Duskbound

Velik was honestly surprised that he hadn't seen it coming. In retrospect, of course this would happen. He couldn't really think of another way Sildra could easily get her hands on a horse, at least not without some money and time.

"Okay," he said. "I get why Jensen is here. But somebody explain to me what Giller is doing."

The three of them were mounted on horseback and staring down at Velik. He was sitting on a rock about fifty feet off the side of the main road and had been there for an hour waiting for Sildra to catch up. When she finally had, she'd come riding up with two other people.

Jensen was the only person she knew outside the guild in the entire city, so Velik could see how he'd gotten involved. Nothing they were doing concerned Giller, though. He hadn't expected to see her again until they were ready to resume the vault hunting expedition, if ever.

"Bodyguard work," Giller said dryly, her tone clearly conveying her lack of enthusiasm for the job. "Jensen is too low a level to be trusted running off by himself and too valuable as a [Vault Seeker] not to keep an eye on him."

"I would have thought you'd be glad for the extra muscle," Jensen said. "From what I understand, you're heading into a fight."

"It's fine," Velik said, but he remembered Aria watching him after Torwin had gone back into the dining hall. He couldn't be sure, but he wouldn't be surprised if she was still spying on him from miles away right now. If she decided to get involved in all this, Giller being in the group would cause issues. This time, Torwin wouldn't be there to mediate the disputes.

"Sorry," Sildra said. "I didn't know I'd be bringing company with me. It's not a problem, is it?"

Velik shrugged. "Not my problem, at least."

That settled, the group of four started down the road. Velik had accepted when he'd decided to bring Sildra with him that she'd be limiting his pace. The horses couldn't keep up with him, and they couldn't travel through the dark like he did. The team ended up traveling by the light of some hanging lanterns until around midnight, then they made camp while Velik made a generous loop around the countryside to check for ambushes.

They were back on the road a few hours before dawn, ready to put some serious distance between themselves and Cravel. The cycle repeated itself for close to a week before they finally left the main roads and started down what was barely more than a set of ruts with a strip of grass between them almost a hundred miles long. At the end of that, supposedly, was Granite Peak.

* * *

"It took you long enough," Aria said. "I've been waiting for three days now."

Velik paused in the doorway of the town's only inn and eyed her up. She was sitting in a chair in front of the inn's hearth, a book in her hands and her feet curled up beneath her. A mug of something steaming sat on a side table next to her, and the remains of her dinner littered an otherwise empty plate.

When she hadn't made an appearance after the first day, he'd dared to hope he'd been mistaken about her interest. He should have known better. She'd just decided to make her own travel arrangements, ones that were apparently far quicker than they'd been able to ride.

"What are you doing here, Aria?" Velik asked.

"I just said I was waiting for you."

"Yes, but why?"

"Because I'm a dissident in the guild, a black sheep in our fake little family. I don't like how they do things, and it turns out that these monsters are so good at pretending to be the people they've taken over that having their hosts back hasn't really changed much. Maybe the money goes somewhere else. Maybe a few jobs that would have been buried end up on the public boards. But at the end of the day, it's still the same group of abrasive assholes who care more about bureaucracy and money than about saving people from the monsters."

"So, what? You're just here to stick it to senior leadership because I'm not doing what they want me to?" Velik asked.

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"Maybe. What if I am?" she shot back.

Giller stopped behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Move over, kid. Aria, how lovely to see you again. You know you didn't have to come five hundred miles to visit me."

"As if I would. Honestly, when I realized you'd included yourself in this little outing, I almost changed my mind about coming out myself."

"I wish you had."

Not even thirty seconds and they're already starting, Velik thought with a mental groan. "Shut up, both of you," he snapped.

Aria and Giller turned to look at him with identical expressions of surprise. Whatever digs they'd been about to fling at each other died on their tongues, and he ruthlessly moved in to take advantage of the sudden silence. "You're grown women, but all you do is squabble and bicker like children. Well, I'm sick of your shit. So either grow up or get the fuck out. I don't need either of you here, and I'd rather send you packing than listen to your routine another time."

