For three weeks, the young man moved through Veridia's underbelly like a rumor given flesh. He didn't seek glory. He sought **leverage**. He stole ledgers from tax collectors, intercepted supply manifests from noble caravans, and left them on doorsteps with a single word pinned to the top: *"Lies."*
The people didn't cheer. They *feared*.
"A ghost killing enforcers?" scoffed Torvin, the blacksmith, hammering a red-hot horseshoe. Sweat plastered his bald head. "More likely House Corwin playing games with House Varn. Stay out of it, boy, or you'll end up in the gutters with the rest of the rats."
A washerwoman, scrubbing linens in the public trough, spat into the murky water. "The Church says vigilantes invite chaos. Let the Light judge the wicked. Not some shadow with a knife."
The young man listened from the rafters of the market square, hood pulled low. He'd learned a hard truth in Manila: **Truth isn't believed—it's proven**. So he changed tactics.
His next target wasn't just another enforcer. It was **Tax Collector Rell**—a bloated, sweating man who'd whipped Widow Marna's husband to death over two copper coins in back tithes. Rell didn't just collect; he *invented* debts. His ledger was a weapon.
The young man didn't strike in the shadows. He struck in the **light**.
At dawn on Market Day, he disguised himself as a beggar—face smeared with ash, tattered cloak pulled tight—and climbed onto an empty fruit crate in the center of the square. He held Rell's stolen ledger high.
"People of Veridia!" His voice, amplified by a trick of acoustics he'd practiced for days, carried unnaturally. "Hear the truth House Varn and House Corwin paid Rell to hide!"
He flipped open the ledger, reading aloud in a clear, sharp tone:
> *"House Corwin paid 50 gold to Rell on the 12th of Blooms to falsify the harvest reports of District Seven. Result: Twelve families evicted. Three children—Lissa, Tomas, and Mara—sold to the Church orphanage on the 15th."*
A hush fell over the crowd. Eyes darted. No one spoke. No one moved. They listened—but they didn't *believe*. Not yet.
So he escalated.
That afternoon, he waited near Widow Marna's hovel. Rell arrived, flanked by two thugs, demanding her last loaf of black bread as "interest" on her dead husband's "debt."
"Please, sir," Marna whispered, clutching the loaf like a holy relic. "It's all I have for my daughters."
Rell backhanded her. "Then they'll starve *faster*."
The young man didn't hesitate.
He dropped from a rooftop behind Rell. Before the tax collector could turn, he wrapped a garrote wire—Bastian's first crude gift, forged from scavenged Templar plate—around Rell's throat and **yanked hard**. Rell's feet left the ground. His eyes bulged. He clawed at the wire, but it was micro-serrated, biting deep. His windpipe crushed. His carotid arteries severed. He died in 4.7 seconds.
The young man didn't stop there.
He dragged Rell's body to the market square, ignoring the gasps and cries. He pinned the tax collector's hands to the cobblestones with iron nails stolen from Torvin's forge—one through each palm. Then he nailed the ledger to Rell's chest, open to the page listing Lissa, Tomas, and Mara.
He stepped onto the crate again. This time, his voice didn't just carry—it **resonated**, low and hollow, as if the shadows themselves spoke:
> **"This man stole your grain. His masters are House Corwin and the Luminous Church. Ask them why your children starve while their cellars overflow. Ask them where Lissa, Tomas, and Mara are."**
Then he vanished into the alley mist, leaving only the corpse, the ledger, and the **truth**.
This time, the people *reacted*.
Widow Marna spat on Rell's face. Torvin the blacksmith kicked the ledger open, his face darkening as he read. A crowd formed—not of fear, but of **fury**. Someone shouted, "My boy was on that list!" Another cried, "They took my sister last month!"
The young man watched from a rooftop, heart pounding not with adrenaline, but with **clarity**. He had his first proof: **People believe what they see with their own eyes.**
> **[QUEST COMPLETE: EXPOSE SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION.]**
> **[REWARDS: CHARISMA +2, PUBLIC TRUST +5%, VOID STEP II.]**
> **[NEW STATUS]**
> **STR: 4 | AGI: 7 | VIT: 5 | INT: 13 | WIS: 11 | CHA: 7 | VOD: 9**
> **[VOID STEP II — 8 SECONDS OF PHASED MOVEMENT IN DARKNESS. COOLDOWN: 8 MINUTES.]**
> **[SYSTEM NOTE: PUBLIC OPINION SHIFT — CAUTIOUS INTEREST. TRUST: 5%.]**
He returned to his hidden cellar beneath the derelict apothecary, the scent of dried wormwood and dust filling his lungs. He ate a strip of dried meat, his mind already turning to the next target. House Corwin. The Church. The rot went deeper than enforcers and tax collectors.
But for the first time, he wasn't just a ghost.
He was a **spark**.
And Veridia was dry tinder.