Commerce Emperor - Chapter 3: Demon Snows

We confirmed that the Artisan couldn’t merge gold with beef after many tries, much to my dismay.

“Why is it working with the bone, but not the flesh?” I wondered while examining the result of our latest experiment: a beef rib shaped from the purest gold. “At least this confirms the conservation of mass hypothesis.”

Marika nodded sharply. The cabin’s floor was covered with trinkets she crafted with her magic: a metal quill, a silver die, a small booklet created from my newspaper and some leather, and a small wood horse Beni loved to play with. “My power doesn’t create nor destroy. It combines and transforms.”

“But is meat an exception?” I asked, unable to let go of my idea of building a golden cow. “I just don’t get it.”

“Maybe my power must consider the material as ‘not-alive’ to work?” Marika suggested with a sheepish smile. “I’m drawing a blank here.”

“What is wood but a dead tree?” I pointed out. “Most leather is made of animal skin too. So why can you use leather as material but not the meat itself? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“The leather is hard,” Soraseo suggested. “The meat is soft.”

I opened my mouth to protest that it couldn’t be so simple, closed it upon realizing she might have a point, and then settled on testing it. “How about combining liquids?” I said upon bringing out my waterskin. “Can you combine a liquid with solid matter?”

“I’ve never tried,” Marika admitted. I spilled a few drops of water on the metal quill. She activated her power, to no effect. “Doesn’t work.”

I wasn’t entirely convinced. “It might be that you can’t combine an item that you’ve already fused.”

“I can check.” Marika placed the metal quill on the back of the wooden horse toy. The latter swiftly grew iron wings and became a pegasus, much to Benicio’s silent joy. “Ah, I knew it. I’m not limited to one fusion.”

I admitted defeat. “Alright, alright, our crimson knight might have guessed correctly.”

“I am not the Knight,” Soraseo reminded me. By now, I realized she failed to pick up on most jokes and sarcasm due to the language barrier. “Meat cannot build a wall. That is obvious.”

“Makes sense to me,” Marika said with a shrug. “You can build a lot of things with bones: instruments, tools, even weapons. Can’t say the same for flesh or water.”

“What about living creatures?” I presented the golden bone to Marika. “Can you fuse it with me?”

Marika squinted at me as if I had gone insane. “I’m not infusing you with some cow’s bone.”

“Imagine if we could graft wings on a real horse,” I suggested with a smile. “You could buy your son a pegasus ride for a pony’s price!”

As I had calculated, Little Benicio immediately looked up at his mother with pleading eyes. Marika bit her lip in annoyance, but didn’t find the strength to resist. “If it turns that sharp tongue of yours to gold,” she said upon pressing the bone against my forehead, “I’ll laugh.”

I would gladly bear her taunts for the sake of furthering human potential. I watched Marika’s mark glow… and little else. The golden bone remained firmly outside of my body.

“Sorry Beni,” Marika apologized to her disappointed son. “The pegasus ride will have to wait.”

“Guess I won’t turn my hands into swords anytime soon then,” I muttered in disappointment.

“That would be unwieldy,” Soraseo said with a thin smile. “You would not have the power to carry anything.”

In any case, we had established the basic rules of Marika’s power already: she could fuse two or more solid components, essences included, by grabbing at least one. We had already established that she needed to force both items to touch for her magic to work, though she wasn’t required to touch them all at once; she fused the metal quill with the wooden horse without grabbing the latter. All she needed was to have the components in contact with each other before activating her power.

There was no limit to how many components she could combine at once, or at least none we could figure out with the tools at hand. Fused items could be fused again, and the mass never changed. Marika’s creations were always usable, or at least appeared expertly crafted. Mismatched tools combined into a harmonious whole.

Moreover, I noticed that the Artisan’s ability lacked the esoteric, conceptual aspects of the Merchant class. Marika couldn’t combine skills the way I could buy and sell them. Vassal classes seemed to suffer from harsher limitations than the great ones.

“I wonder if your ability stops working if the components get too big, Marika.” I scratched the back of my head. “We should try it out with larger items in the future.”

“You want to fuse a castle and a carriage?” Marika suggested half-jokingly.

