Reading the book of ancient text and strange language, I’m left baffled.

Enter Aeth!

Aeth: Fie! Cometh h're so I may did beat thy rampallian!

What did that even mean?

“Jeffrey… That’s a play manuscript,” Savage informs me before settling into the background. Mm, I can tell he’s not gonna speak for the next ten minutes.

Which is likely why he didn’t answer when I asked what it was. And why it wasn’t in engrish. Nonetheless, I’m still left confused, and not understanding my inherent confusion, Ori(?) takes a chipper tune.

“Flower vendor, are you perhaps a fanatic of the playwright Rattlepike!” The newcomer beams.

Rattlepike the playwright? I will admit that has a nice ring but he sounds more like a serial killer than any man of culture, literature, or even drama for that matter.

Oh! Wait! A dramatic serial killer! A carbon copy of Laffer!

“Anyway, enough about that. Keep your eyes peeled, damnit!”

Oh yeah! We have to kill a man. I keep forgetting that. I mean, I’m just trying to shore up my knowledge banks before being tossed into Hell.

“Ori, just ignore Jeffrey. He gets the job done, but that’s if you leave him alone.”

“Oooh, you flower vendors are funny!” She slaps her thigh as if Laffer told a funny joke.

But I don’t think he did. Nor do I think Laffer would be capable of telling a joke. Though I assume she’s laughing because of the inherent mania that comes about from being in this cult. I mean, she is from the Dessication branch, which preaches torture the most out of the four branches of heretics. According to my mandatory education back in Joost, Ruination focused on war, and mass killing. Death utilised various tips and tricks to not die. Plague was about alchemistry. And Dessication was about curses and suffering.

Needless to say, somehow, these guys found the idol’s blessed summon and are willing to help, so I’m just gonna not talk to the clinically insane.

Haiz, we wouldn’t even need to have Ori in our group if we had someone else that could sniff the blessed out, but unfortunately… “Lily hast did disappear on me.”

The crow would be of great aid in searching for that fellow. Even if we were hiding under the shade, an eye in the sky could at forewarn us unforeseen events.

“Not the first time is it?” He shrugs, “Oh and lemme guess, Lazari as well?”

“Correct,” I nod neutrally.

“Wait seriously? You lost the demon?!”

“Demon? You guys have a demon?” Shoving her face right in the middle of our talk, her red hair brushing against my face, she narrows her gaze at a certain someone.

Laffer… This dumbass. Just had to say that aloud. Not only are we in the echoey underground, but we also got the clinically unsound from who knows where standing next to us.

I don’t know about you, but that definitely raises many flags for me.

“We had a demon,” I cut off the topic before I get jinxed in some convoluted manner, because frankly, she’s a hazard.

As an elite civil servant, I can safely say that not only do foreigners need extra supervision but especially so for one openly part of a cult. I mean, it’s as if she isn’t trying to hide it all! I know that me and lads look suspicious, but Ori? She makes us look like virtuous bakers, what with all her voodoo implements, and the positive ‘I’m evil!’ aura she has.

C’mon, I can’t be the only one seeing this. Surely Vigilance has found out. Surely!

“If I can’t see them, then they can’t see me…”

What? Oh yeah, she just put on a blindfold. But not just any blindfold, it’s one that positively brands one as suspicious, considering the depiction of a bloody eye on the black cloth. Because that makes you invisible.

Actually… Where did she go? No, I’m not making a joke, I lost the mental patient… We really lost her? Yeah no, I can't find her. Actually, better idea.

“Laffer, seriously?” I huff, giving the bastard a little of his own treatment, “You lost the mental patient?”

“Wha?”

“Well it wouldn’t be the first time, huh?”

“Are you…” The man narrows his eyes at me, “Trying to say something?”

“You idiot,” deadpan as artless as humanly possibly. Something I’ve been honing in recent times. A social and mental attack that rent apart all defences.

Even though it was a deadpan of never seen before blasé, the sheer amount of human disappointment and cynical emotion packed into those words were enough to drive a bolt through the hammy cultist.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Though Laffer knew not what fault he bore, yet he still keenly felt the weight of responsibility. Such was the persuasive power of pushing blame.

“Wait a sec, did I actually lose her? Where did she go?! We’re underground damnit!”

Yes. Splendid. Notice the word usage of ‘I’ just then? Mm, even though he’s slow on the uptake, the seed has already been planted. The responsibility has now flung off my shoulders. I can acutely feel my back loosen and they say that the less things you carry when you die, the more fulfilled you are.

“Jeffrey, I’m being serious, where is she? Savage, do you know?”

“I haven’t a clue.” I answer negatively, while Savage just gazes toward a far off wall within the passage way. So it’s easy to conclude that we have no idea.

Quite unlike, the disembodied voice however, “I have one!” they shout.

“Alright Miss Ghost, what’s the answer?”

“I dunno!”

Mm, thank you for your nugatory input. “It’s greatly appreciated.”

“You are the welcomes!”

Alright, barring the curse cultist, we didn’t need her anyway. We just need to find the target, then do the stabby. Then profit. Ori was just some addon that I’ve never seen before. From the play I just read, it’s okay for side characters to die off like this, considering that she barely had any screentime.

“I don’t think that’s a ghost.”

Not a ghost? That’s just wrong. But we can confirm it right now, “Am I right to call you a ghost, Miss Ghost?”

