A big city – a real big city – had a presence. It had a life all its own, fed by the people who inhabited it, but separate. It bustled. It flowed. It thrived. It, occasionally, slept. It had a gravity – a push and pull.

Neverwinter was a real big city. The big city, really.

Julia had travelled – a lot, especially recently. Julia was still, in every way that mattered, very small town. Big cities had a way of making her feel lonely without ever giving her the chance to be alone. If she'd had the choice, she would have avoided them entirely. But even a small town girl needed to earn a living. And with the economy and all…

So. Big city. And very, very much lost.

The listing she'd picked up from Craig was not especially detailed or in possession of any of the usual markers of professionalism. It was barely a step above crude directions scrawled on a bar napkin and she was pretty sure that was only because Craig had copied it out. She ran her thumb consideringly over the headline: 'The Last Job You'll Ever Need to Take'. Tempting. Probably bullshit, but tempting. She probably would have had to fight someone for it if she hadn't made an arrangement with Craig for first dibs; the mercenary gig was the only lucrative play left in the game, so it was competitive. A few coins a month was small price to pay to keep her pockets full the rest of the time. And he'd a promised her a good crew this time. Another regular and someone Rockseeker had suggested personally.

Julia hesitated in front of a bar, squinting between the sign and her directions. She sighed, folding the listing into her pocket. "When in doubt." It was always a bar. And when it wasn't, she could use a drink.

The bar lighting felt oppressively dim after leaving the bright sunshine and she had to blink a few times before her vision cleared enough that she felt confident walking forward. She let her eyes sweep over the patrons, casually, as she walked around the obstacle course of tables. Nobody obviously stood out because in any other context, everybody would have. There were other mercenaries and minstrels and merchants and a few other probable occupations that may or may not have started with 'm'. Just about everybody was deep in drink or conversation or a combination thereof.

Except for one table.

The elven woman's eyes marked her as she approached, underscored by a smile that spread across her face with languorous cat-like slowness. "How's it hangin', big girl? You here for the party?" She inclined her head in a way that seemed to indicate the whole table without calling for very much movement at all.

The dwarven woman snorted. "Even if she's not, we should hire her – assuming she knows how to use that hammer she's got strapped to her back. A job like this without some frontline muscle'll be a shitshow."

"I know how to swing a hammer," Julia said, easing into an open seat. "And I might just take you up on that; if my contact wanted to keep me on board, he should have made himself easier to find."

"Let me guess," the elven woman said, "you did three circles round the block, went down an alley that's been boarded over, nearly tripped over the baskets behind the fruit cart, and then ended up here under the logic that the more wasted you get, the less wasted this trip feels."

"Ah," Julia said. "Craig's List?"

"The very reason that I've been running the math on how much coin I can blow on Grey Goose before I'm in the red." The woman's grin widened and settled into barely-there lines around her eyes. Julia spent a moment trying to guess how old she was and had to give up. Elves. "I'm Lup, by the way."

"Julia."

"Hecuba Roughridge," the dwarf said. She wore her age on her face like war paint. "Not that anybody asked."

Lup rolled her eyes, but her smile didn't slip. "Hecuba is here on family business."

"You the cousin, then?" Julia asked. Hecuba grunted and looked towards the door with sharp impatience. Julia tried on her gentle smile; it felt weird and out of practice. It used to feel good. "Family, am I right? They might be pains the ass, but they're always your pains in the ass."

"In my case, a little gold coin told me to do it," Lup said with the air of an inside joke. "But no, really, I'm flat broke and this sounded easy." She tipped Julia a wink. "I'm really good at blowing shit up. It's kinda my thing."

Julia knew an invitation when she heard one. "I'm looking for someone." Her fingers flexed absentmindedly against the rough grain of the table.

"Oh?" Lup's eyebrow raised, coy. For a second, Julia wondered if she'd push. "Well. Good luck, then."

Hecuba abruptly slid back from the table with the distinct sound of wood scraping against wood, eyes wide in the first genuine expression she'd offered anyone since Julia had sat down. Julia whipped her head around to catch sight of a harried-looking dwarf being escorted by fella in starched blue denim who looked like he would have been more comfortable working on the plumbing than indulging in high adventure. Hecuba cursed under her breath and then shouted: "Gundren Rockseeker, just how long did you plan to keep us waiting?"

