Athelei walked through the thinning streets of late-night Avina. His footsteps echoed past quiet houses, closed establishments, and drunk men sprawled on the streets. He moved along the commercial district he had stolen a Nebula Gem from, across an area of middle-class residency, through an empty fish market, and then into a familiar slum.
Athelei blended in with the people of this area with his ragged and stained clothes. The tears and the dirt stains spoke of the foul environments he had traversed through, and although he was dirtied by a chaotic battlefield, it still matched the cut-throat atmosphere.
When Athelei moved into a special territory, he suddenly felt eyes peering at him from the darkness.
'Hello there, friends,' Athelei playfully painted a smirk on his face and triggered the execution of one of his two Tier I Skills.
Bzzzt!
Athelei felt a discomfort he could feel even without a physical body currently present. It was that familiar fierce lightning surging through his spine... But this time it was muffled by an invisible wall that he could not see but knew was there.
What could have been a painful jolt, was now a little shiver, similar to the shivers that normal humans were forced to experience in these specific circumstances.
Gone was the pain and discomfort, nullified by a barrier that lasted only 10 seconds and had a cooldown of 15 minutes.
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
You have disrupted five (5) unique attempts of Analysis Skill execution. Sneaky has reacted.
- Skill progression updated.
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
A grin adorned Athelei's grey face. 'Indeed, it was like this. It seems that I really cannot ask people to use their Analysis Skills on me and then disrupt them. Somehow, the Nebula Gems and Cosmic Interface can sense intent, and as such, uses it for its criteria in judgement. How curious...'
Athelei needed people who did not care for etiquette and just did what they wanted. That was why he came here, to a black market area in southern Avina. It was a place he visited once before, and he wanted to roam around to see if someone called [Nikiri Mist] was wanted anywhere.
And if he was, then he wished to know just how badly his pursuers craved his misfortune.
There was the option of testing the Adventurer's Guild out directly, but quite a lot of risk came with that. If he came across an elite as strong as Irene and he was left unable to react, then through the power of the mysterious, Athelei's secrets may just be exposed then and there.
If those confidential matters were to spread across conscious beings, then it might just attract the ire of the universe itself. The more people knew what he strictly hid, the more risk Athelei was at.
Thus, Athelei had been familiarizing himself with the risks of each of his movements. He was more aware of his surroundings now, and that had been what enabled him to seamlessly steal a Nebula Gem.
The habits of Oxhorian humans had come under his scrying microscope, and Athelei gleaned two vital traits in their security systems. They either had a physical key or a mystical password. There were some combinations of the two, but Athelei had only seen those in the Arthime family's mansion.
Could it be because of complexity? Athelei thought it was most likely.
The shop he had stolen his Nebula Gem from only required a physical key. This meant that any attempts at using Mystical Energy would be sensed and reported. If the lock was broken into by force, then the defensive measures put in place would react.
Places that require mystical passwords like the entrance to the Aren City Underworld, were very hidden, and likely rather difficult to break into using force. Traps had likely been coded into the Mystic Patterns that allowed for the functioning of the password.
The versatility of Artists knew no bounds the more Athelei learned about them. Every so often, he would use inspect on a random wall in Avina, asking a simple question:
"Has this been enchanted with Mystic Patterns?"
And the result would yield a positive.
'Bounties?' After a while of walking, Athelei found a sign that piqued his interest. He waded through the rotten-teeth-styled assortment of stalls that sold suspicious and sketchy items. There were a few advertised treasures that Athelei curiously used Inspect on, but none of those 'treasures' led him away from his original goal.
Walking up to a damaged board made out of wooden planks, Athelei spotted quite a few different posters all nailed into it. The posters ranged from messily written to exquisitely prepared, suggesting to Athelei of their differing origins.
'Some are bounties placed by the Avina government, some are placed by influential people, others are done by random rich people... How did they all end up here?' Athelei scanned the posters and made such as discovery. There were official seals on some, while others were simply written promises he was not sure he could trust.
When his gaze moved across the bottom right corner of the wooden announcement board, he realised that there were familiar flyers here.
'From the Adventurer's Guild?' Athelei's eyes shone as he spotted a rather new piece of paper.
=o=o=o=o=
Special Quest:
- Information on an individual known as [Nikiri Mist].
- The individual's capture and delivery to the Adventurer's Guild is viable as well.
- Reward depends on which of the two conditions are met...
- Target description and sketch is as follows...
- ...
=o=o=o=o=
'Curious... so now, the question is why exactly do they wish for my capture? And why had they stormed my room?' Athelei asked himself as he reviewed the mechanics of the guild's quests.
