The team had Lechuza find a suitable landing spot for the Serenity on the beach. They chose to be far away from any settlements so that their location couldn’t be given away. They were certain that someone from Greenstone would be passing on the information that the cargo never arrived and someone would eventually put the pieces together.
The Serenity plowed out of the water, raising the bow out of the water and reforming into the flat bottom over the sandy beach. It surprised Teddy who was driving by not needing to deploy the wheels and hovering at the usual height without adding coins.
“Magic density must be higher here.” Lucy said when he pointed it out.
They weighed up their options, the maps that had been given to them weren’t extensive of the entire continent and only covered the route from the adventure society in Greenstone to the drop-off. They had gone far outside this route by heading up the coast for a few days and the mapping was less reliable. They decided to head straight-line to the objective and stop off in the first settlement they saw inland to try find a map.
They agreed to shifts in couples, it would be fairer to have two people on and two people resting in the unfamiliar landscape so they could get more of a lead from Greenstone, although they didn’t know when they would come to a settlement they agreed that would be a natural stopping point that was fairly random and unexpected from pursuers.
As Teddy was already driving he and Kyra took the first shift. Lucy and James headed below to their cabin to finally get some sleep. The terrain they were now driving through was semi-tropical, spotted with trees that looked like palms near the beach but with rounder leaves than they were used to and more larger ferns appearing as they drove as the crow flies.
Kyra was standing with both hands on the console while Teddy sat and drove. Lucky was out front perched right on the bow like he was watching for icebergs. Teddy could sense her unease and took hold of Kyra’s hand that was nearest him.
“I’m fine Teds, it’s part of the job.”
“It’s not just part of the job K.” Teddy pulled her wrist and she let him pull her onto his lap on the captains chair and she curled up into him.
They sat for a while, watching the new countryside in this new world pass them by as they drove. Kyra lost in thought about what she could have done differently, Teddy trying to find the right words to bring her peace.
“I don’t think it’s part of the job, or it shouldn’t be.” Teddy started. “I think it sometimes is an accidental part of the job due to lack of resources, but in a perfect world with enough people of power there shouldn’t be a need to kill anyone. If we can get enough power we can protect people without having to kill.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill him, it just sort of happened, he moved and…”
“I know, I know. We all know you didn’t mean to. I think this is where the Peter Parker-isms come in. With great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately we chose the responsibility and that comes with sometimes being responsible for killing other people, for the right reasons. He chose to get on that boat for greed, he chose to grab that girl and put a knife to her neck and you said he even chose to kill her which you stopped.”
There was a natural pause as they rolled through the light brush. Kyra formed one of the shards of mirror that she used for throwing in her hand and looked at herself in it.
“The Academy Annex modules on mental health were pretty extensive in the Healer classes. They warn of a thin line for essence users finding it easy to justify killing and to watch out for those who take contracts were it is likely or even possible to kill fellow humans. There’s a risk that people who find themselves superhuman start to distance themselves from the rest and to them it is no different from killing an animal or a monster.”
“You’ve always been the voice of reason when it comes to killing. We all know that even killing monsters which is truly unavoidable still bothers you. I’m here the keep you in check, we’re all on the same team to keep each other in check.”
She ducked her head to rest it on his shoulder in the chair.
“Stuck with you am I?”
“I’d be more worried about being stuck with James, he sometimes smells as bad as Koda.”
………
When it started turning dark James and Lucy made their way upstairs, they carried steaming plates of food and set places at the table and Teddy pulled over on the side of a steep hill, the Serenity adjusting so the deck remained level giving them a comfy place to stop and have dinner while affording them an excellent view of the sunset.
They had steak and jacket potato for dinner, Teddy and Kyra having a well earned beer with theirs while James and Lucy had juice with theirs and a cup of Gerald’s ‘coffee’ as they were coming on shift.
The familiars cast out on the ground beneath the Serenity, stretching their legs after being cooped up while at sea and then while they were driving hard, Teddy’s lantern familiars were barely visible in the dusk as they rotated around the Serenity at opposite sides giving Teddy a clear as day view into the bush around them.
They said their good-nights and Kyra collected up the plates and took them below-decks. Lucy was riding shotgun in Lechuza’s vision, sat in her chair with ghostly blank eyes. James got up and went to the wheelhouse and settled his big frame into the large captains chair, the chair still needed to adjust and give a little to accommodate him.
