As soon as the amber ring came off, Robinia collapsed to the ground like a dead log. Her eyes were still open, but they were unmoving and unblinking. Similarly, the rest of her body was heavy and unresponsive.

“You see,” Vance said, squatting near her immobilized body, “I’ve never encountered a Hallowraith before. I only read about them.” He turned her head so that she could see the monster approaching. “And I was wondering what happens when it devours its target. None of the books mentioned anything about that.” He stood up and backed a few steps away. “Sometimes you can’t learn without experimenting. But it’s fun, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

The Hallowraith circled the paralyzed body. When it was met with no resistance, it used its powers to levitate Robinia in the air.

The helpless archer was turned upside down before her head began to move slowly toward the Hallowraith’s gaping mouth. She may have felt terrified and abandoned; she may have wanted to scream or beg for help. But even her facial muscles and her tongue were now useless pieces of meat—as unexpressive as a dull slab of wood. The amber ring that Vance had given her was called the Ring of Disproportion, a cheap item that no educated adventurer would voluntarily wear. It tripled its wearer’s base stamina but resulted in three weeks of total paralysis after its (intentional or accidental) removal.

I wonder what she’s thinking of right now. The poor thing.

The first crunch decapitated her. The second truncated her torso in half. The third erased her pelvis from existence. And the last was less of a crunch and more of a greedy slurp, as her legs disappeared into the ravenous mouth of the Hallowraith.

Just like noodles. Vance noted.

When the last bits of Robinia disappeared from the world, the church bells reverberated through the cavern. Seven monotone tolls were uttered with equal intervals of silence between them. A crash of thunder followed, as if the cavern’s steam had condensed into storm clouds. Then the Hallowraith began to fade away until it disappeared into nothingness. And the cavern returned to its previous gloom.

It just leaves after it gets the killer? Vance clicked his tongue. Well, that’s anticlimactic. He sighed and walked over to Benedict’s body. He had never examined the corpse of a monk before, so there was still a chance for him to gather more information. A moment passed as he checked the stab wounds that Robinia had left. He wanted to determine if there was anything unusual about them—anything that could’ve been related to summoning the Hallowraith (or to preventing this summoning). But his close inspection revealed that they were nothing more than ordinary injuries.

Slightly disappointed, Vance picked up his steel dagger, removing its bloody tip from the wrist that it had impaled. With a careful slice, he cut the red band covering Benedict’s eyes and, with a forefinger and thumb, stretched one of them wide open. It had a beautiful hazel color that was almost sinfully attractive. The traumatic events left it slightly shriveled and misshapen, but there wasn’t anything abnormal to note about it. It seems the eyes aren’t related to the summoning either.

Vance tore the monk’s robe off and checked his body for any Ezran Runes. No. Nothing. He rotated the head, but there weren’t any clues there either. I guess the summoning is purely spiritual. And this means that under no circumstances should I kill a monk. I made the right decision. Content with this conclusion, Vance decided not to go for a full dissection. In the end, with the steel dagger, he decapitated the corpse and carried the head under his armpit. For my collection. There was no need to waste time burying the corpses, because he was sure that the Fire Rodents would find them an agreeable meal. He smiled a little and decided to leave for his home in Blackmoss Forest.

As he walked away, he received the notification that he had been waiting for. The words had a melodious sound and gave him a sense of liberation.

Hidden Objective Complete: Annihilate Your Party

You destroyed your party without a hint of sympathy or mercy. Bloodshed and disorder please Thurvik.

Your Faith dropped by 15 points.

Your Duplicity increased by 15 points.

Finally … I reached minimum Faith again.

Class Objective Complete: Drop to Minimum Faith

Your Faith reached the minimum value possible for a human (5 points).

Without inner conflict, without the weakness of guilt or self-doubt, the flow of Mana stabilizes and grows stronger.

Class Effect Activated: Guiltless

Your Mana regeneration rate has increased from 1 point to 10 points per second.

If your Faith increases again, this class effect will deactivate.

Now I just need to see a healer and visit Thurvik’s shrine to level up. Vance looked at his bandaged arm. Then my day will be perfect. He walked out of the darkness of the Sweltering Caverns into the darkness of dusk. The air that blew at his face was still warm but rather refreshing, and he was glad that he had finally escaped the intolerable heat. He followed the precipitous path out of the Crimson Drop, never looking back, never noticing the sounds that were repeating in the distant darkness behind him—the muffled footsteps and the jingle of jeweled necklaces.

