The Next Day

Cloudy skies obscured the mid-morning sun, bathing the entirety of Fort Rokres in dreary shade. A cool breeze swept through the streets as the Rokresian people went about their business, swathed in their colorful robes to protect themselves from the wind and the sun that would inevitably break through the morning cloud cover. To most, it was a day like any other; few had any reason to believe that anything was amiss, allowing Conrad and Relia to part ways with the main street and duck into a side alley without arousing suspicion.

Once free from the crowd, a yawn overtook Conrad, which he readily leaned into while stretching. He then passed Relia a groggy glance. “We really need to be this early, huh?” he questioned, while taking care to mute his voice beyond a meter away.

“This isn’t early,” Relia responded as she led the duo down the alley. “If you think this is early, then you really are an outsider.”

“Man, where are all the peoples who actually like to wake up late? There’s gotta be at least some culture like that in this galaxy…”

“Shut up. Your friends’ lives on are the line, here.”

“…Right. Sorry.” Conrad lightly slapped his cheeks in an effort to energize himself before extending a hand toward Relia. “Well… we should probably start being invisible now, right?”

Relia looked down at his hand, and then back to his eyes, her expression doubtful.

“What? C’mon.” Conrad nodded toward his hand. “I can’t make you invisible if I’m not touching you.”

“I’m a Chaostechnic. It shouldn’t be possible for you to turn me invisible.”

Wordlessly, Conrad reached over to place his hand on Relia’s shoulder — at which point, they both turned invisible.

“…But how?” Relia questioned incredulously, “Chaostechnics should be—!”

“Immune to Direct Manipulation or something like that, right? Look, I dunno,” Conrad replied with a shrug, though the movement was lost in his invisibility. “Maybe it’s some ‘Key’ thing. But it works out for us.”

“True. We should get movin’, anyways. The jailkeeper will be passin’ by the Chaotic jail soon.”

“He always does his rounds in the morning, then?” Conrad asked as Relia led the now-invisible duo out onto a side street.

“From what I know, yes,” Relia replied. “Rokres treats its captives like shit. Their jailkeeper drops off water in the mornin’, and then leaves them alone for the rest of the day. So once Olres is through here, we’ll have all day to free your friends… assumin’ things go well for us.”

“Olres?”

“The name of the jailkeeper. In fact, that’s him right over there.”

Conrad couldn’t see where Relia was looking or gesturing — they were invisible, after all — but the low traffic on the side street allowed him to quickly survey the few individuals who were present. Of them, a particular pair of men stood out to Conrad. They walked a couple dozen meters ahead of Conrad and Relia; one of the men had a massive stature, with a tall height, broad shoulders, and oily black mid-length hair, accompanied by a thick gray overcoat. The other man walking beside him was much more slender, with brown robes that Conrad recognized.

“Hey, I’ve seen that guy, before,” Conrad muttered.

“Who, Olres?”

“No. Assuming Olres is the big guy, I’m talking about the one walking next to him. I think his name was Dodre.”

“What…?” Relia went silent for a second. “…That is Dodre. What’s he doin’ here?”

“Is he not supposed to be here?”

“He’s a Koné — the leader of one of the city-states of Rokres. All of the Konés answer to Chief Kores, but the last I heard, he and the Chief didn’t see eye-to-eye on… well, anything.”

“That lines up with what I heard two days ago…”

“What? Explain.”

“While lookin’ for a place to get some local clothes and sleep, I ran into Dodre and Kores. They argued with each other over how Rokres treats outsiders before Kores left.”

“And Dodre is still here? What’s goin’ on…?”

“Well, let’s find out,” Conrad remarked. As he and Relia followed behind Dodre and Olres, Conrad deftly manipulated the sound waves in the air to allow him and Relia to eavesdrop on the two Rokresians’ conversation — just as he had done two days prior.

“…going to be fine,” came the slender man’s — Dodre’s — firm voice. “I just want to talk to them, that’s all.”

