Elia caught the cart on its way back to the guild. No one else was in there that evening. A blessing.
She stripped off the thick leather vest and sat on one of the benches by the window. As the cart started lumbering along, then speeding up, she allowed herself to slouch, then slide into the crook between the benches, gently shaking as she buried her face in her arms. Her gentle sobs were the only accompaniment to the sound of clopping hooves. The coachman and his guard in the front heard, but they pretended they had not. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence when picking up a returning mercenary, though it was a bit rarer to see it from someone who left alone and came back.
They pulled up to Vane/Gloria's several hours and a short nap later. Elia walked up to the door, a gloom hanging over her, and she pushed it open. It was into the late hours now. The cart coming back to home base was one of the signs that the guild was going to be closing up shop soon, and the lobby had already emptied of most visitors. A couple people were still bunched up by the quests, but they moved along to the tavern as they saw Elia walk in.
Glory wasn't at the desk at the moment, but her back room door was open. Villara saw her first, saw her face, and rushed over.
“Hey, hey. What happened out there? You don't look so good.”
It took so little for Elia's eyes to well up. “Wh-where's Glory? I have a-” She couldn't get the words out. How was she supposed to face the woman, after taking the job behind her back and getting someone killed?
Villara looked sick herself, but she held strong, walked her over to the backroom and opened the door all the way, leading Elia inside.
Glory was relaxing with the last of her meal on the table, but put her fork and knife down once she saw the state of the girl that Villara brought in, pulling a chair out for her to sit in.
Elia looked up at her, at the concern in her face. She really did just want to keep her people safe. She wasn't trying to keep jobs for other mercs, or trying to skim off the top of teams she worked with more closely. She cared.
Elia broke. She didn't make it to the chair before grabbing onto Glory and sobbing. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I should've listened, I got...”
“It's alright, just sit down, relax, you're home.”
“I got the Scout killed! He told me we should leave, but I thought- I thought I had to prove-”
Villara was already out the door to grab a jug of water, and one of wine.
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It was fifteen minutes later when Glory had an idea of what happened. Elia hadn't been as close to the meeting of the monsters as her Scout, Randu, had been; but the spectre's words near the end were enough to give her an idea of what the discussion was about.
'Maybe this time your leaders will listen, when you tell them of our pact. Maybe then you will bring armies.'
A pact, huh? Glory thought, dwelling on the implication. I don't know what exactly that would entail, but it's nothing good. That's the second time that the spectre has made an appearance on an imp camp contract. I think I'll have to reclassify every one of those jobs as Rank 2.
Elia had drained a glass of water immediately after Villara brought the pitchers in, then poured the wine as she tried to start into the story of all that went wrong with the job. Elia hadn't been sure what the other monster there was, but Glory knew from the rough description of its power that it must have been a Forest Queen. The royal ghosts of old were common down on those plains, but most of the time, they were a decrepit, weakened thing; barely able to maintain their sanity long enough to keep from attacking even the largest teams in the open. Sometimes, though, those spirits were comprised of a much stronger piece of that old soul, with enough of their old motivations and perspective to be a real danger.
The spectres calling their relationship a 'pact' was not something Glory wanted to hear. It meant another call to Durza at the King's Office. This would probably accelerate their timetables a bit. Glory wasn't looking forward to the rush of work that would come from getting the guild ready for the incoming expansion, and now it looked like it was going to come a bit earlier than she hoped.
A couple cups into the wine, Elia blew her nose into one of the cloths Glory left.
“Glory?” Elia's voice was small, even after the drink. “is it always like this, on the frontier? This was my first job out here. I thought Rank 1 jobs were supposed to be easier, possible for me to solo.”
Glory shook her head. “This is all new. What... Randu had told you, about the bad job a few days ago. That was true. The Healer from the job was here earlier; she might still be in the tavern now. But no, that isn't normal. Our Rank 1 jobs can be tougher than the Rank 1 jobs closer to the capitol cities, but that's mostly because of the other monsters that roam around the area. The imps usually aren't so much more difficult to clear.”
