Jermaine Abbott sat in his office, staring at the cloudprint ceiling, his thoughts drifting amongst a powder blue sky. There was a faint smile on his lips. On his desk was a stack of newspapers. From multiple sources and for multiple days.There was also his plain, purple and gray opera mask.

“Heh...Well, shine my balls. I don’t know what to make of this.” he said. Speaking to no one.

He hadn’t felt this way since he was just some kid living on the streets of Shyma, dodging guardsmen, crooks and slavers and the men in white hats. It had been a long time, but here he was feeling ‘that’ feeling again. That sensation that he’d felt right after he’d managed to do more than just pick a fat pocket and earn end’s meet for a few days.  That feeling where he first achieved something that made him sit and think to himself, ‘hmm, where do I go from here’. An intermingling of both anticipation and expectation and wariness.

“Knock-Knock.” said a voice.

“Come in.” said Jermaine.

His door opened and in walked a woman, tall, broad shouldered, her thick purple hair piled high atop of her head, gathered into a bun and held in place with a clip. A stack of folders held in one arm, held together with twine.

“Heya, boss.” Elena.

“I’m pretty sure I stopped being your boss after you up and quit.” said Jermaine.

Getting up and pouring himself some tea from the service tray that he kept by the bookshelf.

Her flat expression, became a flat, slightly thoughtful expression, that was soon boiled away by a bubbly brightness.

“Oh! I guess, you’re right. Okay then...Heya, ex-boss.” said Elena.

Her tone light and carefree in a way that was slightly galling.

“Good afternoon, Queen. To what do I owe this visit?” said Jermaine.

“Oh I was just meeting up with your account guy, to pick up some receipts. Thought I’d come in and bother you.”

“And What if was busy?” said Jermaine.

“I’d have heard it and waited for a harmless but opportune moment? Either that or I’d maybe just burst in anyway because you generally don’t do serious business in house. But I’d at least knock first. I’m not a boor. ” said Elena. Answering with her usual peculiar brand of unabashed honesty.

“....Mhm...Right...Note to self, get locks and maybe a bouncer.”

“Oh...Wasn’t ‘I’ your bouncer?” said Elena.One brow raised, her expression slightly suggestive.

Jermaine chuckled.

“That, you were. I’m pretty sure I can find a good replacement though.”

She stuck out her tongue.

“Silly. I’m pretty sure there’s only one me. Anyone else will have to do their best just barely fill in my boots.” said Elena.

“Braggart.” said Jermaine.

“True, but it’s not like I’m wrong.”said Elena.

He shrugged, quietly ceding the point. She, Elena had been maybe the fifth or sixth person he’d hired on. One of the first members of the Thousand Ghosts. With Jermaine picking her up while the Thousand Ghosts were still just a street gang instead of a legitimate company. Hoodlums still gathering the cash that would let them play with the big boys.  

“Anyway...so you come in here and bugged the hell out of me. Having done that is, is there anything else, I can help you with me, Miss Elena Maddoc of the Bone Tree Company.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The woman’s expression changed again, going flat again, while she furrowed her brow.

“Ah...yes. I think there is. Ed and I were thinking of taking on another job. ‘I’ was wondering if the Ghosts want to come and lend a hand.”

This time it was Jermaine’s turn to become thoughtful, as his mood returning to what it was before the woman burst into his office.

He looked down at the report on his desk. The one confirming this week’s profits. The one confirming that after just ten hours of cleaning up a few hundred tons of starfish guts.

After helping the Bone Tree Company, collect the expansive remnants of the Gigas Star, that they’d taken down, and selling a portion to the EITC, his Thousand Ghosts had ended up making ten times more than they’d made in the entirety of their careers.

Ten times more than he’d been able to scrounge up and earn and steal in the ten plus years since he’d founded their little group. Ten times all their profits, for ten hours work mopping up demonbeast flesh with magic spells that ‘they’ didn’t even have to provide.

Thinking on that Jermaine just grinned. His gaze sharp, his smile wolfish.

“Well, that’s a conversation. I’d love to have.”

*****

“Hm...Now I’m ‘really’ curious.” said Ophelia.

“Curious about what, my dear Head Administrator?” said Cadeyrn vi Albrecht, great king of the Great Kingdom of Albrecht.

His tone was flirtatious, and facetious, though his look was not.

