"I could offer you an hourly rate if you'd like? That is standard protocol when the Academy hires third party consults," the young woman said as the Corpse Hunter approached her.
The man in gray almost scoffed at the mention of being here for hours. They'd have to chain him down if they intended to keep him here that long. "I'll take a lump sum and in exchange you'll get ten minutes of my time."
There was a pause while the blonde haired woman thought over his proposal. Ten minutes wasn't a lot of time to pick his brain but it was better than nothing she decided. "Alright, ten gold for ten minutes."
"Deal."
Aiden might have been able to haggle for a more advantageous offer but he found that he lacked the patience and verbal finesse for that sort of thing. That was partly the reason he was prepared to take her first offer if it was to his liking or simply walk away if it wasn't. Ten gold could buy a night's worth of alcohol, even for someone who drank as much as he did. And ten minutes, while it would be unpleasant at the time, was a worthy trade for the hours of drinking that would soon follow.
"If you'll please come with me I can take you to my classroom. I'm sure you're a very busy man and I don't wish to delay your duties. My name is Constance by the way," the young woman said as she walked.
Constance gave the Corpse Hunter a polite pause to share his name which turned into an extended silence before she realized he didn't plan on imparting her with that information. It wasn't considered rude to withhold one's name from a new acquaintance in the Column but it certainly wasn't considered polite either. She acknowledged this but didn't comment on it. He'd only agreed to give her ten minutes of his time and made no promise of sharing pleasantries with her.
They reached their destination before the silence grew too uncomfortable. The door to Constance's classroom was a plain old wooden door and required neither a Medallion check nor the aid of a construct to utilize. Inside were thirty odd children ranging in age from ten to twelve.
The only requirements to join the Ascension Academy were the gift of a Fate and a willingness to learn. Everyone in Plinth met the first obligation but not all met the second. As such, interested children were permitted to join the Academy the same day their Fates arrived, that day being their tenth birthday.
In the early days of the Academy's creation it was accused of trying to create child soldiers. This came from the fear that they were taking advantage of the young Fate Holders for their own personal gain to be used like pawns on a chessboard. There may have been some small degree of merit to those concerns but there was one truth that soon revealed itself. Those who trained within the Ascension Academy were less likely to die while attempting to conquer the Dungeons above their home.
It was every Column Dweller's birth right to venture into the Dungeons and try to ascend to the top of the Column and rescue their world from the shadows that plagued it. No one, not even the parents of a newly christened Fate Holder, was permitted to stop those who felt confident enough to climb the stairs in the center of the Column.
The Ascension Academy hadn't been founded to take advantage of these young Fate Holders, but to give them a better chance at surviving the dangers that awaited them above. Not all took advantage of what the Academy offered though. Some preferred to act as apprentices to individual Ascenders while others joined up with the many smaller guilds that specialized in specific subsets of Fates.
And still there were those that sought to march straight into the gates of hell with little more than their unwavering courage and overinflated ego. The last group were the type that the Corpse Hunter ran into the most, the one's with enough confidence to fill a coffin.
As Constance entered the room the class took no note of her presence, continuing to talk loudly, toss wadded up pieces of paper at one another, and act like the children they were. This was probably how most classes behaved anytime their teacher left the room, or so the man in gray thought. He looked like he was in his late thirties but even then he couldn't remember what it was like to be this young or carefree.
Constance clapped her hands together and focused intently, which caused a vein above one eyebrow to throb visibly beneath the surface of her skin. The room instantly became silent, though not of the children's own volition. Only when their voices carried no sound and the room became eerily quiet did they realize their teacher had returned.
The Corpse Hunter recognized the technique, it was from the Fate of the Resonator. This was a perfect Fate for a school teacher. Constance was able to control and cancel most sound waves at one's leisure when a reasonable amount of effort was applied.
After each of the students turned to face their teacher she allowed her body to relax and lowered her hands. "Class, I have with me a very special guest. Someone who has spent more time as an Ascender than any of you have been alive. Longer than I've been alive, I imagine," she added after a moment of thought.
Her powers had caught their attention but it was her words that piqued their interest. Each of them quietly wondered what heroic figure was about to walk through the doorway to their classroom. Perhaps it would be a Lightning Shepherd or even a Magma Lancer.
Each of them thought of their favorite Fate Holder, hoping he or she was about to walk inside. Not a single child was prepared for the gray clad man that slowly entered the room. They knew him by sight even before their teacher said the name of his Fate. "Corpse Hunter," the children murmured.
