Part 1

"I'll have 'Boeuf Bourguignon' and a serving of… um… do you pronounce it 'Tomates Farcies'?"

"A 'Hachis Parmentier' for me."

"I'll go with a 'Poulet Basquaise' and 'Cheese Soufflé'. What about you?"

I eyed the scarred man at the other end of the table, and uttered, "Beef with fries."

"'Steak-frites'," Judy 'translated' that into menu terms, and the waitress standing at our left diligently jotted it down into her tiny little blue notepad.

Everyone made their orders, and once she finally left, I levelled yet another deadpan stare at the man in the striped suit. It didn't escape him, and he responded with a rather nonchalant smirk. Despite both of us agreeing to 'get down to business', we couldn't just start talking about the Abyss while the waitress was still hovering around us, and because the whole bloody menu was written in French, it took more time to figure out our dishes than was strictly necessary.

Why did we pick a restaurant as our meeting place again? I mean, I can't exactly cast the first stone; back when I recruited the Research Society members through Fred, we also met up in a restaurant. However, that made sense. I couldn't take them to the base, and my living room would've been way too crowded if we tried to squeeze all of them inside, so I went with the safe option, and the offer of free food unironically convinced a bunch of the kooky mad science nerds to attend the meeting.

In contrast, meeting here felt like a mistake in retrospect, as there were just too many distractions in play. Such as trying to figure out what the heck a 'Bouillabaisse' was, and how it differed from a 'Soupe de Poissons', without using a dictionary.

All of that was behind us though, so it was time to focus on the actual point of this meeting, a sentiment everyone shared around the table.

"While I agreed that we should omit the pleasantries, I think we should at least properly introduce ourselves first," the man in front of me spoke up first and then waited for my response.

"Sure, let's get it out of the way," I agreed and started right away. "I think I don't need to introduce myself, but just to be thorough: Leonard S. Dunning, King of Kings, The Second True Archon, et cetera." Next, I vaguely gestured in Snowy's direction. "You seem to have met my sister already, and as for the others…"

"Judy Sennoma and Tajana Sukkal, if I'm not mistaken." He used my momentary hesitation over whom to introduce first to interject with a self-satisfied glint in his eye. "I believe at this point there's scarcely anyone in the so-called World of Mystics who wouldn't recognize your fiancée. As for the other lady…" He gazed at Tajana, and for once the spymaster was properly holding her ground and met his stare without flinching or any embarrassing shenanigans. "To think I would see you in the company of House Inanna's missing spymaster… Should I consider her presence a political statement, or merely a gesture showing your long reach?"

"Neither. She's here as my sister's subordinate."

"Oh? How curious." He picked up a wine glass and took a sip. It was most likely to buy him some time to think, and his expression remained inscrutable throughout the whole process. "Now, I believe it's our turn to introduce ourselves. I'm Tracas Birtum Ashur of House Ashur. These two are my… qualified witnesses. From my House. Please pay them little heed."

"As protocol dictates," Tajana spoke up out of the blue, sounding unusually dignified for a moment. Only just that long, because she noticed the sideways glance I was giving her and she hurriedly added. "It's standard practice to have witnesses during negotiations between Noble Houses. It's why Lady Sennoma and I are here as well."

She phrased that as a statement, but by the end of it she sounded so unsure that it might as well have been a question. To be fair though, I was of two minds about this whole topic. On one hand, this situation was just awkward and a bit forced, so I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. On the other hand, this was related to (what I presumed to be) our 'main plot' that future-me-as-Bel was arranging in the background, so I didn't want to rush it either.

Caught between these two conflicting urges, I was so late to respond that Snowy of all people decided to pick up my slack.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mister Tracas is the younger brother of the head of House Ashur."

"The late head," he corrected him with just a hint of a frown. "My brother died at the hands of the self-proclaimed Herald of the Emperor."

He was clearly looking for a reaction, but my Abyssal sister simply gave him a shallow nod of acknowledgement and continued on.

"My condolences. Nevertheless, considering the hardships that befell on House Ashur, I find it curious that you not only managed to come to Critias, but to bring 'qualified witnesses' from your ruined House along with you."

The man raised an intrigued brow at that, followed by a low chuckle.

"Oh? The young lady's is unexpectedly mistrustful, isn't she? Maybe I shouldn't be surprised; children without their parents need to grow up fast, after all."

That was an odd remark, and it made Tajana glare at the man, but Snowy took it in stride.

"This isn't about trust, but common courtesy. You're the one in need of assistance, so you shouldn't play coy. My brother has little patience for people who play dumb."

"Such a sharp tongue for someone so young," the man chuckled and glanced at the two people at his side. "Very well. If you insist, I'll introduce my witnesses." He raised a hand and presented the burly man on his right first. "This is Nuage Anshar, a loyal retainer of House Ashur." The man let out a soft grunt in acknowledgement, and after that, Tracas did the same with the woman. "And she's Terre Kishar, a dear family friend and confidante of mine."

The lady inclined her head with a demure smile, not saying a single word. The introductions were followed by a long stretch of silence, broken by the scarred man impatiently clearing his throat.

"So, can we 'talk business' now, as originally planned?"

"Depends," I responded flatly and glanced at my dear assistant. "Dormouse?"

"The man looks generic, so I can't say anything about him. He might really be just a retainer," Judy responded promptly and stared at the woman sitting opposite her. "As for her, I'm surprised she's using her real name in this situation."

"Excuse me?" the placeholder-looking woman tried to interject, but Judy continued unabated.

"Or rather, half of her real name. She's Corbeau Kishar from House Nergal, obviously." She paused and tapped her finger on her own cheek. "Mole under the left eye. It narrowed down the list of suspects by a lot, even without the name."

The lady tried to pretend that she had no idea what was going on, but then the scarred man in the middle let out a shallow groan and told her, "Just own up to it, don't make it worse."

"… Fine." This was the first time she spoke in a natural tone, and just like with Tracas, she had a fairly thick Italian accent. She then promptly undid her hair bun and let her locks fall to her shoulder before putting on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and exhaling a long sigh. "So, what now? Can we finally start negotiating, or what?"

She was surprisingly abrasive, in stark contrast to her previous vacant act and… I just realized, but did she just disguise herself as a placeholder? No, wait. That probably wasn't literally the case. She most likely just tried to look and behave innocuously to blend into the background, but still, that was just uncanny.

"Ah! It's you!" our alleged Abyssal spymaster exclaimed without warning, pointing at the unmasked woman with eyes wide open.

"You two know each other?"

"Not personally, no, but…" Her words soon trailed into a mumbled, "I should've recognized her right away…"

"Yes, you should've," the woman grumbled and took a cigarette out of her handbag, though she didn't light it. "Bite me, I didn't in a million years expect to see you here! I thought you'd see right through my disguise, but I guess the Hound of Inanna isn't what she's cranked up to be, huh?"

"Ladies. Please." Tracas raised his voice to interrupt the two and turned a pair of cold eyes to me. "Well played. You've caught us red-handed. Now what?"

