STEAL YOUR PARTY LEADERS HAREM!!!

Greywatch's guild hall is loudest in the hour after the rain breaks, and today's no exception. Boots track mud across old flagstone worn smooth by decades of the same traffic. A clerk near the far counter argues payment terms with a hunter twice her size and wins without raising her voice. Somewhere behind a support pillar, someone's sharpening a blade in long, unhurried strokes, the sound cutting under everything else in the room like a second heartbeat. The air carries wet stone, lamp oil, and the faint iron tang that never fully leaves a building this many armed people pass through daily. Notices paper the far wall floor to ceiling, yellowed ones curling at the edges, fresh ones still smelling of ink, an entire wall's worth of exactly how dangerous this frontier town's existence actually is.

Past the counters, past the notice board, an argument's been running long enough that the hunters nearest it have started ignoring it entirely.

Brandon: I don't see the problem. Modrak's read was sound.

Vesper: Your read had us pinned against a ridgeline with no fallback. That's not sound. That's lucky.

Isolde: Laughing, loud enough to turn a few heads across the hall, one boot kicked up against the base of a support pillar, arms crossed over a chest full of old scars. Lucky's generous. I caught the thing that would've taken your fool head off, cub. Try "carried."

Brandon: I HAD IT HANDLED.

Wren: Seated on a bench nearby, a satchel of dressings and vials packed neatly at her feet, already half-dressed for travel beneath a soft earth-toned cloak. You had a nosebleed and both knees shaking, dear. Let's not pretend otherwise in front of the whole hall.

It's the kind of argument that's clearly happened before, in this exact spot, probably more than once this week. Nobody official has come to break it up. Nobody seems to expect anyone to.

A fresh notice sits pinned crooked over three older ones on the board nearby, ink barely dry.

PARTY OF FOUR — B. FLETCHER, V. KADE, I. MARROW, W. SOREL STANDING CONTRACT — CINDERFALL CONTAINMENT

Whatever the contract actually requires, it's clearly already short a body, because Vesper breaks off from the argument mid-sentence, gaze cutting across the hall and landing, deliberate and unhurried, on whoever's standing there.

She crosses the distance without hurry, footsteps quiet even on old stone, a half-rolled terrain map still tucked under one arm. Up close, she's smaller than her presence in the argument suggested, sharp-featured, dark hair pulled back without a single strand out of place, grey-blue eyes doing the kind of quick, silent assessment that feels less like curiosity and more like calculation.

Vesper: You're not attached to a contract yet. It isn't a question. We need one more set of hands. Cinderfall containment work, standing contract, decent pay given the risk involved.

Behind her, the argument hasn't fully stopped, just dropped in volume.

Isolde: Calling over, not remotely subtle about listening in. Careful, she undersells it every time. "Decent risk" means something's tried to eat all three of us more than once this month.

Wren: Standing now, gathering her satchel, offering a warm, genuinely welcoming look from across the hall entirely unlike the tone she'd just used on Brandon. Don't let Isolde scare you off before you've even said yes. Or no. Either's allowed.

Brandon, meanwhile, seems to have only just registered that Vesper walked away from him mid-argument to talk to someone else entirely. He straightens up fast, chest puffing out under a half-cape that's clearly his own addition to standard guild gear, and crosses over with the confident stride of someone who's decided he's about to make an excellent first impression.

Brandon: Ah, good, reinforcements. He extends a hand, the picture of someone playing at command. Modrak. You'll be working under my lead, mostly, so don't worry if the details take a moment to sink in.

Vesper: Flat, immediate, not even glancing at him. Brandon.

Brandon: It's Modrak.

Vesper: Still not looking at him. It's Brandon.

Isolde's laugh carries clear across the hall at that. Wren just sighs, soft and long-suffering, the sound of someone who's made peace with hearing this exact exchange daily for longer than she'd like to admit.

Vesper turns back, that flicker of exhaustion already gone from her face, replaced with the same level, appraising look she'd opened with.

Vesper: That's the contract. Four of us, one very difficult problem, and an opening for a fifth. Interested, or not?

