After eating their fill at a nearby impartial tavern, Stella and Lunam crossed the city square and entered a large enchanted equipment shop. The store was called The Draconic Armoury. Since dragons were well known to have the toughest hides and the sharpest claws in all of Axis, this name was a clear indication of the store’s confidence in their enchantments’ power and efficacy.
Immediately upon entry, the two girls were greeted by a young shop attendant. With the new atmosphere in the capital, it was easy enough to tell which stores were neutral and which ones were refusing to serve non-humans. The latter stores would require the customers’ visas or citizenship cards. These cards indicated a person’s species and if they weren’t human, then most stores would discriminate against them. In comparison, the neutral stores wouldn’t request any proof of identity, and would serve any customer that approached them.
“Welcome to our store, my name is Peter. Is there anything specific that you’re looking for today?” The attendant asked with a genial smile.
Peter was a young man with tousled mousy brown hair, and chocolate eyes looking to be around 16 years old. Stella and Lunam had been watching the store from the earlier tavern, and they had noticed that The Draconic Armoury didn’t request proof of identity upon entry. The reason they chose to check out this store first, was because they had thought that this would be the case. The Draconic Armoury was a world renowned store that was commonly regarded to sell the best equipment in all of Axis. They had many branches in every country, so it was highly unlikely that they would be swayed by the opinions of just one country’s future ruler. Avalon also couldn’t afford to offend the franchise by creating trouble for them.
“We would like to buy a grade 10 blueprint for a passive poison resistance enchantment.” Lunam answered the boy’s question.
“Is this a service that this store could provide? If not, is there a place you’d recommend that would be willing to do so?” Stella questioned Peter, somewhat embarrassed. Even low level inscription patterns were highly regarded by most enchanters.
“If you would come this way to our meeting room, I will immediately go and ask to see if one of our enchanters would be willing to make this trade with you.” Peter replied kindly. “It will end up costing more than just buying an item that has already been enchanted with the same effects, though.”
“That’s fine. If you can find an enchanter that’s willing to trade with us, we will do our best to meet the price that person sets. If we truly can’t afford it, then we would be more than happy to buy a similar item that this store has enchanted.” Lunam replied with a smile. The two sisters had already agreed that they would just buy one if it truly wasn’t possible to obtain the blueprint.
“Very well, then.” Peter agreed, before leaving the room that he’d guided the women to.
Lunam and Stella sunk into the comfy leather sofa in the waiting room. It was the sort of sofa that was too soft to allow one to easily stand back up again once they sat upon it.
“As expected of The Draconic Armoury, even their furnishings are top quality.” Stella commented with a mock sigh of envy.
In truth, she was very happy with the way she was living her life at the moment. Despite the sisters’ dubious upbringing and the desire for vengeance that they carried deep within their hearts, their master had not only taught them cultivation, but had also instilled in them the importance of not letting their dark pasts consume them. As a result of her teachings, the two girls had decided to become adventurers and had gradually met everyone who was now a member of their Star and Moon adventuring party.
“If those two are really as you say, I wonder just how strong they actually are.” Stella commented quietly.
Peter was likely to take a while, so she brought up the subject that was most on her mind at that moment.
“Hmm … they’re either using a rare Mysterious Technique to lower their realms, or they’ve reached a high enough realm that they can freely control their auras.” Lunam mused, immediately knowing that her sister was talking about Nihil and Ignis.
“I wonder why they would go so far to hide.” Stella muttered. “Surely displaying their strength could only bring them benefits. If the Royal Guard knew their true realms, wouldn’t they be more likely to back off? After all, strength is the only absolute law that people unremittingly obey.”
“True. But since that’s the case and they’re still hiding their abilities, then there must be more antipathy between them and the Royal Guard than either party is willing to admit to uninvolved parties.” Lunam pointed out calmly. “I get the feeling that those two have a more complicated past than even us.”
“Well, it’s at least certain that they are deeply entangled with this country’s royalty if the Guard are getting involved. We might just happen to have a common enemy.” Stella hadn’t realised that her feelings towards Nihil were slowly becoming more positive now that there was some distance between the two of them. However, it still remained to be seen if her opinion would remain favourable when the two groups met up once again.
“If that’s the case, then we probably shouldn’t mention their names within the capital. Talking about them just now was risky too, but we’re at least in a private room in a neutral store so the risk isn’t as bad as it would be in a busier place.” Lunam realised this too late, but she hurriedly ended the conversation before any damage they may have caused could get worse.
“Ah!” Stella exclaimed in surprise. “It’s a good thing I didn’t mention their names just now, then. I hadn’t even thought of that. Hera just warned me about being too loose lipped in Imber as well.”
“It should be fine since we haven’t said all that much about them and it’s just the two of us in this room, but we should be careful from now on.” Lunam once again reassured her sister.
A few minutes later Peter came back into the meeting room along with an ageing, grey haired old man. He looked to be around 70, but considering his status as an enchanter, he could have been anywhere up to 1500 depending on his talent.
