Elyza plopped the unconscious body of the guard onto the chair Alex had stolen from the warehouse’s break room, her partner making sure the seat didn’t topple over due to his victim’s weight. Relocating to the storage area had been necessary, the exterior of the building crawling with Felicia’s squadron, and she could only afford the two a few minutes to arrange what was needed.
Meaning, as she glared at her partner, he pretended he had done nothing to deserve her annoyance. Sighing, she had to hide her smile, knowing the answer to the question that escaped her lips, “Could you not control yourself for the two minutes I left you alone?”
Wincing did not help in his argument, a sheepish grin spreading across his face, the orbs ripped straight from the abyss reflecting the tiniest bit of remorse, which was not mirrored in his voice, “I may have got a bit carried away with the act.”
“Making him think you were about to kill his closest friend just to spite him… is more than a bit,” She corrected him, crossing her arms to give them something to do, and it had the unfortunate side effect of him avoiding meeting her gaze.
“I’ll wake him up,” He remarked without the hint of his usual horrible humour, and a frustrated sigh escaped her lips, back to the reality that had confused her ever since they’d left the party. She didn’t have much time to think about the matter ever since either, scouring the entire south-west Luminae, scouting for the Cyllenium’s warehouses that had been bought out by the cult.
And even now, it was stuck in the back of her mind, gnawing at her every time she waited for him to make an inappropriately timed joke, which never seemed to come anymore. However, those thoughts were quietened as her mind focused on generating questions for Petreius to answer. A nod towards Alex signalled him to continue, his hand hovering above the guard’s chest, arcs of purple jumping between his fingers. Some got too eager and bridged the gap to his chestplate, causing a low crackle to hum through the air, soothing her ears.
His hand touched metal, if only for a second, but the surge that followed jolted the man awake, the hair on his scalp standing up before quickly falling, and a yelp of a wounded man echoed through the wooden towers around them. Petreius’ eyes darted around, once to her, more to the place he found himself in, having been plunged in darkness for what he knew had been days, but they rested on the man standing above him.
She saw the struggle, even through the shroud of his hood, but alas Alex couldn’t help but grin, a warm smile that he did to reassure others, and it did nothing but. The man saw the white of his teeth, and it was all he needed to recognise the monster the night had brought, his shoulder’s dropping, any semblance of hope immediately crushed. “Why are you doing this to me?” his voice was deep and soulless, not even attempting to meet either of their gaze.
Elyza smacked her partner’s arm before he could lie, a fake groan following her hideous attack before he began, his voice carrying as much remorse as possible for him, “Firstly, I would like to deeply apologise for how the night ended, especially for you, I may have gone… a lot off script. Secondly, to actually answer your question–”
“You could be trusted to help us because you are the only one we are confident is not in the pocket of the cult,” She remarked, the desperation in Petreius' eyes reminding her of when she herself had met Alex, which seemed a lifetime ago now. More importantly, she recognised that his usual theatrics would only add distrust to a conversation which neither of them could afford to mess up.
“What my partner says is correct,” Alex concurred, trying to lower his grin to a smile, stepping back from the untethered guard as he added, “From what I’ve gathered, through indirect interaction, is that your daughter is extremely kind to strangers, and quite sma–”
“Please, I’ll do anything, just… leave my daughter alone,” the man spoke, a semblance of fire awakening within him.
“Don’t you worry, Peter, I wouldn’t dream of it, especially since I believe you’d be motivated to help us,” her partner stated, pulling his hood down, exposing his face to force the guard to match his gaze.
Elyza pulled down her mask, wisps of darkness floating into her view as mana stopped flowing through the cloth, keeping her emerald eyes still as the dust that hung in the stale air, beginning, “How much do you know about the organisation that owns this warehouse?”
His breath staggered out, sweat still caked on his forehead, bloodshot eyes barely focusing on the two before the words finally formed in Petreius’ mouth, “It's the Cyllenium family, or trade, or whatever they call themselves.”
“On paper, you are correct,” She sighed out, tracing her fingers on the faded symbol of the trade on the crate beside her, inquiring as she completed the triangle, “Have you noticed any changes in the type of personnel hired in the past two years or so?”
