Advent of Eternity - Chapter 85 (Patreon)

The rest of dinner passed quickly, and everyone retired to their rooms. Cyll sauntered off first, slipping through his door and only pausing to stick his hand out the door behind him, hooking his pinky in a rude motion before pulling it shut.

Stix shook her head as she unlocked the door beside it and walked inside her room alongside Maya. The door swung shut behind them and Stix pursed her lips. The room was decent, with a nice writing desk below a wide window overlooking the city streets. It wasn’t even too dirty.

The issue was with their sleeping arrangements – there was only a single bed, and it wasn’t particularly large.

“I don’t think they’ll give us an extra bed,” Stix muttered. “Damn.”

“It’s fine. You can have it,” Maya said. “I’ve slept on the floor before.”

“As have I,” Stix replied. “Usually whenever Knell is in the room.”

Maya cocked an eyebrow. “Not much of a gentleman, is he? He didn’t give you the bed?”

Stix laughed. “Nope. Didn’t even give me a chance to get it. It was the first day I met him too, you know. He walked into my room and stole my bed.”

“Seriously?” Maya asked, joining in the laughter. “No way. Who would let that happen?”

“Me,” Stix said, shaking her head. “I really needed his help, and he was pretty persuasive. It’s kind of hard to say no to him.”

“I’ve noticed,” Maya said. They fell silent for a few moments, studying their inadequate sleeping quarters.

“One of us could take the bedding and the other could just sleep on the plain mattress,” Maya suggested.

“Works for me,” Stix said heading over to the bed and pulling the sheets off it. There weren’t a lot, but there were still three layers of cloth, and one of them was slightly padded. Maya gathered them on the ground and sat down, propping some extra around her head to make a pillow.

She laid down, staring up at the ceiling. She chewed her lower lip, then let out a sigh. “I never thought it would be like this.”

“Like what?” Stix asked. “There’s more than one thing going on right now that I really never expected.”

“I had a crew. A damn good one. There was Ziggy, my first mate. Palmer, my cannoneer. Davis, my navigator. Zeke, the cook. He was Ziggy’s little brother. We were a damn good crew. They didn’t deserve this.” Mayas hands clenched and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I miss them so much If I’d just been a better captain. If I’d thought things through a little more, I would have realized that Sorfina was just playing us.”

Stix shifted uncomfortably, searching for words. “It isn’t your fault. Your crew weren’t your slaves. They thought you were doing the right thing too, didn’t they?”

“They went with it because I was the captain,” Maya said bitterly. “You know what the last thing I told them was? Orders to keep the damn deck clean for when I got back. They probably died thinking I was an entitled piece of shit that sent them all to their deaths.”

“If they thought that, they wouldn’t have followed your orders,” Stix said. “If anyone, they just blame Sorfina for tricking all of you. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that, and she’s already dead. They can rest in peace.”

It was several seconds before Maya responded.

“I guess. But can I? I mean, what now? We didn’t have any family aside from each other. There’s nobody for me to go find and apologize to. And I’ve already complained about not being able to take my own revenge on her. Even if I do somehow restore my arm or get strong in my current state, what’s the point?”

“Live for something else,” Stix said, rolling over to look at Maya. “I never wanted to go around adventuring. I wanted to be a Hunter – a guardian for my village. Everything was set up for it. My entire family before me had been Hunters, and I got every single bit of training I could have. Out of all the other elves, I was the most likely to succeed.”

“How’d you end up here, then?”

“I failed,” Stix said with a short bark of laughter. “I thought I was a whiskey shot with the bow, so there was no need to train. I didn’t miss, so what was the point? Everyone else trained, but I was so sure I was better than them.”

“Missing a target makes you fail the exam? That’s pretty harsh.”

“I didn’t miss,” Stix said. “The problem was that I hit the target. The exam was to hunt the mock monsters in the forest, so I was shooting first and asking questions later. I thought the only thing there was the monsters, so when I saw motion, I shot. But it wasn’t a monster, it was a kid that I was supposed to save.”

Maya drew in a sharp breath of sympathy. “Did you–”

“No. I didn’t kill him, thank the gods,” Stix said. “But that was an instant fail. A Hunter is a protector. They keep the village safe. I failed instantly, and there aren’t any second chances.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Stix replied. “I don’t think I would have made a very good Hunter. Every time I try to self-reflect, I realize that I’m too impulsive. Then I go and think I’ve fixed it and – boom, I’m impulsive again. I’m not a protector. When my brother went missing, it gave me something to do with my life. My elders gave me a Path Upgrade stone and sent me off. They were probably thankful they had something to do with me.”

“Do you regret it?” Maya asked. “Not being a Hunter. If you’ve self-reflected to the point where you realize you’re impulsive, surely you could fix it.”

“Not anymore,” Stix said. “This is where I belong. I think I can make a difference, and I know Knell won’t tolerate any weaknesses in us. At least with him, I’ll know for sure if I’m messing up. I’ll be more use to people like this than I ever could have been as a Hunter.”

They fell silent once more. Maya rolled to her feet, padding over to the window, where faint orange lamplight crept into their room through the shutters. She shut them, casting the room into darkness, and returned to her bedding for the night.

“Do you think Knell would have any use for a one-armed ex-captain?” Maya asked. “I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t know what I do want, but it isn’t this. Maybe I could find it, and I’m stuck with you lot for the foreseeable future. I’d rather be a real part of the team than an unwanted tagalong.”

“I don’t know,” Stix replied honestly. “But if you want to find out, the best way would probably be to ask him.”

“Yeah,” Maya said, her voice low. “Yeah, I suppose it would be. Thank you, Stix.”

Stix rolled back over to look up at the ceiling. “It’s no problem. I don’t think I really did that much, anyway.”

