She had always wondered what they looked like, but she had never seen them until today. Those others time all she heard were their voices and when she had asked her mother or grand father what they were speaking to they had both said ghosts to her which in their defense was a suitable answer for a young child to both keep her away from the truth until she was old enough and to keep her away from the magical room that was now filled with a dense magical mist.
Rellina stepped forward, and the two fey beings turned and looked at her. Their gazes locked on her, as if she had just walked up in the midst of royalty without announcing herself or requesting permission to move.
"Mist spirits, I need your help,” she called, and the two figures studied her with their deep yellow eyes. The young girl, a mist fey, tilted her head to the side.
The male figure moved, or rather, it shifted in the knee-deep mist coming right up to her, its massive body growing as it rose in height. It looked her up and down, then stood straighter.
“You carry the blood of past rulers,” the male spirit said.
“But none of their power,” the female hissed, then it floated around her like a ghost.
“I rule a city and the lands that surround it,"
"that's not enough," the mist-walker fey said.
“Then why come?" Rellina asked, not backing down and looking the creature in its eyes.
"I come to make an observation, call it a curiosity," the spirit said and glanced briefly at its smaller counterpart, who flittered about the room.
"What of my grandfather—you spoke to him.” she said.
“Yes, but all we did was offer him counsel as a subject,” the male spirit said.
“Then you will help me.” She looked at both of them, but the female mist spirit hissed at her, then moved to inspect the surroundings some more.
“I am a true ruler. Why should one such as I listen to a lesser [noble]?” he said and looked down at her. Through her and through her soul to the depth and truth of her [class].
The female mist spirit drifted toward Damian, and he stiffened unconsciously. Even he could feel the magic surrounding the two figures. The figure sniffed the assassin, then she moved over to him and sniffed him as well. Her eyes widened.
Rellina clenched her jaw.
“So you won’t help us?” she asked evenly and ignored the other spirit that moved over to Darrow and sniffed him as well.
The older spirit shook his head.
Whatever she was doing, the young noble had to hurry it up, because Darrow was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the female spirit’s prodding and probing.
“Then why appear at all?” Rellina asked.
“Curiosity.” This time, it was the female spirit who answered.
“It’s rare to see two mortals with such potential,” the spirit continued as he looked down at her.
Damian’s eyes narrowed at the mention of potential. Could they tell as well, or was it the same reason they had come?
Rellina’s assassin stepped forward, ready to intervene, but the older spirit locked its gaze on her, and Rellina raised a hand to stop.
Rellina didn’t know exactly how rare their class was, but the fact that the mists had responded gave her confidence that her [Appraise Potential] skill had not misled her. In other times, she used it when dealing with nobles and her matters of wealth.
It helped her sense when to make the right deal, which nobles were most likely to stab her in the back financially and what to buy to increase her wealth. Rarely did it act on people, not unless they were much higher level than her and had skills to match.
Damian’s gut twisted. That was twice now that he felt like they were being exposed. He remained still, then he resolved himself.
“So you truly can’t help us?” he asked.
“No,” the male spirit answered softly, and it looked him straight in the eye. It could have been acknowledging him; he couldn’t tell.
The other spirit was of a different opinion as she playfully floated around the twins.
“Perhaps one of them is your consort to be,” she taunted Rellina, and that caused the young noble to glare at the mist spirit.
She giggled, and Rellina tried to ignore her.
“I need your help?” she asked the more reasonable one of the two.
“If you seek our power, you risk awakening the days before the last war. Look at your lands” The figure looked down at her with a sombre look.
“Then what must I do?” she asked, and the misty figure stepped back from her.
“Your class is weak… grow stronger,” the mist spirit simply said, and the mist grew thick, causing the spirits to begin to dissolve.
“Wait!” Rellina tried to reach out for them again, but soon, as they had come, the mists were sucked out of the room in a rushing wind, and they were simply gone in the thinning mists.
—
It was an hour or two later after they got out of the castle, Darrow was surprised to be pulled aside by Damian, and Rellina watched them from the corner of her eye. She chose not to interfere.
