Darkness was falling across the streets and courtyards and buildings of Flutic. A gentle dusk, softening the sounds of traffic, trade, and desperation.

  Lantern lighters were walking down the centers of avenues, flickering poles rising to light the wicks of glass-encased lamps, leaving necklaces of amber pools behind them, growing brighter by the moment as the night grew darker.

  Harald moved slowly, head bowed, cloak bunched about his shoulders. He stared unseeing at the flagstones beneath his feet. He was moving toward the Marheim Gate. Moving toward men and women who didn’t yet know they were dead. Living on borrowed time. He was their fate, their destiny, and their moment of meeting was drawing close.

  His thoughts wandered. Down to the dungeon levels and their denizens. To the nobility who played at politics while the Thrones fell to demonic ploys. To House Emberfell struggling to improve the lot of the poor through ingenious refinements on past discoveries. To wherever Lady Yseult Khan was now, her thoughts no doubt as murderous as his own.

  She’d be finding him one day, and then there’d be an accounting.

  But for now he was a small pike swimming upstream toward a pool of minnows. The Red Fist. A band of mercs. Raiders all, but none of such note that they could afford to disdain small paydays like warehouse duty.

  The deaths would have to be contained. He couldn’t afford for Ability-empowered chaos to spill out into the streets. If there was a single force that even a Hammerfell or Khan might fear, it was the Seraphite Inquisitors.

  Whatever was to come, it’d have to be quiet. Elegant. Barely noticeable.

  Even now, after all that had happened, Harald found himself capable of feeling surprised. At his own surety. Only a couple of months ago he’d awoken, bloated and hung over, to rush down to his assignation with Yeoric and his inevitable humiliation. Now here he was, feeling himself a harbinger of doom, confident in his ability to deal death to stone cold professionals.

  And not even feeling conflicted over what was to come.

  The Red Fist had accepted Gorkin’s scales. Harald had accepted House Sonora’s patronage. In a way, this was impersonal.

  So Harald walked, steady and implacable, hood drawn down low. Carriages trundled by, pedestrians hurried home, and the sky grew ever darker.

  He left the Angelic Quarter behind and passed into the bustling neighborhood known since time immemorial as the Marheim Gate. The sole exit through the ancient Flutic walls that led toward the brutal land of massively plated knights, advanced industry, of fog-drenched hills and heavy forests that housed monsters out of legend.

  Marheim, the source of endless technological innovations and trade.

  Such that the Marheim Gate housed countless warehouses, trading posts, shops, specialty providers, and markets. Even at this hour the Gate was alive with commerce, the day markets transitioning into the Night Market. The crowds thickened again, voices raised to call out their wares. The scent of grilling skewers of meat, the lowing of cattle from the Butcher’s Corner, the sound of different accents, the smell of burning charcoal and yearn smoke.

  Harald didn’t hurry. Didn’t draw attention to himself. He deflected sales pitches mostly by just ignoring them. Kept to the shadows. Moved around the thriving heart of the Gate, and toward Warehouse Row, a stretch of brutal buildings that lined three broad avenues that even at this hour were choked with wagons.

  Burly men unloaded crates while others took tallies. Bright illumination spilled out before each building. People called, grunted, cursed.

  The wheels of industry never ceased to spin.

  Harald kept a wary eye out for the old Sonora building. It wasn’t hard to spot. Center row, it had pride of place, its front a broad gate that opened to a cavernous interior large enough to house a couple of cottages. It was one of the many doing business, with a train of wagons parked before it, oxen in the harnesses, men tending them, men unloading barrels, streaming into the warehouse and back out like ants.

  Harald walked slowly along the far side of the street. Four wagons. Some twenty stevedores. One man in finer clothing playing the part of overseer. And here and there, Red Fist mercenaries.

