Sitting down in the cafe Jack was drinking the last of the tea he had ordered, while they were going over the plans they had come up with to find Invidia. He had just set down his cup when there was a loud boom that shook the cafe and rattled the windows. The other customers of the cafe rushed to the windows to see what had just happened. Sitting next to one Jack glanced out and saw a pillar of smoke and dust rising into the skyline several blocks away.

Instantly he felt fear that his Users were in danger. Reaching out with his powers he checked on each of them, and found to his relief that while Riley and Telvin had been near the explosion they were okay for the most part. Though Jack saw that Telvin was pretty banged up, he had lost nearly three-fourths of his HP, he was without serious injury and should heal up okay.

Eramis looking out the window frowned and asked "What was that explosion?"

Glancing through his records, Jack said "There was an assassin, he went after one of my Users with a bomb strapped to his chest. They blew themselves right in front of the guardstation."

Shaking her head in disgust, Eramis said "Dammit that is not what the world needs at the moment. Was anyone hurt? Is your User alright?"

Jack nodded, "My User Telvin was hurt, but he will live. I can't say the same for others. It appears that several other people were killed in the attack. I can't get an accurate account, there might be more buried beneath the rubble."

The Sun Goddess stared at the location of the blast for several moments, then she sighed. "I wish I could help them, but I have no authority here. Even the Supreme Goddess of the court can't butt into other gods' area of control, especially if they want to help mortals." She paused then looked at Jack. "You don't seem that surprised that one of your Users was nearly assassinated."

"No, I'm not surprised. A bit pissed off though. He has been targeted by this group of assassins ever since he had arrived in this city. They have come increasingly close to killing him."

"You know, now that I think of it as I am your sponsor into the court you are under my protection until you officially get into court. While I am not allowed to help the mortals that were hurt by this explosion as they are in Alacnar's territory, I am obligated to help you root these assassins out as they are technically targeting you."

Jack looked surprised at Eramis and asked "You want to help me hunt down these assassins?"

"Yeah, I'm in a mood to crack some heads after meeting Melinoe. Do you know who these assassin's are?"

"No." Jack crossed his arms. "My Users are currently looking into the origins of these assassins. Besides attacking Telvin, I have an agreement with another goddess to help remove these assassins from this city."

Eramis was surprised "Oh? Which Goddess?"

"Eunomia." Jack responded with Nyx's cover identity.

"Oh her. I'm surprised you get on so well with her. She's always been a stick in the mud for me. So she has a temple here?"

Jack nodded. "Yes, a small one. Apparently the assassin's are harassing her students. As for the attacks on Telvin, they seemed to be ramping up fast. I'm getting the feeling that they are getting desperate to kill him. While I wanted to let my Users solve this themselves, I can no longer stand by. The only solid hint we have gotten about them is that they are likely staying with a Lord Reata."

Nodding, Eramis grinned and cracked her hands. "Let's hit up this Lord Reata and whoop some ass." She stood and Jack followed. They left the cafe after Jack paid for the drinks they had.

Stepping into the street, it took a few minutes to get one of the yellow carriages to stop for them. Most seemed to be ferrying people away from the scene of the explosion. Some people seemed to wish to get out of the city before the city guard began to roll out in force and lockdown the city. Eventually Eramis stood in front of one to get it to stop and then they took it to Lord Reata's mansion nearby the Evercral Mansion.

When they passed the seventh guard carriage, Eramis said "We need to make this quick. I suspect the city guard will implement martial law soon. Alacanar will no doubt be taking a greater interest in the city then. I will need to leave before that happens."

A quarter of an hour later, they pulled up in front of the gate of the mansion. Getting out he paid the driver, and helped Eramis down. As he did so he said "We had come up with a plan to capture one of these assassins alive. But since they seem to be willing to blow themselves up, I don't see how that plan would work anymore."

Tall sickly looking hedges and a wrought iron fence hid the mansion beyond them from view. Jack took a look at the hedges and found that despite being diseased looking, where still strong looking and contained numerous thorns. The wrought iron fence looked like it was crooked and the bars spit into multiple spikes making it incredibly dangerous just to lean on. It was perhaps one of the most hostile fences he had ever seen.

Eramis pushed past him, not seeming to take notice of the ominous nature of the fence. Going to the gate, she reared back and kicked it open. There was a scream of tearing metal and the gate was forced open. It revealed a sick looking garden beyond.

"Be careful, the assassins were using Abyssal poison."

Earamis paused and said "You too."

Entering the garden, Jack saw it was filled with hedge sculptures of various beasts. With the sick looking nature of the hedges they all appeared to be in the process of rotting away. Going past them, Jack was finally able to get a good look at the strange looking mansion.

