The past came with its fair share of blood and bad memories, but it also had the faintest touch of something beautiful tucked away in the strands almost forgotten. Like staring through a foggy mirror, Unknown could see a figure looking back him in the haze; he could see it smile. He had dreams of people whose names and faces he couldn’t remember. He heard a voice whisper to him during sleep some nights. And the harder he pushed to grow stronger, the more he felt primal emotions, like failure, lost love, and remorse for someone he let down. If only he knew who that person was, then maybe he’d be able to think straight. But instead, he was left to brood while mastering Blood Magic day by day, spilling buckets of the stuff from every monster he took down, never seeing beyond the miasma of garbled memories. He just wanted to remember. That’s all he wanted.

At level 35, his Blood Mage class was a force to be reckoned with, and even Allister began to notice. She’d send scouts to track him through the Spire, always up to date on his progress. But Unknown didn’t care. She could watch all she wanted. At least one of them was making progress, and he was glad it wasn’t her.

However, he couldn’t ignore her after being summoned to Grimshackle Manor. Apparently, she wanted to talk. Maybe strike a deal. Or, more likely, she wanted to get in close with the Mantle of Benediction and turn him into another puppet. People like her never groveled—they stole, cheated, and lied. And he’d be a fool not to expect the worst of Allister Cain, who notoriously mastered all three of those skills.

It was midday when he arrived at the manor, though he didn’t approach the front entrance, but the rear, and he climbed up the pipework of a gutter to Allister’s private balcony. Naturally, she was there waiting—just as he expected. The meeting that followed was cordial and laced with deception on both sides.

“Oh dear,” Allister said in a soft, bemused voice. Her creamy white hair was in shadow, and she sat next to the manor wall and a small table, one leg crossed over the other. “A thief has broken in and intends to ruin me. Whatever shall I do?”

“Jumping off the balcony would be a good start,” he answered.

They still weren’t working together, but weren’t getting in each other’s way, either, not until Unknown took a crack at Dead-Eyes. That was the current deal. If he beat Floor 1, she’d let Red River work in tandem with his own efforts, though it was still unclear whether or not she knew his intentions. He’d never let her wishes be granted at the tenth floor.

Allister tapped her fingers in a line on the table, smiling sweetly. “Won’t you come closer? I don’t bite.”

“Not on your life.”

She hummed a single tone through a breath exhaled from her nose. “So cautious. Are you afraid I’m a viper? Do you think my fangs are that venomous? It’s such a shame, really. We used to be so close. So alike. Now we’re different.”

“We’ve never been close nor similar,” Unknown asserted. “Now tell me why I’m here. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have henchmen to do my work for me like you do.”

At that, she snickered under her breath and stood up, walking to the balcony’s end with a lackadaisical stride, like someone who would fit perfectly on a beach at sundown, drinking a glass of wine. He kept a safe distance, because like always, the Mantle rested over her shoulders—a curse of those who owned it. And when leaning forward, staring toward the city, and beyond that, the Spire, Allister cooed softly a message specifically for him:

“Amelia’s gaining ground, you know. Her power is rising. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could pull off Restore Life at this point.” She glanced at Unknown and winked. “That party of hers is rather enthused with getting stronger. You tail them occasionally, yes? They’re not like most parties just looking for a payday.”

“And why is this relevant to me?”

“Because,” she sighed. “Since you’re here, I assume you don’t know where Amelia is. I do. And I think you’d be intrigued to find out.”

“She’s with her party, I’d assume.”

“Yes, about that…” Allister smirked. “You really have been obsessed with this new class of yours, haven’t you? Did you know about the fire in the city this morning?”

“I smelled it,” he stated, now wary. “That’s it.”

She clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Sloppy work. How unfortunate. Amelia is in the Rupture with her party, and I just received word they were captured by Septic Eel and taken to Crow’s Watch. Two of her friends were wounded quite badly.”

Unknown watched her with a trace of doubt in his eyes. Was she lying? Luring him into a trap? No, that didn’t seem right. From what he could tell, Allister was telling the truth, which meant Amelia was in grave danger, and he couldn’t ignore the situation.

Be that as it may, he forced himself to hold a steady, unflustered gaze. “And why haven’t you attempted to rescue her?”

“Oh, but I am.” Allister stood up straight and gestured to the table, on which lay a glass of alcohol. She respired in the autumn air. “I’m busy, as you can see, so won’t you be a dear and retrieve her? I assume you’ll go whether I ask you or not, but please—don’t cause a stir with the other guilds. It’s unnecessary and will make our jobs harder in the future. So just rescue her and get out.”

He smirked. “Lazy, as always.”

“No, just wise beyond your understanding. Now please—run along and help my sister. She’s such a sweet girl, and I really would hate to see her suffer.”

With the conversation over, Unknown gave her one last condescending that he hoped would get under her skin, and like a bandit, he departed from the manor with a disdain for his own negligence. How could he not monitor Amelia’s movements? How could he not know about her and Septic Eel? Maybe he really had been too absorbed in Blood Magic, but then again…his new skills were about to make his job a whole lot easier.

******

He had spent a lot of time working under the noses of Septic Eel, and if there was one part of their guild he could count on, it was their lack of humility. They were a prideful bunch, stupidly arrogant. They’d bite off more than they could chew more often than not, the only problem was that no one had the balls to fight back—and of course that added to their ego. However, Unknown was in a good mood. He was more than happy to educate those bastards on who really ran Duncaster, and even though Red River was compromised, he wasn’t. They wouldn’t be allowed to hurt Amelia.

