Chapter 421: A polite conversation

We - Auri, Iona, and myself - stopped a polite distance away from each other, the Rangers just barely outside my sphere of perception. It was close enough that we could easily hear and talk, given our System-enhanced abilities, but far away that we could have a fraction of a second to react if anyone started anything.

Not that we were planning to, but I suspected they were acting out of an abundance of caution. Iona was displaying as a level 520 [Warrior]... riding a wyvern.

I’d spent years studying anatomy. Women held themselves slightly differently, had a lower center of gravity, and just plain moved differently. The differences were subtle, but I hadn’t studied medicine for years for nothing. Did let me see that three of the Rangers were women, including the [Leader], and the rest were men.

Weapons weren’t out, skills weren’t flying, but armor was on and the Rangers had their hands on their weapons. There was clearly a standard set of weapons, but one of the dudes had a golden hammer glowing with the familiar light of Radiance, and a second had an unusual segmented sword. It would be pointless for stabbing, excellent for slashing, and I mentally categorized him as a speedster. I was in a simple tunic - not that armor did much for me these days - and Iona had very deliberately left her weapons behind, only using a small part of her mallium to form the classic wings of the Valkyrie order on her head.

Of course, with a thought she could morph the rest of the mallium into armor and weapons, immediately arming and armoring herself. She was about as close to fully ready to fight as the Rangers were, and I gave a little approving internal nod at their readiness. They didn’t know she was a hair away from fully ready, but were treating her like she was anyway.

Auri was preening herself on my shoulder, trying to ‘subtly’ show off and make the Rangers look at her. She was about as subtle as a brick, with all of the dancing, hopping around, flashing her flaming wings and the like. One of the Rangers kept having her eyes dragged back to Auri’s colorful show, which was only encouraging her.

I noticed a trio of tiny mouse golems slip off the roc, and a subtle rustling of grass showed where they were going, spreading out through the field. Interesting skill! I wonder what they were for. I kept half an eye on them, sure that they didn’t know I knew about them.

“Lady Valkyrie.” The [Leader] of the group respectfully said, giving a small nod to Iona. “I hope you understand why we’ve intercepted you.”

Iona gave a big smile, holding her hands out to her side. It was probably more the symbology of it than anything, but I was rapidly getting out of my people person nuance depth.

“Naturally! Big flying armored wyvern, not flying any banner known to you, of course you’d come round and ask us what was going on. As you can see, we’re more than happy to cooperate.”

The leader nodded.

“Aye. Can you tell us about why you’re here? We don’t have the usual issues mortal lands have with monsters and bandits. If you’ve gotten a cry for aid, please, let us know and we’ll be happy to handle it.”

I was just so curious! I took a little step forward so the Rangers would be inside [The World Around Me], letting me get exact details and information about them.

“Crimson eyes.” The [Artisan] said from the back of the formation. The [Leader’s]

head snapped to me, along with two of the other Rangers. She immediately became officious and commanding.

“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to take a step back.” She ordered. Iona shot me a glare over her shoulder, and I meekly stepped back.

Had the [Artisan] somehow known what I was doing? Nothing else made sense. Auri flew from one shoulder to the other, still showing off for the one Ranger tracking her. I caught a few flickers behind the Rangers' helmets, Auri temporarily distracting a few more of them.

“Sorry, my friend’s a little starstruck.” Iona chuckled, and for the life of me, I couldn’t tell if it was a real chuckle, or a fake one. “As for what we’re doing here, well, immigrating I suppose. Looking to move to Sanguino and find work. I’m Iona, she goes by Dawn, and this is Auri. Fenrir’s my companion back there. We recently graduated from the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft, and I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the Order Valkyrie was recently made, ah, more nomadic than we’ve been in the past. Dawn’s School advisor is from Exterreri, and when she’s not hiding her level she’s a little less than welcome in mortal lands.”

Iona’s pointed words reminded me that I was still wearing both my amulet and my Deception Ring.

“Whoops! Hang on!” I took the amulet off - it only had one setting in the end - while mentally fiddling with my Deception Ring to fix my level. It was still hidden, I didn’t see any sense in letting them know I had two ways of playing with my level.

“Ahhh, yes, that would do it.” The [Leader] said while the [Healer] in the background nodded understandingly. “Elaines.”

I almost flinched at my name, before remembering for the umpteenth time that it was now the word for healer. Something about the whole situation had me jumpy and nervous, like I was a teenager on a date again.

“I’m Livia, pleasure to meet you.” She stepped forward, extending her hand, and Iona stepped forward to meet her. Which also brought her into range of [The World Around Me]! There were… sadly no deeply interesting secrets in the armor, but it was interesting to see how much arcanite and how many gems were woven into her gear. Quite a bit more than we’d gotten back in my days as a Ranger! Her gear was also packed with runes, although I wasn’t familiar with the language. More enhancements and powerups!

Maybe if I had specialized runes and gear armor would be useful for me again. Something to look into when my finances were in a better spot. Armor was expensive. Enchanted armor?

Ooof.

Oh no, I was turning into a grumpy old woman. Good for them! Good for the current Rangers! Having better gear and a higher survival rate was good! They even had a roc to fly around on and transport their gear! Much better than a wagon and some horses.

They still better have the Hell Months or something like that. Weed out the people not committed enough. Humph!

“It’s always a delight to meet the famous Rangers in the flesh.” Iona warmly said, happily shaking Livia’s hand.

