It wasn’t long before Hayate had an idea. There was a man sitting alone just a few booths beside them off behind Beth. As he watched the young girl eat her rack of lamb Hayate payed close attention to the shadowy looking figure a few seats away. He looked like the type who dabbled in secrets, or at least he looked enough like that for Hayate to want to question him.

“I’ll be back,” He said as Beth took another huge bit of savory meat. “Gotta take a leak.”

“Right!” she said barely even acknowledging him, solely concentrated on her food.

Hayate stood and went towards the restrooms. As he walked by he saw that the man had a number of scrolls and parchments strewed out on his table. That was a good sign so he diverted his path and approached the man. He was a tall burley fellow with a thick brown beard and long brown hair. He looked up at Hayate and sized him up. They both looked at each other without saying a word for what seemed like an hour, but was only a few seconds.

“Can I help you?” the man said in a grizzled tone.

“I heard there are some new players running the game around here,” Hayate said as he sat down across the booth from the man. “I just want to know how to get ahold of em.”

“Excuse me?” he said mildly annoyed. “I don’t have time for this.”

“I have a purse full of coin here if you tell me everything you know about the big boys who have been pretending to be bosses around here.” Hayate said as he dropped a sack of gold on the table. Shinsou insisted that if any bribing should be done that he used some of the gold in the Brotherhood coffers. The man eyed up Hayate one more time before reaching forward and snatching the sack.

“You mean the Granite Kings? They are the only new players in the game and they haven’t been playing very fair. They came in by force and took control of the quarry about a week and a half ago and won’t let anyone but them get down there to dig.”

It was looking like Hayate had struck gold. Now all he had to do was handle business. After scooping up Beth the two of them set off for the quarry and hopefully were about to complete their mission.