Deep Castle Walls

After a dive, a lot of walking, and a bit of fighting, Victoria and Haraka were standing outside the gates of the white castle. She stood with her companion in front of the gate and looked around the snow-covered area. She had never seen anything like it before; before today she did not know that underwater kingdoms had weather like the surface world did. Then again there was a dome that separated the kingdom from the ocean above, thus permitting it to have weather.

Victoria looked around and saw signs of activity that had been left behind by beings who had been here earlier, presumably the poachers they had encountered and incapacitated. One feature that stuck out was the pile of wood used to make a fire that had burned out long ago. Next to the remains of the fire were vegetables with leafy stems that looked almost like a turnip, but of greater interest were some papers left lying by the fire. Victoria walked over to them and glanced down to peruse their contents.

The papers turned out to be plans and observations of life under the ocean. One of their plans was to call in backup to harvest parts from the dead dragons. Under that was a note that some of them had become trapped in buildings and that there was to be no attempt to rescue them, something that the brunette thought was callous but entirely in character for vultures like the grave robbers. On second thought, comparing them to vultures was an insult to the birds, who at least did something useful by cleaning up roadkill and dead animals. The grave robbers only pillaged treasures from dead civilizations and had no problem betraying their own if it meant greater profit for themselves.

Other papers recorded their observations of life in the undersea kingdom. Of particular note was their discomfort with the cold and the snow and their discomfort with the silence that blanketed the land. Another interesting note was that the intruders had a hard time tracking any animals while hunting for food in the terrain. While there were a few signs of them having killed a few animals for food, the hunting here was nowhere near as good as it was on the surface.

Victoria turned away from the papers and looked at the castle gates. They were thick and sturdy; the castle in front of them was no mere showpiece like the bulk of castles in Earthland. Every inch of it was built to withstand sieges, but where could attacks possibly come from down here? Was it meant to keep out hostile wildlife... or was it meant to keep out hostile peasants who were revolting against the oppressive ruling families?

Victoria did not know for certain, but the cynical part of her suspected that the castle was meant to protect the rulers from a peasant uprising. She would ask Haraka about it later. Right now the pair needed to figure out a way to get inside the castle for further exploration. She could just blast down the castle gates with her Rocket Launcher, but doing that would piss Haraka off to no end. She really did not want to piss him off while far away from the surface... besides, she kind of liked the guy and did not want to make him an enemy.

"So, how are we gonna get in? Is there a special pass phrase that you can speak or a special panel that you have to touch to open the gates?" Victoria asked Haraka. She did not know whether the gates were sealed by a special magic or if it was a matter of finding the right lever and pulling it.

[Post Word Count: 626]
[Victoria's Word Count: 626/8,000]

Victoria stood by and listened to Haraka ask what the papers read.

"The papers near the fire were mostly journals of sorts. One talked about how the poachers hated the snow and the silence and how hard it was to track animals. Another one talked about how a group of poachers got trapped in a building and said that they weren't gonna make any effort to free the trapped people, only nothing how they were glad it wasn't them. A third entry remarked that the remaining poachers needed to call in reinforcements." Victoria recited the contents of three of the most notable entries. She found it callous for the poachers to leave their trapped colleagues to die, but then again they were an unsavory bunch who would sacrifice "friends" to boost their own profit.

After giving a brief report on the papers she listened to Haraka describe what made the walls, which was a substance that his people called "Perfect Glass." It was easy to see how the substance earned its name. Unlike the glass used on land, the "perfect glass" was shiny and smooth with no signs of wear and tear, kind of like the surface of a pristine mirror. Haraka soon explained why that was so.

Apparently it took a select few ingredients plus the work of a master craftsman to get the surface looking as pristine as the wall did. If anyone less than a master craftsman worked on it and made a mistake by adding too much quartz, the wall would have developed bubbles in the glass and the wall would become structurally weaker for it. According to Haraka, all of that precise work was necessary just to make one brick. ONE brick.

To make a whole wall of the perfect glass bricks, a master architect was required to draw up the perfect plan to make all the bricks fit together once the wall left the drawing board and the process of building it began. Once all the bricks were perfectly aligned and perfectly set a master mage was needed to imbue the finished product with the magic required to make it a nigh-impregnable defensive structure. Victoria looked over the shiny wall and found it to be a visually impressive structure, but then thought about the fact that quartz was required to make a single brick. Once she put her mental arithmetic to the test before getting a quarter of the way around the wall and giving up in despair, the sheer cost of the structure had to make it cost-prohibitive to build before one added the cost of hiring masters in each field.

