The sun had set by the time the adventurers returned to the city of Barton. The guards waved them back in as the group crossed the checkpoint. The eastern side of the city was winding down under the watchful gaze of the stars. A mana lamp illuminated a wagon filled with seven men and pulled by a pair of horses—day laborers returning home for the night. Some gave the trio and dog a weary look but most were late for their cups, their beds, or both.
The cool air felt good and Brivaria resisted the urge to fly. She’d opted not to apply her disguise for the guards but it likely hadn’t mattered. They’d not questioned the fact that the trio came back sans Jasmine and likely wouldn’t have cared had the winged girl been absent. There was an undercurrent of tension among the adventurers but the stillness of the night was absolute.
They moved to a small alley so Brivaria could change forms. Her wings receded into her back and the System message informed her of the human traits once again being acquired. By the power of the Inventory skill, her clothes vanished and were replaced by a borrowed set from Nyx. They were on the small side but, with time, Brivaria could make them fit. Once the change was complete, they headed back to the Siren’s Alcove.
There was no music when they arrived, not even the fading harp notes they’d heard the other night. Even without that, the inn was welcoming. Warm light spilled from the inn’s common room as they opened the door. The smell of cooked meat and spices drifted through the air causing stomachs to rumble. The inn was quiet save for the lone innkeeper who greeted them.
“Welcome to the—oh, welcome back,” Cadice said, interrupting herself mid-greeting upon seeing who her guests were.
“Glad to be back,” Brivaria said genuinely. Trixie gave a happy wuff of agreement. “Could we get something to eat? We’ve been on the road all day and we’re starved.”
“Of course, no wings today? Different hair too.” Candice didn’t speak loudly but the sounds carried. To the group’s surprise, the inn had a few more guests dining even at this late hour. It seemed the burgeoning event that was the Hunt for the Golden Hind was finally directing some of its overflowing attendees in the direction of Candice’s inn.
“Trying to attract a little less attention,” Brivaria replied, her voice quieter than before. Candice took the hint and also spoke more quietly.
“Ah, say no more. Grab yourselves a table. I’ll fix you something to get you started and you can tell me if there’s anything specific I can make for you when I return.” The innkeeper stepped away and everyone was pleased to sit down and relax. The inn’s seats were nothing to boast about but they were immensely comfortable. Candice had even found an odd, U-shaped seat with a cushioned back that seemed specifically tailored for lamia. Kseniya let out a moan of pleasure as she relaxed onto it that was so enthusiastic that even the golden sunchaser looked her way.
“What? It’s been ages since I’ve had one of these to relax on. Most cities on this side of the world don’t entertain many lamia so these are a rarity,” the sorceress said before closing her eyes and laying back.
“I hope I’m that excited over a chair when I get to be that age,” Nyx said with mock seriousness. Kseniya’s orange eyes immediately snapped open.
“That age?” the lamia questioned indignantly.
Brivaria let the sounds, the smells, and the quiet ambiance of the moment wash over her. Kseniya and Nyx bickered pleasantly. Candice arrived with their food. The light crackling of wood in a nearby hearth and the heat it radiated were all soothing to her.
Eventually the meal came to an end. All three of them were very full. Trixie had her head resting on Brivaria’s leg. The angel was slowly scratching behind the golden’s ears. The group reverie was broken when Candice approached them. All eyes turned to the innkeeper.
“Hey,” she began, keeping her voice low and pleasant, “so when you checked in I mentioned the possibility of having to shift accommodations if more people arrived. It’s looking like that’s finally happening. Would you mind if we moved two of you into the same room? It would be a double’s reduced rate and I’d throw in an additional discount for being extra good guests.”
“I don’t mind,” Brivaria answered. Nyx and Kseniya said the same so it was agreed. Kseniya would keep her large, lamia-sized bed and room while Nyx and Brivaria would share a double. The innkeeper did more than discount the room as she also waived the fee they’d paid to hold the rooms while being out of the city.
Candice showed them to the new room. Trixie ran in first, picked a bed, and jumped onto it. The golden had chosen her territory. Nyx and Brivaria bid the innkeeper a good evening and settled in. Brivaria wanted to practice with her shapeshifting abilities but she would do that after Nyx went to sleep. Plus she still had an hour on Rest’s timer so her full mana pool wouldn’t be available for a little while longer.
“Hey Brivaria, look at this.” Brivaria’s eyes rose from the book she was reading and looked to her roommate. Nyx swung her hand through the air, claws extended. A second, ghostly hand swiped immediately after.
“Double strike? Active or passive?” the angel asked. Double Strike, Phantom Blow, Ghostly Follow-Up, and about a dozen other similarly-named skills enabled repeated movements or attacks. Angels were offered such skills in combat classes but rarely did the overseer suggest taking one. The goal was to get to a point where a single swing did the job of destroying whatever one was swinging at as most things tended to move after being struck, especially at higher levels.
