Chapter 202: The Hard One
The call came in at eleven.
A Soldier posted near the Central District had radioed the coordination point. Two guilds were in front of a restaurant on the main commercial street, twelve hunters total, the situation escalating past words.
Three weapons drawn.
No civilians were injured yet but the street was not clear.
The lead Attendant was in the middle of reviewing the previous day’s documentation when the message came through. He closed the folder and stood.
"Which guilds?" he said.
The Soldier at the radio said, "Steel Fist and the Crestfallen."
The room went still.
Steel Fist was one of the established guilds in the Central District. Their leader had the specific quality of someone who had been powerful long enough that deference had become his baseline expectation from most situations. Crestfallen was newer, smaller, but had produced several hunters who had built visible reputations in the last month of gate activity.
The lead Attendant looked at the other Attendant in the room.
She said, "Steel Fist was one of the guilds Elden flagged."
"I know," he said.
He picked up his communication device.
"We’re going," he said.
...
They arrived in four minutes.
The twelve hunters were still in front of the restaurant. Three swords out. Two people talking loudly past each other, neither listening, both adding volume to compensate. The restaurant’s windows had faces pressed against them from inside. People on the street had pulled back to the opposite side, creating a wide open space around the confrontation that nobody wanted to be in.
One of the Steel Fist hunters saw the Abyss Watcher uniforms and immediately turned.
"About time," he said. "Tell these people to back off."
The lead Attendant looked at the full situation before responding. Twelve hunters. Three weapons. Two primary voices, both from the same side. The Crestfallen hunters were louder but the Steel Fist hunters had positioned themselves more deliberately, which suggested they had been expecting this confrontation rather than walking into it accidentally.
He walked forward.
"Weapons down," he said.
The three hunters with drawn swords looked at each other.
"We’re not putting anything down until—"
"Weapons down," the lead Attendant said again. Same tone. Same volume. Not louder, not quieter.
The Steel Fist leader said, from several feet back, "Do what he says."
The three hunters sheathed. Reluctantly, but down.
Soldiers moved immediately, creating defined space between the two groups, guiding the people watching from the street edge further back. The second Attendant positioned herself to the left with clear sight lines to both groups.
"Steel Fist," the lead Attendant said. "One person talks. Everyone else waits."
The Steel Fist leader stepped forward. Large. The movement of someone who expected space to be made for him and was usually correct.
"They took our gate assignment," he said. "Registered the same run twice under different names and claimed we were late when we weren’t."
The lead Attendant said, "How do you know you weren’t late?"
Slight pause.
"Because we have records," the Steel Fist leader said.
"Bring them out."
The leader gestured to one of his people, who produced a phone with the relevant documentation.
The lead Attendant looked at it. Then he turned to Crestfallen.
"One person," he said.
A younger hunter stepped forward. Maybe twenty-two. He had the posture of someone who had been calm going into this and was working to stay that way.
"We didn’t register twice," he said. "The system logged our entry automatically. We were there at the correct time. If their records show otherwise, their records are wrong."
"Do you have your records?"
"Yes," he said, and produced his own phone.
The lead Attendant took both phones. He handed them to the second Attendant without looking at her. She moved off to the side and started comparing documents.
...
The Steel Fist leader crossed his arms.
"We’ve been cleared of that gate for three weeks," he said. "They showed up and filed a competing claim. The Association gave them access because of the duplicate filing."
The lead Attendant said, "Did you contact the Association about the competing claim before today?"
A pause.
"We tried," the leader said.
"Tried," the lead Attendant said.
The leader’s jaw moved. "The response took two days. By then they had already run the gate."
The lead Attendant looked at him without responding immediately. He was not filling the silence with reassurance or agreement. He was just letting the account complete.
Then he turned to the Crestfallen hunter.
"When did you file your registration?"
"Six days ago," the young hunter said.
"Before or after you knew Steel Fist had the assignment?"
The young hunter’s expression changed. Not guilt. Surprise at the question. "We didn’t know they had it. The gate was showing as unregistered in the system when we checked."
