Chapter 1: The Mud and the Meat
I awoke not with a gasp, but with a choked, bubbling sputter. My eyes snapped open, immediately assaulted by the sting of freezing rain and the coppery, unmistakable tang of my own blood.
Rule Number One of survival: Assess the physical damage.
I didn't move my limbs. Movement draws the eye. Instead, I ran a mental diagnostic, starting from the toes up. My feet were numb, encased in soaked leather that felt too heavy, too archaic. My legs ached with a dull, throbbing cold. My abdomen was a canvas of sharp, screaming agony. There was a puncture wound there, just below the floating ribs on the left side. A blade. Not a bullet. The entry felt wide, jagged—a sloppy thrust from a wide-bladed knife or a crude shortsword.
Where am I?
As the thought crossed my mind, a violent, tearing sensation ripped through my skull. It was as if someone had taken a red-hot iron spike, dipped it in liquid information, and hammered it directly into my frontal lobe.
Memories that were not mine flooded my consciousness.
The banner of a pale green willow tree on a field of dark mud. House Vane. A minor, almost insignificant vassal house in the Riverlands, sworn to House Mallister of Seagard.
A harsh, booming laugh from a thick-bearded man. Lord Cedric Vane. My... father.
The sneering, resentful faces of two older brothers. Edric and Stevron. The heirs. The favored.
And my own name. Arthor Vane. Third son. Barely sixteen namedays old. Scrawny, bookish, ignored, and entirely expendable.
The integration of the memories was agonizing, but my hitman's discipline forced my heart rate to remain steady. Panic is a luxury for the dying; the living have work to do. I cataloged the information with ruthless efficiency. I wasn't just in a different body. I was in a different world. A world I knew intimately well from a previous life spent reading thick fantasy novels between contracts.
Westeros.
The realization should have shattered my sanity. Instead, a cold, calculating calm washed over me. The Commission, the cartels, the FBI—they were all gone. Replaced by Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens. To a normal man, this was a nightmare of dragons, ice zombies, and brutal medieval warfare. To me, a man who had spent his life navigating the treacherous, blood-soaked politics of the modern mafia, it was simply a change of management. The game was the same. Only the weapons had changed.
Right now, however, the "Game of Thrones" was entirely irrelevant. The immediate problem was the damp, rotting forest floor beneath my cheek, the rain pounding against my back, and the sound of heavy, crunching footsteps approaching through the underbrush.
Memory file retrieval: How did Arthor Vane get here?
The pieces clicked together. A hunting trip in the Whispering Woods, near the borders of the Vane lands. Arthor had been separated from the main party—no, not separated. Led away. Guided by a trusted guardsman named Rennick. Then, the sudden ambush. Three men in boiled leather. Rennick hadn't fought; he had stepped aside. A setup. A hit. Arranged, no doubt, by one of his loving older brothers to secure the inheritance without the annoyance of a third wheel draining the family's meager coffers.
Arthor had taken a blade to the gut and tumbled down a steep, muddy ravine, left for dead in the brambles.
"I'm telling you, Rennick, the little shit is dead," a gruff voice echoed through the trees, snapping my attention back to the present. The voice was close. Less than thirty yards up the incline.
"Lord Stevron paid for a corpse, Cleos, not an assumption," a second voice replied. This one was smoother, colder. Rennick, the traitorous guard. "If he crawls back to Oakhaven Keep, my head goes on a spike, and you end up in a crow cage. Find the body. Bring me his signet ring."
I opened my eyes a fraction of an inch, squinting through the rain and the tangled roots of a massive oak tree. Two figures were sliding down the muddy embankment. One was a hulking brute with a matted beard and a rusty battleaxe—Cleos. The other wore the dark green tabard of House Vane over chainmail, holding a drawn longsword—Rennick. A third man, likely the one who had actually stabbed Arthor, was nowhere to be seen, perhaps keeping watch up on the ridge.
My new body was weak. Arthor was sixteen, malnourished by modern standards, lacking any real muscle mass, and currently bleeding out from a superficial but painful gut wound. If I tried to fight them head-on, I would be butchered in seconds.
Rule Number Two: Fight the environment, not the enemy.
