The Paragon scout looked like every half-true tavern tale of an adventurer had been wrapped in dust and worry.
He wore the League's blue half-cloak—frayed at the edges, clasp dull from wear. His leather armor was patched in three different stitching styles. A rune-marked vambrace glimmered dully on his left forearm. A scar ran from brow to cheek, just missing his eye.
He leaned on the Trade House counter like he'd been on his feet for days.
"Orren," he said, voice hoarse but steady. "Tell me your ledgers are still better company than merchants."
"Depends on the merchant," Orren said. "Rhett Valen, still breathing."
"Barely," Rhett said. He rapped knuckles on the counter. "Paragon Adventurer League, Sula section. Rank: Silver. Bad attitude. You still owe me for that time I dragged your nephew out of that Caelbrun brawl."
"And you still owe me for the time you nearly got my warehouse cursed," Orren replied. "We'll call it even when we're both dead."
Their eyes met. Despite the barbs, Al could feel the current of respect between them.
"What do you need?" Orren asked, dropping the banter.
Rhett's jaw tightened. "Manifests. Caravans, private hires, merc runs. Anything from the last year that took routes toward Sula's deeper lines and didn't come back when they should have."
"Bandits?" Bran asked, frowning.
"Bandits don't usually leave every other wagon untouched," Rhett said. "And they don't always take the wagons with the lowest-grade gear and the fewest witnesses." He rubbed his forehead. "I've got mismatched reports. Merc units half-returning. Paragon teams not returning at all. Patterns that don't fit."
Patterns.
Orren shot Al a look. "Al. Bring the Sula route books from last three seasons. Grey ink. And the hire records. And the Paragon contract copies."
Al nodded and moved.
The Sula route books were heavy, bound in thick leather, their spines marked with neat stamped dates. He stacked them on a side table, rolled up his sleeves, and opened the first.
"Tell him what you're looking for," Orren said, already elbow-deep in another pile.
Rhett came over, cloak dripping faintly on the floor. He smelled of travel and mild irritation.
"Runs toward southern Sula," he said. "Not the Greyreach front. I mean the deeper reaches. Toward ruins, rift-proximate zones, old Crown-Scars. Anything with unusual cargo. Not ore or grain. Things like 'mixed relics,' 'special commissions,' 'Arcane goods, sealed.' And cross-check those with who hired Paragon teams as escorts."
Al's heart kicked up a beat.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," Rhett said, "I've had three separate Bronze and Silver teams vanish in the last six months. All on jobs that smelled like somebody's idea of digging through old bones without telling the Wardens."
"Sunken Crown's going to love that," Seryn muttered from the doorway.
Rhett snorted. "They'll love it less if something big wakes up under their feet."
Al's fingers went cold. Old bones. Crown-Scars. His thoughts flashed, unbidden, to Greyfall's ridge. The memorial stones. The taste of ash that never quite washed away.
Rhett caught the look. "You from Sula?" he asked.
"Greyfall," Al said. "Near the Greyreach–Hanyue border."
Rhett's brows rose. "Ash village. Right. You've got your share of ghosts."
Al bent his head over the ledger. "Plenty of the living, too."
He started scanning entries.
Each line was a small story: Four wagons iron tools to Greyreach camp. Two wagons grain to Hanyue support post. One wagon bottled tinctures to Sula field hospital. Here and there: Special Commission—Relic transport. Client: private. Or Seal-wardens' supply. Or No client listed. Paid in Central credit.
He flagged those with a small red tick.
After an hour, his eyes burned, and the ink began to swim. He blinked hard and forced himself to slow down. Numbers. Names. Places. Threads.
"Here," he said eventually. "Three runs from last autumn. All marked 'special' or 'sealed,' all headed toward interior Sula. They took roughly the same road from Brindleford to a place called Red Hollow, then diverged—at least on paper."
Rhett came to his side, leaning close. "Show me."
Al pointed.
"This one," he said, "contracted by a 'House Meren of Aurelion'—never heard of them, must be a minor house. Cargo: 'sealed arcane containers.' Escorts: two Paragon Bronze squads. Outcome: no return recorded."
"That was one of mine," Rhett said quietly. "They were supposed to report back at the Kharas Gate outpost. They didn't."
