"Please. Stop it," the usually quiet Hannah suddenly cried out, but Shane didn't seem to care. He finally had an iron bar and he made no secret of the fact that I was nothing but useless rubbish to him. I'm sure he wanted to finish me off with one blow. I'm sure he even aimed for my head. But to my surprise he stopped mid-swing. Out of nowhere, a knife had lodged itself deep in the back of his hand, causing him to drop the iron bar.

"Can I finish him off, Sis?"
"No. Let me have the pleasure."
"Are you sure, Sis? After what we can see here, shooting him would be far too merciful. This fool is torturing our two new girls."

To underline the gravity of the situation, a shot rang out. It sounded like a shotgun blast. I wasn't an expert, but I'd heard similar sounds in computer games. One of the grunts guarding the entrance had been shot and his body thrown across the room. The other was also flung into the room in a high arc, but managed to get up quickly. Two blonde women, probably in their mid-twenties, suddenly emerged from the shadows - one clearly holding a sawed-off shotgun, the other licking a knife blade with her tongue. It took me a few moments to realise, in my current state, what the two of them had said earlier, namely "our two new girls". Apparently this farce had gone on for so long that Sara had got worried and called for help. Under normal circumstances, I would have realised immediately that these two were not classic adventurers. You could tell just by looking at their wickedly expensive clothes, which I'm pretty sure were made by Kirsty.

"Did they really send Jacky and Hayden after us?" one of the grunts stammered.
"Wait! Shane, didn't you say they were travelling with Angus?" another of the grunts asked in a panic.
"Yes. They left town yesterday morning. My sources within the City Watch didn't tell me they'd already returned," Shane grumbled as he tried to pull the knife out of his hand and barked orders to his men, "Get them. We need to find out how they got in quickly.”
And he added in a calmer tone, “And I still have to finish breaking my new favourite doll."
Cool - I've moved up. From useless rubbish to his favourite doll. Well done Em.

"Are you seriously going to bore us with these amateur punks?" one of the women asked, while the other said, "Can you do the jumping jacks alone, sis?"
"All 11 of them? Easy. I got plenty of knives with me. But Shane-Darlin’. Do you really want us to cause a bloodbath here?"
"You're nothing more than a couple of crazy chicks from one of the poor Eastern City States," Shane laughed, "Don't forget we still have the advantage in numbers."

I had no idea what was going on, but Shane didn't realise that his previously loyal minions suddenly refused to obey.
"Forget it. We're not stupid enough to take on those two psychos. You obviously don't pay us enough to mess with them," one of the men said as another suddenly screamed in pain.
"Let go of the girls. Otherwise I'll try to shoot you between the eyes instead of aiming for your thighs. And since you seem to know our names, I'm sure you know I hardly ever miss," the woman with the knives said.
"You're really lucky that Hayden wanted to play with you," said the woman with the shotgun, who must be Jacky, "I'm afraid I can't control where my bullets land. I might shoot you in the thigh and accidentally pierce your balls. That might not be very healthy for you. But maybe it will be good for civilisation if you idiots don't get to breed any more."
"You said you were going to take care of our friend Shane," Hayden grinned, "Let me have my fun with the knuckleheads."

Hayden didn't seem to have had enough of this theatre as she suddenly said in a very sweet voice, "Guys - would you do me a favour and put our little girl down carefully? I just want you to know that I give you a lot of credit for not dropping her and running away. But I'm afraid if she makes the slightest moan of pain when you put her down, I'll have to kill you. And that's not a threat... that's a promise. You have clearly crossed the line today."
While I slowly but surely got the impression that the two of them were playing for time, Shane watched the whole show with a hateful look on his face. His men actually tried to lay me down as carefully as possible, but it was almost impossible for them not to hurt me. The twins seemed to know this too, for they made no effort to carry out their threat.

"What's the matter, Shane? Aren't you going to show me your true strength?" Jacky groaned, "You should have warmed up by now. If you want, you can add more ether to your fists." She hadn't even finished her sentence when the first shot went off from her shotgun.
"Oops, just missed," she giggled, "Next time I promise I'll even aim. Afraid of taking on someone who can fight back in the end?"
There was the explanation for why his blows suddenly hit harder than before. 

