~Holy crap that was a good sandwich.~ I rubbed my stomach as we walked to our third destination. Which, was actually on the same street. . . So it wasn't long before we approached what looked to be a forge. For one, there was no door, a walk-in store. It had thick oak wood beams supporting the entrance and a business sign above wrote: Hargoth Iron & Steel.

"Okay." Sawyer stopped us in front of the forge. "Before we go inside, I have to warn you. Smith, the owner and head smithy here, can be a bit intimidating at first." He looked at our blank expressions. "Just warning you." He turned and entered the forge.

Today was a pretty warm day. About 80-ish degrees Fahrenheit. But WOW, it was a cool 60 degrees inside the entrance to the forge. Walking in a forge, I had expected it to be blazing hot from the furnaces. Looking around I couldn't see any griffins, or anyone. The room we were in actually looked almost as if we had stepped into a forge from the medieval times. The floor was cut stone and there were banners with hammers on them. Even the doors inside were arched and had metal rings as door handles. Although, the strangest thing, was that the doors were all at least ten feet tall. Having my notepad out already, I wrote down a question.

+Is Smith a giant or something?+

"Well, comparing him to other griffins, Smith is. . . above average." Sawyer doubtfully said.

+And how tall is average for griffins?+

"Mmm, 6 foot 10 inches, on all fours I believe." He opened the door.

6 feet is the average? Then that means that Trist is actually below average. I glanced at Trist, who glanced back at me with a look. Wait! Then how tall is Smith?! My thoughts were interrupted as a gust of steaming hot air flew through the door. I leaned back as moisture covered my face from the rapid change in temperature. I wiped the moisture off of my face using my shirt. I looked to see Trist swiping condensed water off her beak and Sawyer clearing his goggles then place them back on his head.

"Well that was sudden." Trist looked at Sawyer.

"Sorry, I forgot about that as well." Sawyer shrugged. "Seems like Smith is still here though." Sawyer pointed into the room.

The next room had the same style as the 'lobby', except that it was obviously hotter in here and that there were tools lying everywhere.The room was three times as big as the lobby and had furnaces spread out from each other like work stations. It seemed like the only one lit right now was in the back of the room. "Wow Sawyer, " Trist said. "This makes your place look spotless." I smiled and nodded.

"I'm going to ignore that." Sawyer opened his wings and flew over the tools. Trist did the same.

~Hey! What about me!~. I signed. but they didn't see me so I picked up a clamp and hit it on the wall next to me. Not enough to damage it, but enough to make a sound. Sawyer and Trist turned to see me and realized that I can't fly.

"Oh right." Sawyer slowly said. "Well sorry, I don't fly often. I can barely hold myself up from long." He showed this my losing attitude for a second before flapping his wings faster.

"And I'm too small to carry you." Trist excused herself. "You're agile Phantom, I'm sure you can get through without cutting yourself on any stray weapons." My eyes shoot open and looked a bit further to indeed see a few swords mixed into the tools. "Well, good luck." She said before flying around a furnace and out of sight. I looked to Sawyer pleadingly.

"Sorry, may the Maker not take a leg from you today." Sawyer saluted, then flew around the furnace after Trist. I stood there for a second before wiping sweat from my forehead and sighing. Damn. Freaking griffins. I looked for a spot to take a first step. I'm too weak. I'm unfit. I mocked them in my head as I found a safe path and began my journey to the back of this sauna.

As I made my way through the tool-littered room I passed by four or five furnaces and many piles of coal. Wow this place is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I wiped some sweat from my forehead again and saw the single furnace still on. I got closer to see Trist sitting on a wooden stool with a glass of water. Trist turned her head and noticed me.

"Hey, Phantom." She enthusiastically waved.

~Yeah,~ I signed. This area was different than the others. Everything was larger than the other stations.~Where is Sawyer?.~

"He went off with Smith." She took a sip of water. "But man, Phantom, Sawyer wasn't kidding about Smith. He's biggest griffin I've ever seen!"

~Really?~ I walked up to here and stood beside her. ~How tall did he look?~ Trist paused in thought before lifting a wing to about 7 feet 3 inches from the ground.

"About this tall?"

~I guess that's tall. I was expecting him to be even taller from how Sawyer acted.~ I would instantly retract my statement a moment later as I heard a heavy set of footsteps approaching from a corridor to my right. I turned just in time to see a mammoth of a griffin making his way towards us. My mouth hung open til the moment the griffin looked down at me, and me up to it. He used one of his enormous wings to push my lower jaw back up.

"Should keep mouth closed." He smiled with is scarred face. I saw multiple crossing scars on his beak, and more going down his neck until a smithy's mock that covered his tree trunk-sized chest. "It is not good your your jaw." I stood there, stunned and in awe of this black feathered hulk before turning and signing to Trist.

