The Eternal Assassin

Moxy's words had rung true, and Asher quickly found himself with more free time than he knew what to do with. Instructed to stay within the underground compound until he'd earned Loratta's trust, and still forbidden from visiting Rosh, Asher had spent most of his time sparring with Moxy. Thanks to the woman's Life element, even serious injuries were healed within moments, and they only really needed to break to recover their stamina.

It seemed not even Moxy's powerful Life element was capable of replenishing that strange energy tied to using one's active skills.

He wasn't sure if Loratta had given her crew orders not to talk to him, or if he was hard to approach, but nobody seemed eager to initiate conversation with him the few times he'd tried wandering around the corridors at random. Because of that, whenever Moxy had been distracted by her duties, Asher had remained in his room, rereading through the books he'd already Incorporated during his time in the library.

He was quickly getting to the point where he could quote entire sections of The Big Book of Elements: Volume Six from memory, and that scared him almost as much as being at the beck and call of the dangerous gang leader.

Though despite the precarious situation he'd somehow ended up in, even he had to admit it wasn't without its benefits. Nearly three straight days of training with Moxy would do that to a person.

Name: Asher Holden

Class: Librarian

Element: Spatial

Ability: Astral Dip – Lvl 20

Ability: Distortion – Lvl 20

Ability: Personal Rift – Lvl 13

Ability: Spatial Lock – Lvl 5

Ability: Recall – Lvl 1

Element: Knowledge

Ability: Identify – Lvl 15

Ability: Comprehend – Lvl 20

Ability: Incorporate – Lvl 15

Ability: Secret Seeker – Lvl 10

Ability: (Locked)

Element: Eternity

Ability: Eternal Regeneration – Lvl 16

Ability: Complete Resilience – Lvl 17

Ability: Eternal Mark – Lvl 9

Ability: Permanence – Lvl 5

Ability: (Locked)

Resistance: Darkness – Tier 2

Shards: 28,679

Asher grinned at the massive improvements he'd made over the last few days. Most notably was finally getting Astral Dip and Distortion both to level twenty. He'd used the two skills almost nonstop during his fights with Moxy to dodge her air blasts and try and get close enough to attack her, after all, so their explosive growth wasn't too much of a surprise.

He also found it amusing that he still had librarian listed as his class, but he'd decided early on he wasn't willing to change it just yet. He was pretty confident nobody knew about the Spatial element's passive that allowed its users to switch up their classes on the fly, and he didn't want to reveal that was something he was capable of. Maybe after he went on his first mission and actually killed someone for Loratta he could take advantage of the moment to swap his class to assassin.

Looking back at his interface, Asher's eyes lingered on the two skills he still had left to unlock. He was eager to start evolving his skills that had hit the level 20 cap, but he'd decided to listen to Moxy's advice. That meant not only was he stuck waiting for the shards needed for the evolutions, but he first had to unlock his final two skills.

Seeing as Loratta was going through all this effort to try and make him as dangerous as possible, he'd asked Moxy if she or Loratta would be willing to give him the shards needed to unlock the last of his skills. Unfortunately, the question had been met with a snort, and an air blast that had nearly taken his head off. Moxy had explained that it was a commonly held belief by many people, especially those who fought for a living, that working hard and earning one's own shards resulted in being granted stronger skills. One that she believed in as well apparently.

Other than Secret Seeker, his Knowledge related skills hadn't seen any improvement whatsoever from all the fighting, but his Eternity skills were steadily growing, largely thanks to them simply being passive and always on. Even now, a week's travel away and deep underground, Asher could clearly sense Brian's location thanks to the Eternal Mark he'd left on him. The boy was currently fit as a fiddle, just inside the edge of the forest at the moment, most likely on another expedition with Samantha.

And speaking of Samantha…

Asher sighed, looking over his latest skill that he still hadn't gotten the chance to try out. The more his other skills improved, the more depressing the large 'Lvl 1' next to the skill became.

Recall (active) – Lvl 1 – Travel between marked locations at will.

His fifth and final skill for his Spatial element had ended up being exactly what he'd wanted, but it was a cruel twist of fate that he hadn't managed to unlock the skill until after he'd already left the tiny village of Horntho behind that he'd quickly come to enjoy so much. He had no idea how easy it would be for him to remove a mark he placed with the skill, or if it was even something he'd be capable of doing at all, so he was hesitant to try it out until he had a good location in mind.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He sure as hell wasn't about to accidently link Samantha's childhood home to the underground base of Whikoga's most fearsome gang leader.

While Asher shuddered at the image of Loratta somehow finding a way to access his Recall skill and transforming Samantha's village into some sort of remote drug production facility, his door swung open without warning, and an increasingly familiar face grinned at him.

"Up and at 'em, runt, Loratta's finally got a use for you," Moxy said, not bothering to wait for a response before turning and walking away. Rolling his eyes, Asher jumped off his bed and caught up to the impatient warrior with a few Distortion-enhanced steps.

The two of them walked in a comfortable silence through the corridors as they headed for that mock throne room Loratta seemed to enjoy commanding from so much. It hadn't taken Asher long to realize Moxy was a woman of few words. She was one of those people who generally only spoke when they felt they had something important to contribute to the conversation, or when it was absolutely necessary. More often than not, she let her fists do the talking for her, which Asher was more than fine with.

Stepping into the command room behind Moxy, Asher noted how just about everyone seemed to flood out of the room before he spotted Loratta, the gang leader lounging on her throne just like that first time he'd met her. Though unlike the last time, she seemed far livelier.

"Good to see our newest elite is in high spirits," Loratta grinned, leaning forward and looking Asher up and down. "Moxy, how's his training been coming along?"

