Book 5 - Chapter 14 - Scattered Treasures (2/2)

Cloudhawk was happy to hear it. He immediately summoned the core of his fledgling kingdom; Dawn, Gabriel, the drunk, Barb, and Claudia.

Dawn strode into the room with a scowl. Her pretty eyes looked ready to spout fire. Seeing her in one of her moods, Cloudhawk felt the sudden urge to just turn the other way. He felt the premonition immediately. What had pissed off their noble miss this time? It took only a moment for him to hazard a guess; for the last several days, he’d been spending his time with Hellflower. Often, no one would see him for a long time.

Dawn Polaris considered herself a noble among nobles. Yet since coming to Greenland City she felt more like a coolie. Every day was spent in the dirt, helping to build up this piece of shit town. Not once had Cloudhawk come to look in on her. How could she not be furious?

That wasn’t all. After his expedition with Hellflower, Cloudhawk had locked himself away in the fort for several days and had been completely absent from public view. About the only person in the gods-forsaken town she could connect with was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t even go share a drink and blow off steam.

It was like he didn’t care about her at all!

Dawn was not the sort of person who hid how she was feeling. Nor was she the sort willing to put up with things she found to be unfair. This meeting was her opportunity to confront Cloudhawk with his sins. He had to admit he was afraid, so he cut her off before she could explode. ”Dawn, you’ve come just in time. The last few days I’ve been working on these gifts. I haven’t even slept. Come take a look!”

Gifts? What gifts?

Dawn fixed him with suspicious eyes as Cloudhawk produced one item after another. Swords, bows, spears – all items of solid quality he’s brought back for them to use. More importantly he’d already fixed them all.

Dawn looked at the pile, shocked. “How did you bring back so many? Did you raid a Skycloud demonhunter family or something?”

“Look at this one!” Cloudhawk held up a yellow pearl with flecks of white inside. “This is called a marshpearl, and it can create an area of swamp to attack your foes. Good for strong an intractable targets. This silver armor here is also more than it seems. It’s got sturdy defenses, and paired with your aegis mirror you’ll be practically invincible!”

“Woah, these look like high-grade relics!” Barb marveled over the collection. “Sir, you’re being unfair! All this for her, just because she’s pretty. Gabriel, don’t you think so?”

Gabriel rubbed his nose and looked covetously at Cloudhawk’s haul. The exchange told Cloudhawk that Barb and Gabriel had gotten closer. A lot of chemistry… there was probably something going on there.

“Hmph, so what if he’s playing favorites?” Dawn’s irritation had vanished. She snatched up her two relics and jumped with excitement, even kissing Cloudhawk before cackling with glee. “Hehehe! Come and get ‘em if you want ‘em!”

Cloudhawk wiped the saliva from his mouth with a bandaged hand awkwardly and coughed. “Everyone’s got something.”

“I’ve got two psychic-type relics. One is a bracelet to help with hypnosis and the other is a mirror that attacks a victim’s mind. Claudia’s already got the Seeker’s Torque, but since you aren’t on the front lines much you can take the bracelet. It will help relieve mental fatigue and aid in teaching. Barb, you can have the mirror.”

Cloudhawk then picked up a blood-colored dagger.

“This one’s called Soulbite. Fits you I think, Gabby.”

Gabriel’s darker personality, Naberius, fancied himself a sculptor. With a tool like this, he’d be even more of a nightmare.

Last was the drunk. His relic was destroyed in the fight against Arcturus so he’d been running around without a weapon now for a little while. Cloudhawk presented him with a relic called Morning Twilight.

It was a sword whose pretty name didn’t do it justice. This one was easily among the strongest relics Cloudhawk had brought back with them. It wasn’t much inferior to Dawnbreaker, if at all.

“It still isn’t fair! We all get one but Dawn gets two!”

Barb made a show of pouting but she was happy with her gift. Although she’d been focusing on martial arts, her mental powers had also improved quite a lot. She’d never had a proper combat relic before besides low-level stuff like exorcist bows. With her new toy she’d fight fierce as a tiger!

She was all the more convinced it was a wise choice to follow Cloudhawk.

“What are you doing, giving all of these away?” Dawn thought of Cloudhawk, but only after safely putting her own relics away. “How about yourself? I know you can use any relic you find, so if you kept these for yourself wouldn’t you be undefeatable?”

“Well look here, you do think about me.”

Cloudhawk lifted his cloak, revealing to the others a gauntlet encasing his left hand. It covered almost his entire arm, like some sort of robotically enhanced limb.

Cloudhawk had plenty of relics, and there were limits to how many a person could use. When it came to relics, more didn’t necessarily mean better. More important was finding one suitable for your needs. To him, the gauntlet was more valuable to him than all the other relics he’d given away put together.

In one trip he’d increased the power of his whole crew by leaps and bounds!

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