-16-
[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]
Did my face always look this stressed out?
The modest washroom had a tall wall-mounted mirror. Though it was quite worn with time; a severe crack splintered its way diagonally from the upper-left corner, it was a welcome luxury.
It was the reason I was now sitting here cross-legged, poking at my face.
I squished the skin around my cheeks.
These wrinkles were not here before… Are these even wrinkles?
The ‘wrinkles’ in question, had not been present a few days ago.
At least I didn’t think so.
My younger sister had mentioned them before heading to bed just a few hours ago.
And now I’ve been staring at my face since then.
If you were to glance at my face quickly, you’d never even notice. But now that I’ve seen them, its the only thing my attention is drawn to.
A faint undertone along the creases of my skin.
Dark.
A crimson color, like a blood-orange.
Capricorn…
I muttered under my breath, “…that damned Goddess. What did she do to my face?”
“Did you say something, Commander?”
A young woman poked her head in to the washroom. One of the new guards who had been sent over from the Citadel by Luke.
After the disappearance of the void-caster and the threat she presented if she was still somewhere in the city gave plenty of reasons to stay wary. So, Tolin was now in a heightened protection condition, essentially a lock-down.
The two-guard post at our manor tripled, now there were four new guards patrolling around the inside and outside of the grounds.
“Oh, no, sorry! I’m just working through something that’s bothering me. Don’t pay me any mind.”
“My apologies for disturbing you, My Lady.”
“It’s alright. I was just thinking I would take a walk to try and clear my head. Would you like to accompany me?”
“If that is what your orders are, Commander.”
“Well it’s not an order exactly, but I’m sure standing guard over me sitting in front of a mirror for the last hour has been awfully boring. A change of scenery can’t hurt.”
"As you say, My Lady."
Not sure I like this 'my lady' thing we've got going. But it's better than hearing ‘Commander this’ and ‘Commander that’.
I crept my way through the barely lit manor halls towards the main room. In the darkness of night and most of the lights dimmed or extinguished, this place was much spookier than I was prepared for.
No. I didn't invite the guard on my walk because I was afraid to go alone.
Scared?
Nope. Not me.
No way…
A banging noise echoed loudly through the house, coming from somewhere outside.
"—eeeee!"
My guard jumped ahead of me, weapon brandished at the ready.
"Keep back! I'll check out that noise."
She ran ahead of me before I could say anything.
Which was lucky. No way she saw my legs trembling.
Huh?
Am I scared?
Nooooope.
There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for high-pitched wailing and loud banging in the middle of the night.
Not a chance it could be a ghost or angry spirit.
Especially in a city that was terrorized by demons forty years ago, where all its citizens were slaughtered, and then their bodies were used in a terrible macabre fashion to create a throne room for an Archdemon.
Ghosts definitely don't haunt places over little reasons like that.
"My Lady! Please come quickly!"
Ooooh if it's ghosts I'm gonna lose it…
I followed after the guard, finding her just inside the foyer kneeling over a pair of other guards.
Both of them had deep cuts in their chest plates, but appeared fine otherwise. One of them looked to have hit his head on the wall paneling, and was out cold. The other looked like he was in a state of shock.
He couldn't quite form any coherent words, but pointed towards the hall that led to the eastern wing of the manor.
I jumped up to the window that looked out to the entryway.
No guards were visible.
The creak of wooden floorboards drew my attention and I whipped around to find an almost naked Julius stumbling out of his room.
Sword drawn, shield ready. And that was it.
No shirt. No shoes.
Just a mostly nude man rushing out of his room. If it weren't for a loose pair of shorts covering his lower portions, I would have screamed.
“Are you kidding me!?”
I hissed up at the idiot of a man that was my best friend.
“Airis, what’s with all the noise? Some of us are trying to sleep—Did you beat up those guards?”
“No I did not beat up the guards! Would you please go find some pants at the very least?”
The poor guardswoman who had been accompanying me had sneaked around behind me, and now was covering her face.
“The rest of the guards are missing, I assume they chased after an intruder down the eastern hall.”
Looking over to the guard who had been pointing, he clamored to his feet.
