The Kidnapping Of Itsuka Ren, Part II

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“This totally blows!” I kicked aside a pebble, positively fuming with frustration. I got a few weird looks as I stomped through Ember’s crowded market streets once again.

My worst fears had come to pass, after all. I gained the favor of the council somehow, but on the final hurdle, I was swiftly denied once again. Headmaster Argo didn’t bother to explain what I had done wrong to earn his distrust, but then again, neither did Shion.

That being said, she looked as shocked as I did, and so did the council. I don’t think Shion’s master acted in the way she expected him to, that’s for sure.

Though I had been wondering why Shion acted surprised about anything with the Akashic Records at the palm of her hands. She said it told the stories of past, present, and future for the multiverse and all its realities. It seemed like there was a lot she could have predicted and adjusted accordingly to, unless I’m missing a key detail about the thing, but Alpha sure seemed interested in it.

“Tch. I just don’t get it.” I sighed. “I guess the old geezer didn’t say he’d never admit me, but still…”

Even if that was the case, it wasn’t like I could sit around waiting for him to change his mind. But the question was… What do I do from here?

I was hoping to join the Institute as the first step on my path towards a better life in this world, but it would appear I still had a ways to go. Things wouldn’t so easily fall into place. It was incredibly frustrating, but not to the point of being spirit-crushing. I had gone through too much to let something like this break me.

I just hoped nobody I knew would catch me in such a bad mood, since the last thing I’d fancy is having to explain myself.

“Salutations, dear boy!”

Of course…

“Boss??” I was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Guildmaster Milton. “What are you doing out here?”

“What, I can’t do a little browsing of my own in the market?” Milton shrugged. “I can’t very well be sequestered in that dusty office for the entire trip, now, can I? Or is it that you fear for the safety of little old me?”

“Very funny.” I shook my head. “It’s just that I thought you’d be swamped with prepping for the moot. And considering you’re putting yourself forward as a candidate for rule, I thought you’d get a security detail.”

“Young Ren, you are the detail! You and Zero. We only have so many hands to spare, and after that gruesome sight in Mistral Forest, I’ve advised the bulk of our forces to congregate around the perimeter in case the city were to come under attack, as unlikely as it may be.”

“That’s right, those pikes…” I remembered a rather uncomfortable feeling I had. “You said you sent a party out there to investigate things, but have you heard from them yet about what’s going on?”

“Not a peep, I’m afraid, but between you and I, we believe it may be cult-related activity.” Milton admitted.

“Cult-related… Come to think of it, Zero mentioned something like that too.”

“However, the guild members I sent are quite well aware that I am here for business. Were they to meet with trouble they couldn’t handle alone, I cautioned them to head straight for Ember rather than taking the long way back to Redrook.”

With the kind of force we’ve gathered here, between all the adventurers and the Institute’s council members, Ember is like a stronghold now in a way.

“I just hope nothing big happens for as long as we’re here. We’ve had enough excitement lately, in my opinion.” I said. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m on security detail...”

“Quite! And by the way, please dismiss this as mere conjecture if I’m wrong, but you wouldn't happen to be feeling a bit glum?” The Guildmaster pointed out. “I understand you and Zero were robbed upon your arrival, but you also met with the council a short time ago…”

“Well...” I knew it was going to be asked at some point. “The rest of the council liked me well enough, but I couldn’t get the final okay from the Headmaster. Took one look at me and said “nope”.”

“Argo himself denied you after the council had offered their approval? Now that’s a bit out of character for the old chap, if I do say so myself.” Milton rubbed his chin, muttering to himself. “Did he offer a reason as to why not?”

“Nothing so convenient, unfortunately.” I replied. “He had us all clear out once the deliberation ended, so I don’t have a clue.”

“Oho?” Milton smiled, intrigued. “I wonder what my good friend is planning, and for the sake of whom…”

“Huh?”

