Chapter 57: Chapter Fifty Seven

The next day found me doing something I really didn't want to do, but felt compelled to out of caution. I had to tell Benny and the girls about the Heartrippers. I had wanted to avoid it, but I'd come to the conclusion that just passively waiting for assassination attempts was stupid. They were sleepers, which meant they had to be triggered, which meant they had to have a handler. If I could find out who that guy was and get rid of him then hopefully there would be no one to send the Heartripper Society after me.

But to do that I needed to go to the WCP and poke around, given that it was the only shady underground information source I knew of in the city. But since we were going down there looking for a super secret cult of sleeper assassins I couldn't in good conscience ask my friends to come along without informing them of said assassin cult. So I gathered them together for breakfast (I made chocolate chip pancakes to soften them up) and laid it all out.

I blamed the Black Sorrow Cult's interest in me on the fact that I'd stopped Stricture, who was their patsy, and to be fair that MIGHT have been the reason, but they didn't need to know every detail of my problems, just enough to understand the danger they were in and protect themselves. By the time I was done, they were all staring at me. Callie looked like she was ready to jump over the table at me, and I was pretty confused by the animosity.

I yelped, glaring at her. "What the hell is that glare for? I told you guys about it didn't I? No wonder I didn't want to share." Her blue eyes were narrowed at me dangerously, but I was annoyed. I hadn't done anything wrong, I'd been told someone wanted to kill me, and I kept it to myself out of necessity. I knew they weren't sleepers, but I didn't know who WAS so I had to be careful talking about it, hence why we were eating in my room.

She glared for a minute or so before her shoulder slumped. "I'm sorry. You're right. This isn't your fault. I'm just angry. It seems like none of us can catch a damn break. I was worried and I took it out on you." She looked ashamed of herself. She sighed and looked up at me sadly. "I'm sick and tired of losing people I care about. I lost Batty and I don't want to lose you too." Her face hardened. "Until this is over you don't go anywhere alone. I'm going to effectively be your shadow-" She held up a finger as I opened my mouth. "Do NOT make a bad shadow pun, I will kick you."

I smiled fondly at her, holding up my hands placatingly. "Oh of course not, I would never. But fine, having you around should help scare off some of the weaker ones. That said I told you now instead of days ago for a reason. I have a plan for how to deal with this nonsense." I laid out my ideas about the handler, and how I was planning a trip to the WCP to find him, and everyone seemed pretty receptive to the idea.

Callie nodded along energetically. "That does sound like a good place to start. We can head down there today. No rule about being forced to show up to the Academy, other than missing out on some training." I made a mental note to do some wish granting through Doom Sovereign today like I'd been planning, maybe stack some mastery skill to try to expand my capabilities. I couldn't miss a day of wishes just because I was heading somewhere dangerous, but I didn't know the environment down there well enough to consider something like a booth for wishing.

This was a whole new city run by a whole new Deacon, and despite Zeke being the big man on campus in terms of WCP protocol I knew he had no desire to take charge of this place. Since we couldn't let my candidacy get out I wasn't even sure if we could trust the Deacon here. I'd have to ask Zeke if they were expected to keep their mouth shut. Other candidates were my biggest worry at this point (aside from the cult of brainwashed assassins trying to kill me) which meant any leaks within the organization could really screw me.

We all agreed to go get ready and meet up at the garage after we were in costume. I was suddenly glad we'd decided to pay for lunch for the garage employees, because given how pissed they'd been I would have been terrified to come back to get a car if I hadn't sent a peace offering. As it was we just got some suspicious looks at the counter, until we swore that we weren't going to hunt critters and they grudgingly handed us a set of keys.

We let Jessie drive again, but the navigation system was much more important this time, because we had a long trip. It was a six hour drive to the part of the city where the nearest entrance to the WCP could be found. Aside from that the WCP here was almost as big as Velan itself was, so we had our work cut out for us trying to track down any leads. I texted Zeke, hoping to get some sort of lead on who to check with once we got there.

He did come digging and got back to me, giving me a short list of possible sources in the area we were heading, and I settled back in for the ride. If we made this trip again we needed to use a damn air shuttle, because the drive out there was absurd. Luckily the interior of the skyrides, back seat as well as trunk, were expanded spatially, so we had plenty of room to stretch out during the trip.

