Jack sat up and began wiping the black fluid away from his face.

“Yeah, it was rough,” he grinned up at her.

“You good, Jack?” Rory offered the nightbringer a hand up.

Erin grabbed Jack’s other hand and the two pulled him onto his feet.

“C’mere, you’ve got gunk all over your neck and your back,” Erin picked up a towel and began to wipe off the black blood.

“I’m sorry, but do you intend to just ignore that he said he was disintegrated and reconstructed?” Vysanna interjected.

“Yep. More or less,” Erin and Layla replied.

“It’s for the best, really,” Rory added.

He wiped away the ichor from his face, then blinked more of the stuff away.

“Heyyy, depth perception,” he grinned. “Thank you, Vysanna. I appreciate it. What do we owe you?”

“Nothing,” Rory interrupted.

“Something, bud. We’re gonna compensate her somehow,” Jack turned a stern expression on him.

“No, we’re not. This is her apology for treating you like a piece of the furniture,” his expression was hard.

“He’s right, Master Jack. Allow me to make this my apology. In truth, it is a light sentence, costing me nothing but mana,” she dipped her head.

“Well, thank you, I guess,” he replied.

“You are most welcome,” she smiled, clearly relieved.

Rory opened his storage and retrieved a vial of red liquid.

“I do have a quick question, if you don’t mind, Lady Blackwicke,” he held the potion in front of her, then continued when she nodded.

“I have several hundred of these, and I understand your father is interested in keeping the market price on the reasonable side,” he handed the vial to her.

“Second tier? I believe we produce these for roughly three gold stal each, and sell them for three and a half to recoup costs,” she replied.

“Unbelievable. I had to come to the bloody discount potion capital of the world,” Rory groaned.

“If it would mend fences between us, Master Rory, I would be willing to make a purchase order for your stock at our sell price,” she offered.

“What does the Hunters Guildhall pay for them from independent alchemists?” he sighed.

“Three and a half stal, each. They are our largest customer,” her mouth curved at the edges as she tried to hide her smile.

“Of course, they are. Why would you buy them from me at zero profit?” he narrowed his eyes.

“By way of apology, and because interesting folk do not pass through Moryven every day,” her gaze passed over Rory and fixed on Jack as she spoke. “How many of your potions would you care to part with?”

“Three hundred,” he sighed.

“One-thousand-fifty gold stal. Would it be alright if I paid you in ledger balance with the bank?” she took a few steps toward the library’s door as she asked.

“What does that entail? Is there a fee to redeem the balance?” Rory asked.

“Not at all. I simply write you a letter of demand to the bank, stamped with our seal, and they will pay you in whatever currency values you’d prefer,” she smiled.

“That would be fine,” he pinched the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes closed.

“You seem disgruntled for a man who about to be quite wealthy by Moryven’s standards,” she knocked her signet ring against a large cabinet, causing the door to spring open with a minuscule flare of mana, then retrieved a large, leather-bound ledger.

“I expected closer to five gold each,” he ran his hands through his hair.

“Understandable. You’d likely get such a price in the Empire or the Red Stone, but we’ve spent many years driving the price of healing down in Moryven. Even the temple of Heleyl has had to adjust their ‘suggested contributions’ downward due to our influence,” she explained.

Erin had finished helping Jack clean himself up and was holding his cuirasse while he redressed. Vysanna scribbled out a stream of characters on the ledger, then gingerly tore away a half sheet that resembled a particularly large check. She stamped it with a large seal, embossing the Blackwicke house symbol onto the paper, and another tiny spark of mana pulsed through the Library. She handed the letter of demand to Rory, who placed it into his storage.

“Well, I think it’s good of your family to provide for less able people. Not enough of the rich are so generous,” Erin’s tone was less approving than the words would indicate.

“My father has devoted his life to making the fruits of alchemy available to the common folk, not only hunters or the rich. The mortality rate for childbirth and disease in Moryven are startlingly low compared to more… civilized… areas, and our citizens can expect to see seventy to eighty summers,” Vysanna replied. “Now, if you would, Master Rory, you may deposit your wares in the grand hall and I’ll have someone stock them. It’s just this way.”

Layla set her teacup on its saucer, just roughly enough that the sound drew the attention of everyone in the room.

