Can Of Worms

Axiolypito's baggy black coat, fluttered against the strong winds as he overlooked the city that sheltered the great adventurer guild, his gaze harsh as per usual, it was no mirror that was in front of him after all.

The travel up to here had taken some time and he now discovered that the security here was on another level compared the town he had stalked for a long while.

Firstly, this was an actual city, enormous in its own rights, much closer to points of interest, the traffic was dense, be it carriages, people on travelling on the back of animals or tamed monsters or simply on foot, the city was spewing and swallowing them constantly.

There was no surrounding village that conveniently had an unknown underground complex here, there was no village at all in fact, it seemed like this place was purely sustained through trade.

'Bad idea' thought the wretch, lining the long scars on his face.

They were in luck however, he wasn't planning on cutting their supply lines, it seemed easy but he suspected that it wouldn't be so, there was another stream that he noticed during his time observing the city from afar.

This was another difference with the last town, but one that was to be expected, this place had a 'great adventurer guild' after all, the adventurers were deemed to be much more numerous and of better quality.

As a monster, sizing their danger level at a glance was not impossible and he was quite surprised, he didn't notice much filth at all, though, he never saw the same filths more than once or twice.

Axiolypito could attest to it, the area was much more dangerous, he hadn't attempted to interact in any way with the monsters but they were certainly strong.

The weak were culled quickly and efficiently, the wretch liked that aspect of things but only as a concept, he would have much prefered if those incompetents were allowed to proliferate.

Scaling the walls wasn't much of an option as it was, the guards were well placed at all times and followed their shifts religiously.

Trying to sneak in through the front door could work, he had seen multiple people doing just that but the chances of success was quite low and running through would be difficult with the people so packed together, he could always walk over their heads but he sensed that his speed might not be overwhelming for some people walking around this place.

They would definitely notice that something was amiss, it was preferable if there was no uproar of any kind, he needed some time and calm to do his work.

Axiolypito ran his eyes along side the long trail of people waiting to enter the city, his mouth curling cruelly upward as he caught sight of someone he had already seen a few times, arriving at the very back of the line.

A tired-looking man driving a long carriage, with only a single door on the back and minuscule windows.

He always got in with nothing as much a glance from the guards inside, they knew him well and what he did was simple, he went to villages and towns, picking up children for some reason the wretch didn't bother learning, all that mattered was that the guards were lax with this guy and that and that his carriage was filled with small people.

The monster moved quickly, flinging the doors open and making use of the initial confusion and general lack of reaction speed from these kids.

Two hours passed as the line moved forward but didn't decrease in size, once the tired man got to the guards, he exchanged some words with them, they looked in, only seeing a bunch of kids as per usual, those sent in hopes that they would be able to become adventurers.

Apart from the fact that this particular batch seemed oddly calm, everything was fine, they let him through without any suspicion.

Once he got to the great adventurer guild, or just the guild as everyone around called it, he opened the doors in the back, noticing that every single one of the children seemed fast asleep, their heads hanging low.

It was no wonder after spending so long in slow motion, he tapped the shoulder of the nearest and instead of waking up, he just fell over, creating a domino effect as everyone on his side followed the movement without any resistance.

It was then that he noticed that each and every single out of the six children had a thin, needle-like dark thing stuck in their throats, each appearing oddly pale.

Once the realisation struck him, he fell back and screamed in horror, quickly gathering the attention of many people around him, most of them adventurers.

While most of them only had curses and abject horror for who or whatever could have done this, a group of three stood aside, or more accurately, two of them were listening to the third rambling.

"Do you feel this?" asked the rambling one, the only man amongst the three of them, hos brown hair were messy and seemed to have been close to a fire recently as they were still smoking.

His choice of attire clearly pointed towards him being a mage.

One of the women, who had some greyish scales on random spots of her faces, flicked her forked tongue out for a moment as she played with her lilac-colored hair.

"Blood and smoke?" she replied, unsure if he was asking an actual answer or if he was leading them into his usual rabbit hole, he seemed especially certain of himself today.

"The heretical flame, as someone who managed to conjure it unscathed, I can feel it, whoever or whatever was inside this carriage resonates with it in some way!" he asserted with utter confidence accompanied by strange, almost mechanical movements.

"Oh, so you think you could identify the person or whatever if you were to see them?" suddenly spoke up the second woman, a young woman with dark blonde hair.

"Absolutely, there is barely a handful of people to ever attempt to summon the heretical flame, even less managed to do it and very few of those that do aren't consumed by it, they and I should be the only two around" replied the man, certain that he could do it.

"Why do you ask?" asked the scaled woman, surprised since she didn't usually get interested in the heretical flame nonsense he spewed daily.

"It is certain that a quest will be put up to find the murderer! They killed six kids, the reward will be handsome! I'll finally be able to purchase that advanced light magic book, then the sky will be the limit!" she exclaimed, despite what the blonde girl thought, she wasn't any less bizarre than her male party member.

'Money is money' thought the scaled woman, following after her enthusiatic teammates, her tail dragging along the ground as she went.