Haraka said as much when he suddenly shifted to a deep voice and began to lament the expenditure of resources it took to create the wall. To the voice it was not a matter of just money. It was also a matter of the ruling order willfully ignoring a long-standing health crisis just to build the shiny wall.

"...but it was so ungodly expensive. With how much this had to have cost to build it might as well be made from platinum and gold then encrusted with diamonds!" Was the first lamentation that the deep voice inhabiting Haraka had made. The second lamentation was much more passionate, passionate bordering on the edge of anger.

"Those funds could have been used for hospitals! OUR COUNTRY HAD BEEN IN A HEALTH CRISIS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS! Did they really just ignore it and keep on with their own lives like none of us existed?! Our country had animals and plants with some of the greatest natural ingredients for medicine making in all the world! It wouldn't have been hard! This is why I refused then and refuse now to ever use the TaqAnon name! I can't call myself a child raised by Fennos Omaras if I ever let myself forget the terrible cold death sickness..." Came the second, more forceful lamentation. She could not quite get all the references, but she inferred that the wealthy opted to ignore the health crisis in favor of maintaining their own lavish lifestyle and pretending that nothing was amiss. That sounded a lot like the approach that Capital Crocus' wealthy had to the poor people... when they noticed them. When the poor were noticed, it was only to bash them as human refuse and summon the police to get rid of them. How they were gotten rid of was of no concern to the wealthy, only that the problem was removed from sight.

"Uh, Haraka. Are you OK, dude?" Victoria asked Haraka after the latter's voice had deepened, then went back to his normal, soft-spoken tone. He then produced a key in the form of a necklace, a key that only the TagAnon family could use. Haraka said that the key was the best and quickest way to get through the gate and inside the walls, so she would let him use the key to get them past the costly and formidable walls.

Haraka obligingly inserted the key into the lock and got them inside without any trouble. Lights came on automatically and Victoria beheld chandeliers hanging from the ceiling that were made of glass, crystal, and silver. Each one held magically created lights that had a glow like tiny stars beaming through the tall walls of the halls. There were many doors that lead to different places.

"Wow." Was all that Victoria could say. She was dimly cognizant of how many lives the luxurious surroundings cost, but it was still impressive. She was one of the few land-dwellers privileged enough to see how the undersea elite lived. Hopefully Haraka would not hold her amazement against her.

[Post Word Count: 974]
[Victoria's Word Count: 1,600/8,000]

So this architecture was made during the Stone Age, when mankind was just beginning to get the idea that forming countries for a society that was easier to govern and easier to protect was a good idea. That was around the same time that humans also learned that beating something to death with a club or stabbing it to death with a spear was easier and safer than trying to kill something with one's bare hands. It would not be until the Bronze Age that Haraka had mentioned that mankind would begin to take toddling steps towards experimenting with metallurgy.

It certainly had the splendor attributed to long-lost civilizations that had sunk beneath the sea. The floor tiles were made out of perfect glass mixed with just the right amount of topaz to make the tiles look like they were embedded with gold flakes. That fact, when combined with Haraka's comment that magic and manpower were used to build this castle, only reinforced her belief that none of this was secondhand stuff. Even if the manpower for building everything was provided by a compulsory labor force that was given quantities of food, water, and clothing that was just enough to keep them alive and working, the sheer cost of providing for the labor force would be nothing to sneeze at. That was before one added in the cost of the perfect glass, quartz, and commissioning the expertise of master architects, craftsmen, and mages.

Victoria could tell that the other Haraka was not happy about the cost of the splendor. Original Haraka was not happy either; he was doing everything he could to avoid thinking about what happened to his family and the people unlucky enough to not be born into wealth and privilege. The brunette thought that undersea society would be different from those on land because of the peculiarities of life beneath the waves, but the rigid class system and skewed priorities of Haraka's society did not differ all that much from the "high" society of Capital Crocus.

"So your upper crust treated nature spirits like playthings and then did a lot of spin doctoring to cover up their role in the disaster when an abused nature spirit got pissed off enough to take revenge? Is that why your country sank? Did they piss off the wrong water, earth, or wind spirit?" Victoria asked him. Even a land-dweller like her knew that pissing off a nature spirit while living in a society that sat on the ocean and was dependent on its resources was a suicidal idea. The elite must have figured that they could skip town on techno-magic submarines or turn into sea dragons and swim away and leave the poor to die in their place. Unfortunately their escape plans did not pan out for one reason or another. The more she learned about this place the more she grew to dislike it because it was too much of a reminder of "home."