“M-my name is Haldin,” the guard stammered quickly, “I’m just an Adept. Kliff and I had just started our shifts when some weird girl walked through the door. She didn’t make any sense when we challenged her.”
“Kliff is the one knocked down, I’m guessing?”
Julius had descended the stairs.
Put some pants on for the Goddesses sake!
He must have sensed I was glaring at the back of his head, as Julius turned back to me.
“They were taken to be washed. I only had the one uniform.”
I sighed in defeat.
“Fine, I’ll drop it.”
“You two, with us. Stay close and keep quiet.”
Julius motioned for us to follow and headed down the dark corridor.
With me in the rear we walked single-file down the hall. We stopped at two rooms which were on the way.
Julius and the two guards rushed in quietly and cleared them, before moving forward.
At the end of the eastern wing was a large open room. Where the hallway ended, stone pillars started; running the length of the room on both sides.
The back wall had been cleared away already, but before we moved in apparently it was furnished with a large desk and some bookshelves.
Now, it was just an empty space.
Well, empty if not for the bodies of the three remaining guards.
The western facing wall had a double-door that led out to an inner courtyard.
Both doors were wide open, the cold breeze wafted in.
Julius rushed outside, but leapt back inside with a shout.
“Shit that’s cold!”
Two bare foot imprints were visible in the ground outside. Settled in freshly fallen snow.
I checked the three downed guards, to find that they were all still alive.
If this intruder was the same black-clad woman who attacked us earlier, her blood-thirsty attitude had changed.
She didn’t hesitate to attack both rangers atop the gatehouse. But the guards here were knocked unconscious and weren’t wounded.
“My Lady, there’s something here.”
In the moonlight from an exterior window a blue rose sat upright leaning against a rolled paper note.
The black-stemmed rose had been pruned so that no thorns remained on the vine.
There is no way this is just a coincidence…
Hikita, the Azure Rose.
Hastily written—No, more like it written by a hand that was conflicted about what to write.
A number of, what seemed like, mistakes or misspellings dotted the page. But a closer look revealed entire words changing mid sentence.
I held the note up to get the light from outside angled properly so that I could make it out clearly.
Renault won’t stop until yo HERETIC HERETIC HERET
THEOdin was just the first. All vanixIANS MUST DIEDIED I E D I E
forced to attack you no control can’t fight back
HE will send more agents to to to
KILL YOU
“Well, that is certainly unsettling.”
Julius was standing over my shoulder reading the note.
“You know what else is unsettling?”
“What’s that?”
“You. Naked. Standing behind me.”
“I’m not naked naked.”
----------------------------------------
The remainder of the night passed by without incident.
All of the guards at the manor were debriefed at the Citadel and a small division of soldiers was stationed at the manor overnight.
Morning came and I called for an assembly of the lowercore officers. Hailey and I were waiting in the Citadel’s Commander’s Quarters.
“They’ve got to be ready. Right, Airis? I mean, it’s been hours.”
“Maybe. But Julius would’ve come to get me if they were. I don’t wanna rush this. I need everyone here so we can transition smoothly.”
“Pwaaah!” Hailey let out a dramatic sigh.
“You’re just antsy because you missed all the excitement last night.”
“You should have woken me up!”
“I told you, we didn’t know anything was up until it was too late.”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Hmph.”
“Plus, Rias probably would’ve woken up too. And I don’t want her to have to worry about our security here.”
A much more reserved sigh from across the room indicated I had won this small battle.
“Fiiine. Can we go over this whole thing again? I’m still concerned about how this meeting is gonna work.”
“Sure.”
I unpacked a mess of papers from a binder I’d stowed away in my backpack.
Behind the mess of scribbling, scratch-outs, and lines connecting blocks of text; was a detailed plan to restructure elements of our military.
“If the note from Hikita was genuine, which, despite that it looks like the insane ramblings of someone whose gone off the deep end, I believe that it is. The Renaultians are going to continue to attack us. For whatever reason…”
“Anyway. We need to have some people in play that can move outside the rigid structure of the standard Divisional Army. If we have all of our soldiers on the lookout for suspicious characters we’ll end up turning into a totalitarian government—What? What did I say?”
