Edited by: tommyjl7

A tanned, blonde boy entered the small trading city that was a bit to the west of Omega Forest. It was driven forward by some primal need – something out there was calling for him, begging for a reunion, it was like a beacon of light behind the horizon, alluring, tempting, promising answers and purpose.

Though his first “peaceful” encounter with higher-organized races didn’t go completely smoothly, as Erio was lacking common sense and reasoning. He only had access to partial memories of the girls he devoured and these were an unorganized mess of objects and facts, often mixing one with another.

- “Hey! You!” one of the guards standing by the entrance of the town called for him as he tried to walk past them… ignoring a huge line standing in the queue “…what do you think that you are doing!? You can’t just walk in like that ignoring the post!”

Erio froze. Was his cover already blown? His heart stopped for a moment, his instincts kicked in, the adrenaline started filling his body preparing him for a rampage.

- “Come on, Jake, he’s just a kid. What can he possibly have for taxation? Or maybe he looks to you like a highway bandit?! Ha-ha!”

- “Ha! You are as foolish as always! Those bandits could use him to smuggle some drugs into the city. Exactly because he doesn’t look suspicious!”

Erio’s tensed muscles relaxed in an instant. He didn’t understand the concept of “smuggle” or “taxation”, but the other guard already stated that this was nothing but a normal procedure. He turned his face toward two guards.

- “What the…” eyes of the guard widened in shock “… look at his clothes… and he… she… is that blood?”

Another note for future use – sane races pay attention to the condition of their clothing and overall hygiene – up to the point of getting confused while seeing someone who does not meet their standards.

Yet, he could use it for his own gains, to gain the trust of the surrounding. He quickly scanned his “borrowed” memories looking for anything that could be useful. And he did find a thing or two. He had an appearance of a (mostly) human child. And when it comes to youngling, the races get overly protective.

Erio was an Apex-predator, he had hundreds of tools he used in his art of murder – acting like a wounded and confused animal was one of them.

His gaze became dull, his lower lip started trembling as he walked toward guards – the more suspicious one. He raised his tiny hand and grabbed the sleeve of an older guard.

- “M-mama… Mama and papa… Please… Help…” he started sobbing

- “There, there kid…” the younger, softer man quickly lowered his posture and started gently stroking his Erio’s head “…mind telling us what happened?”

- “I… I was traveling… with mama… and papa… from the South… papa wanted to sell alcohol… we were on cart when…when… mama told me to run, to call for help… So… please… help mama… help papa…”

He collapsed right into man's arms.

- “His condition?” older man just asked quickly

- “Just look at him. The blood is completely dried, his clothes are all tattered, he lost his boots…” he never picked them up in the first place. Walking in those… boots, was for Erio insanity. In those, he couldn’t feel the way the ground vibrated. It was almost like depriving him of his eyes “… he had to be walking for a few days. I doubt that we will be able to help those people, whatever happened.”

- “Still, brat said he came from the south. Looking at how tanned he is that would be true. Take the kid to the captain and report back. After the kid would wake up and give us some more details he would most likely want to send a patrol to the South. We may have some monster going on the rampage.”

- “Understood!”

The younger man would shift the grip over the body of Erio before he would start running into the settlement.

Infiltration succeeded. Let ’s proceed to the data-collecting.

Jason appeared out of nowhere, at least that’s what the merchant thought, for the chair in front of him that was empty suddenly become occupied by a man between his 30s and 40s.

The merchant was looking at him like some kind of specter as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes with mouth opened wide.

- “Why so surprised? I said I would come, you promised you would come, here we are – both honoring the agreement between the gentlemen.”

- “Yyy, yes-yes, that’s indeed true. Before we would start, I would like to thank you once again for saving my life and…”

- “I didn’t do that for you, and you should be aware of it, simply, your life was deemed to be more worthy as it would contribute to my cause more. If I would consider that I would gain more with your death, I would actually be helping those assassins. Now, let’s finalize our deal so we could leave this place and never meet again. Information, please.”

Jason no longer had to pretend to be an ally of the merchant. He was here only to reap what he had sowed.

- “Y-yes, indeed. You were curious about the deals between Redfeathers and Church, is this right?...” he wanted Jason to at least nod, yet photomancer was just sitting there with his chin resting on his crossed palms, with gaze piercing through the merchant’s very existence.