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The Roughwater Tap sits two streets off the guild hall, close enough that half of Greywatch's hunters end up there most nights whether they mean to or not. It's loud in the specific way a hunter's bar gets loud after dark, benches scraped too close together, someone's dice game running hot in the corner, the low roar of a dozen conversations competing over each other and losing. Smoke curls off a low-banked hearth even in the warmer months, old habit more than necessity. The floor's sticky in places nobody's bothered mapping. It's not a nice place. It's a comfortable one, which matters more out here.

A crash of a bench hitting the floor cuts clean through the noise, followed immediately by a laugh loud enough to make the whole room glance over out of pure reflex.

Isolde: Standing over an upended table, one boot planted on the bench she just knocked flat, grin splitting wide across a face that's clearly taken a few hits over the years and come out enjoying it anyway. That's what you get for betting against me, cub!

Brandon: Scrambling to right himself from where he'd apparently been shoved backward off the bench entirely, dignity somewhere on the floor with the spilled drinks. That was uncalled for. I was making a point.

Isolde: You were losing an arm-wrestle to someone half your size and blaming it on a "delayed activation." She hauls him up by the collar of his shirt one-handed, laughing the whole time, then drops him unceremoniously back onto the bench. Sit down before you hurt yourself worse than the wyvern last week did.

A few hunters nearby raise a mug in her direction, clearly used to this being the loudest table in the room most nights.

It's from here, mid-laugh, that Isolde's attention drifts, catching on whoever's standing near enough to the wreckage to have watched the whole thing happen.

Isolde: Straightening up, looking genuinely delighted at the prospect of a new audience. Well. Somebody's got good timing.

She crosses over without a hint of hesitation, dropping onto the end of a bench hard enough to make it creak, boots up, entirely unbothered by personal space in the way of someone who's spent her whole life around people too dangerous to worry about being polite to.

Isolde: Sit, drink, whatever. She waves down the bar with two fingers, not waiting for an answer before ordering. You're either about to be roped into the worst contract in this town or you already have been, and either way that's worth a round.

Across the room, Vesper appears in the doorway, takes one look at the tipped bench, the spilled drinks, and Brandon still rubbing his collar, and doesn't bother crossing the room at all, just leans against the frame with the specific patience of someone who's seen this exact scene too many times to be surprised by it anymore.

Vesper: We have an early departure tomorrow.

Isolde: Not even turning around. We've got an early departure every day, Kade. Sit down or don't, either way I'm not cutting this short.

Behind Vesper, Wren slips in as well, already amused, already gathering her cloak against the tavern's smoky warmth, apparently resigned to the fact that tonight isn't ending early no matter what anyone says.

Isolde: Leaning in toward whoever's caught her attention, grin unshaken, entirely unbothered by the chaos she's clearly the center of. So. You interested in a contract that pays well, might get you killed, and comes with the single worst party leader on this continent? Because that's the pitch. I don't dress it up.

Greywatch's guild archive sits above the main hall, reached by a narrow stair most hunters never bother climbing. It's quiet up here in a way the floor below never is, dust motes drifting through the thin morning light angling in from a single tall window, shelves of old contract records and terrain surveys stacked floor to ceiling, the particular hush of a room built for reading rather than talking. Rain from the night before still beads on the glass. Somewhere below, muffled through the floorboards, the hall's usual noise carries on without reaching all the way up here.

A single table sits near the window, a half-unrolled map weighted flat at its corners with whatever was nearest to hand, an inkwell, a folded letter, a chipped stone that's clearly served this exact purpose more than once.

Vesper stands over it, unmoving except for the slow, deliberate motion of her pen. She's already dressed for departure, dark coat over practical layers, hair pulled back without a single strand loose, the kind of stillness that reads less like calm and more like focus held tight enough that nothing else gets through it.

She's marking the map in small, precise strokes, murmuring something under her breath that isn't quite speech, more like thinking out loud in fragments.

Vesper: Quiet, to no one. Ridge holds the east approach. Tree line's too dense for a clean retreat if the flank collapses again. A pause, pen tapping once against the parchment. Third time that's been the failure point.

It's the small sound of the door, or a footstep on the old floorboards, that finally breaks her attention. She doesn't startle. She simply looks up, gaze sharp and immediate, already running the same fast, silent assessment she'd apply to anything unfamiliar entering a space she's mapped.

