by P. S. Power
Dare shook his head at her and glared a little. Not much, just enough so she fell silent, blushing a little.
"If we were going for a fight, then I'd agree with you. So far, all we know is that these men are late as far as working goes. Really, for all you seemed upset over the thought, do you really do more than yell at your people for things like that?" He waited, not knowing the real answer.
Erid gave a nod, not seeming pleased with it.
"That is about the truth."
Johan looked miserable, but agreed with a frown.
"It is. We have limited power that way."
Spreading his hands, Dare smiled.
"Right, so we go and collect them for some scolding, and slap one of those truth things on them and find out what they've really been up to. If it's just being lazy, we take them out and whip them in public. At least with words. If they've done more than that, or know about it happening, we can work that out then. Right now they don't have any reason to fight with us."
That made sense to him, even if it wasn't assured. The fellows might come at them like killers, barring unbeatable weapons. More likely, they'd be drunk, and hiding in their rooms.
The final plan involved his own idea, of just walking up to collect the men, and Kolb's, which had to do with a secure perimeter, in case anyone fled. The bald fighter didn't think that it was going to be all that dangerous it was clear. As they traveled to the location, floating through the crowded streets of the Capital, slowly, as it turned out, he spoke quietly.
"If I remember correctly, this is a decent inn. Not the best, but not a place where an army of thugs will be waiting for us to arrive. A High Servant or two isn't too much for us to handle, unless they're more than they appear. That's possible, but not too likely. So, Erid, you're in charge on the inside. Just go and find them, and tell them that they need to come with you for a project. That's true, so it won't be a problem. Dareg, if you'd provide back up? That means standing there and acting like you're ashamed of the men, unless they start to fight. In that case, take them down. If they have shields, you can probably keep them from running off easily enough. Just stay in the way." There was a smile to go with that. It was a hard one though, that promised some action or another that wasn't being spoken of.
Commander Derring went next, waving as they floated through the streets.
"If they run, raise the hue and cry. That will work right now."
That was a thing that Dareg knew pretty well. You screamed that a person was a thief, or criminal, and chased them while pointing. Everyone else was supposed to do it too, and keep after the fleeing man or woman until they were caught. It normally didn't happen, because most people didn't really care that much about other people, or, as Dare knew, they didn't see you take the pie in the first place.
"We'll do that." Firming his posture, he tried to look strong and brave. Probably because he kind of wanted to impress the Commander.
Not that his plan of being nice and talking first was doing that. There was a real sense of annoyance from her on that point, truth be told. Not that she was glaring at him, but she did look, when she thought he wasn't paying attention. There was no smiling to go with it. It wasn't her glancing at his cute behind in his blue outfit, or even admiring his nifty robe-like clothing, though the style should be familiar to her, not being that far off from what she herself had on. Just in a different color.
When they got to the front of the building, Kolb put his big right hand out, getting them to stop.
"Stick to the plan. Just go in to find them. If there's any kind of problem, move back and start yelling."
Dareg nodded, Erid following along. Then they went toward the large wooden doors in the front of the place. It had real glass windows, though not all the buildings around them did. It was made of brick, the sturdy mud kind, rather than wood or focus stone. A bit of wood poked out in different places, and the upper levels were made of combination of materials. Not that he could see it, but you could only go so high with things like that. This place was four stories tall. Not the highest thing around, but big.
They moved as one, but he pushed in a bit, so that his body was in front of the High Servant. Erid was strong looking and was larger than he was, so it made sense. No one would send in a virtual boy like him, if it was about anything other than talk. Maybe he could be delivering a message? That would work. Not that they needed that kind of ruse.
Inside the place was considerably cooler. Probably because the walls were nearly three feet thick, offering a lot of protection from the sun. However that worked, it was nice. The jump ship had been similar, but that probably had heating and cooling inside of it. Even his shield did, the world being far more comfortable when it was on. That just made it really hard to do anything, so he left it off.
On the first floor of the place was a tavern, with wooden benches and tables packed into a side room. It was early enough that it wasn't full, but so near the start of the festivities that there were people there that wouldn't be at any other time, that early in the day. Not, of course that he'd ever had the kind of coin that would let him hang around inside taverns like this one, but Dare had been in them, trying to find little jobs to keep himself fed.
This place had real stone floors, that looked to be swept clean on a regular basis. Possibly that was a special treat for King's week, since a lot of coin could be made off travelers in a place like this. If the roads around the city were any indication, these folk were going to be very wealthy in a few days.
Across the room, settled in the center, so that the light through the large window would let him see, sat High Servant Filby. The other one. Dressed not at his duty required in white robes, or at least a white outfit that looked the part, if work were at hand, but in a rather humble looking outfit that seemed practical, and in three tones of brown. It wasn't real, being too sharp looking for that, but it kind of matched the tenor of what the others in the room had on.
Erid was frowning, which was a dead giveaway, so Dare winked at him and smiled, then called out.
