Chương 51: The Hooded Winker

Amberlin had somehow missed the turn into the Dabaux estate, but a big explosion set her back in the right direction. She knew she'd found the right place because there was a big, fancy wall surrounding it. She climbed to the top and surveyed the chaos beyond. The compound was well lit thanks to all the light spells shining around. Some were from the guards, but many seemed to be fixtures—lanterns suspended from poles, with glowing orbs inside instead of kerosene.

There were all sorts of unnatural monsters running all over the place, trampling the rose bushes and snapping at the guards trying to round them up. The monsters looked like they'd been sewn together from spare parts. Chimeras, she believed they were called. Up toward one of the back corners of the compound was a section of wall that had been blown up. That must have been the explosion she'd heard. A couple of scared-looking guards were positioned over there, keeping the chimeras from getting out.

There was also a big commotion happening inside the manor. She caught a glimpse through the window of a group of lizardfolk engaged in a brawl of their own. They were dressed in some sort of military uniform, but didn't appear at all interested in helping to deal with the chimeras. For a moment she wasn't sure if she'd found the right place. There was clearly something going on here, but did she really want to know? Since everyone was busy, she decided that no one would mind if she had a poke around.

If they were up to anything criminal here, there were sure to be signs. The back door to the manor had been left wide open, the door itself nowhere to be seen. The kitchen was an absolute wreck, and a chimera had found its way into the pantry, where it was gorging itself on cured meats.

"That stuff will give you bowel cancer," she cautioned.

"Fresh meat is healthier." It grunted at her and went back to feasting. She left the creature alone, supposing that it was better this than having it crave the wrong sort of fresh meat. The lizardkin fight had moved over into the atrium. While all the furniture and tables were getting demolished, the building itself seemed to be made of sturdier stuff. Even the wooden bannisters on the staircase survived having a soldier swung into it by the legs, but the marble table beneath got smashed to pieces.

Someone set off a fireball, sending smoke and debris everywhere. The windows were unaffected because they'd been blown out already. Once the lizardkin moved on to another room, Amberlin made her way to the base of the staircase. It was one of those double-wide hardwood ones that only rich people had. At the top a collection of tables had been set on their sides to form a makeshift barricade. By the maid's and chef's uniforms, it looked like the house staff had fortified themselves up there.

"Excuse me," she said in her fake deep voice.

"Could I take a look around up there?" The butler had armed himself with a spear while the men next to him were making do with heavy-duty polo sticks. None of them seemed keen on letting her through. It's the eyepatch, she realized. It made her look like a pirate.

"Don't worry," she assured them.

"I'm not a pirate." They didn't seem moved by her assurance, so she decided that the upstairs could wait until later. After some more exploring, Amberlin found herself in a gymnasium. It looked like a storm had passed through there, and for some reason her breath started coming out in a fog. She stepped over the remains of a wooden training dummy and saw—"Boots? What are you doing here?" He looked equally surprised to see her, not least because he seemed to have been playing tag with one of the chimeras.

When Boots stopped to look at her, his play partner took off by itself through the double-doors leading outside. The gears began to turn in Amberlin's head. Boots was supposed to be with Maelle. If he was here, then... There was an open doorway along one of the walls. But unlike the other doorways she'd come across, the other side of this one seemed particularly dark and ominous. When she made her way over and peered down the stone steps, a voice rang out across the gymnasium.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"I wouldn't go down there." She turned to see a woman standing in the double-doorway the chimera had left through. Her facial features were elflike but muted, very much like Jenny the genie's, which Amberlin supposed meant that she must be half-elf, half genie too. Out of everyone she'd seen in this place so far, this woman was the only one who looked completely unbothered by anything that was happening around her. Finally someone who wasn't afraid of pirates.

"Why, what's down there?" she asked.

"Who wants to know?" the woman said. She'd already picked out the perfect name for herself.

"You can call me the Hooded Winker."

"Everyone calls me Rava," Rava said.

"As for down there, they were doing experiments. That's where they made the chimeras."

"Oh." She hesitated before asking what she hoped wasn't an obvious question.

"So they weren't kidnapping people?" Rava regarded her for a moment before replying.

"They were doing that too." So the intel from the priestess was right after all.

"Then I have to go down there and set the victims free," she said, shining her light down the steps.

"I'm afraid you're too late. The victims are all gone." She trained a sharp eye on Rava.

"Gone?"

"Gone."

