25 - The Gift (Patreon)

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The dim violet light illuminated the otherwise dark space, filled with smoke and the powerful scent of sweet fruit. A man leaned back against the mountain of pillows stacked up behind him. The deep black lower body of the lamia was wrapped around the table in front of him. He pulled in a deep breath of the flavoured smoke, holding it in for a few moments before streams of white flowed from his nostrils.

The man kept sitting there, enjoying his time in peace, when someone else walked up and took a seat next to him.

"What do you want?" the lamia asked, hissing at the one that just silently joined him. The man smiled lightly, though his swollen and red nose seemed a bit distracting.

"Now, now, don't be like that," the man replied with a laugh, glancing at the hookah stood between him and the lamia, "I've always been doing a good job, haven't I?"

"I'll ask you again, Simon. What do you want?"

The elf's smile dropped, and he leaned back into the seat before crossing his legs, "Ryan Aglecard. He's not who you told me he was, Mister Blanchard."

Not sure what Simon was talking about, the lamia placed the hookah's mouthpiece onto his lips, "I don't know what you mean."

"He may share their name, but he's unrelated to the Aglecard foundation. We looked into him a bit more."

"What are you saying?" Not sure what Simon was getting at, the lamia let out a long sigh, pushing out more smoke as he did so.

The elf grabbed his bag and pulled out a laptop, which he quickly flipped open. The bright light overpowered nearly everything else, and as it was turned toward the lamia, he clicked his tongue annoyed, "You could have just told me with your words."

He leaned forward and took a closer look at the information written in the file, "So? What about it?"

"A cosy town over west, with a whole 20-thousand citizens. After the death of his father, an accountant at a small chair manufacturer, his mother raised him alone. She remarried for a short while, but her husband was soon arrested. She now works as an office manager at a company producing rubber ducks."

The lamia read through the information to double-check it, and then looked back up at Simon, "Let's assume that our information was wrong. What do you want us to do?"

"... More information. Mere minutes after the registration had gone through, I was called and told to find a way to purchase this... 'Spirit Keeper' class under any circumstances, but to be careful as he was a member of the 'Aglecard' family. I need to know more about what this class is supposed to be."

With a scoff, the lamia shook his head, "And why exactly should we tell you something like that? Just do what we pay you to do."

"Because that man summoned something that could move even within one of my traps that should have made this impossible," Simon explained bluntly, "That thing just jumped at me and broke my nose. We have to know more."

With a slow shake of his head, the lamia stared back at the elf, "No. You will not get to know more. I told you to do everything you can to get that class. Whether it is through money, or violence, or hell, by making him fall in love with you!" slowly, the lamia began to lift his upper body, soon towering completely over Simon. His tail started to wrap around his body, slowly tightening around him, "You will get us that class! But the one thing that you will not do is make demands of me. Understood?"

Simon stared up at the lamia, shivering anxiously. His eyes reflected the violet light of the nearby lamps, and his face was clearly twisted in anger. The white tattoos on his arms were practically interrupted by the furiously bulging veins all over them.

Nervous and clearly filled with fear, Simon nodded his head, "I-I understand, but I- At the very least, we need more time, just..."

Simon and the lamia locked eyes for a few moments, before the elf was released, "Fine. You have as long as you need. But if we don't get that class... you know what's going to happen, right?"

"Of-Of course, Mister Blanchard..."

Simon meekly started walking away, mostly unsuccessful in his attempt at getting more information from this man that sent a specific request to Bluesky. The Blanchard family were people that Bluesky couldn't afford to disappoint, so they accepted without hesitation.

"Gods-damned..." Simon clicked his tongue, pulling out his phone. He dialled some number and quickly held it against his ear. He waited for a few moments, rushing out of the hookah lounge, and spoke the moment someone on the other side accepted the call, "Gather your men. At midnight tonight, come to the address I'm about to send you."

Back inside, the lamia settled back into his seat, an annoyed frown on his face, "How hard can it be to defend yourself against a damned spirit?"

