4/6/54
ALEXANDER GALDUR
“Fucking oooowww.”
“You should’ve aimed at the dummy. Of course you’d go flying; the tongue as a part of your body is made of muscle, and that’s one big damn tongue.” Deimos grumbled while he tended the scrapes I got from flying across the fucking room.
“What? How was I supposed to know the tongue was in there! I didn’t even know the tongue was part of the setup!” I shot back.
“The tongue was a big part of the monster and the threat it posed, of course it was going to be incorporated into equipment. Also, where else would it be? That was the only spot it could’ve gone!”
“Why would I ever expect a giant tongue to be in the sleeve of my armor!” I yelled.
Deimos threw his hands up in the air, “Use your brain; it should’ve been common sense!”
“How!?”
After some more back and forth arguing, we ended up just—reluctantly and saltily—agreeing to disagree. We finally left the mall, got back in Deimos’s car, and drove through the city towards our final destination.
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“We’re here.”
Deimos got out of the car and I followed behind. We went through the front door of a shady-looking, unmarked building with no windows. The interior was depressing: low and gloomy light lit up the ragged floors and tables, flickering shadows being cast across the room. The people there looked even more haggard than the chairs and tables they sat at, rough exteriors and rougher interiors all on display as they glared at one another with distrust and malice.
… Not the worst place to work for the rest of your life.
Looking at Deimos, he confidently walked across the room, eyes set on a person at the frontdesk. Slapping a folder of papers he was carrying woke up the sleeping man, startling him almost out of his chair. Speaking up despite the man’s apparent stupor from being so rudely awoken, Deimos stated, “These are the papers for my friend here. Get him signed up and start the interview process, if you would.”
The man stupidly stared off into space in the general direction of us and the file, but eventually he seemed to fully wake, grabbed the papers, and in a gruff voice, he pointed off towards a room behind him, “Go sit in there. Someone’ll come look ch’ya ova’.”
Nodding silently, I walked across the room, trying to ignore the stares of the various bounty hunters filling the place.
The door opened with a creak and screech, the thick, metal frame scraping against the thick, metal door. The inside of the interview room was solid metal with a flickering incandescent light that hummed, sparking a small burst of annoyance in me for no reason. Two green, plastic chairs sat facing each other, one of them with a small table next to it that would let a few items rest on its top.
I decided to sit in the chair without the table, assuming that my interviewer would use the table for their convenience.
I sat and waited. And waited. And waited. Not too much time had passed, maybe three minutes at most, but with nothing but my own mind to keep me occupied, time seemed to slow down to a mind-numbing drawl. The entire time I waited, my senses continued to stay active as my brain refused to block out the uncomfortable and unfamiliar atmosphere.
The smell of metal, must, and alcohol permeated through the room. For some reason, the entire thing had the smell of some hard liquor that reached and infected every crevice of the place. The sight of the glaring, harsh, and inconsistent lighting kept the entire room in a frozen facade of life, everything repeating and changing and moving yet, in the end, nothing happened. Finally, the buzzing. The constant buzzing grated against my ears, the noise somehow not falling into the background, always staying at the forefront of my mind.
After maybe five minutes of waiting as I ground my teeth to keep sane in the buzzing silence, the door finally opened with a screech. It closed as a man identical to the one from the front desk came in. The only reason I could tell them apart was their clothing, hair, facial hair, and overall appearance.
The man at the front desk wore a brown leather jacket without sleeves and with leather straps that stretched across the ensemble. His pants were a similar color, various braces, padding, and armor covering joints, tendons, arteries, and any other targets in a fight. His shirt was a dark brown, nearing black, contrasting the red streaks through his hair.
He had short-shaven mutton chops, and scars covered his face and lips, hair not growing in the gouges left on his face. One eye was brown, but the other was faded and pale with a deep scar that stretched all the way from his chin to the back of his head crossing it. His hair was a french crop that connected with his mutton chops, ruined by scar tissue unable to hold hair follicles.
This guy on the other hand was in a sleek and form-fitting white and blue cuirass mixed with scale mail. The armor complimented his faux hawk brown hair with streaks of dark blue. His facial hair was a short stubble with a bluish undertone to the brown. His eyes were a dark shade of indigo, and unlike the front desk guy, not a single mark nor imperfection was on his face. Not even moles the other guy had, despite them most definitely being identical twins!
… Was that makeup?
“Lucas Greymore I presume? The DME has most of the issues taken care of, and therefore, we’re only going to need some additional information from your part.” The man spoke, his voice eloquent and woven together to contrast the other’s rash and unsocial tones and words.