Elia held the cloth in her lap, head bowed in regret. “I'm sorry for going behind your back. I did it on purpose.”
Glory took her by the shoulder. “Don't worry about it. You knew more about your abilities than I did, and from the sound of your report, you would have done just fine if the camp was in any state close to what we expected of it. You even took out a Stone prince on the way out to the job, and those things are monsters I'd typically require more than one person to take on. At least you know now the kinds of stakes we're looking at out here, even if those stakes are a bit high now.”
With a grimace, Elia looked at Glory as her stomach rumbled. “Speaking of steak: I need to eat something. Is there anything else you need from me, Glory? Because of the... because of Randu's death?”
Glory pushed away from herself, towards the door. “No. No, you're fine. I'll give the report directly to the Office. With what you've told me, there's no way you'll see consequences from this. That tall demon is...not a known factor, but it's a unknown factor we've seen before. Go ahead, go eat. Order whatever, food's on me tonight.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
For a moment, she considered giving Elia the same warning that she gave to Geon, Astria, and Vai about keeping the spectre secret. Now though, Glory was of a different mind. She shouldn't have kept it secret in the first place. Yes, it might have the effect of some mercs taking less jobs, but she couldn't let them go out on imp clearing missions under the assumption of less risk than there appeared to be now. No, better that they know the risk, so they're more likely to take precautions. Of course, if her plan of ranking the imp jobs up to Rank 2 was approved, then that wouldn't be an issue.
Elia left her meeting room, still followed by a gloom, thought with some small portion of the weight off of her shoulders.
Glory closed the door behind and walked over to the telecomm, opening the drawer and pulling out the stone that connected her to the Security Wing of the Office.
After a minute the column of light flickered into the shape of Durza, wearing more casual attire than his typical military suit.
“Durza, there's no way you are in this room so much more often that you can pick up any call I make to you on a whim. Are these people not letting you outside anymore?”
The older man smiled at her, amused but not as gleeful as he often was. “I've been getting a number of calls from guilds along the frontier today. I can guess as to why you've called. Is it the spectres again?”
Glory was surprised. “Yes, it was. How many more reports have come through since we spoke last?”
Durza stroked the stubble on his cheek. “Two more. One yesterday, one today. And now you as well.” He shook his head. “I was going to get ahold of you tomorrow, but I'll let you know now: We are going to be moving out there a lot earlier than we'd assumed we would be. The idea of the spectres being out there again is worrying, particularly right on the heels of our own war ending on the other side of the kingdom.”
“I expected that. I wanted to run a measure by you, before I take action tomorrow. I'm ranking-up every imp camp job to Rank 2. Sight unseen, I don't care if it's just one reported imp. I'll combine a few of the camps that are closer to each other into a single job, in order to keep the work-to-pay ratio up, but even if I can't, they have to be Rank 2.”
Durza nodded. “I suppose that's reasonable, considering the threat involved. I'll talk to the others here to make sure they don't throw an audit at you.”
Glory nodded to him. “Thank you.”
“So, what happened today?”
Glory poured out a glass of the wine that Elia hadn't finished. “I had a new Rank 1 girl come in the other day. Kept trying to get a...” She waved her hand, interrupting herself. “Anyway, doesn't matter. New girl. She took an imp camp job, solo; she had the runes and the equipment to suggest she could handle it. When they got there, they found the camp had moved, and when she and the Scout tracked it down, they found a clearing with fifteen or so imps, plus the spectre and what sounds like a forest queen. They were detected, and had to run. They caught and killed Randu, then made Elia run away. They told her about a 'pact' though Elia heard no specifics. And they again implied that we should send armies out to fight them.”
Durza lip curled as he mulled over the report, and Glory took a long sip of the wine. After a moment he spoke again. Make sure she keeps quiet about the spectre, Glory. The more ti-”
“No,” Glory cut in. “I'm sorry, but I've made up my mind on that already. I'm letting the mercs know. I'll tell Geon and Astria that they can talk about this again, and I plan to make an announcement tomorrow morning during the opening rush, and a few more throughout the day. When I tell them about the rank-up for the imp camp contracts, I'm telling them about the spectres.”
