FOREWORD: OK ITS NOT ME RAGING FOR ONCE BUT MAKE SURE TO READ AUTHOR'S NOTE!
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"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," I find myself groaning at about midnight that same night, falling feet first through the air with Poniard strapped to my chest. From one of my hand dragged the large canvas bag containing my equipment and supplies for the mission. Both the bag and I had parachutes but Poniard, for some reason, did not.
When I was finally too scared of waiting too long I pulled the cord on the bag's parachute and then my own. Shortly after, an immense pressure snatched against the vest containing both my familiar and I. Then we started slowing down to a much more comfortable speed a few hundred feet above the ground.
The helicopter I had hopped from was only a thousand feet up and my jump time was only a few seconds, but ten seconds after releasing the chute I was touching down roughly on the ground in a low crouch.
Poniard in his armor made me fairly top heavy but I managed to stick the landing and stand up straight to release my familiar. Not long after his feet touched the ground, so too did our bag of belongings and he rushed over to arm himself. Even though the helicopter was supposedly 'silent' because of its blade and motor designs, it was still a loud machine and it could attract attention.
Letting the now useless vest and chute blow away in the night winds, I hurry over to where Poniard was shouldering the bag of equipment. As strong as Poniard was, he was a higher grade than me and had magical abilities so I quickly deprived him of the equipment bag. In a D grade territory, I was going to be relying on him until we found somewhere quiet.
During the ride out to the hidden air strip the director brought me to a few hours ago, the director continuously briefed me on the various details and aspects of this lower-mid grade territory using a variety of maps on a limousine table and folders pertaining to the migratory habits of tagged groups or herds. Apparently, there was a lot more going on in the territories than the governments were letting on.
My last training trip had been to an E grade territory while I was F grade and things were not that bad, but the territory itself was not that old. This territory was one of the original ground zero portals and the sixteen square miles of D grade territory surrounding it were a no-man's land. Not just because of the immense walls surrounding the territory.
The land I had seen from the air was a mixture of Earth and the worlds beyond the portals, plants and trees I only vaguely recognized from my recent outdoor portals grew wildly, intermingling with the flowers and trees of Earth despite the disparaging MP differences.
Some of those same Earth plants were changing as well, developing new colors or growths like a tall oak that was growing small fruits. There were also animals I did and did not recognize. The ones I recognized were from both Earth and the portals, but the ones I had never seen before were almost certainly hybrid creatures.
In these older territories it looked like Earth and the portal worlds were starting to become one and I could see why this would not be public information. Not only were the plants and animals changing, but so too was the ground itself. F and E grade mana crystals could be seen from the air dimly glowing on the ground like more plants.
Director Carlyle had warned me that I would probably see and meet things in this territory that most people did not know existed and that I could not discuss the things I found. Especially the hybridized Earth life forms like trees and animals. I saw something like a dog with wings on the way in and it was NOT alone.
For now, Poniard and I were making our way to the remains of an old truck stop on a ruined stretch of highway surrounded by overgrown wilds. It had only been a little more than two years and the highway was already broken apart from action above and roots below. Grass and weeds of mixed origins grew as tall as my knees and thighs along the roadside and the insects living in them were enormous.
I swatted what looked like a common green beetle but this beetle was the size of a tangerine and its body was only partly crushed from the blow. This bug was strong! I had to smack it to the ground and stomp on it before it actually died! Poniard, for his part, was mostly catching and chewing on these giant bugs.
The diner and gas station truck stop was in ruins when we got there. Parts of the ceiling were missing, all of the windows had been busted in or out, and the non-metal furnishings were all breaking down with rot and mold from exposure to the elements. If not for the mission I would have made camp in a tree somewhere.
As it was, I ignored to main building of the truck stop and walked further out from the highway to a large garage structure for working on trucks and storing trailers. This building was mostly made of metal and as in much better repair despite some holes in the walls and roof. Most of the machinery was still in the building but all of it was grimy with dust and moisture as well as covered in mold from lack of care or use.
Walking through this place looked like I had stepped forward through time to a world where civilization was over and I was here to scavenge for a granola bar or something like it was a zombie apocalypse. Zombies would probably be easier than this. Zombies could not use magic!
I finally found the cab of a semi that was in good repair and opened it to check the inside. After holding my breath while years of stagnant air flooded out of the vehicle, I breathed shallowly through my teeth before searching through the vehicle. After finding nothing but some papers and trash, I emptied everything out onto the floor of the garage before loading our things into the back.
Poniard casually took to the small bed in the back of the cab, getting ready to sleep off the large dinner of insects that he had helped himself to along the way here. I myself sat in the front seat biding my time while eating a few protein bars to curb my appetite. I was not actually hungry but the last thing I wanted was to end up hungry at the wrong time.
Just a few hours after arriving the sky through the holes in the garage ceiling began to lighten up with the sun reaching the edge of the far morning horizon. Not long after that, a familiar melodious cooing noise could be heard from somewhere outside. Seconds later, there were even a few voices.
Opening the driver door and stepping outside as I hear Si-Pon outside, I walk over to the crookedly closed garage door and look out to see my company. Lucinda was there wearing a sleek and feminine styled sage green leather outfit mottled with black lines and spotting like camouflage. Across her back was a large sniper rifle with eight inches of suppressor at the end of thirty inches of barrel while at her hip and in her hands were a pair of long daggers and a pair of large handguns.
