Eight 5.8: A Reason to Kill

The building stood in the middle of the street, surrounded on both sides such that it looked like a line of gnomes. The apartment itself on the third floor, and Mumu had left the door unlocked for us, the key in the lock. We’d hand it over to her when we met later.

There were two rooms inside, neither with windows, nor was there a hearth or any other amenities. By necessity, whoever lived here would have to depend on the city’s public ovens and street vendors for food.

As for the nearest latrine, it was down the hall.

The team had apparently spent some time cleaning up, because the space wasn’t as dusty as I’d expected. I just needed a couple of minutes to exorcise a tomcat’s ghost before getting to work.

The old fellow was grateful to go. He’d been well loved by the former occupant, but the apartment didn’t hold anything for him anymore. I did note, however, that he took a rag doll in the shape of a mouse with him.

Once the apartment was truly empty, Fala and I unloaded the Hoarder’s Pocket of the furnishings we’d looted from Old Baxteiyel: the beds, chairs, benches, masks, kitchenware, and almost everything else.

The pieces were at a minimum Level 5 and exquisitely crafted. They made even the plain, unassuming apartment feel luxurious. I could almost imagine living here with Fala, the two of us a young couple trying to make it in the big city.

I chuckled at the idea. The two of us would likely feel claustrophobic within a day.

“Enough with the fantasies,” Fala said as she pulled me over to sit beside her on a bench. She handed over the spell guides, while she in turn examined the silver spheres. A moment later, she added, “The Thousand Arrows and Thousand Spheres are the same as the ones used by the hunters in Voorhei.”

Yuki confirmed it. Using my eyes to read through the booklets, the qi patterns that went with the mana runes were also identical to the lodge’s spells. ‘We’ll get you started on memorizing the spells this evening. Expect a busy night of dreaming.’

The excitement was already starting to build inside me. Any magic was incredible, yet there was something special about area-affect spells—they made me feel like a proper magician.

About then, I noted Fala’s frown. She’d taken hold of the sphere containing the Silent Kill runes. “This one will be difficult to learn. The design is… inharmonious.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“Like an ugly dog born of three ugly parents,” Fala said.

I sputtered in laughter. “W—what?”

“Do people not say that anymore?” Fala asked, looking up from the sphere.

“Not that I’ve heard,” I replied. Then I couldn’t help asking, “If three is the direction of five, what does that mean for the poor, ugly dog?”

“Yes, you understand!” Fala exclaimed. “This describes a pure and true ugliness.”

We shared a laugh then and touched hands, but were soon back at work, with Fala examining the spell and me opening the guide associated with it.

The first thing I saw was a stern warning: “DO NOT TEST.”

Underneath, the guide clarified that the spell only worked on humans, so unless the honored reader was willing to cast it for the first time under field conditions, then they would need to practice on people slated for execution. Right there, in print, was the instruction to ask the grandmaster about making the arrangements.

“What does the spell even do?” I muttered and flipped ahead. Ah, there’s a diagram.

Not just a diagram—an anatomical study of the human body, along with representations of a multi-pronged disruption of the kidneys, heart, brain, and spine. These were attempts to shut down the organs in question, aimed at making sure there would be no external evidence for why the target collapsed.

During the assault and for about five beats afterward, sound would be suppressed in the area, and the spell would also wipe the signs of magic having been used. There was even a blurring of the assailant’s identity in case divination magic was used afterward, though the effectiveness of that last part was dependent on the skills, talents, and soulmarks of the diviner. The guide advised the honored reader to be cautious and take additional measures to mask their identity.

“This is a spell for assassins,” I said.

‘Is it a good idea to learn it?’ Yuki asked.

“We already know how to kill,” Fala said. “How is this different?”

‘To kill and to kill secretly are two different things,’ they answered. ‘With the latter, we can escape the consequences of our actions and thereby come to kill more easily.’

“I don’t see the difference,” Fala said. “The same is true when acting within one’s authority.”

‘And this spell will let you kill without consequences even when outside your authority,’ Yuki said.

“No wonder it’s not included in the lodge’s library,” I said. “I don’t know we can get around learning the spell, though. The mission is likely going to need it. The more tools in our toolbox, the safer we’ll be.”

