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“From one interview from a former member that managed to escape the cult: ‘It was a constant daily affair to watch fellow prisoners being taken away to fight and not return. Even being forced to fight and kill former friends with your bare hands was normal for us. We were constantly killing each other and it just made you numb to killing or being killed.’

“Psychologists have coined the term ‘Murder indoctrination’. They surmised that the constant trauma of having to repeatedly kill other people make one more malleable and easier for the Endless War cult to brainwash into joining their ranks.

“Many believe that the cult was responsible for the political unrest that led to the current civil war in the former territories of Gix, now known as the Warring States. While this is in line with the cult\'s beliefs, there is no definitive proof of them causing the civil war, but their involvement in perpetuating it is undeniable.

“They operate as a very unreliable mercenary group within the Warring States, constantly joining and switching sides in the competing interest of the ongoing civil war. This has resulted in the war lasting much longer than it should have.“

—Writings of Light Scholar Lukka on “The Machinations of the Nameless Cults”

Alan and Sere were waiting in one the private research labs of the Ember Gear collage. The space had all kinds of heavy machinery and equipment, all for students to build and experiment on various kinds of projects. The Ember Gear college was known as the college of engineers, so it was not unsurprising that students from this college would have access to labs full of that kind of equipment.

Sere and Alan sat around a nearby table feeling awkward and a little skittish. They were a little apprehensive of all of the machinery around them without Jafar around. They didn’t know what most of this machinery was and were afraid of it breaking and being accused of damaging it, so they were not willing to touch anything.

The lab they were currently sitting in was booked for today by Jafar.They were the only ones supposed to be here. However, Jafar was missing.

They had arrived at the designated time they agreed to meet, but Jafar had yet to show.

Sere: “Where is Jafar? It was his idea to meet here.

Alan: “I’m sure he’ll show up soon.”

Sere: “I just feel a little uncomfortable with all this machinery. I would have liked it better if we met in a study room instead.

Alan: “I agree, but the study rooms are in the library where Cid is. Meeting in the place where he’s at would be a bad idea.”

Sere: “I know,” she said with a sigh.

They were supposed to make a plan of action on Cid today.

The date they got from Marie\'s machine was rapidly approaching. They didn’t know if the date they got had any significance, or was just some strange error, but it was the only information they got to work off. They were convinced that something was supposed to happen that day. Alan suspected that maybe Cid was planning to murder someone else. So they needed to move quickly.

They needed real and concrete proof. Their first hand account of seeing Cid at the location of an accident and their bad feelings about him, was not anywhere near enough. The few things they knew about Cid didn’t really add up to him being a murder. Strange sure, but nothing really criminal. Just unusual and unexplained circumstances.

They continued to sit there waiting for another ten minutes. Sere was continuing to get more antsy as they continued to wait.

Sere: “Where is he?” she said, sounding frustrated.

Alan: “I wonder if there is a problem.”

Sere: “What problem would that be?” she said, sounding a little worried.

Alan: “I don’t know, but he is usually not late. So, this is unusual.”

Sere

: “You don’t think… he’s in trouble.”

Alan: “Why would he be in trouble?”

Sere: “I just remembered that he was the one that went into Cid’s room. What if Cid realized that Jafar went into his room and was after him now?”

Alan: “Jafar said he was careful, he didn’t leave anything behind that could be used to identify him.”

Sere: “But, that guy is not normal. What if he had secret security cameras in his room, or knew some sort of weird divination magic.”

Alan: “Let’s… not panic. If he doesn\'t show up in the next thirty minutes, we’ll go looking for him.” he said, trying to keep himself and Sere calm.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Another ten minutes went by. They then heard the door to the lab squeak open. They looked towards the entrance expecting to see their friend, but instead it was a brown hair student in orange ember gear robes they didn’t recognize.

Ember Gear Student: “Oh, sorry. I thought that this lab was empty.”

Alan and Sere let out a sigh of disappointment.

Sere: “That’s fine.”

Alan: “Hey, have you seen another ember gear student with thick glasses and looks a little unwashed.”

Ember Gear Student: “Um, that’s pretty much most of us around here. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Sere: “He has ginger hair and a light brown complexion. His name is Jafar.”

Ember Gear Student: “Oh yeah. He was in this lab earlier. He had to step out because a teacher called him.”

Alan: “What for?”

Ember Gear Student: “I don’t know. Anyways, I\'m just gonna go now.” he said, leaving the lab.

Sere and Alan then turned back to each other.

Sere: “What’s that about? Why did a teacher call him?”

Alan just shrugged, unsure of what it meant.

Another five minutes went by and the lab door swung open. Standing in the doorway with heavy breath, was their friend Jafar.

Jafar: “Sorry I\'m late. I ran here as fast as possible,” he said while breathing heavily.

Sere: “It\'s about time!”

Alan: “We heard that you were with a teacher.”

Jafar: “Yeah. Sorin Black called me to his office,” he said, as he took a seat at the table everyone was sitting at.

Sere: “What for?”

Jafar: “He was asking about Cris. The university is finally launching an investigation about all the recent deaths. Even the enforcers are now getting involved. It sounds like some of the professors are finally doing something.”

Alan: Finally, they’re looking into all the deaths.

