I stumbled into the Guildhall, the double doors swinging wide as I shove through. A few hunters at the tables nearby spared me acid looks, one coverin' her nose as the smell of self-pity wafted in. I moved for the desks, headin' straight for the horrified lookin' blonde woman behind it.

  "Roche?" Miss Tawny asked with a sneer, "are, oh gods you are really drunk." She grimaced as I tripped a little and caught myself on the counter.

  The whole damn Guild was spininn' probably 'cause of all that shit in the cenote. I wasn't quite sure why no one else seemed to notice, but fuck 'em.

  "Roche," the blonde woman hissed, "please, go to your rooms and sleep it off this is-"

  I slammed a fist down onto the hardwood and tried to focus all three of the Tawnys before me, "Nuh uh," I slurred, "I'mma do this right now, so listen close."

  The woman's mouth hung open, her eyes wide as saucers.

  "Roche, please-"

  "No! Shush," I hiccuped and pointed a finger at her, "you goin' get me a job," my eyes got heavy and I felt sleep tuggin' at my senses. I snapped them open and shook the fog out. "Now! I need a job, right now!"

  The woman's hands flew to her hair, her jaw feather as her teeth audibly grit.

  "Is this because of the mess you made with the Scaras? Xoxoctic was pissed, Roche. If that had been a Guild contract and not some deal between you and a private party, you'd be in deep shit."

  I laughed.

  "Ha! Deeper shit." I slapped the counter, "c'mon, you're good at this, right? I need somethin' dangerous, something important. Somethin' far, far away. And don't," I covered my mouth as something evil tried to escape through my teeth, "tell that little red traitor she's... She's too good to be hangin' around me."

  Tawny stared at me, something like disgust, pity and motherly rage mixin' in her pretty face.

  "Ah," she said coolly, "I get it. You want me to get you killed. Something really dangerous. Like, an Anasisi nest."

  "Perfect. I'll fight all them sum-bitchin' cobra cunts all over again! Where are they?!" I roared, drawin' my pistol and swingin' it around. I was fuckin' done with mind controllin' monsters gettin' in my head. Anasissi, Cuhaite, er, fuckin'....

  Whatever.

  "Roche! Holster that godsdamned shooter right now." Tawny hissed as a few of the other Hunters around us took note and began to reach for their own arms.

  Were these motherfuckers on their side then? Were they working for her? Was all this one godsdamned joke on-

  Slap!

  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  I stared at her, my cheek stinging.

  "You're a fucking idiot."

  That's when I realized the pistol had disappeared.

  I had no idea where the damn thing had gone too. Must've grown legs, probably conspirin' against me too. Can't even trust steel in this mixed up world.

  "You know what?" Tawny said, a dark edge in her usually lovely voice, "fine. I'll give you what you want. Not so you can kill yourself, but so you can go out and find your balls again. I'm so ashamed of you right now Roche." She muttered the words as she rounded the counter.

  I was just straight enough to feel a flush at my cheeks. But it didn't last. Ashamed had become my default state the last few days.

  I had been hidin' from the world. Ignoring messengers from the Della Luna, turning away Tom and Leo when they came to make sure I wasn't dead. I had holed up in my rooms, and I had drank.

  Oh, how I had drank.

  But, the bottle couldn't hold back the nightmares.

  Or the truth.

  No amount of good whiskey seemed to fill that awful pit in my guts. Eventually, I realized nothing would.

  "Here," Tawny said as she returned from the board, "I'll put you down for this. The deposit will come out of your account. If you fail the contract, the Guild will reduce your rank and recoup that starting bonus you were paid."

  "Recoup-"

  "It means you'll be fucking broke Roche. It's obvious you're in need of some tough love. Something real to distract you from whatever that monster did to that shattered lump of mana crystal you used to call an ego. Do. Not. Fuck. This. Up."

  She stabbed the paper into my chest and stormed off, mutterin' under her breath about 'men and their stupid pride' and 'never should've hired this idiot.' I stopped listenin' the moment I tried to read the squirmin' letters on the page.

  After a few minutes I gave. Didn't matter, it was time to get the hell outta this town. Bein' trapped with all these soft folk, all these people pretendin' to be nice to me, it was too much. I was goin' to take a break. Go somewhere I didn't have to think. Somewhere I could just be Lorcan Roche, a killer. A survivor.

  Somewheres I could stop pretending to be a decent man.

