23. Proposal

Outside town, Alistair walked slowly with a shardlamp in hand. His Seeker had only recently been resummoned, and the remaining gathering clones were still catching up on the work of harvesting starblooms. With that handled, he could go over the operation in his head.

He had succeeded, but he did not consider it a clean victory. The fight had taken too long, the clones had taken too much damage, and the inn had woken before he finished. He might have left clues behind, though none came immediately to mind. The disguises had been prepared in advance, the escaping clone had been seen, and the description those witnesses would give should not point back to him. He had used only his cheap knife, which was common enough to vanish into the background of any town. In his own view, the biggest risk had been taking Hedra’s thunder baton. It had been too valuable to leave behind, and he still was not sure whether that had been greed or good sense.

Thinking back on the fight, his biggest mistake had been underestimating her. Hedra’s class was almost certainly not combat-related, but levels had given her free points to bridge the difference. Her VIT and END must have been high. Her DEX and PER had been dangerous as well.

Bringing Misgiver, however, had been the right choice.

At first, the class had done very little. Without a direct sense of threat, Flinch was too specific to trigger properly. During the fight, however, Alistair had tried something new. He let Misgiver share not only his own awareness, but also the immediate battle tension moving through the other clones, and the skill answered.

It was a focused class, but so was Ledgerhand, and Ledgerhand had already proven its worth. With more active clone slots, Alistair could afford to bring in specialized tools. He had mixed feelings about Misgiver. The class reminded him too much of life under the Company, of always being on edge, always waiting for the next blow. At the same time, it reminded him of the instincts that had kept him alive there. Useful, whether he liked it or not.

It also gave him something he had been missing in combat. Misgiver was not truly offensive, but through the shared connection it became something close to a living warning sense. Used properly, that made every fighting clone better.

He would need it.

His utility classes were excellent, and he had little experience with combat classes. His physical stats were also not where they needed to be. Improvement would require using the combat-related classes more often and growing comfortable with them.

His thoughts returned to the gains from the night’s work. The fight, the infiltration, the kill, and the successful escape had brought in more EXP than a normal week of routine work.

Perhaps operations like this needed to become part of his growth. As for remorse, he could not muster any. Hedra had chosen her place in that trade. She had seen children brought through her inn and decided to profit from it. After that, her fate was simple.

She had earned the end she received.

After passing the knife and the thunder baton to another clone well away from the scene, Shade returned to the Split Cup. Alistair did not want to lose anything that might follow from the operation. He needed to make sure the attack would not be traced back to him. And if, despite everything, suspicion started moving in his direction, he wanted warning before it became a problem.

He had chosen the timing of the operation for exactly that reason. He had attacked while his usual starbloom gathering should have been underway. Earlier that night, he had made sure to be seen by the guards at the gate and by fellow gatherers heading out. If the town reacted quickly and started checking movements through the gates, it would only strengthen his alibi. In the worst case, if the situation turned against him, he could simply flee deeper into the forest and stay out of town until the pressure eased.

He kept Shade near the inn for a simpler reason too. He needed to see how the town actually handled murder.

He was beginning to understand that his lack of common sense about towns, common classes, and local authority was a serious weakness. If Verevain had even one skilled tracker who could follow traces from a crime scene, a careless operation could ruin everything.

During his strolls around town as Falsehand, he had heard rumors. Most were useless, but one had caught his attention. Some people claimed the magistrate employed an officer capable of tracking blood, hair, or other bodily traces. Alistair did not think that could help against his clones. Their traces all disappeared when the body dissolved. Still, such rumors were dangerous because they suggested possibilities. He could not assume his class made him untouchable.

Around the Split Cup, tension spread quickly. Most of the guests had already exited the building and were now gathered outside, whispering among themselves in fearful clusters. Neighbors drifted closer as the minutes passed. No one seemed eager to leave.

Almost half an hour passed before town officials arrived.

The magistrate himself led the force that arrived. Alistair recognized him only because of what the crowd muttered as the group approached. With him were four officers and a clerk carrying writing materials.

The magistrate began giving orders immediately.

“Secure the area,” he told three of the guards. “No one leaves until questioned.”

“You,” he said to the clerk, “get them in line. I want names, occupations, and what they heard.”

Then he pointed to the last guard. “With me.”

The clerk immediately began lining up the guests and nearby witnesses, while the guards pushed the crowd back from the entrance and stopped anyone from drifting away. The magistrate and the remaining guard entered the inn.

Shade stayed outside.

Alistair would not risk going back in now. Not when the building would be full of alert officials and whatever skills they brought with them. Watching from outside was safer, even if it left him blind to part of the investigation.

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The guards at the perimeter were doing their job properly. They kept people out of the inn while preventing anyone within the loose perimeter from leaving. The precaution suggested the town considered it possible the killer was still in the crowd or close nearby. Alistair was glad he had not sent Falsehand to mingle among them. He could probably have slipped away if needed, but it would have introduced unnecessary risk.

The magistrate and his guard stayed inside for a long time. More than ten minutes, but less than twenty. Alistair could not count the exact time. Whatever they were doing, it involved more than a quick glance at the body.

Eventually, the questioning outside began. Guests and witnesses were called one by one. The clerk wrote down names and statements, and each person then had to speak to the magistrate after he emerged from the inn. At first, the procedure failed to impress him. The procedure looked too simple.

Then someone in the crowd muttered something that sent cold through him.

“The Magistrate’s got a truth reading skill,” a man whispered to the woman beside him. “Don’t try anything clever.”

The woman muttered back, “You think I’m stupid?”

The comment sent a shiver through Alistair’s connection to Shade and into his main body. He had no wish to test whether his deception, or a clone’s deception, could hold up against a skill meant to catch lies or inconsistencies.

He was still thinking about that when another guard arrived.

The newcomer caught his attention immediately. The man tried to look calm, but there was tension in the way he moved, and he hid it poorly. More importantly, he had the mark on his ear. The same mark Alistair had noticed before. It was the mark that had made him suspect the man was tied to the local slaving structure.

Shade had to move closer.

Alistair pushed him closer, shifting Fade from deep shadow use to crowd use instead. That was riskier, but it let the clone slip nearer to the guards without standing apart. He needed to hear this conversation.

One of the perimeter guards noticed the new arrival first.

“Sergeant Pell,” he said, his tone making the rank clear. “What’re you doing here?”

So his name was Pell.

Pell straightened a little. “Sir. We heard about the attack on the inn.”

The other guard gave him a flat look. “So?”

Pell pressed on anyway. “The gatherers will be returning soon. We were wondering what to do at the gate. Should we close it?”

The senior guard frowned. “On whose orders?”

Pell hesitated just enough to show he had no such order yet. “No one’s, sir. I thought it best to ask.”

“You thought right, then. Stay at the gate until told otherwise.”

Pell glanced toward the inn, then lowered his voice slightly, though not enough to escape Shade. “Do we know what happened?”