Chapter 4: Royalty
With a yawn, Zach glanced up at the face-clock at the end of the third-floor hallway in his overly crowded public school. Since his phone had been destroyed, he had to either ask someone for the time or rely on a clock whenever one was in sight. Noting the time, his eyes felt heavy as he realized he still had another hour left before school ended for the day.
I can’t believe I’m so tired, he thought.
That hadn’t been the case this morning, of course. Zach had bolted out of his apartment dressed and motivated even though he hadn’t gotten so much as a minute’s sleep last night. And it wasn’t because he chose to stay awake, either—sleep just wouldn’t come to him. Clearly, the excitement of the previous day lingered too strongly in his head, and so for the entire night, he’d tossed and turned and prayed for the time to move just a little bit faster. It hadn’t, of course, and so he’d spent hours awake in his dingy little bedroom in his dad’s apartment, unable to turn off his brain. Miraculously, he hadn’t been groggy or tired when his alarm went off in the morning. The memories of yesterday had continued to energize him—or at least they had until he got to school.
In all his memory, Zach could not recall any school day dragging along as badly as today had. He was desperate to get back to that spawn with Kalana. It was all he could think about. It was all he cared about. But with no sleep in him and lessons that seemed to stretch on forever, he kept finding himself drained of all his energy as, class after class, he was forced to explain why he didn’t have any of his books, notes, homework, or even basic school supplies with him.
Thankfully, most of his teachers were sympathetic once he’d told them he’d accidentally dropped his backpack into the river—which was almost true—but it required him to tell the same made-up story over and over of how he and Kalana had been walking along the boardwalk down by the Undead Bank when, suddenly, a section of the wooden framework snapped off and they fell into the river together. Again: it was almost true. It also wasn’t a lie he was likely to be caught telling, as ever since the Guild of Gentlemen found itself at war with the Royal Roses, the city’s already miniscule infrastructure budget had shrunk even further. Hell, a section of the boardwalk probably did collapse yesterday for all Zach knew.
I just hope that crap ends soon. This is like ten years ago all over again.
Although it had only happened once before during Zach’s life, it was apparently very common for the guilds to fight and go to war with each other for territory and control over cities, towns, or just about any type of land. They rarely ever fought around normal civilians, and from what Zach understood, most people just went about their lives. If their current rulers perished? Well, someone else would come along and either raise or lower their taxes, and there was really nothing anyone could do about it anyway. It just sucked the way the guilds tended to neglect ordinary, level-1 people while they focused all their resources on killing one another.
When Zach was a small child, his mother had fallen ill with an easily curable disease. He didn’t really remember his mom all that much. He was so young when she’d died. But what he did remember was all the nights his dad would yell at the news on TV and complain that if the hospitals had still been up and running, she never would have died. Apparently, all the best doctors and nurses had been whisked away to tend to the injured guild-members, and so she’d died for basically no reason. It hadn’t been long afterwards that his father started drinking and becoming violent.
I don’t want to think about that. He shuddered. He hasn’t hit me in a long time, at least.
The memory of the Guild of Gentlemen’s previous war put Zach in something of a sour mood, but it only lasted a moment as he realized he only had one class left for the day, and it was the one class that both he and Kalana shared this year. It also happened to be his favorite subject: biology. It wasn’t that Zach had any particular love of biological science, either; it was more that his teacher, Mr. Oren, was young, lively, passionate, and spoke with such charisma and charm that he somehow managed to make Zach care about cellular division even on a day like today.
Before Zach had even taken his seat, Mr. Oren began enthusiastically addressing the class with his typical flair, gesturing wildly with his hands as he peered out at them from eyes hidden behind his russet-colored, cat-eye glasses. Though he didn’t know for certain, Zach was pretty sure Mr. Oren was the youngest teacher in the entire school. He recalled hearing a teacher across the hall remark how incredible it was that he’d landed a teaching gig at twenty-four.
