A Whisper In Darkness (Shadow Origin Story)

Hi everybody, back again with another origin story! This time we're looking at the Shadow (which I know some of you have been eagerly waiting for - hopefully it'll be worth the wait). As always, thank you all for reading, and thanks to Edwin McRae for his constant availability to make sure the little details are right. Ranger's up next, then we'll finish with the Witch. Enjoy!

Previous Stories:
Templar - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1403133
Scion - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1414654
Marauder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1419489
Duelist - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1457891



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A Whisper In Darkness
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S241R1: 3rd Solaro of Vivici, 1594 I.C. Johannes the Carpenter. One thousand marks. Twenty-stone cabinet, kinetic application of force. Broken back, catastrophic internal damage. ‘Insulted my floral arrangements.’
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When they first take you, you don’t know what’s happening. Might be you’re asleep in a midnight cranny, hiding from the Templar patrols. Might be a sunny day, a pair of hands from the alley you just passed. Might be a merchant you’ve never seen before, asking for help unloading a crate in the back.

Might be anything, might be anywhere, might be anyone.

Point is, they’ve noticed you, they take you, you’re theirs.

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S241R14: 19th Kaso of Lurici, 1594 I.C. Lady Farian Dusanna. Two thousand marks. Essence of nightshade, facial powder, Mid-Spring Ball. Collapsed mid-dance, ruptured heart. ‘Spurned my advances, that hag.’
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When you wake up, it’s into blackness. The deepest blackness of a moonless night, oblivion stretching away in every direction. Chains hold you to the ground, not rough, not gentle. Gag covers your mouth, scratchy, foul. Can still taste its stink in my dreams. All you can move is your head, twist it back and forth for all the good it does. Nothing but darkness to see.

The voices start as soon as you wake up. Tell you about yourself, what you are, what you’ve done. Soft voices, loud voices, angry voices, deadly voices, every thought you didn’t know you had spat back at you through the nothingness.

Told me about the streets. Told me about hunger, about pain, about stealing to eat and killing to live. Told me about my first, my fifth, my fifteenth, other street rats that had what I needed or wanted what I had. Knife, stone, hands, weapons of convenience and choice, of necessity and nature.

Sleep doesn’t exist in the blackness. Voices always there, always muttering, screaming, whispering, shouting, the only thing filling the dark. Sometimes they said things I thought weren’t true, told me things about myself I didn’t remember... but they had to be true. The voices wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. They know everything about you, what you are, what you were, what you will be. They fill you up, shadows crawling into your ears until they’re all you know.

I was seven when the Guild of the Night took me. A street rat, born to die in filth and refuse, wanted by no one.

At least that’s what the voices said.

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S241R33: 16th Galvano of Vitali, 1594 I.C. Corianth the Tailor, Jurvis the Butcher, Sylar the Cobbler. Six thousand marks. Spike-loaded spring trap, Chitus’ Virtue tavern, outhouse. Impalement. ‘Provided second-hand goods, ruined my party.’
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Don’t know how long you disappear for. Long enough for them to remake you, I suppose. There’s no time in the dark, nothing but hunger, and thirst, and after a while, either madness or acceptance. You’ve been chosen, and either the Guild takes you, or an unmarked grave swallows your bones. I might have been in there days, weeks, years.

Doesn’t matter.

One moment I was in the darkness, with the voices, the next I was in a bed with silence. Thin, scratchy sheets covered me, the rough fibers prickling my skin. Dim light came from a small slit in the stone wall, and I sat up, confused at the sudden change.

Around me, in eight identical beds arranged to form a circle, eight other children sat up as I did, bewildered expressions flitting across their features as well. I schooled myself to stillness, examining them carefully. Were they a threat? A trap? I noticed them examining me back, all of us warily watching each other. I felt for a weapon under my sheets. The voices knew I was a killer, thus, I would kill if necessary. Nothing. Around me, subtle twitches and muscles tensing revealed others coming to the same conclusion.

It was then a section of the curving stone wall swung open, revealing a stooped silhouette. The shape spoke in a dry, toneless voice, like the moldy sigh of a mausoleum. I could not tell if it was male or female.

“You will not speak. You are shadows, and shadows make no noise. Violating this rule will result in death. Any questions?”

A boy two beds to my left opened his mouth.

“Where are-”

A soft hiss, like snake scales rubbing against each other, and a small dart sprouted in the boy’s throat. He clutched at it, then fell back to the bed and lay still. The figure spoke again.

“You will not be hasty. You are shadows, and shadows lie in wait. Violating this rule will result in death. Any questions?”

This time, no one spoke. The figure gave a crackling laugh.

“Good. You are learning. In your mind, you may call me Teacher. Follow me.”

Wordlessly, I pushed my covers back and let my bare feet fall to the stone floor. It was cold, and rough, but I did not make a sound. I had no doubt Teacher had a dart waiting for me if I were to make a mistake.

Thus began my first day at the Guild of the Night’s school.

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S241R59: 17th Sacrato of Astrali, 1594 I.C. Marylla and Maribetha Drusillus. Seven thousand marks. Garrote wire, The Red Lady brothel, sleeping chambers. Asphyxiation, asphyxiation. ‘They mocked my manhood, and I paid top rate!’
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At first, we studied, in a dusty room crammed with wooden shelves and scrolls. Diagrams of the human body; where to insert a blade to kill someone quickly or slowly; junctures to disable nerves and limbs. The identification of poisonous plants and fruits; methods of distilling their deadly bounty; delivery mechanisms both overt and subtle. Engineering; the balancing of loads and stresses; how to weaken apparently firm support to cause failure at an appropriate time. Construction of traps, both physical and mental, and the best ways to bait them for each particular prey.

Hour after hour we read silently, the rustling of parchment our only conversation. None of us had forgotten the lesson of our first waking.

