“Mom’s coming back?” Antoninus asked his sister with wide eyes.
Livilla had been oiling her armor when her brother came home. Since Antoninus’s mother and sister were almost always on the road, they all still lived together.
“You know how she gets after a raid,” Livilla sighed. “She said she might come back soon. That means that if they aren’t partying all the way up to Amorium, it might take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.”
It was true. Adventurers lived a crazy life—being always on the edge of death did things to your head, and you started enjoying the short-term benefits of adventuring a tad too much at times.
“How was your last mission?” Antoninus asked as he sat across from his sister. She was as big as him, just slightly less muscled. With her skills and levels, however, she would have probably put Antoninus’s head through a wall without breaking a sweat.
“Boring. Guarding jobs are always the same. You either don’t have to do anything throughout the whole journey, or you suddenly get assaulted, and you might die before you realize it. I don’t like them. I prefer when we are the ones approaching the enemy, not the other way around.”
Antoninus shivered at the idea of dying in an unnamed forest at the hand of someone who wanted to rob his employer. He genuinely could not understand how his sister did it; how did she sleep at night knowing that death could rain on her head at any moment?
Livilla noticed the shiver that had gone through Antoninus: they had spent their entire childhood attached to each other since they were twins. And she could read him like no one else.
“Don’t worry; it’s not as bad as you think. There’s a thrill to it too. But the most important thing is that the other adventurers watch your back. The bonds you form in a life-and-death situation make it worthwhile, trust me. And don’t you [Guards] do the same? Don’t you have to take care of each other’s backs while you patrol? What if some [Thug] were ready to fight for his life?”
“Oh, easy. I have skills. [Guardsman’s Senses] make ambushing me on patrol basically impossible. It would take a [Rogue] with thirty or more levels on him. You know the saying, inside the cities, the [Guards] are the real [Champions]. Plus, [Captain] Drusillus has been drilling us to make us more city skills ever since he took command.”
It was a feature of the [Guard] class, indeed. Inside the cities they were sworn to protect, their classes and skills were many times stronger than they should have been. Sure, the downside was that out in the wilderness, they would have none of their usual advantages. But inside the city? A level 20 [Guard] could easily put a level 20 [Warrior] to sleep and still keep up with a level 30 [Warrior], maybe.
And since the strongest Named Adventurer in Amorium had decided to take the post of [Watch Captain], the power of the Watch had skyrocketed.
“What about mom, anyway?” Antoninus furrowed his brows, still not convinced. “What if one day, she doesn’t come back? She’s been doing this for years, and we barely see her. We were born on the road. Rotten roots, Livilla, why don’t you just become a [Guard] too? [Captain] Drusillus loves taking in adventurers.”
“The Steel Titan? Yeah, I’d rather go to sleep with ten Venenum Caudae than deal with that man. Is it true that he trained the special forces? I’ve heard rumors.”
Antoninus grinned.
“Oh, he doesn’t let anyone know. But I am sure he did.”
His sister grinned back.
Gossip had been a big part of their playtime when they were kids. Especially when they had been out and about with their mother on the road. The most interesting thing to do was to bother people with personal questions—and when you have a Gold Ranker as a parent, no one thinks of messing with you too much. Therefore, with the freedom that came with a strong parent, the twins learned many ways of getting information from people.
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“And what about the Human, by the way?”
Livilla kept a steady stream of messages with her brother, interested in the latest gossip in Amorium, even when she was outside the walls. And while they rarely swapped sensitive information through [Runners] or [Mages], they did have a lot of juicy gossips to share that was, for the most part, harmless.
“He received a message this morning… and you’ll never guess who sent it!”
The two [Gossips] exchanged a knowing look.
“What is it now? Come on! Has he cheated on the [Baker] from the Three Roses?”
“Nope,” Antoninus smiled widely. “But there’s a new seed in the mix. I thought he might have been trying to climb the wrong tree, but this one…”
“Oh, come on! Please, tell me!”
Antoninus got closer and, launching conspiratorial gazes around him, he whispered: “The Scarlet Huntress.”
Livilla’s armor clanged on the ground as her mouth took the shape of an ‘O’.
“Are you serious?”
