The three Tier 5 cores sat on the receiving grid while the registrar's assessment array ran its verification.
The results that came back were consistent with what the Fate's Eye had read at the harvest sites — the primordial world's Tier 5 material was operating at density levels that required the array to run three passes before the measurement stabilised. The registrar had the specific professional manner of someone who had handled high-tier materials for a long time and was encountering something at the upper end of his reference experience.
The Platinum insignias were forged and passed across the counter.
The guild hall's iron doors opened at this moment, which was poor timing on the Mayor's part.
Mayor Tan was a Wind element practitioner at what the Fate's Eye assessed as Tier 5 — not dramatically above the settlement's average for senior officials, which told him something about the power ceiling this part of the primordial world was working with. Behind him, the Chief Guard's combat tier was higher and his bearing more controlled.
The Mayor's expression was the expression of a parent who had received information that had hit him before he had been able to compose himself around it.
"The Eternity Team," he said. "My son followed your coordinate path into the northern sector. He and eleven of my estate guards were attacked by Tectonic Dread-Wolves in the Platinum zone."
"Yes," Markus said.
The guild hall had gone quiet in the way that spaces went quiet when the air between two practitioners had a charge to it.
"Three of your twelve are in the settlement's medical facility," he continued. "The wolves engaged them approximately forty minutes before we reached the second contract site. We extracted those three and removed the wolves before additional casualties occurred. I'm sorry we didn't reach the site sooner."
The Mayor's grief and his anger were running at the same rate, which was the specific condition of someone who had not yet resolved which was the appropriate response.
"You could have stayed closer to the zone," the Mayor said. "If you were operating in that sector—"
"The three contracts covered three sites across six kilometres of territory," Markus said. "We were at the first site when they entered the second. The Platinum zone is marked at every approach with guild-standard hazard notation. The coordinate ledger is restricted access — your son abused your mayoral seal to breach it."
The registrar, behind the counter, was examining the ceiling in the specific way of someone who was deeply invested in being uninvolved.
"The boy had no authorisation to enter a Tier 4-5 active zone," the Chief Guard said, quietly, to the Mayor. His voice carried the weight of someone saying an accurate thing to a person who was not ready to hear it. "The guild's protocols protected him from access for exactly this reason."
The Mayor looked at the Chief Guard. Then at the counter, where the Platinum insignias sat.
Then at Markus.
"You paralyzed him in the plaza," the Mayor said. "Before any of this."
"No," Markus said. He had not used any technique in the plaza. "I cited the Conclave's registry records. Your son reconsidered his approach and left. That is the complete account of what happened in the plaza."
He had the Fate's Eye running — not as threat assessment, but reading the Mayor's emotional state the way he read any complex situation where the relevant facts were mixed with significant feeling. What he saw was grief doing the thing grief did: looking for a location to place itself.
"Your son made a poor decision with serious consequences," Markus said. "He is alive. So are two of his guards. The immediate medical priority is the three individuals in the facility — if you want me to provide what I know about the injuries for the treating practitioners, I will. The spatial sense can tell them things about the wound architecture that will help."
The Mayor stared at him.
The Chief Guard's hand was no longer near his weapon.
"The guild ledger covers the Eternity Team's actions," the Chief Guard said, again quietly, to the Mayor. "The contracts were legal. The zone entry was unauthorized. If you proceed with an action against them here, you do so outside the guild's protection — and against a Platinum team that just cleared three Tier 5 anomalies in a single morning."
The Mayor's wind mana, which had been cycling in the agitated pattern of strong feeling looking for expression, gradually settled.
"What treatment do they need," the Mayor said. His voice had changed registers — the grief separating from the anger now, the anger receding because it had nowhere to go.
"The two guards are stable," Markus said. "Your son has channel stress from running during a high-mana-output confrontation in an unfamiliar density environment. The compound I use for atmospheric adaptation would help stabilise the channel walls. I can provide some to the medical facility."
He reached into the inventory and produced three vials of Isolde's preparation.
He placed them on the counter between them.
"He will recover," Markus said. "The decision he made was poor. The consequence it produced does not need to be permanent."
He let this sit.
The Mayor looked at the vials. He picked them up with the hands of someone who had come in here planning one thing and was leaving with something different.
He did not thank Markus. He was not at the stage where that was available to him yet.
He turned and left.
The Chief Guard looked at Markus for a moment with the assessment of a practitioner who had been doing this work for a long time and had just processed an encounter that had gone differently from how he had expected.
He nodded once.
Then he followed the Mayor out.
The guild hall resumed its operations.
Markus collected the Platinum insignias from the counter and distributed them to the team. Rosanne received hers with the specific attention of someone noting the weight and texture of a new category of material.
"The third contract site," he said. "We didn't finish the survey at the northern ridge."
"This afternoon?" she said.
"This afternoon," he agreed.
They went.