The Storm King

The hospital in Attica was fairly small, with no more than ten healers working there at any one time. Leon found that fairly strange, but when he mentioned it, Elise said that there were quite a few small private healer’s clinics around the city, too.

Regardless, it was to the hospital that Helen had taken Anna following her rescue several days ago, and where Leon had been directed to by her assistant.

It was the last full day that the Heaven’s Eye convoy would stay in Attica and Leon still wanted both sisters in his retinue—or, at the very least, he wanted Helen. Having an alchemist on his team would be a huge boon, and his first impressions of the young fifth-tier woman were quite good. He just hoped that he hadn’t scared her off with his display during their hunt.

In the interest of recruiting her, he made a few discreet inquiries, and eventually found himself outside of her apothecary, but found only her assistant there, a young woman who possessed only first-tier magic and couldn’t possibly be older than he was. It was from her that he learned Helen was visiting her sister.

Leon then made his way to the hospital. The entire way, he argued with himself over whether or not he ought to wait until Helen returned to her apothecary, but in the end, he figured that if he wanted to recruit Anna as well, then he’d find himself at the hospital at some point today, anyway. Better to do it now while the two sisters could confer with each other rather than having to wait and find that he’d missed his chance.

The hospital staff were quite helpful in directing him to Anna’s room, a small room not much larger than a walk-in closet, with barely enough space for the hunter’s bed and a single chair. The healer he spoke with just outside of the room couldn’t tell him much about her status, but he did indicate that Anna was doing just fine, had regained consciousness not long after being brought in by her sister, and that she was fit enough to have non-familial guests.

So, with that in mind, Leon knocked on the closed door and waited. A moment later, Helen opened the door, and her pale blue eyes widened in surprise and, to Leon’s mild dismay, momentary fear, when she saw him standing there. She froze right there, the door only somewhat open, staring at him, clearly shocked by his presence and unsure what to say.

Taking her reaction completely in stride, Leon smiled good-naturedly and said, “Hi there. Would it be all right if I come in?”

Helen looked like she was about to refuse, but a weak, but an upbeat voice called out from inside the room, “Come on in!”

That response seemed to pull Helen out of her shock, and she sighed and pulled the door open further, stepping further in to give Leon enough room to enter.

It was a truly small room, with nowhere to sit, and feeling rather cramped with both him and Helen there visiting Anna. But the window was open, letting in about as pleasant a breeze as Attica was capable of getting, and allowing the light of the sun to spill inside. Those, however, were nothing compared to the bright and cheery smile on Anna’s face as she watched Leon walk on in.

“You must be Leon Raime,” she weakly stated as Leon closed the door behind him.

“I have the dubious honor of being Leon Raime, yes,” he replied as he debated with himself what the most non-threatening posture he could assume could be, because Helen didn’t seem to be relaxing at all. He eventually settled on leaning against the wall as far away from her as he could get without seeming like he was blocking the door, though it didn’t seem to help much. “You’re looking much better than the last time I saw you, I’m happy to see.”

It was true, the green-haired woman had some color back in her face, and her smile glowed brighter than a magic lantern. Aside from the weakness in her voice, there wasn’t much that Leon could see about her that made it seem like she’d been in the hospital for days—she fidgeted on her bed with fairly substantial energy, and her sixth-tier aura was robust and active. For all intents and purposes, she seemed to be almost recovered—physically speaking, at least.

“And I’m happy to hear that,” Anna replied. “I’m told that I have you to thank for killing that fucking animal and helping to get me out of there.”

“I played my small part, but I’d say it was your sister who had more to do with your rescue,” Leon responded with a nod toward Helen. “She quite literally carried you out of there, and were it not for her, I don’t think you would’ve survived your poisoning. I have no clue at all how to deal with basilisk venom. Speaking of which…”

Leon reached into his soul realm and retrieved several things. The first was a large receipt, marking all over with the sigil of Heaven’s Eye. The second was a large jar of foul-looking dark green liquid that looked thicker than molasses. The third and final thing was another jar of bright red mana that pulsed with magic power, which Leon had to summon on the floor.

“This is proof of your contribution in hunting down that basilisk,” he explained as he handed the receipt to Helen. “The bounty manager has already seen to it that the payment has reached your account.”

Helen gave him a look of great skepticism and surprise, but she took the receipt and gave it a once-over, her eyes practically popping out of her skull for just a moment as she saw the amount that she’d been paid. “Thank you…” she whispered, quickly composing herself.

“That’s not all,” he said as he brandished the jar of green liquid. “I had the basilisk taken apart. This here is about half of the venom that was extracted from its glands. This other jar is filled with a good portion of its mana. I figured that I’d deliver both of these to you two for your contributions in dealing with that creature.”

