Vike was rarely a happy man. Even when things went right, there was no reason to celebrate. Success was the bare minimum of what he expected from everyone in Blackwater. There were always people watching you. Ready to take everything the moment your back was turned and your guard was down. He knew that better than anyone.

It was how he became Guildmaster after all.

So when his informant at the Cathedral of the Endless Akashic told him that a Rouge had dared to Awaken in his city, in the heart of High Water no less, that wasn’t connected to anyone or anything he knew in the Syndicate. He’d had questions roaring through his head the whole time he’d listened to the Skill Priest rattle off what he knew. This was too far outside his predictions for comfort but regardless, he’d reacted swiftly accordingly. Sent out a call to bring the man in no matter what, and waited for his people to get it done. He was likely just bait for some other faction of the underworld of Kanaan. A sacrificial lamb to bleed the waters and lure him out. But that nagging paranoia, remained. You had to be paranoid. Everyone who was still alive that mattered in his line of business was paranoid.

What were the odds that Rogue had become a Spellbreaker? A Rare class he had never heard of, when he was working so carefully for his biggest client to craft a unique spell of his own? That thought had stayed in his head long after he’d sent out the order to find the Spellbreaker, but he pushed it aside. The man was only level one, with all of his skills being new and practically useless. He would be no threat. And it would only be a matter of time before he confronted the man personally and cut the answers out of him.

After hearing that Dumo had the man already in custody so soon after he’d sent out the order made Vike relax. That little fearful thought about the Rogue being the prelude to something greater could be dismissed entirely. Dumo was a good worker. Short tempered, violent, and malicious to a fault. He could delay his visit to the level one Rogue for a little longer. Get some work done, put some more pressure on the Red Brands to push into the Murk district. Those Maulers were getting a little too comfortable for his liking. They needed to be taught to heel. Like the animals they were.

Then things had started going wrong.

When one of his underlings had stumbled into his base, ranting, bleeding, and pissing himself scared he’d thought the man to be mad. Drunk after a night of binge drinking or high on some combination of drugs and spices. He had to be. There was no way a single man. A level one, newly awakened nobody could break out of his cell. Slaughter everyone inside his hideout and leave Dumo a crippled and broken corpse? It was simply madness.

Madness until he made his way to the scene himself. His boots clicking on the wood as he slowly walked around the dried puddles of blood on the floor. The maimed corpses around him had been killed with a savage efficiency he could almost admire if it weren’t his own fucking men on the floor. His hands clenched into fists as his eyes moved from corpse to corpse. His Investigation attribute ability, a product of his five points in Wisdom, coming to life as he recreated the slaughter in his mind.

Every object in the room came alive to his senses as his ability worked to understand the story each told. The unique ways each corpse had been killed and how they had fallen. The upturned tables studded with crossbow bolts and the shattered pieces of wood strewn across the ground. The direction and spread of blood spatter across the room. Separately, they were hundreds of different facts clamoring for his attention. Almost useless in how disparate the information was.

Investigation had been a gamble early in his career as an attribute ability. While all his competitors had focused hard on their physical stats, Vike had gone a different route. They had believed that power in Kanaan’s underworld lied in the physical things. Stealing commoners coin purses, lifting jewels from locked cabinets, and the power you commanded holding a blade to a man’s throat. All fine things for sure, but they were so shortsighted. So limited in their scope.

Power belonged to those who could take what they wanted, that was undeniable. But how easily could the things you took be taken away from you? What did that leave you? What was left if all else was taken away? Vike’s answer was simple, and it had decided his entire future. Paving the way to the Guildmaster he was today.

It was the things you learned.

The secrets whispered between business partners when they believed none could hear. The ingrained habits and patterns of a mark before your hand effortlessly slipped into their pocket. The name of a loved one spoken into a Shieldguard’s ear as he shuddered and looked away as you walked right past his patrol. Knowledge was power in its own way. And Vike had made it his business to use every scrap of information he had to his advantage.

With careful focus honed by years of practice. Facts and bits of information from the room connected themselves together in his mind. Strung together in webs that built on each other over and over until they formed a completed whole. In the span of just a few seconds he began to reconstruct the scene.