‘A truth,’ Yuki said, their qi easing as if they’d sighed. ‘We just want us to be careful. Becoming silvered has already affected the degree to which we can affect other people’s lives.’

“And you’re worried about the power corrupting us,” I said.

‘Yes.’

Fala quirked her head, trying to remember… “What was that expression?” she asked. “The one Eight used in the movie about the man-spider? With great power…”

‘Comes great responsibility,’ Yuki said, finishing the line.

“Just so,” Fala said. “We will make this principle a necessary part of our Path to Perfection.”

I took the silver sphere to examine the runes for myself. She’d been right to call them ugly. They appeared to be a kluge of five different spells, the lines overlapping between them. Somebody had assembled this monster of a spell, and they’d done it without finesse.

The thing would normally take ages to be able to cast effectively, even with a 15 Intelligence. I could tell, however, that despite their earlier concerns, Yuki already had it memorized.

Are you going to be able to help Fala with the spell? I asked them.

‘Somewhat,’ they answered. ‘We can test her memory; that’s easy. It’s the practice that will be challenging, at least until we can connect to her with our Dream Worker talent.’

Fala narrowed her eyes. ‘What was that? I missed what you said. You’re talking about me?’

I waggled my hand in a so-so gesture. Just checking on Yuki’s progress on including you in our dream training sessions.

‘We’re certain we can eventually bridge the gap with our influence,’ they said.

‘Ah, I don’t doubt you,’ Fala replied. ‘Yet I wonder if your time and authority would be better spent elsewhere.’

I sat back in surprise. In no way was my beloved giving up on joining our nightly trainings. No, the implication was that she wouldn’t mind shortcutting the process… by letting Yuki fuse with her nervous system, much in the same way they’d done with mine.

‘Not to the same degree,’ Yuki clarified. ‘We know how to do it better now.’

But it’d still be permanent, I thought.

Yuki’s qi circled. ‘Not necessarily. We should be able to arrange a severable connection. It’d limit what we could do, but it ought to be enough for Dream Worker to function. The idea came up in conversation a couple of times; we just didn’t realize she’d been seriously considering it.’

‘I would also be able to experience Eight’s and the others’ senses too, right?’ Fala asked.

‘We believe so,’ Yuki replied. ‘Connecting to the senses will be critical to creating the gateway to a shared dream state.’

What about a Blink emulator or fusing consciousnesses? I asked.

Yuki’s qi stilled, but I could tell that they’d already thought this part through. ‘That would require a more invasive approach.’

Oh, yeah. I can see how that would be.

‘Does that disappoint you?’ Fala sent.

Does it? I asked myself, and the answer came back “not really.”

Just as how Yuki and I had learned to appreciate our differences, I’d do the same with Fala. Those differences made us stronger, letting us come at problems from multiple perspectives and approaches. Just as importantly, they let us have more fun, with us sparking off of each other.

I’m not disappointed, I eventually answered, but it would’ve been cool to see you teleporting around the battlefield.

Fala laughed. ‘My becoming one with water and stone isn’t enough for you?’

It is… I protested.

‘But cool is cool,’ Yuki said, finishing the thought for me.

‘You, the both of you are simply incorrigible,’ Fala sent. Then, she grabbed me and pulled me into a kiss.

It was very distracting, but I managed to think, I don’t know that last word.

‘I’ll explain it after,’ was her answer.

###

An hour later, I locked up the apartment and headed for the west gate, Fala once more in her figurine. The plan was to rendezvous with Mumu and the other hunters outside the city where the road met the forest.

I got some looks leaving Albei apparently on my own, but no one stopped me or got in my way. And the rest of the trip was just as straightforward. The weather continued to be good, and the militia crews had been working hard to clear the roads near Albei.

The team waited for me at the forest’s edge, and we exchanged hugs all around. It’d only been a few days since we last saw each other, but the time felt so much longer. Everyone looked weary; it didn’t seem like they’d gotten much rest while staying in Albei.

Well, everyone except for Snow. The blynx was as lively as ever—teleporting onto my shoulders to lick my face. Teila tried to help get her off, but Snow simply blinked out of her hands again and into mine.

