Mortality: Chapters 6 & 7

Is it feeling real yet?

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6. Open season

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          The morning had cleared his head substantially and Kire always considered himself kind of lucky that whatever was wrong with him in a day always seemed to be purged after a good sleep. Not that he was sure he slept good or for how long. Hard tack was handed out to skip a stationary breakfast so they could finally start making progress on their route which had now been delayed a full day. Three out of four vehicles in the rescue fleet turned back to Glimmerforge but one remained to run stern guard on the bank carriages with roughly half the adventurers in the rescue party replenishing the manpower lost in the raid. Engram, too, accompanied them on his own horse.
          Now that Kire was surrounded trying to use Item Creation felt much riskier since he was still trying to avoid anyone knowing what he could do. He lays low as he did when napping previously, moving his bag to the front railing to help obscure the view of the people in Thrain's transport and starts mentally outlining his next weapon. Of middling sophistication he starts cooking up a retractable blade for his other bracer having grown tired of the unbalance between arms.

          A twelve inch long slightly curved steel housing with another spring loaded pin control later and he gives it various tests and tweaks throwing in the highest quality materials he can to keep the blade fixture strong when extended. Although not a loud process Alanna, who had been assigned alongside another adventurer as the replacement drivers for Arnes does seem to catch a whiff of something going on up top and when she calls up to ask what Kire is doing she gets the response, "Jerking off to a cloud that looks like my step-mom." Kire hoped that would stop any further questions...Preferably forever. Once tuned to his liking a flick of the pin would snap the ten inch sickle blade with a thin small spike protruding off the inside edge with either facing of the blade honed to a razor sharpness. This was a weapon of surprise surgery rather than something that needed to hold an edge against too much wear and tear and he latched it to the notches and rails in his bracer similar to what the grappling line was affixed to.

          The driver who had not yet introduced themselves was not deterred by the vulgarity. "So, Kire the Madman. They say you slew at least a third of the enemy's number single handedly!" Kire sighs but a twinge of a smile does find its way to him.
          *Congratulations on getting a name! It's not exactly flattering or heroic, but these titles are essential in building reputation and usually only given when there is a tellable story for it.*
          Kire nodded along to nobody visible. (I can't exactly argue that it doesn't fit either, all things considered.) Shimmying up to slump himself over his bag Kire's face peers over the front rail, hair hanging down. "They say that huh?" Thinking back and trying to count the number added up quick from what he could piece together in the blur of action. "Damn, I sound like a badass." he said dryly trying to buoy his spirits with humour while keeping a tight grip on his thoughts.

--

          There was a detour to a hamlet called Oxgrove near the great bend in the road that shot south proper toward Thornwick to make a small exchange of currencies. Kire did not know what was in the crates and boxes of the lead transport but it must have been no less a valuable part of the manifest than the presumed coin-locker he sat on since that was what was currently being handed off in exchange for an intake of similarly marked cargo.
          Merciful cloud cover keeps the day cool enough with the breeze while managing not to rain. The decision was made to camp through the day to rest so they could ride through the night to avoid the next most likely timing for attack with lanterns being hung up around the outsides of the wagons for later. They had a luncheon and six hours of forced rest to the symphony of crickets, cicadas and other summer bugs or whatever this world had in their stead in the long wild grasses.
          Rain did arrive by nightfall with the thunder approaching from the east over the Eldergrove seeming to echo off the mountains heralding the drizzle that would add to their ride in darkness. The drivers pulled over a small collapsible awning for themselves but for Kire he had no cover and stood to get steadily drenched under the open night sky.

          (Of all the things I didn't make I should have packed a ground sheet. Guess I'll just have to admire the storm and oil my kit later.) Looking up at the sky and the crackles of lightning over the fields and mountains he revisited thoughts of his own home. A familiar vibration of being perceived settled in under the rain.
          *Regretting this yet?*
          (My own bed...That would be nice about now. Dry. Warm and SO comfortable. I miss the familiarity of the shop too, the sentimental scent of all the work I put into it. But regret is usually given for decisions one makes, and from what I can tell my being here is a decision made for me.) He didn't mind not having a phone to annoy him with going off all the time but he wished he could have a phone call with his mom to have someone to talk to about all of this.
          *You're that homesick?*
          Kire yawned despite the chill that had soaked through his clothing and armour. (Do you exist in any capacity of having a home to be homesick for?)
          System scoffed loudly. *Of course! You were in it. You don't hear me moping about how I miss my shrine in the realm beyond though.*
          (Alright let me rephrase. Do you exist in any capacity where you're capable of feelings to get homesick?) Kire felt the insult land through the tether and System once more did not respond, but Kire was tired enough of all this right now he didn't feel like he had to play nice about this birdcage of probable psychosis. After a minute passed with no retort Kire considered this his final win for the day, and the rest of the all-night ride passed in silence.

--

          Morning came and the caravan managed to hit Thornwick with the horses not having been slowed by the muddy roads in the slightest all night.
          (Truly the unsung heroes of this tale,) Kire slowly approaches one to stroke up its muzzle as everyone disembarks at the guild to part ways except for a couple remaining with the sturdier cart's final stop at the town hall. It was just far enough into the morning that the crowds were getting into full swing but people stayed out of the way for the weary parade of escorts. In the hall all three reception desks were manned for the day and now Arune could not even bring himself to react through his shock seeing Kire return to Thornwick with a royal knight this time and several other haggard guild mates, heavily road-worn all.

          But the otherworlder was not in for jokes today. Before even checking in to complete his job he goes right for the quest board. There was more postings than before...A lot more. 'Family murdered during break-in', 'Stolen relic', 'Investigate thefts', 'Temple robbery'. Assaults and burglaries abound. Kire didn't just memorize job numbers this time but took down as many postings as he could where they indicated possible connections to the outlaws who struck them on the road and he cuts off another contractor who was about to approach the reception to drop the stack on Arune's desk with his membership and job ticket for the ride back.
          "You can't just be taking down job postings man, what if-"
          "They're mine." Kire's tone was firm. The rain had not washed away the last lingering hints of blood and caked on mud, his clothes were still soaked. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was pale from the cold. There was a lot of activity at the other two booths with Dantan, the halfling clerk, sending a runner to fetch the guild master for an emergency meeting and Misenna trying to get through all the new arrivals, some of whom had added to the line behind Kire. Arune looked over the crowd and looked Kire up and down, seeing the usual spark utterly gone and leaving someone grim and sad in its place. He reviewed the job postings Kire had brought and frowns at the assembled adventurers as Aldrich led the knight to the war room with Dravein and two others. Something big had obviously happened and this was clearly personal.
          "Alright." Arune whispered. "You have one week. Don't go telling people I did this for you."

--

          Exhaustion gnawed Kire's bones. He got to The Iron Flagon in time for its master to be starting his shift and Kire slumped on the bar, resting his head on his hands. The night shifter from his previous stay was still there and seemed to know just what to do seeing him, reaching in the kitchen to pour a mug of coffee and quietly setting it in front of him. Halgrim gets on his perch but waits for any sign that Kire hadn't immediately fallen asleep to speak. "Rough night?"
          The bleary eyed adventurer pulls back his hair tucking it over his shoulders and leans in to slurp at the coffee mug still sitting on the bartop. "Yeah, some might say so." Shlurrrrp. "Still have rooms available?"
          If Halgrim had thought anything funny about the behaviour he did an expert job not jumping on it. "We do, same one as before actually."
          Kire reached down to fumble in a pouch still with his head resting on his arms. "I don't know if I can do math right now, how much for a month?" He draws up a fistful of silvers that he splats unceremoniously on the counter.
          Halgrim allowed himself a look of something akin to worry now. "That'd be 9 silvers at full rate, but..."

          Kire lifted his hand to count how much he had picked up and pushes the 11 silvers over. "Can I take a meal to my room just this once?" Halgrim leans into the kitchen and calls for a breakfast premium as Kire returns to the coffee like a moth to its steaming warm flame.
          "This is still too much money, I-"
          SHLURRRRPPP. SLURRPP.
          "Kire you don't-"
          SLURRRRRP.
          Halgrim crosses his arms to stare down the immature adventurer but Kire doesn't budge on the counter-offer. "If you hate the sum so much tip your mind reading waitress I guess. Take your missus out on a date with the rest."
          The kitchen had already been running full throttle for the day and it is the briefest of waits until the chime signalling his meal's completion. Having finished his coffee Kire gingerly takes the key and the plate, thumping a fist on the bar top. "DAMN fine establishment you have here Halgrim. Damn fine." With that, he hobbles slowly up the stairs like an old man.