Teddy absorbed his familiars then had a thought.
“Err, dude, maybe we did this the wrong way round, how are you going to drive in the dark?”
He was staring at the back of James head and was suitably freaked out when his brothers head rotated one-eighty without moving his shoulders, a few feathers sprouted from his face and his eyes were huge, he had a yellow bird of prey beak in the middle of his face.
“Oh, I’ll adapt I’m sure.” James said.
“Damn you’re getting good at that. Owl?”
“Yeh, Lucy’s idea, she’ll stay with Lechuza more than normal so she can see in the dark better and check the area, I can see better up close like this, between us we’re probably better suited to night than you two.”
“Alright bro, If you’re happy then I’m hitting the hay.”
They bumped fists and Teddy headed below. Kyra had put the dishes away already and made her way to bed. When Teddy got in their double bed he marvelled at the comfort, the sheets they had bought for it were the highest quality Kyra could find, she had outfitted the whole vehicle with linens and cushions. The mattress was just fourth stage crystal, it articulated like a space age bed to accommodate the shape of the body. He wrapped himself around his wife and was asleep in short order.
………
The night passed uneventfully and they stopped again in the morning in a ravine to have breakfast together. Now that both couples had the opportunity for a proper rest, the first since they sailed from Greenstone, they felt much better.
They feasted on fruit. They had an apple-tasting fruit that was the size of a beach ball in the centre of the table, it was made up of golf ball sized lumps held together by white pith, it was one of the exotic fruits they had really taken to since coming into this new world and they had a few in their storages.
“So we saw a few animals in the night scurrying about but nothing else, Lechuza saw some faint lights in the distance but no detail, a few in the direction we’re going.” James finished and nodded to Teddy who tossed sections of fruit across the table into his mouth.
“That’s good, a week or so of travel before getting to a town will suit us fine, incase anyone following us has contacts there it gives us more of a lead when we could have gone any direction.”
“You really think someone’s following us?” Kyra asked over her mug of coffee.
“I don’t know, it’s pretty ballsy to attack Greenstone the way they did. They were, according to Genevieve, after this shipment. That’s a big move to not follow it up when it’s arguably more vulnerable now. I think we need to be careful, if we are being followed then I would assume they would send a force that ought to be able to deal with us so I’d rather not be caught. We need to make a plan that involves laying some false trails and some dog legs, anything that could throw a potential pursuer off our track.”
The others looked at him seriously. He had managed to succinctly sober the trip from an exciting adventure to highlight the real danger they were in.
“Well don’t look so glum! They don’t know everything about us, we have tricks, no one knows what the Serenity is capable of or us for that matter.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
James pointed a finger at Teddy. “You know if you hadn’t pointed out how batshit crazy they were to attack the adventure society campus first then I would think your paranoid, been sipping the crazy juice, a few palm fronds short of a mat, few too any visits to that alchemist in Old City. But annoyingly I have to agree, getting caught might not work out for us too well.”
They talked through some strategies on how they would mislead any trackers, they used the map that was given to them plus Teddy’s mapping ability which the Serenity could project, in this case onto the large table on the top deck, it was partially discovered like a video game, showing the areas supplied by the given map and where they had travelled and what Lechuza had shared.
As a team they decided to enact one of the plans straight away, the Serenity moved off with Lucy and Kyra on board, both girls waved at the boys as they sat in both of the dune buggies.
“I hope this works, I don’t like the idea of being separated from them, even for a day.” James told Teddy.
“It’ll work, we just need to be careful, make the track through the brush look exactly the same as the Serenity, we’ll follow it a ways to check out how it looks then we break off. Lead them off on an angle towards the nearest set of lights you saw yesterday.”
They set off, the big ship didn’t leave much ground sign behind it as it was currently hovering almost a meter off the ground. James was with Teddy not only because while Teddy could teleport back to the Serenity James could transform to a suitably stealthy animal to not draw attention to get back, but because James was an expert tracker. He saw sign that no one else could unless it was their life’s ambition to track. Following the Serenity he could see how the hull bent the young trees and brush, they were trying to be as delicate as they could with it to leave the wild countryside as they found it.
