The morning after Zinny’s party arrived far too quickly for Raith’s liking. He woke to pale light bleeding in around the shutters and a dull ache behind his eyes that was not quite a hangover, but close cousins with one. Apparently, even with Nyhm’s anti-intoxication potion, there were limits to how much glowing faerie wine a person should drink in one evening.
He groaned, rolled out of bed, and blinked blearily at the room. He’d intended to go through the mirror to his [Mnemonic Manor], but evidently didn’t quite make it. Everything was where it should be. His gear sat neatly on the chair. His coat hung from the peg. The mirror room door remained shut and reassuringly solid. Nobody had snuck in and murdered him overnight, which he took as a small but meaningful victory.
By the time he made it to the Strategy Room, the rest of the Myth Seekers were already gathered and looked unfairly awake.
Thea stood near the window idly practicing with her [Root Gauntlet] again. He noticed that the web of vines now wove up the entirety of her arm, and were beginning to edge onto her torso. Raith smiled but didn't comment, enjoying the progression of his friend's [Skill]. Nyhm sat cross-legged on his cushion, calmly sipping tea that smelled faintly of mint and something flowery. Tolliver was finishing a neat stack of parchment, quill still in hand. Raith was incredibly grateful the [Mage] had taken the lead in arranging all of these repairs and with servants and stuff. It was super weird to have servants. Zinny lounged upside down in midair, her hair hanging toward the floor as she slowly rotated in place.
“You look terrible,” Zinny observed, cheerfully.
“Good morning to you too,” Raith muttered.
Thea smirked. “We have our evaluation at the guild this morning. Tolliver thought it would be wise not to be late.”
“I did not say wise,” Tolliver corrected primly. “I said beneficial to our reputation.”
Thea rolled her eyes. "What's the difference?"
Nyhm set his cup down, heading off any silly arguments. “Food first?”
Raith’s stomach rumbled in agreement.
They made a quick meal of bread, cheese, and an assortment of leftovers that survived the previous night’s festivities, then headed out into town. Raith smiled, finally starting to feel home again. Nobles, servants and laborers moved through the streets with the quick, purposeful steps. After Zinny’s party, Raith suspected many of those eyes were turned in their direction.
He heard snippets as they passed a pair of finely dressed women.
“…the pixie invited a redcap, I swear I saw it…”
“…don't be rude, that was just an ugly dwarf…”
Raith kept his head down and kept walking.
The Beckhaven Adventurers’ Guild stood welcoming, its heavy oaken door carved with crossed swords and a stylized knot. Banners fluttered from the upper windows. The familiar clamor of voices spilled out into the street.
Raith nodded to the doorman, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The guildhall felt smaller somehow, even though nothing physical had changed. Tables filled the main room, cluttered with plates and tankards. A roaring hearth dominated the far wall. Adventurers in all colors of gear milled about, busier than Raith had been expecting given the troubles in the city right now. A few glanced up as the Myth Seekers entered, then nudged companions or pointed discreetly.
Raith pretended not to notice.
Senora was behind the long front counter, tallying something in a ledger. When she saw them, she froze. Her expression shifted through surprise, worry, and something that Raith couldn’t quite identify. Then she glided around the end of the counter and approached, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Raith. You're back.”
Raith held his breath, not sure of the reception he was about to receive but the dressing down he’d gotten during their last encounter fresh in his head. He gave a polite bow.
“Hello, Senora.”
Her gaze flicked over each member of the team as if silently appraising them. She seemed to relax.
“And my daughter?” she asked. “Word has it you saw her with the Players. She is well?”
Raith nodded.
“She is more than well. The troupe look out for each other. They spoke of her as a friend and are impressed with her talent.”
Senora pressed a hand to her chest and exhaled. “She wrote that she was happy, but…it's hard to be sure from letters. Parents always worry their children put on a brave face.”
“She did not look like she was pretending.” Raith hesitated, then added, “And the Players seem like good people. Eccentric, yes, but good.”
Senora’s shoulders eased. “Thank you. And I am sorry, for what I said before. I should not have taken my worry out on you.”
She swept him into a hug, and Raith felt his cheeks flush with heat.
“It is alright,” he said awkwardly. “You are her mother. You are allowed to worry.”
Zinny flitted down to eye level.
“Also, he nearly gets us killed on a regular basis, so he is not in a position to hold grudges.”
“That too,” Raith said.
