A few moments later, Geoffrey had a glass of amber liquid poured for each of them–magic-laced whiskey from one bottle for the master assassin and his apprentice, and weaker, mundane liquor from another bottle for Tenebres.

“I don’t even know where to start…” Tenebres admitted.

“How about your name?” Allana prompted him gently.

The wraith boy started a little. “You… you knew?”

“You’re not exactly the first person to use a fake name in this city, Seo.”

“Yeah, well… okay.” He sighed, and admitted, “My real name is Tenebres.”

“Tenebrous?” Geoffrey asked, arching an eyebrow. “That sounds more made up, not less.”

Tenebres shook his head. “No. It’s Tenebres, with an -es. My name isn’t literally ‘fancy darkness.’”

“Just really, really close,” Allana chuckled.

Tenebres gave her a flat look. “Do you want my story or not? Because I’m not gonna share if you’re going to keep making fun of my perfectly normal name.”

“Sure, sure, go ahead, Shadow Darkness.”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes, but he didn’t quite manage to hide his own amusement. “Allana. Enough with the interruptions, please.”

Allana pouted but took a small sip from her drink, gesturing for Tenebres to continue. The banter had, if nothing else, served to relax Tenebres a little bit, and he gave Allana a small smile as he launched into his story.

“Well, I really was born in the heartlands, I wasn’t lying about that. Mostly, at least. It was a small village named Culles, in the deadlands. My father was a decent smith, and my mother knew a bit of herbalism, but neither of them ever even got their second gift. We still lived a comfortable life, though. My parents… I don’t know, they wanted for me to make something of myself, more than them. Hired a tutor and everything so that I could take a Mage or Professional exam when I was old enough for gifts.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. It was maybe three or four years ago when some people came through Culles. We had just suffered a monster attack, some big boar that rampaged through town before the hunters managed to put it down, and my family’s house was one of the ones that got damaged in the fight. It wasn’t impossible to fix up or anything, but it was enough that I think my parents got discouraged. And then these people showed up, promising safety and comfort and security to anyone who left the village to move into their compound.”

“Compound doesn’t sound like a great word.” Allana observed.

Geoffrey nodded. “I daresay it wasn’t. A cult, I assume?”

Tenebres sighed. “Yep. This man, Kellen, he had somehow made it to Initiate level, with the sort of gifts that let him actually fight pretty well. He got a few other battle-gifted together, and they organized this hidden little settlement. The whole thing was underground, and he claimed he could keep anyone living there safe from monster attacks. The hunters in Culles didn’t like it much, but the chief had just gotten killed by the boar monster, and they were too busy trying to reorganize to argue much.

“Kellen just used that as further evidence that the town wasn’t safe, and unfortunately, my parents ate it up. So, just like that, I ended up living in Kellen’s little cult commune for the next three years. I watched as, bit by bit, my parents gave everything to Kellen and his people. Their money, their freedom, their…” Tenebres swallowed thickly, and took a deep breath before he continued. “At some point along the way, Kellen realized that I hadn’t quite given in to his indoctrination the way everyone else had. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t go along with his ideas.”

“Ideas like what?” Geoffrey prompted. The man had leaned forward in interest.

“He said a lot of things. That the Realm had failed its people, that the Wastes were expanding, that no one could stop it but that he could help everyone survive in the new world when it came. Everyone was blind and dumb and useless except him and the people following him, that sort of stuff.”

“And you disagreed?”

“Of course I did.” Tenebres shrugged. “I don’t know. Kellen tried to frame attacks like the boar that had destroyed our home as the failures of a corrupt system, but I couldn’t help but remember the hunters who brought the monster down. The men and women who gave their lives to kill it. I just… I knew he was lying. It was fear mongering nonsense. So I started sneaking into Kellen’s study, trying to peer through his books and learn what I could that wasn’t just the bullshit he was feeding everyone.”

“You snuck into this Initiate cult leader’s study?” Allana asked, sounding vaguely impressed.

“He didn’t use it very often. I don’t even know how much he understood what he was doing. In retrospect, it almost seems like his knowledge was distorted. Like he was parroting something he had heard from someone else and only partially understood.” Tenebres’s lip lifted in a snarl. “Not that it made him any less dangerous.”

“He tried to have you killed,” Geoffrey guessed.

