Usually when I found myself with a day of nothing to do, something would inevitably arise that demanded my attention. Even when I had intended to kick back and relax before, Inquisitors were sniffing around the place and robbing people I knew of dangerous weapons. No such thing was going to occur in a small, safe town like this. Instead I indulged in a lot of practice using the darts board that had been conveniently placed in the inn’s bar and tavern. The rules were different to what I remember from back home, but I was playing alone for the most part – so it didn’t matter how many points I scored. On bar games: I had never seen a pool table, but cards were a regular fixture for those who loved losing their hard-earned money to scammers.

Tahar was curious enough and joined me for a few games, where she demonstrated an incredible degree of accuracy using thrown objects. My stupid brain concocted a theory based on her avian heritage; that she was somehow uniquely suited for judging the movement of an arrow or feather travelling through the scant currents passing through the room. The more accurate explanation was that her tribe often used thrown weapons to hunt small game, and I was a stupid novice too used to hitting things with a club or dagger.

There was another thing of interest in the inn. A piano placed within one of the two lounges at the front of the house. These were areas for guests to relax in away from the rowdier tavern floor, or you could rent one of them as a meeting space for business. It was a huge, polished monster of a piano that had been pushed against the front window to allow for sitting room.

According to the inn’s owner there was a strong musical tradition in the town to go along with its weaponry and armour. Though the number of travellers who could play it could be counted on one hand. The piano was a noble instrument after all. It was far too expensive and large for a mercenary, rogue or farmer to engage with.

Cali had previously expressed little motivation in taking up the art again, but she almost immediately jumped at the chance to play for free while there was nothing to do. I believed that her previous performance for us had lit a new passion in her – or that she at least found it more entertaining than sitting around and doing nothing. The innkeeper was happy to have a woman of high birth around, as she continued to chatter with Cali for the duration of our stay. A few other residents would drop by and observe her too.

While that was plenty to entertain us for one day, and a large amount more than what we’d usually find in an inn, it wasn’t going to do for long. That night I slept with thoughts racing about how I was going to pull off my next job. I needed to tread carefully. Nobles were temperamental creatures at the best of times, and this was a man obsessed with collecting pieces of military history.

“Alright, let’s get cleaned up.”

Tahar and Cali were the first to use the bath, having boiled the water before I got out of bed. While they occupied themselves with that – I set about trimming my beard using a razor I carried in my bag. Learning how to groom myself using traditional tools had been an experience to forget. Pain was a good teacher and I hadn’t nicked myself with the sharp end for a long time. With my moustache and beard trimmed into something presentable, I turned my gaze upwards to my hair.

It had been getting longer and longer ever since we left the bend, and a succession of different styles given to me by Tahar had kept it up and out of my eyes. It did a good job at concealing the stretched knoblets of skin that now poked outwards from both sides of my skull. It’d break eventually and reveal a pair of genuine horns, but for now they were more gruesome than intimidating. I apologised to Tahar in my mind and started to shear away the shaggiest bits that she liked tying into various braids and bundles. I couldn’t hope to match the precision of a real barber, but I gave it a good shot and left it long enough to look okay even with my lack of practice.

That looked… decent. I hadn’t turned into enough of a wildman to convince myself that it was good.

The next problem was choosing what to wear. I didn’t carry a three-piece suit on my person when I was trudging through swamps and forests. I had three sets of clothes that were essentially interchangeable, and I often wore them for several days successively if I couldn’t find a clean body of water to rinse them in. In this case it was all about picking something that would be inoffensive to a shitty noble. With that in mind I picked out a deep green woollen sweater that I had been using for cooler weather. The dark coloration hid the stains and dirt and didn’t draw attention to itself unnecessarily.

