The Eternal Assassin

"Please don't kill me! I didn't want to help him but I didn't have a choice!" the man screamed, scrambling backwards until his back was pressed against the invisible wall of Spatial Lock. Holding his hands up placatingly, he began begging. "I'll do whatever you want! Do you need shards? I can get you shards!"

"Just calm down a second," Asher said, hissing at the fresh throb of pain from his punctured kidney. "Rosh, was it? Other than your taste in friends, you don't seem like such a bad guy, so I'm not going to kill you unless you attack me first. Kinda my own personal code I just invented on the spot."

"Really?" Rosh asked, staring at him with hope in his eyes.

"Why would I lie at this point?" Asher asked, taking in his current prisoner. Unlike the sharpener and the boxer, Rosh didn't exactly have a look that screamed 'back alley thug' in Asher's opinion. The man was scrawny and wild-eyed, with large, bent spectacles sitting on a nose that looked like it had been broken once or twice in the last few years. He wore a dirty tunic and tattered pants, and smelled like he hadn't had a proper bath in quite some time.

He also didn't seem to be able to say anything without sounding like he was afraid he was going to get stabbed for it. Though seeing who he'd been working with, that last part sort of made sense.

With a sigh, Asher sat on the ground and faced Rosh, wincing as the impact with the cobblestones echoed through his open wound. Making a mental note to find a nice, comfy chair to store in his rift, he stared at the worried man while he tried to decide where he should even begin. After a few seconds, he decided to start with the first thing he'd noticed.

"Why can't I Identify you?"

"Huh?" Rosh grunted, giving him a blank look.

"I have a skill that lets me see information about people, but it doesn't seem to work on you," Asher explained, seeing a dawning light in Rosh's eyes. "So you do know why?"

"Yes," Rosh said hesitantly. Making sure to move slow enough as to not startle him, Rosh reached into his neckline and pulled out an old brass locket. "In exchange for joining Latch's crew, he gave me this enchanted locket. It's why I had to join him. I need this item."

The old locket didn't look like anything special, but Asher's Identify informed him it was actually an enchanted item.

[Locket of Concealment] – Allows the wearer the use of the Concealing Shroud skill (tier 1)

Latch, huh, Asher thought, shooting a glance at the dead sharpener lying barely fifteen feet away. He'd murdered a man without even learning his name first.

"So the locket prevents certain skills from working on you?" he asked, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. "Why do you need that so desperately?"

Rosh just stared at him for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something but was unsure how Asher was going to react. Despite Asher's attempts at reassuring him, his eyes kept flicking past Asher to his two dead comrades.

"I told you, I'm not going to kill you," Asher sighed, motioning for him to come out with it.

"Well…" Rosh gulped, trying to keep his gaze on Asher. "...you were kinda… dying, when it happened, so you may have missed it… but did you see me pull Wes' shards over to myself?"

"Yeah," Asher nodded, thinking back to when he saw the violet orb shoot past him into Rosh's hand. "That was pretty neat. So what, you have a Shard element or something? Does that even exist?"

"Oh, it exists," Rosh said, and Asher heard a tinge of anger in his voice for the first time as the man's hands clenched into fists. "Not only does it exist. It's forbidden."

"I guess I can see why. If the entire economy runs on shards after all, you wouldn't want someone developing a skill that would let them rip the shards right out of you or something," Asher mused, thinking about all the crazy possible powers such an element might give someone. "But if it's forbidden, why on earth would you possibly take in such an element?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Rosh snapped, seeming to forget about his fears for a moment as he pounded a fist into the ground. "I'd racked up some debt to a very powerful woman, and my options were to either sell myself into slavery, or take in a Shard element they'd gotten somewhere in the hopes that I could earn them some easy shards. Well, lucky me, none of my five skills were useful to them, so they threw me out like trash! Do you know what happens to someone if they're caught having a forbidden element?!"

"No, what-"

"Execution!" Rosh screamed, his eyes wild as he slammed a fist into the ground again. This time, Asher noticed a bright violet pulse erupt from the man's fist upon impacting the ground, and his eyes widened as he spotted the small crater of crushed cobblestones where his fist had impacted. "Can you believe that?" Rosh continued, looking at Asher with tears in his eyes. "Execution! Just because I didn't want to become a slave! I was stuck hiding in the streets, scrounging for scraps to survive until Latch caught wind of my situation and offered me the locket. I couldn't get shards myself, but I have a skill that lets me know how many shards a person's carrying, and that was good enough for him. Now I'm a glorified dowsing rod! I don't want to hurt people! I don't like pain or suffering! I just want my life back!"

Asher stared at the man as Rosh finally broke down completely before curling into a ball and sobbing as he laid against the cobblestones, his thin frame shuddering hard with every sob.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Oh, man… I am not qualified to handle this. Does this world even have therapists?

Deciding to give the man a few minutes to get everything he'd been bottling up out of his system, Asher stood up with a groan and walked over to Latch's body, looking down at the knife-lover's corpse. Ignoring the actual body for a second, he touched the floating violet orb, adding the man's shards to his own.