“You want to talk to the outsiders? Hmph,” replied Olres, with a deep, gravelly tone. “This is why no one here likes you.”

“I don’t care what the people of Fort Rokres think of me. The rest of Rokres is startin’ to come to their senses, and that’s good enough for me.”

“Senses? You want to talk to some fuckin’ Bleeders.”

“I still have my doubts that they’re all Bleeders. After all, you said that the Wanderer tried to vouch for them.”

“The Wanderer’s an outsider. She’s as untrustworthy as all the rest; her words don’t mean shit. For all we know, she could be a Bleeder, now.”

“How unreasonable…” Dodre muttered while shaking his head. “Regardless of their identities, I still want to hear of the events in the rest of Treséd. Rokres is woefully under-informed in that regard, due to Fort Rokres’s hostility toward outsiders…”

“Well Olres sounds pretty unreasonable…” Conrad commented.

“The stubborn bastard’s always been that way,” Relia replied.

“Sounds like they might not have heard that Tresnon was attacked, though…”

“Yeah. Too bad tellin’ them about that now will just seem like an excuse.”

“Maybe…” Conrad responded, turning his attention back to eavesdropping.

“The only good outsider is one who’s outside our walls,” Olres declared, in response to Dodre’s statement. “I don’t know why Kores ain’t thrown you in jail yet.”

“Boneheaded as she is, she at least knows not to overstep her bounds,” Dodre retorted. “Wrongfully detaining a Koné like me would be the death of Rokres as we know it. Even more so, if she tried to do so during a Koné Summit.”

“She should jail you and all the other Konés who agree with you, I say. Better to nip the problem in the bud…”

“I’m glad you aren’t a Koné yourself. You’d bring us ruin sooner than those outsiders you despise so much.”

“You tryin’ to say I’m worse than outsiders? You better watch yourself. I only got so much patience.”

“Yes, indeed,” Dodre drawled as the two finally approached the jail. “Now let’s get this talk over with so we don’t have to spend any more time together. I have to prepare for today’s summit, anyways.”

“So there’s a Koné Summit, today…” Relia muttered as she watched Olres fiddle with some keys in his pocket. “That explains why Dodre’s here… what terrible timin’.”

“Why’s that?” Conrad questioned.

“Rokres often likes to make examples out of outsiders whenever there’s a Koné Summit. If that meetin’ is today, then we have less time than I thought.”

“Damn… well, that Dodre guy seems kinda reasonable. Why don’t we try talking to him?”

“It isn’t Dodre we need to convince, it’s Olres,” Relia replied. “And there’s no way Olres will listen to us. You heard him, earlier.”

“Shit…” Conrad frowned, but continued to watch from afar as Olres moved over to the jail door to insert his key. However, the jailkeeper paused for a second before withdrawing his keys and stepping back.

“…What’s wrong?” Dodre asked.

“…Door’s already unlocked,” Olres replied. “You got your gun?”

“Of course.” The Koné promptly produced a small pistol from under his robes. “…Has someone broken in?”

“Don’t know. But watch yourself…”

“That wasn’t you, was it?” Relia questioned to Conrad.

“I was about to ask if it was you,” Conrad countered. “But if it wasn’t us who broke in, or out, then…”

A brief moment of uneasy silence passed between the two as they watched Olres and Dodre carefully approach the jail door. “…Damn it, we can’t risk it,” Relia insisted. “Olres is too trigger happy. Do you have a weapon?”

“Uh, no— well, actually, yes,” Conrad replied as he summoned his glaive into his free hand. “Some kind of polearm…”

“Then I hope you know how to use it. We’re goin’ in.”

“Wait, what—?!”

“Chaos Teleport!”

Before Conrad could react, his position suddenly changed from a few dozen meters away to standing directly behind Olres. Startled, he was barely able to act before Relia drew away from him, coming visible as she raised a small pistol into the air and slammed the butt of it down on Dodre’s head. The Rokresian crumpled to the ground, prompting Olres to begin turning around to address the noise; quickly, Conrad moved his glaive around to bring the butt of the weapon down on Olres, just as Relia had done to Dodre. But in his haste — as well as his clumsiness with a weapon he hadn’t trained with — he was able to do little better than stagger Olres.

