Book 2: Chapter 24

Jughog sat in his room, mulling over the latest reports he had received. Three more men had died last night, all with holes through their chests. It was apparent that the wounds were from the same culprit, but the aggravating thing was that all these men were from the group of 20 that had massacred Soaring Wolf 7 days ago.

Jughog knew the ex-member of Soaring Wolf called Cyil was back with a vengeance. By now 14 of the 20 men had already died. Three days ago on the first night 7 had died, on the second night 4 had died, and on the third night, yesterday, 3 more had died. Jughog wasn’t concerned for his safety, but was concerned for the reputation of Ravenous Serpents. Anymore deaths and the higher ups from headquarters in Rovaria Kingdom’s capital city will swoop down and kick him off his lofty position. Jughog couldn’t have that, so he racked his brains trying to find a solution.

He had already increased the bounty for Cyil’s head to 5,000 gold coins, some of which came from his own savings. He had ordered all his men to travel in at least groups of three and specifically told those from the remaining 20 to not travel at night.

Cyil only attacked at night and there were no witnesses or survivors. There was a lucky member who had managed to escape, but he failed to see the Cyil’s appearance, only stating that it was a small cloaked figure. This member did, however, manage to see a fast projectile flying towards him. When Jughog heard this he immediately frowned, confirming that Cyil was indeed a mage--the worst possible outcome.

Jughog thought about the situation and then thought about it some more. He finally decided that if he couldn’t solve it by tomorrow morning then he would have to lower his head and ask the mayor to intervene. Thinking about suckering up to the mayor whom he had always pressured made Jughog uncomfortable.

***

Rovaria Kingdom’s capital city: in the king’s personal study room sat a calm Iruka who stared at the contents of a book.

“You can come out now,” Iruka said to the darkness, his eyes still on the book.

After a brief silence, a person garbed in loose black robes walked out of the shadows. “As expected from his highness. Even I, a rank 8 darkness mage, cannot fool your senses.”

Iruka did not care for the praise and said, “Is this about the monster tide from the west?”

The black robed figure nodded and said, “Rovaria is farthest east and is currently one of the safest kingdom, along with Moritania and Gallenfall Kingdoms. I am here to inform you of the mage association’s decision to abandon Streggana Kingdom and its declaration of war against these hostile invaders. Or course, we expect your full cooperation in this, too.”

The black robed figure paused for a bit, but when Iruka simply continued to read his book, the figure continued, “The fighting grounds will be on Tyoin Kingdom. There we will make our stand. Use whatever means you can to muster all of your kingdom’s strength and pray the elements are on our side.”

Iruka looked up from his book and faced its contents towards the black robed man. Iruka began, pointing to a picture: “this is the renegade rose. Do you know what it is? Probably not. I haven’t heard of it until today. It is rumored that the day this rose blooms is the day Nakrul itself will face a life-extinguishing calamity.”

Iruka sighed, then flipped his hand to cause a plant to appear. The plant was potted and healthy and vibrant. The single flower on that plant was blood red with black stripes, looking exactly like the renegade rose in Iruka’s book.

The black robed figure’s eyes widened, “it can’t be!”

“Oh,” Iruka was surprised. “So you do know of it? The mage association sure knows a lot...Too bad the book of the wizened has disappeared with Baccaus. All of humanities’ accumulated knowledge and secrets were in there…”

The black robed man bowed then said, “your highness, I must take my leave to immediately report this matter.”

Just as the man was about to leave, Iruka asked, “Is it really the Dark Ones?”

The black robed man, hesitated for a bit then nodded. “We have confirmed that one of the leaders of the monster tide is a Dark One. Not only that, but he rides the five-clawed demon-fanged dragon.”

Iruka hopped to his feet in shock. “The five-clawed demon-fanged dragon?! Impossible. That’s one of the dragon’s leaders. What of the five-clawed brightscale dragon and five-clawed azure dragon?”

“I do not know. The dragons are haughty beings and never take part in these squabbles...but. But if all three supreme dragons were to join forces and attack the Head Sage, then that would explain why he perished without a single word.”

Iruka sat back down, digesting the information he had just received. This news was almost as shocking as seeing the renegade rose bloom. The Rovaria family had always kept the unbloomed rose within their family, praying that the day it bloomed would never come, but their worst nightmare had become reality...

“Your highness,” the black robed figure bowed one last time then melded with the darkness, leaving Iruka to ponder the news.

Iruka did not move for a long time-- he didn’t even breathe. Then his body quickly morphed into flames, turning him into a human-shaped fire.

“Take care of things, while I am out.” Iruka said, then took out a magical scroll and activated it.

Dimensional Teleport!

Iruka’s figure vanished.

“Travel with ease master,” a deep rumbling voice responded from deep within the castle grounds.

***

Cyil was patient. It had been a week since his last kill and a week since the regional annual mercenary tournament had concluded. The winners were some dark horses whom people had never heard of and shockingly, they were all from the same mercenary group--Immortal Refugees.