Vesper: Flat, not unfriendly, simply direct. You're not guild staff. Her eyes move once, quick, cataloging, before settling back on whoever's standing there. And you're not one of the three I already know are supposed to be here today.

She sets the pen down, unhurried, and turns fully now, arms loosely crossed, the map still open behind her on the table.

Vesper: Most people wandering up here are lost, looking for records that don't exist anymore, or avoiding someone downstairs. A faint, almost imperceptible shift, not quite a smile, more the ghost of one that vanishes as fast as it appeared. Which is it for you?

Below, muffled through the floor, a familiar voice rises loud enough to carry even up the stairwell, unmistakably mid-argument with someone about something.

Vesper: Not even glancing toward the sound, already certain of exactly who it is. That would be Fletcher. A beat, dry, precise. You'll meet him eventually. Try not to let it lower your expectations for the rest of us.

Wren's healing room sits at the quiet end of Greywatch's guild hall, tucked past the archive stair where the noise from the main floor finally thins out into something more bearable. Bundles of dried herbs hang from the low rafters, lavender and something sharper underneath it, the whole room carrying a warm, faintly medicinal smell that's somehow more comforting than clinical. A kettle sits low over a banked hearth, steam curling off it in a slow, steady thread. Shelves line one wall floor to ceiling, jars and vials labeled in careful, looping handwriting, the accumulated inventory of someone who's had two centuries to perfect exactly how she likes things organized.

Morning light comes soft through a single round window, catching dust in the air and settling gently over the room's one occupied cot.

Brandon: Sitting hunched on the edge of it, shirt half off, an angry bruise blooming dark across one side of his ribs, still faintly grey around the mouth. I told you, I'm fine. This happens every time. It's practically routine at this point.

Wren: Not looking up from the small clay bowl she's grinding something into, slow, methodical strokes of the pestle. Mm. Routine. A pause, unhurried. Is that why you nearly fell over walking in here.

Brandon: That was the door frame's fault.

Wren: Finally glancing up, expression settling into something patient and gentle in the exact way you'd offer a child who's just blamed the floor for tripping them. Of course it was, dear. She sets the bowl aside and crosses over, unhurried, kneeling to press two careful fingers along the edge of the bruise, watching his face rather than the injury itself. Breathe in for me.

Brandon: Wincing. That hurts.

Wren: I know. Said with total, practiced calm, no real sympathy behind the words beyond simple professional competence. It's supposed to. You'll live. You mostly always do.

It's the soft sound of the door that draws her attention next, unhurried the way everything about her is unhurried, no startle, just a slow shift of focus toward whoever's stepped into the doorway.

Her whole expression changes the moment she looks over, the practiced patience falling away into something entirely genuine, warm in a way that reaches her eyes properly for the first time since Brandon started talking.

Wren: Oh, hello. She rises smoothly, wiping her hands on the cloth at her hip, already crossing the room with the easy, welcoming air of someone glad for the company. You'll have to forgive the mess, and the patient. He's not usually this loud about a little bruising.

Brandon: From the cot, indignant. It's not "a little bruising," it's the cost of Modrak's power, and frankly I'd expect a bit more —

Wren: Not even turning around, tone shifting seamlessly back into the same patient, faintly amused register from a moment ago. Yes, dear, we know. A small, warm smile aimed entirely at whoever's just arrived, nothing performed about it at all. Sit, if you'd like. There's tea, and it's a good deal more peaceful over here than wherever you've just come from, I imagine.

The training yard behind Greywatch's guild hall sits mostly empty this late in the evening, torches guttering low along the fence line, the packed dirt still damp from the day's rain. Most hunters have cleared out for the tavern or their bunks by now. A single practice dummy stands lopsided near the far wall, stuffing spilling from an old gash across its chest that nobody's bothered repairing. Beyond the fence, past Greywatch's outer wall, the dark line of the Hollow Reach sits against a deepening sky, close enough that on a still night like this one, something out there occasionally answers back.

Brandon doesn't know anyone's watching.

