“Edith-Healer, why stay-wait at dragon nest-lair?” Croaker inquired as he crouched by Edith’s workbench. His red tinged eyes remained steady as he watched her work. She had slowly grown used to how the older goblin lurked in her shadow. Croaker gave her privacy when she asked him to, unlike the overwhelming presence of a certain dragon.

  “Because this is my home now, Croaker.” Edith continued carefully mixing ingredients as she responded. Multi-tasking was a necessary skill to be an Alchemist. Potions could change in the blink of an eye. If one was not careful, it was easy to miss the correct time to add the next ingredient or make a mistake that would ruin the entire process. “This is the place I chose to live.”

  She did not tell the entire truth, that she had nowhere else to go.

  “... Do not like-accept the elf-thief-killer,” Croaker said after considering her answer. “Is great…” His red eyes flicked to the side as he attempted to cobble together his meaning out of the scraps of human language he’d learned. Goblin speech was surprisingly complex, with each vocalization carrying a large amount of layered meaning. Speaking the ‘human tongue’ was like trying to carve wood using blunt tools. “Misfortune. Bad omen.”

  Edith resisted the urge to look at Croaker as she kept her eyes focused on the potion. The mixture turned over on itself in the small crucible in front of her. It was a light blue color with flecks of sand swirling in the opaque fluid. When she saw the mixture turning transparent, she poured in the last ingredient. Both her and Croaker waited for several moments to see the result.

  Nothing exploded. That was promising.

  The potion’s contents continued to circulate as Edith removed it from the heat and set it on a small iron stand to air cool. As the liquid cooled, the crystalline dust within it dispersed into the surrounding liquid. The liquid gained an inner radiance which made it look like liquid gemstone. With extreme care, Edith used a pair of tongs to turn the crucible on its side. A small lip on the crucible directed the liquid into a glass bottle.

  Once the last drips had been captured, Edith pressed a thumb length section of rope soaked in hot wax into the end of the bottle. When it cooled, it would form an airtight seal. A quick inspection showed the bottle to be half full, which drew a sigh of mixed happiness and dissatisfaction from Edith.

  “Croaker, please record one success on the board, even though we wasted some of the ingredients by improper preparation.”

  The goblin dutifully used a small stone knife to add a notch onto a wooden board next to Edith’s work station. There were many more marks on the ‘failure’ side of the board than the ‘success’ side, but Edith was slowly closing the gap with dedicated effort.

  “Why do you believe Visk to be… bad luck, Croaker?” she asked as she set the bottle down on a padded shelf behind her workstation. “While it is certainly true that they are partly responsible for hurting your people… could the same not be said about Sanguine?” Edith idly reached up and touched the broach in her hair. She wondered if she ought to take it off but… The dragon did deserve a chance to prove himself to her.

  “Hmm.” Croaker hopped off of the stool that she’d provided for him and squatted on the floor. He often did this when he needed to think intensely. The grizzled goblin claimed that it helped ‘connect him to his roots’. “Is… old-long-ago story-wisdom. Told-beaten into younglings-new-hunters.”

  Edith pursed her lips but let Croaker tell his story. She didn’t like how roughly the goblins treated their children, but changing their ways was taking time. They believed that the world was a dark place and that their young ones needed to be prepared to face it. Edith found it difficult to disagree with that motivation, but their methods bordered on cruelty.

  “Is long-big story-song. Given-told from elder to youngling-new-elder. Sings-with-Sparrow knows… a little. Trained once, to be new-elder-shaman. But she wanted-demanded to be warrior-hunter.” Croaker gave a deep sigh felt by all parents, when they stood by to watch their children take a foolish occupation.

  “Song-story says that once… goblins were big-important. Not… vermin-rats, hunted-killed hiding in holes. Live in big-many villages.” Croaker traced at the wooden floor of Edith’s cabin with one sharp nail, but was careful not to leave a scratch. “Elf-Killers come. Many-often times. Hunt-kill-capture, like bandits. Then humans come, push goblins out.”

