I stood at attention in front of Hook’s desk in the main Nocturne Division safehouse here in Elderwyck as much as decorum demanded I did.

Which was, considering the average Agent, not very much.

We were essentially in a small sub-basement underneath a local business that had been converted for our needs. Hook may have told me awhile ago that the Division had safe houses set up all over the country for their use, but I’d discovered that not all of them were quite as impressive as the current HQ set up just outside of Helstein. In this particular case, we were using one that had been set up underneath a butcher’s shop. Naturally, none of our currently active Agents were using it as a cover of their own in the same way I was using Jason’s Magical Brews.

Turns out, the saying ‘don’t shit where you eat’ was just as valid in Vereden.

Hook had mostly ignored the gold and jewels I’d brought in from Eisenhorn’s personal safe, only giving them a passing glance of disinterest before setting them aside. But he had been very interested in the documents I had procured.

Very interested indeed.

I’d been standing in front of his desk now for nearly ten minutes as the dwarven commander poured over the scrolls and parchment intently. The handful of other Agents that were down here in this little basement with us were trying not to seem like they were interested as well, but not very hard. I caught more than one of them ‘surreptitiously’ wandering behind our boss in order to get a brief look of their own.

Oh look, there Wisp went.

Again.

I couldn’t help but fix the middle-aged, brown-haired woman with a deadpan stare as she passed by. She just smirked her unmasked lips and shrugged slightly at me, before wandering over to join the huddle of other Agents.

None of which were either Dusk or Sylvia, I’d noticed. Dusk had already completed her mission before I’d come in, which had been expected. She hadn’t stuck around for any socializing, which was something I was starting to suspect was common with her. Sylvia had also finished before me, but my partner had decided to wait upstairs.

Well, if Hook was going to keep me waiting, I might as well get something out of this.

I called up my Status to check if I’d gotten anything out of my nights work. I’d taken out that soldier early in the night, after all.

I clucked my tongue at what I found, drawing curious looks from the other Agents. Not Hook, though. He didn’t care and just kept looking at the documents I’d brought him.

Name: Nathaniel Eugene Hart Titles: Unbound Liberator Level: 84 Age: 24 Sol Race: Human (Precursor) Affinity: Terrestrial Classes: Thornblade Acolyte (Uncommon) Professions: Aetherial Melding Health: 930/930 Stamina: 91/100 Vitality: 93 Strength: 50 Spirit: 10 Dexterity: 176 Perception: 93 Intelligence: 239 Wisdom: 239 Free Points: 0 Options: [Talent Page], [Skill Page], [Profession Page]

Nothing.

Currently, I was level eighty-four. Since I’d started operating within the walls of Elderwyck I’d gained three levels both from all the crafting I was doing, and the few targets of opportunity among the Loyalists I’d targeted. Mostly the crafting, I had to admit. I wasn’t going super murder crazy on taking out Loyalist soldiers, like some of the other Agents.

That was way, way less than I’d thought I had thought I would get, after our adventures in the catacombs that de facto belonged to Tlazo. I must have personally killed well over four dozen of those wild undead, but…

I had been highly irritated to discover that apparently, Undead didn’t grant any level Aether.

At all.

Zip, zilch, nada.

This was apparently one of the primary reasons people hated dealing with the walking corpses. They were both incredibly deadly in large numbers, and there was zero benefit to actually fighting and clearing them out. Even wild-spawned Undead didn’t provide any level progress, much less the purpose animated kinds created by Necromancers. According to what Tlazo had mentioned, they possessed something called ‘Death Aether’, but it didn’t seem like that was something that normal, living mortals could harness. Not like a Lich could ostensibly use.

Whatever the hell 'Death Aether' actually was, anyway.

I was broken out of my wandering thoughts by Hook looking up from his inspection and off to the side. “Stem,” He said, waving one of the other Agents forward. “Go and transmit this to HQ while I debrief Hangman,” He ordered, handing off the documents to the leaf-masked human. He nodded lazily, before sauntering over to the corner of the basement where we had set up a coin transmission station. Hook had donated his prototype two-way communication coin to make the apparatus work. Looking at it, I was reminded a little of an old timey telegram station from back on Earth.

