Chương 158: Glimpses of Gauntlet I

While he most often enjoyed it, today had turned out to be one of those days that Kurtz Bogoria, syndicate leader and self-styled mastermind, hated being right. Because his day had definitely gone to shit.

"Kurtz! We can't destroy them fast enough!" One of the other syndicate leaders called from behind him; the man stumbling back just as yet another stone and crystal wall rose in place of the multi-layered force barriers he had just broken through. Kurtz suppressed the instinct to just yell at the man to go faster, beleaguered as he was to keep their failing defenses intact beneath the barrage of crystalline projectiles, poison globules, dust claws and constant, withering drain.

Because part of his mind was still clear enough to see that the man was right. Had he been able to spare another one or two silvers to focus on breaking through, it might have worked. But as things stood, with them being outnumbered now that the adventurers took one out right from the start and the fake Alina failed their sneak attack, sparing even one from the defensive efforts would mean their immediate downfall.

"But this won't work either," Kurtz cursed inwardly as he deflected yet another of those sneaky projected attacks with his saber.

"It's lose now or lose later as things stand. I should have seen it sooner. Damn you, sunk-cost fallacy. We need to flip the table. I need a distraction so that at least me and Lady Shattered Crown can get out." Turning to glance at those behind him between attacks, he set a newly formed plan into motion as he threw a gold spirit coin to two of the remaining six silvers.

"New plan. If they won't let us have this exit, we'll take another. Use the coins and act as our battering rams. As soon as we break through into the corridors, we can carry you when the coins have been spent." After warding off yet another pair of attacks, Kurtz once more glanced back to see them hesitating, which in turn set off his by now rather smoldering frustrations.

"What are you waiting for, spineless worms? Go! We'll show those bastards that they can't just walk all over us!" Kurtz felt a wave of relief when the pair finally shoved the coins into their mouths, because from the feel of it, that scary leonid adventurer with the dust claws was cooking up something foul. Suddenly, the room was awash with potent power as the auras of the pair surged, further amplified as Kurtz sent another set of boons their way.

Then they were off, surging out from among Kurz's people and towards the breached exit.

It was with some satisfaction that he felt the alarm in the auras of the adventurers, and it was with a wicked grin that Kurtz directed the rest to join him in charging the coin-users' wake.

"Once through, we can use them to delay the pursuit, and-" he began, but as one of the coin-charged men suddenly disappeared in the telltale rift of his personal teleportation power, Kurz's anger roared to life again.

"Traitorious fuck!" he howled, realizing what had just happened. The man had probably taken the chance that his coin-empowered state would allow him to breach any dimensional tethers or other such tricks the Adventure Society had no doubt set in place for the siege. Still, the other temporarily gold-ranked man kept going, smashing through a set of barriers raised by that many-armed boy as well as shrugging off the attempts at petrification.

Kurtz's anger got at least a little satisfaction as the man even managed to shove the snake-haired runic hard enough into a wall for the cracking of bones to be audible even across the din of combat. For a moment, they way through indeed looked to be free, but a moment later, another aura bloomed with potent energies as one of the adventurers had no doubt downed a coin of their own.

It was the dark-skinned man with the bow, his pearly smile even more radiant as he charged up a shot towards the coin-user acting as their vanguard. The single arrow split and split again, but that was not the extent of the attack. No, the numerous projectiles also took a formation like that of a grasping, open hand, pursuing the temporary gold-ranker down the corridor with even greater speed.

As it struck, it truly looked like a giant had smashed the syndicate leader, driving him into the fortress wall hard enough for cracks to spread far. But unlike a normal giant, this strike had also left the man a veritable pincushion, with many arrows even piercing through and anchoring their target into the wall. Faster than Kurtz could follow, the smiling adventurer turned towards the rest of them, apparently deciding to make as much use of the remaining boost as possible.

"Fuck you, Fortune!" Kurtz inwardly swore, reaching into his pocket for another coin. He didn't want to use one himself as the boost was unlikely to last long enough for him to get out of the fortress. But Lady Shattered Crown had already been blown off her feet beside him by another arrow, and just the few remaining seconds of that adventurer going to town on them with his bow would spell their doom.

