“And how exactly did you do that?” Arthur watched over every little move that Kavok made, his words put him on edge. He managed to figure out that he was the one who reported his strange behavior to the captain, what else did he know by just ‘noticing’.

“I showed him my face.” Kavok said as if it was a simple fact of life. To further demonstrate his point with a small flick Kavok made the dark fog blocking his face disappear and show his real face.

Arthur froze at what he saw, Kavok skin was a brown that was also sickly pale with his veins black from the blood that now flowed. The rough yet youthful voice he had was a result of becoming a necromancer and learning the secrets of life and death.

The reason he did not eat or even rest was because he didn’t need to, but since that was something both necromancers and vampires had in common and with his face concealed, Arthur simply assumed what he had the most experience with.

“You are quite perceptive and you have helped me by fixing my mistakes. Keeping my knowledge and condition out of the public eye is almost essential, that's why I have been eating and resting. But what exactly made you think I was a vampire? You seemed to be quite certain of that.”

“I've dealt with vampires before in the past along with a cult that worshipped one.” Arthur said as he leaned forward and avoided eye contact with Kavok.

“Really? Where was this vampire cult? I hear they are quite dangerous, especially for just one person.”

“It was in an old noble manor in Antium. Since I was interfering with their operations they sent a vampire assassin to try and kill me, he failed and eventually the self proclaimed vampire lord invited me to his manor where I killed his two remaining blood spawn.”

“But you did not kill him.”

“No. The circle of fire sent a division of paladins to assist with the threat, the leader of that division killed the vampire.”

“Yes, that sounds a lot like the circle of fire. They have always been quite proactive in rooting out vampires. But in all honesty it is quite surprising that a vampire cult managed to find its footing within the capital city. I personally would have expected it in a small village or even a small town, but the capital itself?”

“Yeah, I heard a few rumors going around after that some of the nobles were involved with setting them up. The ones specifically named are not exactly on good terms with the crown at the moment.”

Arthur returned his half eaten food to his bag, with the conversation drifting to vampires and politics he lost his appetite.

“Well that is politics for you. Someone is always trying to ruin someone else’s plans, even if it is universally a bad thing for everyone. Pride has always survived every calamity.”

**********

After the sort break ended The mercenaries and the guards marched the captured bandits back to the city and through the southern district all the way to the barracks and down to the dungeon to await their trial.

As they marched through the streets the people slowly started to take notice, eventually the people started to whisper as they saw the bandits leader Diana and the expensive armor she wore, and by the time the bandits were processed and locked in cells several rumors about what happened were already spreading through the city.

Most were quite close to the truth, but there were a handful that would require a public statement to smother before they became an open flame. And as such the very next day Captain Tasius made a public announcement at noon and notified several of the town criers to attend and later share the news.

The captain simply went over who they captured and why as well as briefly going over the evidence they found at the hideout and that they would to the best of their ability try to return the valuables to their previous owners.

But on the monetary side of the aftermath each of the mercenaries received at least two gold coins for taking part in the assault, several earned even more based on their above average contributions to the fight. Arthur personally received three gold and ten silver coins for his efforts, a nice sum for someone like him.

With such a danger behind him Arthur was finally able to relax and took a few days off from working to do so, he only stopped when the weekend arrived and he went back to teaching Marcus.

But things were not as happy and uplifting as they appeared, a good portion of the nobility were holding a meeting to discuss the possible implications the investigation regarding the Rusted Daggers will have on law enforcement in the future.

Roughly twenty nobles of various ranks sat around a large table with another ten or so attending through their communication orbs while in a private place. The room had all its windows covered and the room was only illuminated by a sparse amount of candles scattered around the room.

At the head of the table was a elderly man known as Duke Quintus Igennus, the very same elderly man who opposed the idea of allowing mages and priests to take part in the legal system. “As I am sure you all know we have a problem. With the resolution of the case involving the Rusted Daggers bandit group Captain Tasius of the southern district of Antium has shown the world the effectiveness of allowing mages and priests to take part in the legal system.”

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Duke Quintus waited as he allowed his statement to fully sink in before he continued. “With their involvement they were able to uncover the location of their hidden base of operations, with such magic they could root out almost any crime in the kingdom. And for obvious reasons that is why we need to stop that from happening by any means necessary.”

“As it stands it will almost be impossible for us to convince anyone.” A middle aged man by the name of Count Vel Serranus said as he was hunched over a small pile of documents.

“And that is why we just need to change the public perception of 'How it stands'. Once we have the public opinion the king will be more willing to listen to us, and a few failures to even out the record would do nicely for our needs.” Duke Quintus said with a sinister smile.

