To get away from the Neverborn discussion for a moment, here is a new omake, featuring everybody's favorite ronin Sidereal: Aldric Straub. If you're not sure who he is, it might help to reread
End of an era & maybe
The Shattered City as well.
With that, enjoy.
Rotten Breadcrumbs Trail
-5 years prior to the Exaltation of the Marshal of the Althing Infernal-
The sun was shining brightly in the clear, blue sky as the chirping of the birds filled the air. And Aldric had managed to hitch a ride on a horse-drawn cart filled with freshly picked fruits. It really made one wonder why anyone would go through the hassle of procuring illegal narcotics or drown themselves in alcohol when simple pleasures like this were aplenty. Even if it hadn't been Lytek's intention, Aldric would have to thank him later for giving him the opportunity to travel to this piece of the world.
As Aldric stepped into Lytek's office he couldn't help but wonder how a single person, mortal or divine, could simultaneously be such a slob that he would let literal years of trash pile up in his office, yet be so meticulous that all of said trash and everything else in the office would be neatly stacked and arranged according to an actual system. The Chosen of Secrets rather doubted that anybody's image of a major god would be that of an anal-retentive hoarder, but there you go. "Ah, Aldric, I hope you didn't have too much trouble getting here?" The god said in his usual grandfatherly manner.
"No more than the usual trouble that comes with getting past the Celestial Lions while keeping my lack of employment at the Forbidding Manse of Ivy a secret." Arcane fate had its uses, although it was somewhat depressing how easily the upholders of the law of Heaven could be fooled like that. "So what did you call me for that you couldn't go to Sagacious Vagrant for? I thought you wanted for me to stay away from Yu Shan as much as possible. What happened to meeting incognito in the mortal realm?"
"You didn't notice when you stepped in here? It's probably for the best that you didn't. Makes it less likely that anybody else will either." The god sighed and where before his face simply radiated geniality, now Aldric could see how tired Lytek was. He knew that the elder god didn't usually partake in the festivities that were common in the Celestial City, but he looked like he could really use a glass of celestial wine right now. "Three days ago my office had been ransacked, the whole place was just one big mess. It would have still looked like a dump if it hadn't been for Naheb and her janitorial staff. Now there's a goddess that deserves a promotion or three." Aldric couldn't help but blink owlishly. If anything important had been robbed or damaged, Lytek would have started the conversation with that. He could scarcely imagine how frustrating it must have been for Lytek and his idea of orderliness to have to put everything back in place, but that wasn't a reason to bring him here. Lytek could see the question on Aldric's face so, before the young Sidereal could voice it, the god continued.
"The only thing missing is a small statue of a black jade ram on the back of a white jade eagle I got some centuries ago. If that were all I would have filed a claim with the Celestial Lions and watch them either catch a scapegoat or be bullied into giving up on this by Ryzala. The more serious issue, and the one that you clearly haven't noticed yet, are the traces of necrotic essence that linger here. I don't know what kind of creature broke into my office, but anything carrying something so foul should have been caught by the Lions before it could have even had the chance to get into Yu Shan, let alone here. I don't know if this is another attempt by Parad to have me be audited or if it is something more sinister, but either way I cannot let this rest." Admittedly, Aldric didn't know Lytek all that well, aside from Corbel having talked fondly of him and being one of the few gods that Vagrant was respectful to, but given, as far as Aldric was concerned, that the god was one of the few things that kept Heaven from becoming a complete shithole, an attack on him was an attack on Aldric Straub himself.
"And you think I could find whoever did this?" This wasn't what he usually did, but tracking a necromancer or Neverborn sympathist and bashing some skulls in would make for a decent way to kill some time.
"You don't need to find anything, I know exactly where that statuette is. Whoever took it didn't even bother to unravel the tracking enchantment on it." And then the god threw a piece of paper at Aldric, which he caught easily. "It's somewhere in Asia, the exact coordinates are on that. Find whoever took it and give him an ass-whooping if he's nothing more than a practical joker. If it's something more serious though…" No more needed to be said, Aldric understood that perfectly. He glanced at the scrap of paper, that somehow managed to shine as if it were made from thin sheets of gold. Come to think of it, he hadn't visited the Chinese Federation yet. He might as well include some sightseeing while he tracked down this petty thief.
