“Me not sure… Meek did best he can.” The Goblin muttered in a defeated tone, looking like he wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else. “Wounds not infected, but Meek can’t do nothing ‘bout scars. Sight gone too. Sorry.”

“You did good Meekknuckle. Honestly, it looks a lot worse than it is Zach, you’ll be fine. Ain't that all that matters? Plus, we’ll keep our eyes…” Skrakch winced as he realized his wording, the Ratling unwilling to meet Zach’s remaining eye head-on. “We’ll find you a proper cleric, one who knows some powerful Regeneration spells. You’ll be good in no time at all.”

Nodding absentmindedly, Zach ignored his urge to stab Skrakch’s throat with the broken shard of glass he was using to check out his wounds. It was hardly the vermin’s fault, yet the rage building in his chest didn’t particularly care about who it lashed out at.

The trio of rogues had retreated to an abandoned house near the Inner Wall, where Skrakch had accumulated a small store of nearly rotten food, and a massive pile of discarded clothes he’d turned into a nest. The Ratling had happily dropped Meekknuckle into the pile to recuperate, and Zach had felt too tired to do anything but drop down beside him.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the scrawny Goblin to wake up, though he’d been distraught upon regaining consciousness. One look at Ornn’s shattered arms had driven the Goblin to useless action, the damned fool trying to heal a Golem with Holy magic.

Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t exactly been effective. Ornn currently loomed over them all from near the back of the room, the Golem somehow looking sad even without being able to change its expression from its customary scowl.

After wasting precious time on his unloving cohort's behest, the Goblin priest had finally deigned to take a look at Zacharias’ face wounds. But the Halfling already knew what he’d say.

One look into the shard of glass had been enough for Zach to know his face was ruined. Meekknuckle had healed his eye as best as he could, but the socket would forever look like an open wound, a mess of red flesh glaring out with unseeing hate.

Perhaps even worse than the eye itself were the deep furrows in his face. Sykes had taken great delight in leaving deep gouges in his flesh, leaving the surface of his face uneven and twisted. Crisscrossing scars ran wild, and huge chunks of his nose and cheeks were simply… gone.

Zacharias had once considered himself a handsome son of a bitch, capable of wooing lasses with a single cheeky grin. But now? Now his face filled him with disgust, the hate filling him clear on his visage. Worse yet, the prick who’d done this was already dead.

So who the fuck would he make pay for this? At the end of the day, it was his own fault. His own hubris that lead to this Gods damned outcome. So Zach did what he’d done since the first day his Father had taken a switch to him. The Halfling choked down his rage, and buried it deep inside his chest, turning a wide smile towards his two worried-looking companions.

“Chin up lads, you two look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s a few wee scratches, it ain’t hardly the end of the world.” Zacharias said glibly, tossing the shard of glass to the side. “Plus, you should have seen the look on Sykes’ face when Winnie charged him. T’was priceless, it was.”

Pulling himself loose from the pile of foul-smelling clothes, Zach dusted himself off absentmindedly. As always, the rage simmered in his gut still, but that was no reason to go about showing his weakness. No, the Halfling was more than willing to swallow his anger for now. He’d wait for a more appropriate target to show itself, then he’d let himself loose.

For now, he needed the two filthy creatures behind him, much as he hated to admit it. This Chosen business had always seemed unimportant to him, legends from on high that would never affect him. But with Winifred becoming one, he’d need to prepare for her return.

Plus, the sly Halfling reminded himself, with Sykes dead there was a gap in the criminal underbelly. It would be a shame to leave the poor addicts of The Slums without their source of Dragon’s Blood, after all.

Humming a funeral tune to himself, Zach beckoned for his minions to follow him. He figured it was as good a time as any for a drink, plus Skrakch was always more forthcoming with ale in his belly.

It was time for Zach to learn about this Chosen nonsense, and see how he could twist it to his advantage. The Halfling was, after all, never one to accept a bad deal of the deck.