          Stripped naked and finally free to dry himself out he sits to eat, not even unpacking his kit first. The sooner breakfast is out of the way the closer he is to proper rest, and with the plate finished he unpacks his bag to lay everything out to dry. His journal had fortunately been wrapped in a waxed leather cover that he unbinds to put the book out for clearing of any moisture. "If there's something I do really wish this place had it's an in-house bath like The Wyrm's Rest." He uses his power to make a wash bucket as he had in the woods, unpacking his shampoo and keeping the grooming to just his hair. Combing it clear of everything he had been through the last two days and nights he slumps face down onto the bed, clammy and nude. System was just about to say something when a light snore muffled out from under the curtain of hair.

--

          It felt like nearly half the day had passed when Kire awoke in the afternoon. His body was in knots everywhere but he takes the wash bucket of dirty water he had created and patters down the hallway in only pants to the 'bathroom' such as it was, using the privy for its usual purpose but also to dump the water. Back in the room he checks everything over, clothes not totally dried. Downside to having everything with him on the trip was that every outfit was damp and though he'd laid them all out they remained musty. He opens the window to the now sunny afternoon outside and figures that's where he needs to be. Dumping all his clothes into the basin and capping it with a freshly manifested washing board he carries these things down and outside to the stream.

          He suspected there would be a drying line outside and he was right, helping himself to a round of laundry and getting things hung up. He takes a second trip to his room to grab his chain mail, sword and bracers and brings those too with a few rags and a bottle of mineral oil he had also discretely fashioned on the fly. Spending the beautiful day sitting in the grass under the shade of the willow beside the stream he starts by saturating and polishing his chain mail and hears the back door slam shut. "You're looking a lot better off than you did this morning!"
          Shimmying his butt to rotate and see who was there the voice had to have come from one of three grizzled patrons come out for a smoke. They sat at a table near enough to the door and two of them were preparing pipes.
          "You've been here since this morning?" Kire calls back, laying out the armour and starting a detailed maintenance strip of his grappling reel.
          "Retired, and there isn't a lot of other exciting places to be." A woman spoke, being passed a pipe for a few puffs. "The coffee's good in the morning, the beer's good at night, and the company's good all day."

          Kire laughed and it nearly stung with the suddenness to feel actual mirth break the cloud that had a been hanging over him. "It certainly is." They reminded him of the retirees in his own world who would hang out around the clock at a common national coffee chain, just socializing and being out of the house either in the parking lot or dining room. A reliable sight in the small towns of any world, evidently.
          They didn't seem to think it out of place that someone who was clearly marked by their equipment as an adventurer would be out here for their upkeep but it made him wonder why that was and who his neighbours were at the inn or where other adventurers stayed. "For that matter, are there many lodgings in this town? I have yet to see anyone else on the second floor but I had the impression the rooms were all occupied."

          One of the men, whose cap and glasses reminded Kire of a specific and overly talkative old coffee shop regular he'd known coughed smoke around his pipe. "Well, probably a lot of them are out about their business, or turned in for the night when you're up there, or else just sitting downstairs for their meal. I don't believe there are any long term tenants except for one so your neighbours will be fleeting. There are other bunk houses too but they don't have the public-forward comforts of this place."
          The woman tapped her ashes out into a glass tray. "Plenty of folks in your line of work are content to stay at the other places because they tend to be on the move too much to care, though there are a handful of guild regulars who live locally."

          That, too, prompted Kire to think. (Actually what is my long term goal here? No no no, I shouldn't expect to be here long term. Step by step!)
          *Couldn't hurt to look for a more stable place to board...Or even live.*
          "Ah! Ah! Not letting you talk me into settling down to live in this world!" Kire blurted the last part out loud causing the other patrons to look back as they had been headed back in. Kire smiles awkwardly and waves taking the conversation back to his own indoors. (Don't get ahead of yourself. Although, the room is awfully small and lacking in my little creature comforts I do so enjoy...)
          *Atta boy. Mull it over.*

          Gear sorted, clothes fresh, the only thing left was for Kire to cleanse his own self. It was too bright and busy to use the stream so he picks up directions to the bath houses and enters the first that had been recommended by Halgrim finding it was actually not nearly as far off as he had worried. The Crown of Thorns Bath House...(Is it just me or does the hospitality industry around here have a real aggressive branding problem?) He is greeted by a short, round woman with rosy cheeks and greying hair. The bubbly proprietess could smell a new regular from across the street.
          She had a thicker accent than most the town he'd met and her welcome rolled into directions by rote leaving him no chance to reconsider his stay. "The men's baths are down this hall over here. You will find towels, robes, soap, and we ask you to wash yourself with the buckets before getting into the springs."

          Kire staggered from the anachronistic sight that awaited in the bath house court yard. (Ok System now I KNOW you're glitching. Don't think I haven't watched enough TV to know the layout of a Japanese bath house. Everything else has been European medieval fantasy, the jig is up, you botched the script.) There was an open steaming bath with two other people in it already and a partially sheltered row of taps, buckets, stools, brushes and drains with bars of soap on bamboo slat shelves.
          *This world is wider than Thornwick or even Falkner. Remember Siddithi?*
          Kire picks a station and kneels by his bucket, filling one with water and lathering a bar of soap on the brush at his chosen spot. (Sure sure, quick cover story. Pretty sure the pamphlet in the main bath house even mentioned the spring having sacred healing properties,) "Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't rip that off you fucking spook!" He blurts out loud again, pointing accusingly at the sky. The people in the bath looked for a second but nervously turned away.
          *I will at least concede you aren't dumb enough to believe this is a mystical mountain hot spring given the clear half a day's walk to the foot of the Ironspikes,*
          (I would hope nobody is that dumb but thank you.)
          *But for all that you spend your energy on making you do seem to forget a certain auxiliary skill that would answer some questions so that I didn't have to.*

          Kire considers this and considers the soap he is using. It had a quality and feel quite different than what he was used to and he reads it through Item Creation. (Lye soap, pretty old school. That makes sense.) He scans the brush. (Some kind of Oak with horse hair bristles...Verrry nice.) Returning the soap to its place he pings the bamboo as his fingers graze it. In his mind he rips it apart: Genetically, it wasn't actually bamboo cultivated on earth. In terms of cellular structure...Definitely bamboo.

          He climbs into the 'hot spring' letting out a loud moan of relief as the great tangles in his muscles he had been working through all afternoon started to loosen. The two others in the bath still tried to not look at him, perturbed by his appearance and prior outburst and nervous about what kind of man he might be. One of them dismisses themselves. Setting a folded hair towel on the edge of the pool to work as a pillow Kire pulls up his luscious locks and reclines, closing his eyes. With his fingers on the flagstone he sends his power's pulse...And finds a rock. He tries again, and thinks on the bath as a whole. The semi-magical sonogram this time catches details of the surrounding rocks. Once more and this time with gusto he pushes his power, finding he can extend the read throughout the whole bath conjuring a schematic of its stonework and...Enchanted heating stones! Magically imbued rocks evenly sorted around the pool kept it steaming hot. He giggles to himself quietly having not considered he could copy buildings.
          The other man in the bath had been trying to mind his own business but Kire lifts his head and opens one eye aimed right at him. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where one could go to get a massage around here?"

