Moss stood atop an invisible platform, watching the entertainment below. Her and her crew had deliveries in the area, and refused to miss any of the drop off times.

  Her eyes roved through the crowd, only to fall on an oddity. A pair of young Cultivators stood upon a nearby rooftop, well away from the conglomerates black market celebration. Moss tried scanning the pair, and only got one reading.

  What…?

  She jabbed her second in command. The wisened old man jolted. His irises flashing with a deep purple light from the barely open slits of his eyes as he growled at her.

  “Tell me what you see over there?”

  The old man’s deep black hair blew in the breeze as he turned his head to see where moss pointed. It wasn’t until he frowned, his brow furrowing as his six foot hunch straightened to his full seven and a half feet that Moss knew that she wasn’t tripping.

  Can Rake not read her either? That would make her…

  A purple flash encompassed the entire area, many people freezing in the surroundings. Moss knew these individuals to be the rare few with extremely acute senses, or absurd spiritual control.

  What Moss hadn’t expected was for the very same girl that she was trying to identify to look over in their direction. The girl squinted, more than likely seeing nothing through mosses allusion, but continued to stare directly at her.

  Hmm, interesting.

  “Do you think she can see us,” asked Rake.

  “No,” said Moss, shaking her head.

  “but she can definitely tell that something is there, did your advanced skill tell you anything?”

  “No, and if she didn’t look so wide eyed and excited by the celebration I’d have called for an evacuation already..”

  Moss nodded in agreement.

  “Whose kid do you think that is,” asked Moss.

  Rake looked over at her and must have seen something he didn’t like on her features, the growl in his voice growing deeper as he responded.

  “What’re you planning kid, that grin of your’s only comes with mischief and mayhem like the boss, between you and him I don’t know what smile I’m more afraid of?”

  “I’m too well known for some of these deliveries and you know it, but if we can use someone else—“

  “Someone else, you think some HonorBorn kid is going to want to run errands for you, have you lost your bloody mind Moss?”

  “That kid is green behind the ears, look at her, I wouldn’t be surprised if…”

  Moss trailed off, realizing that the kid wore no pass. The runic badge that allowed for the festival goers to be unseen and unattested by the instance inhabitants was no where to be seen on either one of the pair on the rooftop.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, we are going to have to talk to them whether we want to or not…”

  …

  Drake couldn’t shake the feeling. She knew she was being watched, but could not tell from where. Cortez slowly pulled her backward and waited as Drake collected herself.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  Drake slowly shook her head, unable to stop herself from continually looking throughout the crowds below. Where she truly felt the pressure coming from was nothing but thin air, yet still…

  “Something is coming, prepare yourself,” murmured Drake, even before the sound of high heels touched her ears.

  She turned to see a platform full of dozens of people slowly shimmer into the visible spectrum. The Cultivators on the platform, landed from the skies above and flew off, traveling in various directions; either carrying packages, or holding a multitude of items indescribable to Drake.

  A woman with an entirely black eye, and a pure white fohawk stepped toward them, her smiling face running chills down Drake’s spine. The woman’s shoes matched her black irsed right eye, while her hair matched her beautiful white business suit.

  “Woah she’s pretty…,” said Drake as the sound from the active platform bursted into the area as if whatever had suppressed it vanished in an instant. The woman’s voice sweet and smooth as she spoke; her opposing blue eye, gentle compared to the intensity of its overwhelming black void of a twin, locking onto Drake.

  “Hey there cutie.”

  …

  “My name is Moss Coin, I work for Carter Gestalt and the BlackHole Conglomerate, have you ever heard of us?”

  The girl smiled at Moss, and bowed slightly.

  “Nice to meet you Moss, my name is, Roar, but you may call me Drake, how may we help you,” said Drake, pointing between herself and the young man Moss had scanned and found to be named Cortez.

