A dimly lit room near the bowels of the Balfour clan compound was currently occupied by three people. At the center of the room stood a disheveled Alistair Balfour, stripped of his sturdy plate armor. The young man stood with his long, black hair draped over his face as his head tilted toward the cold stone floor of the room.

  The young man's bare chest was covered in splotches of blood and heavy bruising, rising and falling deeply as breath filled his lungs.

  FWOOM! FWOOM! FWOOM!

  Dozens of marble-sized iron balls came hurling across the open air of the room toward Alistair, with tremendous power, from the hands of Elder Ewan. The elder's face was covered in a vicious snarl as he continued to fetch the heavy items out of a large drum beside him and hurl them at Alistair’s retreating figure.

  The battered young man moved with superhuman agility as he did his best to avoid the projectiles, but the overwhelming speed and quantity of the metal balls made the task nearly impossible.

  A sheen of sweat covered Alistair's exposed skin as his heavily muscled form dashed and twirled through the room in an impressive acrobatic display. But when an iron ball struck his left temple with a vicious CRACK, the young man stumbled forward awkwardly after losing his balance, sending him directly into a hailstorm of Ewan’s attacks.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  After being blasted with nearly a half dozen of the painful strikes, Alistair's body hit the ground in a defeated slump. Only then did the remaining person in the room slowly raise his hand, gesturing for Elder Ewan to relent.

  "Enough."

  Stepping into the light, the figure of the Balfour clan patriarch, Alistair's father, was revealed.

  The middle-aged man resembled an older version of Alistair, complete with a set of ornate green plate armor carrying the Balfour crest. Ewan bowed his head in a servile manner as he stepped aside, allowing the Patriarch to approach Alistair.

  "Do you know why you are wrong, Alistair?"

  Alistair's shoulders slightly trembled as he pushed himself off the cold stone floor, looking up to return his father's gaze while slowly nodding his head.

  "I-I hesitated. I was weak and did not wish to slay my brother Dunca—OOF!"

  An iron ball cracked into Alistair's neck, cutting off his words as Elder Ewan stepped forward with a sneer covering his wrinkled face.

  "Duncan is a bastard who has turned against our clan! He is no brother of yours!" Ewan hissed at his nephew.

  "That is enough, brother! You overstep!" The patriarch gave Elder Ewan an angry glare, causing the man to bow his head as he slunk back into his position near the wall.

  Looking down at the pitiful state of his son, the patriarch pulled a cloth napkin from his sleeve and dipped it into a bowl of water before kneeling beside Alistair. The intimidating patriarch proceeded to clean the blood from Alistair's face as he spoke in a slightly lowered tone.

  "You are not wrong to value the life of a former family member, but the moment Duncan left this clan, he became a traitor. Not only is he against us, but he is the most dangerous kind of enemy that exists—one that knows us as well as we know ourselves, and who has made it his purpose in life to see us brought low before him."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The patriarch rose to his feet as he crossed his hands behind his back, looking down at Alistair with a grim expression.

  "Now we have lost our best opportunity to remove that threat, as the city lord has taken Duncan under his protection. Do not be naive enough to think Lord Hector acted on a whim; no one reaches such heights without a mind for wielding power. No doubt he intends to use the boy as a check against the Balfour clan's ambitions. Do you understand the dire significance of this event, Alistair? Your moment of weakness has endangered the future of this entire family."

  Alistair tightly clenched his fingers as he listened to his father's words, a sheen of moisture filling his eyes as he nodded his head firmly.

  "Good. What will you do the next time you face Duncan in combat?"

  Alistair returned his father's gaze with bloodshot eyes, pushing himself to his feet as he gave his answer.

  "I will kill Duncan without hesitation, Father!"

  Elara, Pom, and Anthony made their way to the far side of the market district of Highwarden, toward an area where the guilds set up shop and distributed tasks to the various groups in the city.

  The adventurers' and mercenary guild shared a single building called "The Hub." Over time, the two groups had basically merged into one entity since most people did not distinguish much between them when issuing missions, so it was more convenient to just work together.

  To be honest, there wasn’t much of a difference between them either. Mercenaries were like groups of adventurers who organized and could be hired all at once. Adventurers tended to have smaller teams and could be relied on to travel longer distances to complete unique missions.

  As they approached the two-story wooden building, Anthony saw the word "HUB" painted in fancy lettering above the double doors that led inside.

  "Um, why did we need to visit this place again?" Pom asked in an uncertain tone as she cast her gaze across the tough-looking groups of large men walking in and out of the building.

  Elara pushed open the doors, holding them open for her teammates as they followed her in. The strong smell of pipe tobacco was the first thing Anthony noticed as they stepped through the brightly lit building, navigating past the crowded main entrance as they made their way deeper inside.

  "If the farmers' guild issued a mission, they will have it here. Also, this is as good a time as any to get our team registered! Edgar will eventually register you both as part of the Iron Fangs, but that is only for large missions when the entire troop is needed. We need to register as a team to take on our own missions as well."

  Anthony and Pom nodded in understanding as they followed Elara up to a large wall filled with posted missions. Elara searched through the missions one by one, eventually growing frustrated and asking Anthony and Pom to help search, but even after all three had made their way from one side of the long board to the other, they hadn't found the mission.

  "Maybe it got taken down already. Let’s ask the front desk while you get registered," Elara eventually suggested with a defeated tone.

  The group moved into line at the front, eventually coming to the desk after a short wait. Elara had a team registered under her own name already, so it was a simple task to add Anthony and Pom to her group. While her two teammates filled in their paperwork, Elara inquired about any missions involving a fortune hound.

  The young lady standing behind the desk was too short to be a human but too tall to be a gnome. She seemed to be some sort of hybrid of the two races, with big brown eyes that took up a large portion of her small face and curly pink hair that ran down her back all the way to her backside.

  "Um, fortune hound… I think I remember that one. Wait here for a sec!" the clerk replied.

  As the girl stepped away, it became obvious that she had been standing on a stool behind the desk, her stature drastically lowering the moment she hopped down. Pink curls of hair bobbed around behind her as she moved, her short legs causing her to wobble back and forth a bit while walking.

  The gnomish girl returned a few minutes later with a parchment in her hand. She climbed back onto her stool and spread it out on the desk as she pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.

  "Well… I found it. Now I’m not surprised that no one bothered to take this mission. They are only offering ten silver to dispose of this fortune hound. The farmers' guild has always been cheap, but come on! No one is going to risk breaking a taboo for such a pitiful re—"

  "We’ll take it!"

  Elara snatched up the parchment before the words had fully left her mouth, a broad smiling pushing up her cheeks as she quickly glanced over the mission in her hand.

  The gnomish girl looked on with narrowed eyes as Elara folded the parchment into small squares and stuffed it into the front of her armor, directly against her breast.

  The pink-haired clerk blinked a few times, her tiny mouth slightly agape as she watched the red skinned mercenary swiftly leading her group away without so much as a parting "Thanks".