The Territory of Ven’itza was once a central hub for trade in the Sakarkan Empire. At the height of the Empire’s power, it distributed goods and people across the territories, its Governors possessing more power than most high nobles near the center of the Empire.
The City of Ven’itza was built atop a lakeside cliff, to be specific the easternmost crags adjacent to the Grand Lake of Ven. Before the city’s founding, the lake was home to a massive underwater dungeon, challenged daily by freshwater mer for resources and chances for power. The mer powerbase in the region was a threat to the rising Sakarkan Empire, so the Empire sent in the best of its underwater fighters and destroyed the dungeon while distracting the mer tribes with an assault from the shores. Without the dungeon to provide trials and resources to its people, the mer went into decline, and within two decades, the only living freshwater mer in the Ven’itza region were officially citizens of the Empire.
The following decades saw the Territory become unified and officially drawn into the Empire, and forty years later, the City of Ven’itza was established. Ven’itza prospered for almost a thousand years by controlling the three Territory Gates on the waters with naval power granted by the Emperor, but when the Empire began to decline, so did Ven’itza.
As the movement of goods through the former Sakarkan lands changed, Ven’itza began to rot on the vine, barely scraping by with a trade in dried fish and copper from the local mines. Now, most of the once great city is abandoned, full of unquiet dead and monster nests. The smaller town of Ven’itza is mostly made up of boats connected to the lower levels of the Old City.
Today, it is rare for anyone other than the regular trade caravans to reach the town, and even then, very little money is made by either side. Scholars estimate the town will vanish within the next century, and it is expected for the Territory to be lost to Sakarka, like so many before it.
~From a History of the Old Territories of Sakarka
Territories, cities, and even nations will sometimes vanish entirely from Cytheria without a trace. When the connections are restored – often decades or centuries later – there is usually no trace of the original civilizations remaining. The cause of this is unknown, but some common elements have been discovered.
The first – and most well-known – common element is that the vanished piece of civilization is decline. While very few experience this phenomenon compared to the whole, the fact remains that rising civilizations and regions do not suffer from this phenomenon.
The second common element is that there are few monsters present in the region. No one knows why the System births monsters, but it has been theorized that they serve a vital purpose that is beyond mortal understanding. This is reinforced by the fact that civilizations the purge monsters too thoroughly tend to go into decline faster than those that don’t.
The third common element – and one that can’t be fully confirmed – is that the regions no longer have a dungeon present. All Territories begin with several dungeons, and it is the responsibility of the ones who would control the region to also manage the dungeons, culling the monsters within to ensure they don’t rampage across the region. However, during the height of Sakarka’s power, they often completely destroyed all dungeons in territories that bordered important trading routes. When Sakarka went into decline, several of these Territories – and the cities and towns within them – simply vanished, only to return a few decades later devoid of life or signs of civilization.
The current dominant theory is that the System determines that these regions are no longer self-sustaining and prunes them, replacing them with clean versions of the same region so that they can be reused. This is confirmed by comparisons between the old Sakarkan records of destroyed dungeons and the new dungeons found within resurrected regions. The new dungeons almost entirely match the records of those destroyed during Sakarka’s height. As such, it can be extrapolated that the System or Cytheria itself is unwilling to waste resources on failed civilizations…
~From a Study of the Wild Regions and their History
They arrived in the Territory of Ven’itza roughly a week later. The region was once a valuable trade center, so there were numerous stone roads lacing the territory like frosting on a green cake. However, most of them were worn and cracked from centuries of neglect, only ancient enchantments holding them in place.
Tall grass plains surrounded the roads on both sides, and it was common for grass wolves (which were animals) to attack solo travelers along the way. However, there was nothing a heavily-armed group like theirs needed to worry about.
There weren’t even goblins in the Territory, a trait sometimes seen along the old Sakarkan trade routes. This was the sole reason they had chosen to pass through the area, as it was a perfectly safe route that cut past several larger Territories that were more lively.
Nonetheless, everyone remained wary as they traveled, knowing they had already been targeted once.
The Mongrel was moping over the loss of two of his favorite enchanted weapons, the long sword that had disintegrated in his hands during the fight with the high ogre and the cursed rapier he lent to Syana. Similarly, Syana had a somewhat gloomy cast to her features since she broke her new toy, and both of them couldn’t seem to shake off their sour mood.
It was made worse by the envy and hatred of the wolf-man as the fox maidens came over to flirt with the Mongrel at irregular intervals. At some point, the wolf had begun to hang out with the Zealots (both of whom survived), making Mongrel want to groan at how he’d managed to make even more enemies within the group.
Fliman kept an eye on them, but he just shrugged apologetically when the wolf spat at the Mongrel’s feet or deliberately kicked up road dust while walking in front of him. It was a bit petty of the other mercenary, but it was better than a knife in the dark.
The town of Ven’itza came into view on the third day since their arrival through the battered Territory Gate. Ven’itza was a town made up of shanties built atop docks and large boats tied up at the piers. The ruins of Old Ven’itza were evident on the cliffs, where large swathes had been cut out and carved into the buildings necessary for a large trade city to function so long ago.
However, as they approached, even from a distance the wear and tear was obvious. Most of the roofs of the construction nearest the cliff edge had collapsed inwards or slid off into the lake, and one could vaguely make out the sight of lesser undead walking the empty streets.
That the undead were mostly lessers spoke to the lack of miasma concentration necessary to empower elder and greater undead. Most likely, they had simply risen from their graves after the Old City was abandoned, rather than rising after a traumatic death. Lesser undead often infested abandoned towns and villages, even if the abandonment wasn’t from plague or violence.
The people of the town worked only a few hundred meters away from the undead without any sign of concern, setting up cleaned fish on drying racks and setting up crates of copper ingots from the smelters near the larger (and cleaner) transport ships waiting at the end of the longest piers. Those piers most likely served as docking spots for foreign traders from the neighboring Territories.
“I can see why this place doesn’t have any of the guilds… no monsters on the plains, no dungeons, and nothing but skeletons and ghosts in the ruins. Anybody with an access to their energy could rip through the entire ruins in a matter of days,” Kaede commented from her place atop the client’s carriage (which she had somehow managed to obtain, despite being a melee fighter).
“There are probably at least one or two death knights, maybe a lesser lich in the Old City,” Fururu warned.
“Without a high concentration of miasma, they won’t be able to use Words of Death or any of the other curses intelligent undead specialize in, so I don’t see a problem,” Kaede said with a nonchalant shrug.
