[DAY FOUR…]

  Sam

  "I'm staying."

  Sam looked up from trying to fit the last of the extra supplies Vivi had given them into her bag. Apples stood in the doorway of the room they had shared last night, hands clasped tightly.

  "What do you mean?" Sam asked.

  The young Farmer looked abashed for some reason, and had some trouble getting her words out as she took a few steps into the room. "A-After you went to bed last night, I ended up not being able to sleep, so I stayed up for a while with Ms. Vivi. We ended up discussing some things, and… she agreed to take me on as a maid of sorts. I'll do her cleaning and housework and maintain her garden so she has more time to focus on her work.

  "Getting to care for some plants will be good for me. I might even be able to put on a few levels if I'm lucky."

  "Do you think you'll be happy here?" Sam asked, standing up from her packing.

  "I do. Ms. Vivi has been very kind to me so far."

  Sam laughed, and gathered her friend up in a hug. "That's great news, then!"

  "It is," Apples murmured into Sam's collar, sounding slightly strangled.

  Sam gave her a firm squeeze, then pulled back to regard her at arm's length. "Then why do you look sad?"

  "I know I'm being a coward," Apples said, lowering her chin to her chest and averting her eyes. "You and Mongrel are risking your lives to save Octant Six. You already saved me. You're heroes. I should be helping, but instead…" She trailed off, biting her lip.

  Apples squirmed, but Sam held her in place with a firm grip on both her shoulders. "Don't talk like that! You aren't a coward, Apples, okay? Some people are fighters, and some aren't. There's no shame in admitting when you're in over your head. Best leave the skull-cracking to me and the old man, eh?"

  "Yeah, but…"

  "Besides, the plan was never for you to come with us to the end of the line. You were supposed to find a safe place to live, remember? You've done that now—faster than we expected, too—so let's be happy, yeah?" Sam cracked an encouraging grin.

  Apples blinked up at her. "Anyone ever tell you that you have really nice teeth?"

  "Oh, thanks!"

  "Like, outrageously nice. It's kind of distracting."

  "Thank you!" She chuckled. "I'm not used to getting compliments that are actually meant to be compliments."

  Apples gave a confused frown, but didn't question the statement. Sam let go of her arms, and the plump Farmer took a small step back. "Anyway, I just feel like I should be doing more to help…"

  "You'll keep our secret, won't you?"

  "Of course!"

  "Then you'll have done plenty."

  Sam insisted on another hug, then Apples helped with the rest of the packing. They went downstairs to the kitchen and ate an early breakfast courtesy of Vivi.

  Both women followed Sam and Mongrel to the door when they were getting ready to leave.

  "Here is the dossier I compiled on Buck and potential points of contact in Talltop," Vivi said, handing over a thin paper folder. "Other than that, I have nothing to offer but my well wishes."

  "Thank you, Ms. Vivi," Sam said, stowing the folder away in one of the bags.

  Apples thanked Sam for everything, then they said their goodbyes and suddenly she and Mongrel were out in the cold, dawn painting the sky gold, the night curfew only just lifted.

  They fetched Zero from the stables Mongrel had housed her in, then made directly for the slave market. The place was located on the east side of town, by the river docks It was a sprawl of large, blocky auction buildings and long, narrow housing barracks and less permanent sales tents set up wherever they fit.

  "Right, let's do this quick and painless," Mongrel said, voice still hoarse from sleep. His thinning gray hair was a mess, standing straight up on one side and flattened from his pillow on the other. "We're here a bit early, so the auction houses don't seem to be open yet, but that shouldn't be a problem. They're mostly for high-value slaves and wholesale lots, neither of which are anything we're interested in.

  "Tons of Explorers get sent here to work the mines and paper mills, so finding one won't be difficult. They're all pretty much the same, so we'll just get one that's cheap rather than overpaying for some high-level model. Probably better to get a freshie anyway, since they won't have had time to get their heads filled with whatever nonsense the taskmasters stuff them with."

  "I guess that sounds reasonable," Sam said, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably.

  Even though they'd beaten most of the rush by coming to the market at the crack of dawn, there were still a fair number of people about, mostly workers and taskmasters moving between the buildings, probably doing morning head counts and the like. There was a heavy barge bobbing in the water that was unloading its human cargo onto one of the wooden jetties. Folk chained together, hand and foot—rough-clad and hollow-cheeked and empty-eyed.

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  Sam couldn't help but stare as they shuffled past.

  Such suffering.

  "Don't worry about them," Mongrel said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, and gave Sam's shoulder a light punch. "Whatever you might be thinking of pulling would only make things worse for us and them."

  "I know," Sam replied as she tore her eyes away, chewing on her lower lip. "It's just sad."

  "Yeah, yeah. C'mon, kid—the sooner we get this done, the sooner you won't have to look at this stuff anymore."

  In this instance, Sam was happy to let Mongrel take the lead. She trailed behind him like a lost puppy while he picked his way through the market, dickering briefly with a few merchants and sneering at their prices.

