The next morning, Glory strode up to the guild's door. The typical gathering of early birds were sitting on the small wall that led up to the entrance, looking up at her approach. She waved and pulled out the key.
“Come on in. If you have questions about the job board, I'll have an announcement in an hour.”
She opened the front door and those outside wandered into the dim lobby with puzzled faces. Glory made a beeline to her quest booth to get started on her work for the day: combining all the formerly Rank 1 imp camp quests into Rank 2 patrols to clear several at once.
She saw, as she worked behind the desk, how the patrons went up to the quest board with wide eyes, seeing it stripped nearly bare of exactly the sort of quests that made up the bread and butter and many Rank 1 mercenaries. They gave her an odd look as they walked up to ask her what was going on, but she just shook her head.
“One hour. In the tavern. I 'll make a big announcement then, when more people are here. It's going to be a pretty long explanation and I'll already have to give it a few times throughout the day, so I'm going to pile you all together to hear it at once. There's going to be a lot of big changes coming with the war moving this way.” She nodded to the stripped Rank 1 quest board. “Consider this one of the first.”
The early mercs weren't happy, but they all went to the tavern to settle in while the guild opened up for the day. None of the other day staff were in yet. Corin was making his last few rounds, gathering up the cleaning supplies he'd used throughout the night, and he waved to Glory as he passed though the lobby.
At her desk – sheets of contracts spread out in front of her with a map pinned to the inside of the booth – Glory placed her left hand onto a palm-sized gem set into her desk. Her Telekinesis rune lit up, and she slowly pushed power into the gem. A low hum filled the walls of the guild, and lights set into the ceiling slowly started to glow. She kept pushing power in, even after they were at full brightness. The circuit she was charging ran throughout the entire guild, powering not only the lights, but the cookware and coolers in the kitchen, the heating and cooling in the less temperate seasons, and several other small enchantments, like the soundproofing in her meeting room behind the booth. The door knob on the entrance had a similar enchantment, drawing in a small amount of mana from the mages that entered.
Once she'd drained half her core into the gem, she relaxed into the job of combining contracts. She wanted to have at least a few of them ready for the Rank 2 leaders to peruse. She directed around a couple dozen more people to the tavern over the next hour, until she could hear the commotion from the waking and restless mercs.
Villara and Bes both came in shortly before she was ready to make her announcement, and she gave them each a moment to put their things down before headings over the the tavern to say her piece. Bes, in particular, would be necessary for this speech, just in case some of the mercs got rowdy at the news.
Aron still wasn't in yet, so the room felt a bit less in control than the man's presence usually commanded. But they all knew who the real boss of the place was, and as she passed through the central aisle to the front of the tavern, the attention of the mercs turned to her, and a hush fell over the crowd. She stepped up onto the small stage set into the floor of the tavern across from the bar in the corner, and clapped her hands one time. Nearly thirty faces turned towards her. Bes stared flatly from the back of the room, rune briefing lighting. Silence fell over the room.
“Alright,” Glory began. “You've all seen the board. The Rank 1 section is pretty bare now. Imp camps, of any size, will no longer be considered Rank 1 jobs – they are Rank 2.”
The grumbling started. She bowled over them to continue. “In the last week, we have had two instances of small imp camps – no more than five in either job – that had a large influx of imps, bringing the total up to fifteen or twenty. There is risk for more. I know some of you may have heard Geon's stories about his experience a few nights ago – I can back up most of what he said as true.
“There is one more issue, though. I tried to keep a lid on this other detail, but there was another demon with the imps – an intelligent one. They are tall, have an unknown range of magics, and lead groups of imps. Some of you older mercs may have heard these stories before – we called them spectres years ago.”
The murmurings grew more concerned, though the younger mercs looked skeptical.
Glory went on.
“Yesterday, this happened again. And this time, it looks like the demon made an alliance with one of the monsters down south; a Forest Queen. And it's specifically baiting us to go after it with armies.”
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Aron rounded the corner, his brow peaked, having heard the last couple sentences. The mercs were a mix of quiet and indignant, and light jeering stirred in the crowd.
'That's a risk for us to decide to take!'
'Those are our jobs!'
'You're taking away half the contracts on the board!'
Glory nodded to that last comment. “Yes, and I know it's going to hit you all hard. This was a change we didn't anticipate, but if I'm going to have enough Rank 2 mercenaries in the future, I need to keep you Rank 1 people alive.
