Dante Cadorna—no, Dante di Firozzi, head of both the di Firozzi Famiglia and the Rosa Dominae Adventurer's Guild—was, in a word, stressed.

This had not been a good week. Not that the weeks before had been much better, but at least there had been some order to things. His enemies had been obvious, his problems self-inflicted, and his responsibilities local. It had not been easy, but it had been manageable.

Things were no longer manageable.

A Demon attack on a city was not unheard of, even in this day and age. The coasts were near constantly under siege by the Woman-Serpent, the Empire skirmished constantly with the Traitor-Knight, and many small-time Demons had tried their hands at plundering the countryside. The need to defend your home against monsters was why the Adventurers Guilds existed in the first place.

But now the All-Seeing was kicking it up a notch in a way not seen since the Demon Wars. First the siege of Iscrimo, and now the crisis in Firozzi? That was two attacks against two major cities within a month of each other, each of which came dangerously close to succeeding.

And his guild had been instrumental in stopping both of them.

A year ago, he would have jumped for joy at such a fact. The prestige alone would see his guild through the next decade, not to mention all the opportunities that would open up for them. His ambition to supplant the Rodina Guild as the greatest of Firozzi's adventurers guilds would have gone from being a pipe dream to a genuine possibility.

Well, it was no longer mere possibility, but fact. And he found success a bitter pill to swallow.

The Rodina guild had been gutted. Many of their adventurers had died, true, but that was not what has crippled them. No, it was the fact that during the greatest crisis Firozzi had experienced in the past decade, the most powerful adventurer's guild in the city didn't do anything.

Not that they could have, of course. It was a trap made specifically with the Rodina in mind, with a significant chunk of their own adventurers usurped by the All-Seeing's will. Even if they didn't know it, they were doomed.

And that was the issue. What was supposed to be the great bulwark of Firozzi—the guild which was tasked with keeping the people safe—had failed utterly and ignobly. They were not much weaker and not much poorer than where they'd been a month ago, but the loss of face was something that could never be regained.

Perhaps the Ambrosi Famiglia might have been able to save their favored pet, but they were on a downward trend themselves. They weren't anywhere near dead—they still held power and wealth both in and out of the city—but between the excommunication and their failure to prevent an attack in the middle of their own tournament any faith in their abilities as rulers was now thoroughly tarnished. It would take generations before the stain of their failures would be washed away, and they did not have generations.

Normally, this is where the Capparelli would swoop in and expand their influence across the city, the same as they had the last time the Ambrosi fell from grace. They would be contested, of course, but Dante wasn't arrogant enough to believe his burgeoning faction would be enough to hold them off from dominating local politics, even if he were willing to swallow his pride and ally with the Gennarelli to stop them.

Or at least, that's what should have happened.

For some Goddess only knows reason the Capparelli seemed to have decided now of all times to stop doing anything. Practically all of the Famiglia's leaders had retreated into their old castle and hadn't been heard from since, leaving the rest of their faction adrift following the Demon attack.

Dante didn't have the slightest idea what was going on with them, but they could not have chosen a worse time. Because his was not the only Famiglia in the city taking advantage of the seeming collapse of the old powers.

The Gennarelli had spent the past few years quietly inserting themselves into the fabric of the city. Originally from Palunera, they had started by simply buying out some small businesses and building a local bank. Small things, for the power they wielded, and not something anyone paid much mind to. It was even natural—the Ambrosi owned adventurers guilds in Palunera and the Capparelli ran inns up near Iscrimo. The Famiglias were not royalty, after all. They were more businesses with political power than anything else, and the Capparelli no more owned Friozzi than the Gennarelli owned Palunera. Making a few foreign investments was just good sense.

The issue is that they never stopped.

By the time anyone realized what the Gennarelli were doing they were already entrenched. And despite being foreign newcomers they had inserted themselves into the city's politics with an efficiency that was almost frightening. In less than a decade they now held a seat on the Arti Maggiori and had been gunning for a seat on the Signora for longer still.

And now both the old Famiglias in the city were paralyzed from the attack, while the Gennarelli were free to make their move.

