Scamps & Scoundrels

Eric Ugland

Air Quotes Publishing, Inc.

Air Quotes Publishing

Copyright © 2019 Eric Ugland

Cover design by Sarah Anderson/No Synonym

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of Fiction. Of Fantasy. All of the characters in this novel and series are fictional and any resemblance to people living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental and surprising. Mentions of places are incidental, accidental, and mostly mental. The magic and spells have been researched in absolutely no way whatsoever, and any ill-effects after you attempt to cast them are completely on you. Any science is likely wrong considering the laws of physics are different in places with magic, you dig?

Also by Eric Ugland

The Good Guys - Epic LitRPG/GameLit

One More Last Time

Heir Today Pawn Tomorrow

Dungeon Mauling

Four: The Loot

Dukes and Ladders

Home Siege Home

Roseland - Private Investigator Mysteries

Series One

Series Two

Series Three

Catherine,

This book would literally not be here without you.

Thank you.

1

It was a dark and stormy night.

Of course it was.

Of course, on the most momentous night of my life, it was a god damn cliché. And not just a cliché, it was the greatest cliché of all time.

Absolutely fantastic.

On that particular stormy night, I was in one of the nicest McMansions I’d ever visited. It was late, basically midnight, and it was dark, both inside and outside. I was dressed all in black and had a pair of crap night vision goggles I’d five-finger-discounted from an army surplus store downtown. They did an adequate job of making things visible in the house. Which was key, nothing gets you caught faster than turning the lights on in the home you’re burgling.

Right, there was that too, I was robbing a house. I was not a stranger to robbing houses; it was really the way I got all my spending money. My third job. And I was good at it. I had a system — bottom to top. And you never really find much on the first floor, so if you need to be quick, skip the ground floor. The second floor is always where it’s at. But, from what I could tell, I had all the time I needed, so I was going to take it.

I’d gone through the basement window and looted the basement first. Some sports memorabilia that might score me a few dollars here and there, but that was it. Sure, there were hundreds of movies and a full-on theater, plus a commercial popcorn maker, but none of that stuff was valuable. Not on the scale I needed it. I did manage to find a multi-media server running off a Mac Mini, so that went into the bag, but otherwise, it was on to the first floor. Nothing of value in the kitchen, but there was a lot of silver in the dining room. All bagged up and ready to go for me. There was an office with a crappy desktop. I popped it open on the quick, to check things out. My primary motivation for this particular thievery was the need for a new graphics card. I had been saving some money for it, but then my dad up and drank it all. I’d been getting my ass handed to me because my rig’s frame rate was so low it would have been faster to hire an Amish carpenter to hand make each one. I needed a 2080 ti at least. So, naturally, I popped the desktop open because if it had a 2080, I’d take it, and leave the rest of the crap there.

It did not.

Some damn integrated graphics nonsense.

I unplugged the hard drive and popped it in the bag. I hadn’t exactly gone down that far along the blackmail road, but my earlier attempts at extortion had been marginally lucrative, and I wasn’t above trying out new money-making opportunities.

A quick peek in the drawers yielded a checkbook, but I didn’t take it. I looked into check fraud once, and it really takes more time than its worth these days.

Up to the second floor. The McMansion had a mah-hoosive stairway in the foyer, spiraling up in a big half-circle, a crystal chandelier dangling down nearly to the marble floor of the entrance. I just shook my head; these assholes had a bigger foyer than I had a house.

The second floor had super soft carpeting, which, you know, as a thief, I appreciated. I was a pretty sneaky fellow as it was, but carpet let me get away with a lot more.

The first bedroom was a kids room. Bunkbed. Little dude, maybe three, snoring away, tucked in a menagerie of stuffed animals. I closed the door immediately. I may be a thieving asshole, but I was a thieving asshole with rules.

Never steal from kids.

Only steal from rich assholes.

And a few more guidelines, but those were the critical rules.

Next bedroom was the same story, more or less. Young girl, pink four-post bed with a full Barbie dream house village along her wall. I closed that door too.

The third bedroom was the guest room. Empty. And nothing of value inside. I checked, not even a bible in the nightstand.

So it was on to the main event.

Master.

This particular master bedroom was one of those where half the second floor was devoted to the master suite. Double doors led down a hallway into a sitting area. There was a king-size bed in the sleeping area, and a woman laid there, pretty much passed out. She had a dark blue face-mask over her eyes, and there were brilliant orange earplugs in her ears.

I laughed; this was definitely the best-case scenario for me. The only thing better would be someone hopped up on Ambien. Or my father passed out drunk by 8 pm nightly. Sometimes earlier. Whee.

There was a single door coming off the bedroom, which meant a combined bathroom and closet, so I went there, opening the door up and wincing a little at the squeak of the hinges. I looked over my shoulder, and the woman had not moved in the slightest. I pulled a pocket-sized can of wd-40 from my pocket and gave the hinges a little spritz. Might as well do a spot of home repair while I burgled. The bathroom came first, the closet after. Both were ridiculous in size. I did a quick check of the medicine cabinet, but it was just over-the-counter stuff there. I wasn’t a huge fan of selling drugs. There was good money in it, but the people you have to deal with, not worth it. But, you know, there I go passing judgment when I’m probably just as big a piece of dirt as them. Oh well. One more bad habit to tack onto the list.

I snagged some of the daily jewelry in a small bowl next to the bathroom sink, gaudy platinum diamond rings, with two diamonds so big I could have used them to shoot dice.

Into the closet.

A safe dominated one wall, a large sort of thing about two feet by one foot. I’d save that for last, mainly because I had no idea how I might go about opening it. Instead, I went through the drawers, and I hit a minor jackpot. The husband’s underwear drawer had cash stacked in the back — a couple of thousand dollars in twenties. The wife had her big jewelry box in her drawer, and I pawed through the jewelry for a moment, and also her underwear. Nothing else hidden in the unmentionables. Back to the jewelry box, I did my untrained best to gauge the quality of the goods. Not as much costume jewelry as I feared, this lady was buying the real stuff. I chucked the whole box in my duffle bag. Sort it later.

I pondered the safe, then gave the handle a try. Sometimes, people didn’t bother to lock the safes, and then I got an easy payday. Not today -- locked.

Then it was the last step in any closet: purses. Handbags were definitely a great way to make some extra scratch. It was, like, half my eBay store. On that particular stormy night, I got super lucky. The lady of the house had good taste in expensive bags: three Louis Vuittons, two Chanels, and something called a Goyard. It was a tight fit in my duffle, but a little Pimp My Pilfering — I heard you liked bags so I put bags in your bags — and I made it work.

I looked at the safe one more time, then realized it was better to get out clean than get out with everything, so I left the closet, then the bathroom, and was on my way out of the master bedroom when I heard something downstairs.

Correction, when I heard someone downstairs.

2

I froze, convinced that whatever I heard was merely something that echoed from my subconscious. That it was an imagined noise which—

Nope. I heard it again. It was someone who was trying to be quiet but was not at all skilled at being quiet. And the someone was carrying something, something metallic which was banging against the stove. They were in the kitchen. Which I had to go through if I was going to hit my exit point.

I walked out of the master bedroom because while I wasn’t exactly sure the noise would wake the missus up, I didn’t want to risk it. Nothing like me being a stealth ninja and some other asshat wrecking it. At least if asshat made a big noise and I wasn’t in the bedroom, I’d be able to make a runner. Once out of the bedroom, though, I dropped to my knees and crawled along the carpet. Sure, it looked stupid, but it was a remarkably effective way to keep out of sight. Closer to the stairs, and I slid on my belly.

There was a dog. Well, the homeowners had a dog. I could smell it in the carpet. Also, they needed to get their housecleaner over because the carpet smelled like dog and I had dog hair all over me. But where was the dog?

The asshole in the kitchen was still making noise trying to be quiet, so I crept down the stairs, happy that the purses I’d pilfered were keeping the silver I’d stolen from rattling in my duffle. Thief-world problems, you know?

Ground floor achieved. At that point, I was debating just making a break for it out the front door, hoping that whoever was farting around the kitchen would catch the blame for my night mission. But damn curiosity got me. Always got me. I always wanted to know more. I couldn’t help it, it was an intrinsic part of me.

I slid along the cold tile until I got to the wall that separated the kitchen from the formal living room and foyer. Then I very carefully peeked around the edge, just as someone flipped the lights on.

Cursing, I pulled back. Because I was also blinded. God damn night vision goggles.

The asshat in the kitchen was humming a familiar little song.

My world was little more than an explosion of color for a moment, but while I waited for my eyes to readjust to normal, I managed to pinpoint the asshat’s song.

We’re In The Money.

Are you goddamn kidding me?

Eyes fixed, I leaned back out and around the doorway.

Asshat was a middle-aged white man who looked remarkably like the asshat in all the photos all around the house.

The hell is going on, I thought. The first answer that came to me was simple, dude got home late and was making some midnight snack.

That idea disappeared when I caught a whiff of hot oil. Nobody comes home and fries food in the middle of the night. And definitely not with a match.

I watched him light a match, and, as if slow motion, it flew through the air, extra bright as the sulfur flared, and then it disappeared into the pot of oil.

The oil whooshed a fireball into the air.

“Whoa,” asshat said, taking a step back from the range as the oil fire licked the ceiling.

This asshat was insane, and I had to leave. And yet, I couldn’t stop watching.

He poured water on the oil, and the fire spread like, well, like an oil fire that’s had water poured on it. But the guy wasn’t stupid, he was acting with purpose. And he made sure the fire spread to the big plastic jug of oil sitting on the counter. Which, you know, reacted fantastically to the fire in that the plastic of the bottle caught on fire and let oil flow out all over the counter and then off the counter, right onto two barbecue propane tanks.

A second later, that oil caught on fire.

Asshat grabbed the flaming propane tanks and took them into the pantry.

I froze, trying to decide on my course of action. But, by that point, asshat ran back into the kitchen and turned the lights off. Which, you know, was of minimal effect considering that the fire had taken over that entire wall of the kitchen and was doing an excellent job of illuminating the open floor plan.

His footsteps echoed on the floor as he ran out of the house, right through the front door. I heard the locks click over.

The psychopath was burning his house down for the insurance payout. Had to be.

Well, not my problem.

I got to my feet, and ran to the basement steps, jumped from landing to landing (thanks, high school gymnastics), and then made a bee-line for the window I’d crawled in, slipping right back out into the cold rainy night.

The mud sucked at my feet as I ran through the grass.

Then I slid to a stop and looked back at the McMansion.

The fire illuminated the entire downstairs.

Not a single smoke alarm was beeping.

Not my problem.

I made it to the property line before I stopped again.

I looked back at the house.

The fire inside was a brilliant orange and had definitely spread to more of the first floor.

“Balls,” I said.

Tossing the duffle bag to the ground into the trees, I started trudging back towards the McMansion.

I can make up reasons I did it, say that I thought of the kids, or that I saw a favorite toy of mine among the pile of stuffed animals the boy slept under, but the truth is darker. I wanted to mess up the husband’s plans. I didn’t want him to get away with anything. I wanted him to get caught and crushed by this woman. Partly because I hated my parents and even though I’d never been able to do something against them, at least I could muck up one dude’s jacked up plans.

And the kids. I like kids. They had no part in this nonsense, they were innocents. And, really, nothing gets me as angry and self-righteous as parents putting their children in jeopardy. We can smell our own.

Trudging turned to running when I finally was honest with myself and that I actually wanted to save the kids and not just screw over the dad.

3

The first floor was basically totally enflamed. Because of the massive stone staircase, though, I managed to get upstairs with little trouble, and, like I always was taught in the fire-safety classes I slept through, I dropped to the floor, and crawled under the smoke. Little girl’s room first, hers was closer to the kitchen.

It was thick with smoke in her room, and when I opened the door, I saw the bright orange of fire running up the corner walls.

Moving quickly, I ran/crawled (cran? rawled?) across the floor and slid to a stop next to her bed, pushing the Barbies out of the way.

I grabbed her arm and slid her out of bed onto my shoulder. She woke up as I got to the hallway, and she started screaming.

“Knock it off,” I shouted at her. “That’s right in my ear.”

“What’s happening?” She stuttered out through tears.

“House fire,” I replied, and by that point, we’d reached the stairs.

I helped her get out, which involved trying to figure out the stupid automatic ‘smart’ door lock that seemed to have malfunctioned that night, but then I gave her my phone and told her to call ‘911’ while I went back in for her brother.

The brother was smaller and easier to grab than his sister. And he didn’t wake up until I was outside and the rain hit him. The little guy didn’t deserve the life he was going to have.

I stood there in the rain, hearing the sirens in the distance.

I was done. Good deeds had been finished.

“What about my mom?” The little girl asked.

“The firemen are almost here,” I replied.

“But mommy,” the girl said, a forlorn look to the house.

“Seriously?” I asked. “Saving you two isn’t enough?”

A sob came from the boy.

“Dammit,” I snapped, “fine. But I want a really nice thank you note after this nonsense.”

I stomped back into the house. Immediately, I dodged left, diving out of the way of the beautiful and massive chandelier falling to the floor. It was a tremendous thing to watch, as layer after layer of crystal crashed onto the marble tiles sending a cascade of fragments out and around.

That’s when I noticed that the roof was on fire.

I picked some of the glass out of my arms as I got back to my feet. The top of the stairway was burning now. I’d have to go through the flames to get to the master bedroom. I turned to leave, because, you know, firefighters would have the gear to do that, and I caught sight of the kids outside. Hopeful looks on their little faces and I suppose my hard heart melted just enough, and I ran up the stairs. I did the crawl/run thing again, powering through the flames as quickly as I could, but I definitely set my hair on fire, burning what little beard I’d managed to cultivate, and catching my pants too. The plush carpet was some sort of synthetic weave, and in its semi-melted state, it covered my hands pretty well.

But I didn’t stop when I got to the door, I just bull-rushed through it.

The master bedroom was alight.

Not entirely, but the bathroom and the closet, which were directly over the kitchen, were burning bright, and flames were reaching into the master bedroom. The sitting area, however, was peachy keen.

I dropped and rolled over the carpet until my body was no longer actively on fire, and then I swallowed the pain I felt all over. Another thing I could thank years of gymnastics for. Lack of height, chronic injuries, athletic prowess, and the ability to ignore pain for immediate gain. Thanks, mom.

Somehow, the woman had yet to wake up during all this nonsense. Or, you know, she’d passed out from smoke inhalation. It actually wasn’t that bad in the master bedroom, and I noticed a window cracked open on the far wall, a spot where a lot of the smoke vented out.

I ran over to the woman, and I pulled out the earplugs and ripped off the eye mask.

Nothing.

I shook her.

Still nothing.

Old 80s movie standby, I hauled off and gave her a good slap.

Nothing.

She was breathing though, just really out of it.

I was starting to wonder if she’d been drugged by the husband.

Screw it, I thought, can’t wait.

I hauled her onto my shoulder, took two steps, and crashed through the floor.

It was a small hole, big enough for my lower body to go into the fire below, but the lady tumbled to the carpeted floor of her bedroom. I still had my arms free, so it wasn’t, like, the end of the world, but it only took a second for my pants to reignite, and, this time, my boots lit up too. When I brought my lower half through the floor, I was on fire.

And, seeing smoke starting to come through the carpet, I knew I was about to see the entire room go poof with fire.

I grabbed the woman’s hands, and I dragged her through the sleeping area into the sitting area. I snatched a throw blanket off the leather couch and wrapped it around the woman before I hoisted her on my shoulder, took a big breath at the low level, and, as the bedroom went up in flames, I made a run for it.

The firefighters weren’t going in the house.

They waited for me to get out, and then they took the mom from me, and I crashed to the ground. Still on fire.

I remember a lot of pain, beyond my ability to keep it under control, so I started screaming. And then an intense cold as a fire extinguisher went off, and I disappeared into a cloud of white.

Then, black.

4

I woke up in the hospital, my body on figurative fire instead of the literal fire. I could only sort of see, and there was definitely a tube going down my throat to help me breathe. I could still hear, though, and the sounds of the place were what led me to understand the hospital-ness of the place I lay in. Smell wasn’t really happening. Not in any way that I could tell what was around me. But hearing, yeah, that was it. I tried to move but didn’t get much response from my body. Not from my legs, or my head, but I did get my left hand moving just a little smidge.

The other people in the room, at least two of them judging from the conversation I could pick up, were distant. From the sound of it, theirs was an intense discussion, but it was just far enough away that I couldn’t pick up much in the way of words. Just tone. And that one person was arguing, and not understanding what the other was saying. The sharp outburst of cursing gave me a pretty good indication it was probably my father. Nice to know the drunkard made it to the damn hospital to see his only son wrapped up in bandages.

Using my one slightly working hand, I felt around the table in front of my bed, looking for a remote for the tv I knew had to be in the room. I figured if I turned the television on, it could signal to the doctor I was awake.

There was something rectangular, and I got my hand to close over it. Bringing it to my face, I had a phone.

Not my phone, though. A nicer one. Maybe mine had burned in the fire and the lovely family I’d saved had given me a new one.

A replacement, I thought.

I brought it up to my face, and I squinted a bit, and I looked at the screen. The buttons were different, but, I mean, decipherable. I knew how to work it — all phones are basically the same. This one had something over the top of a stock Android, at least as far as I could tell. There was a blinking notification, though, something my old phone didn’t have. That was new. And annoying. I’d have to figure out how to turn that off. I clicked on the flashing icon. There was a bit of fancy animation, and the weirdest thing was that it was clear. I could see the words, read the words.

Ben,

Would you like a second chance at life? Who would you like to be?

You have been invited to join the world of Vuldranni.

A world of darkness lit by a few brave souls who shoulder the burden to bring some semblance of safety to an otherwise deadly planet. The technology is distinctly medieval, though you might find a few surprises here and there. Magic is commonplace. Danger is everywhere. Fancy being a hero? Dare to be a villain? The choice is yours.

But choose carefully: this may seem like a game, but it is most certainly a new chance at being. A new chance at living. If you wish to take the leap, click here.

Have a beautiful day, and enjoy your new life.

INcarn8

Uh. Okay.

That was odd. Unexpected for sure. Was it an email? A text? Something else? Why had it, I mean, was this a beta invitation of some kind? It said invitation, so… I mean, I’d gotten a singular, unique free-copy code from my streaming days, but that had been to a small indie game, which, in retrospect had been pretty terrible. I wondered if it was a mobile game, hence why it was on my phone. But since I was stuck in the hospital, I figured I’d hit continue. Give me something to do while I listened to my father argue with whatever authority figure he was currently raging against.

So yeah, I hit the link.

5

It seemed like the room got quieter — I could barely hear the beeping. And for some reason, I could see the phone’s screen even clearer now.

A character sheet. All the fields were empty, and all except two seemed un-clickable.

Name and race.

I paused on the name. I usually spent a lot of time on names. They were important, the first impression for most of your fellow gamers. Should I go into this as a troll again? Maybe. Probably not. I didn’t exactly have an audience. That was the main reason I did what I did. But here, this was going to my private hospital game, and so, I thought I’d try something else. Go in the shadows. Be unseen. The name could come later.

I clicked on race, and a list came up. A long list, one that seemed to be nigh-on endless. All the usual fantasy suspects came first:

Races:

Human.

Elf.

Half-X.

Dwarf.

Halfling.

Gnome.

But after the recognizable races, the names started to go in alphabetical order and were a bit out there. Exotic, esoteric, and then some were just relative gibberish. Stuff I’d never heard of.

Races:

Agachnern

Battenti

Woch

Lutra

Ursus

No idea what any of those were. Likely some furry artist’s wet dreams. There always seemed to be cat-girls or fox-girls in games these days, solely for fan service. Gotta love the fan service. And, I mean, I didn’t hate the fans or really care about their desire for hot ladies of the furry persuasion. It just didn’t really do anything for me, you know, the furriness of it all. I was a fan of human ladies. Or at least I thought I was. I suppose it’s also true that I’d never really given other, uh, sentient beings much thought in terms of romantic or sexual relations. So the furries could do something for me; they just hadn’t yet at that point.

Really, though, the truth was that I had no time for ladies. Not since my mother left — that ended all the fun and games for me. I’d been working at least one job since then, most of the time two. Occasionally, three. And with all the work, and the other goings-on, I just didn’t have time for much at all, and interest in the other gender, or sex in general, had waned. It’d been a damn long time since anyone had actually touched me in a sensual way.

I thought back to the time I’d played D&D in college. The lone semester I was able to attend. I played an elven rogue who was a badass with sneaking around and making smartass comments. The sneaking around had continued into the real world, and I figured it was kind of who I was and what I did, so if this game was as realistic as it implied, maybe I’d get a leg up if I kept on the same path. So rogue was for sure, but as far as race goes, elf? Dwarf?

Not a dwarf, no. I’d had enough of being short in real life. I wanted height for once. I wanted to be tall, blonde, and handsome. Svelte. I wanted a good chance at survival, and that meant shooting from the back lines and hanging out in the shadows.

But would that mean missing out on the chance of an exotic life? Would being a weird race make me bad or at least interesting? Fun maybe?

And then I saw a button at the bottom of the list, randomize. I thought about using it, but what type of idiot would do that?

I scrolled on and on through the list, and it was so diverse that I started to get overwhelmed. The paradox of choice, I believe. Faced with all the options, I froze for a moment before going back up to start from the top. The familiar.

Human.

Race: Human

Description: Humans are among the more populous races on Vuldranni, and live on most of the continents. They are adaptable, live moderately long lives, and have few limitations placed upon them. That said, they receive few bonuses.

Boring.

I was a human here, and it’d kinda sucked. Why do that again if I didn’t have to?

Dwarf was already out. Gnome and halfling were definitely out. Again for being too short.

Half-X might be interesting, as it was essentially the cheat code allowing me to combine any two races. But I tossed that to the side since I doubted I’d be able to figure out the right combination before I starved to death. I was down to my last ten nuggets at that point. And some fries, but who’s counting?

That really just left elf from the notable races. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the sound of it.

Race: Elf

Description: Not just the pointy-eared environmentalists from days of yore. Elves in Vuldranni are still pointy-eared but exist in a wide variety of environments. They are an offshoot of creatures native to the Fey plane of existence, and as such, they tend to seem as if they belong to both worlds at the same time. They live inordinately long lives and seem to relish in beauty. They have a love of magic and an innate ability with the arcane arts. They tend towards the pursuit of justice, of being good and kind. Elves receive +2 to Dexterity and increased Mana regeneration.

I picked elf.

Which, naturally, popped up an entire list of subraces to choose from.

Subraces

1. Elves of the Trees — Elves of the Trees, commonly referred to as wood elves, live in enclaves in large forests, isolated from most other sentient races. They tend to be insular and xenophobic, reacting aggressively to any perceived intrusion. As an Elf of the Trees, you gain +2 to Dexterity, Nightvision, and bonuses to starting woodcraft skills. Your starting spawn point must be within one of the wood elf enclaves.

2. Elves of the Sea — Elves of the Sea live in an archipelago constrained to a single geographic area of this world. Their lives revolve around the Ocean, living within and around the water. They sail on boats, they fish, they swim. Their skin has darkened due to the constant exposure to the sun, and they have lost their darkvision. As an Elf of the Sea, you gain +2 to Agility, gain Waterbreathing, and have significant bonuses to all water-based skills. Your starting spawn point must be within one of the Sea Elf villages.

3. Elves of the clouds — Elves of the Clouds are from the tallest mountains of Vuldranni, and their hard life has given them an ability to breathe less oxygen. They spend their lives at altitude in some of the harshest climes known, and that life in duress has modified their digestive systems, so they are able to draw nutrition from nearly anything. +2 to Constitution. Darkvision. Significant bonuses to nutrition and resistance to disease.

4. Elves of the Wastes — Elves of the Wastes live in a portion of the world known as the Wastes, the physical remnant of a long magical war. They are a militaristic society devoted to fighting back the demons their society accidentally unleashed upon the world. +2 to Agility, Darkvision. Significant bonuses to martial abilities. Your starting spawn point must be within the Wastes.

5. Elves of the Shade — Elves of the Shade live underground in massive natural caverns. They avoid sunlight and are considered masters of underground agriculture. They have excellent darkvision but have serious complications in bright light. +2 Dexterity, -1 Constitution. Darkvision 200 ft. Significant bonuses to agricultural skills.

6. Elves of the Sun and Moon — Elves of the Sun and Moon are elves who have integrated themselves into modern societies. They have spread across the globe, and they hold allegiances with nations that are not of their own race. Most elves any sentient being encounters on Vuldranni are of the Sun and Moon. +2 Charisma, Darkvision, +1 Luck

7. True Elves — True Elves have recently crossed over from the Fey and have joined the world. They have a deeper connection to magic, but less of a connection to the physical world. True Elves may spawn at any point on Vuldranni. +2 Int, -1 Str, +1 Wis. Darkvision. Bonuses to planar travel.

Talk about the paradox of choice.

But it was clear there were only two possible choices for me. I wasn’t keen on going into an insular society. I wanted to explore the world at large, to see all the amazing things that might be waiting in what seemed to be an enormous game world. So I could either go True Elf, which certainly sounded dope, or I could go Elf of the Sun and Moon, which, admittedly, was not a good name. A bit cringe-y, to be honest. But, the bonuses they received meshed a whole lot better with the character I was thinking about playing. Charisma was always good for a rogue to help you talk your way out of trouble. That was huge. And magic was always a draw for me, and a better relationship with magic might be just as powerful as a little charisma boost.

I sighed, and then picked the one with the dumb name.

Elf of the Sun and the Moon it was.

That gave me some more options to pick from.

Attributes.

Attributes

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 12

Constitution: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 10

Charisma: 12

Luck: 11

Unassigned points: 18

But that was the extent of the information I’d been given. No help menu, no averages, no ranges. Just left to my own devices. Now, I’d already decided to be a rogue. Sneak attacks and stealing crap, oh my. I could try and min/max, but I had no idea what a good dump stat in this game might be. I could go super-low on strength, but that could bite me in the ass if strength was the main decider about things like carrying capacity. And as a rogue, or a thief more like, I wanted to be able to carry things. And quickly. I decided it would be best if I took a balanced approach. Well, mostly. I did throw a few more points in charisma than I’d intended.

Attributes

Strength: 10

Agility: 14

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 14

Charisma: 17

Luck: 13

Unassigned points: 0

There was a bit of whirring, and then I saw myself. Or, rather, I saw who I’d be playing. I looked pretty good. Tall. I think — not really anything to go on yet. Thin, for sure. Pointy ears, of course. Kind of severe features, but also, remarkably generic. Thankfully, there were lots of little sliders to give me the ability to fine-tune my appearance to almost any way I desired. What color did I want my hair? What growth patterns did I want in my hair? What kind of nose did I want? The customization options were endless and ridiculous, and I certainly lost myself in an attempt to make my avatar the best-looking man I could imagine. Or elf. The best-looking elf I could imagine. Which was pretty damn good.

Finally, I was done, and I looked at my new self. Tallish, thin, a good head of hair, a good smile, kind eyes. Gotta have kind eyes to get out of trouble. Definitely the hallmark of a good rogue. Ultimately, I liked the way I looked. Which was new for me.

As soon as I finished making myself — a statement as weird to feel as it is to write — I was given a choice. Well, another in a litany of choices, except this time it was capitalized, so it had to be important. It was a Choice. Ooh. Gave me the distinct impression they were just trying to not say class. Ridiculous. Just say class. We all get it.

But I didn’t have a wide range of Choices to, uh, choose from. Just a few, and they seemed pretty tailored to me.

Make your Choice:

1. Rogue - Rogues are the generalist of the underworld. They do a little burgling, a touch of thuggery, a pinch of purse-cutting, and the occasional murder. Rogues gain bonuses to progression in thievery skills. A good place to start.

2. Assassin - Death is your business, and business is, well, depends on you, really. You are focused on killing other sentient beings, monsters be damned. Which they probably are. Decreased XP from killing monsters or beasts, increased XP from killing sentient beings. Increased progression in martial areas which directly affect killing (so no hand-to-hand combat bonus for you).

3. Swashbuckler - A rogue, but on the high seas. XP bonuses for all activities done in or on water. XP penalties for actions on land. Bonuses to progression in thievery skills and maritime activities.

So I really only got rogue-based Choices. It was almost as if the game had been reading my mind that it somehow knew I was planning on being a thief. Or a rogue. Creepy, but you know, technically correct.

Rogue was exactly what I’d been looking for, so it was a quick thing for me to click the rogue Choice.

Which elicited an additional choice. Lowercase this time, so not as important. Spawn location. A whole host of locations came up, but they were just words. Some sounded cool, some sounded stupid, most just sounded, well, like places. Cities. I scrolled down a bit, and I found something interesting. The city of Glaton in the Empire of Glaton. Capital city? Likely. That was good enough for me.

Finally, the last step in creating any character, at least for me. A name. Always the thing that took the longest. For some games, I used my character’s name as some form of psychological warfare. But in this game, I wanted to experience a more immersive experience, and certainly not get pulled out by having people refer to me as xxBUTTMASTER69xx. What if I got a title? Would I be Lord ButtMaster? There was a little parenthetical under the box, which simply said: Elves of the Sun and the Moon typically have names similar to their nation of birth. That didn’t exactly help. I ran through some ideas in my head, thinking maybe I’d take something from pop culture. But that seemed lame. I needed something cool but also blasé. Something that would gain cool because of me, not something that was cool before me. Clyde Hatchet. Boom. See you later, Ben! I was now Clyde Hatchet.

I clicked, Yes.

The game asked if I was sure about things. About who I was going to be.

Yup.

Sure.

Hit me with a new life.

6

The beeping in my room reached a crescendo before disappearing altogether. Then everything went black. Not like I died or anything, though. I was still conscious, just, like, everything was black. Everything.

“Welcome, Hero!” a deep and melodious voice boomed out from the nothingness. “You have been summoned to the world of Vuldranni! A magical world full of flights of fantasy and mobs of monsters.”

Below me, a bright light flared, and I could see myself (or some of myself) suspended in space. But it wasn’t the old me, little Ben Zuckowski. It was new me. The elf, Clyde Hatchett.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to help it. I had a new life. I was done in the old world, I had a new one to go to. And, looking down past my elven feet, I saw it. A big planet rotating around serenely. Very big. And coming closer to me. Or, more likely, I was getting closer to it. It looked interesting, I mean, I loved staring at the globe as a kid or losing hours playing around on Google Earth, but this was a different experience. I tried to take it all in, to see all the separate landmasses, how they must have fit together. All the mountains, with lines of white cutting through deep browns and verdant greens. There were vast oceans and lakes, and ribbons of blue rivers here and there. It went by so incredibly fast that I couldn’t possibly catch it all.

While I zoomed across the sky, I realized that this experience was exactly what I’d hoped for, and been afraid of: this was the start of a whole new life in an entirely new world. My old world, my old self, the mistakes I’d made and the problems crushing me, all that was left behind. My broken life, the disaster of my family. I was the only one I had to take care of now — just me 2.0 in this new world.

And something seemed a bit off. I wasn’t exactly playing a game. I was, I mean, it seemed like I was entirely encapsulated in the game. I was, well, I was feeling things. This wasn’t just a game, was it?

I came to a stunning stop right above a city.

The deep and melodious voice continued: “The city of Glaton. The center of a great empire, Glaton is one of the most populous cities in all of Vuldranni, and some would argue it is the most cosmopolitan. But it is a city of illusions and shadows. Of heroes and villains, all held in check by the slightest sense of civilization.”

I stopped paying attention right around there because I realized I probably wouldn’t get an opportunity to have a top-down view of the city again. So I did my best to memorize it, and I tuned out the droning melodic voice. North of the city, not very far, was a massive waterfall. Beyond, high foothills that turned into jagged mountains with snowy peaks. To the west, first a river, and then the wilderness. A road cut through the forest there, but I couldn’t see much else in the way of civilization. To the south and east of the city were farmlands as far as the eye could see. The river presented a clear demarcation: civilization on the east side, wilderness, or savagery I guess, on the west.

Glaton was on a flat spot at the end of the hills. A large port cut into the city and the river, providing access to various riverboats. In fact, past the waterfall, the river grew enormously until it looked like I imagined the Mississippi did. I’d never actually seen the river in person, but I knew it was a place where steamboats could cruise, just like this one. Two bridges crossed the river: one to the north of the city and one to the south, with roads leading directly to large gates. Massive walls surrounded all of Glaton, with large round towers at irregular intervals. Dark grey stone lent an ominous tone to the whole place.

There was a massive series of buildings and a whole lot of green space in the north-central portion of the town, butting up against the western and northern walls. Given the maze I could just barely make out tucked in the back of the green, I hazarded a guess that it was probably the Imperial palace. Or something along those lines. To the east of the palace, still in the northern part of the city, there were vast estates that gradually tapered off into smaller houses, before becoming vast estates once again. To the south, the homes were, well, less like houses and more like tenement buildings. Especially the farther south and east you went. The roads almost disappeared between the buildings. A broad avenue cut the city in half, east-west, and another went north-south. The north-south one ran straight from the palace to the main city gates. There was—

I started moving again.

“… And so we hope you have learned all you needed from our tutorial,” the voice boomed. “Enjoy your new you.”

Balls. I probably should have paid attention.

7

One second I was hanging out above the city, incorporeal and just, you know, kickin’ it, and the next I was thrust bodily into reality. It felt weird. Unnatural even. I mean, it was unnatural, quite fundamentally so. Obviously. Just coming into being is not the natural way of things. Mainly because I wasn’t planning on coming into being. Up to that point, I’d taken the verisimilitude of the game as a byproduct of high-quality medical drugs I’d been given to ease the pain of being burned alive. Sure, it was a bit trippy, floating in space and looking at a city, but now I was in a city. I was suddenly and inexplicably standing on a pile of trash at the end of an alley between two buildings smelling the noxious odors are only possible when masses of humans toilet together out of doors. It was hot, humid, and smelly. That wasn’t just something that game developers managed to squeeze into new mobile games. I was there. I was in the world. Actually, in the world.

Immediately, as soon as I was, for lack of a better term, real, small animals of various types who possessed seemingly different numbers of legs and pincers started crawling all over my feet, which thankfully were covered in very basic shoes. Looking up, I could see a small slice of deep azure sky. Most of the sky was blocked by buildings soaring up above five stories on either side of me. The street below, or alley more like, was made of cobblestone. Rounded cobblestones that looked as if they’d seen more than one generation of trash dumped upon them.

And, there wasn’t just trash under me, there was trash around me. Rubbish in boxes and bins, wooden crates, some empty, some decidedly not, holding the sad remnants of things that might have once been edible. It also smelled terrible and seemed to have a plethora of crawlies moving around in the slop.

I blinked, and with that small action, my vision was overwhelmed with all sorts of text boxes and graphics. The largest, and most ornate, also provided the least amount of information.

Welcome to Vuldranni.

That was all the first notification said. Not exactly useful.

Congratulations, you have been given the VIP package, which includes the boon:

Gift of Gab (VIP Package) - Should you encounter a language you do not understand, as long as you hear at least three words of it, you will gain fluency in it.

That was a pretty sweet gift. Likely super useful in a whole new world where English wasn’t exactly the language of the day.

Do you wish to open your starting gear?

Yes/No

I wondered how to pick yes, and as I thought about it, yes was selected. That made me feel better about things happening in this game world, if things came up in public, in or the moment of a fight or something, I could select yes or no, or anything, really I supposed, without having to speak the command aloud. And thinking about the game world made me actually take a minute and think about the fact that I was in another world. That I had been in a hospital bed, listening to the doctor and my dad fight, listening to the beeps of my monitors and whirring of the machines keeping me alive, and then I filled out a form on a mystery phone, and now I was here. In another world, living as an elf. And it wasn’t a fever dream, or, if it was, it was a pretty damn realistic one, because the bug biting my arm hurt more than a dream ever would.

A quick slap and the bug was spread out across my elven skin. The slap I also felt. A slight sting. This wasn’t a dream. This was a reality.

GG! You’ve killed a Winged Flerb (LVL 2 Scout).

You’ve earned 5 XP! What a mighty hero you are.

Okay. GG? Good game? Harsh. And a flerb? That was the name of the bug I just smashed? Great. A sassy game world. I guess it was better than a droll one.

A list sprang into view, hovering in the air. I was struck by their UI design, and not in a good way. It felt dated. Anyway, the list had different sets of gear, five of them, ostensibly all tuned towards specific playstyles. Or, you know, because this was, in a sense, a new life, specific lifestyles.

The first had a dagger and a longbow. Ranged attacks.

The second had a short sword and a small shield. Up close and personal.

The third had a hammer, a saw, and a carving knife. Crafting.

The fourth was a fishing pole, a pick, and a hatchet. Gathering?

But it was the fifth which caught my eye. A hand crossbow, a black leather cloak, an advanced lockpick kit, and climbing gear. The perfect kit for a thief. Mostly. Now, to be clear to the uninitiated, I was going to be a rogue. A rogue and thief are not precisely the same. They’re similar, one can argue that all thieves are rogues, but not all rogues are thieves. I wasn’t sure the specific type of rogue I wanted to be, but, perhaps, a thief was a decent place to start. The fifth kit seemed the coolest of the bunch and was the closest to what I was thinking of playing.

Naturally, I picked number five.

You have found the starting kit: Second Floor Man

Hand Crossbow.

Black Leather Cloak.

Advanced LockPick Set.

Lockpicking Skillbook.

Rations.

Climbing Kit.

Knapsack.

Bandage.

Money Pouch.

Bone bolts (20).

Lifeform Identification Spellbook.

Basic Object Identification Spellbook.

Cool.

All the stuff appeared at my feet, and I knelt down to inventory the gear. The knapsack wasn’t great, it was a super basic model, metal bits poorly made, and the canvas fraying in more than one spot. I’d spent most of my middle school and high school electives in craft-based classes, mainly skipping anything that involved physical contact and/or exercises thanks to my gymnastics coach telling me it was unsafe to engage in any other physical activity, and thanks to two years of Home Economics, I knew I’d be able to make something better if I had access to some thread and a needle. Not that I was disappointed with something free, but, I mean, I got what I paid for. The knapsack didn’t even match the black leather cloak, being a sort of the vague beige of natural canvas. The cloak was black. Like really black. Impressively so. Not quite VantaBlack, but one of the darker blacks I’d encountered. I pulled the cloak out, and wrapped it around my shoulders, taking a second to look at my overall outfit. Again, pretty basic stuff. My guess was cotton, or some native variant thereof. Soft, pliable pants, a dirty white color. Cheap leather boots that fit, mostly, and were definitely each exactly the same. There didn’t seem to be a difference between the left and the right boot. Interesting. And a shirt, that was, well, mostly shirt-like, but also somewhat sack-like.

The crossbow was the worst thing I got. It was tiny, the wood was poor quality, and I had the feeling it would be hard-pressed to send a bolt with enough velocity to perforate paper, let alone damage an attacker. It might kill a pigeon. Or piss it off. Even chances.

The money pouch was simple leather and empty. The rations looked like hardtack biscuits.

There were three books in the pile of stuff, and I picked them up. The first was a small black book with an embossed key on the front. I flicked it open, and a prompt floated out of the book settling right in front of my eyes.

Would you like to learn the skill: Lockpicking?

Yes/No

Easy answer: Yes.

The book started vibrating in my hand, and as the vibrations grew in intensity, the book seemed to phase in and out or reality. Then it popped right out of existence, and I felt this pressure on my head. I closed my eyes, relaxing my brain as if I was just letting the knowledge come in. As I did, I felt a distinct burning sensation start at my head and work through my arms, as if the knowledge itself forged physical pathways. But then it stopped, and I knew how to pick locks. At least to a certain extent.

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Lockpicking (LVL 15). You can unlock and lock locks without keys. At level 15, you make less noise while shimmying picks around. +15% to unlock abilities, -5% detection.

When I peeked over at my character sheet, there it was, my very first little skill under the appropriate heading: Skills.

Skills

Lockpicking - (LVL 15): +15% to unlock abilities, -5% detection.

Skill books were awesome.

Next book, then. Also small, pocket bible sized, it had a black cover and a gold magnifying glass. As soon as I tried to open the book, the same thing happened as before. A notification swirled up out of the book and settled in front of my eyes.

Would you like to attempt to learn the spell: Lifeform Identification?

Yes/No

Attempt? Did that mean I could fail? That’d suck. Fail to learn the basic spells you get at the start of the game. I wondered if you only got the one chance?

Well, balls, I had to do it. I needed the spell. At least, I was pretty sure I needed the spell. I said, yes.

There was the same sort of thing as the first book, and then, poof, I knew magic.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Lifeform Identification

Lifeform Identification allows you to examine creatures and know certain traits. At higher spell levels, you will gain access to additional information.

One more book, one more magical moment, and I had another spell.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Basic Object Identification

Basic Object Identification allows you to examine objects and identify certain traits. At higher spell levels, you will gain access to additional information.

I leaned back and looked up at the blue sky above. I wanted to use my spells. I wanted to do magic. I could feel it, that little connection to magic, to do something completely different that was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. It felt awesome. I wondered how I’d cast the spell, but as I thought about it, I just knew how to do it. I extended my hand, and I let some of my mana flow out of my fingers. The magic would do the rest.

There weren’t any birds in the sky, but there were plenty of little things crawling around the trash. I angled my index finger at a rather ugly looking bug that had a bulbous body and spindly legs, then let the mana fly.

Infernal Flower Beetle

Lvl 0 Insect

Huh. Interesting. The spell provided really the bare minimum of information. I wondered if, at higher levels of the spell, I’d get more?

I fired off my other spell at the wall, figuring that might qualify as an object.

It did.

Red Brick

Item Type: Common

Item Class: Structural

Material: Brick

Durability: High

Weight: 4 lbs

Description: A brick. That is red.

Illuminating. Sure, it was a bit pithy, but, then again, I’d used an identification spell on a brick.

I was part of a whole new world, and I wanted to just fire my spells off each and every way. In fact, I was pointing at another insect, ready to work on my entomology merit badge when I heard a popping sort of noise, followed by some short words I just couldn’t quite make out exchanged between man and woman. Definitely an argument, but obviously I couldn’t hear it distinctly enough, or I’d have learned the language.

Another unidentifiable sound came, something violent, though because immediately after the noise came a scream. A scream of pain. I assumed the worst.

Still on my knees, I scooched out between the boxes, my off-white pants becoming nasty-white pants, and I leaned out just far enough to get a glimpse down the rest of the alley. One direction was just garbage-strewn alleyway until a relatively empty sun-filled street. The other, well, that held something of more interest to me. Or anyone really, because there were actual people there. Living beings that were thinking and breathing and bleeding. Emphasis on the bleeding in this case because it was apparent I was interrupting a rather intimate act. A man killing a lady. Stabbing her. Over and over and over again. Now, I don’t really think he was enjoying his job, but he was definitely doing it.

His appearance was slightly disconcerting because there was a somewhat overwhelming amount of blood splashed over and around the man. Like, more than I would have expected for the duration of his attack or the size of his opponent. Opponent really isn’t the right word because ‘opponent’ implies an attempt to fight back, but the chick had no chance here. Victim fit better.

I hesitated. I didn’t know what to do. Frankly, I didn’t know what to feel. It was such a foreign occurrence that I was frozen in place from indecision. I’d never actually seen a murder. Hell, I’d barely experienced violence before, having spent my childhood in a comfortable prototypical suburban experience until everything fell apart, and then I was so busy and poor that the violence plaguing the city of my birth didn’t seem to extend to me. No one wanted to waste their time mugging the miserable idiot I turned out to be. It was a sheltered life up until the end, so now that I was getting a front-row view of a stabbing, of an act of pure violence, it was, I mean, I had no idea how to react.

The killing was brutal, visceral, and wrong. Not just because murder is wrong, which, you know, I mostly believe. There was just this familiarity to the man’s motions. Like he was so used to doing this that he was bored. I knew the look well, it was how I served ice cream to screaming children. I’d slung cream for years, and I knew exactly how to do it with the minimum of actual effort. That’s how this dude was approaching killing the woman. Was this guy such a mass murderer that he’d grown bored with the violence? So experienced that he’d become efficient? Or was violence so commonplace that this was an unintended side-effect? The whole thing was weird.

8

That feeling burbled up, the same annoying feeling that came over me when I turned back to the burning McMansion. What I saw was unfair, and I didn’t like it. The woman seemed young, maybe she was a child, I didn’t know, but I knew that the killer was wrong. And if I could do something, I needed to do it. That meant my first strategy, hiding and waiting for the bloodthirsty son of a birch tree to leave, wasn’t going to work. Being a level one Rogue meant I’d stack up poorly against anyone who’d been in the gameworld for more than a day. Likely. And given the psycho’s ease with the blade, he was definitely at a much higher level than I. To the point where I was afraid to identify him in fear he’d somehow know what I was doing and kill me.

But as the woman’s screams petered out, likely as her life did too, I thought about what I had on me. I thought about my life, the things I’d done. I thought about Wyatt Hendricks in the third grade and how I’d ignored him getting beaten to a pulp because I was afraid his bullies might become my bullies. This was marginally different, what with this being a murder and that being a playground beating, but it was mostly the same in a roundabout moral sense.

I needed a weapon.

The damn crossbow wasn’t going to do jack. The bolts themselves were tiny, so I couldn’t even use them as improvised stabbing devices. It’d be like stabbing someone with dull needles. But as soon as I peeked at the climbing kit, I knew I had an option. The kit came with a wide variety of equipment, all falling under the umbrella of climbing gear. Some rope with a fine white weave, a grappling hook, a rudimentary harness that was little more than a belt with a steel ring in the center, pitons, and a climbing hammer. The climbing hammer had a short handle with a weighty looking head, one face square, and the other side coming to a sharp point. I did a little test swing, and it seemed brutal enough to do the job.

Another scream came from the other end of the alley, and given the decreased volume, I had the distinct impression the victim was nearing her untimely end.

Time to act. Or, rather, late to respond, but at least I was doing something.

I came out of my hiding spot, keeping low to the ground. The murderer had his knife buried into the woman’s sternum and was muttering something into her ear as foul red froth poured from her mouth.

Silently as I could, I ran towards the murderer, then jumped up, pushed off the wall, and brought the climbing hammer down as hard as I could with both hands, pointy-bit first.

I managed to pull off a nearly perfect Trotsky.

Unfortunately, said maneuver involved copious amounts of blood. Copious. It wasn’t, say, a Kurosawa blow-out coming out of the top of his skull, but the spike-end of the hammer went right through the skull like it wasn’t there, and then there was stuff pouring out everywhere.

WHOA! Critical Sneak Attack. Double Triple Damage!

The thing was, the dude didn’t die. He stumbled around, and he made some really terrible noises.

I needed to finish the job, so I swung again and again until he stopped moving, and then I threw up.

GG! You’ve killed a Human (LVL 9 Thief).

You’ve earned 4200 XP! What a mighty hero you are.

GG.

Good game.

What a twisted little world.

The reality of what I’d done, of what reality really was here, of how this game worked, was so much worse than I could have imagined. What I’d done was so much more intense and gross, and whatnot than any book or movie or video game had ever made it out to be. The man was the first thing I’d ever killed, excluding some insects and spiders. I looked at the dead body, really looked at it, and I tried to understand why I’d done this. Had there been another way I could have gone about working through this situation?

Letting the guy live just seemed wrong. He had definitely killed before, and he probably would again. I had no choice in the matter, I did it because it would save other people later.

Definitely provided me my first clear view of the inside of the human, which was something I could have lived without. According to the information that the game gave me, this dude was, in fact, a human. What if this dude had been some sort of skinwalker or pod person that didn’t have a brain? Were there skinwalkers or pod people in Vuldranni?

Insert gif of my mind exploding.

It was the immediate reaction to realizing my undeniable and incredible ignorance of this new world. I knew nothing. I had just been lucky in this whole mess. So fortunate. I needed to start learning. And calm down. My heart rate was through the roof. At least, I think it was. I realized I had no idea of the resting heart rate of a damn elf. Me.

I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and thought about what I needed to do. Even with my eyes closed, there was a blinking notification taking up the lower third of my vision. A good reminder that this was, somehow, all a game.

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 2! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t

I’d already gotten a level? I mean, I had killed someone quite a few levels higher than myself, so that had to count for something.

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 3! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 4! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t

Okay, so I did get a few levels from killing the higher level asshole. Maybe worth it?

Standing up, I shook my head, trying to come to grips with the situation. I was in an alley, in daylight, one foot on either side of the man I’d just murdered, my vomit mixing in with the blood and various other fluids leaking out of a corpse. As a gamer, there was really only one possible course of action.

Loot and boot.

I needed to take everything of value the man had on his person and bounce.

Actually, small edit, I needed to loot everything of value the man had on his person and everything of value the woman had on her person. She’d definitely died. I don’t know when. It might have been before I attacked the murderer, it might have been after, but, regardless, now she was dead. And, frankly, I don’t think there was really anything I could have done besides avenge her passing. Which I did.

I pulled the man’s body behind the boxes, back towards where I’d spawned in. He was more substantial than I expected, but, then again, I hadn’t done much body moving in the old world.

Once there, I went to work. I would have gone through his pockets, but it didn’t seem like pockets had really made significant inroads in Vuldranni fashion as of yet. Pouches, though, pouches were definitely in vogue. And this dude looked like he’d been Rob Liefeld’s inspiration. Pouches all over the place. The first I grabbed was heavy, about the size of a fist and contained coins. Gold coins. The second was larger, also heavy, also coins, but this one had gold and silver and copper coins. Mostly silver. I dropped both coin pouches in my knapsack without bothering to count them. It wasn’t the time. But I felt pretty good I had a little nest egg for my new life.

Next pouch had dried herbs, the next a bunch of odds and ends of the animal variety: bird feet, cocoons, wasp eggs, that sort of shit. There were a few tiny pouches with different types of powders in them, might have been glitter or iron filings, I had no idea at that time, and then the last pouch had five thick heavy coins in them. They were larger than any of the other coins I’d seen and had a more personal sort of look to them like they’d been designed for people instead of for a government. Again, something to explore later when I wasn’t hanging around a crime scene.

Two daggers on his right hip, they looked basic, and they had black leather sheaths. In the bag. There was a short sword on his left hip, about twenty inches long or so, and that went in the bag as well, though the hilt stuck out just a bit. I took his belt next, then his boots and his pants.

Which revealed to me that he was going commando and that he had not engaged much in personal hygiene.

Also, because he was now nude, I saw that he had a tattoo on his thigh as well as a tight bandolier of throwing knives. I took the bandolier and the blades, left the tattoo.

Four rings from his fingers, two bracelets from his right wrist, one cuff from his left, and the three necklaces (or chains, not sure of the difference) from his neck. I was thinking about taking his shirt, but, well, there was quite a bit of blood soaking into the shirt, and I wasn’t exactly sure how far stain removal had come in this world. He had two small earrings in his left ear, and they went in the bag too. I gave the body a last once over, even running my fingers through his hair, and he had nothing left besides the shirt on his back.

Next, the victim.

Which is where it got weird.

9

I waltzed out between the boxes like I'd been snoozing in case some passerby stumbled on the scene of wanton destruction while I was looting the corpse. Also, great name for a Chinese restaurant: Wonton Destruction. Feel free to take that. The body of the woman was where I’d left it. Which was a good thing. I wasn’t ready to deal with the undead. And even thinking of the reality of it, that the undead might be something I needed to deal with on a daily, or even regular, basis, was giving me the heebie-jeebies. Technical term.

She was pretty, you know if you were into really extreme goth. You know, what with her being dead. And, uh, quite bloody. She was human, at least as far as I could tell, young and with reddish hair, cute features, if not sexy. She had plain clothes on, basic cotton, things that were remarkably similar to my own, and I figured that was the cheap default clothing of the realm. Meant I’d probably be able to blend with the lower classes pretty well. She had little on her or about her person, a simple knapsack, a small hand crossbow, some bone bolts, and a black leather cloak…

I scrambled to my feet and promptly tripped over something. I rolled back to my knees and saw that I’d stumbled over another corpse.

A young woman. Reddish hair. Plain clothes, simple knapsack.

My heart was thudding in my ears, and the world was getting a bit hazy.

I needed to get out of there.

Another step, another trip over another corpse. They were everywhere.

And all the same.

Not similar, not a serial killer who had a type, nope. No. These were the exact same woman, over and over and over and over and over. All in the same outfit with the same knapsack at her feet.

I had stumbled across a killer who’d been spawn-camping another player in this game-world. And, I realized I shared my spawn point with someone. Who’d been spawn-camped. It was a rather bizarre introduction to the game world, and I wasn’t sure what I should be doing or thinking at that moment. Instead, I stood there in shock. The bodies were, for the most part, stacked like cordwood against the red brick, hidden from street view by crates and barrels. I was aghast at the sight.

Then came the quick realization that I was supposed to be looting the victim, so, maybe there were more victims now. That just meant more loot, right? Just as messed up to loot one body as it is twenty, right? Or something like that.

I grabbed a knapsack and started stuffing it with the things I thought useful. Lockpick kits, spell books, skill books, and even all the janky crossbows. And the bolts. Maybe I could sell them to a tailor or something. I left the cloaks behind, as well as most of the rations.

At the bottom of the stack of bodies, though, I noticed something a little different. Same victim but wearing different clothes. These were nicer, tailored, a bit more worn, but significantly more beautiful and no longer the basic attire.

“Find anything interesting?”

I spun around to see the same girl, this time alive, leaning against the wall. She looked utterly different alive. I mean, obviously. But after seeing her face many times, like, a lot of times, it was almost weird to see her alive, with blood in her body instead of outside of it.

She waited patiently for a response, and my brain-wheels spun, trying to figure out a proper reply.

“Seems like I left a gang of you over there on the curb,” I said.

“Regulators reference? Weird flex, but okay.”

“Weird flex? That’s a classic.”

“Given the distinct lack of freaking out and the knowledge of both regulators and flex, I’m guessing you’re new to this world?“

“As are you.”

“Eh… define new.”

“Well, uh—”

“You know you’re speaking English right now?”

“So are you, what of—”

“They don’t speak English here. You got Gift of Gab?”

“Yeah.”

She said something I didn’t understand.

Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Imperial Common.

“… And now you should know Imperial Common,” she continued. “Did it work?”

“It did,” I said, my mouth feeling like it had been speaking Imperial Common its entire life. I could hear the difference, in a way, but it was difficult. It just felt so natural to speak in Imperial Common.

“Okay,” the girl said, “here’s the thing: this isn’t a quest sort of a thing, but I’m still rewarding you for saving my life.”

“But you died. Er, uh, spawn camped.”

“Bingo, baby,” she said, walking over to all the bodies, and looking over them. “If it happens to you, you’d better pray to whatever gods you know that you’ll have someone save you. Otherwise, it’s a whole new type of hell.”

“Sorry it happened to you,” I said.

“Yeah, me too. But at least you got me out of it.”

She knelt at the bottom of the pile of corpses and slid her hands in and around her body, the one with the different outfit. The dead body, not the living one. She was looting herself. Bizarre. After a second, she seemed to find what she was looking for and stood up.

“Okay,” she said,” I wish I could just chill here with you for a while until you get over the whole trauma of slamming into a new world, but I have to get moving. Which means, if you want to learn what I can teach, you need to come with me.”

“It feels weird,” I replied. “This new world thing.”

“Yeah. I remember. And you’ll probably do things you wouldn’t in the old place. Especially as you try to come to terms with being, you know, the you here.”

“Like that?” I said, pointing toward the corpse of her killer.

“Yeah. Like that. Tough entrance to the world. But I appreciate it. Let’s get walking,” the girl said, pulling her standard black cloak around her slight frame.

She moved quickly and quietly. Like, I could barely hear her even though when I walked, I was making all sorts of noise. The jingle jangle of the pouches of coins, for example. I stopped walking, and I started paying attention to the way I was moving, to the sounds coming from me. I’d done this nonsense before, I’d trained myself how to move in silence, it shouldn’t be that hard here.

Cool Beans, you’ve unlocked the innate skill Silent Movement (LVL 24). Now you can move without making noise, great for sneaking and peeping, as well as remaining unnoticed. +29% harder to detect.

She stopped at the mouth of the alley, looked out along the street either way, then paused, and looked back over her should at me.

“Maybe a little faster? We have a ways to go.”

I ran after her.

Stepping out into the street was like entering another world. Again. Sort of. Maybe a bit less so. It was so different, though, another revelation that the world was so much larger than I had anticipated or realized. It was more urban than I expected, and the technological advances on display were, well, different. They were almost anachronistic. Buildings went high up, five or six stories, and had glass windows. There were even lampposts on the corner. Probably not electric or gas, but they looked like cast light in the night, but I had no idea how.

The street was calm, quiet, basically deserted. A cat sitting in a window two stories up seemed interested in us for a moment before returning to licking itself, but I could hear the hustle and bustle of the city in a way I hadn’t in the alley. Horses whinnied, horseshoes rang out as they hit on the cobblestones, wagon wheels creaked, and people called out to each other. It felt alive in a way my own experiences on Earth had. This was reality. A full reality and there was something beautiful about it.

“Close your mouth,” the girl said. “You need to look like this isn’t the first time you’ve seen this place.”

“Locals don’t take kindly to, uh—” I started.

“Locals don’t particularly take kindly. At all. Certainly not to people who suddenly appear in their world. And, trust me, you don’t want anyone to know you’re not a native.”

“Why? They’ll kill me?”

“Or something. There’s definitely a dude in the royal prisons who got caught being a freaky asshole, and he was fine being put to death until the powers that be found out about the asshole’s power, and now they keep him alive in constant agony. Nothing like torture and healing potions, right?”

“Sounds pretty horrible.”

“I’d imagine it is.”

The girl started down the street, and I followed.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Capital city of the Empire.”

“Yeah, but—”

“It’s called the Senate.”

“I thought I saw a palace, is it, I mean, are we near the palace?”

“You know where the palace is?”

“Did my best to memorize the city when I was above it.”

“We’re reasonably close, I guess. Before you get too into the government, it’s a wonky elective monarchy as far as I can tell. Emperor at the top and a Senate that, well, makes recommendations the Emperor ignores.”

“Is this a good neighborhood?”

“It’s the home of the Senate and the city home of lots of the lower tier Senators. Lots of money, lots of important people, lots of places to eat, lots of places to get a thief like you arrested. You don’t want to be here right now.”

“Now?“

“At your level, one?”

“Four, thank you.”

“Go you,” she said. “That asshole killing me, he was doing it to level up. Part of the bonus they offer new members.”

“They?”

“His gang. There’s another cat, the one who was with him, he’s the one you need to watch out for. Somehow, he’s got an ability that lets him reset your spawn point.”

“So he can make it so anyone can spawn camp someone like us.”

She nodded, but never looked at me, at least, not when I noticed it. Instead, her eyes roved around, always on the move, constantly on the watch for, well, I supposed for anything. “So why’d you pick the dark side?”

“The what?”

“Crime. You want to be a thief, right? You picked the thief kit. I’m assuming you’ve got Rogue as your Choice. Am I wrong yet?”

“No, but, I mean, I’m not looking to, you know, rape or murder anyone.”

“Thievery and arson?”

“Thievery. It was what I did back home, figured I’d continue doing it here.”

She stopped walking and looked over at me.

“You were a criminal?” she asked.

“I was a thief. I never hurt anyone, I never—”

“Clearly I also chose thief, so you don’t need to explain it to me. I was just curious why you chose to be a thief here.”

“I thought, maybe, my past skills might transfer over. Why did you?”

“I figured, in a world with respawns I wanted to do something more dangerous.”

“You know, I didn’t realize there were respawns.”

“You didn’t think to ask?”

“Ask who?”

Her eyebrow arched up, and she looked perplexed, then she seemed to look around. She shrugged and started walking again.

“Wait a minute,” I said, quick-stepping a few times to catch up to her, “who did you talk to?”

“I think it’s something I’m not allowed to talk to you about.’

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. This is a land of secrets, some you can discover, others have to remain secret. Like, we’ll both be punished if I tell you, sorry.”

“But—”

“Look, this is certainly a lot to take in, I get it, I’ve been there. I’m trying to help, but clearly not doing the best job. Given my situation, though, I have to leave town, forever. And soon. Like, you know, now. Ish. You want to come, I’d consider having a traveling companion.”

“You don’t know me from, uh, anyone.”

“Yeah, but you saved my hide, so, you know, I’m willing to extend a little trust your way.”

“I was kind of interested in city life.”

“It has an allure,” she replied. “I was doing my best to make a life here. I’m going to try and get you going on your own then, in what time we have, okay? Give you what tips and tricks I’ve gotten through bad experiences living here. And, if you want to help me actually get out of Glaton with the chances of making a real life somewhere else, I’ll hook you up with a little surprise.”

You have been offered a quest by Etta:

Help Etta Out of Town

Assist Etta in leaving Glaton, get her safely to the caravans with the belongings she feels are necessary to escape with. And don’t die.

Reward for success: A Surprise

Penalty for failure (or refusal): None

Yes/No

I smiled immediately. A big stupid smile. I got a quest. A quest! And just getting confirmation that that was the way the world worked filled me with the big fuzzies. Because I could play a game. Games were what I knew, what I lived for, and they had rules. Rules that could be followed, bent, and broken for my own—

“First quest?” Etta, the girl, asked.

“Yep, it’s kind of crazy.”

She smiled, “Kind of awesome?”

I nodded, then selected yes on the quest.

“Great,” she said, “let’s motor.”

10

And motor she did. She wasn’t entirely running, but she was definitely keeping a brisk pace.

“I’m guessing you picked up that my name is Etta,” she said. “Etta Puck. And I’m not telling you my Earth name. Don’t tell me yours. That’s likely still your true name, and that has power. Keep it secret, keep it safe.”

