The echoes of power coursed through his veins as he eyed the shadowy figures creeping through the corridor toward him.

They’re a little late, Abe smirked, looking down at the corpse by his feet.

They hunched forward curiously, heads twitching as they passed through the bulkheads.

Abe turned his attention to the orb of pure black slowly rotating atop a console at the center of the room—their eyes were glued to it.

Shaky whispers glided through the air as if seeping into reality rather than being spoken: “The vessel, it needs a pilot.”

Rough breaths came from Abe as he fought to control the influx of power.

“Touch it,” the shaky voices echoed one another.

Stepping toward it, Abe cautiously glided his hand above the orb. He could feel its deathly energy reaching out to him, urging him to make contact with it. His hand descended as if pulled in by a magnet.

“No,” he hissed, regaining control of his hand when it was barely an inch from the orb and jerking away.

He looked up, glare narrowing, and pulled his sword free with a ring of steel.

The figures stepped back, clawed hands raised defensively as Abe marched forward. He cut them down with effortless swings, slaughtering the black cloaks as they attempted to flee.

Outside, Abe fell to his knees in the snow. The pull of the orb had been weakened now that he escaped the submarine, and he felt the thumps from his chest calm.

“That thing,” he hissed, looking back at the submarine. “It was communicating,” he looked down at his trembling hands. There was something deep within him that wanted to connect with the orb. He felt the urge like a hunger, but it wasn’t quite the same as what urged him to feed. Whatever it was, he couldn’t be certain of its intent.

Clenching his jaw, he swung back toward the manor and crunched through the snow.

The crows continued to gather, some following, but their caws were gone, replaced by tilting heads, seesawing back and forth with his movements. Je ignored them. Without their master, none of the minions worried him anymore. He had grown beyond their petty threats.

Climbing down from the mountain, he detoured to Strigov, remembering the villager’s request. It was an easy decision since he had no desire to confront Elissa yet. She was bound to find out, and he couldn’t be sure of the outcome of such an encounter, but he no longer cared. Consuming the Man in White had been too nutritious for his development.

Sniff the air, Abe found the villagers who hired him fairly quickly. The first of the group led him to the others.

Abe had made short work of bringing a souvenir, tearing a part of his white cloak before the confrontation with the black cloaks, and fleeing from the orb. Thankfully, it had been adequate to reassure them that he had done as they asked.

It also helped that the crows seemed to have left now. Beforehand, they had been easy enough to spot throughout town.

It took another hour or so for them to collect the coins from hiding spots around town, another reminder that sparring them had been the right decision. In the end, Abe was handed thirty-six golden ducats—which seemed like a fair price compared to what Ricky was offering.

It still played on Abe’s mind what purpose the villagers had. If this domain was detached from Earth and everything else, then nothing would stop Miss Nia from doing whatever she wanted. And while the villagers were usually of no threat, they had proven to be troublesome in this recent episode. And so, why keep a potential liability? There had to be some value to the beat-down old town. It was a question he wanted to see Fuhai Bao about, but it could wait. He had coins now and was getting angsty thinking about finding Bazaarbus.

Waiting by the river, he tried to wade the card through his fingers, remembering tricks he had… seen?

A vague memory stirred of him sitting on an old, beige rug before a flickering TV. Smoke lingered in the air, and he could hear a woman speaking in a foreign tongue.

The back door was open, propped by her foot, allowing streams of smoke inside.

It was his grandmother. No, babika. She was the only person his mother spoke her mother tongue to—not even young Abraham. He barely knew a handful of words, but that was how she had wanted it.

He was supposed to be the new generation. Not tied to the old country and their traditions.

The memories were weak, faded, and inconsistent. Like an almost forgotten dream, he tried to piece them together, the memories feeling more distant and intangible the more he sought them.

He wanted to delve deeper into his memories or whatever was left of them, but something told him that was a bad idea. If he tried to force the return, he might lose them forever.

