I draw my blade out from Adney Hill’s stomach, and she falls limp on the cold deck floor. In the night’s shadow, I am able to move about unseen, and her weakened cries for help fall on deaf ears. The single blow which impaled her was forceful enough to knock the wind right out of her, so she could only get out passive gasps in her final moments.

No matter how many times I do this, I can never shake off the tinge of remorse that I feel. The naive, desperate hope that swells within me in retrospect. ‘Maybe she could have changed, if I only tried to talk to her more.’ I did not know her for long, but I know her type. Many and more abuse the weak, the young, and the poor, in order to get an edge in the world. But not this time, not anymore.

Maybe she had a good reason for selling Somnus, maybe not. At the end of the day, she was hurting people, and be it bribery or bureaucracy, neither the Yellowjackets nor the rogues were not stepping in. Fresh out of options, it falls to me to protect the city. I search her pockets, but she seems to travel light. I take the meager sum of gil off her and keep it in a separate pouch.

Focusing aether into my soul crystal, I weave a veil of darkness around me. An ability which is absolutely useless in the day, but makes for quick and easy escapes from the crowded city when it's this late. I am cautious around torchlight, for getting too close to it exposes the simple illusion, but it is a simple enough task to get in and out of Limsa unseen.

Before long, a distant scream is heard behind me. Soon after, shouts, bells, and hustling footsteps echoing across all of Limsa. They try to lock down the city, but by the time they do, I’ve already escaped. The road back to Wineport is short, especially by Chocobo. Though the wine cart does slow things down, it also makes for a convenient place to store any bloodied equipment I have until I can wash it the next morning.

For months, this is my routine. I hunt the wicked, I cut them down, and then I wait until things calm down. Just off our farm property, there sits a large fruit tree with a knot that formed slightly below ground. With around a minute’s worth of digging, I uncover the gap and stow my contraband underneath, safely kept in a locked box.

In order to avoid scrutiny, I’ve made a habit of staying out late every night, but it does mean that my parents get curious about me. If they ask, I tell them that I’m just doing late night deliveries or visiting friends in Limsa. Whenever I mention ‘friends in Limsa,’ my mother gives me this knowing smirk. I shrug it off-- she can think whatever she wants to.

Ever since the start of the Umbral Era, I’ve had a strange power-- when I speak with people for long periods of time, I will sometimes hear whispers, usually with a focus-breaking headache, that tell me their true feelings and intentions.

For a very long time, I avoided telling anyone, and even tried to block out the noise myself, but eventually realized how valuable it is. With the ability to quickly parse through the sinners and the saints, it makes my job much easier. Sometimes, even to this day, I still worry that I’m just imagining things, so I always find evidence before I act on anything, even if it's not much.

After I finish the day’s chores, I head down south to the Red Mantis Falls. There, in a humble tent, my master I’shanta awaits me in a deep meditation. While the first few times I visited her I disturbed her from this state, I had since learned how to enter quietly enough as to not alert her. Or, at least, not enough that she acknowledged my presence.

“The aetheric sea speaks to me,” she began after around five minutes of waiting in silence. She reached out behind her and unfurled a map of Eorzea before us. She weighed down the parchment with her blade and carefully parsed it with her eyes, before eventually pointing to Gridania. “Umbral aether is beginning to surge within The Black Shroud. If naught is done, the land’s crops will stagnate, and the good people will starve.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I nod and make a quick note of routes I can take to get there. Through the Strait of Merlthor and up the Silvertear rivers seems to be the quickest way, until eventually I’ll need to take a chocobo cart to reach Gridania itself.

“Your target…” She pulled out a piece of scrap paper and quickly sketched a female Elezen with long, flowing locks. “Idelle Maifine. She has long advocated for Gridania to return to its old ways in every sense of the word. She is appealing to the fear of others to foster xenophobia among the Gridanians, and ultimately wishes to rekindle the war with Ala Mhigo.

She seems to be motivated by greed, as her family owns an expensive weapons-dealing company. Sales have been low since The Empire stopped its advance on Eorzea in the wake of The Calamity, and she is not content waiting for them to resume their march. You must put an end to her ways, before disaster comes to the shroud.”

During all the time that I work under her, I learn not to question the authenticity of her methods. Not once has she led me astray on the deeds of my target, and after every kill the land’s aether stabilizes. How she both senses such aetheric shifts and pinpoints key targets to remove to correct it escapes me now, and I would never be able to get a clear or satisfying answer out of her.

‘The twelve guide me,’ she would remark. Or, my favorite, ‘Can’t you feel the shift yourself? You’re a dark knight now.’ As if wielding this soul crystal automatically makes me on-par with a seedseer, sensitive to any and all aetheric shifts, even ones from miles away.

Either way, I need an excuse to leave, so I offer to complete a wine trade on behalf of my parents. They seem happy to trust me with the job, as it gives me an opportunity to ‘get out and see the world,’ as well as get more involved with the family business. A perfect storm, as it also gets me away from the heat that Limsa is starting to pack searching for their culprit.

I travel by cart with our family chocobo, Speedy, until we board a large cargo ship toward Gridania. Speedy stays below deck with all the other traveling chocobos, while I sleep with the cargo to save on gil. To avoid suspicion I travel light, but manage to hide the important components of my gear among the wine barrels.

On the ride over, I read through pages and tomes lent to me by S’anah’to’s friend Mizu on the complexities of Thaumaturgy. The diagrams were so detailed and practical that they were much more immediately helpful than the books I had available, though I knew both would be essential in picking up meaningful power.

I felt pressured to feign disinterest to S’anah’to, not wanting my interest in destructive magic to become something worth remembering. Thankfully, he had encouraged me to give it a more ‘thorough’ try, meaning I was able to keep the books in my company for a while longer. I carefully took notes within my journal, seeking to have as accurate of a record as possible before that day would come.

While magic was always interesting to me on a fundamental level, I was never able to really ‘get into’ arcanistry. Too much...math is required for its proper casting. Mizu seemed to get it, though. Magic was cool because it was powerful and got a lot done, and it was nice that thaumaturgy didn’t demand so much knowledge out of its wielders like arcanistry did.

Thaumaturgy was also convenient due to how well it meshed with a Dark Knight soul crystal, though some alterations were in order to make it work seamlessly. The crystal had difficulty handling most ‘elemental’ magic, as the spells it most readily produced were that of pure darkness. One thing it can handle, though, is lightning.

One of Mizu’s spells, “The Ultimate Destroyer of All Things Mk. IV,” shows me how to push lightning to its limit, which combined with the more academic notes from the books I was lent is enough for me to produce sparks along the edge of my blade. It’s so weak it couldn’t even hurt a Wespe, but it’s a start. As much as I want to try and improve my technique now, I do not wish to cause a small disaster on this cramped ship, so I stop until I have downtime in Gridania.

I spend the rest of the ride focusing on reading, and quietly try not to think about the blood I will need to spill upon my arrival.