“You can't help those who died.”

  -Heard by the therapist.

  Green walked through the inn's door along with Carrie, and sat down at Mark's and Grace's table.

  The place wasn't all that packed, so ordering any food wouldn't take that long.

  “How was your date?” Carrie asked, taking Grace's eyes off Mark.

  Grace sighed. “It was amazing," she replied. “Mark took me to one of those theater plays, and they had a moving picture.”

  “It's called a photoplay hun,” Mark corrected, putting an arm around her.

  Grace leaned into Mark, but kept her full attention on the conversation.

  “It was an amazing story,” Grace continued. “It followed a young mermaid who was captured and sold in an auction, but before the buyer could take her, she was swooped away by a knight it black.”

  “Realy?” Carrie asked interested.

  “Mhm,” Grace. “The story had them traveling together, trying to get her back to the ocean. The journey there had the knight fighting bandits, other knights, and even monsters. You could just feel them falling in love with each step. But the ending—"

  Grace's voice pitched higher, half-frustrated, half-thrilled before continuing. "He leaves her on the beach! Just lets her go. And she's left there wanting him to stay, but knowing he won't. It was so sad... but so beautiful."

  “While love stories are something everyone here is interested in,” Green said flatly. “We need to leave soon.”

  “Come one Green, you're always talking about leaving,” Grace replied. “Is it so hard to just stay somewhere for a while?”

  “We stayed in Sobnark for two weeks and two months in Marshe. We've done nothing but stay.”

  Grace didn't reply, so Green sighed.

  “Look, we can't stay in one place for too long. Staying in Marshe for as long as we did already stretched our timeline. Not only for making this bounty worth anything, but for keeping our tails at a safe distance.”

  The others looked at one another uncomfortably as the food they ordered arrived. Green took a bite, then looked from Grace to Mark.

  “You think that just because we survived a disaster that it means they've backed off?”

  “They have,” Grace countered, somewhat frustrated. “Ever since the disaster we haven't encountered anyone dangerous.”

  Green raised an eyebrow, not at Grace, but at Mark. He turned away.

  “What?” Grace asked.

  “We've been having problems for a while.” Mark said. “Ever since Carrie’s kidnapping at the forge.”

  “What kind of problems?” Grace asked.

  “Bounty hunters,” Green answered, pulling out three sheets of paper.

  They were all bounties. The first was an offer of fifty-six full raches for the return of an Elf with Carrie’s depiction. The second had a more dramatized version of Carrie with a forty full rache reward.

  The last gave even Carrie pause. One light rache, equivalent to a thousand full raches, was the reward set by the Conexe.

  “There are tens of thousands of these spread throughout the country.” Green said, his tone becoming more serious. “I've stopped a hundred and five hunters already.”

  Grace looked back down at the sheet of paper. “Why didn't you tell me?” She asked.

  “I told Mark to,” Green replied, turning to face Mark.

  Mark looked away, “I didn't see the point in worrying her when we have it handled.”

  Green glared, scrunching his blindfold. “Giving false information endangers others, I told you that when I took you on.”

  “Sometimes it's better to keep secrets Green,” Mark argued. “It's a way to protect one another.”

  “And what if you or I couldn't have handled it?”

  “Then we’d fight, no different than otherwise.”

  Green clenched his fist slightly, but quickly released them and saw a man staring at them from behind Mark. Glancing around, he noticed multiple groups watching them. Not in a curious way either.

  Green stood, grabbing Carrie’s wrist, then walked them out. Mark and Grace followed quickly. When they got out, Green started running, dragging a confused Carrie with him.

  When he looked behind him, Mark and Grace were struggling to catch up. The large crowded in the streets however, prevented any of them from moving too quickly.

  Green spotted them almost instantly, several groups of men coming in from multiple directions. Green pointed to the side and upwards to the massive stone tower at the center of the city.

  He glanced back again to see Mark and Grace heading in that direction.

  “Ow!” Carrie shouted.

  Green stopped and turned to find Carrie’s long hair caught in something. He looked back at the pursuers, then back at her. He awkwardly grabbed Carrie’s hair and picked her up.

