The riverside tavern smelled like sizzling grease, peppered smoke, and grilled onions, but Dain decided—after only three bites of his lunch—that Braskir knew exactly what it was doing.

  A long, narrow river cut through the town’s middle like a vein, and both banks were lined with tables and benches of pale mountain wood, crammed full of townsfolk and adventurers alike. He didn’t even remember the name of this tavern, but it seemed like this wasn’t even the most popular one in town. There were ones with views of the minecarts, ones with views of the mountains, and… well, he supposed he liked this riverside view the best.

  And how’s this riverfish charred so well?

  What kind of magic seasoning did they sprinkle on it?

  Every plate on every table around him was stacked with skewers of meat charred black at the edges, dusted in some sort of red mineral powder, and dripping with sauce that burned on the tongue and still somehow demanded another bite. He, too, was already hooked. His fish was so good he could die. Anisa and Yasmin, sitting beside him, were also chowing down on their meals—and he meant no slight to Drenn, but food cooked on the road just couldn’t compare to this. They were famished, and this was the absolute perfect place to fill their stomachs.

  But there were four nuisances still sitting across the table, still pleading and begging him to let them into his party.

  Gods strike me down, do they ever shut the fuck up?

  Ilvaren Shashitra, the blond elf with long braided hair, clapped her hands and begged him with her two sword hilts jutting like fangs from behind her shoulders. Next to her slouched Kargun Flintvein, the giant dwarf with a beard so thick it went down to his waist, but beside him, the hawkkin Sahlir of the Quicksands sat so straight up that even his hawk-head didn’t look half as out of place. Rena Dornmere, the middle-aged kind-looking human lady, was the only one who looked remotely like a functioning adult, but even she was dozing off with a smile and her hands folded in her lap.

  They’d already introduced themselves. Multiple times. More times than Dain had ever wanted to hear their names. He’d given them even more declines than he could manage in the span of the past half an hour, and yet—like flies to fresh meat—the four of them were still buzzing around.

  “Ye’ve nae heard a tale like mine,” Kargun said, one thick finger jabbed into the scar crossing his nose. “Family mine swallowed whole in the war, clan drowned in stone, and here I am—swingin’ steel and swingin’ fists so I might earn the coin tae dig it out again one day. That, lad, is destiny, and so is our meetin’!”

  “Sure it is.”

  “Oh, but ye’ve nae heard a tale like this. See, once we were in deep in a field of shashatra spider nests, and—”

  Ilvaren cut him off with a toss of her golden hair. “Shut up, blackbeard. That story’s boring. There was the time we cut down a whole brood of ironfang wolves in the southern veins, just the four of us against twenty. The miners still sing songs about our legacy—”

  Kargun thumped the table, making everyone’s plates rattle. “Nay, but the time we cleared oot a nest o’ firemoles. Heat like the Maker’s forge, but we hauled the queen beast’s skull back wi’ nothin’ but grit an’ guts, now that’s a real story.”

  Dain bit clean through his next skewer, chewed slowly, and let the grease and spice sit on his tongue as the elf and dwarf continued trying to one-up each other with more stories of their heroism. Honestly, he’d heard better fake stories from drunks who couldn’t tell a real relic from a curtain weight, but…

  At least this is good riverside entertainment.

  They should just work as jesters instead of adventurers.

  Eventually, though, he could tell Yasmin was starting to get irritated with their incessant yapping—even though Anisa was still listening to their stories with wide, starry eyes—so he put his fork and knife down for a second to snap his fingers.

  Both the elf and the dwarf turned expectant eyes on him.

  “Good for you all that you’re having so much fun adventuring,” he said, chewing slowly once again, “but remind me now why you’re all still wasting our time? I said no. No means no. Go bother someone else and ask them to let you in their party.”

  Ilvaren leaned forward, voice low and sultry, like she thought she was auditioning for a bard’s play. “Because you three are new to town. You don’t know anyone. You could use allies who do, because we know Braskir inside and out.”

  Dain swallowed, drank from his cup of clear mineral water, and smiled. “That’s wonderful. Go bother someone else.”

