by Rae Nantes
Smith shook his head as he gazed at the map. "To succeed as a company, we'll need to grow. And when we've grown, then we can crush them."
***
We spent the next week busy again. More recruits, more quests, more construction - only this time without a contractor. Smith made sure to hire noobs with skills in woodwork and masonry, along with another engineer to help Leila's gentle soul. She spent her time as the foreman, overseeing the expansion of the dormitory area including the demanded officer's quarters for the higher ranks. I would soon have my own room that I could decorate and fill with stuff and lure love participants into.
In the meantime, Smith ordered a stone retaining wall to be built around a loose perimeter of the guild. It would be just high enough to hide behind and just short enough to fire over. That might've been the reason he pushed so hard to recruit nipsy riflemen. They could at least be awake at any hours of the day to protect the place while the players were asleep. A flimsy tower was erected near the entrance, and a path to the road would be burned out. That, of course, would be my job.
With my new squad in tow, we started on a dewy morning to minimize the risk of fire spreading. My healer, Thomas, used his guild-provided water spell to wet the surrounding area. My tank, Jenna, spent her time chasing squirrels and rabbits away from the blast zone. Leila, the guild engineer and my highly demanded, beautiful little rifleman, really did nothing useful besides keep me company. She stood next to me with her hands in her jacket. Her pants still had sawdust caked on, her red hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her rifle on her back.
"Alex," Leila said. Her voice was pale and gentle.
"Yes, my darling squad member?" I took a sip from my canteen as I watched the others get ready for the firestorm.
"I understand you're really really really excited to burn a section of the forest down, but..." She looked away, her cheeks turning a slight pink as if what terrible thing she might say would offend me. "It's really a stupid idea."
I spewed the water I was drinking. "What? It's a great idea! We'll get this road made super fast!"
"I mean," she continued. "I could really use the lumber for our other projects."
I sighed and looked at the designated path. Thomas was whistling away as he watered the trees. Jenna was stumbling face first into the grass after another failed lunge at a small forest creature. "Smith would be mad at me if we didn't do this today. Can you come up with something else?" If there were anyone to pull a solution out of his or her ass, it would be my darling Leila.
And so she did. She advised me to recreate my rock bombs but to only fill it with water. I could use a short jet of flame to burn toward the trunk's center and use the opening to set the bomb. From there all I needed was to boil the water quickly enough to cause a steam explosion, and the tree would just fall on its own. It was only a little less dangerous and seeing her idea work as well as she thought made Leila glee with laughter. I suspect it was really just the explosions she enjoyed.
With the trees ripped down and the trunks burned, we finished our path before lunchtime. When Smith found out we were done early, he ordered us to help Tae's squad on a nearby quest. With a little whining and moaning, I did.
"And what will we be doing, fearless leader?" I said in a mocking tone.
"We're expecting an ambush on our next patrol mission," he said. "You will be ambushing the ambushers."
Chapter 16
The Mage Duel
"Excuse me, miss," I said.
The woman was standing on the bridge alone. The river beneath her trickled and splashed as it passed to the sea. The cold breeze whispered in the trees, pulled at her wizard hat and robes, and was cold against my skin. We were expecting outlaws here, but only found this young mage alone. She looked down at me from the arc of the stone bridge.
I looked across the river and at Relce. He only shrugged. I assumed this meant that there were no others around, no ambush as we expected. His own party was beside him, protecting the merchant's carriage. I sighed. The entire thing was just a waste of time, and Smith sent us out here for nothing but to find a lost nipsy dressed in dark brown robes and a faint resting smile. I reflected the shrug back at Relce, and he ordered the carriage forward.
It creaked over the steps and bumps, past the lady, and over to my side. We knew better than to ask if she were with the outlaws or bandits - that would just be rude. She didn't even glance at Relce's party as they nodded politely to her, she only stared at me. At first, I wanted to blush - maybe she fell in love at first sight - but then I was creeped out.
"Well, this was easy," Relce said as he walked by.