“But as it stands we have no way to influence any of these cases. If we could somehow convince the law enforcement in individual cities and towns to not allow mages then we could do something, but as we are now we have no way to do that.” another noble spoke up, a woman by the name of Duchess Atilia Nola.

‘Duchess Atilia, you are nothing but a fool and a coward. I would bet half of my territory that you are just a spy sent by the king to keep us bogged down with infighting. I will not allow you to stop us this time.’ Duke Quintus thought to himself as he smeared at the duchess’s statement.

The duchess had kept the group from partaking in several of the more risky ventures, risky in regards to the law rather than the returns. The duke believed her to be a spy due to her interference in what he considered to be his council, but she was just a very cautious person and was unwilling to lose everything due to someone else's stupidity.

“That is why we are going to take things slowly and turn the public's perception against allowing mages into the legal system. We can use several of our contacts within the legal system of all the major cities and towns as well as spread several rumors around about how the mages finding the bandits hideout was just a fluke.” Duke Quintus smiled, most of the council was nodding with him leaving the duchess with nothing to use against him.

“I suppose that isn’t the worst plan you could have come up with.” Duchess Atilia said, looking directly towards the duke. “But that assumes that nobody catches on that those rumors were spread intentionally, knowing our enemies they will be quick to pick up on it if that is all we spread. To circumvent this we need to pit the mages, priests, and normal law enforcement against each other, that way they will be so focused on each other rather than who started the rumor.”

“And how exactly would we do that? Create fake insults thrown at each other?” Duke Quintus sneered.

“Something like that, but with a bit more of a god complex on the side of the mages, a savior complex for the priests, and a superiority complex for the guards. Then we can create a few scuffles that further divide them until they stop caring who is spreading the rumors, because by then they will just assume they are true.”

***********

“Did you hear about the civil war in Aeoniara.” Calavia asked Arthur as they ate their lunch.

“No, what happened?”

“A lot of the fish that normally surround them started to disappear, as a result the amount of fish they caught dropped significantly and a bunch of people went hungry. Then a bunch of those hungry and desperate people started to blame the priests and worshipers of Xardas claiming he placed a curse on them. Eventually the king demanded that the priests remove said curse and out of anger the highest ranking priest there punched him in the face and called him a fool.”

“A priest literally just walked up and punched the king of Aeoniara in the face? Never thought I would hear that outside of a tavern joke.”

“It does sound like one, but back to the civil war, a significant portion of the military and government officials sided with the priests of Xardas who then wanted to secede. The king didn’t like that and declared them traitors before he declared war upon them.”

“Do you think there actually was a curse that caused the fish to disappear?”

“Oh gods no. Curses are typically limited to a single person or thing, occasionally several. In order to remove a significant portion of the fish the power of a god would be needed.”

Calavia and Arthur soon finished up their meal and continued talking while occasionally listening to a few of the conversations at the other tables. Most of what they heard was just rumors regarding the price of goods, the prospect of war with the empire, and even a few scandals regarding nobility. But the most shocking was the rumor of the mages guild calling the city guard incompetent for being unable to locate the Rusted Daggers.

Arthur looked to Calavia who looked right back to him, in each others eyes they understood what they were each worried about and quickly left the tavern and found a small street away from large amounts of foot traffic.

“Well that doesn’t sound all that good, what idiot got drunk and started babbling about how little they view the guards.” Calavia practically shouted in frustration to Arthur, in the process almost drawing attention despite going there to avoid it.

“Yeah that is a dumb thing to do. But someone might have just been overheard in a private location, perhaps there was an argument in a tavern room and someone outside heard the conversation.”

“That is possible, but I have my doubts. Most mages aren’t dumb enough to get into an argument about such things so close to a public space.”

“But it only takes one person to not care enough to let a secret out.” Arthur sighed, odds were that someone couldn't keep their mouth shut and when they thought they were far enough away from the public eye.

“Regardless of whoever it was, they are most certainly getting kicked from the guild the very moment they are discovered. The guild is well known for hating politics outside of their own despite the funding from the crown.”

But the rumor did not let up like the duo thought it would, if fact the exact opposite happened. More rumors regarding the competence of the city guard and the priests of Solarius sprang up as if the guild was doubting them both.

Of course the guild did put out a statement regarding these rumors and said that such opinions were not representative of the guild and they were more than happy to work with the city guard and the circle of fire in the future.

But the rumours would not die, it was almost as if someone was resurrecting them after they died off.