Chapter 735: Strange Figure [Bonus - ]

Chapter 735: Strange Figure [Bonus Chapter]

The Brassbound Guild tower rose over the western avenues like a granite blade with its copper eaves glowing in the last of the sun.

Lamps burned in every window of the upper floors, which meant that the clerks inside were working late again.

High above the commercial avenues, at the top of that tower, the quiet thrum of bureaucracy hummed through the executive suite.

The big office was lined with dark mahogany bookshelves stacked with heavy leather ledgers, property deeds and regional tax scrolls.

Through the wide panoramic windows of tempered glass, the setting sun painted the sky in violet and bruised indigo and molten gold and lit the sprawling rooftops of Central City below.

Behind the massive polished ebony desk sat the Special Secretary of the World Council, Halvard Pell.

He worked with ferocious mechanical intensity, a thin quill scratching frantically across thick sheaves of paper.

"Mmmm.... Evmmm..."

His round spectacles perched low on the bridge of his narrow nose and reflected the flickering blue light of a runic communication terminal.

His tailored gray waistcoat was buttoned to the collar, and his shoulders were tight with exhausted tension especially since he had not looked up from the desk in nine hours, even his tea had gone cold and grown a skin.

"Seven border disputes, three unauthorized salvage claims, and forty-two tons of unregistered refined brass sitting in warehouse nine..." he muttered under his breath, and stamped an official seal on a requisition form with a sharp thwack. "The council expects full reconciliation before the evening bell, yet the sub-registrars cannot balance one simple freight manifest without losing three cargo crates. It is an utter administrative catastrophe... What was the last guy even doing?"

CLICK!

The heavy mahogany doors of the suite opened with a soft oiled whisper.

The Secretary stopped mid-sentence and looked up over the rims of his spectacles.

A slender woman walked into the quiet office.

Her long midnight-black hair fell down her back, and she wore a sleek tailored dark traveling tunic.

Her left sleeve was folded and pinned flat against her torso with a silver brooch, and her right hand rested comfortably in her pocket as her features were delicate and calm, and her violet eyes caught the amber twilight pouring through the windows.

Kara had arrived.

Her boots made no sound on the mahogany floorboards. The scratch of the quill stopped... somewhere below, a clerk dropped a stack of ledgers and the thud echoed up the stairwell as well.

Behind her came the women of Blessed Land, stripped of Rowenna’s disguise runes and returned to their true forms.

Aeliana walked in like a queen gracing a frontier outpost.

Her hair was a shimmering cascade of pure blond gold that spilled down her back and caught the dying sunlight in waves as her shortened ears had stretched into the long elegant swept-back points of High Elf nobility, and her silver-green eyes glowed with proud dignity.

Beside her Solenne practically bounded across the mahogany floorboards, no longer hiding as an ordinary dog-girl.

Behind her hips fanned a glorious breathtaking spread of nine huge billowing silver fox tails glowing with spirit energy and swishing in rhythmic hypnotic sweeps.

Her long pointed silver fox ears twitched with boundless energy, and her golden eyes sparkled with unrestrained joy.

Morwenna walked with the heavy unyielding stride of a Pirate queen, her raven-black hair loose and her true form radiating the untamed authority of the tides.

Rika followed regularly with the phoenix hatchling nestled at her collar.

Halvard Pell set his quill in its brass stand and leaned back in his high-backed leather chair.

He adjusted his spectacles... A procession of non-human powers had just walked into his office, and he looked entirely unsurprised.

He had dealt with the world’s affairs long enough to know when to stop being surprised.

"Greetings, Lord Vespera," he said, in a precise and steady voice. "I presume your business in Central City has concluded."

"It has, Secretary," Kara replied in her smooth quiet feminine voice. "We are leaving Central City... The procurement was a success and our affairs here are finished."

The Secretary nodded and slid a leather folder into his desk drawer.

"A wise decision. I wish you and your companions a safe journey back to your territory."

"Thank you, Secretary." Kara inclined her head with a faint polite smile.

She turned from the desk and led her companions toward the eastern wall of the suite.

