Frederick released his hold on the dominated bird, opening his eyes. The mission had ended in complete disaster. The fog prevented him from seeing most of the fight but he saw enough to know that his homunculus had been killed. The magical construct had been a gift from his father, Baron Margood Duwalt. Of course, he had killed his father that same week and fled the country.

Replacing the homunculus would be pricy and difficult. You couldn't just find a custom-tailored one in the Bazaar. It had been an acceptable loss though, even if it had ended in death. Frederick wasn't surprised, the constructs could only mimic a few skills, which made them only as effective as a quarter of his actual level.

He would miss the homunculus, it had allowed him to stay far from danger, a lesson he had learned from his father. 'Why do something yourself if you can get someone else to do it for you.' Frederick took that lesson to heart.

The others had been killed but that was to be expected when engaging unknown enemies. The first three idiots were no loss, he could replace them. The other three had been loyal to him and he would feel that loss. He wasn't worried about what the 'Boss' would think. He had dominated the man early on and funneled all of the credits the group earned into his own pockets. It had allowed him to bankroll this whole expedition to the new human planet.

The cost had been horrendous but worth it. He had uncovered agents of the kingdom snooping around the bandit group's city. After extracting information from one of the agents he found out that they were looking for him and more were in or around the city. They knew of his skill set and would be able to counter it when they engaged him. That sparked his plan to leave.

Before he left, he destroyed the minds of the remaining bandits, leaving them capable of only drooling while taking anything of value. This should slow down the investigators. He could simply set up his new kingdom in the town that the Bazaar was located in but there was no telling who would come through the portals. He knew that there were people far stronger than him in the System planets. The small town he had spotted from the dominated bird would have been an ideal target as it was off the beaten path and already had a wall around it.

The problem with that was the three powerful individuals that had taken out his group. He couldn't scan them from the bird but if they had managed to take down twice their number along with his construct he needed to be wary.

The phantom could be an issue, they were notoriously hard to hit or even kill. This one appeared to be able to take physical form so it could be hit while in that form. It was obvious that the winged man was the leader. He could try and dominate the man but if he had overcome the abilities he gave the homunculus that could be a risky maneuver.

He decided to see if any locals were amenable to taking over a town. There were always a few that were not content with the status quo. He would also keep an eye on the three that had attacked his men.

***

The three of us returned to Arman, Martin waved his goodbye as he headed to report the situation to his sister. I didn't envy the man having to deal with that woman, even if it was his sister.

Fiona and I returned to the tattoo parlor, the half-elf was long gone, only a note and a stack of credits left to show he had ever been here.

I picked up the letter and read it.

I know I promised to stay but you can't possibly understand. I will not go back to those people, hopefully, these credits will help you forget you ever saw me.

The chip contained 2000 credits. I pocketed the money. Now, I could simply forget about the man and let him go on his merry way but I made a promise and I was sick of people lying to me.

It took Fiona and me an hour to find the trail, Belarius had climbed over a section of the wall that wasn't actively patrolled. The reason for that was the dense swampy area outside that section.

Bella grunted her displeasure at having to slog through the mud and water. She apparently had enough of that when she ran off during the banshee attack. The trail wasn't hard to find. The man had left a clear path through the floating vegetation and algae.

"I found him," Fiona said floating up to me.

I followed Fiona to where she found Belarius or what was left of him. The system-modified alligators had a field day with the body. The only thing that remained was one arm, firmly gripped on an exposed root and the upper part of his torso. His face was a mask of pain, frozen at the time of his death. I looked around to make sure there wasn't a gator lurking about.

"Fucking idiot, he should have just stayed in the village."

"Sounded like he was beyond afraid," Fiona replied.

"Well, if he had just trusted me to protect him he wouldn't be gator food right now. Let's head back before I join him."

Fiona nodded and we circled around to keep to the drier sections of the swamp, keeping our eyes peeled for any man-eating alligators.

We made it back to the main trail without encountering anything. Bella stopped to shake the muck from her legs and I soothed her. We rode quietly back to Arman.

I thought about what I said to Belarius before we left. I wasn't going to kill the man, probably. I would have likely just dragged the idiot back for his own good. This whole situation was fucked up.

We couldn't even be sure that others wouldn't show up looking for their lost acquaintances. 'It was a problem for tomorrow,' I thought, as we entered through the gate.

Two weeks went by quickly after the excitement with the outsiders.

I spent the time perfecting my tattooing, deciding to take a break from fighting. It had gone much faster now that I had a mana engine to power the electric tattoo device. Even though my artistry had increased to the point that I was confident in my skills, I still wasn't looking forward to my first tattoo. The reason for that was the location I wanted the tattoo.

I held the device in my hand as I stared at the mirror. I already had the design outlined around my eye. I had settled on a stylized version of the all-seeing eye that I tested many times before committing to this particular design. These runes were much more flexible in their interpretation than the Celtic runes or hieroglyphics. I chalked it up to the dozens of variations of the symbol.