“Why not?” I shrugged. “Imagine how much it would shorten a house’s construction, shipbuilding, siege engine creation, and more. Your power has hard limits, but its potential boggles the mind.”

“Oh.” Marika blushed in embarrassment. “I never considered those applications.”

Little Benicio let out a yawn. A quick look through the porthole informed me that night had fallen. I couldn’t believe we had spent the whole day experimenting.

“It’s late.” Marika scratched her son’s hair. “I need to put Beni to bed.”

“He can take one of those,” I said, waving at the two mattresses in the cabin. I turned my head to Soraseo. “Do you have a cabin too?”

The Monk shook her head. “I shall sing and sleep under the stars.”

I glanced at her lute and smirked. “You wouldn’t have happened to have booked a room earlier at the Tawny Mermaid?”

Soraseo’s lips curved into a thin smile. “You have heard me play the biwa.”

“Is that the name of your instrument? I didn’t know.” I supposed it must have been unique to the Shinkoku. “How about you show me how to play it?”

Soraseo graciously accepted my invitation, and exited the cabin after bowing before Marika and her son. I’d already seen traders from eastern lands use the gesture as a way to say goodbye. How polite and proper. She had to be a noble of some kind.

The wind was cold and the moon shone high in the sky. Our ship effortlessly glided along the water, whose surface reflected the stars’ silvery glow. Darkness drowned the riverbank except for the looming shape of mountains in the distance. Though Mount Erebia was the world’s tallest mountain, its little sisters and brothers, the Crown of Fangs, split the continent in two. It would take us another day to get past them, and two more to reach Snowdrift.

The ship was too small to afford many private spaces, and most passengers slept where they could find space. Half a dozen people were already sleeping on the deck in makeshift beds, using their belongings and travel bags as makeshift blankets and pillows. A sailor was fishing along the guardrail and another was standing at the prow to look for any unseen rocks or other obstacles that might hit the boat. Soraseo found us a spot near the back of the ship and away from the crowd.

“I can smell it in the wind, Lord Robin.” She sat along the guardrail with otherworldly grace, seized her instrument, and pinched its strings. “Your dagger tasted blood before.”

“Less than your sword,” I replied. “And it was a demon’s blood.”

Soraseo cradled the biwa close to her chest. “A demon carrying a golden coin?”

My hands tensed on the guardrail. Soraseo’s haunting melody resonated in the night air and echoed the ripples of the river below. “You’ve encountered one yourself?”

Soraseo confirmed my suspicion with a nod. A few passengers looked at her, fascinated by her music, but the melody covered the sound of our voices and afforded us a degree of privacy. “A demon attacked me on the road to Tradewind. I had the victory, but it was a narrow win.”

“When did that ambush take place?” I questioned her.

“Two nights ago.” Soraseo tuned her notes to the gentle lapping of the water below. “He was a man and then became a beast with a thousand fangs. A fiend.”

Then this attack happened soon after she received her mark. “What did you do with the coin?” I asked. “From what I was told, the Devil of Greed can use it to purchase souls.”

“The Wanderer gave me a visit and took it away.” Soraseo closed her eyes, her fingers dancing on the strings. She was so focused on her performance, so graceful, that it became mesmerizing. She didn’t look too much like a warrior anymore, even with the armor and sheathed sword. “She had much… oddness? Is that the word?”

“Yes.” Eris’ description put a smile on my lips. At least it confirmed she was still visiting heroes to provide guidance. Still, the fact that the two of us suffered a demon attack in such a short time bothered me greatly. “Did the demon say anything in particular? I wonder if the ambush is connected to the one I suffered from.”

“When I put my sword in his heart, the demon whispered…” Soraseo frowned as she struggled to remember the exact words. “Surrender yourself not to despair… for soon, the true heroes shall return.”

“The true heroes?” I glanced at my glove, which hid the mark below. “My class looks true to me.”

“Demons tell lies, Lord Robin. It is what they do.”

“But if we’ve both been attacked within three days, then this implies a concerted campaign or the work of a large organization.” Suddenly, the Fatebinder’s decision to send Eris to check on other heroes made a lot more sense. She probably feared they would be targeted by assassins soon after gaining their marks. “It would be wiser for us to travel together from now on. There’s safety in numbers.”