“That’s entirely unnecessary, at least for me,” Anna responded with a look of amazement. Leon could understand that since what he was giving them held quite a bit of value. The basilisk venom in the jar alone was probably worth at least half a million silvers, while the mana’s value was a little more fluid depending on where they might be and who they might be talking to, but he estimated it to be worth five million silvers at the least.

“But we’ll take them,” Helen countered as she snatched up the two jars and placed them on the edge of Anna’s bed. For just a few moments, her antipathy and suspicion of Leon had vanished as she stared at the alchemical treasures that Leon had just handed over.

“Please forgive her, she can be a little narrow-minded when she sees rare ingredients,” Anna said with an affectionate smile aimed at her younger sister. She reached over and patted Helen’s hand, and the younger woman seemed to relax slightly, though her guard certainly went back up when she glanced back at Leon.

“That’s quite all right,” Leon replied. “I understand the shock at seeing how I took out that basilisk…”

Anna sat up in her bed a little a straighter and said, “Yeah, my sister told me something about that day that’s pretty hard to believe…”

Leon awkwardly smiled and nodded as he stole a glance at Helen, who stared back at him with a little less antipathy, but still not anywhere close to even the basic levels of trust she had before he revealed he could transform.

Instead of directly launching into an explanation of that, though, he said to Anna, “Uh, I don’t really know how to get into that right now, so how about while I think of that, you tell me how you’re doing?”

Anna quietly chuckled, ran her fingers through her long green hair, and replied, “I’m doing about as well as anyone else would be, I think. That animal didn’t do much to me, thank the gods, aside from the whole poisoning thing. But… I’m certainly not the only one he kidnapped.”

“We found another corpse in there of a young woman,” Leon said with a nod of his head. “Looked like she’d been dead for a while.”

“That would make some sense,” Anna responded. “He wasn’t quite so overbearing for the first couple of weeks, though still extremely manipulative. But about three weeks ago, he forced me to drink his venom, and then tried to get me to agree to be his mate…” Anna’s voice cracked slightly, and Leon wondered just how well she was actually doing, but he didn’t think himself nearly close enough to challenge her on her claims of being fine. “Thankfully, you got to him before he could escalate matters to something more physically forceful.”

“Thank the Ancestors for small mercies,” Leon whispered.

“Indeed,” Anna agreed.

“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me,” Leon offered, but from the way that Anna just smiled, he didn’t think that was an offer that she was going to take up anytime soon—at least, not for anything material.

“I wouldn’t say I need anything,” Anna replied, “but I would like to have some answers, if possible.”

“That depends on the questions,” Leon stated with a smile.

With a tone as blunt as a mace, Anna asked, “Are you an Ascended Beast?”

Leon shifted his posture a little in discomfort. “Are you concerned with my ability to transform?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Anna admitted, and Leon watched as Helen tensed up a little more. The fifth-tier alchemist’s aura started to churn, and Leon guessed that she was reaching into her soul realm, not to pull anything out right now, but certainly preparing to do so if needed.

“I’ll admit that I’m unsure how to answer that question,” Leon replied with a cheeky smile, ignoring for the moment Helen’s reactions and focusing entirely on her older sister. “I would consider myself human; that’s how I’ve spent my entire life, after all. However, I can see how someone else might think of me as an Ascended Beast. After all, a beast that can transform indefinitely into a human isn’t all that different from a human that can transform indefinitely into a beast, right?”

“That’s an argument of semantics,” Anna responded with an almost breezy tone. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a little more complicated. I would consider a human that can turn into a wolf very different from a wolf that can turn into a human, if only because a human has presumably been raised in human culture and adopted most of our norms. A wolf that can turn into a human is still a beast, not a human, because it may not have the same respect and willingness to adopt human culture, including its taboos against things like rape and murder.”

Leon detected a few notes of bitterness in her explanation, and he wondered just what they might indicate. “Deal with a lot of wolves that can turn into people, have you?” he asked only half-seriously.

“I dealt with a pack of werewolves a few years back,” Anna replied. “It was a tough hunt, but they were terrorizing some of the more secure villages in Attica’s territory, and I was the best hunter that Heaven’s Eye could get on short notice.”

“I’m impressed,” Leon stated without a trace of dishonesty. “I’ve had to deal with a werewolf or two. They’re tough creatures.”

Anna nodded in appreciation, then took a deep breath. “If you say that you’re human, I suppose that’s that, isn’t it? Not like there’s much of a way to prove it on short notice.”

Leon shrugged.

“Well, thank you, Leon Raime,” Anna said. “I’m grateful to be alive, and you, as you said, ‘played your part’ in my rescue. As much as I hate to have lost to that creature and been in a situation where I needed rescuing, my fate would’ve been much darker had you not come for me with my sister.”

