Dyen’s pursuit of Raine Talis and Leese Talis is a turning point in the sisters’ attempt to spread Cato’s influence beyond Sydea. What begins as an assassination opportunity becomes an act of guarded intervention: Dyen discovers that the Assassin’s Guild has placed a high-value contract on the sisters, refuses to claim it, reconstructs their likely route through the portal network, and intercepts them on Ellesz before they can disappear again.

The Contract and the Choice

The pursuit begins inside the Assassin’s Guildhouse on Mowara, a surprisingly ordinary building beside the Temple rather than a hidden den of killers. The Guildhouse is deliberately impersonal and deserted: its members do not meet one another, form friendships, or operate as a visible team, even though they work through the same institution. Its practical features include shop pylons, a teleportation pylon, a private room, a food pylon, and, most importantly for Dyen, a board displaying assassination bounties.

Dyen is already familiar with the economic logic of killing. His attacks on the Tornok Clan have provided him with useful possessions, while assassination contracts promise additional payment and support quests connected to his advancement. He is eating a Mowaran meat-stick while examining the board, protected from ingested toxins by an armband granted through one of his quests, when a new contract appears. The board names Raine Talis and Leese Talis, identifies them as Sydean, records Uriva as their last known location, and accuses them of heresy. The reward is five Bismuth Tokens and one Platinum Rank Equipment Token, with a recommended rank of Peak Platinum.

The bounty tells Dyen that the sisters have attracted the attention of someone wealthy enough to post a Guild contract and knowledgeable enough to use the Guild’s procedures. The charge of heresy makes a Temple-connected sponsor more likely than an ordinary private enemy. Dyen does not want the contract. Raine Talis and Leese Talis are his only remaining link to Cato, and although he has been managing well independently, Cato’s possible assistance remains strategically valuable. Dyen also does not know the consequences of failing or sabotaging an accepted contract, so he avoids formally taking the assignment rather than risk an unknown penalty.

Following the Portal Trail

Dyen understands that the posted contract gives him less useful information than his own prior knowledge. He knows that the sisters have been given a mandate to help spread Cato across other worlds. If their activities have been discovered, they are unlikely to remain in one place or attach themselves permanently to a single world. They will avoid local powers, continue outward through the network, and seek mountains, which gives Dyen a geographical pattern to test.

He begins by following the portal chain to Risham, Uriva’s second world connection. There he compares his map with the available routes and identifies the only large mountain in the relevant region. He then teleports to the nearest town. Unlike his impoverished circumstances on Sydea, Dyen now has enough tokens to pay for extensive travel, allowing him to move repeatedly through the connected worlds without treating every teleport as a serious financial risk.

The first search produces no direct result. Traffic around the portal Nexus is too dense for his tracking Skills to separate a useful trail, but the town itself is nearly empty. Only three different people have passed through its Nexus during the previous week, and none of them are Sydeans. Rather than interpret the absence as failure, Dyen continues outward, using the portal chain from Uriva and combining teleportation with patient tracking.

His breakthrough comes on Ellesz, three worlds and fifteen hours after he began the search. He finds the trail in a remote town beside an extensive range of volcanoes. Salt rides on lava-hot air, and the view beyond the town reveals towering peaks rising from a broad ocean; despite the dramatic landscape, the map classifies the area as merely Silver. Dyen’s Skill indicates that the sisters passed through only hours earlier. The timing is fortunate, and the terrain makes immediate pursuit impractical: following their trace across water and lava would be far more difficult than intercepting them at the Nexus.

The Interception on Ellesz

Dyen settles beside the teleportation pylon and waits for the sisters to return or pass through it. His many assassination quests have taught him patience, and he uses low stealth, sufficient to escape the notice of any Silver-rank traveler who happens by. The waiting is not passive in a strategic sense. He positions himself where he can speak to the sisters before they use the pylon, preserving the possibility of warning them rather than fighting them.

Several hours later, his senses detect two Peak Gold signatures approaching the Nexus. Dyen straightens as Raine Talis and Leese Talis enter with their weapons ready, having sensed his presence in turn. The encounter is therefore not an ambush in which one side remains unaware; both parties arrive prepared for danger, and Dyen’s concealment has only delayed recognition long enough for him to choose the moment of contact.

Dyen addresses them by name, greeting Raine Talis and Leese Talis directly. Leese Talis responds cautiously, apparently struggling to believe that Dyen has found them, while Raine Talis is more openly hostile and immediately asks how he located them. Dyen answers that he knew where to look, then gives them the more urgent information: the Assassin’s Guild has issued a contract for them. The sisters exchange a glance, and Raine Talis plants the haft of her spear on the Nexus floor before demanding that he tell them everything.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

The pursuit changes the meaning of the Guild contract. Dyen’s refusal to accept the bounty does not make him a simple ally; he remains an assassin, an independent operator, and a man who is still pursuing his own advancement. His decision is instead a calculated preservation of options. He values his connection to Cato, recognizes that the sisters’ work is part of a larger expansion effort, and understands that their discovery signals a wider danger than the reward itself suggests.

The event also exposes the portal network as both infrastructure and vulnerability. Raine Talis and Leese Talis can move from world to world, but their movement leaves a pattern shaped by geography, portal connections, rank, and timing. Dyen turns the same network that enables their escape into a tracking instrument. Risham provides a false or exhausted lead; Ellesz, with its volcanic mountains and ocean barriers, becomes the place where the trail can finally be converted into a face-to-face encounter.

Most importantly, the event converts pursuit into warning. The sisters are not merely targets marked by a Guild board; they are agents of Cato whose mission has begun to attract organized opposition, probably from powers that define dissent as heresy. Dyen reaches them before another contractor does, and the scene ends not with a completed assassination but with Raine Talis demanding the details of the threat. The unresolved conversation preserves the tension between Dyen’s professional identity and his practical loyalty: he finds the sisters because he knows how to hunt them, then uses that knowledge to keep them alive.