storyupdate

>Story continue

"Come on kid, let's go find your girlfriend."

You jump a little and look over to the Guardswoman escorting you. She snickers at your reaction and you have to
cough and adjust your suit before saying, "She is not my girlfriend."

"Oh, I see. She's your ah, 'illegitimate lover,' hmm?"

"No, she's not... ugh, we don't have that kind of relationship!"

The woman cocks her head, looking at you curiously before her eyes go wide and she puts a hand to her mouth,

"No, you can't be saying that..."

"Really?"

She shakes her head, cheeks going red, "Oh my, you nobles and your... hobbies."

"What? What are you talking about?"

She raises a hand, shaking her head, "Oh, nevermind, nevermind. It's not my buisness."

You huff, "Of course it isn't, NOT THAT ANYTHING IS GOING ON." You shake your head and get control of yourself.

"Look, just show me to facilities so I can get out of here."

She chuckles softly, although you honestly have no idea what's running through her head, although you hear her mutter, "threesome" a few times. She isn't really talking about Saya as well, is she? Well, regardless, she leads you through the stone interior of the complex, which is honestly a little sparse, the majority of people seemingly captivated by Richard's story. It makes you wonder why he's bothering to do so, unless he has something up his sleeve? Ugh, regardless, it's really ruining your night, and you already got punched in the gut, so that should be telling as to how bad it is.

You arrive in front of a wooden door with a simple placard upon it denoting this as the privy. The Guardswoman looks around as you approach, frowning. "Where's the Guard she came with?"

Ah, right, of course there was never a Guard, how could your lovely Master Dick have forgotten such a detail?

As you say that, you remind yourself never to use "Master" and "Dick" in the same sentence again, although your bigger concern was that your Master probably made this some kind of crazy test for you or something, he's always doing that. "Find the Girl," yeah, what a load of crock. Regardless, you're pretty certain Ginelle isn't even in the privy, and if she is, did... did you want to find out?

You look about to the Guardswoman and shrug, "Maybe he had something he needed to do?"

She shakes her head, "No, no, we aren't allowed to have people here without escorts."

"Ah well, let's get her then." You say, ignoring what she said before knocking on the door. No answer. The Guardswoman frowns deeper and moves to knock on the door when she suddenly recoils, grabbing her hand before shaking her head, cheeks reddening. You look at her and cough into your hand. "Well, I think she uh, is having some... difficulties."

"Is that what you call that?" She pinches her nose, eyes beginning to water as you illusion of... well, you best not say what you're forcing the poor woman to experience. She gags, putting a hand to her chest, "Oh god, it's like a skunk died in a Bubbleslime!" Her eyes begin to flutter. and she staggers to the side of the hallway, resting a hand on it.

"Hey...hey are you alright?" You say, shaking her. She slumps against the wall, before going fully unconscious from the smell. Well, the illusion of a smell anyway. You honestly feel terrible for what you did to the woman, but getting in trouble with the law seems less than advisory at the moment. You sigh and carefully drag her unconscious form into the privy before looking about and closing the door. To your credit, the place did smell like incredible ass, so at least if things went wrong, it would be believable...

It dawns upon you then that you're now on a mission to find a girl inside what is essentially hostile territory. It's just like that one Eastern Theatre you watched before, you know, the one with the... exact same situation? Eastern Theatre is so progressive. Anyway, with that thought in your head, you begin to walk forward through the complex, checking every intersection before you pass, turning corners with flair, preparing to take down opponents with the class and skill expected of an agent of the crown!

Actually, you feel really, really, really stupid doing this, but you're fairly certain no one is around to see you, so you're safe, right? If anyone happened to see you like this, well, you might actually feel shame for your actions, but until someone does, you're pretty good, right? Right.

This building is much larger than you expected it to be, with various little offices and stairs leading to what you have to assume are cellblocks. Did this down see more crime than you thought? Well, it seems empty still, thanks to the time of night and Richard's distractions, but the further you go, the more you realize that Ginelle has to be looking for something. But what? Places like this were mostly barracks for Guards, some administration, but mostly detention cells. Is she like, springing someone? That would be from your Eastern Theatre...

As you ponder this, you forget where you are, and suddenly you walk into a large, open room where rows of desks sit. Fortunately, most of them are empty, but as you survey the room, one Guardsman, a tired looking older gentleman, looks up from a stack of papers, and your eyes go wide. You dive forward behind a desk, hiding there as you hear his chair scrape against the floor.

"See now, what's all this then?" He says, footsteps getting close to you. You panic and begin to crawl past to the next desk, avoiding his gaze. He harrumphs and says, "Guardsman Jimmins! If that's you, I'm going to be very cross!"

Crap, think, think, think. What did they do in the Eastern Theatre? Kill the guards of course, but that wouldn't fly here. You need to find a way to... oh, right. You're an Illusionist, riiiigghhhht. You throw out an illusion of a desk being bumped in the corner, and the sounds of footsteps stop as the man says, "What's this? Another rapscallion? Bah! Well, I'll deal with you first Jimmins!"

Craaaaap. It's not easy to make an illusion when you can't see your target either! You continue to crawl, doing your best to get to the other side of the room, so you can continue down the hall. You hear the desks near you creak and you roll forward to another desk, feeling your poor body scream in agony for doing so, but the footsteps seem to go away as the man grumbles something. You wait a moment before sighing and crawling toward the end the desks. As you reach it, you slowly rise and prepare to run, when you see the old Guardsman standing there, his wonderful mustache wiggling.

