SAMUEL.
"Sol Oscuro? What is that?" I was intrigued by the word.
"Our bandit, otherwise known as gang," explained the leader brute. "Since you two wanted to join, here you go; you are one of our members now."
"But that is just too easy!" I said sceptically, "We just asked to join, and you let us? "No test, no exam; I mean, how could you even trust us?" I said this as my voice was cracking.
"Your joining us is due to our lack of manpower," he pointed at me. "A lot of people are choosing other gangs these days, and it has become hard to recruit new members, so basically any potential new member is welcome," explained the brute leader while stroking his beard.
"As for why I trust you, it is evident that you are too weak for you to be able to do us any harm." The brutes laughed at this remark. "Plus, I am using a lie detection spell that showed me that you didn't lie about anything I asked," he smirked.
"Anyways, Marcella," he pointed at the woman who led us here, "go back and find some other clueless folks; as for you boys," he looked at the brutes, "three of you come with me and the rest stay here and mug some people, will ya?"
"Of course, sir!" the brutes shouted in unison.
"Help them up, and let's go to the lair." The leader ordered the three that would accompany us.
After that, he turned and left, and we followed after him.
*****
"pssst...psssssst"
"Just say it! "Stop annoying me with that sound," I whispered to Andre, who was incessantly hissing.
"It irritates you? noted," he whispered.
I looked at him with disgust and looked away, but he tugged at my sleeve, so I bent down and decided to hear him.
"Why did you tell them our names?" Andre asked, whispering.
"I don't support lying, André." Also, you heard what he said: "He had a lie detection spell, which means that if we lied about our names, he would have known and we would have been squashed to death." I formed quite an understandable argument.
"You don't support lying?" He gave off a light chuckle, saying, "You lied about your birthplace and history back at Ettor! "What is the difference between now and then?" Andre pressured.
"Listen, Andre, now is not the best of times to interrogate me about what I did. We are being led outside the city with four monsters at our sides. We are hemmed in currently, so let's stop acting suspiciously and let's just focus on getting this job." I ended the conversation sarcastically.
"Hey," a brute on my right tried starting a conversation.
"My name is Owen, and I have been with Sol Oscuro for around two years now." He gave a summarised introduction.
I raised my eyebrows in reply.
"It is quite funny that you are joining them the same way I did; I was being mugged by one of them, and then I said, 'I want to work with you!' and the guy was totally taken aback," he chuckled.
"What happened after?" I was intrigued by the story.
"And after that, he brought me to the lair in order to officially join, and viola, here I am escorting you back to the lair." Owen said it with a bit of nostalgia in his words.
Owen was not as brutish as the leader, but he was still a brute. He had everything a normal brute would have:
1: bushy beard, check.
2: intense body hair, check.
3-bald, check.
4- as neat and clean as an old car tyre, check.
"But Owen, you don't seem like a brute." Andre, who was eavesdropping, intervened.
"hmm? "How so?" asked Owen curiously.
Andre came in front of me while we were walking in order to face Owen, who was to the right of me.
"Well, aren't members brutes who kill for money and are always kind of demonic and always greedy, and they know nothing about good morals and things like that?" Andre said it ever so enthusiastically.
"That's only a stereotype, André." We may act like that when we're conducting business, but we're not heartless monsters. We have a code of loyalty and honour that we abide by," the brute at my back answered.
"Flog is right. If we treated our own comrades like that, the gang would tear itself apart from the inside out," said the brute to my left.
"So you consider killing people a normal everyday thing, and yet you deem yourselves as 'not heartless'?" I remarked.
Owen patted my shoulder. "Everyone who joins us asks the same question, and we have the same answer."
The three said in the same breath, "We always try to avoid killing, but if it comes to it, we consider this nothing but a job."
"Fair enough," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"So Owen, Dalton, and you?"
"Aeaea, Aeaea Jacob," said the brute to my left.
"Aeaawa? "How do you say that!?" My tongue got twisted trying to pronounce it.
"A-ee-yah," he enunciated his name.
"Aeaea." I managed to say it.
"yes exactly." Aeaea clapped, congratulating me.
"No offence, but your parents must have hated you to name you like that," I confessed.
"Yeah, I hear that a lot, and they are probably right. "You can call me Jacob if Aeaea is too hard," Jacob said with a smile.
"What about you two?" I was looking at Owen and Dalton.
"Owen Patel."
"Dalton van Peter."
Just as we finished with the introductions, the leader's voice grabbed our attention.
"We are at the lair," he said.
I perceived my surroundings, and it seemed that we were led into an alley that was darker and sketchier than the alley we were (nearly) mugged in previously.
"We at Sol Oscuro treat all our recruits and bandits equally without any discrimination; the cause of the difference between your cut and your partners' is decided based only on the results you give." The leader started a speech.
"We don't care if you're weak, strong, ugly, beautiful, cunning, or mischievous; we only care that you have loyalty and a code of honour to all your comrades because we here are not criminals merely for the fun of it. We are conducting organised crime with teams of squads, and likewise, you should expect great plans and big scores to be made with us."
I looked around, and it seemed that our three escorts were paying full attention to the speech. It seemed that they valued it deeply.
Andre, too, was concentrating and paying maximum attention to every letter being said.
As for me, I definitely paid attention, but my mind's gears were already turning, trying to figure out possible methods to increase our importance in this cartel.
"Listen to the Code of Honour and repeat after me:
Sol Oscuro's need before our greed!"
We all repeated in absurdly loud voices, so loud that they became consonant.
"No matter the mission, no matter the stakes, following the plan is all it takes!"
"Stronger than any lone creature, one may die, but the pack will survive!"
"Now Samuel Maelstrom, André Maelstrom, have you two understood what I, Garland, have said?"
"Yes, sir, we did!" we said synchronically.
"Then you two are our newest recruits to date!"
"Go on and enter the lair!" At the end of his speech, he pushed a door that was in one of the buildings that made up the alley and entered.
"Go on, enter you two!" Dalton's voice hurried us.
We wasted no time and ran towards the open door, which presumably contained a room that was lit on the inside.
and as we ente—.
"Ah, fuck! my eyes—" I tried covering the blinding light that was coming from the inside.
Gradually, the pain became less, although everything I looked at was unbelievably shiny.
Upon discerning the interior, everything was luminous, and I could see that the place was full to the brim of people.
Suddenly, the same feeling I felt when the man Garland was looking at me returned; it was as if I were being covered by a viscous liquid, but this time it was much more unbearable.
The pain was just increasing; I felt the air that I was breathing turn into liquid, and my lungs were becoming heavier and heavier.
I couldn't even speak, cough, or shout; I just fell to my knees feebly.