The Words of Death were quite simply a curse activated by an intelligent undead focusing miasma and their own will into spoken words. While they were called the Words of Death, most of them were life or stat-sapping curses that could be removed by any half-decent Life Magic user. Still, if one was equal with an opponent and got hit by such a curse, it could be fatal. It was also why high-ranking adventurers avoided undead-hunting quests like the plague (if there wasn’t a lot of credits involved), if they didn’t have a Life Mage on hand.
The only way into Ven’itza itself was a narrow bridge leading from the shore to a large plaza-like wood construction near the edge of the town. It was too narrow for the carriage, so the half-elf boy and his butler emerged from their protective shell, and the carriage was stored inside what looked like a fist-sized diamond pendant on the boy’s neck. The mercenaries formed a wall of bodies around the boy and his servant as they walked across the bridge, the ones on the edges carrying shields (even if they didn’t have the skill) just in case.
However, they crossed the bridge without incident, where an old human in a rust-streaked cuirass sat on a crate smoking a pipe, “Travelers or merchants?”
“Travelers,” The butler answered immediately.
“Thirty credits each,” The old man said, holding out a silver card with the ubiquitous gray crystal set into it.
The butler showed him a gold card drawn from his spatial device, and the old man’s expression became sour, “Pre-paid? Go ahead and pass.”
Once they passed him, one of the mercenaries muttered, “He must be skimming off the top, given that reaction.”
“What guard doesn’t? The question is how much of it goes into his account and how much goes into his boss’s,” Another replied with a snort.
“It all goes into his. The last Mayor died two years ago, and ever since, he’s been running things on his own,” An elderly elf woman sitting atop a crate near the pier leading to an open-air market said, smoking greenweed and chewing on something unidentifiable that gave off a stench that made all those with therianthrope blood in them want to get away as fast as possible.
“Two years? That’s a bit too long to leave a town – even one like this one – without a leader,” Fliman remarked.
“Nobody wants the job. It isn’t like it matters who is in charge here. Most people pay the System in advance for passage, so the only credits coming in are our portion of the Gate fees and whatever profits our people can make from selling fish and ore,” She replied, spitting a wad of black matter onto the wood of the pier, leaving behind a stain that matched dozens of others nearby.
“Thank you for the information,” The butler said, waving his hand over a gray crystal set into her armband on her left shoulder.
She raised a white brow, then shrugged, “One last little bit, then. I would leave as soon as possible. On the next ship out if you can. My aching hips are telling me something bad is coming, and I wouldn’t want to see you get caught up in it.”
Fliman narrowed his eyes, and they glowed for a second as he looked at her. He cursed under his breath and whispered in the butler’s ear, the rabbit therianthrope’s pink eyes widening briefly before he hid his emotions once again. However, the butler bowed to the old elf from the hip before taking his charge by the arm and directing him forward at a fast walk.
Instead of going to the large plaza square past the free market, the butler led them past the residential areas to one of the long docks, where he spoke briefly in low tones to one of the sailors. The sailor nodded and ran up the gangplank to the large boat (nearly a ship) deck. A few minutes later, a richly-dressed mer appeared and walked up to the butler, whereupon they once again exchanged words in low tones that somehow never made their way to the Mongrel’s ear.
The captain – for that was who he had to be – shook his head numerous times during the conversation, looking increasingly irritated as the butler’s exhortations became ever the more urgent.
The Mongrel inched his way through the group and whispered a question into Fliman’s ear, “What’s going on?”
“That old elf had the Oracle Class and the Foresight Gift,” He replied shortly, “She gave us as much warning as her Gift would let her, and that means whatever is coming can’t be easily avoided. If it could be avoided solely by a word from her, she would have been clearer.”
The Mongrel’s eyes went cold, “Is it that bad?”
“Last time I got a warning like that from an Oracle, some moron on the other side dropped a meteor on the battlefield, wiping out both sides,” Fliman answered.
“Shit,” The Mongrel cursed quietly.
“The butler’s trying to convince the captain to raise anchors a day early so we can get out of the way… but it looks like that mer is a stickler for his schedules. What the butler has on hand won’t be enough to move him,” Fliman predicted.
“Raid the boat?” The Mongrel suggested reluctantly.
“Wouldn’t work. None of us has access to the Gate passcodes to let this boat through, and I doubt the captain is stupid enough to leave them anywhere outside his memory,” Fliman replied, shaking his head slightly.
“Try another boat?”
“We’ll likely try that next, but the only reason that mer is listening at all is because the Governor paid in advance for his time,” Fliman said sadly, “Trading boats that come out this way are either from tiny or massive organizations, with nothing in-between. The tiny ones don’t have the capacity for passengers, and the massive ones are inflexible when it comes to schedules and profit.”
“Shit…” The Mongrel cursed again, his lips turning down ever-so-slightly (to the point where no one who didn’t know him would notice) in a sour frown. He had to wonder if this was yet another bit of bad luck, but he dismissed that thought. His bad luck usually had to do with people, not larger events.
“I really hope your bad luck isn’t wearing off on the rest of us,” Fliman said jokingly.
“Don’t even joke about that. I was thinking the same thing,” The Mongrel shot back, wincing visibly.
“Nah, your bad luck is always with clients and women, from what I’ve heard. If your luck extended to other things, you wouldn’t be alive,” Fliman said reassuringly.
“That doesn’t reassure me, somehow,” The Mongrel replied dryly.
After an hour or so of negotiations, the captain agreed to let them on board early, but they would have to camp out on the deck at the bow of the boat. Once they arrived there, the butler pulled an umbrella with a tripod stand on the bottom out of his spatial device, setting it up close to the stern, followed by a reclining chair consisting of a wooden frame with leather bound taught between the poles. The boy sat in the chair, where he was provided with what looked to be fresh fruit juice. The butler stood behind him, while the mercenaries worked out shifts for the rest of the day.
None of them were interested in exploring the town.
Aaah… this is bad, I’m getting an awful feeling about what is coming, The Mongrel thought glumly as he sharpened one of his many swords, the sound of metal scraping against whetstone minimized by an enchantment that was visibly wearing away as he used it.
Syana was toying with the auto-crossbow he’d fished out of his ring a few minutes ago, figuring out how to slot in the magazines and reload them with bolts. When he also handed her a bottle of poison he’d stolen off the assassin who originally owned it, she’d actually smiled at him, which made him feel good about himself for some reason.
