Chapter 2
The four of them come to the end of the stairs, and are momentarily dazzled by the change in lighting. A moment later they can see they're in a huge underground hall; and a well populated one at that. In amongst the bustle they can see an elevated stage, on which a band appears to playing an energetic tune on a number of very unusual looking instruments; and a space in front of them where an number of probably inebriated individuals are doing something…resembling dancing. In another part there's a very large bar, and judging from the sizeable plates of exotic looking food passing over the counter a substantial kitchen somewhere behind it. Close to the bar are many tables, seating a very colourful collection of characters; many of whom are noticeably armed and armoured; and in some cases with particularly fearsome looking weapons of huge size. Along one side of hall are a number of doors, marked as being available for private business transactions. They make their way slowly towards the bar.
"Now this place really is something else. How'd you find out about it Rise?"
"Did a little bit of Yoma extermination pro bono a while back; and ended up rescuing one of the guys who works here."
"Didn't you get in trouble for that?"
"I talked my way out of it Lena; it was in the arse end of nowhere so it wasn't like there was any potential for the organisation to make any money to start with."
"Speaking of yoma; look at that!"
Mai points to the wall above the bar, where there are numerous beast head trophies; and in amongst them what appears to be a yoma head. Rise lets out a whistle.
"Damn, looks like the wrecking crew are getting seriously good at their game."
The bartender enters the conversation. He's a fairly large and exceptionally grizzled looking man, with long grey hair and seems to have more scar tissue on his body than actual skin.
"You girls can't be everywhere at once, and those blasted yoma keep popping up all the time. That one wasn't so bright mind you; considering who it tried to ambush. Speaking of which, if you don't mind me asking Rise…"
"Nothing to worry about Manny; there aren't any here."
"Good, sounds like Gillespie's doing his job properly. So what brings you to the flag?"
"Mostly R and R, but I'll need to have a chat with the boss. Something odd turned up on our last job; the sort of thing which might be her concern."
"She's a little busy right now, but I'm sure she'll be pretty keen to hear what you have to say. If it's along the lines of what I think it is; we've been getting more and more occurrences. I've got a feeling we're gonna be dealing with a lot more than rumours soon. You fancy something to drink while you wait?"
"Sure, I'll have the special milk cocktail; how about you Lena?"
"Hmm…I'll have a large Becherovka to start with. What are you up for Kammy?"
"Ooooh, got to be Slivovitz in this weather. How about you Mai?"
"Umm, is there anything that tastes a bit like liquorice?"
"Make that an Ouzo for Mai."
"I'll have those rustled up in a jiffy. Do you fancy anything to eat with them?"
"We're not big eaters but since there's four of us a special snack platter would be just the ticket."
"Rightyho; Gaston! One special snack platter if you'd be so kind."
"Nyaakay Manny. Be ready in five."
"Five minutes? That's pretty quick."
"Gaston's got one hell of a gift for the kitchen; which is just as well since a fair portion of our clientele get pretty tetchy when they're hungry. Got an individual table for four if you want."
"Yeah, that'll be great."
The four of them get seated with their drinks.
"Um, Rise; your drink's glowing. Is it supposed to do that?"
"Yeah, no problems Mai. It's got phosphors oak nectar in it."
"Oh, how expensive is this Rise? We've got the standard provision of coin from the organisation, but that's not exactly a lot."
"I've got it covered Lena."
"Have you been saving up?"
"A little tip Kammy; next time you have to travel far, join up with a trade caravan heading in the same direction by offering your services as a guard. It pays well, and the chances are you'll scare off anything that might've considered attacking the caravan just by being there."
"So what happens if you have to deal with bandits? You know the rules Rise."
"The rules don't expressly forbid kicking the crap out of them. The average bandit isn't much of fighter; they rely mainly on strength of numbers and the element of surprise. They're mostly guys as well so one swift kick to the happy sacks is all it usually takes to knock the fight out of them."
The conversation is interrupted by a small coughing fit from Mai.
"Whoa, you okay Mai?"
"Fine…fine, huff; this Ouzo stuffs got one hell of a kick. Not bad though; I could get used to it."
"Welcome to the wonderful world of booze Mai; although most people start out with something a damn site tamer than Ouzo."
"We're warriors Lena, taking the bull by the horns is the way we do things. Guess it's kind of fitting in a way."
"Speaking of which, what's with that group with the absurd weaponry? I know our swords are pretty big, but those things are ridiculous."
