Soon after their discussion about Gifts, which had raised almost more questions than it had answered, Bian arrived.

She was a striking woman in her forties, with ebony hair falling to her broad shoulders, bare muscled arms and skin darkened by hours under the sun. At the sight of her, Olen's face softened into a genuine smile.

"Bian," Olen greeted her warmly. "Glad you could make it."

As she came over to their little table, Severance noticed the deep creases etched around her eyes and mouth. It was like she was used to laughter, yet her mouth was set in a firm, unforgiving line.

"Hmph." She grunted in response, giving him an unimpressed glance. She peered down at Severance. "I don't think we were introduced yet. I am Bian, head of provisions. You need anything, you can come to me."

"Or me," Olen threw in helpfully. "Bian and I are a team."

A very unladylike snort came from Bian at that. "I have yet to see you do an honest day of labour, Olen."

Instead of being offended, Olen just laughed, eyes closing in true amusement. "That's because most of my work is done at night, my dear Bian."

"Is that so?" Bian's expression was completely deadpan. "I wonder if you actually manage to put in more than two minutes of effort. Or can you even last that long?"

Severance, who'd been looking back and forth between them, almost choked. Please tell me I am not hearing what I think I'm hearing!

"Your words wound me," Olen placed a hand on his chest. "I hope you'll take responsibility for that later."

Unable to bear it any longer, Severance coughed. Loudly. Both Veiled glanced his way, as if surprised he was still there. Though he was starting to wonder if he should have just gotten up and left, leaving them to have their little moment or whatever that was in privacy.

"Hmph. Delusional brat." Bian turned her back to Olen, deciding he was no longer worth her attention. Instead, she regarded Severance with the stern sort of look that made him instinctively sit up straighter. "So. I hear you're itching for something to do."

Severance blinked. "I am?"

"You are," Olen spoke up from his neglected side of the table. "What you need to focus on now is getting stronger. And one of the best ways to do that is to start working for the clan."

"Right," Bian interjected. "As it so happens, there's a little something you can help with. We found out about a Free Trader shipment of rare goods—"

"You're welcome," Olen interrupted, a rather satisfied look on his face.

"—and we're going to recover it," Bian went on as if Olen had never spoken. "You, as the clan healer, would improve the odds of a successful recovery."

The clan healer? Severance repeated those words to himself silently. He kind of liked the sound of that.

Then the rest of what Bian had said sunk in. "Wait, you're going to steal someone's supplies?"

Bian scoffed. "It's hardly stealing when it's already been stolen. Besides, the Traders have warehouses of stuff. They won't even miss such a small shipment."

"Still, you better take precautions," Olen warned. "They're a more powerful clan than we."

"It'll be fine, princess. I know what to do." For the first time, Bian's stern expression morphed into a roguish smirk.

Severance hid a smile behind a hand. He was starting to like this Bian character. She reminded him a bit of Mrs Beaker with her tough-as-nails persona and dry snark.

Placing a hand on her hip, Bian turned back to Severance. "All right, we better get moving. The Traders should be passing through the Funnel soon, which is where we want to hit them. Come with me, and we'll get you kitted out."

Without any further ado, she led the way from the room. As Severance got up to follow her, he heard the tell-tale ding of a System notification.

Quest Received: Liberate Provisions from the Free Traders

Liberate, huh? Even the System had a fancy term for 'stealing'.

It was a good thing he was no longer in Ascendance. That town was run by the Free Traders, and they wouldn't take very well to him if they knew what he was about to participate in.

***

"So, what's the plan?" Severance whispered.

They were somewhere near Ironback Mountains, watching a narrow mountain road that wound through hilly terrain. He crouched behind a boulder with four of the Veiled clan members. All of them wore close-fitted hoods and cloth masks over the lower half of their faces, and combined with their all-black attire, they looked like proper burglars.

Or ninjas, he thought with no small amount of glee.

No one would be able to tell who they were unless they were a player who could see the names floating above their heads. Hopefully, there weren't any with this caravan. s

A pair of dark eyes turned his way, startling bright in their intensity. If Severance didn't know better, he would have thought Bian was excited about this.

