Legacy of Dreams: Freedom

by Thomas J. L. Green

  “There is a second part of it. Yen caught me spying on you two and demands me to meet her today at noon. She also has a problem with the two of us doing anything sexual together,” Iowen added.

  “And? It is fine for as long as she doesn’t find out,” Luna grinned.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s fine. I already denied everything, so all you need to do is keep up the same story.”

  “That is NOT fine Luna!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Yen will eventually find out and she will be very, very vengeful about it.”

  “I will risk it. You just make sure that you don’t get a belt like mine so you can run,” Luna smiled.

  “You should really learn how to fear dangerous things. Yen will find out; women always find out when they are being cheated.”

  “I must have missed that lesson at school, sorry.”

  This is such a bad idea that I have no words for it.

  Iowen stood before The Lair. She had her armor on a backpack with the dress. The guards let her in easily, so she descended down The Lair. The Lair was calm now during the day. There was a small orchestra playing and people around the massive underground hall were sitting around tables and conversing while enjoying a meal.

  A massive dining hall huh? This place sure works around the clock.

  Iowen measured the room with a look and found Yen. Yen was everything but difficult to find. The perfect beauty wrapped in striking black and red dress was unmistakable.

  “I am glad you have come,” Yen greeted Iowen with a poisonous smile.

  “Quite a public place for you, I am almost surprised,” Iowen mused.

  “Take a seat, I don’t bite,” Yen chuckled.

  “I am not sure,” Iowen retorted as she sat down.

  “I took the liberty of ordering one of the houses specials, the bill is on me,” Yen announced as Iowen picked up the menu. Iowen went over the prices. They were monstrous. She didn’t know what grilled deep sea kraken steak is supposed to be like, but it would better make you sweat diamonds for the price.

  “An interesting place for luxury food,” Iowen evaluated.

  “Pretty much everything on the menu is more or less illegal. Being the only place in town where you can get them makes the food a bit pricier,” Yen revealed.

  “How come it doesn’t just get shut down?”

  “The city prefers to have illegal activities concentrated into one place. It makes them easier to monitor. The owner is very good at making sure that his place is the one.”

  “You sound like you know him.”

  “Of course, I do,” Yen smiled.

  “So, what do you desire of me, Yen?” Iowen pried.

  “Have a pleasant meal, make sure you don’t get your hands into my stuff and then have some fun afterward."

  “What’s your deal with Luna?” Iowen didn’t want to waste time on formalities.

  “Straight to the point? I like Luna. She keeps coming back, so she likes me. Now I am not a jealous type, but I will not stand anyone getting her hands on her for as long as my little relationship with her continues.”

  “You don’t seem to give her the option of not coming back,” Iowen contested.

  “I did in Nurnfell. But yes, I do not have the most liberal approach to relationships.”

  “What makes you think I ever did anything with her? I am ice cold after all.”

  “Have you ever done anything with her?” Yen probed.

  “No,” Iowen denied coldly.

  “I had a feeling like you might have… after all, Luna can handle more than a bit of pain,” Yen mused.

  “There is one thing that I have been wondering about… how come you aren’t afraid of being around Luna? You surely saw the match in Cinderwell where she ripped veteran adventurers apart like nothing,” Iowen pivoted the topic.

  “I am a bit tougher than I look,” Yen smiled.

  “Are you? What type of creature are you?”

  “Human, obviously,” Yen chuckled.

  “Really? Because from what I saw you throw around blood magic like it is nothing, can match Luna’s physical strength and turn to mist. I would almost say you are a vampire if I wasn’t sitting here with you in the middle of the day and seeing you eat vegetable soup,” Iowen demanded softly.

  “AHAHAHAHAHA… a vampire. That’s a good one,” Yen laughed. She threw her hands wide, so they enter the sunlight coming down from the ceiling, “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not a monster of ancient fairy tales.”

  “That sounds like something a vampire would say. What are you then?” Iowen probed.

