To deceive your opponents, first you have to deceive your allies. I didn't know who said that, but it had to be a wise man. Probably Sun Tzu, Churchill, or Einstein, considering ninety percent of famous sayings were attributed to those three on the internet. Either way, I wholeheartedly agreed with the notion, yet I had one caveat: if you wanted to perfectly hide your thoughts and plans from your opponent, you also had to 'deceive' yourself.

Because of this, I often considered the art of deception to be the bastard cousin of method acting. Your goal was the same; convince your audience that you are a different person down to the bone, and while I still considered myself a little more than a junior thespian of the art form, there were a couple of tricks that I've already gleaned through practice. First and foremost, it required a fundamental change in mannerism, from speech patterns to body language. Now, one way to do this was to meticulously craft an alternate persona with their own quirks and ticks. The other, simpler way was just to act over-the-top erratic, and let refuge in audacity take care of the rest. Need I say more?

"Oh, my! I hope I'm not interrupting, gentlemen."

My words caused the bare office room to explode into a cacophonous commotion as the armed and armored Knights around the round-ish table all jumped to their feet. It didn't take them a long time to find me, considering I was standing out in the open, yet nobody made a move yet. That meant it fell on my shoulders to break the stalemate, so I raised a finger to the chin of my mask, all the while pretending to be leaning on an imaginary walking stick.

"Ah, it appears I have misspoken just now," I said in the same, slightly nasal voice. I also changed the pitch of it a bit, but not enough for it to strain my vocal cords. In my opinion, accidentally breaking a fake voice was more telling than consistently using a slightly less fake voice. Putting my tonal theories aside, I abruptly changed my posture before immediately Phasing over to the other side of the room, and then I did a small scraping bow in the direction of the new face (read: helmet) in the room. "I should've said lady and gentlemen. Please do forgive me."

"Och buck, nae thes jobbie again...."

I naturally ignored the stray comment coming from the direction of Mr. Minotaur and focused on the armor-clad girl in front of me. Seeing her up close like this, I'd say she was surprisingly petite; probably no taller than Snowy, and not much heavier built either. Her armor was fairly light, with no visible gambeson under the metal and not much in terms of chainmail between the plates either. On the bright side, at least it was still proper protective gear with no exposed stomach or calves. That might sound silly, but taking Snowy's Abyssal outfit into account, I came here mentally prepared for bikini armor, so it was a pleasant surprise all the same.

But staying on topic, the most striking element of her attire was definitely the helmet. It was matte white in color, like the rest of her gear, and it had a cursive pattern on it that was designed to draw the eye to the spiral horn jutting out of the forehead area. It was also a closed helm with the visor down, so the only two features of her I could see were a pair of piercing green eyes and a few tufts of bright red hair sticking out of under her headgear. So... a fiery, green-eyed redhead? By the looks of it, the Simulacrum wasn't straying too far from the usual clichés.

While I observed her, she did the same to me, and once I stopped bowing, she hastily pulled her weapon from the scabbard hanging from her belt and aimed it at my neck with a high guard position. It was a fairly thin arming sword, thought due to her smaller frame, she wielded it as a two-handed long sword. It was also white, a little sparkly, and the cross guard had stylized unicorns on it, but that much was expected. The knights were pretty consistent with their themes, so I already got used to it.

"Who are you!?" The pitch she used to call out to me was unexpectedly high, which I imagined was due to her being startled by my appearance. She quickly realized it as well, and after roughly clearing her throat, she shook her sword and yelled out again, this time in a strained contralto. "Identify yourself at once!"

"Ooooh, right! We haven't met before, have we, Dame Unicorn?" For added flair, I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand, and gave her another shallow bow. "People call me Bel of the Abyss. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I paused here, just long enough to straighten my back and open my arms wide. I also cocked my head a little and adopted an especially playful voice when telling her, "I believe proper chivalrous etiquette demands that I should kiss your hand in greeting, but I do feel quite attached to my head, so I hope you don't mind if I refrain from getting closer to you right now."

"Is this the man you met in the wyrmbloods' home?"

The question came from Mr. Red, the most senior member of the group and the only other person I've yet to meet in person before. I glanced in his direction, and the moment we made eye contact, I instantly Phased again. A split-second later my whole body was rattled for a moment as I successfully landed butt-first upon one of the chairs surrounding the table, starling everyone present.