"And your parents kicked you out of the house when you said you wanted to work in a small clinic in the country instead of that major hospital near Cologne? Can't fault them, if you're really that good of a doctor you should have become as famous and respected as you could have. Not like anyone else I know had a chance like that just lying in front of them." The middle-aged man holding the reins of the horse mocked his hitchhiker, not like he understood much of what happened outside of his little slice of the world.
"You don't understand, if I had gone to work there I would have hated every second of it. You have no idea how much rivalry there is between the various doctors within the same department, or the grueling work hours they made me do while the senior doctors played pool in the nearby bar. And that is when they weren't on their thirtieth vacation of the year. I already had to spend nearly two years being their glorified whipping boy, no way was I going to willingly return to that just for the possibility of being able to do the same to some naive med school brat after thirty years of bitterness and frustration." Well, that wasn't exactly how things had gone, but Aldric knew that he had gotten the farmer to sympathize with him. In fact, Aldric could hear the man mutter some rather choice words about those 'elitist, stuck-up and pampered European shitstains' that would have gotten his mother to bring out a bar of soap. The puke-colored green one that could probably see better use as a tool of murder rather than one of hygiene.
Once the mortal man was done cursing and ranting to himself, things had become silent again between the two. For several minutes nothing was said and only the creaking of the cart and the lazy grunting of the horse, before the man spoke up once more.
"So you left your home after that spat with your parents, but why come all the way to a remote little place in the Chinese Federation? There should have been plenty of places to visit in Europe, maybe even find a family to take you in and a clinic where you could work like you want."
"What do you mean? I've seen plenty of Europe, after all, I lived there for almost twenty years before I went on my world tour. Whether this is Federation territory or not, can't a guy just take a stroll and talk to the descendants of the Taungoo and Konbaung empires? I've always found the history of Burma to be absolutely fascinating." And he wasn't even lying about any of that. Granted, he knew of ancient Burma mostly from what Corbel and Vagrant had seen and done there. Sufficed to say, the favor of Heaven was a fickle thing indeed. One could only wonder how those Sidereals must have felt, tearing down all that they had built up after the man they had pinned their hopes had been assassinated.
"Well, I wasn't expecting that, but it's still not a great idea for you to be here right now. The military's been snooping around here lately. So if somebody like you shows up out of the blue, well, wouldn't be the first time somebody got 'taken in for questioning' and was then never seen again." And wouldn't you know it, the little podunk town from which the stolen statuette was sending out its tracking signal had just become interesting. With a simple platitude Aldric convinced the man that he wouldn't get into any trouble and before he knew it, they had arrived.
The village was about as quaint as Aldric had envisioned it to be, the whole of it probably no bigger than a block in an average city. That there was a military camp almost twice as big as the village not even a hundred meters away didn't matter, if Aldric was being perfectly honest. He got off the cart and waved the man goodbye. By next week he probably wouldn't even remember having ever picked up a hitchhiker, let alone a redheaded German twenty-something doctor. It was for the best.
The cart driver rode on to drop his wares at the newly erected military camp. Aldric, on the other hand, walked off of the dirt road without a care in the world. The moment he stepped into a nearby clearing, a whole new life took hold of him, a lifetime of falsified experiences and long-held beliefs settling into his brain as if they had always been there.
As far as the world was concerned now the German exalt had been replaced by a slightly shorter, stocky Chinese man. Walking around in a tailor-made military uniform and a multitude of medals pinned on his chest he would have been easily mistaken for either a war hero or a successful
asskisser supporter of the eunuchs and the empress in whose name they protect the glorious federation in all its prosperity and compassion.
But for those for whom the veil had been lifted would know that they were in the presence of the blood of the dragons, the rightful rulers of everything beneath heaven's ever-watching eye.
Nonchalantly, yet with a look that dared anybody else to mess with him, Aldric the dragonblooded military officer strolled into the village. The missing statuette was quickly found, having been taken from a local by a greedy soldier, but for the moment that didn't matter.
Aldric's eyes were drawn to an unassuming local, a middle-aged man that took the time to greet everybody he met by name, who lent a hand wherever one was needed and cowered alongside the rest of them when a soldier started waving his gun around. Everything you would expect from a normal resident of the area.
