The Redspine High came to an end, and Vance woke up. He saw a clay ceiling above him and felt a rough mattress under him. He had been asleep in a rather precarious position on the edge of a bed. He was also naked and sweaty, because the bed sheets were soaked and stuck to his skin. What else could he deduce from the scattered sensory clues? He raised his stiff body a little. The bedroom had no lights, but the faint glow of the dusky sky descended through a square window in angular beams. And in this feeble light, he saw stone furniture—two chairs and a table that seemed to belong to prehistoric times.

Am I still in the House of Turncoats?

He gauged his flame.

Portentous Whisper Your Flame of Revival goes out in 7 days and 4 hours.

How many hours have passed? Seven? Eight? Nine? Unable to keep his stiff body up, he fell back on the mattress. What happened to me? How did I end up in this bedroom? And why do I feel drained like this?

There was a narrow but significant blank bar on the timeline of his life. And to fill this evil gap, he scrabbled for his last uncorrupted memory, hoping that it would be the first domino in a falling row that would cure his partial amnesia. He strained himself and managed to remember sitting with Oswald. The young philosophy enthusiast was giving him a summary of Albert Nietzsche’s newest publication, while he was listening attentively and trying to absorb the rather unconventional theories. This was the first mnemonic domino, and he flicked it so that it could drive the chain reaction.

But the Vermeil Activator, after motley delusions and vexing hallucinations, had left no clues about the past eight hours, no remnants of things said or done. The first piece fell into place, but the rest of the domino row was non-existent. At this point, although Vance was reluctant to admit so, it was impossible to fill the blank in his memory except with worthless fiction or fantasies. If he wanted to know what had really happened, he had to look somewhere other than the vaults of his mind. He needed to leave the room and find Eleanor and ask her directly for clarifications.

He raised his body with a bit of a struggle. He was about to rush toward the room’s door—wherever it was in the dark—but as his feet touched the floor, something oblong slid off his chest, bounced bluntly on his right knee, and fell on the ground with a metal clank. The ringing sound traveled as if from ear to ear and persisted like tinnitus. He bent over the side of the bed and felt for the fallen object. He pricked his finger on its sharp tip, recoiled, reached again, and picked it up. It was his steel dagger. It was covered in dried blood. Nothing new. He held it in his hand and stood up facing the window.

The view outside confirmed that he was still inside the House of Turncoats, but it also made him more self-conscious about his nudity. It suddenly occurred to him that he couldn’t go searching for Eleanor while he was naked, but this problem had a simple and immediate solution: he looked at his feet and found his pants lying on the ground. One step away, he found his scabbard and belt. Then there was his shirt, wrinkled and creased. Then his leather bag, seemingly untouched. And his white socks appeared last, turned inside out. He walked in a semicircle and collected his belongings off the floor.

Was there a bug in my clothes or something? He laughed off his unease. I guess the Redspine High made me undress like this … But overall, I did the right thing. Instead of messing around, I got a private room and went to sleep … Yes. I must’ve used the Vermeil patches to calm myself down. Then I asked Himilco Magus for a room to sleep and recover my HP. That makes sense. That might be what happened after I finished talking to Oswald. If I ask Eleanor, she’ll probably confirm it.

He picked up a purple dress.

Suddenly, his train of thought crashed. Something about this dress reminded him of Frostgeist Forest. Images flashed in his mind. He saw a rowboat sinking, wolves howling, effigies burning, inquisitors bellowing, and Shannon—poor, miserable Shannon was begging him to kill her. He dropped the dress, and as it shrank like a deflating balloon, he turned and saw the corpse. On the other side of the bed, the side that he had mindlessly ignored or subconsciously avoided, naked Shannon lay, covered in a fusty blend of blood and sweat. Her Flame of Revival no longer burned. And there were three engraved stab wounds—the darker areas among the brighter red.

No … No, I didn’t kill her.

