Kezati wanted to ask so many different kinds of questions—he wanted to make sure he was right, or at least that he understood what they were doing—but Alrynn gestured for him not to say anything.

That is, until they got a train ride to the next town over. It was on that ride that Kezati felt confident enough to begin asking all of his burning questions.

“What are we going to do?” was the first, since it was probably the most important.

“What we think is right,” Alrynn responded. “Just like I said—it’s up to us to make a decision. We’ve got to stand by what we know is right and go from there.”

“So, do you really think the noble was going to use the necklace like what those guys said he would? I mean, it kinda sounded like it, but there’s enough room for doubt…”

“That’s another thing about mercenary work—you’ll never know for sure. Or, if you do know, it’ll be once it’s far too late to do anything, for better or worse. Am I right to guess you think he was going to?”

“Yeah. There was just something about all of that that wasn’t really… honest, I guess is the word I’m looking for.”

“I think he was planning something, too. We can’t let him do whatever he wants—or if there’s no point in stopping it, I don’t want any part in it.”

“Is that why we’re already traveling away..?”

“Something like that. It’s more related to something else he mentioned, though. Did you notice how he said he had someone else who told him where the necklace was?”

“Yeah. I kinda figured he just wanted to keep an eye on it, or to warn you the next time you came to him…”

“Maybe that’s it, but I don’t want to take the risk of someone telling him we have it. I don’t think we would’ve found a way to win that situation.”

Interrupting their conversation, a calm, pre-recorded voice said, “Attention all passengers. We will arrive at the next station in five minutes. Please prepare your things if this is your stop.”

Kezati nodded. “I feel like there’s so much I still don’t understand…”

“You’re a fast learner,” Alrynn remarked. “Maybe even faster than I was. You’ll get a hang of it in no time, I’m sure.”

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“Yeah, but you probably said the same thing about this commission, and see what we’re doing now…”

“Don’t be like that. If you’re going to be a mercenary, you have to accept that you’re going to have a couple of failed missions every now and again. You’ve got to be able to roll with the punches, you know? And I think you have more potential than to just give up as soon as you start.”

“I hope you’re right.”

That was all either of them said until they got back off the train. Once they were out and wandering around, Kezati finally decided to ask his second set of questions.

“What do you think we should do with the necklace?” he prompted. “We can’t really just throw it away—not without knowing whether or not it’s actually a Relic or not. It’s probably a bad idea to give it to the noble, but it’s even worse to just dump it somewhere and hope no one worse finds it and learns what it does…”

“Exactly. So, what else do you think we should do with it?”

“I guess we can… turn it in to the police..? If we told them about what the noble had planned on doing with it, they might not be willing to give it back to him…”

“Maybe in other cases, but not in this one. There’s really only two things most police care about: evidence and money. You could have one, and it won’t matter how much of the other you have. It works both in the ways of the people turning it in and the people who they got it from. There’s no evidence he was actually going to do what he planned, at least not any beyond what we heard—and I doubt a guy like him is going to be laying out clues about it. And he has money, so even if we did have a sufficient amount of evidence, he probably could’ve just bribed them to give the necklace back. Not all members of the police are like that—I’ve met plenty in my travels that were nearly the exact opposite—but we can’t put our chances in the fact that one of them is going to be at the right spot at the right time.”

Kezati sighed. “So… what do we do?” Half-jokingly, he remarked, “I guess the only thing we have left to do is to keep the thing, huh..?”

But Alrynn took it with a dead seriousness. “I think we’re going to have to, at least until we know what it actually does. We’re the only people I can trust with this until we can figure out whether or not it’s really a Relic.”

“And how do you think we can do that..? Do you want to test it out and see what it does?”

Honestly, the question came out quicker than Kezati could think about it. He wanted to see what it did—he had to admit, the curiosity was getting the better of him. But he immediately realized how dumb of an idea it was, and Alrynn made that clear.

“Definitely not. I’ve met a guy once who’s into this kind of stuff—and he happens to owe me a favor, too. He’ll be able to tell us if it’s a Relic or not and what it does. I’m sure he’ll buy it off of us, too, if it really is one—he’s another noble, collects the things that wash up on Aedrisea’s shores.”

“And then..?”

“We can figure that part out when we get there, I think. We should see how things develop instead of just trying to force ourselves through a plan. Mercenaries should enjoy the journey, not just the destination—the best jobs are usually in the middle.”