Rufas straightened in his chair, the movent crisp like a man adjusting armor before stepping into a blade’s reach.
“Na them.”
Ludger didn’t hesitate. No theatrics. No bargaining smiles. Just a tired, hard certainty, like he’d already watched too many “jobs” turn into traps for people who trusted paper seals.
He raised one finger.
“First,” Ludger said, voice even, “the Lionsguard will not be watched.”
The words landed heavier than they should’ve, because they weren’t really about watching.
They were about control.
“No observers,” Ludger continued. “No ‘liaisons.’ No capital escorts pretending they’re here for support while they count our steps and write letters about what we say. And we do not take orders from anyone involved in the capital.” His eyes sharpened, fixed on Rufas like a nail. “Not from a commander. Not from a noble. Not from an Order. We act as we see fit. If we decide to wait, we wait. If we decide to strike, we strike. If we decide the contract is rotten, we walk.”
Yvar’s quill slowed, then resud, careful strokes now, like he was making sure every word was recorded correctly because soone might try to “misrember” later.
Varik’s expression didn’t change, but his shoulders lowered a fraction, a subtle sign that he’d expected a line like this. Rufas, on the other hand, had the faint look of a man hearing a door lock from the inside.
Ludger raised a second finger.
“Second,” he said, “everything we gain from this expedition belongs to the Lionsguard.”
Not split. Not negotiated. Not claid by the capital after the fact with a seal and a smile.
“Core,” Ludger said. “Hide. Bone. Organs. Any byproducts. Any salvage. Any artifacts. Any… whatever it is the ocean thinks it can keep. If we kill it, it’s ours. If we haul sothing up, it’s ours. If the Empire wants a trophy, they can commission a statue and carve their own na into it.”
Rufas’s jaw flexed once. “You’re asking for—”
“I’m stating terms,” Ludger cut in. Calm. Flat. Like correcting a clerk who’d misread a number.
He raised a third finger.
“And third,” Ludger said, and sothing in the air tightened, like the room realized this wasn’t a negotiation anymore. It was a warning.
“If anything happens to Lionfang while I’m gone…”
He paused, letting the words hang long enough to sink teeth into everyone present.
“…and there are signs this ‘job’ was used to pull away from ho, if soone wanted the out of the city so the walls would be softer, the refugees louder, the northerners blad,”
His eyes went cold.
“... then I will go after everyone involved.”
Rufas’s posture stiffened. Varik’s gaze sharpened, suddenly very awake.
Ludger didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t need to. The threat wasn’t in volu. It was in certainty.
“I won’t argue in courts,” Ludger continued. “I won’t trade letters. I won’t play politics. I will hunt the people who set it up. And I will do it until I run out of nas.”
Then, softly, almost politely, he added the last line, the one that made the tension spike like a blade tapping bone.
“If that happens,” Ludger said, “I hope you two know which side to pick.”
The room went still. Not the comfortable quiet of n thinking. The kind of quiet you got when a predator stopped moving and everyone realized it hadn’t been a conversation. It had been a boundary being drawn.
Rufas stared at him for a long mont, lips parted like he wanted to push back and realized he didn’t have leverage that wouldn’t snap.
Varik’s hands remained folded, but his eyes were no longer relaxed. He was calculating now, how this would read in the capital, how many people would misunderstand it, how many would pretend they didn’t.
Rufas finally spoke, voice controlled.
“I expected conditions,” he said. “Not… a death oath.”
Ludger gave a small shrug.
“It’s not an oath,” he said. “It’s a consequence.”
Yvar cleared his throat softly, the sound cutting through the edge like a clerk trying to stop a knife-fight by bringing up inventory.
“Logistics,” Yvar said, already pivoting because that was what he did when pressure rose, turn it into lists and routes and numbers. “If we’re returning to the coast, we’ll need charts, ship schedules, wreck coordinates, witness accounts, currents…”
Rufas nodded once, as if grateful for sothing concrete, and slid a sealed folder onto the desk.
Wax stamped. Heavy paper. A crest Ludger didn’t recognize at a glance, which ant it wasn’t ant for him. It was ant to look official.
“Everything we have,” Rufas said. “Survivor testimonies. Coordinates. Tis. Ship nas. Cargo manifests. And… warnings.”
Ludger didn’t touch it right away. He stared at the folder like it was bait. Then he lifted his eyes, sharp and focused.
“One more thing.”
Rufas raised a brow, wary now. “Yes?”
Ludger’s voice dropped, quiet enough that it felt like steel sliding into a seam.
“Is this beast only sinking ships,” he asked, “or is it taking sothing from them?”
Rufas paused.
And in that pause, Ludger could almost sll the ocean again, wide, patient, and full of teeth.
“I don’t know,” Rufas admitted.
Ludger finally reached out and took the folder.
“Then we’ll find out,” he said.
He stood, chair scraping softly against the floor. The eting was over. The job had just started. Rufas held Ludger’s gaze for a long second, like he was deciding whether to argue or survive the conversation with his dignity intact.
