The old beater clangs to a stop. Run-down motels. Found in almost any city. Fox prefers them to a fancy place. In these rat-infested motels he is left alone. After what happened at the gas station he is more grateful than usual for these run-down motels. He feels dirty having been manipulated by such a weak creature from the Abyss. He had controlled more powerful creatures than that. But he had fallen for it completely. Not even hesitating. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if he has been manipulated by the manipulated. The plan to draw him in has been too elaborate for the first level creatures to have come up with. Sure, they are pranksters but they don’t have any real powers to speak off. Something to look into later.

He glances around before heading into the office. No one around to notice his coming and going. He would have to throw his tattered and blood-stained clothes into one of the festival bonfires. Destroy any evidence. For now he would just have to keep it covered while he got a room key. As long as the person behind the desk doesn’t notice he would be fine. Normally when the Death Walkers are trying to follow someone’s tracks they tend to look at nicer places. All the young bloods in Tyr like to live it large on the company’s dime. It’s why Fox does the opposite and sticks to the more run-down motels.

But those Death Walkers, they’re thorough. Often checking every dumpster and every alley in a town looking for clues. Sticking out could be dangerous. He had almost been caught before even at a run-down motel like this. He slides his sunglasses on, as he climbs out of the car. Fox uses the side mirror to check out his face. No blood, thankfully. He runs his fingers through his hair, trying to tame it, while he approaches the motel office. As he reaches the door to the office he pulls the jacket tighter. Inside is an older man, fumbling with an old fashioned TV. Glasses thick enough to give him the bug-eye look. A good sign. Fox clears his throat to gain his attention. A book slides towards him. This place is stuck in the past.

“ID?”

“Here it is.” Fox slides it across the counter. Praying his eyes are as bad as they look. That ID is one of worst fakes he’s seen.

“201. In the corner away from office. Check-out’s at eleven.”

“Thank you.”

Once outside he lets out a sigh of relief. That could have ended up much worse. And not just because of the blood on his clothes. Fox wonders if someone already has it out for his spot. Surely no one would make a fake ID that bad on purpose. The only thing they have gotten right is his gender. And his back-story is just as terrible. It sounds like something straight out of terrible B movie. Any other time he would be more worried about such an unrealistic work history. He hasn’t even been alive for as many years as he has supposedly worked. But he doubts that at a huge festival questions about his work history will be coming up. Not exactly something people talk about while binge drinking. He makes a mental note to let the elders know that the ID and history department are falling asleep on the job.

On his way to the room, he grabs his bags out of the car. He swings the room’s door open. This is more run-down than he thought. There is even one of those vibrating beds in here. He almost wants to drop a quarter in just to see if it still works. The idea of parents having to explain this relic to their kids amuses him. He needs to focus. It takes Fox only a few seconds to change clothes. Stuffing the bloody ones into a bag. Later he’ll need to find a bonfire to toss this in.

Crashing on the bed, he flips through the pamphlets about the festivities. It seems like the bulk of the occult festival starts tomorrow. October first. There is even a pamphlet in here for some religious nut jobs planning protests of the occult festival. Maybe he could pay them a visit. Nothing too dangerous of course. No reason to push his luck. Just enough to make them bleed a bit.

There’s a parade tonight. Which means the alcohol is flowing freely. People’s observation skills would be nonexistent by tomorrow. It would be a week-long event of partying and drinking. Most of the partying is planned to be in the town’s center. Far from where he needs to be. Where most of the cops and any patrolling Death Walkers would be. The only way his fortune could be better is if there is an unplanned event or two by the cemetery. It would be an added bonus if there is someone with Astro blood at the cemetery and unaware of their powers. He would need bait to finish breaking the seal here too. He probably should have made plans to drag an Astro to every city where they attack a seal. Maybe next time.

Fox pulls out the map showing all the gates. An almost straight line all the way to the south. It is suspected that this circuit of seals Fox is destroying had been the front line of where that woman entered the gate into the Abyss. Sealing them off for centuries. The original circuit of the ‘band of heroes’. Five people, all Death Walkers except for mystery woman, marching into the Abyss. More like the ‘band of traitors’. Or suicidal idiots. No one can survive in the Abyss. The longest record is an Astro staying inside for two months before they died. The atmosphere is toxic.

It is ironic. Such an important string of gates to Var is also their weakest point. Once again playing a part in history. Just the way elders over at Tyr wanted it, Fox could care less only wanting to bring down Death Walkers. If everything goes exactly as planned there will be about a dozen seals around the world wiped out within two months. Psyrens around the globe wreaking mass destruction. All at the same time. With only ten active Death Walkers around the world there is no way they could keep up. The final blow to a treacherous race. The thought of it all makes him shiver in excitement.

Fox sits up and slinks over to the desk. Pulling out the information on Rayford. The step-by-step instructions from the elders. It’s hard to concentrate. The events at the gas station are replaying in his head, making him on edge. Maybe a drink will help him relax, or at least take the edge off. He needs to focus on these plans if he hopes to not draw the old geezers’ suspicion. Besides, there’s no reason to worry about what happened. There had not been any cameras and with the fog no one would have seen him. As long as he doesn’t tell someone of his mistake, no one will ever know it had been him at the gas station. Still he’d feel better once this is over and he could put more distance between him and the gas station. The goal is to be out of town in less than forty-eight hours. Soon Var will start sending Death Walkers to try to track him down. The goal is to stay one step ahead of them. They won’t sit and watch forever. It isn’t their nature. In more ways than one. The only thing still making Fox nervous is that Rayford isn’t too far from a Var outpost. He knows this is the outpost that holds their equipment which monitors the seals’ activity, making this one of the most dangerous towns on the circuit.