In the dark hours of early morning, two men with cloaks stood in an alley.

“Patrick, are you sure they’re gonna come?”

“If they don’t, I'll make sure to report them to the archbishop. The Nameless Ones have a deal with the church, after all.”

“I doubt you would even be able to reach them. I could kill someone at your level twenty times in five minutes.”

As if to emphasize his point, a man wearing a blood-red cloak and a black mask reminiscent of English plague doctors materialized from thin air, a dagger held at both their throats.

“Now, I believe we said last time that I provide the Screlz scorpion so you can kill someone, and in return you would owe us a debt, to be collected at any time we see fit. So unless you have a very good explanation for this meeting, I kill your friend and cripple you. We would lose out on some value, but you would still have some use as a manalyte.”

With his sudden appearance, shivers ran down their spines. If they hadn’t met with this man before under the guidance of the church, they might have pissed themselves. However, they had prepared themselves for this possibility and contained their fright.

“As you said, the deal was to give me a scorpion to kill Matt Dusk. I did exactly as you said, and even dissolved the body. So do you care to explain to me why after I killed him, my skill has disappeared and he’s still walking around without a care in the world?”

“Unless they had a poison immunity skill, a single sting from that creature could fell a dragon, albeit in human form. Plus, if you did dissolve the body, there should be no reason for him to be there.”

“Yet there he is. Until he is dead, our deal is unfinished.”

“No worries. I'll deal with him myself. It'll be interesting to see what tricks he has up his sleeve to avoid that poison. Kekekeke...”

While laughing creepily, his body seemed to melt into the shadows, leaving only the two standing there.

“Talking with the Nameless Ones always gives me the creeps.”

“They are professionals. He should be able to handle this.”

“I guess so... by the way, I've never asked why you hate Matt so much?”

“He represents everything wrong with my world. Does there need to be a better reason?”

The two turned back, leaving only a cold breeze blowing a leaf down the pavement behind them.

“Holy shit, you’re like the terminator!”

“Don’t get too excited, man. I still have a limit. If I die without a stack of Death’s Touch, it’s game over.”

“Let him be excited, Matt. Honestly, though, I'm getting some synergy ideas between us.”

“How so?”

The three of us sat in the library after breakfast the day of my first revival. There was a nice little corner where almost nobody came to visit, perfect for secret meetings. We relocated there from the dining hall for the added privacy.

“I can borrow one of your skills for use in an emergency. Depending on what you get, it would be like a walking skill bank.”

“Sam, I think I've been dehumanized.”

“Matt, I think you have as well.”

Emmy gave a small chuckle at our banter

“Okay, I was half joking. No need to be all snippety.”

“Sam, if she was half joking, am I only half a human?”

“Matt, even if you’re only half a human, I'll still be half your friend.”

“Why do my words always twist into something completely different in your mouth?”

Emmy was continually on the receiving end of my verbal shenanigans.

“Never debate with a linguist.”

“Duly noted.”

While we joked around, I heard a high-pitched voice come from the open window.

“Hey drippy nose! I'm back.”

“And why am I drippy nose, Sorrow? You couldn’t have gone with something else, could you?”

Sam and Emmy both had confused looks on their faces. I could understand, seeing as it looked to them like I had turned to the window and started coughing aggressively at it. It was probably even more confusing when a squirrel jumped through the window onto my arm.

“Guys, this is Sorrow, I believe I told you about him?”

“Can he speak anything other than Phlegm?”

“Sure can, Lard Boy!”

Emmy snorted at that, then looked towards Sam. “It’s official, you are no longer fatty. I dub thee Lard Boy.”

“Paint Face has spoken, Lard Boy!”

“Wait a second! Why the obligatory nicknames?”

Sam gave a little snicker. “It’s official, you are no longer Emmy. I dub thee Paint Face.”

“Touche.”

“Now that we’ve been introduced, I'm gonna change. This form is really limiting.”

With a puff of black smoke and green flames, Sorrow morphed from a squirrel to a palm sized version of the person I saw in Macual’s throne room.

“Excuse me for a second, urp. Little bit of transformation nausea. Gurk...”

“Just don’t spew on me, okay?”

“Ugh... I'm fine now, Matthew Dusk. My apologies.”

“No more nicknames?”

“My form change affects not only my physical self, but my mental capacities to a certain extent. While I'm a squirrel, I become slightly more instinctive and I lose a couple mental filters.”

“So, why are you here?”

“Macual has designated me as your assistant. Right now my task is to relay messages from him and to explain your task.”

“Just one second there... my task?”

“You don’t think you became Macual’s Envoy for shits and giggles, did you? There is only one way to stop the invasion of this world, and that requires all ten racial relics. Liden figured this out and tried to gather them before my lord, so she would claim all the credit.”

Sam’s eyes had started to glaze over, so I gave him the TLDR.

“Macual is the god of death, and Liden is the goddess of life. They balance each other out, and if anything affects that balance, one side will be able to overpower the other. Liden wanted to gather the racial relics to shift the power in her favor, thus granting her power over death.”

Emmy took this moment to but in, “What are these racial relics you guys keep talking about? We haven’t heard anything about relics, racial or otherwise.”

Sorrow straitened his vest, saying “Each race has a dungeon somewhere in its homeland’s borders. At the end of each dungeon is that race’s relic. They are extremely powerful, and up until this day, not a single one has been recovered.”

“You mean no one has recovered any of them, and I'm supposed to gather all of them myself? How on earth is this shit fair!”

“On your world, I believe there is a saying: ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’.”

“Sorry, sorry. So why does Macual think I can do this?”

Sorrow looked me dead in the eye and dropped the biggest bomb of the day.

“Because you are the descendant of one of the original gods: The Ancients.”