Al traced the next line. "This one is listed under a Central merchant cover—'Bright Crest Supplies.' Cargo: 'Temple fittings, specialty metals.' Escorts: none formally recorded, but…" He frowned. "But the fee is too high for just guards. There's an extra hazard premium here, and a notation: 'client provides additional protection.'"
"Which means," Rhett said, "they hired their own blades so we can't track names as easily." His mouth flattened.
"And this," Al said, finger moving to the third flagged line, "doesn't list any client at all. Just 'private arrangement, see sealed copy.' The copy isn't here. Its note says 'locked in Archive Box Seven.'"
Orren appeared at his shoulder like a summoned demon. "Of course it is," he said. "Rhett, you really know how to liven afternoons."
"Part of the service," Rhett said. "Can we see Box Seven?"
Orren studied him. "You League types sign half your contracts with blood and the other half with clauses that make devils jealous. What do you give me if I open a box that might piss off the people who paid to seal it?"
Rhett's gaze didn't waver. "I give you the chance not to have your trade routes eaten by something you can't bribe. And a priority claim on any salvageable legal goods if things go sideways and we shut someone down."
Orren grunted. "You always were bad at haggling." He looked at Al. "Come on. You too."
Bran made a strangled sound. "Factor—"
"If someone's been using my house to move illicit relics into Sula's teeth," Orren said, "I want more than one pair of eyes watching what we're about to touch."
He led them to the back, past the ledger room, past Seryn's corner and a locked door Al had never seen opened. He produced a key ring, found a heavy, tarnished one, and turned it in the lock.
The Archive room was cool and dry, lined with small reinforced chests, each etched with numbers and sigils. It smelled faintly of old wax and something sharp—Essence preservative.
Orren went to a mid-level shelf and pulled out a box marked 7. It was iron-banded, with a simple Anchor sigil etched on the lid and a tiny Logos mark near the lock—a sun with a broken ring.
"Church-sealed," Edran had taught him, meant This was made under witness.
"Fun," Rhett muttered. "They really wanted this quiet and legal-looking."
Orren set the box on a table. "Seryn."
The mage stepped forward, fingers hovering over the sigils. "Standard lock-ward, no obvious traps," he said. "Mild Logos witness imprint. If you open it without the correct phrase, a temple clerk somewhere gets a twinge and a note in their ledger."
"Can you open it without making the clerk twitch?" Orren asked.
Seryn looked offended. "Of course." He paused. "Eventually."
"Try 'on behalf of Paragon investigation in cooperation with local authority,'" Rhett suggested. "There's a standing compact in Central."
Seryn sighed. "Fine."
He murmured the phrase, fingers tracing a short pattern. The Logos sigil glowed faintly, then cooled. The Anchor glyph eased. The lock clicked.
"Now if a clerk asks," Seryn said, "we tell the truth: a registered League agent requested access, Factor agreed, I opened it under joint authority."
"This assumes anyone cares," Orren said. "Open it, Al."
Al's fingers trembled faintly as he lifted the lid.
Inside, neatly rolled, were contracts. Three of them, each with a different seal. And beneath them, wrapped in oilcloth, a thin metal case that hummed softly under his fingertips.
He swallowed. "Contracts first?"
"Yes," Orren said. "We're honest smugglers."
Rhett snorted.
They unrolled the first contract.
It was written in careful, almost bland Aurelion script—so bland it felt like it was trying to disappear. It outlined a "research expedition" to "unoccupied ruins in southern Sula," with "strict conditions to avoid interference with existing seal zones." Sponsor: House Meren, under "consulting" from "Selectors of the Nine Towers"—a euphemism Al had heard once from Selene about mage factions that preferred staying in shadows.
The second contract was similar, but with Eastern characters written alongside the Aurelion: a Xianwu sect's name—one Al didn't recognize—scribbled in as a "consulting party."
The third had no names at all, only sigils: a sun cracked in three, an inverted tower, a beast-headed crown. The sort of marks that meant the people behind them had no intention of being called to account in any normal court.
"Three different sponsors," Al said slowly. "All to similar directions. All phrased to sound officially careful. All routed through Brindleford. All using your house."
"And all missing," Rhett finished. "No return, no report, no follow-up."
"Somebody is digging in Sula," Seryn said. "Deep. And they're paying a lot to pretend they're not."
"That metal case," Rhett said, nodding to the oilcloth.
Orren hesitated. "If this is what I think it is, it could be…" He sighed. "Well. In for a copper, in for a crown."