Teacher was our constant companion, overseeing our progress, a hunched figure wandering the shelves, heavily shrouded in winding strips of cloth that could have concealed anything. At the end of some days, a test would appear from within those voluminous wrappings, dropped in front of each of us like a falling leaf. Sometimes it covered what we had just learned, sometimes it covered something from weeks ago we were expected to retain. Some were simple lists, others, multi-topic essays requiring firm rhetorical command. Success was met with an impassive gaze, failure with a dart.

There were two failures on the first test. Two students, a boy and a girl, who could not, or would not, study hard enough, and Teacher allowed no leeway. “You will not be slow. You are shadows, and shadows always arrive before the light.”

They each sprouted a thin spike from their throat and a sigh from their lips, their bodies gone the next time we returned to the study room. Our sleeping chamber now lay only two thirds full.

My life became a routine, of sorts. Wake in the gray pre-dawn with the five others, dress in the dingy white robe that was the only clothing allowed us, a quick breakfast of thick bread and not quite rancid gruel, slopped onto a dented metal plate by expressionless figures in lumpy brown robes, then a short walk down narrow corridors to the room of learning. Hours of forcing crabbed writing into comprehension, then a lunch of charred meat and wilted greens. Return to the room, preparing for the test that might or might not appear, more charred meat for dinner, and back to the circular cell containing our thin beds with their scratchy blankets for sleep.

Outside, the seasons must have changed time and time again, but we had no knowledge of it. How could we? Our world was gray stone walls, the scrolls, and Teacher.

I do not know how long we studied.

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S241R77: 3rd Lunaro of Derivi, 1595 I.C. Guard-Captain Argentus Tuel. Four thousand marks. Stonecarver tincture, favorite wall to lean against, midnight patrol. Shattered tibia, spine, and cranium. “Demanded a bribe in excess of his station.”
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One morning, I noticed my feet almost hung off the edge of my bed when I woke up - the only sign of time’s passing I’d seen. Curious, I stood and stretched my arms up. They almost reached the ceiling. The others looked at me, but their pale faces gave away nothing. I looked back at them, then walked over to stand beneath the narrow slit in the stone that served as our only connection to the outside world. Straining, I reached for the gap with my fingertips, rough rock scraping under my skin. A jagged crack gave purchase to my questing fingers, the stone biting into my flesh painfully, and with a grimace, I tried to pull myself up to see what lay outside our chamber. My muscles burned, my arms shook, but inch by inch, I dragged myself higher. I was almost to eye level when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“A shadow may travel where others dare not, but only if it remains unseen.”

My grip loosened and I dropped to the ground, wondering what the dart would feel like as it entered my neck. Would it be hot? Cold? Sharp? Dull? Would my death be as quick as the others? I turned to face Teacher, no other option presenting itself.

It was then I realized that it was not Teacher who had spoke. The figure standing in the entrance to our room was a young woman, garbed in a simple linen shift, a bandage covering her eyes, her feet bare upon the floor like our own. Close cropped black hair covered her head.

“I will teach you to remain unseen. It is time for your study to turn from the theoretical to the practical. You may call me Mentor. Follow me.”

Wordlessly, we followed her out of the room into an unfamiliar passage. I had walked the stones to the study room countless times before, their rough grey surface familiar to my bare feet, but the corridor we entered was paved in thick red brick, grey mortar joining each piece. We glanced sidelong at each other, wondering what this new development portended, but held our tongues, the lesson of Teacher still ingrained in our minds. A few short minutes later, Mentor led us to a wooden doorway and stopped.

“A shadow is defined by the light that casts it, but that is not the only place it exists.”

So speaking, she flung the door open and brilliant illumination poured into our unprepared eyes. The blinding glare made it impossible to see, and I stumbled forward, hands waving blindly in a futile attempt to define my environment. Around me, I could hear the scuffing footsteps of the others staggering about.

“When in the light, a shadow presents a shape, but that is not its true definition!”

A heavy blow struck my right shoulder, the impact knocking me to my knees. I clenched my teeth together in pain.

“A shadow is not bound by the light, but uses it as a tool to focus attention away!”

Another blow, this time on my lower back. I fell to the ground, agony radiating through my body.

“A shadow that is seen, can be killed!”

A final blow to my head, and darkness claimed me.

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S241R92: 25th Kaso of Atziri, 1596 I.C. Master Merchant Flavium. Five thousand marks. Lead infused strongwine, nightly inclination for drink. Kidney failure, seizures, irreversible mental decline. “My baby choked to death on that filthy toy he sold us.”
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Lessons with Mentor were more difficult, yet strangely easier than the lessons with Teacher, for Mentor let us talk. I did not know how important using my own voice was until I knew its absence, my days filled with the voices of others, and it was then I vowed never to be silenced again.

Instead of studying dusty scrolls, Mentor taught us how to apply our knowledge to the physical world surrounding us. One day might see us practicing the intricacies of movement through urban terrain, talking through the various ways rooftops and alleyways could be used to conceal the signs of one’s passage, while the next might involve makeup and disguise, turning our faces into that of someone else. “A shadow can pass where no one expects it to, beyond the light of vision,” she told us, our elusive goal that of invisibility, sneaking into the places we should not be. “When you can enter the hidden areas and pass out with no one aware, I will have nothing left to teach you.”

Our world expanded as well. No longer restricted to the sleeping chamber and study room, now we could roam throughout the entirety of the Guild of Night’s chapterhall, a sprawling manor in the heart of Oriath enclosed in midnight black stone walls. Mentor encouraged us to explore every nook and cranny, building our fragile bodies into lean, sinewy forms capable of scaling a sheer surface like a spider and leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Our ghoulish pallor disappeared, replaced with the normal tint of skin exposed to sun on a daily basis, and our dingy white robes were replaced with cracked leather leggings and thin shirts.

