Chapter 74: Chapter Seventy Four

The rest of the meeting with Saint Aiden was...boring. The guy was  nice, but ultimately not very interesting. He was almsot uncomfortably  nice, not like Jessie nice, but like, an overwhelming amount of cheerful  and upbeat that honestly made me want to leave his presence. Still,  weirdly cheerful or not the man was definitely helpful, and I  appreciated the assistance. He got us a list of symbol locations within  minutes. Most of them were on the map, though one or two weren't, and he  pointed out a specific symbol when he got the list.

He  seemed excited to share, though in a sort of mellow way that managed to  make the whole experience ever so slightly less offputting. "This one is  probably your best bet." His excitement cooled slightly, his expression  becoming somber.  "That area is a well known spot where people often go  missing. If you go there be sure to be careful, however. It's not a  safe place. I only tell you this because you seem to be able to handle  yourselves and are traveling as a group. I'm sure you can watch out for  each other."

We decided to take his advice and headed out  soon after that,  though not before he plied us with shortbread cookies  and some of the sweetest tea I'd ever tasted. I approved of the stuff,  I'd always been a fan of drinking my tea sweet. Once we were out we  headed for the spot he had indicated, but we took our time on the walk.  We didn't want to get jumped, so we kept our voices low when we talked  at all and kept our Perception stats fully on the forefront of our minds  as we did out best to make sure there would be no surprises.

Callie,  being the one in charge and the most stealthy, helped us learn to walk  softly, and I wondered if I could learn Minor Stealth before the night  was out at this rate. She lowered her voice to a whisper before  speaking. "Alright, we're coming up on the spot, so keep to the shadows.  I'll try to give us some cover in darkness with my ability. Shadows in  their non solid form aren't the best obstruction of sight, but they can  be layered to create an obfuscation around us. Solomon, can you use that  Mistwalking ability on us?"

I had all my charges  available for today, so I did it without a second though, the mist  filled the area and I put a hand on my team to help guide them,  activating Seek Hidden to find shapes even as Callie layered shadow into  the mist, creating a potent cover for all of use to move in. I imagined  it would be obvious SOMETHING was happening, but regardless of that  they wouldn't be able to see us, and I could see them, so if anyone  tried to sneak up or find us we would be much more prepared than they  would.

We crept slowly forward towards the site where the  symbol was, keeping an eye out for shapes. To my surprise, one entered  the mist pretty quickly. It banged into a wall with a quiet hiss,  reorienting by stepping out and back in as it quickly hurried in a  specific direction. The big form was pretty familiar, and I was able to  recognize Cark from his hair and build. I was about to call out to him  when Callie squeezed my arm. She had clearly noticed someone was there  too, maybe able to see with her shadows somehow.

She  pulled herself in close. "Don't let anyone know we're here. He's moving  fast, I think someone is chasing him." I squeezed back to let her know I  understood and would play it cool. We lay in wait for a few minutes,  and sure enough, another, unfamiliar shape entered the fog. I squeezed  Callie's hand on my arm and she nodded, her gesture obvious in Seek  Hidden's vision. We moved after the form slowly, trying to track down  the shape that had moved ahead of us without revealing our presence.

Whoever  it was clearly wanted to catch Cark pretty bad, because they didn't  even pay attention to the power based fog around them except to use the  same method of stepping out and back in to orient. We trailed behind  them as the headed in the exact same direction that Cark had been. Since  they couldn't have possibly seen him they either had a tracking skill,  or thewy knew EXACTLY where the man had gone, or rather, where he was  going. It seemed like our stalker was following Cark somewhere he had  been before.

I had a pretty decent idea of where too. Cark  had been looking for a fight club where his sister might have ended up  when we met him at the Bad Night Moon. This was probably the way there,  which made the stalker either someone from the fight club or someone  helping take kids. I personally didn't care. Either way they were  scumbags. I'd been wanting to help Cark since we talked to him anyway so  I slowly and carefully stalked the stalker,hoping to intervene if they  attacked and if not show up to offer Cark a hand.

Whoever  they were, I suspected after a bit that they were using some kind of  stealth skill like Callie had. Luckily I could penetrate it with Seek  Hidden, at least I could penetrate this one. My assumption was that  stealth skills worked on Fantasy or something, and the Perception was  their weakness. Given my fairly high Perception I guessed it made sense  to be able to see through a low level stealth skill. I also figured Seek  Hidden had a natural advantage over stealth abilities because of it's  nature.

