— Keira —

After a few seconds of sitting in silence, Keir’s mind finally kicked into gear. How far had the message spread beyond her immediate family?

The strict chain of succession tended to cut down on the worst infighting and backstabbing common in plenty of royal families. The throne being beyond reach for the majority of the family didn’t mean that political maneuvering and treachery were all together eliminated, however.

Her parents and most of her siblings would have mourned her death and would welcome news of her return. On the other hand, plenty of her cousins and more distant relatives would have the opposite reaction.

Keir hated politics but she wouldn’t have made it very long without at least being competent. Her mind immediately went to the most likely problems.

After only a moment of thought she discarded the idea that any of her family would manage to drum up widespread outrage due her association with Mortis.

Mortis wasn’t followed in The Steel Coast Archipelago any more than she was anywhere else. Despite that her homeland was first and foremost a nation of warriors and sailors. Neither group were strangers to death.

Would they instead try to make waves or even directly challenge her as a result of her undead state.

Her mind froze halfway through trying to estimate the effectiveness of that strategy when she realized, even if the silence hadn’t gone on too long before she stumbled down a rabbit hole of potential politics and pitfalls, It certainly had now.

The guild master was being patient but he also obviously had more important things he needed to get back to. In a bit of a hurry to clarify the situation a bit she began speaking before reeling there was no air in her lungs. Feeling a bit sheepish she took a breath and said “Would it be possible to send a message along with the news.”

The guild master had apparently been expecting that question as he quickly checked a document sitting to the side of the pile and said “Given the unprecedented nature of the situation we can send an additional page worth of text free of charge. If you need more than that, the standard rate of three hundred gold per page will apply.”

Keir was slightly surprised the fee for the first page was entirely waived instead of reduced at best. Sending documents instantly halfway across the continent, even to a predetermined location, was not a cheap or simple bit of enchantment. Fully half of the fee would be the cost of mana crystals it would use.

Realizing she was letting her thoughts spiral again she said “I appreciate that, should I just go to the trunk, er, I mean the Inter Branch Runic Message Office?”

With the impressive speed of a scout or skirmisher turned to bureaucracy instead of battle, he let a faint grin show as he pulled out a couple of documents from the stack and said “Just take these and whatever message you write to the trunk.”

Keir thanked him as she looked at the pair of papers. The top page was almost a standard notice of death, that was now a notice of resurrection. The other was a waiver to allow her to send a free page.

Things progressed quickly from there, as the clerk arrived with her quest reward while she was finishing the last of the paperwork to reinstate her as a tier three melee combatant.

After leaving the guild master’s office Keir looked over to Marsaili and said “I owe you big for helping smooth that over and subjecting you to guild bureaucracy.”

Marsaili chuckled before saying “I think ya Know as well as I do tha’ was nay anything compared ta military bureaucracy. If ya think ya owe me, bring a bottle a that rum ya were goin’ on about being the equal a good dwarven whiskey the next time ya come ta Stonesheild.”

As they set off in the direction of the trunk, Keir nudged the dwarf with her elbow, feigning a serious and slightly offended tone as she said “You know I seem to recall saying Steel Coast rum is better than dwarven whiskey.” At that point she lost her struggle to suppress a grin as she continued “But you’ve got a deal.”

After a few seconds of companionable silence, Marsaili suddenly spoke up saying “So what’s the trunk? I’ve dealt with the guild often enough but usually just to post a bounty or quest.”

“Hmm, oh, every guild has an office that houses the runic arrays to send and receive messages from other guild branches. The official term is the Inter Branch Runic Message Office but everyone just calls it the trunk because it connects the guild branches.”

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Like most extremely complex runic formations the ones governing the transfer of documents between guild branches were exacting in the strangest ways. Only a few unique parchment materials were usable and it required a very specific and expensive alchemical ink. Neither product was common or easily acquired, not so much because they were valuable as because most people don’t have any use for mana neutral paper or ink aside from the guild.

As there wasn’t exactly a resale market for the materials it was simple enough to stop in the library and write a message to her immediate family. The only challenge was fitting everything she wanted to say onto the page with the unusually runny and grainy ink. Carefully she used the scalpel-like end of the specially made ink pen.

Leaving the lines of ink pooled on the page above the cut letters, she joined Marsaili in reading a book.

The ink would take at least twenty minutes for the coarse pigments in the ink to settle and cure in the shallow cuts on the parchment .