First off, I suppressed the urge to let out a sigh of delight, and instead I irreverently kicked up my legs, crossed them mid-air, and had them softly land on the table in front of me. I had to stay in character and exude a kind of ineffable atmosphere full of mystery and confidence, but deep down I was pretty damn relieved I managed to nail the Phase-to-seat maneuver. It might've looked simple, but I had to practice this countless times before I mastered it. I even had to go as far as to ask for Brang's help, so that I could use Dominance to cut down on the learning time and avoid breaking any more chairs in the process, but it was totally worth it. Even if the old Faun was giving me looks full of pity from time to time. Which hurt a little, but not as much as mistiming the teleport and ending up falling over with the chair in tow.

Anyhow, the important part was that I once again proved that training seemingly useless skills was not a waste of time, as the knightly group was suitably freaked out by the display. I needed them even more unbalanced though, so I quickly pressed on and hit the iron while it was still hot by directly addressing the red-clad Knight.

"It is indeed I, the one and only Bel of the Abyss, but… Oh my, I'm afraid we haven't met either! So many new faces! Such fun!"

Mr. Red turned on his heel to face me, one hand on the pommel of his sword, but when it became obvious I wasn't about to attack him, his fingers gradually loosened their grip and he addressed me with a curt, "You may address me as the Eagle Knight."

"So you are the eagle guy! I knew that armor looked familiar!" While saying so, I theatrically flung my legs off the table and directed a pair of finger guns at him. "That means you must be Arnwald! Nice to meet you!"

I couldn't see his face under his helmet, but I totally could see his expression anyway. For a short while I hesitated whether I should continue messing with them or get to the point of my visit, but before I could decide one way or the other, I was interrupted by a certain horned individual loudly stomping his feet against the floor.

"Hoo did ye gie in haur, fien'?!"

I rewarded the man with a disparaging look and a disappointed, "Shees, how rude!", followed up by another quick Phase, placing me right behind Mr. Minotaur and just out of sword range. Or in his case, axe range, considering he was wielding a double-sided and comically oversized bearded axe at the present, but let's not get bogged down by the small details.

"Sir Duncan! I thought we had something special between us! You even gifted me such a fine sword on our first meeting! How could you call me a fiend after all that? Ack, you are breaking my poor heart!"

"Ge' back mah sword ya fukkin' walloper ur Ah will cut it yer heart an' shove it in yer gob!" the large man continued to menace me while shaking his unwieldy weapon over his head, but curiously enough, he didn't even try to close the distance. That meant my unbalancing tactic was working. Or at the very least it was working on him.

"Sir Roland, could you please try and rein in your behorned friend? I'm sensing some thinly veiled hostility from him, and just between you and me, I'm not feeling particularly safe right now."

"I'm afraid I might be the wrong person to ask," Mr. Griffon answered me in a dry voice. "As I recall, our last meeting ended with my own sword lodged in your torso."

"Don't be silly," I responded with a backhanded wave, after which I immediately Phased to the other side of the room again and then added, "That would have killed me, and people die when they are killed. I'm not dead, ergo that didn't happen. It's fundamental logic, right, Dame Penelope?"

The Knight girl clearly didn't expect me to address her, but before she could even attempt to formulate an answer, Mr. Eagle, formerly known and Mr. Red, inserted himself back into the conversation by slamming his palm against the wooden table.

"Stop! I presume you are here for a reason, so state your business! Fail to comply, and my brothers and I shall not tolerate your presence any longer!"

"Uuuuu! Scaaary!" I exclaimed in mock horror, and even wiggled my fingers at him, but the man remained steadfast. That said, I felt that the room was sufficiently bamboozled at this point, so I exhaled an overdramatic sigh and very slowly shook my head. "Oh, fine. You're no fun." I waited for another beat here, and then Phased right next to another unoccupied chair by the table. This time I sat down properly and crossed my fingers in my lap to signal that I was about to do business. "As you might imagine, I'm not here to have fun."

"You could have fooled me."

I sent the sarcastic Knight in the Griffon armor a flat glance, shrugged my shoulders, and said, "Fine, I'm not here just to have fun. I want to make a deal with you."

"We are not making deals with your kind!"

Miss Unicorn's outburst wasn't immediately shared by her colleagues, so I used the opportunity to press on anyway by completely disregarding her objection.

