Chapter 28 - [The Guild Hall]

Solana and I quietly ate the old couples’ homemade cookies while we sat on that bench.

“Can you really control three sparks at once?” Solana asked, breaking the silence. She was smiling as she spoke, and her voice carried a tone of impressed shock because of her acute awareness of the difficulty of using Hellfire.

“Yes,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of oatmeal cookie. Without another word, I shot three Hellfire sparks simultaneously into the sky. After a moment, the three sparks transformed into small, flaming circles, like the flaming rings at a carnival. We would just need a lion to jump through them, and the image would be complete.

It had taken me more than a year to figure out how to form circles with Hellfire. You had to elongate the core into a long, millimeter-thick line to form the spark into different shapes. Actually maintaining the shape of the circles was somewhat similar to plate-spinning. The shape would naturally degrade if I didn’t focus on it for more than five seconds, so I would have to manually reshape each of the three circles within that time frame.

My mind went back to Armond’s fight with the outlanders. He had to manually maintain the protective circle he had formed around us, even as he killed the thirty outlanders single-handedly. It would be no overstatement to say that our presence on the battlefield halved his combat effectiveness. Yet, even with such a significant handicap, he made the battle look easy.

“That’s great, Thale!” Solana smiled widely. “When I was your age, I didn’t even know I could use Hellfire!” Her good-natured attitude astounded me. If I had been in Solana’s shoes, I would certainly have resented my much younger and much more skilled sibling.

The three sparks disappeared simultaneously as if they had never been there. I smiled, immensely grateful for the loving family that I had been born with, and said, “Thank you.” After a moment, I continued, “We have one more stop. I think we should get to it.”

Solana sprang to her feet, and I stood a moment later. “Yep!” she said cheerfully. “Our last stop is the Guild Hall! Let’s go!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Oh, right. Solana’s statement reminded me that I had to talk to Sendrick Grimhold before the day was over. I had intended to talk to him as soon as we were done, but this presented me with the perfect opportunity to go a bit earlier than expected.

“How about I take this one by myself?” I said with a smile. “You handled the last stop, so I’ll handle this one.”

“Are you sure?” Solana asked, looking at me out of the side of her eye.

“Absolutely!” I said, trying to exude a youthful energy that did not come naturally to me.

“If you’re sure…” Solana said. “I’ll see you back at the manor, then.”

----------------------------------------

Two of the Hellfire sparks within the Guild Hall had been extinguished over the past month. This was to be expected, ultimately, as the Grimhold Guild was constantly filled with people hurriedly bringing goods in and taking goods out.

I told the receptionist, a young woman named Gertrude, that I was there to re-ignite the extinguished Hellfire sparks. With a single raised eyebrow, she let me into the Guild Hall. As I passed, I saw as she handed a small scrap of paper to a young man, and the man left in a hurry.

I passed several fast-moving employees of the Grimhold Guild as I approached the first of the two extinguished Hellfire sparks. When I reached my destination, I saw a brass brazier that did not contain a spark. Despite the evidence of an accident occurring, the brazier and the stone wall it was built into seemed completely undamaged. Any damage must have been repaired before I got there. Whatever people said about the Grimhold Guild, they never said it was inefficient.

A spark of Hellfire sprang from my hand, filling the empty brazier with a mote of flame. I used my pen to place a checkmark next to the second-to-last item on the list given to us by Armond. There was just one more spark that had to be replaced, and it was on the third floor. I sighed heavily and turned toward the nearest staircase.

Once I turned my head, I perceived the smiling face of Sendrick Grimhold. This time, however, his smile was not one of professional courtesy. No, his smile was that of a wolf that had just spotted a potential feast.

“Greetings, Lord Thale,” Sendrick said. “I see that you’ve once again decided to grace our humble guild hall.”

I was immediately aware that the drug had worked. When Sendrick looked at me, he saw an opportunity for great profit. Excellent. That was exactly the reaction I wanted to induce from him.

“Hello, Mr. Grimhold,” I said. “Right now, I’m here to replace some of your extinguished sparks. Do you care to join me?”

“Of course,” Sendrick said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but I knew that he wouldn’t have given me such preferential treatment unless he saw a potential business opportunity.