“Passive. I can switch it on and off with a little bit of control over what gets mirrored. Duncan gave me grief over my skills being only useful once or twice a fight so this should let me get twice as much use out of a couple things. Once I have some practice anyway.” The cat girl spoke while shadow boxing in the middle of the room.
Trixie noticed Nyx’s practice and hopped down from the bed to go see what Nyx was doing. Her head followed each of Nyx’s swings and Brivaria giggled at the curious pooch.
“Trixie wants to help you train,” the angel said with a wide smile. The dog looked at her and wuffed before going back to watching Nyx. Nyx paused her testing to pet Trixie.
“That sounds good to me. I don’t think I need to be throwing punches to train this anyway,” Nyx replied as she began using Trixie as a guinea pig. The dog panted as Nyx’s fingers ran over her fur then a set of ghostly fingers did the same. Trixie approved of double pets and quickly laid down onto her side.
The dog received plenty of attention before Nyx decided it was time to go to bed. Trixie hopped back onto Brivaria’s bed. Now it was the angel’s turn to spoil the dog with affection until the golden fell asleep, which she promptly did.
Across the city of Barton there was a far less pleasant scene occurring in a small home. Said home had been made available to the adventuring team now occupying it by their patron. Alden Porter was the leader of Seasoned Steel, an adventuring team that suffered constant setbacks. Tonight he was dealing with the latest of them—one of his team was being held in the town jail after assaulting the members of another adventuring team.
“You said it was Zenith Penrose but the city watch identified the woman as Brivaria of the adventuring team Divine Blessing. How did this mix-up happen?” he asked while running a hand through his dark hair. The tanned warrior thought he was going to lose it and go as bald as their water mage, Tobias, at the rate things were going.
“I told you, Alden. Cordelia Westlake greeted her as Zenith. I only heard part of that conversation but I’m 100% sure of what I heard. What more do you want from me?” Isolde snapped defensively. They’d had this conversation yesterday and it was time for round two, it seemed.
“It makes no sense,” the team leader pressed but his anger waned. He wasn’t upset at Isolde. Well, he was but only mildly. He just didn’t understand how this had happened.
“You know,” Tobias cut in and then paused as both his teammates looked at him with a bit of annoyance. The bald water mage gave them a sour smile before continuing, “this is all a bit odd don’t you think?”
“What? Lucian being a dumbass?” Isolde said with a sneer. Alden gave her a warning look and she stopped there.
“The fact that a brand new copper rank team walks into town, picks a mostly vacant inn for their stay, and then meets with Baroness Westlake the next day,” the mage explained.
“Brand new?” Alden furrowed his brows and Tobias nodded.
“I checked with the adventurers guild. They just formed their group in Pemburne just recently. This Brivaria woman is listed as an angel paladin. Obviously the angel part is a lie but Pemburne is such a small town that they likely have no means of determining that. Did she strike you as a paladin, Isolde?” the mage asked, turning from Alden to the summoner. Isolde thought about the battle.
“I didn’t see any holy magic, no. Lucian struck her through the heart then she got right back up, completely unharmed, and went after him. Her sword and shield had eerie black glows. I thought it was some dark or night-aligned magic but it was definitely strong. One slice took down my second wolf. Lucian tried to run but she shot him in the back with some kind of black slingshot bullet. He collapsed instantly.” As a summoner, Isolde was technically a mage but the word “technically” was doing a lot of lifting. She definitely had no eye to identify the magic anyone used.
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“Doesn’t sound much like a paladin, does she? Sounds more like a cultist masquerading as Zenith Penrose wielding dark, unholy magicks,” Tobias continued.
“Masquerading?” Isolde questioned with a frown. Tobias shrugged.
“Doppelganger, face-stealer, demon. Plenty of monsters can copy a person,” the water mage replied.
“So you think Lucian was right?” Alden’s frown had only deepened.
“Partially. I don’t think it was Zenith Penrose herself, no, however I do think the cult is using her identity. Whether she is complicit or not, I don’t know. This Divine Blessing team is most likely a fraud. I wouldn’t be surprised if all three were monsters in disguise, cultists at the very least,” the mage explained.
“But why did Westlake address her as Zenith?” Isolde questioned, still not quite wrapping her head around the conspiracy. “If Cordelia is in on it then she has no need to use fake names.”
“Plausible deniability? If questioned Baroness Westlake and her staff can say the woman she spoke to identified herself only as Zenith. Unrelated, I went by the inn the group is supposedly staying at. They weren’t there last night or this morning. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd? As though they might only be renting the inn for show?” the mage pressed. Alden waved as though banishing the discussion topic with his hand.
