The Eternal Assassin

"Sam, there was a big fire last night!" Brian exclaimed, barely touching his breakfast as he bounced up and down in his chair, excited to be the one to break the news to his sister. Almost immediately after he'd woken up, one of Brian's friends had swung by the cabin to let him know the news. Apparently it was all anyone was talking about.

Asher supposed it made sense that the head merchant's wagon burning down and taking the caravan leader with it was probably one of the more exciting things to happen in this small village for quite some time.

"Oh really?" Samantha asked, giving Brian a look of surprise so genuine that Asher almost choked on his eggs when he saw it. He had no idea she was such a good actor.

"Yes! Logan said the caravan leader's wagon burned down! He said people are saying they saw a ghost walk through the village late last night and set the wagon ablaze."

"A ghost?" Samantha repeated, shooting Asher a sly grin as she saw him cringe. "What did the ghost look like?"

"They said it was the ghost of someone who died last winter," Brian repeated, scrunching his face as he tried to remember the details that had been relayed to him. "It was covered in really bad frostbite, and it shambled through the village like it was barely aware of its surroundings. As if drawn toward something."

Well, that does sound about right.

"So why did the ghost set fire to the caravan leader's wagon?" Samantha asked, clearly enjoying how much the conversation was making Asher squirm in his chair.

"Dunno," Brian admitted. "Some people said he was being punished for all sorts of bad stuff he'd been doing, or that it was the ghost of his old business partner he'd betrayed years ago come to finally get his revenge. I've heard lots of different reasons, but Logan said he heard from someone in the caravan that a truthseeker is going to be called in to figure it out! He swore he wasn't lying!"

Like a bucket of ice water had been splashed onto her, Samantha's good mood vanished in an instant, her knuckles whitening around her utensils as she flashed Asher a worried look.

"Did Logan say how long it would be until the truthseeker gets here?"

"No," Brian shrugged, funneling half his breakfast into his mouth as fast as he could. Now that he'd managed to be the first one to tell them the news, he clearly was in a rush to go find out more from his friends. "Logan also said truthseekers can fly, but I think he was lying about that bit."

"Some people can fly, but I've heard that truthseekers each have their own tamed griffin they use to get around more quickly," Samantha muttered, sighing as she looked at her food. Nudging her gently under the table with his foot, Asher tried to get her attention. He reassured her with a small smile when she finally looked at him, and she gave him one in turn.

"So are you two getting married now?" Brian asked, causing both of them to jump as Samantha whirled on him.

"Brian!" She scolded, her face turning a bright red that Asher thought looked positively adorable on the deadly hunter. "You know that's not something you should just go around asking people! Why would you think that anyway?"

"You didn't come to bed last night," he shrugged, shoveling the rest of his food into his mouth as if it would go bad any second. "…and now you guys keep giving each other weird looks."

"We had an extra long hunt and ended up having to camp in the forest," Samantha huffed, the tips of her ears still pink as she glared at her brother. "As for the 'weird looks,' Asher told me earlier he needs to leave today."

"What!" Brian exclaimed, coughing as he suddenly tried to stop imitating a vacuum mid swallow. "Why are you leaving?!"

"I need to do some research in Whikoga's library," Asher said, going with the excuse he and Samantha had decided on just a few minutes earlier. It worked well as a cover because it was entirely true.

"But you're going to come back, right?" Brian asked, looking at Asher with wide, pleading eyes. "You should just marry Sam anyways. Then we could be brothers and you'd never have to leave." Leaning closer, he gave his sister a sideways glance, covering his mouth so she couldn't hear him as he whispered. "…I think she likes you."

"One more word out of you and I'm taking your bow away," Samantha growled, causing Brian to jump and look at his sister sheepishly. Scarfing down the last of his food, he quickly ran around the table to hug Asher, squeezing him with all his might.

"Make sure you come back soon!" Brian grinned, running out of the house before he could get in any more trouble with his sister. Sighing, Samantha went back to her own breakfast, shaking her head at her brother's antics.

"One of these days I'm gonna toss that brat into the forest and practice hunting him down for sport, I swear," she muttered around a bite of warm bread.

"I think what you two have is sweet," Asher admitted, earning himself a scoff from the hunter before he continued. "So… I guess I have to propose now, huh?"

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He grinned as he watched Samantha choke on her bread, coughing as she flicked him what he'd already learned was considered a rather rude gesture in this world. Taking a deep drink of water, she slammed her mug down on the table, glaring at him.

"You're lucky I like you," was all she said, seeming to decide against retaliating against his prank for the moment. "But… I guess you probably should head out sooner than later. No telling when the truthseeker will get here after all."

"That would probably be smart," he nodded. Pushing himself back from the table, he walked over to his new girlfriend and gave her a hug that he hoped got across everything he wanted to say to her. He wished his Eternal Mark was strong enough to place one on her as well so he could monitor her wellbeing while he was away, but some quick tests had proven that the level 2 skill was still only capable of leaving a single mark at a time.