  Who looked tremendously bored. A pair stood by the gate proper, arms crossed and watching the unloading with extreme indifference. A third was crouched, neatly balanced and with forearms resting on her thighs, right at the peak of the roof over the main gate, giving her a perfect vantage over the whole street. A fourth stood with the overseer, chewing the tips of his luxurious mustache and watching the man’s quill scritch data onto the scroll as barrels were carried by.

  Harald kept on. Each of the mercs was easily identifiable by accents of red and a crimson fist emblazoned on their chest, whether it was painted onto a leather cuirass or worn in the form of a tabard over a chainmail shirt.

  Harald left the warehouse behind. Four, which meant there could be another couple inside, maybe another pair around the back. Make it eight total. Even if they were just Copper-ranked, that was a formidable force.

  He couldn’t fight eight raiders at once. Not if he wanted to control the situation and prevent one or two getting away to call for reinforcements.

  How to kill them all?

  Timing was key. He’d have to wait for the wagons to finish unloading, the stevedores to leave for the night.

  He had to ascertain how many more Fists were on the premises.

  Slowing, the warehouse now out of sight behind a curve in the street, its perched sentry hidden behind the peak of another building, Harald considered. They’d exuded a callous sense of confidence and competency. Their gear had looked well-used. Nothing new, nothing ostentatious, nothing pretty. Hardy gear, battle-tested.

  No wonder the Red Fists had their rep.

  Harald crossed the avenue and slipped down an alley. Turned back the way he’d come as he entered the deep darkness of the narrow street that ran along the back of the warehouses. It was squeezed between two rows of buildings, the others facing out onto the next avenue over. A rivulet of slime ran down the center. It reeked of garbage and piss. Small, shadowed shapes rustled and darted. Rats. Rain barrels, abandoned crates, back doors.

  He was four warehouses down. Harald crouched and studied the alley that led back to his prey. Dark. No movement. Nothing that indicated it was being watched.

  Time to wait. To give the wagons and their stevedores time to leave.

  Harald crouched into the darkest corner he could find, and let time flow by.

  After a whole bell had rung, he roused himself. The sounds of industry had greatly faded.

  Time to move.

  He’d not seen any evidence of enemies in the alley the whole time he’d watched, but that didn’t mean much. You’d want to lure in infiltrators with a false sense of security.

  Time to try out his new power.

  Harald considered his latest Passive.

  Passive Ability: Veil of Shadows

  Shadows cling to you like a second skin. In dim light or darkness, you become harder to detect, your form blending seamlessly with the gloom. This veil muffles your footsteps and obscures your presence from prying eyes.

  It being a Passive, he’d not have to focus on it. But like the Aching Depths, it would activate when contextually appropriate. Out here in the streets, that meant a nudge, letting it know he wanted it to begin draining his Thrones, to exert its power.

  So, with deliberate intention and a frisson of excitement, Harald summoned the shadows to himself.

  There was plenty of darkness to be had. The shadows thickened around him, swaddling him, embracing him. He felt their coolness on his skin like the slightest breeze, felt his presence dim and grow faint.

  But there was more to it than just being harder to detect. The very fabric of shadows around him became discernible, like an extension of himself. Harald cocked his head to one side and considered: yes - he could feel the darkness, intuit its depth, its extent. It was like no sensation, no sense he’d ever felt before, and defied his ability to describe, exactly. The shadows had become aware of him, and he of them.

  But enough mysticism.

  Time to explore.

  And he had just the perfect companion for this mission.

  With a flex of his will Harald summoned Shadowpaw.

  The huge mastiff appeared by his side, darker than the night, huge and rumbly, a great quarter horse of a beast, filling the alleyway with its tenebrous presence.

  “We’re going hunting,” whispered Harald, sinking his fingers into the beast’s thick pelt. “But right now we’re just scouting. Seeing who’s out behind our target warehouse. Stay hidden. Stay quiet. I’ll let you know when it’s time to end lives.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Shadowpaw didn’t even whuff; he simply gave himself a brisk shake and then stepped away to melt into nothingness.