  His veins burned and blood ran cold. He jumped and soared above the two story roof, landing on its top. Green glanced down to find the men climbing the building at an inhuman rate.

  He bolted, jumping from one building to the next. A gunshot sounded behind him, the bolted wheezing past. He jumped again, but when he landed, the overhang on the roof collapsed.

  Green tossed Carrie onto the rooftop, then slowed his descent. There a man emerged from the darkness and swung a crowbar. Green took a step back, avoiding the strike.

  The man tried again, only for Green to step to the side. Another man swung behind him only for Green to put his hand on his back, catch the bar, then kick straight up into his jaw, knocking him out.

  Green ripped the bar out of the man's hand as he fell and turned to the first man with an inviting posture.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Tallna!” a man shouted above, causing Green’s opponent to run the other way.

  Green jumped to the ceiling and watched as several men climbed down with Carrie and ran into the crowd.

  Green watched them go indifferently.

  Eina ran from the library back to her desk with her arms filled to the brim with papers and books. Eyes followed her even now. It seemed they never stopped. Though working in the city's largest guild didn’t help.

  “Eina, I need the lesson plan on floor twenty-seven!” Nick shouted.

  “I gave it to you yesterday,” Eina replied, setting down the dungeon handbook next to him and sitting down at her desk.

  “Well, I don’t have it.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Eina replied, slightly frustrated.

  Masg, the guild master, set a new stack of papers on her desk. “Knew applications, have it done before lunch.” He walked away before she could argue.

  Eina signed and set aside the new books of the hero Halcome. She reached for the stack, grabbing one and set it in front of her. Before she could get anything done, she glanced up to see the large packed room and breathed in.

  The air was cooler and tinged with parchment and polished brass. Rows of counters stretched beneath chandeliers of crystal, where clerks and dungeon advisors in crisp uniforms handled endless streams of adventurers—some fresh-faced, others scarred and weary.

  Behind them, winding staircases led to upper floors: offices, archives, and meeting rooms where the real machinery of the Guild churned.

  This was her work. Though the long hours and little pay gave little incentive for any to take it, an elf like her enjoyed this type of work. It let her see the people, it had taken a great deal of effort on her fathers part to let her out of Aldhael.

  With the Silcureuss guard around, even letting men out was a stretch. Of course leaving meant giving up something she hadn’t known about until it was too late.

  Nack, the only other elf working in the guild, put a hand on her shoulder. “You have three months.”

  Eina nodded, then got back to work, but signed the moment he left. She had unknowingly offered herself as Nack’s wife. She didn’t have a problem with the idea of an arranged marriage. She saw several benefits to it.

  Butt… she tipped her chair to look at Nack chewing into another worker. His gut stuck out farther than his elbows, and his face looked like someone stuffed it full of cotton. Most of all however, it was his perpetual scowl, his irritated undertone, and his complete lack of care for people around him that turned her away.

  The fact that she was only four-hundred and thirty years old left too far a gap in their age. He was in his seventeenth century, and like any his age, he was fairly powerful in the arts. He never used them however.

  “Don’t know why you agreed to it.”

  Eina jumped, looking to her other side to find Misha sitting down next to her.

  “I didn’t know I did,” Eina replied with a sigh. “But, I can get out of it.”

  “How?”

  “I just need to find another Elf to marry. Should be simple enough.”

  “Would he really let that happen?” Misha asked, looking over to Nack and back to Eina. “You’re way above his league, and aren’t you supposed to be like, supervised and protected while here? That’s the only reason you can be, isn't it?”

  “Yes, but so long as I have an Elven husband to watch and protect me, there shouldn’t be a problem. I’m just glad I convinced the guard to give me time.”

  “Speaking of which, are they actually real?”

  “Who?”

  “The Silcureuss guard.”

  “Of course they’re real, why would you think otherwise?”

  “Well, I mean, they're never around. And I haven’t heard a story in years.”

  “You can't be serious!” Someone shouted.

