CHAPTER FIFTEEEENNNNNN!
As they neared the town, Mercury heard a worrying amount of screaming. Nox and Iodine seemed calm, though, so she assumed everything was going to plan. suddenly, she saw what the screaming was about. There were 50 assassins all tied up, hanging upside-down from trees. The villages were all swarmed around them. The blood was rushing to their heads, and their masks had been torn off to reveal their faces, which were red. The villagers were all laughing merrily.
"Huh. I didnt know they enjoy torture." Mercury mused, and Iodine giggled. Anyway, it looked like everything had gone her way. Finally! a stroke of luck. Or, maybe, a stroke of planning? Either way, she wasn't the one who had planned it out. "Thank you, village saviors!" one of the villages said, and everyone broke out into chants of 'Village saviors!" as they kicked the poor assassins. Mercury bowed, and Iodine waved. Fluorine accepted flower wreaths from a few other kids. "Nah, don't thank us. We benefitted from this too." Mercury said, patting her bag of ID's. they had definitely benefited - they now had enough IDs to start identifying patterns. "They'll never pester us again!" the villager said. Mercury flinched as his eyes suddenly turned murderous and he grabbed a stick to begin whacking the assassins. ha ha ha! give them an extra whack for the readers please, villagers! Mercury watched for a minute, before turning around to look at the ID's. She hadn't had time before.
Suddenly, she noticed a strange little squiggle at the top of the paper. it was more of a snakey s shape, with a line through it, like a money symbol. "Huh? Did someone's pencil slip, and they accidentally made that?" mercury wondered aloud, before looking at the next ID. It had the same squiggle. The next one did too. One after another. squiggle, squiggle, squiggle! what was happening? As she laid all of them out, they all displayed the strange snakey squiggle. Weird. Too weird to be a coincidence. All of the assassins they had seen so far were low-status government officials who were involved in some sort of guild.
"Looks like the higher-ups are making them do the dirty work." Nox mused, noticing it too. Fluorine was a bit slower to catch on, but ultimately she pointed to the squiggle. "What's that?"
"It's a guild crest. Hmmmmmmm. It's funded by the royal family, too… like that scroll I once got." Mercury said. Suddenly, the scroll flashed into her brain. Neck hair standing on the edge, she whipped around to stare behind her. Watch your back….? "Oh! the scroll. These IDs have all the royal family's seal on them too, But I thought it was a given for government officials." Nox said, and Mercury rubbed her neck. ugh, the creepy scroll was giving her goosebumps! It didnt help that the sun was setting, making the forest grow darker and more eerie by the minute. Thanks a lot, world! Our main character is getting the hebe jeebies now!
"A guild? The assassins are a guild, and one funded by the royal family to eliminate anyone who gets too powerful?" Nox asked, studying the ID's. the paper blew around in the wind, and Fluorine raced around, grabbing runaway papers from the wind and placing them back on the rock. "Hmmmmm. I think we should rip them up, instead of leaving any traces." Iodine suggested. Mercury nodded, and they each spilled up the paper four ways. Soon, they had a decent pile of scraps on the floor. Mercury buried them under some dirt, where they would eventually decompose. "Noice. what now? How do we even find this mysterious guild?" Mercury asked hands on her hips.
"We become government officials, obviously." Iodine scoffed, and Mercury gaped at her. obviously? it's not very obvious.