Tegen clapped on the back. “It seems she missed you.”

That, and she knows we’re not staying after we get to Voorhei, I thought.

‘Do Ali and Bee?’ Teila asked.

Not yet, but they will, I replied.

“You can’t tell where or why?” Haol asked, frowning and worried.

I looked him in the eyes. The man had grown so much; fatherhood had changed him. It’s best if you don’t, I thought.

Mumu had her lips narrowed. “That may be true for now,” she said, “but if the situation changes, you must come to us. Who else will answer our Little Pot’s questions if not his team.”

From the nods all around, the sentiment was shared by everyone. I smiled to show I understood that I was well loved.

Afterward, we traveled together toward Voorhei, then split up once we reached the lands through which our lodge’s hunters patrolled. We’d be keeping my presence in the village from them, as well as anyone else not in my immediate family.

We arrived after dark, and the militia was on the walls.

I seeped into the land and cast a Camouflage spell. Then Yuki teleported us to the wall walk and back down to the ground on the other side. From there, I simply ghosted passed the people rushing to welcome Mumu and the others home.

The villagers had already known that the team was safe, but the feeling was different holding them in your arms, laughing with them, and offering them delicious food. Of course, there were demands for stories and questions about Ikfael and me—everyone had heard the rumors—but my team deflected those.

###

No lights were on in my family’s longhouse, and my first thought was that they’d left to join the welcoming committee at the gate. I hadn’t seen them among the throng, though, so that couldn’t be it.

I started to go deeper into the land to feel what might be happening inside the longhouse, but then stopped myself. Someone had poured a cup of water into pot and stirred it until the sense of it being water disappeared. Soup? Or a stew?

‘Just go inside,’ Yuki admonished.

So I did, and my family cried out, “Surprise!”

Aluk lit the candle stones, while the Billisha and Aluali threw streamers of colored cloth, and Bihei uncovered pots of my favorite foods, including a smoked turkey, a bean and pepper stew, and a grilled venison tenderloin piled high with tomato relish. The smell inside the longhouse was absolutely amazing. So were the smiles greeting me.

As I went around to hug everyone, the part of my heart that had been up in the air landed. I was home, too.

###

After the initial “surprise,” the family kept the rest of the party quiet. We sang and danced, yet it was with signed Diaksh and muted movements. You might think that that would be a downer, but everyone grew up signing, so the family was just as expressive in motion as they were in voice. Plus, we were all so damn glad to see each other.

There was some confusion at meeting Fala’s new “Stone Otter” sculpture, but becoming silvered provided a large umbrella for covering a wide range of oddities in behaviors. The family took it for granted that people Level 10 and above behaved differently—like we weren’t quite human anymore. Or otters, I supposed, in Fala’s case.

Eventually, we got to the storytelling part of the evening, and I regaled everyone with the edited version of the events in Old Baxteiyel. The family’s advantage, however, was that they got to see the action thanks to Stone Otter creating a stage and figurines. She acted out the scenes while I narrated, with us even using the cloth from earlier as a curtain for our little puppet theater.

We made it fun and exciting. At the same time, I had no doubt the family recognized the seriousness of the dangers we’d faced. The four dark undead at the top of the Pyramid of Despair would’ve easily wiped a village like Voorhei off the map.

There came a round of appreciative sighs after I dropped the curtain for the final time, which transitioned into a chance to reflect on the show. I started mentally counting, wondering how long it would take for Billisha to—

“How bad was it really?” she asked.

It’d taken her five seconds to pose the question.  “We wouldn’t have gone through with it if we didn’t think we could win,” I replied.

“That doesn’t answer Bee’s question,” Aluali pointed out.

“You don’t usually hide the truth of your hunts,” Bihei added. “Can we assume it was worse than anything else you’ve faced?”

I put down the cloth “curtain” and moved to stand in front of the stage. Stone Otter disassembled herself to flow up my back and reassemble on my shoulder. In her eyes was affection for these people. Her relationships with them were some of the first she’d had since becoming a spirit of the land.

‘The truth,’ she thought. ‘The people we love deserve that much.’

