Wish upon the Stars chapter 337

"Well that was anticlimactic." Said Teague with a frown. "I was  expecting this to be some huge ruckus, but SOMEONE." He glared at Abel.  "Wasn't leaving any enemies for the rest of us."

My mentor  snickered, but the rest of us just rolled our eyes. None of us were  surprised by that observation. Abel was a Master Candidate. If they had  someone below F-rank that could take him out they wouldn't be hired  assassins, they would be their own faction and probably IN the  tournament. The more pertinent information was that Teague and the  others were willing to throw in with us without blinking, which was  pretty cool of them.

Callie cleared her throat. "As unfair  as the rest of us find Apollyon, we still have to thank you. This would  have been harder on our own, though the most credit has to go to the  four." She looked at the black robed quadruplets. "I realize that looked  easy to the rest of us, but I also know as someone who fights with a  partner how difficult it is to execute a four person stealth attack like  that. If any of you had been even a split second off you'd have alerted  the enemy and one or two might have gotten away. Thank you."

The  four nodded. They rarely spoke in front of other people, so that was  probably the best she would get. Some kind of edgy assassin mystique  thing probably. I looked down at Miles, who was moaning weakly on the  ground. We'd taken him apart without much trouble, I'd expected him to  be strong, but Callie and I together could take down a new F-ranker,  which put us in the odd position of being much too strong as a duo for  most G-rankers, but not good enough to fight up ranks on our own.

I  walked over to the burned but already healing mercenary and kicked him  in the most damaged spot I could find. He whined and jerked, eyes  opening blearily as he glared up at me. I grinned at him, not that he  could see it behind my mask, but I'm sure my voice conveyed my  amusement. "Aww, don't look so mad. I stopped you from bleeding too  much, you should be thanking me."

He practically snarled  as he gingerly climbed to his hands and knees. "You CAUTERIZED them.  With POISON. And your stab happy harlot was the one who-" I swung my  cane down sharply, smashing it into the ground close enough to his head  to send chunks of rock at his face. He squealed and backpedaled, looking  up at me in fear.

"You." I said calmly. "Should watch  your mouth when you talk about my partner. We might need information  from you, but we can always hire a necromancer to get it out of your  corpse." That was a bluff. I wouldn't kill someone for bad mouthing my  girlfriend. I WOULD kick the living shit out of him if he didn't watch  his tone though, and putting the fear of me in him might make this whole  thing go faster.

He seemed almost...offended. "Fine. I'll  be polite then. Honestly, no one has any etiquette anymore. Can't even  let a man bemoan his own capture." He snorted, waving me off. "Well, go  ahead. Ask what you want. Not that it'll do you much good, I'm on  contract, and my NDA is nearly iron clad. Unless you have an Oathbreaker  on staff you're out of luck."

I looked at Callie, sending  my impressions through the bond so she knew what I wanted. She nodded,  trusting me to take the lead. Good. I had ways of handling this. I  turned back to the man. "See, I believe you. I believe that you can't  tell me a single thing about your client. Anyone with common sense would  have made damn sure of that. I ALSO believe that you would have known  that going in, and that you wouldn't be so naive as to trust your client  completely."

The smug amusement that had been bubbling up  after he deflected me with the NDA comment was replaced with wariness.  "I don't know what you're talking about." He said flatly.

"Sure  you do." I responded cheerfully. "I'm talking about insurance. You're a  local boy, I can tell, and you might work with local forces on their  own credibility. But this mess is ass deep in tournament politics, which  means some of the parties involved are decidedly NOT local. A smart guy  such as yourself wouldn't trust strangers as far as he could throw  them. Maybe not even that far."

I crouched down next to  him, chucking him under the chin with a finger. "See, I know a thing or  two about contracts, and one of the biggest flaws in a contract is that  it only covers as much as the author can think to add. That's what  loopholes are, things people forget to mention. That NDA for instance,  would prevent you from talking about your client, but if, say, you were a  very paranoid person and followed that client and happened to see who  they might be meeting with, THAT person wouldn't be covered under  contractual confidentiality, since the client would have no reason to  add them."

Despite our involvement in political messes I  had no desire to expand my political toolbox, politics annoyed me. But  dealing with sneaky shit like this was becoming second nature to me.  Spending so much time in the WCP was helping me expand my worldview, and  combined with my contracts skill I was figuring out all sorts of new  ways to deal with people.

Miles's face had paled  noticeably, which meant I had hit the nail on the head. "If." He said  quietly. "And I do mean if. I had done such a thing. That information  would simply be insurance in case of difficulties with the client. It  wouldn't be for sale. If it got out that I was collecting and passing  information on clients the mercenary union would have my head."

