Pyre hadn't been in magnolia long, only a few hours. He had arrived early yesterday afternoon and had checked into his inn. It was small, one bed in the corner, a mirror on the wall. A desk sat situated in front of a window. Across the room was a small door to the bathroom and shower.
Pyre pulled a request out of his hand, it was from a member of the army. All it said was help wanted, it seemed to be pretty secretive and wanted someone capable to do the job, and Pyre felt like he was well equipped for a job like that. He read over the instruction one more time. He was to report to the streets to meet Guard Captain Devon, next to a restaurant. Once he was finished he shoved it back in his pocket and walked out of the room. Unlike his inn in Orchidia, this one didn't separate wizards, it just gave everyone normal rooms. But then again this town housed the famous fairy tail guild so people were likely accustom to the everyday acts of the wizards that wondered the world.
The Streets in magnolia were amazing. Everything seemed to be made of grey bricks. While that was similar to orchidia, these were small rocks, they almost looked handcrafted. And added to that, Magnolia didn't have the obscene amount of vines covering every inch of every available source. Boats floated down the river, Some were transporting people, others had goods on them and were taking them to the market most likely. Pyre watched one with a fairytail wizard sitting on it, chewing something. He glanced at the boat a little while longer, the wizard had bright green hair that fell in sheets down his head. rimless glasses adorned his face. His choice of style was...different. He wore A tight Blue shirt and a pair of loose fitting jeans. His choice of shoes were flip flops. A Green guild crest was situated on the nape of his neck. The man running the boat seemed more at ease with the protection. Pyre stopped walking all together, watching the wizard. The wizard didn't look like he was paying much attention. But that was a lie, he watched every fine detail, the lady who just dropped a potato, the man who was messily eating a cupcake, he even noticed Pyre. Pyre backed away confused. Magnolia was supposed to be a safe town, why was a vegetable market utilizing such a talented wizard. Maybe that was why he was getting a request from a Guard Captain.
As he walked further on, he noticed more of the weary people. By the time he made it to the meeting point, he had noticed at least five or six people who had hired strong mages for such simple jobs.
The guard captain sat on a small bench, clearly waiting for someone as he watched the crowds, looking for someone who seemed to be approaching him. Pyre approached and introduced himself.

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"Hello, my name is Pyre. I took your request from the board yesterday." He said, handing the guard captain the letter. The man sighed, "Thank goodness, I've been waiting all day. I really don't have time to waste. I'm already dealing with a numerous number of other things. Anyway, you seem to be capable enough for this task. Here please follow me. My name is Devon by the way." He said, leading Pyre into an alleyway a few feet away. He began again, "As you may of noticed, people are on edge right now, those high level wizards doing small jobs of protection for small businesses? They never do that, but managers are paying a ludicrous amount right now for any wizard to protect them fromt he possibility of a cult." Pyre faltered, a cult? "Are you absolutely sure there's a cult?" Pyre asked. Devon sighed, "No, that's why you're here. I do not have the time to deal with this at the moment, and magnolia typically leaves a lot of its protection to the guild so I don't have enough soldiers around here to preform a proper evaluation. So I'm paying you to do the investigation for me." He said. Pyre nodded, "Do I have anything to go on?" He asked. Devon nodded, "The cult is supposedly recruiting right now, so if you ask around you should be able to find someone sniffing around for new people to join." he said. Pyre nodded. He was accustom to hunting for cultists, he himself was in some way a cultist. But the Aurelle family had one goal, the end of the Baurai family. Pyre smiled, "I think I can handle that. I'll deliver back to you on what I found tomorrow?" Pyre asked. Devon shook his head, "No, tonight. If my info is right, there is a cult forming, but I need to be 100 percent sure there is one before i lead an invasion. I can't pull my thin resources for no reason." He said. Pyre closed his eyes and nodded. "I can do that. If I find anything I'll find you at your headquarters?" He asked. Devon nodded. "I'm there all night tonight, I've applied for more soldiers recently and i'm filling out the damn government paperwork." He turned to Pyre, "Are you ever planning on joining the military." He asked. Pyre smiled, "I was going to join the Rune Knights, but a family emergency came up and I had to return home. I never finished my training." He said. Devon put a hand on his shoulder, "You dodged a bullet my friend, government work is a pain in my sorry ass." He leaned in closer, "Between you and me I debate on if I should quit the military and go join a guild of some kind. So much less red tape." He said, sighing. Pyre laughed a little, "I've got to go sir, I'll be sure I don't come empty handed." He said. Devon nodded, he left quickly.

