Alessandro and Radcliffe sat patiently in a small shady room;there wasn’t enough room for two chairs they were in, so the two men were awkwardly bumping their shoulders between each other. They were here for an emergency meeting with the Tir assassin guild.
Alessandro wanted to investigate the earthquake that happened recently but for some reason the guild had begged for him to come visit ASAP. There was a sense of urgency to have Alessandro appear as soon as possible, which made up for the fact that he couldn’t go and investigate the strange phenomenon that occurred. It made him a bit giddy, more so than usually.
Now what problems do they need me to solve? he thought.
The back door opened and an old man with an eye patch came out and sat at his desk.
“Alessandro, you are annoyingly early as usual,” the eye-patched man grumbled out. The eye-patched man looked like he hadn't slept in a few days, at his current age missing one day of sleep was detrimental to what little health he had left.
“Oh Franklin, I was placed into this world to annoy you. You know this,” Alessandro said playfully. “So what’s going on over here? The few men I see here are all panicking about something and you look absolutely terrible.”
“More so than usual,” Radcliffe whispered, trying to hold in a laugh. Alessandro looked at his sub-retainer and asked him to repeat what he just said.
“Franklin looks more terrible than he usually does,” Radcliffe repeated, there was a long awkward silence until Alessandro couldn’t hold it anymore and started to laugh in front of Franklin's face, which caused Radcliffe to laugh as well, dry heaving all over the small shady room.
Franklin looked deadpan at the two men. “Are you done annoying me?” he said with a monotone voice. Alessandro wiped a tear from his eye as he and Radcliffe high-fived each other.
“Sorry Franklin, you just know how much we love pushing your buttons. I’ll make sure Radcliffe gets a proper scolding for his comment. Now, what happened?” Alessandro asked.
Franklin sighed and handed them a paper with a photo clipped to it. “A couple days ago one of our assassins ditched an important assignment, let the target go and also murdered a few Noin soldiers that were in the area for whatever reason.”
The photo was that of a young Norse elf girl. “You have kids this young as highly trained assassins?” Alessandro asked with a tone of fake concern.
“Boss she’s probably like you, one of those child savants,” Radcliffe chimed in. That comment started a chain reaction in Alessandro's brain, he quickly placed the paper back on Franklin’s desk and started to write in his pocket notebook. Radcliffe gestured to Franklin to keep talking, Alessandro can listen and write at the same time.
“Charlotte was one of our best, especially for her age, she always did everything we told her to do with barely any complaining. Either way what she did not only made my guild look bad, but I have people from Noin threatening us now. That damn Hughes.”
Alessandro looked up from his writing. “Hughes still around?” he asked and then quickly went back to writing and formulating plans in his notebook. “Nah, I had a few of my men spot him in town but we lost him eventually. I need your help, I need you to speak with the trinity on my behalf, tell them it was a big misunderstanding, the girl wasn’t supposed to kill any of those Noin men.”
A slight devilish grin appeared on Alessandro’s face “ Hoooo… You need my help? It doesn’t come cheap, you know what I want, I want your best assassin to be a part of my guard. Since we are such old friends and business partners, I’ll even give you a few aurums as a… gesture of petty.”
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Alessandro motioned Radcliffe to throw a small bag of aurums on the table, Franklin took the bag and opened it. He was quite surprised to see that there was a decent amount of currency in the bag.
Alessandro lifted his index finger up to his face. “I don’t want one of your best. I want THE best.” Franklin stared at Alessandro and then the bag of aurums.
“In exchange for talking to the trinity and the money, I’ll even be on the lookout for the runaway Norse elf girl. I’ll let your assassin make that his top priority for you as well.”
Franklin grumbled and slid the bag of aurums under his desk.“Deal. Our best is coming now, she went to clean up Charlotte's mess.”
“She?” Radcliffe asked.
As they waited, Minerva materialized behind Alessandro; she had seen the exchange the men had and was also eagerly waiting for the best assassin in Tir to show up.
