“So here’s what we need to accomplish,” said Delphi, moving her eyes between her two subordinates as they took their seats in front of her desk. “Figure out what the spy is planning, and put him in as much of a disadvantageous a position as we can.”

“First part of that is easy, we’re going to send Nepo to talk to him and the rest of the hero’s party,” replied Nash. “He should be able to pick up on what the spy’s thinking.”

“His codename isn’t going to be Nepo,” said Delphi with a frown. “And what are we going to have Chudsworth say to get the answers we need?”

“Perhaps ask about weak points?” replied Ted with a soft smile.

“That’s too obvious!” exclaimed Nash. “We’d might as well just directly ask what the easiest way to kill him is.”

“Chudsworth is an empath, he only reads emotions, not full thoughts,” said Delphi. “And besides, we want to know why he-”

“So we talk about the various weak points of the body and have Nepo gauge his reaction to each one!” exclaimed Ted.

“No!” Delphi shouted back.

“I agree with Delphi,” said Nash. “That’s still too obvious.”

“I mean no, stop trying to find his weak point! That’s not what we’re trying to do here!” shouted Delphi.

Everyone quieted down and gave her a look of disappointment. She took a moment to repose herself before speaking again.

“Our first priority is to figure out what he’s up to, then we can work on getting rid of him. Even his danger rank is top secret; we’re not going to be able to kill him. Let’s just figure out what he’s doing, and then do what our team does best.”

“Mess with him until he goes crazy or decides to get lost?” asked Nash.

Delphi nodded.

“I would prefer it if I could kill him, but I understand your concern,” said Ted. “I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of someone who can’t be killed with a sneak attack or correct preparation.”

A look of realization made its way up Nash’s face as she spoke. “It’s crazy, we’ve never gone up against anyone like this before,” added Nash. “You can ambush an unaware mage, and I can use my magic to counter a spy’s preparations, but when someone is the best of both of those at once?”

“We hit them with the HIA brand of subterfuge, it’s what you two are better than anyone else at,” said Delphi with a nod and soft smile. “But before we get there, let’s figure out how to get the info we want from him.”

The other two nodded after a pause. They were still hesitant, but now understood the stakes, and were ready to do it Delphi’s way.

“Maybe have Nepo mention the hero’s hypothetical death and see what the spy feels about that?” asked Nash. “That’ll get us a baseline of what the spy wants with him.”

“Death by-” began Ted.

“I swear Ted, you’d better not say ‘death by stabbing’,” said Nash, interrupting her coworker. “You’d better not be projecting your fantasies onto him.”

“That’s not something I fantasize about, you know,” said Ted in a huff. “If the hero actually died, then I’d be out of a job! How would I be able to stab people without getting into trouble then?! I was going to suggest he died in a heroic battle against a powerful local monster.”

“Local monster? Why something that specific?” asked Nash.

Delphi snapped her fingers and looked up with wide eyes. “Because he’s the Dark Lord’s spy, right? If we mention the Dark Lord’s forces being involved, then of course the spy will be happy that his own country won! So a local monster would be completely unaligned with any side and we can rule it out as the reason for his reaction.”

“Hey, that’s pretty smart, Ted!” said Nash with an impressed smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you to talk about something other than stabbing.”

“Your compliment is well appreciated,” replied Ted with a robotically curt nod. “Though one thing doesn’t make much sense to me.”

“And what’s that?” asked Delphi.

“This spy is supposed to be incomparably strong, so if he wants the hero dead, why hasn’t he stabbed him yet himself?”

The other two looked at him with their own practiced looks.

“The reason I don’t stab just anyone willy-nilly is because I would get into trouble, apprehended by law enforcement, and put to death. I won’t be able to do as much stabbing in that case. But the spy could easily run back to the Dark Lord’s kingdom and get away from any negative consequences.”

“So he’s not planning to kill the hero then?” asked Nash. “Great, so what did we get done in the past few minutes?”

“Hold on, he might want to kill the hero in a way that pins it on someone specific or achieves some other goal. It’s still a relevant question we need answered.”

Ted nodded while Nash let out a sigh of relief.

“So that’ll be our lead question,” said Delphi, concluding that line of conversation. “But then what do we ask next? Either the spy intends to kill the hero or he doesn’t, but we also want to know why.”

“We all just talked about potential motives he might have for killing the hero,” replied Nash. “Maybe have Nepo ask what the hero’s motivation is and give him a couple of examples? Whatever the spy thinks when he hears them will give us an idea of what his specific goal is.”

