"…and that's basically everything we know about them," Sam finished his thorough explanation as he looked around the room, idly noting the copious amount of notes people had taken as the king watched him with his cheek resting in his palm, his intense eyes looking at him and the three blackboards he had just filled. He lowered his hand holding a chunk of chalk, dusted it awkwardly on his pants, and looked once again around. "So, yeah. That's about it. Questions?"

Sam watched as the assorted experts, advisors, and who-knows-whats glanced at each other, shuffled some papers around, then leaned close to each other to have some whispered conversation as he stood in front of the blackboards like an awkward first-year university student doing their very first big-boy projects.

Looking back at the blackboards while he waited for a verdict, or maybe questions, he was a little taken aback. Honestly, the three blackboards – two of them wheeled in automatically when he was running out of space on the first one – were full of his chicken scratches, with lines crossing everything and arrows all over the place, sprinkled with some circles made with thick lines. It looked to him like he was one unbuttoned shirt and energy drink away from becoming a full-on conspiracy nut.

Thankfully, before he could fully spiral, somebody cleared their throat. Sam's head snapped up and zeroed in on the man who made the noise.

The man, some kind of advisor, swept his gaze across the blackboards, then fixed his eyes on Sam.

"How effective are those rituals you mentioned? I would like to know before we…engage fully with those cultists?" the man asked, only to receive an elbow to his side. "What?" he hissed. "I don't care what they call themselves; they are cultists. Church of First Drop my ass… more like Church of Bleed you dry…"

Sam ignored the very true statement as he had seen those priests going around and preaching their beliefs, all for the small price of your blood. And some gold.

And if you gave enough gold, you didn't have to give blood.

Funny how things work…

Still, Lucy ensured that the Church of the First Drop depended on AFK and Chrysalis both in Ironwood and Ferabor, and hopefully soon in all the other cities where they had a majority interest. Cults were only useful if you controlled them…

Instead of addressing all that, he just nodded. "We tested and researched it thoroughly. So far, our top minds have given it around a ninety percent chance of not having any untoward happening in the long term. Short term, there is nothing," he stated as confidently as possible. Ignoring the fact that their top minds were Lucy asking him if he was sure that it would work out, and he shrugged his shoulders.

The advisor, however, simply nodded and wrote something down. This opened up the floodgates, and within seconds, Sam was answering the deluge of questions while the king and his daughter watched on.

"Prove it!" came from one of the advisors. It was not an angry claim, but the man clearly didn't really believe Sam's statement about fractures.

Sam tilted his head to the side, not saying anything, waiting for the man to continue.

The man clearly had no issues with that. "You stated, repeatedly, that closing down a fracture is possible. What makes you think so?"

"I mostly base this on the echo theory," Sam replied, causing several people to look at him in surprise.

One of the other advisors, a woman with straight back, hair in a severe bun – silver mixing with copper – with an even more severe look on her face, spoke up. "You believe in the echo theory?"

Sam nodded. "Yes. I've seen it repeatedly. Most fractures are echoes of the area where they are. Some kind fading echo, desperate wishes of the dying, or simply the overwhelming nature of the area is echoed by the dimensional energies infesting the spot where the portal appears."

The woman frowned. "What about the memory theory?"

Another person at the other end of the table leaned forward. "Memory theory? What is that?"

Sam let out a sigh. Memory theory was debunked by the devs way into the future, but today it was still one of the top contenders for explaining how fractures were created. "Simply put, memory theory states that every fracture is a blank slate, and they transform based on the memories of the first being that enters them…"

"Oh…"

The first advisor, the one who wanted Sam to prove himself, slapped the desk with his palm. "That's irrelevant. What I want to see is if you can do what you claim you are able to do!" he stated vehemently, glaring at Sam with a look that dared him to say no.

"I would say that it depends on the fracture in question," Sam answered coolly, while inwardly wondering what kind of hell they were going with this. They were clearly angling for him to go somewhere, but he had no idea which fracture they were thinking about.

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The man grinned viciously and looked around the table, looking into the eyes of everyone sitting there. The people sitting there either nodded or shook their heads, but in the end, Sam counted more nods than shakes.

Finally, the man looked back at him as the king watched along, his cheek still resting on his palm, and his daughter watching everything next to him, and began to speak.

"Our agents have infiltrated the enemy's camp and found several fractures that they are using to 'mine' reagents and other items for their foul rituals and spells. We would like it if you could go there and destroy them."

Sam blinked in surprise. "I assume you have a plan?" he asked, once again wondering what the hell the bloody idiots found.

However, before the advisor could answer, the king moved, plunging the room into tense silence. The royal removed his head from his palm, straightened out, and a weight fell over the room. It was the weight of authority making sure that everyone was staring at the person. It was not aggressive, yet Sam could feel the implied threat behind imaginary curtains, waiting for someone to speak out of turn, ready to strike them down to maintain their authority.

