Lowe had been standing in place for about ten minutes before the other’s shadow fell over him. But he didn’t turn towards the voice right away. He tried telling himself that was because he was showing the appropriate amount of hardboiled stoicism. I’ve seen too much and lived too long for anything surprise me anymore.
In reality, though, it was because his brain had completely short-circuited at hearing that voice.
For a few long, stretched-out moments, he just kept staring at the graves of Faulks and Arman, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. The weight of the file in his pocket seemingly almost doubling in the silence.
The Mayor had given a whole song and dance routine about how the fallen heroes of Cuckoo House deserved a proper burial site here. The speech had been a masterpiece of political sincerity—meaning, at the time, it had sounded completely heartfelt but had, when Lowe had thought about it afterwards, amounted to the sum total of jack shit.
"Today, we honour the brave souls who gave everything in service of our great city. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten, and this sacred ground will stand as a testament to their dedication. It will be a place where future generations can reflect on the courage and commitment of those who protect us and who have given everything in that service. We owe those interred here a debt that can never be repaid. However, in acknowledgement of their heroism, we can ensure their names live on, etched into the heart of Soar itself."
Lowe had thought the Mayor had even managed to squeeze out a single, dramatic tear at the end as he laid the first wreath.
It had been all very moving.
Extremely dignified.
Lowe had clapped politely, nodded in all the right places, and resisted the urge to ask if, instead of planting officers in the ground, Soar might consider passing a few laws to make it slightly less attractive to murder members of the Security Services.
But maybe that had just been him. Everyone else seemed pretty pleased with the arrangement.
Maybe he was just built different.
And now, in this place and at this time, a voice from the past had reached out and grabbed him by the throat. With one last look at the two pathetically small headstones—too small for what they’d given. And far too small for what had been taken—Lowe turned towards the speaker.
He already knew who it was, of course.
Already dreaded who he was about to see.
“Afternoon Rook,” Lowe said. "Long time no see."
The man standing behind him hadn’t changed much. Which was damn impressive, considering Lowe had identified his body.
Rook had never been a big guy, not in the way Arman had been. But he’d been solid. Compact muscle, quick on his feet, always moving like he was two steps ahead of whatever poor bastard he was about to put into the ground. All that athletic energy had meant his clothes had always been just a little rumpled, his boots polished but never pristine. The joke had always been that Rook spent too much time pounding the pavement and not enough time preening in front of the mirror for Commander Cenorth. Scruffy he might have been, but he’d definitely been the kind of officer who got things done.
He’d never been one to rely too much on Skills. He hadn’t been obsessed with flash or appearance.
Rook had been the poster child for possessing good instincts, respecting his training, and having a stubborn refusal for letting go of a case until it was solved.
Apparently, that same pig-headedness had extended beyond his death . . .
The two of them stared at each for several long moments.
Lowe wondered what the man saw. Whether he was pleased to see him. Whether he was surprised he was still in one piece. What he felt about making eye contact with the man whose complete professional failure and recklessness in planning had, according to all official records, been directly responsible for his death?
Looking more closely, Lowe could see that Rook’s face was still largely his own, but it had taken on a pallor that went some way beyond exhaustion. His skin was far too tight over his cheekbones, and deep shadows pooled beneath his eyes like bruises from the most brutal of prizefights. That brown overcoat he’d perennially wore still hung from his shoulders, but it was faded now, like it had been left out in the sun for too long, its edges fraying and its fabric thin.
Interestingly - funny what the brain chose to flag as ‘interesting’ at moments like this, wasn’t it? - his breath was coming in slow and shallow heaves, like Rook was having to manually remember how to inflate his lungs.
But it was his eyes—his fucking eyes—which were the biggest change. They weren’t milky or hollow like Rook was some back-alley Necromancer’s latest party trick. Nor were they burning with the tell-tale holy fire of being some god’s undead plaything. They were just… tired. So damn tired.
Lowe thought he was somewhat of an expert in bone-weary cynicism. But he doubted he had anything on this guy. If he was putting gold on it, Rook was holding himself on this plain of existence through sheer cussed spite alone.