Kurtz was just about to shove the coin into his mouth when his hand was suddenly struck by something; an almost undetectable ripple. The impact, this time very much a physical one, was one thing, but it was followed by that stunning mana drain Kurtz had felt more than a few times during the encounter so far; the signature of that many armed brat with the arms and barriers. The coin fell from temporarily limp fingers, but as the stun only lasted for a short moment, he soon lurched into motion to catch it mid-air.

But apparently, Fortune had decided to spit at him yet again. One moment, the world moved as if in slow motion, the golden coin that was Kurtz's salvation spinning end over end. The next, an arrow punched through his foot with enough force to bury itself halfway into the stone below. Apparently not a normal one either, as it barely bent and surely didn't break from Kurtz's forward momentum. As he fell forward, the pain hit him all at once, and Kurtz screamed.

The last two things he noted before the adventurers descended on them was another of his silver-ranked 'colleagues' vanishing in a flash of light, apparently having shaken the attention of whatever it was that hampered teleportation for long enough. With just a silver-ranked power, it wouldn't let the woman break through the defenses outside, but she had apparently thought it worth the risk.

The second, much more concerning thing was that one of the bronze-ranked staff - the man half-dead but with a certain gleam in his eyes Kurtz could recognize - was bent over the common console of the fortress. A console which was now flaring a lot of different warnings.

"You idiot!" Was all that Kurtz had time to think before a trio of chilling, mana-draining attacks cut into him. And the world went blurry. Then dark.

"Teacher? Does… this happen a lot?" Kite called to Ryker who was currently using lengths of animated cloth to pull himself along the crumbling corridors at great speed alongside Kite, Christine and Amica, the latter carrying both of the former in her telekinetic grip.

"You'd be surprised," Ryker replied through gritted teeth while ripping a chunk of the wall to intercept a small burst of cascading magic from the chaotically collapsing magical framework of the fortress. A few minutes earlier, the fight in the heart of the fortress had finally ended.

It had been a brutal, hectic affair, especially when the syndicate leadership had realized that their plan of escape was bound to fail when both Christine and Kite could impede their slow, fighting retreat through conjured walls and barriers.

The ensuing charge led by a pair of silvers empowered by gold coins had been a good attempt at breaking out some other way, but it had come too late; the criminals' reserves were too spent compared to that of the adventurer team after remaining on the defensive and being subject to Kite's greedy vortices, and Mtanga had made a good call to take a coin of his own once one of the empowered ones had chosen to turn tail and save his own skin by teleporting away.

While another of the silver-rankers had managed to escape through some other means of teleportation, Kite had managed to stop any more such attempts with the help of Spirit Singularity. Now outnumbered and outclassed, the result of the syndicate leadership's struggles had been predictable. The adventurer team had even managed to take three of them alive; 'Alina', the leader with the blonde mustache and one of the other syndicate leaders.

However, the team barely had the time to collar their trio of captives before noticing that something was wrong as the air was basically tingling with rising levels of rather uncontrolled mana.

"It seems that one of the bastards just couldn't let things go," Mtanga noted, eyeing the overcharging magical infrastructure even as he was starting to wobble on his feet when the boost of the coins left him.

"Honestly, we should have better protocols for this. I don't know when it happened, but apparently someone decided to make this place a rather uncomfortable one. Very soon."

"Can you stop it?" Ryker asked tersely. Mtanga was already staggering over to the control panel, but flinched back as the thing went up in a small, surprisingly pretty cascade of sparks.

"No, it has gone too far."

"Prognosis?" Ryker asked, instead turning to Christine who had put both her hands on the stone floor as if trying to get a feel for something.

"Not the worst detonation. The systems and the fortress weren't constructed with self-destruction in mind. More likely to just drop the fortress on top of us, and not very quickly. At least according to how these things go," the blonde elf replied, her usual relaxed tone still in place.

"Still, I wouldn't have minded a window for easier escape."

"Then we can still achieve all of our objectives," Ryker nodded.

