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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
'Look, it's barely a risk at all,' said Garovel. 'And who knows what juicy things we might be able to learn from those two and their reapers? And I'm referring to more than just this tree artifact, by the way. They could probably tell us all sorts of useful things about what their organizations are up to. Not to mention the war. We would just need to get them talking.'

Hector's expression relaxed a little, but he still couldn't say that he liked what he was hearing.

'And whatever this thing is--it'll probably make for a pretty good conversation piece, eh?'

Hector frowned. The others were getting quite close now. If he was going to do anything about it, he would have to make his decision now.

He turned away from the tree. "Let's call it here for the day," he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Carl and Ravi both looked at him, as did their reapers, but none of them were saying anything.

He wondered if it might not already be too late. Still worth a shot, though, he felt. He started walking back in the direction they'd come, aiming to join up with the rest of the group's stragglers.

'Hector, what are you doing?' said Garovel privately.

'If you want to pump them for information, then fine, but let's come up with a less risky way of going about it. And we should give Hanton a heads up, too. I'm sure he'd be willing to help us as long as it means acquiring information that'll help protect Atreya.'

'Hmph. Y'know, when I told you that I wanted you to act like a lord, I didn't mean that you should start bossing ME around.'

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It was snowing yet again up in the Omarest Mountain Range, and their giant cabin was without power for the tenth day running. That old bastard claimed that this was another one of his "family bonding exercises," but Francisco Elroy was beginning to think that the guy just didn't have enough fuel for the generator, anymore.