YEAR 5, SEVENTH ASTRAL ERA

OUTER DARK RECORDING, 1554, SIXTH ASTRAL ERAVictor parts the tent flaps where Aluette resides - provided a space away from the rest of the soldiers to prevent any sort of unwanted action from the Outer Dark's soldiers. Tensions were high among the staff after her dramatic entrance, and despite Victor's best attempts to settle them down, they weren't so easily cowed after an attack on the Boss. In what might've been an effort to aid this endeavor, the young soldier - still bandaged due to an earlier, Aluette-inflicted gunshot wound - arranged a meeting between none other than the Harlequin herself.Within, "The Harlequin" of Adminisratum infamy had erected herself a small wooden desk and set up a filing cabinet along the deck within her little privacy tent. Though the Outer Dark may not have welcomed her with open arms, they would tolerate her presence if they liked it or not. "Victor." The Viera had not turned away from her work on the desk, and her back was still turned to the mercenary commander. Those ears of hers weren't just for show. "Up and walking already. Your reputation is well-earned, 'Boss.' Thank you for the canvas tent; terribly accommodating of you. I understand that funds are still low, so we can discuss improvements at a later date." She turned, smiling easily under violet eyes. There was no mistaking her enjoyment of the circumstances. "To what do I owe the pleasure?""And you precede your reputation. I'm here to make sure the rest of the camp doesn't try to set your tent on fire in the dead of night." the soldier growls, taking a seat on a nearby stool of rough leather stretched out over a wooden frame - utilitarian in every sense of the word. "You'd like them to try, I'm sure. But I think we both know we stand to gain more from cooperation, don't we, Notarius?" Victor's eye stares back at the Viera with the intensity of an Ahriman; his expression conveys little, though a perceptive person would spot gritted molars and a furrowed brow as well hidden indicators of pain. It seems the aetherochemical charge Aluette had planted in his shoulder via bullet hadn't come out easily, if at all."We do, Victor." Aluette leans back towards her small table, hopping up to perch herself on the edge with a dexterous crossing of her legs in the process. Her well-tailored uniform was plain Garlean, black with golden inlays common to officials of the northern provinces. Though the men of the Outer Dark were not necessarily contemptuous of the Empire, to wear such a uniform this close to the edges of the Imperial border was a daring choice. Fitting, to say the least. "As much as I would relish the challenge of a midnight ambush, you are correct. There is much work I would have you and yours do, and much coin in it for you as well." She reaches into her jacket, and slips out a single Gil. The coin is flittered between the fingers of her left hand idly. "Coin, and connections. It is no secret your little assembly of soldiers here has grand ambitions. But thus far, they remain unproven. You are known, of course. Your exploits five years ago in Dalmasca are still whispered in the capital... but one man does not make a mercenary army." The Gil is flipped. "We can change that, Victor. Make you worthy of that title you cling to."Victor's brow twitches at the mention of Dalmasca; evidently it wasn't something he'd like to be remembered for, though few men have control over their reputations and he is no different. "I don't need to be worthy of any title, Aluette. I need only to be worthy of my men - and I can't do that if I don't give them the opportunity they came flocking to me for. It's like you say - they're unproven, and they're hungry for the chance to carve their place in the world. So what do you offer, then? Coin is always useful, but connections are moreso - which is why them being nebulous is in your favor." Victor's sharp eye flicks between the coin and one of Aluette's own. "So you've got the coin. Give me an example of the other - unless you're simply another accountant with too much money and an ego to match.""Bold words, ser." Aluette snatches the Gil out of the air, and opens her palm to show that the coin has seemingly disappeared. "But worth is measured by others more than oneself. We will give you the tools you need." Aluette swings the coinless hand across her stomach, gesturing with an open palm at a small map of Ilsabard that had been laid out across the surface. Though lacking in details, the borders of the Empire's provinces are clearly marked. Circled in dark ink is the near eastern Anchorite of Corvos. "I could give you my little black book filled with names and contact points... but what would you do with it? Likely the same thing you would gil- squander it. I instead propose something else: A job. Something more substantial than your meager odd jobs in Ala Mhigo and Werlyt. I come with a proposal that will provide you both gil and fame in equal measure." Aluette drew her hand back to her lap, drumming the fingers across her knee. "And fame, Victor, is how you will come to know those with the power to help you build this little nation of yours.""A mission, then, is that it? If that was all we wanted, we would've stayed in Ala Mhigo. We didn't capture the airships of your Empire and plunge through the Ghimylt Dark just to be your - or anybody else's - puppets." the soldier responds, perching his head atop his fist. "Those with the power to build our nation are the same that'll put a leash on us and turn us into another Legion, just like you're doing now." His left, idle hand moves up and taps at the bloodied gauze covering a hole in his shoulder. "Let's not forget our first meeting was you trying to do the very same. We're not dogs of war, Aluette, and we won't be treated as such. Offer me more than blood, gil, and glory.""But I am, Victor. I am offering you opportunity. You need only discard those biases of yours to see it. Come closer, and let me explain. Aluette slid the map to the edge of the table, swaying lightly back and forth in gleeful amusement. "I am not here to contract you. If I wanted to do that, I would've sent you a letter as I have many other sellswords I've made use of over the years. What I want from you- or perhaps more specifically, with you- is an opportunity to operate with impunity. Your organization here, I can provide it with the opportunity to be free. Technology, gil, contacts, all of which lead you towards your goal." Her finger slips the map, and points towards the mercenary commander. "I in return