Nandene. Outskirts of Vorthe. The Southern Region.

Rihal

Ash threw up the moment they appeared, retching and coughing as she bent over the meal she had eaten before tagging along with him.

“Urgh,” his companion muttered. “You shouldn’t have come with us, Ash.” She leaned over Ash, rubbing her back to comfort the Blank.

“I’m bored,” Ash said, gasping for air. “And this sounds exciting.”

“You hear that, ‘father walrus’?” his colleague, Crystal said. Her voice was sweet and musical to his ears.

Rihal sighed, regretting having her tag along to observe Jerome years ago. His mind drifted to the day Jerome called him Father Walrus, the day his life changed and he made a mortal enemy of Hedon Alvric. But he forced his mind back to the present.

“I should look for a proper pet name for you too, Crystal,” he said. His colleague smiled up at him. Or at least her eyes smiled. Her face covering prevented him from seeing her full smile. All three of them wore non-descript robes that showed a bit of luxury but not too much, as if they came from lesser noble homes. Their heads were wrapped in clothing to hide their faces as well.

Crystal was a very beautiful lady, and a Vorthe, like him. They were distant cousins as far as he could tell — more than thrice removed — and very attracted to each other it seemed. But Rihal didn’t know if he was ready for a relationship, yet.

“I would be waiting to hear it,” Crystal said suggestively.

Ash finally stood up and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can bear that again.”

“Teleportation is not for the weak of heart,” Rihal said. “Especially not for Blanks. Come on.” He started toward the town of Nandene.

“Where are we?” Ash asked as she and Crystal caught up with his long strides.

“This is the town of Nandene,” Crystal answered, gesturing toward the town ahead. “Jerome was here once, and he saved the town, in a manner of speaking — he’s ‘baby walrus’ by the way.” She chuckled at her joke.

“Oooh, so Layla learned that from you, didn’t she? She never told me who ‘father walrus’ or ‘baby walrus’ were.”

Crystal chuckled. “It’s an inside joke.”

An inside joke of the Nediti, you mean, Rihal grumbled inwardly. Every member of the Nediti knew it by now he was sure.

“Can we focus?” he said. “We’re here to investigate the mayor. If we discover he’s in contact with the Alvrics and trading with them—”

“We apprehend him!” Ash interrupted, eyes full of excitement.

“No, Ash. We find a way to use him to get into Alva, the Alvrics’ capital city,” Rihal corrected. “We’ve set some things in motion that would help us ensure our safe passage into Alvric lands. Would have been easier to portal there but…”

Crystal snorted. Ash looked between the two of them in confusion. “But what?”

“Let’s just say a vital resource has been confiscated from him,” Crystal responded, glaring at him. “And because his was confiscated, mine was restricted to only transport two — me and you, Ash.”

Ash frowned, not liking the cryptic response. Crystal grunted in displeasure — a nigh pleasant sound. “Why is she here, Rihal? She could compromise the mission.” Then she turned to Ash with a hand on her shoulder, though Ash was taller than her. “I don’t mean to say you’re a hindrance but we’re professionals at this.”

Ash’s shoulders visibly sagged. Rihal said nothing. She needed to realize the importance of the mission they were undertaking.

“You realize our master gave me this mission as punishment, right?” he said. Right. The master of shadows wouldn’t have confiscated his void bridge if not.

“Yes, punishment for sneaking into the Aviary,” Crystal shot back. “Tell me, have you completely recovered from using it?”

She meant the rune he used to merge with the tree. His ajanai provided him with some very esoteric skills but they came at a price.

Rihal grunted in response, unwilling to answer or look at her. “Master granted her permission to follow.” Then he transmitted his voice directly to Crystal’s ear using his mental energy, “He all but told me to take her with me, ‘Orders from the 1st Elder,’ he said.”

Crystal looked at him in shock, which quickly turned into a glare. She punched him in the gut and moved to put Ash between them. “And you didn’t think to tell me!” she transmitted back. What sort of games are the Elders playing?

Rihal coughed as he held his stomach from the pain. He didn’t know Crystal could hit this hard. “It’s not a game so much as it is politics,” he transmitted back. And he was sure it all had to do with Jerome. Which to him sounded insane. Why put the girl the fated Dark One loved in danger? But he couldn’t tell Crystal that. He swore an oath after all.

