CH-4

Partial or whole chapters in [Alpha Draft] 

Rayna was irritated. It was bad enough she had to suffer being handled like an invalid, but the escort detail was very handsy about it. If they knew who she really was- No. she put a stop to that line of thinking immediately. They were headed straight for the capital. It is true that they would treat her with respect, but considering the fact that King Arista tried to have her discreetly killed and disposed of meant she would be quietly killed at the gate as the escort would likely report her presence ahead of time since she was technically nobility.

She bit back her words and swallowed her pride. As she was placed on the horse and lashed to it. Rayna felt like luggage, which only enhanced her feelings of indignation. She looked over at the transport. “Just who is in there.” She wondered to herself.She could use the true sight spell that was stored in her ring to see through the magically darkened windows but decided against it. It would ultimately be a waist. Then again, what if it wasn’t and they knew who she was.

A quick scoff like laugh escaped her lips as realization hit. She was being silly. There was no way they could possibly know who she was. Rayna’s rings were enchanted by Journeyman enchanters. The only way she would get found out was if an ancient overpowered the ring and she would know, because she would lose her connection to one or more of them. Or, if she chose to. It did Rayna no good to worry over this. Besides, no ancient travels like this anyway. It was then that she felt one of her rings begin to slightly vibrate on her left index figure.

***

Today was a slow day at the capitol’s eastern gate. It had been unusually slow for the past couple days. The only people that went through the gate were ranking officials, their escorts and the rotating shifts of soldiers that manned the eastern gate. It was because traffic was being rerouted to different gates. He checked for updates on his slate in case he had any incoming hordes of people and beast kin. He sighed. “Any changes in the schedule?” came a voice from outside. The voice came from another soldier like himself. She popped her head into the carved out stone structure. That severed as the guard house.

The guard house was set into the actual outer wall of the city. It consisted of three main areas. The rest area, which was used for short rests and breaks. There was the armory that held special armor and gear, and then there was the administration area, which was where he was. It was where the slate was kept and it was constantly being updated by the capitol administrator. He looked up to see Daisy looking at him expectantly for an answer. “No.” he said. “We have no new arrivals.” “That is not what I mean.” she said. “Then what changes are you referring to?” He was not sure what she was talking about unless she meant the schedule and that never changed. “I mean the schedule. Are we scheduled for an early shift change?”

Jackson gave the universal “give me a moment” gesturer and looked back down at the slate. As he navigated to the schedule section of the device, he saw nothing had changed. “No. we are set to rotate in two in a half more hours. Why?” She readied her sword. “We have a problem. I will notate the situation. the slate needs to be taken to the capital administrator. I am severing the slate from the magic circuits.” She gave her report and Jackson placed her report into the slate while Daisy brought her sword down on the crystal pad that normally cradled the device and signed her name and dated the signature along with the current time. Jackson did the same. He took Daisies hand into his and pressed the slate and its chain of custody slip into her other hand “Be safe, my love.” and they kissed. Daisy needed no prompting and made her way through a secret underground entrance, leaving Jackson behind.

She was a soldier first and foremost who was assigned to gate duty and knew what was happening could affect the safety of the citizens in the capital. Protocol 10 had just been initiated. Her job now was to get this slate and her memories to the administrator and report the gates possible compromise by noble and or foreign interference while her husband held the others at bay or kill the intruders by any means necessary. A tear fell down her cheek. Daisy knew he was likely dead and she had abandoned him to his fate, but she is a soldier who took an oath and so was he. How did she know he was dead? She didn’t, but she had busted the slate’s pad. It had sent out a distress signal ahead of her, and they would see it was busted. It was protocol to change shift in the administration area of the guard house, and it wasn’t like he could just seal them outside the gate when they approached from within the city.

Daisy raced down the underground tunnel as fast as she could. She was not the strongest, but she was the fastest. That was not to say she could not fight. Daisy’s strength was on par with the weakest of the male soldiers. She was no kitten, and with the enchantments provided by her gear, she was lethal. The gauntlets gave her strength multiplied. Her leggings increase her stamina and her ability to maneuver quickly. Then there was her chest piece, which was able to handle a fair bit of abuse and held a nasty surprise for anyone stupid enough to get in grappling range.

