by Rae Nantes
It was Marcion, with his son on the back. They hopped off to greet him.
“Pierre!” Vic shouted. “Where in the hell have you been?”
Pierre’s smile reformed into a grimace. “I, uh,” he stammered.
Marcion answered for him. “Found him by one of the farms on the other side of the city.” He chuckled. “He was a real mess. Dehydrated and hungry.”
“Oh, thank God for you, Marcion,” Vic said.
Marcion smiled. “I wasn’t the one who saved him. I just took him to the local doctor to get him cleaned up.”
“You weren’t the one who saved him,” Vic said. “Then who did?”
Marcion shrugged. “I’ll let Pierre tell you about that. I have work to do. Work that you’re going to want done.”
Vic smiled. “I thank you again.”
“We’re a team, right?” Marcion said. He looked down at Pierre. “Make sure you eat, drink plenty of water, and rest until your strength is back. Doctor’s orders.”
Pierre nodded shyly. “Thanks.”
***
Vic sat at the table with Pierre. The sun had just set, their faces lit by the warm glow pouring in from the kitchen windows. His son sat with downcast eyes.
“You’re going to sit there and tell me an angel saved you? I didn’t raise an idiot, Pierre.”
The boy only shrugged, refusing to look into Vic’s scathing eyes.
Vic raised his gloved hand and began to count fingers. “First, you take a job from a suspicious group of people - heretics, probably. Then, you tell me they sent you into the quarries to accompany a suspicious knight. He somehow vanishes, you get lost, and what you have basically told me, somebody used magic to bring you out.”
The boy said nothing.
“Your mother has been worried sick.” Vic scoffed and shook his head. “An angel.”
The boy whispered. “She might as well have been.”
Vic slammed his fist on the table. Silverware rattled. The boy flinched. A moment of silence passed. He brought out his notebook and flipped to a blank page. “What was the name of this place?”
“Townson’s Recruiting.”
“Describe the woman who saved you.”
"W-well, she was very short and roughly my age, maybe a little older."
Vic began to sketch this mysterious woman.
"She had short black hair," he continued. "Sharp eyes like the people in the Far East have, like the Portuguese traders talk about. She had a black cloak, black leather armor, and I noticed that she had two long knives at her waist." He sighed in bliss. "To have been saved by such a girl."
Vic made a crude sketch of the mystery woman. She could have been a passing player or one of the countless who spent their time in Paris. Luckily for him, his network was strong here, and finding such a person would be a relatively easy task.
The problem was, once he found her, he didn’t know what he would do.
4:5
Ivan sat on the couch beside his cubicle, fiddling with his VR headset. The office door slid open with a metallic hiss, and Sasha hurried in.
“I’m about to dive in,” he said. “Will I see you there?”
She was rummaging through her desk drawers. “It’s my job.”
Ivan chuckled to himself. “Oh, before I forget – the nerds keep pestering me about Mondego.”
Sasha slammed a drawer, huffed, then pulled out another. She went back to rummaging. “Just send them the raw logs. We’re busy.”
He shook his head. “But that’s the thing. The raw logs are almost unintelligible.”
Sasha paused. She stepped over and stared at him.
He continued, “It’s just… scrambled.”
“I’ll take a look when I have the time.” She looked away in thought. “Why are they so obsessed with him?”
“They like what he’s doing,” Ivan said, “but they think something’s up.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s figured something out. Something he wasn’t supposed to figure out.”
4:6
Vic sat at the window booth in one of the new coffee shops in Paris. His fingers tapped idly as he stared at the passing crowds through the window. It was a bright sunny day, and it seemed everyone in the city was enjoying the warm sun in the same way that he wasn't.
The entire place was filled with the warm aroma of coffee. It was a piercing reminder of those months he had spent investigating the source of the entire industry. The church had thought it strange that the Ottoman Empire was so suddenly friendly with the French Christians, and part of the ensuing trade deals brought coffee and spices back into the country. Of course, this meant an explosion of the culinary arts and fine dining establishments, along with other questionable sources of dietary entertainment.
Vic recalled that the investigation was halted when he was led to King Francis himself, or rather, his closest advisors. It was yet another case of politics and power that saved a heretic's life. At the time he didn't realize it, but that advisor, too, was a Player.
The bells jingled as the door creaked open, then clacked shut, bringing in a cool draft of winter air. The table shook as the person sat in the seat across from him.
"Sorry for being late," Marcion said.
Vic shrugged without looking away from the window. He was getting used to it by now. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"What do you think about all of this?" Vic asked.
Marcion glanced around for anyone within earshot. Unlike Vic, he didn't realize that most of the patrons here were aura-bearing players. "I don't think it's a good idea," Marcion said. "It's like rubbing shoulders with your enemies."
"My enemies," Vic said under his breath. He turned to look at him. "I suppose it is like serving two masters with conflicting duties. There will always be only one duty."
Marcion picked up the paper menu and flipped through it. "We should really focus on capturing Mondego instead of learning too much about the players. Maybe the truth would be too dark for the world to bear."
