BANG
An adventurer slamd a severed head onto the counter. Nika watched from near the entrance as the man with a scarred face grinned at the clerk processing his bounty claim.
The head belonged to a bandit captain who he’d tracked down.
"Told you I’d get the bastard." The adventurer’s voice rang across the hall with the kind of volu that demanded attention.
"Three bloody weeks tracking him through Shafowfen— I"
The clerk cut him off by sliding a pouch of coins across the counter. The adventurer picked it, weighed it, nodded, and turned to his waiting companions with a triumphant shout.
Nika moved further into the hall. The space opened around him with the mission boards dominating the eastern wall, blinded with contracts.
To the west, there were food stalls selling hot als. The air was mixed with the sll of roasted at and ale as well as sweat, leather and steel.
Nika spotted Lyssa already near the mission boards. She was surrounded by three n who were practically stumbling over each other. She laughed without a care in the world, teasing and reeling them in.
Garran stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching the room with eyes that seed to know nothing but caution.
At the center of the hall. There was three desks that served as stations for registration, contract procession and bounty claims. The area was saturated by lines of adventurers waiting to be attended to.
Nika walked toward one of the desk and with each mont of his approach. The line parted.
It wasn’t dramatical neither was it a situation where people stepped aside or bowed but it was the subtle feeling he got when people started to carefully do too much about their equipnt while shifting out of his path.
Nika suddenly stopped. Sensing the awareness and the tension that swung around the room with his motions.
These n were definitely afraid of him. His reputation and the competence that ca with being who he was, but this was never what he wanted.
He turned and walked back toward where Garran stood.
"What?" Garran asked in confusion.
"We wait," Nika answered. "Just a few more minutes."
Garran followed his gaze to the line and nodded in understanding.
Nika never wanted special treatnt or people scrambling out of his way like a noble demanding respect.
He believed everyone on that line had legitimate business there and it would be an injustice for him to skip ahead just because they were too intimidated to tell him... No.
Nika stayed relaxed on the pillar and just when he turned to face Garran.The air shifted.
A dragon-tier presence descended on the hall like pressure before a storm. The kind of presence that made Nika instinctively aware.
Nika’s eyes found the source on the balcony instantly.
Thraxx..
The dark-skinned elf enforcer. They’d crossed paths before during battles at adjacent battlefields and also that one ti in the recent adventurer’s summit.
The elf’s hand rested near his sword as he surveyed the room. With three n around him.
Nika’s eyes squinted slightly, he knew those n but before he could look further they disappeared into the room adjacent the balcony.
Nika watched closely before he turned to the line that had miraculously shortened.
"Good enough," he thought.
---
The administrator looked up as Nika approached her desk. Her blue eyes squinted while the creases on her face smoothen. Even as he grew closer, her professional posture dissolved upon close recognition.
"Master Crowley," Her voice carried respect even as her fingers tucked her blond hair behind pointed ears.
"How can I help you?"
Nika cleared his throat with a warm smile on his face.
"There has been rampant breaches and organized demon incursions around the eastern territories and hollow creek,"
The lady nodded. And pulled out a fresh parchnt, quill already moving before he finished speaking.
"How organized are these incursions?"
Nika’s fingers slid across the ebony desk as he looked directly at the woman.
"The attacks are coordinated and on multiple settlents at the sa ti," he paused.
"I think they’re testing defenses and it would only get worse,"
The administrator’s quill hesitated for half a second before continuing.
"I’m requesting the guild station additional adventurers in the region." Nika finished.
After a while, she was done and set down the quill carefully, fingers adjusting its position on the desk.
She took a soft breathe even as nervous eyes finally looked away from the parchnt.
"The situation is complicated," she t his eyes briefly, then looked back at her notes.
"The Northern District, that includes the Hollow Creek area was recently transferred to new governance."
Nika raised a brow. " New governance?"
The female administrator nodded. "Yes, Prince Auryn Ignisar has claid it"
Nika grunted slightly, barely audible but that na was familiar. He stayed quiet.
"So with switch of authority, Lord Castor’s forces, who maintained security there, are being withdrawn. The Third Prince’s people are replacing them." The clerk spoke.
’The third prince. The injured one I t on the road. He is taking over territories now?’ Nika thought when an unexpected smile sneaked on his lips.
"There’s always a gap during transitions. Security takes ti to establish." The clerk finally concluded with her face red after seeing Nika’s smile.