As Daisy raced down the tunnel, she neared a four way within the tunnel. It was fortunate that she met no resistance. Without slowing, she leapt at the wall and pushed off down the tunnel. “Identify yourself.” Came a commanding voice. Daisy didn’t care, though. It would get sorted out later once everything got sorted out. She had the authority to be here anyway. After all, if she hadn’t, then she could not have entered in the first place.

As Daisy neared the end of her trek, she saw three soldiers standing in her way. She slowed down and came to a stop, saluting the one with the highest rank. “Sir, Daisy reporting. I am required passage for Protocol 10.” What was supposed to happen, did not happen. Instead of verifying who she was, and making a hole for her to pass through to the administrator building’s exit, they instead drew their weapons and leveled them at her with.

This caused her to grimace. She stowed the slate and the chain of custody in her bag. “I do not take pleasure in this, but I need you to hand over that slate and your head.” The highest-ranking soldier said. His name was Fiord and he was a friend of the family. The thing was, they all served King Arista. So why? Fiord saw her gaze fall onto his insignia and then to the insignias adorning the other two. They looked like hers, but their magic al signature had changed. Daisy saw him go from a grimace to a look of utter shame. They all did, but he answered her unasked question. It must have been obvious “He has my children, and like me, they too are in similar circumstances. I truly am sorry, Daisy. You and your husband do not deserve this.”

They were clearly ready to get this over with and so was she, but Daisy had a job to do. Again, she was a soldier first and foremost, even if Fiord and the others forgot that. As they steeled themselves to end her, she held her sword up defensively and prepared for her death. Just as the group took a step towards her, they heard footsteps and a voice shouting, “Stop. I said identify yourself.”

Lars was assigned to the defense passages by Karber, personally. His job was to inspect the tunnels for unauthorized personnel to keep them clear and safe for any soldier who is authorized to use them. He wasn’t the only one performing this duty. After all, unauthorized personnel did not just apply to people or soldiers who did not have the authorization, but it applied to monsters as well. They were called tunnel rats, because ware rats and other potentially nasty monsters liked to burrow into these specific tunnels to hide during periods of their cycles. The term was also applied to unauthorized people, because, if you were hiding in tunnels, you were obviously up to no good.

Lars and his group had just split up after killing a group of edge spiders. They had acted quite abnormally before, during, and after the fight. The monsters in question had been very coordinated in their efforts at destroying a particular section of tunnel and did not die like normal edge spiders. Instead of dying like normal, their insides liquified and gushed out of every orifice to leave a hollow and empty shell. The others had carted them away to be investigated, while he stayed behind to inspect the damage to the tunnel.

As he inspected each crevasse, every pock mark, and every gouge and missing chunk, he gained a better perspective of what was going on. He’d need to report this, but he needed, at the very minimum to do a preliminary investigation. What he found was a little disturbing. The effort wasn’t just coordinated, but there was thought behind each strike. At first it looked like the destruction was random. Lars saw a gouge here and a scratch there with pock marks in seemingly random locations, but the closer he looked, the more he found that the damage was not in fact random or having anything to do with the monster’s destructive nesting hobbits.

 It was like they were looking for something. He took a step back and inspected the damage from a distance. It was then that Lars saw what appeared to be a focal point of their eventual obsession. He knelt in front of a spot by the base of the tunnel wall where the damage seemed to converge into a concentrated effort to excavate something. Brushing away some loose dirt and rock, he just staired in shock. What he saw was an exposed magic circuit.

Something was very off. The concentrated effort made at the circuit was nothing short of remarkable, and expensive. With his investigation complete, he pulled out his comm crystal to make a report when he heard a noise. It sounded like something metal and heavy got slammed into the stone wall. Lars looked out of reflex to face down this new foe to see a soldier in glowing armored leggings spring off and dart down the tunnel. He shouted for her to identify herself, but she was gone.

Lars ran after the potential interloper. He pulled out his Comm Crystal to quickly report his findings and also report this new development. He channeled some mana into the comm crystal. Only, it remained inert in his hand. Scowling, he pocketed the thing and kept chasing. He could always make the report in person, but first, He needed to apprehend and verify the armed unverified who was dashing through the tunnels like protocol didn’t exist.

He was nearing the end when Lars saw a carved indicator that signaled a nearby exit. He knew she had come this way, because there was no other way she could have gone. The indicator also meant that there were soldiers stationed at that point of egress that she couldn’t just bypass. Realizing that he no longer had to rush to get to his quarry, Lars slowed down at the corner “I have you now.” he muttered, but he stopped instead. Normally he would have just rounded the corner and seized the opportunity to get the woman’s identification, and be done with it, or, if she was already through the exit, then he’d consider the matter closed.

