Zectas Volume IV: The Salubrious City of Centzo (6 page)

* * * * * * 

The Vigilantez's first strike wiped out more than two thousand Brandals. They also obtained their weapons, equipment and the essential supplies they were transporting. The mission was a success, but it cost them the lives of six Condortlian Warriors, ten Acolytes, twenty Iron Knights and one hundred eighteen Armored Farmers.
Smoke and Sierra were joined by the other core members of Vagrant Vigilantez as Adder started explaining the situation.
His remorseful retelling of Tracas' tragedy conveyed the importance of their next mission.
"...That is why I needed Vexant alive. No matter the risk, I have to find those children," stated Adder to his gathered friends.
“What happened to Tracas was very unfortunate,” said Smoke and crossed his arms, looking concerned. “Hopefully, we’ll get to the other children in time to ensure that they don’t share the same fate.”
He continued, “Aside from that, based on what happened here, it’s safe to assume that Horrabelle has joined forces with Duke Burmistrz. I don’t know why she chose to do so, but we will have to deal with her soon, otherwise the Brandals will only grow stronger.” Thinking about the Witch made him cross his arms tighter against his chest.
Everyone in the group fell silent as they pondered on the conundrum. While deep in thought, Smoke noticed that a young Spy was nowhere to be seen. He turned to Sierra and asked, "What about Espion? Where is he?"
Sierra didn't respond, and Sharanga quickly answered for her, "He was sent to Centzo to look for Incitant. Sierra wanted to arrange a meeting with him in hopes of coming up with a joint attack plan against the Brandals."
Smoke nodded to Sierra in approval, but she still didn't respond to him. "Rescuing the children comes first, though. We’ll need to find the location of Mount Foudre."
Everyone agreed and the silent brainstorming session resumed.
After a couple of minutes, their discussion only resulted in rejected suggestions. Since there was still a lot of loot to be gathered, Smoke decided to momentarily pause their meeting.
"Perhaps we'll think of something while we keep ourselves busy," he said loudly, for all of his core members to hear.
As they broke off into smaller groups, Smoke calmly walked next to Sierra. Together, the two of them started picking up the items laying on the ground. He had told his private army members they should try to think of a solution for finding Mount Foudre, but the only thoughts that occupied his mind were those of talking to Sierra.
"Great thinking, by the way. Getting Acolytes for the guild, that is," said Smoke as he tried to make light conversation.
Sierra only answered with a passive grunt.
Smoke was aware that it was selfish of him to run off after the battle at Tromperie plains, but he needed that time alone to restore his confidence. He had always kept to himself whenever bad things happened.
He knew that although Sierra understood that, it wasn’t the right thing to do and she had every right to be angry at him. He was already grateful that she didn’t tear him apart limb from limb, but getting the silent treatment felt even worse. He wanted to convey his feelings to her.
With two quick steps, he moved in front of Sierra and held her by the shoulders. Her werebear form towered over him, and he had to look up to gaze into her eyes.
“Look, I—”
Within a second, Sierra pushed his arms to the side. For a moment, Smoke thought that she was going to use Double Slash on him, as her arms were still in the air, but she didn’t. Instead, she threw herself at him and tightly hugged him.
“So many died,” she said, almost sobbing. “I never thought we’d run into a trap. I should have thought of that. I should’ve been prepared for
anything
.”
Smoke was taken by surprise. She wasn’t angry; she was sad.
He had a hard time wrapping his arms around her cursed form, but he hugged her back as tightly as he could. “It was a sound plan. Don’t blame yourself. They knew they were risking their lives.”
“But I knew them! I know their families! Some of them even have children!”
Smoke had been so absorbed in trying to put his feelings into words that he forgot that Sierra was a lot like him. Zectas was her sanctuary as well. When her mother passed away, she had to rely on herself, and didn’t have anyone close to her except for her uncle. Everyone whom she had met in Zectas must have been important to her.
“And we will tell them how their parents fought bravely to keep them and everyone else safe,” he said while gently stroking the fur on her back.
She was about to respond, when a loud howl interrupted her.
AWWWOOOOOOOOO
The two of them broke away from each other and looked in the direction the sound was coming from.
“Oh. Right. Those ten werewolves are still trapped in the pit,” said Smoke. He turned to Sierra and touched the back of her waist. “Do you think you can convert them?”
Sierra answered while wiping her teary eyes, “Yeah. With their alpha gone, it shouldn’t be a problem. We should go.” She started walking towards the pit.
Once the other core members met up with them there, Smoke and Ledur started slowly raising the ground beneath the caged werewolves. The lycanthropes snarled and growled as soon as they came into view. They tried to reach out and attack with their claws, but Smoke and the others were standing at a safe distance.
Sierra approached the cage and started assimilating the werewolves into her pack. One by one, they all got down on one knee and yielded their will to her. With this, Sierra's werewolf pack numbered sixty-two.
While looking at her newest subordinates, an idea came to her mind. “Engage Pack Mental Link!”
 

