Six months later…
Jensen finished finalizing the roster with his caravan quartermaster, then turned to where his new assistant was silently waiting for him. The boy was perhaps a bit overeager, but he had a solid managerial class that helped him keep track of a million little details, and he was smart enough to leverage it. Jensen’s day-to-day burdens had almost completely vanished.
“What is it, Lendin?” he asked. It was pretty rare that the kid even needed help with anything these days.
“A courier dropped this off at the office, sir,” Lendin explained. He held out a letter for Jensen to take.
It was in an envelope made of thick, cream-colored paper, high quality and obviously expensive. That in and of itself wasn’t that unusual. Jensen got a lot of mail from rich merchants and minor nobles these days. Word of his class had gotten out, and after half a dozen successful expeditions, nobody doubted his capabilities.
If it were only a business proposal, Lendin would have handled it for him and the contents would have been summarized in the daily report. This letter was unopened, however, which meant Jensen’s assistant couldn’t even know what its contents were.
Jensen slowly turned the letter over to see a familiar seal set into silver wax. The Alderworth family crest winked back up at him, the silver glinting in the afternoon sunlight. Ugh. Another one? When is he going to give up?
Despite the world almost ending, Feldirk Alderworth was still utterly and completely convinced of his own self-righteousness. Jensen had heard through the rumor mills that his father was trying to claim some sort of savior status by dint of his son’s friend being instrumental to resetting the system. The fact that Jensen was estranged from his father didn’t seem to enter into the narrative anywhere.
Jensen cracked the wax seal and pulled out an equally expensive sheet of paper, sized and colored to match the envelope it had arrived in. He scanned the letter’s contents and found himself utterly unsurprised to learn that he was being summoned back to the family estate to present himself for his father’s appraisal.
It wasn’t stated out right like that, of course. Instead, the demand was couched in flowery language and fanciful descriptions. It was framed as a social event unrelated to him or his work, with the letter serving as an invitation to attend. But what it really was was his father’s latest desperate attempt to get his unruly son back under his control.
Threats had failed. Attempts to hinder Jensen’s business had been decisively defeated. Short of hiring an actual assassin to go after his son, Feldirk could do nothing to stop Jensen these days. And while it might have been nice to see some of his siblings again, he had no desire to step into the same room as his father.
Maybe I should invite my brothers out to visit, Jensen thought. Then he reconsidered that notion and mentally rescinded the invitation to his eldest brother. That would be the same as inviting his father to send a representative to poke into his business.
Casually, he tore the invitation letter into pieces and stuffed them back into the envelope. “Burn that for me, would you?” he asked his assistant.
“Of course, sir.”
“Was there anything else?”
“Nothing that needs your immediate attention,” Lendin said. “You do have that meeting with that [Wayfinder] you hired to get the caravan through the mountain pass in an hour, though.”
“Right, I remembered this time.”
“Of course, sir.” Lendin’s smile betrayed his skepticism.
“I did!” Jensen protested.
“It’s at the Black Card Club on the veranda.”
Jensen paused. “I thought it was going to be over at that tavern by Blue Shores?”
“That was the farrier, sir.”
Defeated, Jensen just laughed. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lendin.”
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* * *
The frontier wasn’t the frontier anymore, and that was weird. Her whole life, Sildra had known the frontier as that ragged line of towns that pushed the edge of civilization farther north. She only barely remembered a time when monsters were few and far between, though that had returned to being somewhat true right around the time she left.
Now, however, the frontier was about two hundred miles north of that little line of towns. The forest had been cleared by ten thousand industrious humans that almost glowed gold and orange when the sun hit them just right---supposedly a blessing of Darshu. They were practically a swarm of locusts devouring the wild lands.
An entire civilization of undead popping out of the ground and defending humanity from the monsters during the Day of the Lost System had been surprising enough for anyone. Having them turn back into humans was a step beyond that. The fact that they weren’t even slightly interested in being governed by Ghestal’s nobility had nearly sparked a war, but in the end, the new kingdom simply left for parts unclaimed.
