Free Mages may consist of missing 'dragons

Previously: Twenty ex-suppressors found dead

Twelve days has passed since the mutilated corpses of twenty former suppressors, and the message left by Pakaros and the Free Mages, had been discovered. In that time, the USR and local Swaraj law enforcement had launched an investigation into the killings and the Free Mages. To the surprise of the local populace, members of the Bounty Hunter Brotherhood volunteered for the investigation as well - the Brotherhood, a guild that prided itself on its independance and bordered on being a private military contractor, had long had a difficult relationship with the USR. Nowhere had this been more obvious than during the Ban, when there were legal battles over whether the Brotherhood's mages should have been exempt from conscription into the USR as suppressors.

And yet it was Nezoo Azlur, a fire mage of the Brotherhood, who gave the first vital clue about the identities of the Free Mages. He gave the following statement:
"When the Flux hit and magicka was banned, I was on a hunt in Dhruv with my partner Slasher [a fellow member of the Brotherhood who wishes to remain anonymous]. We didn't know about it until we got back to the Ekavyz Tribe and talked to the guy in charge. USR soldiers had showed up and shut the portals... We were gonna be stuck there for Fronna-knows how long. Not good when you're an Anubi like me and don't have the Yki's long fur.
Anyway, not long after that, I had a strange dream. It was more vivid than any other dream I've ever had - I'd say it was lucid, except it was somehow... more than lucid. I was standing in what looked like an endless icy plain, except it wasn't cold. In front of me was... honestly, I don't know how to describe it. At the time I thought it was some kind of powerful magical creature, or even a god. It spoke to me, telling me about what the USR and the Council were doing - about the suppressors, about evacuating Ajita and bringing Aurius to the surface, about how all Fromina-powered technology was shut off... and how many lives had already been lost because of this. It kept telling me that more innocents were going to die - no advanced medical technology or healing magic, the only non-conscripted mages being rogues out for their own gain... and then it asked me if I wanted that to happen.
I said that no, I didn't... but then I told it the whole thing smacked of cult thinking. Lost freedom or not, no way in hell would I join a cult. It kept insisting, but I said no, and eventually it attacked me... and that was when I woke up. Though... I notice that I woke up with a large scar on my chest that I didn't have before..."

This statement led to other mages being questioned, and it was found that a number of the Brotherhood's mages, as well as former suppressors, had had identical dreams at roughly the same time. Records from the USR indicated that there were a number of mysterious disappearances during the Ban - and many of the missing 'dragons were mages, and the vast majority of them had vanished not long after the general point in time that those dreams had occurred.

The immediate conclusion that came to mind was that whoever was responsible for the dreams had also been responsible for the disappearances - and many suspected that it was Pakaros. Perhaps he had been recruiting for the Free Mages? However, USR officials and Brotherhood Guildmaster Schevsdan de'Volithin cautioned the population of Swaraj, and of Ramath-Lehi, not to jump to conclusions - nothing had been confirmed just yet.