Kurai lay in her stomach in the spa while two women rubbed scented oils into her fur and massaged her back.
“Oh yeah. Right there.”
She felt her tail involuntarily curl up as weeks of stress and fatigue got rubbed out of her muscles.
“I really needed this.” she said, feeling as if she could fall asleep any moment now.
“Oh, I can tell.” said one of the girls seductively. She was a sunborn dval with dark brown skin and black horns that curled around her ears.
“You’ve had a rough few weeks. Now it’s time to relax.” said the other girl, equally as seductive. She was a dozku with surprisingly soft blue colored scales and white hair that was tied behind her head. Her eyes were a vibrant gold.
If Kurai was about to fall asleep before hearing that there was now no hint of fatigue. No longing for sleep.
“Yeah, you’re right. Time for some respite. Gotta, blow off some steam, you know?” The question was met with silence that hung in the air for what felt like an eternity.
Kurai was about to make some half-assed excuse that she was kidding when she felt the warm breath of the sunborn girl in her ear.
“Interesting. What do you have in mind?” she asked and her words sent pleasant shivers down Kurai’s spine.
Yes! Thank you, yes!
Kurai slowly turned to her side to get a better look at them. “Oh I can think of a few things, if the two of you are up for it.”
The two girls looked at each other and smiled and then looked back at Kurai and were about to say something when their eyes darted up and a surprised expression dawned on their faces.
“What?” asked Kurai before turning around to find Arcaea standing in the doorway of the room, leaning against the frame with a smirk on her face.
“So, this is where you like to spend your time off.”
“Arcaea!” Kurai shouted and in a panic pushed herself off the bench and fell to the floor. She then sat up and frantically wrapped her towel around herself. “What the tork are you doing here?!”
“Can I speak to her in private for a second? It’s important.” said Arcaea, looking at the two girls.
The two masseuses looked at each other and then tip toed out, giggling. Arcaea closed the door behind them.
“Great! Now they think you’re my wife or something!” said Kurai, still half hiding behind the bench.
Arcaea said nothing, only smiled and took in her surroundings.
“What do you find so amusing?” asked Kurai after a while.
“Nothing! Just never thought I’d find you in a place like this. Didn’t strike me as the type.” said Arcaea.
“Oh really? And where did you think you’d find me?” asked Kurai, clearly offended by what she perceived the insinuation to be.
“I don’t know. A garage or a workshop where you’d be surrounded by other sweaty and greasy mechanics.”
“Well, sometimes I like to get away from all of that. Don’t think you know me, Arcaea.”
Arcaea raised her hands with palms open. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense.”
Kurai felt her anger subside.
“It’s fine. Why are you here? What’s so important that you can’t wait to tell me?”
Arcaea smirked.
“We’ve got a new job. Word spread around that we managed to take down an urthog and so a local peacekeeper approached me and offered us a bounty gig.”
Kurai’s placid expression was slowly replaced by a highly annoyed one.
“That’s not important news. That’s something that can wait, Arcaea!”
“Oh I know. I just wanted to mess with you.”
The well oiled hairs on Kurai’s back began to stand up and she bared her fangs at Arcaea. A low growl escaped her and Arcaea couldn’t help but chuckle.
“They’ll pay us 2000 lerings for the target. Dead or alive.”
“That’s…” Kurai’s whole demeanor changed as the exorbitant amount dawned on her. “That’s a lot.”
“It is indeed. Meet me outside when you’re done.” she said as she walked out of the room where the two masseuses still stood. “Take extra good care of this one.” she said as she put 5 lerings in each of their hands.
The two girls looked up in shock and then both gave Kurai a wicked smile. As Arcaea walked away she looked back and just before the door to the room closed she could see Kurai with the widest smile she had ever seen.
About an hour later Kurai emerged out the front door of the spa with a spring in her step and that same smile still gracing her visage.
“Oh man! I really needed that.” she said as she danced down the front steps of the establishment. “So, are we going to find the others?”
“Yeah. I know where Janette is and I’ve got a feeling she knows where to find Raven.”
“Well, then let’s go!”
Arcaea had never seen Kurai in such a good mood before. She smiled. “Well alright then.”
The two of them walked down the streets through Holden’s Gate towards the Downtown district. Slowly but surely the older brick buildings of Holden’s Gate gave away to more modern concrete buildings that had been built in the past two decades or so.
Keystone was one of the younger colonies on the Frontier, having been established almost 60 years earlier. And yet, despite its youth, Keystone had been no stranger to tragedy and dark histories. Since the city had no indiginous population to speak of, it’s citizens were a collection of all the races. Many of which were sunborn and moonlet but an even greater number were dozku. The varg were somewhat rarer while other races like the hox and ruukai were an odd sight indeed. The draug, due to the city's bloody history, never ventured too close to its borders.