A soured look from Hailey stopped me short.
“I get all that! The meeting! I’m confused about the meeting.”
“Oh, sorry!”
I shuffled my notes forward to a list of bulleted points.
“So, we’re going to start it off with a promotions ceremony. The officers involved should be up to speed before we start and have the proper insignia. Their troops will have been told to come here on standby.”
“And then after that? That’s the part I have troubles with.”
“After that, I’m going to go over the formation of a new branch of the Empire.”
“Uh huh. I just don’t think it makes any sense.”
“Whadda’ mean it makes no sense?”
She pressed her fingers against her temple.
“I mean, just do the promotions and then make an announcement. Say that there’s some new Division and name the people who will be joining. Then we’ll retire back here with everyone and be detailed there.”
“You’re worried if it’s safe to explain the purpose of the Order to our officers?”
“We shouldn’t expose our cards this early, is all.”
I tapped my fingers over the stack of papers.
“Hmmm.”
The doors to the chamber opened and Julius entered, followed by two uniformed officers.
“Alright, Ladies. We’re ready out there.”
“Think it over, Airis. It’s your call, but just keep an open mind.”
“Thanks, Hails.”
The first-half of the ceremony went by pretty quickly.
Julius gave a quick opening narrative with the usual military customs, thanking everyone for coming, explaining the key notes, et cetera.
A few divisional members received promotions based on merit during the last few battles, but the majority were to fill gaps in the command chain and replace key positions left empty from mortalities.
All of the participants who were up for promotions had been in formation near the left of the main stairway, if you were looking out into the assembled crowd.
The last of the soldiers who were under the command of the general assembly had been presented their new rank insignia.
Only three soldiers remained standing at attention.
I ascended the stairs to the middle landing, which was being used as the ceremony stage.
It was my turn to perform, as those three soldiers were mine. The first of them, was grinning like an idiot from ear to ear.
In a typical ceremony like this, he would have been the first to be presented his new rank. But since his promotion was going to be in-tandem with another announcement, I made alterations to the standard procedure.
“High-Protector Julius Adaemus, step forward and present yourself to the assembly.”
Julius marched quickly past the front of the crowd and joined me on the landing.
He clicked his heels and saluted; right arm snapping tightly to his chest.
I returned the salute and we both switched to a resting position.
Hailey took a place at the center of the stairs, below the landing and read out from a script I had prepared for her. It was mostly standard, but like Julius’ promotion there was some alterations.
“Attention to orders. Julius Adaemus is promoted to the permanent rank of Commander, effective immediately. Under the authority of the Vanixian Empire, Commander Julius Adaemus will assume command of the newly formed, Order of the Scarlet Wing.”
The applause from the crowd was in disarray at the mention of the new order being founded.
A sea of confused faces looked to me for an explanation.
“Commander Adaemus, You are hereby recognized by the Empire.”
I removed Julius’ old insignia from his uniform collar, replacing them with the golden phoenixes of the Commander’s rank.
“I, Julius Adaemus, swear to defend and avenge the Empire of Light. With allegiance to the same, I shall perform the duties of my Order. By the Goddesses.”
Another pair of salutes from the two of us, and Julius about-faced and took a position along the front-row.
“Crusader Alistaire Alcotts, step forward and present yourself to the assembly.”
Alistaire marched past Hailey and joined me. We exchanged salutes and Hailey read out another sheet I had prepared.
“Attention to orders. Alistaire Alcotts is hereby commissioned as an officer in service to the Vanixian Empire, and promoted to the permanent rank of Knight-Lieutenant, effective immediately. Under the authority of the Vanixian Empire, Knight-Lieutenant Alcotts will fall under the command of the Order of the Scarlet Wing.”
“Knight-Lieutenant Alcotts, You are hereby recognized by the Empire.”
Alistaire could not keep himself from smiling as I replaced the Crusader's silver sword insignia with the gold chevron designating a Knight-Lieutenant.
“I, Alistaire Alcotts, swear to defend and avenge the Empire of Light. With allegiance to the same, I shall perform the duties of my Order. By the Goddesses.”
I hid a grin as Alistaire copied Julius’ concocted oath.
