The work began to pile in after that Tomb of Maloran job. With that victory, and the beautiful posters Oogura made for marketing, we had eventually become well known throughout the capitol. With our success, it didn't seem inconceivable that knights would begin to take notice of us. But I was still surprised when a templar entered my compound for the first time.
...
This man, who I only knew as Venaticus, had been looking to hire us to investigate a secret coven of warlocks operating right there in Resta City.
...
It wasn't the same as Shaville, thankfully. This was a coven who seemed to specialize in chimeras. Which is to say they were taking animals and using dark magic to fuse them to other creatures. Warlocks did this to create exotic beasts to sell as pets and guard animals. It was a twisted business for sure, but nothing on the level of human corruption and slavery.
...
It would have been nice to pound some warlocks senseless, but we didn't take the job.
...
I didn't like the man. He was cagey and bigoted to my immigrant friends. He gave us all the details one would need to find and take down this chimera farm, but we had some very obvious questions. Why the need for subtlety when he could have just waltzed in there and purged the place like what happened to Shaville? Why hire us instead of handling it themselves or actually working with the spellwarriors for a change? He wasn't exactly open to answering these questions, though, which made the whole thing feel like a setup. He seemed to take our implicit trust for granted by virtue of him being a templar, and we weren't afraid to call him on his arrogance. We rowed for a bit and, when I made it clear to him that we wouldn't accept the job without more information, he decided to take his business elsewhere. He left us with assurances that we would have screwed it up anyway.
...
I mention this because that wasn't the end of it. The next day, as I was putting the finishing touches on a jeweled ring, Venaticus returned and barged his way past our front office and into my workshop. He claimed to have been ordered to bring me in for questioning. He claimed to have a warrant signed by Matilda Maloran, which explained how he was able to get past Takaa. I was skeptical and, after the day before, nearly certain this whole thing was bullshit, so I gave him some push back. Told him that he was going to need to bring some of the local authorities to take me in. This demand didn't seem to bother him, so I decided to humor him by letting Oogura examine the warrant. When she told me that it was genuine, I informed them that they wouldn't be taking me unarmed regardless.
...
Perhaps I could have handled things better, but I was already on edge because this man had never given me any reason to trust him. The guild and I had plenty of time to reinforce the idea that his job had been an obvious trap. Assuming he could have forged this warrant to have another go at us, I threatened to cut down anyone who tried to touch me. He did warn me that wouldn't be wise, but I've never claimed to be known for my wisdom.
...
He took me outside, where we met a contingent of Royal Army soldiers who escorted us to an office outside the Chaotic Temple in the Downtown District. I was ushered inside and taken to an interrogation room with the templar.
...
[Chuckle]
No, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. When we sat down, we finally cut through the bullshit and got to the meat of why I was there. As it turned out, the son of a bitch accused me of being connected to these animal-maiming dipshits!
...
It may seem crazy after what you heard, but my experiences in Shaville would have been news to him. As it was, there was no reason I couldn't tolerate working with warlocks. He had a few things on me which raised his suspicions. The first was Bene, who wasn't around when he told us about the job. Despite my sincere desire to watch over him, he had been unaccounted for since well before the templar darkened my doorstep. He said that some of the charms and hexes being dealt by Bene were steeped in dark magic.
...
He was actually innocent. Venaticus proved that when he showed up with that job of his, then told me a day later that he was testing me. He figured that I would jump to any job no matter how it looked if I had nothing to hide and the fact that we refused him did not look good to him at all. Fortunately for the old con, the warlocks went into hiding shortly after the templar met with us. He told me that we were the only people he told about the chimera farm, which seemed like compelling evidence for someone in my guild being a traitor. This cleared Bene in my eyes because, like I said, he wasn't around when Venaticus showed up or at any point since then.
...
Bene didn't come back until after I finally agreed to cooperate with that insufferable templar. I knew Bene hadn't been the one to tip off the warlocks, but I had to talk to him if I wanted to get to the bottom of this business with his wares being associated with evil.
...
He denied having anything to do with the warlocks, of course. That sort of thing is a capital crime for anyone, even to those who don't have a pulse. That is when he revealed the source of some of his latest wares: Eione.
Next Chapter
Next Chapter
No comments:
Post a Comment