The dwarf – Gundren, apparently – shot their table a look that wavered between mild panic and the guilty expression of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The man next to him hesitated for a moment, a strange expression crossing his face and one hand apparently fisted in his pocket, before they both made their way over. Julia was suddenly acutely aware of how still Lup was next to her.

"For the love of Pan, Hecuba," Gundren said, "would you keep it down? Do you know how many gerblins are crawling around the roads out of the city already?"

"Just what kind of trouble are you in, Gundren? Your letter didn't mention anything that should have you hiding out from gerblins."

"You got the letter?" Hecuba's eyes narrowed minutely and Gundren coughed into his hand, seeming to settle on discretion as the better part of valour. "I see. Well, it's like I said, there's a lot of money riding on this gig – for all of us. You had to know we wouldn't be the only ones with an interest."

"And what is it we're after, exactly?" Julia asked.

Lup elbowed her softly. "My money's on an artifact of arcane power. Gerblins used to do just about anything for gold, but they're all unionized now. It takes the dark arts to actually make people lose their shit these days."

"That's on a need to know basis," Gundren said sharply. "As in: I need to know if I can trust you before I bring you in on the real deal."

Julia crossed her arms, leaning against the back of the chair until it creaked. "I didn't sign up for a test of loyalty."

"What she said," Hecuba said.

"Now, don't be like that," Gundren said. "Look, my associate – Barry Bluejeans – and I have some stuff to do in Phandalin before things get rolling and we need to get some supplies there in the mean time. Like I said, gerblins are watchin' the road, so we need some…reliable folks like yourselves to make the transport." Gundren snapped his fingers and Barry Bluejeans – or so Julia assumed (on account of the, well, the jeans) – carefully unrolled a map over the table. "Don't think of it as a test; it's more like a pre-requisite. And we'll compensate you for your time, of course."

There was a moment of consideration before Lup broke her silence. "I have a condition," she said, leaning forward on her elbows. "You pick up the tab."

x

Julia, as a rule, didn't have much of a problem with spiders. Anything that ate flies was the lesser of two evils in her book. A spider that was too big to squash with her warhammer, though? Well now, that – that was a different story. Somewhere nearby, the Black Spider (who was, somewhat confusingly, not the literal spider in the room) cackled maniacally and Julia had to duck and roll out of the way of another round of Magic Missile. She avoided being singed, but the much less graceful follow-up saw her hurriedly propelling herself out of the way of the spider's questing mandibles.

There was a sudden thwack and a bolt about the size of the spear punctured through one of the spider's legs, causing it to screech and wobble. Spiders were, unfortunately, not built like tables and one leg wasn't going to be enough to knock it down, but it was the thought that counted. She heard a whistle from the direction that she'd last seen Lup, low and appreciative, and wondered if it was aimed at the crossbow or the orc holding it. Valid either way.

Hecuba ran past, knives flashing at her sides. "Hey, pointy hat! You gonna cast something today or are you just here to look pretty?"

Lup sketched a jaunty little salute, but kept her umbrella steadily pointed in front of her. "Working on it!" Julia rolled her eyes a little as she used her hammer to lever the spider backward. Wizards.

"I must say, this has been quite a show, ladies," the Black Spider said, twirling his wand over his fingers, unnecessarily flashy. "But I think that the fat lady – she, uh, is just about ready to sing, huh?"

Julia felt the heat before she saw the light and reacted on pure, adrenaline-driven instinct. She made a b-line for Hecuba's small, whirling form and shoved her out of the way before the roaring wave of fire rolled over her. Julia was knocked back, skidding harshly against the floor, her armour doing unsurprisingly little to make literal actual fire not hurt like a motherfucker.

Julia sucked in harsh, sharp breaths when the fire subsided in favour of crisp air. She wasn't entirely surprised by the resulting coughs as her chest spasmed with the effort, but she still had to curl herself against the force of them. She worked to blink away tears as two feet planted themselves firmly in front of her.

"How about we fight fire with fire." Lup glanced over her shoulder at her and grinned before shouting: "bombs away."

x

"So," Julia said, trying not to fidget too much on her rock-cum-chair while Hecuba cursed and performed the most awkward, hodgepodge burn treatment their first aid kit could muster. "Your umbrella. Does it do that often?"

"Depends," said Lup, "on how many shitty wizards I run into."

"Cool, cool."

