The warehouse wasn't quite pitch black inside, but it was damn close. The main doors that allowed loads of cargo to come in on wagons were all closed and locked, the only door that was open was the one Dryth had just walked through, and the shutters at the top of the walls that were there for ventilation and light were all closed as well. Thanks to that even though everything outside the warehouse had been baking in the hot sun all day the interior was quite chilly.

  Sindri shivered. "Brr. Chilly in here. Let's hurry this up so we can leave."

  "I hear you." Dryth held out his hand and pure cast Produce Light. The tiny dot of light that sprouted from his finger was enough to illuminate the surrounding areas and give him a look at where they would be hunting gremlins. Near the door was open space so people could pass through, and a few feet away were a series of low walls built out to create a pair of offices. The tall silhouettes of shelves holding goods loomed over them a few feet away, just on the outer edge of the radius of light.

  "Let's check the offices first, since our 'companions' seem to have run right past them." Will Sindri looking around for threats Dryth popped over to the door and leaned inside.

  "This is an operational place of business, so no looting." Matilda said right in his ear.

  Dryth jumped back and Sindri dove at the sudden intruder, fangs bared. Matilda grabbed him in one hand and held him away from her face. "Woah! Woah! Jumpy pair, got it. Sorry." She gently lowered Sindri back onto Dryth's head. "Good job staying alert, but that's a bit of an overreaction, yeah?"

  Dryth closed his eyes and screwed up his mouth as he did his best not to curse at her. Sindri wasn't restraining himself at all, but no one else could hear it so it would be fine. After a few deep breaths Dryth opened his eyes again. "Sorry, what did you say? I was too surprised by someone being right on top of me to listen."

  "I was saying that you can't loot anything." The large woman was speaking in a softer tone than she had outside, but she was still quite loud. "This is a business in the capital not a ruined fort out in the woods."

  "We weren't going to loot!" Dryth glared at her. "The others all ran off into the dark and didn't stop to check over here. If we get everything but the ones that might be in the offices thats almost as bad as never doing the job in the first place."

  "Alright." She immediately nodded in acceptance. "Just had to check. Even if we're using it as a little test, this is still a job on my record and I take pride in it being spotless."

  "...Right." Dryth turned away from her and checked inside the offices. Both had small desks against the outside wall of the warehouse with a few scattered papers strewn about their surfaces and on the floor, while one of them had a half-disassembled wood chair tucked into one of the corners. There wasn't any movement in either and nowhere to hide, so they moved on.

  The other two bounty hunters must have been following the rest of the candidates, because Matilda just ambled after Dryth without saying anything. Personally, Dryth didn't know how good of an idea it was to have the candidates outnumber the people supposed to be watching them, but there were probably circumstances he wasn't aware of. They walked into the rows of shelves, the light Dryth had created making long shadows stretch around them as they walked between the racks covered in trade goods, all of which seemed to be ominously leaning closer as they walked. The shelves were tall, sturdy wooden constructions that stretched fifteen feet into the air. Each long set of racks had three or four actual shelves on them and they were all covered in crates, vases, jars, sacks, and wrapped bundles of cloth.

  "What kind of warehouse is this?" Dryth whispered to himself.

  He evidently wasn't quiet enough, because Matilda answered, "Probably transshipment. Getting large scale goods into the city proper is a nightmare, so it's not uncommon for merchants and caravans that aren't interested in hanging around dealing with permits and licenses to sell to merchants that will and then those merchants sell it to interests inside the city once they get it inside."

  "Thanks you?"

  "You're welcome."

  Dryth let the confusing woman be. He briefly wondered what specifically was in the containers they were passing and chuckled to himself at the thought of there being an ancient relic from times long past, hidden away by the government and waiting for someone to find it and unleash its wrath.

  Sindri whipped around to stare at Dryth.

  Dryth froze in place, scanning for enemies. "What is it?"

  "It happened again!"

  "What? What happened again?"

  "That weird thing with you and not you and your emotions! Except this time it wasn't bravery it was finding something funny!"

  "Uhh..." Dryth shook his head. "Okay? We'll tell Ewan about it when we see him, but we've got a job to do right now."

  "You alright?"

  "We're fine." He told Matilda and started moving again.

  Outside of weird moments inside of Dryth's psyche, or wherever emotions were according to the philosophers, Dryth and Sindri were a good pair for this kind of environment. Darkness didn't impede Sindri's sense oof smell or his ability to sense heat so he made a great scout to keep an eye out for enemies, while Dryth made enough light for him to see with and dealt with moving around.

  "Wait."

  Dryth stopped.

  "You said they're small and kind of human-like, right? Like a foot tall with big eyes and big hairy ears?"

  "That sounds right. Where are they?"

  "Above us, on the shelves. They're just watching. I've spotted four of them."

  "From what I remember, they're not really big on fighting unless they have to, they tend to run from threats. I bet they're trying to stay out of sight and are hoping we'll leave if we can't find them."

  "I'll sneak around and flush them out?"

