Chapter Three

For the second time that day, I awoke face down in the dirt, and at that moment, I vowed not to make a habit of it.

There hadn't been much of an option at the time. The healing process was relatively painless, but time-consuming. After struggling so hard to get to, and create the ring, it had been a wonder I'd stayed awake long enough to feel my teeth beginning to reform.

Still, I'd slept far longer than I intended. In the distance, the last trickles of sunlight were filtered through angry looking clouds. It would rain, sooner rather than later I suspected. In my current state, illness was the last thing I needed, short of drowning in a puddle, so despite my continued exhaustion I began to take stock of myself.

The greater part of the injuries I’d sustained had healed. Thick mounds of scar tissue had grown in over the numerous stab wounds I’d received, and the horrific burns I’d been too afraid to look at on my hands and arms had scabbed over with ragged grey flesh.

I could breathe again, through a nose only slightly more crooked than before, and my jaw had solidified to the point that I knew I could talk once more. Even the fog of blood loss, and what I presumed was the crack in my skull, had healed.

The repairs were imperfect, I knew. Terynia could have returned me to my original state, perhaps even better than new, with little more than a flexing of her power. This had been my strongest available healing magic, and even that had left me scarred and wrong.

The biggest concern was that I couldn’t feel anything. The same numbness that had been present in my limbs still remained, though it was much more easily managed now that I had enough strength in my body to actually lift those limbs without wanting to pass out. I pinched myself, then punched myself to be sure. Blood loss, perhaps, though I was fairly certain that the older Assessors' ‘Holy Smite’ was to blame.

“Hopefully it’ll return in time.” I croaked, swallowing hard to try and combat the dry throat that made it difficult to speak.

My first order of business was food and water. The healing magic had regenerated the wounds I'd suffered, but to do so, it had drawn on my body's own reserves. I'd lost weight, and though there was strength in me once again, my arms still shook as I used them to push myself upright. Going the better part of a day without any sort of sustenance was a bad idea, to begin with, even before accounting for everything else my miserable form had endured.

As I stood, my eyes fell on the body of my daughter once more. So still, almost peaceful save for the soup of half dry, bloody mud beneath her, and the angry wound at her neck. I stooped to collect her, my eyes stinging at the weight of her body in my arms.

It would be some time before I could bury her, but I’d not leave my little girl out in the rain.

After I’d eaten, I took to the bath, peeling away the layers of my torn, burned and bloodstained clothing to look at myself in the tarnished mirror.

I’d looked better.

My hair was gone, singed away along with my scalp no doubt. The skin there was the same mottled wreck that ran in patches from tip to toe. The holy light had burned through clothing to attack me, and it had enveloped me entirely. I was recognizable as human, I had my nose, my ears, but I had never seen a dead body so heavily damaged, let alone a live one.

Only my Devil mark and a faint patch around it remained untouched, undamaged. I wasn’t even surprised.

It explained the lack of pain. My skin was no longer my own. In my childhood I'd burned one hand, and I'd never regained full sensation in a small part of the skin along my ring finger. The effect was the same, but writ large.

Perhaps the only plus was that I could be sure no one would ever recognize me. I didn’t recognize me. Vincent of Greenhill was as dead as his daughter.

The damage wasn't irreparable, I knew. With sufficient power, I could create a magical item that would reshape the damaged areas to their former, middling glory, an item that would bring me back to who I was.

In time, perhaps. For the moment, my not-so-good looks were the least of my concerns.

I dressed in a thick, hooded robe and cloak, and was bemused to see that I now resembled every child’s worse nightmare of a Marked One. Pale white and grey skin that glistened beneath a shadowed hood, hands worn down to bony fingertips and a hairless, almost skeletal face crowned with a Devil-Mark.

“I think I’ll keep this face.” I decided with a snarl that showed teeth whiter than I remembered. “I’m sure Gerard will adore it.”

***

Some hours later I stood in the remains of my kitchen, staring down at the oversized pack that contained what remained of my life.

