Tristessa's brief but impactful stop at the Plaza of Remembrance not only helped her better understand the context of the crimes committed by that malicious woman who lurked in the Sea of ​​Trees with her group.

Now, for the worse, the unease she'd felt since the beginning of her fifth loop had also increased.

She was so worried that only she and Severus could help the Mercer-Archeos family that, the moment she set foot on the border separating Entrana's commercial district from the slums, she realized she was running out of air.

"...I can't be calm, damn it," she thought, both hands on her knees, leaning forward as she took deep breaths. "Until I see that blood elf with my own eyes, I won't be."

There weren't many people around her, except for a few guards who were just passing by on patrol. She had stopped above the bridge that crossed the Maturin River. There, the division between the rich and poor parts of Entrana was more than evident: unpaved streets, very limited lighting, wooden houses in poor condition, as if a mere breath of wind could easily take away an entire floor, among other unacceptable urban flaws.

"So…abandoned. It's like going back to the Meridion Highway."

Tristessa walked along the street that connected to the bridge—a sort of main avenue—entering the neighborhoods with the intention of asking the first soul she crossed paths with where she could find Severus.

But there was something strange… For some reason, not only that street, but others running parallel to it were deserted. There were people inside the houses, there was no doubt about it since their silhouettes could be seen through broken windows or half-open doorways, but no one was coming out.

"Are they… avoiding me?" She thought, knowing how vain that sounded in her own head, but it was hard not to think that way when her gaze had briefly crossed with several individuals and all of them, without exception, looked at her as if she were carrying the plague. "What the hell is wrong with them?"

It wasn't until several minutes of walking alone that she found the first person who didn't seem afraid of going outdoors: a young man her age, pulling a small cart that was, essentially, a mobile street food stand.

The young man was strong, his years of muscle mass developing visible behind a worn, buttonless shirt. He wore shorts in terrible condition, torn and with dozens of threads hanging off them, and his auburn hair was tied back like a ponytail.

Because of a red ribbon covering his eyes, apparently, he was blind.

"Maybe he knows..." she was thinking, at the other end of the street, when the young man stopped his cart and turned his head in her direction. "...?"

He raised a hand, waving at her. Tristessa looked behind her, just in case, and finding no one, she decided to go toward him, albeit with some caution.

"Hello… Sorry for the inconvenience, do you know where can I find the workshop of Severus Malak Drakan?" she asked bluntly, once she stood beside the wagon and saw all the cooking utensils and a metal stove that was smoking nonstop.

"This is your first time in the slums, right?" he asked in return, his voice hoarse, his gaze fixed on nothing in front of him, his obvious blindness evident. "I've never felt your presence around here before. Now I understand why my clientele is absent."

"Are you talking about people? Isn't it normal for the streets to be so empty?"

"It's because of your Discord. You smell evil."

Tristessa couldn't help but sulk at that. That prejudice followed her everywhere, and it made her wonder how a person born with a dark soul aligned with Vel'Moran—even though it's something no one could have decided on their own—could live in peace.

"You said Malak Drakan, right? The elf?" he asked, before Tristessa could get carried away with indignation, showing that he cared little for the spiritual structure of her soul. "I met him several hours ago."

"Where is he?!" Tristessa liquefied all her anger into enthusiasm, which the boy found amusing. "Um, I mean…is he in his workshop?"

"No, he was on his way to the north gate of the city. He said something about buying the most delicious fish from the Ocean of ​​Violent Waters, or something like that."

That answer made Tristessa's heart leap, filling her with fear. The memories of that banquet… The peace, Lucahn's sadness, the accusations…

Her mother's name, and the Coven's attack… Blood, fire and Death.

"If you want, I can take you to his workshop," the street vendor offered, indirectly saving her from falling further into that dark pit inside her own head. "You can wait for him there."

"Y-yes, please!" She couldn't help but smile, even in the face of the terror that had gripped her soul. "I appreciate it, sir…?"

"Please, I'm not that old. My name is Higgs," he introduced himself with a small smile. "Higgs Vendrick."