I realized that neither of the boys would be familiar with the typical officer’s oath, and so Julius should have caught them up to speed before the ceremony.
It was obvious he took some liberties with his proteges.
Julius had given his with such sincerity that it caught me off guard. Neither Hailey or I had coached him to come up with a new oath for the Order.
I liked it though.
We saluted and Alistaire went to join Julius in formation.
The next, and last, one up had me worried. I prayed he could overcome his lacking socialities to get through.
“Crusader Soren Jameson, step forward and present yourself to the assembly.”
Soren marched up to the landing. His pace was slower than the previous two.
I could tell he was putting a lot of effort to keep his balance while displaying the rigid military posture. If I didn’t know about his leg injury, I might not have noticed the slight favoring of his right side and minor gait impediment.
Hailey read from her last page after Soren and I dropped our salutes.
“Attention to orders. Soren Jameson is hereby commissioned as an officer in service to the Vanixian Empire, and promoted to the permanent rank of Knight-Lieutenant, effective immediately. Under the authority of the Vanixian Empire, Knight-Lieutenant Jameson will fall under the command of the Order of the Scarlet Wing.”
“Knight-Lieutenant Jameson, You are hereby recognized by the Empire.”
I took my time removing the silver sword pins from his collar, and gently wiped each chevron with a polishing rag before pinning them onto Soren.
Alright kiddo, that’s as much time as I can buy for you. Steel those nerves of yours and lets have it.
In a quiet voice, probably barely audible from the front row, Soren gave his oath.
“I, Soren Jameson, swear to defend and avenge the Empire of Light and its Empress. With allegiance to the same, I shall perform the duties of my Order. By the Goddesses.”
You cheeky boy.
I couldn’t hide the wide smile on my face as I saluted him back.
Soren about-faced and joined Alistaire and Julius, both of which were trying to fight to keep their bearing.
“Alright everyone. That wraps up the promotions. If your name is called, please head up the stairs and go directly to the Commander’s Quarters. Otherwise, you’re dismissed. Commander Adaemus, Knight-Lieutenants Mitchel, Alcotts, and Jameson, Paladin Vynn…”
The chamber door was closed after I walked in.
While the room was filled mostly with people who had been in Hailey’s inner circle already. There were a few exceptions for those who knew some of the details about what was going on.
One of which, was Waystrider Tomin, who turned out to have been a member of the Second Division. He had joined with Hailey’s group as they left the city.
He was at least aware of Hikita, and would be a valuable asset since he was also assigned to city patrols.
Officially only Julius, Alistaire, and Soren were members of the Order for now. But I gave Julius instructions to bring in any new members as he saw fit.
Anyone in attendance today was a potential recruit.
“Thank you all for joining. I know today has already been pretty eventful, and that some of you have duties this evening with the memorial ceremonies…”
I unfolded a few large maps and placed them on a center table, trying my best to smooth out the creased edges.
Some of the people gathered close as I placed down a few markers.
The main map was a detailed sprawl of the city of Tolin. Salvaged from the storage room by one of Luke’s lackeys.
Five markers were positioned across the city.
One at the main gate. Another at the location of the manor I was calling home.
[https://i.imgur.com/9fssVGg.png]
The other three marked the Citadel, the central tower of the market district, and the final one was along the outer walls; where a portion of the wall was crumbling.
“Each of these markers represents a major congregation of our military assets. We will be coordinating city-wide patrols from these five locations in a cross-city net. Luke has the detailed shift schedules and assignments.”
“I wanted to address the reason behind the escalation in protection condition and the need for the elevated military presence. Some of you may be aware of the void magick aligned caster who was present in the brigand
group that attacked the main gate last night. But you probably are unaware that the same assailant broke into the manor I’m staying at.”
Minor ripples of confusion ran through those gathered together.
“Obviously, I wasn’t hurt. And surprisingly, none of the guards were injured badly. The woman’s choice to not kill any of them seems deliberate. And her purpose was to leave a note.”
“A note?” “Some kind of warning?” “A death threat?”
Murmurs erupted from the crowd.