Typically, he didn’t realize he was just that easy when it came to women he had something over.
He didn’t notice that the fox maidens had used a potion to grow out his hair and were now braiding it in increasingly complex ways. His hair was currently down past his hips, but because it was grown from the hair itself, he failed to notice (his Flesh Magic mostly being limited to living parts of the body).
The other mercenaries were holding back chuckles, with the exceptions of the Zealots and the wolf-man, who were giving him looks full of burning hatred and promises of pain.
He finished with the first sword and tossed it back into his ring, taking out another, the action of sharpening his weapons soothing his spirit. At some point, the girls had wrapped a two long braids around his head in such a way that they looked like he was wearing a crown of hair, and they kept in place with gold wire, twisting it around an amethyst.
They nodded, satisfied with their work… then promptly used another potion to change its color to pink.
The Mongrel finally realized something was wrong when the mercenaries behind him – this time including the three who despised him – began roaring with laughter. He turned around, tilting his head to the side quizzically, his now pink cat ears twitching and turning slightly to the side as he tried to figure out what was going on.
The sailors soon joined in, and even the mer captain was laughing from his place on the pier, now that he got a look at the poor man, who still hadn’t caught on to what the girls had done to him. Only Syana was careful to keep her face blank, but even she was holding in a desperate urge to mock him that she only held back due to being unsure about how the curse of enslavement would react.
The maidens were giggling hysterically, their tails waving back and forth as they danced around him, their ears twitching happily.
His eyes went dead as he realized he was the butt of the joke (though he didn’t know what the joke was), and he was tempted to call on his Gift to punish the Kaede and Fururu.
However, instead he briefly enhanced his body and caught them both by the back of their necks and tossed them off the deck and into the dirty water around the pier.
“You should probably look in a mirror,” Syana said, obviously holding back an intense desire to laugh.
He followed her instructions, taking a bronze mirror out of his ring… and immediately took out a knife and cut off the hair just below his shoulders. He then lifted the ‘crown’ of braids off of his head and pulled the gold wire and amethyst out before tossing it into the lake after the girls.
He bent over the gunwale and ran his hands through the pink hair, using his magic to detach it from his head, baring the ivory white of his head and his second set of ears, which set the Zealots to glaring at him once again. He concentrated, searching out cells within his body that were on the verge of death, then forced them through his systems so they emerged form his head as hair until it fell down to just below his jaw, back to its original color.
“You could probably make credits off that alone,” Fliman remarked, “There are always rich humans with hair issues out there.”
“I did that a few times, but then I came across a noble who wanted me to serve him permanently… in more ways than I was willing,” The Mongrel replied sourly. His bad luck with clients wasn’t limited to his work as a mercenary.
“That… was unfortunate,” Fliman said hesitantly, unable to find a better word for it.
“Indeed,” The other mercenary’s reply was as dry as a desert.
“Did you have to throw them overboard, by the way?” Fliman asked curiously, “They are going to stink seriously when they manage to get back on board.”
“When a fox maiden plays a trick on you, you have to make sure you get back at them as soon as possible afterward. Otherwise they’ll act like nothing happened,” He explained. In his experience, fox maidens needed to be dealt with harshly when their pranks went too far… and that happened a lot more often than he liked to recall. Some memories were better left buried.
“I’ve never heard that before,” He said.
“Most people don’t spend much time around fox maidens. It isn’t like there are ever more than five or six in a single Territory… and even those will disappear on a whim,” He replied with a shrug, unwilling to elaborate on his experiences. Those experiences had been wonderful at the time, but now they were a toxic mass poisoning his spirit.
Fliman noted the bitterness hidden behind his flat countenance, and he decided to back off. There was no point in angering the younger man over small talk.
Sure enough, the fox maidens began complaining in an attempt to get him to pay attention to them after they got back, even going so far as to wave their rather… pungent tails in front of his face in an attempt to get a reaction. However, he took care not to react, and they eventually got bored, leaving the boat to find somewhere to wash.
_________________________________________________________________________
That night, the Mongrel awakened to the sight of a midnight sky painted with an eerie green, and an audible groaning the sounded like it came from deep within the earth beneath the lake.
The other mercenaries were soon awake, and the sailors not on watch began to stir. Screams could be heard in the distance, from the other side of town, and flames began to flicker around several of the piers. However, these were not mundane flames. The flames were a green that mirrored the colors in the sky, and within the flames there was a… writhing that spoke of something unnatural. It was as if the flames were made of green worms, and just looking at it was enough to make the Mongrel shudder in horror.
“Raise the anchor! We need to get away from the dock!” The mer captain barked as he took the helm. Now that the danger was apparent, he wasn’t hesitating at all, which said a lot for him.
Soon they were away from the docks, even as a crowd of Ven’itzans reached the end of the dock, crying out for the captain to take them with him. Several other of the large trading boats had already been swarmed, as they were too slow to depart. What was worse was that green flares appeared on one of the boats, and within moments, the crew was fighting off citizens enveloped with the unnatural flame with batons and cutlasses.
Unfortunately for them, a single touch seemed to be all that was needed to spread the flame, and within minutes, the other ships had been enveloped in it… but they weren’t burning. Instead they began to move out from the docks, aiming their prows at the ship the mercenaries and their charge were escaping on.
Wails of maddened anguish could be heard from the fallen ships as they chased, and there was a hunger to the flames that was visible in the mind even after they turned away from it.
They were silent as the boat made its run for the Gate, which became visible in the distance. The captain held up a blue orb, and from it emerged a ray of light that struck the center of the gate, causing space their to ripple, forming an opening between the arches that emerged from the lake.
Even as they fled, the ‘flames’ spread along the lake bed behind them, and the captain had his men tossing crates of ore off the ship to lessen the load and gain just a little more speed. They Gate shuddered as they approached, threatening to close, but the prow of the ship made it through before it could collapse, pulling the ship as a whole through space before the worst could occur.
In the left-behind Territory of Ven’itza, green flames devoured the very surface of the earth, consuming everything within. The Gates, no longer protected by the System, were devoured as well, the flames seeking a way through to other Territories. However, as always, the System had ensured no coordinates remained stored within the gates, so the ‘flames’ gained nothing but the hundreds of damned souls it had claimed and lands that were already on the verge of being devoured whole.
A scream of rage emerged from the throats of the flaming souls that had yet to vanish down the ever-hungry gullet of the ‘flames’, but – as always – its hunger would remain unsated.
