Chapter 170 – Once Upon a Time in Ror-Bhyk

Aki

The worst part about Lilyth's grim pronouncement was that I couldn't find any counterarguments towards it. And judging by everyone’s expression, neither could they. The morning’s assassination attempt changed a lot. We were lucky that Sav kept the escape tunnel warded after the fight with the Viscount’s guards. If she didn't…

But she did. So stop dwelling on it.

‘At least as far as Ror-Bhyk goes, you will have the full support from the Viscountcy,’ Malika said. ‘As for the other City-States, they might have different views on you making their streets run red with blood.’

‘That might not always be necessary, though,’ Sav said with a yawn. ‘Striking at their economy might be enough. Taking out a major drug lab, for instance, will have as much, if not a greater effect. Still… we will worry about it when it comes to that.’

The rest of the evening passed in a fairly sombre mood, and when the next morning I went to say goodbye to Bergia, she just gave me a bear hug and, with tears glistening in her eyes, said:

‘Just be careful out there, daughter of my heart.’

‘I’ll do my best, Mom,’ I hugged her back, trying to stifle tears of my own.

‘Each time you go out, less of you seems to come back. I guess… I want you to keep enough of yourself to return to me.’

‘Why not try to stop me then?’ I asked, begging in my soul that she would.

‘And what would that change, Aki? The False Saint and those horrible Red Masks need to be stopped, or they will just keep coming after you and your wives. Likewise, if you do nothing, the Ghosts will move in, and I can’t help but think that Rennie and Ireela would be among their targets. No. They will need to be stopped. For the safe future of you and others.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘And that's all I can hope for. Now go, your wives are waiting for you.’

As I was turning away, Bergia had a few last words for me:

‘And Aki? I am so proud of the woman you have become. Your mother would have been proud too.’

We found Ren and her family standing over Kenji’s grave.

‘Is it time?’ Yachiro asked without looking at us.

‘We are not operating on a strict timeline,’ Lilyth said softly. ‘So if you need more time here… we will understand.’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Best not to dally. I will probably be visiting often, so I will get plenty of time with Kenji.’

‘You are always welcome here, Yachiro,’ Ireela said. ‘You are family.’

‘Thank you, Iree,’ he smiled sadly. ‘I appreciate that. Though first I have to survive a meeting with the Viscount.

Our next stop was Malika, Zaiven and Savri. To our surprise, Nyx was with them. The goddess just looked at Yachiro, arched her left eyebrow, but said nothing. Rennie's grandfather responded with a polite bow.

‘I guess it is time for me to go,’ Nyx said, gave Sav a peck on the cheek and disappeared with a thundercrack.

‘I just hope that when it's Zaiven’s turn to introduce my future daughter-in-law to me, she will be… ,’ Malika said with a mix of disbelief and wonder in her voice, 'more down to earth.'

‘Stop it, mom,’ Savri protested. ‘We are just dating.’

‘Which is why you took elemental essence without a second thought?’

Savri tried to stammer out a response, but couldn't.

‘I am fairly certain it will be fine, Mal,’ Yachiro said softly. ‘Never heard stories about the Lady of Air doing wrong by her lovers.’

Mal? Do they know each other?

‘That’s all I can hope for, Yachie,’ the noble sighed and pointed to four rolled-up parchments. One of them was additionally sealed up.

‘The two on the left are passes. One for you, Yachiro, the other for the rest of you. They will let you enter the keep. Give the others to Baerniel. The one with my seal is a sworn statement from me regarding the situation with Kaede. The last one is a letter of recommendation, should he decide to leave the dragoons and stay here. I am sure Wilhum will find a post for him.’

‘Lord-Captain Zi-Vexhin is coming with us?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I spoke at length with him yesterday and we agreed that it would be best to act quickly with regards to Kaede.’

‘I am sure Phosi will be thrilled about his company,’ Ren muttered.

‘Alas, if she wants to travel with us, she will need to get used to us being around men,’ Sav sighed.

I’ll leave it to you to explain that to her.

To say that my half-brother was shocked to see Yachiro himself would be an understatement.

‘You are technically not a wanted criminal here,’ he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Though, I was hoping for the specialist to be less… high-profile.’

