Chapter 8: Departure.

Bob woke up finding the room he was in empty, he took a towel and went bathroom for a shower. “Right, today’s the day we leave for the Cuntersian Kingdom. I wonder if I’m going to have to do missions for them as soon as I reach there?” Bob thought to himself as he was washing up in the bathroom.

After Bob had put on his hood, mask, and armour, he began to pack his bag. He grabbed his duffel bag from the floor, looked inside and found out that his small pouch of Kokaine was gone. “Ah fuck, I’m sure it’ll turn up somewhere,” Bob sighed, even though he was a bit sentimental, he wasn’t really affected much by it being gone.

Bob put on his bag and walked out of his room, going downstairs to the Tavern’s dining area. It looks like only Eleonora is already there.

“Good morning Bob, you look a bit gloomy today,” Eleonora made an observation while greeting him simultaneously.

“Yea, it’s just something minor,” Bob replied.

“You should get some breakfast, you will always feel better if your stomach’s full,” Eleonora suggested.

Bob ordered a breakfast set of bread and soup and began eating. “Where are the others?”

“Selestina is preparing the carriage for the journey ahead while Rindwom and Blaggr are buying supplies and are retrieving their armour and weapons from the blacksmith after sending it of maintenance,” Eleonora kindly told him

“Oh, are they going to come soon?” Bob asked again.

“Nope, we are meeting them at the city’s borders, we are traveling back to the wilderness to get to the palace.” She explained curtly.

After Bob had finished eating both of them exited the tavern. They walked towards the city gates while having some idle conversation. They suddenly heard a fight happening in a dark alley.

“The fuck did you say, dawg? You tryna get popped?” A familiar voice shouted

“That’s fucked up man, no normal person would say something like that!” Another familiar voice said.

“I just said I preferred lolis than other girls! Why are you doing this to me?” The victim of the fight sobbed.

Bob instantly recognized the voice and shouted. “Is that you Tyrone and Demarco?”

“Huh? Shadow? What’s good nibba?” Tyrone replied.

“All’s good in the hood nibba, what’chu doing over here?” Bob asked.

“We caught this man saying fucked up shit to a little girl, we teaching this pedophile a lesson!” Demarco answered.

“Ah, that’s good then. Too bad I can’t join you, I’m leaving this city,” Bob informed them.

“Oh, you leaving bro? Come back to this city often man, we may need some more hands to help us carry out justice,” Demarco said.

“A’ight bro, we understand, you gotta flee from child support,” Tyrone spoke earnestly.

After saying their goodbyes, Bob and Eleonora continued walking towards the border gate.

“Were those your friends?” Eleonora asked.

“Yeap, I first met them when they were beating up an old man, I just joined them and suddenly we became friends,” Bob explained.

“That’s….interesting,” Eleonora was slightly taken aback by his explanation. She realised that Bob was susceptible to making friends with bad company. “I’ll have to watch him closely next time he goes to the city,” Eleonora told herself.

Within a few minutes, they arrived at the border and saw Rindwom, Blaggr, and Selestina chatting outside the carriage.

“Are we ready to set out?” Rindwom asked as he noticed Eleonora’s and Bob’s presence.

“Yes, let’s go,” Selestina ordered them. One by one, they went in the carriage, with Rindwom and Blaggr in the front seats and Bob, Eleonora and Selestina in the back.

Once everyone is seated, Shadow automatically assumed the position of his head on Eleonora’s lap and immediately fell asleep. Selestina was shocked by this display and was probably even jealous, Eleonora only smiled sweetly but overall was indifferent about it.

For the whole length of the journey, nothing much happened, no monsters nor enemy soldiers. It was peaceful, almost too peaceful.

“Shadow, wake up, we’re almost there,” Eleonora said to him in a gentle whisper.

Bob woke up a few seconds later and sat upright on his seat “Thanks, I tend to get headaches when riding carriages,” He told Eleonora.

“No problem, Shadow,” Eleonora looked at him serenely. For an existence such as a Forest Elf, a human of Bob’s age was akin to a small child to an Elf. No matter how powerful Bob was, to Eleonora, he was still a child.

“Look out the window, you can see the kingdom from here,” Selestina told Bob.

Bob took a gander out the carriages’ window, a mesmerizing sight was laid in front of him. A kingdom of magnificent proportions, walls as high as the tallest oak tree, towers almost piercing the sky. The castle looked majestic and strong.

The carriage went through the castle gates, which was a commercial and residential area, residents and merchants looked at the carriage in awe and interest. They were most probably informed of the ShadowChaser’s arrival in the kingdom.

Beyond the commercial and residential area was the castle, multiple knights and soldiers were stationed outside its’ entrance. The carriage stopped in front of them and one by one the passengers of the carriage started to alight.

One knight went to approach them.

“Greetings, Princess Selestina, and her companions. We have anticipated your arrival, the king wants to see you all immediately,”

Selestina returned the greeting and lead Bob and the rest into the castle. As they were walking into the castle, Bob noticed that most of the knights were looking at him warily and were whispering within themselves.

“Is that the Shadow Rogue? His armour is really dark and you can’t even see his full face,”

“I think he’s supposed to be a legendary assassin or something when the rest came out of the carriage, I almost didn’t see him even though he was right in front of me,”

Bob and the rest were walking on the pathway to the main door of the castle, the pathway was made out of polished stone and all around was just a huge garden, flowers of every kind were blooming, there was even a field of blue tulips.

Once at the entrance, they were greeted by some maid and butlers, who were introducing themselves and offered their services to them, as they were talking, Shadow noticed that most of them were looking at him with a careful look on their face. “They must really be scared of me,” Shadow thought.

They then were sent to the king’s throne room by the head maid, they all stood before the king and bowed. Except for Bob, he bowed to no one or that he simply didn’t know the proper etiquettes when facing royalty. Knowing the legends surrounding Shadow, none of them, not even the king told him to bow.

“Selestina, Rindwom, Eleonora and Blaggr, I am pleased that you have completed your mission. You shall be rewarded for completion of the task,” The king told them,

“Thank you, my lord,” They all said simultaneously

“Now then, Shadow Rogue, I am happy that you have accepted our proposal and we shall grant your prize of the deal, anything you want, you shall ask it from Selestina and we shall give it to you as long as you fight for us and destroy our enemies,” The king declared.

”Very well, your enemies shall be silenced and destroyed, not one of them shall ever learn of peace,” Bob proclaimed.

Suddenly, A large powerful sound came crashing down outside the castle. Two guards hurried into the throne room and exasperatedly said, “It’s a Nutter! We’ve been attacked by Nutter!”.

The King was shocked by the name ‘Nutter’, it would have meant somebody had got their hands on Kokaine. This was certainly a dangerous situation. “Oh, so that’s where my Kokaine went,” Bob thought to himself.

“Shadow! This is your first mission, defend the castle from the Nutter at all costs!” The King exclaimed.

Shadow smiled and turned into a cloud of dark matter and went to find the Nutter.