The squad of Ronke, Denre and Aeneas walked to the pad. On getting to the pad, people queued to purchase entrance tickets that was checked at the door of the flying saucer. But for the CFR agents, it was all different. They simply walked into the pad and greeted the pad conductor to gain entrance. Their transport cost was fully funded by the CFR as they had to do lots of moving about as pertaining to taming and subduing dragons.
The Flying Saucer, a round large disk that was bloated at the middle, swirled slowly, humming as it gathered Wind Agbara to move.
Ronke smiled lightly, shoving Aeneas out of the way to get a window seat. The latter grudgingly, in turn shoved away Denre to get a middle seat beside Ronke while Denre had to settle for the alley chair in the row.
Wind Agbara, that was the aspectual speciality of Orisha Oya, Mother of storms and intercessor for the dead.
When she had found that she was a unique familiar, she had had high hopes for learning the Aspectual Law of Wind and Storms as pertaining to her being an Air Familiar. However regardless of the amount of energy she had, she still could not comprehend the law. Learning the Aspectual law of Wind which happened to be among the toughest laws to master, would inadvertently boost her fighting progress much.
Yes, she was an air Familiar. But her Elemental Affinity with air only made her manipulate air, not wind.
Wind was the more violent form. With Wind Agbara, she could spin off Large scale attacks like wind blades, concussion blasts and whatnot unlike her Elemental capability that needed her to be in range before dealing any damage.
Pooh! Ronke exhaled, freeing her mind from thoughts as she gazed through the window.
The Flying Saucer was lifting already, boisterous winds spinning heavily around the disc like vehicle. The air itself stilled as wind was being sucked in, probably by a high cla.s.s Wind Agbara user at the pilot seat, propelling the disc into the sky.
"Landing Pad 276 Reached. Pa.s.sengers, disembark." A feminine voice floated about, coming into everyone"s ears.
The trio disembarked, shoving through the various people that were trying to disembark also. On getting down, Aeneas heaved, lookin towards a towering iron plated building with a huge fence containing several turrets and with several weathered marks on it, evidence of its long standing history.
"Home, sweet home." Denre muttered, walking off towards the building.
In no time, they crossed the road separating them from the building, arriving at its gate.
"h.e.l.looo.." a cheery voice sounded coming from a pinpoint of red light on the gates pillars. "You are CFR agents, right?"
"Yes, Array! Squad number 1176" Ronke replied quickly.
The Control Array was some sort of soul genie that was in charge of monitoring, authorizing, securing and the general seeing to of the activities of the CFR building. In Earth, Ronke mused, she had heard that they would call such, an Artificial Intelligence or a Program.
"Why in a hurry, Squad Captain. Don"t you want to tell me how your day went?" The cheeriness in the voice seemed to drop.
"Just open up, okay!" She retorted.
If the Array was given the chance to engage in a conversation, it would do so, forgetting what function the person had come to it for.
And seeing it was dusk, she didn"t want to be locked outside just because the Array was talking to her.
"Fine! Such a kill sport!" The Array snorted as the large iron gates with engraved dragon face at the center slid apart.
"Oh, we have the Dumb Grakon here. Hi, Denre." The Array taunted, as Denre frowned heavily.
"Ignore it." Aeneas calmed Denre as they walked through the gate.
"Oh, it"s Aeneas. You are equally as dumb as him."
Aeneas stiffened, his hands clenching into fists as veins spread across his face. Just then, Ronke reached back, pulling Seneas along with her.
"You better thank your captain, boy. Or I"d have had your soul essence for a drink." The Array taunted on.
They walked on, leaving the taunting Array behind. In front of them was a large expanse of land. Further ahead, was the towering building that they had seen from outside. Except that it was much closer.
Two giant pillars shot out rom the ground, bearing the weight of a heavy decking. The s.p.a.ce below and behind the pillars was covered with mortar and a signage in Yoruba that translated to "Reception".
"HEY..." A booming voice came from their left, earning their stares.