"Tristessa Irandell. It's a pleasure."

The walk wasn't as fast as she would have liked, but it's not wise to look a gift horse in the mouth. A guide in this part of the city that was hellbent in avoiding her was more than welcome, and with all the squalor Tristessa saw around her, she couldn't help but feel guilty for depriving him of his usual clientele.

"Would you like to sell me some of your food, Higgs?" she asked him, falling back a little to stand next to his cart and see the goods wrapped in newspaper, which was obviously written in glyphs. "Those roasted cakes smell delicious."

"I'd like to, but I won't be doing your stomach any favors. With your nerves like that, it will make you sick," he replied, without moving his head from the imaginary straight line he had traced with his senses.

The young man's perceptiveness and orientation surprised Tristessa. He seemed to need no other stimulus than his bare feet against the irregular soil, or eyes to analyze the mood of those around him.

"How do you know I'm so worried?" she asked, returning to his side and matching his speed. "Do you have a Divinity?"

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Higgs chuckled. A strange laugh, as if he wasn't used to it.

As if he normally had no reason to.

"Yes, I have the Divinity of sensing people's emotions when they speak." Faced with his companion's passive silence, the boy tilted his head slightly to keep his balance. "I'm lying about owning a Divinity, forgive me, Tristessa. But sometimes I like to think so. There aren't many people who can say their ears do the work their eyes never could."

"Oh, don't lie to me like that!"

"Honestly, you left me no choice," he mocked her. In a way, it had broken the ice between them, surrounded by such a quiet environment given the fear of the tenants of all those dilapidated houses. "Listen... Don't be mad at them, please?"

Tristessa didn't respond right away, distracted because her gray eyes met those of two girls, twin sisters dressed in old rags, who were peering from the roof of an abandoned and battered carriage. They instantly hid, but Tristessa could see in that fleeting second the fear on their dirty faces.

A fear of something they could see, but didn't understand.

"I'm trying…"

"Well, I prefer that to anything. I appreciate it."

Higgs smiled, like a shepherd happy to see his sheep protected from the predators lurking around the perimeter of the field… In this case, a predator with clean, freshly washed black hair and dressed in a leather trench coat.

"…"

The two didn't speak again until, a few minutes later, they arrived at Severus's workshop, which she had heard so much about… And her heart filled with sadness.

It was a vacant lot where people clearly came to dump trash, mostly debris or pieces of wood that no longer had any use for construction. Among all those small piles that pretended to be ruins, there was a two-story house built in a precarious way with materials that could easily have been discarded in that same vacant lot.

There were dozens of holes in the rotten wooden walls, held together in a rickety manner, and the only metallic element was a black gate with a barrier of ethereal energy in front of it, like a semi-transparent veil, with four non-elemental glyphs in the corners and a larger one in the middle.

"Severus lives here…?" She asked in a whisper, taking several steps into the open space, staring at the barrier meant to keep out intruders, even though one could easily knock down the walls without making much effort to get in.

"Yes. Were you expecting a mansion on the hill or something?" Higgs asked, turning his cart around so he could be in position to return the way he came. "Here, a gift."

The boy tossed her a wrapped roasted cake, which Tristessa almost failed to catch in midair after having been caught off guard.

"Higgs, wait!" she shouted, leaving the steaming snack on one of the healthier cobblestones on the uneven ground and starting to search her backpack for the remaining GSJ. Upon finding it, she saw that her guide had already started pulling his cart. "Hey, stop! Let me pay you!"

"Another day... That's how we roll in these parts, Tristessa."

The boy raised his arm, pointing to the sky in farewell, and it was there that the black-haired girl saw that he had a kind of rosary wrapped around his wrist, with a symbol of two crossed triangles hanging from a thin, small chain.

If her eyes hadn't deceived her, she had already seen that symbol once on the altar Jin had in his workshop: it was the icon of the Heterodox Church.

"No one survives alone!" she heard Higgs exclaim, before resuming with his diligent intention of feeding the needy.

