It was getting late as Desmond returned to his room. His insightful conversation with Garrick had taken longer than expected, but he still had one more thing to do before he could call it a day. As he approached his door, Desmond found Richard waiting for him.
“Good evening, Desmond,” Richard said as Desmond approached.
“Good evening, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Desmond replied.
“We have taken care of the cleanup for last night’s, incident,” Richard stated without showing any emotion. “I apologize that such a thing happened on Lodge grounds, and I would like to let you know that we will be thoroughly looking into this matter. We also fixed the broken enchantments on the wall and installed a better lock for your room.”
He was basically telling Desmond not to take this matter into his own hands. But, Desmond held no hope that the Lodge would adequately handle punishing Lucel. As much as the Lodge tried to stay neutral, it was difficult to do when you were the largest, most powerful organization on the continent.
They will no doubt find a scapegoat to pin this all on. There was no reason for them to piss off a Duke for a failed assassination attempt, and Lucel could simply hide behind the same uncertainty that Desmond had used to his advantage. Richards’s presence here only confirmed to Desmond that he would have to handle this matter himself.
“I appreciate it. Please keep me informed on how the investigation goes,” Desmond said. He wasn’t exactly upset with this lackluster response from the Lodge, as he had not expected any help from them in the first place. “Now, if there was nothing else?”
“I also brought your new hunter plate,” Richard said as he held up a small purple plate that had a leather cord attached to it.
Desmond reached into his pocket and pulled out his current red colored plate. He honestly liked the red color more, but the Lodge had decided that calamity class was purple, so he would have to trade it in. He handed over the plate to Richard and received his new one, which he simply tossed back into his pocket. Hunters were required to keep their plates on them while they were in the Lodge, but they didn’t have to have them visible.
“With that, my business is done,” Richard said, still in the same flat tone of voice. “Goodnight.” Richard then walked off down the covered walkway, back towards the main lobby building.
Desmond was actually pretty fond of Richard despite his apparent lack of emotions. The man was about as unbiased and even-handed as Lodge staff came, and he did not envy his job. Desmond had recently started to feel a subtle hostility when dealing with the man. Which was understandable given that he had become quite a troublemaker for the Lodge. Desmond mentally promised he would behave himself, after he had finished dealing with Lucel that is.
***
As Riki approached the bedroom door she noticed that they had put in a new lock. Likely because of the break-in that had happened last night. She then noticed a small note on the door, ‘New lock, just knock!’ Challenge accepted!
Riki put down her package so she could bend down and examine the lock. It looked like a standard pin tumbler lock. Closing her eyes, Riki reached out with her magic senses. She could feel the enchantments present on the lock. After examining it for around a minute, Riki started to get a better idea of what the enchantment did. It looked to prevent the pins from moving until it received a magic signal that likely came from the key. The ward wasn’t particularly well made, so Riki was able to infer what the signal should be just from examining the ward.
Riki mimicked the signal that the ward was looking for with her own magic. Then, she used a little shadow magic to put the pins in the right place, and with a little twist, she heard a click as the door opened.
Well, at least it was better than the pure mechanical lock they used before. There were still 2 chain locks preventing the door from opening, so she had to almost close the door again as she used her shadow magic to slide them out of position.
With the door now opened, Riki retrieved her package and entered the courtyard. She had spent most of the day tracking down where the assassination request had come from. Both she and Dez knew it was ordered by Lucel, but it was important to be diligent in these matters. The proof wasn’t that hard to track down, as several of her contacts had reported that one of Lucel’s guards had come by to find out if they wanted to take a contract. They had, of course, rejected the request, but that had not stopped some idiot from accepting it.
From what she could determine from her contacts, the assailants had not been assassins at all. They had been a new hunter party that had just moved up to this Lodge and had not been able to turn down the large sum of gold that Lucel was offering. From Riki’s perspective, they were just a bunch of idiots. How they had even managed to get this far was a miracle.
Riki opened the sliding bedroom door before walking inside to find Dez working on something at the desk. His back was currently towards her and since she had the habit of always moving silently, he was none the wiser of her presence. This was a chance. She used her shadow magic to start actively hiding her presence as she moved to put the package down on the bed. Riki then moved over to stand beside Dez’s shoulder. Dez was a stoic man who was hard to startle, but she would get him this time.
She looked down to see what he was working on. Dez had Ben’s notes spread out on one side of the table and was currently working on writing a letter.
‘Lucel, I need you to purchase several healing potions and bring them to me. Just head northeast of the Lodge and I will find you. Desmond attacked and tried to kill me. He also thinks he succeeded. DO NOT confront him about this! In my current state, it would be bad if he found out he failed. That bastard even took my storage ring! So bring some travel rations and supplies. We will be heading back to the Empire for a while.
Signed, Benjamin Valmesh.’
Will Lucel really fall for that? Using the Valmesh last name is a nice touch though. They were engaged, but he hadn’t married into the family yet. So using their last name makes it look like he’s sucking up and therefore, desperate for help. Maybe this will work?
But Riki was getting distracted, she was here on a mission. She leaned down beside Dez’s shoulder to get a look at his face.
“You really think she will fall for that?” Riki asked softly beside Dez’s ear. She immediately got the reaction she was looking for as Dez froze stiff, and his eyes went wide. This only lasted for a moment before his face returned to a neutral calm. But it was a glorious moment, and why she couldn’t stop herself from sneaking up on him.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Yeah, I do. She is desperate right now, and if she finds a little hope, she will cling to it,” Dez said after collecting himself. “Hell, I could have written it in fucking crayon, and she would believe it.”
