Author's Note: Not much to say right now, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 25: A Meeting of Three Warriors
Climb's morning always starts the same, he would wake up in the same bed, clean his teeth at the same sink, put on the same armor, and go out and swing the same sword hundreds of times. And each day he still could not believe that it was happening, that he had not died in that gutter, underneath the little crude shelter he had to fight three other people just for the right to, that one day a young lady guarded by five men had found him and whimsically decided to pull him out of the gutter. Since then Climb has endlessly dedicated himself to the constant honing of his abilities in order to become capable of becoming a worthy body guard for her, Princess Renner Theiere. While swinging the sword over and over again Climb recited in his head the reason why he dedicated himself, Renner who always thought about the kingdom and the people first, who abolished that horrific practice of slavery, who made sure the ones who risked their lives to chase away the monsters could live comfortably, who ceaselessly spent every day devising new ways of making the kingdom simply better! How can Climb, who has dedicated himself to the protection of such a person, do any less dedication.
"Hard at work in the morning I see." Climb turned around to see Gazef leaning into the doorway of the training room.
"Warrior Captain!" Climb stated bowing his head to Gazef.
"Training again till you spurt blood again I see?" Gazef noted seeing how Climb's hands were trembling with the sword in his hand. "Here take this." Gazef passed Climb a potion. "I got it from a new alchemy store that opened up in the capital."
"What is it? Health potion?" Climb asked examining the green liquid inside of the bottle.
"Stamina actually, can give yah a instant boost in energy right after drinking it." Gazef stated shrugging his shoulders.
"Stamina potion? I've never heard of that before." Climb stated as he pulled the cork off of the potion bottle. "So you're using me as a test subject?"
"I've met some other customers there too, a few adventurers, those potions have pulled them out of some tight situations a couple of times already." Gazef stated shrugging his shoulders. "One of the real benefits is that it allows you to train or work for longer periods of time. Naturally I thought of you."
"Ah I see." Saying that Climb downed the potion, he barely felt the tingle of magic in his body but he felt his energy restored, yet his arms were still sore from the physical exertion of his training. "What is this stuff? It doesn't feel like magic." Climb commented looking down at the empty bottle.
"The gent working at he counter called it a 'extract' caffeine I think is what he said it was." Gazef commented as he looked up at the ceiling. "Speaking of you should call it quits for today." Climb was about to protest but Gazef cut him off. "Your job isn't to stay in here all day and swing that sword around it's to protect the princess."
"...Yes Sir." Climb gave a bow to Gazef unable to counter his point. "Is there any advice that you'd like to give me?"
"Never forget how weak we all are." Gazef stated, for some time now something had been troubling him greatly.
"Does this have something to do with what happened at that village?" Climb asked looking concerned.
"When I got there I was attacked by a group of people from the Slane Theocracy that were much stronger then I am. They were in turn defeated by two people who had appeared out of no where, and when I get back to the capital the first thing I learn is that the Slane Theocracy has in turn been wiped out in one day." Gazef stated the implications of his words obvious and severe. "Powerful beings have chosen to descend upon us Climb, and one of these days I'm afraid that we're going to have to fight one." Gazef stated looking up in the air. Even though Gazef spoke with such a somber tone, the fact was that there was a fire in his eyes that were nothing less than pure challenge. "In any case, we both have jobs to do, I'll let you get to yours."
Climb navigated his way through the palace of the Kingdom of Re-Estize and arrived, at the room of his mistress Renner, along the way he encountered both his fellow warriors and the maids of the castle. Soldiers were those selected among the common folk for any prowess as a warrior by the nobility, in order to bolster their forces they took these individuals and put them through hard training, as their superior these individuals respected both Climb's authority and martial skill. The Knights were those warriors who came from noble families, the ones who were a product of specialty breeding and as such had a tendency to possess strong talents, many of them knew that they were stronger then Climb, but while they resented him for the position he was handed they also respected his hard work he made to get there and keep the position. Finally there were the maids, often the second or third daughters of nobility, possessing neither the humble beginnings of the soldiers nor the recognition of hard work of the knights these were the ones that thought of Climb with nothing but pure disgust. While feeling the daggers of their glares in the back of his head Climb was welcomed into the Princess's room.
"Right, I forgot that you were having guests over today." Climb stated looking at the woman sitting across from Renner. "I see Miss Lakyus, but who is that chair for?" Lakyus was a noble woman, and although today she was dressed for the part in reality she was the leader of the Adamantine adventurer group Blue Rose.