"Even the girl who came with this cat?"

"All gone," Rava confirmed. Amberlin felt an anger rising within her. Through clenched teeth she said, "And you. Are you with the kidnappers?" Rava raised her hands in a placating gesture.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding. When I say they're gone, I mean they escaped." After a brief moment she added, "Including the girl who had that cat."

"Oh." The tension left her as quickly as it had arrived.

"That would've been rather silly, wouldn't it?" Rava said.

"Us getting into a fight over a miscommunication like that."

"Yeah," Amberlin agreed. Boots had wandered out of the gym and looked like he was headed up the staircase to join the manor staff behind the barricades. The butler shifted his spear aside to let him through. Since Boots would be safe there, Amberlin paid him no more mind.

"How do you know so much about what they're doing here?" she asked Rava. Instead of replying, Rava turned her attention to the atrium, where an old man had appeared, flanked by four nervous-looking bodyguards. Amberlin thought he would head upstairs to the safety of the barricade, but instead he made his way over to the gym.

"Rava!" the man shouted.

"I know you're still around here somewhere!"

"That man's got worse eyesight than me," Amberlin said.

"And I've only got one eye."

"I'm actually invisible," Rava said.

"Oh yeah?" Amberlin looked her over.

"You aren't doing a very good job." The man turned his attention to Amberlin.

"And who the hell are you?"

"I'm the Hooded Winker!" she yelled back. The man blinked a few times and then decided to turn his focus back to more important matters.

"Rava!" he yelled.

"Why don't you help us round up these beasts and kick those stupid dragonkin out?"

"He sounds like the lord of the manor," Amberlin said.

"Is he the one responsible for the kidnappings?"

"What if he is?" Rava said.

"I'm going to bring him in."

"He's also responsible for the bandits in the Lorear Hills," Rava added gleefully.

"Go wild." The man picked his way through the debris, muttering all the while, loud enough that they could all hear.

"She struts around like she's hot stuff, she interferes with my business, and then she disappears the moment I need her help. Damn useless half-breed." At that last comment Rava's face turned sour and she pointed a finger at the man. Amberlin grabbed her wrist and pointed it down.

"I'm bringing him in alive," Amberlin said.

"Let go of my hand," Rava warned.

"Let me ask you something else," she said without letting go.

"Were you helping him do those evil things?" Rava pointed her other hand at Amberlin and shot off a force bolt that sent her into the gymnasium wall. The wall absorbed all the impact, and Amberlin was only mildly inconvenienced. As she dropped to the floor, bits of masonry crumbled behind her. Amberlin launched herself forward. Her fists tore straight through the force wall Rava raised in her defense, and the wide-eyed woman narrowly avoided getting punched in the face thanks to an abrupt burst of speed.

The old man and his bodyguards quickly retreated back into the manor proper as Amberlin pursued Rava, who had begun casting another spell. A powerful gale began blowing through the gymnasium, lifting all the scattered debris with it. Chunks of wood and masonry swirled dangerously about in the minitornado. As the tornado threatened to lift Amberlin off her feet, she grabbed at a metal gymnastics bar that had thankfully been anchored securely to the ground.

The walls around her were creaking, and she saw that her earlier point of impact had left behind more damage than she expected, as the cracks from there were spreading rapidly along the wall until—all at once—the ceiling shot off up into the sky. Somehow Rava didn't seem to be affected by the wind at all, being able to remain stable in one place, though Amberlin saw that her feet no longer touched the ground.

"Stop this craziness!" she shouted. But Rava continued to glare at her, and began raising a finger— Amberlin lobbed a fireball over. It was only meant to interrupt Rava's spell by forcing her to move out of the way. Instead Rava just stood—floated—there staring at it until it collided with her and, in a powerful explosion, sent her flying back. She caught a glimpse of Rava's face when this happened. There was a look of utter surprise that an explosive fireball would do what an explosive fireball did.

It sent the mage crashing through the wall and into the yard. This left Amberlin worried that she'd overdone it. The fireball was only meant to distract, not do whatever that was. She'd thought that someone capable of summoning a tornado and putting up a force wall would have other defenses. Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was only in the second city, which in game terms was still a low-level area. People here were fragile. With the ceiling gone and Rava out of the way, the tornado began to weaken.

Amberlin held on until she could get her feet safely back on the ground again, and then she ran out to check that the evil mage was all right. And if she was, she was going to arrest her.