The docks of Ovespuerte were full and bustling with merchant ships across the oceans. From the Diamond Shore’s armed trade galleons from the Exiled Coasts of the Free Continent, the caravels of Torregorn’s neighbors and their trade bases from the Golden Triangle, and the dhows from the Golden Triangle and the Beastkin continent of Lemuria. Stalls of every color and goods of every kind lined the streets next to the docks. The strategic location of Ovespuerte stands next to the subcontinent of Trislan’s maritime trade routes, and it is in this city where the power of the Contiearl of the Commerros, Torresso Commero, is most visible.
A patrol of [Guards] was marching in one of its streets, spears slung on their backs, swords sheathed in their scabbards, and two [Mages] wielding wands. They wore the colors of the Commerro, the blue and yellow threads of their gambesons. They had stopped in front of an [Trader]'s headquarters: a two-story dilapidated building next to an intersection of roads. They were workers there, carving wood to make boxes and stools to sell, and selling the barrels of fish sauce from Ascogres. The signboard read: Gildin Trading.
A blond man with a sheathed broadsword, a veteran of many battles, had already noticed the men and women marching toward their base. As one of the informal leaders of Gildin Trading, he marshaled the remnants of his Severed Swords and told the newer employees to hide somewhere in the building.
Graten Haovel faced the leader of the [Soldiers], who stared at him like scum under the wooden piers of Ovespuerte’s waters.
"Can I help you?"
Graten bifurcated the bearded man standing in front of him, planning his first strike. The [Guard Captain] sensed a fraction of killing intent, yet he spoke.
"In the name of Contiearl Commerro, this building will be confiscated under the divine law of the Amithrales Charter."
"Confiscated? Why?"
"The [Trader]'s Numisley and Cultrost Gilidin broke the Commerro’s contract. Leave the premises."
The harsh declaration stumped the [Sword Captain]. If they lose this building, they will not have anywhere to live. The Severed Swords leaving home will be in vain.
“We won’t leave this building without Numisley and Cultrost Gildin,” Graten spoke, after a moment of consideration. The [Guard Captain] raised a hand, prompting those under his command to point their spears toward Graten and the rest of the people within the building. Crossbows emerged from the upper shutters of the building and were already looking down at the [Guards] from below.
Some observant people in the ambling crowd had edged away from the standoff, having an inkling of how it may end. Graten realized that resisting will make everything worse, especially in unfamiliar territory.
“Everyone! Surrender!”
The members of the Severed Swords that held the crossbows from above hesitantly lowered it. The [Guard Captain] confiscated Graten’s sword and tied his hands tight with rough rope. Soon, the [Guards] arrested everyone within the building, without an idea why. Their captors didn’t give any justification other than “their employers broke their lord’s contract”.
Soon, the [Guards] herded them like sheep, tied in a line in a shameful procession, flanked by Comerrean [Guardsmen]. The zealous crowd threw rotten fruit, stones, and dirt at them. They see the criminal as the worst fate in their religion. As soon as they were in the Commerro’s castle, their clothes were wet and caked with dirt. The thrown stones bruised their skin and their dignity.
From one of the castle’s stables, a noble with viridescent flowing hair and a hint of fatigued plastered on his mature face, still wearing his enchanted green-and-blue panoply of war dismounted from his horse, guarded by his retinue of [Knights]. His [Servants] removed his jade-tinted metal helmet and unbuckled his etched cuirass with reverence.
He turned towards the presence that he sensed. He saw Graten in ropes with his gleaming amber eyes. His curiosity propelled him forward to the detained [Sword Captain], whose prowess bled from his nascent Aura. One of his Feats, ingrained in his eyes, saw how proficient Graten is.
“What is this?”
He asked the [Guard Captain] escorting the prisoners.
“They are workers of the [Traders] who broke the laws of our lord.”
“One of them is…good. Release him.”
“My lord?”
“Give him his sword and armor too. A potion if he’s injured. I want to see how good he is.”
One of the [Knights] from his entourage stepped beside his lord.
“My lord, you must be famished from the war. Crossing blades with a criminal will surely sully your blade.”
“Nonsense.” The noble dismissed. “I’m still full of energy. On what exact basis of the Divine Decree were they arrested for in the Amithrales Charter anyway?”
His fierce eyes turned towards the [Guard Captain] who only followed orders.
“I-I was following orders, my lord.” The [Guard Captain] stuttered, failing to hide his panic.
“Nonsense. A good enforcer of the Divine Decree must know every law he administers upon the commoners. Where is my father anyways?”
“He’s in Ascolitica. Business, I heard.”
“I see.” The scion sighed. He had an inkling of the situation. “Throw them to the dungeon, except for this man.”
Graten gawked at the noble who freed him. He even ordered his men to give Graten his sword and help him up.
“Are you tired? Do you need a stamina potion?” The noble asked.
“No. W-why? Do you really intend to free me?” Graten asked.
“I do not believe that I was informed of your whole story. I must ask my father to see if you are a sinner or not. So I do not intend to free you, not yet. I want to see how good you are. I sensed that you may be worth my while so that I could learn a Feat or hopefully an Art from you.”
