The puppetry of evil had long and tangled strings. Often you could cut away at one of the threads, thinking you’d disrupted the evil made manifest below, only to find that it was just an inert clump, or there were more routes that anticipated the shadowy figure dancing for your early grave. There was an inevitability that I knew all too well, having once been the portent of doom that had seemed ceaseless and unerring.

I left the office, a chair in each hand, and placed them down outside the door. “There, you can be our canaries while Florence and I check for books.” As much as I had hoped to avoid the drab glare of the written word, the Guardian wasn’t quite able to walk yet, despite the help of his god and a few choice curse words.

“Thank ye,” Angelos hissed. The Ranger had helped him hobble his way back around the building, much to the ire of both men. “Me, who can’t stop warbling shite, and the lad with tighter lips than…” He paused to wince in pain. “…unless he has something dire to say.”

“He has good eyes, and you a bad leg,” I shook my head. “Just enjoy the sunshine and peace for a handful of minutes.”

Jakob lowered the Guardian down on one chair and went to the next to sit and deflate into. It had been a rough day; I couldn’t admonish them for a little exhaustion. Florence, however, looked relatively amused with the proceedings. I gestured back inside the office, and she followed with a nod.

“Anything in particular we are looking for?” She raised her eyebrow and tried not to look at the body of the old monk I had tried to shuffle under the desk.

“Other than a little peace for my ears…” I rubbed my eyes, not remembering the last time I desired sleep so much.

“Angelos… is rough, but I expected worse.” She tilted her head towards the door pushed to. “Like, he isn’t especially lecherous and has a level head in combat.”

“He used to be. Back in his first life, before his heart was tempered by a woman strong enough to hold his mouth shut for five minutes.” I smiled, but I allowed those memories to wash away. When you found that love that changed you, everything else became a pale shadow, even after the warmth of their life had long passed.

“As long as you trust him, Victor.” She shrugged and began to look through the books.

I paled at the process. An unwilling surgeon performing an autopsy, revolted by the sight of lifeless organs. We hadn’t the time to pore through every tome present, but there must be something to glean from the collection.

Not all evil followed this truth, but oftentimes when it involved humanity, there would always be a trail of paper. Whether it was receipts for key items purchases, the random scrawlings of a madman, or nefarious plotting between underlings - mortals could not help but put things into tangible form and pass them around as if there was some potential praise down the pipeline.

An indiscernible amount of time passed. A blur of yellowed pages, dust, and faded ink. Everything from local wildlife, reports on local farming practices, historical recounts, and even a few tomes that seemed to refer to me - I quickly put these back - but nothing insidious. I almost felt bad that this was the Father’s legacy. It was a collection, for certain. But it lacked purpose or direction. The desperate cling to any book, no thought to the appearance of the whole.

Perhaps a dim view from someone who had several lifetimes to collate and arrange a library at least thrice this size. Florence looked closer to immolating the room for every tome she had the misfortune to try and glance through and find something important. The pair outside had been remarkably quiet, which only partially worried me.

“Ah! Fuckers - sorry,” Florence shook her head and brought a book to place on the table. “There were some loose pages in here - it’s rough, and I don’t understand some of the language.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I peered down with a furrowed brow. The language was the same as from the tomb. “It’s a necromantic language. Old and outdated, even during my time.” It had prodded at my brain during the descent into the graveyard, but I hadn’t had a chance to sit and process it.

But just like that, the random assortment of broken thoughts slipped together and melded into a whole.

“They had planned to destroy Fogvale,” I run my finger down the page as if the texture would provide a different conclusion than my eyes could read.

“With the… demon thing? Or the undead?” Florence furrowed her brow and looked between the page and me.

“Short answer, both.” Villains were often solitary beasts, too egotistical or deranged to palette working with others. Occasionally the stars would align, and they would form a duo - or even a small group, to attempt a greater goal. A few F Rank Villains could bundle together and achieve enough evil to get to E Rank.

“The necromancer was working with the monks?” She bit her lip and looked around the room as if there might be some obvious sign we had missed without this mote of knowledge.

“Not just them.” I sighed. “There’s another in Fogvale already and a fourth somewhere else.”

The bad feelings and the dour mood soaking the town were not just the pensive worries of a mewling adventurer. Something had been at play, and now we knew for certain. I picked the page up and folded it, handing it to the Mage for safekeeping.

“The abomination was intended to be a shock troop to cause disarray in the town. Then, when everyone was recovering and rebuilding, the large army of undead would come to sweep away all that remained.”

“We finished the monster off without too much trouble, though, if there were more adventurers already in Fogvale…”

I shook my head and gave her a soft smile. “The ritual wasn’t a success. We interrupted it and forced their hand - a real eldritch monster would have been twice the size and much more intelligent.”

“Oh.” Her face fell as she stowed the folded paper away in one of her belt pouches.

“Don’t lose heart, though. As fate would allow it, the form we fought was roughly around our Rank. Not that such creatures care for our system.” Of course, had we gone straight to the main hall, we probably could have halted the ritual altogether… but that was an unchangeable past now.

“Somehow, that doesn’t really reassure me.” She removed her fire-resistant glove, and her arm was soft pink beneath. With a shake, flakes of dead skin and scabbing fell from the empty glove. “Didn’t want to mention it earlier, but I think I melted myself to the glove under the graveyard.”

“I figured, when you couldn’t move it. You push yourself too hard.” I shook my head. “You’re no good to us dead.”

She smiled and slowly slid the glove back over her freshly healing skin. “I know my limits, Victor.”

I wasn’t so sure. If she was willing to cause that much harm to herself with no immediate source of healing, she was either reckless or… well, I couldn’t quite pin a positive slant on the action. A more resistant glove would be required.

“You want to tell me how you have so much control over fire?” I crossed my arms. A rare moment where it was just the two of us, perhaps the best chance of wringing some wet answers over my desiccated plane of questions.

At first, she looked ready to brush it off - but her eyes darted between the doorway, myself, and then the floor. She exhaled deeply before looking me back in the eye.

“I’m… an Inheritor.”

Ah. Someone descended from a powerful Hero. Occasionally some remnant of the power once held managed to snake down through the generations, blooming within the selected offspring and raising them above their peers. Inheritors were often the biggest pains for a Villain, as they could punch above their Rank if pushed. I ignored the curious thought that I may have known the Hero she was descended from.

“That makes sense. I suppose at least Jakob knows?”

She nodded and seemed withdrawn. It was not something often shared - lest you make yourself a prime target for pragmatic evil trying to trim the weeds before they could bloom. Some Inheritors would also fall to the side of Villainy, either due to ego or the relentless quest to push their abilities to their maximum potential. Before me stood either a potential ticking bomb capable of leveling cities or someone destined to be one of the greatest heroes of our era.

Assuming we could live that long.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for telling me. Don’t let the weight of what came before you push you into a rut. Walk your own path.”

Her bright green eyes tried to read my face, and a smirk widened on her face. “You telling me that, or yourself?”

With a shake of my head, I withdrew my hand with a smile. “Too smart for your own good.” I looked at the door and then back to her, the joy leaving my face. “You ever needed to start a funeral pyre before?”

She glanced slowly around the library, the smile sinking away from her face as the realization of our situation sank back in.

“Yeah,” she turned back to me. “Far too many times.”