[False Freedom]

Zariff strolled through the wide corridors with a roof that towered over his head and large glass windows intersected into smaller panels, Each cut into different symbols of the eight highest families of Albios, using stained glass, that constantly repeated across the whole thing. An ugly design made to appeal to the privileged fools. It was simply Tillon’s personal headquarters where he kept all of his dogs that worked for him. A sanctuary for some, a prison for others.

He ignored all that and opened a white wooden door in front of him. There was a room with clean white square tiles and red walls marked all over with the symbols of the Asmarns; a red-coloured winged man—also known as an Arrol—ascending above, whilst holding a spear pointed to the sky. It was a gigantic room filled with books all held up by shelves. Yet it felt more like home than anywhere else. It made him smile.

He threaded calmly, as he turned to face the librarian, who returned his confidence with a look of disdain, who turned to one of the many groups of people that gossiped about Zariff. Zariff would of course ignore them to meet the middle-aged Franem librarian.

“What do you want now?” the librarian.

“Do you have any books about the Ferols and their Callers? I need something useful though and not some children's story about how ‘the spooky Ferols will come for you if you leave your rabbits out tonight,’ I just need real information, like experiences or something.”

“For the record, that children’s story has some merit to it because rabbits are Ferols’ favourite meat. But, most of the books here about ferols would be useless for you. Only books explaining how they function as a species are just a collection of theories that are barely true and lack any credibility. My personal recommendation though is “Records of Despair’s Creations,” which goes on about the people’s experiences with the ferols. It’s what the professionals who attempt to understand them read.”

Zariff nodded and left the man to his business.

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” the voice asked.

“Yeah, it’s right there,” Zariff retorted as he pointed to one of the bookshelves.

“Continue.”

As he strolled towards the shelf, his eyes were caught by a graceful girl sitting on one of the tables there with some Franem and Albanem women. He could not take her eyes off of her short brown hair with messy bangs. It was Cairi, his coworker and fellow orphan. Although her frame was a little smaller than the average Albanem.

Another problem at hand here, he could not let her see him with the burns on his face. At least not until the next meeting.

“Ah, the only thing you talk about other than bad fiction and freedom that you refuse to snatch; Cairi, that was her name right? A very lovely young lady, but don’t you think she looks a little too small compared to you? In some other places I’ve been too, that’s considered…”

“Albanem are just much shorter than us Franem, no need to go around accusing me of such things when you have the chance to learn the differences with your eyes.”

“I know, I just like making fun of you.”

He scuttered away and hid behind the bookshelves to avoid getting found, then he started the search for the book he needed. Some of the books had tempting titles like “The Last Survivor Alive” and “Kings of the Suffering” but he moved on. Seconds later, he would finally find “Records of Despair’s Creations.”

He opened the book and found a table of contents filled with titles like “The Siege of Argmont,” “The Tragedy of Gensin Town” and a group of chapters that were called “Sightings of Ferols in Albios” from number one to number eight. Zariff ignored those chapters as he thought they were just schizophrenic ramblings of old men or minor sightings that led to nothing.

Nightfall had descended upon us and the Ferols were nowhere in sight so we assumed that today would be like any other day. That was our first mistake. We had no idea how, but they managed to sneak past our walls, and guards and hid inside many shelters provided to them by the Ferolcallers within our walls. Once the time was right, they struck us hard and gave us no time to recover, leaving us vulnerable. It was enough to make our great city fall. Our defences may have been lax at the time, but we weren’t fools. We’ve survived hundreds of attacks but never in our years of service were we prepared to fight the enemy within our walls.

From page 78 of “The Siege of Argmont,” extracted from Alba Officer Henril Nadaes documented at Nagatanos in the year 1517, 7th of the Ameno month. It was written after the final assault of Argmont which resulted in the end of the city along with heavy casualties on the side of the defenders.

I find it very suspicious that they managed to sneak in thousands of Ferols without getting caught. There might be something in here that could help me.

He turned towards “The Tragedy of Gensin Town”. This chapter contained nothing interesting… that was until the end which had something that would boost his rather interesting theory.

We could not see a thing, other than the grey mist that continuously spread further without stopping and eventually reaching us. Within the center of the mist, the Ferolcaller stood there waiting, but we were too frightened to approach him. Some of the others were braver than the rest of us cowards and charged the man. They were the first to die. The Ferols had swarmed them before they could reach the master and then they came at us. I barely managed to make it out with my life.

