Ariaska let out a disappointed sigh as she entered the adventurer’s guild and found it empty.

What had she been thinking?

Sure, the backwater city was near the border to the frontier and the great Shadow Steps Forest that separated Unity from the Great Barzandan Alliance, but she should’ve known better.

While there were many chronicles of great adventure and daring deeds taking place at the edge of civilization, those had all needed a spark.

Monster Zones spilling over and becoming horde invasions.

Adventurer teams delving into long-buried cities and facing darkness from ages past for the treasures of those times.

There was none of that at this particular frontier.

The monster zones had been tamed, managed with precision by the soldiers of the 7th Army.

Those ancient bastions of horror and wonder?

Cleared long ago. Plundered. Thoroughly studied by Archaeologists and Historians. All the stories had been already written. No mystery. One could visit them at their leisure, pay the guides and learn everything they could ever want. Or read the works of long-dead Chroniclers. The ranks of the highly-esteemed that Ariaska would never join if things continued in their present course.

All of this was an unquestioned good for the citizenry, but bad for adventurers and the Chroniclers that made a living writing those tales.

Desperation.

She remembered why she had come here.

“Am I a bad person for wishing for just a little bit of government mismanagement?” she muttered.

Yes was the answer she decided on after a moment.

Still, how could she level and make her mark without crises to chronicle?

Ten years after graduating and all she had to show for it was a middling work chronicling the adventurers of a barely silver ranked team, whose greatest work had been ridding a small town of an undead squirrel infestation.

She sighed.

That wasn’t a fair thought.

The Edge of Eternity had been quite nice, if a bit deluded about their stature as adventurers.

She walked up to the front counter.

Maybe she’d find the one gem in the refuse pit of this place.

“Hello!” she greeted the attendant, a bored-looking middle-aged woman, “I’m Chronicler Ariaska and I’d like to view the roster of the local adventurers.”

The attendant gave her a curt nod and reached under the counter.

Ariaska coughed at the cloud of dust that bloomed when the attendant dumped the tome on the wooden surface.

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“Thank you,” she smiled stiffly as she took the book to a nearby table and began her search.

Less than an hour later, Ariaska stomped out of the guild hall, muttering curses under her breath.

“No adventurers higher than silver, bunch of bronze and rookies… should’ve gone to the southern border… maybe north… definitely not east…”

She stomped all the way back to the dank inn that she could barely afford with the dregs in her coin purse.

“Chronicler,” the surly innkeeper grunted as soon as she walked through the door, “one of them urchins came in here, said you told him you to.”

“Yes. Where is he?” she didn’t see anyone else in the common room.

“Check the alley. I kicked him out. Don’t want them dirtying up this fine establishment.”

Ariaska stilled the retort on the tip of her tongue. This place had been the only one she could afford. She gave the bastard a curt nod and a tight smile before turning around and leaving.

She found the small boy waiting for her in the alley.

“I don’t recognize you.”

“Word was you’d give coin for interesting news?”

She saw the dirty little boy’s eyes dart to the coin purse at her belt. She casually grabbed it. “A copper. Two if what you’ve got is really interesting.”

“Three,” the boy said.

“You haven’t even told me what you have.”

The boy held a dirty palm out. “Give me half first.”

“You’ve never negotiated before, have you?”

A shake of the dirty, matted head of hair.

Ariaska sighed. “Just this once, but normally you get paid after,” she placed a single copper in the boy’s palm.

The boy snatched his hand close and looked like he considered bolting.

Ariaska wasn’t stupid. She had positioned herself at the mouth of the alley to block the way. “Now… your turn,” she raised a brow.

“Word is one of them justici— justica—,” the boy stammered. His face scrunched in frustration. “One of them justice people went to the lady’s castle.”

“Justiciar?”

“Yeah that’s what they said,” the boy nodded vigorously.

“All the way out to this dusty refuse pit of a city?” Ariaska murmured. Very interesting if it was true. “I assume one of your… friends… is the source of this information. If so, how can you be sure it was a justiciar?”

The boy shrugged. “Dunno. Rexa saw her going into the castle. Then the city watch came running up a little bit later. The justic— the justice lady came out after that. Rexa followed her cause she thought the lady was pure gold and she keeps mouthing off about being an adventurer one day.”

“Did Rexa describe this woman’s appearance?”

“She had a really long sword and a weird-looking shooter,” the boy frowned with intense concentration, “also a wide hat or something. Oh and she had black hair, which is weird. I’ve never seen that before.”

A bell chimed in Ariaska’s head.

Most of the description wasn’t unduly unique. The black-colored hair however, that was a rarity. Putting it all together… well, a black-haired justiciar wielding an overly long sword and an odd metal shooter. She’d read a story or two about that person.

“You said Rexa followed this woman. Where?”

The boy held an empty palm toward her.

Ariaska became a copper coin poorer before he continued.

“All the way to the council hall,” the boy said as he squirreled the coin away in his pants. “That’s all.”

“More than enough,” Ariaska reached out. The little boy flinched away as she gingerly patted his head. She made way to let the boy scamper back out onto the dusty dirt street. She waited until he was out of sight before she wiped her hand on her pant leg. She repressed a shudder. Her hand needed a wash, but time couldn’t be wasted. It was a long walk to the council hall. “A justiciar, that particular one at that… and all the way out here? Why? There’s a story there? There has to be,” she muttered as she hurried off.

Perhaps this venture wasn’t a waste after all.