RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 185

“Yerman Lewis?”

“The old man that Leon suggested you pursue to help train the guild,” said Robert. “He is going to be attending the party. He loves parties. You can talk to him about your proposition during the party. I will introduce you.”

“Couldn’t have a better time for the party then,” said Balthazar happily as he remembered about him. “I will surely attend it. Can I invite someone too?”

“Yes, of course. The celebration is for the both of us. You surely need to invite anyone you want,” said Robert.

“Cool. So, when and where?” asked Balthazar.

“Well, I was thinking of tomorrow evening. Give both of us enough time to call whomever we want to,” said Robert. “Richard had apparently already thought about this and booked the Ambrosia hotel. He says it is a chance for me to meet with others in the family and people who support Walter.”

“That sounds good. He seems to have everything planned out for you,” said Balthazar.

“Ya. I don’t know what Walter told him to do, but he seems to be a lot more concerned about me gaining influence in the family than even Walter,” said Robert. “He had already taken the liberty to call quite a few members whom he wants me to meet. I will send you a mail to invite people. You can send invites to anyone whom you want to attend.”

They got out along with Lucius, Richard and Salazar and went to the mansion together. Robert, Lucius and Richard went to their own rooms, but Salazar took Balthazat to Winston who was waiting in his office for him.

“Congratulations! I heard that you performed very well and the recommendation that Harek gave to you,” said Winston hugging his grandson as soon as he entered Winston’s office. “I hope you can reconsider and compete for the vacant position instead of supporting your cousin.”

“Grandpa. I already told you. If it had been some other time, I wouldn’t have any issue with it, but there are things that I need to do. To make sure that our safety is guaranteed. It is best that you let me work on that. I still have a lot of time to take on the position of an elder. Even, if I fail to be an elder, I promise you that I within a few years I will have the influence of one,” said Balthazar.

“Fine,” said Winston giving up. “You and your sister are so stubborn. I thought your parents were bad when they were young. You two are much worse and are getting completely beyond my control. Tchah.”

“I don’t have time for the family politics, grandpa. Don’t I have you for that and later I will have Winston looking after my back. By the way, I never expected that the evaluators would be your friends and you to be manipulating the situation to improve the trials. Using their own schemes against them. What do I have to worry about when someone like you is look after me. Those corrupted and rotten elders will really have a hard time after this. I think you are the one who deserves congratulations more than me,” said Balthazar.

“Hehe,” laughed Winston. “I did show them the consequences of their chicanery, didn’t I? The new format and suggesting them to improve would finally make the young ones to actually strive than depend on their fathers and family.”

“You need to be careful though,” said Winston. “When are you planning to attempt to get the information that you have promised Evelyn. I haven’t seen any movement from you till now.”

“I had a few plans before, but now I need to change them. I need to know about a few details of your operation against the Nirbaadh pirates,” said Balthazar.

“You had plans against them?”

“They were the closest link that I had to the ones that attached me and others. I had plans to have someone infiltrate through them. Didn’t expect that you would be able to deal such an attack to them. Any news about Dave?” asked Balthazar.

“No. That Dave guy is a mystery. We don’t have the slightest clue about him. Even Rupert who infiltrated them never heard the name. He managed to get us the identities of all lieutenants and important personal of the pirates, but he didn’t manage to hear the slightest of that person,” said Winston. “Might be someone only the captain and his closest keep contact with. But it could also be an alias. He is powerful enough to represent or supervise for the knights, he is no ordinary person. You should be careful if you plan to deal with him.”

“Don’t worry. I will take care of that. By the way, there is a party tomorrow for the pair of us having completed our trial. Can you come?” asked Balthazar. “I am sending an invite to Bolena too, but I doubt if she would spare herself from her work.”

“I tried to get her back when the incident with pirates happened, but she insisted on staying there. So, I doubt it would be of much use,” said Winston. “I will be coming there in time. I will have talk with Richard and I think it is a good opportunity for you to show and give confidence that you have completely recovered physically and mentally and announce that you are not going back to the military immediately just because you were given a new posting and wanted to spend some time with your family after having been on the frontier for close to five years.”

“Do I need to announce all that?” asked Balthazar feebly.

“I will announce it or Richard. It will be better that way,” said Winston.

“Have it your way. So, why did you call me?”

“I heard from Lucius that you were concerned about the Nirbaadh pirates. So, I wanted to warn you. You were already planning on getting to them or the Rowleys. Concentrate on the Rowleys but forget about the pirates for now. There are things that I can’t say. So, I hope you will heed my warning and keep your distance. It is best if you avoid the topic or just stick to the story that the alliance has released in the new,” warned Winston. Balthazar didn’t give any expression of disappointment or dissatisfaction for which Winston had hoped for.

“Ok, but just answer me one thing. How did you manage to attack them? I know that our forces couldn’t be mobilized enough to do it. So, just tell me who was responsible for this. And don’t give crap that the Price family did it. It has far too many politics to mobilize enough force to deal such an attack,” said Balthazar.

“I knew that you would avoid this, but it seems that you are bent on looking into it,” said Winston as he isolated the room’s communication systems.

“You didn’t hear this from me. You will never talk about it, inform or suggest any one about it or take any action on it. I am telling you just so that you won’t get into any danger. Can you promise me that?” asked Winston.

“Yes.”

“The attack is from a completely new party or organization. No one knows about its allegiances, collaborators, agenda or enemies and they are very powerful. According to Walter, most of their deaths were only because they tried to take the captain alive, else they would have killed the entire pirate crew and none would have escaped. The worst part is that your other grandfather might also be involved.”

“What?”

