Music for today: Elephant Music - King
https://youtu.be/YzB5saeUBHk
Late Afternoon - Late Winter - Year 24 : Outskirts of Emporio
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*Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock...* The old clock over the mantle marched on diligently as silence blanketed the room like a heavy quilt. The air was warm to the nose, yet somehow chilled the skin—raising goosebumps along every nearby arm.
Across from me, Nikos sat stiff, his gut-wrenching anxiety illuminated by the soft flicker of firelight as I looked over the floating holographic map between us, mentally noting the exact location of every glowing white speck, both precise and deliberate.
Each one was its own point of interest. Whether warehouses, laboratories, or storages, Nikos didn't know—but he was sure of their importance to the cult. Being the top spenders of oversea trade under his umbrella within the 'guild', they were exactly what I was looking for: not a single thread, but several, braided tight. -How perfect...-
However, despite my pleasure clearly curling my lips, the family around me hung their heads as if bracing for something grim.
Though, perhaps they just recognized that their fates were to be decided by the whim of a stranger cloaked in divinity, and didn't wish to resisting the impending judgement.
Even if it made for an.. uncomfortable moment...
*Vwoop* Eventually releasing the projection with a pulse of light, I leaned back in my chair. "Relax," I whispered, trying to bring ease to the stiffness. "I'm certain you wouldn't try to lie so brazenly, especially with your family here."
Watching the boy closely for another moment, I searched for the slightest shift in his anxiety, a waver of uncertainty that could reveal carefully veiled deception.
But he only exhaled slowly, like a boy who had just confessed to stealing from the temple. "Of course not, sir," he said, calmer now than any other time today.
-What a truly peculiar boy...- But while an odd sight, a truthfulness that bordered faith made him more than useful.
*Snap* With a sharp spark, several platinum coins materialized on the center table—drawing wide gazes up from the floor in an instant.
"A deal is a deal." Lifting my foot onto my knee, my tail curled around the base of the chair. "I'd recommend looking to move, not immediately, of course, but perhaps away from anywhere populated, trade ports, industrial areas..." Crossing my leg and curling my tail around the chair, I looked at the silent father—whose name I never bothered to learn—and conjured a second item: a medallion stamped with both my crest and the Ragnarok family's. *Ping*
*Pat* Catching it out of reflex, his confusion instantly froze into shock.
"If you'd like my advice, bring that medallion to Amphitrite and ask her to shelter your family somewhere in the forbidden islands. Its the safest place I can think of." My tone dulled as my gaze shifted to Chioni. "As for you, I'd love to give you a position in the Cabinet, but for the time being, I need you to work as the messenger between me and your brother."
She immediately straightened.
"To put it simply, I need you to continue to live as you have... I will assign a few people from the cabinet to watch over you just in case, so don't worry about walking into a trap like you did in Ampelos, and trust that ill fulfill whatever demand you wish for payment afterwards."
Her nod was immediate. Not eager—but firm with a resolve that reminded me of Krystallo.
Though only for a moment.
Turning back to Nikos, I continued. "For you, return to work as if nothing special happened. Stay connected with your sister as you have been, and dig into the guild as much as you can without taking on much risk. Look for trends, purchases or inconsistencies, that could hint toward their movements. Just don't be reckless. I can't protect you while you're in the Holy Kingdom."
His mouth faintly twitched, I assumed out of protest before I continued.
"If you survive, I'll secure you any position you want." Looking him in the eyes, I paused to think of what position he'd want before continuing without the slightest flicker doubt, "even if it's a place right under Pluto Chrysos."
His eyes lit up in an instant.
But," I added with haste, my tone steeling, "that only happens if you live. Don't take my warning lightly." Watching his hopeful glow dim to something more grounded, I finally stood. "I trust you all will keep to your ends of the deal. It's imperative not just he, but the rest of you also play things like this meeting never happened. If what happened here reaches any of the spies in Bahamut, not only will you all be killed, you could even spark a war I'm not certain I can contain." The instantly thickened as silence settled, wide, breathless expressions aimed at the floor like a mountain had fallen on their shoulders.
At last, the weight of the situation had settled on them.
"Good." With a subtle flick of my ears, I reattached my sword to my hip and turned toward the hearth. "I will take the silence as understanding." Locking eyes with Chioni as I was engulfed in a gate, I used my aura to carry my final words. "I'll trust you to take things from here." *Vwoop*
Once fully in the gate, I instantly morphed back to my fenririan form, scanning the void with a feral haste the moment I released myself before jumping to the thunderbird roost outside of Emporio to assign some birds to Chioni, though, only to repeat the trauma-driven haste as I returned to head to the Holy Kingdom. -Geez.. I feel like the moment I relax in here I'm gonna get my head taken off again...- *Vwoop*
Finally releasing myself near the entrance to the Nest, near the base of the Scar, a bath of green, white, and blue greeted me.
Being in the later months of summer in the northern hemisphere, the snow had curled far back from when I last saw it, the trees near the bottom of the mountain blooming with color while the small villages once easily visible by the stacks of smoke leaving their chimneys were now hidden by the canopy.
It was a truly peaceful expanse—where the sound of birds and rustling of leaves could lull one to sleep.