“I have appreciation for your concern, Lord Robin, but I must reach the Deadgate.” Soraseo let go of a final note, whose sound drifted away into the night. “Nothing else matters to me.”

“The Deadgate can’t bring back the dead to life,” I pointed out. “It only lets us see ghosts, or so I was told. Whoever haunts you will not return.”

“I have the knowledge.” Soraseo glanced away at the waning moon. “But I must still see her. To give apologies.”

I squinted at her. “Is it worth throwing your life away?”

“Yes,” she replied without the slightest hesitation. Too quickly.

It’s not that she doesn’t care if she dies on a suicide mission, I realized with a chill running down my spine. She took up that quest because it is a suicide mission.

This woman desperately wanted to die… and I didn’t know enough about her to talk her out of this dangerous path.

I heard footsteps behind me and turned my head. Marika. She joined us along the guardrail while Soraseo began playing a new melody, one even more sorrowful than the first.

“Beni hasn’t slept in a real bed for weeks,” Marika said with a contrite smile. It clearly bothered her to owe a favor to another. “Thanks again, Robin. You’re sure it doesn’t bother you?”

“It’s fine, there’s space in the cabin,” I replied with a shrug. I’d always been fond of children since my time at the orphanage.

“Did someone stand you up?” Marika asked. From her tone, the question had been bugging her for a while. “You booked that cabin for two from what I understood.”

“I’d hoped to take someone along, but she abstained.” I wished Mersie the best, especially with Sforza now out of the picture. It worked out well anyway. “Why are you going to Archfrost?”

“For work.” Marika slouched against the guardrail to better look at the river. “I’ve heard Archfrost needs all the weapon exorcists they can get to deal with the banditry, beastmen incursions, and border skirmishes.”

“There’s plenty of smith work to be found in the Riverland Federation,” I pointed out, a question of my own on my lips. “Why leave your homeland for a cold country trapped in a frozen conflict?”

Marika grabbed the pendant around her neck and examined it. Her eyes lost themselves in nostalgia and memories I wasn’t privy to. I politely waited for her to put her thoughts in order.

“My husband saddled us with debts,” she admitted. Her hand clenched on the pendant in sorrow. “We had to sell pretty much everything we had, our house included, and we’re still in the red. There’s work for blacksmiths in Tradewind, that’s true–”

“But they are many blacksmiths, and only a handful of weapon exorcists.”

“And the latter job pays much better.” Marika sighed. “In a few years’ time, I can hope to clear our debts and pay for Beni’s apprenticeship with a guild.”

She couldn’t be older than thirty. Her life was far from over, but she would spend the rest of it paying back for the mistakes of another and provide for her obviously traumatized son. It tugged at my heartstrings. “How much debt?”

“Eighty gold,” she said, the number making me choke. “By selling our house, I’m down to half that amount.”

Though forty gold was pocket change for Ermeline’s nobility, it was a hefty sum for anybody else. A skilled blacksmith could expect to earn three silver a day. Considering she supported herself and her son, not to mention the interest on the debt, it would probably take Marika a decade to pay everything back.

At least, without a friend’s help. I could almost smell the scent of opportunity in the air.

“Say, Marika…” I gazed at the moon reflecting on the river’s surface. “How about we start a business together?”

She looked at me as if I had grown a second head. “A business?”

“I have the capital and ideas, but neither the workers nor products. I can provide enough investment to cover your debt and help you establish a workshop.” I tightened my fist as I imagined our glorious future. “With our combined powers, we’ll become an unstoppable force of commerce.”

“Robin, you are very kind, but I…” Marika coughed in embarrassment, her face redder than a Fire Island tomato. She was too humble for her own good. “Forty gold is a huge sum, I can’t… I can’t–”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not running a charity,” I interrupted her. “It’s a business proposal with the aim of making us both ludicrously, fantabulously rich.”

Marika scoffed. “Fantabulously? Is that a real word?”

“The only one strong enough to describe my goal,” I replied with a smirk. “But making a fortune will be the easy part.”

“The easy part?” Marika choked. “Of what?”

“Of changing the world.”

Now I had Marika’s full attention. Soraseo too had stopped playing her biwa, her eyebrows furrowing at me.

