Mage Assassin 2 Chapter 7

I had a picture cast in my mind of what the young duke would look like based on the king’s attitude toward him, and to my suprise, I was almost completely correct.

This man was fair-skinned and tall, and he had a toned body, a jawline that was perfectly chiseled, and angular features that gave the impression he might be of good breeding. He wore a stern scowl on his fair face, but even I could see that he considered himself a handsome man, and as with most rich and handsome dukes, this one looked as if he was well on the way to carrying on the tradition of becoming a sleazy shitbag.

None of this stood out so much as his clothing, though, and this secured my suspicion that I was looking at Monty.

The blonde man wasn’t dressed at all modestly, or like anyone else around him. Instead, he wore a blue silk shirt with the top few buttons undone to reveal his toned chest, and plenty of golden jewelry was stacked on his fingers and hung around his neck. His blonde hair was slicked back in waves, as if he had just come back from sailing, and he walked with an obnoxious swagger in his step that made him stand out like an entitled prick among the more lower class in the crowd.

I narrowed my eyes as I caught the creepy smile he gave the friends he strolled over to, but then I refocused on the person who came out of the curtains just behind him.

It was a sweet-looking nymph.

She had unnaturally straight black hair, a small, chainmail top that barely covered her breasts, and high-waisted, leather shorts. The blond man pulled her by the hand, and she looked all around as if she really didn’t mean to end up on this side of the curtain. She was an employee here, it was obvious, and he was parading her around like a fish he had just caught from the stream.

The blonde man brought the nymph over to the table of men who wore fabrics as fine as his, and the men started flicking gold coins at her while Monty grinned on and urged them to throw more.

“She was a good time, boys!” he bellowed, and his voice cut through the crowd like a knife. “Go on, give her more for me.”

The lads accepted his gross plea and continued to pelt her with gold, and the nymph looked embarrassingly uncomfortable while she strained to pull her hand out of the duke’s. As soon as Monty finally released her, she raced behind the purpled curtain without picking up a single coin, and she didn’t come back out.

Monty snickered at the men who surrounded the table, and they all started drinking again as if they hadn’t just made a fool out of the sweet-faced girl.

In that instant, I understood what the king meant about the young duke. He wasn’t only spoiled and excessive, he was a fucking prick.

Then Monty himself came walking in my direction. His eyes looked dim, and he wiped his arm across his nose as he stumbled a bit.

I swivelled back around in my chair and looked onward over the bartop, but before I knew it, a large thump sounded next to me, and I spared half a glance to confirm the rich blond had arrived.

He was trying hard to stabilize himself against the counter, and he clicked his fingers at the staff while his body slouched forward.

“Fuckin’ drink now,” he mumbled, and the words barely passed his lips. “Hurry up.”

“Sure thing, Monty.” The fish-headed bar man got started on making up a drink, and I was pleased to find my guess had been correct.

This drunken idiot was indeed the young duke.

I kept my head down but gazed at him through the corner of my eye.

“Oi, you,” Monty said and shoved his elbow into me.

“Hm,” I muttered.

“I said, oi, you!” Monty said more abruptly, and I turned to look his way. “Which one of these little nymphs do you think is the most fuckable?”

He pointed to the nymphs dancing on the stage and then at the nymphs who were carrying drinks to tables.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.

“Well, I can tell you that one there…” The young duke pointed to the central nymph on stage. “She’s probably the ugliest little bitch I’ve ever locked eyes with and an even worse fuck. She gets all stiff and doesn’t show no fucking appreciation. She just lays there, man, and I told her, I’m not paying your little ass so I can do all the work. Lazy bitch. Don’t waste a coin on her, man. Trust me.”

I clamped my teeth together and tried my hardest to not stand up and deck him then and there.

I turned away and looked down at my drink instead, and Monty’s attention span seemed to have slipped in the process. A second later, a nymph passed us, and he grabbed her and pulled her over so she was stuck between him and the counter.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said in a drawling voice.

“Monty, you are too rough with us,” the girl whimpered and wriggled to get out of his hold, and I noticed her shimmering skin turning red where the wood pressed hard against her back.

My chest heated with fury at the sight, and I turned to look the young duke dead in the eye.

“You’ll want to let her go,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Say what?” he slurred, and he roughly shoved the nymph aside. She hurried off into the smoky crowd with a bright red crease on her lower back, and Monty got close to my face and snarled at me. “And why’s that?”

“Just trying to spare you a night in the dungeons,” I said. “I heard some druids were sniffing around the place, and you know they report anything unsavory to the king when they can. Be careful.”

The young man’s drunken expression lightened a bit, and he laughed and squeezed me on the shoulder. “Thanks for that, man.”

