Chapter 155: Chapter One Hundred Fifty Six

We were all in a fantastic mood when we arrived at the information  building. Like the testing hall this particular building was tough to  spot unless you knew where it was. I still had no clue how they achieved  that, but I imagined it had something to do with the stealth Skill. It  was interesting to consider how it was done at least. Like maybe they  built it using Perception oriented materials and while resonating the  Skill. Would that make it a building with a Skill? Or maybe you needed  an Architecture Skill to do things like that so they had used both  Skills in its construction.

Whatever the case, once we  were aware of it we could see it just fine, and we made our way in  through the doors, which while similar to the white ones from the  testing hall in design were pitch black. That was pretty much the only  similarity, because once we made it into the building it became clear  that the inside was far from the lobby like appearance of our previous  destination.

The inside of the info hall was the polar  opposite of the other Perception faculty building, with hard wood floors  as opposed to carpet, and wall to wall boards covered with tacked up  pieces of paper. Much like the mission system back home, it seemed like  people here favored written postings as a method to avoid leaving any  traces. The whole place was filled with people, though most of them were  covered in cloaks or hoods, even on top of existing costumes, and more  than half wore odd temporary masks that all looked the same. Anonymity  seemed to be the order of the day for some of these people.

Callie  gave a low whistle as we stepped inside. "Wow. This place  is...interesting. My Perception is just high enough level to even notice  some of these people. A couple of them seem to be a perpetual state of  stealth, and I'm betting there's a few even I can't see." She turned to  Celine. "Is there some kind of sorting system for who can take what  jobs? I imagine you can't just accept any assignment." Which made sense,  with the kind of people that were obviously here, there was no way they  were taking the same kind of jobs as we were. Their stats would put  them on a whole different level.

Celine smiled. "Well  spotted. Yes, there are small colored dots on each mission if you look.  The color corresponds to the range of your abilities in the test. The  ones over here." She pointed to a series of nearby missions. "Are blank  missions. Ones that anyone can take. They correspond to white on the  mission boards. The missions need to pay more the further up the  spectrum you go. Obviously people use points to pay for them, much like  the crafting hall missions. All of my postings have been blank  missions."

I blinked. "Well, that's...convenient? Or not? I  honestly don't know. Do all of us have to reach the required standard  to take it as a team? Because if so we're stuck at blank missions, but  if not we can take orange missions because of Nightstrike." I wasn't  sure if I had a preference there honestly. We might not really be ready  for any higher level missions, though I assumed the higher pay would be  useful.

As expected though, it wasn't an issue. Celine  nodded. "Teams are only allowed to take missions based on the placement  of their lowest scoring member, so yes, we can only do blank missions.  Still, that shouldn't be too big an issue. There are bound to be  multiple levels of mission for recon, and since a decent chunk of this  new force will be lower G and even H rankers there should be at least  one mission for investigating those elements of the organization." Which  was a decent point, Mr. Jack-tastic might have reached E rank, but the  Jerks as a whole were still mainly the same gang.

Granted,  having an E rank boss was bound to effect their ability to grow, we'd  seen that from the Flame Riot Militia. The boss being one of the elites  of the planet definitely had a qualitative effect on the member's  reputation, but it was hardly going to take effect so quickly. We were  dealing with a gang from a lower tier city, and even those lunatics  would have to hold back somewhat while they built up their rep, though I  wasn't sure how capable of that they really were.

Callie  headed over to the nearest board, having scanned the other notices to  double check from a distance and closed in on one that would be useful.  She strolled up and snagged one of the notices, reading over it and  rolling her eyes before passing it to me. I scanned the posting, and had  to groan at the contents. "How? How did they manage to find a situation  like this so quickly after getting here? It's been like a few days or  something right? I figured they would be taking things slow."

My  girlfriend snickered. "Like they even know how." She held up the page  to the others. "From what this says an unknown group with a  characteristic colored mohawk has apparently laid siege to an area in  the south of the WCP's G district. The territory of..." She checked the  page again. "Cicero Castleton's Captivating Circus Cavalcade? Oh I can  already tell I'm not going to enjoy dealing with these people. Anyway,  someone is offering a hundred points per person to look into it and find  out what's going on."