Al unwrapped it.
The case was hand-span long, palm-width, made of dull silver-grey metal etched with Essence lines so fine they looked like veins. It buzzed against his skin, faintly, like a hive deep underground.
"Don't open that," Seryn said sharply.
Al froze. "I wasn't going to."
"It's a routing key," Seryn said, eyes narrowed. "Portable Formation anchor. You plant one half at a location, keep the other with you, and you can track Essence signatures, maybe even open a controlled gate between them if you're suicidal."
Rhett swore under his breath. "Meaning whoever hired those runs could know exactly what's happening at the dig site. Or pull something—and someone—through."
"Or let something walk out," Seryn said.
The room felt suddenly smaller.
Orren scrubbed a hand over his beard. "So. Someone in Aurelion, someone in Xianwu, and someone else hiding behind sigils are all poking at the same wound in Sula. Using my house as a vein."
Rhett's jaw clenched. "And my League teams as blood."
Al stared at the metal case. A faint pattern shimmered along its edge, like distant waves.
He swallowed. "If it's a pair," he said quietly, "the other half is likely…there. At the site."
Seryn glanced at him. "Yes."
"And if these contracts went missing," Al went on, "and no one filed proper reports…then either everyone died fast, or someone decided they liked what they found enough not to share."
"Or something decided it liked them," Rhett said grimly.
Silence pooled.
Then Rhett looked at Orren. "I'm going back to Sula," he said. "Kharas Gate. Then Greyreach. Then as far as I can push without getting my League badge melted. I'll need copies of these. And the routes. And—" he grimaced "—someone who can read these trade patterns without getting lost."
Al felt Orren's gaze on him before Rhett even turned.
"No," Orren said, almost reflexive. "He's barely here. I am not sending my new ledger rat to die in some Sula hole because you think it'll help you find your missing friends."
"I didn't say die," Rhett said. "I said help. Someone's playing a game with routes and resources here. He spotted Marlo's cheat in a heartbeat. He saw your ward slip earlier today. He's from Sula. He knows ash."
Al's heart hammered. "I—"
Orren cut him off with a look. "You're not a Bronze-ranked anything. You're a boy with a quill and more brains than is safe. And your father would skin me alive."
Al swallowed. "He let Arlen go."
"To a sect that at least pretends to care about keeping disciples alive," Orren snapped. "Not to chase shadow contracts into demon-haunted ruins on the word of a Silver-ranked idiot I owe a beer to."
Rhett's lips twitched. "Two beers. And I'm not asking you. I'm asking him." He looked at Al. "You don't owe me anything. League doesn't own you. But if you want to see what all these neat lines look like when they end in dirt and blood…this is a chance."
Al's fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
Edran's words came back, unbidden: When the price comes, you can choose how to pay it.
He thought of Greyfall's ash. Of Qingshan's refusal and Arlen's departure. Of the feeling when the wolfkin's spear slipped and when Warehouse Two's ward had stuttered. Of the metal case humming in his hands.
He also thought of Lian's face when Arlen had left. Of Corin's calloused hands on his shoulders on the ridge. Of Ressa and Jana and Toren and the council arguing over his first apprenticeship.
He forced himself to breathe.
"I'm not a fighter," he said slowly. "I'm barely a decent clerk. And my Pneuma's still Novice. My Essence is Spark, maybe scratching at Caster. I'd slow you down."
"You'd read the signs," Rhett said. "And tell us where not to step."
"This is not a scouting trip," Orren said. "This is an expedition into whatever made Paragon professionals vanish. You want to throw a boy at that?"
"He's not just a boy," Seryn said quietly. All eyes swung to him. He shrugged. "I've seen tower whelps with more power and less sense. He doesn't flinch at Blight-smear, he spots ward hitches, and he doesn't faint when merchants lie to his face. That's three more qualifications than half the people who sign up Bronze."
"That's not helping," Orren snapped. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Al. Look at me."
Al did.
"This is not a story," Orren said. "This is not your chance to prove you're as big as your brother. This is where people who know what they're doing go missing, and then someone like Rhett comes to me with blood on his boots and sad eyes."
Rhett bristled, but stayed silent.
"If you go," Orren said, "you might die. You might see things that don't leave. And if you live, you might not come back to this Trade House. Or to Greyfall. Or to a world that makes as much sense as your ledgers. Do you understand that?"
