Mark stood up first, because of course he did.
He was thick through the chest and broad in the shoulders, hair cropped close, skin sun-darkened from a season of work he should have been delegating. Leather brigandine with the lacings loose at the throat, working shirt under it, long knife at his hip, beard that had come in somewhere between Veridia and the spring. He swallowed whatever he had been chewing — Harold would have bet a copper on jerky — set his cup down beside his bench, and grinned at Harold like a man about to sell something.
Evan came up beside him at a normal walking speed. Half a head shorter and leaner through the chest, hair cropped tight, clean working leathers over a clean linen shirt, ledger already open across one forearm, a pair of small lenses pushed up onto his forehead. Where Mark looked like he had walked in from a fight, Evan looked like he had walked in from organizing the fight, billing for it, and projecting next quarter's fights.
Neither of them looked, against the council's pressed collars, like they had spent the last six hours indoors. They had spent most of the last six months outdoors building the guild and they wanted everyone to know it.
"My lord," Mark said.
"My lord," Evan said, half a second behind.
"Mark. Evan. Let's hear it. I know you've both been busy."
"The Threshold's standing strength is two thousand and eleven adventurers as of this morning." Mark pointed at no one in particular with one calloused finger and let the number sit. "Up from the three hundred we landed with. So, you know. A modest uptick."
"Two thousand and seven."
"The exact count doesn't matter, brother."
"A team died on the mountain this morning without a quest active. Two thousand and seven."
Mark grimaced. "Shit, ok."
"Fine. Two thousand and seven. Go ahead and ruin my opening."
Evan turned a page without looking down.
"The growth came in waves. Native integration from Lord Henri, Lord Arjun, and Lady Aiko's villages on swearing. The convoy from the swamps. Smaller contingents from Lord Brennig, Lord Caswell, Lady Maren, Lady Renna, and Lord Fitch's villages. And a steady drip of unaffiliated walk-ins."
"Most of whom heard a rumor in a tavern that there are free drinks at the end of the road," Mark added.
"Which is accurate. We do serve a complimentary first round."
Harold tipped a quarter inch of his cup at Evan. "Continue."
"Tier distribution. We are entirely bronze and unranked. No silvers." A small page turn. "First silvers will promote sometime after the solstice if they hold the pace."
Mark cracked his neck to one side, then the other. Bram looked up from across the table with what might have been approval.
"Casualties." Mark let his voice come down half a step. "The guild took zero casualties at the campaign itself. Respawn times are still respectable. Most of our people are sitting at five total deaths in their entire career."
"Median respawn is one day," Evan said.
"Which, in adventurer terms, is a long lunch."
"We do, however, have two problems."
"The first problem is the upper tail of the respawn distribution." Evan kept moving. "Three of our best teams now have respawn timers measured in weeks. The highest sits at one month and four days. They're bronze-tier members who have died often enough across enough quests that their timers are getting expensive. At the present operational pace, those timers will be measured in years by the spring. We are using them as a teaching tool. Showing members the math. Most of them are starting to understand that dying isn't free."
"Most of them," Mark said. "The other ones are starting to get the picture when their buddies are off the line for a month."
"How are you managing it?" Harold said.
"Mandatory rest cycles for any member crossing the two-week timer," Evan said. "Reassignment off frontline quests for anyone crossing the one-month timer. They'll hate it."
"They will, however, live."
Mark's smile didn't quite leave, but it dimmed.
"The second problem is harder, and we are still managing it." Evan turned a half page. "We have lost five members in the past two months who died while off-quest. Off-quest deaths are permanent. There's no respawn."
The room shifted a degree.
"Response so far has been the obvious one. Every member is encouraged to be on an active quest at all times. Most of our people start a new quest the same hour they file the close of the previous one. The cycle keeps the protection in place. It also locks the guild's quests up while they aren't being completed as fast, which is its own problem."
"I see how it's hard, but not impossible. What's the problem?" Harold said.
Evan paused. Closed his eyes for half a second. Opened them and continued.
"We have begun running small experiments on perk yield while on and off quests. Same task, same monster, same conditions. The sample is small, but the pattern is consistent." He let the page fall closed over his finger. "Members earn measurably better perks when they aren't on an active quest. We aren't telling members yet. Not until we're certain. But it sets up a choice the guild is going to have to make — protection versus yield. And we are not, as a guild, ready to make that decision."
The room was quiet for a beat. Caldwell's coin stopped. Margaret had set her chin in her hand and was watching Evan with the kind of focus she usually reserved for ledgers.