--

          When he returned to The Iron Flagon that evening he had mellowed out in a night to day difference from how he had arrived that morning. The Crown of Thorns was more like an entire spa and the soft looking lady at the till turned out to have rather strong hands. Bathed, untangled, and feeling fully reset from his bittersweet trip to Glimmerforge. (Happy System? I relaxed for once, just like you begged and grovelled me to.)
          *I don't quite remember it like that.*

          Halgrim was already lost to the kitchen for the rush and even the bar seats were occupied so Kire claimed a booth as it became available. Dinner done and back at his borrowed desk his expression had become dour again as he worked his notebook by candlelight having lost most of his day to his nap and self care. Recapping the fights both to and from Glimmerforge he was determined to avenge the injustices to the good people he'd met. Anger crept in again recalling the gentle acceptance of Arnes' family and imagining the wailing and grief that must be going on right now as they received the news with his body. The pen strokes became more aggressive as the fury swelled steadily: This was one issue he couldn't seem to drop. What he'd felt getting to know them and seeing Arnes slain was the singular most real thing he could not deny in this whole experience. The job postings he had taken from the guild that morning were laid out in a line before him and with all the recharging he did today he put all his focus on engineering the next weapon. When at last he was ready with the schematics he stood and walked to the candle mount by the door, lifting its cover to blow out it and going to bed.

          The journal lay open on a double page of crude lines; rapidly sketched cross sections of motors and levers, chemical formulae, and the frame of a crossbow like this world had never known.

--

          Over the next three days Kire completed three of the quests, turning one after another in to the guild to ease Arune's worry about the timeline he'd given Kire to monopolize them even as more continued to pour in. The murder investigation saw no action at first but Kire used his divining stone in secret to unwind the mystery, ambushing the culprits in the night where they hid at a nearby farmhouse keeping the family hostage. Double-whammy case the guild didn't even know about. Likewise he was able to follow the otherwise well-covered tracks of a pair of escaped convicts who'd mugged travellers for what they needed to stay on the run. A dud quest, not what Kire was looking for but he gladly returned them to captivity anyway. He also intercepted the serial burglars as they were in the act, one of them literally shitting themselves with alarm as a grappling hook sprang from the dark and yanked them back when they were halfway through entering a window.
          Though he had been cleared of suspicion for working with the bandits he was still nonetheless seen as a bizarre and suspect outlier by most for his unprecedented success record of solo jobs and the speed he completed them in. Between each job he pays a visit to the parcel service, sending his quest reward money anonymously to Arnes' family.

          Now in his candlelit room he sat cradling a mask he had created for this work and stared into its reflective lenses. It depicted a snarling, tooth-filled maw: A sculpted demonic visage with bulbous shatter resistant eyes. The bridge of its nose extended all the way up to his forehead and ended in a depiction of a half-lidded third eye with a green stone in the pupil's space. Four straps from the sides connected to a dial shaped tensioner at the back allowing him to quickly and easily crank the adjustment and fasten it on. He had copied the night vision enchantment of the Lynx Eye band into the lenses and spent the two previous nights trying and failing to weave the scrying enchantment into the third eye fixture. Tonight he was done asking nicely.

          In the mind forge trying to wrestle the enchantment was like trying to wrestle an angry mountain lion. (Whoever designed this enchantment must have spent years on it!) The weave and stitching of the enchantment rode over and around his mental projection as he tried to pull off a cloned path and direct its current into the replica crystal but the strain felt like he was being hammered by tides in a storm. His body twitched and spasmed, eyes closed but working frantically behind his eyelids. Finally managing to lead off a coiling angry snake of the magical energy in the crystal pyramid to be rehomed in his own invention he juggles the great mental strain of trying to envision the weave as he understood it and impose his will over the framework to bend it to shape. If this had been physical handiwork his hands would be ruined and bleeding from the handling of such forces and he felt like he might go blind from the overload of psychosomatic visual input.

          All at once the enchantment finally clicks. Like a sudden passing of the storm the enchantment solidifies and stabilizes before him, the last thing he sees before he blacks out...
          ...And awakes with a great jolt vomiting on himself. His whole body was in a heavy sweat, shaking and the candle seemed to be much, much lower. "Jesus fuck me in the ass and call me Steve..." He tries to get out of the chair at the desk and slumps to the floor instead. He crawls for his waterskin, takes a draft, and decides to sleep right where he is...feverish and broken though that sleep turns out to be.

--

          Today's job was to explore the, Kire had thought, quite ironically named 'Bandit's Hollow' which turned out to be an old copper mine that according to public record ran dry some twenty years back and earned its current nickname more off the tall tales local adults told to scare the kids away from it than anything. Right up until actual bandits turned up and gave life to its namesake.
          There was a roadside chapel not far off from the hamlet Kire saw when their caravan stopped to make a delivery that had been the target of a theft with a relic stolen: A stone sphere referred to in the posting as the 'Blind eye of the Hermit'. With his destination most of a day's ride away Kire paid fare to one of the wagons leaving Thornwick and spent much of the trip gabbing the people providing the trip to the significance of it. The so-called Eye was a common grey stone six inches in diameter and fairly plain besides the interlacing lines engraved around it in patterns that supposedly depicted the solar movements of the heavenly plane. It lacked material value and was not considered particularly magical but it was regarded as a divine focus that the clergy used to pray to their patron god, one of the three major players in the Misterran pantheon: The Blind Hermit.

          There was the Phoenix which was said to watch over the world as the sun. Every day it dies at sunset, to be resurrected the next morning and rise again over the world.
          There was the Blind Hermit who represented night, the waning of the moon being the closing of his eyes and darkening of his sight so he must learn to find the truth through other senses.
          Then there was the Godsnake: A rainbow-scaled serpent tethering the world to the heavens, associated with rain and said to be the mediator between night and day, Hermit and Phoenix.

          *You've managed to avoid interacting with any of the religious sects so far and look at you now. I've seen you practically running away from the followers outside the church in Thornwick. What's your aversion?*
          Kire laid back as much as he could against the side beams in the back having learned all he thought he needed to. (Maybe I was just afraid to hear them say they worshipped some ghoulish entity known only as 'The System'. That and the religious nuts of my own world were always a frustrating lot to deal with and you can't convince me it isn't the same here.)
          *Perhaps it would be les 'nutty' if the gods of Misterra were real. Perhaps the gods of your own world are real and your people have just failed to ever truly see them.*

--

          It was a long ride and Kire thought about how much he hated days like these wasted on commute (Maybe my first great invention here should be a railway system.) It was dusk when he hopped off at the chapel with his ride continuing to Oxgrove and it is some good wait between his insistent uses of the heavy iron knocker at the door before someone finally answers. Studying the building while he paces waiting between rounds of knocking he finds it has an unusual shape for a religious facility. Past the flush front facing with its large double doors it bowed out at the sides into a rounded shape like a great double apse with the back end of the building returning to a more conventional boxy structure. Finally the door opens.
          "Oh, I apologize for my delay. I was quite worried about who it might be at this hour with recent events in mind. I had to be sure it was safe, Father should be here in a moment." It was a young, thin woman who despite being around Kire's apparent age seemed to wear stress beyond her years. The look of someone exhausted by their fear.

          Kire follows her invitation inside with the door closing and locking behind him and found this temple was not like one he could ever recall seeing: The rounded area that caught his attention from outside held rows of pews as you might expect, laid out semicircularly and all angled to point towards the lectern and the tapestry at the head of the nave with interior rows of flying buttresses over the outer aisles. What made this space particularly unusual was that the central aisle split around a low, circular altar in the middle of the room central to the pews whose arrangement curved around it. There was a domed ceiling with a painted skyward window at its zenith, and half a dozen other windows around its perimeter to allow light from any direction. It was not a large building overall but its layout was most unusually inspired. He guessed by a sculpted post with rounded socket that the altar in the center of the room was where the eye would have normally been displayed.
          "Father was busy with his work but he sho..." As the girl spoke a door opens from the other end of the hall and a man emerges, the door's heavy metal latch echoing like a grand announcement in the silent empty temple.

          "Our guest, could you be here about our call for help?" The mans hand hovered for a split second over the low door on the short ornate divider to the pulpit before pushing it open. His steps had the faintest measure to them-not lacking in confidence but still carrying a prudence with each one. His head was inclined just a touch high enough to stand out in the subconscious register of body language.
          (This cleric of the blind hermit is blind? Is that poetic or self-inflicted?) Kire imagined a world full of self-mutilating fanatics. "Yeah, I've come to get your bauble back. I gotta say...this is one of the more irregular design choices I've seen for a church."

