Chapter 59 A Bad Feeling

  Heitor was fast asleep on one of the sofas in the closest meeting room to his office. If there was one thing that the Vespera guild branch had it was new furniture. The entire building had been destroyed only a few decades prior which made it the newest guild building in the region. A heavy footfall stirred him awake. He listened carefully as the heavy boots of someone in metal armor strode down the hallway to his office. “Guild Master?” A smooth and deep woman’s voice resonated through the otherwise entirely silent hallway. Her fist pounded on his door twice before he heard her try to open the door. It was obviously locked so she couldn’t get in.

  Heitor groaned and pushed himself up and onto his feet. “I can’t even take a nap in peace.” He grumbled to himself before he opened the door to see who was looking for him. He had barely opened the door to leave his impromptu bedroom when the armored woman arrived at the doorway. She was wearing a set of armor that seemed to almost vibrate with power to his mana senses. The woman herself obviously had mana at her beck and call but was clearly not a high level mage like Heitor.

  “Guild Master.” She spoke with absolute certainty as her greeting. “Isaac is my husband. I have information that you need to hear. He is breaking into your lord’s estate at the moment.”

  Heitor’s mind hadn’t even gotten the chance to completely clear away the fog of sleep when the woman in front of him had hit him with nearly unbelievable news. Heitor put up a hand to stop her and yawned. “I’m sorry, let’s move to my office and we can start from the beginning.” He told her. “You said you are Isaac’s wife?”

  “Yes, Heitor. I am Lenna and we have much to discuss.” Lenna introduced herself.

  “V’Nova, right?” Heitor asked as he walked past her towards his office while he withdrew a key from his combat robe’s pocket. “I looked into you both as soon as your husband left.” He said and unlocked the door.

  “Yes. Good.” Lenna replied to both of his thoughts. “That saves some time. Isaac and I have been investigating two separate issues and they have just converged. Unfortunately, one of the people that they converged around returned to the Thronsen Estate for the night.”

  Heitor had barely shut the door behind them when Lenna had hit him with the news that Vespera’s lady, or at least someone related to the Thronsen family, was at the center of the city’s problems. “Okay, start from the very beginning while I get some coffee.” He told her and strode over to a desk that was up against the wall with a coffee grinder mounted directly into the wall above it. It was clear that the Guild Masters of Vespera had never had early nights or late mornings.

  “The CSC was actually something we just stumbled across while we tried to get rid of a slave racket.” Lenna explained. “That was a quest that we had given ourselves once it was clear that things were more complicated than they seemed at first glance.”

  Heitor nodded along. “I take it the other lead that you were following was from a quest that was given to you by someone else?”

  “Yes.” Lenna replied. “The Court Mage of Safeharbor informed us of a peculiar event. Apparently, magical items have been circulating that do not require any magical ability or attunement to use. Ones capable of casting mid and even high level spells either entirely by themselves or with only a verbal command. Any and all magic items matching that description were to be bought up and handed over to a Court Mage. Apparently, the crown wishes to apprehend the creator of those items as well but they were keeping it quiet last we heard.”

  “I take it that the CSC and this unknown creator are connected?” Heitor questioned.

  “Yes. According to a young noble boy that is staying in the city, the CSC sold him an item matching the description that we were given, as well as some illegal substances.” She explained. “To make it even worse, the woman that Isaac is investigating, the one that is in the marquess’s estate, also had one of those items and came from the illegal side of the CSC.”

  “The CSC that is supposedly run by a green dragon just off of our nation’s coast.” Heitor added as the smell of fresh coffee started overpowering any and all other scents in the room.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Yes.” Lenna affirmed.

  Heitor took a deep focusing breath of freshly brewed coffee. “What do you need me to do?”

  Lenna smirked as both Isaac’s and her own assessments of the Guild Master proved accurate. Some men reached positions of power because they couldn’t just sit by. Adversity forged strong combatants. Strong combatants that became righteous leaders. “Get in touch with the vigilante group. Tell them that none of the ships in port are allowed to leave tomorrow. Get your best and most trustworthy men and ensure that no caravans leave either. We need the city on total lockdown while we work. If even one of these rodents escapes, well, the fewer cities that get turned upside down the better.”

  Heitor nodded resolutely. “I’ll do my best. I cannot promise anything though.”

  “Why not?” Lenna wondered. “I thought a double platinum level storm sorcerer would be able to bring any city to its knees.”

  Heitor’s eyes widened. He nodded slowly to her. “If you are fine with working in the snow, then I think I can figure something out.” It wasn’t even cold enough to freeze a puddle but apparently that didn’t matter to a man known as the Thundering Blizzard.

