Chapter 143 - Ghostsaw's Blade

'I'll take a look at the weapon closer once I get to the thieves guild.' Merlin thought to himself. 'This place is going to be crawling with people soon.'

"We're all done here, right?" Merlin asked Elwood. "I'm running a little short on time."

"Yes, everything else can be sorted by my men." Elwood responded. "If you see your boss, tell him I said thanks."

"Alright, will do." Merlin said as he waved and made his way out the door quickly.

He was greeted with strange looks, and it seemed a few more curious gazes were around due to the recent commotion.

Merlin slipped out of the building, making his way out onto the less crowded streets of the upper district of the city. He still had the mask and cloak on, but as he made his way towards the slums, he managed to slip into a vacant alleyway. He swapped his mask and cloak for the older cloak before he reached the most active part of the city.

Merlin slipped into the crowd as usual, flowing with the traffic as he made his way closer to the slums, and once he reached the point, he slipped out of the crowd and pulled his hood up.

As per usual, the atmosphere was dreary, Merlin slipped through the slums and make his way to the shabby old tavern once more. He greeted Fae and made his way down into the thieves guild.

Surprisingly, the elf wasn't in his usual spot drinking, rather he was standing near one of the tunnels out of the main room, speaking with another thief.

Their conversation seemed important, so Merlin waited, and as he waited he pulled the Ghostsaw's blade out and checked his new weapon's stats.

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[Ghostsaw's Blade (Unique)]

A nasty looking long dagger with a serrated edge. It was previously the trusted partner of Ghostsaw, a famous assassin who operated within Macedonia before he was assassinated. It has an eerie aura, and often feels cold to the touch.

• Damage: +16

• Stealth: +15%

• Abilities: ⟪Rending Strike⟫ 

• Infused souls: "★ Race Soul: Ghost (Level 3)" 

• Soul abilities: ⟪Phantom Step⟫, ⟪Phantom Slash⟫

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He then loaded up the first ability of the weapon, causing another information window to appear.

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⟪Rending Strike⟫

The mangled serrated edge of the blade rends and shreds any flesh it comes into contact with, making it harder to heal and increasing the chance to inflict severe bleeding.

• Reduces the healing of wounds caused by this blade by 19%.

• Each attack has a 12% chance to inflict severe bleeding.

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'That's quite useful for a passive ability.' Merlin thought to himself. 'I'm definitely happy with that.'

He then swiped that information window away and loaded up the first ability from the soul ability category, another information window appeared before him.

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⟪Phantom Step⟫

By channelling magical power into the blade, you can surround yourself with a ghostly veil, allowing you to become invisible for a short period of time.

• You become invisible for 12 seconds, attacking, casting a spell or being attacked will cancel this effect early.

• Mana cost: 40

• 70 second cooldown.

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'The ability to go invisible, that's really convenient.' Merlin thought. A large grin had formed on his face. 'It's just too bad that it's a seventy second cooldown, but that's understandable.'

Once again the window was swiped away, and then he brought up the last information window for his last infused soul ability.

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⟪Phantom Slash⟫

The soul of a ghost was infused in this weapon, granting the blade the ghost's ethereal properties.

• The blade can phase through most non-living materials when wielded.

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'This one is going to require some testing.' Merlin thought to himself while reading the very brief description. 'But it's cool.'

As Merlin continued staring at the ability window, he pondered about how useful it actually was.

'It has the insane ability of being entirely undefendable, or so it seems. But at the same time, I wouldn't be able to use it to parry. Which means I'd have to undo years of trained reactions and train myself to not parry with whatever hand held that blade.'

As Merlin was having a long internal monologue session, the thief lord seemed to have finished his conversation with the other thief, who was now making their way down the tunnel. The thief lord noticed Merlin and slowly approached, striking up conversation as he drew near.

"Hey Merlin, I assume your quest went well?" The thief lord asked in a tone that seemed almost hopeful.

Instead of giving a straightforward answer, Merlin pulled out Ghostsaw's blade, showing it off to the elf with a nod.

"Oho, very nice." The elf remarked as his eyes locked onto the unique dagger design. "With that, we can finally conclude that the Ghostsaw has been vanquished, and by none other than the Ghost himself."

The elf seemed to be having a little bit of fun with that strange coincidence, and he continued on for a few more sentences until Merlin grew tired of it.

"Poetry aside, what other tasks are there for me to do?" Merlin asked. "Are there any other names on the list that you need dealt with?"

"Plenty, yes." The elf spoke. "Like the body of a spider, Kilo stands as the head, while she has eight legs, or puppets, at her disposal." 

"The first leg has been destroyed, the Ghostsaw, one of her favourite pawns." The elf muttered. "No doubt the assassin involved with the death of several city leaders who opposed the compound from being constructed and the status of a valid religion being granted to them."

"Next is Madame Hartlace, the slave trader who runs the local orphanage." The elf continued, "Her job was to provide slave labour, or spies, to plant in noble houses." 

"There are several others, but we're yet to find much information about them outside of their general activities in service to Kilo." The elf said, "But of those we do know... We know of a noble who has been creating, selling and utilising a new drug within the city, a highly addictive substance that has been found used on the children of nobles, usually lesser nobles but sometimes not."

"We've found several cases of the drugs being used to blackmail noble families into subordination, with the life of their child at stake." The elf spoke while gritting his teeth. "Truly despicable behaviour."

"And of the remaining five legs, we can assume that one of the puppets is a high rank within the temple, another a high rank within the city guard. And from what we can tell, the remaining three are very wealthy and seem to only support her through their collective wealth." The elf concluded.

"So I need to kill a drug dealer, a high ranking priest, a high ranking soldier and three very wealthy individuals who could probably buy my death if they so wished." Merlin said out loud. "Did I get that right?"

"Precisely." The elf retorted.

"Alright, well I get why the high ranking soldier is involved. I clearly saw how scummy the town guard could be not too long ago with those kids." Merlin said, "But how do you know the temple is involved?"

"It's simple, really." The elf muttered. "The temple once held great conviction of the gods and goddesses we worshipped, and especially to Gaia, who oversaw our activities and sustained the land that we required to live."

"With our convictions holding true, those who worshipped false gods and who wished to create temples in the honour of false gods were shunned and prevented from doing so." The elf said, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"So when one of their followers defects, only to start a new religion with said follower as the object of worship, and nobody from the temple reacts, attempts to stop her, or so much as calls her a demon." The elf continued, "Well, something in such a case is very out of place, and I suspect that one of the leaders of the temple has fallen under Kilo's spell."

"Now that you mention it, I did find it quite odd that the temple stripped you of your title, but now I know more it is even more suspicious. I understand your suspicions now, they should have contested the new religion being formed at the very least."  Merlin muttered.

The two continued to converse for a while, with Merlin finding out that he must wait a week or so to see results. And as the conversation was coming to an end, he received another red notification window.

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[Message from the devs!]

Group one, your session will end in five minutes, please find a safe place and log out.

The server will forcibly disconnect those who do not log out in time. Thank you.

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Merlin said farewell to those in the general area before logging out within the thieves guild.

"System logout.." He chanted, causing a prompt to appear before him asking for him to confirm, he said yes, causing the world around him to suddenly start darkening before he was returned to the familiar black void.