“Yes. I don’t know if he caught on to me sneaking in or just didn’t like me refusing to toe his line, but one night I woke up to his men tying me to a board. I was supposed to be a sacrifice to something he called ‘the Void’, a way to open a door or a portal, something that would give him the power to overthrow the Realm.” Geoffrey snorted derisively, and Tenebres smirked. “Yeah. It didn’t exactly work out for him. Like I said, I don't think he really understood the magic he was using. He certainly didn’t have any Mage gifts”

“Instead of sacrificing me to open the portal or whatever, something went wrong. For some reason, the Void’s magic warped and sunk into my body rather than consume me.” Tenebres paused self-consciously. He was trying to be honest… but some things he just didn’t want to talk about. He didn’t even want to think about the events of the sacrifice chamber, or what happened when he used his new gift on instinct, much less explain the deaths of Kellen and his cult, and Tenebres’s own parents. He swallowed thickly, and instead tried to gloss over it. “By the time all was said and done, Kellen and the rest of the cult were dead, I was a wraith, and I had gotten my first gift.”

“Wait,” Allana interrupted, “You weren’t born a wraith?”

Tenebres lifted his hands in a helpless shrug. “Nope.”

“That’s not unheard of, even if it’s rare nowadays,” Geoffrey said with a dismissive gesture. “Sounds like a lot of magic was flying around. I’m more curious about this gift you mentioned.”

“Join the club,” Tenebres told him. Quietly, he was relieved that Allana’s question distracted from his little jump in his story, and he quickly replied to Geoffrey’s question before either of them could notice it. “It’s called the gift of the void. It’s a big part of why I came to Emeston. I wanted to find someone who could tell me what it was. But, along the way here, I found out about forbidden gifts, and the wardens hunting people with them. That being the case, the first thing I did was get a nice normal gift from the Mage. I planned to start studying the Void as much as I could afterwards, but instead, I got kicked out of the upper city and sent down here. I was still trying to find my way when I met Allana, and… well, here I am.”

Tenebres

Level: Novice

Gifts:

[Gift of the Void]: +5 will and charm

[Gift of the Evoker]: +2 to coordination, knowledge, and focus

Attributes:

Strength: 3

Resilience: 4

Stamina: 3

Coordination: 6 (4 + 2)

Speed: 3

Will: 11 (6 + 5)

Knowledge: 9 (7 + 2)

Focus: 7 (5 + 2)

Awareness: 5

Charm: 10 (5 + 5)

Mystical Well: 10

“Well, well, well. There we are indeed.” Geoffrey’s tone was thoughtful as he digested the boy’s story. For a few moments, the silence draped over the trio like a heavy blanket.

“I do have one question,” Allana interjected. Geoffrey blinked distractedly, then nodded his approval for Alllana to continue. She turned to look at Tenebres and said, “I don’t get why you bothered with the fake name when you got here.”

Stolen story; please report.

Tenebres blinked in surprise. He had expected accusations, suspicion, or at the very least to be pressed for more details. “Well… I was on the run. I needed to hide my gift.”

“Okay, yeah, but… no one here knew you had the gift, right?” Allana pointed out. “And the only people who did know were the cult, and you said they’re all dead. So who would be chasing you?”

Tenebres blinked again, his eyes darting helplessly from Allana to Geoffrey. Slowly, realization dawned at him, and he felt his cheeks heating up in time with his sudden understanding of how pointless his alias was. “I-I don’t know! I was in hiding, I thought a fake name was just something I was supposed to have!”

“But no one in Emeston had never heard of Tenebres, that’s what I’m saying. So who was the fake name for?”

“I…” Tenebres’s mouth hung open wordlessly for a minute before he managed to lamely finish, “... don’t know. I don’t know. I’m new at this, okay?”

Allana couldn’t stifle her laughter, and Geoffrey joined in this time, leaving Tenebres blushing and stewing in embarrassment. “Not all of us grew up needing to learn this stuff! I can sketch out the formula for how Novice level magic converts kinetic energy to light, but none of the books I stole were about how to flee to an unknown city after everyone you knew died a bloody death!”

Geoffrey patted the air in a mollifying gesture. “It’s okay Tenebres, calm down. We just didn’t expect it.”

Tenebres jutted out his bottom lip in a pout he turned on Allana. “You can stop laughing too now!”

The wraith girl couldn’t quite help herself, her eyes still dancing with laughter as she looked back at Geoffrey. “Fine, I’ll give you a break. It’s his turn to share anyway.”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes, pouring another glass rather than beginning his tale. Allana held out her own in turn, but Tenebres shook his head when the master assassin offered him a refresh. In his storytelling, he had left his own drink all but untouched.

“Very well.” The man paused a moment, as if considering, then commented, “This actually touches back on a topic from Tenebres’s explanation.”

