"What do you think happened?"
The room had little light — a small lamp at the center of the table, enough to see faces but not enough to see beyond them. It was deliberate. Meetings of that kind didn't need clarity beyond what was necessary.
The man who had asked the question was stocky in a way that communicated training before communicating origin — not the kind of body built by choice, but the kind that had been shaped by generations of something that demanded resilience above all else. His face carried features that weren't completely human: the jaw too wide, the teeth slightly too large, something in the eyes that processed the environment with the specific attention of a predator. If pressed for a single word, one would say bear.
The woman across from him was the opposite in almost everything. Slender body, precise posture, with the specific charm of someone who had learned to use appearance as a tool before learning to use it as protection. If not for the wings — large, scaled, folded behind her back with the naturalness of someone who had stopped noticing they had them — anyone would mistake her for a common human.
"Honestly, I have no idea. Of course, it's not strange that they died." — she said with the cadence of someone presenting analysis, not speculation. — "After all, we're talking about the highest-level mission, clearly an inter-racial combat operation. And from what we know, the battle was against the Skaven."
"Do you think they all died because of their venom?"
The man still couldn't make the calculation add up. He knew that group — he had intermediated buying and selling of items for them over the years. As a unit, they were inferior to other groups of the same level, and had enough awareness of their own limitations to choose only missions that compensated for minimum risk. They were the last group he would have expected to see accept an A+ level mission.
"I can't say." — she continued. — "The fact is that even if they died afterward, I can't understand how they were capable of winning the fight. The Skaven they faced had almost forty victories. Honestly, I myself thought they were cheating."
"That makes sense. They could have leveled up many fights ago and still stayed within the range of enemies up to level ten— that was deliberate. Could they have found a way to game the rules?"
"That's ridiculous."
The slap on the table arrived before anyone expected it — with the force of someone who hadn't calculated the gesture, had simply done it. Even the bear-faced man flinched.
"Do you really think the Colosseum would allow cheating? Those miserable rats are just a bunch of sons of bitches who know they can only fight at lower levels."
The man who had spoken was old — but he didn't project age in a way that suggested fragility. He projected it in the opposite way: like something that had lasted too long to still care about appearances. The blood-red eyes and slightly exposed canines communicated evolutionary lineage without needing introduction.
"Lord Draco." — the woman spoke with the tone of someone who had learned to calibrate how much pressure to use in each sentence. — "The message we all received clearly stated that Cindra's group defeated those Skaven. The Oasis doesn't announce something unless it considers it sufficiently relevant — and we all received it, which leads me to theorize that not even the Oasis itself believed that victory was possible. And here we are discussing it." — she paused. — "Isn't it interesting that the only member we have no idea about was the only one to survive, while everyone else from their guild died? For god's sake, the son of a bitch didn't even bother to register his own victory." — another pause, shorter. — "Aren't you curious?"
The old man was still on the defensive — but the question had reached the right place.
Yes. It was hard to imagine that anyone, however capable, could have carried that specific group — not at the lower levels. Perhaps if it had been from one of the great ranked races, since even in inter-race combat missions it was permitted for another race to join, as long as they weren't the majority. But the strong ones were too arrogant not to leave a mark. And it wasn't in their nature to agree to ally with mediocre humans in such a dangerous mission so codependent on the entire group.
He still had the records of those who had died. Mediocre was generous — in fact they were inferior to other groups, not only in ability, but even in the power acquired from heroes. And yet they had made the choice to accept that mission. The unknown had accepted along with them, willingly. Nothing added up. And the more one thought about it, the more it seemed the problem wasn't a lack of information — it was that the available information raised more questions than answers.
"I must admit it's an interesting point." — Draco said, retreating to the territory of calculation where he felt most comfortable. — "But if you were him, Margarida, what would make you deliberately choose a mission knowing you would be incapable of completing it?"
✦
The winged woman processed the question for a second. Not because she didn't know the answer, but because she was verifying whether the conclusion she had reached was the same one Draco was leading toward.
It was.
"Honestly I think someone very strong appeared. Strong enough for the group to feel confident leaving the shortest and most dangerous path to the unknown — and somehow, they were certain they could convince him to accept." — she paused. — "What do you think, Berthold?"
The bear-faced man was still following, a few steps behind in the reasoning.
"That makes sense. But if he was so strong, why join such a weak group? You know the other races — they underestimate us, even the ones closest in rank to ours. How skilled was that girl to convince any of those sons of bitches to accept? And after all — what could a mediocre group have to offer that was so exceptional?"
