Mika took several minutes to calm down, during which I’d continued to reassure him. Several people had walked past us, as well as a small squad of city guards. The civilians had done nought but look at the corpses, grimace, and look to me and Mika squatted over a puddle of bile in the alcove. The guards stopped once they saw the bodies, and it was only the sight of my adventurer’s Guild badge that got them to leave us in peace.

  The apathy of the people in this neighborhood was something I intended to inquire about once we got the chance. From what I’d read, even in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, murder was a rare and shocking event. The people here took it in stride, however.

  When Mika was finally calm enough to look up from his vomit, it saddened me to see the fear in his expression. I nodded to him and stood, turning away to grant him the privacy he probably needed to finish pulling himself together.

  I left him to see to the bodies and collect proof of our kills. Mika didn’t need to be a part of the trophy collection after his reactions to their deaths.

  Grace Mother, May the Stagnation of these people bring about Renewal.

  It was a basic prayer, one done typically deep within enemy territory when you lacked the time to perform more intricate rituals.

  ~~~***~~~

  Twenty minutes later, we were back on the porch of the Ugly Beagle. Beside my feet was a bloody sack that contained two left ears and John’s ponytail. Mika argued against the need for a trophy, but I pointed out we needed to prove our kills and we could hardly carry around their bodies.

  Now hidden beneath bags of trash, we stored their bodies down a pair of narrow alleys and behind the bakery they’d bought dinner from. The only evidence of their deaths was the red soaked cobble stones and the fragments of bone and tooth I hadn’t been able to find before we left.

  Seated across from me, Mika had his eyes locked onto the front door of the tavern, unseeing or uncaring of the people who entered and left in a constant stream. Occasionally I would catch sight of people’s eye as they flickered down to the bag at my feet. Invariably they always came back to the Adventurer’s Guild badge I’d rested face up on the table.

  The badge was a simple piece of work. In the shape of a heater shield, the badge had a sword and staff crossed in an x embossed into the bronze and painted a dull yellow. Beneath the symbol embossed into the metal was my name, along with my rank. Though the bronze made that clear for anyone without reading it.

  I tried to talk to Mika at several points, but every time I spoke, he flinched. What little color he regained vanished from his face and he had to force his hands to stillness on the table. After a second attempt, I left Mika to his peace and waited out the ten minutes it took us to be joined by the rest of the group.

  A smiling Maggie trailed after Nora and Ellen, who walked close beside one another, idly chatting and taking in the district's scenery. Maggie was the first one to notice how pale Mika was. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and, as subtly as I could, I passed a finger before my neck and pointed down to the bag at my feet.

  Mika almost threw up when he saw me dragging the bodies into the alley, but fought it back down again. He had thrown up when he noticed both corpses were missing their left ears.

  “You guys find anything?” Nora asked, distracted by the sound of a performer from within the Ugly Beagle.

  I looked to Mika but the haunted cast to his features told me he wouldn’t be the one to answer.

  “We ran into John and another band member. They were getting dinner at a bakery.”

  “Really?” Nora asked, excited.

  “We did. Mika and I ambushed them as they left.”

  “What happened?” Nora asked as she sat down on the bench next to me. Her face was lit up with a blind smile, like she was listening to the story of an elder.

  “They died.”

  May the Black Hand bless me, I prayed, do not let this be the first time any of them have spilled blood.

  When I looked at Ellen, she seemed fine. Her entire attention was on Mika. His pale face recovered its color somewhat, and he had a hand clasped in Ellen’s that he squeezed as she spoke comforting words into his ear.

  Nora rocked back on the bench as if slapped. Her face went pale and a little green rose into her cheeks. The day had been long, and I had no desire to comfort Nora over a death she hadn’t seen.

  “Did you learn anything from the warehouse?”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “They use it like a barracks.” Ellen said, never taking her eyes off Mika. “None of the leadership sleep with the rank and file. Instead, they’ve each turned one of the loft offices into a room for themselves. When we came back here, there were twenty-one of them milling on the ground floor. Travor, Tina, and Hardbuckle were all in Greg’s room gathered over a map.”

  “Good to have a troop count. Now that you’ve seen the place, any idea for how we should handle it?” I asked.

  Nora leaned forward, elbows plopping down onto the wood of the table as she latched onto something to think about besides the death. Neither Nora nor Ellen said anything for a few minutes, both of them thinking over the problem.

  When Ellen finally suggested something, it set off a round of bickering between her and Nora. They each proposed plans of their own and made adjustments to the other’s. None of the plans sound viable, but the problem was that everyone sounded like they might work.

  It took a couple of elbow nudges from Maggie, but eventually Mika came back to himself enough that he could join in on the conversation. Part of me wanted to step in and offer a plan I knew would at least provide a chance of success. I held back however, seeing Nora’s reaction to even the news of the deaths made me realize for the first time that my party mates did not have the training I did.

  I’d known, intellectually, that they never trained to kill other enlightened beings the way I did, but growing up, I’d only spent time with people like me. If not from the Black hands, then kids from the other military orders. All of us trained since we could walk to end the lives of others. It wasn’t until now, watching my party mates argue over how to go about an assassination, I realized the difference.

  When I returned to the conversation Mika was openly arguing, his voice barely below a shout, that we capture the leaders of the and instead of kill them. Nora was only being slightly less ridiculous. She was treating this like we were [Heroes] in a story and suggested that we smash down the front door and fight our way through. Ellen was the only one who seemed even slightly aware of how an assassination was supposed to work.

  I looked at Maggie, exasperated at what I was hearing, to see what she thought of the conversation. It was easy to see from a glance that Maggie was only listening with half an ear, but when she caught me looking in her direction, she gave me a look and shrugged.