Mr. Oren was nearly six-feet tall with spiky, dark brown hair, and he wore a white lab coat even on days when he wouldn’t be anywhere near a lab. He also rocked tattoos of dragons on both his arms, something that Zach only knew from having seen him play strike-ball in a short-sleeved t-shirt with some of his students last week. It was also how he knew that Mr. Oren clearly liked to hit the gym. His jaw was chiseled and from the outline of thin lab coat and thin undershirt, he clearly sported six-pack abs.
Overall, the man was an odd, eccentric sort of guy who honestly looked like a cross between a nuclear physicist and a mob enforcer. He was the kind of person who’d look equally in place in a lab as he would strolling through the city shaking down businesses for protection money. He was also really, really smart.
“Which is why,” he said, tapping his finger excitedly on the blackboard, “even if they take on the appearance of terrestrial mammals, a mob can’t be assigned any taxonomic rank. They aren’t biological entities.”
Zach raised his hand from where he sat directly in the middle-most desk in the fourth row towards the back. As though the teacher had eyes in the back of his head, he called on Zach while still facing the blackboard in the opposite direction. “Yeah, Zach?”
“I just had a question about something you said,” Zach began. “You said that one of the fundamental differences between biological life and mobs is that biological life doesn’t have a level or stats. But if that’s so, then doesn’t that mean we aren’t biological life? Since we’re humans, and we have a level and stats just like mobs do.”
“Well, let me just stop you there for a second, Zach,” he said with a smile. He lifted his pointer finger and then playfully shook it in the air. “That wasn’t exactly what I said, but I totally get the confusion, my man. What I did say though was that biological flora and fauna do not have levels or stats. Now, whether or not you consider humanity as part of the ‘fauna’ is a philosophical debate best reserved for social science. In this context, though, I was referring to non-human entities.”
Zach nodded, somewhat embarrassed. “My bad,” he said with a timid chuckle. Then, more seriously, he asked, “But wait, Mr. Oren. I was just thinking and…like, why actually is it that mobs have levels, and so do we—meaning like you, me, and everyone—but chickens and stuff don’t? Why aren’t chickens level 1? Why aren’t things like goats or cows level 1? Or a horse?”
“I know at least one horse that’s level-1,” someone from the last row in the back said. “Her name is Miss Calador. In fact, she almost leveled up last night after I fu—”
“Shut your Gods-damned mouth!” Zach shouted. He spun around in his desk and glared at the chubby, mean, antagonistic animal who’d dared to just insult his dead mother. His name was Pack Dolan, and though he and Zach didn’t really get along, Zach would’ve thought he’d know better than to say that crap about his mom. Sure, this wasn’t the first time he’d belittled or insulted Zach in front of the class, but it was the first time this garbage in human flesh actually went this far with it.
Any feeling of weariness or fatigue left him immediately as he strongly considered getting out of his seat and punching the boy’s lights out. Under normal circumstances, Zach didn’t back down from a fight; even if he got his butt kicked, Zach never let someone push him around whether he won or lost. Given that Pack was both taller and larger, this would typically be a losing—but necessary—battle. But now? Having leveled up? Oh, man, he would love to see this pathetic slob try to say that again to his face. Zach would knock each one of his teeth out. He was also curious to see just how much stronger he was now. He hadn’t had the chance to try lifting something heavy or really do anything at all to test his strength.
“You have a problem, dickwad?” Pack asked him. This only intensified Zach’s anger. He had the nerve to stare at Zach like he was the one with the issue here.
“Yeah, actually, I do,” Zach growled at him, standing up from his seat. “I don’t like what you just said about my mom. Why don’t you try saying that again? Go ahead. Say it again. Do it.”
Pack darted his eyes around as if nervous, but he too got out of his seat as if feeling it would be more humiliating to back down from a challenge than it would be to simply keep his mouth shut. “I’ll…I’ll say it again if I want to,” he threatened.
“Then say it, then,” Zach challenged him. The entire class turned to watch, and from the eagerness in their eyes, they were really hoping for a confrontation. Everyone liked to watch a good fight. Who could blame them? If this was someone else, Zach would be lying if he said he wouldn’t enjoy watching two guys duke it out. But today, it wasn’t someone else. Today, it was him.
