“I couldn’t find Pern,” Rick said. “But if there’s a problem, I’ll solve it all by myself.”

“Couldn’t find her?” Estelle asked.

“She’s probably busy.”

Rick had returned to the Adventurer’s Guild. As always, a raucous band of warriors tumbled around the Quest Board. As always, Estelle smiled at the front desk. As always, marble busts of famous Adventurers looked over them all.

But this time Rick was also a V.I.P. He and he alone had received a special summons from the impassive maid-receptionist, as part of the deal they had made yesterday.

Estelle finished with some paperwork, and ignored the man behind the glass.

“‘Urgent,’ ‘dangerous,’ a ‘terrible threat to Mazevale,’” Rick quoted. “If whatever this is about closes down the Four-Leaf Inn, I would be terribly inconvenienced. So I’d like you to talk.”

“Not here, and not now.” Estelle put a finger to her lips. The monster head mounted behind her swiveled, then Estelle guided Rick as they passed through a hidden door.

Inside was a cozy library. There were no walls, only shelves, containing books like “A to Z Monsters,” “Poisons and Potions,” and “A Complete Andrestian Atlas.” A bar table with three tall stools rested at the center and on it were another three steaming cups of tea. A lanky, bespectacled, sharp-faced man lounged at the one farthest from Rick.

“It is imperative that this quest remain secret. The requester is none other than Guildmistress Risa herself.” Estelle curtsied with grace. “Rick, Colin. Colin, Rick. This man’s a messenger from Guild HQ.”

“Have a seat.” The lanky man pulled Rick a chair. “I was curious what this ‘Rick’ person I’ve heard so much about was like. I can’t say you look all that impressive.”

“You were looking for someone called ‘The Failure Adventurer,’ and you thought you’d be impressed? ”

“I was looking for a young man from two years ago.” Colin looked him over with crisp blue eyes. “Your body’s broken, but your spirit hasn’t changed. Saving Mazevale’s water supply, rescuing an S-Rank from a malicious avalanche, re-uniting foxgirl families. You’re an admirable, upstanding, citizen and the world would surely be a better place if there were more people like you. A toast.”

Colin raised his cup. Rick gave the cup a quick fistbump, and the man cleared his throat.

“I deliver this message at great risk to myself. Had the quest targets intercepted me, I’d have been killed, and perhaps a spy would be here instead of me.”

He dropped sugar into his cup, and picked up a small silver spoon near Rick. That spoon was already damp, and he hesitated—he set it down and stirred his drink with his pinky instead.

“Do you take sugar? Come and drink, man.”

“I like my tea cold.”

“You are a strange Adventurer indeed. Right then,” Colin decided. “Have you heard of the Vulture Company?”

Rick stared at Colin’s white gloves, and how they caressed the cup’s handle. The liquid inside seemed to start shaking, and then to turn from amber to red. Undissolved sugar formed a blotted skull.

“Rick? Rick?”

It dissolved—

And kept on shaking—

***

The tea on the nightstand rattled and swirled, utterly abandoned. It had been a long night at the Southfield Inn, and Card was furiously fidgeting, jostling his leg by the foot of the bed. While many things took place that night, for the most part, what he remembered was how he and Riona had simply sat and talked.

“You’re a strange person indeed,” Riona said, wearing little but a thin wool sheet. “I promise to give you anything, but all you ask for is the chance to speak like this again, wherever that might be… I can’t help but wonder if it’d have been better to march you over to the Guild and put together our own party rather than tempt you with all this.”

“My legs hurt too much to ask for anything else,” Card complained and Riona laughed. It was a soft laughter that popped and rose to the ceiling, like bubbles.

“My heart hurts. You’re too sweet!”

Riona was sweet too, and Card had tasted that sweetness, many many times. If alcohol felt like home, then Riona felt like a dream.

They leaned against one another, and finally Riona pulled away.

“...I’m sorry.”

“Did you not like that, Ri?”

“No, I liked that very much.” She moved swiftly out of bed, and rolled a blanket around her. She was a sheet ghost with an elf’s pointy-eared head, and she peered out from the window to the cobblestone street.

A man glanced back, with a flat-topped cap and a tattooed hand. Riona drew the shades, and flopped onto the mattress—her voice lost its pleasure and gained a new kind of tension.

“Five minutes.” She muttered. “From the street to the stairs to the room. But it shouldn’t be about us, and only ‘us’ is what I want tonight to be about.”

The dark elf stretched and dozed at the ceiling’s water-stains. The blobs were like little monsters, or faces, or dark clouds on a white peeling sky. She counted to sixty and folded her left thumb.

“Card. I was thinking about when we first met. How nice it was to see you.”

“At the bar?”

“No, even before. You fought off a bunch of slimes to save a cat. No one had asked you to do that, and you looked so stupid—but I just had to approach you after. It was obvious you’d need a sword, since you’d battled only with your fists.” Down went her pinky, then her pointer too.

“Stalker.”