“Anything interesting?” I asked Hook, once he was gone.

He tilted his head back and forth for a moment. “Plenty, I’d say. Some of it was expected, considering the profile of the target. Some of it…decidedly not so.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I crossed my arms. “So, he did have dirt on Olsen?”

“Yes, yes,” Hook said, waving a hand disinterestedly. “Quite a bit of what you’d expect from these noble types. Illicit affairs, shady dealings, gold and expensive objects that mysteriously ‘vanish’ into the coffers of the already wealthy. Nothing I haven’t seen a million times before. Useful, but mundane for this type of work.”

“I’m almost disappointed,” Wisp said, wandering back up and blatantly butting in. She didn’t care about the irritated look Hook fixed her with, just smiling cheekily at our boss. “Olsen was supposed to be this mercantile mastermind, only it turns out he’s the same as the rest of them? How positively droll,” She said, in a mockingly posh voice.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Hook said, surprisingly sharply. Wisp and I were both visibly taken aback by the strength of his tone. “I said that only most of it was expected. There were hints of…something else in those papers that I need to consider further. Not only that, but I just can’t parse parts of this. Considering Olsen, I can’t be sure if they were false trails or not. He could just be using Eisenhorn to throw us off the scent. I…” He abruptly shook his head. “Out, all of you. The operations desk is closed for the night.” When everyone in the basement just stood around for a moment, shocked at the sudden dismissal, he actually growled at us. “Did you not hear me, Agents? I said get going!”

We all took the hint and started filing out of the basement, one by one. I shot a somewhat concerned look over my shoulder before the door closed behind me.

My last glimpse of Hook was of the dwarf bent over his desk and frantically scribbling something.

………………………………………

Sylvia was visibly startled at the sight of everyone in the basement but Hook filing out one by one. We weren’t leaving the butcher’s shop the same way, of course. We weren’t complete amateurs at this business. A decent contingent of the Agents were lingering in the backrooms while they waited for their turn to depart for their covers.

Sylvia and I left first, as we had an easy excuse to be doing so. “Night, Fred,” I murmured to the owner of the shop, still manning the counter after hours. The quiet, bald-headed man just nodded in acknowledgment to me before returning to sharpening his knives.

The streets of Elderwyck were mostly barren at this time of night. It was so late at this point that it was almost morning. The only real activity I spotted was the occasional shopkeep prepping for the start of business. I expected Tarus to start peeking over the horizon any minute at this point, signaling the start of the day with the green period. Normally, pulling an all-nighter like this wouldn’t be an issue for me, since I’d started getting up in levels. But I’d done a few of these in a row by now and was feeling a bit burnt out. I was likely going to need to throw back one of my own stamina potions when I clocked in at Jason’s.

Sylvia seemed to notice that something was bothering me, but didn’t say anything out in the open. After the night’s escapades, it appeared that the guards and the Loyalist soldiers supporting them were on edge. The two of us were stopped multiple times on the way back to the small flat we were cohabitating in as part of our cover. Surprisingly, it had been easy to get it, with the resources and pull that the Division seemed to have in this city. A bit impressive, considering how packed full the city was right now, with the war and all.

Once we had stepped into the mostly barren, one-room domicile and closed the door, Sylvia turned to me with an inquisitive look.

“What’s going on?” She asked me quietly, as the waning light of Elys streamed in through the window.

“I don’t know,” I said with a furrowed brow before pausing. I fixed the disguised Sculpted woman at my side with a worried gaze. “Has Hook seemed…off to you?” At her curious look, I elaborated. “I mean, since we got into the city.”

Sylvia was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps a little,” She reluctantly admitted. “But I cannot pretend to know him very well. These weeks of traveling have been the longest amount of time I’ve spent in his company.”

I nodded slowly. “Something’s bothering him,” I said lowly. “And I think I can guess what. Do you remember what Tlazo said, just before we left?”

“Something about…there being more to the War than we thought?” Sylvia asked slowly.

“Right, that,” I nodded. “I think Hook took that very seriously and is trying to figure out what the old bag of bones meant by it.”