I slowly, agonizingly shifted my weight. My right hand, buried in the mud, brushed against cold steel. The hunting knife Arthor had drawn before falling. It was a fine piece of castle-forged steel, perhaps six inches long, with a deer-bone hilt. I gripped it tightly.
I was lying in a depression at the base of the oak tree, half-covered by fallen leaves and thick, thorny brambles. It was prime concealment.
"Look at this mud, it's washing the blood trail away," Cleos grumbled, hacking lazily at a bush with his axe. "He took a foot of steel in the belly. The boars will have him by nightfall."
"Keep looking," Rennick commanded, stepping closer to my position. He was a trained soldier. His eyes were scanning the brush systematically. It was only a matter of time before he spotted the unnatural lump of my dark cloak.
I needed to separate them.
Reaching out with my left hand, I found a fist-sized rock. Calculating the trajectory with the instinct of a man who had thrown flashbangs into crowded rooms, I tossed the rock underhand. It sailed silently through the rain and struck a hollow log about forty feet to my left with a sharp thwack.
Both men froze.
"Did you hear that?" Cleos whispered, his knuckles whitening on his axe.
"Over there. By the rotting deadwood," Rennick said, pointing his sword. "Go check it. If he's crawling, put an axe in his skull."
"Why do I gotta go in the thorns?"
"Because I'm wearing the chainmail and I'm the one paying you, you half-wit. Go."
Cleos spat into the mud and lumbered off toward the left, his heavy boots squelching loudly. Rennick remained where he was, his back turned slightly toward me as he watched his hired muscle move away.
Patience. I breathed out slowly, letting the rain mask the sound of my exhalation. I waited until Cleos was twenty yards away, swearing as his cloak caught on a briar patch.
Then, I moved.
Arthor's body screamed in protest, but Silas's mind overrode the pain receptors. Adrenaline, cold and pure, flooded my veins. I pushed off the mud, rising from the brush like a phantom. I didn't run—running is loud. I glided. The toe-to-heel movement of a predator. Two steps. Three.
Rennick must have caught a blur of movement in his peripheral vision, or perhaps he heard the soft squelch of my boots. He began to turn, opening his mouth to shout.
He was too slow.
I stepped inside his guard, my left hand shooting up to clamp fiercely over his mouth, trapping the shout in his throat. Simultaneously, my right hand drove the castle-forged hunting knife upward, just beneath the rim of his steel half-helm, plunging the blade deep into the soft hollow at the base of his skull.
The medulla oblongata. Sever that, and the body shuts down instantly. No thrashing, no dying screams. Just an immediate, catastrophic disconnect.
Rennick's eyes rolled back. His sword slipped from his fingers, landing with a soft, muffled thud on a patch of wet moss. I caught his dead weight, lowering his armored body to the ground silently.
As the traitorous guard's heart beat its final, pathetic rhythm, something impossible happened.
It wasn't a glowing screen floating in the air, nor a disembodied voice in my head. It was a sudden, violent physical sensation. A rush of heat exploded from the knife in my hand, surging up my arm and flooding my chest. It was as if someone had injected liquid lightning straight into my arteries.
My spine arched involuntarily. The dull, throbbing pain in my gut receded sharply, the wound knitting together just enough to stop the bleeding. But that was the least of it.
I felt my muscles twitch and dense. The scrawny forearms of Arthor Vane felt suddenly... thicker. Tighter. My breathing deepened, my lung capacity expanding.
But the physical changes were nothing compared to the mental shift. A sudden influx of muscle memory washed over my brain. I suddenly knew the exact weight and balance of a Westerosi longsword. I knew the standard parries of the Riverlands foot soldier. I knew how to march for twenty miles in chainmail without chafing.
What the hell is this?
Information crystallized in my mind, an instinctual understanding granted by the very fabric of my new existence.
[Kill Confirmed: Rennick (Veteran Guardsman)]
[Assimilation Triggered: 10% Feedback Received]
I crouched over the body, my breath coming in ragged, steaming gasps. Ten percent. I had just absorbed one-tenth of Rennick's total life accumulation. Ten percent of his physical strength. Ten percent of his stamina. Ten percent of his swordsmanship, his knowledge of the terrain, his hard-earned calluses.
