Mathias turned the knob and slowly opened the door. He cautiously stepped inside, looking around. As the elvish lass brought down her two fists, fingers meshed together in a weak attempt to sap him, his arms shot out and he caught her at the wrists. She struggled, trying to get away from him by thrashing wildly. He wrapped his arms around her in a bearhug and picked up her light frame, sitting her on the bed. As he let go, she immediately recoiled in on herself and began to sob silently, looking at the floor.

"Hey. Shhh...sh-sh-sh. Look at me... hey. Look. Look at me," he said, trying to calm her down with a tranquil, neutral tone. "Hey. I'm not going to hurt you. Hey. Shhh... Do you speak common?" His voice was as soothing as he could make it, and he wondered if it were any bit like his intention. He put a hand on her wrist, gently, and she tried to move away, but he leaned forward, placing it on her shoulder. After a minute, her crying began to die out, and he kneeled down to look her in the eyes. "Do you... speak... Tradespeak?" he asked her, making childish gestures, like flapping his hand as if it were a mouth, speaking.

"Y-yes... I... can..." she choked out, between gasping breaths.

"Good... that's good... Look. Hey... look at me... ssh.. Don't be afraid. We're not... those men. We're not that kind of people. We're good. We don't want to hurt you. My name is Mathias... what's yours?" he said, talking slowly and clearly, trying to articulate his words without accent. He regretted it, because he felt as though he were treating her as if she were mentally deficient. A thought struck him, and he wondered if Elves were even capable of retardation...

Eventually, she calmed down to a point that she could function and have a conversation with Mathias. She told him that her name was Limali, and he asked her to tell him how she'd gotten here, and why the slavers had taken her. After collecting her thoughts for a moment, as well as gathering the strength to speak, she began to relate her tale, "The past... few months, I'm going to have to guess... I've been floating around. Captured from my home, on the Raiearan coast, they took me to Antioch. I don't know why, but only some of the slaves had been dropped off there. We were then shipped over to Corone, but we only stayed for several days. Since then, we came to Scara Brae."

Mathias comforted her as she broke into tears every once in a while, soothing her until she could speak again. After she trudged through her story, she began to tell him how she'd first been unloaded in a cove, marched through a cave until they reached a large area, with many men in black cloaks, and many slaves being shut into boxes. She was stuffed into the chest, and from there, carried into a basement where she was let out every few hours, to eat and stretch. That evening, she'd been crammed back into the trunk and then taken off to the warehouse, where she'd been rescued.

The vandal listened intently to everything she said, trying to pick up clues as to the whereabouts of the slavers. But, before he could even try to scan the map inside his head, Limali had a few questions of her own. "So who... are you people, exactly? The army or, something such?"

He shook his head. He grinned at her assumption, but quickly wiped it off his face and tried to remain as sober as possible as he told her. "We're... known as the Scara Scourge. We're a group of thieves and assassins and arsonists. We're ruffians, basically. But wait, wait," he said, cutting off and trying to get her to calm down as she pulled herself further back on the bed, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging herself in a tight ball. "We're not... bad. We have a bit of a code," he tried to explain. "There are unforgiveable crimes that people commit. Slavery, rape, wanton and meaningless murder... that stuff isn't what we're about. We have pickpockets who steal fat purses from people in the bazaar, but we don't put honest men into poverty. We don't go out and kill because we think it's fun... And we're sort of abolitionists, as you can see... That kind of crime is just evil."

He reached out his hand, once more, to comfort her, but she recoiled and shivered as she began to cry more. He shook his head, frowning. The door began to open, and Matches popped her head in, looking at Math. "Chapter's calling a meeting," she said.

~

"It looks like Fingers is a snitch," he said. His voice was angry - the kind of pissed-off that he'd been when Mathias was bugging him back in the Zirnden's locker room. "Turns out, he's been bought out by the Syndicate. He thinks that he's on the 'winning side,' so he tried to get away and get some buddies to ambush us while we were combing the warehouse. We were there early, it seems. Their client hadn't shown up - I can only assume Fingers had them warned, and that was what caused those reinforcements."

Matches and Vandal cursed at the same time, affirming that they'd suspected him for a while. Cleric began to sniffle, trying to stifle her tears. Toadie slammed his fist on the bar, gritting his teeth angrily. Knuckles simply sat there, calm and stoic. His expression, however, had all the traces of giref and sorrow. He mumbled, in his brutish, dumb voice, "I never... ever would've thunk it..."

"But fuck him, okay? Seriously, fuck all of them. We're on the warpath now, guys," Chapter said, gesturing wildly as his speech gained momentum. "Our group, as well as Cell's outfit, are heading to a meeting of the powers, tomorrow. We'll be discussing an alliance, and a plan, to get the Blackhoods out. Everybody agrees we need to stop fighting amongst ourselves, because this shit is bad for business. I can guarantee you that even Don Banton will say that. Hell, even the Bartholo Gang is willing to put everything aside and cooperate. This is big. Really, really big. You all need to get some rest. We've had a tough night, and the next few are only going to get worse. Oh - Knuckles and Vandal. We're allowed to bring two bodyguards, and I've chosen you."

Mathias felt a bit of pride swell up in him. This was serious - Chapter was trusting him enough to allow him to partake in a meeting of the most powerful and influential crime groups in Scara Brae. This was unprecedented - in fact, he couldn't recall anything that anyone had ever told him that spoke of a time, so dire, that this sort of conference had to be called.

Math had been right all along. This was going to be pretty heavy.