Hours later, they left the inn with dizzy heads and a smile on their faces. Then came the first insult, breaking the silence of the night.
“Fucking cat, I hate you! A fucking lion like you killed my best mate. Fuck you and your bloody fangs, you fucking beast. When did you last eat human flesh?”
The man approached Seros wobbling like a ship in a storm.
“Go sleep it off before I lose my temper,” replied the lion.
The man extended his arms and tried to grab Seros. The reek from his mouth was so exaggerated that Fran thought his tunic must have been marinated in cheap wine and beer. And then it hit him: It had been. This guy wasn't a real drunk with a hatred of felines. He was a baitman, just like him last week.
“It's a trap!” Fran shouted. The necromancer looked at him hesitantly but got the message when he saw Fran draw his sword.
Quick steps approached from the shadows. A weighted net with enmeshed fishhooks fell on the lion. Fran leaped and thrusted the net with his, severing it neatly. Both halves fell to the ground.
The drunkard was sober again, and Fran glimpsed a dagger reaching for his back. A roaring Seros grabbed the attacker's arm with an iron grip and elbowed him in the face with his free hand, one, two, three times.
“Help me!” the necromancer said as jumped around trying to dodge two bravos. “I'm useless without my zombies.”
Fran ran towards the closest enemy and knelt forward at the last second. The man screamed briefly when Fran's sword thrusted his leg side to side. Fran turned towards the other attacker, who tried to fright a retreat sword against sword. Soon, he was trying to fight Seros too, and his face became that of a man who saw death approaching by the second.
“Stop! Mercy, mercy!”
“Who sends you?” asked Fran. His sword kept the pressure on the man.
“My patron stands behind you, at the corner by the the stone house. I'm telling the truth.”
It would have been a cheap trick, but Fran decided to look away. Seros was there too, after all. He ran a few steps towards the corner and met the hatred-filled eyes of Urume the explorer, who shot one last glance at Fran and ran away in the darkness.
Fran knew letting him go would only prolong the problem. Having Seros with him tonight made responding to ambushes look easy, but he might not be this lucky next time. So, he sprinted after the explorer through the night streets of Azgadal, his quick steps resonating on stone pavement and water puddles.
Fran knew himself at a disadvantage. As an explorer, Urume must know Azgadal better than him, and even if he didn't, he probably knew how to move through an urban environment to disappear and await a better opportunity. But Fran was catching up to him. The blurry form he chased became a cape and a pair of boots. Then, the man became fully visible. Urume stopped to glance back for a second, and his face twisted in horror at the proximity of his chaser. He leaped and held to a ladder at the side of a stone tower. Fran couldn't stop now. He jumped too, and his hands gripped the wooden ladder. It was like he'd done this a hundred times. He climbed to the ladder's top and screamed in pain when a boot treaded on his left hand. His instinct made him take it away from the ladder, but he bit his lip and held back to it at a lower area outside the range of his attacker's feet.
Fran glimpsed a grey shape approach his right hand. Using both legs, he jumped towards it and grabbed his enemy's hand in the air as he fell. Fran fell to the floor, Urume's hand entangled with his.
“You're my bane! What have I done to deserve this curse?” screamed Urume. “I hate you, I hate you all!”
Reason was gone from his eyes. He gripped Fran with all his rage in a pure animal panic. Fran focused on the dagger, but he soon felt a sharp pain in his lower back. He’d hit a stone block, and the wind became ten times stronger, whistling in his wind. It was as if air elementals were encouraging them to fight more, fight to the end, fight. His body twisted backwards and Fran realized he was on the edge of the tower, just one step back from a deadly fall to the paved streets.
Urume howled in anticipation of his victory, and Fran couldn't understand why. Despite the pain, he felt in control. He held up his legs against Urume’s body, lifting him off the ground. Fran then turned him to the right, off the tower. Fran's back wasn't resisting the contact of the stone blocks, but rather leaning on them. Urume's face recovered its humanity in the panicked moment when he lost contact with Fran's body, right before the Terran let him fall all the way down. His scream was cut short by a loud impact against the empty streets.
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Urume’s fall had felt hypnotizing to Fran. Not in a morbid way. Rather, it felt like the air, the gravity and the distance to the ground weren't risks, but a promise of freedom. An impulse took over and his boots stepped forward into the void.
