The grand stone wall of Taos loomed high over the group as they approached, crossing the plains on foot. A nervous energy had rippled through Gene’s body ever since he first caught sight of the stone structure in the distance. In his past life, he rarely had the time or funds to travel. He dreamed of seeing the world someday, of finally leaving the confines of his simple life. Now he was living a life beyond his wildest dreams.

  “Oh man, this is going to be great!” exclaimed Kyrie as he bounced on his toes. “There’s this great bar I want to take you to after we visit the guild and get you set up with an adventurer’s license. Once you have that, we can run you through a few bounty hunting gigs for more practice. Oh and the inn! Once we collect our pay for this quest, we’ll have our pick of the best inns coin can buy. Auntie G’s going to love you. ”

  “Please calm down or I’ll ask Winnie to hit you with a Lethargy spell,” said Kyra, growing tired of her brother’s antics. “Temper your expectations. For all we know, Auntie’s going to want all of his free time.”

  Kyrie groaned and Gene laughed, saying, “She’s right though. If I’m going to tell her everything we might be preoccupied for a while. I’m hesitant to tell everything but if you’re comfortable with her knowing everything then I’ll trust your judgement.”

  “Gordona’s good people,” said Eonis, looking from Kyrie to Kyra. “We were in a party once with the twins' parents. I wouldn’t have made it back if not for her.”

  His somber tone blanketed the mood of the group. Gene looked at the twins but didn’t comment. He wanted to know more but prying felt wrong and he thought one misstep could ruin any goodwill he had built so far. He decided to change the subject instead.

  “So how do the bounties work? I’m guessing there’s some parchment with the target’s picture and some scrawl detailing the creature along with the bounty amount?” he asked, playing through the classical fantasy bounty imagery in his head.

  Winnie gave a soft gasp and said, “Astonishing. It’s just as you described. Fascinating how closely your fantasy hews to our reality.”

  Gene shrugged and said, “I suspect it has something to do with the –”

  He bit his tongue before the word Architect left his lips. Some strange compulsion shot over him, forcing him to lose his trail of thought but no one remarked about the strange moment.

  They reached the gates, guarded by towering warriors clad in battle-scared armor. From his brief summary of Taos, he knew them to be Bulwark Soldiers, a subclass of the Warrior class with a focus on defensive phalanx formations. They were stationed at every gate into the city to act as a deterrent to wild beasts or bandits and to act as the first line of defense in the event the Dark Lord amassed enough power to send his forces this far from the veil.

  Gene had learned that the veil acted as both a container for the Dark Lord’s powers and a prison for him and his forces. They couldn’t travel far from it due to mana poisoning and so they sought to expand the veil and blanket the world in his power. As a consequence of his expansion, the natural order of the world had been thrown askew. Though people rarely escaped the confines of the veil when a new spire emerged, all manner of creature fled before any spire was erected, forcing them to clash over limited resources.

  More and more each day, villages and cities found themselves contending with hungry enraged monsters. Here in Taos, it was up to the city guard to safeguard the gates and for adventurers to take on bounties to clear out any encroaching monsters.

  Gene watched the guards performing checks and that nervous energy within him spiked.

  “Be calm,” thought Winnie with a smug smile on her face. “We need only to enter the town and meet the Guild Mistress. I’m certain she’ll be intrigued by you and all that has transpired.”

  When they were next in line to enter, Kyrie stepped forward, pulled a disc off the pin that held his cape secure, and presented it.

  “Kyrie Winthrop of Silvayn. We’ve traveled far after our mission and seek entrance.”

  He spoke with a booming and assertive tone as one of the towering guards leaned down to view the disc. The guard pulled out a leatherbound booklet and began shuffling through the pages, coming to a stop when he saw the Silvayn party crest.

  “Says here you only have 4 in your party. Who’s the straggler?” asked the large man in a gruff tone.

  “Newest member!” chimed in Winnie before she elbowed Gene and gave him a sly wink.

  The guard was entombed in armor from head to toe, obscuring all except a thin sliver of his vision. Gene locked eyes with him and he swore he saw a glint in those icy blue eyes for a second before the guard spoke again.