“Maybe mention some of our other biggest enemies and allies?” asked Ted. “Depending on who makes the spy happy, that’s probably who else he intends on stabbing or framing for stabbing the hero!”

“That’s good, that’s good,” replied Delphi with a nod as she jotted down the information. “Let me write down a quick list of candidates we can work into the script. That just leaves us with potential locations the spy could be interested in. Places he wants to bring the hero to first if his plan involves something there.”

“Who, what, and where,” said Nash as she slowly bobbed her head. “How about the when, why, and how?”

“Propose some timelines where the hero will need the whole party together to do something, a week, month, year, and decade from now,” said Delphi. “See what the spy thinks about sticking around for that long.”

“And the ‘how’ is simple,” added Ted. “The spy is either going to take something from the hero, or use the hero to do something for him. Ask about the hero’s greatest possessions, or favors he’s done for others.”

The other two stared at the man with a look of confusion.

“What?” he asked.

“Is there… anything else you think the spy might try to do?” asked Nash. “You’ve only been talking about it for this entire conversation.”

“I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about,” replied Ted with a perfectly thirty degree tilt of his head.

Delphi blinked, shook her head, and resumed the conversation. “As for why, there’s only one reason.”

“He’s working for the Dark Lord,” replied Nash.

“Yup, what other reason could there be?” asked Delphi with a chuckle. “So now all that’s left is to disadvantage the spy as much as we can. Any suggestions?”

“He’s probably used to having a ton of subordinates do all of the heavy lifting for him like the Magical University graduates,” said Nash. “Did you know they had servants assigned to the higher ranking students to wait on them hand and foot?”

“I believe this is the 49th time you’ve told us,” replied Ted.

“Yeah yeah, but it’s relevant!” pouted the blonde haired woman. “When we went on an exploration trip out into the wilderness, they completely fell apart! For all the magic they could cast, they weren’t able to use it to make things comfortable enough for them, the spoiled babies.”

“So you want us to send him into the wilderness to separate him from any of the Dark Lord’s reinforcements?” asked Delphi.

“Yup!” exclaimed Nash. “But it doesn’t even have to be the wilderness, since we’re going to be following them there too. We could just stick with the boonies, somewhere with an HIA base but far enough away from civilization that there isn’t any of the Dark Lord’s influence.”

“And if it’s far enough away, we can easily keep track of whoever follows them to town and have them taken out,” added Delphi. “That’s perfect! We just need to pick a place that’s also far away from wherever the spy himself wants to bring the hero.”

“I’ll cross-reference the list of HIA bases and come up with some good spots across the kingdom,” said Nash.

Delphi flashed the two a wide, victorious grin. “Alright, let’s put this all together into a script we can have Chudsworth give to the hero’s party. Let’s get to it!”

“I’m back!” said Chudsworth as he entered the front door to Delphi’s office. “I found the current owner of the left ankle plate, and you would not believe what I had to go through.”

Delphi quickly began grabbing errant sheets of paper scattered across her desk. She put them together in a single stack and inside a manilla folder, making sure to keep her arms in between their contents and Chudsworth’s eyes.

“Hold on, you actually got it?” asked Nash, rising up from her own seat at Delphi’s desk. “It’s only been three hours, it should’ve taken you at least half a week!”

“Well, it likely would have because I had to get in touch with another site and the bureaucracy there is quite slow, but then I mentioned my father and-”

“Nepo!” exclaimed Nash.

“Huh?” asked Chudsworth, pausing his story.

“Nepo! That’s your new codename!” said Nash.

“I have a codename now?!” squealed Chudsworth, whose smile would have been bright enough to blind everyone in the room if the phrase were literal. “Oh, how wonderful, I can’t believe my father put me on such a wonderful team!”

The two women stopped what they were doing and stared at their latest member with anticipation for him to spring the ‘gotcha’ on them.

But it never came.

“So what does Nepo mean?” he asked. “Is it the name of one of the great heroes of old?”

“Uh… not really?” said Delphi. “But it’s not your real codename, sorry. We’ll come up with one on our way to meet the hero.”

“Wait, we’re meeting the hero now too?” asked Chudsworth with sparkles in his eyes. “This day just keeps getting better and better! What are we going to say to him?”

“You are going to give him his next quest!” said Delphi with an uncomfortable grin. “But there’s a bit of variability to it, so we need you to go off this script. What you say is going to be based on how the new guy is feeling, so keep a careful eye on that and write everything down once you’re done. Okay?”

“You can count on me!” said Chudsworth. “So when will we be heading out?”

“The hero’s probably going to leave town soon,” replied Delphi. “So we’ll be heading out… now.”