A normal resident that walked around with a very well made combat knife strapped underneath his armpit. A normal resident who had done an adequate job at moving around like a non-combatant, but hadn't managed to completely conceal the combat training that had been drilled into him since his youth. A normal resident who kept track of his surroundings like an apex predator within the heart of his own territory and studied his fellow villagers when nobody looked at him. And from the way he interacted with the others, a year since he arrived here, two years, perhaps?
The only question remained, military intelligence, personal agent of one of the high eunuchs or part of a criminal organization? Oh who was he kidding, he had known the answer to that before he had stepped foot on Burma.
Ten seconds later the disguised Sidereal had grabbed the inconspicuous undercover spy with all the subtlety one might expect of a man prancing around in full military dress uniform and carrying around more medals than he has digits.
"Please, sir, I've done nothing wrong. I've given the lion's share of my food supplies to the cooks of the encampment and I gave up poor Su, my poor horse, to help out our brave boys and girls and…"
"Enough, agent. This isn't the time to maintain your cover." The man looked panicked, his eyes darting left and right, searching for an exit, but only for a second or two. After that he relaxed, looking at the disguised Aldric with a strange mix of resignation and confusion.
Good, at least he wasn't so green that he would break his cover at the first sign of it being compromised. "The three brothers Zhang of Hebei, heroes of the people, twenty years of war for a thousand years of prosperity."
"Twenty years before the Mandate of Heaven can be restored, bearing the three treasures of compassion, moderation and humility the emperor and his council will bear witness to a thousand years of prosperity." The spy replied almost mechanically.
It was somewhat depressing that Li Xingke's royalists would use such an obvious password for its clandestine operations, but if it made things easier on him who was he to complain?
"Are you new? I don't recognize your face at all."
"Officially I am in the employ of High Eunuch Xia Wang, but that doesn't mean I can't see how destructive their greed is on the people of the federation. I'm just lucky that the High Eunuch thinks that his fellow advisors are keeping him out of the loop, giving me free reign to 'investigate' the matter. So what are we dealing with? I doubt that the official story of an uncapped dragon vein with some useful essence tokens is all there is to this area." It didn't really matter whether or not the spy would actually tell him the truth. Either he would tell the truth and reveal to Aldric how much the royalists had discovered and how they knew a year in advance of the importance of this site. Or he would lie and let Aldric find out what the man was trying to hide.
"Well, it's not like it matters all that much anymore. The eunuchs' stooges 'discovered' the white jade mine we've been mining for the past couple of years. The damn thing has been near useless ever since that shadowland popped up, covering the first three or so levels and the surrounding landscape to boot. The eunuchs' bootlickers are here to 'cleanse the area', but given their track record…"
"All they're going to do is hold a witch hunt on all the ancestor worshippers and death cultists that they may find, real or imaginary. Even if they were to launch an assault on the mine itself, it'll be a long and costly siege before they retake it and that is before you factor in the manpower and cost of pushing the shadowland back. Not to mention the potential side-effects there might be on the raw jade from having been exposed to all that necrotic essence for such a long time." Aldric finished the spy's train of thought, earning a nod from the man in return.
That at least explained the necrotic residue that had been found in Lytek's office. "Then what about that jade statue I saw one of the soldiers grab from that old woman? It had black jade as well as white jade, so did it come from the mine as well? I doubt that is how the jade was smuggled out of here."
"I have no idea, but the regular soldiers stealing from the local populace is hardly something to be surprised about." As far as Aldric could tell the spy seemed sincere. If he didn't know anything about the stolen statuette, either they really weren't involved with the ransacking of Lytek's chambers or they didn't inform the grunts and he was pretty sure it wasn't the latter.
"Well, I'm sure I can spin this in a way that makes me look good in front of Xia Wang, but just one more thing before we go our separate ways, are there any other… surprises I should know about the mine? Explosives that would collapse the entrance, elementals or automata that will attack whoever gets…"
A third man appeared. The moment Aldric looked at him and saw the nondescript face, Venus' caste mark shining from beneath their fate-woven disguise, he knew the gig was up.
Before either the spy or the newcomer could speak up Aldric dashed towards the exit. He easily vaulted over the Joybringer, but the moment he was airborne the other Sidereal pulled a daiklave out of thin air, spun around and buried it into the ronin's neck. The only reason why Aldric's head didn't separate from the rest of his body was the stormspitter he had inherited from Corbel. Anybody who would have claimed that you couldn't parry a sword with a gun was proven wrong that day.