"The plan," she murmured in a low tone, "is to keep us all alive."

Well, that was kind of obvious. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "No, I meant how are we going to do this?"

Surely there was more thought going into this than simply charge at the enemy and hope for the best. There were four Free Traders for every one of them, for crying out loud!

Someone chuckled, a throaty little sound that sounded too sultry for its own good. Warily, Severance glanced towards the source. This was another woman of the Veiled, and her name was Nedra.

It was the first time he'd spent any amount of time with her, and she already made him nervous. Nedra was a lot like her twin Batin in that they both carried a sharp and deadly air about them. In Nedra's case, she had the added factor of wicked, elegantly shaped eyes that were able to draw in any man with merely a glance.

Like now, she caught Severance's gaze, somehow smiling deviously with her eyes alone. He felt trapped, like a rabbit in a snare, unable to pull away despite the mounting danger. She was either going to snap his neck or eat him. He wasn't sure which. Both options were equally unsettling.

"Plans have a terrible habit of going wrong, my dear," she murmured, her voice a rich velvet that caressed his ears. "It's better to keep it simple. Don't you agree?"

Before he even put any thought behind it, he was nodding his head in instant agreement.

"Nedra," came a familiar, disapproving voice. "Play nice."

The third Veiled member of their group was Rasin. When Severance had learned the man was going to be on their team, he'd been immensely relieved. He was familiar with Rasin. The man had proven himself both capable and reliable and out of all the Veiled so far, he was the one Severance trusted the most.

"I am being nice," Nedra would have sounded offended if it weren't for the obvious amusement in her voice. "And if I were playing—" she practically purred the word— "you would know."

Rasin sighed. "Just don't corrupt the kid."

Nedra laughed, a full throaty laugh that somehow was quiet enough to avoid the notice of the nearby caravan and full-bodied enough to convey her great amusement. "Do you think so little of me, Rasin? Besides, who's to say the kid isn't already corrupted? He's so quiet, who knows what's going on inside his head?"

That brought on a snigger from the last member of the group. Dhin was close to Severance's own age, perhaps only a couple of years older. He was also Rasin's son.

Severance gave Dhin a glare, not appreciative of his input. There was nothing funny about what his private thoughts were, thank you very much.

"Enough," Bian ordered. She abruptly stood, drawing out a hunk of metal from a holster on her thigh. Before Severance's astonished eyes, she snapped it out into a metal staff that was as long as she was tall. Holding it in one hand, she glanced down at them. "Let's go."

Light laughter filled the air and a black figure flitted past Severance. He started, then noticed that Rasin and Dhin still crouched beside him.

Nedra was gone.

"Women," Rasin shook his head with an exasperated sigh. He exchanged a look with Dhin, then met Severance's gaze. An unspoken signal passed between them, and as one, they rose and left their cover.

Dhin surged out ahead of them like a bullet, his movements a mere blur to Severance's eyes. The guy was fast even when compared to the other members of the clan.

It was a struggle just to keep up with Rasin, who was the slowest of the Veiled warriors, but Severance tried. He flat out sprinted, sucking air like a man trying to get a breath in the vacuum of space.

With a mere mental nudge toward his Inventory, a pair of war fans appeared in his hands. They had sharpened metal spokes with black material connecting them. Silver threaded the outer edge of the material, strengthening it into something deadly.

He thrust one fan out as he charged, gasping, "Sky Dance!"

Electricity burst around him, dancing around his torso and arms before congregating around the fans in dazzling blue light.

Shouts erupted at the same time as Free Traders rushing out to meet them. Their sheer numbers would have alarmed any sane man, but the Veiled didn't even falter.

Dhin plowed into two of them, his twin blades catching sunlight as they drove in for the kill. Bian wasn't far off, slamming one end of her staff into a Free Trader's legs, knocking him off his feet, then spinning around to catch a second Free Trader upside the jaw. His head snapped back with a horrific crack and he instantly collapsed on the spot.

Severance tried to keep an eye on everyone, but it was pure chaos. There was a party list floating in the upper left of his vision, though it did little good when he was very suddenly occupied with a giant sword flying at his face.

