Chapter 9 – The Rashakaan

            The ship had been in the air for quite some time now and out the window Alos could see a mountainous peninsula surrounding the outline of the water. There were mere meters from the shores to the nearly vertical sloping hills that eventually formed into jagged wind cut mountains, the ship flying over the canyon they made. Patches of greenery along the mountain side were emphasized by the surrounding web of golden brown sunlit sand. Clouds sat low in the area shrouding the peaks of the mountains from his view, but as the ship continued to rise up into the sky, it eventually broke through the thick blanket of clouds which lay snug across the sky. High pitched moans escaped the turbines as they charged and once they reached capacity, the ship shot off past the domed peaks of the mountains.

            A few hours passed before the ship began to close in on its destination. Alos spent the time flicking his Orb into the air, catching it, and then repeating the process. He was bored, really bored, but this was a sentiment he wouldn’t admit to himself. He didn’t want to check his Orb for messages, scared of what might be there. He didn’t want to try and get to know the rest of the crew better, since to him they were no better than a gang of low life criminals, well except Dardaños, he seemed alright. Most of all, he was trying not to think about his right hand, or lack thereof really, because every time his attention wandered back to it, phantom needles of pain stabbed into his wrist. So he remained, bored, eyes glazed over at the window, flicking up his Orb while he sat alone in the main room.

            The ship slowed down and began to descend.

            Curious, Alos walked over to the window and looked down at the area below. There was an extensive shipyard packed with all different types of ships, cruisers, and even a few carriers. Most of the different vehicles were parked into individual accommodation units, which were like large parking garages. The units were half open cylinders rising about three stories off the ground, stretching out for at least three hundred feet in diameter. On the top of the unit was a group of workers waiting for their ship to land.

            Xri poked his head through the south hall doorway.

            “It is going to be much less boring off the ship.”

            Alos threw his head back into the couch clenching his eyes shut. His head rolled over, looking at Xri.

            “What is this place anyways?”

            “The one and only Jmechk’s Salvage Yard of course.”

            Alos’ head perked up in interest.

            “Salvage yard? So they sell broken down ship parts?”

            Only the lower half of Xri’s face stuck out from the cover of his hat, but Alos could see his lip clenching, amused smirk.

            “Among other objects of interest.” Xri said, hiding his true intentions behind his facetiousness. “They also run an auction which is the main reason we are here.”

            “I guess I’ll come.” Alos said, shrugging his shoulders as he got up and walked over to Xri. Xri smiled, nodding his head, and led him down the hallway, through the set of double doors, down the small flight of stairs, and into the original room Alos boarded the ship from. Inside the room, standing on the platform was the entirety of the crew save Bert. Alos, following Xri, walked onto the platform, which descended.

            “Where’s Bert?” Alos asked looking around at the crew around him.

            “Bert is our familial hermit,” Xri replied, shrugging, “he would rather stay aboard.”

            When the platform reached the ground, the crew was greeted by three men in raggedy brown jumpsuits, caked with dirt, grease, and green stains. The man in front had a hardback scroll; its expandable screen also containing a plastic expandable backing. Alos had never seen these in person before, but had seen some pictures of them on the net. They were extremely outdated compared to the newer scrolls and Orbs, and if he had to guess Alos figured the scroll the guy was holding was more than twenty years old.

            “Welp I’ng jus gunna need ta get jyer license, nd class type.” The man holding the scroll said, cocking his jaw forward pursing his lips at Xri.

            Xri turned to the rest of the crew and said, “I'll take care of this, you can all go look around. I think you will enjoy what you see lad.”

            “Let’s head inside boy, the auction should be startin’ soon.” Levitas said, the other three still standing beside him. Alos hadn’t realized he was lagging behind but he couldn’t help but pause and look up at the sky.

            The sun was beginning to set off in the distance, its orange rays fading to a deep red with a rim of magenta lining the horizon. There were no clouds in the sky, only the trace thickness of smog catching the beautiful colors. The sunset was warm, not only through its color and heat, but mainly in some kind of spiritual sense. It reminded him of the sunsets over the ocean back home in Optimaris, where he’d make his way to the top balcony at his house and just sit, with himself, by himself. Those days were gone though, for better or for worse, he knew he could never go home. The sunsets were only memories now.

            “Yeah let’s go.”

