When they arrived at the Adventurer’s Guildhall Kyle and Hal walked up to the counter where a rather haughty looking feline Beastwoman was waiting for them.

“Excuse me but we need to speak with Alistair as soon as possible,” Kyle said as the woman frowned at them.

“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked. “Because if you don’t then I’m afraid that you’ll have to come back later. Alistair is a very busy man and he doesn’t have time to see children like you.”

“But this is important!” Hal exclaimed angrily. “We have information that the Empire might be attacking our hometown!”

“Do you have any proof of this?” the receptionist asked giving the pair an irritated look. “Because if not I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Naturally the conversation devolved further into an argument that continued for a few minutes until the receptionist started threatening to have them removed. It was at this point that Fi suggested that she go and talk to Galdon which made the receptionist’s eyes bulge out slightly before her expression returned to its normal condescending frown so quickly that anyone watching her might’ve thought that they had imagined it. In fact the only person who noticed it was Kyle who suddenly realised that she didn’t really have as much authority as she tried to make out and was just a small enough person that she felt the need to hold what little authority she did have over anyone that she could which was why she had reacted the way that she had when Galdon’s name was mentioned. The old man might be retired but he was still a very important person in the eyes of the Adventurer’s Guild and if he said that he needed to speak to Alistair then there was nothing that a simple receptionist like her could do to stop him.

“Yeah, you go and do that Fi,” Kyle said through gritted teeth and he attempted to control his temper. “We’ll wait for you here in case Alistair comes out.”

The receptionist glared at the two boys as they sat down at one of the small tables that wasn’t already taken up by a group of Adventurers who were all watching them with expressions ranging from amusement to irritation.

She was tempted to try and have them removed but if they were serious about being able to get Galdon in to back them up then kicking them out would only make things even worse for her because at least up until they mentioned Galdon’s name she could have said that she was just doing her job by not wasting Alistair’s time. On the other hand, she still wasn’t willing to just let them see Alistair because she wasn’t entirely convinced that these two kids would actually be able to get Galdon to come and help them get a meeting with Alistair.

So, when Galdon walked in a few minutes later with a furious look on his face she instantly started trembling as she realised that she might be in trouble.

The tension in the air was palpable as Galdon stormed up to the two young men with Fi following behind him.

“You should have come and seen me first,” the old man growled to the two boys who shifted uncomfortably under his piercing gaze then sighed heavily when both boys looked down in embarrassment. “But I suppose I would’ve asked for Alistair’s help once you told me what’s going on so I can’t really blame you for coming here.”

Hal and Kyle looked up just in time to see Galdon turn around and walk over to the receptionist who looked around nervously as he approached as she searched for someone who might stand up for her actions. Unfortunately for her while most of the Adventurers were watching Galdon all of them knew better than to try and get in his way when he looked as angry as he did right now.

“How, how may I help you sir,” she stammered as Galdon placed his hands on the counter in front of her and looked her directly in the eyes.

“You can let Alistair know that I need to see him now,” Galdon told her in a surprisingly calm tone of voice.

“Yes sir,” the woman replied nervously, as she quickly picked up a Communication Orb that had been sitting on the desk next to her and started speaking into it in hushed tones, glancing worriedly at Galdon occasionally while he continued to watch her carefully. “He will see you now.”

“Good,” Galdon replied shortly. “Boys, follow me.”

“Yes sir,” Kyle and Hal replied as they stood up and followed Galdon down the hall and up a flight of steps.

“So, you believe what Fi had to say?” Kyle asked cautiously as they walked up the stairs behind Galdon who turned to look over his shoulder before replying.

“Of course,” he sighed. “You two wouldn’t lie about something as serious as this. Now your parents could be mistaken but with Lily’s experience with the Empire that seems unlikely to me so as much as I don’t want to believe it, I don’t see any other option right now.”

Kyle nodded at this feeling slightly proud that Galdon was willing to trust them on this when he knew that if they were wrong then Galdon was the one who would lose face because he was the one who had stood up for them.

Stopping outside a door that had Alistair’s name stencilled on it Galdon raised a hand to knock on the door only for it to be opened by Alistair’s companion Rick who smiled at them all as they entered.