They were travelling through a hot terrain with a mix of sand and earthy ground. As essence users they were significantly more dense than they had been before and they saw this especially in how far they sank into the ground when they walked. The bushes were the height of a full grown adult and wiry and dry. The trees around them were either small nursery trees or the wide thick trunks that reminded them of the baobab trees from pictures of Africa they had seen. The grass was tall, thick and appeared in clumps rather than a thick blanket. There was enough coverage that they were hard to spot from the air but certainly not impossible, they were travelling slower so they could mask their presence and not leave such an obvious trail that they would if the Serenity was to punch through as it easily could.
After following the Serenity for a little while James and Teddy peeled off, Teddy had used a section of fourth stage crystal not unlike what they used for the gangplank when they moored in Greenstone marina to connect the two buggies. At the correct width and height it would show almost the exact same track as the larger ship with the boys manually making up the difference.
“We’re going to feel very silly if we ever find out this was for nothing.” James said a little sullenly.
“Really? I thought you’d be really into this, little bit of counter espionage, bit of groundsign and tracking, seeing the countryside. What’s not to love?”
“Yeh, I guess it’s just from laziness, I don’t mind going off and fighting monsters, or investigations or mirage chamber fights. This is sneaking around avoiding fights. Not what I thought adventuring was going to be.”
“I’m also surprised you have an idea of what adventuring should be. We so far have investigated animal pests, killed random monsters, been involved in stopping a natural magical disaster wiping out a city, going around healing the sick and any other job the city decided its easier to post a contract rather than have a dedicated law enforcement branch in a system of government backed by the vote of the public.”
“I’m pretty sure if you had a nuclear, gun and a marines essence you would be a few steps away of being classed an invader and bringing democracy to this universe while fist pumping to Metallica with an M4 and alternately shouting ‘U.S.A’! And ‘Freedom’!”
“I do miss decent music, I want my phone back, this world is entertaining enough in a lot of ways but having any tunes you want right at your fingertip is underrated. And I’m not about to start trying to overthrow their system of running things here, they don’t have oil anyway.”
………
As a silver rank essence user Genevieve Picot had a level of multitasking that was superhuman. As an administrator of any organisation this was invaluable for the day to day running. It was useful to her now as she looked engaged with the person over the other side of her desk while she contemplated all her choices that led her to becoming Director of the society branch and how much longer she would continue the role.
The person on the other side of the desk was Trinette Whipparrel, she had been petitioning daily to see the Director to chase the shipment contract, believing that her family was still in a better position to carry out the contract.
Genevieve had not got to her position by political manoeuvring alone, she in truth was happy being the deputy director before the old director moved on chasing adventure society positions in bigger more influential cities. She had no such ambitions herself, content to serve the city she was in until her tenure ran out and someone else wanted the job that was suitable. With the obstreperous woman opposite her she often wondered about early retirement and living as just another vaunted ex adventurer silver ranker in the city.
She held up a hand to cut off the ceaseless tirade coming from the other woman’s mouth, she wondered if the other woman truly believe that she could just wear down the director with words until she gave in. “Mrs Whipparrel please stop. When you first came in this office I already informed you the contract is in progress, it is intractable and as such I have no mechanism of bringing them back even if I wanted to. The nature of the contract is always left to the individual to pursue how they feel best, in this instance the team felt best to practice subtlety, a grace with which more people could benefit from in my opinion.” She looked pointedly at the other woman.
“Well what team was it, I may know people who may get in touch with them.” She huffed, clutching at straws.
“It is not within my purview to have to tell you what adventurers have taken contracts, we have been over this, the contract is between the society, the individual and the subject who posted the contract. None of which are house Whipparell or its allies.”
The woman curled her top lip and recrossed her legs angrily. “Well it’s not hard to work out, I know you don’t think much of those who don’t attend your beloved Academy Annex but we can still work out a little riddle like this. A substantive, team, including a two star, all bronze rank. That Mitchell team is the only ones that haven’t been seen for days.”
The director hung her head, her first sign of fatigue at the barrage. “Trinette, what are you after, I’m not going to make you any concessions here today, if you are truly after the contract you should know I can’t stop them. It takes a significant reason to withdraw a contract in progress and I don’t feel you have the justification.”
“Well I feel I do, the families are far more established than that team and we can pool our bronze rankers.”
“Do you even have enough bronze rankers in the city at the moment?”