After literally hours in the car (with a few stops for bathroom and food breaks) we made it to where the nav system told us the entrance to the WCP was. Unlike in Velan this one wasn't even trying nominally to hide. An underground space that size, there was really no point. It was accessible from above ground by a large station with the WCP crest on the front of it, and there were tens of thousands of people busily heading in and out.

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The station was a huge stone building, bigger in the inside of course, and when we entered it was hard not to stare at the sheer size of the place. Food kiosks, weapon venders, souvenir shops, and all of this was just a tourist trap OUTSIDE the WCP. Families were walking together, stopping to buy novelty mugs or t-shirts before heading down, and the entire place made the WCP seem like some kind of theme park.

Lining the walls were huge metal canister type devices, with whole rooms set up to comfortably hold people who would then be lowered down through tubes. Like giant house sized elevators people could take down into the depths of the earth. I turned to the others, absolutely entranced by the place. Unlike the tower, which was so beautiful and larger than life it left you speechless, this place was much more casual. It was treating this insane traffic and bustle like it was just a normal thing that happened everywhere, and it was all the more impressive for it.

I saw a family of four walk by, a woman holding a little girl between herself and a man, swinging her while she held the hand of of a slightly older boy on her other side. I held up a hand to stop them, and they paused, seemingly uncaring of my costume and mask. I put on a smile, because despite my face not being visible I knew that carried over in your voice. "Hi there, we were hoping you could help us find the way to..." I checked the directions Zeke had given. "G district?"

The woman smiled cheerfully. "G district huh? I guess the costumes were enough of a hint you lot are heroes." She pointed to one of the tubes at the far end. "Down there at the end. Sorry we can't walk you over but we're headed to J district. They have shops and places for normal folks like us." She went to hold out a hand then realized she was holding a kid in each. "I'm Laura by the way. Anyway nice to meet you but we have to get going! Good luck in G district!"

She hauled her kids off along with the man she was with at top speed, practically sprinting for one of the nearer canisters. I chuckled at the rushing family, turning to the others. "So...mortals hang out here too? I didn't know the WCP here had a mortal district. Judging by some of the people I'd say it's a lot safer than back home though. Like some kind of theme park or something. That's...actually really smart. Bigger city means more competition for renown, letting people in so you can advertise your higher ups is a strong move."

I hadn't considered how people back in Velan got renown in the WCP, but looking back it was probably mostly word of mouth. Zeke hadn't needed to do much since I doubted Velan could make a dent in his point total, so that just left some lower level WCP flunkies, who probably just worked on the same system as gang leaders back there. Here though the WCP was in active competition with the Unity for renown.

We set off for the canister Laura had mentioned, breaking into an outright sprint when we saw the signs outside it begin to flash. The canisters all had large brightly lit signs with departure times, though I supposed they wouldn't need to add the districts since they always went to the same one. We had to shove our way through the crowd to get to the canister, but eventually we made it, managing to squeeze in with just two minutes to spare.

We slumped down in exhaustion on the benches. Even with our speed the place was big enough to be a tough run. Not to mention the people we shoved out of the way were Ascendants mostly. Well, Jessie and Benny were exhausted. I was mostly just kind of tense, this was going to be kind of a big deal. The WCP was much deeper waters here, and I absolutely wasn't sure I was ready. Zeke wasn't in charge, no one knew who I was, and this place was so big that I doubted anyone would notice if some F ranker popped me in a back alley.

That said I was heading to a mostly G ranked area, Zeke told me that G district mostly sold goods and artifacts for G rankers so it was unlikely I would run into anyone in F rank down there, and if I did they would be established and have no reason to much around with newbies. I barely felt the canister descent into the depths of the earth. I supposed it wasn't a shock that the WCP was deeper here, since there was so much more to hold.

I wondered what kind of ability they used to hold the city up on top of such an open space. Or maybe they just had big ass support pillars, I didn't know. Still, I would find out soon, because while I didn't feel the movement, I DID feel the stop as the canister came to a slow halt at it's destination. I took a deep breath and looked at my friends who nodded back as we stood up, calmly making our way to the exit. Once more into the breach.

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