We found Dan in the street market as advertised, munching on some sort of breadroll that the salesman enthusiastically explained contained some form of giant worm monster. Dunno where they got that – the monsters around Haelcrien tended more to mutant forest critters and occultmelded demons than desert devils. I tried one myself – it smelled like death and tasted so too. Hopefully this is a one off of Troltano cuisine.

  “Good, aye?” Dan grinned.

  “It’s… great, dear,” Bia said with a subpar imitation of a smile.

  “What kind of standard were you raised under?” Lloyd attempted to say it politely.

  “I know what standard,” Rosa said, gagging. “I don’t think that’s the reason. This is all him.”

  “Oh, come on…” Dan rolled his eyes in a very non-stoic un-Dan-like way. “This is local shit, made of monsters and stuff. Surely you adventurers would respect…?”

  “I respect that you can kill a monster,” I said. “But this cooking is… well maybe the Delirians would take to it.” I glanced smugly at Lloyd. He chuckled.

  “Your loss,” Dan shrugged. “How’d the meeting go?”

  “About as well as expected,” I said. “Faelorn did not like us.”

  Bia half-lidded her eyes. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Maybe he would have been more open to negotiation if someone didn’t get up and start yelling at him.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have.”

  “I suppose he wouldn’t’ve,” I sighed. “We’re going to go back tomorrow and try and knock some sense into him. I’d pray, but we disproved gods.”

  “Not entirely,” Lloyd said. “The Trinity’s good as dead but they were based on something. There’s at least some god adjacent entities out past the dimensional barrier.”

  “That’s all speculation,” Dan said.

  “If they were all past the barrier, and the Trinity was based on them, then the old myths would have involved less divine meddling and more watching ominously from a distance.”

  “You’re no fun,” Lloyd said. “You’ve gotta have some more imagination!”

  “You’re a faevinities nerd,” I rolled my eyes. “That’s the least imaginative subject. They did all that shit already. There’s no room for it.”

  “Oi, I’m not a scholar anymore,” he crossed his arms behind his head and blinked. “I can do a little imaginating on the side.”

  “You get too high on imagination,” Dan snickered, bumping his elbow.

  “Nah, we don’t talk about that. Not in polite company.”

  “Polite?!” Rosa screeched like it was an insult.

  “In friendly company, then.”

  “I wouldn’t say that either,” I chuckled.

  ***

  Making our way to the hotel, I kept an eye out for any suspicious red-haired Arodorri. That sounds a little weird. Arodi? Ardodi? Wait. Ardoni. That’s good. Where’s the N come from?

  …imagination.

  It really does make you high. I’m just going to stick with Arodorri.

  Our hotel was a classy, modern building, likely upgraded with the last city levelup. Though I’d never seen it in action (maybe Dan had, having lived here before,) they were supposed to hit every building but usually missed a few of the lower reputation ones. How the Governance decides what’s low reputation was a mystery even to our system studies teacher. Not that Haelcrien educators are particularly bright… this is actually one of the least educated countries on this side of the planet.

  The hotel was decorated in glass and fake gold beams. Polished, hardwood floors came up against rather unfitting bleak gray drywall. We rented a few rooms for a mildly obscene price, but in the big city it was to be expected. It’s really quite nice to be able to store your entire bank account of coins in a single bag.

  ***

  The next day we had a blazing hot breakfast on the first floor (what the fuck kind of stove were they using?!). Traditional high-Haelcrien stuff, which also happened to be the most basic cuisine on the planet, just with odd ingredients that somehow tasted good. Half of these were two-ingredient combinations - hell, I saw someone eating what looked like beetle husk with calamari.

  “What the heck is this stuff?” Bia said, and glanced at Lloyd. He’s cemented himself as the weird diet man.

  “There has been an odd amount of weird food lately,” Lloyd shrugged.

  “This shit’s good though,” Rosa squeaked around her mouthful of what can only be described as beef mud. Dan agreed with a nod, looking positively stuffed.

  “You people are such gluttons,” I sighed. “It’s breakfast damnit, not a three course meal.”