Aldric landed a bit behind the newcomer, who hadn't moved since that initial swing. Their backs turned to one another neither of them moved. It was essentially a game of chicken, the first one to move loses.
"Humor me, how long have the High Eunuchs been on our trail for them to send you to our neighborhood?"
"Is that the game we're playing here? Well, no skin off my back." Even if this farce would only last for a minute, that would still be plenty of time for Aldric to find a way to escape.
"My apologies, sir. He gave me the correct password, so I had assumed tha…"
"Don't worry, I know you're not to blame. Your job is to gather information, not head the counter-espionage unit. Not like it would have mattered much, this man's got quite the reputation within certain circles." Of course, both of the present Sidereals were aware that that was a load of bullshit, a story the Joybringer was coming up with on the spot to blacken his disguised identity's image. Aldric assumed it was one of those idiosyncrasies unique to the Sidereals as a whole. "A dangerous man whose only loyalty lies with the one that has the most gold to offer, someone who ensures that old grudges can never be settled so long as he can make a profit out of them."
"So you are the one leading this little undercover team of yours? One might wonder if you royalists are forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find new recruits because everybody intelligent has already been employed by the High Eunuchs or if you need to be an idiot to want a little, prepubescent girl to have absolute authority over the largest nation in the world? So, which is it, field commander?" The Joybringer would need to take two steps before Aldric would be in range of his sword. In the time he would need to turn around and take said steps Aldric would be able to stand up from his crouch and take only one step. Just hightailing it out of the alleyway would not be enough to get out of this predicament.
"If you think that would be enough to get me to act rashly you must either believe that I am as stupid as you think all royalists are or you have quite the superiority complex. And here I am, an enemy operative within my grasp and I forget to interrogate him. Fighting you would only attract attention that neither of us want and I don't have the right tools on me to torture you in peace and quiet. Quite the bother, wouldn't you say?" The Chosen of Serenity didn't wait for Aldric to reply. "Who else is here? Who is your contact person and what have you found out thus far? I will cut your head off if you don't answer promptly." And then he turned around to face the still crouched Aldric, who couldn't help but sigh. This identity was worthless now anyway.
"I have eight thousand elite dragons from the capital who'll descend on you if I snap my fingers, each one of them carrying half a dozen soul breaker orbs and three daiklaves of conquest, on top of the armors of the immaculate dragons that are standard to our regiment. My contact person is Hesiesh and we are on the verge of mass producing the Games of Divinity, enough to have one in each household of the federation by next Christmas." And then he fired, right into the spy's foot.
The sheer snark in Aldric's reply had actually frozen the other Sidereal up for a second as the shot passed him by. Like the starting shot at a hundred meter dash, Aldric sprinted away. The military would be swarming the alleyway within a matter of minutes and the Joybringer had to worry about getting his subordinate out of there before either could be caught. A bullet to the foot is pretty much a death sentence to a person's mobility, after all. Not to mention how long it would take to recuperate from such an injury.
Unseen by the scared and excited populace Aldric darted away, leaving the village behind him. He could track the statuette whenever he wanted, but if he was going to get any real answers anytime soon, he would find them in the shadowland.
Why was it always the dead that had to muck things up?
xXx
Piece by piece the wall Aldric was hiding behind was crumbling apart. He had been stuck in this particular patch of pitch black tunnel for the past ten minutes, unable to do anything as the dead kept firing arrows and throwing javelins at him from seemingly everywhere. It would only be a matter of minutes until their reinforcements came storming in from the tunnels he had already passed by.
In retrospect it was obvious that they had baited him, luring him further and further into their stronghold until they could finish him off in a single strike. Every defensive line broke a tad too easy, its defenders having safely retreated by the time he had reached them. Every ambush harrying him further down into the blackness rather than try and harm or exhaust him. Regardless, here and now thousands of arrows had been shot, almost every piece of imaginable cover in the past kilometer had been reduced to rubble.
He had to give it to them, whoever was leading them knew how to make the most out of a fort. A rumble could be felt from the other end of the tunnel, yet the defenders didn't ease up on their barrage. Just a little bit longer before he would be well and truly looking death in the eye.
