PreCursive

  “Alright, alright,” Hook said irritably. “Enough of this nonsense. Whisper, I don’t care if you traded with Spike. Get back to your post and send his zy ass back here.”

  ‘Whisper’ nodded shallowly at her apparent boss, and then made to leave the tent. As she assing me, she met my eyes once again. “Later,” She murmured, causio nod slightly in aowledgment. In moments, she was gone.

  Apparently back to her post, which I’m guessing had to do with our little group ba the Citadel.

  Hook heaved a put-upon sigh. “That girl…” He said, shaking his head. “Never mind, that doesn’t matter right now. , rookie. I’ll show you in.” Hook approached the desk that Whisper had been sitting behind, reag us surface with one hand. He fiddled around with something, and what happened was at least mildly surprising.

  A trap door that I hadn’t notiear the back of the tent opened with a creak of metal hinges.

  I blinked. “How the hell? Do you guys have a bunker down there or something?” I asked incredulously. “We’ve only been here a week!”

  Hook barked a ugh at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. We didn’t build an underground structure in a week.” He paused for a moment, before tinuing smugly. “It was already here. The Division has bolt holes like this set up all over the ti. It was only a matter of making sure we cimed the spot when the Army got here.”

  I o show I uood. Meanwhile, I was actually w if that was what Sylvia had been doing, all those times she had disappeared for hours at a time during our travels. Had she been cheg in with looe stations? Guess I could just ask her ter.

  I was a little startled when another Division member popped their head out of the trap door that hook had opehey were wearing the grey hooded cloak that I was beginning to suspect was a uniform for the branch. The hood was down allowio see the apparent human male’s shaggy blonde hair, aer see his pin wooden mask. The only embellishment on his was a carving of two avian wings on the surface. He looked around curiously for a moment, before sighting Hook. “Boss?” He asked, sounding baffled. “What are you doing? I thought you hated just leaving the door open.”

  Hook rounded on the Division member with speed. “Do as I say, not as I do!” He barked, causing the cloaked figure te away. “Get back to work Finch! Shoo! Shoo!”

  ‘Finch’ retreated back dowrap door so quickly he hit his head on the lip of it. I heard muffled cursing eg out of the hole that slowly faded with increased distance.

  I blinked slowly at the odd exge. You know, I was getting the impression that these guys weren’t quite the strict, moody cloak-and-dagger anization I had thought they’d be.

  Hook grumbled. “Wasted enough time. , rookie. Dowch. Close it after you, will ya?” Without another word, Hook strode over to the hole in the ground and hopped down it. I walked over to it as well, looking over the opening and downwards.

  There was a wooden dder built into the dirt walls of the tunnel, which Hook seemed to have disregarded in favor of jumping straight down. Far below me, I thought I could see the dim glow of light. I looked at Fade’s furry form in my arms, and then looked at the dder again. “How am I supposed to carry a wolf, climb a dder, and close a door at the same time?” I grumbled to myself.

  Fade looked up at me from his position in my arms. He rolled his eyes in a surprisingly humaure, before bodily jumping out of my carry.

  Straight down the hole. In seds he was out of sight.

  Ah…

  I guess that worked. He robably fine.

  I shook my head and then swung myself over the edge and into the hole. Once I was inside, I reached up and grabbed the handhold built into the trap door, and pulled it down.

  The world went dark, but I had long siopped being afraid of darkness. Instead of carefully taking the dder down, I reinforced my strength with Sylvan Vigor at around fifty pert a go of the dder. I swiftly dropped down the shaft of this apparent bolt hole, feeling the wind whip around me.

  I hoped Fade’d had the fht to get out of the way. I didn’t want to stomp on him like some kind of turtle murdering, video game plumber.

  Instead of hittiher fur or even dirt, I came to an abrupt stop by hitting stone. Quarried stone, in fact. Dare I say it, these were even stoiles.

  How bougie.

  Blinking at the odd ta from my c, I stood up to examine my surroundings. I was mildly surprised at what I found, but I shouldn’t have been. These guys had the bag of aire military anization, after all.

  There was an actual, for real office down here.

  Well, a medieval equivalent to o least.

  Spread out over a modestly sized stone hall were over a dozen different desks, with an apparent Division member sitting at eae. Not everyone was wearing the grey cloaks and decorated masks, though. There were plenty of normal-looking people either shuffling through scrolls and sheaves of part, or scribbling things down ohere were boards with pages and pages pio them along the walls, while on the far wall there was a massive, familiar map of Vereden promily dispyed. It was festooned with small pins that held differently colored strings of yarn, stretched over distances. It wasn’t just one big space, either. I could see a number of different doors leading to other rooms, from which people were ing and going.

  The entire room had a slow murmur of noise and activity that wasn’t interrupted at all by my entrance. I tilted my head in puzzlement, as I watched a cloaked and masked Division member carrying a tray with a teapot and cups on it to a desk with two other people, both looking like regur bureaucrats.

  Hook was standing off to the side with his arms crossed as I took in the apparent current headquarters for the Noe Division. Fade was sitting on his haunches nearby and wagging his tail as well, watg the bypy. I think they were waiting for me.

  I tamped down on my embarrassment, clearing my throat. “So, what ?”

  Hook jerked his head in a motion to follow him. “, I’ll get yistered in my office. That, and a few other things.” He walked off towards the office floor, Fade trailing in his wake. I hurried to catch up with them.

  As our little group weaved through the desks of busy operatives? Agents? Hook was occasionally stopped by people. I tried not to eavesdrop, but it seemed like they were asking for either his input or permission. He barely needed a sed to observe the dots that they presented him with, before responding in a clipped manner. Something I noticed was that there was an awful lot of mentions about Elderwyck.

  And Ttec.

