Lady Luck spits in my face again. I was dragged into a room after a severe beating by the watch captain. They roughly threw me to the ground in front of a group of seated people.

"This is the suspect?"

I couldn't see who spoke as I was held on the ground. Not sure why they bothered, they could just order me not to move.

"Slave, do you know why you were brought before the council?"

"No, masters."

"You are suspected of leaking information to the shadow faction, causing the deaths of four of our members."

I suspected something like this might occur. It didn't escape my notice that I was the only slave in all four of the groups that recently got attacked by the shadow faction. The pattern wasn't clear at first but after the third death, it was clear something was off. The fact that I was hauled in front of the council right after was suspect. My guess was someone wanted me gone, or someone wanted Sharla gone since I was her guard.

"Your punishment for this crime will be death. Captain, please carry out the sentence."

Just like that, no counter-argument, no witness, not even Sharla here to defend me. Not that I was overly surprised, I was a slave after all.

"With pleasure, honored councilman."

That voice sounded familiar. I managed to turn my head enough to see Dominique the duelist heading towards me. His blades ready to end me, like he did Fiona those months ago. Before he could carry out his task my tormentor appeared.

"What is the meaning of this!" Sharla screeched angrily as she stormed into the room.

Dominique halted his approach, looking towards the council in uncertainty.

"Your slave has been found guilty of deliberate treason against the sect."

"That's bullshit and you know it, did anyone bother asking him if he performed the deed, or was it conveniently forgotten that slaves can't lie if you order them to tell the truth?"

"We did not forget, the evidence is indisputable."

"What evidence?"

"Your slave was the only slave in all four groups that were attacked. No other slave would have been able to provide the information on the group's whereabouts."

Sharla rolled her eyes, "the only thing that proves is someone sold out those groups. It could have just as easily been a sect member."

"Rediculous, our members are all loyal to the sect."

Sharla didn't bother to refute the man, instead, she directed her next words to me.

"Paul, tell the truth. Did you collude or meet with anyone outside of the sect since you arrived?"

"No, mistress."

"Have you attempted to subvert the organization in any way shape or form?"

I was glad my plans had been put on hold.

"No, mistress."

She turned back to the council, "There you go, now perhaps instead of harassing my slave you can redirect your focus to actually finding out who was responsible for those deaths. Come on Paul."

I stood without anyone stopping me. The council wasn't made up of fools, a direct confrontation with Sharla would lead to many people being dead. They had played their first hand, now it was time to see what came next.

I followed Sharla to her father's office. Once inside I took my usual place at the door. Her father activated his artifact as soon as the door shut.

"So what brings you here today Sharla?" her father inquired.

"The council has made their first move, they tried to eliminate my guard while I was busy."

"Hmm," was all her father said.

Sharla shook in anger, "Is that all you have to say?"

Her father just raised an eyebrow, "what would you have me say, we knew this was coming. They have become even more belligerent with us in the last months as we continued our successes in the field."

Just then a knock came at the door, my staff was in my hand before I even realized it. So far I hadn't had to expose my ability to harm other sect members while defending Sharla. Not that I cared about harming them, but the thought of having to protect her made me physically ill.

"Mr. Cotton, Obidiah is here per your request," the muffled voice of the receptionist said from the other side.

"Paul, open the door and let the man in."

I did as Master Cotton asked, keeping my staff out until I verified the identity of the new arrival.

Obidiah strode into the room without a glance in my direction. I shut the door behind him, storing my staff back into my ring.

The man gave a slight bow to his master, "I arrived as soon as I could."

"It's time Obidiah, gather your team and clean the slate. Make sure to include Dominique in your cleanup."

I was about to shout that Dominique was mine to kill, but three months of conditioning to obey orders kept my mouth shut.

"It will be carried out immediately, master," he said, bowing and immediately leaving to carry out his orders.

I watched Sharla's father head to a panel in the wall. He popped it open and the wall safe behind it. He took something out from the safe, handing it to Sharla.

"Head to your quarters and take your slave with you. This will prevent anyone from bypassing your door with skills. I suspect you may get a few visitors, try to play nice."

"Thanks, father," Sharla said, getting up on her tiptoes to give her father a peck on the cheek before she bounced towards me.

"Come on Paul, we have a playdate, don't want to keep our company waiting."

I followed Sharla out, I suspected this was going to be a long day.

We arrived at Sharla's apartment, it was not in the same building as her father's. As we walked down the street I could tell something was going on. Furtive looks in our direction and people hurriedly heading off as they spotted us. It made me nervous. Sharla seemed oblivious to the danger, either that or she just didn't care. My bet was on the not caring part.

I bolted the door shut as we entered her apartment. It didn't take long until we got our first visitor. A loud bang echoed across the apartment as someone tried to kick the door in.

Sharla just looked up from her book with a sigh, as she lounged on the couch. A few more blows impacted the door as it started to crack.

"So noisy," Sharla commented, "Paul, be a dear and get rid of them."

"Yes, mistress," I replied, pulling my staff from my inventory. Being up on the fifth floor would limit my spell options but I could deal with the shortfall.

The door broke as I entered the entry hall.

Two Black Dragon members entered. I recognized them from the security forces but I scanned them anyway.

Gus Mendez | Bouncer | Level 10

Hank Storwick | Shaman | Level 12

Behind those two came an eight-foot-tall humanoid made from sticks and leaves.

"Out of the way slave, we are here for your master!"

