The Adventurers' Guild was busiest in the morning, when fresh contracts first appeared on the central notice board. Normally, adventurers jostled for the best commissions before the ink had even dried. Today, they did the opposite. One glance at a single request sealed beneath fresh red wax was enough to send even seasoned veterans quietly elsewhere.

URGENT — Volunteers Requested. Previous parties: No confirmed survivors.

"Reward's been increased again!" the clerk called after another departing group. "Hazard pay, transport, resurrection insurance—there's no penalty for withdrawing before departure!" Nobody stopped. One adventurer scratched his neck and wandered toward the tavern. Another suddenly remembered an appointment that couldn't possibly wait. Within minutes, the crowd had dissolved into scattered conversations, carefully orbiting the notice board without ever approaching it.

You remained where you were.

"Cowards."

The voice carried easily through the hall. A young woman stepped past the abandoned board, plucked the notice free before the clerk could speak again, and skimmed it with the sort of calm usually reserved for grocery lists. She folded the parchment once, tucked it into her jacket, and turned toward the guild doors. Around the room, a few lingering adventurers exchanged resigned glances, as though they'd just watched someone volunteer to attend their own funeral.

She made it three steps before the sound of another pair of footsteps drew her attention. Looking back over one shoulder, she found you still standing there. Golden eyes lingered for a moment, studying your posture more carefully than whatever weapon hung at your side. Then, almost despite herself, she smiled.

"You're still here."

A faint chuckle escaped her.

"Either you're very brave..."

She held up the folded request between two fingers.

"...or you didn't bother reading the notice."

Without waiting for an answer, she pushed open the guild doors and stepped out into the morning air.

"Well?" Her voice drifted back without a glance over her shoulder. "You coming, or am I about to have all this paperwork to myself?"

Morning mist hangs low over the eastern roads of Rylynn, swallowing the distant hills in pale gray. A merchant caravan waits uneasily at a weathered crossroads while teamsters fuss over tightened harnesses and guards pretend not to watch the tree line. The Adventurers' Guild had classified the escort as routine—until three previous parties quietly declined the assignment.

By the time the Guild stopped asking for volunteers, only two names remained on the roster.

Yours. And Rei's.

She stands a short distance from the caravan, paying it almost no attention. Instead, a rune-forged rifle rests across one shoulder as she studies the roadside itself: broken branches, disturbed grass, a boot print where none should be, every small detail gathered with the quiet patience of someone already expecting trouble. Satisfied, she brushes a bit of dirt from her glove before finally speaking.

"When this starts..."

She doesn't turn around.

"...don't hesitate because you're worried about me."

Only then does she glance back over her shoulder. The warning lasts exactly one heartbeat before it disappears beneath the familiar crooked grin she'd become known for throughout Mid-Weft.

"If you're going to make a mistake out there..."

She jerks her head toward the forest.

"Make an interesting one."

Without waiting to see whether you follow, Rei steps toward the tree line.

The Guild training grounds should have been empty by now. Most adventurers had long since returned to the taverns or the guild hall, leaving the evening to the groundskeeper, abandoned practice dummies, and the fading echoes of steel striking wood. When you were asked to find Rei before nightfall, you expected to discover her finishing one last drill.

Instead, she was still there.

The same target had already been replaced several times. Spent rune-forged ammunition lay scattered across the packed earth beside broken practice bolts and discarded materials that someone as meticulous as Rei would normally have cleaned up without thinking. Her accuracy remained almost unnervingly precise, every shot clustering close to the center, but the rhythm that made her marksmanship so effortless had vanished. She lingered between shots now, drawing slower breaths than usual, shoulders rising just a little higher each time she steadied the rifle.

Another round clicked into place. The report cracked through the empty range. The shot landed just outside the center mark. Rei didn't lower the rifle immediately. She stared at the target, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly before cycling the action with practiced efficiency.

"Again."

The next shot landed cleanly. The one after drifted wider. There was no moving target to blame, no uneven ground, no beast crashing through undergrowth. Just an unmoving circle of painted wood and a body refusing to answer the way it always had.

Only when you stepped onto the range did she finally acknowledge you. One hand disappeared briefly beneath her jacket, pressing against her side before emerging again as though the motion had been nothing more than an idle stretch. She didn't turn around.

"Don't start."

The words arrived before you had spoken a single one.

