After an awkward silence about what had just happened, Mack walked Art out of the house and exchanged a few more words about the plan, but nothing really important and once Art was out of the property he closed the door and said to himself, “Aliens and their dammed costumes, why give a bow? A hand shake is way better”

But Mack was clueless that there was once a time in history that almost every culture had their own greetings, but all changed with the ‘Plague of Nitis’, the reason why now almost all civilizations have the costume to never touch other people when doing greetings. Thus, bowing to the other person as a greeting became the new norm.

…

Inside Harlack Studio,

“Please sit,” said Harlack, signaling with his hand for Lorin to take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

Lorin didn’t delay and did as asked, and waited. In her opinion, after living with the duo for a few days already, neither Harlack nor Mack were the type to enjoy ‘small talk’.

Harlack pushed a stack of papers to Lorin and said, “This will be your new identity, Lorin Fenryr”,

Once Lorin heard the name, her eyes looked up and shock could be seen on her face, ‘The Fenryr Family’, One of twelve houses of the mage alliance, the same one that recently quit the mage alliance treaty.

Harlack paid no attention to the expressions of Lorin and after a brief pause he continued, “The details and full background are explained there. You will need to memorize every single detail of it.”

Lorin skimmed the form in her hands and asked, “So, I’m a distant relative of the Fenryr family, a bastard son of a dead business man?”

“Correct. The motive of you coming to this planet is that a huge meteor recently hit the city where you and your other siblings lived in, a truly pitiful and doubtless random event of nature. Only you survived because you were out of the town at the day.” said Harlack, closing the line of thought.

“I see… a perfectly random event of nature, of course…” said Lorin, but her eyes kept reading the form in her hands, or at least pretending to be, because in her mind she could not but avoid of being surprised by the power that the Horus organization had.

To just create a fake identity, they destroyed an entire city. ‘What is the goal of all this?’ Thought Lorin, while also realizing that the importance of the mission she joined increased several times. ‘They would not do such moves to just kill someone. They have something else as a goal. Unless…’ as Lorin thought about that, her eyes locked at the top of the form in her hands, where she read the name Fenryr. ‘Fuck’

Lorin’s gaze shifted back to Harlack once again. The man was calm as ever, and he seemed to predict every move of Lorin as he was just waiting for her to ask, “Are we going to Kill the head of the Fenryr family?”

“HaHaHa took you long enough to think about that, but again Lorin, you are thinking way too small. What is the motive and what we have to gain if we kill the head of the Fenryr family? The only one family that ever left the mage alliance treaty,” said Harlack, half smirking at the predictable conclusions of Lorin.

She knew that Harlack was testing her while also helping her to develop the correct mindset of a spy. After a few seconds of pondering, she said, “The mage alliance put a bounty on the Fenryr family?”

Harlack shook his head and said, “Wrong again, Lorin, you are not considering the parties involved here, and their background. Do you remember what I told you yesterday? People tend to follow habits. The same applies to organizations, because in the end, they are ruled by people too.”

Harlack took a pause to let the words fall on the sponge head of Lorin, then continued, “The mage alliance dosn’t tolerate any act of rebellion. What do you think they would do if a family belonging to the twelve houses simply walked away?”

“They would try to exterminate the entire family to serve as an example, and also, the other families would try to profit out of it and split and all the resources that belonged to the Fenryr among themself.” said Lorin, taping her fingers over her own leg, clearly still thinking about the issue.

“Correct, but the fundamental question here is….. Why have not they done it yet?” said Harlack.

Hearing that question, Lorin eye’s sparkled as if a bolt had hit her brain, as all became clear to her, “Thats what we are after? The ‘reason’ of deterrent? If the Fenryr family is still in one piece and suffering no repercussion to this day, it must be because they have something that the other families fear, not only that, but they fear to the point of not moving a single finger.”

Harlack gave a small nod, and tapped the table a few times as if thinking, and then said, “We know they have something, but what is still a mistery to the outside world and organizations like us, is that even if they had it, why would they leave the mage alliance? Its not like the twelve families have bad blood between them, and all shows that they would have nothing to gain by leaving the mage alliance, the thing is, they are planning something big, and is almost to start, that’s the reason they showed their cards now.”

Lorin gave a small nod as if understating, and said, “So, that’s my mission? Find those answers?”

“Way more than that, but that is a talk for another day.” said Harlack, taking a pause then continued, “First, we will need to find a way for you to join the ranks of the Fenryr family. That’s what they are paying us for, and the contributions points will be huge. But don’t be ingenuous, the organization already has people inside, they just could not progress in the ranks of the family.. That’s why we are trying a new approach with you this time.”