“Sure thing, Gandalf.”

“Yeah, funny, but keep that pop culture stuff to a minimum, else you’re gonna be easy to spot. This is your new reality, get to know it, get to love it, and get to living it. Rule number one for life in Vuldranni: This is reality. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Now, your name?”

“Clyde Hatchet.”

She shook her head as she walked.

“What?” I asked.

“Clyde Hatchett? Really? You use a Dashiell Hammet name generator on that one?”

“No, I—”

She waved me away, “I’m messing with you. It’s not easy coming up with a name, and it’s not like Etta Puck is amazing. I’ve come up with a thousand better names since I got here.”

We left the small side street, took a small curvy road for about a block, and then hit a wide thoroughfare virtually covered with a diverse range of people. There was an extensive range of species, cultures, sizes, looks, and all of it was novel and fascinating to me, and I did my best to seem disinterested at it all. Which, you know, having been a surly teenage boy in the good ol’ US of A for a spell, that was something I’d had quite of bit experience doing. I just slapped on my best teen-forced-to-hang-out-with-the-parents expression and swallowed the excitement and intrigue at seeing elves, dwarves, minotaurs and a cornucopia of other humanoids I couldn’t identify. And yet, at the same time, there was a serious feeling of wonder. It was straight-up awesome to see everything around me.

Something pinched my arm, and I looked over to see Etta glowering my direction.

“Tone it down, Hatchett,” she said. “Still touristing.”

“Sorry,” I said.

The pinching stopped, but she kept a grip on me, leading me through the crowd. I appreciated that, I knew I’d be in trouble if I had to follow her. There was so much going on, I could only pay attention to not looking like I was paying attention to anything, let alone trying to follow Etta through the crowd.

Someone yelled out, and all of us city folk moved to either side of the street until we were essentially squished onto the sidewalk and no longer moving. In the mild silence, I heard marching feet and the jangle of armor.

“The Legion,” Etta whispered in my ear. “Or at least some of them. Rule two, these guys have the right of way. Really, everyone higher station than you has the right of way, which for, lowlifes like you and me, is everyone. But especially the Legion. Watch yourself on the street.”

As the marchers came into view, I realized I was holding my breath in a mixture of excitement and fear. The soldiers doing the marching were very hard looking men and women. Their armor was well used and well cared for, and they had the appearance of people who’d earned their scars. The people around me looked on their Legion with legitimate respect.

“Are these the police?” I whisper-asked Etta.

“It’s complicated,” she whispered back in English, “and not a conversation for out of doors.”

There were, maybe, a hundred members of the Legion marching by, and once gone, the street quickly resumed its frantic pace. We, however, stayed standing along the wall, just watching the people moving around us.

“Welcome to the Empire,” Etta said, continuing in quiet English. “You know it’s called Glaton, right?”

“I picked up on that, yeah.”

“Everyone in the city, and probably the Empire, thinks this city is the best thing ever. Very proud of it. They’ll tell you it’s the biggest city with the most technological innovation and the very best quality of life. Might be true. I don’t know. No way to know, there’s basically no knowledge of the wider world. I’m not sure anyone knows what else is in the Empire, let alone outside of it. Geography is not a popular subject here.”

“Kind of like geology back home.”

“Rule one?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t mistake these people for being dumb,” she said, “think back on rule one all the time. This is a reality, and these people have lived in it for a long time. There’s a reason some technology is where it is. There’s other stuff here, a lot of it bad. Most of it bad, really. We’re now more in the middle of the food chain, way down from the top. Which reminds me of rule, uh, four. Don’t go out at night, that’s when more of the bad things are out.”

“Bad things?”

“You know all those nightmare monsters you came up with when you had to pee but were too afraid to get out of bed?”

“That’s so specific it hurts. Yes.”

“Just a fraction of what’s really out there. And the bad things seem to prefer the dark. Mostly. Daytime isn’t so awesome either. Just, you know, learn how to defend yourself.”

“Is there a rule three?”

“Did I skip three?”

“Yes.”

“Moving quickly, apologies, I’ll come back to that.”

And we were moving again. As far as I could tell, there were several regimented sizes of streets. Alleys were the smallest, some as little as two feet wide, but usually six to ten. Side streets had some front doors to buildings, tiny houses tucked in between more substantial blocks of buildings. There were regular streets which could fit a carriage and some people, the middle size streets which could do two carriages and people on either side. And then we came to an absolutely massive road. Multiple lanes wide, it could probably have worked as a stretch of freeway in Los Angeles. We stopped at the edge of the road, and just let the other people go around us. There wasn’t a ton of vehicular traffic on the massive street, though that might have just been an effect of the sheer size of the thing. I remembered from my vertical pause the two giant roads, how the one north-south ran directly to the palace.

“This is one of the two main roads in the city,” she said. “The Via Praetoria.”

“Is this the north-south one?” I asked.

She nodded but seemed a little irritated I’d interrupted her.

“And this goes to the palace?” I asked, looking to the north. I didn’t see if she nodded in response, but seeing the massive structure at the end of the road, distant though it was, confirmed things for me. The architecture of the place was beautiful, incredible, and bordered on unreal. Behind the white stone palace were dark mountains, brooding over the city. It was definitely an exciting and fantastic look.

“Yeah, so,” Etta continued while I drooled at the palace, “the east-west one is called the Via Principalis. Goes from East Gate to Death’s Gate.”

“Wait, what?”

“Death’s Gate. That’s the name of it. Don’t ask me the history, I don’t know it. Something to do with battle there, might be something to do with the fact that there’s no one really living out the west of the city, I don’t know. Okay? There are only three official gates into the city, South, East, and Death.”

“Weird. Are the street names in Latin?”

“Yes. Maybe. Not one-hundred percent sure. I have some theories about Glaton and the 9th Legion, but let’s get through the useful stuff before we go into my tinfoil hat theories. Memorize your way home from one of the two main streets because you can always find your way to one of them. And you will get lost here, more than once. This is a big city, and the layout is confusing and stupid.”

“Okay, seemed to be the case with all the old European cities—”

“Rule one.”

“Sorry.”

“But you’re not wrong. Lots of neighborhoods here, get to know them, it’ll save your butt. I got lucky, back when I had luck, and I got a place in Old Town. It’s to the Southwest and our first stop. You get any gold off that asshole in the alley?”

“Some.”

“Give it,” she said, hand out.

I shrugged and passed the pouch with a mixture of coins over to Etta. I figured there was probably more total currency in the larger pouch with just golden coins, and it was a good thing to keep secret.

“Frazzlin’ A,” she said, peeking into the leather bag.

I definitely shot her a look for the weird phrase frazzlin, but she completely ignored me, and it made me wonder if, perhaps, frazzlin’ was a contemporary Glatonese curse.

“Thank the gods,” she said, “we’re going the fast way. Wasn’t sure we’d have time to walk.”

She leaned into the thoroughfare and let out a powerful whistle.

A small hansom carriage pulled away from the flow of traffic and came to lurching stop in front of us. The driver was an ornery woman with grey hair, a very loose definition of dental hygiene, and yellow fingernails that could easily have doubled as actual talons.

“Where to?” the driver asked, her voice surprisingly robust.

I looked over at the horses, wondering if the things were actually up to pulling us and the carriage. They were very much skin and bones, really just this side of skeletons.

“Old Town,” Etta said, reaching her hand up to pull herself into the carriage.

“You actually got the coin, moppet?” the driver asked with a leer.

“You’ll get your gold, crone,” Etta said, flipping a golden coin up at the lady.

Our driver flinched back, the scrambled for the money a second before snatching it resolutely. She gave the coin the once over, then smiled a horrific sort of rictus.

“All aboard then,” the driver said.

I hopped inside.

11

I wouldn’t call the carriage uncomfortable, but it left a bit to be desired. The combination of smells coming from the driver and horses were pungent and awful, and the interior of the carriage seemed like it had been purposefully left filthy. There might have been padding on the seats at one time, but these days, there was just the hint of leather and the reality of hard, unyielding wood. On the other hand, we were moving at speed now, much faster than we had been pushing our way through the crowds walking along the sides of the Via Praetorium. Also I had a modicum of privacy so I could gawk out my little window without the concern of being labeled a tourist.

“Do we need to worry about being overheard here?” I asked.

“Because you’re going to try and seduce me?” Etta replied.

“No, I—”

“I’m messing with you. Probably, but she’s not going to care. She knows I know what she is, she’ll keep our secrets if we keep hers.”

“Which is?”

“She’s a witch.”

“A witch?”

“Oh, definitely. Didn’t you see the nails? The thrall-horses?”

“I don’t know what any of that stuff is.”

She snapped her fingers.

“Sorry, you’re new. I think maybe, there might be an aftereffect of so many deaths in quick succession, I’m having a little trouble keeping everything straight. But yeah, she’s a witch. Nails are talons, horses aren’t quite alive.”

“Not quite alive?”

“They look sickly, right?”

“Worse than that.”

“They are worse than that. Those are things that are dying but aren’t fully dead yet. Kept alive with magic.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Don’t others notice that sort of stuff? Seems pretty—”

“Apparent?”

“Yeah.”

“One part willful ignorance, one part distance. We looked out of place, the witch knew she could charge us a bit more, and we’d probably keep her secret. I’m sure there’s a mild illusion spell on those horses, keeps them looking more lifelike.”

“Is magic super cheap?”

“Magic is a big confusing question, especially in the Empire.”

“How so?”

She took a breath, seemed to debate what she wanted to say to me, and then she shook her head. “Let’s hold off on that discussion. The top is the palace, south is the South Gate. Go that way long enough, you’ll get to the ocean, but if you really want to go to the ocean, take the river. Faster and safer. Somewhat.”

“I’m pretty committed to the city life for a while,” I said. The thing was, I’d never really spent time out of cities. Robbing homes in the suburbs is as much nature as I delved into.

“Hey, it’s your new life. If you want to stay alive, there are three places you want to just straight-up avoid. The Pit, The Shade, and LegionHome.”

“Are they, I mean, what is—”

“The Pits are essentially the spot where trash and waste and whatnot go.”

“And it’s a big pit?”

“A pit is involved, yeah. Multiple pits, really. They should call it The Pits.”

“And it’s dangerous?”

“It can be. Let’s just say you need to really watch yourself if you go there, and it’s one of those, why risk it sort of thing. Not worth it, my opinion. You may have a different opinion, I don’t know.”

“The Shade?”

“Real name is Rose Hollow. It’s a graveyard. It’s tough to get into, frankly. There’s definitely some history I have to explain here for it to make sense, but imagine that Glaton is a city that keeps expanding, and every time they expand, they build another big wall and fill it in with the city. Before the last expansion, there was a graveyard outside of the city, on the other side of the walls. Next expansion, it’s inside the walls. And the big difference here, lots of dead bodies seems to give energy to the undead. So, lots of undead pop up in graveyards.”

“Why don’t they burn their dead here?”

“I’m not a cultural anthropologist, Hatchett. I don’t know.”

“Can I go there to level up?”

“I thought you wanted to fight from the shadows and all that crap.”

“That was my mindset, yeah.”

“Might want to rethink going and fighting toe to toe with the undead. Because some nasty things pop up in there. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Again, not worth the risk to me, but you can go level up there. Just swing by the temple at the entrance, they take your name and actually pay you to kill the undead. Still—”

“Not worth it.”

“Bingo. Last place—”

“Legion Home.”

“Right. It’s where the Legionnaires make their home.”

“And it’s illegal to go there if you aren’t in the Legion?”

“No, not on paper at least. But if you aren’t Legion or Legion adjacent, you’re getting hurt. People here love the Legion.”

“Is that rule number five?”

“Sure. Rule Five: Love the Legion. You go up against them, you’ll lose.”

“Are they the policing force here?”

“No. The Guard is the equivalent. The Legion is more like the army, but they do the bulk of monster killing too. Especially for anything particularly big or nasty. That’s when the legion gets called in, and that’s basically what they’re so loved for. Most everyone has a story where the Legion came in and saved their nana’s village.”

“Got it. Do people like the Guard?”

“No. I mean, most are ambivalent. But the Guard and the Legion are, well, let’s just say there’s no lack of bad blood between the two.”

We were rolling towards a huge crossroad, and I made the guess that we were about to cross the main east-west thoroughfare. Large buildings sat at each corner, again, the architecture on them was exquisite. Just awe-inspiring work in terms of the columns and the arches. There were astonishing gargoyles all over the building, and I imagined that in a rainstorm, the crossroads would seem downright magical.

“This used to be the center of the city,” my guide said. “Still is to an extent, functions as a gathering place for several events, none of which I’ve ever been able to attend, and they still call it the Forum, but ever since they built a new Senate building, everything actually important moved uptown. Years ago, mind you. That building there,” she pointed off to the left, “is the Emperor’s Hold. Every once in a while, the Emperor comes down, sits in there for a day or three, and he listens to anyone who wants to speak to him. Grants edicts and stuff. Pretty much the only time we plebes have a chance of seeing the top dog.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No. Just heard of what happens in there. I don’t think that sort of thing has happened in a while. The Emperor hasn’t been in town that long, only recently got back from a campaign. They like to make war in Glaton, so, you know, when they win, there’s a big parade, lots of celebrations. Before you ask, that’s only happened once since I’ve been here. Other building, across from it to the south, that’s the Legion Recruitment building. You decide you want to be in the Legion, you go there.”

It was a more utilitarian building, a big rectangular thing almost squatting on the space. Almost brutalist. There were men and women in armor all around the place, and, surprisingly, a line of people awaiting entrance.

“There’s a line there,” I said.

“Popular job.”

“Rule five.”

“Bingo.”

“You ever think about joining?”

“Do I look like someone who’d do well in an army?”

I looked over at her and at her body. She was lithe, athletic, I saw little reason to think an army—

“Look was not the right word to use there,” she said with a sigh. “Obviously, I look fine. If you jumped into this game world without being aesthetically pleasing, you are a grade one idiot. Clearly, you realized this.”

“You think I look—”

“Let’s not get into that boat of thought.”

“Boat of thought?”

“Anyway, I did know one, uh, what, player? Traveler? Whatever, someone like us, who joined the Legion. Saw him not that long ago, and he’s rocketing up in levels. So, you know, might want to think about it if you want quick levels and lots of killing whatever someone else points you at.”

“No, thanks."

“Cool. The dark building behind it, that’s the wizarding school.”

“You can learn magic there?”

“You can, no one does.”

“Why?”

“Just want to have the magic talk, don’t you.”

“It’s magic, it’s the one thing that’s so fundamentally different here. I only want to know what’s the deal, because I want to do magic.”

“They hate magic here. And they hate those that practice it. Hate with a capital H. Big hate.”

“So there are no wizards here?”

“Not many. There’s always crazy fools who study the stuff, but—”

“You?”

“You know, one of my rules should be: don’t interrupt me.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t study magic, no. You want to study magic so you can cast magic in public, you have to do it official like, sign your life over to the Emperor. Not the Empire, the Emperor. If he wants to be a mass-murdering buttwipe, guess who’s doing the mass-murdering?”

“Jesus.”

“And if you do something the Emperor doesn’t like, or that one of his bootlickers doesn’t like, your personal head chopper chops off your head. And, if you ever do get some time in public, everyone hates you. Or, you could, you know, do it illegally, and then, if someone sees you do magic, they report you, they get a reward, and you get dead.”

“Awesome.”

“You see why you might want to rethink magic?”

“Is it like that everywhere?”

“I’ve only been here, so, maybe?”

I stammered for a second, still working on the Earth ideals of interconnected information, of being able to know about all sorts of cultures worldwide without having to do any traveling.

“Anyway, magic is a pain in the ass, okay?”

“Picked that up.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the carriage.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Need to think,” she answered. “We’re almost to Old Town, and I still need to figure out what I’m doing after I get out of Glaton with whatever I can carry as my only assets.”

I looked at her a moment, taking the time to make an aesthetic assessment of the girl. She was right, I could design my own appearance, so I’d taken my sweet time making sure my new elven face was a pretty one, and from the looks of it, so had she. She had perfect symmetry, beautiful eyebrows, all that stuff. I made a note to keep the look out for pretty people with unusually perfect facial symmetry, that might be a sign they were travelers like me.

Turning my attention to the world passing by outside the carriage, I watched my new city pass and realized that the world wasn’t exactly what I’d expected when I read medieval fantasy in the introductory email. This place seemed more advanced than the medieval world, certainly in most aspects of construction. There was definitely concrete involved, lots of soaring arches, and a fair amount of brick. The streets were cleaner than I’d expected and paved with cobblestones. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of trash piled up, and I certainly saw no bedpans being emptied into the street. There was a fair amount of horse poop around, but I also saw two carts picking up poop while we trundled along, so poop was definitely a known problem being addressed. The diversity of people was astounding, and I found this burbling excitement thinking about exploring that. About meeting new people, people who were legit totally new. What was a Minotaur like? A dwarf? There were so many questions rocketing around my mind, and I was pumped to learn.

I also thought back to Etta’s Rule Number One. This was reality now. And it was a good rule. There was no real reason to try and compare this world with the old one, not any longer. And I realized that even trying to put a pin to where they were technologically was flawed conceptually. It wasn’t medieval Europe. It wasn’t Rome or ancient China or Egypt. It wasn’t any of those things because it was contemporary Glaton. Everything in Glaton had to be different because the very foundation of reality was different. Magic was a game-changer, and that had to have changed the game. Not only magic but access to different sentient beings that had different skills and abilities available to them than humans. Looking at the size of the smallest minotaur, I had to imagine they were physical powerhouses. Just having them around would alter so many construction techniques developed by humans.

Etta opened her eyes and glanced out the window, then leaned forward and opened a small hatch that gave us a view of the driver.

“Up here,” Etta said, “on the other side of the gate.”

12

The walls around Old Town soared over us as we went through the impossibly thick gatehouse. I struggled to comprehend the reality of it. The stones used in the construction just seemed unreal. They were huge. Massive. I could see that they had been lifted and moved and put into place, but my brain couldn’t quite get around the idea that it had actually happened. The walls were super thick, yards and yards, and they looked both old and well maintained. These were walls that were in active use daily. Perhaps not daily here, because it was mainly just a separation between neighborhoods, but someone took the time to repair all the little bits of damage, and the people standing at attention had the thousand-yard stares as they scanned the world at large for threats they knew would be coming.

“Good here,” Etta said, leaning out the opened door of the carriage.

She hopped out of the carriage before it stopped, and chatted quietly with our aged driver for a moment before the carriage traveled on.

We were just about thirty yards past the entrance to the neighborhood, and there was definitely a different vibe in Old Town versus, well, rest of town? Gone was the architectural splendor of Glaton, Old Town had much more grey stone and a focus on defensible functional buildings. No silly columns or archways, this place was safe. And a tad dull, at least from an aesthetic standpoint.

Etta grabbed my hand and pulled me from the major street into an alley.

“You live here?” I asked.

“This alley: no,” she said. “We’re splitting up here because the asshats who’ve been murdering and harassing me are going to be watching my place. See, this is that quest coming to bear.”

“I’m going to sneak into your house and get something for you, right?”

“Yes. Well, yes, but in a manner. You need to get in there, unnoticed, procure a few select items, and come out, still unnoticed. You and I meet up in some covert locale, you give my items to me, and we continue on our jaunt through Glaton. Problem is, any of the asshats see you with me, they’ll kill you to get to me, so we need to split here, got it?”

“Should we, I mean, is it night soon?”

“Night? No. The hell?”

“Uh, sneaking?”

“Buddy, you’re a level one right? Do you have stealth or sneaking as a skill?”

“I told you I’m level four, and I already have silent movement as a skill, so—”

“Sorry, lots of death today, the brain is, uh, bit borked. I’ve got a way in, okay? Simple, no mess. No real need to sneak.”

She explained the plan, then told me the directions to her place, and made me repeat the plan and the directions back until I got them correct twice in a row. Satisfied, she gave me a smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

And with that, I headed into the city on my own for the first time.

I couldn’t help smiling as I took my first steps on my own. Sure, there was definitely some comfort having a guide, having someone there to explain everything to me, to answer all my questions, well, some of my questions, but that stole all the thrills of discovery. I wanted to run through my city and poke my nose in and around everything, I wanted to know it as well as I’d known my stomping grounds. I felt strongly that a rogue had to know their city better than anyone. Still, baby steps, I had to get Etta her things first, and then I could become a local.

The walk through the streets was relaxing. Unlike the rest of the city, at least the bits I’d seen, Old Town had a calm to it. Fewer wagons were trundling along the streets and the ones that were seemed willing to stop for people walking or animals. Hawkers called out from a multitude of stalls, but they seemed to be talking to friends, or at least people they knew, not strangers. It felt like an actual neighborhood. The racial diversity continued here, and I saw the whole gamut of races represented, though not elves. None of what was now my kind. Most everyone was armed in some small respect, a dagger on the belt was the usual armament. Swords were rare, and other weapons rarer still. Guards, obviously, wore heavy armor, bright blue tabards, and carried multiple weapons. They were pretty easy to spot, and they all looked terrifying. At least to me. There were a few non-guards who wore arms and armor, and the crowds always gave those folk plenty of room.

Ten minutes of walking, and I saw Etta’s place. Apparently, she owned the whole building. Located on a corner, the first floor was a tavern: The Heavy Purse. There was a wooden sign with a large leather purse overflowing with foam, ale, and coins. Evocative. The building as a whole boasted four floors, though from what Etta’d told me, only the tavern and her place were occupied. The middle apartments sat vacant, apparently by design. Escape routes and hidey holes for the rogue she’d become.

I darted across the street and walked into the tavern like I needed a cool spot to hang out during the heat of the middle day. The inside of the bar was a little stereotypical if I do say so myself. It had windows on two sides of the place, and along the wall opposite the door, a thick wooden bar. Thick and deep. And lengthy, I suppose. It was one of more massive pieces of wood I’d ever seen, that’s what she said, and it was imposing in terms of quality, she also said that. A burly man stood behind the bar, his shirt sleeves rolled up, leaning against the back wall, a leather-bound tome in his hands. A massive warhammer was on a plaque above him, and black iron chandeliers hung out over the rest of the bar with glowing rocks in place instead of candles. A long row of bulky stools was in front of the bar, and the rest of the room had been filled out with square tables and simple chairs. The place wasn’t crowded, but several of the tables were filled with people sipping ale from large wooden mugs and eating hunks of meat from a greasy-looking brown stew.

The bartender glanced up from his book when I walked in but had his eyes back down to reading so quickly I almost wasn’t sure he’d looked at me at all.

I walked over to the bar, pulled a stool out a bit then gave up after I realized how heavy it was, and sat down.

“Don’t see your kind here much,” the bartender said, not taking his eyes from his book until he’d basically finished his sentence. “You into the traditional stuff, or, uh, you eat normal like?”

“Normal,” I replied, “I think.” I wondered what traditional elven fare was given the question he just hit me with. “But, truth be told, I was hoping you could hook me up with sarsaparilla.”

He looked at me kind of funny, and I immediately worried I’d said the passphrase incorrectly, but then he frowned at me.

“Might have one in the back,” he replied. “Bottle or two. Maybe. But it’d be in the way back, behind the stock. You want it, you’re gonna need to help me go get it, not throwing my back out for a single bottle of that nasty stuff.”

“Happy to help,” I said.

The bartender nodded, closed his book, then started walking down to the end of the bar.

“Neela,” he shouted, “going to the back, watch the bar.”

Someone called out from a table, and I saw a woman in a blue dress with a black leather corset step up and vault over the bar.

“Walk around!” the bartender yelled back at her.

She just gave him a big smile, and from the look, I had the feeling they were related somehow. Given that she looked pretty young, and acted even younger, I was betting she was the bartender’s daughter.

We went through a cleverly hidden door, one that I’d been sure was just wood paneling, and we were immediately in a storeroom. A room fairly overflowing with barrels, crates, and bottles.

“Bit farther,” the bartender said, weaving his way through the goods until he made it to where he decided to stop, I suppose. It looked like anywhere else in the storeroom.

Faster than I could see, he had me up against a stack of crates and had a naked blade up against my throat.

“You make a noise, and I will gut you like a pig,” he said, his sharp breath going almost entirely up my nose.

“Easy there,” I said, swallowing that bitter twinge of fear. “No reason to get all handsy.”

“Are you smiling? Handsy?” He didn’t seem to quite know how to take my reaction.

“I mean, you are all up on me. Maybe take me out for dinner next time?”

“What?”

“Just do what you need to do.”

“What did you do to Etta?” he said in that sort of quiet whisper threat way.

“Nothing,” I replied, “she told me the passphrase and told me to come in here and talk to you.”

“How do I know you didn’t beat it out of her?”

“Defeats the whole purpose of the phrase if you don’t believe anyone who comes in here and tells it to you.”

“I, uh, well—”

“So, you know, good job you on that one.”

“Etta is fine?”

“She is, she sent me here.”

He stepped back and slid his dagger into a sheath on his belt. I rearranged my collar and stretched my neck out.

“Sorry,” he said. “Concerned about her is all.”

“You two are friends?”

“I might say we are, pretty sure she would disagree. She is,” he stopped talking and seemed to search for the right words.

“Severe?” I offered.

“She can be, yes,” he said with the hint of a smile, “but I was going to say distant. Refuses to get close to anyone.”

“I haven’t known her for very long, but I get that feeling.”

“But I still consider her a friend,” the bartender said.

He gave me one final look, then took a few steps over to a large stack of kegs. With his back to me, he did something, and then pulled two of the four barrels open, revealing a ladder.

“Up you scurry,” he said.

I walked over to the ladder, looked down, darkness, and up, a tiny bit of light.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A ladder,” he said.

I looked over my shoulder at him, and he was perched on a crate, a small book out and already reading.

“Up,” the bartender said once more.

“You’re staying here?”

“Have to keep the illusion going,” he said, not looking up from the book once.

I sighed and looked at the ladder once more. It wasn’t a big ladder or a well-made ladder. It looked like, well, calling it amateur carpentry would be kind. Most kind.

“Upward and onward,” I said to myself.

13

The ladder creaked as I climbed up, but it held. Nothing broke. One flight up, and I was in a tiny space. Like a closet. Or a wardrobe. There was a little peephole that let me look into an apartment that was being used for furniture storage, and another ladder leading up. I took that ladder up. And up. It was a much longer climb than the first, and there was no stop-off point along the way. At the top, I slid a small piece of wood out of the way, revealing clothes hanging in a closet. I pushed my way through the clothes, then edged the door open ever so slowly, peeking out and around.

No one was there.

Stuff was there, but no living things I could see.

It was just an apartment. Some furniture, it didn’t exactly match, but I had the distinct feeling interior design was not a technology that had been heavily researched yet in Vuldranni. The apartment was an open layout, which was a bit anachronistic. To me, at least. I didn’t exactly know that much about interior architecture, but I felt open floor plans were a thing of the modern age. I suppose, as I was a thing of the modern era, it made sense that I liked it. The whole place was super functional, everything had a home, everything had a purpose, and seeing how the apartment had been put together gave me a real feeling of comfort having Etta as something like a mentor. She seemed to have her stuff together, and that boosted my confidence.

A workbench took up one wall, and spread out across it were bits and pieces to disparate projects. Nothing I could figure out in the short amount of time I had in the place though. The bartender had a point, we had an illusion going, that we were both in the back trying to find a bottle of sarsaparilla, and I had to make it seem like it wasn’t an impossibly large backroom. Time was ticking.

Etta had given me the basics of what I needed to find, her go-bag, which was stored in her third secret stash. She didn’t tell me where the first two were because that wasn’t the information I needed. But before I could get to the stash, I needed to undo the trap with a mechanism in her kitchen counters. Notably, her counters were on top of what looked like modern cabinets, which had to be custom. But I had to keep rule number one in mind, this was Vuldranni, and maybe cabinetry had a different timeline here.

The first step was going to the bed and getting beneath it. I slid under and saw a few daggers stuck under there, in sheathes. I pulled the third dagger out. It had a very peculiar shape to the blade; basically, it was a key. A long key. I took the dagger key, and I inserted it into the knothole on the third floorboard under the bed, all the way in. I turned it three times clockwise, pulled it out until I heard a very slight click, and turned it once more counter-clockwise. Then, it was over to the cabinets, two to the left from the sink. Open it up, pry up the floor of the cabinet, and push aside the fake purse of coins to pull up the floorboards there.

And that was the secret stash I was after. A small backpack and a ring on a short string. I pulled both items out, slid the pack on, and tied the string with the ring around my wrist. I closed up the cabinet and reversed the steps with the dagger until I’d returned the apartment to its previous set-up. It was beyond overkill as far as I could tell, but maybe something was going on in Glaton that made paranoia pay off. One more thing to add to the list of crap I didn’t know.

I climbed back down the ladders until I got to the bartender and the bar’s storage room.

The bartender was happily reading, but I noticed there was a brown bottle sitting next to his book now.

“Found that sarsaparilla,” he said, closing the book and standing up. “You done?”

“I am.”

He pushed me to the side and closed up the kegs. A second of work, and even though I knew where to look, I couldn’t tell the casks weren’t real.

“Come back out front,” he said, “pay me, drink your drink, do your thing. I find you hurt Etta, I hurt you ten times over.”

“She’s fine,” I repeated, but the bartender didn’t seem to believe me. I walked back into the front portion of the tavern with my bottle of sarsaparilla and drank it while leaning on the counter. It tasted good. Refreshing with a hint of nostalgia. Root beer was a regular beverage for me summers growing up, and sarsaparilla was close enough to give me those similar feelings. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I desperately wanted it to be ice cold, and I found myself wondering if that was a possibility in this world.

Sitting there, in between sips, I listened idly to some of the other patrons, and I’m not exactly sure what I thought I’d hear, but it was pretty dull. People were talking about the small details of their days. About work, about children, about family members who weren’t behaving correctly. Really, the connection to my old life, to Earth, was undeniable, at least at that present moment.

“What’s the hammer for?” I asked.

“Decoration, mainly,” the bartender replied, still into his book.

“Is there a story behind it?”

The man looked up from his book at me, then at the hammer, then down at his book.

“Of sorts.”

“Care to share?”

He sighed and set his book down on the counter, spine up, so he didn’t lose his place. “Since you are something like a friend of Etta’s, I suppose I can tell you.”

“I mean, I’d hate to interrupt this incredibly busy day behind the bar.”

“Do you want the story?”

“Yes, sorry.”

“Back when this was just town, before it was Old Town, in one of the few times the walls have been breached, that hammer was used to hold back a horde of goblins from pushing their way into the city.”

“Must be an old hammer.”

He gave me a sort of smirk, then picked his book back up.

“You know,” I said, “with all those books you read, you’d think you’d have come up with a better lie.”

For the first time, I got a genuine smile out of the guy.

“You knew?” he asked.

“One. You skipped over any details. Needs to be your great-great-uncle. And that brave ancestor of yours held that door over there with this hammer as the princess huddled in this bar through the invasion, and she gave him the prize of this very building. Two. The hammer is too new and has just enough rust on to show me that you aren’t fond of cleaning at heights.”

“Maybe you should write a story for me.”

“I get a moment, maybe I will.”

“You do it, I’ll get your next bottle on the house.”

“Deal,” I said.

He gave a silent laugh, shook his head, and went back to his book.

When I tipped the last of the sweet, bubbly beverage down my throat, I dug into my coin pouch and put a silver coin on the counter.

The bartender smiled and took the coin.

“Many thanks,” he said.

“See you around,” I shot over my shoulder as I walked out.

14

I worked on walking with nonchalance. I wanted to be imminently forgettable. Etta warned me there would be people watching the place, and I needed to slip away unnoticed, so I could meet up with Etta anonymously. I moseyed down the street, taking my time. I paused every now and again to look at a stall or peek in a store window. The stalls along the road were principally food-based, offering up small snacks or light meals. Nothing overly filling or crazy. Meat pies were a common theme. As far as stores go, it was the standard urban affair. Corner markets selling produce and various goods, a book store with a host of tomes, leather-bound and otherwise, a cobbler with virtually no difference in his shoes other than sizes. When I reached the end of the street, I took a right, and then another right, and then a left, and then I very quickly stopped and sat down on a stoop and let the world pass by for a solid ten minutes.

Getting to my feet, I crossed the street, popped over to a stall, and bought the meat pie on special.

The woman working the stall looked human, middle-aged, and she gave me a big smile when I told her to keep the change from the silver piece. She handed me a paper-wrapped pastry, and it was pleasantly hot in my hands. I found a slice of shade to lean in and unwrapped one end of my pie thing. Tasty flaky pastry around spiced meat, and as I ate it, I did my very best to see if anyone was watching me.

Nope.

Not that I saw.

So I followed Etta’s next set of instructions, heading back to the wall of Old Town, following that to the gatehouse entrance. I was to wait there for five minutes before going through, heading northeast three blocks until I saw the Mourning Light, a painter specializing in portraits of the deceased.

Outside Old Town, things were quickly different. I understood more about the area’s history now, so it made a little more sense. This was the neighborhood settled after the first expansion, so I imagined it was initially the upper-middle-class area. And they probably felt safe. Hence, wider streets and more elaborate architecture. The buildings were almost modern looking in some cases. Wood and plaster, less stone. Big windows looked into quaint shops, buildings sported balconies on the regular, and there was actually some green space. Yards behind buildings with grass and trees. Squares with statues and benches.

The pictures in the windows of the Mourning Light were well done if all a little sad. Especially the ones of kids. But I waited there for the requisite five-ish minutes. I was still getting used to telling the time in Vuldranni, what with no longer having access to a phone, but there were usually clocks around, you just needed to know where to look. I made a loop around the block until I saw a beggar with a small green cloth square under his begging cup. That’s where I dropped the ring.

The beggar, hands and face wrapped in dirty bandages, snatched the cup to his chest, muttered a guttural thank you, then disappeared down the street.

I shook my head, not sure all this cloak and dagger shit was worth it. But, then again, what did I know? I was still the noob, and maybe there were all sorts of surveillance techniques used by the other rogues/gangs in the area.

Whatever the case may be, I took one of my silver coins, and I bought some candied nuts from another nice lady, and then I sat down on a stoop, and I listened. I ate the candied nuts with practiced indifference. They tasted good, but not so good that I had to stop and focus all my attention on them.

Two minotaurs were walking down the sidewalk, basically taking up the whole thing. They were among the people who were heavily armed and armored like they had a plan to do violence. Or prevent violence. It wasn’t exactly clear which direction they leaned. They had swords on their hips and axes across their back. The heavy-looking plate armor had a tabard on top of it, and in the center of the dark green tabard was a peculiar symbol I couldn’t quite place. An animal of some kind stylized in some way, but I couldn’t make head nor tails of the beast. If it was a beast. As the two got closer to me, I heard them murmuring to each other, their voices low in tone and volume, but they weren’t whispering. They were just conversing politely in their own language, something I got confirmed a moment later when I got a fancy little notification:

Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Plains Tauran.

A quiet listen of their conversation elicited some immediate juicy details. First, they were doing the fun thing that people did when they thought no one around them spoke their language, they were making fun of some of the people around them in culturally insensitive ways. As you do. They currently worked as part of the detail for the embassy of Carchedon, and they were busy searching for a bar where they might meet a representative of something called The White Hand.

Naturally, this made me insanely curious. Problem was, these guys were massive brutes who didn’t seem like they would understand something like curiosity so much as smoosh me into a paste for daring to approach them.

I tossed one of the last nuts in my mouth, then dumped the rest on the ground next to me where I noticed a small rat-like creature nosing out of a small hole in the concrete. The furry thing scampered out, snatched a candied nut, then scurried back out of sight. Then, I stood up, did a little stretch, and slid in behind the two Minotaurs and continued my eavesdrop. I strolled along like I hadn’t a care in the world, collecting all the pertinent information I could on the White Hand. I had no idea what the White Hand was. Or what country these guys were from. I was impressed that embassies existed in this world, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Embassies had been around a long time on Earth, even before the dark ages. Helpfully, both of the men, they seemed like males, were newer in town. One newer than the other. Only one, the guy named Zanphrous whose fur was a tawny brown, had been in the city before, and had only ever heard of this particular detail. The other one, Dabor, was almost as new to Glaton as I was, and didn’t seem to appreciate the city or the Empire. While they didn’t explain who the White Hand was, or what it was, I did get all the various directions and code words I would need if I ever chose to contact the White Hand on my own, so I peeled off and headed back to the stoop I’d been sitting on.

I noticed something interesting that seemed to happen. As soon as I learned a language, it seemed like it was just totally natural for me to know that language to hear it and speak it to the point that I was even thinking in that language. I had to pause and think before I started speaking out loud because English, Imperial Common, and Plains Taruan were all totally natural languages for me to speak, think, and listen in, and I was even having some trouble distinguishing between the sounds of them, even though they were totally different. I wondered what might happen if I stumbled across a language where I had no physical ability to replicate the sounds made by the native speakers. Would I just magically make them? Or would I just have to write it down? Because here’s the other thing I learned, the way the magic worked, when I became fluent in the language, that seemed to include such niceties as reading and writing the language. And I knew the alphabets, how to write them. Not particularly nicely. I didn’t know any flourishes, at least, not innately, but I knew I could write things out, and I could tell, as the two minotaurs walked away, that Dabor had carved some nasty words in the handle of his axe. I did not want to wind up on his bad side.

15

I’d reset on the stoop with the second bag of candied nuts. They weren’t that good, but it was the look I’d decided on. Plus, a little sugar goes a long way in improving the mood. The nuts themselves were, well, I’m not going to pretend I know the slightest bit about nuts, so, instead, I just sent a little tingle of mana down my fingers and did my identification spell.

Pecans

Item Type: Common

Item Class: Food

Material: Nuts

Description: Pecans are a tasty nut high in fat and protein, and make an excellent pie. Also, great for inciting debates about proper pronunciation.

Okay then. So they had pecans in Vuldranni. Nice to know.

There was a lull in the pedestrian traffic, something that just seemed natural, but it gave me a moment to realize I had a notification.

Cool Beans, you’ve unlocked the innate skill Eavesdropping (LVL 18). Now you can listen to others without them knowing about it. Significantly harder to detect while listening to others.

Well, look at that. I was really starting to like this game. Also, I never realized how much I’d clearly been eavesdropping on Earth.

“Tasty nuts,” came a familiar voice.

I looked up, and into a face I didn’t know. A woman with a dark complexion, a nose that seemed to have been broken more often than it had been straight, and a lazy left eye.

“Do I—”

“It’s the only person you know here,” she said, “and I need to move quickly.”

“Oh, Et—”

“Let’s not use my name, shall we?”

“Got it.”

“Good, come on. We’re going to the South Gate, and we’ve got a stop to make on the way.”

She was already walking, and I had to scurry to catch up to her.

“Do you know about something called the White Hand?” I asked in hushed English.

Etta stopped and stared at me.

“Why do you know that name?” she replied.

“Overheard some big dudes talking about it.”

“Don’t muck with them, they are really bad news.”

“But who are they?”

“Criminal organization.”

“Like a thieves guild?”

She shook her head and started walking again. “Those don’t exist here,” she said.

“Okay, but—”

“Let me tell you what does, criminal organizations. Gangs. Families. All those things are here. Just like in that old place we don’t talk about. Your best bet is to join one.”

“You didn’t.”

“And look what’s happening to me. I’m being run out of town.”

“You’re leaving of your own volition, I thought.”

“Mix and match, really. I have a life here, I’d like to have kept it, but that’s not what’s happening, now is it?”

“I don’t know what is happening. Just that you’ve been—”

“I was being tortured so I’d join a gang. Or punished because I didn’t.”

“Who?”

“The Iron Silents.”

“That’s the name?”

“Would I make that up?”

“You could be making all this up for all I know.”

“I’m not.”

“I know you aren’t, but, I mean, I’m hoping you're not, just—”

“I’m not. I’m steering you true through this quagmire that is the game world we live in now. We’re getting close to the first stop on the grand tour of me leaving. He’s a fence. I’m going to go in there, present a token to him, and he’ll give me some stuff. I introduce you, you say a few words.”

“Is he trustworthy?”

“He’s a fence.”

“Which means?”

“No. Not wholly. He’s a guy who looks out for himself. You look out for him, he’ll look out for you, most of the way. And he can make some introductions to the others in the business. People you need to know.”

“You know a group I should join?”

“No. I don’t like groups. I didn’t do any research. Pay attention to where we are, I won’t be here to guide you back.”

I did as she said, and really took a moment to look around at the neighborhood we were in. The streets were broader, the buildings quite a bit shorter, and the sound of the place was fundamentally different. More talking, shouting, people calling out to each other. There was a liveliness to the area that wasn’t apparent in Old Town. And a ton of shops.

“This is the Grand Market,” Etta said, “and if you can think of something you want to spend money on, it’s going to be here.”

“Doesn’t seem that grand,” I said.

She gave me a look. A look that was even more ridiculous with Etta’s current goofy face, “The actual grand market is closer to South Gate. But there are stores all around this place, some of the best in the city are here. Also, closer to the gate itself, that’s where you’ll find the Caravaner’s Guild, and you can sign on with a caravan.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“It’s what I want to do, dingus. That’s the store up there,” Etta said, using a jab of her chin to point to a rather modest storefront with gold leaf flaking off letters reading: The Trading Emporium.

“That’s the store?”

“I just said it was. Gideon is a bit, uh, different, just be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

“Sure,” she said and picked up the speed.

As soon as I opened the door, a bell rang out. The inside of the store had an interesting dichotomy to it. An extensive spread of items that ran the gamut of quality and quantity. Piles of rusting borked chainmail armor on one side of the room, swords so magical they practically radiated power on the other. Barrels filled with maces and spears. Crates overflowing with silks and exotic cloth. Pieces of animals, bits of gadgetry, it was such a wide variety that I had a little difficulty even understanding how the store functioned. All of this was contained behind a long counter that spanned the entire store, separating the customer area from the product area. A large older man sat on a high chair with heavily padded arms, well, half sat. More like he perched, ready to hop off at a moment’s notice. The man, and I have to stop there because man becomes a problematic term to use in Vuldranni. While it works on Earth, here, in a different world with a whole bunch of sentient species, man became a challenging term to use correctly. But this man, he wasn’t human. The differences were slight enough to not be readily noticeable at first, but there was just something off about the dude, something innately discomfiting without knowing why. I mean, identifying a dwarf or a minotaur was easy, but not here. The proportions were off just enough, and the little mannerisms, like when he shifted in his chair, were just not right. I also had the distinct sense his bulk was inhumanly distributed about his person, hidden in the way he sat behind his counter.

He had dark hair combed back, very dark eyes, and he looked like he could use a shave. Or two. He had a lot of stubble. He wore robes under a jacket, both dark. And the darkness of his clothes did a fair job at keeping his form hidden.

Involuntarily, with my hand at my side, I extended my fingers and was just about to send some mana through when a hand gripped mine tightly, giving me a crushing squeeze.

“Gideon,” Etta said, slinking to the counter and sliding a large steel-colored coin across the heavily varnished wood.

The ‘man’ leaned forward and came to a standing position, towering over me. And Etta. It’s like he unfolded a whole extra version of himself. Gideon took the coin, gave it a look, and then relaxed and smiled. His entire demeanor changed.

“Our dear,” he said, his voice so deep it surprised me, but so melodious and welcoming I just started to like the guy. “We are so happy you visit us today.”

“Sadly, not the best news.”

“Oh?”

“I have to take a trip.”

“There is much of the world to see.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“We will miss your custom,” Gideon replied, putting both his hands out to Etta.

She put her hands in his, and they stood like that for a moment.

“Do you wish to share your destination?” He finally asked.

“South, I think,” Etta replied. “I’d like to see the Erg.”

“A sight worthy of the bards.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“We were not always constrained to these walls,” he replied with a smile, his thin lips baring to show teeth far too pointy for comfort. “It is nearly equal in grandeur and awe to the Emerald Sea.”

“Too much snow that way,” Etta replied. “I prefer the sun and sand.”

“We remember an overabundance of both in and near the Erg. You come, then to settle your account?”

“And to make an introduction,” she said as she motioned me to step to the counter. “A friend of mine, Clyde Hatchett.”

“Master Hatchett,” Gideon said, all comfort and friendliness instantly gone from his voice. “We greet you.”

He dipped his head into something of a vague bow.

I bowed back

“I, uh, greet you,” I said.

“Do you wish to open an account?”

I snuck a glance at Etta.

She nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like a good idea.”

Gideon laughed, a booming thunderous affair, and I really wished I had some clue how I amused him.

“Approach,” Gideon said, both arms out, hands open.

I had to overcome a welling revulsion that sprang up out of nowhere, but I swallowed, smiled, and put my hands in his.

His fingers were very long, almost too long, and they seemed like they had an extra joint or segment. But the weirdest thing was his skin, his soft, pliable skin. Soft to the point I worried one of my elven nails might puncture it.

I felt a warmth flow quickly through my body, followed by a coolness. The cycle repeated a few times, feeling like power ran from one of his hands through my body to the other hand.

There was a nod, and Gideon released my hands. He folded himself back on his stool and waited.

“Rules exist for this account,” he said, finally breaking his silence. “Only items of great value are negotiable. Everything else, you must take the price we give you.”

“Is there—”

“Questions will wait,” he said, holding one of his large hands up to interrupt and silence me. “We will buy most everything you can sell. You may take gold or credit. Credit will be worth more, and should you close your account with us, it will be paid out in gold. You will not bring another here until we have given you permission.”

A small figure seemed to appear behind the stool, then darted across the floor and retrieved a metal disc from a lockbox on the other side of the room. The thing looked over at me, but I couldn’t discern any details from beneath the dark cowl of the creature’s cloak. The creature definitely looked me up and down, then returned its attention to the metal disc.

“There is no violence permitted inside these walls,” Gideon continued. “If you spill blood here, your account is forfeit, as is your life.”

“Noted,” I said.

“If you bring us something we have never seen before, we will reward you greatly.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

The little figure scurried back over to Gideon and handed over the metal disc. Gideon took it, looked it over, then presented it to me. It was a coin. A coin I recognized. At least, mostly.

One side of the coin was a small hooded figure, and the other was a tree. It looked a bit like the Stanford tree, a tall evergreen sort of thing. It was large, about two inches, and thick, with a number on the edge. 11492. It had a steel color to it, but I thought it felt too heavy for the metal. Then again, it’s not like I had a ton of experience gauging metal based purely on weight. Ice cream I could do. Pizzas, definitely. But metal? Nope.

“You are now Evergreen,” Gideon said. “Your name will not be mentioned again here.”

Note: You have established an account with the vendor Gideon in the city of Glaton.

“Great,” I said, slipping my account coin into the pouch with all the other account coins I’d looted. I also noticed that I now had a tab marked “Accounts” in the menu subsystems of the game world.

Gideon waved me away from the counter, and Etta pulled me gently back, taking my place right in front of the big man.

They leaned their heads together, as Gideon pulled a book from under the counter, and opened it up. They whispered a few things, Gideon pointing here and there. I noticed more of the little figures running from the stool around the shop picking up goods and piling them to the left of Gideon, with the last one plopping down a large leather pouch that looked pretty heavy and settled with a telltale clunk of coinage.

Etta looked over the things, then packed everything quickly into a large backpack of sorts, and slung it around her body.

“Thank you,” she said.

“We thank you for your custom,” Gideon said with a final bow, but as soon as the bow was done, he turned his attention to his book, making some notes.

“Time to go,” Etta whispered.

16

We moved quickly through the streets, fast enough that I wasn’t able to talk to Etta while we walked. I focused on keeping up. About six blocks, and a few turns later, I finally saw the actual grand market. It was a vast open space, like a giant square four hundred yards on each side. A massive statue stood in the middle, a muscular man holding a set of scales. Tents and wagons and temporary stands spread out all across the open area, swarming with people of all sorts.

Etta grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the main flow of traffic, directing me around the edge of the market.

“Everything you can imagine is likely down there in some form,” she said. “But it is very rarely worth going inside the actual Grand Market. Pickpockets are everywhere, the store owners are likely to scam a newcomer like you, and there is no one to guide you to anyone honest. Neat sight, though.”

“It is that,” I replied. “About Gid—”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Right.”

“He’ll find out. I know it seems weird, but he’s got connections everywhere.”

“What is he?”

“Oh yeah, about that identify spell, stop using it so bluntly.”

“Wait, what?”

“The spell. Identify whatever, it’s part of the basic kit. It takes less than a point of mana to cast, actually cast I mean. So you need to send the slightest little bit of mana into it. Any more and you leak magic out. Magic that people can feel. And if you’re sending magic across space, people can detect that. And if you’re hitting someone with magic, that person is probably going to feel that. Unless, you know, you’re really damn good at it, which you aren’t. So more care with magic.”

“Oh. Good tip.”

She rolled her eyes like I was an idiot for not knowing. Which I thought was a little unfair, this was all new to me. I had no idea what I was doing, the fact that I hadn’t died yet I considered a pretty big win.

“But back to that guy,” I said, “he’s not human.”

“No shit,” she replied with another eye roll. “I don’t know what he is, though. Never had the balls to cast a spell on him or ask him. He hates small talk. That was the most I’ve ever heard him talk about himself or his past.”

“He uses the royal we.”

“He might be royalty. Don’t know, don’t care. Rule Six: Don’t concern yourself with all the stuff that doesn’t concern you. There’s too much going on to get bogged down by the unnecessary details.”

We made it around to the eastern side of the market, where the Via Praetorius ran out of the South Gate up to the palace. On the other side of the giant street was a big building with a lot of space and grass around it, grass that held all sorts of animals. All draft animals of some kind, oxen, horses, large things with shells that might be snails, things that looked like oversized wolves, and on and on.

“Caravaners’ Guild,” Etta said. “Last stop for you and me.”

“That’s where you’re going?” I asked.

“Yup. It’s where you’ll go too when you realize this place sucks.”

“It seems pretty badass, actually.”

Cue eye-roll. I felt like she did it so often, she was going to hurt her eyes.

We waited for a break in the traffic, then darted across the giant thoroughfare. The Caravaners’ Guild building was large. Really large. Five floors, very wide, and with a remarkable amount of space behind it full of wagons. Some were very clearly parked long-term, covered with canvas and locks, others were being actively loaded and about to be driven out. There was a long line of people waiting to get into a grungy looking door, while occasionally, very occasionally, other folk walked into ornate double doors.

“Members,” Etta said.

“How do you get a membership?” I asked.

“You become an approved buyer then wait for the chance to buy a medallion.”

“Is it hard?”

“Usually someone has to die. Or retire. And not have the medallion already promised to someone else. So, yeah, pretty rare.”

“Huh.”

“Last rules,” she said. “Seven, don’t sleep. Not unless you absolutely need to. I don’t know why, but we special few, we don’t need as much sleep as the others here. So stay up. Grind. That’s why I had those other apartments. I had somewhere safe to practice things.”

“How little sleep?”

“Like half what you slept back home, every other night. Ish. Your mileage may vary, but that’s my guess based on a few conversations. But you start sleeping regularly like they do, that power goes away. So keep it. And keep it secret.”

“Okay, can do. Can I ask you something real quick?”

“Sure. Quick. I want to get on line.”

“On line?”

“Yeah, on line. You know, behind that dude, wait to get in.”

“Oh, in line.”

“On line.”

“Uh, okay. Sure. On line. You know the coin I got from—”

“Don’t say it.”

“The account—”

“Still.”

“I found some others.”

“Show me.”

I got the pouch out, the one with the weird coins, and I passed it over to Etta. She pawed around inside for a moment, keeping everything in the bag, but looking everything over very carefully. Then, she nodded, closed the pouch back up, and passed it back to me.

“There’s one in there for our shopkeeper friend, that’s for sure. The others, I don’t know. I mean, I know there are others involved in the underworld game around town, there have to be. And it makes sense that everyone has a system and that perhaps the system is the same for all the players involved. I guess this confirms it.”

“What do I do?”

“Go back to the friend, sell off what you got from my, uh, from the mess earlier today. And then give him that as well. Tell him you found it. As far as I know, it means you get whatever is in that account transferred to yours.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah, don’t lose your coin. It’s the only thing that makes you you to him.”

“Speaking this vaguely is getting confusing.”

“Welcome to the game. It doesn’t get any better.”

“Are you going to continue with the, uh—”

“Game? Yeah. I don’t know. I liked the freedom. I liked the being on the other side of the rules, but the hiding gets old. The money is good, the characters are there. I don’t know. It attracts assholes. More likely to stab you in the back than help you up. You seem a little different.”

“I don’t know, I’m still an asshole.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“I am.”

“Okay. Final rule: It’s still a game. That means rules can be bent and broken. And since you have the Gift of Gab, go hang around the port. Listen, pick up languages. You’ll get tons in no time, and you’ve already seen how useful they can be.”

She looked me over a moment, nodded, and gave me a small leather packet, kind of like an envelope but more robust.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Your quest is done.”

Congratulations! You’ve completed a QUEST!

Help Etta Out of Town

Etta considers herself delivered safely to a means of egress from the city of Glaton. You did not die.

Reward: the building formerly belonging to Etta now belongs to you.

“I get your building?” I asked, a little confused.

“Quest reward,” she replied. “Not like I can keep it. Don’t have time to sell it. Figured it might give you a leg up on life here.”

“But, I mean,” I started but stalled, trying to find the right words. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, noob. When you get bored of this place, come find me.”

“The Erg?”

“Nah, that’s just what I told the guy. He’ll tell other people if they ask, but everyone likely knows it’s a lie. Osterstadt. That’s where I’m headed. Emerald Sea. I have to go take a look.”

“Why?”

“It’s an ocean of trees.”

“A what?”

“That’s what people say. Trees as far as you can see, insanely tall, insanely big, all topping at eye level. So it looks like an ocean. Except it’s trees.”

“That’s insane.”

“Don’t you want to see it?”

“Yeah.”

“Come along.”

“Maybe later.”

“Suit yourself. But that’s my next stop. Final stop? Maybe, who knows.”

She clapped me on the shoulder hard enough for me to take a step out to the side, and then she walked down the block and got at the end of the line.

I watched her move slowly forward for a few minutes, and I tried to make sense of the feelings inside. It’s not like I knew her, I’d met her that morning. Mid-morning. Now it was closer to the evening. But she’d been the only person I felt anything for in this new world. And here she was heading off on her own adventure leaving me to mine. She never looked back. Not once. She just waited in line patiently, and once she was gone, I felt like it was time I started doing my own thing.

First stop, a repeat.

17

Gideon was not surprised to see me. In fact, it was hard to tell if he felt any emotion about me coming back into his shop. When I entered, he looked over the top of the customer he was helping and nodded to one side. I stepped over to wait my turn at the counter.

The person he was helping wore a green cloak pulled tight about their person. They spoke in hushed tones with Gideon. Then their business was done, and they swept right out the door without ever looking in my direction. I had no idea what that person looked like. Which, in this business, was probably a good thing.

I waited for Gideon to gesture me forward, and then I stepped up to the counter.

He waited there, and I waited there. We were awkward together. It was lovely.

“Your coin,” he said finally, clearly tired of waiting.

“Balls, right, sorry.”

I slid my account coin over to him, he picked it up, looked at it, nodded, set it on the counter, and reached his hands out. I took his hands, we did the warm-cool thing, which, you know, though a bit weird and his skin made my skin crawl, it also felt pretty good. Relaxing.

“You have things to sell, or you wish to buy?” he asked, dropping my hands from his.

“Sell,” I replied.

He spread his hands wide across the counter, which I took as an invitation to put my sale goods on display.

I pulled out all but one of the skill books and all but one of each of the spellbooks. I figured I might want to have an emergency fund at some point. I kept four of the crossbows, I wanted to see if I might tinker with them to make something that actually worked, but I got rid of all the bone bolts. I kept all the rope, all the grappling hooks, but got rid of most of the climbing hammers. The lock pick kits I kept. I knew I’d be using those.

“Do you identify items?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, eyes glued to the goods I was putting out. “We ask you to wait for identification until we have concluded this transaction.”

“Sure.”

He waited until I was done moving, and then his hands darted about everything I put on the table, a light touch here and there, peeking at each item, and shuffling it around until he had it the way he liked it.

“We have seen all these items before, but we are pleased with what you have brought unto us,” he said. “Will you want gold or credit?”

“Gold to start,” I replied. “But probably credit later on.”

“You may change your mind for each item. We will offer you ten gold for the spell books.”

“For each?”

“For all.”

“Seems a bit low, but—”

“You are new, we will offer an explanation once. The books have value, but little in Glaton. We must move them to sell them. This costs us money.”

“Fair point. Sold.”

He nodded and made a mark in a book

“It is a different story for your skill books. Those we can sell here. We will offer you 40 gold for the skill books.”

“Great. You can do credit for the rest.”

He went through all the goods like that, each different item, he offered me a gold amount, and I could agree or not. I agreed to everything because it was all pretty much junk to me. I’m sure he lowballed me, but for the moment, I was feeling pretty flush. I had a building to my name, a bit of gold to use for food and the like. Finally, we were done, and he made a few extra marks in my book.

“Identification will be two gold per item,” he said. “If it is a cursed item, it is a 250 gold penalty. Would you like to proceed?”

“Uh, sure. Is this taken out of my credit?”

“If you wish it to be.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

I put all the loot I’d taken off Etta’s attacker across the countertop, and Gideon touched each one, closed his eyes, and then moved on.

“Thirteen items,” he said. “Twenty-six gold.”

Great, that was most of my current account.

“One steel dagger. One dagger of wounding. One Steel short sword of the Eagle. A ring of magic identification. A ring of minor attraction. A ring of dark vision. A ring of darkness. A cuff of blinding. Two earrings of messaging. Two gold chains. One platinum chain.”

“So a few non-magical pieces.”

“Yes. Are you wanting to sell these?”

“Some, sure,” I said. “For sure, all the non-magical items.”

Gideon nodded, and he arranged everything quickly. I picked up the daggers, one in each hand, and looked at the notices that popped up. Now that they’d been identified for me, I had a lot more information about them.

Dagger

Item Type: Common

Item Class: One-handed Melee,

Material: Steel

Damage: 8-10 (Slashing)

Durability: 20/20

Weight: 2 lbs

Requirements: None

Description: A short straight double-edged blade with a single hand grip for slashing and stabbing and spreading butter on bread.

Dagger of Wounding

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Steel

Damage: 12-22 (Piercing)

Durability: 200/200

Weight: 1.8 lbs

Requirements: None

Description: A short straight single edged pointed blade with a single hand grip for stabbing. Causes bleeding effect of additional damage over time. Bleeding requires advanced healing or magical healing to stop.

* * *

I set the daggers down and grabbed the sword.

Steel Shortsword of the Eagle

Item Type: Uncommon

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Steel

Damage: 10-20 (Slashing)

Durability: 20/20

Weight: 3.1 lbs

Requirements: None

Description: A straight bladed sword having a cruciform hilt with a grip for one handed use. User may cast feather-fall once per long rest.

* * *

I could see the sword being very useful if I needed to get away from someone, but I felt like I could probably just learn the spell featherfall and find a sword that had a bit more offensive capability. It was weird needing to think about something like that, about needing to consider my own offensive capability.

I set the sword down and I scooped the four rings in to my hand, careful not to put them on.

Ring of Magic Identification

Item Type: Uncommon

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Ætherwood

Durability: Good

Description: A fashionable ring designed to alert the wearer if magic is being used in the immediate area. Immediate area designated as a fifteen yard radius from the ring.

* * *

Ring of Darkvision

Item Type: Uncommon

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Obsidian

Durability: Fair

Description: A glossy black ring which grants the wearer darkvision. If the wearer already has darkvision, range is doubled.

* * *

Ring of Lesser Reach

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Scandium Alloy

Durability: Excellent

Charges: 10/10

Description: A burly ring which allows the wearer to attract a specific object no more than one pound in weight and no more than ten feet distant. Ring recharges when exposed to a sunrise.

Ring of Darkness

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Ebony

Durability: Good

Description: A thin ring which draws in the light around it. If the wearer partly is in shadow, the ring will stretch the shadow to cover the wearer more fully. If fully in shadow, the ring deepens the darkness making it more difficult for the wearer to be seen.

* * *

Based on the rings the dude was wearing, it was pretty clear he was in a similar line of work. These rings would be super helpful becoming a master thief. I put them back on the counter, and I picked up the cuff.

Cuff of Blinding

Item Type: Uncommon

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Bronze

Durability: Good

Description: A bracelet depicting an armored knight protecting a sleeping child from a shadowy monster. When worn, the wearer does not dream and cannot be scried upon.

That didn’t seem that cool, at least it didn’t yet. I put it down, and grabbed the earrings.

Earring of Messaging

Item Type: Uncommon

Item Class: Jewelry

Material: Gold

Durability: Good

Charges: 3/3

Description: A fine ring of gold with a small golden feather inset. Holding the earring allows the wearer to send a twenty five word message to anyone the wearer knows. Recharges at dawn.

Both earrings were the same.

Not a bad haul.

Too bad I couldn’t keep any of it. Everything was distinctive. The short sword had a bird carved into the hilt. The rings were exotic metals with cool carvings. If I wore any of it out into the city, I’d be worried continuously that that dickbag I’d killed would recognize something and there’d go all my anonymity.

“Changed my mind, apologies, all for sale,” I said. “Credit.”

His dark eyebrows went up over his pale skin, and it seemed like I had finally managed to surprise him.

“We are pleased with your decision,” he said.

Gideon figured out the amounts he was willing to offer.

“Is there anything you are wishing to purchase?” he asked.

“Uh, I think there might be a few things I could use.”

“We have many things to offer.”

