Chapter 39: Investigation Start

The Guild Master called us as we were needed for an important mission as Cruz, George, I, Chloe, and Hailey were called to go on a quest. Something about a box that was a dangerous artifact that needed us to retrieve from the people who stole it from the people who were keeping the artifact safe after it had been opened by Pandora. Hailey really wanted the box to keep for herself as she heard it had a lot of atrocities, which freaked everyone but George out for some reason as he listened to his father.

     "Do you think Pandora's box will go for a lot of money?" Cruz asked me, a part of me really wanted to punch him in the face for asking a question like that before thinking that there were a lot of freaky people who would pay for something like Pandora's box. Everyone decided to ignore Cruz as the Guild Master continued to debrief us while repeating how important it was to retrieve this artifact as even if it lost a lot of its power when Pandora opened-it could be very bad in the hands of someone who knew how to use it effectively. So in other words, it was not a very good idea to let someone else get their hands on Pandora's box so the best thing to do if we want to continue living a happy life. He gave us the destination as we went over to Greece where we would go to meet up with Heracles as he was someone very invested in helping retrieve Pandora's box. I was looking forward to seeing how he had progressed to getting over the grief since I wondered about how he was doing from time to time. We went through the portal as we were in Greece facing the man who we killed the Hydra with as he seems to look exactly like the person I heard so many stories of. Heracles put out his fist as I bumped it, which hurt a bit, as he put out his other fist to George and soon enough we were catching up. Heracles gave us all the clues that he had received such as one of the people protecting Pandora's box disappeared before the artifact was stolen so we decided to start our investigation at that guy's house. Cruz looked around since being a thief did give him insight on the mind of another thief so we followed after him.

     "Ok, he left this place empty so he either liked to keep tidy or knew that this would be the last time that he would be living here. Two floor house...hmm most houses this big have a basement or attic so check anywhere that looks suspicious or really just mess with anything here." I had to admit that Cruz did know his stuff when he looked around here as we did what he said. I looked around a lot of stuff as a few papers had been burned, but not completely as they were papers on the location, and how many guards there were at any time. This still didn't look to be helpful, but I gave it to Cruz to look over as Hailey searched using her undead soldiers. Chloe pulled out all the books as Heracles and George looked on separate floors for the basement or attic as George found the attic which Cruz went to while we stayed and looked around more. Chloe did find some things with mana residue as some of them did seem to be important such as more small phrases that were highlighted in the book, so we decided to test something out. I took one book and highlighter while Chloe took another copy of it that had the same highlighted words as I highlighted a word which Chloe was looking at since it was the same page. The word I highlighted showed up on the book Chloe was holding as she said,"This must be the way they communicated as people wouldn't care too much about the books, and it wouldn't be mysterious especially for someone taking care of an artifact. We'll have to look over all of the books which is going to be a pain." I was both happy and extremely upset that we would have to look through all the books now for clues and plans which would take some time to do. Heracles called us to show the basement he found which had the man who had disappeared before the artifact was stolen. We called everyone else as we got ready, as the man was unconscious and would be woken up very soon as Heracles slapped him until the man woke up. The man woke up as he looked around as he seemed pretty happy to see Heracles,"Heracles, thank you! You saved me from the people who trapped me! There were people and one looked like me as he said something about stealing an artifact!" Cruz uses a skill to test out if he was lying which we learned wasn't the case as I let loose his ropes and noticed that he was wearing something on his arms which were being infused with mana. Hailey was the first to react as she went over to him,"Use skill: Soul Corruption." His eyes turned white as his soul was now under corrupted and under Hailey's control.

     "Cruz, I thought that you used Thief Detection to see if he was trying something!" Chloe exclaimed.

     "Well it seems that something was off when we arrived in this basement, but I didn't know it would affect my skills!" We argued for a bit as I finally calmed down and looked towards the man. We questioned him as he answered completely truthfully as Hailey made him as she controlled him completely, his eyes were still white which kind of freaked me out. George created a plan for all of us as I wondered what would happen to the guy that Hailey now completely controlled down to his soul. One thing that creeped me out more than the guy's eyes were the fact that he kept calling the people that he worked under,"The Ones' Who Would Bring the End."