“Let me ask you a question.” I grabbed a coin from my purse. “Who is most powerful? A poor beggar or a rich lord?”

Soraseo shrugged. “The lord has the power.”

“And why is that? At the end of the day, are they not both humans?” I flipped the coin in my hand. “What gives this piece of metal power? It’s soft, it’s inedible, and it doesn’t shine all that much. Why is it worth more than good iron?”

Marika guessed quickly. “Because everyone believes gold has value.”

“Exactly.” I nodded sharply. “Wealth is the lever that moves the hearts of men. So are glory, love, faith… and even then, coins can buy them all. Because power is not found in brawn or classes, but in the ability to move others in the direction you lay before them. To write the rules that make up our society.”

I’d learned that in Ermeline, where nobles bet more gold in a night than a laborer could hope to earn in their entire lifetime. The poor suffered as they must while the wealthy decided the course of history. Whether kings or assemblies ruled did not matter; for the game never changed. The voices of commoners were drowned under the noise of roulettes and the laughs of well-born leeches.

“At the apex of the world, no one defends those in need,” I explained. “No one writes rules to help commoners like us. And that’s why I’m going to climb my way up that mountain of gold. Because with the lever of wealth, I’ll move the world itself. I’ll put the wheel of history back on the right track, towards a prosperous future for everyone.”

I extended a hand to Marika. “So what do you say?” I asked her with a grin. “Do you want to become rich with me?”

She had listened to my speech with a growing smile; she was a little amused… and even more hopeful. After resigning herself to work like a slave for many more years, it must have felt refreshing to hear me speak of ambitions and lofty goals. It made her want to believe. To believe in a better future for her and her son.

“You’re insane, Robin. Has anybody told you that?” Marika returned my smirk and my handshake. I felt our marks glow beneath our gloves. “I’m in, you madman.”

And like that, I hired my first employee.

We reached Snowdrift on the fourth day’s dawn.

I spent the trip getting to know Marika and Soraseo, experimenting with our respective powers, and gathering intel by discussing with the ship’s crew and passengers. By the time my hometown came into view, I knew what to expect.

At its apex, Snowdrift had been a thriving city home to over twenty-thousand inhabitants. What remained bore the marks of the Purple Plague that decimated Archfrost. The great buildings and archways along the riverbank stood as a testament to my hometown’s lost glory.

I remembered the old days vividly: the laughs of my fellow children as we ran mock battles in Blancoeur’s Promenade, replaying the Siege of Stonegarde under the amused eye of the city watch; the Heroes’ Feast festivities in Temple Alley, where the entire city gathered to celebrate Archfrost’s founding and exchange gifts; the shouts of traders and fishmongers selling their wares along the docks to visitors coming from across all of Pangeal; the fireworks from the Witchcrafter Guild’s loud and failed alchemical experiments; and more than anything, the fleeting noise of falling snow that gave the city its name. Snowdrift had never been Archfrost’s largest city, nor its most important one, but it had been loud and full of life.

Now?

Now I could only hear the spring wind blowing.

My hometown city lay eerily quiet. The great cobblestone bridge that linked both halves of the city had blackened with a lack of repairs and melancholy. When I glanced over the guardrail I could only see boarded-up windows, abandoned houses, and closed doors. The north bank, the rich half of the city, endured better than the southern one with its painted facades and great mansions, but no glamor could hide the painful truth: the Purple Plague and civil war had reaped a grim toll. I looked around for the home of my childhood, but only saw crumbling ruins where my family’s shack once stood.

And yet… and yet in spite of everything, I noticed glimmers of hope. Fishermen fishing along the river on their boats; merchant vessels unloading supplies on weathered piers; smoke rising defiantly from the forge works. Even the sprawling pine forests beyond the city’s walls stood as a testament to life’s resilience.

“This town is an open grave,” Marika whispered along the guardrail. Little Benicio stood quietly behind her, while Soraseo gazed north in full armor. She intended to move to Stonegarde as soon as we landed. “We’re not going to find work here.”

“I believe otherwise.” I raised a hand and seized a snowflake carried by the wind. With the coming spring, these were the last snows of the year. “This city’s fortunes will rise again, and ours with it.”

But before we could build, I had to bury the past.

