“Where is the crystal,” Pierro requested in a low angry voice.

Scar froze nervously behind the door. How does he know I’m here? There was no way that Pierro could have known that he was behind the door, at least he thought. Does this entire palace have cameras?

The wall and floor in the room shook around him.

“I will not ask you twice. Where is the crystal?”

Scar then opened the door to face Pierro on his throne-like chair. Before this, Scar walked into the palace the day after receiving instruction from Pierro, Chief Administrator in the Dark Palace. The room was long and stretched out far into the distance. Scar had walked around the palace during his free time when nobody was watching him. Now that he realized it, if there were cameras all around the palace, someone would have known and told him by now. However, that did not matter right now anymore.

Out of all the rooms he visited, Scar had never reached the end of this room. This room was the biggest out of all of the rooms in the Palace. The other rooms paled in comparison to the size of this vast room. One could say that this room is similar to a long hallway. Scar saw it as somewhat impressively intimidating. There were two chandeliers the eye could see from the entrance and the walls were plain black.

Pierro sat at the end of a thirty by five foot long table with an angry expression. Scar knew that he was not happy.

“Enlighten me. I expect that you have good news for me.”

“I haven’t done anything yet. All I heard was that you needed help finding something you lost,” Scar asked with fear.

Pierro looked very calmly disappointed. “So, let me get this straight. I gave you very simple instructions. One day later you come in and say you never understood what I asked of you?” He let out a deep sigh. Scar had thought he would be ridiculed. “No worries, I sent one more person to find it. Definitely more reliable than you could ever be. You are dismissed.”

“But please, sir. You gave me no information to work with. I can try looking for it if you would be so kind as to repeat what you said yesterday.” Scar couldn’t believe that this was it. He was nervous that he would be punished or even killed on the spot. But it’s even more confusing that he’s just dismissing him this quickly and had the sudden change in tone.

“Why is this such a big deal to you? Oh yes, I remember now. What did I say? That you would be given an opportunity to be my assistant?” At that moment, Pierro chuckled and laughed mockingly.

Scar stood there in silence. He was not sure what to say. Of course Pierro was not going to pay him anything as compensation for finding it. What was he thinking? Besides, he probably sees him as useless.

“Fine, if you really insist. I will repeat my instructions, because you were deaf when you were listening the first time. However, I doubt this will prove useful to you as Dotorre may have already found it.”

Scar took a step back in shock. Did Pierro really give him a second chance? It might be because he knows that he won’t be able to find it either way.

“You are looking for a very important crystal. Usually, I would never give this information to amateurs. However, I trust that you will report back to me if you do end up finding it. You do know what happens when you betray me, right?”

Once again, he didn’t know how to respond to that. What was he supposed to say?

“I’ll take that as a yes. I gave the crystal to one of my informants asking him to give it to Dotorre. He ended up losing it when it was in his pocket. You could probably guess what happened to him after that. He matters no more. He said he lost it when he was walking through Avidya Port. It’s known as the second largest port in the city. Many researchers go there to take a break from their studies, but that’s besides the point. Find it and bring it back to me.”

It shouldn’t be that hard. If he can ask the people living and working there, he should find it eventually. “Sure, I’ll gladly help!”

“Someone is excited. Go. Maybe you could be a great addition to the team.” Pierro knew that he would most likely never find it. He just said that to get his hopes up. If he did find it, he wouldn’t be sure what to do with him.

“Ok, I’ll try my best,” Scar started to walk away. “Oh yeah, will you tell me if Dotorre finds it?”

“Sure, I wouldn’t want you to waste your time, would I?”

Scar should’ve noticed his sarcasm. If he knew this, he would’ve never taken the job. This was very risky of him. He had nothing else to do. He didn’t have any experience or education to take on a real job.

Few people knew about the heralds. They were looked down upon by those people but they seemed to do nothing about it. Even if this was true, Scar hoped that he would be useful for once.

Scar bowed down to Pierro from his distance and walked out of the palace. The palace was soundproof from the outside but he couldn’t help but hear laughing inside.

—

“Do you have any idea what you would do if he did end up finding it?” a voice asked from behind the door. They were listening in on the conversation the whole time. “I haven’t gotten a message from Dottore yet.”

“He will find it eventually. I may have some other plans for Scar.”