Chapter 27: The Shapes of Monsters

TRISTAN

The most surprising part of the card from Jamal was how simply it worked. Jamal’s note said, “This card will lead you here and let you in,” but Tristan didn't expect it to be so literal. Merely by holding it in his hand and thinking about his destination (even the name Jamal was enough), an arrow appeared in his vision that pointed the direction he needed to go. It was like a magical compass, and apparently it was only visible to him as long as he held the card.

He’d tried throwing the card away, and learned immediately what a bad idea that was. No sooner had it left his hand than the arrow completely disappeared.

Yet another new and interesting thing in the bigger city.

Unfortunately, the arrow didn't tell him how far away his destination was. His father had told him that Jamal lived in a manor outside of Rockmoor, but Tristan didn't know if that meant it was right outside, half a day's march, or even farther. It turned out not to be as far as he’d feared, though it still took him several hours on foot.

Tristan walked all through the afternoon and into the evening. Amid the seemingly endless rolling plains filled only with waving grasses and his little dirt road, Tristan had found little to occupy his mind. The sun was just barely a sliver hanging on to the horizon as he caught the first glimpse of his destination.

Even without the arrow flashing brightly as he drew nearer, there was no doubting that this was the correct place.

It began with stone towers rising from behind what seemed to be a distant hillside. As he neared, he could see that it was actually the lip of a massive sunken valley, with the manor located at its center. With as sprawled out as it clearly was, he wondered if he should instead call it an estate.

Its spiral design was entirely foreign to Tristan. He knew towns and buildings tended to be rounded when defense was a consideration, but that obviously wasn’t the case here. The outer ring had a massive gap that would allow just about anything, person or creature, to walk right in.

Stranger still, the gap was on the exact opposite side of the manor from where the dirt road led. If there was a road leading out the other side, Tristan couldn't see it. But the spiral seemed designed to preserve the path all the way to a more central courtyard that looked to be circular.

Around it were rounded walls divided by six cylindrical towers. Everything was rounded, as though whoever designed it had wanted there to be no straight walls in the place. Even the outer walls were topped by domes.

If this is a fortress, it's the least defensible one I've ever heard of.

But he knew that wasn't really the case. Unlike a true defensive structure, there was no moat or outer gate. This was, apparently, just a strange man's palace. It was quite clear Jamal was not afraid of anyone attacking him.

The road was lined by carefully pruned shrubberies. Some were even sculpted into the shapes of monsters Tristan had read about in stories. The creatures got larger the closer he drew to the mansion. What began as simple dire wolves grew to chimera, to wyverns... and then he finally saw the fiercest creatures in the realm.

Two massive dragon sculptures--mouths wide open--were positioned as if to guard the porch. They were so lifelike, Tristan was nearly afraid they’d try to take a bite of him should he pass too near. Just in case, he walked right down the middle of the path.

It wasn’t until he was fully past the fearsome shrubberies that the guiding arrow finally stopped flashing and instead faded away.

That's not scary at all, he thought. He wondered if anything would have changed had he not had the card.

A little farther ahead, Tristan could see the entrance was a wide open porch where lounging chairs were arranged in two different seating areas. It was made of smooth marble and brightly lit in the growing darkness, almost as if the marble itself glowed from within.

As soon as he took his first step onto the surface, an attractive young woman appeared not ten paces from him. She was sitting on one of the lounge chairs and apparently had been for a while, though he hadn’t seen her. She had bright red hair that perfectly matched the color of her lips. She looked to be only a few years older than him, and her voice was incredibly upbeat and perky as she stood up.

“Welcome to the manor of Jamal. You must be Tristan! My name is Cherry, and I'll be one of the personal assistants available during your stay. Would you like me to show you to your suite now, or would you prefer the tour first?”

One of my personal assistants? Tristan frowned. “I don't think I'll even need one assistant. And why couldn’t I see you before?”