Vance dropped everything and rushed to the corpse. With the same calm that he had shown when he examined lifeless Benedict, he started to move the limbs and twist the torso and probe the deep wounds. The body wasn’t as flexible as he wanted it to be, especially because rigor mortis had already set in, but he at least confirmed that Shannon hadn’t been beaten or tortured. There were no signs of a struggle. There was no evidence that she had been trying to escape. Bleeding was the most obvious and most likely cause of death. And the wounds had been caused by a dagger the length of his. Anyone who examined the corpse after him would reach the same conclusions: she was killed while she was unconscious, and he was the barefaced murderer.

Three knocks came on the door.

Vance dropped the corpse in shock. The first knock made his heart stop. The second sent him to the underworld. The third revived him. But he knew that he would be sent back soon if he didn’t respond. “One second. I’ll put something on.” He covered Shannon with a heavy blanket to give the impression that she was sound asleep—and so deep was her slumber that she would never wake up. Then he wiped the itchy blood off his chest and hands and put on his wrinkled clothes in a hurry. “I’ll open in a minute. Sorry.” He sheathed his steel dagger, ran to the window, and threw it, with the scabbard and all, across the street. It landed on the roof of a building and luckily slid out of sight.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Vance said, finally unlocking the room’s door but swinging it to only a third of its hinges’ rotational range.

It was much brighter outside, owing to the torches that dotted the walls, and the border between light and darkness was also the boundary between life and death. What a weak and shifty boundary it was. It almost drove Vance insane to think that only a rickety wooden door concealed the perforated corpse. Remove this door, and there would be two corpses in the room, not only one. And what made things even worse for him was the identity of the knocking visitor. He found a pair of shiny eyes staring into his soul. A bronze elephant head formed around them. Then the complete body of Himilco Magus took shape as if he had been a creature of condensed light.

“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves.” Himilco giggled pruriently. “I’d hate to spoil the fun, but the rooms are in high demand, and I need to clean before—”

“Shannon is still asleep,” Vance said. Did I sound panicky?

“How about I give you, let’s say, ten minutes to wake her up?” the elephant smiled. “Give her a kiss on the cheek. Play with her silky hair. She’ll either love it or punch you in the face. But she’ll wake up, and that’s what we want.”

“All right … I’ll do that,” Vance said, in all seriousness, not even realizing that Himilco was making a Headbound joke. “Anything else?”

“You were very quiet, the two of you. That’s a bad sign.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hollie said you were the perfect match.”

“Hollie?” Vance paused for a second. “Ah, you mean Shannon’s friend.”

“Yes. You seem a bit … confused. Are you feeling sick?”

“No,” Vance said quickly. “I’m just a little forgetful after my First Death. You know how it is for us first-timers.”

“Well, just remember to wake Shannon up as we agreed.”

“I will … No worries.”

The door was shut, and darkness reclaimed the room.

Ten minutes? Vance laughed. There’s nothing I can do in ten minutes.

He walked to the bed, folded the blanket, and looked at Shannon. His brain was inventing hundreds of ways to erase her from existence, but he soon gave up because none of them were practical. It became clear that he must leave her behind and disappear, never to set foot again in the House of Turncoats. And as he arrived at this conclusion, he felt a sudden urge to decapitate her and take her head with him. But she was already a Headbound, so he only re-spread the bulky blanket over her remains as if it were the pall over her coffin. And he walked away as if he had finished attending a forgettable funeral—after all, she was nothing but a stranger whom he had met in unfortunate circumstances.

***

Vance was able to accomplish a lot during the ten-minute head start that Himilco had inadvertently given him. He moved the stone table and chairs to block the room’s door and delay the discovery of the crime scene. Then, after he estimated the distance to the ground, he jumped out of the glassless window, stepped on a small ledge halfway down, and landed in the pathway between the House of Turncoats and a neighboring building. Some of the Turncoats saw him through the large square windows of the ground floor, but he had to live with their gaze, since his only other option was to grow wings and fly.