He started by the door… Vike thought as he looked from the wooden beam above the unmoving man lying on the floor in front of the exit. Used that one for cover from the crossbows… killed those ones before kicking over a table to hide from the next volley… He fired that one’s crossbow for a moment before dropping it… Engaged the rest without a proper weapon until he took one of theirs…

Vike paced around the room. Piecing the scene together in his mind. Gritting his teeth as he saw how well the Spellbreaker had fought. There was too much skill there. Too much experience for a level one. It didn't make any sense. It completely clashed with the scared and frightened man described in Dumo’s report. Like the man they’d captured and the man who’d killed his men were two completely separate people.

He continued, trying to find some kind of weakness or flaw in the Spellbreaker’s movements or tactics. He used that one as a shield as Dumo struck him… Hit that wall hard. Definitely broke something but… Vike’s brow furrowed as he stared at the signs. He got back up… Dodged Dumo’s Airknuckle Sig until he could get close and… Vike stared at the ruined form of Dumo. As if the dead man could explain to him how this had happened himself.

That little fearful thought in his head had returned. It swelled in his mind as the number of questions doubled over and over. Trapped inside his skull. No one could be this skilled and act alone, so who was he working for? A group outside of Highwater? Or someone inside High Water, who knew how he’d react? Was this still bait for him? Or was it more? Someone going into the heart of Syndicate territory to sow chaos and-

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“Master Vike sir?”

Vike turned almost instantly, with a speed borne of several fortune’s worth of attribute crystals, he buffeted the air around him as his eyes found the man he had brought inside the hideout with him. The same one who had survived this slaughter and run for his help. What was his name again? Yan? He had a bandage wrapped around his chest where a knife had missed his heart. He was shivering, partly from the lingering pain of his injury and partly from being inside the same room his comrades had died in.

“What?” Vike said sharply. Pushing his trepidation deep down so not a trace of it showed on his face.

“Sir.” Yan swallowed. Collecting himself before speaking. “The others say they lost the trail. He went towards the more trafficked streets and… and there’s just been too many people that have passed through.” Yan stared into the floor as if he was expecting the blade of a guillotine to fall on his neck. “What should we do sir?”

Vike stared at his underling as his thoughts spun. Orders being made and discarded in his mind as he decided on what would serve him most. He wanted the man dead. Dead for killing his men. Not because he cared for his men, ruthlessness was the defining trait of any high-ranking member of the Syndicate. And losing a few good members a year was expected and accounted for when looking for new recruits. But the thing that boiled his blood more than anything…

This man had made him look weak.

He had spent years cultivating Blackwater into a name that High Water feared. Turning it from a gang of rowdy, useless dockworkers into something so much more. What would the other Syndicate Guilds say about Blackwater? About him, if they knew how easily his men had been taken out? He could already see the signs in his men. The way their eyes flickered towards the shadows. Their nervous hands twitching for their knives. Vike knew what would happen if this got out. The other Guilds and worse, his own men would fear this new threat instead of what they’ve always feared. Him.

And that was something he could not afford.

“Put out a high alert order for the Guild. I want everyone combing through every inch of our territory to find him. Send out men to watch every gate into the city in case he tries to make a run for it. I want a bounty set for the bastard, tonight. Open to the whole Syndicate. Blackwater, Silk Spinners, Red Brand, even the Maulers. Double the usual reward if he’s dead.” Vike growled. Picturing the face of the man recoiling in terror as he imagined drawing his blade on him. Vike’s hand itching to grasp the wrapped handle of a blade behind his back. The metal so black it drowned out the dark. A splinter of the void made real.

“Double it again for anyone who takes him alive.”

That order had been sent out days ago. And while Vike expected a man with such skill to be hard to find, he found himself growing restless. He needed answers. Fortunately, he knew exactly where to go. And more importantly, who to threaten to get them. Breaking into the Shield Guard’s Headquarters would have been nearly impossible, even for someone of his skill. But knowing which Guards were amenable to bribes and which responded best to the appropriate threats in exchange for a smooth entry made things much easier.

