There has been an awkward silence in this room for the last ten minutes. Everybody is just staring at one another.

  You see, almost every faction in this room has learned something in the last week. (I mean, you expect something like that from the Searchers. The other factions are no slouches as well.) Right now, every person in this room is debating what should be revealed.

  Every person here wants to keep the information that they have gained to themselves. After all, the more things you know, the more valuable you are. At the same time, they can't hide everything. That would lead to disaster.

  Every few seconds, one of the leaders looks like he is ready to share something. Then he (or she) ends up shutting their mouth as the silence continues. Well, not every person in the room is a part of this awkwardness. Alfred and me are looking at each other's faces, bored out of our minds. Neither of us is a part of this standoff since our work has nothing to do with this bit of politics.

  The work of my troop has been to support these three factions. The only person any good at gathering information can be considered to be Trevor. He has been busy the last couple of days acting as John's servant. Well, I guess that I could break this silence. After all, it was my question that had led to this silence. I had asked the searchers about what they had learned from the captive.

  Well, I had not expected such a simple question to lead to the silence in front of me, though. Looks like I have been underestimating the tension between the groups in this place. As I am debating with myself as to whether or not I should say something, the searcher finally speaks. About time that she did. The damn lady was the one who had started this standoff in the first place.

  "Well, we have sat in this awkward silence for long enough. It is about time that we started sharing something." Searcher Amelia begins. "I will start from my side. I will speak about the information we got from the captive."

  I look at the lady incredulously. Why do the searchers like to make everything seem like their ideas?

  "We have been extracting information from the captive since we entered the bone pits. The captive had finally begun to share some things with us." The lady speaks. "The first thing is that we have learned the name of the necromancers that we are hunting. They are known as the "Brotherhood of the Broken Bones.""

  "While it is nice that we finally have a name for the damn bastards, a name is not useful to us now, is it? " Alfred speaks. "What else have you learned?"

  "Well, we didn't learn much except the name. The captive was a recruit in the brotherhood and barely knew anything about them." She replies. "Though the man has confirmed that there is nobody powerful present in the group that we are chasing. The strongest necromancer that they have right now is supposed to be at the peak of the foundation stage. The captive referred to him as the eldest disciple."

  Well, it does sound like useful information, but this is information we kind of knew already. None of our superiors would have sent us on this mission if they did not think that we could do it.

  "Finally, we know that the necromancers have a base in this land." The lady speaks as she finally drops the bombshell on top of us. "Right now, the necromancers should be going towards this base of theirs."

  As I am processing this information, I look at the faces of every person in this room. They all look like they want to strangle the lady. This is especially the case with John, who looks like a monkey punched him. Well, I must have the same look on my face. The presence of the necromancers was supposed to inhibit the vampires. Vampires without a reason to hide themselves are dangerous little creatures.

  "Why are you telling us this now?" John growls at the lady. "Do you think that we have come here on a picnic?"

  "You really should learn to have some patience, Captain John. We know that they are going to their base but we don't know the location of the place. We were trying to get that location out of the man." She speaks. "He was killed before we could get it, though. Thus, to answer your earlier question, young master Antonio. We think that the man was killed so that he could not tell us the location of the enemy base."

  "We could still have been informed about this." Anthony speaks. "This information can be considered to be pretty vital."

  "Well, we had learned about this base of theirs only a couple of days ago." She replies quite smoothly. "We wanted to share the information once we managed to get a location. Regardless of what we thought, this source of information is pretty useless to us now. That leaves us with a single source of information. That would be the vampires themselves. Hunting them is supposed to be your specialty."

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  "Well, that is what I have been doing." John replies.

  "Are you sure? I have only seen you visit taverns and get drunk. If anything, you are just destroying the validity of our identities. I wouldn't think that noble folks would be wasting their time in such low-class places." The lady replies. There is a tone of humour in her voice, which is there just to piss off John more.

  "For how it destroys our identities, you have been coming with me too." The man replies. "Anyways, that is work. After all, if we are looking for vampires, the tavern is the best place to look for them."

  "Why would a vampire go to a tavern. Aren't they creatures that are worried about their image after all?" The lady replies, "As for why I have been going to these taverns is to keep an eye on you."

  "That is true, you will never find a vampire in a tavern. The trick is not to look at who is there but to look at who is not there." John replies. "After all, regardless of how noble a vampire is, they need to feed. If they are in this town, it naturally will not be the nobles they will be feeding on."