***

Past the moss-clad trees, in a clearing in the heart of Blackmoss Forest, the ruins of the Seventh Moon Temple appeared with only a semblance of its former glory. Innumerable years ago, there had been an arch twice the size of Cromsville’s gates, a domed hall covered in expensive marble and ceramics, an observatory that mapped the heavens, and a botanical garden that cultivated the rarest herbs. But today, nothing remained except a half-collapsed worship hall that was only as high as the trees around it—a space designed for small gatherings and solitary meditations—surviving against all the odds, perhaps because it was never worth ransacking. And it was now the lonely home of a murderer inconnu.

Carrying Benedict’s severed head, Vance arrived home with a bit of a smile on his face. The first thing he did was go out into the nearby thickets and find himself a malnourished Royal Moth. After a short staring contest, he tossed it the severed head. It didn’t seem very grateful for the kind offering, but its six arthropodal mouthparts began to move and salivate. Then thousands of tiny moths emerged from inside holes in its hollow body. These insects gathered around Benedict’s head and started eating away at the dead skin. After the skin, it was the flesh’s turn. And in a matter of only a few minutes, the last morsel of meat had been chewed, and the last drop of blood had been licked off.

Vance picked up the clean skull, went to his underground living space, and placed it on the wooden shelf, next to the rest of his collection. Fits perfectly. He used a piece of cloth to wipe it one last time, although he was sure that the moths did a wonderful job. Then he sat on the ground to rest for a bit. He would have preferred to nap in bed for an hour or two, but his clothes were about as clean as an ogre’s armpit, so the floor was his only option for now. He recharged his Stamina. Then he grabbed several pouches of coins and left for Cromsville.

It was exhausting to walk all the distance from the temple to the city, but he didn’t have any other option, since no wagons passed by the forest at this late hour. And so he walked begrudgingly, always thinking of his bed and the good night’s sleep that awaited him later. At the city gates, he showed the guards the Registration Certificate that he had obtained from the guild. Then he presented the paper detailing the job that he had accepted with his party. These two documents were sufficient proof that he was on the good side of the law.

“They sent me back for supplies,” he said. “The job proved more challenging than we had thought.”

And the guards nodded understandingly and let him through without any tedious formalities. Time was of the essence for dispatched adventurers, and Vance’s injured arm, combined with his tattered appearance, were enough to convince anyone that his party was struggling and in dire need of assistance.

Once he got inside the city, however, Vance followed a path curving away from any reputable market and entered one of the poorest districts. The squalid streets were almost empty, except for the occasional ruffian or prostitute. Regardless of who approached him, Vance made sure that the first thing they saw was his dagger’s glinting in the moonlight. It was more than enough deterrent until he encountered a rather persistent woman on a dark street corner. When she got too close to him, he drew the dagger and pointed it at her face, but she smiled and said coquettishly, “Why don’t you put that ugly thing away and show me your other dagger?”

“Not before you show me yours,” he said, walking past her.

“Huh?” She followed him with a hurt ego. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not interested, so fuck off.”

She grabbed his injured arm, pushed her breasts against it, and said, “What about now? You still think I have one?”

The way she held his arm caused him immense pain. He was about to stab her in the heat of the moment, but he calmed himself down at the last second. Killing her won’t do me good. He controlled his breathing and jolted her away. She tripped on the hem of her blue dress and fell backward. He was about to walk away, but she grabbed his foot with a nasty clutch. What is wrong with her? Does she have a death wish or something? He tried to shake her off with a few kicks, but her grip only got firmer and stronger.

“How much does a night cost?” Vance said, after he finally gave up.

“20 copper,” she said from the ground.

“I’ll give you 40 if you show me to a healer.”

“Before or after?”

“I won’t be spending the night with you,” Vance said. “The coins are just for introducing the healer.”

The woman stood up and said, “I know someone.”

“They better not be affiliated with Amirani.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not stupid enough to walk into a church.”

Without another word, Vance followed the woman through the streets. It had been his plan to find a healer on his own, but it was much faster to hire a local guide. There was a slight chance that the woman might be leading him to a trap, where several ruffians would gang up against him, but he knew that he could handle such a situation with ease, so he was neither tense nor afraid. After a few turns, the woman stopped at an old house and knocked on the door, disturbing the dust that had settled in the cracks near the knocker.

