Zoya turned out to be as personable an assassin as I had expected, which is to say, not at all. She didn't want to talk about anything, let alone her past, and seemed ill at ease with creature comforts, including sitting or sleeping on a couch, let alone a bed. She was hesitant to be near me and seemed uncomfortable with if not afraid of physical contact. Her inventory, which I mostly returned to her after I had taken it earlier, was spartan and had no civilian clothes. I asked Louise to shop for her, but Zoya did not know how her body size translated into US clothing sizes. Relatedly, she admitted to not being either a US citizen nor in the country legally, which was absolutely no surprise at all.

We'll skip the sitcom portion of the story and say that eventually Louise was able to get her into a more comfortable outfit with a minimum of hijinx, and I wasn't even present for what hijinx did occur.

I decided, as I sat around waiting for them and thought about this whole goddamn situation, that I was far from wanting anything to do with any of it. Ideally, dealing with taboo items like these dolls, not to mention the literal assassins they controlled, was something that you immediately handed over to a relevant authority. That authority, most likely, was not going to be the neighborhood police station, but rather, the local branch of the Dungeoneer's Association. Except... the thought that there were Dungeoneer gangsters just casually owning property where they concealed military hardware made me think that maybe the local USDA might be on the take (or possibly they were just the worst kind of rubes, with their heads so far up their asses that the Ouroboros could learn a few things--but I also had gotten seriously creepy vibes from them from the start, which was why I never joined them), and my experiences with the International Association suggested that the foxes might just be in charge of the henhouse there--with Vlad being exemplar #1 of this possibility.

That left me with an uncomfortably narrow window of who exactly I was supposed to trust--a window that was, at present, one name wide. Of course, my last encounter with said Dungeoneer was not exactly friendly, what with me wrecking a military base that she was responsible for in order to prove that I was really a nice guy at heart all along, which led to my being arrested and blackmailed into smuggling information from a god before finally being released on probation--a probation that I have now doubtless broken in numerous ways, what with the technically owning slaves, property destruction, and ...I guess accessory to murder, at least?

Man, I'm glad I've already given you the context to understand all that, because it really makes me sound like the asshole, doesn't it?

Of course, I didn't exactly have the phone number High Priestess Cream on speed dial, and in fact it turned out her cell phone was unlisted--shocking. Now, normally, when you come into contact with Dungeoneers, something is automatically recorded that lets you message them using the Dungeoneer interface, but she had some kind of control that let her block that, so she didn't show up on my portable messenger. And even if I teleported (or Fairy Dungeon'd) my way to Washington, I'm not sure that I'd be allowed a meeting, and for all I knew, meeting with her wasn't even the right place to start. All I really knew was that if there was one thing that might shield me from the law, it was a combination of bureaucracy and having an in.

Speaking of having an in, why don't you try asking Kalamitus? For some reason he's registered as being our patron god.

That was, momentarily, even less appealing than going to the woman who had threatened to leave me in jail until such time as my outstanding quests killed me or robbed me of my Dungeoneer status, but in terms of things I could just kind of do, I had to admit it was up there. So even though it was late (after taking the time for the shopping trip, and a little time to pace and stress out about everything), I finally just sighed and admitted that I had very few places to actually start. And the dragon god, although he had tried to blackmail me into some kind of unspoken favor, was still technically helping, so... I might as well try it.

So I stood at the window, looking out, and (after fidgeting and grinding my teeth for a long time) spoke the name out loud, trusting that there was some Labyrinthine Star bullshit that would convey the half-hearted prayer to the entity that they claimed was a God.

"Kalamitus," I said, with some intent, my old-school supernatural senses alive and trying to sense if there was any subtle change. I... maybe got the hint that there was a pause or sense of waiting, but that could have just been me. "I find myself in possession of some..." I hesitated. "...Unethical goods I'd like to make sure end up in the right hands. And I worry that there are a lot of the wrong hands, since they're... how do I say. Human pet items."

That drew attention, and Merry was very easily able to visualize the dragon's visage rising out of nothingness for me, in around the same place I felt a weird spiritual pressure, but there was something weird about both that failed to quite line up, just as spiritual things never really seemed to quite line up... ever. The visage, though, did not attempt to speak.

So I explained in brief how I had wanted to turn it in to the Association but wasn't sure who to trust, ending with the suggestion that I would gladly hand them over to the High Priestess of Lord Ethanic, but didn't have her contact info. After finishing, there was again just a sense of waiting, which left me confused for a minute, before I realized I hadn't actually asked anything.

"So unless you have better guidance, I suppose I'd just appreciate it if you could pass a message to her through Ethanic. And before you ask, I won't do your mystery favor in exchange, but if there is something less arduous..." I shook my head. "I don't know. If there's a price, we can discuss it."

Finally, the sense that I got from the spiritual projection shifted, from an intense sense of listening to a sense of thinking. After a minute, the spiritual pressure shifted again, and I got a quest window.

REQUESTED RENDEZVOUS Meet High Priestess Cream at 10AM at the entrance to the Armand Bayou Controlled Zone.

