Alice woke up she realised that she had been wearing the mask to sleep. She felt far more confident. Before she had drifted off to sleep, she had delivered fat fewer cuts to her arm. She told herself it was just practice for her healing magic. She felt less insomnia clouding her mind was a little confidence boosting all she needed? She remembered seeing the necromancer’s older kids die. They might have been useful as informants, but they were better off gone, one less practitioner of the profane art all the better.

She looked in a mirror, she held the mask up, Malice the mage. She put the mask down Alice the human being. She mused “Vivian's idea ... I think, we have distinctive … costumes then when we want to be people … we just put them down and wear common robes”.

Vivian woke up reached for the little packet of blue powder. She pulled her hand back she didn't need it all the time, yet she added to herself, time would tell how necessary it would become. David and Martin woke up, Martin was always happier after killing some vampires and David was sure that they had enough money to afford a full suite of mithril armour. He just had to bide his time to suggest it.

At the breakfast table they demolished bread and fish stew. Martin pointed out, “there were five people the vampire might miss, the four full vampires and the senior blood thrall. The rest won’t matter vary much they are easy to replace. The lair had already been stripped of a lot of stuff, it was more than half empty, we can expect the other lairs to be far busier, they anticipated an attack and moved most people back”.

They were planning an attack on the second vampire lair, it was quite a bit further away. Vivian had to agree, “it’s possible they pulled forces out of the closest lair to reinforce the other ones. A large force could easily get to the first lair from North Port”. David gulped down a fourth helping of stew, “what have hunters attacking the second lair previously seen”? Martin read through some notes from the local hunters. “An elite vampire no known name runs the show, some marauders have been seen in the area daytime muscle”.

He kept reading, “There are reports of wights stupid but tough”. Alice remembered the almost skeletal creature that they had fought it had been starving so they were very lucky to find it in its weakened state, “Is there an … upper limit to their power … the wights I mean”. Martin looked unsure, “I honestly have no clue, but they are stupid, unable to use anything other than the most basic instinctual tactics, even if they could become as powerful as a vampire, they would not survive that long”.

Martin was about to go through some of the basic strategy when a city guard interrupted them, bursting into the room. “Quick the deputy sheriff needs your help some sailors have been murdered on the docks”. They gulped down their food grabbed their equipment and followed the city guard, who was accompanied by a few militia. There were a lot of militia about the place was on high alert, something pretty bad had happened inside North-ports walls.

The deputy sheriff they had seen before and another officer, presumably the guard captain of the docks were arguing. It seemed to be an exercise in apportioning blame, a very angry looking mercenary from the grey company stood around looking for a target to vent his own fury.

The deputy sheriff spoke up as they approached. “We have just had a big theft, 20 crates that came with the elven ambassador. Silks perfumes rare texts 2000-year-old wine Magic items. All very valuable things nearly 50000 silvers worth of goods. Perhaps much more, we need to get it back quickly. Unless there is an army besieging the city, this is first priority”.

Vivian's artificial eye focused on the area, “we have several unique perspectives we can employ show us”. Martin activated his monocle and held out his holy symbol trying to sense anything supernatural. Alice extended her senses to try and detect the faint impression of the use of any magic. Vivian and David quickly looked over the area. It was a high security warehouse good solid locks, there were a half dozen grey company mercenaries all killed on duty.

A quick examination showed heavy crossbow bolts punched through weak spots on the armour, the residue indicated that they were poisoned. A standard for the hidden hand, and many other outfits. Vivian made an educated guess, “they took the time to recover the crossbow bolts, they recovered the bolts because they would identify them. Hidden hand are the only ones that use that kind of recognisable ammunition with the fate bound enchantments so that there is nothing left to scry with”.

