Looking around the room, Quinn could see the strange-looking ninja person who had been joining the group over the last week or so. This person was actually Linda, and this time she looked a little different than her usual self. Instead of the black armour, she wore in the past, she had regular black clothing over her armour. This was because today, she was wearing the same gear that she had worn at the assessment.
A mixture of beast tier and king tier equipment. It looked like she would be coming with the C rank and D ranks for this quest. The Crows were not going to take any chances. It was a smart move, and Quinn knew what they were doing.
However, what he didn’t know was why Linda had been in his group for so long. What was she trying to find out? Looking at her now Quinn could also see that she had joined a group of five where Suze was also a part of them. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, Suze was most likely sent as a spy, and she had reported back to her of his abilities.
At first, she must have joined the group because she was suspicious of them, and the most suspicious one of them all, Paul,, being from the Pure group. Perhaps they just wanted to keep an eye on him and them for a few days to make sure they weren’t all from Pure and had hidden intentions, but her interest had changed after Suze reported.
Linda joined the team trying to get herself in troublesome situations to see if Quinn really did have the shadow power. This is what Quinn thought anyway, he didn’t know the real reason for her first joining was to find out who the blood Evolver was.
‘This is going to be quite troublesome.’ Quinn thought.
He had a plan, but with Linda there it would be quite troublesome. Going up to the quest board. In his head, Quinn noted down the two locations. They seemed to be in the same overall area but at different locations.
‘Getting from one to the other shouldn’t be too hard. This is good.’
“Paul, purchase information on both of these areas and see if you can get a map for both locations as well, ones as detailed as possible, don’t worry about the cost. Note down anything strange as well.” Quinn ordered.
Paul nodded and headed off, he didn’t ask why and had just agreed to do it. Lately, Paul had been more compliant and less snappy with Quinn. Things had changed a bit since that day.
Equipment was already being loaded up and supplied by Kong. On quests like these, the leader had a budget they could use. With it, he had bought maps, tracker and traps. These were the standard for any type of high-level beast hunt.
While Kazz, Paul and Fex the trio went to gather the extra Equipment, Quinn and Sam had gone to register, and Quinn could hear Sam’s heartbeat. It was beating louder than usual, as they got closer and closer to the table Kong was at.
“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked.
“Ah, heck, can you tell?” Sam thought he was doing a good job of hiding his fears, but it turns out not, but he was, it was just Quinn could hear his heartbeat.
“Remember what I was talking about, how some people don’t exactly like me being here or the Rank I’m at. Well, Kong here is one of the worst offenders of them all.”
Much wasn’t said and finally, they had reached the front desk.
“Now, if it isn’t little Sammy boy, you do know this is for Rank C’s and D’s only. Which means your boyfriend can’t tag along with you on this quest.” Kong joked, and his teammates behind all laughed as well.
Quinn looked at his gear and at all of the gear of the other participants. Apart from Linda, all of them wore advanced tier beast gear which seemed to be the standard. However, Sam was the only one that had a king tier Cape.
It looked like Rank C’s, had trouble getting better gear once getting to this point. For Quinn’s group. They all still had mostly intermediate gear. The main reason being they had only just entered C rank and had yet to go on any quests to take down some advanced tier beasts.
“Kong just register me down, please. I don’t want any trouble. We all need to do this for the Shelter and the faction.” Sam replied.
“Yeah I know, I’m just teasing you a little. I’m saying these things because I care about the faction. Remember your true Rank and don’t go trying to pull off things you can’t do. You’ll only get in the way. Nate ain’t here to cover for you” Kong replied, and now he was looking towards Quinn.
Sam didn’t reply back and could see his Traveler ID was added to the system. What was the point of saying anything back. Sam felt it wouldn’t change his opinion of him, the only way to do that, was to do so out on the field.
“Well, didn’t know you were teaming up with them. Didn’t you all just become C ranks?” Kong asked.
“Aren’t D ranks allowed on this quest as well?” Quinn replied. “I thought they would have at least put a leader with half a brain in charge.” Quinn had dealt with enough people who were like him during his time at school.
Maybe if he still felt like hiding, he wouldn’t have said anything back, but now he was fed up of people like this.
Slamming his fists on the table and standing up, Kong went to grab Quinn, but it felt like his hands had just slipped through, grabbing nothing but thin air as Quinn had moved back.
