The frontier of the Kingdom of Alacandra was a wide expanse of hilly forest overlooking a strip of grassy plain. A large stone building, mostly obscured behind the tree line extended a watch tower over the canopy to overlook the nearby hills and the plains, to the craggy wastes of the Demon Lands far beyond. It was a guard tower, a scouting base, weapon and potion shop, a tavern, and mercenary guild. It was a beacon to every militia and freelancer, a flag planted at a time when it was farther from the heart of the kingdom than any other guild. And even now that others had technically surpassed it’s record distance from the King’s Office, none of those could claim the sort of prominence in the eye of their ancestral enemy that this weathered yet grand building held.
It was called Vane/Gloria’s, the Frontier Mercenary Guild.
“Listen, I don’t care if you need its teeth for your new wand, I’m not sending an Ice Lancer to fight an ice monster!” Glory waved her hand in front of the new rookie. “Either pick a different job, or go find a Fire merc to accompany you.”
The young woman lowered her fancy new crossbow with a frown as she glowered at Glory from in front of the desk. With a huff, she carried the contraption away, something of a stomp in her brisk pace.
Glory leaned back in the chair behind the mercenary contract booth, and rolled her eyes back in frustration. This new batch of rookies were going to get themselves killed, and at record paces, if they kept trying to push beyond their ability the way they have been. That kid she’d just turned away was a prime example. She must have spent an amount of money on that crossbow that could have paid for two Fire-attuned escorts to make sure she got the materials she needed. They might have skimmed a killing off the rewards for the mission, but at least she’d have the materials for her new wand’s construction, and also – as a minor, side benefit – her life!
Villara snickered at Glory from the booth across the back wall from her. She was framed by swords, axes, staves, wands, and all manner of enchanted weapons for all kinds of combat. The weapons she sold weren't only made of mundane steel; they were threaded, imbued, and reinforced with crystalline stone, each one patterned and faceted to focus specific runes.
A couple shoppers were browsing the range of her selection, both of them new faces. Ever since the civil war had ended, they’d seen an uptick in the number of new mercenaries, freshly inked with weapon runes, instead of the utility powers that their parents had tried so hard to impress upon them over the course of the sixty-five year Alacandra-Emmroh war.
Glory raised her eyebrows at Villara, pleading with her as though she had any ability to curb the impulses of her more suicidal hopefuls. Villara huffed a laugh and turned back to her guests to answer their questions.
Glory got up and made her way around the booth to look over the state of the floor.
There were around a dozen people milling around the lobby of Vane/Gloria’s. Several were hovering over the contract boards, checking to see if any new, juicy contracts were available to be snapped up. Others grumbled because well-paying contracts they’d expected to still be there weren’t posted anymore. Joke’s on them; Glory had already gotten to any contracts that had matured in danger and manually ranked up the jobs so that at least the risk was more in line with the caliber of the mercenaries that could attempt them, if not the rewards for completion – the Scouts’ reports would lead to the payout being raised in time. A few of the regulars that were rooted in Rank 1 contracts – mostly those who were still Rank 1 for reasons of competence rather than personal comfort – would grumble and moan when she did this, but all she had to do was look at her list of recent obituaries for lost or dead mercenaries, then remember how long the list could grow back when she’d first taken over the guild, and she relaxed. That reduction in casualties had been the first sign that she was on the right track to being a worthwhile guild leader, instead of a rote paper-pusher in a security administration.
Several other visitors were gathered by the weapon booth or the potion shop by the front door, and she smirked as Bes, the amateur alchemist and potion shop clerk, appraised her customer with a trademark deadpan. They had a back and forth about the best potion to use for a given contract, with Bes only responding in short, or single syllable, answers. She knew that this merc was just talking shop so he could keep chatting with the cute clerk tucked by the front door.
Once she’d had enough of his games – she wanted to give enough space for even these people to buy something if they wanted it – the runes by her eyes started to glow to light pink. She did not raise her voice to him, only continued responding to him in her subdued tone, pulling the topic back to potions every time he tried switch it to her, and what she was doing tonight. A few moments later, the fight went out of him, and, realizing he was spinning his wheels talking to someone who wasn’t interested in him, and who he suddenly realized wasn’t a particularly compelling person after all, he turned and left to visit the tavern, his eyes glassy and devoid of strong emotion.
