Chapter 13: Chapter Thirteen

I had to be honest, even as a new member of the Unity I hated the idea that someone I'd met there was a murderer. It had to be a hundred thousand times worse for Cap and Nightstrike, who grew up there with the people in question. That said I still had a few questions. "Ok, that's really bad. But I'm still a bit confused about some stuff. For instance, what the hell is a blood drinker blade?" It sounded ominous.

Cap sighed. "Something bad. Blood drinker blades are assassin weapons developed by the Black Sorrow Cult. They're made to kill people higher ranked than the user. The blades are crafted from ores that are the same rank as the intended target or maybe a bit above, and then the user feeds the metal pieces of the target. Hair, skin, saliva, or of course, blood if they can get it. The bigger the power gap the longer it takes to attune the blade, but once it's done the dagger takes on the aura and spiritual signature of the target. It bypasses any of their protections or defensive abilities because it feels like part of them."

I winced, I could assume that since the dagger was G ranked it was made of a material with G ranked levels of Impact, which meant it would bypass that layer of protection too. Still, there was an upside. "We can still check out the shop he bought it at right? Can't be many places here that carry stuff of that quality. Just because Suki didn't see through his disguise doesn't mean he didn't slip or anything while he was in the store. Maybe they have surveillance we can study."

Nightstrike nodded decisively before taking a bite of a surprisingly delicious looking purple meat pie she'd ordered. She chewed for a moment and then swallowed. "Definitely. Just because we might not find anything doesn't mean we don't look. Even if we don't dig up any details, any seemingly insignificant fact we notice about them could end up being helpful later in the case." She took in our stares with a smile. "Investigation is one of the things you'll need to pick up as a cape. The first thing to learn is that all investigating is just gathering data until you find something that makes it all click."

Despite the issues we were in the middle of trying to fix, we were going to be here for a bit while Nightstrike ate, so Jessie and I ordered food on the mentors dime. We didn't get anything with stat boosting effects, just some basic Ascendant cooking with some odd perks. I got a kebab that gave me night vision for twenty four hours, and Jessie got a bowl of rice pudding that made her fifty percent more heat resistant for a week. She let me try a bit and I had to admit it was delicious, as was my kebab.

Nightstrike made sure we knew it wasn't safe for us to eat G ranked food unless we were nearly ready to rank up, so we got H ranked meals, which were cheaper anyway. They paid for our meals in credits, but paid for their own with small coins made of odd metals. When Nightstrike saw us glancing questioningly at the coins she smiled and held one out to us. "These are called chits. They have a standardized amount of Creation stats in them, making them useful for crafters. G rank chits have one hundred Creation points, F ranked a thousand, and so on. They're the commonly accepted currency for Ascendants."

I picked up the coin and rolled it around in my fingers. It felt strange, like it was almost humming somehow. I passed it back and she smiled, gesturing me to keep it. "It's only an H ranked chit, ten points isn't much. Keep it. Anyway Creation is the most valuable currency to crafters, and the Merchant Association that standardized the currency is run by them. Most places will accept chits so it's good to keep some on you just in case. Even the WCP uses them for high level transactions."

I'd wondered about currency before actually, it seemed unlikely that high ranking Ascendants would use credits, this answered more than a few questions. It also gave me a potential method of payment other than directly taking stats from other people. I put that information out of my mind as I finished up my food, stealing another bite of Jessie's before she wolfed down the last of it with a glare and it was officially time to go.

As we got up and headed outside I looked to Nightstrike again. "So, boss lady, Suki never said where we're going. Do you know where we need to check to find the person who sold that dagger?" She seemed familiar with this place so I was following her lead. Even Cap had been pretty quiet, clearly less comfortable down here than Nightstrike, probably due to his mom's weird sordid past with Zeke.

She chuckled humorlessly. "Oh I know where he bought it. You can only get Black Sorrow gear with a rank like that from the source. He bought it at the Shadow Shrine. The cultists have their own sub shop they run in some of the WCP branches. Assassin equipment and poison are always big earners, and the WCP don't care what you sell under their umbrella as long as it works and it makes money. The Shrine is run by low level cult members out on ministry, so I doubt they noticed anything impressive, but they might have surveillance like you said."

I swallowed. The Black Sorrow Cult. A shadowy organization of ruthless assassins and thieves that worshipped a goddess named Black Sorrow. They were basically at war with the Church of the Red Revenant. They kept it peripheral to the major power moves in the universe from what I knew, since they were both members of the five faction alliance. Still, of all the factions the Cult was one of the scariest and least understood, and it was common knowledge to stay away from them if it was possible.