Wearing no shoes, he ran, ran, and ran—down the pathway, down the dirt roads, past giants and highlanders, through perspiring throngs of humans and elves. The farther he went, the more confident he became of his getaway. There were no pursuers on foot or mount, and he heard no uproar, even after the ten minutes had passed. But it was still too early for him to let his guard down. And when he reached the outskirts of the clay village, he retreated under the awning of a healing shop and scanned the dirt roads with caution. The Headbound passed by, but none of them were Turncoats.

Word doesn’t travel fast around here. Vance felt some relief. But soon everyone will be talking about the girl who got stabbed in bed and the guy who bolted after the stabbing. Did I really kill her? Did I really do something this stupid? He wished that he could bury his face in his hands. This is wrong. Everything is just wrong. Why did things turn out like this? I was supposed to rest in Argilstead and then set out to hunt the Middlerift Beast. He stamped the ground in anger and frustration but then paused with a sudden realization. That’s it … That’s what I should do now. I’ll leave this place and hunt the beast as if nothing happened, and from this day on, I’ll treat every other Headbound in this godforsaken world as an enemy.

He opened his bag and searched for the golden key to the Imp’s Storehouse. It was time for him to wear the Mantis Armor, equip the Larval Dagger, and summon a mount using the Farreach Token. He didn’t expect to depend so soon on the items that he had bought with Eleanor, but now that they had become the means to his freedom, he felt more than grateful for the trip to the market. If he hadn’t bought these few items, he would’ve either fallen prey to mounted pursuers or remained stuck in Argilstead until his Flame of Revival expired. If he hadn’t bought them—

Fuck! The key is gone!

“Are you looking for this?”

Vance turned around in panic. The golden key to his personal storage was dangling between two fingers, and behind it, under the same awning of the same healing shop, a bronze elephant head was smiling. He didn’t even try to snatch the key, realizing that it was bait, and broke into a run.

Equip Spectre.

He crossed to the other side of the road and slipped into a dark alley. He raced past half-broken barrels and useless trash. Like a fox released for the hounds to hunt, he wanted nothing but to lose his unmuzzled pursuer. Halfway to the end of the alley, however, as the shadow of one building turned into the umbra of the other, the shiny eyes of the elephant suddenly appeared in front of him.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Himilco Magus said.

How did he cut me off so fast? Vance thrust his spectral dagger forward. The quick attack was well-executed, evolving naturally from his sprint. But before he could stab the target, it disappeared.

“A stab?” Calm and composed, Himilco appeared behind Vance. “You had the nerve to violate my rules. Is this all you can do?”

Vance turned around with a diagonal slash, but his target disappeared again. The eerie elephant head was gone, and there were no reliable clues to reveal its new whereabouts.

He’s not fast … He’s teleporting.

Vance turned in a circle, casting desperate glances at the shadows, fearing that he would be ambushed by the tusks or strangled by the trunk. Round and round he went, like a gyroscopic top, and the shadows themselves started to taunt him with feints and bluffs. Tens of imaginary enemies charged at him, and he slashed at every one of them as if his life depended on nothing but that single counterattack. Then, all of a sudden, with a comical whoosh and thud, a pebble flew down and hit him on the chest.

“It hurt, didn’t it?” Himilco was on the roof of a building. The elephant head smiled down at Vance, and he continued, “I told you to play by the rules. I listed three laws meant to keep peace and unity—”

Bullshit. Vance returned to running. He didn’t wait to listen to a single word of reproach, because he couldn’t care less about this blame game. Shannon was already rotting in peace. The fragile unity was already disturbed. And while he could’ve argued that the “mind-balancing potion” was the real culprit, he knew that Himilco wouldn’t want to admit the truth. It was much easier and much more convenient to kill Vance and claim that his death had restored things to normal—that justice had been served. Keeping him alive, on the other hand, would invite other Turncoats to commit similar crimes and open the door to endless bloodshed and excuses.

