Before Linda and Quinn had met Alex, Linda was busy taking in the information she had been given. She was starting to think about the Crows and their place in all of this. The Graylash family didn’t care about their faction.
They simply saw them as a tool to be used upon, the deaths of their members were just a number. That’s when she noticed it. People dressed in strange white robes around the shelter. In an instant, she knew who they were.
They were members of the Graylash family.
‘I wonder what they are doing here. They have only been to the Crow’s base once when we were first set up.’
She was interested, but she was here for Quinn for now.
Alex, when seeing someone approach his vendor got excited, he sat straight up and cleared his throat since it hadn’t been used for the whole day.
“Welcome sir, here I only offer you the best of the best. If you’re not interested in any of this standard stuff, I can even personally craft you something.” Clicking his fingers. “You won’t be disappointed.”
Quinn paused for a bit, he seemed to remember Alex being quite the problematic person, grumpy in a way, but his personality had done a complete 180-degree change.
“Hello,” Quinn said.
“Hello?” Alex replied back.
Quinn paused, he was waiting for Alex to recognise him, but there was only silence between the two of them as they locked eyes.
“Hey, are you going to purchase anything or are you just going to waste my time!” Alex yelled. “Scram, get out of here!”
This was more like the Alex he remembered. Hoping to jog his memory, Quinn held out his hands and shadow equipped the two gauntlets quickly. Alex’s eyes widened as he saw them.
Of course, he wouldn’t forget about working on these. It was his best work he had ever done. He looked up at the person and then realised, he did look similar to him, but at the same time different.
“Ah, it is you!” He said with a smile.
The two of them went behind the vendor, While Linda stood in front pretending to be a customer. She was interested and listened in on what they had to talk about. She was wondering why this person, in particular, was so important that he had to come and see him.
“I was going to ask for my share of the profits.” Quinn said, “But it looks like business isn’t exactly going well.”
“It’s this damn civil war,” Alex replied. “The gear you gave me was perfect, and I was able to come up with a few great designs, but they were all at the intermediate level. That wasn’t a problem, and I was starting to get a few orders of them online from the other military bases.
“But now with the war, everyone is looking for advanced tier and higher, I just can’t compete with that. It’s the same problem as before, since I’m less experienced and was a student, no one will give me a chance.”
But Quinn knew it was only a matter of time. Forgers were highly sought after. Especially one of Alex’s calibre, maybe not now, but many people would be after him. Thinking about it, Quinn now also had some advanced tier equipment that he had made from the system.
He had done so thanks to Edward bringing the materials, but Quinn didn’t want to give them to Alex, not yet. With the way things were, it was better that no one had noticed him. If they had, the families would never let him go.
“Do you remember what I said before? You still want to do it?” Quinn asked.
Alex hesitated for a moment. He remembered, it was the only thing he looked forward to ever since Quinn had proposed the idea, but with the way things were, how could he make his own forging empire?
“I do, and I wish we could still do it,” Alex complained.
‘We can.” Quinn replied.
Quinn proceeded to tell Alex of his plan, how he wanted to create his own faction. Quinn was unsure whether or not it would be the right thing to do, but based on his personality from last time, it was the only thing he could think of.
“Create a faction, in a time like this? That’s crazy, you’re crazy.” Alex said. “But I do like it. This place, I don’t understand it, Quinn. They make me go out on a hunt every week, but I’m no fighter. I’m a forger. Every week I think it might be my last.”
His body was shaking slightly while thinking of the times he barely escaped fate.
“Look, it’s impossible to leave now, but if you make your faction and find some way to get me out of this place, then it’s a deal, I don’t want to die just having been a vendor my whole life.”
Quinn was pleased with the result, with a forger as good as Alex, he had no doubts that his team would be able to grow in strength. Next, from the palm of his hands, two crystals appeared.
As soon as Alex saw these, he nearly fell over backwards. His heart felt like it was going to escape from his chest. He looked left and right, and left again.
“Where do you get these, did you steal them?” Alex whispered.
In a way, Quinn felt like he had stolen one of them, so he chuckled nervously.
“Are you up for it?” Quinn asked.
“You mean! No, are you kidding? Yes!” Alex shouted. And for a second everyone turned to have a look at what he was so excited about. He took a few deep breaths bearing in his emotions before speaking again.
“Of course I can work on these, I just have one favour,” Alex said, rubbing his two hands.
Quinn handed him a gold money card expecting this might be a problem. “Here, use it on whatever you need, and any essentials for yourself. I’ll come to pick it up with the items.”
On the few hunts Quinn and the group went on, they killed many beasts. Completing one hunt was like completing five in one go. So for now, Quinn had plenty of credits. Now that he had Linda, he even thought he might be able to get a few discounts here and there back at the base.
“It will take me three days,” Alex said.
“Do you know what they can be turned into?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t really know, I will have to rent out a forger’s room and have a check. But don’t worry about it, let me just take a few measurements of you now, and I promise I’ll make the best equipment possible with these crystals.”
After taking the measurements, Quinn and Linda had said their goodbyes and would return in three days. Almost instantly, Alex had closed the vendor even though it was the middle of the day and rushed to get working on the crystals.
“What do you want to do now?” Linda asked.
Three days was an awkward amount of time. It didn’t warrant the cost of returning to their shelter, and it was a little too long to just stay and do nothing.
“If you have nothing to do, do you mind if we pay the base here a visit?” Linda asked.
Quinn saw no problems with this, but he was curious as to why she wanted to.
“This base used to be owned by the Eagles. A faction that you could say were rivals with the Crows. It’s nice to see how they are handling things compared to us, now that were on the same side. Besides…” Linda’s eyes then looked at someone who walked passed fully dressed in a white robe, and Quinn noticed it too.
“The Graylash family are here, and I wanted to know why.”
The Graylash family, the ones who first started the war and who Quinn was currently working under now. Honestly, Quinn also wanted to know what their aim in all of this was.
There was another way Quinn could achieve his goal quicker, and that was to join with one of the current powerhouses. He didn’t like the way the military ran things, so that was out of the question.
But who was to say that one of the other big four ideals didn’t match up with his own? Although so far, he hadn’t had the best impression of things, based on how the bases were run.
“Let’s go,” Quinn said.
They had arrived at the Eagles base, and after Linda made them aware of who she was, they were allowed in. A man was sent to escort them and was currently leading them to the founder of the Eagles.
“You’ve come at a difficult time Miss, but I suppose it isn’t too bad.” The escort said, who was an older gentleman with a square hat. “Dennis is currently entertaining the guests from the Graylash family. Apparently, they have some news they would like to share with the factions like ourselves.”
Eventually, they had been led to what looked like one of the Eagles training rooms. It was mostly bare inside and looked to be just one large room. But many had gathered, and a crowd had formed.
“What’s going on?” Linda asked.
“The Graylash members who have arrived are having a little sparing match with some of our best members. If you want, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you joining in?” The old man asked. “Show us how strong or weak the Crows have become.”
*****
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