Author's Note:

Thanks for the good words guys! This goes especially to loner_101. I'm not sure I really deserve that much praise but it does warm my heart and make me even more eager to write.

Titles and Abilities

Characters

***

Bright sun shone as Ace left trough the high walls of the city and stopped his group from entering it.

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you” he said in a friendly tone, moving towards Par. Monthu gave him a look that said explain yourself and he elaborated. “It has been overtaken by some crazy guy. The place is filled with mercenaries and rogues that eye everyone else as pray. I saw two players get killed in broad daylight with guards in sight. No one did anything besides those players that hunter the red named killers afterwards for favour points.”

Aurora’s face became pale in horror while the guys shared a look which Ace didn’t recognise. He ignored it along with Lancelot and his group and asked Par. “How did it go? Did you escape?”

The boy shook his head. “No, we had to fight! And it took so long! First it was giants and then...” The story spilled out of him as if he had only been waiting for someone to ask. He even used his hands and different expression to show what had happened and how it felt. Ace listened to it with one ear, following the conversation of others with the other.

Hawk was suggesting they circle this city and walk to the other while Lancelot wanted to enter and take a good look at what was happening inside. If the horrible things were really happening, someone needed to stop them. Monthu listened to their arguing for a bit before saying he wanted nothing to do with this place. It was safest to leave for another direction and find a city not engulfed in battles.

None looked too happy after hearing that. They were tired of sleeping on the cold hard dungeon ground and wet grass. All had expected tonight to sleep in a comfortable bed at some inn with a hearth blazing nearby.

Ace allowed them all to argue for some half an hour more, until Par finished his story, and then said. “For our group, there’s a free teleportation to Lasran city. The leader of it wants to have a word with us.”

“The one who made me lead the punitive force?” Monthu asked with little liking to the idea. He hadn’t forgotten being almost killed because he had gotten that position and he didn’t want to repeat the experience. “What does he want from us?”

“He mentioned something about lord battles and so on. I didn’t really pay much attention to it” Ace answered shrugging. There was too much explain and L could do that himself. Why should Ace take the pleasure from him of doing it?

“I don’t want to be thrust into another fight” Monthu said, scowling.

“But we can go and pretend to listen to it, couldn’t we?” Aurora asked, looking a bit ashamed she was saying that. “We would go to a safe city freely and it’s not like he asks to do something for him. All we have to do is to listen to him, right?” She said, looking at Ace for confirmation. The boy nodded his head. It wasn’t the exact agreement they had made but who cared. Ace was using his own powers to bring them all to Lasran anyway, the guy had nothing to do with it.

Before Monthu could say anything, Hawk agreed to Aurora. “That’s a great idea! I need some new arrows and my bow’s durability is on the low side. A city as large as Lasran is a perfect place to prepare for another leave.”

Monthu still didn’t look convinced so Ace used something that the guy couldn’t fight against. “Par, did you know there’s a tournament being held in Lasran now? I heard a couple high level beast masters and fire mages have entered! What do you say if we went to see it?”

The young mage’s eyes glistened with interest. “Fire mages?”

“Yeah!” Ace answered excitedly. “I heard one of them can summon a phoenix! Have you ever seen one?”

“No..” Par answered with a somewhat sad expression.

“Neither have I! So what do you say? It starts tomorrow midday! Do you want to come with me?”

The kid turned to look at his brother with pleading eyes. “Can I?” he asked him and Monthu sighed, glaring daggers at Ace. Nobody, but the red mage boy, had missed the obvious way Ace manipulated him to make his older brother accept their new destination.

Ace laughed internally at the look Monthu was giving him but pretended not to see it. He continued the conversation with Par about the awesome magic they might see in the tournament and what was said to be there. He had heard about it from L some twenty minutes ago, just after leaving Morion’s study.

The guy had said it was his best effort to collect as many adventurers in his city to prevent it from being taken over by force.

“Am I free to join you?” Nein asked from somewhere in the back. He had been walking with Worglan and paying little attention to what was happening in the front. “I also have some business in Lasran.”

“Do you?” Ace asked sceptically. “Or is that business following me?”

The mage shook his head. “If you ever paid any attention to your guild, you would know about it too.”

Ace felt like he was being chastened and didn’t like that. “I see no reason. If something had really went wrong, I would have been notified.”

“If the whole guild being on the verge of being disbanded is not enough, then I’m not sure what you want to hear about” Nein said, dryly.

