Opportunities

From the tip of my sword, blood pits and pats onto the stone floor below. The cave otherwise silent, only the soft tap of blood echoing through this chamber is heard. Flicking my arm, I fling the excess liquid from my sword to the ground and return the blade to its sheath.

Turning, I face the wide eyes and parted mouths of my party. Ploughing forward, the bulging arms of Solomon grab me by my blood-drenched collar and lift me from my feet.

'Have you lost your mind! She's a Peace-Keeper, you idiot! Do you think that you can get away with this?'

'Get your hands off me.' Wielding the authority granted through the spirit pledge, I compel the shaking arms of my aggressor to place me gently back on the ground. Face twisting in resistance and rage, compelled by higher forces, Solomon unhands me.

'You… You killed her.' Shaking her head in disbelief, horror, or maybe both, Emma slowly walks away from where I'm stood. She lifts her face from her hands displaying the unmistakable expression of dread.

'She didn't do anything, and you killed her. Why? Why did you kill her?'

'She was in my way.'

Silence.

Not a word is spoken. Only the slight trembling of fear vibrating through the hands of each of my companions communicates any meaning.

Gripping her thumb to steady her hand, Tabitha approaches me.

'The Peace-Keeper Guild isn't a small organisation. They were instituted by the five ruling Clans themselves. You can't possibly think that you'll be able to keep this from them. Even if we don't say anything, organisations like the Peace-Keepers have methods of investigation that you can't hide from.'

Under normal circumstances, she'd be right. High-tier clans and large guilds often invoke the services of Tension Masters capable of seeing the truth of matters that many would prefer could stay undisclosed. Some are capable of peering through time to witness events from the past. Few, not many but not none are even able to catch glimpses of events before they transpire. It would be impossible under normal circumstances to get away with the murder of the lieutenant of a guild such as the Peace-Keepers.

However, these are not normal circumstances.

With the Dread Mother's activities comes the World Witch's haze. Until her fog lifts from this region of Area VI, all means of investigating matters from afar are sealed. After all, with the exception Huntress and myself, no one else is even aware of who it is that's responsible for the Tower Breach.

'Don't worry about an investigation; it won't be a problem. All you need to do is follow my instructions.'

'I refuse.'

'You don't have a choice.' Eyes sharpening to a point, Tabitha glares into my own. Harnessing the power of the spirit pledge, I feel her resistance crack under the irresistible force of our contract.

Visibly straining against the binding of her will, Tabitha falls to one knee, sweat running down her face. Defiance spent, panting heavily, she lowers her head.

'Six years. You have six years to disgrace me. After that, I'll repay to you every humiliation ten-fold.'

If in six years I'm still so weak that she'll be able to, it would be no less than I deserve. After all, the weak have no right to complain. Isn't that right, Father?

Facing my servants, I tell them a story of my imagining. I have them repeat it back to me, each telling the same story in a slightly different way. The conclusion, however, remains the same in every iteration. The dark guild, and not me, murdered Abbigale Smok.

Satisfied with their recitation, I tell them to search the cavern and the dead for anything valuable while I walk through the tunnel our departed reinforcements had used in order to die here.

At the end of the tunnel, I reach a larger chamber of the cave. Immense in scale, the cavern is sectioned off for different uses. In one section, on the far side of the cave, wooden bunks rest vacant. In another segment, weapons of every kind hang affixed to crudely constructed racks.

Clearly, this guild had plans of remaining in their hideout for some time. Given to believe, as I was, that the norm is for dark guilds to scatter once their mission was complete, I didn't expect this cavern to be so hospitable.

Walking towards the weapons, I inspect their design and worth. Dismissing them as useless, I search the remainder of this section of the cave, going through wardrobes, draws, the underside of tables and chairs looking for anything of value.

Nothing.

I search beneath the rickety cots dressed in paper-thin bed sheets and equally thin blankets.

Nothing.

I search through shelves of glass jars filled with bitter smelling liquids.

Nothing.

Retuning to the beds, I sit and retrieve the spatial storage ring hanging around my neck. Extracting from the green fog of the storage ring a bucket, a flannel, and a towel, I remove my blood-soaked garments and clean myself with the water. Squeezing the flannel over the bucket, I dye the water therein a pinkish hue.

Having washed away most traces of murder, I dry myself with the towel and return it alongside the bucket, flannel, and my sodden clothes to the ring.

Manifesting from the green fog a small, wooden wardrobe, I select a plain, white tunic, black trousers, and a black pair of shoes.

Dressed, I resume my search.

The rough grate of heavy wood scraping on stone flood attacks my ears as I slide a heavy wooden shelf from its place. Walking behind the displaced shelf, a smile creeps onto my face.

A chest.

Its frame, entirely black; I slide the chest out from the wall it had been dug into. Someone went to some lengths to keep this chest a secret, and that person could only be the leader of the now eradicated dark guild. With so many people apparently living in this cave, only the very first person here could have possibly constructed this hole in the wall without alerting anyone to their activities.

Attempting to lift the lid from the trunk. I feel a resistance. Examining the box, I see that there's no lock or latch visible to the naked eye.

So it's locked with a Tension seal? While it would be simple enough to dismantle such a crude mechanism in normal times, having exhausted my capacity for using Tension temporarily, a seal such as this will require less delicate methods.

I take from my spatial ring a glass test tube filled with a squirming black liquid. Uncorking the bottle, I tip the glass and allow the liquid within to ooze from its container and onto the chest.

