TehLulz decided that going through the streets would attract too much attention, even with his body changing color he was still very visible while moving. After exiting the Guild he immediately leapt onto the next available roof. As he did so he felt his muscles and tendons straining, as if they were about to tear but still somehow held together.

The roofs of Rockhaven were not difficult to traverse, they all nicely lined up at the exact same height with a rare few buildings breaking the pattern. The gaps the streets created were no challenge either, he simply jumped across.

The conspiracy leader's house was still quite a distance away. As he leaped over yet another street TehLulz took a look down, he saw everyone walking in full clarity. A thought crossed his mind, with a potion like this he could probably take on a ghoul by himself without problems, among most other things, even if it didn't entirely feel like it. The entire time his body felt like it was being pushed way beyond what it was made to do. In fairness, this was exactly what was happening.

About two dozen leaps later he had finally arrived at his first target. TehLulz came to a rest on top of the building opposing the position Unchosen had transmitted to him. The house sure enough had nether wart blossom engravings and there only was one door on it, which eliminated all guessing he had to do, at least for now.

TehLulz wasn't sure whether the leader was home, he didn't know enough about his schedule to know. He instead focused on the windows, trying to spot any movement inside. After waiting and watching for a few minutes he decided that it was safe to go in.

He exited the portal and yawned, holding meetings at unusual times was not among his preferred activities, his life force was almost entirely drained. They had been necessary though, at least one of them, that one being the one taking place below ground. After the recent events his followers wanted answers and guarantees. It had been difficult to explain to them that their hunting squad had been taken down, from what it looked like four had been hit by an incredibly powerful electric discharge and the fifth one had simply been killed with a dagger.

He had looked more into who the people were who had been asking around, save for Undira of course, he knew exactly who she was. Nothing much had come from it except that the mage who had killed his followers must have been Shadow Wardbreaker's apprentice. This had taken him by surprise, ever since he had known her, Shadow had never taken apprentices. She had taught in the University certainly, but she never had taken a direct mentor position.

As he walked through the streets towards his own house he thought more about the implications. If Shadow had finally taken an apprentice it must have been because of some extraordinary talent or circumstance. Shadow had also not been seen in the last few days, which was not what he had expected. He had expected that she would finish the negotiations for the Axe or at least aid in the investigations but no, she just completely vanished. What was her position in this anyways? He knew she was somehow involved with the Mencur-Besh, it was no secret that "ascension" was something that they had come up with, though nothing beyond that was known.

He turned the corner to the street his house was located in, suddenly it felt as if something was off…

TehLulz jumped down on the street, the impact would have shattered his legs normally but now he landed without making a sound. He walked up to the door, closed his eyes and started humming, entering an enchanting trance. He clearly saw the runes in the artificial bedrock of the house, focused on the right ones and told the door to open.

Instead of swinging open, the door instead split down the middle and formed a gap large enough for TehLulz to pass through. The inside of the house was very tidy and had all the hallmarks of a very long-time residence, paintings adorned some walls, one wall was reserved for trophies and awards. TehLulz had no time to look at them, instead he started turning the house inside out in search for the book.

This was not the first time he had done this, early during his time as a journalist when no outside help could be found or hired he sometimes took to the streets himself if that meant he could uncover valuable information. At times back then he seriously considered quitting the desk job of writing altogether and doing the information gathering full-time. The fact that some of his expeditions had brought him dangerously close to being caught by the law, by no means wrongly, had convinced him otherwise.

What he was doing now was a little different though, back then he needed to take care that no part of his intrusion was noticed, here he just needed the book and then he needed to get out. He pulled drawers to the floor, rifled through cupboards and displaced paintings. He eventually came to the conclusion that the ground floor was not where the book was. He sprinted up the stairs, which lead directly into the bedroom.

He was about to start his usual routine when he noticed something. There was a relatively small painting of an ender pearl directly above the bed… too small actually. A bigger painting would have fit the style of the rest of the house better, this one left too much of the wall exposed. This was cliché but maybe it was what he was looking for.

TehLulz jumped onto the bed and lifted the painting.

Even though he was tired he now ran towards his house, his feeling hadn't been wrong. There was a gap in his front door, which should be impossible and yet there it was. He slowly moved through the gap to find his living room and kitchen completely devastated, a quick look into the other rooms on the ground floor gave him similar results.

One of his followers must have talked, probably the one in the hunting squad that hadn't been fried. This was bad. Suddenly it dawned on him, whoever had been here probably looked for his book. Before going upstairs he used the last of his non-essential life force to scan the house.

Someone was in his bedroom. The reading was too inaccurate to know where exactly but that confirmed it. He reached into his robes, producing a knotty wooden stick tipped with a pulsating red gem. The wand he held now still held enough charge to incinerate anything he pointed it at, if that included his book then so be it, his plan was too close to completion to let his weak memory get in its way.