"Bring me the data when you have it," Harold said.
"I would also like to see the data, for my own people," Margaret said.
"Councilor. My lord."
Mark stepped a half-pace forward from the bench.
"Demonstration, with the council's indulgence. This is relevant, and I have been waiting all goddamn afternoon to do this."
Harold opened a hand. "Go."
Mark exhaled, planted his feet, and let his hands fall to his sides. A sound followed, like coins sliding across leather — and the skin of his forearms, his throat, the back of his neck, his hands, his face, and the calves above his boots, was scaled. Green-blue, overlapping, the exact patterning Harold had last seen on the Thresher King. Mark rapped his bare knuckles against his own jaw, and the sound was the sound of bronze on bronze.
"Thresher King scales," Mark said, through teeth that had also gone bronze along the edges. He was grinning hard enough that the scales on his cheeks moved with it. "Game changer, Count. Game changer for the guild. The members who pulled the epic version of this perk — honestly, only your high-tier two knights have been able to put a mark on them. I love this perk. I love this perk so much, and I only have the common version."
Henri, midway down the table, smoothed his small mustache once and rolled his eyes politely toward the ceiling.
"Locating and building combat plans against region bosses is the guild's priority going forward." Mark let the scales relax, and they went away the way they had come, that low scrape and gone. "Region bosses give perks we haven't seen anywhere else. We want every region boss perk we can get."
"Approved," Harold said. "I concur — the guild needs to be preparing to fight every region boss it can reach. But those bosses are designed to be combated with a Lord present, and the Thresher King was one of the easier ones. The one in the Silverfin Lake region, for instance, is a large monstrous Silverfin in a particular stretch of the lake. How would you fight that without significantly stronger adventurers or substantial help from a Lord?"
"That's an excellent question, my lord."
"Do you have an answer?"
"No, my lord. But it's an excellent question."
Bram snorted from down the table.
"My lord—"
One of the elders from the Gemheart clan bumped his cup with an elbow at exactly that moment, and the cup went over the edge of the bench. Mark was four paces from where he had been, the cup was in his hand right side up, his other hand pressed against the dwarf's shoulder in a half-apologetic gesture, and he was walking the cup back to its position on the wood without breaking stride. The dwarf blinked at him.
Mark set the cup down. He resumed his position behind the bench. The smile was dancing in his eyes.
"Sorry, friend. Reflex."
"Show-off," Evan said, scribbling.
"Says the man who alphabetizes his quill collection."
"By weight, brother. Not alphabet. Brute."
"Get on with it, Mark."
"Operations." Mark stepped back and let Evan run.
"Monster pressure inside the basin has dropped substantially since the spring," Evan said. "Ambient mana has come down with it. The exception is the woodland between the two ridges in Lord Henri's former territory, where the centaur herd has resettled. It's the most consistent monster work the guild runs week to week. And Veridia Forest. If anything, that one's increased, and we're maintaining it as both a training ground for members and a supply line for your ingredients, sire."
Henri's mustache got smoothed again.
"In the mountains, we are hunting trolls. Trolls drop regeneration perks at an obscene rate, and the veteran teams are climbing over each other to get one. The rush has been a recruiting boon."
"It has also been a respawn-timer driver," Mark said. "Turns out fighting trolls is a great way to learn what dying feels like. Repeatedly."
"At Silverfin Lake we're chasing the perks the Thornwalkers brought back during the trial. Penetration is in heavy demand. We're also expanding into the dungeons in that region — two we have access to now, the third by the end of the month, pending an agreement with a local lord."
"Outstanding bounties. Open at council direction — scaled flyer eggs for the air corps. The teams will be working on that throughout the season. We've already brought back seven eggs of various flying monsters. None of them scaled."
"Some of them angry," Mark added. "One of them belongs to the meanest little bastard of a bird you've ever met. I've named him Brian. I’ve got him cooped up out where Josh trains."
"Brian bit Tomas's thumb off."
"Yeah, but he grew it back."
"Alchemical reagents from your standing list are at appropriate stock. We're still searching for the rest you wanted, sire. We are also asking if you have a more thorough manual on harvesting these herbs. Many of our members are bringing them in ruined."
"I'll write you something," Harold said. "Send a runner to my workshop in the morning."
"Much appreciated, sire."