Acrid fumes waft into the back of my throat, causing me to gag as the area the black substance touches begins to sizzle and melt. Two minutes pass, maybe more, and the corrosion ceases. The top of the trunk now vacant, I place the test tube onto the side of the chest and allow the corrosive, black fluid to seep, as if by its own will, back into its container.

I return the test tube to my storage ring, kneel, and look inside the container.

A pile of copper and silver coins, a few sealed bottles of what I can only assume, from the consistency and clumping of the liquid within, are poorly refined assortments of potions, skin and bone from different types of Tension Beasts, and a small burlap sack. Lifting the sack, I unfasten the string around its top and open the bag.

My lips crack into a smile.

Ether-crystals.

How this dark guild came upon the most precious resource needed for advancing within rank-three and into rank-four, I don't know. Equally true is the fact that I don't care. However they obtained them, they're mine now.

Weighing the bag in my hand, I determine there are enough crystals to brew three, maybe four body refinement potions. I extract from my storage ring two bottles; one filled with the scarlet tint of red sapling dew; the other containing the vibrant green of olive seagrass.

I make to stand; a wave of nausea overtakes me.

Shit.

Piercing torment stabs through my chest. With every beat of my heart, the pain circulates through my body, until no part of me is free from the potent sensation. Vomiting, I spew foul-smelling blood from my mouth. Careful not to tarnish the chest, my blackened blood and bile puddle on the stone floor.

I must have more Tension Corruption than I first thought. These symptoms are clear. My use of Tension has exceeded my body's capacity for the corruption such use entails.

My mind races to find a solution. At this stage, expelling corruption is too slow, too gradual to... to save me. I'll never stay conscious-

The potion!

I… I...have a-.

Raging against the dying of the light, I force myself to stay alert. The stain of my efforts immense, I grit my teeth and refuse the fading of my senses. Regaining the requisite focus, I withdraw from my ring a small wooden box. Box unclasped, I take from the container a small glass bottle storing a purple liquid inside. Uncorking the bottle, shakily, I lift it to my mouth and drink.

The flavour indescribable, I force the fetid potion down my throat. Gagging at the sensation of consuming such a loathsome brew, I suppress the urge to regurgitate the iniquitous liquid and allow the potion to take effect.

It isn't instant, but as the seconds pass to minutes, my anguish subsides. Frantic breathing calmed, I push myself from off my knees and stand, collecting the ether-crystals, seagrass, and dew on my way.

Wiping away the filth from my face, I walk across the cavern arriving at a section containing the beginnings of a rudimentary laboratory. Approaching the Omni-forge within the workspace, I examine the poorly etched transmission circles carved into the table holding the Omni-forge.

It's not perfect, but the design matches the forge. The efficiency is compromised, but it will work.

With a stick of chalk on top of the table, I draw, with shaking hands, the ether-crystal refinement formula. Placing Tension Coal within the bowl of the Omni-forge, I ignite the forge and watch as the circles within circles carved into the wood of the workbench begin to radiate a soft blue luminescence.

Dropping the crystals over the transmission circle, they hover in the air. As time passes, the crystals gradually disintegrate. After half an hour has passed, all that is left of the once radiant jewels is a fine, silvery powder.

Collecting the powder, I brew it within a boiling flask along with the seagrass and dew. The reds, and the greens, and the silvers, mix within the flask. As the liquid moves from simmering to boiling, the swirling colours fade, leaving a crystalline liquid.

Escaping from the boiling flask a herbal and metallic bouquet, I know with certainty that the body refinement potion is complete.

The elixir cools rapidly. I transfer the content of the flask into three glass vials. Storing two of the test tubes inside my spatial ring, I move to the bunks on the far side of this chamber and drink the third.

Closing my eyes, a twisting warmth spreads from my stomach to my chest, and is carried by the beating of my heart throughout my body. I focus my mind on that warmth. Intensifying the experience through rhythmic breathing, the intangible sensation coursing through my body solidifies. As if cementing my blood, a stiffness assaults me. Feeling the spiking of my heart in momentary panic, I concentrate on my breathing until my mind and my body disjoin.

Floating within the void of my own consciousness, time loses its meaning. A minute, an hour. An hour, a second. A second, all the days of my life. All moments meld into themselves constructing a profound brush with eternity.

Returning to myself, I open my eyes. Probing my body, I sense a change. It's minuscule but significant. I smile to myself as the realisation dawns on me.

My advancement within rank-three, grade-two of my Tension Resistance has increased. Of the true capacity of the Arts I've acquired, I can now use fifty-point-four percent.

'You seem pleased with yourself.' I turn my head. Sitting cross-legged in the bunk next to mine, Tabitha.

'No matter. Whether you make a lucky find here and there, your gains are insignificant when compared to the support of a high-tier Clan. I'll admit, for a nameless, you're talented, but where a single twig will snap. A bundle-'

'Will burn.' I say, cutting the girl short. Eyes flare in my direction. Calming herself, Tabitha regains composure.

'Cute, but it's impossible for you to really believe you have any hope of attaining true power on your own. You might have potential, but a single Tension Master working alone will never live long enough to see that potential manifest.'

'Why don't you get to the point?' Unravelling her crossed legs and sliding them to the side of her bunk, Tabitha allows her bare feet to touch the cold of the stone below. Standing, she walks over to me, looks down and stares into my eyes.

'Join the Enderich Clan.'