“We have spoken to some of our close families that are in the towns surrounding and we have the quality that you are after.”
The director very much doubted that the bronze rankers they were scraping from the bottom of the barrel of backwaters towns in a low magic area were really going to be the quality for this contract but she didn’t say anything.
“I insist that you contact the team to hold them at a point on the route and our team can take the contract off their hands so they do not have to struggle with it any further.”
The director placed her hands down on the desk in front of her to emphasise the end of her tolerance for the conversation. “How many times must I say this? They. Are. Not. Contactable.”
At that moment there was a knock on the door and a timid girl let herself in, a new secretary that just started working there.
“Madam Director? There’s a call on your private waterlink chamber, you asked to be told when the Mitchells made contact.”
The director stood and stared daggers at the girl, her aura turned frosty and the girl flinched as if stung. In the back of her mind the Director remembered that she was a heavily insisted hire from the house Stanfish, one of the families in the bloc opposed to the annex and held under house Whipparrel’s influence.
“Thank you.” The Director clipped at the girl and she fled the room. Turning to Trinette who was smiling like a cat who had the cream. “If you’ll excuse me I need to take this call, I think we are done here for today.”
“Oh Genevieve I really should come with you, my family has been doing the maintenance on the system this week due to all the blackouts and errors, I can see firsthand incase it stops working.” The thinly veiled threat of sabotaging the call if she wasn’t involved was an obvious play. In the game of politics they batted back and forth it was a bold step, an overreach that gave the Director room to riposte in the future. But as it stood she was backed in a corner without option. The families were responsible for most of the labourers in the city and the Adventure Society campus relied on them, when things hadn’t been going the families way they started finding a shortage of workers and lots of repairs needing doing or facilities failing. The fact that Trinette hadn’t been in a waterlink chamber other than for making or receiving a call and had no idea how to maintain one was irrelevant.
“This way then.” She contained her roiling emotion, her aura was almost painful to be around but she limited it to just her and Trinette, making the core-using, mostly untrained woman to sway slightly with wooziness.
They made their way out the back of the office, the Director had a small room barely big enough for the two of them completely made up of the green marble the region was famous for. The adventure society deemed the cost to be necessary for the Director to have direct communications with nearby branches incase of emergency and to the continental council.
They went in and waited a moment for the chamber to connect. Two mounds of water rose from the pool on the floor. They knew the opposite was happening far away in the linked chamber. The mounds took on a human shape and then became defined as people. The water looked to solidify and took on colour, the facsimile of the two Mitchell women was perfect, as if they were really in the room.
“Strange how this is the best connection I’ve had in weeks…” Genevieve muttered under her breath.
“Oh I’m so glad we were able to help.” Trinette whispered back in a false concerned voice.
Genevieve addressed the adventurers in front of her. “Good day Mitchells. With me here is Mrs Trinette Whipparrel, I don’t think you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her yet, albeit she has insisted heavily that should happen.” She let that sink in for a beat. “Her family is one of the largest in Greenstone and are specialists in waterlink chamber upkeep and repair and as we have been having connectivity issues she kindly insisted on being here today to assure the quality of the call.”
She was impressed that the Mitchells nonplussed faces, she knew that they must be communicating on their handy interface and was confident that they understood the situation.
“Good day Madam Director.” Lucy said. “We are just checking in that the contract is going well with no delays, we are aware that these connections are expensive and we have reversed the charges to the adventure society branch so will be brief.”
“Very well, if there is nothing to report then please be on your way.”
The Mitchells nodded and Lucy raised a hand in farewell, the water splashed back into the pool as Trinette tried to speak.
“Wait!” She realised the connection had terminated and turned to the director. “We didn’t find out where they were communicating from.”
“No. We didn’t, now my thanks for your expertise in making sure the chamber is functional but I do have a lot of other work and appointments.” The director marched her to the door and firmly shut it behind her.
Trinette was met in a back alley in the adventure society campus by the Stanfish girl and a magic maintenance man from another of the families.
“Lucinda, you did well, that was an excellent opportunity you took advantage of and I will inform your mother. Now, what did we discover?”
“They are in Yorsh, I cannot tell you more than that.” The man said quickly, eyes dancing around, spying on the call would definitely get him fired and worse.
Unseen to the trio in the alley a dark shape peeled off the roof nearby and fled with the information