Two more students failed at this juncture, one from a mistimed jump, her body crashing limply to the pavers below, the other caught in an exposed location overlooking the Tower of Birds, a dart decorating his neck for lack of subtlety.

The days were mainly our own, the sudden freedom disconcerting after Teacher’s strict regimen. A brief two hours of instruction from Mentor in the morning was our only structure. Our only restriction was that of detection - if at any time Mentor noticed us somewhere we weren’t supposed to be, we would be rewarded with a dart. Forbidden areas littered the chapterhall, their doors notched with a simple pale bone rune - the Armory, the Training Grounds, the Deep Sanctum, and more - filled, or so we presumed, with secretive figures and deadly traps. Mentor laughed at our conjectures, and told us we would discover what each contained soon enough, or we would die.

A month later, we learned what she meant.

The test this time was to retrieve proof from each forbidden area, indicating we had breached it undetected. If we did not retrieve the proof within a year, a dart. If Mentor discovered us, a dart.

Four of us remained.

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S241R103: 2nd Fiero of Sagari, 1596 I.C. Lord Pensivus Orgath, Lady Orgath, Julius Orgath. Seventeen thousand marks. Orgath Estate, secured to chairs, pantry fire. Burned alive. “They... my Annalia... just make them suffer.”
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I kept track of the passing of the sun each day, a notation in my mind attempting to regain some semblance of the passing of time. I did not know where I had been, nor for how long, but I could know where in the future I was traveling. It felt important to try and reclaim something else for myself - first my voice, now my days. I do not think the other three students cared beyond Mentor’s imposed deadline, but we hardly saw each other anymore anyway. Mentor had discontinued our morning training, telling us our only focus was the test.

Three hundred and twenty-seven orbits later, Mentor found me in the Training Grounds.

I had been to all the forbidden areas, carefully scouting each one for days at a time before infiltrating their depths. From the Armory I took a cobwebbed box, tucked away at the end of a narrow corridor that hadn’t seen footsteps in centuries. I walked my way down the walls by extending my body between them, hands on one wall, feet on the other, leaving no trace of my passing in the thick dust blanketing the wooden floor.

Back outside, when I opened the box, an oddly curved dagger with a strange blue jewel inset into its haft gleamed up at me. I ran a finger along its length, and unbidden, the voices from the darkness returned to my mind, their whispering choir somehow... cold. Shaken, I closed the box and hid it in a small hollow I’d created by levering one of the bricks out of the side of the chapterhouse and digging away at the mortar beneath.

A scroll from the Deep Sanctum joined the box in my stash, its contents a seemingly innocuous list of names, dates, and locations. I did not recognize any of them, but then again, I did not need to. Acquiring it was easy enough - after several weeks of observation I noticed the Sanctum’s side entrance was left unguarded in the deep hours of the night for a brief period of time. Recognizing that for one of Mentor’s traps, I instead borrowed one of the shapeless brown robes the serving staff used in the chapterhouse and walked directly past the guards at the main entrance during the lunch hour, emulating the same expressionless mien the servants wore at all times and carrying a plate of food.

Inside I found a circular pit stretching down into the earth for what seemed an eternity, scroll racks and shelves inset along the entirety of its circumference, a winding spiral staircase spinning down like a frozen auger. Servants traversed its many levels, some taking scrolls and books away on various errands, others replacing them according to a system I could not identify at first glance. I ignored the pit and walked to one of the many tables spaced around the outside of the hole, ate my lunch, and palmed one of the scrolls littering its surface as I stood to leave, concealing it beneath my servant robes.

From the squat Tower of Birds I took a sleek black feather, plucked from one of the courier ravens roosting on its perch, and an empty copper message tube, but the birds annoyed me with their constant chattering, so I did not linger. Climbing the outside of the tower in a grey blanket dyed to match the shade of the stones was not an experience I wanted to prolong anyway.

Similar trinkets accumulated in my stash from the Hall of Mirrors, the Faceless Room, and more, but I spent the bulk of my free time in the Training Grounds, a high vaulted ballroom in the east wing of the chapterhouse. Day after day I would sneak in through the hidden attic passageway, perched among the stone gargoyles lining the support beams, and watch the figures below practice the subtle art of death.

The ballroom transformed every few days. One day it might be set up as the interior of a tavern, brown garbed figures simulating a raucous crowd milling about while a wooden target dummy sat at a table, or leaned against a wall. One by one, the trainees would enter, youths appearing not much older than myself, and attempt to blend into the mix, before making their way to the unsuspecting mark and slipping a dagger into the scored and pitted wood without notice.

Other days it might be the gaudy interior of a festival ball, practicing the slight twist of the wrist necessary to drop a packet of heartfever powder into a wineglass without drawing attention, servants spinning adroitly through delicate dance steps, their brown robes twirling in time with their fellows’ music. Sometimes the windows disappeared beneath heavy drapes, plunging the room into a pitch dark maze lit only by scattered guttering torches, the savage combat of backalley and bedroom.

I watched it all, and something within me hungered. When I was in darkness, the voices told me I had killed before, but not like this. My kills were the brutal necessity of survival, not the clean efficiency of the watchmaker setting all the pieces into place, and watching the mechanism tick perfectly toward a desired outcome. That sense of control, missing my entire life - I needed it. Needed to be the one acting, not the one acted upon.

I practiced what I could, in the attic storeroom above the Training Grounds, invaluable for its discarded tools. I mimicked the thrust of blade, the looped garrote wire around the wrist, the subtle shoulder twitch to set a dart from armsleeve into hand unseen. I set my own mazes, created my own scenarios, with chairs, candlestands, and splintered dummies alike, taking in the mistakes of those below and correcting them, day after day, month after month, driving myself to exhaustion in the dusty light of that long forgotten room. It occurred to me I had not seen the other three in weeks, but I did not care. I had found something more important.