I paused. "Mercenary union?"

Abel  piped up from off to one side. "Mercs traditionally don't manage to get  to E-rank and when they do they tend to join a faction because of the  offered terms. A few decades ago though a particularly dangerous  mercenary who called himself Rattling Bones established an organization  for mercenaries in the city, topside and bottom. Over the years six more  E-rankers have joined the union. It's nowhere near enough to be on the  same level as the major factions, but very few of the subfactions have  the muscle to make trouble with the union."

Which meant  Melinda and Alexander didn't. I hadn't expected that, but it wasn't like  I didn't have an answer for it. "The same logic applies. The  information isn't covered in the contract, and the insurance was only  necessary because you were misinformed of our capabilities. Your client  screwed you, simple as that. Did they tell you that one of your targets  was directly representing the Wish Curse Palace as a candidate?"

Telling  him that was a calculated risk. Now that we were working with Frostbite  word would spread up here soon enough anyway, might as well get  something out of it. His face paled even further at the words, so  clearly they hadn't mentioned that. Hell, I wasn't even sure whoever  hired him had known, but it was enough of an excuse that he could tell  us without compromising his reputation.

"You'll let me go  if I tell you?" His voice wasn't confident or even resigned anymore. He  sounded scared. Like someone who had just found out the pool they were  swimming in connected to the ocean, and there were sharks in the water.

I  looked to Callie, and she nodded. She didn't want to kill some random  mercenary either. This guy had come at us to injure, even if he'd been a  dick about it. I genuinely believed that he wasn't trying to kill us.  "Yes." I said reassuringly. "We'll let you go if you tell us." He  started to relax but I cut in sharply. "Assuming you have actual  information. If you're stringing us along we'll hand you over to the  Unity and let them deal with you."

That was the furthest I  was willing to take the threat, and it seemed like it was enough. "I  was approached by...a certain party." He said carefully. "A few days  ago. The job was quick and easy, but I knew that a lot of other mercs in  the city had been contacted. Outsiders showing up and then a massive  operation going down? That stank of trouble. So I did what I do. I  reached out to an associate of mine and arranged to have my client  followed discretely. I didn't TELL him what he was doing, obviously,  that would have violated the NDA, but we've worked together on jobs like  this before."

He groaned in pain as he sat up, but  settled down after a second. Callie gestured to Jessie and she stepped  forward, Benny at her side, to start patching him up a bit, since he was  helping. "They were paranoid, of course." He continued after he got a  bit of relief. "Most people I work with are. But the big trap about  paranoia is that it's self congratulating. If someone thinks they're  being follow and takes precautions, once that's done their own bias  tells them they must be safe. We've been at this a while. My guy stuck  to them, and eventually they led us to who we needed."

I  groaned. "What are you, hourly? This glimpse into the inner workings of  the life of a mercenary is fascinating, but I don't need all the set up.  Get to the point."

He chuckled. "Sorry. Right. Anyway I  put my guy on their trail and he followed them for a bit, and he  eventually ended up following the target back to a meeting at the  Academy. He met with one of the students and exchanged an envelope, then  chatted for a while and left. My guy couldn't hear what they said, they  used Stealth Skills, but the client didn't go anywhere else until our  next meeting."

"Ok." I said slowly. "That helps a bit, but  there are a million students at the academy. Plus we know that the  faction behind this is most likely one of the five, since any smaller  group would be insane to try to bully a bunch of representatives from  the largest forces in the universe. Must be someone else." I sighed.  "It's fine though, you gave us what you had. You can go."

He  shook his head. "No. That's just it. The person my client met with  wasn't a member of the Unity at all. They were a student at the academy,  but they were there on some kind of diplomatic mission or something."

I  felt the bottom drop out of my stomach as he said that, and desperately  hoped his answer to my next question, wasn't what I was pretty sure it  would be. My voice was rough with shock as I forced myself to ask.  "Did...did he give you a description of this contact by any chance?  Maybe some distinguishing features that could be used to identify them  if we run into them later?"

"Oh sure." He said casually,  unaware he was throwing a lit stick of dynamite into the morale of my  entire team. "He was actually pretty excited about it. There aren't many  of her kind around Callus after all, and definitely almost none at the  Academy. Like I said diplomatic mission or something. Guess you don't  forget the first time you see an elf."

We all turned to  look at Benny, and even with his mask I could see my friend's face  paling. We only knew one elf at the academy, and she was indeed on a  diplomatic mission. So the question was, why had Celine just arranged to  have us attacked by mercenaries?