“The hell…?!” the Rokresian growled, eying Conrad’s invisible position with confusion before snapping his gaze to Relia. “…You—!”

“Chaos Teleport,” Relia whispered, disappearing from her location just as Olres shot at her and appearing behind the large man’s back. He quickly spun around, his pistol at the ready, but Relia preempted him by lashing out with her foot and nailing Olres in the groin. Stunned, he collapsed to one knee, at which point Conrad hit him on the head again with his glaive. This time, the jailkeeper collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

“Should’ve expected you to be a rookie…” Relia muttered as she stooped down to rummage through Olres’s pockets.

“Hey, look, I was caught off-guard!” Conrad hissed, himself still invisible as he looked to and fro. While the side street had minimal traffic, ‘minimal’ was a far cry from none — and a handful of Rokresians were looking right at Relia. “Hey, everyone can see you!”

“Better than letting Olres shoot your friends,” Relia shot back as she stood up, the jailkeeper’s keyring in hand. “I’d hoped to do this more subtly, but that’s not always an option!”

“Ngh…” Conrad groaned in displeasure as he followed Relia through the unlocked jail house door — at which point he became visible again, a sign of the jail’s active CENT fields. Reflexively, he closed the door behind him, and as he did, a particular foul stench reached his nostrils. “Oh, god! Urgh—!” He grimaced and wretched. “What is that—?”

“Conrad?! Damn, you sure took your time!”

Hearing his name called out, Conrad quickly looked up. Relia was already thumbing through the keys on Olres’s keyring as she approached three of the cells in the back of the jail — the three cells hosting Pierce, Liask, and Obra, all three of them now standing and eagerly watching Conrad and Relia.

“Ha ha! See, Obra, I fucking told you!” Pierce whooped. “Conrad would never leave us behind!”

“Would’ve preferred I didn’t have to…” Conrad muttered as he approached, still holding his glaive in his right hand as he pinched his nose close with his left. “But what the hell is that smell?”

“Literal piss and shit. It’s fucking disgusting.”

“Rokres really doesn’t care for outsiders,” Relia asserted, finally finding the key to open Liask’s cell before moving over to Obra’s. “But we need to hurry up. We don’t have time to chat.”

“Thanks…” Liask acknowledged as she readily stepped out of her cell. “But… you’re the Wanderer, right? What are you doin’ here?”

“Like I said, no time to chat,” Relia insisted as she opened up Obra’s cell and then moved over to Pierce’s. “Once we’re out of the city, then we can talk.”

“Can’t fuckin’ wait to get outta here…” Obra muttered, eagerly pushing out of his cell and moving over to the jail exit. “So, uh. What is the plan to get outta here? The CENT fields are still up.”

“The field only extends as far as the door,” Relia explained, stepping back to allow Pierce out of his cell before rushing back to the jail entrance. “Let’s go. Now—”

With a loud bang, the jail house door slammed open, stunning Obra as Olres charged into the room. As soon as he spotted Relia, he raised his gun and opened fire, blasting the ground with a laser as Relia just barely managed to dodge out of the way. But in the cramped quarters of the small jail house, she was little able to evade more than that, allowing Olres to quickly take aim again — only for Pierce to lunge forward and grab the jailkeeper’s gun arm, preventing him again from hitting his target. In a CENT field, however, Pierce had none of his superspeed to aid him, so Olres was able to quickly shake him off — and then punch Obra aside as the Tresédian attempted to grab him. In that opening, Liask charged forward, slamming into Olres from his side and bowling the both of them back into the streets beyond.