  Harald wanted to laugh at the hound’s incredible ability. Even staring right at where he had to be, Harald couldn’t make out the mastiff. He was just gone, supple shadows embracing him and taking him away.

  Now it was his turn.

  Harald padded forward. Unhurried. Picking his path, watching for trash, for anything he might accidentally dislodge and send clattering on the mud-slicked cobblestones.

  He needn’t have worried. His footsteps were silent, muffled by the shadows, and he felt himself a ghostly breeze, gently eddying toward his prey.

  One warehouse, two, three. And then there was his target, larger than the others. Harald slowed and studied its rear. A big double door, closed and raised a yard off the ground. Cart height. A regular back door. The alley widened there, became almost a tiny courtyard, backed by the other warehouse.

  But no sign of a Red Fist.

  Which wasn’t right. Unless the sentry was placed just inside the door? But then he’d be sitting blind.

  Harald crouched and rubbed at this jaw. Considered the empty alley, then raised his gaze to the rooftops.

  Nothing, at least, not at first. But Harald’s patience was rewarded by the slightest movement on the other warehouse’s roof.

  A sentry, positioned high up with a perfect line of sight down to the back doors.

  Harald allowed himself the slightest of smiles. No doubt the sentry would shout a warning, alerting his companion perched at the front of the building, who’d in turn call down to the others.

  All right. Time to investigate.

  Harald backed away, then crossed to the other avenue on which the sentry’s building fronted, one over from Sonora’s own entrance.

  No way would the Red Fists be watching that building’s front. They’d just be taking advantage of its abutting rear.

  This avenue boasted less prosperous warehouses, and traffic here was accordingly less. Harald timed it just right, slid down the block to the alley that led down the target warehouse’s side, and slipped into the darkness.

  No obvious ways up, but he hadn’t anticipated one. All he needed was - there. A couple of crates beside a window ledge that was just a couple of yards beneath the rooftop.

  Time to play it safe.

  Harald activated Dark Vigor, and inhaled deeply as his Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution all improved by +2. He felt the shadows swarm around him, as if thrashed into excitement, and though Veil of Shadows kept him hidden, he could imagine how the black flames must be sweeping over him.

  Then he summoned the Goldchops.

  They appeared alongside him, lethal and beautiful as always, their golden heads glimmering like lost treasure amidst his shadows. He’d keep them down here, out of sight, but the +2 to this Dexterity and Strength only further enhanced him, bringing him to 16 Strength and Dexterity, 15 Constitution.

  More than enough to nimbly scale the side of this building.

  Harald touched the crates, ascertaining their structural integrity, then leaped up lightly, the balls of his feet touching a reinforced corner, a heavy edge, and then he stepped onto the window ledge and boosted himself up to the roof’s edge.

  Gripped with both hands and pulled himself up smoothly, shadows smothering him, silencing the movement, so that without even exerting himself he was crouched upon the warehouse’s gently sloping roof, enveloped in darkness and not even breathing heavily.

  Harald waited.

  Nothing.

  Up ahead, at the back of the building, he heard a muttered curse, and then a yawn.

  Guard duty had to be terribly boring if night after night nothing happened to break up the monotony.

  Harald grinned and crept forward.

  Shadows drank deep of him. He moved slowly, silently toward the rear, and there saw his prey.

  A cloaked figure seated on a tiny fold-out canvas stool. Their cloak was thick and voluminous, burying them within its fabric. They were positioned just a little back from the edge, enough that they probably could see the back door to the Sonora warehouse without giving themselves away.

  Harald settled in to wait.

  Time passed. No partner emerged from a bathroom break. No second figure betrayed their presence from another spot.

  His target was bored but professional. They occasionally stood, stretched, did some spinal twists, but always they sat back down and resumed watching the warehouse rear.

  Never once did they look back.

  Harald was a good dozen yards away. He was confident that he could approach silently. Command the Goldchops perhaps to execute the sentry even as he stabbed them with an Abysally Attuned Dawnblade.

