Roland lay down his father’s leather jacket on the ritual circle he had used to summon Raven.

  He wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but neither Trixie nor his new (or rather, old) bird friend said anything to stop him. It just felt right to do some kind of ceremony rather than simply taking out his Upgrade Tokens and mentally clicking ‘yes’ on a virtual prompt. Rituals had power.

  Roland sat by the circle and meditated, clearing his mind so he could concentrate on the jacket and what it represented.

  Roland had been nine years old the first time he had seen it. He and Mandy had been chasing each other around the house, just being silly. Mandy had opened a closet in the hallway between the house’s bedrooms, a closet that was full of old junk that nobody ever took out. Laughing, Mandy had run in and tried to hide, but Roland had caught her. When he dragged her out, she held on to something in the closet, and they both fell out. Something soft and heavy, wrapped in plastic, fell on top of them. It was a leather jacket.

  “Okay, kids, fun is fun, but take it outside,” Dad told them as Roland got up and picked up the jacket.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Roland asked, holding the bagged jacket.

  Even through the plastic, it looked cool. Like something a bomber pilot would wear.

  “Were you a pilot, Dad?” he asked, holding the jacket.

  It was way too big for him, and something about it made him feel that it wasn’t just cool, but somehow dangerous, something you wore when there was a chance you would get hurt.

  Dad laughed as he gently took the jacket from him. “I piloted a Harley, Row. Land-bound only.”

  Roland laughed along even though he didn’t really understand what that meant.

  That had been the first time.

  A couple of years later, when they had moved to their second (and final) house, the house that got foreclosed after the drunk driver killed his parents, Roland packed the jacket into a box, among many other things. Later that night, as they settled in to sleep around a bunch of packed boxes for the movers to take, Roland asked again about it.

  His father was on his third beer and had been a little more talkative.

  He'd told Roland about a motorcycle club he’d belonged to. Never mentioned its name, though. He said he’d been young and stupid and done a lot of stupid things until one day he realized how nasty his life had become. One day, he walked away from that life.

  “You gotta learn from your mistakes, Row,” he said. That was his personal nickname for Roland. He was the only person who used it, and never around strangers.

  “I was lucky enough to do it. Some never learned, kept making the same mistake until it killed them. Your mother helped me see it. She helped me out a lot.”

  Randall looked lovingly at his wife, cuddled up inside a sleeping bag. “None of us would be here without her.”

  “But what did you do at the club?”

  “We rode around, of course. We had a chop shop and worked out of there. Did some business with your uncle Fred’s junkyard. And we did a few shady things. Bad things started to happen.”

  “What happened?”

  “We had run-ins with some bad people. You’ve seen my scars.”

  Roland nodded. When they’d gone to the beach on vacation, or when it got warm enough Dad would work shirtless in the yard, he had seen them. Two puckered circles on the left side of his back, above his waist.

  “Got shot in the back,” he told Roland, who gasped, his eyes wide.

  “Missed a kidney, barely; the other nicked a lung; an inch or less higher or lower, and that’d be all she wrote.”

  “Dad..?”

  From his child’s point of view, people who got shot belonged to two categories. Roland struggled for words before they came pouring out.

  “Were you a good guy or a bad guy?”

  “I thought I was a good guy.”

  Dad finished his beer and crushed the can before continuing.

  “You wanna know the saddest thing in the world, Row? Every bad guy thinks they’re the good guy in the story. They do the most horrible things, and they think they did them for the right reasons. But they’re wrong.”

  “Dad!”

  Eleven-year-old Roland was on the verge of tears. The idea that his father, who had never raised a hand to him or Mandy or Mom, who worked hard and always made sure everyone got great presents at Christmas, that his Dad was a bad guy, that was too much to bear.

  Dad put a hand on Roland’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Row. I did bad things, but I woke up one day and realized what I was doing. I made amends where I could, paid some debts, and walked away. Your mother helped me become the good guy I thought I was. But for real this time.”

  “And your jacket...”

  “It’s part of me. Part of who I am. So, I kept it. I got the patches removed because they didn’t belong to me, not anymore.

  “It reminds me of some good times, but mostly of how bad things could have been if I’d stayed the course, if I hadn’t walked away from all that.”

  “Okay,” Roland said, satisfied.

