It was late at night when the succubus heard a knock coming from outside the door. She sat up on the bed as she asked in a sleepy voice, "Who is it?"
"Excuse me, but could you come to the door for a moment?" said the voice the succubus recognized as belonging to the Innkeeper.
She instantly assumed that the reason why the Innkeeper is calling her this late most likely has something to do with the black market. She knew that she shouldn't be too hopeful about not being found. She had thought about what to do in the eventuality but in the end she found it inadvisable to make enemies with the black market while in town, at least not before she had a guaranteed path of escape. She just hoped that they wouldn't be too unreasonable with their requests.
With a sigh, she got of the bed and stretched her body a bit before activating the skin-shift spell., she wouldn't risk being exposed as a demon especially with the approaching war with the demons seemingly just around the corner.
After changing her appearance, she put on her cloak with the hood up. She took the mask from the dresser and put it on her face. She thought about taking her alchemical box but she decided to leave it unless she wants the black market to take it and everything inside.
She walked to the door, opening it to reveal the Innkeeper who had been waiting patiently.
"You have guests waiting for you in one of the private dining areas," said the Innkeeper in a monotonous voice as he signaled to the succubus to follow him.
He led the succubus down the stairs to the ground floor, through a door that was just behind the stairs separating the private dining areas from the public one.
The door led to a spacious corridor brightly lit with night pearls of varying colors with red doors found at fixed intervals on one side of the corridor. The Innkeeper led the succubus to the door the last door in the corridor and signaled for her to enter.
There were two man who seemed to be in their late twenties waiting for the succubus. They looked somewhat similar so the succubus assumed that they may be related.
"Gentlemen, do remember to not cause trouble, " said the Innkeeper who was standing by the door before closing the door and leaving without waiting for an answer.
The two men looked at the door with a bitter expression for a while before turning to the succubus and signaling for her to sit down on the chair opposite them.
The table separating the succubus from the two men had a bottle of alcohol and some appetizers.
"We had to get something to be able to use this room, that old man can be troublesome." One of the men explained as he invited the succubus to help herself.
"Does the Innkeeper have that terrifying of a backing?" the succubus was curious.
"His backer has a terrifying backing. But we're not here to talk about that, tonight we're here to talk about you." said the man on the left.
"Relax we aren't going to do anything bad, we're here to extend an invitation." said the other man as he pulled out his necklace from underneath his shirt showing a pendant with a flaming feather inscribed on it.
'Great, Phoenix Quill again.' the succubus thought to herself.
" See, we're from Phoenix Quill, a secret organisation of formationsmasters that you can find anywhere in the Gorgon Domain and even in some other nearby countries." The man said with his voice filled with pride as he continued, "Phoenix Quill has some of the best formationsmasters in the midlands and as you can expect we naturally have everything to cater for the needs of such a formationsmaster."
"You should be proud to be noticed by us. You have the potential to be a powerful formationsmaster and should be honored to have Phoenix Quill help you realize that potential."
The two guys in front of her talked without giving her a chance to reply, it was quite similar to the last time she dealt with Phoenix Quill and even more so the time before that.
She couldn't deny that Phoenix Quill had succeeded in being the most powerful organization of formationsmasters in this part of the midlands, but they had utterly failed to be a secret organization and the number one reason for that would be the recruiters.
Phoenix Quill probably has the highest influx of talented individuals thanks to the aggressive recruitment strategy employed by the recruiters.
Nearly every organization has at least one prodigy stolen from them by Phoenix Quill. That had made the name Phoenix Quill extremely prominent and abhorred among the various sects and clans.
But aside from the name, the fact that it mainly deals in formations and that it is involved with the criminal underworld, not much else is known about Phoenix Quill. Making it more of a mysterious organization than a secret organization.
The succubus knew more about the organization from the last two times she had joined the organization and that made her consider joining them in order to avoid trouble.
If she joined them, aside from the massive workload they'll put on her for the first few months, there wouldn't be much trouble if she behaved. Escaping after that usually isn't much trouble since they don't put too many limits on their members.
There was only one thing that the succubus apprehensive about joining Phoenix Quill. It was a human organization. That meant discrimination towards non-human races was very much rampant in the organization.
The organization represents humanity's superiority and none would deny its accomplishments. Other than when they use them for materials the only other time they spare a thought for other races is when they need living test subjects. The organization considers it immoral to have humans serve that role but that sentiment is not extended to other races. And being in the Gorgon Domain, demons have little rights and losing some during tests would be the feats marking a hero.
This was more than enough of a reason for the demon to deny their invitation, but she couldn't. They being here meant that they had a pretty good foothold on the town to the point that the moment they heard of the possible presence of a prodigy it immediately became theirs. Even if they couldn't do much in the inn she couldn't stay here forever, at most until she ran out of money. Which considering the extortionate price of everything in this inn, wouldn't be more than a week.
