Waking up early is so much easier when you no longer have a need to sleep.

I get dressed in my hero outfit and, once my mask is on, I hear Aria's voice. "Mom told me to inform you that you will meet in front of the Hero's Guild for patrol duty today." I follow her instructions as I head out of my apartment. I don't use the subway this time, opting for physical walking, since the subway seems to be full of trouble.

Obviously, it takes a lot longer to arrive at the Guild, so when I get there I see a Sophia with her arms crossed. "You're late." She says. "Sorry. The subway just seems dangerous lately." I reply. "We both know that you could take care of anybody that tries to cause you trouble."

"Anyway, patrol. We're going to be doing more of this until we fix the radiation problems. So, get ready to walk a lot." She starts walking away and I follow after her.

Our patrol is uneventful to say the least. We walk across the the entire street, move over a block, and make our way back. We do this ten times then reverse our direction, circling our way back. This pattern is continued for hours. Nothing really happened. Nothing until a hairy beast of some kind came jumped out of an alley way at us. It towered above us and seemed poised to attack.

"ROOOAARRR!" It roared. I swing my arm at it, but my fist doesn't connect due to Sophia pulling me back. Why isn't she doing anything? She's just staring at it. Is there something about it? I Inspect it.

[ Cursed Beast - A humanoid subject has been cursed by source of voodoo attributed magic. They still maintain consciousness while in a cursed form at their beginning, but this state may not last over a prolonged period of time. ]

Oh. Looking back at them now, they seem to be whimpering, crying, or both. Sophia leans over to me. "Hey. Do you mind using Telepathy? Your skill in it seems to be hereditary which means that you don't have to rank it up. Mine is not powerful enough to make out most of his thoughts." I oblige and connect our minds.

'Why? Why am I like this? Please don't kill me.' A scared male voice rings through my head. I introduce myself. 'Hello, I am Hero Disciple Silvernight. Please do not panic as I am using Telepathy to communicate with you. Could you please tell me what happened?' He looks around frantically until he looks at me. I nod my head and he seems to calm down.

'Okay. Well, this is either my lucky or unlucky day. So, I woke up this morning like this, beast. Covered in hair and eight feet tall, unable to talk or anything. I can feel something crawling all over me. Is that weird?' I relay his words to Sophia. "That crawling is the curse taking effect. If we don't cure this soon, then you may lose all sense of will." She tells him. "Can you tell us any recent events that seemed strange?"

'Uhh. Let's see. There was this guy a few days ago that gave me a free fortune telling. He told me where I would meet my soulmate. Now, I'm like this. Oh, this is on me.' Once again I tell Sophia his words. "Yeah loneliness can do that to you. I'm guessing mousey looking man with a tuxedo way above his pay range?" 'Yeah, how did you know?' "I have my ways." She then opens a portal to the side. "Okay, go through there and wait. We'll get your cure." He obliges and lumbers through the portal.

"Come on. We have a magical Robin Hood to beat up." She creates a different portal that leads in Madman's lair? Workshop? Store? Place.

"Ah. Hello, Space Weaver. Umm, didn't expect you back so soon." Madman was dusting some china on a shelf, but starts backing up at our arrival. Sophia casually pulls up a chair next to his table and sits down, leaning back, and putting her feet on the table. "So, any love curses recently?" They stare at each other for a minute. Silence prevailing through the room. "Maybe. Perhaps some rich entrepreneur that beds every woman he finds 'interesting' came in after a 'free' offer. Perhaps he was tired of the one night stand life and wanted love, but he had already ruined many people. Especially since a good fifth of the women were married. Now, fidelity otherwise since I can't really speak for myself, but I do pride myself on the Robin Hood thing I do. Maybe." He rants, waving his hands about, eyes darting back and forth. "Madman. Give me the key." He looks hopeful. "And I don't go to prison?" Sophia shakes her head. "No. You're still going to prison, but I will get that curse key. Either you give it to me, or things get difficult."

