The Merchants' War (part 2)

Kira pays more attention when listening to the owner and his helpers. She leaned a little behind, leaning against some somewhat large boxes, enough to cover her.

"How can you know that, Gaston?" asks the youngest.

"I have good connections, you already know me very well, Mikey." Gaston answers.

"Come on, boss, tell the truth, show us what you have. Rumors run among merchants and artisans." Mikey insists.

"They know that new boats have been appearing on the west side, some quite large ones that descend from the rivers. Well, it turns out that they are Commissions of Maldey, brought from the lands of the high elves of the mountains."

"That has already been heard, it is preparing for the festival."

"But not what those boxes contain or what he plans. But I managed to get one of the account books on their orders," Gaston continues proudly.

Kira can see how she took two leather notebooks out of a desk drawer, she has a huge M engraved on the cover, is sealed with a golden brooch.

"Have you been able to open one at least?" asks one of the buyers.

"Of course I did."

Although by the tone of voice, Kira questions the man's word. She has to get those books.

"They will bring various art stuff and high quality sweets. But nothing like my works, ma'am."

"Didn't you discover any secret of old Maldey?" Mikey insists, somewhat upset because he interrupted the conversation with his boss.

"Well, it turns out that they are preparing to end this discussion once and for all, " continues Gaston once buyers got back to their stuff with the help of another seller. "The boxes have very heavy contents, I have even come to see some creatures, I could not say that because I only get to hear them."

"Maybe you want to smuggle illegal species"Says another of the workers, "with the kind of business he runs under the table, I wouldn't be surprised."

Kira frowns, she didn't expect to find an answer like that, maybe something like that is what the Goat of Oblivion was looking for. The question is: what did that man plan and with what?

She comes out of hiding, moving away from the tent until she sit on the shore away from sight. She need something to distract him long enough to get the notebooks, but what can she use?

Her smartphone starts vibrating in one of her bags at her waist, luckily she still has it in a vibrator when she left the bathroom. When she sees the screen, she frowns at the blurred and encrypted name, perhaps it is because of the area that the number looks that way.

"Bluish crow," Kira growls as she replies.

"Golden Bird, good answer, how are you doing in the order?"

"Before or after almost a hydra ate me?"

She hears the laughter of her aunt on the other side.

"Welcome to the trade, honey, real life is not always rosy. Take this as an opportunity to learn more than just lessons and etiquette, learn to fight, to think like a leader and quickly, trust your instinct and intuition under pressure."

"Thank you for the welcome," she replies wryly and rolls her eyes, "a little warning before I would have appreciated."

"You would not have wanted to separate from me, honey. I know that you like to explore and have fun; but you've never made them away from your family or a familiar place. Forgive me for saying it, Kira, but you're kind of introverted for some things."

Kira feels somewhat uncomfortable, but she knows that her godmother is right.

"Tell me, aren't you having fun?"

"Despite the annoying fairy and having had to cross the nest of a hydra, I must admit that yes."

Anastasia laughs over the phone.

"A busy afternoon, not bad for your first day of travel, where are you?"

"In the artisans' market, listening to a talkative satyr who likes brag."

"What a trip you took from the house of the Goat of Oblivion, didn't send you to buy him something, isn't he?"

"No, he sent me to investigate a craftsman named Gurken Maldey, and from what I've heard of rumors he has a war on two others."

"Maldey, apparently we have a commission connected in some way, one of his rivals, Stallone, is investigating and preparing something."

"Do you think they will cause big problems?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions, we need more concrete evidence, always keep that in mind, Bluish Crow."

"I'm always going to have to use that name?"

"Calm down, only the trainees carry code names."

"But I'm not an apprentice and less than what?"

"We'll talk about it later, have you found something?"

"Maldey's account books are in Gaston's hands, he has all the information of what the boxes he ordered bring." Kira looks up at the store to see if anyone has heard her, but she is well hidden behind some small bushes and they are focused on their purchases. "I need to get them and find out what it brings before I go to the charging port."

"I'm going over there following one of Stallone's boats, I'll be there in a couple of hours, maybe before the festival."

"When will it be?"

"It will begin at the hour of souls, when the golden moon rises. We have at least three hours left, and it will take you half an hour to get to the port."

"It's better for me to get those notebooks then. I have to find a way to distract him, how do I get to the charging port afterwards?"

"Go north of the lagoon, you don't use the barges all the time, they can't reach the cargo port without permission. The fastest way to get there will be to pass through the waters of the whistle, cross the lagoon and you can run in your wolf form."

"Great, another showdown."

"Remember what I told you."

"Yes, it's fine. Now I have a problem to solve."

"Be careful, remember that we still don't know how to manage your power or if you can control something, don't use it."

"I didn't plan to do it, see you at the cargo port."

Kira hangs up her cell phone. She has yet to solve her distraction problem. She looks up at the store, or rather to bird cages, perhaps it is your chance. She puts her smartphone back in the bag before getting up from the ground, walking around the tent.