“Back to the Guildhall then? So the once again bi-optic workaholic can hunt for dailies on the job board?” she pushed herself up from the chair. “Thanks for the tea, doll. It was delicious.”

“You’re quite welcome,” the Lady Blackwicke responded.

“I was talking to Roshana,” Layla grimaced and walked out of the library.

Layla: Time to go. Something hinky is going on here.

Rory: Other than the suspicious generosity from the necromancer?

Jack: I feel like that’s discrimination.

Erin: She’s lucky I didn’t falcon punch her little ass through that skylight.

Layla: Enough. I got the heebie-jeebies. Let’s go.

As requested, Rory deposited three hundred second tier healing potions on the floor of the grand hall, though by the time he got ten sets of five out of his inventory, a worker had arrived with a cart to package the bottles away for shipping to the city.

“Did I hear correctly that you plan to seek an inquest from the Guildhall?” Vysanna made conversation as Rory unloaded his goods and the others milled about near the vestibule.

“Yeah, Jackson here can’t get enough blood and monster guts,” Layla snarked, but her face was creased into a serious expression.

“The estate has a standing inquest for a number of alchemical reagents found in the Hollow, including the ilvire grass, of course. Perhaps you’d be interested in taking on such a job?” she offered.

“We’ll check out the board,” Erin replied.

“No need. I took the liberty of having a copy of the inquest retrieved from our records,” Vysanna offered Rory the sheaf of parchment, which appeared to be a genuine posting.

As he looked over the sheet, his eyebrows rose progressively higher.

“As I understand it, these are very generous prices for most of these materials,” he quirked an eyebrow.

“We prefer to command the supply of resources through the most reliable means possible,” she replied with a smile.

“Greed,” Rory returned, a hint of a smile creeping onto his face. “We’ll keep an eye out.”

He pulled the last woven brace of potions from his storage and deposited them atop the stack.

“I believe that concludes our business, Lady Blackwicke,” he gave her a nod.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Master Rory. I do hope you and your companions return sometime, so we can put the unpleasant aspects of today’s business behind us,” she gave him a shallow curtsy and waved demurely.

As the Chosen walked down the laneway of the Blackwicke estate, flanked on either side by what was probably hundreds of thousands of gold worth of alchemical resources, each of them slowly became aware of a disturbing sense of being watched. Finally, Layla’s meager supply of patience ran dry, and she stole a glance behind her.

Rory: She watching us leave?

Layla: Yeah, her, the maid, the corpse tower, and half the damn staff.

Erin: So, heebie-jeebies?

Layla: Not yet. I wanna be off the property.

Jack: Does that seem a little paranoid, El?

Layla: No, it does not.

Erin: You really think Vysanna could hack our party chat?

Layla: Nope.

Rory: Then what is it?

Layla: Fine. The maid doesn’t have any abilities.

Rory: What do you mean, ‘any abilities’?

Layla: I got an ability called Mystic Sight a couple levels ago. Shows everyone’s MP, sort of like an aura. The bigger your pool is, the bigger the aura.

Erin: That’s pretty neat. Like a scouter. What’s it say about my power level?

Layla: Over 9000. Anyway, you can sorta see little bits and bobs in it. I’m shit at interpreting it so far, but I know eventually it’ll relay info about people’s powers.

Layla: Jackson’s is like, Christmas tree-sized, black as his morning coffee. Vysanna’s is Season 1 Dragonball Z big, mostly black, with some kinda string or strand connecting her to the death knight. Erin’s is a glow that’s not even outside her actual body, but it’s all blood red and spiky, like metal. Everyone I’ve seen so far has something in their aura that hints at their powers.

Layla: The maid? Zero. Nothing.

Rory: Maybe she’s just very low level?

Layla: No. Little kids and chumps in line at restaurants have something showing, Rory.

Erin: Heebie-jeebies.

Jack: Let’s get back to Moryven. It’s not like we have to come back here.

-----

Vysanna stood watching the Chosen walk away until they passed into the forest around the estate, wistfully wishing she had embarrassed herself less and been able to study the nightwraith more.

“Roshana, would you help Alryon set out the dinner service?” Vysanna called back to the maid as she walked into the grand hall.

“No. I don’t believe I will.”

The girl’s voice was right behind her.