~He isn't freaking 7 feet! He looks almost 8 feet tall!~ Trist just grinned at me being startled.

"Yeah, I know." she sipped more of her drink. "I just wanted to see your face when you saw him."

"Also, he is actually 8 feet 6 tall." Sawyer appeared from behind Smith. "And to be fair, Trist had almost the same reaction." Trist shushed Sawyer.

"Shut up!" She turned away and continued to sip. Sawyer smiled then turned towards me.

"Phantom, if you didn't know already, this is Smith Hargoth, owner of Hargoth Iron and Steel, and mind behind the Bessimer Process."

~The, Bessimer Process?~

"Yes, the ingenious, inexpensive method of making steel from pig iron." Sawyer slid into an informational speech.

"With help from Hanna Bessimer," Smith thankfully interrupted, "she did most of the thinking."

"Yes. . . Hanna." Sawyer said in a sadder tone. Smith walked to Sawyer. "I'm alright Smith." Sawyer faced me again. "Back to the matter at hand. Smith works as a smithy, but he also was a brewmaster back in the Griffon Military."

"Gemology and Potion-Making." Smith pointed out.

"So, the reason I mentioned the Bessimer Process is because it is the reason Smith joined the Back Street. After Hanna and Smith released the Bessimer Process, the Guild of Steam (GoS) took up the rights to the process. The Guild of Steam is backed by numerous wealthy aristocrats and has the influence and money to do this. The Guild of Steam was created after the rise of steam-power in the Griffon Kingdom. Once they established their power, they began to monopolize new inventions and take away brilliant minds." Sawyer explained the Guild. "Thus Smith took up making potion making and selling rare minerals."

"I can provide weapons, armor, and potions for you." Smith informed me. I took up my note pad.

+Thanks, but why would I need potions?+

"Potions come in different varieties. Can be used for many situations based on the mixture and type of potions."

"Using potions will give you an edge Phantom. The Griffon Kingdom has almost no magic users. In the past there used to be griffin shamans who could use limited magic. But were more like zebra priests than unicorns." Sawyer explained from his apparently limitless mind.

"You provide assistance, I provide you potions." Smith stated and turned his head to Saywer. "I need to continue working. You should go to meet Joker next Doctor."

"Right. You in the middle of a project?" Sawyer pointed to the worktable. I noticed that the table had a large piece of paper laid out on it with a sketch of a human with arrows pointing from pieces of armor to parts of the human's body. Smith nodded.

"Favor for Joker."

"Ah, so it's priority #1 huh?" Smith nods lightly. "Ok, them. Trist we are leaving." Trist spun around.

"Good, I just ran out of water." Trist leaped off her stool and placed her empty glass on a table. Saywer and Trist then went a head and flew towards the door.

Oi! I dashed forward to follow. Wait for- I was stopped however by a giant claw grabbing me by the shoulder. What the? I turned to see the claw connected to Smith.

"Normal, or tinted?" He held up two slabs of metal in his other claw. One looked like a normal shiny piece of metal, while the other was tinted black but still held its shiny features. I looked back and forth from Smith to the two pieces of metal. "Which you like more?" I pointed at the tinted piece and Smith let go of me. I watched as he walked over to the worktable and began scribbling something on the paper.

What was that all about? I was curious to see what he was working on.

"Phantom! Hurry up!" Trist called from the other end of the room. I took one last glance at Smith before turning and making my way to Trist and Sawyer.

"What took you so long?" Trist looked to me. I had just made it into the lobby of Smith's forge and found Sawyer and Trist sitting patiently in the cold room.

~Smith apparently wanted to know my tastes on different types of metal.~ I signed.

"Either way, we must be going." Sawyer pushed himself off of the wall and waited by the entrance. "The bar isn't too far, and it shouldn't be pack today, but I would want to not be surrounded by a bunch of drunk griffins."

"Why would a bar be so busy during the afternoon?" Trist asked getting up and walking to the entrance. I followed right behind her.

"You'd be surprised how much griffins drink." Sawyer pointed out. walking outside. "Also, Joker's Bar is quite. . . original."

"How so?"

\\

"Oh, this is what you meant." Trist stated open eyed. We had moments ago approached a bar and seen a drunk pair of ponies wobble out. Sawyer had sighed. The bar was named 'The Eiien'. The dark spruce building held a different atmosphere than the surrounding stone brick buildings. Looking closely I noticed that the double doors leading inside were engraved to the utmost detail.

