Book 1: Chapter 102: Duke Leston and Parting Gifts
King Heidron laughed and cheered as he walked through his own bedroom using only his hands. He was wearing nothing more than a simple wrapping to cover his royal jewels and he eagerly looked at the elderly man sat on his bed next to his sleeping wife, the queen, his queen, for praise.
Not getting what he so deeply desired, what he only desired, the king lowered his left leg and shoved his big toe in his mouth, a true feat of flexibility if ever there was one.
Clicker clicked his fingers rather happily as he leaned his head back only for a servant to drop a grape in his mouth.
"Not bad, these grapes, not bad. By the way, can't you do some more... oh, I don't know, interesting tricks for me? You're an SS-ranker, for the sake of the Gods. Any old beggar could do what you're doing. I should know. That's my part-time job," he explained cheerfully.
Suddenly, Clicker's brow furrowed before a massive smile appeared on his wrinkled face. "Aha! Finally. I thought it'd be the dragon boy but to think it was the children of the stone... Anyway, useless king, He's escaping. Sound the alarm, would you? That'd be very helpful. Nothing like a bit of panic to help correct things, no?"
He jumped up off of the bed and then clicked his fingers. The next thing that happened was that he just... disappeared. It was as if existence itself had stopped accepting him.
The servant also vanished as if by magic.
King Heidron collapsed, seemingly coming back to his senses and he clearly hadn't expected to be doing a handstand practically in the nude with a foot in his mouth, that was for sure.
The noise of his ungrateful impact with the rugged flooring woke his wife up. The queen looked around in caution before her eyes found her husband. "Y-Your Majesty! What on Altros are you doing?"
"What?" King Heidron was still quite weary and a bit out of it but he knew he had something to do. Something important. "The beast is escaping... We must summon the royal guard!"
"Your Majesty, perhaps you might wish to don yourself in some garbs first?" the queen said to the man as he started rushing towards the bedroom's exit.
"Ah... Of course. Why by the Primals are we so naked?" he asked himself before doing as was suggested and he then left the room to summon the royal guards and lock down the city so that the prisoner could not flee his royal judgement.
Dancing atop the tallest tower of Ranton's crowning jewel, Milindo's royal castle, Clicker clicked his fingers wildly. "It's all coming together, it's all coming together... Being a corrector is so much fun! Hahaha!"
He looked off into the distance and smiled. "I'll be seeing you soon, Lone, Soph, Sophie... The other far less significant two as well... Very soon... Such fun, such fun! Friends to be made, minds to be broken, gifts to give and things to take!"
He spread his arms and twirled around. "The gods will it and I desire it!"
He clicked and clicked like a madman as his smile slowly faded into obscurity. "I wonder why Tapper came to visit... Snapper makes sense, but Tapper? That stupid clump of energy? He should keep adjusting for the twins, sheesh... It's at least a few years too early for him to mess with my pair..."
He shook his head. "Anyhoo! Let's get back to our library, shall we? As much as dancing atop a castle is fun, the charm certainly does start to wane after you've done it a few thousand times..."
"An'... 'at... should... dae... it!" Grimsley yelled with his indoor voice as he brought his pickaxe down onto the final shackle holding Lone in place.
The thing snapped as if it had been rusting for hundreds of years, such was the power of Grimsley's tremendously thick arms.
"Noo ah dinnae 'ave the time tea get 'at 'ere coll'r oof. Ah need fin'r tools fae 'at. Fae noo, let's gae the fook ootta 'ere. If Shana didnae alert anyone earlier with 'er full-voice hollerin' then mah pickaxe sure as fook did," Grimsley said as he took his steamforged glasses off, shoving them in a pocket and he then tossed his axe to Shana.
"I already said sorry for that..." the girl muttered while she nimbly caught the heavy tool.
"Aye, yah did an' ye'll be gettin' a scoldin' when we're ootta this place, but fae noo, both of ya, in the 'ole," Grimsley ordered.
Lone stopped them. "Wait, I can get us out of here faster-"
"Oh, can you now?" an unfamiliar voice said as footsteps echoed down the hallway. Shortly a very familiar face was illuminated under the torchlight.
"Duke Leston..." Lone had memorised all of the dukes from his experience being blasted with all of their auras on top of the king's after the incident with the prince.