She turned and watched as the pale, dark-haired girl’s clothing evaporated into wisps of something that was not mana. She stood, naked, in the grand hall, her white skin shimmering with lines of cerulean and gold, moving beneath the surface of her flesh like strands of colored light.

“What in the Depth-” the Lady Blackwicke found herself suddenly unable to speak.

The girl had seized her throat in a vice grip that shamed the titanic strength of the undead warrior only a few steps away. The dark armored behemoth charged at the slip of a girl, drawing the spiked hammer that hung at its waist and slamming it down onto the creature attacking its mistress, carefully avoiding any line of attack that might injure the Lady Blackwicke.

The girl caught the hammer.

Then squeezed.

The hardened thunder iron shattered like spun sugar.

Without moving from where her feet were planted, the girl swung her arm to the side at the lumbering death knight. Her elbow, forearm, wrist, and hand lost any semblance of cohesion, stretching out into a monstrous whip of flesh that struck the undead warrior with enough power to bisect its cuirasse and its supernaturally tough undead flesh from breastbone to spine, instantly, with all the resistance of a greatsword passing through a banana.

The field hand loading the rest of Rory’s potions into the cart ignored the thunderous slam of the death knight’s separated halves crashing through the walls of the grand hall, simply continuing with his work, perhaps fifty feet away from his employer as she took her last breaths.

“Father… hkkhh… knew… something,” Vysanna’s face had begun to turn purple as the girl’s grip tightened, inexorably.

“From even the greatest horrors, irony is seldom absent. If you were prone to listen to him more, you might have lived longer. For another few days, anyway.”

The girl twisted her hand, crushing the Lady Blackwicke’s throat and spine. A tide of white flesh poured across Vysanna’s form, consuming blood and bone to the last iota. Then the girl choked up a fist-sized sphere of ivory.

A few moments later, a perfect replica of the Lady Blackwicke rose from the ground, as naked as the day she was born.

“Go and get dressed, then have the other echoes help you dispose of the undead. Do nothing out of character for the Lady Blackwicke. Call to me when her sisters and her father return. I will add them to the fold.”

The simulacrum that wore Vysanna’s face nodded, and as it turned to walk back toward the library, an observer would have been horrified to watch the eerie process of the replica’s expressions, mannerisms, and movements slowly growing to perfectly mimic those of the late Lady Blackwicke.

The girl stared out across the fields of the Blackwicke estate, where a thread of fate connected her to the only living creature from Earth that had spoken her True Name in a century. How ironic that it was a demon, of all things.

She couldn’t eavesdrop on their messages, but she could sense they were speaking about her.

She whispered the name of a naive girl to herself. The name that came before all the others. Before The White Beast. The Mother of Horrors. The Lonely Nightmare. The Bane of Brothers. The End of Heroes. There was no end to the list of bullshit these animals called her by.

“Roshana Lia Rodriguez.”

Then she stepped sideways into the shallow not-waters of space and time that flowed outside that which was strictly real. Her body was annihilated instantly by the obliterating tides of the chaos beyond, but her soul had grown too powerful to be even scratched by those forces.

This was her ultimate ability, gained when she reached what she and her companions had believed was the level cap, centuries ago. Time had proven that too was a false god’s lie. Tessaract Hunter was an imitation of the false serpent’s power to move between worlds. For now, she couldn’t move beyond Ayrgard, and passing into the not-waters destroyed whatever flesh she was wearing at the time, but one day... One day she would use it to hunt the dark god in the dreaming space where the sun never rose and the twisted tree stretched across the sky. Then she would bring herself home, without staining herself by serving a false god.

Her soul slid through the crests and eddies of the nothing, until she finally found the thing she was searching for. She emerged from the place that was-not, sacrificing one of her echoes in Moryven to reclaim its flesh, rebuilding her unimaginably powerful body from the base material of her cast-off biomass and fueling the process by drawing the equivalent of tens of thousands of motes of mana from Ilani’s heartsblood. The transgression against causality was so brutally violent that the other humanoids inside the home where she emerged died instantly, blood pouring from their eyes and mouth as their internal organs were torn to ribbons by the unnatural forces concentrated in that tiny dwelling.

She looked around the hovel, taking in the carnage of her arrival, and she felt nothing.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”