"I see."
That sentiment was not one I disagreed with, even if I felt that it could be articulated better; I thought what he said made sense. And yet, I still asked the question.
I was not interested in his answer— it was almost expected that he would say that. I did not care for the philosophical discussion which might come from my questions; I was simply prying for information.
And the prevailing conclusion I had from that information was this: Lisa was not lying.
Ginah’s Crew was definitely close to the imagined idea of noble criminals. Whether this served to increase my opinion of Ginah, Lisa, or both even, was something that remained to be seen.
Regardless, knowing this compelled me to finally act. Ginah had so far accommodated my requests since I had offered them my help. And it was time for me to fulfill my end of the bargain.
I stepped into a small wooden hut, entering what appeared to be a makeshift meeting room; there was a large rectangular table in the center, with the city map of Luke laid out on it. Ginah was in conference with a man I recognized as Kai, the Quartermaster who managed all the administrative duties Ginah could not attend to.
"Did you need something, Melas?" The pirate Captain asked, glancing up at me; other than when she got annoyed at me the first two times we spoke, we hadn’t really clashed heads again. So she held no venom in her tone, and addressed me almost casually.
"No," I said, walking up to the two. I nodded at Kai whom I briefly interacted with twice now, and turned my attention to Ginah. "I was just wondering how I can help."
"Help?" She exchanged a look with Kai. The Quartermaster just shrugged, opting to stay out of this conversation.
"Yes." I gestured with a thumb at the map. "You guys have been busy, right? I highly doubt you have been wasting time doing nothing while the Elise continues its operations smoothly."
"Of course not," Ginah snorted, folding her arms. "We’ve been sending some informants in and out of Luke. Our last one came back two days ago."
"Did he have anything useful to say?" I asked, raising an eyebrow underneath my mask.
She frowned. "Why do you want to know that?"
"Because," I started, "I want to help. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you guys are planning, nor can I help you if you guys don’t let me."
Ginah raised an eyebrow. "We’ve been open to accepting your help all this time, Melas."
"Then let me in on this," I said simply. "How can I help you?"
I looked between the Quartermaster and the Captain, as they appeared undecided for a moment; they probably were going to reject my offer— tell me that it was important information for an important mission that was not suitable for a newcomer like me or whatever.
I was prepared for that. I had made a pitch— I had planned a whole speech to convince them to allow me to show that I was trustworthy— but was pleasantly surprised when it did not need to come to that.
"Sure," Ginah finally said.
"Sure— wait, what?" I asked, still caught slightly off guard by her response.
Kai took over, clarifying for his leader. "She said we wouldn’t mind divulging you with the information, if you assisted us in this mission."
"Oh, uh—" I caught myself stumbling over my words. "I knew what that meant. I was just… not expecting that answer."
"What were you expecting?" The pirate Captain looked inquisitively at me, hands on her hip.
"It’s— nevermind." I shook my head, focusing on what was important. "So, what did your informants tell you?" I asked.
"There’s going to be some sort of meeting held over the weekend. We think it’s important, and there might be members of the Dark Crusaders there as well. You know what that means, right?"
"Yes," I said, meeting Ginah’s eyes."There’ll be spellcasters."
She nodded as Kai took over the explanation. "And that’s why we think you’ll be a good addition for this mission. We were actually just discussing whether we should ask for your help when you came in. It was fortuitous timing, to say the least."
"And you guys aren’t worried that I might be one of them— the Dark Crusaders?"
"If we had been worried about that, we wouldn’t have brought you here to our hideout in the first place," Ginah retorted.
"I’m just asking a question." I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Don’t ask stupid questions. The answer is obvious— you’re here and we’re asking for your help. Obviously we trust you enough to do that, right?"
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Kai quickly interrupted me.
"Anyway," he said, stepping forward to the table and pointing at something marked on the map. "This is where they’ll be meeting at. It’s a warehouse that appears to belong to a large whiskey company, but actually is one of the largest drug storage areas they own. By interrupting this meeting, we can kill two birds with one stone."
"I see." I followed the man’s fingers as he tapped it on the location— I had to tip toe slightly just to see it clearly. "And their leader… that Half Elf—"
"Bahr," Ginah added for me.
"Yes, him. Will he be there?" I asked.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "He won’t be. At least, we don’t think so. He’s the one
