Chapter 29
"Cooooome oooooon! Antonein!" Shiro called, standing at the threshold of Nazim's workshop, waiting on the priest, who from his exaggerated reaction to his name being called seemed to be firmly under Karen the hero's influence.
"Yes?" he said timidly, his uncle helping him stand upright.
"Don't fucking tell me your potions and aphrodisiacs have been coming from this guy this whole time," Shiro said, pointing at the kobold inside his shop.
After a quick exchange of looks with his uncle, Antonein confirmed exactly what Shiro had already suspected.
"Why would yo— never mind," Shiro sighed, turning back to the kobold. "And you, why would— ah, damn it, I don't even know where to start. Why'd you vanish with your whole shop last time? Made me look like a complete idiot when I tried to bring someone there."
"I, Nazim, run a shop, and a shop needs customers." The kobold just shrugged. "With you gone, there was no one left to trade with in that empty stretch of land, so naturally, I left."
Shiro blinked at that. He didn't really have a counter. Sure, he'd been bringing a customer, someone genuinely willing to trade valuable things, but how was the kobold supposed to know that in advance? It wasn't like the guy was omniscient on top of being immortal and somewhat omnipresent.
"Fine, I'll give you that one, moving on made sense. But my question now is, why here? Why set up shop here specifically? You might as well have opened in a sewer, it'd have gotten you about as much visibility."
"I open my shop wherever I believe the right customers will find me," the kobold said, gravely, "and they did."
Hearing that "they," Shiro's first thought went to whoever the kobold had been dealing with here, Antonein, presumably, but he quickly caught himself, remembering what Chaska had told him about these shops, places, put simply, only heroes tended to stumble onto with any ease.
Which meant "the right customer," to Nazim, could only mean heroes.
Remembering the actual hero he'd come here to meet, since he'd technically come for her, not for Nazim, he looked in the duo’s direction and asked the priest, "Where is she?"
"What?"
"Where's the slanderous lunatic your temple is hosting?"
"She..." Antonein glanced nervously at his uncle, clearly unsure whether to answer.
"Goddamn it, I already told you I'm not going to kill her, whatever you think. Just answer the question. Where is she? She's supposed to be here."
Earlier, when pressing the high priest for info, Shiro learned their beloved visiting hero had holed herself up down here since—well, immediately after her encounter with a slightly inebriated Shiro that one night.
"Lady Karen was here. But she's left."
"Left? To go where?"
"With everything happening in the city, she felt it was imperative she act before things spiraled further out of control."
"Goddammit. So she's out there right now."
"Yes."
With a long, loud grunt, Shiro rubbed his temples, thinking through his next move.
With the person he'd actually come here to talk to now unaccounted for, the most important thing left in the room, and Chaska would agree, was the shop and its owner, the kobold, currently watching him with visible impatience from across the counter.
"You gonna barter for something, or not?"
"I am," Shiro said, walking up to him, "very much so. But I know someone even more eager to trade with you right now, out there somewhere, searching for a place I doubt she'll ever actually find."
The kobold gave a distinctly uninterested nod.
"I'd like to go bring her here, but I've got a bad feeling—and I blame it on what happened last time—about what might happen while I'm out looking for her."
"You're not going to disappear on me again, are you?"
The shrug the kobold gave him was anything but reassuring. "Who knows. Ultimately, I'm Nazim, owner of this workshop, and bartering is all I do. So what'll it be for you?"
“Come on,” he wanted to protest, but knowing better than to argue with this being, he chose what he believed to be the wiser path instead.
His gaze dropped to his coin purse, then to the gems he had brought along in case his coins proved insufficient to properly restock his supply of aphrodisiacs.
For once, he felt genuinely fortunate to be the pervert he was.
"By the way, Nazim, I've got a name now. You can call me Shiro now."
???
Shiro left the temple noticeably heavier than he'd entered it, and no doubt looked deeply questionable doing so, but he couldn't care less. He rushed through a city that was, quite literally, boiling.
It had already been simmering earlier that day, distant screams, scattered whistles, small gatherings here and there, but in the six hours since, it had jumped past some kind of threshold. "Plaza!" a man screamed, pitchfork still in hand. "Gather at the plaza!"
What's happening at the plaza, Shiro wondered, though he had no time to find out. Finding Chaska came first. The kobold hadn't promised he'd still be there when Shiro got back, only that there was a chance, which meant Shiro needed to move fast.
