Vraxious- Red Willow Mercenary Compound

  Vrax followed Torvald up the beautifully wrought wooden stairs into a bustling and frankly stunningly beautiful tavern. The subtly shifting gradient of dark to light wood naturally led guests to the white wooden bar or into the generous seating area, creating an entrancing effect. The collection of heavily armored cutthroats that sat at the bar and tables didn’t detract from the beauty, but it did make for a strange atmosphere.

  Vrax nearly stopped mid-step as he looked around. His eyes lingered on a fine dish served with perfect plating and golden potatoes in front of a man that practically dripped malice from his red-rimmed eyes onto the table in front of himself. What the fuck is up with this place? Vrax looked at the bar and saw a man with a pair of jagged maces who was covered in what appeared to be still-wet blood, leaving stains across the impeccable bar while he sipped from a crystal flute. No seriously, what the fuck?

  Vrax looked at Jonathan in confusion. Jonathan nodded before whispering back. “Yeah, this is where the fuckers who are good at the really nasty jobs come, and they have the money to have a taste for the finer things.”

  Almost as if on cue, a barrel-chested man with ruddy round features in an armored robe stood up from a nearby table and beelined straight for Torvald with a dirty look. “Hey there, big fella, you look new around these parts.” He walked straight in between Torvald and the bar, cutting him off. Torvalds's eye actually twitched at being denied a drink when he was so close.

  Stereos started quietly muttering to himself; the words made Vrax’s teeth itch concerningly. There was no flare of mana, though, so Vrax wasn’t sure if he was readying a spell or not. Torvald sighed deeply before turning slightly towards the man. He had pulled his robe aside slightly, giving him easy access to a wicked-looking flail. Torvald stared down at the flail and then at the man with a blank expression, his usual cheer having apparently run out.

  Vrax caught sight of a familiar figure once again at the end of the bar. Reese, that poor bastard, had also seen Vrax and inadvertently shattered his cup with too tight of a grasp. Vrax nodded affably toward him. That poor unlucky fucker is going to actually have a heart attack if he keeps running into us.

  “Names Rus, what’s your name, big fella?” The man in the armored robe said loudly while poking Torvald in the chest rudely. Torvald sighed deeply, then put on a big smile before stepping in uncomfortably close to the man. He let his wings slowly unfurl behind him. They were fucking awful up close, writhing veins that jerked with every beat of his “heart.” “Samantha, I make dresses.” Torvald deadpanned but couldn’t keep the smirk off his face as the man backed up with a slight grimace.

  Torvald just walked past, his wings dragging sickly along the floor behind him right up to the bar, and sat with a smile. “Ale, please!” he said loudly, clacking a silver onto the bar. That started some murmured conversations, and quickly everyone went back to what they were doing, realizing the newbies probably weren’t an easy or desirable mark.

  Vrax really just wanted to sell shit and leave without getting in a brawl with criminals for once. He sat with the others, lowering his helm so he could also get a damn drink. The few people who looked close enough to guess at his identity quickly looked anywhere else but at him. Sharing hushed urgent whispers with their neighbors.

  They were only on their second tankards when Segunda returned with a dwarven gentleman in a pair of work overalls. He simply gestured for them to follow and led them all into a small back room of the tavern. Torvald pulled off his backpack with a smile and started piling up an impressive amount of golden armor in various stages of chewed on and bloodstained. Then he kept going, pulling out nearly twenty weapons, all either of fine make or minor enchantments.

  Jonathan’s mouth was hanging wide open. “What the hell is in the saddlebags if you have a fucking spacial bag?” He asked.

  Torvald looked him dead in the eyes before answering, “Food mostly.” Then kept emptying the bag, finishing with a few items that had the inquisitorial seal of Rembrand upon them. The quartermaster's brows were shooting through the roof, and Segunda looked more concerned with every item they pulled out.

  Vrax gestured at the small bloody mountain. “As you can see, we have been busy. I figured you wouldn’t mind terribly if it had a few stains.”

  “This...hmm…the metals are valuable, and some of these enchantments are of decent quality, but obviously we would need to scrape every identifying mark from these and honestly ship most of them far, far away before selling them. Lest we get a visit from the inquisition of all things looking for their wayward property.” The quartermaster busied himself inspecting each piece of gear one by one. His mana practically caressed each piece with some advanced form of identification.

  After nearly half an hour the quartermaster gave Segunda a nod and whispered something in his ear. Vrax instantly focused in with his hearing talent. “Good quality, a bit chewed on, and dangerous as all hell to hold but worth nearly four hundred gold.” Segunda nodded gravely as if the man had just told him dire news. Before turning to the others.

  “We will offer you 50 gold pieces for the lot, rather generous considering its extreme disrepair.” He smiled like he was doing them a favor out of pity.

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  Vrax sighed deeply. “I don’t want to play the damn haggling game. Two hundred gold pieces, and you show me what’s in the pen outside.”

  Segunda's face darkened. “The beast outside is none of your concern.”

  “Ehhh... I feel like it could be, though. Did you guys rob a beast trader and grab something that’s a hell of a lot more than you bargained for? That’s kind of my favorite thing. I could take it off your hands,” Vrax said with a genuine smile. Torvald groaned in frustration before muttering to himself, “Please not this shit again.”

  “One hundred, and when you realize what it is and want to suddenly renegotiate, forget it; the deal is final. It would be a relief not to risk any more lives feeding it, but I’m certain you will leave it in its cage as well.” Segunda countered.