Glory smirked at the interaction and decided to visit the tavern herself.
She headed down a short hallway opposite Bes’s potion counter, and pushed through a swinging double-door into a large, bustling room only filled to a quarter of its capacity, but still populous enough that entering entailed passing a thick wall of boisterous laughter and the mixed aromas of alcohol and comfort food. Typically the smell of alcohol wasn’t quite so strong this soon after noontime, but the recent end to the civil war, and the prosperity that such a move would ensure, led the reveling to last late into the early morning, and start back up again soon after the rising sun.
Aron had his back turned to his guests as he worked over the griddle, the air heavy with savory meats and mixed spices, inviting the late risers and hungover ghouls to reenter the den of companionable hedonism they’d so recently left. Glory herself was drawn to the idea of a sausage and cutlet sandwich. Aron had this mildly sweet sauce with a prick of pepper spice that seeped into the meat and flooded your mouth when you bit into the tender strips. It was probably a little bit too early for her to have one of those, but hell, the war was over. It was a time to celebrate, to indulge. As she approached the bar, the smell of his cooking only enticed her further, past the point that healthy inhibition could stop her.
“Hey, Aron, grill me up one of those Medley subs, would you?”
He grinned over his broad shoulder at her. “So soon, Glory? Thought you said you were putting me off for a while. Something about your mother’s penchant for getting fluffy.”
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Glory waggled a finger at him. “Hey now, that was my past self, you can’t be listening to her. She never knows what the present me really wants or needs. And what my present self needs is one of those subs.”
He chuckled and turned back the the steaming griddle. “No worries, I’ve already got the meats on, just a few more minutes.” He flipped a sauce bottle over and squirted a light trail over the sizzling meats, adding a zing to the air that stung the back of her sinuses with delicious promise.
Aron let that pile sit as he retrieved more boar sausage and strips of steak. It didn’t escape her notice that these were the same meats he was making her sub with, but she was fine letting him play the part of a mind reader instead of a kind man that would delay his own meal a few minutes to sate someone else’s stomach. Part of being a guild cook was to put on an air of extra confidence, and even a bit of mystique, lest a ravenous horde of mercenaries smell your fear and commandeer your kitchen.
That’s what happened to her last few cooks.
A few minutes later, Aron gutted a long, fluffy bread and stuffed it full of protein and thick sauce for Glory, and she ignored the world for a few moments as she was lost in a feeling of home that even her mother’s own cooking couldn’t kindle. Aron smiled down at the oblivious guild leader, and checked the room, noticing a couple of people enter, see Glory, and move to approach her with papers in-hand, but Aron waved them back to the lobby until her meal was done. She had no idea he’d done it; she was practically insensate in the moment.
Once she was about halfway through, she admitted to herself that her nose and eyes had been much bigger than her stomach when she’d walked in, and asked Aron to wrap up the other half for her to finish later on, and he did so, stuffing it into rune-etched coldbox to keep until the evening. Then she thanked the man, and headed back into the main lobby.
Glory sighed as she made her back behind her booth and started to address the small crowd that had gathered around, clutching contracts that she hoped they were actually qualified for. They kept her busy for around half an hour, but fortunately, they were all pretty reasonable and didn’t pitch a fit when she told them why certain jobs could be a poor match for their skill-set.
Once they had all dispersed, two groups heading out on Rank 1 quests and another group mingling with others in the lobby to scrounge up help for a Rank 2, Glory sat back in her seat behind the booth and thought over what to do with all the new blood in her guild – a train of thought derailed by the front door getting shoved open.
Geon and Astria sprang into the lobby, faces weary and sporting worried frowns. They charged over to Glory’s desk in a rush that commanded the attention of the entire room.
“We’re back from a camp clearing. Has Vai been by yet?”
“N-no,” Glory replied, startled. “Did something happen, are you both alright?”
Geon took a few deep breaths, still looking concerned, but realizing that the report was more important than the worry. He kept his voice low as he answered. “Yeah, we should talk out of earshot, things got a bit crazy on watch after the job.”
