PreCursive

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

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

  We were essentially in a small sub-basement underh a local busihat had been verted for our needs. Hook may have told me awhile ago that the Division had safe houses set up all over the try 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 particur case, we were using ohat had bee up underh 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 ighe gold and jewels I’d brought in from Eisenhorn’s personal safe, only giving them a passing gnce of disi before setting them aside. But he had been very ied in the dots I had procured.

  Very ied indeed.

  I’d been standing in front of his desk now for nearly ten minutes as the dwarven ander poured over the scrolls and part ily. The handful of ents that were down here in this little basement with us were trying not to seem like they were ied 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 ents.

  None of which were either Dusk or Sylvia, I’d noticed. Dusk had already pleted her mission before I’d e in, which had been expected. She hadn’t stuck around for any socializing, which was something I was starting to suspect was on 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 to what I found, drawing curious looks from the ents. Not Hook, though. He didn’t care and just kept looking at the dots I’d brought him.

  Name: Nathaniel Eugene HartTitles: Unbound LiberatorLevel: 84Age: 24 SolRace: Human (Precursor)Affinity: TerrestrialCsses: Thornbde Acolyte (Unon)Professions: Aetherial Meldih: 670/670Stamina: 91/100Vitality: 67Strength: 50Spirit: 10Dexterity: 120Perception: 64Intelligence: 178Wisdom: 178Free Points: 100Options: [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 gaihree 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 ents.

  That was way, way less than I’d thought I had thought I would get, after our adventures iabs that de facto beloo Tzo. 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, zilada.

  This arently one of the primary reasons people hated dealing with the walking corpses. They were both incredibly deadly in rge numbers, and there was zero be 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 Neancers. Acc to what Tzo had mentiohey 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 iion and off to the side. “Stem,” He said, waving one of the ents forward. “Go and transmit this to HQ while I debrief Hangman,” He ordered, handing off the dots to the leaf-masked human. He nodded zily, before sauntering over to the er of the basement where we had set up a transmission station. Hook had donated his prototype two-way unication to make the apparatus work. Looking at it, I was reminded a little of an old timey telegram station from ba Earth.

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

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

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

  “Yes, yes,” Hook said, waving a hand disiedly. “Quite a bit of what you’d expect from these ypes. 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 btantly 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 mertile mastermind, only it turns out he’s the same as the rest of them? How positively droll,” She said, in a mogly posh voice.

  “Don’t uimate 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 o sider further. Not only that, but I just ’t parse parts of this. sidering Olsen, I ’t be sure if they were false trails or not. He could just be using Eisenhorn to throw us off the st. 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 ed look over my shoulder before the door closed behind me.

  My st 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 plete amateurs at this business. A det ti of the Agents were lingering in the bas 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 ter after hours. The quiet, bald-headed man just nodded in aowledgment to me before returning to sharpening his knives.

  The streets of Elderwyck were mostly barren at this time of night. It was so te at this point that it was almost m. 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 mi 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 o throw bae of my own stamina potions when I clocked in at Jason’s.

  Sylvia seemed to notice that something was b me, but didn’t say anything out in the open. After the night’s escapades, it appeared that the guards and the Loyalist soldiers supp them were on edge. The two of us were stopped multiple times on the way back to the small ft 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, sidering 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 turo 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 eborated. “I mean, since we got into the city.”

  Sylvia was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps a little,” She relutly admitted. “But I ot pretend to know him very well. These weeks of traveling have been the lo amount of time I’ve spent in his pany.”

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

  “Something about…there being more to the War thahought?” 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 he possibly do about it now?” Sylvia said, baffled. “The warning was so cryptic that I ot possibly guess by what it was refereng.”

  “I…don’t know,” I said helplessly, reag up to massage my forehead. I was already starting to feel the beginnings of an exhaustion headache ing on. I approached one of the few ets we had i and pulled out one of my stamina potions. I smmed it back, and then turo face my Sculpted partner.

  I’d had a thought.

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

  Sylvia looked taken abaentarily. I didn’t bme her for the rea. The two of us didn’t actually see Dusk very often, since we’d started operating ihe walls. The Gnoll parently 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 ander and Agent. Not in an…” She paused for a moment, before tinuing. “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 wao e. “We’re…not that important, Nathan. Right now, we’re just two out of over a dozen different Agents iy. 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 pguing Hook. Yes, he’s probably troubled by Tzo’s warning. But he’s the ander of the Noe 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 suonsense, and it was my job tht 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 partmentalize my worries. With Ringed Mind, I robably better at that than most people. I o show my uanding. “You’re right,” I said, doing my best to smile at her. The window caught my eye, as the light streaming through it had ged. It was green now, signaling the start of the day. “We o 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 ooes for a moment before brushing her lips on my stubbly cheeks in a brief kiss. I retur, my lips ghosting over her disguised skin. Her illusion was thh enough that it actually felt like flesh.

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

  As we stepped back out of the small ft, 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 bay 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 oool across from the squirrely little man. A very well-dressed, very out-of-pe. Jason looked from his versation with her and perked up. “Ah! Hans!” He waved at me enthusiastically as I stopped i 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 ugh 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 kling slightly. “Hello…Hans,” She nearly purred.

  “How o see you again.”