That was a good question, but before anything else, I directed an appreciative smirk at my dear assistant, who accepted it with her usual deadpan expression tinted by just a hint of pride. Did she seriously memorize the names and descriptions of all known Abyssals, I wondered. It was certainly a possibility, but I would have to ask her later, because we had bigger fish to fry.

"As my sister just told you, I have little patience for people wasting my time with idiotic ploys, and it's already running low after this pointless stunt of yours." I levelled a cutting glare at him, to make sure the message was properly conveyed, and concluded my bit with a slightly growly, "Stop wasting my time and get to the point."

The man in the striped suit was clearly miffed by my attitude, but since they were caught, we had the initiative on our side. More so than in the beginning; after all, they were the ones who were seeking me out, so that already put them on the back foot. I was curious how they would try to salvage this situation, and… honestly, after the way the woman by his side turned out to be a non-placeholder, I couldn't help but have even more reservations about the other man at the table, and whether he'd also turn out to be more than met the eye.

"Fine. Let's cut to the chase," Tracas responded dourly and placed his hands onto the table. "We require your assistance."

"You want us to provide you with asylum," Tajana interjected, and the woman on the other side let out a derisive scoff.

I eyed her for a second or two, and when she awkwardly averted her gaze, I turned back to the scarred man.

"I presume that outburst meant it's not the case."

"Yes. You're as perceptive as rumored." Was that sarcasm, or just run-of-the-mill brown-nosing, I wondered. "Our request for asylum wasn't… entirely sincere."

"That's two," I pointed out, making him stop in his tracks and blink at me. "That's the second time you tried to deceive me. Remind me, why am I supposed to help you again?"

"Technically speaking, it was to deceive the public," Corbeau… or was it Terre? The woman in the dress. Her fingers were still playing with the unlit cigarette between her fingers, like a budget femme fatale, and she tried her best to sound self-assured even under my gaze. "We needed a plausible cover story to contact you, and since House Ashur was already in a…" She glanced at the man sitting at her side and her lips bent into an inscrutable smile. "Let's call it 'business arrangement' with the Celestials, Tracas reaching out to you would sound entirely reasonable for those already familiar with the circumstances. Especially considering his House's dire situation."

While I was listening to her, I periodically peeked at the burly 'retainer' on the other side of the Ashur noble, but his expression remained entirely static. That was suspicious, even for a placeholder, so I made sure to keep keeping an eye on him.

Meanwhile, Tracas let out a soft groan.

"That is, indeed, the gist of the situation, but you didn't need to put it so bluntly."

"There's no point pussyfooting around the topic, is there?" she responded without a hint of shame.

Seeing their interactions, it was clear that while she wasn't part of a Noble House herself, she was treated as an equal, if not outright in a superior position. It meant that Tajana's conjecture that House Ashur was currently being supported by House Nergal was most likely on the money.

"True," he answered through gritted teeth and faced me again. "Let me be frank: we need you to deal with the current family head of House Ashur."

"Deal with?" Snowy repeated after him, and he nodded without a shred of hesitation.

"My nephew, the de jure head of the House after the unfortunate passing of my brother, is currently held hostage by Noir Irdu Inanna, deep within the prison facility known as the Chasm of Desolation. I believe you're familiar with it."

The name didn't immediately ring a bell, but then Judy whispered, "It's where Brang was held after the incident at the school."

"Huh? You mean, that medieval underground dungeon?"

"One and the same," the woman at the other side of the table quipped with the still unlit cigarette in her mouth. Was she doing it out of habit, or did she really want to have a smoke but was unable to do so because of the restaurant's policy? It didn't really matter, but it bothered me.

"So b—" Snowy started, and then hastily cleared her throat and tried again. "So Noir imprisoned him in the Chasm of Desolation? Why would he do that?"

"Because he wanted to marry Milady to him," Tajana pointed out. Of course, we already knew that, but it didn't stop her from continuing with, "He was planning to seize all of House Assur's assets that way."

"I know that he was planning to do that, but it shouldn't matter now that he declared himself the Herald of the Emperor," Snowy argued back and then turned to the Ashur envoy. "Why would Noir keep him alive all this time?"

"It's to stop me from becoming the head of House Ashur," Tracas stated bitterly and tapped his finger on the table. "Our house still has many assets, both in the Abyss and on Critias, which could be used for the war effort, but while the young head remains his hostage, we can't utilize them."

"I understand your problem now, but what do you expect me to do?"

"The same thing you've already done in the past," Tracas responded calmly. "You had already infiltrated the Inanna's prison once and brought an entire squad of Fauns to Critias under the Inannas' nose, didn't you? We ask you to do the same again."

"Hold your horses," I cut it with a hand raised, and couldn't help but let my skepticism show in my voice. "You want me to rescue your nephew."

"Or kill him," the man responded as naturally as if we were discussing the weather. "It should be considerably easier than smuggling him out of the Abyss, but I leave the choice up to your discretion."

"Either way, it would resolve the inheritance stalemate," the woman with the cigarette tacked on, sounding almost disinterested.

"… Are you serious?" They looked rather surprised by my question, so I clarified, "Let's put the whole fratricide request aside, and look at this objectively. Do you remember all of those titles I rattled off at the beginning of this meeting?" I pointed at my face for emphasis. "You expect me to personally go to the Abyss?"

"Yes. You've done it already for a much lesser cause," the woman pointed out, earning her a glare.

"That was then, and this is now. Your request is ludicrous."

This made no sense neither in a Watsonian nor a Doylist perspective. Sure, I could absolutely infiltrate the Abyss and rescue this guy's nephew in an afternoon, but they didn't know that. While the world at large was now aware of my ability to teleport, nobody knew I could Phase into the Abyss as well, and even if they were, why would they even think requesting this was a good idea? I was the head of multiple supernatural organizations, for crying out loud! That's like some foreign nation asking the US for help, and expecting the president to personally go there and shoot up the place. It was asinine.

They shouldn't be this dumb (or desperate), so what other option was there? Narrative influence? That was me, and I sure as hell didn't expect something like this to come up, either consciously or subconsciously, so… maybe it was future-me's doing? But then why wasn't any of this mentioned in the notebook he handed over to me?

Did he not know about this? That's impossible, so… maybe he purposefully withheld the information, because it would've been a 'spoiler'? Yeah, that was probably the most logical explanation, but did that mean he arranged this? Or was this another one of those semi-hard-coded developments in the Simulacrum's original scenario that resurfaced in a fragmented state?

I mean, from a Doylist perspective, it made some sense. Our finale was being set up as a Bel plus Crowy versus Leonard and Co. confrontation, but if it took place on Critias, they would be outnumbered and outgunned by all the Draconians, arch-mages, and Celestials on the island. It made sense to change things up by pulling me into the Abyss and…

Oh, wait. Maybe that was the point. To 'take me off the game board', so to speak, and allow other dramatic developments to happen on Critias without my interference, which would imply that there should be something brewing here as well, probably to keep Josh and Angie occupied, and… Ugh. How come I had a future version of myself running amok these days, and I was somehow still left in the dark about how things were about to develop? Such a pain in the neck.

