Dragon Flame | MxM Fantasy

Chapter 7: The Lost

Everyone sans Kelcie is settled in an unused storage room when Wystan gets there. The keep is tall—the tower they saw during their arrival here— but the rest of the structure does hold too much space to be manned by the staff he's seen around. That's how they've found a perfect place for secret meetings in the building far enough from the busiest part of the castle. The cobwebs in the corners and torches mounted on the walls certainly add to the atmosphere.

Lela is the closest to the entrance, talking with Rich. She shows him some cloth before nodding to Wystan.

Lela is a woman of small stature. With long brown hair and glamorous, exotic clothing though she has toned down the flashy aspect for the purpose of blending in. She's also their subterfuge expert, always ready for long missions with sneaking and spying. Rich is her main contact in those instances. As an intelligence master, he's in charge of compiling the information and making it fit into the bigger picture. He's also notoriously good with words. Where Gauge had probably learned from necessity, Rich did it because of his unrestrained curiosity. A former lower noble willing to dirty his hands because of his own peculiarity, and if that made him able to pay off the debts his father saddled him with, even better in his mind.

Of course, the two are closest to the entrance, so if they aren't reacting to Wystan, the rest don't react to his appearance either.

Next to see are Marco and Silvan, two complete opposites. Marco is their to-go guy when they need brute strength while Silvan is a poison expert. Their looks are also the opposite, bronze and pearl, as some describe their appearances, from hair and skin to clothes. Silvan is a rare assassin who wears lightly colored or white clothes when on missions. They sit on decaying crates next to the entrance. A bottle is placed between them. Knowing the two, it's probably moonshine.

Ashton and Kolton, the paired weapon experts sent only on the toughest jobs, lounge on the dusty floor. Their usual backup if things go south, Lane, plays cards with them. Wystan wonders how come they aren't sneezing from all the dust that rises each time one throws a card down. Lane scowls constantly, lines of his brow are severe and his mouth pulled into a frown whenever he's not talking. While Ashton and Kolton say they are brothers, everyone is aware that none of the names of members of the Lost use are real, so the only thing the two have going is passing similarity in facial features and common physique.

Cards fall down faster, the three players serious and quiet in their game. The sound comes from the loud booing and jubilant cheering of the last few members who follow not only the game but the way Gauge steals cards whenever the participants aren't paying attention to him. 

Wystan puts a palm over his eyes in hope that when he looks again the scene will somehow change. No such luck. It would need divine intervention with this lot. He wonders if this is his punishment for committing some terrible and unforgivable offence in his past life.

He claps his hands. "Come now. Be quiet or we'll be found out."

Reid, the loudest of the booers, gives Wystan a deadpan stare with his unnaturally bright eyes brimming with magic. "Anyone who could've noticed would've done so already. Gauge got his shitty new enchantment running interference.''

"Plus, we've been eying this part of the castle for the last few days. No one comes here, ever," Hailey adds through cheering, steady on her feet even as Jagger janks on her arm while he jumps around and yells like a lunatic. His cheering and booing alternate without rhyme or reason, and Hailey follows his ques. Those two are always too damn excitable.

"It doesn't mean that we can be careless," Wystan hisses. Enough that one of the staff or Alexei himself is trained to recognize unnaturally silent vibrations and someone will be onto them. "No one knows we're here and that's how it should stay."