Fifteen years ago, a famine struck the city of Barton and the entire region of Velk. Crops were destroyed and food became scarce. For months, the competition for food was fierce and many went hungry. The aftermath would lead to many in Velk tending gardens with growth skills so as not to completely rely on the region’s farms but the interim was terrible. During this dark time, the streets became dangerous and some were willing to pull weapons on those who carried or might be carrying food. The more one transported, the more dangerous the streets of Barton became.

  Mr. Jeffrey Keller would not have called himself a brave man until those months but he became one then. It was his role as steward of the Westlake estate to ensure that all under his charge were fed and he did not shirk his duty in the face of violence. He was attacked. He was stabbed. Sometimes he returned to the household with torn clothes, stained with his blood. Always he returned and with food.

  Eight years later there was a great winter. Endless snowfall made travel impossible. Every day was colder than the previous as temperatures continued to fall. Sickness spread throughout Barton. Many died in their homes, some from the cold and some from illness. Keller saw the challenge for what it was and rose to meet it. He went out into the blizzard and came back with people. They drew upon their stores of firewood and then joined with their neighbors for heating one house was far easier than heating five. When the sickness came, Keller went back out into that terrible blizzard and returned with a healer. Many of those who lived through that awful winter owed their lives to Keller’s heroism and a hero was what they called him.

  Keller had never seen himself as a hero. He was a servant. He served his lady and fulfilled his obligations. Sometimes that meant fighting through blizzards and famine. Sometimes that meant eating a filling meal and enjoying a book in the lavish study of the Westlake manor. When the lady was away, the live-in servants took full use of the estate. They lived well and wanted for nothing, having comfort and warmth all year round. For most, it was an ideal life to have all of their needs met and live in one of the most luxurious residences in Barton.

  For Keller, it was a prison. Over the many terrible, trying times he’d lived through, Keller came to a realization that changed his whole outlook. Nothing mattered. What did his heroics earn him but a few levels and the privilege of living yet one more day? Tomorrow was the same as today and today was the same as yesterday. The days blended together until days turned to months and months turned to years. In the blink of an eye his youthful good looks had dulled with age and left him with graying hair and wrinkles. He had little to show for his life save for a few deeds that would be forgotten within a matter of years and a position that not even the Westlake family deigned to acknowledge more than once every handful of years.

  Keller had wasted his life. He had chosen to imprison himself in this home for decades and accomplished nothing. When he looked into the future, he saw nothing of value. There would be years more of the same and then he would die. No one would remember him. No one would ever know he’d even lived. Even the Westlake family addressed him as “the steward.” Did they even remember his name? He doubted they did. He was little more than a piece of furniture to the nobility.

  The embers of dissatisfaction with his life were stoked with time into the flames of hatred. He hated the Westlake family for designing his comfortable prison. He hated the city for he had seen its darker side, or rather its true side, over the years. Finally, he hated himself. He wasn’t faultless and blamed himself for his own indolence just as much as those around him. Every day that went by, his anger festered and swelled.

  When the cult came to Barton, he answered its call. The Old Ones were stirring. They would awaken and they would bring change to the world. Those who swore fealty would gain power and recognition. They would bring an end to Keller’s imprisonment. Perhaps the baroness would look upon Keller in her last moments and apologize for her family’s years of neglect and beg for his forgiveness. Perhaps she would die without ever remembering his name. He cared little for whichever came to pass.

  The cult spread to the other noble houses of Barton and Keller helped it. He inducted new members into it and guided them to the truths he had realized. One by one, they were brought into the fold. When he was chosen to receive a seed of the Old Ones, he was honored. This was more recognition than he’d received in decades from his old masters. He was overjoyed to become something more, to ascend beyond his mortal limits, and embraced it wholeheartedly. He discarded his humanity and gained the favor of the Old Ones.

  The time was drawing near for Keller and the cult to make their move. They would slay the nobility first and from within. From there they would take the rest of the city. Leaderless, they would fall before the might of the cult. Barton would be cleansed and reborn as the seat of power for their masters. It would be the first of many cities to kneel before the Old Ones.

