We spent the rest of the day at the Rowdy Badger, but after Jessie  had spent enough time with Randall (which was to say he went to sleep  because he was a bear and didn't have the energy to humor her anymore)  we headed back home. We'd been doing research all day on the various  forces, and while I'd looked into the Sanctuary Hall and the Beast Lord  Garden, Callie spent almost the entire day looking up every single fact  she could find on Silent Dagger, especially the relationship between  Midknight and The Nothing.

I expected her to be all upset  reading about her dad, but in an odd twist she was unusually excited as  she filled me in on what she found during the ride back. "So I looked  into The Nothing, and it turned out that most people don't think they're  from here. The Nothing appeared several years before my father showed  up, but there was no sign of them before that point. It took me ages of  trawling the forums but I managed to pick up a few accounts of people  who were around when The Nothing first rose to power. As far as I can  tell, they probably came from somewhere weaker than Rajak, in fact,  there's a decent chance they came from Velan itself originally."

That  got a blink of surprise from me. "Wait, what? Another Velan native? How  come we never heard about this person. If they were around when  Midknight was coming up you would figure you at least would have heard  of them. I know that older Ascendants could have gathered renown long  enough ago to fade from public memory, but they only came to Rajak a few  years before your old man right?"

Callie shook her head.  "Well, a few years for us. More like ten or twenty chronologically. As  for why we haven't heard of them? I suspect they left Velan young. It  isn't impossible to get to the capital if you're willing to pull  strings. Jessie had been here before if you remember, and so had I. If  we have channels I'm sure the WCP does too, and I'd imagine those  channels are much more easily purchased. Most people wait until at least  high H rank to come to a place like this because any weaker makes you  one hundreds of millions trying to carve out a piece of the pie."

I  nodded in understanding. "Most as in not all. Some people don't join a  force, and some people don't wait until they're at the top to jump to a  higher ranking area. You think The Nothing was someone who knew your dad  growing up and came here ahead of him to take advantage of the abundant  resources? That kind of risk would take some serious willpower if  nothing else."

Callie seemed genuinely impressed by this  person. "Oh that it is. I imagine the improvement in resources and  channels is cancelled out by the absurd amount of diffusion on the  renown in this place. Think about how we've been doing here, do you have  any confidence you could have accomplished even this much without the  resources we've been using?" Her voice was excited as she described  someone who seemed to be on a similar path to the one she was on, at  least in terms of interacting with her dad. Knowing there was some E  ranked badass who had walked the road she was traveling had energized  her in a whole new way I hadn't seen from her before.

I  knew we would be meeting The Nothing sometime soon. If nothing else  Callie would want to talk to them about what exactly they had against  her dad. I imagined there would be some asking about secret weaknesses  and that kind of thing too, but mostly I think she was just happy to  hear about someone who may have effectively stepped out of her fathers  shadow like she had planned on doing. Her fervor died down a little as  she shook her head to clear it. "Enough about that, what did you find  out about the other two factions?"

There was no hiding the  fact that she was forcing herself to change the topic, but I  appreciated her at least pretending to be interested. "They're pretty  well documented honestly. They both do huge amounts of business with  other factions and are pretty up front about how they get things done.  The Beast Lord Garden has two main industries, selling powerful tamed  pets to high rankers and selling cubs to younger Ascendants to grow  alongside them. That said they do follow up interviews to check how the  tamed beasts are integrating with their new masters, which I think is  pretty nice of them."

It made me think highly of Jessie's  chances of getting along with them. I was prettysure her Lifeweaving was  pretty unique, and I didn't doubt they would lose it if they knew even a  fraction of what it could do. Even just the taming portion of things  was probably going to grab attention. I hadn't done enough research on  taming to know the specifics of why it was good but I had a hard time  believing any power that versatile and unique wasn't something  impressive to someone in that particular industry. Callie didn't  interrupt, waiting for me to continue and offering me an encouraging  smile.

So I moved on. "The last group is the Sanctuary  Hall. The Peace Lord is considered a pretty decent guy, especially for  an E ranker. His power is some kind of pacifying energy. It cancels out  violence on a conceptual level, eroding the violent actions that  originally caused a wound to help it recover like making it so they  never happened. It can be used defensively too to cancel out attacks,  and it makes him pretty damn scary, even to other E rankers. The busted  ability is the second reason no one messes with him, aside from the  whole healer thing which is the main reason."