Control.

When Mentor discovered me in the Training Grounds, I was not hiding among the gargoyles, nor sneaking along the walls.

I stood in the middle of the empty parquet floor, the barest hint of dawn creeping through the windows, contents of my stash at my feet. Servants calmly moved around me, setting up the room for the day. A young woman in a simple linen shift, bandage concealing her eyes, walked towards me from the open double doors at the front of the hall.

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S241R130: 13th Solaro of Caspiri,1597 I.C. Lord Cannula Morgath. Eight thousand marks. Razorwire, weekly hunt, antler headpiece. Decapitation. “Tell that bastard to find his own deer.”
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“You have completed the test?”

Mentor’s voice was cool, inflectionless. I nodded. The servants continued their work.

“What have you taken from the Tower of Birds?”

“A feather, a message tube, and the patience to not strangle those squawking chickens in their sleep.”

“And from the Armory?”

I showed her the box.

“What was inside it?”

“Nothing,” I lied. The dagger disturbed me, but something urged me to keep it. Mentor herself had taught us that an unexpected weapon could mean the difference between life and death when caught unaware, and I planned on living. Its cool weight nestled at the small of my back, beneath my thin shirt, its hilt carefully wrapped in strips of leather to conceal the gem.

“Very well. The Faceless Room?”

“A death mask of one ended for apostasy against the Guild.”

“I see. There is nothing here from the Training Grounds.”

“I disagree. From here I took the most valuable item of all.”

The corner of her lip curved up slightly, but it was gone so quickly I still don’t know if it was my imagination or not.

“And that was?”

“Knowledge.”

“Show me.”

A dart appeared in the air with her words, speeding towards where my neck had been a second before, but I had already shifted out of its way, countless hours spent observing and practicing the technique moving my muscles without conscious thought. I heard it thunk into the wall behind me, but I had no time to spare to congratulate myself. Mentor immediately advanced toward me in a silent rush.

Her foot scythed in at my leg, seeking to drop me to the floor, but I sidestepped it and flung a dart of my own, grazing her upper cheek. A single droplet of blood welled up, and then trickled down, like a crimson tear leaking from beneath her bandaged eyes. She hissed, and dropped into a knifefighter’s stance, a serrated blade appearing in her fist. I dropped into a stance of my own, heart beating in my chest, but left my own dagger hidden, my hands empty. Warily, we circled each other, Mentor feinting with quick lunges and swipes that I bent under and around, her blade always a hairsbreadth away from touching my skin. Suddenly, a pair of hands clapped once, a thunderous retort of sound.

“Good. That is enough. You underestimated him. He is ready.”

The familiar sounding voice startled me, a perfect copy of Mentor’s, but I kept my eyes on Mentor and her knife. She straightened up slowly, then turned and stalked back out the main entrance, the blade disappearing somewhere along her route, silent the entire time. I looked to see who had spoken.

Standing next to me was a broad-shouldered servant in a shapeless brown robe, cowl hiding his face in shadow. I gawked at him. He bent to clean up the remnants of my stash on the floor, tucking the items into his voluminous sleeves.

“Do not act surprised. Mentor has taught you to pass as the shadow unseen, and you have taught yourself to be the shadow that strikes, but we will teach you to be the shadow everyone expects. You may call me Servant. I am your final test.”

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S241R156: 8th Fiero of Astrali,1598 I.C. Ebon Legion barracks, Merchant Quarter. Thirty thousand marks. Pitch barrels, flour dust, candle trap. Explosive disintegration. “They left my son to die in Wraeclast.”
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I followed Servant through the corridors of the chapterhouse, trying to wrap my mind around this new knowledge. Shapes in brown robes passed by regularly, sweeping floors, cleaning windows, hauling trash - all the menial tasks required for the upkeep of a large structure. I glanced at Servant.

“Are all of them,” I waved a hand, “like you?”

“One day you might find out,” he replied. “Shadows take many forms.”

The answer was no answer, but I held my tongue. In my mind, a ghost of Teacher coughed that dusty laugh. We walked through another archway, and then Servant halted in front of a simple wooden door and turned to face me.

“On the other side of this door you will find a street. At the end of the street you will find a man waiting for an apprentice. You will serve him. He does not know of the Guild. If he ever learns, you will both die. If you leave his service, you will die.”

“What are the conditions of my test?”

“That is for you to discover.”

So speaking, he pushed open the door, revealing a grimy alleyway, refuse piled against its walls, thin beams of sunlight painting its upper reaches. A putrid stench assailed my nose, but I forced down the urge to vomit and stepped out. A slimy substance squished unpleasantly between my toes, and I heard the door creak shut behind me. Setting my face into the expressionless mask I’d seen the servants always wearing, I strode carefully down the narrow city canyon, the obsidian black wall of the Guild to my left, crumbling plaster tenement walls to my right. At the end of the alley, I stepped out onto the somewhat cleaner cobblestones of Oriath’s streets, emerging into the light.

I quickly scanned the area without looking, one of Mentor’s earliest lessons. Traffic along the street was sparse this early in the morning, primarily carts filled with trade goods and drawn by sweating teams of slaves. A florid, beefy man waited against one of the tenement doorways, his large arms bare and crossed over a stained apron, his eyes dull and bored. I made my way over to him, marking him as the master I was meant to serve. He looked up as I approached.

“What do you want, boy?” he grunted.

“I’m your new apprentice, sir,” I replied carefully.

“Hmph.” He spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the street, then wiped his mouth with a corner of his apron. “Scrawny one, aren’t ya? Be surprised if you can get a joint off the cart and onto the block. No, I don’t think you’re the type what I’m looking for. Come back when you’re older.”

