Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-25389303-20160708180726/@comment-25389303-20160712214337

Shifting through his papers, Hector made sure he had everything carefully laid out in front of him before answering.

"I suppose starting from the beginning would probably be best," he said carefully, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing. "Until about three years ago, I worked as a freelancer - a hired gun to anyone with enough money and the right mission. This was before I set up the Mettal Legion, and before I was working for you.

"I was hired by a group of skilled thieves and heisters named the Patched. Well, in particular their leader - a young man named Decadere Diaboli. You wouldn't have heard of him, though. At the time they were still a small gang of no more than 30 people, and he hired me to act as his personal bodyguard whenever he went to subjucate the local gangs.

"Over the course of a few years, though, they expanded rapidly - scarily rapidly, in fact. At first they stayed in Mistral's major cities, but before I knew it they had their claws dug into every kingdom in Remnant - Vale being the latest, and therefore the weakest. Now their numbers are unknown - several thousand members, I would think, at full strength.

"At that point I effectively became redundant. I set up the Legion in my spare time, who were eventually hired by you soon after. When I told Diaboli I would be leaving, he didn't ask me who I would be working for. Nor did I intend to tell him. After all, explaining that I would be moving back to Vale to work with the biggest threat to his operations would hardly be good for my personal safety. But I have a strong feeling that he already had his suspicions."

Hector slid one of the documents across the table in front of Zanipher. "This is an exact copy of the resume I gave to you when you first hired me. You can see under the 'Previous Employers' section that I had already told you that I had worked for him and the Patched. Of course, when you undoubtably did a background check on them you would have only found a small group of thieves operating in urban Mistral, led by a no-name amateur who you'd never heard of, and chose to ignore it, for which I am eternally grateful..."

He paused to lift the white mask from his face - the first time he had done so in front of another person in years - long enough to take a sip from the flask in his coat pocket, before repositioning it.

"...where was I? Oh yeah, Diaboli. He's a schemer, that one. You don't get away with hiding one of the biggest criminal organisations in the world for eight years without being good at your job. If you're hoping that he'll give up now that he's been discovered, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. You see, the Patched and the Dragons are a lot alike in some ways - they're both networks for smaller groups, each supporting the other like a pyramid. The only difference is, while the Dragons are tightly-knit to stop people from getting in easily, the Patched is spread so far apart that anybody who does get it will have no idea what is happening at the top. He uses gangs like puppets - each independed in their own right, but all the money floods back to him. Most of the people working for him don't even realise he exists, and all the others don't know anything about him - not even his name.

"One person you do know, though, is Smiler. He and Diaboli were the two top dogs of the Patched in the beginning, but he went crazy some years back. I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of him, though. After all, he's been on the Vale Police Department's 'Most Wanted' list for past year or so. An internationally-wanted serial killer, in short. He's the only other person you need to worry about."

Hector sat in silence for a couple of seconds, wondering whether he'd forgotten anything important. And then he remembered:

"You said you wanted to make contact with him?" he asked, holding up the rectangular device Diaboli had given to him in the forest. "This is a Scroll with a direct connection to one other - which happens to be in Diaboli's possession. I used it to communicate with him while I was on missions, and as far as I know he still keeps it on his person to this day."

Hector thought the lie was pretty solid. And with his mask and flat voice there wasn't the possibility of her noticing anything which would give it away. There was a chance she would pick up on the fact that the likelihood of Diaboli still holding onto a direct-link Scroll was practically zero, but he doubted she'd notice.

"I'm sure you have more questions..." Hector finished, placing the Scroll in front of Zanipher, "...so why not ask the man himself?"