"In two weeks," Mark said, "we are dispatching the Hospitaller Order north to reinforce Sarah's team in the Blackjaws. That order's our regen and healing-heavy order, with a balanced fighting line. Best fit we have for sustained combat. Travel time on the route we'd send them is about a month and a half. They'll arrive close to midwinter. Our members are forming into orders around the perk chains they want, and we're encouraging it. The Hospitallers are led by a large Danish man; the guild has already started calling him the Undying. He picked up a regen perk from a troll, another from a goblin berserker. He has died on purpose in training just to prove a point."
"He is a deeply strange man," Evan said.
"He is a deeply strange man, and we love him."
Harold rolled his eyes and smiled. Historical names from Earth had caught on, then. He could only hope that an adventurer order would prove half as effective as the original Hospitallers had been.
"Legion cross-training," Evan said. "Our members are going through every scout class Centurion Garrick runs. The Centurion has opened reciprocal legion training to our members in exchange for contribution points in our internal ranking system. The contribution-point pipeline has been the single largest driver of our recruitment and retention numbers." A look up. "We are the largest adventuring guild on the continent by support metrics — records, hunting guides, perk acquisition maps, bounty pipeline, and a drink at the end of every road. We are not the largest by raw numbers. People come to us, and they stay."
"Some are leaving for Lady Bethel's Templars," Mark said. "We've encouraged the move, and we don't cut a member from quests when they go. The guild will support the Templar order."
Bethel inclined her head a degree. "Much obliged, Master Mark."
"My pleasure, Lady. Send us a few back when you decide they aren't holy enough."
"He’s joking, Councilor."
"We also support Councilor Josh and Councilor Beth's mage program," Evan went on. "Providing weaker monsters for their training pipeline. Especially after what we saw at the Thresher King fight. Lira's earth crafters held the river at the trial because of perks they earned through that program."
Lira lifted one finger off the table without looking up.
"Outreach," Mark said. "We have employed thirty Earth members on the forum to assist adventurers across humanity, per your instructions, Count. They answer questions and point people toward perk paths they wouldn't have found on their own. They have, in our estimation, saved more lives than they'd believe if anyone told them the number." Mark spread his hands a few inches. "We've also opened a paid information service. Adventurers and lords from outside our territory write to us with questions, we answer from our records for an appropriate fee. Some of the inquirers have called us opportunistic. None of them have been able to argue with how useful it is."
Caldwell smiled from down the table with clear approval, and his coin started rolling again.
"Partnership requests from guilds in the Silverfin region and around the Blackjaws," Evan said. "Declined all of them as official partnerships. None of them offered us anything we needed. We have not, however, prevented our members from working with those guilds informally on shared bounties or combined runs. So far we have had no conflict with any other human guild we are aware of." A small look-up. "We have told all our members to stay wary."
"Dungeons. We are raiding the basin's on a regular cycle. No new dungeon totems recovered, but we'll keep raiding regardless. The basin's dungeons are also falling off in difficulty as members tier up, which is reducing the marginal value of their perks. We're compensating with the Silverfin Lake dungeons I mentioned. We are also opening guildhouses in two outside towns held by lords currently unaffiliated with any other guild. Negotiations are in early stages."
"Bring me the names before you approach the lords," Harold said. "Margaret will want to weigh in on each one."
"Yes, my lord."
Evan closed the ledger over his finger.
"Last item, sire. A question."
Mark's grin came back the way a man's grin comes back when he has been waiting an hour to ask something.
"Are there path books for adventurers?"
The room turned a degree toward Harold. He set both palms flat on the oak in front of him and let the question sit.
"Eh. Not as you understand them."
Mark's mouth opened. Evan put a hand on his elbow without looking up.
Harold opened his other hand toward them. "Adventurers don't get path books because adventurers don't need path books. The role is structured for you to forge your own paths from the perks you take in the field. Every monster you kill gives you a chance at a perk related to that monster. You can get a single kill that yields a unique perk and no knight will ever see it, no crafter will ever be granted it. Across humanity, the best combatants for most of the largest threats out there have always been adventurers. That has always been true, and it is going to keep being true."
Mark rubbed his beard, slow.
"Unless they're a lord," Evan said.
"Meh. Even then, it isn't always true. Plenty of lords don't fight. All adventurers fight. The best lords match the best adventurers. But they are designed to fight different threats."
"Thank you, my lord."
"That tracks too. We had guessed most of it." Evan was already writing. "We wanted confirmation."
Harold turned toward the bench across from theirs, where Lira had been waiting. The permanent smudges that had become part of her showed in the lamplight, and her tired eyes came up to meet his.
"Councilor Lira."
She rose.