The Sabertooth mage looked around and found that what her companion said was true... the splendor of the palace was built on the blood and tears of others. The seductively beautiful architecture had become much less appealing, but it still called to the former street kid who had grown up with only what speed, guile, and judiciously applied force would allow her to keep. Victoria was surprised when Haraka asked her to pick the hallway he unlocked first, citing that he was too emotionally charged to make a rational decision.

"OK, Haraka. I say that we go down the left hallway first." Victoria announced her decision with some confidence. She was not sure how to help Haraka other than to be concise in her speech and to avoid gawking at the magnificence built at such a high cost to his people.

[Post Word Count: 648]
[Victoria's Word Count: 2,248/8,000]

Following a short distance behind her host and partner, Victoria was still puzzled as to why the upper crust would deliberately antagonize nature spirits when the country was in such a vulnerable position. Maybe they assumed that they had complete control over the spirits and could force them back into line with a command phrase or a control object. Maybe they were simply drunk with power and had never considered that one day something might go wrong in the worst possible way. Or maybe they were infected by the special kind of dumb it took to believe that kicking around nature spirits with control over their respective elements was a good idea.

Just because one could do something did not mean that one should do it.

That was the lesson that Victoria could take away from this visit to the home of the rich and powerful. The fall and decay of the once-mighty undersea kingdom also reminded her of a poem from a faraway land titled "Ozymandias." Victoria's brief foray into deep thought was interrupted by Haraka imparting more information about his past. What he had to say was clearly unpleasant for him to think about, much less say to a total stranger.

"So your family was the one who brought about the ruin of the kingdom by the abuse of the spirits? And all the bodies we passed in the city were people who tried to help you get to safety?" Victoria asked Haraka. As the scion of the kingdom's royal family, it was only natural that he be spirited to safety so that he could survive to rebuild the kingdom once the disaster had passed. However, that led to a question that Victoria had but did not dare voice.

If the people had known that Haraka's family was behind the disaster, would they have still helped him or would they have ensured that he perished with them?

That was a question that might never be answered, but the brunette's attention was drawn to something that Haraka had said about his country. He had claimed that a clique of the best and brightest had formed and that they were the ones who had a hand in causing the disaster that brought the kingdom to ruin. It could have been a clique of the wealthiest and most influential individuals instead of a brain trust of the kingdom's greatest thinkers. Or the group could have been made up of the best and brightest, who were also wealthy and influential. Haraka's words were ambiguous and he did not seem willing to elaborate on the topic.

Victoria was about to inquire further when a green wind whipped up around Haraka and a voice that belonged to a short humanoid began to tell more of Haraka's history and the history of the kingdom.

It told of how Haraka's great aunt wanted him dead and how he was widely considered to be a mistake made by his grandmother and most of the royal family. That insult resonated with the brunette, who was called all manner of names while living on the streets of Capital Crocus, including a mistake. She knew what it was like to face scorn simply for existing. Victoria continued to listen as the voice contemptuously called the "group" nothing but a collection of monsters who had sold their humanity for power. Contrary to her belief, the group was composed of lower and middle-class people, not the upper crust.

However, that did not change the fact that they had sold themselves for power. She also learned that Haraka and his father worked to do damage control until Haraka was stripped of the ability to summon the spirit who was currently talking. After that it continued to go downhill for Haraka's family and the kingdom.

Many had sought to claim the spirit for their own ends and many had died trying to do so. The spirit's child had been taken to be used as bait for some purpose. It then went on to say that pride was the driving force behind the factors that led to the kingdom's downfall. Those factors were a stiff and stagnant class system with no room for advancement, ruthless enforcement of the rigid class system, and refusing to believe that the "group" could ever become a serious threat. The spirit then ended the lesson with a stern admonition to Haraka to refrain from cutting out the unpalatable parts of the kingdom's history the next time it was told.

That was a lot of history for Victoria to try and understand, but she had a grasp of the basics. However, it did not seem that Haraka had a handle on his emotions. Considering the history of the place and all that went on here, she could not really blame him for being emotional.

"Haraka, are you OK?" Victoria asked him, sensing that the room they were in had a special significance to the mage.