“The Void?” Tenebres asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately, no. I’ve heard a few references to the Void before, but I don’t know much about it. Certainly, I’ve never heard of anything like what you described. Actually, I was referring to the idea of forbidden gifts.”

“Oh, please don’t start in on that Arbiter rubbish,” Allana said with an eye roll.

Tenebres narrowed his eyes. “Arbiter rubbish? What do you mean?”

Geoffrey gestured for Allana to explain.

The girl begrudgingly told him, “The Arbiter is the archetype responsible for all of the laws of the Realm, which makes it very important to the bastion cities, and the nobles, and basically everyone who has all the power. That means it also gets to decide that some archetypes it doesn’t like, like the Rogue, should be forbidden, for the sake of preserving their neat little order.”

Tenebres eyebrows knitted together, and he looked to Geoffrey for confirmation. “Really? That’s all forbidden gifts are? Just some political declaration by one archetype?

Geoffrey shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. The idea of forbidden gifts just got co-opted by the Arbiter in its conflict with the Rogue, even though, in the most technical sense, the Rogue isn’t actually a forbidden archetype. It is, however, defined in no small part by its opposition to legal structures–the very order that the Arbiter exists to enforce. I actually use a Rogue gift in the course of my work, the gift of the assassin.”

“And this work of yours,” Tenebres nodded slowly as he spoke, “is killing those with actual forbidden gifts?”

“Correct.”

Allana suddenly gasped, and pointed a finger at Geoffrey. “That’s it! I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks why you do what you do! The contracts you turn down versus those you accept, all the monster hunting… all of this is a cover, isn’t it? A way for you to go about your work without anyone taking notice?”

Geoffrey’s smile was as understated as always, but he nodded in acknowledgement. “Exactly right.”

“So then what are these actual forbidden gifts, if the Rogue doesn’t give them?” Allana asked, clearly intrigued.

Tenebres leaned in and sipped his own drink slowly. He didn’t want to muddle his thoughts while this mysterious assassin was in such a talkative mood.

“That answer comes in two parts. The first is the actual forbidden archetypes–the Tyrant and the Blood-soaked.

“They do sound somewhat unappealing, admittedly,” Tenebres commented.

“I know the Outlaw and the Rogue,” Allana said, “but I’ve never heard of those two.”

“That is part of their nature. The Arbiter’s gifted like to call the Outlaw and the Rogue ‘evil’ and ‘forbidden’ and what have you, but the truth is that they have their place. The Rogue calls to any who live outside of the law, a force of chaos that prevents the Arbiter’s laws from turning into tyranny. The Arbiter enforces the law; the Rogue undermines it. The Outlaw fights a similar battle, though in a less impactful way. It nurtures all the petty evils of human nature, calling out to bandits, pirates, highwaymen, liars, pickpockets. Trying to stomp out the Outlaw would mean killing every person willing to take from others to help himself. The effort would be more destructive than beneficial to anyone involved.

“The Tyrant and the Blood-soaked are much more dangerous. The Tyrant specifically aligns with those who derive power from oppression and suffering, while the Blood-soaked represents those who cause harm and pain for no greater reason than their own satisfaction. The Rogue, and arguably even the Outlaw, fulfill a role in the Realm. But there is no place for the Tyrant and the Blood Soaked in any civilized society. One and all, those with their gifts are dangerous and destructive individuals, as close to evil as you’re likely to ever see.”

“And they inevitably make enemies,” Allana said. “Enemies who need someone’s help to kill them, so they hire you. You take on contracts for those who have one of these forbidden gifts, and avoid the rest.”

“There are more exceptions than I’d like, to keep up appearances, but in general, yes.”

“So does that mean Algus had a gift from the Blood-soaked then?” Tenebres guessed. “He was killing people to make those candles of his, that seems pretty bad.”

Geoffrey sighed and shook his head. “If only it was that easy,” he explained. “I told you that the full answer had two parts. The forbidden archetypes are the first part, but dark favors are just as bad.”

“And that’s what Algus was using?”

“Correct. You might think of favors as something like relic gifts–like totems or ensouled items, they’re bestowed by an external source, rather than an archetype. Like those gifts, they allow for faster progression, outside of the usual trials and experience, but they come with far more significant drawbacks.”

“Worse than limitations on leveling?” Allana had a relic gift of her own–her gift of stealth was granted by the pair of ensouled daggers Telik had given to her at Novice and Apprentice level.

“Correct. Rather than being created by a skilled artisan or left behind by a slain monster, favors are granted by powerful and intelligent outsiders, usually as a way to strengthen a willing minion. Though the entities in question rarely explain the full effects to their gifted, these favors are universally corruptive, degrading their wielders’ mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Algus, for example, had received a gift from an undead, an outsider of the Ruined World. Fittingly, this gift gave him limited access to necromancy, death magic, which he was using to make his cursed candles.”

