Greed God chapter 150

March 23rd 2016 Gemworld 1:00 PM EDT

Getting  out the way we came in would be possible, but it would take too long.  We still have some of the Ignorance Draught, so I just grabbed Zee  around the waist and jumped off the parapet of the castle with both my  girls. Wings would have probably broken the effect, so all I could do  was use wind magic to slow my fall and really hope people were too busy  with the ongoing attack from a foreign country. It was draining as hell  trying to create enough lift with just air to slow three people falling,  especially without any preparation at all.

Of course I  could have just tanked the landing, but it would have made a ton of  noise, so I wasted the power taking the long way down. When we touched  down I looked around frantically, trying to make sure we hadn't been  spotted, before taking off away from the palace at a brisk but still  casual pace, trying to seem like I belonged there despite the exhausted  blonde over my shoulder and the bust brunette I was dragging by the  hand. We'd pulled this shit off, now we just had to get away, but in my  experience, things tended to go wrong at exactly times like this. I  didn't feel like getting swatted like a fly by some asshole Duke, so we  needed distance between ourselves and the palace before people started  actively searching for the culprits behind the break in.

Fortunately,  we were out of there, and the Carmine forces would be a fantastic scape  goat, at least until we got back to Amethyst. I was really hoping that  the obvious party to blame would offset some of the suspicion that would  naturally be obvious after it was discovered what was missing. The only  real hope I had for that was that Dark Opal would just assume they were  trying to start a war with Amethyst to drag a third party into their  attack to even up the odds, because it really would be the first thing  someone would try.

All of this was predicated on us  actually managing to get out of here though, because if something  waylaid us in the city and we got discovered somehow, I doubted the  dictator of this kingdom was going to be serving us tea and krumpets.  Unfortunately, as we fled, we started running into the downside of  chaotic distractions...that distracting chaos. Fucking Bone Barons,  Shadow Lords, and members of The Empty Door brawling in the streets,  with soldiers in blood red armor controlling large sections of the blood  of slain locals to attack the first two groups.

Hemokinesis  wasn't exactly a shocking ability foe the Carmine bloodline to have, so  I didn't really worry about that aspect of things, but the constant  potshots everyone kept taking would have been a pain in the ass if Zee  hadn't taken the liberty of erecting a shield around us as we fled.  Guards from the palace were trying to kill basically everyone using some  weird kind of black fire that I assumed was the Opal bloodline. I  hadn't looked into it much but I made a mental note to upgrade Sindara  and do some tests on how that worked.

All of which would  have to wait, as a pair of men appeared in front of us blocking our  path. I blinked as I took in who they were. Crayken Lurk and his  brother. Deacon was by far the bigger of the two, with a much more  imposing face and piercing eyes that burned with anger. I got a sinking  feeling as they got in the way. I'd been hoping to kill Crayken, but the  middle of a city wide brawl was less than ideal as a place to have that  fight. Hell, I'd considered just having Sindara put me in touch with an  assassin to hire for the job.

In absolutely no scenario was  stopping to fight this asshole right now while mid escape a good idea.  So I went with the tried and true method for getting past idiots. I  bluffed. "Excuse me friends, I apologize for the inconvenience, but  we're from the palace. We've been sent to find a healer for my  companion, I'm afraid she was poisoned. I really need to pass, we don't  have time to waste." Dragons fighting was super fucking obvious, and it  WOULD draw attention if I just leveled them with dragon breath. Safer to  try to bypass this mess.

Deacon looked over us  critically. "He doesn't look like you described. I'll admit the woman's  body is as...ample as you mentioned, but her face seems different as  well. Are you sure these are the two you met?" He wasn't uncertain or  flustered, simply examining every possibility to make sure he reached  the desired outcome. No wonder Cameron was so impressed with this guy. I  kind of wished I could recruit him myself. That kind of grace under  pressure was pretty rare in low level minions.

Well...I  say low level, but the guy was E ranked as surely as I was. Crayken,  however, was shockingly just as effective. "Fuck yes I'm sure. Forget  the girl, not that I could mistake tits like that, I tracked down one of  the other players and found out they were all paid off. Those pills  didn't come from Carmine, we know that, but someone wanted us to think  they did. I had Maladia run a trace on the opals they paid with and  tracked them to an inn in the city. We lost them earlier, but I had her  make me an aura tracker for the two of them."

Fuck. That  was a ridiculous amount of attention to detail. I'd seriously  underestimated this guy. He'd been playing the moron on purpose I was  certain, and doing it for a long time. His reputation as an idiot was  well established, and I'd double checked with plenty of other parties.  That was a big problem of mine. I considered everyone else stupid, and I  was too eager to believe when they proved me right. Usually didn't  cause problems, but sometimes I ended up accidentally falling into some  shit like this.