There was no response, and the two both drifted off to sleep.

***

Cyll dropped from the window, hitting the ground with a thud. He straightened with a grunt, glancing around the dark alleyway he’d landed in. Nobody had seen him. That was good. Dealing with their bodies would have been a bother.

He remained in the alley for a few minutes, enjoying the cool night breeze from the darkness. Then, when he was confident that nobody who might have heard the sound of him landing would still be in the area, he slipped deeper into the city.

Faint flickers of lanternlight occasionally lit him as he moved from alley to alley. It was difficult to process the size of the city. When he’d last walked as a free man, cities of this size had been few and far in between. Now, it was just a simple port town.

Cyll marveled at the brickwork of a building, stopping to run a hand down the stone. He’d once seen castles built worse than this. He poked his head out of the alley to check what business the wall belonged to and snorted. A whorehouse.

But, new and improved building quality or not, Cyll was pretty confident some things remained the same. In a large city like this, as soon as the sun was hidden behind the curtain of the horizon, there would be crime. And he was hungry.

The quality of the buildings started to drop. Moss found its way into the edges of the cobblestone touching the ground and more and more walls sported signs of damage or cracks. He came to a stop in a small alley and sat down on a rickety crate, resting his chin in his palm.

His foot tapped impatiently on the ground as he waited. Faint hints of conversation in the distance poked at his ears, but nothing sounded too urgent or angry. He remained there for a few more minutes, than stood and moved locations.

He repeated the process four more times. The city really was a lot larger than the ones he was used to, and it was proving a lot harder than he’d expected to run into something exciting.

As he stopped in an alley overlooking the edge of the docks, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Two men wearing dark clothing were strolling down the street, talking in low tones to each other. One had a large sack slung over his shoulder.

At first, Cyll almost dismissed them. But something about their gait kept his attention. Despite their casual manner, both of them were tight as a washboard. Cyll’s eyebrow’s rose and he slipped out of the alley, walking behind them.

He was far from what one would consider a stealthy man, but Cyll hadn’t lived this long without picking up a few tricks – even if most of them had been learned before he got locked up for a few hundred years.

Actually turning invisible was difficult. Casually strolling the city without making noise, on the other hand, was considerably easier. Cyll trailed the men at a healthy distance, just another traveler in the night.

He followed them deeper into the slums, but they never entered the alleys. Instead, the men kept to the well lit streets. They were both so caught up in their task that they didn’t even notice Cyll’s presence behind them at every turn.

They came to a stop before a ramshackle building and rapped several times in quick succession on the door. After a quick pause, they knocked twice more. The door swung open and they slipped inside, shutting it behind them.

“That was definitely a code,” Cyll muttered to himself. “Now I’m curious. And bored. Good thing I know just the way to fix both of those issues.”

He waited a few more minutes, then strode up to the door and confidently replicated the knock that the men had done. The door swung open, revealing a weasel-faced man about two feet shorter than Cyll.

“Hello,” Cyll said, his lips splitting in a wide grin. “Going to move to the side?”

“Where’s your delivery?” the man hissed. “You got nothing on you.”

“Ran into some trouble with it,” Cyll replied, tapping his hip impatiently. “Are you going to make me wait out here so someone can see us?”

The man pressed his lips together and stepped to the side. Cyll ducked into the passageway and shut the door behind himself. Despite the building’s appearance, the door didn’t lead into a room. Instead, what laid before him was a short hall that descended into a stairwell fading into darkness.

“What kind of trouble?” the doorman asked impatiently.

“Guards,” Cyll replied, taking a particularly easy guess that this operation wasn’t over the table. The man’s flinch told him everything else he needed to know.

“Twelve Gods. And you came here?” the man explained in a sharp whisper. “You trying to get us all killed, you idiot?”

Cyll snorted. “You think I left them alive?”

The man let out a sharp breath of relief. “No tail, then?”

“None. Goods were lost though,” Cyll replied. “Unfortunate. Did the others not have similar issues?”

“Things have been slow recently,” the man replied with a grunt. “So many of you damn new bastards. You pop up and go missing so quickly that I can’t even keep track of you anymore. I don’t know why the Boss bothers with you idiots. If you don’t have the delivery, why are you here?”

Cyll stroked his beard, pondering the man’s words. That explained why his appearance hadn’t been questioned. How convenient. It meant he wouldn’t have to kill the doorman, and his new clothes wouldn’t have to get blood on them yet.

“Orders,” Cyll replied.

“What orders? Just get another damn delivery.”

“Don’t even know what the delivery was,” Cyll said with a shrug. “I was just a courier. Tim gave me the goods, and I bring ‘em. I know better than to look at what I’m given. I just follow orders. Didn’t expect to get jumped by guards.”

“You don’t even know what was in the delivery?” the doorman asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Cyll shrugged. “Bag’s a bag.”

“Callous, aren’t you?” the man asked, suspicion heavy in his words.

“I’ve heard that before,” Cyll replied casually. “Is that a bad thing?”

The man’s hand shot forward, driving a dagger up through Cyll’s gut. He grunted, doubling over with a hiss.

“Nice try,” the doorman hissed. “Damn guards can’t fool me. Where’d you hear the passcode?”

“Damn,” Cyll said through gritted teeth. He whipped his head up, catching the doorman in the chin with a sharp crack. He ripped the dagger from his chest and slammed it into the man’s eye, covering his mouth with the other hand.

The doorman’s muffled scream failed to slip past Cyll’s palm and he crumpled, blood pouring from the wound in his head.

“You ruined my godsdamned shirt,” Cyll growled, running his hands through the man’s pockets and pulling out a small key, a dagger, and several gold coins. He pocketed everything. “Now I’m really annoyed. What are you bastards dealing with? I want it.”