In the end, Glory didn't order a shot from Aron on her short reprieve from the inspection. She could see him, slightly, as the faint light of his Sight runes blinked in an out through the walls as he made his way around the guild's property, giving her a rough clock of how much time she had until he returned. Not much time, maybe ten minutes. She ordered a glass of a local tea made of ground and steeped roots, trying to keep away the creeping weariness she felt at the prospect of more time with Dakara.
At least the incident in the lobby had gone over fine. She'd half-expected him to drag her by an ear to the backroom to discuss the proper way to treat a rude customer, or some such nonsense.
Aron stood by washing cups, staying close in case Glory needed to vent, preferring not to pry until the man was gone. That way, he only had to pry once. But, he would take any tidbits she dropped in frustration.
Glory didn't offer anything, though. She sat at the bar, soaking in the ambiance and general hum of conversation, trying to let the tension flow out of her. Once the inspector's runelight started to grow brighter as he neared the building, she smiled to Aron. “Thanks for the bit of quiet. That man's been talking my ear off.”
He waved to her with a smile, and Glory left to meet Dakara in the lobby, not wishing to have the man's presence make the tavern any more tense.
When he entered, they retreated back to the meeting room.
----------------------------------------
They exited, finally, about an hour later. They said a few quiet words, and then Dakara made his way into the tavern for another meal. It hadn’t even been that long since his late lunch – but Glory was not going to question the appetites of the man holding her future at the end of a pen.
Villara caught Glory’s eye as she approached the booth. “You taking back over, or do you want a breather?”
Glory shook her head. “I need a breath. I think it went fine, but this guy seemed pretty aggressive.” She took a deep breath, facing the tavern; she wanted a drink, but didn’t want to follow right on Dakara’s heels. Mercs, especially on the frontier, generally did not approve of brown-nosing the Officials. She decided to wait for a bit with Villara.
“How was the lobby while I was busy?”
Villara shrugged. “It was fine. A couple people came and got Rank 1 contracts for tomorrow, but everyone was reasonable otherwise. You know the crazy ones always wait for you, anyway.”
Glory rubbed her face. “Honestly, after talking to that Official, I think I get why. He makes it sounds like none of the other guilds take care of their mercenaries; like they rubber-stamp whatever Rank 1 merc wants the contract. I know we sometimes get people that leave here and go to the Cities – only to come back a few months later.” She leaned up against a cabinet and sighed. “I guess I might know why now. We might be a more dangerous place to work, but at least we try to give a damn.”
“You ever look at the stats for the inner guilds?” Villara asked.
Glory paused. “You know, I really haven’t.” She eyebrows flickered, filing a question away. “Maybe next time I talk to Durza I’ll ask how we measure up.”
Villara smiled. “I bet we’re not the most deadly guild in the Kingdom.”
Glory shook her head, that idea depressing her a little. “It shouldn’t be that way.” She thought of Geon, or Deya, or countless other Rank 1s, and how quickly they’d have died in some other guild, without her meddling in their partners or teams. You want to look at a waste of Kingdom resources? Take a look at guilds that take in your sons and daughters and churn them into fertilizer and imp food.
Once a couple minutes passed, Glory felt comfortable heading into the tavern. There were a couple hollers her way when she entered, but for the most part the place seemed much more subdued than usual. Officials entering the place where you sign up to distract your inhibitions was like a pail of cold water on fun times.
Dakara sat alone along the wall, back to the rest of the room as he waited quietly for his food with notebook in hand, but his presence still filled the tavern with tension on Glory’s behalf. Everyone knew, after the years they’d worked with Glory, how much power these people had over not only her life but, by extension, theirs. For all their bother about his being there, Dakara acted as though he had no idea the affect he had on the room.
Glory headed up to Aron, who was working on making Dakara’s food, a stir-fry mix with his staple spicy meats and a heartier mix of greens than was typical for him.
“Hey, Aron,” Glory said, sniffing the air. “That smells a bit less fatty than what you usually make.”
He turned, smiling, and raised an affronted brow. “I’ll have you know I make food that’s exactly as fatty as my clientele like it.” He gestured to the occupied corner near the front. “Our present company just has a slightly more refined taste.”
“As long as you’re keeping him happy. What do you have on for tonight?”