  Everything had been going so well until the angel appeared. A servant of Heaven seeking information on a cult. The angelic host was known to Keller through the will of the masters. They were the enemy of all who dwelt in the silence. The masters would win their bid for Zlithia. This was inevitable. They could not be stopped by the angels nor any other. However while the masters had all of time to complete their great work Keller did not. The angel threatened everything he had worked so hard for in the last couple years. He would end her.

  The Gelmares died. The Ogramites died. The angel was unstoppable. Every force arrayed against her had failed yet something was strange. She had not come for him nor any of his fellows. Angels were powerful beings with senses beyond mortals so it should have been child’s play for her to find them and slay them yet she did not. It was only at the night of the party did Keller learn the truth—the angel was a demon in disguise.

  Of course she was. She slew the interlopers at the party in furtherance of the masters’ plans. The nobles must die to their hands, not those of some foul mages. She distracted not one but all of the nobility with her presence. The more they focused upon the false angel, the more smoothly his fellow cultists could operate. She pit the watch against the mercenaries, humiliated the Count, and her lies were so powerful that she could transform in plain sight of the mortals without the fools even realizing her ploys. She was brilliant.

  As Keller died, he took heart that she was the one to kill him. Whatever her plans were, they were surely far more cruel than his own. She was undoubtedly serving the masters as some integral piece in their grand plan. Keller had accomplished nothing in life but in death he would nourish this being of darkness and she would carry out his vengeance upon the world. His last two heads laughed at the foolish adventurers and their hopeless mission then Gentleman Jeffrey Keller let go of his last breath and lay still.

  In the final moment of his death, Brivaria saw Jeffrey Keller for who he was. He was a cultist, a madman, and a monster. He hadn’t always been those things. He’d been a hero once and many owed their lives to his bravery. Apathy and indifference led him down a dark path of self-destruction. Maybe if someone had reached out to him sooner then he could have walked a different path.

  The fading memories of steward left Brivaria feeling melancholy but the sentiment wasn’t to last. The other notifications she’d read hit her. She’d acquired a soul. Wait, she hadn’t selected Energy Drain. She was sure of that fact but there it was on her System screen. Equally horrifying, she wasn’t even certain how she’d activated it.

  “Kseniya, are you alright?” Nyx shouted and that brought Brivaria out of her own thoughts. She pulled her arm from the dead monster and jumped off it to look at the sorceress.

  The green hammer attack flattened four heads and Nyx had cut off the two heads that were going for the lamia’s face. That left two heads and one of them was already pulp, not having had time to recover. The final head had done catastrophic damage to the sorceress’s stomach. There was blood everywhere and the System was already working to mend the wound. It would have certainly been fatal had the lamia been lower level.

  “I will live though I might not say no to a little healing, you know? It’s…” she groaned in pain as she tried to move, “…a bit painful.” That was putting it mildly.

  Brivaria’s fingers returned to normal and she laid her hands on the skin near the wounds and began to channel… Dark Caress. She’d mentally tried to activate Healing Touch only to realize that skill no longer existed. Her new skill was still a healing one but it didn’t feel like the healing magic that she was familiar with. It was tainted by her unholy affinity. Brivaria had the sense that if she put her fingers into Kseniya’s wounds and made her friend suffer that the healing would go faster. She banished that terrible thought and focused on channeling the skill while the wounds closed.

  “Did you upgrade your healing skill, Brivaria? That looks different,” Nyx whispered. The angel winced.

  “Yeah, it happened just recently. It heals a little better at least,” Brivaria said as her expression turned wry. It did, in fact, heal more efficiently even without the other part.

  “Are you alright? Is he…” Cordelia Westlake asked as she peeked through the door, looking at Keller’s large corpse.

  “He is,” Giselle said quietly. The deer girl didn’t know where to put herself. She clutched her mace and looked around as though another monster might pop out and attack them. From what Brivaria had seen from the flashes of memories bestowed by Meridian Fang, it was possible. She didn’t have exact memories of all the conspirators but she knew there were many more and they were spread out across the noble houses.

