Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 3

Konrad Martin stomped his boots over the damp cobblestones, shaking loose the winter mud. It didn’t work, of course, and he ended up scraping what he could off on the steps of the Oestestadt Adventurer Guild. The single magical light above the guildhall’s entrance seemed to condemn him with its cold glare over the mess he tracked on the stone.

He pushed open the door with a leather-clad hand. Warm air billowed over him. At this late hour, the Guild was packed full of those returned from commissions or simply gathering as they usually did at night. Some raised their heads to see who had opened the door while the rest remained relaxed around their tables. A few were waiting for collection results to be tallied from the craft guilds around the city. Others were trading information. Most were exchanging banter. The tavern below the Guild brought orders of food and refreshments up to them, filling the air with an appetising aroma.

Scanning over the occupants, it didn’t take long for Konrad to spot two of the faces he was looking for. He flipped off his cowl and the floorboards creaked despite his best efforts to prevent it as made his way over. A wiry, middle-aged woman with sunken cheeks greeted him as he seated himself on a long bench at a pine table.

“Short trip,” the woman – a veteran ranger named Natalie – said. “Which one’d ya take?”

“Southwestern corner,” Konrad replied. “Figured I’d pick the fastest one and grab whatever was left once I got back.”

“Whatever’s left, eh…” she looked past his shoulder, “Did the Imps say anything to ya?”

“No…why?”

Natalie kept looking past him. Konrad turned to see what it was. About ten metres behind him was the board for commissions. His eyes narrowed at what he saw.

“When else would it come in?” A rumbling voice rolled out from the other Adventurer at the table, “You’ve only been out for three days.”

Work for the Adventurer Guilds of the Baharuth Empire had a certain regularity to them due to the orderly routines of the Imperial Administration. Every morning, an Imperial Knight would come to deliver a folder containing the new commissions for the day. Though private requests were posted from time to time, government work was the vast majority. Those commissions – consisting of tasks that the Imperial Administration thought better handled by Adventurers – were usually taken by noon. The board behind him now, however, was covered in dozens of requests.

“That’s why we asked,” Natalie said. “We thought the first batch was just the Imps checking for something their scouts couldn’t sniff out. With this many…something’s happening, Mart. What did you see out there?”

“They’re all for The Blister?”

Natalie and the man – Baern – nodded.

Konrad frowned. That wasn’t good. Around him, he sensed other Adventurers leaning in to listen to their conversation.

“I didn’t see anything out of sorts,” Konrad leaned forward on his elbow. “Nothing’s different. Same Beasts, same Demis, same Monsters. They aren’t behaving any differently…has the army been moving funny since I left?”

“Nope,” Baern said. “The Imps don’t hire Adventurers if ‘nothing’ is going on, though.”

A fugitive? Tribe getting pushed out from the inside?

Konrad idly flexed his fingers, watching the muscles of his forearm move as his mind worked to come up with an explanation.

“It’s all Ranger work?” He asked.

“Uh-huh,” Baern smirked. “Nothing else has come up. My team’s hoppin’ mad about it.”

All three of them were Rangers for their respective groups. Baern and Natalie were from Platinum-ranked teams, while Konrad was Mithril. ‘Ranger Work’ was solo work – usually tracking and scouting best done without a slow and noisy team in tow. Naturally, their teams got nothing out of it.

It was an annoying aspect of working in the Empire: since the majority of work was issued by local government, they could ‘coordinate’ Adventurers by controlling what work was available at any given time. Their influence was such that they could even make the Guild stash away commissions for the same purpose. Contracts with the craft guilds were much the same: if the Empire wanted something done, they threw their weight around to do it.

“So they’re casting a net…” Konrad mused, “for what?”

“No one knows,” Natalie said. “After the second batch came in, people held back on taking ‘em. This is too obvious and too strange.”

A fourth joined them. By the smell of his cologne, it was Konrad’s party leader: a Bard that went by the name of Wyndere. Konrad didn’t like him much, but he more than pulled his weight. Most of the work in putting leads together and coming up with information useful for the jobs that they took was the result of his efforts. He also wasn’t entirely useless in a fight.

“The Guild finally caved in and paid a few of our casters to contact the other cities around The Blister,” he said. “It’s the same everywhere. They’re sending Adventurers to scout around The Blister. Some of the parts deeper in, too.”

“In?” Konrad frowned, “As in…in, in?”