That was at least if the moment I had tried to let it ease my nerves, my senses hadn't screamed. *Jolt*
Despite having been controlling my divinity so acutely that my divine presence, and similarly my ability to detect them, was dulled to almost nothing, just after releasing myself from the void, I felt the tremoring of a presence right next to me, only to turn and find myself staring far past the Nest, deep into the Scar. -What the..?-
After quickly dismissing the thought that it could be one of the Aesir, I finally recognized it as the very same signature I sent that troubled young dragon named Chrysi after. -The phoenix..?- But back then, his presence was smooth... Now.. it was restless... -Is he.. hurt..?-
However, as if noticing my peeping eye, the presence momentarily stabilized just to wave me off.
-Strange...- Unless he felt space ripple from my reentry to reality, he shouldn't have known I was there.
But he most certainly did—the wave was too focused and distinct to be coincidence. So while part of me, certain he couldn't have felt my presence, wanted to go investigate, I kept my attention on the list still weighing on my mind. -Though.. if he felt the fabric shift from my gate.. maybe Odin did too...- Looking back toward the horizon ahead of me, my gaze thinned. -Perhaps I need to be more careful about that...-
What was done, was done though—all I could do was fly toward the locations Chioni's brother had marked for me and hope the senses of the Aesir relaxed after flying around normally for a while.
Thankfully though, that seemed to be the case.
*WOOSH* Masking everything that could reveal my presence, from atomizing the vapor trail in my wake to ejecting all but a thin layer of aura out of the upper atmosphere, I continued around the kingdom, only occasionally diving near the clouds to get a better look at the ground, or perhaps for a glimpse of what was underneath it, in search of the places Nikos marked.
But, while he was honest, and the places weren't too hard to find, none of them had what I was looking for.. not a reactor, machinery, or someone of command.
Of the dozen locations, they were almost all storage warehouses, some rerouting shipments like a primitive smuggling trail while others used primitive foundries to check elemental composition, none of which having anyone who appeared to be important enough to have any of the answers I was looking for.
I didn't need a hopeful apprentice or some half-hearted cultist—I needed something.. someone twisted by the sight of the vision that had corrupted the Akomi Kai family.
So, I kept going—searching not for the refined, publicly polished exterior, but the rotted core.
Eventually, I caught a scent.
It was in a port city near the southernmost coast of the Holy Kingdom, a sun-drenched and unamusing stretch of buildings seemingly away from the eyes of the church—the city of Aerakis.
At first glance, it seemed like nothing more than a logistics hub to organize trade from the Western Continent, with nothing resembling anything similar to what I had found at the other points Nikos left—almost like the port itself was what he marked as the delivery location. -They must have done that to mask the real delivery location...-
Smelling something off, I flew down into the clouds, the white mist curling off my wings as I looked over the map of threads painted by my aura.. looking for anything.. a container, an insignia, or the glimmer of metal.
But what I found.. was something else...
Beneath the rippling waves of the port, under the rocking hulls of merchant ships, a thread caught my eye.
*Woom* Pulling more of my aura down to push it through the water, a structure revealed itself, not shallows or a cave formation in the cliff the port sat on, but beneath the docks—an elaborate web of metal tubes akin to primitive elevators leading down into something larger, something sunken into a ravine of dead coral and ancient volcanic rock.
A lab. Hidden beneath pressure and darkness, haggled together with scrap while purring with the life of fission masked as volcanic activity. -Got you.-
Pushing my aura deeper and deeper, I looked through every nook of the structure, finding some remnants of machinery being studied by dragons and humans alike, until eventually, someone noticed.
In the deepest section, there stood an ancient, his scales dulled to an almost necrotic grey as mana leaked from him like steap—his eyes clouded, yet his posture eerily refined...
Even as his gaze drifted up toward me.
He was the one I was looking for.. a man corrupted by the vision, driven mad to find a solution.
A solution that was laid before him in the form of metal spheres.
A solution that I was going to turn into a spectacular accident.
"...who.. do we have.. here..." He muttered, idly looking toward me through the roof of the lab, his voice a rasp of breath that shouldn't have been able to echo like it did. "Were you.. called like us..? Called to the spark..? Called to deter them-?"
Not giving him a chance to finish, I pushed my aura into the cores before suddenly twisting their fuses. *VMM-KRAKAKOOOM*
Almost instantly, six miniature suns ignited at the mans feet, the lab vaporizing in a spectacular flash that boiled the ocean before upheaving the port in a spectacular blast, obliterating the docked merchant ships and showering the city with the splinters of wood and riches.
A mishap in the lab. An accidental core ignition.
At least that was how the Aesir would see it.
*WOOSH* Diving down into the blast, completely cloaked by the column of water, I snatched the man from the web of barriers I built around him before dragging up into the sky.
By the time he could break from the state of shock that came from his organs nearly being liquified as his retinas greyed with blindness, we were already so high in the sky it didn't matter.
By the time the shockwave of the blast could even reach the church just inside the city, I was gone, lost in the upper atmosphere with a stunned ancient in my grasp.
"Finally," I whispered with a greedy curl, digging my gaze into his clouded, troubled soul like a drill. "Now, let's see what you saw."
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