Okay, so it’s time to go to the capital! How exciting. Riveting even!

Apparently, only me, Lily and Laffer are being sent to the capital. So, to my understanding, they basically sent away the troublemakers with Dok.

“Are you implying that I’m a troublemaker?”

“Laffer,” I put a hand on his shoulder, “You most certainly are,”

“Hah? Then what does that say about yourself?”

“Considering how I’m offloaded with all the children, that would make me the unfortunate babysitter,”

“Are you trying to say I’m a child?”

“Well yes,” Looking at the people — children — under my charge, I could already feel the migraines coming in.

“Ah yes, comrade Jeffrey, it is dangerous to go alone,” Lacer nuances, “Take this,” Even though I won’t be going alone he has a point, and passes me two things. One is some kind of circular item wrapped in cloth and the other is also some kind of item wrapped in cloth… But smaller! And rectangular…!

Yeah, I dunno what these are.

Putting a hand to his forehand he sighs, “Comrade, what I first gave you is cake,”

“Cake?” Like cake cake? The sacred bread? The bread said to be of divine status amongst all breads?!

I'm astounded. Cake. A treat that not just any ol' baker could make. A coveted item that even the most hardened veterans would fight over.

“Correct, I baked it,”

Holy shite! I didn’t know you did the bakey of cakey! Let’s put this down for the time being, wouldn’t want something uncouth to happen to it.

I’m suddenly feeling a lot more reluctant to leave now.

“Are you not going to check the module, comrade?”

“Module?” Oh, this rectangle thing.

“Strange how you value cake more than the artifact I gave you,”

Artifact? I cautiously raise the rectangle compartment in my hand.

“Yes, that is the artifact,”

He halts any further elaboration beyond that point. I stand on ceremony for many moments, before I awkwardly prompt Lacer.

“Sooo, may I ask what the artifact is?”

I take off the cloth and scrutinise the artifact. From my inspection of the rectangular item, it was black, like my robes, with a see through strip of glass running through the middle of it from the top, down. Many different runic symbols are carved on the thing and from what I can tell, it seems to be an essence harvester of some sort. I’ve often seen runic mages carry these things around, but this one looks different. And feels different.

It's definitely cursed.

“Mmmm, surprising, I thought you were not interested comrade,” He huffs sarcastically, “It is called dark script meter,”

Dark script meter. A very ominous name for a very ominous article. Lacer goes on to elaborate a bit about it and well it was basically a storage unit for divine essences and divine essences only. Of course, divine essence is extremely potent and one can do many things with it. Unsealing rituals, or resurrection ceremonies, it was capable of even distorting the laws of the word to a degree. It was also the reason why other cults liked to prepare live sacrifices, as it was the easiest way to incite even the infinitesimal iotas of potential dormant divine essence within them.

That being said, apparently, divine essence isn’t just limited to higher beings as I previously thought, but is also hidden amongst bloodlines and special physiques. Not that it’s exactly common, meaning that mass sacrifices actually generate a lot of waste just searching for the meagre droplet to complete said ritual.

In that sense, most cults were frivolous pieces of crap!

Sloshing the pure, unadulterated golden divine essence inside, it only reaches to about the middle of the glass meter. As inferred, it meant that it was half filled with divine essence, how much that translated to in actual practical terms, I wasn’t sure, but Lacer said it was a lot, so I’ll take his word for it.

But I wonder though… “Do you think I could drink it?”

“Hm?” Puzzled Lacer turns to me, “You are welcome but it is much advised against. You’ll die,”

Makes sense, I would probably implode if I was just dousing myself in the stuff, even if it would logically increase my vitality and vigour. It’s potency was nothing to scoff at if it took a liquid form.

Speaking of which, isn’t this mega expensive? If I recall correctly, Lacer seemed to have a bit of life crystals and stuff, but he always took great care of them. So is there really a reason to give me something even more precious than that?

