Mason only wanted two questions answered. Which was good, I doubt I would have been able to get more out of them. Who did Bracker work for? Where was Bracker right now? The answer to the first one, we were both confident on. Bracker didn’t work for anyone, he was shooting to become the lord of a criminal empire! Basically, he was a blowhard with dreams of grandeur. A thug that demands to be called Lord Bracker could only make it out here on the edges of the Kingdom. While he wasn’t working for anyone, he was definitely working with someone.

The second question was a bit more convoluted. The skinny man broke first, and he started spilling every possible location he could think of for where Bracker would be. A whore house he liked, the gang's ‘hideout’, and a little cabin that Bracker would sometimes stash people when needed. After the two of us were satisfied that we had everything we needed from the two men, they died. Skinny wailed through his broken teeth as I killed his partner, but the large man just watched the knife coming and accepted it. Skinny tried to fight, but it was no more effective than it was any of the previous times, less since he was broken and tired.

When the two were finally dead, I was left with four corpses in my front room and a whole lot of blood. Slowly, I bent over the fat man’s body and wiped my blade as clean as I could. Later I would need to get into it with a brush and remove the stains that were caught between the metal and handle. Trying to put my knife away, I missed the leather twice before it slid home.

Swaying slightly as I stretched, the long morning and even worse evening weighed on me. It took a few seconds looking around before I noticed Mason. He faded away, my mind skipping over him as he stepped closer and despite my efforts, I couldn’t force him to hold still in my mind.

“Well, what’s next?” I asked in a churlish tone.

Mason cut the rope holding the fat man’s corpse, not that I wanted the cord any longer with the mess that was caught in the fibers.

Pausing, Mason eyed me up and down before he stepped around me, cut skinny free, then said, “Now I drag this trash into the alley to be dealt with later, and you go upstairs to sleep. You have training in the morning. I’ve got a few other things to do tonight.”

For a moment, my face flushed, and my hands clenched, but then my hands dropped to my side.

“You did good. I’ve got enough to start huntin’. When I find Bracker, I’ll haul him to the Baron’s Magician. He’ll pay to do a scan on Bracker and find out who he is workin’ fer,” he said.

At that, I looked to the two men with a bit of anger, but Mason caught my look and shook his head.

“Nah, he wouldn’t have paid to have these two scanned. It knocks a mage out fer hours, makes um right pissed too. We needed to know where Bracker was so we can get whose involved in this. It’s not all about you, kid,” Mason said as he began to haul the corpse of the ex-elite out through the back door.

Shaking my head in disgust, I grabbed the corpse that I had nothing to do with killing and helped Mason remove the bodies. When all four corpses were outside, Mason waved at me and then faded away. I had a feeling that a lot more corpses would need to be hauled away by the collectors in the morning.

Trudging upstairs, I leaned against my bedroom door and stared at my bed. I could feel the blood on my skin, and there was no way I was climbing into my sheets as I was. I had a small jug of water and a washbasin on my dresser, which would work to get most of it off me. Stripping off my clothes, I was surprised to see that my pants only suffered from a few spots of blood and a mark where I wasn’t fast enough to avoid some vomit. It boggled my mind to think my pants were as clean as they were despite the look of my shirt, but I was too tired to think about it further. I wiped myself down with the water leaving a growing puddle under my feet. I would need to clean it later. Later.

While splashing the basin water across my face, I smelled the watered-down scent of copper and gagged. Leaning over my dresser, the bowl of pinkish water in front of me, I watched as my hands shook, then steadied, shook then steadied. I would look to one side it would be rock solid, then the other would stir in my peripheral vision, each in turn. Gritting my teeth, I stood and turned to the bed. Climbing in, the softness wrapped me, and I sighed, but I couldn’t help remembering the men waiting in my front room. The guard had heard nothing of the men slipping into my house to wait for me. The paranoia crawled over my skin as I held my eyes tight and tried to enjoy my lumpy straw mattress.

“Fuck.”

It was a work of well-practiced moments to open my secret entrance and descend the ladder, closing the opening behind me. In my workroom, I cleared off my worktable and climbed on. The hardwood pressed into my back and felt like a release after the uncomfortable comfort of my bed. The smell of the alchemical preparations, the hint of mold from the old wood shavings, the bitter tang of my leatherwork, all of it surrounded me and gently pressed me to sleep.

The next morning I was a groggy mess. For seconds I was confused at where I was, but my training kept me from moving when startled awake. The scents quickly cleared away my confusion, while also dredging up the memories of last night. Shaking away the thoughts, I climbed my ladder and returned to my room. The only signs that anything was wrong were the ruined clothes and a puddle of bloody water.

Washing again, I quickly dressed and clomped down the stairs. My body was tired, the muscles aching from the strain of training, but my mind was oddly light and free. [Meditation] was active, but I didn’t remember activating it. It simply was, and I was glad for it. It was strange that I didn’t feel like I was fighting memories. I wasn’t agonizing over my actions. The worst I felt was sad to discover that I was a person who could torture someone, worse, torture someone and not feel worse about it. This didn’t make me a danger. I didn’t enjoy the experience. It was simply necessary and I would do it again if needed. I felt mostly neutral and indifferent. We would see how I felt when I finally dropped out of [Meditation], but I thought that it wouldn’t be a worry.

