"Man, pancakes are the best," Banks said as he had his third helping. Next to him the new Stranger girl was beating him in terms of helpings of pancakes, apparently she ran up quite a calorie deficit in her brief early morning experimentation. That over reliance on energy stores were a pitfall of newly born Strangers but not one that he had ever experienced.

  "I will give your compliments to our chef," the father said, his wife was still not present at the table, probably relaxing in the bed covered in talismans. "He will be delighted to hear it."

  "You're a doctor, right?" one of the little kids, quite a bit younger than the new Stranger girl said. This mansion was apparently a multi-family residence with Rex as the patriarch, but he had brothers and a sister and a father and a few other family members that all lived somewhere around, although most were out of the mansion at this time. All in all with guards, staff and miscellaneous the building hosted over a hundred people.

  "Nope," he admitted. He had no doctorate, medical or otherwise, despite nearly a decade in university. He sprayed another generous helping of syrup onto his pancakes. "I'm just quite well travelled and sometimes that gets mistaken for being well learned."

  "Gal said that you are going to give her a super secret core technique," he said, before he was elbowed by the younger girl.

  "I didn't say that," she harshly whispered. "I said that he may know of a suitable technique for me. Since I haven't had any luck in our library."

  "Just get something life aspect," Banks said. "I can't really help you. Don't know any special core techniques off the top of my head." His sister could probably rattle off a dozen, but unlucky for both of them his sister wasn't here. For a moment, he considered teaching her how to use her mana to defend herself, like his sister and he learnt so long ago.

  The sound of a clink against the glass drew him from his thoughts and when he looked towards the head of the table he saw the father standing up clinking his half empty wineglass as he looked up and down the table. Wait a minute, is he drinking wine at the second hour of the day. Was that an option? His eyes looked up and down the table and he saw a bunch of suspiciously alcoholic looking beverages. Why wasn't he offered that. He looked like an adult right? Wait should he ask for some. But what if it isn't wine and he looks like a drunk? He could turn back time, though if they were all just drinking juice though.

  "---and so not only will my wife leave today, but Galayne will also join her in travelling to our estates in Denknarm," he said. "Anybody who wishes to travel with them, we are leaving within two hours with an escort of a dozen experienced guards. I am heavily recommending that most of you go."

  "What will you be doing, while the rest of the family goes gallivanting around, Rexy," a bald middle-aged looking man said, scrutinizing the speech giver.

  "I will be staying here, holding down the fort," Rexy said. "It will look suspicious leaving, but if I am staying here it will give whoever is looking some assurance that we are not fleeing the city to escape some form of crime. With the Undying Emperor missing and reports of ghosts and other creatures, there will doubtless be a mass exodus, so we will need some people to hold down the fort."

  "I will join you then, Rexy," the same bald middle aged man said. "I've been wanting to catch up on my work. It will be nice to do it in a quiet house." Despite his light tone, there was an air of seriousness beneath, that belied the danger.

  "I will go with my wife and kids," another man said, this one with a full head of hair that made him look like an asparagus. "If you die I'm going to take your place as head of the family," the other man said, taking a bite of some scrambled egg.

  "More incentive to not die, if I have to leave the family business in your hands," Rexy said. "I have a meeting with the governor in the next three hours and I expect you to be gone by then. I don't know what the mood of the governor is and I don't want to know until most of you are safety out of the city. Have I made myself clear?"

  "Crystal," one of the men said.

  "By the way, I haven't introduced you to our guest yet," Rexy said. "This is Banks. He's a powerful Stranger that helped unlock Galayne's Stranger abilities. Why don't you show them sweetie?"

  "Watch please," the young girl, Galayne, said as she raised her hand and a new finger sprouted out. She seemed to be attached to that method of proving her abilities. It was ironic in a way, the five fingered hand that was emblematic of a Psideri was copied by a Stranger, whose very body was poisonous to the human sub race. "I can also change my whole body into the shape of my father, but other people are harder."

  "That's quite an impressive ability," one of the woman at the table with an elaborate hairdo said.

  "But more for disguise then a combat power," the bald man spoke, causing Banks to nearly cough up his pancakes. Transformation at the genetic level was a bullshit combat power. Conventional wisdom said that you should never fight somebody who could turn into a dragon. Right now young Galayne was just a baby dragon still figuring out her claws.

  "Then what's your Stranger power?" elaborate hairdo asked him.

  "That's generally quite a rude question," he said putting down his fork. "Don't expect somebody to honestly answer that question? But my Stranger ability is a type of foresight," he lied.

  "Can you foresee this city getting better," Rexy suddenly said, leaning forward. "The Undying Emperor showing up, the ghosts and various dark creatures returning to the shadows, the city returning to normalcy." He was looking very intensely at him as he spoke and he paused his sardonic answer. He wouldn't be so ungrateful to somebody who fed him.

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  "It's going to get a lot worse," he said candidly thinking of the ruins of the city a mere few days later. "The Undying Emperor is dead, ghosts and worse are likely to continue springing up and worse is waiting in the wings. If I were you I would flee." His eyes scanned the room as he picked up the fork again and took another mouthful of pancakes. Maybe there was something about his tone, but the immediate denials he expected were replaced by grim looks as the table seemed to alternate between looking at him or at Rexy.

  "Sounds like a once in a lifetime experience, it's a shame that all of you are going to miss it," Rexy said, before turning to a nearby maid. "Could I have another coffee, Lia? Don't skip on the sugar please."

  "But your wife, Mr. Rex," the maid protested, looking rather nervous.