She was distracted by Clarissa, and the guild master of the Mistcurvers—a man with a rigid posture—walked up to her.
Damian and Darrow, however, moved over to a corner by some wagons, and Damian started looking around. Specifically, he looked on the ground below, under some wagons and carriages, and in places next to some paddles.
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“What are you looking for?” Darrow asked, his brows knitting in confusion.
Damian didn’t answer at first. He continued scanning the courtyard silently instead of explaining. He thought he had seen something. He thought he had thought of a way to escape from this gilded cage.
“I hope you didn’t go deaf. I asked, what are you looking for?” Darrow repeated, and this time he made sure he was as close to Damian as he could be.
“I’m looking for an entrance back down,” Damian knelt and studied the ground for signs of hidden constructions.
“And why are we looking for a way back inside the castle?” Darrow arched an eyebrow, folded his arms, and tapped his foot.
“You saw how large it was down there. We could find an exit,” Damian said.
“You do know that there is a gate right there, but the moment we step out, that giant bug...lizard thing will come and hunt us,” Darrow said.
“Exactly. Who knows how many passages are down there? We can use them to escape.”
“And the monster?”
“If we can reach the tunnels, then we can lead it to Principal city or one of the drake cities with enough high-level people to take it down,” Damian reasoned.
“I thought she said that the castle was impregnable,” he said, and Damian, his brother, just gave him a flat stare.
“You can’t believe that,” he said, and Darrow rolled his eyes.
Darrow sighed. He kicked the dust out on the ground, then reluctantly followed Damian to different parts of the courtyard. They checked under crates, carts, and even looked for stone seams for any concealed access.
They found a half-buried hatch under some stacked supply crates, and Darrow bent down, then dusted it off. He tried the lock, but even that was magically reinforced.
“Well, we found the entrance. Now what?”
“We open it and find a way to the sewer tunnels.”
Before they could even attempt to break it, there was a voice that yelled at them from behind.
They turned, and approaching them from around the packed wagons were the same adventurers from earlier who had come asking about the creature and its weaknesses.
“Look, we finally found them,” a rogue in a long coat said.
“You tired of hiding?” another said.
“So, are you ready to tell us what the weakness of the monster is? You could help us kill it, and we could all level,” their leader said, raising his hands and looking to the sides at his potsy.
“And that’s the easy way,” the rogue grinned, playing with a knife in his hand.
“No, not really, we don't really no its weakness,” Darrow said, and he looked at the fellow rogue.
Damian rose as well. His eyes swept around the secluded corner of the courtyard they stood in, and he realised that they were hidden behind some wagons and tall hedges.
“Even if it had a weakness, we were lucky. It will kill you,” Damian said.
“More lies,” the adventurer leader said and cracked his knuckles.
“Let’s try and keep this civil,” Darrow tried to say, but the adventurers just kept walking forward, then surrounded them.
“Oh, we’ll keep this civil once we get answers about how two bronze ranks managed to hurt the creature.”
Damian just sighed. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
He was exhausted. Sure, it was two against one, but they had more levels than any single one of the adventurers.
—
Meanwhile, Rellina watched the members of the Mistcurvers running to break up another scuffle between the adventurers and one of the nobles’ guards.
The Mistcurvers, for all they had been hired for the job, were understaffed and struggling to maintain the peace in the courtyard.
Mistwall had no city watch, or it was better to say that the city could not afford their services. That and the fact that they had a small population made it difficult to collect the funds to support such an investment.
What Rellina had done was go for the second-best option available to her. She had signed a contract with the Adventurers Guild of the Mistcurvers. In return for the protection they offered her city, she had allowed them more autonomy over the causeway. This had been enough incentive that the guild had decided to stay in her city.
And now she had ordered them to keep brawls from breaking out in the courtyard. More importantly, she had told them to scout the ruins of the causeway and bring back any survivors.
