Chapter 6: The Girl with the Broken Halo

The first rule of Bellwether was that everyone smiled like they were trying to sell you a knife.

The second rule was that the knife was probably cursed.

Cassian Vale learned both rules before he made it halfway through the market district.

Bellwether called itself a starter city, but there was nothing gentle about it. Its white stone walls rose in clean heroic arcs against the blood-red sky, banners snapping from battlements in colors too bright to be trusted. Sunlight—if the crimson thing overhead counted as a sun—caught on gilded roofs, stained-glass windows, polished armor, and the floating blue panels that hovered over every shop like advertisements injected straight into reality.

WELCOME, NEW HEROES!
Visit certified trainers for class advancement!
Remember: Progression is participation.

The words shimmered above a plaza where children in linen tunics chased enchanted paper birds and guild recruiters in velvet cloaks stalked fresh arrivals with the hunger of credit card companies.

It smelled like roasting meat, horse dung, hot metal, incense, and fear.

Mostly fear.

Cassian moved through it with his hood up and his stolen dagger tucked beneath his belt. The dagger was a goblin thing, crude iron with a chipped edge and a leather wrap that still smelled faintly of swamp, but it was his. In a world that had welcomed him by labeling him Level 0, Classless, Worthless, ownership counted as a luxury.

His interface flickered at the edge of his vision like a damaged monitor.

CASSIAN VALE
Level: 0
Class: None
Status: Worthless
HP: 19/19
MP: 0/0
Traits: Low-Light Adaptation, Minor Venom Resistance
Skills: Steal Respawn ???, Goblin Scramble I, Rat-King’s Bite I

He blinked it away before the headache could sharpen.

Two days ago, those words would have meant he had fallen asleep during a marathon stream and dreamed his way into a janky RPG overlay. Two days ago, he had been Cassian Vale, failed speedrunner, broke delivery driver, champion of eating expired noodles over the sink because plates created emotional obligations.

Now he was walking beneath a red sky with stolen monster abilities lodged in his soul and a city full of smiling predators trying to decide what he was worth.

Current market estimate: suspiciously low.

A woman in silver chainmail stepped into his path with the precision of someone who had practiced intercepting marks.

“You look unaligned,” she said, flashing perfect teeth. Her hair had been braided around a silver pin shaped like a hawk. A blue badge hovered near her shoulder.

LYSANDRA VALETHORN
Level 18
Class: Duelist
Guild: Silver Vane

Cassian did not like that his own last name lived inside hers like a coincidence wearing a fake mustache.

“I’m emotionally unavailable,” he said.

Her smile barely twitched. “Silver Vane offers lodging, equipment, and guided advancement for promising newcomers. We sponsor trials, teach survival fundamentals, and guarantee placement in an appropriate party.”

“How many kidneys does the lodging cost?”

“Only loyalty.”

“Ah. The expensive one.”

She studied him closer. There it was—the little shift of her eyes as she called up whatever inspection ability she had. Cassian felt the brush of it against his skin like cold fingers flipping through pages. His status screen flared uninvited.

INSPECTION ATTEMPT DETECTED
Error: Target classification unstable.
Displaying public data…

Lysandra’s expression changed by half an inch.

Level 0. Classless. Worthless.

He knew that look now. It began as disappointment, then sharpened into arithmetic.

Classless players were not recruits. They were resources. Bellwether had three official uses for them: porters, trap testers, and dungeon bait. The unofficial uses were probably worse and had better margins.

“Actually,” Lysandra said smoothly, “we have a separate program that may suit your circumstances.”

Cassian stepped around her. “Let me guess. Great exposure. Fast-paced environment. Must be comfortable dying in cramped spaces.”

Her hand landed on his shoulder.

It was a gentle grip. It still made every stolen instinct in his body hiss.

Cassian let his knees buckle.

For a single breath, he became loose weight. Lysandra’s fingers tightened on cloth instead of muscle. He twisted under her arm, planted a hand on the cobbles, and sprang sideways using Goblin Scramble I. The skill fired through his limbs like bad electricity. His bones felt too narrow, his center of gravity dropping, the world tilting into angles and escape routes.

He shot between a baker’s stall and a display of lacquered shields.

“Hey!” the baker yelled as Cassian nearly took a tray of honey cakes with his face.

“Put it on my tab!” Cassian shouted.

“You don’t have a tab!”

“Then I’m fiscally consistent!”

He ducked beneath a floating sign advertising beginner spear lessons and slipped into a side street before Silver Vane could decide whether pursuing a Level 0 through a crowded market was worth the optics.

The sound of the plaza dulled behind him.

The side street narrowed into an artery of wet stone and leaning timber. Bellwether’s pretty face ended quickly once the banners stopped. Here, rainwater gathered in black seams between cobbles. Laundry hung overhead like surrender flags. Old wards glowed weakly above doorframes, their runes scratched and patched, protecting the poor with the magical equivalent of duct tape.