For an instant, it looked like Pack might actually back down, but then, with a sneer, he took a step forward. At the same time, the sound of a disappointed sigh came from the front of the room. “You two again?” Mr. Oren asked. “Guys, settle down. I thought you two worked this out last time?”
“So did I,” Zach said. “But you heard what he said about my mom. I’m sorry, Mr. Oren. I love your class, but I need to put this fat idiot in the hospital.”
“Oh, is that right, tough guy?” Pack replied, taking yet another step towards him so that now they were only a few feet apart. “Why don’t you do something, then? I’m right here.”
In truth, this wasn’t the first time he and Pack had gotten confrontational with one another in this particular class. They’d gotten into a few heated back-and-forths before, two of which actually landed both of them detention. But this was the first time Zach ever thought it might lead to an actual fistfight right here in the middle of class instead of at the strike-ball park half a mile from school where these kinds of things usually went down.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Kick his ass!” one of the kids from the first row shouted—even as Mr. Oren frowned at him. “Zach, knock him out.”
“Throw a punch,” another taunted. “Don’t be a wuss!”
Zach pointed at Pack. “Apologize for what you said about my mom and I won’t break your nose.”
“Make me.” Pack beat his fist against his own chest. “You’re not gonna do a thing. You’re scared. That’s why you’re just standing there.”
“Oh, you think so?” Zach laughed, balling his hands into fists. Then he began moving directly towards Pack, drawing back his arm, ready to strike. Pack also raised his hands defensively as if ready to meet the challenge. “Well then let’s see how you like—”
Before Zach could cross the last bit of distance, he came to an abrupt halt as Kalana, moving with powerful, angry, and stomping steps on the white-tiled floor, stormed her way over to the two of them. With one hand, she shoved Zach backwards and away from Pack; then, with the other, she sent her fist crashing like a heat-seeking missile into the bridge of Pack’s nose, causing his whole head to snap back and a cry to escape his lips as if in shock. He stumbled eight full steps backwards before tripping over someone’s book bag and falling on his ass.
The class gasped as Kalana scowled at him and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“W-what?” he asked, clearly stunned and confused as blood began to drip out of both of his nostrils.
“Get the hell out!”
Zach wanted to say something, but he was too confused to understand what was happening. Had Kalana really just hit him? And since when did she have the ability to kick someone out of class? She wasn’t a teacher. She couldn’t just “remove” someone.
But that was exactly what she did. As Pack continued to sit on his rear and gape at her as if too bewildered to even understand speech, Kalana marched over to him, yanked him up by his shirt, spun him around, and then delivered a powerful kick to his rear-end that caused him to once again stumble, but this time directly outside of the classroom.
What is happening right now?
Two students ambling down the hallway stopped whatever they were doing and turned to look at Pack, who continued to spill backwards until almost falling his way into the classroom directly opposite theirs. But eventually, he regained his balance, and when he did, he growled, spun back around, and half-walked, half-ran his way back towards the classroom with heavy, angry footsteps; only now, there was murder in his eyes. It was as if he finally managed to overcome his shock.
“I said go away!” Kalana snapped.
An instant before Pack reentered the classroom, Kalana reached off to her side, grabbed the corner of the classroom door, and slammed it shut in his face. It closed with enough force to make a loud bang that caused more than half the class to flinch as if startled. Pack, reacting too slowly, did not slow himself down in time, and the result was him walking headfirst into the now-shut door. For the third time in a row, he began stumbling away, only this time, he tripped over his own feet and landed hard enough on his back that the thud was audible even from in here.
Then, dusting off her hands on her skirt, she smiled and sat back in her seat as if nothing happened. “Um, Mr. Oren?” she asked the moment she sat down, politely raising her hand.
“Y-yes, Miss Vayra?” he said, calling on her.
She tapped her chin and hummed to herself a moment before speaking. “Is a protist also a Eukaryote?”