Ace’s eyes widened, what had Romeo done to his guild? “What had happened?” he asked, worry lines appearing on his forehead.

“The different sections of the guild had a huge disagreement, made the leader to give them more power, he tried resisting but soon enough was forced to admit he’s not the owner and can’t give them what they want. The guild chat is filled with hate messages to the owner and leader for lying to them. People are also thinking about leaving and joining other guilds that actually have leaders that talk to people and supposedly don’t lie to them.”

Ace laughed at that. Who didn’t lie? That was an absurd thought but he understood how people might think that those who showed their faces were more honest. He laughed again at that before the graveness of the situation settled in. His own guild was going to be disbanded if he didn’t do anything. The bastards. As if he was going to let that happen.

“You can come” he said through clenched teeth to Nein. “I need more information about what has happened.”

“As if I know” Nein answered, calmly. “I was here with you all the time.”

‘Dammit, he’s right’ Ace cursed internally. ‘Why in the world Romeo hadn’t contacted me yet?’ He opened his guild menu and took a glance at the guild chat.

He closed it in a second.

People were flaming, raging and spamming in caps lock all kinds of thing, none of which lacked insults for his person. He thought about disabling that place altogether, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be well received.

“I need a moment” he said to his team. “Go on without me, I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”

The group gave him strange looks, asking what was he going to do. It’s not like he had any power in the guild, did he?

Ace didn’t answer them, but waved to Par again, promised to return quickly and made his way towards the forest while the rest continued on the path snaking some half a mile around the city.

After entering the trees, he climbed into one and moved onto a thick branch. From there he jumped onto another one. It wavered under his feet and Ace almost fell off but managed to keep his balance. There he looked around without seeing anything close by so he used [Shadow Dash] to move to another branch. He landed on the heels of his feet, falling backwards.

Ace felt the thrill of falling rush through his body as his feet slipped and he had to grasp for another branch lower on the tree. His fingers passed a couple before they caught onto one and stopped his decent. He pulled himself upwards and allowed a moment to take a couple of breaths before climbing back up and preparing to move to another branch.

As he did that he open his friend list and called Romeo. The guy didn’t answer at first so Ace spammed him until he did.

“What do you want?” Romeo asked in an annoyed tone.

“When were you going to tell me that the guild was on the verge of being destroyed from within?” Ace answered with his own question.

“Why do you even care? You’re never here and you know little to nothing about the comings and goings of it” the guy said in a blaming voice. Ace could almost see his glare.

“That’s what you are for” Ace said. “You wanted to be the leader and I allowed that. You were only told to tell me if something were to happen to the whole guild. And you failed that. Repeatedly.”

“How did you even hear it? I hoped everything will pass without you finding out and it’ll crash all over your head.”

‘Woah’ Ace thought wavering in his jump and failing in the process. He crashed through the leaves and barely caught on one of the lowest branches. ‘When did he start to hate me that much?’ he wondered climbing back up.

“May I ask what did I do to you?” he asked.

“Exactly” Romeo answered with venom dripping from his voice. “When did you ever do anything for me or the guild? You started it, yeah, but what more? Have you ever been here to settle some disagreements? Have you ever walked to the nobles and lowered yourself to gain a few golds to make sure you could care for the new victims of Wing? Have you at least once came and joined the players in their celebration or sorrow after losing a hard fought quest? Do you even know what quests we’ve done? What we managed to achieve and where we had come short?”

Ace had nothing to say to that. The answer to each question was a no and he felt a bit bad for that. He had created the guild to follow people who would want revenge on Silver Wing and he never really think about what the guild actually signified.

For most people it had little to do with growing stronger quickly or being able to use guild restricted stuff but more with meeting people with the same interests, creating groups and having fun. They wanted to do huge quests that needed some hundred people to work in sync where one misstep could spell disaster. They wanted to feel a part of something else they would have stayed alone or joined one of the strongest mercenary guilds. Not his unknown one.

He wasn’t sure how to reply to Romeo now. He was at fault somewhat, having left the whole guild to a guy that didn’t actually have the power to manage it. All the guild managing tools Ace had left for himself.

“You still here?” the guy asked, uncomfortable with the prolonged silence. Ace jumped from one branch to another and a couple more before replying.

“Is there a way to save the situation?” he asked, catching a branch with his hands and swinging for a moment. “To make the guys calm down?”