            Alos followed the four inside through a door on the half cylindrical unit, which spiraled outwards and into the walls. They passed through and entered into a room that appeared to be a diagonal elevator. Along the walls of the elevator platform they stood on were thick chain link fences that stretched from floor to ceiling with the outer lining walls just outside. Just left of the spiral doorway, there was an old touch screen display, small cracks pressed into and around its edges, with two large graphical arrows, one pointing up and one pointing down. Zeith’s finger wormed out from inside the sleeve of his robe, pressing the down arrow and then slithered back into the dark abyss of his sleeve hole. The room shifted with a loud mechanical crunch and a sudden jerk, and then with the sound of rotating gears and cogs, it began to move down and inwards.

            “I’m feelin’ good about today’s auction boys.” Levitas announced through the rumbling of the elevator, tilting his head back with a smile. “Based off the little research I was able to get done on the way over, there’s gonna be a lot of bidders.”

            Levitas’ smile stretched out even further, bearing the smallest slivers of smoke yellowed teeth from within. He reached up and gave Dardaños a solid pat on the back.

            “The more bidders, the more bids, and in turn, the more money we make. Yes indeed, today is gonna be big.”

            Zeith turned to Levitas his brow slanted furrowing under his mask of hair in an angry, discontented stare.

            “Can you not see your eager greed only grows the boy’s malice?

            Fool! You control your tongue no better than a virgin with a reckless phallus.”

            An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, a feat that Alos was beginning to realize Zeith had a knack for. It was pretty funny though, at least to him. What could anyone really say in response to that?

            Once they had reached the end of the elevator’s minute long trek, the door at the bottom spiraled open and they exited out into the next room.

            The room opened up into a massive underground plaza sized no less than a standard sporting arena. Giant screens hung from the walls displaying statistics and numbers next to specific items which had a bold alphanumeric tag in the corner and a timer counting down at the top. One of the displays showed a newly dismantled slime tank system, with the associated tag listed as K89076. A list of streaming numbers scrolled past, listing incrementally rising prices until the timer reached zero. Then a loud buzzer sounded and a final price in bright red font overlaid the image of the item, below it in flashing text was, what Alos would guess, the name of the buyer. This process repeated itself every few seconds, as the chaotic riot of a crowd roared in excitement with every finished auction.

            Suddenly, Alos felt his hand yanked forward by sharp skeletal fingers and when he looked up he saw it was Zeith. Zeith pulled him forward, slumping through the crowd with the rest of the group leading them over to the side of the plaza. Alos didn’t realize he was getting separated, but it wasn’t the first time and he figured he should probably start paying more attention. Like the rest of the room, there were massive screens hanging from the wall, but unlike the other auctions Alos had just seen, all of these displays had people on them. One of the screens had one large muscular man on display, with the giant red sold price listed as “$856,332”.

            Alos was appalled.

            “Looks like we got some aggressive bidders today,” Levitas said, smiling, “ours is on next.”

            The screen changed to a group of six people. Six of the people Alos had seen them imprison on the ship earlier. Beside the people on the screen was a small description reading “5 assorted male and female Humans, one male Lycanian.”

            “A LYCANIAN?! WELL SLAP MY ASS AND CALL ME SALLY!” A man beside Alos shouted, staring up slack jawed at the screen. “TERENCE GET OVER HERE QUICK!” The crowd around them must have heard the man, because nearly everyone snapped their heads over to the big screen and began shouting in a storm of excitement.

            The instant the timer started, the price ticker began flooding with scrolling numbers. Even after only a few seconds the top number had reached 3,500,000, and was continuing to rapidly rise. With over two minutes remaining, Alos had no idea just how high it would go, none of the crew did. They all stood staring up, Merick jumping up to try and see over people, while Levitas listened, trying to pick up the price from screaming people around him. Shaking his head, Alos turned away. The idea of slave trading was absolutely ridiculous, and auctioning off live people was even worse. It was like a game to the crowd, trying to get in just above the highest bid without spending over their limit and the fact that he was one of the them, that he would be brought to be sold to the highest bidder if he ever fucked up, well that just made him nauseous.

            Looking around the crowd was almost just as sad. Every type of person imaginable was occupying the room, instead of some sort of stereotype Alos was hoping to associate all of this slave business with. Everyone was different though, in race, in species, and even largely in language, only being the same in the sick practice they were all sharing in. The only commonality is that they were all slavers, every single last person.

