The journey back to Bright Hill went without much fanfare. The party encountered no bandits, and only a couple of small, docile monsters while driving, which they ignored. They avoided staying at the small towns they visited on the way up, traveling through and camping beyond. And then, at the river, Ghost observed their passage and wished them good luck without toll.

Blake had a lot of time to think. So did Riley. So did everyone. It was a quiet journey, and they made the best of it, sorting out their feelings and desires.

At Bright Hill, they returned to their usual inn and collapsed onto their beds. The next day, they got together to talk.

"What are your plans now? Riley refused to leave. Was the journey to Queensland for nothing?" Sophia said.

"No, I don't think it was. I learned a lot about how messed up the world is. Both on the way there and when we stayed," Blake said.

"So..." Sophia said.

"I want to keep fighting," Riley said, responding in place of Blake. "Fighting bandits and maybe Transporters if we run into any."

"If we see any slavers, you're gonna hide in the carriage, and we're gonna drive off without interacting," Blake said.

Riley pouted.

"So we're going to keep doing this? Freeing slaves?" Sophia said.

"I mean, as long as we don't get caught, there's no problem, right? And we still made money. Since we did the job like normal," Blake said.

"It is on the creative side of how abolitionists operate. Normally they take slaves to free from the original owners, not from people who've already stolen them. But I'm worried about the attention it might bring, continuing to take bandit extermination jobs without returning the bandits' stolen 'property' as expected. Especially if they start stipulating the return of stolen property in the text of the job. The only reason it's not currently there is that adventurers are expected to take an appropriate fraction of the stolen property under the table to subsidize the standard reward."

"That's a good point. I guess we could just kind of... do it? No bandit-hunting jobs."

"That would bring its own kind of trouble, but at least we wouldn't be attaching our name to it."

"Alright, it's a deal. We can do it when we run into bandits, but we won't take jobs for it or hunt them down. We can take on jobs that are likely to put us in contact with bandits, just not directly."

"Very well. So, low-level caravan protection? There shouldn't be any Transporters among such jobs. They put stuff out on higher levels."

A short pause.

"Until you're okay with Nashie going down into dungeons, yeah," Blake said.

"Only I get to call him that."

"Oh, sorry. Well, it's time to go to... Uh... You know."

"I'm still surprised Riley refused to get left behind in Queensland."

"I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of messed up," Blake said.

"Why would I want to stay there? It's not a good place," Riley said.

She'd heard stories of it before, as a place where Companions go to be free, but she wasn't familiar with the reality of it at the time. Now, though, she knew better. She really didn't want to be left there alone. Being stuck with a nonfunctional Dominion contract was the best thing that could have happened, she told herself. As it was, she could walk almost freely through the... less bad parts of the world without having to worry so terribly for her safety. That was more than enough for her.

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"Right. Well, things will get better with time, I promise," Blake said.

Things are good enough already, Riley thought. But she stayed silent. It was neither the place nor the time.

They day ended, and the next, they looked into those low-level caravan protection jobs. There were plenty available, and it would be enough to keep them going for now, while they figured out in more concrete terms what they wanted to do.

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Over time, things cheered up. The gloom that Queensland cast over the party lifted, and they got back into the groove of things.

They spent the next couple weeks guarding ordinary trading and travel caravans, return trips sometimes included. Sophia was a big help. Having someone flying overhead meant they didn't have to walk alongside the carriages for it to be clear that the caravan was guarded, so their legs didn't suffer. And Sophia didn't mind, either, aside from the places where the forest canopy was annoyingly low and she had to lower her broom uncomfortably close to the carriage.

"Doesn't it get cold? Do you need to get leggings?" Blake asked Sophia during a rest stop.

"Leggings? Why?"

"Er. I mean, it's just..."

"Just what?"

"The wind, I guess?"

"Oh, my legs are more than accustomed to how the wind feels at this point."

"Right..."

Riley sat behind them, grumbling to herself and gnawing on jerky.

"Bandits!" the caravan leader shouted.

"Guess that's our cue," Blake said, getting up.

Riley scrambled. What was she grumbling about? They were on the job. Stay frosty, she told herself.

A voice from down the road. "Put 'em up! Drop yer weapons! This is not a routine stop, give up all your valuables!"

"As if!" Blake said.

Up the road the party marched, and the bandits fell like rocks. They looked for a nearby camp with the caravan's blessings, in case the party they just beat was the main one around, and after about fifteen minutes, they found one. It was deserted, with an ungraded dirt road out the other end. Anything that wasn't staked down was gone. The bandits that didn't take part in the raid must've hurried to take all the goods and pull out, just as soon as they realized their allies were done for.

"A tent? Wait, don't tell me..."

Blake opened the tent's curtains. Young enslaved demihumans, huddled up in the corner, frightened.

"Man, what the hell are these bandit troupes doing?" Blake said.

"My word...!" the caravan leader said behind him.

"Do you have space for them?" Sophia asked the caravan leader.

Blake's mind raced. This was the return trip to Bright Hill. This was a caravan protection job, so they would get their money directly from the caravan when they got to safety. No need to visit the Guild.

"We'll take them to the guild when we get back," he said. "It's our job, after all."

When The Pack got back to Bright Hill, they gathered supplies and left right away, in their own carriage, headed straight for Queensland with the slaves. With little to note of events on the road, as it was a way they'd already once traveled, another journey went underway, a journey that would become routine over time.

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"A'Vahi."

"Yes, my queen."

"Investigate from where all of these slaves are coming. Learn who is bringing them here."

"Yes, my queen."

"It has been more than a thousand years since the Demon Wars. It is entirely possible that the Millennial Hero has arrived once more. Indeed, we are roughly a decade overdue."

"Yes, my queen."

"Do you understand the situation? Tell us now."

"It's plausible that the sudden inflow of freed slaves may be the work of the Millennial Hero, my queen."

The queen paused and observed the man kneeling before her, and she did so carefully. Their kind had a way of seeing things about one another that overshadowed mere words. After a moment, she decided that he was indeed about the same mind of this as she was, and felt the same way about the same type of worry about the sudden inflow as she did.

"We are glad to have such intelligence under our command."

"I am honored, my queen."

"Go."

The prostrating man stood. He was a tall, well-aged demon, in full armor, wearing glasses. Silver hair, pinkish skin, red-burning eyes, and sharp, pointy ears. His ability to form new connections was unmatched, undercover or not. No more appropriate person to act as both spymaster and commanding general of the demon army could exist.