Immortal Refugees cleanly sweeped the tournament in all divisions and brought great prestige and hate with their victories. This winning upset the Ravenous Serpents the most, especially Jughog did not participate because he was too busy trying to catch Cyil .

Cyil knew all about this because he was a member of Ravenous Serpents. No one questioned his identity, because Ravenous Serpents had too many members and no one would dare imitate being a Ravenous Serpent. The crime for doing so would undoubtedly be worse than death.

Thus, Cyil blended right in and gathered his information from within. Everything was simple and moved according to plan until Cyil sensed the presence of a rank 4 level 4 mage. Randomly, a mage had come to visit Ravenous Serpents’ sub-base.

Cyil thought he had been exposed, but the mage simply brushed pass without sparing him a glance. Cyil breathed out a sigh of relief and unclenched his readied hands.

Thinking it weird that he could sense mages of higher rankings, but that they could not sense him, Cyil simply accepted this little gift.

The mage didn’t know who Cyil was, but Cyil knew who the mage was; he was the mayor and he had been secretly following the remaining six men left on the to kill list. Of course, Jughog was on the top of the list, but Cyil knew that would be a tough fought battle. If he couldn’t win then his identity would be exposed and he would no longer be able to stay in the city so Cyil left Jughog alone for the time being.

Sighing, Cyil stood up from a wooden chair, scraping it across the stone floor as he bent over to carry a stack of books over to a counter. Cyil said, “Creed, thank you again for letting me read for so long. I’ll be back again tomorrow.”

The person named Creed was an old man with a kind smile. “Mahoj my boy, no one from Ravenous Serpents really uses this library so I am glad you come to keep me company. Bah, bunch of buffoons they are only coming here to have me look up magical beast information or rare treasures. There is so much more that this library has to offer. All these books were either stolen, used as a form of payment, or gifted to Ravenous Serpents so their owners are from far and wide. There is much to learn about Nakrul from these books. Alas, everyone just focuses on trying to rank up… You know, knowledge is a form of strength that needs to be cultivated, too.”

Cyil listened to the talking Creed who seemed as if he hadn’t talked to another person for ages. Cyil only nodded and didn’t interrupt. After a bit, Creed said, “look at my rambling mouth. Sorry to keep you for so long Mahoj. Off you go now my boy.”

“Take care, Creed.” Cyil walked out of the Ravenous Serpents’ library and navigated his way out into the open-aired street market.

Without much to do during the day, as his targets were either out on some mission or surrounded by others, Cyil spent his time fully utilizing the resources of Ravenous Serpents. Their training facilities were top-notch and the free meals they received were sumptuous. Cyil used them all, but he most liked the library where his eyes were opened to how vast Nakrul really was. A large majority of Nakrul was unexplored because those regions were life forbidding zones or simply too far to reach within a mortal’s lifetime. Reading about the forbidden, Cyil had an urge to go explore these places, but for now he would settle for reading about them.

After his reading was done, Cyil would take a stroll through the marketplace that dotted the streets near Ravenous Serpent’s sub-base. The merchants knew Ravenous Serpents’ members had the most money and liked to buy things on impulse so they strategically set up shop right in front of Ravenous Serpents’ doorsteps.

By now Cyil had a good sum of money, approximately 2018 gold coins he had looted from the 14 dead bodies. Clearly, rank 3 and rank 4 warriors had quite some money.

Cyil enjoyed strolling through the open market and candidly asked questions about the products the vendors were advertising. Some people talked endlessly, trying to convince him to buy their product, while others said nothing at all. The products available were as diverse as there were stars in the sky and Cyil saw something new every time he went there.

Today, Cyil saw a familiar scene where a Ravenous Serpent member was pushing himself onto a heavily makeuped female vendor. The stalls tended to be handled by women, so that their sales would be better, but this also came with the frequent nagging and thirsty advances from the buyers.

Cyil watched from the side, until a city guard came up to tell the dissatisfied Ravenous Serpent member to leave the woman alone. Cyil silently applauded the city guard and continued to sift through the merchandise.

Cyil hadn’t even taken a step when he heard a voice speaking straight into his mind.

“Hey, kid, you there!”

Cyil jumped up in shock, bumping into other people, who quickly grew angry then quiet after seeing his Ravenous Serpent’s emblem.

Cyil looked around, but no one met his eyes.

“Stop looking around like a fool. Down here. I’m down here.” The voice appeared once more.

Cyil looked down to the stall and saw a damaged pendant, a rough rock, a twisted root, a smelly leather glove, a pair of rusty silver earrings and an odd two foot long interlocking chain. Cyil’s eyes zeroed in on one of the objects and he asked in a cold voice, “who are you? What do you want?”

The voice responded in a haughty tone, “Kid, I am your luckiest encounter in a million life times. I am the Nefarious Saint!”