It looked like none of the other buildings in the city, nor like anything he had ever seen before. It was constructed fully out of a dark gray stone. It had a strange oily sheen to it, that made him feel like if he touched it he would find it greasy. It was built in a vague pyramidal shape as each level of the mansion was set back from the edge of the lower level creating a stepped effect to it.

There were also a pair of steps on either side of it that led up to the very top of the mansion. Taking a look at them Jack realized that they were actually an optical illusion that appeared when you were in front of them. If you went to them you could not actually climb them as stairs.

On the outside of the mansion there were no decorations to be seen, except above the entranceway into the mansion. On top of the door was a stone palm that looked like it was carved out of the wall. It was open and a closed eye was carved in it. It seemed to be overlooking the entranceway.

Going up to the door, he took his fist and pounded hard on the door sending reverbations sending into the mansion. After he stopped he took a listen, and failed to hear anything coming from inside. It was deathly silent, not exactly what he was expecting from a den of assassins. As no one had answered the knocking on the door, Eramis went to the door and grabbed the handle and shoved it forward breaking open the thick wooden door.

When she did so, she revealed a dark hallway beyond the door. The late day sunlight barely lit the entrance. It was at that moment Jack realized that he had not seen any windows on the exterior except for maybe the top. Looking around the hallway he did not see any manalights within. Instead he saw several bowls that were placed into the wall every several feet. 

Eramis went to one and sniffed at it. "It smells like oil." She snapped her fingers near it creating a spark that caused the bowl to burst into flame. The moment she did so, the other sconces all burst into flame with a great roar of fire. She frowned and passed her hand over the fire. "Strange there is no heat to it. It's a cold fire."

Jack followed her into the hallway. Despite the flickering fires of the sconces, the hallway was still rather dark. It was as if the stone made to construct the building was eating away at the light. There were wisps of fog at his feet hiding the floor from his vision. Sensing that it was hiding something, he used his powers to push away the fog and revealed the floor below.

To his horror, he saw scattered across the floor were various bones of creatures including the remains of people. Taking a closer look, he saw numerous traps laid throughout the hallway. They were absurdly numerous, in just one section of hallway he counted at least one hundred traps. 

Being careful they made their way down the hallway. While Jack was sure that the traps would not really pose a threat to them, he had no desire to damage his avatar or that of Eramis' avatar. Especially Eramis, as while he could repair his Avatar without too much trouble she would have trouble. She was even risking damage to her soul, and she would have to spend time to heal herself if that happened.

Going deeper, the hallway led to a maze of corridors that was incredibly confusing. It was to such a point that Jack had a hard time believing that this Lord Reata would even be able to live in this place. To be completely honest to himself, this place felt more like a tomb then a mansion.

They managed to find a few rooms that looked somewhat liveable if you discounted the horrific statues that decorated them or the traps that were everywhere. The first room they found looked to be some sort of dual kitchen and dining area. In the corners of the room were statues that seemed to be carved out of the wall.

Each one depicted a horrific event occuring to the subject. One was of a man appearing to starve while a bat thing tore at his arms. Another was of a woman being torn into by a wolf-thing clamping it's jaws on her throat. Another was of a couple being crushed underneath the foot of something massive. The last statue in the room was of a woman with a giant insect bursting forth from her stomach. 

All were nightmarish to look at and definitely not things you would want to look at while eating. On the table were some empty plates that were clean. The firepit for cooking food was cold, some charged looking wood looked like it had been a few days since it was lit. Eramis said "It doesn't look like anyone has been in here for a while. Do you think they fled?"

Jack shrugged and said "I'm not sure. We should look some more around."

They continued on, and the rooms they found later on had even more horrific statues. The fog also grew in intensity; they had to be careful not to step on the numerous traps. They spotted a set of stairs next to a room that appeared to be a storage room.

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The room had dozens of metal barrels in them. Going into the room, Jack lifted the lid on one of them that looked like it had been opened before revealing a black liquid that he identified as Abyssal poison. Eramis was shocked and said "My god, there is enough abyssal poison in here to kill every person on the continent."

"How the hell did they get so much of it?" Jack said. He began to place the barrels into his inventory. "I will have to destroy this stuff later. We can't leave it lying for others to use." After he gathered all the barrels they went up the stairs.

The traps seemed to disappear finally though Jack was careful to keep an eye out. At the top of the stairs, they arrived into a room that was filled with dessicated corpses. Each of them looked as if they had been drained of all liquids leaving a withered husk. They were also wearing the clothes of the assassins that had attacked Telvin. Nudging one of the bodies, Jack saw that it was carrying a bag of crossbow bolts.

"These are the ones that attacked Telvin the other day and failed." Jack said.

"Why are they dead? What happened to them?"