  But he had another toy he wanted to play with.

  Active Ability: Abyssal Grasp

  From the void, tendrils of darkness extend from your hands, reaching for the souls of your enemies. These ethereal shackles immobilize foes from a distance, draining their life force and empowering you for as long as contact is maintained.

  Harald reached out for the abyss. It was there, between everything, not just in the darkness but in the gleaming spans of clay tile that reflected the moonlight, in the sentry themself, in everything. A pervasive and untouchable truth that nobody else could sense.

  And the source of this power.

  Harald felt the abyss flower within him, open, and a rope of darkness emerged from his extended palm. It flowed forward silently, questing, hungry.

  Harald watched, mesmerized by his own power. He could feel it as an extension of himself, a new limb. It thinned as it stretched forth, going from as thick as his arm to the diameter of a rope just as it stole around the sentry’s waist.

  And then it abruptly coiled around the figure, moving quickly as it cinched itself tight, and the sentry tensed, croaked in alarm, but otherwise remained still.

  Harald felt a bond open. The shadowy manacle was a conduit. He could feel the other’s life beat, their pulse and warmth. Their vitality. They burned in Harald’s mind’s eye like a bonfire, but right away the manacle began to drink of that essence. The sentry struggled, fought back, but they were overwhelmed. Harald felt their power flow back into him through the conduit, a continuous surge of power like the brief pulses granted by Abyssal Attunement.

  And by the angels, it felt good. Better than good. Exhilarating. Seductive. Wondrous. Like the best shot of golden whisky. Harald felt his chest expand as he inhaled tremulously and couldn’t repress a grin.

  Strength upon strength. Reserves of power. The other struggled but they might as well have fought against iron chains. They shivered, shook, and then finally toppled over sidelong from their stool to lie upon the rooftop.

  Dark Vigor seemed amplified. Harald gloried in the essence that flooded into him. Was he draining their Thrones? He didn’t know, but for a span of time the sentry shuddered and shook, the brightness of their essence dimming, dimming, and then finally it went dark, and the Red Fist sentry lay still.

  Harald let out a whispery breath. The power he’d stolen began to fade away, moment by moment, until all too soon it was gone.

  Huh. Interesting. He couldn’t hold on to it for very long at all.

  But while he’d had it…

  Harald rose and moved forward. Still cautious, still quiet. His Thrones felt topped up, Dark Vigor and Veil of Shadows not having seemed to drain them at all.

  He reached the sentry and hesitated. He listened, then peered down at the rear of the warehouse.

  Nothing.

  Carefully he rose and tried to make out the sentry at the front of the warehouse.

  There. Just barely visible in the gloaming.

  Harald sank back slowly, not wanting a jerky movement to betray his presence, and turned the dead sentry onto their back.

  Their hood fell away, and Harald flinched.

  In the moonlight their face was wasted, the skin gray and drawn tight over the frame of their skull. Their eyes bulged, bloodshot, and so wasted and drained did they appear that Harald couldn’t even guess at what their age might once have been.

  A woman, he thought, judging from the dull, straw-like hair. Slight and frail, or perhaps made that way by his attack.

  His heart thudded.

  He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the bulging eyes. She looked like she’d died in intense pain, her lips split, her teeth blooded, her mouth parted.

  Harald grimaced and tore his gaze away, having spotted the churned-up remnants of her tongue.

  His gorge rose, and suddenly the ecstasy he’d felt made him nauseous. What exactly had he done to this woman? Killed her, yes, but this was nothing like an honest blade thrust. He’d drunk of her…?

  Reeling, he summoned the Ability description again and reread it.

  Life force.

  It had been spelled out right there, but he’d thought it a vague term, like “essence” or “vitality” or just a placeholder for her health.

  But no.

  He’d done more than just kill her. He’d drained her very life force.

  Thank the angels that power had bled off him almost immediately. Her soul? Had he captured it, even momentarily, before it had fled?

