Just one guard.

And it was him. That mercenary.

“Is this where sailing once more has led you?” she prodded as she approached. He gave her a steely-eyed look and the subtlest of smiles, the slightest of nods. Crossed arms, outwardly relaxed stance, but beneath the surface ready for immediate combat. She knocked on the door. Estoras proclaimed from beyond it, “Come in!”

The door opened and closed with nary a sound. The room was as smoky and filled with lacquered wood as she remembered. Estoras just watched her as she walked over and took a seat, kicking her feet up on the edge of his desk just as she had done before. Up on his table, on one of its corners, stood a cylindrical, technological-looking device with a weathered glyph-carved stone clamped in metal jaws at its top.

“Let’s expedite this, I’m in a hurry and I bet you are too,” said Zelsys.

A smoke-filled sigh escaped him. He leaned forward and reached for the device, flicking a switch to a loud clack. The device began to emit a deep, powerful thrumming noise as the stone took on a pale yellowish glow. Estoras answered her questioning looks with, “A little gift from our Kargarian friends, it’s a portable sound ward generator. Sound gets in, but not out. Now, first things first. The would-be assassin that killed himself, the one whose corpse your friends dumped at my doorstep.”

“What of him?”

“He’s gone.

“Gone?”

“I know no more than you,” he answered, toking from his cigar and briefly glancing down at one of the innumerable papers arranged over his desk. “We think he had used a type of fast-acting elixir that places the subject under deathlike torpor instead of killing them.”

With a raised eyebrow she questioned, “Really? I saw him stab himself in the heart and felt his pulse stop.”

Estoras shrugged, “An assassin could be reasonably expected to be able to steer the blade away from the heart while making it seem like it struck true. The fact of the matter is, the corpse is gone, so either he got up and walked away, or some third party extracted him. Either possibility is disconcerting. Now, onto the matter of your letter...”

He picked her letter out of the mess of papers covering his desk, noticeably more organized than it had been the first time.

“The money, yes… Your original contract was for five thousand gelt in cold-iron sovereigns plus the opportunity of further employment as a state-sanctioned beast-slayer. I’ve been informed of the infestation’s true severity, of its direct ties to the Divine Emperor, the whole mess. Ignoring whatever spoils you took away from that place - be they material or spiritual - I cannot justify the initial payment.”

Rolling the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, he leaned back in his seat, took the cigar out, and began using it as a gesturing baton with one hand whilst picking through his papers with the other, not even looking at them. Like he knew exactly how a particular paper felt. Deftly did his fingers pluck the paper from amongst many others, one densely-packed with simple, clean, yet stylish writing that embodied Strolvath’s rugged efficiency. He straightened it and began reading.

“I just… Cannot justify five thousand gelt. Between the scale of the hive, the environmental hazards, the completely disproportionate grade of enemy combatants you faced… I mean, Armor Skolopendras? Beetle-boars? That is not to speak of multiple B-grade locust mutants pumped full of stolen rainbow Fog that allowed them to just ignore most injuries, simultaneously with a locust queen enhanced by both that same immortality-fog and…”

He brought the paper closer to his eyes and squinted, reading the same line over and over before looking over at her, bewildered, “Gigantic dungeon-tech arms attached to a reinforced spinal column PLUS a Gigantomachia Quill-launcher Biomorph? That is to say, a huge scorpion tail bug that shoots chitin spears?”

“All of those sound about right, yeah. Don’t forget the blood curses and the dungeon’s own actual trials,” she smugged, more than happy to take in the praise.

“I’d expected this to be barely analogous to a D-plus in rating, but I see that it’s far and above a B-minus…” he trailed off, shuffling through yet more papers only to pull out a small abacus, squint his eyes while flicking its many beads, then put it away. “Right, that means the state of Willowdale owes you and your partner a total sum of thirty-two thousand five-hundred fifty gelt… Which we cannot pay out more than eleven-thousand, two-hundred, and ninety-six of, at the present moment. Considering our income-streams, you should have all your money within the next month., but I wager that-”

“-I don’t want all the money, corect. I want a Heroic Family and a training grounds. There’s an appropriate place in Willowdale, I know it,” Zel pushed. She, in fact, did not know that there was an appropriate place in Willowdale, but to her great pleasure, the governor very willingly played into her hand.

“Well, it just so happens that Willowdale was home to a branch of the Black Horse family, and some of them oh-so-valiantly went off to war when they learned that this city would remain officially neutral. Long story short, all of the known Black Horse family members in Willowdale have either died, disappeared, been imprisoned, or are known to be very, very far away…” he explained, reaching into a drawer and extracting from within a very, very old looking binder. Was that leather? It was held together with black cord, which itself was shackled by an ornamental lock that had no keyhole.

“...meaning that there won’t be anyone to contest a transfer of ownership. Excepting, of course, the deed itself.”

Estoras held it out to her, offering, “Ten thousand gelt, your new family, the Black Horse family property, full citizenship to both you and your partner as per the Extraordinary Service clause of Willowdale’s constitution, and a position at the head of our new Slayer’s Guild. That’s my offer - should the lock open for you.”

Reaching out, Zel took the binder in her hand. It was far heavier than expected, and touching it sent a stabbing tendril of pain up her arm. Probing. Searching. Looking for something.

Something it seemed to have found, for a second later it retreated. With a loud clack and a burst of black smoke the lock popped open. Estoras smiled, “I knew it.”