“I’d heard that one of the princes had been slain during the war, but not that it was at Ilbek, and certainly not by you. From what I heard, he was very high level… is that why you have the [King-bane] title? How did you manage to even kill him?”
“Uhh, gosh, this is going to sound bad. I… ripped his soul out. When I found out that we were going to war, I started creating grenades that would briefly activate a similar sequence of runes to what was on the altar that I saw. I never wanted to use them, they were a last backup. But… escaping from Ilbek had me pull all the stops out. That’s how I made such a big gap in their forces, it was with those grenades. I call them ‘soul rippers.’ Morbid, I know. I managed to activate one right before everything went black… I’m glad I got that bastard. He was toying with me the whole time I was pinned by his spears.”
“Xander, that’s… horrifying. You ripped their souls from their bodies? I guess I can’t complain too much… It’s the only reason we managed to escape. The things you make are… scary, sometimes.”
“Yeah. Even I felt guilty about making that one. But we have a saying, back where I’m from. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’ Those people we out to kill me and my only friends on this world, so I don’t feel too bad about killing them. It was probably less painful than one of my other grenades, to be honest.”
Gabrelle nodded, understanding, but remained silent.
“So… what now?” Xander asked.
“I don’t know,” Gabrelle answered. “I’d planned to end my visit tomorrow, anyways, so I guess we can head out to meet the rest of the team together, if you’d like. As for the rest of the night… I don’t know. I had planned to sleep soon, so I suppose we could go to bed. There is a guest bedroom you can use.”
“I think I’d enjoy traveling with you much more than on my own,” Xander said. “But uh… I don’t sleep anymore. I’ll still take the guest room, though. I think it might be nice to just lay back and let my mind wander without purpose. I’ve been flying for days to get here.”
“You don’t sleep anymore?” Gabrelle asked, shocked. “That sounds nice, but frustrating at the same time… so many extra hours in the day that need to be filled. Well, you are welcome to the guest room, of course, even if you’re just laying on the bed.” Gabrelle reached out and grabbed Xander’s gauntleted hand, although he couldn’t feel it. “And Xander… It’s good to have you back.”
The two of them chatted for a while longer, Xander catching up on how Gabrelle was doing. She’d made significant progress in her combat class, [Follower of the Hammer], as well as in her [Medic] class through the remainder of the war between Thrask and Dardin, and then in her mercenary contracts after the war. She was now easily capable of holding her own on the front line with Graffus, though she admitted that the dwarf still had no trouble besting her in one-on-one combat.
The two of them retired to bed, Gabrelle to her own room, and Xander to a guest room across the hallway, on the second floor of the house. He laid down and released his mana from his runed body, allowing it to go limp. It was as close as he could get to relaxing. As he laid there, he let his mind wander. He thought of how he’d be able to modify his body if he wished. He could add extra limbs to his form, or even change it entirely. He felt attached to the basic human form, though. It just felt… right. He wondered if Juniper was with his teammates. He’d be able to cast more applications of [Golemancer] on her now, with his ever expanding pool of available mana. He wondered what would happen with repeated applications of the ability. Halfway through his musings on how he would create an even better spider tank, he heard a yell from Gabrelle’s room. Pumping mana back through his runes, Xander leapt from the bed and ran out the door, barging into Gabrelle’s door across the hallway.
“Gabrelle! Is everything okay?” Xander said, taking stock of the room. Freyja was now awake in one corner of the room, looking about in surprise at the sudden commotion. Gabrelle was sitting upright in her bed, clutching the sheets to her chest. She was breathing heavily, and Xander could see sweat on her face.
“I… It was a nightmare,” She said after a pause. “I have them, sometimes, now… after…” She took a deep breath. “Things were bad in the capital. I still dream about it sometimes.”
“Oh…” Xander said. “I’m sorry. I wish that whatever it was that happened was something that you didn’t have to experience… and I’m sorry for barging in like that. I just, I heard you yell, and I thought that something had happened.”
