"Morning Phil."

"Morning Pete."

"Pull an all-nighter again last night?"

"Does dragon shit ruin rooftops?"

A fitting comparison, as Phil felt as if someone had taken a gigantic steaming pile all over his life. It had been less than a week since his boss gave him this assignment, but it was starting to feel like it had been centuries. Finding a new gray hair was starting to become a daily ritual, typically followed by a steady intake of caffeine until he finally made it home.

Passing his employee ID card over the scanner, the elevator rang an electronic bell that still happened to be twenty times more cheerful than Phil felt right now. He glared at the elevator as the lights indicated its descent through the building. Taking a swig of coffee number two of the day, he cursed the lift for taking so long, prolonging his day even further.

As the doors finally opened, Phil took a weary step inside, and hit the button for the 14th floor. As the steel panels started to close in on each other, a voice came screaming down the hallway.

"Wait, wait, wait! Don't close it yet!"

The voice belonged to none other than Penny, another specialist from the company, and she was cutting things just under the wire as usual. After contemplating it for a moment, Phil decided that the repercussions were not worth it just to have a few moments of silence, so he held the door open for her.

"Thanks Phil, I was worried I was going to have to wait for god knows how long."

Three minutes, give or take a minute depending on how many stops the elevator made in between. God knows how long indeed.

"Fourteenth floor huh? So you're going to take things out on the field today?"

"Hopefully, as long as the boss man approved my research from last night."

"You just sent in the research last night? Haven't you been on this one for a week?"

Penny was one of the specialists who was just naturally great at the research portion of the job, and she never let Phil forget that. If Phil was a lesser man, he would have reminded her that she may get the research done before him, but she has more failures in the field than any other specialist.

"It was a little more complicated than usual, when I looked back in the legends, there were mentions of silver blades snapping in two when they made contact with it."

"A Lycan who can't be hurt by silver, well that's intriguing. What did you end submitting to the boss?"

One of the benefits of talking to someone that you know is smarter than you is that you can be confident they will never steal your ideas, they'll just come up with better ones. As such, Phil had no qualms about telling her all of the details.

"I found the coroner's report that mentioned a few scars besides the wounds that killed it. So evidently the silver does still hurt it. It's getting through the incredibly tough skin that's the issue."

"Reinforced silver then?"

"Yup, with tungsten. Ever since that dagger of mine actually pierced that Elder Dragon's Scales I've been pretty obsessed with the stuff."

"You know, if you let the scientists play around with some magnesium it would probably be even better."

The elevator rang once more as it reached the fourteenth floor, freeing Phil from this conversation at last. Without turning to face her, he waved goodbye at Penny as he stepped out of the elevator.

"You know me Penny, when have I ever liked working with the scientists? See you later."

"Let me know how it goes alright?"

If it goes well, Phil will most definitely be telling her how things went, and likely be rubbing a tungsten-silver sword in her face. For the moment though, he had to go and find out the results of his proposal. The first office outside of the elevator is the Director of Specialist Distribution, and he was the only one that the boss relayed information to. Made things pretty tedious at times, but Phil was just glad that he didn't have to deal with any bigwigs in his line of work.

Knock knock.

"Who's there?"

"Phil."

"Phil who?"

Phil opened the door and stepped into Patrick's office, and Patrick looked far too proud of himself.

"Phil thinks that this isn't the day to be a wiseguy, not after the week he's had."

That shook Patrick enough to wipe the grin off his face, but he quickly tugged at his suit and fiddled with his tie in an effort to compose himself. He laid his hands on his desk in a very business-like manner, and leaned in closer to Phil.

"It must have been quite the week, I hear you've been assigned a very special Lycan. The boss must be getting some faith in you."

That's almost word for word what Phil thought when he was first given this assignment, and even though he hates it now, it is still an amazing opportunity. If he can manage to kill this thing, then he'll be getting assignments that people like Penny could only dream of. Perhaps even better, he would gain the authority to force people like Penny to do the research for him.

"You would know better than I would, considering he only talks to you. Speaking of that, did he send you anything for me?"

"I made a careful note to look for your name through all of the letters today Phil, I'm afraid to say that I could not find any with your name."

More research it looks like, Phil was starting to wonder if he was even going to come out of this with any sanity left.

"No letters that is, but packages on the other hand…"

Patrick reached beneath his desk, and pulled out a long leather case, heavy enough that it seemed like it was giving the desk clerk some trouble as he tried to lift it. He laid it on the table as Phil stood there speechless, he was hoping that he would have gotten approved, but he never imagined things would be ready so quickly.

"Come on now, I'm not allowed to open someone else's mail you know." Beamed Patrick.

Phil unfastened the buckles on the front of the case, and began to actually feel butterflies in his stomach as he lifted up the lid. On the inside of the lid was a timeslot and a list of company rules that Phil had read a hundred times before. The bottom of the case was filled with a dense foam, with cutouts to hold all of its contents. Around the outer edges of the foam was the outfit that he had submitted, a large black cloak with an oversized hood, a black doublet and leather pants, the best that he could put together from the description he was given.

In the centre of the case was a beautiful, polished silver sword, and when Phil picked it up he could immediately feel the added tungsten. The sword was a hell of a lot heavier than normal, and yet it was balanced perfectly. Examining the sword more closely, he noticed that the pommel was in the shape of a wolf's head. Evidently the engineering department had a little fun of their own.

"It's not often that the boss permits the use of time travel for anything outside of field work, even I am at a loss as to why he wanted you to have these right away, but here you are."

"I'm not even going to question it, this is wonderful."

Phil had a feeling that he would never be picking up that third cup of coffee today, this news had given him enough energy to last an entire month. Especially with this new, perfect sword in his hands.

"Have you checked your timeslot yet? It's just in a few hours."

"Really? That soon? Did someone call in sick or something?"

"No, we're just waiting on several other specialists to finish their research, so we only have a few that we can send back today anyways. Would you like to go over what you'll be walking into?"

"If I'm remembering correctly, I don't have a choice."

Company policy dictates that every specialist has to review exactly what the known situation is before they are sent back in time for any excursion. It's very important that they be reminded of what time period they are headed to, and how far they have to travel in order to reach their target.

"Yes I suppose that's true, so let's begin. You are headed back to the year 1786, on the outskirts of a small town in the British Isles. You will be transported to a forest clearing where we are confident there will be no one else around. As always, if someone does witness you landing in that time period, you are required by company law to dispose of them without drawing any suspicion."

That was something that Phil had to do on more than one occasion, and it never felt good when you had to. Nothing stops you from sleeping at night like having to kill a housewife and make it look like a mugging.

"After you have ensured that no one saw you, you will run Northwest for approximately 20 minutes. When you reach the target location, you are to wait until the target begins attacking a man by the name of James Hamilton. It is Mr. Hamilton's account that tells us he was saved by a man in a black cloak and leather pants, wielding a large sword, all of which have been provided to you. You are to then flee the scene, and transport back to our time when you have ensured that no one is around you, any questions?"

"Yeah, do I get to keep the sword?"