"That's the wrecking crew Kammy. They're basically the flag's private mercenary group; and possibly the best protection a caravan can hire. They cover a wide variety of jobs, but don't handle anything that explicitly involves hunting Yoma. That way the flag doesn't tread on the organisation's toes, so to speak."
"Kind of an odd name they've got."
"It's well earned; a few years back one of the nobles of Rabona had their daughter kidnapped by a bandit group, and they picked up the rescue mission. The bandits were located in a small fortress; the wrecking crew literally tore it apart during the rescue."
"Maybe we should look up whoever makes their gear; that armour looks like pretty good stuff."
"He's further in the back of this place. You can't quite see it from here but there's forge at the far end. It's part of how they keep this place warm."
There's a call from behind the bar.
"Special snack platter for four ready!"
"We're over here!"
"Cheers, be right there."
The waiter makes his way over to their table.
"Whoa, did anyone else see that?"
"See what Mai?"
"I thought I just saw a cat wearing a chef's hat behind the bar for a moment."
"Probably just a perspective trick or something."
The waiter places the snack platter in front of them.
"That's quite a lot of food. Are you sure that's not too much Rise?"
"Trust me, you've all got room for it. We might not need to eat like regular humans, but we can still enjoy some proper food once in a while."
The four of them dig in.
"Mff…nice…is this deep fried shrimp?"
"Dunno, but this spicy stuff goes down great!"
"Think this is a spring roll…"
"Anyone need another drink?"
"Yeah, I'm thinking beer this time. How about you Lena?"
"Cider for me. What about you Mai?"
"Cider sounds good. You having anything Rise?"
"Ginger ale for me."
The four of them continue to dine for a while.
"Looks like we've polished off all the food now."
"I'm going to check to see if the boss is free now. You three might as well have some fun."
Rise heads on over to the bar.
"Heya Manny; is the boss available now?"
"Yeah, she's free; I'll take you to her."
Manny takes Rise behind the bar and then up a short flight of steps. This leads to a large study type room; there are numerous tables all covered in a variety of objects. In particular are a number of maps, many of which have markings on them, and piles of notes. Leaning over one of the tables with her back to rise is a cloaked woman of fairly substantial stature. While the cloak hides her appearance, the hilts of two weapons can be seen poking out of it.
"It's been a while Leona. How's business?"
"Not bad, but could be better. The wrecking crew bring in enough to keep operations flowing smoothly so we're in no danger of going broke; but we can't really afford to expand our operations any further right now."
Leona turns around, revealing her to have black hair and dark skin. She has green eyes and her hair is styled in dreadlocks. Her clothing beneath the cloak seems to be made of some kind of reptile hide; it's predominantly green with red streaks, and seems to be studded in places with what look like large fangs.
"Looks like you've been pretty busy though."
"Yeah, I think something serious is brewing. There's been a lot of odd things happening lately."
"That's part of why I'm here; we had something weird turn up on our last job."
"You gonna spill the beans?"
"We'd basically got assigned to do a hit on a particularly powerful yoma; problem was something beat us to it."
"Something powerful enough to take down a strong yoma; now that's significant. What did you find?"
"Whatever it was, it killed him very quickly, and then appears to have eaten a large portion of him. I examined the injures on the corpse and found the most probable fatal injury was a pair of puncture wounds to the head and neck. There were also a couple of sizeable claw wounds, and an injury to the chest that suggested a gigantic barbed flail."
"Which parts did it eat?"
"It seemed to have concentrated mostly on the limbs; and one thing to note was the bones had been bitten through with very little splintering."
"Interesting; I think I might know what we're dealing with. They haven't been native to this land for a long time, but I believe the creature in question is something known as a Barioth."
"Not native; the organisation's not going to like this one bit."
"They'll have to drop the charade sooner or later; the same goes for the church."
"Speaking of which did you manage to get a source on the sample I gave you last time?"
"It's a fucium alloy; which is surprising since fucium ore is pretty much unheard of on this continent."
"Could you replicate it?"
"It'd be pricy; we'd have to import some of the materials; but we could do it."
"That's good to know."
"Still, since you've given me some pretty strong indications that we've got Barioth in the wilds again, there's a good chance a whole new line of business is gonna open up. One with plenty of opportunities for a skilled warrior like yourself."
"I can't see the organisation wanting to get involved; if it isn't yoma they're rarely interested."
"I was wondering if you'd be interested in a little freelance work on the side."