"Emilio, use the artifacts to bring the captives, Sztyka, Gray Sky and Mtanga out. The rest of us have the best chance at getting out in time or holding up until the Adventure Society can come dig us out." The other elf nodded in response, all business as he and the rest gathered up the prisoners. Gray Sky, on the other hand, spoke out.

"Surely, Gray Sky has performed well enough to not be sent away like this?" the runic said, his displeasure apparent as he slithered over to Ryker.

"The Regal Mountain guild is well-versed in-" Gray Sky fell silent however as his aura was rather swiftly spiked by Ryker, who apparently disagreed with the protests.

"I chose based on capability, not some way of favor. We have the best chance at getting out or at least surviving rather easily, while we send out as many as Emilio's teleport can carry. Prioritizing those most injured," the man finished, sending meaningful glances to the wounded Gray Sky. In a battle like that, wounds were almost inevitable, and all of them were at least slightly scraped, burnt, bludgeoned or otherwise brutalized.

But in the chaotic battle and enclosed space, Gray Sky and Mtanga had suffered the worst of it; the former through injury and the latter through the inevitable exhaustion of taking a coin above your rank. Not anything life-threatening for a silver-ranker, but still noticeable.

"Now will you do as I say or make Emilio use another of those very expensive artifacts to force you out with him as well?" Gray Sky did his best to keep Ryker's gaze, but soon turned and angrily slithered over to stand near the others who were gathering around Emilio.

"Good luck. Try not to get buried too badly, no?" Mtanga called before the rest of the group vanished, Emilio using a trio of inscribed metal plaques to force the three collared and unconscious prisoners along for the dimensional ride. During most contracts, the team would not need to consider taking prisoners, as the elimination was the goal in and of itself.

But striking out at a major criminal organization like this, the need for information to bring down as much of the network as possible meant that the Adventure Society had provided him with two such artifacts, the high-magistrate donating another one with the intention for it to be used for his daughter. This left Ryker, Amica, Kite and Christine in their current situation, fleeing through the crumbling, internal corridors of the fortress.

With both Christine and Amica shoring up some long enough for the group to pass, their passage was surprisingly smooth given the circumstances. Had the risk been deemed greater, they would have left the captives behind, but as it stood, it looked as if Ryker had made the right call when they eventually reached the hatch through which the team had entered.

The night air felt surprisingly refreshing as it washed over Kite when they emerged onto the collapsing fortress roof, the building's camouflage having failed as it looked like half of the mountain was starting to collapse in on itself. The group was even spared from traversing any more of the collapsing exterior as Amica carried them up into the air, Ryker following on wings of animated cloth.

"Set them down over there where we can wait for proper extraction," Ryker called, gesturing to the mountain wall where there was a slight ridge. Christine quickly widened it through stone shaping, and soon enough the four of them were seated, looking out over the battlefield below which had more turned into the adventurer side mopping up as many fleeing syndicate thugs as possible when the holed up criminals found said hole coming down on their heads.

There was a minute of silence when they just sat taking in the spectacle before Kite eventually spoke.

"Teacher?"

"Hmm?" Ryker asked, apparently tired or distracted enough to not acknowledge the honorific.

"Is this how every contract will be?"

"Both yes and no. Yes, in that we can always expect complications. People are like that. And no, in that things aren't always on this scale. Sometimes it will just be us and our targets for miles. Sometimes we know where they are, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes it will be us trying to flee as things go sour. And sometimes it turns out that the threat was way overblown, and that we've been called in to strike at three bronze-rankers playing cultists in a cellar."

"Did… that last really happen?" Amica asked.

"It did. A local branch director lacked the spine to resist some local nobles who demanded the best of the best to clear out what was surely a new apocalypse brewing in their lands. Exaggerated some reports and added some details which made calling in Gauntlet seem proper. I didn't see it myself, but apparently there was this whole scandal afterwards, with the Task Group adding further checks and balances to make such a stunt a lot less likely to work."

"How does it feel then? Now that you've cleared out your first real contract with the Task Group?" Christine asked, directing the question towards the two prospects.