  "That still doesn't explain what you are going to a tavern." Anthony interrupts the man.

  "It will if you let me speak," John replies as he stares at Anthony.

  The two of them begin to stare daggers at each other. For a second, I wonder if swords will be drawn today.

  "To get back to the point. There is no influence of vampires in this town. That means that the only people they can feed on safely are the tramps, the beggars and the drunks." John continues as he turns his head to face the searcher. "Now, the only place that you can find out about them is in the taverns."

  "So, have you found out anything?" Anthony asks.

  "Well, did you think that we would sit here gossiping if we found anything." John replies, as irritation returns to his voice. "The taverns that I have been forced to visit have been too fancy. No person wanting to get drunk will go there. At least if he is poor. So I can't conclude either way if the vampires are here."

  "Well, that is a question that has already been answered for us now, hasn't it. Your soldier claims that only vampires can have killed our captive." Searcher Amelia asks, her question breaking the storm brewing between the two men. I don't think this will be enough now, though.

  "Well, if you know what to look for, we would have learned more than just whether the vampires were here. We could have learned the location of their base. They are pretty lazy creatures. They don't like to go too far to feed." John replies. "Well, now that we know that the vampires know of our existence, going to taverns will be useless. Anything we learn will only lead us into a trap."

  "So what is the next course of action?" The lady asks John.

  "Well, there are other options. That would require your expertise, though." John replies. "Before that, I had to ask you. Did the captive know of this town?"

  "The captive did not recognise this place when we told him about it. He finally did remember about it but it wasn't at the top of his head." She replies. "We assumed he was acting to protect this place from being discovered."

  "Well, then we should be very careful from today." John begins to explain. "Alfred, I need you to keep your troop patrolling the ship. Be as alert as you possibly can be. Be especially careful of the local guard. Send somebody to inform us if they are moving on us."

  "Who gave you the authority to command the mayfires, sentinel?" Anthony sneers at the man. "Explain yourself now."

  Seriously, something is wrong with the man. I mean, it is one thing to have enmity with somebody. Right now, we have an external enemy to deal with. Now is not the time to be fighting among each other.

  "Well, you want a reason. Let me tell you what I think has happened here. The vampires were escorting the necromancer to this base of theirs.", John speaks. His voice boomed across the room. He really hates being interrupted like that. "Then they heard that it was pretty likely that we would come to this place looking for them. Now they are here to get rid of us."

  As I listened to the man, I could say that my thoughts were going in a similar direction. I would not have been able to reach that conclusion as quickly as John, though.

  "All of that is fine. Just because the vampires know that we are here doesn't give you the right to command anybody here." Anthony replies. His reply can be considered to be calmer, but only in comparison to John's.

  "Well, I am being forced to take command here. Do you understand how a vampire thinks? Have you ever seen what the aftermath of a vampire's schemes is?" John replies as his hand begins to go back to his sword. "If we don't act now, we are going to be killed. Especially if we were to waste our time by fighting right now."

  "ENOUGH." I find myself screaming. "This is still my ship. If you want to have a fight, go and do it outside of here. Now, John, I would think it would be wiser if you explained why the vampires hunting us is such a dangerous thing."

  That stumps both of them for a bit as they look at me. I am sure that I have burnt quite a few bridges by doing what I did today, but we need to focus on the actual enemy right now. The damn idiots have a greater enemy to fight now, and they still fight each other.

  "Well, a vampire is a creature that can be considered to be a master schemer. That is why looking for vampires can be such a risky process.", John speaks, thankfully a bit calmer now. "If they want to attack us, it won't be the vampires doing the deed. It will most likely be this entire town. Even if we did manage to fight off the town, we are still not safe. That would leave us vulnerable to an attack from the vampires themselves. They are not creatures that we can underestimate."

  "All of what you have described seems like you are fear-mongering in the group to take control." Anthony replies. The man looks quite murderous at the moment. "You already claimed that the vampires must have no power in this region. Do you expect us to believe that they can be a threat so suddenly?"

  "Well, don't listen to me if you don't want to. We are in grave danger right now." John replies ominously. "It is clear that people don't want to listen to me right now. We shall speak when everybody is calmer."

  Saying this, the man just gets up and leaves. He bangs the door to my room hard enough that the noise echoes in the room. That leaves the remaining people in this group staring at each other awkwardly.