“Ah, excuse me. Just my musings, nothing to fret over.” Milton waved it off. “Either way, chin up, dear boy. You’ll just have to keep surprising people the way you have a tendency to do, and I’m sure it’ll work out swimmingly.”

“Thanks, boss. I’ll do my best.”

The ever-encouraging Milton continued on his way as I was left to my own thoughts. It was true that I didn’t have much in terms of direction after this unfortunate turn of luck, but the best thing I could possibly do was to keep my head down and keep doing the right things. At the very least, I wouldn’t have to do it all on my own anymore.

I felt a deep growl in the pit of my stomach all of a sudden, clutching it with both hands. The sun had only just started to set. Dinner would be provided by our hosts, but that wasn’t until a bit later in the evening, and I couldn’t very well purchase anything with nothing to pay for it.

Groaning, I thought of all the money I had lost, having become some other thief's ill-gotten gains. But it couldn’t be helped.

“Guess I’ll just head back…”

But as I started to move, I heard a woman’s screams in terror coming from further down the street, which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, a surefire trigger that told me something bad was about to happen.

Either I was the only one who had heard it though, or the locals just didn’t care enough to try and intervene, because nobody else moved a muscle or paid much mind to it.

Are you guys really just going to ignore that??

A shop owner looked at me as if they were asking me the same question, trying to pass the responsibility onto an outsider who had less to lose. And maybe he was right. Things like this happened plenty often in Redrook, yes, and you couldn’t help everyone who ran afoul of some unsavory types, but…

“Like hell I’d just let some poor sucker get robbed!” When I heard the scream once more, I broke into a sprint in the direction of the commotion. “Hang on… lady?”

I swung around the corner of an alley, only to find it completely devoid of life.

There’s nobody here.

I was nearly certain I had heard something coming from this direction, albeit muffled, but the supposed victim and perpetrator—or perpetrators—were nowhere to be found.

“Something ain’t right...” As I explored more, however, I found signs of a struggle in the dirt, along with something else that caught my attention. “What the hell’s this?”

The closed doors to a cellar, covered sloppily with a tattered bed sheet, I inspected the outside a bit before deciding to go ahead and open it. If I got busted for a break-in, I’d simply tell whomever was upset that this was at Milton’s request.

It wasn’t a complete lie, after all. He did say to report anything strange to him, and things only kept getting stranger and more hair-raising by the minute. When I opened the two cellar doors, I was hit with a foul stench almost immediately as I stepped inside.

“It smells like something died in here.” I wore a tense expression, covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve.

I expected the cellar to only go down a few steps into the basement of the dwelling in front of me, but when the uneven and slippery staircase just kept descending into the dark, my sense of security only heightened. This wasn’t just any regular cellar.

Is this the entrance to some kind of mid-city dungeon, or an abandoned conduit of some kind?

My foot finally reached a flattened surface after countless shaky steps, but I had gone something like twenty feet or more below ground. I knew I wasn’t going to find much of anything with it being so dark, so my hands began scanning the walls for something until I grasped a splintery handle.

“Bingo.”

I lit a match, and ignited the pitch-soaked rag atop the wooden torch on the cavern wall. It stood to reason that a man made passageway like this would have a lighting device near the entrance, and my hunch was correct. Now that I had my way through the darkness, I took the torch off the sconce and pressed onward.

If the owner of the scream I had heard was dragged down here, it was only a matter of time before I caught up to them and in one piece I sorely hoped. Unless, of course, the path branched off and I’d have to make a choice…

“Well, this just got more complicated.” I observed two runoff tunnels heading in different directions. “There’s gotta be some tracks or something though, right?”

Kneeling down, I hovered the torch over the ground to see if I could see any discernible marks. While I couldn’t find anything resembling shoe prints, the path left looked like something had indeed been dragged through. The dirt underfoot was disturbed, telling me that someone or something was around. However, it didn’t paint a positive picture. I kept my hand at my dagger, just in case I was walking into some sort of ambush.

