As expected, I didn't win, but I did beat Mordaunt. Her glare when it happened was incredibly brief, so quick I almost missed it, but she was definitely pissed. By the time she met up with us though she was all smiles. "Wow, that was an interesting race. Wasn't it Rahm?"

Rahm, who as far as I'd heard, didn't ever really speak, just grunted. I didn't think the big zombie was stupid he moved like someone with a brain, careful and deliberate. Even so, he wasn't exactly a stellar conversationalist, and Mordaunt seemed to use him as more of a set piece for her own chattering than anything else. "So." I said as we all made our way over to check on the wolves. "Only two more days or so until the auction. Anything special you plan to pick up there?"

Her eyes danced with amusement as she glanced at me slyly. "Actually, I'm more interested in selling. I stumbled on a great find here that one of our regular trading partners will be pretty excited about. I couldn't believe my luck. How about you? Anything specific you plan to look for there?" Once again I got bad vibes from the woman for no provable reason, and it mostly seemed to be just me.

With an internal sigh I left Callie to take over the conversation, ceding it to her as I moved to put some space between me and Darkling Institute ringer. To take my mind off things I took up a position next to the pen where the wolves were playing to watch them, and I had to admit it definitely helped.

Jin and Rellia were having a blast. Ralkors were dangerous, scary beasties, but the younger ones hadn't grown into their claws and beak yet. If I had to guess the teen Ralkors were probably more like H-rank than G. Despite that, there were dozens of them, and they definitely exhibited herd like behavior. The wolves didn't seem to mind, and were being happily chased down by the smaller birds, unable to actually hurt them at all.

The mocking chuffs of the big wolves as the darted past and the enraged squawks of the Ralkors made for an amusing picture as they led the things on a merry chase. Abel chuckled as he stepped up beside me, drawing away from where the rest of the group was chatting with Mordaunt. "They certainly seem to be having a blast. I admit, I didn't expect them to be quite so amused. I figured they wouldn't be able to do much damage to the pack with their numbers, but leading them around like this....they're stronger now than when you first got them, aren't they?"

I shrugged. "Probably? Honestly I don't know. It's not like we can check their stats. Jessie tops them up with her life force when she has any to spare, and her ability mentioned long term effects, so I think so? They certainly seem to be getting smarter. To be fair though they've also been following us around, so it's possible they got some renown rollover. I wonder if they'll hit F-rank soon?"

Abel just chuckled. "Not that soon. Did you forget my lesson at the Bay? There's variation in the feel of Impact at the same level. I'd put them at maybe three quarters of the way to F-rank, but then again, they were already probably halfway there when you got them. It'll be a while I bet." He stood off to one side of me, watching with amusement, until eventually he said. "Something going on kid? You seem off."

I was surprised he'd picked up on it honestly. Callie hadn't even noticed. Granted, our bond wasn't really empathy so much as intention, and usually more during combat, but I'd assumed that meant I was keeping it to myself pretty well. I focused on my Stealth Skill, resonating with it as I spoke to hide my words from prying ears. With my current Perception it was easy enough to wipe all traces of the sound once it went past his ears. "Mordaunt. She gives me a weird feeling. Like she's laughing at us. Is that just me?"

That got a shrug. "I don't really trust anyone I work with except Mel for the most part kid. You and Nightstrike are exceptions I suppose. But this is the WCP. People being suspicious or willing to fuck you over is par for the course. I think the Unity has you all spoiled. There are no eternal friendships, only eternal benefits." He paused. "Though, maybe I'm just a cynic. Your little gang seems pretty close. I could just be jaded after so long."

Snorting out a laugh, I turned to him with amusement. "That's it? That's your advice? 'Don't worry if she's out to get you because everyone is out to get you?' Thanks man, that's real fucking helpful." Despite my sarcasm, it actually DID help. Knowing that Abel didn't trust her made me feel better. Pulling one over on me wasn't that big an accomplishment, but pulling one over on him would be a big one.

Besides, Doomtown was limited in its admission. Low F-rank and G-rank only. As long as that was the case I wasn't worried about us being overwhelmed. I could figure something out as long as we didn't get killed instantly. With our armor we would be fine for a bit, and with Abel and Mel backing us up, not to mention our new Paired Dueling Skill I was genuinely confident we could take on anyone.

With a chuckle, Abel clapped me on the shoulder. "Come on kid, lets get out of here. With that auction coming up I think we should head back up topside for this last day of the week. We need to gather resources anyway, and we can pick up the other two and bring them with us. We can bring Alden with to help watch out for them, but they can probably pick up some useful items that'll help with their growth."

