Chapter 59: Fifty seven

“Seriously? That’s all they offered?” I exclaimed, feeling more than a little offended at the meager bounty placed on my head. 

“Do the Silver Arrows even take such small bounties?” I asked, turning to Darius who shook his head, lips twitching in amusement. 

“Fifty fucking gold,” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest and scowling at the robed man who stood opposite us. 

Darius laughed at that, running a hand through his shaggy black hair. “You’d rather it be higher?” 

“Yes.” Ears and tail drooping sadly, I turned my attention to the guild leader. 

“When people put bounties on Markion, it’s never less than seven figures.” 

“Kadia, your brother is a high ranked player. Both here and in Avalon he has always been amongst the top hundred.” 

“Exactly, my brother is supposed to be some big badass barbarian. Shouldn’t I have a high bounty on account of people being scared Markion will come after them for killing me?” I complained, staring at the bounty contract the Whisper’s guild member had placed on a nearby table. 

Seeing the bounty contract, an idea formed in my mind and I let out a little laugh as I refocused my attention on the robed man. 

“I’d like to place a bounty.” I declared, ignoring the choked sound from the guild leader. 

“Whom would you like to place a bounty on, and how much will you be offering for the service?” 

“Ca, oomph.” My words were abruptly cut off as a hand clamped itself over my mouth, and I was yanked back into a hard chest. 

“Do you really think I’m going to let you put a bounty on yourself?”  

Rolling my eyes, I jammed my elbow backwards into the guild leader's stomach and yanked his hand away from my mouth. 

“Can I,” I began, while emphasizing the first word so Darius knew I hadn’t been about to say my own name. 

“Place a bounty on three people?” 

“You may place a bounty on whomever you wish, provided you have the coin.” The Whispers guild representative replied, his voice the same stoic and cool tone it had been throughout our interaction.

“I want to place a two hundred gold bounty on the three girls who placed one on me, with a thousand gold limit for each.” I said cheerily, pulling out thirty gold bars and placing them on the counter. 

“Very well,” the Whispers representative murmured, retrieving three sheets of paper. “Two hundred gold per death, capped at a thousand gold per target.” 

“Correct.” I confirmed, watching as the robed man wrote out my bounty request. “Add a note in there, that if the Arrow taking the bounty is Lena, additional rewards can be claimed directly from myself.” 

 

“You wish for the co-leader of the Silver Arrows guild to take this bounty?” The man asked, looking at me and then at Darius as though silently asking the guild leader if I was serious. 

“Not if she doesn’t want to, but like I said, add to the bounty that there is a special reward claimable directly from me if she’s the one killing them.” 

“And what reward would that be? Co-leader Lena will not take a request with an unspecified payment.” 

“She’ll know what it is, just make sure they know it’s me setting the bounty, and she’ll know.” I said, getting annoyed by the man's skepticism.

Lena had already told Yuki she’d visit me so we could talk about her wisps in exchange for my assisting her with some things she wanted made. With Pyr’s strange nature, my desire to see the Kitsune assassin’s ‘poison’ wisps had greatly increased. I knew if Lena was going to show up anytime soon, then I needed to pique her interest. 

Viv and her friends setting a bounty against me, gave me the idea for how I could go about contacting the other Kitsune without needing Yuki to act as my go-between. While I hadn’t created an explosive pellet, I’d succeeded in creating a few different smoke bombs that produced poisonous smoke. I was sure that even though there was no ‘explosion’ the assassin would still find the bombs useful. In my eyes a silent smoke bomb was a lot better than an explosive pellet. 

Then again, perhaps I could make an exploding pellet using the Drakus flowers as a catalyst. Though, I’d need to speak with Lena to know exactly what effect she wanted the pellet to achieve in order to best meet her expectations. If I could impress Lena and get the Silver Arrows guild as clients, it would greatly boost not only the guilds income, but my own as well. This was something I’d discussed at length with Darius, and it was the reason I’d spent so much time working on poisons. 

After finalizing my bounty request, Darius and I left the tent, heading to the altar where we’d been informed my newly revived team was waiting. As we walked, I glanced up at the guild leader, who appeared to be lost in thought. 

“Do you think Lena will take my request?” 

