Chapter 166 – He who Watches the Watchers

Sergeant Milten

What a fucking mess, Sergeant Milten thought, looking at badly damaged skeletons of some poor SOBs.

‘The witnesses mention hearing terrified screams and then two women emerging from the alley,’ Sol, their new recruit, reported. ‘Their accounts vary, but the common theme is that one of them was pale and had blood red-coloured hair, and the other was blue-skinned and dressed like some sort of noble.’

Milten looked at the kid. He had short orange hair, freckles and a nasty claw scar running across his face. It was a miracle Sol didn't lose one of his eyes.

‘Run that description by the alchemist,’ he ordered him.

When Sol hurried off to follow his orders, Milten turned to Radeea, their medical examiner.

‘Anything useful?’

‘Whatever acid was used on them was strong enough to cause rapid degradation of the cobblestone,’ the thin green-haired elven woman pointed to places where the street was turned into rubble. ‘Best I can tell, whoever killed them was a Water fae of some kind. Probably Acid-subtype. The three deaders over there were killed by some sort of thin blade, maybe a rapier. Judging by the black veins spreading from the wounds, the weapon had Shadow enhancements.’

‘Shadow and Acid, eh?’ Milten scratched his bearded cheek. ‘Weird combination. Two different magic users most likely then.’

In Milten’s experience, a caster using more than one kind of Arcana was incredibly rare, and if it happened it would be two different Elemental Types and true fae almost always exclusively cast their aligned spells.

‘Weirdass adventuring party I’d wager,’ Radeea agreed. ‘Could it be the Heroes of Mer-Cas? One of them does sound similar to what I heard Caeileera looks like.’

Milten shook his head.

‘I haven't seen her up close, but those who did mention that she has three horns, wings and wears a creepy mask.’

‘She didn't have the last two when I saw her in Mer-Cas,’ Corporal Rigdwee spat. ‘I do hope it is her, though. I would happily ram my club…’

‘Do not finish that thought, Rigd,’ Milten warned him.

‘But she killed Ganej!’’

‘That’s on Tril, soldier. I have no idea how that pointy-eared idiot managed to assume that the Viscount would take his wife and two-year-old son on a trip to arrest some criminals.’

‘Hey!’ Radeea protested. ‘Leave his ear shape out of it. It will be the source of my people's eternal shame that such a moron was graced with our glorious pointy ears.’

‘True,’ Milten laughed. ‘Yours are absolutely stellar, Rad,’

‘Aww… thank you,, Millie.’

‘Why are you two so flippant about this?’ Rigdwee screamed. ‘’Tril and Ganej are dead because of that bitch and her friends!’

Milten was surprised. Someone was actually still upset about Tril’s death. While all guards were initially pissed about the incident, it has been over a month since then and most people have moved on. The fact that Captain Tril, thanks to his own stupidity, got himself killed by a heavily traumatised woman who couldn't even walk without a cane, didn't help the matter tremendously. In fact, due to the sheer embarrassment of the situation,.“don’t Tril yourself” was slowly becoming a saying among the men.

Ganej was still a sore spot, though, and the guards were divided into two camps: those who blamed it on Tril and viewed Caeileera’s actions as somewhat justified, given the circumstances, and those who believed that she and her friends should have just let themselves get arrested. Milten found that version a bit weak, given how the good Captain jumped on the slightest excuse to escalate things to lethal force, and the Heroes of Mer-Cas only began fighting back once he did.

Sorry, a crippled woman talks back to you and you order her murdered?

What surprised him the most was how other members of Tril’s squad were almost immediately on the Heroes’ side. The realisation that they could have died for nothing and the fact that Riftseeker Savri herself immediately provided them with healing magic only improved their disposition.

Still, some people couldn't just accept the facts as they were and move on.

‘Listen, Rigdwee,’ Milten explained patiently, ‘the Viscount ruled this was an accident. That's where the matter ends. Now give me the report on the neighbourhood before I feed you to whatever killed these guys!’

The corporal was pissed off but did not disobey a direct order, and he was able to confirm what Milten had already suspected, namely that the incident was an attempted robbery gone very wrong, as people living in the houses on the alley had heard the six deaders telling the women to hand over their valuables.

‘Hey!’ another guard, Fedio, shouted. ‘I know this one.’

He pointed at the corpse in the green shirt.

‘Fucker was running with the Yamaokas before. Must have escaped the purge.’

