The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

"Who is John Hazlitt?" Crucis said, glancing up from the letter.

"Hard to be sure. I'd guess he might be related to the 'J.H.' in the name of the mines," Danemy replied.

"Ah, I assumed that 'J.H.' was just a generic naming choice," Akshel said. "Still, sounds quite possible that it's this guy."

"It does, yes," Crucis said. "Clearly people here would have been expected to know his name. He says they'd be surprised at the letter, because they would have thought him long-dead."

DicingDevil walked quietly into the chamber, as if trying to avoid being overheard.

"Hey, guys, anyone noticed anything weird about this place? It feels like something was watching me on the way here."

"How do you mean?" Danemy said.

"I heard a few quiet sounds, a bit like a stream, continually following my path on the way here. Also a few footsteps, but I thought that might be my echo. Then I turned around to check, and found no signs of a person - not even in the walls - but did find that there was a pair of footsteps parallel to mine."

"Can't say I noticed that," Akshel replied.

A loud, haggard voice rose up from near the entrance to the chamber, and the group turned around, startled. "Did someone ask about John Hazlitt?"

After a moment, Crucis could make out a pale old man with a stately, serene expression, wearing a short, white beard and clipping into the chamber through a wall. The man's mouth was locked in a cynical grimace, despite his otherwise-peaceful expression.

"Yes. Did you know him?" Akshel asked bravely.

"I knew him well. He was a great and good man, but alas, a tyrant. A wicked man, he oppressed the workers of this mine in a vicious class struggle. Yet he was a valiant, orderly fellow, and he ran these mines well. Indeed, under his watch it began to flourish. A man after my own heart. I know not why he has become so wicked, but maybe he has a reason."

"After calling him a wicked tyrant, you still praise him heavily," Danemy responded. "You on his side, or the miners'?"

"Which side? Mine."

"I see. So, are these 'J. H. Mines' actually named after him?" Crucis asked.

"Yes. In fact, I can tell you a bit about them. The mines, you see, soon began to overlap with a natural cave system. John Hazlitt sent a few men to explore deep inside these, but they never came out. One day, he himself ventured down there and found..."

"Yes?" Akshel said, excited by the speaker's suspenseful pause.

"Ah, sorry, my memory itself shudders at the sight of what I was to describe! It overcomes me, it overwhelms the senses with dread. No more of it... for now. Ask me something else, I shall divulge more of this after a few questions."

"So was it because of John Hazlitt that these miners are dead?"

"Hm. Well, the miner here is due to m- to John, yes. And some other miners around here were also killed by John and his merry men. The other corpse? I'm not sure. It looks like he bled to death just now. A dreadful fate."

"So did you just follow our leader through the mines?" Danemy asked.

"By your leader, you mean this lad?" The old man pointed at DicingDevil.

"Yes," DicingDevil said tersely.

"Well, I suppose that I might have done, yes. I hope you don't hold it against me. I am an honourable man."

"Your level is 50," Crucis said. "Aren't you afraid that we could kill you? Not that I have any such intention."

"I am unafraid. I could flee deeper into the mines, and my power would increase dramatically. It is my native domain. So I would not advise it."

"How many miners did J.H. get?" Akshel asked.

"Hm. All of them. Well, a few were just scabs, and he left those alone. But the rest - he began killing them in the mines, and many died. But even after they were hastily withdrawn, he or his thugs would go to the miners' homes at evening and wait for them to return, then have them killed. This was one among several bloody practices, and I highly doubt that any miners survived."

"Quite efficient," Crucis said. "So, which side were you on? You called John Hazlitt a tyrant, but you live in these mines without disturbance. Surely he must consider you, ehm, some kind of ally?"

"Oh, certainly. You know, I just followed your leader out of curiosity. But my skill at following people through these mines was honed through hunting down miners. We waited until they went into a place where we could trap them, then sent in a few men to make sure they could not escape. Anyway, do you wish to hear about what Hazlitt found in the mines?"

"Go ahead."

