Monsters and legends, p.41
Monsters and Legends, page 41
part #1 of Infinite Realm Series
He didn’t agree with their reasoning, not entirely, but he could see where it came from. Ryun himself was weaker than Zach and Melody, as far as raw stats were concerned, but his techniques were different than their abilities. His would last as long as he had Qi, and could be used continuously or in rapid succession, while their abilities had cooldowns.
There were some other benefits to being a Cultivator, but the government had a somewhat warped perception of them, mostly due to the fact that only a few of them survived the arrival of the Framework. Those who had picked Cultivation paths at the start hadn’t all managed to survive the monsters. It made them seem weaker than they were in actual fact.
Still, Ryun did agree that people weren’t owed anything for free. If they wanted safety and food without taking risks, then giving Essence was a good way for them to pay for it. Ryun just thought that they all should be able to survive in this world on their own merit. But after seeing Haven, he realized that the vast majority of people wouldn’t change with the world. It had been almost a year since the Framework arrived, and these people had all fallen back to the familiar way of life—only now, there were monsters.
It was to be expected, but he wasn’t going to do that. He turned around to look at Mel. The two of them had become inseparable, and he was thankful for the Framework for pushing the two of them together. He didn’t know how he had functioned without her before. They were just in sync, two people who were just somehow connected. They were kindred spirits. Both loved hunting monsters, exploring this new world and living by their own rules.
Haven’s government had offered them a place with their hunters, leading their own team. The offer was tempting, but while they did understand the government and their thinking, they didn’t agree with everything they represented. At the core, Ryun and Melody believed that everyone should be able to stand on their own, not be protected by others.
The two of them had decided not to accept their offer; they had stayed only because they wanted to make sure that Zach and Linda had gotten a good deal. But now, there was no longer any need for them to remain. They had already talked about it even before the government arrived, about going off alone, exploring and growing stronger.
“Today is the day,” Melody said.
Ryun nodded his head. Zach was meeting with the council, telling them that they would join their government. And after, Ryun would tell him that they were leaving. He was a bit nervous about Zach’s reaction, but he felt like Zach would understand. The world had changed, and they had all changed with it. This city, the government, all of it just reminded Ryun too much of the old world, and the feeling of being suffocated he had to suffer through for most of his life, of having his path be decided by others. He didn’t want that—he wanted to hunt monsters, to see what secrets and wonders this world held, to see how far he could advance, and Melody wanted the same.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” Ryun asked, but he smiled as he spoke. He already knew the answer.
She returned his smile and pulled him close, kissing him on the lips for a long moment before pulling away.
“I can’t wait.”
They looked at the city, at the thousands of people walking in every direction. Soon they would leave them and go back to the forests, where it would be just the two of them alone.
CHAPTER 65 – PRESENT – Zach
Aftermath
Zach grimaced as he put another piece of wood into the fire. His leg was still hurting, even though it had been an hour since the wound had healed over. Even with the healing potion, it had taken far longer than usual for it to close, and there seemed to be some kind of after effect still lingering.
Griss was worse off. He’d been stabbed in the side, although thankfully the dagger had missed his kidney. Zach glanced at the drake. He was lying with his back leaned against a large rock, his armor resting next to him and his scaly chest exposed. The wound in his side was closed, his scales repaired, but he, like Zach, still felt the pain inside of his body. Whatever that rogue-like man had stabbed them with, it was powerful.
Zach turned his eyes toward the forest, looking in the direction where their prisoners and their rescuers had run off to.
“Are we going after them?” Zach asked. Neither one of them had been in the condition to pursue before, but now Zach thought that he could withstand running.
Griss groaned and shook his head. “No point. They are long gone by now.”
Zach wanted to try, but he knew that they would be unlikely to catch up to them, not with their injuries.
“What was that attack?” Zach asked.
“Not poison. A Qi attack, maybe, or an ability that applied an effect—I’m not sure. But it is fading, so it wasn’t meant to kill us, just to make sure that we couldn’t follow,” Griss answered.
“The woman, the second twin, she wasn’t trying to kill us,” Zach noted. The first of the sisters that he fought had tried to—she hadn’t been as strong as Zach, however, and the only reason she’d managed to stab him through the chest was because he was trying to capture her as well as learn what she could do. Her sister, however, was much stronger.
“She was distracting us while her partner rescued their friends,” Griss confirmed.
Zach had realized that much, but he didn’t understand why there were such different responses to a fight. One group had fought with the intent to kill them, and the second had gone out of their way not to. True, Zach and Griss had been fighting in the same manner, which was probably why the woman had managed to keep them distracted for so long. They had wanted her as a prisoner, not a corpse.
“The second sister, she was in charge,” Zach said after a long stretch of silence.
“What makes you say that?” Griss asked.