“Maybe a short sword?” I asked. I was doing a little stalling because I knew there were magic items I’d want. Definitely items that would make my life easier. But I didn’t know what those were precisely. “Let’s just say I’m new at this, and I was to ask for some advice. Do you think you’d be able to give that to me?”

“You would ask us what you might buy from us?”

“I mean if there might be things useful for me, yeah.”

“We are honored you would trust us with this.”

“Cool,” I said, feeling very much not cool, like I’d somehow just given Gideon a whole bunch of information I hadn’t intended to. And yet, what could he tell someone? That I was new to town? New to being a rogue? Or a thief? That was all true, and couldn’t really hurt me. Maybe he was just earnestly excited to have someone ask him for advice.

“For you to be a rogue, you would do to have some weapons, though nothing large. A bow. A short sword, yes. Rings for hiding and being quiet. Perhaps a cloak? Boots?”

“Sure. All those things. And,” I reached into my pack and pulled out the clothing I’d liberated from the murderer I’d murdered. “Might as well sell these.”

He smiled, and spread his creepily long fingers out over the various items, separating the pants, the cloak, and the boots out.

“Do you have some basic clothes?” I asked. “Nothing magical, or too crazy, just, you know, pants and the like?”

“We do.”

One of those little figures appeared from the back of the stool and started into the piles of stuff. And then another figure went out, going to a different portion of things. And a third and a fourth and a fifth.

I really wanted to ask. I was desperate to ask, but when I looked back on Gideon, he seemed not well. He looked a bit wan. Maybe he was thinking, maybe he wasn’t, I don’t know, because he just seemed to be staring off into space through eyes half-closed. So I just stood in front of him for a moment.

The first figure returned and set a small stack of clothing on the counter.

“We have guessed at your size,” Gideon said. “We apologize if it is incorrect.”

Looking through the clothes, it was actually pretty damn close to accurate. Six shirts, long sleeves, variations of off-white, and likely made of cotton. Not much in the way of collars. There were four pairs of pants, black, pockets, all buttons. Zippers were not a thing yet.

The next figure was quickly back with a short bow. The wood was nearly black but matte. The string seemed to have been coated with something dark, and there was a black leather quiver of black arrows next to it. There was definitely a growing goth vibe to my outfit choices. I picked the bow up.

“It is a bow of the Caverns,” Gideon said, watching me look over the bow.

As soon as he told me the name of the bow, I got a little pop up telling me the rest of the pertinent information.

Bow of the Caverns

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: Two-handed Ranged

Material: Subterranean Gristlewood, Gunterworm tendons

Damage: 20-40 (Piercing)

Durability: Excellent

Weight: 4.8 lbs

Requirements: Str 8, Dex 12

Description: A dark wooden short bow, a little under three feet long, with a hearty draw-weight. Arrows shot from the bow travel in darkness, and are nearly invisible.

* * *

“A wondrous weapon, yes?” Gideon said, pulling me from studying the info.

“What’s the cost?”

“Two thousand gold.”

I put it back on the counter.

“Bit rich for my blood at present.”

“Are your funds limited?”

“Yeah, that’s an accurate assessment.”

Gideon nodded, and several figures rushed out, pulling things off the counter, and exchanging them with other items pulled from the piles and crates behind him, and in a very short amount of time, there was a whole new set of stuff in front of me.

The clothes were mundane and made of scratchy fabric. The boots were, well, just boots. I had the distinct feeling that none of the items Gideon offered for sale now were magical. And that was okay. Knowing that magical items existed in the world was great, but I knew better than to become dependent on items right away. Best for me to learn how to do all the things, and then get magical items to boost my abilities. Otherwise, they’d just be a crutch.

Gideon rattled off prices for the pile of clothes, the boots, a plain short bow, three bundles of arrows, a quiver, two iron daggers, and a bronze shortsword. There were also a few odds and ends. Nothing special about the lot. But it was economical. All told, it was forty gold.

“Do you have any spellbooks or skill books?” I asked.

“They come at a price.”

“You know how much credit I have, anything that fits within that amount?”

He looked up at the ceiling, then a figure darted out, grabbed something, and sprinted back to deposit a lockbox, redwood with brass metal surround, about eight inches deep, and two feet long, on the counter. Gideon produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the box. Inside were small books, all thin, all of different hues and materials.

“Do not touch the books until you have purchased them,” Gideon said.

“Got it,” I replied. I had the feeling some dastardly customer in the past attempted to learn the spell before paying.

“And you must learn them in the shop. You may not leave with the books.”

Again, something that made sense. Impossible to get caught selling banned books if the books disappeared after reading.

Gideon tilted the lockbox on the side, and ran his finger down the spines, occasionally stopping to read off titles.

“Skill book - pickpocketing, three hundred gold.”

“Yes.”

He set it on the counter.

“Spellbook - minor illusion. Fifty gold.”

“Sure?”

He set the book on the counter.

“Spellbook - light. One hundred gold.”

“Nope.”

“Spellbook - frostbite. One hundred fifty gold.”

“No, thanks.”

“Spellbook - prestidigitation. One hundred gold.”

“What’s that do?”

“We have limited knowledge of the spell, but I believe it allows for a minor magical effect near the caster.”

“I’ll pass on that.”

“Spellbook - summon familiar. Three hundred gold.”

“Can I afford that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take it.”

He set the book on the counter next to the other two, then returned his attention to the box of books. He was silent until he came to the last two.

“Skill book - stealth. One hundred gold.”

“Definitely.”

“Spellbook - shadow step. Five hundred gold.”

I whistled. “Can I afford it?”

Gideon stared at me for a moment, then he nodded.

“We will make it possible.”

“A discount?” I asked with a smile.

“Yes,” he replied with a slight head bow, “for being a new customer so willing to provide us new goods.”

“Thank you.”

“We are pleased with your custom.”

“Uh, thanks. So the clothes and books and weapons. How much do I have left in my account?”

“Thirty gold.”

That went fast.

I picked the books and went through them on the quick.

* * *

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Pickpocketing. Now you can snatch stuff from within pockets that aren’t yours. Significantly harder to detect while stealing items from pockets or worn pouches.

* * *

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Stealth. Be sneaky! Move around in silence! Tip toe up to giants and dragons. You’re totally going to start stealing stuff now, aren’t you? +10% harder to detect.

Then I got these other notifications:

* * *

Innate levels of skills detected, balancing.

Pickpocketing - LVL 24

Stealth - LVL 22

And that was awesome, a big stupid grin spread across my face. I was getting credit for the crap I’d done in the other world.

* * *

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Minor Illusion

Minor Illusion allows you to create a single sound or a single image of an object that does not move. The illusion may be placed anywhere within a one hundred foot circle centered on the caster. The illusion lasts for one minute, or until the caster dismisses the spell. The sound may repeat, but it may not be a different discrete sound. The image must not move, and cannot create any sensory effects. It must fit within a five foot cube. At higher levels, you may make additional minor illusions for longer periods of time.

* * *

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Summon Familiar

Summon familiar allows you to gain the service of a spiritual, fiend, fey, or another unworldly animal in the form of your choosing. Your familiar operates as an individual separate from you, but will always obey your commands. As long as you are able to maintain eye contact, you may communicate telepathically with your familiar.

* * *

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Shadow Step

Shadow Step allows you entrance into the Shadow Realm for one second.

* * *

“And we are done,” Gideon said, making all of the items I sold disappear amongst the stuff behind him. “A good day.”

18

It was a calm walk back towards my new home. A strange sort of concept for me. And a home I owned. An even stranger concept. I'd never owned any property. The biggest thing I owned was a car, a car worth less than the POS that was my gaming rig. I enjoyed the walk, especially because it was a straight shot to my home. But I had sense of the size of the city, and I knew I’d be getting lost in the future. Just glad it wasn’t on my first night. I smiled at the guards manning the Old Town gate, and wondered if they ever closed it.

I stopped across the street from the tavern, and leaned against a stoop. I took a moment to watch the pedestrian traffic flow past. There were no lights on in any of the apartments in my building. Which was different than other buildings. I wondered if Etta’d been concerned about appearances. Did I need to be? What was the story I'd tell people when they asked how I came to own the building? That was definitely more important than wondering about silly things like lights and windows. I decided I'd wait to go into the tavern until I knew my backstory. I’ve never been a big fan of lying; I think it gets you in more trouble than it ever solves. But this wasn't really going to be something that was investigated carefully. Hopefully. It needed to be simple, close to a truth, and ultimately rather boring.

Boring was key.

As soon as I had a good idea, I walked across the road, dodging some mystery animal poop on the way, and strode into the Heavy Purse with a smile on my face.

It was almost a different bar because it was packed. The bar itself was packed so tightly that most people, I’d say 90 percent, were standing sideways, with one hand on the bar and on their beer. All the tables were full, and there were plenty of people standing around the edge of the place holding tankards of beer. Or ale. Or both, who knows. It was incredibly loud, and someone was singing and playing the lute in the corner. A bard.

I shook my head and backed out of the pub. There was no chance I’d be able to talk to the barkeep, and, frankly, I wasn’t sure there was much of a point in just having a drink. I needed to look at my home.

The door to the apartments was on the side of the building facing the less-busy of the two streets. It was nestled between the tavern and the neighboring building, and the staircase acted, I imagine, as a slight noise barrier between them. Our neighbor, at least on the street level, was a baker. The place had already shut down for the day, which made sense, bakers probably started super early in the morning. I idly wondered if the baker also served coffee. Which then made me wonder if coffee was a beverage in this land. And then I wondered if I should even open the can of worms that coffee was, my new body wasn’t yet addicted to coffee or anything, should I go down that road again? Ultimately a question for another day, I decided.

I pulled open the leather envelope to see what my benefactor had left me. There was a deed to the building, a note addressed to a Titus Calpernus, a concise letter addressed to me, and a bunch of keys. The letter was mainly a list of the various traps and how to undo them. Etta was one paranoid rogue. There was a moment of confusion. I don’t know why I expected more. I doubt she’d written this specifically for me, but, well, I guess I thought she’d have left some measure of a personal message. In retrospect, that wasn’t at all her style.

The key took a little finagling before it fit, and then a bit of loving before it turned in the lock. The door needed some pushing, and the hinges were definitely squeaking, but I figured that was acceptable considering the place had to be pretty damn old. I had the feeling the bulk of the buildings in the Old Town area were built when it was just Town. So, you know, a hundred plus years old.

In front of me was a massively long staircase. It went up all the way to the roof and there looked to be a landing at each floor. Certainly not the best use of space, really, but I wasn’t about to hop into home improvement. Though I definitely felt a hankering for some HGTV.

I walked up the stairs, listening to them creak until I got to the first landing. I unlocked the second floor apartment, and I peeked inside. It was basically empty. I had the feeling that Etta’d used the first-floor apartment as a storage area because there were several crates and barrels scattered around. There was furniture in the place, but it was all out of place, and there was a bit more of it than you’d typically put in a single-family apartment. Like four bed frames, eight dressers, stacks of tables and chairs. There was even a stack of mattresses leaning against one wall. The only thing that seemed purposefully placed was the one wardrobe that hid the secret ladder. I went through the quick steps Etta had laid out in her note, and that theoretically disabled the traps in all three apartments. Or, at least, most of the traps.

The third-floor apartment was set up to be her training area. The bulk of the apartment was set up like a parkour course, ropes hung from the ceiling, and along one wall was an archery range.

Finally, the top apartment was where the bed and kitchen and fireplace were. All the stuff you’d use for actual living. I put my bag down on the bed, pulled my cloak and stuff off. And then I went all the way down the stairs and locked the front door to the place. And locked all the other doors as well. There was the part of me that wondered if Etta had been paranoid, or if she’d been right about things. If she had a reason to be scared.

It had been a busy first day, and I felt tired. Not bone-tired, but just, well, that I’d done a lot. And that maybe a rest might be nice. I sat down on my bed, trying not to think about all the daggers still hidden in it, and I had a cold glass of water, and looked at my full character sheet for the first time.

Clyde Hatchett - Lvl 4 Rogue

Traits

Race: Elf of the Sun and Moon

Height: 6’2”

Weight: 195 lbs

Eye Color: Green

Hair Color: Blonde

Renown:

* * *

Statistics

HP: 110

STAM: 295

MP: 236

Armor: None

Active Effects: None

* * *

Attributes

Strength: 10

Agility: 14

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 14

Charisma: 17

Luck: 13

* * *

Unassigned points: 6

* * *

Skills

Lockpicking (LVL 15)

Silent Movement (LVL 25)

Eavesdropping (LVL 18)

Pickpocketing (LVL 24)

Stealth (LVL 22)

* * *

Abilities

None

* * *

Feats

None

* * *

Boons

None

* * *

Indicium

None

* * *

Titles

None

* * *

Relationships

None

* * *

Languages

Imperial Common

Plains Tauren

* * *

Spells

Lifeform Identification (Lvl 1) (costs 1 mana) Identify uncommon or lower lifeforms.

Basic Object Identification (Lvl 1)

Minor Illusion (Lvl 1)

Summon Familiar (Lvl 1)

Shadow Step (Lvl 1)

* * *

I had a lot of empty spots in my character sheet. And six points to toss towards my attributes. I hadn’t noticed anything particularly lacking in myself during my singular day. I decided a little more dexterity and agility would probably be useful.

* * *

Attributes

Strength: 10

Agility: 18

Dexterity: 17

Constitution: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 14

Charisma: 17

Luck: 13

* * *

Unassigned points: 0

* * *

I really considered just going to bed, and as I sat there with my glass of water, I realized I’d completely forgotten to give Gideon the damn account coin I’d gotten from Etta’s murderer.

“Dammit, Clyde,” I said out loud.

I laid down, ready to yell at myself some more, but Etta’s words echoed in my head, that we didn’t need as much sleep, but if we gave in, we’d lose that advantage. I knew I needed whatever advantages I could come up with. If this was a game, and it certainly seemed like it followed the rules of a game, I should probably just treat it like a game. An advantage could be the thing that catapulted me above my competitors. Living in a city, I had to have a lot of competitors. I hopped out of bed.

I had to get to grinding.

19

I stripped down to just pants and went down to the training area. It was time to get a gauge of what my new elven body was capable of, and that meant putting myself through my paces. As I stood there, shirtless, admiring the smooth new skin I had, skin that was the best skin I’d ever possessed in my life, not a single blemish, and no sign of the acne that’d scarred my teen years, I wished I had some sort of musical device. Working out had never been the most regular occurrence in my life, but when I’d gone to gyms, I’d done my best work when I’d had music to bump to. But that wasn’t going to be a thing here. I mean, I suppose I could hire a bard to sing along as I worked out, but I was willing to bet I didn’t have the budget for that. And would local bards have the right kind of music for pumping iron? Or would it be sweating to the real oldies?

Closing my eyes, I did a little jumping up and down, shaking my arms, and imagining the song I wanted to hear. Getting the song stuck in my head was my version of a boombox.

And then I started.

I sprinted towards the course, tried to vault a four foot high set of crates, missed my hand placement, and crashed to the ground.

It was going to be a long night.

And it was. I pushed myself. Partly because it felt so good. I liked what I was doing. The slipping between obstacles, the sliding under stuff, jumping over stuff. Wall jumps, pull-ups, slides, hurdles, all of it. And, somewhere in the wee hours of the night, after I’d had to stop and rest, to let my stamina bar refill, I got a notification that was worth all the pain and trouble.

Cool Beans, you’ve unlocked the innate skill Parkour (LVL 15). Now you can run and jump and play in the urban jungle, just like a squirrel. Don’t you wish you were a squirrel? -5% fall damage. +5% skill.

Boom. That was a game-changer. A huge smile spread across my face, and I knew I was getting that super sweet dopamine hit. I was happy. Joyful. There was something so fantastical about getting a notification of the moment you improved. Or, in this case, gained a skill. I knew my work had paid off, and that was such a fantastic feeling. It made doing the work easy. Well, not easy, but easier.

I threw myself into the course over and over again, bottoming out my stamina bar over and over again, occasionally dropping hit points because I was so exhausted. But I kept getting those notices. My skills were improving. And I even got this:

Boom! The hard work has paid off, your stamina has increased by 25%.

It was beautiful. Whatever lingering doubts I had about this new world, about my new life, all of that just disappeared. The ability to get confirmation about hard work paying off was such a difference-maker.

And my stamina recovered quickly, fast enough that I never needed that much downtime, something I realized Etta must have known because she had several books tucked on a small bookshelf in a corner right near the water spigot. Which was also a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t expected anything like running water in Glaton, and yet, here it was. Running water and a toilet system. There was actually a full bathroom in place, a rudimentary shower, a two-level pull chain style toilet, and a small sink. Was this a luxury? Something Etta had put in? Or was it commonplace? And how did it work? How was water pumped up? Clearly not machinery, there was definitely no electrical power. Magic? So many questions in this world. But that little bookshelf was next to a small sink and a mug. I drank water, and I read over the books.

Nothing overly complicated, they were mostly books on history and travel. Limited though it was. I grabbed the Imperial History Primer and gave it a perusal.

The Empire of Glaton started in the city of Glaton before the city was a city, back when it was little more than a village and wasn't even called Glaton. Waves of armies marched from the south and from the west, throwing themselves against the people of this small city. One day, a woman showed up, she didn’t say where from, but she was willing to be a hero, and she fought back army after army. Before her, the walls were held up by the blood of the defenders. Now, this newcomer eschewed the walls and fought on the field, pushing the enemies back. She pushed them back further and further, eventually marching south, conquering every village and castle along the way until she controlled all the territory from Glaton to the coast. And then she turned her army east and continued her conquest. She conquered land for five years until the foundations of the Empire were built. Once she felt she had some room to work, the mystery woman returned to Glaton, proclaimed it her capital, and began transforming the lawless lands she had conquered into an actual country. She built forts and roads. She made a professional army, put together the constitution that bound the country, and she made the first Senate. Every aspect of the Empire of Glaton was put together by this one woman over a thousand years ago.

So that was cool. I mean, grain of salt that nonsense because she was a ruler, her descendants clearly still ruled, and I’d studied enough of North Korea to know the level of horseshit a leader might shovel to make themselves into a godhead. But still an interesting story.

I’d gotten a little sucked into reading, and my stamina had refilled quite some time ago. I marked my place in the book and got back to the course.

20

I stopped working out when I heard bells ringing. I wanted to look out a window and see if it was daylight, but that sort of activity was a pain in the ass in my new apartment. The third-floor windows had been covered so no one outside could look in. In a sense, I got it, I didn't really want anyone to watch me workout. But I'd have liked to look out, or just get some light inside. Even light. The light was also a weird question because light was provided from these glowing orbs. They were cool to the touch but put off light. Kind of like lightbulbs except you could grab these lit globes and move them around and they’d stay lit. Very cool and although little confusing. Although, it was something of a moot point, considering I could keep the lights off, and just use darkvision. Oh well.

To see outside, I had to head up to the top floor, or the roof. And considering I hadn’t been out on the roof yet, I figured it would be an excellent time to take a peek.

I opened the door onto the roof, and it was, in fact, day time out. There was still the cold morning air about, so I hadn’t missed too much of the day. But the rest of the roof-top area was a tiny oasis in the city. Mostly. There was a massive water tower perched on top of the roof, and it was definitely an NYC style water tower. A big pipe led down through the roof, and there was a hose coming out from it. The hose was in place for all the plants up top. Big leafy plants, huge flowers, and even some small trees sporting fruits I could recognize and other stuff I’d never seen. There was also a wooden platform just about the perfect size for sitting and reflecting on the world. Or yoga. Probably yoga. At least for Etta. She didn’t seem to be the social type.

The water tower was an immediate source of curiosity. I wanted to know, badly, how the water got inside. It looked like there was only a single pipe down, so where did the water come from? I climbed up the ladder along the side of the water tower, and I found a small door. A peek inside, and the confusion just got worse. There was a glowing hole, right at the very top of the roof, and water poured out of it. Climbing on top of the water tower, I looked around and saw no hole. It was only on the inside. That was definitely a trip. I went back so I was looking at the interior of the water tower again, trying to find a good angle on the glowing hole, doing my utmost to look into the hole, see what might be in there. I couldn’t see anything behind a blue haze. And it freaked me out. But the water in the tower was cold, and when I tasted some of it from the hose, it was fresh. Nigh-on perfect as far as water went.

Just one more mystery.

I sat on the wooden platform, and just let the world exist around me. I closed my eyes, and I let all my thoughts peter out of my somewhat frazzled brain, being as still as I could.

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Meditation. Now you can find that inner peace. Oooooooohm.

Well, fart on you very much, game. I was definitely in a pleasant trance, just in a state of being and then the game had to go and butt its nose into my attempts at mindfulness.

I paused my internal diatribe and tried to pinpoint who I was raging at… who was behind the game? Who made the rules? Who enforced the rules? Why was the world this way? And when I got to that particular question, I realized the danger of following that train of thought because it wouldn’t lead anywhere. I needed to let others try to figure out the philosophy of the world, my own needs were elsewhere.

And at that moment, it was in taking a shower.

Which was glorious.

Showers are amazing. And this place had piping hot water and super cold water, and whoever had installed the taps in Etta’s place had done a smashing job. I spent way too long in there, partially because it felt good and I was tired, and partly because I wanted to test the limits of my running water. It did not seem that there were any.

A quick search of the kitchen, more of a kitchenette really, revealed a complete lack of food. There was a stove, which required wood or coal to function, several cabinets and cupboards, a sink, and a large butcher block. Which was pristine. Not a mark on the wood. I don’t think cooking had ever been something Etta had invested in. To be fair, it’d never really been something I’d engaged heavily in. I spent my day working around food, I had little desire to continue doing so in my free time.

I ditched the clothes I’d gotten with my Welcome Pack, and got on my scratchy garb from Gideon’s. It was a tighter fit than I was really comfortable with, but that was because of my lack of style back on Earth. Things here were more fitted, and baggy clothing had yet to hit it big in Glaton.

Down the stairs I went, stepping out into the city. My city. It was time to claim it.

21

But first, breakfast. I walked around the corner and stepped into the Heavy Purse. It was not crowded, but a few people were sitting around the tables. The bartender was leaning over the bar, face in a book. He looked up as I walked in, then gave me a small smile and shut the book.

“Morning, Sarsaparilla,” he said.

“Titus, I’m guessing,” I replied.

He stood up, a look of surprise crossing his face.

“How’d you know that?”

I tossed Etta’s note onto the bar, and he snatched it before it even stopped moving. He nearly tore the paper unfolding it. He read quickly, then looked over the top of the paper at me. Then back at the note. Then back to me. Slowly, he folded the paper and motioned for me to come closer to the bar.

Which I did.

He pointed at the stool.

“A moment of your time,” he said, leaning closer to me than I expected. “This tells me that you are my landlord now. Is this true?”

I nodded.

“And this says I must negotiate my new lease with you.”

“Uh,” I stalled, “I suppose you do. I wasn’t aware of that, though. What was your old lease?”

Titus tilted his head ever so slightly, and I guessed he was trying to figure out if he should tell me the truth about his lease, about the agreement he’d had with Etta.

“Look, man,” I said, “I’m not looking to, you know, hurt you or your family. Do you have a family?”

He nodded. “Wife, two children. Also, keep my mother-in-law here.”

“I just want to make sure I’m not, like, going to run out of money keeping this building going.”

“I paid her taxes,” he said. “And she got to eat here for free. She also got twenty gold a month, plus ten percent of my income.”

“Are there any other, like, costs for owning this building?”

“Besides taxes?”

“Yeah.”

“Not that I know of.”

“How about you keep the gold, pay my taxes, and let me eat and drink here for free.”

“You think you’re going to drink twenty gold worth a month?”

“I doubt it, you’d prefer to pay?”

“Heh,” he said, shaking his head, “you are a different breed than that girl. She never once spoke with me. Just at me. Announced things in my presences. Told me how to run my bar so I could pay her more. Never once asked me about a damn thing. But you, day one? Things might be different here, now, eh?”

“Probably.”

He stuck out his hand.

“I will agree to that lease.”

We shook, and smiled.

“How about some breakfast?” I asked.

“You feeling like a big breakfast or a small breakfast?” he asked, looking nearly excited about things.

“Big.”

He nodded and then disappeared around the bar into the kitchen

Immediately, I wondered if I’d made a massive mistake. Was this place possibly a legit source of income? Would it have allowed me to live off the gold and do whatever I wanted in the city? It certainly seemed like my predecessor had a certain amount of freedom and independence, and she’d definitely put together an imposing home that had to have taken a certain amount of coin. But, I mean, provided Titus kept his tavern running, I’d always have food. And I owned the building, so I’d have a place to sleep. Maybe I wouldn’t be flush with money, but my back wasn’t up against the wall. I could take my time finding my way through this lovely world.

Titus swung back around with a large plate filled with eggs, potatoes, and sausage. He set it in front of me with a flourish and then plopped a cup of frothy ale next to it.

“Breakfast is served,” he said. “With my wife’s compliments for the generous lease.”

I smiled, and I started eating.

“You are new to the city,” the man said. “Right?”

“That’s true,” I replied, my mouth full of eggs. “Mind if I ask a question or two?”

“Better half of the bartender’s job,” he replied. “Ask as many as you like.”

“Do you know a place where I might get some training?”

“Training? What is it you would like to be trained in?”

“Archery for one.”

“Simplest course would be to talk to some tower guards. Offer to pay them to teach you in their off-hours.”

“Why do I think that’s not the best course?”

“Oh, I don’t know, might be because the tower guards rarely take kindly to strangers. And means you take their side in that whole Legion-Guard fiasco.”

“Bit of bad blood between them?”

“Bit? Pretty sure that’s the largest feud in the Empire. The only reason the city hasn’t succumbed to violence is, well, it does. They just do a decent job keeping it contained to the bars.”

“Do you have fights here?”

“On occasion.”

“Do you have a bouncer?”

“A bouncer?”

“Doorman? Security?”

“Not sure we are big enough for something like that. Why?”

“Figured someone like that might be able to teach me the fine art of bar fighting.”

“You seem to want to learn a lot,“ he said, tapping his teeth with a finger. He nodded at me. “I think I might have someone you might want to meet. Not sure he knows how to send an arrow downrange, but he might have some skills to part with.”

And that’s how I found myself making my first trip over to the Pits.

22

After my filling breakfast and early ale, I headed into the city, walking with purpose but without urgency. I had a place to go, but, to me at least, it was more important to keep track of what I was seeing. I had the dagger and short swords on my belt, though I had no idea how to actually use them. I wasn’t thinking of getting into an alteration, but I wanted to be prepared on the off chance someone came after me. I went north from Old Town into Portsmouth. Unlike the British town, this place was pronounced Ports Mouth. And it was a port. There wasn’t the acrid sea-air smell, but that was mostly because there wasn’t seawater nearby. It was a river port. And the river was already vast. And it looked like the port had been dug out deeply, carving out a massive chunk of the land to make a big open area for ships to maneuver and dock. And there were plenty of docks around. I stood near the water, trying my best to stay out of the way, and just looked at it. The water wasn’t super clean, there was definitely a brownness to it, but I didn’t see any visible signs of grossness. Or trash. I watched as riverboats were loaded and unloaded, and there was an astounding amount of goods moving in and out of the capital city. Massive logs, bigger than any tree I’d ever seen in the old world, were a startling common sight.

And, while hanging out there, I certainly caught a few new languages.

Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Mahrduhmese.

As well as Sea Elven, Ancient Elven, Archaic Dwarven, Modern Dwarven, Infernal (after listening to what I thought were seagulls arguing), Celestial, Orc, Narbendian, and Deep Gnomish.

I made a mental note to venture deeper into Portsmouth later when I had more time to enhance my linguistical abilities, but that day, I had an ultimate destination, so I headed east into the industrial area. At least, that’s how I thought of it. At that point, I didn’t have any idea of the name. It was a much more hopping place, and there were lots of things being made. The hammering on metals, the burning of coal, wood being shaped, leather being tanned. There wasn’t much in the way of height, the buildings were shorter, in the industrial district,. I suppose no one really wanted to live above a forge. Wide roads made it easy to get goods in and out. It was definitely a different rhythm there. There were not as many stores as I’d thought, and I had a distinct feeling I saw the more significant production spots. This was the sort of place one would look for a joint to buy a thousand decent swords from, not one perfect one. The massive trees I’d seen unloaded in the port were being worked in huge sawmills, cut by blades that seemed impossibly large. I had to wonder how much of the industrial work had magic as an element that made it possible. I wasn’t super comfortable in the area, it was just so busy, and there was definitely an element of danger. Huge wagons were everywhere, being pulled by massive creatures, or by teams of giant creatures. And pedestrians definitely did not have the right of way. The fact that my stroll through the industrial area didn’t leave me a witness to maiming was, perhaps, the most fantastic sight of everything I saw that day.

From there, I headed east, into the Forum. The Forum was beautiful, calm, and a bit boring. It had a feeling of a spot left behind, there were plenty of buildings that were either underutilized or abandoned, very few shops, and not much in the way of foot traffic. In my sinister moments, I thought it might make an excellent area to divest certain people of their belongings, considering that I also saw little in the way of guards. Crossing over the Via Praetorium, I walked by those in line to join the Legion and realized it was a whole cross-section of humanity. Or, uh, manity? It was all the various races, standing in line together. Most of them were quite excited, chatting with their neighbors about the possibility they’d find fame or fortune as they embraced the emperor’s call to arms. I wondered if anyone was rejected. There seemed such confidence they would all be Legionnaires, but if there was such a need for new soldiers, when the country wasn’t even at war, what the hell was the fatality rate for soldiers?

I didn’t think it’d be super wise to ask.

After the forum was the Golden Square. Which was a big rectangle. And there were lots of banks and temples. It was serene. Quiet. Fantastic. Trees were planted all around, there were small gardens and parks in the middles of the blocks. There were also plenty of gates, walls, and guards. Guards who eyed anyone not dressed to the nines who looked like they might spend too long. Traipsing through the Golden Square, I also saw some very posh restaurants as well as got a taste of contemporary fashion. I was not dressed in the manner that befitted the well-groomed young men of Glaton. They preferred tights, shiny shoes, colorful pants, and somewhat outlandish coats. They had large hats, usually tricorns, and carried ridiculous swords about their person. Not necessarily absurd because of size, but because of ostentation. Lots of gold and jewels on the handles. Dandys. At least, insofar as I could tell. I liked the atmosphere of the Golden Square, but I don’t know that I’d ever want to actually live there because I don’t know that I’d want to deal with the inhabitants daily. Unless to rob them. It was really hard keeping my hands to myself as I walked along because I desperately wanted to test out my new pickpocketing skill. And yet, one of the wealthiest and most heavily guarded districts in the city was probably not the best choice for a noob like me.

Then there was this nice neighborhood called Daffenby’s Repose, a name I got because of the large signs that were everywhere in the place. It was nice. I guess. Not very many tall buildings, but rather, there were homes. Not really much in the way of land between them, they were joined, but it was all laid out very meticulously, and I had the feeling it was a planned community. Again, quite a few guards, some lovely little parks, and a series of shops at the end of each giant row of houses. The next neighborhood was like a shoddy recreation of Daffenby’s Repose, but the houses were cheaper, taller, and the green spaces that had once existed had been replaced with more cheap buildings. It wasn’t horrible, tenement style living, but it also wasn’t particularly pleasant. Which made sense when I finally made it to my destination, The Pits.

23

The Pits was, well, the pits. It was gross. Coming up to it, everything changed. The type of people walking around went from, well, ordinary-looking people to more disheveled, to kind of disgusting. Some of it was clearly those who worked in the pits, but others seemed to have given up on life and taken shelter in the Pits. And then there were the pits themselves. There were literal pits. Lots of them.

Every block contained its own pit. There’d be some walls or fences around it, and what looked like offices. Carts coming and going, coming with obvious trash, going with different objects. And each place had a name and a color associated with it. I was insanely curious about what was going on, but I figured it’d be best to save my questions until I finally got to the guy I was going to see. And it was a little past midday at this point, so I was also keeping an eye out for something to eat. But the smell wafting from the pits was noxious enough to annihilate any hunger.

I weaved through the blocks, and things were continually weirder. I saw a few large wagons, flatbeds, with massive things hidden underneath wet canvas. The things moved. And I definitely, at least once, saw tendrils or tentacles peeking out from under the waterlogged cloth. No idea what it was, but definitely disturbing.

Finally, I got to the spot Titus had told me about so I could find the man Titus sent me to find. It was a decommissioned pit. There were signs all over the gate saying that it was a hazardous construction zone and that people needed to be warned. The lettering on the signs was really cool, hand-drawn. I was once again struck by some of the subtler differences of the world. Sure, there were huge magical monsters all about, but also, calligraphers were highly sought after and able to earn a living. It made me ponder about a career shift, if maybe I wanted something more relaxed, like writing things out neatly for folks. I had decent handwriting, and I always enjoyed the process of writing, perhaps it was a possibility. But I shook it off pretty quickly. I wanted adventure, I’d already lived safe and boring.

There was a small notice tacked to the right post of the gate:

Gallifrey and Sons

Pit Evacuation, Restoration, and Rehabilitation.

Free consultations

Very intriguing.

I pushed the gate open, and the hinges complained vociferously. I took a few steps into the compound, and I got my first proper glimpse of a pit. It was an apt term. It was a big ol’ hole in the ground. There was a small stone surround, and a small stone building, about the size of a studio apartment. One story. It was almost like a hut, just a bit better construction.

“Hey!” Someone shouted. “You can’t be here!”

A rough lookin’ man came bursting out of the cabin, a napkin still tucked into the collar of his shirt, covering some burly looking studded leather armor. He had more facial hair than anyone else I’d seen, a curvy mustache and a fortnight’s worth of stubble. A heavy mace hung off his belt, and he seemed drenched in sweat. He didn’t look happy either.

“Hi, I’m—”

“Get out of here!” He shouted, storming closer.

“Wait—”

He growled and unhooked the mace, but he didn’t slow down or stop.

I fumbled with my short sword, trying to pull it free from my scabbard.

The mustachioed man had the mace up above his head and was bringing it down right at me, and I stumbled to the ground, practically pulling my belt and pants off. I got my arm out, figuring a broken arm was better than a broken skull.

But the dude didn’t come at me the way I thought he was, he stepped over me, and brought his mace down, crashing it into the head of a creature I hadn’t seen that, in my opinion, had come out of nowhere.

Mustache cracked his mace around again, smashing it down on the creature one more time.

Then, he grabbed me by the collar and dragged me along the ground until he pulled me through the doorway into the little hut, slamming the door shut behind us.

He sighed and sat down at a small table.

I looked around and took in the shack. It was definitely on the smaller side, but it had a small bed, a small table, and two chairs. There was a small wood stove in one corner and a sink in the other.

“You are a fool, young elf,” the man said, looking out the window.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

The man shook his head while taking a long pull from his mug of ale. “You can’t read?”

“I can read.”

“Says on the notice. Pit Restoration.”

“You’re Gallifrey and Sons?”

“I’m Matthew Gallifrey, yeah. Sons is marketing.”

“What’s Pit Restoration?”

“The hells you think it is?”

“I think we might have started off on the wrong foot—”

“What makes you think we started something off?”

“A man named Titus told me to come to see you.”

“Titus who?”

“Titus Calpernus. Of the—”

“Why’d he tell you to see me?”

“Because I wanted to get training.”

“And he sent you to me?” Suddenly the mustachioed man, Matthew Gallifrey, burst out laughing, a raucous and boisterous thing that sounded a bit like someone chucking gravel through a fan. “What a clod. Is he still running in the game?”

“I’m not sure what game you’re referring to.”

“The Game. The only one that matters.”

“Poker?”

“You are a funny one,” he said, poking me. “I take it he made it out safe then.”

“I guess. I mean, he’s just, like, a few neighborhoods over.”

“Always is.”

“You could visit him. I mean, if you wanted.”

“Sure could.”

“But you don’t.”

“Wouldn’t be wise.”

“I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Likely. New here?”

“You could say that.”

“I did say that, what would you say?”

“Very new.”

“Ah. And you come to me for the darker arts?”

“Define darker arts?”

“Killing people in the shadows?”

“Maybe not that dark.”

“So he has left the game.”

“He was an assassin?”

“Ah, ’tis his story to tell.”

Matthew walked over to a cabinet and opened it up. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see what he was doing, but a moment later, he turned around with two bottles, and presented one to me.

I looked at the brown bottle, the corked top, and I took it.

“Nutter Ale,” Matthew said.

“Nutter?” I asked.

“Aye,” Matthew replied, setting his bottle on the table, and taking a bite from his bowl of food.

I tentatively eyed the bottle, and I took a moment to let the barest squeak of magic out of my hands to identify the thing.

Bottle of Nutter Ale

Item Type: Common

Item Class: Beverage container and beverage

Material: Glass, cork, and ale

Description: Made from nutters, Nutter Ale is designed to push the limits of humanoid endurance and sanity, all in a refreshing beverage.

“Thinking I might want to pass on the ale,” I said, putting it on the table next to his bottle.

“Need to work on your magic better, boy,” he said through a mouthful of stew. “Felt it from here.”

“I’m new.”

“I know.”

“I was hoping you could train me.”

“Seem to remember that’s how we started this conversation of ours. Not sure I can train you in talking.”

“Not one of your dark arts?”

“Can be, but I think it’s not what you’re looking for. So why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

“Archery.”

“Let’s have a little honesty. Tell me your current Choice.”

“Rogue.”

“Quick to jump to honesty, not sure that’s smart or stupid. Maybe a bit of both.”

“If I’m going to work with you, I figured I should probably be honest with you at the least.”

He nodded, took another bite of his stew, then scraped his bowl clean. He tossed it into the sink where it bounced around a moment before settling down. The noise was loud, and I admit, maybe startled me a little.

“So you’re a rogue. Level?”

“Two.”

“You are new.”

“Told ya.”

“Yes, you did.” He drank down his ale a bit. “You want to know archery. And?”

“Pickpocketing. Stealth. Anything useful for being a thief, really.”

“Not a killer, eh?”

“I’d prefer not to be. I mean, I will if I have to.”

“Have you killed?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded a little, then chucked his mug, banking it off two walls before falling into the sink. Matthew stared at me. I fiddled with my hands. Twiddled my thumbs. Did my best to meet his penetrating gaze.

“What is Titus to you?” He finally asked.

“My tenant, I guess.”

“Tenant?”

“Yeah, you know, like, he rents a place from me.”

“I know the word, more incredulous it is being used in this case.”

“I mean, I can’t say I know him super well. I kind of fell into this situation.”

“Are you fortunate for this?”

“I’d say so. Got a place to stay and food to eat.”

“And yet you want to throw it all away to be a thief.”

“Why not both?”

He laughed.

“Curious answer. Why not? We who ply our trade in the wee hours of the dark are not often given the luxury of a normal life. We depend on the shadows to hide our true selves, and it is not often that the comfortable life allows liars and cheats to remain amongst them.”

“That’s a romantic load of hogwash, my man. Liars and cheats get the cushiest seats at the table, eat first, fart most, and live better lives than any of us.”

“Oh?”

“Who do you think runs the banks? Temples? All that nonsense. Hell, you think these nobles got to be nobles because they’ve been honest and good people? You think they aren’t cheats and liars? That their ancestors weren’t?”

“I am liking you more, little elf boy. Have you a name?”

“I do. Hatchett. Clyde Hatchett.”

“Clyde Hatchett, I will take you on as a pupil of mine. I will teach you the things I know of the arts we practice in the dark You will do as I say. And you will work with me here, in the pit. Do you agree?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, what does working in the pit entail?”

A big smile spread under his big mustache.

“Fun,” he said.

24

He lied.

Working pit restoration sucks. Everything about the pits sucks. It’s disgusting in every way imaginable. Imagine, if you will, a pit that is one or two hundred feet wide. Hundred-Plus feet deep. And it is filled with an assortment of disgusting things. Mud made up of all sorts of foul elements, from poop to offal to general trash. And yet, what it is supposed to be is a pit about seventy feet wide, and fifty feet deep. All that extra depth and width is a result of what goes on when the pit is in active use. See, there are all sorts of creatures that exist on Vuldranni. In this corner of the world, they found some creatures that like to eat, well, basically anything. And based on what they eat, they excrete other things. So these pits were developed where specific ingredients were fed to these pit beasts to get them to poop out different things. But the pit beasts weren’t exactly tame, they were more like semi-sentient beings. They liked to move, they got into fights, they wanted to hunt types of food. And they attracted certain predators and parasites. Because of the size of the pit beasts, the parasites and the like they drew were also substantial. The weird thing that had attacked me right when I entered was one such parasite. Matthew Gallifrey (and his imaginary sons) took a pit that had grown too unwieldily and brought it back to control. He killed off all the parasites and predators, all the creatures that infested the pit after the pit beasts had been removed, and then he cleaned out all the bonus trash and goop and the like, then had masons come and rebuild the pit to the desired size of the next pitmaster for whatever the next pit beast was going to be eating and excreting. It was all very fascinating, and on paper, I was enthralled by the process.

Reality was a different story.

Archery practice started quickly, with me standing on the edge of the pit, looking at swarms of creatures below, preying on each other and living their lives. Matthew gave me a few quick pointers on how to hold the bow, how to nock an arrow, the real basics of it, and then, it was target practice. Me against a horde of creatures.

My arrows went mostly everywhere at first, and then when I was hitting targets, I wasn't doing much beyond ricocheting my arrows off the various carapaces of the creatures below. I ran through all four of my arrow bundles. Meanwhile, he, almost lazily, would kick back any creatures that managed to get to the top. Four bundles of forty arrows each. A hundred and sixty arrows. In that, I killed one animal, a cymothoa.

GG! You’ve killed a Lesser Cymothoa (LVL 3 Greater Insect).

You’ve earned 150 XP! What a mighty hero you are.

A lesser one. Way to kick me when I’m down, game world.

But I did get the beginnings of the skill: Archery.

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Archery. Now you can shoot sharp objects and likely not hurt yourself. Soon, maybe you can hurt others. +5% damage. +5% skill.

My arms felt dead. My fingers were burning.

Matthew clapped me on the shoulder, and told me to get more arrows for tomorrow, and to be back in front of the gate at sun up.

And that was day one.

25

I got more arrows. Five hundred of them. They weren’t high quality, I’d gotten directions to a place in the industrial area, a mass producer of arrows and the like. I got a weird look when I stepped into the factory office, the man running the place told me he didn’t sell to my kind. When I pressed him, he told me, individual consumers. But apparently, five hundred is enough to get a bulk discount. I lugged the arrows home, took a shower, and I ate a bowl of stew from the tavern. I thought about having a drink or two, but even though it was pretty early in the bar, it had the look of a slightly rougher crowd, and after my stunning display with my sword, I didn’t think getting involved with a brawl was going to be a good plan. Instead, I went around the building to get into my apartment.

A man was leaning against the doorway, picking his nails with the end of a particularly vicious looking dagger. It had a golden handle with plenty of knobby jewels of all kinds. The facets blinked at me as he dug out a stubborn bit of whatever. He was tall, good looking, perfectly symmetrical face, gold chain around his neck, small hat with a feather coming out of the top. It was an odd feather, I couldn’t figure out what kind of bird it might have come from. Though I’m pretty far from an ornithologist, it was far too curved to make sense on any flying animal I could conceive of. He had a long thin sword at his belt, like the dagger, it was bejeweled to the max. I noticed his skin was flawless and pale, his eyes a shocking sort of blue. I’d never been attracted to a man before, and I still wasn’t, but I could admit the man was a looker. Which immediately put me on the defensive, every physical indication made me think this was a fellow traveler.

He gave me a smile, but his eyes remained hard.

“Is this your apartment?” he asked.

I was initially tempted to lie. To go on by as if I hadn’t heard him, but the dude was clearly waiting for me, and skipping his question was only going to make him more suspicious.

“It is,” I said, deciding to flip the script and go with being overly informative. “Newly though, if you’re looking for the old owner, I’m afraid I have bad news. She left town.”

“Oh?”

“Fortune smiled on me that day,” I said, wishing I knew the name of the god of luck if there was a god of luck. “She had to leave town on the quick, and she needed gold. I had a little sum, father left it to me, miss the old man, but it was enough. So, long story short, too late, I know, but it’s my apartment now. Yes.”

“Talkative one, aren’t you?”

“I have been accused of verbosity a time or two, but I never thought it a real problem.”

“It is.”

“Well, apologies.”

I took another step forward and slid the key into the lock directly under the man’s arm.

“Do excuse me,” I said, doing my best to be meek about, well, everything. “I fear the night will be upon us soon, and I’d rather be indoors.”

The man edged out of the way just enough for me to squeak by.

“Not sure we’re done with our chat,” he said, sliding his foot into the open door.

“Oh?”

“Well, we had unfinished business with the owner. Etta.”

“That is a problem. I believe Etta, as you call her, went south. If you hurry, I’d imagine you can catch her. Royal Road and all that.”

“Are you purposefully dense?”

I tilted my head as if I didn’t understand the question.

“Likely as dense as any elf,” I said. “Always felt just a bit average, myself. Dreamt of greatness, but so far it’s eluded me. You?”

“What’s your name?”

“Clyde Hatchett,” I said with a big smile, sticking my hand out like I was more excited to meet this man than anyone else in the whole wide world. “Yours?”

“Clyde, we were supposed to buy this building from Etta. And now she’s gone, and you say you own the building.”

I kept my hand out like an idiot.

“Sounds about like the truth,” I said.

“See the problem there?”

“Not from my point of view.”

“I’m feeling a mite generous today, so how about I just offer you back your money, and you pass the deed on over to me.”

“Your name, friend?”

“My name is Insidious. I am with the Iron Silents.”

“Nice to meet you Mister, uh, Sidious?”

“Just call me Insidious.”

“Okay, Insidious,” I said, really struggling to keep a straight face, “I won’t lie to you, or waste your time. This is my building now, and I don’t think I’m selling.”

“Almost makes me happy you’re saying that,” Insidious replied. “Cheaper for us that way.”

He jammed his jeweled dagger into my door so hard it went all the way through.

“Sleep well,” he said, almost politely, and walked away.

Looks like I made some friends, I thought.

It took me a half-second to work the dagger out of the door, it was in there pretty good, and then I went around to the tavern.

I waved at the bartender, Titus, and motioned to the back. He wasn’t happy about having to stop slinging ale, but he met me over at the door to the back, and we went into the storage area.

“What’s the problem?” he asked. “Gallifrey beating you up?”

“Yeah, but that’s fine,” I said. “I just had a chat with some asshole from the Iron Silents. You know of them.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“I hope you were nice to them.”

“I tried to be polite,” I said.

“Well, shit.”

“They want this building. Do you know why?”

“This place? Please don’t sell to them.”

“I’m not looking to sell to them.”

“Thank the gods.”

“How about thanking me? I’m the one not selling.”

“They’re really quite terrible people.”

“I’ve heard. Now, is there something special about this place?”

“Not that I know of.”

“No basement or anything?”

“Of course there’s a basement. Two of them. Basement and sub-basement.”

“Nothing special in them?”

“Beer? Whiskey?”

“No tunnels or runes or—”

“Runes? What are you talking about?”

“Why they might want this particular building.”

He looked around at all the kegs and crates, then ran his hand along the brick pillar going upstairs.

“I just don’t know,” he finally said. “I mean, I know what’s in the basement, and there’s no tunnels attached to it, nothing special about it. Just more supplies for the tavern.”

“And the sub-basement?”

“It’s mostly empty.”

“What does mostly mean?”

“Something's living down there, but other than that, it’s empty.”

“Uh, Titus, I think you may have glossed over one of the more important aspects of that sentence.”

The door to the tavern slammed open, and a young woman was standing there.

“You two finished gossiping?” She yelled.

“Pipe down, Penelope,” Titus roared back. “Talkin’ to the landlord here.”

“Oh,” Penelope said, her rage face dropping and immediately replaced with a sweet smile. “It is so very nice to meet you.”

She dipped into a curtsy, and I smiled back at her. She had a cute nose. Which is weird to say, but after looking at Insidious’s perfectly designed face, something was appealing about the natural formation of a face.

“Nice to meet you too,” I said. “Clyde Hatchett.”

“Penelope Calpernus,” she replied. But then she looked back to Titus, face hard, “Bit busy out there, love of my life.”

“Give me a damn minute more,” Titus snapped back.

She gave him a look like he was sleeping on the couch and then spun and left.

“She thinks I don’t know we’re busy?” he asked. “I know we’re busy. I’ve known we were busy all day I’ve been working, what is she doing. Sorry, she’s, it’s, we’re busier now, which is good, but difficult I might need to hire someone to come and help because gods know we could use the help and what were we talking about?”

“Do you get enough sleep?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But that wasn’t what we were talking about was it?”

“Something living in the sub-basement.”

“Right. Something lives there.”

“Okay, but what?

“I don’t know. Why would I know.”

“What do you mean, how would you not know what’s living in your basement.”

“Not my basement, your basement.”

“Okay, but, how do you know there’s emoting in there?”

“You can hear it moving around.”

“What if it’s someone trapped down there?”

“No one answered when I called down.”

“Did you open the door and call down? Is there a door?”

“Of course there’s a door, how else would get you down into the sub-basement? Magic up a hole and jump in”

“Does magic work that way?”

“Why do you think I know how magic works? I don’t truck with demons like that.”

“I think demons and magic don’t go together like that.”

“If you know magic so well, why are you asking if it can make holes. I expect it can, otherwise, not much use in magic, is there?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t know there was a basement until just now, let alone a mystery creature living in a sub-basement.”

“I opened the door, the door to the sub-basement because we also have a door to the basement if you’re interested in that bit of structure as well, I looked in the darkness, saw nothing, called out, no response, so I closed the door.”

“Why didn’t you go down there?”

“Because I don’t know what’s living there?”

“It might just be a rat.”

“Sure, but if a rat’s making the noises I’ve heard, I don’t want to meet that rat.”

“What about throwing a light or something down there?”

“Mister Rich Britches may be able to toss glowstones about like they aren’t golds apiece, but I have a family to feed, and up until recently, too high a rent to pay.”

“This has been a fruitless talk.”

“Go to the grand market, all the fruit you want.”

“Ha. I’ll get a glowstone, we’ll look in the basement.”

“Subbasement.”

“Sub basement, sure. Where do I get glowstones?”

“You buy them from the Empire. Empire has the monopoly on glowstones.”

“Is there an Imperial Store of some kind?”

“Ha. You’ll find ‘em if you look. I got beer to serve. And when you find it, you can go look in the sub-basement if you want,” Titus said, walking back to the door to the bar, “I’ll have none of it.”

And then he left.

I tried to figure out the keg ladder for a minute or two, then gave up, and went around the outside to my apartment.

26

I slept like a baby for about two hours. Back in the world, I’d only ever slept four hours at max. As far back as I could remember, that was the extent of my need for sleep. Even as a kid. Drove my parents nuts. But it was pretty helpful for me. I could go to bed at ten and wake up at two and play a solid five hours of video games before I had to go to school. So waking up after two hours was a bit strange, but I felt good. Sore. My busy day of archery after a full night of parkour was definitely going to leave some reminders.

Notably, no one visited me during my brief respite. I wasn’t expecting the Iron Silents to get back to me that quickly. I had a feeling I’d had the bad cop visit, and I was going to get the good cop visit next. Then the torture and killing.

I did some stretching, then some parkour practice. And then I got dressed, belted on my weapons, put the massive bundle of arrows onto my back, and headed out into the predawn gloom.

The city was definitely different than when it was still dark out, but the night had mostly spent itself. I saw almost no one out and about. Sure, there were guards on the walls and near the gates, and they glared at me as I walked by. But otherwise, basically nothing. The occasional cart came by, a wagon. Some folk walking. Everyone kept their heads down, no one spoke. It was almost as if they were afraid to make noise, that something might hear them if they did. A few lights were on in the windows of buildings I passed, and I was near enough the industrial area to listen to a few of the factories coming to life, the roar of forges, the clang of metal on metal, but it was such a marked difference to how the city had been during the day. Plus side, it did make it much easier to get through the streets. I didn’t really have to dodge horses, people, or poop, and I was at outside the Gallifrey Pit when the sun was just barely coloring the skies.

I stood out there like a tool until Matthew opened the gates as the sun hit them, and then we continued our training. He instructed me a bit on sword work, which was useful because we had to clear all the animals that had made their way out of the pit during the night, keeping them from leaving the pit as well. And once we cleared the ground level, we set up an archery spot again. Matthew did take some more time to instruct me, stopping me every so often to change my stance, pull back to a different point on my body, that sort of thing, and I was improving quickly. Plus, I was getting a smidgen of experience from each and every cymothoa I killed. And even though it wasn’t an enormous amount, it all added up.

And that’s really how the day went. And the next. I bought a ton of arrows, I shot them into the pit. I killed pit parasites of all different stripes. I fought them with a dagger, with a short sword, and with a bow. Over and over again. Blisters popped and bled. My arms and legs ached. Hell, my whole body ached. I had cuts and bites all over. Matthew never let any of the creatures get close enough to real damage, he was always there to push the little buggers back into the pit, but he didn’t seem to care if they got a nip in.

Five straight days of this, and I realized I’d thinned out the numbers in the pit down to the point where I actually had to aim carefully to hit the creatures. We spent less and less time killing the ones that had come up overnight. And I started to kill the cymothoa in single hits. I began to hit the soft targets on the otherwise hard bug-like things. I’d sneak arrows between chitin segment, or, on a lucky occasion, right through an eyeball. And I started to feel good about it. I was moving in up in levels and skills, and, finally, I hit my next level.

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 5! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t.

During our lunch, I spoke with Matthew about leveling up, what I needed to look for, what I needed to do.

“Show me your sheet,” he said.

“My what?” I asked.

“Character sheet.”

I saw that I could share my sheet, and did so, giving access to one Matthew Gallifrey.

He looked it over, something I could tell because I could see his eyes scanning across like he was reading something. Which, I suppose, he was. He made a few faces then nodded a bit.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Just been a while since I’ve been in the position to advise someone, especially someone like you. Trying to think here.”

The man pulled at his mustache a time or two.

“You have a lot of holes here,” he said. “Lots of room for improvement.”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said. “But what should I be focusing on?”

“What would you like to be focusing on?”

“I just asked you that.”

“And yet they are two different questions. You need to know what you are focusing on in terms of the external. Of why you are tracking along this path. Are you hoping to be a cat burglar? A highwayman? And why are you doing this? All of these questions need an answer if I’m going to give you an answer. But I have a feeling you don’t know those answers. Otherwise, you’d have already told me. So, back to work until you have an answer. And then I can give you your advice.”

“But I only have 36 hours to use those points?”

“Better come up with an answer quickly then.”

27

On the evening of day six, when I had about twelve hours left to use my points, we killed the last visible parasite. The pit was littered with arrows. And mud.

Matthew nodded to me, getting off his chair and finishing off his ale.

“Looks good,” he said, peering into the pit.

I started packing my things up, heading to the cottage.

“Not yet,” Matthew said. “There’s still work to be done tonight.”

I looked up at the sky, the dark sky.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Just, uh,” I started, not really wanting to admit the fear roiling in my gut, “it’s just about night, and—”

“And? You are afraid of the darkness?

“Uh, no.”

“You’d be a fool not to, at your level.”

“I feel there’s a but coming along.”

“It is the night you want to operate within, you cannot live in fear, little-elf boy. Must overpower that emotion.”

“Sure, why didn’t I think of that? Just overpower the emotion.”

“Ah, sass. The armor of the young and foolish.”

“Young and foolish is my stock in trade.”

“Better sass than fear, I suppose. You ready to get dirty?”

“I’m guessing we’re going into the pit?”

“Maybe your points should go into intelligence.”

“Is that your official advice?”

“You have an answer for me?”

“No.”

“Then, no. Let’s get to work.”

He grabbed my bag of things, and he carried it into the cottage, then returned with a wooden crate. He opened it up and pulled out what looked like a jumpsuit. Or coveralls. The fabric of the suit was weird. Different.

“Put this on,” Matthew said.

“What is it?”

“Keeps the nasty stuff off.”

“Is it that nasty?”

“Vile. Truly vile.”

“Is this really part of my training?”

“Maybe.”

“This better be some Mister Miyagi type thing here,” I said, “otherwise—”

“Who’s Miyagi?”

“Famous trainer from my home town.”

“Might be some Miyagi thing then. Whatever that is. Get dressed, or don’t. And bring your sword.”

He stripped his clothes off, then pulled on his suit. He wrapped on a thick leather belt. He attached his mace to the belt, then he started rolling his shoulders, loosening up. He looked over at me, still not dressed.

“You’re going down in the pit, boy,” he said. “Or you’re getting away from me and never coming back. I don’t do half measures.”

“Walk left side road, fine. Walk right side road, fine. Walk middle,” I closed my fist tight, “squish, like grape.”

“Not the most eloquent way of putting it, but yes.”

I smiled and pulled off my own clothes before pulling on the oil-cloth coveralls. There was definitely a funk to them. Not necessarily unpleasant, but a smell nonetheless. The fabric was smooth though, a nice respite from the scratchy cheap clothes I’d been wearing. I almost wanted to wear this stuff out and around the town.

Matthew held up a thick belt. I put it on my waist, then got the sword on my belt. Then I felt someone pulling at the back of the belt. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Matthew tying a rope to a massive metal ring on the rear of the leather strap around my waist.

“Just in case I need to haul you back up,” he said.

“What’s down there?” I asked.

“Million gold question, ain’t it. To tell you the truth, I have no idea. Part of the excitement is finding out.”

“You want to trot out a few more cliches before we go down there?”

“Next time I take a trainee, I’ll make sure there’s a sarcasm waiver.”

“Next time, I’ll sign it.”

He gave the briefest of chuckles, then headed around the back of the cottage, and returned with several ladders. Which connected, with only the slightest of structural integrity.

“We’re climbing down those?” I asked as he slid the ladders, one after another, into the pit.

“You prefer to jump?”

When the ladders were there, all twelve of them, they definitely sagged a bit against the wall of the pit. Stepping onto the first rung, there was a light jiggle, one that only increased as I went down.

The walls of the pit were full of holes, and those holes were of all different sizes. Some as small as my finger, the largest being about the right size for me to stand up in. I couldn’t tell how deep they went, there was a decided lack of light in the pit, until, that was, my mentor dropped in lines of lanterns. They were ropes with lamps at regular intervals, ten or so feet spread, all lit, and going all the way down to the bottom. Suddenly, we were awash in light, and I could see the mud at the bottom wasn’t still. Something moved there. Correction, some things moved down there.

After a terrifying climb down, I stepped into the mud. The foul stuff reeked, quite horribly, and it squelched as I put my foot into it. And I sunk. Up to my thighs. Worried I might sink even lower, I got my bronze short sword out of the scabbard, and held it out.

The things that were moving in the mud had stopped. I moved forward, out of the way of the ladder, wanting to make sure I wouldn’t block Matthew’s descent. The solid ground below was rocky, and it was tough to get my footing. Even tougher to keep it. I slipped, managed to catch myself, and almost dropped the sword.

But I kept my grip, which was useful when the snake-headed creature launched itself out of the mud at me.

I brought the sword across almost involuntarily, and the blade bit deeply into the creature’s neck, knocking it just off enough the course of its attack that it went right next to my torso, way closer than I was comfortable with.

Holding onto the sword, the momentum of the creature caused the blade to slice through more of its serpentine neck, and I must have severed an artery or something because there was a sudden spray of bright orange blood, shooting out all over me and the muddy terrain.

I hacked at the neck one more time, just before it disappeared under the mud again, and I got a good cut on the thing.

GG! You’ve killed a Grey Anguid (LVL 6 Monster)

You’ve earned 280 XP! What a mighty hero you are!

An anguid. A grey one. Cool.

Now that I knew its name, it was time for its friends to come after me. And come they did. It’s possible they were just drawn to the blood from their former comrade, but I was there as well. And thankfully, for whatever reason, they liked to attack above the mud. I wondered if it had something to do with the way they saw. Or the way they felt movement. Whatever the case, it certainly made it easier to fight them.

They launched themselves out of the mud, over and over again, never their whole bodies, just necks and heads. I backpedaled, dodging the attacks, swinging my sword where I could, trying to get any sort of attack in on the anguids.

Then, because he was just that sort of bastard, Matthew was next to me, swinging his mace down, and knocking my shortsword right out of my hand. It dropped into the mud.

“What the hell?” I shouted.

“Dodge, boy,” he said, leaning just far enough to the side so an anguid went flying by.

And then he climbed back up the ladder.

Let’s be clear about this, it was effective. It also sucked. Quite remarkably. The mud would be totally still, then a head would pop up and launch, with less than a second between the pop up to the surface and the launch. I had that brief window to judge where the creature was aiming, and that moment to fake the anguid out, or I’d get bitten. And get bitten I did. Every time I got bitten, though, Matthew was there, beating the creature with his mace, and watching it drop back into the mud. Never killing the damn things, just giving me a heartbeat to breathe and look around for the next anguid to come along.

Cool Beans, you learned the skill Dodge. Now you can get out of the way of all those things trying to hurt you. Have you ever considered why so many things want to hurt you? +5% evasion.

And all of a sudden it became okay. I could enjoy it. At least I could try and enjoy it. It was pretty hard with plenty of creatures aiming for my death. But as soon as I got the notification of the skill upgrade, I noticed that it was easier to make the moves I needed to make. I had a better feeling of where I needed to put my body to avoid the anguids’ attacks. But I also felt my body flagging. And when I checked my stamina bar, I saw it pass below half and dropping steadily.

I snuck a glance at Matthew. He was watching me but had a slice of apple on his dagger halfway to his mouth. He gestured with my chin that I should turn back around.