I remembered a day fifteen years past, where I too stood at the prow of a ship; albeit one moving away from Snowdrift. My father Valdislav, a cobbler by trade, held me in his arms as we watched the docks turn smaller and smaller. Familiar faces awaited on the piers, family friends and acquaintances who couldn’t purchase a trip or find space on the overcrowded ferry. I struggled to hold back my tears then.

“Don’t cry, Robin,” my father had told me. “They’ll join us after boarding the next ship, you’ll see.”

Even then I knew it was a lie. Our ship had hit bloated purple corpses floating in the river on its way out of the city; anyone that stayed behind was condemned. So were many on that ferry.

“We’ll return home one day, sweetling,” my mother had said kindly, a hand on her mouth to better hide her cough. I didn’t think much of that gesture then, but it would come back to haunt us later. “One way or another… we will return one day.”

I had believed in my mother’s words then, but by the time we reached Ermeline she was already coughing blood and growing purple spots on her skin. Father outlived her by a few weeks, leaving me alone with one last request.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” I whispered as I took out the funeral urn from my bag. My parents’ ashes had been waiting for fifteen years. “Your final wish is now fulfilled.”

I waited for the wind to blow behind me to open it. My parents’ ashes scattered into a cloud, merging with the fading snowflakes.

“Was that someone important to you?” Marika asked with a somber look.

“My parents.” I watched solemnly as Archfrost’s wind scattered my family to the winds. How strange it felt to see my past carried away; both liberating and sorrowful. The future was mine alone to shape, for better or worse. “It’s traditional in Archfrost to scatter ashes with the snow. That way, their essence remains to protect the land.”

“I have the understanding.” Soraseo nodded sharply. “We burn the dead in my homeland too, so the dead do not rise again.”

I put the empty urn back in my bag as the docks stretched across the riverbank like a jagged scar. The piers’ timbers creaked when sailors moored our ship to it. The more Marika observed the area, the more she scowled; Little Benicio too began to cower behind her.

“Snowdrift has seen better days,” I confessed. The city had become a corpse of its former, living self.

“It’s not just the disrepair,” Marika said grimly. “There’s evil at work in this town. I feel it in the ambient essence.”

I frowned in confusion and focused on my surroundings. My mark warmed beneath my glove as my eyes began to distinguish the shades of essence suffusing Snowdrift. I immediately noticed something unusual. A shadow in the wind. A faint red mist laden with curses.

The exact same smoke that rose from Sforza when he transformed into an abomination.

“A demon.” My jaw clenched in frustration. Had the rot festered so much since I left? “There’s a demon hiding in my town.”

Considering the last fiend I met was Sforza, there could only be one answer to this indignity: root the monster out and take it down.

Wait… come to think of it, when I spent time doing accounting work for Sforza’s organization, I remembered mentions of contraband shipments coming from Archfrost. I never knew what they were—another branch of the criminal syndicate managed the merchandise—but considering Snowdrift was the closest port to the Riverland Federation, the contraband must have transited through it.

I’d wondered where Sforza found his cursed coin. Perhaps he received it from Snowdrift?

Our journey came to an end along a worn-down cobblestone pier. The scent of fish hung heavily in the air. Sailors guided Soraseo’s black stallion along the waterway and then bid us goodbye.

“Our moment of travel ends here,” Soraseo said, a hand holding her horse’s reins. “I must continue north to Stonegarde.”

“You’ll waste your time.” I shook my head. “Stonegarde’s garrison won’t grant you passage.”

Soraseo frowned at me. “What is your meaning?”

“I’ve discussed it with the other passengers. Due to the fear of spies feeding the beastmen information, the border is completely closed.” Considering Archfrost usually allowed traders and scouts to pass to gather information on their enemies, then the raids must have gotten pretty bad to warrant such a measure. “You’ll need a royal authorization to pass.”

“I must ask the Prince for allowance?”

“No. You’ll need to go to his uncle, Sigismund, who oversees Archfrost’s northern defenses.” I pointed a finger at a dusky hill overseeing the better half of the city. A black castle sat atop it. “The city’s ruler, Count Brynslow, is one of his vassals. I suggest seeking an audience with him first.”

