The boys found themselves back on the planet and it seemed that no time had passed.
'Hey Infy, That paragon was strong wasn't he'
'Not talking to you'
'Why?'
'You almost got us killed, do I even want to know what you said to him when he asked what we learnt'
'He wasn't going to do anything, don't you remember anything from the interrogation training. Only threats that the person can carry out are real. He was bluffing he couldn't act without the other four'
'What? you are an idiot, you can't apply human logic to the top powers in the galaxy'
'But it worked out didn't it?'
The two went back and forth for a while. The others were confused as Null seemed to have completely zoned out and wasn't paying attention to his surrounding.
"Don't worry Null always zones out when he and Infy are disagreeing on something" Lisa had seen this before so wasn't concerned. She was concerned about what the Valtaui would do.
Unit 2317 was currently in his humanoid form. In this form, he was only about 1.2m high and if they hadn't witnessed his fight with abomination. They might have harbour thoughts about overpowering him.
Luckily no one in the party held such illusions of grandeur, they knew that if the Valtaui wanted to apprehend Null and Infy there was no way to resist. The rest of the party watched as Unit 2317 approached the still zoned out child.
"I believe you are aware of what this is?" The Valtaui was talking to both Null and Infinity over a private connection. He removed the current useless field restriction band and place another on to Null wrist. This band was just camouflaged as a field restriction band but had another purpose.
"Yes, the Paragon informed us about this band. We have to keep wearing it if we wished to remain free. He also said that the Valtaui will be in charge of monitoring our behaviour and if we try to tamper with it, he will take action" Infy had to reassure the Valtaui if they were going to move forward.
To the surprise of the rest of the party once Unit 2317 had placed the band on Null he just left. No words were said to the rest of the party, he just entered his ship and jumped with the other 3 ships.
The Party was dumbfounded.
"Okay Myself, Null and Jania are on clean up duty. Bolat can you use your drones to detect where the leftover tortured souls are located. Chris and Lisa can you track our progress and provide us with the optimal route" Infy was ignoring what had just happened and was continuing with the mission like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"No, we have to talk about what just happened. Why did they leave? What did they place on your wrist?" Lisa was confused and wanted answers.
"Later, Once we can use the room I promise we will tell you what we can. For now, we need to finish the mission" replied Infy
Chris was keen to make another suggestion
"May I suggest we sleep first. I'm exhausted, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. We've had a physical and mentally draining day. There are likely thousands of those creatures left and it could be dangerous if you aren't rested"
Jania and Null didn't want to agree with him, but they both had to admit that transforming and fighting a behemoth size abomination had taken it out of them. They comprised that they would sleep but Chris, Bolat and Lisa had to take it in turns and keep track of the creatures to ensure none could escape.
While Null slept a clone of Infy left to go look over the others. He didn't require as much rest as the others. He came across Lisa currently dissecting one of the corpses.
"Lisa, shouldn't you be resting as well?"
"I can't every time I rest all I hear are the voices, I didn't know someone could be in so much pain. I need to help release these souls from the torture, I don't think I will be able to rest properly until I've accomplished atleast that much"
After 6 hours of sleep, both Null and Jania were ready for the hunt. Chris had mapped out the area with the highest density of monsters. Lisa dissections had helped locate their vital spots.
The clean up had taken them another week to complete. There weren't too many problems as the creatures could be dispatched at range with the lasers. Chris and Lisa had also joined the hunts after the 2nd day. Bolat heavy drone guarded the camp while the light drone would pick off any stragglers outside the city.
After the mission had been completed they attempted to get paid but had been informed they were now in debt. It seems they were found to be negligent in their actions causing the damages and deaths of other mercenaries. They had been fined a large sum of Zallium. This went they would be doing missions for free for a while.
Back on the Golden Chariot in the dwarven section.
Bolat was filled with rage, these humans were too naïve to take on missions and they wouldn't listen to his orders. His drones needed repairing and now they were indebted. Dwarfs hated debt and would also work hard to eliminate it as soon as possible.
"Master Vark, they don't listen, they take risks they shouldn't and they cause nothing but trouble. Surely there is something you could do?"
"The success or failure of a mission is on the leader. It was your lack of leadership that has caused this. You must make them listen and follow commands, you have to be able to adapt to changing situations. From the reports, it appears that both Infinity and Chris had shown more leadership than you. They adapted and issued practical orders. Maybe you need to rethink your position"
The rebuke from the Runemagi had stung the young dwarf as he couldn't refute any of the assertions but he still believed it was the human's fault. 'if we had left when the boys asked to leave none of this would have happened. It is their fault for not explaining how dangerous it was!'
Later that day they had convened a meeting in the secure meeting room. Well, the mostly secure meeting room. They doubted it could prevent Null new accessory from reporting home.
Null started the meeting.
"We met the Pure Primordial, he is an interesting guy" he wanted to see how everyone would react.
"That not even funny, you didn't go anywhere" Bolat was over these humans, they were nothing but trouble.
"Sadly he is not joking, we were taken to visit him in the spiritual realm" Infy had argued not to tell anyone about the chat, but they had come to comprise they would say they had a chat but not mention the contents of the chat except for the restrictions.
"He is immensely powerful, we don't even know what fields he was using"
"No, you have to be lying, we can't draw the attention of a Paragon, we just can't" Bolat was refusing to believe it, even if it was true it would make his life easier if it wasn't.
"He did set some conditions. We can use true magic for defensive purposes only and as long as we were this band it won't set off the alarms. We are not to create any spells that are self-powering or that damage the fields. We can not teach anyone else about true magic or let any of the other races know of our abilities. Finally, we are to wear this tracking device and all our movements and actions will be observed by the Valtaui collective to ensure we are upholding the agreement.
Runemagi Vark was curious
"I'm sure you discussed more than that with a Paragon, they wouldn't make the effort to talk to you and just give you a list of conditions that the council could give. So what else was spoken about"
"Nothing" they both replied at the same time. No one in the room believed them but they didn't want to pry. Lisa knew from experience that trying to gather the information they didn't want to share was futile.
Let us move on to planning for our next mission.