His name…is Steve Holland. The most powerful disciple of Androth to ever draw breath. William Oh found him working miracles in a women’s hospital and knew he was the one he was looking for. With a wave of his hand, he could cure anything from wounds to baldness and the runs.

He had a particular knack for laying down pre-miracles. He could bless the Floor itself such that whenever one of Will’s party members suffered an injury, they would be instantly healed.

Recognizing the value of such an unbelievable ability, William Oh sent Steve ahead to bless each Floor above; to prepare the world for his coming. Even now, he toils away, preparing for the arrival of The Lord.

-Jason Salazar.

“Huh,” Will grunted, his hands on his hips.

“Yep.” Loth nodded, arms crossed.

“Is his head supposed to be…bent, like that?” Will asked as they stared down at their healer.

Steve Holland, their brand-new Healer…was lying at the bottom of a twelve-foot drop, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle, face purple, eyes wide and staring.

“You know it’s not!” Loth snapped.

“It’s a twelve-foot rise! It’s not even that steep. I could jump that!” Will said, pointing at the rise. “I could fall straight onto my neck from that far and be fine!”

“Apparently…he can’t.” Loth said.

“He could’ve said something!” Will cried. “He’s old! He said he’d been to the fifth Floor! He should be at least level twenty! Even with a noncombat class, he should’ve had some Resistance. Enough to not die from a fall!”

“If he’d accepted the party invite, we would know.” Loth mused. “Something’s off.”

“You think he wasn’t actually a healer?” Will asked. That would explain the unwillingness to join the Party. They would be able to see his Class. Perhaps the Andover temple had simply foisted off an actual debtor, and not a Debtor.

“…Maybe…”

“Well, whatever, let’s go get a refund. That priest was obviously defective,” Will said, turning his feet away from the corpse a mere hundred yards outside the walls of Skyhold.

“You know they don’t do refunds, right?” Loth asked.

“I don’t care, they’ve screwed us too many times!” Will said, shaking his fist as he walked away. “That fifteen hundred gold could’ve bought us some shiny gear that could save our lives and instead we’re dealing with this bullshit! To the Abyss with Andover!”

Loth twitched at a distant thunderclap, but Will kept marching on, straight back into the city, straight back to the temple of Andover, where the exact same journeyman priest looked up at Will with a tired expression.

“How can I help you?” He asked, his voice strained.

“Steve’s dead. I want a better healer. One that’s not going to fall and break his neck on the first rise.”

“Are you sure he’s dead?”

“Yeah, I checked his pulse and everything,” Will said.

“Very well, I will cross him off the roster…” The priest muttered, opening up a massive book and striking out a name with his quill before adding a note beside it.

“…Very well, we would be happy to arrange a replacement, given that you’ve returned within our half-hour replacement policy.” the priest said, pulling out some paperwork. “There’s just the very small matter of bringing back Steve’s corpse.”

“Eh?”

“You see, this line on the paperwork you signed granting you guardianship? It states that should your priest of Andover die in the course of their duties, that you are responsible for returning their corpse to a temple of Andover in a timely manner – in this case thirty days – or you will be held liable, and required to pay a fee commensurate with their value.”

“What do you mean?” Will asked.

“It means-“

“Commensurate means ‘of equal value or importance,’” Loth said.

“Ah. Wait, you’re going to have us pay fifteen hundred gold if we don’t bring you his corpse!?” Will asked.

“Ah, actually, we were giving you a large discount on the purchase of a priest, given the nature of our mishap earlier. Steve’s actual retail value is…” He opened the ledger up again and dragged his finger down until he stopped on Steve’s crossed out name.

“Fifteen thousand gold, as he is level thirty-five.”

“WHAT!?” Will demanded.

“How on Earth is he still a Debtor if he’s level thirty-five!?” Will demanded.

“Steve Holland was in the Debtor’s prison for…let’s see…” The priest mused, flipping through pages of the ledger. “Ah, here. Multiple counts of insurance fraud.”

Will’s eyes widened as a sudden realization began to cool his guts. He looked at Loth. Loth looked at him curiously.

“You don’t mind if his corpse is full of stab wounds, do you?” Will asked looking back at the priest.

“What happens to his corpse after he is declared dead is no concern of ours,” the priest said, nodding to Will, that he understood their situation and they had full permission from the Temple of Andover. “As long as it is returned to us.”

“Excellent. Excuse us,” Will said, tapping Loth on the shoulder and running for the door.

Together the two of them sprinted back to the bluff where Steve had dramatically tumbled down the low cliff and landed with an unsettling crack.