Our group, minus Baerniel, who went to the local Cathedral of the Church, was gathered in Wilhum’s audience chamber, a fairly spacious though sparsely furnished room deep within his keep - just a purple carpet leading from the door to his seat and three stone benches on either side of it. The walls were covered in paintings of the previous Viscounts, one of whom was likely my father, but I had no idea which, and asking my half-brother would probably “greatly shorten my life expectancy”, as Lilyth put it.

The only person besides us in the room was Wilhum’s majordomo - a thirty-ish brunette just like my brother, dressed in a black suit and a white shirt. Her name was Kartyen, and judging by the way she would look at him with her round blue eyes, the two of them were fucking behind Malika's back.

‘If you want to do something right, better do it yourself,’ Yachiro responded with a pleasant smile. ‘And I promise to be on my best behaviour.’

‘Since you are now officially in charge of all brothels in Ror-Bhyk, you’d better be,’ Wilhum sighed. ‘And to ensure that I will be sending some back-up with you.’

He turned to Kartyen.

‘Take our guests to the guard barracks and ask Sergeant Milten to assemble a squad. Also, since I can feel an incoming headache, I will accept no more petitioners today.’

‘I can cast a [Soothe Pa-],’ Caei began, but Wilhum shot her down with a venomous glare and shouted:

‘Get the fuck out of my audience chamber! All of you!’

The raid on the brothels was surprisingly boring. In two of them, the men the Viscount left in charge were doing just fine, so Yachiro left them in charge. They would just be reporting to him now.

The last of the brothels was under the Ghost’s control because they managed to pay off the official in charge, but neither the bribee nor the bribers offered us any resistance. The bandits tried to escape through the back exit, but Sergeant Milten and his men were already waiting for them there.

Phosi proved surprisingly useful in getting answers from them. The stories about her previous encounter with the Ghosts have already spread across the city, and Milten helpfully pointed out to our captives that she was the creature from the stories. Lilyth would later comment that she had never seen anyone flip so fast, and she has seen a lot of interrogation footage.

No matter what the age of their feet had to do with anything, they gave us our next destination - a house located by the Hollow Square, deep in the Lower District.

Hikari

‘Vesper, this is Mantopter, over,’ his radio chimed.

What now? Hikari thought, as the bald, muscular man he was meeting with alarmed focused his eyes on him. We never should have shown those scum our tech. Still… it is what it is.

‘This is Vesper,’ he responded after taking the radio off his belt and raising it next to his. ‘Report.’

‘The city guard and a band of adventurers have raided all the brothels and now appear to be heading to the den, over.’

Oh, balls.

‘Is one of them a blue woman with a lure on her head?’ he asked, skipping the protocol.

‘Confirmed,’ Mantopter replied. ‘The others are a Kitsune, two demons, a red-haired human, a white-haired elf and a crimson-haired woman with three… horn-things, over.’

The heroes of Mer-Cas, Hikari realised. That confirms that theory. Fuck.

‘Copy that, Mantopter,’ he transmitted back. ‘Retreat to RV point Oh-Three, how copy?’

‘RV point Oh-Three, copy. Mantopter, over and out.’

One more thing to do, Hikari thought as he switched the radio to the unit band.

‘Unit RB-01, this is Vesper,’ he said, trying to keep his voice level. ‘Location compromised. Execute contingency Arvellon and retreat to RV oh-three.’

A series of confirmations flooded the comms.

Before Hikari could gather his thoughts, the bandit in the room grabbed him by the shoulder and asked:

‘Are you seriously just going to fucking ditch us? We had a deal!’

‘That deal died the moment your buddies at the whorehouse squealed,’ Hikari spat and batted the scumbag’s hand away.

‘Why not take us with you then? That's the only way you can ensure none of my other boys will break.’

‘Not the only one,’ Hikari chuckled mirthlessly, pulled the gun out of the holster on his hip and shot the surprised man between the eyes.

Lilyth

Having left Yachiro at the brothel, we raced towards the Hollow Square. As we were nearing the Ghosts' hideout, I heard a loud popping sound I didn't initially recognise, but it all clicked together when it was followed by a much louder rattle of similar sounds, which made us all duck into a small side alley.

Gunfire.