As soon as I did, there was an anguid coming straight at my face. I moved just enough that the creature’s scaly skin slid along my jawline. Reflexively, I got my hands up and smashed my fist into the side of the creature’s neck.

I was getting angry about the whole thing, so I started punching the creatures away from me, hitting as hard as I could as they launched their necks and heads out of the mud. I then grabbed one of the animals, and I pulled it over my shoulder like I was hauling it.

Turns out that the anguid had a body. A somewhat sizeable flabby sort of body at the end of its long neck. It looked quite a bit like a miniature plesiosaur, but with stubby little legs instead of flippers. Also, it turns out that the anguid wasn’t keen on being hoisted out of the mud. I was only able to keep the thing out of the mud for the barest of moments because its lower body was seriously substantial. There was gyrating and flouncing about as the creature struggled to free itself. But I didn’t want to let go. I also didn’t really know what to do.

The other anguids, over, had a good idea, they all attacked their buddy or former buddy, and they tore the poor bastard apart. The speed of the attack was impressive as if the creatures saw the vulnerability and then went into a frenzy, and I found the whole thing a bit shocking. I let go of the remains, backing away.

“Back on the ladder, boy,” Matthew said, pulling me by the shoulder until I was behind him. He had his mace out in his other hand.

I climbed up, stopping about ten or fifteen feet in the air to look back at Gallifrey, to see what he was doing.

He was fighting, and there was a macabre beauty in his brutality. He had an impressive efficiency with his strikes, and his movements were so agile that the creatures didn’t have the slightest chance to hit him. The mace crushed heads left and right, leaving bloody messes, vast swaths of orange nastiness spreading across the mud.

And before I knew what was going on, it was done.

He was standing there, breathing hard, but certainly not out of breath, stillness all around him. His mace went back on his belt, and he looked up at the edge of the pit. Then back to the ladder, confusion his face.

“Boy,” he yelled, “I told you to get up the ladder. We got to start hauling corpses out.”

28

It wasn’t Miyagi training, least as far as I could tell. It was more like brutal gross heavy labor that could have been done by a trained ape. Which I suppose I was. Except I don’t think elves are descended from apes. I don’t know what they’re descended from. Or, rather, I don’t know what I’m descended from. Ignorance was the way of the new world. Which bothered me. I liked knowing things. Intelligence and sarcasm were my only defenses from middle school on.

Here, at the top of the pit, I had a rope. I threw the line into the pit where it was snatched by Matthew Gallifrey. He tied a corpse onto the rope. I pulled it up, hauling it up and out of the pit, then untying the rope, tossing it back into the pit. While Gallifrey tied another corpse on the line, I took the other body and stacked it according to species and size. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. The stacks of the dead were ridiculously high and varied. There were more parasites than I’d realized, I thought they’d all been the same, but there were definitely some actual variations amongst them. And even among the anguids, there were grey ones and black ones and white ones. Notably, I couldn’t use my identify spell on the corpses, because they were no longer creatures, now they were objects, so I had to use the other spell.

Somewhere in the depths of the night, I got the skill: hauling.

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Hauling. Now you can pull a rope with a weight on the end. +5% efficiency

The game world was messing with me. I wasn’t exactly sure how to take it. How does one deal with a world that has a sense of humor?

Once all the bodies were brought up, or at least, I figured all the bodies had been brought up, my mentor emerged from the pit, covered in filth, and a big smile on his face.

“Why are you so damn happy?” I asked.

“Big payday from this,” he replied.

“From all this?” I gestured to the piles of corpses behind me.

“Oh yes,” Matthew said. “Time to earn another skill.”

“Can I give you an answer and spend my points first?”

“Definitely,” he said, taking a lean against the stone wall of the cottage and pulling out a flask from the inside.

“There’s this story,” I started, “that’s, I mean, it’s about a thief who helps the poor out by taking from the rich.”

“Sounds like a fool.”

“That’s what I want to do.”

“Hate the rich do you?”

“I was always poor, and the rich always made it worse on us. On my family. I had a really nice life, and then it was all taken away from me, and I had a horrible life after that. All because someone else wanted to make money.”

“And you want to take that money back?”

“I want to make them hurt the way they made me hurt.”

“Got to love me some honesty, boy,” he said with a grimace. “Bring hurt to the rich. End of the day, you’re going to be needing to be quick. Rich people have guards. How many points do you have?”

“Two. Do people get different amounts as they level up?”

“Some races are different, I expect. One point in agility. One point in luck.”

“Luck? Really?”

“Luck’ll be your biggest ally in this world, kid. Don’t discount it.”

He stood up with a grunt and tossed the flask back into the cottage. I put my points in place.

Attributes

Strength: 10

Agility: 19

Dexterity: 17

Constitution: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 14

Charisma: 17

Luck: 14

Unassigned points: 0

And then it was time to earn a new skill.

Butchery.

And Harvesting - Animal.

And it was a whole new level in disgusting. It seemed that creatures which lived in poop and refuse didn’t exactly have the most beautiful interiors. Instead, their insides were gross. Lots of blood, lymphatic fluid, acids, and the weirdest stuff I had no names for. Naturally, there were useful bits contained in each and every creature, and it became my job to dig through the gross stuff until the valuable stuff was in reach, at which point Matthew would take over, and I’d move on to the next one. My hands were covered liberally in gnarsty gunk of all kinds and all sorts of smells.

But it wasn’t long before I got the butchering skill. Well, technically, I got a subset of butcher, Butcher (Invertebrates), followed shortly by Butcher (exotic).

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Butcher (Invertebrates). Now you can cut apart creatures without spines without ruining their insides! +5% harvesting rates, +2% item quality

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Butcher (Exotic). Now you can cut apart weird creatures without ruining their insides! +5% harvesting rates, +2% item quality

And that had to be something pretty cool. The exotics, I mean. And then came:

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Harvesting (Animal). Now you can harvest the bits and pieces of an animal. You’ll have an antler chandelier in no time! +2% harvesting rates, +5% item quality

Things inside the corpses started to glow.

“Things are glowing,” I said.

“Are they really glowing, or are you seeing them highlighted?” he asked, not stopping his work.

“Uh, glowing?”

“Highlighted,” he said. “Think about removing it.”

I did, and the glowing stopped.

“Oh,” I said. “Highlighted. That’s from the harvesting skill?”

“Likely,” he replied.

“Why does it happen? Or how does it happen, rather.”

“Don’t know.”

“But you’ve a theory?”

A slight smile, “Course I do. Might be wrong, probably wrong, but my guess is it’s you tying into the collective Whatever. People have been harvesting the insides of the anguid for a lifetime or more, always picking the same things out, the things they feel have value. Gold or otherwise. That happens enough, there’s a global sense of what is worth pulling out of these beasts. Don’t mean the anguid aorta is worthless, just means no one found a use for it yet. So don’t go thinking the highlights are the only things worth taking. And, don’t go thinking you’ll find everything glowing inside some creature what never been harvested before. Imagine the inside of dragon is full of useful goodies, but doubt enough folk have been in there to cause a highlight to happen.”

We went back to work. To be honest, Matthew had never stopped, so it’s more like I went back to work. And I could do it better now, I knew how and where to cut things open, did less damage to items. And Matthew started having me pull the various bits and bobs out as well, until I finally did the full harvest on a cymothoa, all by myself.

First, you get off the chitin, essentially skinning the beast. Leave the head alone, it’s just going to wind up cracked. But there are panels in other places, and you can cut around and pop them off. We had a huge stack going. Then, the legs come off.

“Sell those for a pretty penny uptown,” Gallifrey said. “Get all that leg meat you can.”

“Tastes good?” I asked.

“Never tried it, I know where it’s been. But rich folk seem to think so.”

Antennae are next, carving out the base and keeping them as whole as can be. Mandibles can come out if they’re unbroken. You have to be careful with them, though, because they’ve got acidic venom inside, and the venom sac is fragile as paper. Any crack, it’s not worth it, the sac will rupture and leak out. And then you’ve got a problem on your hands. Or your feet. Or really on any surface. It wasn’t quite as bad as xenomorph blood from Alien, but not far off. They also had a stinger. Different venom. More stable sac. More venomous, less acid. The stinger itself was useful as a needle for large animal veterinary work.

The venom was another gross thing alchemists and wizards wanted. Finally, you had to get down into the gullet of the cymothoa. Heavy acid caused a lot of stuff to get burned down to nothing inside the digestive tract, but some stuff remained. And the gullet held all sorts of small random treasures. In the case of the one I did myself, three golden teeth, twenty-two copper coins, a square nail made out of a metal called silverthorn, and six small diamonds. And that wasn’t the best of the gullets we went through that night. There was a ton of just totally random stuff in them.

As I got the goods out of the bodies, or as we did, Matthew’d take them, wash them, and pack them into labeled crates. Once a crate was full, it went into the cottage.

“Funny to think Titus and I are out, and here you are connecting us again,” he said out of nowhere.

“Out of what, exactly?”

“You looking for my life story?”

“Might make this work go faster.”

“Can’t say it’s that interesting.”

“That’s because you lived it, man. I bet it’s interesting as all hell.”

He paused and popped a crack out of his neck, then shrugged.

“Mayhap,” he said. “I used to say that all the time. Now I don’t. Why you think that is?”

“You realized mayhap is a stupid word.”

“Mayhap it is.”

“Healing potions are a thing here, right?”

“Can be.”

“Can be?”

“If you have the coin and know the right person. You hurt?”

“I’m getting a few more burns than I’d like.”

He walked over to the gate and peered through. Looked left, right, and all around. Then, he nonchalantly strolled back my way and bent his head close to mine.

“When we finish this work tonight,” he whispered, “I’ll teach you the first of the spells I know. It’ll help you heal. But no more talk like that out loud. Magic is the darkest of everything in this Empire. Got it?”

“I do,” I said.

Then we went back to our gruesome duty.

29

We carved up bodies all night long, working at an increasingly breakneck pace. I was pushing up against exhaustion, even going past the point I should have, with my stamina wholly drained, which caused hp loss. It was very possible to work myself to death in this world. The pain wasn’t that bad. I could push thought it, at least at first. The more I pushed, the worse the pain got. And it was a weird pain, like a full-body sort of ache.

“Take a break,” Matthew finally said, pulling me off the body I was butchering, and steering me towards the cottage. He went inside and pulled a stool out, setting it next to the door outside.

I stumbled to a seat position, looking up at the sky. It was brighter in the east, the morning was just around the proverbial corner. My breath came in gulps.

“Workin’ too hard,” he said, back at work himself, though. “I appreciate the effort. But you got to watch out for yourself. No one else will.”

“You just did,” I said softly.

“That’s because there’s a responsibility, trainer-trainee nonsense and all. My job to make sure you make it out of here alive. Or at least, to do due diligence.”

“Ha.”

“You’d oddly be good in the Legion. You ever think of giving it a shot?”

“The Legion? No. And how would you know?”

“I did my time.”

“In the Legion?”

“The Imperial Legion,” he said, pulling his coveralls open to show his chest where there was now a tattoo of the Imperial Sigil. “Ten years.”

“I thought you had to do twenty or something, did you go awol?”

“AWOL? Did I desert?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Twenty years is full term. There’s more than just full term. Everyone says they’ll go full term, but you only sign up for five years at a time. You do five years, you get out, you get the sigil, you get to say you were in the Legion. Ten years, you get out, you get half the money you put into pension, you get to say you were in the Legion. Fifteen, you get a spot in LegionHome if you need it. You get the money you put into pension. Full term, you get a full pension, and you get a plot of land. Place in LegionHome if you want. But the big dogs go Full Term plus. Plus five and you get more land. Plus ten, more. Some fools will go thirty or more years with the Legion. And they’ll come out with the ability to alter the course of their bloodline. Maybe even become nobility.”

“Why’d you leave if it’s so good?”

“Don’t like someone else lording over me, telling me what to do, who to kill.”

“Why do you think I’d like it?”

“Didn’t say you’d like it, said you might be good at it. Oddly.”

“Not where I want to go,” I said

“I’m getting that.”

My stamina was restoring, just slowly. I made a mental note to get a canteen or some means of carrying water with me, maybe try to eat on a more regular basis. I closed my eyes and did a little breathing, then got to my feet, shook my leaden limbs, and got back into the mess.

When dawn came, I realized why we’d been working so hard. Wagons arrived at the gate, multiple. A gruff looking man rapped his club against the metal gate.

“Ho there, Gallifrey,” the man said. “Busy night.”

“Got a good pit, Wildingham,” Matthew replied, opening the gate. “You here for the waste?”

“I am,” Gruff replied, driving his wagons into the open area between stacks of bodies. “What have you got?”

“Cymothoa mostly. Also, some Anguids.”

“Cymothoa? Lucky dog.”

“Right? Heard Constance Heath hit trollspawn. That true?”

Wildingham nodded and pulled a flask out from under his seat as his underlings started loading the corpses into the wagons. “Legion had to step in.”

“Heath make it out?”

Wildingham shook his gruff head. “Kept the spawn from spreading, but she couldn’t hold out. Only one left alive, new girl.”

“Bad business,” Matthew said, staring into the pit.

“Aye, it is that. But it must be done.”

Matthew nodded. Wildingham hopped down from the wagon and pushed the flask into Matthew’s hand. Matthew took a sip, then made a face

“Who’s this then?” Wildingham asked, smiling at me.

“New assistant. Hatchett.”

The gruff man tipped his hat to me, “Tomas Wildingham, at your service.”

“Clyde Hatchett, at yours.”

“You thinking of being a pitmaster, Hatchett?” he asked.

“Exploring my options.”

“Oh? You have them?” He laughed at his own joke. “The joys of youth, eh, old friend.”

Matthew just shook his head and took another eye-watering sip from the flask.

“What swill are you drinking today, Wildingham?” he asked.

Wildingham laughed, “Tears of Affedda.”

Matthew eyed the man and passed the flask back quickly. “It’ll be the death of you.”

“Better’n being trollspawn food.”

“You know the girl?”

“Constance’s girl?”

“Her, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Might be I have room for another assistant.”

“I can have a word with her, should you like.”

“Please.”

Wildingham nodded, then got his wagons out of the pit area, driving them back up the road. It was weird seeing all the space outside the pit, but it wasn’t quite time for rest. Wagons started showing up, picking up different crates, and driving them off. That kept Matthew pretty busy. Me, I had a more unpleasant job. I got to haul water out of a barrel with a bucket and wash all the remaining blood and guts and stuff back into the pit.

Finally, though, I got the nod from Matthew. He’d loaded up the last of the crates, I’d washed off the paved area around the pit, the tables, and the instruments of our butchery. Everything was cleaned up and shipshape, minus the ship, of course. At which point, I could go into the cottage with my mentor and get some instruction.

30

Matthew had me sit down on the floor, cross-legged. He did the same across from me.

“I’m assuming you know how magic is learned via spellbooks,” he said.

“I am,” I said.

“And you have a few spells?”

“I do.”

“Do you know the other ways to learn magic?”

“No.”

“Best is books. You can be taught spells by rote. Learning it, memorizing motions and words and the push of mana. It can take time, you might never learn it, but you’ll rarely get hurt. You can discover it yourself, which is next to impossible, and you might blow yourself up in the process.”

“Why do I think there’s another way?”

“Someone can give you their spells.”

“That seems pretty good.”

“It can be a bit tough, you gotta get all the spells at once, and if your body or mind can’t take it, well, poof.”

“Poof?”

“From what I hear, it’s a bit messier than that.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t do that.”

“Close your eyes.”

I did.

“Feel the magic as it sits inside you.”

I’ve never been one for meditating. Not seriously, at least. I tried it a few times, as evidenced by my having the meditation skill, but I’d never really had the wherewithal to keep it up. See my meditation skill still at level one. But it was immediately different. With my eyes closed, I started to explore the inner me, I guess. And as ridiculous as it sounded, there was something there. I could feel the mana in myself. My system. I could feel as it sat in the core of my body like I had a small ball of energy the size of a baseball in the center of my body. It moved around in a chaotic pattern, never sitting still, almost like it was jittery.

“Got it?” Gallifrey asked.

“I feel something.”

“Is it in a shape?”

“Like a ball, I guess?”

“Okay. Good. I wasn’t sure if an elf would be different, but it seems like it’s similar enough to work with. If you’ve got some magic, you’ll always have some magic. But it doesn’t really want to be used by you. Well, it does, and it doesn’t. I don’ know that much about it, but I what I know, you got to use magic to use magic. You have to keep the flow of magic going through your body as much as you can, as often as you can. You need to build and maintain pathways for the magic to go through your body from your core out into the world, and you have to control that stuff nigh-on perfectly if you actually want to use magic here in the Empire.”

“You have a lot of spells?”

“Focus on yourself, we can talk later. Compress the mana down and down and down until you’ve got it fully under your control. Until it no longer moves about.”

It was a slippery son of a bitch, magic. The mana ball seemed to eschew any of my attempts to control it, almost like it was a wet bar of soap and I was trying to grip it full strength. Which gave me an idea. I tried to gently corral it, to focus on getting the ball where I wanted and keeping it there not through sheer force of will but, instead, just imagining it there.

And then it was almost effortless. I got it in place, and I started to compress it down, focusing on making the ball more and more powerful.

“Got it,” I said.

“This is probably going to hurt if you’re doing it right,” Matthew started.

“Great.”

“Force that ball of energy all around your body, especially up and down your arms and your fingers. Everywhere you want that mana to go in your body, you need to force that ball.”

I initially started moving the core around my, uh, core, and even though it had been bouncing around in there in the beginning, without me even knowing a damn thing about it, as soon as I started pushing it around in a more directed sense, I felt it. It felt like burning. And aching. Somewhere between burning and aching. Pain. And then, when I started pushing it around my body, going from my core down my arm, well, I’ve experienced some intense pain in my life, but that’s up near the top.

“You might need to stop,” Matthew said.

I closed my eyes tighter, not liking when people told me to stop. I’d tell myself when to stop. I pushed harder. Forcing it down my arm and down each finger. The pain was overwhelming, my body was shaking, but I wasn’t done. I forced the manaball down my other arm and each finger. I took a deep breath, then went down each leg and out to each toe. Finally, I brought it up my neck and into my head. Pain was everything. Everywhere. I had no other feelings, nothing but pain, and the knowledge that I needed to finish this. Through to my eyes, across my face, I took the painball all around my head, and then I brought it back to my center, and slowly, ever so slowly released it.

My body was on fire. Which, you know, since I’d had that experience, I knew how close of a match it was in terms of a feeling.

Slowly, very slowly, it subsided, and then I got the notification:

Congratulations. You have burned mana pathways through 100% of your body. You have gained the ability Mana Efficiency. All spells cost less mana to cast. You regain mana at an increased rate.

I opened my eyes.

No one was there.

“You’re back,” Matthew said.

I turned around to see him stretched out in a chair.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Been out some time,” he said, coming to standing and stretching.

“I was passed out?”

“No, you were in it.”

“In what?”

“It. The magic of your insides. Blazing pathways, I imagine.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my hand to my head, “and it hurt.”

“Tends too. Go everywhere?”

“Yeah.”

“Hands and feet?”

“And head.”

“Head? You are a fool.”

“Is that dangerous?”

“That’s usually a good way to implode your brain.”

“Where were you my trainer on that?”

“I was the one standing outside of you telling you to stop before you blew your brain out from your ears.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember a little of that.”

“You need to do that at least once a day.”

“Once a day?”

“It is barely the beginning of the price of magic. If you follow the path deeper, you will see more and more of the problems that come with practicing the arcane arts.”

“Do you—”

“I know a few spells and do the minimum needed to keep them in my repertoire. And nothing I do I do in public. Neither should you. The hint of magic about your person and the Imperium will come down on you like a warhammer.”

“Can someone tell when you’re, what, moving the mana around your body?”

He nodded. “Though only theoretically. It would have to be someone remarkably talented and observant, and I doubt there is anyone so skilled out and about in the world. Best, though, to do such work in the privacy of your own home. When you can at least. Time for the spell.”

“What’s the spell?”

“Heal Self. It is the best way to ensure that you are never injured for long. But I warn you, if you are ill, if you are poisoned, any sort of healing magic will make things immeasurably worse. You will only amplify the disease. You must first cure the disease, and then you may heal the wound. And do not heal yourself in this manner unless you are free of things inside you. If an arrowhead remains, you must remove it before healing.”

“Will it mend broken bones?”

“Good question, kid. Yes. But the bones must be set properly. Usually, your best bet is to go to a healer, have them set the bones like you don’t know magic, give it a little while to heal naturally, and then magic yourself back to full.”

“Okay, I’m ready then.”

“Sit,” he said, and we resumed our spots. He walked me through the process of the spell, which involved intricate hand movements and low chanting. It wasn’t a quick sort of healing process, but it did the job. It was almost a one for one trade of mana to health, which meant I wouldn’t be able to fully heal myself if I was drained too far, but it was definitely better than relying on whatever medical science they had in Glaton.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Minor Heal Self.

Minor Heal Self allows you to heal yourself. The caster may continuously cast the spell until out of mana.

He finally let me stand once I was able to heal a cut on my arm, and it was closing in on mid-afternoon. “Return here at midnight,” he said. “The next phase of pit work begins. And bring something you have stolen.”

And with that, he shoved me out of the cottage.

31

I was definitely exhausted. It had been a very long series of days working with Matthew and his pit. But I was also elated. I had done magic. Magic. The very thought of it was so incredible.

Magic.

I wanted to do more. I wanted to cast spells all over the place, but then, every time I got past the giddiness of being a spell caster, even a minor one as I was, the paranoia swept over me in a grand wave. I was a true outcast. If anyone found out about my abilities, they could turn me in. Or even kill me. They could strike me down in the street and get away with it, as long as they had evidence of my magical abilities. I had to keep it secret. And yet, I could do magic. I just needed to keep practicing, and they could all go screw themselves. Magic was the great equalizer. The means to great power.

But I knew it wasn't great power I wanted. I just wanted enough power to do what I wanted. Which wasn’t the whole truth, and when I finally bit that honesty bullet, ultimately I wanted to screw over the rich people, make them hurt. I wanted to help the poor, the weak. I wanted to be Robin Hood. And Robin Hood didn’t mess around with magic, he did it all himself. In a book and legend, sure, but without magic. But maybe I could use a little magic, just even the playing field in my favor a little more. Besides, magic was cool. Really damn cool.

Walking through the city during the day with no real urgency was nice. It gave me a few minutes to really look at the world around me. And to breathe in the air of the city. Because the air in the city was often disgusting, and at that time I was very disgusting, I didn’t linger in the less than pleasant areas. I wouldn’t say I jogged, but I definitely hurried to get to the affluent district, the Golden Square. Which was more of a quadrangle really. I wanted to take a peek at the temples.

There were huge banks along the main roads, the Principalis and the Praetorious. Big and ostentatious, they had massive sets of stairs and lots of guards in shiny armor. Big mean looking men and women who scowled at someone like me walking near them.

But one block over, the banks were smaller, seemingly wedged between larger more ornate buildings. The temples. Again, though, these places seemed more focused on looking good than going good. The men and women out front didn’t look much like guards, but there was still a menacing air about them. And they had weapons, which made them a step above the ordinary citizen. If I had to make a guess, which I did because I didn’t feel like I was in the right frame of mind to actually go up and talk to them, these folk would likely best be classified as Paladins. It made me wonder if Paladin was a Choice in this class-less world. And curiosity got the better of me because I walked up to a human man in the brightest full plate armor I had ever seen covered by a brilliant white tabard with a silver fist rising up.

“Pardon me,” I started, thinking politeness was an excellent way to go with a man such as this, but he snapped his head in my direction, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

“Almsday has passed, beggar,” he sneered in my general direction. “Begone.”

“I was just looking for an answer to a question.”

“You will find no answers here, scum.”

“You have some rage issues.”

He reached for the sword at his belt and eyed me. The threat was clear, if I said anything else, he’d draw and fight me.

Temptation.

I knew he had to be a higher level than me, what with me being a relative supernoob in this world, but I also knew I’d pop back to life in an alley not that far from the Golden Circle. But popping back into that alley could put me right in the crosshairs of the Iron Silents, or, rather, could put me deeper into their crosshairs. I doubted they knew my traveler nature with certainty yet, but that’d give them all the evidence they’d need to start spawn camping me.

“Apologies,” I said, bowing low. “I only meant to inquire as to your patron. I am but a humble traveler to this land.”

“You know not of the God of Justice?” he asked, flabbergasted I might not know.

“I must plead ignorance,” I said.

The big man shook his head, “I pity the land you hail from if the God of Justice is not known on those shores. Is it a lawless land? Does chaos reign supreme?”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“Then it is good you have come to the Empire.”

“I agree.”

I waited for him to say something else to me, but the look of disdain meant that our conversation seemed to have been concluded.

“A good day to you then,” I said.

He grunted in return and resumed his position standing in front of a massive white marble pillar.

Walking away quickly, doing my best to portray fear I didn’t feel, I wondered about the God of Justice. If it was possible he, or she, was only active in a portion of the world. The pantheon of Vuldranni was something I hadn’t dabbled in at all, and, frankly, I thought it was probably going to be a massive pain in the ass. See, the Golden Square had long streets, and there was no shortage of temples. That meant there were a lot of gods. And goddesses. And those with temples in this city were likely the most revered, the most popular. That meant there were even more who existed who weren’t represented in Glaton’s capital city.

I stopped, fast enough that someone bumped into me from behind, cursed at me, then kept going. I’d assumed gods were real in this world. I hadn’t exactly seen any evidence of that as of yet. It made sense, though, that they would be. Magic was real, why would gods be any different? Everything in the world pointed to being close to the games of my past, and in those games, gods were always players on the great board of chess. Naturally, they’d be the same here. But, you know what they say about assumptions. I wasn’t exactly sure how to find out if gods were real, but I knew it would be easier after a little sleep. Especially if I needed to make my way through the night back to the pit for more fun in the slum.

32

The tavern was busy when I got back, even though it wasn’t really even dinner time. I didn’t even need to go inside to see the customers, I could hear them from outside. And I didn’t want to go into the tavern looking as I did, covered in pitfilth. I went upstairs, and I got into the shower, coveralls and all. I rinsed off my oilskin suit, then peeled it off, and went about scrubbing my body down with some rough soap I’d bought from a general store I found around the corner from my place. I probably could have gotten something similar from Gideon, but that guy made me feel uncomfortable, and I had the distinct feeling he was ripping me off. I mean, I knew he was, and he could because he was also my fence. So, instead, I’d made a choice to get my necessary products from anywhere else. Illegal stuff, for that, I’d go to Gideon.

The shower was an absolute pleasure, and I totally stayed in there way longer than was prudent. I turned mostly prune before I got out, so you could say I was prude-ish. While in hot water, I tried cycling my mana through the pathways I’d made. It didn’t feel great, there was definitely a burning and unpleasant tingling as I did, but it was nowhere the pain I’d experienced before, and running it around my head and face didn’t make me pass out or anything, so that was a win. I dried off and dressed, doing my best to keep the cycle going. I wanted it to become second nature, I didn’t want to have to shut my body and mind down, to meditate in seclusion. That seemed like too much of an invitation for bad things to happen. I’d be powerless if someone decided that was the opportune time to come for a violent visit. And in my line of work, or at least in the line of work I was expecting to undertake, violent visits were going to become something I needed to prepare for.

I pushed my way into the tavern and scored a spot at the bar with equal measures luck and glares, sitting down on an unpleasantly still warm stool. Titus gave me a wave, and his wife Penelope shot a smile toward me. Still, it took time before either one of them was able to get down to me and take an order.

Which was still a short interaction.

“Big meal or small,” Titus asked.

“Big,” I said.

“Ale?”

“Sure.”

And that was it. A moment later, Titus's daughter, Neela, came out of the kitchen and put a hunk of meat and a pile of potatoes in front of me, while Penelope set an overflowing mug next to me.

The people on either side of me eyed my food and drink, and perhaps me, but I stopped paying attention. Instead, I tucked into the food. And it was delicious. But not overly so. I mean, I wasn’t blown away by the fare. It was just good. And the ale was ale. Nothing at all unusual about it. Ale was commonplace in Glaton, and it seemed to be the beverage of choice for most meals, breakfast included. It was nowhere near the alcoholic level of beer back home, but I had the feeling nearly everyone operated on a measured buzz throughout the day. I preferred water for the day. Or when I was working. I just wasn’t that big a fan of booze, you know, after seeing what it did to my dad. And my family in general.

As I finished up, my plate disappeared, and my mug was refilled without me saying a thing. I felt a sense of satisfaction. Things were going okay. And in my life, okay was a step up. I wondered, though, what was going on with the bar. Why was it so popular? What had changed? Had it changed? The first time I’d seen it, the place had been, well, slow would have been hyperbole. Titus was reading books and ignoring patrons. And I could see his books, a collection of leather-bound tomes up above the pricey bottles of liquor, and I could see the strip of ribbon he used as a bookmark, one that hadn’t moved in days. Every time I passed the tavern, it was either closed or busy. What was the difference? And was it essential I figure it out?

“I apologize for the delay in meeting you,” came a smooth voice uncomfortably close to me.

I turned my face a little faster than I’d meant and got a close-up view of a perfect looking man, blonde hair, blue eyes, aquiline nose, resting smile. He had a hat on his head, a full brimmed sort of a thing with a feather out the top. Yellow. Matching his jacket and trousers. A dandy. A fop. A rich dude, who held two fingers up and a gold coin between them.

Penelope came directly.

“Another for him,” my new drinking buddy said, “and a whiskey for me. And you can keep the change.” He dropped the coin into her hand, and Penelope smiled.

“Thank you, sir,” she said and managed to return to us in record-breaking time, a second mug for me and a wooden tumbler of whiskey for the fop.

The fop picked up his tumbler and held it up.

“To forgiveness of fools,” the fop said.

“Sounds good to me,” I replied, and clunked my mug against his tumbler.

We each drank.

“I must ask,” I said, “are you here seeking my forgiveness?”

“Indeed,” the fop said. “One of my, well, he’s less an associate but more than an underling, but I believe he came to speak with you and instead threatened you.”

“Ah,” I said, picking up what he was putting down, “Iron Silents.”

“You remember him then,” the fop said.

“I do. Not the nicest chap.”

“No, he lacks a certain social charm. All charm, really, but then again, that’s not why he’s working with us.”

“He makes a good threat,” I lied. The fop was pleasant, I saw no reason to be impolite to him.

“That he does. But I don’t want you to think we’re here to threaten you. Rather, I see promise in what you have done, what you are doing. And I’m curious, are you new here?”

“I am.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I appreciate you coming to ask for my forgiveness, but I fear telling you my home town is not in my best interest.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“You seem the types who might, well, go to greater lengths to, uh—”

“You can say that we resort to violence when all other means fail. That’s been true in the past.”

“Then, you understand. If I tell you my hometown, little remains to stop you from heading there and threatening members of my family to force me to do what I won’t.”

“Now now, you think we would stoop to that?”

“I don’t know you, I don’t know what constitutes stooping.”

He took another sip of his whiskey and smiled as it burned down his throat.

“Are you from elven homelands?” he asked.

“No,” I replied with a slight shake of my head, doing my utmost to recall what I’d read about the Elves of the Sun and the Moon, my chosen people. I was pretty sure we didn’t have homelands. “I am born of the Empire.”

“Interesting. I, myself, come from a land far away.”

“Are you now an Imperial citizen?”

He got a look on his face like he was contemplating a concept he’d never thought of, “I suppose I am.”

“If I might ask a question, and since I neglected to answer yours, feel free to ignore mine, but why do you want this building so badly?”

“Do you know what we do?”

“By we, you mean—”

“The Iron Silents.”

“I do not.”

“We have our fingers in several pies, and the greater the number of pies, the better we can survive and focus on having our organization thrive. This neighborhood, Old Town, has been resistant to us, and this building has a good location. Near enough the gate for quick travel about the city, but also, it would give us an excellent outpost here. Especially if something were to befall the city, it would be safer here.”

“Is there something coming?”

“Oh, there are always things coming, whether they arrive is the real question, isn’t it?”

“Do you know something?”

He smiled. “Ah, that is one of the products we specialize in, information. I sadly can’t go about passing that around for free. Were you to join us, then that would be a different matter.”

“Are you asking me to join?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. High though I am in the organization, I’m not able to just magic you in.”

He sipped more of his whiskey.

“But,” he continued, as if he’d just had this thought, “were you to express interest, I could push your name to the top of the list of applicants and ensure you receive fair consideration.”

“Are there benefits to joining the Iron Silents?”

“Naturally. We are one of the most powerful groups in the city, and we protect our own. We nurture our own. You will grow in levels, skills, and power if you join us. And there are riches on the horizon, and the earlier you get in, the better your payout when we strike true wealth.”

“Pretty tempting.”

“I’d like to think so, but obviously, no pressure. I am here to ask forgiveness for our slights, not pressure you into joining or anything. We would still be interested in chatting about the sale of this building, not now, but in the future. At a rate that would be fair. Market and all. Don’t want you to feel you’ve been slighted, would we?”

“We would not.”

He set another gold on the counter, “I’m afraid I must run, but please, drink on me tonight.”

The fop patted my shoulder and slipped away through the crowd before I could even muster a goodbye. I looked at the gold coin on the counter, and something seemed off about it. I didn’t touch it. I just stared at it, and even though I couldn’t be sure, I swore I saw the slightest purple tinge to it.

I had a long night ahead of me, so I left the bar. And the coin. As I went, I saw a young man exclaim his luck. He’d found a gold coin, and he ran out of the place like he pants were on fire, yelling that he was finally heading somewhere, but I couldn’t catch the name.

“Where’s he headed so fast?” I asked the man standing next to me.

The burly man had arms nearly as big as my legs, but stood wobbly on his own giant trunks, squinted as he tried to bring me into focus.

“The Gilded Garden,” he slurred, so he might have equally said Golden Guardian. Or Goalies God Win. “Got a Kitsune Girl there, they do.”

He burped in my face then and threw up just a little in his mouth.

“‘Scuse me.”

And with that, he stumbled outside.

I waited a moment longer, hoping the stench cloud of his burp would dissipate before I had to walk through it, but it didn’t. And I went back up to my apartment, and I laid down. As soon as my eyes closed, though, something happened.

IT IS TIME. YOU MUST CHOOSE:

For reaching level five, you are offered one Choice. You must make a Choice. This prompt may not be minimized nor ignored.

First Choice

1) Rogue - Rogues are the generalist of the underworld. They do a little burgling, a touch of thuggery, a pinch of purse-cutting, and the occasional murder. Rogues gain bonuses to progression in thievery skills. A good place to start.

2) Second Story Man - Slip into buildings in silence, pilfer goods, sneak out. Second Story Men gain bonuses to progression in thievery skills, bonuses to progression in stealth skills, penalties to progression in martial skills

3) PitMan — Work in the pits. Bonuses to disease resistance, bonuses to harvesting, bonuses to moving in difficult terrain. Penalties to social interactions.

You have one minute to decide.

* * *

I didn’t exactly like any of my options. So I just stuck with Rogue. And then, blessedly, I was allowed to sleep.

33

Two hours, and I was up. The apartment was unchanged. I pulled on the oilskin coveralls, wishing a dryer was a thing here. Or would work on oilskin. Then, I sat down in a closet on the third-floor parkour apartment and did the meditation thing. I wanted to be out of sight, as hidden and safe as I could be while I was totally vulnerable. I cycled the magic around my body, and I noticed that my mana totals were higher. I cut my arm a few times and healed it back up. It was pretty cool that there wasn’t even a scar. I mean, I wasn’t digging the blade deep through my arm, mainly surface cuts, but the skin was coming back together just as clean as can be.

Then I prepared to do something a bit foolish. Use shadow step.

I had no idea how to use it. Well, that’s not exactly true. I knew the spell; therefore, I had an innate knowledge of what I was supposed to do, as well as a vague sense of what was going to happen. But as I was finding out, the reality of magic and the expectation of magic are rarely on the same page. The spell indicated that I’d have a second to move through the shadow zone. Didn’t let me know what the shadow zone was. Or what happened if I didn’t leave the shadow realm.

I stood, got the mana ready, and I cast the spell.

Everything went weird, dark. And cold. There were wavy lines throughout the whole world, and all the color disappeared. It was a world in greyscale like everything had been built out of smoke. I couldn’t see through anything, but there was the sense that the concept of solid had been abolished. And yet, I was standing on the floor. It was still there, still solid. I was a little afraid to move, so I didn’t. After what seemed like way more than a second, I felt like I was forced back into the real world. Everything was in color and normal once more. And it was much warmer back in reality.

For a minute, I waited. Then I did some stretching, and then a short cycle of free-running through the obstacle course.

I worked out until I got a little sweat going, and then I stopped and I did a quick meditation cycle.

A quick cast of the spell and I was ready; I moved. Just a little. I stamped my foot on the floor and put my hand against the wall. I couldn’t move through stuff as it wasn’t there. But I got a sense of something on the other side like I could feel the glowstone at the other end of the room through the obstacle in front of it.

Then I was forced out again. It didn’t seem like I could stay in too long, which was a relief of sorts. Meant it would be impossible to get stuck in there.

The usefulness of the spell was escaping me. But I was determined to figure it out, so I cast it again, and this time, I tried running further, seeing if there was some sort of distance limit to it. I vaulted across a big beam of wood, and as I flew through the air, I saw a fly in the same general space as me. But it didn’t get out of the way; instead, I watched its wings flap. I’d never seen a fly’s wings flap before, it’d always been a buzz. I popped back into reality, sliding to a stop on the smooth wooden floor, and the fly zipped away from me. Wings a blur.

“Ohhhh,” I said, getting it. Shadowstep took a second, but time clearly moved differently in the Shadow Realm, so to someone from the outside, it’d look like teleportation. That would have some real uses. It took a heavy toll on my mana, I could only do it four times in a row before I was totally drained. What I could do with the spell, though, made me very excited.

I looked over at the clock above the mantle and saw it was time to go. I was going to have to run to get to the Pits.

34

It was a chilly night, a strong wind coming from the direction of the river. Clouds obscured the moons. Plural. Because there were four of them, and they were each a different color. The combination made moon shadows technicolor. At least when they were all full, which was apparently a rather rare sight. I was still getting used to the idea of the streets being basically empty at night. Back in the old world, some cities never really shut down. But here, there’d be an occasional horse or wagon, a guard patrol here or there. Sure, there’d be people in bars. But those bars would be very close to their homes. It seemed like the city functionally shut down a bit before midnight, then didn’t really come back to life until after the sun had come up. Except for fools like me.

The thing was, I still hadn’t really seen the reasoning behind it. There weren’t things out at night, at least that I’d seen. Nothing swooped down from above, stealing children. There weren’t creatures slinking around trying to suck my blood. So why, then, was everyone afraid of the night?

I would soon learn.

It was a few blocks from my building, heading east when I heard a bizarre noise. Something along the lines of a tremendous slurping noise. Like a giant eating really thick noodle soup with no table manners. Or someone mixing a colossal bowl of Mac and cheese. It was weird enough that it grabbed ahold of my curiosity and wouldn’t let go, I had to find out the source of the noise.

Whatever it was wasn’t concerned with being quiet, because it was loud as hell and pretty easy to follow. I went down the street, turned the corner, and came upon the noisemaker.

It was disgusting. A giant golden-yellow blob was latched onto the side of a building. Half the side of the building, the other half of the creature was on the sidewalk. I could see where the beast had come from, a sewer entrance directly across the street. It was a hole about a yard wide. There was a thick mucus trail from the sewer over to the building. And the blob was about twenty feet across, and I could mostly see through the yellow bastard into the home it was currently attempting to eat. Which was definitely weird, seeing blurry people screaming through a yellow filter. Also, the firelight dancing through the creature. And there were definitely a bunch of small skeletons, and other bits and bobs, floating through the ooze that seemed to make up the creature’s body. I looked at the mucus on the ground, then at the ooze eating through the building, and I wondered what, exactly, differentiated the two.

As far as an evening’s distraction, it was pretty cool to see a living ooze. I’d never seen one before. Honestly, seeing one is really enough. The fact that it was massive was just a bonus. It struck me as a fascinating coincidence that I’d just been lamenting the lack of crazy stuff in the night and the lack of gods, and now I had a big monster as evidence in front of me. Probably Ted the God of Coincidence throwing down to prove both doubts to me.

Thanks, Ted.

I really needed to get going, a place to be, work to do that night, I couldn’t just hang around and play with the ooze. It just wasn’t really my business. Ooze attacks were probably just part of life. And the City Watch would probably be along any minute. The family on the other side of the ooze was probably totally safe. Right?

I really wanted to stroll away. I really did.

But then I saw a little boy screaming in his mother’s arms, and that just did a small thing to my heartstrings. I pulled the sword out, the bronze glinting in the little bit of glowstone light from the corner.

The ooze wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to me.

So I brought my sword in the biggest, fastest, craziest overhand chop I could muster.

The bronze blade sliced through the yellow slime ball ooze thing like it was barely there, going all the way through the ooze and hitting the cobblestones below it hard enough to spark.

I stood up, just a little perplexed. Why was this thing even dangerous?

Me and my big mouth.

The ooze lacked a face in a traditional sense, but there was definitely some sort of directionality to the creature, some sense of front and back. But it didn’t really need to turn around in the way that you or I did, as far as I could tell, it just had to shift its attention.

And shift it did. It turned its attention from the family huddling in their ruined shop to me and reached a blob of itself out, almost like an extended mouth, or a giant demented LEGO hand, it was the right color.

I had to dance back out of the way as the mass of yellow ooze went whooshing by, grabbing onto air just where I’d been. But unlike me, who had to reset and move my arms back to where I wanted to grab something, the big ooze just sent another pseudopod after me, shooting an ooze arm right at my face.

All of a sudden, practicing with the anguids seemed pleasant.

I brought the sword across in front of me, backhand, cutting into the ooze’s oozearm. But the ooze had done something to itself, at least where I was trying to cut it, because though the sword bit into the ooze, it didn’t go nearly as deeply through it, and the ooze just grabbed onto the sword and sucked it into itself.

Now I faced the ooze unarmed.

And there were definitely more pseudopods coming for me, a veritable forest of them.

I had to move, but there was really nowhere for me to go, except run away.

But I hated running away. And if I left, the yellow ooze was just going to go back to the hole it’d eaten into the building and then finish off the people who were still standing in there watching me try and fight their attacker.

Balls.

Time to use magic.

I cast shadow step.

The world shifted into smoke, and I darted around to the other side of the ooze. I pulled two daggers out of my belt, picked the longer one, and I pushed myself out of the shadow realm.

On the opposite side, pseudopods flailed about trying to find where I’d gone.

Meanwhile, I carved a big ol’ chunk from the ooze.

Mr. Ooze was not happy with losing a piece of himself, and he spun his attention, and a ton of pseudopods, my new way, but I was already moving, hoping, perhaps, ooze wasn’t super keen with vision.

Wrong.

He tracked my every movement, and he was sending out tentacles of ooze to catch me. I darted under one, had to quickly hurdle another, and then slid in my best approximation of little league to avoid two ooze-tacles coming together to smash me into paste. And the two pseudopods collided with enough force that I could feel it.

Again, I was getting encircled. This brainless, spineless asshole was beating me!

With no choice, I cast shadow step again. I ran around the creature and was about to pop back into reality when I realized that the bit of ooze I’d cut off was now crawling after me. It had a damn mind of its own. I looked around a bit frantically trying to hit upon a strategy. All my weapons were cutting or slashing weapons, and when I realized that my biggest weapon was currently in the middle of the yellow ooze, I only had two cutting weapons. Clearly, they weren’t going to do the trick.

I popped back into reality with a moment to breath as the creature tried to figure out where I’d disappeared to, and I looked into the shop. The family was still huddled there, lit by their fire.

Fire.

Couldn’t hurt to try.

I ran to the shop, vaulting through the damaged front facade, slipped past the table full of desserts, the pie looked delicious, and I grabbed the longest piece of wood from the fire. It was burning brightly.

“Mind if I borrow this?” I asked the family.

They just stared at me.

“Take that as a yes,” I replied to their silence, “back in a jiffy.”

I had to shadow step because the ooze was almost inside the home, and having already burned three of my uses, I was definitely a bit worried I’d only have one remaining. I had to do a jump and a skip through the window with my flaming bit of wood, which looked doubly freaky in the shadow realm and popped into the real world sliding to a stop on the mucous slicked road.

Where I suddenly had little to no traction.

I swung the branch over my head, the fire crackling in the wind, and brought it down on the ooze as hard as I could.

There was an immense cloud of steam and something that sounded like a scream coming from the ooze.

Fire definitely hurt the ooze. Way more than slicing it apart had. And it appeared that hurting the ooze was a good way to make it mad because it redoubled its efforts to come after me, bringing pseudopods my way with a stunning swiftness.

But now I had an edge, fire on the end of a stick! The fire gave me a slight ability to parry the creature’s attacks away from me: each time I got the flame on the ooze’s skin as much as I could, causing a puff of steam and a rough black patch to appear. A black patch that hindered the ooze, because it couldn’t do anything with the black patches. It couldn’t grow anything out of those spots, and it didn’t seem like it was able to move them around as well. Or to move around them. The black patches messed the ooze up something serious.

Even still, it had me on my back foot, I was defending as well as I could, but with my feet barely able to keep me up, I knew I’d lose my footing and go down in a second. I held my last shadow step close, knowing that if I fell, I’d have to use it.

I tripped on the far curb, but at the same time, I heard yells and a whistle and the tromping of boots.

The guard had arrived.

And there I was, butt on the sidewalk.

The guard didn’t hesitate, they charged forward with clubs and hammers and maces, and started wailing on the ooze from all sides. The creature didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to attack more than one opponent. It decided a retreat was in order and tried to make a break for the sewer opening it had come through, but the guard had that blocked.

And then they brought out buckets of oil and started dousing the creature in it.

The torch came a heartbeat later, and all of a sudden, it wasn’t such a dark night any longer, and I took that as my cue to exit. Plenty of people had definitely seen me do some magic, and I didn’t want to stick around and get nabbed for trying to help a family.

I had to get to work, anyway.

35

I was late.

There’s really no way around that. I wasn’t, like, super late. Just kind of late. Mostly late. But I was also running. Jogging, honestly, but it’s more than a walk. I wasn’t slacking off, I was just late.

And in a move that made me feel just a little warm and fuzzy, my mentor was standing at the gates looking out into the night. Almost as if he was about to set out and find me.

“You’re late,” Gallifrey called out to me.

“I know,” I said as I slowed to a regular walk, letting my stamina bar fill back up while my breathing returned to something more normal. I was definitely in the best shape of my life. Er, of either of my lives. But a jog across a third of a city is still a pretty long haul.

“Something happen?” he asked while opening the gate for me.

“Crashed a little birthday party,” I said.

“You did what?”

I sighed and explained about the ooze.

“And you killed it?” he asked.

“Not really,” I replied. “The Guard showed up, and they did the finishing off. I just didn’t have the right weapons.”

“Shame you missed out the XP. Guessing the ooze got your sword, did it?”

“Yep.”

“Short swords offer more mobility in tight spaces, but you lose reach. And often, reach is more useful.”

“Still would have grabbed the sword and eaten it.”

“That is true,” he said, walking over to the cottage. “I hadn’t really thought about oozes as potential foes, but that’s my fault. Not like they’re rare in your proposed line of life.”

“I’m going to be working in the sewers?”

“Rogues and sewers have a long and inglorious history together. And before you ask, yes, the sewers are full of the disgusting things.”

“This one was twenty feet wide, at least.”

“So you met a medium-sized one.”

“How big do they get?”

“As big as you can imagine, they’re probably a bit bigger.”

“And they come out of the sewers often?”

“Not that often. My thinking, something pushed that out of the sewers there. If’n I was in charge, might want to send some folk down in the muck to poke around and see what might make a twenty-foot yellow ooze flee.”

“Are you suggesting I do that?”

“Don’t be daft, you’d die. You couldn’t take on the yellow ooze. Whatever made it scared would eat you for a snack. Or worse.”

“Is that girl here?”

“Your new coworker? Yeah, she’s in the cottage. We were waiting for you. Didn’t want you to miss any of the fun.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that thing we worked on last night.”

“You mean, this morning?”

“Yeah, sorry,”

“S’okay, days get a bit confusing when you’re working long shifts. What’s the question?”

“I learned a new, uh, thing—”

He held up a finger, then leaned close and whispered: “You learned a new spell?”

“Already knew it, just hadn’t used it until tonight.”

“What is it?”

“Shadow step.”

His face looked like he smelled a bad fart.

“Involves the shadow realm at all?”

“Maybe.”

“Gods, boy, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know, trying to use—”

“Stop there. Don’t get too far down that line while we’re out here. Shadow Realm is nothing to be trucked with. There’s more there than you think, kid.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing there.”

“It’s another realm. Another phase of being. Of course there are things there. Things that live in the shadows. And nothing good has ever come out of the Shadows. It’s a realm of monsters and boogeymen, and the more you touch it or play with it, the greater chance something nasty is going to notice you and come looking. Get curious who’s traipsing in and out, and everything, and I mean everything, that isn’t on this plane with us, seems to want to be here. So they’ll use you to get here.”

“So I shouldn’t be using it?”

“You shouldn’t be using anything along those lines if you ask me. But you seem to be pulled in that direction, so I’m trying to be a mentor like you want me to be, and tell you some of the dangers involved with the games you are playing. Now you want to keep dipping your fingers in and around those pies, be my guest, but it won’t be for lack of knowing the perils. The Shadow Realm is not an innocent otherworld, it is a plane of existence that is built upon ours, and, like ours, is filled with things that have their own purposes for being. So beware.”

“That’s really ominous.”

“Well, shit, boy, ominous? I guess I should just get you a cupcake and have a unicorn crap out some rainbows all over it for you so you can just see the world as the perfect vanilla frosted playground you wish it were.”

“No, I think I’m okay on the whole rainbow poop front.”

“Okay then, how about we get to work, and you think about things.”

“Can we talk about, uh, my possible career around the girl?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“Is she, uh, in the same line of?”

“No, but she’s,” he stopped a minute, and seemed to look skyward to find the words he wanted to use, “she’s got a background like mine. And where you’re headed.”

“Crime.”

“Ehhh, are we calling it crime? She’s from the rougher side of things, and I don’t think she’s got any love for the law or the rich folk who make it.”

He gave me a clap on the shoulder, then opened the door to the stone cottage.

“He’s finally here,” Matthew called in.

A girl walked into view, holding a wooden mug of ale in one hand, she leaned her shoulder against the door jam, and, well, hot damn. Maybe it was just me, maybe it was the world we were in, but I had the definite feeling that people in Vuldranni were more attractive than Earth. This girl, or young woman, was gorgeous. Her hair was dark brown and long. Not quite big, but definitely luxurious. She had a mane. I’d call it a mane at least. I’m not very good with hair. Her face was angular with a sharp but small jawline. Her eyes were piercing, and I felt myself desperately want to take a step back to be out of her steely gaze. She had a petite nose, round with a thin bridge, surrounded by high cheekbones and eyebrows used to arching in mirth. Or disgust. She had pale skin, and I noticed how her milky-white fingers contrasted fiercely with the dark wooden mug. She wasn’t overly thin, not like Etta’d been, she had a little more to her, but it seemed like the fat of youth yet to be burned off by overwork or actual hunger. Naturally, this was all concealed under the truly flattering oilskin coveralls we were all wearing. Nothing sets off a curvy body like a rumpled gross cloth designed to repel liquid poo and semi-solid waste.

She took a surly slug of her ale, and licked the froth from her somehow perfect upper lip with a really pink tongue, and tossed the mug over her shoulder.

“Took him long enough,” she said, and practically sashayed past me.

“Clyde, Nadya,” Matthew said.

Nadya turned and gave me a look over her shoulder.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Hrm,” she replied.

“Glad to see you’re both getting along so swimmingly,” Matthew said, walking over to the pit. “Got two major jobs for the day, shoveling muck and cleaning holes. Who wants what?”

36

Nadya said nothing, so I picked the hole gig. Because it made me laugh a bit. The name at least. The actual job was not fun.

Matthew came over to me and handed me a pair of steel gauntlets.

“Use these,” he said.

Then he handed Nadya a big shovel, like a snow shovel.

“And a present for you,” he said.

She smiled sweetly, then stuck her tongue out him.

Looking around the top area of the pit, I noticed there were some new playthings. Big wagons that looked like huge tanks cut in half. The wheels and axles were up high, and the belly of the tank was almost scraping along the ground. There was also a wooden track around the pit now, a bit like a train track, but smaller. There were two cranes on it, small cranes, but both reached out into the pit. One held a harness and a seat. The other, a big bucket.

“I’m riding on that?” I asked, pointing to the crane.

“Yeah,” Matthew said with a smile. “You complained about the ladder so much I figured that’d be easier than listening to you bitch all night.”

My job was to go up and down the walls and clear out each and every hole. Some were empty. Some had mud. Some had other things. Hence the steel gauntlets. I was going to be reaching into a lot of dark holes.

Matthew was staying up top, while Nadya had to go down to the mud strewn bottom. Apparently, while I was jogging across town, they’d received the wagons, lined them up, laid the track, and gotten both cranes in place. It was possible that I had been later to work than I’d realized. At the bottom, Nadya’d used her shovel to load up a big bucket. Matthew would haul the bucket up, rotate the crane so the bucket was over a wagon, and then he’d filter the mud into the wagon. Basically, the mud was excellent fertilizer, so it’d go almost directly out to the farms around the city. But the farmers weren’t keen on all the undigested stuff in the muck, so that had to be removed, and sometimes there’d be valuables in the mud. Like my first bronze short sword. That was still in the muck somewhere. While Matthew got the mud out of the bucket, Nadya would be busy filling up the bucket on the other side of the crane. That way, there was no wasted time. And no rest.

It wasn’t a tough job at first. I hopped onto the seat and swung myself out over the pit, then lowered myself a bit. First few holes, I reached in, and I pulled out nothing beyond mud, letting it drop into the pit below. Lower, there were larger holes, and I found eggs. I didn’t want to cast spells in case Nadya was magic adverse, so I didn’t identify them, but I imagined they were cymothoa or anguids. Those, I gently placed in a basket behind the seat.

About halfway down, I found my first living creature. It was a foul creature that was a mix between an insect, a lizard, and a weasel. It had a bulbous head, a narrow jaw that opened far too wide, and lots of enormous teeth that seemed to somehow fold in on themselves to fit into the mouth. A super long body, relatively speaking, about four feet long with at least two feet of its tail. Hard carapace, a glossy brown that matched the muck. Big beady eyes, pupils that filled the entire orb, or at least that was my impression thereof. It bit my hand as soon I was I put it in the hole, and held on gravely, even as I ripped it out of its home. It wiggled and moved, flexing its surprisingly muscular body, whipping its tail around so fast it practically whistled. I grabbed the tail fast enough that it didn’t cut me, or the ropes holding me aloft, but then, I had no other hands to move up or down.

“Hey, uh, Gallifrey,” I called up. “Got a thing here.”

The thing squirmed some more while Matthew took his sweet time. At the least, though, he didn’t bother looking down, he just operated my crane, hauling me up to top level.

“What’s this you got then?” he asked, holding a lantern in his hands.

I held out the prize creature.

“Whatever this thing is,” I said.

“Nivalis,” Matthew said. “Toss him this way.”

“Toss him?”

“This way,” he repeated, holding his hand out.

Dutifully, I tossed the creature, the nivalis, over to my mentor.

Matthew snagged the nivalis out of the air and took it into the cottage.

I was impressed at his handling of the animal, and pretty surprised he wanted to keep it. When he came out, I was burning with curiosity.

“What is that thing?” I asked. “And what’d you do with it?”

“People like ‘em as pets.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. They eat all sorts of little critters that’d be biting you. Very popular. Pricey. See if you can find more. Although, if there’s one, there’s probably not two. And if there is, well, there’s a lot of food for the two of them to be eating here. So, you know, good and bad.”

Bad. It turned to be bad.

There seemed to be a never-ending supply of things for the nivalis to eat. All sorts of strange creatures, big spiders, scorpions, rats, insects I couldn’t identify. And all of them focused on biting me and, basically, trying to kill me. Despite the number of things out for my blood, they were mostly minor irritants, and I did a lot of stabby-stabby with my dagger. Quick kills, and then dropping them in the basket, or, more often, tossing them in the general direction of Nadya. To be fair, she started everything by throwing a clump of mud at me, the thick gunk splattering across my back in a stunning moment of malodorous disgustingness.

And then I got to the biggest hole of all of them, near the end of my thankless task. It was the one big enough for me to get in. Not quite enough for me to stand up, but certainly crawl. And it went back far enough that I couldn’t see any end to it. I sat on my harness chair for a minute or two debating my plan of attack. I could get off the chair, climb into the hole twenty plus feet off the ground, and see what mystery laid in wait. Or I could lie and say that it was empty, hoping it was actually the truth.

The thing was, I was there for a learning experience, which meant my mentor had to know there was the chance I’d mess up and/or need him to explain things to me. So instead of hopping off into the darkness in front of me, I hauled my elven butt up to the top and waited for Matthew to finish shoveling mud into the filter.

“What?” he asked.

“Big hole,” I replied.

“The pit? Yeah.”

“In the wall.”

“How big?”

“Me sized.”

“Upright?”

“Half? Crouched?”

“Anything in it?”

“I don’t know. Goes too deep to see anything.”

“Well, that’s a kick in the proverbial nuts.”

“Not a good sign?”

“No.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get a weapon and a lantern.”

“I’m going in?”

“We’re going in,” he said. “Something made that tunnel, and we need to see where it goes.”

37

The sun was kissing the tops of the taller mountains to the north of us, and we three lowly pit workers were standing at the top of the pit with weapons. I had a bow and a ton of arrows, as well as a borrowed wood axe. Matthew had his mace and a large shield. Nadya had two short swords. Up top, staring into the pit, Matthew tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m forming a party,” he said.

Matthew Gallifrey wants you to join his party.

YES/NO

I had no real idea what a party entailed, what benefits it might offer me, but I figured it was probably better to join in whatever my teacher was telling me to do. And I didn’t really want to ask in front of Nadya and seem like a complete and total noob even though that was a pretty damn good descriptor.

Matthew went in first, dropping his shield in the basket of the harness-chair because it was too big to bring in with him.

I was next, ready to shoot over or around Matthew until I realized that his bulk took up the entire tunnel.

And Nadya brought up the rear. She was definitely less than eager to go into the tunnel, but despite her palpable fear, she said nothing, just tightened her belt and put her game face on. Which was a beautiful game face, by the by. She looked really damn good when she was serious.

We three made squelching noises as we crawled through the tunnel. The mud wasn’t as foul as the stuff in the bottom of the pit, likely because it had less pit beast poop in it. And less refuse in general. But there was still a dense layer of sticky, nasty gunk we had to crawl though, and sticky was putting it lightly. It stuck to most everything, with layer upon layer seeming to build on us as we moved forward, making each yard we traveled that much harder. Matthew and Nadya also had to crawl with lanterns. I’d tried to get Matthew to let me go first because I could see in the dark, but he wasn’t willing to let me take that risk.

Which was kind of him, I suppose.

Everything was going along fine until Matthew tumbled out of sight.

I paused, and Nadya ran into my butt with her face.

Then she cursed and shoved me.

And I went tumbling down a steep slope, coming to a rest in a thick bowl of the muck. Looking around in my dark vision, I could see that we were in a room of sorts. A large open area about twenty feet high and fifty feet around. Not a cavern though, this seemed like it had been purposefully constructed by something.

In front of me, and slightly underneath me, Matthew was struggling to free himself from the sticky mud. He’d taken the brunt of my fall as well as his, and it seemed I’d pushed him deeper in. I got my feet on solid ground, then helped him to his feet. He managed to keep his grip on his mace and his lantern, though the lantern was having serious trouble putting any light out through the muck all over it. Scraping the mud off got a little more light out, but not much, as the mud seemed to leave a film over the glass that we couldn’t get off. Probably because everything we had was coated in mud. Including my bow, which pretty much made the weapon useless. So I had the axe and a bunch of arrows. Not the best load-out for this situation. Or any situation really. I don’t think there’s a fight where having a bunch of arrows and no bow is going to be the go-to equipment.

“What is this place?” asked Nadya, her voice coming from behind us.

She kneeled on the edge where the tunnel met the bowl, smart enough to not fall in. Or lucky enough. Or weighed less than we did so she didn’t cause the ground to cave in.

Matthew spun his head around and held a finger to his lips.

I heard something. Probably the same thing Matthew had been listening to, or at least the thing he’d been trying to hear. Something low in tone, almost rumbling. Followed very quickly by a distinct shaking in front and below us.

Something started rising from the mud. Something big. Really big, enough that it looked like half the room was coming up at us.

And it just kept rising. A huge spheroid sort of a thing, and at first I thought it was an ooze, but then I realized that was just the mud hanging on the thing. Then it unfolded itself, a massive head coming up over the torso until the head of the creature was up against the roof of the cavern.

It shook its massive head from side to side, and large swathes of mud came flying off, splattering against us and the walls and giving me a better picture of what exactly we were up against. It was an absolutely ginormous version of a cymothoa. The bug things I’d spent days shooting with arrows.

There was a tense moment as we all stood very still. All four of the beings there. My brain was running through everything I had on me, every technique I knew and what I was able to do. Mostly, I was drawing a blank. Partially because I was woefully unprepared and partly because of the absolute terror pumping through me.

It didn’t seem like Matthew was faring much better, being that he was standing stock still, mouth agape, staring at the monstrosity before us.

