In another city, namely Darter, a lunatic was running rampant. Many criminals were found dead and so crime had taken a massive dip. A month had passed, and Locke had killed far more than 100 people. The city had given him the name of The Evil Reaper and though Locke thought it sort of cringey, it was incredibly effective at scaring his victims.
Many just ran off when they saw him now, so Locke had to think of different disguises before he killed them. Still in his Detective job, he was set on the case of finding himself with a task force and so he worked a double life of sabotaging the police and killing the criminals.
Every day Locke felt his bloodlust rise and the voices seemed to get louder, and they kept on shouting for the murder of that Thief. Even the name made Locke shiver in excitement. He couldn’t wait to see that man's blood over his blade and so after a month, he decided to just go to Babylon.
He couldn’t wait, not while that man breathed, his blood pulsed and his heartbeat. No, he needed him dead and the sooner the better.
Locke was finished with his preparations, he had killed a criminal who looked just like him and although the Mortician had a skill to check who died, a little bribe made that small issue fade away.
He killed and dressed his fake self and left his signature blade inside his stomach. Locke was sad to see it go, the knife that is, but he needed to add a little spice to his final meal.
Locke knew how to ride so he had a carriage and everything ready to get going. 2 months would be long it would take but maybe he would kill a few on the way so a little delay was to be expected. His voice would not allow 2 months without blood and beasts certainly did not count.
He set off once he had climbed the horse, it seemed to shiver when he wrapped his legs around it.
“Argh, aren’t you a little cutie? Don’t worry boy you have at least 2 months before I kill you so make the most of it okay.” Locke patted him and smiled a sweet smile, 2 months. He could hardly wait.
For Seth, the month that had passed was far less eventful.
He had managed to make another friend with a beggar and the trio now drank nearly every night. The friend that he had abandoned to go on his heist, Rat was convinced by Seth that he had just walked home after feeling sick and after bribing him with a “Sorry” his friend forgave him.
His new Beggar friend was called Mouse and it seemed many beggars were orphans that named themselves. Apparently, those rodents were charms of sorts, so the beggars named themselves after their favourite ones. This was because the God of Beggars was also the God of Rodents so there was some truth to their stories.
Seth had found many potential targets over the last month, One interesting one was another casino but one of their guards made Seth shiver, so he gave up on that one. Seth had been feeling down about not finding a target, but he did maintain a new workout regimen that kept him in tip-top shape.
His mana control increased due to his expensive diet and training, so he also upgraded an old spell. Lock Pick, the orange hands were now colourless and thanks to this they were both harder to see and the spell was easier to maintain with reduced concentration needed to activate the spell.
Once he had upgraded all his foundational spells, those were Lock Pick, Disguise Enhancement and Comical Coin. Then he would start unlocking his intermediate spells but that was for the future and Seth was in the present.
He had finally bought a bed, and although it cost far more than he expected the benefits of sleeping on something that wasn’t hardwood truly saved his back from its endless aching. Another thing he could highlight was the pain in his arm, it seemed infected and although it still hadn’t grown detrimental, Seth had started to notice the area swelling and a light pain when he touched it.
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Seth didn’t want to deal with a doctor and for now, it was fine, so he continued on as normal.
Seth and given up finding a target and decided to find the branch location of The Deck of Madness. Sadly, Seth had no idea where to find it and where to enter it. Assumingly they had another hideout but if they did, and it was of the same quality as the last one, that meant Seth was never going to find it.
Seth had to somehow find a member of the Deck of Madness and ask him where the hideout was. Seth's best guess was to find talented youths and show them his card, which would allow them to recognise he was also a member and if they weren’t a Deck of Madness member Seth could just say he was trying card trick or something along those lines.
Seth had some experience in finding talented youths so the set off toward the production district. He noticed in his old branch that there were a lot of production classes inside the guild, so he decided that the production district was his best bet.
He looked in the more specialised area of the production district, away from the factories that made up most of it and towards the shops that sold premium items.
Seth walked into many of these premium stores and although Seth saw many good items, he saw no talented young men/women. It wasn’t until Seth walked into a Dwarven store did he found a good suspect.
Since the Kingdom was incredibly racist it was odd to see a dwarven store, but this young dwarf did sell high-quality equipment. The store was named `Hammer and Anvil` and its logo was exactly that.
Dwarves were not known for their high imaginative capabilities; they were known for their metal work. Although humans were good all-rounders the dwarfs were much more likely to get production classes to do with metals and because of this dwarven techniques were far superior to their human equivalent.
Seth couldn’t care less about races and cared more about finding the Deck of Madness hideout.
The store itself was stone and it held shelves upon shelves of high-ranked weapons and armour. Seth himself had no armour so decided to buy some at the same time. His bruises may have healed but the lessons they taught him remained.
“Hello, can I get some light armour, preferably something I could wear under some regular clothing?”
The dwarf looked at Seth, mildly surprised that there were no curses in his question, but he went with it as a customer was always a good thing and one that wasn’t racist was a rarity.
“Here, simple lightweight and can be worn under most outfits.” The dwarf pointed to a nice black skin suit that Seth could see was around rank 6.
“How much?” Seth asked.
“Should be 200, but I’ll give it to ya for 160 since you are so kind.” The young dwarf smiled at the end.
Seth was starting to like the small guy so asked for his name and rung his item up. “Yeah, I’ll take it. Could I ask for your name?”
“You’re not trying to hit on me are you?” The dwarf looked at Seth like he had found out his dark secret. To be fair fetishes like dwarves and other races were not uncommon but Seth wasn’t like that, so he just laughed off the dwarf's suspicion.
“Ha, not only dwarves but men too. Who do you think I am?” Seth said over his laughter which was infectious enough to make the stout dwarf give a chuckle.
“Sorry, many come here just to curse and many to lust, but it seems the human race does have a few good people and it's always nice to meet them. Names, Baro and u?”
“Seth.” The two shook hands and after a mild conversation on racism were both agreed it was pointless Seth got out his card and showed the dwarf.
“You see one of these?”
The dwarf looked at the card and seemed to react but hid it and said, “It’s a card, what about it?”
Seth wondered what his reaction was. Seth decided to push some more, “Deck of Madness.”
Now that got a reaction. The dwarf pulled a hammer from his back and warned Seth of its usage, “Where’d you get that name boy?”
Great, Seth smiled and ignored the lethal weapon pointing at him and said, “Ah, good. I’m a member, as you can see, and I need to know the hideout in this city. See I’m from another city and I need to find the hideout.”
Seth knew his guild's policy on different races was lax and racism was clearly not in an organisation to rid the world of discrimination against evil classers, but it did make Seth wonder what the dwarf's class was.
“But the number doesn’t match up You’re not in your single digits.” (level-wise)
Seth remembered that issue and had to explain that he hadn’t updated it yet. The two eventually came to an agreement but the dwarf warned him.
“If you weren’t a nice customer before you asked that question this hammer would have gone through your skull. Be careful when saying such sensitive stuff but do come back. A nice customer in this city is as rare as meeting a fellow member.”
Seth was happy with this ordeal as he had gained much. He now had a friend blacksmith, and he gained the location of the hideout lucky he did because he never would have found it if not told.