Delve

Chapter 97: Arrested

Training Overview

General Experience Earned

Stamina Use: 178

Mana Use: 16,028

Skill Experience Earned

Mana Manipulation: 1

Synchronization

Strength: +2%

Endurance: +1%

Vigor: +1%

Rain waved the brilliant blue menu away with a groan, opened his eyes, then immediately shut them again. He’d just woken up, it was past noon, and he felt like death. He’d explicitly turned off his alarm before going to bed and slept in as a consequence. Summoning the dialog upon waking had been almost automatic, done before his brain had really kicked into gear. It had also been a mistake. The brilliant blue light had sent a spike of agony straight through his skull. The light from the dialog wasn’t real, of course, but his eyes didn’t know that.

He felt hungover, and also run over—as in by a truck. For all that he’d taken it easy on the mana use, it seemed that the respite hadn’t been enough for his soul to recover from whatever state it was in. There was a dull ache behind his eyes, and his entire body felt like one giant cramp.

Rain cracked his eyes open again, squinting against the noon sun, then levered himself into a sitting position. He shivered as the cloak covering him slipped away, exposing his naked skin to the frigid air. The pool was still partially frozen, the ice not having melted significantly overnight, and that had kept the air cool as well. Rain wrapped the cloak back around himself, then used Immolate in space heater mode to break the chill that had settled into his bones.

I need a bed of my own. All this sleeping in strange places isn’t doing me any favors.

The murmur of voices attracted his attention, and he looked up to see a group of men on the other side of the pool standing next to a stack of barrels. One of them was pointing at him, speaking to the others. Clearly, they’d noticed that he was awake. One of them broke away and started heading for the walkway near the inlet. After a moment, the man stopped, looking back to his fellows, then to Rain as if uncertain.

Rain sighed and beckoned to the man.

Might as well see what he has to say. As much as I want to just go back to bed, twelve hours of sleep is enough. I’m lucky I didn’t wake up with an angry Citizen staring at me.

While Rain waited for the man to make his way around the pool, he did some slow stretches, trying to work the kinks out of his aching muscles. He felt like some sort of desiccated corpse, frozen stiff from the cold. He cranked Immolate up another step or two and dug out his canteen, taking a long drink.

Soon enough, the worker arrived, standing at a distance and looking distinctly nervous. Whether that was the influence of oversoul or just his reputation, Rain wasn’t sure. The man looked to be about his own age, and he had black hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

“Good morning,” Rain said, his voice coming out as a croak. He coughed and cleared his throat. “Or afternoon, I suppose.”

“Lord Rain, uh… good afternoon. Are you, um… Do you need anything?”

Rain sighed. “Please, just call me Rain. Not ‘Lord Rain’ or ‘Night Cleaner’ or ‘Death Zone’ or any of that. I’m not a lord, and I’m not some legend. Anything Tarny has told you, just ignore it.”

The man hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, right. Vanna said… Sorry. Just Rain it is.”

Rain nodded. “That’s better. Come over here. I don’t bite.”

The man approached, still looking nervous. Rain straightened himself up to face him, trying to look as dignified as he could, given his current zombie-like condition and state of undress. “What’s your name?” he asked, trying to sound friendly.

“Smelt, sir,” said the man.

“Smelt. Nice to meet you. You’re on one of the work crews, right? The ones I sent Vanna to hire?”

The man nodded. “Yes. I’m also her younger brother.”

“Oh.” Rain blinked. “I didn’t know she had a brother, but then, I’ve only known her for like a day.”

Smelt shrugged. It looked like he was starting to relax.

“Alright then, fill me in,” Rain said, gesturing toward the archway. “What’s going on over there? Any trouble while I was asleep?”

Smelt shook his head. “No, sir. We’ve been filling barrels like you said. We were gonna start letting people come get them, but my sis thought it would be better to wait until you woke up.”

“Lose the ‘sir.’ Just Rain is fine. Where is Vanna, anyway?” Rain asked.

Smelt shrugged. “She said she was going home to sleep. She needs it. She’s been working too hard lately.”

“Yott? Tarny?”

“Yott’s taking a nap in the storeroom. Tarny, well, he’s been a bit…”

“Fanatical?”

“Yeah, that,” said Smelt, nodding. “Anyway, he left. Said he was going to get more people.”

Rain pinched his forehead, his headache seeming a lot worse all of a sudden. “Of course.”

“If you’ll pardon me, Lor..sorry. Rain. We’re going to need them. We’re just workers, and if there’s trouble, well. We’ll need enough people to thump some heads. There’s already a huge crowd waiting outside.”

“Right,” Rain said, nodding. “I expected word to spread. I should have considered that.”

“Oh, one more thing,” Smelt said. “Do you know a man by the name of Carten? Big fellow? Adventurer?”

Rain nodded. “Yes, I do. Why?”

“Damn,” Smelt said. “I knew we should have let him in. Sorry.”

“He was here?” Rain said, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Smelt said, rubbing at his arm. “He said he knew you, but we told him you were sleeping. He made a bit of a fuss, but agreed to just leave a message.”

“What message?”

“Dunno,” Smelt said. “He wrote it down. I think it’s back on the counter. Wait, I’ll go get it.”

“Hang on,” Rain said, raising a hand. “That can wait a minute. I’m sure if it were important, he would have just come in anyway. Carten is a lot of things, but polite is not one of them. Is there anything else I should know about?”

Smelt shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Nothing from Citizen Sadanis?” Rain prompted. “Or her guard, maybe? Anyone with a hawk pin? What about the nobles?”

Smelt shook his head again. “Carten had one of those pins, but no one else. Just thirsty people, wanting to get in. We had to chain up the door. Someone broke the lock.”