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The magnolia streets were full with people of all sorts. There were people practically trying to shove products down his throats. He positioned himself away from the rowdiest sellers and continued to watch the people wandering around everything.
Pyre's first target was a young woman, she was skinny, her hair was jet black and her eyes were an icy blue. She wore a tight fitting red dress. Bright red lipstick was on her mouth. Walking up Pyre struck up a conversation, "Hello madame, I'm Vesilius Walker, I work for one of the local newspapers, may I ask you some questions?" He went on, taking on his new personality. The lipstick lady looked at him quietly, then nodded. "Good, have you had anything about the cults?" He asked, he leaned in. The woman sighed, her voice came out like honey, smooth, "I haven't heard anything Mr. Walker, I'm sorry I couldn't have been of more help." She said. She turned back to buying vegetables. Pyre smiled, "thanks Miss, glad you were able to help me." Pyre said, before turning away and carrying on.
The man who came after was middle-aged, his hair had just recently began to thin at the edges. He stood alone, smoking a cigarette. Pyre approached and pulled out a cigarette of his own that he had bought just moments before as he planned a persona to talk to the man. He lit the cigarette and took in a gentle puff, trying not wheeze automatically. He looked off into the distance than sighed dramatically, "All this cult stuff made me smoke for the first time in two years. Gosh, My neighbor was chatting about it this morning. What have you heard." He asked, turning to the smoking man. The man didn't look at Pyre. He still stared at the river, "First I've heard of it man." He said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. He snapped the paper-wrapped tobacco and dropped it in a nearby trashcan before parading off down the street. Pyre took a swig of water and washed out his mouth. Trying to cleanse himself of that acrid smoke smell.
The third target was another woman, she was blonde, but her hair was cut short, it tickled the edges of her shoulders. She was dressed in dirty work clothes. She sat on the edge of a bridge and was people watching. A Vulture tattoo climbed the side of her right arm while a fox tattoo climbed the other. She held a stern look on her face, she looked like a lady with a mission. Taking up his chance to see if she was up to no good, he paraded over.
Pyre leaned up against the bridge and sighed, earning a eye roll from the blonde. She glanced at him then hopped off the bridge, "i'm not looking for someone to flirt with right now, sorry." She said. Pyre moved quickly, "oh! Sorry, I wasn't trying to flirt, do you know about a cult?" He asked. The girl shook her head. "Sorry, nope."

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Pyre sighed, It was getting late into the afternoon now and he hadn't found any rumor of a cult. He surveyed the crowd one more time, and there was someone new. A tall man, a hint of muscle could be seen, and he too was clearly watching the crowd, pretending he was a shopper, pyre walked over. "Are you selling anything?" He asked, but didn't wait for a response and just kept talking, "Have you heard about that cult that's supposed to be forming? Gosh, it seems so interesting." He added. The man raised an eyebrow, "Why you askin' " he asked. Pyre shrugged, "I dunno, just seems kinda interesting being part o a secret society, I was a part of one in school, but we weren't really that secret. " He said. The man gave him another look over, "Well, If you're so interested in cults, then you should come to Jack's Knife shop tonight. Tell the cashier that you want to buy Illucifan Nagar." The man said. Before he quickly disappeared back into the alleyway shadows. Pyre turned around and smiled. He had successfully gotten his way into a cult. He had did it once before. It was a small cult, located in Dahlia. Pyre's Aurelle info had told him that the Baurai were supposedly funding that small cult in exchange for info. So Pyre got comfortable with the leader and slowly took control of the cult. And then after a few months, he took it all down in one fowl swoop. The Baurai were upset at the loss of their informant group and tried to act against the Aurelle family, but the family had acted intelligently and hid its informants under layers of dead-ends. That conquest over the Baurai had been the first one in almost a decade.
Pyre had time to kill, a lot of time to kill in fact. He sighed, sitting on the edge of the road. He knew exactly where the knife shop was so it wasn't like he had to search for it or anything. To think, a cult was forming in a knife shop, how ironic. He watched the sun set, he was glad to be back in the thick of it. He had enjoyed training at the rune knight academy, but he had missed the covert operations that he did in the knight for employers hidden in a veil of secrecy. Now, he never did bad work, unless he was required to buy the family. But he held powerful sway in his fmaily, so he got to choose what he did most of the time.
Finally, it was time to go into the shop. He walked in quietly and walked to the front desk, smiling he asked a simple question, "Hi, I was wondering if you guys sold Illucifan Nagar here?" He asked. The man nodded, "we sure do, just follow me into the back please sir." The cashier said. The pair walked down a big hallway. At the end, near a corner of a square room was a tunnel leading down.

