The City Is My Hunting Ground

Chapter 3: the Trial

Strength... will be tested

The boat moved very slowly. Remains of unlucky ones could be seen under the green water. Well, it was at least partly water. But no one would dare to drink it. Except maybe Twitch.

"You can tell me whatever you want. I can't leak your information to anyone and you don't know my idenitety. Everything during this ride will stay between us."

The woman gasped as she heard her companion's voice. It sounded like (s)he had been bitten to throat by a lion and was now saying their final words. She was unable to say was (s)he male or female. I think I should put on a conversation. Urgot doesn't propably appreciate small talk. "Why did you join the Dreadnoughts in the first place?"

"Most of us don't believe in Urgot's philosophy, and he knows it. But he does not care. We still help him in his plan, because we don't think he will succeed. And he knows that too."

"You didn't answer the question."

The rower stopped the boat. "I am the only one if Twitch doesn't count to know all these tunnels. I sell rides to anyone, and Urgot pays enough."

The woman didn't seem that she got what she wanted. "Why you need money? I heard you eat from thrash and sleep on your boat. And you also have a gas mask. Are you planning to move away?"

The rower grinned. "Zaun is the only place I know in the world, the only place that has something for me to do, and only place where I can buy medicine. Look!"

What is that... person doing?

The rower pulled his/her shirt up and revealed stomach full of scars. "Ugly, isn't it? That's what the red handed guy does. Swain. You know anything about him?"

"Never heard. But he is propably from somewhere else."

The rower continued rowing. (S)he grinned the whole time. But the next question made him/her stop again.

"What is your gender?"

The rower stood up. "That's a thing no one cares in Zaun. All is defined by Chem-Barons, who don't care about those things, exept when it comes to personal good... and Urgot cares even less. But if you want to know... I don't have one. Swain took all my body's features with his lighting. And I don't remember it. I'm more like a talking doll now."

This person is something unique. And (s)he is beyond saving. I need to concentrate on my mission.

The rest of the journey went silently, the woman falled into her thoughts and the rower not displaying any emotions. They reached their destination in a few hours.

"You can still turn back, if you want. It's not something you should be ashamed of, many have-"

"Silence!"

The rower looked surprised. The woman took a kunai from her pocket. "Watch this." She stabbed the kunai on her jaw, and started to draw an oval on his face, closing her face's whole left side inside it as the rower terrifiedly gazed. She quickly just threw the skin away, revealing another face, made of steel.

"Swain took your gender? This is what the Trial took from me. And now, it continues", she stated, stabbing the kunai in the rower's chest. "Survive a month in the sewers, and kill the rower. That's what he told me. Nothing personal." The rower fell to the ground, lifeless. The woman took his kunai and wiped it on the rower's cloak. "Endless is ocean, Warp is the wisdom, we seek the knowledge, behind the death..." she hummed as she walked away.