“Zehahaha! Look at all this money!” A man with an eyepatch boasted boisterously as he shoved his arm into a chest full of bronze and silver coins and rummaged around in it, salivating and giving himself an erection in the process. He was Blackjack, the leader of the Wraithclaws.
“We depleted a lot of villages of their funds to enrich ourselves, though. We can’t expect us to be able to keep this rate of growth up unless we move outside Blackthorn lands… and you know who we would have to contend with there.” His second in command and the organization’s brains, Specter, murmured to reign Blackjack and his celebration in. The boss was a bit off in the head, so a trusted aide was needed to run the place properly.
Blackjack scoffed frustratedly, “… the Vesper Consortium.”
“That’s right. We are not at all ready to even beef with their drug department, let alone the entire syndicate themselves. Furthermore, it was their products that allowed us to make an entire barony addicted to our goods, thus we need them.”
Specter had a few contacts with the Consortium which allowed them to buy their drugs. They used the products to exploit the villages of the Blackthorn family with their blessing in exchange for half of the profits and the Wraithclaws to help the baron family with their formidable strength should the need arise.
It might seem an incredibly stupid decision on the noble family’s end, but Blackjack and Specter suspected them to want to get rich quick, sell their lands, and move into a big city where they could live as wealthy merchant nobles instead, or something along those lines. They were exploiting their subjects for all their worth, stuffing their pockets full before leaving for good.
These two men were quite lucky in fact. The Wraithclaws organization was nothing more than disgruntled peasants banding together and taking arms up against their oppressors with the end goal of creating a settlement where they were governed by themselves, without having to pay unjust taxes for nothing in exchange.
Their resistance was mediocre with not much of a result to show for the blood they shed in the name of their cause. That’s when Blackjack and his crew of outlaws got wind of the situation, traveled here, and swooped in just at the right time. They executed the top branch of the organization and conducted a ruthless takeover.
Since then they’d been living in a warlord’s heaven and even struck deals with the baron family who vehemently fought against the original Wraithclaws and their peasant insurgency.
“Smarty, let’s open a wine bottle. Things have been going well for us, my father always said that real men celebrate in the company of enough alcohol that could drown them!” Blackjack said and began laughing boisterously, earning a tired sigh from Specter. “Don’t call me that. Also, didn’t you strangle your father to death like a century ago? Why are you listening to his words?”
“Bah! Just because he was a horrible man doesn’t mean he has to be wrong about everything!” The crazed leader of the Wraithclaws spoke up in defense of his long-deceased father.
Specter looked at him strangely for a few seconds before shaking his head and venturing to grab an expensive wine bottle.
…
– PoV: Quinlan –
<That’s enough for now, Blossom.> I decreed to my beloved dog-kin. We captured 50 guards. I did this to ensure that even if the enemies manage to surprise us with their strength and consequently we are forced to flee, we would still have some gains to our names.
However, kidnapping their soldiers had the drawback of someone soon noticing their missing status and the stronghold entering high alert mode. Well, unless they were beyond incompetent. That was not something we could count on, so we had to move quickly now.
We entered the stronghold rather easily, wooden walls were simply not meant to keep high-statted people like me and Blossom out of whatever they were erected to protect. However, it seemed that we were only inside the outer layer of the camp. The inner walls stood in front of us now, and they were properly made from stone and were high as well as sturdy.
<Blossom thinks Master should grip her ankles unless he has a brilliant plan she doesn’t know about.> My dog-kin said as she assessed the object obstructing our path. Despite the many kidnappings we’d conducted, we were still doing our best to remain sneaky, so we didn’t want to just blast through even if we could.
I had a few methods of getting over this obstacle I would’ve liked to try out, but preserving my mana was paramount considering that we were actively moving closer to the maw of the beast, so I nodded at her suggestion. Blossom flexed her hands so much so that I could see multiple veins bulging, and then jumped at the stone wall.
Her hands latched onto the smallest crevices and her fingers dug into cracks that were practically invisible. She then paused and shook her legs adorably in front of my face as if I was stupid enough to not know what I was meant to do. Of course, I understood that she didn’t think in that manner of me, it was just an instinctual action on her part. I reached my hands toward her ankles and gripped them.
Once she felt my weight, she began to climb by hauling us both upward with a precision that left me in awe. I knew that she was a beast – pun not intended – but whenever I thought that I got a good grasp on her acrobatic prowess she always managed to find a way to surprise me.
Her legs hung freely in the air throughout the entire climb so that I could have a pleasurable ride. They were entirely unnecessary for her ascent as though the added weight of a man my size and the difficulty of the terrain was nothing more than an afterthought. Each movement was fluid, graceful, and incredibly precise.
I watched as her hands found the tiniest holds on the wall. Each one was barely enough for a half of her fingertips, yet she gripped them like they were solid rails. Her arms were firm and steady, not trembling even in the slightest. She was pulling the both of us higher as if gravity itself had no claim on her. Discover stories at empire
Once the ledge at the top of the wall was near, she paused and began sniffing the air. Blossom confirmed the absence of any guards atop the wall in this manner. Once she was satisfied with the results of her acute search, she said <Grip tightly, Master.> before exerting an incredible amount of strength all at once.
Her hands gripped the ledge with the intensity of a predator making the kill. Then she launched us both toward the sky. I felt the wind rush past me as the world tilted beneath me, and before I knew it, I was standing on the stone wall because I landed cleanly on my two feet despite my two-meter (6’6) height, courtesy of my amazing lover. Not a single bit of effort was required on my part – Blossom had ensured I wouldn’t so much as brush the wall or have to exert a single muscle of mine as she launched me in my entirety right over the edge.
I glanced up just in time to see her soaring high above me with her lithe body silhouetted against the moonlight.