[Post Word Count: 850]
[Victoria's Word Count: 3,098/8,000]

"So this person was your godfather? This person right here?" Victoria asked Haraka, glancing at the deceased person lying on the floor out of the corner of her eye. Their body was remarkably well-preserved... they were so well-preserved that the numerous bruises on the body could still be seen. One did not need to be a crime scene investigator to conclude that the person had died from being crushed by something heavy like falling bricks. Victoria could only hope that death came quickly for the hapless person. She then listened to Haraka say that his father kept his job secret on account of the difficulty in explaining to children that their father killed people for a living.

Victoria was mildly surprised to hear what Haraka had said, but she was not offended by it. Her adoptive father Lawrence Sheridan was an ex-soldier and current mercenary who killed people for money, so she was not going to cast stones at Haraka's father for what he did. Besides, the moral high ground was not something the brunette could claim here when her father was a mercenary who took the occasional shady job to make ends meet.

"My adoptive dad did the same thing, Haraka. He's still a freelance troubleshooter, if you will. He saved my life in Capital Crocus when slavers who specialized in rounding up street kids tried to capture me. My back was literally against the wall and they were looking to add me to their night's catch. My adoptive father swooped in and killed four men in as many seconds." Victoria gave a brief rundown of how Victoria met Lawrence. She paused for a moment and watched as Wind took the body into his arms and walked outside to cremate it in accordance with the ancient customs of Haraka's people. Once Wind had left on his errand she resumed speaking.

"My dad's not exactly a good role model and he didn't know much about raising a girl, but he saved my life. He also stood up for me when no one else would. He stepped in when the police and the Rune Knights could care less about what happened to street kids. It's a pretty sad world where a mercenary's a lot better than all the supposedly good upper-class people of Capital Crocus." Victoria commented about her family situation. She let more than a little disdain for Capital Crocus slip out, but she was not worried about that. She also came across as anti-authoritarian, which was not the attitude a Legal mage should have. However, Legal mages ran the gamut of personality types and life experiences just like everyone else.

Victoria followed Haraka back into the hallway and watched his back as he unlocked another door with his special key. The brunette peered inside the open door and could not immediately make out the room's significance, but it had a lot of runes. Haraka walked in and she wordlessly followed him.

-Inside the room-

Victoria followed Haraka into the room, which revealed more of its purpose when she glimpsed towels, seats, sealed bottles marked with different labels, and containers for holding clothing. It must have been either a sauna or some other spa-like facility. Whatever it was, it was not what Haraka was looking for because the latter huffed in frustration. He wordlessly walked to another door in the hallway and unlocked it, revealing an unpleasant surprise in the form of a burly grave robber wielding a knife that was aimed at Haraka's throat!

Haraka stepped aside and the brunette sprung into action, punching the grave robber squarely in the left jaw and taking a gash to her left shoulder in return. She ignored the wound and punched the man in the stomach, causing him to retaliate by grabbing her by the shoulders and flinging her into the narrow doorfame to her right. The right side of Victoria's head hit the doorframe, hurting her badly and pissing her off even worse as the right side of her body slumped against the wall.

Before that she would just have punched the guy out. Now she wanted to murder the jackass. Victoria bolted up and grabbed the man's fist as it hurtled towards her face. She pushed it back from whence it came, then grabbed him by the shoulders and kneed him in the nether regions, causing him to yell in pain. After striking that critical blow she kneed him in the same place again before letting him go, then drew back her right hand and punched him in the right side of the face.

The grave robber staggered backwards and Victoria rushed him. She was not going to stop until this jackass was unconscious. The man barely had time to blink before she had hit him in the face with a one-two punch combo and knocked him down with a third punch to the chest. He sat up to continue the fight when she kicked him in the face with all the force she could muster. He fell back down and did not stir again.

"Lights out, asshole." Victoria snarked. She then used a Medical Bag spell to her her wounded shoulder. A golden ball appeared in her right hand and she touched it to her shoulder wound, which closed up in a matter of seconds. the brunette then turned towards Haraka.

"I wonder how many more of those clowns are hiding in here." Victoria commented to her job partner.

[Post Word Count: 944]
[Victoria's Word Count: 4,042/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 9,115]

"You're right, Haraka. There is a way to find out how many more of them are lurking in here, but I'm not sure how. Maybe they have some mages with them for extra muscle and we can use them to pinpoint the rest. We can use their pack mentality against them." Victoria opined to her more thoughtful colleague. Despite occasional bursts of intuition and a slowly growing sense of responsibility as a practitioner of healing magic, Victoria was still best employed as a weapon where brute force trumped the need for subtlety. She was fine with that. She knew her place and was good at her job.