Durza's face grew stern as she spoke, though not angry. “That's not what we need right now, Glory, if people start hearing about demons making plans with monsters, we'll have panic. You're already going to have some smaller imp jobs that go undone because of the lower payout for such a small mission; that worry will spread to jobs for the non-infernal monsters if they know that some nebulous deal is being made with demons.”
“The only alternative is more dead mercenaries. I want these people going in with their eyes open.” Glory felt her face flushing, and she put the cup of wine down on the long table. “This is worse than Mom's stories about the spectres were. They rarely attacked directly in those old reports, just led a bunch of imps around, and in fewer numbers than we're seeing today. Now they're openly making deals and baiting us into attacking them? I don't like it. It's smacks of exactly the sort of thing she was worried about.” She glanced down. “I'm glad she got out of here before her nightmare came true.”
Durza just stood there and nodded. “I suppose I understand. The rest of the Office won't like it, is all I'm saying.”
They stood a moment, Glory taking a second to cool off. She downed the last sip of wine then filled the cup with water, sipping that, too. Durza just watched patiently, knowing she wasn't quite done.
“Want to clue me in on what happened with the other guilds?” Glory asked.
Durza seemed to debate internally before he sighed and went into it.
“The attack yesterday happened around the Vitria guild, way north of you. Some tall demon brought a large number of imps into a camp, totaled around twenty. With them was a large bestial demon, not one of the known growth patterns for imps. Something new. It killed off half of a team of Rank 1s before they were able to escape. Two dead.
“The other one, earlier today, was farther inland. A tall demon matching the spectre description had three weaker stone and water princes. They killed off the Scout that was following them, then ambushed the Rank 1s on the mission while they were looking for the Scout. Another Scout passed by after the assigned Scout missed their check-in, found the bodies of all three.”
Glory pushed down the small piece of stupid pride that was gloating at losing less people; she hadn't actually done a thing to make that possible. Hadn't even vetted the kid before she ran into that problem. Also, it was probably crass to compare death counts like that, but it was a vice Glory kept well to herself. Keeping her people safe was a priority for her, and she liked hearing about when she was more successful at it than other guilds. This job that Elia just stumbled back from wasn't the result of that ethos, though.
“So, when do you think you'll have someone out here to talk about preparations?” she asked Durza.
“Another couple of days. We just put him on the first leg out there. He'll be there in time to meet your inspector before he's due to leave.”
Glory huffed. She'd forgotten he was still in town.
“Did you get his report in yet?” Glory asked, brow raised in a half-teasing question.
Durza smirked at her. “Sorry, Glory. You aren't getting an early review this year, there's too much going on for us to break protocol.”
Glory shrugged. It was worth a shot.
Durza waved at her. “I'll let the Office know to expect your changes to job structure tomorrow. They'll adjust the pay for you.”
“Thank you, Durza. I appreciate it.”
They each ended the call, and Glory sat down in her sofa chair for a moment to think.
Outside her back room door, the lights in the lobby dimmed as Villara closed it for the evening. Glory took another few sips of the glass of wine, and thought over some of the expected changes.
Potion supplier was due in tomorrow; she'd have to speak to them about tripling the next couple of orders, just to have a buffer against the influx of people. She would probably want to personally check out the blacksmith and the alchemist in town, just to see if they had any specialty weapons or potions that she wanted to keep on the shelf. And she'd have to check with Larami about the status of the town as a whole; she knew he could handle all the day to day stuff, but she wanted to get an idea of how well-equipped Vane Gloria was to take in the expected soldiers, many of whom would move here permanently.
With a yawn, she shunted all of that planning off for tomorrow, and got up to clean up her booth, and she stopped by the job boards, pulling off every Rank 1 quest for an imp camp. They were so routine there was a small pile of smaller imp jobs laying on the counter in front of the Rank 1 job board, simply because they're common enough that they can't all fit onto the board at once without making it unreadable. Then she placed them in a file in her desk for her to work on tomorrow. Her whole next day would likely be spent on job routing and sparring with cantankerous rookies.
Yay.