Hans found Buru and Petal surrounded by children who were supposed to be helping in the fields. A clear sky gave an unimpeded view of the Dead End Mountains, looming so large that they felt like part of the group, crowding around to see the baby opossum with the children. The game seemed to be for Petal to duck out of sight and stealthily reappear somewhere else on Buru. Every time Petal poked her head out, the kids went wild, and she disappeared again.

That was definitely the behavior of a demon in disguise.

I owe Buru an apology.

“Mr. Hans,” Buru said when he saw the Guild Master. The tusk dipped his head in greeting. Many of the children squealed and ran to Hans asking about playing a round of dodgeball like they did in class sometimes.

After greeting each child individually, and answering their questions as best he could, he asked Buru if they could talk. During the day, the barns were abuzz with the brewery workers, so they walked around a wheat field.

“I didn't give Petal the welcome she deserved last night,” Hans began, “I'm sorry. That was rude.”

“She didn't feel that way,” Buru said.

“All the same, congratulations, Buru. Earning a familiar is a big milestone and not easy to do.”

“Thank you.”

“You know you did it about six months faster than the average, right?”

“Miss Becky is a good teacher.” Buru extended his arm. Petal ran down and sat in Buru’s hand.

Hans held his hand out. Petal sniffed it and wrapped her stringy fingers around one of his, pulling herself up to perch in the Guild Master’s palm.

“The forest asked me to protect you,” he said to Petal. “I promised I would, but she seemed very worried.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hans,” Buru answered, as if on Petal’s behalf. “Her kind aren’t fighters. Petal is lucky to have an ally with your experience.”

The Guild Master leaned his face close to Petal. She touched his nose with one of her weird little paws.

She’s just an opossum, he thought.

Well, that wasn't completely accurate. Bonded animals had a higher ceiling for development than their unbonded relatives, but this wasn't a Shapeshifter in disguise. If it was, it was a damn cute Shapeshifter.

Petal hopped back to Buru, landing against his chest before scurrying to the tusk’s shoulder.

“What did you want to discuss?” Buru asked.

“Just Petal and my apology. That was it.”

“Petal says she did not mean to scare you.”

Though Buru delivered the line in his usual subdued manner, Hans couldn't help but hear a hint of wit in the statement. The good natured ribbing he could take. What concerned him was that Buru didn't engage that way, ever, which meant the friendly jab came from Petal directly. If the opossum kept it up, she would fit in just fine.

Quest Complete: Apologize to Buru for your negative reaction to Petal.

***

When Gomi came into view, Hans spotted merchant wagons pulling to a stop. He hoped he had a batch of new books waiting for him. He missed the collection he left behind in Hoseki and found himself wanting to assemble a library to get him through next winter–a winter he hoped would be much quieter than the last.

He found Olza transferring a stack of crates from a wagon to her shop, one at a time. Hans picked one up and walked alongside her.

“Did you ever read the Misadventure books by Haynu B. Dumas?” Hans asked.

“Can't say I've heard of them.”

“There’s thirty of these books. The stories are told from Haynu’s perspective, and every book is him making an awful mess of every single job he takes. Gret and I read all thirty, but our rule was we could only read them out on a job. Mazo hated them and hated hearing us laughing at every dumb joke. At one point she threatened to quit the party if we ever repeated this one line again.”

“What made you think of them?”

Hans sighed. “I may have overreacted about the opossum, to the point that I think it could be as absurd as a Haynu story.”

Olza laughed. “Yes, maybe a bit. It wasn't too bad, and you got over it on your own. Mostly.”

“Mostly.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“It became more and more obvious that I handled the forest bargain poorly. Well, my reaction to it anyway. I suppose I'm content with the bargain itself.”

“I'll give you that it does seem like a lot of fanfare for an opossum,” Olza said.

“Thank you.”

When they finished transferring Olza's delivery, Hans went looking for his merchant contact, still hoping to find a stack of new books taller than Chisel.

***

“Mr. Hans!” a familiar merchant called. “When you were not here to meet me I assumed you had other business. I delivered your order to the guild hall. I hope that's alright.”

“Were there a lot of books?”

“Your collection is much larger today.”

Hans smiled. “Then thank you for saving me the effort of carrying them back myself.”

The merchant said it was no problem for one of his best customers.

“Any interesting news from the kingdom?”

“The orc war is coming to a close. Thank the gods. Word is the orcs are retreating and the kingdom expects total victory before the end of summer.”