“Also, forgive me, but ‘goes by Dawn’? Is that not her real name?” Livia asked. We were using the Creation word for Dawn, and this was one place where people might recognize it as a Creation word, and not just a name. Then again, names and words from other languages overlapped all the time so they might just chalk it up as a coincidence.

Iona glanced over her shoulder at me, and I gave her a tiny nod.

“Nope. She’s got one of those unfortunate names, and goes by a nickname.”

“Ahhh, yeah one of those. If you don’t mind…?”

“Elaine.” Iona answered, and thanks to [The World Around Me], I could see the puzzled look on her face slowly morph to understanding.

“Elai- OH! She’s got one of those names, right, yeah, I see what you mean. Any family name or cognomen or anything?”

I shook my head.

“Nope. Closest thing I’ve got is Dawn.”

The [Artisan] coughed loudly. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to send another coded signal, or was really just trying to get some phlegm out.

Probably just phlegm. His crimson eyes earlier clearly told us that they had a way of signaling each other, and weren’t afraid to use it in public.

“Elaine, Elaine… recently graduated from the School…” Livia was clearly thinking about something, but I had no idea what. “This is going to sound completely random, but you’ve never claimed to be a Sentinel, have you?”

That question was out of the blue.

“I’ve never claimed to be a Sentinel of Exterreri, no, but I’ve held a similar title in the past, in a completely different country and language. Exterreri doesn’t have a monopoly on the word, does it?” I ended up sounding maybe a little defensive there.

I could see behind Livia’s mask, and she wasn’t looking pleased.

“Well, no, but-”

The [Artisan]

interrupted. Was Livia really the boss here?

“Sundown. Claws in.” He barked out, and the Rangers stiffened. Hands reflexively went to weapons on the first command, runes started to flare to life, then, like it was physically costing them, they all dropped away. Livia’s face went through a whole gauntlet of emotions, before settling on a smooth blankness. Even more interesting, she had no way of knowing I could see her, that was simply her natural reaction.

“Excuse us. I need to talk with my team.”

The Rangers quickly huddled up, flashing elaborate hand signals to each other. Another thing that had changed - the hand language was nothing like I’d seen before, unless their sudden conversation was about Formorian mages running the Senate.

Auri took it as a challenge. She fluttered around more, creating tiny little puffs of flame in dozens of different colors.

“What’s all that about?” I asked Iona quietly. I had no illusions that they couldn’t hear us, but it was more about having a polite volume of voice. Nobody wanted people shouting next to their ear, not when they were trying to have a private conversation.

“I honestly have no idea.” Iona shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. “Only thing I got was claws in suggests they very much want to avoid any sort of physical confrontation.”

We stared at them, and at one point three of them quickly turned to look at us, before a round of head-smacking from Livia got them to pay attention again.

They finally came to some sort of consensus, and approached us again. I let Iona take the lead.

“Auri. Lady Valkyrie. Dawn. Welcome to Exterreri. I can’t promise that no other Ranger team is going to bother you, but it’s unlikely. If you mention you spoke with Livia of Ranger Team Gale, they might leave you alone. Might. Dawn, whatever else you were previously, do not call yourself a Sentinel here. We take a dim view of such things, and I’d hate to arrest you so soon after you arrived. The title has a special meaning here.”

Iona smiled her best charming smile. I’d know, she’d used it on me often enough when she wanted something.

“We’ll do that! I have a quick question, and I apologize if it seems random. Do you know of anyone called Night associated with the Rangers? Probably not a Ranger, but tangential to the organization?”

“Night Night…” Livia clearly went deep into thought, then snapped her fingers.

My heart leapt into my throat, and I took an eager step forward.

“Yes! Our [Armorer] has twins. She named them Day and Night, should be about five or so?”

My face fell.

Iona gave a polite smile.

“I appreciate your help, but I don’t think that’s who we’re looking for. Thank you though! Good wind under your wings.”

“A steady breeze under yours.” Livia replied.

It was like they couldn’t get out of there fast enough. They efficiently, expertly climbed back onto the roc, and with a mighty, System-empowered flap of its wings, they took off. They quickly veered south, and were off like a shot.

“That wasn’t the direction they came from.” I noted out loud.

“Nope.” Iona agreed.

“And it’s heading the same way we want to.”

“Yup. Let’s take a break, something spooked them and we don’t want them to think we’re chasing them.”

It was nice just lying in the meadow with Iona and Auri, enjoying the sunshine, watching the clouds pass. Fenrir convinced us all to play a game of cards, which was hilarious. Auri thought she was sneaky with her ‘not an elvenoid’ bird beak poker face… entirely ignoring the fact that her flames got all energetic and extra-colorful anytime she had a good hand. I’d been around some cutthroat cheating with Ranger Team 4 and the Sentinels, which helped me not at all.

Iona couldn’t lie, yet somehow skillfully kept managing to play the game and stay in, claiming that she was playing us, not playing the cards. Half the hands we played she didn’t even bother looking at what she had! It was an eye-opening experience.

Yet, in spite of all that, Fenrir somehow managed to win all the chits we were playing for. I didn’t know how it happened, but his pile steadily grew while ours shrunk. The beast was a natural-born card shark… errr… card wyvern?

We didn’t spend the rest of the day there, eventually getting started again. We didn’t encounter anything interesting until the Ash cloud of Sanguino came into view, a Classer shaping it into the form of a flying bat, pulling any number of acrobatic tricks over the capital of Exterreri.

We had made it.