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I look at Sophia. What were we doing? "Looks like he chose the difficult way." She says. "Who?" I ask. "Madman." Oh right. Wait, how did I forget that? She continues, "You know, this would be a good opportunity for you to practice your tracking skills." "Why can't you do that?" "I'm a spider. I trap. You're a wolf. You track." She answers with sound, possibly speciest, logic. We exit the building and I start smelling around. I smell something like Madman's place head deeper into the slum area, towards the Red Light District actually. With me as the lead, we follow his trail.

[ Through repeated actions skill: Enhanced Senses(Major, Passive) has ranked up to Enhanced Senses(Maximum, Passive) ]

Sniffing around the District, the smells of several different drugs masks the usual weed smell the Madman has, but I can still hear. Listening around brings us to Alayna's house.

We knock on it, and Alayna opens the door. She has some kind of white cream on the side of her lips. "Hello there. Are you here to take up my offer, or are you here for other things?" She licks her lips, but the effect is really lost with that cream. "Uhh, you have something on your face right here." I point at my lips which causes her to lick it up. "Oh, that was part of lunch. Well, come inside. I have a present for you."

She walks inside with us tailing her. The inside is more homely than I expected with the exception of all the ornate curtains. We're lead to what seems to be a rest area and we see Madman duct taped to a wooden chair. "MMMM!" He wiggles around at our appearance. "He came to me with a need to hide. Now, I had just made a sandwich and here comes a random man barging on my property. That right is reserved for customers. Madman is no longer allowed here." She pulls Madman towards us, much to his dismay. "Wait, a sandwich? Didn't you say you had no need to eat? Then what was that cream?" I ask in befuddlement. "In order your answers are: yes, I can enjoy food, and mayonnaise. Now, technically I only need to consume sexual fluids once a week, so I do have time to enjoy parts of life." While I was asking questions, Sophia ripped the tape off of Madman's mouth. "Ugh. Where's your brother? He owes me." Alayna replies with crossed arms. "He's out running errands." They keep staring at each other.

[ Through repeated actions skill: Mental Resistance(Minor, Passive) has ranked up to Mental Resistance(Medium, Passive) ]

"Wait, why did my Mental Resistance go up?" I ask out loud. Sophia replies to me. "I can answer this one. So, Madman uses a mind magic to make people simply forget about him, and Alayna has Succubus Charm to make her more noticeable. Now, normally these would reinforce each other's effects, except that Madman's effect bleeds into the environment which makes you miss details. Thus, their effects actually cancel out, but the mental strain is still on your mind, just each undoing the other. If we had enough time, we could train your resistance, but we still need to cure a curse."

"Oh, he has the curse key? Let me deal with him." Alayna offers, but doesn't hear our answer as she drags him to a side room.

Sophia and I sit down and help ourselves to some snacks left on a plate. 20 minutes later, Alayna comes back with a glow on her face. She hands Sophia a literal key and a very pale Madman. He's still taped up, but has lost the chair. "I think I lost five years." He whispers.

We say our goodbyes to Alayna. "Space Weaver, you seem nicer to her today." I mention. "I had a revelation. One, it's a requirement for her species. Two, it's more of a hate the action, like the person." We portal back to her office with a large beast sitting politely on a chair. "Show me your back." Sophia says as she sets Madman down and presses the key into the beast's back. He starts shrinking down until he turns into a very naked, middle-aged man. Sophia throws a cloth over him. "Thank you. I'll never forget this. Now, I must go meet my soulmate." He shouts. "Try and remember her." Madman mumbles which shifts the man's face from happiness into confusion. "I…can't remember her." He whispers. "Yeah. The price of knowledge is the curse. Undo the curse, remove the knowledge." Madman lamely says. The man leaves the office in a daze.

Madman is sent to the processing office after Sophia fills out some files for his arrest. Man, what a day.