Jack sunk into thought and then said "Maybe they don't take failure lightly." He collected all the abyssal tipped crossbow bolts.

Moving past the dried up corpses, Jack found the fog had taken on a ugly gray color and he had to put more effort in forcing the fog back. They passed several rooms that looked like they were once barracks. They saw some of the beds were made, others had skeletal bodies within them. In each of these rooms had more of those monstrous statues. In addition to them was a large painted red eye that watched over the beds.

Finding another staircase, they went up it. The thick fog was now actively pushing against Jack and he had to put more power into fighting it back. There was a sense of power to it that he swore he recognized but he could not place it. Eramis saw him struggling and asked "What is this fog?"

"I'm not sure. It feels familiar, but I can't get a good reading on it."

They finally made it to the third floor where the fog all of a sudden let up and it began to roll backwards down the hallway where it disappeared. Stepping forward they continued down the hallway. Unlike the maze of the lower floors, the third floor proved to be more straightforward.

It consisted of a long corridor with rooms alongside it. Glancing in them Jack determined that these looked like nobles quarters. Going into one of the larger ones, he found a journal that was on a desk. The words inside however made no sense to him. He guessed it had been written in some sort of code that he would need to crack in order to read it.  He flipped to the last page with writing and saw it had been written recently as the ink was still a bit wet.

The writing also made sense stating "My master is unhappy with us. We have failed too often. He is discarding us and is sending his best to the city to deal with the one we have failed to kill. By the time they arrive this will be our eternal tomb. May our Master have mercy on our souls when we die. Curse that Mage Henrik who fled before receiving our Masters Judgement, may he face the tortures of the pit."

Putting away the journal into his inventory, Jack continued forward with Eramis. At the end of the hallway, Jack found a door that was locked. It was made out of a metal that he could not identify and it felt cold to the touch. It was as if he was touching something colder than ice.

Eramis pounded on the door, yet it rebuffed her attacks with ease. She failed to even put a dent into it. Frowning Jack looked at the door and then went to the wall next to it and reared back and slammed into the wall tearing a hole through the stone and into the room beyond.

Chuckling Eramis followed him in. "No point in having a strong door if you are not going to make the wall strong as well."

The room beyond was decorated in even more horrific imagery. Along the walls were murals of people being devoured by beasts, and on occasion even eating other people. In the center of the room was a large stone coffin with a figure of a woman carved lying on top of it.

In front of this box leaning against it was a man wearing noble clothes. His eyes were bleeding sockets, he lifted his head when they entered. "Ah forgive my rudeness. I didn't realize I had guests." He chuckled. "I'm afraid I'm busy at the moment. My Master has granted me the mercy of carrying out my own punishment."

He reached up and Jack realized he was holding onto a knife. Before he could stop him, he sliced his neck open. The wound began to spray out blood and he collapsed onto the floor and began to bleed out. Jack ran up to him but was unable to stop the man from dying.

Jack frowned in frustration and took a moment to examine the body.

Name

Lord Reata Neeada (Deceased)

Race

Human

Level

45

Difficulty

1

HP

0/340

MP

0/390

Glancing back at Eramis he said "This was Lord Reata."

"What the fuck is going on?" Eramis said.

Jack shook his head confused as well. He took a look at the sarcophagus and pushed it open and found the interior was empty. The only thing of note was that the walls of it possessed deep scratches in it. Like something was trying hard to escape from being entombed within.

While he was taking a look inside the stone coffin, Eramis looked through what Lord Reata had on his body and found a cracked orb. "What do you think this is?"

Jack took it from her and examined it.

Farspeak Orb (Damaged) - Tuned to communicate across vast distances with it's twin orb. Uses a mental link between the holders. Note that these orbs hold a trace of corruption. Anyone who uses this will slowly accumulate corruption. Currently damaged, unable to be repaired without it's twin.

"It looks like Lord Raeta was using this to communicate with someone else. These are also corrupted, so he was being corrupted as he was using it. It's damaged so we are unable to use it."

Eramis nodded and said "That makes sense."

Finishing, they looked around and spotted a set of stairs that led upwards to the final floor of the building. Heading up them with Eramis they entered what he thought looked like some sort of strange looking temple. Unlike the levels below, there were several windows. Each of them however were placed in strange positions in the walls.

The nearest one was looking straight down into a wall, and another was looking up into the sky.  While they did bring in more light, none of them brought light to the far end of the temple. At that end was a massive statue of a man, instead of a head however, it had a massive floating stone eye that was closed.

Eramis looked at it and then shook her head "I have no clue who that is supposed to be. No god's that I am familiar with have this form."

