For a single second, Belladonna felt like she was being dragged through her air. It felt like there was a fishing hook speared through her stomach, and the fisherman was eagerly reeling her up to the surface, while bragging to his friends how good of a catch she was.

When she broke the surface of this metaphorical water, was when the blinding light dimmed and she staggered forwards into reality, solid ground once again under her feet. Belladonna heaved and gasped, as the air had been ripped from her lungs and it seemed like her lunch was eager to follow it.

She didn’t appreciate the fact that she had indeed teleported, or that she was standing in some kind of elegant gazebo that seemed to be grown from scratch rather than carved out of the wood, and even had naturally changing colours in the wood.

Instead she was more concerned with puking. How dreadfully selfish of her. A bucket somehow found its way into her hands, and she didn’t have time to question it before she found herself hunched over and filling it up.

After a few minutes of weight loss, Belladonna placed down the bucket, which was mostly filled with blood, and turned to the woman beside her. It was a woman with platinum blonde hair and perfect skin, that seemed to literally glow with a soft light.

The woman gave Belladonna an apologetic look and a sigh,

"She forgot to tell you to hold your breath, didn’t she?"

"Waited... Until... the last minute," Belladonna said between heaving pants, before wiping the excess blood bile from her lips. The woman shook her head, picking up the bucket and walking to the gazebo’s railing and tossing the contents over the edge.

She moved Belladonna slightly out of the way, before another flash came from the middle of the gazebo and another individual staggered out of the portal of light. The glowing woman had a bored look on her face as she looked over Belladonna, not even glancing at the newcomer as she held out the bucket to them, which they eagerly took despite it previously being used.

"Never, and I mean never, trust a cow-kin. Some of them have brains that are utterly starved of nutrition, complete and utter scatterbrains, but that’s what happens when everything goes to your chest."

The woman said with a shake of her head, holding her hands up to her own chest and making a squeezing motion. Although from a quick look, it was easy to tell this came from a place of envy than anything else.

Belladonna gave her a weak thumbs up, casually glancing at the other individual who had teleported in behind her, before exiting out of the gazebo.

It took her a few minutes to get her bearings properly, and for her stomach to stop doing somersaults even though it was completely empty and had nothing more to give. A quick check of her messages informed her that the group were planning to meet up in some hole in the wall Inn, rather than the larger one they usually used.

Following Revenant’s directions wasn’t the easiest, because they were terrible. Instead of using proper waypoints or markers, he used things like ’when you see the blue sign hanging from the building across the street, turn right’ and of course, there was more than one blue sign.

In fact Belladonna felt like she saw more blue signs in that one trip than she did in her entire life. But eventually she found the right place and headed inside, to find only Revenant waiting inside.

That was true for their group meeting, and the establishment in general. Hole in the wall was right, as it was a small ’inn’ that only had three tables and a kitchen, and it was hidden in a maze of alleyways.

Revenant was literally the only person inside, bar for the one grumpy looking pig-man that was working in the kitchen.

"What took you so long?" Revenant spat at her the moment she walked through the door, prompting Belladonna to roll her eyes.

"First off, I had to teleport here, which was expensive as hell. Secondly, you’re piss poor sense of direction. I mean what even were those instructions? ’If you’ve reached the horse with the white stripes, you’ve gone too far.’

What does that even mean? How is anyone supposed to follow that?" She scoffed, strolling past him and into the kitchen.

"Yeah well, you got here didn’t you?"

"Barely, but I bet that the others will still be a while, so I have a promise to fulfil." Belladonna replied, before tapping the pig-man on the shoulder.

He glanced at her, seemingly not too bothered that she was intruding into his kitchen. He seemed even less bothered when she asked to make use of the kitchen, and muttered something about going for a drink before sauntering out. Clearly, he was not too worried about missing out on the business whilst he was gone.

Belladonna blinked softly, shooing away the awkwardness, before she started to get to work prepping what she was cooking. She reviewed the spices that the pig-man had on hand, which was mostly just stone that was like a giant salt lick, that you could break off and crumble with your bare hands.

"So why did you even make us meet here anyways? What was wrong with using the group chat?" Belladonna idly asked, as she pulled some well preserved meat from her Bottomless Bag. Even if it was days ago that she got it, it was still completely fresh.

"Are you stupid?" Revenant spat back with a scoff, leaning back in his chair, "Those messages are all tracked and monitored. Even if I was to message you from in here, anything that goes to a real device is compromised.

This is the only place that we can talk without the corpo’s looming over us and listening. Even people in Dawd are listening in to everything that we do, but this place has the right defences for that. it might not seem like it, but this place has been used for a lot of shady business throughout the years."

"Oh, no. I believe you." She said with a grimace, looking over the generally drab and miserable decor, "This place just screams criminal den. Or maybe just a place that does surprisingly good burgers. Oh hey look, Burger buns!"