Fran screamed louder than Azgal. But suddenly, the wind was his servant. Fran fell slowly, the air holding his arms and body with the utmost care. The cold made him shiver, but the sensation only added to the experience. He was flying! No, not flying. Hovering, more like. He tried to move forward and, while his body did move and his fall accelerated as he intended, he didn't gain altitude. A few wonderful moments later, Fran touched the ground next to his former enemy. Nobody had come out to check on the noise. It was that kind of city.
Fran quickly turned over the explorer’s body, his eyes now closed for the last time, and searched his belongings. A purse, a short sword, a couple of keys, and a light brown binder full to the brim with documents, manuscripts and scrolls.
Returning to the place of the fight took him a good hour. The city was too dark, the streets too windy and his mind too excited. He’d jumped off a tower and floated down instead of dying. He tried jumping, or even climbing a few steps up outside a house, then falling to see if he would float again. The experiment resulted in a few embarrassing falls. No problem. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Fran walked into the small square where the inn was located and stopped. The tenuous light revealed a patrol of city guards. Next to them, a handful of small creatures lifted the dead bodies of his attackers. Light fell on the face of one of the creatures as he raised the body to the cart. Black circular spots marked his cheeks and forehead.
A sound of clashing metal arrived from the left. It was a second group of guards. The cling of their metal armor made them easy to detect at a distance. “Any arrests, Uilvar? Anything to report?” asked one of them. “Nothing at all, captain,” replied the guard. “Quietest night in a month.”
Relieved that his friends had escaped, Fran let a breath out and walked away toward the inn through Azgadal’s quiet midnight streets. He’d had more than enough for the night.
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The morning sun made everything feel normal again. During breakfast (lunch, really) the excitement of the fall naturally became the standout moment in Fran's retelling of his duel with Urume. The necromancer congratulated him but his heart wasn't in it. Nothing compared to his new damp home full of zombies. Seros congratulated him sincerely and encouraged him to explore that ability.
“You can tell a bad dreamer by their advice that you should develop all types of skills and become a well-balanced adventurer. Nah, that will only make you mediocre in every way. Squeeze your natural talents like oranges, Dhenn. Take it to the limit. Maybe you can fly, who knows. Falling off towers has its risky side, but you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Not bones, though. Don’t break your bones.”
Azgadal was a different city in the morning. Locals descended from the Inner Quarter for work and became visible on every street. The priests of the dragon cult were gone, much like adventurers, whose nocturnal activities led to late awakenings.
The group spent the day searching for people. They showed up at the plaza every three hours to look for their new Terran friends. No luck. In the meantime, Seros led the group all over the city: They walked the avenues between the city gates and the square but also dirty streets with inns and taverns for traders down on their luck. Next came the alleys, dark even during the daytime and so narrow that Seros needed constant vigilance to avoid scratching his shoulders. They were looking for the female cleric that the New Alliance wanted killed.
Dhenn and the necromancer must have asked Seros a thousand questions that day. He couldn't answer most of them, which left them somewhat disappointed.
“I'm practical,” he said. “This world is about action. You improve through action, like you did last night. Spend your days with your nose inside a book and you'll miss out on everything Mela has to offer.”
“We're here to solve a mystery, Seros,” said Fran. “Breaking through enemy lines won't help us protect Terra.”
“Maybe. But strong warriors will be exactly what Terra needs in 51 weeks. More than it needs an army of lorefreaks, I'm sure. The New Alliance has hundreds of people like that, and where did that get them?”
“We don't know,” said the necromancer. “They might have figured things out.”
Seros grumbled. “I doubt it. The mood in the chapter meetings was too tense. Something was wrong. Even if Madrid's leadership doesn't even know the Inner Ring members, they would at least know if things were trending in the right direction. They don’t. They're lost.”
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Fran’s hunger returned in the evening, even though the simple fish and cabbage dishes available in the local inns weren't his favorites. Couldn't someone please open a Kliogan tavern and serve some moussaka?
“Give it an hour,” Seros said. “I want to show you a place that will make you forget your stomach. It´s amazing but no one ever visits.”
The giant lion led them back to the South Gate, then walked along the East palisade until they arrived at a handful of tall wooden buildings.
“It's the old temple, completely abandoned. It’s also the oldest standing building in Azgadal. Let's climb.”
Fran felt a pang of reluctance, but dismissed it outright. This was Mela, after all. A bit of naughty trespassing meant nothing compared to the things he'd have to do if he wanted to save Earth. He opened the creaking door.