Chapter 74 (2 of 2) No. 132 of the Anonymity Mausoleum (Patreon)

“And I went like thiiiiish and logged…. lobbed… lopped off his head!”

The speaker, who had one foot on the bar table, clumsily swung his hand outward, spilling some of the liquid in his tankard over the edging with a loud slosh. It landed on the head of one of the men seated on a bar stool who angrily swatted the man on the leg but returned to drowning in his liquor.

The man on the table didn’t care and stumbled down from the bench, spilling the rest of his ale in the process as he gestured to his laughing audience. “And that ish the taaaale of Gaaawen the Great…”

“Darthmond!”

The clear voice cut through the rowdy bar atmosphere and drew everyone’s attention. The brown-haired man in his mid-thirties whom it was directed to gazed blankly in the direction of the voice. “Huuuh?”

The armoured man, who wore a crest of a mercenary Guild on his chestplate, jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the tavern entrance. “Abigor wants to chat. He’s waiting outside.”

The other drunk mercenaries in the room started talking amongst themselves in quiet voices, but ‘Gawen’ slowly blinked once and then a drunken, lopsided smirk appeared on his face as he gave the speaker a lazy salute. “Aye aye, siiir Vice Captain-o. Gawen the Great will be out just as soon as I finish thi…” He squinted at his tankard when he realised it was empty. “Oi, who switched out me’ drink?”

A nearby mercenary cupped his hands around his mouth to call out to him. “It was Sein!”

‘Sein’, the man across from the mercenary, shot the man a dirty look at the false accusation.

Gawen turned his squint to the man, who he barely saw through his blurred vision, and raised a wobbly hand to point at him. “I’ll get you back for thish, Sein. Juuust you wait…”

“Darthmond, don’t make Abigor wait any longer,” the armoured man said with a cold voice.

“Yeah yeah, whatever the mighty Guild Leader says…” Gawen threw the tankard back at the bar to the barkeeper who caught it with their good reflexes, and then stumbled out of the tavern door to follow the armoured man out.

He was led to a darker alleyway far from the tavern, where a man looking like he was in his late twenties with long, dark grey hair was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. Behind him were two other men with cruel smirks on their faces, not that Gawen noticed through his intoxication.

“Abigooor!” Gawen exclaimed with his hands held out when he saw the man. “To what do I owe the plesh… plers…” After trying to sound out the word for a while, he gave up and changed tactics. “The honour of meeting here tonight!” He gave them a clumsy attempt at a bow.

As Gawen approached, ‘Abigor’, the man with long hair shoved him back with his nose wrinkled in distaste at the man’s scent. “No reason, really. I just wanted a chat.”

“A chat? With me?” Gawen tried to come up with a coherent guess at what the man wanted through the drunken fog in his brain, but his limited last few undrunk brain cells didn’t want to cooperate so he just shrugged. “Alright… what about?”

“I just wanted to say, you did a really good job during the expedition,” Abigor said with a fake smile. “Very well done. My Guild advanced very far in our Dungeon conquest thanks to the efforts of your little merc party.”

“Well ‘tanks a lot for that. If that’s all, I’ll be returning to…” Just as Gawen turned around to walk back to the tavern, the armoured mercenary who has brought him there and the two men behind Abigor pointed their weapons at him. “Uh… what is thish?”

“Darthmond, how would you like to join my Guild?” Abigor continued, walking around the drunk man with his hands behind his back. “I can promise you a high position in it.”

“Heh. You’ve asked thish before and you know my answer.” Gawen smirked and placed his hands on his hips with drunken confidence. “I don’t need no stinkin’ Guild. You quit my party to make thish Guild but we’ve done just fine, haven’t we? Even made a name for myself these past six… or seben?” He tried to count on his fingers. “Er… years… ‘round that.”

“You’re making a mistake, Darthmond,” Abigor said through gritted teeth.

“Mishtakes, smishtakes.” Gawen waved a hand. “Made plenty in my life, but none have got me dead ye-” He spluttered as pain sprouted from within him and he looked down to see a blade poking through his gut. He tried to look over his shoulder. “You…”

The merc remained cold-faced and inexpressive as the blade remained stuck through his back. Abigor smirked and gripped Gawen’s face with a hand. “Then I suppose this will be the first. I know you’ve got resurrections, so just take a break for a few years and try to recover that hundred levels you lost as I take my Guild to greater heights.” He leaned close to whisper with a twisted grin, “You might have difficulty doing that when the rest of your party members have already joined my Guild, though.”

“I…” Gawen collapsed to the ground when the mercenary behind him took the blade out. The last thing he saw as he bled out onto the stony ground and his body was turned into white light was the four men laughing and mocking him, then walking away without a second look at the death they caused.