But I won’t take one for the team. You won’t parade my corpse under the banners of peace and prosperity, Church of Turncoats. Vance opened his bag, and as he ran through the dark alley, his fingers fished for the black marbles—the smoke bombs that he used to confuse his enemies. I won’t let anyone convince me that I should die. No law will dictate my fate to me. He found the black marbles, and in the next moment, the smoke was rising in four parallel columns—a blinding trail that he left behind him. It hid his Flame of Revival and discouraged his enemy from teleporting down.

He’ll stay on the roofs until he catches sight of me again. That’s the right thing to do. Vance dropped another marble near his feet. When he’s sure of my location, he’ll teleport down and start attacking. He dropped another marble. So I have to disappear before the smoke disperses. I’ve got less than 30 seconds because of the wind … But it should be more than enough.

When he was close to the end of the dark alley, he threw the last marble into the dirt road ahead but didn’t continue his run. He only made it seem as if he had hurried across the narrow road, and to escape from his teleporting enemy, he retraced his steps until he found a window. He had spotted this window in the dark, and although it was difficult to find it again in the smoke, he managed to feel his way to it—perhaps guided by the sound of a rodent in a nearby barrel. Only three rusty bars stood in his way, and after he dislodged the rightmost one, he squeezed his body through and trespassed into a building.

For several silent minutes, he lurked next to the window. Sweat slid down his body in heavy, steamy beads. His Flame of Revival lengthened and shrank, in dark flares and doldrums, like the ectoplasm of a very hesitant spirit. And his dagger was ready for an all-important Spectral Execution. Since it was difficult to teleport into a building, especially without knowledge of its internal layout, he concluded that the elephant-mage would most probably pass through this window to get to him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to turn the tables on the teleporter. He was in the perfect position for an ambush, and the Spectral Assassin inside him lusted for a kill.

A Kill? He laughed at himself. You don’t even know his level. The best you can do is injure and flee. Don’t get greedy. He suppressed the lusty assassin, scaled down his ambitions to meet reality, and even dislodged the two remaining window bars to facilitate his future escape. I need to spot him before he spots me. Stab and run. The end. He wiped his sweaty palm on his shirt and then tightened his grip on the dagger. But something’s odd. Slowly and cautiously, he peered into the alley and searched for the shiny eyes. He’s taking too long to show up … Even if he had been checking every window, he should’ve arrived here by now. But there were no skulkers in the dark and no signs of the enemy. Did I manage to lose him?

It was hard to believe that Himilco was gone, but it seemed to be true. Either way, it would’ve been self-defeating for Vance to step out of hiding and try to determine the exact location of his enemy, so he decided to assume that he was safe until clear evidence appeared to the contrary. His tense muscles relaxed; his heart rate dropped to normal levels; and his flame returned to its previous steadiness. This unexpected outcome was much better than the most successful ambush. Without taking any unwanted risks, he had earned the valuable time needed to recover Stamina and consider his next move.

***

Argilstead was a heterogeneous place, a colorful canvas full of cross-hatched pigments and unintentional contrasts. It was proof that chaos and spontaneity could create an equality that the carefully planned cities of the mortal world couldn’t achieve. And even racial hatred, the legacy of millenia of war, couldn’t rip the puzzling patchwork of Adventurer Slayers. The highlander’s training grounds were next to the lunar elf’s meditation hall. The dwarf’s workshop was next to the human’s healing shop. And the building across the street—the one Vance invaded on that day to elude Himilco Magus—was a solar-elven armory called Sun-hallowed Weapons.

Tens of mannequins were dressed up in glamorous trinkets and second-rate armor, and hundreds of weapon cases were stacked up from floor to ceiling. Empty cages testified to the long-established elven practice of using monsters in battle, although elves never called them “monsters” as the humans did. And next to the cages, there was an impressive collection of spiky collars and leather harnesses, which allowed monsters to pull chariots and other vehicles. Despite the prevalent gloom, exotic magical lanterns floated in the air and illuminated small areas—spotlights on an empty stage. And one such lantern, which cast a glow on a dusty sign, revealed an elvenform sequence.