“He wasn’t looking very good, by the end,” Allana mused.

“Precisely. Though he was killing others to make his necromantic candles, the use of death magic was wearing away at his soul and body. By the time he reached Initiate or Adept, that same corruption would’ve turned him into something inhuman. A monster as bad as whatever gave him the gift of flesh in the first place.”

“And that’s where you come in.” Tenebres’s voice was soft as he spoke, putting the pieces as together out loud. “You kill those who accepted one of these forbidden gifts, be it from an archetype or an outsider, before that gift lets them hurt too many others.”

“And themselves,” Geoffrey corrected him gently. “Algus was just as much a victim as anyone he put into those candles of his.”

“I might argue with you on that front…” Allana grumbled.

“I have no doubt. But it’s easy enough to see how it happened–an old man, with a failing business, being circled by greedy scavengers just waiting to swoop in. He was offered a power he didn’t understand, and took the chance to save himself.”

“His first victims were probably those same moneylenders that were ready to pick him clean,” Allana mused.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Tenebres said. He could feel the gift of the void all but throbbing in his chest, as it always seemed to when he thought about the ritual chamber.

“You assume,” Allana responded sourly. “For all you know, he jumped at the chance to inflict the same pain on the world that the world had done to him.”

Tenebres couldn’t help a small cringe at the venom in her words. “Does that make him less of a victim?” he asked her, his voice soft.

“Well–”

“In his last moments, I paid Kellen back a hundred times over for everything he had done to me.” Tenebres worked to keep his voice level, but a little trace of his anger slipped out anyways. “Does that make me a monster? I even used the gift of the void to do it.” He turned his flashing red eyes on Geoffrey. “And you? Am I next on your list to be ‘saved’ now?”

Geoffrey simply shook his head. The motion was slow, and it seemed he deliberately kept both of his hands on his desk, in plain view. “In a way, given your wording.”

Tenebres narrowed his eyes, waiting for further explanation.

“You’re something of a special circumstance. Not only did you receive your gift by force, rather than by choice, I’m not even sure if it is a forbidden gift.”

Tenebres shuddered a little, and couldn’t keep himself from biting back. “Trust me, if you knew what it could do, you’d know it’s just as evil as anything Algus’s little blood tricks could manage.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Abilities are irrelevant. I have a gift of the assassin. My powers are built around dealing death from the shadows, to people who never knew I was there and never had a chance to fight back. It is, by many measures, an ‘evil’ power.”

Allana blew out a huff. “Evil is a word rich bastards use to justify themselves.”

“Maybe so,” Geoffrey allowed. His eyes had never left Tenebres. “When I look at a man like Algus, I see a man for whom death is the only reasonable answer. He had killed, and he would only kill more, corrupting himself even as he did. If killing him would save those lives, and his soul, and help me find the outsider who gave him his power, then I consider it a worthy act.

“I don’t think the same of you, Tenebres. From everything I’ve seen, you are striving to be better than this gift that mars your soul. You have used that power only to strike back against the very people who forced your circumstances on it, and you still feel remorse for that decision. You’ve tried to carve a path to your future without the use of a clearly powerful tool, because you believe it would be wrong. These are all worthy decisions, from where I sit.”

Tenebres stayed rigid in his seat as Geoffrey spoke. He tried to ignore the feeling of desperate hope growing in his chest, quieting even the thrum of the Void. “What are you saying?” he finally asked.

“I’m saying, I’d like to actually save you, if you’ll let me. Train you. Help you find a path worth walking, ‘evil’ powers or no. Maybe even help you find some answers, if I can.”

“And if I say no? Then we’re back to the euphemism kind of saving?”

Geoffrey shook his head. “No. I’d never force anyone to work with me without a choice. If you’d prefer, I can help you get out of the city, maybe even give you direction towards someone who might know more than me.”

“He gave me a choice too, Seo,” Allana told him, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. Tenebres turned to her, and was surprised to see the normally tough, brash girl looking at him with open, even earnest eyes. “If he says he’ll help you, he means it. He’s like you, that way.” She added the last with a bashful little smile like Tenebres had never seen from her before.

The boy looked between Allana and Geoffrey. Two assassins. Two criminals. Two friends. And slowly, despite his fears, he found himself relaxing, the tension trickling out of him.

“Well. How am I supposed to say no to that?”

Allana rolled her eyes at the response, but neither she nor Geoffrey bothered to hide their smiles.