Hiring the gang

Femi watched her finish the rest of her meal in silence, his mind moving from one thought to the other. Like who had tried to kidnap this woman and how he would calculate his move now that a bounty had been placed on her head. He didn't fancy the thought of going to fight a potential kidnapper before he had the chance to kidnap her himself.

His thoughts took a dark turn as it moved to the webmaster, that man, that predator that crawled like the spider he was and kidnapped unsuspecting children and turned them into his living weapons. What did he want with this master battle Sage he wondered.

What had the schooler called her? Yemodel? Yellow? "Yetunde?"

"What?"

Femi looked at her In a surprise, "what?" He asked back.

She pointed a food-stained finger at him as she eat the last of her food, "you just called my name."

He opened his mouth to deny it, to say he didn't even know her name but he closed it and frowned instead. So that's her name? Yetunde.

"Femi," he said reluctantly, he didn't much like the thought of giving people his name or her, only Seki called him by Femi while the others called him the shadowed one, most of the time they don't get to call him that either, "that's my name."

"Femi," she said as if testing the name on her tongue, "well, I would say nice to meet you but you and I both know that would be a lie. What isn't a lie is that I'm glad you agreed to come. The Irin mountains is no joke."

Femi gave her a cool look, "Same," he said flatly.

"I take it you have some people In mind that you wanted to hire?" The Irin mountains was full of the twisted souls of the gods and demons and it would probably be by use of steel that they would make it through with their limbs still attached.

She stood, drew her cloak from the chair, and put it around her while her sword went around her waist, "yes. Wait for me, I have to get my things upstairs."

She moved around the tables and what stuck Femi as odd was that the customers in the inn that was mostly male and didn't try to touch her or catcall her. So they could sense that she was deadly? Even with her small look? Maybe it's the way she walked, Femi thought, she walked as if she had something important to do, briskly and businesslike.

Femi himself Liked to walk without drawing attention to himself, that was why he used a dagger, two daggers, and not a sword and that was also why his clothes were just plain trousers and tonics while his cloak was a very black one but well used.

"Good," she returned, and she carried with her a small bundle that was slung to her back, the bundle clinking as she walked. So that's where she kept her Royal Sage armor, "let's go." She said, already walking to the door.

The sun had risen well In the sky by now and the street traffic had lessened as people weren't in a hurry but were buying and selling actively. Yetunde took the lead and her small figure was quick to slip between people and between small spaces created, Femi almost lost sight of her to the crowd more than once but his steady pace always finds her anyway.

Try as he might, Femi didn't know where she was going and it didn't look as if she knew either because she would suddenly stop sometimes and put her nose in the air as if she was smelling or sniffing something before she would make a quick turn around to another street.

She turned to a new street now and her quick movement slowed as if she had now got to where she was going. The street they had just entered was far different from the others– the buildings were shabby and some were even empty while eyes followed them from inside the building. Eyes that were counting and calculating the worth of what they were wearing or might have in their pockets.

Femi ignored those eyes and instead kept his steady pace, "you finally get where you are going?" He asked, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

She grinned at him as if they both share a secret, "he was difficult to track down but I finally got him."

"Track," Femi echoed.

"Yes," she stopped at the front of a three-story building and sniffed the air again, "yes, definitely here."

The building was in better shape than most buildings in the street and on the door was boldly written "The axe inn" they went inside and the temperature was different from the other inn they just left. Everyone In the inn was armed with different weapons and they stopped their games and drinks to look at the newcomer.

Femi looked at Yetunde, wondering what she had In mind, she lifted her head and walked to the counter in a calm unhurried manner and Femi followed silently behind her.

She stopped before the counter where the barkeeper was cleaning glass, the man was big and his hands corded with muscle.

"What?" The man grunted, not even looking at the two people that had made the whole inn go silent.

"I want you to tell me about one of your patrons, tell me hi..the room his gang uses when in town," she didn't seem to mind the mood of the barkeeper and smiled at him.

The man grunted, obviously not impressed, and continued cleaning his glass, "we don't do such here."

Femi took a step forward but Yetunde was already dropping something on the counter, cowries, "I seem to remember you doing so the last time I was here. Maybe this would make you remember."

The man finally dropped the glass, glanced at the cowries, and put them in his big hand before glancing at Yetunde and Femi then he grunted again, "third floor, fifth room. No blood and no destroying property." He went back to clean another glass cup and just as the noise started in the room again.

"Thank you," she said and they both started to the stairs that led upstairs.