The next morning, I awoke far more refreshed than I expected to. I hadn’t gotten as much sleep as I wanted, but the sleep I had gotten was in a bed, and that was a pretty big improvement over the hard ground I’d grown accustomed to recently. I slid out of bed and stretched, hearing some popping noises as I did. Zevrack was already awake, or he’d never gone to sleep. I wasn’t entirely sure which. He was packing his things back into his bag, but I noticed that he was wearing the muzzle contraption he’d been working on the previous night.

We walked back down to the bar and found Tib and Patience already waiting there for us. Millicent joined just a short while after, looking a little tired. Patience and I exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything. It was her business after all. A short while later Tristus made his way down. A warm, infectious smile on his face. He was wearing a peach colored toga with gold bracelets and some laurels.

“I’m ready for my promotion.”

Tib looked at him. “Well. I suppose I was planning to hurry us through this section of town anyway, but all the jewelry is just asking for trouble.”

Tristus shrugged. “They won’t recognize me without it.”

As everyone was getting prepared to leave, I saw Zevrack talk to Millicent for a moment. I felt a soft hum of magic, and she gave him a firm scratch on the snout. The runes on his muzzle contraption briefly lit, then faded, though they now had a distinct reddish hue to them.

We all left the bar, armed and ready for anything. This was the last chance for Tristus’ competition to try and take him out, and we needed to be certain he’d make it through.

We made our way quickly through the slums and into the city proper. I was once again stunned by all the color and beauty Heracleum had to offer. Tristus insisted we stop at a particular food cart, and we all shared in some kind of delicious pastry that was glazed in honey. It was so good, I forgave him for drawing me away from the food cart we’d passed by the previous afternoon.

The administrative center of the city was a sea of columns. Each building was marked in what I recognized as latin, as well as common. We made our way through to the Eastern cluster of buildings, and there we reached the embassies. As we walked Tristus took the time to say hello to anyone he recognized, and a few people he didn’t. It was a little taxing for the rest of us, but I had the feeling that this was just part of his job. Staying in people’s good graces was important for a diplomat.

We made our way into one of the buildings, and I immediately felt as if I had entered an ancient Roman version of a DMV. There were lines of bureaucrats waiting for other bureaucrats who sat at desks. I expected Tristus to line up, but instead he walked past a line of people waiting, straight to the front where an older woman sat, wearing thick spectacles.

“Cassandra, how are you?”

She smiled. “Tristus! Welcome back home my dear. Looking for your new orders?”

He nodded.

“Well, normally it would take some time to process them, and you’d have to wait, but,” she winked at him, “someone seems to have already gotten them together for you.” She pulled a bundle of papers from behind her desk and handed them to him. There was a thick gold wax seal on the top of it, and it was filled with scribblings that appeared to be handwritten. “Take these straight to the Silent Peace Room. They’ll perform the ceremony and then you can throw some coins this poor old woman’s way so she can buy some wine.”

He smiled and nodded. “Of course my dear. See you soon.”

With that he led us straight back through a maze of shelves filled to the brim with papers, seals, and any number of clerical instruments. It would seem that Heracleum ran on writing everything down.

The rest of the group stayed close. Nica in the rear, Tib just to Tristus’ right, me to his left, patience and Millicent behind us.

At one point Tristus bumped into Tib’s shield trying to squeeze between two particularly narrow shelves. “Come on now, at this point everything is certain to go smoothly.”

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Tib shook his head. “The job you gave us was to escort you, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Tristus shook his head, but didn’t complain. We reached a room sealed off by a large set of double doors. Tib pushed ahead of Tristus and opened one half of them, letting himself in. The rest of us followed.

The room was grand. It had high ceilings, a large elevated set of desks on one end, and even seating for a potential audience. The only thing it didn’t seem to have, was anyone inside of it.

As well all reached the room’s center Tristus hesitated. “Something’s wrong.”

Everyone had already started to circle around him before he spoke. Our own instincts are a bit more finely tuned than his. Suddenly, men entered the room from all sides. Men with bows entered at the seating, men with swords through the door behind us, and still more from behind the desk at the head of the room. Most of them looked like soldiers or mercs of different types, but one of them was a sallow skinned young man wearing a sneer on his face that looked like his hands might shatter if they so much as touched a weapon or tool.

“Marcellus, I’m surprised to see you here,” said Tristus, crossing his arms.

“The bastard?” I muttered to Tib.

He gave a silent nod, his eyes moving across the men who had been gathered around us.

“You shouldn’t be you plebeian little slut”, said the bastard.

“Is all this really necessary?” he asked.

“It wouldn’t be, if you’d just refused the promotion and taken Daddy’s bribe.”

Tristus put a hand on his chin. “You know what I’m confused about?”

“Confused?” responded Marcellus, confused by the question.

“Why do you even want this job? A lesser servant of peace. It’s small-time stuff. Aren’t you better than any promotion a pleb like me could even receive? The job is basically being a bunch of other people’s slave all day, every day. You’d also have to live in Itlan, away from everyone and everything you know. Your poor mother would be without your company.”

Marcellus’ face contorted as he thought through what Tristus was saying to him. His guards were all looking at each other as well, and looking at us. It was a tense situation, and we were at a disadvantage, but I was certain that the bastard’s hirelings would rather not risk dying if they could.

Tristus spoke up again. “Even besides all that…don’t you think your Dad could do better for you? I mean, he’s a patrician! A senator! And you’re his son! Your mother is his fourth favorite mistress! Don’t you think you deserve more than the paltry little job even I could get?”

The bastard was nodding along this time as Tristus spoke. “You’re right… I’m too good for some backwater embassy position. All right. I’m leaving. I’m going to march right up to daddy’s office and demand something better right now!”

“Good for you,” I muttered under my breath.

We all relaxed a little, as did the bastard’s coterie. They seemed relieved, and one of them even gave Tib a little nod as they started filing out of the room, following behind their charge. A notification entered my vision,

Congratulations, you’ve solved an encounter with 12 Humans, peacefully! You’ve earned 1500 XP!

Well, that double XP for peaceful resolutions was no joke. I saw the rest of the group smiling as they read their own notifications. All except for Zevrack. I gave him a questioning look.

“I really wanted to breathe fire on one of them.”

I gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I’m sorry buddy. I’m sure you’ll get a chance next time.”

We walked out of the office and back to Cassandra, she had a look of surprise as we arrived. “Didn’t expect you to make it out of that one.”

“Was it a good bribe at least?” asked Tristus.

“Oh yeah, best I’ve ever gotten. It’ll put my grandkids through their magic schooling.”

He sighed. “Alright then. Where was I actually supposed to go?”

“The Still Peace Room”

“Good. Hopefully we can avoid an ambush this time.”

We made our way through the building to another room. This one was appointed similarly to the first, but there were people actually waiting this time. After that we endured something far more distressing than an ambush, a bunch of long winded bureaucratic talk and a review of Tristus’ performance. When it was all done he received his orders as a lesser servant of Peace and shot all of us a winning smile. With that done, maybe I could spend some time getting to know some adventurers.