          The priest's path through the church must have been walked thousands of times to know every aisle and route without assistance as his daughter made no effort to intercept him. The movements of people however were a less precise thing and once he'd made his way over to stop at a fixed point he holds out both hands together. The adventurer steps forward to shake his hand and realizes that even the reception had been measured as the one who answered the door had kept them within 5 long paces of the entry. As Kire takes the priest's hand the man takes Kire's in both shaking it enthusiastically.
          Though the man's eyes could not see they could show, and they were showing a mix of sorrow and relief. "I understand that many places of worship keep their altars at the head of the congregation. As followers of the Hermit we feel that his altar should be in reach of all to share the peace and guidance one might divine from praying over their troubles whenever our people may need it. Now come, come in for tea."

--

          The squared out section at the churches posterior was the home of Ertegar the Blind and the young woman from the door, Ness, whom Ertegar had raised like his own when she was orphaned. The situation had gotten somewhat more tense since the job posting: Incensed by the sacrilege and with some of the congregation interpreting this as a test the people of the nearby town and farms tried to form a vigilante mob. Though nobody had been seriously hurt in the initial theft of the relic three of the townsfolk had been killed in their attempted retaliation on the more experienced and prepared bandits which in turn led Ertegar and the local deputy to believe they may face further punishment at the hands of the outlaws.
          They had tried to cross-post their request for help in Glimmerforge as well but so far nobody had made it their way yet with all the other problems popping up in the region. Though the sunlight was fully gone Kire was ready to begin immediately after lazing in a carriage all day and accepted no protest from the clients, especially when they found out he was going alone. He checks his time piece while he still has their candle light to do so.
          *A little past your bed time isn't it? Shouldn't neglect your beauty sleep.*
          (Got it through the day didn't I? Not my first night time foray lately and besides, I have beauty to spare. Never forget I'm the good looking one in this dynamic.)

          Jogging into the night his eyes adjusted to the waxing-strong moon light which drifted in and out from behind patches of cloud cover that made the overgrown road and abandoned fields on the way to Bandit's Hollow mercifully more manageable to navigate given the hour. After twenty minutes of jogging he slows and crouches, adjusting the sling on his rucksack to retrieve his mask knowing he had to be getting close. Ratcheting the mask tight he takes a cautious walk from there, using the lynx eye enchantment and a customized sister enchantment he'd altered himself to serve as a sort of thermal vision to swap back and forth screening for sentries.
          (There, only one guard. Awfully confident given the townsfolk have already come at them once. Awfully confident there isn't backup for the town coming from their quest...)
          *I'm sorry, were you just judging others for being too confident? You? Really. How many men do you think are in that hole?*
          Kire slinks down, watching the sentry through night vision lenses with a predatory focus and advancing in a leopard crawl whenever their head wasn't turned his way. Kire embraced his own prideful nature with a low laugh. (Let's find out?)

          A downed lookout later and Kire is looking over the wide bowl excavated into the earth, a path spiralling down its outer edge to a flat bottom a good distance down. Handrails had worn down with age and crumbled away but torches had been put up intermittently along the path, more torches and a few campfires glittering in the dark basin below. Setting his gear up in the grass near the path down, concealed under a ground sheet he had finally gotten around to packing his telescope reveals a couple handfuls of bodies milling about, men and women with no uniformity save the roughness of their appearances. There was chatter and some celebration but from this distance it was just noise.
          Near one of the fires he drifts by a large stone slab and doubles back to it, finding the relic perched on its top. (You know System sometimes I think you lay the cliche on too thick. 'Oooh we stole this relic and we're just going to display it out in the open hurr durr durr'.)
          *You still think I orchestrated all this?*
          (Hmm...You're right, you might not be clever enough, even as tacky as this gets sometimes.)
          *You've been in this world more than two weeks now an...*
          (Bla bla bla. Show time.) Kire tuned out System's ongoing lecture. He places his sword, mask, belt pouches and grappling line with the rest of his prepared things to unencumber himself. With only a vague description and telescoped glimpse of the relic he conjures a soapstone sphere six inches in diameter while stretching his legs and rotating his ankles. Pumping a few quick deep breaths and jogging on the spot to get his heart rate up he bolts down the road, winding down nearly one full loop of the pit before turning inwards. He figured the motion of someone running down the ramp the whole way would be too likely to catch someone's eye so he takes shortcuts jumping or sliding down one level to the next between quarter laps around the corkscrew road. His physical resistance ring thrums on his hand and tingles through his body even with him using the strength enhancement ring every time he lands one fifteen foot drop after another, bruising his ass but at least not shattering bones.

          Finally as he is on the home stretch one of the targets notices him but the sight of someone running alone full sprint into their camp struggles to take hold with the inebriated bandit who barely manages a confused attempt at telling him to stop. Boots pounding dirt straight through towards the stone table with more and more of the camp's occupants noticing and protesting in confusion he skids to a stop at the relic, also five feet from an overbearing man in a big chair chewing a drumstick. Sweaty, with short curly hair and easily three times the size of Kire they stop chewing at the sudden arrival.

          Looking the large man up and down as they do the same to him Kire decides by their adornments they were almost certainly the leader of this operation. "You a cousin of Biggus Piggus by any chance? You stuck camping down here because you can't get back up the hill?"
          Howling with laughter Kire picks up the relic and replaces it with the stone he had made turning it so that a childlike smiley face done in chalk was on the side visible to the thug. With an enthusiastic "YOINK!" he takes off again, ducking under grab attempts, kicking people or vaulting over camp equipment to clear his way back to the road through the bodies that had started to concentrate on his presence as the initial shock wore off. Once he reaches the road he pushes himself into a sprint proper and activates the speed ring.
          There was a great deal of shouting below with more emerging from side tunnels and Kire pops his bracer blade to swipe at the torches lighting the path up as he goes, darkening the path behind him for his pursuers who did not look to have many hand-held torches prepared. Occasionally he looks over his shoulder into the pit to see how they're doing and though they're sluggish getting up the road he spots two archers winding back just in time to throw himself at the ground. Arrows clunk into the sun fossilized stony dirt wall of the cliff where he'd gone prone and he immediately pushes himself back up to continue the ascent.

          (Not bad shots, guess they weren't all drunk.) He was halfway out of the pit already and the next round he ducked for had gone considerably further astray with the growing distance and diminished illumination from all the snuffed torches. Another twenty seconds saw him reaching the surface, releasing his speed enhancement before it started to affect him. He drops into a knee slide to his gear and sets down the Eye, unfastening his new crossbow from its strapping on his bag from which he also unpacks a cartridge, hammering it into the bottom of the crossbow at a forty-five degree angle opposite a sliding underside grip. Donning his mask again he gives a sweep of the topside area to make sure there were no other outside stragglers then walks over to drop into a crouched firing position at the edge of the ramp.
          *You haven't had a lot of time to practice with that, and certainly not on moving targets. I don't think ten shots will be enough.*

          The clouds had rolled by again dropping the silver-lit outline of the pit into darkness except for the spattering of torches in its depths. He saw two small fires bobbing up the path and when he breaks through the darkness with his enchanted headwear he sees a large pack of the bandits clustered together in a line, following behind the couple who had managed to get portable torches ready the quickest. More were uprooting the pole torches from within the camp to carry up the rear.
          (It's so cute that you say things like that and then offer me up fish in a barrel.)

          This time he definitely heard, not felt, but audibly heard System sigh out loud.
          Kire yanks back on the angled foregrip, connected to a lever loader which in turn triggered a magi-mechanical motor built into the thick stock with a cable connected to the crossbow's drawstring. With only as much effort as pumping a nearly full water gun the integrated pump action windlass locks the crossbow into firing position while the lever opened a small sliding plate to allow a spring-fed bolt to pop up into the covered firing channel. Reaching up to pinch the domed lens over his left eye Kire rotates it, configuring a third enchantment put into the housing rather than the glass itself that zoomed his sight through that port in on the hostile mass.

