Set on a plan, the three waited the four hours it took for the coalition members to return from the outer forest. In that time, the three worked on a few specifics within their overall plan.
To keep their identities hidden, Amelia’s ability came into use. Increasing the age of their physical appearance by nearly a decade, Krista’s short hair had become much longer, and Darius had grown a beard. With a bit of makeup from Darius’s disguise kit and Amelia’s expertise, they could hardly be recognized.
With their identities sufficiently hidden, all they had to worry about was figuring out how to get the coalition members to let them hide in their group. That’s where a bit of friction erupted between Darius and Krista.
“For the last time, we are not showing them Fierce!” Darius screamed.
“This is that bit of urging I said we’d need!” Krista shot back. “I’m open to any more good ideas, just tell me.”
“We’re trying to not attract too much attention, right?! We can just use that recommendation Emmy wrote you.”
“Okay, I thought you forgot about that… I’m showing them Fierce.”
“Okay, you two, you’ve been going on about this for nearly an hour,” Amelia interrupted, “I don’t think this is getting you anywhere, plus I think we’re out of time.”
Darius and Krista finally saw the coalition members walk into view, back towards the security checkpoint. If they were going to do something, now was the time.
“Already!” Darius cried. “Fine, compromise! Based on how Emmy reacted, baby griffins are pretty rare, so we only use Fierce if it seems like they don’t want to help us. Fair?”
Krista thought about it for a second but nodded her head. “Fair, plus it looks like she wants to sleep anyway.”
Just as Krista said, Fierce stumbled to Nightshade and feel asleep at his heels. Picking her up, Darius placed her within a large satchel on Terra’s hip and hopped on; Krista followed closely on Terra. “Later, Teach! Stay safe or your mom will kill me.”
Amelia’s loud groan clued them in that she’d be just fine. Instead, they could worry about the problem in front of them. A problem Darius felt they were ill prepared to deal with.
“Excuse us,” Krista called, “Can you guys wait up for a moment,” apparently, Krista didn’t share this sentiment.
“Of course, do you have some business with us?” A small, pale skinned girl, wearing a pointed hat and with short brown hair turned to them.
Darius continued, “Right, my name is Darius, and this is Kristina. We traveled here from down south looking for work. Home was starting to feel a bit too small for us, so we decided to try our luck in the city.”
Darius had decided to play the clueless country bumpkin, and he really hoped Krista would play along. Luckily, she did just that, “Yeah, from down in Horizon. It’ll be our first time in New Dawn.”
“I’m so proud of her,” Darius felt like a father watching his daughter growing all on her own.
The girl looked at them suspiciously, but one of the others a tall, pretty, pale skinned, man with long blonde hair spoke up on their behalf, “Too big, huh? You both don’t seem like farmers. What kind of work were you hoping to get into?”
His words caught the attention of his compatriots, specifically, a small dwarf like man complete with the red hair and beard who spoke, “Aye, you’re right, Cline. ‘Ey boy, If ya want to grow some real muscle, why don’t ya join the Artisan’s Guild? Same to you, young lady, though I see you have some nice definition already.”
Darius was still reeling from the fact that there was a dwarf talking to him, so Krista had to answer for them both, “I’m looking to be a hunter, my partner here is still undecided.”
“You and the rest of ‘em, won’t be long until-” the small man started.
“Don’t let the dwarf dissuade you,” The blonde man, Cline, said as he shoved the dward out the way, “Hammer can be a bit of a tool.”
Hammer complexion turned a deep shade of red as he grabbed tightly onto the blonde man’s thigh. “I’m no dwarf, me parents were just short!”
Cline raised an eyebrow to him, “Yet, they named you Hammer.”
Hammer let go of Cline’s thigh. Suddenly, he jumped up to grab onto his hair, pulling Cline’s head to his level. “It’s spelled H-A-ï-Y-M-I-E-R and pronounced Hi - Me- Yér, but ya idiots are too ignorant to say it correctly!”
“We’re all still gonna just call you Hammer,” said a shorter black haired young man who just oozed a bad attitude.
“Shut it, Cyren!” Hammer responded as he gingerly brushing the axe on his side. “One more word out of you, and I’m chopping off your brother’s… I don’t know, but I’m chopping off something!”
“Don’t talk to my baby brother that way!” Cline yelled.
“Now don’t you start with that again!” Cyren called back.
As those three continued to bicker, Darius and Krista could both sense that they might be here for a while. Either that or just until Hammer was finally pushed over the edge, considering that he finally pulled out his weapon.
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“I’m guessing this kind of thing is normal in your group?” Darius asked the two girls and silver haired man.
The tall girl shrugged. “Yeah, every time we’ve gone out together, without fail.”
“I say we have five more missions together, max, before they end up killing each other,” the short girl commented. “At least, that’s if I don’t end up killing them myself.”
She laughed after saying that, but Darius didn’t feel a hint of humor in her words. He made a mental note to keep his distance from that girl where possible.
“We said it before, but I’m Darius and the girl who thinks I can’t see her snacking on a piece of chocolate that she said we were out of last week! Is Kristina,” he said, “I don’t think we got your names yet.”
“I’m Milly and she’s Nova, we’re both with the Researcher’s Guild. Our silver haired friend is Kriel, with the Laborer’s Guild. As you may have noticed, he doesn’t really talk all that much.”
