Without Marlowe to nag and Talysius to keep me on my best "[Heritor]" behavior, I could finally let loose. Vent some stress, just being myself. We mixed tree teleportation, jaunts through the ethereal world, and made a good time on our way to the capital.

Hitting targets of opportunity all the while. As I approached the center of power, the estates became more and more wealthy. Merchants, knights, nobles, everyone grew fat on the teats of the war effort. The common folk, I figured out, would be on the verge of rebellion if they didn't fear the elves so much.

Yes, those elves who seldomly leave their forest. The King's propaganda effort was so good that the common Pekothian citizen trembled in fear at the mention of a griffin. It wasn't just fear. Envy too. Nine rings to the mortal men, doomed to die. Their mortal nature made them envy the elves that had all the time in the world to level up (but little to no drive and even less appetite for risk).

But in the last year and a half, my campaign threw a wrench in their plans. The humans weren't ready to abandon the strip of land leading to the plains and they would now waste decades rebuilding their fortresses. The average citizen believed that if the King didn't reinforce the contingents fast, the elves would invade and close that lifeline between East and West. As I said, I knew the elves weren't interested in that land. They would've destroyed the fortresses or stopped them from finishing fortifications ages ago if they were.

Removing those created a "gold rush" where the bandit groups raced each other to make the best of the power vacuum. Merchants that couldn't abort their expeditions were forced to hire more guards. Bandits posed as guards, and so on. It was utter chaos. And the people in charge were too busy squabbling over who should succeed the abandoned fiefs or become regents for the infants that would inherit their houses. That paralysis left the common folk exposed to all sorts of predators, sentient and monstrous alike.

The news flowed both ways. It was faster for the westerners because they had mages to scry and send long-range messages but the savage bands of the plains also learned about the power vacuum. The easternmost settlements were under siege from a combined effort from orc warbands and goblin hordes.

Maybe my mercy was a mixed blessing. I could've stopped those folks from going through all this by killing them. It was the barbarian version of the "trolley dilemma" [1]. Except these guys had months to skip town but decided to stay huddled in their walled villages and cities hoping the government would take action. Therefore, aside from the doubt that led me to worry about them, I felt no guilty for their deaths. They could've left everything behind and fled west. It's been almost two years since I looted the first fortress.

I raided everything. Granaries, merchant warehouses, military supplies, armories, treasuries, libraries. The merchants and nobles leading their business died and joined my growing army of beyond-the-grave informers. Since I was in a hurry, I killed only the lead figure and left the others to assess the damages. The tournament was scheduled a year in advance. It took time to spread the word then for the warriors to arrive in the capital. I had time to maximize the economical damage to Pekothas.

Except my actions didn't fly under the radar. Or their consequences. Soon I found myself with a few tails both physical and magical. Wizards were scrying to find me and some unsavory elements were tasked with getting to me in person.

From their behavior, they were [Assassins]. It made perfect sense. There must be an [Assassin] guild in this country, and they see high-profile figures dying left and right with no money going into their pockets. What would they think? Some rogue agent was working on their turf without paying taxes. A sin greater than murder, in their book.

Time to pay my respects. And the blood tithe too.

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I slacked a bit so they would catch up, then entered an abandoned barn. The structure was decayed and frail. A strong breeze would collapse it. There, I became Apricot and donned her black work clothes. I sat on a mildewy hay bale and took a hemp bag of my favorite sweet berries to snack on while I waited for them.

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My pursuers didn't disappoint. A group of five entered the barn and spread out when they noticed me.

"Where is the centaur, girl?" One of them asked me.

I popped another of the purple berries in my mouth and spoke while I chewed. "There's no centaur. Just me and my illusions, dumbass."

He seemed to believe me. With a nod, the two at the sides moved closer, "Did you finally grew tired of running away?"

"Not really. I just thought it would be polite to say hello to you guys and get you to fuck off rather than lead you in a wild goose chase everywhere. I could vanish and leave you eating dirt anytime."

He didn't like my cocky answer. "Well, you are going to vanish. Nobody will ever know where is your grave."

