Bones stepped out of the corner, the two guards tensing up. ”Easy lads, behind you!” He said while pointing behind them. Both guards naively turned around and were promptly impaled by the lances through the back. Bones didn't sense anyone else down there so he chose to get rid of the two and quickly take whatever was there for the taking! He heard the two that went to get the vice leader. He didn't know who the vice leader was and he didn't plan to stick around to find out.

He stepped into the hangar and looked over all the mechanical contraptions he didn't know anything about. He would love to stay and marvel at the invention but there was no time. Looking around, he spotted a couple of boxes on the transport trolleys placed to one side of the hangar. He walked over and looked inside. They were full of oval shaped stones with rough texture, all bluish in color.

Mana stones, raw mana stones to be exact. So this is what Guntar was about?

Two boxes were empty, two filled with unprocessed stones and one box was filled with neatly oval shaped mana stones. His core jumped a beat looking over all the wealth. He stored the stones from each box into his inventory. He felt strained doing it and exhausted after storing it all. He threw a quick glance around before exiting the hangar, up the ladder and through the hatch. He noticed the guard was still there, guarding the entrance. He was compelled to leave him alive just to see him stall the others by trying to explain what happened here but…experience was experience, and this one was served to him freebie. He killed the man by stealthily approaching from behind and ramming his sword through the man's side, between his ribs and through the heart. He looked around and seeing no one, left the area. Not far away, not even a minute away from the warehouse, Belle was running side by side with the scout who reported their findings.

Everything that happened that day, happened in a span of just a few hours. From the guild infiltrating the warehouses to the chaos that ensued right after and the aftermath of the assault. The guild leader Rayne took out the majority of the undead but couldn't stop or find the culprits. They were still figuring out the whys and hows. There were questions that needed answers and Guntar and his henchman would have them!

Belle stopped in front of the dead guard at the entrance to the warehouse. Scout next to her approached the guard and checked his injuries.

“A stab wound through the ribs. It pierced his heart, he died instantly. “

Belle nodded. “What kind of scum could have done this?”

“Guntar?” Scout asked.

“Precisely that kind of scum.” She was gnashing her teeth as she went inside the warehouse, where the scout led her through the hatch and down the ladders. There, Belle took in the sight of two more dead bodies and empty boxes. She went into a fit of rage, destroying machines used for stone processing, while the scout waited outside the hangar, leaning against the walls with his eyes closed. There was nothing to say, they had completely lost today!

Back in the guild, Rayne took control of the guild affairs and sorted everything out. He issued an emergency order for adventurers to take patrolling duties and deal with any remnants of undead army, with adventurers pay accordingly, of course. Special units of fire mages were issued orders to deal with the corpses and healers to tend to the wounded. Unfortunately there were no healers capable of cleansing the few infected survivors as their condition turned for the worse and they died, only to rise as zombies. They were killed on sight and their bodies were taken away outside the town's gates and burned by the fire mages. Water mages were cleaning the streets of blood and gore and earth mages with a few stone mage variants were already in the process of reconstructing the damaged buildings.

On a secret note, a few trusted guild members were issued orders to investigate the disappearance of Guntar and his partner in crime, assassin Trevak and how exactly did the undead enter the town! Belle stormed through the door of the guild's leader's office all plastered and fuming and crashed in the chair across him, putting her feet on the desk.

“Alright, I'll let it slide under the circumstances.” Rayne said with a tired undertone.

“What?”

“My desk? Made of elvier wood, imported from the elv…”

“I KNOW I KNOW!” shouted Belle. “Imported from the bloody elven kingdom!”

Rayne stayed silent, his left eye twitching a bit, but he waited patiently for his vice leader to calm down. A minute later, Belle reported how their scouts had found the underground hangar where the Guntar operation of processing and smuggling mana stones played out. How they had set up the guild members to guard the warehouse and how someone killed the guards and took all the mana stones.

Rayne listened calmly but he too was fuming inside. “No worries Belle, that large amount of unprocessed, raw mana stones could only be sold at the capital and more importantly, they should be easy to trace. We'll find whoever did this.”

“And make them pay?” Belle asked.

“No. There's no wealth in the world!” Rayne shook his head and declared. “We'll kill them!

…

“That's what, "make them pay", means Rayne.”

"It does? Who knew…”

“Everyone did.”

Bones was standing at the top of the building. overlooking the square where most of the corpses were. He was watching mages do their work cleaning the streets and getting rid of the bodies. In his hand was a half empty bottle of mana potion. Soon, he would have to restock.

“Here mate.” The scout behind Bones said as he was handing him a mana potion. Bones turned around to see the man. He didn't sense him coming which said a lot about the man's proficiency as a scout. He reached for the potion and thanked the man.