“But, what can he possibly do about it now?” Sylvia said, baffled. “The warning was so cryptic that I cannot possibly guess by what it was referencing.”

“I…don’t know,” I said helplessly, reaching up to massage my forehead. I was already starting to feel the beginnings of an exhaustion headache coming on. I approached one of the few cabinets we had in the flat and pulled out one of my stamina potions. I slammed it back, and then turned to face my Sculpted partner.

I’d had a thought.

“Should we ask Dusk if she has an idea?”

Sylvia looked taken aback momentarily. I didn’t blame her for the reaction. The two of us didn’t actually see Dusk very often, since we’d started operating inside the walls. The Gnoll woman apparently had her own, super secret, super important mission that required her near full attention. Last night had been an exception when she had met up with us, and the first time I’d seen her in days.

“Possibly?” Sylvia said unsurely. “I’ve gotten the impression that Hook and Dusk know each other on a deeper level than commander and Agent. Not in an…” She paused for a moment, before continuing. “Inappropriate way, of course.”

“Right, yeah. More like…you and Grey,” I nodded.

Sylvia smiled slightly at the mention of her father before it faded. “Yes, but Nathan? I’m not sure it’s any of our business,” She said bluntly. At my taken-aback expression, she approached and grabbed my leather-gloved golden hand, rubbing its knuckles. I’d noticed that she had a tendency to reach for that one, whenever she wanted to comfort me. “We’re…not that important, Nathan. Right now, we’re just two out of over a dozen different Agents in the city. Beyond anything about what and who we are, right now we have an obligation to focus solely on our orders. It’s not our job to try and solve every possible problem plaguing Hook. Yes, he’s probably troubled by Tlazo’s warning. But he’s the commander of the Nocturne Division for a reason. The Order trusts him to decipher the truths of such vagaries.”

She…was right. Sometimes, I got so caught up in the whole Precursor thing and made it out to be more than it was, in my head. I…occasionally had to fight thoughts about how I was a hero or some such nonsense, and it was my job to right all the wrongs around me.

But I wasn’t.

I was just some guy, embroiled in a war that I wasn’t really strong enough to meaningfully influence.

I took a deep breath and did my best to compartmentalize my worries. With Ringed Mind, I was probably better at that than most people. I nodded to show my understanding. “You’re right,” I said, doing my best to smile at her. The window caught my eye, as the light streaming through it had changed. It was green now, signaling the start of the day. “We need to get going,” I said to Sylvia. “Time for another day of gainful employment.”

Sylvia searched my expression for a moment, before nodding. She stood up on her toes for a moment before brushing her lips on my stubbly cheeks in a brief kiss. I returned it, my lips ghosting over her disguised skin. Her illusion was thorough enough that it actually felt like flesh.

“Let’s go,” Sylvia said quietly, smiling and brushing a lock of false black hair behind her ear. “Perhaps we can have lunch together, later? I noticed a bistro that drew my attention.”

As we stepped back out of the small flat, I smiled at her. “Yeah, that sounds good. Later, then.” I told Sylvia before we separated off to go to our covers.

Still, as she walked away, I realized that my feelings of unease hadn’t gone away. They were still floating around, in the back of my rings.

I tried to put it out of my mind as I neared Jason’s shop.

I was distracted enough that I didn’t notice there was someone in there with the owner before I stepped inside, even though the shop hadn’t opened yet.

A woman was sitting on the stool across from the squirrely little man. A very well-dressed, very out-of-place one. Jason looked from his conversation with her and perked up. “Ah! Hans!” He waved at me enthusiastically as I stopped in place. At the sight of the woman, a sense of unease crawled down my spine.

What was going on here? Jason was single. A serial bachelor, you could even say.

“Your f-friend here was just telling me some old s-stories, while we waited!” Jason said, with a surprisingly deep laugh from such a small man. “I don’t know where you two m-met, but Miss Rhiannon is a riot!”

Rhiannon?

Who the hell was Rhiannon?

The woman finally turned around to face me. She smiled, her deep burgundy eyes crinkling slightly. “Hello…Hans,” She nearly purred.

“How nice to see you again.”