A small blue coin had appeared in her palm, but before she could spare a few more looks at the little trinket, the sound of someone setting down a bundle of papers caught her attention. The Blue Moon had sent them to a small, well-lit room lined with cabinets and strewn with maps.

The source of the noise itself came from the centre of the room, which was a table that had towers and towers of books stacked up on it. It was by no means an unfamiliar sight to Dia, who had seen Farah and Schwarz’s workrooms before, which gave her some measure of ease.

“The master sent you lot here for a briefing, right?” A person wearing a white cloak and mask stood up from behind the table and walked around it, his voice gruff and drawn out from fatigue. “You five must be the Seekers of Life. As I understand it, there is one penta-folder and four tri-folders in your party, making you guys one of the strongest groups to join us.”

“Well, you say join, but it’s more of a very stern invitation,” Schwarz quipped.

“Heh. Sorry about that, but this is a battle for existence. Right now, we’re at a critical point. We only have one Bearer of Destiny left — the poor guy is the only fellow keeping us aloft. Neither of us can afford to send our trump cards out, though. It’s a sticky situation that the Dark doesn’t want to risk reversing.”

“Oh.” Dia rubbed her nose and felt a little stupid. It was something that she could have figured out with a bit of thinking, but all that information overload from a few minutes ago had probably dulled her mind and made her take leave of her senses. The others weren’t responding that well either, so there was really no blaming her…

“Ahem. Right. Introductions. I am the rear echelon staff officer for the Moonlit campaign, Sans. I have been overlooking the warfront ever since it opened up. However, since you people were a bit too late to join the main battle, I’ll have you guys conduct some patrols and protect the supply chain instead. Everyday, there’s going to be an outgoing convoy of supplies. We’ll need two or three of you to protect the teleportation formation as it sends the supplies over.”

Farah took a step forward. “The supplies are sent through teleportation?”

“Correct. It’s very handy. The only weakness is that it can only be sent outside our territory, since there is a spatial lock designed to prevent mass transfers in and out of this place,” Sans replied. “The teleportation will be conducted right outside our encampment, but the enemies also know that. They’ll seek to destroy the supplies or mess up the spell.”

“So, just protect it, right?” Farah asked. “With any way we like?”

“Don’t try to change its location or time, though. The teleportation must occur under the light of the Moons,” Sans replied. “Anyway, it’s a pretty simple job. It’ll at most take an hour, and then you guys can return to doing whatever you like. There are a bunch of oddjobs that everyone can do.”

He gestured at a door to the left. “Follow me.”

Following him into the huge encampment again, Sans led them to an odd fountain of water, which glimmered with tri-coloured light. “This here is the Fountain of Rewards. After conducting a mission, you can return here and wait for a suitable reward to be granted.”

“Granted?” Schwarz asked. “Like…this fountain spits out rewards?”

“Correct. Base rewards always include pure-ranked lifestones,” Sans replied. “There are other things too, depending on your performance and how much you’re liked by the Moons. Artefacts, skillsticks, potions, valuable metals…all sorts of things.”

“But will they substitute lifestones?” Schwarz asked.

“Nope. You’ll always get lifestones. Anything else that comes out of it is just an extra bonus,” Sans replied. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, there are always a bunch of things you can do, which you can find listed on the side here.”

He indicated a floating piece of what seemed like paper, which was hovering beside the fountain. Lines crisscrossed each other, forming a structure in which missions, their difficulty and their rewards could be arranged in order.

“In this table here, you can see the rewards and missions,” Sans explained. “You can do as many as you like, and you can claim them when you feel like it. There’s a mobile version with the expeditionary army too, which handles a whole different set of missions. The ones here are quite…safe.”

“Safe, huh?”

“Yeah. Since you guys are going to be doing the mandatory mission of protecting the supplies every day, there’s no minimum quota of how many external missions you have to do from this,” Sans replied. “But they’re really easy. Freebies, even. So…”

“Can you people also do this?”

“When I’m on an off-day?” Sans asked. “Yeah. I do reserve a few easy ones…I mean, do some easy ones.”

Dia rubbed her nose, having seen a measure of what corruption in this place was like. She didn’t bother asking what missions Sans had reserved for himself — it was no different from asking someone how they moved money from one hand to another.

It was a question without any answer.

“I see.” Schwarz coughed. “This is a really neat reward mechanism, though. Can we have a demonstration?”

“Sure, sure.” Sans stretched his arms. “Okay, so to receive the reward, you just need to stand in one of the many marked areas.”

He stepped into one such box. “And then—”

His next words were cut off by an extraordinarily large outburst of water, and something hurtled outwards. Serenaded by what seemed like rain, a small bag landed right in front of Sans, its descent halted at the very last moment by some preternatural force.

“See?” Sans replied. “The more missions you have, the higher the number of bags flying out of this fountain when you claim them.”

“It’s good for morale,” Risti muttered. “Like when someone does a huge commission at the Folders’ Association, and they get a literal treasure chest as a reward.”

“A treasure chest?” Schwarz asked.

“Yeap. Public ceremony, awards, the like. This is just that, but in a more elegant manner.” Risti paused. “I’m going to take some notes.”

“Well, it does look pretty damn awesome,” Schwarz muttered. “I’ll try and rack up a bunch of missions, then. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a few hundred bags to scare off the people who are returning from the expedition?”

Dia rolled her eyes.

“What are you even intending to do?” Farah asked. “Anyway, they’ll have more rewards under their belt, right? You’re just going to end up shaming yourself when they overshadow your small bags with multiple huge ones or something.”

“Ahem. There’s a limit of ten bags per eruption. And the tenth bag, incidentally, always has something extra too,” Sans added. “As a rule of thumb, try to turn in ten rewards every time. The last one is usually something nice.”

“That’s an interesting system.”

“Of course it is. The Moons made it, after all.” Sans nodded to himself. “Of course, you should prepare a storage artefact, though. Or at least some method to bring back your spoils. It’ll be easier that way. Sure, no robbery or theft is allowed…but do you really want to make multiple trips back to your rooms?”

He chuckled. “Alright, so that’s pretty much it. Now, for the rundown. Here, this is a map for everyone. Your bunk has been highlighted in yellow. The mess hall — we brought our own chefs and cuisines, so do come and give it a try — is highlighted in green. The parade square is in purple, in case there’s some emergency.”

A small pause followed. “Yeap, that’s about it, I guess.”

“Alright. Thanks for the tour,” Farah replied. “Knowing all this is pretty nice.”

“Yeap. You guys should go to your bunks — your luggage has been deposited there, although it seems like you’ve forgotten all about it — and get acquainted with the area camp first.” Sans jiggled his shoulders. “Now, don’t let me keep you here. I’ll be returning to my duties first. See you around!”

Waving a hand, he walked back to the small, nondescript building that they had left from earlier.

“Right, our luggage,” Schwarz muttered. “Seems like some perception-hampering skill at play, doesn’t it?”

“Perception, huh?” Farah shook her head. “I mean, one of the Moons’ Bearers of Destiny had Absolute Domination, after all. Come on, let’s go and check our luggage.”

Dia trailed behind the others, and her attention returned to the blue coin that was still in the hand.

For some reason, it reminded her of the Blue Moon, and considering the circumstances in which it had appeared…