Berthold's reasoning was simple. The A+ mission gave many benefits — that was unquestionable. But it was too risky and only permitted in groups, which diluted the profit proportionally. For someone genuinely strong, there were solo B-level missions that would yield far more without the risk of depending on others. He thought of himself. He would never accept such a risk for such a diluted benefit.
"Yes." — Draco said. — "Why?"
That was the question. Who — and why — would join a mediocre group like that, willingly enter a mission that would rest entirely on their own shoulders, and still choose to carry the others instead of simply opting for a solo mission? It made no sense. Unless…
"A newcomer. And in all likelihood a Human."
The voice came from the shadows.
The fourth person in the room rarely spoke. When she spoke, the other three stopped. Not out of respect — out of something closer to instinct. The woman with scarlet hair had white scaled skin that caught the lamplight differently from human skin, like a surface that had been designed to reflect rather than absorb. She had remained silent throughout the conversation with the specific stillness of something that had been listening and processing at a speed the other three wouldn't have kept up with if they'd tried.
The impact of her words was proportional to the rarity of hearing her speak.
"A Human newcomer, you say… Briane. That would be—"
"Impossible."
"Yes."
The four in that room were the pinnacle of power among Ex-Lord of the human kingdom. Together, they commanded the four largest guilds beyond the banks, auctions, market and intermediation for Ex-Lords — giving them access that only Lords had, and doing so with a mastery that allowed everything to function as a single organism that none of them had planned to build, but that had grown naturally as each came to understand what the others had and what they needed. No Ex-Lord or Lord escaped their information networks. And with that, they achieved control — and money — in ways that even most established Lords would never dream of.
But sometimes they encountered situations that were unfathomable. And when that happened, they felt many things.
Fear was one of them.
"We need to find out who it is."
"If it really is a newcomer and human, they'll have to participate in the purge at the end of the first year." — Margarida said. — "And to have that kind of power, I very much doubt it's someone with less than ten months. Perhaps they're already approaching the end of the cycle."
"Then we monitor all the purges in those months."
"But what are we looking for?" — Berthold intervened. — "Even in two months there are on average at least ten purges."
"You're right, Berthold." — Draco said with the patience of someone who had learned to value the function of those who asked the obvious questions. — "We need a parameter."
And then Briane spoke for the second time.
"Extraordinary."
Silence.
"I beg your pardon?" — Draco seemed genuinely caught off guard, which was rare enough to be noticed.
"If someone was capable of killing a Skaven who was clearly operating outside normal parameters, that someone cannot be measured by common criteria." — she said with the economy of words of someone who had calculated exactly how many she needed. — "Extraordinary. Or as you nobles like to call it: genius. That is what we are looking for. A purge marked as extraordinary. When we find it — it will be him, without question."
She stood up.
Left through the door without saying goodbye.
The trio that remained looked at the space she had occupied for a second longer than necessary.
"She still gives me chills."
"Shut up, Margarida." — Draco said, already getting up to check if Briane had really left. — "You know who she is."
There was something in his tone that wasn't just a warning. It was the specific quality of caution from someone who had learned that certain people listen even when they're not present.
"So that's it. We wait?"
"Yes, Berthold." — Draco replied, returning to the table. — "We wait."
✦
That room wasn't the only one gathered that night.
The news had reached all humans in the Oasis simultaneously — the Oasis rarely bothered to announce something, and when it did, it was because it had calculated that the announcement mattered. Someone from the lower levels had completed an A+ level mission and the way it had been done had impressed the system enough for it to send word.
What followed was the kind of discussion that happens when impossible information arrives in official format and people need to decide between believing what they read or finding an alternative explanation.
Most chose the alternative.
Perhaps there had been help from a Lord of one of the highest-ranked races willing to be generous with humans. Perhaps a human Lord with years of experience who had never used the Colosseum decided to take a risk. It made sense — someone with a prosperous kingdom and sufficient capital would never need to submit to that kind of risk. But then why appear now? And why did everyone in the guild die and only the unknown survived? And why choose an A+ level mission, without visible preparation, without history or capability?
The questions generated more questions. The answers were vague, full of gaps, covered with innocence or ignorance — sometimes both at the same time.
But newcomer was an answer nobody would give out loud. For the simple fact that it sounded absurd even before it finished being said.
In the end, one question persisted above all others in every conversation — said out loud or merely thought, depending on how willing the person was to appear curious:
'What the hell happened?'