"I don't know about Kite, but for me? It seems to be everything I hoped for," Amica said, levitating out over the edge of the cliff and leaning back to look at the starry sky.

"Easy to say. We'll see how you feel after we stumble into some real trouble," Ryker noted sternly, with Amica ignoring him.

"And you, Kite?" Christine asked, leaning out to look at him past Ryker, who sat between them. Kite, in turn, leaned back and collected his thoughts. Then, he smiled slightly as well.

"It would seem, senior sister, that I will have to agree with Amica in this. As a way of tempering my path, I doubt I can find something better suited." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. He looked back out over the vista below, partially obscured by plumes of dust from the collapsing fortress below, thinking of home.

"And I can't wait to return home, bringing all the strength I can gather," he thought, idly patting Glint on the head where she was peeking out of her bottle.

"Because it still feels like this is indeed only tempering, so that I will not break in what trials might await beneath the surface of my home."

"Welcome back, Amica. How long has it been?" the kind priestess of Healer asked when Amica had gotten herself seated.

"Just over two weeks. We got back yesterday."

"Oh? And how have you been?"

"Honestly? It's been… complicated. Mostly great. The task group really knows its business, and the advanced aura training they have been putting me through between contracts is quite something."

"But…?" At the prompting, Amica averted her eyes, brows furrowed.

"It feels like I should enjoy it even more. The way I'm fighting back against those kinds of people that… hurt me. And I do… but… Not really. At least not the way I thought I would. Which feels absurd to say, because I'm literally doing what I wanted. Maybe thinking about it too much has actually made things worse?"

"In my experience, when you try not to think of something, you already are," the priestess said, a slight twinkle in her eyes. The statement left Amica thoughtful, perhaps more thoughtful than she wanted to be.

"Perhaps…" she eventually replied, a bit evasively.

"Then why won't you think about my words some more and we'll see if we get back to the topic in the future. In the meantime, I'd like to talk some more about your habit of constantly controlling part of your surroundings with your powers." The orbs, paper weight and small bundle of napkins which Amica had currently been levitating immediately dropped from where they had been suspended in the air, the silver-ranker shooting the priestess a look filled with annoyance and embarrassment both.

"Fine…"

"I wish Serene was here. What I wouldn't give for some wind powers right now," Kite thought as he did his best to ignore the stinging, corrosive sensation of the alchemical fumes. Whatever the black market alchemists here had been brewing, it was something even more potent than the protective face masks the team from the task group had been equipped with could readily handle.

He was currently standing in a defensive position next to Amica, deflecting gouts of poison, acid and other more volatile things as the alchemists themselves and their hired thugs were determined not to go down. That said thugs were higher than the heavens on various magical combat stimulants did not help, some of them even growing to grotesque proportions and strength.

Still, most of the actual fighting was left to the rest of the team, with Kite only throwing out the occasional attack into the fray when there were actual essence powers to work with. While his dispelling powers were excellent, they couldn't as readily affect the alchemical enhancements. But both him and Amica were definitely pulling their weight, just in another way.

"Next," Amica called, another unconscious essence user joining the pile next to them. This particular contract had stressed taking as many prisoners as possible, as one wanted to thoroughly question such alchemists. If the Adventure Society could get them to cooperate, the knowledge they possessed about outlawed substances currently in use or under development could greatly help developing countermeasures or strike at other parts of the distribution.

And to facilitate this mass-capture, Kite and Amica got to employ a tactic which they had been talking about since the tryouts began.

"The lady with the tentacles and, I believe, poisonous skin? Ryker doesn't seem to be enjoying himself very much," Kite suggested, hinting at where their group leader was currently grappling with an alchemist of that description.

"Fine with me," Amica said, and the pair directed their auras towards the woman. She had already been failing in completely resisting Ryker's spiritual pressure, and with Kite and Amica joining in, her aura crumpled. A moment later, Amica's telekinesis took hold of her, yanking her up and smashing her into the stone ceiling of the cellar a few times to stun her before dragging her across the room only to be pressed up against one of Kite's barriers.

