A/N:

Mara: So I actually managed to get this chapter read through and done faster than I thought, so I'm going to do a double update this month. Purely as a birthday gift to RK, lol! But no, this one is a short chapter so why not post it anyway.

Enjoy!

"You look like someone just pissed on your cake or something."

Both Arka and girl turned to face the voice.

Gone was the beat up brown tunic, torn black pants and scuffed dark shoes. Instead, Valeria was faced with a maroon tunic embroidered with a silver phoenix, grey pants tucked into new tempered black boots with maroon edgings and black-silver gauntlets. The only thing that remained the same on the silver haired man, whose hair was now up instead of brushed aside, was his pocket covered silver-black waist pack, which seemed to have a new addition of holsters.

Drayden.

Amber eyes looked at the two of them with an odd expression, like he was trying to keep from laughing yet did not believe his eyes.

"Word around the deep was that you died."

Well, that explained that…

Words escaped the blonde as the silver haired smuggler waived at the two of them to follow him. They did, only because Nyla didn't seem to care about the words Drayden just spoke. Valeria on the other hand was wondering why people seemed to believe she'd died.

So far as she'd known, no one knew about her going with Jade to Akzeriuth since she'd never actually gone inside the Malkuth Consulate and no one from Kaitzur knew her enough to tell anyone about her involvement.

"If you're trying to figure out how people knew you were in the town, one of the reasons is due to the carriage driver who took you to Coral Castle; he's a part of the Underworld." Drayden informed her, silencing her internal debate. "Another might be that there were some survivors through the pass, though a lot were severely injured because of the earthquakes caused by the collapse of Akzeriuth."

That perked her up. "There were survivors?"

"Yep," he assured her. "Now, before you bombard me with questions, how about we go somewhere and I'll treat you to some food and we exchange information. There are a lot of curious souls who would love to get their hands on that info, and I want to rub their faces in the fact that I knew the details about the collapse before they did."

If she hadn't already been feeling better with the conversation, since Drayden tends to crack her up when he's not dropping her down a water shoot, that right there had Valeria laughing.

"I'll tell you all you want, but only if you tell me whether or not someone particular survived, other than that I don't have a whole lot of information I require right now."

"Oh, let me take a wild guess." Drayden grinned. "Is this particular soldier the only Malkuth Soldier that had been sent through the pass? Seeing as I don't peg you for someone who knows a lot of Kimlascans, and you likely don't know anyone in Akzeriuth, it's safe to assume it's that soldier. Everyone else was either a civilian or Kimlascan after all."

By now, the three of them had made it to the restaurant that Drayden had been leading. He led them to an outside table and sat there, due to Nyla being with them and not allowed inside. A waiter came outside at that point, though he looked hesitant about coming over until Drayden waived him over. The man relented but, Valeria noted, stayed on the opposite side of the table from Nyla to take their orders, escaping the first chance he could, while Valeria snickered under her breath.

"Well, now that you've ordered. Give me details!"

The excitement from the smuggler was palpable to the blonde and she laughed loudly at that.

She told him what she remembered from the events, as well as the info she pieced together from what the others told her happened on their end, something that had been hard to do since half of them weren't talking and the other half didn't explain very well.

Jade probably wouldn't like her just spilling the beans like this, but in the Underworld, there is give and take. You have to give info to do one of two things. The first is to get info in return, and the second, which is probably the most important reason, is to get a better standing. By giving other people info, it proves that you can help better the rest of the Underworld, and you'll be able to access other information you wouldn't have gotten before.

Speaking of info…

"Oh! By the way," Valeria grabbed one of the bags from Nyla and dug through it. Holding up a fon disc, she smirked. "I managed to get that info for the Limiter; only problem is I don't know where to turn it in. This is my first time in Belkend after all, so I obviously don't know the locations of anything yet."

Drayden looked from her, to the disc then back at her before bursting out laughing. "I don't know why, but I'm surprised. I figured you wouldn't have been able to pull that off, and the Limiter would've had to get the info some other way, but wow, you pulled through."

It took all the Valeria had to not snap at him about underestimating her, but she didn't want the good mood to disappear, so she held her tongue. "Whatever you say, just tell me where to turn it all it."

One slender eyebrow rose, letting Valeria know that Drayden knew about her held tongue but he shrugged. "Just give it to me, we're supposed to meet up soon, so I can hand it over once we catch up."

"And the reward for the task?"

"I'll fill out your slip. It'll probably be a favor or two, not sure how many but you will also get money as well. Though, I can't remember how much off the top of my head but I'll give you some now and the rest will be given after a full delivery, which is how it normally is. I think you'll also get better access to some info sources, if the information on the disc checks out, that is."

It was a lot to take in, but seeing as she hadn't done something like this before, Valeria would just have to believe him. He was a smuggler, not a thief, so she knew she could trust him on things like this. After all, if word got out that a smuggler stole and lied to a client, then he wouldn't get any other work in the future.

Passing the disc over the table to him, she raised an eyebrow when he places two pieces of paper in front of her before digging into his waist pouch. "Got some other info I believe you mentioned that you wanted. It took some time though, since not every bit of info is places in all the locations, but I managed it. Purely on the off chance I ran into you again.

"Yeah, right." That grin was back on his face, so she knew he was telling a partial truth, and he knew she was reading his face. No way he remained a smuggler with an expressive face, he just liked messing with her. "You wouldn't just run into me, though. Like I said before, Noir asked you to help me, so I know we're going to be seeing each other a lot."

"True enough, girlie, true enough." The grin dropped and he grew serious. "Now, I do believe your group is probably finished by now. You should likely try and hunt them down."