"So right now there’s no one," Nika asked
"Not no one. Just... fewer resources and manpower to release right now," Her fingers moved to adjust the parchnt, aligning it with the desk’s edge.
"I’ll escalate your report. Ensure soone looks into stationing guild mbers there. But these things take ti to process especially in tis of power change," she finished with eyes still on the desk or was it the parchnt.
’Of course they did.’ Nika nodded once.
"Much appreciated dear."
He could see the relief in how her shoulders dropped slightly, tension releasing now that the interaction was ending without incident.
She unconsciously tucked that sa strand of hair behind her ear again, despite it never moving in the first place.
Nika leaned forward closer to the woman now. His green eyes bright like a gem as he spoke.
"Can you help with sothing, real quick?"
---
Garran was still watching the room when Nika joined him. "Find sothing?"
"Haunted castle investigation." Nika gestured toward the mission board’s western section.
"A friend told a local lord’s family was murdered a few weeks back," He gritted his teeth.
"Villagers claim they hear screams, see lights in empty windows."
"Ghosts?" Garran frowned.
"Maybe or maybe it’s just rumors," Nika shrugged.
"Either way it pays well and I want to know what happened," he started moving toward the mission board to officially accept the contract.
"This commission should take only a few days then we visit Aurelia," he continued even as his steps touched softly on the ground.
"Aurelia? Why Aurelia," Garran asked. His face was tight with confusion.
Nika chuckled. "You’ll see"
—-
The duo moved through the hall toward the board, and Nika caught another glimpse of Lyssa. The n were still there, practically orbiting her.
Her hand resting on one man’s shoulder for just a mont before she stepped back. The n followed that movent like puppets on strings.
Garran’s jaw tightened at the sight, but he said nothing.
Nika pulled the haunted castle contract from the board and brought it back to the administrator’s desk for processing.
She handled the paperwork quickly, sliding the official docuntation across to him with another hair tuck and a more daring smile.
"Safe travels, Mr Crowley."
"Thank you. Liv,"
Her eyes widened like a spark catching fla.
---
The afternoon sun hit Nika’s face as he exited the Continental Guild.
Greenspire’s administrative quarter stretched before his eyes. The city that grew with the recent years of the empire’s stabilization and war avoidance atleast ensured prosperity for those who could afford to benefit from it.
Nika turned east, toward Wood-creek Plaza where Harold should be waiting. But before he left he’d instructed Garran to keep an eye out for Lyssa.
Even as Nika left the administrative area, the streets grew narrower by the second. The refurbished buildings disappeared with each turn and jump, leaving the sll of too many people living in buildings that cramped together like lovers.
He was two blocks from the plaza when he stopped. Tilting his head upwards, the window opened on the third story of a building that leaned slightly to the left.
A woman who wore a stained apron, leaned from the railings and dumped sothing downwards from a large pot.
Nika took a few steps back to avoid the splash from refuse that was actually food scraps made up of rotten vegetables, Bones which had at clinging for dear life and bread that were even greener than his eyes.
Below, in the cracks between buildings, shapes of different sizes grew visible. Six individuals with rag clothes, pale skin and bodies that seed like they hadn’t seen food for weeks erged.
They saw the falling scraps and surged forward, colliding with each other in their desperation. Hands grabbed. Elbows drove into ribs. Soone dove down and others trampled over them to reach the scattered food first.
An old man clutched a piece of moldy bread to his chest like he had worn the Oscars, backing away from the group with wild eyes.
A younger woman shoved him aside and snatched sothing else, shoving it into her mouth imdiately before anyone could take it from her.
Nika stood at the alley’s entrance, watching.
The woman in the window closed the shutters without looking down. While the desperate scramble below continued.
Humans reduced to animals fighting over waste in the shadow of Greenspire’s gleaming developnt.
This was the empire. This was prosperity.
Nika turned away and kept walking toward Wood-creek Plaza, where Harold waited with his own desperate hope that soone might give him a chance to survive.
The Continental Guild rose behind him, a place that promised neutrality and fair treatnt in a world that offered neither to those without power. Or so he thought.
A/N
Please I’ll be posting the link for the discord group in the next Chapter and the Synopsis. Pls do well to join. They’re a lot of things I can’t post here that would be delivered there.
Thanks for reading as always and pls your gifts and support goes along way to keep this story alive.
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