This bear of a man was the Duke of House Leston, George Leston, 2nd of his name. "When the king raised the alarm saying you had started to escape I didn't believe my ears but seeing you now... Stone Dwarves, huh? Both low-rankers but the male is very skilled... They'd make good slaves."
"You can fuckin' try," Lone snarled. "Mental Destruction."
"What the... Wha-What have you done, Beast?!" Duke Leston roared deafeningly as he clasped his head with both hands and fell to his knees. "What infernal skill is that?! I- My... Everything burns!"
Lone hardened his expression as his mind sputtered into action. 'I can't waste any more on him. I'm just an E-ranker so I've only got 4 more Mental Destructions in me until it goes on cooldown again. At least I've confirmed it's somewhat effective against people more than 4 ranks stronger than me.'
"Summon Sophie Vladimirovich," Lone chanted.
Fully clad in armour and with one hand holding a shortsword - the other sword being affixed to her hip - she grabbed Lone by the wrist, smothering her gauntlet in sticky and hardened blood.
'Good. She's been watching and is prepped. I was so worried she'd be asleep or... or that she'd be Soph,' Lone thought as he put one hand on Grimsley's shoulder and the other on Shana's.
The dwarven uncle and niece were confused but soon that confusion was replaced by disorientation. Even Lone was disoriented.
"Where is this?" Lone looked around in concern at the lavish room they had been teleported into.
"Huh?" the voice of a young man mumbled in a sleepy voice.
Sophie let go of Lone and rushed up to the fancy bed that lay in the centre of the room. She quickly and swiftly jumped up onto it, straddling its occupant.
"What?!" Panic flashed across the face of Crown Prince Auberon. "Y-You! You're that foreign noble!"
Saying nothing, Sophie ran her blade across the prince's neck cutting it wide open. Blood rushed out like a geyser. "Your father's time will come soon, but for now, your death will have to do."
Life left the young man's body entirely. Sophie now sat atop nothing but a warm corpse. She quickly got off of the bed and ripped open a drawer only to pull out the mana orb that the prince had won from Sir Deposit's auction.
"Now we leave," Sophie declared as she shoved the dark blue ball to Lone who, while still a bit bewildered, stored it in his Dimensional Storage.
Sophie nodded and grabbed Lone again who, in turn, took hold of Grimsley and Shana once more. She then teleported a total of two times before stopping. Their group of 4 were now in The Adventurer's Guild in their old bedroom.
Sophie stared at Grimsley and Shana. "Thank you for trying to rescue him but you will only get in the way now."
"What? But the duke saw our faces! We're dead if we stay here!" Shana protested. "You can, what, move really fast or something, right? B-Bring us to the nearby dwarven stronghold! It's only a few hundred miles away. Y-You can do that, right?"
The reality of heisting the kingdom's highest priority prisoner and being caught in the act was finally starting to dawn on the young dwarven former-slave.
Sophie shook her head firmed. "No. Do you think we are simply made of MP? Even with us teleporting ourself and Lone we will be lucky to make it more than 2-miles before draining the well of all of its content! We are no mage. We are a warrior! We do not wish to suffer the side-effect of overusing our mana when we may need to fight for our life."
Sophie knew her words sounded cruel as if she were abandoning her lover's would-be savers to the wolves and she recognised that. she sighed and added, "The guild will protect you. You need only wait for Lone's intended escorts to arrive. Never leave this building. Lone and us, however, cannot do the same. We must flee immediately."
Lone tugged on Sophie's arm. "Don't forget Breena, the foxkin girl. I promised I'd return her to her clan."
"All the more reason we cannot bring two additional people with us," Sophie said with a nod.
Grimsley stroked his beard in awe. "Soph's sure got ah backbone when the shite gets thick an' sticky, eh? Even talks like ah proper stand-up royal."
He chuckled a bit then spoke to Shana. "It'll be fine. Soph's right. We cannae be actin' like ah bunch ah fookin' ball'n'chains weighin' down their ankles, noo can we?"