“Ash is different, Rihal. And they know it — the Elders. She’s faster and stronger than most of her peers. I hear things from the guards in the estate. They talk amongst each other. Most notable are her sight and voice. Have you heard her sing?”

Huh? That was new. Rihal had always known that Jerome was different from others but it seemed Ash was just as mysterious as her romantic interest. He might have to do a different — no. Concentrating on Jerome was all that mattered right now. He had misplaced his priorities once, he wouldn’t do it again.

Ash looked between the both of them, her previous dejection nowhere to be seen in her expression. “You know, the both of you fit each other really well; you argue like an old couple.” Then she walked away, ahead of them without a care for the mountain she had just dropped in their midst — figuratively.

They both stopped in shock, blushing profusely. Crystal gave Rihal a sidelong glance, her gaze filled with what he could only call embarrassment with a mix of longing, her anger having evaporated. The mood was broken and all three of them walked into the town in awkward silence. Well, awkward for Rihal and Crystal.

The guards at the gate stopped them before they walked through and asked for a small toll. Rihal flicked them three gold cuts. He would never put crystal coins in the hands of mortal guards. He wouldn’t want them following him around as if he was some kind of messiah. Plus the chaos they could cause for such trivial things could not be overlooked.

“They don’t collect a toll to enter Farryn,” Ash said when they were some distance away. “Why do they collect it here?”

“Farryn is the capital city, Ash. Unless you’re riding a wagon full of goods or going to pick up goods in a wagon, you pay no toll,” Rihal said, not bothering to explain deeply.

But Ash wouldn’t have it. “But why?” she asked. “There must be a reason for it.”

He stared at her. She reminded him of Jerome in that moment; always so inquisitive.

“In truth, the nobility voted to keep the capital city toll-free. Vorthe holds a Diet once every decade to discuss tolls and such and such—”

“A diet? You mean they come together to dine?”

Crystal chortled opposite him on the other side of Ash, who glared at her.

“No, Ash,” he said. “A Diet… an Imperial Diet is the highest representative assembly in an Empire. The nobles come together once every decade to talk about things like taxes and tolls and such and such.”

“That’s… I think my head would burst just thinking about those ‘such and such’ you say they discuss,” Ash said.

Rihal finally burst out laughing, unable to hold back. Not because of what she said — well, a little since her expression was funny — but because he thought he saw a little bit of Jerome in her. But no, Ash was too simple-minded to want to learn about complicated stuff like the Diet. Jerome would have lashed onto his every word in fascination and soaked them up like a sponge.

He chuckled again.

“We’ll be seeing more Diets in a year than we’ve seen in a lifetime from now on, though,” Crystal said thoughtfully. “With Vorthe now aiming to be recognized as an Empire worldwide, we’ll be seeing more of it.”

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Rihal kept quiet. He wasn’t one for politics. But he could see how the international community would purposefully want to keep Vorthe where it is socially. Obscure the truth and maintain the status quo. Vorthe being recognized as an Empire led to more complications than other powers in the world would like to… what? Admit? Allow? He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts. It wasn’t his place to strategize for the Royal Family.

They got closer to the residential areas of the town and began to see more people. The town looked the same as it did when he and the viper stumbled into it before they crashed the marketplace. Even though he didn’t get a good look at it then. The dirt road that led into town was dusty and crooked, as were the houses. Though the houses looked a little better. They were made with clay bricks and slanted clay tiled roofs to keep the snow and rain away.

“Wow!” Ash exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anyone with golden hair before.”

The denizens of the town all had corn-colored hair. They were in a sea of gold, so to speak. Crystal dragged Ash toward the manor in the distance before she did something stupid. They walked briskly for many breaths before they reached the front of the manor. They didn’t stop to talk to the guards standing guard. Rihal revealed a tiny bit of his aura as he walked by.

“Send for the mayor,” he said and pushed open the double doors to enter. The two guards on either side of the entrance trembled as he passed by.

“Y-yes, my lord!” they both stuttered.

They entered the foyer and sat down like they owned the place. Ash looked nervously at him and Crystal, momentarily figuring out why they were acting differently all of a sudden. She too sat down comfortably with a scowl. And he had to say it fit her very well.