Knowing Archfrost’s bureaucracy, it would take Soraseo weeks to receive her authorization. Perhaps less if she unveiled her class, but that would cause the crown to try and recruit her to their cause. I almost pitied Soraseo, even though these delays might save her life.

“I have understanding…” Soraseo crossed her arms in deep frustration. “But this angers me very much.”

“It’ll take some time before the count grants you an audience,” I informed Soraseo. “How about you help us root out the demon in town in the meantime? I can help you secure an audience in return.”

“What do trees have to do with demons?” the Monk replied in confusion before shaking her head. “But I will not give a demon permission to live.”

Marika scowled at me. “We’ve just arrived and you want to pick a fight?”

“You were ready to challenge a fellow hero to heal their cursed weapon,” I pointed out. “From what little experience I have with them, demons are a curse on mankind.”

“You have no need to worry, Lady Marika.” Soraseo’s hand moved to her sword’s pommel. “I have the power. No demon will harm you.”

“I can defend myself,” Marika said, her sledgehammer glittering in the dawn’s light. Her eyes wandered to her fearful son. “It’s not for me I worry about.”

“I swear to the goddess we’ll play it smart,” I reassured her. Nothing would happen to Benicio on my watch. “We’ll lay low for now, settle in and gather information.”

Marika nodded slowly, although without much enthusiasm. “So we’re going to rent a room somewhere?”

“No need.” I waved a hand at the empty houses along the waterfront. “Don’t you see? The whole town is for sale.”

Marika didn’t have to ponder my words for long. We walked towards the nearest customs office, a big house near the waterfront, and swiftly met with a representative of Snowdrift’s trade guild: a lovely middle-aged blonde by the name of Lady Freygrad. She was delighted to hear I was a local seeking to resettle in Snowdrift; doubly so when Marika revealed herself as a blacksmith.

“The Purple Plague and war left our city’s guilds in shambles,” Lady Freygrad explained. “As such, we are offering good terms to entice new craftsmen. I can waive any registration fee with the blacksmith guild, grant you a five-year long tax exemption, and help you secure a workshop for a modest fee.”

“We’re looking for a house in a strategic location,” I said. “Either near the docks or city-center.”

“I can provide you with a two-floor house unoccupied along the waterway, with a workshop on the ground floor and living quarters above. One thousand-square feet. The forge comes with a furnace, an anvil, a water trough, and a storage area.”

Marika scowled. Such a property would be quite pricey. “How much?”

“Thirty silver,” Lady Freygrad answered.

I thought I’d misunderstood for a second. “You mean thirty-thousand?”

“No. Thirty silver.”

Marika choked in astonishment at the shockingly low price. “For one-thousand square feet?”

I didn’t expect things to be so bad. A house with a workshop of that size should cost a hundred times the selling price. The trip to Archfrost alone cost us more when I factored in the rations and other accomodations.

“Many victims of the plague died without a living heir, and it costs us more to maintain the place than to sell away.” Lady Freygrad sighed. “Frankly, we need all the skilled laborers we can get. Our forgeworks can’t keep up with Stonegarde’s demands for new weapons.”

“See? See?!” I told Marika with a triumphant smile. “You won’t lack for work here.”

“My main expertise is as a weapon exorcist,” Marika pointed out. “I’m good at making new weapons, but better at purifying old ones.”

“Oh, then you have come to the right town!” Lady Freygrad smiled ear to ear. She must have thought she had stumbled on a jewel. “Our last exorcist perished a few months ago. Our citizens are constantly complaining about hauntings.”

Marika bristled, her back tense as a bowstring. “What kind?”

“Bloody letters appearing on tombstones out of nowhere, respectable citizens running around with swords one instant and forgetting everything the next…” Lady Freygrad’s smile strained a bit. “Nothing a trained weapon exorcist can’t handle. The town will pay generously for the service.”

Marika and I exchanged a glance. Her intense stare told me she no longer had any doubts, but something else weighed on her mind.

“I have need of meeting the count,” Soraseo said with impatience. “Can I have an audience with him?”

As I expected, Lady Freygrad denied the request. “You will have to wait,” she warned us. “Count Brynslow is terribly ill and not in the position to welcome visitors. His heir and granddaughter, Lady Alaire, is doing the best she can to manage the city in his absence, but she is terribly young and overworked.”