During the later phases of Allister’s experiments, Unknown met Amelia during a contracted assassination and escort job at Mossley—a city about five hours from Duncaster. She was in the infirmary where the job took place, a three-storied hospital where the wounded could be healed and the ill could find rest. But sadly, those things weren’t for her. Instead, she had undergone daily blood transfusions, weekly ritualistic ceremonies that caused her great pain, and she developed a severe anxiety disorder while living in the infirmary’s basement—which is where he found the target: Dr. Reynard White. Unknown’s mission was to kill the doctor and escort Amelia out of the city, which he most certainly did, but it was upon delivering his ‘cargo’ to a shack in the woods that he met the client who ordered the escort.

Allister Cain had just escaped from prison and couldn’t risk entering the city herself, so she hired Red River for the job. Dr. White and others had carried on her experiments, but since Allister was free, they were useless liabilities, so she wanted Amelia for herself in order to start from scratch. When she mentioned artificial leveling, defeating Dead-Eyes, and taking over the Spire, Unknown couldn’t help but take interest. It was a foolish decision, but he worked with her from then on, since he too wanted to beat the Spire.

He worked closely with Amelia, protected her. She lived below Grimshackle Manor for weeks and underwent the same experiments as before plus others, and when at last the final ritual was prepared, he sat through it as Allister, four other warlocks, and a necromancer carried it out, eventually sending her into a comatose state as her brain and body were rewritten from the inside out. By the end, she was level 100, but without the slightest memory of her past.

And that’s when the kids from Rat’s Ass found her. They took away from the pain and the constant isolation. They set her free and gave her a chance to start over fresh. There was no way Unknown would let Septic Eel take that away from her—and he certainly wouldn’t make the mistake of delivering her back to Allister. No, Amelia would stay with her guild and be happy. That’s the least he could do for everything that had happened.

However, he wouldn’t stop at just freeing Amelia. He’d go much further than that.

Allister said not to cause a stir with the other guilds, but fortunately for Unknown, he was a master at not giving a damn. Red River was taken from him, and despite her promises, she’d never give it back until the tenth floor of the Spire was hers, of that he was certain. Therefore, as he entered the Spire and delved into the Rupture, he chuckled under his breath and thought of just how badly this would irritate that egotistical bastard.

“So, you want this done quietly?” he said, glancing down at his wrist. The numbers 89 and 35 stared back. “Sorry, but I feel like being loud for once. I take orders from no one. Maybe this will help you remember that.”

******

Crow’s Watch: a cesspool of devout assholes who worshipped their own guild. It was deep in the Rupture’s forests, hidden behind a jagged cliff that all but swallowed the fortress, and the walls were guarded elaborately, giving no chance of sneaking in. The mine would be a rash entry as well. These people were thorough, and from previous experience, they never gave themselves a weak point.

But as providence would have it, Unknown had no intentions of sneaking inside. Rather, he would go straight through the front gate, causing as much damage as he could on the way in. It was a perfect opportunity to unleash, to see what his Blood Magic was really capable of; anyone that tried to stop him would die, and if Amelia was hurt…they’d suffer beforehand.

With a smug grin, he approached the front gate to the calls of guards overhead commanding him to halt, and many of them readied their bows, shouting all the while.

Still, he proceeded.

The shadows were long due to the walls’ immense height, and Septic Eel left the entrance wide open—probably because they were cocky enough to welcome any challenge. Too bad they couldn’t anticipate a magic that didn’t exist.

And it was then, as the Marksman targeted him from above, as a pair of Warriors and a Sorcerer gathered at the entrance to block him, that he decided to initiate the encounter with a new skill. Rainmaker—learned at level 34—created a dark cloud above his location that rained blood, and in seconds, the brightness of day vanished as plumes of gray took hold of the sky, sprinkling at first, then pouring torrents of metallic, odorous burgundy that roared upon every surface. It drenched everything, turning the soil dark, forming puddles in a hurry, tracing red lines on people’s skin and soaking their clothing, their hair. With the sudden chaos, it didn’t take long for panic to ensue, and for the Adventurers at the gate, their lives were on the verge of being poured out just like the blood rain.

Unknown darted to the closest, a Warrior, and jabbed a fist into his stomach, then drew his sword as the man fell. He then slashed across the chest of the Sorcerer, only to abuse the second Warrior terribly, using Control to manipulate the life essence within the man’s body, levitate him off the ground, and throw him twenty meters.

It didn’t take long for other members of the guild to realize he was the storm’s source, and they charged at him, hollering with rage and fear amidst the bitter rain, but for them he had another surprise. Using the Control skill, he pulled blood from puddles in the ground and formed a coursing stream of it through the air. That stream crashed into those who ran, those who charged, and those who stood motionless in disbelief. Never had they experienced something like this before. Never would they forget.

With the stream of blood, he knocked people away, nearly drowned others, and quelled several screams that would have otherwise pierced the air with terrified shrieks. In the blink of eye, Crow’s Watch belonged to him. And yet there were still no signs of Amelia or her party, which led him to believe they’d been taken to the dungeon. Perfect. It would be interesting to see his magic perform in tight quarters rather than wide-open spaces.

And as he threw attackers away, as he forced them to choak on blood, as he trod along like a demon in human form, he knew the fun was over. Enough games. No more statements. Word of his new powers would spread all over the city, the kingdom even, and that was good enough for him. Now, while eliminating the obstacles around him, he just needed to rescue Amelia and get out of there. Next time, Septic Eel would think twice before kidnapping and imprisoning a person who deserved neither.