The hinge of the grate whined terribly as Dovik pulled it away. The wrought iron covering sticking out from the side of the wall in the lower district of Danfalla did little to cover the stench past the bars. He peered into the oily darkness past the grate while holding a piece of cloth to his nose to cover the smell.

  “I think this is supposed to be closed,” Dovik said, letting go of the cover and letting it fall back into place with a roar of clanking metal. “Or locked at least.”

  “You think?” Jor’Mari kicked a hunk of metal that had once been a lock lying on the ground next to the crate. “Someone wanted inside.”

  “The woman you are after, you think?” Dovik asked, stooping to pick up the padlock. The brick of iron clinked in his hand as he weighed it. Turning back, he looked once again at the big iron grate that led into the bowels of the city. “Would Priscilla Ca’Mari run into the sewers to escape justice? I can’t imagine anything driving such a woman underground.”

  “The refugees have been using the sewers as encampments," Jor’Mari says before turning hard eyes down the street. There were dark rings beneath the man’s eyes; sleepless nights had been plaguing him. “Too many people are in the city now. Food runs low, and space runs even lower.”

  “Can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in a sewer,” Dovik said, inspecting the lock. Sure enough, the jagged cut of an industrial tool cracked the ring at the top, allowing whoever had decided to take a trip underground here access. “Although they are somewhat of a unique thing to these horizontal cities of yours.”

  “Grim doesn’t have sewers?” Jor’Mari asked, momentarily broken from his endless hunt. “I never thought about it when we were there.”

  “I don't think so,” Dovik said, standing and tossing the broken lock aside.

  “What do you mean, you don’t think so?”

  Dovik shrugged. “Never gave it much thought.” He turned to stare at the dark hole leading into the depths of the city next to his friend. “So, do we wade in ourselves?”

  Jor’Mari sniffed, shaking his head. “No. Priscilla Ca’Mari wouldn’t lower herself to hide in this hole. We are better left looking in places where the sun might touch. My brother will scour the underbelly of the city at some point, but our time is better spent up here.”

  “You’re the boss,” Dovik said.

  Together, the two men walked away from the smelly hole leading down into the city. The thought that there was someone down there praying for them to find them, praying for them to help, never crossed either of their minds.

  The steel box rang like a drum as Dovik’s back collided with it. The hollowness of the dumpster sang loudly into the busy night out behind the casino, but its song went mostly ignored. Dovik could hardly pay it any mind; the aching of his body was far too present a thing. The man who had thrown him against the dumpster hardly cared; his blood was up, and focus became something of a sharp object when the blood got too hot. The other large stonespeaker man standing next to him, the man who had first sucker-punched Dovik when they stepped out into the back alley and who was now nursing a broken knuckle, leered at him from near the door. The only person who cared for the dumpster’s warbling song was the dwarf carrying the briefcase full of Dovik’s winnings for the night.

  Dovik’s head fell back against the dumpster as he slid down to sit on the ground against it. “Why would I think of that now?” he asked himself. His fingers squished the peel of a fruit when he set them down to take his weight. Sniffing, he lifted the bright purple peel and took a whiff. “Ah, that’s the smell. Shit and waste. That makes sense.”

  “Don’t get all loony already,” the stonespeaker said as he advanced. The shadow of the man fell over Dovik, cast off by the orange glow of the light above the back door of the casino. “You will make me feel bad, and then I won’t enjoy myself quite so much.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to feel bad,” Dovik said, locking the hulking man with his sickly glare. He realized the tinted spectacles he had taken to wearing since the strange blue color started cracking into his irises were gone, and he found them lying broken on the ground near the door. “Your friend owes me five suns.”