I sighed and passed Cherry to Zee,  cracking my neck. "Ok, look, I don't have time for the whole gloating  thing. I need to get out of here and you two are in my way. Se we're  going to skip the whole 'who me?' reaction, I'm going to congratulate  you on managing to surprise me with your intelligence, and then I'm  going to kill both of you, because I can't have that thing about the  pills getting out to early. Sorry." I slipped a hand into my pouch and  pulled out a small black metal orb, tossing it at the two of them.

Naturally,  announcing that I was going to kill them made the orb a pretty big  priority for them, assuming it was some kind of bomb or something. I  closed my eyes as the flash stored inside the thing went off, eliciting  screams of shock from the two men who had been focused on trying to get  out of the way while still staring right at it. I mentally thanked the  bandits for keeping a few amusing trinkets on hand as I crossed the  distance between myself and Deacon in a flash, fingers elongating into  claws as the flashed at his throat.

I couldn't do a full  dragonkin transformation, but lots of things had claws. As long as I  didn't pop my horns or wings I'd be fine in terms of leaked info. I  didn't need my disguise to hold long term anyway, just long enough to  get out of here and back to Amaranthine. Sadly, Deacon wasn't a  pushover, despite the surprise, he managed to release a wave of that  same black fire from his body to create a sort of temporary force field,  and I jerked my hand back rather than risk touching that shit with my  bare claws.

I was fast enough to change targets before  they recovered though, and I used wind magic from my bloodline to push  myself in the other direction, appearing in front of Crayken with a  herculean effort and trying the same trick on him. Smarter than expected  or not, he wasn't even F ranked, and he had no defense against my claws  as they ripped his throat out, shooting me a confused glance as choked  to death on his own blood. I heard a shout of warning and hurled myself  to one side as a wave of black flame consumed the spot I'd been standing  and Crayken's body all at once.

Deacon, who had recovered  his eyesight roared in rage and grief, hurling another series of bolts  of black flame at me which I sidestepped with a little help from some  wind magic. I felt sweat bead on my body. I had a ton of energy in my  bloodline, but it was harder to use when I wasn't transformed. My  draconic form channeled the Vital Tempest better, and keeping up this  expenditure in my human shape was fucking taxing. I wanted to get in  close to attack him, but it wasn't a feasible option with him hurling  fire like that. I began to slowly circle.

The tears  running down Deacons face didn't seem to hamper his attacks as he hurled  bursts of flame at me, which ironically made them easier to avoid. If  he'd been carpet bombing the place he might have tagged me by accident,  but with my reflexes and ability to read tells I was able to predict the  attacks and get out of the way. As I did so, I slowly closed the circle  with him, inching nearer and nearer as I did. Most of the nearby  buildings were on fire, but then, he was hardly the only Opal throwing  flames so that wasn't exactly an attention grabber.

I  expected a speech about his brother or an oath of vengeance, but the man  was just inconsolable. He couldn't be bothered to speak or monologue  and he barely seemed to notice me getting closer, with the small  exception of increasing the pace of his attacks, though not enough to  matter. It was draining him too, I could see the sweat on his body as  gasps wracked his lungs, his inhalations deep, bellowing draws on the  air around him. He was barely standing by the time I reached him, but he  never stopped attacking, flailing wildly with flame coated hands as I  got close.

Sidestepping easily, I drove my claws into his  eyes directly, not wanting to risk anything as slow as a throat slash  with someone my own rank. Once my claws were in I pumped a high power  charge of destructive lightning right into his brain, and let him fall  to the ground dead. As I stepped over the body, I gestured to a troubled  looking Zee, who brought Cherry back over and took the blonde off her  hands, putting her back over my shoulder and putting my other arm around  her waist.

As we walked away I leaned down to murmur to  her. "I didn't much enjoy that either, but they would have gotten us  killed." It was true. Killing the sobbing man after killing his brother  had been necessary, but not enjoyable. I liked a good fight, but that  had been more like a slaughter. It hadn't stopped me from doing it, but  if it had left a bad taste in MY mouth I knew Zee must be horrified.

I  was actually curious to see if she would blame me, but she just pressed  herself into my side, taking comfort in my presence. As she watched the  burning streets and dying civilians I was pleased to note she didn't  turn any of that horror in me, or seem to be aiming it at herself. That  was good, guilt wasn't particularly useful, and that wasn't just for me.  I was worried I'd have to do some fast talking, but it seemed she was  laying the blame on Dark Opal and his style of rule. As we swept out of  the capital, bypassing the rest of the squabbling defenders and  criminals, I let out a sigh of relief. It was almost time to go home.  The hard part was over.