I was shocked by the appearance of a beast man. (Isn't their kind extinct?) I thought as she hung there by my shadow threads. Sam stood behind me a little with her hand on her sword. The girl started cursing at us in a nasty fashion. " You 3!÷€# let me out of here! You €&#÷! , }@$÷@&)!." I raised my eyebrows and started mocking her.
" Little Cat you got caught and want to curse at me! You are supposed to be stealthy! I could have heard you from down the street! Who taught you to be sneaky? A boar! Hahahahahaha!" I jeared at her.
Her face got more and more red as I went. It wasn't long till she blew her top. " You 8@$÷@&]! If I hadn't been given this assignment last minute I would have killed her! You are both dead! Dead and will be drained to the last drop of blood!" She continued cursing at us for a little bit. Eventually I got tired of it and my anger got the best of me. I slapped her.
This caught her attention and she went quiet. I looked at her and sat down. I waved my hand and some of the shadows moved one of the chairs closer and set her on it binding her to it like rope. I leaned forward a little. " I will ask you something 2 times. If you do not answer honestly the first time I might break something. If you do answer honestly I will let you go with a message. Do we understand one another?" I asked with as much venom in my voice as possible. " Her eyes bugged out a little as I pulled out a steel mallet from next to the bed. ( Don't ask why I keep it there.) I set it on my right leg and she nodded slowly with her eyes locked on the mallet.
I grabbed her face and moved it to face me so we could make eye contact. " I want to know 2 things. Who sent you? And why? " I will admit I was being a bit brutal with a girl. Thankfully though it seemed she chose the second option out of the choices present. She started singing like a bird in the spring.
" I am from the adventurers guild and part of a group called Dusks Claw. We are a group of people who specialize in assassination and other forms of dangerous work. I joined recently and was given this request as a way to rank up in the organization." She fell a little quiet. I nudged the chair with my foot. " You didn't answer my questions completely. Who sent you and why? Or I start swinging." I tapped the mallet.
She continued at a bit of a faster pace. " The group was given the request by some royal on the south continent who wanted the girls head. Said something about a betrothal and being with another man. Said after we were done to send her head and her familiar (alive/dead) back for verification." She continued looking me in the eye. I turned to Sam.
"What do you think?" She held her chin in her hand in a thinking pose and slowly paced back and forth until she finally stopped a moment later. "I think the king is in cahoots with or is coercing the guild into monitoring us. He possibly has a tail following us too."
I nodded.
" It's possible." I looked at the girl.
" Do you actually know who sent you?" After a moment she slowly shook her head. I nodded.
"Figures that they would cover themselves thoroughly after all this time. They wouldn't want any witness to the actual crime being able to pinpoint who ordered what." I said in thought.
The shadows around the girl came undone and she slowly rubbed her arms and wrists. She quickly realised that she was free and went to jump out the open window. But not before my tail caught her foot and she flopped to the ground.
" I haven't given you a message to take back yet." I stated. I saw the sweat start dripping down her as she became more nervous. I took off my tag and it turned a deep red. I looked at it and stated the words the system told me to say. "I am a familiar no more. Send me a true adventurer tag." I stated firmly. The tag turned a light green and then vanished. Minutes later a new one appeared in my hand. It was a large black tile. And it had a 4 point star decorating the middle of it. ( Nice.) I thought. I put the tag on a string around my neck and sat back with my tail still wrapped around the ninjas foot.
" I want you to go back to your superiors and say that Samantha Von Carnac has suffered the death of her familiar. You fought it and pushed it into a ravine where it couldn't be recovered. Then tell them that she is currently bedridden in an inn. That is all that you will report to them. Got it?"
She looked back at me. " How do you expect my superiors to believe me!? She guffawed at me. I looked at her indifferently and threw Sam's old armor that she had just replaced at the ninja.
" Say that and give this to them. Say it was all you could bring back. And that she is currently a guest of the innkeeper who keeps a close eye on her. I want to see if anybody else comes to our doorstep. Do not tell a soul that I am here. Do not so much as mention me at all. Do I make myself clear?" I patted my mallet in my hand.