Then he sighed. It wasn’t dramatic. It was the kind of sigh you gave when you had a dozen political knives pointed at your back and the only way forward was to stop pretending you were in control.
“This is a job,” Rufas said, voice flattening into sothing closer to official than personal. “Not a partnership. Not a negotiation on tactics.” His eyes flicked briefly to Varik, then back. “The only goal is the extermination of the beast. That’s all the Empire cares about.”
He spread one hand, palm up, as if offering the simplest truth in the world.
“We can’t ask how the Lionsguard will do it,” Rufas admitted. “And frankly, we don’t want to know. If the ocean is free of that thing, the capital will call it a success and move on.”
Yvar blinked like he’d just heard a noble say sothing reasonable and his brain didn’t know where to file it. Rufas leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice, still controlled, but now carrying the weight of numbers.
“The paynt will be five hundred diamond coins,” he said. “Once the shipping lanes are clear. Once the ocean is free.”
For a heartbeat, the room didn’t react. It was as if the words had to travel through the air, find the ears, and then convince the minds they were real. Ludger nodded once. Just once.
Like Rufas had said bring a crate of nails instead of a sum that could buy small towns or start wars.
Arslan’s mouth fell open. Not the dignified kind of surprise either, just… open, the way a man looked when his brain tried to do the math and gave up halfway. Yvar’s lips parted too, quill frozen above the page like the ink itself had decided it didn’t want to be involved.
Varik watched Ludger’s reaction carefully. Rufas watched Arslan and Yvar and looked mildly satisfied, like he’d finally found a lever that moved sothing in this room.
“Good,” Rufas said, crisp again. “Then we’re aligned.”
Ludger’s face didn’t change, but his eyes tracked Rufas like a predator tracking a man who’d just dropped fresh at on the ground.
“We’re aligned on outcos,” Ludger corrected. “Not on trust.”
Rufas accepted that with another small exhale, then stood. Varik rose with him, smooth and disciplined.
No extra pleasantries. No wine. No smiles.
They were gone within a minute, boots on stone, talon-blue and silver disappearing down the hallway like they’d never been there at all.
The guild office stayed quiet after the door shut.
Quiet in the way a room gets when soone drops a fortune on the table and walks away, leaving everyone else to stare at the empty space and wonder if they hallucinated the number.
Arslan finally breathed out, a sound that might have been a laugh if it didn’t co out like he was choking.
“Five hundred,” he muttered.
Yvar slowly lowered his quill, eyes still wide. “Diamond,” he added, as if clarifying would make it less insane.
Arslan shook his head, once, then again—like he was trying to dislodge the number from his skull.
“I don’t think anyone has ever paid that much to a guild,” Arslan said. “Not for a single job. Not even close.”
He looked down at his hands, then back at Ludger, and the initial disbelief shifted into sothing else. Concern. Because a fortune didn’t co without hooks. It never did.
Arslan’s brows drew together. “Alright,” he said. “Then here’s my problem.”
He pointed at the door Rufas had just walked through, as if the political weight was still standing in the hallway.
“You were the one listing all the drawbacks,” Arslan said. “You were the one talking about traps, about being pulled away, about Lionfang being exposed. So why did you accept so readily?”
Yvar’s eyes flicked to Ludger too, hungry and anxious at the sa ti, ledger-mind already imagining the good that kind of money could do, and the damage it could attract.
Ludger didn’t answer.
He went still, gaze lowering to the desk like there was sothing written into the grain of the wood that only he could read. For a few seconds, the only sound was the faint scratch of soone outside moving crates in the corridor, life continuing like normal while the room held its breath.
Then Ludger’s jaw tightened. He remained silent, long enough that it wasn’t indecision. It was calculation. Ludger’s silence stretched just long enough to make Arslan’s fingers twitch toward the edge of the desk.
Then he spoke, tone flat, like he was explaining a weather pattern instead of a monster that could swallow ships.
“It didn’t attack us because it was bored,” Ludger said. “It attacked because we were loud.”
Arslan blinked. “Loud?”
“Large numbers,” Ludger clarified. “Ships together. People together. Mana signatures stacked on top of each other like a bonfire in the dark.” He leaned back, eyes narrowing as he replayed the mory, salt air, stone bridge, that massive eye under the surface. “We were heading toward the runic golems labyrinth with a group big enough to look like an invasion. The beast reacted like sothing territorial. Or like sothing trained to respond to concentrations.”
Yvar’s quill started moving again, quick and neat.
Arslan frowned. “So it’s a guard.”
“Or a filter,” Ludger said. “Sa outco. If you move in bulk, it notices. If you move small, it doesn’t bother.”
Arslan’s jaw worked. “And the Ironhand?”
“They got hit for the sa reason,” Ludger said. “Before, they were running large shipnts of mana cores along the coast. Big hauls. Repeated routes. Predictable.” His eyes sharpened. “Then the beast sank a few ships and Ironhand stopped moving cores in bulk. The attacks dropped off.”
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