Mulling over all of these problems took me some time, and our Abyssal envoys were getting more impatient by the second. Luckily, Snowy rose to the occasion to keep them occupied.

"You're demanding something outrageous without a modicum of shame," she stated sternly, glaring at the trio one by one. "Why would my brother do this for you? What can you offer in return?"

"If it's money you're after…" Tracas started, but Judy cut him off.

"We don't need money."

"Then we can hand over some of House Ashur's assets," the cigarette-woman argued, but it only made my dear assistant shake her head and gesture at me.

"The Chief effectively owns the entirety of Elysium." That was a bit of an overstatement, but this wasn't the time to correct her. "Why would he do your bidding for land in the Abyss of all places?"

"Then…" Her eyes locked onto Snowy and she hastily declared. "If you do this, both House Ashur and House Nergal will support you to claim rulership over House Inanna!"

My sister blinked at her, and her expression gradually morphed into a mixture of outrage and disgust.

"I don't care for the position, but even if I did and I wished to contest Noir's authority, your approval is meaningless to me. I'm Neige Liliam Inanna-Dunning, and I don't need your support."

"Wait. Please, calm down." The man in the striped suit raised his hands in surrender. "We're losing track of the goal of this meeting. Let's take a step back and—"

"We'll give you anything," a new voice entered the fray, startling the other two Abyssals and making it hard for me not to smirk, because I totally called it.

The other 'witness' at the table was staring at me, and he underwent some peculiar changes while I wasn't looking. His entire body was surrounded by a swirling dark-red haze, and based on everyone else's lack of reaction, one that only I could see. Furthermore, the sclera of his eyes turned pitch black, while his irises were glowing with a soft orange light, the colour hot iron.

"So you finally decided to speak up," I responded calmly, and while I was only pretending to know what was happening, the man accepted my words at face value and inclined his head towards me.

"Please excuse my discourtesy, but I really was planning to only serve as a witness today." While speaking, he undid his shirt's top button and tugged at his collar, releasing even more of the hazy red mist. "I'm Fidèle Basmu Shamash."

"W-What is the head of House Shamash doing here?" Tajana blurted out, and the man lightly shrugged while undoing the buttons on his sleeves.

"Acting as a witness, naturally. I wasn't planning to reveal my presence on Critias just yet, but my companions' inability to read the room forced me to surface." Once he finished loosening his clothes, he let out a long breath and locked eyes with me. "I'll be direct with you, Polemos of Elysium: Bel of the Abyss and his Herald is an existential threat to us all. We must set aside our differences and face him together… is what I'd like to say, but I'm too old to believe that rousing speeches and the good of all are enough incentives for someone to involve themselves in someone else's war. We're also the ones making a request, so if anything, it's only reasonable that you should be setting the conditions. So long as it's within reason, we'll definitely comply."

"I still find this whole conversation ludicrous," I pointed out the moment I could interject, but after a beat, I softened it into a slightly more reasonable, "However, you do make a good point about Bel being a problem we all have to deal with together, so… I'll think about it."

"Fair enough," he responded stoically, and I could see the light in his eyes flicker for a moment. "I retreat for now, before my presence here could garner any attention. Let us talk again under less… circuitous circumstances. I hope for a positive response by then."

With that, the haze surrounding the man suddenly surged downwards and disappeared under the table, leaving him momentarily confused. As for the head of House Shamash, he disappeared as suddenly as he came, only leaving a vague, snaking trail of red haze behind in his wake. I had many questions about what just happened, but before that, there was something else I had to say.

"Three," I uttered blandly, raising the matching number of fingers towards the scarred man in front of me. "That's how many times you tried to deceive me just today. You people couldn't deny your Celestial ancestry if you tried…"

Part 2

"Everyone, gather around."

I didn't need to say that twice, and everyone in the living room clustered around me at once. It was a second unofficial meeting after the one with the Abyssal envoys, though even less formal than that one. For example, the discussion at the restaurant had markedly less fangirling involved.

"But it looks really cool! And cute! It's cool and cute!" Penny declared while pointing at Snowy. She herself came home before us, and she was already in her indoor slacks and bunny slippers, contrasting hard with my other sister's prim and proper (and very red) attire. "How could you keep this a secret from me?"

"It wasn't a secret…" Snowy sounded a bit sheepish but didn't look uncomfortable even as Penny turned her around to take a better look at her from different angles. "It was just… Tajana came up with the idea at the last minute, and I just went with it."

That made me pause and send a sideways glance their way. If it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, then where did she get the red suit with the matching tie? Those don't grow on trees. Nor do other suits, but that wasn't the point.

I was just about to ask, but I didn't, because I was kind of afraid that the answer would be 'Oh, we just found it in your kitchen pantry'. That's not a joke; with how many absurd things were just 'discovered' there over the months, I couldn't deny the possibility.

"Hey, do you think I can also pull off the look?" my knightly sister mused while turning Snowy round and around like a spinner, only to suddenly stop her and grab her shoulders. "Oh, I've got an idea! What if I get a blue one? Then we'll match, and we can do this whole yin-yang thing!"

"Isn't that black and white?"

"Yeah, but Ms Yamako said that any opposing ideals or energies are the same, and they can also be harmonized, and I think we would look really good standing next to each other! Let's do it next time, and…"

"Penny, dear. Please don't pester Neige," Morgana commented from the couch, making her turn around on her heel.

"Mooom! I'm not pestering her, I'm just—!"

"You're holding up the discussion. Come here and sit down," Arnwald interjected sternly, causing Penny to let out a disheartened 'Uuuu…' and morosely walk over to the senior Knights' side.

Snowy followed after her in a hurry, and with Judy also returning from upstairs, we were ready to start the debriefing. There were six of us present in total: me, Judy, my sisters, our 'parents', as well as Tajana. Seven, if I counted Pip, who was on guard duty today, but I had a feeling he wouldn't contribute much to the conversation.

I waited for my dear assistant to get her phone ready, and as soon as she gave me the go, I inhaled deeply.

"All right. First off, let's bring everyone up to speed."

Saying so, I quickly summarized what we learned during the meeting with the envoys. Their stated motivations, their requests, and so on. Nothing much happened after the head of House Shamash left the scene, aside from Tracas taking a few more cracks at persuading me to take action as soon as possible, but I politely stonewalled him on that front.

Anyhow, it didn't take long to explain the situation, and I concluded it with a solemn, "… and then he left the restaurant, and I finally ate my beef stake in peace. That's pretty much the long and short of it."

"So they weren't looking for asylum after all…" Morgana noted with a thoughtful hum.

"Abyssal nobles. They're worse than the Celestials, if you ask me," Arnwald added, earning him a glare from Penny.

"Dad! You can't say that! Snowy's right behind you!"

"What? I'm not talking about Neige, but the people Leonard met."

