The Mitchells woke up in the common area of the church of hero. There were a group of young acolytes moving around cleaning between the sleeping bodies of warriors. Between the chairs and tables.
[Oh my freaking head.] James said on the interface.
[That was some party.] Kyra put.
[Lucy how did you know so much Norse mythology? We need to track down those two young dudes who were quizzing you on the Bifrost, I’m pretty sure they vowed to spend their lives searching for it and we need to tell them its a story.] Teddy said.
[I don’t know, its just all in my head, I must of heard it in passing back on earth and my recall now is so much better. Don’t worry about those two, they swore to follow one of the other worshipers of hero for the rest of their lives in the same night because of her beauty.]
They made their way out, passing a sleeping Ragnar on the way, still clutching possessively to his barrel even in sleep.
[Fun guy to have around, I wonder if his axe talent matches his drinking talent.] James said.
In the sunny light of day they all felt better, they decided to walk across town to the adventure society. They realised after a while this was a hangover from their time on earth, they realised they had never been told if there were laws like drink driving in Greenstone but decided not to test it.
“Hey, you guys mind if we head to the adventure society campus via the magic society campus? It’s right next to it and there’s a thing I want to see if they have to buy yet.” Lucy asked the others.
“Nice and vague there Lu, how expensive is this ‘thing’?” James asked.
“Well, I’d need to borrow some money as its going go completely clear me out and then some. It’s for the group benefit if that helps?”
“Not a problem, we trust you, just take it out of inventory.” Kyra said.
They made small talk heading through the town, realising they had missed the hubbub of the people in the streets. James was the first one to pick up that they were being followed.
[Two essence users, been following us for three streets. When we stopped to look at the book vendor they pretended to look at clothes.]
[Can you identify them? How did you realise?] Teddy answered.
[err, a little birdy told me?]
[You literally mean a bird don’t you?]
James just responded with a facepalm emoji.
[Can you point them out? I have an idea.] When James casually gestured to the two by adjusting his vambrace Teddy got a good look at them.
He was the only one in the family that had the tactical map as a racial gift, he could share a limited amount of information with the others but he had greater versatility. The function he wanted to test was borrowing a power from Lucy.
Ability: [Telepathy] (Mind)
Special ability
Base cost: Low mana, increasing to high with distance.
Cool-down: Nil
Current rank: Bronze 0 (05%)
Effect (iron): Can initiate mental communication either with those in immediate eye line or by contacts list.
Effect (bronze): Can initiate telepathic communication with anyone within aura effect regardless of line of sight. Can designate targets, allies and points of interest to allies within users aura.
When Lucy used the power to designate targets they saw a red haze over enemies, blue haze over allies and a flashing star-like light on points of interest. The effect followed the designated target, she could even number them if required, no one outside the party could see the effect so the target had no idea. Teddy selected it from Lucy’s essence availability on her tab on the interface.
(Theodore Mitchell) has used the [Telepathy] power from (Lucy Mitchell) [Mind] essence.
[Telepathy] has been used at a lower power than is available to (Lucy Mitchell).
[Telepathy] will Designate targets selected by (Theodore Mitchell) within (Lucy Mitchell)s aura.
[Telepathy] has combined with (Theodore Mitchell)s racial gift [MiniMap]. Targets designated will appear on MiniMap and may be shared with allies.
[Oh hell yeh!] James said as the two essence users fuzzed red to his eyes as it coloured in with red highlighter that glowed and then he checked the shared map on the interface to see the two red dots.
[Too easy, this is going to be so useful.] Teddy said.
They made no action on the two essence users, content to track them on the interface. They stopped at a few more vendors and even went into a store, they managed to weed out one more person following them but no more.
[They’re not very good at this are they?] James said.
[I don’t think we’re in any danger, its broad daylight and there’s only three of them, if you were planning a surprise attack you would use overwhelming odds, two of them are iron rank.] Lucy explained.
[Someone just trying to keep tabs on us then. Bug out plan if we need to shake them will be me and the girls teleporting out, James you’ve had a reset? Good then up to you on either furred or feathered to get away.]
[Nothing we’re doing is secretive, shouldn’t be a problem, just mildly annoying.] Lucy said.
When they got to the magic society campus their tails stopped short, Lucy knew the area well and took them straight to where she needed to go.
“Oh yes Mrs Mitchell, we had two delivered yesterday, one is reserved for the research facilities but you’re welcome to the other.” The portly scholar at the gatehouse told Lucy.
They haggled a bit on price but they both seemed satisfied at the end. The man sent a worker to pull a cart out of a nearby storage room and on it was a bench with multiple apparatus bolted on. When it stopped rolling Lucy looked it over and nodded, she summoned a rune portal and swept it over, swallowing the bench then dissipating.