"Runt takes to fighting like a fish to water," the warrior said, clapping him on the back. "He's already managed to nick me with those daggers of his a few more times, and that's after only three days of training. Give me a month and he'll be a right monster."

"Excellent. After all, that's the level of skill he'll need to survive where I'm sending him. Though we don't have a month to spare." Snapping her fingers, Loratta summoned someone from the edge of the room. A thin, wiry woman quickly ran over, offering Asher a rolled-up piece of parchment. Opening it, he gazed at the first close-up map of Whikoga he'd seen.

Rather than marking geological landmarks, this map seemed to focus on gang boundaries. Large sections of the city's various rings were marked with different colors that seemed to represent territories, and Asher was shocked to see that some of these areas even went into the third ring of the city.

"That is an updated map of the hidden war taking place within Whikoga," Loratta explained, giving him a moment to look over the map. "As you can see, while I do control the largest section of Whikoga, my turf barely even covers thirty percent of the entire city. I'd love to continue growing ever larger, but the current area under my control is big enough that I have to spend most of my time defending my turf, which means I don't have the manpower required to expand. And that was before you took down a third of my elites.

"Over the last few days word has finally spread about the sudden hole in my defenses. Alliances have been struck between even rival gangs at the opportunity to take me down before I have the chance to recover, and my borders are being tested as we speak. My remaining elites have been fighting tooth and nail to preserve what we've managed to build here together, but it's not enough. That's where you come in."

Standing up, Loratta walked down the dais as she approached him. Leaning over the map, she pointed to a large section outlined in black. If the map was accurate, it was the second largest highlighted area after her own.

"My elites are busy trying to put out the fires, which is why I'll be sending you to take out the arsonists themselves."

"Loratta," Moxy started, a foreign note of concern in her voice as she took in where her boss was pointing. "You're not actually considering-"

"It's the only way I see us standing any chance of surviving the feeding frenzy that's about to hit," Loratta said, cutting her right-hand woman off. "Draken is already putting together a coalition of gangs in all but name with the sole purpose of taking me down. If we can get rid of him, the others will at least be less coordinated."

"What's so scary about Draken besides the name?" Asher decided to ask, sensing that Loratta was different somehow compared to the last time he'd seen her. It seemed that without the crowd of people watching her every interaction, Loratta didn't feel the need to put on such a show of arrogance and power.

That or she was being serious when she said she planned on making him her right hand second only to Moxy herself.

"Draken has a Death element," Moxy said bluntly, frowning at Loratta. "The only reason he's still alive is because he barely ever leaves his base of operations. The city seems content to let him be so long as he doesn't move about much, probably because they know it would cost them quite a lot of men to actually put him down."

"The problem is that he has enough elites that he doesn't need to leave his base to unite the other gangs against me," Loratta said, glaring at the man's turf on the map. "And seeing as he rarely leaves, we need to go to him. And by we, I mean you," she said, staring at Asher pointedly.

Asher returned the woman's stare, refusing to back down as his mind whirled.

This might actually not be as dangerous for me as they seem to think. With my Complete Resilience skill, I might be one of the few people in this world with an actual resistance against the Death element, seeing as I doubt most people would waste a valuable resistance slot against a forbidden element. Thank god I've leveled the skill so much already. But they don't know I have my resistance, which means they think there's barely any chance of my surviving this…

"If I pull this off, I want permission to visit Rosh," Asher immediately demanded, refusing to break eye contact with the gang leader. "And that element you said you'd give me. It sounds like you're screwed unless you can take out Draken, so I think it's a fair trade."

"Alternatively, I could kill Rosh right here and now unless you obey my orders," Loratta frowned, clearly displeased with the situation she suddenly found herself in. "Bold of you to demand something from me before completing even a single mission. Perhaps you need to witness your friend being punished a bit more."

"There's a big difference between forcing someone to fight and encouraging someone to fight," Asher countered, refusing to back down. "You hurt Rosh again, and I'll be too distracted during my mission, increasing my odds of failure. But if I'm fighting for a reward…" He let the statement hang, knowing Loratta would end up caving. After all, she'd taken the time to go over her big ideology about how to effectively run a gang the other day when they'd first met.

As evil as the woman was, she was far too intelligent and calculating, and it sounded like taking down Draken was needed for her criminal empire to stay standing. In the long term, he might end up being punished somehow for demanding this from her, but he wasn't planning for there to be a long term for his current arrangement. All that mattered right now was getting permission to speak with Rosh, which would allow them to start plotting an escape. And if he could get a free element out of the deal, why shouldn't he try for that as well?

After a few more seconds of tense silence, Loratta finally nodded, no doubt realizing she didn't have much of a choice. She needed him and his abilities desperately enough that she wasn't willing to risk losing him just yet.

"Fine. Kill Draken, and you can visit Rosh for an hour each day, supervised. What element do you want?"

"Wing," Asher said immediately, recalling his brief conversation with Samantha that felt like a lifetime ago. Maybe if he could bring her back the elements she wanted, she'd go easier on him for helping out a criminal organization.

But his plan began to fall apart just as quickly as he'd put it together as Loratta immediately shook her head. "Impossible. The Wing element is one of the rarer ones, and it's extremely sought after. I doubt I could get my hands on one even if I wanted to."

Well, so much for that. At least I have a backup.

"Okay, how about Water then? Can you get that?"

"Magnitudes easier," Loratta said, a hint of relief clear in her voice. "In fact, I even have one in storage here, I believe. Take out Draken and the element is yours."

"Okay then," Asher said, cracking his neck and taking in the map once more, focusing on Draken's territory. "What do I need to know?"