She ignored him for a half second, while pausing a few of the conversations going on in her mental space.Then she made up for it by smiling, well aware that the two of them had known each other long enough to know how this game was played.

“Curious about how your people, get this kind of flavor from venison. It’ s quite savory. I do believe I might be spoiled for inferior fare.”

Cadeyrn grinned, well aware that he’d been put off, but knowing better than to press the issue.

It was just a matter of course for a ministry agent to be secretive, not to mention the Head of the Ministry.  

Ophelia was here, because she was called here by one of her agents and a certain nobleman that the agent served as Castellan for. As always the ministry would serve to guide but not to rule.

In this case since she’d just happened to be in the area, so she was able to personally guide what should have been the uncontrolled fires of war, into something slightly more constructive. The whole matter getting settled in a matter of hours. With a few words being whispered into a few of the right areas and few apple carts and merchant wagons being waylaid.

Though most of the work was done with words, after Billy understood quite well. Words could be dangerous and useful.

It was a surprise to everyone seated at the dinner table when the generally taciturn Ophelia Delphi re-entered the conversation.

“If your grace wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have your opinion on something.”

Cadeyrn considered for a few second before nodding. Aware that he was dealing with an individual who knew politics in the same way others knew paints. A master manipulator who didn’t do things without having some sidelong motivation.  

“Ah, by all means, Head Administrator Delphi.”

“Why thank you, your grace. In which case, here I go. So...a certain little bird told me that there’s a certain upstart, a certain up and comer in this are fair if somewhat unforgiving world of Practitioners. He and two others started a little company, a corporation actually and before any of them have even reached the end of their twenties they not only own a fair portion of the market for magical items, they are ‘also’ all of the second realm.”

“Oh? And are these upstarts a concern for you, Head Administrator?” said a certain drunk Duke, who’d happened to be invited to the dinner party.

“A concern? Why no, of course not. As far as I’ve seen they’ve been perfectly upstanding. What I am is curious? The oldest of them is only twenty five and yet, they’ve already taken a big bite out of one of the continent’s biggest markets and all three of their core members have broken through past the twelfth layer. I can’t help but wonder ‘how’ they did it.” said Ophelia.

Her words answered by silence, that to Ophelia’s ears seemed to drone, becoming pregnant with the sound of all their thoughts.

“Second realm by twenty-five, you say?” said the leader of the Cloud Wolf Sect. One of the biggest Martial Sects in Albrecht.

“Well, the youngest of them has somehow managed to enter the third realm, a Saint of the Liquid Realm.  if the guild testing spells and machines are to be trusted.”

The Silence returned, filled with awe and reverence and countless quiet machinations. If it took you a less than a millennium to break through to the second realm, you’d be hailed as genius. Doing so in less than century, that was something that went beyond mostrous. Doing it twice, breaking through past ‘two’ realms, in less than a century….? Well there were no words for that. It was something that as far as most common knowledge and common sense went, shouldn’t have been possible.

Something mysterious and attractive enough that no matter the ‘how’  everyone would be interested in looking into it. Something that could possibly lead to the re-birth of a new Argus if it could harnessed or replicated.

“Are-, Are you quite certain, Madame? Are you sure you are not perhaps mistaken?” said a magnate of the EITC, who also sat at the table.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t jest about something that very.....unique. Unfortunately the youngest, the one who only twenty-two years of age, is somewhat of a recluse, so we weren’t able to speak.” said Ophelia. Barely having to fake her regret.

*****

Thus, again a few words were used to set something rolling. Ophelia wondered what would happen. And knew that regardless, she would be satisfied so long as ‘something’ happened. While the underlings below the people at the table had been hesitant act, these men and women had grown so used to thinking of the world as theirs they’d kind of ‘have’ to do something.

They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. From there the Bone Tree Company would be called to act and from their actions Ophelia would finally be able to know what she needed to know. To know what to make of them, to know if maybe, just maybe they could be made into something useful. Or if maybe they’d have to destroyed. Or if maybe they really were something so far out of her reach and everyone else’s, that she’d simply have to work around them.

She didn’t really care which case it was. She just needed to know. If there was one thing the Head Administrator of the Ministry of Public Order, loathed, it was a mystery. A potentially dangerous enigma that could neither be reached, nor touched, nor understood. Thus she knew that ‘something’ would have to be done. Such things could absolutely, positively, not be tolerated.