These unreadable letters gave Vance some confidence. He took a steel helmet off a lean mannequin and covered his Flame of Revival so that its light wouldn’t betray his location. Then he took cautious steps and explored his surroundings. Within a few seconds, he had mapped the solar-elven armory into four sections divided by partition walls. The un-barred window that he had entered through was located in the southeast. The only door, which led to the service counters, was located in the northwest. Meanwhile, the northeast and southwest areas had neither doors, windows, nor lanterns, so they were ideal hideouts.

He chose the northeast section and sat behind a stack of weapon cases. Then he banished his dagger and checked his vitals.

HP 450/455 MP 860/860 Stamina 401/860

I don’t want to stay in one place for too long, but I have to wait for 8 minutes to reach full Stamina again. He looked at his pants and found a dry bloodstain. 8 minutes will pass. But what’s next? With his finger, he drew a V in the dust. Then he added two lines and turned it into an M. Is this the end? Am I gonna die in this cesspit of a town? Is this what Thurvik wants? He erased the M in annoyance and punched the ground in anger. No … Why the fuck am I thinking like churchgoers? Who gives a shit what Thurvik wants? I need to find a way to survive this. That’s all that matters right now.

The eight minutes passed, but he didn’t get up, because he didn’t know where to go. I need to leave Argilstead, but how? He closed his Mental Eye and tried to remember the events from the moment he arrived at Argilstead to the moment he entered the House of Turncoats. There’s still a way out of this cesspool. What am I missing? Suddenly, an image popped up in his mind. The Fly Merchants. He pictured the olive-green robes and the brown carpets before he moved back in time to a more important image. The caravans. He remembered the gargantuan mantises that were traveling across the endless plains of Targrass. I will leave with the trade caravans. Yes … If I sneak onto the back of a mantis, I’ll be out of here without a chase. I won’t need a mount anymore.

The new plan gave him a sudden burst of energy. Although the caravans were far from his current location, there was a good chance he could reach them. It was neither a spatial nor a temporal impossibility. He was no longer a cornered rat, and he stood up and hurried toward the window. So high were his spirits that he almost missed the sound of the armory’s door opening. So strong was his hope that it almost made him dismiss that demonic creak. But he heard it—he heard the devilish cry of rusty hinges, and it made him realize that hope and despair had come hand in hand.

With a quick reaction, he lurched back and returned to hiding. The helmet almost fell off his neck, but he grabbed it at the last moment and stabilized it with minor adjustments. Standing behind a partition wall, the one separating the northwest and northeast sections of the armory, he cast a furtive glance at the door and noticed that a solar elf had entered.

“Believe me, there’s no one here,” the elf said.

There was an inaudible reply from the outside.

“The window? It’s barred.”

“Barred, you say?! With one ‘r’ or two?” a voice shouted, rising into earshot. It was rather familiar, but Vance couldn’t name the speaker. “A fucking caravan can pass through that barred window of yours!”

“I’m telling you it’s secure. We haven’t reported a single break-in this year.”

“And I’m telling you it’s not, thickhead!”

The elf suddenly turned around and rushed out of the storage space.

“Move the fuck out of my way!”

“I can’t let you in! Only weapon owners and staff are allowed!”

“I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t move!”

“Please return behind the counter! We will investigate this possible burglary on our own! You are not allowed in here!”

“Fuck you!”

Immediately after this tense altercation, the solar elf reappeared. This time, however, he didn’t walk in but flew through the open door. He hit a tower of weapon cases and fell on the ground—not far from where Vance was hiding. As he tried to recover from the painful collision, one hand on his hurting chest and the other pushing him up, two or three cases came down in a belated collapse, and he was buried under their weight, sustaining several injuries and losing his mobility with a final ouch.

“Fucking moron!” Hollie walked into the armory with a spectral scythe in her hands. “You just lie there until I’m done! It won’t take long to smoke out that arrogant bastard, anyway.”

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the bitch herself. Vance equipped his spectral dagger. And that means the elephant’s waiting at the window.