30. May Regulia Rise Again...
Over the past few weeks, Rimor had learned a lot more about Regulia. The next day after Rimor and Darla had made the agreement, the tax collector had paid them a visit. This time though Rimor stayed inside the house and watched in ever increasing amusement how the guard's eyes widened, and his face puffed up in anger like a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum.
That was the most amusing incident that occurred in the two weeks that he had been here. They had a routine nicely set up by now. He helped Darla with her shop in the morning and the evening. He took a break in the afternoons and got himself acquainted in the neighbourhood. It was the nights that he had come to look forward to the most because he could adorn his cloak and sneak out to patrol the planet check out its mechanisms for real without the many eyes following him wherever he went in the daytime.
Rimor finished up with the last of the customers and closed the shop for the afternoon. The look of this shop was immensely misleading. In no way was it as run down as it looked like. They had regular customers and a steady supply of products.
"Are you ready?" came a gruff voice from behind Rimor. He calmly finished locking up and gave the Regulian behind him an unimpressed stare.
"You should have learned by now that you can't sneak up on me, Shira."
"Yes, yes but I was so sure you would not have noticed me this time," the red skinned man whined.
Rimor only rolled his eyes and put on the hood of the ratty brown cloak that Darla had lent him. They walked quickly and turned in a few different directions just so no one would be able to follow us. They did not talk much, only trudged on silently. They soon reached the city walls. They were these big stone walls crafted to only have two gates. Both of those gates had at least five guards on watch.
Rimor and Shira didn't linger long near the walls. They stealthily followed the wall east to the mountains. Soon they came across a giant boulder covering an opening. They went around it into a gap hole that allowed one being to enter it. They descended into the dreary cave; the occasional dripping sounds of water gave it a creepy feeling.
They came upon a metal door soon enough. Shira knocked in an intricate pattern and his voice echoed, "Ashid dorven kalamunto".
May Regulia rise again.
The metal door slid open to reveal a bustling hall. Rimor was impressed. Their headquarters were hidden inside a mountain. These rebels clearly knew how to hide in sight. It was going to be very interesting working together. Cosmos knows that Rimor did not working in a team in years. He just hoped that he wouldn't get too attached to them. His leaving after this planet was free was inevitable.
He still remembered the day he discovered the rebellion that was hyping up.
It had been a week since he had moved into the spare room in Darla's house. It wasn't that bad. He had slept in worse places. Although there was something suspicious going on with her shop and its income. The shop receives decent money for her to live comfortably yet it seems like every other day more than half of it disappears.
Rimor asked Darla what happened to the money one day. She only replied, "It's for the use of those who need it."
Rimor assumed that she meant the poorer Regulians down the street but wasn't entirely convinced of this answer. There was something more going on here but he could sense it wasn't anything malicious. So, he accepted the answer, for now.
It was later that day that a strange came to the shop. He was tall and lanky physically but a few subtle signs that Rimor had taught himself to look out for, told him that the man was a skilled fighter. He had the native red skin and midnight black antenna. He also wore a hood over his head. He browsed the items in the store while Rimor helped the other customers.
Rimor discreetly kept an eye on him. After some time, Darla came down from her house and noticed the man right away. She calmly walked from to him and started conversing with him in hushed tones but not low enough to be suspicious.
Rimor slightly pulled at the feeling in his gut and the conversation flowed over to him.
"I see you have given the foreigner refuge, Darla," the man stated not looking directly at her face.
"Yes, you were late. If it wasn't for him, I'd be dead by now," she curtly replied.
The man's face turned apologetic and he grimaced, "I'm sorry. Marge got caught by the guards. It caused quite a scuffle. We were hoping that you could delay the tax collectors another day."
She sighed mournfully and inspected some of the merchandise on the shelves. "When have those buffoon tax collectors ever shown capabilities of mercy?", she continued, "I hope Marge made it. By your arrival here, I suspect she did."
The man subtly nodded. Darla sighed once more. She took out a small satchel and handed it to him. "Shira, this needs to stop. When is it happening?" she asked sternly.
The man quickly hid the satchel inside his pockets and said one last thing before turning away and exiting the shop, "We need more time. I'm sorry."
"Hey! You! foreigner, I require these," a high pitch voice says. I stop listening to the conversation of Darla and the man-Shira and put on a strained polite smile. The woman was the occasional upper-class customer. Some were kind and helped the poorer ones as much as they could but others were an arrogant bunch like the woman in front of him.
