Afraid of the Dark

Chapter 24: Productivity

"Alright, I've spoken with a few of my contacts in Letroseli and managed to get a list of names of all the most powerful Life Mars they knew of," Jules says as she enters the cabin with Todo following.

He nods with a smile as he sits next to Reela on the couch. "And I spoke with Nisha. She wasn't the one who healed Regan, but she was able to give me a few names of people she knew about back in Narvadin," he explains and Reela smiles with a sigh of relief.

"And I have put together a list of forty-seven different ways I can punish the people hurting Regan," she giggles. "Productivity feels good."

Todo chuckles and playfully pushes her face away. "Alright, you little hell spawn," he snickers before looking around. "And where's Corb?"

Reela sighs and crosses her legs as she leans back. "Tavern. Seems like he's still beating himself up about what happened at the club the other day," she explains and Todo slowly shakes his head.

"As dumb as that is, I can't say I blame him," he says. "I think we should just give him his space for now. We'll have plenty of time to chew him out for blaming himself later," he looks back over at Jules as she pulls out a notebook and tosses it onto the coffee table.

"You're right," she says and flips open to a page with a bullet point list of names. "Regardless, here's the list. Nine names I was able to pull from my sources. These people are all Life Mars that have made something of a name for themselves over the past twenty years. So people who likely graduated from the Dev'al Ordon," she explains and sits in the chair on the other side of the table. "For once, I'm strangely grateful the Dev'al Ordon were tyrants who would literally abduct people and force them to learn how to master their magic."

Reela snickers. "Fun. What about you, Todo?"

He takes out a small slip of paper that he sets with Jules' notebook. "That's all the names Nisha could provide. I'm already seeing some overlap with Jules' list, so I guess that means we have..." he silently counts in his head, then sighs his defeat. "...Twelve names..." he shakes his head. "This might be harder than we thought."

Reela shrugs and looks over both lists. "Not necessarily. Yes, it will be tedious. But there are four of us. And if we can get Cree in on this, that will speed things up. He's been working out of Sage as something of a bounty-hunter, so—"

"He's still not retired?" Jules asks, and Reela nods.

"He's a stubborn little shit, what do you expect?" she snickers. "But he's good at hunting people down, especially with Achilles. If we can somehow tell him that we've found a lead, we can get him on the same page as we are and have him cover more ground," she explains, and Jules tenses and lightly clears her throat.

Reela and Todo look over at her quizzically to see her slowly shake her head. "I... I don't know," Jules sighs. "You're right about the four of us being able to cover more ground, but... I don't think we should get Cree involved," she says carefully.

Todo tilts his head in question. "What? Why? Reela's right, he's pretty much Utopia's best 'human-hunter.' He—"

"Then why hasn't he found Regan yet?" Jules raises the question, but she sees how both Reela and Todo sit up straighter and their faces harden and she stiffens with a sigh. "I didn't... That didn't sound the way I intended..."

Reela slowly shake her head. "Jules, do you have a problem with Cree or something?" she asks and Jules bites her lip as she looks away.

"It's..." she takes a quick breath. "Complicated," she shakes her head as well before looking at Reela again. "If you want to get him involved, go ahead. Just... I would prefer it if he doesn't see me, or really even know that I'm here helping you," she states.