Cherry just smiled at this, walking right up to him and extending her hand. “Privacy enchantment on the porch. Jamal loves his privacy. And I think you’ll see that ‘needs’ aren't really a concern here. Jamal’s also big on personal comfort. Honestly, it's been a while since we had someone new to entertain. You can imagine several of us jumped at the opportunity!”

Tristan didn't know what to say to that, but he was slightly worried about how Cherry was expecting to “entertain” him. Something to worry about later, he told himself. After using [Identify] on her, he felt even more weird about letting Cherry take his bag.

[Cherry, Half-elf, level ?]

She was at least tier 3, and she was going to be one of his assistants? He shook the disbelief from his head. “OK, Cherry, if you’re here to assist me, can you tell me everything I need to know about Jamal?”

The young woman’s smile broadened even more as she lifted his bag as easily as a towel. “It'll be my absolute pleasure,” she said.

- - - - -

SHADOW

From his perch on the roof of the dockside bar, Shadow could see every single person who entered or left the so-called Oath Broker’s shop, through either door. He’d staked out the building for a full week now, and even on the weekend the only real change to the Broker’s clientele had been the hours they’d kept. There were essentially two types: those already bound by Oaths to the Broker, the people whose faces all showed the same mix of sadness and resignation; and those about to be bound to him.

People in that group were easy to spot. They tended to be very low level, clearly down on their luck, and visibly nervous. Shadow had recognized the pattern quickly: all these people were prey. So the question that he’d been trying to answer was exactly what kind of predator the Oath Broker was.

It had all started so innocently, too. Shadow hadn't been looking for someone connected to Brightside yet. He'd merely been seeking for a good job or two, something to sate his blades while pushing him along his Path, ideally requiring some sleuthing and strategizing. A straightforward assassination, as long as it had proper prep and planning, could also be a perfect palate cleanser. He'd even selected the region at random.

But his Path had a funny way of bringing him back to the threads that needed to be untangled--and in this case it was a full-fledged knot.

Shadow was increasingly glad he'd walked out on the meeting if this was the kind of person Brightside used when he needed outside labor.

Shadow hadn't slept in days, but he also knew that he could go far longer without needing it, should it prove necessary. Still, he wasn't going to let this operation drag out long enough to hit those kinds of numbers. The last girl to walk into the shop had made up his mind.

She was a kid. Barely tier 2, and so fresh she must have gone straight there after her tier up. She’d walked into the Broker's shop looking bright and excited. She'd had no idea that the man's contracts were worded carefully, designed to trap and ensnare all but the sharpest of minds.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But Shadow knew.

He'd followed the girl in with his most recent upgrade: a fully insubstantial [Shadow Clone]. It now had the ability to perfectly hide in shadows of nearly any size, and he could keep up to six active at a time if he pushed himself. He had to choose which eyes to see through, one of his clones’ or his own--an unforeseen challenge he hoped he could move past with greater mastery. At least they could follow limited orders when he wasn’t watching.

He’d followed the girl just as he’d had each of the other young, excitable fools that fell for the Broker’s promises. “It’s only a few jobs,” the Broker assured them all.

Not all the jobs were despicable. One boy was merely told to rise in the ranks of the prominent business he was already established in. Another actually got his just desserts when he became a poisoner, not realizing that the task he’d requested--removing his wife--would be the first he’d be assigned himself. But others were more insidious, like the one that got a full set of gear and was immediately hired out as a guard--on the Frontier of all places.

But the girl had it worse than the others. It was the girl that had finally convinced Shadow to recall all his clones. He'd seen enough.

She was a sun mage basking in the glow of her fresh rise to tier 2. Yet she’d wanted to progress even faster, which had led her to the smooth-talking Oath Broker. Her first of a dozen tasks was going to send her to work in a mine for five years. Five years, robbing her of the very thing that made her Path what it was. Five years on top of whatever the next task would add, when she should have been walking her Path.