"Much as I like the idea; the higher ups get very arsy about that sort of thing."
"That said, some of these anomalies could be down to yoma. I think I'd be important to have the right people for the job if that's the case."
"That's pretty farcical as far as reasoning goes; but good enough for me, and it'd be enough for me to sweet talk my way out of trouble with the organisation. Rubel's devious, and tows the line by and large, but he won't tread on my toes just for a little independent thinking. Rimuto'd kick off if he knew, but I'm too far down the ranks for him to really give a shit so as long as things don't escalate too much I should be able to help you out."
"I suppose we'll cross that bridge if we get to it."
"You mentioned something about a lot of odd things happening lately; would you mind giving me a few more details?"
"Okay; I've been gathering information on abnormal events from across the continent. There's usually only a few in a given region, and most seem to happen away from human settlements; but when you put them all together, there's been a lot going on."
"Any particular pattern you can see?"
"A heavy bias towards the less well mapped areas of the land; but also towards areas where there's been some kind of significant geological event. Mount Surtsei to the north became active just over a year ago, and there's been signs of tectonic activity in the southern desert as well."
"Given how poorly populated and explored the desert is I wouldn't be too surprised if something unrecorded was lurking there."
"That makes the desert fairly low priority for now; we'd need a full blown exploratory team to do any kind of meaningful search."
"So what looks like the most pressing incidents?"
"First, and most obviously, we need to locate the Barioth nesting grounds. If they're far enough away from Pieta we can leave them be; but if it looks like they're gonna attack anyone using the roads we'll need to do something."
"Anything else nearby?"
"Yeah, there's a pretty thick highland forest not far to the southwest; judging from the maps I could find it's not been properly explored either. A couple of merchants tried to take a shortcut through there; next thing they know they hear what sounds like a wolf howl, but much louder, followed by some sort of light show. They pretty much crapped themselves and ran for it after that. There's also been reports of absolutely huge footprints being found near the lake at the edge of the forest as well."
"That does sound a bit like a yoma; although I'm surprised the merchants got away if that was the case. Anything else?"
"An expedition to mount Surtsei disappeared without a trace a few months ago. The area's not exactly stable so there's any number of things that could have gone wrong."
"Okay, what about further afield?"
"One of the farmsteads in the eastern territories has reported losing livestock; and finding odd scorch damage to the fields where the disappearances have occurred. Another strange incident in the western forests was the occurrence of some sort of dust cloud. Anyone breathing in the dust ended up feeling really weakened, but it sent the local wildlife berserk…oh and before I forget the was another pretty recent incident locally. Surtsei's eruption melted a large part of the Surtsei glacier, making some of the area more accessible. Apparently a group of prospectors thought they'd see if they could find anything valuable up there; they came rushing back a few days later. They were in such a hurry they abandoned all their gear and seemed half mad with terror. Took a lot of booze to calm them down, and they all just kept saying the same thing over and over…I saw it…the Jormungand!".
"Jormungand? Now that it is odd. If my memory serves me correctly the Jormungand was the mythical serpent that was supposed to be capable of encircling the land; but it was a sea serpent. Why'd they think they saw a sea serpent up a mountain?"
"Beats the hell out of me. I was able to get enough sense out of them to get a rough location pinned down, but they point blank refuse to go back; not for anything."
"Most intriguing; looks like it'll be a nightmare to get to mind so I guess we push that one down the list. Anything in the southern territories?"
"No reliable information I'm afraid. Between the shifting sands, mirages, poor maps and harsh conditions it's just not possible to pinpoint anything specific. The only location for weird happenings we can verify is the southern sea fortress."
"Ah…the haunted keep."
"Yeah, I've been there myself once you know. I don't know about being haunted but; something was seriously wrong with the place. Being abandoned by people is one thing, but there weren't any animals there either; in fact even the birds seemed to be trying to avoid flying over it. Needless to say I didn't stick around."
"How'd you get info on that place to begin with? It's one of the most isolated places on this land."
"From the same guys who caught the shrimp we serve; their fishing route goes past that part of the coast."
"Well, sounds like your information network's pretty solid. What's your next move?"
"We need to scout the incident sites; I was hoping we could recruit you, and ideally a few more warriors as well to check some of them out."
"That's going to be a lot easier said than done I'm afraid. There's a good chance we'll end up being sent after another yoma as soon as we're done with our current job, and quite a lot of the warriors of the organisation are real sticklers for towing the line. I'll probably be able to figure out some way of helping you out myself; but getting any of the other warriors on board won't be straightforward."