Al's mouth was dry. "Yes."
"Good," Orren said. "Now here's the part you don't want to hear: you're not ready."
Al flinched as if struck. "I—"
"You're not," Orren repeated. "You've been here weeks, not years. You just started to learn how these roads move. You haven't even finished your first year of apprentices' rotations. You want to help Sula? Help us see the pattern here. Make the maps. Flag the contracts. Give Rhett something smarter than 'go that way and hope.'"
Rhett opened his mouth. Closed it again. "He's not wrong," he said grudgingly. "I could use clean maps and manifests as much as an extra pair of boots."
Al's breath shuddered out of him. Half of him screamed to say yes anyway, to grab at the chance before the world shrank back to ledgers and safe choices.
The other half thought of Warehouse Two's wrongness. Of how a single misstep in a ritual could explode, not just hurt. Of Edran's warning about prices.
He swallowed hard.
"What if I don't go now," he said quietly, "but I don't stay forever either?"
Orren raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"What if," Al said, thinking as he spoke, "I help now by doing what I'm actually good at. I find every contract like these. I draw the routes, the timings, the resource flows. I look for who's paying who, from what banks, under what covers."
He looked at Rhett. "I send you with not just copies, but analysis. Probable hide sites, suspicious Nexus points along the way, places where League teams vanished that no one connected, because they didn't see the ink lines."
Rhett's eyes sharpened. "And later?"
"Later," Al said, "if there's still a world to walk in and I've made it past Novice without tripping into my own shadow…then I talk to you again. Or to someone like you. And I pick a job where my feet belong on the road too."
Silence stretched.
Then Rhett huffed out a breath that might have been disbelief or respect. "Weird kid," he said. "Fine. I'll take your paper blades for now. Out there, I'll wish I had the hand that drew them. But better than nothing."
Orren's shoulders eased a fraction. "That," he said, "is a compromise I can live with."
Seryn snorted. "You mean you can keep using the boy and pretend you're not sending him off to die. Later."
"Later is not now," Orren said. "We're in the business of keeping 'now' from collapsing."
He clapped Al's shoulder, rough but not unkind. "Get to work. Pull everything you can on those Sula runs. Talk to Bran about old anomalies. Ask Selene for her copies from Greyfall when she's next here. Draw your web."
Al nodded, pulse still racing but leveling out. "Yes, Factor."
Rhett held out a calloused hand. "Al Greyfall."
Al took it. "Rhett Valen."
"You keep my people from walking into a hole blind," Rhett said quietly, "and I'll owe you. That's not a promise I make light."
Al met his eyes. "Just don't ignore what the ledgers tell you because it's not as dramatic as a demon roaring."
Rhett's mouth quirked. "Spoken like someone who's never heard a ledger scream." He released his grip. "I head back in three days. I'll come by for your work before I go. Don't get lost in the ink."
When Rhett left, taking the half-sealed box and a head full of new worry, the room felt bigger again and smaller at once.
Orren exhaled. "You want out of ledgers," he said to Al, "you chose a strange way to start."
Al managed a shaky smile. "I don't want out," he said. "I just…want to make sure they're actually worth something."
Orren grunted. "Fair. Get to it, then. You're officially promoted from Rat to Spider."
"Spider?" Al echoed.
"You sit in the middle and feel the threads," Seryn said. "Try not to get stepped on."
As Al settled at a table with the Sula route books, contracts, and a clean sheet of parchment for his own map, he let himself feel, just briefly, the weight of the choice he'd made.
He could have said yes. Could have grabbed a pack and followed Rhett into Sula, chasing ghosts with unsteady feet.
Instead, he'd chosen to sit. To watch. To draw.
It felt like cowardice and courage both.
He dipped his quill in ink and drew the first line: Greyfall to Brindleford. Then another: Brindleford to Kharas Gate. Then branching threads to Red Hollow, to unnamed dots deeper in Sula.
The map grew, a spiderweb of roads and risks.
Somewhere out there, Arlen sweated under a different sky, learning to carve arcs of steel through air. Somewhere else, things older than both of them pressed against seals and schemes.
Here, in a trade house by a river, Al Greyfall took the first deliberate step toward the only kind of power he had any right to chase:
The power to see.
To connect.
To choose where to pull.
He bent over the page, and the scratch of his quill sounded, in his ears, almost like steel on stone.