“I see,” replied Riki. Despite Dez’s dumb brute appearance and sometimes mannerisms, Riki knew it was all an act. Dez was surprisingly intelligent and insightful. He was also quite good with people, which was a skill that Riki herself lacked.
“Do you think you could get one of your contacts to subtly hand this letter to one of Lucel’s guards?” Dez asked.
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Riki said as she considered the idea. “But there is no reason to involve someone else. If there are more people, then there are just more places for the plan to go wrong. The best play would be for me to just dead drop it in her room.”
Dez turned to face Riki. “Would you do that for me?”
“Of course I will. But what happened to the whole,” Riki said before a mischievous smile crept onto her face, and she did her best deep-voiced Dez impression. “‘I got to fight this battle myself’ bullshit?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Dez said with a light chuckle. It was a truly horrible impression. “I was a bit of an ass there, but that’s just how a felt about fighting Ben. I promise, I will never tell you what to do again.”
“Well you know, there are sometimes when it’s OK to order me around,” Riki replied in a sultry voice as she moved to sit on Dez’s lap. Wrapping her arms around Dez, she smiled as they came face to face. Teasing Dez was always fun, and Riki was determined to get him back for that kiss at the tavern. Dez seemed to blush a little and tried to change the subject.
“What do you think?” Desmond said as he gestured to the letter while trying to avoid eye contact. “Did I get his handwriting down well enough? Most of Ben’s notes were just written in fire runes, but I did find a few in common.”
“Let me see,” Riki replied as she shifted in Dez’s lap to look at the table.
The handwriting seemed to be similar enough to Ben’s, but Riki didn’t really care about that right now. She shifted back and forth on Dez’s lap while pretending to look over the notes and letter. She would break his will soon enough.
***
Desmond sat there as Riki wiggled back and forth on his lap. She was acting completely oblivious to what she was doing as she looked at the letter. But he knew this was an act. It was clear what she was really trying to do, and she was succeeding.
There were still several hours until sunset and Desmond had wanted to finish this letter and look into some soul stuff. He still had not had a chance to go back to the Soul Realm after that first time. But it was clear that Riki had other plans for him tonight. Plans that he started to anticipate, and superseded all the other tasks he had laid out.
“I still think my plan is better,” Riki said as she spun around on his lap to put one leg on either side of him. This action brought them face to face one more. “I mean, she is a dark. I could go in, slit her throat, and get out with them being none the wiser.”
“Even if the Lodge didn’t act, they would know,” Desmond replied.
“Yeah, but they will still be able to figure out we killed her,” Riki said as she pressed herself closer against Desmond’s chest. Their faces were now close enough that he could feel Riki’s breath. “I mean we have motive. We leave the Lodge at around the same time. Then they die. It doesn’t take a lot to connect it all.”
“Yeah, but this way there is no record of it on the Lodge’s arrays,” Desmond stated. “We then have plausible deniability of the whole thing.”
“Still seems like overkill to me,” Riki said as she brought their lips together in a light kiss before pulling away. “I believe that you’re just overthinking this. Often the best solution is the most simple one,” Riki whispered in his ear before she switched over to a soft sultry tone. “Stop dwelling on this, and just fuck me already.”
Desmond was already at his breaking point as all other thoughts left his mind. He picked Riki up as he got to his feet, and gently tossed her down on the middle of the bed. She made a cute surprised yelp as she hit the bed, but Desmond knew the surprised part was an act. As he approached the bed, he had to move a package that had been placed on the end of it. Looking inside the package as he moved it, he could see it contained a large roasted chicken and some sliced cheese, which caused him to laugh. It wasn’t what he wanted right now, but at least this part was going according to plan.
***
It was the middle of the night by the time Desmond and Riki collapsed on their bed, exhausted. Surprisingly, the dagger did not make an appearance tonight, which always changed their dynamic. Without the dagger, Desmond was in a far more dominant position during the act, as there was no counterweight to his overwhelming strength. It made for a nice change of pace, considering the kinkiness they usually got up to.
Desmond rolled over in the bed to face Riki, and they started talking about mundane things. Riki joked about the chicken and how crucial it was to the plan. Desmond advised that breakfast was always an important part of any strategy. Riki talked about how she tracked down the assassination order and how it came from one of Lucel’s guards. Desmond told Riki the story about his fight with Ben. Desmond expected that she already knew all the details, as she had likely been there. But he saw no reason to bring any of that up here. He appreciated what she did and would leave it at that.
After an hour or so, Riki started to doze off. Desmond may have been thoroughly distracted, but he still wanted to try and enter the Soul Realm again tonight. As he lay in bed beside Riki, he came to realize that he had no idea how to re-enter the Soul Realm. He couldn’t eat the orb again as it was already inside him and there wasn’t exactly an instruction manual.
Desmond closed his eyes as he considered this problem. His best guess to enter would be through some kind of meditation. But this was absolutely not a strong point for him. There were many different types of magical meditation that Desmond had seen in his life, but none of them seemed to quite fit.
The next idea he got was to enter his mana room. Every awakened person had access to an illusionary space, that was considered to be the inside of their mana core. This space was commonly called the mana room, and Desmond was starting to suspect that it also had something to do with the soul. The mana room was incredibly important to learning and casting magic. This is why Desmond had more or less ignored it and had not been in his own mana room for years.
Closing his eyes, Desmond tried his best to focus on his mana core located below his heart. As he calmed down, his heartbeat slowed. He was able to feel the pulse of his mana through his body. It felt quite similar to his heartbeat, but was felt with his magical senses and not his physical ones. The pulsing from his core was weaker than the beating of his heart, but as he focused on it, he felt his mind slowly start to wander and fade. It felt like that moment before falling asleep that you can never seem to truly remember.