"I brought along Tina, but you know how the stealthy types are." Lakyus stated directing Climb's attention to the darkened corner of the room where a short woman dressed in red/camo Ninja's fatigues was located.
"Right. What are we talking about today?" Climb asked as he ignored his mistress's motion to sit down next to her.
"Eight Fingers again."
The extermination of that group of thugs was chief among Renner's agenda for the past several months, and towards that end she had hired Blue Rose to act as the instruments of that extermination, though the adventurer's guild disapproved of their actions the rank of Adamantine gave Blue Rose a considerable amount of clout and leeway within it's ranks. Aside from her friendship with Lakyus there was another reason that she had chosen to use Adventurer's, that being trust. The Nobles of Re-Estize were, to put it bluntly, corrupt, most of them were in bed with Eight Fingers and if they went to them for help the rats would simply flee from one sinking ship to another within the country. Likewise they couldn't rely on mercenaries either, organizations like those were run by Eight Fingers, that only left the third option that being the adventurer's guild that in spite of being full of reliable people were under the influence of neither the kingdom or the criminals.
"We burned down another of their farms last night." Lakyus explained as she got something out of her pocket.
"The ones that produce 'Black Dust' right?" Climb had a personal grievance against that stuff.
With the kingdom in the state that it was in people were desperate for a salve to their desperation. Insert the Black Dust, made from a poisonous plant the Black Dust induces a bliss like state while it ruins the body and the mind, were it not for Renner Climb would likely be one of those poor unfortunates.
"Correct, and we found this in their warehouse." Lakyus explained as she dropped a folded note on the table. "We believe it's a encrypted message but thus far we've been unable to translate it."
"Allow me." At once Renner examined the note. "Climb, my stationery." To Renner's orders Climb went over to the nearby desk and brought back a fountain pen and length of paper. "E is the most common letter in the alphabet... letters tend to start with the male noun..." Renner muttered like that to herself for a few moments before presenting the end result with a 'aha!' "I believe it's a list of locations within the capital, likely various different Eight Finger's bases."
"As expected by the Kingdom's 'Golden Princess!'" Lakyus would like to say that she was surprised by the outcome, but then she'd be lying. The Adventurer has known Renner for a long time and has always known how intelligent she was. "If you were better at planning things through you'd be running this country by now."
"It's not my fault that people don't wanna listen to me." Renner stated as she turned her nose upwards in displeasure.
"Either way we're going to have to move out soon if we wanna hit all of these before the drug trafficking department moves to another city." Lakyus stated as she scratched her chin in thought.
"I don't think these locations belong to the drug department." Renner stated folding her hands together as she looked upon the adventurer's with scrutiny. "No matter how you think about it, this many buildings in one city for one operation is rather excessive. Rather I think that it is a list of buildings belonging to everyone but the drug department."
"Are you sure?" Lakyus asked taken aback with shock, and why wouldn't she be? After all why would one department have a list of buildings from another department lying around.
"For starters there's the number, seven locations instead of eight. Like there's one that being left out on purpose. For another there's the message." Renner stated holding up the sheet of paper. "This isn't a hard cipher to de-crypt, especially if they've already deduced that I'm involved, because at the risk of tooting my own horn."
"But you're pretty darn smart. Alright so if they did want us to deduce the document why encrypt it?" Lakyus stated scratching the side of her head.
"For the same reason they left it behind of course: to buy time." Renner stated confident in her assertions. "Right now we're cracking down the hardest on the Drug trade, if we suddenly focus our attention on the other departments then that will allow them to pack up their operations and head elsewhere. Of course all of this is based on the assumption that rather then a singular organized crime syndicate we are instead dealing with several groups with mutually exclusive interests. But based on the information we have here that makes the most sense."
"If that's the case we'll need to rethink our approach." Each department had their own respective ways of fighting back, the drug department preferred the use of ability boosting potions and poisoned weapons, the slave department would often hide behind their victims like shields, the Smuggling department made use of various exotic weaponry and the list continued on like that for all of the departments. But the ones that were of particular concern to them was the security department, the one whose employees consisted exclusively of violent mercenary thugs, it is quite likely that they would be thoroughly outmatched by that group even if they did send in all of Blue Rose. "That is a problem. It would be nice to get them all at once, but with our limited numbers we'd only end up shutting them down one at a time." Lakyus commented crossing her arms in dissatisfaction.
"You leave the issue of numbers to me." Renner stated smirking in a wide and self assured manner.