  “Hmm. I think I understand what you’re saying Croaker,” Edith said once the goblin had finished speaking. “Humans have stories like that too, about daemons and other things from beyond the world that are dangerous. … I won’t tell you that you have to like Visk.” Edith once again rubbed her broach with her fingertips.

  “I get a feeling from outside of myself, that they are trying to be different from something in their past. When everyone returns, perhaps things will be clearer for all involved.”

  Croaker seemed unconvinced. Rather than continue the conversation, he stood up from the floor and walked out of the cabin. Edith gave a quiet sigh as she watched him go. In her head, she called the goblins’ habit of abrupt departures the ‘Goblin Goodbye’.

  ‘... Maybe he’s right, that living here with an elf isn’t a good idea,’ she thought to herself as she turned back to her work. ‘But is it any worse than choosing to drop everything and live with a dragon?’ She found it hard to focus on her work when thinking about Sanguine. Conflicting emotions rose up inside of her, both comforting and infuriating in nature. She missed him, but a small part of her wished she’d never met him.

  “I’m not going to get anything done at this rate,” she muttered and stood up from her work bench. “Maybe a walk through the woods will do me some good.” Edith headed to the door and took a half length cloak sewn for work from a peg by the door. She left the small row of glowing potions behind her.

  “I don’t think there’s a way for us to escape Cassia,” Sir Kenneth remarked blandly as the young woman tried again to open the door to their cell.

  Only a flickering candle flame illuminated the dark cell they were confined in. There was only one entrance, a heavy iron banded wooden door, and no windows. He wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been since the two of them had been thrown in here. Visk had been with them at first, but the disguised thugs who had captured the three of them had removed the elf some time previous.

  Ancient stonework and his fellow captive were the only things to look at here. The door hardly let any light through the razor thin cracks surrounding it. Sir Kenneth had contemplated counting the bricks in the wall, but he wasn’t that bored. Not yet, anyways.

  “We’ve got to try something!” Cassia hissed as she continued pushing in vain at the surface of the door. There was no handle or latch on the inside to pull on. “They took Visk! There’s no telling what they’ll do to them. Not all of us have a Lord who will pay these… these Scoundrels a ransom!”

  Sir Kenneth gave a grim bark of laughter. “If you really believe that drivel, I’ll be disappointed in you. While it might be true that Visk has a ransom on their head, they probably don’t even know who to send a ransom letter to for me. Do you think they’re really going to keep me here for months while they send a messenger and wait for a reply?”

  “What are you talking about?” Cassia rounded on him. “Do you not think your precious Baron will pay to save your hide?”

  “Mind your tongue,” the knight growled as he narrowed his good eye. The other was swollen shut due to the beating he’d endured during their capture. So much for being a knight trained in the arts of war. “What I mean is that they’re lying to us to keep us docile. If I believed they were going to ransom me back to the Baron, then there’d be no reason for me to try and escape. It would be an unnecessary risk.”

  “First you tell me to stop trying to escape, now you tell me that they’re lying to us to keep you from trying to escape. What’s the point Kenneth? What are you trying to do, make me look like a fool?”

  “I’m trying to get you to sit down and breathe for long enough that you can think clearly. My head is still spinning from getting kicked around the inn’s floorboards, so I need you to help me try and figure a way out. If Sanguine was going to come rescue us, he’d have already done so. Something must have happened to prevent him from tearing the whole city apart to come get you.”

  Cassia stepped away from the door and dropped down onto the damp floor of the cell, facing Sir Kenneth. She drew her knees up to her chest and glared at him. Unlike Visk and the knight, she’d avoided being beaten during their capture due to her hangover and inability to fight back.

  “So what’s on your mind ‘your Lordship’? Do you have a cunning plan that doesn’t involve a dragon burning the city down?”

