“Are you sure that’s her?” A whisper drew Death’s attention to the corner of the room where a group of three sat. They’d been there since before she arrived and had been quiet, watching the room the same way Death was. “She’s not black.”
The speaker was odd; Death wasn’t certain what he was the most likely to die of because it seemed to change from moment to moment. A closer look told Death that this wasn’t a natural feature of his; instead, he was wearing an object that blurred his presence. Death relaxed and didn’t push any harder. That would ruin the fun; she was supposed to be limiting herself to what a human could tell, after all, the way Serenity often did. That was the point!
“The prophecy didn’t say black, it said the Dark Lady. It also said she’d be here now. No one else looks dark, but she’s dressed all in black,” a woman said. She was also wearing some sort of blurring artifact, but all it blurred was her physical form, making her look small and muscular. It didn’t block Death from seeing that her most likely cause of death was Serenity.
Death wasn’t certain why Serenity would kill someone Death didn’t recognize, but it was still her most likely cause of death. That was more than enough of a reason to be interested in her. Death wanted to approach her and ask, but she was pretty sure that asking someone why someone else wanted to kill them was the wrong way to approach someone, even if she wasn’t sure why. It seemed to upset them and they didn’t answer.
She’d tried it a couple times. One denied it, the other yelled at her. Neither answered the question. Death had learned a lot about humans since those early days; you couldn’t just ask a question and get an answer.
That was why she’d told the human who probably wouldn’t die tomorrow about his friend Doug’s problem with an indirect question; it seemed to work, at least here. She was pretty sure part of that was that the people here had learned to listen to her, but asking the question of someone else still seemed to work better than telling them outright that they were going to die soon. Death didn’t quite get it, but she could learn to obey the rules.
So how should she approach the woman Serenity had marked for death? It had to be indirect; humans seemed to always be indirect. Weirdly, the fact that they were paying attention to her made it more important that she be indirect rather than less. Humans seemed to get upset if she mentioned them talking about her, even if they’d clearly been within hearing.
Maybe she could talk to Becca about it? Becca was wise in the ways of dealing with humans and as the Questgiver for the Adventurers’ Guild, she generally knew at least something about all of the groups. Maybe she’d know why Serenity would want someone dead. Probably not, but she’d at least know where they preferred to delve and if they were looking for one more person.
“That was impressive.”
The words were Death’s first indication that there was a woman behind her. She silently congratulated herself on limiting her perceptions to what she could actually see; that had taken months of effort but she was finally managing it!
Death turned around and saw a woman who was likely to die of violence, mostly likely at the hands of a human, but not any time soon. Death took a closer look at her; her death affinity was far, far weaker than almost anyone Death had seen on Earth. She had one; everything had one. As Serenity often said, anything could die.
Even so, hers was far weaker than those around her. That didn’t mean she was more resilient; it wasn’t a Resistance. Instead, it meant that death didn’t rise easily to her hand directly. She’d have to use indirect means.
Death noticed the woman’s face start to shift and realized she was breaking one of the rules of being human. She was probably supposed to respond to that statement. It was so much easier to deal with Human than humans, but that was because Human didn’t expect her to act human. It wasn’t good practice for dealing with humans who thought she was also human.
“Thanks?” That was probably the right response.
“No, really,” the woman insisted. “You may have a Skill to see poison, but most of us don’t, and it can be really bad if it’s not healed. I heard you’re called Miss Black? My name’s Kaasi.” She stuck out her hand, which told Death what to do next.
“Call me Amaia,” Death stated as she met Kaasi’s hand and carefully shook it with enough force but not too much. “I’m a debuff tank; I don’t have a set group so I hang out here and go with anyone who needs an extra.”
Kaasi nodded. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m also solo, but I haven’t been here long. Maybe you can show me around, teach me how to handle picking up a group?”
Kaasi planted herself in a chair near Death’s. She looked at Death expectantly as Death tried to figure out what to do. It was a direct request, so a human would probably not do as asked, right?
Death had no idea what a human would do instead.
Well, she’d just have to be a bad human. No, the word was inexperienced, wasn’t it? Death thought that was the word Becca had used for her. Also socially limited, but she was pretty sure that was more of a warning to others than a good description. Come to think of it, wasn’t Kaasi saying she was inexperienced? Maybe they could learn together.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Death grinned at Kaasi. It was nice to be the more experienced human for once. “Well, first you need to know what your party role is. The general roles are tank, which means you control the battle and keep monsters from hitting the squishies, damage, which means you kill the monsters fast, and support which isn’t really a role; it’s more of an everything else category. I thought I was support but I’m told I’m a tank.”