The door swung open slowly, and a whisper asked Vance and the woman to get inside. The woman entered without much wait or hesitation, but Vance remained outside until the faint light of several candles illuminated the room. When he confirmed that there was no real threat, he walked in, and the door closed behind him with a gentle click of its lock—a sound hardly noticeable to the human ear. Inside the one-room house, there was a bed with ragged sheets, a doorless wardrobe infested with spiders, and a three-legged desk with only a few papers and a pen on top of it.

“What brings you today, Lauressa? And who’s this?”

Vance turned toward the bass voice and saw the owner of the house. He was an old man with grizzled hair that covered only the back of his balding head. An oversized, pointy nose combined with thick lips to give him an unpleasant face. His clothes were worn-out and dotted with patches. In fact, his entire appearance was humble, if not outright demeaning. But he had an expression of sincere concern for the prostitute, Lauressa, and this expression seemed to imbue him with the dignity of a father.

“Chester, he’s looking for a healer,” Lauressa said.

The hoary man looked at Vance—at his face, then his arm, then his face again—before he grunted, “Go to the Church. The priests can heal you for free.”

“Or you can heal me now,” Vance said. “And I’ll pay you a good sum.”

Chester walked a step closer and said, “What did you do, son?”

“15 silver,” Vance said.

“Stole? Murdered? Abandoned post?”

“20. And I won’t pay one extra copper.”

“Wait outside, Lauressa,” Chester finally said.

Lauressa looked at Vance with suspicion, as if she was afraid he would escape the moment she lost sight of him. And in this interval of intense glaring, Vance saw her for the first time in the candlelight. Her long black hair had a faint shine, although it was dusty and dirty. She had an oval face with a forehead that was slightly larger than normal. Two thin eyebrows crowned her black eyes. Her turned-up nose was red, but her lips were as pale as ash, and her cheeks were covered with dirt. If she showered well, she could be called agreeable or even beautiful. But as she was now, there was nothing to lure a man to her except the cleavage that bulged out of her dress.

“I’ll be standing near the door,” she said, grabbing a candle. “Don’t let him leave without telling me first, Chester.”

After they were alone in the room, Chester asked Vance to sit down on the bed. Then he went to his wardrobe and fetched a pair of scissors. They were rusty and blunt, but they were all he needed for now. He sat next to Vance and began to cut the bandages that were wrapped around the bite wound.

“Your girl’s crazy,” Vance said. “She didn’t flinch in the face of my dagger.”

“Desperate would be a better word,” Chester said grimly.

“She’ll only hurt your business with this attitude.”

“Business?” Chester stopped the scissors and looked up in confusion. “Oh, no, she doesn’t work for me. I’m no pimp, son. Never was. Never will be.” He threw the bandages on the ground and examined the wound in the candlelight. “From the looks of it, a salamander bit you. It’s quite deep, and the bone’s been damaged. Typical of salamander bites.” He went to the wardrobe again and seemed to be searching for another tool. “I can heal this kind of injury, but I can’t do much about the obnoxious scar it’ll leave.”

“I’m no pimp, son”? Vance stopped at these words, which reeked of clerical prudishness. With slight discomfort, he said, “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m not sure you want to know,” Chester coughed. “You’ll be much more comfortable if you let me heal you in silence.”

“You’re not a priest, are you?”

“Just let me heal you in silence.”

Vance stood up and said, “Answer me. Are you a priest?”

“I’m not. Sit down. Oh, just sit down,” Chester said, returning from the wardrobe with a jar of black paste. “Show me your arm.”

“What do you do for a living? The deal’s off if you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t know why you’re so paranoid, son, but I have nothing to do with the Church. My job is to heal those who aren’t welcome in churches. Nobles pick up girls from these streets and dump them back with injuries, rashes, and diseases. I’m the one who takes care of them after that. You can ask Lauressa. You can ask any girl in the street. They’ll all tell you the same thing. Now, sit down and let me do my job.”

Vance exhaled audibly, sat down heavily, and extended his injured arm out. Chester covered it with a thick layer of the black paste. Then he put his hands above the location of the wound. They started to glow with a green light, and it wasn’t long before the wound began to absorb the black paste.

“Open and close your hand slowly,” Chester said.

Vance tried to move his fingers. In the beginning, he felt some pain and struggled against a resistant force, whose source he couldn’t even pinpoint or describe, but then the task grew increasingly easier. When the last bit of black paste was absorbed into his body, he could finally control his hand with all the normalcy and ease that the simple task had always entailed. The deep wound disappeared, and instead of it appeared an ugly scar shaped like an arch along the length of his forearm. This was the only defect that Chester’s healing magic couldn’t erase, but it didn’t bother Vance, because he didn’t care about beauty as much as he valued functionality.

