Callie and I spent the next few days together just relaxing. We went  out to dinner, went out for walks, spent time with Cass, watched movies,  and just generally enjoyed each other's company. I granted the fifteen  wishes from the three days we spent off to Callie, the one thing we did  related to cultivation. She traded thirty points of Creation for thirty  points of Might, bringing my own Creation up to eighty two and beginning  to balance my stats a bit. Finally though, Cark got back to us, and  told us his decision.

We hadn't seen the bounty hunter  around lately, and I'd expected that it was just because we were in our  own little world, but it turned out that wasn't the case, since when he  finally did track us down, Cass, who had been sitting on the couch  watching TV with us, glared at her brother. "Oh, you came home huh? Did  you remember you have a sister finally? Or did your new girlfriend get  sick of your stupid face." She stuck out her tongue at him, and I raised  an eyebrow, not sure why she was being so combative.

Cark  rolled his eyes and reached into a pocket, pulling out a candy bar. "I  bought you your candy you little harpy. I told you I'd get it for you. I  wasn't going to just take your money and then never bring it back you  know." Cass sneered at him for a second, but her pout finally gave way  to a greedy squeal as she bolted over and grabbed the chocolate bar. I  wasn't sure what was so special about it, but the little girl was  nuzzling the candy like it was the worlds fluffiest puppy. He turned to  us. "You guys willing to take a trip with me? I have some things I think  I can help with."

I glanced at Callie, who sighed and  nodded. Our mini vacation was over it seemed. We both got up and  followed Cark out to the car, which he climbed into (and drove because I  didn't have a license and Callie wasn't allowed behind the wheel of  anything regardless of how happy I was trying to make her) and started  up, pulling out and heading for the station. When we got there he led us  to the elevator that went down to G district, and we followed him on in  confusion. It wasn't until we started our descent that he began to  speak.

He looked around first, checking to make sure no  one was listening, before he leaned in and spoke softly. "Ok. I did, in  fact, join the Flame Riot Militia. Part of it was the pay. I have to  support Cass now, and they're basically throwing piles of money at me,  part of it is Sage, because that girl is HOT, and part of it was to help  you out, but that's the smallest part so don't get all sappy and  grateful on me. Still, once I joined up, I got access to information.  Information that other people don't have."

He lowered his  voice further as he continued, his speech so quiet even whispering was  too strong a word for it. He might as well have been breathing the  words. "Someone is trying to take G district, and it ISN'T the Militia.  In fact, the Militia have been under attack just like Cavalcade. Ever  since Aiden vanished there's been a power vacuum. The Militia was  planning to fill it, but someone moved in first, almost instantly, and  started occupying all his territory. That's where we're going now. As  one of the Blue Flame Barons, I'm pretty high up in the organization  despite being so low ranked. I can have them tell us what they know in  person."

Callie swallowed hard. I knew from the very few  conversations we'd had regarding this that she felt bad Cark had to sell  himself up the river to help us. Finding out he was making obscene  amounts of money and had a pretty girl throwing herself at him probably  helped the guilt, but I was sure she still felt bad about it. I reached  down and squeezed her knee before saying loudly. "Thank you Cark. We  know this was your own decision and had very little to do with us, but  we appreciate any help."

That got a soft smile from my  girlfriend, who was clear on the fact that I was trying to make her feel  better. She turned to him and nodded, tension bleeding from her  shoulders as she took my words to heart, or so I hoped. "Yes, thanks  Tony. So these guys will talk to us, I can believe that. But will they  actually be able to tell us anything? Do the Militia have any idea who  it might be? Which E ranker or faction is backing the people trying to  take the district from them? Because that seems important."

He  grimaced. "No. Sage says her old man is furious. He's had people  looking at all his normal enemies. Raf Savage has most of his forces in F  district trying to take an auction house from the Lunar Legend Boys,  the Moravian has never really worked with a faction, mostly preferring  to do things himself, and apparently someone turned Duncan the Liar into  a fish last week and he hasn't managed to undo it yet. No one is sure  who it was that did it, but to be fair, from what I'm told literally  everyone hates Duncan, so no one really cares that much either."

I  raised an eyebrow at him in confusion and shock and he grinned. "Sage  likes to vent about problems with the organization. Since we were  looking for information I figured it would be good to listen. She seemed  very pleased that I paid attention to what she was talking about.  Needless to say, I'm going to be a boss in this crew, so I took the  chance to ask about our enemies too, and she was happy to fill me in. I  learned A LOT about local politics over the last few days, even before I  accepted their offer."