Another half hour later, he made it to the Bower.
Part of him had hoped to run into Chaska on the street along the way, but no luck, so he was banking on finding her here, in for lunch.
A little naive, considering she hadn't shown for breakfast either, but it still felt like the natural place to check first.
Stepping inside, his eyes immediately landed on a girl, though unfortunately not the one he was looking for. "Anya, have you seen Chaska?"
She shook her head, an odd look crossing her face.
"She never came back?"
"No," she confirmed with a nod, her eyes drifting toward what Shiro was carrying on his back. He'd braced for questions about that, questions he'd have had to brush off since finding Chaska was still his priority, but instead she asked, "You haven't seen my sister around, have you?"
"Vanya? She’s not back yet?"
"No," she said, her voice missing its usual confidence.
"Guessing from your tone she should've been back by now."
"Yes, I..." She hesitated on how to phrase it, before finally admitting, "She was supposed to be back for breakfast."
"That's been a while, then," Shiro agreed. "Where'd you send her?" he asked plainly. With everything going on, there wasn't time to dance around it, things were getting genuinely dangerous. "What was this business you had her handle?"
She hesitated again, but concern for her sister ultimately won out.
“We knew the noble the hooded bastard who attacked us worked for was high-ranking, but we didn’t know who exactly.
We figured he had to be connected to one of the two factions, either the elder brother’s or the younger, sneakier one.
Honestly, I could easily picture it being latter.
But I needed actual proof, and no matter how much we dug, we couldn’t find anything that tied him directly to either faction.
Instead, our investigation led us somewhere completely different. To the Lazarin faith.”
Them again, Shiro winced.
"The attackers seemed to have dealings with people from the temple, since that's where the two who survived us retreated afterward.
Why would cultists get involved? They don't openly back either brother, at least not according to our sources.
But from what we dug up, they're tied to someone high up in the ducal family.
Someone I genuinely hadn't even considered.
What?" She halted herself mid-sentence. "Why are you looking at me like that? "
"Don't tell me you sent her to keep an eye on whoever the Lazarin faith is backing."
Her silence was his confirmation.
"Fuck!"
"What?! What’s going on, Master Shiro?"
"There's a hero, don't ask me how I know, but there's a hero actually walking around this city.
Karen the Elusive, that's what they call her.
A protégée of the Lazarin faith. Also a complete maniac, but a nimble, dedicated one, protecting exactly the person you're suspecting those hooded men worked for.
" Shiro leaned in and whispered the name into her ear.
"How?!" she reacted, horrified.
"Long story, if I tell it all, but short version, I just spent the past few hours with two names you'll definitely recognize, High Priest Ferdinand and his nephew Antonein. Which is why I'm telling you now, if your sister's anywhere near the ducal palace, she's—"
"...In danger," she finished.
"Yes," Shiro confirmed, hesitant. "What you need to do right now is— where are you going?" He stopped her, grabbing her by the arm.
"Confirming my sister's safe?"
"That's exactly what I was about to suggest, but how are you planning to do that? Let's not be rash. Acting recklessly right now is the worst possible move."
"I don't know yet what I'm going to do," she admitted, looking more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her, which somehow made her next words even less reassuring, "but I'll figure it out."
"Want me to come with you?"
"Can you?" she asked, in a voice that would've softened plenty of hearts. "Weren't you supposed to be looking for Chaska?"
"I was, but she's nowhere to be found right now, so..."
"Then I'll take you up on that," she said, rushing to her room to grab a few things before they left the Bower.
He did the same, packing his compact case, since he had a feeling he'd be needing extra ammunition soon.
Once they reached a busier street, Anya walked straight into the middle of it and flagged down three riders on vaulters.
"What are you doing?" one barked atop his reptilian mount.
"Are you insane, woman?"
"Two of your vaulters," she demanded, ignoring their protests, pulling out a large silver coin, the biggest of that variant.
"What—"
"For the day. I just need them right now. You can claim them back later at the merchant guild, where we're headed."
"How do—"
"Are you taking it or not," Anya pressed.
"This one can tag along with you," Shiro offered, giving them the assurance they were clearly after.
At that, the men hesitated only briefly before dismounting, handing Shiro and Anya the reins. Wasting no time, they got moving. Shiro didn't remember ever riding one of these creatures before, but it came to him as naturally as riding a bike.