Life Review Ch. 05

"Let's start with going over what happened," Cassidy suggested, pulling a large stack of listings towards herself.

Denza sighed and recounted what she knew, "My sisters Aoiza and Rozelle were both invested in my father's business in Oculsa. He had a shipment that was to be sent out to a prospective buyer on the southern part of the continent in the Manticore's tail, in the Islands Dutchie."

"Is that part of Velain?" Shawn asked.

Nessa shook her head, "No, the Islands Dutchie is a vassal to the Queendom of the Suncoast, their territory spans the eastern coast of the continent on the far side of the mountains. The Manticore's tail is referring to the island chain that is the extreme end of the continent."

"How do they defend their territory if it's so long?" Cassidy asked, brows furrowed.

"They have mountains on one side and ocean to the other. They are predominantly a seafaring nation. The geographical barriers make for a good natural defence from land based armies, and they are the country with naval supremacy if it ever came down to it," Nessa shrugged.

"Please, continue," Cassidy smiled at Denza.

Denza nodded, "As I was saying, the shipment was going to be sent out of Cresantia, the city-state to the south of both Velain and the Imperium. The caravan was heavily guarded and had mostly human guards, so it was a safe bet to travel through this country to get to Cresantia. Something happened along the way and we got word from the buyer that no shipment ever arrived.

"My father hired some expeditionaries to travel along the route and find the caravan. They reported back that not two days into Imperium territory the found the ambush site and the corpses of the hired guards. My sisters and the shipment were nowhere to be found."

"We were looking for anything relevant, such as a raid on an Oculsan caravan, or a seek and destroy mission, anything that might be related," Nessa added, looking at the massive pile of listings beside her.

"Well, let's start with the obvious," Cassidy pursed her lips. "Is it illegal to hit a merchant caravan?"

"Yes, if it's an affiliate of the Merchant's Guild," Nessa clarified.

"Which my father is," Denza added.

"So we wouldn't find any requests for it," Cassidy concluded. "I'm assuming the Expeditionary Guild vets all contracts to make sure they are legit, right?"

"Correct," Nessa nodded.

"So it's safe to assume this was a criminal enterprise," Cassidy continued, she gestured at the stack of listings, "There would be no written record of this."

"That isn't entirely true," Shawn interjeted. The gears in his head turning.

"What do you mean?" Cassidy asked, eyebrows raised.

"The contracts are vetted as legitimate, but that doesn't stop someone from lying," Shawn drummed his fingers on the table as he thought out loud. "We might be looking for an obfuscation. Taking elves through combat is legal here, so is assault and theft as long as it's done in the name of being a stronger individual. So we might be looking for a targeted mission for Aoiza and Rozelle, and not the shipment."

"But that would mean someone knew they were going to with the caravan!" Denza looked shaken. "That would mean someone betrayed my family. There are caravans from Oculsa that pass through the Imperium all the time, even though most people of each country don't like each other, they still have open trade and travel policies. We took precautions!"

"I think we should be looking for any job listings that deal with retrieval," Shawn glanced over at the counter where Garen was sneaking glances at them. He had a sneaking suspicion that he might know something they didn't, considering he handled all the contracts for the chapter.

"Cassidy, I think we need to go ask Garen very politely if he knows anything," Shawn got up and casually made his way to the request counter. Cassidy smiled wickedly and followed him. Nessa and Denza looked after them with worried expressions.

"Hello, Garen," Shawn smiled pleasantly at the man.

"What do you want?" Garen grimaced at him.

"I was hoping you could help me with something. I'm looking for an old listing that has to do with the capture of two elven women. It might be a retrieval, maybe listed under stolen goods?"

"And why would I help you?" Garen spat, but the effect was ruined when he glanced nervously between him and Cassidy.

"Because it's your job," Cassidy said sweetly.

"I don't have to help you do anything," Garen started to turn away from them.

"Garen, if you don't find what we need, and soon, you might have an accident in the near future," Cassidy continued in her sweetest voice. "And I would hate to see anything happen to your greasy little head."

"Cassidy, we came here to ask for his help, not to threaten him!" Shawn said exasperatedly.

"Threaten? Me? Never! I'm simply saying that bad things happen to bad people. Cadder already learned that lesson. It's a dangerous world out there!" Cassidy said with faux-concern.