Will stood at the top of the cliff, hands on his hips.

Loth’s arms were crossed.

“Huh,” Will grunted.

“Yep,” Loth replied.

“There’s no corpse, Loth.” Will said, scowling down at the bottom of the cliff. There was, however, a broken tree-branch to provide that unsettling snapping noise.

“Maybe a scavenger came…” Loth offered.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“We got scammed. It’s not smart to try and escape from it.” Will said, eyes narrowed.

“…I see. Do humans pull elaborate scams like this…often?”

“Yeah. More than I’d like.”

“I see. So what are we going to do?”

“We are going to deliver Steve’s corpse back to his temple, full of stab wounds, if necessary.”

“Ah. I see. That’s what that exchange meant.” Loth’s brilliant yellow eyes narrowed.

“This priest fucker thinks I’m young and naïve. I’m going to carve the latter thought out of him,” Will muttered, pulling out his tomahawk.

“You know how you figure out who committed a crime, and why?” Will asked, turning away from the bluff and stalking back to town.

Loth smiled, looking up at him as they walked, seemingly eager to learn more about human society.

“How?”

“You gotta ask yourself who stands to gain from the crime, and how much.” Will said.

“I see…Cui Bono.” Loth said, nodding.

“Eh?”

“It’s Latin for ‘who benefits?’ used in legal considerations.”

“The Abyss is Latin?” Will asked, looking down at him.

“The language of ancient Rome and it’s empire, widely used historically as a language of scholarship and administration…according to the dictionary I memorized.”

Loth looked up at him expectantly.

Will shrugged, indicating he had no idea what Loth was talking about.

Loth shrugged, dropping the subject.

“So where do you want to look first?” Loth asked.

“The last place a naïve young man driven to desperation by a sudden debt would check,” Will said, marching through the gates into Skyhold.

“Ooh, do tell. This is all fascinatingly human.”

“You’ll see here in a moment,” Will said, setting down his backpack and fishing the goat mask out of No-face’s loot.

“Foo.” Loth pouted.

Food for thought though:” Will said before he put it on. “If we fail to catch this guy…Cui bono?”

Mask of Manifestation:

+2 Acuity

Manifests an Ability based on one of the Wearer’s Sacrifices.

Gravity Charge: 1 charge

The user’s personal gravity is oriented in the direction of the target for Resistance seconds. Ethereal horns grow from the user’s skull, and their brain, skull, and neck are strengthened against impact. Potency of effect based on Res.

Cancelable.

Secondary, at will: encodes speech such that only other Mask wearers may understand.

The goat mask clamped down around Will’s face without the need for straps, tightening for a moment before it seemed to disappear, leaving his view as clear as it’d been before.

A minute later, Will swept through the door to the Temple of Andover.

“Greetings, how can I-“

The priest gave a strangled yelp as Will kicked open the panel separating their side of the room from Retribution and marched through.

“Sir, you can’t-”

Will beat the journeyman with the back of his tomahawk before he could raise the alarm, causing the non-combat class to crumple to the ground.

“Here!?” Loth whispered, eyes wide.

Will marched through the curtain, through the hall of cages, who watched them as they passed, until he arrived at a small room, where the ancient master of the temple was eating lunch with Steve Holland, the pair of them chuckling heartily at a certain Party’s naivete until a goat faced, one-armed man with a tomahawk stomped into the room.

“You should’ve seen the looks on their fa-“

Steve froze as he met the mask’s dead, square eyes.

“Oh, look, it’s Steve’s Corpse!” Will said, pointing at the salt-and-pepper priest.

Of course, since the encoding function of the mask was switched on, it sounded like:

“GNA BOKAR GRUBASH SAR GAA!”

“Steve…I think you should run.” The ancient leader of their order said before sipping his tea.

The pastry fell out of Steve’s hand as he bolted for the back door, sending his chair flying.

Gravity Charge

1/16 Charges Remaining.

“WHOOOO!”

Will couldn’t help but let out a cry of pure joy as he relaxed his body and simply fell towards Steve, his prey became the new down, and there was only one way to go.

Even after Steve turned the corner, he remained the center of Will’s world, pulling Will in.

Will landed on the doorframe, stood sideways on it, and peered down the hallway Steve was fleeing through, which appeared to descend straight into the earth according to Will’s inner ear.

He stooped to climb through the sideways doorframe and hopped off, falling effortlessly towards the figure sprinting down the hallway.

Will caught Steve in the back with a headbutt, sending the priest sprawling to the ground, Will atop him.