When Haraka mentioned Wind, the brunette's attention turned her attention away from her aching head to him. Victoria had seen a short dude who had some connection to the West Fiore Trading Company mage carry off the person's corpse earlier... was that Wind? If so, he was a short dude with quite a bit of attitude and a lot of rancor towards the former ruling establishment, rancor that was not entirely undeserved. After all Victoria had heard about them and how they squandered resources that could have helped the kingdom on frivolous structures like the castle they were currently in, she could not blame Wind for being pissed. Her mind turned back to Capital Crocus and how the situation of the poor could have been helped if the city council was not dominated by the local elite, who would rather dump money into yet another perfectly planned and immaculately sculpted city park instead of provide improved sanitation and medical care to the "bad" parts of town.

"That short dude I saw carrying the corpse earlier is your godfather Wind, right? He seems like a pretty cool guy. His words might be blunt, but you know how he feels about something or someone." Victoria said to Haraka about Wind. She could respect someone like Wind, someone who was forthright about how they felt about something. Maybe it was the street kid in Victoria who liked someone willing to stand up to the establishment and take them to task. At any rate, the subject soon turned to Lawrence Sheridan, her adoptive father and the one who taught her her main magic.

"I'm not even sure if Lawrence Sheridan is his real name or just a pseudonym he fed me so that he has a name, but in the end it doesn't matter. Even though he wasn't ready to raise a girl he did the best he could with me. All things considered I think I turned out all right... mostly. I like fighting more than a Legal mage should and I like hard liquor, but no one's perfect." Victoria commented about her adoptive father. Again, she was not sure if Lawrence Sheridan was his real name or not. Again it did not matter what his name was. Lawrence stood up for her when no one else would and took her in; he even got her started on two viable trades that ordinarily did not mix but somehow worked for her, bartending and magic. It was safe to say that she owed him a lot more than she could ever repay.

Victoria watched Haraka tie up the subdued grave robber before he made an offer. He offered for her to take the lead for the next few rooms, an offer which she would gladly accept. She was still in the mood for a fight and was arguably more composed than Haraka, who had good reason to be upset considering all that had happened here.

"All right, Haraka. I'll go first. Now I need to pick a door for us to go through... not that there's any shortage of those." Victoria remarked, making a reference to the length of the corridor and the number of rooms to choose from. The nobles obviously believed that anything worth doing was worth overdoing. Victoria sauntered past the doorway and to the next door on the left, putting her right hand on the knob and twisting it left. It opened without a hitch.

"Now we get to see what's behind Door Number One." Victoria commented to her partner and host in her best game show hostess voice.

[Post Word Count: 734]
[Victoria's Word Count: 4,776/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 10,352/14,000]

Carefully entering the room while Haraka regaled her with more information about the short guy with a big attitude named Wind, Victoria was ready for another fight with the grave robbers who had gotten trapped in the castle. They had likely heard the fight with the guy in the previous room and were heading in that direction, so the brunette had to be ready for another close-quarters brawl. Despite her smaller frame, she did not need a weapon to triumph in most close-quarters fights. Her fists alone were usually sufficient to bring her victory because people saw her small frame and underestimated how hard they could hit. Going back again to the "big surprises in small packages" theme, it sounded like people had underestimated Wind as well and had paid the ultimate price for their folly.

"It sounds like Wind was quite a big deal back in the day. He and he alone chose who could form a bond with him and it sounds like he was pretty particular about who he bonded with. That was a good thing because if the wrong person bonded with Wind it sounds like everyone would have had a really bad day." Victoria opined while she paused about fifteen steps away from the entrance and looked for grave robbers or traps set by the smartest of them, which was likely a pretty low bar. Victoria was not a smart person, but even she knew better than to go to an ancient undersea kingdom that had been dead for centuries without some sort of back-up plan or two. She stuck to land, which was where someone like her belonged.

Victoria looked around the room and saw three dining tables of various lengths and heights. She was about to ask Haraka what the significance of that arrangement was when he chimed in with more information about Wind. The curious brunette put her inquiry on hold and listened to what she was told about the mysterious figure. Apparently he was a law unto himself due to his "heritage" as a fae with strong associations with death and could choose who he bonded with. Any attempts to bond with Wind without his express permission and without the would-be bond maker having a certain amount of death in them were doomed to failure.