  The food here was… unnaturally good for being just random assortments of meat and beans recombined in every possible configuration. Maybe there was some secret spice they added. Back home, Bia and I usually home cooked our meals. Most good meats from hunting we kept rather than sold and the rest of the stuff earned back plenty enough to supplement the other food groups. Not that a healthy diet was strictly necessary for t-sevens, but I liked to keep up appearances. Bia could care less.

  After breakfast we headed back towards the guild building. We didn’t actually know what times Faelorn would be there, but with his attitude he was probably living in his office.

  Once again all five of us went to the guild building, up the stairwell to the right. I scanned the doors and their numbers. 133. 134. 135. 136.

  Room 137’s door was ajar.

  “Welp!” Bia waltzed inside, spun around to definitely not intake the room at all, and whipped back out. “Looks like nobody’s home. Man, we really should hurry up and get this going! The receptionist should be able to hear us out! Come on!”

  Nobody moved.

  “Ari,” Bia sighed. “He’s literally not here. Probably won’t be back either, it looks like he scarpered. Door’s not locked, room’s been picked clean.”

  “Then we’ll take a hike to the receptionist –” I said.

  “Fucking finally,” Bia put down her exhausted look.

  “To find where Faelorn lives,” I continued. “Patience, Bee?”

  “Fucking dumbass.”

  ***

  The receptionist had nothing to give. The man had blacklisted himself off the Haelcrien mail system and had never listed an address or any other contact details. No idea how he got hired in the first place without leaving any way to talk to him afterwards. Maybe he just slept outside the building during the processing time. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “So, where to now?” Dan asked, attention span miraculously not dragging him back to the market. It probably wasn’t open right now.

  “We’ll have to wait and see if he comes back,” I said.

  “Why are you so insistent on asking him?! He’s already a lost cause, Ari. He left already, probably packed his bags the moment you told him there was a ‘dysphorium’ on the loose or whatever.”

  “He might still be around,” I shrugged. “An opportunity is an opportunity.”

  “And we had all the opportunity to go out and get combat experience before being attacked by an overranking shadow demon, yet you never bothered.”

  “That was an uncalculated one.”

  “And this isn’t? He’s fucking mysterious, like some wannabe questgiver. He’s a pretty big unknown factor if you ask me.”

  “We know him.”

  “It’s been five years. Do we really?” Bia snarled.

  “Okay, okay,” Lloyd stepped between us. “Let’s all calm down. We can wait for Faelorn, but if he doesn’t come by noon we’ll just go directly to the guild. Sound good?”

  “You won’t have to wait that long,” A swish of red beard whipped in the the wind, just in my peripheries.

  “You,” I conjured my knife and slung it towards the source. Arodorros caught it by the blade in a leather-gloved hand.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Killing someone in the middle of a crown city is frowned upon,” he frowned in sync. “I wouldn’t recommend it, especially when all you’d do is make a little scratch.”

  “What are you doing here again?” I relaxed my stance, but stayed ready. Another dagger discreetly manifested into my scabbard. If he was good enough, Arodorros could probably sense the magic moving to do it, but it was good to keep a weapon on hand regardless.

  “Just to tip you off,” Arodorros said. “Faelorn’s at room 349, 2003 Ackwood Street.”

  I frowned. “Thank you. But we have some questions. We know who you are.”

  “I sure hope you do,” Arodorros laughed. “Or Raelia picked her protagonist terribly.”

  “What?”

  “But don’t worry. You can come speak to me when you’re done with Faelorn. Meet me at the docks.”

  With that he turned tail around a street corner. As expected, he was gone by the time we walked over to look.

  “What docks?” Bia asked.

  “It’s a big city, of course it’s got docks,” Rosa elbowed her with an eyeroll.

  “We’re inland, dummy.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “He means the highway tunnels,” Lloyd clarified. “Haelcrien has four long waterway tunnels spanning the provinces vertically. It helps with transporting large caravans of people or supplies without needing as much adventurer coverage.”

  “Oh, that’s cool,” Rosa said.

  “Cool or not, we’ll find that asshole again later,” I seethed a little in my speech. “Lloyd, I assume you have a map.”