  “What I’m trying to figure out is if this room is serving its original purpose,” Sir Kenneth said slowly. His eyes were still examining the bricks in the walls. “We have some old ruins in the Barony that people have built on top of. The Baron’s castle, for example, stands on the site of an ancient temple. Sometimes, you can tell where people have… patched things up.”

  “A fascinating history lesson, sir knight, but how the hells does that help us escape?”

  “It might be worth examining the walls, because I think we might be near an underground aqueduct.” He reached up in spite of the ache in his torso to pat the wall at his back. “I can hear water gurgling behind me. It could be a pipe… but a city this big needs a lot of water.”

  “... Sir Kenneth, I really am trying hard to understand here, but the city is in the middle of a bloody lake. What do you mean they need water?” The knight gave a pained grumble.

  “While I may not be the best knight, Cassia, I did do a lot of reading to prepare me for… potential tasks I’d need to undertake in the future.” He tried to adjust his sitting position to be more comfortable, but mostly felt his ribs pop for his effort. His words continued through gritted teeth. “One of those books detailed how to manage many people living in the same place at the same time. Even if you live by a source of fresh water, filth and debris can make it undrinkable.”

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  Cassia’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh, like the stream back at our home in the Hills! It was blocked up with… some quite nasty waste when we arrived. Edith still made us boil our water even after we cleaned it.”

  “She’s a smart woman, listen to her,” Sir Kenneth agreed. “I will spare you all the details, but it is sufficient to say that a city of this size needs to move a lot of clean drinking water for its occupants. A lot of water needs big pipes to move in. Perhaps the Wizards could do it with enchanting… but based on what I’ve seen, I think Civic Engineering is not high on their list of priorities.”

  “Okay, so you’re saying one of these big pipes is in the wall behind you?” Cassia asked. This got a nod from the knight. “That’s interesting, but how do you intend to get into it? We don’t have any tools to pry the bricks out.”

  “Cassia, I’m going to tell you something important, and I’d like you to trust me when I do so.”

  “... Okay, sure, so long as it’s not another lecture on ‘Civic Engin-whats-its’.”

  “I want you to use magic to punch the wall as hard as you can.”

  ○ ○ ○

  “Hey, uh, I can hear water moving,” one of the hooded figures around the make-shift card table said. He’d been about to deal a new hand and stopped mid shuffle. The other hooded figures sitting next to the old wine barrel, on a collection of crates and rickety stools, grumbled in irritation at the interruption.

  “Of course you can hear water, you moron. We’re next to the bloody sewers, and the bloody cistern, AND the bloody canals. There’s water bleeding everywhere around here. So would you shut up and deal the next hand?”

  “... No, really, I can hear water coming. It’s getting louder,” the first man said as he slowly stood up from his seat. The one who had chastised him cursed and reached out to snatch the cards from his hands. He stopped when he noticed a low burble starting to rise from their surroundings.

  “You’re right. The hells? Was there a bleeding rain storm when we weren’t looking?” The other men at the card table hastily swept any spare coins left on the moldy wooden surface back into their pockets. It was all too easy for someone to get sticky fingers. “Don’t tell me the hideout is flooding again.”

  The first man looked over to a door embedded in the far wall, where they’d stowed the prisoners. A lot of money had been spent making that door as secure as possible. No less than three locks and a massive crossbar prevented anyone from breaking it down from the inside. That same door was currently leaking water from around its edges. Thin jets sprayed out into the room, forming a rapidly expanding puddle.

  “Shit! The wall must have collapsed in the cell. I knew we should’ve spent some of that money for the door on-” He never got the chance to finish his complaint, as the immense weight of the reinforced door gave way to the far more powerful pressure of water pushing it from behind.

  “There is… HYEUGH… no way… that is ever… going to work again… in a thousand years,” Cassia said as she dragged herself out of the water, gasping for air. She’d managed to drag Sir Kenneth with her even as the water pressure swept them away down the aqueduct. It had been an immense struggle to not be forced back into their cell and smashed into the walls when water started pouring into the room.

