Tinel the New Advisor, Marcus the Defence Minister, Liza the Royal Magic Scholar, Masked the Hidden, Gilmore the Grassmace, Elena the Potioneer, Morpheus the Dreamcaster, Prance the Swordsman, Thema the Bard, and Orun the Gunner.
They are the fearsome Queen’s Ten.
Their tales start to proliferate from word of mouth, and their names start to garner attention from across the continent. They are the best the Blumend Kingdom has to offer. They are always busy and rare faces to see in the capital.
However, in a new Shrine that the Queen has built in honor of the Exalted One, all of such ten gather.
Sofalia Din Blumend gives a warm salute to the statue with the vestige of Van the Third. Behind her is the former Queen’s Ten similarly giving a salute. “The Shrine of War,” Soflaia comes to call this place like that.
After consulting with Fenrir, Sofalia decides to build a shrine for her benefactor. It is not really a shrine but looks more like a pedestal where a statue stands in the center. It has the air of solitude. The statue is about seventy meters tall and is exposed to the elements of the sun, rain, and wind.
The shrine has no walls but simply pillars recording Van the Third’s deed.
One of the texts says “Here once lies the first castle of the founding King of Blumend.” This place is exactly that. This is where Sofalia sets to fight the Trinity of the Sky, and this is where her former advisor digs the hidden Legacy of the ancient Blumend.
This Shrine has no particular purpose. According to Fenrir, the Ancients simply like to be remembered. Sofalia doesn’t know exactly what that means, or if it is the same as worshipping, but she is trying…
“It will be nice if I can go to White Peaks… right now…” But Sofalia cannot. She is busy. Moreover, her advancement to the next tier is nigh. Her Legacy Pathway is the only one in the world. ‘Fenrir’s Descendant’ is that much of a rare class.
It is a Legacy Pathway that only the descendant of Blumend can walk. It is the same Legacy that her former Advisor is able to unearth from Blumend’s founding King’s first castle.
“My people,” Sofalia calls to her closest aides, the Queen’s Ten. “I shall leave the Kingdom to you… I shall make my journey westward and advance my Legacy once and for all. In my return, I will be stronger, and so is the Kingdom!”
“Lord,” The Queen’s Ten answers.
At her departure, the Queen’s Ten gathers on the Exalted One’s statue and utter their sincere prayers. After that, they disperse to tend to their duties.
***
It has been a month since the Queen’s departure.
The Queen’s Ten— the name is kind of stuck with them as despite finishing their contract, they still refer to each other this way. In heart, they have become Knights worthy of their titles. But now, they are no longer the Hired Knights they used to be.
Among the ten, only Tinel is 7th Tier, thus she is saddled with the great responsibility of protecting the Kingdom. As an advisor, she also has the job of advising the officials, the ministers, and the parliament.
Her power is only second to the Queen.
“Ugh… This is tiring…” She complains while she reads over the papers littering the Queen’s desk. “I should send the others… And this is also a problem…”
Tinel feels troubled as two of her colleagues have reached the proper [Level] to advance and evolve their legacy. Marcus Steel, and Liza Ounder Paraz. It has been only a month since the Queen left, and now she is facing a rather complicated problem.
“I said, I must go first, you muscle head! My Legacy Advancement is more important!”
“No! Mine is more important! Twig! As Defence Minister, my personal strength matters a lot!”
The two of them, warrior and mage, are quarreling like kids in front of her. For now, they are only exchanging verbal assaults but any second now, the two will definitely end up dueling each other to death.
Tinel cannot have that. “ENOUGH!” At her commanding voice, the two finally shut up. “How about this? Rock-Paper-Scissors, yeah?”
It is the sacred duel that the Exalted One has them go over with when there is an argument of who must go first, and who must go last. Usually, they resort to this to decide who will get the shitty missions.
“AH~ You BASTARD!” Liza cries as Marcus wins fair and square.
Marcus cannot help but pour salt on Liza’s injuries. “Bah, rocks are invincible!”
After that, Tinel returns to her job of working with the appeals, requests, petitions, and various concerns the Kingdom needs to address.
***
Gilmore the Grassmace. He earns the nickname ‘Grassmace’ because of his fighting style to conjure weapons out of plant life. He is a Druid who specializes in close combat quarters.
Currently, he is in the northern parts of the Umchaka Forest with the job to bring supplies to White Peaks where the Queen’s relatives and the Exalted One are currently staying.
“Have you been in White Peaks, Marc?” Gilmore is a big man, with blonde hair, and a braided beard. He appears to be aggressive on the outside, but he is actually a softie who hates it most when nature is being trampled.
Simply put, he is an environmentalist.
Marcus’s crimson eyes squint at the sight of the rumbling bush. “White Peaks, you say? Never been there… I heard there is a lot of undead there.” When Marcus is about to draw his great sword from his back, Gilmore signals him to not.
As a Tier 6 Druid, Gilmore’s skills are more than enough as a substitute for scouting and taking care of any foe in the forest. “I will take care of this…” Gilmore raises his staff, and with a thought, vines start slithering from under his clothes.
Skill— Forest Magic: Grass Mace
A gigantic mace forms on Gilmore’s staff, and with a single motion, he strikes whatever enemies are hiding from the bush. He makes quick work of the High Goblins and all sorts of critters on the way with a single swing of his mace without harming the plant life around.