"I guess." Something inside me knew the creepy lady wanted to talk, and she was likely just too shy to say it in front of a crowd. Since I wasn't in the business of building harems for myself, I was already working on how to gently reject her.
"Dude, you coming?" Relce said. They weren't even bothering to stop.
I turned to him and his party. "Just a minute." When I turned back to the girl, she was standing right in front of me. I jolted back in surprise.
"You are Alex," the lady said. Her voice was like a faraway dream. She was on the verge of smiling as if waiting for a heartfelt compliment. Piercing green eyes and a staff on her back.
"Uh, yeah," I said. "That's me. Are you my secret admirer?"
She blinked. "I want you to come with me."
"I'm flattered, but I really have something to do today." I offered a polite smile. Something about her was genuinely calming. This girl's charisma had to have been maxed out. Maybe I should reconsider.
I felt a thud behind me. Just as I turned my head to see, it was yanked back to the lady as if formless hands pulled my chin. It startled me, and for a moment I felt my skin crawl, but then I stared back into those emerald eyes and found myself lost.
"Alex!" I heard a voice call from far down the road. It was Relce's. Its echo passed and faded. I could not tear myself away from this girl. Her porcelain, perfect skin. Her large, inviting eyes. Her silky brown hair and beckoning hands. I felt stones beneath my feet, then dirt again, then grass.
"Alex, come with me," her voice resonated in my mind and in my heart and into my soul. In her eyes, I could see our future together, and I could feel the warmth of her soft hands in mine. Wet pine brushed against my skin.
"Alex!" Relce's echo found me again. It was almost too far to hear. "Alex, get away!"
As if clicking on a light, I found myself standing there in the forest alone, far beyond the road and the shore and anywhere I had been. Where was I? The girl was nowhere to be seen, nor my party or my friends. I was dizzy.
That little shit was using a seduction spell!
I sprinted back, using my fresh prints in the grass to find my way. Before long, I found the road that ran between towns and back to the bridge. When I saw it, my heart dropped. My party was lying motionless in the dirt. "Leila!" I panicked. "Thomas, Jenna!"
I hurried over only to find them asleep. A sigh of relief. I patted at their faces, nudged them with my staff, even hit them with water. Nothing. Down the road, I heard a pop and a blast - gunfire. I ran toward it.
Further down the road and around a curve, I found them. The carriage was on fire, flames roaring and spilling upwards, and the merchant struggling to save what he could. Near it, Relce's tank was on his knee, his sword and shield dropped beside him. His eyes were vacant, mouth dropped open and plants sprouting out. The player was dead.
Another gunshot. Looking deeper into the woods I could see him. A blur of a pink afro bobbing back and forth through the underbrush, then stopping behind a tree, taking aim with his new rifle, and firing with a flash. The bullet dug into a far tree, puffing out dust and splinters. What was he shooting at? I sprinted over to help.
As Relce was reloading, he saw something nearby and panicked. Swinging his rifle to aim, he was stopped by a torrent of water that came from above. Click. Without dry gunpowder, Relce threw the gun at whatever he was aiming at a
nd equipped his bow.
"Relce!" I yelled. "Where is she?" My eyes darted around the forest, the leaves, the bushes, yet I could not find her.
"Get back!" he ordered. He nocked an arrow, tracing his aim through the treetops, back and forth at seemingly random trees. "Get out of here, dude! She's too high a level! She already got the—"
"Petrify!" the mage yelled.
Relce's bow turned to brittle stone and fell apart through his fingers. "Ah, shit." He looked up at me and caught my worried stare.
"Pyrolize!" The command echoed far.
A lump in my throat. I could only watch in horror as Relce fell to his knees. His body caught a shimmer – a flash. He turned pale, then dark grey, then ash. He spilled over into dust.
"Shit," I said. The wind rustled the treetops and cooled my skin. The birds were silent, a wave crashed against the shore. I stood in silence like a statue - too nervous to move - and let my eyes slide across in search for my enemy. I saw movement in a nearby bush!