Slicing away the moldy outer rind of a cheese wheel, I quickly consumed the soft yellow food along with a couple of sliced apples and a hunk of hard bread. I would need to grab more supplies tomorrow, so I would need to rise earlier, but this worked for now. I ate more than I expected considering the Baron’s sumptuous fare, but [Meditation] likely demanded more food, and I planned to feed my Skill.

Sir Wincome followed me back to the fortress, his eyes scanning behind me, while I ignored him. With Mason out hunting Bracker and his conspirators, I doubted I had much to fear this morning. That fear would return in days as Mason finished clearing away Snowy’s attackers.

It took most of the day’s training to discover one of the guards had developed the [Cold Resistance] Skill sometime during his practice. This was the downside of making it a competition, they wouldn’t want to tell me or anyone else their new edge in the betting pool. Short-sighted, yes, but natural enough. With his body shivering from a failed round, I took delight at explaining to Private Tanner that I wouldn’t help him with his Skill unless I had full access to his Skill list. His idea was the same as most. He would just figure it out on his own. He earned it mostly on his own, hadn’t he?

He did not.

He just remembered sitting in the box and trying to think of anything else. He ignored the access to the cold box, the advice from me, and the knowledge I had to guide him further. Oh, he could have screwed around and earned a few more levels easy enough. Still, he wouldn’t fly through the levels without inside information or a particular proclivity for the Skill to go along with his practice.

My guess was it would take a few more failures to progress before they would accept things and ask for assistance. That or one of the three who had already given me permission to their Skill list suddenly shooting up as I assisted them. With a thought, I cycled through those three’s Skills list to check for any changes. I would need to remember to check a few times during the day. I was used to sessions with my clients, periods where I watched their Skills like a hawk. A spread out, longer duration process, partially self-motivated, was a novel experience.

Around noon a crier presented a message from the Baron before he went on to the town. I say ‘crier,’ but he was just a Page from the fortress and lacked both Skill and volume. His voice broke more than once as he tried to shout his news. In fact, I would say the sudden cracking tones as he screamed for attention was the part that drew the most looks. It definitely brought the most snickers.

“Heeaaar me now! Hee-ar-eeear me now!” he shouted, his second attempt more wobbly than his first.

Refusing to duck his head and slink off, even if his face turned bright red, he unrolled his scroll and began.

“On this, the Fourth day of Fen. In the year of our Kingdom, 583. Lord Calforth has been found guilty of Treason against the Kingdom. He is to be held until the King may decide the nature of his punishment. Under the Baron’s words, the merchant House of Longtin has been found guilty of Treason. In recompense, their rights and duties have been passed to the merchant House of Brankt. That is all!” the Page said before he scampered away. Likely he had been ordered to practice here in the fortress before he performed in the town square.

Well, that was a nasty change in the world in only a night. I could guess that this had something to do with our mercenary hunters, along with Mason’s absence. That the merchant House and the Lord both were being declared guilty of Treason meant that the Baron had solid proof of their actions. That Calforth was being held until the King’s command said volumes about the support the Baron was expecting in response.

Lord Calforth was landless and nearly penniless. He had been disgraced multiple times before and so was huddled under the Baron’s banner. The Baron wasn’t directly able to order Calforth to action. My guess was that games of marriage were planned. With the nobility, this was always the first guess. Marriage and trade deals, that and armies were their first response to anything. But then, the Calforths couldn’t hire mercenaries or trade without coin, so it wasn’t hard to guess his plan either. That he brought his three daughters and two sons into exile with him made his intentions clear.

The house of Longtin was the main merchant House that traded with the Baron’s mines and the rest of the Kingdom. If I knew less of what was going on, I would be worried that the Baron was making some kind of move to claim independence. While the Baron technically ruled absolute under the King, that was only a technicality. In actual fact, the King was beholden to many groups, and they, in turn, made deals with others still. It was a long ride from the capital to our fair city, though a message scroll was an expensive option. A royal messenger could also deliver demands for clemency. My guess was that a messenger was riding to the King now with proof of Treason. Perhaps with specific support in exchange for the King’s favor or at least silence. It was the only thing that made sense.

The Baron cleaned up his backyard, gained support and showed support for the King, and could possibly gain Calforth’s title, even if without the land to go with it. All of it made sense, but it was based on my own limited knowledge of last night’s proceedings. I was guessing that Bracket led to Calforth and the House of Longtin, but they were just guesses.

Turning back to the training, I watched one of the guards struggle as he tried to increase his [Cold Resistance] Skill. In point of fact, it was his focus on his Skill that was causing the problem. Why anyone would think to focus on a Skill that they earned while ignoring their condition, I couldn’t imagine, but they always tried it.