"You still shouldn't generalize like that, right?"

"I agree with Sir Arnwald." To my Knightly sister's shock and horror, Snowy backed up the man's assessment. "I was expecting that they would have ulterior motives from the start, and yet even I was surprised by how brazen their request turned out to be."

"I admit, I was also taken aback by the situation." Tajana sounded uncomfortable to admit that, but then she also added, "I feel like I failed my duty as a spymaster. I couldn't even recognize Corbeau when she was sitting right in front of me."

"That's as good a segue as any," I interjected with a finger raised. "Before we discuss anything else, let's recap who we're dealing with." I turned to the young spymaster and addressed her directly. "What can you tell me about that woman?"

Tajana was startled by my request, but then she immediately straightened her back and set her mouth in a thin, solemn line. If I didn't know her already, she might've almost very nearly kinda-sorta looked dependable. If you squinted hard enough.

"Corbeau Kishar is a Seducer from House Nergal and an infamous spy and agitator. Now that we know that she's involved, it's absolutely certain that the Nergals are pulling the strings from the background."

Arnwald let out a soft scoff.

"If a spy is infamous, then they aren't a very good spy," he said, and Tajana hurried to explain herself.

"She's a master of disguises and infiltration. They say that before she was recruited by House Nergal, she used to be a legendary burglar who even dared to break into the main estate of House Gula. She's well known in the Abyss, but few have seen her real face, so I couldn't be faulted for not recognizing her right away."

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"Judy could do it though," I pointed out, making her confident façade crumble with just a few words.

"Y-Yes, but…"

Before she could formulate a response, Judy poked my shoulder with her index finger and said, "Chief, please don't put her on the spot like that. If her disguise wasn't flawed, I wouldn't have recognized her either."

"But why was her disguise so easy to see through?" Penny asked, and when nobody answered, she amended, "I-I mean, she's infamous, right? You'd think she would do better."

I had some Doylist ideas on that subject, but we were having this whole meeting for the sake of Watsonian analysis, so I kept it to myself. In the meantime, Morgana ventured a guess.

"Maybe she's feeling more secure on Critias than she's in the Abyss, and so she got sloppy. Or…" She fell silent for a beat. "Or maybe it was on purpose."

"Are you saying she deliberately made her disguise shoddy so that we could recognize her? Why?" Tajana asked, sounding a touch incredulous, and Morgana asserted it with a firm nod.

"It's possible that they wanted to make you think you foiled their ploy and were in a favorable position. To lull you into a false sense of security."

"But that presumes that someone among us would've been able to recognize her," I pointed out. "They had no way of knowing that Judy would be with us, or that she would be able to see through her ruse."

"In that case, they most likely hoped that you would recognize her," Arnwald spoke confidently, and when I raised a confounded brow at him, he added, "You've claimed to be an information broker for a while, haven't you? Maybe they were betting on that you already learned about this woman's identity before."

"That's a distinct possibility," Judy noted that, literally, her fingers tapping so fast on her phone I could barely follow her motions. "In that case, what was their goal with this?"

"I think I have an idea," Snowy spoke up in the back. "Uncle… Sir… I mean, Percival talked about something similar in the past. By making your negotiation partner think that they have the upper hand, they would become more assertive and would be more likely to continue negotiating so that the advantage they gained wouldn't go to waste. You lose some leverage by doing that, but they're less likely to cut the negotiations short, so you have a better chance to achieve at least some of your objectives, even if at a higher price."

"So it's like a weaponized Sunk Cost Fallacy," I whispered, and while I wasn't one hundred percent convinced, it was as good an argument as any.

"Alternatively," Tajana cut in, adjusting her rimless glasses for emphasis. "Alternatively, maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe she purposefully made her disguise easy to see through to reveal to us that House Nergal is involved with the deal. In fact, she seemed to be at odds with Tracas of House Ashur, so maybe he wanted to hide their connection, and she used this roundabout way to reveal it for House Nergal's own purposes."

Did I ever mention that I really hated all this multi-layered back-stabbery? Because I did.

"We can speculate about her motives all night, but at the end of the day it will remain a speculation, so let's just move on. Since you mentioned the mafioso guy, let's continue with him."

"Mafioso?" Arnwald echoed me with a curious glint in his eyes.

"That Tracas guy. Designer suit, scarred face, Italian accent. He even had a fedora."

"Italian?" Tajana blurted out in surprise, sounding downright incredulous. "No. No, Tracas very clearly had a šutāiu accent."

"A what accent?" I asked back, and Snowy responded first.

"It's the southern part of the Abyss. People there speak with that kind of accent."

"And it just happens to sound exactly like an Italian one," I stated flatly, and she guilelessly nodded along.

"To be precise, it's a New York Italian accent," Judy noted with mild disinterest, but it told me she shared my initial reaction, and…

Oh, god. Please tell me this wasn't another one of those 'retroactive background in-filling' situations, where the Simulacrum moulded the world to make sense in retrospect. It could be that, because my first impression of him was that of an old-school gangster, he was given the matching accent, but then to have that be internally consistent… I might've just given faux-Italian accents to a whole swathe of Abyssals by proxy.

Or maybe I was just overthinking this.

"Let's just put that aside and talk about the man, okay?" My prompt made everyone nod along. "So? What do we know about him?"

"Tracas Birtum Ashur of House Ashur is, or rather was, fourth in line in succession," Judy spoke up before Tajana or Snowy could get a word in. "He's a bit player who's known for being a hedonist and he spent little time in the Abyss. He avoided getting caught up in Noir Irdu Inanna's surprise attack on House Ashur because he was on Critias at the time, and since all other claimants are missing or presumed dead, he's now the second in line for being the Lord of the House."

"Was he involved with the Celestial Intelligence Network?" the spymaster in our midst asked, and my lovely assistant shook her head.

"Not directly, no. House Ashur's dealing with the CIN were only known to the head of the House and his closest confidantes. Since Tracas was something of a black sheep, he wasn't involved in such clandestine matters."

Arnwald let out a hum and crossed his arms.

"Which might be the reason why these Nergals want to put him at the head of this 'Noble House'. That way, they can claim that the Ashurs are no longer involved with the Celestials."

"But they plan to put him on the throne through the help of…" Morgana started, but then fell silent and glanced at Snowy behind the couch. "Do they have thrones?"

"Not really, no. Only the Emperor of the Abyss is supposed to have a throne, but it's been vacant all this time."

"Until Bel of the Abyss laid claim to it," Penny pointed out, followed by a furious groan. "Will that villain ever cease with his wicked schemes?"

It took some effort not to react to that, and even more of it when Judy, Morgana, and Snowy all looked at me at once. For now, I managed to maintain my poker face and waved to get everyone's attention.

"Putting what Bel's doing in the Abyss aside, can we conclude that the Nergals are using Tracas and House Ashur?"

"Or they are using each other," Snowy chimed in. "That's how deals in the Abyss usually go."

