“What’s taking him so long?” asked a hidden young male voice coming from the shadows.
“Why are you still here standing next to me?” asked an older man’s voice.
“Because… don’t you think this is pointless? Shouldn’t we just tell him about all of this and get a guaranteed reward?”
“What? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?”
“It’s not cold feet. I just think our chances of getting the most out of this situation is to talk to him! The demigods are not known for their generosity.”
The older man stealthily looked around making sure no one was close enough to hear them before saying, “Come over here.”
The first man moved quietly through the shadows and stopped beside his companion.
A flash of steel coated in a black sap shot out and stabbed into the young man’s neck before he could react or make a sound.
As the body fell to the ground, the bloody wound started to turn black and spread out to the rest of the dead man’s body. A bottle of white liquid was pulled out and poured onto the wound stopping the blood flow and blocking the scent of blood.
“Hmm, these gifts truly do work,” said the old man in a quiet voice. He shoved the dead body into a temporary hiding spot before escaping the area and heading to a new spot.
***
Akira walked out of the blacksmith shop where angry hammering could still be heard all the way out onto the street. He was no longer wearing the new armor as he did not want to scare the citizens and the guards.
That could be embarrassing if the guards surrounded him and treated him as a threat.
“Yap?” asked Fluffball.
“We still have to go see how Klyn is doing,” said Akira while absentmindedly inspecting his new sword as he walked down the street toward the docks.
Fluffball stopped moving and sniffed the air looking in a certain direction.
“What is it?” asked Akira.
“Yap!”
Akira frowned and sniffed the air for several seconds but found nothing unusual. “Come on, we can’t be keeping them waiting. The faster we get this new project settled the more at ease I will be.”
Fluffball reluctantly followed, not sure why he had caught a whiff of blood for a moment.
As they continued through the town Akira continued to test out poses and different attack stances with his new sheathed sword. He swung it all around to get used to its length and weight which was not too dissimilar from his old sword.
Near the docks, Akira’s arm shot out to the left while not looking forward as he practiced a quick jab with his sheathed sword.
“UUUGHHH….”
Upon hearing the pained sound, Akira looked to the left and saw a heavily bundled-up dockworker on the ground holding his hands between his legs as he rolled around in pain.
“Ah! So sorry! I should have been paying more attention,” said Akira.
The heavily bundled man slowly stood up and quietly mumbled in an old voice, “No need…” before he stumbled out of Akira’s view.
Sheepishly seeing that many others saw the aftermath of his clumsy actions, Akira stopped his wild practicing and got onto the transport ship with Fluffball. Dolph and Vilkas were already on the ship and had been waiting for him to arrive.
As the transport ship reached the docks Akira and Fluffball, followed by his guards, hopped off of the ship onto the stone docks as soon as they were close enough.
“Ah! Lucky!” said Akira as his sharp eyes spotted a shining silver coin stuck in a crack of the stone docks. As he rushed forward and bent over to pick up the coin, a dock worker tripped and flew right over Akira who was bent over.
Splash! The dock worker who was covered in several thick layers of clothing head to toe, spluttered and splashed about creating a large commotion as he tried to stay afloat with the now heavy waterlogged clothes that were trying to drag him down.
“Help!” shouted the waterlogged man between gasps and gulps of the freezing water.
When several other dock workers that were moving goods from other ships saw this, they let out several shouts of alarm.
A nearby ship hearing the shouting began ringing its bell, “Man overboard!” shouted the lookout who had been about ready to come down from his high position.
Several ropes and other devices were thrown towards the floundering man before he was finally able to grab onto one of them and be pulled up onto a ship.
The man’s lips were already turning blue from the cold water as he shivered and said, “Thank you!” repeatedly to the burly sailors that had pulled him out of the cold water.
“Huh. I guess it’s true what they say. When one person gains luck, another receives misfortune,” said Akira as he pocketed the silver coin and watched the shivering man bow to the sailors.
“Yap!”
Akira walked past two muscular men who were carrying one side of a large heavy wooden crate they lowered it down onto an oddly flat shaped stone only a short distance away from the city wall and the docks.