We crept down the street, bringing the fog with us  as we went. We didn't stay in the middle of the stuff, but rather near  the back edge, pushing it as far ahead of us as possible to cover more  of the road. By doing it this way we were able to avoid someone deciding  to try to track us by finding the center of the cloud. We followed  behind them for about twenty minutes, and I realized that I had  misunderstood the situation.

Cark  wasn't running from the pursuer, he was hurrying TO wherever he was  going. He didn't know he was being followed at all as far as I could  tell. Which was...interesting. I wondered what the stalker was trying to  accomplish here. He clearly knew where Cark was going, so why follow  him? Was he reporting on his movements to someone? The people who owned  the fight club maybe? Whoever it was I doubted they had good intentions.

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I  expected to have to jump in and stop an attack, but knowing that the  stalker was just observing we reached the fight club pretty smoothly,  with zero attacks or derailments. We reached the location without  incident. Just like the big green guy had said the Bleakest Depths (or  what I assumed was the Bleakest Depths anyway) was hidden under an old  scan ring service station. The entrance was at the bottom of a flight of  stairs, and there were a pair of men at the top guarding it.

As  we approached we turned a corner and let the smoke fade once we were  out of sight of everyone involved, before coming around the side of a  building like we had been walking on our own. As we came into the open I  waved to Cark. "Hey! Good to see you man!" I called out loud enough for  my voice to carry, and Cark's face was surprised when he saw us. I  walked up to him and held out a hand, pulling him in to clap him on the  back so I could whisper something under my breath.

My  shoulder bumped his and I clapped him on the back. "You're being  followed, be cool, we can talk more inside. I doubt the guy can stick  close enough to hear in a confined space. He'll probably wait outside." I  wasn't sure if he would believe me, I'd met the guy for like twenty  minutes tops, but still I felt like I had to tell him what was going on.

He pulled back with a forced smile  on his face. "Hey! Good to see you guys again! I was actually looking  for you, I found something about that rare material you were looking  for." I froze, that was unexpected. He knew we'd been looking for a  symbol, which implied that not only had he found it, but that like me he  couldn't talk about it here. That was...very interesting to hear.  "Anyway, why don't you guys come in with me and check the place out!  Should be a good time for everyone."

It  was clear he was playing the part of an excited patron, and I decided  to follow along, gesturing the others forward as we walked up to the  guards at the steps. "Hey guys, I'm back again. Brought some buddies  with me, hope that's not an issue. I'm sure you gents have better things  to do than make trouble for some tourists." He slipped one of them a  few G ranked chits and the guy split them with his friend, nodding to us  all to go in.

I  had to chuckle at that, bribes were a universal language. Everyone  liked getting paid. We headed down the steps and turned off into a side  corridor, stepping out of range of the guards hearing. Cark made to  speak but I help up a finger, triggering Seek Hidden again. There were  no nearby shapes. I turned to him with a sigh. "Ok, we're clear, sorry,  but the guy following you had a stealth skill. I'm surprised you're  still around this place though, I would have figured you'd have moved on  already."

The  frustration was evident in his eyes as he growled out. "No. I haven't.  In fact I can't. I haven't managed to track down any legitimate  information yet. I'm waiting on a specific fighter to show up. I've  managed to connect him to the disappearances a decade or so ago, so  hopefully he can help, but he almost never shows up here so it's been a  long wait. Until then I just have to play the rich idiot who comes to  watch. Been eating a hole in my fucking savings though, this place is  not cheap."

My  sympathetic wince got a chuckle from the man, but I moved onto asking  about what I really wanted to talk about. "You mentioned a material, I'm  assuming that was code for telling us you'd seen the symbol around  here. I'm surprised you found it, I got the impression they were out of  the way of general traffic or smaller than most people would notice.  Where exactly did you see it?"

He  shook his head. "It'll be faster to just show you, come on." He turned  and walked back into the main hallway and down to an opening that led  into a huge open cement room lined with steps for people to sit on.  Nothing fancy, not even as nice as the bleachers at the golem  battledome. The seats were packed with people, mostly sitting on  blankets or pillows they appeared to have brought with them. Cark  pointed up. "That's where I saw it."

I  froze in place as my eyes panned up. I'd been expecting a small sigil  on a wall or hidden behind a door or something, but I hadn't been ready  for this. The Bleakest Depths must be more secretive than I had expected  since neither of my sources had mentioned them to me, but they were  definitely related to the Heartripper Society. That was made entirely  obvious by the massive hanging banner above the fighting pit showing a  symbol of a black skeletal hand clutching a stylized heart. My enemies  were here, I just hoped that hadn't realized I'd come yet.

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