06 / This Can't Be Good
After stopping by my apartment, I made my way to the guild. The evening was slowly cutting into the day, and I needed to make sure I was ready to hunt. Since I'd be spending some time in the red-light zone, I wanted to see the bounties for that area. It was better to be prepared than miss an opportunity.
During this time of the evening, the guild was a little more crowded than normal. This was because a lot of the hunters liked to eat before they hunted. I preferred to save money rather than indulge myself, although sometimes the smells were hard to resist. But even with the discounts they offered hunters the dishes here were still pricey, I just couldn't bring myself to cough up the credits to pay for it.
I made my way inside to check the bounty board. I planned to claim at least one bounty while I searched the red-light zone for any information on the pendant I could find. I noticed four different bounties that stated the criminals were last seen in zone one-hundred and thirty-six, which was known as one of the red-light zones:
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NAME: MIKAL JODEL
AGE: 37
HEIGHT: 5' 7"
REWARD: 130₡
LAST SEEN: ZONE 136
CONDITION: DEAD / ALIVE
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NAME: IRONSKUKL
AGE: UNKNOWN
HEIGHT: 5' 10"
REWARD: 4000₡
LAST SEEN: ZONE 136
CONDITION: DEAD
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I saved the data for two of the ones from the red-light zone. Mikal Jode and Ironskul. Since almost all the others were to be brought in alive but had low rewards, it wasn't worth my time to go after them. It was hard to get criminals to come with you if you don't have the right equipment for it, and for such a low reward the equipment would cost me as much as the return. But four-thousand credits for Ironskul was a large bounty. Which meant he wasn't some run-of-the-mill criminal. He must have racked up a fair amount of notoriety for the guild to offer that much, while also having such little information on him.
"Are you planning to go to zone one-thirty-six?" I heard a familiar voice from behind me.
I turned around to find a fellow hunter I had worked with in the past. Boris Volkov, also known as the Bear, and for good reason. He was tall and burly, probably one of the biggest men I had ever met. He had a long curly ginger beard, but not a single strand on his bald head. He was the epitome of brawn over brains. While I was methodical in my hunting tactics, Boris relied on his brute strength and strong resolve. But that made us a good team when we worked together.
A while back there was a man who had started a movement against the high council, he espoused all sorts of slander against them. The council never viewed him as a threat but decided to place a high bid on him to prevent the movement from growing. Boris and I had happened to meet while I was vetting the man. We decided to team up and split the bounty. This worked out well because the man had gained a large following of die-hard cultists which would've been hard for me to deal with on my own. But with the strength of the Bear, it went smoothly.
"I have something I need to look into."
"Well just be careful, been seeing quite a few guardians sniffing around down there lately," Boris said shaking his head.
Looks like the Guardians are taking this seriously, I thought.
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Do you know anything about this Ironskul?" I asked, tilting my head towards the board.
"Not much, except that the few hunters who have tried to cross paths with him won't ever be able to tell their tale. And they weren't no amateurs, I'd stay away from him if I were you."
I nodded and thanked him for the warning. Just then the guild door opened to reveal a face that I really didn't want to see. It was the guardian C. Blackwell. The guild became extremely quiet upon his entrance. Guardians hardly ever came into the guild, especially one of such a high rank.
Every hunter stared down the guardian as he slowly walked toward the receptionist. There was a clear distinction between how hunters treated other hunters, and how they treated guardians. They saw guardians as rich snobs who didn't care about anyone other than themselves.
"How can we help you today, sir Cedric Blackwell?" I heard Vira say to him from the counter, but she wasn't as chipper as she was before.
The guardian had a shallow smile across his face as he walked past me.
"Today, the drinks are on me!" He shouted as he turned to see everyone in the guild.
I could see a rush of confusion spread across everyone's faces, but it didn't last long. One of the men, who was already very intoxicated, shouted in cheer at the notion, leading the rest of the guild to follow suit. The guardian turned once again to face Vira.
"Kindly remove all the postings for any bounty in zone one-hundred and thirty-six." He smirked,
"I am sorry sir, we need permiss–" just as she was speaking, he interrupted her and repeated himself.
"I believe I said to remove all the postings for any bounty in zone one-hundred and thirty-six. Is that clear?"
This time he slammed a paper down on the counter in front of him never letting the smug look escape his face. She glanced at the paper and then nodded.
"I will see to it they are removed," she said.
She disappeared into the back room and no sooner did the postings on the board disappear. I guess I wasn't going to be hunting tonight. Because I was so frugal with my money, I wasn't struggling to make ends meet. But that didn't mean I could just be lax every day, especially since I had just spent four-hundred credits on a necklace.
Cedric turned and made his way toward the door. As he passed by, he turned and stared at me, his unnatural smile gave me chills. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but it appeared he didn't want hunters interrupting whatever was going on in the red-light zone. I'm sure even the alcohol he just bought everyone was another measure to try and control the hunters. But I wasn't going to let that stop me. I had already invested time and money into it, and I wasn't going to come out empty-handed.
The guild offered one other service for hunters, blood testing. See hunters worked with a lot of blood, which would sometimes help give leads to the hunters.
I walked over to the counter and pulled out the pendant.
"Could you analyze the blood splatter on the back of this pendant?" I asked Vira.
She glanced at the pendant and her eyes widened. She realized that the pendant had the same Blackwell crest that the guardian who was just here also had the same emblem on his chest plate.
"If possible, I would like to keep this confidential," I said as I tried sliding her forty credits. Most receptionists would take bribes when you wanted to keep some information hidden from others.
"No need," she smiled and pushed the credits back toward me.
"That guardian bothers me, so consider it a favor for a mutual dislike."
I wasn't entirely surprised. I could tell from how she acted that he must have irked her.
"Thanks," I said as she placed the pendant in a machine behind her.
The machine made all sorts of sounds while scanning the necklace. In only a matter of minutes, the machine had completed its analysis. She looked over the information that had just been transmitted to a tablet she was holding.
"Looks like the blood belongs to a girl named Fiora Dupont. It looks like she was last seen in zone one-hundred and thirty-six. Her current whereabouts are unknown though."
She displayed the information on the tablet she was holding. It didn't have any specifics of how I could find her, but I knew someone in the red-light zone that could help me with that.