The Seeker | Volume 2

After being summoned into Mr. Dwane's office, Arden and Cosette sat down across from the older man and awaited the reason for being summoned.

"I have a commision to offer you." Mr. Dwaine said.

Arden raised both of his eyebrows and asked in a confused voice. "Why would you have a commission for us?"

Mr. Dwane paused for a brief moment of contemplation. "Remember when we accepted Isabella into our group, and I suspended your access to your next Order advancement?"

Cosette nodded, recalling the interaction. "But that doesn't answer our given question."

The older man suddenly pulled out a file from inside of his desk, putting it on the table and pushing it towards them.

"Open it, this is your mission." He proclaimed with a smile.

Arden took the file and flipped it open, revealing an image of a middle aged man with long back hair and prominent wrinkles that outlined his cheeks and chin. 

"Étienne Lavallée." The older man said.

"Name sounds familiar…." Cosette mumbled. "What do you want us to do with him?"

That's when Mr. Dwane folded his hands on the mottled mahogany table and an uncharacteristically solemn expression crossed his aged features.

"You'll need to assassinate him."

Suddenly, the room fell deathly silent. Arden and Cosette had no experience with killing. 

"Assassinate him?" Cosette was taken aback by Mr. Dwane proclamation.

Mr. Dwane nodded. "He's an Order 6 of the Destruction Routeway. He used to be among our numbers until he leaked important information."

"Why didn't you find out about it now?" Arden asked, taken aback.

"Étienne is a very skilled manipulator. He's climbed his way up the hierarchy of nobles and barons of Seraphis Kingdom, eventually becoming one of the top." Dwane explained.

"If he's a noble of all things, that makes our job a thousand times harder. Even if we were to schedule an appointment with any noble; it would take a lot of paperwork." Arden's voice grew a little more persistent.

Mr. Dwane nodded in understanding. "It appears you don't remember the amount of connections the Silver Snake Committee has managed to rope in over the course of its foundation. To think my legion hadn't already done such a thing is pretty ironic to say the least." Mr. Dwane said with some amusement.

Upon hearing the information, Arden sighed in defeat. "So, what excuse did you make in advance? If it goes against our given mission we'd have to prepare in advance." Cosette explained.

"Your decoy mission will be to-" Suddenly, a dragon landed onto the table, rolling over playfully while letting out a tiny burp.

Arden and Cosette jumped from the sudden intrusion, but they quickly filled with curiosity, drawn towards the sudden guest.

"It turned out the Tyrant characteristic Isabella gave us was actually a dragon egg." Mr. Dwane said softly as he stroked his wrinkly hands along the dragon's rough stomach.

"A dragon egg?" Cosette repeated Mr. Dwane's statement.

"Anyways, what's the decoy mission?" Arden asked as he leaned forward.

Mr. Dwane stopped rubbing the small dragon's belly and looked up at the two with a serious expression.

"Your mission will supposedly be to deliver the noble a package." He suddenly snapped his fingers, and a medium sized black box with a red silk ribbon manifested in the air before landing on the desk.

"What's inside?" Arden asked, observing the box.

The black dragon tilted its head before approaching the box and using its small head to nudge the lid off, revealing a large knife with a shiny blade.

"Huh, I assume that's what we use?" Arden surmised.

Mr. Dwane nodded.

"But what if anyone intercepts the package and asks us what's inside? Delivering a knife to someone of a high status is nothing short of suspicious." Cosette studied the knife carefully.

"Don't worry, a fellow member here of the Concealment Routeway made sure nothing would arouse suspicion." 

Upon hearing Mr. Dwane's words, Arden and Cosette nodded slowly.

"Now, I recommend you move along." Mr. Dwane suddenly stood up from his desk, gesturing to the two to politely leave his office.

Arden and Cosette picked up the black box with the red ribbon and headed out the door, stepping into the dimly illuminated space.