  “A human. One who likes to play with magic, but still a human,” Yen replied.

  “Surely you won’t mind if I don’t believe you. What type of fun do you have in mind once we are done with this steak?” Iowen tossed up. The meal was amazing; the taste truly fit the bill.

  “Well, I have already caught you spying on me having sex twice. I figured you might want to have a piece of me as well,” Yen tossed up.

  “You want to cheat on Luna with her friend? You aren’t much into reciprocity, are you?”

  “Why would I be? I am the one in charge when it comes to Luna, which lets me do whatever I desire,” Yen smiled sweetly.

  “What if I refuse?”

  “We finish with the desert and each goes our own way.”

  “Sounds good,” Iowen smiled.

  They finished their meal and parted.

  The Lair… that’s a really fitting name.

  70

  Salazar

  “That fucking bastard,” Salazar cursed as he watched the match of team Illysaeas.

  “Looks like Raven got the read on you,” Katherine smirked. The team of Illysaeas arranged its lineup in the way that they won the match without Raven fighting at all. The audience was angry, but Raven just stayed sitting by the wall as the last member of the team. On the other hand, Luna tore through the enemy team like an angry bear through a kindergarten.

  “Why are you so nervous about it? Sure, his strengthening magic is good, but it’s nothing we shouldn’t be able to handle from a safe distance,” Zacharias the Red evaluated.

  “It’s not strengthening!” Salazar refused, “it looks like strengthening, feels like strengthening, seems to have the properties of strengthening and he uses it like strengthening. But it isn’t strengthening. It’s something else!”

  “What makes you think that?” Ludwig asked.

  “Nothing! It just can’t be that simple,” Salazar rejected.

  “Do you have any counter hypothesis?” Zacharias challenged.

  “His arena score is three thousand eight hundred and forty-six wins, zero draws, zero losses. It is not strengthening!” Salazar stayed stubborn.

  “Three thousand eight hundred and forty-seven wins while counting this one,” Katherine corrected him.

  “Did you send your intelligence services to investigate him?”

  “Of course, I did,” Salazar confirmed.

  “He has over twenty thousand confirmed kills in the arena. Twenty fucking thousand. My entire army doesn’t have twenty thousand confirmed kills over the past forty years! The worst part is that more than two-thirds of those came there to fight him willingly. You don’t kill that many people without having something absolutely unstoppable. It is not strengthening… at least not just strengthening!” Salazar exclaimed.

  “Then what is it? No other path of magic would look like this when used,” Ludwig breathed.

  “I don’t know! But what I do know is that there were over three thousand four hundred monsters among those twenty thousand and that the men who came to fight him of their own will. They observed his matches and likely came to the same conclusion. They believed that he uses strengthening; they made a counter strategy to defeat it and died by his blade. It feels like his entire fighting style is made to look random at first, to look like very carefully used strengthening when ana
lyzed and all of it is just a lie to mask something far stronger. It is not strengthening!”

  “Then what is it?” Katherine asked.

  “I don’t know, but I am not going to run from it. I will fight him alone in Redwall, I will face him head on and I will win. Put me on number one for this round Katherine; I need to send my challenge,” Salazar ordered.

  “That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Katherine challenged.

  “My intelligence reports that he is practicing short dashes ever since he left Cinderwell. He will come into that match prepared to rush me down and run his sword through my stomach in the first few seconds. I will dodge it and win from there. To increase my odds of success, I need to get more combat practice with my magic. I don’t feel like killing my own men so I will be taking it out on the next team we are facing,” Salazar revealed.

  “He isn’t that much faster than us. You can train with us.”

  “He will be that much faster than you in Redwall. Just wait for it. He will be at my face before you realize he has moved and it’s not that you aren’t a great warrior or something like that. It’s what makes Raven who he is,” Salazar smirked.