I couldn’t justify going into his home with all of my usual armour, chainmail and leather attached to me. But I also wasn’t going to let Stigma out of my sight after what happened to Ryan, so that placed me in a tough situation. Would going all the way make much of a difference if I was still carrying Stigma around on my back? If he had a problem with it, I could just threaten to take my business elsewhere…

I compromised. No chainmail, helmet or leather pads. I wanted to look like I meant business even if I really didn’t. It wasn’t like the chainmail and leather had made much of an operative a difference anyway. Every injury I had incurred was aimed at my chest. John had blown a thin, vertical hole clean through the abdomen of Medalie’s carefully forged chest piece, much to my frustration. Hopefully she had made it out of Pascen so I could get it repaired.

Realistically, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to hit that same spot again, but it would compromise the surrounding structural strength. A blunt weapon could shatter it and send pieces of metal flying into my body. A problem to solve another time. I had to focus on the job that was in front of me first. I wouldn’t even know where to look if I did have the time to find Medalie and ask her for help again.

I nearly did a double-take when Tahar walked into the room with her hair down a few moments later. Cali had clearly taken matters into her own hands and given her a styling that the average noble would pass over without commenting on. I was so used to seeing it braided, platted and stuffed with coloured feathers that the full length of it had only just occurred to me. It nearly dipped below the base of her spine – which was longer than that of a full-sized adult.

The clothing side of things was more tortured. Tahar liked what she liked, and even her cold weather clothes exposed some of her body. She worked hard to get those abdominal muscles, and she was going to show them off as much as she possibly could. Cali had waved the white flag on anything elaborate and put a simple jumper over her chest.

Cali herself was as composed as ever. She had the same idea as me. The armour and heavy travelling boots that were clamped on over her coat had been removed, as had her wide-brimmed hat. She looked naked compared to what she normally wore, and I had seen her nude at least once or twice before. In fact, getting naked was one of the first things she ever did when we camped out together.

I clapped my hands together; “Okay, looks like we’re ready to meet with Derian.”

“Are you bringing Stigma?” Cali asked.

“There’s no way I’m leaving it anywhere but on my back. Can’t risk it.”

“I don’t think he’ll like that.”

“Then we’ll just threaten to take our business elsewhere. I’m not throwing Stigma into a bush and hiding it anymore – someone could just walk up and steal it.” Any chance of that happening was unacceptable. Over time I had come to learn just how valuable the sword really was. In a sense, it was one of the few things that could kill me. John was onto something when he took Raiju from Ryan.

Cali was not one to argue. She accepted my stance and moved on.

Phillip was at the inn on the dot. The moment the clock struck eight, he was walking through the front door and into the lobby where we were waiting for him. I had triple checked that we had everything we needed, and I had brought some of my thieving tools just in case we needed them. He didn’t have any comments on our appearance, which I presumed was his way of giving us a thumbs up.

He led us through the winding streets of the town and towards the richer areas, wherein there were a large number of towering townhouses and larger manors. The less urban environment gave them more space to spread out with gardens and other luxuries that you wouldn’t find space or fertile ground for in the city. I continuously found myself confounded as my personal guesses as to which home was Rivers’ were proven incorrect. Further and further we went, out to the peripheries of the suburban area.

“This is Sir Rivers’ home. Please remember to treat him with respect.”

And of course, the one house I didn’t peg as his was the one that he actually owned. It was a large mansion with tall marble pillars holding up the roof. It reminded me of a Greco-Roman style compressed into the footprint of a smaller country home. There were two large wings that sprouted off from each side of the central building. There were two other buildings disconnected from the main house that presumably held some of his burgeoning collection.

We walked down the pathway and through the iron gates. Instead of going into the main building, we took a left and headed down through a nicely kept garden. At the base of the hill was a small pond surrounded by hanging trees, and a building surrounded on all sides by windows. Derian Rivers was waiting for us inside. I reached out to unlatch the door and prepared myself. I wondered what kind of man he would turn out to be.