"Filby!" The name got the man to look up, take in who was there...
Then smile. It was an instant reaction, not a planned thing. That would mean the man wasn't scared about seeing them, which he should have been, even if he were only trying to not work for the week.
"Dirt boy! High Servant Erid! Come sit. I'll get the first round. Ale?" The man glanced at the chest that floated behind him as Dare closed the distance, but it was kind of obvious he didn't think too much of it.
Instead of grabbing the man up, and spill his drink, both he and Erid sat across from him.
Dare smiled.
"Soft cider or berry? I have to go straight back to work. If we aren't going to be beating you for missing your own. What's with that? I thought you were on to help with the building?"
The man grinned, a bit drunk, but not so bad that the words were going to cause a fight. After all, for some reason he really seemed to think that they'd just come to visit with him. For fun.
"Nah. Kevin wrangled some deal with the higher ups and got us away from the port for the holiday. I don't know how he does it. I tell you, there normally isn't enough coin in the kingdom to buy off the top people. Well, you know that one, right?" That bit was spoken directly to Erid, who had either caught on that the plan had changed, or was willing to get a drink first himself, before taking the man back.
"That's true enough. The thing there is that he actually didn't clear anything. An oversight, I'm sure." Erid seemed a bit pissed. Like there was going to be a beating in it for the man. It was too early for that however, if they wanted the fellow to be useful to them. Especially since he was being pleasant so far.
Not acting like a person that had anything to hide.
Dareg waved his right hand a little bit, trying to get Erid to pull back a little bit.
"Eh. It's not at issue, if you were told wrong, and can prove it with a truth magic. Right, High Servant Erid? I mean, you might not get the w
hole week off, but everyone is getting a few days for the fun, so you will too. The only person that really has to work the whole week is probably me, to be honest."
Those words had the man relaxing, his face not happy, but a lot more open than normal. A little sloppy about it, actually.
"Dood and all then. I mean good and all. High Servant Straughan was in charge, and did tell me that. Ah. Well, I should change and get back to the spaceport then. I just get with you to prove that out, Erid?"
The man in all white next to him made a considering face, and then gave a short nod.
"That will work. We should probably go, in that case. Traveling right now is taking forever."
The man started to slam down his drink, which smelled a bit sour and thick, but as far as Dare could tell the scent wasn't the reason for drinking it. It was designed to help people forget how lousy their lives were.
After he banged the thick ceramic mug on the table, a bit harder than was needed, he stood up, tipsy already.
"Why the hurry?" The man tripped, trying to get away from the bench, his left foot getting caught as he at least tried to do his job now.
With a smile, Dareg reached across the thing and made sure he didn't go down.
"It's that we have people outside, in case you ran off. Standing in the heat. We didn't know why you were missing. We got news from Harmony, saying that someone at the spaceport had been having sex with the immigrants, in exchange for passage. You know, put out, or you can't go?"
The man looked a bit annoyed, but not like he was planning to run for it, once they all started walking. He staggered several times, until Dareg moved in on one side and took his arm, and Erid got the other.
"That? Yeah. Kevin, he's a fiend for doing people up the behind. Women, men... No kids. That's half of why we tossed you last week. Too young. That wasn't a lie, what we told you, but even he sticks to that pretty well. I don't rightly know what he was telling people, but a lot of them let him do it. I wouldn't. It's too freaking hot here for things like that, for one thing. I never really thought about it, since most that were going tended to be common. It isn't hard to get that kind to do what you want, is it? Just ask, most days. It may not really be fair all the time, but they're adults, right?"
As they got to the front door, Dare nodded.
"Right. Well, you can say that again, when we check out why you were gone. Say, you don't know where Kevin got to, do you? Queen Tiera isn't all that happy with him, I don't think. He'll be a lot better off getting on the communications device and facing her directly. She might come and kick his behind personally, but that's survivable. Avoiding her will probably turn it into some kind of thing." He used the first name on purpose, since it would leave the drunk tavern patron feeling like he knew the other High Servant and was friends with him.
"Nope. He said he'd be back in six days. He does like to go off, time and again. Into politics, so has people to visit in that vein." The man rocked a little as an uneven bit of the street caught on his foot. He didn't really go anywhere, because Erid steadied him carefully. Even in his mild upset at the fellow, he did his job. Helping him. That was, it seemed, what was lived in his world.
Instead of the others running up to tackle the errant High Servant, no one approached too closely at all. That was down to Kolb having waved the others back. The man was in a very common looking tan outfit, and Commander Derring, looking a lot different now, was standing about twenty feet away from him. It was a disguise amulet, and much like Dareg had before, she looked considerably plainer than her real face would have shown.
Which was useful. After all, the drunk man might well have freaked if his leader was there to collect him. There didn't seem to be a lot of need for that at the moment, given he was coming along peacefully at the moment.
So he waved at her and then Kolb.
