She has one letter waiting for her at the Bank. It's from the Office of Spells at the Korvosan Guard. They request her presence at Citadel Volshyenek, today if possible.

What a surprise. It was the obvious choice for a reason, and the guard isn't even trying to be unexpected. To Citadel Volshyenek, then.

Citadel Volshyenek is somehow even busier than she remembers. She's led up to a different office than her previous visits.

A clerk speaks to her. "Hello. We would like to hire you as part of our monster prevention task force. If you accept, it is likely you will spend extended time underground."

"Time underground isn't a problem. How much are the Abadarans charging for resurrection insurance per day, how much for insurance against other long-term injuries, and how much does it pay?" She may well not be able to pay her own resurrection insurance, but it's a good metric for danger which doesn't rely on humans to give her accurate information rather than conveniently skewing what they believe 'very dangerous' means. Not that she'd trust that from anyone with such a strong reason to lie to her. And if the risk of death is that high, or the pay is that low, she might need to think this over a little longer, though she is better than the Abadarans will expect.

The clerk pages through a small book. The price of insurance for raise dead is currently quite a bit higher than normal (although this rate is only an estimate and prices vary substantially between individuals). An insurance package covering most long-term injuries, via either restoration or regenerate has not increased nearly as much. The numbers imply a higher risk of death than usual, but not an extremely higher risk.

"For you, we're currently offering fifteen silver shields per day, plus a share of any items recovered underground, so long as those items don't belong to any legal persons of Korvosa."

"That's an acceptable rate." A little low for her depth of spellcasting, but she doesn't have any of the really valuable spells at first circle. She isn't actually going to buy resurrection insurance, but if the Abadarans don't think the risk has gone up that much they're probably right. "Who will I be working with?"

"Detective Navarro has requested you be placed with his new squad. It also contains a second circle cleric of Abadar."

Oh, a cleric of Abadar, that makes Blessing of the Watch much easier. "We worked well together previously." She gives an approving nod. "Where and when?"

"I believe they wanted to leave within an hour. Last I heard, they're headed to the region under Garrison Hill in Old Korvosa. Navarro's office is in the same place as usual."

"A deal, then. You have the paperwork?"

The clerk does have some paperwork. A lot of it is in the internal guard notation. The contract she has to sign is in plain Taldane. It essentially restates what the clerk already told her.

The internal guard notation continues to be someone else's problem. Contract signed, she makes her way to Navarro's office. "Hello again! I'm told you requested me?"

"Ah! Tencednil. Good to have you with us. We're going to find more breaches in the Vaults. Parts of Old Korvosa are being slowly overrun."

"More of the undead, then? What do you anticipate encountering? Image will assist against ghouls, and even more against the more thoughtless undead we may encounter, but it's best used with a plan, and plans must first be grounded in facts."

"Hard to know. As far as we can tell, everything intelligent in a very large area heard the mage's decree. People reported it for miles in the outlying farms. It could've disturbed basically anything down there."

She thinks about that for a moment before apparently putting together what he means. She flinches before recovering herself.

"You think it went down? Oh. Oh dear." That would explain an increasing danger level on the streets, and would also be terrible news. Mother tells many stories of the deep. While the sunlit wilderness here is bad, the World Beneath has things which have not been disturbed in Mother's memory. For the best, from her stories.

Or, apparently, things which had not been disturbed.

He nods. "The situation could certainly be better. I suspect the beasts near the surface are being pushed upward by things deeper down. Many of the tunnels need to be sealed, probably with magic. We need to figure out which ones to seal."

"Urgently, yes.  Abberations, then, or do you mainly anticipate Vaults undead for the present moment?"

"I expect undead, given they were already near the surface, but I wouldn't rule out other possibilities."

"Mainly Images, then, and the mindless undead should handle them predictably. I shall wait until the others arrive to go through the options, but the easy uses are a thick mist with warning and an apparent wall which zombies mostly will not stop to consider. The mist is preferable for fighting, the wall splits a pack."

"Those seem like good ideas."

Time passes. Around fifteen minutes later, the cleric of Abadar walks in.

"Hello, I'm Oriol."

He shakes the cleric's hand. "Detective Navarro, at your service."

Handshake! "Tencednil, sorcerer. How much did it cost the guard to hire you out?" It would be a useful anchor point for how valuable they think she is, and also just good to know.