----------------------------------------

“So let’s get this all straight. The Chosen are a real thing. Winifred, our local Pit Fighter, a known Dragon’s Blood addict, somehow became one of them. And then the Tomb-Makers sent another Chosen to collect her?” Zach took a long drink from his tankard, grateful to feel the taste of a good mead once again. “And you’re certain that is what all that was about how?”

Skrakch chuckled and shook his head at the Halfling’s stupidity. He flagged down a serving wench, ordering another round.

“You were the one still conscious Zach, you saw it all. She broke Ornn’s arms then crushed Sykes’ skull like it was nothing, right? There’s nothing else it could’ve been but the power of a Pact. I don’t suppose you happened to catch what her Crux was?”

“Me not understand,” Meekknuckle piped up. The little Goblin was standing on one of the chairs, both hands clasped around his own tankard.

“Well to be fair, what you don’t know could fill the whole of Dray’Mel,” Zach snubbed him as he drained the remnants of his drink.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Me thought only Father Chosen,” Meekknuckled continued, not swayed by Zach’s casual disdain. “If Scary Lady Chosen, can Meek be Chosen?”

“Yeah fucking right,” Zach spat sarcastically. “You’ve got even less chance than Squeakers here and that’s saying something. Speaking of Squeakers…” He turned his attention back to Skrakch. “We all know you’re a fucking nerd and in love with fucking books or whatever,” He continued, making air quotes with his fingers at the word ‘books’. “As much as it pains me to agree with Short-and-Idiotic over there, but I don’t exactly get it. What the fuck is a Crux? Or a Pact for that matter. All I know is that Winnie said a word and then she went a bit mental. It was Broke, maybe? Break? I don’t know and, to be honest with ya, I don’t really give a shiny shite.”

“Listen,” Skrakch said with a hint of irritation. “This is freely available knowledge. It’s all in the history section in the Public Library…oh, wait. That’s making an assumption that you can read,” He added snidely.

“Short Man no read?” Meekknuckle asked, an expression of genuine shock on his face. “How you know where to find best cheese?” He gasped.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell. I need another drink. Between the fucking Goblin and that fact that I can feel another lecture slash history lesson coming on, I’m gonna need to be half-cut so I don’t fucking puke.”

Zach clicked his fingers and summoned the serving wench again. She returned within seconds with two large cups of whiskey. Zach quickly downed one on the spot before sitting back in his chair with the other. “Go on then Squeakers. Let’s ‘ave it.”

“Meek need go,” Meek said, getting up from his stool. “Meek need fix Ornn. Arms still broken,” he explained sadly. The damaged Golem had been left outside the tavern at the insistence of the barkeep.

“Nope,” Zach answered, yanking Meekknuckle back down on the stool by his ragged shirt. “If I have to listen to this shit, so do you,”

Skrakch sighed heavily, feeling no doubt similar to how Jace’s tutors used to feel when his old owner was at his most unruly. He drummed his paw on the filthy wooden tabletop and waited for his two unwilling students to settle down.

Once Zach had thrown back half his glass and Meek had stopped looking out of the window every few seconds, he started.

“Right. You both know about the Outer Realms right? That’s where the Gods live, like your Goblin God, Meek. But that’s also where Angels and Demons and Devils all live.” Skrakch says patiently, happy to have someone interested in his passion for once. “And while Gods tend to stay in their realms, and only meddle a bit for their favourites, there are other things out there too.”

“Oh crap, he’s getting all religiou-OW! The fuck?” Zach exclaimed as Meek kicked him in the shin to shut him up. “Ya green little fucker…”

Skrakch, ignoring the infuriating Halfling, continued.

“Unlike Gods, the Ancient Ones don’t care about race or creed. They’re forces of nature, representations of fundamental forces of Nature. When the first planets died and shriveled, Harvest drew its first breath. And even now, when some farmer Harvests their bloody crops, it sustains some creepy Eldritch abomination.” Skrakch muttered, taking a second to whet his lips with his mead.