  “One hundred and fifty and you got a deal,” Vrax said excitedly. Jonathan was looking back and forth, confused. He turned to Torvald and mouthed the words, “What beast?” Torvald just shrugged and pounded the rest of Vrax’s ale while he was negotiating.

  They shook on it, and Vrax practically rushed back outside, leaving an unsurprised Torvald to collect the funds. Vrax made his way straight over to the enclosure and didn’t even wait for someone to come and open the hefty padlock for him. He simply started clambering up the side of the wall while whatever was inside suddenly thrashed violently at his presence.

  The stablemaster came rushing out of his office in a panic, hooked spear in hand and a half-thrown on chain hauberk trailing off his shoulders. “Fucking stop, you damned fool! Stop!”

  Vrax kept climbing. “I bought it, fuck off!” He said with almost a manic level of excitement.

  The stable master skidded to a stop near the base of the wall. “Wait, really? Thank fuck. Sooooo how are you getting it out of there? The cage it came in has been nothing more than scraps for months now.”

  Vrax shrugged awkwardly from just below the top of the enclosure. “I’ll figure it out,” he said with surprising confidence before summoning his helm back over his face and pulling himself up the last stride to peer at his new acquisition. “Oh, hell. I might actually die,” Vrax said in disbelief as he saw what was lurking in the enclosure. It was a fucking miracle it hadn’t gotten out yet and killed everyone in the camp.

  The shadows in the enclosure shifted madly as they tried to wrap around the crest of feathers running down its back. The feathers themselves shifted as if they were made of shadows and blended seamlessly into a thin dotting of crimson scales that shifted back to an unnatural black all along the reptilian abomination's body. The feathers didn't quite hide the grotesquely protruding spine that seemed to have ripped free slightly from the flesh of the creature all along it's length.

  Its two bird-like legs held it aloft on powerful muscles with taloned feet that could easily gut a horse. Its two short clawed limbs held the same dagger-like fingertips, but the way they twitched betrayed its true dexterity.

  All of its lethal predatory body and sinewy tail paled in comparison to its malevolent, unfathomably powerful visage. An angled long snout practically overflowed with rows of sharklike teeth. Above that sat the deadliest aspects of a Thresher, however. Thin glowing red pits served as its eyes; they looked like portals to a hellish dimension. Its gaze would drive the bravest man to madness, leading him to simply lie down and allow himself to be feasted upon.

  None of that was taking into account that they were pack hunters with intelligence easily rivaling men when fully grown. Holy shit, don’t look into its eyes! Vrax quickly averted his gaze. Those things are half the fucking reason I raised my mental defenses so high. I wonder...is it enough now for me to hold its gaze...this one looks small still, only up to my waist…

  Vrax Used Predator's gaze on the creature quickly before it could lock eyes with him. [Thresher Hatchling Tier-1] (lvl29) [Threat: Extreme]. That's...I can probably adapt that...I'm going to get my dumb ass killed.

  Vrax lowered himself slowly back below the lip of the wall and looked at the stable master. “Why the hell do you have a fucking thresher? How? How do you have a thresher?

  The stablemaster looked almost bashful as he answered, “Someone fucked up real bad and grabbed the wrong shipment. By the time we opened the armored box it was in, it was too late. It killed the poor fuckers in the pen with it, and all we could do was build up the walls higher around it.”

  Vrax looked aghast. “How fucking old is that thing?”

  The stablemaster rubbed his brow. “I got all the info I could on them, even though it cost me an arm and a leg...almost literally... If I had to guess, six or seven months. We had a couple tamers that tried to buy it, and you know, get the ultimate tamed monster…”

  “And I’m guessing that went well….” Vrax said and waited for the inevitable answer.

  “Yeah… Even as a baby, its gaze is something else...the first one it just gutted after a failed bonding; the second didn’t even make it that far—the bastard literally just kneeled down and let it eat him. Honestly fucking horrifying.”

  Vrax looked down as Torvald and his friends finally joined. “Hey guys, I think I finally found a good mount!” Vrax said in excitement. Torvalds's brows furrowed in deep concern.

  Jothan, bless his soul, didn’t know the depths of Vrax’s questionable past choices and shouted up a congratulations. “Finally! Your walking has been slow as hell. What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s a critter from back home, a friendly, real smart pack hunter called a Thresher.” Vrax answered as nonchalantly as he could. Jonathan looked confused for a moment, and then the name dawned on him as one of the most famous threats deeper into the forsaken lands.

  Torvalds’s face dropped from mild annoyance to straight concern. “Don’t you fucking dare!! The goddamned fear dragon was enough! The flowers at least don’t have the ability to hate!”

  Even Stereos felt the need to pipe in, “I, uhh, I feel that is a rash and incredibly ill-advised idea even by your rather flexible standards of risk assessment.”

  “Guys, it’s me. I got this,” Vrax said with as much false confidence as he could. Torvald charged, actually charged, exploding from the ground in a column of dust and mana as he rocketed towards Vrax. Obviously intent on stopping him from adding this particular horror to the ever-growing menagerie. Vrax vaulted away from Torvald and down into the enclosure; he pulled his spear with one hand and held the other out, ready to fire off his new smite if it came down to it.

  The Thresher slowly turned to face him, confidently squaring up with its prey. The Thresher's feathers undulated in a maddening pattern as it wrapped the shadows around itself and then the entire enclosure. The only sources of light in the sudden darkness were the dim green glow of Vrax’s armor and the piercing red beacons of the Threshers’ eyes. It locked eyes with Vrax, and suddenly he felt safe.