“You are mistaken, comrade. To us divine essence is little more worth than dirt. On the other leg, what is of great value is nice, pure death essence, or some chaos essence. But either way comrade, those are much too hard to obtain, unlike divine essence,” He gripes, before patting my shoulder.

That being said, apparently, death essence is freakishly hard to obtain, as killing a man would only generate a minute amount of charnel essence, which quickly dissipates, so collecting it is a pain. Not to mention that an unholy amount of charnel as well as negative energy is required to produce death essence. On that note, chaos essence is even harder to get, of which I was not given an explanation on.

Lacer continues, “Plus, it was you who found the divine essence inside it, comrade. After all, everything is for everyone,”

Everything for everyone, huh? That’s rather… intriguing, radical perhaps, but that wasn’t what I meant. “I mean shouldn’t Laffer be holding onto it?”

“No,”

No?

“Yesn’t,”

Yesn't?

“Ah, before I forget, as the rector of this chapter, I declare your provisional period as over, you are one of our comrades now, so take good care of the meter,” He congratulates, not handing me any form of certificate, “Remember, the authority does not dictate you, you dictate the authorities,”

Giving me an empire proverb, he leaves me with good fatih.

Neat, and I guess Lacer is still pissed about the rifle.

From three bar stools away from me, Laffer clicks his tongue, “Tsk, it really wasn’t my fault…”

Sure buddy. “Then whose fault was it? New Guy’s?”

“Those were just my thoughts,”

What? Are you seriously blaming New Guy?

“I’ve always felt something was fishy with the bastard,” He takes a swig of apple cider, slamming the stein down in an heavy handed manner. It reverberates in this empty bar, “Haven’t you found some things rather suspicious, Jeff?”

Uhmm, I mean, “You’re suspicious,”

“Tsk, rude,” He clicks his tongue, “I meant about the recent happenings going on,”

I feel like I’ve answered this question many a time, “I do not come from Joost. So how are you expecting me to know what’s going on?”

“Not that! I’m talkin’ about our current activities. Don’t you find it strange the direction that they steer toward?”

Uhmm, “Yesn’t?”

“Cut back to the first time I found you, didn’t you find it odd why I thought you were one of my comrades?”

Thinking back, that was extremely weird. But I chalked it up to Laffer being a spedtastic retard. But it seems that Laffer is suggesting there was a deeper significance behind it, which I cast high doubt upon.

“Well, that was because I genuinely thought you were one of us but it was still strange nonetheless,”

Ah, so you were being a spedtastic retard. Good to know.

He shrugs, “Moving on. Remember the time when the old base got raided,”

Oh, the event that happened a couple days ago? No, how could I ever remember that.

“Yeah yeah, shut up. But don’t you find that mega suspicious? We always hide our tracks, so who could’ve sold us out? How did they find us? Y’know, at first I suspected you,” He gives me a glance, “But then again, you were also the one who got his ass beat at that time,”

Mm, bad times.

“That was how I knew there was definitely a leak somewhere, and I had my hunches, but what sealed the deal was the appearance of the blood cult. Remember our bet? Wasn’t it strange that the blood cult showed up on our stage grounds?” He flips a card hidden in his sleeve, holding it between his index and third finger. It’s an ace from a standard deck of playing cards, except it's coloured with a hyacinth hue, “It was. So I called on an old pal, and that was when I was able to connect all the dots…”

Wow, I have to give to you. You really know how to ramp up the suspense, no joke, I think you’re a great theatrical performer, but can you just give me the information? Is that too hard to ask?

“Our very interactions were guided to introduce friction between us and our intel was divulged,” His tone lowers an octave, “T’was as you thought. It was all New Guy. After all, do you even know the guy’s name?”

It all sounds like a big pile of horse shite, but these last set of words echo through me as I process the implications.

Holy crap, although Laffer was unnecessarily beating around the bush, these points were all interesting. Like, I feel like he told me his name, but I still remember him as just New Guy.

Just who was he?