Valkyrie's Shadow

Before the Storm: Act 09, Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“What do you think, Liam?”

What am I supposed to think?

“I think you look nice,” Liam answered.

Lady Beaumont’s delighted response suggested that he had provided the right answer, but something told him that it was the wrong answer at the same time. The young noblewoman twirled in place, her winter-themed skirts swirling out to expose her stockinged calves. Liam’s eyes went to the unpacked belongings strewn about the drawing room of the Countess’ solar.

“Are we ready to get going, my lady?”

“Not yet,” Lady Beaumont replied. “I’ve sent some men to call ahead and we must wait for him to return. In the meantime, we should take the opportunity to relax.”

“Shouldn’t you prepare as much as possible for these meetings?” Liam asked.

“I have been preparing for them since we left Beaumont Town to visit the mining villages,” the Countess answered. “Much of that preparation has gone up in smoke along with half of Re-Blumrushur.”

“There’s nothing else you can do?”

The young noblewoman tilted her head curiously, lightly touching the tip of her finger to her chin.

“...speculate? As reliable as they have been, our woodsmen aren’t ideal for gathering information in the city and the atmosphere in general has been subdued.”

“What about the rare materials we brought with us?”

Lady Beaumont put on a troubled look. She glanced at the aforementioned materials piled in the nearby dining room, smoothing her skirts nervously.

“You think someone will mess with you?” Liam asked.

“I know someone will,” Lady Beaumont said. “The part that keeps me fearful is that I can’t predict how. My studies as a scion didn’t cover the particulars of these pedestrian transactions – it’s something our retainers usually took care of.”

He had to admit that it was an unknown to him, as well. According to the Countess, one could submit a request to the Adventurer’s Guild to have the materials assessed. Alternatively, one could go to the Merchant Guild for the same service, but it was pretty much mandatory to take advantage of the Adventurer Guild’s muscle in Re-Blumrushur. As far as Liam’s experiences went, valuable materials conveniently disappeared into the hands of those in power in Fassett Town and the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Adventurer Guild was no longer the organisation it once was.

“If that’s the case,” Liam said, “why not have your retainers deliver the materials for assessment and sale?”

“I’m afraid they’re as clueless as I am when it comes to dealing with the Adventurer Guild,” Lady Beaumont replied.

“...is the Re-Blumrushur Adventurer Guild known for cheating its clients or compromising them in some way?” Liam asked.

“Not that I know of,” the young noblewoman sighed. “Fine. I’ll send Claire along with Reed...but could you please go along with them to ensure nothing goes wrong?”

She must have been incredibly worried if she was willing to give up her time alone with him. Claire left to summon Reed, who arrived with a half dozen men to move the materials out of the room.

“Uh...what do I do, exactly, my lady?” Reed asked.

“First and foremost,” Lady Beaumont answered, “make sure everything arrives at the Adventurer Guild safely. Claire will speak with the receptionist.”

Liam went to help move the materials while the Countess went over her expectations with her Maid. Outside, Reed had rolled out a covered wagon and stationed half of his men to stand guard over it.

“No told me that being an armsman was so stressful,” Reed grumbled.

“What part about it is stressful?” Liam asked.

“Any part where I’m put in charge of making expensive shit safe,” Reed answered. “The most valuable thing I’ve escorted before this was a boatload of cheap wine.”

“You seemed pretty relaxed on the way here,” Liam noted.

The woodsman scratched his chin.

“Hmm...guess you’re right about that. It’s gotta be the city. Feel all out of sorts here and half of everythin’ makes no sense.”

“Just focus on what you’re good at,” Liam said. “Even in the city, your senses are still way better than the average person’s. The job here is to protect the cargo and come back with the payment intact. Claire will handle the rest.”

“Why is that girl handlin’ the rest?” Reed asked.

“Probably because she’s the only civilian staff member of the Beaumont Household right now,” Liam answered. “Normally, it’d be a butler or at least a footman doing this sort of work inside the city. Just remember what I told you about how a noble household operates and we should be fine.”

He at least hoped it would be the case. Routine procedure or not, they were sitting on top of a lot of ‘expensive shit’, as Reed so eloquently put it. Liam didn’t foresee any problems delivering the materials, but word of such a lofty transaction would almost immediately get out. While the Adventurer Guild might have claimed impartiality when it came to disputes between Humans, Adventurers just loved to banter and gossip. The chance of them keeping their mouths shut about such a notable event was pretty much zero, making everything a race to get what they needed before someone else got in their way.