"He found a large statue, dedicated to the local god of death, whom we call Dravaistaya.* A three-tongued, looming blue figure, whose mouth was glutted with blood, and who carried a sharp lance. Some others worship this deity under similar names, and as a god of war or even statecraft. It is just labels. Regardless, he was awed by this majestic, terrifying statue in the middle of a series of seemingly uninhabited caves. I, too, was impressed by the sight of the statue: in this dark cave its blue appears black unless you look closely, and the god's frenzied white-red eyes - staring at you - are a shock when you are simply finding your way through a vast, empty cave.

"There are many rumours about the powers of this god. Some say that, when vast, bloody battles occur near these mines, his enchantment allows for us to incarnate into the world as Reapers - beings who need to kill others in order to survive. Our original forms remain here, and we return after we take 70 lives. But this would be rare now — if it is true.

"Next to the statue was a human face on the ground, which was torn apart and unrecognisable. It had a large, rectangular knife next to it.

"This statue is hidden deep in the mines, and nobody but John Hazlitt has seen it."

On saying this, the man turned around and left the room.

As Crucis and Akshel stepped out of the chamber to look, they saw the old man's form disintegrate into the air and disappear. As this happened, a loud, serpentine hiss resounded through the circular passageway outside.

"He vanished again," Akshel said. "As Dicing said. Elusive chap."

"Yep. And he's clearly John Hazlitt," Crucis said. "He was strongly implying it, then mentioned that he had seen the statue which 'nobody but John Hazlitt' had seen. Looks like we just met J.H."

"Quite an honour. So, there are more ghosts than just this guy, right? Any idea where they might be?" DicingDevil asked. "We're quite deep in the mines now, I doubt they're far off."

Crucis scanned the letter quickly. "This mentions a room where people often disappeared, maybe we'd find them there? There's a map on the other side of this paper, it has a few annotations, one of the rooms is marked as 'Lost Man's Resting Place.' That might be it. But they could be dangerous, so I'd be careful."

"Good point."

DicingDevil looked around the room, leaning back against a wall.

"So, we found a dead miner?" DicingDevil said calmly. "Great. I'll grab his stuff, to turn in to the quest NPC. Anything else to do here?"

"It depends," Danemy said. "If we wanted to be daredevils, then we could check on some places with ghosts. If not, then we could leave or look around."

"We could send someone to fetch the quest from the settlement nearby," Crucis suggested. "Then we could get that done as well."

"Yes, fair point," DicingDevil said. "I'll tell Grisier to head down and pick up the quest for our party. According to the guys we left outside, there's been something of a kerfuffle from a few Rangers on the borders to Area D. I'd guess that the guys we killed have partymates trying to get here, but they don't know where to cross safely and the Rangers are forbidding it. If they do cross over and are dangerous, we could probably just call the Rangers from nearby, but we might be able to get some kills as well. They aren't the strong party we saw earlier."

"I saw an item in the room where Replayer died, it appeared on the ground at about the same time as he died. It was some kind of pyrite, I think. That's probably the quest item. I'll go back and stand by it till Grisier picks up the quest, then grab it if the quest requires it," Crucis said.

"Wait a second, what room is that?" Danemy said, scanning the map. He had noticed something curious.

Crucis traced his finger along the map, until he found the long passageway which he had caught George in. He pointed to the chamber next to it. "This one, I think."

"Alright. Did you notice the symbol next to it?"

"The red, crossed swords? Yeah, looks like it marks places where there had been fights or skirmishes. There's also one next to the 'Lost Man's Resting Place.'"

"Yep, about eight of them. The letter mentions eight 'bitter skirmishes.' But you're saying that one of them might have the quest item. Maybe we should check the other crossed-sword locations?"

"Yeah, good idea. Anyway, I'll go and wait by the room at the entrance, there seems to have been a cluster of fights around there. I guess that, deeper into the mines, the ghosts are too powerful to fight. If the pyrite's what we're looking for, then we can split up and check the other places with the sword symbol. Then meet up again to check the crossed swords next to the Lost Man's Resting Place, since we'll have to be careful there."

