Callie and I spent the next few days together just relaxing. We went out to dinner, went out for walks, spent time with Cass, watched movies, and just generally enjoyed each other's company. I granted the fifteen wishes from the three days we spent off to Callie, the one thing we did related to cultivation. She traded thirty points of Creation for thirty points of Might, bringing my own Creation up to eighty two and beginning to balance my stats a bit. Finally though, Cark got back to us, and told us his decision.

We hadn't seen the bounty hunter around lately, and I'd expected that it was just because we were in our own little world, but it turned out that wasn't the case, since when he finally did track us down, Cass, who had been sitting on the couch watching TV with us, glared at her brother. "Oh, you came home huh? Did you remember you have a sister finally? Or did your new girlfriend get sick of your stupid face." She stuck out her tongue at him, and I raised an eyebrow, not sure why she was being so combative.

Cark rolled his eyes and reached into a pocket, pulling out a candy bar. "I bought you your candy you little harpy. I told you I'd get it for you. I wasn't going to just take your money and then never bring it back you know." Cass sneered at him for a second, but her pout finally gave way to a greedy squeal as she bolted over and grabbed the chocolate bar. I wasn't sure what was so special about it, but the little girl was nuzzling the candy like it was the worlds fluffiest puppy. He turned to us. "You guys willing to take a trip with me? I have some things I think I can help with."

I glanced at Callie, who sighed and nodded. Our mini vacation was over it seemed. We both got up and followed Cark out to the car, which he climbed into (and drove because I didn't have a license and Callie wasn't allowed behind the wheel of anything regardless of how happy I was trying to make her) and started up, pulling out and heading for the station. When we got there he led us to the elevator that went down to G district, and we followed him on in confusion. It wasn't until we started our descent that he began to speak.

He looked around first, checking to make sure no one was listening, before he leaned in and spoke softly. "Ok. I did, in fact, join the Flame Riot Militia. Part of it was the pay. I have to support Cass now, and they're basically throwing piles of money at me, part of it is Sage, because that girl is HOT, and part of it was to help you out, but that's the smallest part so don't get all sappy and grateful on me. Still, once I joined up, I got access to information. Information that other people don't have."

He lowered his voice further as he continued, his speech so quiet even whispering was too strong a word for it. He might as well have been breathing the words. "Someone is trying to take G district, and it ISN'T the Militia. In fact, the Militia have been under attack just like Cavalcade. Ever since Aiden vanished there's been a power vacuum. The Militia was planning to fill it, but someone moved in first, almost instantly, and started occupying all his territory. That's where we're going now. As one of the Blue Flame Barons, I'm pretty high up in the organization despite being so low ranked. I can have them tell us what they know in person."

Callie swallowed hard. I knew from the very few conversations we'd had regarding this that she felt bad Cark had to sell himself up the river to help us. Finding out he was making obscene amounts of money and had a pretty girl throwing herself at him probably helped the guilt, but I was sure she still felt bad about it. I reached down and squeezed her knee before saying loudly. "Thank you Cark. We know this was your own decision and had very little to do with us, but we appreciate any help."

That got a soft smile from my girlfriend, who was clear on the fact that I was trying to make her feel better. She turned to him and nodded, tension bleeding from her shoulders as she took my words to heart, or so I hoped. "Yes, thanks Tony. So these guys will talk to us, I can believe that. But will they actually be able to tell us anything? Do the Militia have any idea who it might be? Which E ranker or faction is backing the people trying to take the district from them? Because that seems important."

He grimaced. "No. Sage says her old man is furious. He's had people looking at all his normal enemies. Raf Savage has most of his forces in F district trying to take an auction house from the Lunar Legend Boys, the Moravian has never really worked with a faction, mostly preferring to do things himself, and apparently someone turned Duncan the Liar into a fish last week and he hasn't managed to undo it yet. No one is sure who it was that did it, but to be fair, from what I'm told literally everyone hates Duncan, so no one really cares that much either."

I raised an eyebrow at him in confusion and shock and he grinned. "Sage likes to vent about problems with the organization. Since we were looking for information I figured it would be good to listen. She seemed very pleased that I paid attention to what she was talking about. Needless to say, I'm going to be a boss in this crew, so I took the chance to ask about our enemies too, and she was happy to fill me in. I learned A LOT about local politics over the last few days, even before I accepted their offer."