Senora huffed a small laugh.
“Well, why don’t you all step into the back office for your review. After your last [Quest] report, the Guild Board was in quite a stir.”
Raith suddenly felt far more awake.
They followed her into a smaller chamber the guildmaster’s familiar office. Stacks of paperwork loomed around the desk in precarious towers. They found seats or reasonable approximations as Senora dug out a packet and settled in behind her desk. She flipped through several sheets, then tapped one with his finger.
“Let us review. Initial registration, then, within the span of a few months, the Grins cure, a faerie entanglement, elevation to nobility, an artifact retrieval of absurd importance, and triumphant return on the ship of a faerie pirate queen.”
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She peered at them.
“Do you all have a collective death wish?”
“No, ma’am,” Thea said politely.
“Not collectively,” Nyhm murmured.
Raith cleared his throat.
"It all wasn't exactly planned that way.”
“Most disasters are not.”
She signed something with a flourish.
“Regardless, the Guild cannot ignore the importance of your completed work. On paper, you are already operating at Gold rank in terms of threat clearance.”
Zinny gasped and clapped.
“However,” she continued, unruffled, “paper is not everything. We have the three-year rule for a reason. A team that rises too fast without the experience to match tends to break. Usually dramatically. Sometimes on fire.”
She folded her hands.
“You have skill. You have luck. You have, somehow, survived long enough to be sitting in that chair. What you lack is time. Repetition. The sort of weathering that only comes from boring jobs between the exciting ones. You have barely had any boring jobs at all.”
Raith could not argue with that.
“So,” Senora concluded, “as of today, the Myth Seekers are ranked as High Silver. It is not a rank usually given out, but the Guild has agreed it is warranted in this instance. You are flagged as priority candidates for Gold review, which will be discussed at the next Guildmaster meeting in three months. During that time, we strongly encourage you to take a number of medium level [Quests] that do not hold the fate of the entire Three Kingdoms in the balance.”
She slid a stamped certificate across the desk. Raith stared at it. High Silver. After everything they had been through, it felt both too small and strangely heavy.
Thea accepted the parchment, handling it with care. “Thank you,” she said.
They were dismissed with a wave. Outside the office, the main hall buzzed again. A few nearby teams glanced toward them, eyes snagging on the new stamp on Thea’s certificate. Whispers started. Raith caught fragments.
“Already High Silver…”
“…that godlaced boy…”
“…the team with the pixie…”
It made his skin itch.
He glanced back at Senora, catching her watching from behind her desk. She gave him a small, proud nod. He returned it, then guided the team toward the exit.
As they stepped back into the bright afternoon, Tolliver smoothed the front of his coat.
“Well,” Tolliver said, “that was not as terrible as it could have been.”
“We are very accomplished,” Zinny said, floating backward so she could look at them. “I am proud of us.”
Nyhm was quiet until they turned down a narrower street.
“Where to next?”
“I’ll meet you guys back at the house. I need to talk to Guildmaster Embry.”
***
Raith made his way through the warren of halls to Embry’s office, which was slightly less cluttered than the last time Raith had seen it, but only slightly. A detailed sketch of his manor’s new defenses lay open on the desk, weighed down by a paperweight shaped like a rat. The gnome welcomed him in, sat comfortably into his chair and steepled his fingers.
Raith told him the plan.
Embry’s mouth twitched.
“It is irresponsible, dangerous, and deeply unwise.” He paused, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly. “It is also quite exciting.”
That wasn’t an agreement to help, so Raith waited patiently. Embry reached into a drawer and pulled out a stack of parchment. He slid one toward Raith.
“This came in three days ago. I was going to show it to you even before you started talking about assassinations.”
Raith looked down.
It was a formal [Quest] contract, marked with the Thieves’ Guild insignia and stamped in three different inks, as though the person who posted it had not been satisfied until every official seal had been used twice.
Retrieve artifact from vault of MerScales Bank in Beckhaven. Item description below.
Reward: 10,000,000 gold crowns, payable upon delivery.
Raith let out a low whistle.
“That’s a lot of gold.”
“I first believed it to be a joke,” Embry said. “But the pay offered is real. The client is very serious. The job itself is impossible, even for me, so serious thieves laughed. Less serious thieves dreamed about it, but no one touched it. Yet. It is only a matter of time until someone desperate or foolish enough makes the attempt.”
Raith met his eye. “The artifact isn’t there anyway.”
