Paladin of the Seraph, page 32
Darren nodded thoughtfully. This Horon could be a key ally if Darren could get him on his side. “How do we contact Prime Saint Horon?”
Asuriel smiled, clearly thinking the same thing Darren was. “Just keep doing what we’re doing. Horon was the first Protector, and he established the entire order. We’ll show our quest results to Captain Gaviel, and he’ll show them to the other captains. Sooner or later, they will reach Prime Saint Horon’s desk.”
They dove back into their work with renewed resolve and a new plan. Natashiel was the one who figured out that almost all the new souls were coming from Whiteguard.
“How strange. There are so many souls from Whiteguard. Is there a war on? I’ve seen nothing on the network. In fact, I don’t think anything has been mentioned about Whiteguard at all...”
Quest Completed: Find proof of where these souls came from and how they’re influencing the ophanim!
Darren ran his fingers across his chin, feigning deep thought. “Perhaps I should make another quest then. One to check in on Whiteguard.”
“Yes!” Asuriel feigned approval. “I think that is a very smart and clever idea, Darren. It is so very weird that there’s not much information on them. If only someone had extensive photographic and video recordings of what’s been happening over the last few days. There’s a startling absence on the ophanim network...”
Darren wrote down the new quest and added it to his Protector’s badge.
New Quest Available: Provide an accurate and verifiable account of what has transpired in Whiteguard.
He and Asuriel would take that quest and turn in the information that Asuriel had already gathered. Perhaps Ashe could turn over her recordings to Kilean and his companions to ensure all the sources didn’t come straight from him.
“We’ve found what we were looking for. Let’s go,” Darren replied. The ophanim were a bit eerie, and staying with them too long made him think of his mother’s predicament. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
“Yes, this is very troubling...” Natashiel muttered. “I think we should report our findings to the captain. Something bigger than us is afoot.”
“I hate to agree, but I think that’s a good idea,” Asuriel said.
Back at the Protectors’ headquarters, Captain Gaviel reviewed the information Natashiel provided with a furrowed brow.
“Is this all true?” Captain Gaviel looked up from his interface and stared at the three of them intently.
“I swear by my analysis of the ophanim,” Natashiel replied. “And we weren’t the only ones on this quest. Speak to Kilean and his team. I’m sure they’ve found something troubling as well.”
Captain Gaviel stood. “I’m going to look into this myself, but I fear a heinous crime has been committed right under our noses in this city. Someone is corrupting the ophanim.”
“Not just someone.” Darren left the unspoken name hang in the air.
“I’ve never seen something like this,” Gaviel said. “The question is, where did so many souls come from?”
Darren and Asuriel glanced at one another. A moment later, Gaviel was looking at images of Whiteguard viewed through Asuriel’s eyes.
The captain went pale at the sight of all the dead bodies. “By the heaven above the heavens... where did you get this footage?”
“Whiteguard,” Asuriel replied.
Captain Gaviel sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’m compiling several quests. If all this is true, it has dire implications for the entirety of the heavens...”
“Not just the heavens,” Darren replied.
Captain Gaviel nodded grimly. “Continue completing quests as you have been. I’ll cover up the results of your recent investigation. If what I fear is happening is truly happening, we shouldn’t play our hand too soon.”
“What will you do?”
“The other captains will send quests of their own, and we’ll see if this is just something isolated to Calabor, or if the issue with the ophanim has spread to the other cities as well.”
“And if it has?” Darren prodded.
Gaviel leaned back in his chair. “If it has, then you may very well have stumbled upon the conspiracy of the ages. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to promote you to a high office for something like this.”
31
Darren soon found himself one of Captain Gaviel's highest-ranking officers. That was extremely unusual, considering how new he was to the department. But the captain stood firmly behind the decision.
The true deciding factor in accepting him was that Darren was still looking for sparring partners. Anyone who voiced their displeasure to him was volunteering for an entire day of eating sand as they were pummeled again and again while Darren slowly got the hang of aerial combat. By the time the week was over, everyone was calling him sir as though they’d done so for a hundred years.
While Captain Gaviel kept busy either in his office talking to the other captains or discreetly completing a few investigative quests himself, Darren took it upon himself to get the Protectors battle-ready while simultaneously completing as many quests as they could. If these seraphim were to be his comrades in battle, he wanted them as ready for a fight as they could be.