It felt odd receiving a quest with no rewards, penalties, or similar, but I accepted the quest immediately. With the relief I felt, I actually got the impression that I might get some sleep that night.

Kind of a dumb thought, really.

I had gone to bed but wasn't asleep. Louise had gone home, Zoya was sitting comfortably against a wall, and things were dark. Merry, who I guess probably did sleep at some point but I didn't pry, had left my body and was off looking around or doing something else, when I suddenly felt my skin start to crawl. If it had happened before I'd gone and kicked an assassin hornet's nest, I might have spent some time being confused, but as it was, I was out of bed in a flash, and pumped energy into my Cloak for defensive purposes. I didn't get to see exactly what happened to Merry or Zoya, because in the next minute, everything went white.

I definitely did not end up standing in the rubble of my apartment, because the shockwave of whatever I had just survived was immense, flattening the entire apartment building and both neighboring buildings, throwing flaming debris in every direction. I, at least for a moment, was a piece of that flaming debris, though I managed to put out the fire with a flex of my will.

And then I kind of smashed into a brick wall.

Now, I've been a Dungeoneer for a while, and I've had my share of hard knocks. This... was a pretty hard knock, and I wasn't wearing my new defensive item, because I hadn't gone to sleep in it and it was too high level for me to absorb. It took me a moment to wrestle that on, and then pull out one of my relatively few healing potions and drink, and by the time that I'd stabilized myself, I looked up to find at least a semicircle of mean-looking assholes closing in on me while flying and preparing or throwing abilities, the first of which were damn near about to destroy me.

Instead of going up, which was definitely "the place where they are", I took the weird momentum of the Cloak and threw myself down and across the street, not able to spare attention to care whether the building behind me got destroyed, or whether anyone in the surrounding buildings had been killed. A True Hero™ might have been able to wipe them all out and save every bystander, but I wasn't that. I was a mere Soulforged Dungeoneer, and that didn't come with any bystander-saving abilities.

I was starting to feel the lack, but I couldn't spare the time to think much about it.

If I was to relate to you the play by play of the next few minutes, it'd be depressing as hell for everyone. I tried to find temporary cover, it was removed, rinse, repeat. I didn't find Merry or Zoya, and the mob--whoever they were--that were on my tail didn't give a rat's ass about civilian casualties.

In desperation, I snagged my cell phone from my inventory, and dialed Vlad--surprisingly hard to do with explosions going off every few seconds. I was genuinely surprised when, in the middle of the night, he actually picked up, sounding mildly drunk.

"VLAD!" I didn't have much I could do except exposit. "They came for me at my home. I need help!"

Another explosion nearly drowned out the response.

"...stay calm," replied Vlad. "Worry about your own life. Remember, is not movie."

And then he hung up.

There were a lot of things going through my mind just then. I had moved rapidly from the street where I'd lived since getting out of prison to nearby suburban streets, and that left me with the immediate pressing question of where to go looking for cover. Except, as I considered it, no amount of cover would stop the assault, and the next priority after saving my own skin had to be reducing damage to others.

Fortunately, there were no shortage of open fields in the general area. Now, don't get me wrong--there were suburban housing neighborhoods nearby that I could have run for hours in and just been surrounded by houses as far as the eye could see; it seemed to be most of what got constructed around here anymore, just asphalt labyrinths surrounded by finely trimmed lawns and someone's own personal McMansion, or at least a quiet bungalow they pretended to own while paying down the mortgage. But high density housing like I'd been in didn't tend to be inside those places, and they hadn't yet gotten rid of all of the woods and plains that had been here before man decided to upend all of nature.

So after only a brief, terrifying mad dash, I quickly got to a place where at the very least, my every dodge and block wasn't going to be death and/or property damage. For some reason, when they realized I was headed for a wide open space, they slowed down and spread out, moving to surround me instead of piling on more attacks. Which I was fine with, because in that pause I finally got to look around and see what exactly I was dealing with.

I was genuinely surprised to find that a lot of the attackers were mooks. At least, I mean, by my standards--there were two people there above level 100, one of those being more like 175--already below the level of the wizard I'd disarmed before. But there were also nearly a dozen people who just seemed to be lower-level folks in crazy expensive equipment--doubtless, the kind of equipment that would boost their effective level by a lot, but that didn't change the fact that while almost everyone here was above my level, most of them were not absolute monsters like I'd feared.

And, I realized, 'fear' was the keyword. Exactly like Vlad had said, this was not a movie; the organization had real limitations in what manpower they could bring to bear. Even if they were powerful, and could wreck unbelievable amounts or property damage, it still took time and resources to get each and every one of them to where they were now. And sending them out against me was a risk, one they didn't really know the odds on.

The highest-level Dungeoneer gestured, and a wall of flames surrounded the general piece of property I was now jogging on, and the people hanging in midair slowly moved to completely surround me, most of them charging some kind of attack but none releasing one. "You are a dangerous man," he called, and his voice had a middle east accent I couldn't place. "but you should know by now what awaits you. We are prepared to give our lives for our cause--but are you?"

