He stood not far from where Ina and he had spent the last quarter cycle rolling around. Earlier, as things got more heated, he had sent Wersa off to hunt them something to eat, but she had returned with nothing more than a few chunks of splattered beasts. Either, everything was too fast and agile for her to catch, or she couldn’t control her strength well enough to not destroy their potential meal.

“We will rest here for another couple of cycles, to let Karmis heal. Then we will go out hunting. If we return too early it will be suspicious. When we do return, you will take Karmis to the tower. You will do the talking. Ensure that the contract is fulfilled and I am paid officially. Rent a room for a cycle. Inform the Tower of Dice’s death. You will then wait for further instructions.” He could hear the exhaustion in his voice as gave Wersa commands.

Ina had tired him out, of course, but beyond picking the occasional strand of fur from his person, and from his mouth, he didn’t have much to do except give Wersa nebulous orders. In reality, he didn’t know what to do exactly. He wasn’t in any immediate danger, or was he? What was he supposed to do Karmis? Technically, she was evidence of his Class. Evidence of what happened to the party.. He could guarantee Wersa wouldn’t talk, and Dice was dead, her body ashes. Could he kill Karmis in cold blood? That was the best solution to the problem at hand, he had to admit. If she died though, it be would suspicious. Did she have friends? Allies?

“Wersa.. what do you suggest I do with Karmis? I can tell you she is permanently damaged. She will not recover. Does she have allies other than you? Who will notice her.. condition? Is there a place we can stash her? Is there a place to retire her? You said she was already dying, right? I think she has even less time now.” His questions were rapidfire, each one creating a new anxiety in his heart.

He knew, over his left-over link to Karmis’ mind, that her mental state was.. chaotic at best. She had begun to to seize occasionally, her limbs twitching for a few moments before relaxing,and if he had to guess, she was getting worse, despite the healing spells. Her mind was falling apart, regardless of the health of her body.

“Lord, she would not want to live this way. Give me permission and I will end her Path.” Her voice held little hesitation despite the fact that they were discussing the fate of her mother.

He sucked in a lung full of breath at the blatant way Wersa spoke about Karmis. He needed Karmis to finish the job given to him, and keep everything that had happened out of view of anyone from the settlement, Tower, or Church. Even a curious Class Master could investigate the situation and he would end up dead. A Class Master would either want his spells and grimoire, or simply want to kill a potential and eventual threat. If his Class started this powerful, he wondered what sort of heights he would reach later. On the other hand, was there much point to use it more? He could simply pretend to be a Tamer, and now with Wersa’s help, he would be able to easily hunt beasts in total safety. It would be more than enough to pay for his family’s safety. What more did he need or want?

He let the breath out in a long stream from his nose, as he considered his options, finally he spoke, “Wersa I need Karmis to show herself in the settlement to complete the job. After that I will consider your suggestion. Answer my other questions. Oh, and, again, make sure you never call me ‘Lord’ in the settlement or around other people.”

“Yes, Lord. Karmis has no allies specifically, but she does have people who purchase her services that will note her absence. She also has many enemies. Her clients will assume she was taken out she disappear. Lord, she does have.. other daughters.”

“Other daughters?” He asked, wondering at the potential complication.

“Yes, I know of at least three. They will seek me out if they believe she has fallen from her Path. They will want a piece of her savings, or her Class Disciple grimoire.”

“Her savings?” Suddenly, he felt a tinge of greed. Despite the fact he was speaking of the belongs of a woman who hadn’t technically died yet, he found himself already coveting her treasures.

“It is not much, Lord, as far as I know. A few hundred gold, at most. We were low on funds. That was the reason she was willing to chase rumors. It had a big potential pay off, low risk, and it was cheap to live out here compared to a real city in the True Human Realm.”

A few hundred gold!? His parents could live the entire rest of their lives in the settlement with a hundred gold. He could feel greed welling up in his heart, but he quickly quashed it. He had to lie low. Showing off that kind of gold would tip off a lot people in the settlement, especially Greer.

“What will your sister’s claim? Will you get a portion? Will they investigate?”

“No, Lord. They hate her. None of them were up to the standard of being her Class Disciple. She kept me around because I was useful in other ways. They will be happy she is dead, and for their share of her savings.”

“You said they will want her grimoire, she had one prepared for a Class Disciple?”

“Yes, Lord. It was ready for Dice whenever Karmis decided she was ready or her Path ended. With Dice dead. No one will inherit now. Another Class Master might seek it out, and so it would be best to be rid of it or let the Tower have it.”

“I see. Will the Tower pay gold for it?”

He was disappointed he had no real way of claiming Karmis’ gold without making it obvious something strange had happened. Adventurers did not leave hundred gold tips to guides like himself. It would be difficult to find a cover story for why Wersa was sticking with him. Training? A favor owed? A punishment from Karmis? Perhaps, Wersa would just be continuing their mission but without Karmis. Karmis wasn’t the type to want to spend countless rotations in the Wilds anyway. It made some sense that, after the death of Dice, Karmis would be sick of the place. He had never considered himself a good liar, but he would have to learn to keep himself safe.

“No, Lord. They will give you something better for it. Contribution.” Her voice raised a bit with this last word.

“Contribution.” He spoke out loud. This was a heavy word. This word was the difference between the freelance and mercenary adventurers like Karmis, who rented rooms in the middle of the tower for silver per night, and the adventurers at the top of the tower, who slept in rooms that were worth gold per night for free. Contribution meant you had contributed to humanity in some meaningful way. Usually your contribution was either in the form of fighting humanity’s enemies or by contributing to the overall power of humanity through spellcraft. With Contribution, he could not only be a Full Adventurer in the future, he could be an important one.