Because I’m curious, and a bit of an idiot when it comes to not casting magic, naturally, I cast my identification spell towards the creature.

Lesser Cymothoa Queen

Lvl ??? Greater Insect

A queen. I wonder if she knew I’d killed most of her babies. The creature opened its maw, huge mandibles spread wide on either side and came rushing down at Matthew. I figure she knew.

Matthew wasn’t moving.

Dropping my shoulder, and my axe, I charged into the man and gave him the hardest shove I could out of the path of the monster.

Which, you know, put me right in the path. As the queen’s mouth started to fall on me, I cast shadow step, and everything ground to a halt. The creature was still moving but at less than a snail’s pace. I took a moment to look up into the thing’s mouth, and it was not the best of moves. It was horrible inside, spiky things every which way, a veritable horror show.

Then I crawled out from under the thing, going the opposite way from Matthew, and fumbled around in the mud for the axe I’d dropped until I popped into reality.

The queen slammed into the ground, a wave of mud coming out from her head.

There was a primal sort of roar from Matthew, on the other side of the queen, and I heard the tell-tale sound of mace on carapace. But something told me that he wasn’t going to have a whole lot of luck breaking through her thick chitin. His attacks did, though, keep her attention, and her attention being elsewhere gave me an idea.

I had a really good idea of cymothoan anatomy after spending a very long time taking them apart, and the creatures didn’t have an overwhelming number of weak spots on the outside. However, they did have some. Notably, their antennae were connected right into their brain. All I had to do was climb the creature, cut the antennae out, and then scramble the brain like I was making breakfast for a one-night stand. Easy peasy.

The plan might have been simple, but there was certainly one major problem, climbing the Queen’s back. She was covered in the sticky mud, which, while happy to stick to me, wasn’t exactly a prime climbing surface. And the queen knew precisely when I touched her.

She spun around violently and whacked me in the midsection with one of her giant legs.

I went flying across the chamber, straight up skipping across the mud before slamming into the wall. My vision flashed in a technicolor nightmare, and pain exploded all across my torso, and I definitely felt as if there might be a bone or two loose.

Matthew’s roars continued, as well as his repeated bashing on the queen’s exoskeleton.

The queen was turning towards him, her foreleg raised up, ready to come down on him. I had to act fast. Whatever else Matthew was, a monster hunter he was not.

Getting to my feet, I shouted at the queen, and she seemed surprised to hear from me, stopping to look at me.

I cast shadow step. This time I sprinted across the room and did my best parkour leaping up her mud-covered body. One unknown advantage about the slowed time, my feet weren’t slipping in the mud they way they were in real-time, so as I shifted into the real world and full color, I was leaping the last bit to the queen’s head, my hand outstretched to grab onto the royal bug’s antennae. I crashed into her and did a full stripper turn around the pole of her sensory appendage.

Then I jammed my dagger into that little spot between chitin armor and sensitive nerves. It was a bigger circle cut than I’d done the whole previous night, but it was a move I knew, and the dagger zipped right around the base.

Meanwhile, the queen realized that something horrible was happening to her head and that a little annoying thing was there, so she reared up, angling to smash her head against the top of the chamber.

I knew that was going to be my downfall. Or up fall. I’d be little more than an elven paste on the roof. I didn’t particularly want to do that, so even though I’d cast it twice already, and a bunch of times that day, I cast my new favorite spell again.

Shadow step.

And I kept cutting the antennae off.

Or I tried to.

But nothing happened.

So I just moved far enough down the neck of the queen that I was out of the way of the roof. But as I shot back to reality, I thought I saw something at the edge of my vision. Something darker in and amongst the natural smoke of the Shadow Realm.

Back to normal speed, and I had to focus on the present, and on watching her crack her noggin on the roof completely sheering off the antennae I’d been working on, and revealing the inner workings of her tiny mind.

I used the dagger to help hold on, and get back onto the top of her head, and then I engaged in the foulest grape stomping that has ever been stomped.

Cool Beans, you learned the skill Brain Stomping. Now you can stomp on brains and make them into a fine goo. +5% damage, +10% goo

* * *

You don’t see that every day.

38

After I river danced through her grey matter, well, orange-ish white matter, she convulsed a bit before collapsing to the floor, sending me tumbling out into the muck.

But then I got that beautiful notification:

GG! You’ve killed a Lesser Cymothoa Queen (LVL 18 Greater Insect Matriarch)

You’ve earned 4000 XP.

And then some more notifications that made me smile:

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 6! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t.

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 7! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t.

I laid there on the ground, feeling like absolute shit, and yet smiling. Breathing hurt. Hell, being hurt. I stayed in the mud, just exhausted. Completely exhausted. Then there was a bright lantern over my face, illuminating Matthew’s concerned face.

“You still alive, boy?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“Fantastic work you did here.”

“Thanks?”

“Excellent use of spells, excellent use of weapons, critical hits on your opponent. Learning very well.”

I gave him a weak thumbs-up, then coughed up a little blood.

“Grit your teeth,” he said and promptly did a quick check of my ribs.

Which hurt.

And I screamed.

Then passed out when he put the ribs back in place.

But I was back in a minute or ten. At that point, he and Nadya were working on the queen’s corpse, beginning the harvesting process. I took a few moments to close my eyes and cycle mana around my body in my own version of the self-healing spell. If I may say so, it was a rather brilliant usage, I burned in my mana channels while doing damage to myself so I could also keep healing myself. I mean, at that particular point I didn’t need to add any extra damage to my person, but it was becoming a habit.

I’m not sure how long I remained in the mud healing myself, I just stayed there long enough to get back to mostly full. I felt much better, and a good portion of the queen had been removed from the chamber. I slowly stood up, let my body get used to being upright, and then I took one of the massive queen legs and dragged it through the tunnel, a tunnel that looked quite a bit larger now until I got into the pit. And walked into daylight. Clearly, I’d spent longer in the mud than I’d thought.

It took the better part of the day to get the queen’s bits out of the pit and sorted out up top. I noticed Nadya was working her butt off, and pointedly not looking in my direction. Nor, really, in Matthew’s. I wasn’t really the kind to hold a grudge or judge someone, which is actually a total lie. I was very into judging then. It’d been one of my primary activities back on Earth. And I was pretty pissed that Nadya froze up in the tunnel and just watched Matthew and I almost get eaten. Also, my nerves were firing off because I now had to worry about Nadya telling the powers that be that I dabbled in the arcane. I wasn’t sure if there’d be some imperial task force heading into the pit-yard ready to take me into whatever prison they put magic users. My life in Vuldranni could have been cut short at any moment.

But she didn’t say anything. Or do anything besides work. And I started to relent, thinking that It was pretty clear she felt just about as bad that she’d frozen up in the tunnel.

Once the queen had been parted out, Matthew sent Nadya off to find Wildingham and get some wagons over for deliveries. As soon as Nadya was out of the gate, Matthew waved me over to two stools sitting out front of the cottage. He patted one and passed a flask over to me as I sat down.

“That shadow step is useful stuff,” he said.

“Right?”

“Have you seen anything yet?”

“Maybe.”

“Best lay off it a spell. Let me do some talking to some people, see if I might find a better teacher for that part of your dark arts.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I’m in your debt now, kid. You not only pulled my ass out of the fire, you also delivered me my biggest payday in a damn long time.”

“Queen bits are valuable, huh?”

“Damn right they are.”

He passed a leather bag over to me, about the size of a cantaloupe.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Stomach finds.”

I opened the bag and peered inside.

There was a surprising amount of jewelry inside. Rings, chains, bracelets, cuffs, brooches. Gold, platinum, silver, other metals.

“What…” I started but trailed off. I didn’t know the question to ask.

“We have a decision to make.”

“Like who to sell this too?”

“That’s your bonus there,” he said, “you can decide who to sell it to.”

“Then what’s the problem here?”

Matthew took a slug from his flask, then held up a very large ring. It was huge, along the lines of a Super Bowl ring, except this one had more jewels, filigree, and an ornate carving across the top of it.

“Gonna have to explain it a bit to me,” I said.

“Signet ring.”

“Still nothing.”

“It’s the ring of a lord. In this case, a lord powerful and famous enough that I recognize his signet ring. And in case you still don’t get it, a signet ring is the symbol of the lord, the legal symbol. It is what a lord uses to sign documents, charters, pledges, to make oaths. It is one of the most important belongings a noble family has.”

“And now we have one.”

“Doesn’t exactly work that way. I’m not about to become Duke Fancypants because I’ve got this. What else might it mean?”

“Oh,” I said, realizing what he was really trying to get me to figure out.

“Yeah?”

“Someone dumped his body in this pit.”

Matthew snapped then pointed at me. He looked at the ring a bit more.

“So the question we face,” I said, “has to be whether we report the ring as being found or not, right?”

“Right again,” Matthew said. “Maybe you’re picking some of this up. Now, why might we not?”

“Because the other treasure we found will be taken because it rightfully belongs to the lord’s family?”

“Outside chance of that happening. Doubt we’ve got any heirlooms in there, but you never know. Not the problem I was thinking of, has more to do with your proposed line of life.”

“Some gang runs these pits?”

“Go on.”

“So they probably know who killed the lord in question and okayed it. Which means that they don’t want anyone to know the lord was put to pasture in the particular pit.”

“They just didn’t know what kind of pit beast was in here, or that this queen was getting regular meals from her workers working the pit itself. And that her kind and gold aren’t on the same digestive list.”

“So we don’t turn in the ring. Keep the gang happy.”

“And yet, if you turn the ring in, you will gain an ally in the noble family.”

“An ally?”

“They will be in your debt, as they will then know what happened to their patriarch, and can begin exacting revenge.”

“Yeah, but you piss off the gang that runs this place.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Is this some, like, learning opportunity for me?”

“Aren’t they all?”

“You’re going to make me choose, aren’t you?”

“Look at all these right answers you’re pulling from your butt tonight.”

He tossed the ring up in the air in my general direction, and I scrambled to catch it before it hit the brick and bounced away.

I didn’t.

The ring hit the brick and bounced away.

Fortunately, not all the way into the pit. Though, in retrospect, that would have made the decision much easier.

39

I tucked the ring away while I thought and worked. Despite the excitement of the day, we still had to get the pit cleaned out. While Nadya was out bringing wagons back, I went into the pit and grabbed the shovel. The holes in the wall had been cleared, thankfully, so it was really just getting all the muck out and making sure the bottom of the pit was down to a hard surface.

It was back-breaking work, shoveling the muck. Just filling the big ol’ buckets over and over and over again. There really wasn’t a whole lot of time for work breaks because Matthew’s part of the job was so much quicker than mine; hence, there was always the other bucket to fill. And bucket might not be the right word here. Tub? They were enormous, basically like one of those old-school cedar hot tubs. And I’d have to fill that using what was essentially a heavy-duty snow-shovel.

But because the back-breaking horrible sort of work was also mechanical in nature needing exactly zero percent of my brainpower, I discovered something I could do. I could cycle my mana, and I could cast the self-healing spell. And it took a little experimentation, but I could do that, I found something new.

Look at that. You discovered a spell: Stamina Regeneration.

Stamina regeneration allows you to channel mana and regenerate stamina. Hence the name of the spell. This spell is able to be channeled, remaining in place indefinitely, draining mana until either the spell is canceled or there is no mana remaining.

That was something of a game-changer. I was getting more than one mana per second thanks to my Efficient Mana ability, so I could perpetually regenerate stamina at a rate where I could work almost indefinitely. The slightest break, like waiting for one bucket to drop while the other was lifted from the pit, was enough for a full recharge. I started to feel a little like a superhero.

So I started working harder, pushing myself, seeing just how far I could take my body. And I pushed the spell harder. And my own mana harder. I was working like a madman, and I was keeping that frantic pace up. It felt a bit like I was sprinting through a marathon.

And it was enjoyable because it was like a game. I was playing with the systems, seeing what they could do, and I was making progress. Sure, the progress was because of grinding the hell out of the day, but sometimes that’s what needs to happen, especially in the RPG-like world of Vuldranni.

The sky was darkening when I started scraping the bottom with the shovel, and that was the first time I really stopped to look around. I’d been so focused on the sprint and the cycling I’d lost track of what I was doing. Which was fine in this respect, I wasn’t in danger.

Annoyance crept up on me, though, because Nadya had to have come back by now, and in my estimation, she should have been down in the pit with me. Ideally, she’d have taken over the muck shoveling, but just working with me would have been pretty stellar. Still, I wasn’t going to complain out loud. I’d complain to myself. Or to my cat. If I had a cat. I felt like I wanted a pet of some kind. My father had always forbidden animals as a kid, so the closest I ever got to having a pet was when I had a horribly co-dependent girlfriend in junior year. That and the kindergarten class hamster until Bryant Hudson killed it during an elaborate science experiment gone wrong.

I shoved those emotions to the side, and I kept doing my thing. And finally started debating the ring. I felt like I needed to give it to the authorities. At least, that was my initial instinct. Sure, I’d been a thief back home, but when I found something, I always tried to find the owner. And sometimes I’d return it to the owner. More often, I’d decide the owner was an asshole, and I’d keep whatever I found. But I tried to find the owner, that had to count for something. I could definitely just sell it to Gideon, let him decide how to use it. I could leave the city, travel far enough in the Empire that I could pass myself off as the lord in question, just long enough to buy a bunch of stuff, then leave the country and set up life as a rich man somewhere distant. Traveling was fun, in theory. I hadn’t exactly done much traveling in either of my lives, so I might not like it. Did I want to piss off the gang here? Maybe. I wasn’t sure I liked gangs. I mean, I knew I didn’t back on Earth. But here, I was angling to be part of that side of the tracks, and I knew I already had one enemy, the Iron Silents. Maybe it wasn’t super wise to add another to that list, especially if it was a gang that had the power to hold a territory that had to be valuable like the Pits. Maybe the gang wasn’t that bad. Maybe they were friendly criminals who just didn’t like the prevailing system of governance and were trying to incite change for the better. I figured the best course of action was to delay making a decision and ask Matthew a few questions about things. Perfect.

Decision averted.

We finally finished the clean-up past midnight. The last bit was the worst because it required a lot more moving around. And apparently, there was a lot more stuff that needed sorting up top. I also found out that I was a minor asshole because Nadya had been toiling away up top with Matthew most of the day and evening. My performance boost wound up making more work for Matthew, and he was falling behind until Nadya returned.

I climbed out of the pit, and I felt a sense of exhaustion creeping over me. Like I’d really pushed myself beyond whatever limits I’d had, and it was all about to hit. I really wanted to sleep. And yet, I also felt kinda really refreshed. And dirty. I was covered in mud, head to toe. It had dried a bit on my upper body, and my face, and my hair. Matthew was covered in dried mud as well. Nadya, on the other hand, looked remarkably good. She’d taken off her oil slick coveralls to go and talk to Wildingham, and apparently she’d put on a clean set when she came back to work, and since she’d been at the top of the pit, it didn’t seem like she’d had even the slightest accident with the mud since then. And her hair was big, wavy, and perfect.

I blinked a few times to stop staring at her.

She looked away from me.

And I felt kind of awkward, so I shot my eyes around, trying to find something else to look at. I had a notification. Perfect.

Look at you, a bastion of self-improvement. Through sheer hard work verging on the impossible, you have gained +3 Strength and +3 Constitution.

“Good day today,” Matthew said, closing the cover on the last of the tub-wagons. “Didn’t mean for it to go so late. But, well, things happened.”

“That’s all?” I asked. “Things happened?”

“You were here, you know what happened, why do you need me to go through it all again?”

“Seemed like you were trying to sum it up.”

“I was trying to thank you for the hard work today, you dingus.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“I say thank you, you say you’re welcome.”

“You’re welcome,” Nadya said.

“See,” Matthew said, pointing at the girl. “Like what she just did.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, surly and petulant like a teenager.

“I’ll take it,” he said. “You two feel comfortable getting home?”

“Yeah,” I said, “why not?”

He frowned at me.

“You want him to walk you home?” Matthew asked Nadya.

She looked over at me, one eyebrow up as she judged me.

“I’ll be fine,” she said as she slipped out of her coveralls.

I peeled mine off, and it looked like I hadn’t even worn a pair, mud had seeped down my suit all day. Especially when I was wallowing in the stuff while cavorting with the queen.

“Might want a rinse before you go home,” Matthew said, giving me the look that I was absolutely disgusting.

I gave him a smile.

He pointed to a barrel of water.

I sighed and went over to it. The thing about Glaton, it gets damn cold at night. Sure, it was summer, and the days were warm, but at night, the wind came blowing down off the mountains, and it chilled things right off. So the water in the barrel was frigid. And I guess Matthew thought I was a little too timid rinsing myself because after I’d been there a moment, he picked me up and shoved me in the barrel.

I flipped around underwater, then came out head first, sputtering and gasping for breath.

He was laughing, his curled mustache jumping up and down with each chuckle.

I splashed him.

He laughed harder.

I shook my head, tried to get out of the barrel, misjudged my balance, and sent the barrel of water crashing over to the side.

Where it started to roll.

Towards the pit.

I scrambled out as quickly as I could, then jumped after the barrel, grabbing it just as it reached the edge.

Behind me came peels of laughter. I looked over my shoulder, and Matthew was on the ground, unable to remain standing.

I frowned. This was my mentor…?

40

“You’re a fool,” Matthew said, about ten minutes later, when he’d gotten control of himself again.

We were in the cottage, and I was pulling on a spare set of clothes Matthew had that sort of almost fit me. Mine were trashed and fit to be burned, Matthew’d insisted on putting them in the outgoing bin of garbage. A bin that would just be taken to a different pit with a different pit beast who would happily eat all that garbage. I still had a serious funk about my person, but the cottage lacked anything resembling proper showering facilities.

“Why is that?” I asked, rolling the sleeves up so it looked less like I was dressing up in my father’s clothes.

“That girl clearly wanted to talk to you.”

“She’s the one who said she didn’t need to be walked home,” I countered.

“Because you looked about as interested as a eunuch in a brothel and smelled about as good as the ass end of a food-poisoned musk ox.”

“Not much I could have done about that then.”

“You could have asked her to wait till you washed off.”

“Bah, nothing to talk to her about.”

“That’s why you’re a fool.”

“Did you bring her here because you think I need a love interest?”

“I think everyone needs a love interest, but I brought her here because she needs the coin and we needed an extra set of hands.”

“She froze up in the tunnel, almost got us killed.”

“I froze up in the tunnel, almost got us killed.”

“You came around.”

“After you saved me. You, the student, saved me, the teacher.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“I’m trying to say that you shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“What happened?”

“Fear.”

“You were afraid?”

“It happens. Part and parcel of life in the Empire.”

“Wouldn’t you have, I mean, didn’t you—”

“You trying to find a polite way to ask me if I’d been in the Legion for ten years, didn’t I face down so many monsters that this was trivial?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

He sighed, and he sat down in a chair. Almost by magic, his flask was in his hand.

“The Legion,” he said slowly. “Should I assume you know nothing about it?”

“Virtually nothing. I know what you’ve told me. And that I should stay out of LegionHome.”

“You should. The Legion is big. Very big. There were 80 Legions when I was in. Might be more now. Each Legion is over 5000 people strong. 5000 soldiers. That’s what I would fight monsters with. 5000 highly trained, highly disciplined Legionnaires outfitted with full kits of armor and quality weapons. At least, when I was in the thick of it. But I’m not a great fighter, not like that. And my superiors saw I was better with a bow. That I had a good sense of what was around. So I only spent two years as a spearman, just one year as a man-at-arms. After that, I was a scout. Seven years of that. Of sneaking around, and occasionally shooting something with an arrow. Avoiding conflict so I could remain hidden. Of watching things. When I saw something like the queen, my job was to bring the 5000 Legionnaires to it, to watch them fight, not to stand toe-to-toe and go at it. So, yeah, I was in the Legion. I did face down monsters. But not as many as you think. And more often, I got to run away. The little stuff here, the anguids especially, they’re not dangerous. I can take as many of them as want to come at me. But the larger things, I just don’t have the balls-out courage I once did.”

There was a heavy silence between us. Partially because I think he was coming to terms with admitting his actual level of courage, and partly because I had no idea what to say. How to deal with that. Courage was curiously something I seemed to have in spades. At least when I was in the moment. Plenty of anxiety running in my system right up until shit hit the fan, and then, well, once I was in it, no fear. At least, that was true up to that point.

“What changed?” I asked.

“I left the Legion because we were set to police a conquered city. It was coincidence that my re-up was coming along. I did the police action for a month, sneaking through the city and spying on rebels as they planned to kill my fellow Legionnaires. But it also meant that I saw the rebels through their day to day lives. I saw their families and their reasons for wanting to rebel, and I knew that I couldn’t remain in the Legion. Not doing that job. And it’s not like the Legion is keen on letting you switch gigs jus because you feel like it. So I didn’t re-up, and I came back home, to here. And I did the only job I was good at, that I’d been trained for. I snuck around and paid attention to things.”

“You were a spy?”

“I was a rogue who stole information. Primarily. The odd trinket didn’t go by unnoticed.”

“Okay, so what’s the next step in the story?”

“The same thing that gets us all.”

“Age?”

“What?” He looked at me like I was nuts. But then he nodded. “I suppose that’s a good answer as well. Not age. Love. People started to care about me, and I started to care about them, and suddenly the prospect of being deep in the shadow side of the city wasn’t so appealing. I got out. People let me out because I knew all their secrets too. Now I have an honest job. Mostly honest, and I go home at night to people I long to see.”

“And that’s why you’re more afraid now.”

“One reason, sure.”

“So you want me to not give the ring up. Is that what this is leading to?”

“Is that what you got out of this?”

“I mean, that’s not what you were intending?”

“I repeat, you are a fool.”

“So, uh, you want me to turn the ring in?”

He stared at me for a moment, then he shook his head and took a slug from the flask.

“What?” I asked.

“Fool.”

“Okay, I’m a fool. But can the fool ask a question?”

“That is why I am here, to teach, apparently.”

“Yeah, and that’s cool, I’m learning a lot, picked up a new spell today—”

“A new spell?”

“Yeah, stamina regeneration.”

“Is that how you kept working so hard?”

“Yep.”

“Might be interesting to see how that develops.”

“I think so.”

“But that’s not the question. The gang that runs this pit, the ones who might be pissed if I turn the ring in, are they nice?”

“Are they nice?”

“Yeah.”

“The criminals who run a pit where they dispose of bodies? Them? Is that who you’re asking about?”

“Yes.”

“They’re the cuddliest little kitty cats hoping for nothing more than warm milk and a bit of love.”

“They’re cat people?” I asked, really excited about the prospect of meeting some cat people. I had so many questions, like how do they sit down in chairs without breaking their tails? What do they do with pants? Do they purr?

He blinked at me, then just slowly looked away.

“They are criminals, Clyde Hatchett. They kill people. They steal things. They ruin lives to further their own. They are fundamentally bad. Are they the worst people ever? No. There are many worse than them. But in the grand list of people ranked from good to bad, they are well into the bottom. And make no mistake, you are likely to be headed into that range of the list if you continue on this path.”

“You think they’re the worst gang in the city?”

“You’d have to define worst. The White Hand is damn vile, and you’d best watch any interactions you might have with them. Likely for you to wind up in a box on a ship headed to a place where slavery is the game.”

“They’re slavers?”

“Allegedly. Allegedly slavers. Point of contention they like to bring up, right before they sell you down the river to be a slave.”

“That’s messed up.”

“It is. But most of the gangs in the city do it, just not as well as the White Hand. The Slaughterhouse Gang controls a number of the meat suppliers for the city, and they have swung prices higher or lower depending on what they’d like to happen. They poisoned the supply of meat going into Little Floose on the south side. Thousands died. Property values plummeted. Slaughterhouse swooped in, bought half the neighborhood.”

“That’s messed up.”

“So how bad is it that the Swamp Angels run the Pits? That they offer corpse disposal? That they run their own assassins, who dump bodies into the pits? If you want someone to disappear, you go to the Swamp Angels. They’ll make it happen.”

“I mean, still bad?”

“Is it as bad as the Blood Bunch?”

“Uh, I’m assuming you’re going to tell me something about them?”

“That’s who you hire if you want someone to die visibly. They’re fans of messes.”

“Okay, sounds like the Blood Bunch is worse than the Swamp Angels. How many gangs are in the city?”

“I’m sure the number changes daily. But there are only a few big ones. The White Hand over in Portsmouth. The Swamp Angels here. The Slaughterhouse Gang in Little Floose. The Blood Bunch isn’t really major, they specialize, but I’ve heard their headquarters is just outside the Shade. There’s the Daybreakers who work the river, pirates mostly, but they’ve got their headquarters in Glaton. The Hard Crew runs numbers and plenty of underground gambling—”

“Is gambling illegal here?”

“Illegal? No. Taxed heavily? Yes.”

“Ah.”

“And then there are the families.”

“Families?”

“Some of the oldest criminal operations are high society. The Vibenius Clan has their fingers in all sorts of illegal operations. Very wealthy, they control most of the Bright.”

“Bright?”

“Posh neighborhood against the east wall. They like to say they are the first to get the sun, so they’re the brightest place in Glaton. Absurd. The Epidius family own most of the brothels in the city. Plenty of claims of forced prostitution, and there’s talk of Epidius being heavily involved with the White Hand, both bringing in and taking out. But I’ve also heard there’s some other noble who’s made the White Hand happen. Then you’ve got to watch out for all the cooperation and feuding between the groups. It’s a giant web that never remains still, ever-changing and making zero sense because these are all criminals. They play by very few rules.”

“Any rules?”

“The winner makes them.”

“What about the Iron Silents?”

“I’m not deep enough in to know newer gangs, so I only know they are pushing to become something. But, that’s not helpful.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to take all that information in, “the Swamp Angels run the Pits. Are they powerful?”

“Moderately. At least, last I checked. There’s no list hanging somewhere. No one does weekly rankings.”

“I just want to know what to do with this ring.”

“I know. But this is a lesson, kid. Figure it out.”

He patted me on the leg, then he got up to leave.

41

I made it home without much in the way of problems. There was definitely a creature flying in the air and making screeching noises, and it dove at one point, and there were screams and then no more flying creature. So, you know, definitely lucked out not being a midnight snack there. As soon as I made it to my apartment, I took a very long shower. And then I collapsed into bed. I wanted to spend my leveling points prior to sleeping, so I spent a minute thinking things over. Four points was a fair number. Still, though, I didn't feel like I was deficient in any one area. More Intelligence might be helpful, I’d get a bit more spell juice to play with. More charisma might be useful, but I still wasn’t exactly sure how it worked. The old standby was definitely agility or dexterity, that was the main crux of what I needed for thievery. But I was digging on magic pretty hard…

The points went into Intelligence and Wisdom.

Attributes

Strength: 13

Agility: 19

Dexterity: 17

Constitution: 13

Wisdom: 12

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 17

Luck: 13

Good times.

I didn’t fall asleep immediately, there was at least one second of wondering if I’d locked the door, but then I just passed out.

Weird visions danced across my eyes, arms and legs and limbs and tentacles of all kinds, but everything was just out of sight, no matter how fast I tried to turn my head or where I decided to look, I could never get a clear picture of anything.

And then I woke up in a cold sweat as a figure stood over my bed grunting as he swung a heavy mace overhead.

Shadow Step.

I rolled out of bed and walked over to my closet, which was only open the merest crack, and I tried to open the door further. Nothing happened. But then I discovered that I could slip through the dark crack into the darkness beyond.

The world resumed with a whewp, and time kicked back to normal. There was a tremendous crash as the mace destroyed the bed I’d been using. Through the crack, I saw an explosion of feathers.

“Gods,” the mace wielder said, “hit him so hard he disintegrated into feathers.”

The maceman was a big guy, over six feet, and likely pushing four hundred pounds. I had the feeling most of that was muscle, but he also had more than his fair share of padding about the middle. He wore a long black leather coat, like a duster, but I could see a little glint of metal under his sleeves. Chain mail. He was clean-shaven, but his skin was terrible, I could see angry pimples from across the room. And the poor guy was losing his hair, though he’d chosen the type of coiffe that just proclaimed his inability to accept reality. I was looking at the medieval version of the combover.

“That’s absurd,” came another voice, and figure two stepped into view. Another giant of a man, this one had hair, though, and a completely different face. And this guy was as chubby. He was just a mountain of muscle, with an impressively ugly face and a huge spiked mace in one hand.

“Then where is he?” Chubs asked while spitting out feathers. “Is he some kind of mancer?”

Mancer? I thought.

“If he is, they owe us more coin,” Muscle Mountain replied. He bent down and started pulling the remains of the bed apart, tossing the shattered wood to one side.

Chubs swatted at the feathers, which were still swirling around the place.

“YEEE-OUCH!” Muscle Mountain screamed, standing up with a dagger going completely through his hand.

“What is that?” Chubs shouted back.

“Pull it out!” He shouted.

Chubs smashed his mace into the bed, again and again, each hit sending another whoosh of feathers up from the dying mattress. In no time, it’d become a blizzard inside my apartment.

“Stop attacking the bed and get the dagger out of my hand!” Mountain shouted.

Chubs stopped, dutifully, and ripped the dagger from Mountain’s hand.

Blood poured out, getting everywhere as Mountain shouted.

“Did he stab you?” Chubs asked.

“Something stabbed me.”

“So he’s still alive?”

“Must be.”

Mountain and Chubs swung at the bed a few more times, and I swear I heard the floor start creaking under their combined assault. But the mattress seemed to absorb enough of their damage that they didn’t break through to the third floor.

I just stood in the closet and tried to figure out just who these two assholes were. Or, more to the point, who they worked for.

When the two stopped beating the bed, they stood there breathing hard for a moment.

“Go check,” Chubbs said.

“You do it.”

“You already checked—”

“Exactly.”

“You know it.”

“It’s a bed, you can know it too.”

Chubs shoved Mountain forward, and Mountain stumbled a few steps, then tripped and fell into the bed.

There was a very sharp intake of breath from Mountain.

“What is it?” Chubs said, mace out and ready to strike.

“Another dagger,” Mountain said, very slowly and very carefully getting to his feet, now sporting a new blade in his ribs.

Etta’s traps were still semi-functional.

Without Mountain even asking, Chubs grabbed the dagger and yanked it out. A spray of blood followed, quite a bit more than the hand dagger incident, fairly soaking the remains of the bed in blood.

Chubs walked to the end of the wreckage, grabbed it, and flipped it over.

The blankets and pillows had made something that looked like it might have possibly kind of been a body. Maybe. If you were really dumb.

“We got him,” Chubs said to Mountain.

“That’s him?” Mountain asked.

“Only one person in here, plenty of blood around. He’s dead.”

Mountain swung his mace down on the “corpse” and smiled at the hit.

“Dead,” Mountain said. “Help me get to Tanquerton.”

Chubs nodded, then put Mountain’s arm over his shoulder, assisting the big man in getting down the stairs.

“You think he’s up?” Chubs asked.

“He will be when we get there.”

I stayed in the closet until all the feathers hit the ground. I figured that was long enough for the two brutes to have gone. Then, I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up and trying to figure out where my trash can was because everything near the bed was wrecked. And I needed to get a new bed.

There were a lot of questions that needed answering, and not many people who I thought could give them to me. I didn’t exactly feel safe in the apartment, but it was still night out, so it’s not like it was necessarily better out in the streets. And yet, I wanted to go out. I wanted to be outside where at least I could have a chance of seeing what was coming after me, and, besides, I thought better when I was moving.

42

I headed over to the Via Principalis and then turned left, heading north to the palace. There still weren’t many people out, but the main thoroughfare had more light and more guard patrols. I found it odd I was never bothered when I was out at night. The guard never stopped to talk to me, I suppose it was just assumed that if you were willing to go out in the dark, you were willing to accept the consequences. The Empire was not a nanny state.

While my goal was the pit, I found myself backtracking into the grand market, and heading over towards Gideon’s. I wasn’t expecting him to be open, I wasn’t expecting much of anything, but it just seemed like a place to go. I had the bag of jewelry from the queen’s digestive tract, and I figure there was probably some value in them to extract. Plus, I still had that other coin to turn in, the other account. Going down the street, I saw light coming out of the windows, streaming onto the dark street.

I crossed to the other side of the street and stood in the darkness, looking into the shop. Gideon sat on his stool/throne while some of the small mystery figures darted around in the background. Likely sorting. Or who knows really. The thing was, Gideon was so weird. The whole time I watched him, he didn’t move or speak or do anything. I studied him for a good fifteen minutes before I finally gave up and decided to go inside.

He looked at me as I entered, like it was the most natural thing in the world, for me to be entering his shop in the wee hours of the morning. But he didn’t say anything.

I put my account coin on the counter, and Gideon picked it up and looked at it, then set it down and extended his hands. I let him put his hands on me, and we did that warm-cool thing, and then he smiled.

“We greet you, Evergreen,” he said.

“It is nice to see you too,” I replied.

“Do you have things to sell?”

“I do, but a little something first,” I said, and I pulled out the other Gideon coin I had, and I slid it across the counter.

He paused, tilted his head, and reached down with his too-long arm, gingerly picking it up with his overly long fingers, and spent a good minute looking at it.

“Are you claiming this account?” He finally asked.

“If I might venture a question, what are my options here?”

“You may claim the account, in which case, we will add the totals of your two accounts together. Any items placed in storage with us will be given to you. This account will be terminated, though Evergreen will remain open and in good standing with us. Or, you may return this account to its owner. Attempt to at least. You will set a price, and once that price has been reached, the account will be returned. If the owner does not return or is unable to pay, we will reclaim the account, and you will receive a portion of the contents.”

“Makes more sense to claim it, then, huh?”

“There is less work for us should you claim it.”

I knew the guy was alive. And likely he wanted his money back. But I could use some money. Always. And stuff. Especially if someone was trying to have me killed. More magical items would definitely be welcome.

“I’ll claim the account,” I said.

Gideon nodded, and in one quick, smooth motion, he snapped the coin in half, letting both pieces fall to the counter. One of the little figures appeared from behind Gideon, and took the broken coin away, while a second little robed figure ran off to one side and grabbed a small lockbox. A third joined the second and got a small chest. Pretty quickly, there was a line of chests, lockboxes, and pouches on the counter in front of me.

“The stored items,” Gideon said, with a gesture of his hand. “The chests must remain, as they are ours, but you may remove the items if you wish.”

One small chest. One long chest. Three cases that looked to hold weapons. Two lockboxes. Three pouches.

I went to the long chest first. It was an odd shape. Over six feet long, but only a foot wide and six inches deep. I popped the thing open, and there was a brilliant black longbow inside with magic so heavy on it that I could literally see the aura around it.

The Bloody Baron’s Bow of Surprise

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: Two-handed ranged

Material: Blood-soaked yew.

Damage: 50-60 (Piercing)

Durability: 400/650

Weight: 4.8 lbs

Requirements: none

Description: A longbow of six and one-half feet in length, the Bloody Baron’s Bow of Surprise is able to be used while under an invisibility spell without breaking invisibility. Sneak attack damage is double. If the wielder is noticed, the Bloody Baron’s Bow of Surprise will glow bright red until wielder is hidden again.

A pretty interesting weapon, but more suited for an assassin. And open spaces. The longbow was not good for moving through the city. And I wasn’t looking to pop people from the darkness.

“Selling this,” I said.

Gideon nodded.

The small chest had a whole bunch of papers in it, maps and other documents. I took all of those and shoved them in my backpack. At the bottom of the chest was a small book, something I recognized. A spellbook. A spellbook I wasn’t sure I wanted: Summon Fiend.

Still, the lure of magic was there, and I wasn’t ready to forgo it just because it might be, well, summoning a fiend was going to be bad no matter what, but it might be what I needed. I slipped it from the chest into my bag.

The weapons’ cases were next, and I popped them open one after another. Two daggers were in the first, a mace in the second, and a sword in the last one.

KrakenTooth

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Kraken’s tooth, Kraken leather

Damage: 50-60 (Stabbing)

Durability: 400/650

Weight: 2.8 lbs

Charges: 5/5

Requirements: none

Description: The tooth of a mighty kraken wrapped with a leather grip. Bonuses to swimming when fully submerged in water. User may make an underwater charge attack: stab with the tooth, and it will pull you along at high speed for thirty feet. Charges refill each dawn.

The Stone Stiletto of Silence

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Silent Stone

Damage: 10-30 (Stabbing)

Durability: 400/650

Weight: 1.8 lbs

Requirements: none

Description: A dagger with no sharp edges, just a sharp point. When stabbed, the victim is unable to speak or make noise for five minutes. The stiletto stores any noise made during those minutes, and it can release the noise as sonic damage.

The FeyBane Mace

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Cold Iron

Damage: 50-60 (Bludgeoning)

Durability: 400/1650

Weight: 18.8 lbs

Requirements: May not be welded by a fey creature

Description: A long handle with a ball of spiked metal at the end. The FeyBane Mace is anthemic to fey creatures, dealing an additional four times multiplier damage. Additionally, each hit has a slim chance of banishing the fey creature to another plane, notably, not the plane of the fairy. Causes any Fey creature to immediately be hostile to the wielder.

The Charged Blade of Chaos

Item Type: Rare

Item Class: One-handed Melee

Material: Steel, Leather, sapphire

Damage: 50-60 (Slashing)

Durability: 850/900

Weight: 5 lbs

Requirements: none

Description: a straight-bladed sword having a cruciform hilt with a grip for one-handed use with a large uncut sapphire mounted in the pommel. The Charged Blade of Chaos unleashes balls of chain lightening with successful critical hits. All living and metallic creatures are valid targets for the chain lightning.

There were some pretty impressive weapons there. The mace was certainly powerful, but making automatic enemies of fairies just seemed like a stupid move. It was the first thing in the sell pile. The sword wasn’t something I’d want to use, it seemed more suited for wanton damage. So I put that in the sell pile with the mace. The daggers I kept. I wasn’t planning on much underwater combat, but the tooth was just so cool looking. I figured I could start my own little collection, and the first thing on the wall would be the KrakenTooth. And the silent dagger, that was just too cool. And useful. Because there was no minimum damage required for it to work. I wouldn’t necessarily need to kill anyone. Or even hurt someone badly. I wondered if I could use it on myself, make myself absolutely silent for five minutes. Did the dagger work that way? Did it mean I couldn’t ring a bell or just that I couldn’t talk… questions.

The two lockboxes held coins, and not as many as I was expecting. One of the sets of coins had a woman’s head on them.

“These are different,” I said.

Gideon took one of the coins, looked briefly, then nodded.

“They are from the country of Mahrduhm. If you wish, we can exchange them for Imperial gold.”

“Sure,” I said. I wasn’t planning on leaving the city soon, no reason to keep foreign currency. I knew Gideon’d probably screw me on the exchange rate, but this was, quite literally, found money, so whatever.

The first pouch, a very small one, had jewels in it. I tossed that on the sell pile. The next had a small skeleton in it. Of a bird, or something that looked like a bird.

“Any idea what this is?” I asked.

“Are you asking for us to identify this?” He replied.

“Sure.” I was a little annoyed, why’d he have to charge me for this, especially since I was offering to sell him so much cool stuff he was going to underpay me for.

He put one of his hands out, and I tried to really pay attention to what was happening, and I felt the magic flow from his hand to the object. Gideon nodded and looked at me.

“It is a magical construct,” he said. “With the appropriate command word, it will become a bird of your choice and will feed off your mana to exist until you dismiss the bird or you run out of mana. Judging your mana, you would be able to maintain the construct for between four and eight seconds.”

“So not that useful to me,” I said.

“Perhaps it is fairer to say there is room for you to grow before it might be of use. It is quite the artifact, however, so it has quite the value.”

I waffled for a second, trying to figure out if it was something I might make use of, but, ultimately, I figured having the cash on hand would be better. It’s not like a skeleton bird would be discrete.

“Sell,” I said.

The last pouch was just keys. About a hundred keys of various shapes and sizes.

I took it. Might be fun.

“Ah,” Gideon said, “about that last pouch, one, would you like to purchase the pouch itself from us?”

“Oh, uh, yes. If you don’t mind.”

He nodded discreetly, then said: “If you might allow us to mention a potential connection.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

A figure dashed out from behind him and brought out the familiar chest of spell and skill books. The figure thunked the chest down on the counter. Gideon opened it and ran his finger across the book spines, finally pulling one out and putting it on the counter in front of me.

“Zeddington’s Infinite Key,” he said.

“What does it do?”

“It alters the shape of a key to fit a lock you would like it to unlock. Very useful if you are wont to carry around many keys.”

“How much?”

“One thousand gold.”

“Do I have that much with all this stuff for sale?”

“Yes. And more.”

“I’ll take it.”

He slid the spellbook closer to me.

I picked it up, opened it, and went through the unpleasant process of learning the spell.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Zeddington’s Infinite Key

Zeddington’s Infinite Key alters a key to fit any lock. Said key is destroyed after used to open one lock.

All the chests disappeared quite quickly, as did the items I agreed to sell. The little mystery hooded figures swarmed for a moment, and then it was still in the store again.

“Are you wishing to buy from us?” Gideon asked.

“I need a sword,” I said.

“Magical?”

“I mean, that might be better, but I’m just looking for something good.”

“Size?”

“Uh, like a long sword?”

“Preferred material?”

“I know nothing about metals.”

He nodded. Again, the figures swarmed, and then there were 10 swords laid out on the counter.

“Base iron long sword on our left,” he said. “Twenty gold.”

“And on the other end?”

“A magical artifact of celestium. Twenty-seven thousand gold.”

“Can I afford that one?”

“How much gold have you brought with you?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I replied, looking into my money pouch.

“You cannot contain the gold you need in that pouch.”

“Ah.”

Without saying anything, the little figures came out and removed six of the swords.

“You have something in, uh, steel? Maybe silver?” I asked.

He nodded and pointed to the third sword in the line. It was long and thin. Not quite a rapier, but certainly not a broadsword. Or even a longsword.

“It is made of argentinium, similar mystical properties of silver. The strength of steel, the power of silver.”

“Anything else magical about it?”

“No. It is two thousand gold.”

“Does my account cover that?”

“The bow you are selling will cover it.”

“I’ll take it.”

He nodded, and pulled a simple black leather sheath out from under the counter, and set it next to the sword in question, and then, like magic, the figures came out and disappeared all the other weapons.

“Will you be needing anything else?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He gave me what I think he thought was a nice smile, but he just came off like one very creepy dude.

43

I beat Matthew to the pit. I’d grabbed a small meat pasty from a little cart on the street. A very nice older woman ran it and said she made the pasties fresh every morning. It wasn’t until I sat there, munching on the food, that I realized I’d forgotten the primary reason I went to Gideon’s, to sell the bag of rings and jewels we’d taken out of the queen’s stomach.

Oops.

Nadya was along next. She came down the street, almost like she was walking a catwalk. And I think she knew what she was doing, it didn’t seem like her natural way of walking. She was putting on a show for someone. There was only one other person I saw, a hard-looking man covered in heavy armor and lots of weapons following Nadya at a discrete distance. I don’t think they were together, the man seemed absorbed in his own world, and when Nadya stopped at the gate and looked down at me, he strolled on by heading down the block like was late to something.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Is it now?” She replied, the hint of a smirk.

“Really? That’s the response?”

She titled her head at me. “That’s what I said.”

“It’s so played out.”

“Played out?”

“Just say good morning. You don’t have to pass judgment on someone else being polite, that’s not edgy or cool, it’s just being a dick.”

“You seem to be on edge.”

“Maybe I am, but I still managed to be nice to you.”

“Perhaps I was making a joke.”

“It was a terrible joke.”

She sat down on the other side of the gate and leaned back against the wall, pretty much mirroring me.

“Sorry,” she said softly.

“Sorry? About the bad joke?”

“No, I mean yes, but that’s not what I was, I mean, I was talking, I wanted to apologize for yesterday. And to thank you.”

“The queen?”

“Yes. The queen. I never had, I thought maybe I was going to be the only survivor again, or not survive, and I just, I ran.”

“Wait, you ran away?”

“Yes. I came back, though.”

“That was nice of you.”

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“Anything. At that point, anything would have been helpful. Throw some mud at the monster. That’d help. Distract her.”

Silence from her.

I finished the pasty and crumbled the wax paper into a tiny ball and shoved it into a pocket of my knapsack. Judging by the trash on the ground nearly everywhere I went, littering was the usual reaction to having something you didn’t want to carry, but I just didn’t want to get into that habit. So I tended to pack my trash until I found a proper receptacle.

Sitting there, I closed my eyes and pushed my mana around my body, making sure everything was going the right way. I did some healing, which was pretty much unnecessary, but why not, and I pushed my stamina on. Doin’ my daily magic. Something I neglected following the assassination attempt and my walkabout the city. I was about to turn my attention to thinking about my signet ring problem when Nadya started talking.

“I like to think I’m brave,” she said, talking quite softly. “But maybe that’s not true.”

“Nah,” I replied, starting to feel a little bad about how I’d spoken to her, “I don’t think that’s how courage works.”

“Easy to say for someone who charged a monster ten times his size without hesitation.”

“Maybe I have a death wish. Thing is, as far as I can tell, courage is not about fear. It’s about accepting fate.”

“That sounds like a bunch of words that don’t mean much.”

“We’re busting down semantics, Nadya. Anything I say is probably going to be a cliche of some sort or another.”

“How do you do it, though?”

“Do what?”

“Be brave.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Not sure its something describable. A situation like that, or anything dangerous, you either do something, or you don’t.”

“What if what you do is run away?”

“Fight or flight.”

“Flight isn’t wrong?”

“Depends, I guess. I think, and you know, hindsight and all that, if you guys hadn’t been there, I’d have run. I think.”

“Only matters if someone else is in danger?”

“Yeah, I think. For me, at least.”

She thought about for that a moment, then bit her lip in a way that I’m not going to say is cute because it was just hot. I didn’t like her like that, okay?

“Matthew said you fought an ooze. True?”

“True.”

“What was it like?”

“The fight or the ooze?”

“The ooze.”

“Big. Yellow.”

“How big?”

“Twenty feet across? Orbish?”

“Did it, I mean, was there something controlling it?”

“Like a brain?”

“Yes.”

“Not that I could see. It’s definitely weird because there’s nothing inside it but, like, itself. It’s just this translucent yellow goop all the way through, and if you get a light source behind it, you can see through it. Almost. You can get silhouettes through it, but you can’t, like, see perfectly.”

“And how did it act?”

“Aggressive?”

“Is that all? Just an eating attacking machine?”

“It tried to get away when it was clear it was outmatched.”

“When was that?”

“Like what had happened?”

“Yeah, what had you done to it?”

“I really just annoyed it for a bit, the City Guard came along and really threw the hammer down on it. And in that case, seemed like fire was the big damage dealer.”

“Oh? Was it flammable?”

“No, but it seemed, I guess, I mean, it used a lot of, uh, pseudopods? Made tentacles out of itself, and that was its primary weapon. But fire seemed to harden the outside of it?”

“It had skin?”

“I guess? Not really? I don’t know.”

She seemed to think on that, and was about to say something, when a familiar figure came walking down the street, surprisingly chipper and whistling a tune I felt like I could almost recognize.

Matthew was finally there.

He looked from me to Nadya and back, a stupid smile on his face. Then he lifted his eyebrows suggestively.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Good morning,” Nadya said. “You should try being polite, Clyde.”

I frowned.

“A good morning to you too, Nadya,” Matthew said.

This was not turning out to be a great day.

44

It turns out we had non-training type work to do. We got to spend all day moving wagons around. Harnessing teams of horses, and other beasts, to haul all the muck away. Then there were the wagons with the various bits that weren’t muck, and all that had to go away as well. I was definitely getting a bit frustrated with the tedious work. It was neat working with horses, partially because I wasn’t allergic to them anymore. I got a skill:

Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Animal Handling (LVL 1). Now you can calm down a domesticated animal, keep a mount from getting spooked, intuit an animal’s intentions, or, if you’re really lucky, tame a wild beast.

So that was always a plus. But this wasn’t the sort of skill that seemed easily transferable to my desired profession.

The day did get easier as we moved the wagons out, there was more room to maneuver, less chance of someone falling into the pit. Where there was nothing to block you from just stepping over the edge.

I kept looking for a chance to talk to Matthew in privacy. I had a lot to chat with him about, but Nadya was always there. And, half the time, there was a teamster or two helping out. I wasn’t particularly worried about the horses overhearing. Though as soon as I thought that to myself, I had to wonder if polymorph was a thing in Vuldranni. Was there appropriate magic to transform your body into a horse? Or something else? That’d be a super useful spell for a thief.

The last wagon left well after lunch, and maybe Matthew felt my desire to talk because he sent Nadya out to grab us some celebratory dinner. She was not pleased, I could tell she wanted to tell him off, that such labor was beneath her. Instead, she gritted her teeth, took his gold, and strode off.

“You think she’s going to spit in your food?” I asked.

He shrugged, “Won’t be the worst thing I’ve eaten.”

“You’re okay with that?”

He shrugged again. “Things are going so well if she wants to do that, she can. Now, what’s got your knickers all bunched up?”

“How about you say what’s got your knickers in a twist?”

“That’s better,” he said. “What is it?”

“Two men tried to kill me last night.”

“You fought them off?”

“No, I did a little trickery, and they thought they killed me.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah.”

“Shadow magic?”

“Yeah.”

“I do have someone who is willing to talk to you about that.”

“Thank you. I just have to survive that long.”

“It would help. I’d feel pretty foolish if I arranged a magical instructor for you and you didn’t show up because of death.”

“I’d hate to disappoint you. These two were massive men. And dumb as rocks.”

“Ugly?”

“Yeah. Hideous.”

“Kinda low voices?”

“Sure, I guess. You know them?”

“Probably not specifically, but if these men were massive nitwits, they might be half-ogres. And if that’s the case, I’d be worried.”

“Are you about to tell me some gang specializes in half-ogre thugs?”

“Not exactly a gang, but there’s a place you can hire all sorts of interesting types willing to walk on the other side of the law for a price.”

“Half-ogres?”

“And more.”

“You think I should go there?”

“No,” he said emphatically. “You need to be invited there. It’s a members-only type of a club.”

“Where you can hire thugs.”

“And others.”

“So how do I figure out who’s trying to kill me?”

“That is a conundrum you are facing.”

“Not helping.”

“Unfortunately, there is a limit to what assistance I might offer. Realistically, you need to talk to some people who are deeper in this game than I am. Better would be those who are still in the game. Have you thought of joining an organization?”

“Like a gang?”

“Gang has such an unsophisticated air. Joining a criminal organization.”

“Like a thieves guild.”

“Sure. Good way of naming it.”

“Is there a thieves guild?”

“No. That’s absurd. Requires far too much in the way of order for thieves to form a guild.”

“But you just— never mind.”

“There is a group that you might, well, that they might find you interesting.”

“And I’d be able to learn from them?”

“They would likely be the best to learn from in the city. If not the Empire.”

“Who are these mystical folk?”

“Just a group of like-minded individuals.”

“They have a name?”

“The Biscuit Union.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They’re called the Biscuit Union.”

“Certainly not the sort of name that strikes fear in the heart.”

“They’re from a different age. Run their organization out of a bakery that primarily makes cookies.”

“I mean, I guess if you’re going to have a cover operation, could be worse.”

“Like these pits.”

“Not what I meant. But I suppose, yeah.”

“If you can handle the nature of the job, how about you run a bag of metal over to a shop in the Industrial district, then kick up north and find this bakery.”

“Where is it?”

“South side of the Arena.”

“There’s an arena?”

“You haven’t heard of it?”

“No.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, insular upbringing.”

“Well, you’ll know it when you see it.”

“Sure, I’ll take some metal over.”

Matthew patted my arm and went into the cottage. He came out with a large leather sack, struggling a bit with it, and dropped it in front of me. He then got a pad of paper and started scribbling something on the top sheet.

“Have a nice walk,” Matthew said. “You want me to say anything to Nadya for you?”

“No.”

“I’ll make something up.”

“Do not do that.”

“See you here tomorrow, you can see some actual magic happen here.”

“Actual magic?”

“Just be here tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

I hoisted the bag of metal on my shoulder and gritted my teeth as I tried to make it seem like it wasn’t heavy.

Matthew gave me a very cheery wave, then pressed a folded note into my hand and gave me a shove out the gate.

45

It was not easy to haul the metal across town, and I definitely stopped and looked inside. It was a glossy black, looking almost like obsidian, but significantly heavier. And it was mostly in very small pieces. I had to start channeling, running the stamina regeneration spell so I wouldn’t die on the sidewalk. It was definitely starting to be one of my favorite spells.

The place I had to take it to was a metal shop by the name of Tim’s Smithie. The shop looked as if it had been divided nicely at one point, an office on one side of the building, the forge on the other. But someone had torn down most of the walls, just not the doors. Tim was a large man who looked like he never missed a meal, and had the hair on his person burned off on the regular. He sat in a chair, leaning it back on two legs, his two legs up on the desk. He was a cheery guy who was in the middle of razzing one of his employees about being late after a date when I showed up and set the metal on the desk in front of him.

“What’s this, then?” he asked.

“Metal from Matthew Gallifrey,” I replied.

“From the pit.”

“Yes.”

“Pit metal is always a bit odd.”

He let his chair drop, then reached over and picked in the bag. He stared. Reached his hand in and scooped a handful of little chunks out.

“Lucky son of a troll,” he said quietly. “Tell him I’ll owe him double, but I’ll take all of it.”

“Can do.”

“Good lad,” he said, a dreamy look in his eyes.

I was insanely curious, but Tim snagged the bag with one hand, and lifted it easily, taking it into the forge portion of the shop. His underlings swarmed him, but Tim shouted at them and got them to back up. Tim knelt at the back, opened a big safe, and put the metal in there. I chose to leave before he turned around, not wanting to be caught watching. Besides, I was reasonably sure Matthew would tell me what the metal was when I showed back up at work.

Gallifrey was right about the Arena. It was pretty hard to miss. It was basically like someone had cast enlarge on the Colosseum. It was a massive structure that boggled the mind. I had no idea how something like that would be constructed prior to things like cranes and concrete pumpers. There were huge banners hanging down from the top, stylized animals and people with names I didn’t recognize. People were making their way through wide entrances, and the sound of people clapping, cheering, and screaming echoed up from inside.

There was wide open space around the Arena, some of it green space, most of it just cobbled over with bricks. Lots of benches, lots of stalls selling small goods, food, and drink. The buildings around the Arena were all commercial in nature, and quite large. Breweries, bakeries, and taverns. Essentially, bars and restaurants near football stadiums. On the south side, tucked between a mead hall and a brewery was a tall thin building with a small sign hanging over the front door: The Biscuit Union.

It looked empty. There were people going into all the other buildings, but this one remained untouched.

I, however, had a note. A piece of paper that would give me entreé into the place. Or, you know, it was an elaborate practical joke on the part of Matthew. When I opened the door and saw what was inside, that theory gained a considerable amount of credence.

The Biscuit Union’s front room was a coffee shop. Or the medieval equivalent thereof. There was a glass case that likely would have been filled with baked goods at one point, but that only held plates, crumbs, and crushed dreams now. There were coffee pots, empty, and teapots, hopefully empty, and a number of tables spread out in the empty space in front of the counter.

Three men sat at one of the tables. They were old. Like white hair, wrinkled skin, curmudgeonly air about them old. The way they dressed, and the style they kept their hair and facial hair, it was all different than anything I saw out on the streets now. They had a card game going between them, and as soon as I came through the door, there were six eyes on me. Well, five. One eye was definitely off on its own little journey.

For a moment, the four of us engaged in an awkward bout of silence.

“Elven place is on the other side of the arena,” one of the old men, the one with the longest beard and hair, said. “Think they still offer traditional fare there.”

“Do they?” His neighbor, the one with the eye, said.

“They do,” Beard replied.

“You wouldn’t know,” number three snapped. “You have never been there, and you have never done the traditional elven meal.”

“Like you have?”

“I did with Lewis Craddock—”

“Toothless Craddock?”

“His father.”

“Is he—”

“Dead.”

“And Toothless?”

“Dead.”

“Shame.”

“Is it?” Number two asked, eye still wandering around on its own.

“No,” three snapped. “Toothless was worthless. Hence the name.”

“Name was because of his teeth,” Beard said. “Or lack of.”

“Excuse me,” I said.

All eyes were back on me. (Almost.)

“I’m looking for the Biscuit Union,” I said. “Or a representative thereof.”

The three men looked at me, then at each other. Then at me. Then at each other. Then they leaned their heads together and whispered.

It was all quite bizarre.

Finally, after what seemed like quite the whisper argument, the men leaned back in their chairs.

“What’s this in reference to?” The bearded one asked.

I held out the folded note.

“Letter of introduction,” I said.

“From?” Beard asked.

“Matthew Gallifrey.”

“Gallifrey?” Eye asked.

“Can’t be,” number three said. “Gallifrey is in the Legion.”

“He went back?” Eye asked.

“Never left,” Three replied.

“He retired from that nonsense,” Beard said. “And never went back. Just went civilian. Got married. Works in the pits.”

“Working the pits is the pits,” number three said.

“You sure he’s not back with the Legion?” Eye asked.

“Dangit Colin,” Beard fairly shrieked, “stop asking questions.”

Silence.

“The letter,” Beard said, his ancient hand extended. “Please.”

I set the letter in the man’s hand. He unfolded it, harrumphed, then did a little work to get the paper in the exact right spot where he could read it. Then he read it. I think twice. Then passed the letter to his right so Colin, Eye, could read it. Colin passed it to Three to read. And then they whispered again.

At the end of which time, Colin got up from the table, with the letter, and walked behind the counter and through a door.

We were back to awkward silence.

I glanced out the window. Dusk.

“Got someplace to be?” Beard asked.

“Leave the kid alone,” Three said. “Dark’s coming. He just wants to get home.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Been spending enough time in the dark, I’m almost used to it.”

“Get used to it,” Beard said, “and that’s right when it gets ya. Keep that fear. Healthy.”

“Noted.”

“You know what coffee is?” Beard asked.

“I do.”

“You want some?”

“Dying for some.”

He cackled, well, I think he was just trying to laugh, but it came out as a cackle. But he got up faster than I expected and basically raced behind the counter. He started puttering around with all sorts of things, and I heard a whistle of steam far faster than I should, and a moment later, there was a small steaming cup of coffee on the table next to where the old men were playing their game.

“Sit, young man, sit,” Beard said. “Letter says your name is Clyde. Hatchett.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“That sack of complaints across from me is Nelson Grundham. I’m Rowland Tamblyn.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Nice to meet us, he says,” Nelson said, a glint in his eye. “Clearly, he has no idea who we are.”

“Thanks. Actually kind of true.”

“Just walk around visiting random bakeries with letters of introduction, do you?” Nelson asked.

“I don’t make fun of your hobbies.”

Rowland, the beard, cackled again, slapping his hand down on the table and spilling his own cup of coffee.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Nelson snapped.

“You lost your sense of humor after that incident with the gargoyle,” Rowland said. “Never been the same after that.”

“No one would.”

“What was the incident?” I asked.

Rowland held a finger up as if he was about to tell me the story, but then Nelson shook his head once. Hard and sure.

“Might have to table that tale,” Rowland said. “Right now, have to keep out too many details for it to make sense. But it’s a good story.”

“About as good as you and the succubus,” Nelson said, laughing.

It was Rowland’s turn to be unamused.

“That was trickery and deceit of the highest order,” Rowland said.

“And how much money did you lose?”

“None of your business.”

“A pile of gold like you’ve never seen,” Nelson told me, choking back laughter. “And just poof, gone!”

“The number of times I regret my actions in the dock saving you.”

“Bah, you still owe me.”

“You owe me!”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said today. Me owe you. How could you possibly figure that?”

“You’ve lost at cards for the last five years, and how often have you bought back into the game?”

“We weren’t talking about money.”

“You never talk about money.”

“It’s impolite.”

“Only because you never have any. I may have lost some gold to the succubus, but at least I still have plenty.”

“That’s because you’re nobility, you—”

“You said you’d keep that a secret!”

“Worst kept secret in the Empire.”

“That’s not true, what about the one with Valamir—”

“Young man,” Colin said from the open doorway he’d gone through. “If you would, please follow me.”

I stood up, took a sip of the scalding coffee, which was really quite delicious, and smiled at Rowland and Nelson.

“A pleasure, gentlemen.”

And then I followed Colin into the back.

46

He led me through a big kitchen, it looked very much like a modern kitchen, with a few notable differences, naturally. The big ovens were wood-fired, there was a giant hamster-type wheel on one side which would allow someone to walk slowly and turn a big turntable inside the oven. There were plenty of work surfaces, but instead of steel, these were made from stone. Four doors led off the room, one we’d just come through, a big metal vault-like door that could maybe be a refrigerator of some sort, and then two other wooden doors that looked like they were, you know, doors. On the far side of the room sat a massive slab of brilliant white marble, and I had a feeling it was used for making candy or chocolate. Only one of the ovens was lit, and there was something that looked like bread inside, getting nice and golden. An old man and an old woman were standing near the oven, and it was pretty clear to me that they’d been working, but they just stood and watched Colin and me walk through.

Colin went to one of the wood doors, he knocked twice, then opened it up. An office. A big one that was almost more of a suite. There was a desk on one side of the room, but a seating area was on the other. A heavy-looking couch with comfortable looking cushions and two oversized armchairs. All made out of some form of patterned leather. There was a beautiful coffee table in the middle of the seating area, with a remarkably intricate vase sitting dead center. Flowers were in it, beautiful blooming flowers that gave off the most incredible scent. Striking artwork was on all the walls, and a friendly fire crackled merrily in the fireplace. I couldn’t help myself, I smiled.