I flexed my right hand. The grip on my hunting knife was significantly firmer. The weakness of Arthor's malnourished sixteen-year-old body had been noticeably mitigated. It wasn't a god-like transformation—I hadn't suddenly become Gregor Clegane—but the shift was undeniable. I had gone from a sickly teenager to a young man with the baseline strength of a common laborer in the span of three seconds.
A cold, dark smile crept onto my face, hidden by the pouring rain. A cheat. A literal, quantifiable advantage in a world built on blood and steel.
If I killed a master swordsman, I would take a tenth of his skill. If I killed a giant, I would take a tenth of his strength. If I killed enough men, there would be no limit to what I could become. In my old life, I was limited by human biology. In this life, I was a vampire of attributes.
But euphoria is dangerous. It makes a man sloppy.
"Hey! Rennick!" Cleos's gruff voice echoed back from the deadwood. "Nothing here but a dead fox! Where'd you go?"
The heavy footsteps began to turn back.
I looked down at Rennick's body. The sword lay in the moss. I picked it up. A standard arming sword, slightly heavy for my taste, but thanks to the ten percent skill assimilation from Rennick, the grip felt natural in my hand. I knew how to hold it, how to angle the crossguard.
Let's test this new strength.
I stepped behind the massive trunk of the oak tree, pressing my back against the rough bark. I slowed my breathing, matching it to the rhythm of the falling rain.
Cleos came tramping through the brush, his axe held loosely. "Rennick? Quit playing games, you bastard. If you found him and took the ring for yourself, I swear to the Seven I'll—"
He stepped past the oak tree, catching sight of Rennick's crumpled form. He froze, his jaw dropping slack. "What in the seven hells..."
He never finished the sentence.
I stepped out from behind the tree, gripping the longsword with both hands. With the augmented strength of my newly acquired muscles and the borrowed swordsmanship of the man lying dead on the ground, I swung the blade in a brutal, horizontal arc.
Cleos was a brawler, not a soldier. He tried to raise his axe, but his reaction time was sluggish, his form terrible.
The castle-forged steel bit into his thick neck, biting through the boiled leather collar and severing the carotid artery and windpipe in one clean, horrific strike. The sword stopped halfway through his spine, stuck in bone.
Cleos dropped his axe, his hands flying up to his ruined throat as a geyser of crimson sprayed into the rain. He made a wet, gurgling sound, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and terror, staring at the scrawny lordling who had just butchered him like a pig. He staggered backward, his boots slipping in the mud, and collapsed in a heavy heap.
As his life left him, the sensation returned.
The rush of heat. The liquid lightning.
[Kill Confirmed: Cleos (Brigand/Brawler)]
[Assimilation Triggered: 10% Feedback Received]
The feedback this time was different. Less skill, more raw, unadulterated mass. I felt a surge of brute strength wash into my shoulders and back. Cleos was a large man, built like a brick outhouse. Taking ten percent of his raw physical power was a massive boon to my frail frame. My tunic suddenly felt a little tighter across the chest. My stamina spiked, wiping away the fatigue of the ambush and the cold.
I wrenched the sword free from his neck with a wet crunch. I didn't even feel winded.
Two down. One to go.
I closed my eyes, accessing the fragments of Rennick's memory that I had assimilated. The ten percent wasn't just physical; it included fragments of short-term knowledge. I sifted through the guard's recent thoughts.
Three men. Rennick, Cleos, and a scout named Pyk. Pyk was an archer. He was the one who had shot Arthor first—no, stabbed him. Wait. Let me clarify the memory. Pyk was holding the perimeter up on the ridge, making sure no one from the main hunting party stumbled upon the assassination.
I looked up the muddy embankment. Through the dense canopy of the Whispering Woods, I could barely make out the ridgeline, about fifty yards up.
An archer on the high ground. A dangerous variable.
In my old life, I would have used a suppressed sniper rifle. Here, I had a bloody sword, a knife, and the element of surprise. Pyk didn't know his partners were dead. The rain had muffled the sounds of the struggle, and it was getting darker by the minute as evening approached.
I wiped the blood off the longsword using Cleos's cloak and sheathed it in Rennick's scabbard, which I quickly unbuckled and strapped around my own waist. It hung a bit low, but it would do. I also took Cleos's heavy boiled-leather jerkin. It was too large, smelling of stale ale and sweat, but it provided armor over my soaked linen tunic. Finally, I retrieved my hunting knife.
I began the climb.
