Chương 111: Interlude - Reporting In

The Order of Rangers exists in a strange limbo. While they are technically a private organization, the majority of their funding comes from the crown, with the church not far behind. Neither benefactor likes the organization, but they maintain it anyway. They have to. Ostensibly a group of mercenaries that specialize in long-distance scouting, exploration, and land surveys, the rangers were originally nothing more than adventurers for hire.

If a noble suspected that an area was rich in resources that they could exploit, it was the rangers they would hire to investigate. If a village suddenly disappeared, the crown would send a small group of rangers to make sure it was one of the usual reasons—flood, famine, convergence break—rather than a sign of enemy invasion. Over the years, they became more and more specialized towards handling the single most prevalent danger associated with exploration. Convergence points.

Known colloquially as simply 'dungeons,' convergence points are the Goddess' second greatest blessing. Even the most barren parts of the great desert can be made habitable by the right convergence point. The bounties they provide are nearly endless, replenishing themselves over time by divine providence. Yet those boons come at a cost. It's not just people that benefit from the rich, magical resources of dungeons. Creatures that live within them change over time, adapting to the power within the dungeon.

It's widely accepted that non-sentient beings do not level, but the Divine Mechanism supports them in other ways, and those that reside within convergence points evolve much more swiftly, turning into the primary threat of dungeons. Monsters. A catch-all term that applies to evolved animals, anomalous creatures, and demons. There are differences between each, but they are all dangerous, and all of them have the potential to cause great devastation if released into the wild. Even worse if they reach civilization.

And so, like the creatures they hunt, the rangers evolved. No longer simple scouts and explorers, but monster hunters and dungeon delvers. Convergence points ceased to be an occupational hazard, and instead became the occupation. As the organization grew in strength, the crown took notice. They saw the rangers as a threat, but also as a useful tool. Likewise, the church became interested in the order.

Once, it had been the exclusive purview of the church to control convergence points—setting and maintaining the seals, installing guardians, and organizing expeditions. The crown can't afford to dedicate armies to convergence points, and the church lacks the martial strength to handle dangerous breaks. Cooperation between the two is fraught with political pitfalls, and neither can be everywhere at once—they simply have too many other responsibilities. Enter the rangers.

A third party, affiliated with neither but beholden to both, which could not only handle convergence points efficiently, but had the skills, training, and classes to seek out, identify, and clear dungeons before they could cause any trouble. A perfect solution. The rangers became so prestigious and invaluable that the crown instituted a program to elevate the status of high ranking members of the order as a way to encourage participation among the lower classes.

For centuries the system has worked to push back the threat of monsters. Worked too well. Now, most Fa'aun live and die without ever seeing a monster. Convergence points are a distant threat—a bit of trivia taught in schools and in church. The prestige of the rangers slips more every year, and the promise of recognition has become a carrot that few if any ever reach. Funding is lower than ever, and the church and crown both look on the order with suspicion.

As Draga approaches the headquarters, he wonders if his current predicament can be traced back to that fall from grace. The church must have known about that convergence break, but they didn't trust the rangers to handle it. Draga himself wasn't confident enough in his own authority as the leader of the ranger team to overrule Lady Gaa's insistence that her team would enter alone. The lack of power, and the lack of trust—each a problem on their own, but together, they led his team to disaster. A dead noble.

The scion of house Gaa, no less. Maybe Saban was the lucky one. A morbid thought—Draga shakes it off immediately, steeling himself for what's to come and pushing his way into the familiar building.

"Wrong place," a man sitting by the entrance drawls lazily.

"The request and recruitment office is—oh, it's you."

"Faraam," Draga greets the man with a polite bow.

"Is the Grandmistress in?"

"Draga. Yeah, but—" Faraam grimaces as a door within slams hard enough to shake the floor.

"She's been locking horns with the church representative all day. You might want to come back tomorrow."

"I don't think this can wait," Draga sighs. If the church is already making a stink, it's worse than he thought.

"Your funeral," the man replies with a shrug, gesturing further in.

"Sounds like they just finished up anyway." The door slams a second time, followed by the distant muffled sounds of shouting. Faraam scratches his horns.

"Or not. Good luck in there." Draga nods stoically and moves into the order's common room. A large open space that takes up most of the first floor, the common room is a place for rangers to meet, relax, plan missions, and coordinate across teams. A bulletin board at the back of the room displays a list of open requests—missions that any team can take when they aren't otherwise assigned. Most of the remaining floor space is taken up by gathering circles—cushioned depressions in the floor for seating.

As he enters, a man raises his glass.

"Draga! Welcome home, friend!"

"Romma," Draga responds with a nod.

"It's good to be back." A white-furred woman sitting on the table next to Romma, rather than the cushions around it, scoffs.

"Not for long, I'll bet. What did you do this time to get the Grandmistress so upset?"

"Mira," Romma grunts, "we don't know that it was him."

"Tsk, of course we do," she sneers.

"Who else could possibly fuck up on such a grand scale? This is what happens when you trust the safety of your team to worthless failures like cousin Talla! I learned that lesson so the rest of you wouldn't have to—alas, it seems the limitations of Sir Draga's class forced him to learn it first hand." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Mira Shaa Baanu," Draga greets her with a polite bow, ignoring her insults.

"Your sister passes on her regards. We met her in Sagaasi."

"I know," Mira replies dismissively, intentionally snubbing his greeting.

"She sent word. Had I known you wastrels would take advantage of her generosity, I might have warned Maari you were coming." Ah. It must have taken a high level courier to carry a letter faster than Captain Jira's ship, but it doesn't surprise Draga that the Shaa family employs them. That does make things more difficult, however.

"It was thanks to that generosity that we were able to return swiftly and safely," Draga says.

"You have my thanks."

"Your thanks are worth little, Draga," she says with a wave.