Ace could have sworn he heard the guy shrug. “Who knows.”

“Tell me what started it all. What do they want?”

“Why should I tell you?” Romeo asked angrily. “You’re the one whose problem it is.”

“Because you’re a good guy” Ace answered, mid jump. “You agreed to my suggestion because you wanted to help others. You still do and this guild is the only way you can do it. No one else is going to allow you that because there’s no profit in it.”

He heard a curse from another end of the call. It took the guy a whole minute before he sighed and started talking. “They wanted to make some new groups and have their leaders have the power to allow players to join and kick them out. They asked me for that power and I couldn’t give them that. All I could do was to create the groups, which they also wanted to be able to do themselves. I refused them for awhile, thinking up all kinds of excuses but they quickly they found out that I actually couldn’t do it. Things turned horrible from there in seconds.”

“Do we have such a thing as officers?” he asked, dubiously.

“Yeah, I can appoint them but it’s nothing more than a honorary title. They actually have no power over the guild members besides having me on the friend’s list and being able to report them to me.”

“Thought so” Ace muttered, not really caring if Romeo could hear him. Some changes were really required in his guild. “Can you hold a guild meeting or something? Or is too late for that?”

Romeo thought for a moment before answering. “I think it might be arranged but I wouldn’t say it’ll help much. Nobody will want to listen to you.”

“I’ll make them, all I need is for them to be there” Ace said them. “I should come to the city later today. How fast can you get them all to come to you?”

“It’ll take some time. Most are scattered outside with some even in other cities. Maybe by the end of today?”

“Great. I’ll be there.”

“But you know this will be the last straw for everyone? If you fail the meeting, there’s no coming back.”

“And if I don’t do it?” Ace asked, mockingly.

“I’ll call everyone up.”

“Do that” Ace told him and ended the call. He moved through the top of the forest for a bit longer before thinking of what to do next. Making everyone come was the easiest part, but how was he going to force them to stay. Earlier he could threaten them to throw them out, but what did he have now? His power was limited to allowing their stay and why would they care about that? Their threat was to take all the guild members and leave.

He could allow them to make groups and do whatever they wanted with the members but would that solve the problems? Or create even more of them? He had a feeling those unhappy with his previous sharing of responsibilities wouldn’t be calmed down only with this. They would want more and Ace didn’t feel like giving even that much.

He hadn’t given Romeo the authority to give other players the ability to remove others because he wanted the guild to have all kinds of people. If he let all the officers kick others out, they could easily abuse it for their own gain. Ace had wanted none of that because he would never find about it, always being away.

And nothing had changed too much. He didn’t want to become the face of the guild and have to be everywhere, in boring meetings and so on, that’s why he had Romeo. Yet he couldn’t keep on going as he had if he wanted to continue having a guild.

On top of that there was still Morion to consider. The guy was trying to use any means available to weaken L and one of them was steal the guilds situated in there. And the strongest one in Lasran was Draugar of Silver because it held the support of most of the city’s nobles.

He had agreed to spy for the guy but he had never said, he’d make his guild do the same. But if he didn’t and the city fell, there would be retribution and coming from Morion it would be brutal. He was a no nonsense guy who held his grudges and knew not what fair play meant. It was hard to say just how many underhanded methods he used to take over the cities he already had and was still using for those he was trying to now.

And Ace knew it wasn’t only Lasran.

From the bits of information he was gathered it felt like Morion had three or even four cities in his plans before he came fully for Lasran. All he was doing now, having spies, buying him and the guilds, was only his half effort. It was just preparation for the real take over which would happen later on.

Ace had asked him if he cared the least about the demon released into the world to which the guy had only sneered. “You adventurers will take care of it. Since you came nothing has happened to the world so why should I trouble myself with it?”

That had probably been the few sentences that gave the most insight into the guy’s thoughts. And what Ace should do now.

He turned around and moved towards where he thought his group should be around now. His jumps had gotten better through the time he’d talked and there was barely any moments where he wavered. From time to time he’d use [Shadow Dash] when the branches thinned out and do that without falling too. It felt pretty nice to be this ninja like.

As he was reaching the end of the trees when a message popped up before his eyes.

*[Shadow Dash] level up!*

*[Shadow Dash] has reached Master Level!*

He opened his skill panel to see what had changed after passing such a milestone but to his surprise he couldn’t find the skill. He double-checked, taking in each skill so he wouldn’t miss it for sure but it wasn’t there. Instead he found two skills that hadn’t been here previously. He touched on both of them to see what had happened.