Sere: It was only a matter of time. With so many students randomly dying on campus in such a short time, they would have to take action.

Jafar: “Yeah. He was talking to me because I was there when Cris got hurt. Ask me a bunch of questions about what happened. I told him everything I saw, minus Cid’s involvement.”

Alan: “Huh? Why not mention Cid to him?”

Jafar: “Because I don’t trust him. It was him and Pitter that tried to cover up the embalming fluid in Edwards body. Sorin doesn\'t care about doing the right thing. He is just trying to make the problem go away as fast as possible. If he knew about Cid, who knows, he might even try to cover that up too. If we tell anybody about Cid, it’s going to be someone higher up.”

Sere: “But before that, we need some sort of evidence.”

Jafar: “Exactly.”

Alan: “Well, all we have is a date, at least, that’s what we think it is.”

While the eerie picture they got from Cid’s note had numbers on the bottom that look like a date, they were not entirely sure it was.

Jafar: “What else do you think those numbers are then? They are positioned in a way that looks like a date.”

Alan: “I don’t know, but I guess no one has any other ideas”.

Sere: “It’s probably best that we assume it is a date for now.”

Alan: “But we don’t know for what. It could be for anything.”

Sere: “Maybe he’s meeting someone on that day.”

Alan: “Ok, but where then, and with who?”

Sere: “That is a problem. Having a date to something doesn\'t mean much if we don’t know for what, or where. If he’s meeting someone, we could have just staked out the location of the meeting, but since we don’t know where it is, we can\'t do that.”

Jafar: “Maybe we don’t have to know where. We do know that Cid is involved, and we know where he is. So, instead we could just stake out his dormitory.”

Sere: ”But what if he’s not meeting in his dormitory?”

Jafar

: “Then we just tail him. Based on what his roommate said, he still does come and go from there. So once we know he’s in his apartment, we just wait outside for him to leave and follow. He’ll probably start moving around near midnight, like the date on his note said.”

Sere: “We still don’t know for sure if he’s meeting anybody. We could wait outside his dorm all night and he might not move or meet with anybody.”

Alan: “I think there will be movement if Cid’s involved. Think about it. I saw him first when I saved Edward, then again in the newspaper, and Jafar saw him in the training arena. He was present at all of those ‘accidents’. And, those were the ones we saw him at, who knows, he probably was there for all the other deaths as well.

Sere: “That’s assuming he is going to kill someone on that date and make it look like an accident.

Alan didn’t say anything and just gave his friends a serious expression. But, his friends could immediately tell what he was trying to convey.

Jafar: “Wait, you actually think he’s going to kill someone then?”

Alan: “I don’t know for sure. There are still too many things we still don’t know. But, my gut is just telling me that might be the case. That image… the one that printed out along with the date was not…normal. Even Marie was shaken up about it, and she didn’t seem like the kind of person to bother by that kind of stuff. That picture of that skull can’t mean Cid intends to do anything good.”

Jafar: "I guess… but we really can’t say that the skull the machine printed out is directly connected to Cid.” he said, sounding unsure.

Sere: “That machine printed out a skull after scanning Cid’s notes. How can you say it’s not connected to Cid?”

Jafar: “I’m not saying it’s not connected. I’m saying we don’t know for sure. Marie\'s machine broke down after printing that image, so we don’t know for sure if it scanned properly or not.”

Alan: “Like you said about the date, we just have to make an assumption since we know so little. We should assume that the picture of the skull is connected.”

Sere: “If he is planning on doing something bad, like killing, then if we stop and catch him in the act, we’ll have all the proof we need.”

Alan: “Exactly.”

Jafar: “The date we got was for tomorrow. So, whatever we decide to do, will have to be now.”

Alan: “Ok. We will meet here again tomorrow. Let\'s say at six. Then we head out to the dorm Cid is staying at and find a place to watch out for him.”

Sere: “I think I might be able to get access to the roof of another building beside the dorm. We could watch from there without being seen.”

Jafar: “And I can get us some binoculars that can work at night. Making it easier to watch out for Cid.”

Alan: “Good. And, if it gets dangerous, I can protect us,” he said, feeling the need to contribute to this stake out in some meaningful way like his friends.

Sere: “I don’t need your protection, but thanks.”

With that out of the way, Alan and his friends continued to talk about some other miscellaneous thing for another hour. Afterwards, everyone headed home to prepare for tomorrow.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

-Later that same night.-

Cid was in the library again doing a bunch of strange actions of moving things into random positions.

He walked along the rows of bookshelves before stopping to pull out the “Book of Grand Design \'\'. Reading through the contents to make sure everything was in the correct position. As he was reading, the writing twisted and shifted into different alien symbols before his eyes. The sudden change didn’t bother Cid at all, he was used to this and all too familiar with the strange symbols.

Reading the new writing, Cid started smiling.

Cid: “So they are finally coming after me. Excellent, just as I planned. They thought they hid themselves well, but I’ve already noticed. I must thank John. The idea of a trap was an excellent suggestion. With everything I’ve been doing, it was only a matter of time before they came."

He then chuckled a bit maniacally.

Cid: “Let them come tomorrow! Once those three show up, it will be over for them!”