Higaisha

This was the second time they were heading to a location provided by Clan Baz and it wasn’t the same as before, though it was closer to their office than home was, but not by a lot.

“You know,” John said, “it’s a bit weird I haven’t put a lot of thought into how people move around.”

“You mean groups that can’t easily pass as human, right?” Vivian asked as she drove down the unfamiliar highway.

“There’s that, and also, like ‘how to, if they do, buy cars and get all the needed paperwork for them’,” John elaborated. “No one’s told me about the Abyssal used car salesmen guild.”

That drew a snort from Aeolia, who was sitting on his shoulder. “Just imagined the Order waging a full scale war on a car dealership for using hypnosis to make sales.”

“Would be a worthy use of their power,” Beth remarked with a grin. “I’d pay good money to see them scale walls made of old junkers.”

“Do the salesmen have catapults that launch old tires?” John asked.

“Of fucking course they do.” Beth beamed, clearly having fun imagining this ridiculous scenario. “Tires, hubcaps, fenders. Anything they’ve got hidden in their backlots.”

“Do you think the Order would trade out their swords for crowbars?” Aeolia wondered.

“Fuck, that would be hilarious!” Beth cackled. “I’m not going to be able to keep a straight face when we see them.”

“Please try to not cause an incident,” Vivian warned, though she fought to keep a smile from breaking her stern countenance. “The clan is going out of its way to have all of us present. They didn’t have to allow, and I quote, ‘you know, ten or twenty,’ people. I think they’re all-in trying to cement a long term relationship.”

“The question I have to ask is are they doing this to get on our good side, the Order’s, or both?” John wondered, the jokey mood of the car dimming into seriousness.

“If we take the pragmatic view, both,” Vivian proposed. “With us, they get first crack at raw resources to either craft things to sell at full profit or a cut of the sale of those raw resources. With the Order, they get security with us acting as a buffer to keeping the more dogmatic elements of the Order at bay.”

“Who knew when we started all this, we’d become the glue holding a multi-guild coalition together,” Aeolia dryly remarked.

“I figured something like this would happen once we got the World Tree seed and the Kingdom it would grow,” Vivian said. “A sudden influx of resources and ‘empty’ space was always going to attract attention, we just happened to have the bad luck of the Order catching wind of it.”

“At least we had Verida to keep them from trying to muscle in and take control of things,” Aeolia said.

“That we did.” Vivian nodded. “And with us able to develop on our own, more or less, we’re becoming the hub multiple groups are gathering around.”

“A bit like a frontier town,” John added, grabbing on to the first thing that came to mind. “Got some people looking for gold, others for the lumber, some people just here to sell stuff to the other two groups.”

“Probably as good an analogy as we can make,” Vivian agreed. “At least the other groups we’ve reached out to are less particular about things.”

John nodded, thankful for that. While they hadn’t got any agreements yet, things were progressing nicely, at least according to Vivian’s estimations. He was keen to follow her lead in the business matters. He just hoped there wouldn’t be any more ‘shows of strength’ after this one. He was getting a bit tired of having to fight to prove their worth.

“Looks like we’re almost there,” Vivian announced, her eyes bouncing between her phone’s map and their surroundings.

“You know, we never actually pondered how the dwarves get around,” Beth said.

“I-I’m sure they just buy cars through p-proxies,” Kiera spoke up for the first time. She had been quiet through the ride, almost meditative. John presumed she was getting ready to mantle Verida, and he wondered how much the last week of training may affect that. From how she and Verida explained their joint magic, it wasn’t something with a flat mana usage over the course of the mantling.

“And, what, throw up some illusion of some human over themselves as they drive?” Aeolia asked.

“It’s possible,” Vivian mused. “With the right enchantments, the car could drive itself well enough. Add some way of inducing invisibility for the occupants. Or we could be overthinking things and they just call some Abyssal taxi service. I’m sure there’s someone who runs one around these parts.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” John said. “Someone’s probably made a lot of cash doing that.”

“Given the whole business thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a hand in it,” Beth remarked.

“I think it goes without saying we shouldn’t bring any of this up to them,” Vivian said as she made a turn onto a side road.

“I’ve learned my lesson and ain’t ready to taste my shoe again,” Beth said.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Aeolia smirked.

“You want to go?” Beth challenged Aeolia. “I can shut up.”

“I can think of a few ways to keep you shut up,” Aeolia fired back, licking her lips.

“Please keep things PG,” Vivian stressed, catching Aeolia’s lewd threat. “We don’t need any puritan elements in either group to dig their heels in and make things difficult.”

“If the Order doesn’t know about our little harem, they need better eyes,” Aeolia remarked. “We are not subtle.”

“We still don’t need to advertise things,” Vivian said. “Keep personal separate from professional.”