The man’s face on TV flashed through his mind as he demonstrated his card tricks, the thin pieces of cardboard appearing to defy even gravity in his hands. He was a magician.

He tried to make the magician’s face, but the murky memories were dispelled as a bell chimed.

“Huh?” Abe tilted his head and looked down the river.

A rolling mist formed, flowing along the river; at its end, a wall of white clouds hid the shadow of a silhouette. It was growing larger, following the sounds of calm, rippling water.

The bell chimed again.

Breaking through the misty cloud, a figure stood on a small boat that somehow floated despite the piles of chests mounted atop it. The figure held a paddle, slowly wading through the water and occasionally lifting it to push against the nearby sheets of ice as it made its way toward him.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The figure was a man. He looked too tall for the little overcrowded boat he rowed, his bulky frame covered by a brown robe. He wore a long, black beard, with hair braided down and lined in gold rings. And tusks lined with gold rings protruded from his cheeks.

“Come to trade?” he said, deep and slow.

“Bazaarbus,” Abe swallowed as he took in the unusual sight.

The robed man nodded, “The one and only.”

“I have. Come to trade, that is,” Abe said, straightening as he tried to act normal.

“I love a new customer,” Bazaarbus said, tapping at the ice and then against the river floor as he brought his boat to a stop. With about two meters of ice between them, he rolled out a plank bridge that stiffened as it left his boat. The bridge seemed to lock into the bank by some kind of magical means.

“Climb aboard,” Bazaarbus welcomed with a wave of his hand.

Abe glanced cautiously at the physics-defying bridge but complied nonetheless.

“What are you after, my friend?’ Bazaarbus said as Abe stepped aboard. “Potions, pills, weapons, clothing, armor, pots, pans, pleasure instruments, or something altogether peculiar?”

“My pistol, I need bullets,” Abe said, placing a hand on the firearm held tightly in its holster.

“Smith and Wesson, correct?”

Abe nodded.

The strange man shuffled through his pile of tied-down crates for a few seconds before returning with a large sack. “Point four-sixty,” he said, extending the hand toward Abe. “Four ducats.”

Abe dipped into his coin pouch and produced the coins, dropping them into the man’s oversized hand.

“Quite a jingle you’ve got on that sack; perhaps I can relieve you of it?”

Abe perked a brow.

“How about I offer you a deal? A special deal for a new customer.”

“Sounds good to me,” Abe said, eyeing the big man cautiously.

“I have three items that I believe you would be interested in. Picked especially for someone of your… Well, skill level.”

“Go on.”

“One is a blood pearl; this will greatly strengthen your constitution and make your evolution noticeably stronger upon reaching your next stage, increasing your chances of evolving again past that. An extremely valuable item for someone of your level and an absolute steal at this price,” Bazaarbus said, opening a small timber box.

“The next is something for those friends you’ve picked up along the way. Meat rot. Those little worms will love this concentrated delicacy crafted by the toilings of master necromancers. Rarer than it is powerful. You will find it quite difficult to find items to strengthen those little meatworms, even in the Deathscape. Feeding them will help them grow stronger and, in turn, you. And finally, an elixir of leatherskin. It will greatly toughen you, making you hardier than even a fledgling wight. Although, for as powerful as this elixir is, its efficacy will reduce as you grow beyond reach the next stage of evolution, making its value rather dependant on how slowly you move.”

Abe raised a hand but Bazaarbus cut him off, “Don’t rush your decision. Each of these items I have picked you for specific reasons. They will fuel your growth in their unique ways. And all of them are offered at prices you will never see again.”

Abe lowered his hand, thinking on the strange merchant’s words.

“Can you explain the items in more detail?”

“I’m not a guide, only a merchant. I have provided the information I care to. It is quite interesting to watch your brain tick. I find it quite amusing. But do not worry, each treasure could be considered the correct choice in its own right. Now please, Take your time, and let me know your decision. I will say no more.”