Martin looked over at the footprints and what crates were left, “to move those crates they would be the same size right”. The deputy sheriff checked a manifest “yes”. Martin used his monocle to track over the footprints, “I believe that there were four trips five men one on lookout”. There were the bodies of four sailors. Martin quickly examined them, “Bad luck these sailors walked in on them probably investigated the lack of guards, I assume they worked for the same boss. They Dragged the bodies back into the warehouse to hide them. It was throwing knives to the artery the sailors barely knew what hit them before they bled out, a lot mess possibly a deliberate warning to us”?

The dock captain looked sceptical, “How are you sure”? Martin answered dismissively, “we have fought the hidden hand a few times before, they used the same techniques”. David was further out where the trail met the chaos of the general road. “One bloody footprint hear, Vivian can you track it”. Her golem eye scanned around focusing on something far up the road, “Yes another over there”.

They picked up a trail from the bloody warehouse. The hidden hand had been a little two enthusiastic when leaving a warning, now there was the marks of a trail that they could follow. The hidden hand seemed to be heading to the docks, perhaps they had a ship or a boat. They found the end of the blood trail it started to follow some cart tracks; the hidden hand had carried the boxes a fair way. The militia asked door to door, no one that had seen them would be prepared for the repercussions of pointing out which direction they came from.

There were lots of cart tracks, one cart loaded with heavy crates looked a lot like another. It was an excellent way to hide in plain sight. A hooded cloak to keep out the cold and they might not even be noticed. Martin had one extra little trick he held his holy symbol it glowed, “thy will be done” he felt a sensation a pressure on his head and his view snapped in one direction on one fresh set of cart tracks, “follow me, they whet that way”.

They headed down to a small dock with only a few moored boats and a sailor so drunk he would not have noticed an invasion fleet landing, David pointed out something behind a stack of barrels, “There is the cart”. He got closer and looked, “we are on the trail see the mark of a bloody boot” Vivian looked about, “from the docks they must have loaded it onto a boat. Yes, I think we follow along the shore. They would be noticed heading out they moved backwords towards the centre of the docks a false trail I think to throw anyone tracking them off”.

They got on a small patrol boat that took them round the shore. Vivian used her enhanced perception, as they got past the centre of town, “Look they capsized the boat to hide it. They must have moved the goods from hear. The cart was a deliberate bloody trail to be found to make us think that they had met up with a ship”. Martin looked around trying to find something out of place, “down there, that grate to the sewer is not flush it should be riveted in for security, but it is not”.

It looked like deep mud, but there was a trail of stone that could be steeped on a hidden path. “That's revolting” the guard captain of the docks commented as the grate swung open and revealed a certain amount of sewage. Vivian held her nose as she peered inside, “lots of deep footprints, they must have carried something heavy inside”.

Alice looked over the guard captain, “Keep your men back, we … are a lot better prepared … to face them than you are”. Alice was happy with her choice of robust footwear under these circumstances. A short slog along the tunnel meant they were under the city.

There were steps up into the basement of the building above them. The hidden hand could move things into the city unseen, perfect for smuggling. David looked about, “I guess this sewer tunnel is a lot bigger than it needs to be, probably a deliberate plan in its construction, they must have been using it for years”.

Alice dismantled a warning spell and dissolved a cheap lock with her acid strike spell, they moved quietly forwards. There were two groups of the hidden hand totalling a dozen of them. They exchanged banal banter as the party approached, “you contracted a buyer yet”. The other member hesitantly waved his hand “a few interested nothing solid yet”. Alice noticed that the specific member of the hidden hand's voice seemed exactly the same as one they had heard before.

Vivian directed the party to spread out, the hidden hand detected them almost instantly. “Why don't you all surrender”? She shouted at the leaders. It was a formality, but she had an obligation to give them one chance before killing them. The leader snarled back, “why don't you drop dead, after the lich its 9 gold on your heads each. There's more of us this time and we are prepared”. That seemed to be a signal of some sort, the hidden hand pulled on some sort of alchemists masks the room flooded with a black gas.