I stepped to the side to let them pass. As they went to push past me, I struck. My staff imbued with Flurry struck the unsuspecting Bouncer in the side. His armor managed to blunt my blows to some extent but it wasn't enough to save him from my attack. The fools had no idea Sharla had modified my obedience rules and it cost one their life even before the fight began.

I pushed the dead bouncer back into the other man and cast Banshee's Wail. The man managed to have or get a magic shield up in time to defend against my attack. His nature elemental was unaffected by my spell. It flung extendable branches in my direction, trying to crush me in its grip. I imbued my staff with fire and hacked the branches off as they tried to grip me. The beast let out a hollow-sounding scream as my fire set its vines ablaze.

The Shaman cast a spell that flung a barrage of needles in my direction. I was forced to take the spell as my Area of Denial skill was still on cooldown from the fight earlier. The spell hit me for 130 damage and poisoned me for five minutes with root rot.

Root Rot will cause your extremities to turn black and rot, reducing your agility one point every ten seconds

I staggered back from the spell impact. I felt the anger shake its cage, demanding to be let free. I pushed it back down. I hadn't dealt with this specific type of spell but I have dealt with a few corruption spells in the last few months. The best way to deal with them was to just heal through the effects. Against my better judgment, I cast Regenerating Rain. It would be enough to keep the agility debuff off of me and wouldn't waste my other heals.

What surprised me was that the five-minute timer on root rot was going down at an accelerated rate. I guess fire did synergize with my spell, it was burning away the rot at a rate of 30 seconds per second of my spell. It's no wonder I never noticed the synergy earlier. I ignored my new revelation, getting my head back into the fight. I saw the Shaman starting to cast another spell as his elemental lumbered towards me. The fire had gone out on its branches, leaving only charred bits and some smoke.

I cast Blink Step as it lashed out at me, dodging around the strike and narrowly avoiding the thorny bush that sprouted up where I had been standing a second ago. I rushed towards the Shaman as he hastily threw up a wall of interlocking branches. I shoved my staff forward, releasing a Stunning Gust as a spear of fire. The attack burned straight through the wall slamming into the man's chest. Even with my imbued element, the attacks didn't do all that much damage. Except I got lucky and the stun activated as the man's clothing went up in a blaze. I guess wearing a bunch of dead sticks and vines was a bad idea for the man.

The elemental screamed as it was banished back into its own realm. The magic used to sustain it no longer available as the Shaman burned to death.

Sharla came in and cast an ice wave spell to put out the fire, making sure I got hit just a bit. I cleaned up the mess by tossing the dead bodies into the hallway. Let that be a deterrent to any other would-be assassins. I stood guard inside the entry vestibule for the rest of the night. It was preferable to tossing and turning as the nightmares returned to plague my sleep again.

I could hear fighting going on outside the building. A few times I even heard people enter the floor, only to turn around and leave. By morning all was quiet. Sharla showered and dressed, then we headed out to meet with her father. She ordered a few slaves we passed to clean up the mess by her apartment and replace the door. Where she thought they would find a door I didn't know.

Dead bodies of slaves and Black Dragon members littered the streets. The slaves had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either that or ordered to become human shields for their handlers. A few crews were picking up and disposing of the dead. We received a few nods from the sect members we passed. It appears that Master Cotton succeeded in his plan to eliminate the council. Judging by the amount of dead I would say a tenth of the sect had lost their lives in the nights fighting.

It weakened them but not by as much as I would have liked, they still had over a thousand sect members and close to eight thousand slaves. I had done a careful tally these past months and I figured my numbers were close to accurate. Even with these numbers, they were the smallest group in Chicago.

From what scant information I was able to gather, the Sons of Autumn had nearly twenty-five thousand acolytes. They were mostly religious extremists and conspiracy theorists all hell-bent on killing anything insight to help atone for mankind's crimes. A good thing most of their members were rather weak.

The Triad had fewer members, but they were more mentally stable overall. My rough estimate pegged them at somewhere around eighteen thousand members. They were growing though as they swallowed smaller hold-out groups up. The rest of Chicago either fell in the fighting, was smart enough to remain out of sight, or fled the area for someplace safer. As for the shadow faction, there were no real details.

Sharla headed towards the council chambers. You could tell the fighting had been fierce here. The front of the building had been demolished by attacks. Glass, stone, and wood were scattered about the street and the first floor. Bodies were pulped against walls or just pink stains. Most likely the work of Obidiah.

We took the stairs to the third floor where the council room resided. I stepped inside to be greeted by a scene of pure horror. Ten headless bodies sat in the council chairs. Blood still dripped from the ceiling from the arterial spray. Each head was pinned to the wall behind the body by a spike of metal. Dominique the duelist was pinned to the floor by his wrists and ankles. All of his skin had been peeled off of his body, all except his head. The look of horror on his face at his time of death turned my stomach.

Sure, I wanted the man dead but this was excessive. I choked back the vomit that wanted to force its way up. Sharla just let out a girly little giggle as she stomped around in the blood like a child would a puddle of water. Then she turned to me.

"Don't think I didn't notice, Paul!"

I gulped, I wasn't sure what she was talking about but it made me nervous all the same. I remained still and quiet, anything I said now would just make my punishment worse.

"Not going to even try to defend your actions? Good boy. Don't worry, I will replace those missing scars tonight."

I wanted to collapse, or cry, or yell. Instead, I just sat there, emotionless.

"I shall endeavor to rectify my error in the future, mistress."

"See that you do, It would be a shame if I had to turn you into a eunuch for a few days again."

She slapped me across the face as she skipped out of the room. I followed behind, like an obedient puppy.