[Baldr’s POV]

Elwen led me to one of the far sides of the mansion, where the entrance to one of the long winding towers was. She opened a door to find a small room with no windows but everything screamed luxury. A queen’s size bed draped in royal purple velvet with a light red wooden desk with golden linings across.

“We can put her in here for the time being, the door locks so she won’t be able to leave” Elwen quickly says.

I placed the sleeping blue haired girl on the soft bed. I notice a small bag attached to her cape, I grab it and look inside to find lots of whistles inside all labeled something different like, “Chippy” “Pip” and all sorts of other names. Perhaps all the whistles were names of her pets.

My eyes spun around the room, “Even in the Constantine Mansion, we treat our prisoners with such luxury. Feels unfair…”

Elwen let out a laugh that gave me a wistful sentimental feeling of nostalgia… Why…? I felt a single drop roll down my face, I placed my hand onto it. It was water, was I crying? I don’t know why I would be crying though.

“Is something wrong Baldr?” Elwen asked, watching over me.

I wiped my face, “Something must have gotten into my eye, I feel fine.”

I hear the blue hair girl groan, I look over to her sitting up not having a pleased face painted on her.

“Oh, look who is awake, Elwen can you get Hexa? She also wanted to speak to her”.

“Yes I can do that,” Elwen said, rushing out of the room.

I turned to the blue haired girl, “What is your name?”

“Mallory Grayson” she replied looking at her hands.

I cleared my throat, “Alright Mallory, do you know-”

“Know who kidnapped the children? Yeah that was me, I was doing a job for my guild” She interrupted.

“Your guild?”

“The Miasme Guild” she looked up at me and grinned for a moment then the grin dropped, “Why aren’t you afraid?”

“I don’t know what the Miasme Guild is,” I said. I should probably get more knowledge about this world… I probably seem like an idiot.

“It’s an assassin’s guild but more recently they’ve been taking other jobs other than assassinating, like trafficking and other highly illegal stuff” Hexa said walking in, “I would like to question her like, who hired her to do that job but, we need to deal with a very bad issue that’s affecting all of us”.

I turned away from Mallory, “What issue?”

“We need to find a way to heal these bites we got. Or else we will die.” Hexa replied.

“I may have someone to help in the capital, but it’ll take a day to journey over,” Elwen said.

“Let’s get prepared immediately then, I’ll tell the others” Hexa said, walking off.

[Mansoon’s POV]

“We should take the girl along with us” I said leaning on a wall.

“Isn’t that risky?” Hexa questioned.

I blew air out of my mouth, “Who knows what that girl will do if we leave her here alone, better to be safe rather than sorry”.

“Alright. I understand, we will be leaving in a few minutes” Hexa nodded and walked outside.

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I stepped back into my room and opened my spell book, and flipped to the page where the other members talk. My eyes were glued to the last message the boss sent me, “Sword. Make sure Elwen wins the election with her winning, it’ll bring me closer to my goal. Goodbye Sword, do not fuck it up”.

Making the candidate that is least likely to win will be difficult. Almost impossible. But going to the capital will be a perfect place for her to gain some popularity. Just what should I have her do?

I pressed my hands together, closing the book in my hand. I only have one year to politically sway the public into thinking Elwen would be the best ruler. That way if the Primordial doesn’t pick Elwen as next ruler, she could lead a rebellion!

I nodded to myself smiling and walked out of the mansion to see Saaxol and a horse looking like they were having an argument in front of the carriage that only has one horse attached to it as it waits for the other horse to come over. Saaxol was angrily making horse noises as the horse pompously looked away from Saaxol.

“Somehow I feel like he’s losing an argument with a horse.” I say, which are words I never thought I would ever say.

“Yep.” Baldr replied “He told us he could talk to animals, and that he could convince the horse to drive the carriage. It doesn't look too great.”

“I bet I could help,” I say.

“What are you going to do? Stab it?” Baldr chuckled.

“Actually, I’m pretty good with animals myself,” I reply, walking over to the horse.

The horse gave me a side eye as I reached my hand out and started to pet silky black fur.

“Hey buddy, how about you take us to the capital, okay?” I sweetly say.

The night sky horse looked at me dead in the eyes and started to back up into the carriage.

“How did you do that?” Saaxol cried.

I shrug, “I like animals.”

I climbed into the carriage to find Elwen lecturing Bud… On letters.

“Dang. Aldrich is a tough teacher, well the first three are A B and C. You got that?” Elwen says.

“A B and C. Please say that's all and I can read now” Bud says, shoving his hands into his face.

Elwen goes quiet “... No”

“Why… Why must this cruel world exist…” Bud yells, slamming his head against the walls of the carriage.

I sat next to Mallory and looked at her, “So I heard you worked for the Miasme Guild. Such a rough line of work for a kid like you.”

“I’m 17, the work is fine.” She directly says.

“So, who hired you to take those kids, if you tell us we won’t take you to the prison in the capital.” I stated. Just the thought of prison would faze most people but it didn’t seem to faze her at all.

“I’m not allowed to share that information. What I will tell you, it was supposed to draw out Elwen into saving them. Figure the rest out yourself.” Mallory stated.

“Were ready to get going” Hexa called out to us as Baldr and her walked in.

“Who is driving the carriage?” I questioned.

“Saaxol” Hexa said.

“May the divines help us all” I say, shoving my hands into my face.

“I call upon the spirit of night, please grant me your eyes” I say as a green light shallows the carriage.

“This is Exodus, he will be scouting around us to make sure no one attacks us and Lady Elwen.” I say.

Elwen looks over at me and smiles, “Oh good thinking Mansoon!”

I open the windows to the outside of the carriage and let Exodus fly out as we start heading our way onto the road in the thick forest.

After 10 minutes of listening to the others squabble at one another I hear a, “Hoot Hoot!”

Not a good sign.

I close my eyes and see Exodus circling above people in dark purple and black cloaks. I recognized them, “Lucifmal Cultists…”

Suddenly Exodus fell to the ground motionless, he wasn’t dead because I could still see through him. It was something that was dragging him down. I saw a man who was as pale as a ghost walk up to Exodus and pulled out a black book and said, “Oh dear. Someone spotted us.” He started cackling as I heard Exodus’ head split open with a loud CRACK.

I opened my eyes, not being able to see my owl companion’s vision anymore… My mind started racing if it was just normal lackeys Lucifmal Cultists, I bet we could take them. But there were definitely a lot of them there. Also for Exodus to just randomly fall out of the sky? There was definitely a high ranking member there.

“We have a problem… Lucifmal Cultists are surrounding us, there’s too many for us to take out, we have to get out of here fast.” I called out.

“Lucifmal Cultists?!” Saaxol yelled from the front, “I understand, I’ll go as fast as I can!”

“There’s most likely a high ranking member, perhaps even a Sin there, I saw a Black Book.” I recalled most of the information I gathered to them.

Baldr reaches into his backpack and pulls out a black book, I hold my breath.

“Was it a black book like this?” Baldr said with wide eyes.