A man was at the desk, reading over some papers. Younger than anyone I’d seen so far, but not by much, he had an air of distinction about him, a full head of hair that was just beginning to have streaks of white in it, a shave that had clearly been done by a professional recently. His nails were perfectly manicured, and he wore a shirt and trousers, but there was a dark blue coat hanging on a hatrack by the door. As was his hat. Also blue. But muted. Nothing loud or flashy about the man, just total confidence in each of his decisions.

Colin and I waited at the door for a moment while the man at the desk finished whatever it was he was in the middle of, the man paying us no attention in the slightest until he scribbled something in a notebook, then closed everything and finally looked up.

“Thank you, Colin,” the man said.

Colin gave a slight nod of his head, then exited the room, closing the door as he passed.

The man stood, and walked around the desk, holding a piece of parchment, Matthew’s letter, in his hand.

“Please,” he said, gesturing to the sitting area.

I sat down in one of the chairs. Seemed odd to sit down on the couch when I was trying to have a meeting.

He, however, sat down right in the middle of the couch, set Matthew’s letter on the table in front of him, then leaned back, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“Clyde Hatchett,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you know who we are?”

“Biscuit’s Union?”

“That’s our name, but do you know anything further?”

“I have a few guesses, but nothing concrete, no.”

“Guess then.”

“A gang? Syndicate? However you want to call it?”

“I suppose you can consider us something along those lines.”

“A thieves guild?”

“That does have quite a nice ring to it,” he said with a bemused smile. “I like that. We are a collection of like-minded individuals who tend to play on the other side of the law. Currently, I am the leader of this thieves guild, Victor Woolf.”

“Clyde Hatchett.”

“I know,” he said, pointing at Gallifrey’s letter.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Certainly the pleasure is mine. I am curious, though, what you’re doing here.”

“I, uh, I don’t know what the letter says, but I’m interested in, uh, doing essentially what you guys are doing.”

“With us? For us? Just curious, looking to apprentice to one of us?”

“I mean, maybe? Yes? I don’t know. I’m new to the city, and I’m looking for, I guess, help.”

“It is intriguing that you have come to us. Not many are, well, I doubt many realize we exist any longer. Matthew only does because of his past. Presently, we really do little more than run this eatery.”

“But it wasn’t always the case, right?”

“Of course not, we are one of the oldest thieves guilds, if you will, in Glaton. Been here since the founding of the Empire, should you believe our history. Which you should. Only embellished ever so much.”

“So why, I mean, what made you leave the game? Matthew calls it the game.”

“Many do. It’s odd walking around and talking about a life of crime. I suppose we’re being open and honest about it now, that crime is what we are talking about, right? I haven’t misread this.”

“No, I want to be a thief. To steal from the rich and powerful.”

“They really are the best to steal from. I tried stealing from paupers before, but, really, all you usually get is lice.”

“Noted.”

“What happened to the Biscuit’s Union,” he started, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling.

I followed his gaze and saw that there were intricate carvings all over the place.

“The carvings are from the Imperial Palace,” Victor said. “The first palace. As far as I know, this newer palace one has remained largely free from the activities of our kind.”

“Goals, then.”

“Surely. What happened to Biscuit’s Union is what happens to everything. We got cocky, we got exclusive, and we got old. And fat. And happy. And once you are fat and happy, it is much harder to risk anything, especially the ways in which we had in the past. It would have been time for new blood, but new blood went in different ways. Flashier. More violent. The newer gangs, they have no class, honor. They exist without regard for anything else, and, left alone, they would destroy the world merely to put another coin in their pouch. We liked to imagine we were shepherding the city in a way, providing a means of moving up in the world to those who might otherwise be stuck in the streets. We had rules. Contracts. When I was a young pup, looking to join, the Biscuit’s Union was powerful beyond measure in the city, and they were able to keep order amongst the underworld. There was infiltration by other countries. No spies that we didn’t know about and approve. But that is not who we are any longer. Now, we are just old. Not quite as fat, not quite as happy, but that is the nature of life.”

“So you’re a thieves retirement home now?”

“Oh, not by choice, but I suppose it is an adequate descriptor.”

“You want back in.”

“To be back on top? Sure. Of course. I presume you think you are the man for that job. That you will bring us to greatness once more. I fear that’s quite the presumption.”

“I didn’t say that, you said that.”

“Well, I was presumptuous on your behalf, but are you going to sit there and say that didn’t cross your mind?”

“No, I’m not even sure I want to be part of an organization like this. Primarily, I’m here because someone is trying to have me killed, and Matthew doesn’t know the current dynamics of the underworld in the city.”

“Oh, that changes things.”

“How?”

“Well, if someone wants you killed, then I daresay you are likely more skilled that I’ve given you credit for.”

“Okay, cool. Just—”

He held up a hand.

“If you fear for yourself, and you want to be in this type of profession, to play the game as it were, then doing it alone is very rarely a good idea. There is a reason we criminals tend to form gangs.”

“Now you want me to join?”

“I never said I didn’t want you to join, I merely questioned if you thought you’d be able to take us back to the top of the heap. And yes, I think you joining would be very interesting for us.”

“And for me?”

“Well, it would likely be interesting to you. But it depends largely on you, doesn’t it? What you decide to do with what we offer you.”

“And what can you offer?”

“Training, for one. Guidance. Assistance when dealing with other groups. Other syndicates or guilds. We will be able to make you much more impressive as a thief. But we will also likely be able to keep you alive.”

I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get the information I wanted, that this guy wasn’t about to help me figure out who was after me unless I was willing to join his group. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, doing my best to give myself a little room to think. Was joining a group bad? How did this factor in a game sense? If this was an RPG, or at least if it was an RPG back on Earth, joining the guild would be a non-issue, it’d just be the way to reach higher levels. But, in the real world, or this real world, the guild was made up of other people, not NPCs. Plus, Earth-side, I’d never been the joining type. Mostly, I’d done my own thing. Hence why I wasn’t part of any clans, I solo’d most games, and even found ways to turn games that were usually played by teams into a more individual experience. Hence the trolling. And yet, here, in this world, as soon as I really put my mind to the problem, the answer was simple. Of course I was joining. This was what I needed. Perhaps not wholly wanted, but it was definitely the best way forward in a world where I was ridiculously new and woefully ignorant. These people here, old though they may be, had vastly more experience doing what it was I wanted to do, I’d be a fool to toss that aside because I wanted to run solo.

“Yeah,” I said as I admitted the realization to myself as well, “I’d like to join.”

“Smashing,” he replied, clapping his hands together, then pulled a blank sheet of parchment from a drawer I hadn’t noticed in the coffee table. He slapped it on the table, and produced a pencil like a street magician might cause a pencil to appear. “There are a few questions I need to ask before I extend an official invitation.”

“Oh, sure.”

“And you’ll have to agree to our rules.”

“Of course.”

“Do you practice magic?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not technically, no. It’s not on our list of rules, mainly because our charter is so old. Written some thousand years ago, before all the Wizard wars. But there will certainly be those of the Union who feel unkindly about magic. Some remember the last war, rather horrific what magic is capable of, and they’re not quite as understanding that our kind, we thieves of the night, tend to follow the mantra of using whatever means necessary to succeed and not get caught. Magic included. If you are going to sling the spells about, you will need to take lessons with someone.”

“A specific someone?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“I appreciate your affability in this manner. Next, do you have any family?”

“No.”

“None?”

“None.”

“Oh, well, easy answer, and I can skip these next few. A wife? Or a husband. Either.”

“Neither.”

“Skip this about children. Though, do you—”

“No. No children.”

“A true loner. Rare, but useful. Skip this and that, and here we are again, are you an Imperial Citizen.”

“Yes.”

“Born in the Empire.”

“I was. Yes.” Technically the truth. Just have to alter the definition of born ever so slightly, and it was true.

“Capital. And your specialization?”

“Uh, what? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Are you looking to be a thug, a pickpocket, a con artist? Fraud? Smuggling? Fixing fights and contests?”

“Uh, thievery?”

“The classic. Second-floor man, eh?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“In that case, you’ll be working and training under Rowland. I believe you met him outside, and he’s in charge of thievery. At least in that regard.”

“I met him, yeah.”

“Lovely fellow, just don’t mention fiends around him. Really, you shouldn’t be mentioning fiends at all, tends to get their attention, which you don’t want. First lesson there for you.”

“Thank you.”

He winked at me.

“Alright, now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment. Try not to steal anything in the office.”

He laughed, then left.

Naturally, as soon as he told me not to steal, stealing was the only thing I wanted to do. But somehow, through a supreme effort of will, I restrained myself for the ten minutes he was gone. He returned with a massive tome in his hands, and Rowland following him. Somehow, Rowland looked different. More put together. His hair was styled, and his beard was perfect. He was moving with more confidence, and I was starting to get that his old-man persona was a ruse. To really see the Biscuit’s Union as a down-and-out coffee and cookie place.

Rowland plopped down in the chair opposite me, while Victor took his place on the couch, dropping the heavy book on the table with a thud. Victor started thumbing through the pages.

“A thief, eh?” Rowland asked, a smile hidden under his white beard.

“Yes,” I said. “At least—”

“Hatchett, we have just started, leave the doubt for later. You’re young, be overconfident.”

“Sure,” I said. “I guess I can try that.”

“There will be a test of sorts,” Victor said as he scribbled something into the pages of the tome.

“A test?”

“Yes, you’re a probationary member of the Union right now, but following the test, provided you pass suitably, you will be a full member. Hold out your arm.”

I frowned, still concerned about this “test,” but I held out my arm.

There was a glint of metal as Victor’s hand moved impossibly fast, and I felt a flash of pain.

Blood came out of my arm into a thin brass tube.

“Hey!” I started, but Rowland shook his head.

Victor put one drop of blood on the page.

Immediately, a prompt appeared in my vision.

Do you wish to join the Thieves Guild: The Biscuit’s Union?

Yes/No

I blinked a time or two, I hadn’t realized the game world would be a part of this. But, then again, why would it not?

Naturally, I picked yes.

Congratulations! Look at you paying for friends. You have been made a Probationary Junior Member of the Biscuit’s Union. You have been granted the indicium: Biscuit’s Union Member.

* * *

Ugh. Sass. And what was an indicium?

47

“The Test,” Rowland said as we walked outside, “is here to determine if you have the skills to be a part of our organization. It will challenge you. It is supposed to, for we are the best of the best, and—”

“You got enough youth left to be picky here?” I asked.

He was a little bit flustered.

“Kidding,” I said. “I get it, you guys don’t want to bring in some stupid dingus who’s going to wind up sending you all to the hangman’s noose.”

“The noose is only if you’re fortunate. Far more likely, some of us would face breaking on the wheel or being drawn and quartered. Well, if the powers that be found out all that we’ve done. But, those are tales for the basement after ales. For the moment, the test.”

“Hit me with it.”

“You are to retrieve the Orb of Leeching from Lord Tollendahl. He’s very wealthy, you’ll hate him.”

“What does the orb do?”

“I will tell you the orb does not do what anyone says it does.”

“What does it do?”

“It’s quite unimportant. More important is that you get the orb out safely, and remain uncaught. Preferably undetected.”

“Okay, seems, well, challenging?”

“Were it any normal day, it would be. In a normal day, the orb would be in the vault, amongst the other priceless artifacts Tollendahl stole.”

“He stole them?”

“His father, technically. His father was part of the group who orchestrated the last laws on magic, and Lord Tollendahl the senior used those laws to seize an enormous number of artifacts, weapons, armor, collectibles of all kinds. Many were sold to provide gold for the Tollendahl family activities, and their rise has been rather dramatic since then. That’s one of the reasons the Tollendahl family is one of the most powerful in Glaton today.”

“So I should take as many magic items as I can from him?”

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”

“Extra credit?”

“Sure. But, as I was saying, there’s one element that makes this possible at the moment, and that is because Tollendahl is very proud of his collection and himself. He has a ball coming up, and his collection will be on display.”

“So I just need to get into the party.”

“Not a party, it is a full ball. A ball is a wholly different event than a mere party. But yes, you need to get into the event and back out. With the orb.”

“No problem.”

“I like your confidence, misplaced though it may be. Here are the rules for your test; you may not solicit help from anyone save your current mentor and me. All others are off-limits. You may not be caught. That is paramount. You don’t need to steal the orb on the night of the ball, but it must be in my hands no later than a fortnight from now.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. For now.”

“You might change them?”

“You seem to think this is a rigid world you are walking into. There are no hard and fast rules that exist in perpetuity within the underworld. Everything may change in an instant, and you must be able to adapt and overcome.”

We had walked around half the Arena, and I was still mystified by the size of the thing.

“Anything else?” Rowland asked.

“Yeah, can you guys find out who’s trying to kill me?” I asked. “Maybe see if there’s some way to stop them?”

“Where do you live again?”

“Old Town,” I said, then gave him the cross streets.

“Old Town is unclaimed territory. Most of the city is, the idea of holding territory is rather outdated. These days, groups hold onto areas of commerce. Running numbers. Running brothels—”

“Sorry to interrupt, but are brothels illegal here?”

“No, but it is an area rife for, shall we say, exploitation? Do you know of anyone who might be antagonistic towards you?”

“Not really. I mean, there’s a group called the Iron Silents, and they’ve expressed an interest in buying the building I own.”

“You own a building? That changes things. What is this building?”

“It’s a four-story thing. Tavern on the first floor, apartments in the rest.”

“Anything make it special?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’ll look into these Iron Silents, see what I find out. Anyone else?”

“Might be soon,” I said. And I explained the situation with the ring and the Swamp Angels.

Rowland nodded as he listened. He pulled a pipe out of a pocket and packed it with something that resembled tobacco but gave off an intense purple smoke, and smelled of something sweet.

“Return the ring,” Rowland said. “There’s little chance the news will actually get back to the Swamp Angels, but if it does, I doubt they will care as much as your mentor thinks it does. The Swamp Angels have plenty on their plate to deal with right now. It’s a good time to push them around and gain allies.”

“Okay.”

“And if you’d like to earn some style points, perhaps you should try to return the ring at the ball you aren’t supposed to be attending. Remember, half of this business of ours is based on appearances and reputation. A little mystique goes a long way.”

48

I was early to the pit again. Not necessarily super early because I just showed up at daybreak, but because I’d skipped dinner, I had no idea what time I was expected to be at the pit. So, after a night of two hours of sleep inside an obstacle on the second-floor parkour course, and a solid eight hours of training, I’d hiked over to the Pit and sat down against the gate with a small basket of meat buns.

And I sat there.

And sat there.

Finally, Nadya came strolling down the street, once again looking like she was strutting her stuff on the mean stages of fashion week.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Morning,” she replied.

She mirrored me again, sitting up against the other side of the gate.

“You missed dinner,” she said.

“I did,” I said. “In more ways than one. But I got to see that Arena place for the first time. So, you know, I had that going for me.”

“You’ve never seen the Arena?”

“Recent arrival.”

“From?”

“A small town you’ve probably never heard of.”

“Try me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Is it some plague-ravaged hamlet you’re afraid will get you reported to the authorities?”

“Maybe,” I said, wondering if there really were plague-ravaged hamlets and authorities designated to root out troublemakers from said hamlets.

She laughed.

“Fine,” she said, “keep your secrets.”

“Are you a capital city girl?”

“Not sure I’d call myself that, but born and bred in Glaton.”

“What happens in the Arena?”

“I, uh,” she paused, and I had the distinct impression I was about to hear a lie. “Fights.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding along. “Fights. Between people?”

“Sometimes.”

“Animals?”

“Sure.”

“Monsters?”

“Probably.”

“You’ve never gone, have you?”

“Nope. Not my scene.”

“You’re more a fancy dress ball sort of a girl?”

“I look like one, huh? I wear only the finest oilskin coveralls and muck out just the fanciest pits.”

“Matthew did pick a nice pit.”

“I think we got lucky. The queen was amazing, wasn’t she?”

“I, uh, I think I was a little too focused on not, uh, getting destroyed by her.”

“But after. The things going on inside her, things I would never have thought.”

“I guess I wasn’t paying as much attention to her, uh, insides, as I should have, I was kind of a bit on autopilot during that.”

She shook her head, “That’s where the most interesting work happens.”

“Okay.”

“You disagree?”

“I suppose I never thought about it that way, no.”

“You should. Next pit.”

And that made me wonder if there was going to be a next pit. Was I going to keep working with Matthew in the pits? It wasn’t the best work, and I had no idea how much I was going to get paid, or even if I was being paid, but, so far, I liked my coworkers, and I appreciated the skill levels I was reaping from the slog.

Right about then, I saw Matthew turn the corner a block away from us, so I scrambled to my feet. And Nadya did the same a second later.

“Good morning,” Matthew said, looking a bit rough.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Celebratory night,” he said, wincing as if even his own voice was too loud. “Saw the effects of the Queen on the budget.”

“Which is?”

“Exceptional,” Matthew said with a smile. “And today is the easy day for us. Just sit and watch.”

I thought about asking if this was an hourly type gig, but considering the rather lackadaisical approach to clocks, I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

We did some quick cleaning up of the site, which was largely pushing brooms around trying to get some of the dried mud back into the pit, and then we set up some chairs on the edge of it.

About twenty minutes later, there was a carriage at the gate. It wasn’t a posh thing. Instead, it had a utilitarian almost military feel to it. Something highlighted by the soldiers driving the thing and riding on the back of it.

More soldiers got out, leading three men who had chains leading to metal collars around their necks and metal bracelets on their wrists. They looked very much like an Alabama prison chain-gang. Though these guys wore nice robes, not striped or orange jumpsuits.

“What is this?” I whispered to Matthew.

He patted me on the shoulder, then got up and walked across the pit area. He and the head guard spoke, there were some papers signed, and then the chains were removed from the men with robes. The men with robes stretched and made jokes, even with their guards. It was a strange sight. Matthew walked around the pit with the robed men, pointing to the walls, and making comments we couldn’t hear.

“What’s going on?” I asked Nadya.

She looked almost bored at the goings-on.

“Have you never seen Mancers before?” she asked, arching one perfect eyebrow up in disbelief.

“No. I haven’t.”

“Now you have.”

I blinked, then looked at the robed men. I suppose they looked like wizards. In some fashion. They were all middle-aged men, slim builds, little facial hair. The robes were completely different than any other fashion choices I’d seen, but they lacked the mystical or arcane flair I think I was expecting to see. After their tour of the pit, the robed men huddled together and did some talking. I looked over to see Matthew again chatting with the guards, guards who were now lounging about the carriage as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

“This is all really strange,” I said out loud, though I hadn’t really intended to do so.

“Strange?” Nadya asked. “Why?”

“Why all the guards? Why the chains?”

“Where are you from that you don’t know this?”

“Small town. Hamlet. My uncle killed my father and married my mother?”

“Really? That’s messed up.”

“I know, it’s a tragic story, but it consumed my life until now, so, you know, I’m a bit ignorant of your big city ways.”

She gave me the look that made it clear she thought I was full of it, and I was, so, she was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

“The Mancers have to be chained. Keeps them from accessing their mana. And the guards are there to strike the Mancers down if the Mancers do anything against orders.”

“Okay, now that’s messed up.”

She shrugged. “Keeps the magic users from starting a fourth war.”

“Maybe if we treated them like people instead of keeping them chained up, they’d stop starting wars.”

“They were treated like people,” Matthew said, sitting back down next to us, “and that’s why they started wars. They got too much power and thought they should control everyone and everything. They were particularly cruel, more so in each attempt at conquering the Empire. That’s why they wear chains like that today. That’s why they have people willing to kill them for the slightest breach of protocol. It is always difficult to have a regular ol’ mortal person have the power the arcane arts is able to grant, almost always winds up destroying the person and making a monster. That said these guys are quite nice, not looking to cause problems, they’re here to rebuild the pit.”

“What do you mean, rebuild the—”

He waved my question away. “Just watch.”

Naturally skeptical, I did what he suggested, and I watched. What I saw made my brain hurt.

49

Magic was wild. Obviously, I’d seen it done before, but only from my own perspective, and then the spells I’d been doing were mostly internal. The three Mancers, I mean they’re wizards, but you know, the language of the realm, spaced themselves equally around the circle, taking more than a few minutes to get it so they were all happy. Arms went up, all three men raising them at the same time. One of them started chanting softly, then a second, and finally, the third. It sounded a bit like they were chanting a round, like an occult row row row your boat.

Small glowing things started to drift out of their hands, a bizarre and fantastic mix of iridescent colors.

The three streams of light motes met in the middle and started swirling around as if they were gathering in power.

A pulse of energy came out of the three men, zipping up to the center mass that seemed to go into overdrive. It was a roiling mass of energy that lasted only a second before it shot a beam down into the ground.

I couldn’t help myself, I stood up so I could get a clear view of the bottom of the pit.

The spot the beam hit was building up stone. These men were making stone! The beam moved around in a rough circle, and after about fifteen minutes, there was a layer of stone all across the bottom, and the pit was significantly shallower.

The men stopped what they were doing, breathing hard and sweating profusely. They walked away from the pit, shaking their hands, doing all the things someone would after a hard run or something.

“Break time,” Matthew said.

“For them or for us?” I asked.

“If you need a break from sitting in the chair, then sure, for you.”

“Are they making stone or pulling it from somewhere?”

“They are making Stone. Using magic to pull it from, well, who knows. Maybe an elemental plane of earth where stone is created. I honestly don’t know. I haven’t tried to figure it out.”

It was incredibly tempting to hop into the pit and look at the stone. I wanted to know what kind of stone it was. It looked very regular, very smooth. Like someone was trying to describe the concept of stone, and it was nothing but generic stone. Smooth grey.

Things resumed after about twenty minutes, and the wizards made another layer of stone. It went on and on throughout the day, a cycle of magic and breaks. Magic and break. The breaks kept getting longer and the magic shorter until it was nearly an hour of break and five minutes of stone.

Right about dinner time, the wizards stopped, each drank a large bottle filled with a deep blue liquid, and then built out the walls of the pit during a long stretch of spells, nearly thirty minutes straight.

One of the wizards collapsed. A second threw up. But the third just seemed winded.

The guards came over and helped the two fallen Mancers, while the third hopped into the pit, but literally: this guy just hops off the edge, and then gently floats to the bottom. He walked around, his hands out in front of him, chanting. A blue glow was about him, and as he moved his hands, the stone smoothed out around him. He was doing the finishing work. He kept going for quite a while, finally taking a break when one of the other wizards went to work. Then the third. They kept trading off until the pit was done. A perfectly smooth cylinder going down fifty feet into the ground. The walls were straight up and down. It was incredible.

The last thing that happened was a mancer/wizard dude making two holes on the surface, about a foot apart, about two to three inches wide.

Then there was some more paperwork for Matthew to fill out, and the guards put chains back on the Mancers, got them into the carriage, and rolled out.

Matthew had a ladder that fit perfectly in the surface holes, and as soon as he had it in place, we were done. Pit restored.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“We move on to a new pit,” Matthew said.

“What happens to this one?”

“Someone else moves in.”

“Does someone own this? Do pit masters lease them or something?”

“Are you asking about the economic modality of The Pits?”

“Just curious about it.”

“Someone owns this pit, yes. That person pays me to renovate it. Part of my payment is the things left behind. Once this is cleaned, the owner will likely bring a new pit beast into this hole here. Decides what the creature is going to eat, then feeds the creature waste until the pit looks like it did when we started. Rinse and repeat.”

“Oh. Where is the pit beast now?”

“The breeder's place, I imagine. Or another pit. Hard to tell really.”

“What are pit beasts?”

“Disgusting, primarily. And before you ask for more information about it, I don’t know specifics.”

“It’s actually an umbrella term,” Nadya said, stretching. She’d been napping on and off during the course of the day, seemed like magic wasn’t exactly an interest of hers. “There are a number of creatures people consider and call Pit Beasts.”

“Are you a pitbeast expert?” Matthew asked, somewhere between surprised she’d woken up to say something and irritated he’d been corrected.

“Not an expert, no,” she replied, getting to her feet. “But I’ve looked at more than a few of them.”

“I think it’s a family of creatures,” Matthew said, “but I really only clean up after them. I’d rather not have to deal with them.”

“Supposedly, some of them are a little psychic.”

“What are these creatures?” I asked.

“Pit Beasts,” Matthew said.

He left the conversation and walked into the stone cottage.

“If you want,” Nadya said, “I know a place we can meet one. See it up close and stuff.”

“That would be super cool.”

She nodded, and I think she was about to work out a date to do the thing, but that’s when Matthew came back and tossed a small pouch at me.

I caught it from the air, and it clinked.

“Pay for the work here,” he said. “You did well.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But am I—”

“You want to come to the next job, you can. I’d be happy to have you.”

“He offered me continued employment last night,” Nadya said with a smirk, I think trying to rub it in that she was first. “You coming back?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”

“I like to hear that,” Matthew said. “Take whatever you need from here, once those gates are closed, I can’t open them anymore.”

“Can’t you just climb over?” I asked.

“Enchanted walls. A key factor to the pits being the pits. If the gate is closed, nothing can go over the walls. And I’m turning the key over tonight.”

Mild hypocrisy to use magic items and the like, but hate on the casters. I didn’t say anything out loud, I didn’t think I’d get much in the way of sympathy.

Nadya watched me for a minute, then she stood up.

“Tomorrow then,” she said. “At the new site.”

Then she strode out like she had a place to be.

“Never learn, do you?” Matthew asked.

“What?”

He just shook his head.

50

Matthew and I walked out together, and I gave him the abbreviated version of my interaction with the Biscuits Union. He nodded along as he listened, and barely asked any questions. When I was done, though, he stopped walking and looked at me.

“That’s just odd,” he said. “And doesn’t sound much like Rowland.”

“You know him?”

“I knew him. He and I weren’t ever close. Not really. Friends, but only just. He’s a goof, a nobleman who started stealing things because he liked the challenge, but then realized he was good at it and liked the people in the business. I know, after I left, he had a thing happen, we’re talking years back. Ten at least. He went after something big. The whole team was taken down. Three killed in the attempt, one in the escape, two are hung, and one rotted in prison. No one gave him up. Or the union. But I think a lot of people thought twice about joining, and if I remember hearing correctly, Rowland was never really the same. Could be, he just doesn’t want to bring anyone new aboard, doesn’t want to take the chance something bad’ll happen again.”

“Might have been good information to have, like, you know, yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, I told you to talk to them. To ask about things. Not join up.”

“You have a point there.”

He raised his eyebrows and sent a smug smile my way, and he started walking again.

“I won’t say you’re screwed,” he said, “but this won’t end well.”

“Nobles as enemies?”

“That presumes you are successful, and that’s the best-case scenario. You might muck this thing all the way up, wind up swinging from a rope. You rob a bakery or a cobbler, when you get caught, you’ll get tossed in the clink for a spell. Have to pay a fine, do a little time. But you rob a noble, hanging will be the lightest sentence you get. They’re a different level than our lot.”

“And Rowland is one of them?”

“He is. Has a name and a title and land. He’s not the head of his family, or in line to inherit anything magnificent, but he still gets the privileges afforded to the high and mighty.”

“Like death to those who cross him?”

“There is still law in the Empire. But once you break that law…”

This was not the way I thought this conversation was going to go, and I felt a certain level of disturbed that I was with this group now.

“I can leave them, right?” I asked.

“The Biscuit’s Union? Yes,” he said. “But should you? I don’t think so.”

“Wait—”

“There’s a reason behind this. You need someone to watch your back. I might be able to give you some more training, I know I can, but I can’t watch out for you. Nor can I do things like steer you to a fence who won’t perpetually screw you. Or get you jobs when you need more money than digging shit out of holes will net you.”

“How much money did I earn for this?” I asked.

“We did ridiculously well,” he replied, “so ten gold.”

“What would a normal job be?”

“For a week and a half of work? Gold and a half.”

“One gold a week?”

“Thereabouts. But it depends on what we find and what we harvest.”

I really wanted to ask how much he was being paid, but I didn’t think it polite to ask that, not of the guy who was technically my boss and actually my mentor/trainer.

“You’re cleared to continue training with me?” Matthew asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I can also talk to you about the challenge. Or test. Whatever you want to call it.”

“It’s a washout mission.”

“Impossible?”

“Nothing is impossible. Highly improbable, but not impossible. I might be wrong about it. I don’t know this Tollendahl. Or his family. He might have glaring weaknesses in his security. Before you tell Rowland to piss off, make a walk around of the lord’s estate. Find ways in, and, more importantly, out. See where you can exit not just the estate, but the neighborhood. If you don’t do things perfectly, it’ll be like stomping on a hornet’s nest in a closet.”

“Can do,” I said. “And what are we training tomorrow?”

“Depends on what we find at the pit,” Matthew replied with a smile. “Hopefully more than shoveling shit.”

We parted ways at the edge of the Pits neighborhood, he was heading uptown, and I was heading towards Old Town. I needed to talk to Titus in the bar, see if he knew where I might find ol’ Lord Fancypants.

51

He did. He even drew a small map for me. The estate in question was in one of the poshest neighborhoods, on the eastern border of the Imperial Palace. It was another of the occasions where I had to talk to Titus in the back of the bar, and we had an even shorter conversation than before, as his wife’s patience levels seemed to be at an all-time low. We’d barely spoken for five minutes before she came barging in, yelling at Titus. She smiled at me though, so that was nice.

I told Titus to hire another bartender or two, and he waved me off, saying he’d already hired two cooks. I can attest to the cooks being worth it, I ate a big meal of meat and some noodles, and it was absolutely delicious. A bit spicy, but in the way where you just feel warm afterward, not full of heartburn.

Leaving the bar when it was dark, I debated on my destination before deciding to go check out Tollendahl’s estate. It was definitely a long walk, but I wasn’t sure of the local detectives’ abilities, and I didn’t want to leave a paper trail by taking a carriage. I mean, I was reasonably certain there was no CSI Glaton edition, but you never knew. Besides, taking a carriage that far was going to eat up multiple days pay. Seemed wasteful. I took the time to do a little sightseeing on the way, though, passing through the Forum and looking at the beautiful buildings there, and going all the way up to the walls around the Imperial Palace. It was an incredible group of structures, truly immense and, as far as I could tell, the apex of modern Glatonese architecture. All sorts of columns, flying buttresses, stained glass windows, clever uses of different rocks to give the place style and texture. It was magnificent.

The Senate building was also kind of cool, it was a big dome. Like, a really big dome. And that was neat, but it definitely lacked the raw charm and overwhelming presence of the palace. There were lots of very nice, but small, homes around the Senate building, and from the looks of them, they were city homes for nobles in the Senate. Single-family townhouses mostly.

It wasn’t until I walked much further north and a little to the east, that I came across the estates. The places where there was a wall, and then grass and trees and the like before the house. These were the homes of the truly rich and famous of Glaton. The buildings were massive, and the grounds surrounding the estates seemed more like parks than, well, yards.

Tollendahl was not in the first tier of estates, but he was in the second. His grounds were probably two or so acres. He had high walls around his place, but they were steel bars topped with gold spearpoints. Classy. There was a wide front driveway that looped around so that wagons/carriages entering didn’t need to turn around, merely cruise on through. I counted six floors, but that included what seemed like a small room at the very top and the lighted half-windows at the bottom indicating a basement. But the six floors were spread over a massive building, with two huge wings on either side of a central section. The whole thing was a white stone of some kind, and there are plenty of decorative elements carved into the rock itself. The front of the home was lit up, there were large glowstone lampposts at regular intervals along the drive, plus large lights mounted on the front of his house. It wasn’t quite daylight out front, but there were very few places to hide. I did a quick walk to the back of the house, noting that the east side had an exit to a wide veranda with a large balcony off the second floor. There was a quaint gazebo closer to the fence line as well as a few smaller fountains. The backyard was more substantial than the front, there was a very manicured garden, a large fountain, and a hedge maze, all surrounded by mature fruit trees, most of which seemed like they were in season. I did not take any fruit. I remembered my fairy tales. A huge patio took up a lot of the space by the house, then some garden bits, then a Vegas sized fountain, then the maze. It seemed like climbing the wall would be somewhat possible, then a hop into the trees. Good cover in the trees. I’d be safe there. And I might be able to make the dash between the trees and the maze—

Then I saw two guards on a balcony jutting out from the third floor of the place. They were standing near each other, talking, but I could make out the bows they had on their backs. If they were stationed there during the party, they’d easily see someone coming out of the trees, no matter where I was. They had a clear view of everything up until the trees.

“Scouting the place out, kid?” A gruff voice said.

I was startled and took a step back from the fence.

There was a face in the darkness. A face with a large nose, a big chin, and more stubble than I was used to seeing on men in the Empire. He wore chainmail and had a tabard over it with a blue stag’s head on the front.

“Just dreaming,” I said quickly. Which was somewhat the truth. I was daydreaming about the thievery.

The guard chuckled and tore a peel off a round fruit he had in his hands. A sweet citrus smell drifted over my way.

“If I had the choice,” he said, continuing to peel, “yeah, I’d be a nobleman. But I worry I’d be bored, you know?”

“Bored?”

“Yeah, what with the money he has no reason to do nothing. Has to make up reasons. Often his reasons seem dumb. Why’s he do what he does? Boredom. Gotta have something to live for, you know?”

“I guess.”

“Some of ‘em, they trade on power, playing a great game of strategy with us pawns, always thinking they will somehow snake the throne out from under who’s sitting on it.”

He popped a segment of the fruit into his mouth, then held one out to me, between the bars of the wall. I took it and bit into it. The flesh was almost disconcertingly soft, like a gummy bear left out in a hot car. But the flavor was incredible. A burst of sweetness, then a clobbering tartness, and a gush of juice that was soothing.

“Good, innit?” he asked, smiling at my face. He had another piece between the bars.

“Delicious,” I said. “What is it?”

“Rahmdahl,” he replied, pointing up at the trees above. “Only place in the empire it grows, right here. This estate. Otherwise, you gotta go over the mountains into Mahrduhm. At least, that what the lord says. Might be a fancy tale, but I never had these until I started working here. And even then, I only ever take the ones I’ve seen on the ground for a day. Or two. He gets mad when he sees anyone take his fruits from the tree.”

“Does he pay well?”

“You looking for work too, whelp?”

I didn’t think I looked that young, or that small. I felt like I was shaping up nicely. But I just smiled at him.

“I have a job,” I said with a smile at him. “One I’m okay at.”

“Fun?”

“It has its moments.”

“What is it you do?” he asked, leaning against the wall now.

“I work in the Pits.”

“Nasty work that, right?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty gross, but, pays the bills.”

“Dangerous, yeah?”

“I guess. Depends on the pit. I’ve really only done one, so, might be dangerous.”

“Aye, danger rests in the unknown. Maybe I should be the one asking you about jobs, eh?”

“I can talk to my boss if you’d like.”

“What’s the pay then?”

“Gold a week plus bonuses for what we find.”

“Ain’t half bad there. I might be tempted to leave this for that, boss nice? Fair?”

“So far. Takes the lead in dangerous spots. Does the disgusting work with you. He’s friendly. I enjoy the people I work with. I don’t know man, it’s my first real job here.”

“But you like it?”

“I do.”

“Yeah, why not. Could do with a change, get out of here ‘fore the big man gets bored again, does something else crazy.”

“What’d he do last time?”

“Tell you what, you get me that job, I’ll tell you all the stories you want about Tollendahl. Turn your elf hair white, it will.”

“Really?”

“You will be calling me a liar and buying my drinks for a week, I tell you all what stories I know.”

I stuck my hand through the bars, “Clyde Hatchett.”

“Peregrine Gilkes.”

We shook hands.

“You on tomorrow night?”

“Here? Thank the gods, no. Only night off.”

“Come down to this tavern, the Heavy Purse, it’s in Old Town.”

“You live in Old Town?”

“I do. You?”

“Here,” he said, pointing to the house. “Room and board is part of the deal.”

“So you’ll need a place to live?”

“Aye, but at a gold a week, I can have my pick of places in Old Town. Right?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I kind of lucked into a living situation.”

“Maybe I will too.”

“Fingers crossed. I’ll talk to the boss, see what he says.”

“Appreciate it,” he said. “And keep dreaming. Might be you get to be bored someday too.”

52

I left the area after that. No sense getting anyone suspicious of me because I was hanging around the estate. I already saw there were plenty of problems to overcome, and, as of yet, I had no firm ideas. The only possibility I had was that Tollendahl’s staff wasn’t fond of him, and that was based on the mutterings of a random guard. Not the strongest evidence. Still, it was better than nothing, and, to me at least, a good start.

Walking back to Old Town, I got tired. I didn’t want to do this walking crap anymore. I wanted subways, or busses, or taxis. And because it was night, all the nice carriages were gone. It was now random wagons at very rare intervals, and the occasional creepy carriage I had to imagine was carrying some sort of vile monster prowling for victims.

Once I got to Old Town, I took a short break. I wasn’t planning on sleeping that night, having had my ounce of sleep the night before, but there was a small place with lights on and good smells. It was just a hole in the wall sort of a place where it was little more than a counter and a window. But there were lights on inside and people milling about outside, 95% of them guards.

I walked over, and some of the people moved out of the way enough for me to get to the window. There was a wizened old man sitting on a stool, watching everything happening outside of the window.

“Help you?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, “what is this place?”

He laughed, revealing a remarkable mix of teeth, including a few that seemed a very wrong color.

“The Cookie Hole,” he replied.

“Cookies and coffee?” I asked.

He nodded. “The best coffee and cookies, open all night every night.”

“I’ll take some,” I said.

He pulled two cookies out of a small oven and poured me a cup of coffee.

I paid him his silvers, and I sipped the coffee and ate my cookies. They were good. Simple but tasty. It made me a bit homesick, thinking about the cookies I’d had at home. About chocolate chip cookies. I’d never had homemade ones, at least not at home. But in middle school, I often slept over at this kid’s house, Michael Hunt. And yes, that was his actual name, his parents thought it was hilarious, Mike was continually embarrassed by it, and never once went by Mike. His mom always made us cookies for sleepovers. And she’d always take them out at 10:30 at night, bringing them upstairs on a plate with a big mug of milk for each of us. We’d be making all sorts of plans to stay up all night, planning our world domination in Civilization or just bullshitting until dawn. Every damn time, we’d eat the cookies and drink the milk and inevitably we would fall deep asleep. It wasn’t until that moment, standing there by this all night cookie shop, surrounded by the city guard, that I wondered if Mike’s mom had been spiking our milk with sleeping pills. Or cough syrup. I shook my head. A mom that’d name her kid Mike Hunt, yeah, she had to have been.

Laughing, I chugged the coffee and scalded my throat a bit. Coffee in Glaton was definitely in the early stages of development. There was no milk offered nor added, no sugar, definitely no steamed milk or foam. But it fulfilled, to an extent, the things I wanted from coffee. Warmth in a cold night, a slight boost from caffeine, and a flavor that reminded me of better food.

I put my mug back on the counter, and the man gave me a wink.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Sure thing,” I replied.

I took a more circuitous route back to my place, thinking there was the off chance I was being followed. I did the whole make four right turns technique to see if anyone was following me. Spoilers: no. No one was following me. I stopped to eat my second cookie, so I grabbed a seat on a stoop. Looking out across the street, I was struck by how similar this part of the city was to old New York. Especially the pictures of the old tenements. Of Five Points, back when that was still part of the city. And I thought about something my buddy Sean Wilson always told me, that no one in New York ever looks up. He used to say that you could get away with murder as long as you did the deed on a fire escape. So I looked up.

Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe just bad luck, but when I looked up, I saw open windows on the top floor of the building across the street, and I saw a grey form pulling at a window. It looked like someone was sneaking in to rob a place. But I had a bad feeling about the guy. Something was off. Because I was pretty sure I’d seen the wrinkles indicating clothing, but it wasn’t clothing that made sense, so there was definitely a discrepancy somewhere. And then I wondered if it was a kids room. And if the guy was just going in to rob the house.

“Shit,” I said, and I set the cookie on the staircase, fully intending to return to it as soon as I could.

I stretched as I stood up, and even though it was late at night and I was living in a city where cars weren’t even considered a crazy dream yet, I looked both ways before I crossed the street.

It wasn’t going to be fun, there wasn’t a fire escape on the building. I had the feeling that structural wrought ironwork hadn’t caught on quite yet. I was going to have to do it the old fashioned way. Climb the face of the building like my other name is Peter Parker.

Immediately, I started cycling mana, then pumping my stamina up. I knew climbing up five stories as fast as possible would drain me. I got that lovely fresh feeling, that sense I’d just woken up, and took one more look. The guy looked like he’d gotten his fingers under the window, and was now getting the glass up. Time to climb.

A pull up. That’s really all it was to start. Grabbing onto the ledge sticking out the window, getting my feet in place, then another pull up, and I was on the second story. I could practically watch my stamina bar drop every time I climbed to the next level, but this wasn’t an insane skyscraper, so it was a short time I got to the top floor, and mister grey pants started hauling himself inside.

I didn’t really know what else to do, so I followed suit, pulling myself into a darkened bedroom after a complete stranger. This was a strange life I was living.

53

It was a bedroom, and there were four small beds. Children. Great. Plush carpet on the floor, small dressers, small desks. One of the kids was snoring, and there were wooden toys spread about the place. The girl who’s bed was closest to the window had a really cute round face, and hugged a teddy bear tightly.

The grey shape was standing next to her bed, leaning over her.

“Buddy,” I said, “not cool.”

The shape turned to me, and immediately, I thought about jumping back out the window. The thing wasn’t human. Or nice. It had a mouth a bit like a lamprey, a brilliant red hole in the middle of its face surrounded completely by circle after circle of fang-like teeth, disappearing deep into its gullet. Anything going into that thing’s throat was not coming out again. Ever. And no lips. It was like the teeth just sprouted out of the thing’s face and then continued on Sarlacc-like into the depths of the throat. The skin on the thing was a sickly grey, and a bit translucent. Huge grey eyes bulged out on either side of its head, looking a bit horse-like in their placement, and like it suffered from horrible cataracts. Strands of saliva, or something that looked like saliva, were strung between its teeth, and there was definitely plenty of signs of the creature drooling. It had long arms and oversized hands with four fingers. But the fingers were very thick, coming to sharp points. There was no demarcation between claw and finger, it was like they were just one bizarre piece. It had a thin torso with thick wrinkles of skin around its midsection, and huge thighs on top of long legs that were reverse jointed, a bit like a grasshopper.

“You are one ugly dude,” I said.

He hissed at me.

Flecks of his salvia shot out across the room, and his teeth seemed to move with his gums. It was pretty high on the creep factor and the disgust factor.

I took the quickest of moments to look around the room and try to see what my options were. There was not much in the way of room in the, uh, room. It was pretty full of furniture, with a small strip of open space down the middle. There was a singular door, ostensibly leading to the rest of the house, and two windows looking out over the street. I had my longsword and my daggers. All four of my daggers. Though the KrakenTooth was tucked inside a pouch, and I didn’t really think the stone stiletto of silence would be quite as useful in this particular situation. The little girl in the bed had her eyes open, wide, but made no sounds. I smiled at her, hoping to keep her from screaming.

The creature looked at me, saw that smile, then shot his gaze down at the girl, as if surprised she was awake.

I fumbled with the long sword, trying to get it out of the stupid sheath. But the sheath was a soft leather, and it got all snarled up, so I had no other option, but to rip the thing off my belt, sheath and sword still together as somewhat one thing.

The creature swiped at the kid, and I had no choice, I cast shadow step.

As I moved into the shadow realm, I could feel things watching me. I darted around the bed, and got the sword in position, then stopped, ripped off the sheath and tossed it over my shoulder, then pushed myself back into the real world before the time was up. I hadn’t been sure it would work, but it seemed likely. Nothing in the spell said I had to spend the whole time in the shadow realm.

Time came back to normal, the creature’s big hand going full speed right into the point of the sword.

His flesh sizzled as it came into contact with the argentinium blade, and thanks to his strength and speed, his really impaled his hand onto the sword, going a solid eight to ten inches down.

I’m not sure the creature had the ability to make noise, not in the typical sense, because he opened his mouth wide, but no sound came out.

I shoved the blade up to the ceiling, misjudged both the length of the blade and the height of the ceiling, and wound up stabbing the wooden beam with surprising force, getting the sword well stuck.

The creature looked at me, and I looked at the creature, and then I took a step back.

None of the children were making noises, and I wondered if that was a thing drilled into kids here. Don’t make noise at night. Making noise only attracts bad attention.

The monster creature thing struggled to free it’s hand from the sword, moving this way and that way. Blood poured out of the wound every time the creature moved, sizzling and steaming on the sword.

Struck by stupid inspiration from a childhood filled with bad kung fu movies, I jumped up, grabbed the sword, and kicked out with both feet.

The creature took the hit on his chest, and flew back, is hand ripping apart as the sword cut through it. The sword, clearly weakened from the creature’s attempts to get free, fell out of the wooden beam, and I slammed my back on the floor in a deep and resounding thud.

Wind knocked right the heck out of me.

I laid there on the floor, struggling to breathe, gasping like a fish.

The creature wailed it’s silent scream and swung his hand around in pain, spreading his foul grey blood everywhere.

Not knowing what else to do, I started the cycle, running mana through my body to heal myself. And then also kicked on the stamina cycle. Two spells at once drained my mana like crazy, far more than it should have, based on the limited math I’d done. But it helped. I found my lungs open up, and my vision cleared, and I was ready to attack again.

The creature seemed to have decided it would be better to make an exit.

I, however, was not keen on that outcome. As the creature angled towards the window, I ran up behind and gave it my best middle school shove.

The creature tripped over the windowsill, his legs going skyward for a second before flipping around and flying out the window.

Somehow, though, the jerk managed to grab hold of the tiny ledge.

I grabbed a dagger from my belt, the sword left forgotten on the floor, and I brought it down as hard as I could, slicing through two of the creature’s four fingers. That seemed to be enough for the creature, as his grip slipped, and he dropped. His legs clipped the windows below, and he cartwheeled to the cobblestones below, hitting with enough force that his bulbous head splattered like an overripe melon.

GG! You killed a Grey Madarial (LVL 14 Monster)

You’ve earned 1550 XP! What a mighty hero you are!

The door behind me swung open with some force, hitting the other wall hard enough to drive the knob into the plaster.

A man stood there, his face a grim sort of rage, a club in his hand, that at a second glance was more a rolling pin.

“You—” he started, then his daughter rolled out of bed and grabbed him around the legs.

She seemed too afraid to speak, but she was shaking her head and looking up at him.

“There was a thing in here,” I said, “uh, it’s down there now.”

The man kept the rolling pin between him and me as he stepped around the bed and peered out the window.

“What was that?” he asked.

“A, uh, madarial?” I said, taking his momentary distraction as a moment to pick my sword up. “Grey one?”

“Here? Gods. How did you, how are you here? Who are you?”

“Saw him coming in the window,” I said while I looked around for the sheath, which I distinctly remembered having thrown over my shoulder, and yet, it wasn’t anywhere to be found, “and, you know.”

“You climbed the outside?”

“Yeah, it seemed faster.”

He came towards me, not aggressively, but I was still a bit worried where this was going, so I took a step back, and I put my sword in my belt, hoping it’d stay there.

“What is your name?” he asked.

I didn’t have a good reason to remain anonymous, except that I kind of wanted to, I wanted to avoid anyone knowing who I was because fame was somewhat at odds with my goals. Not that this singular act would make me famous, but, you know.

“Let’s just say I’m your friendly neighborhood, uh, man.” I started the sentence really hoping my brain would come up with a way to end it. Clearly, my brain did not.

I sidestepped the man, and quickly climbed out of the window and started down the building.

The man stuck his head out the window above me.

“You are a hero! Let me thank you!” he said.

“Not necessary,” I replied.

The trip down was exceedingly faster than the trip up, though not quite as fast as the monster.

“Wait!” The guy shouted.

I didn’t. My feet hit the street, and I was running.

And then I skidded to a stop, and I ran back to the corpse of the creature, hoisted it over my shoulder, and then started running. No reason to leave potential loot behind.

54

The madarial stunk. Bad. I put it in the second-floor storage apartment, wrapping it up in some spare canvas sheeting that had been wrapped around some crates and then dumped it into an empty barrel. The tavern had closed for the evening, and the area around my building was pretty much dead. It was certainly late enough, past midnight. Seeing the way that the world here worked, I wondered about the economic differences this city had. Late-night activities had to be severely limited. You couldn’t really stumble home after a rough night, I imagined there’d be hotels all over the place to cater to that specific need.

I went up to my apartment, and I hopped into the shower. I wondered how much of a luxury a shower was in this world, and was I getting spoiled having such easy access to it?

A problem for another night.

I’d done a good deed, and now I was going to revel in hot water, and no longer having blood and body fluids from a monster on me. You know, the little things.

Under the running water, I took the time to think. I’d stuck my neck out for someone, and, really, that someone wasn’t going to be able to repay the favor. Or were they? Was it possible that they might be willing to tell I was at their house the night I was actually robbing the palace? I was reminded of The Godfather, the scene where Don Corleone is given the orange. Sure, I’m pretty sure he was shot in that scene, but the people of the neighborhood loved him because he kept them safe. Maybe that was what I needed to do, help keep the neighborhood safe, and then they’d return the favor by keeping me safe.

An idea.

I’d also need to watch out for drive-bys and Tommy Guns.

Out of the shower, I dried off, got dressed, and since I’d run out of other tasks to do, finally got around to the cleaning I’d neglected the other night. And, honestly, since I’d moved into the apartment. It was getting a bit gross. Not pit gross, but pretty close to frat filth. I washed the sink, did the dishes, swept the floor. Also, I swept up tons and tons of feathers. I got all the broken wood together and chucked it into the fireplace. As well as the ripped sheets. All of it went into the fireplace, and I had my first fire. It was very quaint.

The trap daggers I put into a pile near the staircase, ready to go to Gideon’s.

I tossed the pile of feathers on the flame, and my quaint fire disappeared under a bunch of smoke. Turns out that feathers do not burn so much as smoke.

And then the smoke started to fill the apartment. I’d never had a fireplace before, and there was the feeling I might have done something wrong.

I ran around the apartment and threw open all the windows. Then I got a bucket of water from the bathroom and chucked it into the fireplace. There was a great big ka-phwoom, and more smoke and sizzling as the fire went out.

This wasn’t my night.

I went and leaned out the window to get some fresh air.

Down below, there was a man and a little person, you know, like a child, they were hurrying across the open space between buildings.

A shriek echoed across the square.

Something was coming. Something bad.

55

I was very tempted to shut my window, deal with the smoke, and accept that it wasn’t my business. That whatever was making the noise could just do what it wanted to do, and I could do what I wanted to do. Just ignore, live, and let live. Besides, I’d already jumped into the fray and put my life on the line to save someone else I didn’t know. I’d done my good deed for the day. Or week.

Naturally, the kid had to start whimpering, and that played off my heartstrings in just the way where I started to groan. I uttered a few choice curses, but reached for my sword, and then stomped down the stairs like a petulant child being forced to go out and mow the lawn.

I kicked my door wide and looked out over the open area.

The father’s eyes and mine met.

I gestured for him to come to me.

He looked up into the sky, all around, then he grabbed his kid’s hand, and made a break for it, running as fast as he could.

There was a heavy thump as something landed in between him and me, wings flared out to the sides. The something was purple, thick skin, and a long tail. I couldn’t see anything else.

I walked out of my apartment, thinking it was definitely one of the dumber maneuvers I’d engaged in within my time in Vuldranni, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself, I was committed. And it wasn’t walking after a second, it was strutting. This overwhelming sense of confidence, basically arrogance, was flowing over me, and I got right behind the creature, which sounded like it was menacing the father and kid duo, and I cleared my throat.

“Hey, dickbutt,” I said, “why don’t you make like a tree and get out of here?”

The creature stood up slowly, and what I had taken for something only mildly larger than a human, turned out to be significantly larger. About the size of one human standing on top of another human. The wings shot out to either side, and there were large horns on the creature’s head. It turned around, very slowly, until it was looking at me. A vaguely humanoid head sat on top of a thick neck. Still purple. Spikes and horns were all over its head, some of which looked a bit like a beard. It tilted its head and then turned it’s whole body around until it was facing me. He was pretty scary, not gonna lie.

I held the sword out, doing my best to appear menacing.

“You going to get out of here?” I asked. “Or do I need to stab you?”

Just a blur, and the creature hit my sword right out of my hand, and it made a delicate tinkling noise as it bounced off the cobblestones and out of sight.

The creature growled and leaned closer and closer to me.

It started making noises, low rumbling sorts of things.

And then, up popped something delightful:

Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Primordial Terran

“… are worthy of little more than being my plaything’s plaything,” it finished saying.

“Your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of a dead donkey’s putrescent butt.”

His gigantic purple eyes went wide, and he recoiled back from me. Then he squinted and came within an inch. I could feel his breath on my face, hot and rank. Like death. Like many things had died in his mouth, and all of them left their stench.

“I will use your intestines to decorate my horns,” the thing said to me.

“That seems like a terrible look for both of us.”

As fast as I could, I grabbed a dagger from my belt and jammed it straight up into the creature’s jaw, firing off a quick identification spell while I was there.

Robeachon’s Gargoyle

LVL 18 elemental

He roared.

The dagger bent, it had not penetrated his skin.

He made a chuffing sort of noise I think was laughter, and he got closer and closer to me.

I slapped him across the face.

And then I ran.

I figured embarrassment was really the only way to get him to chase me, and if he was chasing me, that gave the father and kid time to run into my building and get out of danger.

The bad part of that plan was me having to outrun a big monster that could fly.

No problem, right?

Well, minor problem.

I didn’t even think about running to my sword, I knew there was no chance I’d reach it with enough time to pick it up and make a stand. My best chance at survival was losing the monster, or elemental, in the alleys. I had to make the tight turns and twists work in my favor, and I had to really see how my parkour training was coming along.

The gargoyle’s taking off was not a quiet affair. He made quite the ruckus, and I knew he was after me. It was the roar that made it initially clear, followed by the phrase:

“I will kill you, elf.”

Pretty specific.

I cut hard to the left, slipping between a set of barrels to get into an alley.

There was a great crash, and I snuck a glance over my shoulder. The gargoyle had been much closer than I’d anticipated, and it was sheer luck that I made the move when I did, the gargoyle had been ready to grab me, and had, instead, grabbed the barrels.

I barreled down the alley, already going at full sprint and already cycling my mana into my stamina spell. I really wanted a soundtrack to my life at this point, I thought it’d really add something to my performance. Back on Earth, when I was deep in it on some game, and I needed to break a record or have the game of my life, music would always be there for me, and I always wanted a thigh-mounted cassette player like Doug Masters in his F-16. But I didn’t have that, I only had the songs in my head, which were sadly lacking and mostly consisted of It’s A Small World. The alley wasn’t going to be a safe space for long, either. It was narrow, but not so narrow that the gargoyle couldn’t make it through. I was reasonably sure he couldn’t fly with wings out full but walking, sure.

So instead of just running straight, I kicked off a wall, and did a few back and forth jumps, making my way up, aiming for the roof, thinking this would shake the beast.

It did not.

I looked up to get my next handhold, and there was the gargoyle, arms outstretched with one clawed hand on either side of the buildings, straddling the alley, looking down at me, his eyes blazing in anger, and his mouth wide.

He lunged at me, practically throwing himself straight down

Shadow step.

I pushed myself out of his way and climbed up a bit, but as I was climbing, I saw things in the shadow realm for the first time. Lots of things. Creatures. Things with more limbs than made sense. Things with teeth, things with fur, things with things I couldn’t identify. Big things and small things, and they were all moving towards me. I got back into reality faster than I wanted, but I was only a few feet from the top, and I pulled myself up and rolled over the edge of the roof as quickly as I could.

There was a screech of frustration from the alley, the gargoyle clearly mad and confused that I’d slipped his clever trap.

I darted a few feet, moving as quietly as I could, tucking myself into the dark side of a chimney.

The gargoyle’s claws made a crunching noise as he pulled himself on the roof, leaving holes in the roof tiles. He took a hop up onto the top of the chimney, and squatted on it, his big purple head slowly looking around.

My view of the gargoyle was not one I wanted, being that he was just a few feet above me. I got a good up-close view of his butt and claws and all the rest of him, from a rather unflattering perspective.

“I smell you,” he rumbled out. “You cannot hide.”

The smart move would have been waiting there, seeing if he found me. Less smart, but still a decent idea, sneaking away. Naturally, I did neither.

56

I pulled the KrakenTooth dagger out of my pouch, then I jumped up, and I stabbed the Gargoyle in the foot.

This time, the dagger pierced his skin and sunk into his flesh, nice and deep.

I wrenched it free with a spurt of blood that steamed in the midnight air, and I was running before I saw any reaction from the beast.

While I leaped from the roof to another building, I heard the telltale sound of bricks crumbling, and a quick glance behind showed me that the gargoyle had pushed the chimney over as he leaped off, meaning that I had the slimmest lead on him. He was trying to get his bearings, his foot clearly in pain, and having launched poorly.

I ran up and over a roof, then dropped onto a balcony, and again and again until I reached the ground. Then I was sprinting again. I had one real move to make, and that was to get to the gate into Old Town, where there were standing guards. As soon as they saw the gargoyle, they’d take it down, and I’d be in the clear, and could go back to the apartment and deal with the strangers I’d invited into my home.

Sprinting through one alley, across the street, and to another, I looked over my shoulder, and I saw no gargoyle. I felt he had to be following me somehow, but I wasn’t sure where he’d gone. I wasn’t ready to stop.

I slid to a stop at a corner and got my bearings, and something passed between the moon and me. I shot a look up, the gargoyle was looking down at me, gliding with his wings spread wide. His eyes seemed to glow in the dark, a hazy sort of purple, at least enough that I could tell where he looked.

I figured out where I was, more or less, and my path to the gates required me to run across an open square. There was a lone statue in the middle of it, and some carts left overnight by the shopkeepers who set up their wares in daylight hours, but nothing concrete enough for me to take cover under. The gargoyle would rip apart any wood cart. And me.

Still, I might be able to dodge him. Might the key word there.

I ran for it.

My legs pumping as hard as I could make them. My breath was coming in gulps, and my mana was dropping precipitously fast. I knew it was really really unwise to go into the shadow realm again, but I was trying to make sure I had enough for one more shadow step just in case I needed an emergency exit.

I glanced over my shoulder: no gargoyle in sight.

Maybe I was going to make it.

Then I tripped.

My foot caught on the slightest raised edge of a cobblestone, and I fell hard on the ground, busting my chin open on the road.

I rolled over immediately and saw the creature diving. He was fully tucked, wings, feet, everything, and his body made a whistling noise as he fell. If I hadn’t fallen, I’d have been dead for sure. As it was, now I was just most likely dead. I’d definitely overestimated my ability to parkour, though there was the possibility that free-running was never going to let someone outpace a flying monster from another plane of being. Tough to know for sure. I needed another plan. And in that second of watching the gargoyle zoom towards me, I had a terrible idea. My specialty.

Grabbing the KrakenTooth dagger, I gritted my teeth and cast shadow step.

Immediately, I was moving in the shadow realm, and things were coming for me. But I only needed to take a step. One step forward, stand up and assume the position. Dagger raised up, both arms locked behind it, legs braced for impact. I shoved myself back into reality just as I saw a mouth full of shadow teeth open up to take my face in.

And time was back flowing normally, colors restored.

I blinked, and the gargoyle was on me. Or, more precisely, it was crashing into me. The dagger punched through the gargoyle’s chest. And it, in essence, made a path for me to follow. The incredible momentum of the gargoyle, combined with its weight, meant the dagger went all the way through the beast until it poked out the other side. At which point, the gargoyle’s body slid along the cobblestone streets until it burnt out the remainder of its momentum.

Which I would have seen had I not been inside the creature at the time, squished into its insides, covered in the various viscera of a gargoyle.

He shuddered a bit, and there was a low rumbling noise before all the breath left the creature in one quick motion, like the gargoyle’s lungs had collapsed. Then everything was still.

GG! You’ve killed a Robeachon’s Gargoyle (LVL 18 elemental)

You’ve earned 3000 XP! What a mighty hero you are.

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 8! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours, or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t.

Nice.

I pushed, as best I could, the dagger the rest of the way through, and my hand felt the cold night air. It took a bit of squirming, and I got my other hand out. Then, well, I guess you could say I experienced a rebirth. Except I remember this one, and it was disgusting. I just pulled myself free, and when I finally got my shoulders through, the rest was kind of easy, and I slid down the gargoyle’s purple skin until I collapsed onto the ground.

Steam came off me, rising into the night. I felt really funky. In a gross way.

There were men and women with lanterns all around me, and as soon as I wiped the blood away, I saw it was the City Guard.

“Interesting technique,” the head guard said, a beefy woman with curls of red hair escaping her helmet at every angle. “You a hunter?”

I used the back of my hand to wipe the gunk from my face, which was a pointless exercise, I just felt like I spread it around, maybe added a bit.

She held out a canteen of water.

I nodded thanks, then poured it on my face, washing off some of the blood and guts.

“Not a hunter,” I said, sputtering.

“Why you out here?” she asked.

“Saw a man running from this thing,” I replied, shooting my thumb over my shoulder. “He had a kid with him. Couldn’t just sit and watch.”

“So you got it to follow you instead? How?”

“Slapped it.”

She frowned, then one of her underlings laughed. Which started a cascade of laughter from the group of soldiers.

“Seemed to have been effective,” the leader said, barely hiding her smile.

“Yeah, pissed him off more than I expected.”

“Do you want the corpse?” she asked. “Or you want us to dispose of it?”

