>>5463551“Thank you for shopping with us! Come back again soon!” Anna calls out after you as you leave the warehouse. “And bring more money next time.” You hear her mutter under her breath as the door closes.
You return to the barracks, where you meet with Corrine in your command tent. Your Lieutenant is sitting at the table, various papers spread out before her in a manner similar to how you’d found Claude.
“Where have you been?” She asks, barely looking up.
>“Just a spot of shopping. What are you looking at? We’re mercenaries. Paperwork isn’t really part of the job.”“It is for me when my Captain ignores it.” She says with a hint of annoyance. “They’re requests for our services. Seems they’ve been piling up.”
>“Can’t we just keep ignoring them? We’re already busy working for Claude as is. 10,000-20,000 gold a month is probably more than any other merc company is being paid right now.”“When you factor in expenses, salaries, severance pay, funeral costs and the litany of other potential mishaps that drain our coffers dry, that gold disappears quickly.”
She had a point. You did just spend an exorbitant amount of money on a spear. In the village you were born in, that sort of gold could have kept everyone fed for at least a year.
“It might be worth taking some of these jobs on the side. In addition to our work for Claude.”
>“Won’t that leave us at a disadvantage? We’re expected to be in Aillel and day now.”Corrine brushes it off. “We’ve more than enough members to afford a bit of double dipping. A handful of Blackwings led by a captain or two won’t hurt. Just be mindful of whom you pick. We wouldn’t want to find ourselves out on a mission lacking a critical soldier because we sent them to go fetch a cat out of a tree instead.” She hands you three sheets of paper, each bearing different handwriting. “These are three jobs I received that I think are worth a look. They pay pretty well, and I even marked down at the bottom how much gold we’d each take as our own cut. They don’t seem too hard either. I can’t imagine anyone we send would have a difficult time. We can take one, or several, or even none if you feel that strongly about it.”
>“Any suggestions?” You ask Corrine as you begin reading through the documents.“If the Valley of Torment is everything that I’ve heard it is, we’ll want to make sure we have air superiority. The lava in that place is said to rise as though it were a tidal wave. The less walking and more flying we do, the better.”