“You’d like a passive poison resistance blueprint?” The old man directly questioned. His arrogant tone was normal for an enchanter – especially the top class ones – since enchanted weapons and armour were indispensable for adventurers. They could also enchant tools, making the daily lives of the regular citizenry much easier.
“Only if you’re willing to sell it to us.” Lunam responded, her tone respectful but still calm. “If we’re being too presumptuous with our request, we can only apologise and buy a ready made charm with similar effects.”
“Hmm … it may just be a low level enchantment, not requiring too much energy to carve, but it does require a steady hand and an accurate placement of all the lines. Are you sure you guys still want such a blueprint?” The man inquired, seemingly testing them. “Besides I can tell that you’re both cultivators, do you have a suitable mage to perform the enchantment?”
His displeasure was clearly obvious as he asked the second question. Lunam and Stella paled slightly, realising that the man was offended that the enchanter apparently didn’t personally come to make this request. However, the two were still reluctant to reveal that Stella could actually enchant despite her status as a cultivator.
“Ah, yes our friend is a mage and they said they’d be willing to carve the enchantment for us. It’s a present for our master so we really wanted to personally create it together. Unfortunately our friend suddenly got called back to their family because their mother suddenly took a turn for the worse and could be passing away soon.” Lunam explained. The sisters even convincingly managed to squeeze out a few tears, seemingly distraught over their non-existent friend’s plight.
“N-not to worry. I’m sure we can quickly come to an agreement so that you guys can hurry to your friend’s side.” The man didn’t seem to be able to handle seeing the two girls suddenly weeping in front of him.
Sniffling, the sisters tried their best to suppress their tears. The enchanter grabbed a box of tissues from the table behind him and offered them to the girls. Dabbing at their eyes with a tissue each, they ‘finally managed’ to control their emotions and looked up at the old man with bloodshot eyes.
“Thank you for your concern. We grew up with Marie, and her mother practically raised us. If possible we would have immediately rushed back with her, but she insisted that we stay behind and get the blueprint.” Stella sniffled out, even casually naming their imaginary friend. “It’s looking like Marie’s mother was poisoned, so she’s probably especially scared of people close to her being poisoned.”
Stella was worried that she was giving too much background to ‘Marie’, making their deception more obvious. However neither Peter nor the enchanter seemed to find anything amiss with their story – even asking further questions due to their genuine concern.
“Poisoned? Who would do such a malicious thing?” Peter exclaimed in horror.
“She had just brought up divorce with her husband – on the grounds of cheating – when she suddenly fell ill and collapsed. Marie refuses to admit it, but we believe that her father thought that being a widower was preferable to having been divorced.” Stella’s voice was barely even a whisper by the time she reached the last sentence, as if she was upset to even think of the possibility.
At these words, both sisters started tearing up again and hurriedly grabbed another tissue each. Exchanging awkward glances, Peter and the enchanter hurriedly decided to stop this line of questioning and changed the subject back to the blueprint.
After a while of discussion, it was settled that the girls would exchange a dwarven made spear for the blueprint. However, Stella and Lunam knew that the price was only so low due to their deception. As a result, they directly added several swords, shields, and another spear to their price. All of these were made by the dwarves in Agartha. The two sisters had been gifted them by a friend of their master’s, while they were adventuring in the underground metropolis that spanned the entire country.
Dwarfish craftsmanship was the best in all of Axis, and the materials were able to support several high-level enchantments. This made it very desirable for all adventurers, and this many items could pull in a massive amount of profit for the store.
A smaller store wouldn’t have been able to guarantee the protection of such items before they’d be able to get sold, but The Draconic Armoury was internationally recognised as the best, and had more than sufficient security to do so. As such, they were absolutely not loosing out in this deal – even ending up on the better end.
Handing over a storage ring, Lunam and Stella quickly wrapped up the deal. Fergus (the enchanter) promptly emptied the ring’s contents onto the table, both to look over the items’ quality, and to return the storage ring to the girls. Though the space inside the ring was only a few cubic metres in volume, the cost of such an artefact was still exorbitantly high due to it’s rarity and difficulty to produce.
Once he was certain that all the weapons were in good shape, Fergus swept them into his own storage ring, and immediately handed over the inscription pattern design. He also included a detailed hand-written explanation of all the key points to pay attention to while inscribing the array.
It was immediately evident to the two sisters that these were Fergus’ own notes that he’d made when he was teaching his student to inscribe this pattern. These made the instructions clear and easy to understand.
Expressing their gratitude, they returned to their room in the inn. Stella and Lunam quickly poured over the notes and the blueprint, and carefully memorised every line that was recorded down. Looking over the inscription pattern, Stella rapidly became daunted by the complexity of the design.
The overall shape was a simple skull and crossbones with a line through it, enclosed in the usual curved border. However, that was where the simplicity stopped. When one took a closer look at the picture, the lines were made up of ancient runes that formed the spell that was the base for the enchantment.
“This looks like it’ll take some time for me to study before I can even start trying to engrave it on an actual core. If I want to thoroughly understand the design, it could take me several years.” Stella commented sadly. Then she continued in a determined voice. “But if I just want to learn the pattern, and the shape and placement of each rune, then it should only take me a few days to start practicing on the actual materials. I should be just about done in roughly a week.”