I began to hear a strange sound like tiny feet scuttling around. My first thought immediately went to some sort of underground rodent, or even a low level mob of some kind like a goblin, but there seemed to be a lot of whatever it was. As I took another few steps, however, my foot splashed into something wet…

“Huh, what’s…”

Blood, and a lot of it.

“—!”

I took a few steps to the side, and bumped into the metal door to a cell that creaked open. Out came dozens of rats, startled by my sudden appearance, nearing tripping me as they scurried out in a panic. Harrowing as that was, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in the cell they emerged from.

Lined up along the wall, and chained up like animals, were several humans and orcs who had been skinned alive and then burned. The latest of which was a woman whose blood still dripped onto the ground, coagulating with the dirt. She wasn’t yet set ablaze like the others, and so the rats who didn’t flee partook of the bounty some depraved soul had offered to them.

“Oh, HELL no!” I nearly threw up in my mouth, stepping back and stumbling over something. “Agh—!”

The torch tumbled out of my hand, and went dark in the puddle of blood.

Fuck!

I desperately scanned the dark for the thing, but then the rats started to get curious about my presence, too curious. They scurried into my lap, and then onto my torso and shoulders, nibbling at my ears and neck. I got full body chills.

“Get the hell off!” I shook them away, scrambling to my feet.

My eyes only continued to widen with shock as my fight or flight response told me to do one thing, and that was to get the hell out of there.

So I ran.

I had to let Milton or someone know about this horrific discovery before anyone else met the same grisly fate. My footfalls echoed as I sprinted in what I believed was the direction I came from, now torchless, before I reached the ascending stairs.

When I burst through the cellar doors, I noticed that night had already fallen. Shion and the others would be wondering where I was, but getting the word out about what I had witnessed was more important. However, before I could reach the end of the alley…

“Oh, there you are!” A familiar voice said. A figure emerged from the street, one of the thieves who had stolen our coinpurses, back for a second round. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, you know.”

“It’s you again!” I narrowed my gaze. “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t tell me that… butchering down in the cellar was your doing too, was it??”

“Huuuh, a butchering?” She sounded bored. “I don’t know what it is you’re going on and on about, but just return what you stole from us and we’ll be on our merry little way!”

“What I stole?? Hah!” I scoffed. “You’re the ones who took all our money, so what the hell are you after me for, huh? You want my shoes too?”

“Don’t play dumb, fella!” The girl thief said, pointing at me. “Just give us back the shroud, or else we’ll have to turn to drastic measures. We’ll even return yours and Zero's money if you give it back now.”

The blanket thing Shion kept? And how do they know Zero??

“Listen, midriff, I don’t have the shroud. And I don’t have time to play tag with you right now either, so why don’t you just—!“ I felt a crushing pain against the back of my head as something solid like wood slammed into me, knocking me down hard onto my chest and stomach.

“Lil bro, you were supposed to wait until after my signal to hit him!” The female thief sounded exasperated, sighing hard enough to shake her veil. “Now negotiations are shot.”

It would appear she wasn’t alone in the alley, unsurprisingly, and her partner in crime attacked me from behind. My reflexes were usually more sharp, but his stealth must’ve been off the charts. The male thief came to stand right beside the female thief, and started gesturing wildly with his hands at her.

“I’m not angry at you, I’m just saying…”

He gestured again.

“No, no, that wasn’t the signal, I was just pointing for dramatic effect! There’s a big difference. You know, we really ought to practice for stuff like this.”

What’s up with these two??

”Who do you two little bastards think… you are!?” I was filled with anger as I tried to pry myself up. “When I get my hands on you, I’ll...”

“Ah, forget it, just bag him.”

Bag—?

Just how I was thrown into a burlap sack by a man I thought was much smaller than me, I wouldn’t figure out until much later, but it all happened before I could really process what was going on or offer any resistance.

So it was then, in the closing hours of our first day in the city, in Ember’s sleepy alleyways and backstreets, that Itsuka Ren, I, had officially, and embarrassingly… been kidnapped.