Cassian slowed only when his lungs began bargaining with him.

Okay. New plan.

He leaned against a wall and watched a beetle the size of his thumb crawl through a crack in the stone.

Step one: avoid recruiters. Step two: find food. Step three: find out why godlike Admin raid bosses care that I’m abusing death like a quicksave. Step four: don’t get sold as meat.

Simple. Elegant. Doomed by noon.

His stomach cramped so hard it felt like an attack notification.

He had coins. Technically. Three copper crescents and a tarnished bit he had lifted from a goblin pouch after the goblin had taken an enthusiastic bite out of his throat in a forest clearing. Murder economies were awkward.

A warm smell drifted down the alley.

Bread.

Cassian followed it with the grim focus of a starving man and emerged near a cramped square where the buildings huddled close around a stone fountain. The fountain’s angel statue had lost both wings and most of its nose. Someone had tied red string around its neck and hung little paper prayers from it.

Beside the fountain stood a stall made from mismatched planks, canvas, and optimism. A kettle steamed over a blue flame. Flatbreads charred on an iron plate. Behind the counter, an elderly man with eyebrows like storm clouds squinted at Cassian.

“You look like trouble with cheekbones,” the old man said.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Still top three.”

The old man grunted. “Two coppers for bread. One for broth. No credit.”

Cassian placed two copper crescents on the counter like he was surrendering hostages. “Bread. And if the broth has meat in it, lie to me.”

“The broth has known meat socially.”

“Beautiful.”

The old man slapped a blistered flatbread onto a piece of brown paper and handed it over.

Cassian took one bite and nearly made a noise he could not morally defend. It was hot, salty, brushed with oil and some herb that tasted like rosemary’s aggressive cousin. His entire body paused to applaud.

That was when he heard the shouting.

It came from the lane behind the fountain—low voices at first, then a sharp crack as something wooden hit stone.

“Please,” a young woman said, breathless. “I told you I’d have it by moonrise.”

A man laughed. “You told us that last moonrise, Ashvale.”

The old vendor’s expression went flat.

Cassian stopped chewing.

“Not your business,” the old man said quietly.

“Great. I’m a specialist in not my business.”

“I mean it.”

Another crack. This time followed by a gasp.

Cassian looked down at his bread. Then at the alley. Then back at the bread.

“If I die saving someone before finishing lunch,” he muttered, “I’m haunting this city’s Yelp equivalent.”

He folded the remaining flatbread into his mouth like a man loading a cannon and headed toward the noise.

The lane bent sharply between two warehouses whose upper stories leaned so close their roofs almost touched. Shadow filled the space, thick and blue despite the bloody daylight beyond. Barrels lined one wall. Broken crates slumped against the other. At the far end, three men had cornered a girl against a locked gate.

No, not a girl. Around Cassian’s age, maybe a little younger. Nineteen? Twenty? Hard to tell beneath grime, exhaustion, and the particular hollow-eyed expression of someone running on fumes and spite.

She wore healer’s robes that had once been white.

Once.

Now they were gray at the hem, patched at the sleeves, and stained with old potion marks in colors that probably violated medical standards. A short mantle hung crooked around her shoulders. Its embroidered sigil—a golden halo cupped between two hands—had been slashed through with black thread.

Above her head, flickering like a dying lightbulb, hovered her identification.

MIRA ASHVALE
Level 9
Class: Healer
Status: Disgraced
Debuffs: Oathmark Severed, Public Trust -40%

Cassian’s gaze caught on the symbol half-hidden beneath her hood.

Not a real halo. An accessory, maybe. A thin ring of pale gold light, cracked in three places, hovering an inch behind her head like the world’s saddest loading icon. It sputtered every few seconds, leaking motes that vanished before they touched her shoulders.

The men around her wore leather coats reinforced with dark plates. Not city guards. Too relaxed. Too ugly in the soul. Each had a black coin pinned to his lapel.

GARRICK VOSS
Level 13
Class: Enforcer
Affiliation: Black Ledger

JORYN PELL
Level 11
Class: Cutpurse

BRAM
Level 10
Class: Bruiser

The big one—Bram—held a club across one shoulder. He had a cauliflower ear, a broken nose, and the serene confidence of a man whose problem-solving tree had one branch labeled hit it.

Garrick Voss stood closest to Mira. His hair was slicked back, his beard trimmed to a sharp point, his smile small and polished.

“Moonrise,” Garrick said, “is a poetic time. Unfortunately, poetry accrues interest.”

Mira’s back pressed against the gate. Her hands were up, fingers trembling. Not helpless fingers. Practitioner fingers. Cassian recognized the tension of someone measuring distances, costs, cooldowns.