“Why the fuck would I care about them? Most of the newbies these past years give me weird looks when they learn my wife’s from Dagon’s Bay, so I keep to myself most of the time,” the guard stammered out, leading to Alex offering him a flask, which was swiped by the man as soon as it was in range, Petreius downing the water without hesitation.
“Then why not leave?” Elyza wondered, her curiosity taking hold, and a twinge of annoyance swept through Petreius.
“Because I have a family to care for, and these idiots can’t find a good reason to fire me… Why even care about this place? We only get like one big order to transport, the rest of the time we just look after surplus,” he retorted, the liquid having energised him enough to start to put up a resistance.
She glanced towards her partner, as Alex did the same, and a speechless conversation ensued. Both agreed that the plan was worth the risk, and her partner took the lead, a grin spreading across his face as he started, “We have a proposal, Petreius, one that you may find quite generous. Or not, I did put you through… a torturous couple of hours, and I’ve been exhaustively berated by my fiery haired friend more than in the entire time I’ve known her.”
A sigh escaped her lips, his usual idiosyncrasies had become infuriatingly mundane, so she was forced to explain instead, “We believe the warehouse is under the control of a cult that operates under the name ‘Golden Laurel’. As far as we have gathered, they’re targeting all species other than humans, exploiting those in vulnerable positions to gather a large amount of both magic and slave labour.”
“We had reasons to believe that this building, like the various others we’d encountered, was being used to mask the transport of material required for whatever they may be planning, and we called the army to seize everything within the premises,” Alex chimed, the grin growing wider as he reclaimed his rhythm, picking something from between his teeth as he added, “Though, because of my incredible foresight–”
“He wanted to steal an antique dagger he spotted while snooping around.”
“Nevertheless!” he proclaimed, causing a chuckle to escape from her, and she relented her place by gesturing him to continue, “I heard about a shipment that arrives almost monthly, carried by a ship that arrives from a part of the sea that most maps show to be empty, and which takes with it highly ‘essential’ materials. So, if one, or maybe two highly skilled assassins, were to demolish wherever those commodities arrive from, that may considerably cripple the capabilities of the cockroaches from spreading their influence on this peninsula.”
“We would like for you to aid us in sneaking aboard the vessel performing the transportation,” Elyza concluded through a squished face as she stretched her hands above her head.
“If, IF, anything you’ve said is true, why would I help the monsters who kill without provocation, who’ll just leave me to deal with the repercussions?” There was a glimmer in his eyes, meaning he was at least considering the proposal.
From the corner of his focus, Alex’s hand shot up, the other flipping back his hair as he pointed out, “I should’ve told you this as soon as you woke up, but we only knocked out the people we found in the premises, which, you know, may sound untrue coming from a man cloaked in black…”
“Most of them are already being questioned about their involvement outside,” She concurred, twisting her ring as she stared at the gift, “I know it is hard to trust, but he is stubborn to keep his promises, and his oldest is to not kill if it is not necessary to. If you still hold doubts, we would also be willing to pay you ten times whatever you make in a month, along with granting your family protection till we rid the continent of the cult.”
“Give us a month or so,” Alex remarked with a grin, pulling out his purse from the dark of his cloak, “How much will this cost me? Ten gold? Fifteen?”
There was some hesitancy that flared up within Petreius, which was understandable, Elyza knew her partner did not usually make the mistake of letting someone have so much leeway deciding his fate. “Now I usually take the weekends off, so I guess twenty-two silver a month,” The man remarked, and she couldn’t stop the smile from crawling across her face when it dawned on her that he had told them the truth.
“I… applaud your honesty,” Alex remarked, his fingers rummaging through his purse, the jingle of coins echoing off the wooden crates as he pulled out a sagging pouch from within it, “This is around thirty gold, do we have a deal?”
It took the guard a minute of studying her partner, before he realised what she had months ago, his disregard for money could rival the emperors of old. “Just need a nod ya’know, the school is going to do wonders for Laura.”
Her ears caught a hushed sigh coming from Petreius, who raised his hands to accept the payment, a reluctant acceptance if she had ever seen one, allowing her the chance to ask, “What has to be done while we wait for the ship?