“Calm down, please. The note was indeed a warning. That the ones behind the brigand attack were the Renaultians. Even with us ran out of Axio, it seems they are still out for blood. Though, the reason isn’t entirely clear.”
“Did that woman decide to turn traitor?”
Tomin’s question was quite direct.
“I’m not sure of that just yet. It looks more like she may be having a conflict… with herself. When I appraised her status during our fight she was suffering from a curse. It’s possible that curse is affecting her judgment in some way.”
Tomin nodded his head slowly as he digested my response.
“So, with that in mind. We need to stay vigilant for new threats. We want the standard core of Divisionals to keep watch externally. There is no need for our military to keep watch over the civilians.”
“That said, we want to be prepared in the event that the Renaultians have agents within the city. So the newly founded Order of the Scarlet Wing will have jurisdiction regarding all internal matters.”
An officer in the back called out, “This new group, is it just those three? How will they be able to police the city with such few numbers?”
Julius stepped up beside me.
“I have full authority to bolster the ranks of the Order. We will follow proper command procedures for unit transfers, of course.”
A few officers had voiced their concerns, but Julius was able to quell any large-scale dissent within the core.
When there were no more questions I dismissed the majority of the attendees, keeping just our inner circle: Julius, Hailey, Luke, Hanna, Soren, and Alistaire.
Two runners were sent to find Mei and Tatsuko.
Although the two of them weren’t within the echelons of the Divisional Officer Core, they were likely to be the most knowledgeable when it came to magickal oddities.
Which, was the next topic on the agenda.
Once the two of them arrived any idle chit-chat was hushed once Luke produced a small leather pouch.
He gently pulled the drawstrings open and tilted the pouch just above the table so that its contents slipped out.
Jagged stones rolled out onto the table. They were dark gray in color with veins of blood-red and orange running through them.
Lines of magicka arced off the jagged edges.
Apparently these had been collected from the battlefield.
None of the soldiers involved had seen the enemy using them during the fight.
So it was assumed that they were created in the aftermath of my CHAOS BOLT storm that annihilated the enemy forces.
Great. Another mystery to ask Capricorn about the next time I see her.
I carefully picked up one of the stones and opened an appraisal interface using OMNISIGHT.
LOOTABLES
ITEM
ATTRIBUTES
DESCRIPTION
UNDEFINED
UNDEFINED
UNDEFINED
The window that opened flashed a single word in each field, ‘UNDEFINED’.
A split-second later, the edges of the window started to fade and the interface disappeared.
In its place was a message that seemingly burned itself into my vision.
» NOTICE: THIS UNKNOWN OBJECT HAS NEVER BEEN APPRAISED BEFORE. NO DATA. CONTACT ORIGINATOR.
“Agh!”
The word ‘UNDEFINED’ rang through my skull as magicka feedback racked me with pain. I dropped the stone back onto the table and grabbed my head with both hands.
“Airis!?”
The room rushed over to me. I quickly regained my senses and waved them away.
Gritting my teeth through the residual pain I reassured them.
“I’m good, I’m good. Damned things are strange. There’s no information when I appraised it. It feels like the spell must have misfired or something… Some message about there being no data, and to contact an originator.”
“Contact an originator?”
“What in the Aether is that supposed to mean?”
Everyone looked to me as if I somehow would know the answer.
It’s not like I have a direct line of communication to the Goddesses so I could ask them for help with every unknown that comes up.
Even if I did, I don’t think they’d just hand out the answers for nothing in exchange.
So far all I’ve done is agreed to their schemes.
I haven’t gotten any favors saved up to redeem for assistance yet.
“Whatever it means and whatever those are, it’s a national secret for now. As far as I’m concerned, they’re volatile and dangerous. Luke, you’re in charge of securing them.”
“Will do, Commander.”
“Tatsuko.”
“Yep?”
“I want you to bring in Dori and Rhia, maybe the two of them will be able to determine if these pose a risk.”
“Sure thing!”
“Make sure you tell them not to use any kind of appraisal magick, I don’t want them to end up getting the same feedback I did.”
“Oooh, yeah that’s a good idea.”
Hopefully our resident master crafters will have better luck. Their years of experience should overcome the short comings of an appraisal spell.