The Eternal Assassin

As the moon rose into the night sky, its eerie glow illuminating the slums of Whikoga's second ring under Draken's control, Asher walked down his seventh dark alleyway of the night.

Why is it when I want to be accosted by a bunch of thugs, I can't seem to find a single one?

From what Loratta had told him, Draken was currently recruiting elites from different gangs to strike at her turf while she was weakened. All Asher needed to do was pretend like he was a fellow elite, and he should be able to walk straight into Draken's home base.

The only problem was that the actual location of Draken's base of operations was a secret. According to Loratta, the few men of his she'd captured had proven to be fiercely loyal, refusing to give up the location regardless of what she did to them. Because of that, Asher was stuck waiting for a guide to show him the way.

"Hey you!" a voice finally called out. Sighing in relief, Asher turned to find himself staring at the heavily scarred face of a young woman with a dagger in hand, standing about ten feet away in the entrance to the alleyway. The blade shone in the bright light of the moon, and the woman gave him a nasty grin. "What do you think you're doing skulking around? Don't you know this is Draken's turf?"

I'd hardly call walking around with my hands in my pockets skulking…

[Thug] – 1/3 Elements

"Yeah, I'm aware," he said, looking the woman up and down. She certainly wasn't an elite based on his Identify, but he'd already learned his lesson about being overconfident just because someone only had their origin element. His punctured and poisoned kidney courtesy of Latch may have healed, but the embarrassment of getting injured while thinking he was untouchable just because he outnumbered someone's elements three to one never faded. "I'm actually looking for him. Heard he was looking for some help with taking down a mutual enemy."

"Yeah, he's looking for help, but not from the likes of you," the woman sneered, flipping her dagger into the air and catching it, the point aimed directly at his heart. "How's about you give me whatever you got on you, and I'll let you leave with all your fingers?"

"Counterpoint…" Asher said, compressing the space between them and ramming his fist into her stomach. It was a bit of a sucker punch, but he certainly didn't have any qualms against attacking someone that just threatened to slice off his fingers, after all.

The woman's eyes bulged as she doubled over from the blow, retching at the sudden impact as she dropped her dagger, the blade chipping as it bounced off the hard ground. Shaking his head, Asher compressed space again, snatching the fallen dagger from ten feet away and bringing it up to his eyes.

"You know I once met a guy that probably would have stabbed you just for letting your dagger get chipped like this," Asher said, calmly approaching the hacking woman. "He was a sharpener. First one I've ever met in fact." Stopping just a few feet away, Asher stared down at her, meeting her teary-eyed gaze. "He tried to rob me as well. So I killed him."

Coughing one more time, the woman took in a shaky breath, her entire demeanor changing in an instant as she straightened and reevaluated the situation.

"Apologies, sir," she said, nodding toward him and taking a step back. "I thought I knew all the elites in the surrounding gangs."

"I'm new in town," was all the response Asher was willing to give. "Your boss?"

"Follow me," she said, eager to do whatever it took to get away from him.

Asher followed the thug down a few more winding alleyways leading ever deeper into the darker parts of the city. Soon there wasn't even so much as an enchanted gemstone to light the way, and Asher was forced to rely on his evolved darkness resistance to see where he was going.

After a couple of minutes of walking in silence, the thug finally led them out of the back alleyways, and Asher found himself standing before a mildly run-down building. It looked just as broken and poor as the buildings surrounding it, except for the fact that there seemed to be a steady trickle of tough looking people heading in and out of the building.

"This is the place," the thug informed him. "You-"

"Shiv!" A burly man called out, clearly having spotted the two of them. His footsteps seemed to shake the very ground as he walked over to them. Ignoring Asher completely, he fixed the woman with a menacing glare.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, causing the thug to cower under his massive frame. "You're supposed to be shadowing me, not going out to do god-knows-what. You better have a damn good reason for taking off like that."

"Sorry Crush, I… I was…"

"She was helping me out," Asher said, realizing he may have finally found one of Draken's elites.

[Brute] – 2/3 Elements

Slowly, Crush turned his intense stare in his direction, looking Asher up and down. "If I wanted to hear some idiot's thoughts, I would have asked my brother. Piss off if you know what's good for you."

Wow, these guys are like stereotypes come to life.

"Fine by me," Asher shrugged, nodding toward the building Shiv had been pointing to. "Is that Draken's place then?"

Blinking, Crush glanced behind him, realizing where he was pointing. Squinting at him, Crush looked almost more confused than anything. "I just told you to piss off… Do you want to die?"

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"Not particularly," Asher admitted. "I just heard that Draken was recruiting some muscle. Thought I would offer my services."

To Asher's surprise, rather than laugh or growl or attack him like he'd been expecting, Crush simply stared at him. After a strangely tense moment, he slowly nodded.

"Okay…" the large man said, shoving his underling away and cracking his knuckles as he stared Asher down, a serious expression on his face. "Draken asked me to help test anyone who wanted in. You want to talk to the big man, you have to show me what you got."

Well that's a surprising reaction… I guess in a world of dangerous elements and unknown skills you can't go around assuming anything based on appearances.

"Do you have some method of healing?" Asher asked. Despite the man's initial hostile attitude, he hadn't actually done anything. Asher wasn't about to kill someone for telling him to get lost.

"Yeah," Crush nodded, crossing his arms. "Just avoid any kill shots and I'll be fine."

"Works for me." Curious to see what the large man's elements were, Asher pulled one of the steel daggers from his bandolier and, after waiting a moment to let the man dodge if he wanted, tried stabbing his blade into Crush's thigh. Before revealing any of his skills, he wanted to see just what he was up against.