Abe wished Ricky was here; he would likely know exactly which option to pick.

Sighing, he glanced over the options laid out upon purple silk, each in their own timber box.

What was the logical decision? If he could continue growing, which was what he wanted more with every day, then the elixir was probably the worst option.

More and more Abe found himself fantasizing about not just standing at Miss Nia’s side, by growing his power and becoming a lord in his own right. That fantasy required evolving far beyond becoming a wight. He wasn’t about to accept remaining a servant or a slave. He wanted to stand at the top.

Meat rot, on the other hand, not only sounded horrible—but Abe didn’t know if he even wanted to make the worms stronger. Were they loyal to him? That at least seemed to be the case now, but would it remain that way if they continued to get stronger?

And then there was the blood pearl, the most obviously useful choice. He wanted to evolve and keep evolving; the blood pearl would increase his chances of doing just that. It had been the item he had wanted from the start. The moment it had been explained, he had decided that was what he wanted. But Bazaarbus cautioned him on quick decision-making.

Was it a test? Was he trying to create doubt in his mind, or was he warning him against making the obvious decision?

He looked up at the smiling, bearded face, then back down to the items in the boxes.

The blood pearl has to be the right decision, doesn’t it? He said that the meat rot was rarer than it was powerful. But what good is that? Why would I want something rarer than it is powerful? Unless I might need it. Wait, do I even want it? Do I want these little intruders inside of me?

Abe wasn’t sure of the answer to that question, but he felt that they had grown stronger and benefited from absorbing the power from the Man in White more than he had. Why didn’t anyone use these meatworms? Was it just because necromancers controlled them, or was there something else? Being undead didn’t sound particularly rare in the Deathscape, so wouldn’t others be inclined to use something that could grant more power?

On the other hand, he had consistently been told how special he was for a ghoul—would that increase his odds of evolving beyond a wight anyway?

Abe groaned and ran his hands through his hair. He wasn’t even sure whether or not his choice was a big deal, but he couldn’t stop worrying about damaging or delaying his growth. His desire to get stronger had become almost obsessive—perhaps a symptom of his deathly state.

“The meat rot, I’ll take it,” he whispered, handing over the sack of coins.

“Oh, interesting choice, I hadn’t expected that. I thought for certain you would take the pearl,” Bazaarbus said as he snatched away the coins with one hand and handed the hard, blackened piece of meat to Abe with his other. “Evolving them into your system will be no easy task, but the rewards for successfully doing so are far greater than you can imagine. I hope you’re successful. It would make for quite an interesting sight. ”

Abe held the meat rot, the merchant’s words instilling hope but also fear.

What would happen if he wasn’t able to integrate the meatworms? They couldn’t take over, could they?

“They’re going to like you,” Bazaarbus smiled as Abe stared at the chunk of black, hardened meat. “That’s good quality meat rot. I had to travel to the Rotting Crypt to pick that up. Made by some pretty powerful necromancers, or so I’m told.”

Abe could already feel the little things stirring within at the smell of the thing in his hand. They wanted it.

“I’ll be traveling back across the tether soon, so we likely won’t see each other for a while. But I have a feeling you’ll be back,” Bazaarbus snorted. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have offered you a bargain. Those worms of yours will need more than one block of meat rot, though. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for you; see me when you return. It’d be a pleasure to do business again.”

“Sure,” Abe nodded. “By the way, why are the worms so rare? And what you said above evolving, why is it going to be hard for me?”

“Sorry, but you can’t afford that kind of information. Don’t worry too much, though. You’re an anomaly. I have a feeling that all that junk you’re shoving into yourself is going to work out. There’s just something so… weird about you. It’s the smell,” Bazaarbus said with a sniff of the air. “Don’t forget a face, whatever you do. Remember how Bazaarbus helped you when you were little and weak.”

“Sure,” Abe said with an awkward scratch of his neck. “Will do.”