With the combined ten percent agility and stamina of a veteran guard and a brawler, the steep, muddy incline that would have exhausted Arthor Vane was manageable. I moved deliberately, placing my hands and feet on exposed roots and solid rocks, avoiding loose gravel and dry twigs. I used the sound of thunder rolling across the Riverlands to mask my ascent.
As I crested the ridge, I went flat to my belly, crawling through the wet ferns.
There he was. Pyk.
He was crouched beneath the overhang of a large boulder, trying to keep his bowstring dry. He was looking down into the ravine, squinting through the gloom, completely unaware that death was crawling up behind him.
Rule Number Three: Never give the target a chance to change the odds.
I didn't try to stand up and engage him in a sword fight. I was a hitman, not a knight. Honor was a concept invented by lords to convince peasants to die cleanly.
I drew the hunting knife. I gauged the distance. Ten feet.
I gathered my legs beneath me, coiled like a spring. The ten percent boost in raw power from Cleos made my leg muscles feel dense and explosive.
I launched myself forward.
Pyk heard the rustle of the ferns. He turned, his eyes widening, his hands fumbling to nock an arrow.
I hit him like a freight train. My shoulder slammed into his chest, driving him back against the hard stone of the boulder. Before he could cry out, I brought the hunting knife up and drove it violently under his chin, straight up into the brain pan.
He spasmed once, his bow clattering to the rocks, and then went entirely limp.
The heat returned.
[Kill Confirmed: Pyk (Hunter/Bandit)]
[Assimilation Triggered: 10% Feedback Received]
This time, the surge was entirely different. It wasn't raw strength or heavy swordsmanship. It was a sharp, piercing clarity in my vision. The gloom of the forest seemed to lift slightly. My spatial awareness expanded. I felt a sudden, instinctual understanding of trajectory, wind speed, and tension. Ten percent of a lifetime of archery and hunting. My fingers twitched, suddenly knowing exactly how to draw a yew bow without snapping the string.
I pulled the knife free and let Pyk's body slide to the ground.
I stood alone on the ridge, the rain washing the blood from my hands. I took a deep breath, assessing the vessel I now inhabited.
In the span of twenty minutes, Arthor Vane had died, and Silas had been reborn. But I was no longer just a frail sixteen-year-old. I carried the strength of a brawler, the discipline of a guardsman, and the senses of a hunter, all layered over the sociopathic, tactical mind of a cartel cleaner.
I checked my gut wound. The assimilation process seemed to have a minor regenerative effect. The puncture was still there, still raw and painful, but the bleeding had completely stopped, and the tissue felt knit together, resembling a wound that was a week old rather than an hour. I wouldn't die of blood loss today.
Now came the most important part of the job. The cleanup.
Rule Number Four: Control the narrative.
I couldn't just walk back to Oakhaven Keep with a magical story of surviving three grown men. That would draw attention. It would draw questions. And in the Game of Thrones, questions got you killed. If my brother Stevron knew I was capable of killing his assassins, he wouldn't send three thugs next time. He'd send ten. Or he'd simply poison my wine.
I needed to remain the weak, useless third son. A survivor by sheer, dumb luck.
I worked quickly, utilizing the augmented strength and stamina. I dragged Pyk's body down the ridge, tumbling him into the ravine where the other two lay.
I arranged the scene with meticulous care. I placed Cleos's axe near Rennick's body. I took Rennick's sword (which I had used to kill Cleos) and placed it near Cleos's hand. I made it look like a disagreement over the spoils. A betrayal among thieves.
I took the pouch of silver stags from Rennick's belt—the blood money paid by my brother—and scattered a few coins in the mud, hiding the rest deep inside my own tunic. Nothing sells a story of betrayal like missing money.
Next, I needed to play my part. I took the boiled leather jerkin off and threw it over Pyk's body. I was back in my torn, blood-soaked tunic. I picked up some of the foul-smelling mud and smeared it over my face and hair, making myself look as pathetic and terrified as possible.
I reviewed the timeline of this world based on Arthor's memories and my own knowledge of the books.
Lord Cedric Vane was an old man, loyal to the Tullys. The King on the Iron Throne was Robert Baratheon. Jon Arryn was still the Hand of the King. The Starks were freezing in the North, the Lannisters were shitting gold in the West. Based on the fact that summer was still clinging to the realm, and whispers of the Targaryen children across the narrow sea were merely tavern rumors, it was likely around 297 AC.
