Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
The sound of the clock second by second by second in a small office room. A wood desk, a bulletin board behind, a whiteboard in the corner, a book shelf off to the right with big windows to the left. A couple chairs between the desk and the door, and a chair between the desk and the bulletin. A filing cabinet drawer slammed shut and a thick folder slapped down right onto the desk.
A man sat there, dressed in a literal mob suit behind the desk, with the hat and a red tie. His fingers interlaced, hands quite together. Then across from him, sitting at the other chairs- Elise herself and two others, one in another mob-type suit and the other in military attire.
“Now lessy ‘ere. Miss Bakuuva, you’ve been a… greatly appreciated asset to our lil ol’ Guild here,” the man spoke in somewhat of a drawl, “Ya got dat spunk, and spunk is critical in this here biznes, yuh know what I mean there?”
“I- er, yes sir,” Elise replied, looking at the man across the desk.
“Now listen’ an I get ‘et. You got this grand ol’ plan butcha gotta remember that we ain’t in the bizz to go round solvin the world’s problems. There’za system in place dear,” he spoke, shifting his chair back and beginning to stand.
The three across from the man watched as he paced around his desk and over to the window. Arms folded behind his back as he tipped his hat, shades glistening in the light.
“It ain’t no damn rocket science there Miss. We simply got ourselves a system. Yer dealeo with the vampire is gonna have ta wait fer now. Less o’ course, yer buddy boi is involved in one of them thar assignments. We got a whole heap of ‘em comin in lately. Vampires this and vampires that. Got ‘em comin out da tooter, know what I mean?”
“Y-yes sir, I do… I think.”
“Look- keep it simple. You wanna take to yer cause ya shoulda stayed with them Lit Folk. You wanted to explore, you wanted to go all in in this game. I respect that; but ye gotta own up to yer choices ma’am. You be on the job, you get the job done. You doin your own thing, I don’t care.”
“Sir- I do do my job. I beat that gang and had a few questions for them, that’s all.”
“Well golly, if’n you did yer job then I dunno why you were brought to my office. Aye there Cataris whatcha got?”
“Well sir, it’s just that Miss Bakuuva here was interrogating targets and the clients were not very pleased with her resolve to not finish them off. One report states that she let three of the targets escape in order to… hunt down more of them?” the other mobster-looking person replied.
“I mean yes, I did do that; but it wasn’t just for Arkaza. I thought that if I beat a couple of them up and let some go, they’d either back off completely or- more likely, bring back their boss to kick my ass.”
“And did they?” the main man asked.
“Yeah, actually. It was later that day. And the other hunters managed to capture all of them. And that’s when I started asking about Arkaza.”
“So ya did yer job and they want ta complain about yer work. ‘ight, fuck ‘em.”
“But sir we can’t-”
“Cataris I do declare it don’t matta now ya hear? The youngin’ did ‘er job and did it well. What she does when she be done is all on her own I do declare o’ eclare. Ya hear? Give’r a medal for all I care.”
“For breaking our protocols?”
“Yer darn tootin’!! This just be a lot o dat dere hogwash. Now- nuffa dis bizz. ‘Lise you be a durn star in the bizz when I git dun witchu I do be declarin ya hear?”
“Yes Mister Starrk,” Elise replied with a slight head tilt.
“Now I gotcha one more, this time with yer bois in the ol’ A-Team of yers. See, bout a day ago we got a contact come in, sayin they got this uh, this problem. Uh- Catar’ you be fer tellin now.”
“Ueh- yes sir,” the other spoke moving forward, grabbing at the file on Starrk’s desk, “So, last night, we received a request from a little… kingdom? Garvin. They have a vampire problem.”
“I’m listening,” Elise replied, spinning around in her chair to look at the secretary.
“Garvin is under rule of a Vampire Warlord who is draining the region of its natural resources and selling them for profit. In fact the region is locked down with mountains and raging seas to the North and East, and a wild forest to the West. South is a nation that is trading with the Warlord, and thus will not allow anyone to escape the region.”
“Real mess there it be,” Starrk remarked.
“Quite. This has been going on for years. Any attempt at escape is shut down and quickly results in harsh penalties. Just a couple weeks ago, a small group managed to get through the mountains and sail out to sea. They were picked up by the coastguard of some nation, and ended up here. To keep it simple they-”
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“They set up a deal with some buyers, and then went on to hire mercenaries. If they can transport an offering of their resources to a neutral land of the buyers as proof, the buyers will work to politically intervene on behalf of the people of Glastol, and push the Vampires out,” came the voice of Blake.
