Shade had no family name. It simply wasn’t the done thing for majaal. Their bloodlines were visible on their skin, in their horns or hair, in the way that their limbs fit together. Asking a fellow majaal who his family were would make you seem foolish in the wastes.
Which meant that whenever another majaal saw his ashen skin, he had to forcibly stop them from bowing. His brothers and sisters would have taken the head of any majaal who didn’t show reverence for them, so it was hard even for those who had known him for a long time not to.
In some ways, that was likely why he surrounded himself with those of other, less discerning races. Not that he would say that out loud, or even really believe it if someone told him, but avoiding his demonic heritage was as natural to Shade as reacting to it was in other majaal.
“Calliope? From the Ashes?” Shade had always been fond of Calliope, not so much Shazaar and the other two. He would have had nothing to do with any of them if it were not for his recent promotion to marshall of Allusia. Another title, another rank he could do without. More responsibility that he just couldn’t trust someone else to handle.
Shade had never really understood Grier. Not for lack of trying, but the man’s obsession with dwarven history and architecture made for dry conversation if ever sparked.
Endun was from the Frael clan, his red skin and long limbs a signal to other majaal that he was of the commanded caste. Shade felt sorry for them but it was just their nature to do as they were told. For his part, it seemed that Shazaar didn’t take advantage of that. He just took advantage of everyone else.
Blue skinned and cavalier about everything, Shazaar was just about at the end of his leash. If Shade had been less lenient, he may well have been on the end of a rope
“She says it’s urgent, Marshall.” Shade dismissed Ulna, his secretary, to bring Calliope to him and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a war starting and Calliope Unaar thought she was urgent? With an ever growing pile of letters, missives, treatise and contracts to look over, a constantly dwindling staff and a bureaucracy of cataclysmically stupid proportions over his head, Shade was the last bastion between Allusia and all out war at this point.
She burst into the room as Shade had expected. Calliope never did anything without the peak amount of energy, be it entering a city official’s office, fighting or as Shade had found out to his misfortune - drinking. “Why are you still sitting down?” She yelled, causing Ulna to flinch and Shade himself to roll his eyes.
“What is it, Calliope?” Shade made a show of not looking up from the stack of papers he had just begun working on the moment she walked in. “I’m buried in paperwo-”
“Four Guan children wandering the labyrinth sound more important to you?” That broke his charade quickly, looking into her eyes looking for the truth of her words. Considering everything covering his office right now were threats of war, plans to deal with the outbreak of war and hopeful efforts to prevent war with the Guan, that was important to him.
“Where?”
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Shade flicked the blood from his blade and had the guards remove Shazaar’s stain from it. That fool had nearly cemented thousands of deaths for greed and Shade didn’t have time to worry about him. Adventurers died in the labyrinth all the time. Casting a challenging look towards Calliope met him with only a shrug. If anything, she looked a little disappointed. Shazaar made himself very few friends, apparently.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
This is where that leads.
Shade was in no mood to make more enemies, just to remove the ones he might have already. Shazaar would complicate what was to come. They moved on, just Calliope and himself, the colosseum behind them. The two did not speak much as they approached and Shade was kicking himself slightly for not letting Shazaar speak. Unfortunately for the man, his silver tongue was too powerful for Shade to allow that. With enough time, Shazaar’s magic could have charmed even Shade as wary as he was.
Still, as he felt the magic of a healing spell - a huge one - further up, Shade desperately wished he knew what he was walking up to. The air stank of cooked flesh, the harsh antiseptic smell of medicine that came with the casting of healing magic. There was something else in the air, a strange smelling mana that Shade couldn’t place. When his questioning look to Calliope received no answer of merit beyond another shrug, Shade shook his head and just made his way forward.
The best choice for a leader was often to simply do, he had found.
The light had been drained from the surroundings, a sign that divine magic was being used. It was more potent within the labyrinth, so Shade wasn’t surprised that Grier would be using it. He was surprised that he was using it on a child of the Guan family. Endun was a bundle of rags and spindles sitting against the wall, the dwarf was laying on his back. As Grier noticed Calliope and Shade, he groaned and started to stand.
Two children stood nearby, defensive once they noticed the newcomers. “We… came to help.” Calliope said, though it was clear there was little help to give. Her words seemed to hit home somewhere in the girl because she suddenly couldn’t hold back tears. Clutching her to his chest, the boy that was standing had a decent look on his face. One that said “what help could you be?”
“We can bring you to a safer place than this. Calliope, those two are your problem.” Shade focused his attention on the Guan children, leaving Grier and Endun to the de facto leader of their little group now. She started getting briefed on what happened as Shade turned to the young man to do the same.
“Who are you?” The boy asked. His hair was fairly short, his cheeks chubby even after however long they had been in a labyrinth.
“My name is Shade. I am the marshall of Allusia, do you know it?” Shade hoped that by flaunting his standing he might lower tempers. Being in the presence of law enforcement often cowed unruly children.
“Why are you here? What do you want from us?” It seemed Shade was not going to be the one allowed to ask questions. Stopping himself from glaring at the child by taking an obvious deep breath, Shade tried to empathise. Except, from what he could see, these children had just handily defeated the Ashes with little more than two unconscious members of their own group.
“As Calliope said, we’re here to help…” He trailed off as Calliope joined him. He had expected her to take longer, but he saw now that Grier was simply standing next to Endun and the two were making themselves as quiet as possible, like two admonished puppies. Shade made a mental note to try to hire Calliope if she didn’t want to continue adventuring.
“Apparently that one,” Calliope pointed to the unconscious girl, “burst into flames because of her magic weapon. Grier healed the other boy. Is that about right, Xiaomei?” Calliope had told Shade about the four children they had encountered and he now saw that the small girl must have been the one she had danced with from her retelling on the way.
“Fa Lian is alright. Dan saved her.” Between sniffles and sobs as the tension of the situation continued to fade away, Xiaomei explained the rest. From their escape in the Jiaoduo of the Guan to their flight through the labyrinth. Their own meeting with the Ashes from her perspective and then a description of the previous few days. It had taken Calliope a day to reach Allusia, and then between the two of them it had taken two more to catch up. It had been lucky for them that Shazaar hadn’t tried to conceal their tracks.
The way Shade pictured things, Shazaar realised what valuable magical items the children had. Thinking they were easy pickings, he did the “obvious” thing and told his group to attack them. Calliope said absolutely not but wouldn’t have been able to defeat them alone, so simply left the group to go and find whatever help she could, which led her to himself.
What Shazaar didn’t count on was that these four children would come out far ahead of himself. Things fell apart for him because of his own choices but it was clearly a mistake to make an enemy of them. One that Shade was not going to make.
Except…
“Did you say that… Dan,” Shade pointed to the unconscious boy, then the girl, “saved Fa Lian?” Xiaomei and the boy nodded. Shade had a letter that was one phrase from a declaration of war directly from Guan Po Dia himself saying that if Allusia did not return his son and daughter to him, there would be no other choice than for him to ride on the city. News of an incident there was starting to become more and more clear. The situation before him, however, was murkier than ever.
If these were just four lost youths, Shade wouldn’t have thought twice about taking them to Allusia and then seeing them home. As things were, bringing Fa Lian back to the city might be the worst choice possible. An envoy from the Guan was set to arrive soon and the only response that Shade had been able to give up to now was that they knew nothing about these children.
Before he could feel like he had the situation even slightly under control, one of the unconscious two still on the ground coughed and began to wake up.