  Kargun puffed his beard like a bellows. “Ye’ve ears stuffed wi’ wax, lad? I said—”

  “I heard you the last twelve times, and I said no. Seriously, go bother someone else.”

  On his left, Anisa lifted a gloved hand to her mouth, smiling into it with all the grace of a court maiden hiding her amusement. On his right, Yasmin sat ramrod straight, staring daggers across the table at the elf and dwarf as if sheer will could scatter them back into the gutters.

  But it was Sahlir, the hawk-headed man, who finally spoke again.

  “No one else will take us,” he said bluntly, feathers rustling as he folded his arms. “We adventure in Guild long time. Reputation, ruined. No other parties trust us. You—new here. You not know our problems. You are only chance. Why you smell like food, anyway?”

  Dain cocked his head and ignored the hawkkin’s question. “That’s… about the worst way to advertise yourselves, but okay.” He tore into another piece of meat from Anisa’s plate with obvious relish, making her snap at him. “Thanks for paying for lunch, by the way, but you really should’ve saved what coin you’ve got left for yourselves instead of wasting it on us. I’d sooner bite glass than work with people dumb enough to brawl in a Seeker’s Guild.”

  Kargun’s knuckles whitened on the table and Ilvaren’s smirk sharpened into a sneer, but before either of them could snap again, Rena the human lady cleared her throat.

  “The truth is, we knew the party who took your request before you,” she said, warmly and slowly. “The nine who went into Mine Kormuhan weren’t weaklings. They were Common-5s and 6s, every last one of them, with years of experience clearing beast infestations underground. And yet, not one of them came back alive. Your request is an unnaturally difficult one that simply cannot be completed with only three people.”

  That stilled the table for a second, and Dain looked at Rena squarely, slightly interested in what she had to say.

  “So…”

  “So if the four of us can join your party of three, we will number seven strong, which’ll drastically increase your chances of success,” Rena said cheerfully, completely carefree.

  Dain tilted his head and crossed his arms. “But that is the gamble, isn’t it? Competence. And I’m sorry, but I’ve yet to see proof you four are anything more than a discount bundle waiting to break in my hands. Goods I don’t trust, I don’t carry. People I don’t trust, I don’t fight beside.”

  Rena didn’t blink. She leaned forward just slightly, palms folding on the table, voice even as cooled wine. “Then let us prove it. A trial run. We can take on smaller requests first. Hunt, guard, patrol—it doesn’t matter what. You’ll see what we can do, we’ll see what you can do, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just walk away. If it does work out, we can talk about splitting rewards.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “And you want us to split our rewards as well?”

  “Uh… well, if we can walk away with fifty percent… no, um, forty-five… uh, maybe forty percent?” She shrugged, mouth tugging into a lazy smile. “Whatever. I don’t really care about the money. The real reward is getting back our reputation, for if we help another party with their request, our names will recover, and our ban on taking Guild work for a month might even be lifted early. What do you say about that?”

  Dain let silence spool a beat longer than polite. He swirled his cup, watching sunlight catch in the liquid—then he smiled slowly.

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  Gotcha.

  “Thirty percent of the rewards. That’s all you get. And we keep every material we harvest on our requests.” He turned his head to Anisa and Yasmin. “What about it? We gonna sample the goods before we buy them?”

  Yasmin didn’t frown, though the line of her jaw did harden a shade. Anisa, on the other hand, was excited about working with new adventurers as ever, so she chirped up with a clap of her hands.

  “Why not?” she said. “One does learn a great deal from a little practice with new faces, so let us do it. Pick an easy request first.”

  Dain chuckled, pleased, as he set his cup down and steepled his fingers. “Then it’s settled. As it happens, I recall a modest request pinned to the board earlier. It’s not that dangerous, but it’d still be a test for all of you.”

  Ilvaren and Kargun grumbled about the lack of rewards, but Sahlir just nodded along, and Rena looked like she really didn’t care either way.

  Later that afternoon, Dain walked along the streets of Braskir like tourists with nothing better to do than breathe in forge-scent and river mist. After picking up that modest request at the Guild, he’d told the failure four to meet the three of them at the northern gate by nightfall—bringing their own relics, equipment, whatever courage they owned—so now they had some sunlight left to spend.