  I looked between her and my party mates, confused as to why she would let them flounder like this before it clicked. When she’d presented the campaigns, she mentioned that each taught us skills vital to our careers as adventurers. I realized now that this quest was designed to teach my party mates how to end the life of an enlightened being before we joined the war down in the Under Tunnels.

  She’d designed this quest and specifically chosen the Ivory band because she felt it was an excellent teaching tool on how to kill enlightened beings.

  That in mind, I let them bicker. I needed them to stumble and learn the skills I already had. Their lack of experience was not their fault, so I had no issues with the fact they needed experience. I did not want to die from some hair-brained scheme, however, so I borrowed a tick from some of my old tutors and tried to guide the plan.

  I tried to guide the group forward with the careful use of suggestions and questions. When doing this, you were not supposed to give your own opinions at any point, but I failed several times and presented my ideas instead of guiding theirs. I wasn’t a [Teacher] then, nor was I a [Tutor] so I took the learning experience and let it go.

  “You’re splitting hairs.” I interrupted before Mika and Ellen could get truly heated with one another.

  Mika had started out almost catatonic, but as the time passed and he got more engrossed in the conversation, he came alive. In the last thirty minutes, however, all anyone had done was describe the same three things in various ways. We’d lost the forest for the trees entirely.

  “We’ve just been rehashing the same three plans. A. we breach the front door and brawl these people. B. We assassinate the leadership and get out. C. we follow them for a couple of days and pick off who we can like Mika and I did to John.”

  Mika flinched when I mentioned him, but it got everyone to pause and consider rather than lash out at each other more. To my surprise, it was Mika that put the first idea forward.

  “I think option B is the least likely to get us killed.”

  Mika looked like he wanted to retreat into a shell, each word an almost physical blow for him.

  “I agree with him. At least if we only go after the remaining three, we’re less likely to be locked into a battle of attrition.”

  Nora looked quietly at her friends for a moment, really taking them in. Her eyes spent the longest time on Mika, but eventually she gave a firm nod. More for herself than for other’s confirmation.

  “Where’s your adventurer’s spirit?” Maggie teased, a dry feather pen lazily drifting circles around her fingers. “As your [Bard] I say you go with option A, that’s where the real glory is!”

  Maggie looked expectantly round the table, overplaying the act. The bit worked, however, because Mika gave a thin smile and Nora chortled softly to herself.

  “Plan B it is then. Mika, how do you want to do this?” I asked.

  Mika was supposed to be our field commander, and from what little I’d seen of him in the capacity, he had the head for it. If he could overcome his first interaction with the death of another enlightened being.

  “Ellen, Nora, did the warehouse have any easy points of access?”

  “The second floor’s mostly air. They’ve got the loft offices at the back of the building and a catwalk that runs down the middle, but that’s it. There are windows above the catwalk, and if we can get those open…”

  Ellen trailed off and allowed Mika’s imagination to fill in the gaps for her.

  That kicked off at least an hour and a half of working through a plan. I kept myself back from the conversation, only interjecting when I felt an idea would get us killed or worse. My party mates were all animated in the discussion, but Maggie stayed uncharacteristically quiet for the duration.

  I looked at her to figure out why she was so quiet. Her finger moved subtly across the open page of the journal she kept with her and when she caught me looking, she tossed a knowing smile my way. Clearly, she’d figured out what I was doing and approved.

  The plan we ended with was serviceable, sound in principle, but wrapped in rookie errors. It was highly unlikely to get someone killed, but I knew parts were going to fail; but all plans fail on contact so I left them be.

  “Maggie, do you mind if I speak to them alone?” I asked, before the conversation could fully wind down to leaving.

  Maggie bowed out of the conversation and went to go admire the fountain in the middle of the plaza. Part of me knew that with her [Scout’s] skills it was unlikely she wouldn’t be able to hear us from only fifty meters, but I didn’t mind. When I turned back to the table Ellen and Nora were both looking at me, confusion and expectation write large across their face while Mika looked like he knew what I was about to during up and dreaded every second he had to wait.

  “Before we leave, I want to bring something up.” I said and reached down into the sack to pull out the ears, which I’d poked a hole through the lobes and run a string through. Careful not to get any blood on the table or stain the wood, I set the ears on the table.

  Mika closed his eye and looked away as fast as he could. Ellen had a hand on his back again and rubbed comforting circles along his back as Mika deal with whatever he needed to deal with. For her part, Nora just started at the proofs, not saying a word.

  “None of you have killed an enlightened before, right?” I asked in a whisper. The moment demanding solemnity.

  Nobody worked up the nerve to answer, but they all reacted. Mika worked up the courage to look at the ears, Ellen’s focus remained on him but she did cast sidelong glances at the removed proofs before she when back to his care. Nora never once looked away, but she too nodded her head once in ascent.

  “Tonight’s going to be bloody. People will die. Perhaps there is a better way to phrase this, but I worry about your reactions once the blood flows. In our ambush earlier, Mika froze. Had John or his companion been better combatants, his hesitation would have cost both of us our lives.”

  Ellen sputtered, fire behind her eyes, and moved to stand, but Mika placed a hand on her arm and kept her in place, his eyes never leaving the ears.

  “I know you’ve all fought and killed beasts before. I am not doubting your abilities as combatants, I’ve seen it firsthand! Killing the enlightened is different. It feels different.” I continued. “That does not mean it is an evil act. Death and murder are natural but ugly parts of the Cycle of Renewal, and no matter who you are, you’ll react differently to your first time.

  “I’ve known people who go numb. I’ve known some who feel sick and mourn their opponents, some even feel the satisfaction of a job well done. All of these and more are natural reactions, but I need you all to know that tonight, no matter the outcome, we simply partake in a natural cycle. The Ivory band is prey and they’ve caught the eyes of predators.”