“Welcome Galdon, boys” Alistair greeted them all before gesturing to the seats that were sitting opposite his desk. “I understand that you have something important enough to tell me that you went over my receptionist’s head. She’s not very happy about that by the way.”

“I don’t much care,” Galdon growled in reply making Alistair frown slightly. “This is about the Empire Alistair and you know as well as I do that any news that’s even slightly credible about the Empire needs to be dealt with properly and Kyle tried to prove that what they were saying was true by letting her talk to his parents on their Communications Orbs but she refused to listen to him.”

“Be that as it may, Rinda was just trying to do her job so I would appreciate it if you would let me deal with her instead of scaring her half to death,” Alistair sighed once he had heard Galdon’s side of the story. “Believe it or not she’s actually a pretty good receptionist.”

“Fair enough,” Galdon nodded. “Now then, can we move on to the more important stuff please.”

“Very well,” Alistair replied turning towards the two boys who had been waiting patiently for the adults to finish their conversation. “Give us the rundown on the situation and then we’ll call your parents and decide what if any measures we need to take to get to the bottom of this.”

Kyle and Hal nodded and explained the situation as best as they could. When they got to the part about the Elvish family that had been killed Alistair rose to his feet and walked over to the window and placed his hands on the sill but didn’t interrupt the boys as they finished the story that they had been told by Hal’s mother.

“And according to your mother Emma seemed sure that the Empire was responsible?” Galdon asked watching Alistair whose hands were gripping the wooden windowsill so tightly that Kyle could’ve sworn that he could hear the wood cracking.

“Yes, that’s what she said,” Hal agreed.

“Well then I guess that we should try and contact Emma and Jerald so that we can confirm whether this is correct,” Galdon said holding out his hand for Kyle’s Communication Orb which he quickly handed over.

“I’d just like to say that they didn’t pick up earlier so they might not answer,” Kyle pointed out.

“Well then we’ll try Thomas and Al until someone picks up,” Galdon replied. “This is too important for us to leave it be.”

It took them a couple of times to get a hold of someone and by the time they had managed to do so not only had Alistair sat back down but was looking at the Communications Orb in Galdon’s hand with a slightly worried look on his face which changed to one of relief when someone finally answered.

“Sorry old man we were a little bit busy!” Al laughed in his usual brash way making everyone present roll their eyes in exasperation. “Had a little run in with some Imperial Soldiers earlier and we just got back to the village. I promise we were going to call you after we had a meeting though!”

“Alright Al, can you pass me over to Emma please?” Galdon sighed as he shook his head sadly, he had been hoping that Hal’s mother had been mistaken about the attackers being Imperial soldiers but those hopes had just been dashed and a glance at the look on Alistair’s face told him that the other man fully understood the gravity of the situation even if the two boys and Fi didn’t really despite the stories that Emma had told Kyle and Fi growing up. However, it was obvious from the looks on their faces they knew enough to know that they should be worried.

“Sure thing!” Al exclaimed and then all they heard was a slight crashing sound from the other end followed by some muffled whispers for a few seconds.

“Hello Galdon, boys it’s Emma,” hearing his mother’s voice Kyle slumped in his seat slightly as relief washed over him. Fi reacted in much the same way to hearing Emma’s voice, almost slipping off of Kyle’s neck in the process. Though she had been doing her best not to show how worried she was for Kyle’s sake they were her family as well so of course she was worried about them.

“Hey mum,” Kyle interrupted glancing apologetically at Galdon who had been about to speak, the old man frowned slightly but nodded at Kyle to continue. “Are you all alright?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” Emma replied. “I’m sorry we worried you.”

“As long as you’re all okay that’s fine,” Kyle replied relievedly as Galdon coughed slightly to remind them why they were all there.

“Sorry Galdon,” Emma apologised. “As Al and Madeleine have already told you we were attacked by a group that I was certain were Imperial soldiers last night and we spent all of today tracking them down.”

