He came in humming—nothing anyone knew, just a line of notes that sounded like someone who'd already counted his problems and found them shy. Roland watched him cross the yard with the baffled look of a man who'd missed the setup to a joke.
"Roland. Father," he said, chin to the chapel. "Same room as before."
They went. The door sighed shut; the bolt came down; the crossbar followed. That kind of hurry told the truth: Mathis was a state secret in a place too small to be a state.
"I'd like my second payment now," Nameless said, even, and set a wrapped bundle on the sacristy table. The cloth folded back.
Mathis's head looked up at no one.
Both men flinched hard enough to scrape wood. Roland's breath caught and tore—in his hatred, still revealing a shred of compassion for the wretch, he sobbed once: "Mathis—"
Father Aldric's eyes closed. He gave the silence its full minute.
Before pity could grow legs, Nameless tipped the moment where he wanted it. "Use your blessing on him, Father. Test my intentions. Give the boy what's left of a funeral."
Father Aldric hesitated only a heartbeat, then raised his hands. Light gathered like a cupped flame and fell over the face. Flesh answered like wax—pulled tight, then fled—leaving bone bare and honest.
[Miscellaneous: Mathis' Skull — Cleansed x1]
Aldric lowered his hands, understanding where the gesture pointed. A line crossed; a heart pledged elsewhere. You don't dress grief for a mask that chose itself.
Mathis had stepped past the boundary and into a wholly malign alignment; that's why the blessing bit so deep. There's no mourning to hang on a skull that wears its choice so plainly—what human trace remained had turned crooked.
Nameless didn't leave the space open. "There was another Razorback," he said. "You hadn't seen it yet. I ended it." He did not mention wolves. He did not mention angles. Reputation is a tool—he used it.
Roland stared at him like a man measuring a wall he'd thought he knew. "Alone?"
"Alone," Nameless said, and did not explain further. "Both beasts were drawn here. By him." He touched the satchel, drew out a torn strip of purple cloth—the cult habit Mathis had worn—and set it by the skull.
Nameless didn't leave the silence to grow teeth. "Penumbra work," he said. "This is how their new initiates behave when they're taken out of villages: they come back to erase their past. They set fires to make smoke for the story, cut the bell-rope so no one calls help, and if they can, they put the priest in the ash and the captain on a hook. It's theater and oath in one—close the past with fire and a count of bodies, and your hood sits straighter. An occultist should be properly occult."
The room took that in like bad news it already suspected. Roland's mouth worked once, anger and leftover mercy fighting each other until neither won. Aldric's face settled into sorrow without surprise—the deeper kind reserved for the living.
"I buried what remained," Nameless said, voice back to ledger. "Out past the ridge, near the boar I took without help. The head stays; proof for your books. As for the Razorback—its spoils are mine by the law we agreed."
He let the humming start again, soft and tuneless, while the priest and the captain decided what to do with a skull, a strip of cloth, and a village that had just learned what its closet was hiding.
"Since I killed not one enemy but two—and the bigger would have been your real problem—I think my 'second reward' can fairly become two in one."
Roland's mouth started to harden on principle, but he caught Aldric's eyes—and the quick, tired assent there—and let the argument die. He gave a small nod.
With a Venetian's pulse in his chest, Nameless pressed the bargain. "I'd like two services from two of your people. One from the blacksmith, and one from your best seamstress—tailor, whoever can truly sew. Paid for by the village's secret," he added, dry.
Before doubt could gather: "Don't worry. I'll bring every scrap of material. Nothing comes out of your stores but labor-hours."
"Reasonable," Roland said, and turned to the door. "I'll fetch them."
As he moved, Nameless leaned close to Aldric, voice low. "I have something important for us to discuss tomorrow. Not urgent—but it touches the cult and this village's future."
Aldric, impassive by habit, inclined his head. "Morning, in my room."
Nameless left the chapel and headed for the watchtower—now that he'd ensured the former occupant wouldn't reclaim possession of the lodging—and waited.
It wasn't long. Roland arrived with two figures in his wake.
"Étienne," Roland said, by way of introduction, "our smith." Perfect Sight wrote the rest where the man stood, forearms like anvils, soot in the lines of his face:
Étienne — Level 6.
"And my wife, Sabine." Needles and measuring cord looped her neck; she had the steady hands of someone who could hem a sleeve during a thunderstorm and never miss a stitch.
Sabine — Level 4.
They stopped under the eave, measuring him back while Roland closed the door. "You asked for work," the captain said. "Here are the hands."
He'd already read the smith last night; now he had a name to file with the number. Étienne — L6. Sabine he scanned quickly—steady hands, measured gaze, L4—and set her beside the figure he'd imagined of "the one who can truly sew."
He turned to Étienne first.
"I want a veneer of tusk over this," he said, setting the Razorback ivory and Mathis's skull on the bench. "Front plate preserved. Split the cranium here"—a tap along the parietal suture—"remove the back, and make the front a mask."
[Removed: Mathis' Skull — Cleansed x1]
Étienne didn't flinch at the bone; he flinched at the idea. Then he squared to it like any problem that would pay.