Monty swayed far to the side while he shuffled around in his back pocket, and he brought out a small tin that was embellished with gold carvings of acorn trees and took the lid off. Inside was a mountain of midnight-black and shimmering powder, and he took a pinch of it from the top and piled it into his nose.

It would have looked like snuff if it wasn’t so dark, but I knew it wasn’t. It could only be one thing with a sheen like that.

Khuvilia.

The dark powder was incredibly grainy, almost like it had been scraped right off the banks of the streams, but it was known to be as soft as satin to the touch, and it didn’t have a potent smell. In small doses, it only had an energizing effect, but too much of the stuff resulted in a deep psychedelic trance that sometimes lasted for weeks, and I’d heard of plenty of regular users going mad over the years from ingesting too much. Others simply died after a single night’s overindulgence.

Khuvilia was illegal to distribute in most quarters of Ocadia, but it had become popular among the upper class in the kingdom within the past few years, especially the younger generation. This was partly because of its hallucinogenic and energizing effects, but also because it was made from ground diamond beetle exoskeletons and dead stars, which only the rich could afford.

The young duke took a deep inhale of the khuvilia, shut his eyes tight, and gagged. Then his whole body shook from the bitter taste, but once he opened his eyes again, he looked like he had just been injected with a shot of adrenaline.

Then Monty steadied himself upright as the barkeep slid his drink over, and he brought the tankard to his lips. He was both swaying and jittery now, so barely any of the liquid made it into his mouth, and he stumbled back to his group of friends while he struggled to get a taste.

Maybe being stealthy didn’t wholy work in a place like this, but I had just managed to simultaneously help the nymph and learn a bit about the duchess’ betrothed, and I celebrated my small victory by knocking back a few swigs of my toxic-looking, fuschia drink.

The flavor was jarring and perfumy, and it hit the back of my throat in a way that made me wonder if the barkeep was actually an alchemist.

Some sort of narcotic was lurking in this brew, but I should have expected as much in a troll boxing speakeasy.

I tried not to wince as the liquid seared its way into my gullet, and less than a minute later, the fuschia concoction kicked in. At first, I had the peculiar sensation that my ears were no longer attached, but then I decided they must have actually been flipped upside down. I could still hear alright, the weight was just distributed in an odd way.

Or maybe it was my head that was flipped around.

Either way, I slid my drink away so I wouldn’t make the mistake of taking another swig, and I hoped the effects would wear off soon.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there trying to sort my head out from the couple of sips, but then someone tapped my elbow, and I turned to see the same gorgeous nymph who’d been snatched by the young duke sitting on the stool beside me.

“Hi,” she whispered to me. “I just want to thank you for that. Monty is a real ass sometimes.”

“It’s alright.” I smirked and avoided her eyes.

“I’m still on the clock, so I have to go through this script with you since I came over here,” she murmured and prepared herself. “Are you going to tell me what a handsome guy like you is doing in a place like this?”

I laughed and shook my head at her overly flirtatious voice, and she giggled quietly.

“I know,” the nymph whispered. “Just go along with it.”

“I’m just here letting off some steam,” I lied.

“Wanna let off some steam in the back room with me?” she asked and slid her hand around the top of my thigh. “Just one hundred gold.”

I nudged her hand away and finally looked over at the nymph. Her skin looked like it was made from diamonds, and her dark brown hair ran down to her shoulders and seemed to sway in an invisible breeze.

“I appreciate what you do,” I started, “but I’m only here for a drink, thanks. I won’t be needing any of your time.”

The nymph didn’t look surprised by my statement, but she put on a fake pout and shrugged her shoulders. I just smirked and shook my head again, and then she got up and headed for the next male who was seated a few stools away from me.

“Thank you, again,” she mouthed.

I could hear the nymph saying the exact same flirtatious line to the sorcerer further down the bar. Unlike me, the man took her up on her offer and left with her.

I watched them as they filtered through the crowd, and she led him to another section of the purple curtain, but when I glanced back to where Monty was, I saw that he and his whole posse had disappeared.

“Shit,” I sighed. “Fucking fuschia drink.”

I couldn’t afford to lose them now. I didn’t want to waste another day researching, and I needed to conclude whether I was going to go ahead with the job of assassinating this asshole or not before the day was done.

I quickly scarpered from my seat and pushed through the crowd of rough faces, and I was relieved when I saw the group I was after.

The blond duke and his group of rich buddies were leaving the speakeasy and heading for the ladder, but it looked like they were in an argument. Two of the men firmly shoved Monty up the ladder while he drunkenly cursed them, and I wandered over and stayed well behind until the last of the group had begun their climb to the exit hatch.

