It seemed just about everyone in the town had gathered in the town square and circled Mayor Clyde’s statue. The hundreds of them clamored amongst themselves, demanding answers, and suggesting ones that would get a lot of them killed or worse.

  Ronald stood on the edge of the fountain—not to be so callous as that wizard to stand up next to Clyde—that felt wrong. But he needed people to see him as he explained his plan.

  “Look!” he said, the crowd simmering down in waves. “I know some of you are confused why I’d go and suggest this vile entity become mayor. I hated saying it, myself. But you saw how he was entirely unfazed by any of our measly weapons! And now that the paladin is on his side? There’s little I think we can do short of getting a bunch of good folk killed. But listen to me. We’ve just bought a great deal of time. I don’t know what that freak’s plans are, but we need as much of a window as we can get. While he is off looking for a way to deal with the kobolds or whatever, we have time to fortify, to plan and to allow the rest of the paladin order in Knightshelm to receive word of our problem here. They’ll come down and set things right, we just need to buy them time.”

  The mob looked at each other and nodded.

  “Good,” Ronald said. “Let’s not waste any time. Let’s get this place prepared for defense.”

  He hopped off the fountain and made his way up the stairs of the town hall to see what things the mayor, rest his soul, might have had in the way of weapons. He had not expected to find Nora and Jakoby locked in a tearful embrace at the top of the tower.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. He could only imagine what horrors they might have faced with that wizard in here.

  Jakoby turned his wrinkled face, weary and drained. “I am now.”

  ***

  ===

  Jevrick’s Quest: Become Mayor of Maplebrook

  Side Quests: Deal with the Kobolds and Bandits

  Maplebrook’s Population: 998

  ===

  Night was nearly upon us, but I wasn’t so worried about such things. We wouldn’t start our full trek until the next day however because I needed to acquire spell materials first.

  Atan slunk behind me, his armor clattering along. “The town. . . they think I’m a thrall of yours or something. . . Perhaps I am.”

  I laughed at that, my lipless teeth chattering with the motion. He was no thrall, at least, not in the sense that he was suggesting. He had his own will, and his life could persist beyond my influence. He was as far from undead as the resurrected could get, and that was possible because his anima remained fully intact, keeping his soul tethered to his body. Certainly, I had the capability to ensnare his anima or even sever it at the time of the ritual, but such procedures were not a permanent affair. Not to mention it’d be fairly obvious if he was raised in undeath as his flesh would turn grey and his eyes the color of my anima, which was purple. Of course, anima colors were only visible to those with True Sight capabilities, so you wouldn’t have put that together unless I had spelt it out. And on the other end, if he had died and his soul had separated entirely from his body, then he wouldn’t have had the mindfulness to ask such a silly question, because his brain would have become mush. No, he was neither an undead, nor a servant to me. He was, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly healthy pompous-paladin. I would have explained as much to him as I bent over to pick a red flower—King’s Blood—when I heard a slap, which I recognized to be the paladin’s great hammer smacking against his palm.

  “Before you swing that at me,” I said without turning - instead taking in the splendid shine of the dying sun upon the crimson petals of the flower I’d just chosen, “perhaps you might give me a chance to explain?”

  “Explain what? Weave more deceptions?” His feet crunched on fallen leaves as he pivoted to my right. “I may have been a fool. I sense the dark magic on you, and I’ve seen what you can do. I recognize you for what you truly are–-spawn of Dread. I do not know how you were able to mask the aura, but it makes sense to me now. He had many dark magicians in his league before being dispatched, and some evaded destruction. You’ve returned to the town of his enemy’s origin to seek your revenge and carry out his wicked will.”

  A clever man for a dumb paladin. I was at my most vulnerable now, being so low on my spell components, and if he sought cause to attack then he might have had a decent chance of beating me. Instead, I hunched over a path of toadstool and snipped several into my satchel while rounding the wide base of a pinewood.

  “Yes,” I said once I had some cover between me and the knight, “I did serve Dread for a time. Yes, I did return to Maplebrook because it was home to the man who vanquished him. But not out of vengeance.” I pivoted to a patch of Morning Glories and scooped them up.

  “Then what?” He said.

  Hmm. I had an opportunity here to dissuade doubts of my intentions quite promptly. I would have to concede something in order to gain his trust and ears, I wagered, lest he circle back to the whole ‘master manipulator’ assumption.