Gabrelle chuckled weakly. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. And I’m glad that your reaction to hearing me yell is to come check on me.”
“Is… there anything I can do?” Xander asked, hesitantly.
Gabrelle looked embarrassed as she thought about his question. Finally, she answered, “Would… would you mind staying with me? It’s always hard for me to get to sleep after a nightmare like that, especially when I’m away from the team.”
“Of course,” Xander answered her. “I don’t mind at all. Like I said, sleep isn’t something I need anymore, so you don’t have to worry about keeping me up. Where, uh, do you want me to sit?”
“Are you okay with… sitting in bed with me? I’d really just like to be held… I want to feel secure.”
Xander felt bad for Gabrelle. Whatever she’d seen during her time in the war after his death had left a deep mark on her. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t mind,” he answered, after thinking his answer over.
“Thanks,” Gabrelle said, softly. She scooted to one side of the bed, allowing Xander space to come and sit next to her. Quietly, he stood and slid under the covers, sitting his back against the headboard. The bedframe creaked slightly under the weight of his steel body. Gabrelle shifted closer to him, and he draped an arm over her shoulders as the woman snuggled up to his carbon fiber armor.
“You’re cold…” she murmured.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll try to work on that.”
Gabrelle managed to fall asleep again, leaving Xander to his thoughts. He held perfectly still, not pumping any mana into his arrays, doing his best to keep from waking Gabrelle. He felt awkward, sitting there, holding her. He couldn’t feel her embrace, the arm she’d wrapped around his right leg. He only knew because he could see it. He needed to research more runes, so that he could try and mimic a sense of touch. He didn’t want to hurt someone by accidentally applying too much force. And more importantly, he had found it extremely saddening that he had been unable to feel Gabrelle clasp his hand earlier in the night. He spent the rest of the night activating his [Rune Master’s Library] skill, searching through runes that he might be able to use to allow him to at least feel pressure, if not temperature.
By the time the morning light began to shine through the window, Xander had a few ideas for rune sequences that would provide him some feedback for temperature and pressure. He’d have to learn how they felt to him and start getting used to correlating that feeling to pressure and temperature, but he felt confident he could do it. He was reminded of the account of a blind climber who used a camera that electrically stimulated his tongue to ‘see’ the rock faces that he was climbing. His mind would hopefully learn to interpret these new mana signals as touch. Instead of him feeding mana to them through a connection, these runes would instead feed mana to him according to the strength of the sensation. He’d add a layer of carbon fiber over his steel body with the rune sequences, and it would hopefully allow him to start to feel things.
Gabrelle interrupted his thought by beginning the stir. The light from the window in her room had begun to shine directly on her face. Slowly she opened her eyes.
“Morning,” Xander said to her, noticing she was awake.
The young woman shrank in on herself slightly. “Morning,” she said quietly. “I… hope I didn’t make things too awkward for you… I don’t know what I was thinking last night.”
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“No, no, it’s fine,” Xander said quickly. “I really don’t mind. I got some good thinking in about more runes for my new body last night, actually. I don’t really have a sense of touch right now, you see… so I’m going to try and fix that. But I didn’t mind holding you, if it helped you sleep better. I believe in the concept of platonic cuddling.”
“Platonic cuddling… That’s a new one,” Gabrelle said, assuaged that she hadn’t damaged her relationship with Xander. “I think I like that phrase. Do you… think we could do this again, then? If it’s not weird for you. I haven’t gotten sleep like this in… over a year I think.”
“Yeah, sure,” Xander said. “I don’t mind.”
“But you’re gonna have to work out some way to not be so damn cold, or you’ll freeze me to death in winter,” Gabrelle chided him with a chuckle.
Xander laughed. “I think I can work something out. Maybe some heat runes would work. I could always crank them up and heat up a whole tent for you. So what do you need to do to get ready for the trip?”
