I took a long sip of my coffee. I was definitely up way too late practicing Ether Strings. Oh- String Sorcery didn’t really make sense anymore if there was no weave to pull on. Hence Ether Strings… unless Lucia came up with a better name. She definitely had the naming rights.
I eyed the girl from the corner of my eye. She was all dressed up today. She wore a tight corpa suit, and her flowing golden hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. This was the day, afterall. The day we’d see if Nyx had a horribly unfortunate run-in with Cernobog Industries board of directors.
[Nighteye watches with rapt attention. Is it bad that she hopes they do something stupid?]
No, no it isn’t my dear Miix. I also—sincerely from the bottom of my heart—hoped they did something incredibly stupid. But how today went wasn’t up to us, unfortunately. It was up to our brave CEO leading the way forward.
The board meeting was supposedly already in full swing. We’d be crashing it at any moment. Hopefully, I’d be crashing some skulls soon too- no. I needed to have faith in Lucia’s plan. She put so much effort into this. Even if it didn’t work, it’d work. One way or another.
I eyed the man standing to the left of Lucia in the elevator. He was a rather unassuming man in every sense of the word. Looked like the shadiest merchant I’d ever seen even with a fancy suit and fedora. Wasn’t a hundred percent sure what his deal was. Maybe he was part of the security team? Lucia specifically pulled him along with us when we entered the lobby.
As if sensing my gaze, the man turned to me. He put on a smile that stretched just too wide. “Ah, Moon! Right, I was supposed to give something to you.”
“…” My guard instantly raised by several notches. The man sounded like a snake. It was kinda hard to put into words, but he reminded me of a slippery serpent that could barter his way out of any danger. Or maybe like a wolf playing as a sheep to catch the shepherd?
”Nothing bad, I promise.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “They wanted you to give them a call. Something about your Trait and research?”
I took the offered card, covering my fingers in an incredibly thin layer of Ebonshroud just in case it was cursed. The card was from OuroSec… sounded familiar? I wasn’t a hundred percent sure where though. I flipped it over, reading a hastily scrawled note. ‘Call us! One hour consultation! Five thousand Nytes!’
Seemed like a scam. I really didn’t want to go through another one of Pursius’s rants about scams. I checked it over one more time to ensure it was safe before sliding it into my pocket.
“I think I like you, Moon. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other frequently.” The man smirked and pulled his hat off. “Franz. Oh! But my friends call me Franz.”
Did he just say the same thing twice? Or did I mishear? Nighteye, any chance you could scan this guy and tell me what his deal was?
[Nighteye shakes her head. She can’t just scan whoever she wants.]
Why not? You attempted to check Lucia back when we first stumbled across her, didn’t you?
[Nighteye slowly nods her head. Lucia was the target of Guiding Moonlight. The circumstances were different.]
Whatever. I guess I’d figure him out once Lucia’s plan started swinging. Speaking of Lucia, I eyed her in the middle of the elevator. She had her Oculus pulled over her eye, watching the feed intensely. It’d been modified since the last time I saw it with a small camera. A rabbit insignia on the side gave away the techie behind the modification.
Ding!
The elevator doors slowly slid open. I followed Lucia out and down the hall. Why was it that I was getting more nervous just doing this then I was facing hundreds of combatants back in the Darkzone? Ugh- this reminded me of royal court, actually. If there’s one thing I didn’t miss, it was court.
Lucia took a deep breath. In a mere moment, her entire aura changed. Gone was the slightly timid and nervous girl that’d been hanging around my apartment. A Queen stood strong and proud, with her very breath emitting dominance and nobility.
I wasn’t sure before. Now? I was a thousand percent she was of the royal bloodline. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. But I knew my blood oaths weren’t entirely forgotten. There was still one last chance.
I felt an overwhelming urge to kneel and offer my sword once more. I barely managed to halt myself when I met her eyes. They trembled slightly even through her noble aura. She didn’t need a Knight. She just needed someone to stand by her side.
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”…” I flashed a thumbs up and offered as gentle of a smile as I could.
”Heh. Thanks, Aylin.” Some of the tension eased up, though the noble vibes stayed strong. “Let’s do this.”
We turned a corner and approached a grand double door flanked by dozens of guards. It seemed they were expecting us. In one smooth motion, they popped to attention and saluted with their fists over their hearts. Lucia walked through the ranks of guards with a confident stride, leading the man to her left and myself to her right. Two guards at the doors threw them open for us.
”… production is dropping-“
The voices in the board meeting abruptly shut off when the doors slammed open. The impact of the doors sounded off like a gavel pronouncing their fate. A solemn air immediately filled the air when their eyes glued to the silver-eyed CEO standing before them.
It was so silent I heard a pen drop from the man doing a presentation at the far end of the table. Lucia casually sauntered in, taking her rightful place at the head of the table. “Oh, don’t mind me. Continue.”
““““Miss Lucia?!”””” Several board members shouted in surprise. Their faces twisted through a variety of emotions, each more damning than the last. Only three people on the board had looks of relief.