Was he... I blinked. "I don't have a cause," I said, which was only partly a lie. I mean, I was out to save all of humanity, and also I'd rescued Zoya basically based on my own personal morality, but in terms of there being an organization I was willing to die for? No.

"Then you have chosen death of your own free will," he said, lowering himself towards me with grim intent. "Disappointing. I had thought perhaps we uncovered a true patriot, who would die defending his country and finally ignite the flames of war." As he settled to the ground inside the ring of fire, I tried to place the look on his face, but all I could see there was stress, or maybe hatred. He was dressed in an overflowing wizard robe sort of thing, but I thought I caught metal underneath it, probably armor. There were no sheaths on his belt, but that didn't say anything at all, given how inventories worked. "If everything is started because of one idiotic thief, the deaths will weigh just a little bit heavier on my conscience."

"I'm going to stop you there," I said, glancing around. "Are you really still convinced you can kill me with just this?"

"I am not convinced that they can kill you," he said simply, and he reached both hands up, a longsword and sheath appearing between his fingers. He unsheathed the sword, and I could feel an intense pressure coming from the blade. "That is why I will do it myself."

"Oh, well." At least I was only being underestimated by that much. I grabbed the Slenderman gloves out of my inventory and pulled them on as well, arranging my Soulforged inventory as quickly as I could without Merry and summoning my cape and the Fallen Angel's Halo, with the latter having a bunch of aura enhancements on it--so that the halo would project them offensively onto the battlefield. If I could induce and strife between party members, including those I hadn't affected with the Cloak, this was the time to do it. And then I focused as best I can on the guy, just in case he was also some kind of hidden badass.

He was dangerous--that much was immediately obvious, as was one other thing: he used the Telekinesis skill, and he did a damn fair job with it. When he pushed off and started to charge at me with the longsword, I could tangibly feel the Cloak offering resistance as he tried to reach out and pull me off-balance. I let him, pushing myself in the same direction to get back out of his reach in the other direction. I had to roll once to get back on my feet, and when I turned around, he was fully on-balance and approaching me, eyes keen and shining in the fire-lit darkness.

I summoned the Executioner's Blade like it was an axe, chopping it momentarily into the dirt, and watched his eyes. They weren't afraid, but they were cautious. We did one of those things where fighters circle each other for a little bit, which practically speaking meant that we were just not yet willing to charge one another but were not comfortable standing still, since it would either make us too tense or not tense enough. Constantly moving seemed about the right level of tension.

When he charged again, it was also with a telekinetic jab, which I tried to nudge aside. The telekinesis, though, wasn't a physical object like that, not the way he was using it, and all I could really do was resist its effects, as he came in for a thrust.

A scream from above us didn't exactly interrupt his attack, or my defense. I blocked the attack, but he put a lot of force into it, and I could feel the projection of the Executioner cracking from the exchange. He locked eyes with me and kept the pressure up, trying to cut through my sword--which was a new tactic on me, honestly--while also forming telekinetic pins and trying to stab my head with them. I knew that the Cloak would let me escape from that hold, but I had to admit I was distracted by one of his allies screaming, and moreso when the body hit the ground not far away from me, headless, then disappearing.

But the man who was trying to kill me didn't waver, gritting his teeth like he genuinely thought he was close to killing me. For some strange reason, my head presented me with an out of context movie quote that didn't actually belong in this fight.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," I said casually to the man, as another quarter-inch or so of my sword broke under his assault. "Do you like the Elton John song Rocket Man?"

The look of confusion on his face was only enhanced by the fact that I pushed hard on the Cloak and teleported my body behind him, slipping through a crack in his attention. He sensed my position and turned, but I was throwing my sword away and swinging my fist at his chest, triggering the gloves' ability as I did so. I didn't land a critical hit--on purpose, because I didn't want to end up blooded--but given how the gloves sapped my mana, it must have still landed a pretty damn strong blow.

It was certainly enough to knock him away from me, and I took the time to look around. She wasn't currently in my party, so I couldn't spot Zoya, though I got the impression the kill before had been her. I did get an immediate if vague sense that Merry was doing something to one of the others hanging in the sky, and given everything I knew about fairies and the access Merry had to my skills, I was sure she could at minimum cause chaos, and at worst genuinely murder multiple people on her own.

"This won't end with us," the man said, looking none the worse for wear--because a Dungeoneer wouldn't, until he died. "America's sins have condemned it. A war will soon be started that will consume all that you hold dear."

I didn't have the luxury of giving him proper sass, but I could at least snarl at the guy. "Since when the hell did you think I owed some immense loyalty to this country?" I snapped back at him. "Fuck you. Don't try to make this fight out to be more than just us trying to fucking kill each other. I stole your assassins, and now you're going to try to steal them back."

The man tilted his head at me, but only for a moment. "Fine," he said. "In truth, my reasons are not noble. I hate this place, and your people. I hate what you have done and I hate the fact that even here," for some reason, the man straightened, and he looked a little confused, but he continued, "you believe that you can do whatever you'd like."

And then he began to dance.