Chapter narrated by Sera:
5/14/95
The journey from the Church of Aelith to Vareth is one day long by foot.
One day. On foot. I know this. I have done this journey before. And yet every single time I start calculating how many goblins I could be putting out of commission right now, or how many delivery jobs I could have finished by noon, I get genuinely angry at the road for existing. It is a personal failing. I am working on it.
Instead, I thought about the little elf walking behind me.
She was keeping up well. A little behind, but steady. Good form, not complaining, not asking how much further. I approved. I should tell her I approved — positive motivation is a key part of good leadership, and I am, if nothing else, an excellent leader.
"You have good feet," I told her.
She made a confused expression.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're what, sixteen?"
"Seventeen."
"Right, seventeen, yes, that's what I said." She must have heard me wrong. "Still young, though. Good feet for young."
"If you say so."
Good. Motivated. Excellent leadership, Sera.
We walked. The road was quiet, and I do not like quiet because quiet is awkward, and awkward makes the road feel longer, and a longer road means more time thinking about all the goblins.
"So why do you want to become an adventurer?" I asked.
"I want to explore the world," she said. "Learn what it's like outside the church." A small pause, and then — and I appreciated this, most people don't ask back — "What about you?"
"Fame and glory, obviously."
She nodded like this was a completely sensible answer. Which it is. It is the correct answer. I liked her for not making a face about it.
We went quiet again. I lasted about four minutes.
"So how is it?" I asked. "Being an oracle?"
She thought about it longer than I expected. I had assumed it was a simple question. Most people can tell you how their job is in about four words.
"I don't know how to answer that," she said.
"Why not? I'd have thought getting that much attention from a divine being would be — you know. A lot."
"It is not really like that." She seemed to be choosing her words carefully, not because she was uncomfortable, but because she actually wanted to get it right. "I love being Ali's oracle. It is not the title that is complicated."
"Then what is?"
"I don't remember my life before my connection with her," she said. "I don't think there was ever a moment where she was not there. Even before I officially became her oracle, she was already just — Ali. And after the title, nothing really changed. She has always been the same."
I stared at the road for a moment.
"So you have been friends with a goddess your entire life?"
"Yes."
"That is so cool." I said this very sincerely because it was very sincerely true. "You have to properly introduce me to her one day. Like formally. I want her to know my name."
Lira laughed. It was a quiet laugh, a little surprised, like she hadn't planned on it.
"Alright," she said. "I promise."
I considered this a binding agreement and felt good about it.
We walked a little further, and I started getting restless again, so I reached into my pack and pulled out the coolest book ever.
"Tadaaah!!" I held it up. "Look what I have here, Lira!"
She did not react in any visible way.
"Hm," she said.
"Why do you not look surprised? Are you not seeing this incredible book?"
A pause.
"Sera," she said. "I am blind."
I stopped walking.
"What?"
"I am blind," she said again, patiently. "I have always been blind."
"But—" I looked at her. Then at the road. Then at her again. "You have been walking this whole time perfectly fine. You didn't trip once. You stepped around that puddle back there—"
"It is a perk of being Ali's oracle," she said. "During the day, I can feel the position of things around me through the warmth. People, obstacles, the shape of the road." A small pause. "It is not the same as seeing. But it is enough."
I thought about all the things I had said and done in the past week at the church.
"I held up the handbook just now," I said. "For you to look at."
"Yes."
"I said, 'Look what I have here.'"
"Yes."
"And you did not say anything."
"I was curious how long it would take," she said, and there was something in her voice that was absolutely not a smile and was completely a smile.
I put the book back under my arm.
"I am so sorry, Lira," I said. "Genuinely. I cannot believe I did not realize sooner. I feel terrible. I am usually very observant. I am known for being observant—"
"Sera."
"Yes?"
"It is alright," she said. "Most people don't notice for a while. I don't announce it." She tilted her head slightly, and I realized she was tracking the sun — feeling for it. "Besides, you said I had good feet. That part was still nice."
I decided I was going to be the best companion this girl had ever had, starting immediately.
"So the book that I wanted to show you is 'The Tale of the Adventurer's Guild.'"
"I have already read it."
"Really?" I said. "You never have enough preparation to be an adventurer. I don't care how many times you've read it. I've read it fourteen times, and I still read it on long walks. It keeps you sharp. It keeps you humble." A pause. "Also, it passes the time."
She sighed.
I started reading.
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""The Adventurer's Guild," I began, projecting slightly because that is what narrators in my head always do, "is the single most important organization in the civilized world, aside from bakeries."
"It does not say that," Lira said mildly.
"It totally says it here," I replied. "Focus."