“But I must pass through Stonegarde!” Such was Soraseo’s anger that she started cursing in her native Shinkokan; or at least, I assumed that was the case from her tone. “I must go to the Deadgate!”

“The Deadgate?” Lady Freygrad looked at Soraseo as if she were insane. “Lady Soraseo, that’s madness. The border is closed and the guards won’t let you through.”

Soraseo’s hand clenched around her pommel. “Then I will fight my way through.”

“Easy now,” I tried to calm her down. “Lady Freygrad has nothing to do with this…”

To her credit, the guild officer reacted to Soraseo’s anger with calm aplomb. “Stonegarde is the only pass through the Whitethroat Mountains and over a thousand soldiers guard the fortress,” Lady Freygrad warned us. “Unless you can dig through miles of stone and ice or fight them all off on your own, you will have to wait for the Count to recover or Duke Sigismund to open the border. Which, considering the current troubles, is unlikely to happen anytime soon.”

I’d heard the same thing from the sailors. The city’s ruler, Count Brynslow, was dying from an illness. His superior, Duke Sigismund, was preoccupied with the beastmen skirmishes from the north. The regent, Queen Clemence, gave free reign to her favorites to mismanage the country’s affairs. The Duchy of Walbourg remained in open rebellion and beastmen were growing more aggressive. Crown-Prince Roland seethed at the current situation, but was still months away from reaching the age to rule.

Archfrost was rotting at the seams, and evil used the opportunity to infiltrate it.

Soraseo grunted in anger, but did not unsheath her sword. I took the opportunity to reassure her. “We’ll find a way,” I said. “Patience. You can count on us.”

Soraseo looked away and sulked. She kept her hand on her pommel though. I had the distinct feeling she had grown used to cutting through her problems, and that she struggled to take the wiser path.

Now that I knew a brawl wouldn’t start, I seized the opportunity to fish for information.

“I should also mention that I represent the late Thief-Taker of Ermeline, Lord Sforza,” I lied through my teeth. “Ermeline established a fluvial connection with this fair city, but Lord Sforza and the Duke’s death threw our operations into shambles. I was sent to check on the next shipment and smooth over the transition.”

“Ah yes, I’ve heard of the troubles in Ermeline.” Lady Freygrad nodded to herself. From her lack of surprise, she must have expected a representative from the Riverland Federation to approach her. “I was told to send anyone from there to the Gilded Wolf.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The Gilded Wolf?”

“It’s the biggest establishment in Snowdrift’s slums. A tavern, inn, brothel, and gambling den all rolled into one package. Most crates sent to Ermeline were sent by the owner, Fenrivos.” She snickered. “Or ‘Lord’ Fenrivos, as he likes being called.”

I pounced on the opportunity. “From your reaction, I assume you don’t like him much?”

“My job isn’t to like our merchants, but to help them,” Lady Freygrad replied shrewdly. Since she avoided answering my question, I guessed that this Fenrivos was drawn from the same cloth as Sforza. “Now, let me show you the property.”

She guided us to a two-story house nestled between the city’s docks and forgeworks. The structure loomed high with its sturdy timber frame and stone walls. The windows’ paint had peeled away, and while the workshop on the ground floor could be put to work immediately, the living quarters lacked beds and other amenities. I would have to purchase a few things to make it feel halfway like a home, or watch Marika work her magic.

Still, thirty silver for a property of that size was a steal.

“If you need anything to settle in quicker, do not hesitate to call upon me,” Lady Freygrad said when I exchanged my hard-earned coins for the keys. “I will see what I can do to arrange an audience with the count once he recovers enough, Lady Soraseo.”

Soraseo scoffed gruffly. She clearly didn’t expect anything from the guild officer. Lady Freygrad took it in stride, excused herself with a warm smile, and then left us on the threshold of our new property. I watched her leave with a heart full of hope. There was a lot of work to do in Snowdrift, and many opportunities to seize if I played my cards right.

“Well, there’s enough space for your horse downstairs,” I told Soraseo. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”

She didn’t answer me. In fact, none of my companions said a word. Soraseo listened to the wind with a sharp gaze. Marika bit her own lip in uneasiness, with her son fidgeting as his eyes darted left to right. It reminded me of a rabbit sensing a wolf lurking nearby.