She quickly nodded as she caught the armor. I unwrapped my tail and she clammered out the window.
Sam turned to me. "You know you'll regret letting her go right?" I stayed sitting and crossed my legs in a relaxed fashion.
" No.... I don't think I will. Besides.... If somebody does come looking for you I can kill them easily enough." I shrugged as I sat back. My wings touched the floor keeping me from tipping over. I sat there and calmly thought things over. (The king will continue coming after us. After Sam didn't reply to his request and ran. He is probably hunting her for his own selfish "honor" and has made the excuse that she was kidnapped or something to antagonize more people into coming after us. We will need one of two things then. Either we go to the north and hide there. Or we return and face him. The first option seems more enticing considering I don't have sufficient strength to face every knight in that kingdom with mages backing them. Not to mention the king is heavily guarded. In other words... my best option is to live today. Fight tomorrow. I might lose the battle but in the end I will win the war. I just need enough time to do so.)
I felt a tap on my shoulder with Sam saying my name. " Ignis. Ignis!" I turned to see her worried face. I raised my hand and patted her head. " We'll be alright. We just need to hide for a while. Gain some strength. Then we'll be able to return and put him in his place." I slowly sat up straight in the chair and stopped leaning.
" We should go. It's too dangerous for you to stay here." I said.
I headed back to the room while Sam packed her things. Legion had no clue what just happened so I ended explaining the situation. The more they know, the better off they are. I quickly grabbed my pack. Since I owned so few things I unpacked little. The other thing was the books that I had gotten at the settlement were able to be stored in a special bag. It had many compartments that could stored one item a piece. A total of 18 compartments. 10 books of sorcery and 2 books about runes and engraving leaving me with 6 slots left. I used those for tools.
For further notes the bag is the size of a fanny pack and hangs at my waste. It has the ability to compact and store things no matter the size as long as I can handle the weight. It's essentially become my portable weight training system. I got this from a shop off the main road in this town. It cost 5 silver coins and is made of some low grade monster. For those who don't know. 50 copper makes up 5 silver. 50 silver coins makes up 5 gold coins. Then comes jewels but I'll go into that another day.
It was morning by the time we left. I felt somewhat tired from the nights events but I just rubbed my eyes and pushed on. We stopped by the adventurers guild on our way. It was a large concrete building with carvings of people with bows, swords, staffs. It was very ornate if I say so myself.
As we opened the doors we noticed that the floors were very clean and tidy. As we entered many people eyed us with either dissatisfaction or curiosity. There was a young woman at the counter with short brown curly hair. (Finally! A cute one!) We went to the counter and showed our tags. The girl took a look at both of our tags and pointed at the board. "That's where quests are. If you're going anywhere we don't need to know. As you know the guild keeps tabs on every member at all times." She said indifferently with a bored look. ( Rather Rude) I thought.
As we approached the board there was a small commotion at one of the tables. We couldn't hear them very well so we continued to browse the board. There were goblin subjugations, Herb picking, Bounties. The list went on. As I found a nice looking quest the table erupted. Due to that we found our guess from the night before came true.
" It's her! " A man shouted at his comrades as he pointed towards us. "That's the girl who is on the missing/ kidnapped list! Tell me I'm wrong!" The group at the table turned in their seats to look at us. People who had noticed us come in saw Sam and started to get up and move toward us. I moved in front of her.
"Sorry Gents. But this woman is my party member. You can check our tags. We are neither missing nor kidnapped. If you have a question about that ask the guild masters and the people who are supposedly keeping tabs on us at all times." I said flicking my eyes toward the lady at the counter.
The man who had stood up came towards me in a bit of a huff. " The people in the south sent out paper sayin she was missin. If that ain't proof I don't know what is. " He went to reach for Sam.
I leaned down quick. "Cant say I didn't warn you." I put my hand to his chest and pushed him. My push lifted him off his feet and launched him into the stone wall on the other side of the guild hall.