  “Fine,” I said, “I’ll tell you. But seeing as you are on your guard, which is your right, perhaps I should also inform you that I am currently at my least ready to defend myself against you. I spent most of my components casting a diverse level of spells today, as you may have recalled. So, if what I have to say doesn’t please you, there’s not much I can do to keep you from smashing my bones to bits. Though, that would certainly spoil the good mood of the night, I’d dare say.”

  He held my gaze for a prolonged state, and a staring contest was something I would never lose—my eyes being empty sockets.

  Finally, he lowered his hammer and nodded. Fair enough for me.

  I conjured a fire with a few sticks and a snap of aether, and sat with him. I pulled my cloak out of my satchel and wore it now to protect my new outfit from the elements, placing the top hat inside the bag. Then I relished Atan with tales of my past.

  “I was a normal human once, you see.” The fire flickered, casting dancing shadows across the trees. “I had been born with some defects: a limp, gimp arm, and cross-eyed to boot. I wasn’t what most kids desired to befriend, and certainly not what any girl would equate to a gallant suitor. So, I spent most of my time alone and with books, so many books in fact that I could no longer fit them within my family’s humble house and had to find other ways to store them—a shed, a hollowed out tree, under church pews. Now, a love of reading wasn’t so much as a defining trait for my origin other than it developed in me two aspects: an imagination, and swaths of inspiration. My village, you see, had a lot of issues ailing it. You know the sort. Bandits, drying crops, a mayor who hardly cared. Well, I sought to change that. I ran for mayor myself. I promised to change the town, I promised to use my knowledge to better everyone’s lives. In exchange? I hoped to be recognized, to be accepted finally for what I was and what I could offer. But alas, my deformities netted nothing but scoffs and laughter from the voters who had grown up with biases about me since our youth. That was the end of my dream. It was the end of longing for the town to accept me. They would not respect me for my knowledge, nor my identity, so I sought a way to make them fear me instead. That’s when Dread approached me through an emissary. And through a long chain of events, I eventually came to accept a role serving the infamous warlord. A pact that severed me from my humanity and plunged me into a blackness that I festered in for many generations. My eternity was cut short, however, by a noble warrior who cut down the mighty Commander Dread and freed me from his control. Now I seek only to make something good in a world where I’d made so much bad.”

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  Once I had finished my story, nothing but the crackling of flame accompanied the air.

  The paladin stared into the fire, his eyes glossed over. His hammer rested head down in the dirt, its shaft running into the night above. His armor shined brighter now than in the sun’s light; the obsidian symbol on his pauldron the darkest part of him.

  “I see,” he finally uttered. But nothing more.

  Then there was a different noise. Not of him, or of me, or the flames, or the wild life of the forest. A sound of leather boots, iron clanking against wood, and bowstrings tightening.

  A man stepped out of the cover of the trees, hair frayed like a bush upon mud, and a buckler and short sword snug amongst fur clothing.

  “Evenin’, mind if we share your fire?”

  “Sure!” I said, pulling the hood of my robe over my head to mask my skeletal form.

  Atan gave me a weary look. I wished to wink at him, but it wasn't quite a function I could manage.

  My intention was to draw these cutthroats out of the shadows and close enough that I’d know how many of them there were.

  Their leader spread out his arms. “Splendid!” He and a dozen other ragged bandits eased out of the woods and stood around us.

  The leader sat on his haunches and warmed his hands at our fire, a broad grin bewitching his face. “So good. We’ve been travelling too long.”

  “Dangerous,” Atan said, his eyes shifting to the blades and bows that our guests carried.

  The leader chuckled. “That it is. Oh, Vando by the way—and you both?”

  Vando was not his name. My True Sight showed me who he was.

  ===

  Name: Caleb Bol

  Anima Level: 5

  Age: 31

  Lineage: Human

  Class: Bandit Leader (Might)

  Status: Healthy

  Conditions: Nightfire Potion - Unknown Effect

  Stats:

  Might: 16

  Agility: 16

  Intellect: 10

  Wit: 13

  ===

  The others in his pack had similar stats, though weaker anima levels. The most interesting aspect was the Nightfire Potion. They all had that condition. I knew Nightfire to be a plant that could help someone see at night, which wasn’t all that special, but it gave me an idea of what he was about to do. It wouldn't take much for him to use his shield to snuff our fire and utilize the sudden darkness to attack my companion and I. The ‘unknown effect’ could range from drunkenness to any number of intimate diseases.

