"Now then, is it safe for me to assume that the reason why you have arrived at my winter retreat is because you have the Stormsingers in chains?" Lady Mortra asked as she returned to her position in the courtyard with a collection of freshly retrieved darts. "I do hope you're not attempting to renegotiate a more beneficial deal. I am quite swamped with other dealings to review the one you made. Oh, I would also appreciate you returning my music box now that the deed is done."

After making this statement, Lady Mortra threw a dart that embedded itself into the leg of the chief of the Skeletal Vipers.

"And besides, you know how I feel about people attempting to extort me."

The screams of the perforated chieftain echoed throughout the courtyard, but Hulgin was now doing his best to ignore the blight of the poor bastard.

"I-it's nothing like that, Lady Mortra," Hulgin quickly capitulated. "In fact, I need to request an extension of our contract…and your assistance."

"Oh?'

At these words uttered from Hulgin's mouth, Lady Mortra paused her game of darts.

"Didn't you say that capturing the remnants of the Stormsinger tribe would've been child's play?" Lady Mortra asked in an insidiously innocent voice. "What happened?"

"That…"

Despite how light and sweet her voice sounded when she asked, Hulgin could feel the sheer bloodlust and rage hidden in her words. It was as if a blade were being pressed against his temple and someone was forcing him to stare into a mirror so that he could watch himself getting stabbed.

"I did, milady, but there were outsiders."

"Outsiders?" Lady Mortra repeated, amused by the word. "What kind of outsiders would involve them with a group as impoverished as the Stormsingers? Surely, nothing more than ignorant bleeding hearts."

"I initially thought that as well, but then one of the interlopers said something that made it clear to me that they weren't just bleeding hearts! They were rivals to you, milady."

"Rivals? What do you mean by rivals?"

At this point, Lady Mortra's boiling fury was replaced by pure curiosity. Unfortunately, that feeling was about to flip again.

"When they stopped me from finishing off Chief Heindril, this strange blue slug man, he asked me if I recognized two names. One was the name of Heindril's son, Hakon."

"I remember that young man," Lady Mortra said after a moment of thought. "He was the one who got caught in that trap laid by the Stone Bear tribe. Pitiful fellow, I tried to sell him to a merchant that I know would pay for his medical treatment. I guess that means that people asking about him to Hakon's tribe, must be the ones who bought him. Or perhaps, freed him? Oh, who cares, now, what was that second name that makes you think that they're rivals of mine and not just misguided former customers?"

"Fraden, ma'am. They asked about Fraden the Frostkiller."

"...did they now?"

Mortra's change in demeanor was instant, like a pin being dropped in an empty church, and Hulgin began to feel as if that shadow of death from before had transformed into an all-consuming darkness.

Strangely, as this murderous aura began to boil and burn inside of Mortra before being released, the primitive aether treasure bone darts began to take on a more sinister shape.

Before, their edges were smooth and meant to pierce flesh like a hot knife through butter. Now, though, they appeared to be jagged and designed to tear through flesh.

Once these new darts got into her hands, Lady Mortra began her game of darts anew.

And the screams elicited from the Skeltal Viper chief were even stronger than before.

Hulgin thought that he was about to be a dead man, that Lady Mortra was about to use him as her next dartboard or something else that was equally tortuous. But alas, she actually decided to just…talk. And somehow, that was even worse.

"Chief Hulgin, have you wondered why I go through so much effort in finding and gathering primitive aether treasures? Why do I go through the painstaking effort of making sure that the tribes I gather them from are not consigned to the grave but sold to the wider world? Have you ever wondered that?"

As Mortra continued to ask these clearly rhetorical questions, she punctuated each one with a hearty throw of the dart at the screaming chief.

"Because..."

"It's because I love history," Mortra answered before Hulgin could. "I love how strangely rich yet simple the history of tribal communities can be, and I love how the aether treasures you guys can produce are always so goddamn simple but have the ability to grow into something truly historic in the right hands. But on top of that, I love the possibilities that can be made when a defeated tribal warrior is sent to work as a slave in a foreign land, all while their precious primitive aether treasures are turned into significantly more powerful true aether treasures that may or may not be bastardizations of their true purpose. And the drama that can occur when the stars align just right and those survivors find one of those treasures in the hand of someone they considered a tyrant, an enemy...I love it. I absolutely love it."

For the entirety of her strange rant at Hulgin's expense, Mortra had continued to throw dart after dart after dart into her unwilling dartboard, causing them to scream louder and louder with every hit.

Despite the rise in volume, Mortra didn't stop.

She simply used a little more aether to raise her voice higher and higher with every screaming decibel that exceeded her own.

"And now you tell me that on the cusp of me being able to set in motion the grandest stories ever told in the history of not just this valley but the entire Soaring Griffon continent, one that is multigenerational no less, some interloper is trying to barge in and throw into disarray one of the most important portions of my story...is that accurate?"

"Y-yes, that is accurate," Hulgin answered over the sound of painful shrieking.

At this answer, Mortra let out a long, almost exhausted sigh…before throwing one last dart and silencing the scream of her victim forever.

The now headless body of the former chieftain of the Skeletal Vipers fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap, while his head was now pinned to the wall opposite Lady Mortra.

"Do you happen to know who these interloppers are? Or did you, in your haste, fail to keep track of such an important detail?" Mortra asked as she waved a hand and used her aether to retrieve the thrown bone darts that were now radiating an aura that indicated that they were now Bronze-tiered aether treasures.

"Well?"

"I-I didn't know who any of them were, my lady; I apologize for that. But I did memorize their faces. I can draw them out for—"

"Don't bother; I have just the treasure for this."

From her waist, produced a small stone incense burner that had this distinctly dreamlike aura to it.

Chief Hulgin recognized the carvings on the burner to be the work of the now-lost Quartz Wrecker tribe. Last he heard, they were being sold in the markets of the Dozing Salamander continent.

"Now breathe deep, and the smoke will do the rest."

Under her command, the incense burner released a visible wisp of purple smoke that quickly entered Hulgin's nostril and began to infuse his brain with its strange energies.

Seconds later, Hulgin released his own cloud of smoke that quickly reformed into a display showing everything that had happened to him up until this point. To be more precise, it showed the moment that he and his men had surrounded the Stormsingers, leading up to the moment that they came into contact with the interlopers that prevented their capturing of the Stormsingers...mostly.

Where there should've been a bright blue-and-white slug man blocking his attack, there was nothing but a weird blur. Needless to say, both Hulgin and Mortra were confused at the sight of this slug.

"What the fuck?" Lady Mortra said aloud, moments before realizing that she had cursed in an incredibly casual manner. "Wait, I never swear. Why did that just happen?"

"I-I don't know," Hulgin answered. "But I clearly remember that weirdo's visage. I don't get why it's showing up like a blur like this."

"Interesting..."

The memory played out for a couple more moments until it finally reached the point where a group of human warriors showed up to assist the original blurry slugman. Well, a group of human warriors and an oddly fuzzy one.

"Wait, I remember that blur too. It was a woman with long black hair and weird growths coming out of her cheeks. She reminded me of a river eel or something like—"

"Wait a fucking minute...I think I know who these interlopers are," Mortra interrupted.

Manipulating her aether, Mortra focused her attention on a woman that appeared to be covered in tattoos.

After a moment of looking over the image, Mortra uttered a title under her breath.

"That Painted War Devil..."