  The stonespeaker raised his foot and stomped down. The man’s heel connected with Dovik’s solar plexus, and for a moment it almost bounced off, mortal strength insufficient to overcome his magically reinforced body. But then it didn’t. Dovik felt it, the strange sickness and weakness raging in his body giving way at the final moment, allowing his bones to bend, allowing the capillaries running through his skin to rupture as the stonespeaker put all of his weight behind his foot. The breath was driven from him as he was mashed against the dumpster. A single moment of agony passed; numbness bled away into pain, and he was left hammering his fist against the stones of the alley as he tried to drag in a breath. He wasn’t given the time. A second later, the foot came for him again, this time connecting with his ribs in a kick that spoke of long hours practicing exactly how to beat a man when he was down.

  The dumpster sand again as Dovik was thrown into it, and a dent was left in the blue metal where his shoulder connected. Something rotten and soft slapped hard against his face as he fell to the ground. Through the haze of sudden pain, he realized that his face was lying in a discarded scone, half-eaten, with a strange jelly lying over the top of it.

  “What is this guy made of? Rocks?” the stonespeaker man complained as he limped back toward the back door. The other man looked up at him, with very little compassion in his eyes as he continued to cradle his hurt hand.

  His body complained horribly as Dovik tried to right himself. Usually, just a few blows wouldn’t leave him in such a pitiful state, but that was when he was feeling his best. Recently, his best had been a long way off. In the end, Dovik settled for flipping onto his back with a groan. His brown hair was stuck to his face from the sour-smelling jelly, and above him, a rounded mirror showed off the alley in a horrible mockery of the scene. He saw himself there, lying on the ground in a suit that had been very fine just a few minutes ago. Even to himself, he looked pitiful. His cracked eyes settled on his face, looking at the three jagged lines that ran down the side of his face and which looked cartoonishly puffy in the reflection. Sometimes he forgot those scars were there, soul damage, unhealable.

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  “I was hoping to make it to thirty before I was ever beaten in an alley. Nothing ever goes to plan.” As he muttered to himself, his eyes continued past the mirror above him to land on something peering down from the rooftop more than forty feet overhead. Up there, at the edge of the casino, a bird made of silver stared down at the low-lit alley with eyes of black and red. “Some other kind of security?” he wondered.

  “Mr. Willian, was it?” the dwarven man asked, taking his first steps away from the wall. The man still held the briefcase in his hands, but there was no more relaxed confidence in his posture. The dwarven man was afraid, and he held the metal case like a shield between himself and Dovik. “We…we have suspicion that you have been cheating in games of chance.”

  Dovik rolled his head to the side, looking past the trembling man to the two bruisers behind him who were putting themselves back together. “Really?”

  “Yes, we do, sir. We take cheating very seriously here,” the man said.

  With a wince, Dovik managed to get his elbow against the ground and turn toward the man. “I don’t recall cheating. How did I cheat, exactly?”

  “That…uh…that is what we were going to ask you,” the dwarven man said.

  He nodded, weighing that answer. “Well, I didn’t. I’m just very good.”

  “A shame,” the dwarven man said, turning and walking back to the door. The red door opened with a creak, and a flood of noise fell out of it as light splashed into the alley. The man turned before walking back inside. “I will come ask you again after,” he said. Then, he was gone, the metal door slamming shut with finality behind him.

  “It really is a shame,” the first stonespeaker said, shaking his hand. “I hope you are lying, because if not, I’m going to be doing this for no good reason.” The man approached, his uninjured fist balling at his side.

  Dovik considered him for a moment. Yes, the man was huge, but he was just a mortal man as far as he knew. There was no magic to him. There wasn’t the trained and fluid movement of someone used to the life-or-death kind of violence. No, Dovik imagined that these men were more accustomed to the down-to-earth, I hit you when you can’t hit me, kind of violence. He could have had his sword out in a flash and cut both these men down before they knew what happened. He could vanish and appear on the roof of one of the nearby buildings, and it would take a long time for anyone to find him.

  However, neither of those scenarios got his money back. Even if he teleported inside the casino, hit the dwarf in the back of the head, and stole the briefcase, he still needed the casino to change the chips for hard cash. And he needed that money. Charlene was counting on him, and he had changed all of his savings into chips tonight in order to potentially triple their funds. He couldn’t leave without it.

