The contract board was already crowded when Adrian stepped into the office the next morning.
Sheets of paper overlapped each other in uneven layers, some pinned properly, others half-torn and curling at the edges.
Most of them were routine work.
Outer patrols. A few monster clearings. Escort assignments along the southern road.
Nothing he hadn't already seen before.
A few other workers were already at the board ahead of him, scanning through the listings with the practiced efficiency of people who knew exactly what they were looking for.
One of them pulled a patrol sheet without reading it fully and walked straight to the counter.
Another spent a long time on the escort assignments before taking two of them.
Nobody touched the lower corner of the board.
Adrian stood there for a while, scanning through the listings without much interest.
His mind wasn't fully on the board. It hadn't been for the past few days.
That feeling hadn't gone away.
It had stayed after the Shade attack. Faint at first, easy to ignore if he didn't think about it too much.
But the more time passed, the harder it became to dismiss.
It wasn't physical. Just a feeling he couldn't point to or explain properly.
He had tried to reason his way out of it more than once.
Told himself it was nerves, or the lingering effects of what the Shade had done to him, or probably just the Scar doing what the Scar did to people who stayed too long.
None of those explanations had stuck.
He exhaled slowly and reached up, shifting one of the papers aside.
That was when he saw it.
Deep Ruin Survey
Sector: Southern Scar, beyond third ward line
Objective: Confirm internal stability, recover any identifiable artifacts
Status: Previous contractor did not return
Compensation: Triple standard rate upon acceptance
Adrian read it once.
Then again.
His gaze lingered on the sector description, and something in his chest tightened slightly.
Southern Scar. Past the third ward line.
He didn't need to check the documents to recognize it. He already knew.
The broken tower and collapsed arches.
The place his father had marked more than once, with notes that grew more hurried the further they went.
He reached into his coat and pulled out the folded pages, glancing over them again.
The landmarks matched. Not exactly, but close enough that it wasn't something he could ignore.
He stood there for a moment longer, the paper in one hand, the contract still pinned to the board in front of him.
The triple rate didn't mean much to him. Three times nothing was still not a lot. But the location meant everything.
Then he let out a quiet breath.
"So that's where you ended up," he murmured under his breath.
There wasn't really a decision to make.
He pulled the contract free.
The worker beside him glanced over automatically, the way people did when something shifted at the edge of their vision.
Then he saw what Adrian was holding. His eyes widened for a moment but he didn't say anything.
He looked at the contract, then at Adrian, like he was about to speak, then thought better of it.
A second later, he turned back to the board and kept reading, as if nothing had happened.
Adrian watched that for a moment, then walked toward the desk, unconcerned with what the others thought.
---
The man at the counter barely looked up when Adrian placed the sheet in front of him.
"Deep ruin?" he asked, already reaching for the ledger.
"I'll take it."
The man paused then, just slightly, before finally looking up properly.
"You've been here for what… three weeks?"
"Just about."
A short silence followed that.
Somewhere behind him, another worker approached the counter, likely to return a completed contract. The footsteps slowed, then stopped just short.
Adrian didn't need to look to know why.
He was avoided like a plague.
The man lingered there for a moment, then shifted slightly to the side instead of stepping forward.
The manager tapped the contract lightly, as if considering whether to say something, then seemed to decide against it.
"Sign here."
Adrian picked up the pen and signed without hesitation.
The ink hadn't even dried before the man stamped it.
"Payment's guaranteed on acceptance," he said, sliding the copy back. "After that, you're on your own."
"I figured."
The man gave a small nod and moved on to the next stack of papers.
Adrian folded the contract and slipped it into his coat before turning to leave.
The worker who had stopped behind him stepped aside without a word to let him pass.
---
Word had spread by dinner.
Adrian noticed it the moment he walked in. A few conversations paused. Someone glanced over from the far end of the room and then looked away again.
It wasn't hostile. Nobody said anything directly.