…

"Concocting the Order 7 potion won't be a challenge. You've already told me you digested the Order 8 potion a little while back, but when you digest a potion it may take a small amount of time for it to truly enter your body." Cheyenne said as he used his knife to chip away at the bark of a nearby tree with flaming leaves.

"When I digested my Order 9 potion I felt a gaping feeling in my stomach, almost like falling. Wouldn't it render the same feeling as that?" I asked, leaning against the tree with my arms crossed.

Cheyenne looked back at me with an indescribable expression, before the ends of his lips curled up slightly. "Since the Seeker characteristics are of an infinite number until you're at Order 1, the sensation of potion digestion is different for everyone." 

I nodded, taking in Cheyenne's information. "I haven't felt any weird sensations yet, but I've been having dreams, even before I became a Seeker."

"Dreams? Do they speak to you, or are they disorganized and confusing?" Cheyenne asked.

I remembered the dream I had of the boy with the injured bird, and the other dream with him at the dinner table. The man's words saying how he "shouldn't care about such a creature".

"They…speak to me, Cheyenne." I said softly.

I suddenly turned my head and looked towards the field where the acid rain continued to fall, burning the black grass underneath us.

"Dreams communicating with us is a normal sensation, Isaac. In our culture, it's a signal from God, a sign to improve and change. We use what we learn in our dreams to benefit us, to change us."

"You do whatever you do to change…" the chief's words echoed in my mind. I heard those words again when I killed Anthony Salvin. But why?

After killing the latter I couldn't help but feel guilty even if I didn't show it. I knew I had to revive him one way or another.

"Then why do my dreams tell me that I shouldn't care about lesser life forms?" I asked, my voice lowering as I spoke.

Cheyenne turned away from the tree, placing the bark inside of his satchel.

"Shoudn't care about lesser life forms?" He repeated my statement.

"You said in your culture that dreams are calls from God. But what God would want me to crush whatever I find inferior? What God looks down upon the world like that?"

I couldn't help but feel a strange surge of anger, as I suddenly drove my foot down and kicked up a small amount of dirt.

"There isn't just one God. There's many in our culture, there's many in general. One of the True Gods, Prometheus, created that storm atop the mountain." Cheyenne said as he gestured towards the mountain peak.

I recalled the time I had seen the World-view barrier in person, that one crimson that in the distance flickered longer than the others. Why did it stay there longer? Was it watching me?

"I've seen the Gods before," I said.

Cheyenne froze, his eyes widening slightly.

"You have?" His voice suddenly took on an astonished tone.

I nodded. "Or atleast I feel like I have." I said as I sat down on the ground, looking into the distance. I didn't mind the wet feeling on my trousers, for it wasn't the most important thing at the moment.

"I saw stars." 

"Stars?" Cheyenne asked.

I nodded, looking up into the darkening sky. Even in what seemed to be the middle of the day, the sea of crimson stars seemed to peek through the thick clouds, as if fighting for a state of eternal darkness.

"One stayed longer than the others." My voice grew softer as I extended my hand towards the horizon, as if wanting to cup the storm and it and wipe it away, just like a great God would, a God who loves the world, who doesn't want to crush its people just because he finds them "inferior."

"I don't think that's a God, Isaac. It's just a star." Cheyenne's voice grew softer, as his eyes flickered with an inscrutable sense of vulnerability.

"I feel like it was a God, you can't change my mind."

He fell silent for a few seconds, then he laughed self-deprecatingly as he leaned back into the coal-black grass. 

"I dream too, Isaac." He said softly.

"I dream of something more than myself. Something transcendent of my original boundaries."

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking towards him.

Cheyenne closed his eyes slowly as he smiled. "It's just a place where I can be happy, a place where I can live without that universal restraint."

After hearing that, I began to question what Cheyenne meant.

"To become something better?" I filled in the rest of Cheyenne's sentence as if knowing what he would already say.

He nodded, his voice gradually lowering as if half-asleep.

"Yes, I'm tired of living like I'm not my own person."