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The man gestured down the tunnel and Pyre did as he was told. Right now was the key part, he was getting their trust. The tunnle was lined with candles that had been shoved into the wall. A wooden staircase had been built in place so the journey down didn't hurt ones feet. It didn't get hotter as he got down, just stuffier, so he guessed that that meant that he wasn't about to meet a demon. He could here the conversations down the tunnel. He glanced back at the cashier who hadn't said anything since he had asked about the Illucifan Nagar. Finally after he had made it to the bottom he entered a cavern. It was large, about double the size of his inn room. A chandelier hung from the ceiling. A picture of a horned woman with bird wings was carved into the ground. Along the edge of the circular cavern were raised pews with at least one to two hundred people sitting in them, this was damn large cult already. In the middle stood the man who had suggested he come to the shop tonight. He walked foward, dressed in crimson clothes, a golden rope tied around his stomach. "Hello brother-?"
"Brother Yann" Pyre said.
"Hello Brother Yann. We servants of Venelisia welcome you here tonight." He said. "Love Venelisia" The crowd cheered. The man continued, "Why are you so interested in our growing cult of Venelisia?" The hooded man asked. Pyre thought for a moment. "In the past, I was a part of a cult. It was a wonderful family, and we operated outside of the law, working for the better of our cause, I was wondering if this happened to be the right place for me." Pyre said. He was choosing his words carefully. He didn't want to get caught and throw the operation over backwards. Though, he did have enough info now for Guard Captain Devon to launch an attack, he even had a location for him. "Yann." The hooded man asked, "Have you heard of our beloved savior, Venelisia?" He asked. Pyre shook his head. the man smiled, " Venelisia was a human girl, but one day, she was bitten by a vampyre. Venelisia, was exiled and cast out of her town. She was a strong woman, and wouldn't obey her Vampiric urges. So, when the time came that she would die, Venelisia went willingy. But she didn't die, she was reborn, a vampyre hunter. And that is our goal, the end of the Vampyre race." The man sad. Pyre smiled, "sounds like a plan I can get behind." he said. The man nodded. "You seem like an honorable person Yann. Venelisia will be honored to have you in her cult of followers." He said. The crowd cheered out once again "LOVE VENELISIA" The man smiled, but just for a moment. Then his face turned sour. Pyre sighed, this was about to go down hill, very, very fast. He held his breath, waiting.

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"SPY" The man accused. Pyre swore. He wasted no time falling into action. He punched the hooded man square in the face, causing him to go flying backwards, toppling onto the ground. Pyre burst into a run, his speed was far superior to anyone within the cavern. The cashier tried to block him on his way out, but with his speed, Pyre pile drived him out of the way. Pyre dashed up the stairs, taking two, three, four at a time to get out of there. When he reached the top he burst out of the door and into the main shop. It was likely the cultists wouldn't follow him out of their store. But he wasn't going to stop now. The moon was high in the sky, how long had he been down there.
Pyre booked it halfway across the town before he slowed down. If he was right he was safe by now, It was night, the cultists wouldn't venture out in their gettup at the moment, and he had put a lot of distance between him and the store in the short time he had been running. Now it was off the Guard Captain Devon to give him the news about the cult.
Pyre didn't feel so weird about the night here as he did back at orchidia that other night. Here the night was soft, and stars pierced the dark sky. He knew where the knight station was, and it was a decent walk but he was fine. It was late enough so the streets were mostly empty, so he'd take the back ones for now. That way he'd stay out of the way of any cultists that had somehow managed to catch his tail. He assumed most of them were just wannabee thugs looking for a way into a new life. Though some likely had something against the Vampyre race. He held nothing against them, vampirism was just something that had happened thousands of years ago and now some people were able to live forever and drink the blood of others. Pyre was slightly fascinated by other races. The fact some humans could turn into wolves astounded him, what a power.
At one point there was a crack of a stick which caused him to jump and scoot around a corner, but it was just a cat hunting a mouse, and the crack was the neck of the mouse being snapped. Pyre raised an eyebrow and kept walking
Finally he reached the knight station and walked in. He quickly made his way upstairs and walked into Devon's office. Devon was ecstatic at the news and ordered guards to make preparations right away, and that "they couldn't let them get away." Devon thanked Pyre and dropped a bag of jewels in his hand and wished Pyre luck. Pyre smiled and left. IT had been a good night. And if he wasn't actively trying to avoid being found by a cult that night he would've stayed out longer.

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