Chapter 15: Operation drop beat

"Hey Shiara, so did you get what she signalled to us? I'm quite envious that you got to learn the army code, teach me it someday will you....even I couldn't get my hands on this kind of information." Shiara had previously mentioned while we were planning this rescue that an old veteran and retired soldier known as Mad Waltz, one of her clients, had taught her how military signalling works for fun. Of course, he had payed for her time, even though she was the one being taught...

 Ahhh, Mad Waltz, now that brings backs memories. He was an eccentric, grumpy and moody person. He was supposedly over 70 already, and his head was mostly bald with a few wisps of white, but his combat abilities were still so strong that even the city officials didn't dare to act against him. Even in his failing state, he still retained quite a few powerful connections and even supposedly had a huge amount of hidden wealth that he never used. He was a daring man, who would do anything and go anywhere if he so wished, with no regard for others. People who idolised him called him courageous and bold, but others just blamed it on his failing memory. Of course, his erratic behaviour made him a walking land mine for people, so I normally steered clear of him when I could. One minute you would see him talking kindly to a shop owner, the next moment he would already be strangling the poor man.

Oh, and he also had arthritis, so he needed to have healing medicinal salve applied on a regular basis or undergo healing magic. But the number of people with a unique type of affinity like healing is low, so normally it would be harder to find someone who knew healing magic compared to other types, and most of the people who you could casually find, who knew healing magic, were people who had to forcefully try to comprehend it, and were thus less effective at healing. That's what made Shiara valuable- yet this was also a double edged sword for her. If someone was valuable, but didn't have the sufficient capabilities to safeguard themselves, that made them exploitable.

1*

We quietly slipped and slid down from the tree, dropping from the upper branches and sliding down the trunk. Ok, I was doing that. Shiara was attempting a very slow awkward spread out spider crawl down the centre of the trunk. I brushed off the sticks that had got stuck in a few of the holes in my clothing and the thorny edged leaves that had attached themselves to me. I was just finished patting myself down, when Shiara fell to the ground next to me with a dull thud.

"What mole...you're a monkey." ...I'll pretend I didn't hear her mutter that.

"So what did she say? Was it-"

"-I don't know Vaxen. I don't know." She stared at me, her forehead all creased up, eyes somewhat glazed and vacant. She was probably  deep in thought, so I decided to wait for her to continue. "...Vaxen, maybe I didn't remember the signalling code properly..." She was mumbling now, her face the image of anxiety, scrunched up and with confusion painted all over it. I should probably ask her to explain the problem to me so that- " I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't forget the code, as she understood mine and I understood her first sentence. It's the second sentence that bugs me. I think the first two words should've been 'WATCH OUT' but the next part is just some incoherent jumble of letters. "

Stolen story; please report.

"Well, we achieved our main goal of alerting her without getting caught. Let's not ponder on what her message was, it's probably just a warning of some sort. But I have to say, that was a lot easier then expected....almost too easy. Those two bandits down there are doing a worse job than the noble trainee patrol units in the middle of the night."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right....She also rushed the message and ending, so they probably have something inhibiting her usage, production or collection of mana. Hey, Vaxen, what do we do if they are tying her down with iron chains, or high level magic?"

"I'll come down once I've knocked out the two guards. If it's just iron chains look for the keys or I might be able to break them with earth magic and if I can't...Well, then we may have to abandon her. Let's just deal with it when it comes."

***

I looked up at the night sky. A few clouds blotched out the starlight, but the two moons were both visible. The blue moon partially overlapped against the white moon, covering it and creating a partial eclipse. I sat, patiently staring up at the stars and feeling the night breeze. An urge to scratch my short hair had been developing, so I focused on my pores on my skin.

The blue moon had almost eclipsed the white moon. Bored, I started to muse over the night time system. In Fei, there was a very funny misleading time concept that foreigners seemed to struggle with. Unlike in other nations, in this country, there existed the unique terms 'half blue moon' and 'half white moon' which are completely different from 'half blue-moons time' and 'half white-moon's time' respectively. 'Half blue moon' refers to when the two moons first eclipse each other while 'half blue-moon's time referred to when the moon was half way through its night cycle. I had previously conducted a few transactions at night, and when the client arrived late, that was a dead give away of their origin. Nobles also apparently had something called a clock which measured time in another unit, but I had never laid eyes upon one.

-HOOT! HOOOOT!

I was startled back out of my train of thoughts by the the sudden noise. Just an owl. Hah...it probably had just managed to land a successful catch as it took flight into the woods. The world suddenly turned slightly more bluish than normal. The tint indicated that eclipse was in place, so I grabbed the two fist sized rocks prepared before hand lying next to me. A sense of déjà vu hit me.

Brushing away the thought of changing my profession to chucking rocks, I pushed my head over the ledge, observing the two targets. I dropped the two heavy stones.

I heard a dull thunk, as the two sitting figures collapsed forward. YES! It was a success.

-or so I thought when suddenly I noticed a fluctiation of mana as one of them raised their hands and a burst of fire rushed up at me. I ducked back, as fire ball flew upwards into the night sky passing me. I could feel the warm upper current and heat that the trailed behind the fiery ball. Basking in the glory of my fast reflexive dodge, I suddenly noticed that my sleeve had caught alight. I attempted to pat it out with my other hand as I quickly stood up -OUCH!

I felt a hard pointy branch pushing against my neck. In my panic, I had forgotten the old tree behind me. Cursing at my own stupidity, I felt myself being propelled forward and over the cliff. I swung my hands backwards, attempting to grasp the branch, but I was already in free fall.

The wind rushed at me, as I noticed Shiara running toward me from the tree line at the bottom of the slope. She would never make it in time.

I crashed. Pain wracked my whole body as I lost consciousness.

2*