“Oh right, a speed ability user, correct?” Kong said. “Perfect for running away. I guess you did the same thing when you let Freddy die, right? You just ran away.”
Quinn didn’t like Kong saying this, he didn’t like this one bit. The death of Freddy was still fresh in his mind. Hearing this, the images of his body covered in blood had appeared. Then for some reason, as the anger was boiling inside of him, the picture was switched. Instead of Freddy covered in blood, it was Kong and standing over him was Quinn, covered in his blood.
“I don’t care if your own team dies, and that includes Sam. I don’t see you guys as part of this faction anyway. We were here even before the Civil war started, and those are the people I will protect.”
While staying here, Quinn had noticed a few things between the members of the Crows. To the people on the outside and when Quinn first arrived it looked as if everyone got along. But there was a bit of divide. There were those that were part of the Crow’s before the civil war and those that joined after.
The ones that joined after couldn’t have been here longer than two months. Yet some of them were high ranks, solo Travelers, or Travelers from other factions. Due to their high ranks, Blip had treated them quite well. Wanting to strengthen the Crows, and this was where the other half of the Crows anger stemmed from.
They had been loyal, and with the Crows before all of this. Yet, because they weren’t as skilful and such, they had been treated as less important.
Quinn being in the situation he was in now, understood both sides. What it felt like seeing others get ahead just because they were stronger, and for the newcomers being treated like crap for no reason.
“Hey, hey what’s going on here. Are we all good here?” Fex said, pulling Quinn back a bit.
“Quinn, calm, if you get any angrier your eyes are going to start shooting beams man,” Fex whispered. He didn’t mean this literally, he just meant they would start to glow red. Quinn would use his influence skill without really knowing he was using it.
“The emperor group is ready to move out, is it all good on your side!” Blip shouted over to Kong.
Quickly, Kong put down all of their Id’s since Quinn’s was the last group.
“All good here!” Kong shouted back, and it was time for them to depart.
The two groups, although going to the same area, would leave at different times. Blip’s Emporer tier group had left first and were already on their way towards a black coloured mountain in the distance.
Kong’s group were now outside the Shelter in their five-man teams. In total there were five groups of five, making them a large team of twenty-five. Kong had ordered one of his men to give a map to each of them. High-tier beasts usually had some form of intelligence, and there were two things they needed to remember.
One, the beast wouldn’t always stay in the same place, they only knew the area, and two, when the beast was weakened, it would often try to run away to recover. The most important thing was to fire a tracker into the beast as soon as they saw it.
Then they would still appear on the map. They would know where it would be even if it ran away or decided to move to a different area.
This is where Sam noticed a problem. Kong had given each of his members a trapping device and a tracker to shoot at the beast. Yet the other groups had only been given a map.
“Alright, if everyone has everything they need, let’s head out. It’s going to be about an hour journey. We will go at a good pace so we don’t tire out. If you follow us, we shouldn’t run into as many beasts on the way. When we get to the area, the groups will split up. If you find the beast, you are to report to us on the transmission device of your location, and one of us will come and fire a tracker into the beast.” Kong said. “Remember, the most important thing is to listen. I have more experience then all of you here.”
“Kong,” Sam called out. “Shouldn’t we all have a tracker device each per group? If we encounter the beast first, by the time we report back to you what if the beast runs away?”
Kong looked a little annoyed at the question as if Sam was being an annoyance.
“First off, this equipment is expensive, and we don’t have much of it. If I give these trackers to you guys, you’ll go firing it away as soon as you see the beast, if you miss then what? I trust these guys, and that’s why they have been given the trackers. And are you telling me, that your group is so weak that you won’t be able to hold off two king tiers on there own?”
There was more Sam wanted to say. The tracker device was shot out of a gun-like device. All of Kong’s team were melee users. It would have been best to give the trackers to either a telekinesis user or a ranged user, who would be able to attack them from far.
And was Kong really expecting these guys to hold of king tier beasts?
That’s when Sam realised something. These guys, they had never even fought against King tier beasts before. It was the first time for everybody here, only once by chance had Sam experienced it himself along with Nate. The horror and strength. Perhaps Kong wasn’t able to imagine the difference in power going from an advanced to a king tier.
If he didn’t realise this, then perhaps, Kong’s leadership, Would be the death of them all. Sam thought.
****
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