Glory’s breath slowed. Did she neglect to rank up that job? Was it due for a large expansion?
Astria saw her paling cheeks and waved her hand on front of Glory’s face. “Hey, stop that. It wasn’t something you could have expected. Vai didn’t, we didn’t, and you weren’t there, so you couldn’t either,” Astria hissed before glancing around, taking in the wide-eyed stares and nearby eavesdroppers pretending to still scan the contracts. “Now, let’s go to the back.”
Glory shook off the surprise and habitual self-recrimination and led them to the door behind the contract booth. Inside was a medium-sized room, it's main feature was a long table with a couple bobbles on the table and a few rune-engraved tools along the wall. Glory touched a rune set into the wall by the doorway, and they felt the walls hum before fading to background noise, blocking out the sound of the lobby. Then Glory sat down in the closest chair to the door, and Astria sat across from her, Geon sitting at the end.
“So,” Astria started, “the contract started out fine. A couple hiccups, but they were our hiccups. A monkit ambush caught us off guard, but we were still far enough away from the site that nothing heard us, and we were able to heal and regenerate before reaching their camp.”
Geon picked up. “When we arrived we met Vai, the scout for our mission, and he let us know that in the day since we’d registered intent on the contract, two more imps had shown up in the camp. That was fine, and we were able to clear it without too much stress.” He paused to breathe. “But then came the watch.
“Halfway through the night, an hour or so after Vai took watch, he woke us up, warned us something big was coming. We hid somewhere we could escape from easily. Then this tall demon comes up surrounded by twenty or so imps.”
Glory narrowed her eyes, head rocking back a little in thought.
Geon continued. “Vai made himself a distraction, and he led half the imps away, and then we ran, chased by the rest of them.”
“What did the big one do?” Glory cut in.
Geon shrugged. “We don't know. Or I don't know, maybe he chased Vai down instead?” He grimaced and tapped the table. “I was really hoping he'd beaten us here.”
“I'll keep an eye out...” Glory muttered, trailing off, pondering a tangent. “Did the tall one do anything else that you remember? Every detail is useful.”
Astria shrugged. “It made fire in its hand, used the light to look at the camp we cleared.”
“And he talked to us, too,” Geon said, then coughed an uncomfortable laugh. “He kinda hammed it up, actually. He was like, 'Raah, I smell your fear. Bring me more people to eat!' and told us to run away and tell you about him.”
Astria nodded. “He's not kidding. 'Bring me an army to feast on,' it said.”
“But we left as soon as he said that, and were chased by the imps. Astria had to pull some wild magic to get us through.” Geon said. “Didn't see him again.”
Glory sat back and thought for a few seconds. “It's bait. It's clearly bait,” she said, talking to herself aloud. “But three days after the war ends? Why attack now, when we're about to head back to the frontier in force?” She stopped talking out loud, but her thoughts kept going. This is the sort of thing Mom got so paranoid about. But she always thought the demons would attack while we were focused on the war with Emmroh. Augh, I'm going to have to talk with her.
“Alright,” Glory said and rubbed her face. “Keep quiet about that tall demon, for now. I don't mind you telling people about the big group of imps that came with it. If you see Vai before I do, let him know I'm looking for him. I want his side of things, too.” She stopped for long enough to realize she'd railroaded her thoughts, and looked them each in the eye. “I know you're alive, and you clearly got away from the imps, but are you both all right?”
They were quiet for a moment. Astria nodded. “I will be.”
Geon shrugged. “What's another new nightmare or two, right?” But the corner his eye winced a moment after the joke. The memory of his tendon getting sliced was going to haunt him.
Glory nodded at them. “Go eat. Get something to drink, too. It's on me.”
They thanked her and filed out of the room, closing the door behind them and leaving her alone to think. This was pretty big news. Getting an influx of twenty imps at once was unheard of, nevermind a demon that was clearly in a leadership role. Once she'd heard from Vai she would have to give a report to the King's Office directly. She wished it could wait until her meeting with the Inspectors and Officials that was scheduled in a couple days, but she couldn't start being lazy now. She rested her head on the back of her chair and spoke to the ceiling.
“Spectres. Huh.”