"Flare(above, below)!" A blinding blue flame manifested above the bush and crashed like a wave on top of it. In a blink it vanished, leaving nothing behind but smoke and charred remains. I felt a thump behind me, so I spun on my heels and leaped back. It was nothing.
Then I felt the hands.
Warm, inviting hands that slid up my thighs and my waist, exploring up my robe and tracing the skin of my belly. I felt hot, and my deepest instincts wanted this, to lose myself in these aggressive, teasing caresses. As if my mind were melting away, I fell back onto the person behind me, felt at her guiding hands as they explored me. I heard a gasp and a moan. It was me! The shock, the sheer embarrassment, the strange lewdness of it all snapped me back to reality.
I pushed away, spun around, and thrust my staff at her. She stood with a stupid, devilish grin with her hands on her hips. "Wind(below, above)!" I shouted.
Beneath her, a gust lifted her off her feet. Her lips moved, and a staff appeared in front of her, but it was too late - the wind pulled the robe right off her and nearly stripped her shirt clean off. It was stuck over her head, and as she struggled to hide her now-revealed body, I aimed again.
"This is what you get, pervert! Broil!"
"Wind!" she yelled behind a laugh.
I felt the heat of my spell return and engulf me. All it took to counter that was a wind spell? I stopped my cast and took a few steps to the side. "Flare(left, right)!"
"Wall(ice)!" she countered. The flames slammed into a thick, glistening shield. Before it could melt through, she lifted her wand high. "Earth(open)! Water 2!"
Back-to-back spells? Before I realized it, the ground beneath me gave way, and I fell into a pit. Clumps of dirt and rock fell on my head and covered me, then the water flooded in. I struggled to climb up, but it was too deep and the ground too loose for me to get a foothold. By the time the water stopped, it was up to my chest.
Laughter.
I looked up to see her head peeking over the hole, an obnoxious smile ripped across her face. She whispered, and my staff turned to dust. "Tell me, Alex," she said. "If you were struck by lightning right now, how would you fare?"
I flung up my hands. "I surrender!"
She burst into laughter.
Chapter 17
The Captured
{" This world is a testament to my sin. "}
I jolted awake and felt a gritty surface on my face. It was vibrating. I eased up to find myself in the back of a carriage, a cloth cover letting in only a sliver of light. Across from me, the mage from before and her annoying faint smile.
My irritation bled through my words. "What are you staring at?" I said.
"Cover yourself."
I looked down. I was naked, loosely wrapped in a wool blanket. I pulled it around my neck and over my shoulders. "I won't even ask how—"
"Well, I couldn't help it, could I?" she said. "You were thrashing around so much I had to put you to sleep."
"So you had to strip me." I stared daggers into her.
She sighed. "Look, Alex, the seduction thing was just to lure you. We're heading to a cold place, and you can’t be soaking wet the whole time. And besides," she smiled, "you already saw me half naked, so now we're even."
I glared at her. "So now what? Are you gonna sell me off for a ransom? Chain me up as a prisoner and uh... um..." My mind started to drift off to darker places, my face getting hotter with each branch of thought.
She laughed. "Calm yourself. We just wanted to speak with you in particular."
"Who is we?"
"We call ourselves the Seekers, but you might just call us bandits or outlaws."
"The ones who raid the caravans."
"We usually just set out to kill players," she said. "Which is why I left your nipsy comrades alone."
"You know players don't die, right?"
She nodded. "Some of us do it for sport, others for hatred."
The carriage slowed to a stop. The side creaked and dipped as the driver presumably hopped off the seat, crunched along the dirt, and swung open the cloth cover. It was a young guy. Sharp eyes, short blond hair, eyebrow piercing, and week-old stubble that looked simultaneously messy and aesthetic. I gripped my blanket close.
"We're here," he said.
The mage looked at my reaction and chuckled. "This is Yun," she said. "We're stopping here to get you some clothes for the trip."