We opened the doors to find one, or actually it was more like six or seven, more surprises. I looked at the multiple bar maids wearing full on french maid outfits with extra short skirts and each wore different colored knee-socks. I couldn't help but turn my head and blush. While doing so I caught Sawyer blushing as well. Trist stared a bit at one of the maids before looking at us with a look of disappointment. "Ppfff boys." Although I swore I saw a hit of red on her face.

After a while of standing near the front door, we heard a commotion over at a large booth in the corner of the bar.

A well mustached griffin wearing a white suit and surrounded by three other female griffins had begun yelling at a bar girl for spilling his drink on his white suit.. "You got my suit dirty you bitch!" I was able to see the spill from where we were and it barely got a stain on his sleeve.

"I'm truely sorry sir." The girl apologized with a hushed tone and kneeled down to clean the mess with a towel. The suited griffin grabbed the girls arm roughly.

"You better. This suit costed me a fortune. You'll have to play for its cleaning." He looked at her skirt and moved his other arm towards her skirt. "With everything you have." He said full of lust. A second claw grabbed his arm, stopping it in its place. I looked at the owner of the claw to see a well groomed, black feathered griffin wearing a black button-downed shirt and a bold red tie.

"Excuse me dear customer," He moved the suited griffin's arm. From the look of it, he was being easily overpowered by the new griffin. The griffin let go of his arm. "Allow me to give this free drink as an, apology."

"Hrm," The suited griffin huffed, "It'll take more than just a single free drink to-" He was interrupted by a drink being poured onto his head and all over his white suit. "Wha?" The other griffin grabbed his now stained suit.

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry." He said in a sarcastic tone. He began dragging him towards the us. taking a closer look at the black feathered griffin I saw that his right eye was glazed in a white mist.

"Hey! You- you can do this to me!" The griffin panicked while he was dragged closer and closer to the entrance. "I- I demand to speak with your boss!" We moved out of the way as they reached us.

"Sure," The black feathered griffin reached the door and pulled the suited griffin in front of him so they were eye to eye. "Hi." He pushed the suited griffin out the door and smacked his claws together as the three griffins that sat with the suited griffin ran out the doors. Everyone in the bar was silently staring at the black feathered griffin for a moment before going back to what they were doing before. He turned to us with a smile as if nothing had happened. "Ah, Sawyer! Nice to see you." They each other's shook claws. "You got to get out more. I haven't seen ya in a week!"

"Nice to see you to Joker." Sawyer turned to us. "Trist, this is Joker, owner of The Eiien."

He looked at Trist and me. "Good to meet you." He shook Trist's hand. "Let's go upstairs and talk." He walked and motioned for us to follow him to a door in the back of the bar. He stopped and spoke to another bartender. "I'll be back in a moment."

We continued through the door. The door lead to a stairwell. The stairwell had two paintings hanging on the wall. As we walked by I glanced at them. The first was a picture of a starry night painted with what looked like individual lines. The second was a group portrait of four figures; two male griffins, a female griffin, and a red unicorn stallion. One looked like Joker, except that he was younger and wearing a black suit with a red tie tucked-in. His eye was also normal and not misty white. I looked at the next most interesting one in the picture, the unicorn stallion.

The stallion had an unsettling red coat with a jet black mane barely reached his eyes. His ice blue eyes completely contrasted against his red coat. He looked almost the same age as Joker in the picture.

We continued up a set of stairs and walked into a large room. It had a desk and chair as well as a coffee table with two long couches and a recliner. There was a small bar on one wall and four other doors leading to other rooms.

"Ahh, finally." Joker pulled on his tie, loosening it and unbuttoned the top-most button on his shirt. "Man is taking care of jerks stressful." He walked over to the bar. "Drink anyone?"

Trist shook her head, she was too young anyway. "I'll have a cocktail." Sawyer said.

"Any preferences?"

"No, just not anything too strong."

"Righto!" Joker ducked down beneath the bar. "Ah, almost forgot. Phantom, sorry it looked like I ignored you. Gotta keep your sapience a secret." He apologized. "Even though almost everyone in the Back Street already knows, but that's different." He placed three bottles on the counter and picked up a shaker.

"You know mixology?" Trist asked shocked. Joker raised an eyebrow while pouring different measurements into the shaker.

"Yeah," Joker closed the shaker and began to mix it. "I had learned mixology as a hobby while I was in the Griphonian Mafia."

"Woah, woah, woah. You were a member of the infamous Griphonian Mafia?!" Sawyer spewed out in surprise. "This is the first I've heard of this."

"I didn't tell you about my past?"

"No. You didn't."

"Oh," Joker paused mid-shake, "well then I guess now is a good time to tell all three of you huh?" He continued to shake the shaker. I took this moment to walk around the room and take a closer look at Joker's decoration.