A battle-maniac. Graten had encountered some of them when he was still a rank-and-file mercenary. They were either the most suicidal [Fighters] out there or the most skilled. Or even both, like many of the Elven Deathseeker companies or some of the Titled.
“I’m no battle maniac nor warmonger.” The noble read Graten’s mind with a Feat. “I seek the art of arms. To triumph against the odds and gain Feats and Arts to be better than yesterday. Further from where my talent goes.”
Graten was not as well-versed in the local language as Cultrost and Numisley had become, much less the accent that the noble spoke. Yet he inferred the intent from some words he could understand.
“If you defeat me in this duel, I will set your people free. If not, you will remain imprisoned.”
Graten nodded. He straightened himself, slightly stretching his limbs. He slightly lowered his knees and lowered his sword to a Fool’s Guard stance. Whatever it takes to get them free.
The noble gracefully unsheathed his thin leaf-green cutlass with his right hand. The crystalline metal holds a blue sheen, and the blade is as slender as a cutlass is allowed to be. Graten saw his left hand hovering over a holster that held a gilded master-crafted El-Miran pistol.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“On my name as Viscounti Verrespadion Balucor-Commerro, this duel will be under the jurisdiction of the Decree of Pacts. My promise shall be sworn in blood no matter the result.” Verrespadion swore an oath before the duel. “Give me your name.”
“Graten Haovel.” Graten blurted, clueless of the religious tradition the noble invoked.
He saw Verrespadion activate a Feat, its letters burned blue in the air for a moment. A vertical pressurized blade of air accelerated towards Graten from his opponent’s downward swing, which he sidestepped, but he heard two deafening cracks that resound throughout the castle, and he smelled the sulfur from the smoke from the flintlock pistol’s barrel; what he knew as “toxic gold” due to its rarity. With his [Heightened Reflexes], he saw the two bullets flying toward him.
Instinctively, he spoke his only Sword Art. His blade shone under the sunlight, which turned into a wet silvery arc that partially disintegrated the two bullets. Their fragments almost blinded Graten, scoring scratches on his face. Yet, Verrespadion had already bypassed Graten’s blade with a smile. From below, he swung.
“–Art: The Wave Rises].”
Verrespadion’s green blade soared, roaring like the rising waves. Graten felt the salty dew on his skin as several cuts etched themselves on his torso and his skin. The [Sword Captain] stumbled and before he regained his balance, a green blade gently kissed Graten’s nape.
“Get me a healing potion!”
Verrespadion steadied Graten, who now realized that he had utterly lost. He stared at the son of the Commerrros in disbelief, as his years of battle experience had amounted to nothing in this duel. He let Graten sit at a wooden bench near the stables, as the [Servants] carefully poured drops of healing potions on his wounds.
“Teach me that Art.”
Verrespadion was still jittering from the excitement of the duel. Graten found his questioning disconcerting.
“Gaining this Art was an accident.”
Yet that was the partial truth.
“‘Moontear Blade’, huh. It’s reminiscent of many moon-Themed Blade Arts out there.” The second-eldest son of the Commerros thought out loud.
“So I'll be thrown in the dungeon.” Graten resigned.
“A temporary state of affairs. When my father arrives, I’ll ask him about your situation.”
Graten was later tied with an even tighter rope. He was tightly guarded, as the [Guards] led him to the dungeon. With contempt, the five jailers tossed him in his cell. It was only lit by a barred slit that let the light from aboveground in. He was alone, aside from the dew in the grim ceiling and the dew on the stone brick walls.
Without his sword, he could not cut through the thick metal bars of his cell with his Feats. Even if he did have Feats that enable him to punch the bars in half, he suspected that it will not work. He knew prisons with their [Wardens] have ways to disable Feats and Martial Arts that enable prisoners to escape.
This leaves him room to wonder if he made the right choice of following Numisley to another continent. A land of Humans, yet as unfamiliar as the southern lands of El-Mira that he only heard of from stories and rumors when his former company battled the colonists from that continent.
Everything he did was for the Severed Swords. His remaining family. They were making enough money for them to hope they'll have a better life here. He wondered what if Numisley didn’t find out about his heritage; that if he only continued being a [Trader] with his company. They would've only earned more money
until they were able to retire.
The sunlight dimmed before Graten's eyes, who sat dejected within his cell. Sunlight soon turned to moonlight that shone on his eyes. The moonlight reminded him of his Blade Art, reminding him that he neglected his quest to get stronger ever since they had arrived in Torregorn. Negligent, not neglected. Along with Palden, the loyal [Wagon Coach] of the Gildin Brothers, they had supervised the general duties and the employees under Gildin Trading.
In this idle moment, he thought about practicing. His hands twitched, remembering that he doesn't have a stick to practice with, much less a sword. Regardless of that fact, he stood up, pressing his foot forwards in a stance. In his mind, a solid sword appeared, without weight. In front of him was a vague outline of a person, holding a phantom spear.
He swung. Hitting nothing. Holding nothing but empty air in his hands. Again, he swung. With more care, with the ponderous lowering of his arms, correcting minute mistakes in his posture and form. Sweaty, he bathed under the subtle radiance of the moonlight.