"Uh, thanks," I said.
"And don't even think about running away like some naked lunatic."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Sure."
She stood up, paused, and stared at me. "Wind(halt)," she whispered. The space around my head seemed to stop, and with it, all sound vanished from existence. My eyes widened, and I waved my hands in front of my face. The air felt different. I looked up at her. I tried to speak, but not even that could break the silence. She smiled, said something that I couldn't hear, and left.
This was torture. Not once had I experienced absolute, pure silence. I felt my blood rush, my pulse quicken, my heart race. I tapped at the wood, raked my hands across the cloth, yet nothing could bring back sound. I took in a deep breath to stave off the panic. Another moment passed, then another, then finally the cloth cover swung open. A rush of sound flooded back. "What the hell?"
"Oh? You've never been silenced before?" She smiled as she tossed me some clothes. Thump. They landed on my head.
I held them out - genuine leathers with furs that lined the inside. The jacket actually looked really cool, and the fur would keep my neck warm - it even had a built-in hood. I started to dress in front of her.
"You see," she continued. "by halting the air around your head, it prevents movement and vibrations - sound."
"Interesting. Is it possible to just pull the air away from a person and create a vacuum?"
She grinned. "Careful, now. That's the outlaw way of thinking."
I wanted to ask what she meant, but I already had more questions than I could handle. The fact of the matter was that I was now a captive of these people, and this little seductress was here to ensure I came along peacefully. "How long until we get there?"
"A day and a half, maybe."
I groaned. Smith was probably freaking out, and I hoped beyond hope my party somehow got back safely. I was sure that at least Relce would respawn nearby and drag them back to base. I felt at my wrist. The ribbon was missing, likely already taken when I was asleep. "This sucks."
She broke into a laugh. "Oh, come now, it'll be fun!"
"Being captured isn't really what I'm into."
"You coulda fooled me," she said.
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and looked away. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Don't you want to know who you were in your past life?"
I looked at her. She had a serious expression, genuinely waiting for my answer. "You have that power?"
"No."
"Then why in the hell—"
"But the priestess does," she finished. The carriage creaked and rattled a
s it passed over another bridge. The stones were rough on the wheels. We were likely passing another farm, as the smell of cows wafted in. "It really was the whole point, you know."
Could it be true? I had no idea if she were honest, but I was almost willing to gamble. Hell, it seemed like I wouldn't have a choice. But why would they go out of their way to kidnap me just to bring me to a fortune teller? Did they think I could be someone else? I looked back at her. "Who do you think I am?"
She shook her head. "No, it's who you were that we're curious about."
***
I was smuggled north to the mountains. The entire trip, I talked with the succubus mage - as I've come to call her - and learned as much about her group of outlaws as she would be willing to teach. Her name was Willow, and she ran her mouth almost nonstop, yapping there on the other side of the bumpy carriage while I sat, embarrassingly so, actually fascinated at what she had to say. She was terribly enthusiastic to tell me about her life, her ideals, her love life, too much about her love life, and her abilities in magic.
That was the primary factor in what separated the outlaws from the legal mages - forbidden magic. I had long thought that our magic was limited to what we could learn in scrolls or by trainers. These were the people who were at the forefront of magic discovery - magic engineers, magic pioneers, magic scientists. I supposed it came to no surprise that much of what they would cast was illegal. It was just too dangerous, not to mention incredibly overpowered.
"But how do they enforce it?" I asked. "Is it just a law that varies from place to place?
"The Balance Council," she explained. "It's a group of creepy old men from all over the world who come together and cry about new spells that get leaked into the mainstream. It always eventually happens. One of our scrolls gets sold for an insane profit, it gets popular, then outlawed sometime later for being too strong."
She explained how the Balance Council would raise the tier cap for certain scrolls and lowering others - hence the name. Perhaps it only made sense to. Why would anyone use wind magic if it was just weak as hell? This was why tier 6 Wind scrolls were legal, but Fire 4 wasn't.