Dalaneca rolled over and groaned.  It had been a few weeks now, but she still got the occasional shooting pain in her ribs if she twisted her body in the wrong way.  She had taken quite a beating a while back - the result of an unhappy client finding out she no longer planned on fulfilling a contract she had agreed to.  She had known there would be repercussions, but she didn’t realize just how dire the circumstances would actually be.  

The men which the client had sent roughed her up just outside of Adeluna, resulting in just an injured shoulder.  After that, she assumed she was in the clear.  How wrong she was.  The men found her in the alley outside of the Winking Mermaid, near the inn where she had been (and still was currently) taking up residence.  Things had gone south, and she ended up with a dagger stabbed into her bicep and several kicks to the ribs, among other things.  She had managed to dispatch one of the attackers, but she was convinced that she had only survived out of sheer luck, which had made the situation all the more curious in her mind.

The target that the original contract had been on - Galin, his name was - had been within earshot of the ordeal and had thankfully stepped in and gotten rid of the rest of them.  Had he not shown up, there was a chance that she might not have lived through the ordeal.  Towards the end, she had been near blacking out from pain - but when she had realized that the man helping her was in fact the man indirectly responsible for her entire predicament, she felt a quick jolt in her stomach and was immediately pushed into unconsciousness.  After coming to, and seeing his face, she had momentarily felt sick to her stomach, and all she could manage was an awkward ‘thank you’ and a 
poorly worded joke.  

Galin had been kind enough to get her to a doctor, for which she had been thankful - and also surprised.  She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had left her in the alley to fend for herself, since he was aware of the fact that the first time they met, her intention had been to kill him - even if the two of them had ended up in bed together.  The morning after had ended quite awkwardly, with her standing in the center of a room, surrounded by knives, and Galin rolling over to see such.  

That had been a joy to explain.

With a bit of a wince, she leaned down to pull on her boots.  From her window, she could see that it was quite a dreary day outside.  Rain spattered against the windowpane, coming down in sheets.  With a sigh, she walked to the desk on the side of the room and retrieved a leatherbound journal of parchment, as well as a small quill and sealed jar of ink.  She had spent the last week or so jotting down some ideas that had come to her from what she assumed was the result of the concoction of herbs and medicines that the doctor had administered to her.

With no desire to continue her days as an assassin, Dalanesca had realized she needed a different source of income.  She spent a lot of time thinking about her skill set and what she could accomplish with such.  Mercenary work was out of the question - she was horrible at any sort of face-to-face combat (that was how she ended up in this predicament in the first place).  She was, however, excellent at finding out information about people - specifically hard-to-come-by information.  She began comb her mind for ideas of how to put that skill to use.  Extortion could be an easy way for her to make coin, and her skills would definitely allow her to do such… but she needed a way to get those in power into a situation in which extorting them would be viable.  

After a few days of contemplation, she had come up with a plan.    The idea sounded absolutely ridiculous, and she would need to find someone to assist her with it, but she thought it could work.  Adeluna lacked a proper brothel, and what better place to extort information from a man than when he was properly satiated?  Of course, she couldn’t bring herself to do the dirty work, so to speak, but she could hire others to do so for you - and when paid enough, many people are more than willing to do things that could be seen as… uncouth, by some.  The idea seemed more than great to her, but it lacked a few things - things that she had yet to even think of.

With the journal, quill, and ink in hand, she walked out of the room, shutting the door and turning the key in the lock behind her.  She tucked the key into the waistband of her black leggings and pull the loose edges of her tunic which hung out from under the corset she wore over it.  She headed down the stairs and out the door.  There seemed to be a lull in the rain, so she hurried across the way to the Winking Mermaid and ducked in, just as it began to pour again.

It was the middle of the day so the tavern was fairly empty, which allowed for her to find a table not far from the door.  She spread the items she had carried with her out across the table as one of the barmaids approached her.  She ordered a mug of hot mead and a small dish of stew, food which seemed fitting for a rainy day such as this.  The girl returned shortly with her mead, and she paid her right away, leaving a few extra silver coins on the table.  

