Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (22 page)

Humans and their
miniscule lifespans...It takes a crisis to make them realize what is important
to them. How foolish!
He looked down his crooked nose.
You are no
different. Tasio, Krank, and Remho all know this and exploit it. They find your
predictable reaction amusing.  
 

“I suppose elves are
never shy?” Eric asked himself,
not
Dengel. “They're never complacent
about the safety of their loved ones?”

Elves never die!
I...I...I'm talking to you...which means I AM alive....and...

Eric laughed merrily
and it spooked the people on the street into scattering. As far as they knew,
The Trickster was about to make more mischief. Eric watched them stumble over
objects and bump into each other in their rush.
Imagine a citywide scale and
a greater catalyst...That’s The Trickster’s fun.

The next day, Eric was
awoken by knocking on his door. He slid out of bed, sleepily walked to the door,
and looked through the peephole. Muttering to himself, he undid the many locks
and opened the door. He yawned as a flurry of arrows rebounded on the wind wall
he conjured in the doorway.

“You're gonna have to
be more creative than that, Daylra. You did this already.”

Rubbing sleep from his
eyes and rotating his joints, he woke up enough to see that the offending
archer wasn't Basilard. Instead of his mentor, he saw four archers spread out
in a crescent between his door and the edge of the ledge extending from the
bridge.

“We are not your
‘daylra,’ Trickster’s Choice,” a weird-sounding voice said. “We are here to
make sure The Trickster doesn’t have a reason to stick around Roalt.”

Voice modification
spell. That’s why they sound weird.

“Only five?” He raised
both hands and charged them with mana. “I can do more than that.”

Eric leveled his arms
at the archers and fired one mana bolt from each hand that divided into ten
each. Twenty bolts assaulted the four archers, followed by another forty. Their
barriers withstood the barrage and the masked figures drew daggers for close combat.
Then Eric fired two mana bolts that divided twice and cut clean through. The
bolts smashed into their stomachs and doubled them over.

“A tent once told me
that hitting the same spot consecutively would easily destroy a personal
barrier. I did my studying, but I felt like showing off.”

The four recovered and
attacked him at once. Eric vanished and used their brief pause from confusion
to smack them all with his staff. Seconds later, they were on the ground,
groaning in pain. Then he cast an earth spell to create primitive stone
restraints on their wrists and ankles. Once he was sure they couldn’t attack
him again, he decloaked.

Nayr was right. I
don’t have a killer instinct.

“I may be a mercenary,
but for your information, I helped end Tasio’s rampage.”

“Don’t say his name!”

Eric kicked that one in
the stomach.

“According to you
jerks, I already have his attention and I bring it to this city just by living
in it. So I’m going to say his name whenever I want. I don’t care if his titles
include the Ambivalent Saboteur, the Destroyer of Civilizations, or the Herald
of Chaos. I don’t give a crap!”

Someone clapped
directly above him.

“It's too early to talk
to you.”

Tasio floated down to
his level. “I came to congratulate you. Few indeed can wound an S-class and to
do so at your age is unprecedented.”

Eric headed for the
stairs and over his shoulder said, “Your approval fills me with shame,
Overturner
of Fortune.
”

Tasio followed him.
“You're not
still
mad about the 'suddenly and randomly returning you to
Threa' thing, are you?”

“That was the worst
period of my life. I haven’t been so miserable since my parents died.”

Tasio paused in midair.
“I'm sorry to hear that.”

Eric paused in mid-step.

 
I'm so worn out
from trickster mayhem, I'm hallucinating trickster sincerity.

“I’m also sorry about
those guys. Usually, I can stop them before they get this far but this batch
reacted faster than I expected.”

“Would you please go
away? I don't want people to associate us any more than they already do.”

“The humdrum life of a
simple mercenary?”

“If that's not too much
trouble.”

Tasio disappeared and
Eric continued on his way. The Dragon's Lair was only a few more blocks away.
Tiza, Nolien, and Basilard joined him for the final block. Lit by the morning
sun, the statue of the Mother Dragon cast a shadow over the street and them.
This
is the only shadow I want looming over me; the noble and maternal founder of my
guild.
The doorbell dinged as he walked in.

Inside, Mia was pacing
back and forth behind her desk. She was hugging herself and biting her lip
cutely. When she heard the doorbell ding, she looked their way, but then her
eyes dimmed and they knew she was disappointed to see them. Even so, she put on
a semi-cheerful smile.