"Yeah, it's pretty much rad."

Gundren and Killian were both hanging around near the edge of the cave, looking equally restless. Hecuba paused in her work to shoot a shrewd, calculating glance at both of them. "So," she said, "either one of you feel like explaining what the fuck is going on?"

"I'd like to," Killian said, "but I think that may have to wait until we take care of more pressing matters." She raised an eyebrow under Hecuba's continued stare and opened her mouth – static came out.

"Noted," Julia said.

"Listen, you've done a good job here today and you've all earned some answers," Gundren said, "but I'm not saying a damn thing in front of this orc."

Killian shifted her weight and laid a hand on the hilt of her crossbow. "Well, this orc's not going anywhere."

Lup shifted to face him, resting her weight on her umbrella. "My man, we just fought a giant spider for you – including that orc, by the way. This better have an endgame because you're dealing with a bunch of mighty pissed off people with weapons. And the cave's not that big." Julia glanced out of the corner of her eyes to see if Hecuba had taken offence to the threat, but she was still watching Gundren, unrelenting.

"Point taken." Gundren grimaced. "Look, I didn't know it was gonna turn out like this – promise. I mean, damn, I haven't even seen Barry since we were ambushed at the crossroads."

"He's fine," Julia said. "We had to go on a long fucking detour to get Rockseeker blood, by the way. There were skeletons. You're welcome."

"Tharden and Nundro are dead, Gundren," Hecuba said.

Gundren sighed, his whole body seeming to sag. "Yeah, I know. Shit." He brought one hand up to scratch at his beard, glancing at each of them in turn. His eyes finally settled on Killian and narrowed. "I'm watching you."

"Likewise," she said.

"So, like," Lup said, "can we…go?"

x

Julia didn't really know what she'd expected to be behind the door, but it wasn't what they found.

"Aw, Pops," Gundren said. "Damnit, there was supposed to be more than this here."

Julia found her gaze riveted to the glove on the dwarven figure's hand, unable to pull away. It didn't look like much, really. A nicely crafted piece of armour, but more ornate than practical. Still, Lup had suggested that they might be looking for some sort of arcane artifact and if it was…well, they didn't always need to look dangerous to do a lot of damage, did they?

She was so focused, she almost missed the sound of a crossbow being cocked.

"Step away from the gauntlet," Killian said.

Gundren turned slowly, face thunderous. "I knew better than to trust your kind. Y'all just gonna stand there and let her point that thing in my face?"

Lup raised her umbrella slowly. She leveled it at Gundren. "You heard the lady."

Hecuba's eyes darted between Lup and Gundren. She subtly shifted between them, fingers dancing along the hilt of one of her knives. "Now, Lup. I know we just met, but we were getting along pretty okay. Let's talk about this."

Killian snorted. "I don't know about y'all, but today's been pretty, hm, not great and I don't feel much like talking."

"Lup, what the fuck are you doing?" Julia hissed, glancing back and forth between the two sides of the standoff.

"Look at this room, Julia. You really think any good's going to come from taking that thing out into the world?"

"But we came here to –"

"I know," Lup said, drawling over the vowels with deliberate slowness, "what I came here for."

"That gauntlet is my birthright." Gundren's face was flushed red. Julia was vaguely surprised when he didn't emphasize the point by stomping a foot.

"Just try it," Killian said.

Things happened very fast then – almost all at once. Gundren reached for the glove, striking out like a snake. Hecuba's knife flashed. There was the twang of a bow string. A sharp crack sounded from Lup's umbrella.

And then there was fire. A lot of fire.

x

Tragedy was often something that brought people together, but standing on the smooth black glass that used to be Phandalin, the four of them were very much alone. Killian was fiddling with her bracer; she kept looking at the sky like she expected answers or help to come falling out of the blue. Hecuba had stood by what was left of Gundren for a while, but she had shuffled off to sit by herself, just outside of the circle where the damage wasn't as obvious. Lup had shoved the gauntlet into her bag, glaring at all of them as if daring them to disagree, and hadn't spoken to anybody since. Every once in a while, she flipped a coin, the gold glinting as it jumped into the air.