Zariff continued reading past that, but all he could get from the rest was that the grey mist attracted them. He suspected that they were using an enhanced rabbit smell to summon and lead hordes of them to a city, but that would not explain how he could control them. One report talked about how they could fit into tiny places and another theorised that they became intangible and only gained from when they came into contact with the mist. This was more likely to be the truth as Ferols do not even bother willingly shrinking themselves down to dodge incoming attacks. Unless of course, the mist was the only thing that could shrink them down. Only then would his decision be shattered.

“But if it was Seeran, we would be able to track the crystals. What else could it possibly be?”

Without warning, he felt a tap on his shoulder, triggering him to hold still with his eyes widened. It shook him to ponder who the individual behind him was. There were no good assumptions here and Cairi would simply be the worst one to find him. Taisil would also be horrible, his master ___ or even some random member of Team Three that he forgot about. Things would not go well… unless…

He turned back to find a grumpy Franen staring dead straight at him. This particular Franem had rough features on his jaw and chin with a little bit of a beard and also had short shaved brown hair—like what those Brown Defenders have. It was Rugor, looking as creepy as ever. Even wearing casual clothing made him stand out more than normal.

Sigh. I don’t have any sanity left for this.

“What do you want, Rugor?” Zariff asked exhaustedly.

“Are you stalking her again, stalker?”

“I was reading a book, I got really in the mood of it all, but then I saw you here and I would really love for you to leave, nothing too harsh. You would be doing Al Whit and his Arrols a great favour by shutting your mouth as well.”

Zariff attempted to turn away and return his focus to his book, but Rugor decided to disturb him by grabbing the arm with the book and pulling it to him. It made rage rush to Zariff’s head. So he dropped the book and swung a right hook to Rugor’s face—

“Zariff? Is that you?” he heard Cairi’s voice behind him.

Zariff held it back and quickly turned to see Cairi approaching the two. Rugor reluctantly let go of his hand, but his glaring spite did not fade. Nevertheless, he quickly retreated out of the library. With the annoyance gone, Zariff met the brown-haired Albanem girl; short like the rest of her kind and she wore a white blouse with a red ribbon tied at the back of her head.

“Didn’t expect for you to be here. But, how was your mission? You were gone for thirty days or so and you just appeared as if nothing happened. And why is your face covered in bandages?” She asked.

“I used the void ritual again.”

“Ah, typical. Didn’t Lunilion tell you not to use it?” Patronising. How else would he get used to it? Using it more would just steel his resistance to it. Surely she could understand that.

“There was no other option.”

“I think we could’ve at least drawn out the fight a little bit, there wouldn’t even need to be a fight if you had properly assassinated a target like you used to. Not as fun, however. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to teach you an advanced technique?” the voice muttered.

What is he spouting out now?

“My Last Endeavour wouldn’t have defeated them all, so I sent them to the void.”

That last part had Cairi seem concerned. Scared even. Was what he said that terrifying? He continued anyway.

“I killed many of them, even a boy that was given a gun. There were Servants and Sareel was there. He was there; defenceless and free! A Vessel lost his Feren in front of me, what else was I supposed to do but aim for the kill with everything I…I—”

He had frightened her. Not only that, but he had attracted the attention of the servants and soldiers in the Library. They all glared at Zariff with either confusion, disgust or indifference; it shrouded his thoughts and froze him.

I’m not wrong here. I’m not wrong here at all!!

Cairi broke his silence, “Zariff, I’m willing to talk about it more gently, so please calm d—”

“Cairi! Zariff! Lunilion is calling us back to Team Three’s bunker,” Rugor interrupted. “One of Team 1’s Vessels is coming later so hurry up.”

He rushed out to the exit and left the two behind. Cairi seemed disappointed for some reason. Her expression had turned cold and lifeless, like that of a doll.

“We need to get going,” Cairi as she left the library.

“Yeah, we probably do.” Zariff followed slowly.

“A real mixed bag of emotions. You two really are the perfect match together.”

“I wonder why she’s like that,” Zariff muttered.

“She probably has her experiences. I think I have a guess on her personality, but I’ll keep that to myself. For your sake at least.”

“Oh Al Whit, I shouldn’t have burst out like that, I messed up badly.”

“Good to see you join us here, Zariff. But next time, do try to approach me first after coming back from a mission. I would really appreciate your kindness directed at me,” Lunilion mocked with a smirk on his face.

They had reached Lunilion’s large office which had about twenty steel seats lined up in half a circle. The room was filled with many members of the Death Reaper, all wearing signature black cloaks over whatever clothing they had and behind every cloak was a different character written in white for each one, like Rugor’s “Fight,” Cairi’s “Protect,” and even Lunilion’s “Survive.” Cairi’s ribbon was even black to go with the colour.

