As I began to return upstairs I saw Iscarat attempting to walk through the door of the building. He was dropping stuff and couldn’t seem to get through the door because he was carrying several items I didn’t recognize.

“Would you like some help?”

“Oh, Mr.Barrett. That would be wonderful.” he replied in his usual squeaky tone. I walked over to him and took several of the items from him. He then slipped through the door and I helped him get it upstairs.

“What is all this stuff?” I asked as I set it down on the floor of the apartment.

“Tools to help me make the anti-magic gate. I would have done it at home but time flies there as you can guess.”

“What is this ant-magic gate anyways?”

“It allows me to temporarily stop the use of any magic so long as it has no sigils. Your knife would work just fine but if you were to create a flame then it would go out or never start up in the first place.”

“I see, can anyone use this gate?”

“Well, yes. However I am one of a few people that know how to make one and it’s a one time use tool and it breaks down the longer it is used. The longest one can stay active is ten minutes.”

“Seems like that would be very helpful to the Agency. Why don’t they make them mainstream?”

“They would, however, making one takes so long that they would have to create an entire faction of the Agency to make them in mass. That would require a massive amount of funds which the Agency lacks.”

“When we visited they seemed fairly well off.”

“You would think that but they have to keep up appearances. They have very few supporters and one of them is Mama Louise. Other than the fact that she is almost as scary as Mordred she is also very wealthy and influential. Keeping her on good terms with the Agency keeps a lot of us including scott afloat.”

“Then how are we even getting paid?”

“I think there have been some budget cuts to some of the departments. I heard that Compton became the director of the South American branch.”

“You heard correctly.”

“Well, he has his work cut out for him. The South American branch is currently the smallest since it was just recently founded. On top of that it only has seven Agents currently working there. Since the native people aren’t too thrilled with some of the european governments being there they have made deals with different creatures we have never even seen before to force them to leave.”

“Sounds like it would be one of the most dangerous departments to be at right now.”

“It is and it doesn’t help that their budget just got cut. Compton may be the Director of that branch now but everything is decided by a vote between the directors. Director Langston has his back but many of the other Directors want him out since he is so young. They have decided that he is unfit to be a Director because of his age and clumsiness. He also got stuck with the hardest task of keeping South America in check.”

“It does seem like everything is stacked against him.”

“He has no chance of staying in that position for long as it seems. However Mordred chose him for a reason so I can assume it was a good one. Mordred has a good head on her shoulders. As for Merlin, he’s a genius but when it comes to the people he is an absolute buffoon.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. He has always left the matters involving the people to Mordred while he has handled the tactical decisions. Any time he has handled things with people he has tended to scare them off. Especially women.”

“I’m not surprised by that. How does Mordred deal with his behavior?”

“He was her father’s best friend and she saw that throughout her life as a knight. She respects him for that and sees him as someone who cares about her.”

“That does make sense.”

“There is the idea that they once considered sexual and romantic relations since they were both now technically immortal but that is just a rumor. Don’t tell anyone I told you that.”

“I won’t tell a soul.”