If they had to force her to come with them rather than just going them the chances of being found out would increase drastically. In order to not get found out she had to go with them, but before that...
"How did you find me?" she asked with a calm tone not fitting of a woman who had just been approached by an organization linked to the black market.
This was an important question, she intended to run away at some point and that meant that she might need to devise counters to any tracking methods they might use.
"Let me tell you, it wasn't easy... sigh," said the man on the left with an exasperated look.
"Yeah, asking around town for a midget wearing a cloak was a failure. Tracking your mana was also quite difficult, we even had to deploy sprites and it still took over 4 hours."
The succubus used her all to ignore being called a midget, "You tracked my mana? How did you get my mana signature?" asked the succubus confused.
Even sprites would need to read her mana signature to track her. That's why in Gorgon Castle she had used that particular sprite among all the sprites present, the enslavement spell it master used to bind it contained the master's mana which could be used to track said master.
"You didn't forget did you?" asked the man on the right as he pulled out a spell disk from his robe that the succubus immediately assumed was one of those she had imprinted earlier today. "You used your mana and spiritual energy to make this, naturally there was some residual mana we could use."
"That's also the reason we were in such a rush, the guy you did business with said it seems like you sensed something was off and seemed to be planning to run away. We couldn't allow that of course," the man on the right reached out to take the spell disk from his colleague and continued to speak, "Aside from the skill you showcased the spell disks, the spiritual energy used to create them is enough to kill a peak level squire not to mention a mid-level commoner. That could be explained if you were a rather talented spiritual species but you're clearly not one."
These words made the succubus put her guard up even more, these were the last people she wanted to go anywhere with, especially now that they suspected her. This also revealed that they are here to do more than just recruit. But she still managed to ask with a calm voice...
"So if I'm not a prodigy from one of the spiritual species, what do you think I am?"
"Take of that crap you call a mask and we may have a clue?"
The succubus quickly considered her options and seeing that she had none she took of the mask revealing the light pink face of a young woman with dark brown eyes bordering on black, blonde hair that was barely peering through the hood and a smile that was somewhat more seductive than teasing as was intended by the succubus.
"What do you think I am?" asked the succubus in a playful voice that left the men opposite her frozen for a while.
The one on the left got out of his stupor and cleared his throat, "That we don't know, why don't we just go to the base now and get some proper proper numbers."
"Oculux Stone?" said the succubus uncertain.
"Pretty good guess. It's the only way we can be certain of your race and the level of your spirituality, so you don't need to worry yourself about telling us about your family tree. With the Oculux Stone we have at the base we can probably tell what slept with what for the past seven or so generations that eventually led all the way to you." said the man on the right with a slight smile.
The succubus was both worried and jealous. Worried that they'll find out that she doesn't have a drop of human ancestry allowing them to do as many tests as they want to determine how a commoner lesser succubus has a spirituality that rivals a human knight.
Jealous that they have an Oculux Stone of much higher grade than her if anything could be taken from what they said.
This also raised the possibility that she might have underestimated the criminal underworld of this town, seeing that not only do they have one of the most powerful organizations in the entire Domain but the local branch of said organization has one of the most precious treasures in the world. The succubus was almost sure that there was something big happening in this town, all the more reason she had to leave quick.
But first she had to somehow escape from Phoenix Quill which was now harder since they've noted her.
"I don't really have a choice, do I?" Hearing the succubus asked the obvious the two men didn't bother themselves to answer.
"Can I get something in my room first?" since she had to leave she would not forget the alchemist box. She would rather deal with how to make sure her captors don't find out what's inside than leave it and risk someone finding it and probably sell it afterward.
The two men shared a glance before agreeing.
Having permission the succubus placed the mask back on her face and stood up to leave. Coming out into the still deserted corridor of the private dining area she walked along the corridor with the two men following a couple of steps behind.
When she came out of the door by the stairs, the Innkeeper who was sitting at the reception area raised his head from the documents he was reading to look at her before sharing a nod with the men behind after which he reimmersed himself in his documents.
The succubus didn't bother herself with the unreliable Innkeeper and went up the stairs. She was starting to feel the strain from the skin-shift spell so she decided to deactivate it.
It was rather uncomfortable to do so especially since she was walking and any motion dragged on the time duration the skin-shift spell needed to work. She tried her best to not show it on the outside lest she wants the two men behind her to notice that something's off.
She had just finished deactivating the effects of the spell as she was walking on the corridor when she felt a hand pull her shoulder lightly to turn around.
"Hey... What was that?"