"Right. Climb, could you do us a favor and go deliver this message to Gagaran and the others?" Lakyus asked holding out a sheet of paper for Climb. "If we're doing this fast and dirty then I need those three to be on full alert."
"Yes Miss Lakyus!" Climb stated as he bowed to the Adventurer.
While Climb wore his Mythril armor when he acted as a agent of Renner, for more casual instances it was better to go out in semi casual wear, there by reducing the likelihood he'd be recognized, thereby reducing the likelihood that he'd embarrass his mistress. First order of business was delivering Lakyus's message to the adventurer's guild. Two out of three of the people he was looking for could be spotted a mile away, Gagaran was built like a ogre with her huge muscular frame, conversely Evil Eye was quite small, but she wore a eye catching red cloak and had a white mask on that should logically make it impossible for her to eat or drink. The third Member, Tia, like her sister Tina, was probably off hiding some where.
"Yo cherry boy, what's up?" Gagaran asked waving Climb over.
"Lakyus wanted me to give you this note." Climb handed Gagaran the note whom quickly skimmed the contents.
"So we're to get ready to move immediately eh?" Gagaran stated looking down at the note. "Sounds like your little missy and my little missy are talking about something pretty serious."
"If she has no objections about dragging adventurer's into her schemes then she should try hiring on a few more." Evil Eye noted chin resting on folded hands.
"What you thinking Orichalcum ranked?" Gagaran suggested leaning back in her chair.
"The guild doesn't give Orichalcum rank the same leeway as they do us. I was thinking of that new Adamantine ranked group that had appeared a little while ago." Evil Eye corrected giving the impression of a eye brow cocking just to make her point.
"Darkness right?" Climb asked looking mildly excited.
"Never met the guy in person before, but if he can do what they say he can do then he's definitely the kind of guy we want against Eight Fingers." Gagaran stated crossing her arms together as she went deep in thought. "A lot of it is pretty mundane like most adventurers, but the highlights include defeating a Gigant Basilisk by himself and exterminating a army of the undead including two skeletal dragons."
"Is that impressive?" Climb asked tilting his head off to the side in confusion. "Even I couldn't take on all of that by myself, the undead horde would tire me out, and the basilisk's range attacks would stop me dead before I could get in close to finish it off. That said from what I heard his strategies tend to amount to 'crush the enemy with overwhelming power.'"
"Isn't that your strategy meat head?" Evil Eye asked before promptly receiving a blow to her head that left a huge welt from Gagaran punching her in the head. "Right, Well I have other things I want to do today as well. So good day to you all." Climb gave his obligatory bow before making a hasty escape.
Aside from the message he delivered Climb also wanted to go pick up more of those stamina potions that Gazef had given him.
Sebas turned to face the majority of the individuals pointing poisoned daggers at him threateningly, Climb on the other hand turned to face the two who had cut off their escape from the alley way, and was soon greeted by the sight of two fountain's of blood.
"My apologies to the two of you, but that gentleman works for one of my employers and as such I simply can't let you kill him." Brain stated as he licked the blood off of his blade. "Bah. Useless." Brain at least hoped that those two would know some good martial arts but based on their blood that wasn't the case.
Climb kept his attention and sword on the new comer, thus he did not even notice the ridiculous ease by which Sebas grabbed all three of the poisoned throwing daggers his opponents hurled at them and then planted them into one of the men's vital areas. Sebas landed a punch to the face of the second assassin slamming him into the back wall of the alley way. The third and final assassin took one look at the state of his colleagues before he tried to run off, before that is Sebas grabbed him and picked him up by his scruff and held him face to face.
"Mr. Unglas good to see you are well." Sebas stated heedless of the assassin struggling to get out of his grasp.
"I know of you, but you know me?" Brain asked prompting Climb to look between the two of them confused.
"As a servant of your master I was one of several individuals who took turns over seeing your recovery." Sebas clarified as he plucked the assassin of his means of bringing harm upon others or himself.
"I am honored." Brain stated rather genuinely.
"Um... I'm sorry but do you know where these guys came from Mr. Sebas?" Climb asked looking between the two men confused.
"Let us find out." Sebas wagged his fingers over the face of the assassin and suddenly they started to glow orange with foreign power.
Author's Note:
rmarcano: That they did. Seemed like something they would want to talk about. Good to know. That she does. Staffan has a long standing appointment with Kyhoukou. Adamantine ranked warrior is still a adamantine ranked warrior. Nothing at the moment. Jack The Ripper.
PervySageChuck: Tell yah what, If I ever need a underwear salesman, his name will be Chuck.