“Ok, I’ll let Hera know our schedule, and ask her to get in touch with our master.” Lunam nodded her head. She had been underestimating the difficulty of enchanting, but now she had a new appreciation for the profession. “I’ll leave now so I don’t distract you from your studies.”
Hearing her sister’s comments, Stella just grunted – she was already deeply absorbed into studying the principles behind the pattern.
* * *
Meanwhile, Nihil and the others were making their way through a grassland where each blade of grass was more than 1.5 metres tall. Linley, the smallest member of their group, was only a head taller. In his green camouflage outfit, he quickly merged into the plants whenever he bent over. Even his onyx wings and tail seemed to blend into the shadows. His cultivation technique mainly focused on stealth, so it was almost an unconscious effort for him to disappear into the background by now. As a result it was normally quite difficult to notice him, let alone when he was seemingly being swallowed up by the surrounding foliage.
Noticing this, Nihil approached the man and muttered something to him inconspicuously. Thereupon, Linley gradually decreased his presence even further before seeming to vanish from the spot altogether.
Noticing the two’s shifty actions, the rest of the group gave them both questioning looks. However, they quickly realised that something was up when they saw Nihil’s concerned expression. Upon comprehending this, they stopped the questions that were forming on their lips and immediately acted as if nothing had happened.
After travelling with Nihil for this long, they had started getting better at reading the boy’s moods. That being said, this was the first time they had seen him worried. He was usually serious, but no matter the situation he always seemed to give the impression that nothing would ever phase him.
Just then a muffled grunt of pain echoed out from behind them. Turning around to look, the group were surprised to see a huddled figure about a kilometre away. She was bending over in pain – apparently Linley had socked the stalker in the stomach while incapacitating her. Another blow to the neck knocked her out and stopped her struggling.
“She should be out for a few hours now.” Linley calmly informed the rest of the group.
“What’s going on?” Merry demanded at this time.
“She’s been following us for quite a while now. I thought it was a coincidence at first so I didn’t mention it. However, a few minutes ago I felt her killing intent directed toward us, so I decided to talk to Nihil about it.” Ignis explained casually.
“Just what kind of crazy senses do you have? Not even us mysterious beasts noticed anything out of the ordinary.” Klaus replied, shocked. It was well known that mysterious beasts had the strongest senses, closely followed by demons – well, except for dragons that is.
At that moment the same thought flitted across everyone’s mind, but was then quickly dismissed by most of them. They had never heard of a dragon that could take human form – they weren’t the same as mysterious beasts, as a dragon’s power was far too much for a human form to contain. Only one person in the group had heard about a special clan of dragons that were rumoured to be able to shape-shift into any form they wished. However, as a cost of this none of their numbers could use magic. This was especially hard on them because they had to eat highly concentrated fire energy (similar to that of the power of magma). Due to this, they rarely left Tartarus and it’s abundance of volcanoes covering the entire country’s surface.
A flash of surprise flitted through Lucas’s eyes as he thought of this possibility. However, he ultimately decided not to voice his suspicions to the group as he felt that it wasn’t his place to say anything. Besides, he wasn’t certain that Ignis was one of these ‘Fire-Eaters’. Some people were born with uniquely strong characteristics and talents, after all.
As if he knew what Lucas was thinking, Ignis revealed a conflicted expression and shared a look with Nihil. The two seemed to have a silent conversation before smiling and shrugging their shoulders, deciding to leave things as they were.
At this point Linley had finished dragging the stalker over, and tying her up so that she couldn’t cause any more problems.
“Let’s wait here until she wakes up. Then we can question her – we’re still not sure why she was following us.” Linley suggested.
“Nor if she was targeting some of us specifically.” Ignis muttered under his breath remorsefully.
At his words everyone subconsciously looked towards the two boys in concern.
“Well there’s no point in speculating at this point.” Claude spoke up to calm the group down again.
Everyone agreed with Claude and Linley’s logic, so they all settled down and each went about doing their own things to pass the time. Nihil pulled out a book written in an ancient language and started to read it, drawing several shocked and impressed glances – not that he noticed any of these.
Meanwhile, the others split into groups to train, or just to chat. Ignis however, just quietly accompanied Nihil as he read. Nihil could immediately tell that his friend was trying to distance himself from the group again, since it was likely that the woman had been tailing the two fugitives on behalf of either the Royal Guard, or for that place.
Sighing, Nihil simply let his friend act as he wished. After all, they were still separate groups that were just travelling together – it wouldn’t do to get too close to them.
Nihil himself wasn’t sure why exactly he felt that way, but some part of his subconscious deeply rejected letting anyone get too close to him. Ignis was the only one who’d somehow managed to slip past that barrier through sheer persistence.
It was dusk before any changes occurred to the stalker’s condition.
* A/N: 10 days = 1 week, 5 weeks = 1 month, 10 months = 1 year
Aerone Grey 