Lowering her shoulders and sighing, Tristessa watched the blind boy—no, that priest of the Church—walk away slowly as he pulled his stand. From below, the aroma of the roasted cake reached her nostrils, causing her to pick it up from the ground and take a bite.

It was burnt dough with pieces of pork rinds inside. Simple and humble, its intention was to fill the stomach rather than offer a delicious taste.

A small but powerful example of the direction the predominant religion of the Empire, in constant conflict and under threat from the Dark Lady, was heading.

"That guy… There's also Caius, Cyela, that thaumaturge Urias, the older lady who mourned her grandson… This city has many stories to tell," she thought as she put away the roasted cake into her backpack. "I hope there are more happy ones than tragic ones…"

Almost like a cruel irony of fate, the moment Tristessa stood up, a cold, icy blizzard enveloped her brain. It covered her ears, allowing her to hear that crackling music only she could hear. It covered her head, reaching her eyes to reveal something no one but her could see.

The source of that unnatural coldness came from her [Divinity of Whispers in the Dark]. She felt it and could now identify it with extreme precision, like a limb of her body that had a specific function to do.

"Severus Malak Drakan…"

A voice she knew. Turning around, Tristessa saw a shadow, the silhouette of a person. There was nothing in between projecting it, and even with the midday light dominating every corner of the slums, there it was, existing with no logical sense. Occupying a space in front of the workshop's double doors, protruding beyond the barrier, as if blocking her path.

"Viktor Enma..." she whispered, identifying the voice of the man with whom she seemed to have established a kind of connection that transcended space and time.

Allowed by Tristessa's Divinity, the words of that shadow dominated each of her senses.

"I heard many things about that elf. A lunatic, a misunderstood genius, a free spirit... A forlorn ghost bound by the chains of vengeance," the mercenary's shadow recounted, once again walking sideways and playing with his knife in two dimensions. "My profession requires me to conduct a certain amount of prior research on my clients, a kind of insurance to see if I'm not putting my head inside the mouth of an Ursall. And this blood elf turned out to be...a little bit of everything I'd heard."

Now that she wasn't dominated by the fear of an unknown supernatural event, Tristessa could not only sense with perfect clarity all the misery imbued in the shadow's voice, but she could walk toward it.

By doing that, she discovered that that remnant of Viktor was both there and not there at the same time; she couldn't physically interact with it even if she tried. She could only limit herself to listening.

"Those are the kinds of people I like to work with, because I know the need to show themselves as they are is far stronger than anything else. It prevents deception, turns them into a river of crystalline waters, allowing us to see what lies at the bottom…" the shadow continued, recalling her time in that workshop. "What I saw at the bottom of this river, contaminated with the blood of a doomed species, was a scared, fragile, and lonely man. Any other mercenary desperate for money would have taken advantage of someone like him, someone forgotten by society. But not me. My values ​​and beliefs wouldn't allow it."

"Severus…" she said that name, looking more closely at that workshop, so far from everything, even in a neighborhood where society's outcasts end up.

"When Malak Drakan came to me with that mission, I made one of the worst mistakes a mercenary can make: accepting the job out of pity," the mercenary's phantasm lamented. "If I had known what awaited me in the Sea of ​​Trees… Would I have accepted the mission anyway? Would I have rejected it? Would I have ignored who I am and returned to my apartment with my tail between my legs? I'll never know…"

And it was when he stopped making those agile movements with his knife that the shadow, downcast, expressed its deep regret to its only listener.

"It wasn't until the moment I felt the maws of the Abyss enclosing me in darkness that I realized I too am weak. So fragile, so scared. The loneliness was driving me insane… I knew then what Severus Malak Drakan suffered from day by day. My hands wouldn't stop shaking… There's no way not to fear Death when it is staring you in the eye."

The words were spoken, the transmission from the other side completed. The echo, the memory of Viktor Enma, disappeared, leaving new memories in Tristessa and a strange feeling, as if they were reaching a deep part of her being with a warm breath of air.

Her dark soul, receiving another farewell gift from that shadow. She didn't know what it was, but she had a feeling she was about to find out.

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