Taking a sip of her mead, she grabbed the jar of ink and twisted it open.  Grabbing the quill, she dipped the end in the ink and flipped the journal open to a blank page and began to scrawl words and thoughts upon the page, oblivious to her surroundings.

’Rent a building.  Hire people.  Train.  Protection?  Charge?  What services offered?’ were just a few of the phrases scribbled on the page, and she added more and more.  She had plans, she just had to put them into motion.

Garrison duty did not agree with Galin, he found, as he scratched what he hoped was not a flea’s bite on his rear end. Disease was more prevalent and boredom was as dangerous to him as a proper fight. It led him to spend more time than was strictly healthy in taverns and his store of silver would not survive his drinking and terrible luck with dice. He knew that at least one of the men had to use crooked dice but there was no sense in starting a fight over a few crescents, he told himself, even as his purse dwindled day by day. Stamping his feet against the cold, he paced along the wall of the timber stockade that had grown up around the Highlanders’ camp outside the walls of Adeluna. Now that the unrest of the war against the New Order and the expulsion of the former king had passed, the citizens of Adeluna were starting to resent the presence of these foreign soldiers on Adelunian land. Rumors had begun to circulate that citizens were threatening to attack the Northmen in their camp so Domnall put his men on watches as they did in the face of an enemy force which kept them in the camp and under arms, the only thing that was sparing Galin’s purse.

Luckily for his sanity, Galin had volunteered for a detail into the city proper, gathering supplies for the camp during the market day. Hated though they may have been, the merchants of the city admitted that the silver of the Highland men spent just as well as any other so they were grudgingly given unmolested passage through the city to be gouged on the cost of foodstuffs. The city magistrates only allowed a handful of men and those had to leave their weapons with the city’s reformed guard at the gate. Galin did not care for that sort of regulation, preferring to have all his weapons on hand when he walked into a hostile city, but it was the price of a moment’s freedom. Maybe he would be able to see Isabella at the Mermaid, he thought, and the idea of a pleasant reunion with the tavern server carried him through the rest of the morning’s chill until he was relieved from his post.

As the night’s chill began to give way to the damp morning’s feeble light, Galin ducked into his hut, throwing his damp cloak onto a peg driven into one of the beams to dry. Perched on the edge of his cot, he peeled off his boots, heavy with the night’s rain, and placed them near the small hearth at the center of the hut to dry. Rather than wait and risk missing his chance to stretch his legs in the city, he left the boots and pulled on his brogues, thick, short leather boots of untanned leather from the North, decorated with holes that also served to drain water from the shoe as the wearer crossed some of the bogs and damp lands endemic to the Highlands. Instead of risking his mail rusting in the damp, Galin pulled on his padded leather cuirass over his tunic and put his sodden cloak over it all. He left his weapons in the hut aside from the long knife at his waist. Every man carried a blade, even in Adeulna, so it was not something that would be seen as a threat, so Galin would not be completely vulnerable should the populace act on the whispered threats and rumors.

He caught up with the high-sided hay wagon the men had requisitioned to carry their supplies and the other men hauled him into the back as the solid, wooden wheels squeaked and groaned as the cart trundled through the gates into the town. “Well lads,” Galin said as he saw the guards looking at the cart with a mixture of suspicion and distaste, “it looks as though we are not as welcome as when they needed killing done. Ungrateful bastards, the lot.” The men growled in agreement, making the traditional complaint of soldiers in peacetime. “Luckily for me, there’s still some welcome for me round the corner. Stop at the Mermaid when you’ve finished, eh?” Swinging down the cart’s back, he ducked into an alley and emerged a few minutes later in front of the Winking Mermaid. The place would be quiet this time of day and that meant that Isabella would be far more willing to step away and spend some time in her quarters with the Highlander.

When he pushed in the door, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light inside. He could see only a handful of people scattered at tables throughout the taproom. He tried to make a beeline for the kitchens to see if Isabella was free but he very nearly tripped over Dalanesca. Knowing that her condition was in part his fault, he could not ignore her, and instead sat down at her table as though it was always his intention. “So, Dal, looks like you aren’t as dead as we expected.” He smiled and craned to try and see what was in her book but gave up and asked instead. “So what is it that’s got you out of your bed and scribbling like a clerk in some a palace chancery? Working on a plan to kill some poor bugger? Be sure and do better than you did with me, of course.” He smiled a little and leaned back. “Thanks, by the way. For my not being dead. Though the city might do you the favor of finishing the job if things don’t cool down.”

