"Let me thank you all again. Without your help, our entire caravan surely would have been wiped out. We all owe you guys our lives."
Currently, Marcus and his party were at the adventurers guild in Armadura and Louis as the representative of the caravan had just finished the paperwork confirming the completion of their guard mission.
After he had made sure they received their payment he began vehemently expressing his gratitude to them.
"We were just doing our job. You hired us and paid more than it would normally cost to retain a party of adventurers of our ranks. It was no big deal." Marcus said, downplaying their efforts.
Louis, however, would hear none of their modesty and continued to heap praise upon them.
Eventually though, Manuel nudged his employer. Now that they had arrived, it was paramount that they deliver their goods to the army and collect the money they were owed.
"I suppose that this is goodbye for now. If you ever need anything that I can assist you with, please come and seek me out. Also, I want to wish you good luck in the operation to reclaim the former capital. I'm sure that your strength will bring us victory." Louis said before taking his leave.
Once he was gone, the guild employe that had marked their quest as complete approached them. She had been hovering around waiting for them to wrap up their conversation from the start.
"Excuse me. There is some other paperwork that needs to be filled out regarding the mission to clear out the old capital of undead monsters. If you would please follow me, we can get everything taken care of quickly." The guild employee said, her face and voice tense with nervousness.
"Sure. Lead the way." Marcus replied in a friendly manner.
The young woman then brought them bac over to the reception counter and handed out a few forms to Marcus.
Thankfully it was all just routine items that were easy to deal with and they were finished in just a couple of minutes.
"Thank you for your time. That is all the guild needs from you. But if there is anything else that I can assist your party with, I would be more than happy to help."
"Actually, we just arrived in the city and don't have a place to stay. We were hoping that the guild might have some recommendations for us." Marcus said, wearing a mildly distressed expression on his face.
"I see, so you know about that." Mrazivý said, a stiff smile on her face.
"Well, if you were trying to hide it, you are not doing a good job of doing so. Your guild card clearly states your name, your highness. Houten may be far away from Borealia, but that does not mean I don't know of the other nations that are part of the guild."
"Okay, so you know about my wife's status. But right now, we are here only as simple adventurers looking to do a job. Our party is trying to not get caught up in any pomp and circumstances. We'd be grateful if you kept this a secret." Marcus interjected.
"I'm afraid that I'll have to inform a few people about your party, but I'll make sure that you don't get wrapped up in any annoying formalities." Estella assured.
She then got down to business about what sort of accommodations she could arrange for them.
"If you want, I can prepare some rooms within the guild hall for you. If that is not acceptable, I've got enough pull to open up some rooms at any of the nicer inns in town. I'll probably have to get some fat cats kicked out, but I'd rather deal with their complaints than any of yours."
"The rooms in the guild hall will be fine. We don't want to cause any trouble." Marcus responded affably.
"Got it. It will probably take a couple of hours to make the arrangements. If you want, I can offer you a meeting room to wait in until then."
"No, that's fine. We just arrived in town today and want to look around the city. Part of the reason we are here is to experience another country's culture." Marcus said with an excited smile on his face.
"Sure, do what you want. I don't think that you will find much culture in this city, though. It's mostly for military use after all, Plus, the number of people currently here is far beyond what it was meant to handle. Most of what you're going to find is traffic and places that are packed to capacity."
"You're probably right, but you never know what you might find in a new city. And if the roads are too congested, we can always just jump from rooftop to rooftop."
"Please don't get into any trouble at least. I'm already up to my ears in incident reports from adventurers getting into fights with each other or military personnel. The last thing I need is to hear about your group got into an altercation and blew up part of the city." Estella warned.
"There's no need to worry. We aren't looking for any trouble." Marcus said assuredly.
With their business at the guild now concluded, Marcus and his companions turned around and exited the building. They were going to be staying in Armadura for the next week at least and wanted to familiarize themselves with the city.