I nodded, "I know that. I have no idea where most of the previous me are buried or even if they were," I said with a shrug. Then I ate another berry. Damn these things were sweet.

One of the assassins tugged the cloak of the leader. "Boss," he whispered but I heard because I have {Elven Senses}.

"Listen to the kid. I bet he has {Sense Poison}," I told them.

Mentioning poison in an assassin's altercation is a surefire way to make everyone stop and reconsider their positioning. Because they were now thinking, did I have time to set a trap?

The boss glanced at the kid. He pointed at my bag. "I don't know what that is, boss, but it is bad. Very bad," he said with genuine terror in his voice.

I pointed at the younger [Assassin], "Wanna guess what are these? If you guess right, the bag is yours."

The leader and the kid didn't answer. Probably to buy time to the two flankers that were checking for traps as they inched closer to me.

I held a berry in front of me, "Do you want to take a look at one? I can toss it to you."

"Don't," the leader grunted.

"Your loss," I tossed it in my mouth and popped it with my front teeth, squirting some juices. The kid jumped back and fell on his butt. "Watch out!" He shouted.

The boss cuffed the kid. I groaned, "Hey, don't do it. The kid is looking out for you. It's a smart one. It almost makes me sorry he'll die today. Humor me and maybe you'll live, kid. Tell me what do you think these are," I said and tossed a berry up, then caught it with a bite. More juice squirted out, more whimpering by the frightened junior murderer.

The two flankers decided to spring a pincer attack on me. I summoned two of BIt's ivory spikes above them outside the barn. The twenty-meter long and sixty-metric-tons heavy spears crashed down and impaled one of the guys through the chest and nicked the other's thigh. The one that survived used probably {Defensive Roll} to escape sudden death. He aborted his attack and landed a few meters ahead of me.

I tossed a berry at him. It did zero damage because he dodged. "Aww, what a waste of a perfectly good deathberry," I said while I collected the spikes.

The [Assassins] reassessed their stance. Not because I mentioned deathberries, obviously. They were afraid I had more traps. Using {sorcery}, I created a Force cage around the outside of the barn. They didn't notice.

I jumped off the hay bale and playfully stretched a bit. "I'll give you one chance to figure out who I am. If you do it right, I'll let you live. Kid, if you want to get the berry, use a handkerchief. it's safe so long you don't touch skin to skin. Or burst it. I left that one with the stem."

He glanced at the boss and earned a nod. Then he collected the berry with a rag and stuffed it in a wooden box before stashing the box in his pack. Smart kid.

"You can't get away. There's four of us," the assassin on the other side of the boss that kept silent and still all this time broke. He was panicking.

I yawned. "Boring. Let's see if the dead guy has any clue." I made a show of gesticulating and chanting, then materialized the ghost of the impaled rogue. "Dead guy. Do you know who I am?"

"I'ts an Illusion!" "Death Princess." The boss and ghost spoke at the same time.

"What's the name of these four?" I pointed at them. "Levels and Class too."

"Caldwell, level hundred-eight [Darkblade Assassin]. Timmy, level forty-nine [Assassin]. Bart, level sixty-six [Trapmaster]. Thomas, level seventy-two [Enforcer]," the ghost answered pointing at the boss, the kid, the one with a bleeding leg, and the quiet guy, respectively.

I drew my trusty elven daggers. "Well, you had one chance and screwed it. I'm not an illusion. The ghost, however, nailed it. Now it is stabby-stabby o'clock. And I never miss an appointment."

The invisible eyes of curious mages had quite the spectacle, free of charge. Enough misdirection too. I expect the nobles and wealthy merchants to step up their security and make less public appearances. Let them believe some [Assassin] organization is after them. After I fnished these guys, I would make myself scarce and evade their scrying. Let them think what they will of the encounter.

A few stabby-stabby moments later, I was on my way to the capital again.

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[1]: There's a trolley on a line with five workers on the tracks. You can pull a lever to send the trolley into another line where there's only a single person. Would you let five people die or pull the lever and kill only one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem