“Noble Protection,” Andarit filled in. “They’re the premiere armor shop. The place you go to for armor if you’re a noble.”

Serenity was confident he must have missed the name. While it did do a good job of saying what it was, it was a terrible name otherwise. On the other hand, Serenity supposed he probably shouldn’t be too hard on them; it wasn’t like they needed a better name if they didn’t have any competition. Everyone they cared about knew who they were.

The fact that they didn’t have any competition explained a lot. “They have terrible armor. It’s flashy and not particularly protective. Mostly, at least; are you the one who made the one decent set they had?”

Ceney’s mouth dropped open. “You’re the person who bought it, aren’t you? I didn’t think it would ever sell. Kiara actually stopped by to tell me.” She snorted and her mouth twitched with the beginning of a small smile. “Of course, that’s also when she said she wasn’t going to sell anything else of mine unless I made it to her standards. Which I’m obviously not going to do because you’re right, it makes the armor nearly worthless.”

Serenity pulled out the chair next to Xarx; he wanted to be able to see Ceney when they talked, so Andarit would have to take the seat next to her. “I meant to come visit your shop the next day, but things came up.”

If he remembered correctly, he’d found the first set of enslaved Earthlings and the fact that there was a competent armorer on Zon completely slipped his mind. Come to think of it, that was a good question. “So why do you use Zon as your maker’s mark?”

Ceney flushed. “I picked it when I was a lot younger. I was studying under an armorsmith who thought everything produced on Zon was trash since it’s all mana-powered. I’m proud of being from Zon’s Zenith; it’s home. So I wanted to rub it in his face. It was a dumb choice, Father made that really clear, but it’s mine now.”

Serenity couldn’t help but be curious. “Why did you keep it, then? I assume you trained off Zon; why didn’t you change it when you came back?”

He didn’t ask why she came back, but he did wonder.

Ceney wrinkled her forehead and frowned at Serenity. “It’s my craftsman’s mark. If I changed it, how would people know who made my items?”

Serenity turned his hands up as he shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought you didn’t like it. If it’s worth keeping, keep it.”

Ceney huffed and looked at the table. “It’s a sore spot. Father thinks I should change it, too. Too proud, he says, especially since no one wants to buy my gear. I don’t want to weaken it just to make it pretty!” Her head was up again, glaring at Serenity as she finished the sentence.

Serenity put up a hand, asking her to stop. “I bought your armor, remember? Don’t take it out on me.”

Ceney took a deep breath and let it out, then leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. “Right. So, uh. With that surprise out of the way, we were talking about the expedition, weren’t we? Xarx, can you take over here?”

“Certainly, m’lady.” Xarx barely got the word out before Ceney’s hand slapped on the table.

“Don’t call me that!”

Xarx jumped and glanced around the room. He looked remarkably guilty about what had to be a slip of the tongue.

Serenity suspected that the problem wasn’t Andarit or himself; they already knew Ceney had to be noble. Few others in Zenith had the wealth in Etherium to buy transit offworld. Instead, the problem had to be others overhearing. Serenity couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep it quiet in these circumstances; he was doing the same for Andarit, after all.

When Xarx was satisfied no one else was paying attention, he turned back to Serenity. “My apologies. As Ceney said, we’re planning an expedition. We’d originally planned to head out past the Boundary and find one of the Old Ruins, but that depends on getting enough guards and we certainly don’t have enough now. Instead, we’re going to travel to Celestials’ Rest and see if we can pick up anyone there before we decide where to go from there.”

Serenity glanced at Andarit, then back at Xarx. Celestials’ Rest was the closest noble seat to Zenith if he remembered correctly. “Getting to Celestials’ Rest seems like a good waypoint. We’d be happy to act as guards that far, at least.” He stopped and bit his lip. There was one problem with the plan so far that he didn’t know if they’d handled. “Will the guards let us through the gate for an expedition? They seem to only be letting armed people through if they’re actually guarding something.”

Xarx nodded. “Fortunately, we were already planning to take some of Ceney’s armor with us to sell; it should sell better in the remote areas where it’s used for something other than show and extremely safe dungeons. With things as they are now, we’re expanding what we’re planning to take; we’re taking everything we can fit in the wagons.”

Xarx looked over at Ceney then leaned over and whispered in Serenity’s ear. “Do you have any expanded-space items? Ceney thought your backpack looked like one.”

Despite the cost and difficulty to manufacture them, items that could hold more than they should were actually pretty common because of how useful they were. Any good Tier Three mercenary should have one, so Serenity didn’t have any hesitation about nodding.

Xarx smiled, then spoke normally again. “The pay is a hundred kopeks a day for each of you while we’re in the safe lands, with bonuses if we’re actually attacked. We’ll have to talk about what it will be for outside the Boundary once we know how many guards we’ll have.”

