“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT WHEN I GET BACK INGLINE BETTER HAVE AN EXTREMELY BELIEVEABLE SOB STORY TO TELL OR I’LL KILL HER DAMN USELESS ASS!”

In a fit of rage I stabbed every leaf that gently floated in my way. Grumbling, I treaded on an unmarked path back to the cabin. Minutes later, I stepped on a conscious man. Yes, conscious. I stepped on him but he didn’t scream, wasn’t startled, nor scared. Instead, he just stared back at me.

My eye twitched as I was quickly running out of what little patience I had left.

“WHAT.” I said to him.

“Well you don’t seem happy today,” calmly said the man.

“Well you don’t seem like you want to live either,” I retorted.

The man tried to get up but my foot still pressed on his chest. As if randomly stepping on a man in the middle of a forest near midnight isn’t strange at all.

When the man decided that he wouldn’t be let up, he just plopped back down and began his monologue.

“Natural. Well it’s the title for it right now. Not quite sure if they’ll change it for release though. Anyhow, the story is about a boy being lost in the woods. It’s a fantasy. The boy is from a made up race called Ulpts. Somewhat similar to a combination of fairies and elves and of course has a humanoid figure. The boy’s name is Tell. He came from a loving family with a paternal grandmother, father, mother, and 2 other siblings. Tell was the middle child. As the middle child however, he never felt any resentment towards his other siblings. The older cared well for him while the younger respected him. Life was good. Until a tribe from the rival race, the Blas, came. Now they might be called a rival race but relations within the two races were fairly peaceful. They –”

“You suck at story telling. Everything you just said was more of a word dump than anything. If you wanted to make me bored with the plot, well congrats, you’ve succeeded.”

“Haaa….” The man sighed. “Just pretend I’m an old man and listen to my ramblings. Back to the story. The Blas, technically the dark versions of the Ulpts, were, despite their dark magic, fairly peace loving creatures. However, dark magic has its consequences. The blessings of the moon, the source of power for the Blas, were weakening. No one knew why. Then one day, a fanatical member of the tribe came forth with his belief.”

“’The moon isn’t pleased!’ he said. ‘We are dark beings! Why do we submit to the light’s societal ways?!’ That member was Drog. He had always believed in evil ways. Drog had tribe to usurp the power of the village chief but in turn he was suppressed and exiled. A year later the son of the tribe chief was born. Drog managed to come back and put a curse on the newborn before he was finally killed. Juel, the newborn, was cursed to have loved and lost – all those that he loved will eventually die by his own hands. The tribe chief and his wife sought countless wisemen to break the course and finally came with a solution – taking away his ability to love. The - HEY! ”

I started to walk away. His story telling was starting to piss me off. Did he want Juel to be the MC? I thought Tell was. What the fuck do they have to do with each other? Don’t tell me it’s some stupid cliché that Juel was in an arranged marriage with Tell’s younger sibling. It could go either of two ways. The first, Tell’s younger sibling was an absolute delight so Tell tried to get ways to break the engagement then have his sibling suffer a marriage without love. The second, there’s actually something wrong with Tell’s younger sibling and they’ve become a perfect match! Either way, I wouldn’t want the main protagonist to be Tell. Juel would be much more interesting…

“I said HEY!” the man shouted from behind. He tried to grab my shoulder to turn me around but I grabbed his arm and flipped him over.

“The story went on for too long. It got boring, especially with your uninterested storytelling ways. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got places to be and things to do.”

I quickly lost him within the forest. Some feet away I could still hear his indignant shrills. I scoff at the annoying man and made my way back to the cabin.

The moment I stepped inside, Ingline ran up to me and did a big kowtow. I looked down on her with distain. My mood had lifted a bit only to be dragged down further. I closed the door behind me, and without bothering to look at her any further, I went to take a nice long hot shower.

I came out into the kitchen and fixed myself a nice little salmon toast, a scone with some clotted cream, and a cup of earl grey. I was putting everything on a tray when I noticed a shadow loom over me. It was Rylan, looking at me with a complicated expression. Not wanting to start the talk and ruin a nice meal, I took the tray and left.

“Meeting in the Undergrounds in 30 minutes,” I shouted back to him. I then went back to my room underground and ate in silence. However the silence didn’t last long.

“Tell seems like such a naïve privileged ass. Born in a cozy home, everything went perfectly fine until a change occurred in his life. A stupid change he didn’t like and set off on a stupid self-righteous journey to justify villainizing Juel. WHO WAS A NEWBORN CURSED BY A DEGRANGED MADMAN! WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘LIFE WAS GOOD UNTIL…’ THEY WERE SAID TO BE PEACE LOVING. THAT NOTHING SET THEM APART FROM THE ULPTS EXCEPT THEIR BLACK MAGIC AND MOON WORSHIP! AND THEIR BLACK MAGIC ISN’T EVEN EVIL! IT’S JUST DARK! WHY WAS ‘LIFE WAS GOOD UNTIL…’?! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!? THE MOOM BLESSINGS WAS WEAKENING. SINCE THEY WERE PEACE LOVING, THEY WOULD’VE JUST BEEN SEEKING HELP. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY FORCED THEIR WAY IN. WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT MEAN ‘LIFE WAS GOOD UNTIL’? CAN’T HANDLE A LITTLE INCONVIENCE TO YOUR PRIVELEGED LIFE CAN YOU FUCKING TELL!”

I ended up screaming my rage out. I realized that since I hadn’t bothered to listen to the full story that maybe it’s not going in the direction that I’m thinking off. But since I hadn’t bothered, I’m now left stewing in my mixing pot of emotions. I was not coming out of being in a bad mood today. Feeling resigned, I quickly finished up my meal and headed to the meeting room.

I sat in my seat at the head of a big oblong table. I turned the table’s screen and pulled up all the relating files to the mission. I impatiently waited as all the members filled in their seats. Rylan and Ingline were the last to come.

“Misera, the –” Rylan started.

“Quiet. We will now start the debrief. Ryker.”

“Our information was leaked. There was a virus attached to Ingline’s terminal. I’m still working on tracing how it got there but it’s a possibility it was transferred by close contact. The virus’ main goal was false information on this specific mission. It had no other function then to throw off our calculations by 1 hour.”

“And that 1 hour was enough for Ingline to fail without suspicion from any of us. Except I sent her to a pop up mission and I took this one instead. I managed to complete it much faster than they anticipated and worked to eliminate me instead. They were well prepared…”

A moment of silence overtook the room. None of them dared to move as I eyed each and every one of them.

“Ingline, you’re under lockdown. I want everything you’ve touched prior to this mission scrubbed 10 times over,” I ordered, watching her visibly fidget under my gaze. “NON-NEGOTIABLE!” I shouted as I heard Rylan starting to protest. With that, I stormed off to my room and slept before my irritation got the better of me.

But just as luck would have it, I couldn’t sleep. So I pulled out the insignia pin I managed to swipe off the annoying man in the forest. It was a completely white shield, outlined in gold. The symbol the Arc. If the Blas were us Shadows, then the Arcs were the Ulpts.