"The Adventurer's Guild was founded three hundred and twelve years ago, after the Third Goblin Uprising, when several independent mercenary bands realized that working separately resulted in unnecessary deaths, duplicated effort, and a frankly embarrassing lack of paperwork."
"That last part is yours," Lira said.
"Everything sounds better when I say it," I replied smoothly. "Moving on — structure first, then glory."
"The Guild exists to regulate, train, and deploy adventurers across the continent."
I paused for effect. Lira waited. She is very good at waiting. I am not, which is why I appreciate it in others.
"Adventurers are ranked one through ten," I continued. "Rank one being — well. Us. Fresh. Full of potential. Brimming with enthusiasm and a complete absence of trauma."
"You told me you have been rank one for eight months," Lira said.
"Brimming with enduring potential," I corrected. "Rank ten, on the other end, are the legends. And I mean that literally — the handbook compares them in terms of influence and individual significance to the oracles of major churches."
"I know," said Lira. "I read it."
"Then you know how impressive that is."
"I do."
"Now," I said, flipping the page with importance, "the rare air at the top."
"There are maybe forty active rank tens on the entire continent," I said. "Possibly fewer. The guild does not publish a list — rank tens have opinions about lists. Some of them are retired. One of them, I have heard, lives on a mountain and has made it very clear he will not come down for anything that is not at least a level 9 contract."
"That sounds lonely," said Lira.
"That sounds like a man who has earned his mountain," I said. "Anyway — from ranks to work."
"Contracts," I announced, with the energy of someone introducing the main event. "The lifeblood of guild work. Every job is formalized as a contract. No contract, no payment. No payment—"
"No eating," said Lira. "Yes. It is in the book."
"It sounds better when I say it."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true." I ran my finger down the page. "Contracts rank one through five are posted publicly on the guild board. You walk in, you look at the board, you take what suits your rank. Simple, clean, first come, first served."
"And rank six and above go directly through the administration," Lira said. "The guild evaluates the contract and assigns it themselves. You don't find those jobs. They find you."
"Exactly. Which brings us to oversight — because someone has to run all of this."
I lowered the book slightly.
"Every guild hall is run by a Guild Master," I continued. "High-ranked adventurer. Someone who has done enough to know what they are talking about and decided at some point that they would rather manage danger than personally be in it."
"Or someone who still does both," said Lira.
"Those are the best ones," I agreed. "The Vareth Guild Master is a man called Holt." I paused, because Holt deserves a pause. "He is rank nine."
Lira's head turned toward me slightly.
"Rank nine," she repeated.
"Rank nine," I confirmed. "Was rank ten. Only a handful of people in recorded history have ever held rank ten, and he was one of them, and then at some point he decided — and nobody is entirely sure why, because nobody has been brave enough to ask him directly — to step down to rank nine and run the Vareth guild instead."
"You can step down in rank?"
"You can do anything if you are Holt, apparently," I said. "The guild was not going to tell him no. Nobody tells Holt no. It is not that he is unkind about it — from what I have heard, he is perfectly reasonable — it is just that he is the kind of person where saying no to him feels structurally unsound."
"You have met him?"
"Several times," I said, correcting myself. "He pretends they were brief. They were not brief to me."
I adjusted my pack slightly.
"He notices things. He has seen me take contracts off the board more than once. He has commented on my speed. And once —" I pointed at her for emphasis, though she could not see it — "once he made a bet with me."
"A bet?"
"He said I would not be able to get to the Church of Valek in less than twelve hours on foot with a delivery package. Twelve hours," I repeated, offended even in memory. "I told him he was underestimating me."
"And?"
"I did it in eleven."
Lira tilted her head slightly. "And what did you win?"
"He said, and I quote, 'Interesting.' Then he walked away."
"That was the prize?"
"I am choosing to interpret it as approval," I said firmly.
"What was he like?" she asked.
I tried to find the right words for Holt, which is difficult because Holt resists easy description.
"Big," I said. "Not unusually tall, just — present. The kind of person who takes up the correct amount of space, and somehow that amount is more than you expected." I shifted my pack. "And he moves wrong."
"Wrong how?"
"Too easy," I said. "Like nothing around him is a threat, and his body has known that for so long it has stopped bothering to prepare for one. Most people, even good fighters, have a little tension in them. Holt just — doesn't." I paused. "It is either very reassuring or deeply unsettling, depending on the day."
Lira was quiet for a moment.
"A rank ten adventurer," she said, mostly to herself. "Running a guild hall."
"The best guild hall there is!" I said. "Possibly, but I am biased because it is mine. Well — ours now."
I cleared my throat and flipped the book shut halfway.
I glanced down at my badge, at the mark pressed into the metal.