Darren had them out constantly, completing quests. Under his stern gaze, the department completed more quests in a day than they usually did in a month. Kilean and his companions were busy hiding from Darren in a nearby tavern, but he chased them down and sent them back to work with the threat of more sparring sessions hanging over their heads if he caught them slacking again.
He wasn’t just ordering people around, though. Darren led from the front and was twice as hard on himself as on any other Protector. Asuriel had been quite proud of herself when Natashiel had to beg for the day off after the fourteenth continuous day of marathon quest completion.
“Well, there’s always tomorrow...” Asuriel smiled slyly as she leaned against Darren’s side. “Darren and I will just go off alone to a cozy meadow far from civilization.”
“With a giant centipede monster,” Darren added.
“It will be alone and cozy after we kill the giant centipede monster.”
Natashiel groaned. “Have babies for all I care. I need to sleep...”
Asuriel tilted her nose up dismissively. “Some people just can’t hope to keep up with you, Darren. Not like me.”
“Yes, Asuriel. You have done well. Now come on.” The giant centipede wouldn’t kill itself, after all.
The giant centipede did kill itself, as it happened, though only by a technicality. After it went after Asuriel with its pincers, Darren ripped those pincers off and jammed them through the building-sized monster’s skull. That didn’t kill the thing, but bisecting it from head to tail did the trick.
“These heavenly beasts aren’t so tough,” Darren remarked as Asuriel furiously dabbed at her hair, getting insect saliva out of it.
“I think you’re just too tough for them, Darren!” Asuriel said.
“Yeah!” Ashe clapped her hands in excitement. With Natashiel gone, this was the first time she could come out of Darren’s sword to join a fight in a while. “We kicked that giant bug’s ass!”
Even without his bonuses against demonic-aligned entities, Darren was a force to be reckoned with. He was a tiny fraction of the age of most of the seraphim in the Protectors, but years upon years of constant bloodshed and life-and-death battles had honed him beyond compare. Despite the Protectors being hundreds of years older, he had more time spent in battle than most of them.
Darren’s rapid-fire quest completions rocketed him to stardom levels. In their lengthy history, few Protectors were so zealous in completing everything on the quest board. Quests that had sat on that board for centuries were completed, one after another.
Fifth-Order beasts were slaughtered one after another, and wealth rolled into the new account Asuriel made for him with the local bank.
She was doing well for herself as well. After joining the Protectors, the profile she and Ashe were managing for Darren really took off. He would occasionally get stopped in the streets by the seraphim, wondering if he was really the guy they knew from the network.
“Please sign my chest!” A seraph ripped open her shirt, revealing a marker stuffed between her perky breasts.
Darren had done stranger things, so he wrote his name on the seraph’s chest.
Afterward, Asuriel took her aside. “That’ll be fifty.”
Darren wasn’t sure what Asuriel and Ashe were up to, but he had plenty of good food to eat, quests to complete, and lots of those imaginary credits the seraphim used in place of honest bronze coins. He was back in his element, and he was happy. If he had the rest of his women with him and didn’t have the threat of Kalaziel looming over his head, he could have seen himself doing this for a long time.
At work, Captain Gaviel was relying on Darren more and more when he realized how well Darren could manage the day-to-day affairs of the Protectors. After Darren’s quest, he spent an ever-increasing amount of time talking to other Protector captains. Most of the time, he went out to see them, but the few times captains from other cities visited him, Darren always made sure to be there. Most of the time, these other Protectors brought their second in command with them, and it was the only time Darren had the chance to take on new seraphim at the Fifth Order.
“Darren, keep First Officer Makiel company awhile. His captain and I need to speak in private,” Captain Gaviel said as he ushered the other captain to the back room. Darren nodded in approval, fairly certain they would discuss the ophanim problem and the footage Asuriel had shared. Things were moving quickly, and largely without him needing to involve himself directly.
Joining the Protectors had been a stroke of good fortune, and he was sorry he’d ever doubted Asuriel.
As soon as Captain Gaviel and the other captain had left, First Officer Makiel whirled on Darren. He was a prim and proper-looking seraph with shiny, undented armor and the unblemished looks of a warrior more accustomed to parades than combat.
“So... I hear you joined no more than a month ago, yet you’ve been promoted twice quickly.” He jerked a finger at Darren accusatorily. “I know you’re one of those network influencer types. Did you bribe your way to your position? I won’t tolerate corruption among the Protectors, even in branches as small and distant as Calabor. Look at your sloppy aura control. Can you even use your abilities without running out of Divine Aura?”