I'd endeavored to pack light, leaving behind most sentimental or personal items, but even with that stipulation, I'd ended the task with more than I expected.

There was the usual, supplies for camp, the general pots and utensils I would need away from society. Food and water as well, everything non-perishable that I could pull from the remainder of last year's winter stores. Torches, flint, rope, the list had ballooned to the point that the pack became unwieldy and I'd had to start over, removing what I didn't need in favor of what I must have.

My weapons sat next to the pack, a thin, razor-sharp dirk, a short sword I barely knew how to use, and a hunting bow with which I was considerably more proficient. They were simple tools, all, but they would serve for the interim until I could afford or find something with more lethality.

The collection of rings, necklaces and other bits of my jewelry I had scraped together were arguably more useful in any case. A half dozen vessels for me to work my magic.

A small pile of books sat atop the pack, relics from the library of the Vidar, the only other Devil-Marked individual I’d ever known. It’d given them to me half a lifetime ago, when I’d been searching for myself, and I’d planned to give them to Terynia, once she'd finished learning how to read. I'd leave a pound of food behind before I forgot the books since they were arguably the most valuable things in the whole of my home.

Perhaps the second most valuable, depending on how one quantifies value. I thought with a bemused smile as my eyes turned to the pair of ornate, antique spectacles that lay next to the books. Ostensibly they were my reading glasses, but in truth, they were so much more.

As a young man, I had made engaged in considerable experimentation of my Devil-Mark. I'd killed local birds by the hundred, using them to fuel my abilities and to test the limits and capabilities of a Devil-Mark so rare that I'd never even heard it's existence whispered of in song.

The glasses had been part of that phase of my life. They’d begun after a few failed attempts at enchanting, when I'd been pondering graduating from killing birds to something a little... larger. When worn, they told me at a glance precisely how much energy a creature's soul would add to my reserve. Provided that creature had a combined Job level lower than twenty-five.

In addition, they could tell me the physical status of any person I looked at. If I could see a visible Devil-Mark, they would also translate its title, usually along with a small blurb of whatever information I had imparted into the glasses at the time of their creation.

Of all the magical trinkets I created during my youth, the glasses were the only ones that I had kept. Practical, as well as sentimental, they did not display any magical properties if worn by anyone other than myself, which had also made them safe to keep around the house during Tery's early years.

I slipped them on and glanced in a nearby mirror. Despite an intervening decade, the glasses sprung to life as readily as if I had only set them aside the previous night. As usual, however, the number they gave me when I looked at myself was a jumbled mess. They'd never been able to properly estimate the full value of my own soul. Only pieces.

They also had one final perk.

"Show Status." As I said the words, the information normally poured into my mind by the Will of the World instead flashed into a semi-transparent reality in front of my eyes. I hadn't even intended to have them do this when I'd designed them, but as a visual learner, I'd always found it helpful when trying to keep the myriad information straight.

General Ability Scores Class Levels Name Vincent of Greenhills Ability Value Class Name Class Level Progress to level Type Human STR 16 (-4 Malus) Hunter 5 66 Gender Male DEX 21 Aristocrat 1 84 Age Thirty-Five Years VIT 17 (-4 Malus) HP 142/142 (+0.1/sec) INT 20 MP 0/0 (+0.0/sec) WIS 26 TP 128/128 (1.1/sec) CHA 19 (-10 Malus) Soul Reserve 52/229 (-0.0/sec) LCK 1 Skills Known Skill Name Skill Level Progress to level Stealth 3 82% Detection 4 23% Dagger Mastery 2 18% Bow Mastery 6 88% Trueflight 4 7% Trap-Setting 3 72% Smalltalk 3 19%

A small pang of nostalgia struck me as my eyes scrolled over the displayed information. It had been a long time since I'd looked at my Status this way. Or at all, for that matter.

In truth, I'd had essentially no use for such information over the course of thirteen peaceful years. The knowledge provided by the Will of the World was information for the desperate, or for those with ambition, and I'd been neither.

