Desmond’s eyes shot open as he quickly sat up. He wasn’t actively under attack as he had feared. So he took a moment to calm himself down.

The room was still and silent, just as he remembered before he fell asleep. The windows and the door were still closed, and he could not see or hear any danger. But Riki was no longer beside him, and she had a much better danger sense than he did.

Desmond scanned the room carefully, looking for any sign of where Riki might have gone. As Desmond's gaze swept past the dresser, Riki appeared out of thin air. Riki had her hand over her mouth, an indication for him to keep quiet.

“Attack. Unknown enemy,” Riki signed before activating her stealth again.

This was serious. An enemy that could hide from Riki was rare and no doubt dangerous. They were facing an assassin, and one no less skilled than her.

As Desmond got to his feet he felt a pain in his side. Riki had clearly tried to wake him up, but it would seem there was no stirring him when he was in the Soul Realm. Desmond examined the room again. Now that he knew where Riki was, he could see the subtle shift in the shadows where she stood. Desmond knew that he would lose track of her again as soon as she moved. He was bad with stealth and illusions, so it was his job to act as bait.

Desmond made his way to the sliding door and hearing nothing out of the ordinary in the courtyard, he slowly opened it. The courtyard was empty and quiet. He really hated enemies that hid like this.

His strength meant little when the opponent would not even show themselves. Desmond slowly walked into the center of the courtyard and put on his best defenseless act. He even added in a yawn for good measure.

From where Desmond was standing he could see the entire courtyard clearly under the bright light of the moon. There were no signs of any disturbance, so he continued to stand there and wait with his senses heightened.

Desmond was standing here in the open in hopes the enemy would attack him first and show themselves. With his Constitution, the attack was unlikely to outright kill him. Then Riki would have the advantage of a follow-up attack.

As he waited, Desmond’s mind enviably started to wander. Riki was much better than him at this stuff, and she was likely in some kind of silent stealth duel right now. Whoever found the other first would have a massive advantage, and the assailant was clearly not taking the bait.

After a few more minutes Desmond started to consider another possibility. Something here was off, it was possible the assassin had simply left when they spooked Riki. Or that the assailant was simply a scout that had got too close.

Riki was very sensitive to these thing. There was a time when one of their neighbors had used a wide range sensing magic, which is considered very rude within the Lodge. Riki had been set off by this. She eventually figured out who did it and almost murdered the poor woman. Needless to say, they are not neighbors anymore.

Desmond waited a couple more minutes before making his way back inside the room. He stood beside the door, giving Riki ample time to return before shutting the sliding door. Desmond sat on the end of the bed in the dim room. Riki had signed ‘attack’ to him, not danger or warning but attack.

“What kind of attack did you sense?” Desmond asked.

“It was a soul attack,” Riki said, still concealed within the shadows of the room.

Everything suddenly made sense. Riki had felt his presence near her soul and registered that as a soul attack. This would mean that other people could sense him in the Soul Realm. Perhaps the two realms weren’t so isolated from one another? Maybe he could even be attacked while in the Soul Realm?

“Was it an attack, or did it feel more like a gaze?” Desmond asked.

“All soul spells are attacks,” Riki replied firmly.

This was one of the Lodge’s lesser-known rules. Soul magic was rare and using any type of soul magic on someone without their express permission was banned.

“I think, that might have been me,” Desmond said.

“What!” Riki yelled as she dropped her stealth. She then moved to stand in front of Desmond with a very angry expression on her face. “Why would you do that!?”

“Sorry, but just hear me out here,” Desmond replied quickly. “When I killed Ben I got a skill of sorts that lets me see my own soul. But as it would turn out, I can also see the soul of those nearby. I didn’t even realize I had been looking at your soul until just now.” There was a little white lie mixed in there, but he was trying to dig himself out of a hole here.

“Wait... Why... You shouldn’t-.” Riki was at a loss for words. She didn’t quite know how to respond to an accidental soul attack. “Don’t look at my soul without permission!”

“It won’t happen again,” Desmond said with sincerity. Riki seemed to be overreacting a little in his opinion, but this was clearly a touchy subject for her. Exploring the mystery of the soul was something he was looking forward to. He would just have to do so away from Riki.

Desmond laid back down in bed. When he looked up, he could see Riki standing there trying to decide how angry she should be about this.

“Come back to bed Riki. I promise it won't happen again. I didn’t even know what I was looking at before, but now I do.”

Riki came around and laid back down on the bed. She did however, stay on the far side of the bed, and faced away from him. It would seem she had decided to be slightly angry with him. If she was really angry, she would have returned back to her own room.

Desmond knew from experience that this was Riki’s way of telling him that she wanted a little space. So he would give her the space, and apologize again in the morning. He should have just left the Soul Realm and talked to Riki before approaching her soul, and he could have avoided this whole mess.

“Did my soul, look normal?” Riki whispered.

“I have only ever seen two,” Desmond replied. “And I only saw your soul for a moment. So I didn’t get a good look at it, and my soul is pretty fucked up. So I don’t really have a baseline on what a soul should look like.”

“Then how do you know your soul was fucked up?” Riki asked as she turned to face him.

“Well, my soul looked, broken in places,” Desmond replied.