“Mrs Mitchell, the price was just for the bench…”
Lucy shrugged then summoned a rune portal again, this time at an angle so the cart came out rolling and sent itself into the storage room.
“Very good, a pleasure doing business with you.”
The team made their way out of the courtyard, headed towards the adventure society. They had to pass one of their tails and Kyra stumbled on a loose flagstone and unfortunately fell into the man, the man in turn unfortunately hit his head pretty hard into a high windowsill. Unfortunately the man was only iron rank and Kyra was bronze, and her bronze rank body was a lot denser than her iron rank one so the man was knocked unconscious.
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“Oh dear!” She casually walked on with the others, leaving the man subtly slumped behind a decorative pot. The loose flagstone mysteriously flat in the ground again.
The dot on the MiniMap turned pink instead of the bright red. The team swiftly and innocently moved away without anyone noticing anything. They were making their way towards a canal that ran under a bridge on the street and motes of darkness left Lucy’s left arm, no one noticed the shadow on all fours, the skinny dirty witch making her way into the darkness. As the second man following the team went to follow over the bridge his foot sank straight through the stones that formed the roadway, his illusion of the bridge shattering as he fell headfirst into the water. As the foot traffic crowded round the canal to see the commotion no one noticed the witch move out of the shadow in a cloud of darkness back up into Lucy’s arm as the team kept moving, not paying attention to the man in the water, the second target turned pink.
They made their way through the streets then quickly ducked down an alleyway all of a sudden, they ran quickly before the turn. Just as the bronze ranker who was tailing them ran in after he was confronted by a huge monstrous bear. He back-pedalled in shock almost slipping over on the smooth stone. He turned to flee and was confronted by what looked like an unstable portal, a tear in the fabric of the world taking up the entire end of the alleyway and a sinister robed man walking out of it, a black blade lined in fizzing white energy erupted from his hand ending at the edge of the mans throat as he scrambled to a stop, if the man even swallowed he risked cutting his Adams apple against the blade tip.
“I sometimes lack the subtlety the ladies do. Tell us why you are following us, there are dark realms outside this reality to hide your body no one will ever find.”
“By the gods! I haven’t done anything wrong, let me go I promise I’ll leave you alone!”
There was a shadow moving by the edge of the alley, a pair of eyes, then the moon shape circlet on her head became visible, barely audible she muttered incomprehensible but evil nasty muttering in a language no one knew.
Snakes slithered from behind him, moving to encircle him. Rearing and coiling, hissing and spitting.
“Please, please! My mother… my mother will hear of this!”
A deep bass growl came from the bear that when he glanced over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse off a large dog in the darkest shadow, hackles raised, lips pulled back in a vicious snarl slinking low to the ground on the hunt.
The robed man in front of him raised his left hand, an orb of darkness appeared, the dust in the alley swirled towards it. The light around it seemed to bend and the mans cloak was gently pulled towards it from where he stood terrified.
“Who sent you, then we don’t have to have mummy worried why her son didn’t come home.” Teddy asked in a sinister voice.
“Aah! House Whipparrel has put pressure on my family to keep an eye on you, I am of house Stanfish. Just let me go, I don’t have to tell anyone.”
Abruptly the whole alley changed character. The daylight seemed to snap back on and with it the witch disappeared as if it was a shadow. The bear and the dog had vanished and the snakes had simple puffed into tiny rainbow smoke clouds. The man in front of him suddenly had his hood back and his hands were empty, his three family members had moved to stand at his back at the exit of the alley.
“Tell anyone what? Nothing happened.” Teddy said jovially and they turned and left the alley.
The recovering man could just hear the girls laugh as James said. “Damn, I didn’t think you could still piss yourself at bronze rank!”
They felt better as they made their way into the adventure society campus, they hadn’t observed anyone else following them and felt freer. The campus was still a mess from the day before, the burst stonework and the damage wrought by both monsters and essence powers being thrown about. They went into the administration building and told the new clerk they hadn’t met before that they would like to book an appointment to see the deputy director when he was available.
When they gave their name the clerk looked at them in realisation.
“If you would care to follow me ma’am’s, sirs.” She placed a ‘Be right back’ sign on her desk and walked quickly down the corridor to the main offices. She walked them straight into Vincent Trenslow’s office that had a ‘Do not disturb’ sign hung on the outside. The door was closed immediately behind them.
“Come in quick, quick. There’s people watching all over the place.”
“You think your office is being watched?” James asked.
“Not my office no but there’s a good chance you’re being followed, there’s rumours that the families are making more positive moves about their situation.” He waved them to the seats arrayed around his desk.
The Mitchells all looked at each other slightly guiltily.
“What? What did you do now?!”
“Well we were followed you see…” Kyra tailed off.
“Oh by the gods. Where are the bodies?”
