Sylver Seeker

Sylver turned the card around, but to his surprise, the back was still blank.

He turned it around again and read the words one more time.

‘Please leave me alone.’

He checked the back just in case there was something on there.

Then he turned it around again, and read the words written on it.

‘Please leave me alone.’

Once again, there was no signature, just 4 words, written using just a bit too much force. The handwriting wasn’t anything special, there weren’t any fancy calligraphy loops, it was as basic as it got. It wasn’t rushed, but it hadn’t been written carefully either.

Sylver lifted the piece of paper up into the air and held it up to one of the suns. Then he turned it around again.

‘·ǝuoʅɐ ǝɯ ǝʌɐǝʅ ǝsɐǝʅꓒ’

There was a tension in the air.

It was the type that normally preceded the types of battles that would later on be described as “a massacre.” The tell-tale sign of such battles was that only one side was nervous, drenched in a mixture of sweat and piss, whereas the other was calm.

Or in Edmund’s case, giddy.

Sylver put the note back down, put it back into its envelope, and turned to face the man on the horse.

Anastasia identified the man as… his name wasn’t important, to make a long story short, he was the man in charge of this city. The Marquis of whatever this city was called.

Fredrick, Poppy’s husband, wasn’t interested in the headache that came with managing an entire city. Because like Lola, he didn’t need to own the city officially, everyone of significance was already dancing to whatever tune he played.

“Just so there aren’t any misunderstandings, may we enter the city?” Sylver asked.

The Marquis shook his head.

“Alright. I know it seems obvious, but I hate it when there’s conflict because of miscommunication. If we try to enter the city, you will try to stop us, correct?” Sylver asked.

The Marquis nodded.

“Great. We got that out of the way… I don’t suppose you’ll tell us why you’re doing this? Or what you were told that you’re this on guard?” Sylver asked.

The Marquis just shook his head.

“Yeah, thought not… Does anyone have any questions?” Sylver asked, without once breaking eye contact with the Marquis.

“How far away is the nearest allied city?” Edmund asked.

He was one of the few people who could ask that question without making it sound like a threat. Edmund asked because he wanted the fight to be fair, that his opponents had a fighting chance.

But even if Edmund was the one to ask, the Marquis had enough sense not to answer. He simply continued looking right at Sylver, with the kind of quiet terror that Sylver felt he didn’t deserve while looking the way he currently did.

If he was a 20-foot-tall skeletal creature, with 3 heads, multiple arms, and a massive cloud of utter darkness blocking out the suns above him, surrounded by an army of undead monstrosities, then the fear in the man’s eyes would make sense, but right now, Sylver was just a pale man, wearing a simple black robe.

“If my memory serves me right, Pere is closest. But I somehow doubt Novva Da’Pere will be all that willing to help you defend against this particular threat,” Sylver said, and while the fear in the Marquis’ eyes didn’t increase, it broadened.

It was the difference between finding a knife-wielding man in your house and hearing the man say your name.

The first was vague, there was a chance the man’s presence was unintentional, and he picked the house at random.

But if that random man calls you by your name, the possibility that he’s here by accident goes right out the window.

About 10 seconds of silence passed, during which Sylver doubled down on the decision he had made the moment he read Poppy’s note.

“We’re probably going to leave and never come back… But since there’s a chance we might change our minds, in an hour, or a couple of years, would you mind answering a few questions?” Sylver asked as he straightened his back. “Hypothetically speaking… Just hypothetically… How long can you afford to have your army standing out here? Forget the soldiers, to keep this many adventurers on standby, you must be bleeding money,” Sylver said.

Edmund took a step forward, so he was next to Sylver.

“Logistics of keeping such a large number of men fed, rested, and maintaining their equipment aside, what are you going to do about the monsters? Someone needs to be out there to keep their numbers down, but if all of your adventurers are busy standing guard, who’s killing monsters? Considering how isolated you are, you have maybe 4 months until a monster outbreak occurs,” Edmund said.

Sylver nodded along.

“The next question is whether there’s any point in having an army at all. You act as if whoever you’re trying to prevent from entering will fight you fairly. That they’ll run straight towards your army, and they’ll clash against one another. What if they dig their way inside? Do you have mages actively searching for underground tunnels?” Sylver asked with the tiniest hint of a grin.

It had the intended effect, as the Marquis somehow managed to become even paler than he had been a minute ago. With how little blood was reaching his face, he wasn’t that many shades away from being as pale as Sylver was.

“They could also attack you from above. Just smash their weapon against your barrier, until it couldn’t handle it. Then again, that attack could be a distraction for what’s happening below. Or the attack from below is the distraction. You can’t take any chances, if one of your opponents gets inside, the others will arrive shortly after,” Edmund hypothesized.