Martin's holy symbol glowed “cleanse air”, the black gas dissipated as if it had never existed. There were twelve rogues, the six that stole the goods and the rest who had been trying to find a buyer for the goods. Four of them were behind a barricade the other eight had their crossbows ready, one man was a leader a master rouge. He had better equipment and a double crossbow with two bolts at the ready.

Alice cast spells physical shield bonus vitality. Vivian relied on her enchanted Damascus to survive the initial hail of bolts. David charged forwards with his shield raised Martin activated a defensive shield blessing and charged. The hidden hands opening argument didn't do very much even though the mater rouge had mithril tipped bolts. They didn't do that much against Martins divine blessing.

The rouges shouldered their crossbows and pulled out their usual weapons a stabbing knife in the left hand and a fan of knives in the right. With smoke bombs and other assorted nuisances heading towards the party. Alice flooded the back of the room with her poison gas cloud spell. The rouges jumped out of the way avoiding it only to be met with Martin's four barrelled pistol and Vivian's mithril arrows. They shaved down the odds by four of the hidden hand’s operatives.

David used his hail of blows skill to overwhelm the dodging rouges when he could close. Rapidly slicing the murdering thieves into pieces, he cut down two more. A rouge tried to intercept Alice's kinetic strike spell with a thrown blade the spell kept going knocking him back. Usually magic would activate the moment it touched anything denser than air or rain. But the kinetic strike spell manifested as pure physical force.

David was faced with two rouges who tried to douse him in some sort of burning oil. His enchanted belt protected him, and he kept cutting away at them. Vivian had to duck as a rouge who had gotten onto a support beam threw daggers down onto her. She sent arrows through the beam pinning him in place.

The remaining five rouges kept fighting they had no fear no hesitation no surrender. David backed three of them into a corner they were so busy avoiding him Vivian's arrows made short work of them. The master rouge dodged to the side of Alice's icy tomb spell. He landed and turned but not close enough. He might be able to focus doge, but Martin could focus strike matching him. Martin had an octium dagger in each hand. The rouge felt the blade pierce his arm then Martin twisted it using the blade as a lever. A technique sometimes used by vampires to lock the rouges arm in place, with the other blade he started to stab away.

Alice eyed up the last rouge “you look …familiar” Alice knocked the rouge down with a kinetic strike spell. Then she hit him in the legs with an acid strike. He started screaming and tried to crawl back as his legs melted below the knee. He could heave reached for a healing potion or a knife, Alice hit his right hand with a low power acid strike spell the dagger he was holding smoked and dropped to the floor as his fingers melted away. The rouge tried to throw a blade only for it to bounce off Alice's shield spell. She melted his other hand, she pulled his mask away as she watched him die, her breath stilled, and she stepped back.

It was exactly the same man she had seen killed before same face same scar. He grinned and spat at her the blob of spit ran down her shield spell as the man died. The fate bound enchantments on all the rouge's equipment activated and everything collapsed to dust.

Vivian turned to Alice “what the hell was that for, why did you need to look at his face”? Alice looked at Vivian, her mask hid her shocked expression. But her voice conveyed it “we killed … them before … I failed to ... realise that it’s the same group, but it is … we killed them once before I remember … the face the voice”.

Vivian was confused, “that can’t be right sure we have killed quite a few hidden hand, but it can’t be the same ones”. Alice's voice had a cold hard certainty to it, “if you had a way to cheat death … again and again wouldn't you want to hide the evidence? That's why the hidden hand's members … use these enchantments, they have found some way to cheat … death and well that's going to make them hard to stop”.

The level up hit Vivian and Alice still had to make a breakthrough. David was just almost caught up with them. Martin and David's eyes glowed Martin reached level 85 with a class level came new blessings. Alice Vivian and David's base attacks kept getting stronger rapidly outpacing Martins lower level blessings. But he gained several powerful blessings that dramatically evened the odds. He gained two more uses of the pillar of fire blessing able to summon and direct a pillar of fire. He also gained a blessing pillar of ice, which was the cold equivalent for enemies that were resilient to heat it was far weaker than Alice's icy tomb spell, but it was a lot quicker and could be targeted.

