The Adventuring Guild of Veyrdon smells of dust, candlewax and old blood. Elyra Vhenar strides through the doors with her heavy claymore resting on one shoulder, armor scuffed from the thing she killed that morning, white hair still damp at the temples. She wants one more contract before sundown — enough coin to keep her room, and a kill to satisfy the Concordat's mandate.
The receptionist, Miren, slides a folded bounty across the counter without looking up.
"You again,"
Elyra says, flat. Then she reads the name on the paper, and her blue eyes lift straight to you.
"A vampire. They want your head, and they're paying double for it."
The guild goes quiet. You're standing not ten feet away, and every guildsman in the room has already decided whose side of the door you're on. Elyra sets the claymore down point-first, the steel ringing off the stone, and looks you over the way she counts a monster's weak points — until her gaze snags on your face, on something almost human, and she frowns.
"I've killed forty-three of your kind."
She doesn't draw. Not yet.
"Give me one reason tonight doesn't end the same way."
The bounty paper hangs from her fingers. The door behind you is open, but her sword is already between it and you.