  I left the Guild. The people on the streets gave me a wide berth. When I found my way to the gates the heat of midday had forced some of the drink outta me, but the haze of shame still lingered.

  When I got to the stables I found them quiet, empty like. None of Miss Marry's hands were about and no one met me as I walked through the newly repaired pens to fetch my pig. As I opened her paddock I heard Moxie give a grunt, her beady eyes peerin' at me hard in the gloom where she lay on a bed of straw.

  The razorback hog gave a snort and a sniff, and judgin' by the way she tossed her head, she wasn't much fond of what she smelled.

  "Hey girl," I said as I knelt next to her, "time for us to leave."

  She gave a low grumble and rolled onto her trotters. I scratched her flank as she ambled to the door and we walked on out.

  It took two hours of me fiddling with her tack, all them damn little clasps and such, to finally get my best friend saddled up to ride. I made sure I did it right. I might be a stupid, cowardly, good-for-nothin' shit, but there was no way I'd have Moxie gettin' blisters or sores because I was too drunk to adjust her straps and fit the saddle blanket the way she liked.

  I rode out in silence, the mid-day sun warmin' my hat, and the steady beat of Moxie's trot soothed the pounding headache that had settled into the base of my skull.

  I was gettin' too sober, all sorts of thoughts creeping in. I thought to reach for my flask and quiet them all down, but the moment I got the top off the silver canteen, the smell hit me.

  Vomit.

  I sprayed sick in an arc, just barely clearin' Moxie's flank and my left leg.

  In response my pig bucked. I gripped the horn as the world spun.

  When Moxie kicked off into a dead sprint, I think that was her way of showin' me her own tough love. Never before had she bucked, nor did she ever ignore my command when we were on the trail. But that day?

  She kicked dust until the sun set. No matter how much I jostled in the saddle nor nearly lost my perch, she just kept up that damned run.

  Finally, just as the sands grew cold and the veil grew thin, she slowed to a trot.

  We were miles and miles out, in a patch of the dunes marked by rocky outcrops and low buttes. This was the place we had camped once before, defensible, and dry. Plenty of cover to hide the smoke of a campfire and just enough open space between the rocks to set wards.

  I was lucky to have a pig so smart. This was probably her destination from the very start. I set about kindling a fire, and that done I even carved a few trail wards into some stones and set them out around the perimeter. It wasn't something commonly done outside of areas thick with mana, but the Wyrm attack outside the Vault had stuck with me.

  From now on I'd be takin' a few more measures whenever I was under the stars.

  Hell, that made me think, maybe I ought to be changing a few other habits.

  Now that I was a little more clear all I could think of was the things I'd been doing wrong the past few months, ever since I washed up on Terra Nova.

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  I had blindly placed my trust, clung to whoever and whatever I thought would get me through another day. I took in a monster soul as my Patron and carved my rune with a rusty knife. I let Temperance lead me around like a lost lamb and didn't blink when she told me I owed her a debt.

  And from there? I just kept lettin' the world tell me what I should be doin' and who I ought to be.

  Since when the fuck did I sign contracts and rub elbows with nobles like the Della Luna? Since when did I take a godsdamned shoppin' trip like a fuckin' lady debutante? Since when did I care what any of these people thought of me?

  I'd never cared before. Not for the notions of a stranger. My mama, my daddy, and Alice. It was to them I ought to owe somethin', and no one else.

  Well, Moxie now I guessed. I sat back against the pig as I pondered, a batch of sausages fryin' in a pan over the fire.

  Someone had packed my trail bags for me. Put the food and water I'd neglected to fetch inside along with a few extra bullets, some alchemical bandages, and a bar of soap. Probably Tawny, gods I owed her an apology, had told Marry of my state.

  I guess those two were also worth my gratitude, weren't they?

  "Fuck."

  Moxie grunted and turned her head to look at me.

  "Yeah... I know." I said pattin' the pig as she eyed me with porcine disgust, "I'm a mess."

  She gave a low grumble and then, as if the whole exchange hadn't happened, she looked back to the sausages, drool dripping from her mouth.

  "You ever think about the fact that those are also made of pig?" I asked gingerly pickin' one from the oil, only barely managin' to spare my tendrils a burn as I tossed the meat for her to catch.

  Moxie snapped her jaw shut with a crunch and a spray of grease, and then she just kept starin' at me, and the pan, expectantly.

  I chuckled.