It looked like nothing more than a stretch of dark mahogany paneling between a stone support column and the archive door, matching the rest of the room.

To a passing clerk or an inspector it was an ordinary wall however hidden under its polished grain was the Receiver, a seven-layered biometric array that tied the tower directly to the five-story Keep in Blessed Land.

Kara stopped before the paneling and looked over her shoulder at the women.

"You know the procedure, I already told you..." she said softly. "Place your palm flat on the wall, focus your intention and will your mana into the array. Don’t force it and let the array recognize your signature."

Morwenna stepped forward first.

The woman didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat as she pressed her scarred right hand against the cold wood.

HUUUUUM!

A deep-blue pulse of mana surged from her palm into the wall.

The polished grain rippled like water disturbed by a dropped stone, and a bright concentric ring of silver runic light flashed outward from her fingers.

FZZZZT!

Between one heartbeat and the next Morwenna dissolved into thin air.

All that was left behind was the faint crisp scent of sea brine and open water.

She was gone, pulled across the spatial corridor into the Keep as the silver ring of light on the paneling spread outward in slow ripples and faded, like a pond settling after a stone.

Aeliana stepped up next. Her blond hair swished against her lower neck as she raised a slender hand and pressed her pale fingers to the wall.

SHING!

A crystalline flare of purplish royal mana lit the runic array, and she gave Kara a single dignified nod.

POP!

She vanished, and the air hummed with the faint scent of night-blooming lilies.

Rika stepped forward without a word.

She laid her palm on the wood, the phoenix chirped softly at her collar, and a serene silver-white glow wrapped around her frame.

SWOOSH!

The beast goddess slipped away into the spatial current... Only Kara and Solenne were left standing before the blank paneling.

Kara turned to the fox-beastkin beside her.

Solenne was trembling slightly, and not from fear.

She was dizzy with excitement at the thought of going home with an entire warehouse of precision golem parts in her Lord’s storage.

Her nine fluffy tails swished in frantic overlapping figure-eights and wrapped around Kara’s legs in their eagerness.

"Hold tight, Solenne," Kara said gently, and held out her right hand. "You’re not an official member of Blessed Land yet so you need to anchor yourself to me."

"Yes, my Lord... ah, Lady Kara!" Solenne squeaked.

She didn’t just take Kara’s hand.

She threw both arms around Kara’s waist and buried her face against Kara’s chest with total affection...

At the same moment all nine of her enormous soft silver tails surged forward like a living sea of warm fur and wrapped around Kara’s waist and thighs and shoulders, cocooning her in a dense silky cloud of fox down.

A few loose strands of silver fur floated up and drifted slowly toward the ceiling.

"Oof."

Kara felt the warm plush weight pressed against her from every angle, the soft fur tickling her chin and neck and the heat of the beastkin’s core glowing straight through their traveling clothes.

’Well...’ A distinctly appreciative and unholy smirk crossed her thoughts. ’If this is standard procedure, I may need to order everyone to travel stuck to my ribs... The fur alone is a divine blessing.’

Kara cleared her throat and swallowed the fond wicked chuckle rising in her chest.

She rested her chin lightly on top of Solenne’s pointed ears and raised her single right arm toward the wall.

"Alright," she said, her voice rich with quiet authority. "Let’s go back... to Blessed Land."

She pressed her palm against the polished wood.

VUUUUUUUUM!

The hidden array erupted in blinding seven-layered silver light... The intricate geometric circles spread across the whole wall, ring over ring over ring, and sang with the deep note of a gate locking onto its home anchor.

Loose parchments lifted off the desk and fluttered across the room... The bookshelves rattled... The brass lamp on the nearest shelf flickered, sputtered and went dark.

Solenne’s ears flattened against the hum, and her tails tightened around Kara’s legs as the Secretary’s spectacles slid halfway down his nose and he caught them without looking.

Solenne opened her golden eyes just in time to see the solid paneling melt into a swirling vortex of shimmering white mist.

FLASH!

In an instant both of them dissolved into the silver radiance and vanished from the executive suite. The gate snapped shut behind them with a soft final which.

The wall became solid wood again... The runic circles faded into the grain, and only the sweet scent of mountain mint lingered in the quiet air.