            Except for one.

            One man off in the distance of the crowd stood eyeing Zeith out the corners of his sunglass covered eyes. Even in a crowd of at least ten thousand, this guy looked as though he was trying to be discreet, stealthy even. Something about it wasn’t right, especially with the way he was moving his mouth. It looked like he was talking to someone, most likely through a phone but he was moving his lips just subtly enough to blend in with the rest of the noise, without drawing attention to the fact that he was even talking at all. Then the guy caught Alos’ eye with his own and with a sudden nonchalant shift of his attention up to the screen, continued to talk turning slightly to reveal an earpiece mounted on his right ear.

            Up on the screen, the timer reached zero, and the crowd went berserk. The bold red text listed “$8,696,743” as the final price, with the purchaser’s name below it. Levitas’ head was twisting around, listening, trying to figure out the final price when Dardaños leaned over and whispered something in his ear. From ear to ear, Levitas let out a huge grin.

            “Damn, that’s over double what we usually pull!”

            “And that wass onlyee ‘alf. The next auction ess about to start.” Dardaños said aloud.

            Looking up at the scrolling numbers, Alos realized more and more that when Xri said “buy his freedom”, he meant just that. He was going to have to come down here, bid on himself, and then hope to god he won, and on top of all that, he knew that he had no choice but to follow Xri’s twisted orders, or they would just put him up for sale, no questions asked, just like the rest of those prisoners that just sold. Flat faced, and with his heart suffocating down in his stomach, he looked up at the screen again.

            The screen went blank and then lit up once again, this time it showed the other six people Alos had seen aboard the ship. It was five Humans and a Simanian, with the matching description beside it. The man next to Alos that was shouting began scratching his head.

            “I don’t know what to make of a Simanian. Aren’t they supposed to be pretty rebellious?”

            His friend, the man Alos assumed to be Terrence responded, “Don’t buy into the stereotypes Kraig, anyone can be broken. They may be strong, and their will may even be stronger, but every person wants life when given the choice, even a slave.”

            Fist clenched, Alos turned to hit the guy, and then forced himself to back off. Such a statement could not be more repulsive, more offensive. Did he not have any respect for fellow sentient beings? Was he really so blatantly proposing that the slave’s life was disposable? What if he were in his shoes!?

            He was furious and at the rate it was going, he needed to leave before he got himself into more trouble than it was worth. As he turned to Dardaños, Alos could see the guy that was staring at Zeith, turning and walking away into the crowd and at second thought, the guy was probably just freaked out by Zeith, and who could blame him.

            Alos reached up and tugged on the back of Dardaños’ shirt.

            “Dardaños, I need to get out of here.”

            “What es wrong lad?” Dardaños wore an expression of honest concern.

            “This whole slave shit is making me lose it man. Can I just go back to the ship, please?”

            “Of course myee friend,” Dardaños smirked, “I’ll take yuh back.”

            Dardaños pushed through the crowd, Alos shadowing him all the way back to the elevator. Once inside they selected the up arrow and the shaky elevator went on its way.

            “Dardaños, thanks. I really appreciate it.” Alos said with an exasperated sigh.

            “Don’t worryee Alos, you and Iee, are similar. Iee was da same when Iee first started.” Dardaños grabbed Alos’ shoulder with his paw. “Wit time you will come tuh see tuh truth in what weee do.”

            The elevator reached the top and Dardaños led Alos out and over to the ship.

            Alos felt conflicted from what Dardaños had just said. Truth in what? In slavery? Maybe he felt that they were similar, but after hearing that, Alos felt that this was one subject that they would always differ in. Nothing would make him think trading people was okay, nothing. Maybe he was stupid from growing up so sheltered, and maybe he was naïve from growing up in Optimaris, but at the end of the day that didn’t change the fact on how morally wrong it felt.

            Once inside the ship, Alos went straight to his room and collapsed onto his bed. It had been a long day, and the thought of many more like it to come, made him smother his face into his pillow. He just wanted the day to be done.

            Sleep crept over his eyes, into his brain, and then through his mind.

__________________

            In the morning, Alos was woken by the sound of turbines charging up. They must have been the turbines to one of the carriers, because the sheer sonic force of the mega turbines shook the walls on the ship. Realizing he wasn’t going to be left in quiet to sleep, Alos got up and went down to the main room.