That got a snort from Callie,  though what she was snorting about, be it his own amusement at Sage's  information, or his willingness to listen for brownie points, I couldn't  say. Still, I personally wanted to hear more about these other E  rankers, considering they could easily be our mysterious candidate's  allies. "Can you tell us anything about the people you mentioned? I know  you said it wasn't necessarily them involved in the attacks, but the  more we know about local politics the better."

Besides  that, it was interesting to hear about all these powerful Ascendants. He  clearly thought so too, because his face lit up as he started to share.  "Of course. I'd heard of a few of them before. Most E rankers are  famous enough that you've at least heard the name at one time or  another. Moravian in particular is one of the more prominent E rankers.  He doesn't work with a faction, but he's dangerous enough on his own. He  has an absurd number of Skills for someone his rank because he's, and I  mean this literally. The oldest E ranker on the planet at over three  thousand years old."

My eyes bugged out at that. "How the  hell is he not a D ranker yet? The amount of renown he must have  gathered...also how old does he look physically?" At E rank a person had  sixty two Impact (barring one of those rare encounters that boosted it  further). Three thousand years would be about fifty years for an E  ranker, biologically speaking. Even with Vitality to combat some of the  degradation, I imagined he didn't exactly look young. I hadn't seen any  powerful Ascendants who looked old yet. The closest was Abner, who was  the same rank as I was.

Cark shrugged. "I asked that too.  Sage says that this planet doesn't have enough of a population to  support a D ranker. Not just because of the mortals, but because renown  is exponentially weighted. It's why D rank and C rank planets exist.  Their creation helps elevate more powerful Ascendants. The galaxies and  star systems are feeder setups for the higher ranking planets that the  major factions use for that purpose. I'm not sure if that's true, or  just her personal opinion, but it did make sense to me. In any case, I'm  told he looks like a fit fifty, though his hair is white."

That...put  a lot of things about the way the world worked into perspective  actually. I knew how much bigger than a normal planet a D ranked planet  was, and I'd always wondered why they bothered. If cultivation was  exponentially weighted though, with Ascendants being worth more (a fact  that was somewhat implied by Impact making us literally weightier in  terms of reality) then creating so many smaller planets to feed into the  higher ranked ones made much more sense. The existence of higher ranked  planets would probably be almost a necessity to reach pretty much any  rank past E.

Cark focused back on  his information though. "Anyway, Moravian is pretty insular. He and  Burning Fist have some serious issues between them, but he isn't  involved in faction politics much. If he was going to attack the Militia  he would do it personally. Raf Savage is a Berserker, his ability  multiples his effective Might in combat. Simple but effective.  Unfortunately it also turns him into a rampaging lunatic, so he doesn't  use it much. Dangerous having a crazy powerful rage machine going off in  the city."

That  one made me whistle. A power that multiplied a stat was insanely  broken. Granted it didn't make the person actually tougher or better at  healing, but within the same rank fighting someone like that would be  hellish. "What about the last one? You mentioned some guy everyone  hates?" I wasn't sure why anyone would call themselves Duncan the Liar,  but it definitely didn't engender trust. Still, if everyone actively  hated him I imagined there was a reason.

The  elevator stopped, and we got off, following Cark down a random street  in a direction he apparently knew we were supposed to go. I looked at  Callie as we got off and she just shrugged, so I followed suit. Cark  filled us in as we walked. "Duncan the Liar is an illusionist, and as  his name implies, a compulsive liar. Sage is pretty sure his personality  has been heavily warped by recursion, because he lies consistently to  everyone. Some of the weaker willed Ascendants get like that, after a  while, though those don't usually make it to E rank. Duncan is just  slippery enough to stay alive though."

That  made sense. I'd been wondering where all the warped Ascendants who had  been changed more heavily by cultivation were. Callie had mentioned  people like that, but I hadn't heard of any. Still, I'd rather stay away  from any of the crazies if possible. Finally, after about fifteen  minutes of walking, we came to a small run down bar called 'The Rowdy  Badger'. The sign above the door had a picture of an anthropomorphic  badger in a leather vest with an eye patch snarling at the world, and it  made me smile.

What  did NOT make me smile, was five seconds after we arrived when a leather  clad thug came sailing out of the bar through the wall. We all looked  at each other and sprinted f0r the door. We busted it open, slipping  inside to see a trio of Jerks standing in the middle of a room full of  thugs. The biggest was easily noticeable for his fuschia mohawk and  massive size. Ronnie the Beef grinned around the room, a wild look on  his rough looking face. "Alright! Who's ready for a BEEF PARTY?" I  sighed internally as I heard his words and started getting ready for a  fight. I'd known I would have to deal with this nonsense with the Jerks  in town. This was why we couldn't have nice things.