“Yeah, that was my bad.” Rain said. Smelt tilted his head, and Rain played back what he’d just said, realizing that he’d never heard anyone use that expression in common. “My fault, I mean,” he clarified. “Right, well, you’d better go let them in. If there’s trouble, I’ll handle it. Just tell everyone to form a nice, orderly line. I’m going to shave and have breakfast. Don’t bother bringing Carten’s message over to me. I’ll come get it myself when I’m ready.”

“Yes, sir,” said Smelt, bowing.

Rain groaned. “Please, stop that. Don’t call me sir, and for crying out loud, don’t bow.”

Smelt rose. “If you insist. Also, thank you, Rain.” He gestured at the pool. “You don’t know how much this means to the common folk. Pardon my saying this, but most adventurers are, well…assholes.”

Rain laughed. Smelt smiled and continued. “We really appreciate what you’re doing here. Of course, the money you gave my sis to pay us all helps, too.”

Rain nodded along, taken aback by the honest gratitude in the man’s voice.

“My crew and I would be honored to keep working for you if you’ll have us,” Smelt said. “I’m sure my sis and the other crews feel the same. We’re just honest laborers, but paying work is hard to find right now, and, well, we want to help. Anything you need, just let us know.”

“Uh…thanks,” Rain said as the man turned to walk away. He stared after the departing worker, a curious mixture of emotions fighting inside him. He was happy that he’d been able to help the city, confused that no one else had done the same, and uncertain about where all of this would lead. He didn’t want to start his own organization, which is what seemed to be happening here, but if people were willing to work for him, then he could do a lot of good for the city.

I need to find out more about what’s going on. I need to talk to the Watch and the Guild. And Velika. Fuck.

He looked down at the cloak he was wearing and sighed.

I should probably get dressed first. Then, breakfast. One thing at a time.

He blinked and looked over at the cart. Oh, I should probably feed Dozer, shouldn’t I?

The blanket that had covered the cart had been disturbed, revealing the piled equipment, but Dozer was nowhere to be seen. A quick pulse of Detection confirmed that the slime wasn’t within a hundred-meter radius.

“Shit!” Rain swore loudly. “Hey, Smelt!”

“What is it?” the worker said, hurrying back toward him.

“Did you see a crystal slime anywhere?” Rain asked. “It’s clear, and it’s got a few Tel floating around inside it.”

Smelt laughed and hit his forehead. “Oh, yeah, that. I knew I forgot something. It’s over there,” he pointed to the arch. “The thing was being a bit of a nuisance, following people around and, well, sliming them, I guess would be the best way to describe it. Vanna said you’d be mad if we hurt it, so we kinda just ignored it until it went away. It fell asleep under the counter.”

Rain blinked. “Oh.”

“Don’t know much about fancy crystal slimes, but I’m thinking it got full,” Smelt said. “It eats sweat or something, right?”

Rain snorted. “I suppose it does.”

Rain was lost in thought as he walked through the sewers in his borrowed pair of shoes. He had a large pack on his back and was carrying the Hefty Maul over his shoulder. There had been only the occasional slime attack to distract him from his musing, and Dozer was trailing after him obediently, leaving a clean trail of stones behind itself.

It had been a mistake to wake the slime up. Once it had realized that Rain was leaving, it had outright refused to be left behind. The presence of the monster, along with his oversoul problem, meant that it was simply easier for Rain to travel through the sewers to his destination, rather than the surface streets. It was around four in the afternoon, and there were a lot of people out and about.

Rain had taken his time cleaning himself up. He’d converted the small pool he’d camped next to into a hot tub by freezing it solid, then melting a divot into it with Immolate. By carefully controlling the range, he was left with a blissfully warm tub of water separated from the main pool by a plug of ice. A meal plus almost an hour of soaking his aching muscles had left him feeling like a person again.

Some basic hygiene work had also helped. His hair was neatly combed, his nails were trimmed, and he’d tidied up his stubble so it looked at least a little deliberate. He only had a small hand mirror, but he was satisfied with what he’d been able to do under the circumstances. The starter beard was itchy, but he liked the way it looked on his new, thinner face. The longer hair wasn’t bad either, but he was still planning on getting it trimmed. It was too much of a hassle, otherwise. His brown hair was naturally wavy, and it tangled easily.

Once he was presentable, he’d reluctantly left his bath and gotten dressed in his old workman’s clothes. He’d decided not to wear his armor for this trip into the city. He had to get over his irrational fear, and the best way to do that would be to just dive in headfirst.

To stop himself from spending the rest of the day worrying about someone stealing his stuff, he’d tossed the armor and a few other things into the pool he’d been using as a hot tub, then froze the whole thing solid. Everything else he owned, he had with him. The ice would be a significant obstacle on its own, but he’d still made sure to do it when no one was looking. Smelt seemed trustworthy enough, but the other workers, he was less sure of. If someone did steal the armor, then Rain would simply find them. He had a particular set of skills.

The next few hours had passed with Rain overseeing the distribution of water to the eager crowd. Fortunately, there were no incidents. With all of the work crews, plus the group that Tarny had eventually shown up with, there were over twenty people working on the project now. Rain expected that number to keep growing.

Smelt had turned out to be a competent leader, so Rain had placed him in charge in Vanna’s absence. Rain had been expecting either the nobles or the Watch to show up eventually and make a fuss, but that hadn’t happened. He’d later found out that Velika had forbidden the Watch from leaving their strongholds. The absence of the nobles was still unexplained, however. He was undercutting their water-selling operation and had been expecting some sort of reaction.

As for the bathhouse, it was public property, not under the direct jurisdiction of anyone in particular. No angry owner had shown up, quite simply because no real owner existed. Some of the staff that normally ran the building were now working alongside the work crews, in fact. Nevertheless, Rain had sent one of the workers off with some money to hire a carpenter. It was always best to leave a place better than you found it. A new door was the least he could do, especially after having broken the old one.

One of Rain’s other motivations for lingering so long was simply to let people see him. A faceless adventurer in full plate armor was intimidating and mysterious. If he could convince them that he was just a regular person, it would go a long way toward fixing some of the rumors that were spreading about him. Plus, he wanted people to get used to his oversoul.

