A Friendly Visit {Leigh}

The woman intrigued Riku. She had watched him mercilessly snap Taegen’s neck, and she did not flinch. She did not even seem to care that he had stolen the opportunity for whatever it was that she came here for. Perhaps another interesting woman had entered his life, and Riku wanted to know more.

But first and foremost, he needed his information.

She asked if he was ‘new’, and claimed that everyone knew Markus Woodrow. The old fuck face; an interesting term, and certainly not one of endearment. Either she was always this brash and disrespectful, or Markus Woodrow held a dark place in her mind.

“Hmm, yes, the old fuck face,” Riku started as the woman robbed Taegen’s corpse. “He has some sort of connection to a man that I need to know about – a connection that no one seems to be talking about. Our Elven friend knew something, but would not say – you see where he is now. So now I turn to you. How well do you know Woodrow?”

Riku struggled to keep his voice level. With Solana, Riku saw a woman whose power made things like petty theft seem all but meaningless. This… thing, however, was a dirty, grimy thief – and her presence, though interesting, was irritating if it did not help his cause.

Riku watched carefully as the woman circled the room, robbing poor dead Taegen of his possessions. She was right in that he would not need them any longer, but Riku could not help but judge her for her actions. Sure, he had killed Taegen on a whim, but it was not disrespectful – if anything, he showed Taegen respect by giving him a quick and relatively painless death. Riku would not stoop so low as to steal from the elf.

She answered his query about Markus Woodrow, though did not divulge much information about herself in process. Only that she was a degenerate, which Riku had already deduced. He stroked his chin, thinking of what exactly made her a degenerate, and if it was something that could be used to his advantage. But first, he could not be rude.

“I am looking for information about a particular connection with a one Elias Harel, dastardly dictator of Muerte. Our friend here had that information - he does not any longer,” Riku sat across from the woman, clasping his hands together while resting his elbows on the table. “If I may ask, what is it that you are doing here? Poor Taegen could not have made an enemy of a… person… such as yourself, could he?”

Riku wondered for a moment why a woman would have a hook for a hand, and struggled to think of a reason besides the obvious. He didn’t know much about the world, but his searching for Markus Woodrow inevitably lead to his discovery of pirates.

Riku tensed up sitting across from the woman, his hands gripping together tightly to attempt to hide it. She had made a passive comment about how he would be on her ‘shitlist’ had Taegen been more useful, and that he was lucky. The very thought of it made Riku’s blood boil, and it took a tremendous amount of effort to not reach over the table, grab a fistful of the wretch’s hair and smash her smug little face into the table multiple times. He’d surely killed other people for much smaller transgressions.

Alas, his quick temper would not get the better of him this time – Riku could admit that he had likely lost a number of potential leads because of his short fuse. In retrospect, perhaps even Taegen could have been more useful than he was, given the chance. This woman… this horribly, horribly unappealing woman would get a little more leeway.

And then she said it. Info. Information about Elias Harel that a moron like her thought was insignificant, but may be of actual use to Riku. His eyes lit up at the thought of finally having the leverage that he needed to attain an audience with Harel – or perhaps a detailed schedule of his day to day events to find the best opportunity to strike. The possibilities were endless!

However, there was a price. A deal, for she has given away enough ‘freebies’. Nothing she had said had been helpful at all up to this point, she Riku was not certain what she was referring to, but he would play her game.


“A deal, you say? Interesting. And what are the terms of this deal?” Riku eyed the woman closely – she had the aura of a person who was conniving, and that could not be ignored.