That was odd. "I know it was pretty  big, but I feel like I would have noticed a circus in G district when  we were last down there. We were all over that place, where exactly is  this...cavalcade?" I hadn't seen anything that looked like a circus when  we were combing the streets, and that felt like something that I'd have  noticed. I was honestly kind of curious what an Ascendant circus would  even look like. It sounded like it would be kind of crazy, exactly the  kind of place the Jerks would feel at home.

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Callie just  shrugged. "I doubt we covered more than half of that place honestly, not  that it was easy to tell. But we avoided the major population areas.  The marks were all in out of the way spots where no one spent time by  necessity. It'll be interesting to see some of the more lively parts of  the WCP. My major issue with this is that it's posted here at all. Isn't  the WCP supposed to be a completely separate force? Why do people at  the Academy even care what's going on down in the WCP?"

This  one Celine did know the answer to. "The Wish Curse Palace is an  important part of Rajak. It's heavily involved in local politics and the  distribution of local forces and resources. The information hall isn't  just built around information from the Academy, it covers the whole  city, and the WCP is a necessary part of that networking. I won't say  all or even most of the jobs here are based down there, it isn't that  big of a space compared to the whole city, but there are certainly a  decent chunk or missions aimed at that area."

It also made  sense that they would go straight down there when arriving. The WCP was  a neutral area, even if only nominally. They would have a much lower  chance of running into political complications moving around down there.  I was curious if the Jerks even had enough G rankers to operate in G  district though. They only had a few that I remembered. Then again who  knew what "laying siege" actually meant in relations to them. I turned  to Callie. "You're the one with the most experience with their G  rankers, can we handle them?"

She snorted. "Easily. But  only if they actually fight us. This is recon, not an elimination  mission. Plus if they're running up against a noted G rank force they  have to have gotten some upgrades. The only way I can imagine that  happening in any reasonable time frame would be if they did some  recruiting. With Mr. Jack-tastic at E rank it should be simple enough to  find people who would be interested. Even if they would have to make  allowances for...stylistic differences."

That was the  nicest way of saying they needed to find crazy people that I could  imagine, but I somehow doubted in a city this size it would be too hard  to find people willing to act like idiots for a chance to get more  powerful. The Jerks were...colorful, but they drew attention, which was  its own kind of draw. With their boss at E rank there were bound to be  people who would see working with them as an opportunity, even if they  had to dress like a dumbass and act ridiculous.

Once  we decided to take it we headed to the desk tucked into the back  corner, where we informed the person working behind the counter (whoever  they might have been, since they were in a thick hooded cloak and I  literally couldn't penetrate the darkness with my eyes) that we wanted  to take the mission. Since it was a blank mission we didn't need to  present any proof of capability or anything, though Celine mentioned we  would if we'd tried to take something higher rank, and then we headed  back to the dorm.

We'd  left the wolves back at the rooms, since they drew a lot of attention  when they were around. Since Jessie was technically a tamer we could  bring them around with us, but since we'd been indoors and in a more  sedate area like the information hall we had decided to leave them at  the dorm. Celine and the others had splurged on some treats and didn't  mind sharing them so they mostly just chewed on some dried meat and  waited for us, but they were still really excited to see us when we got  back to the dorms.

Once  we arrived Callie sat everyone down. "Alright, I figure we can drop in  tomorrow to take a look at this circus. This particular mission will  probably take a while, but we shouldn't go in costume. G district isn't  exclusively costumed individuals, and circus is the kind of place where  civilians would blend in. Since we don't want to draw attention and  Jerks will DEFINITELY recognize me in costume it makes more sense to try  to blend in. We can even bring Cark with us, since he knows the area  pretty well from his time down there looking for Cass."

We  could even bring the wolves with. No one in Velan would associate them  with us, and we hadn't had them long enough to be known for them here  yet. Plus they would be good protection when we didn't have our gear on,  though since it was a recent addition I could at least carry my cane  with me. We went over the details for a bit before deciding to head  home. If we were going down to the WCP tomorrow we needed to be well  rested. Plus we needed to ask Cark if he felt like coming along.

Benny  stayed behind again, and Jessie drove, so Callie and I spent some time  together talking in the back of the car as we drove back. We decided  since we were going as civilians it would be a good time for us to have  that date we'd been planning. Benny would probably be fine to head off  with Celine, and Jessie volunteered (she was eavesdropping) to take Cark  out to look around while Martin and Sarah did their own thing. With a  firm plan in mind we sat back and enjoyed the ride, petting the wolves  as we headed home. It was going to be a big day tomorrow.

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