The effect was like an aura in some ways but different in others. He couldn’t turn it off, for one. The range seemed to be around three or four meters, though it was hard to tell. The effect was gradual, getting stronger the closer someone got to him. Most people reacted with confusion as he approached, growing to alarm, but stopping short of panic. They would also slowly get used to it, the feeling fading into the background the longer they spent around him, so they said.

Rain was a little uneasy at the prospect of everyone knowing he had oversoul going on, but there really wasn’t any hiding it. Once word spread, he’d be able to walk around on the streets without causing a commotion, but that would take time. For now, it was the sewers for him, unless he found a way to fix whatever was wrong with his soul.

Rain was distracted from his musing as a pack of slimes came into range. Purify took care of them easily, as it had taken care of the last group, and the group before that. Rain set down the maul and took a moment to extract the Tel from the monsters, adding them to his pouch. The creatures weren’t exactly happy about him taking the tiny shards of crystal from them, but it didn’t seem to harm them in any way. The trick was to fool the monsters into sucking his hand through their membrane. After that, it was a process not unlike trying to remove bits of eggshell that had fallen into a frying pan. He’d extracted the Tel from Dozer earlier, not wanting anyone to attack the slime while he wasn’t looking.

Rain had more than just his bleeding heart as a reason for converting the slimes, rather than killing them. It was clear that while regular slimes spread filth, crystal slimes did the opposite. They also attacked their less pristine brethren on sight. If he was able to convert enough slimes over to the crystal variety, he might actually tip the ecology of the sewers into something beneficial, rather than harmful.

He got back up after collecting the last Tel and sighed. As much as he wanted to work on the slime project and ignore all of his other worries, he just couldn’t justify spending all day in the sewers. He had work to do, and in this case, that meant going to visit the remnants of the Watch.

His initial plan for the afternoon had been to go and see Velika, figuring that nothing good would come of waiting, but Carten’s message had changed that. The big man hadn’t gone into any great detail, but the gist of his letter was that the Citizen was in “a mood” and that he shouldn’t come to see her until she summoned him. That was fine in Rain’s book. As much as he needed to talk to Velika about the state of the city, the thought of speaking with the woman was…

He shook his head, pushing the images of the corpses aside. He knew that the Watch had struck first, and that Velika had only been defending herself, but still. Melka was dead, and the Citizen was the one who had killed her. It wasn’t an easy thing to forget, let alone forgive.

Eventually, Rain came to a stairway leading up out of the sewers, relatively near where he wanted to be. He adjusted the pack on his back, then schooled his face into a calm, controlled expression. It was time to face the city.

Climbing the stairs turned out to be hard. It wasn’t physically difficult, even as loaded as he was with the pack and the maul. It was his mind that was the problem.

He was alone, without his armor, or even his cloak. While he’d thought he’d come a long way toward mastering his fear by interacting with the public back at the bathhouse, this was something else entirely. These stairs led to a street that was only one block away from the largest Watch stronghold in the entire city. A stronghold that he was meaning to just walk into, while carrying a pack full of the belongings of dead sentinels and with a literal monster trailing along after his heels.

I think I might be an idiot… Speaking of, I should find out what happened to Val. Can’t forget about that.

Rain reached the street and stepped out onto it with resolve. He didn’t stop, fearing that if he did, he might just turn around and slink back into the sewers. He kept his pace steady, doing his best to keep a firm grip on Dozer’s metaphysical leash. Once more, he wished that the thing had listened when he’d tried to get it to stay behind, but nothing had worked. He’d even tried feeding it, hoping that it would fall asleep, but it had been to no avail. The slime was absolutely determined to accompany him.

He hadn’t made it more than ten meters down the street before a man, a servant, by his clothing, shouted in alarm. Counter to Rain’s expectations, rather than running away, the man ran toward the hapless slime, drawing a cudgel from his waist in a smooth motion.

“Wait!” Rain shouted, raising his hand and moving to intercept the charging man. He gestured to the slime, then the bronze Guild plate that he’d made sure to keep hanging outside of his shirt. “I’m with the Guild. The slime is mine.”

The man halted, a bewildered expression on his face. “But…” the servant said, staring at the monster. “Oh. Oh, um. Is it, uh…” the man was stammering, looking around, nervous all of a sudden. Rain winced, taking a step back.

“Halt!” shouted another voice, and there was the sound of boots pounding on the cobblestones. Rain’s face paled as he saw an entire patrol of Watch officers charging straight for him, having come around the corner at the servant’s shout.

“I’m with the Guild!” Rain shouted, activating Force Ward just in case. He dropped the maul and raised his hands, then cursed as the weapon crashed into the ground with a mighty thump.

The oncoming officers didn’t stop, though they hadn’t drawn their weapons. There were five of them, two women and three men. The leader of the patrol was a younger man with blond hair. He opened his mouth as if to speak as he approached, but then something curious happened. The man’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise, and he skidded to a stop, fumbling for his sword. The other officers reacted similarly, drawing their own weapons and looking at Rain with a mix of alarm and disbelief.

Oh shit. They can feel it. Rain cleared his throat, “I don’t want any trouble. Whatever you’re feeling, I’m not doing it on purpose.”

The lead officer tightened his grip on his weapon but didn’t otherwise react. The servant looked to the officers, then back to Rain, then to Dozer. That was apparently enough for the man to decide that there was somewhere else he needed to be. Urgently. The officers didn’t stop him as he scurried away.

Well, this isn’t going well. Rain controlled his expression, waiting for the Watch to make the next move. He was ready to run if it came down to it, but realistically, he had no hope of escape. While the officers were just bronze like him, they likely had builds much more suited to combat than he did. If this turned into a fight, he would lose.