“Think nothing of it,” Leon replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll admit that I thought you were already dead, and so went on that hunt for the sake of the hunt. Had I known that you were alive, I probably wouldn’t have taken such a leisurely pace.”

“It’s good to hear that.”

The three went quiet for a moment, the atmosphere turning steadily more and more awkward until Leon decided to just get to the point already.

“So, what are your plans for the future, if you don’t mine me asking?” he inquired.

“Haven’t been making many,” Anna admitted as she turned towards her silent sister. “Mostly just supporting my little genius over here…” She reached over and tried to tousle Helen’s hair a bit, but only managed to run her fingers through the pale blue locks once before Helen pulled herself out of reach, her cheeks reddening slightly in embarrassment as she fixed the minute damage to her hairstyle that Anna had inflicted.

“If support is all you’re looking for, then might the two of you be open to an offer from me, assuming you don’t have any other obligations to people in this city?” Leon inquired, his tone light and cheerful, but nothing but deadly seriousness glittering in his golden eyes.

“Leon Raime, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that sounded like a job offer,” Anna said with a cheeky smile.

“Maybe you don’t know me better,” Leon shot back. “Maybe that was a job offer.” He let the joking atmosphere between the two of them last just a little bit longer, but then he let the façade drop and let his more natural stony seriousness take its place. “I’m heading east, to the Ilian Empire. Occulara, specifically, where I’ll be joining Heaven’s Eye. As an eighth-tier mage, I’ll probably be given a fairly high-ranking post, especially since I’m married to the daughter of one of the board members. And I’m not going alone, I have a small retinue accompanying me. They support me, and in turn, I support them. Would you be willing to sign on with my retinue?”

Anna exchanged a look with Helen, and something completely unspoken passed between the two. In fact, it was almost as if they had an entire silent conversation that Leon wasn’t privy to, with Helen shaking her head a few times, while Anna made a few head tilts and angled her eyebrows. After a few seconds, Anna finally turned back to Leon while Helen turned to steadfastly stare out of the window.

“I’ll admit that your offer has me intrigued, Leon Raime,” she said. “But whether or not we join you will depend on what you’re willing to offer in return for our services, and what services you’ll be expecting of us. A fifth-tier alchemist and a sixth-tier hunter won’t come cheap, and they’ll certainly not come if degrading things are expected of them…”

Leon quietly chuckled. “Nothing degrading, I assure you. Even if you don’t believe that I’m not an Ascended Beast, you can at least trust that I will ask nothing of you that you don’t want to do, and I’ll certainly not be asking for anything intimate in nature.”

“What, you think we’re not worth romantic interest?” Anna shot back with a playful smile, though the weakness in her voice ruined the effect somewhat.

“Don’t bait me,” Leon replied, though he wore a smile that matched hers. “The two of you are beautiful, and I’m sure anyone would consider themselves lucky to catch your interest. But I won’t be making any moves on you, even if you ask for it. I’m a married man and have two other ladies in my family. I’m sufficiently tied up, and am not looking for anyone else.”

“Relax, I was just teasing,” Anna replied. “But let’s talk benefits and duties. I wasn’t joking when I said your offer has me interested…”

Leon and Anna then launched into a more detailed negotiation, with Leon offering her the same generous terms that he’d given the rest of his retinue. Their contract could be terminated at any time, for any reason, by any of them, at least for now. That particular provision was enough that Leon was able to knock down their asking price quite a bit, but it was one that he would’ve included anyway, he didn’t want to force them to stay with him if they wanted to leave.

After that, they agreed that Anna would join Leon’s retinue, at least provisionally, as one of his warriors. She’d have plenty of time to hunt if she wished, but her duties to Leon would always have to come first. Helen, even though she didn’t say much, still agreed to sign on with Leon as his retinue’s alchemist, filling in a hole that Leon hadn’t much considered when making plans for expanding his retinue. With her on board, he wouldn’t need to rely entirely on enchantments to heal his people when they were injured, as well as all the other benefits that an alchemist could bring them.

Fortunately for the two sisters, Anna was well enough that she was able to leave the hospital that night, though the healers did insist that she get as much rest as she could. Leon, meanwhile, was able to return to the guest house fairly secure in the knowledge that he’d added two at least superficially skilled people to his retinue. He’d have to put them through the ringer a bit to get a better feel for their capabilities, but for now, he was happy.

He spent the rest of the night with his family and retinue. He told them of the new recruits, and when morning came and everyone started making their way down to Attica’s docks to leave the city, Leon found that Anna and Helen were there waiting for him. Together with the rest of his retinue, they boarded the largest yacht that Heaven’s Eye had arranged for the convoy’s journey through the Wetlands, got settled in, and departed from Attica.