“Now, Steve, we’re going to-“

Steve backhanded him with enough force to send Will skittering across the wall before leaping to his feet and sprinting away.

Oh right. Level thirty-five.

Steve might have basic stat progression, might not be wearing any Relics, and he might not be a combat class, but it was hard to argue with thirty-five levels.

Will’s Resistance was roughly on par with Steve’s Strength, which was why he wasn’t dead from the slap…but this complicated things.

How can I salvage this situation without murdering this fellow? He’s certainly made that the most attractive option, certain that I’ll be unable to do so.

In essence, the priest had bet his life that he could run and hide from Will long enough for Will to assume his Debt to Andover, allowing him to move on with his life free from the church’s influence.

Once Steve had been declared dead, the path of honest work had been shut.

Will crossed his arms in contemplation as Gravity Charge had him sliding across the floor after Steve.

Will dug his heels in for an instant, straightening himself out so he was falling straight down at Steve instead of sliding.

Steve looked over his shoulder and squawked in alarm at the goat-faced creature floating after him at ever-increasing speed, arms crossed, legs still, following him in total stillness.

The priest sprinted out onto the street, Will falling out of the temple after him. Steve juked right hard, and Will’s momentum swung him wide, forcing the Climber to gallop sideways along the buildings as he absorbed the sideways momentum before his new Down reasserted itself, tugging Will effortlessly along.

“Hey Steve!” one of the local salters shouted, waving. “Your past is catching up with you!”

“Fuck you, Frank!” Steve shouted back before diving past a display full of weapons, standing directly behind them, using Will’s inexorable fall against him.

Will’s eyes widened, and he canceled Gravity Charge, causing a brief moment of nausea as down became sideways.

Will’s momentum was still there, though, and as soon as he touched the ground, he jumped up and over the display.

The priest was already trying to run, but Will wasn’t having any of it, bouncing off the soot-covered ceiling and aiming straight for the priest’s back.

Steve whipped around and put up a divine shield that glittered in the colors of Andover.

Will struck it with his Phantom hand, causing cracks to appear, then followed it with the Tomahawk of the Serpent in one of the cracks, shattering the defenses and placing the blade under Steve’s chin.

“Listen!” Will said without encoding his speech as he caught the priest in a grapple. “I don’t want to kill you…well, I want to kill you, but I’m only going to do it if you make me.”

“I’m listening,” Steve said, panting with exertion.

“Where’s your stash?” Will asked.

“…I don’t know what you mean.”

“Would you rather be dead!?” Will demanded, pressing the blade against Steve’s throat. “The Temple of Andover gave me a month to hunt you down. I did it in two minutes.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“You didn’t get as old as you are without considering backup plans. Where. Is. Your stash? The money you were saving to pay off your Debt in case I caught you.”

If Will got his hands on that, he could pay the fine for not returning with the priest’s corpse and simply wash his hands of the whole situation.

The prospect of switching out for another priest of Andover had long since soured.

“Well reasoned, young man, but have you considered what life might be like…as an aardvark!?”

Will slapped the magic out of Steve’s hand and drew blood with the tomahawk.

“Ow, ow, fine, fine, I’ll stop, gods! How did you do that!?”

“The stash. Now.” Will said as Loth arrived beside them.

Steve’s expression crumpled as Loth began securing all the exits.

“I can’t! You’ll just kill me and take it!” he bawled. “I gave my life for Andover’s blessing and still…and still….boooooohoooohoooooo.”

The blubbering middle-aged man in Will’s grip threw him off guard, especially when snot started dripping out of the priest’s nose…which allowed Steve to elbow him in the ribs hard enough to send Will through the nearby wall, creating a hole for the aging priest to dive through.

A short and violent chase later, Steve was wrapped up in Loth’s silk ropes, wiggling in place, firing off Abilities left and right in a desperate attempt to save his skin, but Will disrupted every one of them.

“How are you DOING that!?” The priest demanded, his tone completely shifted from fear and despair to righteous fury. “You’ll be inviting the curse of Andover if you kill me! Fire and brimstone will rain down on you! Milk will sour in your presence and food will spoil before you eat it! I have friends! Powerful friends who’ll stop at nothing to see you dead!”

Will shrugged and raised the tomahawk, aiming at the priest’s neck.

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! I’ll tell you where my stash is! I just need some kind of guarantee you won’t kill me!”

Will glanced at the Tomahawk of the Serpent.

1 Charge: May be used to seal an agreement between two individuals by sharing smoke from the pipe. Anyone who willingly violates the spirit of an agreement suffers from triple the passive debuff for one month.

“I have an idea,” Will said.