“I think you will have piqued her interest with it, whether it is enough to bring her here, I do not know.” the guild leader replied. 

 “Kadia,” Pia’s loud voice cut off any further conversation with the guild leader and I glanced up to see the Faun racing towards me, with the others close behind. 

“I’m so glad to see you here.” Pia exclaimed, flinging her arms around me. “We thought you might have revived in Hathus. Can you imagine if we’d gone all the way to Hathus to find you, and you weren’t even there?” 

Extracting myself from the Fauns hold, I did my best not to show how much I disliked being hugged, especially by someone I’d known for only two days. I knew Pia was only trying to be friendly, and I was doing my best to act more sociable, but I’d never been one for displays of physical affection. I rarely hugged anyone, which was why my brother became so suspicious of me hugging him before he left for the dungeon.

“It’s a good thing you were bound to the altar here, it would've been a pain to fetch you from Hathus.” Kip added. 

“I’m bound to a revival token actually,” I said, my attention not on the Dwarf, but the tall red skinned woman who was staring at the ground with slumped shoulders. 

“Something you should have known,” Darius commented, arms crossed over his chest. “Captain Victoria, why did you not confirm the revival point for all your team members before entering the dungeon?” 

“I forgot, sir,” Victoria responded, straightening her shoulders and looking directly at the guild leader. “I will not make the same mistake again.” 

“See that you don’t.” Darius growled. 

I flinched, ears instinctively pressing flat to my head in response to the Ōkami’s scolding, even though it wasn’t directed at me. No one spoke on our way back to the encampment, and I heard some of my team let out audible sighs when Darius split off from our group, heading for his own tent.  

“So,” I began awkwardly. “Were you all impaled too or did you drown?” 

“I was impaled,” Kip grumbled, rubbing at his sternum. 

“Drowned.” Pia said, as did Rainy. 

“Both.” Victoria grunted, looking just as unhappy about her death as the others did. 

“Well, on the bright side. I know how to avoid getting impaled or drowned next time.” I informed them, passing on what Darius told me. 

“So it’s Pia and Kips fault we died, if they hadn’t been screwing around we’d have made it out before the hallway flooded.” Rainy speculated, giving the two an annoyed glare. 

As Rainy, Pia and Kip began arguing over who’d caused the mishap in the dungeon, I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Glancing over my shoulder I saw Victoria looking down at me, her expression unreadable. 

“I want to apologize to you, Foxy.” The Kijo said, her voice low. 

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“Apologize for what?” 

“I should have taken you to set your revival point. I only realized that I had failed to do so after we revived, and I saw you weren’t with us.” 

“It’s my fault as well, I should have mentioned I was bound to Darius’s revival token.” I told her, feeling a little guilty that she’d been scolded by the guild leader because of me. 

“Speaking of revival tokens,” I said, frowning as a thought occurred to me. “Why are you bound to the altar in the settlement and not a revival token? Aren’t they given out to hunting teams?” 

“They’re given to gold ranked teams and above Foxy.” Kip called out, looking back at me over his shoulder. 

“I wish you would all stop calling me that, my name is Kadia.” I complained, receiving four broad grins in response. 

Tail flicking back and forth in annoyance, I pressed my hand to the stone covering the entrance to the tunnel leading to my underground lab and our temporary living quarters. 

As the stone shifted, melting away to fuse with the stone lining the walls of the tunnel. A strange scent filled the air, mixing with the smells of dirt and the smoky scent left by the earlier fire. Hesitating on the top step, I tilted my head as I drew in a deep breath through my nose, trying to place the unfamiliar scent which was causing me to feel on edge. 

“Is something wrong?” Victoria asked softly, placing a hand on my shoulder as she ducked down to fit behind me in the tunnel. 

“There’s something, but I don’t know what." I murmured, shifting down a few more steps.

“Kip,” the captain called, her voice low as she squeezed my shoulder, pulling me back so the Dwarf could slip past me, his daggers drawn. 

Pia followed him, her spear at the ready as they crept around the corner. It was only then that I realized Victoria was missing her shields. Deciding that now wasn’t the best time to question the Kijo about her missing weaponry, I moved down the stairs with Victoria and Rainy close behind me. 

“Foxy, come look at this.” Kip called out, and I hurried down the last few steps. 