"Let me guess," Lowe said, slipping his hands into his pockets, fingers brushing against the edge of the file. "This is some kind of post-mortem fuckery, isn’t it? You’re the first of three spirits I’m going to see this day who are going to teach me the profound error of my ways culminating in, I don’t know, me spending my salary on a massive fucking chicken. Awesome."
“Getting Classtrated didn’t rob you of your absolutely A1 sense of humour, I see.”
“Just as dying left your childish good looks, wit and charm well alone.”
Rook held his hand out. After a beat, Lowe took it. The man’s flesh was ice-cold.”
There were more than a few moments of silence as they stood there, looking at each other. “Look,” Lowe finally said, “I’m just going to come right out and say it. How the fuck are you here?”
"I never liked to leave a case unfinished. Turns out Arkola agreed with that energy."
“Arkola?”
"Yeah. Apparently, when push came to shove, my watch was very much not ended. One moment I was happily bleeding out on the grass and contemplating the afterlife and the next I was having my fucking Class reset and being told I still had ‘an important role to play’ and was being given ‘another chance’. Bye bye, Bloodhound. Hello, Threshold Guardian," Rook said, and the length of that little speech really seemed to cost him. "A year in, and I’m up to Level 49. So I have that going for me, I guess."
Lowe swore.
Threshold Guardian? In a world bursting at the seams with bizarre Classes, that was a particularly ugly one. From what Lowe could remember, it meant Rook was clinging to the very edge of life and death, balanced on the thinnest of lines. Every heartbeat would be a negotiation. Every breath would need to be forced in and out, manually, like working a pair of ancient bellows.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It would take all of Rook's mana just to keep his heart thumping and his lungs inflating. Forget for even a moment, get distracted by, say, a particularly interesting scroll, and he’d revert to being dead. And once dead, well, jumpstarting from that position was no picnic. It was, in fact, a bugger. Like trying to get a rusted engine going on a frosty morning—with no starter motor and only a half-empty bottle of something vaguely flammable.
Not exactly the sort of Class that let you relax and smell the daisies.
It did come with some perks, though. Being largely unkillable, for one. Lots of boosts to Strength, for another. But, as people had been quick to realise, unkillable didn’t mean invulnerable. Rook could be dismembered, for example, and have his various bits scattered to the four winds.
Which could be a bit of a logistical nightmare, really.
There were, though, plenty of stories about Threshold Guardians managing to reconstitute themselves, given enough time. And time, when you were technically dead and being kept that way by some god’s dubious sense of humour, was something Threshold Guardians had in abundance.
Another downside—other than the minor inconvenience of having to remember to breathe—was that people generally didn’t like hanging around invincible undead monsters. They tended to find it somewhat unsettling, for reasons no one ever really wanted to articulate to them. So, the only real employment for Threshold Guardians was guarding warehouses, crypts, and other places no one wanted to visit anyway. Perfect for the socially challenged. “Caretakers of Creepiness,” they were known.
Considering his own recent experiences with the Blood of the Phoenix, it wasn’t like Lowe was completely unfamiliar with coming back from the dead. But Rook’s Class was nothing like that - he was stuck in an endless, grinding war against the inevitable.
On the other hand, he’d reached Level 49. That was almost a doubling of what he’d been as a Bloodhound on the day of the . . . incident. So there had to be some upside.
Almost from the first moment in basic training, the two of them had been locked in the same pissing contest. A level here, a solved case there—one of them would inch ahead, only for the other to pull even and then overtake.
It had been a game, a good one, back when gaining XP had still been about skill, luck, and sheer bloody-minded determination.
Thinking back, it was only because Cenorth had taken a particular interest in Lowe that he’d finally begun to pull ahead in the months before . . . well. Before. That was going to have to do for now.
But now - thanks to the supreme fucking being overseeing Soar changing his Class to something utterly rancid, Rook had hit Level 49?
Lowe pulled up his own stats.