As soon as she made contact, Spiritual Futility started to drain her mana, the pace ramping up with each moment of contact. She thrashed and expelled what powers she could, from noxious vapors to hypnotic patterns dancing over her transformed, spotted skin, but it was to little avail. Kite dispelled what he could and shielded them both from the rest, adding what uses of Chakra Implosion that he could spare.

Eventually, the woman's struggles ceased, and when they sensed her thoroughly drained and knocked out, Amica dropped her in the pile with the others.

"Next?" As Emilio appeared, wobbling on his feet from mana loss, he held up his hands in surrender. Kite, in turn, relaxed his stance and together the pair went to the side of the training chamber where a potion to help with mana-recovery was already waiting.

"I.. gods damn it," Emilio eventually said when the influx of mana made him a bit steadier on his feet.

"Even knowing what you can do, I still can't manage it."

"It should be noted that you are becoming better at compensating for when your teleportation becomes unavailable," Kite said, trying to ease the sting of defeat a bit.

"Wasn't that the whole point of us practicing, too?"

"I know… It's just. It still stings when you have been trained by the best your family could afford, only for some foreigner with annoying powers to come and shut that down. No offense," the elf added upon seeing Kite's raised eyebrow.

"Honestly, I can't believe why you won't at least consider trying out to join my guild. You would fit in so well, and-" The pair had started to walk back to the rooms assigned to them at the Adventure Society campus in the city state of Boko, the team just having returned from three days of tracking some rather annoying nomad slavers through a veritable desert. As soon as Ryker had finished up the talks with the local administration and government, they would portal back to Port Singhni.

What had caused Emilio's words to halt was that Gray Sky had just turned the corner ahead of them, the runic and Emilio both silently meeting each other's gazes as they passed. Kite was surprised that no barbed words were exchanged, but the group having spent two months together in training and one out on contracts might finally have been enough for the two to run out of creative insults.

"Honestly, that is why I'd rather stay out of any high-profile guilds," Kite said, his words directed at the exchange.

"Well, I can't just be all friendly with a Regal Mountain member," Emilio protested.

"Do you even know what they did during the contracts regarding the Mezzali incident?" As Kite just kept his eyebrow raised, Emilio deflated.

"Of course you don't. It's just… Things like this matter. Both for my family and my guild. Our position isn't something we can just drop."

"You seem to do it just fine when we are out on contracts and when things get serious," Kite noted.

"And I believe that I have already pointed out the kind of first impression that you gave off when you entered the training area like any spoiled young master from back home."

"But that's obviously different. When we are on contract, we fight together. Guilds and such matter less when faced with followers of the dark gods or a monster surge." Emilio said, looking a bit questioning at his line of inquiry.

"I mean, only a fool would put internal rivalries before actually getting the contract done and protecting fellow adventurers."

"Oh you would be surprised. I have already seen plenty," Kite said with a sad smile.

"Honestly, at first I thought that maybe home was just the same as anywhere else; with pride, rivalries and people being… well, people. And that has mostly held true, but it is talks like this that makes me think that there is something to it all. Something in the culture back home which has grown beyond that - the norm, that is - and it… It worries me. Quite a lot."

Both fell silent at this, each man caught in his own thoughts when they soon felt a familiar aura ahead from the main administration building, and it was Kite who broke the silence as he let his worries slip to the back of his mind.

"It would seem like teacher- I mean, Ryker - is done. Time to be off."

"Yes, Glint, we know that you are the most beautiful and useful fishie," Kite said again, only slightly exasperated as it was not the first time the preening carp had demanded the appreciation that she felt was her due. The others looked on in varying stages of amusement as the familiar was currently using her powers of water manipulation to ferry them all down towards a seabed below.

As silver-rankers, they had all gone through the rather unpleasant training of shaking the habit of breathing, and Kite was doubly thankful that the very cold water around him was barely an inconvenience to his magical constitution. Their current target loomed below; a stone-shaped hideout at the ocean floor in the cold waters west of the Boreal League. Ryker once more checked the tracking stone, nodding in satisfaction.

"Not that there are that many other underwater hideouts around here, but it seems like the pirates did indeed lead us back to their lair," he said, the small blue pendant around his neck conveying his words even through the water.

