As the crisp air met the warmth of her bath water, the bathroom became more and more foggy, the effect on her already tired mind and body was soothing and slowly calling her to drift into eternal bliss…

But her stomach had better ideas!

Getting out she wrapped a towel around her and head and used another to dry herself off before pulling on her nightgown.

Reaching downstairs, the table was already set and the everyone seated.

“Took you long enough!” A boy snapped.

“Jacob…” A girl, his twin warned him. On the contrary he was still behaving compared to previous encounter with him.

“Relax Cheryl, his right to be upset. Sorry I took so long!” Averisa took her seat, noting Foster, the only new face at the table having taken the head seat.

“Well since everyone’s here, let me finally introduce to our fresh blood the leader of Ophiuchus. Averisa, Foster & Foster meet Averisa.” The head maid as well as an Adventurer, Calhan Striker, chimed.

Averisa turned to the man, not even surprised.

“This does not give you right to start calling me Master or Sir; please just Foster is good and dandy!” He stopped Averisa from voicing her greetings.

“Of course.” Averisa as well as everyone beamed. This man… He was too ‘kind’ for a monster he was!

“Calhan please tell the servants they have the night off, before we start dinner.” He waved her off. A short few minutes passed and Calhan took her seat on Foster’s left. Meryl was on his right and Stryker at the other end of the table. In total Ophiuchus only had ten official members, that was aside from Averisa herself, Ryker and Foster themselves. She still had to prove herself a member.

But their small number did not mean they were the only ‘members’ all the servants were well versed in various martial arts and magic, and often acted as partners for the members on mission. They just weren’t official, their roles as servants when they took work under Ophiuchus determined that they were automatically part of the Faction itself whether they were Adventurers or not. Securing work though… There’s a whole different vetting procedure in place for that.

Ophiuchus didn’t allow any outside help on missions from any of the other Factions, and everyone worked in pairs on special missions, rarely forming larger groups for larger tasked missions. Though they were allowed to take on mission directly from the general board, Ophiuchus didn’t bother procuring missions ahead of time, in fact they had never done so before, leaving their members unknown and in reality registered as actual Regulars.

The pairs were fixed though, based on compatibility and relationships.

Jacob & Cheryl

Meryl & Hector

Calhan & Prince

Gerrard & Sophia

Remy & Vincent

“Sophia how’s the babe?” Foster asked. Sophia had given birth about three months ago and so skipped out on mission by order from Foster and Ryker themselves, leaving Gerrard to take on more general work as a regular, not that he minded since that was what he and Sophia did anyways, not really the risk takers and yet their true mission apparently was spying on the rest of the Factions, a fact only the official members were aware of though no one spoke of it; a unspoken law forbidding them from speaking of Sophia and Gerrard’s purpose.

“He’s crying less these days; that’s about all I can say that and that he takes more and more after his late father!” She spoke of her husband, not Gerrard; her husband had died seven months before his child’s birth; during a mission working alongside a party formed out of Regulars, Capricorns and Leos. He too was part of Ophiuchus and was Ryker’s Calhan’s partner previously. Calhan after the ordeal recruited one of the gardeners as her partner putting him through the Examination. She chose him after she noticed the look in his eyes…

Prince was a calm and overly gentle soul to her eyes, she still had to see what made him so deadly; after all she had already experienced first had the absolute fear Calhan instilled when someone disobeyed her orders!