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Nightstrike lead us down the cobblestone street, around a few bends and then down a dark alley between two buildings before we came to a squat, nondescript black shack. The place was dingy and run down, almost squalid in comparison to the grand buildings around it. The wood it was made of was dark and shriveled and looked brittle. Despite that, Nightstrike walked right up and kicked the thing four times. There was a loud bang after each hit, but even the Might of a G ranked Ascendant didn't put a dent in the flimsy looking shack door.

There was a rustling from inside as someone moved around, before a man opened the door and glared out at us. The entryway creaked menacingly as it slowly swung open, and the dark haired man of about twenty that stood inside looked nervous but annoyed. "What?" He didn't elaborate or ask for any information past that, clearly of the opinion that we'd better be here with a purpose or we shouldn't be here at all. He was shockingly not even afraid of Nightstrike, though to be fair he was directly backed by the Black Sorrow Cult.

Nightstrike reached into a pocket and withdrew three chits that all gave off the same level of hum as the ones she'd used to pay for her meal. G rank coins. She passed them to the man who received them, then eyed them greedily before shoving them in his pocket and looking around. "Get inside." He stepped back, giving us room to get by as we entered the shack, then he slammed the door behind us. He walked around us to the other side of the counter and leaned on it casually. "What are you in the market for?"

I had to admit, I was consistently surprised by Ascendant architecture. The inside of this place was much bigger than it looked from the front. It wasn't a garden, or an ocean, or a sea of stars though. It was just a much bigger version of the ratty wooden shack the outside was. The floors were lined with faded rugs and the walls with rickety counters inset with discolored glass in flimsy looking wooden frames. To all appearances it was a hovel where people sold useless junk to people who didn't have the money to go to a real store.

At least, on the surface. I glanced over the bottles and items on the shelves and in the cases and my blood ran cold at the sight of the labels. Manticore venom- G rank, nine chits. Glass bone curse bead- F rank, six chits. All the seemingly useless garbage and dusty knick knacks were dangerous and deadly artifacts. I had to assume the listed number of chits were of the corresponding rank, and even not knowing almost anything about the value of the currency I winced at the demanded price of literally thousands of points of Creation for some of the objects.

Nightstrike meanwhile headed straight for the counter. "You sold a G ranked blood drinker blade a few months ago or so. We want to know who bought it. We know they were disguised, but if you have surveillance we want to see it, and if they came back for any reason since then we want to know for what." She pushed over two more chits, bringing the total to five G ranked coins. Her no nonsense tone combined with the money made it almost impossible to ignore or refuse her. She clearly meant business.

The man behind the counter put his hand over the chits and swept them off the counter into his pocket. "The surveillance isn't a secret anyway, it's why people wear disguises here to begin with." He pulled out a scan box. "Just bump it if you want." Nightstrike did, reaching out with her ring to tap the box and get the info. He put it away. "You're wrong though, he didn't buy a G ranked blood drinker blade." His voice was mostly calm, he was a bit intimidated by Nightstrike, but overall this clearly wasn't his first rodeo.

My mentor rolled her eyes. "He used it to kill a G ranker, it obviously wasn't an H ranked knife. Unless you sold him some high rank poison at the same time." Her face was grim as she considered the possibility, and I honestly understood why. You could guard against a knife, but poison was much more difficult to look for. If the killer had access to G ranked poison we would all be in trouble.

The man shook his head. "You misunderstand. I said it wasn't a G ranked dagger. It was F ranked. I was surprised because it was the most dangerous thing we had in the shop. Most people don't carry that kind of coin on them, but he paid up front, no payment plan or anything. Nine F ranked chits." We all froze at that. That was an absurd amount of money based on the point value alone. I was pretty sure we'd all been discounting it because no one in the Valen branch should have that much money, so we just assumed it wasn't an option.

Now that he said that though I felt a chill run down my spine as I turned to look at Jessie, Cap, and Nightstrike. Jessie's face was as pale as mine probably was, and our mentors didn't look much better. Cap in particular looked shaken, and I didn't blame him. The killer wouldn't have bought an F ranked blade if they weren't going to use it. It would take longer for the blade to sync to an F ranker but when it did the Evil Eye would have a way to assassinate one of the strongest people in the city. Once that happened there would be no keeping the story under wraps, the Evil Eye would experience an explosive growth in power. The question was how long did we have to stop it?

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