Hector exchanged glances with Lincoln and Jodie. Lincoln's chest still heaved from exertion, though his eyes remained steady. Fighting these creatures was chipping away at the fear that had gripped him. Hector could see it. Jodie methodically cleaned purple ichor from her weapon with a scrap of cloth. They didn't seem to have an opinion about following Quinness.

After a moment, they tailed the maid back through the fortress. Exhausted mercenaries slumped against walls. Volunteer medics tended to wounds, though many bore injuries themselves—veterans forced into retirement. Relief settled over the fortress rather than triumph. Hollow eyes marked every face. These were soldiers who knew another wave would hit soon.

When they entered Raquel's office, it looked the same. Neat stacks of materials covered his desk. Tension saturated the air. The Blackbridge Company leader from earlier now sat in a chair that hadn't been there before. His hand combed through his hair. Posture rigid. Barely contained frustration. His two companions flanked him, standing at attention.

Towards the back of the room, Raquel stood a few feet behind the desk, his attention fixed on the crystal-like egg resting on its pedestal next to him. Colours washed over its surface in rhythmic pulses, as though the creature inside demanded freedom. Each throb cast writhing shadows across Raquel's face—ageing him ten years, then reversing it, then ageing him again within heartbeats.

"I'm glad you could make it." Raquel cut his glance toward them. Tight emotion strained his voice—something Hector couldn't immediately name. "As I pointed out earlier, this is the egg Haydon collected with his group."

The egg pulsed again. Hector's skin prickled. His hand moved to the hilt of the dagger at his hip. Whatever grew inside that shell didn't belong here.

"I believe this to be a queen's egg." Raquel picked up the egg and stepped to the desk, placing it down as if one wrong move might shatter more than just the shell. "Haydon and his brave fighters pushed through the hive. We lost so many people just to retrieve this." He shook his head. "Burned through countless talismans just to make it back alive."

He raised his left wrist. The bracelet flickered to life, projecting a notification in the air between them.

Hector blinked. Confusion swirled through him. Quest screens were private—the system the old man had built didn't allow sharing. Yet there it hovered, a translucent projection, its contents visible to the entire room.

Quest: Retrieve the Scarlet Hive Queen's Egg Status: Incomplete Objective: Egg Secured—Unknown Condition Remaining

"How?" Hector asked.

"I don't know." Raquel's frustration bled through every word. "It still registered. I believe it to be the queen's egg, at least. The notification says 'egg secured,' yet here we are. My quest incomplete, and my men trapped in a hive." His jaw tightened. "And I can do nothing about it," he said, not answering Hector's actual question.

He tapped the bead at the centre of his bracelet. It expanded, revealing additional text.

Warning: Bug threat still prevalent. Assets yet to be collected. Leaving assets within the bug territory will trigger a quest failure.

Hector's mind raced. What did the system mean by assets? People? Items? Why the ambiguity? This contradicted everything he understood about the system so far, how the old man had designed things. The man hadn't seemed to care how they completed the quest, only that it was done. Unless this wasn't just a random whim. Unless something deeper drove this quest structure.

"I believe the assets are the people in the hive." Raquel's words solidified Hector's half-formed thought before it could fully crystallise. "Haydon has confirmed this much already."

The chair scraped along the wood as the Blackbridge Company leader got to his feet. "I regret to say this, Lord Flamelight." Haydon took a step forward, his movements deliberate but hesitant. The careful balance of a man addressing someone from the Great Families, aware of the protocol yet not wholly intimidated by it. "We should retreat to the Sanctuary, where its walls would better protect us. For all we know, these assets might already be dead. As you've said yourself. Perhaps we should abandon them for the good of the mission."

Pressure settled into the room. Raquel pressed his hands flat against the desk, the wood creaking under his weight. "Are you suggesting I abandon my people for a quest reward?" His gaze locked on Haydon, daring the man to answer.

"Sir." One of the two other Blackbridge members standing behind Haydon, the woman, stepped forward, her green eyes steady. "I don't want to say this, but we should consider that they might already be dead." She straightened her back. "You're risking everyone here. Not just us, but our guests." She gestured toward Hector and his friends. "And the other mercenaries outside, fighting and dying. For what?"

Raquel raised a brow at her.

The woman gulped but steadied herself. "I mean no disrespect, sir, but are these people's lives really worth the lives of everyone in the fort?"

Silence stretched taut.

The egg continued to pulse, its light washing over the office. Raquel's voice grew quieter, though fierceness edged his words. "The system still refuses to complete my quest—proof that they're still alive. I won't knowingly pack up and leave them to a fate I believe is crueller than death itself."

The woman's hand moved to her blade, not as a threat, but for comfort. Her fellow mercenary, spiked hair practically bristling, shifted beside her, his gaze flickering uncomfortably between Haydon and Raquel.

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Hector could tell they wanted to voice their opinions, but they recognised the dangerous line they approached. To overstep and question a noble was frowned upon, and that was putting it lightly, even one as amiable as Raquel.

"Tell me then." Raquel pushed off the desk, his gaze drifting to the window. "How are we going to hold the fort? Because right now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don't want to abandon people, but I also don't want to sacrifice lives—it's not a trade I wish to make. Yes, I'm being stubborn, but I think we can save everyone."

Hector frowned, considering the question. Could Raquel do both? It seemed practically impossible. People had already died, and if those who lived found out, they'd given their lives for people who might not even make it back. Hector didn't doubt there would be bitter grievances between them and this lord.