It looked like he was mad, which brought a grin to Darren’s face. The angry ones made the best sparring partners. His reply to Makiel’s accusation was straightforward.
“Let’s fight.”
Hours later, Makiel staggered out of the sparring arena, battered and bruised. His armor was no longer shiny, and Darren clapped him on the shoulder and told him he looked like a real warrior.
He’d actually been rather good, as far as Darren was concerned. Darren had never seen such nimble and well-practiced swordsmanship. It was like he had a counter prepared for every attack Darren threw his way, almost as though he could see the future.
Unfortunately for Makiel, Darren actually could see the future. And years of swordsmanship practice couldn’t make up for overwhelming speed and strength when combined with well-honed battle instincts. Makiel didn’t stand a chance.
There was a small crowd gathered to watch the fight, but Darren had pulverized the first officers of enough captains by now that everyone knew what was going to happen. A less observant person than Darren wouldn’t have noticed Captain Gaviel stepping into the crowd in the sparring arena. He’d watched Darren fight quite a few times, and Darren was pretty sure the captain’s offer of promotion had as much to do with Darren’s combat abilities as it did with his performance.
Darren wasn’t sure if Captain Gaviel still thought he could win a sparring match against him, but the outcome would be uncertain enough that the captain wasn’t willing to risk his pride in the attempt. After all, he was known as an exceptionally powerful warrior, so having a second in command as strong as Darren bolstered his reputation. It created an illusion that he was even more unbeatable, so long as it was never broken.
Darren didn’t begrudge him the lie. Maintaining a reputation was a type of skill as well, and the captain was putting his to good use toward Darren’s own ends. He’d be the last person to stand in the captain’s way. In fact, their entire relationship had been rather cordial, especially after Darren’s discoveries.
“Darren, I have a quest for you,” Captain Gaviel said.
Darren perked up.
“Complete it, and you’ll go from High Officer to First Officer, like Makiel there. I know there have been complaints about me promoting you so quickly, but you’ve proven adept enough at squashing such rumors that it won’t hurt to promote you once more.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I could use a First Officer with a good sword arm. I’m being called all the way to the Fifth Layer of the heavens to report my findings.”
Darren nodded. The captain was nervous and wanted backup.
“What’s the quest?”
Darren needed to do something to warrant a promotion before Captain Gaviel could give it to him. The first two were already extremely unusual, so Captain Gaviel would likely face scrutiny if the promotion was ever examined. Darren expected to slay some particularly fearsome beast.
“The most important calling any Protector can answer,” Captain Gaviel replied. “Saving some of our own. Kilean and his companions haven’t been back for weeks. They were due to check in yesterday, and they haven’t returned. Something must have happened, and we don’t abandon our own. Find out what happened. Save them if you can, or bring back what remains of them if you can’t.”
Darren nodded, surprised for a moment. The seraphim truly were different from demons. He’d seen fiends stabbing each other in the back for the pettiest reasons.
“It will be done,” Darren promised.
Natashiel was still sleeping off her exhaustion, so Darren and Asuriel were left alone. Ashe popped out of Darren’s sword to join them once they were out of the city.
“I can’t believe we have to look for that Kilean asshole...” Asuriel grumbled.
“He’s a Protector. You’re a Protector,” Darren replied.
“Yeah... doesn’t mean I like him, though.”
“It looks like all the weird messages I’ve been seeing about Kalaziel have let up,” Ashe said, eyes distant as she rode on Darren’s shoulder. She’d been spending a lot of time on the seraphim’s network to help with Asuriel’s social media and scour it for more information. Darren learned that political currents were blowing in the higher heavens through her.
The Prime Saints were gathering their influence, and factions had formed. Those factions were most apparent on the higher levels, but they had started to influence life down in Calabor. Captain Gaviel had arranged for the infected ophanim to be cut off from the local node, but not every city had been so quick or willing to act. Some openly hung banners supporting Kalaziel’s faction for whatever he had planned.
Why did he need support from other seraphim? What was he planning? There were so many questions for which they still didn’t know the answers. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people had died in Whiteguard. They hadn’t all gone into corrupting the ophanim. Where were the rest?