  Roar huh, interesting, isn’t Drake a family name from the Omni, this may be trickier than I thought. Moss could already feel Rake’s worried glance brush against her periphery, his purple eyes far too powerful to go unnoticed, even the few yards behind her that he stood looking over her and their interaction.

  “My subordinates and I noticed that you don’t have a badge,” said Moss, gesturing to the runically swirling blackhole emblem that dangled from her shoulder. The small section of black cloth with a white swirl showed her rank within the conglomerate as a true guild member. One of the rare one hundred and one members of the conglomerates upper echelon in all the realms.

  “A badge, no we don’t have badges, why, do we need them to enter this area?”

  So she is in this instance as a native, not one of the paid attendees of the event…

  “Why yes, we don’t want you to attract any of the monsters within the instance to the celebration, please come with me,” said Moss, waving at the pair for them to join her aboard the platform.

  The pair gave each other a weary glance, but shared nods of agreement before stepping toward Moss.

  The moment they stepped onto the platform, the stairs disappeared and took flight once more; Moss walking through the dense weave of workers both organizing and handing off deliveries.

  “What is all this,” asked Drake.

  “Why do you mean the celebration, or the operations you see here?”

  “Both, if that is not asking too much?”

  Moss smiled at Drake and her silent companion and spun slowly.

  “Both are a small piece of the Conglomerates operations, we are one of the largest sales groups across all the realms of Creation and Destruction, our leader has long desired being able to sell quality product to any and all who could need our services from high to low,” said Moss, dropping her hands and stepping toward another table, and lifting up two cloth badges before hesitating.

  “Is there a problem my lady Moss,” asked Rake from just behind the children, causing the Cortez boy to jump.

  “No, well, yes, we only have the badges left for the workers and the VIPs that have yet to arrive, just don’t know how to handle this is all,” said Moss. Thankful that Rake was so well attuned to her play an performance.

  “Why not see if they can provide an extra set of hands my lady, that way you solve both of your problems at once?”

  Moss, frowned, seemingly thinking as she waited for one of the youngsters to step in. She would need one of them to show initiative for three reasons.

  The first was that she needed them to believe that this was their idea. While the second was she only truly needed someone with drive to get a task done by any means, which she was glad to see this Drake, appeared to have.

  “What kind of problem, anything that we could help with?”

  “I mean yes, but we wouldn’t want to put you at risk, if I’m being honest I wouldn’t even consider this if you weren’t already in this instance without the aid of a guard as the majority of our attendees are,” said Moss.

  “what kind of things would you have us do, we would love to help if we could attend this event afterward, nothing illegal I’d assume,” asked Drake, looking at Cortez and receiving another nod of confirmation that he agreed with her statements.

  “Of course not,” lied Moss.

  “Just a handful of deliveries to various businesses and clients that can be found easily within the Instanced zone, nothing less, nothing more,” said Moss; Not revealing that the entire event was a black market festival hosted by one of the most notoriously infamous merchants throughout the realms.

  If it isn’t drugs, we sell it kid, sorry…

  “Then I don’t see why not, is there anything we need to get started,” asked Drake, Moss nodding as she set down the VIP badges and instead picked up two tabards.

  This was her third reason. One had to be willing to put on a guild tabard, or it wouldn’t give all their information to the guild taking on potential applicants, and Moss without a doubt wanted to know the names and as much information about the pair as possible without giving away too much information.

  They must just be strong natives if they put these on, no one that has traveled between realms wouldn’t know what kind of restrictions come with a tabard… Nor that assignments can be attached to them.

  “Put these on and everything will be explained.”

  …

  “Here you are,” said Moss, handing the clothing to both Drake and Cortez.

  The silken material was all black with white swirls on the front. The Tabards only other features the white rune framework that lined either side of the cloth, Drake and Cortez both excitedly putting on the clothing as they waited for Moss to respond to Drake’s original question.

  Only Moss didn’t say another word. The entire platform went silent, and Moss’s mouth fell open as she seemed to look at something in the corner of her vision.

  “Son of a mother fucking bitch…"