Kaasi looked a bit overwhelmed but nodded.
Death leaned forward a little bit. She’d picked up that humans did that when they were saying something important. “Then once you have your general role, you add whatever’s needed to say anything else you can do or important limitations or, well, whatever you need to add. A heavy tank might be someone in really heavy armor that stands between the monsters and everyone else and either has a movement Skill or some way to project a force wall or something; that’s important because you don’t want melee damage in a party with a heavy tank. I’m a debuff tank because I can control the battle by doing things like making monsters tired and disabling limbs. I don’t do much damage but that’s okay; if it can’t hit you, it can’t hurt you.”
She’d spent a while thinking about what she could do that would fit in. Simply killing things was too much; no one else could do that, at least not against most of the dungeon monsters. Disabling limbs, on the other hand, made her scarily useful but not so out of line that people noticed, especially since she made sure to not completely disable the limbs on anything of her supposed Tier or higher.
Everyone seemed to assume that she was some sort of “debuff witch,” especially with her ability to spot when people needed healing they hadn’t bothered to get. It was kind of interesting to watch as they came up with an explanation she’s deliberately not given.
Death tilted her head at Kaasi. “So what’s your role?”
----------------------------------------
Serenity wasn’t certain if revealing that he was a Hand to Senkovar was a good thing or not. It had gotten him to answer the question, but the answer was simply that the World Shaman was on Order’s Council, which sometimes helped the Voice revise the Tutorial. Senkovar didn’t seem to think that all of the Councilors cared, but it was clear he did.
Unfortunately, it had also landed Serenity with a couple of quests. They didn’t show up while he was talking to the World Shaman, but he had to believe they were connected. They were simply far too close to something a World Shaman would ask for.
[Quest: World-Eaters]
[Worlds are fading for no known reason. The pattern starts with a loss of Tier; sometimes it stops there and sometimes it progresses to actual damage to the World, resulting in calamities. The cause is unknown, but it stretches across space in a small group of paths. One of these paths seems to be directed at Earth]
[Goal: Find out what the World-Eaters truly are and stop them]
[Reward: Training from a World Shaman]
[Failure Consequences: Should the World-Eaters reach Earth, the results could be severe]
The first quest was definitely something Serenity didn’t like seeing, but in some ways it didn’t seem that bad. He knew something destroyed Earth in the original timeline; now he had a candidate for what it was. He was almost relieved to finally know what he needed to deal with to stop the memory that still haunted him.
It probably wouldn’t be the last time the planet needed to be saved; anything that existed needed help from time to time. That was fine. Anything was better than remembering the planet shattering in front of his eyes.
[Clan Quest: Et’Tart’s Heir]
[The Et’Tart clan on Suratiz has not had an Heir accepted by the moon since your great-grandfather ran from the responsibility. The Clan’s eldest member and Patriarch wishes to change that]
[Goal: Travel to Suratiz and Speak to the moon]
[Reward: Variable, depending on acceptance or rejection by Suratiz]
[Failure Consequences: None]
The second quest, on the other hand, made it clear that the Quests were set up by the World Shaman. Serenity couldn’t say for certain that Order’s Council had special abilities when it came to creating Quests, but it seemed likely.
The Clan Quest didn’t really make it obvious, since they could be created by anyone high enough in the Clan’s hierarchy, but they usually required recipients to actually be a part of the Clan. It was possible he counted because of their blood relationship, but it was still a bit sketchy.
The World-Eaters Quest was more telling. Yes, it could be from the Voice, but it came late. The Voice tried to assign Quests when they were relevant, not half an hour to an hour later. The fact that both of the Quests arrived within fifteen minutes of each other also didn’t make it seem any less suspicious.
No, Order’s Council clearly had some way to initiate quests that didn’t reveal who they were. The question was what other power they had with the Voice; it was Order’s Voice, after all. The connection wasn’t a surprise.
As long as creating quests was all they could do, it didn’t bother Serenity too much, but if they could use it for other purposes it could be bad. Serenity wasn’t scared of the Voice, but a group of people who could control it that he didn’t know? That was a scary prospect.
On the other hand, if they could do more, surely someone on Order’s Council would have done something about the Final Reaper. Serenity couldn’t be absolutely certain, but the fact that they clearly hadn’t made him think they couldn’t. He wasn’t a betting man, but that counterargument was enough to make him willing to bet that their power was far more limited than it seemed like it should be.