“Well, I need to get dressed, for one,” she said. “I know you’ve already seen me in my smallclothes from last night… but I still feel exposed, thinking of changing in front of someone. Do you mind stepping out, and I’ll pack up my things and meet you downstairs?”
“Not a problem,” Xander said, sliding out from under the blankets and standing. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
This early in the morning, neither Herria nor Roland was awake. Xander made his way silently down the stairs, thanks to the runes on his armor, and sat down at the kitchen table. Waiting for Gabrelle to come down, he began creating small sheets of carbon fiber and runing them with various sequences, testing his theories of simulating touch and temperature. He settled on one for each that gave him very clear mana feedback and resolved himself to create more on the journey out from the city.
Gabrelle made her way down the stairs about fifteen minutes later, dressed in the carbon fiber armor that Xander had created for her three years ago, though to him it felt like it was only a few months. The two of them matched now with their matte black armor, though Gabrelle’s smiling facemask contrasted his grimacing skull. Herria and Roland both come out from their own room soon after Xander and Gabrelle met downstairs. Herria had clearly told Roland that Xander was some kind of ghostly monster, as the man would hardly even look at him. Xander was starting to regret his little display with taking off his helmet. He’d probably be best served by not flaunting the fact that he was a [Revenant] now, he didn’t want people to be automatically afraid of him, or to refuse to work with him. He should probably visit a guild house, too, to get his status updated. Maybe not here in Thraskian controlled territory, though. He didn’t want his name getting back to the authorities just yet, even it was only a small chance.
Would he even be allowed to rejoin the guild? Surely they had been informed of his death. And now he had the [Revenant] title. Xander wasn’t sure if that was one of the titles that precluded membership. He hadn’t exactly been provided with an exhaustive list. Maybe he should go to the one in Anlet… they at least might still have his old status updates filed away somewhere.
Roland and Herria had busied themselves in the kitchen, trying their best to keep as much distance from Xander as possible without appearing that they were doing so, leaving Xander alone at the table with Gabrelle, who was eating a few pieces of bread and meat for her breakfast. “Hey Gabrelle… am I still technically a member of the mercenaries guild?”
Gabrelle tilted her head, thinking as she chewed her food. “Mmm… maybe? They were informed of, ah, your… demise. But I’ve heard stories of mercenaries who returned after reports of their death. It’s not exactly common, but I would think that they should have some kind of protocol for this kind of thing. I take it you’re wanting to be reinstated?”
Xander nodded, saying “Yeah, if you guys are still doing contracts, then I want to be able to, too. Do you think I should try here in Anlet before we go? Maybe they still have my old status updates? I was thinking that might help.”
Gabrelle shrugged. “It certainly couldn’t hurt,” she said.
“Do you think I should be worried about trying to do this in a city that Thrask controls? I don’t know if it would be a good thing for my name to be put out, here.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. There is… a lot of bad blood between the mercenary’s guild and Thrask after the war. A lot of mercenaries from Dardin died during the war, and the guild hasn’t forgotten about it. So I wouldn’t worry about them cooperating with Thrask any more than they absolutely have to. And, since I’ve never heard that you were the one that slew the prince, I don’t think it’s common knowledge. Maybe the king of Thrask didn’t want it being known that a mercenary was the one that killed his son? I don’t know. Either way, I think it would be best to make a stop by guild on our way out.”
“Alright, I trust you. You’ve got the lay of the land way better than I do. Let’s go.”
The mercenary’s guild hall wasn’t nearly as crowded as Xander was used to. There were maybe half the number of mercenaries going about their business in the building as he remembered. Had the war really gone that badly?
It took little time for Xander and Gabrelle to see a clerk. “How can I help you?” The woman asked.
“Uhm, I need to get… reinstated? Not sure what exactly to call it. But you were given a report of my death a good while ago, and, as you can see, I’m still here. It was about three years ago. My name is Xander Jones. I updated my status a couple of times here, maybe you still have them here somewhere?”