Those thoughts had troubled Darren even more as of late, and they played no small part in why he was so diligent with completing his quests. Nothing eased his stress more than smashing his enemies to paste.
The Protectors’ badges had small trackers, so Darren knew roughly where Kilean and his companions should have been.
“The signal should be just ahead...” Asuriel said as she pointed toward a nearby riverbank.
“I see the badges,” Darren said, swooping low and scooping them out of the stream.
He pulled them out of the water, revealing six battered Protector’s badges. Whoever had taken them off Kilean had thought this through enough that they knew to throw the badges away.
“We will trace them upriver,” Darren said. He leaned low. Tracking people upriver was hard on its own. Tracking tiny, inanimate objects would be harder still. It would take all his skills, experience, and unique abilities to—
“I found them!” Asuriel replied. “The point from which these badges were thrown in the river is in the location data.”
Darren straightened. “Lead the way.”
Asuriel and Ashe rode on either of Darren’s shoulders as he flew. The two investigated the local network and pulled all their seraph tricks to help the cause.
“I think there’s a farming village ahead,” Ashe said. “They should be coming into sight any moment now.”
Darren had been surprised to learn that seraphim farmed just like humans, but it made sense retrospectively. The fiends in the Seven Hells also farmed. It was one of the main ways they slowly grew their power over time. Slowly consuming and processing Demonic Aura internally did a lot to help them. He’d seen seraphim eating and drinking often enough that it was probably the same for them.
True to Ashe’s words, the farming village came into sight shortly thereafter.
“You should both focus,” Darren suggested to the two ladies on his shoulders. “We might have to fight.”
Ashe and Asuriel both hopped off. Asuriel conjured two spheres of Divine Aura in either hand, ready to fight. Ashe held her arms at the ready, though she drew no weapon and still had to stick close to Darren since her true body was Melancholy in his hands.
They landed on the outskirts of the village, figuring it best to wait and watch under the cover of the nearby trees.
“Identify any unusual behavior,” Darren asked while he tried to do the same.
He wasn’t familiar with how farming seraphim went about their work, but what he saw was strange. Great machines milled around the fields, and not all had seraphim as drivers. Some seemed to move through the fields entirely on their own. In the mortal world, they would have called it devilry or witchcraft. Darren wasn’t sure what they called it here in the heavens.
Asuriel smiled, clearly thinking the same thing Darren was. “Just keep doing what we’re doing. Horon was the first Protector, and he established the entire order. We’ll show our quest results to Captain Gaviel, and he’ll show them to the other captains. Sooner or later, they will reach Prime Saint Horon’s desk.”
They dove back into their work with renewed resolve and a new plan. Natashiel was the one who figured out that almost all the new souls were coming from Whiteguard.
“How strange. There are so many souls from Whiteguard. Is there a war on? I’ve seen nothing on the network. In fact, I don’t think anything has been mentioned about Whiteguard at all...”
Quest Completed: Find proof of where these souls came from and how they’re influencing the ophanim!
Darren ran his fingers across his chin, feigning deep thought. “Perhaps I should make another quest then. One to check in on Whiteguard.”
“Yes!” Asuriel feigned approval. “I think that is a very smart and clever idea, Darren. It is so very weird that there’s not much information on them. If only someone had extensive photographic and video recordings of what’s been happening over the last few days. There’s a startling absence on the ophanim network...”
Darren wrote down the new quest and added it to his Protector’s badge.
New Quest Available: Provide an accurate and verifiable account of what has transpired in Whiteguard.
He and Asuriel would take that quest and turn in the information that Asuriel had already gathered. Perhaps Ashe could turn over her recordings to Kilean and his companions to ensure all the sources didn’t come straight from him.
“We’ve found what we were looking for. Let’s go,” Darren replied. The ophanim were a bit eerie, and staying with them too long made him think of his mother’s predicament. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
“Yes, this is very troubling...” Natashiel muttered. “I think we should report our findings to the captain. Something bigger than us is afoot.”
“I hate to agree, but I think that’s a good idea,” Asuriel said.
Back at the Protectors’ headquarters, Captain Gaviel reviewed the information Natashiel provided with a furrowed brow.
“Is this all true?” Captain Gaviel looked up from his interface and stared at the three of them intently.
“I swear by my analysis of the ophanim,” Natashiel replied. “And we weren’t the only ones on this quest. Speak to Kilean and his team. I’m sure they’ve found something troubling as well.”
