Chapter 88: V2 Twelve

Cheeks burning, and ears pinned back, I glowered at the people crowding the streets as Roan led our group towards the Eternia guild hall. Our passage through the mountain was filled with mocking laughter, and snide comments. Which left me wishing we’d bypassed the city in favor of traveling through the dragon infested mountains to the east.

As we reached a landing on what had appeared to be a never ending staircase, I breathed a sigh of relief to see a heavy stone door set into the side of the mountain with our guilds banner hung above it. Mop in hand, a pretty dwarven woman stood on the landing, cleaning up what appeared to be a mixture of various rotting foods.

“Ma!” Striding towards the woman with a broad smile, Kip flung his arms around her as she turned towards him with a look of shock that quickly changed to joy as she returned Kip's embrace.

“Kip! Mi hijo, I’d heard you were back, but I scarcely believed it.” The woman said, pulling back to pat his cheek affectionately.

“I missed your cooking, Ma. So we decided to come back early.” Kip teased his mother, who beamed at him in response.

When Pia, Rainy and Victoria also moved to greet the woman, I turned away from the scene to stare out at the bustling city. Standing at the railing, I was able to look down on an elevated platform in the center of the hollowed interior of the mountain. It was difficult to watch Kip with his mother, seeing them together made my chest feel tight.

Being born with a heart defect Kip’s family spent their lives savings on purchasing him a specially tailored medical pod, which included its own custom world server. He’d grown up in virtual reality, with his mother retiring into a pod to accompany him. I wasn’t sure what happened to Kip’s father, as he refused to speak of the man, beyond a short comment that he was working to support the cost of their pods. When Kip reached the age of sixteen, he was officially allowed to enter into the public worlds, and their family of three went to Avalon, which was where he’d met Pia.

Kip, Pia, and his mother May, had all joined Eternia when the guild was recruiting for their feeder guild, each managing to join a few months before the guild was given the offer to transfer to Kaledon. Because Kip, and his mother were on a family plan with their capsules they’d been given the option of tying together their fate during race selection, meaning they had a higher chance of being the same race, or a compatible race. They were also acknowledged by the world as family, with their life token showing their relation. Victoria, and her brothers had also entered on a family plan, allowing them the same opportunity.

With a sigh, I focused on the view of the mountain's interior. Four walkways connected to the central platform, each aligned perfectly with the four cardinal directions, and beside each walkway, was a moving platform. Each used to descend or ascend to the different levels of the mountain city. Alternatively, you could walk up a dozen flights of stairs in order to reach the next level, as we’d just done.

Eternia’s guild hall was located in-between the thirty ninth and fortieth level of the city, which meant we had needed to ascend from the fortieth level to reach the hall, as the levels were numbered in descending order from the very top level. I would have preferred catching the elevator platform to the thirty ninth level and walking down, as it would be kinder on my tired body, but Roan informed us that attempting to go higher than our guild hall's landing would be unwise.

The Dreadmere guild held a great deal of control on the thirty ninth level of Airus, which was also the first level of the commercial district. This level had also been where the Eternia guild once operated three stores, all of which were now lost thanks to the city chancellors revoking the guild's business licenses.

Roan seemed to believe the Dreadmere guild were behind Noctus’s arrest, and I agreed. Even before coming to Kaledon, Dreadmere and Eternia did not have a good relationship. I wasn’t fully aware of the interactions between the guilds, beyond knowing that they once ruled a city near to Eternia’s own city. Guild wars were a frequent occurrence in Avalon, as control over cities brought a lot of benefits. So it was likely there’d been a time when Eternia had warred with Dreadmere in the past.

A commotion down on the platform caught my eye, and I watched as a group of people clad in heavy armor shoved their way through the crowd. Each wore a blue and silver cloak draped over one shoulder, the rearing silver pegasus one the cloak easily seen even from where I stood. At the center of the group was a beautiful elven woman, her blonde hair falling in loose waves down her back, and her breasts nearly popping out of her gown with each breath she took.

The desire to burn off her hair, and puncture her breasts like the over inflated balloons they resembled was so strong, that flames began curling over my fingertips as I stared down at the woman who’d forged her virtual self in the likeness of my step mother.