"I'd send you an invoice, but you'd never be able to pay it." It would also be interpreted by other nobles as the Shaa family being stingy. Not only would it make them look like penny pinchers, but if Talla's family paid for the invoice, it would seem like house Shaa was leaning on house Goa for support. An idle threat—but while most Baanu are comfortable in their superiority, Mira is the type who loves to remind everyone constantly of who she is.

The other rangers grumble and murmur under their breaths—a few casting apologetic glances at Draga or annoyed glares at Mira. She's not a popular presence in the order. Her team is infamous for hogging routine clearance missions close to the city, and her commission tier—third, the same as Draga's—is commonly held to be above her capability. She only climbed as high as she did by taking a number of high risk missions while her team was still being carried by Talla. Not that Draga could judge.

He was more realistic about Talla's abilities than Mira, but he too was relying on her talents to climb the ranks faster. If anything, it was an injustice that Talla herself didn't have a higher commission—a combination of Mira's influence and Talla's overspecialization. She's an excellent mage and healer, but a lousy scout. But whether the other rangers like Mira or not, she is influential.

The Shaa family controls much of the territory along the river, and maintains strong connections with both the military and the rangers. Nobody wants to get on the bad side of someone who has that kind of weight and isn't afraid to throw it around. It's not a coincidence that Draga's entire team is— was comprised entirely of people Mira already hated. Saban because of his history, Talla because of their history, and Draga because of his birth. Sometimes—more often than he'd like—that's all it takes.

His thoughts are interrupted by the muffled voices upstairs suddenly becoming more clear.

"—don't care if you represent the Goddess-blessed empress herself! My order is not beholden to your whims!"

"High priestess—""You tell your high priestess that until she can provide a legal order signed with the crown's authority, she can take her 'polite request' and pleasure herself with it for all I care!"

"You are making a mistake, Grandmistress! The consequences—""You want consequences?!" The rangers all recognize the dark tone in their Grandmistress' voice.

"Godshit!" Romma swears.

"Brace yourselves!" Even Mira scrambles off of the table she's sitting on to dig her hooves in and grip something for support. For his part, Draga just steps out of the doorway and leans back against a wall. A pressure mounts within the room, as if the air is growing steadily thicker. The Grandmistress' next words drip with power, enhanced by her skill.

"GET! OUT!" Though they aren't the targets, every ranger in the room is buffeted by a wave of pressure. Draga feels himself being pressed against the wall as though a giant invisible blanket is smothering him. With a surprised shriek, a priestess comes tumbling hoof over horn down the stairs, collapsing into a heap at the bottom. She picks herself up, legs shaking, and to her credit, manages to resist the pressure long enough to shout back up the stairs.

"You'll regret this—!"

"GO!" Another wave of pressure floods the room, and the priestess yelps as she's forced to flee the building. She briefly meets Draga's eyes on the way out, and though he doesn't recognize her, there's an unmistakable hatred in her gaze. Or maybe she's just pissed off.

"Blood and acid," Romma groans.

"Been a while since she used that one." An awkward silence fills the room, broken only by the sound of hoofsteps coming down the stairs. The Grandmistress stops halfway down and sweeps the room with her gaze, quickly landing on Draga.

"You!" she snarls, pointing at him.

"My office. Now!" Without another word, she storms back up the stairs, her departure punctuated by yet another floor-shaking slam of the door.

"It's been an honor working with you, brother," Romma says sarcastically, bowing his head in prayer.

"The rangers will remember you." Draga sighs as the rest of the rangers—even Mira—mimic the gesture of mourning. He makes his way upstairs, where the building is split between private meeting rooms, administrative offices, and the Grandmistress's personal office. He knocks politely on the door, which swings open of its own accord—the latch broken from the recent abuse it's suffered.

"Draga," comes the Grandmistress's terse greeting.

"I'd tell you to shut the door behind you, but..."

"Lady Faarah," Draga responds with a bow, pulling the door as shut as it will go.

"Should we move to a private meeting room instead?" Lady Faarah Foren, Grandmistress of the Stebaari Order of Rangers, is an honorary noble. Herself a former ranger, she climbed the ranks to achieve the highest tier of commission and receive a title from the crown. That said, the title is purely nominal—she owns no land, but she does have considerable influence as the leader of all rangers.

"Don't use that bullshit title with me, Draga," she grunts tiredly.

"And there's no point in privacy—operational security has gone straight up the Goddess' ass thanks to that insufferable blabbermouth downstairs. Just tell me you have something good to report." Draga tries desperately not to grimace. Faarah has obviously had a hard day, and he knows he's about to make it even harder.

"Saban is dead," he reports curtly.

"Killed by a demon while investigating a convergence break. The demon has been eliminated, and the clients were wiped out—presumably in the process of attempting to seal the break."

"Presumably?!" she huffs incredulously.

"They insisted on performing the ritual without escort," he continues.

"And did not inform us of their intentions. We only discovered the break—and their deaths—during our investigation after they failed to return."

"Godshit!" Faarah curses, slamming her fist into the desk.

"Do you know how much blood and acid we're drowning in right now? Lady Gaa is lobbying to have the entire order purged, and the church has been harassing me all day about turning what's left of your team over to their custody without telling me why." This time he lets himself grimace openly. He expected it to be bad, but it's worse than he imagined, and escalating fast.

"I'm sorry," he says earnestly, bowing his head.

"I'm ready to take full responsibility."

"I'm sure you are," the Grandmistress scoffs, brushing aside her short-cropped tawny hair.

"But the order doesn't belong to Lady Gaa or the church, it belongs to me. We aren't going down without a fight, and neither are you. Just tell me one thing..." She stares up at him with an uncharacteristically pleading look in her eyes.

"Where is the dungeon-borne?"