Captain Gaviel stood. “I’m going to look into this myself, but I fear a heinous crime has been committed right under our noses in this city. Someone is corrupting the ophanim.”
“Not just someone.” Darren left the unspoken name hang in the air.
“I’ve never seen something like this,” Gaviel said. “The question is, where did so many souls come from?”
Darren and Asuriel glanced at one another. A moment later, Gaviel was looking at images of Whiteguard viewed through Asuriel’s eyes.
The captain went pale at the sight of all the dead bodies. “By the heaven above the heavens... where did you get this footage?”
“Whiteguard,” Asuriel replied.
Captain Gaviel sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’m compiling several quests. If all this is true, it has dire implications for the entirety of the heavens...”
“Not just the heavens,” Darren replied.
Captain Gaviel nodded grimly. “Continue completing quests as you have been. I’ll cover up the results of your recent investigation. If what I fear is happening is truly happening, we shouldn’t play our hand too soon.”
“What will you do?”
“The other captains will send quests of their own, and we’ll see if this is just something isolated to Calabor, or if the issue with the ophanim has spread to the other cities as well.”
“And if it has?” Darren prodded.
Gaviel leaned back in his chair. “If it has, then you may very well have stumbled upon the conspiracy of the ages. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to promote you to a high office for something like this.”
31
Darren soon found himself one of Captain Gaviel's highest-ranking officers. That was extremely unusual, considering how new he was to the department. But the captain stood firmly behind the decision.
The true deciding factor in accepting him was that Darren was still looking for sparring partners. Anyone who voiced their displeasure to him was volunteering for an entire day of eating sand as they were pummeled again and again while Darren slowly got the hang of aerial combat. By the time the week was over, everyone was calling him sir as though they’d done so for a hundred years.
While Captain Gaviel kept busy either in his office talking to the other captains or discreetly completing a few investigative quests himself, Darren took it upon himself to get the Protectors battle-ready while simultaneously completing as many quests as they could. If these seraphim were to be his comrades in battle, he wanted them as ready for a fight as they could be.
Darren had them out constantly, completing quests. Under his stern gaze, the department completed more quests in a day than they usually did in a month. Kilean and his companions were busy hiding from Darren in a nearby tavern, but he chased them down and sent them back to work with the threat of more sparring sessions hanging over their heads if he caught them slacking again.
He wasn’t just ordering people around, though. Darren led from the front and was twice as hard on himself as on any other Protector. Asuriel had been quite proud of herself when Natashiel had to beg for the day off after the fourteenth continuous day of marathon quest completion.
“Well, there’s always tomorrow...” Asuriel smiled slyly as she leaned against Darren’s side. “Darren and I will just go off alone to a cozy meadow far from civilization.”
“With a giant centipede monster,” Darren added.
“It will be alone and cozy after we kill the giant centipede monster.”
Natashiel groaned. “Have babies for all I care. I need to sleep...”
Asuriel tilted her nose up dismissively. “Some people just can’t hope to keep up with you, Darren. Not like me.”
“Yes, Asuriel. You have done well. Now come on.” The giant centipede wouldn’t kill itself, after all.
The giant centipede did kill itself, as it happened, though only by a technicality. After it went after Asuriel with its pincers, Darren ripped those pincers off and jammed them through the building-sized monster’s skull. That didn’t kill the thing, but bisecting it from head to tail did the trick.
“These heavenly beasts aren’t so tough,” Darren remarked as Asuriel furiously dabbed at her hair, getting insect saliva out of it.
“I think you’re just too tough for them, Darren!” Asuriel said.
“Yeah!” Ashe clapped her hands in excitement. With Natashiel gone, this was the first time she could come out of Darren’s sword to join a fight in a while. “We kicked that giant bug’s ass!”
Even without his bonuses against demonic-aligned entities, Darren was a force to be reckoned with. He was a tiny fraction of the age of most of the seraphim in the Protectors, but years upon years of constant bloodshed and life-and-death battles had honed him beyond compare. Despite the Protectors being hundreds of years older, he had more time spent in battle than most of them.
Darren’s rapid-fire quest completions rocketed him to stardom levels. In their lengthy history, few Protectors were so zealous in completing everything on the quest board. Quests that had sat on that board for centuries were completed, one after another.