  "Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I'll stay here and pretend like I'm searching or something. Let me know when you're about to hit them."

  Sindri agreed and Dryth stepped over to one of the shelves. He pretended to look inside a sack while Sindri crept into the darkness and vanished from sight. Matilda raised one brow at them, but she didn't say anything and actually stepped back a little so that she was out of the light. Dryth continued to pantomime searching, 'lifting open' crates and 'looking inside' sealed jars. He'd said earlier that most of his knowledge about gremlins was from book reading, but that didn't make it wrong, just not personally tested. Gremlins were supposed to be fairly stupid as a whole. From time to time more intelligent specimens popped up, generally theorized as individuals with more powerful or rare Soul Cards, that would lead packs of them and make gremlins less of a nuisance and more of a threat, but most gremlins were as intelligent as alcoholic human toddlers. Pretending to search would likely fool them into thinking Dryth didn't know they were there.

  "Are you ready?" Sindri asked from the darkness.

  "One sec." Dryth carefully set down the vase he'd been inspecting and turned like he was going to walk back over to the opposite shelf. "Ready."

  He quickly drew Sparkle Dart over his right hand. The stress of suddenly being about to use it in combat had him messing up his placement slightly and it appeared a few inches down his arm instead with the orientation completely wrong, but it would still work. Half a second later an almost painfully loud screech rang out and three shapes vaulted from the shelves above him, aiming for the next row. Dryth followed the closest one with his eyes and snapped his arm up. Ewan would say that actually pointing to aim his attack was a pointless handicap that gave the enemy too much information, but Dryth wasn't that practiced.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Sadly for Dryth, he'd forgotten that his Produce Light spell was active on the end of his finger and as he brought his hand up to fire he immediately blinded himself as he activated the card. The glittery dart coalesced and launched itself forward even as he flinched back and covered his eyes with his other arm, causing the spell to go wide. The dart had been aimed at where the gremlin directly above Dryth that was trying to run away would have been as soon as it landed on the next shelf across the aisle, but instead it hit the edge of the shelf directly under where it landed. The dart silently burst apart as it hit, sending out a flash of light accompanied by soundlessly crackling bits of glitter.

  The flash immediately blinded Dryth again as he tried to look to see how his attack went and he cursed loudly as he covered his eyes again. Two loud thumps sounded next to him followed by screeches and he stumbled away. Blearily blinking his tear filled eyes Dryth turned to barely see two gremlins on the ground, who writhing in pain and clutching at their own eyes. Dryth squinted to try and make them out better through the flashing spots covering everything as he grabbed a shelf for support.

  After he managed to shake off the effects of his own attack Dryth looked around for the monsters. He guessed he'd been less effected by the flash since he'd already had a light on, which let him recover a little bit sooner than the two gremlins. One of them was rolling to its feet as he looked over and it turned it's head to stare at him, giving Dryth's his first real look at a gremlin in person. He'd seen pictures of course, and a lone one that'd been fleeing from a traveling farrier who'd stopped by his village, but this was his first good look at one. The gremlin was about as large as the average toddler who's intelligence it shared, but more squat and lithe. It's skin was leathery and a mottled red color, one of many that gremlins could come in. It's head was a little too large for its body if you were used to human proportions and it's eyes took up most of it's face. It was hairless except for it's large pointy ears which were covered in bristly hair. At the end of each curled fingertip were sharp claws about an inch long and its teeth were sharp needles that flashed as the gremlin started hissing at him.

  The creature was still blinking its overly large eyes in pain, so Dryth took the opportunity to do a little better the second time. He stopped casting Produce Light, plunging that section of the warehouse back into darkness. He snapped his hand up again as he lined up a shot at where the gremlin should still have been. He was only three or four feet away from the monster so he looked away with his eyes closed immediately after firing another Sparkle Dart. A brief strobe lit up the inside of his eyelids and the long hiss cut off replaced by a gurgling noise.

  He drew and cast Produce Light again, this time having the light appear on his opposite hand. He held out the light to see and found the Gremlin he'd shot lying still on the ground and it's comrade charging right at him with its ears spread out, it's jaw agape, and it's claws outstretched. Acting completely on instinct Dryth drew back his foot and punted the gremlin right before it was about to leap at him. It flew off at an angle and slammed into thick timbers that held up the sides of the shelves all around them. There was a sickening crunch as it hit the shelf and fell to the ground.

  Panting from the surprise adrenaline rush, Dryth remembered to keep his wits about him and started looking around, looking for more enemies just in case. A gremlin popped up above him on top of the shelves and Dryth pivoted to fire at it, but it was bumped from behind and fell.

  Sindri popped his head out from where he'd pushed it over and waved at Dryth with his tail. "Sorry! I'm not big enough to pick it up so I had to drag and push it over."

  "Okay. Right," Dryth said out loud, too wired to think about it, "You alright? What happened to the other one, you said there were four, right?"

