Duskbound

Book 2, Chapter 23

Jensen was shown into Bertrim Nelspir's office two days after Velik got his gold pin. He'd been eager for the meeting, as the expedition was planning to hire on twenty silvers, thirty bronzes, and three golds, maybe more if whatever area Jensen picked proved to be more dangerous than average.

It was an appreciable chunk of the guild's manpower and would impact how many jobs they could reliably handle, which was why Bertrim had been dragging his feet on getting an answer back to Jensen. Well, that and also some interference from Jensen's father, not that he could prove it. He almost never could.

"Jensen!" Bertrim said with fake friendliness that didn't reach his eyes. "How's my favorite [Vault Seeker] doing today?"

"That depends entirely on what you're about to tell me," Jensen told him.

"Well, I've got good news, so that must mean you're doing well."

I'll be the judge of that, you wrinkled old snake.

"Let's hear it then," Jensen said aloud.

"It took a great deal of… discussions…" Bertrim's mouth twisted into a grimace at the word, "but we did eventually come to an agreement."

"An agreement on?"

"The destination, of course."

"Oh." Jensen's voice went flat. "You decided on that, huh?"

"Yes," Bertrim went on, oblivious to the change in tone. "There are a few sites out on the coast situated in tidal caves that have been difficult to explore even for those with classes that let them survive underwater. Historical records indicate that the lost Pearl of Sulavak is somewhere in there. This was agreed upon as a good test—close enough to reach within a week and in settled enough lands to not require close to a hundred monster hunters."

"That's not going to work for me," Jensen said.

"Not going—I'm sorry. What are you talking about?"

"One of the investor conditions requires we target a site in Slokara," Jensen told the guild master. "I sent you a letter about this over a week ago asking for some information about a few spots [Treasure Hunter] told me were worth investigating."

Bertrim's brow furrowed. "My secretary must have sent it directly to the archives. Regardless, it really would be better to start closer to home with this first run. On foreign soil, there'd be a much greater threat of hostile action from Slokarian military. A [Vault Seeker] is valuable enough to risk a kidnapping."

Wow, I can almost see Father's hand reaching up your ass to move your lips, Jensen thought somewhat bitterly. "Why do you think I wanted such a large force of guards and monster hunters for the expedition?"

Explore stories on My Virtual Library Empire

"Well, I'm sorry, but the Monster Hunters Guild just doesn't have the members to fill such a large request. It would cripple our operations to have so many gone for the months a Slokaran expedition would require," Bertrim said.

"And how many can you offer?"

"Fifteen bronzes, five silvers, one gold."

"That's barely a third of what I requested!"

Bertrim spread his hands into a helpless shrug. "That's what we can spare, Jensen. It's more than enough for the location we'd like to target."

"What use is your guild if you can't actually provide hunters to take care of monsters?" Jensen asked slowly as he struggled to keep his temper. One damn problem after another. If Father would stop trying to screw with me, this would be a lot easier.

"My guild doesn't exist for your convenience, young man," Bertrim growled back as he rose to his feet. "You have our proposed location and numbers. The contract remains unchanged. You can accept it or you can go crawling back to your father with your tail between your legs, because you will never get this expedition off the ground without the support of this guild."

Jensen was on his feet now, too, though he didn't remember standing up. "So that's my choice, huh? Be the guild's hound on a leash, or nothing at all. Well, no thanks. I am the [Vault Seeker]. You need me to find anything. I can hire mercenaries if I need to. The guild is a convenience, not a necessity."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Bertrim laughed in his face. "Go try it. See how far you get. Good luck finding a company that's willing to cross Feldirk Alderworth."

"So it was my father who put you up to this," Jensen spat out. "No surprise there, I suppose."

"Maybe you ought to try listening to him. He knows a hell of a lot more about how the world works than you do."

"This meeting's over," Jensen said. Without waiting for the guild master to say another word, he turned and walked out of the room.

* * *

That's probably not good, Velik thought to himself as he watched Jensen storm out of the guild hall. Sound dampening enchantments provided much-needed privacy throughout the building, but even through those, Velik had caught the tail end of the conversation. The guild screws me, once again.