"Noted. Then, what about the third guy?" I asked, but then paused for a moment and amended, "Or was it a guy?"

The answer to my question came from Judy this time, and she sounded just a tiny bit unsure of it.

"If you mean Fidèle Basmu Shamash, then no, she should be a woman in her late eighties."

"And she somehow remote-controlled a guy," I deduced, but Snowy was looking at me like I just said something silly. "Or did she?"

"No, it was closer to possession," Tajana told me dourly. "She's one of the few pure-blooded vampires of the Abyss, and—"

"Excuse me," I cut in, feeling the back of my neck tingle. "Could you repeat that?"

"She's… one of the few pure-blooded vampires of the Abyss?" the spymaster restated, looking more than a bit confused by my request. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just that…" Shaking my head, I turned to Judy. "Dormouse? Could you please refresh my memory? Since when did we have vampires here?"

"Since the beginning." Her flat response was less than adequate, and realizing that I wasn't jesting, she put her phone down for the moment and launched into a proper explanation. "Vampires, or 'vamps', are a sub-species of Abyssals similar to Seducers."

"Oh, joy…" I whispered in mild exasperation. "Which type? Nosferatu, Dracula, or the sparkly kind?"

"Um… Excuse me? I don't follow," Penny tried to interject from the back, but I was only listening to Judy.

"Neither. They are more like body snatchers than can turn into mist and possess people."

"Do they drink blood?"

"No, but they're pale and they're hurt by sunlight."

"Garlic?"

"I have no information on that."

"Do they die when their hearts are skewered with an oak stake?"

"… Who doesn't?"

I had a snappy comeback on the tip of my tongue, but she had a point, so I conceded and turned back to the rest of the group.

"Okay, so she's a 'vampire'. Got it. Do we have an idea about why she got involved in this deal?"

I glanced around, and when my eyes landed on Snowy, she let out an ambivalent sound.

"Um… I'm not sure. Vamps are very, very rare, and they practically never leave the Abyss because of the sun. On top of that, she's the head of House Shamash, and house heads also never leave the Abyss."

"Didn't your brother do that?" Penny blurted out, but then her eyes went wide and she sputtered, "I-I mean, not 'Brother' brother, but the other one! That one who used to be your brother!"

"Noir," Morgana said, and my knightly sister repeatedly nodded along.

"Yes, that bastard!"

Seeing that she was getting a bit too worked up, Snowy put a hand on my other sister's shoulder to keep her in check.

"That was different. Back then, we were looking for the Herald of the Emperor, and he was here so that the other Houses wouldn't try to snatch him up. In case we found him, I mean."

"And now he declared himself to be this 'Herald'," Arnwald whispered, followed by some other grumbles about Bel of the Abyss, but we moved on.

"In other words, she must have a really good reason to be on Critias," I concluded, and both Snowy and Tajana nodded along. "Do you think she was also part of the deal between Tracas and the Ashurs?"

"Definitely," the young spymaster insisted without delay. "There's no way she would appear, let alone show herself in public in the company of those two if she wasn't directly involved."

"What are the chances of her wanting to take down Bel 'for the common good', as she put it?"

That question made everyone pause, and after sharing a few glances between each other, Judy spoke up first.

"We don't have enough information. The Hub has comparatively little information on her, so I can't speculate on her motives."

"In the Abyss, she's known for her integrity, if that helps," Snowy spoke hesitantly, while I thought long and hard about it… and decided to give up.

"How about we shelve that thought for the moment, and focus on something else?" I proposed and linked my fingers in my lap, signifying that it was the crux of the conversation. "In your opinion, what is their true agenda?"

"Do you mean the reason why they approached you like this?" Morgana asked back, and when I nodded, she lightly tapped on her chin. "They know that you rescued the Fauns from this prison, but there's no reason for them to think you did it personally. Since they're requesting you to rescue the child from the same place and expect you to do it in person, I think we can assume that whatever their true goal may be, the Ashur leader is just a pretext. A means to an end."

Arnwald nodded along with an approving bend in his lips as he gazed at the focused woman by his side.

"So what you're saying is that their objective is to get Leonard in the Abyss, even though it would be absolutely preposterous."

"Yes. That's why they created this justification and were quick to offer money, land, and authority in exchange."

"Hah! Like that would work on Brother!" Penny exclaimed with a grin, looking at Snowy for approval, and my Abyssal sister mirrored the gesture, albeit a bit less enthusiastically.

"It obviously didn't," Tajana spoke up next, only to fall silent for a while after. In the end, she straightened her back once more and firmly declared, "I think I have an idea."

"Let's hear it."

Following my prompting, she gulped hard.

"I think… this is all about Bel of the Abyss." She let that linger in the air and then continued with much stronger emphasis. "Think about it: The only person who has ever shown to be capable of matching Lord Bel was you. During that dragonblooded house's banquet. They're probably just as helpless against his powers as the rest of us, so the three Noble Houses cobbled together a desperate plan to somehow get you into the Abyss, hoping that you would deal with Lord Bel for them!"

"Lord Bel?" Arnwald whispered with a squint, but she didn't respond and kept her focus on me.

"That must be it. They're trying to deal with their problem using a borrowed blade, pitting you two against each other. If you manage to defeat Lord Bel, then it would deprive Noir of his support and make his title of Herald meaningless, while if you were to be defeated, it would pull both the Draconic Federation and Elysium into the war on their side!"

Snowy was apparently thinking along the same lines, because she thoughtfully added, "And even if Leo doesn't encounter Bel and successfully finds and rescues the young head of Ashur, it would be yet another desirable scenario for them. Even on the off-chance that you fail, they would just have to find someone else to assassinate him."

"Meaning the only way to avoid playing into their hands is by outright refusing their deal," I concluded and while everyone was nodding along, Penny leaned on the back of the sofa and let out a long sigh instead.

"Well, poop. They got us good, didn't they?" I raised a brow at her outburst, and she looked just as bewildered by it as I felt at the moment. "W-What? I mean, that means we have to play along! We can't just let a kid die!"

"Penny, dear." Morgana reached over and put her hand on the back of Penny's. "We just learned of his existence. We aren't obliged to do anything."

"B-But now we know! And we're the good guys, right!" She glanced around for support, her eyes ultimately settling on me. "Brother! The Ordo Draconis no longer exists to just fight Draconians, but to figure out who the bad guys are and defeat them while sparing the innocent! If we let a child whose father just recently died be stuck in a dungeon, it would be a betrayal of our values!"

"Penny… does make a good point for once." Arnwald's words made my sister cry out 'What do you mean 'for once'?', but he ignored the outburst and continued on unabated. "While I'm against sending our forces into the Abyss, let alone you, if we don't do anything, it could be used to paint us as hypocrites in the eyes of the rest of the World of Mystics. While that's nothing much in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't sit well with me."

"Don't worry, dear," Morgana cooed and this time she grabbed Arnwald's hand before sending me a meaningful glance. "I'm sure Leonard already has some kind of plan in mind to deal with this situation."