“Please, sir.” I forced my voice into a subservient tone. “I’m stronger than I look, and a quick learner.”

He rubbed his chin, scowling into the distance.

“Weeeell, Carter did vouch for you, but I don’t know...” He let the words trail off, and an unaccustomed flash of fear lit through my body, something I hadn’t felt in years. If I didn’t serve this man, didn’t discover Servant’s test, I had no illusions as to what the Guild would do to me.

More importantly, I’d never master that control, the power of life itself.

I forced the fear back down under icy layers of calm. Just another test, and one I would pass, like all the others before it.

I scanned the area again, and noticed a cobblestone lying loose in its bed near the man’s feet. Grimacing, I dug my fingers underneath its rough edges and heaved, my muscles quivering with the strain. Slowly, the block lifted off the ground, and I held it at waist level, pain arcing through my arms and back.

“See... sir... I’m strong enough... to work...”

Panting, I let it crash back down, and he grunted a laugh.

“You’re determined, I’ll give you that, boy. What makes you want to be a butcher’s apprentice anyway? It’s a dirty, smelly business, I’ll tell you true.”

I thought back to the voices in the darkness, their whispered screams of what I had been, what I was, my endless time in that oblivion.

“Anything is better than life on the streets, sir,” I replied, and something must have leaked through into my tone, because his lips tightened. Inwardly, I cursed. Had I failed already? He sighed heavily.

“That’s the truth, boy, I can’t argue with that.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, and I repressed the instinct to twist him down to the ground and slit his throat. “Fair enough, then. Voll damn me for a sentimental fool, but I’ll give you a chance. Pay’s a roof over your head and the meat we don’t sell for your meals. We’ll see if you’re made to wield the butcher’s knife. Now come, there’s work to do.”

I followed my new master down the street, cobblestones gritty under my bare feet, and silently rejoiced. I had taken back my life once more.

“You got a name, boy? I’m Fineus.”

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S241R174: 19th Glacio of Eterni, 1598 I.C. Bortella the tax collecter, Grand Basilica. Twenty five thousand marks. Acid-weakened chains, main portcullis, pressure plate. Catastrophic bodily damage. “Dominus has gone too far. We can’t afford these levies.”
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Weeks passed, then months, then years, and I settled into my new life as the apprentice to Fineus the butcher. At first, he only had me unload the cart when he came back in the morning from the hunter’s market, heaving bloodslick slabs of beef and venison over my shoulder and to the large wooden cutting block in the back of the shop, then cleaning the floors and offal bins, taking them to the furnace in the basement for incineration. The smell down there never left me, even years later, the sickly sweet stench of roasting meat, fat, and waste, greasy plumes of smoke curling out of the furnace’s broad mouth, at once repellent and attractive.

Later, my muscles started filling in, though I retained my lean form, and Fineus taught me the cuts for each type of meat: how to trim and dress a shoulder, hock, and haunch; which internal organs could be sold from which animal and which should be disposed of; where to flay the flesh back to reveal the joint for easy separation. Many of the techniques were similar to what I had learned from Teacher, and Fineus remarked more than once how naturally I took to having a knife in my hand.

I never gave him any hint as to where my skills originated, Servant’s warning still fresh in my mind even after all that time.

Soon, Fineus allowed me to accompany him with the cart down to the hunter’s market, pointing out which of the various carcasses were worth buying and why, and which should be avoided. I learned how to perform a field dressing to make transporting the meat easier, different than the more refined slices that turned hunks of flesh into discernible cuts. Eventually, I was in charge of taking the cart by myself, leaving Fineus to work at the shop.

It was during one of these trips that I noticed an anomaly at the hunter’s market.

She was dressed in leather breeches and a dirt-stained halter, long bow slung over her back, at initial glance no different than the other hunters plying their offerings, but when I saw her eyes, I knew. She was special. A killer hiding in plain sight, just like I was, only her prey walked on four legs as well as two. I pulled the cart over to her table, several deer bodies hanging over its bloody wooden edges.

“Haven’t seen you here before. Those deer look pretty fresh.”

She looked back at me disinterestedly.

“Don’t like men. Don’t like their cities, either. Sometimes I need to take something from one. You want the deer or not?”

“The second one, with the missing chunk of skin right where a noble’s brand would normally sit.”

I don’t know what possessed me to say the words. Maybe it was finally seeing someone I could identify with, someone I knew wasn’t with the Guild, someone who saw the world through my vision. Maybe it was the constant strain of living a life of banality, with no idea what the Guild was testing me on. Maybe I wanted to see her reaction.

Her eyes widened fractionally, then she reached down under the table. I tensed, ready to slide my dagger from its constant presence at the base of my spine, but then her hands re-emerged with the deer’s hind legs in her grasp. I noticed her eyeing my hand behind my back, and she quirked an eyebrow.

“Well? What are you waiting for. Grab the front so we can sling it in. The deer’s not what’ll bite you here.”

I let a tiny grin flit across my mouth, one of the few smiles I can remember experiencing. Together, we heaved the dead animal into the cart, and she stepped back behind the table. I picked up the cart handles and looked back at her.

“See you around some other time.”

“Sure.”

It was only when I was halfway back to the shop that I realized I hadn’t asked her name.

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S241R189: 1st Lunaro of Atziri, 1599 I.C. Lady Delias Ferina, The Slums. Forty thousand marks. Wristblade, middle of the street. Slit throat. “She’s been passing information to the High Templar. Send a message.”
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More years passed, and my work at the shop continued. I learned every back alley of the Merchant Quarter, ten different ways to take the delivery cart to nobles in the Temple District, and each patrol down to the second through the Slums. Gradually, I realized why Servant had apprenticed me to the butcher.

Everyone has to eat.

