After he woke, Goor the Undubbed joined the conjurer at his locked door. After coaxing the second bag of gold out of his client’s thigh, Goor proceeded to keep his rune wrapped around the door handle. This time, he stood silently for much longer than fifteen minutes, occasionally pretending to grunt and struggle with jiggling the handle.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Goor said, “It might take me a while longer for each mechanism to recognize the arcane in my hand. You might want to sit down.”
“ I do not have an eternity, you know,” the conjurer said.
“There is a way to accelerate my rune’s potency,” Goor rattled his tongue at a rate he had never thought possible, “But that comes at the price of my lifespan.”
“Fine,” the conjurer said, unzipping his nape, “I suppose this should suffice for the rest of your shortened mortal coil.”
A third bag of gold was given to Goor who wasted no time enacting a pretend ritual to sacrifice a pretend portion of his lifespan: a great sorrowful tradition that was rich in his familial history, he explained to the conjurer, a ritual that had been passed down from a lineage of his imaginative mind to his truly gullible and impressionable client. Of course, Goor left the latter part unsaid.
“There is an end for everyone,” the conjurer remarked as he handed his money to his serviceman, “But I hope this handsome boon cushions a lovely one for you, friend.”
Goor took the tripled money and went on his way.
Goor returned to the shore and climbed up to his keep. This time, rather than entering right away, he grabbed a hold of one of the supporting beams that held his house aloft and, very gently, rocked it back and forth, enough to wobble the entire foundation but not enough to send it sliding off the cliff. He wobbled the house until he heard a thud from the inside. The assassin had fallen out of his hiding position. Goor briskly entered through the hatch to find his enemy lying on the wooden floor, crumpled. As both of his hands were available, Goor cracked the assassin’s neck before throwing his body out of the window, feeding him to the sea below. Yawning, Goor crawled into his translucent cauldron. He slept soundly that night.
Next morning, Goor woke up and spent the large part of the day removing the spikes from his correspondence box. There were no clients that day, so he ate and went back to sleep.
Next morning, Goor woke up and went hunting for food as his cupboard was empty. Thoughts of floating in the dark bristled against his brain. If he did choose to die, to walk into the ocean until he disappeared, for instance, would he find himself awake in the ruins once more? Was it possible for him to die at all? Was there an end? He smothered the thoughts as he brought home his game for the day: a few dead bisons that would last him a few days more.
Mornings upon mornings had passed, memories of the ruins, of the monster with the spiked tail, began to fade until they became a dream, a temporary episode that was neither real or consequential. Goor took his tripede out for a run along the northern canyons. His client, a shriveled old merchant man, had locked himself out of his cave. Goor nearly fell off a rock cliff as he was not careful enough with guiding his mount’s steps. Views of the ruins flashed back into his mind but only for a second before they were quenched. Goor unlocked the door and received his payment. He went back on his way.
Time passed. Goor stood among a line of hollow-faced men and women, slab of stone in hand. On the slab was a series of information he had filled in, regarding how much financial capital he had made in a specified block of time as mandated by the upper men of upper standings. Up ahead was a slab inspector stationed at a table, inspecting slab after slab as they were handed to him by the people. If there was a piece of data Goor had neglected to record, he was to return to the back of the line and graft the missing data at the grafting table which was bound to another line of people with flogged and flustered souls. Three assassins were dispatched to Goor’s location and he knew this well. One killer was a few people behind him, her cutlass unsubtly hidden in her cloak, waiting for the moment when her target stopped scanning the room. Another killer was perched on the central joist of the building, holding a bow, undoubtedly aiming for Goor the second he decided to storm outside in a rage once he realized he had forgotten his locksmith certificate at home. The final killer was the slab inspector himself, continuing to grade the slabs of stones that people were handing to him and sending a few of them back to the grafting table. From what Goor saw, he was doing a fine job of it as it was possible that this was his passion as much as it was his guise. Goor would leave him be if not for the fact that a dagger, a weapon which no government agent should wield, was clearly visible from his hip, the same sigil of the thieves’ guild was also bare on his neck and that he was eying Goor with a rather feisty disposition, detectable from a mile away.
The guardsmen present did not seem to notice any of them. Goor could have taken care of the thieves’ guild problem sooner if not for the fact that he had forgotten to. Goor weighed his options. He could dig his way out and return at a later date. And it was indeed true that he had forgotten his locksmith certificate at home so his slab would be disavowed even if the checker was legitimate.
