64 – Sir Westys

A deluge of rain curtained the sky, darkening the early hours of day and deafening the ears with its incessant white noise. The town of Semiluminal was, when shrouded in rain, distant and empty. The stores were not closed, but felt like ghostly apparitions with their windows barely visible, and the streets between them were almost completely deserted, with scant few people daring to step outside in the cold. Everyone sought refuge inside where they could. It was cold. Uncomfortably so.

Somewhere inside the city, a party of three was walking around, unbothered by the rain. They all had their spells to deal with the almost freezing pelting water and wind, be it by using wind magic to divert the droplets, manipulation of force to create the same effect, or an absurdly efficient spellform that was learned in record time by an astoundingly talented mind who had asked for the spell on a whim—not because she wanted a reprieve from the rain but because she wanted the chance to study such a spellform in her free time so that she could reverse engineer it and add its parts to her mental repository. It was interesting, that Lisette was so interested in magic while at the same time almost exclusively fighting with her blades and her body, limiting herself to body enhancements.

Ishrin had a theory, though: that she would show her actual arsenal when she was faced with an opponent she truly respected for their strength, while instead only using the barest of tools against weaker enemies so that she could hone her skills through engineered situations, where she was at a simulated disadvantage. It was just a hunch, of course, but one they would confirm soon enough, he felt.

Somewhere else, standing below the gap in the wall where the city gate marked the end of his father’s possessions, Sir Westys and his team waited for Ishrin’s team. They were the adventurers his father, Duke Elstrom, had conned into being their escort for the delve deep down the Obscure Chasm in search of the old ruins of Tiamat Azur, promising that there they would find the artifact they were looking for.

The fools. He, on the other hand, was here for another reason. Going down into the depths was a rite of passage, in a way: all adventurers who came out of Semiluminal with the blessing and protection of his father had to brave the depths, and he was no different. He too would have to go on the long and fruitless search for the ruins in the unknown depths of the gap in the earth, where monsters and strange dangers dwelled, searching for some legendary artifacts that might very well not even exist.

Artifacts that Ishrin’s team was fruitlessly after. It was a fool’s errand, he knew, but he could not find it in himself to blame the clueless adventurers. They were made of a different clay than he was, the son of a noble, cultured and smart. Adventurers were rough, dumb and idiotic. When he had met with them at the manor, he had come out of his quarters with those very same belief, and had had a hard time keeping them up when he saw the actual team. Then, a round of mental gymnastics later, he was convinced that out of all three only their leader, the gorgeous fox-girl with sunset hair and delicate features, was worthy of his consideration. Perhaps he could ask his father to keep her around.

The others were indeed brutes as he thought. It was surprising, to see the girl clad in black and red act and move like a silent and brutal killer. He would have never expected such a beauty to hide such danger. But then his mind caught up with him, and he reassessed the situation, ending up sorry for the wasted beauty rather than awed by the sheer presence of the woman.

No such mental efforts had been required for Ishrin. He was as expected. Rough, ignorant and all strength and no brain. It was going to be a walk in the park to do what his father asked him to do.

But before all that, they had to go on their useless hunt for ruins.

But even though the ruins might be a mirage, the chasm did hide a great many magical things in its depths, and it was true that many adventurers came out of it much stronger than they were when they departed from the city. All of them, however, came out changed in some way, sometimes even unrecognizably so. That is, at least officially, why his father hired Ishrin and his team to escort him and his own team, to make sure that nothing could cause them harm.

Tier 6, the duke had said, would be more than enough to ensure his son’s safety.

That was to be seen. Sir Westys had never seen Tier 6 adventurers before, but he thought that they ought not to be all that different from normal ones, just a tad bit stronger. Ishrin chief of all, did not provoke any reaction on the boy when their eyes met, unlike the quiet sense of danger coming from the girl in black and the unrestrained power of nature coming from the fluffy eared one.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Perhaps he was wearing odd armor and brandishing legendary weapons? Surely stolen. It didn’t matter. Sir Westys did his due diligence and showed up at the set time with his team. The three other young boys that would accompany him were standing beside him, soaking the cold rain with stoic indifference to the cold and the wetness, as they were ordered to.

Their names were Tom, Morin and Rorshard–whom everybody called Rory– nodded back at him. Sir Westys was the shortest of the bunch, but also the better dressed thanks to the deep pockets of his father who had spared no expense to get him ready for the expedition. His long blonde hair was spilling out of his shiny silver helmet sculpted with thorns and horns, decorations and frills, and tempested with powerful enchanted gems. It was getting soaked, but it was a sign of projected power that he was able to afford to keep his hair long instead of having to cut it short like his companions had.