- “M-mostly I was just passing the drugs, the high-quality moondust is being produced in a territory of the Holy Kingdom, that’s the main reason why I am traveling through these areas as this is simply the most profitable business… but there was that one moment, when one of the inquisitors caught me, or actually, he found me and offered a deal. He said that he knows that I am smuggling moondust from church to the Neira, yet said that he simply didn’t care, instead, he paid me extra to deliver a letter to a certain place…”

- “Let me guess, it was a member of Redfeathers?”

- “God! No! They didn’t trust me just enough back then! I think it was another merchant that somebody took advantage of, just like myself… back then Redfeathers tried to hide as much as possible out of sight, It was months and years after that when I was allowed to travel directly between them…”

- “So… you exchanged only letters between them?”

- “At first. Later, I was given whole leather backpacks filled with some documentation, few times I carried some monster body-parts….”

- “From Neira to Church?”

- “No. The other way.”

- “Why would Redfeathers need monster body parts?”

- “They? Didn’t. Hieronymus van Kleir did.”

The name rang a bell. If he was not mistaken the man was a professor on the Academy and one of the Zariel’s friends.

- “And what did he have in common with the church?”

- “With the church? Nothing. But he does have a connection with Redfeathers.”

- “Connection of what sort?”

- “Current head of Redfeather had a sister, Kleir was her fiancé. She died a few months after the engagement. He never became a part of the family officially, but they keep having a friendly relation… and answering your next question: How friendly those relations are – Kleir is a specialist in studies over magical beasts – which isn’t the most profitable branch of science, thus their funds are very thin. Redfeathers pretty much pays for the existence of the whole faculty.”

- “And what did they have in return?”

At that moment merchant shifted his body in the chair.

- “And how do you think, what documentation was I sending to the Church? It wasn’t sealed nor protected, in the end, who would want to steal papers about monsters?”

- “Which monsters? Studies of which monsters were sent to the church?”

- “I read only few… in the end, the journey is boring so I was grateful for every lecture I could find… For past few years papers treated mostly about the nature of angels and ways of combining nature of celestial being into a mortal vessel via pacts… but… last papers were about absolutely different matter.”

- “Which is…?”

- “Chimeras. Lately, Kleir completely gave up on the angels and focused on the Chimeras.”

Jason knocked the chair as he raised up and energetically moved toward the exit.

He was foolish. He focused so much on the member of the inner family that he completely didn’t study relations not-tied by blood. He had him under his nose the whole time. Still, the situation became much more complex right now. He needed to inform Syndicate AND Zariel. Yet, last time he checked, the last one left the capital for at least month, most likely for a few.

Maybe they would manage to communicate via Crystals? Who knows, for now, he needs to report back. To rogue and Kind. In the end he found connections between Redfeathers and a Church, that was more than enough to satisfy the King’s order.

Jason left the inn and the cold wind hit him in the face, he looked both directions and disappear. The man in his 30-40 ties vanished into thin air. Once again he became a part of the crowd. A by-passer. No one.

Jason had almost no battle-potential. All he could do was the game of the lights. In actual combat he would just create mirages he would use to hide his physical attacks of concentrated light in order to cause burning damage.

There was no way he could win a fair duel with Zariel, Pyrox or twins. Yet, he still remember what Zariel once told him:

- “Jason, you are most likely the most dangerous man I know.” After seeing the confusion on Jason's face he would later add “… there is nothing difficult in walking in and blowing things up like Pyrox, but you, you can sneak behind enemy lines, blow things up and blame somebody else. They would never see the blow coming, nor would they ever find a culprit. For example, you could steal my face and kill several people in a brutal way. Then, the whole country would be after me and I guarantee, I would have very little time for explanations. Jason, you are a man with no family nor home – you can’t be threatened nor bargained. Of all the people I want to have you on my side the most!”

That wasn’t a threat from Zariel, even more, later he did everything he could to make Jason have another house. He faked some documents which stated that he was born in Neira, gave him some cover jobs apart from adventuring and… was actually a great friend.

Jason had a debt to pay. And by coincidence, the debt he has to pay will go greatly along with his own personal revenge. Win-win situation, one could say.