Rubeus was out of his normal robes, wearing peasant's clothes as he sat at the Lionheart Inn in one of the corners. In his hand was an ale of some sort, too bitter to be enjoyed but enough to lighten his frustration just a little. The sun was starting to fall over the horizon, and the magic that had surged in his body had faded. The purple lights he’d been able to track around the city were gone from his view. To redo the ritual would be costly and take a day of preparation, both factors that a certain Prince would be angry over.
That damned prince.
The Royal Mage put his hands over his face, wanting to scream into them. He shouldn't have followed the bastard’s words from the very start. They could’ve done the ceremony in the Dungeon, could’ve made the final step, yet that dramatic fool wished for it to happen on the surface.
For what? Intimidation? The power they would wield when it was over would’ve been intimidating enough! Yet, no, looking past their own nose was too hard for that idiot, and now Rubeus was being forced to scramble around like a fool. He hated it, hated every second spent out here among the peasants, and yet it wouldn’t stop until the targets were found.
At least he could be sure nobody would take notice of his identity. The artifacts he wore hid the truth from everybody, showing them a generic face that they would forget soon after seeing it.
Just have to survive this torture for a little more, and I’ll get what I deserve.
Rubeus took another swig of the ale, feeling the warmth in his stomach growing hotter. The calm of the alcohol was finally beginning to wash over him, though he knew it wouldn’t last for long. A consequence of being this powerful was the body’s impaired ability to allow the booze to influence his system for too long. Suffering from success, one could say.
Success.
His mood fell again, as that word echoed inside his head. Success. Success. He had no such thing. Not after that damned idiot had demanded the risk and then blamed him when it all fell apart.
“Does the midnight sun smile?”
It only got worse once he heard the gruff voice of the person he’d been waiting for. As asked, the two others had been brought along as well, meaning there were three people standing right in front of his table looking down at him. It was a frustrating sight, but he couldn’t be bothered changing at the moment.
“Only when the clouds cry,” Rubeus said, finishing the other half of the code. The trio sat down in response, having one side of the table while he had the other for himself. “What have you found?”
“Not as much as you’d like,” Fang replied, the bald giant not seeming sad by the fact. He annoyed Rubeus to no end, the man not appearing frightened or intimidated by any threats made towards him. He followed orders when Rubeus gave them, and when the old woman to his right agreed to follow them, he was a thorn in Rubeus’ side regardless. “Found a few houses and alleys where they seem to have been hiding at some point, along with some blood from a few wounds, but their current location is still a bit of a guess.”
“So you’ve found nothing.”
“We did have a little Fox break in and check those spots, so we have ruled them out. That’s progress in my eyes,” the giant countered, roughing up the hair of the woman to his right. The thief in question complained loudly, but they were all ignored as Fang just laughed at her misfortune. “And, since you’re being like that, we can give you a bit of good news as well.”
Rubeus’ left eyebrow raised by the smallest amount possible at that. He wasn’t sure what he truly expected from dealing with these fools. They’d worked fine as guards in the past months, receiving coins for protecting certain people when he needed it, but when asked to escort two utterly defenseless sacrifices alongside another of his people, they had suddenly decided to commit mutiny.
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When he’d realized that one of the people he had spent years training into a good Mage had been cut in two by the giant’s axe, he had been furious. Even more when they had left the sacrifices behind and gone off to drink, forcing others to venture out and discover that the two otherworlders were missing. If they’d been found on the brink of death, it wouldn’t have mattered, but that they were now outside of his grasp meant that many months of progress were ruined because three idiots decided they didn’t like the tone used towards them.
Because of that mess-up, he’d found them and given them a rather simple ultimatum. They had a week to find the sacrifices they had left behind and deliver them to his people. If they failed at this task, they would be killed.
Slowly and painfully.
“There’s one place we haven’t looked yet, one where Fade here felt a lot of pain coming from last night,” Fang explained, the old woman glancing at the giant. She clearly wasn’t happy about their secrets being revealed so loudly. “Ironic place to feel a trace from, I’ll tell you. Never thought to look there of all possible hideouts.”
“For somebody who looks so blunt, you know to pile your words without giving me anything useful,” Rubeus commented. The giant just laughed. “Out with it. Where did your Dreamweaver catch their scent?”
‘Dreamweaver.’ Such a misleading title for the old woman, Rubeus having seen the nightmares that she wielded. Unlike the typical Mage with an Affinity for dreams, she wielded it in combat to bring terror into her opponents by materializing their worst nightmares before them. It was a branch of the Magic that very few used, but it had an undeniable effect in two aspects.
In combat and in tracking down those who had been affected by the magic in any capacity. Nightmares loved to follow those reached by them before, after all, and those two sacrifices had been given plenty of attention by the Dreamweaver when they had been escorted away.
It was one of the few reasons Rubeus had given that trio a chance to prove their worth. They had an actual chance at finding their targets.
“The Dungeon,” was finally said by the giant, making his eyes widen slightly. Never would he have thought to look there either.
Not because it was a clever hiding spot. Quite the opposite, yet maybe that shouldn’t have stopped him from searching there himself, knowing who it was that he was trying to find.
“Do you know what layer of the Dungeon they’re hiding within?” he asked, to which the woman shook her head. “A shame.”
“Fade here will figure it out in no time, once we get down there tonight,” Fang promised with a grin. “And… while we would love to go from the top since they’re probably not too far down, there’s a few guards there who we don’t want to deal with, so… we need the key to get in the other way.”
Rubeus sighed, handing over one of the few remaining keys that opened up the hidden entrance. At another time, he might’ve just made them go through the normal entrance, but the forced Dungeon Break from a few days ago hadn’t killed the Head Dungeon Guard as he’d hoped, and so he didn’t have as firm control over the watchers as he wanted.
He really needed to get around to making somebody silence that nosy Olivia Blackwell at some point. More direct this time as well, with how the Prince had reacted to his first attempt.
“Lose it and I’ll string you up until you starve to death.”
“Yeah, yeah, happy doing business with you,” Fang said, handing it over to the younger woman before they got up from their seats. “We’ll get back in two days when we’ve searched it through.”
As they left, some part of him hoped the White Fangs would instead suffer a painful death. Yet, regardless of what he wished, he knew what they could do for him.
The top floors of the Dungeon… No chance of it.
Rubeus was going to have to do this himself, even with how that bastard Prince had reacted to today’s attempt. It would require moving a lot of resources around if he wanted the expenses of performing the ritual again within three days, but it was doable.
Downing the last drops of his ale, he slammed it onto the table, dropped some gold to pay for his drinks, and hurried out on the street. He had people to kill and Mages to get out of bed. There was much work to be done.