  "I got that one first. They were hanging out staring at you so I grabbed one of them and took care of it before they noticed anything, that's what spooked the others into moving. I saw two of them fall near you after you blinded them so I went after the one that was harder for you to chase." He threw himself down, flapping his wings multiple times so he landed safely back on Dryth's shoulders.

  "Good job. You know I wasn't trying to do that, right?"

  "Yeah, I could tell. But it worked, so who cares?"

  A hand came down on Dryth's shoulder. He cursed and spun around, his hand coming up when Matilda grabbed his arm. When he saw who it was he cursed again. "Can you not do that?"

  She chuckled at him. "Sorry kid, didn't realize you'd forgotten I was here. I have some pointers if you'd like them."

  "What, like don't blind myself with my own light, remember what kind of spells I'm casting and how they might interact with the environment, like a flashy light spell being literally blinding in a dark place, maybe things like that?"

  Matilda chuckled again. "Yeah, things like that. It looks like you might have what it takes to hack it as a bounty hunter, so I thought I'd offer some advice to help you stay standing." She grinned and pointed at Sindri, "Your pet's better than you are though."

  "He's my partner, not my pet, and yeah, I know. He's actually hunted for his food before."

  "Never gremlins, though. We don't them too much back on the old home plane. Think they taste good?"

  "I have no idea." He looked over to the bounty hunter. "You know if gremlins are edible? Sindri wants to try eating them."

  "I know they're edible, they don't smell like something I shouldn't eat, I want to know if they taste good."

  "Sorry. Apparently he can smell that they're edible to him, he's asking if they taste good."

  She stared back at them with wide eyes. "I... I don't know... I've never tried to eat a gremlin."

  "What happens to the bodies?"

  Her eyes got wider. "We take them back to the station as proof since were getting paid per gremlin killed. They take them and process them, if it's a monster with valuable parts they generally pay you for them or they'll offer to butcher them and give you the valuable bits for a fee. The useless stuff ends up as fertilizer, I think."

  "Thanks. I'll see if they'll give me one to test with when we're done."

  "Really? Awesome! Thanks Dryth! You're really cool with me eating one?"

  "Don't thank me for it. And in general, yeah, sure, I guess? You're going to get really big and eventually keeping you fed is going to get really expensive. If we can let you eat monsters we kill then that can save us some money., I'm not going to watch you eat one, that'd be too weird for me, but it's not like gremlins are people. It's basically the same as if you were eating an animal and I wouldn't watch you do it, but I don't think I'd freak out about you eating a monkey."

  Sindri's emotions fluctuated in a complicated dance. "Monkeys are hit and miss. Some of them are really good but a lot of them are just so stringy."

  "Not wanting to watch is now joined by don't give me details on what it's like to eat things."

  "... Can I tell you about how things taste?"

  "As long as it doesn't get weird, fine." Dryth turned back to Matilda. "Do you think there are any more, or is this about the size of the pack that got reported."

  She was still staring at him like she'd discovered some strange new creature. "Ah... no, there should be a few more at least."

  "Thanks." He started moving along the shelfs again as he and Sindri scanned for enemies.

  Matilda followed behind after a pause. She stopped next to the gremlin he'd shot in the head and Dryth turned around to look at it when Sindri noticed her standing there.

  "Everything okay?"

  She raised one foot and slammed it down on the monster's head, letting out an echoing crack that made Dryth's stomach turn over. "That one was just unconscious. Can't have it popping back up when we're transporting the bodies or when we're handing them over at the station."

  Dryth swallowed down the bile that had risen up his throat. "Right."

  A small glow emanated from the dead gremlin's body and a faint translucent outline of a card suddenly appeared, spinning in place above the corpse. Matilda's eyebrows shot up in surprise and she reached down to pluck the card from its spot. "Huh. Don't see that every day." She stepped over to Dryth and held out the card. "Here."

  "What?" Dryth glanced from the card to her face. "You're giving it to me?"

  "Course I am, your kill your loot. I only finished the thing off, you did all the real work. Plus," she admitted, "This isn't a valuable card and it's of no use to me as it is. No skin off my back to follow tradition and let you have it."

  "Thank you." Dryth reached out and took it from her, flipping it over to look at the picture. It had a snarling gremlin on it reaching out and swiping at something with it's claws.

  "Awe, I can't use it." Sindri moped.

  "What, it's not blue why would you be able to use it?"

  Sindri lifted his head into the air haughtily. "I'm not a human, we're not limited by the color of cards like you. Look at the cost section where it says we can't use it. Mine says it's because I lack the right body parts, not because of the color."

  "Oh. That's something to ask Ewan about, I guess cause I don't get why it'd be different." Dryth suddenly remembered where they were despite the allure of the brand new card and tucked it away in his pocket. "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me, I was just doing what I should. Now, after getting a nice extra reward, are you going to stand around after you two got some work in? Cause if you are why don't you step outside, that way I can watch some of the others."

  "No, it's fine." Dryth shook his head and started walking again. "Sindri would be disappointed if we stopped now, and we're getting paid per gremlin, right?" The human and coatl pair started stalking through the gloom once more, out for gremlin.