“Can I get it delivered somewhere?”

“You pay, I’ll get it where you want.”

“I’m working at this pit,” I said, “think you can get it there?”

“That’s easy,” she said. “One gold, it’ll be there in the morning.”

“Thank you,” I said, and gave her the address.

“You’re a pitworker?”

“Restorer?”

“That makes sense,” she said with a nod. “You ever want a real job, you come see me. Could use a crazy fool like you in the guard.”

I thanked her, and got my KrakenTooth back in my belt, then stumbled home, carefully cycling my healing spell to fix all the sprains, tears, and the like I’d taken in the gargoyle’s hit.

57

Now while I wanted to do nothing more than go to sleep on a nice soft feather-filled bed because I was exhausted after battling two asshole monsters in one shitty night, there were two big problems, the least of which being I no longer had a feather filed bed, or a bed at all really.

I got home to find my door locked. I used my key, opened it up, and locked it behind me. I stepped foot on the bottom landing, looked up, and saw a man sitting on the steps near the entrance to my apartment on the fourth floor. He stared at me.

“Please,” he said, “just, can he sleep through the night?”

“What?” I replied, genuinely confused.

“Before we must go.”

“Why do you have to go anywhere?” I asked, starting to climb the stairs slowly. Partially because I didn’t want to spook the guy, but also because it hurt quite a bit. I’d run out of mana before I’d healed everything, so I had been thinking of taking a hot shower while the mana recovered, and then doing a more thorough job at putting myself back together.

“You, I mean,” the guy stammered, “you were kind to offer us shelter overnight, but—”

“Bah,” I said, waving my hand at him, “I barely do anything with all this space. Stay.”

“But, you know nothing of myself or my child?”

“You planning on killing me?”

“No, I would never.”

“Yeah, then we’re fine. I don’t have anything to rob. Not even a bed. Apologies for that, by the way.”

He was about to say something more, but I was already on the third floor, and I pushed into the door, which I hadn’t bothered to lock, and walked into the training area. There was a shower in the back, and that’s where I headed.

“Pardon me,” the man continued speaking in the room, clearly having followed me in there. “What is all this? What happened to you?”

In the light, I certainly looked pretty gruesome. Blood was everywhere. Not my blood, which would have at least looked normal-ish, but gargoyle blood, which was a darker purple. And then there were all the little bits and pieces of the gargoyle that had come with me when I went through the monster. I picked a long fibrous bit of viscera and tossed it to the side.

“I’m fine, just got to know the inner gargoyle.”

“The one chasing me?”

“I hope so. If there’s more than one, I’m leaving it for someone else to deal with.”

“You killed the monster?”

“I did. It was, I mean, yeah. I killed it.”

“You killed a gargoyle?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you a hunter?”

“No. Is that a job?”

“Of course. What is your job?”

“Uh, pit restoration assistant?”

He frowned, clearly confused. “And you were able to kill a gargoyle?”

“It was more luck than anything, I mean, luck and a decent plan that actually worked.”

“Many consider luck a dump stat, but I wish I had never listened to them. So many moments in life hinge on little things going your way.”

“I’m going to hop in the shower here,” I said, “you can keep asking questions and the like, but I don’t want this stuff to dry on me.”

He nodded. He was a good looking man, for the most part, a strong chin, powerful jawline. He had the nose of a long-time brawler, the oversized knuckles of one, too. Long and lanky, I felt like his arms were a little too long, but there were certainly ropes of muscle all over him, and barely any fat. I had the feeling meals weren’t consistent for him. Or large. His eyes were kind, though, and there was an earnestness to him. Besides, he was with his kid. I knew there was a chance I was making a mistake, but better to be nice and wrong then mean and wrong. Right?

Maybe.

I went into the bathroom, then peeled the clothes off my body, thinking that some armor would be a wise investment, and I got in the shower. Lots of scrubbing, lots of soap, lots of water. And nothing from outside of the shower. I got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and came out to see the guy still there, trying to look around the blocked-off windows.

“Keeps the peeping toms out,” I said.

He turned around quickly like I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been, like he was the peeping tom. In the background, I could hear the vague peeling of bells. Morning.

“You think your son is awake?” I asked.

“We can leave,” he said softly.

“Knock that off,” I said. “If you have a place to go, a place you want to go, then cool. Otherwise, I meant, let’s get some breakfast and hash a plan out, okay?”

“A plan for what?”

“Are you homeless?”

He paused for a moment, then nodded.

“So if I send you out into the city, you’re going to have no place to hide come nightfall, will you?”

“No. We won’t.”

“And some other nightmare creature is going to come along and kill you and/or your kid.”

“There is a chance of that, but it is not your concern.”

I gritted my teeth, he was making this a lot harder than I wanted to deal with.

“Dude,” I said. “I’m trying to give you a home, okay? You want to go play with gargoyles and monsters? Fine. But otherwise, come get a bite to eat with me.”

He nodded and went upstairs.

And then I had to go upstairs because that’s where my extra clothes were. So we had that awkward sort of, we’d already said goodbye, but then we’re both walking the same way thing.

His kid was curled up asleep in my closet on a pile of blankets. A little boy, maybe two. Or three. Or who knows, kids ages have always been a mystery to me. Small guy though, under three feet. Brown hair, that was very dirty. He was pretty much dirty all over.

I went to the stack of clothes I had on my lone dresser, still hadn’t put them away, and I sorted them out until I found a shirt I thought looked clean and some pants. I put on stockings, because apparently, socks had yet to be invented, and then got a wide belt around my waist.

Then I turned around and saw two giant eyes staring at me.

The kid was awake.

And he had very big eyes. Eyes that were showing little more than abject terror.

“Hi,” I said, in my best kid voice. But then I felt stupid, so I just talked normally. “We’re getting breakfast, you want some?”

58

It was the first time I’d seen the Heavy Purse when it wasn’t ridiculously busy. It was basically empty because it had just opened. Titus was unloading some crates at the bar, while his wife was moving in and out of the storeroom.

Titus looked up when I walked in.

“Clyde,” he said, “how are you doing?”

“Good,” I said. “Breakfast for three?”

“Big or small?”

I looked to the two bedraggled guests next to me, little more than skin and bones.

“Extra-large,” I said. “And a big mug of milk for the three of us.”

I steered the two through some tables until we got to one with a modicum of privacy from Titus, and with a clear view of the door.

“What’s the deal?” I asked as soon as we were settled.

“With?” The man asked.

“You. Where’s his mom? What do you do? Why are you homeless?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, then closed his eyes.

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m being an asshole. I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”

“The least I can do is provide you answers,” he said. “I am, his mother has died. A year past. I couldn’t keep up with rent, so we were thrown out. We were arena fighters. I was doing well until I got hurt. And though she swore not to return to the arena after him,” he pointed to his son, “we had no choice. She went back. Lost her first fight back. But it was not her fault. She was an amazing warrior, just, we made enemies… But that is not of interest to you. I have had a stroke of bad luck, bad fights I couldn’t win. Or fights I might not survive. I can’t take those. Not leaving him to be an orphan. That was my childhood, won’t do it to him. So, I pawned what I could, hoping to get a good fight, to win, and it just, I never, I just ran out of money and time.”

“You got a name?”

“Lothar Kuthbrook,” he said. “My son is Sven.”

“Clyde Hatchett.”

Titus swung around and dropped off three plates overflowing with food. Large slabs of ham, big clumps of eggs, and a giant mound of potatoes. And three mugs of milk followed right behind in the arms of his wife.

“Enjoy,” Titus said and gave me a big smile.

I didn’t wait for either of the two to say anything, I just started eating. Talking was not an activity I wanted to engage in, not at that moment. There were just too many things to think about, too many things to make happen. Far easier to just shovel eggs and potatoes and ham into my mouth instead.

“Thank you,” came a wee tiny little voice, and I looked over to see the big eyes on me, a small smile on his face as he chewed a potato.

“You are very welcome,” I said. “And eat up while your dad and I do a little talking, okay?”

He nodded.

His father gave me a smile, but one that was filled with a measure of caution and disbelief.

“What is it you want to do?” I asked.

“Give my son a life,” he replied.

“Not get revenge on the guy who did whatever he did to your wife?”

“It is not something a man like me might do.”

“It might be something a man like me could do.”

He shook his head, “It is not a fight you would win. And it is not your fight.”

“Fair enough. If you change your mind.”

“What is going on here?” he asked. “What is it you want from my son or me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just, well, I guess, I’m new here, I’m trying to find my way, and I have this big place, and I don’t know what I’m doing with it, so, you know, if you want a job, and you want a place to live, you can have those things.”

“You don’t want my son?”

“No offense,” I said, “kid seems great, but no. That’s not what this is about. This is about having someone around the house to keep it safe, to fix things when they break, and to answer really stupid questions I have that might make no sense.”

“I am not an educated man, I may not be able to answer questions you have.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes around.”

“That is not how I remember that phrase.”

“Yeah, me and phrases have had a falling out.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry about it. The second floor apartment is empty. Pretty much. There’s some storage stuff, but nothing else. You can have it, do what you want to it, pretty sure there’s plumbing in there.”

“I was impressed you have running water here.”

“Yeah, that was surprising to me as well. Not common here?”

“Very rare outside of the estates.”

“Huh. I can probably swing a little gold to you as well, just need to figure some stuff out. How much do you think you need?”

“Gold? I suppose enough for food—”

“Let me chat with my buddy here,” I said, “see what I can arrange food-wise.”

I stuffed another bite into my mouth, and got up, walked over and leaned on the bar.

Titus finished putting new mugs behind the bar and pulled a mug of ale and set it in front of me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“How much to add those two to my tab?” I asked.

“They family?”

“No.”

“Who are they?”

“Random dude I saved from a gargoyle last night.”

“You’re that idiot?”

“I suppose so.”

“What’s their story?”

“Down on his luck arena fighter. And kid.”

“You’re taking them in?”

“Yep.”

“And you want to amend the lease so they eat free as well?”

“I didn’t say that, I asked how much.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re taking them in for free, I can’t exactly be the asshole who makes them pay for meals.”

“So he’s on?”

“They both are,” he said, a bit like he was mad he had to be nice. “Can he work the door a time or two? Like holidays?”

“You ask him,” I said.

I smiled at Lothar and his son. “You guys can eat here whenever you want,” I said.

“Whenever?” Titus hissed.

“He’s a growing boy, Titus. Feed him.”

There was a grumble behind me, but I’d seen through Titus, he was a big softie.

I walked back over to Lothar and sat down.

“So,” I said, resuming eating, “there it is. Apartment on the second floor, let me know the furniture and I can get something. I think. Just, you know, not made of gold here, just have a little bit set aside. You want to live here or no?”

He blinked a few times, then looked at his son busy shoveling food into his maw, eyes closed in a gluttonous abandon.

“Yes. Thank you, yes.”

59

Following the large breakfast, my stomach feeling like it might burst if I moved too quickly, I went back to the apartment and got the body I’d stashed in the second-floor apartment.

When Lothar gave me a look, I just smiled and said, “Two monsters last night, this was the first one.”

“You ever think about fighting in the arena?” he asked. “You seem built for it.”

I gave him a shrug, then waddled along the streets heading to my next gig, pit cleaning. I felt a zing of curiosity. It was going to be a whole new experience, and maybe I’d even get to see the pit beast, whatever it may be. New enemies to kill, which meant more XP, and easier skill raises.

Naturally, I was the first to the pit. It was further into the Pits, the neighborhood, and everything about it was different from the first pit. The walls were higher and seemed thicker. It was a little older, with some bricks coming out of the wall. There were large spikes coming out of the wall all the way around. Oddly enough, there were also large trees all the way around it, though it looked like someone had sheared the branches off at right angles around an invisible line. Like, perfect. Not a leaf moved over that imaginary line. I had to imagine it to be the effects of magic.

Under one of the trees, right near the gates, was a wagon laden down with something under a canvas tarp. Given the purple hue to the liquid coming out of it, I had a feeling that was my delivery. I hoisted the madarial corpse onto the back and left it there. It still smelled terrible, but my wrap job had been enough to keep its insides from leaking out all over me. Minor win, considering I was about to hop into the poop soup of another pit.

Nadya was next, strolling along with her usual hip sway, looking like a million bucks. Or a million gold pieces, I suppose. She raised an eyebrow at the wagon, then looked over at me.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“A little present for you.”

“For me?”

“Yeah,” I said, keeping my smile contained like I was bored.

“Why?”

“Why? What kind of thing is that to say to a present?”

“Because it’s unlike you.”

“You barely know me.”

“You have yet to be nice to me, and now there’s a wagon full of a present for me?”

“Okay, first of all, I have been nice to you, I saved you from a big monster. B, it’s nothing that nice, okay? It’s just something you seem to like, and I had to get rid of it anyway, so I figured I’d give it to you.”

She frowned, and put her hands on her hips, shooting all the attitude my way that she could, and I think she thought I’d brought a wagon’s worth of poop over to her. But, she lifted up the corner of the canvas and peeked underneath, then put it down very quickly. Her head snapped around, her wavy dark hair whipping around every which way.

“What is this?” she asked, but not in a bad way, in a way where she was trying very hard to contain her excitement.

“Uh,” I promptly stammered in response while I frantically tried to recall the name of the creature, “Robeachon’s Gargoyle.”

“Where is it from?”

“I don’t really know. I think it’s an earth elemental of some kind, so—”

“I meant where did you find this one.”

“Outside my apartment last night.”

“It was dead?”

“No, I killed it.”

“You killed this?”

“Yeah.”

“Last night?”

“Yes.”

“You killed a gargoyle last night and had it delivered here for me.”

“Good summary of events, yes. And there’s also, uh,” I pointed at the madarial wrapped up.

Like it was Christmas morning, she darted to the end of the wagon and unrolled the canvas wrap. There were some rather sickening liquid-ish noises, and then a really unfortunate waft of stink. Nadya’s face didn’t change from sheer joy.

“A madarial?” Nadya said. “This is incredible!”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“Did the gargoyle kill this?”

“No, just me. Again. I was walking home from, uh, well, not here, and I came across this asshole trying to get into some kid’s room, so I shoved him back out the window and, in case you’re wondering, it turns out flying is not one of its skills.”

She put the canvas back onto the madarial and stepped away from the cart. Slowly she turned around, and I couldn’t quite make out her emotions. I think, and this is mostly in retrospect, she wasn’t sure how to feel herself at that moment.

“No one has ever gotten me something like this,” she said.

“I hope not,” I replied, “it’s gross.”

“I wasn’t finished, Clyde. It is gross. But its something I am very interested in. It is a passion of mine, and it has always been,” she paused, then continued, “it has always been something I have been mocked for. I have been belittled and called many vile things because I dare to be interested in something outside the boundaries of what is proper. Anything I have gotten, anything I have worked on or studied, it has been at great expense to me, in time, in money, and in social standing. This, what you have done, this gift, it is amazing. Thank you.”

I think she wanted to hug me. Or kiss me. Or do something. But instead, she stood where she was, nodded once, then walked over to the front of the cart, and did something near the seat.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Arranging for this cart to be delivered to my house,” she said.

“How?”

Once again, she was back to looking me as if I was the country bumpkin.

“There’s a note here,” she said, pointing at a piece of paper attached to the wagon. “You write the address you want this to go to, and they come out with horses or oxen or whatever, and take it to the address you wrote down.”

“How do they see what you write?”

“Partnered pages.”

“What are those?”

“Seriously?”

“Small town.”

“Ugh. Partnered pages are where you can write on one page, and it shows up on the other page, wherever it is.”

“That is so cool!”

“Sure,” she said. “So cool.”

Matthew, thankfully, came along then, and I had to go through the whole shpiel about the killings and the whatnot, and Nadya came clean about her own involvement with and passion for monsters, and Matthew was elated because he had something similar going on. He loved dissection and figuring out how things worked and why they worked. I let them geek out over the gargoyle for a minute, and Matthew made Nadya promise to make some detailed drawings of what she found. Nerds are everywhere.

Then it was finally time to see the new pit.

60

New pit.

Same as the old pit.

Little bit bigger, little bit worse. By a little bit, I mean a lot a bit. It was disgusting. In a new and different way. The pit was bigger around, by about half again, but not as deep. At least at first appearance. The layer of scunge and poop was only about twenty feet below ground level. But then I wondered if it was, perhaps, just as deep, but there was like 80 feet worth of muck. Flying insects buzzed around, things roughly the size of mice or rats, but with wings. Matthew beat them out of the air with an open hand, then squished them with his boots.

“Bad sign,” he said.

There was refuse and garbage all over the upper area, including a ton of stuff piled up against the stone cottage sitting in the corner of the lot. It was a similar cottage to the first pit, though like the pit itself, this one was larger. The door was open, and I could see trash on the floor inside.

“This place is gross,” I said.

“It’s a pit,” Matthew said. “Only reason you didn’t walk into this sort of mess the first time is I cleaned it up before you got there. That’s what day one always is. Clean up the surface. Clean up the cottage. Figure out what’s in the pit. Set up your workspace. Basics.”

I grumbled, but it made sense.

And we got to work. Matthew sent me into the cottage with a shovel, and I got to work shoveling all the crap outside.

It was a basic one-room building, big square structure with a tile roof. The walls were kind of high, and that made the roof high, and it looked to me like there was enough room to put a ladder up to the beams and store things up there if we needed. With the door open, somehow that meant a layer of muck got inside the place, an inch or two deep, no biggie. No bugs in the cottage, though. Nothing living, in fact. No moss or mold or anything of the ilk. There was no furniture in the place, at least nothing whole, except a chest. Rounded top, iron bands on it. Oddly clean around it. No dust, no dirt, no nothin’.

I’m not usually one for paranoia, but obvious trap was obvious.

“Matthew,” I called out.

“What?” he shouted from the outside.

“Something weird in here.”

“It’s a Pit. Something weird everywhere.”

“Okay, but, can you come take a look?”

There was some muttering, and then Nadya laughing. But, a second later, Matthew stomped inside.

I pointed at the chest.

Matthew looked at the chest. Then he looked around the rest of the cottage, and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me out fast enough that I lost my footing, and tumbled down the small set of stairs leading up to the cottage from ground level.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Needed to get you out in a hurry,” he said, pulling his mace off his belt and giving it a quick swing.

Nadya was over in a second, a short sword in her hand.

I got up and brushed my pants off before getting my sword out.

“Nice sword,” Matthew said, eyeing the shining silver blade. “New?”

“Yeah,” I said, “kind of lost that bronze one.”

“That’s right.”

“Anyway, why are we standing here with our weapons out?”

“Watch this,” he said.

Matthew took a step towards the stone cottage, and he swung hard like he was going for the fences. His mace hit the stone with a dull bong, and Matthew dropped the weapon and grabbed his arm. Credit, though, he didn’t make a noise, he just hopped up and down and gritted his teeth.

“What, exactly, was I looking for?” I asked. “I missed it.”

“Not… a…. mimic…” he said through his clenched jaw.

“You thought the cottage was a mimic?” I asked.

“There’s a mimic here?” Nadya asked, eyes alight with hope.

“It’s definitely not the house,” I said. “But there’s a suspicious chest inside.”

She pushed Matthew and me out of the way to get into the cottage.

I ran after her, hoping she wasn’t going to do something stupid like offer herself to the mimic so she could see its internal systems.

She wasn’t. Nadya stood in the middle of the room, sword sheathed, notebook out. She was scribbling furiously, but it was hard to tell if she was drawing or writing.

“I’ve heard of mimics in mimics,” Matthew said. “Got nervous.”

“Is that really a mimic?” I asked.

“There are a few ways to tell for sure, none of which involve looking at it. If it is a mimic, then this Pit just got very strange.”

“Lucrative?”

“Potentially? I don’t really know. The muck is pretty deep, and that’s usually an indication that you’ll find less useful parasites. Doubt it’s something as vile as trollspawn, but it could be grimelings. They’re a pain in the ass to deal with, and they have little to nothing of use harvest-wise. Pits like this are often food waste and sewage, so little chance of finding gold or useful metals on the bottom. There’s always the outside chance someone might, you know, toss a noble’s body in, and we could find another signet ring on the bottom, but that was a one-in-a-thousand chance the first time. Twice in a row? Probably not.”

“What are grimelings?”

“Where did you come from that you don’t know of grimelings?”

“Just weren’t a thing in my town.”

“Hrmph,” he said, looking me up and down as if he was trying to figure me out for the first time. “Grimelings are a bit like squirrels. Do you know what a squirrel is?”

“Yes, I know what a squirrel is.”

“Always have to check with you. Similar size of a squirrel. No tail. Head is huge, big ears—”

“Like a bunny?”

“Somewhere between a rabbit and a bat. You know—”

“I know what bats and rabbits are.”

“Hands have thumbs, some people think they might be intelligent to an extent. But they also like to swarm and bite and carry disease.”

“Do you kill them?”

“It’s usually them or you. They are aggressive.”

“Don’t you think we’d have seen them by now?”

“They can swim very well, hold their breaths for some time. Basic builders, like a beaver—”

“I know what beavers are.”

“They build homes under the surface of the muck with the bits they find.”

“Industrious little guys.”

“You seem to think they might be nice, or worth keeping around in some capacity. When you finally see them face to face, you will understand the problem with that view.”

Matthew took a step forward and threw his mace at the chest.

It hit with a deep thud, and then the chest opened. It was not a chest, it was a mimic. Its mouth was, in effect, where a normal chest would open up, but instead of being empty, this chest was filled with teeth and a massive purple prehensile tongue. And the tongue came out, reaching and grasping around. I saw two beady little eyes on the top of the chest’s lid, squinting at all of us.

“Hey,” Nadya said. “He’s just being himself, no need to beat him up.”

“Were you sure it was a mimic?” Matthew asked.

“Not yet, but—”

“Now you know. Are you going to spend the rest of the day trying to understand the creature before giving up and—”

“I’m going to tame it.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“I don’t think it’s possible, but as long as it doesn’t get in the way, do it.”

At which point, something chomped into my leg.

I looked down to see one of the giant flies biting me, so I swatted it.

It fell to the ground and was trying to right itself. I picked it up and threw it at the mimic.

Its tongue a blur, it snagged the insect out of the air and gulped it right down.

There was a small, but satisfied, burp from the mimic chest, and it seemed to settle down.

“At least we can get rid of the insects that way,” I said.

“Fine,” Matthew said like he was an overworked dad agreeing to a new puppy, “but you two are taking care of it.”

He stomped out of the building.

I put my hands up, “This is all you.”

Nadya smiled, then said: “You’ll come around.”

61

My cottage clean-up taken over, I went outside to help Matthew. For the moment, we were shoveling mud and/or poop into piles about the place, keeping them out of the way for now.

The bugs were everywhere, but weren’t smart, nor were they very powerful, so they weren’t able to bite through my pants or shirt. I started swatting them down and putting them in an overturned bucket. Food for the mimic.

“It’s going to be a short day today,” Matthew said softly when we were at the far side of the complex.

“Got a hot date?”

“You do.”

“What did you do?”

“I did some asking around.”

“And you asked someone out on a date for me?”

“No. You know when that party is, the one High Lord Fancypants is throwing?”

“Like next week sometime.”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Well, shit.”

“You seem calmer than I anticipated.”

“I mean, not much I can do now, can I? Come up with an alternate plan and figure out how to break into a vault.”

“While you might have a chance to make off with something from a party, there is no way you can get into a vault. Or escape.”

“Speaking of Lord Fancypants, I met this guard while I was scoping out the Fancypants estate. He said he’d prefer to do what I’m doing, and I said I’d ask you about it.”

“You want me to hire a guard?”

“Yeah, but to do what we’re doing.”

“Pit restoration.”

“Bingo. Figure we could use a little help, especially if he’s the type who can swing a sword.”

“You mean because I froze and Nadya ran away?”

“I wasn’t going to put it quite like that, but, you know, yeah.”

“Cuts into my profits some.”

“But it means your chances of getting home every night are better.”

That seemed to get to him, and he started nodding.

“Great,” I said, “we’re meeting him for dinner.”

“What?”

“Yeah, at this tavern near my apartment.”

“You work quickly, but,” he started, then he stopped. “Do you still have that signet ring?”

“Yeah, haven’t figured out what to do with it, though.”

“I have. Give it to me.”

I grabbed it out of my pouch and tossed it to him. He fumbled with it for a second, bobbling it from hand to hand until he managed to grab it firmly from the air.

“Now we have something to work with.”

He tossed his shovel so it banged against the side of the stone cottage.

Nadya stuck her head out.

“Hey! You scared it,” she shouted.

“Put the bucket of bugs in there,” Matthew said, “and then get out of here. Early day.”

“It’s not yet lunch,” she countered.

“Early day,” he repeated. “Go dig into your new prize corpses.”

She smiled, apparently having forgotten a bit about that.

It took mere minutes to lock up, and then we were on our way. Our meaning Matthew and myself, and we took a long walk north until we got to the estate of one Lord Fancypants himself, Tollendahl.

His house looked different in the day. Still massive, but I could see a bit more detail, as well as some of the inside. The eastern side, where the veranda and balcony where, looked to be a ballroom. It was pretty much wide open inside.

The other thing I could see, the place was definitely hosting a party that very night. There were deliveries being made, decorations being hung, furniture being placed and removed, banners being hung from windows, and several Mancers doing bits of magic under the watchful eye of their guards.

“That piece of crap,” I said. “Rowlands wants me to fail.”

“Likely,” Matthew said as we strolled along the boulevard, looking like we had the barest of cares in the world. “This guard I’m meeting with tonight, are you asking me to hire him because you think he will offer you a way into the place? That he will spill the secrets of this estate to you?”

“Mostly because he seemed like a nice guy in a bad situation and you seemed like a good guy who might need more muscle.”

Matthew nodded, hands behind his back.

“Have you had these?” I asked, pointing at the fruit above our head.

“No. Tasty?”

“Delicious.”

He raised his eyebrows ever so much, and I had the feeling he didn’t much care.

“If you did get access to this party,” he started, “what would you do?”

“I wouldn’t rush it. I have the feeling that events such as these last quite some time.”

He nodded. “Balls such as these would either have secure transport back home for guests, or rooms made up to allow them to sleep. I am glad you have been thinking.”

“No offense, but some of the work we do doesn’t require that much in the way of brainpower.”

“But one reason I like it. Continue.”

“I would make sure I knew where Fancypants set up his display. Then, I would do a few walkthroughs, get to know the guard schedule.”

“Would you worry about being noticed?”

“Of course, but I would do my utmost to seem interested in something other than the orb.”

“Eh.”

“More?”

“Find a young woman, or man, either, and try to impress them with your magical knowledge. When they are surely uninterested, find another, and do so again. Any guard who pays attention to you will do so to mock you.”

“A little demeaning, but I guess it’d work.”

“With your chosen profession, there is no room for shame. Once you have the orb.”

“I make a break for it?”

“Depends on the size, really. If you can hide it about your person, it would be better to wait. See when it is discovered, then wait for things to die down, and then go. Or even secret yourself about the mansion and leave tomorrow. But if it is bigger, you will have to improvise. Perhaps your Shadow thing would help.”

“Yeah, I may have been using that a little more than I should have.”

“You have seen the creatures?”

“They’ve been getting a little handsy. And mouthy.”

“Ah, crap.”

“That’s bad, huh?”

“Yes. The extent, no idea. I have to do a few things. We will meet at your tavern place tonight, speak to this guard, and then you will attend this party.”

“How?”

“I will get you in. You must do the rest. Which means you cannot look like a pit person, and you cannot smell like pit beast poop.”

He pulled a small notebook from a pocket in his coat, and scribbled in it with a pencil, then ripped a page free. He passed it over to me.

“Go here, speak to Creena Ballard, tell her I’m calling in a favor, and she can chew me out after she chews you out. Then tell her about shadow step, and don’t call her a witch.”

“Is she a witch?”

“Don’t call her one, okay?”

“Okay, but—”

“After that, bath and clothes and hair.”

“My hair is—”

“Do it,” he snapped. “And do it well. Look like you are a noble, or everything falls apart.”

62

First stop, witch. Of all the things I needed to do before dinner, visiting a practitioner of the dark arts seemed the easiest.

She had a tiny shop tucked into the basement of a large general store in a neighborhood near the Shade, the big graveyard. It was my first time seeing the Shade, and I realized why Etta had said stumbling in there by accident would be next to impossible. It was walled off, and to get in, you would have to go through a temple. Still, there were people trying to get in, folks wearing heavy armor and carrying weapons, waiting in a line outside of the temple. I watched as a robed acolyte came out, spoke to a few people, and then led them inside. I made a mental note to check it out soon, I was very curious to see what the process was, and what they were doing on the other side of the walls. Though the faint sound of something hammering on iron and the occasional screams gave me the feeling combat was happening somewhere nearby.

The neighborhood I was going to was across the street from the Shade. It was a nice enough place, but there was definitely a real dark feeling to it. Dark leaves on the dark trees covering the streets and buildings in shade. The buildings were built out of dark brick, and despite the traffic moving on the main thoroughfare, almost no one was walking down the streets.

I was.

It was not very far along the block to the general store, and then just a quick jump down the staircase to my destination. It was a dark place, tons of weird crazy creepy stuff on the shelves, including a stuffed raven with glowing black eyes.

I pushed the door open, and there was a soft bell ringing above me.

There was a small woman sitting in a stuffed chair, with a cup of tea in her hand. She gestured to the chair opposite her, and the steaming mug of tea next to it.

“Would you care to sit?” She said.

“Were you waiting for me?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Are you Creena Ballard?” I asked, sitting down.

“Who is asking?”

“A friend of Matthew Gallifrey. Told me to tell you he’s calling in a favor.”

“Is he?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Ugh,” she said, standing up and waving her hand. All the crap in the windows disappeared, and curtains took their place. The black wall behind her vanished revealing a rather quaint wooden kitchen, though there were floor to ceiling shelves filled with all sorts of things, from leaves to bones to powders and everything else. She walked into the kitchen and tossed her tea in the sink.

I started to get up.

“Stay,” she said, then turned around and leaned against the sink. “What favor is he asking of me?”

“Teaching me more about magic.”

“You some noble’s kid, looking to find some spell to wow the other children at parties?”

“Do I look like a noble’s kid?”

“Why do you think I asked the question?”

“I’m an elf.”

“And elves aren’t nobles?”

“Are they?”

“Where are you from?”

“Small town.”

“Which small town?”

“One far to the south, I’m sure you haven’t heard of it. It’s barely a hamlet.”

“And the name of it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Because there’s something off about you.”

“You’re the one who put up an illusion of, uh, I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be.”

“It’s the image some people expect when they come to someone branded a witch.”

“Are you a witch?”

“Do I look like I traffic in the undead?”

“Why do you think I asked the question?” Truth, she did not. She looked like a pretty woman who was reaching middle age and hadn’t quite grown out of the cute stage.

“Bah, you know nothing of the undead.”

“There you’re right. I know nothing of the undead. But I want to know.”

“Why?”

I paused to actually think about the question. My immediate response was simply that I wanted to know everything. Of course I wanted to know about undead because it was a thing in the world. My second impulse was more nuanced, it was something I might face, and I wanted to know how to defeat it. And then, that burbling darkness, it was a weapon I could potentially use against my foe.

As soon as I opened my mouth, she snapped her finger.

“No lies, not here,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said, almost unbidden. “I’m curious. And I know I’ll wind up fighting them. And I want to know if I can control them.”

“Interesting,” she replied quietly.

“Hey!” I yelled. “You used magic on me.”

“You came to a witch and expected her not to use magic?!”

“You just said you weren’t a witch!”

“Did I?”

She hadn’t. She’d merely replied to my question with a question and never answered it.

“Are you a witch?” I asked.

“No,” she replied with a smile, “but that doesn’t change that you thought I was a witch now, does it?”

“What are you?”

“The more interesting question, what are you who doesn’t know nobles, can’t name a town, and think I might be a witch….?”

I was starting to think the woman was dangerous, that she’d sniff out my secrets. Well, secret. I really only had the one, but it was an important one. That was definitely one of Etta’s first rules, never tell anyone I was from another world. I stood up.

“Sit down,” she said with a flutter of her fingers.

I dropped into the seat.

Magic.

This time, though, I’d been paying attention, thinking she might do something. I felt the magic swirl around my body and urge it to do her bidding. And, for the barest of moments, there was the hint I might say no.

“Stop that,” I said.

“Be still, foolish child,” she replied. “You came here to claim a favor, and a favor you shall have. If you are capable of casting magic, I shall teach you what I can. If not, you will leave and not remember this place.”

“Is there going to be a test?”

“Of course. What good teacher does not first judge her pupils?”

“Nice ones?”

“Witches are never nice.”

“I thought you weren’t a witch.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

Her wry smiled disappeared: “I’m not nice either. Show me your magic. Now.”

As much as I wanted to cast shadow step and slip up behind her to flick her ear, the whole reason I was here was because of shadow step and the problems it had brought about. Probably wouldn’t be such a bright idea to start with that.

Instead, I pulled a key out of my key pouch and cast Zeddington’s Infinite Key.

First time for the spell and I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen, I just knew it would work because I knew the spell. I held the key up in one hand, fingers splayed out. Glowing runes came out of my hand, swirled around the key, and disappeared inside it. A half-second later, and the key was humming and glowing softly.

Careena held her hand out, like a toddler who saw something shiny.

I passed the key over.

She peered at it, held it this way and that way, then walked over to a shelf, pulled it off the wall to reveal a small iron door. She unlocked it. The key disappeared as soon as the tumblers in the lock tumbled.

“Anything not from a book?” She said as she turned around, looking at me like I was dreck.

“Yeah, just, I mean, it’s not very, uh, external.”

“You think I need to see magic with my eyes? Cast your spell, child.”

I closed my eyes, did a quick mana cycle, all through my head, then did the heal and stamina regens. I was at full on both, so it wasn’t really useful for me to do them. But, only spells I’d learned. And technically made up.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I realized she was right in front of me, peering at me.

She poked me.

“You are either daring, stupid, or a genius,” she said. “I’m very intrigued.”

“Good?”

“Time will tell.”

Faster than I could see, she was back in her chair.

“You have good habits,” she said. “But who taught you to cycle your mana?”

“Matthew.”

“Fool had you go into your head?”

“I kinda did that on my own.”

“One point for stupid then. But also brave.”

“Why’s that?”

“I am going to assume that your mysterious small town had little magic in it, and certainly no one willing to teach you.”

“Good assumption.”

She winked at me. “I know. Magic, by its nature, is hard to define. Impossible to understand. We can only see what has been done in the past, and even then, it is not the same for every person. It is one reason I find spellbooks so unpleasant. They teach the exact same spell to everyone, and each spell should be tailored to each person. How many spells have you gotten from books?”

“Two basic identify spells,” I started, “summon familiar, shadow step, and Zeddington’s Infinite Key.”

“I assume, given your willingness to push mana through your own brain that you have been toying in the shadow realm. Probably the reason Matthew sent you to me. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“How much have you done in the shadow realm— wait, let me guess. I enjoy guessing. And being right. More the being right. You’ve seen some of those who dwell in that realm, yes?”

“Yeah. I have. And one tried to bite me.”

In a blur, she was in front of me, like, right in front of me, and she had both her hands out while she chanted something under her breath. My body started to vibrate, and then there was an intense pulse of energy in my midsection, and I couldn’t move.

And I was glowing. Bright.

Careena let out a long breath I hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She walked back over to her chair and collapsed in it.

A moment, or three, later, my glowing subsided, and I could move again.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Making sure nothing had hitched a ride back here you.”

“I’m clean?”

“I would’ve been forced to destroy you otherwise.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Yes.”

“What, I mean, what are they?”

“The things from the shadow realm? They are creatures from the shadow realm. They are myriad and poorly studied. Those who manage to cross into this realm have always been violent. Bloodthirsty beings who have enormous control over shadow and their own visibility. Very dangerous to more than just your own foolish self.”

“Noted. No more shadow step.”

“I did not say that, did I? I prefer to never take spells away from spell casters. There are options we can explore, but as your teacher of magic, I advise you to halt the use of that spell. Or any spells or activities which might bring you in contact with the shadow realm. You are being watched.”

I nodded, “I figured that was the outcome.”

“Another rule, you may not use spell books while under my tutelage. All spells you learn will be learned the hard way.”

“By the hard way, do you mean I’ll have to think them up?”

“That is the harder way. Have you done it yet?”

“I have a stamina regeneration spell thing. I came up with it while I was working one day.”

“Kudos to you, then. You will find that if you know a spell to pull peaches from the air, you can probably swing it to pull apricots as well. Magic has many connections in that regard. The hard way is me teaching you spells I know.”

“What if there are spells I need to know that you don’t know?”

“We will cross that bridge if and when we come to it.”

“I have a spellbook, can I learn that spell before the rule comes into effect?”

“Let me see it.”

I hadn’t been planning to learn the spell, not for sure, but I also wasn’t keen on losing the opportunity. And, as much as I wanted to be a rebel, I didn’t want to risk losing access to her teachings, so I wasn’t about to be stupid and hold onto a spellbook for a spell I wasn't sure I even wanted.

That said, I dug the spellbook for summon fiend out, and I passed it over to Careena.

She took it, looked at the cover, the spine, and the back, and then she flipped through it.

I was about to say something, point out that maybe she shouldn’t flip through it if she didn’t want to learn the spell and that it was my spellbook dammit, but even thinking that sounded a bit foolish, so I remained quiet.

“Where did you get this?” She finally asked, setting the book on the counter behind her.

“Dead guy.”

“You killed someone for this?”

“I killed someone because he was trying to kill someone else. Just so happened he had that on him.”

“And you were thinking of learning it?”

“I want to know every spell I can.”

“Is your goal to be a Mancer?”

“Uh, not like one of the guys who—”

“No, I didn’t mean being one of those chain-dead fools. However, they have access to the imperial spell makers. Fools who sit around doing nothing but make spellbooks for the Mancers.”

“The chain-dead. Good name.”

“Apt. If you want to know every spell you can, that is the best way to do so.”

“Why do you hate spell books, though?”

“Magic is unique. For every person, the way they interact with magic is different. Subtly so. It is why spellbooks can work, but they never work as well as a spell learned the old fashioned way.”

“The hard way.”

“Yes. And spells learned from another are never quite as efficient as the spells discovered on ones own. When you learn through a spellbook, you know how to cast the spell, but you do not understand the spell. You do not know why your body is doing what it does to cast it, how the mana is actually moving through your body to make the magic happen. It is the same as fools who are granted skill levels without earning them. They may have the means to do something, but it is rare they have the practical ability to put those new levels to use. Despite what some may think, hard work is paid off in this world.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.”

“I would not have agreed to instruct you if you were. Having sussed out your own spell is no small feat. But we get away from the original question: why do you want to know this spell?”

“I don’t. Not that spell specifically.”

“This spell, specifically, is designed to get a spell caster in trouble. Note it does not specify a fiend, nor does it indicate whom might control the fiend. It is for the ignorant and foolish, so they cast the spell, and pull a larger fiend than they anticipate, and they are torn apart for their curiosity. I will trade this spellbook for another, and this will be the last spellbook you use while under my tutelage. Is that a fair trade?”

“Sure.”

She walked over to another shelf, waved her hand in front of it, and the jars of flours and other baking supplies shivered out of existence to reveal rows and rows of small books.

“Are you following a similar field of work as Matthew?” she asked.

“I suppose so, yes.”

She nodded, and ran her fingers down the books, touching one, reading the title, muttering to herself, then putting it back, then repeating the process over and over again until she found the book she wanted. Then, she took it off the shelf, grabbed another book, then a third, and brought them over to me.

“Summon Fiend is a valuable spell,” she said, “so if you prefer, I could offer you one of equal value. Or, I could offer you these three lesser spells that might be more beneficial over the long term for you.”

I read the books over: Silent Image, Detect Secret Doors, and Satisfaction. Just from the names themselves, they seemed like they might be useful. But what about a more powerful spell. That wasn’t on the table at present, so I had no idea what it might be. Granted, at that particular moment, I was focused pretty hard on the immediate problem, getting the orb out of the mansion.

Bells tolled in the distance, and I realized that I didn’t have all the time in the world, I had to get all dolled up.

“Sounds fair,” I said, swallowing my doubts. “If I come across more spell books, can I bring them here? Trade them in?”

“Bring them here,” she said. “Perhaps I will be willing to teach you more spells then. Learn these spells now, and we will move on to our lesson.”

“I’m happy to learn the spells,” I said, “but today I have to run.”

“Oh?”

“Thing tonight.”

She frowned but nodded. “Learn your spells then. Return soon, magic is not to be left alone, you will lose it if you do not use it.”

I swallowed the smirk and got to learning my spells.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Silent Image

Silent Image allows you to create the visual illusion of an object, creature, force, or anything visual which would fit within a fifteen-foot sphere. It does not allow any other sense to be produced. The image may move within a range of four hundred feet from the caster. The illusion lasts for one minute.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Detect Secret Doors

Detect Secret Doors allows you to detect secret doors. It was named with much creativity. Requires an object tied to a string. Casting the spell will cause the object to spin on the end of the string if there are specifically-constructed hidden doors or portals within one hundred feet. Channeling the spell will cause the object on the end of the string to point directly towards the nearest secret door.

Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Satisfaction

Satisfaction allows you to imbue a creature with a feeling of immense relaxation and satisfaction as if everything in life is okay for the moment. The spell lasts five minutes, though if you’re lucky, the feeling might last a lifetime. Or, the feeling dissipates immediately.

* * *

As I left, I turned to look back through the windows and saw that Careena had reset everything, she was sitting in her big high backed chair, black walls close all around, and all the creepy stuff had returned to sitting in the windows.

63

I went and got a bath first, and I got one in the chintzy neighborhood of the Golden Square. Though pricey, it was actually really nice. A small room with a private bath, piping hot. There were nice smelling soaps to use, pleasant shampoos, all those nice things. And following getting clean, I went around to where the barbers were and got my hair done in the style of the time. And a shave. Which was done with a straight razor and hot towels. And while that was happening on my face, a manicure happened on my hands. It was so relaxing, I almost fell asleep in the chair.

My next stop was a tailor, where I found out that getting dressed as a noble is expensive. Especially when it has to be done quickly. I skipped out of the first place and rushed down to Gideon’s where I sold off the big bag of rings and jewels I’d gotten as the bonus for saving Matthew’s life.

“Gold or credit, Evergreen?” Gideon asked.

“Gold,” I said. “Unless you happen to have an outfit back there fit for a nobleman.”

“Of what land?”

“Here?”

“A moment.”

The figures rushed out from behind him, and Gideon closed his eyes. All very curious. The hooded figures moved quickly about the space, pulling open all sorts of crates and barrels, quickly returning to lay out a number of outfits on the counter. They were all slightly different but seemed to match what I’d seen posh people wearing on my occasional visits to the nicer parts of town.

“I mean,” I said, “I don’t know. Is this what the cool kids wear?”

“Who are these cool kids?” Gideon asked, confused.

“The rich kids. The aristocratic youth.”

“Some of them wear outfits similar to these.”

“Am I going to look, you know, good in them?”

“We have based our selections on your perceived size, and we feel these outfits will fit your body within acceptable parameters.”

Gideon certainly had a way with words.

“Mind if I try these on?” I asked.

“We are aware that it is traditional in this case, and we will allow it.”

Trying not to be concerned, I disrobed and tried on the various outfits. There was one that fit well, and it looked okay. But it was a faded yellow sort of color. Tight pants, tight tights, and a puffy shirt. The coat was tight in the torso, then flared below. I felt like an absolute tool, but it certainly seemed to be the fashion of the times.

“I’ll take this one,” I said.

Gideon nodded and told me the price, and I had to admit, I was getting a far better deal than at the tailor. Plus, it was already done. The tailor was talking about multi-week waiting times. I added a replacement sheath to the order, then put the stuff into my knapsack, packing it as carefully as I could, and then I made my way back to my apartment.

Outside of my place, as dusk was falling, I saw two large familiar figures walking towards me with purpose. Huge dudes. Big heads. Grey skin. Large mouths. Tusks poking out from thick lips. Chubs and Mountain. Had to be. They looked remarkably similar to each other in the daylight, though one had some bandages on his leg and hand, while the other one was rather portly. I had to imagine the one with the bandages was Mountain while the pudgy one was Chubs.

“You an elf?” the bandaged one, Mountain, asked.

“The ears give it away, don’t they?” I replied, pointing to my pointy ears.

“Aye,” Chubs said. “You’re an elf.”

“You caught me.”

Chubs grabbed me by my shirt and picked me up as if it was nothing to him. Despite the fat, he was enormously strong, and his biceps were ridiculously large.

“You live there,” Mountain pointed at my building.

“No,” I lied. “I don’t even live in this neighborhood.”

“Why you here?” Chubs asked, pulling me so close to his face that our noses were almost touching and I got the full effect of the stench coming out of his mouth.

“Going to that tavern,” I said, pointing over his shoulder.

“Why?” Chubs repeated.

“I heard it has good food.”

“You know elf who live in there?” Chubs asked, once again pointing to my building as if I’d forgotten.

“You think all elves know each other?” I snapped. “How ridiculous is that? Do you know all half-ogres?”

Chubs pointed to Mountain. “Know him. We are it.”

“Okay, so the population of you guys is smaller than I thought.”

“You know elf?”

“No. I’m new to the city, I don’t know anyone. I am looking for work. Are you hiring?”

“No,” he set me down. “You are too small to work.”

Chubs pushed me away.

“Leave me alone,” he said.

I faked a stumble and then continued on my way, sneaking a glance over my shoulder to see the two half-ogres talking to another elf that had the temerity to walk by my apartment building. I had been thinking of stopping by my apartment, dropping some of my things off, but now, I just went straight to the bar.

64

Which was packed.

The success of the Heavy Purse was definitely a mystery to me, and though I was definitely curious about the whole thing, I was also struck by the question: does it matter? And, to be honest, no, not really.

It was also interesting to go into the Heavy Purse and get waved at by three people for three separate reasons. Titus waved from behind the bar, Matthew waved from a table, and the Iron Silents guy, not Insidious, the other one who’d neglected to give me his name, waved at me from the bar.

I gave a smile and headed to the bar.

Matthew seemed to get it, probably thinking I was going to get the guard, Peregrine Gilkes. But I hadn’t seen him amongst the crowd yet.

I elbowed my way until I was standing next to the Iron Silents guy.

“Mr. Hatchett,” the guy said, “it is so pleasant seeing you today.”

“Happy to see you too,” I said. “Are you here to see me?”

“Oddly enough, I am.”

“Asking about selling the building again?”

“I am.”

“I don’t want to sell.”

“You haven’t listened to my pitch.”

“What’s your pitch?”

“Join us, bring your building into our fold. You will be a full-fledged member, gaining all the benefits your rank entitles you. And know that you were among those at the start, before we became the most powerful group in the Empire.”

“Is that including the Legion?”

“Though powerful, I am confident we can surpass those meatheads.”

“I’m just not sure. Maybe give me some time to think it over.”

“I was afraid you might say something like that, foolish though it is. Once I leave this tavern, the offer of membership comes with me. It is now or never. Shit, or get off the pot.”

“As tempting as the offer is,” I said, trying my utmost to be polite about things, “I just don’t think the Iron Silents and I are on the same page.”

He gave me a smile but nodded as if he were actually sad. “A pity.”

“Before you go,” I said, “just a quick question, are those half-ogre idiots outside your doing?”

“Half ogres?” he asked, looking up to the ceiling as if actually surprised and pondering the question to some depth. “Can’t say I’ve ever had the slightest interaction with half-ogres.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said, pushing off the bar, and pivoting away through the crowd until I got to the door leading to the storeroom.

Titus saw me and spoke something to his wife before darting over and going in the back room with me.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Two things,” he replied. “That thing in the subbasement, it’s been making a lot of noise lately.”

“And you want me to check it out?”

“You were curious about it.”

I sighed longly in his direction.

“Okay, maybe I should have taken a look earlier,” Titus said. “I’m not a brave man.”

“I’ll add it to my to-do list, but it won’t be tonight.”

“Okay,” he said, in the way where he was making it clear it would be my fault if the building collapsed.

“Two?”

“Two what?”

“You said two things.”

“Right, two. This one is, uh, well, I don’t know your financial situation very well, but you seem to be, uh, not that concerned with money, and I was talking to the owner of the building next door, and he was saying he’s selling.”

“You want to buy the building next door? Move the tavern?”

“No. Not at all. There’s no way I’d have the money for that, just, well, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for the deal you gave us, just, well, where my family is currently living isn’t that safe, and we’ve been sleeping here some nights but maybe you could buy the building next door and I could rent one of the apartments for me and my family.”

“I mean, I’m not a rich man,” I said, doing my best to ignore the sword I’d paid two thousand gold for at my hip. “But I guess I can try to buy it. Do you know how much he wants for it?”

“I can ask,” Titus said, a massive smile spreading across his face. “And he is a friend. He will be fair.”

I forced a smile, wondering if I might make off with something else from Tollendahl’s mansion to cover this brand new cost of mine. Titus clapped me on the shoulders hard enough to make me stutter step to the side. And he was back to work. I waited for a second more, and then went out into the crowd.

Matthew had somehow kept his table free of other patrons, and when I made it through the packed tavern, I saw there was even an ale for me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You get all the things you needed?” he asked.

“I hope so,” I replied.

“You look more like someone who’d have this,” he said and slid a very fancy looking piece of paper across the paper to me.

I picked it up, and this was one fancy piece of paper.

“What’s this?” I asked

“Invitation to the party.”

“Legit one?”

“Yes.”

“How—“

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet. I was the one who sent you to those fools over at the Biscuit’s Union, I should be the one that helps you through this nonsense.”

“I don’t know about that,” I started, but he grabbed his mug and put it up.

“To nonsense,” he said.

“To nonsense,” I replied, and we drank.

Peregrine Gilkes walked in soon after that, saw me, and made a beeline for the table. It was different seeing him in his, well, not guard uniform. Civilian attire? He still had armor on, chain, but it was pretty discrete under his coat. He also wore a very small hat with a tiny brim. Almost like he was ready to drive a tiny car in a parade.

“Hatchett,” he said, putting his hand out.

I stood, grabbed his hand, and introduced him to Matthew.

“I hate to do this,” I said, “but I’m going to have to leave you two to this meeting.”

“Hot date?” Peregrine asked with a smile.

“Something like that.”

65

I used the secret entrance to get to my apartment, and I changed out of my normal attire into my look-at me-I’m-a-noble clothes. I had my argentinium sword on one side of my belt, which looked mostly okay, it wasn’t anywhere near as thin as the rapiers I’d seen on the hips of the young nobles I was emulating. I had my stone stiletto of silence on the other hip, but put all my pouches under the somewhat smelly sheets in my closet. None of the pouches were nice enough to take. The only thing I kept was a small pouch of coins. Just enough gold to cover the minor expenditures. And I didn’t think they were big enough to store an orb. I wanted to take the knapsack along with me, but that really destroyed my look.

Happy with how I looked, I went back through the secret door, and then walked out of the bar as quickly as I could. I didn’t put my hat on until I was outside. I did a bit more walking, waving at the half-ogre brutes who were still waiting outside my apartment, and then, as soon as I could, I hailed a carriage and got a ride.

I noticed that dusk was the general equivalent of rush hour in the city of Glaton. Everyone was trying to get to their destination, most likely home before actual darkness came down and the monsters came out. Which, having gone through a few monster-filled nights, I understood. But it also meant there was traffic my driver had to deal with, slower carriages carrying industrial loads, people riding horses, pedestrians crossing roads at random intervals. It was chaotic and annoying. And yet, I couldn’t really fault anyone. Instead, I leaned back in the carriage, closed my eyes, and started cycling my mana. At first, I just pushed it through the channels I’d already created, pumping it around my body. There was the unpleasantness at first, almost like I had to force some channels open again, like I hadn’t used them enough. But once that was done, and we were still at least two neighborhoods away from our destination, I started pushing the mana around faster, and to different areas of the body, really making sure the mana was reaching every spot of me. Sure, there was some pain on occasion, I even had my hp drop a time or two, but that was just an excuse to use my healing spells, which then let this nice thing happen:

Boom, baby, you just leveled up a spell: Heal Self (LVL 2).

At level two, Heal Self heals you faster, allowing you to spend the same amount of mana to get nearly double the health.

I hadn’t even known it was possible for spells to level up, and yet, here it was, now level two and giving me more health with less juice. Worked for me.

Finally, after I lost track of time, the driver rapped on the top of the carriage. I looked out, and we were there. Or, more to the point, I was in a line of carriages waiting to get onto the grounds. I paid the guy and tipped him a little more than I should have given his wide-eyed surprise at the extra gold, and then I walked the rest of the way.

Others had the same idea, those of us who weren’t in the top tier, we were walking into the estate. Only the really posh people sat in their carriages all the way around.

The Tollendahl estate had been transformed in the hours since I’d been there, and it was full-on festive. There was a small band playing out front, a four-piece string group that played some really lovely music. Guards were everywhere, and not just those wearing the Tollendahl tabard. There were also several in what I now recognized as Imperial blue which meant that some member of the Glaton family was in attendance. I wondered if I might stumble upon the emperor. There were guards in green, in yellow, red, all sorts of colors, and all of them looked at me as if I was an interloper. That might also have just been my imposter syndrome acting up. I presented my invitation to a young man in quite the get-up at the door, full powdered wig, and brilliant white stockings.

He looked it over, then made a small punch mark on it, and handed it back to me.

“Enjoy,” he said.

And just like that, I was in. The easiest part of the heist was over.

66

The mansion was massive. Beyond massive. Barring the baseball stadium I went to in 8th grade, it was the largest structure I’d ever been inside of. The foyer alone was bigger than any two houses I’d lived in. It was open all the way up to the top floor, with an amazing staircase coming down like it had been designed specifically for grand entrances. Which, frankly, it probably was. I thought there were suits of armor along the walls until I saw one of them move, and I realized there were heavily armed guards inside. To the right of the entrance was a wide hallway leading to a ballroom. I could hear music emanating from that direction, and most of the partygoers were moving that way as well. To the left side, it was a more subdued sort of place, looking like a large dining room with plenty of large round tables and a buffet along the far wall. Having missed dinner, I headed there first.

There weren’t many people flying solo at this party, and I was having flashbacks to the homecoming dance where I’d been stood up by Kelsey McLaughlin, but still bravely remained there until I saw Kelsey McLaughlin dancing with Jeremy Kyle Lincoln. He was a jerk. Probably still is. But the food was hot and fresh and looked delicious. I had a large cut of meat, from an animal I didn’t recognize, and a hunk of bread still steaming on the inside. I ate it quite carefully, with a napkin tucked into my collar, and it most definitely hit the spot. I felt satiated and ready to start the second part of the plan. Finding the room with all the magical items and figuring out how it was guarded.

I went from the dining room into the next area of the wing, a room that turned out to be three stories high, filled with books. A library. There was an older man sitting in a chair, midway through a tome. He looked up when I entered, and then immediately returned to his book. A small glass half-full of amber liquid was resting on the arm of the chair, and I realized the smell in the room was the pipe dangling from his mouth. I thought about talking to him, but as soon as I opened my mouth, he glared at me over the top of his book.

Next was a sitting room, full of large couches and chairs, small tables, and a bar with a wide selection of wines. There were a few people lounging about, and one young couple tucked in a corner behind a column trying to have a discrete make-out session. There was an exit from this room to the rear of the house, and the veranda was exceedingly well-lit and well guarded, and I could see people already starting into the hedge maze. Which had several large glowstone lanterns hanging over it. A quick glance at the backyard made it quite clear that there wasn’t a spot of darkness remaining. I had a hollow unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach. Any sense of actually pulling this off was gone. I was tempted to just make a quick exit.

But a party is a party. And I hadn’t seen all of it yet.

So I went into the ballroom.

That was definitely where the action was taking place. It was almost as big as a football field and went up nearly sixty feet high. There was a balcony on the second floor coming out quite a distance, and it seemed as if there were nearly as many people on the second floor watching the dancers as there were dancers on the main ballroom floor. Above the second floor was, naturally, the third floor, but it only had a small protrusion, and the band was all the way up there, playing a rollicking tune that had the dancers spinning and twirling across the parquet floor. The very center of the ceiling was a massive stained glass light. It seemed too large to just be a light, really, but light was coming from it, sending brilliant colors everywhere, so I figured it was just an oversized lamp of sorts.

I made my way along the edge of the room, enjoying seeing people dancing, but since I could tell that the dance was a very regimented thing with extraordinarily specific steps I didn’t know, I knew it was better if I just watched.

Everything in the place was made of white marble, much like the exterior of the building. While the outside was a more matte finish with a lot of carvings, the inside was primarily clean lines and glossy. Except, of course, the dance floor. The dance floor was all wood. Likely there’d been one big bloody fall on the marble before someone pointed out that wood would probably be a better surface choice.

The far side of the ballroom had a few doors that led outside, and more than a few windows.

And then, I was back out to the foyer. I looked at the exit, or the entrance. There was a flow of people coming in, and I knew I’d make more of a scene trying to leave than just staying a while longer.

So I went upstairs.

The second floor was less crowded, for sure, and nearly everyone heading upstairs was going over to the ballroom balcony to watch the dancers. I followed their lead and saw one good reason to do so, the dance produced some fascinating patterns below. The intricate and interwoven steps of the dance caused ripples of color, shapes, and designs to move across the floor. It was beautiful and a little mesmerizing, but you could also easily see when someone didn’t know the steps. There’d be a broken part of the pattern, and I had the feeling that the other young nobles got quite angry when someone messed up. Especially because those nobles watching from the second floor made comments about those poor bastards messing up, mean comments.

I left them to their gossiping and commenting, and went to the far side of the ballroom’s second floor, which lead to a large balcony overlooking the eastern gardens. No one was out there except for a few guards. I moseyed out, still trying to be just a party guest, which, at that point, was all I was. I mean, I had a real invitation, however it had gotten to me, it was real. I was just a party goer.

A quick glance back at the mansion, and I saw what I was a little afraid of, the marksmen were still on the third floor, but also now on the fourth floor, and I saw a flash of movement on the top of the building, which I took to mean that there were also guards on the roof.

I continued my unguided self-tour of the Tollendahl mansion by going over to the other wing of the house. There, I saw another sitting room, this one empty save a lonely looking bartender, then the second floor of the library, and then, what I was looking for, the exhibition hall, for lack of a better term, where Tollendahl was showing off some of his more impressive treasures, magical and otherwise. It was a large room, almost the same size as the dining room, but there was one main difference. The exhibition hall had very thick walls. Several feet thick. Which made the windows rather odd-looking because they were still the thickness of windows, but mounted in what were essentially tunnels four feet long. Ish.

There were three guards in the room, and two on the entrance leading to the second-floor foyer. No one on the entrance leading to the library, though, which was interesting. Being that I was the only person in the room, all the eyes of the guards were on me. Not in an unkind way, it was pretty clear they were bored and expected not a whit of trouble in this room.

I moved carefully from item to item, reading over the small museum-style labels mounted in front of them. There were some really impressive items, and some that seemed they were the work of a trickster.

Boots of vigilance which help you detect attacks coming your way. Fantastic.

A Fine Mustache, which is an exquisite fake mustache which will fall from your face if ever someone compliments it. Somewhat less fantastic.

The Belt of Rearming, which would cause any weapon stored on itself to magically return to the belt if thrown. A game-changer.

The Bag of Chaos and Wonder Items: a bag which would produce a ‘random’ item upon reaching into it. A game. A potentially dangerous one. There was a handy list of items which had already been pulled from the bag, and none of them sounded particularly useful. Especially not a giant rat, or a swarm of insects.

One display was nothing but rings. There had to be forty or fifty, and each one a little different. Nothing incredible or bizarre, they were mostly things like water breathing or dark vision, there were some that purportedly had shields within them, ones that made you run faster, ones that let you jump higher.

In the middle of the room was a sword being held aloft by a metal hand, the blade of the sword was on fire, big red and orange flames licking the blade. Visually striking. But upon reading the label, I got a bit let down because the flames were basically all for show.

A row of armor stands lined one wall, leather armor glinting blue, mail armor flashing silver, plate mail of brilliant gold that reflected light back so brilliantly it was blinding. There was also plenty of exotic materials on display, leathers of plenty of animals I’d never heard of, metals I had no concept of, and even one suit of armor made out of exotic wood.

And then there was my goal, the Orb of Leeching. According to the label on the stand, the Orb of Leeching was used to rip mana from one entity and transfer it to the holder of the orb. Rowland had mentioned the orb didn’t do what they thought it did, but it’s not like I had any way to check it out. I’d been remarkably concerned that the orb would be some massive thing, like a basketball. Instead, it was smaller than a baseball, and there was a carved stone hand holding it up in the air. And it was wide open, unfettered access. Just there on the top of a carved wooden pedestal.

There had to be a second layer of protection I wasn’t seeing. Something just seemed so very off. The rings were kept behind glass, the scrolls were in glass and metal cases, the weapons were held in locked weapon’s racks, the armor stands were built in a way where you had to remove fake arms and heads to take the armor off. This was the only portion of the collection which was there to be touched. I was missing something, I knew it. And considering what Rowland had already done, the lies he’d peddled out to me, he knew something about it.

67

I did a second lap around the room as a few more guests came through. Those who were there were older, muttering about this thing and that. There wasn’t a sense of wonder from them, it was more a reflection of value. The wealth on display. I had the feeling they’d react similarly to a valuable painting as these magical artifacts.

As a test, I tossed my identification spell towards the orb of leeching, sending out just the barest wisp of mana. No one seemed to notice. There was no alarm sounding, no guards rushed me and sliced my head off for casting unapproved magic in the empire. It wasn’t proof positive casting magic was possible within the mansion, but it gave me a few more options in this increasingly hard quest.