  “A Mindweaver, huh?” he asked and Gene flinched. The guard read his status and something cold ran over him.

  “No, not at all! He fell from the sky like some strange meteor,” replied Winnie in an excited tone. Gene’s eyes shot wide open in surprise.

  “Winnie, what?!” his thoughts were a scream when he turned to look at Winnie who still smiled as if nothing was wrong.

  “You should’ve seen it!” exclaimed Kyrie, picking up the thread from Winnie. “He felled a whole cadre of Forsaken with his strange power.”

  Gene’s focus jumped to Kyrie and he thought, “What are you doing?! What happened to the plan?”

  “Even now he whispers to us, his thoughts bleeding into ours like some dark song,” said Kyra with a straight face.

  Gene was flabbergasted. Murmurs rose from the crowd around them and he felt the eyes of everyone from the line behind them pinned to his back as they continued to spill his secrets. Something had gone terribly wrong. He focused on the members of Silvayn and felt some strange compulsion washing over them. An energy radiated from the guard before them after his question was asked and it only seemed to intensify the longer they spoke.

  “He’s something you’ve never seen before,” said Eonis.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Gene panicked. He thought about using a power stunt to fight the effect and suppress their wills, but before he had a chance to summon the power, the guard raised a hand to silence them. Suddenly they all fell silent and then slowly, they realized what they had said. Kyra’s hand flew to her mouth to cover it in shock and Eonis sighed.

  “Nice to see you again, Hiram. You guys must be shorthanded if the leader of the guard is on doorman duty.”

  The man took off his helmet and Gene let out a sharp breath. Horns curled out of the curly mop of brown hair that sat atop Hiram’s head. He had sharp, chiseled features and a lush beard that made Gene instantly envious. His expression was stern and his eyes remained pinned to Gene.

  “Fiddlesticks!” thought Winnie at the sight of him. “What terrible luck. That man is Hiram Bayne; he's a Descendant, someone cursed with infernal blood. One of his distant ancestors was a Shax and they can compel people to be truthful.”

  Gene slapped his face in defeat and thought, “We’re so screwed.”

  To his surprise, Hiram merely rolled his eyes and sighed. He glanced at a nearby cluster of guards and said, “Alert Goodshow that she has some guests on their way to see her and you three, form up on them as escort. I don’t want any trouble during their stay.”

  His eyes shot to Gene and the young man nodded in acknowledgement before their escorts led them into the city. The murmurs from the gate only seemed to continue as they walked the streets of the rustic city. Gene couldn’t help thinking that the fantasy artists for his favorite ttrpgs had hit the nail on the mark. Through the streets, there were clusters of different fantasy races, all milling about as they shopped for wares in the market or carried bolts of fabric into magical haberdasheries where garments were being spun with magical silks. He was in awe but the clank of metal boots ahead of him finally pulled him out of his stupor when one of the men spoke.

  “What’s Bayne thinking, letting these people in?” asked the guard before being shushed.

  Gene thought about Hiram Bayne, the Descendant man, and then his attention floated over to Kyra.

  “Hey, Kyra. It’s me, Gene,” he thought, taking cautious steps to bridge their mind so she wouldn’t flinch at the mental connection. Of the group, he knew she was the least comfortable with his powers, in sharp contrast to her brother. “Random question, but do all Descendants and Ascendants have special abilities like Hiram? That was both a cool and kind of broken power for a cop to have.”

  Kyra’s thoughts were silent for a moment as she wrestled with herself. She wanted to roll her eyes when he introduced himself as if there were some other aberration here that could step into her thoughts like him and she would confuse the two.

  She finally took a deep breath and simply thought, “I’m strong.”

  Gene stared at her waiting for her to continue but that had been all she was willing to share. He felt like every time they talked, he was just scraping up against an impenetrable wall. He wondered how much of it was from her or whatever holy musings she received from her guard. It was clear to him that he made her uncomfortable and it made him desperate for her approval. He continued to walk in silence after that, his mood lowered from the exchange.