But the way people didn't look at him this time felt different from the usual indifference he had gotten used to.
He ignored them, sat down with his bowl and started eating.
Two workers at the table closest to him finished quickly and left earlier than usual.
A third one, someone he recognized from the second patrol line, lingered long enough to catch his eye before moving on.
She opened her mouth slightly like she was about to say something, then thought better of it and walked away.
Adrian watched her go and turned back to his bowl.
He didn't notice Jarvis sit across from him until the man spoke.
"You took it."
Adrian glanced up briefly, then nodded. "Yeah. The whole world knows"
Jarvis didn't reply immediately. He picked up his spoon, ate a few bites, then set it down again.
"That sector's been empty for a reason," he said.
Adrian leaned back slightly. "That's usually how these things work."
Jarvis looked at him for a moment.
"You know what I mean."
Adrian did.
He let out a small breath and ran a hand through his hair.
"It matches something in my father's notes," he said. "Same landmarks. Same area."
Jarvis's expression shifted slightly at that, surprise crossing his face before disappearing.
"Lucian Greystone," he said after a moment, as though placing the name properly. "I remember hearing about him."
Adrian leaned forward. "Anything useful?"
He knew that most people remembered his father, but with the current influence of his uncle, they were inclined to act like he'd never existed. It was why Adrian was unable to make friends among the border patrol workers after three weeks.
Jarvis shook his head. "Not the kind you're looking for."
He leaned back slightly, studying Adrian in a way that felt more direct than usual.
"You're going anyway," he said.
Adrian gave a small, almost amused exhale. "I already signed it."
"That's not what I meant."
Adrian didn't answer immediately.
He looked down at the table for a second, then back up again.
"No," he said. "You're right. I was going either way."
Jarvis nodded once, like that confirmed something he had already expected.
"If you pass the third line," he said, "don't rely on the markers."
Adrian frowned slightly. "Why?"
"They stop meaning anything. Distance shifts. Direction doesn't stay where you left it."
Adrian considered that. It explained some of what the Shade had done to him on patrol. The disorientation hadn't just been the creature.
The land itself past a certain point simply didn't behave.
"That explains a few things," he said quietly.
That was probably why no one dared to go there. Going past the third line was basically a death sentence.
Jarvis didn't respond to that. He picked up his cup, took a slow drink and set it back down.
"One more thing," he said, without looking up. "Whatever you find down there, don't touch anything until you understand what it is."
Adrian looked at him curiously.
Jarvis met his gaze briefly, then looked away.
"Just something people say," he added, though his tone suggested it wasn't.
They sat in silence for a while after that.
Adrian got the sense that there was something else the man could say, something he wasn't choosing to share, but he didn't push.
If Jarvis wanted him to know, he would have said it already
He took a sip and watched the night roll by.
At some point he became aware that the room had gotten quieter around them.
It wasn't empty yet, but the chatter had died down and turned into whispers.
He didn't look up. It was a normal occurrence for him now that he hardly noticed it.
The disgrace of the Greystone family.
No one was bold enough to say it to his face yet but he knew. He could see it clearly from the looks of pity and disdain they threw his way.
Although he'd left the family, he was still a part of the Greystone, and these commoners weren't ready to face the consequences of insulting one even if it was a useless one.
Jarvis left shortly after without a word, his footsteps fading into the quiet of the camp.
Adrian stayed a little longer.
The contract sat folded in his coat pocket. The documents his father had left behind sat beside it.
He had read both of them enough times that he could have recited them from memory, and yet neither of them had given him the one thing he actually needed.
Answers.
He looked south.
The Scar stretched beyond the camp in complete darkness, the ward posts invisible from here, the third line somewhere out there past all of it.
And past that, the ruins.
The sensation in his chest that had been building since the Shade attack was steady now. Quiet but constant, like something that had stopped pretending it wasn't there.
Whatever was waiting for him down there had been waiting for a long time.
He finished his cup and stood up.
Tomorrow, he would find out what it was.