After the flames departed, the System quietly began the process of replacing the land as it had been once in the distant past, just as it had thousands of times before. In time, the land would return, and the denizens of Cytheria would have the chance to make the same mistakes again, but for the moment, the fact remained that Ven’itza, once one of the greatest cities and Territories in the Sakarkan Empire, had vanished.
________________________________________________________________________
The Mongrel awoke to bone-chilling cold and the roar of heavy rain. He was draped over the cracked gunwale of the boat, and when he looked around, he saw that the boat was on land (though it wasn’t dry) in the middle of a forest clearing. Fliman, Syana, the fox maidens, the wolf boy, the kid and the butler were all present, unconscious. So were a few of the sailors and the captain. However, there were no signs of the other mercenaries, and there were significantly fewer sailors than he recalled present on deck.
He ignored the unconscious fox maidens (despite the way their tunics were clinging to their forms) and Syana (who had somehow managed to get her limbs tangled up with theirs) while he approached the boy and his butler. He examined the boy with his senses, confirming he was alive before moving on to the butler.
The rabbit was running a fever, but he showed no signs of injury. When he touched the boy’s cheek, he found a broken tibia, which he took the time to repair, as well as dozens of bruises across his body. In the latter case, he chose to ease them without healing them entirely, so the boy would have some idea of how bad his situation was.
Fliman was merely unconscious, his durable physiology having left him mostly untouched. The wolf-boy was suffering from a broken leg, but the Mongrel didn’t bother healing him. Better to ensure his allies in the group were healthy before healing an enemy.
Syana was uninjured, though her new crossbow had shattered during whatever had happened after they passed through the Gate. He was beginning to wonder if he had some sort of infectious type of bad luck that bestowed every person with their own variant… but his status said nothing of the sort, so he shrugged the thought off.
The fox maidens were also uninjured, but – like the others – they weren’t waking up for some reason.
He sat on the edge of the gunwale and frowned thoughtfully. The situation wasn’t good. This obviously wasn’t their intended destination, and many of their fellows were missing, the rest unconscious for some reason.
That he couldn’t figure it out said that it wasn’t a problem born of the body, as his Flesh Magic would have detected any poisons or direct magical influences on their bodies. His Gift could probably break whatever influence it was if he was willing to use it, given the fact that he was awake. However, he wasn’t willing to go through whatever backlash would occur if he used it so soon after the previous two times. Every time he abused his redacted abilities, the System would take the punishment farther.
Maybe Fliman is right… to be honest, that bastard keeps finding me even with my name and unique abilities redacted, He thought as he considered ways he might use to awaken the others. While he did so, he exchanged his metal armor for a set of treated green silk that repelled the water and would deflect slashing attacks. He then put on a black hooded mantle, lined with mithril/iron alloy plates sewn into the inside to give him some extra protection across the back and rear.
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He chose a straight short sword of mithril and a mithril/iron gauntlet in place of his usual bastard sword and sharpened-rim round shield. The gauntlet was heavy, with sharp studs along the knuckles and short, inwardly-curved claws at the tips of the fingers.
It was a setup good for dirty fighting at the closest of ranges, and it sacrificed some reach and utility for more finesse and brutality. With the gauntlet on, he could punch his way out of most problems the sword couldn’t cut through, after all.
The Mongrel used the outfit for times when he had to fight in marshes, because the treatment applied to the silk made it shed water and mud, and the silk was alive, so it would ‘heal’ itself if damaged (to an extent). It was the oldest of his outfits and armor by far, and it was very recognizable in certain parts of the old Sakarkan Territories, though not because of anything he had done.
He went into the depths of the boat, assessing the damage. The hull was split and cracked in many places, and roughly a third of the rooms below decks were exposed to the weather to some extent. In the cargo area, he found that the crates stacked on the bottom were partially underwater, as a split in the deck above was letting large amounts of rain through to soak the inside. In the bilge, he found several splits in the bottom, along the keel.
Even if there was a lake or river nearby, this boat would sink the moment it hit the water… He thought sadly.
He felt a deep pity for the mer captain, as he had spent enough time around sailors to know the loss of a boat or ship was like losing a spouse for a captain. Moreover, with the loss of the cargo (made inevitable by the ship being grounded in such an odd place) he would likely lose his job, making him unable to obtain a new one.
Well, that’s if I can figure out what the hell is going on here… He thought.
He tied a rope from the locker below deck to the gunwale and rappelled down to the wet ground beneath. He tested it, confirming that while it was muddy, it wasn’t marshy. He then let go of the rope and made a circuit around the clearing, looking for clues as to what was going on with the others.
Along the way, he eyed the blinking notification he had ignored since he awakened, not wanting to have to deal with whatever message the System had for him. Direct notifications were extremely rare, usually only occurring upon receiving one’s Gift or when interacting directly with the System (such as when looking at one’s status or using a System Shop). As such, he had a horrible feeling about that flashing notification… but as he finished the circuit around the clearing, he gave up.
System Notification: You have been witness to an invasion by the Eldritch Being @#$^#$@^$^$@$^. The System requires that you refrain from communicating about your experiences, on pain of death. As reparations for any losses you incur as a result of being unable to communicate your experiences, you have been granted one hundred thousand credits and five points to the stat of your choice. Please choose the stat you wish to increase within 24 hours, or it will be allocated to your lowest stat.
He immediately communicated he wanted the points in mind, and the next moment, he winced as he felt like his mind was being stretched, a headache causing him to close his eyes as the System made intense changes to his being. There was no point in resisting a command from the System. The points in mind would make it easier to properly wield his magic, so he wasn’t about to turn them down.
He didn’t know what an Eldritch Being was, but he knew he didn’t want to know. Having seen no sign of a local cause for his fellows’ unconsciousness, he returned to the boat, deciding to make them more comfortable before exploring further.
___________________________________________________________________________________
The System was incapable of emotion. Every aspect of its being was centered on its purpose, which was completely incomprehensible to the people of Cytheria. However, if it was capable of having emotion, it would have been annoyed at having to spend time buying off a few mortals so they wouldn’t try to spread stories of the Eldritch.
The Eldritch were threats to all multiverses, creatures that were ever-hungry and completely insatiable. The more the sentient beings of a given multiverse were aware of them, the more influence they gained over that world, creating a downward spiral that eventually resulted in the ruin of universes and the eventual annihilation of the multiverse.
