Michael “Flail” Hudson (each new recruit had been named after a weapon; Michael’s nervous, on-your-toes nature had inspired the tavern to see him as ‘flailing about’) remembered the way Dirk had clacked the sheep bone dice against the Mountainview compound’s bar table and how he had broken the news unabashedly.
“As you all know, we are not just some upstart gambling club full of fools with no sense in their fleshy heads. There are those who want us dead. You know that. And unfortunately I have just received news from an old fellow seeking help at our doorstep. He claims he is from beyond the Ridge…”
    Flail agreed that the drunken patrons had to laugh at that. How could one not be in disbelief when hearing of a man who claims to have made the journey from beyond the Ridge? The only people he knew who had done that were the characters of stories he had heard when he was a boy.
    “...he says he, not to mention close family and friends, is a victim of the shoddy business practices and blatant lies which have made Blackroot so famous. And I regret to inform you that they are sending dangerous mercenaries our way…”
    Flail recalled how by then the tavern was silent except for the panting of a dog in the corner of the room.
He and the rest of the men there that knew Blackroot, a rival company whose compound lay twenty miles east of the town known as Northhaven’s crime-ridden streets, was deceptive. They knew that Blackroot’s methods of gathering profit were unethical even for a rat, and they knew that the company took no shame in getting their hands bloody if it meant that they would make a profit. Many men in the tavern could even see that the day when Blackroot would rear it’s ugly head and charge toward Mountainview like a foul beast was, for lack of a better word, inevitable.
To all in the dimly-lit room, the news felt like a knife in the chest.
At that moment it was of utmost necessity for the tavern to choose someone to undertake the task of journeying to Blackroot. Flail couldn’t understand why it wasn’t an unanimous decision to choose stronger, faster, less piss-your-pants kind of people to infiltrate Blackroot, like Hal, the bartender and Dirk’s right-hand man, or even Lance, the master card player of all who frequented the bar. It was simple. They had chosen Flail because he had a horse (won from a tavern-wide championship of “Shut the Box”), he was quick on his feet, and his hands moved faster than his mind. Admirable qualities for sure, but thinking of it perplexed him nonetheless.

Flail had felt a string of emotions during the journey to Blackroot, all of them leaning on scared and confused. The road was certainly one of the most dangerous places east of the Ridge known. The rain-soaked streets, occasionally marred by the once-jaunty church, whose spires now ironically looked like a hooded devil, or an abandoned house with cats climbing through the glassless windows, had carried a certain kind of folk, a folk not-to-be trusted. Flail knew that on the road a man spouting even the most elegant niceties would no-doubt be clutching the revolver which hung at his belt. On the road, everyone was wary of everyone else. But here was no better.
Here, the trees leaned in too close to the road and the air carried the distant sounds of a mother shouting and the torchlight from the building directly in front of him cast ominous shadows on the wet cobblestone. Nothing could prepare him for this.
Not even being raised by the tightly-packed, rosewood buildings of Northhaven where Flail had lived before Mountainview and managing to gamble his way to a sufficient amount of pocket coin, in a crime-ridden city when he had barely entered puberty nonetheless, could prepare him for this.   
Flail peeked at his bronze-colored wristwatch, the cracked LED glaring at him. 2:33 PM. He sighed.
What was wrong about doing this at night again? Sure, the cover of darkness allows for more unfortunate souls to be found on the road, but look at me…
Looking down at his duster, you would think that Flail would be a match for most. His brown leather satchel hung on a strap placed around his right shoulder as well as his torso. In it were an assortment of items that he never knew when he would use, or even if he would use them at all. Cracked bifocals, a small whetstone, a picture of a scantily-clad woman. At his belt hung a finely-crafted hunting knife “Made in Wyoming”, and from his black leather boots emerged sharp spurs, capable of piercing the toughest skin.
    He squinted his olive, catlike eyes that peered from his soil-brown mess of hair at the compound. It appeared to be a decrepit house, the sort of thing that you would find in Northhaven, although even more broken and disheveled. Crows gathered in the upstairs windows and brown paint peeled off in random patches. The front yard was violated by gnarled, hairy thorn bushes as well as ivy. Off to the left of the door hung a rotting wooden sign with the words INQUIRE WITHIN carved into the plank.
Unlike the compound back at Mountainview, which was warm and inviting even with the war-torn, hardened sort of folk you would find there, here Flail couldn’t tell you the demeanor of the place just by looking. Outside looked dark and foreboding, sure, but that wasn’t the strangest part about it. That would be that fact that the roof sagged inward, seemingly not able to handle its own weight.
