“Adrian’s done what now?” Tim asked towards his pocket with a furrow in his brow. The pocket wriggled in response.

“Exactly, my friend, my good friend. That hero was seen, seen by the lesser ones as they watched from the alleys, from the filth of the gutters.” Philbert explained without a sliver of emotion in his voice. “The hero walks, and corpses follow.”

Tim stroked his chin, distorting his own face as his thoughts whirled around his head like a tornado. “Damn. I suppose we knew he was on the move, but the question now is where. What is the destination? What is the point? To find us? That wouldn’t be impossible, as I’m sure we might have left traces of our doings at the Bastille or in our previous skirmishes, but he would need something a bit more concrete…” Tim began to pace back and forth from where he was in the break room, sidestepping swarms of rats swirling around their king in worship. “Is it something I’m missing? There must be,” he mused. “Philbert, did the rats see where Adrian was moving towards? Best case scenario is that he’s just visiting Elena or moving around aimlessly in hope of finding something, but if he has clues… we need to know.”

“The lesser ones cannot get close, close.” Philbert droned from his pocket with a thoughtful tone in his voice. “However, he leaves a trail, trail of death behind wherever he goes. Numerous pedestrians, passerby’s, a few government soldiers, and two alchemists so far. And the scent of blood is heavy on him.”

“That does seem pretty random. The pedestrians were probably just a wrong place, wrong time situation. The soldiers? That might be something. You said they were government, Philbert, so he obviously isn’t picking a fight with Elena. He’d go after her soldiers instead if he wanted that.” Tim shook his head with a frustrated look in his eyes. “Those soldiers, were they also simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? I can’t see any reason for Adrian to go after them. Not unless…” Tim’s eyes shot open and he looked down at Philbert in his pocket with a hint of panic.

“Philbert, how far along is our plan with the guards? Are all of them under our control? Did the rats grab the officers as well?”

Philbert looked up at Tim with a hint of confusion in his beady little eyes. “They are all, all servants of the Rat King now, under our glorious liege. Officers and regular guards alike.”

Tim hastily nodded at the information. “Right. Just as planned. Now, just one more question. Has Adrian killed any of those guards that serve the king lately?”

The rat in his pocket was silent for nearly too long, but finally shook his head in a resounding ‘no.’ Tim to let out an unconscious sigh of relief. They weren’t in as deep of water as he had feared.

“That’s perfect, then. I had feared Adrian found out about that plan, but I suppose that means the murders of those government soldiers were random as well. Does that mean… is he just wandering around town killing for fun? Either hoping to run into us or simply killing time? That’s possible. Or he could be waiting for us to strike next. Perhaps if we try to go after Elena while she’s holed up in her house, he’ll be there. But fucking hell, Philbert. Perhaps it’s none of the above and he’s just a stupid teenager playing around with his hero-given abilities, testing his strength like a motherfucking kid beheading his sister’s dolls.”

There were no answers to his questions and no good response to that rant, so Philbert said nothing. Tim’s voice fell away to a thoughtful silence and the faint sounds of Philbert eating.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

On the other side of the city, leaning casually against the counter of an alchemist’s store, Adrian flipped one of his many daggers across his fingers as he experienced a thoughtful silence of his own. The dagger, small in size yet still wickedly sharp, twisted through one gap in his fingers, popping through another, and repeating the process at chunk of metal worked its way across his hand. Eventually, the dagger met his pinky finger, continuing its journey through the air to fall with a ‘snick’ onto the wooden counter, avoiding alchemical ingredients and the shaking mitts of a fat elf by pure chance alone.

“So.” Adrian muttered as his hands automatically grabbed another from his belt, choosing a slightly longer leaf-bladed knife to twirl around his fingers. “What you’re telling me, is that there actually have been some odd customers around here lately. So odd, in fact, that you couldn’t remember them until I made you into a rare seven-fingered elf.”

The elf behind the counter shakily glanced at the stumps of his thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger on his right hand, gulping while sweat ran freely down his brow. Despite his white-knuckled grip around his wrist they were leaking quite heavily onto the countertop, each quick heartbeat pushing the borders of the congealing pool a little further. “Y-yes my l-lord.”

“And you also say that they looked like a bunch of no-good gangsters. Furthermore, you sold them a bunch of alchemical ingredients you thought were strange. In bulk.”

Practically throwing himself into a drawer of records the elf stammered out “Of-f c-course! T-they t-took it from the s-store themselves! H-here my lord! The l-ledger!”

Adrian carelessly grabbed the thick pile of parchment from the shivering elf. His eyebrow rose as he leafed through pages upon pages of names that captioned hand-drawn pictures of customers.

“Which ones were the gangsters?”

The elf gulped as he pointed out several pictures all along one page, trying not to meet the hero’s eyes as they lit up upon seeing the picture of a muscular dwarf, a tall orc, and two nearly identical gnome brothers.

“There we go… Elena, eat your heart out. And Kevin, wherever you are in hell, fuck you for not finding this, you incompetent bastard.”