Fifth-Order beasts were slaughtered one after another, and wealth rolled into the new account Asuriel made for him with the local bank.
She was doing well for herself as well. After joining the Protectors, the profile she and Ashe were managing for Darren really took off. He would occasionally get stopped in the streets by the seraphim, wondering if he was really the guy they knew from the network.
“Please sign my chest!” A seraph ripped open her shirt, revealing a marker stuffed between her perky breasts.
Darren had done stranger things, so he wrote his name on the seraph’s chest.
Afterward, Asuriel took her aside. “That’ll be fifty.”
Darren wasn’t sure what Asuriel and Ashe were up to, but he had plenty of good food to eat, quests to complete, and lots of those imaginary credits the seraphim used in place of honest bronze coins. He was back in his element, and he was happy. If he had the rest of his women with him and didn’t have the threat of Kalaziel looming over his head, he could have seen himself doing this for a long time.
At work, Captain Gaviel was relying on Darren more and more when he realized how well Darren could manage the day-to-day affairs of the Protectors. After Darren’s quest, he spent an ever-increasing amount of time talking to other Protector captains. Most of the time, he went out to see them, but the few times captains from other cities visited him, Darren always made sure to be there. Most of the time, these other Protectors brought their second in command with them, and it was the only time Darren had the chance to take on new seraphim at the Fifth Order.
“Darren, keep First Officer Makiel company awhile. His captain and I need to speak in private,” Captain Gaviel said as he ushered the other captain to the back room. Darren nodded in approval, fairly certain they would discuss the ophanim problem and the footage Asuriel had shared. Things were moving quickly, and largely without him needing to involve himself directly.
Joining the Protectors had been a stroke of good fortune, and he was sorry he’d ever doubted Asuriel.
As soon as Captain Gaviel and the other captain had left, First Officer Makiel whirled on Darren. He was a prim and proper-looking seraph with shiny, undented armor and the unblemished looks of a warrior more accustomed to parades than combat.
“So... I hear you joined no more than a month ago, yet you’ve been promoted twice quickly.” He jerked a finger at Darren accusatorily. “I know you’re one of those network influencer types. Did you bribe your way to your position? I won’t tolerate corruption among the Protectors, even in branches as small and distant as Calabor. Look at your sloppy aura control. Can you even use your abilities without running out of Divine Aura?”
It looked like he was mad, which brought a grin to Darren’s face. The angry ones made the best sparring partners. His reply to Makiel’s accusation was straightforward.
“Let’s fight.”
Hours later, Makiel staggered out of the sparring arena, battered and bruised. His armor was no longer shiny, and Darren clapped him on the shoulder and told him he looked like a real warrior.
He’d actually been rather good, as far as Darren was concerned. Darren had never seen such nimble and well-practiced swordsmanship. It was like he had a counter prepared for every attack Darren threw his way, almost as though he could see the future.
Unfortunately for Makiel, Darren actually could see the future. And years of swordsmanship practice couldn’t make up for overwhelming speed and strength when combined with well-honed battle instincts. Makiel didn’t stand a chance.
There was a small crowd gathered to watch the fight, but Darren had pulverized the first officers of enough captains by now that everyone knew what was going to happen. A less observant person than Darren wouldn’t have noticed Captain Gaviel stepping into the crowd in the sparring arena. He’d watched Darren fight quite a few times, and Darren was pretty sure the captain’s offer of promotion had as much to do with Darren’s combat abilities as it did with his performance.
Darren wasn’t sure if Captain Gaviel still thought he could win a sparring match against him, but the outcome would be uncertain enough that the captain wasn’t willing to risk his pride in the attempt. After all, he was known as an exceptionally powerful warrior, so having a second in command as strong as Darren bolstered his reputation. It created an illusion that he was even more unbeatable, so long as it was never broken.
Darren didn’t begrudge him the lie. Maintaining a reputation was a type of skill as well, and the captain was putting his to good use toward Darren’s own ends. He’d be the last person to stand in the captain’s way. In fact, their entire relationship had been rather cordial, especially after Darren’s discoveries.
“Darren, I have a quest for you,” Captain Gaviel said.
Darren perked up.
“Complete it, and you’ll go from High Officer to First Officer, like Makiel there. I know there have been complaints about me promoting you so quickly, but you’ve proven adept enough at squashing such rumors that it won’t hurt to promote you once more.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I could use a First Officer with a good sword arm. I’m being called all the way to the Fifth Layer of the heavens to report my findings.”