Two types of people can make requests at the Adventurer Guild to create quests for the Adventurer's: guild staff and non-guild staff.
Guild-backed quests issued by the guild staff are special missions with a lot more weight. They come to be during emergency situations or unique or large scale occurrences, and a special seal or symbol adorned their flyers.
'It looks like it isn't the Adventurer's Guild itself sending for my arrest... But my earlier questions cannot be answered by just that...'
Thud!
Someone bumped into Athelei at that moment, drawing his gaze towards them. Beneath a hood, he spotted what might've been light brown hair. The face was surprisingly familiar, and it seemed like the other party recognized Athelei as well, simply by his grey eyes and coloured irises.
"Jo?"
"Nikiri Mist...?"
The two froze for a moment, slightly wary of each other.
"...I heard you're wanted." Jo spoke, breaking the silence, "And I'm sure quite a few people would like to know you're right here at this very moment."
Athelei remained silent when he heard those words. The threat meant nothing to him as long as he had the initiative. If Jo made such a move, he could simply take on the identity of a Nightwalker and abandon the face of [Nikiri Mist] from then on.
He was waiting curiously, instead. As he always did.
"...Still a person of few words, eh? Alright, how about a small deal? I won't sell you out, but I need your help with something here." Jo snickered, "What shall it be, old party-mate?"
Athelei smiled beneath the mask he had used to cover three-quarters of his face.
"Sounds like fun, Jo. What do you want me to do? Are we going to kill someone? Steal something? Destroy someone's reputation?" Athelei whispered, his tone laced with a devious tendency as he recalled stories of villains and grand criminals who have now become Exiled.
He watched as Jo's expression slightly crumpled when he heard those words as if he was reconsidering something. It made him inwardly giggle.
"You... what did you do in just one week to be sought out like this?" Jo narrowed his eyes for a moment, but he shoved that thought away, "Nevermind. Forget I asked. What I need you to do is simple..."
.
.
.
'Saving a slave, huh... Brings back a short memory...' Athelei chuckled as Jo followed him from behind. He was once kidnapped as a slave, but he was sold even before the slave traders could tighten both the figurative and literal slave collar onto him.
As for his job, it was incredibly simple yet somewhat dangerous: Athelei was going to be a famed [Distraction]. How he was going to do that was dependent on his own discretion. Jo did not care for the specifics, he only needed a window for action.
And in the man's words, as long as he did what was asked, Jo would forget he was ever there.
Athelei could only chuckle inside when he heard that. The Harmonic Knights had advised him about these sorts of deals and how untrustworthy some people could be, so he found it interesting when experiencing it himself.
Following the directions Jo had given him, Athelei made it before an interesting establishment that looked to be a three-floor tall and unsteady looking building. It was built of different kinds of wood and looked like a mishmash of three different structures haphazardly stacked on top of each other.
Athelei eyed two guards who stood by the door and the glow of a Hunter pattern appeared before him. Then, after the Hunter pattern reinforced his fog-body's attributes, he swiftly drew a Gust pattern just as the two guards took notice of his presence.
"Oi! What do you think you're doing?" One of the guards yelled out, drawing attention to his presence.
"Having fun!" Athelei replied as he took off his hood.
His right hand was grasping a bronze sphere of Tangible Will the size of a basketball. The sphere looked like a flurry of bronze-coloured, wind-like lights spinning in a circular space. In the week that Athelei had been training himself and meditating, his brass Will lost a bit of its gold, thus granting him this new metallic hue.
Fwhoom!
Mimicking Irene Vistas' technique of explosive spheres made out of Tangible Will, Athelei lobbed his own weaker, more faulty version. It passed through the Gust pattern he had drawn in the air and thus, it sped faster than a baseball.
And although Athelei could not cause battlefield-shaking shockwaves like Irene, his copied technique still worked well, especially with his double-class enhancement.
Boom!
A fierce gust of wind and bronze light knocked a few unsuspecting people off their feet. The guard who thought he had dodged the bronze sphere of Tangible Will was surprised to see it burst just as it was about to pass him.
"Damn it!" With his feet already off the ground from his attempt to dodge, he was sent soaring. He flew into a stone wall, slamming against it with a dull thud.
The people who heard the blast or felt its effects hurriedly looked over to the perpetrator. A figure whose hair, face, and skin, was all grey appeared within their focus. A handful of suspicious-looking figures recognised this figure's grey characteristics.
"Oi! It's that guy wanted by the Guild!"
"It's Nikiri Mist! Why is he here?!"
The requested [Distraction] has been delivered, Jo.