Across the office Halvard Pell sat completely motionless behind his polished ebony desk.

He held his quill suspended an inch above the requisition scroll and stared through his round spectacles at the empty wall where five powerful beings had just dissolved into thin air.

A single drop of ink fell from the tip of his quill and spread slowly across the requisition scroll in a dark perfect circle.

He did not seem to notice but the loose parchments that had flown off his desk drifted down one by one and settled across the floor.

The sun had slipped behind the western ridge and the blue light of the communication terminal on the table pulsed once.

"What a life..."

He looked down at the towering stacks of unfinished disputes, the pending tax assessments and the endless piles of manifests that waited for his signature before the midnight bells.

He looked at the ink stains on the cuffs of his tailored gray sleeves then he turned his gaze back to the silent empty wall.

Outside the window the first stars came out over the rooftops of Central City, and the dot of ink on his scroll finally stopped spreading.

A long exhausted sigh escaped him, and his shoulders slumped under the weight of mortal bureaucracy.

"A-ah..." Halvard Pell muttered, shaking his head with miserable envy. "I wish I was a Lord too."

...

A cold dry lump caught in Elora Verinda’s throat as she swallowed, and the gulp sounded loud and pathetic in her own ears.

’No... This can’t be...’

Her breath hitched against her ribs and came out in a thin trembling plume of white mist that dissolved at once into the dead stagnant air of the courtyard.

The leather spine of her soul-bound spellbook, tucked firmly under her left arm, felt freezing against her side.

The frost enchantments inside its pages hummed with a frantic erratic vibration that matched the hammering of her own heart.

...Only an hour ago the day had been governed by logic, ambition and the careful arithmetic of diplomacy.

Her contacts in Central City had sent word through the priority communication crystals that Kara White had been spotted moving through the upper rings.

Hearing that name had sent a sharp spike of urgency straight through Elora’s veins, and naturally she had wanted to drop everything, prepare an escort and travel to Central City to visit.

’I’ve already made that Evelyn woman aware that I’m after her...’ Elora had thought as she reviewed the reports at her desk.

On any normal day, faced with something like Kara White appearing in Central City, Elora might have gone after Evelyn’s brother to make the negotiations go faster.

But this wasn’t a matter of that kind... She was trying to get negotiations done with Blessed Land, not make Kara her enemy.

Stomping into Central City with an escort of House Verinda enforcers after doing that would have shattered any hope of an accord before it began.

Now all of those carefully arranged plans simply evaporated from her mind, stripped away like dry leaves before a flash flood.

...None of it mattered anymore.

Elora stared across the wide paved expanse of the Verinda Garrison’s central parade ground with her icy blue eyes wide in pure dread.

Under her command the garrison had grown into a real stronghold.

Her territory now held over two hundred people, a very large number for a Newbie Lord.

She had artisans, quartermasters, archers, auxiliary infantry and civilian staff bustling through the storehouses from dawn until dusk.

It should have been humming with the sound of iron boots, forge hammers and the steady sounds of squad drills but instead the garrison was, horribly silent.

Bodies lay scattered across the gray flagstones, sprawled over the low mounting blocks and slumped against the timber racks of the archery range.

Dozens upon dozens of them lay motionless, strewn about like marionettes whose strings had been cut in the same instant.

A patrol of five infantrymen lay piled near the gatehouse with their spears scattered across the cobbles and a pair of supply clerks lay facedown beside an overturned wheelbarrow of grain with their hands limp and their eyes closed.

There was no blood... There were no severed limbs, no scorch marks, no shattered armor and no smell of burned flesh...

They had just collapsed.

Elora’s stomach twisted into a sick knot.

Were they breathing? Were their hearts still beating under their padded gambesons? She stared hard at the chest of a fallen sergeant ten paces away, but she couldn’t tell if the cloth rose or fell.

She wasn’t sure they were dead, and that frightened her far more than a courtyard full of butchered corpses ever could.

Twenty yards ahead, right in the center of the flagstones where the garrison’s blue-and-silver banner should have fluttered from the central pole, stood the cause.