Darius Gannon stood outside the High Emissary of Beckhaven’s door and took a deep breath. He didn’t know why he’d been summoned for a personal meeting, but it was almost certainly nothing good.

  The Emissary sect was tasked with maintaining public and political relations wherever the Order had a presence, and ensuring their interests were represented. All things that Darius found utterly distasteful and avoided like the plague.

  He gave the door three sharp raps and took a step back. A moment later, the door opened to reveal Gannymede, one of the higher ranking members of the Templar sect. Darius’s sense of foreboding increased as he was gestured into the room. Ducking his head to avoid scraping his great curling horns on the doorframe, Darius stepped through.

  “Templar Gannymede, High Emissary Venton,” he nodded to each as he entered. “I hope the day finds you well.”

  The smile Venton returned held all the warmth of an arctic wyrm. His long gray hair was pulled back into a severe pony tail, and every graceful movement carefully calculated as he stood from behind the ornate oaken desk and gestured graciously at the chairs across from him.

  “Senior Loremaster Gannon, so good of you to join us. Please come in and have a seat”

  The Templar sat first and Darius followed suit, settling into a chair much too soft for his liking. He tried to remember the pudgy man’s [Divine Skill]. It wouldn’t come to him, so he activated his [Decipher Pattern] [Skill].

  That’s right, [Divine Skill: Farsight]. Our Emissary’s little spy, peering into bedrooms across all of Tela for the good of the Order. I didn’t realize he had a [Chef] class. How odd, but I suppose everyone requires a hobby.

  Venton cleared his throat, startling Darius from his examination.

  “It is my understanding that you have a daughter.”

  That was the wrong way to start the conversation. He was more than ready to butt heads for his family, regardless of who was doing the threatening. Darius made no attempt to hide the anger in his voice.

  “If you’ve something to be discuss regarding my family, then be out with it. I’ll brook none of your games with their welfare.”

  The High Emissary held up a hand and smiled mildly.

  “No need to be defensive. I only wish to help with the trouble she has found herself in.”

  He put on an expression of unconvincing sympathy and batted his eyes. Darius leaned forward in his seat.

  “What trouble?”

  “This adventuring team she has joined, the Myth Seekers I believe,” he looked at Gannymede, who nodded in reply. “They had a bit of a run in with the King’s River Patrol. Several kingsmen died from what I hear. Truly a tragedy.”

  Darius felt the flush of anger spread from his chest up his face. He shot to his feet and stomped a hoof.

  “Tell me plainly what has happened to my daughter.”

  Leaning back with a look of disappointment, Venton gestured towards the Templar take over. The man had an expressionless beaver-like face that irritated Darius even further.

  “Yestereve, the king’s patrol attempted to stop a group of smugglers. Rather than submit to inspection, the smugglers fought. As the Venton stated, a number of kingsmen lost their lives in the ensuing battle. In addition, an expensive vessel belonging to the patrol, and therefore the King himself, was severely damaged. The Myth Seekers enjoined this fray on the side of the smugglers. The team have all survived and escaped for the moment.”

  “This is preposterous. My daughter would never do such a thing. Her dearest friend is the son of a kingsmen, along with his brother. Their party even has a member of the nobility.”

  Leaning forward and nodding in understanding, Venton took over.

  “We realize this is a very delicate situation. Fortunately for all of us, the surviving members of the patrol failed to identify anyone in the adventuring party. All blame has fallen on the selkie smugglers. The only people who know precisely what transpired are right here in this room.”

  Darius clenched his jaw.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Our dear friend Gannymede has been called to service in the capitol."

  So he wants to involve me in some political machinations? Calling Templars to service in the north is not a good sign. The bugbears could never make it this far south, but everyone in the kingdom would still suffer the economic strain and be required to send their soldiers to fight.

  “Do the Hordes gather?”

  “No, nothing like that. The giant-kin colony to the south has been thwarting the King’s scryers of late. It will require Gannymede’s unique gifts to ensure they intend to remain good neighbors. He has been keeping an eye on certain interests of mine, and I pray you would be kind enough to help me in his stead.”

  Darius looked at the Templar, who smiled blandly, setting his temper further on edge. He considered trying to simply kill them both right now, but quickly reconsidered. While he had the advantage of strength and size, he was no [Warrior] and Venton was sure to have artifacts for protection. It might have been over a century since the Order had seen bloody infighting and power struggles, but that didn’t mean the High Emissary would leave himself foolishly defenseless.

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  “I will do nothing that brings harm to my daughter or her friends.”

  “You have me mistaken, Loremaster. We are here to protect the dears, not hurt them. We simply need you to help us by reporting when your daughter makes contact. Such a simple thing.”

  “We have paired sympathetic scrolls. She has not written to us since leaving the city, but I will obviously be writing to her the moment I leave this room.”

  Venton smiled and nodded towards Gannymede.

  “See, I told you he was a wise man. One of our finest Loremasters, they say.”

  The satyr ground his teeth to receive false praise from this worm of a man who wouldn’t understand a word of his research.

  “Does the Archive know of this?”

  “The head of each sect knows of the Order’s interest in this group, but we here are the only ones who know of the events that transpired with the kingsmen. By all means, discuss this with your sect leader. I will do nothing to prevent you.”

  Darius’s mind raced with questions. What in the five realms could all three sect leaders possibly want with his daughter’s adventuring party? It had to be something with that damn noble, dragging them into some political scheme. He needed to write to her and find out what this was about.