Raquel sighed and shook his head. "The advance teams reported that fire talismans are incredibly effective against these creatures." He gestured toward the window, where a thin spiral of smoke rose into the air, coming from a small campfire on a distant wall—a few people huddled around it, keeping warm. "We've been using and testing talismans where situations are dire enough, but we don't have enough. We can't just throw them at the problem until it goes away."

He stepped away from the desk and moved to a cabinet against the wall. Opening it revealed a small stack of paper talismans. As Raquel plucked one from the shelf, Hector studied its surface—the inscriptions were similar to the explosive talismans he'd used before.

But Raquel was right. From this small amount, Hector could only guess there were maybe ten, twenty at most. He'd burnt that much just trying to clear a room full of earthen moles. He couldn't imagine how many they'd had to burn just to keep back those bugs.

"As I said, we're running low. If these run out, I don't think we'll last a day." Raquel's fingers tightened on the talisman. "Then maybe you'll be right, Haydon. Maybe we'll have to abandon this place."

Hector frowned, his gaze moving to the egg, studying it. The pulsing light, the way it beat with the rhythm of its own heart. If this were indeed a queen egg, the insects' determination to retrieve it made sense.

But surely they had more? After all, even bees and ants could nurture multiple queens. This wasn't the queen of the nest itself. Perhaps it was special in some other way. Or maybe the egg was simply part of Raquel's quest, an item that wasn't too important in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe he was in fact meant to abandon his fort after receiving it. Was this a test of character? Or something else?

An idea emerged in Hector's mind. If this was indeed a test of character, perhaps a sacrifice had to be made. But for what?

He flicked his gaze to Raquel, who still held the talisman, a pensive look in his eye as he debated what to do.

"Have you thought about why they're so aggressive?" Hector asked casually.

Every eye in the room snapped toward him.

And as Raquel opened his mouth to respond, the door burst open.

Wymon stumbled through, panic colouring his features. The breastplate he wore bore fresh scratches, no doubt from the mantis-like insects, while hastily applied bandages covered what looked to be a deep cut on his shoulder.

"Wymon." Raquel raised a brow, his voice sharp. "What's happened?"

"Sir, the southern walls." Wymon braced himself against the doorframe, hand on his chest, heaving. "I fear we may lose them. At this rate, the next wave will be our last. We could try to fall back, maybe sacrifice the entrance, but even then it's not looking good."

The words landed like a physical blow. Hector watched as Raquel's face went pale.

"If I had to guess," Wymon continued, "we have only a handful of men who are even willing to put up a fight. If we don't figure something out, we could see some deserting, and it wouldn't matter how much we paid them."

The egg pulsed, and its light blazed brighter now, as if sensing the violence ahead.

The egg's light washed across Raquel's features in waves. His gaze dropped to it, jaw tightening. Then he sighed, eyes shifting to the window—looking at something far beyond the walls, most likely toward the hive. A heavy silence hung in the air, the kind that preceded tough choices.

Hector studied the lord's features, reading the calculations in the man's eyes—and, ultimately, the choice he'd have to make.

The way Hector saw it, there were three options. First, pack everything within the fort and make for the sanctuary. As Haydon had said, the bugs couldn't get past the mana shield that had held the bugs back on the day of their arrival, let alone the actual walls. That would mean abandoning those still trapped within the caves, but it would save many lives here.

The second option: be stubborn, fight, and hope they could outlast the enemy. The math wasn't in Raquel's favour. Even the wave Hector had seen when he, Jodie, and Lincoln first arrived had claimed several lives. Without their intervention, many more would have died. Haydon's suggestion looked more reasonable by the moment.

But a third option existed. Hector's eyes flickered between Jodie and Lincoln as the idea formed. Raquel could ask someone to punch through the swarm, infiltrate the hive, and bring the survivors back to the base.

With the state of most people in the fortification, though, the question remained: who? And if those people left, the fort would lose capable hands, risking more deaths. Not a good option. As the idea took hold, Hector wrestled with whether he could do it—whether he could put his friends in that situation.

Raquel's chest fell with a sigh. He turned, resting his hands flat on the desk. He'd arrived at a decision, though what he'd decided, Hector couldn't quite tell. The lord's gaze fixed on the egg, murky and unreadable.

Then his focus snapped to Hector. The weight in those eyes pressed down like a physical thing, measuring him. Hector's pulse quickened—not from fear, but from knowing responsibility he didn't want was being shifted onto him.

"I saw what you and your friends did out there, how you guys cut through those bugs. You have a certain way about you, and part of me thinks you're hiding more." Raquel knocked his knuckle against the desk. "I need my men here. I believe we can hold out a little longer, especially if I put in some effort myself." He paused, considering his next words. "Those people need someone too. The caves should not be where they die."

Desperation edged his tone, something that hadn't been there a moment before.

Hector's hand moved to his dagger's hilt. He tapped a finger against the cool metal, the weight familiar, grounding.

"Earlier, I promised you a reward." Raquel pushed off the desk and stepped around it, straightening as he moved. His gaze never left Hector. "I'm more than willing to double it." The statement hung in the air, and then the question followed. "So, can I ask you to do me a favour?"

Hector's mind stalled briefly.

He considered turning it down. After all, he had no reason to do this, to put himself in danger—especially for a noble. But the people trapped in those caves didn't deserve to die, and if saving them could also prevent the loss of life in the fortress, could he really risk turning Raquel down?

Lincoln and Jodie's presence pressed at the edge of his awareness. He wasn't only putting his life on the line, but his friends' too.

This wasn't a decision he could make alone.

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