“Greetings.” Echelon rustled. “You’ve completed your task.” He glanced at Chester. “Perhaps even more thoroughly than expected. I take it from your presence here that you wish to continue the trials of Delthrys?”

Bella stepped in front of me. “Master, this guy is super suspicious.” She whispered too loudly to even pretend to be stealthy. “And I think he might be birds.”

“What does that even mean?” Chester snorted. “That’s not even- nope, just used my Path to pierce his stealth. My bad, he’s totally birds. Like…a lot of birds. That’s objectively too many fucking birds, man.”

The servant of the god of secrets sighed. “I am NOT ‘birds’ as you so eloquently put it.”

“He’s like…a thousand birds in a guy suit.” Chester reiterated. “He is very clearly lying to you. Why else would he be wearing that suspicious ass cloak?”

“We’re getting off track.” I said tiredly. “It’s fine if he’s birds. I have nothing against birds. He’s here to give us our next assignment. That’ll keep us busy while we wait for MY trial to come up. Speaking of, when is the Lady of Lamentation’s trial starting?”

Echelon cocked his head. “Next week. Though I would seriously advise against pursuing that path. Her trials are notoriously horrifying to take part in. They’re made to weed out sadistic lunatics, and usually end up picking up masochistic lunatics instead. Some of whom go insane. More insane. They’re unpleasant.”

I’d assumed that, but it was nice to know I wasn’t going to need to torture someone else, just ENDURE torture. Joy.

“Your completely unbiased opinion is noted.” I said dryly. “Now how about you give me the next trial. I need something to do for the next week, assuming I don’t solve your next one as quickly as the first.”

That seemed to genuinely offend him. “You will NOT. The Manhunter exercise is a basic introductory lesson to get you used to the concept of secrets. It’s the easiest and quickest of all the tasks you’ll undertake. The god of secrets governs all things hidden.”

“Actually, I was wondering about that.” Said Bella curiously. “His twin brother is the god of deception, right? What’s the difference?”

The cloaked head snapped around. “That question.” He hissed. “Represents a fundamental lack of basic logical thinking and a complete dearth of creativity. Deception is the deliberate obfuscation of a truth. It is a base and hamfisted method of concealing that which you dare not reveal. Secrets are truths worn away by time or desperation. They are currency. They are POWER. Deception is just making shit up.”

“We’re getting off topic.” I soothed the angry bird person. “You were going to tell us about our next task?”

He sniffed. “Yes. I suppose. Your task is simple, and yet infinitely complex. Two hundred years ago, in a town not far from here called Devule, a shopkeeper was murdered. You are to find out who murdered him, and why.” I froze, and the messenger’s tone turned vindictive. “What, is that too easy for you?”

It wasn’t. It was the exact opposite of easy. Two centuries of time…but then, maybe it wasn’t. This was a B-ranked planet, everyone here was F-rank or higher. Which meant they all had a lifespan of far beyond two hundred years. Most of the people involved were probably still around.

Still, it wasn’t a walk in the park, I just nodded grudgingly. “Alright. That’s kind of tough.”

Managing to look smug when your whole face was a floating half mask in a pitch black hood was impressive. With that, he turned to the others. “You may receive help from your…allies. Return to this spot at midnight when you’ve completed your task.” There was an explosion of feathers as a massive wave of ravens burst from the cloak hood, streaking from the room.

The cloud of birds split in two, one half mobbing my apprentice and the other Chester, and the two of them shrieked and batted at the animals as they cawed and pecked at them before flying out the window, which had burst open in the exodus.

Bella was panting, hair askew and body littered with little cuts. “There are feathers in my MOUTH!” She screamed at the retreating forms of the birds in the sky.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Petty bastard.” Chester muttered. Then he turned to Bella and subsequently burst out laughing.

“What?” She demanded, checking herself over for possible reasons he might be so amused. “What did I miss?”

Chester gasped, leaning against the wall to prop himself up as he cackled so violently his legs went weak. “Nothing.” He wheezed. “It’s just…those ravens were murder on your hair.” Then he dissolved into even louder cackles. Even I chuckled a little at that, though Bella just pouted harder than I’ve ever seen a human pout.

“Well, that was bracing.” I said with a clap of my hands. “Apparently you two have a gift for pissing off people more powerful than you.”

They both just shrugged sheepishly, and I rolled my eyes. “So, being locals I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Devule? Any sort of lead would be a good thing. Like is one of you secretly from there?”

“You know where I’m from.” Reminded Chester.

“And I’m from Delthaven. It’s one of the largest cities on Rackham.” Said Bella brightly. “My family is kind of a big deal. I could ask around though?”

Somehow, I doubted it would be that easy. Like obviously we would still do it, but based on Echelon’s attitude we’d probably need to go to the actual town and interview people connected to the incident. This was obviously supposed to test our mystery solving acumen. Which I totally had. I’d found MULTIPLE serial killers. Sure, one of them had just shown up and tried to kill me, but the recursion had to count for something.