Crucis grabbed a piece of crumpled paper which Ripley had dropped, and began sketching the part of the map which was near the entrance, along with carefully replicating the five crossed-sword symbols scattered around the area.

"At least this gives us a lead," DicingDevil said, walking near the arched exit of the chamber. "Best to be prepared."

As Crucis walked briskly back towards the place where Ripley had died, he opened the game's menu.

Checking through his menu, Crucis found that the game had finally registered his completion of the next task in the [Trait] system, 'Complete a Land Development quest.' A Land Development quest was one which implied making changes to an environment, typically preparing it for use, at the behest of an NPC. For instance, early visitors to the Hunting area had occasionally been asked by Rangers to clear out vines and locate predators in Areas A and B, so that the area became fit for hunting expeditions. In this case, Crucis guessed that he had fulfilled it through the mink den quest.

This had seemingly only unlocked a few moments after John Hazlitt had disappeared, perhaps because the minks were beginning to settle into the dens. This struck him as slightly over-specific, since he had completed the actual digging hours ago, but at least indicated that the dens would be occupied when he returned. Further, this delay was balanced out somewhat by the next two tasks being completed instantaneously.

The next two Trait tasks after this were already marked as completed as soon as they unlocked, because he had already fulfilled the conditions. These tasks were 'Kill at least one enemy designated as a Leader, eg. a King,' and 'Attempt one Battodo Trial.'

He decided to expend 2 Trait points in upgrading the [Deadly Premonition] skill, which reached its second and highest level. This reduced the CD on [Stealth Cloak] to 11 seconds when he was out of battle. Using his remaining 2 Trait points, he unlocked two Traits:

[Scars | As enemy's HP lowers, increases the chance of inflicting the [Bleeding] status with each attack. The severity of the [Bleeding] also increases, if you are using a dagger. The [Scars] Trait cannot be used unless the dagger is your primary weapon.]

[Spontaneous | If outnumbered, reduces all CD times by 7 seconds.]

These Traits would be important. However, the alternatives were also not bad, with [Resistance] potentially giving a decent stat increase for 10 seconds if the opponent attacked first, [Iron Fist] increasing CON when fighting multiple opponents, and [Cavalcade] which increased STR and DEX when fighting PvP alongside a party.

While [Iron Fist] would be useful for fleeing if outnumbered in the wild, he figured that Spontaneous might actually be better for that as well: Assassin moves like [Stealth Cloak] and [Agile Step] could be effective in making a quick escape. In general, most of these choices did seem like they could be used effectively, depending on a character's build, choice of weapon, and Guild.

However, since dagger abilities and advanced Assassin skills would often focus on causing [Bleeding], the [Scars] Trait stood out and would help to make this much more potent. Further, Crucis figured that [Spontaneous] was plainly stronger than [Cavalcade], and it required [Scars] to unlock. The path through [Scars] and [Spontaneous] led to several useful Agility and Dexterity boosts, so it seemed like a more promising path generally.

From here, he could unlock those new Traits, and at some point also upgrade Spontaneity. Since many Assassins used a sword as a primary weapon, he would at least be able to maintain a higher Agility than them because they wouldn't have access to the same branches of the Trait tree. As in many games, swords were designed primarily with the warrior classes in mind, so the dagger path brought more benefits specific to the strengths of the Assassin class. However, a sword-based Assassin was probably easier to use for conventional combat and dungeons.

The next task was, 'Gain a red name, and fight 3 enemies of the type [Guard] or [Novice Guard].' This one would be tricky, but he could try it around the outskirts of Kruxol. If he could find a [Novice Guard] and lure it into a fight, without alerting any stronger guards, then he could make a start on the task.

While this could be repeated, there was a risk that loitering around near Kruxol with a red name could lead to unwanted encounters with the guards or with other players. While this was worth trying, it would be best saved for a time when he had a few hours to spare in case he had to respawn. If he did have the time, then he could also try any further Trait tasks if they were possible nearby. Eventually, they would probably require him to go much further afield.

But planning that out could wait. As he glanced at the party chat, he saw that Grisier had picked up the pyrite quest.