…

Blighted, my head is killing me. How badly did I screw up this time?

In the gloom of the early morning, a man walked away from the Obelisk plaza, rubbing his temples. He paused when he saw the state of his outfit and cautiously put a sleeve to his nose to smell the strange damp spot on it. Gawen pulled back when his nostrils were assaulted by something that reminded him of a mix between the love child of whiskey and vinegar that had been left in the open air for a month.  

Bleurgh, that reeks! Wait, I recognise that smell… isn’t that the cheap drink I’d always buy from my local bar two centuries ago?

Mind-splitting pain wracked him as he grabbed his head, a pounding migraine forming.

Two… centuries ago? What am I on about…?

It took a minute or two of deep breaths for the pain to recede before Gawn was comfortable with straightening up and taking unstable steps in the direction of his home. Deep-seated tiredness suddenly formed and he found himself dragging his feet.

I… just need to lie down and… hope I sober up by the morning.

Half an hour later, he stumbled into a home he vaguely recognised as his own. He drew a deep breath as a slender-framed blonde woman hurriedly ran into the room when she heard the front door opening. She paused when she saw who had entered.

“Gawen?” she exclaimed, running up to him. She wrinkled her nose when she saw the state of his clothes and backed up a little. “Where have you been?! It’s nearly four in the morning! No, don’t answer that.” She put a hand up to her forehead. “You’ve obviously been drinking this entire time. Did I really marry such a pathetic excuse for a man?”

“…Elayne?” He stared at the woman before him, feeling like something was very, very wrong. Elayne was… his ex-wife. He hadn’t thought about her for over two centuries, but now she was here again calling herself his wife. “Why are you here?”

No… what am I thinking? Elayne has always been my wife… hasn’t she? She’d never leave me… I think.

The migraine returned with full force and he let out a groan as he stumbled, nearly falling onto the ground. Elayne rushed forward to support him and take him to their bedroom.

“Why am I here? Because I live here!” Elayne retorted. She helped him sit down on the bed and clicked her tongue as she looked at him with disapproval and something else noticed. Contempt and disgust. “Just… get to bed. Something’s wrong but it can wait until tomorrow. We both need some sleep.”

“I… yeah.” He rolled onto the bed and let out a sigh as he gazed at the roof. “Yeah, I’ll… go to sleep.”

“Good.” Elayne walked over to the other side of the bed and got in, then rolled over so her back was facing him. “Don’t complain to me about your hangover tomorrow.”

He didn’t reply and just rubbed his temples as the headache ate away at his remaining mental energy. Gawen knew he’d have a lot to think about in the morning, but for now, he just closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

…

Gawen had woken up. The sun was high in the sky, and he sat at a table on the balcony of his second story as drank the herbal tea Elayne had given him for his headache. His fingers tapped a rhythmic pattern on the table as things were finally starting to make sense.

The final message the System gave me… ‘Zerum’ had died. Yeah, that was it. That’s why I’m here.

He frowned and scratched his beard as he tried to consider his plans for the immediate future.

Selling the property and belongings should take about a week to get done if I’m smart. I’ll need to stay off Abigor and his stooges’ radar until then. Then I can leave the plane and get a fresh start.

But… what do I do then? I was told I’m basically free to go and correct any of my past mistakes until I meet Zerum again and return to Anonymity…

His hand brushed past the unmarred skin of his face under his rough stubble and he pulled back his hand to stare at his calloused, thick palms. There were a few nicks and scratches here and there, as was common in his profession, but no traces of the scarred monster he had become in later years. Not that he had ever minded his appearance at that point.

He knew his old appearance was considered quite handsome with his rugged, chiselled looks. That was probably why Elayne even married him, to begin with. But look what happened and who she ditched him for as soon as he lost those hundred levels and dropped to Rank-3.

Should I kill him again? Eh, nah. Not worth the hassle.

He stretched his arms above his head and yawned, then leaned back in his seat to watch the sky.

Haven’t been back in the Mystical Realm for… probably fifty years. Oh, yeah, Cosmic Realm’s not opened yet. Dammit, I wanted to have fun in an EX sim for a bit after my last mission.

A thought struck him and he straightened up to narrow his eyes suspiciously at the world around him.

This whole ‘return’ thing isn’t some prank by the research department, is it? Put me into a hyper-realistic illusion sim and treat me as a guinea pig while they change things around me?

Gawen considered but eventually shook his head.

Nope. Elrotior roped me in last time so he could win some stupid bet of his, but I know I never would’ve accepted something like this. There’s always the possibility that one of the crazies from the department put me in here by force though… guess I’ll find out eventually.