Aron would typically make a large portion of something hearty around dinnertime, something to fill mercenary stomachs that wasn’t quite so heavy with fats and spice.
“Pot of pasta, your choice of meat, sauce.” He shrugged. “I expected a slower day.” Or, at least, he did once the inspector showed up.
“Sure, make me a plate. With the chicken.”
He got her plate together, and placed it in front of her as he brought Dakara’s dinner over to him. Moving back behind the counter, and seeing he didn’t have customers at the moment, he slid a stool out from his side of the counter and sat down in front of Glory.
“So,” he asked, his voice low and curious, “How was it?”
Glory took a big first bite of her spaghetti and thought as she chewed around it. “I think it went fine, but he did go at me with some of his questions. I don’t know if it’s an inspection tactic, if he has a big head, or if they really think we’re making mistakes in how I do business here.” She shrugged. “I won’t really know until I see the report that gets made, assuming Durza let’s me see it this year.”
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“You are so lucky to have that man on the inside.”
“Don’t I know it? I’m just glad my mother was able to make enough of a good impression on him that he’s willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.”
Aron smiled sweetly down at her. “You know, Glory, you have been running this place for around six years now. I think that after this many inspections, you might admit that it isn’t his opinion of your mother that makes him like you, too.” Aron wiped at his clean counter. “You do good work here. I see you doing your best to keep these people alive, even if they don’t always appreciate the effort.”
Glory raised her cup of wine to him. “I'm glad that they’re still alive to complain.”
In her first year heading Vane/Gloria’s, the nightmares had been intense. The obituaries that came from the Scouts’ Office confirming those mercs that had died on her contracts fluttered like a paper waterfall, pouring out and over and around her, constricting her breath and making her kick out at the swarm of souls she’d murdered with a single unthinking assent to their desires. When she would escape the fluttering papers, she’d find herself looked down upon by dozen of staring, rictus eyes, faces contorted with fear, or shock, or the resignation of paling faces watching their own blood spill away.
But when she would wake up, sweating and wrapped in sheets soaked through, she would charge into the guild and stare at that paper, at the names scrawled there by an uncaring hand, and would make a vow.
Over the months, the number of names would shrink. To half, then a quarter of the size. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. It still hurt, to look at that damning sheet of paper, and wonder what she might have been able to tell those lost adventurers that would have kept them near, kept them alive. But it hurt less to see, in time. Only once every month or two, would she greet that paper in the morning, and see a name there that she had not expected, a name that should have survived, should have lived. And she would weep, in the comfort of her back office, enchantments activated to keep the sound of her huffing and gasps to herself.
No one ever complained anymore when the quest booth opened late.
After Dakara was finished with his dinner, he came up to the bar where Glory was eating. He nodded to Glory and spoke in his imperious way. “Glory, it has been an experience. I regret to inform you that I will be in town for a few days more. I have other things to investigate within Vane Gloria, and may need to circle back around here. I know that these inspections are usually only a one-day affair, but with so much changing in the wake of the civil war, I’m sure you can understand that this year we need to be a lot more thorough.”
That was news to her. The Office was well within its rights, she supposed. But it meant that the thread of anxiety she’d carried through the day, and was more than ready to let go of with its end, was one she would need to carry for a bit longer.
She reached out and shook his hand one more time. “It’s been a pleasure,” she lied – and she saw Dakara smile a little bit, knowing that it was a lie. He made his exit.
Once he walked out, the tavern seemed to let out a breath of relief, conversations growing a little bit louder, small voices in a room far emptier than it usually was this time of the evening. Aron had seen, over the course of the afternoon, as people walked in, read the atmosphere of the room, and walked back out, not even needing to see the inspector to know that something Official was stifling the place.
Aron was glad it was over, at least for the day. He didn’t like overhearing that he might be back, but the Office does what it will. He thought about coming in the next couple of day to make sure the place ran smoothly under the inspector’s gaze, but decided against it. Even the Office can’t take issue with one of its staff taking his scheduled day off.
Marlan would be in for the day, a newer girl still learning all of his recipes. She was coming along, but the menu was a lot slimmer when she was working; not that the patrons seemed to mind much. A lot of them were coming in to watch her work, since she was such a pretty woman. Bes would sit in the back of the tavern for each of her meals, shadowed, a pair of dim pink runes lighting up in the dark corner – watching to make sure none of the patrons got rowdy or handsy with the trainee.