  Even at eleven, he understood the concept of redemption, of bad guys changing their ways.

  “When you’re older, I will tell you everything, Row. It’s not a pretty story, but you and your sister deserve to know. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes without repeating them.”

  Four years later, he died – was killed – before he got the chance to tell Roland the story.

  Roland managed to learn some of it after he got his OTH discharge from of the Army and worked for Uncle Fred. Fred Acosta had done business with Randall Webb and he knew some of his story. Probably a lot more than what he told Roland, he told him enough.

  The name of the club had been the Pale Riders. It was gone now, its top leadership arrested and convicted after a major weapon and drug bust some ten years ago. Roland’s father had been out of the club long before that happened.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The Riders had been a tough crew. Roland’s internet research unearthed plenty of sordid details. Suspected murders, disappearances, a massive gunfight with a local street gang that left three dead, vandalism, theft, and worse. One grainy picture scanned from a newspaper showed several grinning men in leather jackets posing in front of their bikes.

  His father had been there, a younger, rougher-looking version with a set of moustaches that made Roland think of wrestler Hulk Hogan. The man he remembered had always been clean shaven, but this was him, his dad, grinning with a nasty glint in his eyes Roland had never seen in person.

  Behind him was a big motorcycle with kind of a reclining backrest. It looked mean, somehow.

  Searching through those memories as he meditated, Roland had a realization. Maybe even an epiphany.

  He had it too. My Bloodline.

  He turned to Raven and asked the question.

  Yes. It wasn’t as strong in him, but it was there. It saved his life, once or twice. Not the last time, sadly.

  Did he ever kill anybody?

  There was nothing of the playful tone in the mental response.

  Do you really wish to know?

  Answer the question.

  Raven sighed. Three people. Two men, one woman. Happy?

  Roland closed his eyes.

  Did they at least...

  Deserve it? He thought they did. Two of them were trying to kill him. The other had murdered a close friend of his. It’s up to you to decide if that makes it right.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the jacket. A killer’s jacket.

  Like father, like son.

  The jacket belonged to him in so many ways. It was a symbol of death, but also of the idea that you could be more than a taker of life. His father had changed his ways, had died after leading a good life. The jacket was Death but also Hope.

  It was just what he needed.

  He took the Upgrade Tokens: one Uncommon, one Rare, and finally, a Legendary Item Upgrade Token. The way he figured things worked, to get a non-magical item all the way to Legendary, he was going to have to burn all four Tokens to move the jacket up the ranks.

  Before he could activate any of them, Raven spoke up.

  Use the Legendary Token by itself. It will do what you need. Place it inside the circle.

  Thanks, Roland told the bird, still unsure of how to feel about him.

  Raven had been watching over Randall before turning his attention to Randall’s son.

  The scavenger – What do you eat? Endings – was fixated on the Bringer of Death Bloodline.

  Roland was worried, but he needed all the help he could get, and the bird was willing to help. He didn’t trust it much, though. More than Trixie, who would throw him under the bus for profit if not fun, but not by much. Raven had his own agenda.

  Roland leaned over the circle and placed the token next to the jacket. He also placed one of the rewards he had gotten from the Proving Grounds:

  Runes of Devastation (F-Grade Armor Enchantment, Rare): When applied to a chest armor item of Uncommon or higher quality, the Runes will increase the damage and effects of all Skills or Techniques related to one of your Affinities, Attunements, or Aspects. This increase will vary depending on the armor’s Quality: 5% for Uncommon, 10% for Rare, and 15% for Epic or higher.

  The rune ‘patch’ was only a Rare upgrade, but the effects scaled with the quality of the item, so it definitely would help. As soon as he placed the items and moved away from the circle, it lit up, its edge glowing silver like the proverbial cloud lining. A new prompt appeared:

  High Significance levels detected!

  Using any kind of Upgrade Token on this item will automatically result in an Epic upgrade, unless the Upgrade Token is of higher Quality. The object’s Significance is Personal in nature and the upgrade only applies if you are the owner; the object is automatically Soulbound to you and cannot be lost, stolen, traded or given away. It cannot be permanently destroyed unless your soul has departed this plane of existence.

  Do you wish to upgrade this item: Pale Rider’s Jacket? Item will become Soulbound to you.

  Roland nodded. The System understood the gesture and proceeded.