"Do you?"

The question came from Penny, but everyone else in the room seemed to share the sentiment.

"Not yet, but I'll think of something," I told them a tad wearily and stood up. "Thank you for all your valuable insight into this matter. Let's close this meeting for now. I need some time to consider our options."

"No need to thank us for something like this," Arnwald responded with a stock phrase, while Morgana's response was slightly warmer.

"We're a family now, so it's only natural that we should deliberate things and support each other like this."

"Yeah!" Penny piled on by grabbing Snowy's hand and raising their arms over their heads. "Family for the win!" It was at this point that she was seemingly reminded of something and she fully faced my other sister. "So, about that blue suit…"

Their return to that tangent fully signalled the end of the talk, and so the senior Knights got up and walked into the kitchen, Tajana and my sisters disappeared into her room (which meant that there may or may not have been another brightly coloured suit in Penny's size in there), while Judy finished typing on her phone and looked up at me.

"Chief."

"Yes, Dormouse?"

"Make sure nobody sees you down there."

That made me blink and cock my head to the side.

"How did you know I was planning to scout out the situation first?"

"Because I know you," she responded flatly and looked me over. "Also, you should change your clothes first. You look really good in this one, but it makes you recognizable."

"Good point." I was just considering what to wear when I suddenly got a new idea. "Maybe I should hide in plain sight? Pudding-kun can't stay in the Abyss for long, but if it's just for a short trip, I can use him to disguise myself. In fact, maybe I should try to infiltrate Castle Inanna and make contact with you-know-who, and then…"

"Chief." She grabbed onto my shoulder without warning and lightly squeezed it, though considering how inefficient she was at inflicting harm, that was probably supposed to be an iron grip. She pulled me closer, I complied, and once our noses were almost touching, she sternly commanded, "No. More. Alter egos."

"But… It would be just a disguise for the—"

"Bel of the Abyss was supposed to be a disguise too, and look at all the chaos it caused."

"That's a fair point, but…"

"No buts. And no disguises either."

We locked gazes for a while, and my loss was determined from the start.

"Fine, fine. I'll be just sneaky then."

"Good."

I thought that was the end of it, but then she suddenly leaned forward and locked lips with me. Our kiss lasted for a couple of seconds, and when we parted, I couldn't help but feel a bit confused by the mixed messaging.

"What was that for?"

"Nothing special. You were just close enough," she responded with a hint of a smirk and let me go. "Now if you excuse me, I'll go and document the saga of the colorful pantsuits." She inclined her head towards Tajana's room, and added a quiet, "Stay safe."

"Will do."

Nodding, she walked to the left, I headed upstairs to get into something less conspicuous, all the while lamenting my dashed plans to disguise myself and do some mischief while down there. I could've even given it a funny name, like Antonio Balderdash, the dashing roguish Abyssal phantom thief. Alas, it was never meant to be…

…

Or was it?

Part 3

"I never understood fashion."

Nobody responded to my muttering, mainly because there was nobody around in the fancy boutique at the heart of the Inannas' capital city. Or at least I figured it was their capital. It was the one around their humongous gothic castle with their Mana Well and everything, but I wasn't sure 'capital city' was the right term. On second thought, maybe I should look into the political and government structures of the Abyss, just in case. If I had done that before getting pulled into the Elysium, it could've saved me some headaches in the long run.

But before that, I needed to blend in. As Judy had correctly pointed out, wearing my usual long coat would've made me stick out like a sore thumb on the streets of this city, so the first step was to acquire a disguise. Not the fancy alternate-identity sort, but the kind that let me wander the streets and look for information, and that was a necessity because… well, I only ever kept tabs on Crowy in here. Plus Tajana, occasionally, after our chance meeting in the Mana Well chamber, but…

My point is, while I knew the layout of Castle Inanna, and I'd ventured into town on a few occasions to check on the tech level and other curiosities, I never interacted with anyone. Because of that, I didn't even know the name of this place, where its various points of interest were, and most importantly, where to find that dumb Chasm of Desolation thing.

The last time I was there, I directly Phased in following Brang's mark, so I had no idea where the dungeon was in relation to anything else in the Abyss, and I had a feeling that finding it by just Phasing all over the place and hoping for the best wasn't the smartest bet. As such, my first destination was this place: an extravagant boutique on the currently rather deserted main street of the town.

That last bit wasn't much of a surprise. It was rather late, and while this place was about as far from the front lines of the civil war as it could get, a war was a war, so it made sense that people tried to stay off the streets after dark.

I would've liked to say that I picked this place due to some very logical and well-thought-out reason, but in reality, it was just the first clothes shop I could find in town after Phasing down from the castle. It was pretty dark inside, with only the gas lamps of the street illuminating the inside of the store. Or rather, they looked like gas lamps, but I was pretty sure the Abyss didn't have abundant natural gas reserves, so there was most likely some magitech malarkey involved, and they just looked like Victorian-era lampposts for stylistic reasons. They may or may not have been a bit too bright for real gas lamps too, but I couldn't be sure, since I wasn't a gaslampologist or anything.

But speaking of the Victorian era, the clothes in the boutique were also following the same trend. I already noted it before, but much of Crowy's and his cronies' wardrobe consisted of a peculiar mix of late 19th-century British high-society fashion combined with overly elaborate gothic designs right off the cover of some vampire-themed bodice ripper novel. Of course, because most of them were at least side-character grade, they somehow made it work anyway.

And that brought us back to this place, where I was absently going through the various outfits on display and trying my best to make out as much of the details as I could under the poor lighting conditions. I wasn't planning to steal any of them though; that would've been just plain wrong. I couldn't even leave behind some Abyssal currency either, because I had none, and while skimming some from Crowy's treasury crossed my mind more than once, it would've also been morally questionable. Also, time consuming. Mostly the latter, really.

However, I had a secret weapon: my Leoformer!

I had four 'outfit slots' at the moment. My school uniform, my Lion Knight armour replica, my Polemos outfit, as well as my Bel disguise. Yet, that didn't mean I had no space for more. These four took up a lot of 'capacity' because they were enchanted, yet if it was just normal, non-enchanted clothes, I figured could probably squeeze in about a dozen more full ensembles into the Leoformer before I would need to tidy up its memory.

I had to give credit to Gowan and his Artificers' Lodge for coming up with the template for the '-former' series, and while they continued to be extremely helpful and convenient tools till today, they had one unfortunate limitation that made them non-viable for mass production: setting up the actual outfits and imputing them into the memory arrays was an absolute pain in the neck. For anyone other than me, at any rate, but there was a reason why the original outfits in the Magiformers were block-coloured sentai jumpsuits. Apparently, that was the best the artificers who created the original enchantment could do. Or at the very least that was the Watsonian explanation they provided.

I, on the other hand, could mould and shape the appearance of whatever outfit was stored in the memory of these magitech devices, and while I was happy and willing to make custom designs for my friends and allies, I couldn't be expected to mass-produce them on top of all my other duties. I tried to delegate it to Galatea and the interested members of the Research Division, but so far there had been little progress, and I haven't been tweaking my outfits much as of late either.