The mental image of Bes leering over the rest of the patrons in the bar made Aron smile. Yes. Yes, he thought he would take the day off, maybe come in as customer instead of the grill cook. Surely there would be at least one angry customer, raising their voice a bit too loud, only to quietly walk out of the building, leaving their possessions and their pride behind. Dinner and a show.
As the noise in the tavern reached a new height after the inspector left, Glory turned back to him, shoulders slumped now that the man was out of the guild.
“Hey, Aron,” she groaned. “I need some of the good medicine.”
Aron nodded his understanding, and grabbed a clean glass and a thick bottle of amber liquor. He used the cup to scoop a couple cubes out of his ice chest, and poured the alcohol over them, sending them spinning around each other.
“Finding out that he’s going to hovering around for the rest of the week is making me nervous. I can only imagine what he’s going to be getting up to.”
Aron slid her the thick cup, and she took a sip, letting it burn down her throat with an oaky bite, feeling the flush crawl up her skin to her cheeks and eyes.
“I need to call Larami.”
Aron chuckled at her expense. “Looks like you aren’t escaping a bit more politics tonight.”
“Forget that. I’m going to warn him that the man is skulking around his town, then say 'good night.' I don’t want anything else to do with that inspector, especially anything that doesn’t have to do with the guild.”
Aron shrugged and went to go help another customer.
Glory drained the small cup, placed it back on the table, and left for the meeting room to use the telecomm. May as well get the call over with before Dakara gets to him.
She opened the drawer with the communication stones inside and took out one inscribed with an abstracted top-down map of the surrounding landscape, a star marking the rough location of Vane Gloria. She placed it in the telecomm and injected her mana to start the connection.
Larami Vane answered a few moments later, his thin, young face relaxed as he sat with his feet up, legs cutting off as they left the frame of the telecomm’s projected view.
“Glory! Good to hear from you. I’ve heard you had an inspection today.”
“I sure did. And I’m sorry to tell you, but it looks like you might have one, too.”
For a second, Larami was confused. “I don’t have…” Then his face scrunched. “The inspector is checking out the town, too?”
“That’s what he said. Told me he’s sorry, that he knows the inspections usually last for a day and then they’re done. But he told me he’d be in town for a few days; that he had a some things to check on in town. Don’t know why, or what for. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
Larami sat there for a few moments, eyes half-lidded, thinking. Then, he pulled his legs off the table and leaned into his telecomm screen. “Glory, I’m going to go. If he said he’s heading down here he’s probably stopping by the inn. I want to try and beat him there, talk to the innkeeper, see if I can’t make a deal or two happen. Thank you, Glory. I owe you one.”
Glory waved as his end of the telecomm clicked off, and the machine whirred, dumping it’s excess mana from the short call into the guild’s mana circuits.
Larami Vane was the most recent inheritor of his families' estates. Rich investors and land-owners all, they'd taken a huge risk when Gloria came to them decades before, with a crazy plan to invade the Demons instead of waiting for them to make war first. Since then, the family had taken on the role of constructing Vane Gloria, the town, as the support structure that a guild as daring as this would require.
Glory was happy to leave it to them, as had been her mother and grandmother before her. Too much politics. Give them a necessary task, the power to act, and the people to solve it, thanks. Politics only got in the way.
At least today's dose was over with now.
Glory left the back room to take the quest booth back over, after around six hours of Villara covering both desks. Fortunately, it was a slow day once the inspector had arrived, so she hadn't been too swamped. Glory still went to a small file on her side of the desk, to look at which contracts had been given out while she was away. Villara knew some of the problem mercs she looked out for, but not all of them.
So, of course, she saw a name that weighed on her chest.
That horrible...she waited for me to leave the booth!
“Ah, hell, Glory.” Villara looked up at her, concerned. “I know that look. Did I send someone bad for that contract?”
Glory pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, just...She's new. I don't have a handle on her abilities yet, and I think one of her weapon runes is still pretty fresh. I was trying to put her off that one until she'd gone through some other contracts.”
Villara shrugged, apologetic. “The power set made sense for solo work.”
Glory nodded, then put the files back on the drawer. She took a deep breath. Oh well, kid. I tried. Looks like a trial by fire for you. She tried to put the girl out of mind for the last couple hours before the lobby closed.