"This Wind guy's pretty interesting. He not only chooses who he bonds with, but he also acts according to the rules of his kind and those rules alone. You'd think that your people would know better than to try to force someone with his pedigree under their control, but apparently they thought that they could be his master. Obviously they didn't have what it took to bond with someone like him." Victoria commented again on Haraka's godfather and protector. He did not put up with anyone's nonsense and was quick to take people to task when the situation called for it. She wondered if Wind's attitude caused him to have as many enemies as he did people lining up trying to bond with him. She heard Haraka comment about her self-proclaimed bellicose nature and was mildly amused when he stated that being willing to fight at a moment's notice was not a bad thing, given their current circumstances.

"Thanks, Haraka. I picked up that habit from the streets, where you had to be ready to fight at any time. People who weren't ready to fight tended not to last very long unless they had protection or could run really fast." Victoria informed Haraka where she had picked up her bellicose tendencies. It was an old habit that was nearly impossible to break, but the brunette was not in any hurry to break it, not after it had saved her life on many occasions over the course of her career. Many of her adversaries had expected her to cave in and not fight due to a size difference or being heavily outnumbered. In between her fists, her magic, and the sheer audacity of attacking when people expected her to give up, Victoria had eked out many wins over technically superior opponents.

Victoria's mind turned from her fighting nature back to the three different tables that dominated the dining room. What was the point of their sizes varying so much? Haraka soon told her why.

The difference in sizes was to reinforce the status differences between the royal family, their guests, and lower-status members of the royal family. According to him, the smallest table was for family members closest to the king and the king herself. The second table was for lower ranked family not welcome to the first table. The last table was for guests; the most welcome ones would be seated the closest to the royal family's table.

"I guess your people really were that status-conscious if they went so far as to have separate tables made. That or the royals really didn't like you and your family. All things considered, I'd say that you got the last laugh 'cause you're still here." Victoria said to Haraka. Her remarks were probably in poor taste, but there was some truth to them. The despised Haraka was still alive while the elitists who shunned him were all dead... at least as far as she knew. There might be a few nobles kicking around somewhere because upper-class vermin like them tended to survive while good people died, but she would have to deal with that later. Sounds that sounded like a conversation caught her ear and that of Haraka.

"Do you hear that? It sounds like we're not the only ones here." Victoria remarked to Haraka in a whisper, ready and waiting for another fight to break out.

[Post Word Count: 986]
[Victoria's Word Count: 5,762/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 12,754]

Victoria was a little surprised to learn that Wind was not the only entity of his kind, but that there were more individuals like him somewhere out in the world. At least that was where she thought they were. Maybe they went back to their home dimension to do whatever it was that spirits did in their free time. Maybe they did not want to hang around home all day and went out looking for worthy people to bond with. Or maybe Victoria was overthinking the matter and was out in left field with her theories.

The fact that there was only a small number of spirits like Wind surprised Victoria. Could spirits like him die due to infighting or did they have a limited lifespan just like humans? Or were they just recycled and reincarnated as they aged? She had no idea how entities like the operated, but she knew that they played by different rules.

"So there's more dudes like Wind hanging around in some other realm? How many more like him do you think there are?" Victoria asked Haraka before she had really thought the question through. She could only hope that he would not take offense to the question. She also had to hope that Wind would not be offended by the question and try to end her life for the offense. She was certain that while Wind was a gruff and blunt person, he would not wantonly murder people whose greatest crime was curiosity about him and his people.

Victoria was distracted from the mystery of Wind's people by Haraka stating that his deceased relatives would be horrified to know that he was now walking the corridors of their castle. She was grimly amused by that statement because based on his description of how tightly the undersea nobility clung to rigid social strata and decorum, they probably would be rolling over in their graves if they could see him now. They deserved the discomfort for treating a good guy like Haraka like garbage just because of their inflated standards of behavior and to who he was born. Victoria did not feel much sympathy for the dead royals who regarded kicking Haraka and his family around as a hobby.