Cytheria was better off than most. Due to its partitioned nature, the System need merely redirect Eldritch invaders into unpopulated (by its standards) regions, then cut the region off from the rest. Once that was done, it could replace the region in question with one of its blank templates, refreshing the available resources in the process.
It was a solution that solved multiple issues with a minimum of loss, but it was still a problem, one the System had been dealing with since its creation. Cytheria was fortunate, as the System was quite efficient when dealing with incursions from other universes and the Outside.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Mongrel looked at his status, frowning in concern…
Name:
Level: 39
Class: Mercenary Variant
Race: Mongrel
Body: 53
Mind: 52
Spirit: 96
Skills:
Gift:
Arts:
… to say the least, the changes were startling. Apparently, witnessing the destruction of a Territory by an Eldritch Being and escaping without going insane or dying was a good way to gain levels with full stat gains. He’d even gotten an extra point in mind for the first time in his memory. He never imagined that his mind stat would ever be close to his body one.
More concerning were his new resistance skills and ‘Soul Recovery’. Considering the effects of the Eldritch Being’s presence, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at getting Madness and Curse Resistance. However, he’d never heard of Damnation Resistance, and Soul Recovery was a rare skill that was generally only gained when one recovered from soul wounds after a traumatizing experience so bad it might cause a psychotic break.
I didn’t think it was that bad, He thought doubtfully. If he had to guess, it was more ‘compensation’ from the System.
However, it also gave him a clue as to why the others – who were now covered by a makeshift tent of oiled canvas set up on the deck – had yet to wake up. Reluctantly, he took out a blue coin from his ring and snapped it in half, causing a blue screen to pop up in front of him, saying ‘Remote System Shop’. He tapped the ‘special services’ tab and then he scrolled down until he reached ‘redaction removal’. The cost to remove the redaction for his Gift was forty thousand credits, for each of his skills another ten thousand credits, for his Arts another twenty thousand, and for his name five million credits. With a sigh, he put down seventy thousand credits and removed the redaction of his Gift, the magic skill he had hidden, and the Art directly tied to his Gift.
For the first time in way too long he looked at his status with only two redactions.
Name:
Level: 39
Class: Mercenary Variant
Race: Mongrel
Body: 53
Mind: 52
Spirit: 96
Skills:
Gift: Twilight
Arts:
His gift and the branch of magic he gained from having it were what was referred to as ‘Unique Gifts/Skills’. Now that they were open, a new potential purchase flashed under the redaction removal saying ‘lost level recovery’, but he closed the window without bothering. Any levels he gained from that would only have the bare minimum of stat gains, and that wouldn’t benefit him in the long run.
Twilight… was hard to explain. It was a conceptual Gift and magic that had passive effects on him even when it wasn’t activated. One of the side-effects of it was that any enchanted item he held or wore that wasn’t soul or blood-bound to him would deteriorate at an accelerated rate. When activated, it would disintegrate any enchantment he was touching in seconds. It was also why End Strike was so effective against undead and magical constructs like golems. Twilight disintegrated the unnatural magical bonds within them, causing their bodies to fail rapidly.
If he left it redacted while using it to lift a curse, it would likely kill him. If it was just one or two people, he could have endured the backlash, but the number of people he had to help – even just to fulfill his mission – was just too much.
Twilight Magic was very similar to Death Magic and Corruption Magic, in that it deteriorated things had a rapid rate. When he used it on the enemies at the ziggurat, he had directed it to rapidly accelerate the deterioration of body and soul, while breaking the magical bonds within the undead.
There were other ways it could be used… but the basic concept of Twilight was ‘transition to the end’. When utilized, it would always accelerate things toward their final end, which was why it was so hard to use without harming allies.
Moreover, it was distinctive and unique, making using it a risk he normally didn’t want to take.
Originally, Twilight Magic was a different skill, the more basic Lightning Magic. However, as he worked to master his Gift, it had combined with the skill, causing it to take on aspects of Lightning Magic in exchange for losing the explosive power of the original skill.
The magic he could cast with it was deadly and destructive, but it always acted similarly to lightning, including its attraction to metal and ability to move through conductive objects. It was even possible to ground it out briefly, albeit at the cost of an explosion of entropic energy that left a small area devoid of all energy and life.
Also, unlike the Gift itself, which only used a small amount of energy, Twilight Magic was extremely energy-intensive, to the point that it was unusable without utilizing ambient energy to supplement his internal supply.
He carefully removed all enchanted items from the bodies of the mercenaries, the boy, and his butler. This was to prevent his Gift from destroying them when he used it. They would all lose a few weeks off their lifespans as a result of being touched by his Gift, but that was a small cost for undoing whatever curse they were under.
He started with Fliman, holding his Gift at its lowest setting as he touched the other man’s shoulder. A moment later, Fliman jerked awake, screaming in horror. The Mongrel suppressed his gift and gently patted his shoulders, “Don’t worry, we got away.”
Fliman’s eyes met the Mongrel’s, and he gradually calmed down, “Mongrel…? What… happened? I thought I was being devoured alive by a creature made of green worms…”
“You were under some kind of curse… I would suggest checking your status, since I have a bundle of new resistances and several levels gained from the experience,” He suggested.
Fliman’s eyes went distant, and an awed expression appeared on his face, “I gained two levels, with the full points for body and mind… and I can boost one of my stats by five… Madness Resistance? Never heard of that before. Curse Resistance went up by two… just how nasty was that curse?”
He continued mumbling to himself in shock for almost a minute before he shook his head and focused back on the Mongrel.
“It’s been a year since the last time I gained a level, and I wasn’t expecting another for at least two more years. At A-rank, levels come slowly and with great effort and danger. I might hit S within the next two decades at this rate, if I evolve my Gift one more time…” He said, shaking his head in a mix of disbelief, joy, and terror.
“I’ll finish up with the others… but if you have any anti-curse potions or pills, I’d suggest using them on the boy and his butler. My method is dangerous to anyone other than me,” He warned.
“I… see. I have a half-dozen potions, so I’ll use them on the Zealots and those two, keeping one just in case,” Fliman muttered, nodding to himself as he headed over to where the boy and his butler lay.
He approached Syana next, wanting his allies awake before the Zealots and wolf-boy were. He hesitated for a moment, then sighed as he ran a hand glowing orange, purple, black, and red over her body, wincing when her slave curse shattered, causing a small twinge of loss as the link between them was cut. Her collar turned to dust, as if it never existed.