“Like what?” I asked, looking him straight in the eyes.
“We’ll need you to tell us more about your magic as well as what role you are seeking to fill.”
I frowned, “Might I know why?”
“Others will need to know who they’re hiring and what they can do to best utilize their skills as well as make the safest and most efficient choices.” He answered robotically, his deep voice still sounding like the beautiful noise of a church bell ringing. His voice, deep and beautiful, ended up being the thing to end my ever-growing anger at the buzzing of the light.
“I see. Well, I have light magic focused on the creation of light as well as the ability to imbue my body with light magic. This lets me move faster and maneuver around in unnatural ways if I will. In addition, I can create flashes of light either in the open air or my body. I can box and sneak around pretty well, and I’m quick on my feet. I feel that I’d best fit the role of a scout or assassin, but I can in theory be a frontline fighter, someone in communications, or a support role.” I answered, thankful to him for being straightforward and letting me leave this god-forsaken room sooner.
He scribbled down something on his clipboard and looked up, “Could you elaborate on how you’d assist in communications?”
“Well, I’m able to create lights of varying colors, sizes, and intensities at a distance, as long my target location is in sight. I can create messages and signs at a distance to send one-way messages to my allies.” I elaborated.
After jotting down a few more things, he abruptly stood up and said, “Alright, we’ll have you marked down as a speed-focused assassin with communication and debuffing skills. We’ll have your id within a day; thank you for your time.” He proceeded to open the door for me which I walked through, surprisingly not tense from the interview. After making it back to Deimos, I turned to see the red-haired man glaring holes into the back of the blue-haired on as he walked away.
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Grabbing my attention, Deimos asked, “How’d it go?”
“Hm? Well, my training in the DME handled all the difficult parts. All I had to do was tell him what role I was best suited for. He’s going to have me put up as a combat-focused scout with communication and support skills.” I explained.
After a few moments of thought, Deimos noted some things about his own experience with role-assignment.
“When I became a ranker in the DME, they forced us to choose a role. There weren’t set roles per say, but there were definitely ones more common than others, and the DME wanted you to choose something easier to train you on. While I could’ve been something like an illusion-based evasion tank that went stealth first into battle, something that nonsensical, uncommon, and different from what I did well was a good way to get fired on the spot.”
“That… makes sense. Oh, he also mentioned something about an id?” I mentioned.
“Right. It’s something so people can recognize you as a professional as well as see your overall capabilities. Well, they’re probably putting your information in now, and that shouldn’t take too long. While they’re doing that, let’s go look at what jobs there are; you may not have a physical id, but the digital ones are uploaded quite quickly. With that, it’d be best to get a head start on paying back some of your debt.”
When he said that, I’d been expecting a quest board from a game or novel, but instead, I wound up in front of an atm-like machine. As soon as I got close, a small camera on its top lit up blue, and after a few moments, it flashed green twice before winking out. The machine booted up with the screen suddenly flashing blue as a few words flashed by faster than I could read.
Suddenly, a picture of me appeared with various points about my age, magic, general info, skills, and role. It shrunk into an undetailed icon of a badge in the top right while the screen changed to look like that of a very old computer. There were various shortcuts along the left side, and Deimos guided me to double click the magnifying glass icon.
“Wow, it really does get uploaded quickly.” I mumbled, shocked at the sheer speed with which they turned me into a bounty hunter.
There was a built-in mechanical keyboard and mouse below the screen that I used to navigate through the windows before me. When I clicked on the magnifying glass, it pulled up a white page with a search bar in the center that looked quite similar to an old Google design. Deimos told me to type “bounties,” and after, I was pulled to a page consisting of nothing but a grid of various bounties with basic descriptors, titles, and other such things to help the viewer understand the basis of what was being asked.
Though, looking at them, something they all held in common was a ten star rating below each image.
Feeling the need to satiate my curiosity, I glanced over my shoulder and asked, “Hey, Deimos, what’s with these stars?”
“Hm? Oh, those? Those are how difficulty is rated in more casual fields. It’s based off of the DME’s number rating system that’s more precise. The star rating system is on a scale from one to ten in increments of half stars or point five. The higher the star rating is, the more difficult the bounty. There isn’t a limit up to what rank you can take, but you should stay within a half star of your level.” Deimos explained.
“My level?”
He nodded, “Yeah, your level. It popped up when your id appeared. Exit this page and click the icon in the bottom right corner.”
I did as I was instructed and the screen from earlier appeared. Looking right below my name and role, there were eight and a half outlines of stars and one and a half filled-in stars.