Name: Jana Lowe
Level: 26
Class: Removed
Primary Attributes:
- Strength: 120
- Dexterity: 90
- Intelligence: 295
- Wisdom: 238
- Charisma: 60
- Constitution: 76
Secondary Attributes:
- Perception: 95
- Willpower: 99
- Luck: 63
Health Points (HP): 1200 - Regeneration Rate: 2 HP/min (natural); 15 HP/sec (via Roll with the Punches)
Mana Points (MP): 410 - Regeneration Rate: 1 MP/min (natural); 2 MP/min when Mana falls below 10%
Stamina Points (SP): 560 - Regeneration Rate: 5 SP/min
Skills:
- Roll with the Punches(Passive) - Mythic. Blood of the Phoenix. Converts 10 MP to heal 15 HP per second. Upon falling to zero HP, your body is consumed by flames, and from the ashes, you are reborn at full health after a five-second delay. Activation depletes 5% of the maximum mana pool. Cooldown: None.
- Grid View(Active) - Rare - Level 31. Records events with perfect recall of details. Mana Cost: 50% of total MP. Cooldown: None.
- Slugger(Active) - Rare - Level 32 Next melee attack deals triple damage. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
- Medic!(Active) - Rare - Level 12 Heal a companion at a 2:1 MP to HP ratio. Cooldown: None.
- Mental Fortress(Passive) - Legendary - Level 50 (Rank Up Rejected - balanced stat bonuses granted in place of upgrade.) Grants heightened resistance to mental manipulation and emotional attacks. Mana Cost: 10% MP cost each successful defence
Skill slots 4 and upwards are blocked as per Council decree
Not too shabby, especially considering his Classtration.
Of course, most of that was due to following Latham’s advice and using Essence Transmutation Theory to reset his Skills. This meant that, although he might look like a Level 26, his actual stats were twice as pure as the majority of other people. If Rook fancied making something of the circumstances around his death and push came to shove in this graveyard, Lowe was pretty confident he’d give a good account of himself.
“Threshold Guardian, mate? Pros and cons, I guess. Sure, you look like shit, but already one level below 50? You’re pretty close to playing with the big boys. Well, not playing, obviously; I imagine most people give you a wide berth. But, you know what I mean."
Rook chuckled, but there wasn’t a shred of warmth in it. "Sure, I know what you mean. To tell the truth, Lowe, I’m not loving life/death right now.”
“I’m sure.”
“You ever have a Skill you wish you could turn off?"
Lowe frowned at that, thinking about the perfect recall of that small, broken body which Grid View allowed him.
Rook obviously felt some kinship in that expression. "Yeah, I see you do. Well, that’s me, Jana. All the time. Arkola apparently wants me constantly right on the line between this world and the next. And one of those Skills doesn’t just let me stay on that line. It lets me see."
"See what?"
"Every time someone steps over the line. Every time they go from breathing to not. And I don’t just see it." He tapped two fingers against his temple. "I know."
Lowe stared at him. Rook held his gaze, and there was no humour left. Just an exhaustion which Lowe now completely understood. Rook was witnessing every death in Soar. That would be an almost constant ticking over of lives . . .
Had Arkola saved his friend, or had he singled him out for some sort of brutal, everlasting punishment?
"You remember what happened in the park?" Rook asked, voice quiet, then shook his head. "Sorry. Of course you do. You wouldn't be here if you didn’t." Rook exhaled slowly., and Lowe thought he could see gaseous mana leak out of the man’s mouth as he did so. "Well, once the fucker tore my heart out, I got to watch it. The whole thing."
Lowe’s throat tightened. When they’d pieced things together, it seemed that Rook had actually been the first of them to be slaughtered. But, if what he was saying about Arkola’s intervention was true, the poor fucker hadn’t just seen his own death. He’d got to feel every single one of the rest of their team.
Every officer blown apart in that park. Every second of agony. Every drop of blood spilled into the dirt.
All of it. Burned into his mind like a brand.
Lowe didn’t pretend to understand the mind of Arkola - such a thing would be impossible - but the dweller at the top of the Celestial Temple had never struck him as wantonly cruel. What was being done to Rook felt . . . vengeful.
What the Council had done to Lowe had been shitty. Of course, he’d be the first to shout that from the rooftops. But at least he hadn’t been singled out by a fucking god for special attention.
“You fancy a drink, Rook? I think we’ve got some catching up to do.”
“Do you know what, Jana? I actually think I do.”