I nodded, whistling for the puppies. They seemed unhappy but broke from the pack of baby Ralkors easily enough, loping over to easily hop the fence. As for bringing Benny and Jessie, I agreed. I missed my friends, and I wanted them to see Doomtown. Escape wishes could be prepared for them just in case, and that should prevent anything bad from happening (not to mention Jessie's giant ass F-ranked bear), but this would be an opportunity for them to gain some rep too. I was curious to see how they'd grown when we were away, they weren't the type to just loaf around while we were training.

Callie meanwhile, had been talking to Mordaunt for a bit, and when I came back she shot me a questioning look. I snagged her up in a hug and spun her around, getting a surprised giggle, and then set her down, leaving an arm around her shoulders. "What's the occasion?" She said in amusement. Despite the lightness and happiness in her tone, I could see some concern in her eyes. I was affectionate most of the time, but this had been kind of out of nowhere.

I chuckled, making sure my voice was as light and happy as hers. "Oh nothing big, I was just talking to Apollyon about how much I was missing home. Figured we might take a break from the trip and go up for a visit." Mordaunt being around made me wary to just say we needed to get stockpile our cash and pick up our friends. It might have been stupid but I felt like I needed a pretense to stop the necromancer from paying attention.

Amusingly, it actually seemed to work. Though her polite smile didn't waver, I could see a look of disdain in her eyes. Once I'd started really looking, my Perception made finding evidence of her bad intentions a bit easier. I was pretty sure this was an aspect of my diviner class. Part of that particular powerset was a passive sense for intention, but I'd never really seen any evidence I had it in real life. Now it seemed that my Perception just hadn't been high enough.

It was nice to see actually, my diviner class hadn't done much for me in a while, with monk and rogue doing the heavy lifting. Seek Hidden was extremely useful, but the diviner was a support class in the first place, and most of its functions were geared towards Doom Sovereign itself. I didn't have a Skill for this yet, so there was nothing I could do to improve, but I should pick up Sense Intention as a codified active skill once I ranked up DS Mastery.

Saying our goodbyes, we headed off to the Blue Robin to pick up the others. Sloane and the Beast Lord Garden initiates had come down with us and it would be pretty rude to leave them alone. They weren't there when we arrived, so we decided to wait, and while we did Callie dragged me into our room to question me. "Ok." She said plainly. "What's up? That wasn't really like you, and you were twitchy most of today. Is everything alright?"

I didn't really have an explanation, but after figuring out my feeling was my diviner sense at work I felt much better about talking it out. I told her about what I'd noticed, the bad impression I'd had, and Abel's unhelpful advice. Then I told her about his idea to have Benny and Jessie come down, and why I thought we should allow it. In the end Callie would make the call on this, but she took my advice into account, and once I explained myself she seemed open to it.

More than that, she seemed sympathetic. She reached up to pull off my mask, going up on her toes and pulling me down for a quick kiss. "Hey. You always support me when I feel like doing something. If she gives you the creeps I'll keep an eye out. I trust your judgement. It's not like I have some big attachment to her anyway. She's interesting enough, but she isn't exactly a close friend. If you want I can talk to uncle Alex, see if maybe he can spare a few low F-rankers from his faction to tag along to the auction just in case? I agree we can't miss it and it'll be good for Benny and Jessie, but some more firepower couldn't hurt. Plus I'm sure he'll want to snag some of that stuff for himself anyway."

I let out a breath I hadn't know I was holding. Knowing she believed me without blinking and came up with a solution nearly instantly made me feel better almost immediately. It was a good solution to, but I wasn't sure we could manage it. "Is that an option? I mean, it's pretty last minute, and F-rankers don't exactly grow on trees. Does he even have any that are even allowed in Doomtown?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Can't hurt to ask. Plus I think that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the E-ranked factions. Considering what we know about the dark districts, not to mention we've never even been to F-district, I have to assume we haven't seen most of their forces. Not everyone can be hanging out in the headquarters, otherwise how could the factions operate."

That was fair. Beast Lord Garden was the busiest of the E-ranked factions we'd visited, but I knew they'd been able to pull a bunch of elite G-rank youngsters out of nowhere to follow Sloane and join the tournament. With that decided Callie spun up her scan ring and shot her uncle a message asking about it. Sure enough, he'd heard about the auction and was planning to send some people along. He agreed for them to follow us in disguise in case we needed an ace in the hole. Knowing that made me feel a lot better. Once Sloane and the others got back we were officially on our way back up to G-district. It would be nice to see everyone again. I had so much I wanted to tell them.