“Next!” the inspector announced. It was his turn.
By the time Goor collapsed to the floor, lifeless in a puddle of his own blood, he remembered a few things. He intercepted the checker’s attack and punched him dead. Then he threw the checker’s corpse up to the joist to knock the archer down. He was tackled by the guards. The last killer behind him approached quickly and attempted to stab him while he was pinned. He knocked the guards off of him and, in a huff of irrational thinking, used one of the people in the line as a shield against the assassin’s cutlass. The cutlass was lodged in the poor innocent’s ribs as he fell at Goor’s side. The rest of the people had fled, except for those at the grafting table who were nearly finished with their grafting. It was not guilt that Goor felt, per se, but rather an unnecessary course of action that the Goor of the past would have avoided effortlessly. Ever since his encounter at the ruins, Goor was no longer careful as he should have been. Whether it was from the possibility that death may not be permanent for him or how the monster itself may have absorbed away all of his caution, Goor knew that he had to amend his incompetence. The assassin, having lost her cutlass to her victim, brandished her strong claws and brought them swiftly across Goor’s throat. Goor stood still and allowed his vitals to be stricken down. With his world darkened, Goor opted for a better one.
Goor awoke on the steps. He reconvened with the conjurer and repeated the process as he remembered it. This time, he managed to snag an extra gold tooth from the conjurer with his good words. After ensuring that this was all he could gain from the old fool, he went home to plan against the thieves’ guild. Like last time, he rocked his house back and forth, waiting for the assassin to fall down so he could get up there and ask him about his employers. Unfortunately, the cloaked man did not tell him anything and only uttered an incantation that caused his own body, alongside all of his equipment, to dissolve into ashes, leaving Goor with yet another dead end. He went to sleep.
Time passed. Goor encountered another batch of assassins. He fought them without strategy and died.
Time passed. Goor accidentally fell off his tripede and into the great Southeastern ravine.
Time passed. Goor managed to have a dagger lodged into his body which he could use to learn more about the guild. The killer had died.
Time passed. Goor tracked down the guild to a hovel hidden among a nondescript series of caves. He found their cave. As he stepped inside, he was squashed to death by a giant-sized mallet placed above the door.
Time passed. Out of curiosity and boredom, Goor leapt off the tallest mountain he could find.
Time passed. Goor went to his blacksmith for his usual body maintenance.
Time passed. Goor avoided the mallet at the door and was prepared to confront the members of the guild that were not expecting him to be there. He had learned their histories and weaknesses beforehand. As he had come to discover, the night in which he unlocked the treasure keep’s doors for the guild resulted in them accidentally alerting the owner of said keep: an established warlord with a continental range of hired muscle. The warlord had been on a hunt for them since, seeking any information he could find on them. Thus, perceiving Goor as a loose end, the guild had attempted to silence him, to stop him from identifying them to the warlord for the sake of protecting himself. Goor gently reminded the head of the guild that if they had left him alone, he would have already forgotten about them. They protested while Goor dismantled them one at a time.
Time passed. Goor repeated this process to savor the feeling.
Time passed. Goor unlocked a door to one of the estates belonging to a rich family. He was paid handsomely.
Time passed. Goor leapt off the last mountain in his immediate area that he hadn’t tried leaping off before.
Time passed. Goor found the gumption to seek out his old seer.
“Locksmith,” she said, “Why are you here?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“There is no longer anything for you here. There is nothing more to be said.”
“What future do you see for me?”
“Hmph.”
“Answer me, you miserable crone.”
“I see nothing.”
Time passed. Goor broke his own neck to see if he could.
Time passed. Goor thought about the future. For all that he had accomplished, he was to return to those same steps where everything shall start anew. He thought about living up to his waning years until he died of old age. Would he awaken on those steps by then? All of his triumphs, forgotten. By all considerations, he had every right to grieve and to wail against this impromptu purgatory that was thrusted upon him. But he didn’t feel that he needed to. Eventually, the grief would be forgotten too. What was initially a life without an end, was simply a life with infinite ends, each one left for him to absorb and experience at his own pace, where he would never have to fear that they would all be unfairly taken away from him without explanation. Despite everything, he was the one to wield all the power: one that was impossible to usurp or destroy. He felt cleansed by the thought.
Time passed. Goor leapt into the largest river he could find.