It seemed like a game to Jacky and Hayden, and they clearly benefited from the fact that the grunts were scared. But I also got the feeling that the grunts were smart enough to know that they were no match for them, even with their superior numbers. While Jacky had her fun with Shane, Hayden kept the other eleven men at bay with her words alone, "I see. You're not that stupid. You know it's better for you to stay out of our way for now. We're only interested in Shane right now."
Hannah took the opportunity to break free, quickly closing the distance to me and placing herself between me and Shane for protection. For someone who was even less of a fighter than I was, spending most of her time hiding behind her books and research, it was a truly brave move. 

Even the cocky Shane must have realised by now that the tide had turned and that he could expect no help from his own men. Although they gave the impression that they would not turn on him, it was also clear that they would no longer take an active part in a possible fight. They were cowards. But what I really struggled to understand in this situation was why the eleven grunts didn't just run away. Perhaps I was missing something. Or maybe they were just as scared of Shane as they were of the two crazy twin sisters.

"I told you the cavalry was coming," Hannah said, on the verge of tears.
"I couldn't hear it anymore. I was far too far away for that," I replied quietly, feeling the tension and my strength drain away, "But it wouldn't have made much difference to me. He would have beaten me until you agreed... and then he would have tried to get rid of me. I made some vague plans to open a small shop with what I'd saved. I didn't want to be killed just because I wanted to belong to a group that accepted me as I was, not as a burden.” At that moment, I burst into tears for good.

"Then we'll just patch you up and look for a suitable place for your shop," a male voice suddenly said behind us, "Kirsty. Look after the two girls." 
"Aye, Pops," came Kirsty's lively voice. As soon as she recognised Angus, Hannah relaxed a little bit and joined me on the floor, lifting my head onto her lap. "Drink this," Kirsty winked at us both, "And Em. You really need to keep this with you now. It tastes like shit, but it will help.” As my shirt was soaked in blood, Kirsty undid some of the buttons and mumbled, “And looking at your stomach, I'm sure that’s going to be hard for you right now."
As soon as I drank the medicine, everything around me started to blur slightly - but at least I didn't collapse this time and was able to follow what was happening.

"What are you doing here?" Hannah asked and Kirsty replied worriedly, "Abby and Sara have their hands full locking up Cáit so she doesn't blow this place up. And my old man thought I could make myself useful to the Guild on the spur of the moment."
When the grunts realised that Angus was there too, blocking their only escape route, they panicked again and one of them shouted in frustration, "As if Jacky and Hayden weren't enough.”
Shane gave his goons a disdainful look, but it was hard not to notice that the arrogance he had shown earlier was slowly disappearing. Even he realised that he was in real trouble now. "He's up to something," Kirsty muttered, "He's not going to just give in. He's broken too many official guild rules for that."
And Kirsty was right. No one seemed to notice that Shane had the iron bar in his hand again. "You don't think I'm going to lose everything I've built up over the last few years because some little brat refuses to join our glorious guild?" 
Jacky and Hayden were getting ready to intervene and I could see that even Kirsty was pulling a small knife out of her sleeve.

"Angus and the Collins twins are the least of your problems right now, Shane," a very angry voice was suddenly heard from the entrance, "When I'm through with you, you'll wish those three had gotten their hands on you. Get Shane and his men."
I had no idea who the voice belonged to, but Shane suddenly stopped moving. The whole room was immediately stormed by high-ranking adventurers who arrested Shane and his men and took them away. They knew it was over, so they didn’t even try to escape. 

"Don't be a spoilsport, Jeffrey. We don’t care about the thugs, but won’t you let us play with our sweet little Shanie for a while?" Jacky asked, a little disappointed, "At least until we've paid him back for everything he's done to our little girl here... He deserves our special loving treatment."
"Even though it would make my life a lot easier to grant you some self-justice, I'm afraid we'll have to deal with this internally," Jeffrey refused, "There's been enough bloodshed today and one dead body is definitely enough."
"What dead body?" Hayden grinned, "If you mean that guy over there, we just knocked him out and put on a little show. That guy was really weak. The other one at least didn't collapse right away."
Jacky added, "Angus was very clear with his orders this time. Kill only if there is no other way. Although - without the heroic efforts of the little robot, we might have had to consider causing a bloodbath. The robot attracted enough attention and bought us the time we needed to hide in the dark. It was a really close call."
"Although I'm still impressed that none of those clowns thought anything of the fact that our little researcher made no serious attempt to help her friend," Hayden chuckled, "I can't imagine how much strength it takes to stay focused while your comrade gets the beating of her life. You did well, girl. We left as soon as your decoy showed up at the guild."
"I couldn't have done anything against several people anyway," Hannah apologised, stroking my hair gently. All I could say in response was "I know."