“I see, and what did my soul look like?” Riki asked with some curiosity leaking through her voice.

“Souls outwardly take on the appearance of your mana,” Desmond said. “So yours looked like a large dark star. It was covered in light gray enchantments and dark fire, but I didn’t get to see anything besides that.”

“Hmmmm,” Riki replied.

It would seem Riki did have some interest in the soul, but it would likely take some time to warm her up to the idea of him looking at it. Desmond had plenty of time, and this was something that was better not to rush. With that, they both faded off to sleep.

***

As Desmond woke up he found Riki cuddled up next to him, she had clearly not been that mad at him. As soon as he started to move Riki awoke.

“Good morning beautiful,” Desmond said.

“Just because you call it morning, doesn’t make it morning,” Riki joked as she got up from the bed.

Desmond laughed as he sat up, a quick look out the window told him it was at least mid-afternoon.

“There is a lot to do today. Now, before we get started I would like to clarify something,” Desmond said turning serious. “Today I plan to kill Lucel, are you sure you want to be a part of this?”

Riki bent down to look Desmond in the eyes. “Of course, we are in this together,” Riki replied with confidence before lightly kissing him.

This brought a smile to Desmond's face. “You know the Duke will probably try to kill us.”

“Unlikely,” Riki replied. “Duke Valmesh is desperately trying to build up forces for his invasion. I don’t see him sending anyone after you right now. So you want me to anonymously dead-drop this letter? Or do you want to re-write it in crayon first?” Riki joked while picking up the letter from the table.

“It’s fine like that,” Desmond replied while getting out of bed. “I’m going to go sign us up for a few hunts so we have a reason to leave the Lodge. We will have to head out later today, as I suspect Lucel to go after Ben sometime tonight.”

“Then I will be heading out first,” Riki said. “I will see you this evening.”

***

Desmond entered the main lobby area of the Lodge. He had spent the last few hours haggling over prices in the Market District while picking up some supplies. He didn’t need to haggle anymore in light of his newfound wealth, he just enjoyed it.

The lobby was as boisterous as ever. Desmond entered just in time to see an empty mug sail across the room and smack some drunk fool in the side of the head. The fool in question went down like a sack of potatoes, before jumping to his feet to find the assailant.

Desmond made his way over to the Hunt Board. This board and the ones like it in the other Lodge facilities had basically acted as his quest-giver for the past 13 years. It was actually pretty rare to find specific hunts posted on the board. The board was mostly covered in material requests that merchants would pay a premium for, or posts about hunter parties looking for new members. The only one who posted full hunt quests would be the Lodge themselves, and that was only for specifically dangerous beasts. Getting a hunt quest put on the board is how a beast would be considered a Predator.

Now that he was thinking about it, did he have to split the quest reward for killing that panther? It had been worth 50K LP, and since Ben had disappeared, it should have all gone to him. He would have to check his account later. This is why he hated LP, it was so hard to keep track of.

Desmond looked over the board, not searching for anything specific. He found a limited material request that would fit the bill. The ‘limited’ aspect meant the merchant would only pay the premium price for a certain number of materials. This also meant he would have the take the request off the board and sign it out with the Lodge staff.

This is what he was looking for, a paper trail stating he was going south. The request itself was for the hide of three darkmoon elk in good condition. The darkmoon elk were early disaster class and were honestly harder to find than kill, but Riki would be with him this time so they should be able to finish it quickly.

“Hey, Dez! I heard you might need a hand,” said someone in a gruff voice behind him.

Desmond instantly recognized the voice as Anthony. Anthony was a confusing character to Desmond. He could never tell if the man wanted to pick a fight or start up a friendship. It was probably a little bit of both.

“Anthony, what was it I could use a hand with again?” Desmond asked.

Anthony was a large man standing around 6 foot 4. The man was bald and had a messy orange beard. He was muscular to the point it would inhibit his day-to-day life and the man refused to wear a shirt. He was one of the few people in this Lodge who could fill the bait role alongside Desmond. He was covered head to toe in scars that spoke of his experience as a hunter and was around mid-disaster class.

“You know,” Anthony said trying to whisper but being far too drunk to whisper. “Going after Ben. We all heard the rumor that he is still alive. Let me tell ya, if you let him live he will come back for you. You got to be thorough with this kind of shit or it will bite you the ass. Trust me I know.” Anthony breaks out into a loud laugh after this, like he had just told a great joke.

“I can assure you Ben is dead,” Desmond replied. It would seem word travels fast if even Anthony has heard of this.

Did Lucel spread this rumor? No, that wouldn’t make sense. But this rumor did work in his favor as it lent authenticity to his letter. In hindsight, he should have been spreading this rumor himself. This was most likely something Riki had done then.

“Don’t be like that,” Anthony said in a drunken tone. “All we got to do is find ourselves a tracker. Then we leave in the dead of night and hunt this fucker down!”

Desmond didn’t expect Anthony to care about this, it was probably just the alcohol talking. The plan was pretty good in fact, if he wasn’t hollering it out loud in a bar. Desmond knew arguing with a drunk was pointless. So now he needed a way to distract the man long enough to make a getaway.

“You know, it’s not in your best interest to talk about murder so openly in the Lodge,” came another voice from further in the tavern.