Sierra accessed the Information folder of one of the werewolves in front of her.
“Jackpot!” she exclaimed happily. A map notification popped up and she shared it with the rest of the core members.

Smoke grinned widely. “That curse might be a blessing in disguise,” he said and winked at the red Werebear.
Sierra smiled back at him. He then turned to his core members and gave out their next mission.
"Alright. Sierra’s, Adder’s and Ledur's teams will be continuing on to Mount Foudre. Only Laernea, Gandiva and I will accompany them, while the rest of you will return to Verbrannt with the supplies," stated Smoke calmly.
Sharur instantly objected, "Wouldn't it be better to send the entire strike force there? We don't know how many monsters Horrabelle has in that place."
Smoke nodded and replied, "True, that would be better, but we need to get there fast, and traveling with the entire army would slow us down."
"But the Werewolves and Tikbalangs are also on foot," countered Sharur, as he didn't sound convinced.
This time, Ledur answered the OrkElf. "Yes, but those two groups can easily keep up with dirus wolves and aardwolves."
"At least take some of the Acolytes with you," the OrkElf continued to argue.
Smoke walked over to Sharur and patted him on the shoulder. "There’s more of you and you can't travel fast. It's best that you have the healers. We don't know if there are other enemies nearby that are lying in wait."
Sharur finally gave in, but still crossed his arms in protest.
After Sharur's proposal was strongly rejected, Ichaival meekly raised his hand.
"Yes, Ichaival?" asked Sierra.
"Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with only a few members heading to Mount Foudre. I wanted to ask about Braucht Hilfe. What do we about that place?" asked Ichaival, as one of their objectives was to liberate the villages the Brandals occupied.
"Unfortunately, we can't save them right now," said Smoke flatly. "That reminds me, I’ll have to ask Espion to check out that village. With Horrabelle involved, it will most likely be a trap."
Ichaival quickly nodded, seeing that Smoke had a point.
After Ichaival's question, the Vigilantez began making preparations to depart. Before going their separate ways, Smoke thought to visit each of the groups and commend them for a job well done. That was his way of maintaining high Intimacy with them.
After they said farewell to everyone else, Smoke and his selected members rushed towards Mount Foudre.
The figurehead of Vagrant Vigilantez pondered on the development of his private army after their latest mission. Their first strike against the Brandals might not have netted Sierra's ideal result, but along with wiping out two thousand bandits, they also managed to increase the levels of everyone who participated in the battle.
Both Smoke and Sierra reached level 105, with Adder right behind them at level 104. Sharur and Jinggu were level 102, Sharanga and Ichaival level 101, and Laernea and Gandiva had finally hit level 100. Lastly, far above everyone else, the Vigilantez with the highest level was Ledur, being level 181.
Smoke wore a satisfied smile. His private army was steadily growing alongside him.
Sitting comfortably on the Lioumereans’ carriage, he and Sierra simultaneously logged off to get some rest in the real world.
 