  “As the captain of the royal guard, I must inform you that I strongly discourage you fighting against Raven in the arena and would rather recommend the withdrawal of our team after this round,” Katherine announced.

  “Thank you for the recommendation captain; I will put it into consideration. Feel free to put it on the report,” Salazar confirmed and denied the motion at the same time.

  71

  Iowen

  “Are you kidding me?” Miranda exclaimed as she entered Iowen’s and Luna’s room. The girls were in bed, naked. Luna was lying down while Iowen was pressing her crotch onto Luna’s mouth while squeezing Luna’s head with her thighs.

  “Wanna join in?” Iowen smirked toward Miranda, “keep licking, I’m not done yet,” Iowen turned to Luna as she forced Luna’s head to stay in position with her hand.

  “You have ten seconds,” Miranda announced in a cold voice.

  “I am not that easy to finish,” Iowen contested..

  Ten seconds later, Miranda leaped at the bed behind Iowen, grabbed her by shoulders and tossed her across the room.

  “Hi!” Luna made a stupid smile from down under Miranda. Miranda reached down, grabbed her by the hair and jumped off the bed, twisting her body over to send Luna flying into the wall.

  “Get dressed,” Miranda sneered.

  “You are no fun,” Luna complained but went for her armor. Iowen was giggling wildly as she was dressing up. A minute later they were both ready.

  “Where is Jack?” Luna asked.

  “Busy. I got you your part of the deal for tomorrow afternoon, so don’t worry about that. For now, focus on the mission ahead,” Miranda replied, exasperated.

  “The mission?” Luna probed.

  “Did you seriously not tell her anything?” Miranda turned to Iowen.

  “I didn’t have time,” Iowen admitted.

  “Whatever. I am Miranda, agent Miranda, and you two are going on a mission, now. This backpack contains seven magical charges. Those will cause a large explosion at half an hour to midnight. That means you have four hours to place them. Mission plan is simple – there is a long tunnel down here under the arena complex, I shall take you to it, you overcome the guards and get in. You will enter an underground laboratory used by the slavers to experiment with demonic infusion into humans. They keep the uncontrollable subjects in pens. Five pens with five gates. One bomb for each, two spares for whatever you fuck up in the process. Now comes the important part – they do regular checkups on the gates every hour, so you need to attach the bombs after their one hour to midnight checkup. After you attach the bombs, run. Three large tunnels are leading out into the city. You run through the left one. Not the right one, not the middle one, the left one. Did you understand at least half of what I just said?” Miranda announced.

  “Demons, bombs, left tunnel?” Luna tried the highlights.

  “We aren’t stupid, Miranda. What happens after? Last time I got a mission like this, few hundreds of innocent people burned alive in the next step,” Iowen asked.

  “The uncontrollable demonized humans rush out from the lab through the tunnels to emerge in the city exactly where we have the army prepared. We kill them, frame the slavers, Salazar arrests and executes them while we are the heroes who saved the city,” Miranda added.

  “That’s surprisingly subtle and political… the shitty asshole really isn’t around, is he?” Iowen pried.

  “He isn’t, but it is mostly his plan so don’t keep your hopes up,” Miranda smirked.

  “What happens if we choose the wrong tunnel?” Luna asked.

  “You get shot full of ballista arrows and stomped to death by the frenzied horde behind you.”

  “Left tunnel, bombs explode one hour before midnight, got it. Any expected issues?” Luna pried.

  “Not much. There should be some bigger demons around the lab, but you should be able to avoid those. The frenzied demons might run pretty fast, so don’t fuck the timing up and get yourselves a head start,” Miranda stated.

  “I have a date at midnight, will I make it?” Luna asked.

  “No,” Miranda announced.

  “Just send her a message. You were at her past three nights, Yen will survive one-off,” Iowen told Luna.

  “But I want it,” Luna protested.

  “Oh, for fuck's sake Luna, you can go for a day without getting your pussy fucked,” Iowen contested.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Are you two clear on the mission?” Miranda interrupted them.