…hm? Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure Elrotior died around this time too. Off by a month or two, I think. He mentioned it was before my death. Didn’t the System say the memories would be triggered by the use of a resurrection for those who were alive during this time?

He gazed blankly at the table before him and then stood up to go inside and grab a pen and paper. He scrawled a quick note along the lines of ‘We need to talk – signed, Gawen’, and stuffed it into the envelope. Then he sprung back up to run downstairs and pull up the floorboard where he kept a secret stash of his wage.

Planned on using it as an anniversary gift for Elayne last time around, but like hell that’s going to happen again. That witch can go and kill herself in some hole where I’ll never see her again.

With his pouch of rose crowns safely stored and the letter in his other hand, he rushed out to the nearest teleportation array so he could use the courier service to deliver his letter. Luckily, Elrotior had been one of the few friends and members of Anonymity he knew before joining the organisation, so he had the address memorised.

He turned around to look back at his house.

Now there’s only one thing left to do.

…

“…Gawen? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?”

Instead of pretending it was said out of worry for him instead of anxiousness for their week’s pay, Gawen didn’t instantly look at his ‘wife’ and downed the rest of his second cup of elderberry tea. He finally turned to face her with a serious expression. “Elayne, I want a divorce.”

“…what? Gawen, what’s gotten into you?” She walked up to him with a frown and tried to touch his face to check his condition. “Asking for a divorce all of a sudden… has all that alcohol finally addled your brain?”

He avoided her touch and swatted her hand away. “Don’t act dumb, Elayne. This is what you wanted first, wasn’t it? You were planning on bringing this up by the end of the month anyway.”

She stared at him. “You-”

Gawen sighed and ran a hand down his face, just wanting the frustrating ordeal to be over and done with as soon as possible. “Look, I… I know about the kid. It’s not mine, is it?”

She instantly moved to cover her stomach. “H-How did you-”

“Not important. Who was it?” She didn’t respond and he crossed his arms. “Abigor? No, that’s not important either.” He waved a hand after he registered her frozen-stiff expression, proof that he had been right with his guess. “Neither of us wants to continue, so let’s just get it over and done with, right?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ll want to be reunited with your darling lover as soon as possible to tell him he’s a father.”

…

-One week later-

Gawen had left his former house, reading the slip of paper the courier had returned with. He was dressed in his ensemble of leather and steel merc gear, and his greatsword was strapped to his back. He smiled when he read his friend’s response and pocketed the letter.

Most, if not all of their shared assets had gone to him. Partially because his ex-wife had unfounded confidence that Abigor would provide for her and take her in, so didn’t care about the house when she was going to be the ‘wife of a Guildmaster’, but it was really because the judge had taken pity on him by the end. The case was in his favour, and he just wanted out as soon as possible, so at the end of it all he had enough money to live a decent life on a Minor or Major plane for a couple of years, at the very least.

The next step was to meet up with his friend and colleague, and then he could work things out from there.

Little more than an hour later, he had arrived at a familiar shady-looking inn outside of the safe zone of the Obelisk where he and Elrotior had frequented. He walked inside, ignoring the glares and scrutinizing looks from the equally shady residents of the inn. He knew that it was just par for the course when dealing with these parts.

Gawen marched up to a table for two people where one lone hooded man was sitting, a longbow on his back. The cowl of his cloak was deep and he sat silently at the table, looking like he wouldn’t speak to anyone. Grey hair could be seen poking out from underneath and brown eyes gazed piercingly at Gawen.

Gawen jerked his head in the direction of the inn door. “We take this outside?”

The cloaked archer gazed at Gawen for one second and silently nodded. He stood up and both men walked towards the entrance, neither looking at the other.

One of the onlookers nudged his partner at the table. “That rando’s going to get skewered by Hawkesh over there. Poor thing.”

The cloaked archer turned back to gaze silently at the speaker, who flinched and tried to avoid notice by downing the rest of his tankard. The bow-wielding man turned back to the door entrance and went outside with Gawen. They both walked off into an uninhabited alleyway and then Gawen turned around to stare at the man.

The cloaked archer threw off his hood and stared back. Neither said a word.

A bird cried in the distance as the silence drew on. The tense staring contest continued for another minute or so.

Finally, Gawen made the first move. He quickly walked up to the man with ash-grey hair and gazed solemnly at him.

“No. 132 of the Anonymity Mausoleum stands before you,” he began sharply. “State your address, the reason for being here and the passage phrase.”

