Chapter 261: Fated Meeting
Once Lake showed off what he could do while brewing poison Master Nancom said. "You are cleared of suspicion. Let's go back to the spire." Lake was happy that this hadn't taken too long and asked. "Is Lucas here, I need to ask him about what is going on in the Metal Domain."
"He is but I'm not sure if you will have a chance to meet with him if we don't hurry. He will be leaving to attend a meeting soon if he hasn't already left." Hearing Nancom's words, Lake didn't panic. He could always talk to Lucas later, he would just have to wait for him to come back instead of going back to the Metal Domain right away like he had planned.
Lake really needed some help breaking the barrier and getting rid of the flesh formation and he didn't think trying to rely on whoever he could find back in the metal domain would be enough. He had failed the first time while working with the Metal Temple and he didn't see a second attempt going very well now that a lot of them had already died.
Walking into Lucas' office, Lake saw him sitting at his desk working like usual. "I heard you were back. Are the others dead?"
"What others?" Lake knew who Lucas was talking about without asking because he foresaw Lucas being annoyed if he let the other important members of the Alchemist guild die without trying to save them. If Lake had known how their attack was going to turn out he would have probably gone to the Alchemist guild branch and told them to run.
He had been too caught up in what was going on to do that though so now he returned alone. "I mainly mean Nia but the masters that were at the branch in the Metal Domain would be a big loss as well."
"I really don't know if they are dead but I know the guild branch was destroyed so some of them might be." Lake knew that the guild district had been completely leveled by the attack the formation had launched. This probably meant that the guild members there had been lost already.
"So I have to leave soon, I would like you to come with me so you can tell me what you know on the way to the meeting." After Hearing Lucas' request, Lake looked down at what he was wearing and said. "Would you give me some time to get some clothes? I don't think I should go looking like this."
Lucas finally looked up when Lake said this and saw what he was wearing. Lake could tell this had an effect on how annoyed Lucas was. Lake looked really rough so Lucas was probably thinking he had really struggled for the past few days which was true. "Yes, that's fine. Have one of the servants clean you as well."
Lake was in a hurry so he turned to master Nancom who was still there and said. "Thank you again master." Once he had said bye to master Nancom, Lake quickly went to the stairs to Fly up to his room so he could get ready to go with Lucas to the meeting.
...
"I think this is the real one. I'm sure at this point." Tiff had helped the group of people from the Temple look around the thieves' shelter and she really did think the thieves had given them the real one. "Alright, well I have to go to the meeting anyway so you can get started if you would like."
Looking at the Temple Head Tiff said. "I'm going to go outside and figure out which direction I need to go real quick before you leave so you know where I am." Climbing the stairs Tiff climbed up to look out towards the direction that she needed to go. Seeing it was pointing her in the opposite direction of the Alchemist guild, Tiff started to worry about the fact the Thieves might have set it wrong to screw her over.
Going back to the Temple Head's side Tiff said. "Maybe we should have left one of them alive." They could have easily got the one that was alive to talk since most thieves didn't have a loyalty curse to keep their mouths shut. It kind of came with the territory of their line of work that they needed to lie with the only ones that couldn't lie or tell you what they knew having been enslaved by someone by forcing them to take the loyalty curse or die.
"Do you think it wont work?"
"No it's just that it's telling me to go the opposite direction than it did the last time. I was really expecting to be told to head to the Alchemist guild again." Tiff had really hoped she wasn't going to try and track down Jon because even if she knew where to go it could take forever.
With the tracker telling her to head towards the edge of the city she was afraid that he wasn't in the Holy Domain anymore. "I'm about to be meeting with the people from the Alchemist guild. I'll try to ask them about it again." The Alchemist guild had fully denied having the dagger last time but the stakes for them to lie was much higher this time and as long as they came at them in a non-accusatory manner they might be willing to hand it over this time.
"I don't want to confront them, I just need you to ask to set up a meeting with a guy named Jon. He said he had the dagger and that he didn't want it anymore."
"So you met this guy once already and you convinced him to give the dagger back so what stopped that from happening?" Tiff had kept part of the story from the Temple last time since she planned to use Jon as a way to run away so she didn't want the Temple to know she had already met the person with the dagger.
"I got kidnaped and Jon was the one who saved me so I got distracted and he left before I could bring it up again."
"He saved you and he works for the Alchemist guild as some kind of thief." Tiff could hear the doubt in the Temple head's voice but that was exactly what had happened. "Yeah he seems to be a hidden figure that has his own things going on but he fought off an assassin to save me right after I tried to kill him to get the dagger back. It takes a curtain kind of person to do something like that."
Tiff wouldn't deny that Jon seemed to have a complicated position that was between a lot of the major players in the Holy domain but what could she say he had saved her life for really no reason against the Assassins guild which most people would never do for even their closest friends since it was seen as a death sentence for you and your whole family and sometimes even people you sort of knew.
"Well if you think he's willing to just give the dagger back if we can find him I really don't care who he is. We have to try all the ways to reach him. Since you're the only one who has seen him you have to come to the meeting on the off chance the tracker is a trick and he is actually still in the Alchemist guild, or if we're lucky, next to Lucas."
Tiff actually felt like there was a good chance Jon would be close if he was still working for the guild because when someone like Lucas came out it was pretty common for strong subordinates to stay close in case they were needed. Hopefully when they got a chance to talk to Lucas about him it would only take a few hours to set up a handover for the dagger.
"When does the meeting start?"
"We have to go now if we want to be there on time." Tiff nodded to what the Temple Head said and asked. "Should I wear something that makes it less obvious who I am, maybe a guard robe?" This had been the main reason the Temple Head hadn't wanted her to come to the meeting when she first asked so she figured maybe she should dress like one of the guards.
"No you need to look important so Lucas will actually give you any of his time. If a random guard started to try and talk to him he probably wouldn't like it." This was true, even if they could explain to Lucas that she wasn't actually a guard he might not give them more than one chance to start a conversation so they couldn't risk blowing it.
"Alright we're going to take the cart the people from the temple came in." Walking outside and getting into a cart Tiff asked. "Where are we going?" A meeting between all the groups that ran the Holy Domain was rare and she doubted they had a prepared place they could all agree on. "The palace."
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