"Heh. It sounds like the relationship between me and the upper crust of Capital Crocus. If some of the upper crust I met when I was a street kid knew that the same person they called a mistake was doing jobs on their behalf, they'd probably have hemorrhages and ask for someone else. At the worst they'd probably use their pull to try and have me thrown out of Sabertooth." Victoria remarked about the similarities between Haraka and herself. Both of them had been on the outs with the upper crust of their respective communities. Both of them had been labeled "mistakes" for circumstances beyond their control. Both of them had managed to overcome the adversity of the bad old days to become fairly powerful and respected mages who were part of powerful and respected guilds. All in all Haraka and Victoria had done well for themselves and there was no predicting how far they could go before all was said and done.

"I agree with you, Haraka. Too much bad stuff has gone on here for this place to be beautiful. It's more of a monument to hubris than anything... if you don't mind me saying that." Victoria commented about how quickly the palace had lost its appeal. At first glance the brunette had considered it one of the most beautiful places she had ever visited, but after hearing about the vast quantity of resources had went into its construction and hearing about what had gone on within its walls, the appeal quickly faded and was replaced by a sense of disgust. She now saw the palace as a superficially beautiful structure with some dark secrets lurking behind its shining walls of Perfect Glass. Victoria listened to Haraka cast a spell called "Into Acheron" that manifested as dark light and appeared to immobilize any entity within the area, which was good because the room they had entered was a kitchen featuring all the needed appliances and cooking supplies... and at least ten grave robbers camping out there with food in their hands.

Victoria felt a magic signature radiating from the one guy who had not been incapacitated when the spell hit. Like she had surmised, the grave robbers had hired mages for some extra muscle. Since she did not know what the enemy mage's magic could do, this fight was going to be an interesting one.

"Fight time." Victoria laconically announced to her colleague. It was time to do what she did best, which was beat opponents into submission.

[Post Word Count: 814]
[Victoria's Word Count: 6,576/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 14,649/16,000]

Victoria faced down the enemy mage and tried to think of a quick way to subdue him. She did not have time to bring in a non-lethal weapon because there was no element of surprise. She did not know if he could use his barrier magic to reflect spells back the way they came, so she was hesitant to use a Taser Spark because it could rebound and hit her. The Sabertooth mage would just have to close the distance and use her fists to do the talking... at least until the enemy began spewing light bullets in every direction! Victoria ducked and felt two whiz over her head and rustle her hair... that was a close one.

Victoria popped back up and noticed that she and Haraka were not the primary targets of the attack. Instead, his teammates were the targets. Victoria had a feeling that he was trying to silence anyone who could give information about their operations and silence anyone who could testify against him. Unfortunately he had failed because the men were still alive, but if she did not act quickly they would die and any information would be lost with them. Unless Haraka or Wind could conduct seances, the brunette would need to save the grave robbers from their treacherous leader.

Victoria sprinted towards the mage, who was readying another spell in his right hand. He thrust it forward with fingers outstretched and he fired a spray of five thin, white beams of light that spread out in a pattern much like a shotgun blast. One of the beams clipped her left shoulder, but the brunette kept going and closed the distance as he readied another spell in his left hand. She grabbed his wrist as he thrust the hand out and redirected the light blast towards the ceiling, then headbutted the enemy mage. He staggered back and she sprang forward, seizing him by the collar for a punch to the face.

The enemy mage was tough, but after six punches to the face he fell unconscious, allowing her and Haraka to focus on healing the men he had tried to kill.

"OK, Haraka. Now that that's done, I'm gonna heal them so they don't die." Victoria said to him, ignoring her own light wounds in favor of healing the grave robbers so that their information did not go to the grave. The brunette closed her eyes and channeled magic into her right hand, then put more magic into the spell in order to boost its healing power even more. Once the process was complete she thrust her right hand forward and cast a Healing Wave spell over the men. It took a few moments, but the wounds of the men began to close up and they were brought back from the brink of death.

"OK, Haraka. They'll live. The ball's in your court now." Victoria informed Haraka of her success in healing them. She then tended to her own wounds with a powered-up Medical Bag spell that healed her modest wounds in the blink of an eye.

[Post Word Count: 513]
[Victoria's Word Count: 7,089/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 15,559/16,000]

Once the mage was down Victoria stopped where she was and let Haraka do the talking to men who were not apprehended and thus still a threat to the pair. Haraka was a better negotiator than she was and this was literally his home turf, so the brunette would let him do the talking in an effort to end the situation without any further violence. However, the men were not having it. Perhaps suspecting that that the other shoe was about to drop regardless of what they said or did, all of them pulled their weapons and Victoria braced for another fight... only to be surprised when the grave robbers instead turn their weapons on themselves. The Sabertooth mage really did not expect that to happen, not when they had a numerical advantage of five men for each mage.

