Manners

Fate sat across from Avatar Renli in a room that felt like a jungle. The floor was covered in a layer of dirt; the walls and bookshelves were covered in several different species of vines, some with flowers and some without; and every inch of every man-made item, from the frames of the nature paintings to the couches they were sitting on to the small bits of wallpaper visible through the tiny gaps in the vines, were covered in tasteful vine and floral patterns with a green background that was almost white. This room was of course in the large church in the center of town.

Avatar Renli blended into the scenery perfectly, making Fate, who was wearing his now-typical black blazer, blue shirt, and black pants, feel somewhat out of place. He took his mask off and set it next to him on the large couch, leaning back and taking a sip of tea. On this planet, offering tea was customary when one had guests.

"So, what did you need me for?" he asked.

"I saw how you took down that crusader, Timathol. He's been a thorn in my people's side for years now. I wanted to personally thank you, and offer you a job."

"What's the job?"

"Considering how easily you handled Timathol, I would like to know if you feel confident going against an Avatar. Avatar Trithmund has been a scourge for even longer than Timathol, and he has killed many of my people in this time.

"His Death Manifestation is the antithesis of my Plant Manifestation, and that makes him think he needs to kill me. I don't particularly know why, of course; Personification Tenga and Personification Regna get along just fine."

Fate's research an hour ago in the library told him that Tenga had a Light Manifestation and Regna had a Dark one, and they were indeed close friends, often hosting large parties for other Embodiments together. He didn't know why Avatar Renli thought she had a "Plant Manifestation," though.

He assumed it was really a Health Manifestation, and that the ignorance caused by the lack of a PPF branch caused misconceptions like this all the time here. It would explain why most Embodiments here stagnated at the Personification level. How could they comprehend the entirety of their Manifestation if they didn't even know its name?

"Anyway, he's been sending his Exemplar lackeys to my cities recently, often killing dozens of my followers before my Rangers can respond. I wanted to hire you to kill him."

"How much does it pay?" Fate asked. 'Considering the difficulty, it better be at least two thousand Dangans.' "Dangans" were the currency used on this planet. Fate wasn't too worried about it becoming useless when he left; the EPF had exchange rates for every form of currency used by Embodiments, even on those planets where they had no influence.

"Four thousand, to be paid upon completion. When you bring me his head, I will give you your compensation."

Fate leaned forward, extending his hand. Renli took it, and they shook on it.

"Deal," Fate said. He tightened his grip, squeezing her hand. She looked into his eyes questioningly. "Double-cross me, and my Avatar kill count won't stop at one."

He let go and scooped up his mask, moving to leave. He closed the door behind him, leaving Avatar Renli alone in the room. She stared at the door, eyes narrowed, contemplating. 'Don't make me regret this,' she thought.

The walking was the worst part. With his ship parked seven miles away from the city to avoid detection, he had to walk all the way there, then fly to the city where Avatar Trithmund was holed up, park his ship far away in some vegetation, and walk another eight miles to enter. He had gone through worse, of course, so he ignored his slightly aching feet and kept his stride to the tacky, ostentatious palace in the center of town.

He slipped past the guards without a sound, using Null to move completely unseen. Just for fun, he snatched the helmet off the guard on the right and stuck it on top of the guard on the left's helmet. He chuckled as they started arguing about it behind him, the guard whose hat he moved using some really colorful words.

Thanks to his advancement to the Exemplar Level, he could keep Null up indefinitely, and thanks to his new intangibility, he could walk straight through doors and walls as if he was some kind of phantom. Like this, he searched every room in the mountainous church, once stumbling upon several women bathing in some form of indoor hot spring.

He lingered here for a few seconds – purely for information, of course. He was even enough of a gentleman to stare at the ceiling and not look. A few minutes of excited giggling and splashing later, they finally started talking about a "Lord Husband" and how he was exceptionally irate recently, spending longer and longer in the "forbidden room."

"I've never been in there myself, but the hallway leading to it is super creepy," one of the younger women said. "All those paintings of guillotines in use, people in stocks, and all sorts of torture…" The woman shivered. "Lord Husband sure has some weird taste."

"Of course he does, he picked you as a concubine."

The young woman snickered. "Yeah, whatever did he see in me? I only have the perkiest bottom here."

'Alright, I'm out.' Fate stepped through the wall, recalling one of the Ancestors' stories about a blonde cook that wanted invisibility more than anything in the world, purely to spy on chicks. It was a strange story, with no real moral he could find, so he pushed it out of his mind as he searched for this "spooky hallway."

Not long later, he found it. It was, he had to admit, pretty creepy. Along with the paintings the woman mentioned, there were also paintings of people burning alive or being tormented by demons. He walked through the steel door and entered some dungeon-meets-evil-lab room.

One wall was hundreds of cages of varying sizes, stacked atop and next to each other and filled with rats, snakes, a deer, and even a few human infants, along with several other species.

The rest of the room was filled with all manner of torture devices, microscopes, alembics, metal trays, magnifying glasses, and similar tools. It truly looked like the den of a madman. And standing in front of the cages, eyeing the specimens like someone checking fruit in a supermarket, was Avatar Trithmund.

He wasn't anything like Fate expected. He thought he'd find someone pale, skinny, and so obviously evil that maybe he had a goatee. Instead, Avatar Trithmund was large, a man of muscle.

His thick neck had visible veins, and his muscular arms and chest looked out of place in his lab coat. His hair was long and black, and his black eyes were staring at the caged creatures behind thin spectacles.

The only thing Fate got right was the goatee.

Fate looked around, taking in the room. "Damn, you're one sick son of a bitch."

Avatar Trithmund whirled around, firing off a beam of pitch black. Fate simply stepped to the side, the beam drilling into the door behind him and leaving a large hole in it. He looked at the hole, then back at Trithmund.

"Is that any way to treat a guest?" he asked, pulling his Dragoon out of its holster. "Maybe I should teach you some manners. I've been in here for almost an hour, and I haven't even been offered a cup of tea."