“One point five? Really?”
“We all gotta start somewhere.” Deimos shrugged.
Grumbling at my apparent weakness, I went back to the bounty page and asked, “So what should I pick?”
“There’s a series of three lines stacked atop each other in the top left. It’ll pull up some ways to narrow down the search. Limit the results to being within one star. You should start at a lower level as you’re new to this.”
“Aaaaaaaalriiiiightt.” I slowly said, drawing the word out, only finishing it once the page refreshed.
The list of bounties, once having been extensive and uncountable, was now reduced to five pages worth of results. After a few minutes of scrolling through the many, many options, Deimos pointed at one and said, “Wait. Take a look at this one.”
From what I read after pulling it up, I would have to track down a thief and capture them alive. The person who put this up was some farmer whom’s cart of cabbages was destroyed. The person who did the destroying had silver hair that was tied into a long ponytail. They were caucasian and wore a ragged set of a black hoodie and black shorts. When they ran away, supposedly, strings stretched out from their fingers, wrapped around a few of the cabbages, and yo-yoed the vegetables to them. They were last seen on Hale Road a few blocks down. From other reports, they’ve also been known to frequent Bezos Street. The mission had to be completed within five days.
“You sure?” I asked, straining my head to see Deimos as he stood behind me.
He nodded, “I’m sure. It’s a simple subduing and tracking mission within your level. The target’s magic doesn’t seem to be too powerful, and it’ll help to teach you some basics in bounty hunting.”
“If you say so.” I mumbled and clicked on the “accept” button at the bottom right of the page.
With a quickly-filled loading bar and a small ding and chime, the bounty was accepted, and I moved on with the next subject.
“So, where do we head now?”
Deimos smirked, “I don’t know; where? It’s not my mission.”
… Oh, so that’s how it is.
“Okay, okay. If that’s the case, then let’s head to Hale Road.” I announced confidently, spinning on my heel to face the exit and leave.
Deimos wordlessly followed, not even uttering a single peep. That was fine by me. I’d need to focus on this anyway.
First I started going down the street, but soon realized that this would take an annoyingly long amount of time. Looking around, I spotted an alleyway I recognized as leading in the general direction I needed to go. There was also a set of hoverboards up for use.
Smirking, I reached into one of the many pockets of my cloak, pulling out some money to rent a hoverboard. When I turned around to head to the alley, I caught Deimos looking at me with an eyebrow raised. He let out a low chuckle and rented a second hoverboard, following me into the alley.
As soon as the hoverboard was on the ground with me on it, I flew, the familiar smells and air quality as well as the darkness embracing me had me suddenly fall back into my old habits.
Crouching lower onto the hoverboard to reduce drag, my brain mapped out the area in front of me, and I deftly maneuvered through the darkness, twisting and turning down the gloomy maze of the city.
In fifteen minutes or so, I rocketed from the darkness and came to a sudden stop on Hale Road. I deactivated the hoverboard and pocketed it, looking around. Hale Road was a huge commercial district in the city, and it showed it. Stalls and stands and carts galore dotted the long road, a mix of products that had enough diversity to put any Walmart to shame.
Looking around, I realized I wouldn’t be able to see anything past the colorful tents, stalls, and people. I needed a better vantage point.
I glanced up and saw the towering buildings surrounding the road, and an idea came to me. A stupid, dumb, and poorly thought-out plan came to me. The intrusive thought won.
I aimed my arm at the top of the shortest building and let magic run through me and my gear.
In a sudden lurch, I was launched from my feet at high speeds towards my target. The tongue only managed to reach halfway up the three story building, but that was high enough that fear struck my heart with an icy pulse of blood. Still, I took the reins on my fear and nerves, all while twisting around in the air, so when I landed perpendicular to the wall, I was crouched down with knees bent from the impact.
I carefully controlled my magic output, keeping the tongue short enough so I don’t plummet, but short enough that I can crouch down. Plus, my shoes managed to get decent traction on the rough concrete wall, making the whole situation a lot easier.
Then, carefully, I slowly crawled up the wall to the roof through a combination of wall climbing and my gear’s capabilities. Once on the roof, I perched there and looked down, seeing Deimos staring back up at me with a shocked expression.
While looking three stories down from the edge of a building might’ve been fun for others, a bead of sweat rolled down my face because of the crazy bullshit I just pulled. Keeping an iron tight grip on the roof out of fear of falling off, I looked over the market. There, I saw a commotion break out as, in a glint of silver hair, someone went running off.
Bingo.