  The jacket began to float above the ground as the two upgrade items dissolved into swirling pillars of light that flowed into it. The circle containing the effect kept glowing, its color shifting to match the light patterns that appeared on the jacket: silver turned to gold before changing to the deep red of spilled blood. Runes began to appear on the jacket, as did ghostly patches, the ones his father had removed.

  The Pale Riders’ patch showed Hooded Death on a skeletal bike with a skull where its front light would be, holding a scythe in one hand and a gun in the other. The translucent patches sank back into the leather, gone but not forgotten.

  When he first learned the name of his father’s club, he’d worried ‘pale’ was some sort of racist code word. Now it finally clicked into place. The name came from a Bible quote: ‘before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death.’

  It's all connected, Roland though.

  He felt like someone holding on to a piece of flotsam in a vast ocean, moved back and forth by currents beyond his strength or even understanding.

  Gritting his teeth, he dismissed the unsettling imagery. He might be too weak right now, but that could change.

  Would change.

  The leather jacket, now covered by red runes, floated gently back to the concrete floor. Roland examined it:

  Pale Rider’s Jacket (Legendary Quality F-Grade Chest and Arms Armor).

  Durability: 3,000/3,000

  Significance: 650/650

  Description: First worn by Pale Rider Randall Webb, possessor of the Bringer of Death Bloodline (dormant) and member of the Pale Rider Motorcycle Club. Their Motto: Ride And Die.

  Baptized in the blood of Ken Duchamps, slain with a knife.

  Present at the deaths of Dolores Hambly and Mark Gehrhart, slain by handgun and shotgun.

  Handed down to Roland Webb, possessor of the Bringer of Death Bloodline (active).

  Enhanced by the System and empowered by Great Runes of Devastation (Epic, upgraded through Significance).

  Inherent Traits:

  * Damage Resistance (Physical): 30 points. The Jacket will reduce physical damage and equivalent momentum from attacks by the designated amount. This reduction will apply before any modifiers for critical hits and hit location are applied. Physical attacks with an average damage below 30 will inflict no damage and their speed and momentum will be reduced to zero upon striking the jacket.

  Limitation: This protection only applies to the area covered by the Jacket (chest, shoulders, arms). Armor-piercing abilities and traits will modify the Damage Resistance accordingly.

  * Damage Resistance (Non-Physical): 35 points. The garment will reduce Concept-attuned attacks by the designated amount. All other effects and limitations are identical to Damage Resistance (Physical).

  * Great Runes of Devastation: While the jacket is equipped, all Death-related Skills and Techniques will have all their effects, including damage, range and area, increased by 20%.

  * On A Pale Horse: Once per day, you can summon a ghostly skeletal motorcycle resembling the 1951 Harley-Davidson Panhead once driven by Randall Webb, with the metal of its frame replaced by bones and its front light by a silver skull.

  The Pale Horse can travel at speeds of up to 180 miles per hour; it can glide in the air for short periods of time based on the speed it was traveling when it left the ground (1 second per ten mph of current speed). The vehicle is ectoplasmic in nature and immune to physical damage. The motorcycle will follow your mental commands instantly; no skill is needed to ride it.

  Summoning the Pale Rolling Horse costs 5 Significance. It will remain for up to two hours before vanishing or until dismissed or destroyed; damaging the bike will subtract Durability from the jacket.

  It is recommended that you wear a helmet and some body protection while using the Pale Horse.

  * Pale Rider’s Wrath: You can use Significance to increase the damage of any Death-related effects at the rate of 1% per Significance point spent, to a maximum of 300% for 300 Significance. This is cumulative with the Great Runes of Devastation effect.

  * Significance: This object has profound Significance for you. In addition to its other Traits, it can restore the Jacket’s Durability at the rate of ten Durability restored per Significance point spent. Significance points are regained at the rate of one per hour; if reduced to zero, the weapon’s Traits will stop working until at least one Significance point regenerates.

  The item’s Significance pool can be increased by performing great deeds, sacrificing Achievements or Titles to the weapon, spending Unbound Essence, or upgrading its Quality. Increases in this resource will unlock additional Traits.

  “I...” Roland looked over at the jacket’s stats one more time, at a loss for words.

  You got yourself a bike, Raven said. Congratulations.