“That is quite the good news,” Hans said.

“Will be good for trade I imagine. You’re my only customer who is ordering more instead of less on account of the uncertainty that comes with war.”

“I’ve heard the war has been particularly hard on tusks,” Hans added.

The merchant nodded. “Aye, it has.”

“Is that getting better too?”

“That’s difficult to say,” the merchant answered. “The King issued a decree that tusks were innocent of any wrongdoing in the war. Those dirty orcs were using some kind of Blood magic, so all of those tusks you heard about defecting were victims, if you believe the decree.”

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“If you believe?”

Shrugging, the merchant said, “Spreading fear is quick. Rooting it out is so very slow. Lots of folks are skeptical of this Blood magic story.”

Hans nodded and thanked the merchant for sparing a moment for gossip. Pivoting the conversation back to business, the Guild Master asked to add more books to his wishlist.

“I’m sure books pertaining to Clerics should be no problem,” the merchant said, writing down the requests in a small journal. “But I haven’t heard about the Haynu books in some time. I am certain I can find you several, but I cannot make promises about their condition.”

The Guild Master said as long as the books were readable, condition wasn’t an issue.

“This is quite the departure from the rest of your reading list.”

Hans laughed. “It certainly is. I’ve been informed that I need to be less serious sometimes.”

***

Hans strolled into the guild hall with such enthusiasm that he thought he might break into a skip, like a child frolicking through a field of flowers. His joy tripled when he saw three stacks of books wrapped in brown paper and secured with twine. The invoice and a few other pieces of mail sat on his desk. He could reference that invoice to see what books the merchant was able to find, but Hans preferred the discovery of tearing off the paper and looking at each book one at a time.

When he turned to share that glee with Kane and Quentin, he found the boys huddled around a flier, talking quietly. Hans wasn’t sure when Kane returned to the guild hall, but seeing him back after his earlier frustration was a good sign. The adventurers who stopped showing up were the deepest in a despair spiral. Kane was obviously–and justifiably–angry and frustrated, but he came back. He hadn’t given up hope completely.

“What are you reading?” Hans asked.

Kane handed the piece of paper to the Guild Master without speaking.

The flier promoted a summer victory festival in Osare to celebrate the close of the orc war. As part of the festivities, the Osare chapter of the Adventurers’ Guild was hosting a one-on-one combat tournament with open registrations for all adventurers. The divisions were to be divided by rank and weight class, and the tournament would kickoff with an exhibition match between the Guild Master of the Osare chapter and the Guild Master of the Raven’s Hollow chapter. Diamond-ranked matches like that were relatively rare, even more so this far from Hoseki, so tournaments like this often included at least one “main event” to get townspeople excited to spectate.

At the bottom of the flier, in small print, a disclaimer explained that all unranked and Apprentice competitors needed a letter from their chapter’s Guild Master, vouching for their readiness to take part. The tournament was purely for sport, and the weapons were blunted, but combat was combat. Most of the injuries in events like this one occurred at the lowest ranks where mismatches in skill and ability were most common.

Two Gold-ranked adventurers were likely to duel to a hotly contested judge’s decision, their near-equal ability making the bout more of a chess match than a fight. At Apprentice and Iron, a competitor could be a fresh recruit like Kane and Quentin, or they could be someone like Terry, new to adventuring but with prior training as a guard and soldier. That meant a potentially large disparity in competency, and that increased the danger for the less experienced fighter.

Hans held his eyes on the flier longer than he needed to, buying himself time for the conversation he knew would start as soon as he lifted his head.

“You two want to compete?”

The boys nodded.

“Before you decide,” Quentin said, “You should read the decree in your mail. King says tusks are not to be harmed, so it’s safe for us to travel again.”

Issuing a decree was much different from enforcing it, but Hans suspected his pessimism would not sway the eager Apprentices.

“You know my concerns,” Hans said carefully, “and we know that Osare hasn’t been kind to tusks. I’m not saying no or yes yet, but tell me, are you okay with that risk, knowing how they treated Luther?”

“Yes,” Kane said. “Luther was alone. I wouldn’t be.”

Sighing, and having no desire to argue with the tusk for a second time that day, Hans promised to speak to Roland and Uncle Ed about the trip. If they both agreed to it and were willing to chaperone, Hans would write the letters the boys needed to enter the tournament.

“You wouldn’t come?” Quentin asked.

“Trust me, I’d prefer to,” Hans answered, “but Gomi needs me here. I can’t disappear for a week or more with everything we have in motion.”