  "Yer right," I said, "that's not really the important part, is it? They're good, so what's it matter what they're made of? What's it matter what ought to be, when you put it next to what is?"

  My friend and confidant, the smartest beast in all the wilds, just chewed and watched, waiting for more food.

  "Hmmm," I grunted as I drew a smoke from my coat and lit it from the warded flames, "you should be a philosopher Moxie. You can really get a man to think."

  The razorback hog chomped her teeth, the sound makin' the hair on the back of my neck stand.

  "Right. The sausages."

  I fed her a few more and then I ate too. Once my belly was full, and the last embers of the fire faded, the stars came out in full. It was a new moon, the erratic cycles of the Entropic celestials keepin' me on my toes. Never could tell when their power would wax or wane. Unlike the Hearthmother's sun, there was no order by which to chart the nature of the moon.

  That too made me think. Maybe things of the Entropy were just like that. Maybe creatures like the Songbird just weren't meant to be understood...

  I thought, maybe, I just needed to stop tryin' to make sense of what was broken all around me. Maybe I needed, instead, to work on fixin' old Roche before I tried fixin' the world.

  "Tomorrow, we're gonna be different Mox. We're gonna go and hunt whatever this," I said pulling the crumpled bill from my coat and openin' it to read, "is..."

  "Fuck."

  I had forgotten how drunk I had been. How desperate, how foolish, and angry.

  I stared down at the bill and the words chilled me right down to my bones.

  Investigate reports of Revenants at the Murkwater Outpost

  Rank 3 (Emergency Quest) Description: Contact has been lost with the Murkwater Leviathan Processing Oupost and Waystation. At least three active Hunting ships, each crewed by as many as fifty men, and the entire workforce of the camp is believed to be present, and unable to establish contact via means of Divination or mounted courier.

  Two alleged witnesses of the event, both runaway indentured servants in the employ of the camp, have reported the presence of ‘walking dead’ currently believed to be spontaneously animated Revenants. Neither witnesses was fully coherent or able to give accurate reports of the situation, however both also claimed that a spill of partially processed Leviathan oil may be responsible. The Guild has been tasked with an immediate response by the Imperial Magistrate due to the potential threat to Imperial assets, infrastructure and the lives of select Officials.

  I stopped and gave Moxie a sour look.

  "Even the Guild prefers to pretty up slavery out here, ain't that just fit to make you spit? Indentured employees, Imperial assets, fuckin' same shit different drawers..."

  At my words the pig snorted and dug a task into the sand, kicking it up into the air and then farting to make her disdain clear.

  Good girl.

  I kept reading.

  Term: Until complete.

  Objectives:

  

  
1. Discover the cause of the incident at Murkwater Leviathan Processing Camp.


  
2. Destroy any active threats in the vicinity.


  
3. Secure the Sussr Station and reestablish contact with Hunters Guild and Imperial agents


  

  Sub-Objectives:

  

  
1. Locate and destroy any animating elements in vicinity of objective location if able.


  
2. Recover surviving High Value personnel.


  
3. Minimize destruction of Imperial assets and equipment.


  

  I was about to toss the damn thing in the fire as I read all that. There was a clear hierarchy of priorities here. Fix the problem, save the equipment, and then, after all that, then I could worry about the people the Empire had gone and forgot. I didn't know what a Sussr Station was, but I could damn well tell you there was no way I'd put some shiny magi-tech bullshit over the lives of honest workin' men.

  No sir.

  The next line did quell some of my anger though. Almost made me re-think my earlier convictions too. A small fortune has that effect on a man.

  Pay: 5,000 gold, advancement opportunities and additional bonuses available upon completion of subobjectives.

  Requirements: Rank 3, personal equipment and bodily condition suitable to combat. Sanctified equipment or Divine spellcasters strongly recommended. A team of at least one rank 3 hunter and two to four rank 1 hunters is strongly recommended.

  Location: Three days Northwest of Augustus' Hope.

  Warning: Due to the recent outbreak of hostilities with Outcast tribes in vicinity of Agustus' Hope no Imperial or Hunters Guild reinforcements are expected for at least seven days. As such this contract is classified as both High Risk and an Emergency assignment. This mission is subject to increased compensation due to the potential hazards involved.

  Any Hunters responding to this request do so acknowledging the risk and waive any liability or responsibility on the part of the Hunter's Guild tor recover remains or equipment in a timely matter.