“Idiot.”

“Conwoman.”

“Naive. You think you’re so handsome that I’d go up to chat just cause of that?”

‘I don’t think that I’m good looking. But I think you think I’m good looking.”

“I care more about your character than anything.” She snorted and pressed her ‘character’ close to him, and brushed his hair with her folded hand.

“For example, Card: if you had to choose between doing the right thing, or the safe thing, what would you do?”

The finger flicked.

“I’d do what’s right. Cause it helps me sleep at night, not just cause it helps me sleep with you.”

“Good Card. One minute.”

“One minute?”

Riona jumped up, rolled open the closet and rummaged through the luggage they’d brought to their shared room. She didn’t bother to hold up her sheet as she did, though it still desperately clung to her tall frame.

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“The right thing, not the safe thing. That’s what I’ve always thought to do too. But a hard truth is that when you do the right thing, you always risk losing things important to you, especially when you get the wrong kind of attention.”

“What’s lost can always be found. You can’t come back from a sin,” Card said, slowly. He felt like a sage: his thoughts were up in the clouds, celestial, unquestionable.

“But Card, I might’ve made a mistake,” Riona said.

A stairwell was at the end of the hall. It was about four o’clock in the morning, when even the birds still slept, yet pounding footsteps came forth. Riona’s bashful smile was filled with guilt and joy.

I’ve made you important to me.”

BANG!!

A group of bandits opened the door to Room 103.

“Fire!”

Five crossbolts flew through the mattress and feathers coated the air. Card rolled onto the bed’s other side and took cover, Riona tossed him his Thunder Sword and pulled a huge hammer out and away.

“Thunder!” Card shouted, and the first man at the entrance was fried. But the men behind him pressed forwards using their sizzled colleague as a shield, smoke curling from his blackened frame. After breaching the room, the remaining four dropped their limp companion and finally drew their swords.

Two approached Riona by the closet, and the other pair accosted Card by the bed. Card jumped onto the mattress and sprung at a larger, bearded man but missed, and when the baby-faced man swung his blade, Card was forced to slide underneath that cut. He rolled into the hall, rough carpet burning his back.

“Hey! What’s the big idea!”

Another guest opened the door to adjacent Room 104, bleary-eyed in pajamas. She held up the badge of a B-Rank Adventurer.

“There’s a tavern two floors below! Go and brawl there like some reasonable drunks!” She slammed her door, then the bearded man tried to slam into Card.

Card sidestepped, and the hulk tore through the wall and broke open the B-Rank’s dresser. Colorful clothing flew everywhere, and Card and the other horrified assassin were forced to gawk at the scene. “Drunk!” thud “Pervert!” thud “Get out of my room! Get out!!!”

The bearded man spun away, face black and blue. Card stuck his sword through his ribs and now had to deal with the baby-faced man, who was approaching him with a wary look.

“Sorry you had to see that. Not the bloodshed and the murder, but us half-naked Adventurers, that’s certainly not a safe sight for kids like you,” Card said.

“Stupid brat,” growled the baby-faced man. “You’re the one I want, but you’re not that dangerous—so I think I’ll deal with the dark elf first—”

“Thunder!”

“Mana Shield”

Baby-face raised his palm and blocked Card’s coursing sparks.

“Thunder!!!” Card roared in return.

The arc missed, and landed on the lamp on the nightstand. The glass exploded and shards dug into Baby-face’s back and left arm—which made his concentration shatter just as quickly.

The man’s shield wavered. Card thrust through it, and the man then toppled onto the carpet, breathing but badly hurt.

“Ri!” The boy called out, casting a glance at the skirmish deeper inside the room. The furniture had turned into a mess of broken planks and scratched-up wood, but Card had nothing to worry about when it came to the dark elf’s fight.

Riona blew on her hammer, and the two other soldiers already sent reeling to the ground. A final man clambered up through the window, Riona kicked him and he saw the Goddess as he fell. His neck snapped, and a clutch of cloaked men surrounded him like grim reapers.

“Initial entry ineffective!” called one in a cold voice. “Regroup and take the stairs!”

Each of the cloaked men bore a unique tattoo—black tally marks on their hands, necks and noses. They marched off, and when a townsperson tried to walk through their little cluster he was stabbed and shoved onto the grass.

“Damn,” Card said. The room was dim: sunrise had just barely touched through the window. “What’s this all about Ri?”

“No time to explain.”

“You’ve got up to another five minutes, I bet.”

“The more you knew, the more you’d have to forget. Trust me.”

The lamp was shattered, the bed tattered and unmade, the closet a catastrophe of equipment and clothes. Riona was a hot mess too, but she flung on her jacket and finally became half-decent.

“Your clothes, too, Card,” she tossed him a shirt and trousers. Then after he put them on, Riona lifted him up in a bridal carry.

“Oy, oy, oy.” He squirmed out. “I’m not another hammer for you to heave about.”

“It’s faster like this!”