"I will report you to the chapter head!" Garen tried to sound brave, but his face had drained of color. He had seen what Shawn, Cassidy, and Denza could do.

"If you feel like that's a wise move," Cassidy shrugged.

"Garen, look, buddy, you know it's a crime to attack a sanctioned Merchant's Guild caravan right? If we were to find out you had prior knowledge of this attack on guild personnel, how do you think they would react?" Shawn looked sadly at the greasy man. "I don't think they would take that lightly, do you?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about!" Garen insisted.

"I'm sure. But we will find out who took those elves. When we do, it's not going to be only the guild out for blood, but also the merchants in Oculsa. Just fair warning," Shawn shrugged. He and Cassidy turned and walked from the counter.

They got three steps before Garen called after them in a trembling voice, "W-wait! I might have seen something about runaway slaves a few years ago."

Shawn and Cassidy shared a smiled before turning around, "Oh? That is wonderful. Bring us the listing and we'll take a look!" Cassidy smiled brightly at the clerk.

They took their seats at the table with Denza and Nessa when a sweaty Garen hustled over and placed an old listing in front of him, "I didn't think it was anything until you said something, I only handle the listings."

"Of course," Shawn agreed. "The important thing is you recognized your error. That will be all, Garen."

Garen nodded and looked worriedly at their table before vanishing into a back room. Denza, who had watched the whole thing glowered after him, "If I find out that swine helped in the abducting of my sisters, I will hang him by his own entrails!"

Shawn patted her back and shook his head, "He most likely didn't have anything to do with it except turning a blind eye to a shady deal."

Nessa picked up the listing and read it carefully, "Whoever took the contract was anonymous, and they used a local noble's household as a drop off location."

"So we go talk to the noble and see what we can't dig up?" Cassidy asked.

"Sadly, no," Nessa shook her head, "This noble has been dead for over twenty years. It's an abandoned plot of land with a run down manor house in possession of the empire. That should have been flagged to begin with. It's also listed as payment upon delivery."

"Does it say who took on the contract?" Shawn asked.

"There are fifteen names, I only know a handful of them. Three have been dead for a number of years, and the other two have been out on business for the past few weeks. I usually travel a lot and the fort isn't my home, so I don't know every one of the guild members. We could ask Edwin?" Nessa looked around until she spotted the towering dark skinned warrior and waved him over.

"Edwin, maybe you can give us a guiding light. Do you know any of these individuals listed?" Nessa handed over the worn listing.

Edwin gave her a speculative look then glanced at the faded ink on the page, "Huh, that odd."

"What is?" Shawn asked curiously.

Edwin placed the listing on the table and pointed at the remaining ten names, "I was recently asked to look into the disappearance of several of these expeditionaries. From the information I've been given, none of them have reported in for a number of months. Their trails go cold when they each took a job that took them out of the empire."

"Fairche and Thompson both took jobs like that," Nessa frowned.

"So everyone on the list is either dead or missing," Cassidy mused. "Sounds like someone is cleaning house."

Edwin shared a serious look with Nessa before addressing Shawn and the girls, "I'm going to ride out and see if I can't find Fairche and Thompson, if their jobs weren't urgent, they should be easy to catch up to. Whatever it is you are looking in to, it seems someone is going through a lot of trouble to keep it under wraps."

"Edwin is right. We need to proceed with caution if this turns out to be more than just a really big coincidence. Some of these people were masters in rank and not so easily killed. If you make too many waves, you might be targeted," Nessa cautioned them.

Denza gritted her teeth in impotent fury, "I'm going to find out who is responsible, then I'm going to kill them very slowly."

"I'm not too worried. As long as we don't run into someone like Saoirse, I think we can handle ourselves," Cassidy shrugged.

"Didn't we agree that we should be more cautious?" Shawn asked her pointedly.

Cassidy rolled her eyes, "Shawn, the trail is already ice cold. We don't even know if they are still alive. It's taken five years to kill off thirteen people, so that tells me that whoever orchestrated this bided their time and waited to an opportune moment."

"The most dangerous animal is the one backed into a corner, Cass," Shawn reminded her.

"They have to still be alive," Denza said in a strained voice.

