He stood in the courtyard in a state of disbelief. Blood, thick and wet, coated his hands from where he'd unconsciously grasped at the glaive when it had punctured his chest. More of it soaked into his coat, enough that a few drops fell free and splattered onto the stone beneath him.

Getting killed wasn't a new thing to Severance, but this time had been particularly awful. Free Traders had swarmed around him like a pack of coyotes on a wounded deer, and he'd fought back as best he could. Thanks to his newest skill, Suppress, he'd even bought himself a chance to escape.

But he hadn't taken it. Why?

The answer came readily, in the form of a tall and thin man striding into his mind's eye, the tails of a long mahogany coat swaying with every step. Ervante. Severance unconsciously clenched his hands, for the mental image brought a deep-seated unease that lingered on the boundary of fear.

He'd tried to leave. He remembered that so clearly. But–

You don't want to do that, Ervante had said.

And just like that, Severance hadn't wanted to leave. It made no sense. It was like the creep had reached inside his head and twisted things around. That kind of thing shouldn't be possible.

Severance touched his own face, fingertips tracing his jaw. He could still feel Ervante's fingers gripping his chin, digging in cruelly. He remembered the mad light in the man's gaze.

It made him feel sick.

"Alright, there?"

A gloved hand suddenly was there, reaching towards him out of the blue, and Severance recoiled.

Don't touch me!

It took him a second to register that a Veiled clansman was before him. Considering that he stood before the big doors of the Veiled House, he probably should have seen that coming.

"Whoa, easy there, kid."

The newcomer wasn't a big fellow, the top of his head barely reaching Severance's shoulder, and he had a black bandana covering most of the hair. He raised both hands—no wait, one hand, because the other was gone, with only a tucked-in sleeve to hide its absence.

Severance stiffened, all attention focusing on that stump the second he noticed it. Now it came rushing back to him: this was the guy who came back to the House on death's door, missing a hand and gushing blood like a geyser. Severance remembered healing him, how he was able to close the wound but little else—he couldn't regrow limbs for Elionan civilians.

How useless. Weak. Maybe he was deluded like Ervante had said. To think he could actually help people when all he did was fail.

He tensed even further, jaw clenched tight.

"Sorry."

He turned away, intending to escape into the house and find a quiet, dark corner where he could try and sort things out on his own. But he'd barely managed to take a step before the Veiled man moved into his path, forcing him to stop.

Severance found himself looking down into the face of the man he'd failed, whose name he'd forgotten but thankfully it floated above his head: Parvath.

"Hello there," Parvath smiled, but it was tight and humorless. "Everything alright?"

Severance just stared at him. After a long moment, his gaze drifted once more to the man's stump, unable to help himself. "Is your arm okay?"

Parvath let out an incredulous laugh. "You're asking me? I'm perfectly well, kid. Why don't you take a look at yourself? You look like you ran through a den of ubyous! What happened?"

Severance half-shrugged. He wasn't really in the mood to talk about it, and even if he was, he had no idea how to answer.

"Are you injured?" Parvarth moved closer, as if to check, but Severance abruptly moved away, unwilling to be touched. He could still feel the ghost of Ervante's hand on his face and it made him want to mentally hurl.

Parvath's brow knit slightly, but he stilled and didn't try again. "Hey, talk to me. Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No. Not anymore," Severance finally said.

Even if he hadn't had his full health when Reviving in the courtyard, it'd been long enough that it was mostly restored anyway. The injury that had killed him no longer existed.

"Right." Parvath dragged a hand wearily over his own face, before fixing Severance with a very pointed look. "You're covered in blood, and I have a feeling you weren't out fighting monsters. Unless you came across one wielding a very pointy stick...?"

Severance looked down. There was a very obvious hole in his coat. He touched it and realized he could feel the smooth skin of his chest through it. When he took his hand away, more blood coated his fingers. He grimaced, then looked at Parvath's sleeve, the one that was folded in on itself because it lacked a hand to fill it.

It felt wrong to have Parvath be so concerned when he himself was permanently disfigured. Severance didn't like it. But one look at the clansman's face told him that Parvath wasn't going anywhere until he got his answers, so he decided to humor the guy.

"It was other players," he admitted. "Outsiders, I mean. We just got out of The Ruins, and they were there, waiting."

"Outsiders? From where? Which clan?"

"The Free Traders."

"And they were waiting." Parvath's voice was utterly flat.

"Something like that. But really, it's fine."

"No, it's not. The fact that they were there in the first place tells me they've been keeping watch. Did you get any names? Descriptions? Was it only Outsiders, or were there any Traders with them?"

Oh, how Severance wished it only had been other players. That would have been a lot easier to deal with. Instead, he got a mentally unstable murder clown. Whoever created Ervante's character needed to get their head fixed.

"Yeah, there was a Trader there. Ervante. He was leading everyone on a mission to kill people."

"Ervante? Well." Parvath exhaled, taking on a troubled look. "That's a problem."

"You know him?"

"Oh, yes. He's got a reputation." Though spoken lightly, there was an unmistakable distaste coloring Parvath's voice.

"For what? Controlling people?" Severance tried to match Parvath's light tone, but failed. His pitch rose unsteadily on the last two syllables.