"The Holy Father ordered me to continue," Vic said. "Infiltration is a viable tactic to determine to the root, to find the source, to uncover the mystery."
Marcion shook his head. "I still think it's a bad idea."
“Your name was a bad idea, with all due respect to your parents.”
“How so?” asked Marcion.
Vic took a deep breath and brought his gaze to Marcion. "Forgive me. It's been a stressful few days."
Marcion gave a thin laugh. "It's quite alright. I completely understand." He thumbed at the menu. "Now what is this about my name?" He smiled.
"It was the name of an arch-heretic who lived when the New Testament was written,” Vic explained. “He claimed that the God of the Old Testament was a different god than the one that existed during the time of Christ. He argued that there was a stark difference between how God had behaved between the two testaments. The first was the wrathful creator - the demiurge, as they called it. The second was the God of New.”
Marcion dropped his eyes in thought. “Oh.”
“Obviously this was all heresy.” Vic was silent for a moment. “I apologize. It’s not like you had a choice in your name, anyway.”
“No, I appreciate it,” Marcion said. “It would explain why so many in the Vatican kept their distance.”
A waitress stopped beside their table. Her voice was bright and perky. "What'll it be today, fellas?"
Vic glanced, then glared at the air around her, then sighed. "I'll have the vanilla press," he said.
"Chai latte," said Marcion.
The waitress offered a slight bow and stepped away.
Marcion eased in. "Well, have you learned anything new, at least?"
"Gold, silver, copper. All money currency seems to increase their strength by swallowing it. Their power decreases with each death."
"Strange."
"I have also learned," Vic said with a lower voice, "that the estimated populations are
much higher than we first thought. It seems most of them do not use magic."
"Players who don't use magic," Marcion echoed.
Vic tapped idly at the table. "It is currently undecided if we should consider it an absence of heresy, or perhaps demonic by nature."
"Maybe they are neutral," Marcion said. "Like ghosts."
"Or perhaps we are the ghosts."
The bells chimed, the door slammed shut. A blond woman with a dangerous smile and a fashionable blue overcoat stepped in. She held her usual suspiciously-large handbag. The woman looked around, then spotted them. "Oh!" she said. "I hope you haven't ordered yet."
"We have," Vic said.
His handler sat down beside Marcion. He blushed and scooted away. "Do you come here often?" she asked. "It's a great place to meet—"
"Why are we here?" Vic interrupted.
"I have a new task for you."
Vic pinched the bridge of his nose. "And what is it this time?"
"I have a client with a problem who needs... someone like you." She smiled. "Someone with close connections to the church, and by extension, the holy orders."
He stared back, waiting.
She started to rustle in her purse, nearly elbow-deep. "And for the payment—"
"I have my own request," Vic said.
She stopped with wide, surprised eyes. "Oh! And what would that be?"
He held up a finger. "First, tell me what you know about Townson's Recruiting."
"Oh, I've heard of them. They mostly deal with odd-jobs and short-term employment." She lowered her voice and eased closer. “But they're really a player-run drug cartel.”
"We call those cults," Vic said.
"Why do you ask?"
"I need a Player. One who has no issue with raiding other players."
She grinned. "How convenient."
4:7
Vic landed in the wet grass of a forest he had never been in. Marcion stumbled after. Their handler came behind them, and the portal vanished.
He figured that he would never become accustomed to using such demonic black magic, regardless of how convenient, and the static-silk feel of the inky blackness of the doorway still lingered on his skin and made his stomach churn.
Marcion stood and wiped the dew off his coat. Together, they looked around for any soul nearby - only trees stared back. Then, in unison, they looked at their handler. She only yawned in return.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through Vic. She had told them that they were to meet the warrior that could solve all of their problems, but she said nothing about where they were to meet him at. There was no mention of what the man even looked like, no details on his skills, nothing.
They were simply dropped into the middle of nowhere with a magic-wielding heretic who glared into his eyes with hunger and... boredom.
Perhaps this wasn't a business deal at all.
Perhaps this was a disposal.
Vic gripped the hilt of the sword on his waist. Then, a twig snapped in front of them.
An eerie silence passed through. No birds chirping, no wind in the trees, only the pound of his heartbeat through his ears and the weight of his breath.
He stared hard at the source of the noise. Two dark imprints in the wet grass and a bent stick.
Those were footprints, and in the air around it, the faintest shine and shimmer.
His heart raced, he felt the terror pulse through his body. Was this a test? Was this a sacrifice to some invisible demon? Was he the problem that was going to be solved? Vic would not be betrayed so easily.
Vic swung out the sword from his waist and dashed forward. In an instant, he was upon the unseen spirit, his weapon raised high, and he slammed the blade down on it.
It sparked and clashed against something solid.
It was a long knife, held up by a thin arm, covered in black leather. It was a person, wrapped in a brown cloak covering their face - and the largest, wildest, most menacing aura he had seen thus far.
A Player cultist!
Vic pulled back and came in for another swing, but a rushing wind launched him away. Marcion dashed in with his own sword, but the mysterious force threw him up the treetops. Sticks and branches toppled down, with Marcion thumping against the grass after.