          (So is almost killing or crippling myself a guaranteed level up every time? I mean I'd prefer not to do that again but damn has it ever been a step up.) Referencing how the difficulty of transferring the divination enchantment that had spurred his once again overnight level increase. The zoom feature was added just today when he was desperate to achieve anything on the long haul in and realized he had found more 'space' to cram things into and more precision to do it with. He was waiting until the crowd got another tier up where he could be more sure of his shooting angle but still opposite of him where they would be laid out for best target profile.
          *Given the ideas I've seen you get so far I don't know if I can confidently assure you that killing yourself with an aneurysm by your own power would be the absolute dumbest way you could end this ridiculous gong show of a saga but if that's how you really want to go I know I can't stop you.*

          Kire pulls the trigger and snaps a bolt into the crowd. He'd opted to aim a bit high and managed to just clip the head of someone in the furthest of the three columns they were advancing in. Satisfied with that as a lead point he adjusts his muscles ever so slightly and paces his breathing.
          Shoot. Crank. Shoot. Crank. Shoot. Crank. Shoot. Crank. Two bodies on the inside edge of the column keel and tip over the edge taking short tumbles down the cliff to the next level of road. A third had been struck down from somewhere inside the mass of bodies nearly tripping several others around them. He hadn't seen what happened with the fourth as now they were panicking and picking up the pace almost fighting each other with desperation to get unstuck while some of them fled back down the hill with one of the torches from the rear. Kire adjusts his lens to the closing distance.

          "I don't care how many of them there are, we get that relic or it's all of our heads!" A voice bellowed fiercely from the crowd, probably belonging to Piggus Secundus. Now that they were close enough for Kire to make out what was being said as long as it was being said loud enough it was time to start giving his shots a little more consideration. That they misinterpreted the rate of fire as being a squad of shooters was an unintended bonus but even with the fallen and some retreating he guessed there had to have been nearly twenty of them. Kire adjusts his lens again.
          Once the gaggle had rounded the pit enough to be in line with him from the front he takes an aimed shot at the torchbearers in the lead, dropping one of them with their torch rolling off the side and halving the mob's sight again. At just over his magazine empty he slam fires the rest, dumping four bolts in two seconds to push the illusion of a squad firing. Out of ammo he slinks to the side where he can stay more comfortably out of sight and from the gear pile reattaches a single belt pouch, his reel and his sword scabbard, repositioning the mine's edge to get a position over where the bandits would pass by.
          In the cover of darkness Kire lifts his mask to call over the edge; "This is Dravein the Dire of the Adventurer's Guild on special authority from Glimmerforge! Lay down your arms and surrender, resist arrest and you will be destroyed!" Leaning enough to peek over he sees the mob hesitate in the dark. The inscrutable journey of the clouds leads them away from the moon once more and he leans back again.

          "That ain't the voice of Dravein! Fucker what took my fingers, I'd never forget." The same booming voice as before. The boulder of a man shoves two of the mob forward to the front. "I don't know who the fuck they are but don't give them more time to reload! Die to their arrows or die to me!"
          Hearing footsteps and knowing his bluff failed he steps forward to the edge where he would be visible and levels his unloaded crossbow in another bluff at the big man whose location he surmised by volume. "You're right, I'm not Dravein. I'm sexier."
          There was no room for any archers in the group to even think about trying to shoot but Piggus Secundus reflexively throws a hatchet, Kire instinctively lifting his crossbow to intercept and deflecting it haphazardly off of a steel brace across the front and jarring the stock into his armpit.

          With Kire's senses dialed up from excitement his ears home in like an eagle to a mouse on a gasp in the crowd, "He was at the hill attack! He was with Dravein...It's the Madman!"
          A survivor who had escaped the battle.
          (BINGO!) Elated that he'd finally found a confirmed lead on the party responsible for the attack Kire's face spreads into a diabolical rictus grin befitting his namesake with genuine glee that he was a step closer to avenging that day.

          Hearing that Kire had been confirmed working with Dravein before seemed to stall the collective confidence again that maybe the more reputable senior adventurer was not far off after all. Piggus Secundus alone was undaunted, throwing his arms up in challenge. "Reveal yer squad then, 'Madman'!" Looking around with his chest puffed and chin pushed out. "Show us this special authority and we'll surrender!" The big man stared Kire down as if daring him.

          Kire's grin had only intensified, curdling his expression between moon light and torch light with his heart roaring for the justice it had been craving being so close at hand. "Before I show you: How many of these goodly folks besides yourself know enough to tell me what I want to hear?"

==========

7. The dark is what you make of it

==========

          There had been a couple magi in the crowd who'd fired on Kire with magic bolts. That started the action. Giving up the ruse that his crossbow was loaded Kire had to toss it aside to draw his sword and slide down onto the road before them. With the magic resistant charm from Siddithi which had been reforged into a magic resistance ring, his excellent armour and a grand sum of righteous violence Kire managed to tank, throttle and thrash their ranks enough that the bulk had retreated deeper towards the camp while their ringmaster was too occupied to execute them. The man's actual name had been announced as Deathclaw Haga: Kire hadn't gotten a good view of his hands during the camp intrusion or the challenge to have noticed that he sported leather and iron braces with long rusted claws where middle and index, and ring fingers lost to some past interrogation would have been.
          It had been a lopsided duel of Kire evading and taunting that Piggus Secundus was a better and more fitting name, that the poison on his claws couldn't be more toxic than the smell of his unwashed ass or challenging the criminal task master to see how long he could roll back down the sloped road to camp before puking versus Haga's hardened and unrelenting desire to crush the adventurer and recover the relic.

          Thanks to the desperation the bandits necessarily reacted with to Kire's countertheft the battle had been decided before it was started. Though strong and seasoned the larger of the embattled pair was properly tallied by his appearance and the charge up the hill had taxed him a great deal more than his junior foe with a love of cardio. When Haga had dropped to his knee with exertion, panting and sweating, Kire was about to start his questioning. Looking up to meet Kire's eyes with unflinching determination Haga foils that plan by suddenly plunging his claws into his own neck, accurately severing his own carotid arteries and dropping dead almost immediately.
          "Jesus, fuck...!" Kire sat cross legged for a quick rest and collected his breath.
          *You have the relic and their forces are broken. A return to Oxgrove or the chapel is a win here.*
          (Yes. Technically. But I want information, and someone down there has it. If I leave now I throw away my best chance of getting it. I can't give them a window to escape.)

          He took ten or so minutes to recharge and reset himself from the tension that had been accumulating through the skirmish ever since someone called out his title and the exertion of his full run up the hill. He returns to his gear and relocates it behind a tree. Since he hadn't made much yet today he allows himself to create another ten bolts to reload his crossbow and a second magazine besides that he roughly hangs off his belt like a quarrel. Weapon slung and mask back on he started the march down the dark road back into the pit taking his time partially to conserve energy and partially because the kindled excitement had been quenched into a serious necessity.
          (I don't know who knows what so I can't let this get too messy too fast.) He kept careful watch on the activities in the camp the whole trip down expecting the archers to open up on him again when they caught his silhouette. The enemy party was running around in a vague show of action and when he was close enough to make it out better it seemed they were packing, or bracing, or both. Two levels left to go and one of them spots his approach calling out and pointing and it occurs to Kire that the reason he can't make out what they're saying isn't because of the distance but because they were not speaking the common language he had been set to.

          Kire readied his crossbow assuming shots were incoming, preparing to snipe the snipers but as he pivoted and tensed the sentry put up their hands and got on their knees. The rest of the camp changed the course of their preparations to surge forward and collect in ranks near the base of the hill and Kire forced his will over his hands to keep steady in case more magic blasts came. His clothing torn and burned with holes, breathing heavily into a horrific mask the eyes of which reflected the torchlight before the rest of him was even visible, he emerged at a deliberate pace into the camp with weapon ready...Greeted by a complete surrender.

--

          There had been a few survivors from the attack in the hills outside of Glimmerforge though one of them had been counted among the corpses from Kire's first bout of indiscriminate shooting. The one who had recognized and announced him was a straggler who had slipped away at the end of the failed heist when Kire had gone into fits. They'd witnessed enough to watch him murder blitz their archer team on the North hill a few minutes before subsequently tearing through the area screaming while they'd hid and waited for him to pass. Even if they hadn't later heard his freshly minted moniker in the debriefing on the assault they probably would have called him that just based on what they'd seen.
          The morale in the camp had been ruined and the surrender unanimously agreed to by everyone who made it back down should the assailant come after them again. They'd started packing and preparing to move out as a contingency but either there was a team up top who was coming to finish the job or there was one man who had brazenly walked into their camp and out with their prize, inflicted numerous casualties single handedly, and was fighting them three at a time while taunting their champion like it was a joke last they'd seen. With those options they wanted nothing to do with whatever came down that road.