The trap was closed, the last possible escape route blocked by well over a hundred war ghosts, all armed like they were expecting the Aerial Legion to invade. The mind behind this setup knew exactly what his troops were capable of and how to use ten thousand grains of sand to wear down a mountain with a minimal amount of casualties.
Too bad he wasn't as well-versed in Sidereal medical practices as he was in underworld combat tactics.
With only one hand Aldric lifted up what remained of his cover, throwing it at the column of archers that had pinned him down here. A couple of them had to get out of the way, but the rest went on, firing at the redheaded German with a precision that any centaur would have been proud of. But the rock had bunched them together.
A wave of purple filled the hallway and half the archers ceased to exist.
The war ghosts that had been meant to butcher him couldn't stop their charge, they died alongside the remainder of the archers. A third invocation of the silence after the storm and Aldric was all that was left in the deserted hallway.
"I was afraid something like this might happen." A middle-aged man appeared from the other end of the tunnel. Dressed like a courtier of a Chinese Emperor from three centuries ago, the pale man was stroking his Fu Manchu beard. An earth-aspected dragonblooded in the heart of a recently formed shadowland; not what Aldric had been expecting.
"I very much doubt you are a prisoner of the dead."
"Quite frankly, I would have been appalled if that was your impression of me." The superficially Chinese-looking dragonblooded sniffed loudly, still looking at the non-existent remains of the ghostly soldiers with a mixture of pity and disappointment.
"So why show yourself like this? Wouldn't it have made more sense to send out more of your troops to deplete my stamina and kill me once I'm exhausted?"
"Perhaps if you were here to destroy this outpost I might have done something along those lines. But you're not and it is imperative that my remaining forces remain capable of withstanding whatever that mortal army at our doorstep might throw at us. No, better to conserve my forces and make you leave peacefully instead. It is a wise man that can let his foe enjoy a victory, if denying him that would prove ruinous otherwise. I have no intent on being the next Pyrrhus, after all." For a moment Aldric didn't know what to say. Usually people were far more shifty and unwilling to even say hello without looking like they had swallowed down a lemon or three. "Why be so open with me? And how would you know what I'm looking for?"
"Because I know who signed off on the infiltration and destruction of the office of Lytek, the Right Hand of Power and who actually committed the act. It is something of a bother that they used my base for this foolhardy plan of theirs, hence I see no reason why I shouldn't solve the problems they've created in my own way." Again unexpected, but Aldric wasn't going to complain.
"So why do it?" It had been a rather weird day, getting into battles left and right and then having a friendly chat with the people that he had tried to kill. It was actually rather nice.
"In a nutshell, to see what would happen. They have not seen fit to inform me of the specifics, but from what I've gathered sometime in the near future something is going to happen that they've deemed so vital to our efforts that they found it crucial to accurately gauge what manner of response they could expect from Heaven. They've shown an unusual interest in Lytek and his purview, which is why he has been targeted. Foolish, of course, the benefits of knowing Heaven's protocol to whatever it is they're planning do not measure up to the costs of putting the celestial lions in a higher state of alert or even forewarning them entirely. Not that they even managed that."
"What do you mean by that?" If there was some friction between this dragonblooded and whoever else was part of this, it would be rather stupid of Aldric to not milk this for all its worth.
"You, of course. We expected for Lytek to either involve the celestial lions with the matter or to sweep it all under the rug. His hatred for the Bureau of Fate is well-known, which is why we had dismissed the possibility of Sidereal interference, but a ronin? Not only was it a surprise that Lytek had such an unexpected resource at his disposal, but even more so that he would call upon it for a matter like this. Your actions in no way reflect the standard procedure that the Celestial Lions would have revealed, nor does it tell us anything useful about the balance of power in Yu Shan. Hence, my colleagues' little prank failed to achieve anything whatsoever."
"Harsh, but if what you're saying is true I can't say that those colleagues of yours don't deserve it." There was still too much about this entire situation that Aldric just didn't understand.