  “I see no reason to bother the Archive with the details of this at the moment. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Venton called out to his back as Darius stormed from the room.

  “Now don’t forget to pay me a visit the moment you hear back from her.”

  The door slammed hard enough to rattle the wall in response.

  ***

  Gannymede drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and settled back into the soft cushion after the Loremaster’s dramatic exit.

  “You were right, Venton. He has a temper. Keeping him on the back hoof made him much easier to manipulate.”

  The slender, gray haired man looked thoughtfully towards the door.

  “An angry man is nearly as easy to control as a frightened one. Give me both, as he was, and it becomes almost too easy. Is he gone?”

  The Templar’s eyes became unfocused for a moment and he nodded.

  “Headed straight home, from the looks of it.”

  “And the Myth Seekers?”

  “Still licking their wounds in a cave in the wildlands. I believe we may wasting our time here, Venton. Several of them almost died in that battle. If there was a [Divine Skill] amongst them, they surely would have used it.”

  Venton steepled his fingers and pursed his lips.

  “Perhaps, but you know as well as anyone that the powers of the godlaced are not always applicable to simple combat. We will continue to monitor them. With considerably less thorough measures than you might provide,” the Templar blushed with false modesty and waved away the compliment, “but monitor them we shall.”

  ***

  Raith was pleased to see he leveled in both [Thief Acrobat] and [Rope Dart Adept] from their encounter with the pirates. The weft he gained when that [Warrior] went overboard was more than he’d been expecting. The guy must have been relatively high level, and he was lucky he hadn’t tried to straight up fight him. He felt a twinge of guilt that the armor-laden pirate had drowned. That must be a terrible death, but they shouldn’t have been terrorizing transport barges on the river.

  It was good progress, but he needed to figure out how to push the limits with [Rare Tome Procurement Specialist], as well. Weft from [Quests] and kills would get evenly distributed between all three classes, but working hard at the boundaries of your class really helped stack up the levels.

  Three more on the [Warrior] path till he could stitch [Lesser Strength], but that should come fast once they started fighting monsters. That entire mess would have been so much easier will some extra power.

  A noise at the mouth of the cave sent him jumping to his feet, whacking his head into the stone ceiling above. Blinding light of pain consumed his vision for a moment and he nearly fell unconscious. Nyhm’s whispered voice cut through the pain.

  “Good grief, are you alright?”

  “Gah.”

  His brother came over and tilted his head down to inspect the damage.

  “You’re not bleeding, you’ll be fine. If you plan on standing guard, maybe you should go closer to the entrance where the ceiling is higher.”

  Raith rubbed the top of his head, relieved to hear it wasn’t as bad as it felt at first.

  “Thanks for the advice. At least you didn’t tell me to not ram my head into stone anymore if it hurts so much.”

  He smiled at his brother, who returned it with a rare show of teeth, unselfconscious of his tattooed gums while among family.

  “That would have been dad’s advice.” Nyhm bowed his head. “It feels like it’s been the blink of an eye and a year at the same time. I miss them already.”

  “Yeah. Even Leah. These bracelets of hers have been awesome. I haven’t been bitten by a single mosquito since putting it on.”

  A hissed voice came from the other side of the cave.

  “Would you two either step outside or shut the fuck up.”

  Raith winced at the anger in Thea’s voice. He looked at Nyhm and tossed his head towards the outside, wincing again at the lingering pain. His brother nodded, and the two found a spot near the entrance to settle in a talk without bothering their recovering teammates.

  The pouring rain smelled refreshing, and somehow made the forest feel safer and more private. Sounds and odors did not travel far to attract predators, and few creatures liked moving around in this weather, regardless. He again appreciated the comfort offered by his sister’s enchanted bracelet. She could make a fortune off of these alone. Idly picking a stone off the ground, he tossed it into a nearby puddle and enjoyed the ploop sound it made.

  He turned to Nyhm, who was staring quietly into the forest with a troubled look.

  “Did you level?”

  The elfling’s frown deepened.

  “My only contribution was to throw a seed. No I didn’t level.”

  “I was wondering about that when I saw the vines. I didn’t think Thea could throw that far. Speaking of which, what has her so pissed? She can’t be blaming me for the pirates.”

  Now Nyhm turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.

  “Those weren’t pirates, Raith. They were kingsmen,”

  Raith shook his head and leaned away.

  “What? Of course they weren’t. Kingsmen don’t go around chasing down boats and trying to board them.”

  “They do when it’s a boat of smugglers.”

  The air suddenly became heavy and harder to breathe. Bile rose in Raith’s throat, and the word ‘fuck’ bounced around in his head for a long minute while he processed those words. Nyhm could see the growing horror on his brother’s face and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I thought you knew.”

  Raith shook his head and took several deep breaths.

  “I’m a complete fucking idiot. No wonder she’s so mad.” He turned his head to look at Nyhm with wide eyes. “Why are you not mad?”

  “I am. It doesn’t really matter to me who I must fight in your defense, but becoming wanted criminals would hurt our family. Please don’t put us in that position again.”

  “I’m really sorry. It definitely won’t happen again. Wait, is that what Tolliver wants to talk about?”

  “I assume. He’s the one who told Thea and I that they were kingsmen.”

  “Does Silas know?”

  “He wasn’t there, so I don’t think so.”

  “Shit. How in the world am I going to explain this?”

  Nyhm offered a small smile.

  “Just tell them the truth. You’re an idiot.”

  Raith returned the grin and gave him a light shove, grateful for the small release of tension.

  Thea is going to absolutely fucking murder me.