I am sitting in the Jolly Tulip right now. I am bored out of my mind as I look at the other people in here. After all, I have been coming to this place for the last week or so. In all of this time, there has been no sign of Lady Esmerelda. I have gotten familiar with the people here, though. At the counter, there is a middle-aged man who looks at me like he is suspicious that I won't pay.

  The man hasn't softened to me even after a week of spending the day in the place. I have been coming to this place so frequently that rumours have begun to pop up. Of these rumours, one rumour is so outrageous that I could not ignore it. That is why I am recording it right now.

  The first was that John had removed me from my job because I had proposed to "Lady Amelia". The lady naturally rejected a lowborn fool such as me. That is why I am coming here to drown out my sorrows. Well, a beer every couple of hours cannot be considered to be drinking. (Even to a non-mage.), But people tend to ignore all of that for a good story.

  Now, the problem with this rumour is that it is perfect for me. It explains why I have been wasting my time here. It also explains why I would be willing to come to this tavern, out of the way. It also explains why John would be willing to leave me alone. (The man has been overworking me for a while now.)

  I am doing everything to make this rumour more convincing. I have taken to randomly bursting into tears every couple of hours. Ever since I started that, the rumour has basically become the truth to these people. It honestly feels like people are coming here just to see me for the last couple of days. (I swear that there are at least double the people in the room compared to a week ago.)

  Well, I guess that I should speak about the place itself. The Jolly Tulip is actually a pretty good place for me to spend my time. The tavern is one of the quieter ones, where folks are only here to drink.

  It is almost impossible to find such a tavern in this place. The taverns in this place are meant to cater to the folks who leave the casino. That means that they have to mimic the atmosphere of the casino to a certain degree. That means that such taverns tend to be loud, bright, vibrant and all in all, chaotic to their very core.

  I don't normally mind spending my time at such taverns, if I am honest, but such places can get annoying. The sound of the drunk patrons, the stink of their sweat and the sound. The cacophony of drunk people screaming, being overpowered by the sound of bar brawls. The sound of the brawl is then overpowered (there is an attempt at least.) by musicians playing the most garish songs out there. All of it is too much for a man who is here just to get a drink. (And supposedly cry his heart out.)

  This bar is the exact opposite of all the bars found in the town. It is a quiet, simple place. I think the only people who are here are the locals of this place. The kind that must wish for a quiet time once in a while in this chaotic mess of a town.

  I don't know why Searcher Amelia would consider this place shady. If anything, I find this place to be the best tavern in the town. Maybe she called this place shady because of the locality in which it is situated. Our present location is not very far away from the place where I met Esmerelda in the first place.

  Maybe that is why Enrique comes to this place so often. It would be the perfect place for a man to think. One of the side effects of waiting for the vampire has been that I am keeping an eye on Enrique Navok. This place seems to be the man's favourite bar. That is the only thing that can explain the frequency with which the man has been visiting the place.

  There is no risk of the man recognising me. After all, even if he did, the man would believe the rumour that I have been crying so hard to prove. That means that I can observe him without too many worries. In a way, I can see the logic of the Searchers in keeping an eye on the man. Enrique Navok is the man in charge of the shipyard, as previously mentioned.

  The usual style of the vampires would be to tempt Enrique. The exact thing they tempt people with is different for everybody. It could be beauty, wealth, power or anything really.

  Whatever it is, once they have Enrique under his control, it would be child's play to send a force to attack us. They don't even need to send anybody after us. I am sure that Enrique would invent some excuse to attack us with the full force of the Navok family. The Navok family is already very paranoid, with them seeing enemies everywhere. They won't even notice us in the hordes of enemies that they have.

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  Well, all of that is contingent on Enrique going to the vampire's side. At the moment, it does seem like the man has yet to do so. Well, if I am being honest, there is no way for me to know if the man has gone to the vampires.

  I can say for certain that they have not converted the man into a vampire. The first few weeks of the transformation tend to be very rough on a grunt. Especially if the grunt is as powerful a mage as Enrique. There is no way that the man would be able to drink. A single sip of beer will be like drinking an entire gallon of it in this state. It would take a lot of discipline to guzzle even beer.