* * * * * * 

Two days passed in a blink of an eye. Smoke and his men finally reached the forest patch at the foot of Mount Foudre. To keep up with the Lioumereans' fast pace, Werewolves and Tikbalangs  had been running non-stop for periods of several hours, taking fifteen-minute breaks in between.
They avoided most of the monsters they encountered, except for the ones that forcibly attacked them. These monsters only met a quick death as Smoke's elite members made short work of them.
From where they hid, Smoke took out two flat round shields and placed them next to his legs. He used his Telefax Vision to examine Mount Foudre and Twin Vision to display on the shields what he saw. This way, all of his companions saw what he did.
Smoke looked up at the silver mountain. It wasn't as tall as Mount Gliseloc; he estimated its apex to be about five hundred meters high. Yet despite its lower stature, he felt more intimidated by this place. Not one tree nor a single blade of grass grew on its slopes. It only had black and silver metallic boulders scattered everywhere.
Above its peak was a gathering of storm clouds, with bright lightning bolts that kept hitting the top of the mountain. He finally saw the place they had been looking for, the Infernal Crater of Mount Foudre.
He looked farther up and discovered three black chimneys protruding out of a black mansion. Horrabelle's mansion of torture stood dominantly at the peak of the mountain.
Its structure looked like it was made out of the same black metallic boulders that were scattered on the mountain. He couldn't see any sentries, but he knew that there had to be someone or something guarding her house of horror.
After cancelling both of his abilities, Smoke turned to his core guild members. "There's a high chance that Horrabelle is up there at this very moment."
They nodded in response and it was clear to him that they had reached the same conclusion. He drew a sketch of the mountain on the ground.
"We’ll have to take her by surprise, but there's nothing to cover us while climbing up," he said as he pointed to the stick figures at the bottom climbing to the top of the mountain.
"You and I could fly up and capture their attention," suggested Ledur and readied his black wings for the flight.
"No, they might have a long-range weapon that could target us. And those lightning bolts don't look very friendly to fliers either," replied Smoke flatly.
He waited for more suggestions, but no one else spoke up for quite some time. So, he decided to share his idea.
"We could make something like a camouflage to help us remain undetected."
Smoke used his Earth Manipulation ability and fashioned a shield-like item out of the earth. He created a two-by-three-meter rectangle with black and silver metallic rocks sticking out of it.
After creating four of these items, Smoke demonstrated how he planned to use them. "Each of the stealth team members would carry two of these," he said while lifting one of the shields over his head and another one to his side.
He then asked Adder to copy what he did, only with the opposite hand. Together, the two of them created a section that somewhat looked like the slope of the mountain.
"I see, but that won't really hide us well," observed Sierra as she tried to take one of the shields, but her claws could not grasp it. "And...I can't use this shield." Her cursed Werebear form prohibited equipping such items.
Smoke gave her a wide grin. "I know that, which is why I was going to ask you to lead your Werewolves and the Tikbalangs in a frontal assault on the mansion. Those who can wield these shields would follow me to the side and rush the gate."
"So, I'm the bait while you take all the glory?" Sierra smirked as she finished Smoke's plan for him.
He smiled and winked at her. "Well, this plan would only work because you'd be there to grab the enemy's’ attention," he said and pretended to be a Werebear, waving his arms and roaring.
"Fine!" replied a smiling Sierra and shook her head in surrender.
Smoke and Ledur immediately started working on the earth shields, while the rest of the army set up camp and prepared their defenses and meals.
Since they only needed the earth shields as camouflage, they didn't need them to be strong. Due to this, it only took Smoke two minutes to make one, while Ledur, with higher level of Earth Manipulation than him, created one in less than a minute.
In a little over an hour, the two of them created forty-seven pairs of earth shields. The members of the stealth team were Smoke, Adder, Condortlian Warriors and Centaur Rangers, as they were the only ones capable of equipping the crafted disguise.
After they were done with the shields, Smoke and Ledur joined others for meal. Adder, Laernea and Gandiva had prepared the collected meat from the monsters that blocked their path to Foudre and offered their lives to them.
The Vigilantez were happily eating a hearty ancient bison stew and grilled war echidna.
Smoke took a big chunk of meat and happily asked, "Whose idea was it to hunt the ancient bison, again?"
With his mouth full, Tragar raised his hand and briefly smiled at Smoke. Afterwards, he resumed eating his share of the juicy morsel.
At the sight of Tragar devouring his meal, Smoke remembered a Simiavulg book he read about the Centaurs. It described them as barbaric nomads with no sense of dignity whatsoever. Since the book was written by a Simiavulg, he assumed that it was biased. Despite them being transformed into monsters, Ledur and the Tikbalangs were clearly dignified in how they carried themselves.
However, Tragar and the other thirty Pferde Centaurs were a different story. They were normal Centaurs, but they sometimes acted even rougher than the book's description of them. Nonetheless, Smoke smiled at them sincerely.
Out of one hundred abled-bodied Centaurs in Verbrannt, only these thirty signed up to fight. He knew that the Centaurs in front of him might look rough, but they are pure-hearted and brave enough to risk their lives on the front lines.
Once they were all well fed and rested, the selected Vigilantez began making preparations for battle. Smoke ordered his dark ember sprite to enchant the Lioumerans’, Condortlians’ and Centaurs’ weapons. This gave them bonus fire damage for the next ten hours.
The Vigilantez left their unnecessary baggage behind and readied themselves to face whatever awaited them on top of the mountain. Smoke and Sierra took charge of their teams and went their separate ways.