Masters

Chapter 15

Alzolami grunted in frustration as her eyes flared for a moment. "There goes another one!" "You have to use your thumb and fingers, All-see." "Cut me some slack kid! Sometimes I'm all thumbs, other times I'm all fingers, and occasionally I don't have fingers or thumbs!" Rosey giggled. "You're silly All-see!"

Alzolami and Rosey were eating a lunch of noodles with chopsticks in the manor's dining room. They were sitting on the cushions that were standard in Ualiqula with their bowls and cups on simple shin-high tables in front of them. By the time Alzolami slurped up three noodles, Rosey was already halfway through her bowl.

They had already spent three weeks in Ualiqula and had easily adjusted to the naturalistic way of life. It was strange to Nick and Yohan that Rosey refused to leave Alzolami's side and insisted on doing everything with her, but what truly astonished them was that Alzolami didn't seem to mind Rosey's company. "She has no shortage of complaints and doesn't hesitate to let anyone, Rosey included, know about them." stated Nick as he scoped the perimeter with Aura. Yohan peered into the distance with a handmade spyglass as he spoke. "Maybe, but she doesn't try to shoo her away and she never says anything too harsh. In fact, the way she phrases her issues, it's almost like she's trying to entertain her, like silly nursery rhymes or something."

Meanwhile, as they traversed the village during their stay, nearly everyone they spoke with appeared to hold them to a very high regard due to their direct affiliation with Lord Tomahk. The only ones that seemed to dislike or distrust them were the local Aura Guardians.

According to the ninth law of the Universal Mortal Constitution, every dimension has the right to appoint a group of PK Masters to enforce laws and ensure the wellbeing of residents, and in a dimension like Ualiqula, such a force is extremely essential. The Guardians of Ualiqula appear to have a great sense of chivalry, pride, and honor, and because of this they seem to have a low opinion of Lord Tohmak's decision to use an outside source of manpower to aid himself.

For the most part, they expressed disapproval to the presence of Nick, Yohan, and Alzolami with mild passive-aggressive comments that came up in conversation. However, one guardian in particular had no such reservations. Most of the guardians were easily identifiable by their lamellar armor, heavy leather cloaks and clothing, and the presence of hand-crafted weaponry such as katana, spears, bows, slings, axes, and clubs, but one day a Guardian that stood out really tried to get in Nick's face.

Nick was making his afternoon patrol route around the Tomahk estate when a Guardian rounded a corner to face him. He was clad in armor of gilded plate and scales, a helmet with horn-like protrusions in front, and had a maul twice Nick's height with a head larger than Nick's made up four rows of five metal spikes and a large spike on top. He had a face a head's height higher than the top of Nick's head covered in scars with thick black braided hair reaching down to his shoulder blades. He bent down to meet Nick's eyes with his own grey ones and a leer.

"You should not be here! Leave, Mercenary!" Nick squinted in response to the blustering breath of the deep voice in his face. "Actually, I am supposed to be here. My friends and I have a schedule and traveling system in place to maximize our coverage of the estate and village that we can't reveal due to the intelligence netw-" "Let them spy! They will only find all of the ways Morgou will break them!" "Well that's hardly wise, if they know what your capabilities and vulnerabilities are, they'll base their attack tactics around-" "Let them make plans! They will only realize the best plan is to pray that Morgou doesn't break them!" "Okay, that's not being very battle-conscious because you never know what kind of forces they'll send, especially from such an industrial enemy. They might even send in troops armed with-" "Let them send the most heavily armed forces of all! They are only sending their armies for Morgou to break them, and break them, AND BREAK THEM!" Morgou's thunderous shout served to scatter all the birds and animals from miles around and made fish in several ponds swim to the bottom.