Time slowly passed while I waited for the Guild to give the announcement that the expedition was happening. For the most part, I spent time selling random items that I crafted while experimenting with Creation. It would have been easy to accept some requests from the Guild but I was content to just laze about in the inn getting money from a past-time. Had the Guild required higher ranked Adventurers I would have done all I could to get to the proper rank, but since they were allowing C-Ranks as the minimum I didn't see a need to cause an unnecessary stir.
When the time finally came I was actually quite surprised by not only the amount of people, but also the quality of the majority members. It wasn't strange considering that the Church was participating and giving a generous reward, however I didn't think that there were so many powerful people. There were actually fewer of us at C-Rank than those who were B who had shown up, something I wondered if was due to the notoriety of the Skala Pirates.
The group that was to lead the expedition was an S-Ranked team known as the Comrades of Melarc. Their leader was a half-orc man named Agamear, an unusual thing since not only were Orcs monsters, but it was widely known that there was no such thing as a female Orc, yet all Orc children were fully Orcish, regardless of the mother's race. There were several theories about why it was that way, but no one was willing to subject themselves to the fate of being left at the hands of an Orc, though I didn't doubt some of the more corrupt people of the world had forced others in secret.
Half-Orcs were extremely rare because of this as it required an unknown factor for them to be born, and even if they were, they usually didn't last long in the Orcish settlements because of their weaker nature, however, they were considered members of the Races by the system so even if they had descended from monsters, most people didn't hate them or persecute them, at least not openly. Supposedly Agamear had been raised by literal wolves, whom he still visited on occasion.
His four companions were no less interesting to me, a half-Elf by the name of Nin and his drunkard of an Elven father, Dave. along with a gloomy black-robed man named Mok, whose left hand was never visible, had a raven on his shoulder at almost all times, and claimed to be a devout worshipper and follower of the Gods, and finally, a man by the name of Julius. He was supposedly the son of a merchant who'd they'd freed and saved from a city that had been destroyed. I was almost certain that Julius had a Skill or Gift similar to my Corruption as he was the most attractive male I had ever-laid my eyes upon, and there was a certain air of allure that felt as if it was trying to drag me in.
Thankfully I didn't have any prolonged exposure to him and was able to somewhat guard against the effect, though it did make me miss my family. The plan for the subjugation was rather simple, we'd split between five ships, and sail out on to open waters. The pirates were sure to come to us and Agamear hoped to negotiate rather than get into a fight as they had the advantage in a fight over the water, but there were still plans in place should that not be an option, or if the negotiations failed.
Each person was assigned a position for several combat situations, with the most dangerous being filled by mostly the highest ranked members present, the sole exception being myself. In fact it was likely fair to say that I had the second most dangerous position, at least, for any normal person that would be dead if they were killed. I was to be Agamear's escort during the negotiations, which meant that if things fell through, me and him would be in the middle of enemy territory completely surrounded. Agamear's Orcish blood gave him a crazy amount of endurance and toughness, though it was still inferior to my own, which was the only reason I was chosen for the position anyway.
The large group of Adventurer's spent nearly three days gathered together before the time came and we all made our way to the docks and boarded our designated ships. Up until this point I had been covered by my cloak, so it took until Agamear asked me bluntly about my attire that I remembered how outlandish my combat gear was. I smiled sheepishly while scratching my head. "I've got Skills that rely on skin exposure and taking damage, so despite appearances this is rather practical."
Much to my surprise he nodded in understanding. "I see. I thought perhaps you had different customs, much like when I first found human civilization." he said calmly. "I'll warn you though, not everyone can be fooled by illusions, so don't rely on them too much." His hand patted my shoulder before he walked off leaving me tense as I scanned the rest of the participants.
How had he seen through my illusion? It wasn't grand and unless one was checking for it I doubted they'd notice since the sole thing I'd changed was my eyes and skin. To others, I should appear as a green-eyed Elf, with sun-kissed skin and my black hair, an uncommon Elven hair color, but not outlandish enough to bother checking for any illusions.
Part of me wondered if he had a passive Skill that tore away illusions, however, I was unable to check since Seshat's library was still unable to be used along with the rest of my Aspect Skills. For the most part, I could somewhat recreate the passive effects of the majority of the Skills with enchanted jewelry, so I wasn't really inconvenienced, it was just a shame that I was lacking the main part of the Skills, the things that made them Aspect Skills in the first place, however once I was able to reformat my soul and see my Status I was confident that at the very least I could figure out what had happened to them since I was almost certain that I had fully absorbed the bizarre black mix that had been extracted from me. However that was a future problem, along with the fact that Agamear could see through my illusion since only about half-an-hour passed since we left the harbor before seven ships were spotted coming towards us. The lead vessel was red and had a pattern that looked like scales, while the rest were smaller boats that had little to no decoration.
There was a moment of silence before a red-haired man floated from the red ship along with another man as a floating platform formed in the middle of the sky, two chairs and a table in the center. "I am Zinok Skala, Captain of the Red Scale and one of the Leaders of the Skala Pirates. I would very much like to discuss things with your leader." the red haired man, Zinok shouted.
