I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. Suddenly everything I knew was tossed into the air again, just like when my eyes had been opened to this world of myth and magic. But now there was subterfuge. Some dark machinations specifically planned against me.

  But why me?

  As I moved quickly back to my dorm room, with Kas close on my heels, I wondered, at what point, had I crossed the Order of Vigilance for them to take such an interest in my life. And why they had so throughly destroyed it.

  I kept trying to think back, to recall some memory about having pissed someone from this organization off. Had it been Pendragon? Had this been some elaborate set up for me hounding the Cathedral for years? Doubtful, I thought. He had seemed genuine in his desire to help me, and to defend his own. And unlike the Citadel here in London, the Cathedral in Toronto didn't appear to be anywhere near as well funded or protected.

  "John, you have to tell me what the plan is." Kas whispered loudly, stomping along behind me in her big leather boots.

  "Right now, I just need to pack my stuff, and you're going to use your keycard to get us out of here. We'll go back to the Old World train station, and go back to Toronto. Then, I'm gonna start asking some questions of the people in my life." I grunted, moving briskly. I eyed every since Order member I passed in the hallways, but most of them had their heads down, looking at tablets.

  "We can't just leave. Someone will notice the keycard swipes." She said, but I ignored her. We rounded a corner and she grabbed my shoulder, and with surprising strength, pinned me to the wall.

  "John, stop." Kas whispered, closer to my ear now. I tried to struggle against her, but he held me there.

  "If what you say is true, and what you think is happening is actually happening, then you are already being watched. They know what you are doing." She continued. My eyes widened, but I had known it somewhere deep down.

  "What do you suggest?" I hissed, frustrated, but not with her. I stared up at the tall woman and her ice-colored eyes; they pleaded with me to stop.

  "Continue going on about your business here as usual. Act like you didn't just discover something deep and disturbing. Pretend like this place and these people didn't take everything from you." She said sadly.

  There it was again, something she carried deep within. Something that this place did to her. I could see the pain she carried, every time her past was brought up. Everytime Lancelot walked by.

  "Assume that everyone you've ever know has lied to you. The Order has its hands in everything, and if you are truly tangled up in all this, then your best bet is to pretend it doesn't get to you until you have the power to change your situation." Kas continued.

  "Even Nadia?" I asked, suddenly thinking to the only familiar friend I had through the last few years. Kas frowned.

  "Sure, probably even her too." She responded. It was silly of me to expect her to know who I was talking about, but the revelation had shaken me, and the words escaped my mouth.

  "Even people you trusted the most, like family, could turn on you if the Order pushed the right buttons." She said, her voice distant now. I realized she was looking passed me. In that moment, I wondered why, above all else, I continued to trust her.

  It had to have been the look in her eyes. A look that I saw too often in the mirror. A tortured soldier.

  Part of me wanted to hug her. To let her know that everything was going to be okay. It was like I had forgotten it was my world that was falling apart. I felt bad for whatever it was that the Order of Vigilance had put this woman through.

  Someone came down the hallway and Kas let go of me, putting her arm against the wall instead of my chest. She let out a very fake, very dry laugh. I nodded and played along as another Order drone walked passed, head down, tablet in hand.

  "Are they all like that?" I asked.

  "Unless they are the ones trained to kill, pretty much." She chuckled.

  It was like the very emotional moment we just shared had vanished into thin air. She was back to her normal self.

  "Okay, so if we aren't leaving, what do we do?" I asked.

  "We go do what we'd normally be doing. We don't want to draw attention." She said, looking around the corner again.

  ~*~

  Vance swung much harder now, his sword smashing into my shield as I brought it up quickly. He had gone with a two-handed broadsword today, and handed me a sword and shield. I hadn't really become proficient with any particular melee weapon yet, but I had a well rounded knowledge of quite a few different types now.

  I found that the Citadel did, in fact, have a shooting range, and I had taken to venting my frustrations there, so I could focus more here, training with Vance.

  His next swing came really low and I leap over it. He tried to bring it up after the sweep, but I parried down and away. When I landed, he had already brought the broadsword back around to rest on his shoulder. Vance smiled at me.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "You're doing much better, old man." He taunted. He was trying to get me angry so I would slip up. I had noticed the pattern in our training sessions; any time I would improve, he would press me with taunts and insults. It was an effective way to help me train both phyiscally and mentally.

  I didn't yet know what an Order agent would experience in the field, but I assumed psychological warfare was just as important as knowing how to kill someone with a magic sword.

  When I didn't respond to his taunt, he nodded and charged in with the heavy blade. I knelt down and brought my shield up and over my head, guiding his broadsword over me, and making him over extend. I drove the point of my sword into his exposed abdomen, and stopped as I knicked him.

  "Well done." He said, looking down. He appeared to be shocked, but I looked up at him triumphantly as we held out pose.

  "Not so bad for an old man." I told him. We shared a brief laugh, before moving to put our training weapons away. We racked our swords and I turned to Vance.

  "I know I'm not part of any of the teams that are training to be Chosen, so do you have any idea what the Order wants with me?" I asked casually. Vance leaned against the door frame of the garage-like opening.

  "I know you're a special assignment from the Progenitor. They asked me to specifically train you one on one and report back daily, which is almost unheard of as assessments go." He said shrugging. I moved to lean on the wall next to him.

  "What have you been telling them about me?" I asked, half joking.