The grey-haired man instantly saluted. “No. 204 stands before you. I’m here because I received a letter from an annoying old companion and have no blighted clue what to do otherwise. Passage phrase of Anonymity: Leave no traces but trace all traces, if you find a member of End, kill them, and if you accidentally poke a Paragon Anomaly in the wrong spot… you’re on your own, so good luck.”

The two men continued staring at each other, with Gawen’s expression twitching. Then at the same time, they burst out laughing and doubled over, clutching their stomachs.

“W-When… When was the last time one of us had to say the passage phrase?” Gawen began, wheezing as he tried to wipe away his tears.

“Beats me, but I had nearly forgotten about that last part.” The man Gawen knew as Elrotior let out a loud sigh and placed his hands on his hips. “We probably looked so stupid, standing there for nearly five minutes just staring at each other. It’s a little freaky to see your old appearance.” Elrotior smirked. “Not that you were much of a pretty sight in your old age. Maybe this is an improvement.”

“Bah, shove off you sorry excuse of a friend.” Gawen breathed out and finally straightened up. Then he smirked and walked up to his old friend. “So, when did you remember?”

“’bout a month or so, I reckon.” Elrotior walked beside him as they began to catch up on their past events. “Can’t say it was fun having to kill all those pesky money handlers for the nobles in the area. Only good thing about people thinking I was dead in the past was that nobody wanted my money.”

“Ha, so we’re in a contest of who had it worse, are we?” Gawen replied with a smirk. “Guess who was the first person I met after my resurrection: my dear ex-wife.”

“Wow, Elayne? Really? That witch? Didn’t I swear I’d give her hell if I ever saw her again?” Elrotior mused.

Gawen sent him a flat look. “And how were you expecting to do that?”

“Ehhh, you know…” The archer shimmied his hands. “Chat her up a little, gain her affection and trust… and then when she thinks she’s found the love of her life I’ll betray her and send her spiralling into a hell of her own making.”

“Pfft.” Gawen scoffed. “You overestimate your appearance.”

“Hey, it’s not just the appearance that makes a man.” Elrotior gestured to himself. “It’s the charm. I may have nothing to my name, but I am a noble.”

“Sure, sure.” Gawen looked around and glanced at his friend. “So, what do you say we do? I’m pretty much homeless at the moment so if you’ve got a place to bunk then I might have to head there.”

“Couch it is for you then, my old friend.” Elrotior whistled as he walked. “I guess we head to my place and talk things out. Oh, want to catch a drink before we go?”

Gawen gagged. “Nope. Sorry, but when I woke up I had the worst headache and the taste of Old Blue’s Hookberry liquor was still in my mouth.”

“Yuck, you had that kind of taste?” Elrotior gave him a disgusted look. “That stuff is vile. Cheap, nasty and putrid.”

“Yeah, well, some people can’t afford to have fine wine when they want to get drunk, Mr. Fallen Noble.”

“That was a low blow,” Elrotior complained.

Gawen chuckled and slapped his friend on the back before slinging an arm across his shoulders. “Anyway, take me to this nice roost of yours so I can finally get a good night’s rest. I’ve had barely any sleep because I’ve been lying awake wondering if that witch was going to stab me in the middle of the night.”

…

“Oi, Gawen. Get up.”

“Mumble mumble…”

“Hey.”

A hard boot was roughly shoved into the man’s side and Gawen rolled over on the couch, a thin blanket covering him. “Yeah, just… five more… minutes…” He promptly began to snore again.

“Come on, really?” Elrotior clicked his tongue and looked around for something to motivate him. He saw his fire poker, still slightly warm from when he stoked the fire, and gained an evil grin. The grey-haired man snatched the metal rod and swiftly whacked the red-hot end against his guest’s thigh.

“Owowow!” Gawen shot bolt upright and gave his friend a dirty look, rubbing the spot on his leg that still burned with searing pain. “That hurt.”

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. It’s a quarter ‘til noon and we have a big day ahead of us.” Elrotior pushed his friend’s legs off one side of the couch and lounged on the end instead. “First question of the day. Where do you think we go from here?”

“Hm. Well. I’ve been thinking.” Gawen frowned and turned to sit straight on the couch. He glanced at Elrotior. “The memory unseal mechanism was supposed to happen when we died in the reset timeline, right? So the System could do whatever wacky crap it loves and stuff our old memories in our brains. Or fuse our souls or… whatever it needed to do."

"Yup. That’s about it,” Elrotior said, pulling out a cigar to light it with a single magical ember blazing from his fingertip.

“Obviously some of Anonymity won’t have even been born yet, and the System will give them their memories as soon as they awaken their Origin Skills, but…” Gawen crossed his arms. “Should we search for the other members of Anonymity?”

