"Hey, leafy! How have you been?" queried a boy to his room partner, a small leafy plant.
The same boy who received a pair of crystal boots, the one who orchestrated a mania in the outer city borough, stood in his small room given to him for his work as a cleric for the Rigac Assembly.
Today that same Rigac Assembly was filled with hundreds of requests issued all from the outer city borough. Each a disaster in its own right.
Parents wanting a trial of a Skyact Guard. People murdered by the tyranny of rampaging castle issued workers and slaves.
Every issue asked for a hunter, any hunter. To deliver the justice the Skyact Guards have assaulted.
What none expected was the unimportance being given to their requests. The people were prejudiced against the outer city.
For while the outer city was devastated by the Skyact Guards, the castle as well was attacked. Broken in and out by the same hooligans who had attacked the Rigac Cathedral.
The untouched part of Rigac was the inner city boroughs. Everyone had opinions, but none were taking precautions that warranted safety.
Surviving Skyact Guards knew a bit of precious knowledge, to not breathe the air of Rigac. Their actions through the night had worsened the horrors that had entered the capital.
And one of those horrors was happily talking with his second partner.
Unbridled guilt simmered under that mask of the one in the brown overcoat owning a pair of crystal boots and eyes of sky lighter than it ever choose to become.
The leafy plant didn't dance in the steamy winds of Rigac, it absorbed them.
It may have heard, more appropriate would be listened the wanderer boy, only if the wind wasn't so enhancing.
May be the plant reflected the boy's inner question of the world, "what gives people direction?" He was as directionless as he could be before entering Rigac.
But Rigac altered him with just the view to the top of one of its bastion towers.
The wanderer asked the leafy plant, "do you wish to be placed somewhere safer? Or somewhere higher?"
The plant didn't dance, it didn't sing even to the strong winds that rattled against their open window.
Why would it? The plant had been stealing away the enhancing mix from it steadfastly.
Its only friend took its silence as a no which it might have been. For the plant was more aware of the plans of boy wearing brown overcoat held than his first partner.
"I accept. I will let you be here. I need to end this today. See you when we meet again."
He was accepting the reality. The plant chose to absorb the reality. Both right in their own paths.
In the meanwhile, a Skyact Guard aided by a philanthropist artist had brought together a few surviving Skyact Guards they could find. The lead was none other than Leous.
She also learned of the name the artist went by, Orna. The name was quite contrary to how he now looked. 'Maybe the name is based upon his birth?' Leous thought so.
Her newly collected cohort was battered and any new body they found of surviving Skyact Guards had either their skulls smashed in using some projectile, their bodies sliced in half waist down or knife wounds in specific places.
None were brutalized.
Nor the ones who found the bodies hesitated or threw up. Everyone had realized that they themselves were the attackers of the night. And the how was hidden in the air now.
All thanks to their efforts.
Cheal's work getting appreciated by Leous and her cohort was not on his list of things he will see. But he had collected the people he needed to mount an assault on the castle.
"The three hours given by our partner is coming to an end, we have to be decisive. For the people of Ashtrim!" Cheal resounded over the collective in the underground chamber he had helped in hiding.
The chamber as well wasn't free of the effect of the enhancing mix, but the people gathered here were also under the special law of Cleaving.
Cheal had made many totems carrying that law.
A law that had hid his night's raid perfectly. "Remembrance is forbidden."
And more people like his scapegoat party were being built just due to the effect that enhancing mix and bestowment action of the Monarch of Riga created in the steam filled atmosphere.
The outer city borough may very well not exist after today.
For what remembrance will be there of a place that even its own citizens can't remember.
A slow creeping effect had flooded similarly into the Rigac Assembly. Each paper from the outer city borough brought with it the effect of the enhancing mix as well as the effect of the special underground chambers Cheal had hidden.
A few unprepared underground ones were found by some guards.
Cheal's response to that when asked by the outskirts hooligans was a simple, "so what?"
Wind carried his words, "Let them find them all, let them burn their own city finding the bugs that weren't there. While we go."
And he continued that as he marched his hooligans army to the castle in broad daylight, "While we go and save the people of Ashtrim. Save them from the tyranny that is Kingdom of Riga!"
The charge inspired by the words ran into the inner city boroughs main street. For several leagues none reacted to the army that ran.
Flailing their longswords.
Blood splattered the main street. As the last hooligan stepped out of the outer city boroughs limit, Cheal disappeared from the advancing hooligan party.
Leous however arrived at its ending. Right on cue.
She and her cohort were confused why was there an army? How did an entire army get hands on longswords without the Tribulations Squadron ever finding them?
Orna prayed. "Lady please bestow the forgivesness that we can't find. Help us in fighting the sins that have crossed over."
Leous heard him. Her bafflement was on the artist's choice of words but more so on 'why would someone wish to find forgiveness when their home is being assaulted?'
The wanderer stepped out of the ruckus that was the hall of Rigac Assembly. Every hunter, adventurer and pioneer that arrived had been going through the papers. None had stepped out since stepping in.
Another effect of the enhancing mix and the bestowment action of Monarch.
The boy in brown overcoat remembered Master Rhai's words on enhancing mix, "have a created weakness, exhaustion, worry, or strong intent on a trait you wish to enhance while you drink the mix. And do not drink it or smell it again for another hour, it will enhance anything else that may be considered as viable for enhancement. And the only way to remove excessive indulgence is by abstaining from it more than double the amount of time you have been exposed to the excessive enhancing mix. It will reverse in its enhancement the longer you abstain."
While the wanderer knew of the warnings he remembered, he had used of one that made Cleaving's enhancing mix special. "Only after drinking an enhancing mix for the first time in an hour do you have to become vigilant against the other precautions. If you haven't drunk it once, then you could even bathe in it and nothing will happen to you."
A simple effective solution, be abstained from it from the start. And you'll stay safe.
The outer city borough wasn't safe because they had drunk it quite a while in the night. And so was the inner city borough's situation.
The only difference? The people in inner city borough had a dangerous lack of avoiding sleep. All due to the effect the Tribulations Squadron had. The ones who were the dark in the light.
The inner city citizenry had slept through the night of horror all thanks to the enhancing mix and a hunter who performed special inspections.
He stood in front of the Rigac Assembly as he viewed across the street where the Rigac Cathedral had prepared for evacuation of people. Priest Noria once glanced back to the gate of the Rigac Assembly as a wandering boy waved back.
Only for her to not see him again in the tide of the army only she could see. He was gone.
The army progressed either people who stood in the path of it vanished under the foot or the blade.
There were a few who did join it too. They gave off the same anger to get to the castle.
Everyone in the hooligan army had a different reason to be there. And every single one who had heard of the words of Cheal replayed it for the newcomers.
The castle gates were shut, and arrows shot down. A few bestowment action performed by the castle guards landed burning rocks from the sky.
"Meteorites," the boy in a brown overcoat recognized. He learned of them in the lost city-state he was here for.
A few Beret coins he slipped into some of the hooligans pockets. They looked at him weirdly, wishing to attack him too.
A few attempted it. Only to be knocked in the face with a rope mace the boy held.
Each coin had a silver gleam the daylight wanted to shine on more. Alas, every one of them in any hooligans pocket will not find it unless.
The assault broke the castle gate, not because people pushed and attacked it. The bestowment action of Monarch done by some of the castle guards hit a specific hooligan in the army.
Vaporized the man instantly only for something shiny to crack and burst with so much power that it shattered the gate and the walls nearby. Even the ground beneath was burst open.
Another vault was revealed people falling on people, while several jumped across the hole or aside it to safety.
The boy who was being fickle with the pockets of hooligans was unmistakably missing.