Valeria nodded as Drayden waived the waiter over to pay for the meals, ignoring Valeria's attempt to pay for her own food. "I could have—"

"Oh and one other thing," Drayden interrupted before she could yell at him for paying. "Fomicry work takes fominin, as you well know. And I'm also sure you know about the cave in southern Radessia; the one with the obnoxious about of fominin, so much of the stuff that it's super easy to sneak in and get out with a hefty amount without being caught for when the Techies ask for some."

Valeria smirked. The Techies were the fomicry users and creators in the Underworld, and she had a feeling Drayden spoke from experience when he mentioned getting fominin for them.

"Anyway, word around the Deep is that the Dorian General has been there a lot, along with his scientists. Might be an interesting place to check out, though I have a feeling you already knew it might be interesting, didn't you?"

Placing a bag in front of her, Drayden stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, and even had the Dark Winged girl not asked me to watch over you, you interest me too much to walk away. Good luck girlie, see you next time."

He walked off, leaving Valeria and Nyla to stare after him then look at each other in confusion. "I don't think I'll ever understand him…."

Nyla grumbled in agreement before standing. Valeria grabbed the bag in front of her, almost dropping it at feeling the weight. Was this small simple job really worth the amount of gald given, or was Drayden just an idiot?

Shaking her head, she put the money in Nyla's main bag before mounting the Arka, telling her to locate the others by smell.

They ran into Guy first, the swordsman making his way towards the entrance of the city. "Guy!"

He stopped and waited for them to walk over to him, eyeing them warily until it appeared that Nyla was going to stop some distance from him. "What's up?"

Valeria glanced behind him then tilted her head. "I should be asking you that, where are the others? I could've sworn we left you to babysit them."

The blond swordsman smiled lightly at her jest. "They're still looking around the labs. We met with a man named Spinoza and got some information from him, but he ran off before we could get enough details. So the rest of them are looking for other clues."

"And you?"

Guy ran a hand through his hair. "I'm heading back for Luke."

Valeria nodded, it didn't surprise her in the least. She had pretty much figured that if anyone was going to go back and deal with the replica, it would be him. From what she knew, Guy had practically raised the replica, and had probably developed a good friendship. And she also knew that Asch would see Guy as Luke's servant, not his, especially after all the time that has passed.

"In that case, I wish you good luck, you'll need it. You know how you're getting back?"

"Yeah, Asch told me about Aramis Spring."

"Hold on," she told him, digging through her own bag. Finding what she was looking for, she tossed a charm at him. "You'll want that. There are crabs in the spring that can petrify. The charm will protect you."

"Thanks, you probably just saved my neck." He admitted.

Waving goodbye to Guy, Valeria nudged Nyla so that they could go and find the others. They arrived outside one of the main labs of the city, yet when they tried to enter, a guard held them up. She tried to get around him, but the man told her that animals weren't allowed inside, something she highly doubted if Van worked here, he would've likely brought Arietta inside before and she has Ligers.

Valeria was mentally contemplating beating the guards and rushing inside, mostly because Nyla wasn't willing to leave her alone, when the doors suddenly opened and the remaining members of the group came out.

Asch was scowling and Anise seemed annoyed; though the rest of them weren't any worse for wear so she knew there hadn't been a fight or anything, just lack of information.

"No luck?"

The red head turned his scowl to her, clearly not surprised at her sudden appearance. Well, she did always suddenly appear by him so it wasn't unusual. "No, and we lost Spinoza."

Valeria nodded sagely, then she smirked. "Well, lucky for you then, I managed to find us a lead while on my own little adventure."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, Jade, really." Valeria retorted. "According to my source, Dist and Van have been using a cave on Radessia called Ortion Cavern. Want to take a guess why?"

Red eyes widened very slightly; only noticeable if someone had been looking for it, which the blonde had been. Yet still he refrained from responding to her jab, which she had suspected would happen since she didn't give him a chance to respond.

"It's in Kimlascan territory, so Malkuth can't interfere," Valeria explained. "Dist went there to deal in his secrets that he stole from Malkuth. Plus, it's also a place where fominin can be found, which is used in creating replicas."

"If Van does go there, we can probably find out more about his plans." Asch decided.

Valeria ignored the little jab he added there, as if he didn't believe that the Dorian General goes to the caverns.

"Valeria," the blonde turned her attention to Jade. "I take it you know where it is?"

"I may or may not have gone there a couple of times with Dist. I didn't know, at the time, that Van went there as well, but I've seen a couple of projects Dist worked on."

Jade put his head in his hand. "And you never thought to inform someone about this?"

"The blonde tilted her head. "Who would I tell? In case you didn't know, I only know people from Malkuth and Daath. Malkuth has no jurisdiction there and Daath would just help Dist cover it all up, so there was really no point. Not to mention, I promised Dist I wouldn't tell anymore."

"But," Anise pipped up. "You're telling us now."

"Eh," Valeria shrugged. "That promise was made forever ago, so I think it's null and void now. He never said to keep it a secret forever; well that and I'm mad at Dist. He kicked me out of the lab while I was in the middle of a project, which got ruined because of his interference. It doesn't matter that I know another way back into the lab, he made my circuitry fry because of his need for secrets that never really remain secrets when I'm around."

It was Asch's turn to face palm, with Jade looking like he was considering it as well yet decided against it.

Valeria grinned and rubbed her hands together.

"So! Who's ready to break into a fomicry lab?"

Hope you enjoyed the double update! Reviews are appreciated immensely!