The last time I’d seen this woman, I left her screaming, and writhing in the dirt as diluted Scorcher venom coursed through her veins. In hindsight, she’d done nothing deserving of my actions that day, beyond trying to coax my brother away from our guild. Bianca couldn’t have known the once famous model she’d chosen to base her appearance on was Markion’s mother, or that the mere sight of Danica’s visage would invoke such a violent response from me. I’d even felt the tiniest bit remorseful for what I’d put her through, yet seeing her now, I wanted to do it all over again.

“Foxy… Kadia!” A firm landing on my shoulder caused me to startle, and I spun towards the offender with a snarl.

“Easy Foxy, just me.” Victoria soothed, hands raised in a placating manner.

Closing my eyes, I took several deep breaths, and extinguished the fire coating my hands as I fought to regain control of my spiraling emotions. Opening my eyes again, I saw Victoria, and I were alone on the landing. The doors to the guild hall left ajar, indicating the others had already made their way inside.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, running a hand over my hair as I took another glance down at where Bianca and her group were moving onto one of the elevator platforms.

As the platform rose upwards, Bianca turned her head in the landing's direction, and I saw her eyes widen ever so slightly as her gaze landed on me. Unable to help myself, I plucked a dart from my bracer, tapping the orange feathers against my lips. The elf’s eyes narrowed, and I stared at her until the slow moving platform rose to a point that I was unable to see her. Even though I was not able to see the woman, I continued watching until the platform came to a stop far above my head.

Counting the levels, I made a mental note that they’d stopped at the ninth level of the city. Roan had said the uppermost levels of the mountain were known as the halls of worship, where temples dedicated to various gods were located. Staring upwards, I felt a niggling urge to follow the Dreadmere guild up to the ninth level, but pushed it aside.

“Which of the gods is worshiped on the ninth level?” I asked Victoria, pulling my gaze away from the now empty platform as it began to lower once more.

“Unless a temple has been opened since I was last here, none.” The red skinned woman said, tilting her head towards the open doors. “My brothers will know if one has been opened.”

Nodding, I followed Victoria into the guild hall, still fighting to dismiss the desire to rush to the nearest elevator platform. There were more important things to be done right now, my curiosity about which god Bianca was visiting would need to wait.

The guild hall in Airus was a lot smaller than those in Caruan and Sēkrit. Two long tables filled the main hall, and there was a large fireplace along one wall. As Victoria set Leo’s basket down before the fire, I noted with confusion that it appeared to be burning with wood, something confirmed by the piles of logs stacked nearby. Did the hall not have any fire stones for the hearth?

“We sold it, and everything else of value we had in order to pay the fines.” Roan informed me hesitantly when I asked about the lack of fire stones. “The guards have been fining us for everything they can, recently we’ve been getting fined for breaching the cities Health, Safety and Amenity laws. Every day the guild hall gets vandalized, and shortly thereafter a guard shows up to fine us for the mess.”

“Why have you not put a guard outside?” I asked. Setting a guard to prevent the vandalism should have been their first course of action.

“We tried that the first time, only to get a fine for loitering. Stand still for more than a minute, and the guards will be on you like flies on a steaming pile of shit.” An unfamiliar man said, as he came to stand behind Roan. His green skin, and Victoria’s nod in his direction, confirming he was another of her siblings.

I sighed, turning my attention back to the fire, and doing my best to process everything and come up with a course of action. Thinking over everything that had occurred since our arrival, I absentmindedly reached up to stroke Zosimos’s feathers. Then stiffened as I recalled Victoria’s scuffle with her brother’s outside of Airus.

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“Roan, have your youngest brothers returned?” I asked, concerned the four may have been attacked after Victoria left them bound in the snow.

“They did,” he said, jerking his chin at his sister with a grin. “Came in swearing up a storm, whinging about Red leaving em out in the snow. It’s how I knew you’d be down at the warehouse.”

“Good, good.” I muttered, chewing on the nail of my thumb. “How many of the guild are left in Airus?”

“Auntie May, and my brothers are all that remain.” Roan said, pointing to where Kip and Pia were unloading what food supplies we still had stored in our bags.

Our supplies are only enough to last our team for another week, even less now there are more people to feed. I thought with a grimace, looking around for Rainy.

“Where’s Rainy?” I asked, intending to set the dryad to the task of growing what she could to replenish some of our food supplies.

