I needed to contact Evanora. She was someone who lived for a long time and was bound to have artifacts she didn’t need and given I accepted 1.5 million dollars for my knowledge of runes, I felt like I had room to request some other things. As long as she didn’t try to ignore our previous exchange and make it out as if she was doing me a favor, there shouldn’t be a problem.

I know the little crow figurine I took from the school is an item of theirs, but since she didn’t bring it up, I wouldn’t either. If that was her way of apologizing, then she could bear to give me a few more items.

“What now?”

Putting a pin in it, I checked the grimoire to see how the path of the Death Bringer had been affected by the addition of a new path. I had gotten so caught up in the Art of Sanguina that I hadn’t paid much attention.

As usual, the words on the pages shifted around and I could see everything.

A change has taken place due to the addition of a new path. As a result, there is more knowledge available for purchase.

Current value of souls within your possession: 0

Path of The Death Bringer:

Bind: Bring forth any incorporeal foes and chain them to the material world for a period of time, making them vulnerable to physical attacks. If used against living creatures, the effectiveness is halved. The strength of this ability is connected to your understanding of death.

Cost: 5,000

Penelope’s Vow: Draw on the power of Penelope’s vow and call to all willing Death Bringers. Those who accept will manifest as spirits and assist you for a short period of time.

Cost: 10,000

Phantom Heart: This ethereal and unbeating heart will strengthen your connection to spiritual realms as well as offer a greater form of protection to your soul.

Cost: 25,000

The secrets of this path are being withheld from you. Seek out Penelope and gain her favor in order to advance.

General Knowledge:

Spirit Eyes: There aren't many things which the dead can’t see. With this ability, you will not reach the same height as the undead, but with this, your Spirit Vision will be greatly enhanced allowing you to even see your own death once per day.

Cost: 25,000

Organ Transposition Ritual: There was once an ancient doctor who was obsessed with chimeric studies. He sought out all manner of creatures and attempted to bond their vital organs with his own. Whether he found success or not is unknown, but a piece of his legacy has found its way to these pages. With this ritual, you can alter one of your vital organs to replicate special properties of any living creature, however, the possibility of rejection is dependent on the nature of the organ you wish to use. Be warned, this ritual can only be used once.

Cost:30,000

Runic Alchemy: This will advance your understanding of the ancient runes, allowing you to reach greater heights. In addition to the souls necessary for purchasing such knowledge, your own comprehension is also needed.

Cost: 25,000

There is more knowledge to be found within these pages. Continue your growth and the hidden secrets will reveal themselves to you.

Arms of Death:

Koschei’s Finger (Sword/Rapier): A skeletal rapier that inflicts a chain of life-draining curses once it pierces the target.

Price:1000

Undying Knight’s Sword (Sword/Greatsword): A hefty blade that grants massive increase in strength but drains vitality in exchange.

Price:1000

Ghoulish Warhammer (Maul/Warhammer): A warhammer that increases resistance to all forms of attack, but in exchange you will be driven into a frenzy.

Price:1000

Skeletal Caestus (Battle Gloves): Use your bones to create caestus. The strength of your strikes will be increased, but if the caestus is destroyed, your skeleton will be temporarily weaker than normal.

Price:1000

Ghost Spear (Polearm/Spear): An ivory spear that can be created from bones. It has a spectral form that is able to pass through normal armor, but once it is used, the spear is unsummoned and cannot be used again for a period of time.

Price:1000

Blade of Parish (Dagger): And it was with this blade did Parish strike down his cursed lover. The screams of that fateful day still reside within this weapon and will afflict anyone struck with it, slowly driving them to insanity. The user of this weapon will temporarily experience a weakened version of its effects every time it is used.

Price: 10,000

Death Cannon (Bow/Crossbow): It is said that the bones and tendons of dragons went into creating this weapon. A single-shot from this weapon will instantly shatter all but the strongest of bones, but its destructive capabilities are well worth it.

Price: 15,000

Well, it appears the price of nearly everything had gone up. I suspect that gaining an additional path was the cause, but it seems there were very powerful skills I had access to. There was also the line about Penelope which made meeting with her much more important, though I had already planned to reach out to her regardless.

I couldn’t even begin to think about what I would purchase seeing as I needed to kill a lot of things before I could grasp even the cheapest skill.

I would have to throw myself into a constant schedule of ruin clearing which would be difficult. If I joined a guild, I could probably get a team which would make things easier than attempting to go solo.

“Well, I don’t really want to sign a contract at the moment.”

Now seeing a glimpse of the behind the scenes from Alexandra, I was wary of getting tangled up in guild politics. At least, not until I could dictate my own terms.

I sighed, returning the grimoire to the blood mark on my finger before stepping outside my apartment.

I sheepishly knocked on Rosemary’s door and waited for someone to answer. It didn’t take long for someone to answer.

“Hi again, Casper,” Hope greeted me.

“Hi again, Hope,” I replied with a smile.

“Rosemary, but Sunny, Joy, and Miss Rusalka are still here.”

“Who is it, Hope?” Sunny shouted.

“Its Casper!” Hope yelled back.

“Oh!” Sunny emerged from the apartment a few moments later. “You need something?”

She seemed sort of expectant and I didn’t mind going to dinner with her– well, with anyone for that matter, but I was here for something else.

“Yeah, I was wondering if–”

“Sunny, where is the ink?!” Rosemary’s other daughter, Joy, spoke from deep within the apartment.

