Henry had sent the reconnaissance request to Armstrong Base the evening after the briefing – full coverage of the northern range, everything they’d discussed. Their meteorologists had forecasted clear skies and good conditions, but the terrain was a maze of peaks and valleys that’d no doubt eat up flight hours. The analysts ended up estimating it’d take a full day for comprehensive coverage, probably two if they wanted multiple passes on the areas of interest.
The first drone had launched sometime after dinner, and by the time Henry woke up the next morning, they were about ten hours into the sweep. The status update from Armstrong had been brief: nothing conclusive yet, but they’d picked up thermal signatures near the old fort of Korth Varren that warranted a closer look. He was to expect a preliminary report by evening, maybe sooner if something significant came up.
So Henry had somewhere between twelve and twenty-four hours before the next decision point – which, in the life of a deployed operator, was basically a vacation. He could’ve sat around doing nothing all day, or at least toured the city.
Instead, he had a diplomatic obligation. He was supposed to meet with Lucan’s Chosen this morning, and ducking out now would raise unnecessary issues with the Guild.
It would’ve all been fine and dandy if the problem ended there, with downtime getting fucked over in favor of a standard meet-and-greet. But it didn’t; the bigger problem was the name – Lucan.
Sure, it could be a different Lucan, and he’d even said as much to Sera. But they both knew that was a lie, that they’d only be coping by saying that.
So they hit up the Guild, if only to get this chore over with. The first thing Henry noticed when they arrived was that the place had cleared out since yesterday’s briefing. There were a handful of adventurers scattered across the long tables – some nursing drinks, others checking job postings, most of them just killing time between quests. Henry didn’t want to jinx anything, but honestly, this struck him as the calm before the shitstorm.
Henry spotted a party of five in the far corner that stood out. Yeah, everyone up in Kharvûk had good gear – pretty much a prerequisite for survival in a place like this – but nobody else in the room had gear like this. Theirs was egregiously fancy, so much so that they’d either have to be filthy rich or extremely high-ranked to afford it. Or both.
The party composition looked normal enough: a healer, a mage, a tank, an archer, and the guy who was obviously in charge. What wasn’t normal was the way the other four kept glancing at the elf, like they were checking his reactions before they let themselves have their own.
The center of attention was tall, even when seated. He had the sort of face one might expect to see on a statue of some ancient elven king – high cheekbones, cold eyes, with a sharp jawline. He leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, barely paying attention to his own people – like their attention was something he was owed, something he didn’t need to return.
The look on his face held a permanent sneer. It was hard to describe as anything other than pure superiority, like being better than everyone else was simply a fact of his existence.
Henry put two and two together and figured that this was probably Lucan’s Chosen.
The elf looked up as Alpha Team approached, and his first reaction was obvious enough – a flash of disgust, plain as day, like he couldn’t quite believe this was what he’d been waiting for. The curled lip, the narrowed eyes, all of it. And then, just as quickly, it was gone, smoothed over into something polite and neutral.
Now, Henry had seen plenty of people slip up before and show something they didn’t mean to. It happened all the time, usually in the customer service industry – a flicker of irritation, a moment of contempt, quickly buried under a professional mask. The tell was always the recovery, that little hitch where they realized they’d let something show and scrambled to fix it.
But that wasn’t what happened here. The elf had let them see the disgust, held it just long enough to make sure it registered, and only then decided to put on a more acceptable face.
Henry hadn’t had the misfortune of meeting someone like this in real life – until now. Mostly, he’d seen the type in shows and movies, oftentimes whenever some arrogant dickhead was involved, be it a haughty noble throwing his weight around or some CEO who thought himself above the plebeians. He’d always figured it was exaggerated for dramatic effect, but apparently not. Some people really did look at people like they were furniture that had wandered into frame.
The elf’s attention passed over Alpha Team the way anyone might glance at a waiter bringing bread to the wrong table, like they were merely background noise. That was, until his eyes landed on Sera.
“Ah, Seraphine. My, how circumstances do alter one’s standards. I must admit, I scarce credit my own eyes. That a lady of House Sindis has fallen so low as to keep vagrants for company? Heavens, girl… you wear your disgrace as though it were silk.”
So they were vagrants now, huh? Henry wasn’t offended; he’d been called worse by people who actually mattered. Still, something about the way Lucan said it made him want to smack the guy on principle. Shame he had no physical enhancement to level the playing field.
Sera didn’t seem particularly bothered either, though Henry could tell she was more than ready to defend them. “Lucan ad Darnath. You’ve not changed at all – save perhaps in how swiftly you weary me. Pity you’ve naught better to occupy yourself with than my affairs.”
Lucan snorted, neck-deep in his delusion of superiority. “Believe me, girl, I take no pleasure in the business. I meddle out of duty. You were once a knight of renown, and now you wander with mongrels.”
“If they seem mongrels to you, that speaks more to your eyesight than their breeding. These men have more steel in them than you’ve ever managed in a lifetime of preening.”
The archer finally spoke up. “You speak of steel? What gall! You ran first in those ruins!”
“Tancred.” Sera glanced at the man with a look much closer to pity. “Ever Lucan’s hound, I see. I’d hoped time might’ve stiffened your spine. Alas.”
Tancred’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked to Lucan for backup, which really just proved her point.
Lucan didn’t even bother giving him any, apparently more concerned with his little tête-à-tête with Sera. “Indeed, I do recall you once, faltering when victory beckoned.”
“How quaint! I recall the situation rather differently – Livia struck senseless because you could not master your own hand. And afterward, the gall to fault everyone but yourself. Mithril blinds many men, Lucan; few so utterly as you.”