Rellina massaged her temples. She stood before a table that she suspected was becoming the cause of her headaches. The table was cluttered with reports of humans who had died and the maps of where the insect monster was last seen.
Maid Clarissa stood quietly to the side, where she busied herself with folding the freshly delivered documents, among which were the requests of the nobles as well.
She looked out at the courtyard below and saw Mistcurver patrols escorting some of the frightened citizens through Emberfall's Castle Gate, then she turned and wondered if things could get any worse.
She shouldn’t have worried, because the next moment, the guild master of the Mistcurver party burst through the door with all the confidence of a man who owned the place. He had a rigid posture, and multiple rings adorned his fingers.
He came up and stood beside her, and he looked down at the overcrowded courtyard as he cleared his throat.
“I must suggest you give my men more control over the situation.”
“In what way?” she glanced at the man from the corner of her eye.
“We need to control the rations and who comes and goes into the district. We don’t know how long this will last.”
Rellina narrowed her eyes, but she did not look at him. She realised that the guild master was pressuring her, so she countered.
“My people are already suffering. I cannot impose such a thing.” She then watched as the Mistcurvers split up two armoured adventurers.
The door to her chamber burst open again, and a group of Mistcurvers in blue robes burst through the door with their prisoners in tow.
She looked up, then frowned. Damian and Darrow stood with the adventurers, surrounded by the Mistcurvers.
“We found these ones brawling in the courtyard,” a Mistcurver officer reported.
The guild master of the Mistcurvers clicked his tongue. He looked at them, then turned to Rellina.
“I suggest you throw them all in a dungeon for a night,” he suggested and glanced at her from the side. The look was subtle, but he wanted to get to know her and what she would do.
She hesitated, and he narrowed his eyes, but finally she made a decision—one that she didn’t want to make.
“Fine. Take them to the dungeons,” she said.
Darrow’s eyes widened at this whole situation. When he saw Rellina, he thought they would be getting a simple slap on the wrist, then they would be free to go, but that wasn’t happening.
“Wait, wait. You can’t do this,” he tried to reason with her, but the Mistcurvers just dragged him along.
Damian just stared at his bloody hands. He didn’t even resist as he was dragged along, and that twisted Rellina’s heart.
They were escorted down the stairs, and they were thrown into an old but gilded dungeon cell that was damp and half-forgotten.
“Another bloody cell. And this time it wasn’t even my fault,” Darrow mourned.
“It wasn’t your fault the last time as well,” Damian corrected him.
Damian then waited for the guards to go. Then he looked around the cell and inspected the wall seams.
“And why didn’t you say anything? You’re the more diplomatic one.”
“Because I wanted to get into the castle, remember?” Damian pointed out, then he started looking beyond the cell bars.
“What do we do now?”
“Now we just find a way to the tunnels,” Damian said and tried the door.
“If the monster can sense us from anywhere, then it can sense us underground,” Darrow said, and his brow knitted. He crossed his arms. he didn't feel any pleasure from being the more logical one.
“It’s better if we can lead the monster to one of the more powerful cities,” Damian said, and his hand felt around the edge of the cell where metal was drilled into stone.
“You want us to lure it to the Union of Guilds? This doesn’t seem like you.” Darrow pointed this fact out to him.
“These people won’t survive, and it’s after us. At least the City guard of Archevium or City Watch in Principal City will be able to destroy it. These people won’t.” He said, then there was a click, and he forced the lock open.
They walked out of a gilded cell and stepped into the unlit corridor. A distant torchlight flickered deeper down the tunnel, and they heard the voices of the Mistcurvers echoing through the stone walls.
“This way,” Darrow said, and he pulled his brother back into the shadows.
It was just in time as well, because a minute later, two members of the Mistcurvers passed by them, and they didn’t seem to check in on the prisoners.
In fact, they were discussing searching the castle for any hidden knowledge or artefacts. Thinking it was more prudent, Damian decided to follow them. He knew that it would be easier to follow the suspicious Mistcurvers than stumble around in the more obscure parts of the castle and get lost.