On my own way up, I caught a few echoing snippets of the argument taking place above, and something about three nymphs kept coming up, but the echoes made it hard to catch every word.

I tediously made my way up the ladder and was slow enough that I didn’t bump into any of them, and I waited a few seconds after the hatch closed behind them before I emerged.

When I lifted the hatch, I was suddenly met by the group of men, all standing out in their fine attire and arguing in the night air. I couldn’t hide myself, so I stumbled as if I was drunk and pretended I was looking for something in my pockets.

“Just drop it, Monty!” a man with short, graying hair hissed. “You’ll get us banned from the fucking place just like last time.”

Monty’s eyes were red and bleary as he sneered at the man, and he shoved him so hard, the graying man fell backward into the others who had accompanied the young duke to the speakeasy.

“I’ll do what I fucking like,” Monty grunted. “I paid for you all to be here tonight. I paid for all your little nymphs, and your drinks, and all else you wanted, so I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it.”

Both men were red in the face, and the one who had been pushed by the young duke clamored to his feet and wiped the drool from his mouth. The few surrounding the pair looked tense and pissed off, and no one seemed to notice I was still fumbling with my cloak to find my pocket.

“You can’t do it Mont,” the graying man attempted to explain. “It don’t matter how much money you throw at them, you can’t take the nymphs off the property. And if you try it--”

“What’ll they do?” the drunken duke drawled. “Those little bitches couldn’t hold me off anyway, and it’s only a few I want to keep around. Just gotta get them back to my place, and--”

“Enough,” another man in the group interrupted, and he looked over at me anxiously. “Drop it, Mont.”

Monty snorted with disgust, and he didn’t say another word. Instead, he let his hand speak for him. With one sloppy swing, the young duke punched his friend square in the face. The man fell to the ground at once, and the rest of the men around him quickly rushed to pick him up.

I didn’t need to see more, especially when they already knew I was nearby, and I stumbled around the group with a hiccup before I waltzed down the path and into the night.

I quickly shed my identity once I was out of view, and I let out a sigh as I started to walk back to the estate.

I had a bad taste in my mouth after picking up on the duke’s intentions to steal a few nymphs from Lorticon, but overall, I was in high spirits. Not only because I had successfully found the speakeasy to begin with, but because the fuschia drink had fully left my mind by now, and my ears were sorted out again.

Plus, the king had been right all along.

I was skeptical at first, especially because the king was a self-confessed lover of power, and I figured he just wanted to have his way about most things, but seeing Monty and the way he conducted himself proved that the king did in fact have his niece’s best interests at heart.

Monty was a dangerous character, who seemed on the verge of completely out of control. If he acted like that in public and around his friends, then who knew what he would be like in private around his wife.

I may not have known the duchess, but I knew men like Monty only got worse with age, and men like me were the perfect candidates for thoroughly addressing the situation.

Still, it confused me as to why Master Abott failed to tell me about the more scandalous work he managed for the king of our land. The Master knew I was going to be the one to take over the Assassin’s Estate, and he was always so thorough with everything he did. I wondered if there was a reason why he left this vital information out of the job description, but maybe it was so I could come up with my own decision whether or not I wanted to work with the king.

Either way, I took this to mean that the head of the Assassins’ Estate wasn’t strictly bound to a life of handing out assassinations, conducting research, and filling out paperwork. Apparently, some of the most intriguing jobs in Ocadia could be mine if I wanted them, and no one but the king would ever be the wiser.

I just had to decide if that arrangement sat well with me or not.

For now, I settled for knowing I was going to go ahead with this current task and muder a lecherous young duke for the sake of our apparently angelic duchess.

As I walked along the northwest quarters, I thought about going to the king and telling him I would take the case, but I quickly changed my mind. The less he knew about my dealings, the better, at least until the asassination had been followed through with.

I got to the town centre within an hour or so, and the stalls nearest the castle had fallen quiet again. All the liveliest of Ocadia’s residents spent these hours in the quarters much farther from the castle, but there were a few people still looking around. The workers were just starting to pack away their goods as lanterns gleamed in the lanes around them, so I travelled to Eroven’s stall to pick up a screwbler or three on my way home.

Chatter and the rustling of crates and barrels echoed around the area as carts were loaded and stalls were closed up for the evening, and I quickly made my way over to the wizard who sold the fruit I loved so much and braced my hands on the side of his stall.

“Eroven,” I called out.

“Ah, Dex.” He smiled. “Those screwblers have been selling like mad, so thanks for your feedback.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to get from you before you close for the evening,” I replied. “Have you got some?”

“How many are you after?” he asked.

“Give me five, if you’ve got them,” I replied.