gain the patronage of an organization which can grant me a freedom of my own. A chance to step further and raise higher my own ambitions within the Empire. I would consider this entering on the ground floor of a new enterprise, not slipping the hounds to do my bidding."Victor stands up from the stool and moves over to the desk, running his gaze across it until it settles on the focus of the map, the Anchorite of Corvos. "And what are those ambitions, precisely? You're already an unusual woman; a Viera in the Empire's ranks, and one that despite all her years of service remains a Notarius. You're either very good or very bad at your job, and if you tracked me down, I'm willing to bet it's the former. So why now?" he says, his gravely voice carrying a questioning air. His head raises back up to Aluette's, keeping his eye to hers. She's not risen to his provocations, nor has she dropped the sadistic guise - if it is one. The Harlequin's reputation is well deserved."You ask the wrong question. Opportunity is not something so easily manifested. If you wish to achieve something, you must be willing to reach out and seize it when it flits past. If you hesitate, you may lose more than just your chance." The Viera sets her palm to the table and leans in closer to Victor, her ever-present smile unfading. "You might learn my motives in time, Victor. Once you and I are no longer talking at the point of an embedded bomb, we may revisit the topic. For now, the Anchorite." She breaks eye contact at last, looking down to her map as if to drive the conversation that way. "You are familiar with the IVth Legion. Van Gabranth and his foreign loyalists hold strong sway over this region in the absence of the westward crusading XIVth. Here, at the Anchorite, is the very edge of their jurisdiction. A region of swordmasters cowed into submission in the early days of eastward Imperial expansion. It is here that the Empire is performing experiments on a new type of magitek armor. An autonomous weapon, free of pilot, capable of operating on the battlefield alongside soldiers seamlessly. I am told the project is well on its way towards completion." Her eyes turn up, back to the grizzled Highlander at her side. "Which means the man they have pressganged into developing this technology is running out of uses for the Empire. You know what they do with those who have no uses for them, Victor." She raises her left hand, and mimics slowly grabbing something. "Opportunity. Will you seize it? Or will you let it slip away?"A Magitek engineer, talented enough to develop cutting-edge weaponry for the Garlean Empire. The possibilities they'd have with such a man are endless - if they had the resources: the gil, the steel. No matter how Victor looked at it, the chance to secure all three was unprecedented. Even securing a consistent source of Magitek weaponry alone would put them leagues above their counterparts in Ala Mhigo. Victor raises his right hand over the desk, offering his palm to Aluette in a gesture of acceptance. "We'll move out in the morning." he says, his tone rising from a growl to a more receptive volume. Whether or not he trusted the Harlequin was one thing - trust was simultaneously the greatest resource and the most nebulous and elusive - but what he needed now was men and material. She'd offered him both in one fell swoop. Like she said, this wasn't to be wasted."Good answer." Aluette pushes herself off of the table's edge with a graceful motion, soundlessly bringing her heeled boots to the deck below. "I will be accompanying you, of course. We will go to the nearest, and establish ourselves a forward operating site. From there, we can ferry the necessary manpower and resources to support your operation. This will not be a simple overnight endeavor, of course... I will be asking you to make your way into the heart of a top secret Castrum, to extract a man of preeminent value- for now- to the Empire. You will need to be every bit of the man the world thinks you are." She spins on one of those heels, coming to a firm stop facing her new employer-employee. Her right hand comes forward, waiting for the man to grasp it. "Shall we forge your legend, Boss?"The soldier clasps her hand in his own. The only part of him that isn't covered in glove or bracer are his fingertips, roughened by bowstrings, hilts, and the stones of Ala Mhigo. "So we will. I'll be expecting a lot from you, 'Harlequin.'" He still had questions for her, but like she said, more detailed topics could be returned to later - and he'd have a watchful eye on her if she attempted to escape during the course of the mission. His acceptance also had a second purpose - rousing the men from his previous injury, and giving them reason not to attack Aluette in her sleep or during the journey. They'd never say no to a good mission, no matter the source, as long as the Boss had brought it to them."To our future partnership, then." She affirmed, with a growing coyness to her smile. As the pair's hands broke contact, she slipped quickly back into her jacket. From the same source as the coin, she produced something new: The detonator for the bomb in Victor's shoulder. "It's yours." The small magitek device was then tossed upward for the Highlander to catch. "May it never be said that I do not stand by my investments. The door has been opened, and thus I no longer have need of the key. Best to get that dug out of you before we depart, hmm? Sooner than later."Victor catches the device, turning it over in his hands, before pocketing it. "Sooner than later." he grumbles. The soldier reaches for the bandage and pries it back from his shoulder, the removed gauze revealing the explosive jutting out from his shoulder - the adjacent skin reddened and purple, pulled over the wound and secured with thick threading. It's clear the operation was recent, and done with extreme haste. Extremely unusually, however, is that the bomb still remains on his person - tucked under the gauze, the charge still remains. Victor plucks it from the cotton and tosses it over to Aluette just as she'd done for him seconds prior. "Keep that in your coat. If they catch you, they'll do far worse to you than they will to me. I'm simply on a payroll, after all." he says, turning around and leaving the tent. Just outside the canvas folds of the entrance, he retrieves a cigar from his jacket pocket - a typical one sold by an Ala Mhigan street vendor, a part of their allowed war spoils - and sets it alight, drifting the smoke into the night air as he trods back to the camp to give the order.