  They had no magical weapons from what I could tell, so my barrier would hold, but I couldn’t tell if they had any spells at their disposal. The fact that they had anima levels ranging from 1-5 meant they had at least some familiarity with the arcane, though the extent was no doubt limited.

  Being so low on materials, I was committed to cantrips, which would certainly be enough to deal with these bandits—but not quickly. My poor paladin associate might be swarmed, and seeing how more of the men had gravitated in his direction, I could assume they saw him as the primary threat and would attack him first. No matter how strong a mortal could be, a blade or arrow directly to the head could be enough to end things. I had to initiate this fight before the bandits were ready.

  “Atan Starr,” the paladin responded to Vando-Caleb.

  The bandit nodded to him. “And you?” He asked me as he extended a hand.

  I reached out my boney palm and clutched his.

  His eyes widened and his lips quivered.

  “Jevrick,” I said, letting my hood fall and my true form send shivers through the rest of the bandits.

  Before Caleb-Vando could pull back, I called upon my power of Siphon Soul. Tendrils of purple light lashed around his arm. His body glowed blue as his anima was sucked from his body and consumed by mine. His skin shrunk to his skeleton and his eyes rolled back. He toppled over like a mannequin.

  Then the fight started.

  Atan shunted up, driving the butt of his hammer into the nose of a man to his left and whipping the momentum of the great weapon against the chest of another—sending both men to the dirt.

  An arrow flew for my face, but snapped into twigs just short of my skull. I looked up at the assailant. The archer stumbled back, said some unintelligible prayer, then dashed back into the night.

  I stood and grabbed for another bandit who was standing too close to me, and siphoned his red anima.

  Radiant light emanated from Atan as he brought the hammer down into the earth. The light burst out in bright fire and scorched another three bandits next to him. They shrieked as their flesh was incinerated.

  And that was that. The rest of the assailants turned and retreated—leaving six dead allies, and one quivering soul with his face bleeding profusely from Atan’s opening attack.

  “Well!” I quipped, “you certainly are capable for a paladin.”

  Atan grunted, then turned to the last bandit who was crawling on his back, covering his nose with one hand and waving the other in surrender.

  I was intrigued. Was this knight of holy rapport going to kill this man or spare him? The definition of justice and mercy were quite inconsistent amongst their kind, in my good opinion.

  Atan set his hammer down on its head, bent down, and yanked the bandit up against a tree.

  “Please, please!” the scrawny thief begged.

  “Where do you make camp?” Atan demanded.

  “I-I—”

  The paladin tightened his grip.

  “Ok-ok! Down South, toward the marshes.”

  I saw that his name was Fin. “How many of you are there, Fin?”

  He looked at me with bewilderment, and so did the paladin for that matter.

  Atan raised a brow. “Well… Fin?”

  “Ah-uh. Twenty. Maybe thirty? I don’t know for sure—the boss doesn’t like us all being at camp at the same time, says it’s a waste of resources.”

  “A very thoughtful bandit,” I mused.

  Atan turned to me. “They are a part of the Greens. Their leader is called Green Thumb. They harass farmers and traders that come down through these parts.”

  A very creative combination of names. “Well, if that is all.” I pressed my hand against the chest of the bandit and siphoned his life force in a blur of mustard yellow.

  The paladin stumbled back and let the man’s shrunken body fall. He grimaced. “What a vile way to kill.”

  I shrugged. “I’m sure having your chest caved in or flesh incinerated by holy light is a much more humane way to die.”

  The paladin grunted again. “Hmph.” He studied our surroundings. “We should take anything we need and find a new spot to rest, lest they return with more. The marshes are not that far.”

  “They weren't particularly well equipped to deal with us,” I said.

  “No, but the leader of their group may be. He once belonged to a druid enclave, before it had been dismantled. Now he serves his own desires.”

  A druid? Not often that I had encountered one of them in my journeys. I’d be curious to see what the modern druid was like, but they were also not a foe I was well versed in. In the natural order of arcane magic, druidic powers often trumped many of my necrotic ones, based on my understanding. So, I heeded my companion’s warning and went to gather what supplies might be useful amongst the dead, then we set out into the night again.

  Once again I heard a noise in the night. Something else was watching us.

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