It took me a moment to find the right words. “We almost lost everything.”

My family sat with that for a while, the silence lengthening. Aluk shifted a couple of times, like he wanted to ask a question or make a comment, but good man… Bihei’s fiancé knew how to read a room and held back.

“Do you remember the day we met?” Billisha finally asked me.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

Aluali smiled, a touch shy and also self-deprecating. “Sometimes we wonder if you do. So much has happened; your life is one of constant striving. And it was just one day, one out of many.”

Billisha continued, “Ali and I talk about that day—about how you killed the slavers and freed us.”

“Then you took us to a cave in the side of a cliff,” Aluali said. “Thank the heavens for Meliune’s Blessing; I would never have been brave enough to go down there on my own.”

“And what did we see when we arrived?” Billisha asked rhetorically. “A dead chliapp lion!”

Aluali hands came up as if to ward the beast away, then he shook his head, laughing. “You told us—you told us to skin it while you were away hunting.”

Billisha nodded along, starting to laugh too. “Time and time again, you left us in that cave with the skinned and dressed lion. To go look for tools, to hunt the bishkawi, to save Ikfael.”

“To find us a new home,” Aluali said.

“And keep us safe,” Billisha added.

Aluali glanced aside at Bihei and Aluk. “Some of the family believe that Bee and I put too much trust in our Eight’s abilities. They think we have not been tempered by loss and do not know how much it can take from our lives. But we’ve also lost much. And you’ve taught us not to live our lives in fear of it.”

“So you will go,” Billisha said, “and come back. Depart and return like a flower opens and closes. Like our lungs fill and empty of air, and our heart’s blood flows. We, who are your family, will be here to receive you, to let you go, and then to receive you once more.”

Aluali’s eyes shone as he gazed at Billisha. His pride in her was plainly evident. And it was reflected back at him. The two of them had come such a long, long way since those early days in the cave. So had we all.

“But how? Why?” Aluk asked, not able to contain the questions any longer.

“How what? Why what?” I asked.

“All of it!” Aluk exclaimed. “We know nothing about what you intend to do. You are silvered—I sense that clearly—but there is more to this visit and the coming departure than that. I’m no fool. I understand the need to hunt and protect, but there are limits to striving. Go too far along the Path to Perfection and all that will be left is the wilderness. No home, no safety. Only the endless walk until all that surrounds you is death. Nothing but death.”

Aluk the Gray Spear—the man had been through a lot. He’d washed up on Voorhei’s shore looking for Ikfael’s Boon, and he’d ended up making a life for himself instead.

My answer to those questions would not be the same as his answer to them. The doors he would pass through in his life would not be my doors, and vice versa. Whatever happened, I could count on always having Fala and Yuki with me. The Deer God too, by the looks of things.

I could see why Aluk would never want to leave the safety of his life in Voorhei. And also why he would give his life to protect it. That was something we had in common, a place to build an answer from.

“I can’t tell you what we’ll be doing after we leave Voorhei,” I said “That’s for your own good and for the good of the task we’ve given ourselves.”

I walked over to where he sat and squatted so that we were at eye-level with each other. “It’s not enough to strive for striving’s sake,” I said. “A life needs purpose. For me, I’ve found the journey itself to be meaningful. I have people to protect, just like you do now. And… I also have a reason to kill. I can’t talk about why, but know that it’s within my authority. There’s a task I’ve given myself to accomplish.”

And it was true. As I’d said the words, I felt the reality of them slot into place.

The feeling was one of simple surety—not a grand revelation, deep insight, or anything like that. I just knew, in the grand order of things, there were some problems I was meant to fix. Like how Fala focused on the refinement of silverlight and the Deer God concerned himself with corruptions of nature, I also had concerns of my own. Water flowed to the low places to either nourish the land there… or drown it out.

###

Later that night, once everyone else was asleep and I was about to drift off myself, a notification quietly dinged.

The Water Bending skill has increased to 0.

The Water Bending skill has increased to 3.

The Taoism skill has increased to 13.

Just as quietly, I turned over and let myself finish drifting off. I didn’t need the System’s validation to know I was on the right track.