“Hey...how did the …
ahh...What did you think of Remho’s show?”

“Mia, tell us what's
wrong,” Nolien said.

She shrugged. “I'm just
waiting for a team to report in; nothing major.”

“If it were nothing
major, you wouldn’t have bags under your eyes, caffeine on your breath,
unwashed hair, and day-old make-up.”

Mia stopped pacing and
fidgeted with one of her long pigtails. “You noticed all those things right
away?”

“Of course; I care
about you.”

Mia gave him a
heart-stealing smile, and Tiza sent him a soul-chilling scowl. Nolien coughed.

“Mia, have you been up
all night?”

“I had work to do!” she
said while brewing another cup of coffee.

“Excessive caffeine
intake will only make your nerves worse.”

“I know that!” She
dropped into her seat, crossed her arms, and pouted. “I still worry about Team
15! Oops…”

“They still haven’t
checked in yet, have they?” Basilard asked. “It’s a dangerous mission, but
they’ve come back from worse before. They can handle it.”

“What's so dangerous
about it anyway?” Eric asked. “It involves mana mutation, doesn't it?”

Hands clasped behind
her back, Mia looked away. “Yes, it does. Since you're the Trickster's Choice
and Her Majesty's Pet, I guess it would be okay to tell you.”

Her Majesty's Pet?

Shadow Dengel appeared
and petted him.
It suits you.

Shut up.

“Team 15 was dispatched
along with the Royal Ordercrafter Team to a mana storm in Ataidar's Territorial
Waters. Their goal is to obtain a sample of the storm and an afflicted monster.
Her Majesty plans to use this to prove Ataidar's commitment to mutation
treatment and that these storms can be contained. They were supposed to check
in last night, but they haven’t. I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep anyway,
thanks to The Trickster’s latest prank…”

Suddenly, Basilard drew
BloodDrinker and spun around in time to block a double sword strike from a man
dual-wielding scimitars. This attacker’s weathered skin and scars made him look
older and tougher than Basilard. His long blonde hair covered the twin sheaths
on his back. He wore a rugged tunic, pants, and a grey bandanna tied over his
eyes.

The blades clashed and
locked, sending a wave of power through the guild lobby. It made the novices
stumble and grasp the wall to steady themselves. The two warriors broke apart
and lunged a second time to engulf each other in bear hugs.

“Long time no see,
Inner Eye.”

“We had a soulcrafter
hunt in Najica, Bloody Blade.”

“SATHEL!”

A blur of dirty clothes
collided with the woman that walked in behind the man. She wrapped her arms
around her waist and buried her face in her chest. The woman smiled and
embraced the younger mercenary in turn.

She was a middle-aged
woman with shoulder-length blonde hair. A long dress hung around her shoulders.
It was close and practical and contained many pockets. She didn’t carry any
weapons, but Eric knew this was because she didn't need any. This was Sathel,
Tiza's legal guardian and a senior in Squad Four. No one told him what they
specialized in (he didn’t even know where their lounge was), but given that
their lieutenant was a deceptively harmless girl and their captain a ghost, he
assumed they were the guild’s equivalent of black ops.

“How's my little
Cocoon?”

Tiza moved away, cheeks
pink. “Stop calling me that. I'm a full-fledged mercenary.”

“I'll stop when you
make Regular. Don't pout; it'll happen soon.” She fingered a strand of Tiza's
hair and a spider crawled onto it. “You grew your hair out.”

“Y-yeah…The wards are
tied to it, so I figured longer would make them work better.”

“Really? Shoulder
length looks lovely on you. Nolien Heleti, do you agree?”

Tiza blushed and looked
to him, which made him look away and mumble incompressible things. He landed on
“no,” but quickly changed to “yes” when he saw her scowl, which made her scowl
deeper and that was how long it took him to realize that Sathel called him “Heleti.”
By then, it was too late, so he changed the subject.

“Miss Aranid, I haven't
had the pleasure of meeting your companion.”  

She grinned and draped
herself over the man. “This is my husband, Retina Corison. Dear, this is Nolien
Heleti. He's the one taking care of our Tiza.”

Retina's stare, even
through the blindfold, sent a shiver down Nolien's spine. He pointed at Eric
and blurted, “He's in charge of cover fire!”

Sathel giggled and
decided she had enough teasing for now. “Cocoon, now that we’re back, we will
continue your Squad Four training.”

“Squad Four training?”
Eric asked.

“Stop calling me Cocoon!”
Tiza protested.

