By morning, the taverns of Kelford were telling six different versions of the drake fight.
In one version Ray strangled both beasts barehanded, while in another Yuzu summoned lightning from a clear sky. The worst one cast him as her porter, carrying her satchel while she fried both drakes by herself.
He pushed through the guild doors with Yuzu at his elbow, "Pfft, there are six legends going around town and I’m the luggage in the most popular one, which is a hell of a way to treat a drake slayer!"
"The porter version is the only one where you sound useful."
Every head in the hall turned toward them at once, the morning chatter dying into a scrape of benches.
At one table the spearman from the river froze mid-story, both hands spread to show a drake’s size. His bearded partner sank lower behind his mug, suddenly fascinated by whatever was floating in his morning ale.
"Don’t stop on my account, gentlemen, since I hear the part where I eat a drake whole is a real crowd pleaser," he called across the hall.
The clerk at the counter stopped snickering the moment Ray walked in, sitting up straight as a fence post.
"Th-the guildmaster wants you upstairs right now, sir, along with your friend who carries the rapier."
Ray tipped the clerk a two-finger salute, "Getting called upstairs before lunch has to be some kind of personal record, even for me."
The stairs creaked under every step, Yuzu keeping her voice low enough that the hall would not hear.
"Guildmasters strike people off the rolls for lying about kills."
"If he wanted me gone, he’d send the clerk down with a broom instead of a summons, so relax."
Tenon’s office sat above the hall like a crow’s nest, cluttered with maps and ledgers under a dented shield. The guildmaster was gray at the temples, favouring one knee as he read a letter by the open window.
"Put whatever you brought on the desk, please, while I finish pretending this letter does not exist," he said without looking up.
Yuzu set out three vials of violet water while Ray added a drake core, a spike sketch and a fish.
The fish was two days dead, its smell reaching the guildmaster faster than any polite knock ever could.
Tenon lowered the letter, his gaze stopping on the F-Rank tag at Ray’s collar, "You are a good deal shorter than the tavern version of you."
"Everybody’s shorter than their tavern version, boss, though I promise the real thing comes with better manners."
"I am going to assume, officially, that there is a reason for the dead fish on my desk."
"That fish is... the only witness in Kelford who isn’t on the council’s payroll, so show the poor guy a little respect."
Tenon nudged the fish toward the edge of the desk with his quill, as if it might testify against him.
He held a vial up to the window, the violet sheen curling like oil in a puddle, "Half the cots at the temple hold people who drank this, while the council calls it a summer flux."
"It isn’t a flux but channel toxicity from a demon siphon, which I wrote in four reports that nobody ever answered," Yuzu said flatly.
He slid the letter across the desk, its wax seal stamped with the three towers of the Kelford council.
"Your reports went into a council vault along with every river survey from the past month, though officially I never saw any of them."
"By order of the council, no guild inquiry into the wells shall proceed until after the harvest fair," Ray read aloud, his voice going flat.
’A town that buries poisoned wells to save a party means somebody important owns the party.’
"Tch, who the hell sits on poisoned wells to protect a damn harvest fair?"
"On paper, demon taint brings Crown inquisitors with a quarantine behind them, while the council would sooner lose a few children than a year of—"
Yuzu’s hand closed around the grip of her rapier, "Pim is six years old and Etta is eight, which makes this the last time anyone in this office calls them a few children."
"Those are the council’s words rather than mine, Miss Yuzu, for I asked you here knowing you would say their names."
Ray set the letter flat on the desk without a sound, his eyes on the three towers in the wax.
"I’ll bet you half that council owns a stall at the fair, meaning this was never panic but plain money," he said quietly.
Tenon’s hand drifted toward the dented shield behind him before he caught it, an old soldier’s reflex answering first.
"All five of them do, so you would win that bet with coin to spare... though naturally I never said that," he said slowly, letting the hand settle on the desk.
’Here comes the part where the client offers a job he can’t put his name on.’
"My two E-Ranks swear you killed both drakes with thunder, though what I would like to know is what you carry on your hip."
Ray laid a hand over the holster, "That’s a very private family heirloom... grandma would climb out of her grave and smack me if I told you."
