While Dragon’s Rest had a rather interesting name, most of the settlements in the world were not as lucky.

Many settlements with no names dotted the world, though mostly found in the Desert Wasteland and almost none in the Emerald Valley. One such settlement, unofficially named ‘Endville’, was home to many criminals wanted by those who cared. Many of them had a name posted on a noticeboard somewhere in the Wasteland, either in more respectable towns or in Havens. These criminals ranged from petty thieves to serial killers. The one common thing they all had was their independent affiliation, meaning that they were not part of a criminal organization. They also had many reasons not to join a raider gang.

Endville had no rules and no unofficial leader, so anything goes in the town. Like many free towns, it was a town of anarchy and murder. No decent people would ever want to live in such a town. If they wished for it, they would need to survive. In the end, however, they would lose their souls, becoming one of those who had been taken by the darkness of the town. The moral decay was reflected in the condition of the town itself. Buildings were left in disrepair and whatever was still standing was repurposed into squalid dwellings. The settlement occupied the ruins of a concrete city, and thus there were many places where criminal activities could be conducted. Some were as mild as illicit business. Some, however, were worse. Without anyone to enforce any rules, these people lived freely, and thus, drove more people away.

However, it also made Endville a place where people with grey morale could work without being pestered by the law enforcers. No one could object if they heard screams; most preferred to stay out unless they wanted to stop the screaming if they dared. Those who dared could end up in two ways: either they managed to stop the screaming…or they die in the attempt.

This fact alone made Karkas uncomfortable, but he was not going to give up. He finally had a lead on Asran, the Fa’ar who betrayed him. Some would say that his vengeance was unreasonable; he finally had a chance to make peace with himself and be a better Croc. Unfortunately for him, his grudge bore deep, and this grudge convinced him to be less of a virtuous priest and more a Croc out of revenge.

As everyone had told him countless time, he was a former priest, and his religion permitted vigilante justice, especially to those who had wronged him. Karkas wondered if it was due to his god’s teachings or one of the priests, but he did not care.

In a condemned skyscraper, Karkas found his way to the top of the floor. He chose this particular skyscraper for one reason, one of which to prevent anyone from disturbing him. Another was for persuading his latest prey with fear.

In front of him was a bloodied and bruised Lizan. He was different from Sil in the sense that he belonged to a different subrace, most notably the elongated scales that ran from the top of his head to his tail and his prominent, rough scales. He also had round pupils, something uncommon for a Lizan, or at least uncommon for Karkas, since he was used to those with slit pupils like Sil and many Crocodilians. The Lizan was also quite stocky, possibly even bigger than Karkas in terms of girth.

He was kept restrained with his legs spread out and his arms tied behind his back. He was forced to stand by the ropes around his neck and several looped around his chest and under his armpit. They were anchored to several different points around the edges of the room, but were let loose enough so that the Lizan’s body was leaning forward.

He yelped when he started leaning forward again. This time, he couldn’t avert his eyes to his potential doom. He was tied at the edge of a broken window, his body kept leaning downward. From up there, the floor was very far down. If the ropes were gone, he would surely fall to his death. This was the thing Karkas hoped would convince the Lizan to cooperate.

“W-wait! Wait! Please!” he pleaded. His voice was cracked out of fear. “What do you need? I-I can give you the best girl I have! Y-you like scalies, don’t you? The s-smooth ones or—”

Karkas sighed and tilted his staff. The magical bindings, sustained only by his spell, became looser, causing the Lizan to lean forward, causing him to scream in terror as his feet scrambled to keep himself balanced. His breathing quickened. He started to panic.

“Choose your words carefully, and be quick about it,” said Karkas with a growl. “I’ve used a lot of mana today and I barely have enough to sustain your weight. Answer my question. Where did you hear about Asran Taburan?”

“Who the hell’s that?!”

“Don’t try and act stupid. I know you are Xholi Sagaero. One of your girls told me who you are. Several weeks ago, you met with Asran for a business deal. You need drugs for your sex club, and he provided. Oh, and by the way, if that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s a Fa’ar.”

“F-Fa’ar?! I dealt with Fa’ars before! How do I know which one of them is Asran?!”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Like I said, Sagaero.” Karkas growled by Xholi’s ear, causing him to whimper in fear. “Choose your words carefully.”

Abruptly, Xholi felt this body leaning forward, but this time, he was leaning even further forward, as if Karkas removed his bindings. He screamed on top of his lungs as his body was kept almost perpendicular to the wall, held only by the binding around his torso.

“No!” he screamed, terrified out of his wits. “I’m sorry! Help me!”

“Nobody’s coming to help you, Sagaero,” said Karkas. “And I don’t need to let you fall. I’ll keep you dangling like this, making sure you know that one rope is all you have. I’m sure your heart’s not going to last, and I’m sure you have a lot of money you’re not ready to part yet.”

He let out a high-pitched yelp, then he started to sob. “Please! Have mercy! I’ll tell you everything!”

“Talk.”