  "Same thing I tell you. You've taken to this very quickly. Quicker than Legacies who have been training in the Order their whole lives. Must come from your background as military and police." He chuckled, before slapping me on the back and moving away.

  "I'm gonna meet the team in the sauna, you wanna come?" He offered. I shook my head.

  "I've got some other things I wanna take care of." I said, vaguely. Vance left it at that, nodded, and walked away.

  My eyes wandered back to the training weapons. I needed to find where they stashed the real things. Kas had told me something about a Vault, but I was unsure where to find it, or how I was going to even get in. The keycard they had given me only gave me very basic access. Something called 'The Vault' had to be under heavier lock and key than I had access to.

  Back in my dorm, I had my hand gun, but if I had to fight my way out of the Citadel, filled with trained killers who had magic Artifacts, I felt I might be at a disadvantage. Kas had made it clear that I could trust no one, not even Vance. But I inexplicably trusted her; she had become like my partner, how Nadia had been back on the force.

  As I thought about Nadia, my heart sank. She had been my best, and in some cases, only friend. If she had been in on whatever scheme the Order of Vigilance had hatched around me, it would break my heart. I regretted not leaving. I wanted to run back to Toronto and confront every single person that I had suspected of betraying me. But in the end, it mattered more that I find out what had happened to me.

  I knew the police and other agencies were being paid off to turn a blind eye or mislead the public, and even their own officers. But something had been done to me. They had manufactured this monster inside me with pills and stress. They had constantly watched me spiral, telling me I was crazy, that my narrative was wrong. But I knew something happened to me on Partridge Island, and it had happened again when I saw The Guilt murdered my wife and son and took my daughter.

  I stopped in the middle of the large, empty gymnasium. I was suddenly aware of how alone I was, and a shiver jumped up my spine. But as I mulled over my circumstances, a horrifying realization came to me. I didn't know me children's names. Had I forgotten such a simple thing in my grief? Had my mind pushed out the memory aside from.the photograph back in my bedroom?

  Had the Order taken that from me? Had The Guilt? I knew my wife's name was Diane, because I had heard Nadia say it out loud. I said it out loud in that moment, over and over, desperately clinging to each letter in her name.

  "Diane, Diane, Diane..." I muttered into the emptiness.The gymnasium grew colder. Almost cold enough that I thought I saw my breath. I couldn't tell if the lights in the gym were dimming, or if my vision was darkening. I looked around, expecting something to be after me. Something to pop out and hurt me. I strained my ears to listen for the chittering sound of The Guilt's teeth.

  But nothing. Just cold and dark. When I moved again, the lights in the gym brightened, and I sighed heavily. When I felt the heater kick on again, I felt foolish.

  "What have they done to me?" I wondered.

  I walked out of the gymnasium and looked around the halls. I was going to need to get my hands on one of those tablets, but I had no idea how I was gonna seperate it from one of those tech-heads. I leaned against a wall in a hallway with many doors, and watched people go in and out for a while. It remimded me of an ant colony. Every drone had a purpose, each performing a job, but in the grand scheme, they all meant nothing to those who ruled them.

  As I watched, I noticed one guy with a tablet enter the men's room. I rolled my eyes.

  "Of course." I whispered as I followed him in.

  I rounded the corner and luckily the guy was standing at the urinal, his tablet resting on the edge of the long row of sinks. He didn't turn when I entered behind him, and as I walked passed, I pretended to open and close a stall door, to not raise suspicion. When he finished his business, I walked up behind him and got my arm around his neck.

  "I'm really sorry about this." I whispered as he struggled. He tried to scream out, but I flexed my bicep as I dragged him to the ground. After a minute, he was out. I let go and looked around, trying to figure out what to do next.

  I grabbed the tablet off the sink, stuck it in the back of my pants, and began dragging the unconcious man into the last stall. I propped him up on the seat of the toilet, and leaned his head gently against the wall. I grimaced at him as I left.

  I quickly made my way out and back down the halls to the dormitory. I flicked through the tablet, opening and closing apps, trying to find something that looked familiar.

  It had been explained to me much earlier that the Order used its own closed network, and apparently, their own apps as well. Someone had been designing duplicate apps to run like the one the public has, but for the Order's network. There was even a dating app on the thing.

  I found a introductory program for initiates that contained a map of the Citadel. I typed in 'The Vault' and found where it was. By the time I got to my room, I had found a bunch of new and interesting locations, and a database much like The Bestiary. I was beginning to understand why so many of these guys had their heads stuck in these things; it was an endless source of knowledge.

  Another thing I had discovered early on, was that phones were disabled down here unless they were attached to the Order's network. My cell had become a useless brick when I came down here weeks ago, and I hadn't bothered to go back to it since. I wondered how many missed calls I had. How many people actually cared that I had just left in the night and disappeared? Had Nadia kicked my door in again to look for me?

  With the tablet in hand, I had access to information without making people suspicious of my questions. The next step was getting to The Vault and finding myself a weapon. Kas had warned me it wouldn't be that simple, so I was going to need her help.

  I threw the tablet on my bed, and changed out of my sweats. I moved to the bathroom and turned on the shower. After I got ready, I was gonna start putting things in motion, and I was going to get the truth.

  A rattling sound made me turn around quickly, and suddenly, I had a searing pain in my skull.

  "Hello Detective." I heard Lancelot say before I hit the ground and blacked out.