  Eina, Misha, and their coworkers glanced over to see a muscular man shouting at the guilds trader.

  “These have to be with more, check it again.” The man said.

  Hesg, the trader and the guild master's brother, waved him away, as if he were bored of the altercation. “If that’s everything you can go now, we’ve got plenty more to serve.”

  “You can't be serious!”

  “Another one?” Misha asked, exasperated.

  “Seems like they’re getting more and more desperate.” Eina commented.

  The man yelling had a crescent on his shoulder showing a wine glace in front of a bow. A sign he was a member of the Mortagal party.

  “They make plenty of money selling booze,” Misha said. “What’s making them so desperate for cash?”

  Eina looked back at the clock, then winced. She turned to Misha, who was still watching the man haggle with Hesg, and put her hands together and bowed slightly.

  “Can you cover me again?” Eina pleaded.

  Misha looked at the stack of papers and books on her desk, then sighed. “Again? How many is that now?”

  “Thirteen, sorry.” With that, Eina waved in apology and ran upstairs to meet with a new adventurer.

  As a dungeon advisor, it was Eina’s job to teach aspiring and veteran adventurers the dangers of the dungeon, as well as the nature of the dungeon.

  Though taking on the title of dungeon advisor just put more work in her lap, she found that the more she taught about the dungeon, the more fascinating it seemed. It was equally as scary, but stories of warriors and heroes conquering grand beasts and finding great treasures thrilled her.

  It was in her first century, reading the tales of heroes like king Halcome, that led her to accept the arranged marriage in order to come to Orlar.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, opening the door to the meeting room.

  The room was large and boxy with two couches facing one another and a small table in between.

  She walked in to find her new client—a young man sitting perfectly still on the couch, arms folded, posture too straight to be casual.

  He looked human at first glance, though the wide shoulders and thick forearms spoke of someone used to labor, not paperwork.

  Eina set her books on the table and sat down opposite him. “So, how can I help?”

  He tilted his head slightly toward her voice. Only then did she notice the blindfold—black cloth wrapped neatly across his eyes—and the faint points of his ears peeking through his hair. Elven, but… not quite.

  Something about the calm way he held himself, the quiet confidence of his expression, made her wonder who exactly she was advising.

  “I’m told you have maps of the dungeon,” he stated flatly.

  She shuffled through her stack and presented him with the map. “The shaded sections are the entrances to the next section here,” she said, pointing at said area.

  “I’m a cartographer," he stated with the same flatness in his tone.

  She sat back, slightly dumbfounded. This was supposed to be a rooky, Eina had looked into his background beforehand. Though he was a bounty hunter, there was a big difference between bounty hunting and adventuring.

  With a sudden motion, he stood, causing Eina to do the same.

  “Thank you,” he said, tucking the map under his arm. “How much does this cost?”

  Eina opened her mouth but nothing came out. His tone was near the same, but he was surprisingly polite compared to other hunters. He hadn’t even catcalled her. Just got straight to the point.

  “U-um, you don’t need anything else?” She asked.

  “No.”

  “Um, well, the map doesn’t cost anything. But it’s advisable to go into the dungeon with a little more knowledge of its nature. It’s not just monsters you need to look out for. Even an Elf like yourself is advised a little more caution.”

  “I’ll be fine, I survived the Septaroth forest.”

  “E-even so, the dungeon is more than any forest.”

  He began making his way to the door. This was bad, the man was refusing to listen. Not only would he die, his death would be put on her record.

  “Wait, I need a favor to ask!” She shouted.

  He stopped, hand on the door, then looked back. “A favor?”

  “Yes, you’re a bounty hunter right?”

  “I am, and you know this how?”

  “Um, well, it’s normal for us dungeon advisors to look into clients. A-anyway’s I need to ask a favor.”

  He stood there for a moment, not replying. This gave her time to think of what she could ask. She couldn’t well send him into the dungeon without more. But what could she ask?

  “All right,” he said, “what do you need?”

  An idea struck her. This is stupid, was the next, but the only one she had. It might even solve a few problems.

  She took a breath.

  “Will you propose to me?”