"Fortune be praised that they apparently forgot to discard at least one society badge from their victims. As the compiled information stated; expect no survivors, but if we happen to find live victims we extract them too, if possible." As one, the group had retracted their auras to lessen their chance of discovery. Kite wished dearly to let his own sweep over the complex and know more of what was inside, but kept his spirit thoroughly in check.

Glint eventually had them touch down on the dark silt of the seabed, and they crept forwards as Mtanga led them on a curving path through the field of simple but brutal magical traps which surrounded the place. Kite could barely make out the concealed similar defenses in the waters above them, but from the way Mtanga kept glancing up, he knew that there had to be plenty. When it came to moving while submerged, Kite's Implacable Motion had always been helpful.

Like before, it allowed him to forego wearing the additional artifacts which some of the team had been assigned, so he once more crept forward as the vanguard along with Mtanga, noting the slight resistance of the water but remaining unaffected by it. While Emilio would normally be the most forward scout, they had enough experience of some traps and explosives being set off by the dimensional ripples of teleportation, and had decided not to chance it.

The minutes during the approach felt like it took forever, but the group finally reached the side of the submerged complex. Mtanga spent only a moment to check the defensive arrays and, after finding a suitable spot, started to draw out the breaching ritual on the stone wall while using a new type of slightly luminescent ink more suited to combating interference in the ocean environment. Meanwhile, Kite helped Ryker prepare another artifact; a blue globe which was slightly jiggly to the touch.

"It's a temporary environmental barrier," Ryker said under his voice after noticing Kite's questioning look. Spending time between missions training under the man had done little to alleviate his stern demeanor, but Ryker had at least become a lot more talkative and forthcoming.

"While flooding the place won't hinder us too much, geared up as we are, it's not a stretch to assume that plenty of them have water-related powers. Giving them that edge right away would be stupid." As the last of the water and barrier quintessence had been fed to the device, Ryker once more checked the tracking stone, which still pointed towards the complex. The small dot even moved around a bit.

"So, we might have some live hostages," the team's leader noted.

"Everyone, prepare to act accordingly. Good thing that we brought extra water-breathing potions." A moment later, the group was ready where they stood in the deep gloom of the ocean floor, only lit up by the slight glow of the ritual circle.

"Ready? We-" Ryker began, but froze at the same time as the rest of the team also whipped their heads around to look at the same spot. Or rather, the same window. For structural reasons, the underwater complex did not have many windows as the magical infrastructure for a more panoramic solution was probably not deemed worth it by the pirates. During their approach and careful observations, the team had picked a spot with only a single window facing towards their intended breaching spot.

There had been no activity there at all during their approach, but they had still kept watch in case that changed. And changed it had, although said activity was not the expected one.

"Well… They're certainly going at it," Amica couldn't help but note as the team saw the naked back of a humanoid female being pressed against the glass with a rhythmic motion, leaving no doubt as to what was going on inside. Unfortunately, her partner for that particular carnal moment chose that moment to lean in for a kiss at the woman's exposed neck, but froze as his rather cloudy gaze quickly cleared when he saw the team arrayed outside, just a few meters away.

As the man's eyes widened in apparent alarm, Ryker sighed.

"Just go already." The ritual circle lit up, emitting a slight wave of pressure which spread a cloud of silt and sand through the water. Kite could barely see his hand in front of him, but Ryker's aura flaring out followed by the others' was a clear enough signal that it was time to go.

Charging ahead, Kite soon came to a blueish film which he quickly pushed through, the temporary environmental barrier holding out the ocean which, judging by the ankle-deep water on the floor of the complex, had done its very best to flood the building in the short moment after the breach. The insides of the underwater complex were actually decently decorated, if you disregarded the decimeter of water and pieces of wall and furniture covering the tiled stone floor of what Kite suspected was some kind of kitchen.

While the room was empty, Kite's now projected aura allowed him to feel several others flaring up across the complex, with one being very close.

"Our hostage is on the move as well," Ryker noted, having brought out the tracking stone while the rest of the team entered and made preparations for the violence that would no doubt soon ensue.

