Meanwhile...

Torchlight flickered through the gloom. Do Mugu's cracked fingertips emerged from the shadows, touching the sticky ink; to the shaman, the words were burdened with the malice of their author. "Demons," he murmured through his sour frown. A string of shrunken heads glowered from his chest as he reared back to squint at his rotten counterpart. Gum's troubled appetite had tightened his leathery skin over his protruding ribs. "Eh," he rasped, snorting over the crumpled contract, "death is nothing." His baritone words, to most, would be a cold, nihilist concession. "I could send you to the Underworld now," he explained evenly. "To do so," the shaman continued, "is no more than a handshake—do not misunderstand the spirits."

"Look," the sordid stranger sneered, cutting off Gum's burgeoning sermon, "I'm not converting to your cockamamey religion." He punctuated his disdain with a wad of thin, runny phlegm directed at the slate tile floor. "Are you gonna take the contract... or not?" The spit settled into the grout lines. "If death is nothing," he asserted, "then you'll have no problem working with us." He scratched at his itchy, patchy, uncomfortable neckbeard and sniffled. A moment of silence passed. "Riiiiight?" he begged.

Do Mugu found the stranger as foul as their dank surroundings, it was testing the shaman's equanimity. Nevertheless, he returned to the document and read it again. "Your masters believe that the death of this man will bring peace?" Gum do Mugu had seen the Underworld and its cast of ugly death gods. More than that, he'd seen the vibrant spirits ascend into rebirth. So, to him, death really was nothing. "Peace is good," he nodded. "Releasing spirits from their flesh can relieve their suffering and the suffering of their victims."

"I don't have time for this spooky shit!" the stranger snapped, his high pitched irritation echoed against the barren walls.

"The outcome is uncertain," the shaman mused. "If you block a stream with rocks," he wondered, "can we know the water's new path?" Do Mugu pulled the flaming torch from the wet wall and blinked at the living fire. "I must commune with the spirits before acting."

"Don't bother! We'll just get somebody else to do the job!"

But, it was much too late. Gum do Mugu had taken the sniveling character's offer as an omen from his gods, rather than a request from the conniving masters of Corone. "Wait," he beckoned the stranger.

The stranger, heading for the door, looked over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"Tell me, where will my hunt begin?"