  This… this was clearly a power meant for the dungeons, where the monsters he’d face had no souls. Were reflections of the beings they were modeled on who’d died centuries ago.

  Harald drew his mind back from the edge.

  This wasn’t his fault. He’d not known what the power could do. If he had, he’d not have used it on a person.

  Not his fault.

  Harald shuddered and pulled the woman’s hood down over her face. The question was: what to do now? He wanted to retreat, to grapple with what he’d done, but then what would he have accomplished? Killed a single sentry? Hardly a warning shot Gorkin would take note of.

  No. He’d come this far, killed this woman in this horrid way, for a reason.

  And just because he couldn’t use Abyssal Grasp on living people didn’t mean he was helpless.

  It was a good fifteen feet from his warehouse roof to the Sonora one. He might just feasibly make it with a running leap, but to what end?

  He still had to play this smart.

  So he made his way back down to the alley floor, then crept to the back of the Sonora warehouse, and studied the wall. With Dark Vigor and the Goldchops, he could make his way up all right.

  Harald sensed subtle movement behind him, but knew instinctively it was Shadowpaw. “Wait here,” he whispered, not looking around. “I’ll be right back.”

  And he leaped for the first handhold.

  A few moments later he hauled himself smoothly up onto the Sonora rooftop. This warehouse featured a peaked roof running down the center, with flat walkways around the edge. It was proper dark now, the night thick and velvety. Drawing the Veil of Shadows around himself, Harald crept forward, silent as a cloud, directing the Goldchops to follow along just below the rim of the roof.

  He heard muted conversation up ahead. Slowed, listened intently, and realized that the next sentry was arguing about something with someone below.

  Harald paused and waited. After a minute the conversation ended, the sentry not sounding pleased.

  But she wasn’t leaving, either.

  Harald was getting good at waiting. He allowed a good span of time to pass, and then pressed forward once more.

  There, pacing back and forth along the front edge of the building: the woman he’d espied from below. Hands linked behind her back, she was humming a song to herself as she balanced along a raised retaining wall about a foot tall, her natural grace allowing her to walk along its narrow edge effortlessly.

  Clearly trying to keep herself amused.

  Harald considered. The most powerful Red Fists wouldn’t be placed on rooftop sentry duty. She was probably an aspiring raider who was putting in her time. Copper-ranked. Which mean she’d probably have a Throne, maybe two at most.

  There could be more Red Fists standing down below.

  Harald considered, then cast around and found a loose section of tile perhaps as long as his thumb. He pried it free, hefted it, then tossed it over the centerline of the roof ridge and willed the Goldchops into motion.

  It clattered lightly and then all was still.

  The sentry hopped off the retaining wall and peered into the darkness. No night vision, then. She hesitated, clearly drawn to investigate, but Harald couldn’t wait. All he’d needed was to get her off the wall and out of anyone’s line of sight below.

  Even as she turned to call something back down to the others, the Goldchops came flying up from where they’d slunk along just out of sight and thudded into the opposite sides of her head.

  Harald broke forth, darting the last few yards to catch her just as she collapsed. Her head was a ruined mess, leaking blood and brains everywhere, but Harald caught her under the arms and lay her quietly upon the tiles.

  The Goldchops pulled themselves free, her gore wicking off their gleaming blades.

  Averting his gaze from her collapsed head, Harald searched her belt and pouches. A handful of Copper Crescents, a sheathed blade at her hip, and - ah. There. A large iron key with the Sonora crest stamped on its face.

  They hadn’t even bothered to change the locks.

  Harald absorbed the six Crescents reflexively, then stole away, retreating to the back of the warehouse where he dropped quietly to the cobblestones once more.

  A quick glance revealed where Shadowpaw sat, his eyes gleaming as he watched expectantly.

  “C’mon,” whispered Harald, moving to the large back door and sliding the key into the lock. “Want to find out what’s inside?”