“Not that far in,” Wyndere replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “There aren’t any jobs for the interior, but they’re ordering scouts up into the mountains. The strange part is that the Second Legion’s deployments haven’t changed much outside of the cities, but we found out that their quartermasters have been quietly stocking up for the last two months. Not just shuffling around supplies from the disbanded Legions, either: the craft guilds are being skimmed for all sorts of things.”

So it was something that they knew was going to happen far in advance. The reorganisation of the Imperial Army made covering the movement of everything from soldiers to supplies a simple matter. They could even take down and put up new installations and it wouldn’t seem out of sorts. Konrad suspected that there was more going on than anyone had caught onto, but the question remained as to why they were doing it.

“Anything else?”

“No one’s said anything in Oestestadt, but a few people in the other cities pointed out that the frequency of air patrols has slowly gone up.”

This new information narrowed down the possibilities considerably. In Konrad’s mind, it could only mean one thing.

“One of the old bitch’s babies got pushed out of the nest.”

“Probably.”

“Price of poison resistance gear and antidotes are gonna go up.”

“Already did,” Wyndere said. “The Imperial Army was probably keeping prices stable by stocking up over months. Didn’t stop there, either. Magical arrows; bolts; enchanted ammunition for scorpions and the like – everything they need to take down an Adult Dragon. Seems more and more people have been figuring it out and prices for all that stuff went through the roof while you were away.”

“Gods damn it all…”

Deep within the steaming jungles of The Blister was the lair of an Ancient Green Dragon. This Dragon happened to be female and, while no one could figure out who her consort was, she occasionally laid eggs as proof of their activities. She had been doing so long before the Empire was the Empire.

Fortunately for the Empire, a Green Dragon’s idea of parenting only went about as far as allowing Wyrmlings to stick around their parents’ territory until they neared adulthood. Unfortunately for the Empire, that meant they had to deal with near-Adult Green Dragons being kicked out of The Blister every once in a while.

One might question the prudence of doing something like killing young Dragons around their mother’s lair, but a Green Dragon being a Green Dragon, she didn’t really care. Those who had what it took to succeed, did. Those who didn’t weren’t worth another moment’s thought.

In a way, she was more callously meritocratic than even the most bright-eyed graduate coming out of the Imperial Magic Academy. Some even joked that she was the true source of the Empire’s meritocratic policies, as Green Dragons just loved to meddle in the affairs of mortals.

That being said, the Baharuth Empire had a strange sort of relationship with the ‘Baroness’ of the Blister. She was mostly content to glean a small percentage of the region’s productivity as tribute. For an individual, it was a ludicrous amount. For the prosperous cities around The Blister, however, it was a paltry sum. They couldn’t be sure whether the Dragon was aware of this or not, and they certainly weren’t stupid enough to ask. In return, the region received the protection of an Ancient Green Dragon against threats that only beings of such power could face.

There was also the idea that she considered the area around The Blister her domain, but Dragons didn’t seem to think much of the kingdoms and empires of weak races appearing in their territory so issues of that nature never arose.

The only real problem was the one they likely faced now: a Dragon was on the loose somewhere around The Blister. Having a Juvenile or Adult Green Dragon ransacking towns and villages in the countryside was the least of the Empire’s problems: if it slipped through their net, it could establish a lair in another part of the Empire. There, it would remain undetected until it became too powerful of a threat to deal with.

A gust of cold air whispered over the floorboards as the door opened again. The boisterous atmosphere of the Adventurer Guild abruptly stilled.

“Holy hell…” Baern breathed.

Konrad frowned at the rare expression from the veteran Ranger. His frown deepened when he realised everyone in his field of view was staring in the same direction. Once again, he looked over his shoulder.

Holy hell, indeed…

At least he kept his jaw from dropping open. Aside from that, he was spellbound.

The entrance to the Adventurer Guild quietly closed behind what could only be described as a figure from an impossible dream. Adorned in an outfit reminiscent of the moonlit peaks of the Azerlisia Mountains nestled in a backdrop of stars, a woman made her way past tables of awestruck Adventurers. Frost-blue hair framed a perfect face bejewelled with turquoise eyes. Full lips turned up in a bewitchingly slight smile.

Konrad’s gaze traced over her more-than-modest curves, and it was when his attention was drawn down her long legs that he realised something was amiss.