Mr. Oren blinked. “Uh. Well, yeah.” Then, with a shrug, he launched into a long-winded explanation as if either forgetting or not even caring that three of his students had just gotten into a fight that resulted in one of them being KO’d in the middle of the hallway. In fact, of everyone in the class, he seemed the least stunned. Zach imagined that he, on the other hand, was the most.
I’ve never seen her do anything violent to anyone before. And she just…like it was nothing to her. She just attacked him. Just straight-up went at him and then acted like nothing happened.
This was a side of her that both confused and even intimidated him. She had been a silly, bubbly, sometimes annoying, but always good-natured girl during the past two years they’d been friends. But there was clearly more to her than he thought. Especially with the stuff she was saying yesterday about being a slave and her family suffering through a genocide. It was almost enough to make him forget how excited he was to head back to the spawn point. Almost.
****
“This isn’t what I asked for,” Varsh said as he gripped the spy's throat even more tightly. He and his guild-mates stood just on the outskirts of Whispery Woods not far from the Bridge of Torment that spanned the Leviathan River and led into the city.
They’d stopped here at a small, rather isolated encampment where a handful of guards ostensibly kept watch on the city, but in actuality, were basically just old, balding troops who hadn’t fought in a guild battle in a decade or more and likely hadn’t been on the frontlines even then. They were all level-1 trash; one of them, however, was a man the Royal Roses had been paying for years in exchange for information: information he clearly did not possess.
“I know that there’s an outpost in this garbage, festering pit of decay and trash you call a city. I also know our guild-leader—our boss—has been sending you gold every month for years in exchange for intelligence. So tell me: were you ripping him off?”
“N-no, not at all, sir!” he shrieked, terror in his every word.
“That right?”
“Y-yes!”
Varsh bared his teeth at the old, frail, and pathetic excuse for a soldier. “Then why don’t you know where the outpost is?”
“Because I just don’t,” he moaned. Then, quickly, he added, “B-b-b-but not because I w-wasn’t doing what was asked of me, sir. Every month for almost three years, I’ve sent over highly detailed documents outlining troop patrols, unit strength, and infrastructural documents to my contact in your guild.”
“That’s nice. And I believe you. But that’s not what I want!”
“P-please don’t kill me!” he begged with a rasp as Varsh tightened his grip on the man’s neck. “I don’t know where the outpost is hidden. You even just said you believed me!”
“I do,” Varsh said with a nod and a crooked smile. “But if you want to live, you’ll at least tell me something that’s worth my time. Surely you know something that’s worth sparing you for.”
“I…I do…!” His eyes began to narrow and his face began turning blue. He couldn’t speak because Varsh was gripping his throat too tightly. With a laugh, he released the man, who inhaled sharply. Fear caused his eyes to bulge.
“Give me something worth my trip out here or I’m letting Seraphina slice your head off. She loves doing that to people, you know.”
“You bet I do,” Seraphina said with a laugh. She rubbed her hand along the hilt of her rapier. Varsh wouldn’t be surprised if she slept with that thing.
With another, pained-sounding moan, the guard-turned-spy pleadingly lifted his index finger at Varsh as if begging for him to wait for a moment, then slowly, cautiously, turned around. Then he disappeared inside his miserable little “cabin.” It was a plain, beige, box-shaped, and nondescript little structure that was only marginally bigger than a hut. It, along with three others like it, were located just beyond a hill a few kilometers off the highway leading to the bridge. The spy and three other guards—dead now, of course—seemed to live here.
Tapping his foot impatiently, Varsh waited for him to either find something of value or face immediate death. From the frantic sound of scraping and shuffling, he imagined the old spy was desperately rummaging around in his sad little dwelling for something he felt could buy him his life. For a brief moment, Varsh thought he might have succeeded, as when he reappeared outside of his tiny cabin, he looked far less fearful and perhaps even a bit “confident.” He must’ve had something very, very good—or so Varsh had thought.
As he nervously handed Varsh a crumpled-up document, Varsh grunted angrily as he quickly skimmed it. “This is trash,” he said. “Are you playing a joke on me? Do you have any idea how slowly and painfully I can kill you?”