“You’re alive?! How-“ A chubby man slammed the table and shot to his feat. His face bloated with red like some kind of comic book Anarch. He abruptly cut himself off.
”What’s the matter Albert? Stunned your little scheme didn’t work?” Lucia confidently leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand.
The chubby man immediately sat down, his face turning pale in an instant. “I- I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s good to see you, Miss Lucia.”
Albert. I needed to remember that. The rest of the people on the board were rats just the same, but the guy seemed like he had some major anger issues. He was just the type to do something stupid… Please do something stupid, Albert.
“We heard you died.” A man cried out with tears running down his face. He threw on a bittersweet smile. “We’re just so- so happy to see you!”
“…” If he was crying this hard now, then what would he do later? No way Lucia wasn’t firing them. Or incinerating, if we were lucky and they tried something stupid.
Her lips pulled into a twisted expression halfway between sneer and grin. “Carl! I’m so happy to see you too. You know, I thought about you a lot over the past couple days. Your Mistress down in Tlacauli had such interesting tales to share with me.”
Carl immediately stopped crying. An unsteady, calculating look passed across his face, though even that didn’t last long. He slunk back, apparently deciding to just wait the meeting out and quit trying stuff. Not like it’d change his fate.
I moved to Lucia’s right, standing just next to her. I casually sipped at my coffee, shifting my gaze between each and every face at the table. Every detail down to the ugliest little mole ingrained itself in my head. An enemy forgotten was a blade in the dark.
A thin string of Ebonshroud stretched out from my foot, running under the length of the massive board table. If any of them so much as twitched wrong, it’d be a contest of draw speed versus an abyssal spike lancing through their chins. I was incredibly confident in my reaction speed.
”Miss Lucia… who are your two companions?” A woman asked with a snooty tone. She dabbed at her eyes as if she’d been crying, but her makeup was still in perfect order.
“More interested in them than your CEO’s well-being, I see.” Lucia put on a mock expression of sorrow. It was so over the top it made the woman’s face flush red.
“Th-that’s not how it is, Miss Lucia. Just strange faces in strange times. Who knows what ideas they’ve put in that pretty little head of yours?” Was she intentionally trying to sound as condescending as possible? She was succeeding.
Lucia raised an eyebrow, staring the woman down with her silver eyes. ”Because ideas are so much worse than the lead you tried with?”
“Y-you must know I had no part in-“
“Meet Moon, our new resident Warden. And this is Mr. Franz, a… consultant.” She smirked slightly and shot a look up at the man.
Mr. Franz pulled off his hat and bowed his head. “How do you do?”
The woman shifted in her seat. ”I- I d-didn’t approve hiring a n-new Warden-“
“I did. Head of Marketing has no hold over the treasury, I’m afraid.” A little old dwarf called out from the far end of the table. He was one of three that looked relieved when they saw Lucia. “It is a pleasure to officially meet you, Moon. Mr. Franz. I am the Head of Financing, Torvald.”
”…” I nodded my head in greeting and took another sip of my coffee. Head of Financing? He was one of the good ones. I casually shifted Ebonshroud away from him. Not a target.
“It’s good to see you, girl!” A bear of a man cheerfully called as if he couldn’t read the room at all. His cheer made several of the others shrink back. Some of them looked as though they might try the same, though lacked the courage to commit to the act.
”Kruber.” Lucia nodded. I had a sneaking suspicion he was the head of security. I just couldn’t quite place why. I likewise moved my Ebonshroud spike away from him.
A reedy and tall elf sitting close to us bowed his head in greeting. “Miss Lucia.”
”Hawthorne. He’s the Legal Head.” She waved a hand to the rest of the table. “Shall we do any more introductions?”
Ah, another good one. Then that made three? The other nine were just trash waiting to be taken out. Oh please, please try something? Make my day.
Unfortunately, none of them seemed to take me up on my generous offer. In fact, I think I scared a few of them with the intensity of my eye alone, even through my sunglasses. What weak minded people. How did they have the bravery to attempt an assasination on their CEO?
A ratty man at the back stood up. “I am-“
”No?” Lucia mercilessly cut him off. The ratty man hesitantly sat back down, completely suppressed by the sheer aura radiating off of the girl. “Then shall we get on with it?”
One of the men seemed to get his wits about him. “Y-you can’t just barge in here in the middle of the meeting. Especially not with some untested Feeble Warden and a snake-like-“
They could insult me all they wanted, but they most definitely couldn’t insult one of our people. I tipped my sunglasses down and shot a glare at the man. As was usual, he went entirely silent when he saw my disgusting eyes. What a weak-willed man. But he was still standing, so I’d give him some credit.
I crushed my empty coffee cup in my hand. Ebonshroud flowed up just enough to be invisible and diced the crushed cup into tiny pieces. The pieces slowly drifted to the table, brutally torn apart. Fear practically bled off of the man in droves. He collapsed back into his seat like he saw Death himself.
“Any more objections?” Lucia looked around the room with the casual grace of a ruler surveying her domain. “Then we’re starting our last meeting. I have a feeling it’ll be very productive.”