There was a low chuckle from behind the statue, and a woman stepped out from behind the statues. Her skin was alabaster almost as if she was made from marble. It had a translucent quality to it, that made her red eyes pop out even more. He glanced at them and found she seemed to stare into his mind and then he realized she was actually attempting too!

Startled he forced her out and things fell into place. The fog he had been seeing was actually psionic energy from this elf in front of him. "Be careful Eramis, this elf is a psionic. She can do things with her mind."

"Master warned me that you would be able to recognize what I am." She said. The Elf stepped forward, her clothing making twinkling sounds. She was wearing a priestess uniform that was made out of strips of metal. It barely covered anything.

"In fact Master was astounded that you were able to create a Psionic of your own so easily. Master took milenia just to be able to craft this ability into us. Still he is excited to gain your abilities when you fall to his power."

Eramis snorted and said "Yeah, that won't happen. Who is your master?"

"My Master's name is not for me to speak. See my Master is annoyed with you, Jack was it? You're starting to become a thorn in his plans."

Jack attempted to examine her, but she put up some sort of mental shield that blocked his looking at her status. "You just tried to peek at my soul?" She laughed and said "Sorry only my master is allowed to do that."

"Why are you targeting Telvin?" Jack asked.

"Who? Oh you mean that Half-Elf. That's what the Master want's and that's what he will get. I was just sent to make sure that these servant's of his were suitably punished. But now that you are here, I have an itch to play with you." The Elf woman chuckled and stared at them.

"Oh you want to play? Seems to me that you are outnumbered." Eramis said, punching her fist into her palm.

"Is that so? Let me correct that." The elf woman stepped towards them and suddenly split into three. Each one of these new figures each reached out and created a weapon from psionic energy. 

Eramis growled and dashed towards one on the edge who had a spear. The elf charged and attempted to pierce through Eramis who dodged the blow and swept her legs causing the psionic to fall. She caught herself with her spear and spun around and kicked Eramis hard launching her up.

While she was fighting the spear wielding elf, the other two ganged up on Jack. One was wielding a sickle that she wielded trying to slice off his head. The other had a pair of daggers that she took swipes at him everywhere. He blocked their blows barely with his shield.

He was able to get some blows in, he was startled that each one felt like he was hitting a real person not an illusion. He managed to catch the dagger one's leg and tossed her away. The sickle one reached out and caught her with her telekinesis and flung her back towards Jack. 

Throwing up a shield to block the incoming attack, the one on the ground took the chance and cut into Jack's flesh with the sickle. Cursing he caught that one's arm and forced her forward and brought his knee up into her face. She dropped the sickle which disappeared into mist and let out a mental blast which sent Jack reeling back in pain.

The Knife wielding one took this chance and jumped at Jack, only for a figure to emerge from the darkness and slam into her. Jack recognized her as Nyx. "Looks like you need some help to even out the odds." She said winking at him.

Jack nodded in thanks and turned his attention to the one without a weapon. "Oh so your the one that has been hiding in the darkness." 

Eramis was still fighting hard with the one with a spear trading blows. For every blow that Eramis got in, the elf gave her four. Getting frustrated Eramis said "Fuck this shit." She reached out with her power and a blast of pure power of the sun erupted forth and slammed into the Elf who screamed in pain and set up a shield barely in time from being burned alive.

The three elfs danced backwards and then emerged into one. "Looks like my time is up to play with you. Jack my Master will be seeing you around."

With a flourish the elf stepped backwards and disappeared. Eramis looked over and said "Who are you?"

"We don't have time, we need to leave now." Jack said as he felt something changing deep within the temple. Jack took Eramis' hand and fled with Nyx out the temple door to the outside and jumped. As they went into the air, the mansion below them erupted into a massive explosion.

The shockwave propelled the three of them several blocks before crashing down into a building. Jack landed on his back with Eramis landing on his stomach hard. Nyx nearby landed with perfect grace. "Well that was exciting."

Eramis stood and looked at Nyx, "Who are you?"

"I'm Nyx, the one who has been helping you in the darkness."

Eramis was silent for a moment and nodded "I would like to speak with you more. But I'm afraid I need to get going. Jack I'm sorry to cut our date short, but I need to leave before Alacanar finds I was here. That explosion right now is sure to draw his attention. Talk to you later. Oh yeah I had fun today, we should do it again." With that she disappeared into a flash of light.

Jack looked at Nyx and said "Thank you."

"No thank you. I saw you going into Lord Raeta's place. You've finally got rid of those assassins."

"I'm not sure about that. Some more seem to be coming in."

"Well we will take care of that won't we."

Jack nodded and as he stood up he received a message from Veronica informing him that she had been arrested. He frowned and said "Two of my Users have been arrested."

Nyx frowned and she shifted her form into that of the headmistress. "I will help you out. Lets go to the Guard station and figure out what has happened."