"What time did you check?"
"Morning. Around eight."
The lead Attendant was writing.
The second Attendant came back from the side. She showed the lead Attendant both phones side by side and pointed at two specific timestamps.
He looked at both of them.
Then he straightened.
"The Steel Fist registration was filed at six forty in the morning," he said. "It did not appear as registered in the public system until nine twelve. A system update delay."
The second Attendant frowned. "...Wait."
The lead Attendant looked over and she enlarged the registration history. "The delay explains why they both registered."She paused. "...But it doesn’t explain this."
She pointed at the screen and both guilds leaned closer. A third registration had briefly appeared between theirs. It had existed for less than thirty seconds.
Then...
It had been deleted.
Nobody spoke.
The Steel Fist leader frowned. "...Who was that?"
The second Attendant slowly shook her head. "I don’t know."
Silence from both sides.
The Steel Fist leader said, "Then why didn’t the Association catch that?"
"That’s a separate question," the lead Attendant said. "One I can help you file a formal inquiry about." He looked at both leaders. "But the dispute between your two guilds was caused by a system error. Neither party did anything wrong."
The young Crestfallen hunter said quietly, "We didn’t know."
The lead Attendant turned to the Steel Fist leader.
The leader looked at the documentation on the phone. He looked at the timestamp. He looked at the Crestfallen hunter, who was still standing with the posture of someone who genuinely had not known.
The anger in his posture dropped by degrees.
Not gone. But reduced to something workable.
"Who do we contact about the gate revenue we lost?" he said.
"I’ll give you the correct inquiry channel before we leave," the lead Attendant said. "The Association is responsible for the system delay. The claim goes there."
The leader was quiet.
"Alright," he said.
...
The crowd on the far side of the street had been watching.
Across the street...
A man closed a weathered notebook.
He hadn’t spoken once during the entire dispute.
He simply watched.
Every question.
Every answer.
Every decision.
When the crowd began leaving...
He quietly smiled. "...Interesting." Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
As the twelve hunters separated and began going their different ways, the people who had been watching started moving again. The restaurant’s windows cleared as the people inside stopped pressing against them.
A woman near the edge of the dispersing crowd said to the person beside her, "That was fast."
"Fifteen minutes," the other said.
"Weapons were out."
"And now they’re not."
A man behind them had been watching from the start. He had his phone out, not recording, just holding it the way people held phones when they were deciding whether to record.
He put it in his pocket.
"They didn’t take sides," he said.
The woman said, "No."
"Both groups walked away."
"Yes."
He watched the last of the Abyss Watchers move through the space, the second Attendant distributing the inquiry channel information to the Steel Fist leader as she moved.
"Huh," he said.
...
The Steel Fist leader was the last to leave.
He stopped near the lead Attendant before he went.
The lead Attendant looked at him.
"I expected you to side with them," the leader said. "Crestfallen has some of the city’s newer names. More visible lately."
"That’s not how we work," the lead Attendant said.
The leader looked at him. Then at the uniform. Then back at his face.
"No," he said. "I’m starting to see that."
He left.
...
The lead Attendant stood on the cleared street for a moment. The restaurant had reopened its door. A couple was already walking in, the confrontation already behind them in the way that city people moved past things.
The second Attendant came up beside him.
"Steel Fist was the guild Elden flagged," she said. "The one that approached members informally."
"I know," he said.
"Think that changes?"
He thought about it. "If they saw what they saw today, maybe."
She was quiet. "Or they try harder."
He looked at the street.
"Then we handle that when it comes," he said.
He started writing up the incident report.
The documentation was as important as the resolution. That was what Lily had said on the first day and it had been true every time since.
He finished the report.
Closed the file.
Then looked out the window.
The street was already busy again.
People argued.
Merchants bargained.
Hunters laughed.
The city had already moved on.
The lead Attendant smiled slightly.
Maybe that was the point. If people could go back to living their lives then the Abyss Watchers had done their job.