  “Wha – how’d you know?”

  “You wouldn’t have come here without studying up on the place before. You’re not supposed to know much about Haelcrien anyway, yeah? You took your ‘every plot relevant piece of information’ course in Deliria. ”

  “Heh,” he laughed nervously. “You got me.”

  “Look up that address.”

  “On it!”

  ***

  Faelorn’s building was a pretty generic looking apartment spire, with the signature gilded ornamentation and sharpened roofs. We entered the lobby and dodged the receptionist, who was thankfully nosing into a book. They probably wouldn’t have recognized us as not being residents here, but better safe than sorry.

  “What floor?” Lloyd asked us from next to the elevator control panel.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Room number’s 349. ”

  “Um… and?”

  “Do you… the first number is usually the floor number.”

  “Oh - ohhhh,” Lloyd half-gasped as he punched in the button. “In Deliria we don’t do that. Ours is just putting the floors and rooms down when we feel like it. That’s so…”

  “Hold on,” Dan chortled. “You’re telling me that Deliria, the research capital of the planet, didn’t figure out floor numbering? You psychos invented ocean travel, warp pylons, essentia synthesizers, this elevator we’re standing in, probably gravity too. And you couldn’t number your rooms to the floors?!”

  “We Delirans are a little stupid.”

  “A little wha –”

  “Floor three,” I chimed in robotic sync to the elevator. I wonder if the Delirans invented voice synthesizers too.

  49 was an uncomfortably long walk for being such a low number. Repetitive doors were worse background scenery than repetitive forest, I suppose. A knock was in order, before we kicked down the door anyway.

  It swung open immediately.

  “Ari!” said the man who I could not recognize as my father because of the wide gash across the bottom of his face laced with teeth.

  He didn’t actually have a big rent in his face. It’s a smile, I think.

  “Morning, Father,” I said. Rosa waved beside and Dan nodded politely. Bia was Bia.

  “D’ohh, no need for that,” he backed away from the door to let us in. “Call me Fael, yeah?”

  I raised an eyebrow but followed nonetheless. The inside of his apartment was quite spacious, with one wall entirely a window onto the street below. The rest was covered in suitcases and papers discarded haphazardly. He seemed in the middle of packing.

  “Would you like some tea? I swear I haven’t packed my kettle yet.”

  “No thank you,” I said. “I would like to follow up on my questions yesterday.”

  “Oh, of course!” he smiled wider. “What did you have in mind.”

  “Thanks for cooperating,” I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s start with the rest of your story and why you can’t help us with the dysphorium. Maybe if that’s answered, I’ll be more inclined to believe the guild can’t help and there’s no point of you putting in a good word for us.”

  “Ah, yes. The weather today is simply delightful and I just can’t wait to help you all out. Let’s start with some introductions, aye? I’m afraid I only know you two.” He chuckled and beamed at Bia and I.

  “Alright then,” I sighed and gestured to my right. “This is my friend Lloyd, fellow adventurer.”

  “Out of the Deliran Isles, sir,” Lloyd had a hand on his chest. “Had family there, though I prefer not to affiliate myself. Monster hunting has been quite fun.”

  “Glad you like it here,” Faelorn beamed. “And you two fellows?”

  “Rosa!” Rosa spouted as she practically leapt forward.

  “-- Verosaven,” Dan finished. “And I am Dan. Do not forgive her rudeness.”

  “Cool, cool,” Faelorn said enthusiastically. “Do you two come from Haelcrien, or elsewhere?”

  “I run an inn in Javenshard.”

  “What-shard? Oh, right, where the hourglass was.”

  “What is going on with you?” Bia snarled as she stepped in front.

  “Bia, no,” I sighed.

  “You’re never this friendly,” Bia continued, heating up. “Explain what your plan is. We know you never fucking help anyone just for the sake of helping.”

  “Dear, dear,” Faelorn kept his cool. “Do calm down and explain the issue.”

  “You’re the one who needs to explain, goddamnit. You think you can just waltz off to god knows where and you owe us a damn answer for all the shit you’ve done wrong for as long as we’ve known you so now – ”

  “Bia, please. This negative energy really isn’t good for – ”

  “Where are you going?” I cut in.

