Book 1 - Epilogue (Patreon)

Cecil the [Printer] sat on the hard wooden stool in his workroom, resisting the urge to get up and start pacing again. This was normally where he felt the most at ease, here with his tools, but today not even that helped. The odd part was, he didn’t really even know what the problem was. He simply hadn’t felt at ease since the visit by that [Illusionist].

He picked up and reorganized the stamps in his tray, swapping out the upper and lower-case letters. The simple action usually helped soothe his nerves, even though he hadn’t needed to use the actual printing press in years. His Skills took care of everything now.

Of course, he’d never have been able to get this far without that suspiciously generous investor, who’d appeared with exactly what he needed, exactly when he needed it. The tables, the ink, the press, and the stamps had all been extremely important when he was starting out, giving him the Class and those important first levels. He’d risen to fortune immediately, giving Oud Bog its first newspaper and making books so cheap that even those of the lowest levels could afford to stock their home with a bookshelf.

Few people chose to try for [Printer]. Why would they, when [Scribes] were so common, and so easy to level? Anyone could get some charcoal and bark paper and start writing. And high level [Scribes] could copy ten books in a day. He snorted at the old arguments. No one would say such things to him now, when he was known to copy a thousand books in a day, and without even needing to touch his tools.

All it had taken was that initial, generous investment from a mysterious [Illusionist]. It had seemed like a pact with a demon at the time, and Cecil had spent the years of fortune wondering when the other shoe would drop. It never did. The [Illusionist] never asked for his share of the business to be paid back, never asked for anything illegal, and never touched the share of his profits that Cecil dutifully deposited at the bank each month. All he asked was to have an occasional message sent out. Dictated, of course.

Until this message. Cecil wished he could’ve set up some method whereby the [Illusionist] could dictate the message without him knowing what was in it.

An army of undead. Arcaena with a Burrow Kingdom. The end of the world as they knew it, if the Frenaria and Prinnash didn’t end their petty feud and band together.

Cecil had sent out the other letters, but the [Illusionist] had probably expected more. He’d probably expected him to warn the people of Oud’s Bog at the very least. But how could he?

He loved this town. Right on the edge of the frontier, but still close enough to civilization to have proper laws and protection, Oud’s Bog had given him everything he ever wanted. No, he couldn’t tell them.

His wife had been sent away. His children were at their apprenticeships. And now he sat alone, fiddling with his tools. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The fastest [Messenger] had been sent to Stormshield. Soon a [Messenger] would return from there, notifying him that his message had been received. An expensive service to be sure, but he’d been very explicit. Soon the return [Messenger] would come… or something else would happen.

The door opened, and a hooded figure in a full riding cloak stepped inside. It wasn’t dark, in Cecil’s shop. The fire in the hearth burned merrily, but he still couldn’t see into the shadows of the figure’s hood.

“The other shoe, I presume?” said Cecil, surprised at his steady voice. He was glad for it. He’d hoped he’d be able to face this moment with dignity. He couldn’t fight. Wouldn’t even try. But it was nice to know, at the end, that he was the kind of man he thought he was. He’d face this with dignity.

The figure stepped forward. Cecil could smell the stench of death, and oddly, that crisp smell like after a rainstorm.

“Do not shout. If you cooperate, no one other than you must die this day,” said the figure, and Cecil was surprised to hear a woman’s voice. He shouldn’t have been surprised, not when he knew what he knew.

The [Witch] drew out a sack from under her riding cloak and tossed it on the floor. Three decapitated heads rolled out.

The three [Messengers] he’d sent out.

She drew out three letters. He recognized them. He’d written them. Or printed, rather. She tossed them into the hearth.

“You understand, we could destroy this town and everyone in it. It would expose us, but also give us time. We’d rather not, of course, but we will if necessary. Is there anyone else who knows?” she asked.

The [Illusionist] knew, the one who told him in the first place. But there’s no way she would be acting this confident if he was still alive. Cecil didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, the [Illusionist] had given him everything. On the other, now he was going to die for him.

Cecil made a decision. “I swear on my Class and levels that I will never lie to you. I will never lie by omission or intentionally deceive you in any way. So help me Sezorat.”

She nodded.

“I wrote no other letters. I didn’t tell anyone else. To my knowledge, no one in this town knows of the contents of that letter except for me. Everyone in the kingdom knows that the great [Archmage] Lumina fought something in Travin’s Bog, of course, but that news has been mostly forgotten in lieu of the war with Prinnash. Your secret is as safe as it can be.”

“Good,” she said. “You did well.”

“I don’t suppose you will accept another Oath?”

“I will not,” she said sadly. “Oaths to my kind tend not to stick for very long. We are not loved by the gods– no, that isn’t true. We are not loved by the priests. But I will do you this mercy: I will leave your corpse here, and I will steal all the gold in this house. Your family will believe this is a robbery.”

“They’ll find out, you know. That man never misses an appointment.”

The [Witch] began to shimmer and change. She rose taller, and then a face appeared inside her hood. His face, the face of the [Illusionist].

“Who said he was going to miss an appointment?”

There was still one thing he could do. He’d swore never to lie to her; he could at least stop her from getting his experience. “I have a blue b–”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. He heard a snick. He felt a pinch at his throat. His last memory was an image of falling to the ground, with his body falling the other direction.