I continued seeing the ranger at the hunter’s market, her appearances as sporadic as summertime rain in Oriath, though we never exchanged more than a handful of words. I think knowing the other existed was enough. She kept up her practice of selling poached deer, and I kept buying. Why wouldn’t I? She had an uncanny knack for identifying the best of the herd, and the meat tasted delicious.

My life settled into a routine, one that left me uneasy. Wake before dawn, take the cart to the hunter’s market, help Fineus with preparing the cuts for the day, fulfill the day’s deliveries, clean the shop, sleep. It felt... normal. Like an actual life. Yet, every day, the voices in darkness whispered at the back of my head, my stolen dagger cold against my skin, keeping me from fully subsuming myself into this new existence.

I had been through so much. Was this all the Guild desired of me?

It was seven years to the day I left the chapterhouse that I learned what Servant’s test was.

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S241R202: 27th Glacio of Lurici, 1599 I.C. Sub-Commander Callium, Legion Outpost IV. Seventy thousand marks. Partially severed ballista cord, hair-trigger, daily inspection. Bisected. “For a new Oriath.”
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The woman who walked into the shop was wholly unremarkable. Dirty brown hair and ill-fitting clothes marked her as a member of the lower class, and the small scabs dotting her thumbs identified her occupation as a seamstress. She asked for two boar flanks, and as Fineus went into the back to fetch them, she leaned toward me, her gaze intent.

“I see you, shadow.”

I kept my face in a mask of polite incomprehension.

“Excuse me?”

Her eyes never blinked.

“Johannes the carpenter. An accident. You have two days. Servant is watching.”

Fineus returned with the cuts, and I wrapped them for her, thoughts racing through my head. Clearly the Guild had not forgotten about me, and just as clearly, now I was expected to serve in a different capacity.

I knew of Johannes, of course. His workshop was two streets over, in Woodworker’s Lane, and he had a reputation for slovenliness and an inability to hold his drink. Every week, I would deliver three quartered chickens to him - his meat for the week - and most weeks he would have the marks to pay. Fineus never pressed him on repayment, though, on those instances he came up short. Apparently his wife had died in childbirth many years before, and Johannes never was able to move past it.

Immaterial.

That night, I snuck into his shop, and a plan crystallized in my mind. An accident would not be hard to arrange.

The next day, I called upon Johannes, via his side door, cart in tow. He answered on the third knock.

“Aren’t you a little early? And why are you using the side door?”

“Didn’t want to make the neighbors jealous. Fineus had an extra side of beef that was about to go bad, and he figured you wouldn’t mind it,” I replied. I watched his eyes light up, and nearly shook my head in disgust. Too easy. Greed always overrides thought.

“Of course, of course, bring it in. I’m just finishing up this cabinet for Lady Perpetua. It’s nearly done.”

I followed him into his workshop, package in hand, making sure I closed the door behind us.

“It looks splendid. The detail on those doors is remarkable.”

“Thank you, thank you. Go ahead and put it on that table over there. Took me nearly a week to get the beveling right.”

I placed the package on the table he indicated, noting the open bottles of strongwine lining the workshop shelves. Perfect. I approached the cabinet, a heavy oaken affair perched atop a swiveling platform.

“Master Johannes, I can’t help but notice, but is there a scratch here? On the upper right door?”

I pointed to the unmarred cabinet, and slipped behind it while he hurried over.

“No, no, I don’t see anythi-”

Whatever he meant to finish the sentence with never passed his lips. With a quick push, I toppled the cabinet on top of him, crushing his body to the floor in a splintering crash. I walked back around to the front, examining my handiwork. One arm twitched feebly beneath the pile of wood, then fell still. I grabbed one of the bottles of strongwine from the shelf and splashed it around the impact site, then placed it in the now-corpse’s outflung fingers. Next, I distributed a small packet of woodrot powder, stolen from one of the shops on the Street of Alchemists, on the front legs of the cabinet, visibly pocking the wood with holes indistinguishable from termite leavings, then snapped them carefully off and placed them on the platform in their original positions.

Odds were good that no one would investigate the death of an obscure carpenter, but best not to take chances. The Guild had one answer for those who took unnecessary chances, and I had successfully avoided all the darts so far. If anyone came looking, it would seem as if a noted drunk had pursued his normal daily routine, and suffered the ultimate price for his lapse. I grabbed the package from the table, today’s delivery to Lord Venialus, and left to finish the rest of the day’s work.

They found Johannes’ corpse three days later, after a neighbor complained of the stench emanating from his shop. No one ever thought it anything other than an accident.

No one other than Servant.

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S241R238: 3rd Kaso of Vitali, 1599 I.C. Templar Carnial Bal, the Grand Chapel. Ninety thousand marks. Frayed bell cord, loosened bolts, ritual of Voll’s Remembrance. Pulped. “The endgame approaches.”
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He visited the day after I killed Johannes. A man in rich, brocaded silks, feathered cap adorning his shaven head, he asked Fineus to fetch him the finest piece of venison in the cold locker. Once the butcher left the room, he turned to me. I saw his shoulder twitch, and reflexively leaned to the side. A dart sprouted in the wall behind me.

“Just checking. You acquitted yourself well. Your payment, from the Guild.”

He tossed a pouch onto the shop counter, the heavy sound of marks clinking within. I ignored it.

“Does this mean the test is done?”

He laughed.

“The rest of your life is a test. The Guild considers you a servant of the night, and you shall serve. The day you fail, is the day you die, little shadow.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why kill him? Because someone wished it so and paid. Why test you? Because you belong to us, body and mind. Why anything? Because. Shadows do not ask why. Shadows take the momentary form that illuminates them, and then fade back to nothing.”

I must have tensed, because he stepped closer, his hands disappearing into his sleeves.

“We both know you enjoy the work. Do not do anything rash. You have the power of life and death itself. Is that not enough?”