The Archival Wing of the Shield Guards’ main building was sparsely populated at the best of times. The work being done there solely consisting of record keeping, report filing, and other such droll matters of bureaucracy. It was exactly where he found the man he was looking for. Ichabod Curtain.

“When you asked for time. I gave you time.” Vike said patiently as he held the bookish man against the wall with his fingers around his throat. He wasn’t even squeezing that tightly, but Ichabod was a man who had probably never felt any pain more serious than a paper cut. His eyes bulged out of his head as his breaths came in ragged gasps.

“But I’m a busy man Curtain. And I have run out of patience for your blubbering excuses.” Vike said venomously. Leaning close to Ichabod to whisper his next threat. “Tell me who the fucking Spellbreaker is before I become… uncivilized.”

“I-I can’t!” Ichabod pleaded. Tears streaming down his face.

Vike growled as his hand reached behind his back and drew the blade at his back. He stifled a tremor of unease as he held the dark blade. Every attempt he’d made to identify the thing had failed, but Vike knew it was more than it seemed. There were times he could swear he felt the blade yearning to cut him. To destroy him utterly and completely for misusing it, though he couldn’t explain how he knew that. As if the blade had a mind of its own.

Vike shook himself out of his wayward thoughts and focused completely on the man at his mercy. Ichabod’s face going pale at the sight of the knife. The man looking even more terrified than Vike thought possible.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Vike said slowly. His gaze piecing the man as he raised his dagger. Poised directly over Ichabod’s eye.

“Wait! Wait, stop- stop- please!” Ichabod said as his eyes stayed locked onto Vike’s blade.

“Then start talking.”

“I…I…I tried everything.” Ichabod sobbed. As his words gushed out from his mouth. “I’ve run the prints we lifted from the Arcstone! The mana signature! Even the blood and hair samples you gave me! I don’t have anything I swear! I swear it to you!”

“Tell me what you found. Exactly.” Vike hissed. “Were the records altered? Were there signs of tampering in the-”

“Nothing!” Ichabod squealed. Not even realizing he’d cut off the man threatening his life. “There was absolutely nothing! I’ve cross referenced every Archive from here to the Capitol itself! That man… that man doesn’t exist! Has never existed!” Ichabod’s baggy eyes rolled around in his head as he squirmed under Vike’s choking hand. Less a desire to break free than the buildup of endless hours of fruitless searching.

“He’s… He’s a fucking ghost!”

Vike stared through at the man at his mercy. Not even registering him as his paranoia bloomed anew. He hadn’t even wanted to consider the possibility before. He was only a small player in Kanaan, all things considered. The people with the resources to do this, to erase a man so completely from any archived sign of his existence? No, no they wouldn't. They had much bigger things to worry about than him. The High Houses needed to be constantly watched and monitored as they repeatedly tried to take advantage of the King’s singular focus on protecting his borders. And the war with the Elves still raged on, just as it always had. Surely their efforts were focused beyond Kanaan’s borders. They had to be.

“I think…” Ichabod started, dread plain in all his features. “I think the man must be a Sha-”

“Shut up!” Vike roared.

Vike hurled the man to the ground. Trying to keep the word out of his mind but finding himself unable to do so.

A Shade. A servant of the King’s Shadow. In High Water.

A chill seeped into Vike's bones at the thought as the idea gained more and more traction in his thoughts. Unlike the Blades, Mystics, and Phalanxes of Kanaan. The Shades operated in so much secrecy that much of what was known about them was only hearsay and rumors. If anything the lack of concrete information only heightened their fame. They were the reason powerful families and criminals watched the shadows.

Vike didn’t even bother to look at the trembling man on the ground as he took his leave. It was possible there was another explanation. A mercenary hired by some other faction in the Syndicate or outside of it. Some highly trained member of a Royal House’s retinue. He’d take any other option than a Shade. If it was…

Vike’s hands clenched as his eyes grew hard. He’d done too much. Sacrificed too much to give up now. He’d have to move fast. Accelerate his previous timetables. If he wanted any of his plans to come to fruition he’d have to adapt accordingly.

Starting with finding that fucking Spellbreaker.