"The tusk is the skin," Nameless continued. "Thin cuts, heat-formed to the curve, pinned and bonded to the bone—tusk as marble on a chapel wall. Stronger than skull alone. Drill anchor points at the temples and jaw."
[Removed: Razorback Tusk — Large x1]
He laid out the materials. "For lacing: twist the boar backstrap sinew into cord; it holds better than gut in weather. For the headband, cut me a strip of boar hide from the shoulder—oiled, not stiff."
[Removed: Razorback Hide (Heavy) ×1]
He let the humor land dry. "Some say most people only keep their heads because they're attached. Not his case."
Étienne's mouth went a little thin, but the nod came. Morbid or not, an order was an order—and the honorarium would be sized to the discomfort.
Nameless watched the skull a beat longer, then thought, "Not bad for a sage. Philosophy is only the meditation of death, the ancients said. Let the road remember where it bends."
He crossed to Sabine before questions could grow.
"I'll bring you two habits—this black working one and a purple one," he said, already unfastening ties. "Sew them into a reversible: turn inside-out to wear either side clean. Between them, stitch a floating layer of boar hide—thin—so the whole piece remains medium weight, not heavy. It's for taking a hit, not dragging a cart."
[Removed: Work Habit — Poor Cloth — L1 x1]
[Removed: Initiate's Penumbra Habit — Poor Cloth — L1 x1]
[Removed: Razorback Hide (Heavy) ×1]
He paused, then softened the edges of what he meant to hide. The beast between two clerics—angel without, animal within. Men who think with clarity often burn with appetite; the crown of man is mind, Promethean fire borrowed and spent.
He lifted his gloves onto her table. "One more. Take these poor things and give them teeth. Wolf fangs and claws across the knuckles—four a hand, seated in leather cups and bound through with sinew. Face the backs with wolf pelt so the mounts don't tear free. I want to throw a punch and have it land like a rake."
[Removed: Poor Gloves — Cloth — L1 x1]
[Removed: Direwolf Fangs x4]
[Removed: Wolf Claws ×4]
[Removed: Wolf Pelts ×2]
He thought, "In the worst case, the expertise acquired in fist weapons may prove not useless, but a last resort."
He added, before appearing to complete the order: "Paint everything in black. If you need money for the dye, give me the bill later. Buy extra."
As Sabine traced invisible seams in the air, he let the old thought close its circle. "Prometheus lent us fire; the claws we forged ourselves. A tiger comes with knives; a man climbs a tree, then turns sticks and stones into answers. Our virtue is only that double nature doing its work—flesh and spirit, angel and animal. As the French have it: 'Is it not strange that an angel should be so like a demon?'"
Sabine's brows rose—first at the mask, then at the notion of sewing bone into fists—but her hands were already measuring distances in air, mapping seams, turning odd requests into patterns.
Two craftsmen, three problems. Confusion turned to work the way fear turns to prayer. It is always necessary to ask quickly, so as not to let doubts about the demand pile up and slow down the process.
They scattered—Roland with a nod, Etienne and Sabine with the odd haste that belongs to strange commissions. The door shut; quiet came back and sat where it liked.
"Points," he said to the room. "Spend them clean."
The sheet rose inside the skull, pale as breath on glass.
[INT +1] [WIS +1] [STR +1] [PER +1]
Numbers turned where they needed to.
INT 10 · WIS 9 · STR 6 · PER 7 (DEX 1 · CON 1 · STA 1 · WIL 3 · CHA 1 · PRV 2)
HP: 75
IP: 80
Breath: 35
[Skill Points: 2] — held.
He slung the satchel and stepped into the yard. The village had only one trader for first-needs—salt, nails, needles, gossip. Good enough. He wasn't hunting margin today; he was buying space.
He laid the bundles down without ceremony.
[Stored: Razorback Bristle Bundle ×1]
[Stored: Razorback Tusks ×1]
"Below fair, and fast," he said. "I don't want to carry them."
The man winced—then counted.
[Sold: Razorback Tusk — Large ×1 → +9 Bronze]
[Sold: Razorback Bristle Bundle ×1 → +2 Bronze]
[Coins: +11 Bronze]
[Purse: Bronze ×16]
"Not Venetian work," he told himself, dry. "You don't win every table."
He cinched the strap, lighter by intent.
[Hunter's Medium Satchel — Leather — 30 Slots]→ Used: 07 / 30 (stacked items counted per stack)
He walked the yard once, weighing the errands he'd set in motion—the skull turned mask, the twin habits with hide between, the gloves that would teach a fist to write. Paraphernalia for a man who planned to be alone. Tools that didn't ask for applause, only for work.
The village moved like a body that had remembered how. Rails denser. Bell rope within reach. Faces softer by an inch. He watched it and saw himself already on the far side of it—leaving by the wicket without a speech, a hood that hid what it needed to, a mask that warned more than it lied.
Players would come soon—bright, loud, sure of their names. He'd built a world that punished noise. All he had to do was keep being quiet.
The light tilted toward evening, fast as a rumor. He stood at the gate a breath longer, then turned for the watch-house. Bar down. Sword within reach. Satchel under the cot like a packed answer.
"A plan, then," he told the room that didn't argue. "Tomorrow."