He was banking on the fact that the Watch was the closest thing that this world had to a police force. They wouldn’t just attack him, not as long as he didn’t do anything threatening. His oversoul, however, was something that he hadn’t expected to be a problem. Wallace hadn’t felt it, which had led Rain to assume that it was only an issue for the unawakened. Clearly, he’d been wrong. That’s what I get for trusting a sample size of one.

Seconds stretched into minutes as the group of officers stared him down. Finally, the leader spoke. “Your name?”

“Rain,” Rain said, keeping his hands raised.

The reaction from the leader was bizarre. Surprise, mixed with suspicion, mixed with something else that Rain couldn’t identify. The leader looked to the other members of his patrol, then back at Rain, seemingly trying to decide what to do.

“Look, I honestly can’t control it. I don’t even know what it is.”

“True,” said a short female officer, one that looked like a mage. She laid her hand on the leader’s shoulder. “He means it, Joln.”

“I know, Tam,” said the leader.

Interesting… Their truth-telling skill seems to be working on me. Rain searched the faces of the officers, seeing that they all seemed to be in agreement. Very interesting.

“I’m going to lower my hands now,” Rain said. “Then I’d like to come with you to your stronghold. I have some things I need to give you.” He tilted his head toward the maul lying on the cobblestones. “That maul, for one. It belonged to one of your sentinels.”

“What is this?” the leader asked, not relaxing in the slightest. “Did the usurper send you?”

“You mean Velika?” Rain asked, slowly lowering his hands. “No.”

“True,” said another of the officers, a man with a spear. “I don’t like this, Joln. I don’t trust what I’m seeing. It could be a trick.”

“I know,” said Joln, “But…” He shook his head. “We’ll let Bartum decide. We’re taking him in.”

“Yes, sir,” said the spear wielder.

“Right,” said Joln, sheathing his sword, but keeping his hand on the grip. “Follow us. Keep that slime under control and your hands where I can see them. Give Keenen’s maul to Officer Tamorin.”

Rain nodded, stepping away from the fallen weapon. The female officer in mage’s robes approached, then bent down and lifted the maul with one hand. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, watching him warily as she settled the head of the maul over her shoulder.

Rain wasn’t surprised at the ease with which she handled the ridiculously heavy weapon. Even though the woman’s head barely came up to his chest, he’d have been a fool to underestimate a member of the Watch. She was probably at least as strong as he was currently, if not stronger, despite the mage’s robes she was wearing.

There were no further incidents as the officers led him into their stronghold. Rain had been expecting them to demand that he give over everything he was carrying immediately, but they hadn’t. Instead, they brought him to a large brick building and shuffled him and Dozer into a room with a table and some chairs, not unlike one of the meeting rooms at the Guild. The door to the room had a small pane of glass set into it, a rarity in Fel Sadanis. Windows were common, windows with glass, not so much. Unlike the door, the walls were solid wood, with oil lamps hanging from them for light.

It wasn’t long before the leader of the patrol returned with a slightly older man in a neatly pressed black tunic. He was wiry, with a bald head and a neatly waxed black mustache that was turning to gray.

“I am Officer Bartum,” the man said politely, nodding to Rain. “I’m the acting commander of this stronghold. Officer Joln says you have some business here?”

Rain got to his feet, straightening his tunic. “Yes, Officer.”

Bartum looked at him with a neutral expression on his face, then turned to Joln. “Please leave us.”

“Sir, need I remind you, the adventurer Rain is classified as a category three threat. If he is who he claims to be, it would not be safe for you to remain here alone with him. Also, there’s the…” Joln licked his lips. “You can see it, can’t you? Wouldn’t it be better if—”

Joln cut off as Bartum raised a hand. “I will be fine,” he said, then turned back to Rain. “Do you mean me or the Watch any harm?”

Rain shook his head. “No.”

“You see?” Bartum said. “Now, please, leave us. Don’t go far, in case I’m wrong. Keep an eye on us through the window.”

This seemed to satisfy Joln, though he still looked uneasy as he pulled the door closed. The moment that the wooden portal snapped shut, a glowing white rune flashed into existence above the door, flared, then began to spread. The runes formed a chain, running down the doorframe, then spreading along the intersections between the walls, floor, and ceiling until the entire room was outlined in a wireframe of glowing magic. The process barely took more than a few seconds.

Rain clamped down on the sudden spike of fear that he felt, though he kept clinging to Force Ward with all of his might. He’d seen something like this before in the antechamber to the Fells, though those runes had been glowing purple. Is this a suppression ward?

“Do not be alarmed,” Bartum said, sounding amused as he took a seat at the table. “I always forget to warn people about that. It is a modified Muffle Ward, nothing more.” Slowly, the runes faded until they were barely visible in the lamplight. Bartum motioned to a chair. “Please, sit.”

Rain hesitantly joined him at the table, conscious of the lack of sound from outside the room. He could hear his own heart beating loudly in his ears. “A Muffle Ward? Is that what it sounds like?” He tilted his head, listening to the sound of his own voice. It was flat, with no echo whatsoever.

Bartum smiled politely. “Clever pun. Yes. It blocks all sound crossing the plane of the runescript, even if someone uses a skill like Remote Listening. No one outside this room will be able to hear a word that we say.”

“Why?” Rain said, looking at Bartum. “Not that I mind, but…”

“Some things are not for those outside the Watch to know,” said Bartum with a shrug. “These rooms are convenient for conversations like the one that I expect we are about to have.”

Rain nodded, accepting the man’s explanation. He didn’t feel anything unusual, apart from the lack of sound, and Force Ward was still going strong. He did feel a bit hungry, but that was just… Shit.

Dozer launched itself at Bartum under the table, engulfing the officer’s foot before Rain could even react.

“Dozer, no! Officer, I’m sorry about—” Rain began, but cut off as he saw the amused expression on the officer’s face.