It was so incredibly wrong. How could such a thing exist? How could a game manipulate a real person in this way? It was like the weird glitches with the Veiled Gift all over again. Both things should not be possible.

"Ah," said Parvath. "He talked to you directly, didn't he? It's a skill, kid. A nasty one. A few Traders possess it, but in Ervante's hands, it's particularly powerful. What exactly did he say to you?"

That was a skill? Severance shook his head. Wasn't that a bit too much?

He lightly touched the hole in his coat. The one he could see, anyway, since there was probably a matching tear in the back. "I tried to teleport when I saw them waiting. But then, he told me that I didn't want to leave. So, I didn't. Like he just flipped a switch in my head and changed my mind. He did that twice! If he can do that, what's stopping him from making me switch sides?"

Parvath smiled in an attempt to be reassuring. It didn't really help. Not when it didn't reach his eyes, which were dark and hard like the stone beneath their feet.

"That's not how it works. He plants suggestions, small things, really, and as long as it doesn't go against your core principles, you'll accept it as your own. He can't make you switch sides unless you were already considering doing so."

"Small things, huh? Like telling me to stand still so I can conveniently get killed, you mean."

To his surprise, Parvath laughed. "Exactly. It's a lot easier to hit a stationary target after all."

He's laughing at my demise now, Severance thought sourly. Aloud, he asked, "Isn't there a way I can stop it?"

"Of course. You just have to be stronger than him."

Great. Who knew what level that freak was? Severance rubbed his eyes, feeling tired. He wondered if he could find earplugs in Eliona. Maybe if he couldn't hear Ervante talk, the clown's skill wouldn't work.

"Let me take care of this," Parvath suggested. "I'll see if there's something that can be done about Ervante. In the meantime, why don't you take a break? You look like you could use one."

Severance nodded slowly. That sounded like a really good idea. He wasn't physically tired—this body never seemed to tire—but he felt like he'd been mentally steamrolled.

"Good." With a last, small smile that softened the hard ice of his gaze, Parvath left.

Severance watched him go, his attention lingering on the folded sleeve. He needed to get stronger.

***

He didn't log out right away. There was nearly a full hour of time left, so he wandered to his little room on the second floor of the House, and spent some time composing a message to Awesome Dude. When it was done, however, he hesitated in sending it.

Did his friend really need to know about Ervante and the Free Traders? He could see Awesome Dude taking it upon himself to "deal" with them, but that would only bring him to their attention. He didn't want Awesome Dude to be targeted by them. But he also wanted to warn his friend about Ervante's horrible skill.

In the end, he didn't send the message. It was something better mentioned in person, he decided. That way he could be there to stop Awesome Dude from running off to fight Traders.

Next, his thoughts turned towards the weird blend of skills that had occurred in the dungeon. That was something that he'd been keen to learn more about.

"System, Guidebook."

The book appeared in his hands. He set it on the bed and flipped through it, skimming past pages of basic commands and explanations of the skill system. A lot had been added to it since he last looked at it.

The Guidebook was like an encyclopedia, with new entries added to each category as he learned about them. It was a neat feature to have, Severance supposed, though he rarely felt the desire to look up the unique features of a cuddleworm, or the location of each teleport platform in all the major cities. The later was something he already was intimately familiar with, and the former... ew. No thanks.

The page he was looking for was near the front, after the skill and class explanations. Two short paragraphs topped an otherwise empty page:

Skill Combinations

Different elements can be mixed to create a new, unique skill. It requires two elements of similar force produced at the same time in close proximity. Experiment to discover more, but be warned – mixing elements is very dangerous!

Combinations discovered:

Electric Storm - created by the skills Flare (Battle Dancer) and Freeze Storm (Cryomancer). Generates a highly damaging storm that affects a wide area. Requires 30 seconds to form. Friendly fire possible. Can be canceled if the casters are KO'd.

Interesting. Severance read it over twice.

The Guidebook didn't tell him too much, but it did drop a couple of hints. He needed another element to mix with his electrical skills, which meant classes of a physical nature, like Shades or tanks, were incompatible. That left him with few options, really, since the only other classes that used elements were healers like himself and scholars.

He wondered what would happen if he had used Ionize instead of Flare, since the skill was a lot stronger. Would that make an even bigger storm? Maybe Ervante would like to test it out.

A corner of Severance's mouth lifted. He'd have to find another cryomancer to experiment with. That idea killed some of his excitement. Nearly all the cryomancers he'd run into were either jerks or crazies trying to kill him.

With a swipe of his hand, he closed the window. It was something he'd keep in mind, at least. For now, getting stronger was the main goal.

"System, Attributes."

Another window popped up, and he studied its contents thoughtfully.

Current Level: 33

WIS - 25

INT - 26

VIT – 29

AGI - 20 + 5

STR - 5

FOR - 2

His weakest skills were strength and fortitude, though both of those were things he didn't use much of as a healer. Fortitude grew when he successfully blocked damage, and right now his only way of doing so was Ward. Strength, well...

I guess I could do push ups.

He snorted at the thought. Now he knew he really needed sleep. Him, doing push-ups? Ha.

"System, Log Out."