‘You would think he would have known better than to rob random strangers then,’ Milten sighed.

‘What do you mean, sir?’ Sol asked, panting heavily.

‘Did you seriously run here from the store?’ Milten was perplexed. ‘If I don't tell you to hurry, kid, you don’t have to. This one is an open and shut case, anyway. What did the alchemist tell you?’

‘The two women matching the description bought several potions from him. Pretty much cleared him out of Mana, Stamina and Health ones.’

‘Did they pay for all of them?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Okay. Then to answer your question: Unlike where you are from, random crime isn't something that happens all that much around here. It is too risky. Best I can guess, the women are new to the city and someone thought they were an easy mark. The blue one is dressed like a noble so it wouldn't be weird for them to assume they came here for the ceremony. They definitely have money. Potions aren’t cheap. They are also one of those “run away” cues, as nobles coming to the city for a fancy party tend not to choose Alchemist’s as their early destination.’

‘Yup,’ Radeea agreed. ‘Cause of death: suicide.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sol asked, horrified. ‘Those men were brutally killed!’

‘You see, kid,’ Milten began, ‘there are things living in this world. Scary things. Dangerous things. But usually? Those are happy to be left alone. They come to the city from time to time to run some errands, maybe eat a meal or meet their friends. Then they leave. Wouldn't surprise me if some of them lived here with us being none the wiser.’

‘And you are okay with that?’

‘Why wouldn't we be? They pay taxes, probably have jobs and sometimes, I’d wager, even families and don’t bother anyone. And that's the point of us calling cases like this suicide. You never know whether the person you are trying to rob is a normal person, an adventurer or…’

Milten gesticulated towards the skeletons.

‘So when handling situations like this our usual procedure is to determine whether the encounter was provoked by the “monster citizen”. If not, it ends there. In this case, we could technically try to charge them for street damage, but given how they rid us of six criminals, and stupid ones at that, I think it evens out.’

Sol stayed silent for a moment, mulling the lecture over.

‘This… this will take a while to get used to,’ he finally said.

‘Not what you are used to?’

‘No. Back home, I was a part of a monster-hunting cult. We never stopped to question whether the poor women deserved it.’

‘Sounds like a terrible place to live,’ Radeea muttered.

‘You have no idea,’ Sol summed it up.

Deirdee

What a fucking mess, Deirdee thought as she and Phosi

They managed to finish their shopping without getting harassed any further. She had a minor panic attack whenever she saw city guards pass them by, but initially they ignored them or gave them a passing glance and after a while began smiling or giving them friendly waves.

‘I was hoping it would take more time for the word about us to spread,’ Phosi muttered.

‘You were expecting that?’ she asked, shocked.

‘We killed a bunch of people in broad daylight. My methods aren’t exactly subtle either, so it was a matter of when rather than if. I was just hoping we would be out of the city before it became this widespread. I am not terribly concerned about the city guard, but the word of our exploits will inevitably reach people who could actually retaliate. Like the friends of these six clowns.’

Lieutenant Hikari Strickland

What a fucking mess…, Hikari thought as from one of the rooftops he watched through a pair of binoculars the mortal remains of his commander, two best soldiers and some of the local scum being loaded onto a Darhun-drawn corpse cart by a group of workers clad in thick clothes and gloves.

They resorted to using shovels to gather the bones. Hikari didn't blame them. It would have been annoying, and potentially dangerous, to do it by hand.

The process was overseen by a grizzled man with a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and short, unkempt hair, a young androgynous person with orange hair and a green-haired elven woman. They were all identified as members of the city guard by their chainmails and purple tabards with a two-headed manthyl bird.

Luckily, all the evidence of our involvement disappeared when the Captain’s body got…

As he was providing overwatch, Hikari had witnessed the gruesome scene, and the sight of the horrible monster that killed the three men would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

He had advised Captain Vehlor against taking part in the robbery, but the man thought it would be a grand idea and help him gain the trust of the slowly forming chapter of the Ghosts of the Old Vanderstadt, so Hikari’s advice was summarily ignored. The fact that he was a lowly riftling, while the Captain was a son of councilman Rene Vehlor didn't help the matter.

And now Strickland had the unenviable task of telling the overall commander in Ror-Bhyk - Major Aliz Vehlor, that his brother Hernen had bit it.

This won’t be pretty, he sighed and took out his portable radio.

‘Hive, this is Vespid. We have a major problem over here…’