Serenity turned to Andarit. He had no idea if that was a good wage or not, but it didn’t really sound like one. Even so, he was inclined to accept it; he didn’t need money, what he needed was a way out of Zenith. “Andarit? What do you think?”

Andarit’s nose was wrinkled as though she’d smelled something bad. “A hundred for a Tier Three? I know we’re Mercenaries but that doesn’t mean we don’t have any idea what you should be paying. We should be charging more since you’re paying in kopeks instead of Etherium, not less.”

Ceney laughed at Andarit’s disgusted comment. It sounded surprisingly light and bell-like; for a moment, Serenity wondered if she was a singer as well as an armorsmith. “You don’t have to be so careful of my kopeks, Xarx. I may not have access to other sources right now, but I am an armorsmith; I can earn more kopeks. That’s part of why we’re doing this, after all!”

She turned towards Andarit before continuing. “I don’t have all that many Etherium, so I’d prefer to pay in kopeks. Will three hundred a day each work? We’ll cover anything due to the trip, including meals, other than gear replacement, and there will be bonuses if you actually have to defend us. This is only for the trip to Celestials’ Rest; we can talk prices again after that. I know it’s not Zenith pricing but it’s fair for outside and we won’t be in Zenith.”

Ceney seemed nervous as she watched Andarit.

Andarit visibly thought for a moment before relaxing and nodding. “That is fair for outside Zenith, at least to Celestials Rest. It really is fairly safe. How many guards will there be?”

Ceney relaxed at Andarit’s first words, then tensed up again at her question. She looked pleadingly at Xarx, but he only shook his head. Serenity could see the slight smile on his face. “Uh, four. That is, there are the four of us. Two wagons.”

Andarit shook her head. “I can see why you’re so desperate for guards. Why is it difficult to find more? I’d expect lots to be available right now, under these circumstances.”

Surprisingly, it was Xarx that spoke first. “Too many were killed yesterday. Worse, the … people in red … are recruiting. They’re paying well. Better than what Ceney offered. We had guards lined up, but they left to take the better offer a few hours ago.”

Serenity hadn’t heard about the recruiting. “I take it they were recruiting here?”

“Yeah.” Ceney sounded bitter. “Right in front of us, too. I can’t really blame them for taking it, but I hope you don’t. I don’t want to be out there with just Xarx and me. It’s not that we can’t fight, but we’re not intimidating.”

Serenity didn’t want to say that he didn’t trust the acolytes as far as he could throw them; then again, he was strong enough that he could probably get some decent distance.

As the thought of actually throwing an acolyte made Serenity’s lips twitch, Andarit came up with the perfect response. “We’re not interested in long-term work, and I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re offering if the pay’s that good. We both have goals and don’t need to be tied down.”

A tentative grin returned to Ceney’s face. “That’s great news. So why don’t we have dinner and talk about how this is going to work?”

The next morning, Ceney and Xarx led Serenity and Andarit to Ceney’s workspace. Serenity was surprised to find that it was only a few blocks from the prince’s pottery studio; he’d somehow expected it to be closer to the gate. There were already two wagons waiting next to the building.

Serenity saw his tail follow them to the workshop, so it was clear that someone was still watching. He hoped it wouldn’t interfere with leaving the city.

The next several hours were spent loading everything that could be moved from inside the workshop. The finished goods went in the wagons, along with significant quantities of supplies. The expanded spaces were used for everything else.

When Serenity admitted he had a storage Skill that didn’t have a weight or size limit, he ended up carrying all of the individually large or heavy items. For some reason, Ceney also insisted that he carry a few of the materials. Serenity couldn’t be absolutely certain why, but they seemed to shimmer with both mana and essence when he looked at them. His guess was that they were more valuable than they looked, she didn’t want to show them to the guards at the gate, and she didn’t have a storage method that would keep people from looking into it.

Serenity couldn’t blame her for her caution. If anything, it was to be applauded; they needed to show enough wealth to explain having armed guards but not so much that the gate guards decided to steal or delay them for some other reason. Not telling Serenity what he was carrying made less sense, since Serenity was confident that a number of the other items she was having him carry were also quite valuable; several of the large tools clearly carried enchantments, even if they were mana-powered instead of using monster cores.

Once everything was loaded up, it was nearly midday. They didn’t waste any more time. Xarx had brought a pair of erkal; once he’d harnessed the freight-lizards to the wagons, they headed directly towards the gate.

Serenity noticed that Ceney didn’t bother to lock the now-empty workshop behind them, even though she’d unlocked it when they arrived.

The line was long, but the trip out through the gate was disconcertingly uneventful. The acolyte-guards gave the wagons a cursory inspection, looking in everyone’s packs, then waved the four people and two wagons through the gate.

It was positively anticlimactic, just the way Serenity preferred.