No, I wanted to scream. No. It was not enough. The power I needed, the control I craved, was not over others, but over myself. The voices in darkness, my youth in the chapterhouse, the knife at my back, all telling me what to do, what to be. The ease with which I killed, my memories of before... how could I be sure any of this was real?

Was this who I really was? As a person, as an individual? Or was I just a weapon, molded by others, let loose on a target and returned to its sheath at the end of the day? Who was the hand that wielded me? My own, or another’s?

Can a shadow ever define itself?

The purloined dagger pulsed frost at my back, almost like a heartbeat, and I schooled my features to absolute neutrality. To show any of what I was thinking would be my death, plain and simple.

“I serve the Guild.”

Servant stared at me a moment longer, then let his hands slide out of his sleeves. Empty.

“Good. Continue serving the butcher, and the Guild, and someday you may rejoin the chapterhouse. Your test continues.”

Fineus returned from the back room, packets of meat in his hands, and it was as if Servant had never existed. A minor noble stood in his place, eager to pay and be on his way.

I watched him leave, and tried to control my rage.

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S241R242: 9th Galvano of Vitali, 1599 I.C. Lady Fussilia Adventus, Oriath Theatre. One hundred thousand marks. Heartbleed salve, monocle eyepiece, second act of The Twelve Ghosts. Internal hemorrhaging, violent decomposition. “Knock away his support, and the tower falls.”
-------------------------------------------------

A new routine asserted itself. Every week, a customer would say the words, “I see you, shadow,” and I would have a new target, along with payment for the previous week’s assignment. The targets themselves? Young, old, male, female, rich, poor - it did not matter. The Guild required me to serve, and if it was not the ultimate control I craved, at least it was control of a sort. My kill count rose nearly as rapidly as the pile of golden marks in the unmarked chest in my room.

The Guild was making me fabulously wealthy, but it didn’t matter. Marks were just a means to an end, a way to acquire the tools necessary to take down the next target. What use did a butcher’s apprentice have for riches?

What use did I have for anything that kept me a slave?

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the work, of course. Servant was right about that. The thrill of tracking my prey, learning their habits, knowing them better than they knew themselves, and then using that knowledge to undo them in the most intimate way imaginable - that, and that alone, kept me moderately satiated. The years of training from Teacher and Mentor, combined with my knowledge of the city gained as a servant to Fineus, gave me a foundation to build upon, and the monuments I erected were glorious in their mercilessness.

No one lay safe from my ministrations, and as the tasks grew progressively more difficult, the pile of marks progressively larger, I relished the challenge more and more.

Thus I came into contact with the means of my downfall.

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S241R248: 25th Sacrato of Vitali, 1599 I.C. Lord Impotus Puril, Puril Manor. One hundred and thirty thousand marks. Wood beetle larva, bedroom chamber wall, unsatisfied wife. Terminal cranial fracture. “He is the last.”
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Fineus had passed a year earlier, failure of the heart, and left the shop to his loyal apprentice.

Me.

I continued the business, because why not? It was a perfect cover to canvass the city, and a small part of me had grown to enjoy the mundanity of the tasks - the light resistance of flesh against knife when carving a joint, my brief interactions with the ranger woman at the hunter’s market, the honest simplicity of a clean floor and organized cuts. Plus, with Fineus out of the way, I could convert the back room to a workshop of sorts - the tools of one trade lying hidden in plain sight among the tools of another.

It was in that back room I met Lord Cullien for the first time.

I noted his entrance immediately, of course. None were allowed into the back room, and the only thing that saved him from a dart to his throat were the first words out of his mouth.

“I see you, shadow.”

I paused in the act of dismembering half a boar.

“What is it?”

He looked around haughtily, like he didn’t want to be in the room. Interesting. None of the other couriers had ever shown anything other than pure apathy.

“We have purchased your services from the Guild. Exclusively. They say you are their best.”

I tried not to swear. The Guild had sold me out. If a client knew my face, I was at risk.

No matter. I would deal with it when the time came.

“I am.”

“Good, good.” He coughed, raising a scented handkerchief to his mouth. Azaleas. I filed it away for future reference. “We need the best. The great work demands nothing less. We are engaged in a battle for the very heart of Oriath itself. In fact, our pla-”

I cut him off, before he could irritate me further.

“I don’t care. Who is my target?”

He looked nonplussed, no doubt at not being allowed the opportunity to monologue. I went back to carving the boar while he figured out what to say.

“Um... ahh... don’t you want to know why we want you to kill them?”

“No. Who is my target?”

“Well... ahh... your first target is a tax collector named Bortella. Do you know of him?”

“Yes.”

He tugged at the neck of his silk doublet.

“Is there... ahh... anything else you need?”

“Payment.”

“We’ll... we’ll pay twenty-five thousand marks. With more to come on future assignments.” He sneered, but it was a shadow of his earlier confidence. “Assuming you’re capable, of course.”

“Very well. You should leave.”

The sneer fell away like a fresh cut steak, replaced by a sort of injured confusion.

“But don’t we need to plan? How you’ll... ahh... dispose of him?”

“No. Leave.”

I straightened up from behind the table, butcher’s knife in hand, and he all but fled out the door. Good.

The Guild may have sold me, but I still planned on living.

My life would be my own. I would have control.

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S241R250: 29th Glacio of Vitali, 1599 I.C. Lord Cullien Tarin, The Five Grapes Tavern. Two hundred thousand marks. Essence of stranglethroat. “He must drink with you.”
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Disposing of Bortella was easy enough. A simple matter, merely a night’s work of treating the Grand Basilica’s main portcullis chains with a diluted solution of metalcarver acid, and then running a pressure plate trigger from the entry cobblestones to another beaker of acid perched above the now brittle links. Bortella was always the first functionary through the main gates, a commendable dedication to his job. Unfortunately for him, his predictability now involved ten tons of steel crashing into his head.