Upon his threat, the spy’s mouth fell open, and the confusion in his eyes was genuine enough that it caused Varsh himself to become confused. “Why’re you looking at me like that?” Varsh asked. Then he waved the document at the man, resisting the urge to crumple it again and throw it at him. “You think this is valuable?”
The spy appeared even more perplexed now than before. “You…don’t?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t. Why the hell do I care about some”—he once more glanced down at the document in his hands—“some uh…some Kalana…Vayra? This is just an order granting refugee status to some worthless, level-1 city trash.”
“S-sir,” the spy said, and of all things, there was now a certain unease in his voice that Varsh suspected had nothing to do with fear for his safety. “Is it possible you don’t understand what I’ve given you?”
“Yes, actually. And if you want to keep living, you’ll explain it to me.”
The spy nodded slowly, then pointed to the sheet of paper Varsh was holding. “That’s not just any refugee, sir. That’s Kalana Vayra, daughter of Fylwen and Eldora Vayra.”
“Who?”
Despite there being no one around for a couple of miles, the spy lowered his voice. “The last living, full-blooded Elves on the planet. The only survivors of King Peter’s extermination efforts. You know…the royal family?”
Varsh opened his mouth in shock and found himself momentarily speechless. He once more looked down at the document only to have it snatched from his fingers by an even more disquieted Seraphina, who shook her head as she read the names. “This doesn’t say nothing about Elvish refugees or royal families.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” the spy answered. “Most people think they went extinct thousands of years ago. I thought you would recognize the names, though. I guess even fewer people know the truth than I thought.”
“Well why do you know otherwise? If you expect me to believe that this girl is not only an actual living, breathing, full-blooded Elf, but that she’s a princess to boot…then you need to explain why some lowly piece of trash like you knows this, but no one else, including I, a high-ranking member of the Royal Roses, seems to.”
Clearly rattled, the spy took a moment as if to compose himself then said, “I found the order of refugee status when I was on document-shredding duty. One day, my supervisor called in sick and his replacement showed up an hour late. It gave me the chance to actually read some of the things we were shredding. Apparently, after King Peter the IV was beheaded, some high-ranking noble in the Guild of Gentlemen named ‘Sir Morrison of the Dark-Water Depths’ felt bad about his role in helping the king uh, you know, secretly wipe out the last remaining Elvish civilization and sadistically enslave whatever remained of the royal family. So he had the prince and the prince’s daughter smuggled to this rundown, mess of a city and granted them refugee status with just enough gold to start fresh. I don't know what happened to the mother.”
This time, it was Varsh who snatched the document from Seraphina. Again reading it over, he sighed, massaged his eyes, and then rubbed his chin. “I don’t know if I can believe this.”
“Well, it’s true, sir.”
“If this is real…I’m just blown away. I mean…if she really is who you say she is, or if her father is who you say he is, then if I capture either one of them or both, it should be easy enough to prove them as non-human with a DNA analysis.”
“Well, correct,” the spy said.
Ignoring him, and speaking mostly to himself, Varsh continued, “Can you imagine the price one of them would be worth? An actual Elf. An extinct species. Seraph, do you even know how much gold we could bring the guild if we auctioned her and her father off to the right bidder?”
She apparently did, because she was literally licking her lips. “Not just an Elf, too,” she added, “but a royal one. We would be showered with gold and equipment. We’d be promoted in the guild, too.”
With a grin, Varsh looked at his sly partner-in-crime then said, “You know what we have to do now, right?”
“Yah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not dumb.” Then she extended both her arms: one in the direction of their three guild-mates, and the other in the direction of the spy. “Obviously we have to kill the spy to keep him quiet and then kill these three idiots so they don’t get any of the credit or gold.”
Varsh smiled at her. “This is why I like you.”
The three men he’d brought as well as the spy all looked at one another as if confused or as though unsure they had heard correctly. And that was just fine, too. Because even before one of them could so much as open their mouths to voice a word in question, he and Seraphina were already on them.
Varsh laughed. This was so much better than an outpost.