The female clerk looked at him interestedly. “Mmm, now that’s something I haven’t had to do before. Let me first check and see if I can still find your papers. With any luck they’re still laying about somewhere in a folder or book. We hardly ever throw anything away here, you see,” she said with a small chuckle. The woman, rather portly, with dark brown hair, stood from her stool. She took up a small monocle that was resting on her desk space, and made her way to a door behind the counter and then out of sight.
It took nearly twenty minutes for the woman to return through another door further down the building. She looked a little disheveled, and spots of smeared dust were visible on her blouse. “Found it!” She said, waving a folder at Xander.
“That’s great,” Xander said. “So… what do I need to do now?”
“Well, let’s take a look here at your file… Hmm. Yes, I see there is a note in here, it describes you falling in battle at Ilbek. Wait, you were at Ilbek?” The woman asked, with awe.
“Uhh, yeah, I was,” Xander said, feeling uncomfortable with where this was going.
“But… there was only one mercenary who fell during the fight that day. Are… are you him?” She asked, quietly. “The one that everyone thought died so that they could break through? I’ve heard stories about that day from a few of the mercenaries who survived the war that were there that day.”
Xander looked about, but the woman’s low tone hadn’t yet drawn any outside attention. He leaned in and replied in a quiet voice. “Yeah. That was me. Listen, I don’t know if Thrask is going to be happy that I’m not dead, so I’d like to try and keep things quiet, if possible. You know?”
The clerk nodded, conspiratorially, looking to either side. “Of course, of course,” she said in a whisper. She cleared her throat and returned to a normal voice. “Ahem, so now I’ll just need to see your status sheet so that I can get a new copy in your folder and verify your identity. If you don’t mind?”
Xander took a deep breath. Now he would find out if he was going to be banned from the guild. He opened his status window and flipped it around to face the clerk. He watched as she scrutinized it, comparing it to the most recent copy of his status that he’d had taken down over three years ago. He saw her do a double take as she read the portion of his status that contained his titles.
“I… I need to go get my superior. I’m sorry I can’t complete this for you, but… I’ve never seen a title like that. I need to confirm if it is disqualifying or not. I’m sorry…” She looked nervous, and was now avoiding eye contact with Xander.
“Of course, I understand,” he said politely, trying to hid his disappointment. He just knew they were going to officially kick him out of the guild now.
A few minutes later, the clerk returned with a stern looking woman. Her black pants and white ruffled shirt were as crisp as clothes possibly could be, and her light brown hair showed the hints of grey beginning to take root. A few wrinkles were apparent on her face, and they seemed to correspond to the frown that she was currently wearing.
“Theresa has informed me that you have a title that she is unfamiliar with, is that correct, sir?” The supervisor asked of Xander.
“Yes, that about sums it up…” Xander said.
“Would you mind showing me?”
Xander once more opened his status and showed it to the older woman, the clerk that had originally been helping hovering by her side.
The woman pursed her lips as she stared at his title. “Mmm. That is… different,” she said, with a knowing look at Xander. “I need to check the official list. Give me a moment.”
The two staff members disappeared through another doorway as Xander waited anxiously. Fortunately for his nerves, the two of them were not long in their research and returned. The clerk that had been at the counter looked noticeably happier, and that gave Xander hope.
Fully returning to the counter, the stern supervisor said, “Your title is… acceptable. It’s not on the list. However,” she said, “you are in a bit of a grey area. Your title is borderline, from what I can understand from its description.” She gave him a hard look and quietly continued. “If it had said something like [Lich], not only would I have denied your membership, but I would be required to call upon the guard, and every mercenary within this room, immediately. Consider yourself informed.”
“Thanks,” Xander said. “I mean it.”
“Now, Theresa will copy your status down and your file will go back into the active members. It might take a few weeks for your… update to make it to all of our guild houses. Good day.”
Xander concluded his business at the guild as swiftly as he could. It was disconcerting to him to realize that many might consider him a form of undead. He supposed that in the technical sense, he was undead. He had died but was persisting after the destruction of his body.