"So where do we go from here? Isn't there some sort of spell that we could use to track them down? Isn't scrying a thing?" Shawn asked, reaching for any kind of solution.

"There is one way, but it is absurdly expensive," Nessa answered sadly.

"How expensive? What do we need?" Denza asked in a rush, shifting forward in her seat.

"It's powerful divination magic that witches and priests can learn, but the materials have become extremely controlled under the triumvirate. Luckily, I can perform the spell but we need a special crystal bowl, blessed oil, and a potent essence crystal from a powerful monster," Nessa listed off the materials. "The oil isn't hard to get, I can request that from a friend at the temple. The other two things are harder to come by. The crystal bowl needs to be made in a specific way by an artisan and the sale of such items are restricted and has to be requisitioned. That is where the cost comes in."

"How much money do we need?" Shawn asked, stroking Denza's back to keep her agitation at bay.

"Fifty thousand gold," Nessa cringed at the figure.

Shawn looked at Cassidy who shrugged, they hadn't developed a concept for the currency values of the world quite yet. Shawn came to the conclusion that fifty thousand gold was a ludicrous amount given Denza's reaction.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Denza moaned in despair. "That much money for a stupid bowl?!"

"I'm afraid so," Nessa replied sadly.

"How hard would it be to make that much money?" Cassidy asked, puzzled. "We could have paid for that pretty easily with everything Tricha gave us, but we don't have access to it now."

"If we did the highest level contracts we could get our hands on between the three of us, we might be able to make that amount if we saved our every coin for half a year," Denza grabbed her ears and tugged on them. "I don't think I can wait that much longer with all of the uncertainty haunting my thoughts."

Cassidy tilted her head, glancing at Nessa before getting up and walking over to the job counter to talk to Garen. They watched her exchange words with clerk and him refuse her something. Cassidy leaned in to the clerk's space and he suddenly went pale before handing over a small stack of papers. She returned to the table with an exuberant smile on her face.

"Denza is right, the contracts at our level don't pay much of anything. But contracts at Nessa's level..." Cassidy dropped the stack of papers dramatically on the table.

"But we can't take these out, it's guild policy," Shawn picked up a contract that offered ten thousand gold for the head of monster that had already razed three villages.

"We can't. But Nessa can," Cassidy grinned triumphantly, looking at the master witch.

Nessa looked startled, "No. No, no no. I can't let you three go out on master requests on your own! You'll get yourselves killed!"

Cassidy waved her off, "So come with us. If we find the right contract, it should be easy. We'll do all the hard work and you'll get your cut."

"That's not the point!" Nessa objected indignantly.

"Nessa, please," Shawn entreated her, understanding Cassidy's plan. "Denza's sisters might be running out of time, and we don't have time to dally. You know we can take care of ourselves. If you don't want to come, then don't. We are going to go regardless."

"You don't have to do this," Denza said sadly. "Nessa has a point. They are master level contracts for a reason."

"Don't you start now too," Cassidy groaned. "Do you want to save your sisters or not?"

"Of course I do!" Denza said fiercely.

"Then screw the danger. Unless you want to spend months killing baby monsters and gathering herbs for meager pay, let's just go knock it out in one go. We can be smart about this so we don't go over our head," Cassidy smacked the table with her hand for emphasis.

Nessa turned to Shawn and pleaded, "Shawn, come now! Talk some sense into her!"

Shawn shook his head ruefully, "I actually agree with her. We don't have time to waste sitting around playing it safe. Five years is a long time to be missing and any moment longer is a higher chance of us not finding Denza's sisters alive. I don't care if I have to fight a giant monster, I'll do it because I promised Denza."

"Damn it, Shawn," Nessa fumed, but she relented. "Fine. I'll take you on a job, but it will be one of my choosing!"

"That's all we wanted," Cassidy smirked. "Just make sure the pay is good."

Nessa and Cassidy sat close to each other and dove into the piles of master level contracts that Cassidy had brought over. Shawn sat and watched the two women while he gently stroked Denza's back as she stared dazedly into the fire in the hearth. He watched Nessa and Cassidy shift through each listing, Nessa shaking her head at ones Cassidy suggested because they were too risky. Cassidy in turn vetoed Nessa's suggestions because the pay was too low. Finally they came to a compromise and selected a job to take.