*Void Step [Active] Beginner 1

Shadows and magic is a deadly combination and you have mastered it. Now there’s nothing that can stop you from reaching your target and making sure that his time had come. You can teleport up to ten meters in any direction every three seconds.

The range and cooldown is going to change as the abilities mastery grows.*

It took all Ace had not to stop in mid-action and fall to his doom from amazement. The ability was way too overpowered! He turned his eyes to the other one with worry and anticipation mixing inside him.

*Radiant Step[Active] Beginner 1

Light is what makes you see the world but it can blind one to it too. Now you can weave light into small fields that can hold your weight for up to a whole second. You can make them anywhere and in any position.

As the ability grows in strength the width of the field and weight it can carry will increase. The cooldown will stay the same at a fourth of a second. *

If Ace was surprised before, now he was shocked to his core. If he understood correctly, this ability meant...

He could fly!

Instantly he called it up “Radiant Step!” and jumped on thin air before himself. It held him for a moment and then he was falling. He tried creating it again but to no avail. His body encountered small resistance as he activated the ability which he attributed to those invisible fields but they were nowhere near strong enough to slow down his fall.

Cursing at his genius idea to try out a new skill some forty feet high, he casted [Wild Vines], which fell lifeless from a branch, and caught onto them. From there he jumped onto a branch and easily made his way down. Standing on solid ground he activated the skill again.

It felt stupid raising his leg and trying to stand up on air but the skill said he could and he wanted it to be true. How cool would it be?

So he moved his leg forward and it went straight to the ground. His eyes narrowed at that and he cast the ability again. This time he didn’t wait even for a moment and felt a strong surface beneath. It held him for a moment before disappearing right from under his foot. The suddenness of it made him lose his balance and he found himself sprawled on the ground.

Luckily, this time he wasn’t high up and the only thing hurt was his pride. He shook it off and tried the ability again. It took him a couple of tries before he got accustomed to the time of disappearing and could move his foot off it.

Next came the most important thing. Could he move off the ground with it?

He created one light field a foot high and then stood up on it. While he was standing on it, he created another one right before it and moved on it with the other foot. One second was the limit the fields stayed so he didn’t have the time to dally but he couldn’t hurry either or he found himself face to the ground, the fields not quick enough to appear.

He cursed them repeatedly and eloquently but didn’t stop using them. They might have been invisible to make it ten times harder and annoy him to no end, but they also could lift him in the air without anything. He would no longer need walls or trees to go and see the world from the up. That was more tempting than anything he’d encountered befoere.

After playing with it for some half an hour, he got the general feel of it and found out that he could see the fields with [Mystic Eyes]. It was an extremely helpful thing while learning but he couldn’t use it in cities and among masses of people if he didn’t want to scare them, so it was important to learn to use [Radiant Step] and without assistance from other abilities.

He wanted to try some more stuff out, but he had a feeling Monthu was already thinking of ways to get out of his promise to his brother and Ace couldn’t have it. He had a million and one reasons to be in Lasran and none could be postponed. He just had to be there and now.

As he came upon the group, he noticed the lack of people. Lancelot was gone with his friends.

Those that were still here opened their eyes wide open as he came to them, sprinting on nothing but air.

Monthu eyed him sceptically. “Do I even want to know?”

Ace laughed. He was in a very good mood suddenly. “One of my skills evolved so now I can walk on air! Isn’t that awesome?” he asked joyously, creating fields higher up so his boots were in their eyes level. “This is the best!”

His showing off took longer than a second and he found himself falling again. Yet it was little to no annoyance to him any longer. He had gotten used to it so much that he’d made falling techniques. One of them he used now, shifting his body forward as he was already falling that way and making a whole circle, he landed on his feet with a flourish and bowed before his observers.

Par laughed with Aurora, clapping at his performance. The guys were more reserved but their lips had curved upwards too. “That was amazing! Can you repeat it?” the girl asked and Ace felt compelled to do it.

“You know you’re asking me to fall on purpose, you know that?” he grumbled just loud enough to be heard by everyone before he moved up. This time he went up as high as thirty feet up before supposedly missing a step and falling. He heard a gasp from somewhere below as he used [Gust] to slow himself down.

