“{So let me get this straight,}” Leonidas said in the Haelfennyr his mentor demanded he practice fluency with, while sitting opposite Ceruviel in a coach pulled along by a pair of massive armored war horses reared by the Haelfenn, and guarded by a Dagger of the Duskguard in the role of footmen and honor guard both. “{Not only am I going to be living with you, but you expect me to promenade with noble ladies like some fop in a regency piece?}”

The interior of the Coach was painted a luxurious purple, and was spacious enough that he could both stretch out and have enough room for the plethora of bags and boxes he’d acquired during Ceruviel’s enforced shopping spree.

The Duchess herself had changed as well, and wore an eye-catching black chiton clasped at her waist by a golden belt that accentuated her bust, with her silver hair falling in beautiful curls around her shoulders and down her back.

A pair of elegant golden sandals wound their way up her legs to her knees, and she proudly displayed the muscled porcelain skin of her arms and legs while retaining a surprising level of reserved elegance to the entire look.

She did not appear at all like the hedonist she dubbed herself.

She actually looked like a Duchess.

“{Strategy, Achilles,}” Ceruviel replied with her usual impatience for what she saw as obstinate idiocy, and no indication she knew what he was thinking. The Dusk-Lord had been adamant that he needed to understand the political necessities of his role as her Apprentice—or Squire, as she preferred to call it, given their shared Archetype and ‘Archon Tradition’—while they’d been shopping, and he’d realized quickly it was not something she would easily be swayed from. “{It is all about strategy. I do not know what a ‘regency piece’ is, but rest assured that I know what I am asking—and what I am doing.}”

“{That seems like an excuse for me to meet women, Ceruviel, and nothing to do with actual strategy.}” Leonidas responded with a skeptical stare and stubbornly folded arms.

She’d bought him an entire wardrobe, and he’d been forced to change into a new set of clothes before even leaving the store; a black and silver ensemble that she said suited his particular ‘aesthetic’, while avoiding overtly showing affiliation to either Blues or Reds.

“{Training with the Duskguard, fighting in the Arena, or even leading Dungeon Delves with famous up-and-coming Adventurers; that’s strategy.}” Leonidas continued emphatically. “{What you’re proposing is glorified Aristocratic speed dating.}”

“{It is important for you to make connections,}” the Dusk-Lord stated while raising her hand to brush aside a window curtain and peer out at the street carefully. “{Dawnhaven runs on whom it is that you have in your corner. For all of our enlightenment, as we see it; we Haelfenn are notoriously tribalistic in our own way. Your family and personal strength matter immensely.}”

The Coach turned a corner, and Leonidas heard the uptick in activity and sound outside of it immediately. He was sorely tempted to just get out and walk, but he had a feeling Ceruviel would skin him alive if he did. She’d stressed the necessity for him to rapidly adapt to his new circumstances, no matter what his ‘foolish hang ups’ were about her way of doing things.

“{We females are more easily able to flounce through life absent these things,}” she continued unabated, “{though without the foundation for matchmaking—that being inherited and inheritable System traits of sufficient rarity—even they will be forced to accept lower stationed propositions.}”

“{You didn’t do any of that,}” Leonidas pointed out with a grunt. “{You made yourself one of the most terrifying women alive.}”

“{Within Dawnhaven, certainly. On Altera, I was middling at best. Scale matters, Achilles, and I would remind you that my Mentor was vastly more powerful than I am.}”

“{That doesn’t explain why I have to do all this foppish nonsense, Ceruviel. I can make connections with violence, not whatever the hell mad idea you have about trying to breed my Ambition into families you approve of—and don’t pretend that isn’t what you’re talking about, either! I know you well enough, at this point, to see this attempt at diplomacy—which you suck at, by the way—for what it is.}”

“{You’ve known me all of three hours,}” Ceruviel replied with what Leonidas almost thought was both amusement and approval at his successful jab at her ‘diplomatic’ traits.