“On second thought,” Liam said, “be careful on the way back. Coin is easier to steal than all this bulky stuff.”

“Uh-huh.”

Liam left Reed and his men to finish securing the wagon while they waited for Claire to show up. As the minutes passed without any sign of the Maid, Liam returned to Reed, who had taken up the driver’s seat.

“Did any of your guys go out into the city last night?”

“Nah. We were exhausted from the trip. Probably better off askin’ Olin’s boys – they hardly did any work for the last week. By the way, I don’t think they much like us anymore...”

“Us?”

“Me and my men,” Reed said. “I mean, they were never nice to us, but they still saw us as one of them in that stuck-up way of theirs.”

“Do you still want to be a part of their group?” Liam asked.

“Even if we were just useful thugs, it’s not as if we suffered under them. We were with ‘em for a long time; it’s a shock that they could change their tune so quick.”

It didn’t seem all that strange to him. Countess Beaumont had a point about the difference between urban and rural society in the Kingdom.

In particular, vagrants such as spares and unskilled labourers eking out a living in urban centres didn’t have the same relationship as rural tenants did with their lords or artisans did with their guilds. Their priorities lay along the lines of day-to-day survival and that demanded a moral outlook that those who enjoyed membership in one establishment or another would find distasteful. Loyalty was a weakness in a world where yesterday’s friends could very easily be today’s enemies. The dynamic between Reed’s group and Olin’s thugs portrayed the differences quite well.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Liam said.

“What question?” Reed frowned, “Oh. I’d prefer the more reliable option. Right now, that seems to be working for House Beaumont.”

“Is being a retainer enough, or do you want land?”

“A tenancy would be nice for sure,” Reed replied, “but that might be asking for too much.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because it’s land, yeah?” The woodsman said, “The only way to get more is to carve out a piece of the frontier. That involves driving out whoever lives there and having enough coin for development. Well, the ‘development’ part wouldn’t be so hard: I’d just like a nice little plot of woodland to raise a family on.”

“That doesn’t sound unreasonable,” Liam said. “You guys just helped thin out the frontier last week.”

“Guess so...”

“Sorry for the wait.”

“It should be in that alley up ahead,” Liam answered. “Big buildings always have at least one utility entrance.”

“Were those folks watching us that big of a deal?”

“Who knows,” Liam shrugged. “The point is we need to make people work for their information. Set a couple of men at the entrance to the plaza, two at the entrance to the alley, and eight to block the side leading to the rest of the city. Don’t get too close to the armsmen there. Everyone else can loiter around the wagon to block any distant views of our cargo. Remember the faces of anyone that still tries to figure out what we’re carrying despite our setup.”

“What if a patrol comes around?”

“Then they come around. Don’t give them any excuses to inspect our stuff. Oh, and don’t feather any thief-takers that show up on the rooftops.”

The positioning of their escort implied that they were wary of the ‘riff-raff’ stocking their noses in House Beaumont’s business. Practically speaking, it kept almost anyone from observing them without interacting with the woodsmen. Their only weakness was observation from above.

As Reed went to carry out his instructions, Liam turned to Claire, who was visibly steeling herself for her task.

“Ready to go?” Liam asked.

“No,” Claire answered. “I’ve never done something this big before.”

“It’s a routine thing,” Liam told her. “The Adventurer Guild staff will have done it thousands of times.”

“But I haven’t done it at all...”

Liam held out his hand to the nervous Maid. She wouldn’t let go after he helped her down, so they ended up going into the guild’s main entrance hand-in-hand. To Liam’s chagrin, those within didn’t miss their awkward entrance. He shook his hand free to pull back the hood of his mantle. Claire followed suit.

There are more people here than I thought there’d be.

There were no Adamantite-ranked individuals, of course, as Blue Rose was based in the capital and Red Drop operated in the northwest. He couldn’t see any Orichalcum tags either, but there were at least four Mithril teams present and two dozen lower-ranked teams sitting at the tables and benches furnishing the hall. Judging by their visible equipment, every team was specialised for operations on the densely forested frontier. At least one member of each team casually eyed their progress through the building.

“...representatives from House Beaumont? Welcome. How may the Adventurer Guild assist you?”

