'Gallop Brothers, respond.'
[Huh?]
[What?]
[Ah, War Chief!]
As soon as Zhen Liu's voice popped into their heads, all three of the Gallop Brothers slightly stiffened up like they were off-duty soldiers being caught with illicit substances on hand. Needless to say, this sudden pause led to Pegasoar and Railhorn dropping their "soccer ball."
Maggie had also noticed this sudden shift in behavior but figured it was sothing related to their nature as kaijin.
[To what do we owe the pleasure of being contacted like this, War Chief?] Depth Strider asked, acting as the lead for the kaijin. [Is everything alright in Rainbowden?]
'Could be better; y'all could probably sense that,' Zhen Liu politely answered. 'But I'm contacting you three for more official business.'
[Oooh, fancy.] Pegasoar chuckled at the statent. [Are you sending us to trample over soone's skull or did you need us to overthrow yet another slave encampnt?]
[Maybe he found another OOPArt and wants us to send it back to wherever it ca form?,] Railhorn suggested.
[OOPArt?]
[Out-of-place artifact. Like the satellite that was used to make us?]
[Ah!]
Ignoring the chatter between his younger brothers, Depth Strider took the lead.
[What would you have us do, War Chief?]
Zhen Liu had initially thought of simply sending the Gallop Brothers out into the wider world of the Dozing Salamander Continent with the simple task of tracking down and stomping out anybody who was even remotely related to Smoking Mirror, Buzza, or even those Shadow Garden guys who had been conspicuously quiet this whole ti. However, he then rembered that the Gallop Brothers were sitting on a literal gold mine of information.
'Just to double-check before I ask, are you guys still regularly receiving caravans from unsavory elents who exchange unwanted slaves for chunks of cursed aether tals?'
[That is still happening, yes.] Depth Strider confird.
Despite the Mines of Malevolence undergoing both a change in managent and a change in lifestyle arrangents, this was a fact that was only known by the very few or the very dead. In fact, most of the newly freed slaves are given the choice to strike off on their own or live in the mines so that they could make a permanent living. Unsurprisingly, many of these forr slaves choose the latter due to having nowhere else to go.
Regardless, as far as the rest of the underworld knew, the Mines of Malevolence was still the number one place to exchange useless people for useful goods. And such an assumption tended to lead to unexpected leads.
'Alright, I'm about to send you three a bunch of images via our connection,' Zhen Liu warned the trio as he ntally focused on a particular set of mories in his head. 'I need to know if you've seen or interacted with anyone that is remotely related to them.'
[In what way?] Railhorn asked.
'You'll see.'
Zhen Liu didn't bother sending any mories in relation to Smoking Mirror to the Gallop Brothers, because he had a fairly solid idea that he could just rattle the nearest underworld organization with a stick and that fragnt of a trickster god would sohow be connected. It kind of made sense, given Smoking MIrror's divine domain, but it was still sowhat unsettling.
Instead, Zhen Liu had sent the Gallop Brothers various images in relation to Alain, Buzza, the Fallen Clan, and for good asure, so mories pertaining to that weird masked bitch from the Shadow Garden. While he had no idea if she was going to pop back into his life like Alice had done recently, he might as well be warned about it sooner rather than later. Especially since the bitch had so weird power pertaining to [Fate].
"Damn, I really hope those guys don't end up working together," Zhen Liu muttered to himself after sending the aforentioned mories in the direction of the Gallop Brothers.' Anyways, did you guys end up trading with anybody even remotely related to these guys?'
When Zhen Liu sent over his mories of his enemies sans Smoking Mirror, he was expecting a "no".
They all might've been warriors from the underworld, but the chances of them being at Dozing Salamander was still relatively low. As such, when all three of the Gallop Brothers answered that they had indeed t so people who were related to the mories he had sent, Zhen Liu perked right the fuck up.
'I am sorry, but could you repeat that? What do you an you just saw these guys last week? Also, which guys?'