Several small heads immediately began scanning the room, craning their necks like owls to see which of their classmates had just perished. Surely that was why he had come right? He wasn't the famed Ascender that Constance had just described, was he? When no bodies were found and no one else entered the classroom it became clear that he was, in fact, their guest speaker.
The Corpse Hunter strode into the room so quietly that some of the children wondered if the Resonator was using her powers to stifle his movements for dramatic effect. He kept his hands behind his back as he stopped in the middle of the classroom just in front of a large wooden desk. He turned to face the students, glanced at a clock on a nearby wall, then looked to the teacher.
"You have ten minutes," he said. "Starting now."
"Well Mr…Corpse Hunter," Constance began.
Only now did she realize that she hadn't prepared any questions for him, she'd been so fixated on trying to reel him in that now she felt like a fisher with a catch too big for her own boat. "Perhaps you could share with us any advice that might aid my students in safely exploring the Dungeons above."
"Just Corpse Hunter," he corrected. "My title and Fate don't warrant a prefix. As for exploring the Dungeons safely, that's like asking how to explore the Blackened Wilds safely, you can't. You can only approach the task with caution in the hopes of mitigating the threats you are likely to encounter."
He looked at the class then back to the teacher as if reprimanding her with his eyes for the misgnomer.
"Could you give us an example?" she asked, slowly averting his deep gaze.
It wasn't so much how he looked at her that bothered the woman, but how he looked beyond her. As if he were looking at a distant version of her future self. It was rumored Corpse Hunters could see a person's death before it happened but surely he couldn't see that far ahead, could he?
Or was her time that much sooner than she'd expected. Constance was freed from the prison that had become her own mind when the man in gray answered her question.
"Look, listen, and wait," Aiden declared. "Look for traps, listen for threats, and wait for whatever might be patiently trying to ambush you. No one ever died solely because they had more patience than their adversaries."
He let his words sink in for a moment before continuing.
"When something you see looks a bit off, you take note of it. When the sounds you hear don't match your surroundings, you take note of it. And when something feels overwhelmingly out of place, you wait and find out what it is before advancing. The cemetery beyond the Council of Plinth's Chambers is filled with the graves of those who were too excited to look, too eager to listen, and too impatient to wait."
The silence that Constance had initially created with her Fate was perpetuated by the Corpse Hunter's presence and cemented by his words. After nearly a minute had passed he looked back to the clock before glancing at the Resonator.
"You have seven minutes remaining," he said to her.
"Um, yes," she replied, still digesting what he had shared.
It was quite close to the doctrine that the Ascension Academy preached, though that doctrine had been written by veteran Ascenders of centuries long past. She couldn't help but take note of the overlap the man in gray shared with the founders of her Order. She was correct in thinking he had experience worth sharing, experience that proved the Academy's methods made a difference.
"Does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask our guest speaker?" Constance asked.
A boy in the middle of the class raised a hand. He looked to be one of the oldest in the room and apparently the one with the most courage at this point in time. He spoke when the Corpse Hunter pointed to him.
"Do you eat the bodies you collect?"
Judging from the concerned expression on his face he was being earnest with his inquiry despite how absurd his question may have sounded.
"Not often," Aiden replied with a face so emotionless it looked as though it were carved from marble.
Constance glanced at him for a moment, surely he was being sarcastic but neither his tone nor his demeanor gave any indication either way. There was just enough doubt in her mind to prompt her to speak up next.
"Does anyone else have a question they'd like to ask?"
Another child raised their hand, this time it was a girl that looked younger than the boy who had just spoken but still not the youngest in the room.
"What do you do with the bodies then?"
"I hunt them," he said bluntly.
The girl he spoke to looked about as nervous as the rest of her classmates but she wasn't satisfied with his brief response.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I prevent the dead from rising again," the Corpse Hunter clarified. "I cleanse corpses of any illnesses, curses, Fates, infections, venoms, poisons, or other such inflictions that would turn their remains into a threat to others."
"Like turning into zombies?"
"Yes, that is one of the many potential outcomes of dying that I strive to prevent."
Another child raised their hand and spoke as soon as the man in gray looked in their direction. "So does that mean you don't actually hunt stuff?"
"My Fate is just as skilled at preventing problems as it is at solving them. If you died in such a manner as to become a revenant or a vengeful spirit I would be the one tasked with hunting you down. Though that doesn't occur often as I am quite good at my job and I tend to show up sooner than expected," the man in gray said.