He had an assortment of things hanging on his walls. "When I say I was in the Mafia, I was only a member for a year or two. I didn't hold a high position, but I did have friends higher in the ranks." Joker began explaining. I looked at a painting. It didn't look fancy or anything, just a painting of a hillside, a forest to the left, and a mountain that looked like it had a small cave at the peak. "I mostly just liked being a part of the gang fights; the adrenaline, the bruises and cuts." I moved away from the painting and looked at the next wall decoration; a pair of crossed silver rapiers. "I had the dark blue suit and fedora get-up and everything!" I heard Trist snicker. I couldn't help but smirk. "Hey! You laugh, but it was the fashion at the time. Anyway, I had a group of four I usually went out with. We were made up of two male griffins, a female griffin, and one unicorn stallion." I looked at the crossed swords' intricate hand guards before moving on. Next I found myself in front of a door. Opening it, I looked into what seemed to be a guest bedroom. Seeing a bed and lamp, but nothing else noteworthy. I closed the door. "I was the second youngest in the group, the youngest being the unicorn. I don't believe we got along if I recall correctly."

"So how did you survive the giant ambush the castle guards set up? Which pretty much got all the mafia high ups." Sawyer asked, curious to know what had happened. I looked to Joker to see that he was pouring the cocktail from the shaker into four glasses.

"Well, it was like you said," Joker picked up the tray the glasses were on and walked over to the coffee table." only the best went and so did the higher ups." He handed a glass to Sawyer and took another for himself. "My small group as well as the lower majority of the entire mafia was left at the hideout. After we got word of the ambush, some tried to become acting leader; but it didn't work out. Infighting occurred and the group split. My group separated when the Kaljo and Natasha, the other male griffin and female griffin, decided to leave and live a regular life."Joker took a sip of his cocktail. "The unicorn was against it, saying we could start a new mafia. I would have joined him," He paused mid-sentence to take another sip. Only to look inside and find that he had finished the glass. " if he hadn't started a human underground fighting pit business first. He loved watching animals fight to the death, clawing and biting each other." He turned to me. "No offence to you Phantom, we know you're more than that." I waved back. "I declined his offer and decided to start up a bar here."

"What did the stallion do?" Trist asked. Joker placed his empty glass down and reached for another.

"I dunno, I think he went to Equestria and started there. Might've succeeded, might've not." Joker shrugged starting on his second glass. "Back to me though! After I decided to start up a bar, everything was fine. Made some drinks, attended some advanced mixology classes, hired Elise to handle all that business stuff. But then! The monarchy issues new regulations on each business, including bars! Shorter business hours! Higher minimum wage! Health checks! Well actually, that last one was okay. Anyway! I wasn't make'n big profits anymore, so I started the Back Street." Joker tipped his half empty glass towards Trist and Sawyer, then chugged the rest and slammed the glass on the table. "Mmmm, I love some strong rum."

"This is rum?!" Sawyer spoke, who was listening so intently that he hadn't even tasted his drink. He dipped a tongue into his drink and quickly placed his drink on the table. Joker stared half-lidded at Sawyer.

"Hrm." Joker huffed. "Wimp." He said half-drunkenly as he picked up Sawyer's glass. "So, I stared off the Back Street with Geno and Armani. Them being in the same boat as me. Afterwards Smith and then Sawyer over here joined later after a few others joined."

"So you have a Back Street business to?" Trist looked at the remaining glass of rum curiously.

"Yuppers! Using mah old connections, and some newly made ones, I am able together tons of information and sell some to others for a price."

"And you're okay with me and Phantom joining?"

"Sure! We could use a thief tah steal fer us!" Joker leaned forward, almost spilling his glass of rum. "Just don't steal from other Back Street members." He leaned back onto the couch. "Anything you need to get started can be supplied by the Back Street. For the price of a favor of course." Joker paused. "So do ya need anything else?"

"No, I was actually expecting more opposition to us." Trist said tilting her head.

"Mmk," Joker nodded. "I need to sober up so you guys can go when ya want to." Sawyer lifted himself up.

"Thanks Joker, We will just be going." Trist lifted herself using her wings and over to the door leading down to the bar. I followed as Trist descended down the stairs. Sawyer was about to take the first step down but stopped and turned his head to Joker. "Do you remember the name of that red unicorn stallion Joker?"

Joker lifted his drooped head and looked at Sawyer in thought."Uhhh. . ." He scratched his head, ruffling some feathers. "Dark. . . Darkfire? Darkfoot? I don't know. Dark somthin'." Sawyer tipped his head in thanks and walked down the stairs, and met up with Trist and Phantom.

Author's Note

Yes I do realized that I changed into a 3rd person point of view at the end.