Glory called out as the murmurings rose to a stern berating, “Now, listen! We all knew that the expansion of the war out here was going to cause some upheaval. It's going to be coming a lot sooner than we thought, and I need to get the guild ready to weather that storm! I won't do that by sending you out into deathtraps.” She glared out at the mercs here, still mostly angry, though they weren't all vocal about it.
Glory had thought this over late into the night at home. She wouldn't have enough Rank 2 teams to take on the additional load of these contracts, even with the expected influx of mercs. And she had more Rank 1s than she needed for the remaining monsters in the area. A lot of those were multiple days of carts rides away. She had to make a compromise.
Glory continued. “I can't send you out as small Rank 1 teams and solo runners – but I also can't let you all lounge around. So, here's my idea: if you can gather a solid team of Rank 1 mercenaries, I will grant you special permission to take on those Rank 2 imp camp jobs. They'll be made up of a few imp camps in a row, like a patrol, so expect to be out for several days on them, or even a week or two. But these will be Rank 2 contracts, and they will payout like Rank 2 contracts. Think of this as a way to move yourself up.”
The crowd relaxed a little bit at that, though some were still ruffled at the idea. It was enough. There might be some competition for the remaining Rank 1 contracts, but Glory could live with that. Bes could deal with those that got out of hand.
“Understand: this is likely only the beginning of the changes that are going to happen around here. I'll have more information once I know more about what Vane/Gloria's place in the offensive is going to be, but expect more. This will be a time of opportunity, but also of massive upheaval. If you're looking for stability, the frontier is a less likely place to find it right now.
“Since I'm up here, I should probably announce this as well: we are going to be moving to an all-hours model. We need to be able to respond to threats and relay information more reliably, and this should let us do that. It won't be for another week or so. I still need to hire people, so if you know anyone...let them know we're looking for help. Overnight shifts, mostly.”
“When are the new Rank 2 contracts getting posted?” someone called form the crowd.
Glory nodded at them. “Tomorrow, and I'll start considering groups of Rank 1 mercs for take them tomorrow as well. And let it be known right now: I have the final say on your acceptance. If I don't think your team has a good shot of completing the contract without getting anyone killed, I will reject you, and you will have to restructure the team before I let you go.”
This didn't provoke much in the way of grumbling, because that was already how she always worked. She got off the stage and heading out the aisle, passing Aron at the door and patting him on the shoulder. “Sorry, it looks like you're going to be busy today. I expect there's going to be a lot of people mingling around here now that I'm paying larger-than-normal Rank 1 teams to take my new Rank 2 jobs.”
Aron just nodded. “That's fine, Glory. It's your house. It just means more money for me in the end, and I got my sleep yesterday. I'm ready for a long day.”
Glory smiled and continued into the lobby, heading over to the booth and starting on her cobbled-together Rank 2 patrols.
The hubbub in the tavern bubbled over to the lobby a few minutes later as the Rank 1 mercs starting pooling over the jobs that were left. The whispers turned to muttering as they grumbling about the relative pay, or distance, to the jobs they had just lost out on. Glory ignored the noise and focusing on her work, signing off on the contracts that several mercs brought to her desk.
They still had to pay rent somehow.
After a while, the smell of Aron's breakfast drew most of the mercs back into the other room, only a few left buying supplies from Bes as they prepared supplies for their new contracts. They had to hurry if they wanted to catch the morning cart out. Many of these were the complaining types, upset that they would have to travel so far for the new contracts.
The morning carts pulled up to the front of the guild about half an hour later, and a full 10-person Rank 2 team climbed into the cart with a smattering of Rank 1s that nearly filled every remaining seat.
Glory watched them pile in from the doorway, taking a short break from the contract work. She chewed on her lip watching the last mercs pile in. Will I need to hire more carts for transport, too? Gods, the costs keep piling up. And this one comes out of my pocket, not the King's. We can afford it, it just won't be comfortable.
It would be a boon to the mercs. Some had offered the suggestion before, but she hadn't seen the necessity of it until now.
There were so many areas where she left like the guild had been resting on its laurels, all of those areas coming into clear focus now that she was trying to account for some of the expected soldiers. She kneaded her forehead as she remembered her talk with Dakara. Didn't I just tell the inspector that I couldn't do much to prepare for this offensive? I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut longer when I'm stressed.
Glory ducked back inside as the cart rolled away towards the hills in the north. More mercenaries were streaming in, as was typical for the morning rush, and the southbound cart would be along shortly to take mages that way. The tavern bubbled with commotion as mercenaries mingled, introducing themselves to new people as they tried to cobble together new teams. Some hoped to beat the second cart's arrival, though most were resigned to waiting for tomorrow morning and taking the time to make new connections while the guild was busy.