It didn't take more than an hour for us to suddenly be a few hundred feet from the land of Greece.
Fisherman passing by eyed us suspiciously before seeing the black flag waving in the wind overhead and ushering into a full on panic.
The boats rushed to the docks and the men rushed to their homes. Like a small scale human stampede.
"Yes. Your saviors are here… hehehehe…." Black commented as we watched them scatter.
Sgt Sayaad picked us all up on a controlled gust of wind soon after. When we hit land I felt my world change.
Steady ground had become what the sea once was for me.
Uncomfortable.
Weird.
The other.
Immediately I was sick to my stomach. The stillness and stiffness of rocky earth had me ready to hurl.
I focused my senses and repeated the Laws of Bushido. I wasn't a Samurai but that didn't matter.
The cycle and repetition allowed me to focus on something other than the earth.
Greece welcomed us with fearful stares and the slamming of windows as locals hid in their white stone homes.
Even so it was as vibrant as the sea. Green trees and expensive vinery snaked in and out of buildings. Festival art hung from street lights and paint splashed against the brick road beneath our feet. I could smell expensive aged ale and olives nearby. Sweet grapes and sugars cultivated over years.
Naturally, Sgt Sayaad took us closer to the smell. We followed it like hounds on the hunt until we stood before a Bar.
What better place to get info?
"I still don't get why we don't get in touch with the Enforcers and Detectives first." Eden explained.
"Humans have ego…. It can be our greatest gift when wielded with discipline. But, few people have that. It's better to talk to them when they're drunk in that regard." I replied as we waltzed into the dimly lit bar.
Like the rest of Greece it was pretty. Artistic and heavily cultural in its architecture. Fiery blue-purple lamps in spinning bird cages splashed the room in twisting waves of dark polychrome ambience. The spinning flames heightened the scents of ale and washed us over in a warming wild heat. Stringed instruments laid down a trance inducing tune. Dancers holding platters of fruits and drink worked with the rhythm like I worked with my sword.
Expertly.
Men and Women sat and talked while others danced.
Their shared differences became shared similarity as more and more of them noticed us.
The cloaked figures smelling of sea and blood.
We grabbed seats at the bar.
"Erhm…. Uhh… we don't want any trouble." Thankfully we all spoke Greek.
"I do." Sgt Sayaad replied.
The bartender pulled out a blade from under his work desk. Immediately after all the dancers did the same. The drunkards seated on plush couches and at booths sobered up immediately.
"Just not with any of you." Sgt Sayaad explained. Then he gave that smooth smile with his eyes.
He pulled the Mission Scroll from his cloak and waved it in front of the bartender.
"We work directly under the Global Magus Enclave. Your Grand Magus asked us to be here."
The bartender swallowed, "Here..?! In this bar? All of my certifications are legit. Please I'm just trying to feed my family— a Tangent opened last year in Athens and a pack of Gorgon Knights destroyed my farm. Please."
"No no, not here… here. Here as in Greece. We heard you have a Shape-Shifter problem. Pretty recent at that."
The Bartender did something he shouldn't have. Something I was trained to see and analyze.
I was about as charismatic as a brick, so when it came to social subterfuge, I did better watching than talking.
I watched.
I watched the bartender hesitate.
"Shape-Shifters..? Uhhh….. hmm…. N-No I don't…. Hmmm let me think about that."
I watched him use filler words and begin to play with the glass cups on his desk as he thought up a lie. As beads of sweat rolled down his bronze skinned face under the sensual mood colored flames overhead.
I got up.
Eden followed me.
I walked around the bar. Casually walking past the booths of people with my hidden blades at the ready. Checking for lowered eyes. Feline light reflection in the pupils. Prey Drive that would lead to them following my movement. Anything and everything.
All the while outside, it had begun to rain. Thunder rumbled.
"What did you notice?" Eden questioned as she walked beside me. The noise of the music allowed us to speak normally. Not that it mattered. Even if Shape-Shifters nearby didn't hear us somehow, they would've heard the Bartenders fluctuating heartbeat. They would've smelled his fear.
"Hesitation. Sweat. Discomfort after Sgt Sayaad deliberately established comfort." I explained before leaving the wall of booths and circling back near the entrance. A small pot with an adolescent tree sprouting from it stood near the door.
I missed it upon entering but now I couldn't look away from it.
I squatted down next to it. The leaves were soft— healthy. But the bark. It was marred by tiny cuts and tears like it had been slapped with fish hooks.
The sight of it reminded me of my first encounter with Wood Elves. I was only thirteen. Inside a silver ranked Tangent alone.
I wasn't a god. I didn't complete it. The goal was to survive. I did. I assassinated them where I could but I also almost died every single day.
Over time, inside the tangent I learned which trees to avoid and when I was close to Elven Settlements.
You see, Elves had a connection with Felines like Orcs had with Canines.
Some Tangent Biologists speculated a sort of symbiotic kinship grown over time and shared magical evolution through proximity. I remember reading an article about it in New Gloria by some newcomer. His last name was Grey.