  Sir Kenneth looked like he’d been kicked around the inn floorboards a second time with a vengeance. Whatever Cassia was made out of, the knight suspected that she wasn’t fully human any more. She’d survived swimming through a ruptured aqueduct like it was a mild inconvenience, while he’d gotten a broken arm and nearly drowned.

  With a heave, the knight forced the water out of his lungs and onto the already slick stones of the cistern.

  “Thanks… thanks for saving me,” he spat and hacked out. “That was… a really stupid plan. I thought I… was going to die…” He reached over with his good hand and tenderly touched his left humerus. A hiss of pain left his lips. “I need a splint. There’s… no bone… sticking out, at least.”

  “Best I can do… is that old rod over there… and my shirt,” Cassia replied with exasperation. She dragged herself fully out of the water and plodded her way soggily over to the rod in question. It might have been an iron cudgel at some point, but rust had worn it away so that it was little more than a hardened stick. Cassia carried it back over to the knight and pulled her shirt over her head.

  The man was in too much pain to object to her lack of decorum. Cassia ripped her already threadbare shirt into strips with her fingers and carefully placed the rod against Sir Kenneth’s tricep. Despite her care, the man still flinched in pain, which only grew worse as she tightly bound the rod to his arm with the cloth strips. His eyes focused on the gem embedded in Cassia’s upper sternum as she worked.

  “Sorry, I’m not as good a healer as Edith,” Cassia said with a shrug as she stood back up. A cloth binder that she often wore to keep things from getting in the way while using her bow kept her modesty intact. “But that should keep you intact until we can find someone better.”

  “We need to figure out where we’re going first.” Sir Kenneth reached out his hand so that Cassia could help him stand to his feet, which she obliged. The woman was far stronger than she seemed to recognize. Even a brief grip of her hand made his bones ache. Her knuckles were merely bloodied rather than shattered after punching her way through a stone brick wall.

  “Going into the Dusk Quarter while looking like two penniless water rats will just get us killed or recaptured.” The knight continued and took a deep breath to center himself. Cassia looked just a little impressed with him. Like most people, she’d come to regard Sir Kenneth as weak and mildly useless. It seemed he was showing a new facet of his personality when placed under pressure.

  “I hate to recommend it… but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “... Is this plan going to be even stupider than the water pipe plan?”

  “No, but Visk may hate us for it. I think we need to go call on the local nobles to try and collect that bounty.”

  Despite an obvious desire to reject the idea outright, Cassia held her tongue. They were both soaking wet, with slightly less than the clothes on their backs, in a city full of potentially hostile Wizards and definitely hostile criminals. Sanguine and Visk were both nowhere to be seen and they hadn’t made any progress on finding Magnus.

  “... Fine, but promise me that you won’t genuinely sell them out.”

  “I swear on my honor that we’ll make every effort to escape this city with our elven friend by our side. Right now, let’s get moving before someone thinks to look for us by the waterways. There has to be a staircase out of here somewhere.”

  “What are you looking at young lad?” Mortimer asked as he strolled over to Magnus’s side. The boy was standing by one of the Tower windows, staring out across the city with his crook in hand.

  “Oh, excuse me Teacher. I was watching the Towers fighting over there. There was… something familiar out there, but it’s gone now,” The old man turned to look out the window and squinted. As Magnus claimed, two of the Towers on the far side of the city were locked in combat. At least, that is how it appeared on the surface. Mortimer could tell that there was no real intent behind the spells being thrown around.

  If two Towers seriously wanted to duke it out, the entire city would be suffering from collateral damage.

  “Who is that?” Mortimer muttered to himself. “That lightning array looks like the Tower of Saqaei-” He stopped as a massive plume of fire lit up the city. It lashed out like a whip from the top of one Tower to the other, which deflected it away with a shield made of storm clouds. “Yup, that’s definitely Saqaei and the Lahaeb getting into a spat. Looks like someone finally woke up and noticed there was a fight on.”