          His weapon never taking its line of fire off one body or another Kire directs them all to bind each other in turn. There were a few massive lumber posts around the clearing where scaffolding had been built around and oxen hitched in the past and when the fifteen survivors were chain ganged to these posts by their own ropes and shackles he finally lowered his arms to tie the last.
          "When I return to Oxgrove in the morning I will send for a dispatch to come collect you. You will be given water before I leave, but you won't starve in one or two days."
          "What if we need to relieve ourselves?" Cried a voice down the line.
          "Then shit your pants!" Kire blew them off and sat cross legged opposite the captives who had clamoured to be most informative.
          They didn't know many details about the grander scheme of things but they were just one of a number of criminal parties who had been brought in under a large endeavour by a mysterious benefactor. Not just from the area, either. Underground recruitment drives had been posted across much of west and south Falkner and even into neighbouring Sarth in the south promising incredible pay and improved security for those who heeded the call. As more parties joined up they became further emboldened by the strength of their numbers and it was thought by most of the membership that the secretive upper echelons of this new crime syndicate intended to destabilize the region to make way for a coup. Although members could be rotated between different cells for jobs there was not much intelligence shared with the rank and file besides mission-pertinent briefings and enemy awareness gathering which is how Kire's moniker had been passed on...Although they couldn't say how that information was collected in the first place.

          The pay was good but there was rumours that the price of failure on an essential mission could be severe and the mission to steal the Eye, despite the low worth of the relic itself, had for some reason been deemed high. High enough to warrant all the manpower that was assembled to keep it secure. Someone from the upper ranks was to come and collect it with the payments the following afternoon which is why they had all been celebrating. With the explanations depleted Kire sat in silence there a moment longer lowering his head and closing his eyes.
          (Alright System I'll cut you a break. I thought the endless waves of grunts was another movie trope and that a band of bottom feeders shouldn't have so many bodies to throw at an armed guard as what we saw that day let alone this many more now. I guess as far as plot hooks goes you could have done worse.)
          *I hate you.*

          Standing and turning to the pair of old mining tunnels still open in the cliff facing where some of the bandits had been dwelling besides the small tents in the open he starts puttering off to investigate. Hefty beams reinforced the passage and where veins that hadn't been collapsed split off there was bed rolls and basic supplies laid out in each chamber like an ant nest of dormitories. Pacing back towards the exit he makes out some desperate movement on one of the prisoners, turning his lens to zoom in on one trying to shake their bindings off despite their neighbours trying to discourage them. Kire lifts his crossbow and at this range he is confident he can aim for the smallest margin possible just above their head.
          There is a scream from near the would-be escapee as the bolt almost fully disappears into the old wood of the post. The captive had stopped struggling and instead slowly reached up to touch the bead of blood running down their forehead. The shot had been close enough to graze over their skull and through their hair having come from the pitch-black tunnel without warning.

          Stepping out into the light again Kire just walks to the next tunnel for inspection without further need for threat. This one seemed to be Haga's own private station and Kire rummaged idly through the junk tossing aside bags, bottles and more.
          (Shitty liquor, a shitty paycheck, shitty equipment...Oh?) Finding a small locked box Kire pries it apart with his wrist blade to reveal four small vials bedded in straw. They were corked and looked similarly set up to potions, but Haga had insisted his claws were poisoned during their fight. Kire reads the contents through his power and hums with intrigue at the certainly toxic concoction inside.
          *I bet you wish you had that when dealing with Biggus Piggus.*
          (Who knew it would be Biggus' own cousin to provide me with the solution? Too late, alas.)

          Checking his time piece again the hour reads nearly midnight. He fits the vials into his belt and goes back to browsing the camp ground for its water source. "Slight change of plans," he announces as he patrols around the prisoner line. "I'll water you weeds tonight and go get my much deserved rest elsewhere." Finding the barrel he nudges it, finding its contents low enough to not be too heavy that he can partially tip and roll it along its bottom edge. Finding a few cups to pass around he makes sure everyone gets two drinks. "You all sit cozy until help comes tomorrow."
          "You're actually going to just leave us like this?!"
          Kire pauses at the foot of the road up, limping his head to the side to look at the lot over his shoulder. "As far as you know. Maybe I'll be up there watching."

          When Kire had knocked at the chapel again the lock of the door clanked and it swung open almost immediately. Unsure if he had intended to come back that night or not but fearing for his safety Ertegar and Ness had been unable to rest and kept vigil for his return. The prompt return of the Eye was met with disbelief as was the reassurance that the brigands would not be coming back. Ness had looked ready to collapse when she heard that as if she could finally let herself go and get the sleep she hadn't in days. Kire lays out on a pew for the night and his hosts retire to their rooms with more thank-yous than he had been comfortable with.

--

          With by far the most sun to greet him in a morning since his reawakening Kire evicted the dome of windows as soon as Ertegar was up to provide the confirmation of job completion. He stopped at Oxgrove and although they did not have a guild house they did have a postal service through which he sent word to both Thornwick and Glimmerforge regarding the detained force of criminals on the way to getting breakfast at a way house and cooking a storm in his field notes.
          (So they said someone was going to come for collection today. Sounds like I have a date with destiny and my next clue.)
          *You've gamified this too much.*
          For some reason System's words almost prompted a breach in the manic episode of disbelief Kire had been running on this whole time and a wave of fatigue pressed against his forehead.
          (How do you figure?)
          *I tried to say it before. You've been here more than two weeks now. I'm sure you know by this point this isn't going to end suddenly at any instant. I can see through your entire head and I know even your vengeance is being internalized as a quest in a puzzle to end the experience.*
          Kire stopped his writing and rested his head on his palm with his eyes shut. (If you know so much then you know the life I lived and the world I lived it in. Settings like this are a fantasy. Stories like this are a myth. I don't know and you won't tell me what the hell is REALLY going on so how else should I treat it?)
          *Knowing the life you lived...I think is the reason you were brought here.*

          Kire slams his fist on the table and bites his bottom lip to stifle the expletive, eyes still closed. (And that's just it, yeah? That's all I get is that I was brought here? Some guide.)
          System...Ruminates. Kire could feel that. While the connection wasn't totally transparent both ways even with a one way mirror you'd feel when someone thumped their face against the opposite side. When the androgynous voice speaks again it is like the sternness of a mother or father simultaneously or just...Indistinguishably.
          *There are things that are not my place to talk about. There are things that you don't need to know. There are things you will know when the time is right, and things you will learn only if you prevail in the places necessary to learn them. Think what you must about this world if it helps you cope but believe, at least, that this is not a dream.*

          Kire releases a long hard sigh that carries the tension out of his chest and opens his eyes. The employee serving behind the counter cautiously approaches to set his plate beside his journal. He weighs the reluctant acceptance of System's truth against his own life he was missing. (No warning. No goodbyes. No way home.) He clamps his hand over his face as if in some attempt to press the tears back in. Failing the impossible he wipes them away and starts in on his breakfast. (Ok. Let's say I believe you that this is real. Doesn't mean I'm going to start behaving.)
          After offending the employee with an enthusiastic, positive review of what he insistently and deliberately misidentified as grilled squirrel and assuring them he would give them five stars on yelp he refilled the water bladder he had modified into his rucksack with a drinking hose, topped up some portable rations in his bag and set off for the mine to check on his captives and set a stake out for their employer.
          The morning was just starting to get warm when the mine came into view. On approach he thought he smelt a nasty tinge in the air. (Piggus Secundus' carcass must be starting to stink. Surprised I can smell it from here but he was a big boy.) Cresting the mine's edge and passing the body which remained exactly as it had landed on death he thinks the air seems...Somehow worse than it should be. Gazing over the side to where the camp was his muscles freeze seeing why.

