Taken Horizon Origin, volume 1, Duality

Episode 10 ; dragon princess and the drunk

Dunking a bucket of water on the passed out drunkard he jerked awake shouting curses, "you little yicka! When i... Strife?" He blinked several times and tugged on my coat a few more times making sure I wasn't a hallucination before continuing. "what are you doing here? We still have two weeks until the banquet."

Virgil moved about pulling an empty rum bottle from underneath him

"its three days actually. I ran into a lot of rogue ronin's and bounty hunters currently after my head. A lot of people have figured out I'm the prison escapee and my bounty poster has changed."

Virgil spoke acting unsurprised, "I heard some rumors about that in my circles." Peering down the bottle Virgil looked for anymore liquor inside but he threw it away indicating there wasn't, "the strongest rumor is that a black masked man with ashy hair and a streak of black recently left the southern gods throne-world and are making their way north."

Squinting my gaze was serious as the weight of the my  situation became obvious. "So you already knew..."

Getting up Virgil scratched his gut realizing he no longer had a shirt on, "of course i do. I also know about the girl but as per our arrangement i wont ask anything about her. I may be a drunkard but at least I'm a fair drunk."

Not paying attention to his musing i pulled out a spare shirt from my spatial rune. "since I've already been exposed, i guess i can just trash the place from the start then."

"Thats the funny thing." Taking the shirt from my hand Virgil slowly put it on. "None of the clan hierarchs have paid any attention to you. They're attention got pulled elsewhere after the cousin of the sovereigns wife was reportedly sighted in the south right after you left. Theres barely a clan out there that wouldn't want to be related to the rulers wife."

The news of this was interesting and i wanted to learn more but i stayed focus on my purpose. "so the plan stays as it is then? I go in as a guest, make a mess -then hightail it to the remote artificial portal setup outside the city." Counting on my fingers what needed to be done i shot Virgil a final look. "Did i miss anything?"

"No, 'hiccup!' That's everything. Its just that things became more complicated with the banquet. Three of the eight yaksha's will be there. Originally... there was going to be no worry for that as I've had my people stir up problems for them to handle but they've just left the work to their retainers."

Three yaksha's... clenching my fist aether coated it in an amber mist. Ive grown stronger compared to when i first started in that room and have handled platinum-grade terrors but whether or not that's comparable enough to them is a question.

a single yaksha could handle several platinum beasts easily and alone i had trouble with them, even if i managed to kill one once upon a time nearly killing me. "Which yaksha's will be there?"

"I don't know." As i looked at him dumbfounded he quickly explained after discovering a new bottle of brandy, "the yaksha's aren't grounded to the land of their patron, they wander just about everywhere in the archipelago to ensure order. All I've managed to nail down was that three yaksha's accepted the invites."

"How, pray tell, where you able to keep the rest from coming?" I asked unamused.

Giggling maniacally Virgil had this seditious look, "for now I'm just gonna say their loved ones were pranked but unharmed."

This crazy drunkard. I thought silently. He realises those people are strengthened by the gods of this world, right?

Ignoring my clearly concerned expression Virgil continued. "Anyhow, where's the mutt? He's normally skulking about you."