The specific tone was awfully familiar. I looked at Aki, Caei and Ren and saw similar recognition in their expressions. Those were the same guns as the undead had in the Corridors.

I peeked around the corner to take a look at the situation. Our destination lay on the opposite side of a large and mostly empty square with a large fenced-off hole in the middle. It was a two-storey wooden house wedged between two identical buildings, and, despite it being the early afternoon, it looked dark and foreboding, as all of the front-facing windows were boarded up and the building seemed to be in a severe need of maintenance. It was almost as if someone was trying very hard to sell the idea of it being abandoned.

The few people who were at the square were currently cowering behind whatever scant cover they could find: benches, carts, the like. I doubted it would suffice. The walls of the house looked flimsy enough that any rounds fired from those carbines would likely not even register their presence.

What kind of a maniac would open fire in a place like this?

An idea struck me then, and I pulled out one of the radios from my bag. I turned it on and started flipping through the channels until…

‘... going on, Strickland?’ a voice boomed from the speaker.

‘Heroes of Mer-Cas are approaching the den, sir,’ someone responded in a measured voice. ‘We need to evacuate or risk detection.’

‘Godsdammit, Strickland! I am not living before getting my hands on the bitch that killed Hernen.’

‘Sir… the procedur-’

‘Fuck the procedures! The blue-skinned bitch dies!’

‘Sir… I understand that. But at the moment, we are unprepared to face a party of adventurers this strong.’

The commander let out a stream of curses, which cut off mid-word. The Strickland guy tried to raise him again, but, having received no response, also ceased transmitting. I looked at Savri, who was busy desperately flipping through the channels on the other radio. She caught my glance, and an agonised look appeared on her face.

‘Go check the place out,’ Sav finally said with regret in her voice. ‘Try to catch this “Strickland”. Just… be careful. No heroics. Phosi - go with Lilyth.’

I activated the [Swiftness of the Wind] and began rushing towards the house with Phosi running close behind me. I was surprised to see how fast she could move, but maybe it was due to her being made of liquid.

Nobody fired on us as we approached, and instead of bursting through the door, I ducked under one of the windows and tried to peer between the cracks between the boards, but, to my complete lack of surprise, the window was covered on the other side as well.

I activated [Enhanced Acoustic Processing] and began to listen in closely. There was definitely someone there. I could hear footsteps, rustling of clothes and squeak of something heavy being moved on hinges at the floor level.

A hatch? Is there an escape route through there?

I couldn't risk that, so, not wanting to risk any sort of “they are waiting by the door” bullshit, I activated the [Fist of Wind] and burst through the wall. That did catch the fuckers by surprise. There was indeed a dwarf in black armour and grey urban camo uniform waiting by the door. I didn’t have time to get a good look around the room, but I could see bullet-riddled bodies lying under one of the walls.

The dwarf started to recover from the initial shock and began raising a carbine at me, but a [Shadow Barrage] to the face ended the problem. Then there was a series of five cracks, and something with the strength of a speeding truck hit me in the chest, pushing me down to my knees, but I managed to prevent myself from falling to the floor by grabbing onto the edge of the hole in the wall I made.

FUCK!

I looked towards the gunman. He was a black-haired, vaguely Asian man in his late twenties wearing a grey double-breasted urban camo uniform. The man, whom I guessed was this Strickland, was standing next to a large open wooden floor hatch, and in his right hand he was holding what looked to be a semi-automatic pistol.

Time slowed down to a crawl as the adrenaline analogue flooded my body. Seeing that I wasn’t down, Strickland started to adjust his aim to finish me off, so with what was left of my strength, I began to summon another [Shadow Barrage], though it was insanely hard for me to focus. Suddenly, someone ran next to me, and I saw that Phosi had now entered the building. She began to say something, but paused mid-word when the man detached a VERY familiar boxy object from his belt. He just pulled the pin out and, while diving into the hatch, threw it our way.

I wanted to tell Phosi to run away, but she didn’t need any prodding from my end. It dawned on me that, due to her growing up in the days of the Empire, she likely knew what a grenade was. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t respond to me, and my vision began to dim at the edges.

Shit. Not now.

Seeing my issues, Phosi took my free arm, threw it around her shoulder and helped me get up. With her help, we began to get away, and I-