Ceruviel, for all her power and pedigree, was awful at diplomacy.

“{And I’d only need five minutes to see through this plan, Ceruviel.}” Leonidas said blithely. “{Don’t yank my chain. I’ll be a good little political tool within reason, but if you expect me to waltz around like the Duke in Bridgerton, you’ve got another thing coming.}”

The Duchess snorted at his words, and let out an aggrieved sigh.

“{Your ‘pop culture’ references never cease to amuse and irk me.}”

“{Yeah, well, it’s a coping mechanism,}” he said while resting back against the padded carriage wall.

“{Squires should listen to their Masters.}”

“{Only when their Masters aren’t trying to stud their Squires like prized stallions.}” Leonidas groused quietly. “{I doubt you’d have been too thrilled if yours had done the same.}”

To that, Ceruviel could only smirk wryly. She seemed to agree, though that didn’t stop her making one more attempt.

“{You must be the only human on Terra that would object to the attentions of elven women,}” she declared with an appraising look at him. “{Have I mentioned that we elves are naturally smooth? I’ve heard that’s quite a fascinatingly adored trait, among you human males.}”

“{Oh my God, Ceruviel,}” Leonidas said while running his right dragging his hands over his face and fighting back an infuriating blush, “{for the love of all that is Holy, please stop!}”

“{Your need to cling to this idea of ‘true love’ will mark you as a bewildering outlier, Achilles.}” Ceruviel said with a mix of disdain and impatience that was far more honestly her, as opposed to the layered on attempts at diplomatically negotiating him into being auctioned off to her favorite families. “{Advantageous pairings have nothing to do with something so ephemeral as affection and bonding. Certainly, there are those like Tarnys that are afforded such luxuries—but he is lowborn. You are both my Squire, and have the Ambition you have. You cannot afford to think in such a limited fashion. You should take at least three wives. To do any less will brand you as quite mad, or even impotent.}”

“{And I’ll proudly wear that branding, if it means not being pawed at by too-horny debutants,}” Leonidas retorted while trying to keep his voice level. “{So again, can we please drop this ridiculous argument, and focus instead on the purpose of our visit here?}”

“{You refer to our trip to the Adventurers’ Guild?}”

“{Yes.}”

“{Then look outside, Achilles,}” Ceruviel said while brushing down her chiton.

The coach came to a halt a moment later, and Ceruviel nodded to him when the door opened to Leonidas’ right. He took the cue and stepped out of the carriage, and his eyes widened in surprise.

obstinate Duchess, he’d failed to realize that they truly had arrived at their destination. The Adventurers’ Guild was everything he’d thought it would be, and yet so much more.

The entire building was close to five storeys tall, with a faded marble exterior and green banners hung down its impressive outer face. It extended out far enough on each side with progressive levels of increasing width to look like a multi-tiered temple, and had a massive dome roof at its highest point.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The entrance was a pair of immense doors that seemed to be locked open, and there was more foot traffic in and out of the building than anywhere else Leonidas had seen. The guildhouse, as Ceruviel had called it, was built onto a specific plot of land reserved for the Adventurers’ Guild, and contained a massive stables, training amphitheater, and various crafting amenities all on its own.

It looked more like a university campus than a guildhouse, with a solid amount of greenery and land dedicated solely for its use.

A surprisingly feminine throat-clear caught his attention, and Leonidas turned to see Ceruviel watching him with a mix of impatience and amusement from where she sat within the carriage.

“{Help me down, Achilles. You are my Squire, Ward, and my Retainer, now. I am still a Duchess.}”

Leonidas snorted quietly at her words and moved to offer her his hand, while remembering the manners and etiquette Lyara had taught him what seemed like a lifetime ago, while training him to escort her to a ball in Melredor to raise support for the Grand Alliance from the nobles.

Ceruviel appeared pleasantly surprised by his proper stance—right hand folded at his spine, left extended palm up and curved upward to allow her best purchase—when she took his hand, and descended down the steps to the ground.

