Paid Expedition (Endgame Party)

While many going on this expedition today weren’t necessarily all that worked up over the nature of the job, Mercury was more than a little interested. This was just one more excuse to learn more about the world she had been sent to infiltrate, and given that all that she’d been exposed to in her short time on Earthland, she was excited to see what other kind of things they might uncover. Surely if the Magic Council was sending in an expedition party this large, there was something they knew was there and worth looking for, right? It had to be valuable, and Mercury had every intention of getting some of whatever it was for herself and Silver Wolf. She wished the council had been a little more forthcoming with the details on what they were supposed to be finding, but that was part of the fun as far as she was concerned.

As far as she could tell, there were actually going to be a fair number of people present at the expedition that she would know. The most immediate was Mythal and Serilda, whom she and Vandrad had been doing their best to spend more time with. And to their credit, the two Rune Knights had proven themselves people of their word and had gone out of their way to create opportunities to see them as much as possible between their admittedly crazy schedules. Between running the Knights, being two of the four Gods of Ishgar, planning a wedding, and star knew what else, Mercury really wasn’t sure how either of them had any free time at all. She could only assume they were making a conscious effort to make time for them, something Mercury appreciated more than she realized.

However, she also knew that a fair number of other Silver Wolf members would be present as well. How could they not? Practically the entire guild had jumped to its feet at the opportunity, and while not all of them had the time or leisure to go, a fair number did. It would only be a matter of time until she ran into quite a number of familiar faces. For certain Theo would be present. He left earlier than most in his ship, eager as he always was for a treasure hunt. Mercury wasn’t entirely sure it was treasure, specifically, that the council was trying to dig up here. Most likely some kind of valuable ore or maybe a wreckage or ruin with some artifacts of note and power. But far be it from her to spoil the young man’s innocent fun. Theo was one of the few people Mercury had taken a genuine liking to and actually had a modicum of real respect for, so she had no desire to be a part of putting a downer on his day.

Would Khelben be here today, she wondered? She hadn’t seen the tall, charismatic man that day, though with how quickly the word had spread like wildfire through the guild hall she would be surprised if he didn’t make an appearance of some sort. He seemed to be very involved in guild activities, particularly stuff with the Scholar branch. She actually saw him quite often, though he had yet to put any more moves on her since their trip to Divide Island. What a job that had been. The minute the job was declared over and their portion of the work complete, he had tried to jump her right there and then in the caves, with no mind or care at all to the corpses of all the giant dead centipede beasts around them. If it weren’t for the fortuitous call from Dr. Schaefer interrupting them, she honestly wasn’t sure the two of them wouldn’t have followed through on the act. Whether Khelben intended on trying to follow through again later was anyone’s guess, but she hadn’t been alone with him since so it hadn’t come up.

For now she flew along in the sky with Vandrad, sitting casually on the surface of her hoverdisc with one knee crossed over the other. She was dressed in her typical trendy and flashy style, with an assortment of empty pouches attached to her person that masked the use of her magic and Mercy holstered at her hip. “My money is on some kind of ore or long lost wreckage,” she mused in response to Vandrad’s grumblings about the locale. “I can’t imagine they would send in so wide an expedition party without knowing something was there. Maybe Mythal and Seri will know more, since they are pretty involved with the Council.”

When he commented that this was at least preferable to the rave, Mercury turned a large grin at him. Even though her sunglasses shielded her eyes, he could likely still feel the impish twinkle in them. “Aw, c’mon. It wasn’t all bad. You got to beat a guy up. That’s like your favorite activity in the world. You know, outside of pounding me, of course.” Figuratively and literally. “Besides, I think all that paint and glowing clothing suited you very well. Even your mother was impressed. We should go to stuff like that more often.” She hadn’t actually told him that she’d sent pictures of him in his outfit to Themesycia, though it was possible he’d assumed she had. Ever since Bellum, Mercury had kept up quite regularly with the duchess, having given her a custom iLac much like the one she’d granted Vandrad so the two of them could keep in touch. Actually, she’d done that with most of his relatives, and many of the conversations that had ensued involved a lot of pictures and videos that the prince was probably better off not knowing about.

Just as they were starting to get close to the rendezvous point, the two of them both sensed something at the same time, Vandrad with his eyes and Mercury with her sensors. She turned to look in the direction of the object to find the creatures he’d mentioned. “Drakes?” she asked curiously. There was some relief in him now knowing that she was an alien, as she no longer needed to pretend she knew about things that were foreign to her. Zooming in with her vision, she observed them to be large lizard-like creatures, covered in scales and boasting large wings that allowed them to fly. The inside of their bodies burned with a fiery heat that suggested some kind of molten core in their bellies, perhaps the ability to breathe fire.

They were coming right at them, too, aimed in a direct flight of interception. Vandrad spoke up about being late again, though he didn’t appear too broken up about it. Mercury was actually a bit excited, too. She never turned down the chance to tangle with a new kind of enemy, and she wanted to learn more about these creatures. As Vandrad took on his golden aura, Mercury sped up her disc, inciting a couple of them to break away from the pack and follow her. The disc launched itself higher and higher into the air and she waited until the exact moment where one of the beasts were directly beneath her, only a few meters behind…

Then, she grinned and directed the disc into a somersault, falling off of it and diving straight down onto the creature. Before it even had a chance to react to her completely one eighty movement, Mercury twisted her lithe form around to grab hold of the creature at the base of either side of its wings, holding on for dear life as it screeched its fury and wriggled to try and shake her off. “Whoa!” she exclaimed, tightening her grip. “It’s alright, don’t mind me. I just wanna try something if you would be so kind…”

Since no one was around to watch her use her magic, she conjured a rope of malleable metal, the interior of which was laced with lines of copper wire. The rope was shaped much like a harness of some kind, wrapped around the drake’s mouth like a muzzle with a couple of nodes on either side of the creature’s temple. The wire suddenly surged with electricity, shocking the drake’s head and digging deep into its brain to affect its neural impulses. Immediately, the beast began to spiral down toward the ground. Fighting against the drag of gravity and centrifugal force, Mercury lurched herself onto the creature’s back with her legs just above the wings, holding tightly to the reins she had created.

“Come on, come on,” she said more to herself than the drake, making minor adjustments to the placement of the nodes and the power of the electrical input before attempting another shock, until finally she got what she wanted: The right amount of electrical pulse to trick the drake’s body into following her commands. The great creature evened itself in the air and tore gracefully back up toward the sky at her behest, and she whooped loudly at her success. If she could keep this thing alive, maybe she could take it back to the guild for study. But first, there were four more of them to take down...