“Try not to carry anything heavy in the coming few days,” Chester said, as he put the jar of black paste away. “And protect it in your next few fights—the way you protect your chest or head. If it gets injured this bad again, you might need to visit me a second time.”

“Thank you,” Vance said, counting 25 silver coins from his pouch. “Here’s the promised sum. And I added 5 coins to keep this whole thing between us.”

But Chester closed Vance’s hand on the coins and said, “I promised my late wife two things: that I’ll never turn anyone away, and that I’ll take no more than 10 copper for my services.” Vance wanted to put the silver away and search for copper, but Chester continued to hold his hand and said, “You can pay me 10 copper and leave … But if you give these silver coins to Lauressa, you’ll have my eternal gratitude.”

“That’s too much to give a prostitute,” Vance said.

“You don’t understand, son. Her sister was kidnapped.”

Vance laughed at what seemed like a blatant lie.

“This isn’t a joke, son. A nobleman took her away one day, and she hasn’t returned since,” Chester continued. “Poverty is worse on women that it is on men. Lauressa is now struggling to earn double her normal pay. She needs the money to feed her family.”

“It’s none of my business, old man. Do you want your copper or not?”

“25 silver can keep her afloat for months. 50 can help her for years.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“We helped you in your time of need. Help us in ours. What is 50 silver when you can help a human—flesh and blood ? He who plants kindness gathers love.”

Vance pushed Chester aside, left through the front door, and slammed it behind him. So he was her pimp, after all. He walked away in the dark. It’s all prostitution … This time it just happened to be the emotional kind. As he headed for the street corner, someone grabbed his arm from behind. The grip was more than familiar. He turned around and saw Lauressa standing with a candle in her hand. He was about to shout at her to leave him alone, but in the faint light, he saw that she was crying. The tears welled up pure at her eyes and turned muddy by the time they reached her chin.

“You owe me 40 copper.”

“I owe you nothing.” Vance wrenched his arm free from her.

“Fuck you!” she shouted.

He ignored her and started walking away.

“Fuck you!” she repeated, chasing after him with accelerating steps. “Fuck the priests! Fuck the nobles! Fuck everyone who doesn’t want us to live!”

Vance stopped, turned around, and put his steel dagger at her throat. A red line formed below her chin. The blood oozed out, but she remained bold and defiant—the exact opposite of Robinia.

“You heard me right,” she shouted. “Fuck you all! You use us and treat us like trash, but you write the rules, so we can never get you. You force us into sin, then punish us for it. Hypocrites! Bastards! Vampires! Give me back my sister! You’re fiends! You’re demons! You’re worse than elves!”

At these moments, as the stream of invective continued indefinitely, Vance could feel something much more sincere than old Chester’s mawkish begging. It was there in her indignation—a pint of honesty in an ocean of pretense. If she had a weapon and could use it, Vance thought, she would attack him with a blind disregard for the consequences. She would rip him apart and proceed to terrorize every priest and nobleman in the city, like a frenzied valkyrie from the goriest myth of yore. And this indomitable spirit was something that Vance could understand and even appreciate.

“Your pimp asked me for 50 silver,” he said. “How much was your cut?”

“Why are you asking? Feeling guilty, elf?”

“I don’t mind giving you your share, but it depends on how honest you are.”

“Five,” Lauressa said. “That’s my share. Five silver.”

Vance smiled and asked, “Was your sister really kidnapped?”

“I … I don’t know.” Lauressa hesitated before she continued, “My six-year-old son said she was taken away by a lion, but I don’t know where she went or what happened to her. Chester just goes with kidnapping because it makes people more sympathetic.”

Vance laughed, lowered his dagger, and handed her a pouch with 45 silver coins—the amount that he had originally set aside for healing his arm. “Your pimp knows nothing about this,” he said. “If he asks, I pinned you down and did whatever unspeakable thing you wanna invent. The blood on your neck will be enough to convince him.” Then he turned and walked away.

Lauressa couldn’t help but smile as she checked the coins. When she realized the full meaning of Vance’s words, however, she said, “Wait! If I don’t give him his share, he’ll send his men after you.”

“Let him send them,” Vance said, without looking back. “I’ll be happy to come back and slit his throat. Nothing irritates me more than his kind—the benevolent saints of Cromsville.”