The War of the Five Kings was coming. The entire continent was about to be plunged into a meat grinder of unprecedented proportions. Millions would die.
For a man who gained strength from death, Westeros wasn't a nightmare. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But I had to be smart. I couldn't just become a serial killer. That attracts the wrong kind of attention. The Faceless Men, the Master of Whisperers, the Crown—they all had ways of dealing with anomalies.
No, I would play the part of the useless lordling. I would let my brothers fight over the scrap heap that was Oakhaven. I would remain in the shadows, growing stronger, taking contracts of my own making. I would bleed this world one tenth of a soul at a time until I was unkillable. In the mafia, we called it building capital. Here, I suppose it was building stats.
I looked at the three corpses one last time, ensuring the tableau of mutual destruction was convincing. Satisfied, I turned my back on them and began the long, agonizing trek out of the Whispering Woods.
I allowed myself a limp, playing up the injury for anyone who might be watching from the treeline. I let my shoulders slump. I became Arthor Vane, the lucky fool.
The rain continued to fall, washing away the sins of the forest. The game had begun, and none of them knew a new player had just taken a seat at the table. A player who didn't care about honor, or thrones, or the gods.
A player who only cared about the body count.
I trudged toward the distant stone towers of Oakhaven, a weak boy on the outside, a monster gestating on the inside.
Rule Number Five: Smile at the man who wants you dead, right up until you slit his throat.
Stevron Vane was going to get a very warm hug from his little brother tonight.
The forest eventually gave way to the rolling, soggy foothills that marked the inner boundary of the Vane lands. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle, the kind that soaked into your bones and made the world look like a washed-out watercolor painting. Through the mist, the silhouette of Oakhaven Keep materialized.
It was an ugly, utilitarian structure. Not a grand castle like Riverrun or Winterfell, but a stout, square keep of dark grey stone perched atop a modest hill, surrounded by a wooden palisade and a muddy moat. It was a fortress designed to repel petty bandits and minor skirmishes, completely inadequate against a true siege. The surrounding village, a smattering of thatched-roof hovels and a single stone mill, looked entirely miserable in the fading light.
As I approached the muddy track leading to the drawbridge, I forced my breathing to become shallow and ragged. I clutched my side, letting genuine pain mix with the theatrical performance.
"Halt! Who goes there?" a voice called out from the palisade wall. A sentry, holding a lantern out into the gloom.
"Help..." I croaked, making my voice crack perfectly. I stumbled, dropping to one knee in the mud.
The lantern swung lower. "Gods be good! It's Lord Arthor! Open the gates! Open the bloody gates!"
The heavy wooden drawbridge lowered with a grinding squeal of chains. I stayed on my hands and knees, letting them come to me. Two guards rushed out, their cloaks flapping.
"My lord! You're bleeding!" one of them shouted, grabbing my arm to haul me up.
"Ambush..." I gasped, letting my head loll against the guard's shoulder. "Brigands in the woods... Rennick... they killed Rennick..."
"Get him to the maester!" the other guard barked.
They practically carried me across the bridge and into the courtyard. The keep was a hive of modest activity. Servants carrying firewood, stableboys tending to the hunting horses that had returned earlier, and men-at-arms huddled under awnings, complaining about the damp. My arrival shattered the routine.
"Arthor!"
A booming voice echoed from the wooden stairs leading to the great hall. Lord Cedric Vane descended, his heavy cloak billowing. He was a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties, his face heavily lined and his beard graying. He looked furious, but beneath it, I detected a flicker of genuine relief. Arthor might have been the neglected third son, but he was still of his blood.
"Father," I rasped, allowing myself to go slightly limp in the guards' arms.
"What happened to the boy?" Cedric demanded, looming over us. He saw the blood soaking my tunic. "By the Seven... Maester Corlys! Bring the Maester!"
Before the old man could arrive, another figure stepped out from the doorway of the great hall.
Stevron Vane.
My oldest brother. He was twenty-two, tall, with the Vane dark hair slicked back. He wore an immaculate tunic of fine green wool, untouched by the storm. He had a handsome face, ruined by a perpetual, arrogant sneer.