“But before you get started on fortifying your outer defenses, how secure are your insides? Are all the guards paid well enough that they can’t be bribed? Are their families secure enough that they can’t be taken as hostages? All it would take is one guard to create a crack in your defenses. And considering who your opponents are, a single crack is all they would need,” Sylver explained.

“What if they use hit-and-run tactics on you? Whittle down the size of your army over days? Weeks? Months? Will your equipment last that long? Will the people who repair and maintain their weapons and armor keep up with their damage? What are you going to do when there simply aren’t enough swords to go around?” Edmund asked.

“Since you’re not connected to the teleportation network, how long can you last without importing anything? A city’s economy is a vital part of its defense, nobody is loyal on an empty stomach. And if you do allow merchants to visit, how can you be sure the people you’re trying to defend against don’t sneak in via a barrel? Or a sack? What if the intruder can fit himself into a box no bigger than a pack of playing cards?” Sylver asked.

“And even if they can’t get inside themselves, what about disease? A single tainted apple is all it would take to, if not outright kill, at the very least cripple your people. And what about morale? Do you think everyone is going to continue guarding a city, while their wives are dying inside?” Edmund asked.

“On the subject of wives, how secure are yourchildren? Are all their bodyguards paid well enough that they can’t be bought? No secrets that could be exploited? How would they handle multiple teams of assassins, competing with one another, to collect a 50 million gold bounty on your children’s heads?” Sylver asked.

“How…”

Edmund broke the steady flow of barely veiled threats they had been making.

It took him a moment to push past what Sylver had said, but sadly, that moment of silence was enough for the Marquis to break out of the fear-induced trance he had been in.

Without saying a word, the Marquis lifted his left hand into the air, and a split second later, disappeared.

He appeared near the back of his army, and for a half second, all the soldiers and adventurers that had been watching him converse with the four figures in the distance tightened their grip on their weapons and readied for the order to charge.

But no order to charge came.

In fact, there was no order to do anything. The Marquis stood in behind the safety of his men and waited for something to happen.

“Did you have to bring up his children?” Edmund asked quietly as if the distant army might hear him.

“You know how nobles can be. 10,000 soldiers dying is nothing, but god forbid one of their sons loses an arm,” Sylver said with a shrug of the shoulders.

For about a minute, nothing happened. Nobody moved, nobody said anything, the 3 men, and 1 woman, just stood where they were, and watched the motionless army.

“I’m confused, what are we doing? Are we going to war?” Faust asked.

“We’re leaving,” Edmund said with a huff.

“She’s not inside, there’s nothing to gain by going to war,” Sylver added.

“Aside from a couple of levels and heaps worth of fun,” Edmund said with a trace of a grin.

“But what was the point of threatening them?” Faust asked.

“Nobody threatened anyone,” Edmund said.

“I said “hypothetically” twice, and on top of that, we were just asking questions. A threat needs to be direct,” Sylver said.

“Even if we did threaten him, he’s not going to do anything. His whole city was guarded by a near-omniscient clairvoyant since before he was born, this is likely the first time the man has ever had to face an opponent without knowing the outcome beforehand,” Edmund said, as Sylver nodded along.

They watched the army scurry into a new formation for a while. It was made all the more difficult since they seemed to be afraid of letting Sylver and company out of their sight. As if they were backed into a corner by a wild animal and were expecting it to attack them at any second.

“We could just sneak in… I was just trying to scare him with that digging underground thing, but if I go home and grab Ria, I could walk right through their barrier. I strong-arm the Marquis into letting you inside, and we go have a chat with Poppy…” Sylver thought out loud.

Edmund stood on his tiptoes, and continued rising, as he floated off the ground. He stretched his limbs out and lay down as if he was laying on an invisible sofa.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you though. And like you said, since the stick isn’t on the table, that only leaves the carrot. And if she was interested in any of our carrots, she would have told us,” Edmund said.

“If I was interfering with her, she would have told us. She wants to be left alone, and since she didn’t specify that she wants other parties left alone as well, that implies that she’s fine with us interfering with them,” Sylver reasoned out.

Edmund looked somewhat convinced and given the amount of effort the alternatives to simply leaving required, it was good enough for Sylver.

“What if this is a bluff?” Edmund asked.

“To find out, we would need to attack them. And regardless of how relatively unimportant this city may be, we run the risk of making the high king an enemy. And even if we do get in, what’s to stop Poppy from simply running away? It’s not like she’s glued to one place. Our only means of tracking her are Chrys, and given the source of Chrys’ power, I find it unlikely that she’ll be able to find Poppy,” Sylver explained, as he used [Deadly Darkness] to lift himself, Faust, and Anna into the air.

Will materialized underneath them, and the trio sat down in their usual places amidst the large wyverns’ spikes. Edmund floated down onto the wyvern’s back and used his floating sword as a bench to sit on.