“{The mysteries grow, Achilles. You did not tell me you’d been groomed in courtly etiquette.}”

“{You never asked,}” he said simply, and turned back to the Adventurers’ Guildhouse.

“{I can feel your excitement,}” Ceruviel said from beside him with a snort. “{I’m surprised you aren’t physically vibrating.}”

“{I love the idea of Delving,}” Leonidas said with honesty and without obfuscation. “{A party, a goal, and really big chests. What’s not to love?}”

“{The risk of grotesque injury, agonizing pain, and occasional certain death, so I’ve heard.}” Ceruviel said with only a mild amount of sardonic reprimand. “{Do not fail to recall your purpose, Achilles. I need you strong, not irreparably maimed.}”

“{Yeah, I remember. Your grand plan for the success—Hnngh!}”

He half-doubled over when Ceruviel’s casual backhand knocked the wind from his lungs, and wheezed while looking over at her.

“{We are no longer protected by the carriage’s wards. Mind your tongue,}” she admonished him with no hint of playfulness. Cold intensity layered her words. “{Do not force me to mind it for you. It would not be pleasant.}”

Leonidas simply nodded at the warning, and worked at pulling air back into his lungs. The hit, even casual and light, had felt like being kicked in the stomach by a bucking horse. It was easy to forget, when spending so much time under the auspices of her indulgence, that Ceruviel was not simply a beautiful woman with an extremely fit dancer’s build: she was arguably the most powerful single combatant in Dawnhaven, if not the entirety of [Sector 117].

He let the pain serve as a reminder of that fact, and slowly straightened.

He could feel the bruise forming already, and grimaced at it silently.

“{Are you recovered?}” his mentor asked as if she hadn’t been the one to hit him.

“{Enough to act normal,}” he responded with only a slight wheeze.

“{Then let us be on our way,}” the Dusk-Lord commanded intently, and walked forward with her hands clasped at the base of her spine like a general during inspection. Even without the blade at her hip, Ceruviel’s mere presence screamed lethality, and when Leonidas followed her, he found that her simple approach was enough to create a rapid and sudden opening in the crowd of people entering and leaving the guildhouse.

The carriage had pulled up at the street entrance to the Guild’s plot, and when he followed his mentor along the purposefully laid and maintained white marble path—wide enough for six people across, at an estimate—he noticed quickly that nobody wanted to stand in her way.

An eclectic mix of people occupied the short footpath, and while the majority were Haelfenn, there were several humans present as well, and even the occasional Dwarf, Orc, Halfling, and other races too varied and different for Leonidas to easily recognize. Some with clear aquarian features, some that were bipedal or upright animals in all but name, and even one group that creeped him out and looked like Illithid in all but name. The first time he saw a bonafide ‘cat girl’, complete with tail and everything, standing next to a ‘fox girl’, he nearly let his discipline slip to openly thank the System.

The shameless weeb in him thought the Incursion was almost worth it for that view alone.

Tarnys’ words about the Adventurers’ Guild transmigrating as a collective whole came back to him while he followed Ceruviel toward the open doors, and Leonidas suddenly understood the immensity of what that represented. With so many disparate species, the Guild introduced a vibrancy of life to Dawnhaven that normal colonization would struggle to match in any short timeframe.

The Guild represented a chance for native populations to desensitize themselves to the myriad races of the System’s cosmic web in a timely and manageable manner, and allowed for that same desensitization to prepare them for the inevitable influx of many other such beings. As Ceruviel had explained during their ride over, the initial Transmigration on ‘Integration Day’ was just a first wave.

There would be smaller, but consistent appearances of everything from individuals to entire settlements with regularity across the initial seven years of the Incursion. With two years remaining, she had seemed confident that there would still be large-scale transmigrations, and even stated that the most impactful ones tended to occur during the seventh year itself.

When asked how she’d known all this, she’d simply snorted.

