As an hour passed, and then an hour more, we began to grow worried. James was nowhere to be found, we’d searched the market twice looking for him. Now, I’ll be one of the first to admit that of all the people to go mysteriously missing, I’d rather it was James. Still, he was one of us, and more importantly he knew a lot of shit that could be damaging if he fell into the wrong hands.
The sun was beginning its journey towards the rim of the ring when we decided that something was really, properly wrong. We checked the inn first, and when no one had seen him there, we checked back at the market, asking questions of the vendors to see if they had seen him. No concrete answers were forthcoming from the vendors, so in a last ditch effort, we asked the guards.
The guards had taken notice of our group alright, and they were quick to puff out their chests and get standoffish. When I used my big doe eyes and my fluttering eyelashes at them however, they gave in a little and mentioned that they had seen him heading east along one of the many streets that joined with the market.
“What in the hell was he doing?” Troy asked nobody in particular as we made our way to the street in question.
“Who knows what James is doing or why on any given day?” Adam asked wearily. “The dude’s been a pain in the ass since day fucking one. Why did you even accept him into the group?”
“Because he had experience that would be useful. Camping and hunting experience, for example,” Troy sighed. “And I was pressed for time, the faculty council was keen to know what was out there. Shit, they barely gave us time to get the armour made.”
“Wait, faculty council?” I asked, confused. “Wasn’t that um… CEO lady in charge?”
“She is, but she’s not the only authority,” someone said, and I was surprised to hear it was Kit who spoke up. He continued his explanation in that quiet manner of his, “The university had checks and balances in place previously, and those have become far more important since we were all transported here. More strained too, the holes are showing and there’s talk of forming a real, proper form of government.”
“And no one can agree on what that will be,” Adam said with a derisive roll of his eyes.
Being in the middle of a political crisis during what was probably our grace period before the world discovered our existence did not bode well for Avonside. They needed to be building and fortifying as fast as possible, not… arguing. They didn’t have time to argue.
We walked for five minutes in the direction we’d been sent, only for our questions to turn up nothing when we asked random bystanders. The group had even all taken their helmets off in an attempt to appear less intimidating. It seemed that James had all but disappeared without a trace.
“This is starting to get a little spooky,” Grace said as we stood around after our latest failed attempt to get information.
“Yeah, you don’t just… how do you lose someone like James? He’s wearing intimidating black armour and he’s like, huge,” Adam said, miming James’ height with his hands.
“What do we do Troy?” Grace asked hesitantly.
There was more to that simple question than the words implied though. Do we leave James behind, do we keep trying to find him? There was a risk in trying to find him, a risk to our time and our lives if he didn’t disappear of his own free will. There was a risk if we left him too and he was just off being a moron. He might decide that he wanted to start helping whoever out here would feed him or give him power or whatever else he was interested in.
“We keep trying, we’ll find a different inn and stay the night,” Troy decided. “Although if we see any evidence that something has gone wrong, I think we’ll probably have to book it. Our priority is to get Ryn and the information we’ve gathered back to Avonside.”
“Does Ryn get a choice in that?” Grace asked quietly, and we all turned to look at her in surprise.
Troy was silent for a second, looking almost blindsided by the question. He reached up to rub at his stubble for a moment in thought, his eyes watching me with a new uncertainty.
“Do you want to go back to Avonside?” he asked, just the barest hint of worry in his voice.
I thought about it for a moment, and then nodded slowly, “Yes, but… I’d like to add a condition to that. Would it be alright to take… I don’t know, some time to work on my Grove before we get back. I want to be able to protect myself if they try and take advantage of me back there.”
“That… is a very good point. I think that is more than prudent, considering the political landscape back at the university,” Troy nodded after a moment. “It would be just like them to try as well.”
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“You don’t like them?” I asked in surprise. “The admins and stuff?”
“Some of them are good, some of them are not.,” he shrugged. “I don’t trust the ones that aren’t.”
“Okay, that’s reassuring,” I said, giving him a small, relieved smile. “Well, not the bad admins part. That’s not so reassuring.”
He nodded, just slightly, and gave me a pat on the arm. “I’ll have your back Ryn, same as everyone else in this team, including James, as much of an asshole as he is. But for now, let’s widen our search a bit. I’d like to try a few of the side streets around here. James obviously didn’t make it this far, or people would have remembered him.”
And so we continued as the afternoon was approaching evening and we began to run out of side streets. The town was a warren, twisting alleyways and old, repurposed buildings from the ring builders made any sort of attempt at city planning impossible, so they hadn’t bothered. At all.
