Sadi had been on her own for two years now. She just would be turning eighteen in just a few months and the thought seemed to both excite and sadden her. Her life was passing on, but it felt like she had made so little progress in the things she was endeavoring to do. After leaving the underground fighting circuit, she had begun to travel across the region and simply explore the different parts of it. She even traveled to the mortal world for a small stretch of time, but everyone there was so weak and boring, so she hadn’t stayed for very long.

Upon returning to the World of Essence, she found herself lacking purpose. Killing people still provided her with a great amount of joy, so everywhere she went, she always made sure to indulge in a bit of murder to keep her spirits high, but she wanted to do something greater. She learned about a new idea that had begun floating around the world, guilds. They were apparently places where people could go to try and help out other people’s problems.

Sadi had tried joining a small guild in the northern forest, but she quickly grew bored of fixing people’s problems with the creatures of Ser that were running amuck all about. Sadi had never been hugely fond of Zeraph and Ser, but she also didn’t have any grudge against them, so she found killing the creatures of Ser as impeding nature, in a way. She thought that she could try and take on jobs where she would have to kill people, but then she was informed of the fact that assassination job orders had been outlawed recently.

This news had greatly upset her and she continued to try and figure out ways to solve the problem until it came to her. The guilds had all agreed to outlaw assassinations, but that decision had been made by them. There were still people in the world who were interested in hiring assassin’s and there were still people interested in being assassins.

Sadi decided to take several months traveling around the entire continent, surveying it and finding the boundaries of every single one of the guilds and towns across it. Eventually, she found that there was a large stretch of land that was open in the southern forest. With this information, Sadi travelled to the south forest and began to make preparations.

The first thing Sadi did to prepare the land was to completely destroy all of the plant life within a two mile radius and infuse the soil with darkness to ensure that no plants would be able to grow there again. Once that was done, she used all of the money she had made to hire people who could get her the materials she needed for a relatively cheap price. Once she had the materials, she simply had to hire people to design and construct the buildings that she needed. Once all of that was done, she was finally able to begin working on getting the world out for her new guild focused on assassination.

Sadi travelled all across the world, to every single seedy place that she could find. Every speck of the underworld was soon covered in advertisements for a guild that Sadi had decided to call Crook’s End. At first, she didn’t receive any business. Maybe one or two people wanted to contract her services, but it was for extremely small-time jobs. However, the guild eventually gained a few new members and then a few more. Within three months, the number of people in the guild had gone from none all the way up to just over a hundred. Now that it had become evident that the guild was real, the number of requests and new members was increasing at an alarming rate. Sadi couldn’t have been happier.

-

A few days after the guild had hit one hundred and fifty members, while Sadi was sitting in her office, looking over some of the financial documents for the guild to ensure that everything was running smoothly, there was a knock at her door. Sadi stood up from her desk and walked over to the door, giving it an inquisitive look before opening the doors. In front of her stood a rather short woman dressed all in bright white. She had lightly glowing golden hair and eyes that matched it exactly. Her skin was so bright it practically blinded Sadi as she stared at her.

Around the woman’s neck was a necklace with a creation sigil on the end. This caused Sadi to roll her eyes and she began to walk back to her desk. “What do you want?” she asked as she took a seat at her desk, looking up at the woman.

“My name is Denasti Margrove and I’m here because I wish to talk with you about your intentions with this assassination guild,” she spoke, her voice exuding regality and confidence in every word.

“We kill people and get paid for it. It’s pretty fucking simple,” Sadi replied, growing a bit annoyed with the woman.

Denasti cringed slightly at Sadi’s swearing. “Dear me… Such a foul mouth… I see that this guild is in even greater need of our help than I had previously thought.”

Sadi growled and stood up from her desk, gesturing to the door. “If you aren’t going to get to the damned point, I’m going to ask that you get the hell out of my office, ‘kay?”

Denasti sighed and reached her hand up to present the creation sigil necklace to Sadi more prominently. “I represent an order dedicated to bringing the world in to the light of the almighty Sengario’s true glory. So much of the world is tainted in darkness and misunderstanding and we wish to correct such things.”

Sadi rolled her eyes, slumping back down in to her chair. “Oh, Masters… I see… You’re completely deluded… So, what do you want me to do, stop killing people because I have news for you, bitch, that is not going to happen.”

Denasti took a moment, trying to collect and calm herself, not wishing to bring violence in to this situation. “No, I believe that what you are doing is truly great and exactly something that the almighty Sengario would like us to do. After all, we are bringing light to the world by snuffing out the darkness which plagues people’s lives. All I wish to do is to have this guild officially dedicated to the cause of bringing Sengario’s light in to the world.”

Sadi sighed and shook her head. “Just as I thought, you’re completely crazy. No, I refuse to endorse some crazy ideology. Now, if you could-”

Before Sadi could finish, she was interrupted by a child running in to the room, shouting, “Mama! Mama! I found a lightning beetle in the hallway. It was really shiny!”

The child held up a sparking insect that she seemed to have crushed to show Denasti. The girl was dressed in the exact same manner to her mother. Her hair was a bit more spiked and wild compared to her mother, but other than that, she simply looked like a smaller version of the woman.

Denasti smiled and knelt down, giving her daughter a soft pat on the head. “That’s really nice, sweetie, but I thought I told you to wait outside.”

The girl dipped her head and looked away from her mother. “I know, but… I was really excited…”

Denasti sighed and nodded. “Of course, dear. I was just about to leave, anyway.”

Sadi held her hand up and shook her head, walking around her desk and kneeling down to examine the child. There was a strange feeling that seemed to be coming off of her, a powerful energy. Sadi held her hand out to the child. “Hello, small light apprentice. My name is Sadi.”

Thanks to Sadi’s approach and extended hand, the child’s face grew deeply flush. She quickly hid behind her mother, peering out from behind Denasti’s robe at Sadi. Denasti chuckled softly. “My apologies for her. She’s somewhat infatuated with you and everything that she’s heard about you, so I imagine that meeting you here is somewhat awkward for her.”

The girl nodded rapidly before squeaking out. “My name is Elusy…”

Sadi nodded and stood up, looking down to address Denasti. “I see. I felt something strange coming from her. Do you per chance know what that was?”

Denasti smirked. “Oh, well don’t you recognize a direct descendant when you meet one?”

Sadi thought for a moment. “Huh. I see. So this thing is the product of Lord Luminitrious.”

“Correct. She’s already quite strong. I’m quite excited to see how she’ll grow,” Denasti boasted.

Sadi walked back over to her desk to sit down, but was closely followed by Elusy who looked up at her expectantly before suddenly blurting out. “Miss Sadi, will you marry me?!”

“No,” Sadi answered flatly, the idea presenting no interest to her.

Elusy frowned, but there was a strange glint of determination as she trudged back over to her mother who picked nodded to her and then to Sadi before  exiting the room, closing the door behind them.

As Sadi sat in her chair, she tried to make sense of the perplexing interaction that had just transpired. She was jolted out of her chair once more at the sound of chanting outside. She stood up and looked through the window behind her, finding that Denasti was standing in the middle of the guild’s central grounds, preaching to the guild about the light of the creator and saying that she would be forming a new assassination guild that would truly honor Sengario. Despite Sadi’s skepticism, several members of her guild followed the crazy lady out. Sadi simply slumped back in to her chair and sighed, putting the thought of Denasti out of her mind.