“We will have to keep it safe then. Don’t let your sister’s have it. What else does she have?”

“Lord, she has a few trinkets, but they are mostly tuned to her usage. Her tent, some tonics, solutions, and tinctures. Her caster-armour. Her Storage.”

“A Storage? A real Storage?” A Storage, as it’s name suggested, stored items, in a spelled compacted space.

“Yes, Lord, it was one of the reasons we were low on funds, she had just purchased it. It was meant to be a present for her Class Disciple. She wanted her successor to have what she did not when she was first starting out.” Wersa’s voice should have been bitter, a Class Master’s Class Disciple was more important than a Class Master’s child in many ways, but Wersa seemed oddly detached. With Karmis the way she was, had Wersa been freed from an emotional burden? Or was this a result of his spell?

It was disconcerting hearing her speak so formally. Classed Warriors did not speak like that. They were little more than beasts in human form from the stories he had heard. Yet, he could taste the fear from the center of her being. He couldn’t say he enjoyed it, but it felt oddly right. Like it was his due. He didn’t know what it meant. Or how he should feel about it exactly. It was horrifying, but also exciting, new, and different. He had little control over his circumstances or life before the grimoire, and now? He could say he had more options at least, and his parents would be fine. Wasn’t that what mattered?

“Wersa, you speak.. oddly. I don’t mean your fear of me. I mean you’re surprisingly well-spoken.”

“Lord, I was trained in the manner Dice would have been trained. Karmis dealt with powerful people on occasion. She said it would be more impressive if I were polite. A polite Warrior is.. a strange thing, Lord.”

“I see.” He almost felt sorry for the Warrior. He had to remind himself she was older than his parents, and a stone-faced killer.

He changed the subject. “A Storage is amazingly useful. Did she give you the appropriate permissions to take from it?” A Storage was usually spelled against just anyone taking from it. So long as the owner was alive or within a certain range, it was safe from nearly any intrusion. A Storage could take many forms, and their form was usually a matter of secrecy for their owner. He wondered how large it was, but it would be useless to know until he could bind it to himself. It would cost gold and a trip to the Tower to even get the a generic Storage binding spell, as well as the spells required to operate it.

“Lord, I have permission to take everything from it. Or at least, I have permission to take everything I know about in it. If there are things in there she never mentioned I won’t know what they are unless..” The easiest way to bind a Storage that already had a owner, was to kill the owner.

“..unless she dies.”” He finished for her.

He spoke again, “She will die soon Wersa, of her own accord, but in the meantime is there no where we can stash her? I want her out of the settlement, but are there no places for retired or damaged Adventurers?”

Cold blooded murder still bothered him, even with all the potential gain. He was not a bandit. He just wanted to live safely.

“Not for Class Masters, Lord. They are always targets. Even a Class Master gone mad or senile, would be put down by their disciples. They hold too many secrets and are too strong for anything else.”

He opened his mouth, but realized that his next order would be to condemn Karmis to an early death. He closed his mouth. There was no benefit to letting her live much longer than the time it would take for her to make an appearance in the settlement. In fact, there was danger to letting her live. Some part of his mind, after his conversations with Wersa, had already decided her fate. On the scale of his life, what weighed more? His conscience? Or the safety and benefit derived from Karmis’ death? The answer was obvious, but he still couldn’t bring himself to give the order. At least not yet.

A question popped into his mind, “Do you feel anything for Karmis? Did you love her? Hate her?”

He didn’t know the purpose of this question, but he waited the moment it took her to respond.

“Both, Lord. Both.”

Finally, he heard emotion in her voice, though he did not know what emotion.

***

His next conversation was with a Divinity Damned book, but before he asked any questions he reviewed the details of his latest spell.

Dominate Soul: Bind the soul of another with this spell. Spell anchors the soul of its target to the soul of the castor, creating a Soulbound. A Soulbound cannot disobey it’s master on pain of quintessence degradation. Depending the strength of the soul of the caster, only a limited number of Soulbound can be maintained simultaneously. Spell will fail if cast without sufficient soul strength to maintain anchor. Spell is cast on another sentient being. Spell has a chance for failure based on the strength of the soul of the target sentient. Spell may damage target sentient’s soul in case of failure. Sentients with strong souls will require more soul strength to anchor. Based on current Soulbound soul strength, Soulbound limit: 2.

What even was a soul? None of the writings of the Church contained specifics about souls, other than every human had one and every non-human was lacking one. The latter assertion he doubted highly, Church doctrine was hyperbolic at best. What was ‘quintessence degradation’? He knew, from casting the spell, that Wersa felt terrifying pain at his whim, but what did that actually mean? Wersa was his ‘Soulbound’? It wasn’t a term he had ever heard before.

This spell seemed outrageously powerful to him, a nearly surefire way to convert an enemy to an ally. Unless, of course, they had a strong soul? Someone like Karmis would probably have a strong soul, but Wersa? He interpreted the last clause of the spell to mean he could have two Soulbound with souls as powerful as Wersa’s with his current strength. Would advancing his Path improve his soul? This spell had no interaction with his influence, which was an indicator his influence was purely mental in nature, and this spell effected something else entirely. The spell, at least, explained the burden he felt all the time now. Wersa’s soul was anchored to his own soul, and it had a weight for him to bear.

All of this raised more questions than it answered. He decided to try asking the grimoire a few questions.

“What is a soul?”

No answer.

“What is quintessence degradation?”

No answer.

He felt like these sorts of questions might be hard to explain, but they should be within the knowledge offered by the grimoire, and yet, they were not. Either he needed to be stronger to get these answers, or whoever wrote the grimoire wanted him ignorant on some issues. When he got back to the settlement he would have to find some way of doing research, it was clear he needed to know so much more.