“Damn Vinnie!” Lucy exclaimed. “How bad do you think we are?! We didn’t attack them, there was just that clumsy moment from Kyra where the man tried to catch her, he must’ve been such a gent, will have to thank him when he wakes up. Then there was that silly man by the canal, must not have been looking where he was going, straight into the water like that. Then we saw that poor man having a mental breakdown in the alley, must be so stressful being part of such a prestigious family like the Stanfish family…”
“…the Stanfish family eh? It’s a terrible shame you had to see him as he was having a moment like that.”
“Completely coincidental I’m sure.” Lucy said as Vincent wrote something down and a moment later an assistant came in and took the slip of paper.
“I truly hope you lot will find a home somewhere where you can walk across town without being embroiled in some sort of calamity.”
The team all looked at each other in mock incredulity pointing fingers back and forth until Vincent put his head in his hands.
“Have you come for any other reason other than to try and give me a headache?”
“We think its time to talk about the contract.” Teddy said.
Vincent’s eyes went wide before scrawling another hurried note, the assistant somehow knew that he had and was rushing into the room to pick it up again. He smiled with sincerity and a looked a little happier and more relaxed.
“You’ve decided you’ll take the contract?”
“We’ve decided to take the contract once we’ve read the detail and you’ve explained it a little more.”
At that moment there was a knock on the door and the assistant came through, holding the door for the Director. The Mitchells all stood with respect as Vincent move away from his desk to give her the seat. She immediately started going through some paperwork she had brought with her on his desk, he waved for them to sit down again and he spoke from where he was standing behind and to the side of the directors chair.
“The contract at face value is a simple transportation mission. The cargo cannot be placed in dimensional storage and is incredibly specialised and valuable hence the two star contract. Theodore, as a three star adventurer at iron rank, you lose one star on ranking up to bronze but luckily that is still the requirement. The cargo is to be taken to a very remote town which defies teleportation, which the cargo could not travel through anyway. You will need to remain in the area while the cargo is processed and then take it on again further to a larger city to the north.”
The director tutted while reading a page and Vincent coughed.
“What has not been explained is the nature of the cargo. It is a material that is due in the docks from a higher magic area, a material that cannot be sourced locally and is used in making incredibly potent and incredibly powerful weapons. I’m talking about magical defences for a city to fend off gold rank entities.”
Lucy was already ahead of the curve as usual, while the others were processing this information she had uncrossed her legs and leant forward, her elbows on her knees and her fingers steepled under her chin as she looked at Vincent.
“By any chance was this delivery perhaps scheduled to arrive at the docks yesterday?” She asked.
“Yes… originally but it was delayed due to weather in the last day or so.”
“Too late for a small cell to know to change their plans perhaps. Sorry I’m interrupting, please go on.” She leant back in her chair in a thoughtful pose. The Director gave her an assessing look from over the papers she was reading before coughing. Vincent carried on.
“The town that you will be going to is remote and hostile to outsiders, it specialises in magical defences and their results are supposedly second to none hence the contract. The people there are… different, but you will discover that for yourselves. It is in a higher magical density area hence the need for bronze rank, and capable bronze rank at that. You will then need to travel quite far north in order to deliver it to the city of Honshuraskil in the mountains, I will provide a book which will be a guide to the area. This will be no jolly in the delta, this is a continent spanning contract that needs an incredibly trusted team to accomplish.”
He finished talking and gave the team a moment to process.
[Its linked the the monster abominations.] Lucy put on the interface.
[Even I could have told you that Lu.] Teddy said.
[No but more than we think, they were trying to steal the cargo from the docks, thats what that attack was about. It wasn’t an attack on the city, it was a smash and grab, makes much more sense.]
[It makes sense that this thing Hero wants us to do is connected to the monster abominations and their creators. He’s forced the society to keep us in the loop and he’s nudged them into giving us this contract.] Kyra said.
[Exactly, it remains to be seen if the aristocrat families are in on it or ignorant because they’re so wrapped up in their own politicking. It may even be one bad apple in the group of families thats spoiling the barrel for the rest without them seeing. There’s obviously contention with the Remore annex here in the city area which is why they’re having to keep us at arms length being graduates. They’re worried, as much as Vincent likes us we’re outworlders and he has to trust us with this big mission, we’re not long established and we’ve thrown them some trouble more than once.]
[Wait a minute guys, let me think.] Teddy put on the interface, the others looked at him, which caused the Director to put down the work she was pretending to do and look along with Vincent. Teddy got up and went to study the wall.
[Right, is everyone in?]
[In. I want to see where this goes.] Lucy said.
[New town, more monsters, big mountain city for lots more shopping!] Kyra said.
[Meh, what’s the worst that can happen if we’re together.] James said.
“Madame Director, Mr Trenslow, lets discuss how we’re going to go about this.” Teddy said, holding his badge out to take the contract.