Ash had grown in the nearly two years Jerome had been away. She had gotten bigger in the chest and more shapely in the hips. It was a wonder how her spine managed all that weight in her chest. Plus, she was tall. Not as tall as him but tall still. Compared to her, Crystal was fairly curvy, moderately busty, and of average height.

Layla was always teasing Ash about missing her boyfriend anytime they came around him. Jerome would be in for a surprise when he came back. The little girl who used to blush anytime he looked her way was no longer little anymore. He’d heard things. And seen her making obscene gestures to Layla while they gossiped. It made him feel sad that Ash wasn’t ‘pure’ anymore, at least in her mind. But such was life. No matter, she would always be like a daughter to him.

“Ah!” a boisterous voice sounded from his left. “Guests from the capital, I believe. Ahahah! Welcome, welcome! I am mayor Bas, mayor of Nandene. How may I be of help to you?”

The man was the most rotund man Rihal had ever seen. With blonde hair and a thin mustache on his face. He wore a red robe that made him look like he’d just woken up from sleep, but it was adorned with a lot of gold and finery. Rihal snorted.

“We know who you are. Sit,” he commanded, holding up a mid-grade crystal coin between his index and middle finger for the mayor to see.

“Eh?” The mayor stopped, nonplussed. Then he quickly took a seat, eyes alight with greed.

Rihal was sure he could count by hand the amount of mid-grade crystal coins the mayor had ever held by hand. Lows were easy to come by and a small-town mayor like Bas would have access to them, even mids. But the amount of mids a noble such as Bas would have seen could not be much. He wasn’t a landed noble — far from it — just some country-side quack whose father was fortunate enough to be elected to hold office.

“We wish to know about the boy who brought a prisoner here two years ago,” Crystal began. Her voice had taken on more allure. As if she was some important, high-class noble who looked down on everything and everyone around her, causing Mayor Bas to raise his guard and grovel before her. Exactly what they wanted.

Ash looked at her as if she was seeing her for the first time. Rihal forced himself not to smile at the look in her eyes. But the young Blank quickly caught herself and composed herself. Fortunately, Mayor Bas was focused on clinging to Crystal’s every word to notice.

“We heard he practically saved the town, drawing away an enemy of Vorthe,” Crystal said. Rihal flicked the mid to Bas who caught it and held it in both hands with a feverish reverence.

“Ah, yes, yes,” Bas caught himself. “But I wouldn’t say he saved the town you see. Er, there was — er, he just… led the enemy away was all,” Mayor Bas said, fawning over Crystal.

For a moment, Rihal felt the urge to turn him into a smear on the cushioned chair his oversized arse occupied. He disliked people like this Bas. Always groveling and fawning, only to one day turn around and stab you in the back.

“There have been investigations into the massacre in the village south of here,” Rihal said. “I would like you to provide me with some guards to search the village.” With an overly expressive twirl of his fingers, he produced another mid between them and flicked it to the mayor. He needed to keep up the theatrics to preserve the image he presented.

“Of course, my lord!” Bas shot up from his seat, body jiggling like it contained a storm.

Within a few dozen breaths, word was sent to one of the barracks to gather some guards. About a third of a quarter later, they set off toward the ghost village of woodbone with a team of twenty guards, where a surprise was waiting for them — well, the guards. Or those Bas had injected into their party to spy on them and report anything suspicious.

Reaching the village, they broke up into teams of five and began combing through every nook and cranny of the place. The whole place was burnt to the ground. Blackened earth and soot covered every surface they could see. Yet the sparse trees and bushes surrounding the village were left untouched. They had already begun encroaching on the ghost village. It had been two years after all. Every settlement around woodbone had steered clear of the area, taking the massacre as a bad omen.

Rihal led his team away from the piece of evidence he had planted a little south of the middle of the village. One of the guards with them kept glancing his way nervously as they slowly searched and made their way through the debris.

“Oh! So this is where it all went down,” Ash said looking around with her eyes wide open. And very ignorant of what they were doing here.

“Yes,” Rihal said.

“They are close to it, Rihal,” Crystal transmitted to him. They had been monitoring their bait since they walked into the ghost village. And a few guards were close to it.

“Yes, I can sense them,” he responded. The damned guard just needed to step three or more paces to the right and he’d — someone else found it. Rihal and Crystal tensed a little before looking at each other. The people they were expecting to find their bait had overlooked it. Well, things don’t always go the way you want them to.