----------------------------------------
The smell of salt and wood created an intoxicating mix that felt like a thousand pinpricks stabbing into Elyza’s brain, the sway of the boat helping not with her stomach’s tantrums. Her shoulders were surrounded by cheap and rotting wood, only a single stray ray of the sun illuminating the dark confines of the coffin. The light came from a hole carved into the container by her dear partner, and soon enough his voice floated into the space as well.
“You feeling alright, Ears?” She could sense the grin on his face through Alex’s words, and her attempts to stop the smile they brought were somewhat weakened by the fact he couldn’t see her.
“I still think we could take over the ship and travel in fresh air,” She retorted, forced to board under the guise of cargo by the man currently lying beside her, albeit separated by wooden planks.
There was a moment of silence, only the sound of waves crashing against the hull reaching her ears, but her ears could pick up the muffled taps of his fingers against his thighs, meaning he was thinking if it was worth asking her about something, “You want me to drum a beat?”
“I would prefer a peaceful nap instead of your, respectfully speaking, utterly unrhythmic performing abilities,” Elyza remarked, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to resist riposting, waiting for his words of faux offence.
“That’s fair, I’ll wake you up by the time we reach,” Alex’s voice lacked the spontaneity she had expected, and it was painful, and the view of darkness couldn’t stop her mind from wandering once again.
It had been months since she had agreed to join someone on a journey which had no end in sight. To follow someone she couldn’t even imagine being her closest friend if he’d stumbled upon the village before her mother’s death. Her eyes flipped open, staring at the grain of the roof that formed a coffin around her, letting her mind get carried away with the rhythm of the sea, the rumble of the ship piercing her ears. Yet the worries about the water swallowing them both whole, slowly fading away along with the churning sensation of her guts, distracted by something that had been prodding at her for days now.
Elyza had left her village more than two years ago, almost three by now, and the first couple were filled with guilt and rage. Unable to face the ones that were rebuilding it after the attack, she’d just kept moving forward, hunting whoever she thought to be responsible. Yet, she had no clue why the village was always at the back of her mind, even through the revenge fuelled tear across the upper continent. She could count on one hand the times she’d actually visited it, but just thinking about its people, most of who'd lost just as much, it pushed her into a darker place.
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However, after those lingering thoughts of worthlessness, and those early doubts during those days, she hadn’t thought about her supposed home at all, something Elyza hadn’t realised till the day of the party. She did not know if it was the encounter with Lady Cyllenium, the confrontation with the general known as Hackett, or the day she had pretended to be someone else. The thoughts whirling in her head tried to push another event of the day into focus, but her mind quickly smothered it to consider the reason why she was doing what she was.
Following Alex, she knew that helping him with his unachievable wish to help all he could was not the reason for her to continue on their partnership, yet she had persisted. The reason for it, her mind was still unable to grasp, but never had she felt wrong in doing so, and she was realising the hesitancy was because she was scared.
Before her mind could dwell any further, the voice of the man that had forced them to dwell in the first place broke through the fog of her thoughts, “Hey, Ears… There are some fervent stomps coming from above deck, and muffled shouts that accompany suddenly encountering something quite big. So, if you're done staring at the ceiling, stretch your legs, I think we’ve arrived wherever we’re supposed to have.”
Her focus shifted from herself, her hearing expanding as her ears focused on catching what could barely reach them. She heard the thuds of boots on wood, the crash of the waves getting more frequent with each moment. The creak of rusted hinges pierced her ears, the door to the cargo hold opening as sailors streamed inside to get the shipment ready for delivery. The sounds of groaning and jostling began to echo even through the wood, Elyza forced to push her limbs against the walls of the box, the entire container shuddering as it was lifted from the floor. Her muscles worked to ensure her weight didn’t shift unusually and give her away, breathing through her nose no matter how much the stale smell irritated it.
She could hear words being exchanged as they carried her above board, and then her vessel began rocking. There was a moment of panic that erupted within her, if they were thrown overboard, unlike her partner, she couldn’t just cross into another dimension at will. But Elyza had no time to worry about it, as soon her entire body became light, the sense of weightlessness spreading across her muscles. The sailors tossed her coffin out into the unknown, and she could only push her limbs against the walls that confined her to make sure she didn’t land upside down.
