Two o'clock past midnight is the time when sun-fearing beings emerge, the time when the walls of St. Ludwell's Cathedral seem to watch the passers-by.
Selene stood in the back alley of the church's administrative building. This time he wasn't wearing his long coat, but simple black clothes that didn't reflect the light. In his pocket, the wooden doll seemed to pulsate as if a small heart had been implanted within its wooden chest.
"Remember... don't look at the statues," Selene repeated in his mind as he climbed the copper pipe that ran along the stone wall.
The gargoyles in the churches of Arknum are not mere decorations; they are magical eyes connected to the senses of the Purifiers. As a ninth-rank Listener, Selene could hear a faint buzzing from the stone, a buzzing like a sleeping beehive. If he looked
Directly to her, he would wake her.
He crept through a half-open window on the third floor, the floor reserved for Inspector General Vargas's office.
The office was thick with the scent of sacred incense and ancient papyrus. Celine moved with the nimbleness of a cat, avoiding the patches of moonlight falling from the high windows. He reached the massive ebony desk and began searching for the right place to plant the doll.
Suddenly, his breath caught.
He heard a voice that didn't come from his ears, but echoed directly inside his skull.
"Someone... here... the smell of... sin..."
The voice was coming from the lower stairwell.
Heavy, steady footsteps were approaching.
"Cleansed off the guard's trail! He's checking the floors," Celine realized shrewdly.
Quickly, Celine noticed a crack in the wooden floor beneath the heavy filing cabinet. He shoved the doll inside and whispered the wordHe pressed the doll firmly into her and whispered the key word the mechanic had given him:
Sleep, and let your eyes see what we cannot.
As soon as the doll was settled, the whispers abruptly ceased, and there was an absolute silence. But the door opened slowly.
A tall man entered, wearing leather armor beneath his church robes, and carrying a lantern that emitted a brilliant white light that burned away shadows. This light was the Light of Truth, the deadly poison for any illegal Beyonder.
Celine hid behind a heavy velvet curtain, pressing his hands to his mouth to stifle even the sound of his breathing. He began to feel an immense spiritual pressure; Purgatory possesses natural auras that expel spiritual entities.
The Purgatory stopped in the middle of the room and raised his lantern toward the curtain behind which Celine was hiding.
At that moment, Celine felt the coin in his pocket go freezing cold, as ifIt absorbs his body heat to conceal him.
Just a few more seconds...
The footsteps passed beside the curtain, and the disinfectant headed toward the window. "It was probably just another street cat," the man muttered hoarsely, then went out and closed the door behind him.
Celine didn't move for several minutes. When he was sure the footsteps were gone, he leaped from the window into the alley, his heart pounding. He had successfully planted the wooden spy, but he felt something strange... He touched his pocket and found that the gold coin had changed.
It no longer bore the image of the flaming eye, but now it was engraved with a severed ear.
The transition had begun. The eighth rank was at hand, but this time it was demanding a physical price.
Celine returned to his cramped room, but he didn't sleep.
Cold sweat covered his forehead, and the coin in
his pocket pulsed with an icy chill that made his thigh
go numb. He knew that "digesting"Rank 9 was complete. Planting the puppet in the enemy's lair was the final act he needed to prove his worth as an information-manipulating "listener."
The next day, he headed to the Rusty Gears Club. The place no longer seemed as terrifying as before; it felt... familiar. As if rust and gears were the language his mind now understood.
He entered the hall, and the Mechanic was waiting for him. The Mechanic didn't say a word, but pushed the velvet box toward him. The golden bottle inside writhed with the ingredients, like a living being trying to escape.
"You've done it," the Mechanic said in a sound like the scraping of copper. "The puppet has started sending its signals. Take your share, but beware... Rank 8 doesn't just change your mind; it starts opening holes in your soul for others to enter."
Celine took the bottle and returned to a secluded cellar beneath his house. He drew a magic circle with silver powder and placed four blackened candlesof sea pig fat.
He began pouring the extra ingredients he had collected:
The eye nerve of the Mist Monster: it dissolved in the golden liquid, turning it a hazy gray.
The suicide's blood added a tinge of dark red, and the liquid began to moan.
The mechanical heart he inserted last, and the whole bottle began to tick like a stopwatch.
Celine lifted the bottle; it trembled in his hand.
The whispers in his ears were now a collective
shout: "Drink... listen to us... be a storehouse for our sins!"
He gulped the liquid down in one go.
The moment the liquid touched his tongue, it felt as if thousands of heated needles were being driven into his ears. He could no longer see the room; instead, he saw transparent threads extending from everything around him. Threads coming out of the walls, of the insects, even of his memories
He felt his body stretching, and sensed a third "ear" sprouting behind his mind. It didn't hear physical sounds, but rather "intentions."
"I... I'm the Collector of Secrets..." Selene muttered, as his eyes overflowed with a black, ink-like liquid.
Images began to flood his mind from the "dummy" he had planted in the Inspector's office. He saw Inspector Vargas opening a secret letter sealed with a red wax seal in the shape of a "skull with its tongue cut out." He heard the Inspector's voice whisper to himself:
"The expedition to the Lost Continent will set sail in three days... The Fool mustn't know about this."
Suddenly, the connection was lost. Selene collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. He had succeeded in being promoted to the eighth rank, but he had realized something terrifying. When he heard the name "Fool" in the Inspector's mind, he had seen an image of a high chair above a gray mist... an image no human of his rank should ever see
Selene straightened up and looked at his hand. He could now "capture" any secret he overheard and turn it into power, but the price was clear: each time he used his ability, he would lose a portion of his personal memory to make room for new secrets.
Rank 8 Characteristics (Secret Collector)
:(Collector
Information Storage: Can convert "secrets" into offensive spells (the more dangerous the secret, the stronger the attack).
Auditory Vision: Can hear the "pulse" of lies or truth in other people's speech.
The Price: Gradual loss of trivial memories (such as his real name, his childhood) versus forbidden knowledge