  When they reached the guild there was a short woman standing there waiting for them. Dressed in a floorlength robe with tiny spectacles sitting on the bridge, Gordona Goodshow was anything but the warm presence Kyrie and Kyra had made her out to be. She had pale freckled skin and a mass of hair braided and pinned on top of her head, adding another foot to her 5 foot tall stature. Her lips were pursed into the slightest grimace that made everyone shudder, even the guards.

  “M-mistress Goodshow, here’s the party the messenger mentioned,” said the guard before giving a small bow and departing swiftly with his men.

  She stood there with her arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently, the sound filling the air with a strange jingle that Gene couldn’t pinpoint.

  “Auntie!” exclaimed Kyrie before she glared at him and Gene felt a pressure in the air.

  “Don’t auntie me. Keep your mouths shut. My office, now!” she shouted before storming into the building.

  The others all followed, with Gene lagging behind in surprise. There was a jovial mood within the guild that seemed to freeze in time as Gordona passed by, only to unfreeze when she made it to the stairs that lead to her office. No one dared look at Silvayn for fear of reprisal.

  She crossed the threshold into her office and when they followed, Gene let out a loud gasp as he stepped into what could only be described as a grand colosseum with a lonely desk in the center of the ring. He looked back to the doorway in wonder to see the second floor landing he had just been on before the door slammed shut. Winnie tried to warn him about the pocket dimension Gordona used as an office but experiencing it was on a whole different level.

  Next to her desk stood a tall, slender man with gray eyes and olive skin who had to be in his thirties. A pair of canine ears emerged from his black and behind him, Gene could see a tail wagging side to side slowly and low to the ground. He bowed at Gordona and moved to pull out her chair before returning to her side. The woman closed her eyes, let out a long and loud sigh and glared up at Silvayn,

  “You may speak but only to explain why on Venturis you thought it a good idea to disobey the parameters of your mission and do something so reckless!”

  Gordona slammed a fist on the table and Gene jumped.

  “Well–well you see,” began Winnie with nervous stammering, “When we were presented with such a unique circumstance as the one created by Gene here, we felt it best to seize the advantage we had been given to make a greater impact on the war effort!”

  Winnie strained to smile, failing when Gordona made a face that clearly asked if she was being serious.

  “Wolfram, what were the parameters of their assignment?” asked Gordona.

  The man next to her took a step forward with his arms folded behind his back and said, “Team Silvayn are to scout the area around the newly formed spire to determine layout, force size, and optimal route of egress. Once firmly established, they are to relay this information to the guild to share with the Council of the Epoch’s scheduled operation.”

  “Scheduled operation,” repeated Gordona when Wolfram finished and stepped back into place. “Do you know what a scheduled operation is? This is a plan, painstakingly crafted with resources, both money and time, devoted to it. Adventurers have already been drafted for this office and promised a handsome reward upon their successful return. You just took money out of their hands and food out of the mouths of their hungry children.”

  Gordona’s message hit everyone like a speeding truck. Silvayn and Gene were rendered mute as the implications of their actions piled onto them. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Gene thought that they would be hailed as heroes with all the talk Kyrie and Winnie had made on the ride to Taos. Even Kyra and Eonis seemed to go along with the lofty idea that they’d be commended in the long run. But when Gordona tore into them, he felt defenseless, like a scolded child.

  “How many times have I said you need to think of the big picture?” asked Gordona as her focus shifted between the twins. “You are not your parents. This is not the old days where you can swing from chandeliers. The veil is more than triple the size it was in my day and actions like yours will cause a cascade of unknowable consequences.”

  She sighed deeply and Gene felt his cheeks flush. The more she spoke, the more familiar her tone grew and before long, Gene felt like he was in the middle of a familial argument rather than a workplace dispute.

  Gordona set her sights on him and held his gaze before she said, “And you, explain yourself. Kyra told me what she could with her sending spell but a spell of that level lacks proper encryption.”

  He was caught off guard when she focused in on him and with no other outlet for the mix of emotions bubbling inside of him, Gene made a near fatal mistake: he laughed.

  In the blink of an eye, Gordona crossed the room. Gene saw only a blur as her robe and glasses clattered the floor.

  Hero System Notification: Toughness save failed. You have received 1 wound.