Waiting for the splash of water, for the liquid to stream through the gaps that the nails had borne, but instead she felt it strike something not solid enough to be the surface of the sea. The impact shuddered through her bones, the coffin hurtling after the first landing, her limbs struggling to keep her stable. However, as soon as her eyes caught something like white salt streaming in with the sunlight in the split second she was facing the correct way, she commanded the ring on her finger, and her halberd burst forward in accordance to her will.
The point pierced the wood, and the sudden pressurised strike caused the material to shatter into shards, the entire top of the box giving way for her. At the same time, Elyza used the staff of her weapon to push herself out, bursting out of the vessel and landing face first on smooth soft sand. She was thankfully able to recall her halberd before its blade was embedded into her neck, the weapon returning to her hands once again as she scrambled to her feet. The fresh coastal air revitalised her mind, the sound of birds cawing as they circled above alerting her, and as her feet settled into the slushy ground, Alex burst from her shadow, wielding his claymore.
The sword was positioned to guard them both, its point shifting as her partner studied the surroundings for threats, his voice devoid of any humour as it spoke, “Are you alright? I heard the bell…”
As the words left his lips, his gaze trailed to a shining gem resting beneath them, surrounded by an eclectic scattering of seeds, and the sight caused him to drop his claymore into his shadows. A sigh came as he kicked the spare bell into his waiting hands, placing it in hers, remarking, “Ears, it takes me ages to make these, so don’t use them to give me heart attacks alright? There are much easier ways to do that, especially when you’re involved.”
Her weapon returned to rest around her finger, and as she plopped the bell into her open seed pouch, Elyza flashed him a smile, retorting, “Oh, really? Would you like to give me some examples from our past?”
Spinning on his heels, she knew he couldn’t answer without giving her a reason to smack his head, instead staring out towards the shrinking ship on the horizon of the ocean. “Anyway, what is this place, and why’d the ship immediately leave without even checking to see if the cargo saw its way to the right beach,” The words had to fight through a series of unserious coughs meant to make her drop the topic, but the question held weight.
Her attention was drawn towards the island they both suspected themselves to be on, studying the sea of trees opposite to the one of water. They were young, barely tall enough to be even considered relatives of the ancient aspens on the plateau of Luminae, and their rounded tops appeared almost like mountains on the horizon. It was impossible for her mind not to hallucinate patterns formed by the black scars, the woodland dense enough that the barks completely saturated the part of the horizon it stood against.
What was troubling was that all the trees her eyes could spot were roughly the same age, about fifteen to twenty years. “This island is new,” The words were brief, her mind too busy working to figure out how the situation had changed now that she had realised it.
“Or that it's just recently been inhabited,” Her partner countered, crouching to run his fingers through the fine sand, throwing a fistful of it on another crate close to the two.
A wave of fierce warmth radiated through Elyza, much stronger than the many times Alex had used the trick, and as the reflection of the pulse returned, crossing her body once again, she did not wait for his usual cryptic response, “What did you feel?”
“Huh,” There was a grin plastered upon her partner’s face, his eyes shifting down the beach, which only added to her concern as she recognised the look. Whatever it was, had heavily piqued his interest, and in her experience that usually meant something not usual to the world, her tendency to worry being justified by the next words out of his mouth, “It appears to be a floating head? Or at least something with a tremendous amount of mana stuck in something that looks like a head, and surrounded by a mine’s worth of metal, even dwarves would consider it a waste.”
“Should I prepare for a confrontation?” she remarked, her hand ready to call upon the halberd, delaying the command only because he gestured to do so.
With his hand in the air, even when she knew what he planned, she could barely spot the mist that began to release from beneath his clothes. Growing like a blaze with each moment, the white was as dense and brilliant as fresh snow, hovering in the air till the two were completely surrounded by it. With a snap of his risen hand, the mist turned translucent, and as the salt of the sea breeze halted from pestering her skin, the obscuration had succeeded.