He'd just finished his third session with Andel Thett. It turned out the old archivist had only had part of his total work ready for review at their first meeting. He'd pulled in a stack of books taller than Velik for their second meeting, though thankfully he just wanted to reference specific passages from each one. It had still taken them better than eight hours to go through it all, and then they'd had another meeting today to map out the geographic locations of each sighting.

That part had sounded useful going in, but Velik had failed to account for just how old some of those books were. Even discarding everything from more than a century past, they'd put close to two dozen pins in a map of five different countries. Two of them were even in Ghestal, though one of them was the one Velik had personally taken care of. The other was an account from a fur trapper of a singular flesh beast thirty years prior, with no corroborating evidence that it was anything but a drunkard's fireside tale.

Even if it was true, it wasn't much to go on, and Velik's lead of a flesh beast caught in the Verdant Belt not even two months ago was much more promising. If Jensen's meeting was a portent of things to come, though, getting across the border was going to be an issue after all. He considered what to do for a moment, then walked out of the guild hall after the man.

It wasn't hard to catch up to Jensen, who was obviously heading for Melon and Peach. For some reason, he was embarrassed to go in there and kept insisting that Velik needed to find lodging at a respectable inn. Might as well save him the trouble for once.

"Jensen," he said to get the man's attention.

"Ah, Velik. Good. At least one gods damned thing can go right today," Jensen said, halting to give Velik a few seconds to catch up. "Judging by the direction you came from, I'm going to guess you were at the guild hall?"

"And heard how the meeting ended. Things are grim, then?"

"It's a problem, for sure. The thing about investors is that they all agree to pitch in on the promises of other investors, and when one of them decides not to fulfill what they said they'd do, it has knock-on effects. Now I've got to go back to everyone else who's putting money into the expedition and explain to them that the Monster Hunters Guild is pulling out unless we agree to the location they've chosen and a third of the manpower they were supposed to commit.

"And if we do agree, then we lose you, since you need to get to Slokara. Losing you means Shelir Blendstin, who is by far the biggest investor, pulls out, and it's all a big fucking headache. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss just going into the woods and shooting whatever monsters I could find."

"So let's do that," Velik said.

"I… What?" Jensen paused to stare at him.

"All of this… What's the point? I'm not here because I love this city. A warm bed is nice, and having people who actually know how to cook prepare my meals is a luxury I didn't know I was missing, but the rest of it can go to hell. I'm going to Slokara, whether it's through an official border checkpoint or crossing on my own somewhere else. If you're fed up with trying to put this all together, then just… don't. Gear up and walk out the gate."

Jensen let out a short, bitter laugh. "If only it were that easy. I need wagons. I need that extradimensional storage box. I need excavators and monster hunters and mercenary guards. I need border passes for all of them, and money to pay for everything. If I just go, there is no expedition. Maybe I make it to wherever the treasure is, maybe not, but even if I do, I can't get anything valuable from it."

"No, you just won't get the maximum value for it. But so what? Most of that value is going to everyone else you're paying to come along. How much of it will really be just for you?"

"More than if I try to go it alone, and that's not even considering the risk to my life."

Jensen wasn't necessarily wrong, but Velik still thought there was a better way. "What if, instead of a whole caravan, we take a small team, all gold-ranks or above. If the contract isn't through the guild, Velspir can't do anything to stop them, right?"

"Technically," Jensen said, "but there's two problems with that. First: who would we even get to go? And second: how would we carry the loot back? I need the investor's money to rent the storage."

"Did you know that the woman who evaluated me last week hates the guild leadership and has extradimensional storage?" Velik asked. "Torwin likes us. I bet he'd help when he comes back. And your investor loves me, right? You think he could pitch in a few high-levels from that private security he's got as long as I'm there?"

"It would mean a bigger share for him," Jensen mused. "We'd probably need one or two more, depending on who Shelir's willing to send with us, but if we're not renting the storage box, we'd be cutting a huge chunk of expenses. It… It could work."

"Great. Let's do that, then. Fuck the guild. They can get nothing."

The two of them stood in the street for a few seconds while Jensen thought furiously. Finally, he said, "Okay, here's what I need you to do…"