"Wait! What little robot? There shouldn't be anything lying around that still works,” Jeffrey suddenly asked in surprise.
Jacky pointed to the small pile of junk lying in the middle of the room and Jeffrey gave her an irritated look.
"I have no idea how to deactivate this ability anyway," I muttered, trying to concentrate for a moment. Hannah and Kirsty watched in fascination as I imitated walking with my fingers and the little robot suddenly started to move again.
"Apparently I just ran out of juice earlier," I mumbled weakly.
"Can you activate it with the word ‘start’?" Hannah asked me, "Then just try deactivating it with ‘stop’."
"That was definitely too obvious," I muttered in annoyance as I moved the damaged robot closer to me before saying "Stop Puppeteer". Suddenly I could see the bright shiny points again.

"Impressive," said Jeffrey, who had come closer by now. As expected, the leader of the Adventurers' Guild was an older man. He had medium-length grey hair, but the two most striking features were his right hand, which was clearly made of steel, and the long scar under his right eye. He gave me and Hannah a sad look, "If everything I have heard about you in the last few minutes is true, I can understand why they tried to persuade you to join our guild."
"Which is perfectly fine in itself," Angus added in our direction before letting Jeffrey continue, "But the way it all went down should never have happened. If someone chooses not to join our guild, that is their own choice, and that must be accepted. In your particular case, the seats for the Treasure Hunters had already been requested, and joining should have been a formality. On behalf of the Adventurers' Guild, I would like to formally apologise to you and promise that we will do everything in our power to find out how this could have happened. We will also cover the costs of your recovery and will compensate you both accordingly".
"I'll be fine," I muttered quietly, "I'd rather try to find out how many other women this creep has killed or sold to the brothels so far.”
"That's at the top of our list," Jeffrey nodded, "And I've already arranged for the lady at reception to complete your registrations. Someone just needs to add your names and dates of birth and then you should be official treasure hunters."
"Do you feel well enough to scribble this information on a piece of paper?" Kirsty asked and I shrugged, "My thigh and stomach hurt like hell. But I should just be able to write."

Suddenly I was being picked up by Angus - again. "Must be getting on your nerves, having to carry me around all the time."
The giant just grumbled, "I don't care. You don't weigh anything anyway. Until a doctor has examined you, we should be a little more careful." But then he added seriously, "It will take a while for you to fully recover. And if you have broken bones, we can't heal them completely with ether and potions. But the potion Kirsty gave you should ease the pain and treat the most serious injuries."
"Let's go," one of the twins said suddenly, "Sis and I are still officially banned from the house after what happened five years ago. Even if it was an exceptional situation today, we don't want any of the adventurers to piss their pants because of our presence."
"Don't worry," Jeffrey said, "I'll see you to the exit myself."

Meanwhile, Kirsty had collected Hannah's book and my jacket - but before we left the room, I had to ask the stupidest thing I could think of, "Can I take the little robot with me?"
"Whatever. It's just rubbish anyway? Basically, you can have anything in this room. We'll get rid of it sooner or later," Jeffrey replied and I smiled shyly, "The little one will do for now. He's like me - small and useless.

On the way out, our group naturally stood out. Some looked down in shock, others looked at us in disbelief - and although the presence of Jacky and Hayden in particular caused some angry glances, no one dared say a word. Word must have gotten around about what had happened. 
The receptionist was already waiting for us at the entrance with the forms. "I'm sorry," she said, "I was just following my instructions. I didn't know it would escalate like this. I informed the Guild Master as soon as I could."
"We know," I said wearily, finally able to do what I had come here to do in the first place - become a treasure hunter.