Embry’s gaze sharpened. “You are sure.”
“We had it sent to the bank’s main vault beneath the sea. Venton does not know that yet, though.”
Embry swore under his breath.
“Of course he doesn't. Which means he still thinks Beckhaven is the problem. And you.”
Raith nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
Embry leaned back in his chair. “So you want to go to the source. Cut off the head of the snake.”
“Yes,” Raith said quietly. “And keep the Templars from attacking the city.”
The room went still.
Embry drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair for a long moment.
“I am not objecting on moral grounds,” Embry said finally. “Venton is a menace, and we’d all be well served to have his meddling put to and end. I am objecting on practical grounds. This is the sort of thing that gets you a statue or a prismatic shawl. Often the second without the first.”
“We are not rushing in blindly.”
He looked back at the contract, then at Raith.
“The guild has a fair amount of experience smuggling things into a place instead of out. Noble [Quests] to frame their rivals occur more frequently than you might imagine.”
Embry sighed again, but this time there was a hint of reluctant amusement in it.
“Very well,” he said. “I will see what can be done about aiding your mission. It may involve a few favors I did not intend to call in quite yet, but the Guild has a vested interest in seeing that the city is not razed by Templars.”
Raith’s shoulders loosened a fraction. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me yet,” Embry said. “This is not a promise. It is an attempt. I may find no way to get you inside their walls. Or, I may find that is too costly. We will see.”
He tapped the contract with one finger.
“In the meantime, you may wish to think about what you will do if you must go in the old fashioned way. Through their front door.”
Raith tried not to think about that too hard.
***
Raith returned to the manor as the sun dipped low over Beckhaven, [Squirrel Running] across the rooftops as the clouds turned a dark shade of red on the horizon.
The first thing he did was track down Thea. She was in the courtyard, checking the growth of one of the new trees the druid circle had coaxed into being. When he approached, she looked up.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“He is considering it,” Raith said. “No promises.”
“That is more than I expected,” she admitted. "But I suppose Templar attacks are bad for business,"
Raith nodded toward the pouch hanging at her belt.
“I want to talk to Dahbi,” he said. “If you do not mind.”
They went inside to the sitting room. The others drifted in as well, curiosity drawing them like moths. Thea set the ornate golden chalice on the low table and murmured the activation phrase. With a swirl of smoke, the tall, crimson skinned figure rose from the chalice in a twist of shimmering flame, arms folded, gold jewelry gleaming against the firelight.
Wondrous Dahbi looked around, took in their faces, and smiled.
“Hello, my big friends! How may the Wonderous Dahbi serve you this day?”
“Hello, Dahbi, we need a mirror.”
Dahbi groaned and dropped his head into both hands.
“Do you have a disorder? A compulsion? What is this thing with mirrors?”
***
Later, when the others had drifted off to their own tasks, Raith found himself heading through the mirror to his library. He realized as he stepped through that he could have just as easily done this from a chair in the strategy room, but this somehow felt more normal.
He mentally lit a fire in the heart, which roared to life with a woosh. Shadows stretched long across the cluttered desk that had grown in size to accommodate his expanding paperwork. Raith sat with a quill in one hand, ink staining his fingers, and a growing headache sitting just behind his eyes.
On the parchment before him, he began to list.
Allies:
Hob, the mystery Templar.
Embry, Thieves’ Guildmaster.
Dahbi, magical logistics.
The Myth Seekers, dear friends and stubborn idiots.
Lady Greendawn…?
Enemies:
Venton.
The rogue Templars.
Probably the entire formorian nation.
That last one twisted his gut a little.
Uncertainties:
Mirror insertion.
Fortress layout.
Locating Venton and killing him.
Allies among Venton's Templars.
He stared at the last line for a long time.
“Too many unknowns,” he whispered.
He tapped the quill against the table, then drew a rough shape of the Templar fortress from old maps and stories in his library. High walls. Aethercore-reinforced inner keep. Defensive lines of sight. He did not yet know where they would enter, or how they would reach Venton, or how they would get out again. But for the first time, he could see the faint outline of a path instead of a looming wall.
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. The fire crackled softly, sending up a small flare of sparks. Raith sat there until the embers faded and the room cooled, thoughts circling like hawks above a battlefield he had not yet seen.
They had time. Not much, but some. And Beckhaven, for the moment, still stood.
He intended to keep it that way.