Though they were disappointed, the boys said they understood.

“What does it mean when it says the tournament follows standard Guild rules?” Quentin asked when Hans handed the flier back.

Hans went to the bookshelf and came back with the Adventurers’ Guild manual, setting it on the table between the boys. “Tournaments like this used to get pretty ugly. Major injuries, deaths, giant brawls. So the Guild issued a set of rules they believed was the right balance between testing the skills of adventurers and eliminating unnecessary danger. They amend the rules from time to time, but the last one I remember was when I was an Apprentice. They banned shields with that one.”

“Shields would make people safer, right?”

“That was the thinking, but that’s not how it played out. I was at a tournament just before the rule change, and a Bronze died. His opponent took him to the ground and used the edge of his shield like a fist. Turned the guy’s face into hamburger before the fight could be stopped.”

“Wow.”

“Referees can call killing blows with relative accuracy where swords are concerned. There’s still procedure and disputes and all that, but it’s pretty clear if someone holds a sword to your throat, you lost. Matches that got stopped due to shield strikes devolved into arguments again and again, so referees started to avoid calling matches in those cases, which just made things more dangerous.”

“Are there a lot of restrictions like that?” Kane asked.

“A fair amount,” Hans answered. “The rules get pretty specific. We’ll go over them in detail together to make sure you understand. The ones most likely to affect you are rules around weight classes and casting. Short version is you’ll fight people your size, and you can’t use spells that could injure spectators or have the potential to cause immediate death. Some divisions ban casting completely, and it’s usually a toss-up if spells are banned for Apprentices or not.”

“So Mazo must not compete much,” Quentin said.

Hans chuckled. “You’re right. The banned list is extensive, but it’s mostly ranged offensive spells, so no fireballs and stuff like that. Kane, Push and Pull are both legal, so you shouldn’t have any problems using those if they’re not too strict.”

As soon as Hans stepped away from the conversation, the boys flipped to the tournament rules in the guild manual and began reading.

New Quest: Investigate entering Kane and Quentin in the Osare combat tournament.

Hans had a little more than six weeks to complete that quest, but he found himself worrying for the boys’ safety as soon as he sat at his desk and looked across the hall at the excited Apprentices. They had worked hard. They were prepared for a tournament like this, and holding them back wasn’t fair to them. In truth, he wasn’t the one being unfair. Forces beyond his control were doing that, but Hans was left to bear the bad news.

Deciding that unwrapping his books should be his reward, he forced himself to go through his small stack of mail.

The King’s decree had come in unsecured guild mail, and it said what the merchant said it would. Nothing new there.

Another piece of guild mail was a form letter announcement for promotions to Diamond and Platinum over the previous twelve months. Hans recognized several of the names from teaching in Hoseki, but he didn’t know any of them well enough to send them a personal congratulations.

The last piece of guild mail was secured with the official seal, which meant for Guild Master eyes only. Hans opened it and read:

Guild Master Hans,

Thank you for your compliance with our investigation into Gret the Platinum Rogue. At this time, we have no further questions, but if a new piece of information comes to mind or an associate of Gret’s contacts you unexpectedly or under suspicious pretenses, you are obligated to report those developments to the Adventurers’ Guild immediately.

-Adventurers’ Guild

Hoseki Chapter

The nature of the investigation still gnawed at Hans, but none of the fallout seemed to be a threat to Gomi. That was a comfort.

Though he had no real need to, he flipped back through the mail to confirm that a letter from Mazo had not arrived. He wrote the Blue Mage as soon as the pass cleared and hoped to have her training guidance by now. Winter had been long, however, and an in-demand adventurer could end up quite far from Gomi given that many months to travel.

Guild mail would find her eventually, but letters went to adventurers’ last known destinations. Couriers had no way of knowing where an adventurer was at present, so one letter might bounce between ten different chapters before reaching the actual recipient at the right time and place.

He saw no reason why Mazo would ignore him–and Hans was pretty good at finding or inventing such reasons in cases like this–but he really wished he had her help.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Using a pen name, complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the dungeon with resource-specific monsters for each of Gomi’s major trades.

Find a way for Gomi adventurers to benefit from their rightful ranks in the Adventurers’ Guild.

Secure a way to use surplus dungeon inventory for good.

Expand the dungeon using the ogre valley job as a blueprint.

Investigate entering Kane and Quentin in the Osare combat tournament.