Having a good laugh on Prof’s expenses made the mood lighter, and Foxy started to chat up Mini.

As long as she wasn’t acting like a full out crazy person, she was actually fun to being around. That was even included on her Character Parchment: Happy Person. The chatting even turned into light flirting. Mini still did the heavy flirting (or offering up) with Prof, but reserved some energy for Foxy.

The dungeon run was a fast one – it proved to everyone that Mini was a competent fighter and razor sharp. When it was convenient or important to her, at least. Mostly, oblivious bimbos or incompetents were not turned into Vampires, the result would be an insult to their new families, after all. Mini was a trusted vassal previously, and even with the loss of a lot of Levels, she was still deadly. Foxy was quite sure, in her best days she was most assuredly a very valuable asset to her Estate.

When night fell, Foxy tried her dream magic on the two again. It was not the most favourable situation, instead of having a questioning in their minds, the last event before bed was slight petting, but Foxy was positive to get something out of them regardless. In regards of Prof, she already established a base-line, so he was not hard to read at all. Knowing what to look out for, she swept through his subconscious and dreams. The result was a reinforcement of what Foxy already found out: he didn’t care about heroic stuff that much, dungeon diving was a mean to an end for him. Get rich without working hard, seeing sights, wandering the world, and not to bother others. Or bothered by others. He probably was a Tourist after all. Something still bugged Foxy, though.

As for Mini… She was batshit crazy. As much as Foxy tried, her dreams included only sex, bloodshed, and orgies. Foxy was even included in a few scenes. This was why she hated reading the dreams of Vampires (or crazy people), they were notoriously hard to read, layers after layers of craziness and disillusions had to be removed, shifted through and interpreted right.

She gave up and went to sleep herself. She dreamed about Mini.

Next day, back in the Red guest house, she confronted Prof for a few reasons.

“Do you intend to build a harem?” she was almost certain that he did not, but she had to ask nonetheless. She scheduled the questioning before going to bed, so she could double-check later. The answers themselves were not important, double-checking with dream magic and those answers were.

“And the vampire?”

“Mini is for my taste… too direct? Too slutty? Why?”

“Wouldn't it bother you if she slept with someone else?”

“Why would it bother me?”

That line of questioning was for her own purposes. Mini was direct, but Foxy wouldn’t have called her slutty. As far as she could determine, she haven’t slept with anyone as long as she was in the town. Prof assumed, wrongly, that she did. At least, the situation was cleared up, Prof did not care if Mini slept around. Or Foxy. He never asked her what her Shunned (sexuality) (2) Perk was about, either. Or about any of her other negative Perks.

As far as she knew, pointing out, asking about or noticing negative Perks was a huge taboo on Flatsoundingworld. She wasn’t exactly sure why they were so dead-set to still do it on Arkadia, they were openly displayed for everyone to see on the Character Parchments, after all.

For the next week and a half, Foxy concentrated on the surveillance of Prof’s dreams. She asked for permission – of course for “research purposes” – since with a willing participant it was easier to rummage in someone’s head or dreams. She told him that she was largely unsuccessful, but that was only partially true. She did fail to dig deep to learn more about Flatsoundingworld and his past, but that was to be expected. She was a dream, and not a mental magic user, after all.

She did fail to modify his dreams or plant new ones too. Mostly.

For both, she would have needed a much higher Skill Level, but her primary task was surveillance and determining if Prof was a threat to the Domain. Or the rest of Arkadia. In that, she succeeded splendidly.

Oh, and she got quite close to Mini.

A day after some Red Elves arrived in the guest house – Prof was able to handle that without much fuzz – Foxy finally got an answer to her reports. Her superiors congratulated her for job well done, and mostly agreed with her analysis. It was, however, suspected that Prof was not a mere Tourist, but belonged to another category. It was suspicious, how he found trouble and befriended even Red Elves, how he found riches without doing much and looked like he was at the centre of things without wanting to do so. And survives almost everything.

It was strongly suspected, he was a Protagonist.

She got her orders: observe if he gets into situations, gets rich, killed or famous.

Just as she was leaving the prince’s office – for some reason, Prof insisted on calling him a town chief – she was contacted by the steward. The prince wanted to talk to her.

“Agent Delahaye, may I trouble you with an issue?” the prince said. Foxy motioned for him to continue “I have gotten news that a bandit group set itself up on the road to the monkeys, and have already waylaid a few merchants. Would it be possible for you and your ward to take them on?”

Protagonist, yeah… It was almost like someone just invented situations for him to solve, or ones to passively stumble upon… Would he just conveniently find himself in a legendary quest to find a long lost magical relic? No way!

Exterminating bandits was what the Bureau did, and involving Prof played into her orders, so there was no problem in helping the prince. However, Foxy though it more convenient to go through the Fast Arrow Clan, in order not to give up her cover. And not to give Prof overmuch money. She hashed out the details with the prince in short order.

Next day everyone surprised that the prince wanted to speak with the representative of the Clan. Foxy left Prof to his own devices and again, he proved he wasn’t a complete moron. Since he still knew nothing about Elven etiquette, he at least used Bergian and blundered only a few times. Thankfully, Foxy and the prince already discussed everything, so he was not offended by the blunders.

All Foxy had to do was to pretend she was afraid of the prince listening in to their “secret” discussion and push Prof in the right direction. Actually, there would be no repercussions if Prof decided, he wanted no part in hunting bandits – the contract was fake. Even if the contract was legit, Prof still would have no need to take it on. Since he was only an ally, not a true representative of the Clan – that would be Ainmire, the archer – technically he was not even in the position the legally accept a contract in the Clan’s name.

Playing Travellers were so easy.

As it turned out, Prof wasn’t exactly bad in planning, although a party of agents would have employed a different tactic. With their compasses, it would have been much easier to locate the bandit camp, and they would have specialised scouts anyway. With the constraints they faced, Prof’s plan wasn’t bad and had at least some chance for success. If he indeed was a Protagonist, probably even the most moronic plan would work, if he was something else… well, Foxy was sure she would be able to reposition in time.

Finding a lone bandit was harder – they had to search for a few hours – than overwhelming him; Foxy just hit him with a sleep spell. She wasn’t planning on telling Prof, she could cast such a Spell, and was sure, he wouldn’t ask about it. Travellers were strange, they never asked about what Spells one knew, only assumed the best Spell would be cast at an opportune moment. There was more than one way to skin a Dire Bear, and it was good to have a secret weapon when one dealt with Travellers.

On the way back to the others, they accidentally dropped the bound bandit a few times. Neither Foxy nor Ainmire was strong – their Strength was 12 and 11 respectively – and the bandit had bad grip. Well, even banged up, he was like new. Almost undamaged.

During the interrogation interesting things came to light. This gang broke away from a larger force not long ago, and that force was responsible for the destruction of Shinead’s Clan. Foxy was already aware of the larger force – the movement of foreigners was monitored by the Domain, and every agent checked the lists as a matter of habit whenever they entered a new town. And at least once every week.

However, that Human group had permission to cross the Domain, and it looked like it had the backing of someone powerful or respected. Plus a few Grey Elves as leaders or contractors. Why would such a force attack a no-name little Clan?

She had to make a report and investigate further.

While she contemplated the issue and implications, Mini finished the interrogation and started to have breakfast. She was a messy eater – or was acting again – there was blood everywhere, but at least she compelled the bandit to be silent. Even so, it was a gruesome sight. She joined Prof in short order, and had to answer some questions. Again.