"As you might imagine, I came to this island with a specific purpose in mind. It's a biiig secret, so for now let's just call it the heist of the millennium. Everything was planned out, prepared, and it looked like things were working out for your friendly neighborhood Mister Bel… and then a bunch of knuckleheads caused a big scene on the island, and now everyone is freaking out and running around like headless chickens on a trampoline covered in coconut oil and banana-peels! Do you have any idea how annoying that is? Coconut oil is hard enough to get out of the tarp already, but then the chickens are also bleeding all over the place and the banana peels are also getting bloody, and where was I? I think I kind of lost track of what I was talking about?"

"The heist of the millennium," Mr. Griffon informed me, and I gave him a helpful nod.

"Thanks, Roland. I like you. When I take over the world, I will probably let you live. Probably."

"How gracious of you, Mister Bel."

"Don't even mention it! So, where was I? Ah, right. The reason why I'm here! Now listen up my dear fellows, and listen good: I want to make a deal with you."

"If ye serioosly tink we ur gonnae dae somethin' fur ye, ye main be an e'en bigger divit than Ah thought," Mr. Minotaur grumbled on the side, and in response I lightly slapped the table with my palm.

"You hit the nail right on the head, Dunky-boy! That's why I don't want you to do anything!"

"Excuse me?"

This time I looked the surprised Mr. Eagle in the eye and told him, "It's exactly how it sounds like! I want you guys to do nothing, don't make any waves, and just stay put on your behinds, some presumable more shapely than others." Sensing the confused looks around me, I let out a loud, drawn-out sigh and then, in the span of a split second, completely changed my mannerism.

I leaned forward in my seat, put my elbows onto the table, and finally linked my fingers again, this time at eye level. For my following words I exiled even the smallest hint of playfulness from my voice and stated, "Since you simpletons apparently still don't get it, I'm going to make this simple. I want you idiots out of the picture for the next couple of days, so that I don't have to worry about you causing another incident while I'm in the middle of something. It's going to happen either way, but I'm going to offer you two options: the easy way, and the hard way." I paused here for a beat, and as expected, the already high tension in the air was rapidly nearing its snapping point, so I continued with a menacing, "The easy way is simple: you stand down, pretend that you've never seen me, and once I'm done here, we are going to be out of each other's hair for good."

"And the hard way?" Mr. Eagle inquired in a show of complete lack of self-awareness. Though, in this case he was helping me out, so I didn't mind.

"I'll kill you all and dump your bodies in the ocean," I told them with my most disinterested voice. I expected that there would be a commotion in response to that, but instead the four Knights present all remained completely silent. Well, damn. Maybe my act was even scarier than I thought?

Either way, I decided to de-escalate things a little by leaning back and adopting my impertinent act again.

"Honestly, I would prefer the easy way myself. You have no idea how hard it is to get bloodstains out of white satin." To illustrate the point, I lightly patted down my tailcoat. While I did that, I made it look like I just remembered something and abruptly clapped my hands to punctuate it. It got no reaction, so I lightly shook my head and reached into my tailcoat. "Of course, I don't expect you to do as I say just because I ask nicely, so how about this? If you swear on your fancy oaths that you don't make any trouble in the near future, I'm going to give you this."

The item I was referring to was naturally the unicorn horn inside the sack I had on me since the beginning, and the moment the knight girl laid her eyes on it, she immediately raised her sword over her head again.

"That's mine! Give it back!"

"I will if you play nice and agree to stand down. So, what do you say?"

The four Knights in the room shared an uncertain glance between each other in the kind of silence that seemed to stretch for hours. It didn't though, as Mr. Griffon soon opened his mouth and told me, "This is something we have to discuss amongst each other before we could give you an answer."

"Well then, I suppose you jolly well should get started! I give you five minutes starting from now."

"What!?"

I peeked at the startled Knight girl and told her, "The dry cleaner closes soon, and getting the bloodstains out of this kind of fabric after it completely dries is a nightmare, if you catch my drift." My negotiation partners shared another look between each other yet didn't move a finger, so I also added, "Four minutes twenty-eight seconds."

"What are your terms?"

By the looks of it, Mr. Eagle was already prepared to make the deal. Not only that, none of the other Knights in the room objected. That was mildly unexpected, but hey, don't look the gift horse in the mouth.