I can’t hear her steps…

She was walking over the well-worn wooden boards, yet he – a Mithril-ranked Ranger – could not hear a thing. His eyes travelled back up her figure as he instinctively attempted to gauge her strength…but there was nothing. This either meant that she was too weak to recognise or she was concealing her strength somehow. The fact that she could defeat his keen Ranger’s senses probably meant the latter.

His bench shifted as Wyndere rose to his feet and approached her. Konrad wanted to groan in pre-emptive embarrassment. Bards could be very perceptive as well, but, knowing Wyndere, his caution had gone out the window at the sight of the entrancing new arrival.

“Welcome, madam,” the Bard performed a graceful bow with an eloquent gesture. “Welcome to our humble Adventurer Guild. Might I ask what fortuitous event has graced us with your…”

Wyndere’s words trailed off, and he visibly paled.

Ah, he finally noticed.

The Bard’s gaze rested on the woman’s bosom, but it was probably not her beauty that now commanded his attention.

“…my?” The woman prompted in a pleasing voice.

“I-it’s nothing,” beads of sweat formed on Wyndere’s brow. “Pardon me.”

He returned to his seat. Natalie let out a snort.

“Good job, Wyndere,” she said, “you were staring so hard at her tits that you didn’t notice what was sitting on top of ‘em.”

“What’s an Adamantite team doing here?” Wyndere whispered, “Where is she even from? I’ve never even heard of an Adamantite-rank Adventurer that matches her description!”

Neither had Konrad. If it was one thing all Adventurers kept track of, it was who the Adamantite-ranked teams were in the region.

“Blue Rose is full of blondes,” Baern muttered. “The ‘Beautiful Princess’ is supposed to have black hair. The rest are all-male teams or teams of nonhumans from Argland or Karnassus…I got nothing.”

“She isn’t from anywhere near here, then,” Konrad said. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

Everyone looked at him.

“Why not?” Natalie asked.

“I mean, look what’s happening, yeah?” Konrad gestured back towards the board, “The Empire’s casting a net. Now an Adamantite Adventurer is here. If this Green’s a Juvie that’s about to get kicked out because they’ve become an Adult or they’re getting close, we’ll need a good Orichalcum or Adamantite team to deal with it. That’s why we suddenly have all these commissions: we’re already set up to strike as soon as we find this thing.”

The Imperial Administration and the Legions were nothing if not well-organised. Everything had been planned well in advance.

“Alright, I follow,” Baern said slowly, “but what about that doesn’t make sense?”

Having new Adventurers of higher ranks appear in the Baharuth Empire was not considered rare. This was actually the normal way of things as the Imperial Army made work below Platinum non-existent. Adventurers either made their way up inside the Empire’s borders through some other avenue, or they migrated in from other countries to partake of the lucrative commissions issued by the Imperial Administration.

“‘Cause none of us’ve ever heard of her before,” Konrad said. “Why would they bring in an Adamantite from gods-knows-where when there are a half dozen teams in the countries around us? Freivaltz’s team left for Karnassus, but we still got Eight Ripples in the east. The Empire’s in bed with the Sorcerous Kingdom now, too, so they could’ve pulled in Darkness.”

The Adventurers around the table nodded at his reasoning.

“Maybe they drew her team in to replace Freivaltz’s band,” Wyndere offered. “That’s the only thing I can think of. One thing, though – are these new arrivals strong enough to replace Silver Thread Bird?”

“I can’t even figure out what she is,” Natalie said. “That outfit isn’t any armour I’ve seen before. No weapons, either.”

“A Monk, then,” Baern reasoned.

“If you can find a Monk that flashy, sure.”

“Whatever she is,” Konrad said, “she’s sneaky as hell.”

“How so?” Wyndere asked.

The entire table rolled their eyes at him.

“We couldn’t hear her,” Konrad explained. “She walked by on this noisy-ass floor barely a metre away and I couldn’t hear a damn thing.”

“You couldn’t?” Wyndere’s mouth hung open in confusion, “But that means…”

Wyndere swallowed as realisation struck him mute. He looked back at the woman – who was still examining the postings on the board – with unabashed awe. The woman wasn’t part of an Adamantite team: she was powerful enough to match an entire Adamantite team.

Before them was one of humanity’s greatest champions. A singular individual who had stepped beyond the threshold of their meagre comprehension and into the realm of myth and legend.

A Hero stood before them.

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