And Julia…Julia was sick to her heart. She hadn't seen much of Phandalin, but she didn't need to in order to picture the cost of a town's destruction. When she uncurled her fists, there were crescents dug into her palms. It took Julia a long moment before her feet remembered how to move in a way that was conductive to forward motion. Her boots squeaked over the black glass and that was probably just about the worst thing she'd heard in her life. She gritted her teeth until they ached and forced her feet to stutter to a stop, snuffing out the noise like a candle wick. She was surprised to find she'd stopped next to Lup, but not by much.

Lup's eyes darted toward her and then were almost immediately pulled away, as if the black glass landscape had its own gravity. She tossed the coin again. "You look like you wanna say something."

Julia, almost spitefully, didn't say anything for a few minutes. She just stood there, listening to the metallic flick of the coin jumping into the air and breathing air that felt cleaner than it had any right to. "I get the feeling – and correct me if I'm wrong – but I get the feeling that you know more about what happened today than you might have let on."

"It's not that simple."

"We've got time for complicated."

Lup paused, gripped her coin tight in her fist. She didn't flip it again. "Do you ever feel like…like there are things that you should remember, but you don't. Like something's not letting you remember. Not like there are blank spots or anything – in fact, everything feels like it's exactly how it should be. Except that if someone were to tell you that it, you know, wasn't then that…would sound about right."

"Are you trying to tell me you've…what? Got amnesia?"

"I'm saying that I wake up in the morning and I think that I know who I am, but something's telling me that I'm wrong. And I believe it."

Julia whistled out a breath. There were a lot of ways she could answer something like that, but very few that didn't feel like empty words. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she settled for the truest ones she could find. "The person that you are saw a bad situation and tried to stop Gundren from taking that glove. That person also gave Hecuba a chance to talk him down when it would have been easier to kill 'im." Julia shrugged. "I don't know you very well, but you tried – you tried damn hard – to do the right thing here today. So, whoever it is that you are…she seems pretty all right to me."

Lup managed to stare at her for a moment before her eyes slipped to the side and away. "If that was a line," she said, "it was a pretty good one."

Overhead, the clouds burst apart with a loud and sudden whoosh. A rounded shape crashed into the ground just beyond city limits.

"This is gonna be a lot," Killian said, pointing at the unidentified falling object, "but I'd like you three to come with me."

x

Lup stumbled a bit with one hand clutched to her head, looking decidedly queasy after slamming space jellyfish slime. "Ugh. I've had some bangers, but this is worse than that time I drank troll beer. And that's basically tar."

"So don't drink the jellyfish piss is what you're saying," Julia said, grimacing as she examined her own still full vial.

"Oh, no. You both definitely need to drink it. Trust me"

Hecuba made a doubtful face, nose wrinkling. "I am well past the days of my wild youth, so forgive me if I don't feel inclined to put something gross in my mouth just because you triple dog dared me and it'll make you feel better for having done the jackass thing in the first place."

"That's not why – I mean, okay, a little bit – but what I mean is –"

There was a bang that cut through the room like a whip crack. Julia turned to see an older woman, looking harried and more than a little winded, leaning heavily on the staff she had presumably just slammed against the floor. "Stop," she said, voice commanding even as she caught her breath. "Don't touch anything. There are things that I need to explain."

Hecuba threw up her hands. "Well, it's about time somebody did."

The woman didn't quite run across the room, but the sharp echoing sound of her business-like shoes gave her pace a sense of urgency nonetheless. Her eyes briefly focused on the empty vial in Lup's hand and something strange spasmed across her face before being expertly stowed away. When she stopped in front of them, she somehow looked more put together than when she had begun her walk. "I apologize for the unorthodox first impression. I am the Director of –" her face creased, momentarily uncertain "– this establishment."

Julia rolled her eyes. "This establishment being?"

"You wouldn't be able to understand me if I told you, I'm afraid." The Director's gaze turned to each of them, lingering on Lup for just a little too long before darting away just a little too quickly. Julia's own eyes flickered over, taking in the empty vial again, and then narrowed. "I understand that you were instrumental in helping Killian retrieve – in helping Killian fulfill her mission."

Hecuba shrugged. "Weren't nothin'."

"I mean it was sort of incidental to our whole purpose in being there," Julia said, "but yeah."

