The walk back down the winding stone steps was a descent into a different kind of hell. Every cheerful shout from the docks, every cry of a gull—everything felt like an accusation. The blood on his tunic, though minor, seemed to scream his guilt to the entire town. He steeled himself, replaying the lines in his head, the lie he needed to tell to cover their tracks.
Projo had agreed to her request—to be studied. And after they had come to an agreement, they had to figure out what to do with Gideon.
Falira's plan was simple: Projo needed to return to Silas Blackwood since he knew the two of them had traveled to the wizard's tower together. He would tell him how Gideon got so spooked about not understanding the magic, that he immediately skipped town. Tonight, they would dump his body in the sea.
Hopefully Silas bought it.
He pushed open the door to The Salty Dog, his heart hammering against his ribs. The midday crowd was thinner, quieter. He spotted Silas sitting at a table near the hearth, a ledger open in front of him and a fresh mug of ale at his elbow. The merchant was the picture of contentment.
Projo took a deep breath and walked over, preparing to deliver his rehearsed speech. "Silas," he began, his voice rougher than he intended. "About Gideon—"
"Smith!" Silas looked up, his face breaking into a wide, opportunistic grin. He slammed his ledger shut, not even glancing at the bloodstains on Projo's clothes. "I was just thinking about you! Sit, sit! I've got a real opportunity for a man with your... particular set of skills."
Projo stood there, completely wrong-footed. The carefully constructed lie died on his lips. "What?"
"Don't look so surprised," Silas chuckled, gesturing enthusiastically to the empty chair. "News travels fast in a town this size, especially when it involves coin. I was just talking with the barkeep. Turns out a local alchemist, Master Vane, is in a bit of a bind."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Vane collects rare mosses and glowing fungi from a cave system a few kilometers north of here. Prime potion ingredients. Only now, the cave's been infested. Goblins. A whole nest of them. Vane's posted a bounty, but the local sell-swords are too scared or too drunk to take it on."
Silas leaned back, a shrewd glint in his eye, then he pointed a finger toward a street leading away from the main docks. "Vane's shop is called 'Philtered Seawater'. A strange name for an alchemist, but he's a strange man. Go talk to him. He's offering a hefty purse for the head of the goblin chief. It's a perfect first step to making a name for yourself in this town."
He looked Projo up and down, his gaze finally acknowledging the state of his clothes. "The hell happened to you? Get in a scuffle?"
Projo stared, his mind reeling.
He hadn't even needed to tell Silas what had happened to Gideon, the man didn't seem to care—he was too focused on making money.
"Go on," Silas urged, already reopening his ledger, his attention moving on. "Don't let the opportunity go cold. Coin, Smith. It's how the world turns."
Dumbfounded, Projo turned and walked out of the tavern.
The sea breeze outside felt cold on his freshly healed skin. When he and Falira were carefully crafting an unneeded lie, he had told her that it would be too suspicious for him to show up and talk to Silas covered in half a dozen shallow cuts.
She'd agreed, but said them trying to use his powers to heal was completely out of the question.
"I can heal you, they're all quite shallow, but…" her hesitation had been a palpable barrier between them. "Given your... unique biological properties... I have no idea how my Mana will react with your system. For all I know, it could be like pouring water on a grease fire."
It was their first experiment with Projo as her new study subject.
She had approached carefully, making sure not to touch him, and used the most basic healing spell—a soft, turquoise light that felt pleasant and cool as a soothing balm. Falira had been a little disappointed when nothing unusual occurred.
The building titled 'Philtered Seawater' was wedged between a grimy smokehouse and a sailmaker's loft, its timber stained a dark, mossy green by the perpetual sea-spray.
The air inside was thick and cloying, a dizzying concoction of smells: damp earth, sharp chemical astringents, sweet rotting herbs, and something faint and coppery. It was dark, the only light coming from the grimy front window and a collection of glowing fungi arranged in jars on dusty shelves, casting an eerie, phosphorescent green glow over the room.
The shop was a chaotic mess.
Bunches of dried herbs hung from the rafters, their leaves crumbling to the floor. Glass alembics and retorts bubbled and hissed over low-burning alchemical lamps, their tubes coiling like glass serpents. But the most unsettling feature was the jars. Dozens upon dozens of them lined the shelves, containing a horrific menagerie of pickled specimens: a crab's pincer twitching in blue fluid, a set of disembodied eyeballs floating in yellow oil, a pale, severed hand with six fingers.
"Uh, Master Vane?" Projo called out, breaking the silence.
From behind a high counter cluttered with mortars, pestles, and stained scraps of parchment, a small, hunched figure peered up. He was balding, with a wild fringe of grey hair that stuck out at odd angles. He blinked slowly, eyes magnified to a startling size by a pair of thick spectacles. His fingers were stained a rainbow of chemical hues.
"What?" Vane rasped, his voice dry as dust. He seemed profoundly annoyed by the interruption. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of a delicate titration? If you're here for a pox-balm, the batch is ruined. Come back next week."
Projo felt a strange sense of detachment, as if he were watching a scene play out from a great distance. "I'm not here for a balm," he said flatly. "Silas Blackwood sent me. About the goblin problem."
The alchemist's annoyance instantly vanished, replaced by a sharp focus. He set down the glass pipe he was holding and leaned forward, his magnified eyes scrutinizing Projo from head to toe.