“May I ask why you didn’t report this to me before trying to do anything about it?” Alistair asked suddenly causing Emma to fall silent as she tried to think of a good answer to this question. Even though it had been years since the Empire had made any moves bigger than the occasional raid on a village close to the border of their country anyone discovering any signs them doing anything outside of the massive dome of energy that covered their country was supposed to be immediately reported to someone in a position of power and in most cases that was either a high ranking officer of the Guards, the army or the nearest Guild representative who just so happened to be Alistair so this was a very valid question

“Because until we actually tracked them down, I had no proof that I was correct,” Emma replied carefully. “I probably still should’ve let you know but things were moving very quickly and if we didn’t do something than we could’ve had a riot on our hands.”

“I see,” Alistair sighed shaking his head sadly. “Well I suppose that you know the people there better, so I’ll defer to your judgement there.”

Alistair had known Emma and the others for a very long time and had a lot of respect for Emma’s judgement in particular, so he decided not to push the issue any further.

“So, did you find out how they actually got to your area?” Galdon asked trying to steer the conversation back to the important matters. “As I recall Farholt is pretty isolated and I can’t think of any route to there that the Imperial Soldiers could’ve taken that we wouldn’t have noticed.”

“We discovered a smallish camp of them in a small valley about a day’s travel from Farholt,” Jerald’s voice replied from the other end. “There was an ancient structure there that I think they somehow used to make some sort of portal, but it seems that it either opens very infrequently or it takes a lot of power to activate. We didn’t see any proof that this was true, but I can’t think of any other reason that they had set up their camp there or any other way that they had managed to get here.”

“I see,” Galdon nodded. “I wonder how they managed to make it work.”

Ancient structures that had some sort of magical use like the one that Jerald was talking about weren’t uncommon, but they were usually found in the abandoned cities of the magical races such as Elves and Gnomes. It wasn’t unheard of to find them in the middle of nowhere like the one that Jerald was talking about either, unusual but not unheard of. What was unusual was that the Empire had figured out how to use one of them as they were often so badly damaged that they no longer worked and with their current level of understanding fixing them was all but impossible.

“Who knows,” Jerald replied. “But there’s one other problem. With the men that we have here, we’re not going to be able to really do anything about them. I may have said that it was a small camp but even then, there are a couple of hundred of them there now and who knows how many there will be this time tomorrow.”

“Right, we’ll start sending some men your way immediately and send notice to the King so that he can prepare for if anything goes wrong,” Alistair said as he started writing down a series of notes about how many Adventurers as well as the different types of Adventurer they would probably need to bring down a camp of Imperial Soldiers and destroy the ancient structure that they were assuming had brought them there. “I expect that the Adventurer’s that I send will be able to deal with things but it’s always a good idea to be certain when the Empire is involved. Rick can you take this downstairs and give it to Rinda.”

The sloth-like companion took the note carefully from Alistair’s hand and made his way out of the room, there was only the barest amount of information on the note itself but that was why Alistair had sent Rick to deliver the news. Rick already had an idea of most of the individual Adventurer’s that Alistair had in mind and would adjust that to whoever turned out to be actually available.

“We want to come as well,” Kyle said after exchanging a meaningful glance with Hal as the companion closed the door gently behind him.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Galdon said as he and Alistair looked at each other with uncomfortable looks on their faces. “I don’t think your parents would want us bringing you into what could become a warzone.”

“That ‘warzone’ was where we grew up!” Hal snapped suddenly making both men turn to look at him in surprise. “If anyone has a right to do anything that they can to help out then it’s us.”

Galdon and Alistair turned to look at each other once more for a few seconds before opening their mouths to respond, however before they could they were interrupted by Emma’s voice coming through the Communication Orb that they had all forgotten was still active.

“While I’m not happy about it I actually agree with Hal,” she said surprising the two men who closed their mouths with simultaneous clicks. “I don’t really want them to be in any danger, but I also think that they need to see what the Empire are capable of. Their generation doesn’t really know about that sort of thing and if this incident is anything to go by, they’ll probably need to. Besides, after the months that they’ve spent at the Adventurer’s School they’re much better prepared for this sort of thing than most of the villagers are.”

“Alright,” Galdon sighed deciding to defer to her judgement. “Go and get ready you two, we’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow.”

“Should we tell Damian and Sonia as well?” Kyle asked. “If we don’t tell them at the very least, they’ll be pissed.”

“You can tell them, but I’d prefer it if they didn’t join us,” Galdon replied. “It’s going to be hard enough protecting you two if something goes wrong.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Kyle sighed as he got to his feet. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Make sure you get a good night’s sleep,” counselled Alistair. “We’re not going to slow down for you if you get tired.”