Vic braced himself as his mind raced over his options. This was a wind-caster type, but this level of power had yet been unknown to him. Darkness and water types were easy for him to overcome, but this was something else.
Then, a burst of stabbing laughter hit him from the side. It was his handler, wrapping her arms around herself in absolute glee. "Oh, for goodness sake," she said. "Stop messing around!"
The cloaked figure responded. "He started it.” It was the voice of a small woman.
Marcion groaned to his feet. Vic didn't let down his guard. "Is this one yours?" Vic demanded. "What is the meaning of this?"
"She is working with Stefan and Nick," his handler said. "She is my client, and also your payment."
Vic gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and slammed his sword back in its sheath. "I do not appreciate such surprises."
The cloaked figure pulled the hood back, revealing a pale-skinned foreigner. Her black hair was shorter than what most women wore yet was a typical fashion among heretics such as herself. She was a few heads shorter than him, shorter than most women he had seen in Europe, yet her aura was the largest by far.
Was the size and strength of a Player's aura a representation of their connection to demonic powers? Vic hastily took out his notebook to scribble it down.
"So, uh," Marcion said. "What's all of this about?"
"Who are you?" the woman asked.
"I'm Marcion," said Marcion. "I’m an inquisitor’s aide, appointed by the King of France."
"That sounds made-up," she said.
"And... this is Vic," Marcion continued. "He's an Inquisitor for the Vatican."
Vic took a quick sketch of the girl, taking note of her ethnicity, her size, her shape, her menacing aura, all amounting to a cartoonish representation of an angry-looking figure with horns and dragon's breath shooting out of her fanged mouth.
Then, he paused. Vic flipped back a page to see the sketch of the mystery woman that Pierre described. He glanced back up at the tiny demon standing before him, then back at the drawing. They resembled one another. “Did you happen to find a young man in a field recently?”
“What?” she asked, almost with a laugh. “Yeah, I found him out in a field somewhere.” She tilted her head and looked away for a second. “Oh shit, is he alright?”
“He is,” Marcion said. “Thanks to you.”
She stared at him for longer than felt comfortable. “Were you the creeper who took him back?”
“Uh…”
“He was that creeper,” Vic said. Marcion rolled his eyes at the joke.
“Why do you ask?” she said. “Do you know the kid?”
“I do,” Vic said. He flipped back to the comical sketch. He would change nothing. "What is your name?"
"Rika," the woman said.
Vic remembered the name as he wrote it in. She was one of the suspects of the Alonso event, the mysterious clash of competing cults. There was no doubt about it now. The evidence was her use of wind magic, her incredible power, her domineering presence. He gave a quick glance to Marcion, who was staring back, knowingly. The words were unspoken between them, but the plan was brewing. Even though she was the one who took his son out from that terrible place, she was no different than the Player who threw him there. Or maybe she was. What was certain to him now, however, was that she was the worst type of Player - a spellcaster. "And what is that you do?" he asked her.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you have a profession? Or do you only practice heresy?"
Rika tilted her head and laughed.
The handler cut in. "She's a notorious player-killer."
Vic looked at her with wide eyes. "Player... killer?"
The small girl planted her hands on her h
ips like a prince and beamed back a grin. "Of course!" she bellowed. "I am widely known, after all."
Vic thought that he might’ve just stumbled on something legendary. If this woman considered cultist fratricide as a sort of profession, then this would be a good connection to have. "Well I've never heard of you," Vic said.
His handler cut in again. "We're getting a little off track here. Vic, love, can you explain your problem to her?"
He snapped his book shut with an irritated sigh. “I hear you’re good at raiding.”
4:8
"They're headed to the quarry!"
"Surround them!"
French knights poured over the walls and through alleyways to try to cut off the retreating players.
They were too slow.
Rika dashed in, ran her long knives into a player’s back, then rolled to her feet with his fall.
She was also too slow.
It seemed several had already vanished down into the quarry's darkness, and the French knights were hesitant to follow. "There's no finding them down there,” said one of the knights. “It's too risky."
She grunted in irritation. This entire affair wasn't supposed to last this long. She was just about to activate her new skill to chase them when Vic and Marcion stopped behind her, both out of breath.
"Well?" Vic asked. He was covered in blood and sweat.
"Wait here," she ordered. "I need you alive for my part of the bargain."
He waved out his arms in resigned acceptance before resting his hands on his knees. "Fine. Go."
She did.
The knights tried to stop her - they were ignorant of her identity and her role - but it was too late. By the time they gave up, she was already in the darkest part of the labyrinth - the most familiar part.
Then, she clicked on her new skill - Cat Eyes. The world turned to a black and white, but now the darkness fled her vision, revealing a grainy view of the place. She was horrified at what she found.
Piles of human bones still dressed in clothes and armor shoved into the corner. Claw marks on the stone walls and a parade of footprints in the dirt floor. A corpse leaned against a far wall, an army of maggots crawling up its arms.