[All of them,] Depth Strider answered. [However, it wasn't all of them at once.]
...Flashback ti...
A little after Zhen Liu and his mortal allies had left the forr Mines of Malevolence, several carts belonging to the mine's usual clientele had arrived to conduct business as usual. Emblazoned on their sides was that sa emblem that Zhen Liu had seen while in Pearl Tusk, when he was fighting that crazy masked fate bitch and the subsequent fight with those assassin motherfuckers who had almost turned the Ragnarockers into sentient hellscapes.
These guys had brought with them several cart loads of predominantly children and sick adults, and were expecting a fairly decent amount of [Malevolent Gold] in exchange.
The Gallop Brothers did as expected, but made sure that they also snuck a zako on each of their wagons.
...Flashback ends...for now...
[...and after we made sure to have the zakos hidden amongst the gold and other tals, we sent this Shadow Garden guys on their way.]
'Hmmm.'
Depth Strider's story indicated that this caravan train belonging to the Shadow Garden had left in the direction opposite of Rainbowden. If mory served him right, the city in that direction was known as Ashbone, a place known for its high quality flesh trade.
Upon realizing this, Zhen Liu couldn't help but to wonder if this was truly an independent contract of a much larger.
'This is going to sound weird, but can you guys check the mories of the slaves brought in from those Shadow Garden guys? Call it a hunch.'
[Aye, aye.]
'Now, I believe you guys said that there was a caravan associated with the Fallen?'
[And they were led by soone that felt a lot like that Alain guy,] Pegasoar added.
[Well, not exactly like him,] Railhorn corrected. [For so reason, they reminded us more of Dante's knock off kaijin.]
'Uh oh...'
...New Flashback noises...
A little after the caravan from the Shadow Garden left, a entirely different one that wasn't in Dante's records had appeared.
The caravan was much smaller, with only two wagons to their na, but the make and quality was noticeably different. To be more precise, the design and emblem of these wagons were of foreign origin.
The Gallop Brothers didn't really notice at the ti, but with Zhen Liu's input, they realized that these wagons were from Roaring Tide.
Then again, they were more focused on the guy leading this particular caravan.
Leading the negotiations at the ti was a Roaring Tide warrior who looked surprisingly well kept for soone in the flesh trade, but was wearing loose clothes that obfuscated his figure.
However, there was one thing that the Gallop Brothers couldn't help but find incredibly familiar: the man had a golden orb embedded in his body.
Not on his chest, but one his right shoulder.
...Flashback end...
'That's...a worrying implication...hmmm.'
Zhen Liu was certain that he had killed the absolute shit out of Dante after he, as Captain Gallop, ramd a giant fucking spaceship into the knock-off Lord's abdon.
Needless to say, the Gallop Brothers had thought this as well.
[We don't think that Dante sohow survived that attack of ours,] Depth Strider assured Zhen Liu. [Everynlast one of his Kaijin carried a tiny bit of his aura that is hard to miss, and we didn't sense any of that coming from this weirdo.]
[We did sense so form of Chaos coming off of the man,] Pegasoar added. [But it was...weird. Like it was in conflict with the rest of the guy's cultivation, but also being leashed.]
[Leashed is a good word for that,] Railhorn nodded. [I was going to say that it felt as if this Chaos was being enslaved sohow.]
'Huh...'
Zhen Liu was silent, his mind speculating on the precise reason why this was playing out...until finally concluding that now wasn't the ti for such thoughts.
At least, not until he could find soone to interrogate the everliving daylights out of.
'Wait...I just realized that none of you ntioned which way this weird golden shoulder man and his caravan went off to after depositing their slaves. Why's that?'
[Oh, yeah, that was the other weird thing...they kind of...disappeared like ghosts after making their exchange.]
'Beg pardon?'
[No, disappear isn't the right word,] Depth Strider corrected. [It would be more accurate to say that they instantly teleported to so unseen destination using the power of Chaos.]
The mont this last tidbit was shared, Logos and Pathos couldn't help but to interject.
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