Reaching the bottom step, I exited the tunnel into the lab, and stared mouth agape at the dead snakes littering the floor. There were at least a dozen cobras that appeared mostly intact aside from the deep wounds littering their bodies, and a few more that were half eaten. Spying Leo curled up in the corner on his blankets, I rushed over to his side, checking him for any signs of injury. 

The Leosaur cub seemed blissfully unaware of my worried state as he gave a wide yawn and snuggled into my arms. Standing with a fat bellied Leo in my arms, I once more examined the mess in my lab. 

“How do you reckon so many snakes got in? I mean, it’s not uncommon for one to slip into someone's tent on occasion, but this,” Pia trailed off, waving her hand around the room. 

“Is clearly a dumb lions idea of a joke.” I growled, shoving Leo towards Rainy who gently took him into her arms, 

“What?” The Faun asked, at the same time Victoria spoke. “Where are you going Foxy?” 

“To turn the bastard who did this to ash.” I declared, as I left the lab with a determined stride. 

If Leo hadn’t been immune to Cobra venom, those snakes could have easily overwhelmed and killed him. There was also the matter of it being inside my lab that the stupid lion put those snakes in. What if I’d left an experiment out and the snakes damaged it or my lab equipment? Corvus would have had no way of knowing I’d put everything away to avoid Leo destroying anything. 

Reaching the command tent, I considered burning it, but in the end decided burning down more tents probably wasn’t a good idea. Instead I stormed inside, and seeing Corvus seated at the table with Darius, Roderick and my brother, flung an orange feathered dart directly at the lion’s face. 

“Kadia.” Darius shouted, as Corvus dove to the side, dodging the dart I’d thrown. 

“He filled my lab with snakes.” I shouted back at the guild leader as I flung dart after dart at Corvus who kept ducking out of the way. 

“Stop moving, you flea ridden scumbag.” 

“Enough.” Darius shouted, as Markion dove towards me, wrapping me in a tight hug and pinning my arms to my sides. 

“He could have killed Leo and destroyed my lab. What if I’d left something dangerous out and the snakes knocked it over? You stupid fucking lion.” 

“What snakes?” Corvus roared back at me, and I snarled. 

“The ones you shoved through the hole in the door to my lab.” 

“Calm down. I may let you off on a lot of things Kadia, but this is crossing the line.” Darius shouted, moving over to stand in front of where Markion held me. 

“He crossed the line first.” I snapped, glaring at the guild leader. 

“Explain.” He demanded, briefly looking over his shoulder at Corvus. 

“It was just paint.” The lion said, and I frowned at him. 

What paint?

“She seems pissed about snakes, not paint.” Roderick interjected, and I nodded. 

“Someone filled Foxy’s underground lab with cobras, sirs,” hearing Victoria’s voice, I turned my head to see the red-skinned woman ducking into the tent.

“Corvus, did you put snakes in Kadia’s lab?” Darius asked, turning to face the lion fully now. 

“No,” shaking his head, Corvus looked at me, his face earnest as he spoke. “Kadia, I’d never mess with your lab, not after the last time. I painted your horse, and that’s all I did.” 

“Then who the fuck put the snakes in my lab?” I demanded, slumping back into Markion’s hold as he loosened his grip on me ever so slightly.

“First a bounty and now someones filling your lab with snakes. You’re on a roll today, aren’t you Kads.” Darius sighed, and I scowled at him, pushing out of Markion’s hold. 

“What bounty?” Pia asked loudly as she entered the tent followed by Kip and Rainy. 

“The one Viv and her friends set on me,” I told her, rolling my eyes at the mention of the stupid bounty. 

“How much is it worth?” Kip asked, eyeing me up and down. 

“Fifty gold.” I mumbled, and lowered my head in embarrassment as the tent was filled with raucous laughter.   

“Fifty,” my brother choked out between laughs, smacking his hand on his thigh. 

“You’ll have everyone in Kaledon hunting you down for a fortune such as that.” Kip mocked. 

Pouting, I stormed over to the nearby table and slumped down onto a chair as everyone began adding their own quips into the mix. 

 I hope Lena kills those stupid bitches in a lot of really painful ways. I thought angrily as I waited for the mocking laughter to die down. 

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