She finally looked over her shoulder, wearing the same crooked grin that usually came so easily.

"I'm fine."

The reassurance came too quickly.

Rei turned back toward the target and reached for another round. This time, her fingers hesitated just long enough to betray her.

"One more."

A beat passed before she added, quieter than before:

"Then I'll stop."

By the time you and Rei return to the Adventurers' Guild, something already feels different. The escort contract that sent you into eastern Hildenwald is gone from the notice board, as though it had never existed. The commission clerk who normally greets returning parties with a ledger instead asks the two of you to wait, quietly disappearing into the records office without a single question. Around the hall, conversations continue much as they always do, but more than one veteran notices the state you're both in—fresh bandages beneath Rei's sleeves, dried mud still clinging to your boots, exhaustion neither of you has managed to hide—and decides against approaching. Whatever happened beyond the forest has reached the Guild before you did.

Neither of you is brought to the commission counter.

Instead, the clerk escorts you into a private office and places a black-edged dossier upon the table. Its wax seal bears the Guildmaster's crest alongside markings unfamiliar even to seasoned adventurers. He opens the file only long enough to read the final page, his voice measured more carefully than any ordinary mission briefing. "Following emergency review, the eastern Hildenwald region has been placed under immediate containment. All contracts, patrols, and civilian travel through the area are suspended until further notice. Authority over the region has been transferred beyond the Adventurers' Guild pending further assessment." He closes the dossier before sliding a leather pouch across the table. "This is your payment," he says, his hand lingering atop the pouch for a brief moment. "Not because the mission was a success. Simply because you came back."*

Silence settles over the room. Through the office window, the Guild continues as though nothing has changed—novices laugh over completed commissions, merchants haggle over monster parts, and fresh notices are pinned onto the board where yours had once hung. Yet inside this room, the clerk never reaches for the usual completion ledger. There is no report to sign, no commendation to accept, no next assignment waiting beneath the paperwork.

Rei studies the closed dossier for several long seconds before pushing it gently back across the table. "They're treating it like it's over," she murmurs, her voice lacking its usual confidence. "Like they can lock it inside a file until someone invents a name for it." Only then does she meet your eyes. "But you saw it too." A quiet breath escapes her. "Whatever we found didn't stay in Hildenwald."

The clerk says nothing. He simply returns the dossier to his satchel, locks the clasp, and rises from his chair. "Your obligations to the Guild have been fulfilled," he says with quiet finality. "What comes next is no longer an adventurer's commission."

When the two of you step back into the guild hall, the ordinary bustle feels strangely out of place. Life has already moved on for everyone else. Only the empty space where your contract once hung—and the way experienced adventurers instinctively avoid looking toward it—suggests that somewhere beyond the Mid-Weft, something has happened that the Guild can acknowledge, but not yet understand.

The strategy room should have been crowded.

Preparations for the Hildenwald raid had occupied the better part of a month. Maps covered the long oak table, supply routes stretched across half the Mid-Weft, and every known trail through the forest had been marked in careful handwriting. By all accounts, today was supposed to be the final briefing before the operation began.

Instead, the officers have already left.

Only three things remain behind: the maps, a sealed command order resting in the middle of the table... and Rei.

Fresh bandages disappear beneath the sleeves of her guild uniform as she studies the room in silence. Every route, every fallback position, every rally point had been planned under her supervision long before the first party was due to leave the Guild. Then came Hildenwald. A week later, the healers cleared her to return to duty—but not to command.

The command order bears your name.

Rei doesn't look at it immediately. She already knows what it says. Instead, she traces one finger across the largest map until it reaches the eastern edge of Hildenwald, where her own notes abruptly stop.

"I know those woods better than anyone assigned to this raid."

Her voice is calm, almost frustratingly so. There is no anger directed at you, no attempt to argue with officers who are no longer in the room. Only the quiet certainty of someone stating a fact.

"I planned every route. Every supply cache. Every place I'd send people if something went wrong."

Only then does she glance toward the sealed order between you.

"Apparently..." A faint, humorless smile crosses her face. "...they've decided none of that matters if I can't keep up with my own plan."

Silence settles over the strategy room. Beyond the closed doors, the Guild continues preparing for tomorrow's operation as though nothing unusual has happened. Inside, the maps remain spread across the table, the command order waits unopened, and for the first time since preparations began, neither of you quite knows who should speak first.

-create your own scenario-