It is as if his grassy mace softens at a touch of plant life, but still maintains sturdy deadly weight when it connects with the monsters.
***
Liza is pissed, but that is what it is… It is a fair fight… “Agh… Why do I suck on Rock-Paper-Scissor?”
On her way to STRF to attend to her duties of managing research operations, she encounters Masked, one of the strongest in the Queen’s Ten. “Oi, Masked, play rock-paper-scissor with me…”
… After a few tries, Liza finally gives up. “Where are you going? Aren’t you supposed to be at your office by this time of the hour?”
“I am going for a leave… I will advance my Legacy…”
“WHY!?”
Masked looks at Liza pitifully, and his contempt is clear behind his mask. “Before the day the Exalted One was about to leave, I asked him what I needed to do to advance my Legacy Pathway. He kindly told me the Quest that requires my advancement, so I don’t need to go to White Peaks anymore.”
“You can… do that?”
***
The Hidden.
It is a secret organization that deals with information handling, espionage, sabotage, assassination, etcetera. Masked is responsible for leading this organization, however, because Masked is filing for a leave of absence, the second-in-command has no choice but to step forward to substitute as temporary first-in-command.
Morpheus the Dreamcaster is still at his Tier 6, but he is close at hand to achieving the next tier. Give him a few more months, but his training has to stop for some time as the paperwork on his table suddenly increases severalfold.
Despite being a member of the Queen’s Ten, he has not been given a leading position. But as second-in-command, he really has no complaints. He is not bitter about it, as being second-in-command is just as luxurious as being the Defence Minister in terms of benefits. It is because the job is very dangerous!
In fact, Masked has closed encounters with deaths already since the founding of Hidden. The sharks from the criminal underworld are just that scary!
“Now, I have to deal with those dangerous bastards we have a transaction with…” Morpheus complains. He chews on his long dark hair in consternation. “Sigh… The Kingdom better compensate me for emotional injury!”
He casts dream magic to enter a particular noble’s dream.
The work of a Dreamcaster is not really enviable as most often they have to resort to honey traps while digging for information on their targets. That means, in the dreams, he sometimes pretends to be a seductive woman of the sort.
If only he is a Tier 7 Dreamwalker then he can easily breeze all of that through!
***
In an office just adjacent to Morpheus is the Alchemy Workshop. Elena the Potioneer is a Tier 6 Alchemist who specializes in creating potions. She has been a valuable member of STRF since its founding, and now she has dozens of apprentices on her command.
“Hey, this Minks Solution is not up to my specifications… I will need it pink, damn it!” She cusses at her assistant as she realizes she is behind schedule.
Her overseer, the Royal Magic Scholar enters her workshop. It’s Liza Ounder Paraz. “Hey, let’s play rock-paper-scissors!” Liza demands only to lose every time.
“Make sure you meet the deadline!” Liza angrily storms off refusing to elaborate on her desire to play rock-paper-scissor. "The training mages will need the healing potions!"
Elena returns to her potion work ignoring the schadenfreude with Liza. “Damn it, I will need to invent a new potion to advance my Legacy…”
It appears that Elena is actually among the smart ones who bravely asks the Exalted One the Legacy Advancement method before he leaves away. If Liza learns of this, she might figuratively die of being left behind.
***
Meanwhile, Prance the Swordsman, Thema the Bard, and Orun the Gunner are together. They are sent to Skyvan Empire to demand compensation. It is a crazy mission, but they have experienced worse.
Prance is a young man with yellowish-brown hair. He wields a long sword by his hip and wears comfy robes with no metal armor in him. He whistles playfully at the sight of the Empire that sits atop the flying boulders from the sky. “Hey, isn’t this a suicide mission? We are only Tier 6… I mean Skyvan must have lost a lot of powerful people since we killed their people, but it is an empire! It will have hidden strength!”
“Yeah… I know, right… I don’t even know why we are sent here…” Thema complains. She wears the typical bard attire except she also wears plate armor on top of her gear. She has a convenient banjo hanging by her back, and a colorful hairstyle with streaks of pink, yellow-green, and sky blue.
Tier 6 Swordsman and Tier 6 Magic Bard.
“Ahem,” Orun the Gunner fakes a cough to catch his companion’s attention. “I am actually at Tier 7 already… It is Tier 7, Desperado… So please call me Orun the Desperado from now on…”
His two companions send him confused gazes.
“How?” "Since when?”
“Uuh…” Orun awkwardly defends his case. “I… I asked the Exalted One before he left my Legacy Pathway, and he told me easily how. I can also see Levels like the Queen her majesty, so I know I am only two levels away… After a week of grinding, I immediately set forth to advance…”
The middle-aged man with streaks of white hair on his head backs off a bit from his companions as they inch closer to him. Orun grabs his cowboy hat and tilts it in a way that it can cover his face. He fears that he might show how smug he actually feels.
***
In the Shrine of War, a single silhouette stands before the statue.
Flowing silver hair, with a single strand of black adorns her head. Tall. And a sword resembling a Katana hangs on her waist. An ashen silver robe cloaks her thin figure with embroidery of gold. With a soft whisper, she softly calls to that statue. “Father… I am coming for you…” Tears flow from her cheeks unabated, and a sense of excitement wells in her heart.
