It would be a slow evening waiting for the next caravan out of Glorft and back to the Immortal Bastion. Samira had missed the ride she was meant to take on a technicality—loose ends that needed tying up after a mission, which she had expected would be more entertaining than it turned out to be. Anything requiring stealth felt like a betrayal of her own values, especially when it was not part of the initial brief, and she made a mental note to tell Indari to request more money because of it.

The mercenary had settled down in a small bar as lackluster as the last moments of her mission had been, a glass of the strongest drink they had on tap in her hands and a deck of cards in the other. In the middle of the Immortal Bastion, a glimpse of the pillory might not have seemed such an intriguing sight, but Samira was bored and the younger woman looked like she had stories. Getting drunk in a bar while talking to a stranger was not necessarily her idea of a successful night, but it could at least be a beginning. With a swift move, Samira had left her stool at the bar to gracefully slide next to the stranger, pushing the deck of cards in her hand in front of the odd person near her. Now that she was closer and could see Briar more clearly in the low light of the bar, she looked human enough, but not quite. “Looks like you’ve had a day. Would you like me to deal you in?”