There was a crash behind us, but before I could whirl to check it out, I heard a familiar voice. “Fist?” Came the drowsy tones of Rayden from the doorway. “What are you doing down here this late.” I turned to find Ray standing blearily in the door. “Wait, were you meeting Echelon? Fuck, you totally already finished your first trial didn’t you? Were you the first?”

“Doubtful.” I said, annoyed the bird bastard had clearly dropped his noise suppression on the way out to be spiteful. “At least he didn’t mention it. Which I’m sure he would’ve. Guess someone else on Rackham is a better detective than me.”

Chester raised his hand like we were in childcare. “Question. Who the hell is this person?”

Ray gasped. “Who am I? Who AM I?” He paused. “Wait, I just woke up, my head is fuzzy. Hey Fist, who am I?”

“That’s Rayden.” I said with an eye roll I was sure they could hear in my voice. “His keepers are Desria and Cavallo, who are approaching from behind. I assume they didn’t notice him slipping out of his room.”

Desria snorted. “We aren’t his KEEPERS. We’re just responsible for watching him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, or dangerous, or crazy, or reckless, or rude…” She trailed off. “Son of a bitch we are his keepers.” She turned to her boss with a glare. “I want a raise you chaotic bastard.”

“But I don’t pay you.” He said bluntly. “So…sure. I’ll quintuple your salary.”

“I can’t decide if you’re going to be a bad influence on them or the other way around.” I said tiredly. “But I’m almost positive that letting you all meet is not going to end well. I can hear the world screaming. Also, did you break down that door on the way in?” I pointed at the entrance to the room, where the door was hanging off its hinges at an angle.”

He cleared his throat. “No way. It was always like that. All the doors are.”

We turned to stare at the OTHER entrance to the room, where the door was intact. Chester perked up. “I think it was cool. I want to bust a door down.” He strode over and raised his foot, stomping on the wood…and immediately bounced off, falling flat on his ass. “Ow.” He hissed. “Ok, clearly that door has been recently replaced with some kind of security door much tougher than the other doors.”

Bella walked over and knocked on it. “Nope. This is wood. And like…old wood. There’s cracks and the paint is peeling. Plus the hinges have small layers of rust on them. This door is older than my dad. And he’s super old.”

Chester cleared his throat as he stood. “Right. Old world craftsmanship. Like I was saying. It’s clearly much older than the other doors. Those are flimsy new doors made of inferior materials. Nobody takes pride in their work anymore. Half assed doormakers and their half assed doors.” He pointed at the hanging door. “Look at it. So half assed.”

“Luckily you don’t need to worry about that.” Said Bella sweetly. “You’re an entire ass.”

“I like them.” Decided Ray seriously. “We should keep them. And Fist too. You’re now our prisoners.” Desria whispered in his ear. “Wait, what? That’s the wrong word? Well that doesn't sound right.” He shrugged. “Alright, apparently the proper term is ‘friends’.” He made the quotation marks with his fingers as he said the word.

Great. It was like dealing with multiple Bethys. I wished the original Bethy was here. They’d all be so confused.

“Anyway, I take it you haven’t found your target yet?” I asked Ray. “How hard could it be.”

He grimaced. “My target is part of a large family, who for several generations have named all of their fairly large numbers of multiple children Russel. Even the girls are Russel. And they’re all Ascendants, so theres like five generations of Russel Devingtons spread out like a damned root network. We’ve found two hundred and five of them so far.”

“Oh that SUCKS.” I laughed. “ You still have the picture though, right?”

“I told you, the family has a lot of multiples.” He seethed. “Like ten sets of twins. ALL identical. Half the family has the same face. We’ve tried five different Russels and they were all duds.”

I couldn’t help it. I just cracked up. I wasn’t bothering with my menacing image anymore, but I imagine the demonic voiced dark knight with the horrible terrifying mask leaning against the wall howling with mirth was a weird image to take in, because everyone else in the room was just kind of staring at me blankly. When I finished, I took a deep breath. “Sorry, I needed that.”

Ray sulked, but Desria was grinning at me. “Now. Why don’t we get some breakfast or something.” I said. “It’s early as hell, but we’re up anyway. I could use some grub. I’ll cook again.”

They perked up, and Ray threw an arm around Chester’s shoulder. “You’re in for a treat. Fist can cook like nobody’s business. I hope he makes waffles.”

“Blintzes.” I called as I walked into the kitchen ahead of them. “I’m in the mood for blintzes. Haven’t had them in ages. Maybe with like, a nice fruit compote.” I left the stunned silence behind as I walked away, enjoying the shock. It was nice to be back to my old self.

Laughing, Ray caught up. “Guess you’re not doing the brooding loner thing anymore? You seem even more different than when your persona slipped the other day. Definitely more fun.”

“Am I more like…DEVILGHOST!” I sang the last word.

“No.” he said bluntly. “Totally different vibe. He’s kind of a weary saint. You’re alright though.” He winked, dragging Chester off to one side as I prepared to start cooking. Now, I just had to figure out if they had all the ingredients for blintzes. I cracked my fingers as I got to work. I did so love to lose myself in cooking. Maybe I’d have some ideas for my investigation while I worked. If only life was that convenient.