Now free of the jail’s CENT field, Liask readily leaped away from Olres, who himself was already recovering from her charge. Before he was able to stand up fully, however, Conrad hit him over the head again with the butt of his glaive, stunning Olres long enough for Obra to escape outside and pin the Rokresian down with barriers. Pierce quickly relieved Olres of his gun, only to then find himself dodging laser fire from a handful of guards charging down the street. With a scowl, Obra turned to put up barriers to block the weapons fire, but in so doing, his barriers trapping Olres weakened enough for the jailkeeper to force his way out of them. “You damn outsiders…!” he snarled, lunging for Obra — only for Relia to appear by his side and mutter, “Chaos Control.”

The Rokresian’s lunge immediately stopped; in fact, the man seemed to be frozen mid-lunge, though his eyes could still move to glare at Relia. Such was Control, the Chaos ability that let Sabotage-type Chaostechnics like Relia temporarily seize control of another person’s movements. But Relia spared Olres barely another thought, ignoring his glare as she turned to the rest of the group and barked out, “you, Velocitechnic! Get your friend and the girl out of here! I’ll meet you outside the walls!”

“What? No, we can’t leave yet, Shade is—!” Pierce began to protest, but Relia cut him off.

“Whatever you’re sayin’, we can talk about outside the walls!” she insisted, casting a side glance toward Obra as he struggled to maintain his barriers against the increasing laser fire assault. “But we need to get out of here, now!”

“Damn…! Fine!” With an impatient scowl, Pierce sped over to Liask and scooped her up into his arms before jumping over to Conrad. “Get on!”

“Why is everyone always giving me piggy-back rides?” Conrad complained, but nonetheless climbed onto Pierce’s back and immediately rendered the trio invisible.

“Suck it up. We’re out of here!” Pierce shouted, taking a second to adjust his footing on the street before using his bountiful Velocitechnic acceleration to leap high into the air, easily clearing the buildings of Fort Rokres. As soon as he landed on the roof of one, he leaped off it again, launching himself over the city and the bounding walls with a single jump before crashing to a stop on the grasslands outside.

“Alright…” Relia muttered as she suddenly appeared in the air next to Pierce, with Obra in tow. “Now, we just need to get past the Negation Line—“

“Wait!” Pierce interjected, carefully setting Liask on the ground and shaking off Conrad before approaching Relia. “There’s still a big problem, here!”

“Like the defenses we still haven’t passed?” Relia retorted.

“No, he’s right,” Liask insisted, worriedly glancing between Relia and Conrad. “We were in that jail with a Bleeder—“

“I know. Shade, right?”

“If you know they captured Shade, then do you also know that she broke herself out?” Pierce challenged.

“It would explain why she wasn’t there,” Relia replied. “But what of it?”

“I caught her when she was breaking out,” Pierce said. “She was using a blowtorch in her palm! But more importantly than that, she told me that her plan was to kill Chief Kores — and then pin the blame on Tresnon and SERRCom!”

“…What?” Relia scowled.

“I thought Rokres thought we were Bleeders,” Obra pointed out.

“When I overheard them talking two days ago, they seemed to think you weren’t,” Conrad mused, “but that was before they caught Shade, I guess…”

“No… that actually makes it worse,” Relia muttered. “If Shade has a prosthetic, and she makes that known to Rokres, then they’ll assume she’s anythin’ but a Bleeder. Rokres is too proud to assume that the Bleeders have access to advanced tech. But they’ve also connected her to you three — a wrong connection, but they made it all the same. So if they think you three are from Compound Tresnon, then it’s only natural they’d think that Shade is, too.”

“Which means that anythin’ Shade does, they’ll blame on us,” Liask said. “We can’t let that happen!”

“So? Why should we care?” Obra challenged, “Rokres has treated us like absolute shit. Hell, I still fucking smell like shit. And it ain’t like Compound Tresnon was on good terms with Rokres, anyways. So why the hell should it matter to us if the Bleeders do anythin’ to ‘em?”

“That attitude is exactly what’s bringin’ down Treséd,” Relia countered. “Lettin’ someone else suffer just ‘cause they were mean to you does nothin’ but keep everyone down.”