Which all led to the current situation. With the Rodina leaking like a moldy bag of rice while their patrons continued to fracture and splinter, with the Capparelli dropping all their responsibilities in the midst of a crisis, and with a foreign power just marginally more tolerable than the Demons themselves pushing unimpeded into city politics. And he—Dante di Firozzi, leader of the first faction to form following the initial excommunication of the Ambrosi, head of the guild which helped stop two Demon invasions in less than a month, and the man who arrogantly took the name of the city itself for his own—was now the man so many people were looking to in order to fix this mess.

And he had no idea what the hell to do.

He'd barely managed to get his one guild in the green before this whole mess started, and that was only because half the damn people quit! He thought he'd have more time—or at least more money—before he'd have to deal with even half the issues he was currently facing!

…So this is what they meant by biting off more than you can chew, huh?

Dante let out a long, exhausted sigh as he slumped against his desk. The parchment was forgotten for a moment as he simply allowed himself to wallow in self-pity.

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"What is it this time? Existential crisis or did you look at our pocketbooks?" Ósma hummed curiously, the old Orc filling out his own books at his own desk. Normally they'd be in different rooms, but with everything that was going on it was more efficient to work near each other for now. Asu Rana was here as well, the moth-woman glowing faintly with exhaustion.

"Gennarelli," he grumbled into his arms.

"Ah, the worst of them all," Ósma joked. Well, 'joked.' "Do you need a minute or are you good to keep working?"

Dante blinked heavily, giving it some due thought. On the one hand, he'd give up his left arm to be anywhere but here right now. On the other, work needed doing, and not doing it didn't make the work go away.

With a groan he raised his head, cracking his back loud enough that for a minute he was worried he'd broken something. Shaking his head he shuffled his papers back into some semblance of order and prepared to get back to work, before he chanced a glance out the window.

"What time is it even?" he asked blearily, eyeing the darkness outside. Even the constant partying of his adventurers seemed to have quieted down. "How long have we been in here today?"

"Long enough, dearie," Asu Rana chittered at him, the elderly Kwari giving him an understanding look. "You missed dinner. Again."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair—unwashed, unfortunately, since he wasn't meeting with anyone important and couldn't otherwise spare the time—and reached for one of his desk drawers. "Might as well have Bettina send something up then. Do you two want anything?"

At their answers he pulled the drawer open, revealing within a mirror made of polished diamond. Pure in a way that nature simply couldn't recreate, he absently rubbed a finger against the edge, pushing his meagre understanding of his family magic into it.

As he watched the endless fractals faded away to reveal the guild's kitchens, where Bettina was cleaning up for the night. He felt a bit guilty for bothering her like this, but with the painful growl of his stomach that guilt was ruthlessly quashed.

He waited for a few moments for her to realize that the mirror was active and—when he realized he probably could have walked downstairs and just asked her herself in the time he'd spent waiting—he picked up a decently sized chunk of quartz and chucked it out the window, the resulting crash as it shattered against the ground causing the old woman to spin around in surprise.

Then she finally noticed the mirror and scowled.

'Lazy ass,' she mouthed at him. Not that he could hear, since the mirrors didn't translate sound (he lacked Chiara's skill with their family magic), but that was an issue they'd long since figured out.

Dante held up several fingers—two then four then two and then three—and with a huff and a roll of her eyes Bettina left to get started on their orders.

"You know, something like that would have been useful on the battlefield," Ósma hummed, though more to fill the empty space than anything substantial. They'd had this conversation before, and the answer was as rote as ever. "Being able to talk to people over long distances would have solved so many problems we had during the Demon Wars."

"Indeed, if only I'd been born forty years ago," he rolled his eyes. Not that it would have changed anything, since the mirrors could only transmit over a short distance. There was a reason he only really used them to order food from his chef downstairs. Any further and the image would get lost in the fractals. "I might have died on the battlefield, rather than in an office of overwork."

"You're giving yourself too much credit, guildmaster," the old Orc scoffed with faux-pompousness. "Your skinny ass would have keeled over during the march with the rest of the green boys."