“It’s fine,” Bartum said, motioning Rain back into his chair. “I’ve encountered crystal slimes before. I think I might have stepped in something on my way here.” He chuckled as Dozer continued sliming his leg. “My boot could use a good cleaning.”

“Ah,” Rain said, sitting back slowly. “As long as… Still, I’m sorry. It doesn’t really listen to me that well.”

“I said it’s fine,” Bartum smiled, reaching down to pat the slime as if it was a dog. “Dozer, you said? An interesting name.”

Rain smiled uneasily, “Yeah, I suppose.” Something about the Watch officer’s casual demeanor was putting him at ease. The contrast between this man and Joln was striking.

“Perhaps you would like to explain why you have come here,” Bartum said mildly, nodding at the Hefty Maul lying on the table. “Joln tells me you have come to return some equipment?”

Rain nodded. “Yes. How much do you know about what happened?”

A pained expression flashed across Bartum’s face. “We suspect that all of our members involved in the operation are dead.”

Rain nodded. “They are. I’m sorry.”

“And so you have brought their equipment to us,” Bartum said. “We had thought it lost, taken by the usurper. We sent some of our prospects in disguise to retrieve whatever they could from the Fells stronghold once we heard that it was open. They only found broken remnants. I take it you are responsible for the lack of bodies?”

“Yes,” Rain said. “I’m sorry if you wanted to bury them or something, but I couldn’t just leave them there.”

“I understand,” Bartum said solemnly. “You have their plates?”

Rain reached into his pack and retrieved a cloth bag, placing it gently on the table with the clink of shifting metal. Bartum stared at the bag for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and sighed. After a moment, he slid it over and poured the contents out onto the table.

Rain watched silently as the officer picked through the plates, extracting the silver ones and setting them aside. He checked the number stamped on the back of each one as he did. One plate, in particular, made him grimace, a deep pain visible on his face through a thin veil of control. Rain managed to read the number from the plate before Bartum squeezed his fist around it. Bartum closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly.

“You knew her well?” Rain asked. “Sentinel Talasa?”

Bartum took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He nodded wordlessly as he placed the plate into a pocket of his tunic. “I did,” he said. “I was one of her instructors when she was a ward, and I left my position at the academy when she surpassed me. I had the honor to serve as her second in command, and as her friend. She was…” He shook his head. “She was one of the best of us. She warned the other sentinels of what would happen if they attacked the usurper, but they did not listen.”

Bartum absently returned to sorting through the plates on the table. He wasn’t even looking at the numbers anymore, merely straightening them to lie in even rows on the table.

Rain reached out and let his hand hover over one of the bronze plates. He hesitated, then picked it up and placed it neatly in one of the rows. “I understand.” Rain’s fingers lingered on the plate before he reluctantly took them away. “It isn’t easy to lose someone. I didn’t know Officer Melka that well, but I like to think we were friends.”

Bartum nodded, touching Melka’s plate lightly. “Another of my former students. She was in the same cadre as Talasa, you know? Both of them gave me such a hard time when I was their instructor.” He smiled sadly. “Talasa was such a marvelous actor, but I could always tell when she was being serious. The passion that she felt for what the Watch should be always came through. I think I became her assistant just so I could tease her. Get a little payback, you know?” He smiled, then slowly shook his head. “Now, all we’re left with is zealous idiots like Joln. Pride for the Watch. Vengeance for the insult. Foolishness.” Bartum scoffed, then looked down at the table.

Rain remained silent, unsure of what to say.

Eventually, Bartum straightened himself up and looked at Rain once more. “My apologies. Thank you for what you have done.”

Rain nodded. “There’s more. Around eight hundred Tel, plus these.” As he’d been speaking, he’d reached into a pocket and pulled out a bundle. He set it on the table and folded the cloth back, revealing a crimson metal plate, one of the accolades that he’d recovered. The other accolades followed one by one, Rain unwrapping them from the cloth and placing them on the table.

Bartum waited for him to finish, then cleared his throat. “Well, I can’t say I expected you to give those up without being prompted. You are a very strange Guilder. It’s no wonder that my students took a liking to you.”

Many hours later, well after sunset, Rain was sitting in an inn and working his way through a delicious steak and some less delicious wilted vegetables. The city was in somewhat of an odd food situation. Fresh meat was relatively cheap, while everything else was getting more and more expensive.

While not many people quartered their livestock in the city, enough did that cows, sheep, chickens, and the like were a common enough sight. Some outlying farmers had brought their herds to market prior to the dome going up, and that had worsened the problem. Simply put, there wasn’t enough feedstock to go around. People were slaughtering the animals, rather than see them starve away to nothing.

The city’s warehouses were full of supplies for the winter, but those supplies were for people, not animals. Salted fish, root vegetables, and the like. Spoilage was apparently a problem, the heat in the city being hardly ideal for the preservation of food. The situation wasn’t dire yet, but the longer it continued, the worse it would become.

After leaving the Watch stronghold, Rain had stopped by the warehouse district. He’d spent a few hours negotiating with the owners of the warehouses, those that he could find. Some of them were nobles, but not all of them.

In the end, the warehouse owners turned out to be surprisingly reasonable. It had been fairly easy to convince most of them to start rationing the food by placing limits on how much each person could buy, rather than just jacking up the price as they had been doing.

Rain had also used Purify and Refrigerate to deal with some of the rot and to chill down the warehouses. That had been helpful for getting the merchants to listen to him, but he would have done it regardless. It wouldn’t last, but it was better than nothing.

Hopefully, those two things would stop the poor from starving until the DKE relented and sent some supplies, or better yet, dropped the barrier completely now that they had driven off the Empire. It was a bit worrying that that hadn’t happened already. Rain would have thought he’d have heard something from Westbridge by now, but there was nothing. That might have just been Velika not sharing what she knew, though.