Shadow didn’t mind that the Broker tempted people off their Paths, but to force them off was something else entirely. And it was clear she was not the first to be sentenced this way.

The Broker was too smooth, and his Oaths were binding in a way that could have been helpful, useful, honorable. To see Oaths used like this, practically slavery, with lasting and traumatic consequences... Shadow couldn’t suffer people to have their Paths taken away from them.

It was time to enact his plan.

By his count, there were currently twelve people in the shop--in addition to the Broker. Shadow had stopped thinking of the Broker as a person roughly two dozen “contracts” ago. He had learned too much about the Broker's methods, and his clientele.

To Shadow, someone like the Broker was a monster. A devil in elf skin. A creature who only wore his true face in the blackest of nights, where the unliving shadows concealed his real cravings.

But this Shadow was also a creature of the darkness, and there was no darkness his Path could not pierce. He had caught wind of the Broker's schemes only because he'd been seeking more information on the man called Brightside. It could have stayed that way, too, but, as he always seemed to, Shadow had learned too much to turn a blind eye any longer.

He hadn't received a quest for it yet, but even if he didn't, the Broker was going to die. Shadow would wipe this stain from the realm. Some evils shouldn’t be allowed to be known.

As the sun finally fell below the trees on the river’s far bank, and the long talons of night crept across the docks, Shadow slipped silently down to the ground and pulled his two biggest daggers from his sleeves. They felt gleefully aware of his intentions, though they couldn't have cared less for the reasons. Morality had never mattered to them, only blood. Shadow hoped they would only drink the Broker's blood this night, but he knew no plan could be perfect. With as many as waited within, there were too many variables, too many unanticipated ways everything could go sideways, even for him.

Only fools believed in perfect plans.

He slid across the street and into the side alley where [True Sight] had discovered the hidden exit masked by an illusory wall a few nights before. Shadow took his time, blending in naturally thanks to his [Abyssal Shroud] passive, obscuring him from a pair of dock workers that walked right past him to enter the bar he'd just left. Shadow was practically invisible in this twilight hour. Better even, as nothing so simple as light would reveal him on its own.

Daggers still in hand, Shadow walked straight through the illusion and into the small alcove where the darkness was congregating, denser than normal. A trap behind the illusion was clever, but expected. It might have stopped someone else in its chilling grasp, but he passed through it like wasn’t even there, entering a narrow passage that was clearly situated between the walls of two rooms. There was an unlit torch near at hand, for people not at home in the dark, Shadow supposed. He already had everything he'd need.

The passage moved straight for fifteen paces before meeting the backside of what doubled as a bookcase. There was a latching mechanism of some sort, and his fingers found the subtle indentation in the patterning on the right side of the wooden wall that he’d scouted days prior. Instead of pressing it immediately, he summoned just one [Shadow Clone], which he flattened down with a simple thought and sent through the crevice beside the shelf. He let himself see through the clone’s eyes as it emerged on the other side into a study filled with wealth and lit by flickering firelight. Some motion to the clone's left revealed a padded reading chair near the fireplace. It was occupied by two shapes, one riding the other. The woman was facing the fire and had the same look of abject loathing as all the others. Beneath her, grabbing at the woman's hair as he licked at her neck from behind, was Shadow’s target.

And that was when the quest notification finally decided to arrive.

[Quest available: Break the Broker]

He opened it immediately and felt incredibly justified.

Dispose of the Oath Broker, in whatever way you see fit.

Bonus Objective: Do not allow any of his Oathbound to come to harm.

Rewards: Bonus XP.

Shadow gripped his daggers tighter and felt their hungry approval. The only wrinkle in guaranteeing the bonus experience was the kind of puzzle he loved: adding complications and limitations for additional gains. So now he would kill the monster without getting any of the slaves caught in the crossfire. That could prove fun.