"I'm honored you have such a high opinion of me, truly."

They continued like that for some time, conversation ebbing and flowing as they traded barbs and complained about work in a way that only a group of coworkers who'd been together for far too long could manage. And Dante managed to relax, if only a bit, as he let himself be reminded that he was human and not some Volan Automaton designed to only do paperwork.

It was not a feeling that lasted, unfortunately.

The door to his office swung open a fair bit later, his younger half-sister Chiara storming in with a scowl etched into her face and their food in her hands.

"Hey Ósma, do you know where Palmira went?" she snapped, carelessly dumping his seared steak on the desk. He gave her a mild glare as he snatched his flute of Cordiali Blue to stop it from splashing all over his very important papers. "She never came back from… from her day out with that Nymph lady."

The old Orc blinked slowly, rubbing the weariness from his eyes with his good hand. "Palmira? I… no, I've been in here all day. I wouldn't have seen her come in."

"Yeah, well I didn't either," she grumbled as well, and despite the fact it shouldn't have been that big of a deal Dante felt himself sitting straighter at the admission. She'd never admit it, but he was well aware his sister had spent her day sulking in the courtyard waiting for her friend to come back. "I even checked her room and everything, but she's not there!"

"Perhaps she's still out with Spinosa? They are apparently old friends, they might have taken a long time to catch up?"

"No way!" Chiara fired back with more heat than he'd expected of her. "The dining hall is closed, Ósma. Palmira never misses a free meal, she'd have come back at some point if only to shovel the Bettina's crappy soup down her throat."

"That…" the old Orc grimaced as he realized the truth of her words. "Maybe Spinosa bought her dinner? She wouldn't need to eat here in that case."

"Then she would have finished early and then come back and eaten here as well. She never misses a free meal. Never."

At this, Dante couldn't help but close his eyes and sigh. Not because he didn't believe her, but because this was really the last thing he needed to deal with right now.

"If you're that worried for her then go look for her," he told his sister, which only caused her to splutter in embarrassment at being called out so blatantly. "Firozzi was just attacked by a Demon Lord, Chiara, and we were one of the primary people to oppose it. If you think she's missing or in danger, go look for her."

His sister froze at that, as did the others in the room.

"You really think someone might have…" Ósma began, only to trail off with a scowl. "No, they would, wouldn't they. There's no way to know if we got them all… Shit. Chiara, I'm coming with you, we'll find her—"

"You absolutely will not," Dante snapped at the Orc, using his best guildmaster voice to do so. It normally didn't work on Ósma—what with him having run the guild for nearly as long as Dante had been alive—but this time he thankfully listened. "You are still recovering from losing an arm. No, you are staying right here. That said, Chiara, you aren't going alone, and make sure to tell anyone still here not to leave the guildhall either. Despite the late hour I'm recalling everyone back just in case, and you're going to be the one to go grab them. Take Leo and Jelge with you and make sure to report back regularly."

"Not Teresa?"

"Teresa's been off with the other holy men and women purifying the populace all week. Meet up with her and pull her back if you can but your priority is to find Palmira and recall everyone else."

"Got it," she nodded sharply, before hesitating. "Hey, um, do you really think…?"

"I hope not," he told her honestly. "But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Maybe this is overkill. Ideally, Palmira just lost track of time and we'll all rib her and me about being paranoid idiots come morning. But these days I believe it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Right, right…" she nodded again, a worried twist to her nearly translucent features as she stormed back out of the room as quickly as she came. Ruby butterflies and emerald rats pealed themselves from the windows she passed, slinking off to help the girl search a city for one pyromaniac little girl.

Once she was gone Dante sighed long and hard, dropping his head back into his hands.

"You know, when I first took this position it was because it was the best I could do to get out of the shadow of my brothers," his voice dripped from between his fingers, both muffled and wistful. "But after this I think I understand you adventurers a little better now."

"Oh?" Ósma grunted, now full of a nervous energy he put to page for lack of anything better to do. "How do you mean?"

"Because murdering a Demon Lord with my bare hands sounds fucking therapeutic right about now."

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