He abruptly leaned backwards, its gleaming edge flying mere inches above his nose. The wind from its passing rustled his hair.

Eyes wide, he managed to straighten and backpedal, a shot of adrenaline enhancing his senses. Thoughts flew through his mind, from oh wow, I just pulled off the matrix move! To Oh crap, that guy is huge!

If he didn't move, he was going to be out of the fight. That prompted him to lash out with his fans, slicing at the huge Free Trader.

"Pivot Cut," he wheezed, even as he lightly spun around his foe, performing a graceful half turn that ended with him at the big man's back. Severance didn't dare hesitate.

"Skyfall!" His war fans tore into the man's back, slicing once, twice, and a third time before the Free Trader began to turn.

Determined to land the next two attacks of Skyfall, Severance moved as the man did, sticking to his back. The fourth strike of his skill landed, the curved barbs of his fan raising sparks as they scored a deep gouge into the armor. One more hit—

With an angry roar the Free Trader pivoted on one foot, bringing his huge blade to bear. But for all its size and weight, it moved slowly, and Severance dropped into a crouch. He dealt the fifth and final strike of Skyfall. Both flans sliced fans criss-cross into the unprotected belly of the Trader, right beneath the edge of his breastplate.

Severance wasn't expecting to get a face full of steaming gore. Nor was he prepared for the sudden foul stench of guts bursting open. He froze, hot blood dripping from his hair, sliding down his face, sharp and metallic on his tongue.

The Trader shrieked, staggering back. His heavy sword dropped, clanging upon the ground, both of his hands clutching at his belly which was spitting intestines and foulness. He fell to his knees. It was obvious that if he didn't get a heal in the next several seconds, he wasn't going to make it.

Severance choked, trying to wrap his mind around the sheer amount of visceral gore that he'd literally just been slapped in the face with. The man moaned, then flopped onto his side, having failed to keep his insides from slipping through his fingers. Long ropey intestines pooled beside him, a splash of pale pink against a wash of red.

Another Free Trader saw the opportunity and took it, raising a blackened bow and taking aim at Severance. Before he could loose an arrow, Nedra appeared behind him like a wraith, raising a hooked blade over his throat and tearing out his trachea. He collapsed without a single sound, rapidly bleeding out and twitching like a fish yanked out of water.

"Stay sharp," she called out to Severance, before vanishing to find another target.

Severance heard her words, twitched, and managed to tear his gaze away from the dying man. He duly took note that there were more than a few Free Traders splattered over the ground, either dead or dying in pools of their own blood.

Bitterness filled his mouth, but there was no ugly twist to the stomach or sickening wrench of sickness. This body of his didn't get sick. It was perfectly composed, steady, with no physical reaction to the amount of mental stress running through his mind. It was a curse, but sometimes, it was also a blessing.

Severance stumbled back, forcing himself to focus. Orange flickered in his vision. That was Rasin, losing health like a sieve. Right. I need to heal.

He looked about the battlefield, finding clumps of Free Traders engaged with each of the Veiled Clan members. They still outnumbered the Veiled, yet they were losing. Badly.

Severance winced when Dhin leaped several feet through the air, smacking an ogre of a Trader in the face with his knees, bringing him down to the ground. The impact stunned the Free Trader, but Dhin didn't hesitate to stab the poor guy in the face with both of his blades. Repeatedly.

Severance hastily turned away. That was one thing about Eliona's War. It did not spare on the graphic details, though he really wished it did.

He jogged past Dhin and his stabbery, past Bian, who was a whirlwind dervish battering two Free Traders at once, and past Nedra who flitted here and there like a shadow, dropping one Trader at a time before they even knew she was there.

Each of the Veiled was like a spectre of death, slaughtering every enemy in their path and leaving behind a trail of carnage.

This, Severance thought faintly, wasn't quite the mission he'd thought it be. Weren't people supposed to sneak in like ninjas when they stole stuff? Instead, the Veiled were going in like bloodthirsty berserkers.

The Free Traders never had a chance.