Scanning the room quickly--while ignoring the chair for a moment--he noted that the only potential weapons in the room were two iron pokers by the fireplace, a knife-like letter opener near the chair, and a hand-sized paperweight on the desk. It was also likely the Broker had stashed some on his person or within the bookshelves that lined every wall. He hoped the one he was hidden behind would open silently, especially since the room's door was wide open and two armed guards were posted just outside it.

But their armor looked too clean, too polished, and too heavy. Their swords were slung too low around their hips. He suspected they wouldn’t be any challenge for him at all. If only I could [Identify] with my clones. Another goal for a later date. For now, Shadow figured that if he could end the Broker quickly enough, the guards wouldn’t react until well after the monster was dead. Then their Oaths would be voided, and they’d be free. Free enough to not create anymore problems, he hoped.

He cast [Zone of Silence], pushing its maximum size until it contained the chair and his bookshelf. While it barely missed covering the door, he could still make it work if he was quick enough. He had the rough outline of a plan, depending on how the Broker reacted.

Shadow switched his vision back to normal and pressed the hidden button. The bookshelf slid noiselessly left... until it audibly clicked into a holding mechanism that was by the door.

Because of the noise, he shifted to a back-up plan and leapt the other direction, straight to the door, which he threw closed before tipping a bookshelf over in front of it. He’d planned for only thirty seconds; with the guards as inexperienced as he surmised, that was all he’d need.

His daggers were already in his hands as he rounded on the Broker.

Not unexpectedly, the man now held the woman tighter against him. One hand was at her neck, holding a knife. “Make another move and she dies,” he said with a voice much too calm for his situation.

Shadow considered just how closely the two bodies were intertwined, how obscured the Broker's vision might currently be.

“You think I need to move to kill you?” Shadow asked as a second [Shadow Clone] exactly overlaid his current position. “Or that I care about her except as bonus EXP?”

It wasn’t strictly true, but would the Broker be able to tell the difference? Shadow doubted it.

“So you’re here to kill me. Do you know who I am? I’m no easy quest, boy. Everyone in this building is Oathbound to me, and you’re dead if I so much as raise my voice.” The Broker practically whispered the words, teasingly, as he pulled the knife tighter to the woman's throat. A droplet of blood beaded up on her neck.

Shadow smiled, because his second clone had slipped into the darkness directly behind the Broker's chair. During recon and planning, Shadow had decided it was one of the best possible locations for an ambush. He just wished he hadn’t found the man seated there for this reason.

“Wrong again,” Shadow said just before he activated the skill to switch places with the farther clone. With only a flick of his wrists, and choosing not to use his built-up [Insight], his daggers cut straight through both the Broker's arms as though they were jelly. The bones didn't even cause the blades to hitch. Then he whispered some final words in the monster's ears. “Just so you know, I didn’t have the quest when I started all this. I only came here because I was interested in Brightside. But you’re forcing people off their Paths, so you deserve it, quest or no.”

He heard the dull plop of the arms hitting the ground. He heard the beginnings of the monster's screams, but he knew that [Zone of Silence] would hold until he finished his work in peace. Three more daggers found their way into the beast’s back, and one final stab into its heart--the moment the woman pushed away.

Shadow watched her then, as she stared at the bleeding body. Her face twisted from one emotion to another, though none was quite so satisfying to Shadow as the relief that washed over her when the abuser was well and truly gone.

In the few moments he had left before the doorway was cleared, Shadow rushed to the desk, swept the whole thing into his magical storage, and made it back to the bookcase exit.

Shadow recalled all his daggers, catching each in perfect turn. For the briefest moment, he considered killing the woman too. Bonus XP or not, she was a witness, and witnesses could be made to talk.

But what can she even say? He had even obscured his race from her [Identify]. He hoped he could let this one slide.

As he rushed down the hidden passage, Shadow got the quest completion notification--including the bonus EXP.

The only thing that soured his mood after such a well-executed plan was the doubt of whether Brightside might make him regret his compassion.