"How about those three who you brought along?"
"I'd say they're safe to bring in here, but beyond that I'm not sure. Lena's easy going, but she's one of the highest ranked warriors in the organisation. The management are always pretty keen to know exactly what she's doing at all times because of that. With Kammy there's the rank issue again; although not quite as bad. She's a bit of thrill seeker though so I think she'd be up for it. Mai's gonna be the safest bet, but she's about as green as it gets; I'm basically acting as a tutor for her at the moment. She's sweet natured and open minded, so I can't see her causing any problems though."
"Hmm; well, the wrecking crew can handle some of the scouting, but I'd rather not split them up if possible; they're used to working as a team."
"I'm afraid we'll just have to see how things turn out. It'll probably take a couple more days for my current job to conclude; and then it'll be a case of seeing how the organisation reacts. Whatever happens I'll make sure to drop by before I leave Pieta and give you an update."
"Thanks; oh, and before I forget Mickel wants a word with you."
"What's he cooked up this time?"
"He's been trying to cobble together some high quality gear; this land's pretty crappy when it comes to quality materials, but he thinks he's found a winning alloy from the local ores."
"I take it he wants me to give it a test run then."
"I'd imagine so; you're about the only person we know who could properly put it through its paces without getting killed in the process."
"I'll do it; if Mickel can produce something that can withstand the sort of punishment Yoma can dish out, then it'll mean I'll have a viable alternative to the organisation's supplies if I find myself in a pinch."
"You don't sound like you have an awful lot of faith in your; is employers the correct term?"
"We're all ultimately disposable to them; we're seen more as tools than people. Even those of high rank sometimes have the misfortune to find themselves sent on missions that are obviously extremely likely kill them. Someone like myself, who's maintained a consistently low rank, barely registers beyond being a curiosity. They've never been quick to provide me with any kind of aid; I've survived as long as I have because I make contingency plans."
"You actually still work for those guys?"
"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. That, and desertion tends to be met with a rather terminal response; either outright execution or being sent on a blatant suicide mission."
"Maybe I should give you this now rather than later then."
Leona hands Rise a letter. Her brow crinkles with fury upon reading it; and in particular her canines noticeably enlarge.
"Bastards…I should have known…no, I've had an inkling for a long time, I've just never had the bravery to take the last step and see for myself."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'll keep up the façade of being a dutiful, loyal, if somewhat weak and unreliable warrior for the meantime; but I'm not going to let this slide; and I have a favour to ask."
"What can I do?"
"If…everything turns to rat shit; do you think you could give Mai shelter here?"
"It wouldn't be the first time we've provided sanctuary. We're well aware that claymore's are forbidden from taking human lives so I doubt the organisation has the means to harm us. The wrecking crew can flatten any mercenary band they might send our way; and I've got a few favours in high places I can still call in if need be. If the absolute worst comes to the worst we'll smuggle her overseas."
"Thanks; that means a lot to me. I've outlived every other warrior I've tutored; I know I don't age physically, but I'm feeling the weight of all the regrets I've accumulated over the years now."
"How are you going to broach this with your fellow warriors?"
"There's only one I know it'll be safe to tell at this stage. She's a lot stronger and braver than me; and better at influencing the other warriors as well."
"Let me guess; Mira?"
"You've met her then. Good, that saves me having to explain who to contact if I screw up my investigation. If you see her before I do, make sure you show her that letter as well…and tell her if she thinks she might have to get her hands dirty to come and see me first."
Leona gives Rise a look of surprise. Rise gives her a knowing smile.
"The trick to breaking the rules is not getting caught, and that's something I have; quite a bit of experience with. I might not be the strongest warrior, the fastest, the most skilled with a sword, or the most accomplished yoki manipulator; but I'll be damned if I can find another warrior who can fight dirtier than I can."
Leona breaks out in a wide grin.
"I'll have to introduce you to an old friend of mine. Goes by the name of Captain Argosy; the self-proclaimed master of dirty fencing."
I'm thinking of having a surprise encounter with a monster for one of the warriors of the organisation in the next chapter. I'd like you to PM me with requests regarding which warrior gets to have a tussle with which monster. Please try to keep the match ups balanced and region relevant though; for example.
Claire Vs Great Jaggi in the desert
Helen Vs Rathian on the plains
Undine Vs Gravios at Mt Surtsei
Ophelia Vs Zinogre in the highland forest
