Abyssal Awakening

". . ." Alice was speechless. The Guild wanted to take 15 gold from her even though they were the ones holding the gold and stopping her from buying things.

Furrowing her brows, Alice massaged her eyes before nodding.

"Fine alright. Let them take the gold since I\'m in need of this vial."

Hearing this, the owner apologized once more as he made his way to the back and prepared a vial containing Warden of Frost Blood.

After preparing a vial of blood, he handed her a Law of Agreement which she read carefully and agreed to.

With the documentation done, he handed her the vial and stored the contract away.

"If you don\'t mind me asking, can I know what kind of beast you\'re going after? While I may not be a Hunter, my knowledge regarding beasts should be rather sufficient. Since the Guild is taking extra gold from you, I hope I can compensate with a bit of information." He asked with an apologetic smile.

"Well… There\'s a high chance the target will be a Blood Coil Amphiptere. The traces left behind seem to mirror its tracks." Alice answered as any information is good information.

"A Blood Coil Amphiptere? Hmm… Can you remind me of its details?" He furrowed his brows and tried to recall if he heard about such a beast.

"Doesn\'t really have a body, swirling blood and metal, hides underground and has wings that can cut a bunch of stuff. Not sure what else there is to say about this beast." Alice shrugged.

"Underground? With wings?"

"Yep. It\'s a bit weird but it\'s what the book said so who am I to judge." Alice chuckled as the pairing was quite strange.

"Indeed. Though that has helped me remember what kind of beast you\'re trying to hunt. If I recall, its abilities should differ based on its environment. Considering that you don\'t seem to be travelling far from this city, I can assume the beast would\'ve taken the properties of our surroundings." He muttered while making his way to the back of the store.

Alice could hear him muttering to himself while rummaging through the different containers before walking out with a small vial of blood.

"This should be helpful for you. It\'s a small sample vial but it belongs to a Luminous Gryphon, one of the Amphiptere\'s natural enemies. It\'s not a full vial so you can\'t drink to get the effects but if you are in danger, you can throw splash this onto the beast.

It should disorientate the beast into a panic and you can take that chance to either run or attack it." He smiled, handing the small vial of blood to Alice.

This was his way of compensating her for the loss of 15 gold. Plus, it was just a small sample, not big enough to sell in the first place.

Receiving the gold, Alice smiled and thanked the shop owner before making her way out.

"Ah! Before I forget, I never asked your name." Alice paused mid step while the store owner chuckled.

"Victor. Not many have asked for my name before." Victor raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.

"Well I might be revising this store for a while so I may as well get to know you. Thank you again for the blood." Alice grinned before leaving the store.

Looking into her pouch, she made a mental note of her supply of blood.

2x Frostshroud Willow Blood (Healing)

1x Warden of Frost Blood

1x Luminous Gryphon Blood (Sample)

She had given the other two vials of the willow blood to Ria since they couldn\'t drink more than 4 vials in their lifetime. In her case, there was no limit but the same couldn\'t be said for Ria.

\'I have 4 vials of blood in this pouch that can hold 10. I can\'t siphon my own blood just yet since I don\'t have enough funds to buy low rank healing vials to replenish the lost blood.\' Alice sighed inwardly.

However, with her recent purchases, she was pretty much ready to face the Amphiptere. Or so she thought. She had the weapon and the blood to deal with the beast, even a small vial to stun it if things go wrong.

All that was left now was to track down the beast and kill it for her bounty.

She needed to hire a carriage down to Ironforge as the rumours state that the corpses were found there.

But with Ria holding most of their funds, she\'ll need to find her first and plan their journey.

"Are they still by the Arena? Hmm… Maybe I should just wait in my room. She should be back soon enough right?" Alice muttered, making her way back to the Guild.

She was still feeling a little fatigued from her fight in the arena and wanted to rest up so she could be in peak condition when she set off to hunt.

###

Alice didn\'t know when she fell asleep but by the time she woke up, Ria had just returned to her room.

In the brief moment Alice saw Ria, she noticed the absolute exhaustion in her eyes as Ria didn\'t even notice her.

Seeing this, Alice couldn\'t help but wonder what she had been doing for so long and made her way downstairs.

She noticed Thane sitting by the bar, looking bored as usual.

Sitting down next to him, she ordered herself a tankard of mead.

"Why do you always look so bored?" Alice asked curiously. She wanted to know more about Thane as he\'s an old friend of Allura.

Plus, if her guesses are correct and Thane was actually Kaden, she would want to know more of her would be savior.

"When you\'re surrounded by boring things you are naturally bored." Thane shrugged.

"But if it\'s boring shouldn\'t you be doing something you enjoy?"

"I would be if I wasn\'t taking responsibility for the two of you. If it wasn\'t for the bet I made to you I wouldn\'t even care about what happens to the lightning brat. But here we are." Thane sighed while resting his chin on his palm.

His entire posture and aura screamed his desire to leave this place. How much he didn\'t want to be here right now but Alice didn\'t know why he wouldn\'t just leave then. As an Abyss Lord, he shouldn\'t be restricted by anything.

"Did you and Ria do some training together or something? She looked exhausted."

"Just a little. I showed her another way to use her Sigils but I won\'t spoil the fun. She was pretty proud of what she did. Anyway, stop beating around the bush and just ask me what you want to ask. You don\'t exactly do a good job of hiding your desires." Thane rolled his eyes.

"Ah was I that obvious?" Alice furrowed her brows as it almost seemed like everyone around her could read her mind. Ria could, Allura could and now even Thane.

"Yes you are. So what do you want? If it\'s a boring question I\'m just going to leave to have some fun."

"I just wanted to know more about you and Allura. You said you are her old friend right? What was she like back then? And how different is she now?"

Hearing this, Thane was silent as he tapped his finger on the table. Opening his mouth, he hesitated for a little bit before taking a drink of alcohol and sighing out deeply.

"She was… quite a scaredy cat at first you know. Everything terrified her, she worried about things needlessly and kept thinking about the future. Even a small bug could\'ve scared her." Thane chuckled softly as Alice noticed a strange light in his eyes. An emotion she had never seen before.

"But over time she mustered up some courage and became boisterous. She would practically be shouting every sentence she spoke and was always full of energy. Naturally, she was quite reckless once she got over her initial fear and picked some random Sigils she felt was \'cool\' in her terms. You have no idea how long it took for me to help her figure out some uses for her first few Sigils.

"But after that, she was a little more careful and considered her choices slowly. It gave me less of a headache but I do miss the sight of her panicking once she realized she couldn\'t do what she originally wanted to do. Sigils are permanent after all, once you pick one you can\'t undo." Shaking his head with a nostalgic smile, he missed the old days in Ayr where they practically had no worries.

But things changed and Ayr was gone.

Their era will never come back, all that\'s left is to fulfil his task.

"Did she smoke a lot back then too? She seems to be smoking practically every hour."

"Did she smoke? No, never. I didn\'t even realize she was smoking until recently when I saw it through my familiar. But considering the contents… I suppose it\'s only natural." Thane paused briefly before pausing.

Tilting her head, Alice couldn\'t help but wonder why he paused.

However, she had one more question she wanted to ask him. With how he was speaking about Allura and the nostalgic look on his face, he must have a deeper connection to her. And the only person she had in mind that fit the bill was Kaden.

Hesitating for a moment, Alice took a deep breath and opened her mouth.

"Are you… Kaden?"