“The first one was in charge of a small team,” Zach said, his mind putting the pieces together. He went over everything that both of them had said, building an image in his head. “They were sent to set the miners free, train them, equip them, and have them assault convoys, steal shipments. Then they would come and collect. When we interfered, the first woman jumped straight to killing us, eliminating any witnesses. Our arrival had exposed her operation, and she wanted to preserve it. Killing us was the only option for that to happen. The second woman came looking for the first—yes, they were sisters, but my thinking is that the first group probably missed a meeting. She came, saw the situation, and decided on a course of action: rescuing the others, but letting us live. This means the end of their operations here. She has to know that, so she was someone who could make such a decision. It is obvious that they did not want their people to remain in our custody. They didn’t want them to talk.”
Griss nodded his head. “Good hypothesis. I would disagree on a few points only.”
Zach raised an eyebrow and waited.
“You are right that the second woman was in charge. She was stronger, and you wouldn’t put someone weaker in charge of someone strong. But the first woman, based on her actions and words, was rash. She decided to kill us even after she knew that we were wardens, and that is not something that anyone who wanted to keep their interests hidden would ever do. I suspect that she acted against orders. When the sister came for them, they didn’t try to kill us, and they probably could’ve tried. With that rogue partner of hers, they could’ve struck and took us off guard. They didn’t, which tells me that they are smart, much smarter than any ordinary criminals.”
“How so?” Zach asked.
“Wardens regularly clash with criminal elements, but there are different tiers of criminals. The lowest of the low are rarely smart enough to know what killing a warden actually means. All of our badges track our life signs—once a warden dies, the Citadel knows immediately, and a team is sent to investigate. Smart criminals don’t want that much heat and attention on their business. Wardens avenge their own, and the Citadel would not stop until every single one of those responsible was dead. Smart criminals know that they can’t kill wardens. By letting us leave, they haven’t yet crossed a line, and with the limited resources that wardens have, it is unlikely that there will be any large force sent here to go after them.”
“So what do we do now?” Zach asked.
“We don’t know anything, and we have proof of even less. They could be a rival Syndicate, or a criminal organization smart enough to know how to lay low enough so as to not bring more eyes from the Citadel on them.”
Zach nodded. They didn’t know much about who and what they were. Griss had made a hypothesis about who they could be, but that assumed a connection with the other incidents in other territories. Even then, it didn’t mean that they were anything other than a criminal group.
“So we’re going back?” Zach asked.
Griss nodded. “We’ve finished the contract. The bandit problem is dealt with, and now without the support of this group there will be no issues in the future. We will go to the Adventurers Guild, give our report and collect our payment. Afterward, we will go to the Citadel.”
“The Citadel,” Zach echoed absently. The seat of the wardens—their headquarters.
“You’ve done well enough on your first mission. Usually the tasks we give to the beginners aren’t nearly as hard as this one turned out to be, but then again we rarely get high-level recruits. With this I believe that you have earned your badge. We will go to the Citadel, register you as a full warden and replace your adventurers badge with a warden’s badge. Then I’ll try and speak with some of the higher ups, let them know my suspicions about the incidents. Who knows? They might even know more than we do.”
Zach looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t expected to get a full membership so quickly. “You really think that I am ready to be on my own?”
Griss chuckled. “In terms of strength? Yes. But your circumstances mean that you still have some holes in your knowledge and understanding. So I have planned on sticking with you for a while. We wardens often work in teams. If you agree, we can register as partners at the Citadel.”
Zach smiled, feeling a bit relieved. The drake was right—Zach didn’t know much about Infinite Realm, and he still had much to learn.
He glanced back at the woods, feeling disappointed in himself for letting them escape, but he knew that he couldn’t dwell on that. His goal was something else, and he needed to start working as a warden if he was to have a chance to hear anything about his target.
CHAPTER 66 – PRESENT – Reyla
Orders
Reyla stood at the edge of the cliff, looking at the valley stretching before her. After two months of travel, they had finally reached home: the forward base of their order. In the distance she could see the Black Tower, the base of the Five Orders and the first line of defense protecting the Great Empire from those beyond it.
She had been dreading her return home, and she had spent the last two months trying to figure out what she would say. Not only had they failed in their mission, but they had even been captured. During their retreat, Reyla had her sister, Nayra, tell her everything that happened—every single thing she had said to the wardens, to the miners, every action that she took, everything. She needed to be sure that there was nothing there that could expose them. Thankfully, Nayra hadn’t told them anything that could reveal them, but the fact that she had tried to kill wardens and had gotten herself captured was a problem in itself. It revealed to the wardens that their identity was important enough to them that they were willing to kill to protect it. That alone could only bring more attention to the frontier territories.
But now they were barely a day from their destination, and she would need to face her master. She did not look forward to that.
She heard someone step next to her, and turned to see Nayra, her red hair pulled back into a braid at the back of her head. Reyla had refused to speak with her about anything other than the mission for the duration of their retreat; she was angry, and she didn’t want to listen to her excuses. But finally reaching safe territory meant that she couldn’t use her former excuse—that they didn’t have the time to talk because they could be pursued.