“Mold on my brain if I’m not,” Antoninus nodded. “A [Knight] came and delivered an invitation to Joey. He said that [Lady] Diana was looking forward to meeting him.”
“To meet the Human?” Livilla’s voice went high-pitched at the question.
“To meet the Human,” Antoninus replied.
Suddenly, but not unexpectedly, feeling hungry, Antoninus went inside the house’s pantry and took out some meat pies. His sister was still processing the new information as he started chewing on the food.
“You know,” Antoninus said with his mouth half-full, “I think he might have a [Lover] class or something.”
“Rotten roots of the World’s Tree, I would actually believe you,” Livilla said, shaking her head. “Bring him here. I want to hear this story about the Valerii. How did he even get in touch with the Scarlett Huntress…”
“He did beat a level 30 [Chef] in a baking competition while having no levels,” Antoninus chewed the words together with the food.
“I still have trouble believing that, too,” Livilla shrugged.
“He’s plenty weird,” Antoninus nodded. “But this job pays very well. You should apply for it yourself.”
“Oh, stop. I’m not going to take on boring city jobs. I’ve told you a million times.”
“Suit yourself,” Antoninus shrugged.
“What about the Human? When can I meet him?”
“I can ask him if he wants to drop by,” Antoninus shrugged. “He’ll probably accept. But now, what about mom? Is she ok?”
“Her messages were a bit too long,” Livilla said, rubbing her face. “You know what that means.”
Antoninus nodded with a frown.
When their mother would get injured on a mission, she tried to hide it by talking about anything else. She would rather describe the local cuisine that she sampled in the past month in great lengths than reply to a simple question about her health. So, it was natural for both to deduce that she had gotten hurt.
“Anything serious?” Antoninus asked.
“If it was, she would have mentioned something. She would have brushed it off, but she would have mentioned it. She will probably take care of it with the [Healers] here, maybe ship a couple from Arx Eterna.”
“Well, as long as she’s not hurt too badly,” Antoninus fidgeted with the wrapping paper of the meat pie before fetching a waterskin.
Both twins kept silent for a moment—quite the rarity in their household. But growing up with a very active adventurer of a mother meant that they had grown up with terror about her not coming back from the next raid.
“She’ll be okay.”
Livilla got up and rubbed her brother’s shoulder.
“She’s always ok,” she said.
“She really is,” Antoninus looked around the house.
“I can’t imagine what fighting those nasty [Necromancers] must have been like. She probably got some [Curse] that makes her shit bonedust.”
Antoninus snorted the water he was drinking from his nostrils.
“Rotten roots, Livilla!” He laughed.
“What? If she doesn’t want to say it, it’s probably something like that!”
“Bonedust?!”
“Isn’t that what [Necromancers] use?” She replied cheekily.
Antoninus chuckled and shook his head.
"You're something else, Livilla. But yeah, maybe it's something like that. You know, mom, she's too stubborn to admit when she needs help."
Livilla grinned and picked up her armor from the floor. "Alright, enough gossip for now. I need to finish oiling this armor and get some sleep. It's been a long day."
"Yeah, me too," Antoninus agreed, finishing his meat pie. "I'll see if I can invite Joey over sometime soon. You'll like him. He's got stories to tell."
Livilla raised an eyebrow. "He better have good stories if he's managed to catch the Scarlet Huntress's attention."
As the twins went about their evening chores, they couldn't help but think about their mother, each with their own worries.
Sure, she was strong, which comforted them, but was she really ok?
...
Antoninus put on his leather armor and started walking toward Joey’s apartment.
Before the Human had come to town, Amorium hadn’t been as interesting to Antoninus as it is now. Well, he had also never been punched in the face by a [Soldier] before he met Joey; but he considered it a fair price to pay for all the entertainment and good food he sneaked out of Happy Bakery. At some point, [Captain] Drusillus was bound to find out that he had consumed several golds worth of cake and pastries while on duty. No one escaped the man’s interrogations—but it would be worth the trouble.
The very tall [Guard] patted his belly.
If he had known before that Humans came with all this food, he might have actually moved to Teiko.
As Antoninus approached Joey's apartment, he wondered what kind of weird thing the Human would come up with that day.