The owner of the voice was hulking in form, in companion of two other similar beings, having scaled cheeks. The Grakons nodded to the advancing team, holding up gla.s.ses of wine.
"JOIN US for a drink, Denre. WE HAVE MISSED YOU." The lead grakon with bald head and a flowing crimson gown yelled.
"Is THAT PALM WINE?" Denre replied, his eyes glittering.
"Sure! THE FINEST BREED!" Another grakon replied, resting his back on a tree trunk.
Denre made to go by was held back by Ronke.
"What now? You dragon tamers have nothing to do now? Or shall I tell the Guardian that the dragon tamers are flexing outside their zone?" Ronke countered.
"AWL."
"SPOILSPORT! We are DONE with our work ALREADY." The lead grakon replied. "It"s you Dragon Scouters that are wasting Away instead."
Ronke sighed.
The CFR was roughly divided into Scouts, Tamers and Fighters. She, was a scouter, along with her team mates. Their duties were to investigate and find potential dragon or beast trainable spots and contain it if possible.
The Tamers duties were usually establish communication with the beasts or dragons, befriend or destabilize them while the fighters took to dealing damages the scouts could not deal. The fighters were roughly composed of drakons but not that it mattered.
The grakon tamers were usually trouble finding and looking for ways to taunt every scout team they could see.
Denre ought to have been part but he opted for more field work instead.
"Go kiss some dragon b.u.t.t." Ronke shot back.
"Enough! Adrele, go back to the pens. And you, Ronke, about time you showed up." A female voice with a loud pitch tore through their conversations.
The speaker, clad in red armless top with gold V-shaped belt seating atop a white skirt with gold embroidery at the bottom, stood wearing ponytails and a red fluttering skirt cape. On her head was a green gem signifying her status as a Nature Drakon.
Ronke and her squad soon reached the reception entrance, flanked at the front by the Guardian Enamore. As soon as they got in, warm lights flooded their eyes, revealing a counter like desk with a humanoid seating there and a corridor stretching far towards the left, lit up by various inscriptions of Agbara inducing enchantments.
"Did you get it?" The guardian asked, immediately.
"No! It"s..." Ronke was interrupted.
"It"s what?" Enamore"s tiny eyes searched Ronke"s form. "You had a death imbued soul sensor and yet you couldn"t get even a trace of its essence?"
"I mean, it"s not exactly like that. We actually foun-..." Ronke tried explaining only to be interrupted by the guardian once more.
"Oh, keep shut! Asoju(1) Verasin is in there, from the Adze Circle. I gave him my word believing that you would get something back. I counted on you but look what I got?" Enamore exploded, her yellowy face becoming strained and red.
"Guardian, JUST HEAR..." Denre started, waving both hands in the air.
"Shut up, you! Don"t even dare speaking when I didn"t talk to you. All muscles and no brain." Enamore fired, pointing a thin finger at the grakon"s face.
"Please, listen to what..."
"You too, SHUT UP!" Enamore flung another finger, pointing Aeneas in the face.
"Asoju Verasin is in there and will soon wake. What do I tell him at the meeting, this dusk? Oh sorry, we failed even with the death soul sensor you gave us... imagine..."
Just then, a gingerly blue skinned humanoid girl with auburn hair and a short blue dress walked in from the corridor.
"Greetings Guardian, Asoju Verasin is up and ready for the meeting."
"Take him to the conference room. We will be joining him shortly." Enamore frowned, pulling her fingers away from faces.
"W-what? Meeting at dusk? When did the CFR start holding meetings at dusk?" Aeneas asked, confused.
"Don"t you be silly. The Adze Circle are Vampires. The stronger they are, the less they can stay under sunrise. And this is the major reason why Realms fear the Adze Circle much and also why this meeting has to be at dusk.
Why am I not surprised that you don"t know this? Of course, I am dealing with idiots here." The Guardian raved, steam fizzling out of her ears.
"You three, follow me?" Enamore replied as she picked her pace, after the messenger girl.
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(T/N)
1. Emissary