"Should be in the next room. They might be moving them. Go!" As the door leading out of the semi-flooded kitchen wasn't reinforced, Kite took the lead as he simply ran through, Amica following up with one of the group's now staple tactics as she turned the debris into distracting shrapnel. The mix of a living room and dining area they entered also seemed to be where the criminals were trying to gather their defense. Just as Kite broke through the door, a tall, thickly built human woman turned to them with a snarl.

She was not alone either, with at six other silvers present and more on the way, even though the mess of auras in the small space made the spiritual impressions rather confusing.

"Who comes for Siluk the Feaster?" she growled, apparently referring to herself. Her features were already shifting as she was bulking out even more. In but a moment, the woman had grown a long tail with a fin at the end, and her head had thickened considerably, gaining a wide jaw of razor teeth while skin turned from that of a human to the black and white of an orca.

"You pesky adventurers will always just end up as yet another snack," she said, finishing taking a bite of the very humanoid arm she had been holding before discarding the limb in favor of a heavy spear. Glancing at the tracking stone still in Ryker's hand, the dot was pointing firmly towards the orca-hybrid. And it didn't feel like that much of a stretch to imagine that the stone was indicating her stomach.

"I… believe we can confirm the lack of hostages," Kite noted sadly. Then, auras flared and battle was joined; Task Group Gauntlet and its prospects once more on the job.

"Welcome back, Ryker. How is the team?" Ilmaril Thenston greeted as he put down what was no doubt a report from one of the other operations of the task group.

"Sir," the dour silver-ranker said respectfully, stopping before Ilmaril's desk.

"We are just in the beginning of the seventh week of contracts. Things are overall progressing well. So far we have had a few close calls, but no deaths or injuries beyond the scope of regular healing magic."

"Your tone indicates that there are some troubles, though?" the gold-ranked elf noted, quickly adding.

"That is to be expected though. These groups always have at least a few. Is it still Steiner and her pursuits?"

"No, Sir. Steiner has ceased and has overall been cooperative and productive. While I will withhold judgment until the evaluation is over, I am leaning against a whole-hearted recommendation as long as she keeps this up."

"From our previous conversation, I would not expect the Hua-Xian or the priestess of Justice to pose any problems either."

"That is correct, Sir. While Emilio Cardenco has somewhat toned down his posturing over the past weeks, Gray Sky continues to be a bit of an issue between contracts. Nothing major, but we are taking steps to try and lessen the risk of him eventually escalating things to within contracts as well. That Cardenco started ceding social ground might have been viewed as a peace-offering, but Gray Sky seemed to have taken it as proof that he can start pushing."

"It seems like you are on top of that, then," Ilmaril noted.

"And their personal development?"

"So far, the development is noticeable. As I personally tutor Kite, I can attest to his determination to learn, at least."

"Now, Ryker, the words won't hurt you," Ilmaril, noted with a teasing smile upon noting Ryker's control over his expressions slipping.

"Kite is… doing well," Ryker eventually said.

"He has no background to shore him up, but shows enough dedication for steady progress. His odd artifact improving his cognitive abilities help alleviate some of it too. As for the others, reports are positive. Some of them will soon meet up with the second mentor on their lists too."

"Ah, yes. Some good names there. I was surprised to learn that Zarth-an the Scholar had agreed to take on a few this season. The recruits who can appreciate his style tend to go far."

"Agreed, Sir." Ilmaril smiled and nodded at Ryker's stoic professional facade.

"Then I will read the rest in the report. On another note, I have your next assignment," the elf said, producing a folder which he slid across the table.

"The clergy of Pain. Often unpleasant business, but they were deemed ready. You will be the team supporting Lady Antanza."

"Antanza? Are we expecting a gold-ranked presence?" Ryker asked, recognizing the name.

"We are, at least according to the information our investigators provided. They believe that they have intercepted a scheduled visit of a gold-ranked priestess, and the city state where this visit will take place reached out for help at the advice of their local branch director. Antanza should be able to handle that side of things, but prepare your team accordingly. I don't think I need to tell you how messy things can get when we golds really starts getting into it."