  “He wasn’t acting alone,” the angel began, “the cult infiltrated the city a couple years ago. It’s been spreading through various noble households. They target household staff who are upset with their lot in life, resentful of their lords, or even just jealous of other people. Check your whole staff and contact the other barons. They’ll need to do the same.”

  “I’ll have my staff examined today and get word to the other nobility to examine their own people.” Cordelia nodded as she spoke then paused. “How do you know that?” she asked slowly. All eyes turned to Brivaria.

  “I have a skill that lets me learn things,” the angel ventured. Everyone blinked in surprise but Kseniya gasped. Her wound was mostly healed now thanks to the angel’s magic but she suddenly looked more worried than she had been when the man transformed.

  “Little angel, never say anything like that aloud again. Those words cannot leave this room,” the sorceress hissed while glaring at Cordelia Westlake. Brivaria saw murder in the lamia’s eyes and Cordelia seemed to see it as well.

  “It will not leave this room,” Cordelia agreed, sensing the gravity of the lamia’s words. “That is quite a skill and I imagine it would be very problematic if knowledge of it got out. Not that any of your skills seem wholly normal.” Cordelia managed a smile to diffuse the suddenly tense situation.

  “Very good,” Kseniya said agreeably. She gave Brivaria the quintessential “we’ll talk about this later” look and at once the angel felt like she was in trouble.

  The next few hours were busy. Every single member of Westlake’s staff was brought forward and scrutinized. They found two more cultists among them. One was a middle-aged man who also tried to transform but they put an end to that real fast. The second cultist was a young woman who was newly inducted and, honestly, didn’t have a clue how bad things were or were about to become. She was still in the early stages of being primed and would have needed weeks if not months to get to the point Keller and the other man had reached. Thus, she could still be reformed which Cordelia would work to do.

  “Alright, that’s three cultists. I’ll send a runner to the adventurers guild with the news and your payment. We’ll count any the other nobles find as one tenth since you won’t be directly pointing them out nor subduing them,” Cordelia explained.

  “Why not just give us the coin now?” Nyx asked. The catfolk girl didn’t understand the need to go through the guild when Cordelia, the money, and they were all right here. The noblewoman was happy to explain as it was a far more pleasant subject than that of the last couple hours and everyone needed a break. Brivaria played with Trixie while she listened to the discussion.

  “Several reasons. The first is that the guild takes a cut of the reward for quests above a certain pay. In poorer towns and villages, many quest rewards don’t reach this threshold. The guilds in those areas are often sponsored by the town or by the region as a whole for the good of the area. In cities like Barton, the cut can pay for the entire guild as well as all the things you see there. I’m told Barton has some fairly nice training yards, for example,” Cordelia said patiently. Nyx and Giselle nodded. Kseniya pretended not to be paying attention but Brivaria could see the sorceress was listening.

  “Second is that you’re copper rank and I assume you want to reach at least silver. You seem capable enough for it to me.” After receiving nods from Nyx and Giselle, the deer girl only having done so because Nyx did, Cordelia continued. “By going through the guild, these things get recorded in each of your guild profiles as well as your team profile. Some adventurers I’ve hired have chosen to work under the table and take their coin directly like mercenaries do but they had no aspirations of ranking up.”

  Brivaria, Kseniya, and Nyx instantly thought of the Gaborn brothers who’d had seasonal contracts to exterminate monsters in one region then vacationed elsewhere until it was time to go back to work. Their goal had never been to climb ranks but live a good life. Nyx always began to tear up a little when she thought about them.

  “Do you know much about the process for guild promotion?” the lamia sorceress asked and Cordelia shook her head.

  “My interaction with the guild is from the hiring end so I know a little about the adventurer side of things beyond the basics. I try to follow the guild rules and suggestions as it benefits my barony to have functioning guilds and active adventuring teams. That Keaton now has a dungeon is quite the boon.”

  The topic shifted and Brivaria lost interest. It was a bit odd to see a demon petting a golden sunchaser but, as a non-native to Zlithia, Brivaria had a loose grip on normalcy as it was. Petting Trixie was the only thing that was giving her the courage to look at the new System window that had appeared after Keller’s death—Soul Exchange.