and discovering other peoples' weaknesses.
Mercury had never been a part of a guild before, but she was starting to think it was one of the best ideas she’d ever had. Silver Wolf offered her quite a bit of freedom, which was nice, and on top of that they seemed to get requests for help on quite a number of jobs that suited her interests. The guild’s focus on magical research and development was starting to help her better understand this world she’d come to. She still had an awfully long way to go, of course, but she’d already gotten quite the jump from where she’d been when she’d first arrived on their doorstep. While they didn’t know anything about where Mercury was from -- and she intended to keep it that way -- they were more than used to taking in people that weren’t from Fiore, or even from Earthland, so everyone was really quite accommodating and helpful. Now it was just up to her to make herself useful to them in exchange for access to their resources, and that was something Mercury could more than handle. She’d browsed the job postings for a bit before one in particular caught her eye. There was a haunted castle that had a number of mysteries about it. It had been abandoned ages ago, but despite this it was full of activity. Supposedly a lot of people had attempted to foray into the place for this reason or that over the years, but anyone rarely came back alive. The locals mostly left it alone, but apparently the castle had been acting up lately. Lights could be seen through the windows at night, and the occasional scream could be heard faintly in the distance. The people who lived in the nearby town reported that over the course of a couple months, over half a dozen people had gone missing without a trace in the middle of the night, like they’d gotten out of their beds and just left. They were starting to think that someone, or perhaps something, had taken up residence in the castle. It certainly sounded interesting. Mercury had never been exposed to anything akin to a “haunting” before, so she was more than a little curious to see what was actually happening inside those walls. She’d signed up for the job immediately, reaching out to the client, the town’s mayor, to express her desire to assist on the job. He’d welcomed her help without question, inviting her to come to the town at her earliest opportunity. When she’d arrived, he informed her that another mage had also apparently been interested in the job, someone from a guild called Dies Irae. Mercury had heard the name before, but wasn’t too much aware of who they were. So as she waited for her mysterious partner to arrive, she did a little research. It seemed Dies Irae was a guild recognized by the Magic Council, whom Mercury had learned not too long ago was the establishment that held authority over all things wizarding in Fiore and its neighboring countries. The council was supposedly the reason why Silver Wolf was an independant guild, not legally recognized by the council but also not seen as an active threat, either. Dies Irae, on the other hand, seemed to be an organization of legally condoned bounty hunters. They appeared to be about on par with Fiore’s residential police military the Rune Knights, just with a higher body count. At least she could probably have some faith in her partner’s abilities, then. Truthfully, Mercury would rather have looked into this by herself, but having a little company probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, particularly if she came across something she didn’t understand. Thus, she waited patiently at one of the town’s diners, sitting at an outside patio table with her tablet in her hand. She had short lavender hair that was longer in the front than the back and had quite a bit of curl to it. Her eyes were currently covered behind a sleek pair of dark sunglasses. Standing just over five and a half feet tall, she had an impossibly petite frame that was clothed in noticeably trendy attire. Anyone looking at her that didn’t know her would be able to sense right away that she was a fairly confident woman, if only by the way she dressed to present herself as someone that clearly cared about her appearance. Strapped to her hip appeared to be an oversized pistol of sorts, which was currently holstered safely away. On the table beside her was a glass of what appeared to be pink lemonade. Mercury wasn’t sure what time her partner was supposed to arrive, but she hoped it was soon. She wanted the chance to look through the castle during the day. Supposedly all the upsetting activities were happening at night, so she thought it would be useful to take a few hours to wander through the place while the sun was out just so they could see what was there before things started getting fun. Or freaky. Or both. It was still pretty early in the day, not quite noon yet so there was still some time for them to arrive, but if they took too much longer she was considering just going inside on her own to get a head start. She’d probably give it another hour to an hour and a half before she did that, though. Taking a sip from her drink, Mercury casually swirled the pink liquid around in the glass as she occupied herself with her tablet and waited. |