"That's just how it is. We may disagree on a number of subjects, but that doesn't change that we're all working towards the same goal, even if they have proven in the past to need multiple attempts to finish a simple assignment, like with that librarian Vizier two years ago." The dragonblooded either didn't notice or didn't care as Aldric all but froze up. " They could have done so much in the days leading up to the sundering of the Seal, certainly more than spend a week setting up their 'impenetrable' stronghold in the middle of southern Germany. And then when push comes to shove, that idiot so-called master thief allowed almost an entire battalion to be annihilated to put down a single bureaucrat Sidereal. And she couldn't even manage that right, no, she cocked it up so bad that she needed the mobile shadowland to actually kill that bespectacled Vizier, after letting the existence of the essence infector agents spread far and wide. It was a downright miracle that she didn't lose her life over that blunder, let alone her position."
"That librarian your friend killed, his name is Venerable Corbel. And you will talk about him with respect, you necrophilic piece of scum." And with a single leap Aldric was upon the dragonblooded. His skin was like granite and after a moment's struggle threw Aldric off of him. A trio of bullets clashed with a bolt of earthen essence the second the two separated.
The roof of the tunnel collapsed on Aldric's head. But like the disciple of the crane that he was, Aldric got out of there unscratched, the various pieces of rubble gently guided away before they could have come close to hitting Aldric himself.
Two more elemental bolts came racing at him. With the path behind him blocked off and essence-based projectiles on either side, the only way he could go was straight ahead, right into the smirking terrestrial exalted. Aldric charged, his hands wreathed in crimson.
The terrestrial easily dodged Aldric and threw him on the ground in a reversal of before. The force of the throw forced Aldric to let go of his gun, which the dragonblooded kicked away. For a second it looked like Aldric was well and truly pinned to the ground, at the complete and utter mercy of the dragonblooded death cultist. Then he plunged his hand in his foe's side. The older man howled as he let go of Aldric and get to safety, but Aldric was having none of that.
The instant he was free again he allowed three essence bullets to form in the palm of the hand that had punctured the dragonblooded's side. By the time the earth aspect had torn himself away from Aldric not a single one of his abdominal organs had come out of it unscathed.
Hacking and coughing the earth aspect tried to get up, but there was Aldric again, ramming his fist in the dragonblooded's face.
"Now you will tell me everything. Leave anything out and I will make you wish you were thrown in the Mouth of Oblivion instead, do you understand me?" The man shot a fierce glare at Aldric, but nodded nevertheless.
"Who are you, how big is this group of yours and who the fuck ransacked Lytek's office and killed Corbel?" A bit of spittle landed on the dragonblooded's face, but neither he nor Aldric seemed to care or notice.
"And I'm sure you will spread the word of our nefarious deeds to all the corners of the earth. We are nothing more than a small group of likeminded individuals who feel that the world has gone to shit and everybody worth a damn has died millennia ago, so why not appeal to those giants of the past to set things right?"
"A small group? What's next, you're going to tell me that the walk from Germany to Burma is no more than five minutes? As for 'the giants of the past', they are at most half a giant. Whoever it is you kowtow to would do at least as bad a job as whoever you think is running this show."
"Keep telling yourself that, kid. You'll find us in pretty much every major piece of the world, from ancestor cults to necromancer academies to everything and anything those fools sealed away all those millennia ago after the twin cataclysms. Time is on our side, it has only ever been on our side."
"Enough with the gloating, just tell me…"
"Who killed your beloved Corbel, I heard you the first time, boy. She's a Wood Aspect that's been with us for a long time, but really, all she's ever done is aggravate me with her bumbling stupidity and constant belittling, so if you plan on killing her, go for it." Aldric let go of the heavily injured exalt, stood up and retrieved his gun. "Her name is Daria Bodrogi and if that is all, kindly bugger off, Vizier." From the corner of his eye Aldric saw the injured dragonblooded crawl up to a nearby wall, after which he pulled himself up. Aldric was sure the man could stitch himself up and there really wasn't much point in staying here. He had his answers, so all he had to do was get the statuette and maybe then he could start enjoying his vacation.
The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the hallway. The moment it stopped the rubble from before was cut and diced into pieces, revealing a handsome man on the other side, with a very familiar sword in hand. Even with how dark the tunnel was, there was no mistaking it: the Joybringer had followed him here.
"Finally caught up to you, you piece of shit. I will…who are you? You don't look like any of the Sidereals I know and I know pretty much every Vizier by face if nothing else."