"Keep your secrets, then, Mister Ray, for officially I only care whether the thing works."
He tapped the charcoal sketch, tracing the trunk line that ran from the spike toward town.
"If this line runs where you drew it, the pump sits somewhere under our feet," he added, glancing at the floorboards.
Ray set the drake core on the map, where it rolled once before settling with its bright side facing north.
"These cores keep pointing at your northern bluffs, so I’d bet my last silver the pump is sitting under that old building up top."
Tenon rolled the core between two fingers, watching it creep back north every time he let it settle.
"That little rock is worth a decent pile of silver at your counter downstairs, boss, though today it’s the best compass in Kelford."
"Those waterworks have been shut since long before I took this chair," he said, frowning at the core.
"If the pump sits in the waterworks, it feeds the draw-wheel that supplies every well in Kelford," Yuzu said, the color leaving her face.
"The draw-wheel sits in the lower vault, where nobody who went down has ever walked back out."
"The guild charter forbids me from defying a council order, although the dungeon rolls are another matter entirely," he said, steepling his fingers.
He unrolled a map of the bluffs, tapping a squat building inked in faded brown as the old waterworks. A red note beside it read F-Rank Dungeon, Sealed, dated many years before Tenon took his first guild contract.
"Huh, hold on, are you telling me the town’s old waterworks is an actual dungeon with monsters and—"
Tenon talked right over him, "It is a minor dungeon that woke after the workers dug too deep, listed on the rolls as F-Rank, the lowest grade there is."
Through the window behind him, the northern bluffs rose over the rooftops with a squat old building crouched on top. Ivy covered most of its walls, though a violet haze hung over the roof like breath on a cold morning.
"That makes an F-Rank dungeon the one door you can legally open for an F-Rank like me, you sneaky old bastard."
"I prefer the term procedurally creative, given this charter will carry my seal alone," he said, unlocking a drawer.
He pulled out a blank charter, writing out the terms in a cramped clerk’s hand.
[ CONTRACT GENERATED ]
[Job: Bounded Inquiry]
[Site: Northern Bluff Waterworks]
[Threat Grade: F (Dungeon)]
[Bounty: Pending]
He signed it with a scratchy quill, pressing his ring into the wax before holding it out without letting go. His gaze moved from Ray to Yuzu and back, the tired look sharpening into something closer to an old soldier.
"Understand the terms before you take this paper, since the council will never see it, meaning that if you fail down there, you were never hired."
Ray took hold of the other end, "If I die, I was never here, I get it, but who gets the credit if I win?"
"If you win, you get paid in coin, more than the council has offered anyone this summer."
"Coin works for me, considering credit never bought anybody a drink in any bar I’ve ever been thrown out of," he said with a shrug.
The guildmaster dropped a small purse onto the desk beside the fish, the coins clinking against the wood.
"That is twenty silver for the netmen’s contract, which you finished whether the council likes it or not."
[ PURSE ]
[Balance: 101 Silver]
"I’m going down with him, since my oath sends me wherever the wells go bad," Yuzu said, lifting her chin.
"I wasn’t going to argue, Miss Yuzu, for a C-Rank ward is the only reason I would let an F-Rank near that door."
"Wow, that’s the warmest vote of confidence anybody has ever given me, boss!" Ray said, clutching his chest.
"Three workers vanished down there and were never found, so keep that ward up the entire time."
He rapped his knuckles against his bad knee, "I lost this knee in a dungeon rated E, Mister Ray, where I learned the hard way that letters lie."
"Noted, I’ll keep both my knees exactly where they are, thanks."
They left the office with the charter folded inside Ray’s coat, the fish still stinking on the desk.
Down in the hall the spearman raised his mug as they passed, then thought better of it and drank instead.
"Do we go at first light, or do you need a night to sleep on it?" Yuzu asked on the stairs.
"I need one night in the attic first, Doc, since I’m building that dungeon a very special present with a bow on top."
"I’ll pack sunleaf for two, given one of us is an idiot."
’The council hides behind a fair while the guildmaster hides behind a charter, which leaves me as the only one in town who has to actually go downstairs.’