Elise opened her eyes back up and looked over to Blake. She hadn’t moved the entire time as the conversation came back into focus. Blake stepped forward a pace, moving his arms out and becoming more expressive as he told the tale. The old man was busy twirling his beard with his left hand, the woman beside him remaining at ease.
“I see I see. So they convince ‘em buyers that their land is worth something, and the buyers get involved with their own buddies and militias,” the old man posed, “And ya couldn’t just go through the mountains or sky because?”
“With the Vampires patrolling the mountains such movement would’ve been noticed. Even if they got out to sea, there was no guarantee. And for why the buyers don’t send an airship or anything is because they demand the proof first. Last thing they want to do is piss off these folks to Glastol’s South. And so they opted ta send multiple carriages through the Eternal Hollow. If even one gets through to the rendezvous, Glastol is pretty much liberated.”
“Heh, well that’s all fine and good but you kids made one big mistake and that’s that no one leaves the Hollow,” the old man chuckled a little before falling silent.
“… you mentioned the curse, and the cultists,” Elise spoke up, “What is there to tell?”
“Plenty,” the old man grumbled, “You see, the Eternal Hollow is an infinite forest. No matter where you enter or leave, yer gonna have a bad time tryin to get out. You go South and suddenly it’s West. Ya exit East and somehow you’re in the West.”
“Infinite Forests, I have heard of them. A fun little trickery born by the Celestial River, and they always have some means of escape to them,” Blake began, looking at the old man, “You said it’s been cursed like this for eighty-five years. So did you settle here back then… or did something change?”
“That’s… where them cultists come in,” the old man murmured, “Our small nation, if you could even call it that, has been trapped for a long time. There were multiple communities that migrated into the Eternal Hollow to escape some of the nonsense back in the day hundreds of years ago. Wayfinders were the ticket in and out.”
The old man grasped at his pants, shivering a little, his brows furled as he looked to the ground. The woman beside him knelt down a little and placed a hand upon his shoulder, drawing the man’s attention back briefly. He looked to her and then back to the two.
“There were five towers. Four to the cardinals and one at what we thought was the center. It let our Wayfinders work for generations, ‘nd eventually we built the central tower into a cathedral ta eliminate the risk of the other four towers going out. And it worked, till them damn cultists came.”
“Who are they?” Blake questioned.
“Buncha bastards. We never knew who. We thought they were vampires until we shot ‘em through the heart, and they didn’t die. And then their leader, some sort of bizarre... cultist, who just talked a buncha rubbish about some beast in the ground. They took the main town and cathedral and broke the Wayfinder connections, trappin all of us in here. After that they started taking people. Day by day they took our people, people who then never returned. We tried to fight back but then they brought in legions of these masked things and other vampires. They we could kill but for every batch we did kill, more just kept coming. One by one towns went down, and now we’re all that remains. Tried makin a new Cathedral for the Wayfinders but it didn’t work.”
“If they kept taking people… then how is this town still here?”
“Big forest, people probably comin in like you folk. Plus the main gate ain’t just for show, we got us some magic in effect around the walls of the town. Nothin gets in without goin through that gate, and nothin gets in through that gate without our say-so. Course a town can only survive for so long without foraging. They don’t come through nearly as often as they used to… actually whenever they snag someone they leave us alone for awhile.”
“Troublesome,” Blake murmured.
“… hey,” Elise murmured, “If the forest is so big and they aren’t around, how do you figure they go about grabbing people? Do they have small groups out hunting?”
“Why… no. Usually they just have scouts out that communicate with birds somehow. If the scout spots a big group they call in backup, otherwise they just take after and grab a single person. Usually just lone men up in the trees keepin watch around the forest best we could tell over the years.”
Blake’s body twitched immediately, a cold sweat descending down his face instantly. Elise turned over to Blake at the suddenness of the twitch, then stepped forward while continuing to look at him.
“What is it there fellow?” the old man asked.
“Lone scouts with birds… Elise-”
She blinked, calm at first though within just a few seconds her blank stare began to swell into something of genuine fear, shrunk up with eyes bulging. Both Elise and Blake shot round and bolted for the door, slamming it open and blasting right out. The old man watched as they ran, and then looked to the lady with him.
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