The tavern smelled like spilled ale and broken promises. Pilt sat at a corner table, cards spread before him like prophecy. Five other players. Various stages of drunk. Various levels of skill.
None of them knew what they were playing against.
He discarded two cards. Drew two more. His face showed nothing. Pleasant neutrality. The mask he wore so well it had become a second skin.
"Raise. Ten silver."
The man across from him swore. Folded. Three others followed.
One remained. A merchant by his clothes. Confident. Stupid.
"Call."
Pilt laid down his cards. Three queens. Two tens.
The merchant stared. "How do you keep doing that?"
"Luck." Pilt collected his winnings. Silver coins clinked as they joined the pile in front of him. "And attention to detail. You have been scratching your left ear every time you get a good hand."
"I have not."
"You have. Three times tonight. Once on a straight. Twice on flushes." He stacked the coins with practiced ease. "Tells are expensive in this game."
The merchant left. Muttering about cheats and impossible odds.
Pilt stayed. Ordered another mug of ale. Stared at the coins he had won.
'Not a single copper from the corporation funds. Not one.'
He thought back. The flour sacks. Won from a scorpion bet. Forty-eight copper turned into twenty sacks. One copper per sack sold. Profit made. Profit reinvested.
The bakery loan. Gambling winnings from three nights of cards. Two gold turned into five. Five turned into equipment.
The orphanage supplies. A bet on ship arrival times. Ten silver risked. Thirty silver won. Supplies purchased. Children fed.
Everything built on gambling. On reading people. On knowing which cards to play and which to fold.
He lifted the mug. Spoke quietly to himself.
"See, Mira? Told you I could do it."
The thought made him smile. Small. Private.
Then his mind turned to the cultists. To House Maren. To the threats that circled his investments like sharks smelling blood.
'A little work to get rid of them. Just need the right leverage.'
He drank slowly. Let the ale burn down his throat. Thought about leverage. About pressure points. About how to break organizations that thought themselves untouchable.
And he thought about the relic.
The whole reason he had come to Port Vexis in the first place. Before the gambling. Before the investments. Before he started building something that looked suspiciously like hope.
Supposedly it was in a cathedral. There had been an auction. But the relic was gone now. Vanished. Stolen.
'My guess? The cultists have it.'
He slammed down his final card. Won another hand. Collected more silver.
'Fuck. I need that relic.'
He pulled out the pendant. The cracked glass. The torn image. Looked at it for a long moment. Traced the fracture with his thumb.
Then tucked it away before anyone could see.
"Murder!"
The shout came from the door. A sailor. Face pale. Breathing hard.
The tavern noise died.
"Where?"
"In the slums! Eight bodies in the river! Throats cut! Symbols carved into their chests!"
Pilt's heart stopped.
Then dropped.
Then started again, hammering against his ribs like fists against a locked door.
He stood. Chair clattered behind him. Silver coins scattered across the table. He did not care.
He ran.
Out the door. Into streets that suddenly felt too narrow. Too slow. Too full of obstacles between him and the truth he did not want to face.
He hit a barrel. Sent it spinning. An angry man shouted behind him.
"Watch where you are going, you bastard!"
He did not stop.
'No. Please. Not them.'
His breath came in ragged gasps. His legs burned. The golden coat flapped behind him. He had forgotten to switch. Forgotten the blue vest. Forgotten the merchant persona.
None of it mattered.
The slums appeared. Wrong. All wrong.
Smoke rising. Screams echoing. People running in directions that made no sense.
The bakery was ruined. Windows smashed. Door hanging from hinges. Flour spilled across the street like snow that had learned to bleed.
Petra sat in the wreckage. Face in hands. Shoulders shaking.
Pilt approached slowly. Crouched beside her.
"Petra."
She looked up. Her eyes were red. Tear tracks cut through ash on her face.
"They came back," she said. Voice breaking. "The cultists. With men from House Maren. They said this was a message. For you. They said generosity has consequences."
She sobbed. Her whole body shook with it.
"They destroyed everything. The oven. The supplies. They took people. Dragged them away. I tried to stop them. I tried."
Pilt reached into his coat. Pulled out a golden coin. The kind that came from corporation funds. The kind he had sworn never to use.
"Here." He pressed it into her hands. "Use it to repair the place. You do not have to pay me back. Just focus on rebuilding."
She stared at the coin. Then at him.
Then she smacked his hand away.
The coin hit the cobblestones. Rang like a bell.
"Do you think I am something to be played with?" Her voice rose. Raw. Furious. "You caused all of this! What are you, some nobleman feeding off other people's misery while playing hero? Take it! I do not want anything from you!"
She spat in his face.
"Hey im only trying to—" he approached his hands gesturing carefully twords her.
She stepped back.
"No...no get away from me!"
He stopped.