Pausing for a moment, Dalanesca placed the top end of the quill in her mouth in contemplation.  The idea she had been looking her, and she pulled the quill out and dipped into the inkwell, jotting a few more words down on the page.  After a moment, she was pulled out of her train of thought, looking up with surprised eyes towards Galin as he sat down at the table with her.  She laid her quill down on the table.  ”No, not dead, just feel like it for a bit each time I wake up,” she said, shrugging her shoulders slightly and leaning back in her seat, stretching her arms out.  She was unsure how long she had been sitting at the table for, and attempted to look out one of the windows to get a grasp on what time of day it was.  Unfortunately she was met with the same gray, dreary color that had been present when she had entered the tavern.  Turning her attention back to Galin, she offered him a smile in return.  

”Kill someone?  I think we both know that’s not really in the cards for me any longer,” she said, with a bit of a laugh, though when he quipped about her failure at fulfilling the contract that she had taken on him, a flush rose to her cheeks in mild embarrassment.  She did not necessarily feel shame at the fact that she had failed at killing him, but more to the memory that the idea roused in her mind.  It was something she tried to avoid remembering, as she knew that it had been a drunken mistake that likely would not have taken place otherwise. 

Knowing full well that the scarlet hue of her cheeks would contrast strongly with the pale tone of her skin, she continued to converse with him in an attempt to change the subject to other things.   ”It’s… well, it’s a business plan, more or less,” she said, noticing that he had been trying to catch a glimpse of her notes.  With a smirk, she shut the cover of the journal, and looked at him, a smug grin on her face.  She’d let him see it, but not yet - she had to think about how to phrase the explanation to Galin.

She blinked at him when he smiled, thanking her for not killing him.  She was unsure, at first, on how to react.  Her hesitation was clear in her demeanor, but she brushed it off quickly.  ”Hey, we’re even now, right?  I saved your life, you saved mine?”  She reached out and grabbed her mead, taking a long draw from the mug and setting it back down.  ”Well, maybe not even… I don’t think you were trying to kill me, originally,” she said, offering him a smile as well as a laugh.  She furrowed her brow at his final comment.   ”After all I went through to keep you alive, you need to stay that way,” she added.  

After a moment of silence, she tossed the journal towards him.  ”I’ve got a plan,” she said, deciding that she was fine with sharing the information with him.  She slid her chair a little closer to him, not in an attempt to physically be closer to him but more so she could lower the volume of her voice.  The tavern was not overly populated, but the lack of people also created less of a barrier to anyone attempting to eavesdrop.  She hadn’t seen anyone that gave her suspicion, but better safe than sorry.  

”I’ve got a plan,” she said, the tone of her voice low.  ”I’ve got all these skills I’ve acquired in my… profession,” she began.  ”And there are a lot of women looking for coin these days,” she added, well aware that her words may have come off as slightly cryptic.  ”I’ve got a fair amount of coin built up,” she said.  ”I’d need to purchase property, a larger house with several floors would be ideal.”  The notes in the journal would have probably been enough to get her point across, but she put the gist of the plan into words.  ”Wouldn’t a brothel be the perfect place to extort information from the privileged, wealthy men… or women… of the city?” 

The notes in the journal indicated that she was looking for property and start up ‘employees,’ so to speak.  She would run the establishment as a legitimate brothel, but add in extortion and the like on the side.  Protection would also be an issue, and that was the main reason that she felt comfortable sharing the information with Galin - that, and he was one of the few people that she felt she could trust at the current time.  Maybe he would be able to direct her in the right direction… or maybe he would be interested in assisting himself.  Either way, she figured there was no loss in telling him.

She drained the last bit of her mead as he looked over the journal, one of the barmaids stopping over to see if she required a refill.  ”Please,” she said, and nudged Galin with her foot under the table.  ”Drink?” she offered.  After all, he was taking the time to go over her plan, the least she could do was offer him a drink.