There was a general murmur of assent and John found himself trying to ready his mind for the task ahead. He had no way of knowing who the Order would put forward or how Tok fought. Which left him in a somewhat precarious position regarding just how he was going to fight.

‘At this point, we’ve prepared as best we can,’ Senka thought. ‘You’ve gotten better with your weapons, stronger with your spells, better gear and a wide option pool. Plus, you’re smart and have me to bounce ideas off of. We’ll be fine.’

Senka’s pep talk helped to ease the knot that had begun to grow, but a low level of tension still ran through John. There was still a lot riding on this going well and he didn’t want to mess things up.

‘Enough of that,’ Senka chided, the sensation of her hands massaging his shoulders halting his spiraling brain. ‘We have this. You have this. Show everyone today just who you are.’

John closed his eyes and took a breath and let his negative thoughts leave as he exhaled. She was right. He’d been through too much to be this nervous. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Vivian was pulling into a rather plain looking apartment complex. A few cars were parked in the lot, with one that stood out.

Compared to every other vehicle, it was vastly more expensive looking. An SUV, black and perfectly cleaned and waxed, sat parked a good deal away from other cars, the sun gleaming off it. John didn’t need Observe to know it was an Order transport, one merely larger than the one he saw deliver Moira and Rowan to their trip to the floating city island. Not that his scrying skill was likely to work on it, given that previous encounter.

“Guessing the Order beat us here,” Vivian said as she drove towards the SUV. “And that they have a smaller entourage.”

John glanced at the side mirror, catching sight of Estelle’s car following them around the lot. The witch, Anita and Teri had traveled together. Brenda was the only one of them unable to attend, mainly due to her job. Though, if John was being honest, he didn’t feel comfortable with her being in the Order’s presence. They knew he was a late bloomer, so his mother showing up with a faint trace of mana would likely cause an uproar at the very best.

The worst he didn’t want to think about.

As Vivian and Estelle parked their cars, John noticed the door to one of the buildings open. Lita poked her head out, anxious eyes peering out towards them from under the brim of a baseball hat. One that John guessed she wore to hide her ears, since it otherwise clashed with the powder blue blouse and long black skirt she wore.

“Glad I can just go invisible,” Aeolia remarked, already veiled, as she landed on John’s shoulder. “I’d hate to have to cover my wings.”

“Certainly an interesting spot to pick,” Estelle said as she looked around once she was out of her car. She fiddled with a small purse and pulled out a delicate looking pair of wire frame glasses. She put them on and cast her gaze over the area again. “Yep, good flow of mana here. A gentle earth, calm water, pleasant wind, even a bit of fire. Good foundation for building a long-term barrier.”

John took a moment to take in Estelle’s change in outfit. While she had worn the usual dress earlier, she had swapped it out for what he would call ‘a professional upgrade’. She kept her purple color, but went with a long skirt, hiding most of her stocking covered legs. Almost as if to balance that out, the top was sleeveless with a turtleneck. Separating these two parts was a simple black belt.

“Mana sensing tool?” Vivian asked as she smoothed away the wrinkles in her skirt.

Estelle nodded as she slipped the glasses away. “Nothing really advanced but they’re good at getting the general feel for an area. They’re not going to pick up anything from say the Order’s car.”

“Not that I would expect it to if it was on par with Observe,” John said. “The Order’s got something that can block it.”

“Did they only take one car?” Anita wondered.

“It’s possible they only felt a small party was necessary,” Vivian mused. “They have a lot more people so they can delegate easily enough.”

“Only one way we’ll find out,” John said, his eyes shifting to Lita, who was hesitantly making her way to them. “Lita, right?”

The disguised catgirl stopped short, freezing as everyone’s attention fell on her.

“Y-yes, that’s right,” she stuttered out, nervously fiddling with the hem of her blouse. She took in a calming breath. “W-welcome to Higaisha, home of Clan Baz.”

“Thank you for having us and giving us this opportunity,” Vivian replied.

“Um, not sure I’m the one to be accepting that kind of response,” Lita muttered and John wondered if she was the one meeting them as the only one they could have standing outside without attracting too much attention. “L-let’s get inside. Vel and Gin are waiting on the other side.”

Lita gestured towards the building she exited from. As she led them in, Vivian asked, “Have representatives of the Order already arrived?”

“Yes, they have,” Lita answered, her nervous tone decreasing as they neared the building. “They, um, elected to bring a much smaller number than we allowed them.”

“Guess between our larger number and their smaller one, things will balance out,” Estelle remarked.

John kept his senses open as they walked, trying to detect any magics running out outside of the barrier. He could feel the edge of the barrier once they got within a few meters of the doorway, but what drew his attention was the lines of magic running from their guide.