That got a snort from Callie, though what she was snorting about, be it his own amusement at Sage's information, or his willingness to listen for brownie points, I couldn't say. Still, I personally wanted to hear more about these other E rankers, considering they could easily be our mysterious candidate's allies. "Can you tell us anything about the people you mentioned? I know you said it wasn't necessarily them involved in the attacks, but the more we know about local politics the better."

Besides that, it was interesting to hear about all these powerful Ascendants. He clearly thought so too, because his face lit up as he started to share. "Of course. I'd heard of a few of them before. Most E rankers are famous enough that you've at least heard the name at one time or another. Moravian in particular is one of the more prominent E rankers. He doesn't work with a faction, but he's dangerous enough on his own. He has an absurd number of Skills for someone his rank because he's, and I mean this literally. The oldest E ranker on the planet at over three thousand years old."

My eyes bugged out at that. "How the hell is he not a D ranker yet? The amount of renown he must have gathered...also how old does he look physically?" At E rank a person had sixty two Impact (barring one of those rare encounters that boosted it further). Three thousand years would be about fifty years for an E ranker, biologically speaking. Even with Vitality to combat some of the degradation, I imagined he didn't exactly look young. I hadn't seen any powerful Ascendants who looked old yet. The closest was Abner, who was the same rank as I was.

Cark shrugged. "I asked that too. Sage says that this planet doesn't have enough of a population to support a D ranker. Not just because of the mortals, but because renown is exponentially weighted. It's why D rank and C rank planets exist. Their creation helps elevate more powerful Ascendants. The galaxies and star systems are feeder setups for the higher ranking planets that the major factions use for that purpose. I'm not sure if that's true, or just her personal opinion, but it did make sense to me. In any case, I'm told he looks like a fit fifty, though his hair is white."

That...put a lot of things about the way the world worked into perspective actually. I knew how much bigger than a normal planet a D ranked planet was, and I'd always wondered why they bothered. If cultivation was exponentially weighted though, with Ascendants being worth more (a fact that was somewhat implied by Impact making us literally weightier in terms of reality) then creating so many smaller planets to feed into the higher ranked ones made much more sense. The existence of higher ranked planets would probably be almost a necessity to reach pretty much any rank past E.

Cark focused back on his information though. "Anyway, Moravian is pretty insular. He and Burning Fist have some serious issues between them, but he isn't involved in faction politics much. If he was going to attack the Militia he would do it personally. Raf Savage is a Berserker, his ability multiplies his effective Might in combat. Simple but effective. Unfortunately it also turns him into a rampaging lunatic, so he doesn't use it much. Dangerous having a crazy powerful rage machine going off in the city."

That one made me whistle. A power that multiplied a stat was insanely broken. Granted it didn't make the person actually tougher or better at healing, but within the same rank fighting someone like that would be hellish. "What about the last one? You mentioned some guy everyone hates?" I wasn't sure why anyone would call themselves Duncan the Liar, but it definitely didn't engender trust. Still, if everyone actively hated him I imagined there was a reason.

The elevator stopped, and we got off, following Cark down a random street in a direction he apparently knew we were supposed to go. I looked at Callie as we got off and she just shrugged, so I followed suit. Cark filled us in as we walked. "Duncan the Liar is an illusionist, and as his name implies, a compulsive liar. Sage is pretty sure his personality has been heavily warped by recursion, because he lies consistently to everyone. Some of the weaker willed Ascendants get like that, after a while, though those don't usually make it to E rank. Duncan is just slippery enough to stay alive though."

That made sense. I'd been wondering where all the warped Ascendants who had been changed more heavily by cultivation were. Callie had mentioned people like that, but I hadn't heard of any. Still, I'd rather stay away from any of the crazies if possible. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of walking, we came to a small run down bar called 'The Rowdy Badger'. The sign above the door had a picture of an anthropomorphic badger in a leather vest with an eye patch snarling at the world, and it made me smile.

What did NOT make me smile, was five seconds after we arrived when a leather clad thug came sailing out of the bar through the wall. We all looked at each other and sprinted f0r the door. We busted it open, slipping inside to see a trio of Jerks standing in the middle of a room full of thugs. The biggest was easily noticeable for his fuschia mohawk and massive size. Ronnie the Beef grinned around the room, a wild look on his rough looking face. "Alright! Who's ready for a BEEF PARTY?" I sighed internally as I heard his words and started getting ready for a fight. I'd known I would have to deal with this nonsense with the Jerks in town. This was why we couldn't have nice things.