Dropping by Iron Gaygarion’s place, the cur seems mighty happy to see me and mine:
Yeah, sure. Drinks are provided by the plentiful, and for a while we watch as the Blood Pit shows to all the reason it is named thus. At one point, I notice Gregarion retiring to a backroom, in company with two women of such beauty would befit our Guild. Moments elapse, during which unwanted visions of Gregarion’s naked ass pass before my mind’s eye—pounding it, pounding it—and I almost retch. But when he emerges from the aforementionned backroom, rather than a certain levity in his steps as I would have expected, I see about him a downcast, vaguely contrite air.
“I hate to be the beared of bad news,” he tells me, having received a call. “Zafra. She asked for… some information on a fellow Iron Captain, Gray. I’m afraid she’s gone on something of a rampage.”
Rampage? Must be a mistake, Zafra is right ther– oh no! She’s not there; she must have left, unnoticed, while I let myself be engrossed by the fights.
But what a coincidence. Zafra, whose violent—brutal even—proclivities have enfamed her somewhat. Zafra, who was years ago made the target of an Iron Cartel bounty. Zafra, who never managed to fully leave her past behind and who, during the recent raid on the warehouse, became noticeably tense at the mere mention of the name Gray. To this Zafra, you gave the whereabouts of that Gray man, who just so happens to be your rival in the Iron Cartel.
No time to berate him, no time to slap his face into the wall; I get this Gray guy’s adress and we dart there in post-haste:
The place: huge. Zafra: nowhere in sight. And a security lockdown is in effect, with thick, roll-up steel doors blocking every passage leading deeper into the mansion.
But my ears catch, from a nearby room, a ragged gurgling tells me too clearly what I am about to see:
The man is yet conscious, though he is heartbeats away from his last. From him I learn Zafra barged in like a fury, her twin auto pistols discharging a hail of steel throughout the mansion. Also from him I learn there should be a keycard, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, would allow me lift the lockdown. Rummaging through bookshelves and drawers and cushions and everything, we quickly find said keycard, use it, then plunge into the mansion.
Alas the manner of its make is labyrinthine through and through; its every minute feature purposefully conceived to confuse and disorient. Even those intimately familiar with the place must, at times, become lost despite their better sense. Thus, finding our good way is a slow matter; but—Perception check!—we somehow manage to do it all without alerting guards to our scurrying.
At length we step into a library, and there rejoin Zafra:
Without I can do aught but gawk at her celerity, her guns come level to his heart and she fires. Gray reels. A low, deep grunt escapes him. Yet, still he stands.
What the… Only adding to my and Zafra’s confusion, Gray then mysteriously declares he has been told—very directly so—not to touch a hair on our heads.
This said, he presses a hidden button near the fireplace. The latter opens, belching a number of Gray’s men, while Gray himself disappears behind them.
A fight ensues during which a literally enraged Zafra, not under my control, is first to act and proceeds to kill five enemies in one move:
Once the carnage is over, Zafra apologies, claiming she thought she could handle herself. I tell her she should have asked for our help; but this I say unconvincingly, given how she actually handled herself and those poor guys she ground into… well… into the ground.
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