Her leadership was glaringly absent. Similarly, the nobles were hardly a cohesive force, and they were doing little to keep any semblance of order outside of their own households. Lord Rill, arguably the only one who could have brought them together, was dead. It hadn’t been Velika’s doing, but the Watch’s. Lord Rill had tried to stop them from executing the attack on the Citizen and had been killed when he refused to step aside.

Officer Bartum had described it as an accident, though he did acknowledge that he hadn’t been there. Rain had been shocked to learn that Rill was dead, but he believed the officer when he said that the powerful noble wouldn’t have been harmed deliberately. In fact, he believed pretty much everything the interim leader of the stronghold had to say.

Rain liked Bartum. The two of them had discussed many things in the few hours that the meeting had lasted. Bartum was surprisingly candid with Rain, answering his questions honestly where he could, and politely refusing to answer when he couldn’t.

Bartum seemed to trust him, saying that he preferred to treat people by what they would do, rather than what they could. This was in direct contrast to the policy of constant suspicion that the majority of the Watch seemed to adhere to. It was refreshing to be spoken to as a person and not a potential disaster.

Of the many things that Rain and Bartum had discussed, the most important to Rain at the moment was his oversoul situation. Bartum had revealed that he couldn’t actually feel the pressure in the same way as the unawakened could. Instead, he could literally see it when he was close enough.

Rain had long known that the Watch had some method of detecting lies, and Bartum confirmed that it was the same ability that allowed them to see what Rain had done to himself. Rain had asked a few followup questions, of course, but Bartum had been unwilling to elaborate much further.

The skill—Reading, they called it—wasn’t something that could be found in a skill tree. It was a secret of the Watch, its mechanics and the method of learning it forbidden to outsiders. Rain had let that topic drop, not wanting to damage the goodwill he’d earned. Plus, he was more interested in what Bartum actually saw. The officer had described Rain’s soul as ‘cracked’ and ‘leaking chaos.’ Neither of those were things that Rain had been particularly pleased to hear.

Souls, according to Bartum, had a sort-of layer around them. He’d called it ‘the paling,’ but there were apparently other names for it. Followers of Dystees called it the ‘Divine Envelope,’ and in Ter’karmark, it was ‘Me’ke-Tar Tek,’ directly translated: ‘the barrier which divides.’

Bartum had prefixed all of these descriptions with a disclaimer that the Watch’s interpretation of the soul was far from the only one. Even within their organization, opinions varied. Rain would have expected that the ability to actually see the paling would have unified things somewhat, but Bartum said that wasn’t the case. When pressed, he’d said simply that Reading worked differently for everyone.

As for the paling, it wasn’t just an awakened thing. The unawakened had it too, but it was different, somehow. More porous, and much, much weaker. Bartum suspected that that was why Rain’s condition was having such an effect on them, though he had never seen anything like it before. Incidentally, oversoul was a real thing, but it wasn’t like what Rain had done.

According to Bartum, high-level people—really high-level, as in goldplates, and even then, not all of them—could exert some level of control over their souls. That included lowering the paling completely. Bartum had experienced it once when the leader of the Watch, Warden Vatreece, had come to inspect Fel Sadanis over twenty years ago. He‘d said that he’d felt like an ant standing beside a mountain. He’d been too afraid to even look at her, let alone try to Read her. Contrast that to Rain’s situation, where Bartum felt nothing whatsoever and could Read him like an open book.

Bartum’s description of the Warden was terrifying. She was platinum, full stop. That meant she was an absolute monster when it came to sheer power. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was a Mentalist to boot. Rain had no interest in having his mind read, thank you very much. He’d yet to find a skill that purported that to be possible, but who knew what kind of stuff a platinum had access to in the higher tiers.

Mental Resistance was a problem for later, like so many things. Right now, Rain had other issues to deal with. It wasn’t the damage to his paling that had the Watch staring at him like he was a monster, it was what was leaking out. Apparently, whatever state Rain was in wasn’t as simple as having a paling like a cracked eggshell. To really strain the metaphor, there was something wrong with his yolk. His soul was strong, he knew, but according to Bartum, it was also turbulent, like a raging fire. Chaos, destruction, and rage. Bartum had trouble describing exactly what he saw, saying that mundane reality lacked the required colors.

Ameliah had described her soul as a deep pool of power within herself that she added to with experience. After speaking with Bartum, Rain was now visualizing his own soul as a nuclear reactor on the brink of meltdown, the housing spider-webbed with cracks and spewing radiation everywhere. Radiation that glowed octarine. Needless to say, this was a slightly concerning image.

As for how to fix this problem, Bartum hadn’t had any straightforward solutions. According to him, the system—the Watch called it ‘the guide’—didn’t have any skills for manipulating the soul. That checked out with Rain’s experience. Soul manipulation, Bartum said, was something that you had to learn on your own. The process was different for everyone, tied into how the system presented itself to each individual. The first step down that path was to ‘access your inner self,’ whatever that meant. Bartum hadn’t had much to offer in that regard, saying that the practice was incredibly uncommon.

Bartum’s opinion was that the damage to Rain’s soul would heal itself eventually, but Rain wasn’t happy with that answer. There was no basis for it, no evidence to back it up. Yes, he felt a little better today, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that all he’d been doing was walking around and talking to people, instead of swinging a hammer at rocks for hours on end.

He’d ask around at the Guild tomorrow. Someone there might also know about the process of fixing a soul. The tavern would have been closed by this time of night, which was why he’d come to this inn instead of just heading straight over there. He also needed to visit the Guild to ask if anyone knew any relatives of the adventurers who’d owned the remaining accolades.

Accolades were another thing he’d asked Bartum about. The officer had said that binding or unbinding an accolade was as easy as deciding to do so, which was clearly not the case. He’d made Rain eat his protestations to the contrary by doing so right in front of him. They’d decided that Rain’s inability to do the same was likely due to the damage to his soul hindering him somehow.