  Still, that is not enough to tell anything. If the scholars had a record of him, I could tell better. After all, such a record would be recording his personality. With that, I could tell more accurately. There is always a personality change when you transform. For now, though, the only thing that I can tell is that the man is quite stressed.

  After all, he has come to this place three times a day for the last few days. Each time he drinks enough for a normal person to get drunk. Even with our bodies enhanced with vital mana, that much drink will affect us. He has been drinking enough that he should be on the floor right now. The man has a stronger cultivation, but I still refuse to believe that he is not affected. I am not a scholar, but I would say the man is worried about something.

  Now, what this is something is I don't know. Maybe the man could be weighing the pros and cons of siding with the vampire. (There are not a lot of cons since this town barely has a divine presence.) He could just as likely be drinking away his heartbreak. (Just like I am supposed to be at the moment.)

  All in all, I can say that I have learned nothing useful in the last week. The only useful information I have learned is that the folks here tend to make very good beer. The only reason that I could even come out here was because there is no real use for me in the present situation.

  After all, all the factions are doing their things. Since none of them is doing anything together, there is no real need for diplomacy. Hence, there is no real need for me. Thus, my job now is to do nothing. My troop has its tasks, of course. All of the factions still need messengers. The problem is that it is something that can be done even without my supervision.

  I guess I should record what each faction is doing right now. John has gone to reinforce the mayfires. So have the other Sentinels. Right now, the situation on the ship is not pretty. We know for certain that an attack is happening. The only issue is that we don't know how. Maybe it could be through Enrique Navok. Maybe they will just attack us in the middle of the night. An attack will come. We are sure of that.

  I have not heard much from the ship in the last week, which doesn't help with my fears. Well, the Sentinels are presently preparing for an attack. That means that they won't be sending messages easily. After all, every message sent holds the risk of being tampered with. (At least that is their thought process.)

  Thus, if any message were to come from the ship, it would mostly mean that they are under attack. Still, I would have preferred to know something. The present uncertainty doesn't help when the only thing I am doing is wasting time.

  The searchers are also busy at this moment with their own thing. On the face of it, they are studying the rock sword and trying to figure out its magic. That is not the only thing that they are doing. I have been listening to the gossip in this tavern, and I know that the "Lady Amelia" has been sneaking out of the inn.

  All of them look at me while whispering amongst themselves. They wonder if the lady is sneaking out to meet me. Then they wonder why the lady would waste her precious time with a drunkard like me.

  Well, the lady doesn't want these trips of hers to be known to anybody. My troop has no idea about any of this. (You would be surprised just how many things you tend to learn when you are messengers.)

  Well, whatever the lady is doing, it is not interfering with her work with the rock sword. That is why I have no reason to interrupt whatever she is doing. Lastly, we have the Aegis, who are doing whatever they are doing. They have been quite careful in making sure that I don't learn about it. The Searchers have an idea, but they are not going to be saying anything.

  Ever since the last meeting, Anthony has been acting on his own. The Aegis have been pretty reclusive in this mission, but they are reaching the limits of my patience.

  There is a viciousness to his behaviour nowadays that nobody fails to notice. The perfect example of it is another of the rumours that I have been hearing nowadays. I am running away from Anthony because I had slighted the man somehow. Now he is looking to kill me, but that would offend John. That is why I hide myself in this tavern, waiting for it all to blow over. (This seems more logical, but the previous rumor catches the people's imagination more.)

  His dark mood is more than clear to everybody in the town, it seems like. Whatever the Aegis is doing, they do not want us to know what they are doing. Paranoia is one thing, but this makes me very nervous.

  Well, I guess I will be nervous about anything as long as I think about it long enough. Well, the sun has finally set. I get up from my table a bit unsteadily. It is all part of the act, of course. Can't prove to the people that I am not drunk now.

  Leaving the tavern, I can feel the cool breeze in my surroundings. I begin to walk down the street as the sounds of revelry echo from the distance like a distant hum. Well, the folks going to the casino don't care about night and day.

  Right now, I am in one of the more secluded parts of the fort, so it is unlikely that I am going to meet them. As for why I am going to such a remote part of the fort, it is to make sure that my day doesn't go fully to waste.

  I have a stalker problem to deal with.