Alph absorbed Yuri’s words, the initial rush of adrenaline fading into a cold assessment. The man’s origin story, a victim of betrayal, now seemed a flimsy justification for his current depravity.
“Your grievance was with the gang,” Alph stated, his voice calm despite the burning in his arm. “Why the graves? Why the constables? Why the common folk?”
As he spoke, Alph channeled willpower into his forearm. A faint green glow pulsed beneath his skin, a warmth spreading from the shallow cut. The unnatural sensation around the wound dissipated, the poison’s tendrils receding. The cut remained, a mere scratch now, but the insidious threat vanished.
Yuri scoffed, his scarred face twisting into a sneer. “Common folk? There are no common folk, boy. Only those who live and those who will die. Everyone ends up in a grave. I merely profit from the inevitable.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Someone needs to die for there to be graves to loot, no?”
Alph’s posture shifted, his spine aligning with deliberate precision, the pain in his forearm reduced to a distant throb. The wound had sealed itself, the edges knitting together under the faint green glow of his willpower, leaving only a thin, pale line where the poisoned blade had bitten. His fingers flexed, testing the restored strength, the lingering numbness dissipating like mist under sunlight.
Yuri’s breath hitched, his scarred lips parting as his gaze darted between Alph’s unmarred forearm and his face. The man’s confidence faltered, his bravado crumbling like dry earth underfoot. A bead of sweat traced the jagged scar on his cheek, glistening in the dim light.
“The poison,” he rasped, voice thick with disbelief, “it should have worked. Your flesh should be blackening, your veins bursting. You should be rotting.” His fingers twitched, as if itching to reach for another blade, another trick, another way to reclaim control. But his eyes betrayed him—wide, unblinking, the pupils contracting into pinpricks of fear.
Yuri’s moment of imbalance was all Alph needed. He focused, pushing his will into stacking the Marked for Death skill. The invisible threads of the debuff tightened, coalescing into a single, undeniable truth. Yuri’s critical weak point blazed in Alph’s mind: the exposed throat, the soft spot beneath the jaw, the vulnerable forehead.
Alph’s hand moved, a blur of motion. From his back, a small, dark crossbow appeared, already cocked, a bolt nocked and ready. Yuri, still reeling from the poison’s failure, saw the movement and lunged sideways, a desperate, guttural cry tearing from his throat.
Alph had already anticipated the dive, but still he activated Perfect Aim, not willing to leave it to chance.
The crossbow bolt flew. It struck Yuri mid-dive, piercing his throat with a sickening thud. Yuri’s eyes, wide with disbelief and pain, stared at Alph. He gurgled, a wet, choking sound, his hands clawing at the bolt protruding from his neck. He stumbled, then collapsed, his body hitting the ground with a dull thud.
He watched the man’s body twitch once more, the hands dropping away from the bolt.
Alph stood over the fallen grave robber, his breathing steady, his face blank. A clean kill. The fight ended when opportunity struck. He had completed his task—eliminating the Grave Robber of Gloomwater as instructed.
The whistle sliced through the darkness like a blade—high, urgent, unmistakable. Alph’s muscles tensed before his mind fully processed the sound. Footsteps followed, heavy and uncoordinated, the rhythm of panicked men running toward the fire’s glow. His pulse remained steady, but his thoughts raced. Gang enforcers? Town watch? Doesn’t matter. What mattered was the body at his feet, the final proof of his work.
He crouched, fingers hooking under Yuri’s armpits. The grave robber’s corpse was heavier than expected, the limbs still warm, the weight of death settling into the flesh. Alph gritted his teeth, heaving the body upward in one controlled motion. The waxed canvas coat dragged against the cobblestones with a wet, scraping sound. No time to be subtle now.
His boots found purchase against the rough stone wall of the warehouse. A quick, measured breath; then he launched upward, using the corpse’s momentum to carry them both onto the low roof. Wood groaned under the sudden weight, but the structure held. Alph adjusted his grip, slinging Yuri’s body over his shoulder like a sack of stolen grain. The crossbow bolt jutting from the man’s throat glinted in the moonlight, a grim trophy.
He moved then, swift and silent despite the burden. The rooftops of Docktown were a maze of sloped shingles and rotting planks, the gaps between buildings just wide enough to make each leap a calculated risk. The shouts below grew louder, torches bobbing like fireflies in the alleyways. They were close, but they were looking for a killer on the ground, not a shadow dancing above them.
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The town square loomed ahead, a dark expanse of flagstones and shuttered stalls. At this hour, it would be deserted—just empty space and the occasional rat scuttling between barrels. Perfect. Alph’s shoulders burned from the strain, but he didn’t slow. One last jump, and he was there, the corpse thudding onto the cold stones beside him.
He straightened, wiping his hands on his thighs. The night air carried the scent of salt and smoke, the distant cries of men who would never find what they were looking for. His task wasn’t done yet. But it would be, soon.
