Captain Sabir, leader of the Silver Chain band, was done with baseless rumormongering that the Wraiths of Tarnox had returned. He had stood on one of the benches in the mess hall and was glaring down at the men who had fear stained faces.

  "They've been sealed for a thousand years. And even if they were to have escaped the records that exist are clear that there are tens of thousands of named Wraiths, so there would have to be many more that were unnamed. If they had all escaped then the city would be overrun."

  His people's faces were less pale and fearful. what a tragedy that every mother in a thousand miles used the Wraiths of Tarnox as the monster that would eat them if they ran away into the woods at night, stole from the donations to the divines, or failed to eat their vegetables.

  "Now here I think that there's some conspiracy between these faeries and beetles. It's much more likely that they got together and had one of their necromancers or illusionists make something that looked and felt a bit like a wraith. They tried to deceive you. To trick us into running away so they can take control of this fort and control the trade between the empire and the outer kingdoms."

  Sabir slammed his fist on the table. "They cannot be allowed to steal our home and livelihood out from under us. We must show them that we are not afraid and instead they should leave!" The men cheered.

  "Now though I would like to rout them from their warrens we don't have enough men. When we get the new recruits in Fall we might be able to succeed but that doesn't mean we can't tell them we mean business."

  "Viktor. Roger. Take your squads and patrol the streets. If you find any beetles or fae wandering about rough em up. Try not to kill them because we need to have them tell their people to get out of OUR CITY."

  Viktor raised his mace and Roger didn't react except to shovel food the last morsels of food into his mouth and give his bowl to his lieutenant. The dozen men extricated themselves from the rest of the tables and set off.

  "Now the rest of you aren't off the hook quite yet. We'll need double patrols because I'm expecting that the faeries are going to try to push their luck. We'll need to make sure they don't have the opportunity." The men were less enthused with the extra work, but Sabir was confident that the blame would be properly attributed to those faerie tricksters.

  Sabir left the little of his lunch and set off to his chambers. News of escaped wraiths would need to be conveyed to his contact in the Capital. Viktor was a Cleric so if his group encountered any of the wraiths he should be able to deal with them and Roger was a coward so he wouldn't put himself in a position to get cornered by any of them.

  Outside the mess hall a dozen men were training their reflexes and chants, sending harmless sparks at each other that would give a twenty four hour stain on their clothing. Each man had to use their [shield] to stop them, using their hand as a focus to center their blocking magic. A few of them would go to the entrance of the chapel of growth to check their progress and Sabir was content to see that there were no more than two people waiting in line at any given time.

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  The priest of Adras was seated on the bench outside the temple and turned his glower from the training mercenaries to himself. Sabir put an effort to not shiver. The man who refused any order and would not give his name would only let the men use the System stone if he was provided food and occasional necessities for him or his building. Reports on him put him on the youngest at five hundred but it was estimated he could have been in that same temple for a thousand years. He was a thorn in the Silver Chain's fort but nobody sane would do anything about it. He would at the least have mod privileges so anyone who crossed him could have their System boosts deactivated for up to a year. If he was an Admin like some whispered he could give or take entire levels at his own discretion.

  The priest's eyes bored into Sabir until he got to the Manor, a small home that was built for the Baronet who originally inhabited the fort. As the Captain he kept the master rooms and let the squad who performed the best keep the servant's quarters. The building was expertly made so it had much less of a draft than the barracks that the mercenaries had to build themselves. Hopefully the next batch of press ganged recruits would have a few carpenters who still had most of their fingers.

  Sabir nodded to the guard who sat just inside the manor and walked up the staircase. He walked to the end of the hall on the second floor and entered the Master's suite. In the Parlor he'd had a desk set and the other furniture removed. On the desk was a wax tablet.

  Taking the signet ring from the chain around his neck Sabir pressed the signet of three interlocking ovals into the wax and whispered in the low god's tongue:

  "(let the miles melt away and permit me to see and speak with my friend who holds the other ring)" He knew what the spell meant since he'd had some teaching at an abby but most others just said the words the System provided and leave it at that. Changing the words when you didn't know the outcome was inadvisable and even Sabir didn't make it a habit, despite that he liked the illusory fireball he'd developed.

  The wax tablet rippled, as would the other copy in the Capital. He waited for a few minutes since the station would take a minute to get the right inquisitor to answer since this was not a pre-arranged message. He could have phrased the spell to let him speak to anyone who saw the tablet but since he was not overrun with wraiths he didn't want undo attention from the inquisitors.

  The signet symbol was indented on the top of the wax and the tablet extruded to show a simplified head.

  "Something to report Sabis?" the mouth moved but the voice was projected from the seal indent on the forehead.

  "Yes Mark. There's a report of some of the wraiths escaping their prison. It's unlikely to be true but I'll make sure to give daily reports in case it becomes an issue."

  "Good. We've needed an excuse to set up a chapterhouse nearby and this could justify it. You'll need to make your reports at dusk. I've got a few apprentices I need to train in the deep of the night."

  "Are any of the apprentices any good?"

  "Most of them, nah. There is one lad whose got a good arm he built himself. I'm trying to convince him to learn some magic the old way because we need a good systemless. It's hard keeping the Adrasites in line when they think their shit don't stink."

  "Well if he's any good we could use him here"

  "And in every other corner of the Empire, but it might make sense to test him on someone isolated from the cult. In any case I've got a steak in the Broken Ox that I can't forget so I think I'll have another."

  The connection was severed and the head melted back into the tablet surface. Sabis stood stretched, walked to the hand drawn map that covered the wall. There were dozens of pins with red painted backs set in various parts of the city that it depicted. Two of the pins were green. Eventually they would have to find all of the shrines to the lady of Vines and seal away the last of the access points. If the Empire was to take this city for good then there would be no place for that so called lady Wraith and her treasure she would kill Imperial lineages for.