“Squad Four training?”
Eric asked.

“Missions come first,” Basilard
said.

“You know how important
these lessons are,” Retina said.

“Squad Four training?”
Eric asked. “I’d rather not ask a fourth time.”

 “I decided to
multi-class while you were gone,” Tiza said. “Since you and Tenderfoot are
mage/fighters, I decided to become a fighter/rogue. Spider Daylra and Daylra’s
Dear are helping me expand my skillset. My favorite so far is Third Eye.”

“Is that what you were
practicing the day I came back?”

“Yep! It’s a special
vision skill that only me and Daylra’s Dear can do. It’s got all kinds of uses
from deadly dodging to detecting ghosts to lock picking. I’d tell you how it
works, but it’s a secret.”

“I hate to break up the
family reunion, but – phew!” Mia waved a hand before her nose. “Next time,
please shower before delivering your report.”

“We would have,” Sathel
said, “but Aaloon likes his reports immediately.”

“I'd like to go on
missions, but we can't have everything we want.” Mia turned to Basilard. “Team
Four has been requested at the Darwoss Herald.”

Sathel gave Tiza a kiss
on the forehead and Retina ruffled her hair.

 “Training will resume
when you come back.”

Because of Remho’s “performance,”
city streets had to be cleared of debris and repaired, and city walls had to be
patched and any missing wards redrawn. Private homes and businesses suffered
damage from broken windows to smashed roofs and collapsed floors. Construction
workers were everywhere, addressing these problems.

Roalt’s arteries were
clogged with them moving from job to job, carts moving their raw materials and
mythril flakes dropped from the Tazul, and civilians trying to go about their
daily lives. Some of the latter had taken to roof hopping to get away from it.
On every street, teams of giants carried orichalcum scales that were big even
to them. This put everybody on edge. If one of them were to lose their grip and
drop the scale, garden-variety magic would not stop it from crushing someone.

Royal clerks practiced
parkour to cross the city quickly in their effort to get a handle on the
situation. The Knight of Public Works needed to know what was destroyed, what
was needed to fix it, where the scales landed, how to accommodate those who had
them, how to transport them, how to send resources and labor where it was
needed, the priority for them, and how to keep the streets moving through all
this. Only then could he begin the repair work.

Other clerks mingled
with the crowds that were gossiping to get their finger on the public pulse.
They needed to figure out how to assure every citizen that their semi-divine queen
had everything under control when she and her advisors were still sorting
things out. Eric knew beyond doubt she spent all night working on it, and was
likely more hyped up on caffeine than Mia.

He noted these clerks
wore different uniforms than the ones he saw at the castle. Instead of the
red-yellow flame motif on their castle counterparts, these clerks wore
golden-brown cloaks emblazoned with the Crowned Tiger on the right breast and
the Sign of Chaos on the left. The latter was a circle of ten lines
intersecting at the middle into a tangled mess. He eavesdropped with Magic
Hearing but couldn’t keep up with all the logistics.

“Is that Tasio's
cleanup crew?” Eric asked.

“Their
proper name
,”
Nolien injected, “is the Royal Department of Trickster Management and
Maintenance. Their duties include –”

Eric tuned out the rest
because he already knew it all from his nine-day library stay. He was more
interested in watching them work.

Now that the city had
calmed down and the smoke had cleared, he realized that most of the damage was
concentrated on derelict, unused, and otherwise dead growth. Tasio's cleanup
crew led the rebuilding on its ashes.
“The city wanted more space
.”
Filling those spaces would take a lot of work; it would
provide
a lot of
work.
Mythril and orichalcum are rare and sought-after materials...even
after paying for damages, the city will make a substantial profit. A local
source of it will be a boost to local industries without usual expenses.
Despite
this, he heard many complaints and grumblings before he arrived at the
Darwoss
Herald
.

“Abyss take The
Trickster....”

“I had that cart for
years!”

“This scale almost
flattened me!”

“Doesn't he have
anything better to do...?”

Apparently, he
doesn’t. He could have simply given the stuff to them instead of causing a
ruckus.

The
Herald
itself
was pierced through the middle. It was a two-story building and yet the scale
reached from the floor past the roof. It was incidents like these that proved
Tasio’s title as “The Overturner of Fortune.” Destruction like this would have
shut down the newspaper for good, but selling the scale that caused the
destruction would enable Darwoss Senior to rebuild it from scratch and with
state-of-the-art equipment too. Until then, the editor-in-chief worked in the
alley next door.