[ WP ] `` You may have one wish granted . '' `` I want all my debts cleared . '' `` How much do you owe ? '' `` You misunderstand . My debts are not monetary . ''

You would be surprised how many people who scour ancient dungeons, temples, and fortresses, are willing to overlook almost everything about the mercenary they hire just because of her ability to open locks and spot traps in poorly-lit corridors. They do not seem to be afraid of getting stabbed in their backs, as if the “ rogue ” they hired for their little adventure learned all their skills in a school for adventurers or something equally silly. 
 
 After a few times you start wondering who is the bigger idiot: they, for thinking as they do, or you, for not having done that yet. 
 
 I've killed people for petty coin, for Divines' sake. I've stolen from wives at the marketplace. I've done other things that would make anyone who learned of it disgusted with me. 
 
 The last party who hired me was mostly the same. There were four of them, and three were clearly just guards of the usual smarts; I did n't even care to learn their names. But the last one, oh, that one was smarter, I could see it when he looked into my eyes and there was that distrust in them and that caution. His name, Francis de Lugh, I made sure to remember. What they wanted was obviously the same as every party before them wanted, meaning help with exploring some old place and getting something rare and valuable out of it for whatever reason. 
 
 That particular journey was a longer one, and though there were enough villages and hamlets on the road we were following to find a place to sleep amidst people most of the time, sometimes we did have to stop and make camp in the middle of nowhere. Francis, our lesser noble of a sponsor as I'd learned from his guards at some point and a fair enough fighter with magic as I'd seen with my own eyes, mostly took to himself as if we were all beneath him. I did n't really mind it and I guess they did n't either as none of them ever complained. They did talk, though, a lot. Most often about their lives, their families, their dreams. I did n't talk much about mine. 
 
 After weeks, we arrived at the doors to our destination, the Citadel of the Forgotten. It was more of a ruin than anything nowadays, but the tales say that before the Alvan War it served as a fortress for an avatar of one of the Divines. There were quite a few tales about it, really, but all the ones that spoke about artefacts of power to be found within were nowadays thought to be little more than bards' stories for children. But tales aside, there was something inside that Francis wanted and badly at that, badly enough to bring armed men with him when he clearly did not really need them, so we set up camp and rested for the last time before we'd venture into the unknown. 
 
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 Going down into this shithole was the biggest mistake we'd ever made. But whatever is it that this bastard de Lugh wanted, it was now within my reach, and reach for it I did. 
 
 It was a dark gem, violet in colour but radiating what one would say to be black light. Or maybe it just swallows light, I do n't know, it's not like I bloody ever studied the arcane arts. I stepped over the body lying on the floor and touched the gem, and when I did *something* appeared, something that I could not even describe, and it spoke to me. 
 
 “ The sacrifice I received was sufficient, Pale One. One of your wishes may be granted. ” 
 
 It was then that it struck me. Sacrifice. My mind wandering, I looked at the glove-covered hand I'd reached for the with. There was blood on it, and it was n't my blood. And it was n't de Lugh's either, the bastard's dead body now lying on the floor in this very room. 
 
 Did they... did they know he'd probably been planning to use them as the sacrifice? One by one, when they'd sacrificed themselves to protect me as we descended deeper and deeper, they'd never given me contempt in their final moments, never anger, never... anything but kindness. 
 
 For me, who'd killed people for petty coin... and done... things. 
 
 For me, who now carried mementoes of those dead people whose names I've never bothered to learn. 
 
 “ I... I want my debts to be cleared, ” I croaked. 
 
 “ Mhm, riches then and not power, how trifling. But a fitting request for a Pale One, I suppose. ” 
 
 Once, I guess, that would have been it. I would have accepted whatever riches the being gave; I was a mercenary and a rogue, after all, and all that was for riches or at least for a coin to have to spend on food and a place to sleep. But then, it just... did n't seem *right*. 
 
 “ No, you do n't understand, ” I quickly said. With one more look at de Lugh's worthless carcass, I took the medallions of those guards and shoved them forward. “ These three belong to men who'd given their lives for me. To men who should have scorned me and yet gave me nothing but kindness. To men who should have thought me trash and yet treated me as an equal. ” I swallowed. For some reason it was really hard. “ I owe them, I do n't know what but I owe them something. ” 
 
 “ And you want to have those debts be cleared how? ” 
 
 “ I... I do not know. ” 
 
 “ Very well, then, Pale One. ” It touched my forehead with one of its hand things, and a feeling of both hot and cold started spreading throughout my whole body. “ In the name of Alvan, I mark you as one of his children and make you into one of his Arcani. The needs of life will no longer be a necessity for you, your existence unending, and the whispers of the deceased will now be carried to your ears. Go now, child of eternity, Arcanos of Alvan. ” 
 
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 The children all sat in a circle around the girl who was telling them a story of past times. She looked to be no more than twenty, if even that, her skin pale but not overly so, her movement vigorous and refreshing to watch, but her eyes showed age and experience. 
 
 “ And this, ” she added as she finished speaking the tale, “ is how I met your great-great-grandfathers. ” 
 
 If there was anything she had to wonder about, it was whether or not she'd already paid the debt off. But it did not matter, this was her home now, she did not mind paying it off a bit more.
