Location: Unknown, A-class planet, D-zone (green) [Third Circle]
Date: April 5 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
The room clearly had seen better days. The walls were covered in black spots of dried mould and dirt, and it was hard to tell what colour they had been painted before.
The only window, with broken glass, had long ago been warded by wide metal bands, but even they were not spared by time, covered in a thick layer of rust.
Still, it was giving enough light for those who were inside. Or, at the very least, to the one who was still conscious.
A woman, or perhaps a girl, clearly didn't mind the dim light or the mouldy walls or the unconscious body at her feet.
It was the last member of the group that she had killed in the clearing not so long ago.
Too bad it all went south there. She would have preferred to interrogate all of them, but they had left her no choice, and almost succeeded in killing her.
This time, though, she took her time and asked all kinds of questions, and got all kinds of answers.
Not all of them were the truth—of course, they weren't—but she didn't mind. She always knew when someone was lying or speaking the truth.
Sparrow—the man at her feet—tried to lie at first, as many others before him. But, like the others, he learned that each lie only added pain and suffering to his being. And only honest answers were his salvation.
She got her answers, she always did, but they were not the ones she wanted.
Sparrow didn't know much.
This group of hunters, under Sir John Steward, first came to the Crown's attention a month ago, triggering all kinds of red flags.
They were reported to lose new members too often to be a coincidence, at the same time gaining new ranks too fast to be anything but suspicious.
They were suspected of being involved with the outlawed Freeman Sect because of that, and she was sent to investigate.
But the baronet with his games wasn't a member of the Freeman Sect, no. He was just a sick bastard who used people for his own gain.
And her persona, her mask, under which she met them, was enough of a bait for him to act on his dark desires.
Oh, how he tried to woo her into the group, promising to show her an old outpost they used as a base. And to help her rise in rank, if she would be amicable.
If he only knew that she was outranking him—a solid Expert against his Specialist, even if a peak one at that.
She was baffled at first as to why they had survived this long, so often going deep into the third circle, almost at the edge of the fourth, and so close to the spring migration at that—but now she knew.
No matter how bad John was, she had to give him his due. He knew what he was doing and had a little help in the form of an artefact, a sword.
That was almost enough to kill her.
Looking at the sword she had put aside by the wall, she once more cast her memories back.
He had a solid chance. They almost caught her off guard, and on instinct alone, she went feral—releasing her inner beast.
Perhaps that she wouldn't put in her report, she decided.
As well as mentioning the presence of another persona, who saved her life from certain death by flipping John's body aside and breaking his connection to the sword.
At first, she thought it was Sparrow, due to the thunder berries' scent. Sparrow was unique in using it, while everyone else learned the scent-masking skill. It was affordable, after all, and not buried deep in the third or even higher circle, like the thunder berries.
So, it was no surprise that she had assumed it was Sparrow who flipped John's body aside.
It wasn't him, now she knew, of course, but that left a question of who it was.
She had no answer, although it was just a passing curiosity for Commander Fox of the Crown Hand at that point.
What worried her more was a report she had to deliver and the unconscious body, which she had to get back out of this anomaly.
Perhaps a few years in an aetherium mine would teach Sparrow to be more selective in the future.
She doubted that, but duty called, and so she obeyed.
In the name of the Crown.