Merchants and buyers are busy, really Gaston's art is quite famous. Maybe that's why Gaston likes to play the important one.

Kira walks until she reaches the bird's cage, noticing the great variety of species and colorful plumage.

"Surely you would like to stretch your wings," she looks with her eyes at the cage door, finding a combined lock of different locks. "Let's see if I can remember how to do it," she pulls out of another bag a small tool kit, their father once taught them how to open locks once he was free from work, he thought it might be useful. "Maybe I can't use my item, so I better use other skills."

It takes her fifteen minutes to achieve it, between the coming and going of the managers, having to pretend that she plans to buy something. The sound of lock clicks makes she smile, save the kit again in anticipation of what's about to happen.

She slams open the first cage, letting the piles of birds out of it, keeps opening the other cages she opened the lock in advance.

Everything becomes a chaos between people and birds attacking or fleeing. Kira avoids the managers, reaching Gaston's desk where the notebooks are again and begins to store them in the interim part of the suit, she can not risk that they fall or take it away.

"Hey! You can't be there!" shouts Mikey when he sees her on one occasion, begins to approach her angry and suspicious look.

Kira growls leaning a little against the ground, as her body shakes violently before jumping into the air with her jaws open.

The boy screams before falling on his back, trying to protect his face with his arms; but she just runs over him running and scaring people, taking advantage of his size.

Kira roars and growls jumping on the boats, ignoring the screams of the other tourists. The children who had been there laughed when they see her ignoring that their parents are trying to protect them. She continues to run between islets and ships, leaving behind the screaming voices before stopping to rest.

She stretch a little, she dislikes not being able to transform in such a long time. It's quite unpleasant. She looks up looking for the suns until she faces north and begins her race north. As time passes she sees how the islets disappear and the boats too, the clear waters become dark and deeper, being mud traps.

Kira stops in swampy lands, full of weeds and mud, she can perceive a strange stench in the air, she feels her fur bristle, something in that place feels wrong.

"Surely it is the waters of the Whistle, it will be better to get going."

She swallows out as she moves through the sticky waters. She can barely see anything because of the little fog and the reeds as high as her. She's not sure what she can expect from that place, she doesn't know anything about that thing called the Whistle, only it's humanoid and maybe it has something to do with whistling, or maybe it doesn't. She should have asked Pam more about that and not about the hidden temple.

A nearby whistle puts her fur on end, penetrates to her bones like a cold sweat. She stops between the reeds sinking her body as best she can into the muddy water, attentive to the whistle. The singing is heard closer and closer, but you don't hear footsteps nearby and no smell to identify.

Kira raises her head over the reeds trying to see something. She can only see an abnormally long shadow in the fog, dragging his legs through the waters. She doesn't want to meet whatever that is, she walks slowly back through the water, trying to make as little noise as possible and with the whistle still stunning her ears. The ground stops feeling muddy when it starts to step on some hollow and hard, but the water is so dark that it is impossible to know what it is yet.

She stops moving when she no longer hears the whistling or dragging of the water. For the first time in his life he curses his white fur stands out too much in an area of dark and yellow colors.

"Here they wouldn't see Akadje, Cameron or even Aristide," she looks at the water with a snort, " I guess I have no other, I will need my own camouflage."

Kira sinks back into the mud but it only reaches half of the body, having to dig into the mud by pulling out plants and skeletons of all kinds, trying to do it fast since it was making too much noise. She began to hear the whistle again but she is further away, it can only occur to her that she is approaching. She jumps into the hole she opened, sinking her entire body before the mud starts to settle again. She pulls her head out of the water again to breathe, now stained from head to toe.

She watches in terror as she approaches. The elongated legs of that thing are thin almost to the level of anorexia and the arms too, he wears some kind of human skin suit, carrying a huge sack on his back. Kira can't see his face because he has a wide woven hat and the only thing she can hear is his whistle that strangely sounds distant.

Kira remains motionless though trembling, she has never seen anything like that in her life and doesn't want to find out what that sack contains.

The humanoid beast looks everywhere, pushing away the reeds and kicking the mud for a while, before it will begin to drag its feet in another direction.

Kira waits for her to hear the whistle stunning her again before walking through the swamp again, the sticky mud running down her fur. She can't help but feel disgusted by that place, it's as if she's gotten into a sewer or pitch. In addition, so much haze does not allow you to distinguish the suns.

"I don't know what's worse: the catacombs or this swamp."

The she-wolf begins to hear boats again in the distance. At some point he manages to visualize the silhouettes of these when the mist disperses: huge steel boats.

At last she has found the cargo port, a huge site full of warehouses. It was in a different area a deep river that fed the lagoon. Kira runs to the river until she sinks to remove the mud and the stick on her. He returns to the surface and she takes in fresh air, without stopping her swim. Now he has to get a place to go up and look for Maldey's boat.