Pecta pulled the cloak over his head, looked around the busy street, and quickly joined the mass of people. He felt uncomfortable, the warmth from the earlier conversation having evaporated. In these crowded streets, it was hard to spot possible pursuers or quickly escape from the city guards. Someone with a hidden dagger could simply walk up to him, stab him, and quickly disappear into the crowd.

Pecta knew that these thoughts were illogical. The chances of someone knowing him here were slim to none and he hadn't committed anything against the law - yet. He shook his head to get rid of the negative thoughts and quickened his pace.

His first stop was one of the announcement boards that all cities had. His journey only took around ten minutes, but when he stepped into the open space a grisly yet all too familiar sight awaited him.

Slowly swaying in the wind, a corpse hung from the gallows. Pecta internally cringed. The gallows were built from emerald wood instead of normal wood, but other than that they looked the same. His hometown of Wirmaw was famous across the kingdom for its criminal underground. This led the leaders to ever more desperate methods to curtail the lawlessness. How many people had Pecta already seen hanged? Too many.

He reluctantly looked at the corpse again. Despite the blessing across the city that regulated the temperature, the heat was enough to make it stink to the high heavens. Hopefully, the guards would have the fellow down before the maggots showed up.

Something he noticed was that the corpse didn't have any fingers. The punishment for stealing was usually the removal of a couple of fingers, but it normally wasn't followed by hanging. Asking a random passerby he got the full story.

"Ah, that’s Lukin. A thief who did his business in these parts. Poor guy tried to steal from a High Lord and it didn't end well. We weren’t close but I do feel sorry for him.”

The former criminal's mood soured even more at that. Nobility always got benefits. It didn't matter where in the world you went, if something bad happened to a noble it was always more horrible than if it happened to a dirt-poor peasant.

He quickly moved away from that thought. If he dwelled too long on it, his mind would devolve into pointless rambling that helped nobody. The system would never change, no matter how long he complained about it.

With one last look at the poor fellow hanging in the wind, Pecta moved to the announcement board on the side of the road. His eyes scanned the board before landing on the relevant information. Most of it was illegible to him but the important parts were always represented with symbols to make understanding them easier. He winced a bit when he saw the date of the next caravan’s departure. 2 weeks.

Vindict would be thrilled at the extra time, but Pecta wasn't happy. 2 more weeks in this god-forsaken burning hell hole. Whatever species Vindict was wasn’t strongly affected by the heat, but Pecta was a human who could feel it all too well.

Thinking of his companion made him consider the strange circumstances they had met under. He had been so sure that he was about to die in that cursed desert. It was a fact that he had accepted and a small part of him even welcomed it. Then, out of nowhere, a stranger showed up and gave him a chance to continue living. A path forward.

It felt too surreal to be a random act of luck, so Pecta was faced with the real possibility that his goddess hadn't abandoned him. Later conversations with Vindict had strengthened this belief. Vindict waking up in the middle of the desert, just so picking the direction required to meet him, and arriving in the nick of time to save him? Was it selfish to believe that this wasn’t just some coincidence? Maybe Vindict was lying but he didn’t strike Pecta as someone to do that.

After Pecta had decided to become a follower of Persa, he had spent countless hours on his knees and praying. He gave almost everything he had as an offering and waited for the goddess to grant him forgiveness for his sins.

Nothing happened. No matter how much he prayed nothing happened. Over time he began to lose hope in the gods and his praying dropped off. They had abandoned him and a part of him could understand why.

Taking the job as a caravan guard hadn’t been just about the money. Pecta was a skilled fighter who could have gotten a much safer and well-paying job. He had known of the dangers but hadn’t cared. He moved through life like an empty husk and this could have been the release he needed. The release he deserved.

And then Vindict appeared. A clear sign from Persa that she hadn't abandoned him. His inhuman qualities would have been a deterrent for many but Pecta hadn’t minded. He knew that almost nothing separated a sentient monster from a human.

At first, he thought that this stranger was supposed to guide him on his journey of forgiveness. But the more he learned about him, the more he realised how wrong that assumption was. Vindict was clueless about the world. Not to say that he wasn't capable, but he simply didn't have the qualities of a guide.

Pecta had thought a lot about both of their places in the greater scheme of things and during Vindict’s time unconscious he came up with a possible answer: What if there was no one to guide him on his path? Maybe his trial was to BE the guide for another lost soul. Was this how he gained redemption? It was the only idea that made sense to him.

"Huh, never imagine myself to be a guide," Pecta muttered. A passerby threw him a strange look. Sadly, he still had a couple of things to do before meeting back up with Vindict.

‘I hate this’. Pecta threw another glance around the dimly lit room while sipping his drink. The bar was half full with other gloomy-looking individuals occupying the tables. Pretty surprising considering the time of day.

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Most were sitting alone or quietly talking in small groups. Pecta was one of the ones sitting alone at the bar, listening in on a duo that was seated at the table behind him. Most of their conversation had revolved around the local whore house but some useful information was still said.

Information. That was the reason for his visit to the poorer parts of the city. No matter where you were, every city had its dark underbelly and Seran was no exception. Pecta disliked this area, and not because of the reasons other upstanding citizens would dislike it here.

All of this felt a bit too familiar to him and that was making him uncomfortable. Still, he had to push through and get as much information as possible. ‘We will be staying here for a while so information gathering should be our number one priority’. And the place where you could get the best information for free - at least the one that would help you survive - came from seedy bars like this one.