“I…I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said Xholi. “But there is…there is a black-furred rat. With split ear. Two weeks ago, he…he bought one of the girls with…with a lot of muns. I…couldn’t care less. She’s my moneymaker, but the…the…”

“The money’s more important,” said Karkas, sarcastically. “Can’t get more muns from sex anymore, Sagaero? Opening a slave market?”

“H-he’s the one with the market! T-this is…better…than losing muns because someone might get too rough and accidentally kill the girls! This is Endville! You know how bad it is for them here! Half of these nutjobs could easily cut them to pieces than paying me what they owed!”

“That’s why you don’t deal with sapient beings,” said Karkas. “And you’re as much of a nutjob as they are. Which is why I have no qualms in letting you fall.”

“What?! But we have a deal!”

“You never told me where he went and you wasted your words,” said Karkas. He walked away and said, “Sooner or later, I’m out of mana, and down you go. See you downstairs, Xholi.”

“No! Don’t do it! I can tell you where he came from! He said it himself! He came from Hell! Hell’s Gate! The free town near the sand dunes! There are Fa’ars there! You can find him there!”

Karkas stopped, never intending to leave the barely dressed Lizan to his fate. He did not need to know about it; better keep him on the edge. The fear might loosen his tongue.

Unfortunately, that was garbage info. So, he let Xholi know.

“Been there,” said Karkas, causing Xholi to gasp in fear. “You need to do better than that.”

“No!! Mercy, Crocodilian, mercy! Help! Help me!”

He started rambling, panicking. Karkas started to feel sorry for the stocky Lizan. The only thing that prevented him from regretting his choices was the fact that the Lizan was a piece of trash himself. Nevertheless, he did not want him to die out of fear. The Croc simply put his hand on the Lizan and cast a spell. It instantly knocked Xholi out.

With a sigh of disappointment, he pulled the heavy Lizan off the edge and tied his hands with real ropes. Then, casting a featherweight spell, he effortlessly hoisted Xholi over his shoulder and started the descent, which, considering his stamina and the sturdiness of the building, was not a problem for him. Yet, he wondered why he chose a 30-floor building while five would also suffice.

Reaching the ground floor, which took him at least 15 minutes, Karkas heard a growl. It was more of a beckon. A Crocodilian beckon. He turned to face the one calling for him: a female, bronze-scaled Crocodilian, looking at him with her arms crossed.

“Got what you need?” she asked, as Karkas put the unconscious Lizan down.

“No,” replied Karkas. “But thanks, anyway.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you, Unmarked,” she said as she approached Xholi. She did not hesitate to wrap a leather collar around his neck. “He needs to be put in his place, and we need to leave this hellhole.”

“Make sure you don’t kill him too soon.”

“What am I, an Endville lost soul?” She then sighed. “Who am I kidding? I am already a lost soul. I found this quite ironic, really. You are a decent mage, yet also an Unmarked. I ran from my tribe, and I lost the purity of my body.”

Karkas growled. “If you need some consolation, I happened to be a former priest.”

“Yeah, I know that. I know you are the moment I met you. An Unmarked who’s well-spoken and a mage. Any Croc who followed the teachings of the temple would know. If that doesn’t convince me, then that amulet might.”

Karkas put his scaly hand on the amulet on his otherwise naked torso. Convinced by his friends to relinquish anything that might identify him, Karkas decided to wore something simple with materials available. He swapped his heavily torn linen kilt with leather and leather footwraps around his legs. It wasn’t necessary since he had hard Crocodilian scales, but he found that it saved him from having to thoroughly clean his feet. He wore nothing to cover his upper body, deciding to keep his priestly ornaments back home. He did, however, keep wearing the amulet out of sentimentality.

Noting that the amulet itself had a design that only a jeweler within a temple of Sobek could provide, Karkas contemplated on taking it off and putting it in his satchel. After considering it, however, he decided to keep wearing it.

“You can’t abandon the teachings that easily, not when you were raised by it,” said Karkas with a gruff scoff. “I have more problems to deal with now.”

“And I won’t pry,” said the Crocodilian. “But you better deal with it soon or you’ll lose more of your conscience. I like you, Unmarked. Do not end up joining us in here, or anywhere similar.”

Karkas could reply with something witty, but he couldn’t The female Crocodilian was right; the more Asran eluded him, the more he’d become a monster. Her remarks also made him contemplate himself, on why he returned to his old ways, all because of following the lead on Asran. He had failed countless times over the years. The Fa’ar was too elusive for him. Even after he decided to think like him, Karkas was no closer in finding his target.

He would think that Asran had died, but that was not the fact. Asran was still out there, ruining lives as he went. He embodied the worst of his kind: a manipulator, a traitor, and a slaver.

So, with the knowledge that his lead turned out to be a dead end, and the fact that he had been away from Dragon’s Rest for quite a while, Karkas decided that it was time for him to go home. He had been testing the limit of his conscience. He wouldn’t want to break it.

He did not want to see himself turning into something that everyone feared.