This way he could right himself in a way that he liked, wave at his friends smiling, pretend he lost it looking scared and in the end land on his feet with a smirk. Monthu rolled his eyes at him but Ace just laughed. Aurora was clapping again and Par’s smile went from one ear to the other.

“What else can you do?” the kid asked and Ace had to think for a moment. It was a good question and one worth some pondering. “Give me a moment. I have an idea but it needs some testing.”

He first moved up in the air and thought there of how to accomplish his task best. He kept on walking in a circle to change the fields so he wouldn’t fall off.

His plan was very simple, he wanted to look like he was flying without wings and that it would look realistic. He had a feeling it required more mastery of the ability than he had but no one said he couldn’t try it anyway.

He started by bending his left knee a lot and the other just slightly while he stood on his right legs toes. It was very uncomfortable but from the looks he’d grasped it was working. Just how was he supposed to stand in one place without falling?

A quick idea saved his hide as he created another field less than an inch below the first one, and after a moment another one higher up, besides his feet If he had wings it would have had the added effect of making it look that he was flapping them and because of it moving slightly up and down.

“How does it look?” he asked the group anyway.

“Like you can fly!” Aurora answered instantly. “You sure it’s not that?”

Ace smiled as Par’s eyes followed him with unhidden admiration. He felt like he should do something even more and he knew just what that would be. It was dumb and crazy, but more awesome than anything he’d done before.

He released [Flare] from his cowl and it flew some ten feet away. Then he took a deep breath, saluted Par and with determination in his shining yellow eyes went for it.

First step was the easiest one, he jumped upwards and when he started falling, he created a field sideways and used it to be able to jump in the opposite direction. Forwarded by his momentum, he reached for [Flare] and pretended he was about to catch it but then it escaped his clutches and went up and to the right. He casted [Gust] to slow his decent and positioned himself so his feet were to the ground.

Then beneath himself he created a field and the instant it was here he used it to push himself up, it broke on contact but Ace didn’t care as long as it served its purpose before disappearing. He made another field, this one slanted so he didn’t go straight anywhere and reached for the [Flare] again. It ran from him as expected and he created another field to catch himself.

He mistimed it by half a second and instead of feeling surface beneath his feet, he felt normal thin air. It destroyed his momentum and he felt himself falling.

The feeling was more than familiar to him because he hadn’t been doing much of anything else the whole day so he used [Gust] to slow himself down and made two fields on either side of himself. Then he extended his hands so that he held himself still for a moment. It strained his muscles horribly but stopped his decent for a moment and that was all he needed .He made a field under himself and from there invisible stairs that led him down.

He landed on the ground with a soft thud and made a deep bow with his hands bent to the left. “Hope you enjoyed the performance of the Great Mage from a faraway land! You won’t be able to see it ever again so hopefully you’ve paid keen attention to what has been happening before your eyes!” he said in a pompous voice, moving his hands in wide arcs as if it helped to increase his greatness.

The group chuckled or laughed out loud depending on who it was. “We won’t see it again?” Hawk asked with laughter shining in his eyes.

“Of course not!” Ace said indignantly. “I’m planning to do that routine without needing to fall!” The guy laughed at that and Ace’s smile widened. It felt nice to be here with them and do stupid stuff. He had been so used to entertaining only himself with his stupidity that he had never known it could be this fun to be making fun of oneself before others.

“I’m sorry to break the mood, but we need to move” Nein said suddenly, his eyes narrowing at something others couldn’t see or hear. “There are riders coming this way and they’re stopping all the travellers. We would need to hurry if we wanted to reach the city without being stopped.”

Those news dampened the atmosphere but Ace didn’t let it die out. He nodded at the guy and used his fields to get a bit higher up, a foot or so. “Let’s have a race” he said to Par, moving up and down so as not to fall off. The kid didn’t look very eager at first. It was unfair for a rogue to go against a mage but Ace said he was going to run only on air and if he fell, he would need to stand still for a couple of seconds before being able to get up on it again.

This made it much more equal and soon Par was throwing Monthu his staff and preparing to sprint. Ace made [Flare] go above their heads and draw the numbers as he said them. “One, two, three... Go!” he screamed as his flame burst into thousands of little sparks.

Both of the kids moved at the word with all the speed they could muster up. Ace fell in moments. Running was much harder than simply walking and if he put his foot wrongly, he took the risk of sliding off the field. It wasn’t too easy to get right but encouraged by Par’s laughter Ace did his best. He got on his feet again and sprinted after his friend with a finesse of a running buffalo.