On their route to the Keystone Archives they saw several historical monuments. Some commemorating past wars, others sites of cultural or religious significance. One commemorated the victory of the Allied Coalition over the draug, another was a big hexagonal spring with a decorated cement base where worshippers of Valkand prayed. As they passed by a tall moonlet man stood knee deep in the spring and praised the godly figure of their worship and recounted all the ways his domain, the Sol Empire to the far north, was a perfect utopia. Some of Keystone’s citizens agreed while others vocally protested the man’s claims.
The lands the city was built upon were steeped in pagan practices, strange worship and old prophecies. It was an odd sight to see whenever Arcaea thought about it. Old world spiritualism surrounded by modern architecture and technology. This part of the world was an amalgamation of the old and the new.
Janette sat pouring over a handful of datapads. She had been doing research into the mysterious octahedron but had not found anything yet. The main problem with most archives was that they were extremely limited. It was estimated that nearly 99% of all previously acquired knowledge had been lost during the Downfall. Which meant that people of the modern age, the Reclamation Era, knew very little of the world.
It was common knowledge that all the races had traversed the Void from their homeworlds in order to settle Okuza, the Land of the Gods, thousands of years ago. But no one knew or remembered how they managed to do that. In fact, no one really knew how magic was originally harnessed or who invented the process of refining arcanum or even who created magistration, a process used to magically program and operate all types of technology today. Heck, people didn’t even know how Infinitum worked, even though entire nations had lived within its protective shell for centuries. Too much knowledge had been lost and it frustrated her.
Janette really wanted to find out more about the octahedron before she’d dare to conduct experiments on it to find out more but there was absolutely nothing in the archives of Keystone about any artifacts matching its description. She briefly entertained the notion of sneaking into the archives of the Infinitum Magistry, the Corpus Okuza, before abandoning that notion entirely. That’s impossible for more reasons than I care to count. Keystone, even though a huge colony, was unconnected and happily unaffiliated with Infinitum.
She sat back in her chair and sighed. She felt defeated and useless. And if that wasn’t bad enough, what she heard next would surely not improve her day.
“You spend your vacation time in the library?” Kurai’s sarcastic voice was too loud and obnoxious for any archive.
Janette turned her head and found both Kurai and Arcaea walking towards her. She cocked her head in surprise.
“What in the void are you two doing here?” She asked.
“We’ve got a job. A high paying one.” Said Arcaea.
“2000 lerings.” Whispered Kurai.
That caught her attention. Working would surely take her mind off of the octahedron and the mystery surrounding it.
“That...actually sounds very inviting right now.” She said.
“We just need to track down Raven, and I’ve got a feeling you know where she is.” Said Arcaea.
Janette sighed. “I do indeed.”
------
The girls walked into a shady alleyway until they came upon a rusty door. Janette knocked on the door, hesitantly. A second later a slat opened on the door.
“Hey...um...is Raven here?” said Janette to the darkness beyond the slat.
She was only met with silence.
Janette began to sweat and thinking of something to say was panic inducing. “Drim, I’ve never actually been in here before. I don’t know the secret password.”
Suddenly Arcaea stepped forward and leaned towards the slat.
“Archons are bad for business.” she said and the door was opened for them. Inside stood a massive dozku bouncer dressed in heavy armor. “They’re with me. I take responsibility for them.”
The dozku nodded and stood aside.
“How did you…?” asked Janette.
“I did a job for the club's proprietor a few months ago.” explained Arcaea before motioning for the two of them to go in before her.
The three of them walked in and down a flight of stairs. While Arcaea was calm and composed neither Janette nor Kurai were able to hide their nervousness.
“What in the void is this place? Is this where they butcher homeless people for their meat?” asked Kurai as her eyes darted around frantically.
“Ha ha, no definitely not. This is a club for...fine gentlefolk who like to bet on...extreme sports. Among other things.” explained Arcaea.
“What kind of extreme sports?” asked Kurai but her question answered itself a few moments later.
They emerged into a wide circular room with a low concrete ceiling. The room was filled with circular tables, leather couches and around 70 people that occupied them. Some dressed in rags, others dressed in their finest silks. Some spoke in quiet conversations, others watched the network feeds displayed on the walls while the rest crowded around a pit in the center of the room. Below they could hear people fighting.
“Oh, it’s an underground fight club. Didn’t think Raven was a gambler.” said Kurai.
“She isn’t.” Said Janette as they came upon the pit where Raven stood over an unconscious, gray skinned moonlet man. Her tank top was spattered with blood and her wrapped fists were completely red as well.
Kurai looked down and sighed.
“Of course Raven’s idea of a time off is to get herself beaten bloody.”
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