The fish stall’s barrels reeked of brine and rotting scales, the stench clinging to Alph’s fingers as he rummaged through them. His hands closed around a coil of sturdy hemp rope, its fibers rough against his skin, still damp from the night’s mist.
The gallows stood at the square’s center, its wooden beams blackened by age and weather, the noose’s old knot frayed but serviceable. He worked quickly, fingers moving with practiced efficiency as he looped the rope into a fresh hangman’s knot. The corpse’s weight was heavier than he expected; Yuri’s limbs had already stiffened, his stolen rings catching the moonlight as Alph hoisted him up. The body swayed slightly, Alph pulled out the bolt from his throat, cleaning it with a sack of cloth. He returned the bolt back to the crossbow.
From his belt pouch, Alph withdrew the token—Rook’s wooden carving of a severed hand, its grain dark with age. He threaded a strip of leather through the notch at the wrist, knotting it tight before draping it around Yuri’s neck. The slow seep of blood from the wound trickled down, coating the token in deep crimson, the liquid warm and sticky against his fingers. It pooled in the carved creases, turning the wood slick. Good. Let them find it like this.
A distant shout echoed from the docks, the clatter of boots on cobblestone growing nearer. Alph didn’t linger. He wiped his hands on his trousers, the fabric rough against his palms, and turned toward the city’s edge.
The sprint from Gloomwater to the cliffs ate up nearly an hour.
The skyrail lifts of Val Karok loomed in the distance, their iron cables groaning in the wind, the counterweights motionless in the dark. He knew they’d be shut down at this hour; the dwarven operators wouldn’t risk the mechanisms in the thin night air. But that wasn’t his destination.
Instead, he veered toward the cliffside path, where the wind howled through the cracks in the rock. The scent of damp earth and crushed pine needles filled his nose as he scanned the base of the cliffs. There—a shallow cave, its mouth half-hidden by a tangle of dead brush. The entrance was just wide enough to crouch in, the air inside cool and stale, carrying the faint metallic tang of old blood or rusted iron. Perfect.
Alph slipped inside, his boots kicking up loose dirt. He pressed his back against the rough stone wall, the cold seeping through his shirt, and waited. Dawn would come soon enough. And when it did, he’d walk into Val Karok like any other laborer, his hands clean, his face unremarkable. What happened in Gloomwater was none of his concern.
Alph closed his eyes, the cave’s musty air fading as he entered the familiar expanse of the Mind Garden. Stars glittered around him, forming the intricate patterns of his constellation. The Slayer node pulsed, a deep, resonant thrum.
“Shaper,” Alph called out, his voice echoing in the vast emptiness. “The Slayer node. Has it reacted to what I did?” He felt a subjective easing, a release of the gnawing pressure that had tightened in his chest for days. “I feel calmer, less… restless.”
The stars hummed, low and distant.
"The Slayer quiets," the Shaper murmured. "For now. The kill fed it, as the last one did."
Alph observed the Slayer node, its fierce glow now subdued, a temporary peace settling over its volatile core. He felt a chilling unease. His “need” to feed Slayer through kills was not entirely different from the grave robber’s dependency on grave-robbing and corpse-poison tricks. Both of them, shaped by their nodes and the incentives those created.
He voiced his core fear. “If I don’t find a permanent solution to balance Slayer, I could end up like the thief I just killed. Rationalizing predatory behavior, letting the hunger guide my choices instead of my ethics.”
"Little One," the Shaper said, "I trust your expertise and talent. You can push through the required training within a month. Raise your other Tier 0 nodes toward Tier 1. Move toward the planned node-merging to stabilize the constellation."
The Shaper paused.
"This is not a promise of success, but a statement of confidence in your potential. The timeline is tight, but not impossible."
Alph admitted his discomfort. “Even if the targets are deserving, leaning on kills as a crutch to manage Slayer makes me uneasy. I don’t want to drift into a state where arranging deaths becomes my default solution.”
“If you feel morally troubled by relying on kills to manage the node,” the Shaper countered, his voice firm, “then you cannot afford to waste time avoiding the permanent fix. The most ethical thing you can do, given your discomfort, is to accelerate training in the other paths. Reach the merging and balancing solution as quickly as possible. You will need the ‘kill buffer’ less often.” The Shaper’s words cut through Alph’s moral qualms.
“Your conscience and your schedule are linked. If you don’t like this crutch, then your only real option is to train harder and faster toward a permanent balance.”
Alph took a moment, the Shaper’s logic undeniable. He had two choices: accept regular contracts as a stabilizer, or grind hard now to reduce that dependence. He should commit to using contracts sparingly, only when needed for Slayer stability. His core solution lay in upgrading and integrating his other nodes.
He left the Mind Garden, the night’s strain giving way to exhaustion. He fell asleep, the cave’s dark consuming him, but the Shaper’s words resonated in his mind: a month.
Did you expect the Nature's Mend to play it's role, again?