We were walking down one such side street when we began to notice that there was a distinct lack of local people around. I could see one or two, but other than that… we were alone in the street. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either, as Troy put up his hand to stop us all.
“This is going to sound cliche,” he said warily. “But it’s too quiet.”
“I know, where are all the people?” I asked, looking around at the ominous lack of native residents. You knew when people suddenly rushed indoors that something bad was happening.
As if on cue, a group of men rounded the corner at the end of the street, some forty yards away. They were soldiers, and wearing pretty fine armour at that, polished and gleaming in the late afternoon light, bright blue and yellow plumes coming out of the tops of their helmets. Tabards with the same colouration were worn over the top of the armour, which made it obvious they were the personal guards for the man in the middle.
His hair was a deep, dark red, the colour of clotted blood, and although I couldn’t see his eyes at this distance, I knew they were probably the same. He wore a long pale yellow coat, with bright blue piping around all the edges. Under the coat was a superbly crafted set of leather armour, accented with the same colours as all the rest of the getup. It was him… Fennimore.
Almost as soon as he came into view, I had my mage senses activated, and sure enough, there was the web of magic within him, the same as Esra had been. His guards were the same as my party, thick bubbles of latent magic protecting the inner workings of their bodies. I guess that explained one thing, mages looked different under mage sight than normal humans. Now I just had to figure out what that meant… but later.
“Troy,” I hissed, grabbing his arm. “That’s a mage, that one I talked about, he’ll be able to—“
“Ah, if it isn’t the merry little band of aliens,” Lord Fennimore drawled with false joviality. “I have one of your friends, you know. Bit of advice next time, don’t let one of your number wander into a bar full of my guards to ask them questions.”
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath as we began to back away, translating while I did it. “James walked into a bar full of his goons and started asking them stuff.”
Troy only nodded, drawing his gun, but keeping it low against his side. The others did the same, and Lord Fennimore and his guards came to a halt as the threat of violence between the two groups became something almost tangible in the air. It took all my willpower not to cringe or outwardly react to their intimidation. I didn’t want to be seen as a scared little girl to that dickhead.
“You and your kind represent a bit of a problem. You see, in the past, whenever a new group of sentient beings is brought to the ring, chaos reins dominant. They bring new ideas, new ways of thinking… and sometimes, conquest. I rather like the way things are now in the world, and I intend to have it stay this way,” he said his eyes cold with determination. Then his eyes fell on me. “Ah! The beautiful little apprentice of Esra, how are you my dear? I see you are on of this lot, congratulations on being the first for your people I assume?”
Again I didn’t reply, and Grace stepped quickly between us, blocking his view of me. She couldn’t understand him, but she didn’t need to, the intent was clear in his tone.
“He’s talking about, I don’t know, he’s threatening us and Avonside. Troy, we can’t win this,” I whispered in English. “The guy teleports around and throws magic and shit. Also he has a shield, like an energy shield.”
“Let’s see if it can stop this,” Troy replied calmly, raising his pistol and taking aim.
Fennimore’s smile was mocking as he watched troy level the weapon, but it changed to shock when the sound of a single shot rang through the evening air. He staggered, his hand going to his chest while his face expressed confused irritation. His guards moved, putting themselves between Troy’s gun and their master.
“Run,” Troy ordered calmly. “They have guns too.”
He was right, each of them had a magical gun at their hips, right next to their sheathed swords. So as ordered, we turned and ran as Fennimore’s guards stood there in shock, none of them yet able to piece together what had happened. Some began to move for us, drawing their swords, but we were already putting distance in the way.
“We’re leaving the city, right now,” Troy said between breaths. “James is, well… he’s fucked. We’re getting out of this place.”
“No arguments here dude,” Adam replied, his voice a little shaken.
I kept looking over my shoulder at where Lord Fennimore stood, leaning on one of his guards, blood now clearly visible from a hole in his chest, very close to where his heart should have been. He was staring at me, anger dripping from his face like sweat, and then with a flash of light, he and the guard he’d been leaning on were gone. In his place I could just barely make out a shimmering haze. He’d retreated to his Grove.
“We should have finished him,” Kit said. “The dude had major creep vibes.”
“I’d rather get us all out alive than take that chance,” Troy replied. “Now, let’s stop talking and move.”
At about that time, the Fennimore’s men remembered that they could shoot back, and tiny sizzling bolts of energy began to burn the air around us. Even as arcane bullets hailed down around us, I had a question dominating my thoughts. Why the hell was that asshole here?