“Did you also set this whole situation up?” Minerva asked. Alessandro pretended to yawn and stretch, turning his body around and mouthed out, “ No, we got lucky today.” Minerva gave her retainer a small smirk and shook her head in disbelief.
Just then the doors behind Alessandro and Radcliffe opened.
“I’m home, pops,” the husky feminine voice said, her mouth was covered like a ninja and she had both her eyes covered by a bandage that wrapped around her face. Her skin was incredibly pale and her white hair almost matched just how pale her skin was.
She held two bags that were leaking blood and then placed them on Franklin’s desk. “Just what you ordered pops, Sylvia’s head and Regis’s head. This mess was too easy to clean. When are we going to go hunt that dumb brat that caused this?”
Radcliffe's mouth dropped. “The pale death is a woman?”
“This is my daughter Lina, she is the best assassin in all of Tir, probably in all of Helioan. Starting today Lina, you work for Lord Alessandro.”
Alessandro couldn’t stop smiling, he didn’t need to use his divine will to see just how powerful the pale death was.
“Excellent work Alessandro, I approve of the humans you have chosen as your sub-retainers.” Minerva then returned to Elysium, confident with the path her retainer was going.
///
Elysium
Achilles was mid rest when a barrage of knocks erupted on to his door, the knocks started to become punches that got louder and louder.
“Achillessss!!! OPEN UP!!!” It was Damaris screaming from outside the door. Achilles wanted to ignore it, but he knew she would just get mad at him for doing that. He slowly got up and started to stretch a bit before heading to the door.
“It’s an emergency! I’m going to break down this door… so you better not be like… naked or anything!”
Achilles opened the door to see Damaris red in the face. “Darn it,” Damaris said with disappointment in her voice. Achilles raised an eyebrow at the pink haired angel girl. He lightly rubbed her hair.
“I thought you said I better not be naked. Anyways, what's the problem?” Achilles asked. Damaris’s tone and face shifted to that of worry. “Some of the angels and deities aren’t happy,Achilles! Some are protesting at the main island right now!”
///
A group of roughly eighty or so angels and deities were on the main island asking for Achilles; once the two judges appeared the crowd started to yell and speak all at the same time.
“What’s the meaning of this, Achilles? Inari and Freya?” one of the deities shouted.
“We want answers!” one shouted. “There are too many coincidences,” another said. “
Yeah, that's going to ruin the betting and odds.”
The crowd grew more and more restless as they kept shouting and complaining, one of the deities threw their drink at Achilles, which drenched his hair and face in the liquid. The crowd went silent and one of the angels spoke up.
“Hey, not cool.”
The crowd agreed and the deity apologized to Achilles, then almost immediately the crowd went back to complaining and shouting at the judges.
“Why are they this mad?” Damaris asked as she pulled a towel out of her fanny pack and started to dry Achilles’s hair. It was starting to click in both of their minds. “They think you rigged the Tryfing for Inari and Freya.”
Achilles swallowed hard, a gulp so loud that it sealed his guilt in their minds. He turned to Damaris, stopping her from drying his head.
“I’ma go check something, you don’t need to check up on me or anything, okay?” He winked and quickly dashed away. The crowd of angels and deities watching as the Judge of the third Tryfing made a cowardly escape.
They then turn their anger and frustration to Damaris who in turn nervously smiled at them and then made herself disappear in a pink explosion.
///
Fantasia world
Before leaving Tir, Alessandro needed to make a quick stop at the local bookstore .Alessandro had a unique ability to learn new things pretty quickly. He went straight to the languages section of the bookstore and took his time reading the spines of the book. He found one that matched exactly what he was looking for.
Sign Language for the Average Folk.
Looking at the title he frowned. “I’m not average,” he whispered and kept looking at the other books until another title caught his eye.
Sign Language for Geniuses.
He quickly grabbed the book and returned the average folk book onto the shelf. “This one is the correct level for me,” heproclaimed. As he was about to go and pay for his book, he looked at the book in his hands and quickly went to grab the Sign Language for the Average Folk as well and placed the Sign Language for Geniuses book on top of it.
Minerva watched the entire event play out and just sighed.