“Whatever the case, it doesn’t help us get Lucian out of jail. I spoke with the watch captain and explained that we’re working for the Count. He’s willing to reduce the charge from attempted murder to assault so Lucian isn’t getting executed but that’s as much as he’s willing to budge. Lucian is looking at months in jail, a hefty coin repayment to the city, or both.” As Alden spoke, Isolde could practically see the black cloud of misfortune hanging over the warrior. She didn’t like Lucian and Tobias struck her as weaselly, but Alden was a good guy in her eyes and the only reason she’d stuck around the Seasoned Steel this long.
“Going to ask a favor from the Count?” Tobias asked. Alden nodded.
“I have to. Something fishy is going on and we need Lucian. Plus,” he nodded toward Tobias, “if your theories are correct then he was on the right track but for the wrong reasons.” Isolde just groaned.
“That means our pay…” she started to say only to have her statement finished by Alden.
“Is definitely taking a hit. No two ways around it.” All three adventurers stared at one another. If they’d been bronze rank then the pay would have been good, great even. The problem was that they were a silver rank team in all but name and it was not great with that in mind. Isolde’s rabbit ears drooped but there was nothing for it.
She didn’t sleep particularly well that night and found herself with nothing to do the next morning. Alden was going to get in touch with Count Dancarlo. Everyone else was instructed to avoid doing anything job-related in the meantime. Isolde could have been watching the Westlake estate like she had the other day but Alden didn’t want anyone getting into trouble without the team being ready to back them up. Isolde didn’t protest that.
She wandered into the adventurers guild and sat down at a table. There was really nowhere else to go. Most entertainment cost money and, with their current contract either reduced or in jeopardy, Isolde didn’t feel like spending her coin. She felt like strangling Lucian for getting them into this mess so maybe it was for the best that he was in jail. She was happily zoning out when suddenly a familiar voice brought her back to the present.
“Excuse me, our team is looking to pick up new members. Would you happen to have a list of individual adventurers in the city or perhaps just mages?” Isolde looked to the front desk and the speaker was a young, human woman with long black hair and matching black clothes. It wasn’t the same girl from the other day yet it sounded just like her.
“We keep a record of all known adventurers in the city through these,” the receptionist said while producing a thick stack of cards. The stack of mismatched cards had seen better days. Both the city watch and other adventurers often requested to see them. Neither were always kind in handling them. “You’ll have to find what you’re looking for yourself. We make no guarantees about everyone in there being in town. If someone left without telling us or the watch then their card will still be in there. You are not permitted to take any of the cards or make notes on them. Please return them when you are done.”
“Oh, yes. I will. Thank you,” the human girl said while taking the stack of cards and looking uncertainly at them. She then looked up and around the common room for a table. Isolde knew it was a bad idea but she called out to the girl.
“Hey, do you need some help searching through those?” the lephori summoner asked. The dark-haired human glanced toward her and looked genuinely delighted.
“I’d love some help if you’re offering.” She said it was such earnest conviction that it hurt Isolde’s jaded heart to hear it. Isolde was sitting at an otherwise empty table facing the door rather than the reception desk so the other girl sat down opposite her. A certain dog with golden fur also padded over giving Isolde a very curious sniff then a second. “Trixie, come over here.”
The golden sunchaser obediently moved around the table and hopped up on a bench. The dog sat up, looked around, and then immediately put her head on the other girl’s lap. That earned her some pets.
“So what are you looking for? Are you part of a team?” Isolde asked carefully.
“Yes, my name is Brivaria. My team named Divine Blessing and we’re looking for a mage,” the human girl replied. Isolde knew it. This was her. This was the girl from the fight but her hair was a different color and her wings were gone. Maybe there was something to Tobias’ theory after all.
“My name is Isolde, nice to meet you Brivaria. Here, give me half the cards and I’ll go through them. What does your team have currently?” Isolde asked while offering to take half the cards.
“Fighter, mage, healer,” Brivaria paused and shrugged. “Well, I’m listed as a paladin but I’ve got a bit of magic, a bit of healing, and a variety of skills that don’t really mesh together into anything coherent.”
“And you want another mage?” Isolde pressed. Brivaria visibly wavered.
“I suppose what we really need is someone who can occupy enemies in fights but for now I’m here to look for a mage.” The golden sunchaser looked up as the girl spoke and Isolde looked at the dog. She vividly recalled how the dog somehow forced not one but two of her summons to fight it instead of ganging up on the lamia.
The conversation quieted as the two sorted the cards. Isolde was not impressed by the condition of the cards nor the accuracy. She found a few entire groups that she was certain were in other cities at the moment. Still, Isolde sorted them as asked with mages in one pile and eventually fire mages in a separate pile when the girl expressed interest in those specifically. They talked about interesting classes they saw until Isolde pulled Brivaria’s card. It was newer than the rest and showed exactly what Tobias said—angel paladin.