He looked down at the watch on his wrist, trying to use the dim light to read its face, "But speaking of... I should check up on Vanda. I need to make sure my little 'Gift' does its job well tomorrow."

Christopher smiled lightly, pulling out his phone. The idea of what must be going on right about now was very quickly lifting his mood.

Ryan squatted down with a long sigh. He hadn't been able to concentrate on the last two rounds against Richie and Roxie at all. It wasn't a total failure, but it definitely wasn't close to as satisfying for either side. Even the round where Maximus was fighting on his own, he was sluggish and clearly unable to concentrate on anything but Gaia's fragment.

"Are you okay?" Richie asked, with a concerned frown, "Is your shoulder acting up?"

"... Something like that, yeah," Ryan replied. That was a good excuse, though it was clear that Richie knew something else was going on. He was sensible enough not to pry, though, and Ryan was quite happy about that.

"In that case, if you want to call it a day, you can-"

"No, no, it's fine! I just need to take a break, don't worry," Ryan assured him, not wanting to leave just yet. He had to stay nearby and figure out what exactly this 'Vanda' was doing with the fragment.

Currently, she was setting up everything that she needed to start her first duel of the day, rushing to get ready. Ryan kept glancing over at her the whole time. Now that the 'Spirit Link' skill wasn't active anymore, he couldn't sense the fragment on his own, but Maximus and the fragment already with Ryan definitely could.

"Dude, what's going on?" Modak knelt down in front of Ryan, "Are you alright?"

He looked around to see who exactly might be able to overhear him, and slowly stood up. He asked Modak and Silvia to follow him outside the room, and the moment the door closed shut behind them, he started to explain.

"She has one of Gaia's fragments," Ryan explained immediately, and both Modak and Silvia were taken aback.

"What? Who? And how, even?" Silvia asked. Ryan had filled them in on Gaia's fragments before, but that being something that suddenly popped up here seemed just far too random.

"That Vanda girl, I don't know why or how, but she has a fragment on her. I can feel Gaia shivering in my head," not sure how to better explain it, Ryan tried to word it that way. But it was much more than just shivering. Gaia was practically crying, wanting to be reunited with another part of herself.

Modak looked at the door, clearly unsure what to say to that, "I mean... can't you just talk to her about it? She's really nice, like... I've known her since before uni, we went to the same school. Her siblings are friends with mine, and... I can't imagine her having any bad intentions, you know?"

Able to tell that Ryan seemed to be assuming the worst, Silvia suggested something else, agreeing with Modak, "Right! What if she just... happened to pick it up somewhere?"

Ryan considered it for a moment. His gut was telling him that there was more to it than her just having randomly found it, but he couldn't say for sure that this wasn't the case either.

"So what, I should just ask her about it? 'Hey, do you happen to have a spirit core's fragment somewhere on you?' I doubt that's going to work all too well," Ryan pointed out, and Modak thought about it for a little while.

"I get why you're nervous about it, considering where you found the first fragment, but... can you 'Link' with Gaia's core? I mean... maybe you'll be able to figure out more? Like exactly where it is, and what Vanda's doing with it," he suggested. Ryan raised his brows immediately, carefully thinking about the idea.

"That... could work. It's worth a try at least... but what if she won't give the fragment to me? I can't just steal it from her... can I?"

"Let's not worry about that for now," Silvia replied, trying to calm Ryan down a bit, "If she doesn't want to give it to you, we can figure something out then. Let's not resort to stealing, alright?"

Ryan slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, alright. You're right. Thanks, I'm just really... I don't know, there's just a ton going on today that's kind of stressing me out, you know?"

His gaze slowly wandered over to Silvia, and they locked eyes for a moment. Silvia looked away, and Ryan sighed inwardly, "Alright, let's just... get in and wait? There's another 20 minutes until I can use the skill again anyway."

"Alright, I can try to talk to Vanda for a bit as well. She seemed a bit stressed earlier," Modak replied, and Ryan slowly nodded.