"Well look whose balls finally dropped," Giller said with a snort. "But maybe I need to drag you out back and beat your ass again to remind you where your place in the pecking order is."

Aria, on the other hand, said nothing. Her smirk widened as she took both of them in, like she knew something they didn't. Velik met her gaze with a deep-set scowl for a moment before turning his attention back to Giller. "Remember who the tag-along is here. I invited Sildra to come with me because it's her quest and her god. The rest of you aren't needed, and I'd rather work alone than listen to you two peck at each other. But if you want another fight, I'm happy to oblige. Only this time, I'll crack your skull open instead of pulling back if you try what you did last time again."

"Um…" a new voice broke in. "Could you all maybe have your fight somewhere else?"

A tall, thin man with a clean-shaven face and an apron dotted with flour stood in the door leading to the kitchen. He was wringing his hands as he spoke, clearly nervous about confronting them, but despite his trembling, his voice held firm.

"My dear Costaz, don't worry about it," Aria told him. "Our savage wolf pup here is just posturing to make sure we know who's in charge. And we do, don't we, Giller?"

Giller rolled her eyes and sneered at Aria, but for a change, she just said, "I suppose it is his job. I'm not really here to help him, anyway. Fine, do whatever you two do. Never let it be said that I interfered in guild business. I'm going to get the rooms bought while Jensen and Sildra finish with the horses. You, Costaz, was it? Are you in charge?"

"It's my inn," he said stiffly.

"You got four rooms available?"

"I already rented them out," Aria interrupted. "Emberson was not happy about that, by the way."

"He knows we're here?" Velik asked.

"I told him another group was coming and let him assume the details," she said. "He was highly offended. I think he thought the guild didn't trust him to get the job done with his team."

More like I don't trust the guild to honestly report back on what they find. But working around them is going to be difficult.

The original plan had just been to go into the dungeon when the official team wasn't there, but since Aria had gone ahead and beaten everybody to the town, that plan was shot. Now he'd have to deal with a team of gold-ranked hunters led by a platinum who he doubted would be keen to share the dungeon with him. That meant he needed some way to outmuscle or avoid them.

He was willing to take his chances with Phun. Though they hadn't fought directly, he'd been on the periphery of the gold ranker's battle against Torwin, Jerva, and Gwin. He knew a lot about how the man fought both from the briefing before the fight had started and from his own observations. Victory was possible, even if it wasn't assured.

Emberson was another matter. As it stood, the platinum was beyond him. If he couldn't work around the man, though, direct confrontation was inevitable. Velik was definitely burning his bridges with the guild, but he found that thought didn't bother him much. They were hardly the only organization in the world, and in fact didn't even have any power outside of Ghestal. They'd be minimally useful in the future anyway.

"Rooms are taken care of?" Giller asked. "Great. Means I don't have to pay for it. Which one's mine?"

Costaz turned pleading eyes to Aria, but she just shrugged and gestured for him to speak. "The third floor has been rented out for your party's use," he said somewhat reluctantly. "Breakfast and dinner are included, as well as use of our private bathhouse."

"Got it. Someone knock on the door when it's time to eat or we have something to do. Otherwise, everyone leave me the hell alone while I take a nap."

With that said, Giller disappeared up the stairs, leaving Velik to glare at Aria. He crossed the room, claimed the chair opposite of her, and said, "So since Emberson already knows there's another team here, how do you propose we go about avoiding him?"

"Why would we do that?" Aria asked.

"I don't know. Maybe because we aren't supposed to be here."

"Well you know that, and I know that, but Emberson doesn't."

That… is true. Could that work? Emberson has to know how important Sildra is to the guild, though. They'd never officially let her go without a stronger escort, and especially not with two non-hunters in the group.

"We're going to need to be careful about who they see," Velik said slowly. "If Emberson decides he doesn't like what's going on, none of us are going to be able to stop him."

"About that," Aria said. "Tell me, how's your progress coming along with that class orb?"