The experience of actually being in Alex’s illusion wasn’t familiar, most of the time he preferred not to complicate the art of stealth through the use of magic. The times he did choose to do so, he made sure that the focus of the spell was always directed outwards, or surrounded the entirety of their environment. Seldom had she been subjected to the erasure he could bring upon himself, and she couldn’t feel where her body ended, and the air began, both melding into one temperature. Her eyes were unaffected by the fog it encountered, the floating droplets helping shroud the two, but her focus was past the beach dunes, awaiting with her partner for the monstrosity’s arrival.
The whirl of its feet reached her ears before the gleam of its bronze armour blinded her, the sound of sand being churned accompanying it. As her gaze adjusted to the bright spot, she thought the spell had gone wrong. To her, it appeared to be a long wooden platform, bronze mechanisms similar to curled up grasshopper feet placed along its longer edges, three on each side, but they did not assist in traversing the sand. Instead, two spirals jutting from beneath revolved to push the entire body along the beach. However, what was most perplexing to her was that no one was steering it.
“You’re seeing this as well, aren’t you, Ears?” Her partner confirmed the sight in front of the two, yet his voice came from the folds of a grin, and even within her, curiosity was beginning to blossom regarding whatever was driving the mechanism. Even though she hated to admit it, Alex’s training had also inadvertently given her some of his interests, all of which were currently focused on the approaching platform.
It advanced till it was near to the litter of boxes strewn about the beach, stopping in its tracks, appearing almost lifeless as the gears within halted completely. Elyza eyes narrowed, thinking it had malfunctioned, till from the curled legs popped out three disks. Metal shifted on their bodies, tiny clinks echoing through the beachfront, allowing the tiny battalion of pucks to transform into bronze crabs. Even as they crawled over the sand, sinking beneath it to prop up crates and carry them aboard the platform, acting in absolute unison, she could tell through the jerking motion that they weren’t conscious.
Every one of those things were working too fluidly with each other, and as far as she knew, through talks with Red and Adam, and the day at the museum; no mechanical being could do so without relinquishing the little autonomy that could be ingrained within them. The hair on her arms rose as another wave drifted through her, and for a split moment, every crab froze completely, but they soon continued on their mission. The platform was almost fully filled with crates, only a few left, those that had drifted further from the landing zone, and Alex spoke softly as a lone crab came to check the broken crate she had inhabited moments ago, “The giant ball of mana within it split up into the crabs, any theories, aside from the obvious?”
Elyza sighed through the smile, whispering as she crouched to study the mechanics of the creature, “That it is likely that the mana is swaddling the consciousness of whoever is controlling them? I am shocked the great Nemo waited for confirmation instead of immediately shouting it…”
“We don’t know if they possess the ability to relay back sound yet, though,” He whispered as he lowered himself next to her, flicking the tip of her ear to elicit a yelp from his partner. Her hand shot upwards to cover her ear, glaring at the man that had assaulted it, yet his eyes were focused on the machine. When it simply returned to the platform without the empty box, he continued with a grin, his voice returning to its normal grandeur, “It appears they lack the ability to hear, my dear Ears.”
She didn’t even wait for his sentence to end, her hand rising, thrusting downward, striking its side on top of his head, letting the pain spread before she remarked, “That was horrendous, I thought we agreed that you would never do that again.”
The grin didn’t even falter, but as the crabs climbed into their burrows, snapping back into the legs of the platform, now filled completely with crates, he let the illusion dissipate. It allowed for her ears to be assaulted by the piercing sounds of metal twisting, the bellows of the monstrosity accompanying the cranking of the gears, only to fade away to the stable whirs of the machinery.
As the noise died down, and the screws began to displace the sand again, rotating the opposite way to push the platform back the way it came, Alex stood to stretch his back, remarking, “You have a problem with me messing around with your delightfully expressive ears or my rhyming?”
“Both are tiresome,” the words slipped from her lips, sighing as she followed her partner to her feet, remarking, “and I know from experience that you will not stop with either.”