“Angel paladin?” Isolde said innocently, holding up Brivaria’s card with a curious look. Brivaria looked up at the card and smiled.
“That’s me. Although I’m going without the wings right now,” she admitted.
“You can just do that? Have your wings sometimes and not other times?” Isolde asked.
“It’s complicated but yes. Also people seem to keep confusing me with some famous mercenary captain. I was attacked the other night on the way to my inn and I’m pretty certain it’s because the attacker thought I was her,” the supposed-angel quietly admitted.
“Attacked? By who?” Isolde asked, now curious. Was she talking about Lucian?
“Fire mage. Threw some big fire bolts at my party and then disappeared,” she admitted after a long pause. Isolde’s eyes widened in understanding.
“So what we’re actually doing here…” Isolde began and trailed off. Brivaria lowered her voice despite the guild being fairly empty at this time of the morning.
“We’re trying to figure out who came after our team. We went from the guild to our inn so we suspect it was an adventurer,” the angel clarified.
“What do you intend to do if you find them?” The idea that this girl had nearly been killed twice in as many days sounded highly unlikely but if that was a lie then what they doing with the cards?
“We’re not sure yet. Inform the watch? Send word to his mercenary captain that someone is out to get her? Confront them ourselves?” Isolde considered the angel’s choices before replying.
“If you can convince the watch that they’re the one then the watch can submit them to truth spells to determine their guilt but the penalty for falsely accusing someone is pretty high. If you’re talking about Zenith Penrose then she probably already has plenty of assassins after her head. Mercenaries fight people for a living so they collect grudges faster than levels. Confronting your attacker directly also sounds dangerous.” The lephori summoner and her team had just gotten a first-hand lesson in what happens when one adventurer stupidly confronts another in broad daylight.
“Hopefully we make the correct choice, whatever that happens to be,” the angel said with an honest smile. Isolde shook her head and then a dumb thought occurred to her.
“Say, you weren’t lying about looking for another team member earlier, were you?” Brivaria paused at moving the cards and then shook her head.
“No, even if we’re not really looking for a fire mage, having a fourth member would still be a good idea,” the dark-haired girl replied.
“What about a summoner?” Isolde asked.
“A summoner?” Brivaria repeated.
“Yes. They can prepare different summons for the situation whether that’s occupying the monsters for a little while, protecting the team, or both. The better the summoner, the more diverse their roster gets and the more roles they fill on the team. A good summoner can also provide the group with mounts, messengers, or even just helpers to carry things,” the rabbit girl explained.
Isolde had given spiels like this to countless teams while trying to find one of her own. Summoners were rare both because the classes were rare and also because they were generally looked down upon. A fire mage could spend 30 mana to kill a group of monsters with a fireball. A summoner could spend that same 30 mana to summon a giant praying mantis which didn’t instantly kill that group of monsters. She had to make the argument that the mantis was better when, in reality, it wasn’t always the case. She’s gotten a lot of rejections before joining Alden’s team.
“Summoners can be really strong,” the angel said with a smile and Isolde’s ears stood a little straighter. “I don’t think my half of the pile has any though. Do you have one in mind?”
“Me. I’m a summoner. I’m on a team right now but things aren’t working out the way I was hoping they would so I’m considering a change,” the lephori girl said. She pushed the stack of cards away which included her own and passed over the mages she’d found—ones with teams, ones without teams, and fire mages. The angel took them and started looking through them, discarding some while keeping others.
“Well, why don’t you come meet my teammates? We can talk about things and go from there?” Brivaria’s questions were exactly what the summoner was hoping to hear.
“That sounds perfect. Do you have a place in mind?” she asked.
“How about dinner at the Fleece and Flagon? I passed it on the way here and the food smelled good. We can stop by at sunset,” the angel suggested.
“That works for me,” Isolde was beaming as she answered. “Did you find what you were looking for?” Brivaria held up a card and nodded.
“There’s only one fire mage without a team—Edison Kor. Sadly there’s no telling if that’s our mysterious attacker or not but it’s a start. Thank you for all of your help, Isolde, and for listening. I need to get going but it was nice meeting you. I’ll see you at dinner.” Brivaria rose to get up and Isolde waved the other woman and the golden sunchaser goodbye.
Now the question was—did she tell her team about this meeting? No, on second thought that wasn’t even a question. She had to tell Alden at least. This meeting had been a chance encounter but there was a difference between seizing an opportunity and going behind his back. The summoner was starting to doubt her own recollection of the other day’s events but she didn’t want to walk into a dangerous situation without backup nearby. Though, maybe she’d go easy on the details so Tobias wouldn’t do something dumb in the same vein as Lucian.