“Not ‘shupposed to mess up the timeline,” Elrotior said past the cigar in his mouth, busy using his hands to polish the pale wood of his longbow.

“Yeah, I get it. The System doesn’t want us messing with Zerum’s plans, and neither do I want to. They’re our boss,” Gawen replied, shaking his head. “What I mean is searching for the ones we know the identities of, killing them to get them to resurrect with their memories in-tact, and then keeping an eye out for any major changes in the timeline that will likely point us to Zerum. Hey, if we find a way to access the Mausoleum sooner then all the better.”

“Hm. You have a point. And I know the real identities of two of the numbers,” Elrotior mused.

Gawen’s eyes widened, surprised. “Really? Who? I only know your true identity and appearance.”

Elrotior took a draught of his cigar and smirked as he blew it out. “Nope, you know about the first guy too. Everyone in the Tower knew who this member of Anonymity was. His true form didn’t exactly allow him to hide it very well.”

“Everyone? There is no way that’s possib- wait.” Gawen stared at his friend like he was staring at a maniac. “Y-You’re not thinking of Thirteen right now, are you?”

Elrotior winked and did finger guns at Gawen. “You betcha I am. Anonymity’s favourite member, No. 13. The Black Dragon?”

“Margotharel?! Are you crazy?!” Gawen burst out. “Do you know how insanely dangerous the black dragon will be without his memories?! Not to mention his obnoxious personality back then…” Gawen frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “No, scratch that. He was obnoxious and infuriating after he joined Anonymity too.”

“Look, I never said we had to kill him first,” Elrotior retorted. “I’m not suicidal. And I also mentioned I know who another guy is: No. 57.”

Gawen thought hard to recall that person. He thought long and hard. Eventually… “Nope, don’t know him at all.”

“That guy would probably be happy to hear that then. His whole ‘shtick’ is about remaining undercover and avoiding the limelight.” Elrotior shrugged. “His name is Lester, no last name. He works as a spymaster for a dark guild right now. Only know this because I heard about him while doing my assassin work. Don’t underestimate him, though. He’s one sketchy guy, but he’s a smart sketchy guy. He’s got the brains we need to go alongside our brawn.”

“Hey, who says I don’t have any brains?” Gawen complained.

Elrotior pointed at himself. “Me. I say this from being your long-time friend, too. Anyway, I say we go find Lester and see if we can kill him.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan.” Gawen paused as he realised something. “Wait… what about Riftmire?”

Elrotior paused mid-draught of his cigar and raised an eyebrow. “What about Riftmire?”

“Y’know, letting her in on all… this.” Gawen gestured vaguely to themselves. “While she wasn’t an official member, we all saw her enough to be familiar with her, and we’re all against the distorter and what he means for the realms. Hell, if I didn’t know I’d stand no chance I’d go over there right now and punch the living daylights out of him.”

“Well…” Elrotior smothered his cigar using his couch armrest. “Riftmire wasn’t a real member of Anonymity, and only worked with us because we had a common goal. Namely, ‘not letting the realms get destroyed by some idiot’s hero complex mixed with secret terrorist organisations’. I don’t reckon the System would give her any memories back, especially because right now, she’s acting as a good distraction for the distorter.”

“Sad, but true.” Gawen sighed. “No Riftmire then. Things probably wouldn’t go well for us if we tried to kill her, anyhow. She’s got a nasty temper for someone who acts like nearly everyone in Anonymity is invisible.”

“Welp, if we’re going to go hunt down Lester, I need to get some things ready.” Elrotior leaned on his knees to get up and dusted his palms. “Restock on weapons, buy some spare strings for my bow… that sort of thing. We’re going to be in for a real wild ride.”

Gawen frowned. “Is Lester going to be hard to kill?”

Elrotior chuckled. “Oh, killing Lester is going to be the easy part. The hard part will be finding him. He’s not a spymaster for nothing, and one interesting detail I found out about him is that he’s an illegitimate child of the big seven. An heir to Genest, the Eternal Duchy of the Dark Element.” Elrotior gained a ferocious grin. “Thankfully, he’s a pretty weak individual, so I’m going to be having loads of fun getting payback on him for that time he threw me into a lethal mission all because he needed to deal with ‘politics’.”

“Ah… a grudge. I see.” Gawen raised an eyebrow. “I take it you’ll want me to leave the last hit to you?”

“Definitely.” Elrotior cracked his knuckles and gained a dark smirk. “Because if there’s one thing about Lester I know, it’s that anything we do to him, he’s already done worse. Much, much worse.”

~~~~~~
For an example of foreshadowing, see Prologue: Discontinuation Confirmed