((Collab post between RoflsMazoy and Letter Bee))

As he went through the papers, pretending to double-check the admin work, Ascot gave Alto credit where it was due; the latter was more perceptive than the former thought. The young man did not delude himself into thinking that Alto merely wanted to 'scout out' the opposition; if that was the case, the dossier would involve Mephisto less and his students more. Did Mr. Ganze share his own suspicions, or was it something else? Now, known history and business interests; what can he find?

The night was still young and Samoth was still delaying the return of the other St. Laurel's students as much as possible. Thank the God of Transportation for Rhea's public transport system. After chit-chatting a bit with the other Student Council members, Ascot would depart, taking his nightly leave of St. Laurel's itself. He would then go to the oldest of Mephisto's businesses, the one where the man would logically have left a record of what city he came from, if he was a foriegner.

~~~~

The accounting firm was inside a small office building; Ascot didn't go to the firm directly, because Interrogate Area worked on the building as a whole and not just component parts. In this unguarded place, Narrative Role of Familiarity worked without a hassle, and Ascot quickly found himself on the top floor of the structure the firm and nearby businesses worked in. Summoning the spirit of the place, Ascot asked three questions:

"Where did Mephisto say he came from when he bought office space for his firm in this building? What did he look like? Does he still visit here?"

The spirit was notably more human than the spirit of Rhea's walls. He looked like a very young man with wild hair, and a pinstriped suit.

"Hey, hey, hey, now, that's a lot of questions to just dump on the new guy." It said with a smirk. It lay back, floating in the air with his arms crossed over his chest. "Ain't there somebody more experience you can ask? Don't think you'll get too much out of me."

It looked like this spirit would be a bit hard to deal with.

Ascot nods. "My questions are fairly simple, though, and surely within your capabilities. Or are you admitting that you don't know everything going on here for some reason?"

"I didn't even know I was supposed to exist until just now, so maybe I missed something when I wasn't paying attention." He said as he shrugged. "The Boss hasn't been around for a while. I wasn't keeping track but maybe 3 or so years was the last time he came over in person, but he has plenty of middle guys coming around.

"When he bought the place, he went through like three different people so I didn't even know what he wanted it for. Crap, I think I only saw the guy come here once during the first year or so. His picture's public domain though, and I don't remember him changing any."

Another nod. [i]Unchanging, just like King.[/i] The young man then drew his smartphone and searched for a picture of Mephisto himself. Once he was done, he would ask the spirit of the building one last question: "Has Mephisto ever mentioned any enemies?"

"Oh, to us? No, but there are so many that you barely have to look for 'em all. We get threats to the office all the time, but no one does anything to us because they usually find out we ain't got much to do with Mephisto at all," The spirit said. "Hey, wait, doesn't that mean you're his enemy as well?"

Ascot smiled. "Took you a long time to figure that out. But don't worry, I am not [i]your[/i] enemy."

"Hey now, I've been alive for about 2 minutes so excuuuuse me!" The spirit replied with a toothy grin. "Anyway if you really want to find out something juicy about Mephisto, you should ask my sister on the outskirts of town. Here, gimme a map."

When a map was handed to the spirit, he'd point out a certain spot in the forest just outside of the city limits.

The boy thankfully had a map, and after having the location of the forest spot marked, he would dismiss the spirit of the building...