PreCursive

  Sylvia and I were shooed away as Hook and the senients took to seriously interrogating the SED operatives right there on that rooftop. We were instructed not to go too far, though.

  We still had to get debriefed ourselves.

  It was seriously te by this time, and I was holy expeg Tarus to start peaking over the horizon anytime in the couple hours. It was hard to tell time on Vereden sometimes, as public clocks weren’t really a thing. Don’t get me started on watches, either. With how new Clockwork Engineering was, now Meical Engineering, only the very rich had access to pocket watches.

  You know what? Fuck it. I’ll make my own. I’m sure I could meld up somethi if I put my mind to it.

  And…

  All that was just distrag thoughts, from the very long night I’d had so far.

  I sighed, slumping ba the bench Sylvia and I were waiting on. We weren’t too far from the public garden and pza the whole frontation with Rhiannon had gone down in. This area was rapidly being a hive of Noe activity. News of what had happened with Dusk and SED seemed to have spread across the ranks, and more and ments were popping up on what I mentally referred to as my ‘blood radar’.

  In other words, Lifeblood Sehe passive sense of the Css Talent was, generally, kind of useless. Usually, I only had the barest hint of an idea when a new person was entering my radius of dete with the ability. I had to actively focus oalent in order to get a better feel for the pounding blood in other people’s bodies. But I didn’t have much better to be doing right now, so I was keeping myself busy by keeping an ‘eye’ out for people popping up in around a fifty meter radius, which seemed to be my range limit.

  It was either that, or brood about what was happening to Dusk right about now, and I didn’t…I really didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t drift off into my own mind when I had a debrief to look forward to.

  I’d noticed that a number of the senients Hook had arrived with had departed in the dire of the pza, though. My uanding of Noe SOP told me they were iing the area, hoping for some kind of clue that Rhiannon or the Solstice guys might have left behind.

  Something told me they wouldn’t find anything. As mysterious as she seemed, and apparently hostile too, Rhiannon was…oddly powerful. The woman wasn’t much older than I was, but she almost struck me as being on the level of Honoka rey. My uanding was that I wasn’t too far off from the right level of strength someone my age should be now, after six months on Vereden, so…

  Something was seriously wrong with that woman.

  If she even was a woman. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Dusk and Thirty-Two had been implying she wasn’t.

  I was knocked out of my introspe by the feeling of one cool, disguised Mithril hand ying itself on my upper arm. Stirring, I focused ba the world and looked over at Sylvia to my right. The Sculpted woman had long since removed her mask and was looking a bit worn down herself, but she still nodded up to the rooftop above us. Following her gaze, I saw Hook standing up there, gazing down at us. I don’t know how, but he’d somehow dodged my blood sense, as I hadn’t noticed him at all. Something about his posture struck me as impossibly tired, in the moments before the dwarf hopped down to join us on street level.

  Without a word, he approached our sitting forms and then hopped up onto the bench. Surprisingly, he reached up and removed his own mask as well, letting us see the deep crags on his exhausted features. He let out a slow sigh, leaning forward aing his forearms on his knees. Prudently, he removed a familiar artifact from a pou his waist, a small hand-held statuette of a raven in flight. Setting it dowween his legs and activating it, a wave of Mana rolled over roup and I kneere obscured fr eyes and ears.

  We sat in silence for a moment, before our ander broke it.

  “So,” Hook began, before pausing.

  “So,” I aowledged tiredly.

  Tentatively, Sylvia reached out and y a f hand on the dwarf’s broad back. He barely reacted to it at all, but he didn’t shrug it off. “I…,” She started uainly. “Had no idea Dusk was so important to you. Excuse me. Liora.”

  Hook cut a g Sylvia, an almost perpetual frown on his face. Still, he nodded. “What did that…woman say to you?”

  Sylvia and I exged a gnce over his back. “She…seemed to know a lot of things,” I began slowly. “For once, she appeared to know both yours and Dusk's identities, and had no problem funting them.”

  “Is that so?” Hook said irritably, before shaking his head. “Go on, spit it out. Who am I, then?”

  “Ah…she just said a first name,” I answered, a bit taken aback. “Baldric.”

  Hook snorted. “Baldric. She does know, then. Which is damn odd, sidering there’s no way some little slip of a awr girl should know who I am.”

  “And who are you,…Baldric?” Sylvia asked lowly.

  Hook leaned back then, crossing his arms and gazing up at the night sky silently for a moment. “Baldric, as she said,” He said with a frown, before cutting his eyes my way. “Of House Florens.”

  I blinked slowly for a moment, before the implications of his words set in. I sat up straighter. “Wait, the Rhos ruling House? Does that mean you’re reted to the Prince? And…Azarus?”

  A brief smirk crossed the lips of Hook.

  No…Baldric.

  It died though, and he me. “It’s not a terribly close retion, and I…only met the two of them a couple of times when they were young,” Baldric aowledged. “I’m teically their great-uncle, but I left when they were very young.”

  “Why?” I asked curiously.

  Baldric sighed. “Well…,” He drew out, before almost relutly tinuing. “I’m only going to tell you this because you actually have ties to everyone involved, uand? Otherwise, I would have said it’s none of your business. But it’s like this. Morok, my nephew and the previous Prince of Rhoscara, asked me to leave.”

  I bli that. “Asked you?”