“He needs a lot of polishing on that” Hawk murmured, watching the kids disappearing behind a turn. They were quick little kittens.

“I wonder how you would be looking if you had learnt the skill only hours before” Aurora threw him in a chiding tone. Yet there was laughter shining in her eyes so Hawk just chuckled. “At least I wouldn’t be risking my neck fifty feet up for no reason.”

“But that was amazing, you have to agree!” she said, looking over to the others for confirmation. “It seemed like he could really fly there!”

Nein nodded absent-mindedly, not really paying attention to the conversation. It seemed like he was lost in a different world, talking with things from another realm. Her eyes landed on Worglan who had a little smirk going on. Noticing her gaze, he said “If he had had wings, I would have sworn it was a angel coming from the sky.”

Aurora wasn’t sure whether to take it as a compliment for the kid or not. It looked like one, but from the tone one would have surely said in was a thinly veiled mockery. She shook her head unsure and turned to Monthu. He looked thoughtful and a bit worried, all the happiness gone. She sighed tiredly. Why were all the guys so serious? They should enjoy a good laugh for more than just a second before going back to their sulking natural state.

“How far could have they gotten all alone?” Monthu asked no one and everyone at the same time. He hadn’t been too happy about the race idea but he had been to slow to stop it from happening. Ace had a way of making things happen in just the right way so no one could stop him. Or he just knew people well enough, thought Aurora as a memory of what she had unveiled in the frog cave resurfaced.

What if Ace was truly that monster as she feared? They surely couldn’t continue on as they are, but he had never hurt them. And what would be his retribution? It was scary to even think about it. Everyone feared the killer when he ran around killing randomly but what would it mean having him hate you? Could they even survive?

She wondered. And once again her eyes were drawn to the spot high in the air where Ace had played around. Could that joyful kid with shining eyes and bright smile really be a heartless murderer? It went against everything that was known about the monster but her conclusion couldn’t be wrong. There were simply too many similarities between the two.

“Far enough” answered Nein. “They’ll reach the city gates soon and will be safe there. We should follow their example and hurry up. The riders are almost on our heels.”

Monthu eyed him without much trust but did as suggested. He didn’t feel fine when his brother was out of his sight so all plans that ended in him getting to him sooner were welcome. “What is actually happening here?” he asked the brown mage, who gave him an empty look. “I wouldn’t be wasting all my mana to try and find that out if I knew, now would I?” There was bitterness in his tone and Monthu knew he wasn’t the only one who didn’t like being in the dark.

Ace, of course, knew everything. He had seen it in the kid’s eyes as he said they shouldn’t enter the city and quickly leave for as far away as they could. It annoyed Monthu to no end that the kid managed to always get himself in the middle of everything that was happening and then kept it a secret. He hid things from them, yet he couldn’t be faulted for lying. It was frustrating having to follow a kid’s words and knowing that if you tried to do otherwise, your folly will be on your own head. He had told you the correct actions to be taken.

He blinked a few times to clear his head and looked at the situation with the information he was given. There was war and he was in the battle zone, getting out of it was top priority and that was what they were doing. It was good and then he will try to avoid being dragged into the fighting by that lord, although, if the guy was Ace’s friend it’ll be near impossible to do. Still he would have to try.

Fifteen long minutes passed before they reached the giant stone wall. The gates were open for the last few struggling travellers and soldiers stood in positions to close them right after. They had made it barely in time.

They found the kid’s sitting on a bench with glasses of water in their hands as they chatted to an elderly man. He was bald and had colourful marks on his face but didn’t look dangerous. There was a friendly, fatherly expression on his face as he listened to Par say something and Ace interrupt him to add some stuff to the story.

“You’re okay?” Monthu asked his brother who nodded so quickly some of the water from his glass spilled out. It scared the kid and he looked petrified for a moment before Ace slushed a good part of his in and smiled widely. “Now we have equal again” he said lightly and turned to the elderly. “We’re all here now. Let’s go!” He took Par by his hand and dragged the kid after himself to a side entrance of a large shrine. It was situated in a quiet corner of the city and in the middle of the day was uncomfortably silent.

“This is a part meant for the priests only but I’ll make an exception for you today. Be quiet so as not to disturb those that are meditating now and follow me” explained the priest as they made their way inside. There he didn’t utter a sound and made sure they followed the example. It felt more like sneaking around than being high guests but Monthu kept that to himself. It was too late to argue the finer points of their entrance.