Darren nodded. The captain was nervous and wanted backup.
“What’s the quest?”
Darren needed to do something to warrant a promotion before Captain Gaviel could give it to him. The first two were already extremely unusual, so Captain Gaviel would likely face scrutiny if the promotion was ever examined. Darren expected to slay some particularly fearsome beast.
“The most important calling any Protector can answer,” Captain Gaviel replied. “Saving some of our own. Kilean and his companions haven’t been back for weeks. They were due to check in yesterday, and they haven’t returned. Something must have happened, and we don’t abandon our own. Find out what happened. Save them if you can, or bring back what remains of them if you can’t.”
Darren nodded, surprised for a moment. The seraphim truly were different from demons. He’d seen fiends stabbing each other in the back for the pettiest reasons.
“It will be done,” Darren promised.
Natashiel was still sleeping off her exhaustion, so Darren and Asuriel were left alone. Ashe popped out of Darren’s sword to join them once they were out of the city.
“I can’t believe we have to look for that Kilean asshole...” Asuriel grumbled.
“He’s a Protector. You’re a Protector,” Darren replied.
“Yeah... doesn’t mean I like him, though.”
“It looks like all the weird messages I’ve been seeing about Kalaziel have let up,” Ashe said, eyes distant as she rode on Darren’s shoulder. She’d been spending a lot of time on the seraphim’s network to help with Asuriel’s social media and scour it for more information. Darren learned that political currents were blowing in the higher heavens through her.
The Prime Saints were gathering their influence, and factions had formed. Those factions were most apparent on the higher levels, but they had started to influence life down in Calabor. Captain Gaviel had arranged for the infected ophanim to be cut off from the local node, but not every city had been so quick or willing to act. Some openly hung banners supporting Kalaziel’s faction for whatever he had planned.
Why did he need support from other seraphim? What was he planning? There were so many questions for which they still didn’t know the answers. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people had died in Whiteguard. They hadn’t all gone into corrupting the ophanim. Where were the rest?
Those thoughts had troubled Darren even more as of late, and they played no small part in why he was so diligent with completing his quests. Nothing eased his stress more than smashing his enemies to paste.
The Protectors’ badges had small trackers, so Darren knew roughly where Kilean and his companions should have been.
“The signal should be just ahead...” Asuriel said as she pointed toward a nearby riverbank.
“I see the badges,” Darren said, swooping low and scooping them out of the stream.
He pulled them out of the water, revealing six battered Protector’s badges. Whoever had taken them off Kilean had thought this through enough that they knew to throw the badges away.
“We will trace them upriver,” Darren said. He leaned low. Tracking people upriver was hard on its own. Tracking tiny, inanimate objects would be harder still. It would take all his skills, experience, and unique abilities to—
“I found them!” Asuriel replied. “The point from which these badges were thrown in the river is in the location data.”
Darren straightened. “Lead the way.”
Asuriel and Ashe rode on either of Darren’s shoulders as he flew. The two investigated the local network and pulled all their seraph tricks to help the cause.
“I think there’s a farming village ahead,” Ashe said. “They should be coming into sight any moment now.”
Darren had been surprised to learn that seraphim farmed just like humans, but it made sense retrospectively. The fiends in the Seven Hells also farmed. It was one of the main ways they slowly grew their power over time. Slowly consuming and processing Demonic Aura internally did a lot to help them. He’d seen seraphim eating and drinking often enough that it was probably the same for them.
True to Ashe’s words, the farming village came into sight shortly thereafter.
“You should both focus,” Darren suggested to the two ladies on his shoulders. “We might have to fight.”
Ashe and Asuriel both hopped off. Asuriel conjured two spheres of Divine Aura in either hand, ready to fight. Ashe held her arms at the ready, though she drew no weapon and still had to stick close to Darren since her true body was Melancholy in his hands.
They landed on the outskirts of the village, figuring it best to wait and watch under the cover of the nearby trees.
“Identify any unusual behavior,” Darren asked while he tried to do the same.
He wasn’t familiar with how farming seraphim went about their work, but what he saw was strange. Great machines milled around the fields, and not all had seraphim as drivers. Some seemed to move through the fields entirely on their own. In the mortal world, they would have called it devilry or witchcraft. Darren wasn’t sure what they called it here in the heavens.