A moment later, she awoke, her eyes confused as she looked up at him.
“I’ll go ahead and say it, but I had to free you to break the curse you were just experiencing. If you want to run away once we are outside Old Sakarka, I won’t stop you,” He said before moving on to the fox maidens.
The maidens hugged him and began crying once they were awake, their bodies quivering, their ears flat against their heads and their tails low and tight against their legs. With a look of distinct discomfiture upon his face, he hesitantly patted them on the back while he waited for them to let go.
He really, really wanted to just thrust them away, but it wasn’t in him to deliberately harm a young woman… even one who usually looked at him like a delectable piece of meat.
Most of those awakened, did so screaming in horror or crying in despair. Their dreams had varied, but all of them had seen the green worms, and all of them had Madness and Curse Resistance skills either appear or increase in level.
Unfortunately, three of the sailors died of shock the moment they awakened, their faces twisted in pain and madness burning from their eyes. Apparently, the curse had been too much for them.
The captain, having examined the boat, looked down in the dumps as he sat atop the ruined main cabin, chewing jerky taken from his spatial device. The sailors seemed to be at a loss. We were in the middle of a forest, and they were men and women who had spent the entirety of their life atop the water, either following a river, sailing a lake, or journeying upon the ocean.
In other words, they were completely hopeless on land.
The Mongrel stayed clear the huddle where Fliman was discussing the situation with our employer’s people, the boy and his butler talking earnestly in low tones, the butler in particular looking worried, his long ears furled backward. The wolf-man looked like he either wanted to join in the conversation or punch the Mongrel in the face, and the Zealots were sharpening their weapons while glaring intently at him.
The maidens, for whatever reason, were intensely embarrassed about their behavior after their awakening, and they were busying themselves cooking a meal for the rest over a fire a short distance away from the grounded boat. Syana was avoiding the Mongrel studiously, deep in thought as she sheathed and unsheathed one of her daggers every few seconds.
He recalled that his ________ had reacted the same way after they survived boiling oil being dropped on them during a siege. He winced as he felt the old memories of his first real relationship tried to resurface in full, but the splitting headache that followed as he hit a mental block made him stumble, forgetting what he was thinking a moment later.
He went on without recalling what he was thinking about a moment before, his headache gone and his expression as flat as ever.
_____________________________________________________________________
The next morning, Fliman announced that he was taking a small group of mercenaries to scout a way through the forest to civilization. If finding civilization wasn’t possible, they would attempt to find the Territory Gate and pick a destination that had civilization.
It was the collective opinion of the captain, Fliman, and the butler that they had been thrown far off course from their original destination by the destruction of the Gate while they were traveling. The type of trees growing in the area were ones that none of them were familiar with, and even the captain – with his Astronomy skill – couldn’t find any familiar star constellations.
That likely meant they had been thrown at least three or four Territories away from their original destination farther out from Sakarka. If they were lucky, this would put the team closer to their final destination, but if they were really unfortunate, there was no telling where they had ended up.
Despite that estimate, the captain and Fliman had grim expressions on their faces. One possibility they had failed to mention was that the destruction of the Gate might have thrown them into the Wilds beyond the frontier, where there was no civilization at all. If that was the case, the Territory Boss would have to be defeated for them to leave the Territory.
That was problematic, since even the weakest of Territory Bosses was B-rank, meaning it required multiple squads of B-rank fighters to fight it safely. If it was A-rank, they would have to give up on escaping by normal means and challenge whatever dungeons were in the area on the off-chance that a Gate Key would be dropped by the final Boss of the dungeon.
Needless to say, they all hoped that the Territory was already cleared, given how vulnerable they were at present.
The Mongrel was assigned to a squad with the fox maidens, the wolf-man, Syana, and a burly bear therianthrope sailor carrying an iron-bound club from the boat’s weapon locker. They were told to scout the immediate area, looking for food and sources of water. Everyone had at least some supplies in their spatial devices, but the sailors only had a few days worth of food and water, with the mercenaries usually having a month or two worth (the exception being the Zealots, who apparently had relied entirely on the rations provided by the butler).
The Zealots were being sent off with a few of the sailors to find any local dungeons, as they would likely be the source of any resources they needed if it turned out they were trapped. The captain was assigned to salvaging the contents of the boat, especially any food or water that hadn’t been spoiled already.
The Mongrel switched out his gauntlet with a kite shield, exchanging his mantle and silk armor for his usual brigandine and chainmail. The wolf was a berserker type, so he couldn’t be trusted to be much of a defender when the maidens or Syana needed it. Syana seemed willing to go along with them and act as a caster, while the twins had both pulled out oddly-shaped longbows made of white wood. The bows weren’t enchanted, but he doubted they were weak given the confidence Fururu and Kaede seemed to have in them. The arrows had various types of wood shafts with obsidian or iron heads. The iron ones were bodkin heads meant for puncturing armor and other hardened surfaces, whereas the obsidian heads were meant to puncture softer skin with ease and shatter inside the body.
I guess Fliman wants me to take care of the problem with the wolf while we are out… but I really don’t want to have to deal with him… The Mongrel thought, trying to ignore reality as best he could while knowing there wasn’t any point.
The maidens’ eyes were glittering with humor, and there was a sadistic curve to Syana’s lips as she looked at him. Why was it that women always saw through him? Men never seemed to be able to see past his stone face…
Once they were outside of earshot of the camp, the Mongrel brought them to a stop, turning to face the higher-ranked mercenary with a resigned cast to his otherwise expressionless face, “I know I’m going to regret this… but we need to put any problems between us to rest. Neither of us can afford to have matters get out of hand.”
The wolf-man seemed to struggle with his emotions for a minute before sighing, his ears flattening against his head and his tail between his legs as he also resigned himself to talk things over. Apparently, he wasn’t as stupid as he looked, even if he had fallen for the maidens’ empty flirting.
“I’m not much of a talker, so I’ll just put it out there. I don’t think a mongrel like you is worthy of Kaede and Fururu,” The wolf said bluntly, jealousy and anger in his gaze. Oddly, the resentment seemed to fade now that he was able to say things outright.
“I see… well I’m not much for conversation either. I also have no interest in relationships at this point in time… and my luck with women is just as bad as my luck with clients,” The Mongrel replied dryly.
The wolf blinked slowly, then snickered, “Really?”
