INTERLUDE: FALLING FOR EVERT
Carol was having a more troublesome month that usual. As reigning Queen Saxon of Dorflich, this was a regular occurrence, and in part, she blamed the Big Four, but she was really starting to think about expand her short list to Evert Kallstrom. He had won the tournament in absolutely stunning fashion, claimed his prize, then disappeared from the arena before anyone could even attempt to woo him to their side. Carol thought that was he managed with the axe at the end was more surprising, but the uproar among the Big Four from his disappearance was amusing enough. By the time Carol went to sleep that, she had tripled the resources Charity could throw at the problem.
And now, Charity had just finished the first half of her report. They had managecd to confirm with the landlady that the young woman seen with Evert was indeed Rebecca Little, and it now seemed beyond any doubt that their great power at such a young age was connected somehow. Unfortunately, while Rebecca had many connections in the City, none seemed to involve Evert, and indeed many of those had been pruned off in May, much as Rebecca has quit Master Wong’s dojo.
That said, they had managed to run down the leads with the baker and the smith. The baker was little more than a baker. While he sold a curiously large amount of flour to Evert, there seemed no ulterior motivation there, and otherwise the baker simply sold sweet and savory pastries to Evert and Vince Žutautas.
Their relationship was perhaps even more curious. Despite most witness accoutns saying they acted like old friends, as far as anyoen knew, they had first met at the District Tournament. Like Rebecca Little, he had long lived in the City and had a number of connections. However, like Rebecca, once Evert seemed to enter his life, he cut most of those connections. That Evert met Vince at the District Tournament seemed too much like a coincidence, and it had yet to sit well with Charity despite all evidence suggesting it was nothing more than that.
More frustratingly was the inclusion of Samantha Finke in their merry group. While Samantha had a noticeable presence in the City, as far as anyone could find out, she had had zero interaction with any of the members of Evert’s little group. How they had crossed path was beyond anyone’s wildest guess. And yet, like Vince and Rebecca, Evert’s presense in her life lead her to cutting many of the connections she had with the City.
The fifth and final member of their band was still unidentified, though he appears to have joined the group before Vince. A scrawny spiritualist, with at least an earth affinity, and armed with a pair of daggers. While efforts remained ongoing, the current suspicion was that he was associated with what little organized crime existed in the City.
Discussing what had been learned of the five members was a taking things out of sequence, but it helped frame their actions, and particularly when Vince and Samantha had joined the group.
“So, let me get this straight,” Carol summarized back to Charity, “nearly every day, the five of them meet up and head outside the West Gate with their weapons, light provisions, and a small bag. And then return in the afternoon?”
“That’s right Your Majesty.”
“And when was this first observed?”
“As early as September 5th, Your Majesty.”
“And how long before had they been doing this.”
“That is not clear Your Majesty. However, we strongly believe it post-dates the Tournaments in light of what we understand of Mr. Kallstrom’s pre-Tournament activities.”
“Okay, so where have they been going? What have they been doing?”
“That remains unclear as of yet your Majesty?”
“Unclear? You’ve had over three weeks to observe them? How hard could it be to figure out where they’re going or what they’re going, especially when you’re outside the City?”
“They have been incredibly circumspect Your Majesty in avoiding observation. One of them must have incredibly sensitive spritiual perception. Our E-ranked agents had great difficulty merely following them, as the group would stop as soon as our agents got within a kilometer. Working off the assumption they were going to the same place every time, we slowly chipped away at the route, until we found that they had been training at a field ___ kilometers outside the City.”
“A field? Was there anything of note?”
“No Your Majesty. That said, as with attempts to follow them, attempst by our E-ranked agents to observe them were similarly unsuccessful. They appeared to cease all training upon sensing they were being awatched.”
“Impressive. Yet, you still have nearly two weeks unaccounted for?”
“Yes, your Majesty. After attempts at observation failed, we prepared several agents with different back stories to attempt to infilstrate. These uniformyl failed, despite our attempts at diversifying into a set of storeis which should have gained them entrance.”
“Troubling. Any further?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. About a week ago, they apppear to have abandoned their training grounds in favor of another. Regretfully, tracking them is just as difficult as the first time, and we have yet to locate their new facility, though we expct it to be in the same area.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure how much longer we cn afford to spend these resources on merely tracking Evert Kallstrom. But for now, cotniue until further notice.”
“Yes Your Majesty,” Charity bowed and left the room, boots clicking behind her as she did so.
Carol let out a sigh as she released the tension she didn’t know she had in her back. [____\/
INTERLUDE; MEETING MASTER CURRY
“Come on Martin,” Kasper said, “explain it to me again.”