  “Yes,” Luna and Iowen answered.

  “We need to go. What’s the message Luna? I will have a courier send it,” Miranda offered.

  “That I am sorry, but I can’t make it tonight. Send to Yen at The Lair, the guards at the entrance will know who it is,” Luna explained.

  “Got it. Now let’s move,” Miranda concluded.

  As she said, Miranda led them through the arena complex down to where a long tunnel was ahead of them.

  “Good luck,” Miranda wished them as she dropped the backpack down.

  “Are all of the Order missions this messy?” Luna asked Iowen as they advanced through the long tunnel.

  “This is the best explained one from what I have seen. But yes, they are messy as hell. The Palai Order operates on the premise that they use a small amount of very skilled people. That’s why you never see young Palai soldiers; they don’t let anyone without at least six years of training into the army. The leadership is a small circle of insanely powerful people who usually end up doing most of the work,” Iowen revealed.

  “Is Miranda one of them? She does feel dangerous,” Luna remarked.

  “Yea. She is somewhere high up in the special forces.”

  “Special forces?”

  “Order has four pretty much independent sections. Soldiers, priests, navy and special forces.”

  “Is Miranda’s face hot?” Luna suddenly switched the topic.

  “What?”

  “She’s got an amazing ass in the leather pants, I wonder what her face is like,” Luna explained.

  “Do you ever think of anything other than sex?”

  “I get hungry from time to time,” Luna chuckled.

  “We really need to get the belt off you,” Iowen evaluated.

  “Yeah… Yen fucked me really nicely past three nights, but I need way more than that and she seems to intend to keep me like this,” Luna stated.

  “Hold! Who’s there?!” shouting came from the end of the tunnel. In a split second, Iowen pulled two arrows from the quiver by her belt and shot them one after another from her bow. The arrows hit the two men almost at the same time and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

  “Wow…” Iowen exclaimed.

  “How’d you do that? Those were the fastest bow shots I have ever seen,” Luna asked.
<
br />   “I’ve been practicing… I just never thought it would be this effective,” Iowen

  breathed.

  “Practicing? All I see you do is exercise and fuck,” Luna contested.

  “I do it when you are at Yen or somewhere else. I feel a bit awkward about it. In short, the Albertti’s taught me how to practice magic. I figured I am too stupid to use spells, so I just drink the whole thing and practice the quick draw shot from my bow. I’ve been doing it daily since Grimdawn… I just never thought I could move this fast,” Iowen explained. They got to the bodies. They were men in typical slaver uniforms; each had an arrow stuck into his face.

  “Pierced through the skull… what’s the draw weight on your bow? Because you didn’t even pull it fully,” Luna pried.

  “I started with sixty pounds before Grimdawn; now I am somewhere around three hundred. I pull it fully only when shooting at a very long distance. This was barely sixty feet away, not a hard shot,” Iowen explained.

  “Haa… no wonder your back is so cool to touch when we fuck,” Luna smirked.

  “Seriously, Luna?”

  “I feel a moving tongue at my crotch every second of the day. I forgot what it’s like to not be horny.”

  “You don’t seem to be too angry about it,” Iowen observed.

  “It’s not too annoying and nights with Yen are more than worth the trouble,” Luna admitted.

  “Anyway, back to work,” Iowen ended the topic.

  “It looks like the laboratory is made of a set of tunnels connecting smaller caverns instead of one large cavern,” Iowen evaluated as she saw the crossroads behind the guarded door. There we two sets of stairs leading up and one down.

  “We have a lot of time; I would go find all the pens and meet back here in an hour to make a plan of how we put these little sweetlings on them,” Iowen proposed while motioning at the backpack full of bombs that Luna was carrying.

  “Sounds good,” Luna agreed.

  “Remember Luna. We are not here to rip them all to pieces, we just sneak in, place the bombs and sneak out,” Iowen reminded Luna.