“I don’t know, try looking for it!” Sunny responded with annoyance.

So, this is what having siblings is like. I think if it was me I’d get used to it.

“Anyway, you here to ask me out to dinner this time?” Sunny grinned.

“Maybe another time–” I answered, quickly shifting to my purpose for coming over. “Could you ask Miss- uh- Rusalka to contact Miss Evanora for me?”

I felt a bit awkward as traces of visible disappointment appeared on Sunny’s face. It’s not as if I didn’t hanging out with her, but I really had to keep focused on the important things.

“Hope, you tell her,” Sunny quickly passed the task off.

“Uh…– We could do something this weekend if you’re up to it,” I suggested.

“Sure,” Sunny nodded. “The weekend it is.”

I was about to continue speaking, but my phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw it was Alexandra, so I stepped away from Sunny and Hope before taking the call.

“Hello?”

[Right, I’ll make this quick. You were right about New Era being involved in the human trafficking and it wasn’t just those small-time guys involved but some bigger organizations too. It’s still too early to get an exact read on things, but we’ve caught the snake’s tail, so to speak. If you’re ready to take on a new job, let me know. If you want to pass, I’ll get someone else on it.]

“No, no, I can do it,” I replied, clenching and relaxing my fist in an attempt to get rid of the tension I started to feel.

[Great, I’ll send you an address, meet me there in an hour.]

“Got it,” I replied before she hung up.

Turning back to Sunny and Hope who seemed curious about my call, I spoke, “I have to go out for a bit, but can you make sure to pass along my message to Rusalka?”

“Sure thing,” Sunny said.

“Alright,” Hope responded more enthusiastically.

I waved goodbye to them before going to meet Alexandra.

…

A little while later, I was standing beside Alexandra at a public fountain.

“Stanley Wilkes,” She handed over a picture.

The man in the photo was just as young as me, early twenties, but he had a great sense of flair about him. I mean, he wore a stylish leather jacket and rode a sleek-looking motorcycle in the photo. Actually, the more I looked at it, the less it looked like “intel” and the more it looked like something that belonged in a fashion magazine.

“As soon as you told me about the New Era connection back at that laundromat, we spent our time shaking things up to find whatever we could. We’ve managed to figure out that he’s the intermediary between some of the criminal orgs in the city and New Era.”

“Does he have a gift too?” I asked, flipping the photo over which revealed a hastily written schedule on its backside.

“Apparently he has a basic class-one physical enhancement gift, but his line of work has put a lot of potentially powerful artifacts in his pockets. Ideally, we’d want him alive to get something out of him, but given the danger of apprehending him, it's probably better to just kill him and be done with it. His death would leave a gap of communication between the fronts. When that happens, the suits wanna put someone in his place.”

‘So the government has someone lined up to replace him?’ I didn’t ask her for any confirmation since that would just be pushing myself into a deeper level involvement and that’s not what I wanted.

I also chose not to tell her that I would be able to read his memories once I killed him. Alexandra wasn’t hostile toward me, but I wasn’t stupid enough to just tell her what my gift actually does. That’s something I would have to keep to myself for the foreseeable future.

“So, this guy loves the nightlife?” I inquired, noticing that he frequented nightclubs.

“It’s the best place to meet people covertly given that he goes on crowded nights. I’m sure he’s taken surveillance artifacts into account, so trying to plant a recording artifact is useless.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I folded the picture and stuffed it into my wallet.

“I’ll be honest with you, Casper. I’m not even sure if I should give this one to you. That blunder with Matthew was a clear misjudgment on my part, but I’m hoping I’m right about this one.”

“I can–”

“Just listen,” she interrupted me. “There will be civilians on the premises so that makes things a little difficult. If they are killed by Stanley and the people that are there protecting him, that’s no concern of ours. Unfortunate, yes, but not exactly our fault. If you end up killing even one of them, we’re both gonna be in a lot of trouble.”

“I see,” I replied, thinking about it for a bit.

“I’m going out on a limb here by giving this job to you so right here, right now, tell me if you aren’t one thousand percent confident.”

The high stakes of the situation didn’t instill me with much confidence. Half of me wanted to pass on the job since a single mistake would end badly, but I calmed my mind and stopped overthinking things. If Alexandra was confident enough to hand this assignment to me, then it wasn’t an impossible task. All I needed to do was be careful.

“I can handle it,” I spoke assuredly. “I either need to get everyone out of the club or get Stanley away from the building, right? That’s easy.”

After thinking for a few moments, I could definitely make sure things didn’t get out of hand.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said before releasing a sigh.

I could clearly see there was something else on her mind, but I avoided saying anything. Compared to the members of her guild who were experienced with this line of work, I wasn’t the right one for the job, from an objective standpoint that is.

So was there some turmoil within her guild? Otherwise, there was no reason for her to trust me with this.

I pretended not to notice her expression and started talking again.

“What about his artifacts?”

“What?” she questioned.

“You said he’s carrying some potentially powerful artifacts. So what do I do with them?”

“Keep them. We can’t risk leaving them there for someone to steal and we need to hide our involvement anyway. If you take them, it’ll look like a robbery.”

“Okay, I got it,” I replied while secretly being overjoyed.

It was a kill two birds with one stone situation since I could feed the penumbra and gain some souls at the same time.

After wrapping up my meeting with Alexandra, I headed back home. I decided that I would take care of Stanley tomorrow night since it was one of the days he'd be at a nightclub.