          What should have been fifteen cranky guests even at this distance looked a little more like fifteen cooked corpses. He launches into a sprint down the road accelerating rapidly between the shock and gravity. (They said their employer wasn't coming until the afternoon, what the fuck is that!?) As he winds inwards the picture of their bodies still bound, smouldering and smoking, becomes ever clearer.
          When he arrives to stalk up and down the length where even the ropes had burned away in many places it did not look actually to be fire that did it.
          *Do you suppose they were executed more for their failure at their mission or to ensure their silence?*

          Kire had put the back of his hand to his mouth and nose reflexively as he got closer to examine their injuries. "Well executing them doesn't remedy either of those things now does it?" He looks over the camp and jogs a few laps looking for any other evidence of what happened. Footprints were far too many from the chaos of the night before and the victims had all been tied erasing any need for a struggle. Kire snaps his fingers as he remembers himself and fishes out his mask, putting it on and drawing on the divining enchantment he had laid into the forehead gem. Wisps formed through the air like the scene was being smudged by a brush and the haze shifted as he scrolled backwards in time. (I would have paid Siddithi triple for this power. No wonder he was so cautious about holding on to it.)

          He did not have to go back far. Like watching a movie laid over his vision two figures had arrived at the break of dawn and stood questioning the captives. He could see what was happening but not hear more than whispers. One of the figures was a humanoid in white elegant robes who wore a cloth draped over the lower half of their face and a white half-mask with gold streaks under the eyes covering the upper. Beside them was a...Minotaur? Close in height to Kire but with drastically more muscle packed on. Kire walked around the vision in assessment. Full plate with a tower shield and a maul wielded one handed the beast-man had a distinguishing fractal web of marks wrapping around both sides of the neck and disappearing under his armour where the fur had stopped growing. While the robed figure had been a whisper the Minotaur, when he took his turn, was yelling-chastising the captives while the robed one casually backed away a safe distance behind.

          Kire found himself leaping backwards as he was so caught up in watching the vision he flinched when the Minotaur swung his hammer and sent several thick bands of lightning into their helpless subordinates, the blue flash passing through the area where Kire had been standing. Of course, it was just a vision and couldn't have hurt the observer. Taking slow steps along their rank the Minotaur held his hammer level and the lightning continued to pour out as a sustained arc into the thrashing and screaming bandits who flailed, fried, and died in twos and threes while the others down the line wailed in terror at the Minotaur's approach.
          It was just a vision, but a terrible one.

          Kire felt sick from watching the senseless slaughter that happened not two hours sooner than his own arrival. The figures had left just after tying their loose ends but Kire sat in the camp, cross-legged and eyes closed to reflect on what he'd seen. There was still so many dangers in this world he was not aware of and he felt foolish for how he'd rushed in the night before. (If I'd been on the other end of that attack I would have had no defence for it. They were probably more physical threat than I'm equipped to handle straight on too.)
          *Gorgoth the Thunderer. Most curious to see him all the way out here let alone working with a crime syndicate. A vicious bastard, a simpleton certainly, but no common bandit.*
          Kire stood, deciding now is the time to develop his next big weapon-and the real reason he had made the mask in the first place. Walking in to the tunnel where Haga's stuff had been he pulls a chair up to the table which he sweeps clear. (You're giving specific exposition now? What can you tell me about these two?)

          System's presence pressed eerily close on Kire's back, as if someone was standing right over him. The feeling was so strong he felt himself turn to check over his shoulder for a second just to make sure someone had not actually snuck up on him.
          *Gorgoth was a common thug and thief, once. After being struck by lightning in the middle of a fight he had something of a 'divine epiphany', convincing himself he was the chosen champion of Ragi, the storm god. Rather than scrounging for scraps to survive he became zealous and motivated to prove the might of himself and his god, travelling to spread the word and striking down any who contested Ragi's divine glory. He should not even be in this country and the reasons for aligning with this new criminal faction are especially difficult to guess.*
          Kire was too distracted by the explanation and the fact that he was even getting an explanation to have started working yet. (You've never given me such clear intel before. You feeling bad about our earlier conversation?)
          There was the sensation of being brushed off. *I feel comfortable explaining this one because he is an obvious notorious figure albeit not in Falkner. He has a notable criminal reputation in Valderon and I haven't said anything you wouldn't find out on a bounty poster.*
          System's tone was matter-of-fact but Kire still thought this felt like an oddly direct concession.

          Removing his left bracer and detaching the switchblade to set aside he presses his hand to the smooth and bare bottom half of the armour piece and reignites the latent signature of his creation magic within it. Thickening, bending and resculpting the steel he gives it a small swelled cylindrical chamber at the front of which is a nozzle. This one would be activated by a button with a sliding safety plate over it which itself was kept in place by a small spring-backed nub. He checks the seal of his mask now as a precaution, clicking a switch hidden under the left side jaw to switch it to filtered intake. The mask had originally been conceived to protect himself from his own designs which he had yet to follow through on making because he deemed it too unsafe to do in town, able to switch the ugly apparatus from open valve to a gas mask filter. Eventually he wanted to give it its own oxygen supply for closed breathing in dangerous or low-oxygen environments but he hadn't settled on how to do that yet.
          Creating a cylinder that could perfectly socket into his bracer with a push-valve on top for releasing its contents he fills its pressurized chamber with an aerosolized mix; The easiest of his intended chemicals to replicate due to his real world exposure...Riot control gas.

--

          After experimenting to also create an aerosol version of Haga's neurotoxin and an anaesthetic to induce paralysis Kire is headed back for the church and Oxgrove, running for most of it when he considered there might be a follow-up attack if the relic was that important to warrant sacrificing so much manpower over. He'd also grabbed Haga's claws on the way out after System's mention of bounty posters. Seeing the temple safe his first stop in Oxgrove is to send another letter to the neighbouring guild halls to update about the prisoners in Bandit's Hollow and he was about to seek out a ride back to Thornwick when he overheard discussion about a big ceremony at the temple that night to celebrate the relic's return and to mourn their recent losses.
          Kire was quiet inside and outside while he ate his lunch and he meandered off to park himself in a nearby field where the long wild grasses had been levelled on a patch of lifeless soil to a walkable clearing.
          *You're not heading back yet?*

          Kire stationed his bag and extra kit, standing in the clearing and drawing his sword...Then passing it from his left to right hand, rolling it over to a reverse grip and immediately sheathing it again. He draws it again. (I've always had a natural knack for fighting and weapon handling but I come from a world where that's a niche sport at best. Now I'm in a world where thousands of people make a business out of expertise in that capacity.) Having practised his draw several times he adds a transition to a fighting stance to it. Sheath, draw, stance. Sheath, draw, stance.
          (It's not enough to just maintain my fitness or get by on natural talent or just my weapons. I need to cultivate more skills.)
          Sheath, draw, stance, strike. Sheath, draw, stance, strike. System seemed pleased.
          *You plan to stick around for the ceremony tonight Mr. "religion is for freaks"?*
          Kire didn't answer with words. Sheath, draw, stance, strike, dodge, strike. Sheath, draw, stance, strike, dodge, strike.

          Kire did this for hours and even added knee pads to his ensemble to comfortably allow kneeling spins, crouched strikes and rolls to his irregular, weaving combat style. Throughout those hours he was tangentially aware of a growing procession and crowd in the next field over surrounding the chapel with colourful tents being erected. He pays little enough attention until he hears the grasses nearby shifting and stops mid-strike, eyes shifting while the rest of him remained still and tense. A long stick pokes through and pushes aside the dry, gold-green brush to allow Ertegar to step through.
          Kire releases his pent-up breath. "Should you be stumbling through the fields alone old-timer? Might trip on a groundhog burrow or get your dick bit by a snake."

          Ertegar's expression did not budge. "Or I might accidentally smack somebody with my walking stick. Don't mind me, continue what you were doing." The blind priest stood there with both palms resting on the top of his short stave as if to prop himself for a rest, eyes resting high on the horizon beyond Kire who resets himself to start his drills over.
          Kire had started slow that day: He had no formal training in western sword styles but he knew enough about the basic principles to be mindful of the essentials. Parry with the side of the blade, maintaining edge alignment, moving around binds. Beyond that he'd improvised everything around his agility and flexibility balanced against his weapon's short reach and hefty balance for a tricky, sweeping flow of attacks following the same principles of the circular flowing style taught in his Dojo's Kempo. Over the hundred or more drills through the afternoon it had become a swift and savage flurry to assail from any angle while timing exertion around the blade's momentum to conserve energy.