Victoria was also surprised by their decision because resorting to such a drastic measure was not just a negotiating tactic meant to hamstring the heroes by forcing them to stand down lest the men actually act on the threat. Doing something out of the ordinary and actually applying her critical thinking skills, the brunette began to piece together what in Earthland was bad enough to make ending their own lives seem like a good idea. It all started by thinking back to those journals found by the campfire.

Judging from the journals left around the remnants of the campfire, the men stuck inside the palace had been down here an awfully long time. Their colleagues had left them for dead and did not make any real attempt to save them; instead their efforts went towards procuring more men for a future expedition. With no hope of rescue and no chance at resupply of the food they had brought with them, they had raided the castle pantry for food, which was where Victoria and Haraka had found them.

Due to their accumulated troubles the men were in dire straits. They knew that they were not going to leave the undersea palace without either aid from their colleagues on the surface or Haraka using his sea dragon form. Since they had been cut off from the surface for who knew how long, aid from their colleagues was not an option and their failure to subdue just two mages despite having both numerical superiority and weapons meant that their days were likely numbered even if they survived this encounter. Their willingness to commit suicide meant that they had to be in some really deep shit and their employers had some particularly dreadful means of retribution ready to use against them, possibly even their families. Victoria could look in their eyes and her ability to see the truth told her what she suspected.

"They're serious about it. They're not bluffing." Victoria informed Haraka that their maneuver was not a bluff. The brunette knew that desperate look all too well from her days on the streets of Capital Crocus when plenty of homeless people had it after a foraging expedition failed to produce enough food to get through the day or if they could not secure shelter before the advent of winter. The men in front of them were feeling desperate and would not hesitate to pull the trigger if push came to shove. The onus was on Victoria to make sure that they did not feel pushed into ending their lives by avoiding further threat displays such as equipping and brandishing a weapon or by making threatening comments.

Victoria listened to Haraka offer the men safe passage to the surface and protection from the organization's higher-ups if they surrendered to the mages without further resistance. The brunette was not going to argue against his offer because the men were already on edge and going for the hard-line approach would compound their desperation. If she pushed too hard they might decide to fight back anyway; while Victoria and Haraka could win the whole point of negotiating was to talk them down and get them to surrender without a fight. The brunette was willing to encourage this because Haraka had expressly said that he wanted them alive. Aside from pragmatism, the brunette wanted a peaceful resolution because she was not so heartless that she wanted to see people commit suicide in front of her.

"My friend's right. If you give up now we'll protect you from whatever your former bosses send your way." Victoria tried to assure them with sincerity. She doubted that the men would take them up on the offer since that meant being arrested and going to prison for a long time for their numerous offenses. That was likely as appealing to them as it would be to Victoria if she were kicked out of Sabertooth and had to either go back to Capital Crocus to live on the streets or be sent to prison for what had happened in Desierto with the Golden Band and her rescue of Liz from the slavers. Victoria was pretty sure that the means employed to save Liz broke the guild law to use lethal force only in self-defense; she and Abigail did not even try for non-lethal takedowns because the slavers expressly wanted the pair to sell as valuable merchandise. She was not sure how over two dozen counts of self-defense with a light machine gun would hold up in court were she to be arrested by the Rune Knights.

Victoria was also more than a little concerned that the offer sounded hollow and was just a means to get them to surrender and give up information on their employers, after which they would be left to the mercy of their employers by the uncaring mages. That was not what Haraka intended to do, but the grave robbers were apprehensive and ready to take the quickest escape they had in order to avoid prison time and other retribution. How could the mages convince the desperate men that the offer was genuine? If the promise of security sounded hollow, what could the mages offer them that would make them give up without a fight to the finish?

Selling the idea to the grave robbers would be in Haraka's ball court. He was the better negotiator between them and the smarter of the two mages, so if anyone could come up with a clincher that would convince the men to stand down it would be him. Victoria would stand back, carefully watch the men for trouble, and let the West Fiore Trading Company mage do the bargaining. She was much better at "aggressive negotiations" than she was talking to people and she was aware of that weakness. The brunette had done her part by getting them to this point and now it was Haraka's time to take center stage during the most important part of the mission.

[Post Word Count: 1,138]
[Victoria's Word Count: 8,227/8,000]
[Total Word Count: 17,544]

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