Yeah, that definitely struck a nerve. Lucan’s mask slipped for a split second before coming back twice as hard. He doubled down on his sneer, as if daring her to take another shot.
“Livia broke herself, Seraphine. Had she the wit to step aside, she’d have stood whole. I owe no apology for another’s weakness. And your refusal to see as much is why you remain… precisely where you’ve always stood – close enough to witness the work, yet ever shy of doing it. A coward.”
“A coward?” Sera shook her head, keeping her cool a lot better than most people would’ve. “You name me coward? I who bore Livia to safety whilst you chased mithril like a starving cur?” She pointed a finger at Lucan. “You acted as a fool. I acted as a friend.”
Lucan looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, as if he never cared about Livia. Which, Henry considered, would probably be pretty accurate for a guy like him.
“I would have finished the charge and seen her tended once our aim was met.” Lucan shrugged. “Such is command: the reckoning of losses in pursuit of gain. You, Seraphine, broke formation. You forced our withdrawal. You tore the prize from us who had earned it.”
Sera retaliated quickly. “What your command earned that day was Livia’s corpse. I merely spared you the shame of claiming it. Tell me – have you recounted that day to your current Party as it was, or in some gentler tale that flatters your pride? Have you recounted that failure at all?”
The other members of Lucan’s Chosen turned toward their leader, probably wondering if they should put in their resignations. Clearly, they hadn’t heard it. Or if they did, then it wasn’t this version. Even Tancred – who’d been there – seemed iffy about dying on this hill.
Henry could guess how that worked: Lucan feeding them whatever version made him look good, each retelling a little more polished than the last. Standard shit. Tell people lie after lie, until the pedestal got too heavy for the house of cards supporting it.
Lucan certainly realized it, too; the gritted teeth and hesitation proved it. But with a guy like him, it was hard to tell if he’d actually been cornered or if he was already spinning up some new bullshit to explain it away.
Evidently, he had chosen the latter. “A failure? Spare me.”
He turned to face his party, raising his arms up. “Look well, all of you. Do you see a broken man? Do you see a commander unfit for the field? Tier Nine does not suffer the weak.”
He shook his head slowly, like a disappointed teacher might. He pointed a finger at Sera. “But she – oh, she clings to that day like a drowning soul to driftwood. Twists it, nurses it, feeds upon it, until even she believes the lie. And now she’d have you believe it too.”
His voice softened, but Henry could tell there was no calm in it. Even in a ‘relaxed’ state, Lucan still held cold poison. “Had your charge any truth, girl, I’d have been cast from the Guild, not elevated to Tier Nine. I would not have taverns whispering my name, nor guildmasters courting my favor. My record alone rebukes you.”
“Truly?” Sera asked, tone inflecting up as though she’d figured out something juicy. “Then you’ll not object when I ask your men how often they’ve come home by fortune rather than your command. How many close calls now, Lucan? Five? Six?”
Sera couldn’t have known what they’d been through, but given Lucan’s track record and the way his party was reacting, it’d been a safe gamble. And judging by the look on Lucan’s face, she’d hit closer to home than even she’d expected.
“You know nothing of my Party, nor of the burdens I bear for them. Every close call you name, I turned aside. Every death you predict, I deny. They live because I lead.”
Sera called him out on his bullshit. “Does your party believe as much?”
Nobody had an answer for that. Or if they did, they weren’t stupid enough to say it out loud.
Lucan’s expression hardened. “You forget yourself, Seraphine.”
Henry figured this was the point where he should step in – before shit could spiral out of control. “Alright.” He came between them, hands raised. “Why don’t we cool down?”
Lucan glared at him. “You would interrupt a matter between knights?”
“We’re here to do a mission, aren’t we? Let’s save this for later.”
“Very well,” Lucan said. “Lay out your business.”
Henry had been hoping to avoid this part. He’d managed to put a lid on the Sera situation, but only by dangling something else in front of Lucan. Now he had to deliver – and the details weren't exactly going to help. Telling a glory-obsessed knight that his grand assignment was to sit in a guild hall and wait for a machine to finish working? Yeah, that was gonna go over real well.
Nothing more to do but rip the bandage off.
“Our objective is reconnaissance. We’re mapping goblin positions, supply lines, potential staging areas.”
“And when do we depart?” Lucan asked.
Henry tried finding a better way of putting this, but came up short. “We… don’t.”
“No departure.” Lucan scoffed, like he’d just heard a load of bullshit. “Then what, pray tell, is the purpose of our being here?”
“Yeah… Well, if you’ve got a problem, you can take it up with Guildmaster Hedrin. We’ve already got a drone—” Henry caught himself. “Er, a construct. It’s flying over the region as we speak. We’ll have a good idea of the situation by tomorrow.”
“So, I was summoned merely to sit idle?”
“Guildmaster Hedrin assigned your party as escort in case something comes up. Until we have a target, there’s nothing to escort.” Henry shrugged. “So yeah. We sit.”
Lucan stared at him like he was trying to decide whether Henry was joking or simply insane. Henry wasn’t sure which conclusion he landed on, but the elf’s expression curdled into something between disgust and disbelief.
“This is no way to scout an enemy. Any true warrior would be in the field, not loitering like some clerk.”
Henry shrugged. “If you wanna head out there, be my guest. Nobody’s stopping you.”
“Hmph. Since you’ve elected to shoulder the task, I’ll not trouble myself with it. Do keep me informed.”
Henry caught Sera’s eye. She looked like she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes, or sigh in disgust.
Whatever. If Lucan needed to pretend he was supervising to get through the day, Henry could live with that. It wasn’t like it cost him anything.