Stupid Essence Well…

Rain sighed, staring at the last sad, wrinkly carrot sitting on his plate. He speared it with his fork and finished it off, then Purified the dishes. A flash of disappointment told him that Dozer didn’t approve of this action, but the slime could deal with it. Rain wasn’t about to let it lick the plates in the common room of a public inn.

He got to his feet and made his way to the door. He’d already paid, both in cash and by cleaning the entire common room. Dozer oozed after him obediently. The dopey slime only seemed to understand one command, ‘follow.’ Not ‘come,’ mind. The slime would only listen if Rain was actually going somewhere.

It had spent the entire time in which Rain had been eating his meal by bothering the last few patrons of the inn who hadn’t been driven away by his oversoul. Commands like ‘stop,’ ‘get down from the ceiling,’ and ‘don’t engulf the waitress’ had been ignored. Luckily, the waitress in question had thought Dozer was adorable, rather than a nuisance. Reactions to the slime from the general public were mixed.

Dozer’s disobedience had Rain thinking that there were some system shenanigans going on that he couldn’t see, such as a limit on the number of ‘tricks’ for his ‘pet.’ That or the slime only obeyed the ‘follow’ command because that was what it wanted to do in the first place. It was clingy like that.

Rain hadn’t made it three steps out the door before he froze, tilting his head. Did I just hear…

“Help!” a voice cried in the distance. It sounded like a little girl.

Rain took off immediately, breaking into a sprint. There weren’t many people around at this hour, not with the city as unsafe as it was at night. His feet were sore from the ill-fitting pair of shoes he’d been wearing all day, but the discomfort didn’t even enter into his mind as he rushed down the cobbled street, headed south-east toward the river.

The cry came again, closer now, and Rain used Detection to narrow it down. The spell couldn’t distinguish children from adults, but there were only a few signals ahead, so it didn’t matter. He skidded to a stop as he rounded a corner, seeing a small girl standing at the mouth of an alley, dimly lit by torchlight from across the street. To his surprise, it was someone that he recognized. It was Ava, Mlem’s daughter. She looked unharmed, but her face was filled with tears.

“Someone, help!” she yelled again, then, seeing him, she waved her arms over her head. “Please!”

Rain hesitated, then approached slowly, checking for other people, monsters, and anything else that could have been the source of the girl’s distress. There were a few animals around, but that was it.

“Ava, it’s me, Rain,” he said as he approached. “You know me, right? The Rag Man?”

Ava’s face lit up in recognition as he drew closer, her eyes managing to pick his features out from the darkness. “Rain!” she shouted, still waving rather than coming to him. “Hurry!”

“I’m here,” Rain said, still walking slowly. “Now Ava, don’t be scared. You might feel something strange when I get close, but don’t worry about that.”

Ava shook her head, pointing down the alley urgently. “Hurry up! He’s hurt!”

Rain swore and picked up his pace. “Who’s hurt?” he asked, but Ava had already darted down the alley.

Mlem? Shit. I didn’t sense any people down there.

A rapid pulse of Detection allayed that particular fear. There weren’t any corpses in the alley either.

When Rain turned the corner, he saw a muddy form lying on the ground. It was too small to be a human, but the mud and the darkness prevented him from instantly identifying what kind of animal it was. Even for his enhanced eyes, it was still very dark in the alley. Ava was fumbling her way toward it, clearly struggling in the darkness.

Rain rushed over to join her before she stepped on the animal, whatever it was. If his pseudo-oversoul was affecting the little girl, she showed no signs of it. She choked back a sob, falling to her knees and feeling along the ground. When her hand found the creature, it jerked, then let out a pained whimper. Rain dropped to his knees beside her, pushing her back gently.

It’s a dog…

Rain activated Purify. It was the best he had, lacking any healing potions or scrolls. Ava cried out at the unexpected light, but Rain was too focused on the form of the fallen dog to look at her. The mud vanished, revealing long, white fur, still wet and tangled. He blinked in astonishment as he recognized the animal. Cloud? What are the chances of that?

“Shit,” he cursed as he saw the dog’s leg. Something bit him.

He kept Purify going as he leaned in to inspect the wound. The puppy had a nasty-looking bite mark on its shoulder. The bite had been infected, judging from the way the area had swollen. Gingerly, Rain combed aside the wet fur to get a better look.

Before his eyes, diseased flesh was slowly vanishing, enlarging the tiny punctures left by the teeth of whatever small animal had left the bite mark. Probably a rat or something. Rain almost dropped Purify then and there but changed his mind. The removal of flesh had stopped mere seconds after he’d noticed it. The damage was already done, and the spell wouldn’t harm healthy tissue. It would have only removed cells that had already died, along with whatever bacteria had gotten into the wound.

Hastily, Rain pulled off his shirt and tore it in half. Then, he began wrapping the fabric around Cloud’s shoulder. Just because Purify was erasing the blood, it didn’t mean that the dog hadn’t started bleeding again. When he was finished, Rain tied the makeshift bandage tightly.

Cloud had been whimpering weakly as he did all of this but didn’t fight him or try to bite at his hands. That wasn’t a good sign. The infection had taken its toll, and even now that it had been dealt with, blood loss was a real concern.

“Is he going to die?” Ava asked, watching anxiously.

Rain glanced at her, then back to the dog. “I’m not sure. We need to get him some real healing.” Carefully, Rain slipped his hands under the dog and bundled it up into his arms. “Come on, Ava, I know where we can go.”

He started walking briskly, taking care to jostle his cargo as little as possible. Ava followed after him, practically running to keep up with his long strides. Rain slowed down slightly, not wanting to leave her behind. The streets weren’t safe for grownups, let alone children. What she was doing out here without her father, he had no idea.

They reached the mouth of the alley, and Rain turned left. Myth and Reason was only a few blocks away. The shop would likely be closed, but he couldn’t think of anywhere better at the moment. Its titular owners might be there, and they’d have health potions.