Shards: 26,782

That was what, like eight thousand shards? I think collecting the shards from a seemingly rich alchemist and a corrupt, wealthy caravan leader may have skewed my understanding of the economy a tad.

Going through Latch's belongings, he discovered that while well taken care of and extremely sharp, nearly all of the man's daggers were of a lower quality than the ones he'd taken from the wizard's tower. Other than a vial of poison, there was also a dagger he was interested in.

[Creeping Bane Poison] - Medium quality

[Living Wood Dagger] - High quality

Identify - Lvl 11

Asher turned the curious dagger over in his hand, admiring the blade that appeared to be made from wood of all things. The blade and hilt both seemed to be a single piece, and the dagger looked like it had been carved more than forged. Despite its material, the blade was as sharp as any of his metal daggers, no doubt thanks to the sharpener's efforts, and he shrugged before placing it and the poison vial into his rift. By the time he finished going through the thugs' belongings, Rosh had collected himself again and was once again leaning against his skill's barrier, sniffling quietly.

"Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry all that happened to you," Asher said, earning a surprised look from his prisoner as he walked back over to him and sat down. "I may not look like it, but I definitely have some personal experience being thrown headfirst into a tough situation I didn't ask for. And I know you have some sort of strength enhancing skill, so the fact that you didn't join the fight is a big point in your favor. What's the skill anyway?"

"Strength of Shards," Rosh sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "I can consume shards to give myself boosts to my physical strength. Similar to how enchanted items work."

Wow, that actually sounds insanely powerful. Maybe the Shard element is forbidden for different reasons than I first thought. I wonder how strong that would make him if he burned something like ten thousand shards all at once. Or a million.

"Well, if you had joined the fight, things may have gotten a lot messier, so thank you for that," Asher said, glancing once more at the crushed cobblestones beside the teary eyed man. "I hate to ask, but could you please give me the shards you grabbed from Wes' body? I'm still unlocking some of my skills and every shard I can get my hands on matters at the moment."

It's definitely not because you're afraid of what one of that guy's punches might do to you if he consumes all those shards at once. Nope.

Nodding, Rosh conjured a dim violet orb and tossed it toward him. Asher had only gotten a brief glance at the orb that came from Wes' body when the man died, but he thought the orb Rosh conjured looked pretty similar in strength, so at least it didn't look like Rosh was trying to cheat him. Nodding his thanks, he absorbed the shards, pleased to find he had enough to unlock his next skill, if only barely.

Shards: 31,176

About four and a half thousand… Yepp, looks like most people aren't lugging around giant fortunes like I first thought.

"Is there someplace people store their shards? Like a bank or something?"

"Yes, there is a bank people can use, but it's really only something utilized by nobles or wealthy merchants," Rosh explained, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes. "Most people don't carry enough shards for it to really matter, but none of the wealthier folk want giant chunks of their fortune lost due to an accident or an unforeseen death."

"Lost? What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I mean?'" Rosh asked, giving Asher a strange look.

"You said they might lose big chunks of their fortune. How does that happen?"

Rosh stared at Asher like he'd just crawled out from under a rock screaming about what year it was. "Because of shard decay…?"

Asher pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to sigh at Rosh's tone. Whatever 'shard decay' was, it was clearly something that literally everyone in this world must know about. He thought about pushing the topic further before deciding against it. If shard decay was so well known, no doubt he'd be able to read up about it when he finally got to the library. Right now he should focus on more pressing things.

"Forget it. Different question for you. Any chance you happen to know what elements are forbidden off the top of your head?" The last thing I need is to get all the way to the city walls just to get arrested after all. Or shot.

"The forbidden elements? Oh man, it's been a while since I had to sing that," Rosh chuckled. Ignoring Asher's strange look, he cleared his throat before launching into what sounded like some sort of horribly out of tune nursery rhyme.

"Death skills are the first, and most do see them as the worst."

"Love is just as bad, taking this will make you sad."

"Shard might sound okay, but if you see it say no way!"

"Void is a scary one, if it comes it's time to run!"

"Mind creeps up on you, taking things you thought you knew."

"Blood takes from us all, if accepted you will fall."

Asher stared at the grinning man who seemed strangely proud to have remembered the words to the song. Recalling his current situation, Rosh's face turned a bit red, and he cleared his throat again.

"So, yeah… Death, Love, Shard, Void, Mind, and Blood are the six forbidden elements. At least here in the Noala Kingdom. I don't know where you're from, but it differs slightly per kingdom."

"Good to know." Well, at least none of my elements are forbidden. Even so, until I can confirm that they are normal, I'd prefer keeping my Spatial and Eternity elements under wraps. I need to get my hands on something like Rosh's locket as soon as possible.

Glancing at the red-faced man, a sudden thought popped into Asher's head.

"Hey Rosh… Seeing as I sort of killed your last employer and all… Any chance you're interested in a job?"