Book 7: Chapter 14 - A Creature of the Night (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 14 - A Creature of the Night

Rumors concerning House de Savant have long persisted among the common folk: howls from sealed chambers, strange happenings beneath the full moon, and daughters too strong, too hale, and too fond of red meat. I would remind the faithful not to place undue stock in such common tavern gossip. 

- Brother Matthieu de Saville of Gallois Monastery.

That little chore of securing a decent main weapon out of the way, I next visited a stuttering tailor not too far from the Craft District, selecting dark, plain-looking clothes that were nonetheless of excellent quality and having him resize them for me immediately. After that, I returned to the Bowl of Plenty.

Until my new weapon was made and Larynda was safely ensconced in the Academy, I decided to learn more of this world in greater detail. Publicly available libraries would not hold the deepest secrets, of course, but they would contain the shape of things. History. Geography. Politics. The lies people told about themselves and the truths they failed to hide. Bits of lore that might prove useful in the days to come. More importantly, it would give me time to read at my leisure.

Lehman’s Bank did not disappoint in the days that followed. They provided me with a wooden pass inscribed with the seal of the city, granting access to the public libraries of Meridian. It seemed that although the city prided itself on the spread of knowledge, it did not wish every piece of riffraff wandering freely through its halls of learning. Civilization, as always, wished to appear generous while keeping a hand firmly upon the gate.

Through their intermediaries, Larynda was accepted into the current crop of first-year students. We were warned that she would be somewhat behind the present intake and that I should acquire the necessary books and reading materials. This, of course, I did. I was mildly surprised to find the delivered texts were mass-printed, though I soon realized I should not have been. Meridian had a weekly newspaper in circulation, after all. Printing, it seemed, had already crawled its way into the world. Larynda, it seemed, would be conflicted with the great curse of homework.

I made sure to exercise Theodore as well, letting the great monster run wild outside the city gates or romp through the sand and surf near the docks, much to the wonder and delight of the local children. Unfortunately, he ate a curious street urchin whose courage had overcome his sense and who had tried to touch his nose. I reported the matter to the guard and slipped them a few silver coins. They told me not to worry about it and that I had done the public a service.

Truly, having money had its perks.

The elven girls told me they wished to keep up their skills and made contact with the local Adventurers’ Guild to go about doing their own thing. Disinterested, I nonetheless asked whether they needed anything from me, to which they merely thanked me for my tutelage and said they needed to test themselves by taking contracts in and around the city. I told them to inquire at Lehman’s Bank if they required me, as we might be moving soon to a new domicile.

So, for a time, I whiled away my days in the public library, dressed in the local cut. No one glanced at me sideways. No one whispered. I was simply another face lost in a sea of them. A nobody. The sensation was strange enough to be almost pleasant, and it gave me an idea I would later implement to pass the time, if nothing else.

The books yielded information about this world’s histories, or at least the Aranthian perception of them. The Aranthians had come south thousands of years ago after the last Cataclysm, fleeing the ice wastes of the north in search of warmer lands. They settled, conquered, and pushed aside the local tribes they found there, just as those tribes had no doubt done to whoever had lived there before them. Blood mixed with blood, names changed, borders hardened, and in time theft became ancestry.

The Empire had grown in the east, eventually pressing against the Aranthian kingdom, and the wars between them were frequent and bloody affairs. The Empire possessed numbers and discipline. The Aranthians possessed raw brutality and a love of war far beyond the healthy or reasonable. That, at least, was what I gleaned from reading both Aranthian and Imperial sources. Each side called itself civilized. Each side called the other savage. Both, naturally, were correct.

The Empire was also regularly assaulted by Enkidu’s people from the north, each incursion chipping away at its vast war machine. War would spark, burn hot, consume men and treasure, then gutter down into periods of peace and trade. The old dance of murder and commerce. Men killing each other over lines on a map one season, then selling grain and steel across those same lines the next.

Large-scale warfare between major powers seemed to be resolved mainly through raw force of arms, whether by disciplined units or particularly strong individuals. Magic was present, of course, but on the macro scale of war, the magic users so employed spent most of their efforts countering one another. Those who attempted grand spells capable of turning the tide of battle often went insane for their trouble.

Weak fools, one and all, I thought.

The Children of the Tides to the south had also regularly attacked both sides, raiding where they pleased before fading back into the Grass Sea. But now that the Tears of the Goddess had become nearly endless, their lands had flooded, drowning a great portion of them and turning the Grass Sea into a true sea. Yet, according to older newspaper accounts stored in the library, they had taken to this new life with gusto. They had once been children of the sea, and now they viewed life upon true waves as a sign of divine guidance.

I had not forgotten my hatred for them.

Perhaps, after my private quest was complete, I could spend some time finishing what the rains had started. But more important than that was the memory of mist-wreathed mountains. I could feel them even now, pulling at me. Insistent. Distant. A thread tied somewhere deep in the world. I could ignore it, of course, but it felt important. Another piece of the puzzle that would need to be solved. I searched through the books about and scrolls in the libraries, finding scant information about a region to the east that matched the description in my mind. 

It was a land where men could achieve something akin to apotheosis, or enlightenment, through meditation, the tempering of body, soul, and mind, or the esoteric use of treasures. There were also, it seemed, fair mention of elixirs and pills. The texts spoke of breakthroughs, tribulations, and different realms of enlightenment, all of which sounded like gobbledygook to me. Still, the mention of elixirs and pills as a means of reaching greater power resonated with Larynda’s own research. 

For now, I put it aside. There were things that needed to be done here first.

