“Ivo?” A voice called out my name. I was 10, sitting on my bed. I heard knocking on the door as Issak invited himself in. “What are you doing?” I looked at the book in my hand, Zusu’s guide to unarmed fighting, and looked back at Issak.

“I’m reading.” The squeaky voice of my young self said, Issak just smiled at that. He knew I wasn’t really reading, and he also knew that I was just bored, without anything to do.

“Well, I got someone for you. Come with me,” I placed the book on my bed and followed him out of my room. On the way, the other kids at the mercenary hideout stared at us. Some of these kids were also adopted by other mercenaries, some came here to learn the trade, and some, like me, had nowhere else to go. The hideout was at a small abandoned monastery in Barrsons island, which Goodwin and Issak had fixed and became the main hideout for the Quiver. He led to the woods nearby. It was a small forest, with medium-sized trees, but the leaves covered most of the sky, making the sun barely visible. He led me to a tree, the largest tree in the forest. Up there, there was a young boy, around my age then, sitting on one of the branches, dreamily looking in one direction.

“That boy… was trained by the Royal Assassins in Magicae. However, they deemed him talentless and left him on the street. I myself thought he was a genius at what he does, that’s why I took him in to train him, but I guess it wasn’t enough for the Royal Assassins.” Said Issak while looking up at that tree.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked him

“You don’t have many friends from what I have seen. Perhaps you could talk to him, you guys do share a love for violence after all,” He laughed as he said that. I thought about it for a bit, then proceeded to climb that tree. It was tiring, the tree was tall, I was breathing heavily through my mouth, yet the boy didn’t seem to notice. When I finally made it, the branch was large enough for two of us, so I came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He flinched as he turned around.

“Wh- Who are you?” He asked, his eyes widened.

“Ivo, Ivo Cadman, I’m with Issak, what’s your name?” I asked him. He did not answer, but after a while, he opened his mouth.

“Vesper, Vesper Skylash,” He said. And that’s when I woke up in a place I have never been before.

I looked around myself. There were windows reflecting the night sky. The clothes I had before blacking out were still on me, and my ax was underneath the bed I was on. There were multiple beds like the one I was on in this room, all of them were filled with wounded people. Most of them were normal people, but there were some who looked like guards and adventurers as well. I looked to the bed beside me to see Alberto, wrapped in a bandage in the chest area. How are we here? As I stood up from my bed, the world started spinning, but my legs didn’t tense up anymore. This must be a small hospital. I walked over to Alberto to find that he was still unconscious, but his breathing seemed normal, looks like he is stable. The fight against Stratford took much effort out of us, we both had to over-exert ourselves to finally defeat him. The cult leader, Keres, took him after all. I felt angry at that thought, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about that fact right now. He taunted me, to come to visit him. Vesper IS in Cevine, but Keres didn't seem to know where Chelsea is. A soft groan disrupted my train of thoughts as Alberto woke up. I sat kneeled down next to his bed.

“Good morning, Alberto,” I said to him. He opened his eyes in confusion and was surprised when he saw my face. That surprise soon turned into a sigh of relief, as he started to open his mouth.

“Where the hell are we?” Asked Alberto.

“Seems like a hospital to me,” I said.

“Whoa, I could not have guessed that, who would have thought?” Alberto said mockingly. I brushed off his sarcastic comments. “Where is Fayette?”

“I don’t know, I don’t see her in this room, perhaps she woke up earlier than us and flew off somewhere?” I told him. He shook his head at that statement.

“Don’t sound like her, she would have waited, give me a second,” He groaned as he stood up. I joined him as he slowly dragged himself out of that room. The first thing we saw after we escaped the sickly hospital room was a stream of people, and a familiar hallway. This is the hallway at the adventurer’s guild. The same building, the same carpeted hallway. I looked at the door of the room that we just exited, Clinic Office. We exited the door as someone walked towards the room. A wrinkled man with a white cloak and a long, pointy medical mask. He noticed us as he approached the room.

“You both shouldn’t be up yet. Your body is still weak, you should get back to bed,” He told us. Alberto and I looked at each other and looked back at the man.

“Are you a doctor? What happened to us? Why are we here?” I asked, trying to be as polite as possible.

“I am a doctor, and I will explain to you your questions if you both get back to bed,” He told us, opening the door and motioning us to get in. We walked back into the sickly room. The air here smelled foul, a mix of the metallic smell of blood and the bitter taste of medicine. We sat down on our messy beds, as the doctor started speaking while checking our physical status.

“You are at the Lumen’s Adventures guild. You were brought here after the attack on the Norone Festival. When we arrived at the scene where you two at, it was already a mess,” His tone suggested that he already had to explain this to many people.”The mayor was found dead in his bedroom, throat slit. The good news is they didn’t succeed in taking over the city, or else all of us would be dead already. The bad news is the city wasn’t their true purpose. They stole supplies, cargos from ships, leaving us with barely anything, so the town is in chaos right now.” That was lots of information to take in. What’s going to happen to our quest? Are we going to get our reward at least? I didn’t particularly care about the city being in chaos, but I did care about getting to Cevine. Alberto did not seem surprised at the outcome like he might have already expected that.

“Now, this is something I must ask you. Do you know anything about the attack, any information that you can think of will be helpful,” He asked us.

I told him everything I knew, Keres, the cult leader. How they are a cult, how they operate, the Goddess that they worship. However, Alberto shook his head behind the doctor as I got to Stratford as if warning me not to say his name. Why not? Maybe he has a plan? I just told him we got ambushed by a man in a mask, and how he was rescued. I was still angry at that, at how I got so close yet failed every single time I encountered that man. After my explanation, he just nodded and went over to question Alberto. Alberto said the same thing I just said, and he left it at that.

“You guys should rest here. If you need anything, my name is Doctor Hayes.”

I turned to Alberto. “Why not tell him about Stratford?”

“It’s our only card against him, we need to reveal it at the right time. And he will keep on coming at us if he knows we have his secret, if everyone knows about it, he will hide,” Alberto said. That makes sense. Alberto would want Stratford to keep coming to him. He seemed to have a personal grudge against Stratford, I didn’t want to pry into that anymore, so I left him be.

I lay on my bed, waiting for the night to be over. I kept on thinking about how closely I am, to getting Chelsea and Vesper, and how I was getting stronger. I lay there, as my thought eventually dragged me to sleep.