He swiftly packed her things and took the money she gave. He then nodded to Darla and she nodded back in understanding not understanding the real reason for his sudden need for a break.
Rimor hurried out of the shop and tried to sense which way the man named Shira had gone in. He walked briskly, not quite sprinting just in case it would attract trouble from the guards.
Another thing he did not understand. The agents of Order and the Army of Chaos may not be able to patrol every planet frequently, especially such an out of the way and small one as this one, but the rangers definitely should have been doing routine checks at least every year.
Something smelt very fishy about the way the king was able to block the Regulia from the rest of the world. It needed a very powerful to perform these tasks for as long as this has been going on.
Seeing a familiar hood walking not that far from where he was walking away, he shook himself out of these thoughts. Rimor stuck closer to the shadows and stealthily tried to follow the mysterious man closely. He followed Shira for a mile, when he suddenly took a sharp turn into an abandoned alleyway.
Not wanting to lose the man that could possibly give him the answers he needed, Rimor quickened his pace and followed him.
Only to find no sign of the lanky man in front of him. The alleyway was a complete dead end unless the rigid was an illusion created by magic.
Rimor startled and cursed under his breath for the unawareness of his surroundings when he felt a smooth hand get a hold of his neck and felt the steel of a blade against his throat.
"Why are you following me?" the same voice he recalled of the man in the shop hissed.
He was never one for bragging or boasting but, Rimor knew very well that he could take down this man. But he wouldn't because it would blow his cover of being an explorer.
Although, he smirked internally, it certainly doesn't mean an explorer and treasure hunter who travelled to dangerous locations would not know basic self-defence.
Unknowing of the thoughts flowing through his captive's mind, Shira repeated, "Why are you following me? Talk."
Rimor quickly formed a strategy and collided the back of his head against his captor's forehead. At the same time, he swept a kick backwards taking out Shira's legs from underneath him. Rimor swiftly retreated back and grabbed the knife fallen from Shira's hand when he hit the ground.
"Look, I was suspicious to who you were so, I followed you," he bluntly stated. "Darla will never truthfully answer my questions and you clearly knew something."
"Y-you're good," Shira croaked as he regained his composure. "I did not expect you to be a fighter."
"Well, I'm not but I do know how to defend myself when someone holds a knife to my throat," he lied.
Rimor inspected the man in front him. He could see the satchel Darla had given him. A silver glint could be seen falling out of it.
Ahh, this is where the half of the coins go. The only question remaining is: why?
"What do you do with those coins?" Rimor inquired pointing to the satchel.
Quick as a flash, Shira grabbed the satchel and placed it in his pocket again. "Why do you care? If you were after the coins, you would have taken it and fled, not stayed behind and picked up the knife"
He was observant and sneaky, Rimor could admit to that. Perhaps even sneakier than him.
"Doesn't matter. Answer the question," he said.
Even though he couldn't see his eyes, Rimor felt Shira's gaze fixed on him, scrutinizing him. "Why do you want to know?" the red-skinned man repeated.
Rimor gritted his teeth in irritation. "I want to help, dammit," he blurted out. He could see the surprise on the other man's face at the sudden confession. Hades, he was surprised too. Usually, he would never have confessed his intentions so easily. But something had compelled him to answer this question truthfully.
"Well, Chaos knows I was not expecting that," Shira said thoughtfully. "Perhaps you would be able to help."
Rimor was helpful. He had a knack for gathering information no one else seemed to get. Shira had explained that he was part of the Rebellion to free Regulia of the king and his destructive ways. He explained that many of the rebels were runaways and a lot of the citizens silently supported it too. Apparently, the king knew that there was a rebellion but he could never find them.
It made sense now that he could never find the rebellion. No one would suspect the mountains to be stable enough for an entire base of rebels to live here.
"Come, the others want to meet you," Shira beckoned him forward towards a door to the right. This has been the first time Rimor had been welcomed to the rebel's base. He suspected that they didn't want to show it to him while his loyalty was still being questioned. The last raid that he had been successful to find the information for had finally won the leaders over to his side.
"The meeting should start soon," he exclaimed in excitement and swung open the door.
A/N: Hello my dear readers! This chapter is finally done. So the next update will probably be somewhere in the next month. I hope you liked it!
Please Review what you thought about it! I always read all of them and reply whenever I have the time.