Chapter 65 My Thoughts In Order.

  The prisoners had only given the trio one piece of useful information. Isaac was unhappy with the result but at least they learned something. Apparently, everyone that worked on the mainland was kept at arm’s reach from the rest of the organization, except for one person; the store manager. The store manager was also not there at the moment because she spent her days in the store and her nights in bed with the Guard Captain. That one piece of information was just another tack in the pegboard.

  Isaac looked down on the prisoners that were all pressed up against the back wall of the meeting room. Each of them was pinned in place by their own shadow. The combination of Lenna’s aura and Isaac’s eyes of death flames staring into their souls loosened up a few tongues easily enough. The problem was that even once their tongues were freed, they were all still more or less useless. “Hellfire, verdict?” Isaac questioned his wife who had left her Armor of Ire behind and was instead burning like a torch from her aura alone.

  “They are all guilty of one thing or another.” Lenna replied calmly. “But I am not Judgment.”

  “Are the ones that sold slaves, knowing or at least having an idea of the horrors that they would be put through, just as guilty as the ones that put them through such horrors?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Lenna shook her head. “No.” She told him. “I would say, they are at best, one quarter as guilty, at worst, half as guilty.”

  “So, let’s say, for instance, that one of these beings before you, sold five young women off to a deranged old and fat pig masquerading as a human, purely for his own sick enjoyment, they should be executed as well?” Isaac pressed.

  Lenna nodded once with finality. “Yes, I would have to agree.”

  Isaac walked over to the first employee and squatted down so he was eye level with the man. “Did you?” He questioned and locked eyes with him with nothing but total intense focus. Isaac saw a flick of the man’s eyes go up and to the right in thought, and then down and to the right while widening slightly in guilt, before they returned to lock with his own. Isaac grinned.

  The man wilted like a lone flower in the middle of a stone road in the middle of summer. “No, please, I didn’t, I-I I couldn’t’ve been sure, I, I had no way of being certain.” He pleaded with Isaac like he was the Reaper getting ready to send his soul to wherever it would end up.

  “Maybe that time, but what about the rest?” Isaac questioned him further.

  The man’s eyes flicked to the right again and then they widened in horror. The eyes of the grinning specter of death and the horrified seller of souls met. The man’s shadow burst into death flames and his entire body was gone an instant later. Isaac didn’t even bother getting up from his squatting position and just appeared in front of the next one.

  Isaac’s next victim jumped in fright and started hyperventilating. ‘She’s too scared to get a good read on her, damn it.’ Isaac swore at himself internally. ‘I’ll come back to her later, or let the magistrate deal with her.’

  Isaac appeared in front of the next one. “I-I d-don’t know anything! I just work here!” He shouted at Isaac with pure terror. That didn’t stop Isaac from questioning him like a guard trying to force a confession out of an innocent man.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Do you remember who those children were sold to?” He began his next interrogation. By the time Isaac was done, there were two nobles, one person that had done nothing but fetch snacks and make tea, and the woman who had hyperventilated to the point of losing consciousness.

  “A-are you going to let us go?” The noble that Lenna had put in his place previously worked up the courage to ask them.

  “No.” Isaac told him and turned to leave. “Let Lenna, Shamesh, and I out, but no one else.” He told the shadow that was still guarding the door. “I can’t believe that they don’t even know where the other teleporter goes.” Isaac complained to Lenna as they walked out. “This organization is so fragmented that they just order the goods and they arrive on the teleportation circle.”

  “It does make our job more difficult.” Lenna agreed. “Where to next?”

  “We need to meet up with either the magistrate or Heitor. We need to tell them about the Guard Captain and we need to try and capture or kill the store manager before she can escape.” Isaac replied.

  “Heitor would have more men at his disposal, also, we need to tell him about the berserker.” Lenna reminded him.

  Isaac took a deep focusing breath as he stared at the corpse that was laying by the steps to the ground floor. “Solidify. Lift it.” He instructed the shadow under her corpse and it did as it was told. “Animate. Follow us.” He continued and then led Lenna, Shamesh, and the corpse up the stairs. “Lenna, help me get my thoughts in order.”

  “Okay.” She replied.

  “The ruling family is working with the CSC, who is working with the unknown ‘magic items for non-mages’ maker as well as the Guard Captain and who knows how many guards. The local mercantile guild is working with the gangs in the city who we know, at the very least, are abducting people and selling them to the CSC. The Court Mage and Guild Master haven’t come forwards with anything pertaining to the teleportation circles under the CSC building for some reason. The Guild Master is probably working with us. We think that the Magistrate is, and he should be unless there is something really big going on that we don’t know about. There is a vigilante group that is supposedly made up of adventurers, guardsmen, and civilians that are at war with the gangs. And finally, we are in the middle. Did I miss anything?” He ended and then took a moment to go over everything, that he had said aloud, in his head, again.

  “The berserker from the CSC was actually a double platinum adventurer. If she had any solid connections to the Guild Master then that could cause trouble.” Lenna added.

  “Okay.” Isaac said with a nod. “Let’s drop the body off at the Guild Hall for now. If Heitor is there then we can try to double check that he is on the right side of this mess. If not, then we go to the Thronsen Estate and then the Courthouse if the raid has already concluded.”

  “What about the Court Mage?” Lenna wondered.

  “At present, the Court Mage hasn’t made themselves known to us. If we are lucky, the Court Mage is just some old woman who had a heart attack in her sleep last week and no one bothered to go check on her.” He replied with a shrug. “I don’t want to risk kicking a hornet’s nest if we can help it.”

  Lenna nodded. “Agreed.”

  The group finally walked out of the front door of the CSC building and out into the cold night air. Wind whipped by them and a chill that made Isaac’s bones feel cold blew through everything in its path. “We are definitely farther north than Sapphirestone.” Isaac commented as he gazed up at the moon and stars above them.

  Lenna nodded. “We are a week away from home.” She reminded him. “It isn’t really that far, Outpost Charles is farther, but it somehow feels like an entirely different world.”

  Isaac smirked. “It is.” He told her. “This is the Outerworld, not the Innerworld, remember.” Lenna just rolled her eyes.

  —

  Isaac and Lenna’s trip to the Guild Hall was anything but uneventful, but at the same time, none of the events were of any serious note. The gang activity was even worse than Sapphirestone as some of them were even having brawls in the streets. The lack of cohesion between the gangs actually gave Isaac some confidence in the vigilante group. If the gangs were not just one big faction then the vigilantes actually stood a chance of getting rid of them one group at a time.

  During their trip, Isaac and Shamesh quietly removed some of the more unsavory gang members that were doing things that the group didn’t like. Children were always off limits. Ganging up on a lone individual who had been trying to keep their head down, that was a no go as well. Breaking into a family’s house and attempting to go for the entire check list of ‘don’ts’ at once, they were obviously begging to be removed from the face of Primatia. By the time they had arrived back at the Guild Hall, it was four hours before dawn. Most of the night had already been lathered with tales of violence, bloodshed, explosions, magic, conspiracies, and piles of black dust that stank of death.

  Amaranth Serentia V'Nova Wexler