Cullien returned, with more marks, and more targets, and with no information on why the Guild had betrayed me, I continued serving. The entire time, whispers in my head scrabbled at the edges of my consciousness, and my stolen dagger burned ice cold along my spine. A moment would come, I could sense it, where everything would change, where everything must change, but until the moment presented itself, I could only wait.

I waited two hundred and twenty-two days.

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S241R251: Termination protocol - ongoing.
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It started innocuously enough. I went to the hunter’s market in the morning as usual, hoping to talk with the one person who I felt some connection to, but her table lay empty. Hadn’t been there for weeks, according to the other vendors. I purchased some deer haunches, and a brace of rabbits, then returned to the shop. Several hours passed, early dawn sliding into midmorning, and then he was there, shapeless brown robe covering his broad shouldered frame, cowl hiding his face.

Servant.

“I see you, shadow.”

Interesting. Servant had never addressed me as a client before.

“What is it?”

“Lord Cullien Tarin. It is time to dispose of him. You will meet him at the Five Grapes Tavern, drink with him, and ensure he dies during the meeting.”

I continued calmly quartering the rabbits, my movements swift and economical.

“Why?”

He froze, hands tucked beneath broad brown sleeves.

“A shadow does not question the light that sends it forth.”

“Perhaps a shadow might wonder where the light that sends it forth springs from, and whether that shadow might one day disappear.”

“I see. You no longer wish to serve?”

“I have served. I question whether I will have the chance to continue to serve.”

“Of course. That is why your current target is who it is.”

I slammed my cleaver into the table, its heavy length quivering.

“You gave him my face,” I hissed, annoyed at the endless word games. “Who knows who he told. Who knows what precautions he’s taken over the last few months. Why did you sell me? After everything I’ve been through? The work I’ve done? You know as well as I do that I’m not walking away from this.”

Servant sighed.

“To be honest, it was not my choice. I am Servant, and I must serve. In the end, we are all shadows of a greater light.”

“Then tell me why!”

“Maybe because you’re too good. Too natural. When one walks into the shadow of something larger, everything else subsumes into its enormity. Like a passerby beneath a temple with the sun behind it. Impossible to make out anything but the overwhelming darkness of the structure on the cobblestones below. It is only natural to fear that which destroys your very existence.”

“But the Guild made me. Formed me! Why!”

“We saw something. Something transcendent. Something in you.”

“Who am I!”

“A shadow. Of something greater? Possibly. Maybe that’s what they feared, when they finally realized the truth. That you surpassed them all.”

“WHO AM I!”

“A shadow. And now, it is time for you to fade.”

Darts filled the air, Servant’s hands blurring out from under his sleeves. I twisted behind the length of the butcher’s block, trying to shield myself from the most lethal, but I could not avoid them all. Two tore into my right hand, pinning it to the table, more slicing through my shoulders and sides. The hot sting of blood trickled down my body, and I grimaced in pain. Suddenly, Servant was next to me, a blackened blade in his hand. He looked down at my pinned form.

“I am truly sorry it came to this. You were-”

“Shut up,” I spat, and whipped my left hand up from behind my back, the dagger stolen from the chapterhouse so long ago in my grasp, ugly blue light spilling out from between my fingers. Chill coursed through my veins, its icy grip numbing my pain, and I saw Servant’s eyes widen. Gibbering voices danced in my thoughts, but my focus was solely on the man I aimed to kill. He raised an arm in front of his face.

“You... no!”

A pulse of freezing energy blasted out from my outstretched hand, shattering the brown robed figure into tiny shards of ice. Panting, I levered myself to my feet, and pulled the darts free from my right hand, sensations curiously numbed. Eyes ablaze, I set out for my meeting with Lord Cullien.

It was time for answers.

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S241R252: Termination protocol - ongoing.
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Lord Cullien had no answers, of course. The perfect patsy, just another stupid Oriathan noble filled with dreams above his station. He died sneering, my dagger in his throat.

I fell with him, victim to his drugged wine, my anger clouding my senses and dulling my perception. The last sight I remember was a pair of horrendously garish pants striding towards me from behind a screen, and then my vision blurred, and darkness claimed me. When I woke, it was in the hold of a ship stinking of fish guts and fear, my only possessions the butcher’s clothes I left the shop in.

I’ve learned from the other passengers that we are bound for Wraeclast. They speak of the continent in hushed tones, terrified of the horrors lurking in its dark depths, but I laugh at their despair.

Wraeclast may be dark, but the darkness provides plenty of opportunities for a shadow to thrive.

I will return from this place. I will return to the Guild, and I will have my answers.

I will discover who I am.

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S241R253: Termination protocol - ongoing.
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Fantastic installment, as always. Great characterization and researched attention to detail. Was that Cold Snap?

Came for the story. Stayed for the clutch Templar pants.

Yeah, Cold Snap crit. It came down to the wire, but gotta get those pants in there :p (Though I have to be honest, it might be tough for Ranger and Witch - we'll see)

Thank you, I enjoyed reading it very much!

Thank you, this was amazing. Eagerly awaiting the rest!

"

Loate wrote:

Yeah, Cold Snap crit. It came down to the wire, but gotta get those pants in there :p (Though I have to be honest, it might be tough for Ranger and Witch - we'll see)

I woke with a start, my skin clammy and cold, the phantom dirge of bells still ringing in my ears. "Pants," I gasped, and I did not know why.

Wow... I really love reading your stories and hope there are many more to come after the Witch/Ranger origin stories <3

I like the story I'm going to check out your other ones. but just wondering are these fanfiction or cannon? (you said you had help from Edwin McRae "to make sure the little details are right." why I asked is because I don't remember names well so I'm not sure if that is a Dev or not.)

Just, thank you, sir.