There’d be no more futile struggling to keep a masterless academy alive. No more risking life and limb in arenas just to earn a few coins. No more being strongarmed into absurd adventuring. No more thankless effort expended just because some bossy tyrant demanded it.
So tempted, I’d had to pause there at the crossroads to whisper a prayer to Saint Persistence, because even someone who wasn’t by nature a quitter needs help at times. The bystanders gave me a curious look, so I made it a silent prayer.
My patron saint didn’t care for whiners, so I kept it brief and simple:I’m stuck and don’t know what to do. If I run, I’m a coward. If I stay, Carcalla will make an example out of me. I know you’re not big on handing out miracles, and that we should work hard and make it on our own, but if you could spare one of those rare miracles, that would be greatly appreciated. Amen.
Looking out over the city, I took it all in. From the trash and graffiti all around me, to the opulence of the superior districts, and then up toward the palaces in the sky. Which I’d hoped to someday be able to call home.
I’d sworn to become a mighty wizard because I was tired of being helpless and pushed around. Fleeing to a different kingdom on the Elemental Plane of Fire would just put a different noble family’s boot on my neck. My brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews who I’d sworn to help would remain in servitude to the Argents. The lost of Barge 519 would go unavenged. And what about my friends? We’d made a pact. The Outcasts were in this together. I couldn’t just abandon them. Plus, there was the matter of the lovely Azarin, and I’d never met any girls on the Plane of Fire like her, that was for sure!
It turned out I hadn’t needed a miracle to keep going. I had only needed focus.
“Thank you, Ketekunan. Back to work.”
The artificial mountain that was the Great Machine was still there, beckoning me home, but I took the low road to the stinking Under Slump anyway.
The others weren’t back at the Tube yet, so I had no idea about their status. Bognar and Sifuso might have died before theycould get a healing for all I knew. Carcalla had his peculiar code of honor, so I was certain he’d tell his men not to harm my friends… until tomorrow’s deadline at least.
As soon as I entered the cold, dreary, sideways space of the Tube, the ghosts began to wail. We’d been away for an entire day, so they’d probably gotten their hopes up that the living had finally abandoned the place.
“Sorry to disappoint you!” My shout echoed through the ruins. “I’m not giving up. I’ve got a job to do and an academy to build. If you don’t like it, you can just move on to the deadlands already. It’s been fifty years since you got squished!Get over it!”
I went out the hole in the wall of our water training room and went straight to the canal, crouching at the edge. “Hey, Trax. Are you here?”
His sleek grey head popped out of the water. “Hello, Carnavon. Your yelling at the ghosts woke me from a pleasant nap.”
I’d spent an entire day rowing, fighting, and the whole night running or creeping about. I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. “You’ve got no idea how nice sleeping sounds right now.”
“I am happy you are not dead.”
“Me too, buddy. However, I might be dying tomorrow if we don’t figure out how to catch Gerzog fast.” Having gotten pretty good at Squalo speech, I concentrated on remembering my conversation with Carcalla, and that was enough for Trax to get the gist of it. “As you can see, time is of the essence. You’re a master hunter; any chance you can track Gerzog down?”
Trax stared at me with his beady black eyes for a long time as he thought it over. “I do not think the orc was wounded during our battle, so I have no blood trail to track. I recall his scent, but we would need to be much closer for me to sense him.”
“What about Dathka? She got slapped around on the island.”
“I would have to return to the shore, find their boat, and go from there.”
We didn’t have time for that, and that was assuming said particular boat was still where the mercs left it. The survivors had been as eager to avoid getting entangled with the watch as we had been. “She got scrapped up while fighting me in the arena the other night. Would that help?”
“That would only enable me to track her back to here. However, being familiar with her scent, I can assure you that her body has not been chopped up and thrown into the city’s canal system anywhere near here.”
“Well, that narrows it down helpfully.” A noise came from the front of the tower. The ghosts there began to shriek. “Hang on. Hopefully, that’s the others getting back.”
Except it wasn’t my fellow Outcasts, but rather an old man in a long grey coat, waiting politely outside our recently ruined front door. He knocked again on the wall. “Hello? Is anyone home?” The grisly apparition of a smashed flat peasant floated by him, moaning piteously. “Anyone alive, at least?”
Right away, I recognized the kindly fellow who’d granted me my first rank. “Tester Pivorotto?”
He smiled when he saw me. “Ah, there you are, Ozwald Carnavon of Fogo. I was told I could find you here.” As I got closer, he gave me a sympathetic grimace, before lying, “You’re looking… well.”
For how battered and dirty I was, with blood-stained bandages on my neck and arm, he was being far too kind. “Forgive my appearance. It’s been a rough day. It’s good to see you, sir, but what’re you doing here?” I came out and glanced around my seedy neighborhood, which was populated with miscreants and desperate refugees from the worst realms, but thankfully, it was still early enough in the morning that most of the unemployed layabouts hadn’t woken from their drunkenstupors yet to embarrass me further. “The Under Slump isn’t a place for respectable members of society.”
“Heh, I’ve taken contracts in some of the foulest pits in the seven realms, lad. I’m no stranger to squalor. Besides, if you’re worried about my safety…” He patted a wand tucked into his belt. “Testers are taught a thing or two about defending ourselves.”
“What’s that one do?”
“It liquifies bones. Turns them into a sort of calcified slurry. Have you ever seen what happens to a body once all its bones reach the consistency of jelly? It’s most unpleasant.”
“Huh… Nasty.” I didn’t know Pivorotto’s rank, but that was a good reminder that it was far higher than mine. “Come in, Tester. I apologize for the state of the place. We had a bit of an incident with an out-of-control earth spirit. Please forgive the ghosts. They’re insufferable.”