Sildra doubted anyone in charge of the country wanted a neighbor on their northern border, especially one that hindered their own growth in that direction, least of all the local lumber companies. They’d all essentially shut down and relocated, disrupting their operations and costing their owners a cart load of money.
With the frontier now just being a string of towns that lacked any reason to exist, they’d quickly either been abandoned or congealed into one massive town in an attempt to establish their presence along a new trade route. That might even work in the future, but the times were lean right now. The new country was nowhere near ready to start exporting goods, which left the task of keeping the former-frontiersmen from starving to death up to her people.
It wasn’t like the whole frontier had disappeared, but the druids were working nonstop trying to regrow the parts that had been destroyed and encouraging the wildlife to repopulate it. It was going to be a lean winter, even with the grain shipments coming up from the south, but she thought the towns would come out the other side intact.
Next year was going to be a whole different story, but by then it wouldn’t be her problem. She’d have fulfilled Morgus’s will and could move on to other work. At least the parasitic infiltrators were all gone now. That was one good thing that had come from the system vanishing, though it had cost the lives of everyone still infected once the monsters’ skills disappeared and they lost the ability to keep their hosts alive.
The loss of life over the span of a single day had been horrifying, and the fact that a new city had just appeared did not make up for it in her mind. But the gods had made their decisions, and it was up to mortals to find what peace they could in the aftermath. Sildra understood that, and she was grateful that she didn’t have to steward a church in a city like some of the priests of the other deities. She’d have ended up smiting somebody by the end of the first week.
No, it was much better out here. Her magic had grown in new directions, and now every step she took under the moonlight caused new life to sprout beneath her feet. She could even draw some power from the dark moon that appeared as little more than a foreboding line of crimson in the sky if she needed to.
Life was good. They’d weathered a crisis and come out mostly whole. Her god was pleased, and she had plenty of meaningful work to keep her busy. She really couldn’t have asked for a better result for herself, despite the overall damage. And she was working to heal that.
Yes. Life is good.
* * *
“Your guild seems to be falling apart,” Giller said.
Aria hadn’t even sat down at the table yet. She paused, one hand on the chair she’d been about to draw out, and shot her cousin an annoyed scowl. “I thought we agreed not to talk about work.”
Reconciliation was a tentative and ongoing process, but weathering the loss of the system, however temporary if had proven to be, had unexpectedly brought them closer together. They tried to sit down and catch up once a month now, though they weren’t always successful.
“What work? The Monster Hunters Guild is going out of business.”
Sighing, Aria pulled out the chair and dropped into it. “I know. Between the body snatchers infiltrating the guild and the loss of life when the system disappeared, we’ve got no management and no staff. It doesn’t help that those new glowing humans tore through the monster population back when they were still walking skeletons.”
“What are you going to do?” Giller asked.
Aria started to say something flippant, but stopped the instant she realized there was real concern in her cousin’s tone. “I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “The requests are coming in less frequently, but there’s still some work. I don’t think the guild will disband completely just yet. Objectively, it’s probably a good thing. Less monsters means a safer countryside.”
“Doesn’t hurt that the ‘Crimson Hunter’ is out there eliminating monsters left and right.”
Aria rolled her eyes. “Velik is pretty much just the final nail in the coffin. Things were already falling apart without him. Maybe he accelerated the issue, but it seems like it was inevitable either way.”
“Yeah? You talked to him lately?” Giller asked.
Something in her voice made Aria suspicious. “Why?”
Busted, Aria thought when Giller’s façade cracked. She didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed about getting caught fishing for information. “Boss wanted to offer him a job. He’s been a fan boy since he first saw Velik in the arena.”
“I really don’t think the kid’s interested.”
“I know,” Giller said. “But I still had to ask. Speaking of job offers, I could probably find some work for you, too.”
“Me come work with you?” Aria asked, blinking in surprise. Giller never would have suggested that a year ago. The less they saw of each other back then, the better.
“Sure. Why not?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to hear the offer,” Aria said slowly. Things sure had changed.