. So, I'm going to pose a proposal to you. You help us and join our team or we, well, you can imagine the alternative."

Dirzjra thought for a moment. Might be a good way to bring in cash. Bounties are usually for people who've got it coming anyway and out here things seem pretty legitimate, way more so than home at least. What've I got to lose?

"Sure, I'll help you out. I get a cut of the action?"

"Yeah, in more ways than one."

They all shook hands and the deal was made.

------------------------------------------

A few weeks later, Korban came into the old house with news. "You guys, you may want to hear this. So you know the old art museum place? The Galleria Eternia? Yeah, well that old oddball Barrochio's gone missin'. I know, crazy right? He's been there for ages, but so's that guard of his. I think her name's Minli. A few of the boys in the guard fancy her a bit. Odd enough is that she hasn't seemed to take to any of em. Seems to keep to herself. Just look out if you want into the gallery. She seems rather picky sometimes.

"Anyways, one day he was there, next day, gone. Minli says she went to look for the guy but he wasn't there. The courts don't know what to make of it. They think Minli's the prime suspect. No one else was around and a lot of people could testify to her seeming less than happy with her post. Problem is, no one can actually prove she got rid of the bastard. The word around the guard is they think she did the poor guy in and ditched the body in the night but who knows. No proof, no blood, no notes, no clues, nothin'. Just gone without a trace. This half elf fella who I've not seen before, name of 'Rho' took the case and got her off on the pure fact that there's no evidence she did it. They didn't totally let her off the hook, though. They let her off with the condition that she's not the responsibility of Rho. They said 'You go with him or come with us.' You can imagine what she picked.

"So, here's where we come in. Sounds like they want to find out what happened to Rockio and could use a hand and I imagine the guys that find out what happened might get a hefty reward, especially if he's alive. I mean, the guy made priceless artwork and was divinely empowered, though if you ask me, I dunno where that went. I think if we help these two, it might just lead to some good stuff, for sure. What do you guys think?"

Eliza and Dirzjra looked at Korban, then each other.

"We have any other contracts?" asked Eliza

"It's bone dry right now."

"Hmm... No reason not to, then, eh? Dirz?"

"Sounds good to me. Should we go find this guy?"

"He's over at the Galleria. Lookin for clues I'm guessin'. Shall we?"

Nothing more needed be said. They three headed out and found Rho and Minli.

"We here you're lookin' for help with your search." said Korban.

"Well well, I do indeed! This troubles me and I'm smelling something here that's not right." Said Rho "I don't know much about the gods but from what Minli here tells me, Barrochio was a special favorite of Folio, the god of art himself. Just disappearing out of nowhere, seems unlikely but all the same, he's not here. Hmmm...."

"Barrochio was a conceited, vain and stuck up snob. To tell the truth, between us, I don't know if I'm so disappointed he's gone... We should look but... well... I don't know. Do you know how long I've been a guard here? For EVER!" She screamed and smashed a sculpture with no discernible form. "The bastard treated me like I was uncultured, and beneath him. He kept me around because he knew that if it came to it, he couldn't defend himself to... well... save his life. I'm not sure what I want to do about all this..."

"Well," said Rho, "I think I've got something here. I knew something smelled odd, just couldn't think of what. Now I'm realizing what it is. It's this energy in the air. When you're around magic, you can sometimes get a sense of electricity in the air when something happens and I've seen this before. Some two-bit wizard I defended a ways back accidentally botched a trick with an assistant. He used portals in the tricks and lets just say his volunteer was none too happy and is sans one foot now. Ah well. She's alive. Anyway, Portals leave this energy behind and that's what I'm getting here. I don't know if he did, but I'm thinking he," and he looked at the group around him, "might have left..."