“What?” Obra passed Relia an incredulous look. “What’re you talkin’ about? You’re the Wanderer, right? Wasn’t the reason you left Tresnon ‘cause they started that whole Bleeder reformation thing? ‘Cause at this point, I think you were right—“

“Don’t mistake my motives for somethin’ so petty,” Relia snapped. “I have my own issues with the reformation program, but at least Tresnon is tryin’ to make Treséd a better place. The real reason I travel Treséd is to deal with situations exactly like this one: situations where people are in trouble, whether they know it or not, and need help.”

“I guess that explains why you helped us…” Liask muttered. “Thanks for that…”

“But I still don’t get it,” Obra pressed. “You just attacked some Rokresians! They’ll definitely think you’re against them, now. So why go back and help them?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Relia declared.

“Besides, Shade is a Bleeder,” Pierce pointed out. “Do you really want to just sit back and let the Bleeders do whatever they want, Obra?”

“I’m still not super clear what it is they want,” Conrad commented. “You said she wants to kill Kores? But how…? Oh, shit!”

“The Koné Summit!” Relia exclaimed. “That’s later today!”

“The what…?” Pierce questioned cluelessly.

“’Koné’ is what the Rokresians call the leaders of their cities…” Liask answered warily. “And if there’s a summit today… does that mean all the Konés are in Fort Rokres, right now?”

“Which means that Shade might be able to kill the entire Rokres leadership in one go…” Pierce scowled.

“But she was already caught, once,” Obra pointed out. “Why do we think she can do it a second time?”

“Damn it… the more I think about it, the more I think Shade must’ve let herself get captured,” Relia explained. “The timin’ is too convenient. This soon after the Bleeders attacked Tresnon, she’s already in Rokres? She must’ve known about the Koné Summit, and rushed here immediately after the raid on Tresnon to assassinate the Rokresian Konés. But then she heard that some outsiders were captured.”

“…And she took that opportunity to link us to her!” Liask remarked.

“She knew she could break herself out of jail, so she wasn’t ever in any actual danger…” Pierce muttered. “So the whole thing was just an act to pin her assassinations on Tresnon? That bitch. That devious bitch!”

“No way… did she seriously play us like that?!” Obra exclaimed incredulously.

“And it never would’ve happened if we didn’t try to sneak out of Tresnon to visit Rokres…” Liask lamented.

Relia passed Liask a wary glance, only to return her attention to the rest of the group. “Why we’re all here ain’t important, right now. Y’all were certainly fools to come here, but… we can talk about that later. For now, we need to stop Shade from killin’ off Rokres’s leadership. I’m stayin’ back, at least. Who else is helpin’?”

“I’m in,” Pierce declared. “I refuse to let that Bleeder bitch pull one over us!”

“Then I guess I’m in, too,” Liask added.

“Urgh… I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all,” Obra growled, “but, fuck it. Even if it’s only to fuck over the Bleeders, I’m in.”

“Great,” Relia replied with a nod, at which point her gaze — as well as everyone else’s — fell on Conrad. “And you?”

“…Aw, man…” Conrad groaned. “Man… I didn’t even want to come here, in the first place… but I guess I still did, huh?”

“From what I’ve heard, Shade is a Visitechnic, just like you,” Relia said. “To be honest, I’m not sure if we can do this without you.”

“No one knows how to lay low quite like you do, after all,” Pierce remarked with a smirk as he went to throw his arm around Conrad’s shoulders — only for the latter to recoil away.

“I never said I’d leave you guys behind, but…” Conrad scrunched up his nose as he looked over each of Pierce, Liask, and Obra, noting that all three were dirty and unkempt from spending two days in jail. “…Before we do anything, you guys really need a wash.”

“And a meal…” Obra grumbled as a loud rumble emanated from his stomach.

“I don’t know if we have time for a meal, but gettin’ rid of y’all’s smell is definitely important, if we want to be sneakin’ around…” Relia commented. “Alright. Then we can do that, real quick. But after that, we need to make a plan. I won’t let the Bleeders get away with killin’ the leadership of an entire nation — we won’t let Shade get away!”