Finally, after what felt ages spent waiting in the rain, he heard voices in the distance. The silhouettes of three people, walking leisurely at the center of the empty street, began to come into view like dark cutouts, and their voices blended with the rush of rain and came to his ears, distant and muffled.

“I am in full possession of my faculties and…” the man at the center said with a slur to his speech surely caused by an abuse of wine. “I am very well aware of where I stand in terms of power. Therefore, as it was, being as it may, I can thoroughly decide when I can afford to act silly and when I cannot. In this particular situation I can. Comprendes?”

Sir Westys could not know that Ishrin was doing his best imitation of a certain pirate from Mekano’s world datasphere VR shows, and thus he began to think that maybe these people were not Ishrin and his team, but some random drunks who had wandered all the way to the gate.

“So, if we happen to encounter someone powerful—” a girl’s voice said.

“Not even the hint of a joke. Dead serious.” The man said, and now his voice was steady and full of power.

“What if you didn’t know he was powerful?” the girl asked.

“But I do know. I can see auras.” The man said, tapping his temples and eyes. “Can you say the same?”

The girl shook her head, but she was smiling. Now that Sir Westys could see her better, her fluffy ears stood out to him even more—especially because they were still fluffy despite the rain. So this was his escort team after all, he thought with a mental face palm.

At the mention of auras, Sir Westys’ face tingled, as if someone had brushed him with a soft feather. The cold water from the sky soon soothed the sensation, but it left him feeling naked and unsettled, a thing he really did not like to feel. Thus, anger rose within him, a proper way to deal with unpleasant sensations taught to him by a careful observation of how the other young men and patriarchs of the nobility acted. The anger had nowhere to go, yet, but it was searching for an outlet as it bounced around Sir Westys mind.

“What if you find an enemy who can fake it?” The girl continued, although Sir Westys couldn’t tell if he had missed something while he was distracted.

“Fake an aura so well they can fool my new and improves senses?” the man the boy thought was Ishrin yelled, so that the sound of his voice could carry over the rain. “Well, then we are screwed regardless of me making jokes. No worries there. Oh, hey!”

Sir Westys stopped staring the moment Ishrin took notice of him. He cleared his voice and studied the trio. He saw that they were dry despite having walked in the rain all this time, and the sensation of cold wetness that soaked through his armor all the way to his undergarments suddenly became an unbearable sign of shame. Shame that stoked the fires of anger within him. He started shaking from the cold, even though he wasn’t until a moment ago, and the more he tried to avoid the sensation the worse it got.

“You must be Westys, the Duke’s son!” Ishrin said.

“It’s Sir Westys. You must be Ishrin.” He said coldly.

“Yup. Here to take you with us on an adventure.” Ishrin said, but then noticed that the boy was soaking wet. “Why are you standing in the rain like this? It’s cold, you know? Look at your hair, it’s soaked.”

The boy’s face contorted. “I am aware.” He said. His long hair had been a sign of pride to him ever since Rory told him that story about a hero who wore long hair and was killed because it got stuck on something, a warning that Sir Westys was smarter and more careful than even a hero. Now he just felt silly, and he wondered if Rory and the rest of his loaned teammates were secretly making fun of him behind his back.

“You seem to be wearing high-grade gear for your tier. Don’t you have an enchantment or something to deal with the rain?”

Sir Westys felt the blood rush to his face. He had chosen form over function when he had his armor designed, once again believing what was told to him and not what he thought he should do. And never thinking that he would need useless features like a rain deflector enchantment, instead choosing to add the thorns snaking around the bull’s horns jutting out of his shoulder plates.

“Don’t you have a mission to do?” He snapped at Ishrin. “You are just here to escort us and protect us, not to make conversation.”

Ishrin blinked. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought that we were also here to teach you, you know? At least your father seemed to imply that.” The last sentence was barely a mutter, coupled with a sidelong glance at the beauty beside him. Sir Westys remembered that the name of the gorgeous fox-woman was Melina, and immediately another surge of anger coursed through his body after seeing how Ishrin dared to look at her. But Ishrin himself seemed to not care at all, disrespecting his party leader as if he wasn’t being graced by the gods themselves to have such a beauty as his leader, “my bad, my bad. I’ll keep to mine.”

“You better.” Sir Westys said, and the seven people took off.