“She went to the kitchens, there are pots there we use for growing vegetables.” Victoria said, pointing to an open door to our left.

Right, we have food, what’s next? I pondered checking food off my mental list of tasks. Eyes drifting back to the fire, I grimaced at the sight of the logs.

Sending people out to collect wood in our current situation probably wasn’t wise. In fact, I was surprised we’d even been let into the city. Wouldn’t it be in Dreadmere’s interest not to let more of the guild enter? Or to bar those who left from returning? Why did the guards let us in? Our guild banners were on display, so there is no way they did not know who we were.

“Food, bath, sleep.” Victoria ordered, her voice cutting through my turbulent thoughts like a knife.

“I’m not hungry,” I murmured, eyes drifting over to the basket Leo laid in. I couldn’t risk the fire going out, not with Leo in need of the heat.

Kneeling, I opened the lid of the basket, and pulled out the jar that contained my fire wisp. The round creature was obviously displeased with his containment, as he sat with his stubby arms crossed. It amused me to no end that Pyr could have such a discernible personality, despite being a gelatinous ball of fire.

“I don’t think putting Pyr in the hearth is a good idea. Ma sometimes cooks over it, so I wouldn’t want him burning her.” Kip called, coming over with his own jar. The dwarf’s jar held orange orbs, which were submerged in water to contain their flames.

Seeing the fire wisp cores, I nodded, and put Pyr’s jar back into the basket, ignoring the wisp who was now bashing his fists against the side of the jar in protest.

Stay, keep Leo warm, and I will give you something strong to burn soon. I mentally coaxed the wisp, who immediately stilled, its bulbous eyes staring up at me for a long moment, before it nodded. Like me, Pyr gained mana when it caused a creature or person's death. While I also absorbed mana when Pyr killed something, I’d noticed it was less than if I directly killed the creature. The wisp also appeared to be slowly growing stronger, and showed signs of growing more intelligent as it killed more.

The same could be said for Faux, but I’d noted that Pyr’s own level of intelligence was far greater than the mimics. When placed in the maze, Pyr would navigate with ease, or at least it had until it reached a level where it felt the maze was beneath its intelligence. These days Pyr would simply stare at me with a look of contempt if I even dared suggest it engage in such tests.

“What is it?” The Orc, who I’d yet to be introduced to asked as he moved closer to peer into Leo’s basket.

“A Leosaur cub,” I informed him, stroking a hand over the motionless Leo, unable to contain my smile as he moved his head ever so slightly to press it into my hand.

“Ay, I know that.” The Orc scoffed, rolling his eyes as he pointed to the jar. “I was referring to the creature in the jar.”

As I opened my mouth to answer, a red hand slammed itself into the back of the Orc’s head, before latching onto his ear.

“You’ll show Foxy respect.” Victoria growled, yanking her brother around to face her.

Shaking my head in amusement as the Kijo began berating her brother for what she perceived as disrespect. I closed the lid of Leo’s basket, contemplating if I should leave him in the main hall or take him with me while I bathed.

“I’ll watch him. I’m going to stay down here to help sort through our supplies.” Kip said, eyes dancing with amusement as he watched Victoria put her brother in a headlock. “Don’t mind Liam, he can be a bit of a ‘know it all’ tosser.”

“Clearly he doesn’t know it all if he didn’t know what Pyr is,” I said, grimacing as I saw Roan join the scuffle and toss Victoria over his shoulder to land on her back with a heavy thud.

“Foxy, even you don’t know what Pyr is, and you made the bloody thing.” Kip said, using a pair of tongs to toss four wisp cores, which had been carved with the undying fire array, into the hearth. “That should keep us nice and toasty.”

Moving away from the hearth, I looked around the room. The doorway to the left had been the one Victoria indicated as leading to the kitchens. Which meant the one to the right would lead to the living quarters, as that was the only other exit from the main hall aside from the one which led to the city.

As I started to head in that direction, four more Orcs came barreling into the room from the doorway, and proceeded to pile on top of the Kijo who was already pinned beneath the two Orcs she’d been wrestling with.

Half an hour later, I reentered the hall after my bath. It was to find Victoria suspended from the ceiling, bound, gagged, and wearing a frilly pink ball gown. The sight of the captain had me suddenly feeling extremely grateful that my father hadn’t managed to procreate more than twice.

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