I say all that to say, when I saw hook-like gouges in tree bark, I knew an Elven Hunter riding a Displacer Beast was near. If not directly above me.
I knew the markings I was looking at because at one point, my life depended on recognizing them.
"This bar had a cat."
"And now… it doesn't?" Eden followed.
In a blur of movement I used the hidden blade tied down to my wrist to slice the tree in half.
No more than a foot of wood and upper canopy. A few branches here and there. I left the rest and made my way back to the bartender. Eden followed close behind me.
He looked like he was seconds from full panic. His dancers still hadn't put away their weapons.
Not a threat.
I placed the tree half on the bar table in front of him.
"What… what is this for?" He questioned while running a hand through his dark thinning hair.
"Where is your cat?" I questioned firmly.
One of the dancers moved an inch. She could've just inhaled too harshly in all honesty.
Eden waved her hand across the bar and the cut tree at the entrance exploded in a rampant growth of vines and roots until a braided wall of wood blocked them off from the rest of the bar.
"Hey! HEY!"
"If any of you split the wood with your weapons you'll release a Mana-Toxin into the air that'll coagulate your blood and turn your internal magics into a personal psychedelic designed from your worst fears." Eden calmly spoke to them on the other side of the wall. Still cheery and personable as she described death by hallucinogen.
"Aren't they something?" Sgt Sayaad questioned the bartender.
"Please— I… I don't know what you're talking about." The Bartender whined.
"Allow Ronin to tell you what HE is talking about." Sgt Sayaad explained like the diplomat he was.
"DONT… interrupt." Vulture Black tapped his Bident against the ground and all the moody lights were snuffed out except the one right above them.
Suddenly the Bartender was cut off from everything.
Light. Comfort. Safety.
Left with four individuals hated by gods.
I pointed at the tree.
"You had a cat. This was probably its favorite spot. Based on the health of the leaves it wasn't using the pot as a litter box. It was a toy… or sleeping quarters. Cats are territorial. They leave permanently when enemy Felines enter their proximity because Enemy Felines have a biological urge to kill them. A way to stop detrimental crossbreeding. So, when and why did you have a WereLion in your bar?"
The bartender threw his hands up, "What?! Are you going to kill me? You can't do this… I haven't broken any l—"
"Actually you've broken at least six laws. One of which being suspicion of conspiring with the Tangent-Crossed or Born. That's at least a few years in the Halls of the Basilisk. Also, that goes for everyone. And since you pose a threat, we can defend ourselves accordingly. Please don't resist." Sgt Sayaad's eyes smiled even brighter.
"Please do resist…..." Vulture Black pleaded from the shadows of his hood.
"Y-you wouldn't….." the Bartender became courageous for a moment.
Or maybe we all took the words wrong. We weren't completely fluent in Greek.
Sgt Sayaad spoke, "Eden."
Eden took a step towards the wall of wood. The braids unknotted themselves where her hand went. Once it was poking through, she crushed a handful of seeds and dropped the smoking remains on the floor.
"WAIT!" The Bartender screeched.
Quickly, Eden took her hand out and reclosed the wall of wood. She turned to the Bartender, noxious green smoke spewing from her nose, "Wheeew! That one's got some kick to it."
The sound of bodies dropping was swift.
"We're all immune to the Toxinmancer but you aren't." Sgt Sayaad explained, "Smoke rises. And that wall is only so tall. I say you've got about three minutes to start talking before you also die in the name of sweet GME Imperialism."
Sgt Sayaad pulled down his kufiya from his face, revealing the entire lower half of flesh was gone, leaving only his jaw bones and white teeth fuzed to burned and blackened flesh.
Vulture Black blushed as if he'd just seen the most beautiful woman…. Or man, on earth.
"Talk. Or else death won't be the end for you…. I have a Necromancer to confirm that."
***
It's safe to say anyone would talk under that kind of pressure. That's why they hired us.
"WELL, do you guys want to stop for food or go straight to the Triton Mountain Prefecture?" Eden questioned.
"You just killed a bar full of people and you're hungry? What a woman you'll become…." Vulture Black commented.
The city locals passing by cringed as they overheard his words.
"Your enjoyment of human fear is against our values. So is your predation." I explained.
"What the!? She's seventeen last time I checked."
"You're forty-eight." I replied.
"Yea. And I didn't kill anyone. You're going to get us in legal trouble if you keep doing that, jackass. They took a nap." Eden added.
"I need a nap." Sgt Sayaad yawned as they walked the streets.
The sun wasn't even close to setting. Not during summer.
"So we're stopping for food?! I've never had Greek cuisine I'm so excited." Eden beamed. Her bright smile and dark skin provided a warm contrast.
"Nope. We'll eat on the road. I have a feeling we can't waste time… especially on this one." Sgt Sayaad explained.
"FUCK!"
The vines, budding flowers and trees around them exploded with growth and spit foul smelling toxins that got the locals running.
Good thing we were on our way out.