“{The System sells knowledge books you can add to your Codex, though they can cost an egregious sum. Educate yourself, Achilles, when you have the funds. It will save your life.}”

He glanced at the back of the striding Duchess, and sighed wryly.

It was hard to argue with good advice.

When they finally crossed the threshold of the guild moments later, Leonidas took in the interior with a low whistle.

The entrance hall was an expansive foyer resplendent with mounted heads from various immense creatures, from dragons and wyverns, giant wolves and what looked like some sort of kraken-adject creature, to goblins, gnolls, trolls, and even giants and yeti. There was a trophy of some kind everywhere to be seen upon the walls around the area, and the foyer itself was a hub of activity.

A central reception built into a circular marble section at the middle of the hall seemed to be fielding questions, handing out rewards of some nature, and discussing things calmly, passionately, or even irately with equally reactive Adventurers.

While the ‘officials’—all of whom Leonidas noticed were attractive women of all species—each wore the same green uniform from neck to knees, complete with stylish berets and black boots that extended up to cover their skin, the Adventurers were different.

There was both the fashionably matched, and the eclectically chaotic; with ‘clown suits’—as his gaming habits called them—wildly prevalent among the various adventurers who apparently didn’t have the funds to ensure aesthetic uniformity. The vast majority wore simple plate, mail, leather, or robes and cloth of various types—but even among those there was an eccentric number of gaudy-bright items or ludicrously colored additives that vaguely hurt him to look at.

Colorful self-expression, it seemed, was a rite of passage for many.

+{Avoid eye contact where unnecessary.}+ Ceruviel’s voice instructed him mentally, and drew a surprised glance toward her as a result. +{They will be curious enough in time. Focus on acquiring your license and finding your first Delve, and the rest will fall into place.}+

“{I thought there were no suitable dungeons nearby?}” Leonidas asked as quietly as he could.

+{There are none suitable for the Rite of Ascension. That does not mean there are none period. Dawnhaven is located near a nexus of ley-lines. There are more than enough Dungeon Cores in the area, and many of them are controlled by the Guild or the Royal Family. It’s part of the economy post-Incursion, and the amount of Dungeons a settlement can control directly correlates to their future growth.}+

“{Well, that makes sense.}” Leonidas said, and then smiled when they arrived at a free counter—though, ‘free’ was mainly due to the fact that those waiting had all but fled when Ceruviel had approached it.

The woman behind the counter, whom Leonidas identified with surprise as a human, smiled at Ceruviel warmly when she approached.

“{Welcome back to the Guildhouse, Duchess Latherian.}”

“{Thank you, Celia.}” the Dusk-Lord said in an equally surprising tone of familiarity. “{Is the Guildmistress around? I want to register a new Adventurer.}”

“{She is,}” the woman, Celia, said with a look of genuine surprise. “{Though I am surprised to hear you want to register someone, your grace. What’s the occasion?}”

“{This is Achilles,}” Ceruviel said with a gesture back to Leonidas, who inclined his head politely to Celia. “{As of this morning, he officially became my Squire and Ward.}”

Celia’s eyes widened at her words, and Leonidas heard several people nearby fall silent. Motion seemed to stop within the hall, and all eyes turned to regard Leonidas with what he could only call a mix of surprise, curiosity, mild envy and—perhaps least surprisingly of all—overt pity.

Ceruviel, it seemed, was very well known.

“{I see.}” Celia said with a critical glance at him herself. “{And you wish to conduct the testing and induction privately?}”

“{If that is not a problem,}” Ceruviel said with a nod.

“{Of course not, your grace.}” Celia said with a smile. “{Your Adamantine Rank comes with that privilege.}”

Leonidas’ eyes widened, and he turned to Ceruviel in surprise.

“{You never told me you were an Adventurer!}” Leonidas said with a feeling of bewilderment.

Ceruviel turned back to him, and with an expression he could only describe as smug satisfaction, she used his own words against him.

“{You never asked.}”