When his eyes landed on me, alive and breathing, I saw the microscopic tightening of his jaw. The briefest flash of absolute, murderous fury. It was gone in an instant, replaced by a mask of brotherly concern.
"Arthor! Thank the gods," Stevron said smoothly, stepping down the stairs. "We thought you were lost to the storm. The hunting party returned hours ago, but Rennick said you had chased a stag deep into the brush."
Rennick said. Perfect. He was laying the groundwork for the guard's treachery, shifting the blame.
"Rennick..." I coughed, spitting a glob of bloody saliva onto the cobblestones. I looked up at Stevron, meeting his gaze directly. I made my eyes wide, traumatized, innocent. "Rennick saved me, Stevron."
Stevron blinked. This was not the script he had written. "He... he did?"
"Brigands," I breathed out, sounding exhausted. "Three of them. They fell upon us. Rennick fought like a lion. He slew two of them, but... but the third cut him down. I managed to stab the last one with my hunting knife while he was looting Rennick's purse."
I let my voice break into a pathetic sob. "I killed a man, Stevron. I had to push the blade right into his neck."
Lord Cedric put a heavy, calloused hand on my shoulder. "Hush now, boy. You survived. That's what matters. You did what you had to do."
I kept my eyes on Stevron. He was staring at me, trying to calculate the odds. Did his assassins simply fail? Did the useless, bookish Arthor actually manage a lucky strike? He couldn't know for sure. The story was plausible. A chaotic brawl in the mud, a desperate teenager with a knife, a mutually assured destruction.
"A tragic loss," Stevron said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Rennick was a good man. I shall see to it his family is compensated."
"You will do no such thing until we find the bodies and confirm the tale," Lord Cedric snapped, ever the pragmatist. "Captain! Take ten men at first light. Comb the Whispering Woods. Find my guard and these brigands. I want their heads on the palisade."
"Yes, my lord!" the captain shouted.
"As for you," Cedric looked back down at me. "To the Maester. Now."
The guards hauled me up the stairs. As I passed Stevron, I let my head loll toward him. I was close enough to smell the expensive Dornish wine on his breath.
"Thank you, brother," I whispered, so softly only he could hear. "For sending Rennick to watch over me. I don't know what I would have done without him."
Stevron stiffened. For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped, and I saw the naked, cold dread in his eyes. He wasn't sure if I was a naive fool thanking him, or a newly forged monster mocking him. Uncertainty is the greatest poison in the game. I had just planted the seed. Let him sweat. Let him wonder.
I was carried into the keep, the heavy oaken doors shutting behind me, cutting off the storm.
The Maester's chambers smelled of dried herbs, boiling water, and old parchment. Maester Corlys, a frail man with a chain of varied metals resting heavily on his collarbone, immediately went to work. He cut away my ruined tunic and examined the wound.
"A nasty poke, my lord," Corlys muttered, prodding the edges of the laceration. "But... odd. It looks as though it has already begun to close. The bleeding is minimal. You have the constitution of a bull, young Arthor."
"Just lucky, Maester," I replied quietly, staring up at the stone ceiling.
Lucky. No. Luck is for men who don't know how to stack the deck.
As the Maester poured boiling wine over the wound—a primitive antiseptic that made my teeth grind together—I focused on the feeling in my veins. The lingering echo of the ten percent.
I was in the heart of House Vane. A snake pit of minor politics and petty ambitions. It was the perfect incubator.
I would heal. I would play the part. I would go to the training yard and pretend to be slightly less terrible with a sword, attributing it to the trauma of the ambush. I would eat, I would sleep, and when the time was right, I would venture out into the Riverlands.
There were outlaws in the woods. Deserters from old wars. Corrupt gold cloaks on the kingsroad. There were entire populations of violent, terrible men in this world who would not be missed by anyone.
And I needed their stats.
Westeros was a violent, cruel continent, dominated by men with armies and dragons. I had neither. But I had something much, much worse. I had patience, a sociopathic lack of empathy, and the terrifying arithmetic of the Feedback.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the Maester began to stitch the wound with a curved needle and silk thread. The pain was sharp, but it was just a physical sensation.
Tomorrow, I thought to myself, the mind of Silas the Hitman settling comfortably into the body of Arthor the Lordling. Tomorrow, I start taking inventory.