After a couple of drinks, people developed a loose tongue. He took another sip of his drink. It was called Prickly Pride, a local specialty according to the bartender. Made from some kind of special plant that only grew in the Scorching Barrens.

At first, Pecta found it surprising that anything could grow in this hell hole, but after a sip, he was relieved to find that it tasted absolutely horrid. He had almost believed that the desert wasn't just a pile of bobar shit. Anyway, back to useful information that can be found in sketchy bars.

From talking and listening in on a couple of conversations he quickly learned that Seran's criminal world was pretty tame, at least compared to Pecta’s hometown. The Noble House of Altan kept a very tight grip on the city, which prevented the rise of a big criminal gang.

Of course, they existed, but most stayed out of each other's way and made sure not to step on the noble house’s toes. This made the presence of an assassin guild even more surprising. The ruling class often found assassin guilds extremely distasteful, and they were highly illegal.

The reason for that was the fact that they took contracts from anybody who had enough money, which made it very possible for one of the nobles to land on the wrong side of a dagger. From what Pecta had heard about the City Lord, he was a very cautious, some might call it paranoid, man. For an assassin guild to survive in such a landscape, much less thrive, was very confusing. They would have to be extremely secretive for that to work. But since he got the information about their existence from some random drunk in a bar he doubted it.

The duo behind him paid the serving wench and left. Pecta sighed and also stood up to leave when suddenly the doors to the bar slammed open.

Everyone in the room snapped their attention to the exit and tensed. He could see several men laying their hands on various weapons hidden beneath their clothes. Pecta also got ready by grabbing the pommel of his sword.

Two figures stood at the entrance, both wearing yellow cloaks that obscured their features. A tension-filled silence that was only interrupted by the sound of the pair's footsteps as they strolled in like they owned the place filled the room.

"Attention scum and drunks, this is an announcement by the Desert Vipers!" A female voice called out. "If you want to make some coins listen up. There are two wanted men in this city and we are being paid to find them. Anyone who can give us a hint about their location will get a big knight. For anyone who can bring one of them to us, there will be a whole prince."

Excited whispering filled the room. A prince was probably more than anyone here made in a month. The whispering stopped as soon as the second cloaked figure started speaking in a deep voice.

"We do hope that none of you are dumb enough to try and fool us. The Desert Vipers don't take kindly to that. Say, Karia, what happened to the last guy who thought he could lie to us?" The first figure, Karia apparently, crackled gleefully. "I still remember his face. Those empty eyes and those wonderful screams. It's a shame he only lasted eight hours."

Pecta shuddered. He had met a couple of monsters like her in his time on the streets and most of them still haunted his dreams. Not the literal kind of monster. The human kind.

‘The Desert Vipers. That must be the assassin guild.’ Who else could barge into a bar full of criminals and not worry about the consequences? Pecta wanted to leave as fast as possible but decided to wait until these obviously dangerous assassins had left. He wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the people they were hunting.

The second assassin pulled two pieces of rolled-up parchment from his cloak and handed them to his female partner. She unrolled them and showed the contents to the whole room. Pecta gulped. 'Fuck'.

Staring back at him was his own face. Granted, he didn't think his nose was that big and the hair on the poster was a bit too long, plus the picture made him look way older. Still, Pecta was able to identify himself in the sketch.

The second poster wasn’t visible from his position in the bar but he would bet anything that he knew who was on it. His fears were confirmed by the muttering that filled the bar. The words ‘follower of the shadow god’ didn’t just come up in casual conversation.

How did these people have sketches of them? Pecta's mind raced until it suddenly clicked. 'The guards! They are the only ones who saw us for an extended period of time.’ It could have also been the innkeeper but if that was the case then the assassins wouldn’t be looking for them in this place.

But why would the guards draw a wanted poster for a criminal assassin guild? Maybe they were corrupt but that didn’t align with his information. From what he heard, House Altan should have a tight hold on them. By the end of his little mind rant his breathing started to come out panicked.

'Deep breathes'. In. Out. In. Out. He sneakily glanced around the room to see whether his little slip-up had been noticed. Luckily, all of the patrons were focused on the wanted posters.

’Why the hell are we even being hunted?' With all his panicking that thought only now crossed his mind. He wasn't being hunted for stealing from a noble or betraying someone. This was a brand new city where no one knew his name. None of the individuals or groups he had pissed off should have enough power to get him here. So, why was he being hunted? The answer to that was that he wasn't being hunted. At least not for something he had done.

Could it be that he was being hunted because of his new companion? Vindict had told him his story, but was it possible he had lied? Maybe he was only playing the clueless stranger and instead was using him for his own gain. Maybe he was just like -

'No'. This was the wrong direction for his thoughts to head in. He simply didn't have enough information. And besides, he didn't think Vindict was lying. He would have to be the best actor the gods had ever created to pull that off. No, for now, Pecta needed to regroup with him so that they could find a solution together.

Suddenly, another cloaked individual entered the bar and made a beeline for the assassins. The person leaned in and whispered something to the second assassin. After nodding he turned to his female companion.

“They found the place.” All three of them quickly exited the room, taking the wanted posters with them. Unhappy mumbling filled the bar, as people realised that they wouldn’t be getting any money. Soon the crowd settled down and it was almost like that whole incident hadn’t happened.

Pecta paid his tab and headed outside. His mind was racing. That third assassin hadn’t said that they had found their target. Only ‘the place’. Were they talking about the inn they were staying in? If so Pecta needed to hurry. Vindict had no idea about this new danger and would walk straight into a trap. The sun was already setting, making Pecta change his walk to a sprint. He couldn’t let that happen.