Only three were left empty. Rugor took a seat near Taisil, a young teenage Albanem with short brown hair and a bandage plastered on his right cheek with the character for “Endure” on his cloak, while Cairi dragged Zariff to the middle.

Zariff’s gaze wandered around the huge room of space with ceilings painted white and marked with an emblem of a red rabbit being cooked by an Arrol, the symbol of Tillon’s branch. There were benefits to working with a red noble like him,—especially one that sucks up to the strongest noble family in Silar—but none of them was particularly interesting to him as he only just wanted his freedom and possibly the right to buy books from any bookstore. Other than that, there was Lunilion’s white wooden carved rabbit he was proud of.

Lunilion began the meeting with, “Alright Team Three, I would appreciate your undivided attention for this. Let’s start with the Ferolcaller. Sareel Holmond was a weaponsmith of the Savage Dogs that supposedly supplied the Watch Dogs with bullets made by him without having to raid any of the White Stations. So we assumed he was a Vessel that learnt how to fabricate gunpowder as there was no way he could’ve gotten access to our city’s limited gunpowder. Considering he was a Fire Vessel, it’s good to assume that they were right. Any objections?”

“That’s very clearly the answer. But how does one learn how to create gunpowder when ours can only create the base element of fire,” Rugor pointed out. He was focused on the topic at hand rather than on Zariff, which relieved him.

But then.

“I would also like to point out something,” Taisil said with a hint of anger. “How did this Vessel, Sareel, die? We all know that dealing the final bow as a Vessel to another Vessel is vital to keeping another one from remerging. So tell us how he died.”

Sigh. Taisil, unlike Rugor, could not keep his petty emotions under control. But he did bring up a good poin— Al Whit, smite me down! He died from the fall, not by my blade! I haven’t killed the Fire Vessel for good yet!

“By fall,” Zariff answered casually.

“So they still have a Fire Guardian?”

“Yes.”

“And there you have it! The idiotic Vessel can’t even kill another Vessel completely, I say we—”

“So we'll raid it for its supplies,” Lunilion interrupted Taisil before he could finish. “ I don’t care that they have another Fire Vessel, he’ll be incompetent and easy to contain, what I do care for is how and why that man, Sareel was a Ferolcaller. And where is his Ferolix crystal, Zariff? I never got to ask you that.”

“Do you have an excuse now?”

This was your damn idea!

“Broken and shattered when I found it on him. I only took a few of the shards off of him, but here it is.”

Zariff dug through his pants pocket and presented the group with evidence of purple Ferolix shards. Many of them were all in their own conversations but from the few he could hear, the responses were mixed.

“That’s obviously a lie,” Taisil boldly acclaimed. “There’s no way that thing broke from the fall, even from that height.”

“Yeah, I say we check his room for the crystal.”

He’s right, it didn’t break, and it was surprisingly very sturdy.

“Interesting statement, but I will entertain you with that even if I think it’s stupid for multiple reasons,” Lunilion responded. “Rugor, I want you to check Zariff right now. Kancho, Jenden, Siva, I want you three to go check his room for anything, but be aware, if you break anything and he’s proven innocent, I’ll have you all share the payment to fix anything you break.”

As ordered, Rugor proceeded to check Zariff for any hidden objects he may have, but even after double-checking, he found nothing. Soon after, the three others came back without anything special to report on except for books about fighting slavery, but Lunilion did not bat an eye. This was enough to keep Taisil silent.

Of course, they did not find anything, I’m smarter than that. I hid it within the Starseeker’s lab.

As the others returned to their seats, Rugor whispered to Zariff, “Ferolcallers don’t read books to study about their own servants. Instead, they learn by experience and that includes burning down cities and killing innocents,” and returned to his seat.

“Well, I think that’s quite enough now. At any rate, you people aren’t going to discuss anything about Sareel and would rather just try and claim your companion as a spy. But I know what we’ll do so I do not see a reason to entertain this. You are all dismissed… except for Zariff. I need to discuss something with you.”

“You got through it for now.”

“I hope it’s nothing too bad,” Zariff whispered under his breath.

He had made it through another day. Another meeting in which Team Three’s troublemakers desperately tried to get rid of him. Well, things may change. Who knows, maybe everyone will start to see him in a different light now. Regardless, he smiled in front of their faces as they bared their fangs at him.

Unless of course, Lunilion figured it out, but I’ll enjoy this triumphant victory.