Today marks the fifth day since I commissioned the book from the library.
Ashan's fingers pinched the thin, limp pouch in his robe pocket, feeling the meager weight of what remained. The leather was soft, worn, and when he pressed, he could feel the edges of the coins through the fabric—too few, too light.
And now I have only eight bronze coins left.
His expression tightened. The morning light was bright, unforgiving, casting hard shadows across the mission board where a small crowd of Arashen-ranked members jostled for position. Their eyes scanned the postings written on parched, brownish goatskin papers, their voices rising and falling in the particular cadence of desperate men.
Ashan's gaze swept over them, analyzing quickly.
[Hunting Vypers]
[Reward: 2 bronze coins per body]
[Time limit: Three weeks]
[Location: Outskirts of the base, near the cave areas]
This will do. He let the words settle, examined them from every angle. Vypers aren't among the stronger rakshasa breeds.
He pushed through the crowd, feeling the press of bodies, the weight of desperate gazes that slid over him and found nothing worth noticing. He took the road leading toward the cave areas, his steps quick, his mind already moving ahead to the hunt.
On the southeastern edge of the main base, Ashan arrived at a large gate leading into the wilds. The wood was dark, weathered, the iron bands that held it together rusted to the color of dried blood. Robed figures moved in and out, their chatter and laughter a stark contrast to the looming wilderness beyond—a wall of green and shadow that pressed against the edge of the settlement like something waiting.
A woman sat at a counter beside the gate, her hair pulled back, her eyes sharp, her hands moving with the mechanical efficiency of someone who had done the same task a thousand times before. She checked identification badges, handed out small, metallic rings, and collected coins with the same motion, the same expression, the same professional smile.
Ashan joined the line. He watched as the members ahead of him handed over their badges, received their rings, and passed through the gate. Each transaction took seconds, no more.
Wait. His eyes narrowed as the woman collected two bronze coins from each member. You have to pay to even take a mission?
Soon, it was his turn. He handed over his badge. The woman glanced at it, then back at him, her expectant gaze signaling for payment. Her fingers drummed once on the counter, the sound sharp, impatient.
He coughed lightly. "I am new. Could you explain the procedure?"
Reluctantly, he produced his two bronze coins—the last of his funds, the end of the line. She took them, dropped them into a box beside her chair, and handed him a simple ring of dark metal.
"This is a storage ring." Her voice was flat, professional. "It can hold up to two cubic meters." She returned his badge with the same mechanical motion. "And we take a fifty percent commission from your mission earnings." A light, professional smile touched her lips, and for a moment, she looked almost friendly.
Fucking daylight robbery.
Ashan's face grimaced before he could school his features. He examined the ring, turning it over in his palm, feeling the faint hum of energy that pulsed beneath its surface. "Is this mine to keep?"
She nodded. "It is. If you fill it, you can purchase larger ones from me."
He slid it onto his left index finger—the metal was cold, heavy, a weight that had not been there before—and passed through the gate.
The air shifted instantly.
It was cooler here, carrying the raw scent of earth and vegetation, the smell of things growing and rotting and growing again. The paved stone road ended, giving way to a muddy trail that wound into a thicket of trees whose branches reached for the sky like fingers grasping at something just out of reach. Ashan followed it, consulting the map on his badge, letting the faint glow guide his steps.
The cave area isn't far.
He walked for a while until the caves came into view. He wasn't alone; several other members lingered at the entrance, their voices low, their eyes scanning the darkness beyond. The caves weren't simple openings in rock faces—they were gaping maws leading deep underground, their edges worn smooth by water and wind and something else, something that had been here long before the Order built its base on this island.
The land around them was barren, devoid of vegetation, and a strange, murky stench hung heavy in the air—the smell of old death, of things that had crawled into the dark and never crawled out.
Ashan observed the others for a moment. Some moved in groups of two or three; others, like him, were alone. A few disappeared into the dark entrances without a backward glance, their forms swallowed by the shadows.
He selected a cave at random and stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed him.
The transition was absolute—one moment the light was behind him, the next it was gone, as if the cave had reached out and taken it. A foul odor assaulted his nostrils, thick and cloying, the smell of rot and stagnant water and something else, something that made the back of his throat tighten. He reached out, touching the wall to orient himself. Cold. Rough. The stone was wet with condensation, slick beneath his fingers.
Keeping one hand on the wall, he moved forward, activating his Life Sense to probe for any sign of living beings. The world sharpened, clarified, became a map of shadows and presence. His eyes flickered intermittently with grayish-white swirls, casting faint light that was swallowed almost immediately by the dark.
The only sound was the steady, echoing drip... drip... of water, falling from somewhere far above, somewhere he could not see.
The tunnel was spacious enough to walk comfortably—wide enough for two, perhaps three, to walk abreast. The walls were rough, uneven, the floor slick with moisture. He moved slowly, his feet finding the path, his senses reaching ahead into the darkness.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Ashan froze.
The stench shifted, ripening into the smell of rotten meat, of something that had died and was still dying, still waiting. The dripping water was drowned out by a soft, slithering sound—the sound of scales on stone, of bodies moving through spaces too small for anything that breathed.
He stood perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle.
Hiss! Hiss!
His Life Sense detected two hostile presences—one to his left, one ahead, their outlines sharp in the darkness. His eyes swirled, tracing their forms, letting the information flood his mind.
[Race: Rakshasa]
[Species: Vyper]
[Rank: Bodnir]
Two of them.
Hiss! Hiss!
Their brownish-green bodies moved with sinuous grace, thin and rope-like, their scales catching the faint light of his eyes and reflecting it back in patterns that hurt to look at. One of the Vypers slithered forward, approaching his foot, its body warm where it touched his skin.
It began to crawl up his left leg.
Ashan held his breath, forcing his leg to remain utterly passive, to be nothing more than stone, than darkness, than something the creature had no interest in. The Vyper's coils tightened around his calf, his knee, his thigh, constricting with a strength that was surprising for something so thin.
The second Vyper rose, balancing on its tail, and forked a long, poisonous tongue into the air.
Standing on its tail. Ashan's mind worked behind his frozen expression, cold and clear. A mating pair.
The female's tongue dripped dark-greenish droplets onto the stone floor.
Drop. Drop.
Sizzle!
Where the venom fell, small holes pocked the ground, the stone dissolving with a hiss of steam and the smell of something burning. The holes were deep, precise, the kind of damage that would take flesh and bone and leave nothing behind.
Ashan felt the blood flow in his left leg begin to cut off. The male Vyper's coils had tightened to the point of pain, the pressure building, the numbness spreading. It brought its head near his right ear, its cold, forked tongue darting out to lick the lobe.
The touch was wet, exploratory, and in the darkness of the cave, with the venom dripping and the coils tightening and the slow, steady beat of his own heart counting down the seconds, Ashan waited.
Now or never.
His hands began to move, slow as rising water, toward the place where his blade would be.