"There is a request from the Merchant's Guild to investigate a missing caravan between Velain and the empire. The request came in two weeks ago and was promptly taken, but the five expeditionaries that took it have not reported in or come back," Nessa chewed her lip. "The missing guild members worry me, but it's possible they just got injured in the field. It was a direct trade route between Velain and the empire, so their path should have been relatively safe."

Cassidy tapped the listing and grinned, "There is also an amendment that was added by the Expeditionary Guild. It's now a double search and rescue. The first was for ten thousand gold and a recovery fee of any missing goods in case of a raid. The Expeditionary Guild has put an thousand a head for the retrieval of the five guild members. Apparently they want their master ranked members home safe and sound."

"Fifteen thousand gold and some change isn't bad," Shawn said thoughtfully. "If the job doesn't take us long, we could get what we need in a few weeks. That's a far cry from six months."

"Then let's hurry up and get going already!" Denza growled impatiently.

Nessa sighed in resignation,"We are going to leave in the morning at first light. I want you three to go and get some real supplies. Cassidy, Tricha's focuses should be more than enough for your needs, but I would recommend not flaunting them around. She made powerful enemies that you probably don't want to attract the attention of. If you can, get a spare focus to use in public places like the fort, or any cities.

Shawn, get armor that fits you and get rid of the rest of the stuff you're carrying around. Either give Cadder and his gang back their stuff, or sell it. Buy a decent spear too, which you seemed good with during your testing. Before you go out, make your deposit with the Merchant's Guild so you aren't carrying around that chest of gold in your room. You'll also need to resupply yourselves and get horses."

"That was the next thing on the list," Shawn agreed.

"I'm going to make my own preparations for this trip, so I'll see you all in the morning," Nessa stood and gave them one last disapproving look before heading out of the room.

"Well, she isn't too happy with this," Shawn said pointedly to Cassidy.

She shrugged, "She'll get over it. You both know this is the quickest solution to our problems. Nessa is just worried about us. Everything will work out fine, she'll see."

The trio got up and left the guild to attend to their provisions. Their first stop was the Merchant's Guild across the plaza after the girls helped Shawn resume his burden of transporting their hard won coin. To Shawn's amusement, the guild actually looked like a large marble bank complete with corinthian pillars. Both guild buildings seemed to be the best kept in the surrounding areas while the brick and mortar of Fort Rolver's buildings were cracked and faded. The marble blocks and stairs were meticulously polished until they shone in the sunlight.

Once inside the regal structure, Shawn and Cassidy got their first look at what the Merchant's Guild was all about. A large rectangular room was sectioned off into three parts. The area closest to the door was roped off in a snaking path by golden chains attached to silver posts embedded in the floor leading up to a wide circular counter. Three employees smiled at them pleasantly as Shawn and Cassidy gawked at the splendor on display.

On the far end of the room was a counter that stretched wall to wall which was partitioned off by a shimmering haze that seemed to act like safety glass for the workers settled behind the protective barrier. Denza led them around the central counter to one of the smaller desks, behind which sat a mousy man with a slightly crooked nose.

"Good afternoon, how might the guild serve you today?" The attendant inquired pleasantly.

"They need to open up a holding and make a deposit," Denza replied.

"We can certainly get that set up. Do you have any identification on you? You three have the look of Expeditionaries, so your membership papers will do," he gestured for them to sit in the two chairs in front of the desk while he got up and retrieved a third. Shawn and Cassidy handed over their papers and the man inspected each line carefully. "Everything seems to be in order. Have you had experience with the guild before, or is this your first time?"

"Our first time, actually," Shawn grunted, settling the chest onto the floor with a loud thunk of wood on stone. The girls had one large leather bag that was filled with the gold they had earned, and a stack of six tightly rolled juvenile salamander skins.

The attendant glanced at the chest with a curious expression, "Is that what you are looking to deposit?"

"Yup, we found it in our travels," Cassidy said smugly.

"I'm sure you did. We have a policy to check if there are any reports or bounties when we have large walk in deposits," The man whistled a sharp note and Shawn felt a small breeze pick up around them. Glancing around, he saw a scroll lift gently up from its place on a far counter and drift over to land just as quietly on the desk before them. The attendant picked it up and unfurled it with a flourish.