  Anisa took the lead like she owned the paving stones. Which, to be fair, she probably did as the Second Princess of the damned country.

  “This way,” she said, quick steps and quicker smiles, pointing out a chain of roofed walkways that crossed above the street like ribs. “We call them ‘skeleton bridges’—old Obric style. In winter, the cold winds knife through the alleys and freeze up the streets, so Braskir first invented and built these to block out some of the winds. The rest of Obric copied Braskir.”

  Dain followed the flourish of her gloves to the railways all over, and she talked policy and interesting landmarks with a musical lilt—and gods, he liked her voice when she spoke Obric. That civic pride baked into every word she spoke… well, she certainly loved this town, and she certainly loved her country.

  He smiled despite himself, because it was charming how she pinned names to every corner: the steam courtyards where the bathhouses exhaled, the bellwalks where copper bells strung from eaves chimed like greedy birds, and the ‘Counting Steps’, a staircase that rose to an overlook in the middle of town where, supposedly, Borik Hallowmortar once stood upon and defended the town from an incursion of two thousand Northern Auraline soldiers.

  But Yasmin walked beside him, and just between him and her—while Anisa gave him the royal tour guide—he could tell she had vigilance stitched to her skin the way her gaze flicked over faces around them constantly.

  She waited until Anisa stepped ahead to admire a particularly ornate lamp post before speaking low.

  “Is it wise to bring those four with us tonight?” she whispered to him. “Their stories were total nonsense, and their discipline even worse. If we take them with us—”

  “They’ll prove themselves tonight,” he said, keeping his tone casual. “And, just between you and me, I did check out their Tags.”

  “Are they strong?”

  “... I have a few questions, but I’d rather wait and see for myself.” Then he shrugged, giving her a small grin. “Besides, I accepted you and your lady. You aside, my standards are clearly degrading if I’m willing to accept a princess into my party.”

  Yasmin scowled the exact amount he’d expected: a heartbeat of offense, then that quick ‘whatever’ look that showed she knew he was just teasing. “I’ll be looking forward to their performance, then.”

  Right on cue, Anisa turned back to them with a bright clap, oblivious to the undertow. “You two must see the river market when it opens fully. Barges from the southern veins arrive on the hour. Fresh ore, fresh vegetables from the terraced plots, hot sugar cakes dipped in clarified butter—oh!” She caught herself, cheeks touching rose. “We may not be able to afford the cakes just yet, but you must try those as well.”

  “Tragic,” Dain drawled. “Indulge me a little. Where’s the local materials and relics store?”

  “Oh, right this way!”

  He let her lead him through another lane where blacksmiths’ doors stood propped on iron hooks. Anisa described hammering techniques with a fluency that betrayed long afternoons eavesdropping on masters in her fortress, but now he was only listening with half an ear, checking out the various storefronts. They may just come in handy later, so he wanted to memorize their locations.

  Eventually, they found the relics store that dwarfed Granamere’s by half a street. Behind the windows on the broad-fronted building: dagger-length oreblades, gauntlets etched in thorns, rings of linked iron beads, and countless other weapon and armor-type relics sat on shelves and foam-lined racks. Tons of people were walking in and out as well, and a cluster of children stood on their toes to gawk, through the window, at a kite-shaped shield that the brass placard promised it’d repulse all minor dust and debris.

  Just window shopping the store was already more interesting than going into Granamere’s store. Now he couldn’t help but wonder what the stores were like in Karatash, Obric’s capital, but, more importantly…

  Materials store.

  Obric really loves pairing the two stores together, huh?

  Right beside the relics store was the materials store, and through the window once more, he already saw a vast assortment of materials in bins and on shelves: cut ores and ingots labeled by purity, crates of rivets sorted by head and thread, and slat trays of mineral oils kept in the cool. Most of it seemed to be metal-type materials—as expected of the land of earth and metal—but there were also magic beast parts here and there. A ball of bundled silverplume feathers caught his eye immediately, as well as plenty of generic mana-infused metal plates.

  So if my relics get significantly damaged and can’t regenerate quickly enough, I don’t have to hunt silverplume owls or golems again to get replacement parts. I can just buy them here.