“You right, you right,” The disembodied voice backs me up with an air as if they were nodding their head.

And with that, Laffer, the responsible adult, gives up. Though nothing has changed because we’re still just sitting here. Just camping the passage. But not just any passage. It’s a secret passage~!

Just waiting for that our target to come ‘round. A bunch of us have also been posted in other areas, but we got the secret passage because our combat is better in closed spaces. But according to what the Plague guys found out, the target is most probably Steel ranked. So I’m just gonna bank that Laffer and Savage can somehow beat a vanguard of the idols.

Though, I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing to ascertain all the combat power we have at our disposal.

“So Miss Ghost. How good are you at fighting?”

“Bad!”

That’s great. Lovely. And we lost the curse lady as well. Welp, dying here or there, I don’t really care. Little Miss Shiv said she’d fish me outta the Soul Lakes, so that’s nice. I still have her inert form on my person, and regarding that, I’m not sure when she’s gonna wake up. In fact, I don’t even know why she’s sleeping. Last I checked, edged weapons don’t need sleep.

Actually, I’ve never asked my machete that have I? Quite alike Little Miss Shiv, Mister Machete is also in an inert state.

“Pst,” I whisper, unwrapping the cloth around him, “Do you need to sleep?”

“Jeffrey?” Though to my disappointment, the wrong mister answers me, “Have you been taking your meds?”

I dunno, have I? I feel like there’s been quite of bit of voices talking to me recently…

“Bah, stop worrying about that. I can feel someone approaching our point.”

“Really?”

“Yes, now quiet.”

Okay, putting aside whether Mister Machete can sleep or not, I fully unwind the cloth as I load a bolt into my crossbow, who I’ve just realised also needs a name! Hmm, in light of how he used to be real good at shooting enchanted bolts, I’ll call him… Cleric Crossbow (tentative)!

It may be subject to change, but by the great gulleys in the sky is that the most creative name I’ve ever thought up.

Anyway! Noises! I hear them. Footsteps that creep closer to our location. Not many use these passages, but the ones that do usually have an intricate link to the forces inside the Royal Palace, considering that this secret passage leads directly into an antechamber beside one of the Astonomy Halls. And those are inside the Royal Palace.

So, what I should really do is back off and let Laffer do the heavy lifting here. Or that’s what would happen if Miss Ghost didn’t pipe up.

“Ah! They don’t have the Mark. It’s not the target…” They exclaim downcast.

A bit strange that the ghost knows who we’re camping for, but I don’t really mind. I’d just like to know who’s coming.

“Mm, it smells like another flower vendor…”

I didn’t know ghosts could smell, but I don’t know lots of things, on that note, can Savage smell? He should, right? If a ghost can smell, then why couldn’t Savage? They are both undead.

Though, back on point, if flower vendors are coming, then I can only think of the Plague Chemists —Yes, unlike us back in Joost, they actually have name. And yes, I just now found out what they’re called—. They are the one’s who sent the mission after all.

And unsurprisingly, I find one of those flower vendors waltz into the secret passage. The pink one. The little lady that tried to help me look for doctors or something. I dunno, she wasn’t that memorable. At least, not memorable when compared to the other things that happened.

Turning the corner and seeing the lot of us just sitting here, made her flinch, drawing a firearm, before she eventually recognised our forms.

The trio of us wave back at her in salutations.

“Oh, it’s you guys… Are you trying to kill the idol’s vanguard?” She lowers her guard, as she scans us. And that’s when I notice soft red eyes behind her.

Lazari! Heh, I knew I didn’t lose the demon. How could I possibly lose Lazari? Unlike Laffer, I take great care of my charges.

“Mm, who’s the lady behind you?”

This draws visible confusion from myself, Laffer, and Savage.

“Ah! Are you talking about me?” Miss Ghost answers.

“Mmmhmm.”

Wait a minute, she can see the ghost? Can Laffer see the ghost? He shakes his head in negative. Savage? Also a negative. What the Hell? I can understand me not seeing the ghost as I’m damn incompetent at these Death Arts, but like c’mon guys. One of you is of the same kind, and the other is qualified to deal with undead.

“You have good eyes for the unknown little child for it is I! Ori of the Opaque Cloth!” The ghost shouts with a booming chorus and splendour before Ori, the missing cultist appears before us with a black cloth in hand!

I can’t help but gasp at the grand reappearance of the cultist and the sudden identity reveal of the ghost.

The pink haired lady gives an applause for her, which frankly doesn’t fit the setting, considering we’re in a dark passage, but no matter! Praise is given when praise is due, as my hands also move to applause.

"Jeffrey, why are you acting surprised? It was obvious as she spoke…" Laffer dampens my applause with his ill fitting comments.

Though that doesn't stop Ori from being a great sport. Carrying on with her previous frenetic energy, “Hehe, in the eyes of the law, I’m invisible!”

Really? If her comment was to be understood as spoken, then how come none of us could see her? No one gonna anwer me? Well fine, I didn’t speak up anyway, you rat bastards. And whilst I ponder the more important things, I hear something strangely disturbing but very fitting for the mood.

And whilst I ponder the more important things, I hear something strangely disturbing but very fitting for the mood.

“Ah, we’re gonna kill my sister.”

Oh.

“Mmm, though considering you guys are trying to kill a certain someone, we can use her as bait,” Despite the positively taboo topic, the lady has a beaming smile, “She does have quite the relation with him…”

Oh my.