Maybe that was the reason why I felt a bit rusty, and couldn't quite decide on the final design. In retrospect, maybe I should've picked a slightly less upscale establishment for inspiration, because all of the male outfits I could find looked way too fancy and I didn't want to stick out of the crowd too much. On the other hand, I didn't want to look too low-class either, so I had to constantly tweak whatever piece of clothing caught my interest to bring it in line with my objective.

After nearly half an hour of doing that, I ultimately settled on an ensemble I considered to be fine. A dark shirt with a matching vest, grey pants, and a loose black tailcoat with a high collar and minimal embroidery. The outfit on which I based this one was way more elaborate, with golden buttons and silver threading and whatnot, but replaced all of them until it felt just right. I switched to it, and after readjusting it here and there, it even felt comfortable.

Now, I only needed two more things to complete the costume, so I picked up a simple polished wooden walking cane from the corner of the boutique (they had like a hundred of them; I was sure they wouldn't miss one) and also added a top hat to the outfit through the Leoformer, because… let us be honest here for a moment: When else was I ever going to have the opportunity to unironically wear a top hat?

I didn't have a mirror, but with all of that combined, I imagined I looked like a distant relative of an Abyssal Noble House, which was precisely what I was aiming for. I rolled my shoulders, readjusted my hat, and then finally Phased out of the boutique and headed down the street, towards the only lively place I could see in the dark.

"Good evening… sir?" I was greeted as soon as I stepped into the well-lit building at the corner of the street.

It was… well, maybe not a 'pub', but not quite a 'salon' either. The place was closer to a traditional Viennese coffeehouse than anything, though by a glance, the clientele looked a bit rougher than the usual poets and intellectuals of those places.

It had been a while since I last had to flex my refuge in audacity skills, and after getting in character, I marched over to the barista (or whatever the local equivalent was) and threw my hat onto the nearby coat hanger before taking a seat.

"Good evening, friend," I started, adopting an exhausted mien feigning joviality. "Can I request a glass of water?"

"Water?" the middle-aged man on the other side of the counter asked back, and I nodded.

"Yes. I'll have to head back to my estate within the hour, so I can't drink." I paused for a strategic beat and then let out a forlorn sigh. "Believe me, once this night's over, I'll drown my sorrows all the more."

"You must've had a rough day," he said while reaching for a large glass and filling it up from the tap.

"You don't know the half of it!" I began as I unbuttoned my cuffs and exhaled another dramatic sigh. He placed the drink in front of me and I accepted it with a weak smile. "Thank you, friend."

He nodded and looked me over. I was pretty sure my disguise would hold, but I still felt a bit nervous for a second.

"I have a good memory, and I don't believe we've met yet, Sir…?"

"You're correct," I answered, dodging his attempt to get a name out of me. "It's my first time in town, though I wished my first visit would be under better circumstances."

"You must have a story to tell," he concluded, and I nodded along with a smile.

"Don't we all?" I took a long sip from the glass and followed it up with a third sigh before clenching my free fist on the table. "This damnable war, and those damnable Nergals! I lost half my estate because of them overnight!"

That perked up some ears, and before long, another man joined our conversation. He was wearing an outfit similar to mine (though with much fancier embroidery) that had some trouble keeping his belly under control, and he had bushy side-burns that put Arnwald to shame.

"Good evening," he greeted me with a good-natured smile as he sat down next to me. "I couldn't help but overhear what you said. About the Nergals?"

"Yes. Bastards, all of them!" I barked, and for a moment I considered if I should spit to the side to emphasize my indignation, but I decided against it. Instead, I drank the rest of my water in one go and set the glass back down with a rough clank. "The curs were cowards escaping from a battle, and they barged into my manor to hide! I, of course, rebuked them, but by the time the Fauns of House Inanna showed up to chase them away, they set half my estate on fire!"

"My sincerest condolences," the man with the sideburns said, and he sounded like he meant it. "This war is a true tragedy."

"A senseless one," I added, closely watching the reactions of the barista and the other people around me, and to my surprise, they shared my sentiment.

"Indeed. But what can we do about it?"

"Nothing," a grizzled older man chimed in from the back, and despite looking like a veteran soldier, he was elegantly drinking a small cup of coffee with his pinkie finger held out and everything.

"It's a matter between the Noble Houses, but collateral damage is sadly unavoidable," the barista noted with the kind of world-weary wisdom one would expect from the average bartender.

"I just wish we could throw everyone involved into the Chasm of Desolation, and call it a day," I broached the main topic, but before I could move on, another man joined our conversation.

"Everyone?" asked the oddly deep baritone of a scrawny bald man from the left. "Does that include our Liege?"

"What?" I blurted out, making sure to sound suitably baffled by the suggestion. "He's the Lord of Inanna. Why would he send himself there?"

My naïve response earned me a few good-natured chuckles and the scrawny man shrugged.

"Who knows? Maybe the 'Emperor' will?" He paused and sent a wry glance at the disapproving barista. "What? I can't be the only one to think that. That's how politics work between the Houses."

"Maybe, but you aren't supposed to say that out loud," the man with the side-burns said, resulting in another bout of slightly more nervous chuckles.

I used this opportunity to shrug and casually wave my hand.

"Whatever. As you said, we can't do anything about it. Let the Lords of the Houses throw each other into dungeons for all I care, it won't bring back my estate." Once again, I found a surprising number of patrons agreeing with my words, and even clearly sympathizing with my 'plight', so I looked around and loudly asked, "By the way, where's this 'Chasm of Desolation', anyway?"

My sudden question didn't raise any suspicions, and one of the other patrons was happy to answer.

"Ah, that's the big 'ole behind the castle." He sounded just a bit tipsy, but it didn't stop him from giving directions. "It's just past the Faun barracks. A nasty place, that one."

"Of course it is," the barista interrupted him with a huff. "You don't expect criminals to be housed in a guest room."

"Especially not now," the scrawny man added, sounding even more sombre than before. "The cells must be teeming with prisoners of war."

"Probably," the man with the sideburns agreed half-heartedly and ordered another drink, and the conversation continued to meander around the war and the Noble Houses for a while longer.

For a while, I hesitated over whether I should bring up the stupid dungeon again and hope for more accurate directions, but I didn't want to look suspicious, so I just listened to the unfolding conversation and agreed with whatever the most popular opinion seemed to be. Which was rather surprising, really.

While I couldn't be sure I didn't just accidentally stumble upon a cabal of revolutionaries or something, Crowy didn't seem to have a particularly high approval rating among the people present. The same could be said about the civil war itself, and as for Bel, while most of the patrons were reluctant to even mention the 'Emperor', the bald guy was pretty vocal about his opinions on him. Which mostly boiled down to this: whether he was the Emperor or not, showing up out of the blue and throwing the Abyss into a civil war was a dick move. He used more or less the same terms too, though with more colourful language.