“Kasper,” Martin lamented, “I already explained it to you twice. I’m not doing it again.”
“Oh, come on. We’ve got at least another half hour before we get there. What else are we going to do? The Queen knows we’re not talking about your sex life.”
Martin sighed. It had been one thing to be an F-ranked City Guardsmen in your late 30s, consigned to the likelihood you’d never advanced to E-rank. It was another to be paired up with an F-ranked Guardsmen in his mid-20s whose bright eyes and sunny disposition meant he never shut the fuck up. “Fine! Okay, so I know you were with Master Throm’s dojo for a few years before joining the Guard. You remember Vince, right?” Oh, yeah, that guy was a load of fun. So optimistic too. Got moody that he wasn’t advancing must past E-rank; never did accept that real good, but kept a smile on his face and kept on training. Ha ha, what about him?”
“Okay, so he entered the Tournaments last year. Was favored to do well due to his ranking, though that was mostly on account of his age. He was not a fast learner in any sense of that word. Anyways, he ends up in the District final against this nobody that no oen had ever heard of and reportedly he didn’t study with a dojo. Vince knocks him out of the arena, but they both advance to the City Tournament.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Right, okay, I’m following you. Vince and the weird kid go to the City.”
“So anyways, only the Queen knows what happens in that week, but the nobody—his name’s Evert—shows up at the City tournament at mops the floor with the competition. It was some of the most one-sided matches in the last decade. So, in the final, Evert goes up against old man Crow, and they duke it out. It goes on seven, eight minutes nearly. All kinds of ki getting thrown around, the arena’s a mess, and they come to rest just a few steps from each other.”
“Oh yeah, and then what happened.”
“Well, they start talking. No one can hear what they’re saying, but old man Crow gets angry and he lights his axe on fire with this wicked blue flame. He leaps at Evert and Evert catches it with his bare hand.”
“What! No way! How do you even do that?”
“No one knows, or if they do, they aren’t saying. They’re saying maybe the Queen could do that and some of the other C-rankers, but they’ve been awfully mum about it. Anyways, just catching the axe would have been a huge deal, but then the axe head shatters into a million pieces, and Evert just walks off the stage to thunderous applause.”
“Thunderous applause? I thought it was deadly quiet?”
“Hey, I’m telling the story, quiet in the gallery. Anyways, it turns out that Evert actually share a secret master with another competitor at the tournamet: She’s a fiery redhead with a penchant for kneeing guys in the nuts named Becca Little.”
“Hee hee, little.”
“Anyways, the two of them disappear that witner, and aren’t seen in the City for months. There are allegations of certain adult activities, but those are never proven. But, come spring, everyone remembers Vince and wonders where he is. He pops up in town and it turns out he was Evert and Becca the entire time.”
“Wait, did that include the adult activities.”
“Get your head out of the sewer Kasper. Anyways, it’s quiet for months thereafter. You see them occasioanly, but nothing comes out of it and anyone who tries to follow them disappears.”
“Wait, the stalkers disappear or the victims?”
“… I don’t have a response for that. Anyways, the District Tournaments roll around, and guess who shows up! Evert, Vince, Becca, and two other spiritualists—Lennie and Sam—who all claim to be students of a Master Currie.
“Master Curry? Who’s that?”
“That’s’ the thing isn’t it? No one has ever heard of Master Curry. But they claim he’s an old hermit who lives in the mountain and had to change his name because he once murdered a man in cold blood. Anyways, though Evert and Vince don’t enter the Tourneys, the other three do.”
“Yeah, and how’d they do.”
“They freaking wrecked the place. First, Second, and Third place. The poor sop in Fourth place was knocked out in 30 seconds with an absolutely brutal attack. But the semifinal and final matchups between Master Currry’s students are incredible. The semifinal match was so epic that they actually had to delay the final match because they were still patching up the arena. And the final match was so exciting, there was at least one reported death due to heart attack!”
“Oh no! So tragic.”
“Yeah, well, so last year Evert had made a farmer’s exit. But this year, the top three finishers actually stayed around for the awards ceremony, and made sure to throw out Master Curry’s name when asked to give a few words. Of course, since their master wasn’t there, they were accompanied out by Evert and Sam as his other disciples.” “
“Ah, that’s sweet.”
“True. Anways, it was super exciting, and while Master Curry seemed to be all they could speak about, there weren’t any actual details. No one really knew who he was or where to find him. And before you know it—pop!—his students all disappear again.”
“Mysterious.”