"But Uncle Grim! I-I don't want to d-di-"
"We willnae die, ya daft lassie. Gilbert's a good bloke, fookin' ol' goat 'at 'e is. Anyway, we're wastin' time away talkin' 'ere. You two should really fook oof right aboot noo. Willnae take 'at arselick'r Malik long tae find us. Ah 'eard the cunt's really got it in fae ya, Lone after what ya did tae 'is mouth in the tourney. Wouldnae be wise tae hang aboot in Ranton fae ah minute long'r," Grimsley claimed.
The door to the bedroom creaked open and Gilbert walked in as he said, "Indeed, but first, I need to give you something, Son."
Breena entered behind him with quiet and purposefully-softened footsteps. She didn't want to draw any attention to herself, clearly.
Gilbert glanced down at the fully-armoured Sophie and he smiled warmly, barely managing to mask the deep rage and sadness hidden behind his eyes. "It's great to see you again, Sophie. I'm glad Lone was able to keep you safe... Is... Is the child also safe?"
Sophie nodded. "Safer than us, at least."
Gilbert inclined his head lightly in relief. "Good. That's... good. Lone, here, for you." He reached into his pocket and brought out a deep green orb the size of a tennis ball. He grabbed one of Lone's bloody hands and placed the ball in it.
Lone looked hesitant. "I've had a pretty bad experience with mysterious balls recently, Gilbert. Dunno if I want this or not."
"Haha, it's a high-tier communication orb. I carry its twin on me. It will allow you to contact me from across all of Teresta, though I wouldn't count on it if you, for whatever reason, end up heading away from the continent," Gilbert explained. "It can be used a total of 100 times from either side before it will shatter. Receiving contact through it will count as a fifth of a use, so if you never start a call and only answer them, then you could in theory use it 500 times. Of course, that would require more sister orbs."
Grimsley's eyes almost popped out of his skull. "'At things worth mer gold than ah've ever seen in ma whole life an' ah've been in the fookin' treasury of Krieg Methlonarenth!"
"Gilbert..." Lone didn't know what to say.
The dragonkin shook his head dismissively. "It's a trinket from my family. I've had this pair of orbs for decades. What are they really worth if they never get used? Anyway, the gifts don't stop there."
Gilbert reached into his robe once more and quickly tossed an object at Sophie who promptly caught it. "You're more rational than he is. If everything seems lost, shatter that and demand a perfect escape. Be very careful with your wording. That is the product of a djinn, a very dangerous and powerful species of demigods."
Sophie looked down at the clear sphere that contained grey fog within it. She looked to Lone for guidance.
"So it's true, demigods exist?" Lone asked, failing to hide the excitement in his voice as his inner mythology-lover was screaming in joy regardless of the rather grim situation.
From the looks on their faces, both Shana and Grimsley seemed unaware while Breena seemed to be feigning disinterest.
Lone had heard whispers of such beings in the books he'd read, and the studies he'd performed ever since having access to Ranton's library indicated that perhaps there was a set of beings close in power to the Primals but they were so rare no one knew if they were real or not.
No one in Milindo, anyway, so Lone had dismissed these topics for more factual ones when he was reading up on Teresta and Milindo's history.
"Not all of them but yes, some legends are, in fact, tru- Run. Now. Malik is here," Gilbert warned before he turned to the roof and chanted, "Gravity Enclosure!"
The next moment the entire room was destroyed by a massive bolt of green lightning.
Grimsley, clearly seeing that he maybe had a second or two before Lone and Sophie would vanish, quickly reached into his pocket and handed something to Lone. "'Ere. Tae remember me by. Good luck oot there, laddie."
Sophie didn't hesitate and grabbed Lone the very next second. She dragged him away from Grimsley and approached Breena. She then grabbed her too. Within a second all 3 of them had vanished.
"How dare you attack the guild, Henry Malik! Milindo will burn for this! No one breaks a treaty with the guild!" Gilbert roared. "Grimsley, Shana, do not leave my side. You will die the instant you do."
Shana was shaking like a leaf while Grimsley swallowed perhaps the largest gulp of saliva he'd ever swallowed as he looked upon the visage of the mouthless duke, Henry Malik who was floating up in the sky with lightning arching around him like a storm.
"Well... Ah'll tell ya what, ah could sure go fae some ale right noo. Somethin' tells me ah'm nae gonna enjoy this evenin' very much," the dwarf grumbled nervously.
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