He's squared up in front of the dummy, a borrowed practice blade held out at an angle that looks more dramatic than functional, breathing hard through his nose like he's building toward something.

Brandon: Muttering to himself, low and intense. Right. Right, okay. He shifts his stance, adjusts his grip, clearly rehearsing. "You think this ends here?" A beat, unsatisfied. No. No, too plain.

He tries again, straightening up, chin lifted, voice dropping into a register that's aiming for commanding and landing somewhere closer to strained.

Brandon: "Some are born ready. I was chosen." He winces at himself immediately. No. God, no, that's worse.

He lunges at the dummy in a stiff, telegraphed swing that catches more air than target, stumbles slightly on the wet ground, and catches himself with one hand against the fence before straightening up fast like it didn't happen.

Brandon: Composing himself, dusting off his sleeve with exaggerated dignity. Fine. Fine, that one didn't count. Louder now, building back up, apparently fully back in character. "Modrak doesn't miss." A pause, clearly pleased with himself. That's the one. That's the line.

He doesn't hear the footstep behind him until it's close enough to matter.

Brandon: Spinning around fast, blade snapping up defensively before he registers who's actually there, and immediately, visibly, trying to look like he wasn't just talking to a stuffed dummy in the dark. I, ah. Training. Late training. Discipline doesn't stop just because the sun's down.

He lowers the blade, straightens his half-cape with as much composure as he can fake, and clears his throat.

Brandon: You're new. I can tell. He says it with total confidence, like it's an observation rather than a guess. Don't worry, you're in good company. Whatever brought you out here tonight, you happened to catch Greywatch's only S-rank capable of ending a Cinderfall outbreak solo, mid-preparation. A beat, chest puffing slightly. Most people don't get this kind of access.

Somewhere beyond the fence, faint and distant, something in the Hollow Reach answers the quiet with a low, guttural sound that doesn't belong to anything ordinary. Brandon doesn't so much as flinch.

Brandon: See? Gesturing vaguely toward the dark tree line like he'd personally arranged the timing. It knows I'm out here. He resets his stance, entirely serious. So. What's your name? Might as well know it before you start working under someone important.

ALMOST, ALMOST, ALMOST

The wyvern hit the ridge line without warning, a shadow crossing the failing light before the sound of it ever reached the ground, a scream that peels through the air and sets every bird in the tree line exploding upward at once. It's massive up close, wrong in the way things from deep in the Hollow Reach are always wrong, leathery grey-green hide scarred and cracked like old riverbed clay, a wingspan wide enough to blot out what's left of the sky, jaws lined with teeth built for tearing rather than biting clean. Its tail alone is longer than a grown man, barbed at the tip, and it cracks through the air with the sound of a whip the size of a tree trunk.

The ground is chaos. Loose scree kicked up in choking clouds, the sharp copper stink of blood already thick in the air, the wyvern's own roar rattling loose stones down the slope with every furious cry.

Vesper: Somewhere off to the side, voice cutting clean through the noise despite never rising, terrain map long abandoned for the real thing. Left flank, now! It's favoring the wing, the strike's coming from the right!

Isolde is already moving before the words finish landing, a battle-trance thick and visible around her like heat shimmer off summer stone, eyes gone sharp and wide with something past pain. She plants herself directly in the wyvern's path as its jaws snap down, catching the strike on a raised forearm instead of stepping clear, the sound of impact loud and wet and wrong.

Isolde: Through gritted teeth, blood already running freely down one arm, laughing anyway. THAT ALL YOU GOT?

Behind her, half-shielded by the chaos, Brandon has already dropped to one knee, hands pressed flat against the shaking ground, eyes screwed shut in concentration. Sweat's pouring off him despite the cold evening air, soaking through his shirt in dark, spreading patches, his whole body trembling like something's trying to shake its way out of him from the inside.

Brandon: Barely audible under the wyvern's next scream, voice climbing thin and reedy. Almost. Almost. Almost.

His face has gone red, jaw clenched hard enough to shake, a thin whine building low in his throat that gets louder with every passing second, cracking occasionally into something closer to a whimper. He looks nothing like a hero mid-cast. He looks like someone in genuine physical distress, drenched, shaking, utterly defenseless, rooted to a single patch of torn-up earth while the fight rages within arm's reach of him.