Ash noticed the tension between them though. “What?” she asked, drawing the attention of their other team members.

“It’s nothing,” he said. Ash stared at him for a breath before shrugging and looking away. But the guards on their team weren’t convinced. Rihal decided it was time to ditch them.

“Let’s search elsewhere,” he said, practically dragging Ash away with him. Crystal grumbled but went with him. The guards shuffled around them for a while but slowed after a few steps. There were twenty of them moving around, hence, they thought they could avoid detection with such a poor performance of stealth. He had successfully steered their attention to whatever they thought he wanted to avoid.

Crystal directed Ash to another corner. She looked around, pretending to just now notice the group who had found their bait. They both made a scene of calling out to other guards to check out the group with their bait.

“What have you found there,” a guard called out as he walked toward the group.

“Uh. Nothing,” one of them said.

The guard quickly noticed a hand being slipped behind a back to hide something and pounced. Five guards crashed into the blackened dirt with grunts. Rihal, with the experience of using mental energy and accurate precision, slipped the bait out of the hand holding it and rolled it towards the mayor’s spies.

Fortunately, the bait was covered in black ash in the process, so no one noticed its metallic shine. The spy quickly picked it up and another covered him. Bingo.

Rihal didn’t look their way. He walked up to the men in a heap with long aggressive strides. “Where is it?” he growled.

All five guards froze in fear. They were patted down and even stripped by their superior, who happened to be the only Blank among them. And the one who had tackled them down. Nothing was found on them and the search went on for a while until Crystal called an end to it, complaining about soiling her boots in the filth of the dead. Harsh words but they had a cover to maintain.

~~~

Ash

“You did something, didn’t you?” she said, looking directly at Uncle Rihal.

“What do you mean?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ash looked at Crystal who left them to relax on a sofa in another room. There was no door separating both rooms so they could see and hear each other. She was in on the whole thing.

They had left the village and headed North a ways away from the town of Nandene. This place they were in now was a farmhouse. Night had fallen and the wind blew cold air that smelled like soil and manure into the wooden house they were in.

“Whatever those guards found, you slipped it out of their hands. There’s no way they would have lost it even if they were tackled by a Blank. I’ve been a Drudge too, Rihal.”

“It was bait, of sorts,” Uncle Rihal explained. She waited for him to expound on his statement but he said nothing, which frustrated her. What kind of explanation was that?

“Crystal?” she said, looking at the female Spirit Realm artist.

“Why does Rihal get to be ‘Uncle Rihal’ and I’m just ‘Crystal’?” Crystal asked, glaring at her.

Ash grimaced. “Sorry,” she mumbled. She thought about it. Even wanting to try saying ‘Aunty Crystal’ seemed… urgh, she didn’t have a word for it. She could feel a headache coming on just thinking about it.

“So?” Crystal said, looking at her with folded arms. She tried to look serious and angry but the humor and smugness in her voice bellied her expression.

“Not happening.”

Uncle Rihal burst into laughter, startling her. What was wrong with him today? That’s twice now.

“I swear, you and Jerome are so much alike,” he said, still laughing. “He said the same thing when I told him to call me Uncle.”

Ash scowled. “Don’t change the topic, Uncle Rihal.” — he smirked at Crystal, probably because she still called him Uncle Rihal — “Is this what you meant when you said you’ve set things in motion?” Ash rolled her eyes at the look he gave Crystal. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll stop calling you Uncle Rihal.”

Uncle Rihal looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Crystal had a look that dared her to call him by name. Ash looked away, hating that they put her on the spot. But a moment later Crystal sighed and sat back. “That would be fun to witness. But the pout you spot right now says it all. You cannot but call him ‘Uncle Rihal’.”

“Well, we planted something in woodbone. It carries a certain signature that can help me detect inspection even from a distance. That way I can infiltrate the Alvrics city, Alva.”

“Can I come?”

“I told you not to tell her, Rihal!” Crystal screamed, and then she faced her. “And no, you can’t. You’re staying here with me. Where it’s safe!”

“There’s no reason to tempt fate,” she heard Uncle Rihal mumble. “First Jerome, now you? Do I have to work to keep my respect?”

Ah! So this was what Layla meant by the power of a lass. Ash smirked. She began thinking of all the things she could get away with. What was that other tactic Layla mentioned? Puppy dog eyes or something.