At night, feeling bored, I remembered what it was like to be lost in a sea of faces. While Larynda slept at her desk exhausted from her studies, I surrendered to the call of the city after dark. My Advanced Rest skill meant I required little sleep, another quiet sign that I was slowly and inexorably growing farther from my mortal roots.

Wearing only the futuristic underarmor from the world of the Trial of the Goddess beneath dark clothing, I began my nightly escapes, climbing up to the roofs of Meridian and slinking through its alleys and dark depths. Without the heavy shell of my armor, my speed and agility was vastly improved and I practiced a form of parkour, climbing up and leaping from building to building.

At first, it was difficult. However, my reflexes and high Dexterity attribute more than compensated for my lack of experience, but there was a difference between surviving a fall and moving well. I focused first on speed, then on stealth. The latter was harder. Roof tiles slipped and crashed into the streets below. Occasionally, I slipped with them, loose tiles betraying me and sending me tumbling down into alleys or courtyards when I was especially careless, but my Regeneration and magic soon healed the damage. The city, however, was less forgiving in its appraisal of my ventures. More than once I woke sleeping citizens with my passage, their startled voices rising behind shuttered windows.

Failure did not sit well with me. Failing this mini-game was annoying. I did not like the taste of losing, especially not to the unfair systems of this world.

Eventually, I remembered that I did not need to rely on physical skill alone. Using my magic, I cast Sage’s Sight and let it guide my steps. It drew optimal paths through the night, subtle lines of movement across roof ridges, chimneys, balconies, and shadowed ledges. Even then it was not easy, but it became easier.

I was not yet a shadow in the night, but with magic guiding my path, stealth came more naturally. After a few hours of practice, I started to gain in Stealth and Dexterity, leveling my Stealth to level five by the third night and my Dexterity increasing by two points.

But, it seemed I was not alone upon these nightly highways.

I noticed the first one because the Mimic noticed him before I did. It stirred in my arm beneath cloth and underarmor, a quiet ripple of alien instinct pressing against my skin. Then a single eye formed over my sleeve, black and wet and glossy. The little horror fixed its gaze on a patch of darkness beneath a chimney across the street, pulling at my attention like a hooked finger.

At first, I saw nothing. But as I looked closer, there was a fraction of movement. A fold of night separating itself from the rest. A man crouched there, wrapped in dark cloth, one hand braced against the tiles, the other holding a narrow blade with a dull, thirsty sheen. He had the stillness of a creature accustomed to the games of Stealth.

Identify named his Calling a Rogue.

Kashern Peaks - Rogue (Human lvl. 17)

Health: 224/233

Stamina: 37/45

Mana: 10/10

He moved first, perhaps sensing that he had been seen. Perhaps sensing the touch of the spell. The man sprang from the roofline, silent as falling ash, crossing the gap between buildings with a grace that would have impressed me once upon a time. A blade flashed toward my throat, a thin thing that looked wicked enough to have opened many men before me.

I caught his wrist and mortal bones cracked inside my grip.

His eyes widened, even as he tried to twist away, another knife appearing in his left hand, but the Mimic surged beneath my sleeve creating a small buckler that I smashed against him. The blade fell from nerveless fingers and clattered down the roof tiles, spinning away into the alley below.

He opened his mouth to scream, but I headbutted him before he could.

His nose vanished beneath the impact. Blood sprayed hot across my face and the black cloth covering his own. Surprisingly still alive, he staggered, but I did not release him. Instead, I pulled him closer and drove my knee into his stomach hard enough to fold him around it. Air, blood, and spittle burst from his mouth and something inside him gave way with a wet, intimate sound.

“Who are you?” I asked, vaguely curious, but he was already dead. 

A small notice informed me of the trivial amount of experience I had gained as I let him fall, casting Decay on his remains.

After that, I began to look more carefully during the nights, which combined with Sage’s Sight, eventually raised my Tracking skill to level three. Synergy, it was a beautiful thing when applied to my benefit.

I began to notice that others used the routes across roofs and tiles. People who were, by any reasonable measure, unlawful; Thieves, Rogues, Assassins all. Men and women who wore darkness like a trade uniform and believed themselves unseen because ordinary eyes failed to follow.

They might have been good at hiding, but once my enhanced senses, my Mimic, and my magic tagged them, there could be no hiding from me. And, there could be no running from me with my Improved Dash and Improved Rush Strike skills.

Nor could there be any hiding or running from hungry Zariyah.

But first, there was the question of my Corruption spell and what it actually did. Through trial, error, and unwilling volunteers, I learned that it essentially combined the effects of Rust and Decay, releasing the forces of Entropy upon the target. Organic material was consumed, though living matter could resist, and inorganic materials such as metal were corroded and ruined until they became useless. It should be noted, however, that unlike Rust, Corruption did not release as a dramatic exothermic compared to Rust as it ate away at metal. On the other hand, unlike Rust, it affected every metal I had encountered so far, at least those capable of chemical reaction, such as bronze and copper.

Corruption crept up a level through sheer grinding, repetitive use.

And The Dancing Blade reaped a terrible toll upon the dark and criminal element of Meridian. At first, there were many. Then fewer. Then fewer still. I listened in the common room as word spread, as word always did, through whispers, and missing men that disappeared without even leaving their bodies behind. Something was hunting the creatures of the night indiscriminately. Something that did not respect territories or pacts. Something that was a human shape and was not.

I had become a thing of terrible power. And slowly but surely, the night began to belong to me. 

But now that I was winning, I was growing bored of it, taking more delight in the news of my escapades than in the acts themselves. It had been a suitable diversion, but the smith now had only until tomorrow to deliver what was mine.