  And that line would be why the pay was so good. By 'timely manner' I assumed they meant 'we ain't coming'. While the Guild was good about things like that most of the time, if there really were undead involved and they lost Hunters? They wouldn't bother throwing more bodies after the first. They'd just have a high Step mage cauterize the rot, send the ashes back with letters to family.

  That was the smart thing to do anyway.

  All said, I was sailin' up shit creek and if I fell overboard? Ain't no one would be coming along to pull me to shore. Much like the Vault, the only way out of this mess would be through.

  There was a list of names that followed, most of them accompanied by a rank or title. Captain this, magistrate that, merchant so and so. Guess them were the 'high value personnel'. Doubted there were many Outcast slaves with southern shit-heel names like, Agustien Patros, or Gauis Brook. The fact that I could pronounce every name on the list was proof enough for that matter.

  More and more I was thinkin' I should just forget it, just go back to town and eat as much crow as I needed to get Miss Tawny to forgive me, maybe even and go talk to Raph, but then I made the mistake of turning the page over.

  I grit my teeth, hard.

  Behind the neatly written bureaucratic bullshit was a few more lines penned in a hasty, but somehow still elegant hand. A hot streak of shame ran down my back and only grew as I read what had to be Tawny's hand.

  P.S.

  I drew a map on the back. And check your saddlebags, asshole. You were too fucked up to bother with when I wrote this, but I sent word ahead to Marry and all the other people you've pissed off this last week. Unfortunately, you are the only Hunter in town who might be able to deal with this and I put my ass on the line asking for a rank exemption. You owe me. I don't care how many monsters you fight or how many bad decisions you make, just as long as you come back alive, and with your head finally free from your ass.

  -Tawny

  P.P.S.

  I know you can do this, Roche. I'm not sure why you were the way you were, but I can't help but see something better in you. So stop running from whatever happened, and go kick some ass.

  Well. Fuck me running.

  I wiped the snot from my nose and spat out the lingering taste of whiskey and sick. The map showed the outpost was a two day ride from August' Hope...

  Or would've been. Turns out lettin' your loyal steed do the navigation was a damn fool thing to do. I was about a day east of where I ought to be right now, meanin' that if I travelled smart, I'd be just two days ahead of the Imperial response. Ignorin' the loss of the five-fuckin'-thousand gold coins, about half of what I was paid for signing my contract, there was also Tawnys warning back in the Guild.

  I couldn't quite recollect the details, but she had said something about demotion, and that bit in the post script suggested it might not just be me in the fire if I failed.

  The weight of responsibility was a helluva lot heavier than the shame.

  "Moxie."

  The razorback hog raised her head, and her little black eyes bore into mine, her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air.

  "Got bad news," I said as I moved to rifle through the saddlebags I'd been too drunk to inspect, "we gotta get there in one day. You know what that means?"

  I asked as I unbuttoned the largest pack, the one that sat just behind her saddle.

  She snorted and shifted on her hooves.

  "Yeah. We're runnin' in the night," I muttered as I drew out a gift I didn't deserve.

  My scattergun, a belt full of shiny, glitterin' shot, and one more hand written note.

  You suck. But the Scaras sends his regards. Congratulations, I guess running away with a bloodthirsty Cuhaite is as good as killing one to the hive mind.

  See you if you survive.

  -Xoxoctic

  P.S.

  You made Raph cry

  Dick.

  Well shit. I didn't want a reminder of that, not at all. Raph had come to me as a friend...

  Nah, we both know he meant it as more. He had come to me askin' for help, askin' me to support his family in whatever clusterfuck the Empire had stirred up with the free Outcasts. And what had I done?

  I'd turned my back.

  Just like I did with Temperance and Shorty.

  Like I did with everyone.

  It was somethin' to chew on, but I'd have plenty of time to mull on it later. Right now, I had a job to do.

  I had a debt to repay.

  I had a monster to kill.

  My penance would never be paid with kind words or gentle deeds. No. As always, the only way I knew to make things right was with a trail of bodies and the stink of alchemical powder. I was goin' to save these folks, reclaim the honor I'd sullied with sloth and cowardice, and then?

  Then, maybe, I'd have enough balls to go say sorry to my friends.

  I drew the scattergun out of my saddlebag, slid a Scaras-made sanctified shell from the oiled belt, and slotted it into the breach.

  "You ready, Moxie?"

  My friend gave a low, threatening growl and the spines along her back stood.

  "Good. At dawn," I said, slamming the breach closed, "we ride for Hell and Damnation."