We all silently looked at the flier I had brought back to the bar, nobody said a word as Kaelen seemed to shrink more and more as everyone stared at his picture and the numbers on the flier.
"Ok, so I knew it was bad, but I didn't think that, well, um, uh."
Kaelen had begun to speak but as we all turned with a deadpan look to him he seemed to grow quieter with each word and lose confidence in what he was saying. We all turned back to the poster as Selene pointed a finger at the part about the price for our heads and looked at Kaelen.
"K-Kaelen, that amount of money is the kind used to hire R-Ruby class adventurers, those guys are often around level 60, that means 3 class evolutions. W-We can't just ignore this, it has to be handled."
Kaelen seemed to wilt at that, so I turned to the others.
"Since the one who made the bounty is probably his dad considering the contents we just need to talk to him and tell him about what's going on, right?"
Kaelen shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he mumbled something too quiet for anyone to hear.
"Dude, speak up, literally the least you can do considering what is happening."
Liora said, reaching over and flicking Kaelen on the forehead. Kaelen rubbed his forehead as he cleared his throat.
"I don't think that's a good Idea, it was hard enough to escape from the estate when I did. For all I know my bedroom is now just a birdcage in the main hall."
We all glanced at each other before Jax stepped in.
"We don't have much choice, we either go now, knowing we are approaching to persuade, or we travel, do a few quests, and you get kidnapped by someone who could kill us with a twitch and you arrive in a cage already with 5 heads in toe."
We all shivered unconsciously as Jax's words sank in. We were sitting on a ticking bomb in the form of this bounty, at best Kaelen gets kidnapped and never sees the light of day again, at worse someone wants an additional 500,000 gold and decides to bring a few heads with them.
"There is still a problem, we have two months before the event, so even if we agreed to leave right now, Kambuldar is over 1000 miles away by airship, it would take a month and a half minimum to get there if we were driving in the vehicle."
Kaelen said crossing his arms. Selene reached into her bag and pulled out a small map of Misagen as she pointed a finger.
"A-Actually there is a teleport gate right here in Lushfort, and its only a 4 day drive from here."
Kaelen quietly scoffed as I felt a pang of annoyance.
"This fucker not only knew, but was hoping everyone else didn't, that dickhead!!"
Will yelled pacing and mumbling in a rage as I kept the calm quiet smile on my face that didn't meet my eyes. Kaelen meet my eyes as I could see a cold sweat starting to roll down his face.
"E-even if we get to the teleport gate, you need to be a noble to be allowed to use it."
Selene mimicked my face as she held up her family crest as Kaelen started to look at the others.
"W-what about the cost of use, I don't think anyone has enough savings to pay the exorbitant price for the gate usage."
Kaelen tried as Jax joined Selene and I in our expression as he said.
"Your family would understand our necessity in the transport and Im sure would be happy to pay the price to see their darling boy in good health."
Seeing he was losing ground Kaelen turned to Thalia, the most emotionless of the group as he said.
"Thalia, I can't as you to travel half way across the world for me just because you got wrapped up in this, and we can't leave Thalia behind guys, what kind of party would we be if we abandoned members!?"
Thalia stared at Kaelen for a moment, her expression neutral and stoic before she glanced over at Jax, Selene, and I and mimicked our expressions to Kaelen's horror.
"I really don't mind, especially if the alternative is to be killed by an over leveled bounty hunter with an afternoon to spend getting millions of gold."
Kaelen turned around, pulling off his necklace so he was back to his full glory of beauty he turned to Liora, the weak link in terms of his face.
"Liora, how can you let them do this to me, Imagine what will happen to me if I am forced back to my family home!"
Liora responded by mimicking our expressions and pointing her staff at Kaelen, a spiral of wind swirled at the end of it ready to launch at Kaelen's face. Liora spoke with a voice so soft you would assume she is telling small child everything was all right, but what she said didn't match to her tone.
"Kaelen, get in the fucking car."
Kaelen looked to all of us with a look of betrayal before he swing his hand up to punch himself, however before his punch could collide with his face, strings wrapped his arms and legs, shooting them to his sides as he went from a noble, beautiful and handsome looking elf in priestly attire, to an oddly squirmy silk moth with an elven face.
Selene lifted Kaelen onto her shoulder as he squirmed like he was dancing on a bed of coals. Before he could squirm but so much Liora grabbed his necklace and placed it back on his face so he went from sculpted statue made in the beauty of the gods, to regular magazine cover pretty.
"Guys *grunt* wait *squirm* you can't do this to *thrash* me!"
"Shut up, we're solving your daddy issues whether you want to or not."
Jax said as the people walking down the road stopped for a moment to stare before turning back to what they were doing before, no doubt the rumors of Kaelen's daddy issues becoming the core of the block gossip for a few weeks. We loaded Kaelen and everyone else up as we pulled out of the lot and headed back out of the city.
Kaelen was tied up in the front so he didn't try to jump from the trailer as he scowled ahead out the front windshield. Now that we were on the main road I reached into my bag behind the seat and pulled out the letter we had gotten from Ymer. The letter didn't say much but did have an address, Kambuldar Misagen, where we were headed next.
I had refrained from opening the letter because I wanted to let everyone focus on the tournament before we focused on hunting Ymer down, but now that we were headed to where the letter would have been handed off, I needed to know its contents. So as we drove down a straight away, I opened the letter and read, keeping one eye and hand on the wheel, the other eye and hand were reading and holding up the letter.
Dear Mr. L
It has been quite some time, I am sending this envelope to be delivered in person as a letter of introduction of sorts. As we both know, the Sons of blue are starting to finalize their preparations, and at this rate I give it another 50 years at most before the second war begins. It is for this reason that people require power now more than before. The holder of this letter may change hands a few times, but regardless of who they are, be them fateless, fatebound, or fated, help them along, because the world will need power, and more than that it will need people who are willing to learn and grow. So give them a good book, a cup of tea, and tell them a story if you have the time.
Purple
As I finished reading I took a moment to stare at the letter with a starstruck expression. We knew who Red was, who didn't, but the terms used in this letter were too strange. Who were the sons of blue, what do they mean preparations for war, there are fateless, but what is a fatebound or a fated, and who in the hells is purple?