"What's the plan?" Huddled in the dark foliage, a group of individuals discussed their next move.
"She's most certainly dead, so the next best thing would be to kill their trump card," the elf grinned.
"Tch, you make it sound so easy, but their infamous knights are guarding him,"
"Heh, well that's simple, we just have to throw some bait to lure the big fish away,"
…
Inspecting the bow, he compared it to the bow he was previously using. The black bow was smaller and had a metallic sheen, which was odd, considering the ingredient for it was a stick. Looking at the black manual it too had a metallic sheen, despite it bending like paper.
Opening up the manual it was filled with words…
At least, Jeffrey believed they were words. The problem lies in the fact that the words were not in a language he understood. The characters used also didn't seem to be anything from this realm either.
Good job.
Putting the manual away, Jeffrey focused on the bow again. Controlling his essence, he had it encroach its way into the bow like a ravenous army of termites. It was difficult at first but soon enough, after shoving in his essence, the bow clicked. Suddenly his essence easily flowed in and throughout the bow, lightening it up slightly. What a novel technique.
To what Jeffrey understood, it was like the bow was familiarising itself with Jeffrey's essence first before accepting him as its owner.
And this theory would be basically correct. The bow was built so that it would be bound to Jeffrey, the first person who would be using it. Meaning that its features could therefore only be used by Jeffrey. It wasn't that others couldn't use the bow, but that the bow would restrict its usage level for other people.
Fiddling around with the bow, an arrow made of essence started to form in the nocking point of the bow. Though this essence was rather different, compared to other natural essences, it was rather lacklustre.
A synthetic essence, it was called. Unnatural essence synthesised for a variety of reasons, it could be to negate elemental disadvantages or to increase spell potency much farther than what could be done with natural essences.
Cutting off his connection with the bow for now, the arrow started to flicker, which was not what essence did when supply was cut off. It would disperse, but here it flickered for a while before shattering. Intriguing.
"Hey, where'd you get that from,"
Forcing himself not to jump at the sudden voice, it seemed that Jeffrey was too engrossed in meddling investigating the bow.
"Hello?" Kelli probed.
"I got it," Jeffrey said curtly
"Got what?"
"The bow,"
Kelli felt like slapping him. No crap he got the bow, the question was where he got it from.
After debilitating for a while, Jeffrey managed to chase the other party away with his nonstandard answers.
Inspecting the bow once again, he was just about to go on a patrol. It was around seven, according to the large clock located in the barracks. Which was when he would take a night patrol for two or three hours before returning to the barracks. Back in Tanz City, he didn't have night patrol and only had to guard the walls, so this was a new experience for him.
Meeting up with his squad, being just Kelli with the addition of Savage the absolute savage, they started their patrol without a clue of the proper procedure.
Walking down the streets of Joost, forget about patrolling, they were detained by other patrols numerous times.
"Tch, are the frontiers so broke they can't even afford to arm their guards?" another patrol said in disdain.
It was the fifth patrol this night that had pulled them for questioning. Tanz City did pull out uniforms for their guards, but if their guards didn't want to wear them, that was their choice and a couple more coins in the city's pocket. A win win scenario for all parties.
Well, Savage wasn't part of the city guards, but he might as well be, he fit right in.
"Eheh! Why don't you come over here?" a sickening sounding voice echoed in the dark alleyways they were patrolling around. They were here because Jeffrey recommended it was the best way to stop being questioned by other patrols and still do their job. They were all honest people after all.
"nO!" A high pitched voice yelled, it definitely belonged to a young girl. That definitely smelled like trouble.
Coming to an immediate consensus, the trio rushed to the location where they heard the commotion. It was a scene they all expected. In the dark alleyway, a crime was taking place. A lustful looking man had cornered a rather young looking girl, they couldn't tell because it was dark.
It was obvious to anyone what would happen next. Except Jeffrey, for him, it just looked like a robbery at most. Despite how Jeffrey looked, he was most certainly one of the most purest people alive.
"Stop right there!" Kelli yelled, "You're under arrest!"
The man turned around, allowing the three to take a look at him, he was a rather muscular looking individual, a mercenary judging by his outfit, yet what stood out the most was probably his eyes, they were bloodshot, crazed even.
Like a ravenous beast spotting more prey, he pounced at them. Savage was the first to act, pulling out two daggers and shoving them into his torso and thigh in an attempt to halt the mad rush. But it was as if he didn't feel the daggers in him.
"Hahaha!" he cackled maniacally, as he flipped out a knife trying to shank Savage, but that wasn't happening. Trying to fight Savage half heartedly in a melee was asking for death.
Quickly pulling out another dagger, it was planted right at the criminal's wrist, making him drop the knife, but that wasn't enough it seemed as he still tried to bite down on Savage's own wrist in turn.
Punching him in the face, the guy definitely lost a few teeth. Being punched to the ground, the felon didn't get up, instead, he started to froth at the mouth as his body spasmed a bit.
"Drugs are pretty scary huh?" Kelli ascertained that the guy was most likely under the influence of drugs, causing him to behave this way.
Blood started to seep out of the pores of his skin, forming a deep red pool around his body.
"What the hell?" the drugs circulating through the market, most certainly didn't do that.
"Yeah, blood isn't that colour," Jeffrey placed his own input. Seemingly unfazed by the whole situation, he simply commented on the blood colouration which was probably, the least important thing right now.
"It's probably due to the drugs, now help me out here,"
Throughout this whole ordeal, the girl hadn't made a noise. Kelli attributed this to fright and shock.
Approaching the girl, Kelli called out, "Are you alright? Don't worry, everything's fine now,"
The girl seemingly regaining consciousness, looked up at her,
"Really?"
"Yes, really,"
Jeffrey and Savage stayed out of this conversation, they would without a doubt make the situation tense and more strained than it had to be. After a couple of minutes, they wrapped up their discussion. Bringing the girl over, Kelli showed her to the other two,
"Thank you," she said shyly. It was obvious she was unnerved by their appearances. Their hearts warmed hearing her thanks though like a bewitching spell was cast on them.
"For being my supper," that last part didn't sound too good.