  Fade and I got the occasional odd look from the staff and Agents in the hall, but nobody directly tried to talk to us.

  Eventually, we reached one of the doors on the far wall situated o the massive map of the ti. Hook barged through the door, leaving Fade ao travel in his wake. Onside, I shut the door behind me and turned around. The room that Hook had us to retty uated, barren office. There was a simple wooden desk and some chairs, along with many bookcases packed to the gills with scrolls and sheaves of part. But not much else, holy. This pce didn’t look very lived in. It urely utilitarian work space.

  Hook settled into the chair behind his desk, while I sat in one of the chairs across from him. Fade hopped up onto the chair o me, sitting ba his haunches and trying to look like he aying attention.

  For a moment, I was reminded of another occasion where I’d had a meeting with an important dwarf in a much more richly decorated office, all those months ago in Rhoscara. It made me wonder how Ely was doing. I mentally shook it off, though, and directed my attention to Hook.

  He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. “Alright, this is how it’s going to work,” He said evenly. “First, we get yistered for our records. It’s not much. Just a simple sheet with some equally simple information we need for accurate assig.” He took out an hoo-God, pre-formatted offi from a drawer in his desk and slid it my way along with a fountain pen and inkwell. I smiled down at the ingruously simir-to-earth dot, and got to writing. It wasn’t asking for much. I hesitated, though, when I came to the species portion.

  Hook noticed, and made an accurate guess. “Just put human,” He said calmly, causing my eyes to flick up a his in surprise. He me slightly. “I’m aware of that. As I said, we’ve been watg you for some time now.”

  Okay then. That wasn’t ominous at all.

  When I was done, I looked at the pleted form. I’d had to leave ohing bnk, which I was guessing was ing up soon.

  Name: Nathaniel Eugene Hart

  ame:

  Level: 67

  Age: 24

  Race: Human

  Affinity: Terrestrial

  Csses: Thornbde Acolyte

  Professions: Aetherial Melding

  It hadn't asked me for a detailed description of my Virtues, I'd noticed. Or my Skills and Talents.

  I slid the dot over the desk to Hook, who took it with a brief gnce. He hummed, and nodded. “Alright, time to decide on a ame for you. Generally, we don’t impose strict guidelines for this. You’re mostly free to choose what you’d like. Just,” A pained ered his voice. “Don’t go too overboard, will you? A proper ame isn’t meant to be intimidating. It’s meant to provide a level of anonymity.”

  I’d been thinking about this for a bit, actually, in the bay rings. I couldn’t deny that there was a childish part of me that was delighted about choosing what was essentially a spy name for myself. “How about Thorn?”

  “Denied,” Hook said immediately. “That’s taken. She’s out on assig right now. Besides,” I got the impression the dwarf was fixih an unimpressed stare. “Your css dispys an affinity with thorns. That doesn’t sound like anonymity to me.”

  I flushed slightly, but nodded. Alright then.

  I grimaced slightly, remembering something else I’d been called by someone I hadn’t much cared for. I couldn’t deny that it sounded like an appropriate name, however. “How about Hangman?” I relutly said.

  Hook tilted his head. “A bit morbid, don’t you think?” He said mildly.

  I rolled my eyes. “You said it yourself,” I pointed out. “The purpose of my joining the Division aing more training is to turo a better assassin. That’s already plenty morbid.”

  Hook ined his head in aowledgment. “True. We’ll put that down as a maybe. Don’t it to something just yet. We generally don’t care for it whes ge their ame for no good reason, such as disliking the word. We prefer to only do that when they’ve been ‘burned’, or identified by hostile parties.”

  For the few minutes, Hook and I brainstormed a few different ideas for my ame. Things like ‘Viper’ and ‘Wisp’ were thrown around. Most of my suggestioaken, and the few that weren’t didn’t sit right with me. Eventually, we just came bay inal suggestion.

  “Hangman it is,” Hook agreed, filling out my new ame on the form. When he was finished, he turned around and opened a et on the wall behind him. From it, he withdrew one of the grey cloaks that I’d seen so much of and threw it at me. “Put it on,” He said, rifling through the desk for something else.

  I had just gotten done fastening the cloak closed when I had to fumblingly catething else from him. Looking down, I saw that it was a mask. A pin wooden, full-face mask without any embellishments, carvings, or paint on it. The bnk eyeholes of the mask stared up at me. I tur over. “How does it…?” I trailed off, seeing nothing obvious to hold it in pce.

  “Specifically tuig entment,” Hook said patiently. He withdrew a small stiletto knife from his belt, and held it out to me handle first. “Squeeze a drop of blood onto the face to bind the mask. Once you’re do’ll only work for you.”

  I took the knife and pricked my thumb with it, unfling. Handing the bde back to Hook, I squeeze a drop of blood onto the pin mask. As I sucked my thumb for a moment, I watched as the blood was absorbed into the wood with an odd ripple. Lifting the mask to face level, I didn’t hesitate before putting it on.

  Hook was right about it stig to my face. It was like an oddly fortable kind of su. Turning my head slightly, I was relieved to see that my field of view wasn’t harmed by the mask. I turned back to Hook when he cpped his hands together in satisfa.

  He me. “Alright, Hangman.” He said, causio tilt my head slightly. That name was going to take some getting used to. “Follow me. We'll see if any of the trainers whoing to work with you are here now. You e to, wolf.” He said to Fade. “We have someoh a Beastmaster css who help you as well.”

  We exged nods, and then Fade and I followed Hook out of the office.

  Once ba the muted chaos of the hall, I was surprised at how much more fortable I felt here. In this mask and cloak, I didn’t stiuymore.

  Fade still got some attention, though. He just soaked up the pets and pliments from the people we passed by, following Hook to another door.

  You little attention whore.

  You loved this, didn’t you?