She felt the moment Nayra decided to speak, and she sighed, resigning herself to a conversation she didn’t want to have.
“I’m sorry, Rey,” Nayra said.
“You are always sorry, Nayra,” Reyla said. She remembered the time when the two of them had been inseparable. The connection between them had been so strong that they might as well had been the same person. There had been no secrets between them, they shared everything, even the occasional lover, but now…all of that had changed. There was a chasm between them, and it had only been widening in the last few years. Ever since Reyla was promoted ahead of Nayra, their relationship had suffered. She could tell that Nayra was jealous, that she wanted to show to everyone that she was just as good as her twin, but in trying to do so she had made mistake after mistake, and this last one was the biggest. It would not be Nayra who would face the consequences.
“I didn’t think that it was going to be a problem. Anter could detect their power and they didn’t seem all that much stronger than us,” Nayra said.
Reyla turned to look at her sister. “Your problem is that you don’t think, Nayra! You shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place. My orders were clear—only one of you was supposed to enter the bandit camp and recover the goods. The rest were supposed to monitor your surroundings and make sure that you weren’t observed. You were supposed to patrol the territory and be aware of all new arrivals. You should’ve known about the wardens days before they walked into that camp. But of course you didn’t, because you didn’t follow orders!”
Nayra’s green eyes narrowed in anger, and Reyla knew exactly what she was going to say, so she raised her hand and turned away. “Don’t bother with your excuses, I have heard them all already. You obviously don’t understand the importance of our mission. Our order had been preparing for this for a century, and you’ve put it all in danger with your recklessness.”
She walked off, leaving Nayra behind.
A day later, Reyla sat in front of a large wooden desk. On the wall behind the desk was a large painting, one taking up the entire wall and depicting the Great Massacre. It illustrated the battle in which the Rankers from the First and the Second Iteration had attacked the White Fortress, the seat of the Third Iteration Rankers’ power. They had broken the agreement between them, and in one attack had wiped out half of the Third Iteration’s most powerful warriors. Then they began their war, intent on wiping them all out. But they had underestimated the power that the remaining Third Iteration Rankers held. They hadn’t spent the same amount of time in the Infinite Realm, but they had been advancing fast, faster than the first two Iterations thought possible. It was why they had decided to kill them all—because they were afraid of the heights that the people from the Third Iteration could reach, and because they couldn’t allow them to exist outside of their rules and laws.
It was the history of the Great Empire, an event that was the catalyst for everything that happened after. But to Reyla it was more. She had heard stories from her mother, who had been there, stories of battles and death. Stories of the crimes that the First and Second Iterations committed against them, because they couldn’t imagine having a rival.
She kept her eyes on the painting, her back straight as she stood before the table. She hadn’t been given leave to sit, which in itself told her just how much trouble she was in. Behind the table sat her master, the man who had trained her and who was her superior: Bailor Rew, the Knight Commander of the Order of Warbringers. He was only second to the five Lord Commanders of the Orders themselves. He was not a man to be taken lightly.
She had finished giving her report a few minutes ago, and had remained standing in the silence that followed, but the Knight Commander finally decided to speak.
“So, not only did you fail in your mission, but you also attempted to kill wardens, bringing more attention to our operations on their frontiers.”
She didn’t respond. She knew the man well enough to know that he didn’t want an answer.
“We are in the final stages of our plans, the most critical moment. Any disruption now could spell disaster that could cost us everything. You do realize that, Knight Ornn?”
“Yes, Commander,” Reyla responded.
The man shook his head and sighed. “You were supposed to be one of our best and brightest. You had been given a simple mission, and you have managed to endanger everything. The order of Warbringers, more than any other, does not tolerate such mistakes, and we do not give second chances. To be at the tip of the spear of the Great Empire means that you cannot make such mistakes. What are the words of our order, Knight Ornn?”
“Blood and justice, straight and true, Commander,” Reyla said.
“Do you even remember what that means? Your actions haven’t been true in a while, and your sister… If you were anybody else, you would’ve been thrown out of the Order by now. You realize that?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she kept her face straight, even as her heart beat furiously.
Finally the Knight Commander stood and walked over to stand in front of her. He was dark skinned, with gray hair and wide shoulders. He was old—he had been a child during the war, one of the few survivors of that time. He hadn’t been old enough to fight, but he had seen it all. Some even said that he was as powerful as the Rankers themselves, the ones who had achieved so much power that they no longer aged, those who had been the best of their old worlds and had thrived once they arrived to the Infinite Realm.
“If your blunder is enough for the wardens to send more people to investigate, it will endanger more of our people in the enemy frontier territories. If they get lucky and stumble on to what we are doing… They can bring all of our plans tumbling down.” He shook his head and looked to the side, at a map of the known world. The Infinite Realm was, as its name suggested, apparently infinite. The Great Empire had done much exploring beyond their borders, and they had yet to see any sign that the world didn’t stretch without end.