Again he swung. Night after night, he swung a nonexistent sword, drenched in sweat, releasing his frustration as the days go by, bewildering his captors who watched beyond the bars.
-
A few days later after that incident, Raudaeiz and his gang arrived in Ovespuerte and found the Gildin Trading headquarters empty, bereft of life. He ordered his five men to search the whole building, finding the unfinished and unvarnished crates and stools. Tools were scattered across the floor as if the workers were interrupted.
“Where the fuck is Graten, even…”
Raudaeiz's first instinct is to head to Numisley’s associate, Thewardn, assuming that he was still in Ovespuerte. He ordered the rest of his gang to run his errands within the city. He snaked through the alleyways until they find the safehouse door, still blanketed with illusion magic. He knocked on the metal door, prompting Thewardn to peek at the door’s slit.
“What are you doing here?” Thewardn instantly recognized one of Numisley’s lackeys.
“I need information,” Raudaeiz asked.
“In.”
They promptly entered Thewardn’s safehouse to talk. Thewardn sat on his padded chair, leaning forwards on his table padded with documents.
“How’s Numisley?” Thewardn asked about Numisley’s business in Ascolitica.
“We left before Numisley did his thing,” Raudaeiz asked.
“So, you didn’t know why the brothers’ employees were arrested?
“Arrested?”
“You don’t know? I have no idea what Numisley has done to anger the Contiearl. His own [Soldiers] came to arrest everyone in their building.”
Raudaeiz thought about what would happen if this situation gets worse. He would not have any way of exacting his revenge on his father without Numisley.
“I would want to help an associate, a son of a friend, but I can’t go against a noble. Not without enough context on what’s going on, anyway.”
Raudaeiz dropped a small sack of silver coins on Thewardn’s table.
“How about helping me for now?”
Although Raudaeiz cannot directly ask for sensitive information about certain gangs within Ovespuerte, he could ask for related information about them. While Numisley and Cultrost had managed their legitimate business, selling wooden goods and fish sauce from Ascogres, he had been building up his gang, bit by bit.
He paid Thewardn for information about the general areas of influence of every local gang. With this information, he had extrapolated where should he build their own safe house, which is a nondescript, rotting house near Ovespuerte’s Est Provés district, near the location of Joerze Estrar’s smuggling den, meticulously placing themselves in the unclaimed territory between two larger local gangs: the “Strervi” and “Jiaz” gangs.
With Gildin Trading’s headquarters compromised, he and the rest of his crew opted to bunk in a small house in the poorer area of the city. They bought the abandoned house from a squatter for coppers. From this house, they had recruited people from the slums: mostly young men bereft of opportunities with the unfair laws imposed on them that entrapped them in debt and poverty. Not only that, but they had defeated tiny local gangs with only five of them and recruited the defeated members who saw them as a better chance to make it big.
These teenagers, adolescents, and young adults were instructed to steal from marks selected by Raudaeiz: [Traders] without any significant connection, average people, and most important of all, other smaller gangs. Their successful thefts were only made possible with Raudaeiz’s Feats under his [Gang Leader] Role. [Lowlife Recruitment], [Gang: One Successful Theft], [Locate Mark], and such Feats had helped Raudaeiz build his new gang.
From what Raudaeiz gathered, the other gangs in the district often cooperated with some of the foreign [Merchants] to smuggle certain goods such as hallucinogenic plants and aphrodisiacs from Libertalia. On a certain night in one of Raudaeiz’s investigations, he saw a ship on the furthest docks of Ovespuerte that bore the flag of the four diamonds on a crescent-shaped shore, shaped akin to a lower jaw: the Diamond Shore Corporation, one of the Five Corporations of Libertalia. On that night, he saw a silver-legged [Pirate] or [Captain] meeting with what looked like one of the local gangs.
Witnessing that meeting prompted Raudaeiz to be more careful with selecting his marks, making sure that they did not steal someone associated with Diamond Shore or any of their agents.
Yet, someone had knocked at their door in a haunting rhythm. Raudaeiz and his gang were sure that they hired five of the kids to warn them of an unwanted visitor. Although their shutters locked shut with Raudaeiz’s [Safehouse: Lockdown], the wooden shutters creaked, as if they were groaning under a great weight pressing on them. Before they knew it, their knives and cudgels were already in their trembling hands.
“Raudaeiz Jaucles. The Diamond Shore–and I know that you are snooping ‘round.”
A hoarse voice spoke, his voice pervading like the smoke now creeping between the gaps of their shutters. They recognized the voice’s seaborne accent; which is rough, curt, and candid.
“Next time, I will come for you.”
Minutes of silence passed until they realized that the person was gone. Texion, the only Dragonkin in the crew, elected to open the door. With trembling claws, he slowly opened the door, with a sight so unbelievable that they froze in disbelief. The kids they hired as their first line of detection were knocked cold, arrayed in a crescent on the ground. One of them jolted awake after Texion kicked him, assuring them that they are still alive.
Raudaeiz wiped the sweat off his hands, before scolding them for their failure. The next day, Numisley and Cultrost Gildin finally arrived at Ovespuerte.