            Inside the room, was the entirety of the crew, except Bert. They stood around eating their small pastries and looking up at the screen watching what appeared to be the report of the auction results. Xri walked over below the screen and raised his hand, catching everyone’s attention.

            “It's going to be awhile before we can leave. They are still processing the results and our money with them.” Xri threw his hand up and over his shoulder, pointing down the hall with his thumb. “Feel free to go look around to kill time.”

            “The salvage yard is open then?” Levitas asked, his mouth half full of sweet pastry.

            “Indeed it is. Go show the lad what it looks like.”

            Levitas nodded, and then motioning towards the hall with his head said, “Ready to go?”

            “Can I just stay on the ship?” Alos asked, as he ate one of the pastries. “I really don’t think I want to go.”

            “You can if you want kid, but I think you might like seein’ all the weird shit out in the yard,” Levitas said, and then after a brief paused added, “it ain’t an auction.”

            Alos shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. There was no reason to stay on the ship and Levitas was probably right. As much as he didn’t like being a part of this crew, he was, and the sooner he accepted that the better.

            “Yeah whatever, I’ll come.” Alos said, following Levitas.

            The crew all went over to the boarding room, save Bert and Xri, and took the platform down. Once the platform touched down, Levitas led them over to a door in the half cylindrical unit.

            “Come with me kid.” Levitas said to Alos, as he motioned towards the salvage yard with his head. Alos followed behind Levitas, who was accompanied by Zeith, Merick, and Dardaños. They walked over to a massive walled off area with a doorway at the base. The doors spiraled open showing a long tunnel-like hall leading down. As they entered, Alos glanced back towards the ship, where he saw Xri leading the scroll holding worker inside.

            They made their way down the tunnel, which eventually led to another door identical to the one they just entered through. Like the first, it spiraled outwards, opening, and they passed through. They came out onto a raised platform about ten stories high. From the top they could look down and see a paved lot that stretched on and on as far as the human eye could see, like a concrete desert with metallic shrubs, sizing up to be, if Alos had to guess, at least ten thousand square miles. It was filled with every imaginable type of scrap equipment and all of the items in the yard were sorted into lines with walkways in between.

            They took the stairs down, and the path they were walking on was lined with turbines on one side and slimerods on the other. Alos was amazed at not only the sheer amount of scrap there was, but also at the pristine condition it was all in. Most of the items looked close to brand new and some were even still in the manufacturers’ packaging. 

            “How do they keep all of this in such good condition with it being outside?” Alos asked aloud.

            “It’s in a fracking desert yeh moron!” Merick said with his piercing spite, following with annoying belly belting laughter. “Dis place is lucky tuh see God’s piss once a decade.”

            “Are you always such an asshole?” Alos asked, annoyed by Merick’s boisterousness.

            Levitas grinned, replying in his low gravelly voice, “Came out of the womb cursing up a storm.”

            “Aye fuck off!” Merick barked shoving Levitas in the back. Levitas didn’t budge an iota, still grinning with amusement. Merick’s face curled up into a sour, distasteful clump of lips.

            One of the turbines they were passing caught Merick’s eye and he stopped and knelt down in curiosity to examine it. Dardaños stopped with him also kneeling down to take a look. Alos, however, was uninterested and Levitas didn’t even notice so they continued down the path.

            Up in the sky dark, dense, grey clouds began to cast large billowing shadows over the ground. Something stood out to Alos though; there was something about the clouds that seemed out of place. If this really was the desert Merick made it out to be, why were there clouds? He was either really lucky to catch such a sight or something weird was up.

            At the moment though, Alos was just glad to be apart from Merick.

            “Thank Menelich he's gone.” Alos said, letting out a sigh of relief after Merick was far back on the path behind them. Levitas’ eyebrows arched in reactive surprise.

            “Menelich? Do they still practice Divina in the UDA? Even after all the wars over it with Divimatia?” Levitas asked, sounding not only surprised but somewhat confused.

            “There are a lot of churches, and a lot of people claim to be associated with it but honestly, most people only do it out of tradition or political conformity.” Alos turned to Levitas. “Not many people take it too seriously, well not outside the political realm anyways. I was just using a turn of phrase.”