The two boys nodded their grudging agreement and walked out of the room taking the Communications Orb with them and leaving the two men sitting alone in silence for several minutes as they processed everything that had just happened.

“To think that I would have to deal with the Empire again in my lifetime,” Galdon sighed as he shook his head sadly. “And worse that one of my own students wants two children who are also my students see what they are capable of doing.”

“We could leave without them tonight,’ Alistair pointed out but to his surprise Galdon shook his head.

“No because as much as I hate the idea, this new generation only knows what the Empire is capable of from stories,” Galdon reminded Alistair who shifted uncomfortably as he realised that even his generation had been born after the last war with the Empire. He had seen what Imperial soldiers had done to the villages that they raided but he had no idea what they were capable of on a larger scale. Galdon on the other hand knew this intimately.

“Besides,” Galdon continued. “If I show up without her kid Emma is going to ask where the hell he is, and I don’t want to get in a fight with her.”

“Ah, you should’ve led with that,” Alistair replied as he imagined what Emma could do in that situation. He didn’t talk about it a lot, but he had worked with her on several occasions and while he had nothing but respect for her skills and intelligence, but he also knew that much like her son she did had a short temper.

Meanwhile Kyle, Fi and Hal were making their way over to the Bard’s Guild in the hopes of finding their friends but unfortunately the show hadn’t finished yet, so they had to wait outside for about an hour for it to finish. By the time people started to come out of the Guildhall they had managed to figure out what they were going to tell their friends. One thing was for sure it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

A few minutes after people had started to come out of the Guildhall Fi finally spotted Damian from the air and called him over to where the other two were waiting for him. Naturally he was confused by what was going on as they had planned to go to the show weeks ago.

“Yeah, sorry about that, something important came up,” Kyle told his friend. “I’ll tell you about it as soon as Sonia comes out. I don’t really want to tell this story more than once.”

“Uh, okay,” Damian replied giving the usually cheerful Kyle a strange look as he sat down next to him. “I’m guessing that it’s not good news then?”

“No, no it is not,” Kyle agreed.

They sat in silence after this until Sonia finally came out of the hall with a rather disgruntled look on her face as she looked around. As soon as she spotted Kyle and the others, she stormed over making Kyle groan slightly when he recognised the look on her face.

“Where were you two?” Sonia yelled as she got closer. Thankfully there weren’t that many people still around at this point but those that were all turned to look at the scene that Sonia was making. “You promised that you would be able to make it!”

“Now Sonia, we can explain,” Kyle began to tell her as he raised his hands in front of him.

“Well I should hope so!”

“But not here,” Kyle continued. “This isn’t something that we should really be talking about where we can be overheard.”

Sonia who had just taken a deep breath so that she could yell at him some more slowly let the breath out as he made eye contact in such a way that told her that he was completely serious.

“Thank you,” Kyle said as he and Hal slowly rose to their feet. “Follow us.”

Sonia and Damian glance at each other with worried expressions on their faces before following the other two back to their room in nervous silence. It was obvious from the way that Kyle and Hal were acting that something terrible had happened and as soon as they closed the door behind them Kyle told them everything.

By the time that they were done both Damian and Sonia were pale-faced and confused.

“I can’t believe it,” Damian groaned as he collapsed onto Hal’s bed.

“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in,” Hal agreed as he placed a hand on the other young man’s shoulder. “Anyway, we’ll be moving out tomorrow.”

“Can I come?” Sonia asked making Kyle wince as he remembered Galdon’s words. “I want to help.”

“Well, Galdon didn’t really want either of us to come but we might be able to convince him to bring you as well if we really try,” Kyle replied with a wince. “What about you Damian?”

“No, I’ll stay,” Damian decided. “With my leg I’ll just slow everyone down.”

“I see,” Kyle nodded. “Well I can’t disagree with that.”

Once they had finished sorting the other details involved Sonia and Damian both left leaving Kyle, Hal, Fi and Herbert who was currently asleep on top of Hal’s behind. After sitting there quietly for a few minutes they decided to go to bed.

Like Alistair had said, tomorrow was going to be a big day.