Chapter One - Out of the Frying Pan...

He sat there in a brightly lit room, a largish window opened up allowing some fresh air into the otherwise stuffy room. He sat at his wooden desk as he did every day, stacks of paper either side of him with filing cabinets lining the walls of the room, each one of them packed full of reports.

It was an arduous task, a deathly boring one but it was necessary. He had to check each and every report to make sure he knew all that he could. Mostly these consisted of virtually blank sheets saying "Nothing happened," but every now and then something big turned up.

Sighing, he marked off the report sheet and put it in the out tray, reaching out for the next one in the in tray. There were only two things written on it, one more than was usual. The second one was insignificant to him but the first caught his attention. Spinning in his chair, the sheet clutched tightly in his hand, he pulled open a draw containing his pet project: The Leá Monde incident.

Quickly flicking through the bundle of previous reports he drew out a rather larger one. His eyes rapidly scanned the document, fixing on one name. Callo Merlose. Noting the referral sheet number, he went back into the draw, searching hungrily, wanting to be right. Pulling out a third sheet, he read it swiftly only looking for one thing and he found it. Comparing the original report and the one he'd just found, he compared the times and grinned, knowing he'd got it spot on. Somehow, Callo Merlose had been in two places at once; the first being her report to his overall bosses and the second being asked for identification by a guard on a street half the way across the city from the VKP headquarters...

Quickly he wrote out a report and put it in an envelope, including the two reports. Getting up from his hard chair, his knees cracked as they changed alignment. Trotting around the desk, he opened up a door, calling out to one of the office boys, 'gophers' as they were affectionately called. As one came at his call, he handed him the envelope.

"Make sure this gets to him right away, it's of utmost importance."

With a nod, the young lad jogged to the stairway, taking them two at a time as he made his way to the upper reaches of the building, somewhere he very rarely went to...


She stood before them once again, just as she had when they first assigned her to the case and when she had debriefed them about what had happened as far as she knew. Quite why she was here she didn't know but she wasn't exactly sure she wanted to find out.

As the head of the VKP council, Grand Stewart Le Sait read through some notes, Callo Merlose looked around the room. She sat at the far end of a long wooden table that stretched most of the way across the room. At the other end sat the high council, the people she worked for, the people that the safety of the kingdom was entrusted to. They ran the Valendian Knights of the Peace in service of the King and his Parliament. To her right there was a large, multi-paned window reaching all over the wall. From it almost all of the city could be seen. There were few buildings as tall as the one she now sat in so she could see over them into the distance. As she stared into the distance, she heard a cough from across the table. Turning her attention back to them, she dreaded what might happen.

"We've had some disturbing reports Inquisitor Merlose and we'd like you to shed some light on them for us." Opening a folder on his desk, he continued, "We have a guards report that he saw you out in Cambrose Street at the same time you were here, debriefing us on the Leá Monde affair. Now, you obviously know that is impossible so there must be another explanation and we believe that is Riskbreaker Riot, thus placing him right here in our fair city. As you now know, there is such a thing as magic and it is reasonable to assume that after the debacle at Leá Monde, Riot may well have picked up some powers of his own. As one of the only other survivors, we want you to track him down."

"Why me sir? Why not someone more experienced?" she asked nervously.

This time, Lord Arnaud spoke. "You were chosen because as your debriefing said, you have a somewhat tenuous link with Riskbreaker Riot an we hope that you can utilise that in your search for him."

"But sir, it works the other way only. It was Agent Riot's gift that allowed him to see what I saw, not the other way around."

Instead of admitting their mistake, they just stared at her. Callo felt herself shrinking down in her seat, shying away from their glares. No, I won't let them belittle me. I am an Inquisitor and am to be respected. Sitting up straight in her seat, her back stiff, Inquisitor Merlose composed herself and faced them, refusing to back down.

"Still, you are the only agent we have who has worked with Riskbreaker Riot before and we feel this will help you in your endeavour," continued Le Sait.

"May I ask why you are looking for Riskbreaker Riot?" Callo asked, staying true to her job, trying to get all the information she needed.

The Grand Stewart looked at her, an eyebrow raised as if he thought she was being impertinent. "The power he may now have is very dangerous and we fear it may corrupt him. If indeed it does, all hell will break loose and we cannot allow that to happen. If Agent Riot lives, it will be the death of us all and we do not want that to happen. Thus you are to hunt him down, capture him and bring him back here for interrogation. We must know if the power of Leá Monde has been passed on to him. We believe it has, the incident in Cambrose Street being proof. If so, he must be stopped..."

What he didn't realise is whilst he told her one thing, she also heard another message, saying the opposite. In Merlose's vision, she saw a grey form of Le Sait standing behind him, hands held stiffly behind his back, talking to her.

"We need control of that power. With Ashley Riot as our lapdog, we can take this kingdom for ourselves, maybe even the world..."

"Is there anything else I need to know for this mission?"

"No, that is all. We expect you to leave sometime today. Start by talking to the guard; you can find him on patrol around Cambrose Street later this evening. You may go now."

With a curt nod, Inquisitor Callo Merlose, stood up and left the room, her thoughts awhirl. I have to find him and warn him... who knows what tricks the VKP have up their sleeves... She spent the rest of the daylight preparing herself for she knew that she had a long mission ahead of her...