I touched the sharp needle to the design and started the process. The pain was intense and I had to grit my teeth and take it slow with plenty of stops. The magical ink I was using would fade to match the color of whatever it was used on. It had been designed for clothing but I figured it would work well enough. While the color faded if you looked close enough you could see an outline, and when in use it glowed a faint blue.

I was about to touch the device to my face again as there was a loud pounding on the front door.

"Fuckin, hell!" I exclaimed, barely keeping my hand from jabbing the sharp needle into my eye.

I put the device down as I stomped towards the door, "This better be fucking good," I yelled loud enough for my visitor to hear. When I wrenched the door open, Martin was standing there.

"Martin, what the hell, did you not see the do not disturb sign? You almost made me poke my eye out."

"Sorry, I wouldn't disturb you if it wasn't important."

"Well, spit it out, I was kind of in the middle of something," I said, gesturing to my eye.

"Wha... no, I'll ask you about that later. This is about the visitors from a few weeks ago. I drove past the area on my patrol and decided to check and make sure the bodies were eaten. That's when I found this," he said, walking to the quad with something wrapped in a tarp.

It looked like a body, "Is it a body?"

"Yes, but that's not the strange part, there were a few other body parts that the gators hadn't finished off completely yet. They didn't touch this body, and there is no decay on the corpse. How is that possible for something that sat in a swamp for two weeks?"

I rubbed my temple, "I don't know, Martin, I'm not a coroner. Isn't there someone else you can take this to?"

"Nobody in town has the qualifications, I thought that with your enchanting and whatnot maybe you would take a look?"

I sighed, "Fine, bring it around back, there is a picnic table back there I don't use and the backyard is fenced in."

Martin nodded quickly before jumping back on the quad and driving around back.

"Any ideas?" I asked Fiona, who quietly watched the whole interaction.

"Nope."

"Thanks," I grumbled as I headed to the back yard to let Martin in.

I heard her giggle quietly and I just shook my head. I unlocked the gate and waited for Martin to circle the block. I heard him coming a minute later. He came through the gate with his package and I shut and locked it behind us.

"Alright, let's get this over with," I said, helping Martin unload the body from the quad and place it onto the table.

He unwrapped the body of the Psion. Now I wasn't an expert on decomposition but I expected a two-week-old corpse to show some signs of decay or bloating. The body looked like it was just sleeping, seeing as it had no wounds. Fiona's strikes leaving no physical damage to it.

"Huh," I said examining the body.

Other than being cold to the touch there was no sign of rigor mortis, not that I knew if a two-week-old corpse should have rigor mortis or not.

"Wait here, ill be right back."

I headed into the house to get a knife from the kitchen. I also grabbed a plastic apron from the tattoo parlor to keep blood off my clothes.

"Hope you don't get queasy," I said, handing Martin a hammer.

"Uhm, what's this for?"

"Well, we're going to have to crack this body open if we want to find out anything more. You may need the hammer to break the ribs, I don't have a saw."

"Oh," was all the response I got.

I shrugged, handing the man another apron. I took the sharp carving knife and cut a Y shape in the chest as I had seen on so many medical and cop dramas.

The first thing I noticed was the skin, it felt odd as I cut through it. After killing so many people you get a feel for the resistance of stabbing someone. This skin while it looked real felt like rubber.

Blood spilled out of the corpse, now I knew that wasn't normal for a dead body. The blood should have pooled and congealed. After the last of the blood emptied into the grass, I dived back into the corpse. That was where things got interesting.

Martin looked into the cavity, "what the heck!"

The body definitely wasn't human, or alive. The tiny mana hearts embedded into the pseudo organs were kind of a dead giveaway. It was easy to tell that the organs were built. Rings of what looked like mithril were wrapped in complex enchantments and attached to each organ. I ripped each out and set it next to the body.

There were a pair of lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, stomach, and even intestines. A thick web of what felt like spider silk but stronger held the organs in their proper place.

It took some finagling but we managed to get into the skull. The 'brain' was a distorted orb made in the shape of a human brain. It was made from pure mithril and had thousands of tiny enchantments placed on it.

"Well, I don't know what this thing is but it wasn't alive. I can tell you from the materials and craftsmanship that it was created by a master of the craft."

I tried running Identify on the body but got the same information from before. I tried it on the body parts to see if I got something different.

Homonculus Brain

"Identify says the body is who we fought but when I identified the brain it came back as a homunculus brain. Any clue?"

Fiona and Martin shook their heads. I had a vague idea what a homunculus was, from Earth stories but needed to verify it with someone more knowledgeable.

I stored the organs in my ring, along with the corpse.

"I'm going to have to go to the Bazaar again to get some answers. Fiona, you stay here with Martin. We can't guarantee that the man that this thing was designed to mimic isn't still out there."

"You sure it's a good idea to go alone?" Martin asked.

I smiled, "I'm not alone I'll have Bella."