He gained a one use per day blessing divine regeneration, that would continually restore 20 health per second. It was powerful but would deplete his focus rapidly. He gained three more uses of the purify blessing and six more uses of the wrath blessing, to help deal with small fry. David reached level 74 and gained the 4th level of his contract bonds skill.

The group gathered round Alice, Alice adjusted her mask slightly as if she was trying to see if anything was obscuring her eyes. “I don't think that ... they were identical twins”. David's friend Melcher had described one incident that gave him an idea, “What the hell do you think they are? I have heard some doppelgängers can break a part of themselves off and they can look like people so could it be that? Martin looked through his book on monsters, “that don't fit unfortunately, you would see more physical remains and the hidden hand bleed like humans”.

Vivian shot the idea down further, “if that was so, there weapons would be left behind. Doppelgängers can’t make things like that”. Alice thought about sorcery, “some sort of sorcery maybe … they are soul spliced demons …or some sort of shape shifting demon ...we have not seen before, they can conjuror equipment”? Martin held out his holy symbol and concentrated, “there was no demonic presence, I would have felt it”.

David had seen a few weird things, “Some supreme skill that copies a body maybe”? Martin looked around the room counting the number of marks where a body had been. “No idea but it seems to numerous, if there was one maybe but they got replaced really quick. Maybe they do have a large number of spare bodies?

Alice grinned a hidden malicious grin, reflected in her voice. “Whatever it is … it’s probably expensive, enchanting blood …alchemy maybe, we must be costing them a fortune. It’s not like we are killing them …every day right so they can’t be actively hunting us …let’s keep this one to ourselves so we don't sound like mad people …until we find evidence”, there was a nod of agreement.

Martin walked out of the basement into the main building they swept it finding some basic living quarters and nothing else. David stood watch as Martin moved over to the sheriff and guard captain waiting at the entrance to the sewer. He gestured them forwards, “The hidden hand are gone, mealy outlines on the ground, you can recover the cargo”. A very relieved looking merchant came over to them he disappeared into the building with a ledger in his hand. Ten minutes later he returned to the deputy sheriff, “they broke a jar of perfume, drank a gift for the dwarves clan's trade minister but everything else is ok”.

The merchant handed a purse to the deputy sheriff and then set about organising some porters and some carts. As well as a few more guards to get his goods back to the warehouse safely. The sheriff held the bag out to Martin, “your reward 100 silver from the merchant’s guild. They would have offered more I think, if it took longer to find. You really seem to be good at squashing the hidden hand”.

Martin looked about he handed the silver to Vivian who carefully placed it in her pack. The group seemed to be stumped. Martin scratched his head, “this might be some sort of monster working with the hidden hand. We could speak to the vampire hunters, then if that does nothing maybe the mages guild”. They paused as a few carts past them, with the sailor’s dock workers and mercenaries’ bodies taking them to the cathedral.

They moved through the hunter house and met the leader Frances he greeted them politely, “I understand the hidden hand have been causing more trouble. Hopefully they lay low after this, why have you come to my office you want to get some support for a raid on the second lair of the local vampires”. Martin questioned him, “have you ever herd of a monster or a vampire or anything else where the body disappeared after death and then reforms”?

Francis was confused, “only demons but the hidden hand are not demons just thieving ass-holes. with a good enchanter on their payroll who makes their stuff evaporate. You can’t scry you can’t put a sniffer dog on it because it’s gone, effective and irritating they all wear the same outfit, so it looks like your fighting the same opponent. Hunters put the same fear into a vampire’s mind. We all dress the same or similar, they cut one of us down another steps up puts on the coat and keeps marching forwards”.