Kriel acknowledged he was being talked to, even managed a weak smile, but went right back to… playing with some bugs. A very weak hint of a red aura surrounding him.
“Laborer’s Guild?” Kristina asked. “Do you mean the Mercenary Guild?”
“Oh! You know their other name?” Milly questioned back. “I thought you weren’t a local.”
“Not a local, but still a fan on New Dawn,” Darius answered quickly wanting to change the subject. “Is this going to last long?”
The argument between Hammer, Cline, and Cyren had failed to die down, honestly is seemed to only get worst with Hammer’s yellow, Cline’s green, and Cyren’s orange auras all starting to flair.
“No, give then a couple more minutes to compare which of them has the longest weapon,” Milly explained, “or until one of them is unconscious.”
“I got money on Cline,” Kristina called out, gleefully watching the three start to trade blows. “10 ruby chips says he knocks at least one of them out.”
“I’ll match you,” Nova said, “I’ve known him longer, and he’s way too much of a wuss to actually do something. Especially, when we have some important members from Shining Twilight as guest.”
Nova’s words were something Darius could not ignore. “Shining Twilight? Here in New Dawn?”
“You know about them?” Nova asked with a bit more scrutiny than Darius expected. “Not too many in New Dawn know about them, with most of their work being done in Soaring Sun and Falling Starlight, let alone someone from the boonies.”
“Darius and I were looking for all our options once we got out of Horizon,” Kristina quickly interjected. “Whether we wanted to do military, guild work, or move to one of the other Great Cities. Shining Twilight happened to pop up occasionally.”
“True,” Darius added, “and we were wondering if you could tell us some more about them?”
Nova didn’t fully buy their story, but before she could pry further Kriel spoke up, “Secretive… mostly keep to themselves. Rarely, if ever, actually see them. Strong, don’t mess with the tall, dark one; some friends learned the hard way.” Finishing his words, Kriel returned to his bugs, leaving them with that ominous note.
“Accurate,” Milly noted. “They arrived a short time ago with little to no fanfare, three no four of them, I think, but they leave all the time. Honestly, I’m not even sure they’re at the guilds now.”
“You two done now?!” Cline yelled. “Alright! We can go then.”
“Yes!” Kristina yelled back. “Don’t forget you owe me those 10 rubies Nova!”
Darius hadn’t paid attention to what had occurred between the three other guild members, but it seemed pretty brutal. Hammer was on his knees, bruises covering is face, and Cyren was laid flat on the ground. His injuries were covered by the mud his body laid in, though a pleased smile could be seen on his face. Even Cline looked pretty bad, his aura phasing from visible and non-visible, while also being loosely and lazily wrapped around his body.
“Cline, seriously!” Nova called, obviously extremely f. “Not only did you lose me 10 ruby chips, but you’re going to seriously piss off Nuri.”
A look of horror filled Cline’s face, “You wouldn’t tell her, would you Nova? I mean, she’ll kill me. She will actually kill me. I’m far to pretty to die this young.”
Nova’s dark glaring eyes told Cline she was dead serious. His slow descent into darkness only stopped when his eyes landed into a strange moving shape in the satchel hanging from Terra. Something that looked oddly familiar to him. Darius followed his eyes, and with an incredulous look on his face, flailed wildly to block his sight.
“Can we just pretend that you didn’t see that?” Darius asked.
“Can’t be… is that what I think it is?” Cline said, a sinister smile slowly growing on his face.
“What, what is it?” the other members asked almost simultaneously.
Darius face progressively became more and more panicked. Looking to Kristina for help, he was only faced with an unassuming smile suggesting he was on his own. She wanted this in the first place, so he probably should have expected that.
“Nothing any of you needs to worry about,” Darius said suspecting that telling these people about Fierce would only cause more trouble. At this point, he was sure they were already planning to bring them into New Dawn. Unfortunately for Darius, he had this thought moments before Fierce’s head popped out of the satchel. “… J-Just level with me here, you guys aren’t going to-”
“Is that a griffin?!” Milly and Nova cried grabbing onto Darius arms. A bit more forcefully than he expected, he wasn’t able to pull away. In the excitement, Fierce jumped from her pouch and wrapped herself around Darius’s legs wanting to play. “Wings!”
Sensing a moment to showboat, Kristina picked Fierce up and spun her around. “That’s right, a winged griffin! After a hard-fought battle, Darius and I managed make a griffin flee. If it wasn’t for that one’s clever thinking, and my own weaponry skills, then it would still be ravaging our home.”
“She sure is selling us strong,” Darius groaned.
All of them, at least everyone conscious gathered to see Fierce. Maybe it was because she was pleased with all the attention, or maybe it was because she was just smart enough to realize what caught everyone’s eye, but Fierce began to flutter her wings. Gathering even more awe from her onlookers.
“Must have been a pretty small griffin,” Cline said as he weakly chuckled “A week or two ago, I saw a griffin hunt request that had a threat level of at least level four out of seven. Would’ve required at least five trained hunters.”
“I did too,” Milly said, “If I remember correctly, it was supposed to take place all the way out in Horiz-” Slowly, realization dawned on her face, slowly accompanied by the realization of the others.
“About that issue without ID’s?” Darius asked understanding that there was no way he was getting out of this.
“You don’t have to worry about a thing!” Milly cried as she held tighter to his arm.
“Yes, just let us take care of you,” Nova said tightening her grip on the other.
“Maybe this won’t be too bad,” Darius thought.