They came back to Mumbai with the sun low and red, the city's walls throwing long, tired shadows. The squad moved through Tempest's gate in ragged formation: armor scuffed, cloaks torn, packs heavier with salvage and lighter with those who would not walk home. A thin line of citizens gathered at the rail to watch them return — reverent, fearful, hungry for proof that the world still had those who would stand in the breach.
Krisan slipped from the line before the gate closed, breath still sharp from exertion. Halric limped beside him, bandages already doing their best to hold a torn sleeve together. Maren's gryphon bled from a scraped wing and cried low, but its rider laughed as if the sound could drown worry away.
"Good to see you breathing," Jiya said when she found him, voice even, like a blade wrapped in cloth. "We brought the relics back intact. That's the priority."
Krisan didn't answer right away. He watched the lower-tier Awokened as they filed past — faces young enough to still want a life outside of raids. Sona moved among them quietly, a handful of bitter herbs in one palm, a murmur of healing in her throat. When a boy stumbled, she steadied him as if it were the smallest act and the greatest.
Guildmaster Aditya Roy's presence cut through the courtyard. He walked with the calm authority of someone who had made and survived worse choices; his eyes took in the returning group in one sweep, then fell to the ledger man waiting at the gate. "Casualties?" he asked.
The ledger man swallowed. "Five lower-tier lost in the ambush, Guildmaster. Three still missing — presumed dead or trapped. We recovered two relic shards and a map fragment suggesting goblin outposts farther north."
Aditya's jaw tightened but he nodded. He turned to his children — Jiya, Krisan, Riya in the crowd — then out to the squad. "Good work. We brought order to a rift. That's what Tempest does. Now, attend to the wounded and compile reports. We leave nothing lying."
After the formalities, a hollow sort of tired pride ran through the raiders. Someone stoked a brazier and set pots to simmer; someone else took names and wrapped the fallen with Tempest cloth. Krisan stayed to help where he could. Halric's hand found his shoulder.
"You did well," Halric said simply. "You held the line when it mattered."
Krisan allowed himself a small nod. Praise from Halric felt more earned than ceremony.
They filed into the war room an hour later. The table was already strewn with reports and scavenged maps. Aditya sat at the head, fingers steepled. The senior officers waited — faces drawn, voices low. This was the part the public rarely saw: cold accounting, quiet grief, strategy.
"Tier-four cleared," Aditya began. "We lost men. We learned lessons. That is all true. But pay attention to what the scouts returned with." He pushed a map fragment into the circle. A crudely inked sketch of mountain passes and small red dots marked near the eastern coast — movement patterns.
Rahul, the archer, spoke up. "These outposts suggest more organized patrols than usual. Goblins were using traps that looked taught by someone watching human tactics."
"That was evident in the canyon," Jiya said. "Coordination, lure and retreat, bait. They are not random anymore."
Maren slammed his fist lightly on the table. "Build defenses, train the lower tiers. If minor breeds learn to coordinate, we'll meet them with more losses."
A younger officer tapped another holo. "Also, guild intelligence has picked up a series of fluctuations in the north and in the Far East. The monitors near the Japanese coast have registered a steady rise in energy concentration. It's not a rift yet — readings are unstable — but the profile is alarming."
A collective, involuntary murmur. Aditya's face hardened. "Noted. Log and monitor. Send scouts when we can spare them." He looked at Krisan. "We cannot chase every signal. We handle what threatens our borders."
Krisan felt the weight of the line; he felt, too, the tug of curiosity. "Japan?" he asked. "We should—"
Aditya cut in, not unkindly. "We will assign eyes. But our first priority remains the safety of Mumbai and the approach to the west. The scouts reported unusual orc activity near the lowlands — concentrations beyond hunting levels. If that organizes into tribal masses, it will be the seed of a disaster zone."
The phrase landed heavy. The younger officers shuffled papers with a new urgency. Disaster zones weren't rifts, Aditya explained in a voice that carried the lessons of hard years: a rift is a tear — an emergency that, with force, can be sealed or raided. A disaster zone is land that monsters have adopted as their own, where they build, breed and send out foragers and warbands. Rifts can be closed. Disaster zones grow.
Rihan, standing by the map, rubbed his temple. "So the orcs in the east are the real threat — not this canyon, not yet. But if they consolidate—"
"They'll become a region we cannot clear without mass mobilization," Aditya finished. "So we watch, prepare, and when necessary, we act early."
Outside the room, gossip began to coil through the guild halls and the city markets. Governments still existed — a mayor here, a provincial council there — but their edicts had the soft authority of remnant paper. The guilds held soldiers, food and shelter. When governments pleaded for protection, the guilds negotiated prices, alliances, and the right to lead. Power had rearranged itself; politics now ran over a table of arms and supplies as much as diplomacy.
That evening, Krisan found Riya by the outer wall, watching the harbor lights. She wrapped her shawl tighter, eyes wide with a question she could not yet voice.
"You were fast today," Riya said, voice small. "You stood in front of the smaller ones…"
Krisan sat beside her. "You were brave too. Everyone did what they could."
Riya's face glowed in the embers. "Do you think the orcs will come here?"
Krisan looked at the distant horizon, where a faint wisp of smoke rose from an unknown quarter. "If they do, we'll make sure they have to pay every inch."
Riya exhaled slowly, as if that settled something inside her. No one outside could promise there would be no more losses. But the city had Tempest, and Tempest had people who'd stand in that gap. For now, it was enough to hold the line.
Above them, beyond the patrol lights and guard towers, distant monitors ticked and registered the world's slow throbbing: a surge in the Far East, a swelling in the eastern lowlands, and the little pins on Aditya's map that marked places they would have to visit, watch, and sometimes fight for.
The raid's scars would heal. Lessons would be taught to the next wave. And the whispers — about Japan, about orcs, about governments leaning on guildmasters — would stitch themselves into a larger pattern the city's leaders would have to face sooner than any of them liked.