He'd definitely run the idea past her once he'd advanced the skill a bit, however.

"I have some skills that let me travel faster than most people," he said, hoping to keep her spirits up. "I'll come back after a week or two. I promise."

"You better," she said, pulling back and giving him a cocky grin. "Don't forget you're dating a trained hunter. If you don't come back, I'll come after you, and you won't like what will happen when I find you."

After one last kiss that definitely lasted a bit longer than necessary, Asher forced himself to leave the hunter behind, walking out of the cabin and starting down the road Samantha said would take him to Whikoga. Despite only having stayed with the two of them for a bit over a week, he wasn't at all surprised to feel the pain in his chest as he took one more look at the tiny cabin before he lost sight of it over a passing hill. Only the knowledge that he'd be back before he knew it was enough to allow him to keep putting one foot in front of the other as he left the village behind him.

I suppose it's good that I didn't really spend any actual time in the village while I was here, he mused, forming a tunnel of shortened space in front of him as he began jogging down the dirt road. Other than walking to the caravan together, there's not really all that much to link me to Samantha. Except for Elaina, I guess, but I got the sense she liked Samantha far more than she did Trellis. I doubt she'd do anything that would put 'little Sammy' at risk.

Grinning at the memory, Asher turned his focus on the road ahead of him, not wanting to accidently smash into any fellow travelers as he ran. But after running a couple of miles and not seeing a single sign of life on the road, he quickly grew bored and began going through his interface as he ran.

Name: Asher Holden

Class: None

Element: Spatial

Ability: Astral Dip – Lvl 7

Ability: Distortion – Lvl 10

Ability: Personal Rift – Lvl 6

Ability: (Locked)

Ability: (Locked)

Element: Knowledge

Ability: Identify – Lvl 10

Ability: Comprehend – Lvl 6

Ability: Incorporate – Lvl 2

Ability: (Locked)

Ability: (Locked)

Element: Eternity

Ability: Eternal Regeneration – Lvl 8

Ability: Complete Resilience – Lvl 5

Ability: Eternal Mark – Lvl 2

Ability: (Locked)

Ability: (Locked)

Resistances: None

Shards: 48,497

Damn, not bad for only a couple of days. My god, turning half my body into a popsicle did wonders for Eternal Regeneration and Complete Resilience.

Asher had forgotten to ask Samantha what a regular person's growth looked like when it came to improving their skills, but he had a feeling all the life and death encounters he kept stumbling into were probably putting him ahead of the curve in terms of growth. Come to think of it, he'd intended on asking the hunter about resistances as well, but the thought had slipped his mind after everything that had happened recently.

Add them to the research pile I guess.

Asher had far more exciting things to think about after all.

Glancing at his new shard total, he confirmed he had more than enough thanks to Trellis to unlock another one of his skills. All three of his elements were tied with three unlocked skills apiece, meaning regardless of which element he chose, his next skill would cost him 30,000 shards. The only question was, which element would he choose?

Asher looked at his three elements as he ran, his lips pursed as he considered his options. Now that he knew Eternity wasn't just a bunch of healing and resistance skills, courtesy of Eternal Mark, he wasn't in quite as much of a hurry to unlock all it had to offer. While Eternal Mark was certainly useful, he had a feeling Eternity wouldn't be granting him anything too applicable for combat. And after his recent battle with the awakened panther, one thing had been made clear to him.

His combat skills were where he needed to improve.

With that in mind, Asher disregarded Eternity and Knowledge for the moment, spending 30,000 shards and unlocking the second to last of his Spatial skills.

Shards: 18,497

Spatial Lock (active) – Lvl 1 – Control the space around you. Nothing enters or leaves this space without your permission.

Not bad I guess… Doesn't really help with offense like I was hoping, but at least it would have saved me the time needed to build that bonfire to trap the awakened panther.

But despite seeing how his new skill would be useful, Asher couldn't help but feel a bit let down. He'd hoped for something more directly applicable to combat. Astral Dip and Distortion were fantastic utility skills that made it possible for him to easily get into position for deadly blows, but he still didn't have any sort of skill to directly enhance his attacks. If that panther had been made out of rock instead of ice, there was a very good chance Asher wouldn't have been able to lay a scratch on it.

Deciding to add if the skills a person gained could be influenced before their purchase to his growing list of research questions, Asher shelved the problem for now. No sense worrying about things out of his control anyway. Samantha had mentioned it would take somewhere around a week to travel to Whikoga on foot, and he didn't plan on spending all that time fretting when he could be practicing his skills instead.

Let's see if we can't make the trip in three days, Asher grinned, condensing his distorted space even farther as he pushed himself to the limit.

After all, who knew when he'd get into his next fight to the death?