Orb of Leeching

Item Type: ???

Item Class: ???

Material: ???

Description: It’s round?

No useful information, but, then again, my spell was really only good up to uncommon items.

I left the room, and I was in the foyer again. The flow of people coming into the party had slowed to a trickle, but while I watched, for about five minutes, not a single person left. Leaving now, I’d draw attention to myself. And to be honest, I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to succeed, if only to throw it in the face of Rowland and then tell the Biscuit Union to shove it up their collective butts.

Time to start making plans and finding tools. First stop, doing something stupid. If it worked, it’d be a good way to kick things off, and if it didn’t, I'd probably be able to leg it out of the building. Maybe.

I saw a guard who was on his own, a little fancier dressed than some of the other guards, and I walked this direction. As discretely as I could, I muttered some magic words and did a little finger wave, and let a spell slip out. Satisfaction.

There was no visible sign it hit the man, but this goofy sort of smile appeared on his face, and his entire demeanor relaxed to the degree that it was almost comical.

I continued towards him, and I bumped into him. On purpose. And I snatched a small purse from his belt.

The guy laughed a little and caught me, putting me back upright.

“Bit to drink, friend,” he said.

“The wine has bubbles in it,” I slurred back at him.

“Indeed it does,” he replied, the big silly smile still on his face.

I smiled back at him and then walked away.

“Have a lovely night,” the guard called back.

“You too,” I said.

I headed up to the third floor and went towards the ballroom wing of the place. There was a very small walkway going all the way around the ballroom, about four feet wide at most. The orchestra stage stuck out at the northern end of the room, and there was a rather small area that I bet functioned as a de facto green room with a few couches and a lot of instrument cases. I was also the only non-orchestra member up on the third floor, at least on this side of things, but I didn’t have the feeling I was out of place. It seemed logical for guests to come up to the third floor as well. Especially as it seemed the sound was the best there, I could finally hear all the nuances of the orchestra.

Going along the wall, I paused in the middle of the room and leaned on the railing, looking down onto the second-floor balcony and the ballroom beyond. The dance had changed, going down in tempo and becoming a little more sway-y. Gone were the regimented moves, and it was more of a partner thing. There was still a form they were following, and to my untrained eye, it looked a bit like a waltz. I looked up at the giant light hanging from the center of the room, and being that I was almost at eye level with the thing, I could see that it was coming off the ceiling almost like one of those boob lights so popular in hotels and builder-basic homes. It was a ginormous stained glass boob-light. The colors weren’t arranged in a picture of any kind, but there was a pattern of sorts, and if I had to guess, it was a please-the-eye type of aesthetics more than anything else.

I pulled out the purse and looked through it. Keys. A ton of keys. Why keep them in a pouch, though? Seemed a bit superfluous, though I supposed it might have had something to do with decorum. A big ring of keys was hardly pretty. Just sucked because I had a spell that made keys almost trivial to me. And, considering I hadn’t found a single locked door in the place, I wondered how useful they might be. Still, better than a poke in the eye, and I had the chance to try out both a new skill and a new spell. So not a total waste of time, just a minor one.

Because I wasn’t sure what to do next, I let my gaze wander around. I think I was hoping something would inspire me. I did not find inspiration. Instead, I saw someone looking at me. From inside the hanging stained glass boob lamp.

The glass was not fully transparent, so at first, I was a bit confused. Bear in mind, it was like looking across a football field and trying to see someone who was standing midfield. I never played football, but I went to a fair number of high school games and spent my time there looking across the field at Colleen Sullivan who was rumored to neglect wearing all the requisite undergarments for her cheerleading. Never confirmed that rumor.

But then the figure in the glass waved at me, and I backed away from the railing and shook my head just in case I was losing my mind. My first thought was actually that it might be some aftereffect of my visits to the shadow realm, something that had followed me back. And yet, Careena’d cleared me, so that wasn’t really a possibility.

The figure blew on the glass, fogging it up, and then I saw it writing.

H…

E…

L…

P…

Well shit. There went my night.

68

The face peered at me a moment longer, then looked over her shoulder, wiped out the message with her arm, and disappeared back into the world of the lamp. Maybe I’d seen a genie. I could certainly use a genie in my life. Prior to his passing, I would often spend afternoons watching tv with my grandfather, and our favorite show involved a buxom blonde genie, and I admit to some pre-pubescent fantasies involving said buxom blonde genie. I knew it wasn’t a genie. At least, I was reasonably sure it wasn’t a genie. I was, however, exceptionally curious now, and I had something to do. I had a plan of action: Find my way up to the boob light and get inside.

I moved through the rest of the third floor quickly, and I discovered the first place I couldn’t go. There was a guard in front of a door.

“Personal quarters of the Lord,” the guard said when I inquired.

“Ah, thanks,” I said.

Then I moved on quickly. That took up the bulk of the third floor of the house. Basically everything but the ballroom was the private family residence.

I did, however, find a thin door, that wasn’t locked, which, when opened, revealed a staircase, leading up. So I took it, making sure to close the door behind me. On the fourth floor, all the previous openness of the home disappeared. Instead, it was long hallways with plenty of closed doors on either side. The halls were covered in a thick and luxurious carpet, and if I’d had heavy shoes, I bet I’d still have made nary a sound. As it was, walking softly on the stuff made me pass nearly silent. There was some artwork on the walls, but it lacked any of the pizzazz the stuff on the first three floors had. This was more mundane and family-focused. Portraits of the past stared at me as I traipsed along.

Trying to retrace my steps, I thought I’d made it back to the point where the center of the ballroom might be, at least, I got as close as I could to it as I could without opening doors. I’d taken a few turns, and I was genuinely mystified by the size of the place, at least, the perception I was getting. It seemed like there were far too many corridors. And doors. And, speaking of doors, I’d gotten to the first one I needed to open.

I put my ear against the door, and I listened.

Nothing.

I peeked through the keyhole.

There was a large table in the middle of the room, some bookshelves around the walls, and a fire on the opposite wall. Large chairs were in each corner.

The door was locked.

I started to go through the keys and got it on the seventh. The door opened without a sound, and I stepped into a meeting room. It had to be a meeting room. The table was big, like conference room-sized, and a map of the Empire had been carved atop it. There were no words on the table, but some cities had been placed there. It was really cool to finally get an idea of the country I was part of. Roughly diamond-shaped with a flat top, the Empire looked huge. From the look of it, mountains formed the borders to all of the north, a chunk of the east, and nearly all the west. Then, there were all the mountains inside the borders. Gouges were carved into the wood then filled with blue stones making rivers. It was a magnificent display of craftsmanship, and I had to tear my eyes away from it to look at the rest of the room. There were shelves lined with books on three walls with lots of drawers along the bottom of the shelves. The bookshelves didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, only about ten feet up. There was a good two or three feet above them for the ceiling. A large rectangular chandelier of glowstones hung above the map-table, managing to provide shadow-free lighting across the table. However, it did leave quite a bit of darkness up above.

Something remarkably useful when I heard the tumbler turning in the lock and the sound of voices in the hall.

I ran towards the door, then angled just a bit to the side, climbing up the bookshelf and sliding up on top, crawling a few feet until I was tucked into the corner and in as much shadow as existed there.

Armed men came in, and I held my breath.

They’re here for me, I thought, worried I’d already messed up this whole being a thief thing.

The men spread through the room, looking around the place. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find it. And they didn’t find me. Instead, they took up positions around the room, and they waited. These men were serious and muscled. They had the bodies telling me they worked out daily, likely training with the heavy swords they carried at their hips. All the men wore the blue tabard I’d seen outside, and I was in that weird space where I wanted to hyperventilate at the same time I wanted to hold my breath.

Was the emperor about to walk into the room?

No.

A short man with a wide-brimmed hat and a ridiculous feather walked in first, chatting to the man following him.

The man following radiated power and confidence. His clothes were understated, and all blue, his back ramrod straight. He had dark hair with white streaks running through it, and immediately I knew he was breaking from the norm because he had no hat on. He had a slim blade at his side, and there wasn’t an extraneous gem on the whole thing. Or a gem, for that matter. It was a sword suited for use, not showing off. And the vague pulse of blue down the sheath led me to believe it had to be magical.

Hat man came to the map, and turned, and smiled. I got a view of his face. He had at least three chins. He was a chubby guy with an unpleasant face. Very soft, all around. He took his hat off, revealing a sweaty bald pate, and he tossed the hat on the table, covering up a mountain.

“You may leave us,” the taller man said.

The guards bowed in unison and walked out of the room.

There was a heavy silence between the two men.

“What is it you need to know, Tollendahl?” Blue asked.

“Your highness, I beg to know a timeline,” the short chubby dude asked, who was clearly Lord Tollendahl.

“A timeline is difficult.”

“Money is also difficult, Prince Valamir. And if I am to give you what you have asked for, I need to know when you will need it.”

“You know how to try me, Tollendahl.”

“You know I find all this courtly posturing nonsensical, but I know you like it. So I call you by your rightful title, Valamir.”

“Things will be different when I sit on the throne, Tollendahl.”

“There are many steps between here and there, prince.”

“It is a path well planned out.”

“And yet, here you are, still asking for funding.”

“What is it you want, Tollendahl? Another title?”

“What are titles Valamir?” Tollendahl said, pacing around the table. “I have plenty and what more do they give me? I spend more time getting less done with every new title your brother lays at my feet. No, enough.”

“Money you have.”

“All you know of and more.”

“I grow tired of your games, Count. You want a dukedom?”

“No, that is just another title.”

“And it places you in a line for the throne.”

“A line that will only grow longer. No, I have no desire for that. You are missing what it is I truly want?”

“Then tell me,” Valamir barked out, his calm demeanor gone.

“I have a list,” Tollendahl said.

“Of course you do.”

“To begin, I want the two best warriors in the Thingmen.”

“They are not mine to give.”

“They will be.”

“Possibly.”

“I will also accept the two best warriors in the Legion.”

“That is more manageable, but again, not necessarily in my power yet.”

“As long as it is promised to happen within the next year.”

“You have a timetable?”

“I do. And that is part two of this. I want access to the Imperial Vaults. I want my pick of the magic items stored there.”

“You cannot possibly think you can have all of them.”

“I want eight.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Fine.”

“I want two high-level Mancers.”

“You already have a pet Mancer.”

“I want two more. High level. Skilled.”

“Two warriors, six magic items from the Imperial Vault, and two Mancers?”

“And I want that man your brother won’t admit he’s got in his dungeon.”

“Which one?”

“Not the immortal. What is happening with that one at present?”

“He has lost his mind. We stopped the torture even. He was broken beyond comprehension.”

“And he never revealed his secrets?”

“He only ever said he was from some other world.”

“Do you think that’s possible?“

“I think you are distracting me from whatever it is you are actually asking me. It might be possible he is from another world, but that does us little good in replicating his abilities.”

Tollendahl rolled his eyes a little at Valamir.

“I want,” Tollendahl said, “the dungeon expert.”

“I assume you are also planning to ask my brother to reveal the location of the dungeon to you.”

“While I would appreciate that, I have at least three other locations to attempt first.”

“You?”

“Me. I will conquer them.”

“You will die in them.”

“Ah, but you will still have my money at that point. And I have one last request.”

“This is getting to be a bit much.”

“You are asking for a tremendous gift of gold, Prince Valamir. Perhaps I should decide that it is too much.”

“You are gaining the ear of the new Emperor whenever you want it.”

“And you are killing your brother. Not something to inspire trust.”

“You know why he must be killed.”

“So you might ascend the throne over his daughter.”

“My brother has grown weak and timid. His mind is slipping. He is not thinking straight. He was attempting to join the Empire with Carchedon! Our sworn enemies.”

“Yes, they are very terrible people.”

“Just because you feel it is okay to make money off them—”

“Money you want for your ends.”

Valamir took a deep breath and let it out, and I could see the veins on his neck slowly retreat back under his skin.

“Regardless, you understand. This is not what I want, this is what must be done for the good of the Empire.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Good of the Empire. Now, two last things. One is quite minor. The other, I want a Grand Arena tournament. One winner. I want to find the best the Empire has to offer, and—”

“And the Empire must pay for it?”

“You know I will pay, you cheapskate. I need you to authorize it through the Empire.”

“Another member for your dungeon team, I take it?”

“Yes. And,” Tollendahl grabbed a small sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. He read it over quickly, then held it out to Valamir. “These men need to be released.”

“More White Hand goons?”

“They are trusted allies and innocents.”

Valamir read over the list. “Too many.”

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot release this many men without arousing suspicion.”

“I thought you were all-powerful.”

“Insulting me does nothing for you. Were I emperor already, then it would be a different story, but for the moment, especially at this moment, I need to be more discrete.”

Tollendahl sighed but nodded and took the paper back. He pulled a pencil from his pocket and struck through a few lines of text.

“Better?” Tollendahl asked, holding the paper out.

“Acceptable,” Valamir said.

“Then, I will happily instruct my bankers to make certain funds available to you, my emperor.”

“Your assistance will be remembered.”

“Oh come off it, Valamir, you know what I want. I need nothing more.”

“Are we done?”

“With business, yes. But I can offer you an activity.”

“Another of your girls?”

“Not just another of my girls, one of the most amazing girls I have yet encountered in the Empire.”

“I have my own source of gamesmanship.”

“Ah, but there is little as exciting as breaking in a young girl when the entirety of the empire’s elite is directly beneath you.”

“She’s your lamp girl for the week?”

“She seems a bit delicate to last the night, but what a night.”

“Tollendahl, you disgust me.”

“Eh, if I cared about things like that, I probably wouldn’t have the fortunes to help you kill your brother and steal your niece’s throne.”

Valamir got quite angry at that point and stalked from the room.

Tollendahl chuckled to himself, and grabbed his hat off the table, taking a moment to settle it on his head.

I was about to move, thinking I’d follow him when Tollendahl spoke again.

“Did you catch all that?” he asked.

69

I froze. Well, refroze. Froze some more. He knew I was there? Was it a show for me?

“I did, lord Tollendahl,” a slimy sort of voice said from right next to the door. Something there moved, and a figure seemed to slip from nothing into visibility. It was human, or humanoid, rather tough to tell in Vuldranni, and though it was a little hard to judge being mostly above it, I figured it stood about six feet tall. But thin. Very slight. The outfit was in Imperial style, but like mine, seemed just off enough to make people wonder.

“He has no love for you or yours,” Tollendahl said.

“Valamir does not understand commerce. Were he to, he might not be quite so destitute despite being number two in the Empire.”

“I might dislike the man,” Tollendahl said, “but do not misjudge him. He has plenty of coin and a deeper acumen for business than you could imagine. He is smart enough to not use his own coin for this ploy of his. He still needs enough gold on hand should things fall apart and he needs to buy his way out of the hole he has dug. But he is a patriot, he loves the Empire, and he hates you.”

“And we hate him.”

“You prefer his brother?”

“No, his brother and the traitor that was my father were doing too much damage to our nations. It is right what we are doing, though it pains me to do it.”

I caught a flash of movement above the two men talking below. Someone was up on the light above the map-table. The someone was crawling along the light, and I saw a glint of something green. A dagger perhaps?

The only thing I could imagine happening was an assassination attempt of some kind, and it seemed likely the attempt would be on the mystery figure from some other land. Now I had no love for that guy, I was, technically, a member of the Empire, so, you know, not exactly my dude to worry about. And yet, if there was an attack in this room, regardless of how it happened or who it happened to, that would mean guards swarming into the room. That would mean a very careful accounting of the contents of the room, and that would mean someone discovering I was there. And two very powerful men of the Empire knowing that I’d overheard their plans, and knew that the Emperor was slated to be assassinated meant I’d have a short and painful life. Or, if they realized I was like that other guy they had in their dungeon who’d gone mad, I’d have my mind crushed because I could just respawn. There was only one thing I could do, I had to stop the killing or attacking and make sure everyone left the room fine and dandy.

I did what I said I’d not do, I cast shadow step.

The world stopped, and I was moving. Shadows blurred around me as the creatures of the shadow realm came towards me.

I leaped onto the chain holding the lamp up above the table and did my best tight wire act, doing a second leap off the chain onto the table, leading with the Stone Stiletto of Silence, forcing myself out of the shadow realm while I was high above.

It seemed like I hung in the air for a moment before coming down, dagger first. The point struck the assassin in the back of the neck, going all the way through the poor schmuck and lodging into the wooden beam of the lamp structure.

The figure made a few limp movements, then exhaled a last breath in total silence. I stayed still, listening to the inane chatter of the two men below.

GG! You’ve killed a Human (LVL 15 Unseen Assassin)

You’ve earned 8280 XP

Huzzah! Against all odds, you have reached Level 9! You receive 2 attribute points to distribute in the next 36 hours or you lose them. Dare to believe you can survive, and achieve greatness. Or don’t.

There was a knock at the door, and I peeked over the edge.

Tollendahl was glaring at his friend, who promptly vanished from sight.

“Enter,” Tollendahl called out.

A guard leaned in.

“Lady Tollendahl requests your presence, my lord,” the guard said.

“Does she?” Tollendahl replied, sounding bored.

“Yes, my lord. She says she must insist.”

Tollendahl glanced up at the lamp structure, thankfully looking opposite where I was peeking out, then sighed.

“Very well,” he said, waddling out past the guard.

The guard shut the door, and then it was just me and the dead body and the invisible man. No one moved for a moment or two.

“Quite impressive,” came a voice from below.

There was a diaphanous shimmer, and the mystery man came into view.

“You may come down,” he said, “I can’t imagine it is pleasant up there right now.”

I peeked over the edge.

“Yes,” the man said, looking right at me. “I’m talking to you, elf. You who are, apparently, my savior.”

“Me?” I asked.

“You.”

“Just a moment,” I said.

I heard a chuckle from below but ignored it. I got my dark vision going, which was a little challenging considering the light coming from below made it a bit painful, but at least I could see a bit better what I was doing. I’d killed a woman. I pulled the stiletto from her back, which was, again silent, and then quickly pulled all the things from her body. There wasn’t much, two small pouches, one large pouch, a necklace with a large ruby, three rings, a bracelet, and five daggers. The large pouch was empty, so I put all the loot in there, and then I hopped down to the ground.

Standing up straight, I was actually shorter than the man. He had a pleasant face, very pale and with very blonde hair. Almost white. But his eyes were a piercing green. So he wasn’t an albino, just a really white dude.

He just stared at me. Well, he stared me up and down, like he was trying to gain something from me. I felt a push of magic against myself, and I knew, intrinsically, to push back against it.

One eyebrow of the man’s went up.

“It is rare to find a mage in the Imperium,” he said. “Especially one who has such a delicate touch. Imperial magic seems all about brute power and not, well, finesse.”

“I guess you can say I’m new here.”

“I can tell. Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“I am the heir to the Hospodar of Carchedon. One of them, at any rate. The Empire may believe I am one step removed from ruling, but the truth is I am little more than a member of the royal family. My brother has assumed the throne, and I am thus thrust into a new role, one I was not expecting.”

“Congratulations?”

“Ah,” he said with a wide smile, “I tell you this because you have forced me to alter my plans.”

“That was your assassin?”

“No, that was meant for me, I fear. Our host seems to have reconsidered our plans together. But, in my culture, when one saves your life, a great bond is formed, and a great debt is settled upon a family. My family owes you, and it owes you me.”

He bowed low.

“Uh, that’s okay, no necessary.”

“Very necessary.”

“Nope. Really, it’s—”

“You have no say in the matter of my culture, elf. I must speak to my brother, but I will return to serve. You have my blood debt.”

BONG! You have received the Blood Debt of House Westergaard. Troels Westergaard owes you his life.

“No. Don’t do that.”

“I must. It is the will of—”

“I believe in free will.”

“You may believe what you like, elf, but the dictates are what I must follow.”

“So you’re going to be my servant?”

“I will be as you wish of me.”

“And if I wish you to just return to your family and, you know, be you?”

“That is not allowed. I cannot allow harm to befall you. That is the debt that my family has assumed. If you were to come to my country, you could live like a king, and I could remain with my family.”

“Tempting, but I’m kind of trying to do something here. Maybe—”

“Then, when I have arranged what needs to be arranged, I will return.”

“Not necessary.”

“Your name, please,” he said, ignoring me.

“Okay, if I don’t tell you my name, you can’t find me.”

He did a little thing with his hand, and I felt that magic again, and I tried to fight back once more. There was a pulse of magic that hit me like a hammer, and I staggered back a step.

“Clyde Hatchett,” he said. “Your low level is surprising, and I fear my debt must grow, for you put yourself in mortal danger to save me. Interesting. I am Troels Westergaard, ambassador of Carchedon, member of the purple, and I will see you again.”

“Dude, you really don’t need to do this.”

He disappeared, invisible once more. “But I do,” his voice rang out.

The door opened and remained open, and I knew I was alone once more.

“Any chance you know where his lamp room might be?” I called out.

Silence for a moment, then came a soft reply, as if from a distance: “I do know you’re in the right room, might have to look a little closer.”

70

This was definitely the weirdest party I’d ever been to, and that includes the one at Shirley McHale’s where Dennis Wilkinson tried summoning demons.

It was time to do a little more magic, and send thanks over to Careena. Summon Fiend was actually paying off.

Tying a string around a coin, I got as close to the center of the room as I could, then I cast detect secret doors.

Glowing runes flowed down the string and sunk into the coin. The coin started spinning, which was the first step. It confirmed there were secret doors leading off the room.

I kept mana flowing into the spell, pushing to the second step.

The coin stopped spinning, and the string went taut. The coin shot out in the direction of the secret door.

Keeping my mana flowing and focused, I walked in the direction the coin and string pointed until I got to a bookshelf. I released the spell, and the coin dropped, swinging lazily on the coin. I dropped it back in my pouch.

I looked over to the bookshelf and did some fiddling around with things before realizing it was simpler than I’d thought. A push and the shelf moved into a secret room. The room was quite nice, plush carpeting, as was everywhere, purple fabric on the walls, a bright glowstone in the ceiling, and a ladder that could be lowered with a pulley. Oh, and a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. There was a large padlock on the trapdoor.

I looked at the massive ring of keys, and I thought about Tollendahl and how much of a sleaze bag he had to be to trap a girl in what was, in essence, a stained glass chandelier. No way anyone else would have a key.

Magic-time. I loved magic. I was starting to realize that I was almost looking for chances to use it.

Zeddington’s Infinite Key made one of the guard’s keys I’d snatched into the key I needed, and I unlocked the padlock and tossed it aside. The key gone into the mystic void of wherever magic took things.

I knocked once on the trap door, then opened it.

Inside, it was very bright and disconcerting. There was a small platform and a lot of glass. The platform was basically a bed without much in the way of sheets. There were some pillows. And on that bed platform stood a young woman who was completely naked.

I looked away immediately.

“Sorry,” I said.

“You came!” The voice called out from below. “I didn’t think anyone would help me.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” I said.

“Are you,” she stopped. “Did he send you to me? To—”

“No,” I called out, interrupting her. “Nope. I’m, uh, he doesn’t know I’m here. No one does right now.”

Except, you know, the heir to the throne of some other enemy country.

I pulled my jacket off and dropped it down the hole.

“Put that on for starters,” I said.

Then I stood up and looked at the ladder, trying to figure out how to get it down into the lamp room.

Thank you,” she said. “You know I’m a princess, right?”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I’m sure there’s a reward for rescuing me,” she called up.

“You had me at reward,” I called back down.

There was a crank on the wall near the bookshelf entrance, and a little turning of the crank lowered the ladder. It was slow going, but eventually, it reached the bottom.

A bit of noise as she climbed the ladder quickly, and she scampered up into the secret room. She threw her arms around me and pressed herself to me tightly.

“Thank you,” she said. “I thought I was to be left in there forever.”

“Actually,” I said, “I think he had plans to visit you tonight, and, uh, it didn’t sound good.”

“And here you are, my hero.”

“Clyde Hatchett.”

“Shae Cushing.”

“Princess of?”

“Would you believe the land of the fairies?”

“No.”

“I, maybe, said that because I thought a reward might entice you to be nice to me and save me?”

“I was already saving you,” I said.

“I wasn’t out of that hole yet.”

She was tall, for a girl at least, with stunning features. She just looked like she was about to smile every second, and she had bright blue eyes and such a damn friendly disposition. And, in retrospect, it was pretty obvious she was going to be gorgeous, she’d been chosen for that very thing. By a complete monster of a human.

“I don’t think this is a good place to, uh, hang out,” I said.

“Definitely not,” she replied.

She took a step back from me, and I realized that the jacket had some slight issues. One, it didn’t appear the buttons were actually intended to close the jacket, and two, it didn’t seem the jacket was nearly big enough or long enough to provide full coverage even if it was able to close. Which it wasn’t.

“But, uh,” she said, gesturing to the garment in question, the only one she had on, “I’ve seen what the ladies are wearing downstairs, and it’s not this.”

“No.”

“I need a dress.”

You have been offered a quest by Shae Cushing:

A Dress, My Kingdom For A Dress

Fetch a dress for Shae Cushing, one that is wearable to the party below.

Reward for success: Undying loyalty of Shae Cushing, XP

Penalty for failure (or refusal): Unknown

Yes/No

“Yeah, let’s handle one problem at a time,” I said, but, I did accept the quest.

I cranked the wheel hard, and the ladder practically flew up and out of the trapdoor, then I shut the trapdoor. The girl had left the secret room and walked into the meeting groom and was leaning over the map-table.

“Also not a good spot,” I said.

“Have you seen this map?” she asked.

“Let’s focus here, okay? Work on not dying?”

She nodded at me. “Sorry, I’m a bit scatterbrained. Hungry.”

“How long have you been in there?”

“Day and a half, I think.”

“And you haven’t eaten?”

“I ate the bit of food they gave me.”

“But it’s been a while?”

She nodded, “Last night. Said he didn’t want me puking when he came back.”

“Nice guy, caring. I’m going to boost you up there,” I said, pointing to my old hiding spot above the bookshelves. “It’s a pretty good spot to hide.”

“And you’ll come back?”

“With a dress.”

“Good luck,” she said and stood in front of me. “And I know peeking is going to happen, it’s a bit inevitable, let’s just, you know, I’d rather have you looking at me and seeing too much than closing your eyes and me falling, okay?”

I wondered what an elf looked like when he was blushing.

“Noted,” I replied, and I got her up to the hiding spot.

She peeked back over. “A blue dress if you can find it,” she said with a wink and a smile. “Makes my eyes pop.”

“There is a dead body up there,” I said, pointing to the hanging lamp area, “Might have clothes that fit you, you know, if I can’t find a dress and you don’t mind the whole death thing.”

“Let’s leave that as a last resort,” she replied, deadpan.

I smiled back, all the while thinking that I was getting myself deep into the crazy.

71

I stalked through the hallways moving a little faster than I should have for silence purposes, retracing my steps back to the stairs down, running through ideas on how to get a dress for the princess. Obviously, the quickest and sleaziest way would be seducing a young woman, then running off with her dress. Maybe not the best idea. Kind of wrong in a few ways, but a quest was a quest, and I wanted to find that dress and complete that quest. I was a little tired, and thinking in rhymes, things were not looking up.

My path to the ground floor was clear of guards, and I got to the ballroom in what I considered record time. It was packed, and the dancing was in full swing. It seemed to mostly be older folks, though, and that meant I needed to head elsewhere. So I went to where people naturally congregate at parties: wherever there is booze.

I went the long way around, going into the dining area first, which was pretty crowded now. There was an eating competition ongoing between two huge men, surrounded by regular-sized folk. Plates were stacked on plates on neighboring tables, and the men involved in the contest were shoveling food into their open maws with both hands.

The library was still empty save the one old dude who just glared at me when I walked through.

And then, the sitting room. Which wasn’t as full as I expected, instead, the area near the bar was a bit crowded, and most everyone else made their way outside. It was the rear veranda that had become the repose of the youth at the party. Where the courting was happening, and where I’d have to do something despicable.

But I got a glass of wine first. With bubbles, because why not?

I took a few sips, walked toward the veranda, and saw a familiar set of swaying hips. At the top of the hips was the same dark wavy hair I’d seen a lot recently. But there was no way my fellow pit worker was here, she was a pit worker.

Yet, as soon as that head of hair turned around, I saw the beautiful, mischievous smile and arching eyebrows belonging to Nadya.

And she saw me. Those perfect eyebrows shot up, and her face skewed up in confusion. She held up a finger to the burly dude who’d been trying to make her laugh, and she came towards me. I angled away from her, hoping she’d get the hint and not make contact.

She did not get the hint. Or, more likely, she just ignored it. She came right for me, grabbed me by the elbow, and steered me into the library.

The old dude was not happy, but Nadya didn’t seem to care about him.

“What are you doing here?” She hissed.

“What am I doing here, what are you doing here?” I replied.

“No, you do not get to ask me that question.”

“You just asked me the same question.”

“Because it’s important I know why you’re here! Who are you?”

“You know exactly who I am.”

“If you are who I think you are, you wouldn’t be here.”

“And yet here I am.”

“At the most exclusive ball of the year?”

“Yeah, I mean, you’re here, why is it so weird that I’m here. And why are you here?”

She made a high pitched noise of irritation, and stomped away from me, only to get to the fireplace, and then stomp right back.

“Answer the question,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“Tell me who that guy is,” I said, pointing at the old man.

“Why are you worried about him?”

“Because I don’t want to blurt my business out to the whole world,” I said. “No offense, sir.”

“I would prefer you not blurt anything out around me,” the old man countered.

Another noise of frustration from Nadya, and she grabbed my arm, pulling me back through the library, through the sitting room, past the guy who was trying to make Nadya laugh who was now giving me a remarkably dirty look, and into the backyard. We went down the stairs, into the grounds, and around to the far side of the fountain where the noise of the water would drown out anything we said.

“This better be good,” Nadya said, crossing her arms tightly and scowling up at me.

“Why don’t you tell me something?” I snapped back.

“Are you here because of me?”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“That’s exactly what someone who was following me might say.”

“If I was following you here, wouldn’t you think I was happy to see you?”

“You’re not?” she asked, and she actually seemed a little shocked. And there was just the barest hint of a quaver in her voice.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” I said, “I just didn’t know you were here. Or going to be here.”

“Why are you here, then?” she asked, quieter this time.

“Because I’m trying to steal something from Lord Tollendahl.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she took a step back.

“Oh?”

I probably had just said too much.

“What?” she asked, a smile creeping onto her face.

“An orb.”

“Are you a thief?”

“In a sense.”

“Then why are you working in the pits?”

“Why are you working in the pits?”

“I asked you first.”

“You never answered my question.”

“If you can’t figure out why I’m here, dressed like this, talking to those brain-dead meatheads in there, then I’ve severely misjudged your intellect.”

And suddenly, I did get it.

“You’re slumming it in the pits,” I said.

“That’s not exactly right.”

“Who’s your family? You’re nobility, right?”

“I am. Not by choice.”

“You’d be an idiot to choose something else.”

“Why? So I could have the freedom to do something I actually want to do instead of being paraded about as my father attempts to use me to make a better deal for my family?”

“How about because you get to come to this sort of event instead of running for your life because you can’t afford to keep a roof over you or your son’s head at night when the monsters come out?”

“I mean,” she said softly, looking up at the dark night sky, “that’s definitely something I prefer, yes. But is it that, I mean, no. I’m not going to say anything else. In many ways, my life is easier.”

We stood there in silence for a moment, and I watched the guy I expected was her paramour staring at us from across the fountain. Someone started laughing in the hedge maze.

“Is that what happened?” she asked. “With the gargoyle?”

I nodded.

“And they, I mean, are the family, are they okay?”

I nodded again, not really knowing what else to say.

“So you saved this family, killed a gargoyle, and paid to have the body delivered to me because you knew I liked monsters . Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re here to steal some orb from Tollendahl?”

“That was the original plan.”

“There’s a new plan?”

“You know that big fancy stained glass lamp-light thing above the ballroom?”

“Going to steal that now?”

“No, I can’t say that was the plan, but, uh,” something clicked in my brain, and I realized that maybe there was a better way to get a dress. “Do you have another dress with you?”

72

“No,” she said, looking like I was insane. “You think that’s going to help you steal whatever it is you’re going to steal? The lamp?”

“There was a girl in the lamp,” I said.

“Like a genie?”

“Is that a real thing? Genies in lamps?”

“Where else would they be?”

“I don’t know, busy not existing.”

“Of course they exist. Where is this hamlet of yours?”

“Denmark, but that’s not important, she’s a girl. A regular human girl. At least I think she’s human, I didn’t check. It’s just, Tollendahl keeps girls in there.”

“That’s absurd.”

“You want to meet her?”

“Yes.”

I stammered because I hadn’t expected it to be that easy to convince her to help me.

“Okay,” I said, but we need a dress.

“Why?”

“She’s currently wearing my jacket.”

“So?”

“Only my jacket.”

“Oh,” she said. “Tollendahl has daughters. And a wife. They’d have dresses.”

“I don’t suppose you know them well enough to ask for another dress.”

She watched the fountain for a moment.

“If you can’t,” I started, but she held up a single finger to me, didn’t look at me, but held up a finger.

“Thinking.”

So I waited, and I watched the brute across the fountain staring at me and getting angrier. I was not looking forward to the confrontation that was surely going to happen sooner rather than later.

“Got it, follow,” she said, grabbing my arm and giving me the illusion of choice.

The mean-looking guy made more faces at me as we walked by, though Nadya didn’t seem to notice.

We were definitely in Nadya’s element at the party, she seemed to know exactly how to walk when to walk, and where to swish to the side in order to move remarkably quickly, and we ‘bumped’ into a young couple necking behind a pillar in the sitting room.

“Nadya,” the girl said, her hair dark, her make-up smudged, and a nose that was remarkably similar to Tollendahl’s.

“Cordia,” Nadya said. “I was wondering if I might borrow a room.”

Cordia smiled, the sort of sneaky smile where she was happy she was about to share in a secret, and that’d she probably tell everyone the secret as soon as she could.

“Nadya,” Cordia repeated, “of course. I never thought you would be one to—”

“Thanks,” Nadya said.

“No time to waste, I see. The guard will ask for a flower, tell him it’s a hyacinth today.”

“Thank you, Cordia,” Nadya said, and she grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

We went back to the foyer and practically ran up the three sets of stairs. We paused for a second at the top, and Nadya looked from one side to the other, picking her direction, then opted to go around through the ballroom. I noticed that the orchestra had changed over, that there was a second group playing while the first group lounged in the sitting area next to their stage. I wondered if the two would just trade off all night. We got to the guarded doors that marked the private residence, and the guard was a little surprised to see us.

“Hyacinth,” Nadya said before the guard could even ask for the passphrase.

“Yes, my lady,” he replied and opened the door for us.

Nadya pulled me inside.

It was a completely different atmosphere inside the private residence, much calmer, and significantly less ostentatious. There was a set of stairs leading up as if we had entered a normal home.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in here,” Nadya said. “I doubt she’s moved rooms, but if you’ve got any spare points, might want to put them in luck.”

I did. I had two points. I put them in luck. Both. Why not.

Nadya took the lead, going upstairs, and to the right. There was a short hallway there, and Nadya opened up the second door on the left of the hallway.

A drawing room.

Which apparently was what Nadya expected to find because she walked right through it, and opened a door in the wall I hadn’t even realized was there, and there was a bedroom on the other side.

“Ta-da,” she said, gesturing to the room, “Cordia’s bedroom.”

In seconds, I was standing in front of the bed, and Nadya was pawing through the wide variety of what I’d call ball gowns filling up the three wardrobes of Cordia’s chambers.

“Maybe a blue one?” I said.

“What is her size?” Nadya replied, ignoring my color request, which, to be fair, was probably for the best since blue seemed to be one of Cordia’s least favorite color.

“I don’t know, taller than you.”

“Okay, well, we’re a bit sunk there, Cordia is not exactly tall. Or thin. Is this girl thin?”

“A bit? I don’t know. She’s, I mean, she’s someone Montelbuam chose to, you know—”

“Imprison in a colored glass room suspended above the elites of the empire?”

“Yeah.”

“So whatever we get will probably need some adjusting.”

Nadya opened up drawers and pulled out small boxes of safety pins, and tossed them my way.

Then, she snatched an armful of gowns and dresses, then looked at me.

“Wait in the other room,” she said.

“Wha—” I started, but she just gave me the look that said I’d be better off doing and not asking questions.

I waited in the drawing room.

She emerged a moment later, her own gown looking like it was slightly more ruffled and sizable on the bottom than it had before.

“Where is this girl?” she asked.

“Upstairs,” I said, then thought about the stairs we’d taken to get where we were. “I mean, what floor are we on?”

“On the fourth floor.”

“She’s on the fourth floor. In the map room.”

“I don’t suppose it’s easy to get there from here?”

“I don’t think it’s hard, there’s, uh, I mean, there’s a staircase—”

She walked back into the hallway, and she started opening doors.

Drawing room.

Drawing room.

Bathroom.

Closet.

Library.

Billiards room.

A door that led to a hallway.

“That’s it,” I said. “Through here.”

This time, I led her. It took me a hot minute to find my way back to the meeting room, and we had to duck a set of guards by going into a darkened room until we heard them walk on by. But then we were at the door.

I opened it slowly and looked up. There was a single lock of blonde hair curling down over the edge.

“Back,” I said softly, ushering Nadya in, and closing the door behind him.

“My hero,” came a voice, followed by a face that peeked over and frowned at Nadya. “Who’s that?”

“Friend,” I said. “And someone who’s more equipped to help you with a gown than me. Nadya, meet Shae. Shae, Nadya.”

Shae hopped down from her hiding spot on top of the bookshelves, landing with almost preternatural grace.

Nadya looked at Shae appraisingly, then turned me to face the door.

“Keep watch.”

I heard the two muttering, and then there was some rustling, more rustling, some grunts of exertion, a little ripping, a little more rustling and exertion. And then I got tapped on my shoulder.

Turning around, I tried hard to keep the smile on my face. Cordia and Shae had very different body shapes. One was more, well, spherical, and one was more hour-glass. The hourglass body in the spheroid dress wound up looking a bit odd, especially because she was showing a bit more leg than, well, you’d want.

“Is that the best option?” I asked.

Cool Beans, you’ve the skill Fashion Master. Now you can recognize good fashion. And see you have none.

Stupid game world.

“See,” Nadya said.

“I’m worried we are going to run out of time,” Shae countered. “You said he’s planning on coming here.”

“He is,” I said, “maybe we just get to another room for another try?”

“Lead on,” Nadya said, clearly not happy with the situation, though I don’t know who could be.

I peeked out the door into the hallway, and then Nadya gave me a shove out into the hallway.

From the right side, the side we needed to go in order to get back to the ballroom, I heard the familiar nasal voice of Lord FancyPants Tollendahl making terse comments to his guards about keeping his wife in check, and how the wife had no more cause to ask after him that night.

“This way,” I hissed, and we went the other direction. Away from FancyPants. Quickly. Basically running down the hall. As soon as we turned the corner, I saw a door, and practically dove for it, wrenching it open.

It had to have been an office for someone, but, thankfully, considering the time of day, it was just a desk and a bunch of shelves. And not a whole lot of room. We squished into the room, and I stood on the desk.

For a moment, we all held our collective breathes.

“Quick,” I said. “You gotta get changed on the double, he’s going to realize you aren’t there, and we need to be gone.”

“Shit,” Nadya said and started pulling at the dress. “Help me.”

I had no idea what I was doing, but started in on the dress anyway, doing my best to help Shae shimmy out of it. The next dress was marginally better, but it was the third one, a brilliant red one, that fit well enough to go out in public. Shae, who had more than a little natural appeal, actually made the dress look pretty damn good.

“Okay,” I said. “We good?”

Nadya nodded.

Shae looked at the dress and held it out. “Red isn’t really my color.”

Congratulations! You’ve completed a QUEST!

A Dress, My Kingdom For A Dress

You found a gown Shae Cushing can wear to the ball.

Reward for success: Undying loyalty of Shae Cushing, 150 XP

“The quest completed,” I said, “so shut up, and let’s go.”

And we started the long trip back to the ground floor.

73

We made it out of the private quarters cleanly and walked down to the second floor. At that point, I heard some doors slamming behind me, and since I knew that was likely Tollendahl about to be angry, I grabbed the two girls and steered them onto the balcony overlooking the ballroom.

We stood at the back, under the bit of shadow from the third-floor walkway, trying to be as innocuous as possible.

“Seems like he realized you’re missing,” I said, watching guards scurry past us.”

“The orb,” Nadya said.

“That’s not important,” I snapped, peeking out the door.

“You somehow finagled your way into this party, and you’re going to give up this close to it?”

“I’m going to get killed trying to get her out of here,” I said. “The orb is just foolish.”

“Is it?”

I frowned at her. Mainly because she was kind of right. I didn’t want to give up on the orb. I wanted to get it. Now more than ever. I wanted to grab it, and I wanted to throw it in the faces of the Biscuit’s Union. And I wanted to make Tollendahl suffer. I wanted to bring the pain to him, the pain that the was obviously willing to use out in the world. And I had another reason to hate him: because he was part of the White Hand. If I could hurt him, I’d be hurting the White Hand, and even before I knew the depth of the slavery the White Hand engaged in, I wanted to stop them. To bring the hurt to them as well.

“It’s foolish,” I said, “but I still want it.”

“You want the orb of leeching?” Shae said.

“That’s the main goal, yeah. You know about it?”

“I might have gotten a forced tour of the vault when I arrived.”

“And he told you about it?”

“He did.”

“Anything that might help?”

“Don’t touch it with your bare skin. It steals your mana. Forever.”

“Okay, important safety tip. Does anyone have a glove?”

Nadya frowned and pulled a silk handkerchief from her décolletage, then presented it to me.

“That work?” Nadya said. “Should I take your complete lack of preparedness to mean getting into the party was the extent of your plan?”

“I wouldn’t say it was the extent of my plan, but sadly, I feel it may have been the bulk of it.”

“Clyde,” Nadya said. “You are a fool.”

“It’s odd how often I hear that from our boss, too.”

“You two work together?” Shae said.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Nadya replied, “yes. There. That’s it. End of story. And Clyde Hatchett, you need to start planning these things out if you’re really going to do this thievery thing seriously.”

“He’s a thief? Like for a job?” Shae turned to Nadya to ask: “Are you a thief as well?”

“No, thief is his side gig. He’s a pit restorer.”

“That sounds exciting.”

I couldn’t tell if she was sarcastic or polite. Regardless, I stopped listening to the girls' talk, and I moved towards further towards the edge of the balcony. I wanted a better view of what was happening on the floor of the ballroom. The dancing was still going on in most of the area, but there were also quite a few guards moving through the dancers. Lots of guards in blue. They surrounded someone, then pushed their way through the crowd leading that person off the floor and into the garden. A tall man, one I’d seen before that very evening. Something had happened that got the attention of the Imperial guards.

Walking quickly, but in a way I thought would appear completely normal and not at all in a way where I would need to be watched, I hurried towards the display area. There was only a single guard at the door right now, and he wasn’t paying attention to me in the slightest, his eyes were roving over the various women who were walking around the place, and not in a dude-who’s-enjoying-looking-at-butts sort of a way, this was a guard attempting to identify someone. I had to wonder if there was a connection between the Imperial guards hurrying away Valamir and Tollendahl having his guards searching for Shae.

I didn’t bother going into the display area, because I knew what the two girls would likely be doing, which was, following me and seeing how they might help. So I turned right around and ran into them coming around the corner. I almost fell over, but, instead, I forced them back.

There was a minor scuffle, but as soon as they realized it was me they were scuffling with, they went along with it, and we tumbled together into the shadows at the back of the second-floor balcony, once again out of the view of most everyone.

“What was that?” Nadya hissed.

“One, did you know the Emperor’s brother was here?”

“Of course I did,” she said.

“I think he just got hustled out.”

“Interesting but I don’t see how that applies to what we’re doing.”

“Okay, how did this become a ‘we’ thing? I was doing it, now we’re doing it?”

“She’s definitely tied to you,” Nadya said, pointing a finger at Shae. “I’m trying to help because I thought we were friends, and this is the type of stupid stuff friends do with each other.”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” I said to Nadya, “but what do you normally do with friends?”

She gave me a mean look.

“Bigger issue,” I said, “I’m pretty sure the Tollendahl guards have been told to be on the lookout for Shae here.”

“They probably won’t recognize me in this,” Shae said.

“Yes they will,” Nadya and I both said at once.

“You stick out a bit,” Nadya said.

“And,” I said, pointing to the other end of the party where a group of Tollendahl guards were walking along the balcony peering at each and every woman they passed, “I think maybe we are out of time.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Nadya asked. “Better think fast, or we’re all headed to jail.”

“If they get to halfway, and we’re not moving,” I said, “you are leaving the two of us here, got it?”

Nadya shook her head.

“Yes,” I said, “or I’ll never give you a corpse again.”

“Fine,” she said, fairly spitting it out at me.

“What kind of friends are you?” Shae asked.

I closed my eyes and cycled my mana around my body. The pain sometimes helped me think. I had some new spells I hadn’t used, and there was, in theory, a room the guards might not think to check too closely, also a room I needed to get into. But I needed to get in there quietly, and I needed to be in there quietly. And I had an idea.

“Okay,” I said, “this might be a dumb idea—”

“The best ones are,” Nadya said.

“Sure, but anyway, just, uh, I need to cast a little spell, and then we’ll be moving quickly, okay?”

Before doing anything, I looked at my character sheet to make sure I still had the attribute points saved up. I had two. I put all the points in luck because the rest of the night, and likely my life in Glaton, kind of depended on things going right for a while.

Then, I took the best mental picture I could of Shae, and I walked to the doorway between the foyer and the entrance to the second floor of the ballroom. As calm as I could be, which was not particularly, I leaned against the doorway, and I cast silent image.

An illusory Shae walked around me, looked right at the guard, and then dashed up the stairs.

The guard was startled for a moment, and then he rushed after her, leaving his post unmanned.

I gestured behind me, the universal follow signal, but I didn’t bother to look. Instead, I speed walked across the second-floor landing, and into the display room.

74

All the guards inside the ‘museum’ were gone. My guess: they’d been pulled off to look for Shae. I could see the shadow of one guard standing outside the entrance to the room on the library side of things. Carefully, I drained virtually all of my mana to send satisfaction his way, and his shadow relaxed as the guard’s tension left him.

I pulled out my stiletto of silence and held it up to my arm.

Shae and Nadya were in the room, and standing up against the wall. Both of them had eyes wide as I stabbed myself in the arm with the dagger. But they didn’t say anything. It hurt, a lot, and there was also this weird whooshing sound before everything went quiet, then returned to normal.

I tapped the floor with the dagger.

No noise.

I jumped up and down on the floor.

Still no noise.

I used the stiletto to break open the glass over the rings.

No noise.

I scooped the rings up into the assassin’s pouch, then used my foot to sweep the glass away and under a table of books, which I casually slipped into my pants.

It was time for the orb. I stood in front of it, looking at the thing and wondering how bad it would be if I lost all my magical powers. Was it the worst thing in the world? Probably not. Would it suck? Probably a lot. My hands were shaking as I pulled out the handkerchief. I wrapped the silk handkerchief over the orb and the carved hand, and tied it tight. As tight as I could make it, and then I tipped the whole thing into my pouch. I looked around the room and saw Nadya gesturing as Shae peeked around the doorway.

Nadya was pointing at a suit of armor.

It had a blue Imperial tabard and a heavy helm. It was a suit of full plate. I’d seen a few fully armored soldiers around the party, mostly standing right behind people I’d assumed were important. But it was a pretty brilliant idea.

I ran over, and I grabbed the whole heavy thing and tipped it over.

The look on Nadya’s face was priceless, but the magic of the dagger held, and there was no sound as it crashed to the floor. I snapped the wooden arms holding the armor on the stand, and we grabbed Shae.

Here’s the thing about armor. It’s actually a pain in the butt to put on. Even if you have helpers, the helpers really need to know what they’re doing. I did not. Nadya had zero clue. And Shae was actually less than helpful. But after a few minutes, when I was sweating and shaking and getting really close to swearing, we got it so the armor looked like it was supposed to be on her. Mostly. It wouldn’t hold up in a fight, that’s for sure, but hopefully, it’d last long enough for the three of us to get out of the estate.

It was time to go.

Nadya grabbed my arm, and Shae walked directly behind the two of us.

We walked out of the display room, and the guard hadn’t returned yet. Step one, done.

Down the steps, no one paid attention to us. There was a man with an armored soldier following him coming up the stairs as we were going down, and Nadya nodded to the man in greeting. The man nodded back.

And we were on the ground floor, heading for the exit.

Then the guard stepped in front of us.

“Lady Glaton,” he said, addressing Nadya, “it is night. Are you sure you wish to exit?”

“I have my protectors,” she said, gesturing over her head at her knight, and then at me.

“Uh,” the guard said, looking at me like I’d be lucky to kill a fly. “I urge you to reconsider.”

“Noted,” Nadya said with a smile, and then started walking.

The guard moved out of the way.

We made it to the driveway, and a little bit beyond when the shit hit the proverbial fan.

“Come to me, knave,” a voice called out.

I couldn’t help it, I knew I should have kept walking, but I glanced over my shoulder.

Nadya’s guy was standing there. The one who’d been trying so hard to make her laugh and she’d totally ditched for me. He’d come back. Like they always do.

“Keep going,” I whispered to Shae. “Get outside, wait there for me. I will find you.” I pushed the large purse of pilfered goods into her hands, and I turned around.

“Me?” I asked.

The guy came forward, his face a particularly impressive shade of scarlet.

“You are not even worthy of being here,” he said. “Scum, you are.”

“Sounds about right,” I replied. “Probably should be going.”

I turned, and I got a few more steps.

“Are you such a coward?” He called out.

“I suppose I am,” I replied with a smile. “Just, you know, heading out now.”

“I challenge you to a duel, you fop!”

You have been challenged to a DUEL by Reginald Lewiston (LVL 8 Noble). As you have been challenged, you are permitted to set the terms. What are the terms?

Shit, it was a real game-type thing.

“This is absurd, Reginald,” Nadya said.

I wanted to hiss at her, tell her to keep going. At least Shae had the sense to continue on, marching resolutely towards the gate like she was an automaton in armor. And, because of the stupid show Reginald and I were putting on, there wasn’t anyone noticing the magical plate armor heading down the driveway.

“He has tricked you,” Reginald said to Nadya. “You have been promised to—”

“I have been promised to no one, Reginald Lewiston. I am my own woman.”

“Your father and my father have been talking.”

“They talk every day, nothing has been decided. And let them talk. Unless I promise myself to you, I am promised to no one.”

“Then who is this useless meat sack you have ditched me to hang around this evening? Who is this yellow coward who you are going home with?”

A few people were moseying out of the main entrance, enjoying the excitement. As well as some coming from the side of the house. We were a show now. Well, more a soap opera.

“Just a friend,” I said, “escorting her home through the, uh, monster-infested darkness.”

“If it is monster-infested,” Reginald said, “she should stay here, where there are brave men to protect her.”

“Surely you can’t mean you,” I said.

His eyes fairly came out of his head as a new vein bulged from his temple.

“Don’t provoke him,” Nadya whispered. “He has quite the temper.”

“It’s my natural reaction, I have trouble not provoking assholes.”

“Will you accept the duel, elf?” Reginald called out.

“Duel!” Someone in the crowd shouted.

“He will kill you,” Nadya said. “All he does is duel. All any of his fool friends do is duel.”

“You honestly think he’s letting me get out of here?”

“Maybe.”

“I asked for honesty.”

“No. He has it in his head that I am his, and I suppose he sees what you don’t.”

“What?”

“Nothing. You need to move to his left, he is not good with that hand. And his footwork is sloppy, if you can push him into unfavorable terrain, you might trip him up. Don’t actually kill him, his family has plenty of ways to make it bad for you. Or my family if they decide to.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice your last name.”

“It’s common.”

“Sure.”

“We can talk about it if you survive.”

“If I don’t, you get her to safety.”

“I will.”

“Okay,” I said, taking the jacket off, and tossing it to the side in my best display of showmanship. “You want a duel, let’s have a duel.”

75

I quickly set terms of the duel. First blood. There would be nothing more than honor at stake.

“I reject your terms,” Reginald shouted to me, “Clyde.”

He said my name like a playground bully.

Reginald Lewiston has altered the duel. To incapacitation or death. You may decline the duel honorably as Lewiston has altered the terms. Should he lose the duel, he will lose significantly more honor.

I had no honor, and I bet, deep down, Reginald didn’t either, and I had the feeling that my rejection would just lead to him serving me another duel or stabbing me in the back.

So I pulled out my sword, let it glint in the light, and I swung it a time or two.

“Agreed,” I said.

And I accepted the duel, and immediately lunged at Reginald.

He barely got his sword out of his sheath before my sword was there, but a quick shift of his hips and my sword went through air.

“A silver blade?” He sneered at me. “You fancy yourself a hunter of monsters?”

“Maybe,” I said. “You just fancy yourself, I see.”

He let out a grunt, then came at me with his rapier. It was a very thin blade and interesting to see against my silver longsword.

I parried as best I could, but he was certainly significantly more skilled than me, and he scored two small slices on either of my arms in the pass before he backed off to reset. He was breathing a bit hard, though, and I really didn’t feel winded.

Carefully, though, I cycled my mana into my healing spell and took the slices down to barely past the skin. I didn’t want to heal all the way, didn’t want to give away the secret, just make it a little easier for me.

We were on the stone driveway, but it wasn’t far to the grass. Grass that was, by nature, soft, squishy, and uneven. I could force him over there, but that seemed like too much work, and more likely for me to get stabbed. So I just walked over to it.

Reginald was confused that I’d so easily walk away and set up our duel elsewhere.

“What are you doing, coward?” he snapped at me.

“Softer here,” I said.

“Get back on the stone.”

“Get over here and get me you bloated butthead.”

I think it was the alliteration that got him because he bellowed out and charged at me, really not getting that the rapier was a weapon of finesse and skill. He really just treated it like a club. Which it’s not. And not great at being.

However, that probably kept me alive, because it was pretty easy to defend against, although he did get one good slice across my hat, going right through to my scalp. I could feel the blood pouring out of the wound, but considering it was out of sight, I didn’t mind healing it up. I wasn’t exactly keen on the amount of mana I was burning through keeping my wounds minor, at least rate I wasn’t going to manage more than one or two more passes before I was tapped, and the wounds would be real.

I did have one idea, and it was pretty sneaky and mean, but, well, it was a duel.

He took another few steps back to reset, and then I noticed this was all a game to him. He was just taking the measure of me. He wasn’t breathing hard anymore, and he was holding his rapier in a different manner, like he knew what he was doing. He was just about to kill me. He had a look in his eye.

I admit it, I was a little afraid. But that usually wound up making me a bit foolish, and willing to make snide comments.

“You know,” I said, “did your parents ask you to run away from home?”

That shook him just a little, and I think he came after me a little sooner than he thought.

But that was exactly what I needed.

I parried his first thrust and flicked a little spell over his right shoulder, minor illusion, in this particular case, a gargoyle’s claw.

Naturally, he looked, and I swung for the fences, and the flat of my sword connected with the side of his face.

There was a deep and satisfying, BONG, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes into the classic fencer position of being knocked the fuck out.

I saluted his unconscious form with the sword, looked around at the stunned crowd, and promptly left as quickly as I could.

76

Nadya and Shae were waiting across the street, outside the gate of the neighboring estate. Shae had removed her armor and had tucked it into a spare dress Nadya’d given her. The last of the ones we’d stolen from Cordia Tollendahl. I took the dress of armor and the stolen goods in the pouch and got them tied around my belt.

Behind us, there was definitely something happening at the entrance to the home, lots of yelling was going on.

“I have a carriage,” Nadya said, “but I can’t be seen taking either of you.”

“Go,” I said, and she waved to a blue carriage coming her way.

“Might want to be quick,” I said, and I took off sprinting.

Shae followed quickly behind.

I didn’t stop running until Shae begged me to stop. We’d gone several blocks, but not nearly far enough.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Feet,” she said, breathing hard.

Lifting up her dress a little, I realized we’d never given her shoes. She’d been going barefoot this whole time. Minus the short time of wearing the armor, but I had the feeling the metal boots weren’t exactly the height of comfort. Now, after running through the stone streets, there were definitely some unpleasant looking bruises. Already. Which meant that her feet probably hurt a ton.

I tried to figure out where we were. I knew that we needed to get to one of the major avenues if we were going to get a carriage out of the danger zone, and that meant going a few more blocks. So I picked Shae up and hoisted her over my shoulder, fireman style. I could watch my stamina drop as I ran. Well, running was a little generous. As I moved quickly with purpose. I cycled my stamina spell as much as I could, getting my green bar back higher at the expense of my blue mana bar. But eventually, even that ran out, and I had to slow down.

Maybe it was luck, maybe it was something else, but we were close enough that there was a carriage coming down the road towards us. A hirable one.

I reached my arm out, and I whistled.

It made a sharp cut, angled across the empty avenue, and came to a stop in front of me. I looked up at the driver and saw a familiar creepy face.

“Need a ride, moppet?” She said.

“I’ve got your gold, crone,” I said.

She cackled and pulled a lever the opened the door and dropped downstairs.

“Extra if you make sure we aren’t followed,” I said.

“Ain’t no one following us tonight, moppet,” she said. “Professional courtesy.”

I didn’t ask. Just helped Shae aboard, and then closed the door after me.

I don’t remember much of the journey. I know I was mostly awake because I can remember looking out the windows and watching Shae sleep. But everything else is a blur. Next thing I do remember, I was standing outside the Biscuit’s Union, Shae holding my hand and leaning her head on my shoulder, and the crone holding out her hand.

She smiled at me, her teeth a heady mix of black and brilliant white in a way that wouldn’t naturally happen.

I pulled out five gold coins, and I put them in her hand.

“A generous moppet,” she said. “This one will remember.”

And then she whipped her mostly skeletal horses, and the carriage rumbled off.

“Where are we?” Shae sleepily asked.

“A pit stop.”

I led her to the door, expecting it to be locked. Instead, it moved under my knock. Inside were two old men and three old women. All quite advanced in age, all sitting around mugs of steaming liquid.

No one seemed surprised that I came in. One of the old women, one with a long mane of brilliant white hair, stood up and gently took Shae.

“Mind having a seat with an old woman?” She said.

“No, but—” Shae started.

“He’s got business to attend to,” the old woman interrupted Shae and guided her to a table, fixing her up with a steaming mug of something that smelled like chocolate and a small plate of cookies.

“Rowland’s waiting for you, lad,” one of the men said. “Up the stairs.”

He pointed behind me to a green door marked “employees only” in gold letters.

I pushed through, taking the steps slowly, feeling nervous. I was about to complete my mission, but why had he assigned something that wasn’t exactly accomplishable. It was a long walk up the stairs, but as soon as I got to the top, I saw Rowland sitting at a table, two mugs in front of him.

“Sit,” he said, pushing a chair out with his foot, and sliding the mug across with his hand.

I set the large pouch and the dress of armor down next to the chair, and then I sat in the chair.

“I take it you discovered the party was actually tonight,” Rowland said.

“I did,” I said, opening up the pouch.

“And?”

I took out the stone-carved hand wrapped in the silk handkerchief, and I set it on the table.

“What’s this?” Rowland asked.

“The orb,” I replied, untying the silk handkerchief ever so carefully before letting it fall off on its own. I wasn’t about to get my skin anywhere close to the orb itself.

“What do you mean? What orb?”

“The orb of leeching. The one you assigned me to get.”

He blinked, looked at the orb, then at me, then at the orb. I could feel him send a pulse of magic towards the orb, and I saw the orb light up just a teensy bit as the magic hit it.

“It is the orb,” he said softly. “How did you do this? You weren’t supposed to do this!”

“What?”

“This is not how the test goes.”

“Success?”

“Of course not! No one should have done what you did. You were supposed to come to me, say that you had looked things over discovered I got the night of the party wrong and tell me how impossible the ordeal was. I would then knock you down a level and give you something difficult but not impossible. Which you would come back to me to say it is too hard, and so on and so on until we find out that you are novice thief and that you need to learn from us otherwise there is little reason for us to invite you into our little guild because you are already too advanced, and yet, here it is. The actual Orb of Leeching.”

“Yeah, don’t touch it.”

“I know what it does. It belonged to my family. It was stolen from us by Tollendahl’s family. But I never expected to see it again.”

“Now, you have it.”

“What else did you take?”

I dumped the bag of rings and books on the table, then untied the dress and spread the armor out on the floor.

“Oh, what have you done?” he asked. “You have surely kicked the hornets' nest hard, boy.”

“Also,” I said, “not to detract from this, but the girl downstairs was kidnapped and being held for sex and killing by Tollendahl. So I took her.”

Rowland just started laughing.

I thought about telling him about the whole kill-the-emperor-plot, but I had the feeling he wasn’t really up for that at the moment. He seemed like he was losing it.

“You have certainly made life interesting again,” Rowland said. “Whichever of the hells we are about to go through because of you, I’m sure it will be the most entertaining end of days. Welcome to the Biscuit’s Union, as a full-fledged member.”

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About the Author

Eric Ugland ran away from Seattle to join the circus. And then he came to his senses, and moved to Manhattan to be a playwright. Now he's a novelist in Oregon, trapped by trees and snow and bears. Mostly bears.

The Good Guys is a continuing LitRPG series I’m writing in the world of iNcarn8. Join my reader group and be the first to know when new books come out.

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Contents

Also by Eric Ugland

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

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About the Author