“Indeed. That was up until a week ago. Then, cards starting being delivered throughout the City inviting any spiritualists to have an opportunity to meet Master Curry and hear him speak about the first responsibility of all spiritualists.”
“To serve and protect! Or is it to serve and reject?”
“Idiot. Anyways, the cards we know about had been delivered to the captains of the City Guard, and to the captains of the personal guard of the Big Four. Most people think that the Royal Guard also received it, which makes sense to me, and some say the Queen herself received one, which doesn’t. In any event, the cards all had a time and a place. And so, we find ourselves heading south out of the City towards what they call Victory Hill just outside Emilys Pass.”
“I wonder why’s it’s called Victory Hill?”
“Eh, who knows. Probably some old battle. Anyways we should be getting a pretty good view about---woah!”
As Martin and Kasper came over the adjacent Rose Ridge, they saw on the south side of Victory Hill hundreds of spiritualists standing around and chatting, waiting Master Curry. This, by itself, was not all that surprising. What took their breath away—and was the topic of conversation of much of the crowd—was the stone wall which had been built across Emily’s pass. [insert descrtiption]. Indeed, being part of the City Guard, Martin and Kasper were nearly certain that the wall was built to City Wall standards.[1]
“Hey Martin?”
“Yeah Kasper.”
“Do you remember there being a wall out here?”
“Nope.”
“Yup, that’s what I thought.”
And with those final words, Martin and Kasper descended into the crowd without further discussion.
***
Neither guardsman has long to wait, as shortly thereafter, they felt a staccato flare of ki—a standard signal when asking for quiet from a crowd. Turning to the wall where the ki flared from, the crowd saw five figures emerge from the shadow of the stairs on this side of the wall. They paused dramatically in front of the wall, and then the four on the outside lept straight up atop the wall nearly __ meters. The fifth figure—in the center—likewise lept on top of the wall, but arced far higher than the others, and did a backflip in doing so. To the keen-eyed, it appeared to be Evert Kallstrom.
“Ladies and gentleman,” though the figure was a few hundred meters away, he was heard clearly thanks to an amplyfying air technique. “Thank you for accepting our invitation to meet Master Curry. As I have no doubt you’re wondering is how can such power be obtainable. While that will be a part of the later discussion, a spiritualists progression is never easy and is in large part determined by the effort that one puts into it. This you all know. Though what you perhaps don’t know is that no matter the effort, there are some matters of spiritualism for which—without knowledge—we can never progress. This is why we have masters at dojos training the next generation of spiritualists—to impart that knowledge so that they may advance.”
“Like I said however, that’s for a later discussion. For now, I’d just like to say how glad I am to see many members of the City Guard, as well as a few members of the Royal Guard, and the personal guard of the Big Four Families. Regretfully, we won’t be able to talk for long because we’re about to be interrupted. Do you hear that?”
As Evert said that, the crowd strained to hear what he was referring to. It started as just a rumble, like a landslide or an avalanche on a distant mountain. But it was clearly creschendoing louder and louder, and the beginnings of squaks, cries, and trumpets coulld be heard accompanying. And just at the farthest line of sight into Emily pass, some 500 m past the wall, a stampede came into view.
“That ladies and gentlemen is the sound of a beast invasion. Now, the five of us are going to hop over this wall here, and we’d appreciate if you could provide us some back up. You all look like professionals, so I’m sure it’ll be no problem. Now, some of you may object that they’re almost here, they’re about to slamm into the wall, there’s no where for us to fight. Fortunately, they’re about to stop right there.”
With that, Evert spun around and, staring down the horde, uncapped his ki and issued a killing intent towards the horde. Though they were not the targets, were to his back, and were hundreds of meters away, the blood of those in the crowd ran cold at the ki unleashed. And the horde, came to a halt 50 meters from the wall.
***
“Charity, did you feel that? I thought I felt a wave of spiritual pressure.”
“No my lady, but I am not nearly as sensitive as you are.”
“Alright, please continue your latest report on Evert Kallstrom.”
***
Emily’s Pass was marked by silence, but for the awkward shuffling of man and beast alike. The silence was finally ended when the five figures on the wall unsheathed or adjusted their weapons. A large man with an axe. A short lady with a trident. A fiery redhead with gauntlets. A scrawny man with twin daggers. And the man in the center of it all, grasping a staff in one hand and a long sword in the other.
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[1] A handful of D-rankers, a hundred E-rankers, and a few hundred F-rankers show up. There’s a stone wall which has been raised across the pass at City standard regulation; no gate, and the cliffs have been sheared a bit.