"Ah," Vane said, gesturing vaguely toward the back of the shop. "The problem is simple. A tribe of cave goblins has taken up residence in the Lumina Grottos, two kilometers north along the cliff path. They are noisy, they are foul, and most importantly," his voice grew sharp with indignation, "they are trampling my Gloomshroom beds and eating my Azure Cap fungi!"
He scurried out from behind the counter, grabbing a rolled-up piece of parchment. "I don't care about the little ones. They're like rats. You kill the king, and the nest scatters." He unrolled the parchment, revealing a crude but effective map of the coastline leading to a cave entrance. "Find the chief. He'll be fat, ugly, bigger than the rest—probably wears a necklace of finger bones. You know the type."
Vane jabbed a stained finger at Projo's chest. "Bring me the chief's head as proof. I don't want to see you again until you're carrying it in a sack."
"And the pay?" Projo asked, the word feeling strange on his tongue.
"Fifteen gold coins," Vane snapped, as if the price were an insult to the value of his fungi. "But you'll not see a copper until I see the head."
Projo nodded slowly. Fifteen gold. It was a small fortune—more than half of what he owed Bram. It was enough to make killing seem like a reasonable trade.
"Good," Vane grumbled, already turning back to his bubbling concoctions. "Now get out. You're contaminating my sterile environment."
Projo turned and left the shop, the dull bell on the door clanking behind him. He stood for a moment in the narrow, shadowed street, the crude map clutched in his hand.
This day was not going at all as he had imagined.
He slowly made his way back through town, up toward where Falira waited with Gideon's body.
When Projo returned, the tower was quieter, the air thick with the smell of vinegar. Falira was on her hands and knees, methodically scrubbing at the floor where Gideon's blood had begun to pool. A bucket of foul-smelling, fizzing purple liquid sat beside her. She didn't seem to notice the door open.
Projo cleared his throat.
Falira jumped, letting out a small yelp and scrambling to her feet. She saw it was him and her shoulders sagged, a mixture of relief and annoyance on her face.
"Uh, what are you doing?" Projo asked, glancing at Gideon's body which was still stuck to the wall. His gear, weapons, and money pouch—it had all been half stripped off. "Are you looting him?"
Falira looked at the half-stripped corpse, then back at Projo. "Looting?" she scoffed. "That makes it sound so dirty. I'm… tactically redistributing his equipment."
Projo's eyebrows crept up. "Tactically redistributing."
She tried to maintain her composure, saying simply, "He doesn't need it anymore."
Projo weighed her words for a moment, then decided not to press more about it. She was keeping his secret, after all, and hopefully helping him understand more about it.
"Uh huh," he responded flatly.
Falira just stared back at him for a moment. Then she asked, "How did it go in town?"
Projo looked at the crude map in his hand. "Uh, I got a job."
Falira's brow furrowed in confusion. Then the words registered and her eyes widened in disbelief. "You got a job?!" Her voice got louder with every word. "You were supposed to tell the merchant that Gideon skipped town and then come straight back!"
She gestured wildly toward the body still pinned to the wall. "We have a strictly-timed clandestine operation to conduct here!"
"The alchemist is paying fifteen gold coins to clear out a goblin cave," Projo said, cutting through her tirade. "I had to take it."
Her jaw dropped slightly.
"Fifteen gold?!" she squawked. "Fifteen gold! How many fucking goblins are there?!"
Projo shrugged.
"You didn't ask?!" The scholar was gone, replaced by a flabbergasted young woman.
"No," Projo said calmly. "But I'm gonna go check it out tomorrow."
"You're going to get yourself killed!" Falira began pacing in a frantic circle. "How can I study you if you get killed?!"
Projo looked at the corpse, then back at her. The absurdity of it all seemed to disengage him from the tension. "I dunno," he said, stepping away from the door. "Study my body?" He met her panicked gaze. "Or come with me and make sure I don't die."
Falira froze mid-pace, her mouth opening and closing silently.
She seemed to struggle with the suggestion for nearly half a minute.
"That is the most illogical, reckless, and academically irresponsible suggestion I have ever heard," she finally spewed.
"Is that a yes?"
"Fine," she snapped. "I'll go. But we are doing this my way. I am not some damsel you're protecting. This is a field observation. I will provide tactical and arcane support. You will be the... primary offensive agent. And you will follow my instructions to the letter. Is that understood?"
Projo watched Falira with caution. After she finished speaking, he huffed an exhausted laugh. "You're a little odd, you know that?"
Falira's expression turned analytical. "Odd is a matter of perspective."
----
The hours that followed were grim and silent. The fog rolled in from the sea as the sun went down, a thick, wet shroud that muffled all sound and clung to the skin. Falira directed the operation with a cold, detached focus.
First, Projo had to pull his sword free.
It made a wet, sucking sound as it came loose from tearing bone and sinew. Gideon's body slumped to the floor in a heap. They wrapped the corpse in a heavy, tar-coated oilcloth sail that Falira produced from a cellar. The process was a clumsy, awful struggle against the man's dead weight.
They bound him with thick rope, then in the dead of night, they half-carried, half-dragged the heavy bundle out of the tower and up to a high, precarious cliff ledge. The roar of the unseen waves crashing on the rocks below was a deafening, constant thunder.
Weighed down by heavy stones stuffed into the wrapping, the bundle tipped over the edge and vanished into the swirling fog. The endless roar of the sea swallowed their secret, too loud to even hear the final splash.
They looked at each other for a moment, the salt spray buffeting them both. Then they exhaled, turned, and made their way back.