"Right, of course, do that," he responded with a nod, pulling open the door. Since Vanda and Modak knew each other already, maybe his presence could calm her down enough that even if it came to the worst case scenario, it would help improve the situation a bit.

The three stepped back into the room, and Modak quickly walked over to the hobgoblin, "Yo, Vanda, how are you doing?"

"Oh, hi, Modak! Yeah, I'm fine, just a bit stressed... sorry about the other day, by the way, I kind of pushed my way through you guys and didn't even say hello," she replied, setting up her Duellist to get it ready, while Modak just shook his head.

"All good, I could tell you were busy. Honestly, it looked like you didn't even see us properly," Modak pointed out, "You were already gone by the time I realized it was you as well."

"Yeah... I really should pay more attention to what's going on around me sometimes," she pointed out, carefully glancing past Modak over toward Ryan, "So your friend is the one that awakened? I saw him and his... summon-thing during the duel earlier. I guess they're not used to things yet?"

Modak wasn't sure exactly what to reply. Clearly, Ryan and Maximus were acting off because of the fragment Vanda had on her, but that wasn't something he could just tell her, "He's had a pretty bad day, I guess. He's a great fighter, usually."

"...Clearly not good enough to get a physical class, right?" she pointed out very bluntly. Modak noticed that she seemed a lot more confident around Modak than she did around most of the club members, though that could probably just be attributed to the fact that they've known each other for years now. And clearly, through some kind of miracle, Vanda didn't know about Ryan yet. So, he figured that he shouldn't mention it.

"Well, what about you? You happy with your Duellist?" Modak asked, slowly trying to move the conversation away from Ryan. The hobgoblin grinned smugly and quickly looked down at the small robot in front of her.

"Happy? I'm ecstatic. I was struggling so much to get this to work. So, I'm using both electricity and mana to get this to work, right? I'm intertwining them together, and because I need the mana to function in a specific way, I had to overcompensate with a ton of it. So I wasn't able to get the right mana source, until just earlier this week."

Modak's stomach dropped as he listened to her words, "Mana source? Like, a really good battery?"

"Hm, something like that? You know how there are types of crystals that just hold a ton of mana?"

"...Yeah, but those are really expensive, aren't they?"

"Well, sure... and don't tell this to anyone, but I met this guy recently, he's really nice and we've become really close friends. When I told him about the Power Duel projects, and what exactly I was struggling with, he offered me this crystal. His family is apparently really well-off, like, old money well-off. And he just... gave it to me."

Modak frowned in confusion. So someone else gave her the fragment? In exchange for... nothing? That felt off. Really, really, off, "So are you going to be paying him back or anything?"

"Well... I'm going to try to? I can't right now, obviously, but depending on how tomorrow goes, I might get some good job offers. Right now, all he asked for was to... try 'Energiser' out before tomorrow. It's part of why I was late, actually..."

Modak glanced over toward Ryan. He seemed to be trying to concentrate on calming down, but was still glancing over here every once in a while.

"So... this crystal, is it going to run out of mana anytime soon? You probably only have one, right?"

"Oh, no, no, Energiser doesn't use that much mana. The crystal should last for quite a while."

"Do you think you're still going to need it after the presentation tomorrow?" Modak asked, and Vanda raised her brow, confused.

"I might, yeah. If they like Energiser and anyone wants me to show it to them again some other day, I'll obviously need it then," she explained, "Why, do you need something like this as well?"

"Not really, I do have something I'm working on, but I managed to get it to work pretty well already. Hold on, I actually have it with me," Modak pointed out, about to head over to his bag to get the Magic Cassette out again, but Vanda just shook her head.

"My first 'duel' is about to start, but I can take a look at it later. Oh, if you want you can look at some of my notes about 'Energiser', though, here," Vanda pushed open her old and thick laptop that was already open to some documents and sketches.

The hobgoblin quickly stepped away and moved over toward her 'arena' together with her Duellist. Modak was going to take a look at the notes in a second, but for now, he had to tell Ryan, though he was nervous how he was going to react.

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