"Hey! We found Filby right off." Pasting a smile on his face, he made eye contact with the blonde lady, who was still light colored as for her hair, but it was a dirtier, dingier looking thing now, instead of a light crown of glory. Her clothing was brown and seemed like leather. That should have been too hot, but her skin was dry, as far as he could tell from a distance.
When she padded over, jogging a bit, her face was blank. Well, under that she kept flashing a questioning expression, even through the mask of her square and manly face.
"What's the situation?"
"Filby here was told that he got the week off by his partner. High Servant Straughan. The other guy also seems to be the one that was using his position to abuse those immigrants. Filby doesn't know exactly where he is, but he claimed he was going to be back in six days? We're taking him to get that checked out, and help him sober up. A man can't help it if people he should be able to trust mislead him." Dare was trying to use his words to convey the idea that it was going to be easier to lead him back if they were being helpful, than carrying the body between them by his arms.
She got it. That kind of thing was hard for a lot of people, but this lady was smarter than he'd thought. Clearly her looks had thrown him off before. Being good looking generally helped in life, but it was easy to look at attractive people and think that they had nothing going on between their ears. That was silly. A thing that he knew personally, not being hard to look at most days, so he should have known better.
"Damn. You're right, of course. There really is no need to let someone get in trouble if they didn't do anything wrong. We need to get you sobered up, here..."
Her plan, it seemed, involved holding a white tile with a glowing green man on it, against Filby's right hand. It wasn't an instant thing, but instead of taking many hours for him to clean up, he gasped, grabbed his head, and after about a minute started to breathe really hard. Then he stood up straight and winced in the bright sunlight.
"Ouch. Thanks, miss. I hate those things, but love them, too. I need to get to my post now. I should have known better than to trust Kevin like that. Thank you all for coming to collect me like this." He sounded contrite enough, and changed into his white robes as he stood there.
Then with no real prompting, they all got four inches into the air, floating, and moved off through the streets. Slowly. That was because people had come out, chanting, dancing and singing. It wasn't even King's week yet, and they had on their bright colors, best party outfits, and some had been imbibing already. He knew that because on any normal day he wouldn't have been grabbed and kissed by a woman as they used magic to move through the city.
The lady that did it was tall, and had silver in her hair, meaning she was more than old enough to know not to do things like that to random passersby. He just took it, and laughed, even though she reeked of something sour and unpleasant that she'd imbibed in that day.
His new friend, Commander Derring, moved in and gently removed the woman from his face, laughing.
"Hey now, back off my boyfriend there. At least ask him for dinner first." Then she tugged him along for a bit, smiling the whole time.
The others acted like it was funny, which it was, but it wasn't a thing that he'd ever had happen before like that. Then, while they had street parties in Canton, they weren't as big or drunken as this before they even started. Another difference was that, when they passed four guardsmen on patrol in their bright red and white outfits, they were given polite nods, instead of hard looks and suspicion.
All the large people got those, and, as a clear afterthought one of the fellows locked eyes with him and gave a polite smile.
"Gentles." That was all that was said, since everyone was trying to move through the crowd without knocking anyone down.
An hour later, or a little more, they were able to get through the north gate. There was a solid line of people between the two hovering lines of pure and slightly glowing water. It was enough to slow them down, even though half the stream was heading the same way they were. They all settled and just walked along. On the great side the people around them were happy. They smiled and waved. Some even spoke to them past j
ust the basic hello that he'd expected.
A group of girls, three of them, just walked up to him, since he was behind the others, if only by a bit.
"Well met!" This came from the tallest of them, who clearly had some noble background going on. She was about six-four, which wasn't bigger than the woman with his group, but was close within a few inches. "There's rumor that we might have rides into space coming. My friends and I are planning to go up, if we can. The Noram fleet is sending several ships for it. Isn't that exciting? I hear the Queen put it together, which is very kind of her. She's always thinking of us, the people."
That was news to him, so he pulled his communications device while he answered her.
"Amazing! It's worth doing, if you can get a seat. I need to check on this, for my job. Sorry about being so rude. It could just impact what I need to be doing." He didn't feel bad about ignoring the girl then, not really.
Certainly she was pretty enough, and not much older than he was, but she also wasn't known to him, and had just fallen in right along side of him, as if her paying attention his way meant that Dare was with her and her friends now. That wasn't the case. For one thing he had work to do at the moment.
Tapping on the little screen, which had the girl going wide eyed, probably over the very fact that he had such a hard to get item, he tried to call up Queen Constance directly, though he didn't expect her to answer him, which was right. Instead he got a dark haired boy who looked about twelve.
"Good day, this is the palace, how may I be of service today, my lord?" The words had the tone of a thing that was probably memorized. The boy was looking at the screen however, most likely to get the gender of who he was speaking to. Lord was an actual form of address, but Dareg got that one. He was an unknown, and everyone, right up to the King could be politely spoken of that way. It might be a bit bad if a king, or say, a prince, were to be spoken to like that, but not enough for anyone sane to have trouble with.