  —

  “Well shit.” Isaac said to himself. He was entirely cloaked in shadows and was currently staring at the marquess and marchioness having a late night drink. There were just a few issues. The first was that the marquess had an amulet around his neck that wasn’t resonating with him at all. The necklace looked like it was set up to cast some kind of low level spell that reminded Isaac of a cloud. Isaac wasn’t very well versed in the individual runes that were strung together to make enchantments, but he recognized one about summoning water and another pertaining to large areas of effect. The low level of the spell led him to think that it was something mostly harmless. The second issue was that the person that Isaac had been following was the marquess’s sister. She was laughing and joking with the lord and lady as equals and her features were almost a perfect match to the marquess. Isaac left them and proceeded to do a quick search of all of the important places for illegal loot.

  In the end, Isaac ended up with a ring that summoned a Reality Shield in front of it and a blanket that changed temperature. Isaac wasn’t entirely sure about the blanket, but from what he could tell, it was too low of a level to be anything offensive or defensive but it was clearly heat and cold related. Once he had finished looting items that shouldn’t have been there, he stopped in front of the vault. He had already checked to make sure that there weren’t any other banned magic items inside but there was one thing inside that had caught his attention. Sitting on a pedestal inside, Isaac had seen an elven recurve bow that had even been labeled.

  The bow was enchanted with a magic amplifier that enhanced the arrows as they were fired. The downside was that the arrows would need to either have a spell already cast on them or have some other magic active on them before they were fired. Lenna had said that she wanted a recurve bow and it was by far the best one that he had seen. It even had a variable resistance enhancement. The person that the bow attuned to would always have a bow that fit their current strength as its draw weight increased or decreased based on the wielder. The bow and string were also enhanced with self repair and durability enhancements. In all, it was a bow worthy of any archer and it would most likely outlive any archer that wielded it.

  Isaac sighed and kicked the ground as if there was a rock there. “Damn it.” He swore under his breath. “If that didn’t belong to the kingdom, I would have taken it already.” He turned to leave. “Why do they always hoard all of the good stuff?” He grumbled as he made his exit. Stealing it and getting caught using it later would end up being more harmful than the bow was worth. Maybe he could find a way to legally obtain it later, but for now, the bow was stuck gathering dust.

  —

  “Is Isaac back yet?” Lenna questioned her mate’s skeleton retainer.

  “Yes.” Isaac replied as he appeared next to her.

  “I filled in Heitor, what’d you learn and what’s the plan?” She asked him.

  Isaac filled her in on everything that he had learned and Lenna had filled Isaac in on Heitor’s plans to help them. “We have two directions that we could go at this point.” He explained. “We can either try and wrangle the Guard Captain, Court Mage, and Magistrate in hopes that they are on our side, and able to help, or we can start the party and see who shows up.”

  “What if those that should be allies end up mistaking us for enemies?” Lenna wondered.

  “Can the magistrate even be an enemy?” Isaac questioned. “If he was against us then that would mean that he thought that he was doing what was best for the king and kingdom, right?”

  “Yes.” Lenna affirmed. “Otherwise he would be an Oathbreaker.”

  “Let’s inform the Magistrate and then start the party. If he can take his most loyal men and apprehend the marquess, his sister, and the marchioness, then that will be one less thing that we have to worry about.” Isaac started to form their plan of attack. “I wouldn’t trust the Court Mage or Guard Captain because they aren’t under a divinely backed oath to do what they think is right for the kingdom.”

  “Agreed.” Lenna told him.

  “It’ll take me and Shamesh a while to open up the second underground level in the CSC building. We’ll head over there now and start working while you explain everything to the Magistrate.” Isaac offered her as a solid plan to start. “Once you are done, get ready just outside the CSC building. If there is anything down there that gives me the chills, or if I have a bad feeling about it, I’ll come back for you and the three of us can handle it together.”

  Lenna nodded in agreement. She hated being sent to run errands while Isaac was sneaking into potentially lethal places. She was glad that Shamesh was going with Isaac this time which helped to settle her nerves but it still made her worry. Unfortunately, breaking into places and disabling wards was not her forte. She knew that splitting up would help them get the most done in the shortest amount of time and she had faith in both Isaac and Shamesh. She also knew that if she accompanied them that she would end up dragging them down. Those were the only reasons she even agreed to the plan. Only time would tell if Isaac’s plan was a good one or one that would have the worst outcome that Lenna could possibly imagine.