            Levitas stopped at a scrap of ship plating. There was a large symbol of an upwards bending black crescent with a smaller downwards black crescent below it. Between the two crescents was the oblong ellipse of a massively dilated pupil surrounded by an emerald green iris. The entirety of the symbol was held by a shape resembling a brooding, murderous eye etched into the plating. Levitas bent down and placed his hand on the symbol.

            “Have you ever seen this emblem before kid?” Levitas asked in his low raspy voice.

            “No, I can’t say that I have.” Alos responded, looking down at the symbol over Levitas shoulder.

            “You should consider yourself lucky then.” Levitas shook his head, with a weight that can only come from the soul stealing regret from years of sinful duty.

            This then caused Alos’ brow to arch in intrigue.

            “Lucky?”

            “It is the symbol of the Rashakaan; it's the eye of the Raven. Somethin’ I’m not proud to say I was a part of. Hell I’m not proud of anythin’ I did in the Divimatian military.”

            Alos stood staring blankly.

            “What’s a Rashakaan?”

            Levitas’ face fixated on the emblem, without wavering.

            “The Rashakaan are a small group of elite soldiers operatin’ secretly at the hand of the Divimatian Sovereign. The Sovereign wants somethin’ done or someone done in, and they do it, no questions asked. They are the highest rankin’ military branch within the Divimatian government, and the most powerful organization of soldiers within Divimatian society all while bein’ hid in the shadows from the rest of the country. Only the Sovereign and a handful of his advisors know about it.”

            “And you were a part of that? I guess you do seem like the military type, but still that sounds pretty hard to get into.” Alos said, his brow rising with his curiosity.

            “I’m not happy to say so, but yeah, I was. Kid, there was a time when there was no greater honor in my life and that alone kills me a little more every day. You can’t even begin to fathom the atrocities we caused.”

            Levitas stood, maintaining his fixation on the object with his metal visor and then shook his head.

            “Hope you never have to encounter them, or any Crusaders for that matter.”

            “C’mon it can’t be that bad.” Alos said in a mocking tone.

            “The Rashakaan have a poem that has been attributed to the corps since the beginnin’ of their formation. Sometimes before a high priority mission we would chant it to get our blood pumping and our brains turnin’. I’ll tell it to you, and you’ll understand just how bad it is.”

            Levitas cleared his throat.

“The shadows of the night,

Harbingers of blight,

Darkness within our might,

Demons with undead sight,

The Ravens,

The Ravens!

THE RAVENS!”

            With the utterance of the last stanza, Levitas’ voice dropped into a low guttural growl.

Alos took a step back from Levitas and then squinted his eyes in a kind confused surprise.

            “That just sounds downright evil. Why were YOU ever a part of that?”

            “Well it’s compli-“

            An empty bass note suddenly growled through the air deafening the surrounding area. With instinctive reaction, Alos yanked on his goggles and grabbed his Orb, only to find they had been disabled, while Levitas swayed from side to side, slack jawed and disoriented. From the look of him, Levitas’ visor had also been electromagnetically jammed.

            In a frantic sweep, Alos spun around trying to locate whatever was causing their distraught. As he dragged his vision past the thick dark army of rolling clouds, he witnessed with utter certainty the cause of the rumble.

            Parting through the clouds in the sky was a giant floating mirage like a swarm of heat waves, bending the light around itself into a sphere. A force pulse broke through the air and sliced through the clouds. The mirage of a stealth cloak suddenly dropped, revealing a giant levitating spherical ship. It had four nodules on the upper half and four on the lower, each glowing a deep vibrating green and radiating with energy. The two halves of the ship were separated by a massive gyro that spun with the fury of a tornado, stabilizing the ship with its momentous power.

             A second rumble discharged through the area, sending Levitas off balance and into a drunken sway once again. The air took on a thickness like mud and throughout Alos’ body, contractions pushed adrenaline fueled blood, and when the warm flow passed pounding through his ears and then reached his head, time expanded to an eternity a second.

            With a sudden semblance of stability, Levitas’ spun his head around. Each frame of perception felt like hours, and Alos could see every pore on Levitas’ face, every individual drop of sweat beading up and rolling down, every hair on his stubble laden jaw. Everything lay before him.

            Then the deafening growl exploded.

            “KISS THE GROUND!” Levitas screamed.

