This is not good.” Casper whispered into the silence that followed the announcement. “Lord Pomp never comes down here in person. He always sends one of his flunkies for the weekly shakedown.” He was starting to flail about in panic. With quick, jerky movements he cast about for an escape route but there was nowhere. The road on either side faced a stone wall for at least fifty feet.

They could hear the sound of marching feet from only a few dozen yards away. Wait, that’s not possible. These roads are covered in mud and that sounds like stone underfoot. Jack was utterly confused, nothing was making sense. All he knew was that governor guy institutionalized child neglect if his titles and the state of this place were anything to go by. He would rather not meet such a man.

Failure was however inevitable. Bad timing and luck were conspiring together now. As the first of the men marched around the corner something strange happened. The muck underfoot flattened and dried out to a consistency that resembled slate. This casual act of magic shocked and stymied Jack to the point where he froze on the spot. This proved to not be one of his best ideas as the imperial guards quickly surrounded and restrained him.

The cool touch of metal on his skin drew his eyes up to see the men all around him. They were stern and hard-bitten men clad in bright red Lorica and segment armored pants he did not know the name of. A lifetime of edging the law revealed the kind of people these were, crooked cops. Deep breath, if you tense they will find an excuse to beat on you. Focus on breathing.

After following his instructions the world around him came into focus. There were twenty men in this contingent, most were the aforementioned dirty cops but the two men in the center were different. One was a more elaborately dressed guardsman. He was much younger than the others, around his age, and gave off a professional aura. His shoulders sported etched designs and his armor fit his body better than the others. Blue eyes peered out of a face made by an artist. His every feature, the epitome of the masculine ideal.

He turned to the other man and said “We have found him, my lord. This boy here matches the description of the card. He’s just…” At this, he turned back to look at Jack. “Better nourished than we had been shown in the message spell.”

The other, more opulently dressed, man came closer to jack and peered at him. This was not an improvement. His face was so caked in makeup that his skin color was only apparent when viewing his ears. If that wasn’t bad enough his hair looked like it suffered a blue cotton candy explosion. He looked like a clown. None of that held his attention for long though. A small red cat was perched there. When they made eye contact everything changed. Memories surfaced in his thoughts. Except they weren’t his memories, which made the sensation feel surreal.

A fire that burned without fuel, without smoke. Eternal! That was what this creature was, Smokeless Fire. It was close to what he was but something he couldn’t put his finger on separating them. There was something else too, a feeling of hopelessness.

Pain exploded in his side as he pondered the meaning of the vision. He turned his attention outward to notice that he was now kneeling next to Casper and that he was pinching his arm. With his new sensitivity, the experience was excruciating. A quick nod to Casper was enough for the other to withdraw his hand.

“Hello, hello can you hear me?” Asked Lord Pomp. Jack turned up to look at the man again to see a face full of annoyance and indignation. “I came all the way down here to find you and this is how you treat me? By staring at my Jann all day?” He pointed a finger at jack. “I will have you know I am 8th in line to inherit my barony. So don’t think that I will be INTIMIDATED!” His voice had been slowly escalating till he was screaming in Jack's face. He smacked him again when Jack just silently glared at him in response. “Bring him to the palace and send that one.” He pointed at Casper. “To the headsman for hiding him from the empire. Someone needs to pay for having me come all this way to such a filthy place.” At this, he turned his back on them.

Rage boiled in Jack's veins. How dare he treat me like this! I am not an object to be carted around! Then his veins started to glow familiarly. “TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!”

Just as everybody was beginning to square off the most unexpected thing happened. A guard jerked as the satchel in his hands decided that it wanted to be somewhere else right then. The guard heaved and hawed but the satchel didn’t care as it dragged him towards Jack, boots skidding the whole way over.

When it got to him the flap opened to reveal the golden Phoenix Robe. Only it had transformed into an actual flaming chicken thing and flapped its way onto his shoulder. Now armed with flaming blood and a fire chicken Jack turned back to his abductors. He charged.

Clown face, a.k.a lord Pomp, quickly backpedaled behind his retinue and called out behind him as he began to run. “You better bring him to the palace or I will have all of you hung! You hear me, HUNG! I will meet you there. Just have to report my findings.” Then he was gone.

This news stiffened the spine of all the guards surrounding Jack and Casper. They began to circle the pair and pointed a mixture of short swords and spears at them.

That’s when Casper made his move. With a flourish of his hand, he revealed a metal badge, on it was an intricate crest. “Those of you that know what this badge is better to back off now because you do not want to cross me.” This seemed to genuinely spook them. The result was a bunch of conflicted faces and loose weapon grips.

After a second the leader stepped up. His eyes were clear and full of passion, a clear contrast to his fellow guardsman. At that moment, he seemed to be the perfect legionnaire. “Casper we can just tell the fop that we executed you.” At this, he gave a wave in the direction of the fleeing lord. “He is a fop and a fool so it won’t be a problem but we have orders directly from the imperial princess to bring in the Adjudicator and we have permission to use lethal force on anyone who gets in our way. Even your benefactor.” At this, he brandished his spear. “That badge isn’t enough to stop us from fulfilling our orders. So move along before someone gets hurt.”

“What if I don’t want to be ‘escorted’. Did your princess tell you what to do then?” Even with his weak body, the idea of just going quietly was one he couldn’t even conceive.

The guard held out his weapon to the side for Jack to take. “If you do not feel safe then take this. As for going to the palace, we have some leeway. As long as we report your location and escort you that will satisfy our superiors. It wouldn’t do to have you shanked in an alley when the empire invested so much to get you here.” He gave Casper an accusing stare.

Jack reached out and grasped the spear. It was all he could do to hold it up. Who makes a weapon this big entirely out of metal? Aren’t spears supposed to have wooden shafts? As he solidified his grip the light in his veins died down. The guards all slumped in relief at once, just happy that this didn’t end in violence. “What’s your name?” He asked the guardsman.

“My name is Virtus Ferrum. Viscount of Ferrumhold” He bowed to Jack upon finishing his introduction.

Jack looked back to Casper and said “I am going to speak to my friend here alone for a moment over there.” He pointed to the far corner of the square. The guards all stiffened at his words. Virtus on the other hand merely ordered them to search all the surrounding alleys and abandoned buildings. Once that was done he permitted for the pair to go talk in private.

A moment later they were on the other side and Casper did something to make the air shimmer before hardening. “That is a privacy spell. They can’t overhear us now.” He pointed to the flaming chicken on Jack's shoulder and with a wide grin spoke. “I know the legends spoke of the Adjudicator coming down to the world on a blazing Phoenix but I didn’t expect it to look like a chicken.” At this, he couldn’t hold it anymore and fell over laughing. This lasted a while.

“I don’t know anything about your prophecies or whatever. I just got here, remember. Anyway, what do I do with it anyway?” He reached up to touch the bird and it flowed into him the same way the torches did. It seemed to alight softly somewhere inside of him. The same place that the red cat was trying to reach. Everything in front of him faded and he fell into darkness. Oh god, not again!