Shaula returns to where Barden, Prisca and Angelidis are waiting.
She looks around, searching through the crowd for the people who she had figured out were undercovers. She listens for the specific sound associated with them moving. Their cuffs make a specific sound while in the back pockets as they walk. Their gait has a formality to it, one that was ingrained at this point in their guard career.
Shaula tries to sniff out the coppery scent of their armor, some pieces still kept on under their clothing. She keeps her eyes peeled for the suspicious intruders, their awkward manner in the crowd apparent. However, they are nowhere to be found. The scent of armor lingers but nothing more than that.
They've all left… all of them.
She sees none of the guards around, fully armored or otherwise, and breathes in a sigh of relief. It is the moment of sunset now. The sky is reddish orange and the red moon of Omicron is hanging at the edge of the sky. The street lights have started to activate throughout the area. The crowd seems to be much calmer as well now that the instigators have gone.
The undercovers were trying to start fights earlier to give them stronger footing around Barden. Now that they're gone, the crowd has nothing to fear. All it took was for me to kill a few fucking idiots.
Captain Tom had actually done it. He had actually called away all the guards from this area in order to save himself. Even the armored ones have left the area, all of them likely investigating the (now) crime scene where the corpses of their superiors lay.
Barden, Prisca and Angelidis notice Shaula walking through the sparse crowd towards them. She sees Angelidis first, a bright smile on her face. Prisca and Angelidis would not believe that she had just completed a killing spree. She doesn't have any blood on her clothes either, no lingering murderous aura to frighten them.
Barden is not so naive however. He knows that the guards all left the area, as if scrambling to get somewhere.
He saw the undercovers rush away as if they were fine with blowing their identities and had no need or want to capture him anymore. He had even asked around and his confidants had confirmed that the people who had run were most likely the undercovers who were tasked with trying to arrest him.
He knows that if anyone did anything to cause this outcome, it must have been this human woman here. This woman, who is likely a heroic noble or at least has such strength, has saved his life, though perhaps through methods that are quite unsavory.
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He watches carefully as the human woman interacts with Prisca and Angelidis, all three of them lighter with the tension forcefully drained out of the air.
“Alright, girls, I think it’s safe now. Barden, Prisca, you can all head home, though move quickly.” She says. Though she tells all three of them to leave, her words are light as she knows the danger has passed and they're basically scotfree.
“Wh… What do you mean, Shaula? What did you just–” Prisca tries to ask her what exactly Shaula had done, however Barden places his clawed hand over her mouth.
After a couple seconds Prisca realizes that Shaula must have done something, based on her leaving the area and coming back after things had quieted down. Her eyes widen in shock and Barden lets go of her.
"Um… O-Ok Shaula, I understand. It is safe for us to leave, it's all been taken care of. That's what you mean, right?"
Shaula looks at Prisca's slightly bewildered expression with confusion. She doesn't fully understand why Barden forced her to quiet down just now either.
Ah… They don't want to know what I did. Well… Yeah, it's best for them that they remain ignorant.
Angelidis darts her eyes between Prisca and Shaula, not fully grasping what's happened or what Shaula has done. Unlike Barden and Prisca, she hasn’t yet realized the depth of Shaula’s strength. Barden speaks up, clearing his throat.
“Thank you for your help, Shaula. We will not be so forward as to ask you what exactly you did to make things safe for my family and me, but I do want to offer my sincere thanks. We will take your advice to heart and leave the area as per your instructions.”
Barden speaks in a business-like manner towards Shaula. He truly wants to trust her, the person who has done so much to ensure he lives another day, but he’s almost certain that she is a noble. If she is, then he would rather maintain a shallow relationship with her. At least if he has no way of just cutting ties altogether without thoroughly offending her.
The nobles are demigods who walk the world of Omicron. Some of them, the most powerful, are even born as commoners. Ajax and Shaula seem like those kinds of heroes, ones who were given their power directly by Osva and grew up as commoners. Yet, those commoner born heroes, the progenitor nobles, are the most devout of them all.
The most prideful, the most hateful, the most zealous towards Osva’s light. Barden can only continue to be wary of them since he follows not Osva, but the gods that he killed.
However, Prisca decides not to leave just yet.
"Barden, you can go ahead. Shaula, can I ask you where Ajax is? I just wanted to thank him for his help today as well. I also want to talk to your two other friends, Dzan and Sigvor as well; they seem like… good people."
Prisca really did want to thank Ajax but she also wanted to converse with Dzan and Sigvor about her faith, though not at this venue but at a second away from the sight of the guards. She had learned earlier from Angelidis that the two of them were not working at the moment and inferred that meant they were either homeless or petty criminals of some kind.
If they were around Angelidis, she thought whatever they do to survive isn't so terrible that they couldn't become devout followers of Panaphon and Savitarius. They might actually be amenable to hearing the good word.