Chapter 67: The Contract He Shouldn’t Take
The contract board at Greenmarch Hall smelled of wet wool, old ink, and the lingering musk of beasts. It was a chaotic mosaic of overlapping parchment divided by colored twine, most of it mundane—bounties on oversized boars, escort jobs for nervous merchants, and requests for low-level foraging.
Callis Vale ignored the clutter of novice postings. His eyes were locked on a single, heavy piece of vellum pinned dead center. It was bordered in sharp red ink, the universal guild marker for high-lethality.
The contract was for Search and Recovery. The target was a sealed Imperial Courier’s Lockbox lost in transit within The Weeping Gorge. The reward was a staggering five hundred silver pieces and an immediate Tier-Three Guild Certification.
Callis reached out, his thick, muscle-bound frame casting a long shadow across the wooden boards. He traced the wax seal at the bottom of the parchment.
"Don't even think about it."
Rhett Hollow’s voice was a gravelly rasp, cutting through the quiet hum of the outpost. The Silver-rank scout stepped up beside Callis. He glared at the red-inked parchment like it was a venomous snake.
"I'm not thinking about it," Callis replied calmly. "I'm calculating it."
"There's nothing to calculate, boy," Rhett scoffed, crossing his arms. He nodded toward the parchment. "The Weeping Gorge isn't a hunting ground. It's a meat grinder. The fog in that ravine is so thick you can't see your own boots, and the terrain is entirely unstable. Three seasoned tracking parties have gone down there in the last month looking for that exact lockbox. Not a single man walked back out."
"Which is exactly why the bounty just doubled," Callis noted, his voice flat and analytical. "And why it carries a tier-three promotion."
Rhett let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. He turned fully toward the younger man, his weathered face tight with genuine concern.
"You don't need this, Callis. You have a secure setup now. You’ve got Mara’s hearth at The Stag & Ember, a roof over your head, and enough local muscle backing you to keep the petty thugs away. You're building a good foundation here. Why risk throwing your life away in a ravine for a noble's lost mail?"
Callis turned away from the board, meeting the older scout's eyes.
"Because a foundation isn't enough," Callis said softly.
He didn't view Hartsgate as a permanent end-state. Callis operated on a multi-year timeline, a structured sequence of milestones mapped out meticulously in his head. Securing the tavern and building a local bloc of support was only phase one. If he wanted to hold this territory long-term—and eventually expand his reach beyond the frontier—he needed undeniable, documented authority. He needed to be seen not just as a lethal squatter, but as a legitimate, recognized asset.
"Right now, the Capital sees me as a rogue variable," Callis explained, his tone carrying the cold, pragmatic weight of a Vanguard tactician. "I have no official Guild rank. No paper trail of loyalty. If a fully sanctioned Imperial Lord decides they want Hartsgate tomorrow, they can sweep me out, and the Guild won't lift a finger to stop them because, on paper, I am nobody."
Rhett frowned, his brow furrowing as the logic landed.
"A tier-three certification changes that," Callis continued. "It forces the Guild to recognize me as a contracted professional. It gives me legal standing. It makes moving against me a bureaucratic nightmare for any high-born prick looking to claim my territory."
"And the five hundred silver?" Rhett pressed, though his argument was already losing steam.
"Capital," Callis answered bluntly. "I have projects. The tavern needs heavier fortifications, and I am drafting plans to convert the old stone storage shed out back into a climate-secured armory and planning room. The winter here is brutal, and I need a designated space that can maintain temperature and hold specialized gear. Five hundred silver funds the insulation, the raw materials, and the labor for the entire expansion in a single stroke."
Rhett rubbed the rough stubble on his jaw, staring back at the red-inked contract. He knew Callis wasn't a standard mercenary. The boy didn't just fight; he engineered his life, viewing his territory the same way a master builder viewed a blueprint.
"The Gorge is crawling with Stalkers, Callis," Rhett warned, his voice dropping into a serious, tactical register. "They hunt in packs. They drop from the canopy. Your Vanguard training is good, but you can't fight what you can't see."
"I don't plan on fighting them blindly," Callis said. He reached up, grasped the heavy iron pin, and yanked it out of the board. He pulled the vellum down, rolling it tightly into a cylinder. "I'm going to bait them out, break their numbers, and clear the extraction path before I ever touch that lockbox."
Rhett watched him tuck the contract into his leather belt. The grizzled scout let out a long, defeated groan, rubbing his face with a calloused hand.
"You're a stubborn, calculating bastard, you know that?" Rhett muttered.
"I'm an ambitious one," Callis corrected. He clapped a heavy hand on the scout's shoulder. "I need your topographical maps of the Gorge, Rhett. Specifically, the eastern ridge descents. I'm leaving at first light."
"Fine," Rhett grumbled, turning toward the heavy oak doors of the outpost. "But if you get yourself gutted down there, I'm the one who has to go back to The Stag & Ember and deliver the news. I have to tell Mara, and far worse, I have to tell my own mother."
Rhett visibly shuddered, his pale eyes narrowing as a grim memory surfaced. "And frankly, Callis, I would rather face a pack of rabid Stalkers bare-handed. I saw Sybil drag a grown man down to this very hall and spank his bare ass in front of the entire guild just for messing with her trap lines. That image is permanently burned into my memory, and I would very much prefer it not happen to me. If I let you die in a ditch, she won't just kill me—she'll humiliate me first."
Rhett let out a heavy, pragmatic sigh, shaking his head. "Besides, she has actually been smiling lately. The whole damn town is safer when that woman is happy, and she’s been in suspiciously high spirits ever since she started getting dicked down on a regular schedule. If you go and get yourself eaten, she goes right back to being a nightmare who shoots people over bad pelts. And it isn't just her. Half the neighbors in the district—the baker, the mill overseer, the sugar merchant's wife—would string me up by my own boots if I let their favorite Vanguard wander into a meat grinder alone."
"Then we better make sure my gear loadout is flawless," Callis said, a grim, confident smirk touching his lips as he followed the scout out into the cold frontier air.
He mentally logged the target parameters: one sealed Imperial Lockbox, zero-visibility fog, unstable terrain, and predatory pack-hunters, all standing between him and the guild legitimacy he required to hold his ground in Hartsgate.