  "Don't worry I'll talk to her myself," Rexy said. "Alright, same plan still stands. I'm going to talk to my wife and then I'm going to talk to the governor and I want most of you out there by then." He stood up from the chair, before sliding it back under the table. "Actually can I take that coffee in my room, Lia. Thanks." Without another word, he gave a short wave goodbye, matching eyes with Banks, before stepping out of the room, leaving behind silence and uncomfortable stares, before another person left and then another and then another, adults taking children as they did so, until only him and Galayne were left.

  "I should also go see my mother," she said after a while. "I will probably be leaving also. Are you also going to leave the city."

  "I haven't decided yet," Banks admitted, sliding the rest of the pancakes away, his insatiable hunger for sugar having been sated for the moment. "I thought I saw your father give me bedroom eyes, before he left so either he wants to fuck me or he wants to speak to me before we leave."

  "How scandalous," the young woman said. "I don't really want to think of my father that way. I'm going to have to pack." She paused. "There is no way that my father will permit me to stay here."

  "Did you want to?" Banks asked casually.

  "In a way I do," she said. "I've been wanting to leave, to travel and study magic, like my brother, for a while. Now that I'm finally leaving I feel like I want to stay. It would help make it easier if you also travelled with us. There's a lot I can still learn from you regarding Stranger abilities."

  "Probably," he admitted, his words noncomittal. "Alright, do you know where your dad's office is? I'm going to have a few words with him."

  xxx

  Wordlessly, Banks slid the door open and stepped into a room occupied by one other inhabitant who sat at at a sturdy wooden desk scribbling, what looked to be a letter. Much of the room was covered in wooden shelves, filled with all sorts of files, but there was a considerable number of greenery and even a patch of soil that sat under a skylight that seemed rigged to redirect sunshine wherever the operator desired. One sole painting hung on the room displaying a picture of the other occupant, his wife, daughter and a boy, who could only be their son. Overall it looked like a normal study room, perhaps a little bit more decorative than those of this time period. Giving the room one more once over Banks, closed the door behind him, and then walked over to the chair on the other side of the desk and sat down in a relaxed pose.

  "Do you know that I killed my father," Rex Mondue stated, not looking up from his letter.

  "That's an odd way to start a conversation," Banks said, cocking an eyebrow. "I did too, but I don't exactly go trumpeting that around all the time."

  "It was a long time ago," Rex stated calmly, ignoring the response, as he continued to write. "He developed a disease, one of the mind. Even as the mind withered his body grew stronger, and day by day, he grew more violent, less restrained, less of himself. If it continued then eventually he would have become a danger to my family, a monster bringing harm to his loved ones, and so he requested an end and that I gave to him. In his final moments he profusely thanked me and entrusted me to watch over the family in his stead."

  "My father was always a monster," Banks admitted mercilessly. "If he had a disease, then the transformation must have completed long before I was born. The day that my sister and I tore him and his followers to pieces was one that I look upon fondly," he said for a moment letting the mask drop, allowing hatred to surface in his eyes. "It seems our experience was vastly different," he said with a smile.

  "Indeed," Rex admitted seeming to reminisce. "Long before the day that I killed my father, when I was much younger, I once travelled the world and one of the places that I was most fortunate to be able to visit was the city of Delphalo. Have you heard of it."

  "The city of the past and future," Banks stated blithely. "The city of oracles, the city yet to be built, the city of a hundred mirrored dreams. I've never heard of it. I don't hold too much stock in prophets."

  "When I was there I was given two prophecies," Rex continued on. "The first one was that I would kill my father. This was a prophecy that I spent a lot of time contemplating how to avoid. I loved my father, I still do and I even distanced myself in order to make sure that it would never pass, an endeavor that never succeeded."

  "What was the second?" Banks asked, interested despite his own distrust of prophecies.

  "You are only the second person to know all this," Rex stated smiling, before he picked up a piece of paper from the side of his desk and handed it to Banks, who took it slightly confused, seeing a name and a series of numbers.

  "What's this for?" he asked.

  "Rayestham Bank," Rex said. "I have a little account that I deposit in occasionally. Not a family account or anything. I would like to host you more, but unfortunately I may be busy in the next few days."

  "That's a bit odd to be giving people the number to a bank account, instead of cold hard cash," Banks said.

  "It's so much more convenient, though," Rex said leaning back in his chair. "Unfortunately the banks are mostly shut at the moment, due to all the chaos. You might have to wait until the current chaos is over, or at least find a time when everybody isn't completely losing their minds." For a moment they sat in silence as Banks digested those words.

  "That's a semi-suspicious sentence," he said.

  "I don't see how," Rex said, reaching beneath his desk and pulling out two wine glasses and a bottle. "Want a drink."

  "Isn't it too early to drink?" Banks asked, taking a glass and watching as a generous helping of dark red liquid was poured inside.

  "What do you think we were drinking earlier," Rex said as he poured himself a helping of wine. "Orange juice." He shook his head. "I know this is selfish of me, but can I ask you to look out for my daughter?"

  "There's n___" Banks started.

  "Please," Rex cut him off, giving him a long scrutinizing look.

  "I will," he stated after a while.

  "That's fantastic," Rex said gulping down the rest of the wine like it was orange juice before handing over the bottle to him, and sliding the letter into his breast pocket. "I have to go to the meeting now. Let's talk again, if there is time." With those last words, he stood up, before stepping past the seated time traveler and left the room, leaving Banks to stew in the emptiness.