"Well then! It seems we have us a-!"

You promptly illusion yourself invisible. The man starts, looking around everywhere, hand going to a sword at his belt. Why he is wearing a sword inside, you have no idea, but he stumbles forward toward you, and you sidestep him as he looks around the desks. He scratches his head, eyes filled with bewilderment. "I say, where did he go?" He looks around for a few more moments before snorting, "Bah, next time I see that Jimmins! Oh what a show I'll what for him!"

You have no idea what he's saying, but you take the opportunity to slip out of the room and back down the hallway, moving faster. In fact, you move so fast, that you barely notice the slightly ajar door, and have to stop and go backward to see it. Getting close to the door, you hear someone inside as well as the sounds of papers being shuffled about. You frown and look up at the door to see it had the name, "Cornelius Justician, Captain," on the door. Weird, the Captain was off being seduced by your Master, so who could be in there?...

Ginelle, obviously. Which is what you discover as you open the door, finding Ginelle facing away from you, staring at a pile of papers. You casually cast an illusion to hide the sounds of you entering, and you hear Ginelle mutter, "Why did he send me to do this? He should know I can't read..." She pauses then and flips around, eyes going wide as she probably smelled you. Right, gotta mask scent.

"Hey there pretty girl." You say, waving your hand toward her. She takes in a deep breath before visibly relaxing and putting a hand to her chest.

"Dollora, you scared me Tobias." She smiles at you before blinking and shaking her head. "Wait, wait, why are you here?"

"Richard sent me to find you."

"He did? Ah, no wait, how did you find us?"

"Uh well, after you two so rudely got arrested, I got punched in the stomach by the Phantom Thief and was almost discovered by Fiora, who would have raped my mind and then killed me, not necessarily in that order."

She moves to you and gives you a big hug, which you have to cough and gently tap her shoulder until she lets you go. She sighs and shakes her head, cheeks red. "Sorry about that, I was just concerned. I told Richard we should go after you, but he insisted you'd be fine and you wouldn't do anything 'incredibly stupid' without him." She looks up and you and you can swear there's a hint of a tear in her eye. "I was worried."

You sigh back and put a hand on her shoulder, "Hey, I'm fine. Well, no, my stomach is killing me, but I'll live." Your hand squeezes on her shoulder, "I was worried about you two though, glad to see you're not in a dungeon."

She chuckles before putting a paw on your hand, lingering for a moment before gently moving it away. "Well, we almost were until that smooth-talker got his way out of it. Apparently they thought we had something to do with the theft of cargo from the Leyway, although as soon as they realized that everything was actually accounted for, they let us go." She turns and looks over to the papers, which are now scattered all over the place. "Of course, as soon as he realized where we were, he had me, 'look for anything incriminating.'"

You frown and scratch your head, "Does he know you can't...?"

She shrugs, "I don't know, but he should."

You move and sit down at the table, looking at the documents. Most of them are pretty boring, duty reports, various patrol rosters, and other, mundane articles. You sigh and look up to Ginelle, "Did he say anything else to look for?"

"No, I figured I'd just scoop everything up and leave."

You roll your eyes, "That's not going to work, you know that, right?"

"Why not? We can read them later!"

"Shhh!" You say, looking to the door. "Look, they'll know if you take too much, but if we take just one or two
things..." You trail off as you find a paper labeled, "Mayoral memo." You frown and scan over the paper, eyes going wide as you do. "Holy hells."

"What is it?" Ginelle asks, looking over your shoulder before frowning. "I don't know what I expected to see."
You wave the paper, "This is a notice from the Mayor's office to the Captain, ordering him to divert Guards from the Riverside District to the Main and Residential District, ordering them to search for various seeds and... spores?" You look over the list, frowning as everything is fairly unknown to you. One does catch your interest though and look up at Ginelle, face going pale. "Dear Gods, one of the ones on the list is Matango spores."

Ginelle frowns, "Matango?..."

You read over the list again before shuffling through some other papers, finding now records of what Guards have brought in. Nothing particularly eye catching, and definitely no Matango spores brought in. You lean back and sigh, "Yeah, Matango, a type of Monster that reproduces with spores. Makes men into idiots who want to fuck em silly, Monsters into super horny rape-beasts, and women into... well, more Matangos."

Ginelle blinks, "Wow, how have I never heard of them before?"

"Well, they were mostly eradicated ages ago. I mean, the Grand Wizard ran into one awhile ago, but it was a surprise and he killed it so..." You shrug, "Well, anyway, I haven't heard of any others found..." You read through the papers again, "Looks like everything is being brought to the Mayor directly?...Shit."

"So... we bust down the door to the Mayor's place?" Ginelle says, hopefully.

"Uh huh, no. No we don't." You say, shaking your head before organizing the papers. "We go to see Dick again, get out of here, then tell him what we found before I kick his ass."

"Dick?"

"Richie."

"Oh." She shakes her head as you put the files away. Thankfully she didn't break anything, but she could have.
You stand up and tuck the memo away in your pocket before nodding to Ginelle.

"Right, let's get out of here." As soon as you say this, however, the door to the room slams open, and the old Guard from before stands there, sword drawn and mustache swishing.

"I say, I did spy a rapscallion! Submit to the law or else I shall be forced to use force!"

>What do you do?