“Two fiances who cheated on me with siblings, three girlfriends who toyed with me for a year or more before leaving me without a word, and two who tried to eat me while I slept…” The Mongrel said with a thousand-yard stare.
It was little wonder he had no interest in romance anymore… though he should have known better with the lamia and the arachne, given their well-known mating habits. His optimism about love was broken forever after the arachne… though given how many times he’d failed with women before that, it was a bit late at that point.
Even the fox maidens looked startled at this, and for some reason Syana gave him an approving look (who knows what was going on in the drow’s brain). The wolf-man’s eyes widened, and when he saw that the Mongrel was serious, he gave him a pitying gaze, though it didn’t soften his manner much, “Well… that is certainly bad luck. The fact remains that we are after the same women, so…”
The Mongrel cut him off, “You are pursuing Kaede and Fururu, Kaede and Fururu are pursuing me, and I am not pursuing anyone.”
His eyes went dead as he explained things to the other mercenary and the maidens tried to flirt with him to keep the game going. He shoved them away, this time really angry instead of just passively ignoring them, “You two need to get your instincts under control before I have to do something we’ll both regret later.”
The girls blinked at the sheer raw pain and rage in his voice as he glared at them, his face unable to twist into the kind of expression that would match the emotion in his voice. His ears however, told the story rather obviously, the elven ones flushed with rage and the hair of his cat-like ears standing on end, as if he were a housecat hissing.
The Mongrel was not as emotionless as many thought him to be, a fact that most realized quickly after spending time around him. However, for some reason, even those who thought they knew him never seemed to be able to understand that there were some things he didn’t want touched.
This wasn’t the first time he’d had the urge to kill the girls. However, he knew that the lion’s share of his rage was born of bitterness and old sorrow rather than emotions born of their relations to date. As such, he neither gave in the other times, nor did he give in this time.
The woman who had hurt him the most, whose name it hurt to remember, had a face almost identical to theirs, and it was all he could do not to fall into the delusion that they were the same woman.
The fact that all fox maidens shared certain psychological features and reactions only made it easier for them to scratch at the thin barriers he held up between himself and the raw rivers of emotion he he made so much effort to silence.
He knew it wasn’t their fault. He knew that he was just their type and that fox maidens tended to play pranks on those they fixated upon as part of their courting rituals.
That didn’t make it any easier for him though.
The wolf-man looked at him thoughtfully, then he said, “I think I was wrong about you… I will reserve judgment until this job is over.”
“Thank you,” The Mongrel replied wearily.
He knew he couldn’t expect more. Just because the other man knew logically that the Mongrel wasn’t after the fox maidens didn’t mean that they would stop pursuing the mercenary.
As they searched the area, they quickly found that there was plenty of prey in the area. There were numerous D-rank Black Deer and E-rank Horn Rabbits in the area, and there was a distinct lack of humanoid monsters within their search area. There were plenty of nut and fruit-bearing trees in the area, with enough herbs and wild vegetables that they could probably sustain the survivors indefinitely if they needed to. With the copper from the boat, the Mongrel could forge replacement hunting and gathering tools rather easily, though they wouldn’t be as good as those from a specialist.
The other parties found three small dungeons in the immediate area, as well as a silent Territory Gate. It seemed they really were in the wilderness beyond civilization. While those from the shorter-lived races (such as humans or halflings) were dismayed by this, the others just shrugged and settled down for the long haul. Typical of the long-lived races, they chose the most practical route rather than the quickest one.
The Territory Boss was a Silver Dragon… and a sentient one from the analysis. As such, it was possible that, if they negotiated with her (and the dragon was female) they might gain one-time access to the Gate to depart. However, in order to negotiate with a dragon, they would need something to negotiate with, so it was decided that they would split into parties of four or five each and delve the dungeons until they had enough treasure to present as an offering to the dragon in exchange for passage.
No one even considered challenging the dragon, as Fliman had quietly spread the news that she was beyond S-rank before anyone could get any stupid ideas. Silver Dragons were calmer and more rational than most other types of dragons, so there was definite hope that she would be willing to negotiate.
There was another major advantage to delving the dungeons. All dungeon monsters had a small chance to drop System Shop Chits, which allowed remote access to the System Shop. As long as they had one of the chits, they could pool money to buy a Gate Key or a one-time passcode. It would drain most of their funds to do so, but it was doable. It was also possible to sell monster parts and other resources through the Shop, though the prices given were much less than market value in civilized lands.
As the first two weeks passed and the remains of the boat were turned into a makeshift bunkhouse through the efforts of the sailors and the more capable mercenaries, the men assigned to the dungeons began to bring back their prizes.
“Two beast-type dungeons and an elemental dungeon…” Fliman mused, rubbing at the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. He was out of his armor, wearing leather pants made from the hides of local beasts and a fur vest to keep from adding wear and tear to his ‘civilized’ clothing.
“The elemental dungeon will become a problem if it overflows now that we are delving it,” Licus said with concern, a joint of local greenweed in his mouth. They found a patch inside the forest, and now Licus and his fellow addicts were happily cultivating it behind the bunkhouse.
“We only have a few people with elemental magic in our group. Most of us are meatheads who would barely be able to serve as shields inside an elemental dungeon,” One of the mages, a brown-skinned elf with geometric tattoos running down the right side of his exposed body remarked.
“The Mongrel’s weird magic would probably work on them, from what I can tell. The drow has Ice Magic, and the fox maidens will be able to use fox-fire,” Licus remarked.
“You just want to keep them away from the Zealots,” The mage said with some amusement.
“What can I say? There is something cute about the way the girls in that group spend all their time teasing him,” Licus said with a grin. He was a cat therianthrope with a lithe, wiry body and a massive energy capacity who could often be seen with Risti, the other master archer in their group. His energy capacity was almost entirely devoted to rooting himself with Earth Magic and strengthening his muscles with the Body Enhancement skill to allow himself to wield the massive adamantium great-bow he wore on his back. During the battle against the orcs, his arrows had punched through several orcs to get at the shamans and archers, completely ignoring whatever armor or enhancement techniques they were using.
However, he was getting low on arrows that could survive being fired from the giant bow, so he was having to use a mundane longbow more and more often.
He had also broken through to the A-rank levels (though it would have to be confirmed at the Guild before it was official) after he woke up, as it had pushed him over the level limit and he already met the other conditions. Risti had scowled in frustration at that, as she was still a level below the limit.