After experiencing the religious zeal of the average Celestial, this kind of smack-talk felt almost refreshing, Yet, as much as I would've liked to stay and tune into the frequency of the average Abyssal, I had other things to do. I patiently waited for the conversation to reach a bit of a lull, and then I forcefully stood up and cleared my throat.

"Thank you for the company, my good fellows, but I'm afraid it's time for me to go."

"A shame." The portly man on the seat next to mine chuckled. "Give our regards to the missus of the house!"

"I will do. Now then…" I theatrically reached into my pockets and pantomimed utter shock. "Oh, damnation! I was in such a hurry when I left home, I forgot to bring my wallet."

"What's the big deal?" another patron asked, sounding eminently amused by my reaction. "You only drank a glass of water. It's a pittance."

"And that makes this all the more embarrassing!" I griped with some theatrical flare and slumped my shoulders before turning to the barista. "I'll be shameless and as for you to open a tab for me." Before he could respond, I held out the walking cane, the only part of my outfit that wasn't of the Leoformer, and placed it onto the counter. "I'll leave this here for collateral. Once I put the affairs of my estate in order, I shall return for it and pay for my drink."

"But…"

Before he could get a word in, I put on my top hat, inclined my head towards the group of friendly patrons, and then stormed out of the establishment. Overall, I managed to gather some intel about the general attitude towards Crowy, Bel, and the war, but it wasn't my main objective, and I'd already spent too much time here.

Following the previous instructions, I started rapidly Phasing around, and while it wasn't exactly easy to find the right location, the castle served as a good landmark. It took some time, and lots of Phasing around in circles, but I successfully managed to locate the aforementioned Faun barracks. They would've been hard to miss in daylight, but in my defence, it was bloody dark out here.

There were a few guards on duty, but most of the compound was empty. No wonder; chances are, the Fauns of House Inanna were out there in the field, fighting the other Noble Houses, with only a token garrison being present here.

Now, off to find the elusive Chasm of Desolation!

…

It really wasn't that hard.

The castle was sitting on a natural plateau, and while most of the surrounding neighbourhoods were densely packed with buildings and roads, a large area near the southern base of said plateau, just a stone's throw away from the Faun compound, was simultaneously empty yet well-lit. It was also surrounded by a perimeter of high stone walls forming four sides of a pentagon, while the last side was instead the sheer cliff face with a conspicuously round hole in it.

That wasn't quite a 'chasm' by any relevant definition of the word, nor very 'desolate', but if I was a betting man, my money would've been on it anyway. Luckily, I didn't have to guess.

With just half a dozen short-range teleports, I Phased right past the walls without anyone being the wiser. Before long, I was standing in front of the yawning opening in the rock, with a single metal staircase leading down into its unlit bowels. There were no guards, and while there was some kind of hazy barrier covering the entrance with an ethereal purple glow, I couldn't see any security or surveillance spells. It perfectly matched how the place was during my first visit.

After spending some time making sure that there really wasn't anyone or anything that could see me, I Phased past the barrier and headed down, one teleport at a time. Even though I went slow and methodical, using Far Sight to check around every corner, it didn't take long to reach the familiar corridors of the dungeon.

Rough stone walls and iron bars, lit by honest-to-goodness wall torches, and most glaringly, filled with a thick, purple haze emanating from the similarly coloured symbols etched into the ceiling of every single cell. I didn't feel it during my first visit to this place (probably because I was wholly unfamiliar with the metaphysics of the Simulacrum in general and mana in particular), but just spending a few minutes here made me realize why there were no other security measures. The entire underground complex was under some sort of grand magic-dampening spell than interfered with enchantments and made handling mana pretty damn difficult.

Because I had to deal with the arch-mages trying to dispel my Bel disguise before, my Leoformer was fortified against the former, but the latter was still a problem. Staying here made me feel like I was constantly short of breath, and it got so bad that I had to undo my Leoformer and return to the casual clothes I was wearing before. The moment I did that, it was as if a weight was lifted from my chest.

I couldn't breathe easy just yet though. While this anti-magic spell didn't interfere with my extra-Simulacral abilities, such as my Phasing and Far Sight, all of my combat abilities were still reliant on the in-universe magic system, and I accessed those through my Leoformer and other equipment. Without any of those, I felt almost naked, but also just a bit excited.

It's been quite a while since the last time I had to skulk around like this, relying on my wits while attempting to accomplish something. Sneaking, using my Far Sight to peek around corners, trying to make as little noise as possible. It was pretty exhilara—

"Yo."

"Mother of a Swedish goat merchant!" I yelled out and jumped back, only to relax the moment I recognized the source of the voice in the dark. "Jesus tapdancing Christ, man! What are you even doing here?!"

"Waiting for you," the guy leaning against the nearby wall answered with a smirk.

"Then why didn't you call out of me earlier!?"

"I didn't want to ruin your fun too early," Bel, or rather, future-me responded flippantly and gestured for me to follow him. "Come, I'll show the way, so you'll get home relatively early and Judy won't be as mad."

"As mad?" I repeated while automatically following after him. On closer look, while he was wearing his Bel outfit, he didn't have the mask, and he seemed a bit more haggard than the last time I'd seen him. More importantly though… "Wait, why would she be mad at me at all?"

"Because it's past midnight, and you smell like cigarette smoke and liquor from the salon," future-me answered nonchalantly and pointed down the hallway. "More importantly, there's the stairwell leading down to the lower levels, where the kid is being held."

"Oh, okay then…" I mumbled while trying to sniff at myself, but all I could smell was the damp, fetid air of the dungeon. "So, why exactly are you here this time? To warn me about spoilers?"

"Partially." He shrugged, and pointed a finger down. "Three floors."

Before I could ask what he meant, he disappeared from sight, so I grudgingly Phased down, one storey at a time, until he was right in front of me again. He acted like he had to wait ages and gestured for me to follow him again.

"I'm mainly here to make sure you don't take the kid away from here ahead of schedule."

"Would I?"

"I know myself, and I know that I'm weak against kids, so it's better to be safe than sorry."

"I'm not weak to kids," I denied on the spot, and he rolled his eyes at me.

"Don't argue with yourself, you dolt, and listen up; just stick to the plot outlined in the notes, okay? Don't try to rush things, or it will just mess everything up."

"I wasn't planning to. I'm only here to scout out the situation… which you should already know."

"I do, but because of this stupid hard-coded Free Actor crap, it's better to make sure we're on the same page anyway," future-me insisted, but before I could get another word in, a young voice called out to us from the cell at the end of the hallway.

"Uncle Antonio? Is that you?"

That made me nearly stumble and turn a critical eye at my temporally displaced self. He acted like my reaction was funny and pointed at his face.

"Oh, before I forget it, right now I'm Antonio Balderdash, phantom thief par excellence."

I continued to eye him.

"Judy really is going to kill us."

"Don't be overdramatic," he dismissed me and walked ahead with wink. "What she doesn't know, can't hurt her. Or me."

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