  “Be a good lad and pull the shutters closed while I speak to the Mistress.”

  Magnus dutifully began to turn a hand crank that was attached to the wall next to the window. Though it was old and rusted, the mechanism turned after some minor resistance. Reinforced shutters inscribed with runes slowly screeched into place. Across the Tower floor, the other windows operated by the same mechanism were shut. Just before the last one fully closed, Magnus saw a spear of light flash in between the shutter and the stone of the Tower wall.

  The spear fell right on a tattered bedroll which was occupied by Howard the Bard. He gave a shocked yelp as pain yanked him out of a fitful slumber. It took him a moment to realize that both the bedroom and his ragged clothing were on fire, after which he screamed and started desperately rolling around to put the flames out.

  A muffled ‘BOOM’ shook the enclosed Tower, causing dust to rain from the ceiling. The ancient stonework shook but ultimately remained steady. With the shutters drawn, the interior of the Tower was as dark as a tomb, save for the flicker of Howard’s burning bedroll. That was soon snuffed out. Magnus tapped on a small crystal that hung from the tip of his crook.

  Hollow light swelled from inside the crystal. The rune shakily inscribed on its surface was the first one Mortimer had taught Magnus and he was still struggling to get the shape right. His mind had a bad habit of wandering at the wrong moment. At least this one hadn’t blown up in his hands.

  Mortimer stood to one side, his eyes hollow as he ‘spoke’ with the Mistress. Magnus still hadn’t seen the woman in question. Whenever Mortimer talked to her it was a one sided conversation. He’d mouth words silently into the air and only he seemed to hear what was said in return. Magnus didn’t doubt that he actually was speaking to someone. It was simply strange watching an old man suddenly lose all focus on his present surroundings in this way.

  The old man shook his head and blinked several times to refocus his mind. “Right then. Got the shutters up…? Good. I’d hate for any of my research materials to get hit by a stray blast.”

  Magnus glanced over at where Howard was pitifully groaning from his fresh set of burns, but said nothing. He’d help the unlucky fool with a poultice later, though he couldn’t remember where he’d learned how to make it.

  “Did the Mistress say why the Towers were fighting, Teacher?”

  “Hmm? Oh right that. Just the usual. Some nitwit doesn’t set his ward up currently, then the next thing you know a bird flies through and sets every defense in the Tower off. Nothing to worry about lad.” Mortimer reached up and flicked some dust from where it had fallen on his hat, then spat some more from where it had fallen into his open mouth.

  “More importantly, have you seen Archibald lately?”

  “Your familiar, Teacher? I can’t say I have. The last time I can recall is before the last time you had me practise Container Opening. But… you know how my memory has been.”

  “Yes, yes, I know lad. It’s a damn shame that we haven’t found a remedy for that yet. But don’t worry, I’m looking into it…” Mortimer stroked his beard thoughtfully, dislodging more dust. “How about you and I walk through the city tomorrow and go look for Archibald? I’m sure he’s just gotten stuck somewhere after stuffing himself with a bakery’s cast offs. We can look at the remnants of the battle-magic out there while we’re at it.”

  Magnus’s eyes lit up in the hollow light of the faulty crystal. “Can we?! Thank you Mor- Teacher!”

  Mortimer reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair with gnarled fingers. “Now run off to bed. The noise should die down soon, once those idiots in the other Towers realize they’re wasting power for nothing. That’ll be egg on their face in the next Council session.”

  The Wizard’s eyes followed Magnus as the boy vanished between the towering stacks of purloined research materials and knicknacks. He didn’t need an enchanted crystal to see. His magenta eyes had once belonged to a nightwalker. They were very convenient for late night reading and skulking around underground ruins.

  “Now where did you go, you feathered bastard?” he murmured to himself.