A sudden cry of alarm from Ava caught his attention, and he looked back at her, then followed her gaze. Dozer was headed straight for them, moving as fast as a slime could move.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Rain said. “The slime is with me. Come on, Ava.”

Rain wished he had a hand free to pull her after him, but Cloud was quite an armful. If not for the puppy-like features, he’d have called him fully grown. The dog had to weigh over twenty kilos. As strong as he was thanks to the ring, that was barely worth mentioning; he could have easily carried the dog with one hand. However, the idea was to treat the injured animal gently, not like a sack of potatoes.

Ava followed him after only a moment of hesitation, looking at the oncoming Dozer over her shoulder. Rain put the slime out of his mind as he continued striding toward his destination. Dozer would catch up.

About half-way to the alchemistry shop, they turned a corner, and Rain spotted an orange-robed figure on the street headed toward them. It was Mlem, carrying a torch, clearly out searching for his daughter.

“Ava!” Mlem shouted, surprise and relief mixing in his voice. “I was looking everywhere! Who is that? Rain? What are you doing here?”

“Dad!” Ava shouted, running toward her father. Rain increased his pace to keep up.

“Mlem, do you have any healing scrolls on you?” Rain asked, slowing to a halt as he entered the light of the merchant’s torch.

To his credit, Mlem didn’t even bat an eye. “No,” he said, looking at the dog in Rain’s arms as he swept up his daughter. “No potions or spells, either. How bad is it?”

“Bad,” Rain said, adjusting his grip.

“There’s an alchemistry shop near—” Mlem began, but Rain had already taken off at a dead run. He didn’t need to worry about Ava keeping up any more, now that she was with her father.

He tore down the streets, feet pounding on the cobblestones as he used Velocity to boost himself even further. The light of Mlem’s torch had revealed that the shirt he’d wrapped around Cloud’s shoulder had already been soaked through with blood. Removing the dead tissue with Purify had broken open the wound even worse than he’d feared.

Damn it. You’d think I’d have learned after what happened with Val. I’m never going anywhere without healing potions again.

Rain skidded to a stop beneath the familiar sign of the alchemistry shop and tried the door, finding it locked. He pounded on it loudly, clutching the dog to his chest in an attempt to apply pressure to the wound. After almost thirty seconds of this, a voice yelled from within the shop.

“Who dares disturb—”

“It’s an emergency!” Rain shouted. “Open the door!”

Rather than the door, one of the wooden shutters opened, revealing Reason’s tired-looking face. He was wearing a night-gown, rather than that over-the-top black coat of his. His eyes widened, and his face vanished from the window, followed by the click of the lock.

Rain carried the dog inside, placing it down on a table that Reason indicated. “Get the candle,” Reason said, spinning away toward a shelf filled with various bottles and jars. Rain grabbed the candle that Reason had left on the windowsill and joined him at the table as he returned with a small jar. “Just the shoulder?” Reason asked as he unscrewed the lid.

“Yes,” Rain said, holding up the candle so the man could see.

Reason reached into the jar and pulled out a handful of powder, then sprinkled it on Cloud’s wound after pulling away the bandage. The white powder turned red, rapidly absorbing the blood and turning into a paste. Reason then spread it over the area with his fingers, pressing it into the bite marks.

Some sort of coagulant?

Reason set the jar aside, then bent down to inspect his handiwork. He frowned, then headed for the shelf again.

“Will a healing potion work on a dog?” Rain asked.

Reason shook his head but didn’t reply.

“Yes, it would,” said another voice, and Rain looked up to see a half-dressed Myth emerging from the curtained archway into the back of the shop. “But we’re out. The new batch isn’t ready yet.” Like Rain, the man was missing his shirt.

“Time is a river that heeds not the whims of mortality,” said Reason, selecting another jar, then tossing it aside after a cursory inspection.

Myth walked forward and peered at the dog lying on the table. His eyebrows rose. “That’s Meloni’s dog,” he said, looking at Rain. “Where did you find him? She’s been a complete wreck since he went missing. It’s been days.”

“I didn’t, it was—” Rain began, but was interrupted as Mlem arrived, charging through the door with his daughter in his arms.

“What the? Who are you?” said Myth, startled into taking a step backward.

“Don’t mind me,” Mlem said, setting his daughter down smoothly. “I’m just along for the ride. Mlemlek Ko-Latti, at your service.”

Ava rushed to the table, then looked up at Myth with tears in her eyes. “Is he dead?”

Myth opened his mouth to respond but didn’t manage to actually say anything before Reason elbowed him out of the way.

“In a time of need, look to the bounty of nature,” Reason said, then grabbed Cloud’s head and started forcing the dog’s mouth full of lumpy green paste, scooping it with his bare hand from a small cauldron. Cloud didn’t react, having fallen unconscious.

“Ah, yes, that could work.” Myth said, rubbing his shoulder. “The precursor should be strong enough to at least stabilize the creature as long as the infection isn’t too bad. Do you need my help, Reason?”

Reason held up a hand, then laid his head against the dog’s side, listening. Rain watched anxiously, hoping that he hadn’t doomed Cloud with his hasty use of Purify. Damn it, Rain, think before you do things!

After a few excruciating moments, Reason lifted his head and nodded.

“The passage of autumn has been arrested prior to winter. The flame burns on and will wax with the passage of time,” He said in a mysterious tone. After a moment, he glanced at Ava, then clarified in a much more normal voice. “The dog will live.”

Ava laughed in relief and grabbed Cloud’s paw, squeezing it tightly.

“Well done,” said Mlem, smiling and laying a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, then looking around at the others. “Everyone.”

Myth took a deep breath and sighed, looking around the room. “Right, then. I’m going to go put on a shirt.” His eyes lingered on Rain, then on the bloody rags lying on the ground. “We might have something that will fit you, just—” He stopped, looking sharply toward the open door. “Excuse me, but does anyone know why a crystal slime just oozed into my shop?”

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