He slowly went up the stairs, gripping the wand tightly. He jumped up the last few steps, ready to blast whatever intruder was in his bedroom. He realized that nobody was in the room, despite what his scan had said earlier. Was he seeing things? Another look confirmed that if nobody was here now, somebody definitely had been. The painting above his bed had been removed and the safe below… was open?

Perhaps open was not the right word for the safe's state, a hole went straight through the door as if it had been shot by a cannon. As he looked into the hole he saw that his silver dagger was still there but his book was not. His oncoming anger was interrupted by a faint humming coming from his right. As he turned his head, the wall of his bedroom was violently ripped open and he could barely see a blurry shape peeling itself away from the wall, less than a meter to his right and escaping through the newly formed hole.

He jumped off his bed and ran to the hole, trying to make out where the thing had gone. He was tempted to drain the remaining energy in the wand to try and get a lucky shot but then thought better of it.

With a frustrated sigh he walked towards the staircase, as he went down he saw someone sitting on his couch, he readied the wand until he realized that it was the figure. Its pure white clothes stood in an intense contrast to the chaos around it. It didn't turn to look at him.

He asked: "Couldn't you have showed up a few minutes earlier?"

In its usual emotionless tone the figure answered: "Probably. But I hope I don't have to remind you about the nature of my help. I am here only to provide information, conducting the poisoning already strained my terms. If you fail to bring about the change you desire, that is your problem. I can wait another thousand years if I have to."

Any anger he had was gone, the figure was right, it had told him this multiple times. He asked: "So, what now? If that book gets to Bedrock we're finished."

The figure said: "I suggest you act now, with each passing minute it is more likely that your surprise assault will fail."

He nodded. Then conjured up a communication orb, doing so caused his vision to dim for a few seconds, being as low on life force as he was certainly didn't help.

He spoke into the orb: "Execute the plan."

TehLulz hadn't thought that his heart could beat any faster than what the potion pushed it to, he had been proven wrong when the conspiracy leader came up the stairs. Now TehLulz was again jumping from roof to roof, this time on his way to the second set of coordinates Unchosen had given him. The location was on the complete opposite side of town, he decided to avoid the central plaza and instead go over the houses on the side.

Getting the book from the safe hadn't been difficult, the strength the potion gave him still amazed him, three punches were all it took for the safe door to give in. The book was quite a small thing, it stood to reason that this was a notebook. He had tried to take a peek inside but it turned out that his currently demonic mind also made him unable to comprehend regular language in written form. He'd have to wait to see what was in the book.

He was now drawing close to the location, it seemed to be a warehouse on the edge of Rockhaven, from the outside there was absolutely nothing that set it apart from the others.

His feet hit the artificial bedrock hard as he landed in front of the warehouse. He supposed he needed to open this one up as well. Again, TehLulz entered an enchanting trance but stopped when he noticed that there was a large Eye-and-Claws symbol inside the door. He instead walked up to it and placed his hand on the doorknob.

He heard how the door unlocked itself, then carefully opened it. Inside was a single expansive room, lit up with glowstone lamps behind white stained glass. The room had what looked to be multiple large altars or perhaps morgue slabs evenly distributed throughout. All of them were empty save for one.

On the one occupied slab laid a Mencur-Besh he recognized as Fire. He was lying completely motionless but otherwise looked normal, save for the fact that there were still red stains on his clothes. This did not add up, he knew that Mencur-Besh burned up shortly after death and as it stood Fire was no sagged together pile of scales and bones. All of a sudden this felt very familiar, he had been in a similar position before, back in the swamp, seemingly dead but evidently still alive.

He hurried over to Fire and noticed another thing, next to the slab was a pedestal with a small flask on it, the flask contained a blue potion. Next to the flask was a note, surprisingly he could read what was written on it, it seemed to be written in demonic runes. It instructed him to administer the potion to Fire.

TehLulz thought for a few seconds. Since the location originated from the Mencur-Besh network he probably could trust the note. None other than the Mencur-Besh wrote in demonic runes, apart from demons of course and according to Shadow they would not write them on command.

He picked up the flask, uncorked it and gave what little was in it to Fire.

The reaction was immediate, a twitch went through Fire's body and his eyes opened.

He asked in the demonic tongue: "How many days since the banquet?"

TehLulz replied: "It's the morning of the third day."

Fire asked again: "Have they started the assault yet?"

TehLulz got progressively more confused. "No?"

"Good. Deliver the book to Bedrock as quickly as you can." Fire pulled a note from a pocket. "Give him this as well, he won't understand you otherwise."

TehLulz asked: "Why are you not dead?"

Fire said: "No time to explain, that comes after this is over. We're a bit behind schedule so I need to hurry."

Fire jumped up from the slab and was gone so quickly that even with the potion TehLulz could do nothing but stand there with his mouth open.