No one was entirely certain why the intelligent races of Leandre were able to call upon their status this way, only that it was not always so. That one day, millennia ago, the world beneath our feet had awoken and imparted knowledge and abilities; even as it broke open to reveal fiendholms, spilling all manner of terrors into the mortal realm.

The entity, whatever it was that had granted its power, spoke to us through our Status. Some individuals would receive tasks, or quests, while nearly anyone could progress through Jobs or Feats of Strength. In time, we'd taken to calling that voice, the Will of the World, for it seemed to have a mind and motive all its own. It was inscrutable, but like the many workings of the goddess above, one would have to be willfully ignorant to not acknowledge its existence.

For most people, however, including myself, the details contained within our status were largely irrelevant. There were non-combat Jobs, to be sure, but the vast majority of Jobs had some sort of advancement as their focus. Climb the social ladder, fight stronger fiends, develop the newest magic. For someone like me, content to toil my days away in the wilds, the information was extraneous.

I didn't need the Will informing me every time I nicked myself chopping wood. Going forward, on the other hand, it would prove to be indispensable.

Again my eyes raked over the information presented.

Most of it was familiar, largely unchanged from the last time I'd looked at the information a little over a year prior. My wisdom attribute was two points higher than I remembered, and the listed penalties were certainly new as well. The Strength and Vitality malus' should vanish once I had fully recovered, but I had a firm suspicion that the negative to my charisma wasn't going anywhere.

A bit difficult to be charismatic when small children ran at the sight of you.

I focused on the Charisma malus until a new window emerged to confirm my suspicion.

Condition: Charisma Malus (Fugly) -10 Charisma.

Description: You no longer have a face that even a mother could love.

End Condition: When healed or otherwise repaired.

Special: This penalty does not apply to creatures that cannot see or otherwise sense your deformity. This penalty is treated as a bonus for the purposes of intimidation.

I grimaced a bit as I read the description. The Will of the World was known for its rather biting sense of humor, but this one seemed like a bit of a low blow, even for it. Still, it was useful to confirm what I already suspected, and to learn that little tidbit about intimidation.

Continuing on I looked over my Jobs. Nothing new there, apart from a slight boost in my progress to the next level. My xxxxxx

And then, towards the very bottom, lay both my biggest strength, and my most glaring vulnerability.

“Back to square one, is it?” I asked my reflection with a surprisingly gravelly voice.

Devil-Marks grew in two ways. The first, and simplest was through use. The more a mark was used, the more its power grew. When I’d been a young man, using the mark as often as my secret would safely allow, my Soul Reserve had been over six hundred. That it had atrophied back nearly to its starting point was a disappointment, but not a surprising one.

The second way a Devil-Mark could grow in power was to crest the six milestones that separated a Class I, or Least mark, from a Class VII, Final mark.

Each milestone was a unique challenge related to the mark itself, similar to the feats of strength granted by the Will, but all were bloody in their own way, encouraging their users to commit sinful, violent or cruel acts in exchange for more power. As far as I was concerned, the milestones were part of the Pull, encouraging deviant, evil behavior by rewarding it with the power to commit even greater crimes.

Most Devil-Marked kept their milestone goals to themselves, and my mark was so rare that I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to the second or third milestone, let alone the others. The first had always seemed terrible enough, ever since I’d been old enough to truly understand the import of what the mark wanted from me.

Devil-Marked: Soul Mark (Class I)

Description: Embrace what you are, and the power will come.

Requirements: Consume the souls of one hundred sentient beings.

Reward: Soul Mark will mature to Class II.

Progress: 1/100

It had seemed almost like a joke when the mark had whispered the thought into my young mind. As I grew it scared me, not enough to prevent me from toying with the mark, but enough that I went in search of an alternative, a way to hit my milestone without such a hideous act. That was how I met Vidar, how I came to learn as much as I did about the mark, and how I learned that there was no shortcut.

As a youth I couldn’t have imagined taking a human soul, and even as a grown man it had almost killed me inside when fate had forced my hand.

That was then.

Now I had quite a number of candidates in mind.