Callie  whistled. "That's...weird. Not sure how the hell you get a power like  that but it sounds crazy useful. Not the weirdest ability I've heard of  grant you. There are some really weird Skill and ability combinations  that result in some strange powers. Unique Skills alone can cause  strange changes, but even more than that certain stat totals and  conception in Skills can change the outcome of synergy. One guy back in  Velan had the power to summon rolls of cheese of varying sizes and  compositions. As long as it was a type of cheese that existed he could  conjure at least a small piece, even if it was higher rank."

I  blinked at that. "There are higher ranked cheeses? I mean, I guess  given other higher ranked foods existing that makes sense. Do the  cheeses become higher rank through gaining stats? Or are they made with  high ranked milk from a high ranked cow?" It was a ridiculous question,  but it illuminated a secondary path for materials that I hadn't really  considered. The initial formation through legend didn't have to be the  only way. Hell, I bet high ranked cheese makers could get a solid chunk  of change selling to restaurants.

Callie leaned in and  kissed me for a minute or two, and when she finally pulled back she was  smiling up at me impishly. "Callus to Shane, we lost you there for a  second. As much as every girl loves to be ignored for hypothetical  cheese, I'd prefer I keep my boyfriend's attention for the moment  thanks. So, we need to take the time to go talk to some of these groups,  but which one do you want to hit first? We shouldn't drag our feet  since we still need to make ourselves seen at the Pavilion."

She  was right, we should take the chance to check in with these factions,  since things might start moving fast once we discovered who was behind  Melissa's uprising. Hell, if we did want to shift the Pavilion to our  side having our own faction backer could only help. That said, we  couldn't afford to rush it too much, and we couldn't afford to half ass  it, so I had to disappoint Callie. "I think we need to visit Silent  Dagger last. I know you're excited to hear from The Nothing, but we need  to cover all our bases. Even if we think Silent Dagger is the best fit  we need to check the other two."

The conflicted look on  her face broke my heart, but eventually she nodded. "You're right. I  want to push you to skip them, but I know it's the wrong choice. Silent  Dagger has been around for decades, they aren't going anywhere." She  took my hand, squeezing it. " I have to do what's best for the group.  But even if we end up deciding on Beast Lord Garden or Sanctuary Hall,  we can still at least take the meeting right? I have so many things I  need to know that I think The Nothing can tell me."

I  leaned down to give her a soft kiss. "Of course. I'd have insisted on  it even if we ended up sticking with the first faction we ran into. I  know what this means to you. It's not just about finding someone to help  you surpass him is it? The Nothing might have other answers you're  looking for." I kept my tone gentle, but I didn't want her to get into  the habit of bottling things up. I knew what I'd have been thinking of  in her place, and I knew her well enough to be pretty sure her head had  gone to the same spot.

She  sighed, slumping against me. "I know it's stupid. I hate him, I'm not  going to stop hating him even if I find out about his past. Having  reasons doesn't undo the terrible things he's done to me or mom, but...I  just want to know WHY. I want to know what made him this way. It can't  just be recursion, because this part of himself was never something he  showed other people. He's always been careful to be Midknight, the  stalwart defender. He manages his image so carefully, and ruthless  sociopathic bastard isn't any part of it. So what the hell happened to  him? What made him like this?"

Part  of me wanted to just shrug it off. Recursion didn't make a person. He  might have just been a psycho from a young age. My money was on that  option. But Callie wanted to know for sure, and I think deep down part  of her was hoping she would find something that would excuse it. Some  magical event or transformation she could undo that would make him a  good dad who was in a bad situation. It was possible, anything was in  this universe, but I doubted it.

Even  so, I wasn't going to shatter that hope before I had to, especially  since it was so fragile she wouldn't even let herself actually  contemplate it. Besides, I didn't know what had happened. All I could do  was be there for her, was walk by her side to the end of the road and  then have her back as she dealt with the fallout. If she got a few days  of hope or peace before she had to finally set fire to the last remnants  of the part of herself that wished her dad could redeem himself, I  wanted her to have that, she'd have thousands of years to live her life  without those positive feelings.

So  I held her, and said nothing, even as I watched what was probably going  to be a train wreck in the making. We sat like that for while before I  exhaled. "Well, I think tonight is as good a time as any to make our next  trip to E district. I don't think we can hit all three places in a row, but we can at least knock out the Beast Lord Garden and Sanctuary Hall.  We can meet with Silent Dagger tomorrow so we aren't away from the  pavilion too long. What do you think?" Callie gave me an uncertain smile  and I just pulled her close. Yeah, I didn't know what to think about  all this either.