"Hey, ronin and tagalong, what part of 'bugger off' do you not understand?" The two Chosen of the Maidens looked at the last remaining person in the mine. Aldric had no intentions of actually killing the guy after he had provided him with all the information he needed, but could the same be said for the Joybringer?
"What, and make things easier for the Chinese Federation? Killing this guy would be counterproductive." Aldric hadn't realized he had said that out loud.
The tensions were still high, but finally the two came to something of a truce. In complete silence the two trudged back, until they were finally out of the shadowland.
"So, a ronin, huh? There've been quite a few of those running around ever since the shadowlands returned. Honestly, you don't look like the type."
"And you don't look like the type to play spymaster. I'm sure there is a host club somewhere out there looking for their missing employee." The Joybringer couldn't help but laugh at that.
"It's what happens when you're a flunky in the Bureau of Fate, besides, it could be worse. I could be stuck on prayer substitution duty. That particular pile of paperwork has requests in there going back to the days of the Shogunate, and that's not because anybody is slacking off." All Aldric had to do was raise an eyebrow to get the Chosen of Venus to elaborate. "After the Usurpation the flow of prayer to the gods slowed down to a trickle due to the regular mortals no longer being able to perceive the supernatural or easily forgetting that it actually exists. And because us Sidereals are the only ones on Heaven's payroll that can actually interact with both the gods and the mortals we were 'blessed' with getting to devise and spread whole new ways of getting them their precious ambrosia. Seriously, you don't become a full-fledged member of the Five Score Fellowship until you've had to make comic sans the most popular font in the western hemisphere or something equally inane. As if we don't have enough to deal with, with all the snarls in the Loom of Fate."
"Ow. So to get to a somewhat lighter topic, is that subordinate of yours doing okay? Shooting him was the only thing I could come up with that would prevent us from getting into a fight."
"I'm still pissed off at what you did to Ling, but he'll be fine. My entire team is aware of the supernatural, so I could get him the good stuff. He'll be up and running again by next week." Given that it was a Friday, that must be some really good treatment.
"But then, you would think that the Bureau would have better things for you to do than…"
"Let's cut the chit-chat, ronin, or did you think I wouldn't have noticed you faking ignorance before? You know damn well what has been going on in Yu Shan. You're not a normal ronin, you've been in contact with someone inside Heaven, which makes your refusal to become one of us deliberate rather than unintentional. Or did you think I hadn't picked up your little tête-à-tête with that death cultist?" The gun was cocked and the sword drawn. The two were moments away from resuming their fight from before, when the Chosen of Serenity grinned and put his daiklave back in its sheath.
"Nah, not really feeling like it. I've got nothing against you and really, I avoid getting into fights as long as I can." Still suspicious, Aldric holstered his gun. "So are you here just for that statuette Ling was talking about?"
"Perhaps. All I really wanted was a little vacation. You're not trying to recruit me into the empress' army, are you?"
"Far from it, neither me nor my superiors are interested in seeing a strong or stable federation anytime in the future. My true purpose is to sabotage the royalists and keep the Tianzi from attaining real power. Not sure why my superiors are so fixated on that little girl, but if those are my marching orders who am I to complain? I was just wondering if you could do something for me?"
"Like what, do the same with the High Eunuchs and do your job for you?"
"I'm glad you're such a smart guy, that is exactly what I was thinking about."
"And in return you'll keep my existence a secret. Do you really think that'd be enough to get me to do your work?" The Joybringer's smirk widened.
"That was never gonna happen. You don't think I'd be dumb enough to hide the existence of a ronin from somebody like Gudleifr Ragnadagr, do you? No, our little spat in the village was a bit too public for that to fly. Instead I'll keep everything from your name and face all the way to which Maiden's caste you belong to a secret and the people up there will only hear of you when I hand in my monthly report."
"Ragnadagr, huh? Hadn't pegged you for a Bronze faction person. Alright, I might be interested in helping you. When do you have to hand in that report you mentioned?"
"Not for another two weeks. Help me and I'll get you that statuette, free of charge." And if he didn't the entire Bureau of Fate would know every little detail there was to know about him, from his relation with Lytek all the way to his favorite color if this guy was to be believed.
"You treat me to some good local food and you've got a deal. Aldric Straub's the name by the way."
"I'm glad to hear that. You can count on me to have your back or my name isn't Adamant Lotus."
Oh well, what was a little blackmail between new friends, right?