  “Politely, of course,” Baldric said dryly. “See, teically, I should have been the Prince over him. I had two elder brothers, and both of them were never very martially ined. I was ied in growing stronger, as I had no other way to advance my position in those days. This was some, oh, two turies ago I’d say. I’m not quite Grey’s age, but I’m not barely out of diapers like you two.”

  Hey.

  Sylvia never even wore diapers, grandpa.

  I kept my mouth shut, though. I didn’t want to get ‘hooked’, so to speak.

  “So I did my time in the Army as a Scout, and then came bad started to make a reputation for myself as a duelist,” At my raised eyebrow, Baldric actually ged a little. “I was an arrogant little shit at the time, and I’ll leave it at that. But it made me popur with certain people, due to my strength. To make a long story short, I calmed down after I met my wife. My eldest brother had died at that point, leaving behind a daughter who would bee Azarus’s mother. This forced my sed brother to take up the mantle of Prince, who would go on to father Morok.”

  I took a deep breath at that point, and gave voice to a suspi that had been gathering in the bay rings. “Then Og is…?”

  Baldric defted then. “My grandson,” He firmed quietly. He sighed. “I’ve heard he’s been challenging Ely for the throly. I…even heard about your little stunt in the court, that he prompted from you. I…well. I never had much to do with the boy. He’s probably making a nuisance of himself because of the old fas that thought I should have been Prince over Morok, when my st brother carked it. By the time Og was learning to speak, Morok was askio make myself scarce. I’d long since publically announced my support for him as Prince, but there were still whispers that I should rule instead. So, I faked my death on a false expedition into the Deadnds, and essentially…vanished into thin air.”

  “Then…how did you e to join the Order?” Sylvia prompted him. “Surely you were not a member before this point.”

  “You’re right, I wasn’t,” Baldrifirmed, nodding at Sylvia. “Heading the Noe Division…it’s a retively hing, for me. I’ve only been doing it for a little over twenty years, now. I wasn’t the oo found it, either. See, it used to be run by an old friend of Grey’s. A powerful old bugger from ba the day that used to run with him as one of his adventuring buddies. He went into core colpse, though, a out with a bang.” He chuckled morbidly, at some joke her Sylvia and I were privy to. “This was all around the time I was leaving Rhoscara, so Grey needed someoo take over the Division for him. My uanding is he approached that old monster in Marrowmist first, Cassandra the Red. She ughed in his face, though, so he sought me out. I never got an answer from him about how he knew I was still alive. I had nothier to be doing at the time, so I accepted. It was…good for me, I think. I’m suited to work, and it’s not that different from my old Scout days.”

  “And then Liora came into the picture,” I picked up then, nodding along.

  Baldric raised an eyebrow at me, befl into the distance. “She even knew about that? Who the hell is this woman?” He shook his head, before heaving an explosive sigh. “I suppose you say that. Dusk…Liora, is the st surviving family member of the previous Noe Divisions head. She was literally born into this life. She lives and breathes it, probably more than I do. I just kind of…happeo start looking after her, when she wouldn’t go away. I wouldn’t say I raised her but…” For the first time, I saw Baldric bee lost for words.

  “But she’s important to you,” Sylvia cut in, uanding how he felt better than I did. She smiled at Baldric. “She’s nearly a granddaughter to you.”

  Baldric was silent for a moment, before nodding slightly. “I suppose so,” He said quietly.

  “And now she’s been taken by Rhiannon,” I said with a frown.

  Baldric’s face abruptly hardened. “So she has,” He said, lifting his mask back up to his face. When he raised his head again, he was Hook once more. “And I’m not going to let her stay with that woman.” He stood up theivating the cealing devid slipping it bato his pouch. “Back to base, the both of you. I have a meeting with the rest of the SED remnants shortly. Get ready once you’re back, because we’re going to move fast on this.”

  I scrambled to my feet, Sylvia following behind me. “Wait a minute,” I said rapidly, before he could leave. “What about Rhiannon? What is she, and why have SED been hounding her? What the hell is going on with them?”

  “I don’t have the full picture yet,” Hook shook his head briskly. “That’s what I’m going to find out. I should hopefully be back soon.” Just before he left, though, he turo look at us with a grave air. “But…I have a suspi about what this ‘Rhiannon’ is. And if I’m right…we’re all in deep shit.” Before I could protest any further, he vanished in a blur of speed.

  Leaving Sylvia and I to stand around gormlessly in the middle of the deserted side street.

  I sighed, before I felt Sylvia’s hale on my elbow and draw my gaze. “Let’s go,” She said gently. “Like he said, we o get ready. Plus, there should be news on Wisp’s dition.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. With that, Sylvia and I finally got the ce to leave, while ents were still sc the site of our battle with SED.

  …………………………………..

  Wisp wasn’t at our warehouse base, but we did have news on her from the Healer. Crook was staying with her and she’d reyed the news. Wisp was going to pull through, but her injuries meant she was going to be out of ission for some time. Maybe as much as a week.

  Which meant she was going to miss whatever major operation was surely being po rescue Dusk. Surprisingly, the general chatter at our temporary headquarters was very mu favor of that. It looked like everyohat wasn’t out iigating Rhiannon had been recalled from their missions, and there were more Noe Agents in one pce here than I’d seen since Helstein. They all seemed pletely on board with st the pace to search for Dusk, making the assumption that she had to be inside.

  I had no idea she was so well-liked. Maybe it had something to do with being the granddaughter of the Division’s founder, as I’d discovered.

  But…

  It turned out, having all of ents ready and on hand was a double-edged sword.

  Because before Hook could return, the dockside warehouse was attacked.