What stopped him wasn’t laziness or anything like that. What stopped Lars, was the conversation between them. She knew them and they knew her. It sounded like they had her and she was pressing her luck, but then it took a turn. One of them eluded to kidnapping. Just who was assigned to this exit? Lars had a couple of options. One. Ignore this and go back the way he came and two, go in weapon drawn and find the fuck out what was going on. Lars knew running was not in his blood. So, he drew his sword and rounded the corner and yelled, “Stop. I said identify yourself.”
***
Lord Stolis Bines neared the Gate in a rugged transport. It was his only transport now. The thing was outdated and beat up from over use by his grandfather. Sure, the thing was a classic, but it wasn’t the kind of collectable you bragged about, because this was what a low born would use if they could even afford such an item in the first place. In short, they didn’t take it, because it was an embarrassment. Stolis slammed a fist into the arm rest. “I will make them know their place. Low born trash.” he spat.

When the war was in full swing, he was one of the lords in High Lord Beckett’s lands that supported the war against High Lord Gwenith, but because he held enough political currency in Karber, he was able to maintain his tittle and lands, but his wealth was stripped from him. All that was left to his family’s name was enough wealth to keep his territory afloat and no more, not to mansion his name was worthless now. No family, noble or low borne wanted to do business with the Bines, because that name also bore the stigma of traitor. Time could not heal his wounded honor, but action could.

The transport came to a complete stop and he heard a knock on the window. Raising the windows privacy screen and opening the window manually, because it was so old you had too, he saw a welcomed sight. “Welcome to Karber, Lord Bines.” The lord smiled. His plan was going accordingly. The soldier that welcomed him was his and he met the lord with a smile of his own, but it faltered back to one of seriousness. “The operation is a success. The gate is yours.” Lord Bines gave a nod of approval. “Good work.” He tossed the soldier a comm crystal. “Notify me when you and your men have that human and that cat.” He closed the window and made his way through the gate. “My family honor will be avenged, and we will rise to prominence once more.”
***
Lent, having completed his goal re-assumed his Mr. Yates persona. His black-market adventure wasn’t a failure. It just had some complications. In fact, it was equal parts enlightening and successful. Despite almost being captured, he found out that the persona he called Sturbin was compromised, and gained several new useful ones. All that aside, there was one glaring complication that nearly countered all the good, and that was the fact he would no longer have access to future black market gate locations going forward. He learned that the black market was not safe for Mr. Yates, but a search of his memories revealed it was because he owed money, money Lent had every intention of stealing for himself.

The sun was setting on the hidden lands. Lent had spent more time in the black market then he would of like, but what was done existed beyond his control. All that was left now, was to have Mr. Yates be seen going into home and finish the setup with the sand worm. He took his time. There wasn’t no hurry. He wasn’t in any danger as Lent or Yates now that he was out of the black market and the more people that saw him, the better.

Having made his rounds, he entered his persona’s home. Lent did everything his persona would have done up until it went to bed, which included cutting magic to the lacrima crystals that served as lights and activating the magical darkness that served as curtains. Lent sighed. This human really did know how to live. In all honesty, he could have lived out this man’s life wallowing in luxury. He sighed again. “No, I could not. Its bad habits will catch up to me sooner than I would like.”

When it reached late night and the night life began to thin, Lent shifted back into himself. He didn’t need another’s memories to find the scene of his own crime. The issue was the tight schedule he would be on to get the next part of his plan into motion.

He dove into the massive shadow that was the darkness filling the inside of Yates’ house. Lent Traveled from shadow to shadow, making sure to conserve his mana just in case he ran into something nasty. Being the monster he was, he knew there was danger where you least expected it. That was why he couldn’t deny the need for caution. He didn’t shadow travel the whole way. Lent found that walking physically through the shadows reduced his need for shadowy teleports, which reduced the likely hood of attracting the denizens beyond the shadowy veil.

All of his efforts seemed to be paying off. He didn’t have to deal with a single shadow hunter during his nightly jaunt, which he was very grateful for. The night was when the shadows like various parts of the world around him became a death sentence of the weak and unprepared, but he was anything but thanks to his abilities. That was why he couldn’t understand why he felt like he was being fallowed. He hadn’t been seen. He saw no perusers, and if the denizens of the shadows had detected him moving through their realm at this time, they would not hesitate to attack him as an interloper.  So why did he have this feeling?