Despite putting his full force behind the strike, his dagger cut through the man's trousers before it glanced off his thigh like it was made of steel, and Asher swore he even saw sparks fly off the blade as it scraped harmlessly down his opponent's leg. Staring at the lack of wound in surprise, Asher heard a deep chuckle.

"Is that all you got?"

"Just testing the waters," Asher said, putting away his dagger and scratching his chin. Some sort of defensive element. Maybe one of the metal ones, based on the sparks?

Damn, I need some sort of offensive skill.

Sighing, Asher pulled his mithral dagger from its sheath. He didn't like relying on the dagger, but he doubted he'd be able to pierce the man's skin with regular steel, and he certainly wasn't going to go for the eyes in a friendly bout.

To his surprise, he didn't even get a chance to use it, however. The moment the moonlight hit his blade, the light blue metal practically glowing under the celestial light, Crush took a step back, holding up a hand.

"Hold up, is that mithral?"

"Yeah," Asher nodded, glancing at his blade to ensure he'd grabbed the right dagger.

"Then you win," Crush said, shaking his head. "Why not just show that from the beginning? Anyone carrying around a weapon like that is definitely worth their weight in a fight."

"Oh… Honestly I wasn't expecting this level of…"

"Intelligence?" Crush snorted, rolling his eyes. "Look, I'm not the brightest guy. But you gotta be a special kind of stupid to mess with a cloaked stranger that sounds disappointed when he whips out his goddamn mithral dagger. Follow me."

Making sure he was right behind him, Crush led Asher past the thugs guarding the entrance to the run-down house. The moment they stepped inside, Asher blinked at the sudden change. The rotting and collapsing exterior turned out to be a clever front to disguise Draken's base. The interior of the building was actually quite nice, and all the muscled and scarred thugs milling around looked rather out of place.

"Nice place," Asher muttered, taking in the colorful carpet and many tapestries lining the wall. Each one depicted some different famous battle Asher had never heard of.

"Draken likes his privacy, but he likes his art even more," Crush said, leading them further into the house. "He's not able to go out much, so he makes a point of making his residence as much to his liking as he can. A word of advice… Avoid touching anything if you want to leave this place alive."

Finally, Crush led him into what was essentially a large conference room. The room held a single table long enough to seat nearly three dozen people, and Asher noted that just about every seat had already been filled.

He got quite a lot of glances, glares, and curious stares as they entered, but with Crush by his side and them sitting in the belly of the beast, nobody seemed inclined to start anything.

"These are the other elites that want to help take down that slimy woman," Crush said, a big grin on his face. "Draken should be out in a few minutes. Grab a seat, and same advice as before. Don't attack anyone if you want to live."

Nodding his thanks, Asher grabbed one of the few seats left at the table and looked around. Most people seemed to have already forgotten him, either deciding he wasn't worth their time or that he just wasn't dangerous looking enough to be concerned over. The near thirty deadly elites sat quietly around the table, with nothing more than a few scattered whispers able to be heard.

Damn, how scary is Draken's Death element to get almost three dozen hardened killers to act like a bunch of worried school children?

Asher looked around, giving his Identify a quick workout.

Identify – Lvl 16

As he'd suspected, every single person here he was able to Identify had at least two elements, and a small handful had all three. There were even a few he wasn't able to Identify at all, indicating they either had skills or magic items blocking Identify similar to the one his Permanence was currently mimicking.

A gentle nudge brought him out of his musings, and Asher turned to see a man with dark green, almost mossy hair grinning at him. The stranger wore a filthy robe that was spilling dirt all over the nice carpet, and he had a gnarled staff leaning against the table beside him. The staff in question looked more like a tree limb than anything you'd find at a carpenter's.

[Druid] – 3/3 Elements

"Francis," the man whispered, nodding toward Asher. "What brings you to the castle of death, friend?"

"Asher. And same as you, I suppose," Asher whispered back, looking around once more. "Are all these people really here to help take down Loratta?"

"Them and more," Francis chuckled. "Loratta has grown too powerful, too quickly. She only appeared a few years back, and she quickly threw the undercity of Whikoga out of balance. I heard there had already been talks about putting something like this together before she was handicapped, but losing a third of her elites in one fell swoop? Well, we couldn't just let an opportunity like that go to waste."

"You seem to know a lot about what's going on," Asher pointed out, looking at the man in a new light. "Why are you here with the random elites?"

"I don't actually work for the gangs," Francis shrugged. "But the various leaders within the city that choose to hunt in the nearby forests have strict agreements with me, even Draken. Loratta is the only one that chooses to ignore my wishes. She orders her people to poach at rates higher than the forest can sustain, even with my help. For that, she must perish."

Damn, she really has made a lot of enemies.

"Anyway, enough about me," Francis said, giving him a curious look. "...where did you get a chunk of living wood?"

"Huh?" Asher asked, blinking as he realized the druid had to be referring to the dagger he had stored away within his Personal Rift. "Wait, you can feel that?"

"Faintly, but yes," Francis nodded. "The druid class gives one a rather unique connection to nature, one that grows even stronger when certain aspects are involved, such as living wood. Even so, I didn't actually sense it until you got close."

How strange, Asher thought, thankful he'd discovered early that his Personal Rift might not be quite as private as he'd thought. "I got the living wood from someone outside the city. It's carved into the shape of a dagger."

"Makes sense. Similar to how cold iron is effective against demons and fey, living wood is quite useful when fighting back certain spirits and the undead."

Asher wanted to ask the man more about the unique wood and what actually went into being a druid, but a sudden hush fell over the room as the far door opened. Thirty sets of eyes turned toward the front of the room as the man of the hour revealed himself.

Draken was finally here.