Card escaped, wrapped her waist, and pulled Riona up. Because of her height he struggled to lift her, and after various contortions he finangled her so she flopped over his shoulder like an unsexy bag of potatoes.

“You did it, Card… but… you don’t know where we’re supposed to go, do you?”

“...”

They dashed to the stable, hand in hand. The black cloaks pursued them, but men are slower than horses, and the two Adventurers galloped out through the town’s front gates.

If it had just been the five intruders at the Inn…

If it had just been the five outside the window…

Then they would have been able to escape.

But an entire company of those black-clad troops circled the town’s entrance on the Southfield Plains. A sprawling campground behind them had been raised to sustain them, simple low tarp-tents arranged in cross-shapes, with bonfires at each nexus.

These mercenaries were men with grim faces, their hands by their weapons and legs placed apart so they could cut and dash at a moment’s notice. They each bore tally-mark tattoos as though it were a part of their uniform, and while the most youthful faces had two or three notches, the scarred, older warriors had five or more cut into their skin.

An unblemished middle mercenary wore an eye-patch, and that slender, wiry man crossed his arms and leaned: he’d be the one to give the order when one came. A bag with two strange lumps lay at his feet. “Smithy. Rookie. Why such a hurry?”

“You know how it is with Adventurers,” Riona said. “Always traveling where the wind takes us.”

A breeze pressed against her face back towards town. It rushed for six long seconds and stretched her smile into the despairful grin of a ghoul.

“What do you think, Casia? You think that’s the reason why?” a heckler called.

“That could be it. Or—” Casia opened the bag, and rolled its contents towards the pair. They were two hard green spheres about the size of cantaloupes.

“Goblin cores,” Riona said. “What have you done?”

“What have you done?” Casia mocked. “You—you’ve done nothing, elf smith. Not this time. But Thunder’s boy’s betrayed this town.

“He was supposed to kill the goblins…. and they’d’ve all respawned anyway, given some time. But he’s let them be—left them to steal from the town’s merchants and burn down their wheat. These two monsters destroyed months of the Braun Family’s hard work last night. Whose gonna feed their kids? Who’s gonna shoulder their pain?”

“The Guild said to get the goblins to leave, and I did that,” Card said.

In the face of the Adventurer’s anger, Casia began to laugh. Soon all the mercenaries joined in, with their own coyote-like peals.

“There’s such a thing called social intellect,” Casia said. “Not that I expect you to have it since you keep bending Guild rules on quests of your creation.

Like I’ve said, if you had killed the goblins, the townspeople would have been very happy. They could’ve feasted on their food, packed up the gob’s crafts, horses, clothes, lumber, and could’ve called it a holiday. You stole that joy from everyone in Southfield,” Casia said.

“Sorry. I didn’t have enough empathy to know you wanted to burn down a village.”

“Stuff it. We just want to make sure you don’t ever make the same mistake,” Casia jerked his hand, and the peals of laughter cut. “Put your sword on the ground, rookie, and join my lieutenant in the first tent. ”

“Stop this,” Riona said, and stepped in front of Card. “Stop this! I was the highest rank Adventurer on this quest. If this really is about letting down the town, then it’s me you want!”

“Riona Everguard. The one who keeps giving unstable upstarts needlessly overpowered weapons; you’ll be sure to have your turn,” Casia clapped. “But if I turned you into scraps here and now, you’d be.worthless, so buzz off and forge someone else.”

Riona was tall. She had a full head of height over Card, who was no slouch when he wasn’t slouched, and she was an elf who towered as naturally as the sun. In the past she had run away, but with the Card at her side, she dug her heels into the dirt.

“There’s something I don’t understand. You’re not in the business of protecting towns for hire. The Vulture Company is an assassin group. And Card did fill the quest. Does the Guild really want to kill small fry for something as petty as that?”

“He’s no small fry. He already has a title, the ‘Questless Adventurer.’ And the kind of people that make trouble for my client are best got rid of early and quietly… but those are all the words you’ll get from a reaper like me,” Casia said, putting a calloused hand on his sword.

Tally marks in ones and twos and threes and fives. While most of the surrounding soldiers were scary, they had not notched many kills. And Casia’s own body appeared to be a blank slate.

Then Casia opened his patch. An eye that drank in the sweat, the burning passion, the anticipation, all with an unfeeling pupil that had been inked into black.

“Another one for Casia.”

“If I’m as much trouble as you say,” Card grinned. “I’ll have no trouble beating you.”

***

Rick stared at Colin’s glove. He was fascinated by him—fascinated by the man who came to him, who asked for him, who risked his life to tell him to kill a band of killers. He wondered if he peeled away this ‘messenger’s’ facade what precisely would lay underneath.

“I understand,” Rick said. “You weren’t looking for the ‘Failure Adventurer.’ you were looking for the ‘Questless’ one.”

Colin nodded.

“You won’t find him. But you’ve found the half that’s left,” said the man named Ricard Zweithander.