Beside Lucinda walked a less eye-catching figure in simply brown and green woven leathers run through with bits of plants and leafy sticks like a gillie suit. On his back was a similar sniper but for other weapons he simply carried a large sub machine gun under his arm and a thickly bladed longsword in his hands. Between and behind the both of them calmly hopped a carefree Si-Pon.
Raising the broken garage door slowly and quietly by a few feet so they could crawl in after waving them over. Once the other two were inside, though, Si-Pon simply flew up over the building and landed quietly through a hole in the roof. Then the bird went to the truck where Poniard was sleeping and pecked at the windshield while saying, "Pon-pon." Every light peck caused a dozen or so cracks to form and spread out through the exposure strengthened windshield.
When Poniard finally woke up and climbed up front, he could barely even see through the windshield from all of the cracks marring the view.
"Malcolm, this is Bernard. Bernard, this is Malcolm," Lucinda introduces me to the Bureau sniper after a few moments of watching Si-Pon wake Poniard. "Have things been okay here, Malcolm? We took care of some wolves a couple hundred yards back down the highway, this might have been their nest."
"No signs of wolves nesting here that I could find," I reply as Si-Pon nags Poniard into sleepily leaving the garage building together. "No signs of anything but bugs and Poniard helped himself to most of them. Nothing even hiding in these buildings. I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping to find some goodies."
"You have an elemental, what more do you need?" The sniper called Bernard asks dryly. "You won't find much of value in a territory like this, anyway, it's been picked clean by everybody with a higher grade than the territory. There are some things that continue to develop, like artifacts and crystals, but artifacts produce a special signature so they get picked up by satellites quickly."
"I have an elemental," I point out with a playful smile, nodding toward the garage door where the smallest members of our team had disappeared from. "And a shaman goblin. If there's anything of value here, the two of them will find it for me. Isn't being a tamer great sometimes?"
Nodding his head with a chagrined smile that distorts his thick graying mustache, Bernard says, "I can certainly see some of the benefits. Any idea where I might can get my hands on a shaman?"
"I run a business by contract queuing," I inform him strictly and professionally. "There are numerous contracts ahead of you, but none of them pertain to a mage-class goblin. If you place a contract for a custom mage before I release the magic goblin package, for a measly one-fifty-K, you'll receive the very next magic goblin I get my hands on straight from the front of the queue."
"One-fifty..." the man mutters under his breath. "This is literal highway robbery!"
"Poniard is a mid D agility-type fighter with a mid C mana pool and a visually high grade affinity for not just the dark element but death energy itself," I inform him with the same professional manner as before. "He is why I offered the custom mage package, because the basic magic goblin packages will only include basic weapons training and magic training with a simple starter kit with a wand tailored to the goblin's affinity. The custom kit is more custom and will give you access to more elements in the wand your goblin is given."
"What the hell kind of business is this?" The man asks suddenly while giving me a confused look. "You're selling magic equipment with goblins? Where do you make your money?"
Taking out my phone while Lucinda dramatically sighs and checks her watch, I bring up my marketplace business and show it to Bernard. "Have you ever heard of goblin poo?" I ask curiously, knowing that I had accidentally become a meme at some point. "On top of that, its all basic equipment and elemental stones that I can collect and make mostly on my own. The wand Poniard is using? We made it out of the materials he collected himself. No I cannot guarantee the temperament and abilities of your goblin, Poniard himself is arguably a freak of nature at this point."
"How much is the basic goblin mage package?" He asks curiously, probably wondering if he really even needed to splurge. "I cannot yet take in C grade goblins but D and below magic goblins will be exactly one hundred thousand dollars or equal acceptable offer and will be the 'random mage' package. I planned to release the package with the first magic goblin besides Poniard that I found, but the custom package allows for training in other elements and weaponry while the random only learns staff and spear techniques alongside their element."
"It's a three-week training course covering the basics of the buyer's desired combat style and support functions," Lucinda chimes in with a bored voice. "He's already contracted out three goblins and they're about ready to be picked up. I think their martial arts are Eskrima for one and old English sword-and-shield tactics for the other while the third is a copy of Poniard."
"I have sample videos of their training sessions for advertisement material," I offer with a sly smile, knowing we had the man's interest as he continually read through the business page. "No, we don't give goblins guns," I add quickly when I remember his own profession as a sniper.
"Do you train the bigger ones?" He asks curiously, meaning hobs and trollkin or full on ogres and trolls. "In lower dungeons like E and even D, goblins are fine, but you need something bigger once you get up to my level."
"You can pay extra to have their evolution potential increased, but as a familiar it is ultimately your job to raise the goblin into a hob or a troll to get the best returns from your investments," I inform him seriously to cover for the fact that I did not have the facilities or resources to capture evolved forms or evolve goblins myself yet. "Bigger might be better, but a hob you raised from a goblin with fight for you much better than the hob I raised from a goblin. It's part of their social order and such to follow the person that keeps them alive and makes them stronger. Training one yourself is also the best way, but I only do two portals a month while most do one a week so not everyone has the optimal amount of time for that."
"Your grade on the mission sheet for the targets says you're in the one-eighties, but what are you really?" Bernard asks while finally giving my phone back to me.
"Yesterday I measured in at over two-ten," I answer proudly, posing much like Poniard would whenever he realized I was taking a video with him in it. "Today, could measure in at over two-twenty, I'm still adjusting to my forcefully raised MP levels. Made up your mind?"
"We'll see how much I get paid for this job and then talk," he replies while turning to Lucinda. "How long do you need before we can start heading out to the extraction?"
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