"I'm not asking for anything extravagant. I simply want you to stay put, and don't pick a fight with the dragonspawns for a while. In fact, don't even go anywhere near them. The same goes for the ley-line leeches of the School too. That's all I want. Oh, and a proper handshake to seal the deal. That's also very important."

"So you want us to ignore our foes until you complete this heist of yours," Mr. Griffon summed things up, and I responded with a huge nod. "Can we act in self-defense?"

"Of course! I'm not completely unreasonable."

"How long would we have to cease our activities?" came the next question from the red knight.

"Just a couple of days should be enough," I responded off-the-cuff while trying to hide my glee over the fact that by this point I pretty much had the deal in the bag.

"… Very well, mister Bel," Mr. Eagle spoke slowly, as if he had to seriously consider every word. "Doing as you suggest would not violate any of our oaths, so the compromise is… acceptable." He sent a round of quick glances across the room, and the other knights all nodded in agreement, some more grudgingly than others. "We accept your proposal. In exchange for the return of sister Penelope's artifact, we are willing to temporarily halt our operations."

"Neat!"

To the apparent shock of everyone present, I followed the word up by tossing the enchanted, super-rare magic suppressing artifact towards Miss Unicorn like it was a rolled-up newspaper. After the first moment of panic passed, she all but dropped her sword in her hurry to catch the sack, and while it was a close call, she ultimately managed to grab it out of the air. For a second she was staring at her hands like she couldn't believe her eyes, so I let out a hearty laugh right out of Abram's book to further ease the tension.

"Nice catch!" My words finally shook her out of her surprise and she immediately hid the item behind her back, which actually drew a considerably less forced chuckle out of me. "Consider this a token of… well, maybe not goodwill. How does 'tolerance' sound to you?" No one gave me an answer, so I shrugged again and proceeded to explain myself as I stood up. "You know guys, I'm glad that you saw reason! No, really. I'm genuinely happy. Do you have an idea how much of a hassle it would've been to drag the corpse of that big bastard over to the docks? I totally dodged a bullet there, I tell you!" Mr. Minotaur understandably didn't appreciate my comment, so I quickly moved on before he would do something unwise and briskly walked over to Mr. Eagle's side. "Now the only thing that remains is a proper, good old-fashioned handshake to seal the deal!"

Saying so, I offered my hand to the man in red and, after an uncomfortably long moment of hesitation, he also raised his own. However, before he could grasp mine, I yanked it away.

"Nuh-uh-uh! Proper handshake. Whosoever heard of shaking hands in gauntlets? Are you crazy or something?" I locked eyes with the man through his helmet's visor, and to my shock, it only took him a few short seconds to comply and remove his right gauntlet. That… was a bit tricky in retrospect, as it meant I had to use my injured hand to shake, but I was already stretching things a bit and didn't want to miss out on this opportunity to mark an Entitled Knight. As such, I did my best to grab hold of his calloused fingers and told him, "It's a pleasure doing business with—!"

I didn't get to finish that sentence, as the moment our hands touched, the big guy in the horned helmed exclaimed, "Hauld oan! 'at main be his real body!! Dornt lit heem gang ur th' dobber will slip awa' again!"

Unfortunately for him, my hand being held like that posed absolutely no obstacle for Phasing around the place, and to emphasize that fact, I promptly disappeared and reappeared right behind the motionless Mr. Eagle.

"The real one?" I asked in a mock-philosophical manner as I simultaneously raised my previous outstretched hand to stroke my chin. "That's deep, man. Maybe I'm not the real Bel of the Abyss." A quick Phase later, I was now near Mr. Griffon and I smoothly continued the previous thought. "Or maybe there is no real Bel of the Abyss at all." Another Phase followed, and I continued with, "Or, maybe. Just maybe…" Yet another short teleport later I appeared right behind Mr. Minotaur and I whispered, "Maybe the real Bel of the Abyss was in our hearts all along."

At this point I honestly expected that my danger sense would start blaring at me about an incoming attack, but the burly man in front of me was apparently still looking for his bearings, so I decided to bring down the curtain on today's performance by Phasing right onto the middle of the round table and exclaim, "Oh wait! That's Santa Claus! And I obviously cannot be Santa… right?"

And with those words, one final wink, and a possibly deranged grin that was thankfully not visible due to my mask, I completely disappeared from the room.