“Poor guy… I heard from Xirius that his luck with clients is about the same as his luck with women,” The mage said with pity.
“Really? I thought the wolf wanted his head?” Fliman asked with surprise.
“Yeah… something about four messy relationships and two who tried to eat him in his sleep,” Licus said cheerfully.
Fliman winced, “No wonder he’s so gloomy. I’d offer to take him to the red-light district in the next town we reach, but with that kind of luck…”
“And he isn’t even System-Cursed,” The mage murmured, shaking his head.
“Dun was trying to convince the sailors he was cursed the other day,” Licus remarked.
“Craste was doing the same yesterday,” The mage said with a nod.
“Damned System Zealots… don’t they realize this isn’t the time to be pursuing their stupid religious agenda?” Fliman said angrily.
“They are Zealots, what do you expect? I once saw a crowd being egged on by zealots tie a mongrel to a stake and set him alight in the streets. Expecting sense out of religious fanatics is like expecting a river to appear in a desert,” Licus remarked.
“Why did the Governor hire those idiots, anyway? Their reputation is awful, and their temperament isn’t suited to guard duty,” The mage complained.
“They are relatives, apparently. They wormed their way onto the job through connections,” Fliman replied with a grunt as he popped some roasted nuts into his mouth.
“Should we make ‘arrangements’?” Licus inquired.
“Can Risti handle it?” Fliman asked.
“Of course,” The cat-man said with a grin and a thumbs-up.
“Then make it happen. We don’t need troublemakers right now,” Fliman ordered.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dun and Craste grumbled angrily to one another as they walked through the depths of the northern beast dungeon, Riste and Licus serving as their rearguard.
“Why the hell does that mongrel get to delve the elemental dungeon?!” Craste whined. Elemental dungeons were known for their great drops, though they were also dangerous and practically required elemental weapons or magic to handle the monsters within. Craste had spent most of his life as either a thug or a mercenary since reaching adulthood, so he honestly didn’t understand that, though.
Dun shrugged, spitting on the ground at his feet as he slammed his left warhammer down onto the skull of a dire wolf, splattering its brain and bones into all directions.
Craste thrust his spear into the throat of another dire wolf, ripping it out the side in a spray of crimson even as another latched onto his right arm, biting deeply into the limb. However, no blood spilled, despite the muscle and flesh being mangled badly by the wolf’s jerking movements.
Craste, unconcerned by the pain or the horrific wound, slammed the thick blade of his dagger into the base of the wolf’s skull before using it to cut off the creature’s jaws, ripping them out of his flesh with a sickening crunch. The wound slowly drew itself back into a semblance of what it was before, joining dozens of similar tears, cuts, and lesions on the elf’s bare upper half. In some cases, blood flowed between severed arteries eerily despite both ends being exposed to the air, and his jawbone was partially exposed from a great bear’s claw running across it early in the delve.
The peculiarities of his Blood Magic would heal all the wounds within a day or so, but until then, he would continue to look like a piece of mangled meat.
Craste wasn’t much of a Blood Mage. Most Blood Magic users utilized blood as a weapon or attacked enemies from within. His technique of maintaining his own life was a basic one that every Blood Mage used, but relying on it was seen as foolish, since entering an anti-magic field while relying on it was inevitably fatal for the Blood Mage in question.
… just as it was for Craste.
Craste suddenly toppled forward in the middle of an attack on a wolf, his blood splattering across the floor around him as his wounds all came completely open at once. Before Dun could react, six thick adamantite arrows (arrows completely made from adamantite) plunged into his back from behind, punching through his enchanted armor with ease and coming out the other side in a spray of blood.
“What…?”
Riste’s expression was rather cheerfully as she replied to the dwarf’s confused question, “Fliman says we don’t need Zealots making a mess of our group with their religious issues while we are in the middle of nowhere. Since neither of you would stop trying to get everyone to kill our only healer, he asked us to take care of things.”
“The System isn’t even marking us as criminals, so you must have done something nasty that earned you a bounty,” Licus speculated. The System marked those who broke certain ‘core’ laws and contracts as criminals. Murder and conspiracy to commit murder were one of those. Considering that they were Zealots and what they had been trying to do, it was little surprise that they already had offenses on their status pages.
“Sorry to say, but I have no sympathy for scum like you. Zealots killed my cousin’s kids because they were mongrels, and I’ve wanted to kill you since we started this job,” Riste said cheerfully, a cruel light in her eyes.
While a small and vocal minority of people in old Sakarkan lands – the Kingdom in particular – were heavily prejudiced against mongrels and a majority were uncomfortable with them, most didn’t think it right to kill them for it. However, it was routine for Zealots to gather their followers and lynch mongrels as an example for those who weren’t loyal to the System Church.
Unfortunately for Craste and Dun, several of the mercenary guards had lost relatives or friends to such lynch mobs, and they had just been looking for an excuse to dispose of the two. That they could do it without earning a criminal mark was just a bonus for Riste and Licus.
Craste had died instantly the moment they entered the anti-magic field set by the mercenary mages, but all it had done to Dun was nullify the enchantments reinforcing his armor, making it easy for the archers to strike him down. His lifesaving talismans were useless for the same reason, and he couldn’t access his spatial device to get out a healing pill or potion.
And so Dun died by slowly bleeding out on the floor of the dungeon, his corpse melting into it within minutes, leaving no trace of him behind. Of course, Licus and Riste retrieved the two mercenaries’ weapons and armor… the credits from selling them would go to compensating the mages for the precious resources used to create the anti-magic field.
Riste leaned against Licus, closing her eyes as they rested in the dungeon’s safe area. Tears ran from her eyes as she remembered seeing her cousin’s daughters bodies that day twelve years before. She tasted the rage and bloodlust, the bitter hatred that was born in her that day, when she found their mother’s body hanging from the rafters of her home, her half-elf husband having gutted himself like a fish after finding her there.
Licus just caressed her ears with his right hand, embracing her with his left. His expression was devoid of a smile for once, his eyes full of old sorrows as he recalled his own experiences. Taking out their hatred upon Dun and Craste made neither of them feel better, in truth. However, they weren’t so old and dried out that they were willing to forget their losses and overlook another tragedy in the making.
Both of them saw the young (for they were much older than him) Mongrel as a shadow of their own loss, something they were careful not to let out around him. Riste especially avoided the Mongrel outside of work.
While the Mongrel’s luck with women and clients truly was awful, his luck with comrades had always been surprisingly good.