“You're not the guild member?” The man asked.

“No, I'm a contractor to the guild.” Bones replied. The scout wasn't showing any reaction, just nodded his head.

“We could have a use for someone like you in the guild. You're a bronze ranker, aren't you?”

“What gave me away?”

“I couldn’t identify you. Not to brag, but I have sharp senses and I can identify anyone below bronze rank. So either you are a bronze ranker or there's more to you than meets the eye.”

Bones chuckled and confirmed he indeed was a bronze ranker, just returning to town after completing the quests, when the undead attacked. Apparently it wasn't the first time either in the last few dozens of years, which really stupefied Bones.

“Aren't you all taking this too lightly? I know adventurers see a lot of things but..”

“I'm not an adventurer.” Interrupted scout. “I'm a guild operative in the scouting division. You could say, I am a former adventurer turned guild operative.” *chuckles*

“Oh? I wasn't aware there was a difference.” He hadn't thought about it before, but now that the topic turned up he did wonder..

“Strange you don't know, but who am I to judge? Of course the guild has their own operatives. The adventurers are there on the frontlines, risking their lives to protect the livelihood of the citizens and fulfilling the role of the adventurer guild. We, the operatives of the guild, work behind the scene, making it happen. Someone has to do the legwork, so to speak. Contracts don't just appear out of thin air! “

Bones was listening closely to the man speak and came to the conclusion that the work of the operative must be a lonely kind of work, because the man was still talking and he stopped listening.

“Must be hard, living the kind of life in the shadow of the adventurers.” Bones suddenly said. Man stopped talking, mulling over the words said. There were truths in what was said.

“Aye, it is a hard life but there is a sense of pride in work!” With the final word, he left.

What an odd person. Bones thought and continued looking around. He spotted the same scout a minute later, approaching a lone man in the square and offering him a potion. “Oh, for the love of…”

Some time later, Rayne approached the scout. “Veeno, who were you talking to at the top of the building earlier?”

“Ah sir Rayne, some contractor that was…” the scout wanted to continue but there wasn't much to say.

“You didn't ask? Were you the one that did all the talking again?”

“Sorry sir. Why are you asking about him?”

“There was something about him…”

“Was it the mask? It was a bit odd, having a skull painted mask but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You think so? What if there was an actual skeleton underneath the mask?” Rayne asked in all seriousness.

“Haha you jest sir! You jest!”

The word had been sent to the guild's headquarters in the capital regarding an attack and for now, everything seems to be under control. It would take a few days for the streets to be cleaned and more for the damages repaired but the fear the people experienced? Would remain with people for a long time, if not forever. Casualties were among hundreds. A small number considering the coordinated attack by the undead on different fronts and the overall population of the town. Rayne sighed as he was reading the reports. Most casualties were the citizens and low level adventurers, kids! The only bronze rankers the guild lost were due to the hunter.

The vice leader had fought and identified the two as culprits. The dark elf hunter, specializing in stealth and ranged attacks and the necromancer. Specialized in both the summoning of an undead and necrotic magic. The attack she suffered had started to rot her hand. Only due to her rank and her strength, it didn't spread and she was able to heal the wound with the potion Rayne had given her. Later that day, he found out there were few people missing from within the guild. Two people from the administrative office, one scout operative and one old librarian. Rayne frowned, he knew the old man to be someone. A former gold ranker, transferred from the capital six months ago? Too suspicious for his already suspicious nature. He sent word down to the reception desk to convey the list of missing guild members, along with two suspected culprits, to all the guild branches in the kingdom to be on the lookout for them.

Bones was bored. The guild still wasn't operating and issuing quests and the whole shopping district was closed off. He couldn't confirm his completed quests either. Patrols around the town increased and he didn't know where Trevak and Guntar were. Worst of all, the coffee shop was closed. His mood was sour. He felt like he missed all the excitement and he didn't get to kill Horus, nor Vol, kind of. I guess I might as well head out and to the next city. Bones snuck out of the town and headed for the capital. There wasn't any reason to sneak out, but he did so anyway because he liked sneaking around as an undead

He didn't enter the forest, but continued down the main road. He had outleveled the monsters in the forest and it would be a waste of time if he kept getting attacked. First place on the road to the capitol was a small village called Little Westfield and it was about a six hour walk from Westbrook. Bones was still amazed by how much the landscape had changed after all this time. He would notice little familiarities here and there but everything felt new to him. He still wasn’t used to walking on the cold, hard, stone roads. Amazing, must’ve taken a long time to construct the road connecting towns and villages. Was the stone local or imported? Bones continued down the road, his thoughts filled with a lot of questions he had no answers to.