“Meek no understand. Why some monster want give Father it strength? Why don’t keep strength, get more Harvest?” Meekknuckle asked, tilting his head to the side, cogs visibly trying to turn in his mind.

“What other reason is there? To get more powerful.” Skrakch chuckled. “When one of them Ancient Ones out there decides it wants to get stronger, and let’s be frank here who the Hells doesn’t, it reaches out to the Mortal Realm. Aka, us. I don’t understand the specifics, but it chooses a mortal, and offers them a Pact.”

Skrakch expected another interruption but, when there wasn’t one, he carried on.

“The Crux is the Core of the Pact. You say Winifred’s was Break? That makes sense, she breaks everything she touches. Alright, so some Ancient One, floating about between the Planes or some shit, it’s the personification of Break. That’s all it does too. It Breaks things. And it wants to find some lucky mortal who Breaks things as well. So when it finds some mortal it likes, it reaches down and shoves a little shard of itself down the mortal’s metaphorical throat. So this “Break'' reaches out to Winifred, and she accepts. Maybe consciously, maybe not.”

“Well that’s kind of shit ain’t it?” Zach said, draining the last of his whiskey. “Breaking stuff? I do way more impressive stuff than that. Hell, for the number of women I get my power would be-“

“Shut up.” Skrakch quickly interrupted. There was never a time he wanted to hear about the Halfling’s depraved sexual exploits but he was on a roll now and didn’t want the conversation to veer off course. “I shouldn’t be surprised you’re being so literal,” he continued with a roll of his eyes. “You’ve no more brains than your average barstool. Break doesn’t mean just breaking inanimate objects. It can mean anything, like breaking your own limits. That’s probably how Winifred could break Ornn’s arms with ease,” Skrakch theorized, ignoring Meekknuckle’s small, sad whimper at the thought of his precious Golem being damaged.

“And Blam, she gets power. But it’s more than that. It’s like a little sliver of that being’s power merges with her. So when she grows, it grows. But it comes with a cost. It marks her so that other Chosen can recognize her. That’s where the ‘mental-sounding’, as you call them, Names come in.” Skrakch polishes off his drink, not used to talking so much without being interrupted, before grabbing another.

“The Dreaded Archmage sounds cheesy, but when a Chosen sees Rath’Mel, they can apparently sense the other’s Name? And how developed it is. So if Winifred looks at him, she’d know that he could kill her with a thought. Or something.”

The Ratling let out a small sigh, before drowning his sorrows with another pull of beer.

“As I said, this is all knowledge from some books. But the big cheese-“

“Cheese!” Meek’s long ears perked up. Skrakch quelled him with a withering look.

“Look, Winifred’s powerful now. And the best part is, she’s immortal… in a sense. I’m not saying you can’t stab her to death or anything, but she won’t age. She’s just… not fully mortal anymore.” Skrakch dropped his head to the table, knocking over a bowl of nuts.

Drinking his beer, Zach hides a wince every time his skin stretches. “So, the real question here is… are they going to kill her? Stop her from getting stronger? Fang’Mel said something about a Living Act. I don’t know shit about that though.”

“Oh we’ve all established you don’t know shit,” Skrakch said bitterly. Explaining this to the stupid Halfling was all well and good but it was making him feel pretty depressed. He let out another sigh.

“I’ve never read anything about a Living Act. The books I found didn’t mention it. What I do know is that there are a few Chosen in the city right now. Most keep a low profile though, so they’re hard to get a hold of. But my Master, Meekknuckle’s Father, says he was offered a choice. Help out Dray’Mel when needed, or die. Not much of a choice really. I do recall finding out that some scholars out there put forth an interesting theory. He believed that the odds of being Chosen for a Pact went up, the more you interact with a Chosen. So all we need to do is stay on Winifred’s good side if she comes back. She’s our golden ticket, boys.” Flopping back into his chair, Skrakch stretches across the table with a grin.

“It’s not the same as being Chosen myself, but I’ll fucking take it.”