“I healed your man,” she said. “You said that would clear half.”

Joryn snorted. He had a narrow face and knives tucked everywhere a knife could legally or emotionally fit. “You healed him backward.”

Mira flinched.

“He lived.”

“He lived with his left foot thinking it belonged to a goat.”

“Temporary side effect.”

“He screams at tin cans.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“He didn’t before.”

Bram chuckled.

Garrick lifted one gloved hand, and the others quieted. “The Black Ledger does not discriminate against healers with unusual outcomes. We are practical men. You borrowed coin. You failed to repay. You performed services as partial compensation. Those services generated damages.”

Mira’s jaw tightened. There was a bruise along her cheekbone, yellow at the edges. “He would have died.”

“Perhaps he should have.” Garrick leaned closer. “Death is cheaper than liability.”

Cassian waited for some heroic impulse to rise in his chest. Trumpets. Moral clarity. A glowing prompt announcing SIDE QUEST ACCEPTED: SAVE THE BROKEN HEALER.

Nothing.

Just the memory of recruiters discussing classless people like equipment, and the old vendor saying not your business, and Mira Ashvale standing beneath a broken halo while three men calculated the market value of her pain.

He sighed.

“Okay,” Cassian said, stepping into the lane. “Question from the audience.”

All four heads turned.

Cassian raised a hand. “Is the goat-foot thing covered by standard healer malpractice, or do you guys have a separate livestock clause?”

Silence.

Mira stared at him with wide, frantic eyes that said run, idiot.

Garrick looked Cassian up and down. His smile returned. “This is a private collection matter.”

“Yeah, I get that. Very intimate. Love what you’ve done with the threatening alley.” Cassian took another step in, keeping his shoulders loose. “But I’m new in town, and I’m trying to understand the local culture before someone sells me to a dungeon with bad ventilation.”

Joryn’s eyes flicked over him.

Inspection brushed Cassian again.

INSPECTION ATTEMPT DETECTED
Public data displayed.

Joryn’s mouth split into a grin. “Level zero.”

Bram lowered his club. “Classless.”

Garrick’s gaze sharpened, not dismissive but interested. “Worthless.”

Cassian winced. “Okay, wow. You read one floating résumé and suddenly HR gets personal.”

Mira made a small strangled sound. “You need to leave.”

“That’s what I keep telling people.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice shook, then hardened. “If I heal you, something goes wrong.”

Garrick laughed softly. “Listen to the lady. She’s very dangerous to her friends.”

Cassian’s eyes stayed on Mira. “How wrong?”

Her broken halo sputtered.

“Wrong enough.”

Joryn drew a knife with a flourish. “Touching. Can I cut him now?”

Garrick tilted his head. “Do try not to kill him immediately. Classless bodies still have use.”

Cassian’s skin went cold.

There it was again. That little market calculation.

He smiled.

“See,” he said, “that’s the kind of thing a guy takes personally after the third time.”

Joryn moved first.

He blurred, not with magic exactly, but with a practiced burst of speed that turned his coat into a smear of dark leather. His knife came low toward Cassian’s ribs.

Cassian did not block. Blocking was for people with armor, stats, or self-respect.

He dropped.

Goblin Scramble I jerked through him. His palms slapped filthy cobbles. The knife whispered over his shoulder, close enough to shave threads from his hood. Cassian kicked sideways at Joryn’s ankle, not hard enough to break anything but hard enough to insult physics.

Joryn stumbled one step.

Cassian bit him.

It was not dignified.

It was, unfortunately, effective.

Rat-King’s Bite I flooded his jaw with a savage snap. His teeth sank into the meat of Joryn’s wrist. The taste of sweat, leather oil, and copper filled his mouth. Venom—not much, just a dirty little pulse stolen from a sewer-born monarch—spiked from his gums.

Joryn screamed and tried to yank free.

Cassian released, spat dramatically, and rolled away as Bram’s club smashed the cobbles where his skull had been.

Stone chips peppered his cheek.

“He bit me!” Joryn shrieked.

Cassian came up behind a barrel. “In my defense, you looked organic.”

Bram kicked the barrel.

The barrel exploded.

Cassian had one precious glimpse of splintered wood and flying pickled something before impact threw him into the opposite wall. Pain flashed white across his ribs. Air fled his lungs like it had found better employment.

HP: 12/19

Cool. Cool cool cool. First party fight and our tank is a barrel.

Mira raised both hands. Gold light gathered around her fingers, warm and trembling. “Don’t move!”

“Bad news,” Cassian wheezed. “That’s my whole build.”

Garrick snapped his fingers.

A chain of black light lashed from his glove and wrapped around Mira’s wrists. Her spell flickered, twisted, and died with a hiss. She gasped as the chain yanked her forward to her knees.

