"It hasn't even been an hour, please relax." Neha pours another round of seaweed tea in her and Aki's cups. "It was the Scorpion's Rest, right? It's pretty famous as one of the few neutral and safest spots to get a drink in all of Deika. Nothing ever happens there."
"Well… sure but…" Aki shifts awkwardly on the plush cushion she's kneeling on and looks around the room they're in.
When she first came to the hideout through that strange portal, they had arrived in a pitch black room. Immediately Aki felt tense regret. It was too dark to tell how big the room was or how many people were there.
Yet there wasn't anything she could do, since she was still on Sylus' broad back with nowhere to go.
Until warm lights shattered the dark from the door Neha had swung open with dramatic gusto.
"Feast your eyes!!" Neha smiles wide and shakes her hands over her head. "I love doing that." She loudly whispers to Mala.
Rather than something gritty or rundown like Aki was picturing, the hideout is vibrant and resembles a city neighbourhood mixed with a crafts district if the amount of arms and armour being worked on or carried by the people is a clue to follow.
Some are fully fitted while others are more lax, but all of them stand at attention and greet Neha with a bow as she passes by them before resuming their day.
Aki didn't have a chance to get a good look around, however, since Neha took her by the hand, whisking her off Sylus and speedily along the path. First to a store room stocked with medicines, then to another storage block where Neha grabbed several heat packs, a change of clothes and towels then tossing Aki into a bathhouse.
The whole time, Neha is smiling wide and helping Aki sort herself out.
Before she knows it, they're on the first floor balcony of an old teahouse-turned-office for the Hawk Troupe overlooking the street below and Aki is holding a heat pack against her lower belly.
Aki's clothes were swapped out for a red chlamys and a pair of sand-brown parachute pants that are tight around her lower legs and loose around her thighs while her clothes were being cleaned.
Then Neha had her drink a medicine that rapidly accelerates the monthly process at the cost of double the pain and discomfort followed by another, extremely bitter medicine that completely blocks pain for several hours.
An unfortunate downside, the person in the supply room explained, for the particularly bitter but useful medicine is that it leaves the drinker with severe lethargy and weakness after it wears off.
"When you said hideout, I was thinking something more sketchy or small. Maybe gilded?" Aki remarks, looking around the tea house.
"Hehe~" Neha perks up, putting her fists on her hips and pointing her chin up with a smug expression.
The room is comfortably private and carries a somewhat nostalgic air in contrast to the otherwise spectacularly furnished room. Faded reds and green contrast the burnished metals decorating the corners of the walls and the round support pillars. The colourful fabric dividers dip overhead or swing to the floor in an unobtrusive fashion.
Intricate carvings can be made out along the face of the walls, ceilings, and furniture depicting stories of the sea. Though Aki can't decipher the meaning because many parts have been cracked or rubbed away.
The lights around the room flicker with glimmering magical power that makes the bronzed inlays and burnished gold decorations create a contrast in the room.
Down below, there's the quiet thrum of activity going along like a normal day.
"This kinda looks like…"
"A neighbourhood?" Neha offers. "It was! This place was supposedly buried and lost about 200 years ago until it was rediscovered and given to us, signed and sanctioned for use by Deika's Lord himself!"
"Wait!? Aren't you guys a gang??" Aki nearly spits out her drink. "Ooh… wow. I didn't think corruption could be so blatant."
Behind Neha, Mala and Sylus audibly shift in place. The sudden sharpness of their emotions are an easy tell that they've taken offence to Aki's observation. Neha notices too and simply waves a hand to relax them.
"You're not wrong! But the Hawk Troupe is actually a mercenary band." Neha laughs and pinches Aki's cheek.
"Mercenaries…?"
"Well, we used to be called the 'Falcon Band' buuuuuut, one of our guys is a falcon revalin so he kept getting kidnapped because everyone assumed he was the boss."
Neha places a finger to her lower lip and leans forward onto her hands, bouncing her crossed legs in a steady rhythm. "People also thought we were a musical band because of 'Band' in our name… anyway, we're mercenaries!"
"Huh, so. Uh, what- what's a mercenary?" Aki bites her tongue as she speaks.
"What am I saying? A mercenary's a mercenary." She was trying to process the rapid explanation, but the combination of Neha's fast words and the nuisance of Soul Sight's constant notifications – probably about her monthly pains – were making it difficult.
"Oh!" Neha suddenly claps her hands together. "I guess it's odd, huh? Mercenaries aren't usually in this part of the continent, so lemme explain."
She takes a quick sip of her tea and clears her throat. "Unlike Hunters that specifically kill monsters and investigate mysteries or adventurers that take any job from deliveries to instance clearing, Mercenaries only fight people and monsters. A private military in it for the money and prestige, I guess you could say."
"Private military… but, wait. The city's lord hired you guys? Don't all cities have their own security force? Why would a city need to hire mercenaries too?"
Neha gives a tight smile, arching her shoulders up. Her eyes bat closed, her long lashes catching the light and making her brilliant chartreuse eyes shine like priceless jewels encased in silver. The soft shape of her features perfectly capture the radiance of her lighthearted emotions.
Just barely tilting her head to the side makes her silken braided hair swing lightly. The simple movement, emphasised with a small laugh, could rightfully be said to be the most beautiful thing to experience.
The way Neha's lips curve to show a bit of her pearly white teeth, as if carefully and painstakingly shaped by an artisan in love; a voice as soothing as it is captivating, even a rampaging monster would stop for her. Anyone that would disagree is clearly not right in the head and incapable of being happy.
The door opens and Sylus passes a green bundle to Mala who then delivers it to Neha.
She takes it wordlessly and tosses it on the table. The green bundle is actually Aki's cloak, unfolding easily to reveal Aki's shirt and shorts neatly folded in the centre.
"Perfect timing." Her gorgeous features harden, becoming serious and somehow even more captivating. "First, let's get the snloris out of the way. Mala?"
"Snloris? Is that this world's version of the 'elephant in the room'?" Aki winces, her thoughts ripping at her mind as memories of earth fail to manifest. "Uh, okay?"
Mala meanwhile nods and pulls the head of a bronze ornamental fish creature on one of the pillars dividing the balcony to the rest of the tea house.
With a thunk, a low vibrating hum fills the air, and makes things feel heavier. Breathing takes more effort and a dazed sensation hits Aki right as a window alert shoves its way into being front and center.
Aki, however, doesn't need to read the alert to know what just happened. She's perfectly familiar with the isolating sensation and squeezes her wrists tightly underneath the table, trying desperately to cover up the now visible scars.
*
[Anti-Magic Barrier detected. Magic cannot be cast inside the barrier. Magic beneath the barrier's level cannot be sustained]
*
"I noticed." Aki blinks away the alert.
Without the illusion maintaining her appearance, her dune brown hair had reverted to its golden blonde with rich brown roots. The previously rosy skin was now its usual pale white tone. Faint eye bags were visible again and, though hidden by furniture and fabrics, the numerous scars dotting her body were as well.
"Your illusion magic is good – practically perfected with how there aren't any gaps in it – but it's low level. All it takes is someone with a high enough Analysis and a second you aren't focused to see past it."
"When did -?" Aki tenses, searching for openings but seeing none. She couldn't remember feeling the invasive sensation of Analysis peeking on her at any point at all since arriving.
"The dark room."
Neha smirks. "It was pitch black. Disorienting. With a disrupted mental and emotional state, your hyper vigilance and panic works against you."
"You don't look all that different. Plausible deniability?" Neha eyes the symbol on Aki's cloak.
"What business does an Acolyte of Mune have in a city of undead?"