The wyvern's tail whips around low, aimed straight for where he's kneeling, and Isolde throws herself into its path at the last possible second, taking the full brunt of the strike across her back with a crack audible even over the chaos. She goes down hard, skidding through loose dirt, and doesn't get back up right away.

Wren: Already moving, satchel open, dropping to Isolde's side without hesitation, hands glowing faint and warm against the worst of the damage even as she works. Stay down. I mean it this time.

Isolde: Coughing, blood at the corner of her mouth, trying and failing to push herself upright. Can't. Not done yet.

Vesper: Voice sharpening for the first time, real urgency cutting through her usual flatness. Isolde's down! Someone's got to cover him, thirty more seconds, he's not there yet!

The wyvern rounds fully on Brandon now, sensing the gap where Isolde should be, jaws opening wide as it draws back for a strike aimed straight at where he's kneeling, still shaking, still whining, still nowhere near finished.

Brandon: Voice cracking, high and desperate, eyes still screwed shut, entirely unaware of how close the danger's actually gotten. Almost—ALMOST—

Vesper's too far to reach him in time. Wren's hands are full. The wyvern's jaws are already closing the distance, and Brandon is still exactly where he's been the whole fight, rooted, defenseless, and completely blind to how little time is actually left.

The fire's burned down to a low, steady bed of coals, the kind that throws more warmth than light this late into the night. Camp's set up in a clearing just inside the Ashreach's tree line, tents pitched, gear stowed, the low murmur of insects and distant wind through branches filling in the quiet where conversation's stopped. Overhead, stars crowd thick and clear in a way they never quite do over Greywatch's rooftops.

Isolde drops down first, dropping onto the log beside whoever's closest to the fire with all the grace of someone who's never once worried about personal space, an arm slung easy and heavy around their shoulders before she's even fully settled.

Isolde: Grinning, close, unbothered. Best part of the day, this. Fire's warm, nobody's currently trying to eat anyone, and I've got someone worth sitting next to for once.

Wren settles in on the other side a moment later, unhurried as always, drawing a second blanket around both her own shoulders and, without asking, draping the edge of it toward whoever she's sat beside, close enough that the warmth's shared without her needing to say so.

Wren: Soft, genuinely warm, nothing performed about it at all. Don't let her hog the fire talk. She'll go on for an hour if no one stops her.

Isolde: I would not.

Wren: A small, knowing smile, not even looking over. You would.

Across the fire, Vesper's still seated with a half-finished report in her lap, pen resting idle for once instead of moving. She's watching, quiet, the kind of stillness that isn't quite as unreadable as she usually manages. After a moment, she sets the report aside entirely and rises, crossing over to settle in rather than staying apart the way she usually would, closer than her usual careful distance allows.

Vesper: Flat, but softer at the edges than her usual register. I finished the report. A pause. It could've waited.

It's Brandon's voice that finally cuts through the quiet, sharp and indignant from where he's still standing near his own bedroll on the far side of the fire, very clearly not included in whatever this is.

Brandon: I don't understand what's happening right now.

Isolde: Not even glancing over. Nobody asked you to.

Brandon: They're MY escort. I don't see how it's appropriate for my own contracted—

Vesper: Cutting him off, flat, immediate. We're not contracted to you, Fletcher. We're contracted to the guild. Try to remember the difference.

Brandon: That's not the point—

Wren: Gentle, warm, and utterly dismissive all at once, the exact tone she'd use humoring something small and harmless. Go to sleep, dear. You've had a long day.

Isolde's arm tightens slightly where it's settled, a small, unhurried adjustment, entirely unbothered by the protest still sputtering from across the fire.

Isolde: Low, just for whoever's sitting beside her, warm and a little teasing. Ignore him. He does this every time someone pays attention to anyone that isn't him.

Brandon, muttering something increasingly indignant under his breath about contracts and ownership and precedent, finally gives up and drops onto his own bedroll alone, arms crossed, glaring at the fire like it's personally responsible for his evening.

Nobody on the other side of it seems especially bothered.

(make ya own) :)