          "You don't fight like any swordsman I've ever heard of. Most irregular....Most irregular." Ertegar twisted his stave in the dirt with a look of deep thought.
          Kire stops for a break and shakes himself loose. "Aren't you supposed to be blind?" Kire said as he deliberately nursed his water supply, sitting on a decently sized rock near his bag.
          Ertegar helps himself to sit down beside Kire, pushing back to back against the younger man to make room for himself on the stone that wasn't comfortably big enough for both of them. "Blind...Sure. Light no longer graces me with its interpretation of the world. But I can hear and feel plenty fine. When you swing your sword I can track its path by the sound...When you bend and crouch your breathing is displaced. Your footsteps slide and patter to adjust your weight and it even seems by the position of your breath and the change in centre of mass that you maneuver off of your feet as well, sometimes."

          Ertegar holds out his hand expectantly and Kire hesitates before handing him the hose to his water bag. (Pushy old codger, almost reminds me of me.) When the priest has finished with their drink Kire rubs off the nozzle and stows it, feeling impressed enough by the assessment to be interested in what the holy man had to say. "So you can follow the movements by the sounds. You must be quite an accomplished swordsman to make such clear sense of it with so little else to go off of."
          Ertegar was silent a moment before responding, sitting with his head bowed. "I was an Adventurer and instructor for 15 years, and I have almost as much experience in being blind. I was forced to retire when I lost my sight but long after my eyes abandoned their duty I could still see the play of blades clearly in my mind and dreams...As one does with things they commit their life to."

          "You seem to handle your condition quite well. You manage it so naturally I couldn't tell if you had always been blind." Kire said as he fidgeted and leaned forward to make room for shaking his tunic to air out the sweat that had oozed through his under layers. Ertegar stood and paced the clearing.
          "I didn't always. A cockatrice spat venom in my eyes while out on a quest and if not for my companions I would have been slain just after. It took...Months, I suppose, for the panic attacks to stop. I couldn't handle the permanent darkness. I would awake in the night, not knowing if it WAS night, not really knowing if I was awake or if my eyes were open, and all I could bring myself to do was to scream and lash out...Struggling in vain to fight back the crushing blackness. I grieved that I would never see flowers again or look upon the faces of my comrades and I wept that I would never be useful or wield a sword again."

          Ertegar had stopped walking and his back was turned to Kire, but the otherworlder felt the sorrow enough that a grim expression of solidarity came over him from vividly imagining the experience. The priest continued his pacing and his story.
          "I had resigned myself to oblivion but my party did not give up on me. A dear friend encouraged me to come to this chapel to meet with the disciples of the Hermit and I reluctantly agreed if only to get them off my back. I didn't know what the Hermit could teach, I was not a spiritual man."
          Ertegar stops in the middle of the clearing where Kire had been practising and turns his stave upright in both hands with his feet sliding into a deep strong stance in the same movement. The walking stick now looked like a Claymore and the priest looked ready to strike at the air, although he held himself back.
          "And what did the Hermit teach?" Kire prodded, rapt with attention.
          The priest took a deep breath, relaxing his stance and slowly drawing one hand up the length of the stave which he lowered to be level and turned to Kire. "This," he emphasized the gentle running of his fingers over the instrument. "Every fine grain of wood. The infinitesimal curves of imperfect carving. And this," He places his foot in one of the places where Kire had dug a groove through the grass and follows the path perfectly with his own foot. "The gentlest give in the ground and the whisper of grass. Brother Jaremee started me with touch-reading and wood block carving so that I could learn to see all the texture and richness in the world even without my eyes. In my fear of the dark I had felt abandoned by the sun but here I was reminded that even when you close your eyes on a sunny day you can still feel its warmth on your skin. In time the great truth of the Hermit abated my terror."

          "The great truth?" Kire asked and stood not wanting his muscles to relax too much without a proper cooldown after all the excercise.
          In answer Ertegar took up the same strong stance as before raising his stave like a great sword and took two powerful strikes to the air advancing a step with each so that he stopped just shy of reaching Kire with the blows. The mastery in the technique was clearly evident and carried incredible precision.
          "That the dark is not something that need be feared. Simply...The dark is what you make of it."

--

          They walked back together and Ertegar explained that some of the celebrants had seen Kire practising and made comment that the stranger seemed to be in distress so the temple master had come over to check up on him. On the note of celebrants Kire finds that he had misunderstood tonight's affairs somewhat as the occasion was much more auspicious than he had initially recognized; The event was not so much to celebrate the artifacts return but rather by enormous coincidence it was a traditional event held on the last full moon before the harvest season began and that the relic just so happened to be returned in time was just the salvation of the peoples' festive spirits for the occasion.
          The area around the doors had several open tents for food, drink and seating with small fire tables. A couple more larger steel fire pits were being set up in the open with additional seating. The festivities were to kick off with a sermon inside the chapel and while preparations were made Ertegar allowed Kire to use his own bath to wash off the sweat and grime of the night's battle and day's training.

          There was a solemness to the affair once it got started as they addressed those who had been killed in the failed retaliation against the gang. After the memorial and some (Kire assumed) fairly standard sermons on the Hermit's teachings and other speeches by guests the doors were opened and attendees were free to pray at the altar or go outside where some were praying to the moon directly.
          Kire approached the altar and closed his eyes as if in prayer but mostly he focused his attention on those around him to get a feel for the community's priorities. There had been a lot of talk about a safe and bountiful harvest from the communal leadership who had shared the speaking with the temple's keeper and visiting fellow brothers of other chapels but here he also made out whispered wishes for bravery in the dark months of winter. Some people were silent, some asked for the Hermit to keep them in his thoughts even when they were out of sight. It was not the morbid, emotionally sickly affair Kire had expected from those who by the roadside looked like they worshipped the night.

          Outside there was slow music and slow drinks where people huddled together to share their fears and hopes for the coming seasons in the belief that speaking these aloud and sharing them with others helped you to conquer one and achieve the other. For all the dressings of a party it was not a jubilant affair but a tender one.
          (This is...Actually pretty touching. People tend to not be so open about their feelings where I come from. Seems these folks are quite ahead of us in some ways.)
          *Just wait, another thirty minutes or so they begin the human sacrifices and cutting out their own eyes to blind themselves to be closer to their God.*
          Kire's arm tensed like he wanted to smack System but unfortunately he'd have nobody to smack but himself. He did find himself biting back a smirk though. (You're funny. You're a funny guy.)

          A few hours later and the large oxen-pulled wagons who had brought in the congregation were loading up their first trips to take people back to Oxgrove where extra accommodations had been set up for those who'd travelled. Fires were doused, tents were taken inside, and when the last loads of people were on their way out Kire was left alone under the night sky on a single chair with his fifth bottle of mead staring at the full moon.
          *You never did share your fears or dreams with the others.*
          (You want to hear me lay it out? Alright-)
          *Not to me. Out loud. To the moon.*

          With a groan Kire looked around to make sure there was nobody else around and took a hard swig from the bottle finishing its contents. Setting the bottle on the grass beside his seat he stands and puts more distance between himself and the chapel, leaning back and looking up at the moon. Wrestling with his thoughts and feelings, trying to dismiss participation but for the coaxing of System in his head, he buckles. "I'm afraid I'll never seen my family again. And I'm...I'm afraid I'll never go home again."
          Emotions undammed in his inebriated chest and the only way to squeeze them out was to talk louder. "I'm afraid that everything I ever knew is lost to me! I'm afraid that the people I cared about will think I abandoned them!" His cracking voice had become a yell. "I'm afraid I'll be lost to this dream forever!" At that he lowered his face and clamped his hands over it, once again trying to push the undesirable feelings anywhere but where he can feel them the hottest.

          As many moments as it needs to level himself later he tries to recuperate with a twisted joke. He turns back towards the chapel with the moon behind him, sauntering back at a normal volume. "And my wish? For a castle and a whole harem befitting a ridiculous cliche fantasy adventure."
          He laughed, dabbing at the moisture around his eyes when for a split second the world goes fully black. His heart froze in his chest with a sobering shock at the unnatural half-second he just experienced like the sky itself had just experienced a brief blackout. He spins around to look up at the full moon. "Did you just fucking blink?!"