The king's eyes swept through the room until they finally landed on Sam.

"My daughter will escort you to the location, and you are going to delve into the fracture, do what you do best," came the royal declaration, slightly echoing around the room.

Sam opened his mouth to ask a question, but the king preempted him.

"Alone, otherwise our infiltration would be discovered. My daughter will give you all the tools you need," he stated, choking the words into Sam.

As the last words left his mouth, everybody could hear the finality and dismissal in them. The people around the table stood up, then the king, and with a few glances at Sam, left the room with most of the servants hurrying after them. Sam was left alone in the room with some guards and the king's daughter, blinking at the abrupt departure.

He waved at her. "Looking forward to working with you?"

She looked back at him, clicked her tongue, turned around, and began to walk away.

Sam looked around, made eye contact with one of the guards who was definitely trying not to laugh at him, before he hurried after the woman.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

They ended up in another, smaller room where a table contained a few more maps, documents, and a box.

The king's daughter stalked toward the table, grabbed the box, and thrust it into Sam's arms.

"Take this and put it on," she told him curtly, then went about gathering a few papers.

Sam curiously opened the box to see a simple metal bracelet that radiated a very familiar and disgusting magic. 'Looking' at it with his mana senses revealed a seething mass of blood magic and other similar types of magic all clinging to the small piece of metal.

Cautiously, he tapped it with his finger, but the inert piece of metal didn't react.

The woman scoffed. "Just put it on! It's a disguise so they won't recognize you…"

"Ahh…" Sam let out a sound of understanding before gingerly picking up the bracelet and sliding it on his arm. Instantly, he felt a shiver go down his spine, but nothing else happened. Looking somewhat confusedly down at his body, he became aware that the woman was holding a small personal mirror up to him.

He stared into it and couldn't help but let out a surprised yelp.

Instead of his usual figure, currently dressed in the fancy audience clothing, the mirror showed a man with unkempt, dirty hair, red robes stained with who-knows-what, and a scowl that could send someone with lesser willpower fleeing.

"The royal magician enchanted it to hide your usual looks, as my research tells me that you seem rather popular with the populace," came the clinical explanation as Sam kept poking his face and looking into the mirror.

With a quiet huff, the woman put away the mirror and motioned toward the documents. "Please, make sure to return the item after the mission, as it was rather costly, and I have no desire to go hunt you down. Now, this is all the information that our agents have gathered. Make sure to study them carefully…"

Sam nodded, then took the papers and began to read. A few minutes later, a notification popped up in front of him.

[New quest acquired!]

[Welcome…to my CASTLE!]

[You have been given a task by His Royal Majesty, the King of the Emerald Kingdom. The task requires you to infiltrate an enemy camp using the enchanted bracelet provided, then enter the fracture providing them with their resources, complete it, and, if possible, shut it down.]

[Bonus Objectives: ???]

[Failure Conditions: Discovered, Losing the bracelet, Dying]

[Time Limit: ???]

[Penalty: Death, Loss of Reputation with the Emerald Kingdom]

[Reward: ???]

Sam stared at the quest screen before clicking on the accept button and shaking his head.

"Vampires, really?"

"Oh, you know about them?" the woman asked, lifting a well-manicured eyebrow.

"Rumors mostly from when I was researching blood magic…" he muttered, staring at the documents in confusion.

'What the hell? Vampires were introduced as a RESULT of the Blood War… did I change too much?'

He had to shudder thinking about the things the Blood Brothers could do with high-level blood magic from the bloodsuckers…

'Hopefully, there aren't any older vampires there to provide OP loot…' he mused to himself as he went over the rest of the documentation.

It was mostly the description of the camp, the notable people there (NPCs), and some description of the players, though it was noted that the players who plumbed the fracture were rotated very frequently. Which could mean that there was a cooldown on doing it again, or they wanted each person to go through it and acquire something…

There was also a small map drawn by hand, buildings marked with the warehouse and office marked as priority.

"I go in alone, do some sabotage, and then destroy the fracture?" He finally asked as he put the documents away.

"Sabotage is only secondary, only do it if you can without compromising your disguise," came the clipped reply. "Any other questions?"

"Extraction?"

She smirked. "I heard you have a quite wonderful…steed."

"Good to know," Sam replied with a sigh. 'I really sigh a little too much…'

He cracked his neck to the left, then to the right, shook his hands, sent a message to Lucy, then nodded.

"Let's do this!"

She smiled, this time more tender than the previous ones, and held out a hand upon which a small stone rested, marked with a rune for teleportation.

Without saying anything, Sam touched it, and within a blink of an eye, he was off, the magic in the artifact transporting him toward his destination.

His last thought before the room vanished into a swirl was that this was going to be a rather bloody affair…

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