"Speaking of things Holt cares about," I said, tapping it lightly, "the guild symbol. Kayden's mark. The guild adopted it after the Post-Consolidation War."
"Kayden," Lira repeated, in the careful way she repeats things she wants to think about properly.
"You know him right?"
"Sister Sasha mentioned him," she said. "Not much. She said there was not much to mention — that for someone so important, very little is actually known about him."
"That is putting it kindly," I said. "The honest version is that nobody really agrees on anything about Kayden except that he existed and that things went differently because of it."
I turned the badge over in my hand as we walked.
"Some say he was rank nine. Some say there was not a single rank ten alive during his time who could have beaten him. Some say both of those things simultaneously without seeing the contradiction."
"What do you think?"
I considered this genuinely, because Kayden is one of those topics I have considered genuinely before.
"I think rank probably did not mean much when applied to him," I said. "Rank is a measure of what the guild can evaluate. What they can observe, record, compare. And from everything I have read, Kayden was not particularly interested in being observed or recorded or compared to anything."
I tucked the badge away again.
"What we know is this — the Post-Consolidation War left the continent in pieces. Factions that hated each other, regions that were barely holding together, problems that armies had failed to solve. And Kayden spent years walking into those problems alone and coming out the other side with them resolved. Not always cleanly. Not always in ways people understood at the time. But resolved."
"And then?" Lira asked.
"And then nothing," I said. "That is the part that bothers people most. He did not retire. He did not die in a famous battle. He did not leave a record or a memoir or a school of followers. He just — stopped appearing in accounts."
The road stretched ahead of us, Vareth faint but growing.
"The guild adopted his symbol after the war as tribute and partly, I think, because his mark had already come to mean something to people. When they saw it, they thought — someone came. Someone fixed it." I paused. "A sword on a badge just means someone has a sword. Kayden's mark means something showed up to solve the problem."
Lira walked quietly for a moment.
"Sister Sasha said the historians argue about him constantly," she said. "That there are entire academic texts dedicated to trying to pin down what he actually was."
"And none of them agree," I said. "Which I think would have pleased him, if the accounts of his personality are even slightly accurate."
"What do the accounts say about his personality?"
"Scarce. Contradictory. People who met him described him completely differently depending on the encounter. Some said he was quiet. Some said he never stopped talking. Some said he was the kindest person they ever met. Some said he was terrifying." I shrugged. "The only thing most accounts agree on is that he was very difficult to read and that he always seemed to know something you didn't."
"That could describe a lot of people."
"Sure," I said. "But not many of those people prevented continental collapse and then disappeared without leaving a forwarding address."
I adjusted my pack and cleared my throat slightly.
"Anyway. Legends are important. Symbols are important. But most work doesn't get done by lone myths walking into history."
I glanced sideways at her.
"It gets done by people who decide to work together."
"A party" I continued. "You can work with other adventurers. Form a group, take contracts together, split the work."
"Split the payment too," Lira said.
"You did read the handbook."
"I told you" she said with a smug smile.
"And I told you it bears repeating," I said, without missing a beat. "Yes, payment is divided. Which is the part most new adventurers hear and immediately dislike, until they try to solo a rank three contract and get chased up a tree by something with too many legs." I tucked the handbook under my arm for a moment. "But here is the thing about parties that the handbook explains better than most people explain it in practice — a party has its own rank."
"Its own rank?"
"The guild assesses what a group of adventurers can accomplish together," I said. "Not just the sum of their individual ranks. The chemistry, the complementary skills, how well they function as a unit. A party of three rank two adventurers who work well together might be assessed as capable of rank four work." I picked the handbook back up. "It is not automatic. The guild watches. They review contract outcomes. The party rank adjusts over time based on what you actually accomplish, not just what you are on paper."
Lira walked quietly for a moment.
"So it rewards people who work well together," she said. "Not just people who are strong individually."
"Exactly." I pointed at her, pleased. "Two rank fours who fight about everything are less useful than two rank twos who trust each other completely. The guild figured that out early and built it into the system."
I hesitated for only a second, which is very restrained for me.
"So," I said, attempting casual and landing somewhere near intense, "would you like to form one? A party. With me."
She did not answer immediately.
"I mean officially," I added quickly. "Registered. We go to Vareth, we file the paperwork, we take contracts together. You have divine warmth-sight. I have speed and excellent feet commentary. It is strategically sound."
There was a small silence. The city hum was louder now.
"I would like that," Lira said finally.
I tried very hard to respond normally.
"Good," I said. "Yes. Excellent. Strategically optimal decision."
"You sound pleased."
"I am composed," I corrected.
And then, because I could not help it:
"We are going to be very impressive."
Lira smiled slightly.
"I am sure we will be."