“Isn’t my pestering part of the charm of being my friend?” he retorted, glancing towards her, allowing her to see the joy she’d just invoked within his eyes, the black orbs gleaming under the sun’s rays. “We shouldn’t dillydally you know, that thing’s already halfway down the beach,” he added, pointing to the platform down the coast, already overcoming the sand dune of before.
Elyza took the lead, walking past him to follow the trail of the machine. She strolled beside its kicked up sand tail, her partner jogging up to her just before they scaled the dune to see where the monstrosity had disappeared to. She expected to see more of the same, fine pale dust that could be mistaken for snow if the light hit it in the correct way, but the sea soon swallowed the sand. A tiny branch of the land attempted to cross the strait that separated the island they stood on and another. It fell to the waves before it could, and yet the platform, with its legs now descended to wade through the water’s lazy fight against its traversal.
Her eyes traced the path it was taking, the soft sand providing her feet no grip as she slid down the dune, but her interest was focused on the trail cut through another forest of aspens. The platform was making its way to it, and as Alex kept her from falling on her backside, his hand grabbing her arm before the floor gave away. “Should we cut through the forest or follow behind the machine?” She suggested, recovering her footing just before the cold sea enveloped her boots.
They’d already crossed halfway through it before Alex answered, no doubt his gaze also fixed upon the monstrosity about to enter the shade of the stretching trees, his voice absent from any doubt, “We follow the machine.”
There was no reason to argue with him, navigating the woods would’ve made it easier to follow the thing, but it would also mean there was a chance to lose track of it. However, as she climbed up the tiny incline, her hand fell into her pouch, her fingers wrapping around a walnut, letting her mana flow into its shell. Raising her hand to show her partner the seed, no words needed to be exchanged, her instruction plain as Alex presented his hand.
It took him a second to gauge the weight, his hand pulling back and snapping to catapult the seed towards the platform. “A please would’ve been nice,” her partner remarked, as the makeshift projectile fell into the one of the many gaps between the mound of crates stacked upon the platform.
“Think of it as revenge for flicking my ear,” She remarked with a fake grin.
As they neared the entry to the forest, she rested her hand on one of the trunks, glancing up to see the machine steadily following the unpaved path ahead. However, as the tips of her fingers touched the bark of the tree, a flurry of thoughts invaded her head, and instinctively her hand yanked itself back. She remembered the sensation, though it had been long since the voices of nature had slipped into her mind, they weren’t the biggest fans of the places she found herself in.
The voices that flooded her seemed strange, agitated, like they all wanted the same thing. So, as Alex walked ahead, trusting her not to get lost after she was done, she placed her hand upon the wood of the aspen once again. The voices did not hesitate, thoughts swirling in the back of her head like bees around a hive, but she was able to resist their ferocity to focus on whatever they were trying to convey.
Closing her eyes allowed her to sort the spirits’ voices, and as they finally settled down, Elyza could sense a familiar thread along them. Bits of her mana began to respond to it, the bark pulling it inwards and the voices forcing it to energise the tree. As the magic reached the roots of the lone tree, she felt it being torn into pieces without mercy, and yet they continued to flow outwards. It took her a second to realise what had happened, moments before she sensed her mana pop up in every tree surrounding her. The leaves above bowed in her presence, a singular request was communicated from a singular voice.
A bit of excitement seeped into her as she darted down the path, barely stopping in time, spinning her friend around as she grabbed his arm, the machine still a few lengths away from them. As soon as her eyes met with Alex’s, a flash of concern crossed it, “What’d you learn?”
Elyza took in a deep breath, letting her thoughts settle, a smile on her face as the words left her lips, “This entire forest, or at least a majority of it, is a single tree, or technically an organism.”
Grinning as he heard her revelation, there was some worry sprinkled in with his question, “And a lone spirit inhabits it?” A nod prodded another query, as he continued to walk, his eyes locked the platform as the whir of its mechanisms allowed it to relentlessly continue to stomp through the trees, “Since you didn’t immediately scream that we need to leave, I’d wager a guess that said spirit wants whatever created that mechanical monstrosity buried at the bottom of the sea.”
“Very much so,” she remarked as she followed in tow, adjusting her bun as she added, “And I agree, so make sure to not disappoint either of us.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Ears.”