“No casting,” Garrick said. “You know the terms.”

Something hot slid behind Cassian’s eyes.

He had seen raid bosses do mechanics like this. Interrupt the healer. Isolate the squishy. Force mistakes. Except this was not a screen. Mira’s knees hit stone. Her halo cracked brighter. Blood shone at the corner of her mouth where she bit back a cry.

Cassian grabbed a shard of barrel wood and flung it at Garrick’s face.

It missed by a foot.

Garrick looked at it, then at him.

“I was aiming for your aura,” Cassian said.

Bram came in like a collapsing wall.

Cassian scrambled backward, but his ribs screamed and the skill stuttered. The club clipped his thigh. Numbness burst down his leg. He slammed into stacked crates, crashed through one, and landed among straw and clay jars.

HP: 8/19
Status: Limping

Joryn flexed his bitten wrist. Dark veins crawled under his skin, thin as ink threads. “What did you do to me?”

“Dental feedback form’s on the way,” Cassian said, dragging himself upright.

The cutpurse’s hand trembled. Minor venom resistance had kept Cassian alive when rats the size of corgis used him as chew toy. Their bite skill, apparently, delivered something unpleasant but not decisive.

In speedrunning terms: damage over time, low tick, high annoyance.

Good. He could work with annoying.

Mira twisted against the chain. “Stop joking and run!”

Cassian glanced at the alley geometry.

Three enemies. One restrained healer. Narrow lane. Loose debris. Barrels mostly dead. Crates on right. Drainage gutter down center. Gate behind Mira locked. Fifteen feet to exit behind Cassian, but Bram blocked the line if he committed. Garrick was controller. Joryn was DPS with poison panic. Bram was obvious tank.

Cassian was… what? A bug with teeth.

Fine.

Every game had bugs.

He limped left, deliberately favoring the injured leg harder than necessary.

Bram grinned. “Little rat’s slowed.”

“Emotionally, mostly.”

Garrick sighed. “Enough. Break his arms.”

Bram charged.

Cassian waited half a second too long by instinct and exactly long enough by calculation. When the bruiser swung, Cassian threw himself down the drainage gutter. Slimy water soaked his back. The club hit the wall with a boom that shook dust from overhead balconies.

Cassian slid between Bram’s boots, grabbed the man’s belt, and yanked himself up behind him with a goblin-scramble twist.

Then he bit Bram in the back of the thigh.

Bram howled.

Joryn yelled, “Stop biting people!”

“Stop being bite-sized!” Cassian shouted through clenched teeth.

Bram bucked. Cassian clung for one absurd second like the world’s worst rodeo champion, then got hurled off. He hit the locked gate beside Mira hard enough to see stars.

HP: 5/19

Mira caught him before he collapsed. Her bound hands were cold against his shoulder.

“You’re insane,” she whispered.

“I prefer under-optimized.”

Her eyes were gray-green, sharp even through fear. There were freckles across her nose beneath the grime. Up close, her halo was not an accessory at all. It emerged from the air behind her like a class feature, delicate gold segments orbiting in a broken ring. One segment had been snapped clean through, its edge jagged and blackened.

“If I heal you,” she said quickly, “my resurrection curse can latch onto living recovery. It tries to repay life with debt. It can invert regeneration, transfer wounds, summon—”

“Can it explode?”

“Sometimes.”

“Love the range.”

Garrick strode closer, black chain taut in his hand. “Mira. Step away from the asset.”

Cassian blinked. “Asset?”

“Classless flesh has value. Not much, but enough.” Garrick’s polished smile thinned. “And you, little anomaly, are stranger than most.”

Cassian’s interface flickered violently.

WARNING
External valuation protocol detected.
Black Ledger bounty index querying…

That can’t be good.

Mira saw his expression. “What is it?”

“I think debt LinkedIn just found me.”

Joryn lunged from the side.

Mira moved first.

Not with magic. With a kick.

Her worn boot caught a broken jar shard and flicked it up into Joryn’s face. He jerked back, cursing as clay dust blinded him. Cassian seized the half-second. He slammed his shoulder into Mira—not away, but sideways—throwing both of them down as Bram’s club smashed into the gate where their heads had been.

The lock snapped.

The gate burst inward.

Cassian and Mira tumbled through into a rear courtyard choked with weeds, laundry lines, and stacked rain barrels.

“See?” Cassian gasped. “Teamwork.”

“You tackled me!”

“Collaboratively.”

The black chain connecting Mira’s wrists to Garrick stretched through the broken gate like a leash. Garrick’s face darkened for the first time.

“Bram.”

The bruiser squeezed through the gate, limping from the bite. Joryn followed, wiping his eyes with one sleeve, knives out now. Garrick remained in the lane, chain in hand, letting his minions fill the courtyard.