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re clearly packing up.”

  “I don’t think I – oooh wait I think so. There’s stuff all over the office and whatever.”

  “Did you finally get dementia, old man?” Bia snickered.

  “Shut it Bia. Faelorn, where are you going?”

  “I’m going down to the store to buy some dish soap soon.”

  Ah, shit.

  The door slammed shut. Laughter reverberated as the walls and ceilings rippled and ran like something alive. Prepared this time, I drew on the hourglass and summoned a shield encasing the five of us.

  The surfaces of the interior shivered and drew back into Faelorn’s quivering body as it convulsed and exploded in a blaze of magenta-red light. In its place was a mass of black and bluish tentacles.

  “Oh, that’s not nice,” Rosa squeaked.

  I tensed my casting fingers, ready to hurl us out of the building with the shield.

  “Eheheehh,” Grim cackled as the tendrils coalesced. “Ari, Ari, you knew full well that your father would never be nice to you. What did you think was happening, he had a change of heart?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I growled.

  “Drop the shield and fight,” Grim grinned, scraping a claw across it.

  “Not as stupid as you,” Bia spat. “Tell me Grim, what’s your problem?! Why are you after us?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t get my money if I told you,” it giggled, circling us to block the window side of the room. “Why should I? They were all ‘glory to Rattesse’ and all. And I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds pretty fuckin’ cool aye?!”

  “Bia, let’s go,” I tugged at her arm. “Everyone get ready to jump.”

  “Sorry, what?!” Dan whisper-exclaimed.

  “Tell us anyway, won’t you?” Bia steeled herself. “You like to play with your toys anyway.”

  “You’ll be fine!” I said at Dan.

  “Oh, but this play is quite fun already!” Grim leered.

  “Hurry up!” Bia grinned in equal measure. “Climax is more fun than rising action.”

  “We’re fucking going Bia!” I said, tugging on her shoulder again.

  “But Ari,” she mocked. “There are answers to be had here, riiight?”

  I growled and shoved us straight into Grim, bowling everyone out of the window. Glass shards seared by, scratching at the shield. Grim floated midair as we fell below, its body morphing its lower half into a mass of red tendrils that it used to manuever its way across the skyscrapers, slowly approaching from above.

  “You can’t run, and you can’t hide eitherrrr,” Grim’s smile echoed with its voice. “Come on over! Friendly friendly.”

  “Run,” I commanded as we unfolded ourselves from the street. People were staring and panic was slowly setting in as they noticed the screams from above as Grim smashed through apartments. We started sprinting down one of the biggest streets before realizing we had no idea where we were going. We ducked under a small bridge.

  “Lloyd, get the map,” I whispered.

  “Docks?”

  “Yes.”

  “2131 Salem Av –”

  “Just direct as we go!” Bia hissed. “No time.”

  Echoing screams preceded Grim crashing into something nearby.

  “Where are you, little fae?” it whispered sweetly.

  I put the hourglass’ shield back up. “Lloyd! Where to?!”

  “Uh – um – South,” he pointed, spinning around. “If we skirt around this block we should be able to dodge Grim and the next block is by the docks.”

  We scampered low along the sides of buildings as crashing sounded amongst all the screaming and panicking in the crowded areas. The squishy sounds of… devouring occasionally punctuated the hum. We dodged to the next block. One more to the docks and we scanned for Arodorros. He stood anxiously on a boat, glancing around.

  “Arodorros!” I shouted. He snapped his head over and a relieved smile immediately came over his face. He waved us over and we sprinted for it, boarding the boat. We all ducked into the cabin. It was quite luxurious looking, with lots of white stones and wood.

  “Thank god you’re all fine,” Arodorros sighed as he slumped back into the drivers seat and started the boat. “What the fuck happened back there?!”

  “Where to?” I asked, ignoring him.

  “Back north,” he said as the boat revved up loudly. “I have a base there and we’ll – ”

  A thud hit the roof, followed by crazed cackling.