Lent almost went back, but wisely decided against it. If he was being watched, however unlikely, then he couldn’t risk his persona. It also stood to reason that if they could see him, then he would have been approached or attacked. Not only that, but he would have seen or heard them. Coming to a decision, Lent decided to keep going. Besides he didn’t have to be at the site of the transport, just nearby, and if he was being followed, then he’d deal with it one way or another.

Lent’s journey to the transport site was a very uneasy one, despite maintaining invisibility the whole way, thanks to his Shadow Stalker class. Even though he had reached the site, and was at the best spot to bond with and release his new sand worm, he decided to air on the side of caution and turn his attention to discovering the source of his unease.

After an hour of searching, he gave up. There was nothing but sand in every direction, and if someone was fallowing him, he’d have found some kind of foot print or something to reinforce the idea, but once again, there was nothing. He had lost to much time to his thoughts of caution and paranoia and he didn’t want to bond with the worm and risk being vulnerable to an unseen enemy. He had to go back now or risk exposing his persona. Lent knew if these adventurers found nothing he could try again. Then panic struck the doppelganger as a very concerning thought occurred to him. The transport did have signs of a monster attack but it had the signs of a brutishly strong monster, not a sand worm attack.

There was more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying went, and in Lent’s experience, it held true. It was true that his caution and paranoia could not be ignored. After all, Lent is a doppelganger. It was his nature to be so. It was also his nature to not give up a persona so long as it provided benefits. That was why Lent chose to retreat and come up with a plan B.

He had certainly come up with a work around to the problem, when he reached the half way point to the town, he hit a stroke of luck. Lent’s constant feeling of being watched went away, and it was then that he seized the opportunity to bond himself to the worm. The sand worm in his possession was a distant cousin of the titanic ice worms that lived in the northern continent and only boasted a length of 30 ft long, and would crush the transport instead of rip it apart, which therein lay the problem and his concern. If his plan worked, it may prove to be his solution.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Lent unclipped the monster cage from his belt and set it on the ground. He looked inside to see the terror of the sands miniaturized to a fraction of its actual size, and it amazed Lent that a group was able to catch something that big. Even at its current size, it was still intimidating. It was segmented like a regular earthworm, but unlike its weaker brethren, it was covered in hardened plates and razor-sharp spines.

He pulled out the bonding scroll and grimaced as he peeked back into the cage. The thing seemed to know where he was and started to snap its multi jawed mouth at him as if it knew what he was about to do and bristled.  Gulping, he wrapped the scroll around his arm. This was the easy part and wasn’t the source of his hesitation. No. The source of his hesitation, was for what came next. If Lent was not quick enough, the worm could get out unbonded and kill him. At best he’d succeeded at a small but painful price.

Mentally prepared he reached for and unlatched the cage. The sandworm, sensing an opportunity, made for a quick escape, but Lent was just quick enough and caught the miniaturized sand worm with his free hand. It latched onto his wrist with its multi jawed mouth, making bite after bite. It felt like hundreds of needles stabbing into him, and in this case, that was literally the case. Lent was starting to regret his plan as black blood began to flow from the bite wounds. His hand having been impaled by the many bristles, felt like it was on fire as its venom was being pumped liberally into his body. “So, this is why these things rampage.”

It wouldn’t kill Lent, but it was going to cause him great pain for a good while. He grit his teeth as he started pouring mana into the scroll. It started as a dull ache and soon became a blinding pain. It took all his will power to not give in and let go. A scream escaped his lips. I just wish this would end. He thought.

As Lent fought through the pain; he felt the magic within the scroll begin its destined task. It wasn’t like the intimate bonding of a familiar or that of soul bonding. It was a lesser bonding. It made the worm not hostile towards him and it would physically link him to the creature, and allow him to give it basic commands. As time continued to work against him, he felt the bond starting to take hold. The worm’s struggling slowly came to a halt, and a presence in his mind take root.

Having made it back to town and back to the home of Mr. Yates, Lent held up his mangled hand. The pain had dulled since his return and the bleeding had stopped. The worm was now roaming the desert near the cart as instructed. Now he just had to get what little sleep he could but in reality, that would not happen. The pain was just too great. He lay on the bed as Mr. Yates, when he felt that unnerving sensation once more, before the door burst open.

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