            Alos dove to the ground beside Levitas. A shrieking pitch whistled past overlaying the growl and a pressure wave flew over them, disintegrating the scrap and violently blasting it into the air. Pieces of shrapnel rained down in a metallic storm, and while Alos tried his best to cover his head with his one hand, Levitas seemed completely unaffected as pieces came down bouncing off of him. 

            The growling once again stopped for just long enough for Levitas to scream,

            “THAT’S THE RASHAKAAN! WHERE THE FUCK IS ZEITH?!”

            Alos frantically looked around in his haze of hyper perception, and then looked back shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head with wide bulging eyes.

            The ship rapidly began lowering in the sky about a mile off and as it did, Levitas sprung to his feet and ran towards a hill in front of them, followed by Alos. From the top of the hill they saw Zeith off in the distance galloping through the piles of parts with the agile dexterity of an Olympic athlete despite his large and baggy robes.

            The ship screamed through the air towards Zeith.

            In a wave of distorted time perception, Levitas darted towards Zeith, making huge story high leaps over the piles of scrap. Alos knew he could do no such feat and stood, horrified, watching.

            Thud ump, thud ump, thud ump, his heart squelched in his chest.

            As Zeith sprinted through the paths of scrap, the piles beside him rocketed up through the air, and collided with the ship, but it continued forward, unwavering, hunting him down with indomitable, relentless force. Finally when the ship closed in, Zeith catapulted himself through the air over the piles of rummage and as far away as his strength could muster.

             Alos didn’t know how Zeith managed any of that, and at that moment all he knew knew was that his heart was in his throat, and his mind was trapped in a perceptual prison. What could he hope to do but stand and stare?

            Zeith landed, when the ship suddenly stopped and hovered above a section of the lot. A compartment opened up along the bottom and a nozzle extended outwards. Thick blue gas sprayed out viciously from the nozzle, filling and choking out the air with its poisonous caress. Then as if being held back by an invisible dome of glass, the gas collected, pushed away by some unseen force.

            Suddenly the ship was struck with such a colossal force, it rocked back and forth in the air, like a boat hit with tsunami sized wave. A thunderclap of sonic force generated by the invisible collision rang through the air. The ship skittered spastically, fighting for control over its own gyro and then finally stabilized.

            Then gas flooded in, the invisible barrier that once stood protecting Zeith, instantly disappearing and releasing the poison.

            A second section at the bottom of the ship opened, and men in protective suits with gas masks came diving out with bungee cords attached to their waists. They dropped down behind some of the rummage and when then reemerged, they zipped upwards by the cords around their waists, Zeith’s limp, unconscious body draped over one of their shoulders. Levitas, dismayed at what he saw, froze and stared up at the men reeling up into the ship as the blue smoky gas dissipated around him. With no hesitation, the ship let out one last subsonic growl, closed the hatch behind the men and blasted off back through the clouds from where it came with a burst of electromagnetic propulsion.

            Levitas screamed and fell to his knees.

            When he stood again, he sprinted back with such ravenous fury; his movement was just a blur of motion. Alos had no idea what was going on, nor he did he care at this point. When he saw Levitas, he got the message and immediately started running back towards the ship as well. It wasn’t long before he was passed by Levitas who sprinted past faster than most land vehicles he had seen, leaving a trail of dust behind him. Alos’ mind was rattled with the uncertainty of all the commotion, his eyes were glazed over in place and his body was drenched with sweat.

            As he ran back, from a side path Merick and Dardaños caught up with him.

            “WHERE’S ZEITH!?” Merick barked frantically as they scurried back to the ship.

            “A sphere ship came down and kidnapped him! It fucking kidnapped him man!” Alos replied, his voice shaking in the culminating fear and lack of breath.

            “Van!?” Dardaños said turning to Merick.

             Merick’s brow furrowed, his jaw jutting forward.

            “Aye…”

            They all sprinted back up to the ship where they found Levitas talking with Xri. The turbines on the ship roared as they charged up and as they ran onto the boarding platform, it rose up into the ship. Alos could only catch the last bit of the conversation between the two.

            “…by Captain Van!?” Alos caught Xri saying.

            Without bothering to face Xri, Levitas fixated upon the platform below them, responding not with words, but instead with a shame weighted nod of his head.

            Xri’s hat may have shielded the entirety of his face, but Alos could feel the absolute contempt boiling from within its shadow.