Several thin threads seemed to extend from Lita, all of them heading into the barrier, where they vanished from his senses. They pulsed with constant surges back and forth. John found himself thinking back to their meeting a week ago, where Lara had said something about her being distracted by ‘running too many little soldiers’. Some kind of linking magic maybe?

Whatever it was didn’t seem to impede her ability to direct them to the barrier entrance and as she let them through, John felt a rush of pleasant warmth wash over him, like stepping into an active kitchen on a cool day. The sudden shift in brightness from the foyer interior to midday sun left John blinking away spots.

“Sorry about the light,” Lita profusely apologized once she realized her blunder as all of them adjusted.

“It’s fine,” Vivian assured her. John nodded to show agreement with her as he began to take in their surroundings. They were standing at the end of a paved stone road. Ahead of them was a neatly laid out small settlement. Everything was made of stone or some other earthen material and was of simple, boxy design. The standout of each building was in smaller details. Many of the tiled roofs were an eye-catching color, many some shade of red, with a few yellows and oranges mixed in.

The facades of each building also bore custom decor. Some were painted completely over, others with murals covering only some of the base stone. Potted plants of various sizes stood outside of doorways and windowsills.

As John looked around, he twisted to see what was behind them. A garden stretched out for dozens of meters until the air became a hazy fog, which John took as the edge of the barrier. Turning his attention back towards the town, his eyes gravitated to the far end, where a larger building, still made in the same style, stood resplendent.

“I see you’re taking in the sights and appreciating the view,” Vel’s deep voice came from the side and the dwarf stepped out of one of the buildings flanking the entry point. “And I’m glad you elected to fully embrace our hospitality. The Order was a bit more restrained with who they sent. Their choice for the trial and two others. I hope you’re hungry because there’s going to be ample amounts of food.”

“If you’re offering,” Beth began before Vivian silenced her with a look. Vel, however, laughed.

“There’s someone who gets it.” He chuckled. “This is not some solemn occasion of quiet reflection. In fact, it could be counted as two reasons to celebrate. But the doorway’s not the spot for this kind of talk. Come, let’s head to the hall.”

Vel took the lead and led them down the main road, Lita at his side.

“Your home’s very well set up on leylines,” Estelle said, as she made her way towards the front of the group.

Vel looked up at the witch, one of his eyebrows raised. “Got an eye for that sort of thing, eh?”

“I’m a bit of a tinkerer,” Estelle coyly said. “Estelle Morgan, witch of the Foster Coven.”

“Didn’t know you had delvers of the esoteric in your ranks.” Vel smirked, clearly unbothered by their lack of transparency on that part. “Haven’t had much dealings with that side of magic in some time, but if there’s a respectable outfit around, I know a few people who wouldn’t mind swinging by to pick your brains.”

While Estelle conversed with Vel on just what sort of people he was talking about and what mysteries they were seeking to uncover, John took in the sights. The settlement was abuzz with activity and many people ran about. Most of them were dwarves, based on his limited understanding of how they looked, but there were a number of clearly not dwarves who looked perfectly at home.

A large green skinned orc was adjusting a large pot with a decorative tree in front of one building, gardening tools tucked into the pockets of a well worn apron. A number of very small children were playing hopscotch, several of them barefooted and noticeably smaller, leading him to think them halflings.

There were a handful of other examples of the multi-lineage nature of Clan Baz he saw, and it was clear that Lita and Lara were far from exceptions.

“Suprised by how many of our people aren’t like me, eh?” Vel suddenly asked, shocking John out of his sightseeing. “Suppose you're not used to such a cosmopolitan group in the Abyss.”

“Not really,” John sheepishly answered.

“No need to feel bad about using your eyes, boy,” Vel lightly admonished. “It’s clear to me you’re rather green and this area isn’t exactly like the big cities. Hell of a lot more peaceful, for the most part.”

“Is that why you’ve put down roots here?” Anita asked.

“More or less,” Vel answered. “Some of us prefer the quiet, some the hustle and bustle, so here’s a good compromise. Been here for a little more than sixty years.”

“Were you nomadic before? Or just relocating for a change of pace?” Vivian eagerly asked.

“Little bit of both,” Vel replied. “We’ve always been ready to pack up and move if the need arises. One of the only things we’ve kept alive from the Blistered Days.”

“‘Blistered Days’?” Aeolia inquired.

“The dark ages for our dwarven forebears," Vel solemnly recounted. “They were the last survivors from our ancestral Kingdom. A long war had them scattered to the edges of the map and only a **** gamble allowed them to find a Path to Earth. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of Abyssals of the Japanese islands, they likely wouldn’t have survived. Been the clan’s way ever since to render whatever aid they can to those who need it, including a place to call home.”

Vel cleared his throat. “But enough of that. Today’s not the day to tell old stories. It’s one for forging a new one. Come, come. Let’s not keep everyone else waiting for much longer.”