Finally when the liquid turned almost translucent she could blot it away. More than ready to be done with the task and feeling a bit awkward having the presumably busy dwarf she was coming to view as a friend, wait for her to finish a lengthy personal task.

After making sure the page was ready to be sent she looked over to where Marsaili was idly flicking through a bestiary and said “You want to come drop this off with me or wait here?”

Marsiali set aside the heavy book and confirmed her desire to tag along so Keir led the way to find the trunk.

Keir hadn’t been to this branch before but they were all laid out similarly enough she didn’t have much trouble finding her destination. Like she expected it was half hidden behind a plain door and down a long hallway at the back of the second floor.

The room was lined with plates of silver, copper, and mithril with intricate rune work carved across all of it, converging on a pair of two foot wide cubes. The open side on each box almost looked like it was sliced off revealing a cross section of the walls. Both boxes were formed with a core of copper. One was plated with silver on the outside and with mithril on the inside. The other was reversed.

Positioned carefully to avoid interfering with the runic arrays was a desk carved from polished magewood. Sitting behind the desk was a bored looking dwarven man reading a book thick enough to bludgeon a reasonably large bear.

When Keir walked over the man looked up at her, his eyes flicking to her face before trailing down her body to the papers in her hand. After a beat he set the book down on the desk with a heavy thump and said “Papers and payment.” as he held out a hand.

Keir just handed over the couple of pages without comment. She was no more interested in conversation with the man then he seemed to be with her. Instead she chatted with Marsaili while trying to ignore him as he carefully read and then reread her letter home. After an annoyingly long wait he finally let out a noise between a grunt and a huff before saying “It’s acceptable.” and carrying both pages that would be transported over to box with a silver inside. With practiced moves he shifted the tiles around, altering the formation, before activating it.

The space within the box wavered and shuddered for a few seconds before cracking, revealing swirls of unidentifiable colors. With a sound like cracking ice mixed with a finger running along the edge of a wine glass, the space fully shattered for a split second before the runes on the exterior of the box and most of the ones on the floor flashed with mana. The fractured space returned to normal only with the papers now absent.

With that done the faint hum in the air that built unnoticed in the background ended, only noticed by its sudden absence.

Keir gave a faint nod to the man before leaving the room. Barely halfway down the hall Marsaili said “I’m surprised you put up with his reading your letter, especially so carefully. He barely even read the guild masters notice. Surely it was the more unusual of the two.”

Keir let a faint frown show, it had honestly annoyed her, but she answered “Part of it may have been him just being a bit of dick but even a more palatable runesmith would have done the same. It’s the same reason you’ve never had a cause to interact with the trunk before. Most if not all nations with guild branches require provisions in their treaties with the guild that prevent the guild from using their network to transmit political or military documents. Any message to a royal family, especially from a member of that royal family, is carefully screened for prohibited information.”

Marsaili thought about it for a moment as they walked before shrugging and saying “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t punch him then.”

Keir laughed and gently jostled the woman beside her and said “I certainly appreciate the sentiment, my friend. Now come on, at least turning in these fangs will be simple.”

With how the rest of her trip to the guild went, Keir half expected to be wrong about that. Fortunately it really was a quick and simple process. The vipers may have been low tier, but their fangs were a decent crafting material so she got a decent price for the pack of fangs.

Instead the complication came as the pair started towards the gate they’d entered through. Halfway across the courtyard between the unenchanted guild warehouse and the gate a small barely visible harpy shaped figure formed from wind darted over and flitted about Keir’s head, holding a piece of paper.

It made no sense but for a moment she half expected to find a reply from her family, maybe her younger sister who’d been training as an elementalist when Keir left her homeland. Instead she found a note from Antheia. As she flipped it open she saw “I hope your endeavors this day have proven fruitful. I myself have stumbled upon a potentially quite useful lead that may lead to a greater understanding of the goddess who returned us all to the living world. Unfortunately my association with Syliantha means I cannot follow up on it, though I suspect they would be much more amicable should you wish to do so. If you choose to do so, seek out the temple of Lunith. The document I uncovered indicates that there may be information on the elusive goddess, as well as potentially a shrine set aside for her.”

After a moment Keir passed the note over to the dwarven general and said “Do you want to come with me?”

Marsaili skimmed the note before grinning wild and saying “Ya know wha’ they say. In fer a seam in fer a mine, eh? Let's go.”