A spark ignited in his belly and he felt his cheeks get warm from the heat. He pushed his hair aside, several more times than necessary.
Flail knew that visible nervousness would be his demise. Nobody at Blackroot had even heard who he was, had never seen his face before. And a disguise, a dark hooded cloak emerging from a dark leather duster, would delay their realization of knowing him as a new recruit, if they ever found out at all.
His feet walked forward slowly, one in-front-of the other. The trepidation which these movements were intended to convey were somewhat ruined by the clack of leather boots against the rain-soaked cobblestone.
By now he wasn’t thinking.
He felt his fingers spread out across the warped and splintered door, and it seemed to cry it’s last whine when it was opened.
Dust and wet paint reached his nose, and the combination of the two smells make him almost recoil. Scanning the place, he could see that fresh, white paint was scattered in patches all across the walls, unpleasantly standing-out against the dull grey of the rest of the room.
He could see in the middle of the wall facing him sat a desk. Birch. Papers were scattered everywhere, some clinging to the sand-colored edges for dear life. Walking closer and looking at the scattered parchments, it became apparent that whoever did their work here was integral to the Blackroot operation. Looking hard at the muddled script of one particular paper, Flail could make-out a name: Ardwyn Nester.
He could be one of the mercs. Have they already bought them? Flail’s stomach churned at the idea.
The thumps of someone’s feet could be heard above. Small droplets of sweat clung to his face, and then they began dropping, in a similar fashion to his stomach at this particular moment.
The thumps suddenly stopped.
Flail’s body cried inside and his guts twisted like a pretzel, but his mind, a more rational entity, slowed his body down. He cautiously thumbed through more papers, but some invisible force grabbed him by the neck and simply whispered no.
The sound of footsteps resumed.
Alright, alright, uh, okay! There’s an overturned table to my left. Wait, no, no, that wouldn’t be sufficient. Oh! I could probably fit through that space under the desk...
The sound of footsteps gained volume.
Or, I could leave! That would work too…
“Well, what brings you here to Blackroot?”
The inflection in the man’s voice made it seem like he knew Flail, as if he were a long-lost friend.
Flail turned and quickly looked the man up and down. He stood by the stairs, and his frizzled black hair was like some untamed beast, and his equally messy beard hung down to his neck. He wore a long red overcoat adorned with golden buttons, although his pants appeared to be the standard, breeches. His shoes didn’t scream unique either.
“Well, you see, I...I wanted to, y’know, inquire within!”
The man chuckled. “Yes, it seems that’s what most want to do. We could sure use more members. It’s kind of sad, really, if you think about it. We had made a good living there, out in the Red Mountains. I was once a poor beggar, but I made myself! I became a miner. I developed my own company, and when the Ministry saw the huge potential that it had, they picked it up as one of their own. Coal was profitable then. But now, times have changed.” The man forced a fake, reassuring smile that showed-off his yellow teeth.
Even Flail had to feel pity. But was the story real?
“That’s all very… um, sad. But, I don’t think you’re having financial trouble, are you?” It was an amateur attempt to steer the conversation to the treasury, not to be talking to some poor old sod who might even be faking a sob-story. Unless they’ve already...no, there’s got to some other way.
“Well, yes, it’s really unfortunate. The coal deposits have have been bled-dry, and the amount of money we do have is now by the Ministry, so we have no power to use it the way we want. And it’s all their damned fault. Now they don’t seem to care.”
             The Ministry’s defense systems are impenetrable. How, how…
    “But I think everything’s going to be alright in the end.”
    Flail turned and stared at the man, who had cried more than Flail initially guessed. His face and eyes were red from the fervor of tears. His mouth still hung agape from the words he had just uttered.
    “Why?”
    “Because, Flail. We know who you are.”
    “Wait, wha-”
    “That man. Who Dirk said heard rumors of the mercenaries? We easily turned him to us with the promises of coin. If the Ministry hadn’t raped our horde of earnings, we would probably have been able to actually afford an entire legion of mercenaries and could have killed you and the rest of your tavern. But no, the Ministry prevented that from happening. Oh, the Ministry.”
    The man chuckled. The laugh became more and more insane, on the verge of maniacy.  The hollers echoed throughout the cramped room.