  With a sigh, Dovik propped himself against the dumpster once again and looked up at the approaching giant. “Try not to hurt yourself too badly,” he said, smiling up at the man.

  They did, in fact, hurt themselves fairly badly. For the next half hour, the stonespeakers took turns pummeling him. When the first one just about broke his wrist as he swung his fist into Dovik’s jaw, he started to kick at him wildly. Then, his ankle audibly snapped, and he was out of the rest of the fight. The second man was more methodical. He would change his approach every now and again, aiming to inflict more hurt on Dovik than he did on himself. To the man’s credit, he succeeded. Still, one can only send blow after blow into a hardy magician until one’s body begins to wear out. Before the end of the hour, bother stonespeakers were sitting on the ground of the alley, their backs up against the wall of the casino as they panted for breath.

  Everything hurt. There had to be broken bones somewhere, but Dovik was in too much of a constant state of agony to know exactly where. That was until he forced himself to sit once more against the dumpster. The shooting pain that lanced through his left arm spoke of something being fractured inside his hand, probably from when one of the men stamped down on it. For a moment, the three men looked at each other from their respective sides of the alley.

  “You’re a tough bastard,” the second begrudgingly admitted.

  “Well…” Dovik wheezed. “At least I earned your adoration.” He curled his hand, and the smooth coldness of a glass bottle fell into his palm from his storage ring. Dovik couldn’t help but smirk as he raised the bottle up to the orange light, showing off its milky red color to the men across from him.

  “What’s that?” the first asked.

  Without answering, Dovik popped the cap off the bottle and downed the liquid. Fire hit the back of his mouth. The contents hit his stomach, and the hydrochloric acid inside began catalyzing a reaction between the two chemicals in the fluid that bound trapped mana. Magic flooded through his system, and before his eyes, the redness standing out on the back of his hand began to recede, and swelling started to retreat. There came the ecstasy of popping bones and joints as the tissue of his body was reknit with the potent magic inside the potion. There was pain as well, but the overwhelming pleasure of healing drowned it out, though it didn’t stop a moan from escaping him as he pushed back against the dumpster. In less than ten seconds, his body was made whole. He was the same as he had been before the beating; the only exception being the creeping veins of blue in his irises that had expanded imperceptibly.

  “Good as new,” Dovik breathed out a hiss. He stretched out his legs and noticed the holes and rips marring what had been a new pair of slacks. “Well, almost.”

  “Can I get one of those?” the first stonespeaker asked. In reply, he had an empty bottle whipped at his head. The glass bounced off his thick skull, leaving a gash, and rolled off into the alley.

  Before either could rise to try and inflict more pointless violence, the sound of a laugh racing down the alleyway stilled them. All three turned toward the origin of the sound as two shadows slowly moved toward their speck of light in the dark behind the casino. As the first figure stepped into the light, Dovik was caught off guard by seeing another human in Faeth. Then, he noticed the tell-tale elven features in his face and the point of his ears and thought better of it. Behind the half-elf, a giant at least nine feet tall loomed, his face so high that it stayed in shadow even as the rest of him stepped into the light.

  “Mr. Mox,” the first stonespeaker said, grunting to his feet and inclining his head to the man.

  The half-elven man waved a hand at the stonespeaker, the gesture stopping the man before he could say anything else and encouraging him to take a step back. The stonespeaker did, even helping the other one who was still recovering from being hit in the face by a heavy bottle to get up and move away. The half-elf continued to walk, turning and looking down at Dovik when he stopped in front of him.

  “You their boss?” Dovik asked, squinting up at him.

  “That’s right,” the man said, nodding. “My name is Treston Mox, and I have a proposition for you.”

  Dovik looked between the man standing in front of him and the hulking figure behind him. “What kind of proposition?”

  “The kind where you make a lot of money,” Treston Mox said.

  He chewed on that for a moment, but only a moment. “I’m interested,” Dovik said.

  With a gleeful smile on his face, Treston Mox began to explain.

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