"I cannot thank you enough for what you've done here today. You have no idea how many lives you may have saved with your heroism, intentional or not. We will of course dispose of the – the artifact to ensure that nothing like the tragedy that befell Phandalin is allowed to happen ever again." She clapped her hands sharply and called: "Davenport!" A gnomish man entered the chamber and gestured urgently for Lup's bag. Lup looked for a moment like she intended to resist before cautiously turning it over. "Thank you," the Director said, giving them a smile of such genuine relief that it lit up her face and made her look about twenty years younger. "Now, I have an important question to ask the three of you. Did any of you experience…something strange when retrieving the artifact? Did it…did it, perhaps, call to you?"

"Call to us?" Hecuba asked, eyebrows raised. "What, like it talks?"

"No," Lup said simply. "Not a peep."

Julia opened her mouth to offer her own dissenting reply…and then she thought for a moment. She thought about standing in Wave Echo Cave and looking at the glove and thinking of how much damage it could do in the right hands – or on the right hand, as it were. "Yeah. There was something," she said. "I think if I'd touched it, I might have put it on." If she had been faced with Governor Kalen, she definitely would have put it on. She thought of taking everything he had built for himself since losing Raven's Roost and burning it to ash, right in front of him. Between one blink and the next, her eyes had moved to the door where Davenport had taken Lup's bag.

"I thought as much." The Director looked grim. "Lup, I have a hypothesis that you might have the truly exceptional ability to –" What followed next was a lot of static interspersed with the occasional recognizable word. Trying to follow along was giving Julia a headache, so she didn't bother. Lup, though – Lup didn't look lost. Not even once. Julia stared at the vial again, her niggling suspicion blooming into a healthy certainty.

"Are you saying," Lup said, "that you're offering us a gig?"

"I'm offering you a gig, Lup."

"Well." Lup crossed her arms, something strange and hard easing into her expression. "I know they say no honour among thieves or mercs, but I'm not sure that I like you cutting my team out of the deal."

Julia wondered when they had become 'Lup's team'. From the look on the Director's face, she was wondering the same thing. "Now, Lup, please be reasonable –"

"I think I'm being plenty reasonable. You just said that we saved your asses, so how about showing a little gratitude."

"I understand that it must feel like I'm being difficult, but I'm trying to consider all of our best interests – their best interests. I would, of course, be happy to find room for them within our other departments. Ms. Roughridge has the makings of an excellent [indecipherable] and –"

"You want me, I get them. Or no deal."

The Director looked, for a flash of a moment, genuinely furious. Even Lup looked like she was considering taking a step back. "You don't understand the danger you'd be putting them in. This is not something to take lightly."

"And I got people to take care of," Hecuba said. Under the tremulous set of her lips, her jaw was steel. "So thanks, but no thanks."

This only seemed to kickstart the argument anew. Julia was starting to think that she might just have a problem with authority figures because she listened to it for all of five seconds before pinching her nose and swigging her vial of jellyfish poop.

x

"Think Hecuba'll be okay?" Julia rolled over to face Lup's bunk on the opposite side of the room. They'd been given pretty spartan lodgings for the new heroes of a world-saving organization, but it was still nicer than anything she'd encountered on the road. And the Director had allowed them to stay together against her explicit wishes and all apparent common sense, so that was something.

"She's a tough old bird," Lup said. "I think she's talking to her kids, you know? Being all responsible and whatnot, so she doesn't have to play Cat's in the Cradle later."

"They're lucky to have her," Julia said. There was something like regret growing in Julia's chest because the Director had been right - what they were doing was dangerous and so, so stupid. But after what they'd seen when they'd drunk the ichor, what the consequences of doing nothing could be...Hecuba still had a life to go back to and maybe that was something worth defending.

"Yeah. You got anyone like that – waiting for you to come home when the world is good and saved?"

Julia shook her head, smiling to chase away the thought of bombs and rubble and the bittersweet ache of 'dad' and 'home'. "Nope, not me. I fly solo." She flexed, somewhat awkwardly from where she was mostly cocooned in blanket. "Who needs an army when you've got these guns."

"Damn, I like you."

Julia laughed. "Well, we did kill a giant spider together. I guess that makes us friends."

"I sure hope not. It'd be shame to ruin a good friendship." Lup smiled; her mouth was wide and sharp-angled. It was a nice mouth.

It was a bad idea. If the universe had any sense of fair play, any sense of right and wrong and justice, Julia would die young after putting a knife in the back of the worst coward she'd ever met. She opened her mouth to tell Lup that they needed to keep it professional. What she said was: "then don't ruin it."