The wizard chuckled and boxed up five of the bright-blue, bubbled fruits while I slid some gold coins over his counter.

I watched the wizard smile to himself as he worked, and his nimble fingers moved so carefully that I couldn’t help recalling how gentle he had always seemed. Eroven was one of most kind-hearted beings I’d ever known in Ocadia, and I furrowed my brow at the thought.

It made me think of Nara and the accusations she’d pinned on his kind, and I decided to feel out the situation a bit since I had a wizard here anyway.

“Hey, Eroven?” I said to the old wizard behind the stall. “Can I ask you a question about wizards?”

“Of course,” Eroven said with a slight nod.

“There’s been some talk in the town,” I started, “Something to do with some wizards being… I don’t know. Unsavory? Does that ring any bells to you?”

The wizard scratched his almost-bald head and thought about his answer.

“You always get an unsavory type here or there in Ocadia,” he finally replied. “Wizard or not.”

“Anything out of the ordinary, though?” I asked. “Among your kind, I mean. The wizards I know, like yourself, have always struck me as calmer beings who never really incite any negative attention, but I've heard a thing or two lately that’s to the contrary. About some wizards spreading damaging rumors about some of the estates? Maybe seeking to cause trouble for others specifically?”

“Well, now you speak of it, there has been more trouble within the community than normal,” Eroven disclosed in a low, muffled voice. He started packing up some baskets of fruits as he talked to me, and I helped from the other side of the stall by passing him the empty wooden boxes he needed. “I’m not really involved with most of the wizards, it’s just not our way, you know, but it seems to be the younger ones have been running amuck these days.”

“How so?” I asked.

“You know what kids can be like with their radical ideas,” he scoffed. “I tend not to pay much notice toward them.”

“Hmm,” I muttered. “Well, I’d be worried about your lot getting a bad reputation for yourselves because of this. You know me, I don’t get involved in any politics around here. But if even I’m catching wind of this, is it really a larger ordeal than you’re implying?”

Eroven nervously laughed, and nodded his head in agreement.

“I’ll be honest, Dex, maybe the younger wizards are causing a bit of a problem,” he disclosed after a while. “Not us more experienced wizards, mind. We’re just as we always have been, but this new generation… they have some sort of mischief in their minds. Don’t ask me what for, but they’ll probably grow out of it in a few years.”

“I see,” I returned.

“As far as I know, it’s only some of them that have taken a bit of a strange turn,” he explained further.

“Are they an organized group?” I asked next.

“Couldn’t say how organized, but they do gather together as young ones do,” he said with a feeble shrug. “They meet in the southeast quarter of the kingdom pretty regularly, I believe. That old place called Thistledown is always a hot spot for the younger crowd. A few older practitioners I know mentioned the youngins tried to get them to meet with them out there, but we’re all too old to be bothering with mischief and such.”

“They want the experienced wizards to meet with them?” I repeated.

“Yes,” he said and nodded without much interest.

“Are you all going to do anything to look into what they’re up to?” I inquired and handed him another empty box.

“No, no,” Eroven chuckled. “We don’t have an estate per se, so we have no authority to do anything like that. If they commit a serious crime, then something can be done by the king, I’m sure, but we have no power beyond warning them that what they’re doing is frowned upon. And I’ve never met a young practitioner who appreciated that sort of advice. How do you think the warlocks ended up so bad?”

I smirked at the sentiment, but then I pressed him further on the topic.

“Yes, but for the sake of the wizards’ reputation---” I started.

“As I said, we’re not an official estate,” he cut me off. “It’s just the way it is,  and it’s for the best, Dex. Wizards shouldn’t be joining together like that. We work better individually, since everyone develops their own power at different rates of speed. These younger wizards will come to see it in time.”

“Right,” I said with a nod, but I didn’t agree.

As kind-hearted as Eroven was, I worried he may be turning a blind eye to how dangerous the magic congregations in this city could become. Maybe it was because his kind generally kept to themselves, but he had to know how quickly things could get out of hand with magic in Ocadia.

Especially inexperienced, ungoverned, and organized magical use.

Perhaps Nara was on to something.

“Anyway, Eroven,” I said as I handed over the last box. “I have to be going, but I just thought I’d warn you about the rumor I’d heard.”

“Always appreciate it,” he fondly replied.

I placed the screwblers in my satchel, nodded a goodbye to the old wizard, and then headed east to return to my estate for the night, but Nara and her request stayed in my mind all the way back home.

If what Eroven said was true, and there was a group of young and ungoverned wizards gathering in Ocadia, then the rest of what Nara and I discussed earlier today could be true as well.

And if the elder wizards were content to turn a blind eye, how bad could the situation get?

And how quickly?