The priest lead them into a room filled with light. It was streaming from the colourful glass roof that was engraved in various shapes. Lights danced mesmerisingly as the elderly person moved to the centre and motioned for them to do the same. They made a circle around him and he started to chant in a unknown language.

In moments three pairs of doors opened, none of which were as small and insignificant as the ones they had entered through and priests in their white cloaks rushed in. They shouted out godly curses, promising the most horrible of things to their persons for sullying this sacred place, but as they tried to reach them Ace casted [Ice Field]. It made the floor become impossible to walk for most people and priests were never known for their amazing agility. They stepped on the ice and slipped, falling ungracefully on their bellies or backs with oofs and ahhs.

Few seconds more and the group was away, standing in another church. This one was filled with life. Nobody paid them any attention as they appeared and they easily made their way outside.

“Anything to say about the promised teleportation to Lasran?” Mothu asked Ace who looked back at him sheepishly. “It might have been a bit far fetched to say it was promised... Although L did say to bring you as fast as possible and this guy,” he motioned to the elderly guy, “is actually a priest from the city we’ve first visited. It’s only that his church might have been burned and he called a heretic...”

Monthu felt like face-palming. What had he expected? As he had thought just half an hour ago, the kid was a master of telling parts of truth that made one see the things he wanted while the most important details got obscured. He should have gotten used to it by now.

Yet it seemed a task above him.

A middle aged man came to greet them as they came outside the church. He ushered them all into a carriage and brought to the castle. From there without giving a moment’s rest they were shoved into somewhat familiar study room. They had seen it a couple of times, well most of them. Nein and Worglan were looking around, taking in the surroundings while the rest were staring down the smiling lord.

He had large grey bags under his drooping eyes, pale papery skin and crumpled clothes. They didn’t seem to have been changed for a long while. “I’m sorry for the rude welcome but I have little time for welcoming speeches and long conversations.”

They nodded in unison. It was clear from the way he looked that time was not something he had in abundance. It was surprising he’d even managed to squeeze them in his busy schedule.

“If we’re in understanding, I’ll go straight to the point then. I need you to officially start working for me. I only need the word of it so you can do everything as you’ve done before, just if anyone asks you’re under my command. In time, I might give you a mission or two but nothing impossible or contradictory to your beliefs. I will also pay you a wage, three hundred golds a month per person. Is that satisfactory?” he asked, looking them straight in the eyes as if daring them to refuse. Three hundred golds were a hefty sum and given for almost free? That was an offer too good to be true.

And Monthu knew it too. He wasn’t eager on joining a side but if he was given free gold and barely had to do anything for it, he wasn’t going to refuse it. “And we have a right to refuse a mission if we don’t like it?”

L nodded. “Yes, but only to a point. If you refuse three missions in a row without an acceptable excuse, you will no longer be paid. We will also have to agree on the legal punishment for the party that won’t follow their end of the bargain.”

Monthu nodded and was about to say something when Ace pushed to the front of the group. “I think you can do it with that guy alone” he said motioning to Monthu. “You can also have a talk with Nein. He’s a cool guy and intent on sticking around me for various reasons. Use that against him.” He looked over the group. “That’s pretty much all I can help you with so I might as well leave with the rest. There’s no need for all of us to be crowding your work place and be bored to death while you discuss the finer points of the agreement.”

L nodded in acknowledgement and Monthu was forced to do the same. He gave Aurora and Hawk a look before turning away and saying what he had planned before being stopped.

Ace opened the door and they all went out without any delay. Everyone trusted Monthu to do right by them and didn’t doubt his abilities to get the best agreement possible.

“What shall we do now?” Aurora asked, turning to Par and half-looking to Ace.

“Why don’t we get a hearty meal before Monthu finishes and you have to log out?” he asked, leading them out without needing anyone to show him the way.

Aurora wanted to ask how he knew they’d need to log out before she thought better of it. Not everything had to signify him being a killer. Maybe he just guessed it from their ragged appearances. There was a different tiredness that showed on a person after long playing, it wasn’t in his appearance or movement as in real life but more in a way he acted. It was his brain that needed rest and Ace was a smart kid. If anyone could pick up on it, it would be him.

She needed to stop evaluating every word that he’d said. He was not a monster. He could never hurt them, right?