I squinted at them. “What’s bothering you?”

“Robin.” Marika’s jaw clenched so tightly I worried she might break a tooth. “There’s something wrong with this town.”

“Besides a demon’s presence?” I mused out loud.

“Unfortunately, yes,” she replied, much to my surprise. “You’re not trained enough in witchcrafting to notice, but the air is suffused with corrupted essence.”

“I feel it too,” Soraseo said with a deep scowl. “The wind is heavy with evil.”

Marika crossed her arms, her expression darkening. “If we do nothing, I fear this town will soon be destroyed.”

A chill went down my spine. “Explain yourself.”

“When dangerous essences—pain, despair, cruelty, and worse—gather in great quantities in a single place, they eventually coalesce into a terrible curse.” Marika marked a short pause, as if the very word was a curse. “A Blight.”

Now that was cause for alarm. Blights were monster dens. The Riverland Federation paid a fortune to brave adventurers willing to destroy them. “I thought they only formed in the wilderness?”

“Because cities pay witchcrafters and essence exorcists to nip them in the bud,” Marika explained. “A Blight is a wound upon the land, Robin; a curse of such proportions that it warps the physical world. You need terrible deeds to birth one. Either a great tragedy or the weight of human suffering compounding over time.”

“And Snowdrift is clearly descending down the second path,” I said. A worrying picture formed in my mind as I connected disparate odds. “How fortuitous that the city’s last exorcist dies when a demon is visiting.”

Marika bit her lower lip in worry. “You think the two events are connected?”

“If the Demon Ancestors have truly returned, we can’t exclude anything.” The Devil of Greed could turn men into monsters. Cursing a city would be the next logical step. “Can you exorcise the city?”

She shook her head, much to my horror. “I can stall the Blight’s formation, but at this point it would be like giving a soothing balm to a burn victim. It will alleviate the pain, but the wound goes too deep.”

“What would cure the city, then?” I asked. Snowdrift was my hometown. There was no way I would let it die without a fight. “Would killing the demon work?”

Soraseo put a hand on her sword’s pommel. “We must find the evil and destroy it.”

“Destroying the demon might help the way killing a poisoner will prevent them from fouling a well,” Marika conceded. “But a Blight is like a toxic bog. It forms when essence pollution accumulates. The surest way to clean it is to have a stream of pure essence wash it away.”

I immediately caught on. Happy, healthy cities didn’t generate corrupted essences. Snowdrift suffered from a spiritual sickness. Unemployment, unhappiness, poverty, and despair… All these ills allowed an infection to fester.

I grabbed a coin from my purse and raised it towards the sky. The metal reflected the sunlight upon the somber city. I tried to remember Snowdrift as it used to be in my childhood, before banishing that phantasm from my mind.

I didn’t want to help my hometown regain its lost glory out of nostalgia. I wanted it to become better. To be reborn painted with gold and drowned in opportunities. It was an ambitious goal fraught with risks, but one worth pursuing.

“Can I count on you both?” I asked my fellow heroes.

“I don’t want to expose Beni to danger,” Marika admitted, a hand on her son’s head. “But this town needs us. Thousands of lives are at risk.”

Soraseo too gave me her word, albeit with less resolve. “I have said my word. I do not give any demon permission to live.”

“Then come with me,” I said imperiously. If she was willing to help deal with the demon, then I would fulfill her wish in return. “I’ll earn us an audience with the count to settle the demon problem. You can plead your own case then.”

If this city was like a diseased body, then I would have to start curing the head. It would make the treatment easier to accept.

“I have no understanding,” Soraseo replied with a frown. “Lady Freygrad said we could not get an audience.”

“The guards will let us through once I tell them I can cure their employer.” I’d spent a lot of time cozying up to nobles. I knew how they worked. “He’ll owe us a favor then. Getting him to write a letter to Stonegarde should be trivial.”

“Cure him?” Marika put a hand on her waist. “And how do you intend to do that?”

“Easy.” I flipped my coin in the air. “I’m going to buy his disease, and sell it back for a profit.”

Eris had been right.

There were more ways to help others than by just killing evildoers after all.