  Good to know.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t here to spend coins. He didn’t have any worth spending. This was just reconnaissance, a merchant’s habit carried into adventuring life: check the shelves first, weigh the shine, imagine the bargains, and leave the purse shut. Shopping could come later once they’d bled a monster or two dry.

  So when Anisa, eyes alight, declared she wanted to step inside the relics store and ‘just browse’ what she’d buy once they had money, Dain waved her toward the door.

  “There’s something else I want to check out first,” he said, waving them off. “I’ll meet you back here after I nose around a bit.”

  After a bit of staring, the two girls slipped inside the relics store together, and Dain peeled off down the street again, following a different itch.

  He didn’t have to search long. The third building stood like a beacon against Braskir’s gray stone blocks: the Curator Church, alabaster bright, glaringly white and impossible to mistake. Even from across the square he could see the line of petitioners curling down the steps, workers and miners clutching bundles of offerings and waiting for their turn at grace.

  He climbed partway up the stairs, careful to blend in with the crowd, and stole a peek through the broad doors. Inside stretched the prayer hall—vaulted stone, pale and polished—and at the far end rose the local Altar.

  It was the real thing: carved dais, gilded golden frame, and a giant green portal swirled vertically across the back wall. A portal to Inanna, the Matron of the Living Apotheca, who traded Apotheca-Class relics. Two Templars stood on either side of the Altar in steel breastplates, their golden eyes glaring through their cross-shaped helmets at every soul who entered the hall—one by one, of course.

  Since the end of the Black Exhibit War, the Curator Church became the only faction in the world that could create and support Altars. It was unanimously decided upon that depending on one’s line of work, a person could only approach the Altar once or twice a month—no more than that—and every visit to the Church had to be registered in advance. Templars had to be notified, paperwork had to be filled, and the person had to specify what relic they wanted to obtain using what materials.

  That meant, even for most adventurers, they either had to wait an entire month just to get a single unique relic, or they had to visit relic stores to buy generic relics pre-approved by the Curator Church. Furthermore, the classes of relics obtainable in a town were limited by the Churches. If a town only had a Church of Enmar, an adventurer could only obtain Implement-Class relics from said town.

  Braskir may be a large town, but it still was no capital, meaning there were probably only four Churches here: one to Enmar, one to Inanna, one to Thamaar, and the last to Seluku. Nobody would be able to obtain Celestial-Class, Elementum-Class, and Cognitum-Class relics here. They’d probably have to go to the capital for those spicier relics.

  Which means my title ability to obtain a portal to Belara whenever I want, wherever I want, will absolutely get me killed.

  If those Templars ever find out I can obtain all seven classes of relics whenever I want…

  They’d hunt him across seas and mountains until nothing but ash and teeth remained, so he probably shouldn’t get closer to the Altar than this.

  He stepped back, pretending to admire the architecture instead. Seven marble statues crowned the slanted roof, looming above the square behind him like divine witnesses: the compass of stag-horned Anzar, the hammer-bearing spider-armed Enmar, the ledgers of lion-maned Utnar, hare-eared Inanna with her vines, dragon-headed Ninazu and his elemental balls, bear-clawed Thamaar and his blades, and the trinkets of mouse-whickered Seluku.

  Seven. Always seven.

  But Belara wasn’t one of them.

  … Who are you, really?

  And worse—what about that prismatic portal the one-eyed had opened above Corvalenne, and what about those thousand pale hands that’d clawed the portal?

  Which god was that?

  Are there more than Seven Curator Gods?

  And if so… why does the Church only acknowledge these seven?

  No answer from Belara, though.

  And he’d rather her not pop out in the middle of town.

  He stepped off the stairs and turned back around, heading for the relics store. ‘Seeing a proper Altar’ was now checked off his list of things to do, because he’d always dreamed of bartering with the Curator Gods in broad daylight, head held high and chest puffed out right.

  But being able to trade with a cursed god from the comfort of his own bed was quite convenient as well.

  Time to regroup.

  If I can rest for a few more hours before we set out on tonight’s request, I’ll be good.

  Because if there was one truth every seeker and adventurer learned early on, it was that hunting spirit-type monsters in an underground shaft could prove to be very, very troublesome.

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