It took a moment to realise that the smiling receptionist at the front counter was addressing him.

Well, that was a stupid oversight.

Claire was officially the only member of the Countess’ civilian staff, but the receptionist didn’t know that. Since Liam had come along with her, he had become the ‘footman’ in charge of conducting House Beaumont’s business.

“We have materials to assess and sell,” Liam said. “Our wagon is parked near the alley.”

“Understood,” the receptionist replied. “I must inform you that the Adventurer Guild charges a service fee for both the assessment of goods and acting as a neutral participant facilitating sales to the relevant parties. Those parties may also demand a fee depending on how difficult your requests are to fulfil. Does House Beaumont find this acceptable?”

“Have the fees changed since the fire?” Liam asked.

“No.”

“Very well,” Liam said. “We’ll be waiting outside.”

Back outside, they found that the drizzle that had accompanied them on their trip to the Adventurer Guild had intensified into a downpour that sent streams of water pouring off the tiled rooftops. It was a blessing that greatly reduced visibility, but no one appeared to be particularly pleased about it. Liam hoped it would give them the excuse to move their stuff out of sight entirely.

“That receptionist seemed prickly for some reason,” Claire said. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Probably not,” Liam replied. “That’s just how the Adventurer Guild is. They insist on being recognised as an independent organisation, so they act like they’re the ones in control whenever they can.”

“It just felt rude to me,” the Maid said.

“It doesn’t matter so long as we get what we came for,” Liam said.

If he were to guess, the nature of the Azerlisian Marches also influenced the behaviour of the Adventurer Guild. The way that the receptionist addressed them suggested that they expected trouble from House Beaumont if they gave them any wiggle room whatsoever. Whether that was because they had a history with them or it was due to their experience with the local aristocrats in general, he couldn’t tell.

“What happened?” Reed asked.

“The receptionist was just being uptight,” Liam answered. “We’re waiting for them to send someone to us now. Anything interesting going on out here?”

The woodsman glanced at the eaves overhead.

“We had a fellow in Blumrush colours watching us from the roof over there,” Reed said. “He made himself scarce when it started to pour.”

What a lazy guy.

If that was the quality of his ‘opposition’ then he had little to fear. He had fully expected teams of experienced agents to contend with since he was dealing with one of Re-Estize’s Great Nobles. Then again, considering the amount of cost-cutting House Blumrush displayed, it might have been an overestimation on his part.

“Someone’s comin’,” one of Reed’s men called out.

A minute later, a middle-aged man adorned in eye-catching finery came from the direction of the plaza, sheltered by a parasol being carried by a boy slightly older than Liam. The rain failed to wash away the scent of perfume that preceded the pair.

“Pierre Ulenieu,” the middle-aged man said as he stuck out his hand.

The man was clearly addressing Liam, so he took his hand and gave it a firm shake.

“Liam. House Beaumont.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mister Liam.”

“And you, Mister Ulenieu. The weather’s taken a turn for the worse, so would you prefer to continue our business inside?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Pierre grinned. “I was born and raised here, but the rain’s still a bit much for me.”

“Then I’ll have my people move the goods once you secure a private room in the Adventurer Guild,” Liam said.

“I’ll send my Apprentice to guide you to the back entrance once we’re ready,” Pierre said.

With that, Pierre and his Apprentice rushed back up the way they came. Reed frowned at their retreating backs.

“That guy’s a Merchant,” the woodsman said. “I thought they’re supposed to be our enemies...or is he a smuggler?”

“I don’t think smugglers wear so much perfume that you could track them by scent alone,” Liam said. “That guy’s probably from the Merchant Guild. I doubt the Guilds would approve of him dealing with us. The Adventurer Guild probably chose a guy they knew would be willing to break the rules, and that guy knows other guys who will also break the rules. That’ll probably cost us extra, but they’re the ones who will be in trouble if they get caught.”

“So...a smuggler?”

Liam smiled despite himself.

“Pretty much,” he said. “The difference is that House Blumrush would probably confiscate this cargo if they caught someone smuggling it. The Guilds might send Assassins instead.”

“That can’t be true,” Claire shivered. “Why would anyone be killed over something like this?”

“Well, if you consider what’s going on right now,” Liam said, “breaking solidarity is basically treason. Traitors are executed, yeah?”

The pitter-patter of the rain filled the silence as everyone stared at him. Was it something that he said?