    A hand clamped over Flail’s mouth and he squirmed, the folds of his duster rubbing against the bare arm of the restrainer. He turned and saw a glimpse of a smirking face, pierced and topped-off with a head as bald as the moon. His biceps were as large as Flail’s head and the veins were popping, throbbing with the pressure of his arms and hands wrapped tightly around the head of the smaller man.
    Flail’s screams were so intense they reverberated across the room, even with the monstrous hand gripping his lips and jaw. He bit and gnabbed at the man’s fat, sausage fingers, but to no effect.
    The bald man joined the bearded and their laughs rang across the compound, not threatening or menacing, but rather, bawdy and heartful, like two friends enjoying each other’s company at a tavern.
    But now Flail could not think of taverns. He couldn’t think of Dirk or Hal or Lance or any of the strange, quirky sometimes scary folks he met at Mountainview. A strange sense of warmth overcame his body, and his fingers curled and extended. His blood boiled to the degree of a furnace, and a rush pushed itself to the forefront of his mind.
    The man finally spoke his name. “I am Ardwyn Nester, and I would like to thank the Ministry for all they have done to me.” His sarcastic tone betrayed his words, and he staggered forward as if he were drunk. “Their greed is still no match for Blackroot, now, is it, Leopold?”
    The big man shook his head.
    “The Ministry. They’re the true enemies here. Ardwyn walked toward Flail and ended up so close that his beard pressed against Leopold’s hand. “All I wanted to do was destroy this terrible, wretched system we have here. I tried to talk to them, I really did. But they had no sense in their thick skulls. All they did was flaunt their stupid robes and pretend to be so high and mighty that they couldn’t even listen to someone like me. They like your company more.  They are sponsoring you.” He let out a laugh between those yellow teeth. “ I have no choice but to send the mercenaries. If you cooperate, it won’t be so bad.”
             Flail grit his teeth shifting and wriggling in the big man’s grasp, causing Leopold’s arm to shift and allow Flail’s hand to draw his dagger in an arcing motion, piercing the big man’s skin and sending him tumbling to the floor like a pair of tumbling dice with an audible thud. Flail turned to the big man.
            “Stay backed away, you hulking beast!”
             Leopold nodded and covered his eyes, curling up against the flipped table. The sudden adrenaline rush that erupted from inside Flail caused his eyes to burn with a terrible passion.
         Ardwyn still stood unharmed. “ You fool, you can’t-”
         “I can’t what? I never asked for this, you know. I never asked for this…”
          He pointed to the purple, misshapen bruise where Leopold had held him by the neck.
          “...Y’know, I never asked for anything here. I’ll admit it. I thought something was off about this place from the very beginning.”
           Flail turned around and watched as Leopold attempted to right himself again, his massive feet stomping and the weight of his body causing audible creaks in the building’s foundation.
           A whine from the upstairs floorboards.
           Flail’s gaze darted upward and then back to Ardwyn.
           “And y’know, I…” he stuttered and stammered, his mouth curling into a thin grimace and his voice cracking.
          Another whine.
         Leopold spoke up. “Uuuhh...boss…?”
         A thin crack emerged in the wood of the ceiling. From the ground Flail could see the slightest hint of a glittering, sparkling object.
        The sound of the ceiling giving-way was almost inaudible to Flail through the panting of his heavy, labored breath and the roar of blood flow to his head.
        What must have been thousands of gold and silver coins, flickering in the still air, rained down upon the three men.
          The treasury. The lying bastard…
         Planks of wood rained down upon them as well, relentlessly, with no sign of mercy. In the midst of the chaos, Flail instinctively dove into the sea of gold, a large wooden stake missing his head by several inches. The coins, no matter how numerous, had no way of slowing his collision into the wall of the house, sending dust and flakes of material emanating from all corners. Rubbing his head, Flail sat up, neck-deep in the coins. The other two men were not responding to the incident. A quick survey of the room would tell Flail why. Where Ardwyn had once stood his body lay limp, with no sign of life. A pool of black blood rippled and gurgled, cascading down the coins like a perverse waterfall. Leopold was no better. His massive head was squashed like a melon, and his mouth was now misshapen, yellow teeth plagued by cavities spilling out onto the floor.
         Flail was confused. His heart skipped a beat at seeing the valuable trove rise around him like water, his eyes glowing with the golden sheen of the coins, his heart on fire from what had just transpired around him.
       The only audible sound was the rushing of the winter wind, intruding from the cracked windows of the house.