I unlocked it and stepped through with Cali and Tahar in tow. The interior was evocative of the weapon shop I had visited to get the dagger evaluated. Weapons and armour hung from each wall, and a set of dummies ran up and down the middle of the space. My thieving mind was already tallying up how much I could get by fencing some of the rare and antique items contained inside. That speculative greed quickly ran headfirst into a brick wall as I realised that my cursed item may have been hidden amongst all of these displays.

This was going to be a lot harder than I had first implied.

On the other side of the warehouse was a small pair of barn doors that looked out onto the pond. Derian Rivers was reclining in one of the wooden chairs with an excitable smile on his face. He was wearing a stark white suit with long coattails, and a pair of small, rounded spectacles rested at the apex of his nose. He had a long face, deep-set eyes, with bushy eyebrows and a clean shave. He immediately leapt from his seat and pulled me into an unwanted handshake.

“Very good to meet you! I’m Derian Rivers,” his tone was warm and friendly, but that wasn’t going to disarm my suspicions about him. I was essentially here to kill this man, which was a step beyond what the Absolver had suggested before. It must have been more urgent that this particular piece was removed from the board.

“Ren.”

I made a show of good faith and left Stigma leaning against the wall. Tahar and Cali took the other free chairs beside me as we all sat down to have a chat. The first thing I did was take the dagger from Tahar and lay it out on the table. Derian’s eyes glistened with a childlike glee at the sight of it. He took a deep breath and held a hand over his heart, “Wow. Phillip already told me how amazing this thing was, but even his description was understating it. And you’re serious about selling it to me?”

He was a certified weapon nut. I needed to play that angle up to get him on my side. “Of course I am,” I motioned to the armoury that surrounded us, “I don’t have a big place like this to keep these. It’d be a terrible shame to throw it away or sell it to someone who wouldn’t appreciate it.”

Hook, line and sinker – he leaned into the centre with a genuine grin, “You’re a man after my own heart, Ren. You brought it to the right place. I have a genuine love for mysterious and unknown artefacts like this. I’ve personally funded expeditions to several places around the world to try and unearth more of them.”

I laid it on thick, “As it happens, I discovered this during an expedition myself. It’s a crying shame that I didn’t find anything else – but I think the quality of this piece more than makes up for it. I’ve been fielding offers to take it off of my hands, but you’re the only one who asked to meet me in person.”

Derian nodded. He reached out and took the dagger into his palms, eyes widening at the lack of weight due to the unique alloy that it was forged from. “I… wow, this is really something!” he laughed, “I never buy anything without seeing it or touching it. This collection isn’t just an investment to me. It’s my dedication to a craft that is so often passed over, my enjoyment is more than seeing them change hands for metal.”

“I can tell. You must spend a lot of time in here.”

“Yes! I painstakingly decorated the interior of this old boathouse for the sake of perfecting my collection. This is my private selection – though I do enjoy entertaining guests here from time to time.”

“Well, it’s an honour to be shown it.”

I’d cracked him. There was nothing that got a weapon otaku talking like being led to believe that their conversation partner really cared about their hobby. I’d already discerned that this may have been the place where he elected to keep the cursed item that the Absolver had smuggled into his possession.

I steepled my fingers and nodded along with him, “Your willingness to handle it yourself before purchasing it is admirable. You clearly care a lot about what you do.” He finally completed his initial inspection and placed the dagger back down. He was clearly smitten with it, it was written all over his face. He needed it. He’d name any price to get it within reason.

“Let me think. How much can I part with to get this?”

I gave him all the time he needed to come up with an answer.

“Phillip already told me about some of the other offers they sent you. It’s embarrassing. They’re hoping to buy it for cheap and flip it at an auction later, you won’t see a single bar of it. I would have bought it there if you’d sold it before. So, I’ll cut out the middleman. This is more than you’ll get from them.”

Cheap? They were offering me two dozen gold bars for the thing!

He snapped his fingers, “Fifty.”

“Fifty?”

“Fifty gold bars.”

For the first time in a long time – I didn’t know what to say.