Vivian leaned forwards, “What can you tell us about the political situation, these hidden hand thieves can they do a lot of damage”? Francis took a swallow of tip, “Depends on the elves, you know about the elves history. The western elves didn't like the trend of making better and better golems. Of making stronger servants and becoming lazy. So, they left about a century before the golems rebelled, they got on ships with a few humans who wanted to spread the faith a few priests”.

“The elves didn't mind the priests healing ability's, on the trip over the long ocean. There were a few ships lost. It was a miracle the sea life didn't kill more of them. Now after two and half thousand years later they nether have much of a capacity or desire for war. Other than a few select monster hunters on their boarders and whatever washes up from the sea. They are excellent craftsmen who make luxury items. For the trade talks, we need to get samples out and deals agreed as quickly as possible”.

“The hidden hand wants a large cut of the proverbial pie; we don't want them to have the smallest crust. These deals will benefit Inwerben her people the triune. Not the hidden hand it’s going to get bloody, I mean worse and the vampires they would love to see some incident that will cut us off from our new allies before the inks dried on the treaty”.

Vivian nodded, “there is more isn't there”. The hunter continued, “the elves have the creator god’s faith, but they have not forgotten their original culture. On a harvest festival after their masters were good and drunk the golems killed them all. Similar to the dragon rebellion ending the blood alchemists. I think the western elves now they know will want their city's back, all four of the golem city's that remain quiet in the northern lands”.

He paused thinking, “we might have to pick a war with the golems to ensure the flow of trade goods. Not that paying the golems a permanent blow has not been on our minds for a long time. Every few years they send us an emissary asking for us to hand over the last of the northern elves’ descendants in the capital, every time we decline politely. If it is war with them, we might have to try and persuade the central city states to do the same. There are six old elven city's that lie in their lands and the golems there”.

Alice considered something from her days studding in the tower, “haven't the elven enclave in the capital been asking for the same thing for longer, don't they have just as good a claim”? Francis considered her naive, “the descendants of a handful of survivors that hide in a ghetto? They don't have the political power and never will, they have passed a few useful bits onto us. But I don't think they number 1000 maybe not even 600 full blood elves. When the trade deals allow us to afford a standing army and we can fight the vampires properly then the golems will be the next thing on the list. It’s a very long list with dragons’ necromancers and the like”.

The Hunter Francis grinned, “we have made many preparations for the trade deals to succeeded we have a few key agents, the four of you hear. The elves have their heaviest hitter somewhere around the area. The patriarch has his emissary the witch finder Bain about. We have a few more people around I think it’s time to get some help. I have a little bit of a job I need you to do to, I suppose I would call it contacting an associate of the hunter’s order that can help us. See me tomorrow and we can get the wagon rolling.

They had one more thing to do before they called it a night, another audience with the duchess. It was granted within ten minutes this time; the duchess was drinking a glass of port with several other glasses poured out for the party. The duchess sat down and invited them to several well cushioned chairs, “I am relieved to see your rapid intervention deal with the hidden hand again. How dare those dam rapscallions cause so much trouble. How dare they try and steal right out from under our nose”.

Alice looked at her taking a small sip of port, “there are a … lot of them, we have killed 18 of them and taken out one … of their associated gangs it just … scratches the surface”. Vivian nodded “they seem to be trying to scare people with the killings, it was deliberately bloody, they are even trying to show the triune that it would be cheaper to leave them alone. We need to hit them in the coin purse to make them lose so much money they don't step in North port again”.

The duchess nodded, “I don't think that there is any other way, they are a business and if we prove that this is bad for their business they will give up. I realise we have problems with vampires and sorcerers but don't neglect this job. With the hidden hand they can do just as much damage to the inside of this city as anything on the outside”. Alice looked to the duchess, “we have proven our commitment … to helping you remove the hidden hands presence, can you … start the ship sailing so to speak with your aunt for the ward of enhanced defence?