Crack!
The two muscular men were startled by the sound and were frightened that something inside the container had broken. They hurriedly opened the lid to look inside but found nothing wrong with the bottles full of various liquids and the other sensitive goods inside looked undamaged.
Oddly the flat stone was now deformed but did not draw any attention from the muscular dock workers who shrugged their shoulders as they turned around to unload another large crate from a merchant ship.
When they returned and set down the second crate they scratched their heads.
“Wasn’t there a large rock here?”
The second man shrugged, “Who cares if there was or wasn’t, hurry up. The faster we can finish unloading the ship the sooner we can go get a drink and warm up!”
As Akira walked through the main gates of the outer wall and strolled down the market streets in the outer ring he looked at the numerous goods on sale.
An item caught his eye and so he stopped walking forward and turned towards the booth to check out the trinket.
“Watch out!” shouted a merchant from a nearby merchant stall.
A towering stack of crates that had been previously roped down was now teetering dangerously as the stall owner tried to steady it. The towering crates swayed from their original path and tumbled down onto another man that was only a short distance away from Akira.
Pained moans came from the man underneath the heavy boxes as several other bystanders in the morning crowd worked to pull him out.
“How could my rope break? I just bought it not that long ago! Great, now many of my items are ruined!” shouted the merchant as he looked at the mess. His broken wooden crates and scattered items were scattered all over the street.
Vilkas and Dolph had stepped in front to protect Akira from any harm and they were now looking around the area glancing at every person with a sharp suspicious glare.
“Duke, there is no time for shopping. We should hurry and meet up with the Head Shaman,” said Dolph.
“Yap!”
“You guys are right. Buying a few gifts for Mileena can wait,” said Akira.
“If the honored sir would like, I can hold several of this item in reserve for you to inspect later,” said the female merchant behind the row of trinkets laid out on a table.
“No need. I do not want to hinder your business. If they are bought out before I come back I will just need to look at buying something else.”
Several other people ran into misfortune as Akira made his way through the outer rings of the city. Around 15 minutes later Akira, Fluffball, Dolph, and Vilkas arrived at the center of the city where the [Child of the World Tree] was planted.
There was already a chest-high stone wall built around the large cleared-off area around the tree. Outside the wall were several serious-looking guards who were protecting the half-built wall.
Inside the walled-off areas were a few shamen who were sitting cross-legged with their hands out as they silently chanted in an ancient language.
Akira sighed as he looked at the tree.
“What’s got you down?” asked Klyn as he walked up to the sighing Akira.
“Today I realized that there are some truly unlucky people in this world. I’m glad my luck is not as bad as theirs.”
“Oh?”
“But for some reason, I kinda get the feeling of Déjà Vu…” said Akira.
“Yap?”
“It’s nothing. Anyways, how is the root problem coming along?”
“In a few days, the area should be totally clear. I was surprised that it was so easy to not only communicate with such a legendary existence but also get it to agree to our requests,” said Klyn as he looked at the large tree that had grown a little more since the ceremony.
“Good, the dwarves are almost finished with their project at the castle and can come here to start working without any unnecessary delay.”
“Will this really work?”
“I believe with their skill there is no need to worry. When this is finished we can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the citizens will be safe.”
***
Somewhere else inside of the outer city a group of haggard, stinky, limping, soaking wet, and thoroughly bruised people shuffled through the town angrily as they headed for the exit.
“Out of the way!” shouted one of them as they shoved a few people who were looking at a merchant’s trinkets.
Immediately several angry city guards surrounded the group.
“You ruffians dare to cause trouble here! A few weeks behind bars will straighten you out!”
The group of ruffians were so surprised at the quick action of the guards that they did not resist and were easily led off with the guards swords pointed at their backs.
“Who were those rude people?” asked Azura who had been shoved.
“Who knows, never saw them before but that is nothing new with how fast the city is growing,” said Mileena.
“There will always be such rude people in cities. You need to keep a large force of city guards to keep them in check,” said Maya as she pushed up her glasses.
“I’ll make sure big brother upgrades the outer city’s security. We can’t just let anyone in!” said Azura.