“That is why it is being kept under wraps. He was supposed to be dead, but he was observed to be very healthy. Moreover, they are definitely not with the knights of the old republic as the pirates were under their employ. It is an enigma,” said Winston holding Balthazar by his shoulders. “You need to stay away. Understand.”

“I do,” nodded Balthazar. His mind was all in fuzz. He had been fine till now. He had been told that his other family had been gone and he never had any hopes of seeing them alive. He only thought of finding out about them to keep himself, Bolena and Robert safe. Now, with the new information he learned, a lot of thoughts started to move through his mind.

Winston also noticed the state of his grandson and seated him down. He brought a glass of water and a pill. Balthazar took the water and refused the pill. “I just need some time,” he said taking a deep breath.

“Take as much time as you need,” said Winston taking another seat beside him as he held his hand. After a couple of minutes, he finally nodded to Winston and took back his hand.

“I am all right,” said Balthazar. “Just finding it hard to believe that he could be alive. This raises a lot of questions. Any chances that other members are alive? How come he.. Aargh. I don’t know where to start,” said Balthazar at a rapid pace whilst he pulled on his hair. “I don’t know where to start, where to end, what to do.”

“Calm down,” said Winston. “You don’t need to do anything. Just stay put. We will handle this. Walter had talked to him during his youth. Let us find out what happened. The entire family considers this a priority.”

“All right. I will let you guys take care of it, but please inform me of any updates,” requested Balthazar.

“I will inform you of anything that I come to know. If they are friendly, Walter already intends to inform him about you, Bolena and Robert. But be prepared for bad new and don’t expect the things to happen anytime soon,” said Winston.

“I will take my leave then,” said Balthazar as he made his way to his room. Salazar accompanied him till his room and noticed that Balthazar looked quite dispirited for someone who just passed the trial and is having a celebration the next day.

He went to his bed, took a sleeping pill which requested from the butler and laid down to sleep. He had tried to calm his mind by sleeping but that wasn’t very successful either. He kept getting a nightmare of his parents dying. Withing an hour, he was wide awake and knew he wouldn’t get anywhere sleeping at this time of the day. So, he decided to put his mind to something else.

He sent some invites for the party to D.i.c.k, Rodrigo, Bolena, Sophia and a few other whom hoped would come. The ones that he wanted to meet. After that, he went ahead and sent another mail to Rodrigo to request him to provide some help with getting expert’s names soon. Then, he decided to get back into the game and have some time PvP to divert his attention.

Slaine and Rudra immediately called him back to join them in their hunting in the forest as they were notified when he was online. The past two hours that he had spent out of the game were six hours during which they had used to get more experience. They didn’t want to explore and move towards the direction of the Jarko town. Though the light was enough for hunting in the forest, it was only because they knew the place and the kind of monsters. To explore they should be ready to go against new types of monsterrs, they needed a lot more light and vision than what the fireglows could provide.

He had previously used a disguise to call for PvP fights in the colosseum, but he decided to remain with the same attributes. With the last hell mode clear by the Blazing Fury, rumours already began to spread that he was a busy man in real life and couldn’t spend as much time as a professional. So, many started to think that he would soon not be able to maintain his levels and he was sure quite a few would be willing to fight him. The important thing was that he wanted to work on team fights.

The colosseum was being used for both one-on-one and team fights by various guilds and groups. Till now, he had just reserved rooms to fight one-on-one, but he decided to try out teamwork. He had contacted Blazing fury about it. Merlin, Quiet fire were busy in their secondary occupations and told him that they wouldn’t be able to come, but there were already a few who were participating in team battles.

Team fighting mode had a different kind of options, from two person per team to even ten. There were different ranking boards that could be used for the teams, which would be named usually after their guilds or teams. Though one could form teams of different numbers, most players would form teams that had five or three as the competitions were usually held in that format.

He soon met up with them. Tetsujin, Tang, Sultan and Griff were the ones who contacted him. They had already been participating in battles as a team of four, but they didn’t have many others to fight with as they were in a group of four. With him, they would become a 5-man team which was one of the two most popular groups and had a lot of players participating. So, they immediately responded to his request and were waiting for him at the colosseum entrance.

“How come you guys don’t have others along with you? I heard that you four were the only ones from Blazing Fury here,” asked Shadow as soon as he met them.

“It is Merlin. He had been insisting all night the importance of having secondary occupations. He insisted that we concentrate on them during the night and only spend a third or less in the colosseum,” answered Tetsujin.

“Well, one can’t argue against that logic. It is quite true,” said Shadow. “So, you guys don’t have any secondary profession or don’t want to work on it.”

“We don’t want to work on it. It is hard to promote a secondary profession. Without decent recipes and designs, it just becomes worse. Those things are getting harder to find,” said Sultan. “There is a limit to it and it is very hard to spend half the time on secondary profession, but quite a few members of the team actually are good at multiple secondary professions.”

“Hmm,” nodded Shadow raising his brows. With the nature of the game being quite close to real-life, it was hard to pursue secondary professions by most players. But the similarties between some of the professions allowed players to correlate and improve faster at both.

“So, what is the deal with the team?” he asked.

“What?”

“Everyone is a physical attack class. There are not long-distance attackers, except for Sultan who can use one or two,” said Shadow. “How did you even play all this time?”

“Oh! It was a bit hard. Sultan has bought a scouting pet which helped a bit, but you find very few players making four-man teams,” said Tang. “Didn’t really have much of competition.”

“Its fine. It would help us improve our cooperation and tactics,” said Shadow.

“That’s what they said,” said Tang pointing to Sultan and Tetsujin.