Lungworth

One sweaty, hot, and damn exhausting day spent, as was customary for the final week, at work solving various tasks—which, as always, he completed by pushing himself to the limit of his human capabilities—Lester trudged home with a sense of duty fulfilled, sipping a bottle of already warm and quite strong beer. This bottle had cost him half his salary, and at this moment, he wouldn't have bought it himself, but luckily, he had come across a surprisingly pleasant colleague—a shriveled, thin little man around fifty-five, of whom about forty had been spent working as a loader without resting for a second. This had left a certain mark on his persona; the colleague spent most of his time in power-saving mode, barely aware of what was happening around him, not wasting extra words or gestures. Likely because of this, the spirited vigor of Lester, who did everything swiftly and intelligently and told entertaining yarns from life and service, charged him with energy to some extent and evoked a tired, kind smile. After finishing Friday with a pleasant sit-down on a pile of bricks behind the warehouse where they worked, during which they downed a couple of beers, Boleslav—or Vlados, as Lester called him—provided him with what remained for the road and wished him a pleasant weekend.
- No one's writing... to the little Sergeant... - Lester drawled, as per habit—without any goal, but simply for the sake of the ritual—checking the mailbox of his townhouse, when suddenly his bloodshot eyes spotted the rough yellowness of low-quality paper in the slot of the still-closed box.
Night Blade cast two quick glances around and rolled into the nearest cover, managing not to let the bottle slip from his hands and not to spill a single drop. Tilting the bottle with his left hand and gulping down the remains in one go, with his right hand resting on the hilt of the Widowmaker, he quickly scanned all approaches to his position—but spotted no one. Rising to his feet, the scout slowly approached the box, keeping his eyes fixed on both it and the surrounding space. He sniffed—at first glance, neither poison nor black magic was sensed from the box, but he still experienced a certain strange feeling. Sliding the blade of a dagger into the slot, he touched the parchment—no trap was found. From the outside, in the eyes of a layperson, Lester probably looked quite comical, but all these reflexes had been hammered into his head by training and years of real work for the benefit of Royental in the rear of the Serberian enemy. Just in case, gripping the heavy bottle like a club, he carefully opened the box and took out the letter. An invitation to an organization, name unknown. "Gullveig of Baldr." Baldr... Baldr... The handwriting was sweeping but neat—evidently female. However, the letter itself did not smell of perfume at all—it reeked of baked goods, raw meat... and blood.
Night Blade held the letter up to the light—no signs. He shaded it with charcoal—no secret messages. Shaking his head, he folded the parchment into his breast pocket, loudly belched the beer bubbles that had reached his throat, and directed his steps toward the indicated meeting point, which turned out to be surprisingly close. Turning the corner, he saw the window of the sought-after room, from which strange conversations were drifting. Pretending to look for a dead drop under the windowsill for any possible random passers-by, Lester listened intently and watched the events inside, remaining unnoticed by them. Unfortunately, the audio was poor, and most of the conversation—the part he couldn't read from the lips—had to be filled in. A strange, ragged-looking thug—either an informant or an assistant—had come to Gullveig of Baldr. They exchanged a few lines; Gullveig of Baldr put her hands on her hips. The assistant, with a spark of madness gleaming in his eyes and a crooked smirk, delivered unpleasant news; Gullveig of Baldr flew into a rage and gave him such a slap that he flew straight into the front door, nearly ripping it off its hinges. In the process, he hit his head hard, but apparently, his vital organs were unharmed. Coughing up a huge clot of blood with particles of yellowed teeth, he humbly sat on the floor and, by all appearances, asked for her forgiveness. Gullveig of Baldr continued to stand in a threatening pose, measuring him with a devastating gaze—at least, that's what Lester thought, because she had been standing with her back to him the whole time, and a huge part of what was happening, in an already narrow field of view from the street through a gap in the curtains, was blocked by her sperm-whale-like bulk, which nearly burst the seams of the fabric she was wrapped in.
Deciding not to tempt fate, the scout left the place, entering everything he saw and inferred into his mental notebook. On the way home, he finally remembered where he had heard that name—Baldr. As it turned out from the scene he witnessed, the reputation of this Serberian province and the monsters it breeds is not exaggerated in the least. Gullveig of Baldr had appeared here, for reasons unclear, and instantly pinned the local criminal element to the wall. And now this invitation in the mailbox—for me, a member of the Elheim unit.
"It seems I am entering a very dangerous game..."
Having returned home and completely sobered up, Vargas spends the rest of the evening sharpening daggers and thoroughly double-checking all his gear, after which he falls asleep army-style—with his eyes open.