Pilt wiped away at his chin slowly. His usual behavior would not allow this. Would demand response. Would make her pay for the insult.
But that fragile side of himself, the one he kept buried under layers of performance, had finally resurfaced.
He stood. Walked away without a word.
And took back the golden coin that was on the street in defeat.
Further down, an elderly man lay face down. Blood pooling beneath him. A small crowd gathered, uncertain, afraid.
"Get a doctor!" Pilt yelled.
Someone ran. Returned moments later with a man carrying a briefcase. Young. Asian features. Dressed in simple robes that looked like they came from somewhere far away.
"I am Jing Xiu. I am a medic. Please, let me tend to him."
Pilt nodded. Stepped back. Let the medic work.
His eyes scanned the street. Counted bodies. Counted damage. Counted the cost of everything he had built.
Then he saw it.
The orphanage.
Burning.
Flames crawled up the walls like living things. Black smoke poured from broken windows. The sign above the door, Safe Harbor House, cracked and fell into the street.
"Elke!"
He ran toward it. Heat hit him like a wall. Smoke choked his lungs.
He activated his deja vu.
The world split into paths. Futures branching like tree roots. He saw himself entering through the front door. Saw flames engulf him. Saw his body burning. Skin melting. Bones blackening.
Tried the side entrance. Same result. Fire. Death. Screaming that stopped when his lungs filled with smoke.
Tried the back. The roof. Every window.
Every path showed the same ending.
Him. Burning. Dead before he reached anyone inside.
"Curse this ability!"
His voice cracked. Broke.
A hand touched his shoulder.
Mira stood behind him. Brown hair disheveled. Black eyes reflecting flames.
"You cannot go in there."
"I know." The words tasted like ash. "I know."
Jing Xiu appeared beside them. Face grim. Hands stained with blood from treating the wounded.
"Are you alright? I have tended to most of them. The ones I could save."
"The river," Pilt said. Voice hollow. "I need help recovering their bodies."
Jing Xiu nodded. "Show me."
Pilt stood. Rolled up his sleeves. The golden coat dragged in mud as he walked toward the river that cut through the slums like an infected wound.
Eight bodies floated face down. The water carried them slowly. Indifferent to the weight of lives cut short.
Pilt waded in without hesitation. The water was cold. Filthy. It soaked through his clothes and filled his boots.
He grabbed the first body. A woman. Middle-aged. Someone who had thanked him for the flour last week.
Carried her to shore. Laid her gently on the bank.
Went back for the second. Third. Fourth.
Jing Xiu worked beside him. Silent. Efficient. Treating the dead with the same care he gave the living.
"Pilt, I take it? The Generous Scoundrel?"
Pilt continued to wade through dark water. Grabbed the fifth body. A little boy.
He recognized him.
Finn.
The boy who had arrived last week. Who would not speak. Who flinched when people moved too fast.
Pilt's composure cracked. Just for a moment. Long enough for his hands to shake as he carried the small body to shore.
"You know me?"
"Everyone does." Jing Xiu laid another body beside the others. "What is such a noble man doing in the outskirts of Vex?"
"I have my reasons."
"Similarly to myself."
They continued working. Pulling bodies from water that refused to give them up easily.
Jing Xiu spoke again. Quiet. Thoughtful.
"You know, wealth is a common thing. It is a factor that elevates one from others. But yet, little do we realize that being wealthy comes in health, in equity, in knowledge and acquaintances. That is true wealth. In the teachings of the Dao Dynasty, we learn that gold is the least valuable treasure."
Pilt saw something in the water. Painful.
A body that resembled someone he knew.
Gray hair spreading like seaweed. Dress that had once been clean.
Elke.
He broke momentarily. Fell to his knees in the shallow water. Mira stood on the bank, watching his sorry state with eyes that held something between pity and understanding.
It reminded him of that faithful day. The one he tried not to think about. The one that gave him the cracked pendant.
His hair fell over his eyes. Covering them. Hiding the tears that came whether he wanted them or not.
"Life is fragile," Jing Xiu said softly. He placed a hand on Pilt's back. "I ask you this. What is wealth if it is not shared by everyone?"
He stood. Brushed water from his robes.
"I must go. There are others who need tending."
Eight bodies lined up on the riverbank. Guards arrived. People rushed to identify loved ones. Pilt stood up and made his way back toward the upper area of town.
As he walked through the slums, people threw dirt at him.
"This is your fault!"
"You brought them here!"
"We were better off before you came!"
The dirt hit his golden cape. Stained it. Ruined it.
Senna was nowhere to be seen.
He walked slowly. Head down. Vision obscured by muddy yellow bangs that stuck to his forehead.
That day.
He had perhaps tasted defeat.
For the first time in his carefully constructed life, he had bet everything and lost.
The generous scoundrel had learned the price of generosity.
And it was more than he could afford to pay.