His answer had caused the child that asked the question to slink down in their chair at the dreadful thought of becoming something frightful when they perished.
"Do you know when someone is going to die before it happens?" asked a very young child.
From the youthful dimples on his cheeks this boy looked like he had received his Fate within the last month or two.
"When the thread that tethers a soul to its body is on the verge of being cut, yes."
His eyes drifted above the boy's head, looking at a thin ethereal string that glistened like silver. It jutted out of his hair just like a worm wriggling out of the dirt on a rainy day. Each child in this room had one, as did their teacher, though only he could see them.
According to the knowledge that came with his gift all living beings had a tether, or at least all those born to a Column did. It had been quite some time since he traversed the Blackened Wilds and the things that existed there barely met the definition of living beings. It was fair to assume that many of them didn't even have a soul to speak of.
Constance shifted her weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. Was that what the Corpse Hunter had been doing when he looked at her. No, when he looked through her. Was he observing her tether like someone counting the rings of a tree to see how many years she had left to live. She tried to push the thought out of her head as she closed her eyes tightly, only opening them when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Standing beside her was the man in gray, mouthing words to her but producing no sound. It took a few seconds to register what had happened. She'd accidentally triggered her Fate while trying to silence her runaway thoughts and had inadvertently silenced the entire room.
"Apologies," she said, clearing her throat and rubbing her forehead where a throbbing vein had been pounding just seconds prior. "I lost focus of my surroundings for a moment. Please continue."
She looked up to the clock partly to avoid the amber eyes of the man nearest here but also to see how much time they had left. There were still a few minutes of the Corpse Hunter's purchased time left on the clock.
"Any other questions?" Aiden asked.
The mention of his potential ability to know when someone was going to die caused the young students to wonder about their own mortality. Though not so much as to trigger any accidents like their teacher had. Some were tempted to ask when or how they might die but that was a question that a room full of prepubescent children weren't ready to have answered.
"What about you," he asked, pointing to a child in a far back corner.
The boy looked to be the oldest student in the room and the least interested in anything the Corpse Hunter had to say. This vexed the man in gray. Fear he was accustomed to, acceptance was a rare treat, but indifference got under his skin like a butcher's meat hooks digging into a slab of beef.
"Yeah I've got a question," the boy said looking up from his desk with a bored tone.
He couldn't be more than a few weeks from his thirteenth birthday. That meant switching to a different class soon which brought with it a slightly higher level of learning. The hash marks drawn on his desk in chalk were likely a countdown to the day he got to leave this room full of kids behind and join a class more deserving of someone like himself. That was what the Corpse Hunter read from the boy's tone and immediate surroundings. Overconfidence was no different than a terminal illness in his eyes and this child was tainted with it.
"Why don't we just burn the bodies when people die? Then they can't come back."
The boy's voice was so calm when he spoke as if he had just made a suggestion that rendered the Fate of the Corpse Hunter meaningless. Clearly he had a superior mind if none of the adults in the Column had reached that conclusion before him.
"Do you know what happens when you die?" The man in gray asked, responding to the question with another question.
"You poop your pants."
"Yes," Aiden admitted. That was a factual statement and he wasn't going to discredit a child for pointing that out, but it wasn't what he was getting at. "You leave behind a lot more than just the contents of your bowels when you perish. A piece of your soul stays behind even after the majority of it passes on to the afterlife.
That small piece of your soul clings to your remains provided there was enough of you left behind after your death for it to do so. However, if you have no corpse for it to cling to then it roams around like a bird looking for a nest to call it's own, growing stronger and more dangerous over time. This is how ghosts, spectres, banshees, and the like come to be.
If it finds another corpse it will lay claim to the vessel, turning it into an undead abomination. Should the partial soul find a living body it will attempt to force the original soul out, turning the host into a puppet if it succeeds. This is where hollow men and women come from. That is why we do not burn the dead."
The room fell silent and the Corpse Hunter glanced over to the Resonator to verify that it wasn't her doing this time.
"I believe we're almost out of time," Constance said, filling the void that was created by the Corpse Hunter's previous comment. "Do you have any closing words you'd like to leave us with?"
He looked at her and then to the class.
"Take to heart every story, every tip, and every kernel of wisdom passed onto you by those that have braved the Dungeons and lived to tell their tales. Their experience is bought with blood and taught to them by the mistakes of the dead. And listen to your teacher if you want to become anything more than just corpses waiting to happen, which you currently all are."
The man in gray tipped his hat to the blonde woman near him and walked out of the room as silently as when he had entered it.