  It felt wrong to think that way, but she was hoping they could follow Mongrel's plan and get this over with. Every collared person she saw was a stab to her heart, and she could swear that their pleading eyes were boring right through her, even though in reality most of them hardly glanced in her direction.

  Then, suddenly, Sam spotted something that made her double-take, stopped in her tracks by sheer confusion.

  In front of a white-and-red pinstripe tent stood a giant cage of black iron, rusted bars thick as a man's wrist. Inside the cage sat a hulking figure—a behemoth swollen with corded muscle, leathery green hide splitting with pink stretch marks at the shoulders and biceps as it struggled to contain the body's tremendous bulk.

  The creature had a big, ugly, bald head with a brick-blunt brow that protruded over its eyes and made them look tiny and beady in comparison. Its thick jaws worked silently, cheeks quivering with striated muscle.

  It was clad in a patchwork of old rags assembled into a sort of short robe, and sat on the ground before a comically small table, holding an equally ant-sized pencil to a blank sheet of paper. Its blubbery lips moved silently over big yellow peg teeth, and its bushy black brows were drawn together seemingly in deep thought.

  "You there!" a voice called out, snapping Sam out of her reverie. "Big fella!"

  It took a moment before Sam realized that she was, in fact, meant to be a fella, and another moment before she realized that the man in the green robe over there was, in fact, pointing right at her.

  "Me?" Sam asked, holding a hand to her chest.

  "Yeah, you!" The man—a Trader—ducked out of the tent and came to stand beside the cage, motioning her over with the walking cane he carried. "Gawking ain't free, you know."

  Sam looked at the creature, then back at the man. "It's standing in public, though."

  "Fuck do I care?" The man spat on the ground. "It's twenty to gawk at the freak."

  Mongrel was halfway to another building before he noticed that Sam had stopped and came marching back over. He looked like he was about to direct some venomous rebuke at the slave trader, but his face fell slack as he came to stare at the huge creature. "Holy hell. How'd he get a troll to wear a dress?"

  "Twenty per person," the slave trader amended, foot tapping the ground. "Elsewise, you two can fuck right off before I sicc the enforcers on you."

  "Whatever," Mongrel muttered, making a jerk-off gesture at the man. "We're not paying a rotten cent to look at some troll like it's something we haven't seen before. Come on, kid." And with that, he turned back toward the place he had been headed for.

  Sam would have followed suit, but noticed something else at the last moment that gave her pause. The troll's bulging forearm was adorned by a line of seven shining AP crystals, along with the symbol of a Scholar.

  It wasn't just some monster.

  It was a person.

  "Yes!" the slave trader said, motioning to the troll. "As you see, this is a one-of-a-kind freak of nature! A monster bestowed with human reason. Yours to marvel at for as long as you like, once you've paid the fee. He even talks." The man thumped his fist against the cage, then waited expectantly.

  "I am Gug," the troll said in a loud, rumbly bass that Sam could swear was powerful enough to set the ground vibrating beneath her. "I am a troll. Do not be frightened by my appearance. I am harmless." He spoke with a flat, bored inflection, as though he had learned the words by heart and was speaking them on rote reflex. He rolled the tiny pencil between two thick sausage fingers, never once looking up from his paper.

  "Huh." Mongrel scratched at his bald spot, wearing a puzzled expression. "That sure is some scam you're running. I don't know how you're doing it, but I'm not going to waste my time finding out." He tugged on Sam's shirtsleeve, motioning insistently toward his destination with his outthrust chin. "Now let's go."

  The troll pawed uselessly at a broad metal collar around his neck, probably big enough for her to use as a belt, his sunken black eyes staring at the blank page.

  He looked sad.

  "You go on ahead," Sam said, shrugging off Mongrel's hand, "I just want to check this out for a minute."

  "Kid, I know you weren't exactly gifted with an abundance of common sense, but as grifts go, this is a pretty obvious one."

  "I guess I'm getting scammed, then. What do you care? It's my money."

  "It's the principle of the thing! Like hell am I going to let a protegé of mine get suckered by by some tacky fucking carnival scam!"

  Sam counted out a stack of paper bills from her bag—500 G—and handed it to Mongrel between two fingers. "That should be enough to buy us an Explorer, right?"

  The old man snatched the money out of her hand before she'd even finished speaking, skimming over the stiff cotton paper himself. "Could use a little more, maybe," he said.

  "That means it's enough."

  Mongrel harrumphed. "Whatever. I'm keeping the change."

  With that he stalked off, leaving Sam to slowly approach the caged troll. The slave trader got his twenty glories, and he glared down at the money in his hand like he was kicking himself for not setting a higher price, having just seen that Sam had plenty to go around.

  "Hello, Gug," Sam said with a tentative smile, craning her neck to try and catch the troll's gaze. "I'm S—... Uh, John. Do you have a minute to talk?"

  She wasn't used to having to look up at someone. Is this what short people feel like? Their necks must hurt all the time.

  The troll finally raised his ponderous head, blinking at her as he only just now registered her existence. "I have writer's block," he stated bluntly, pencil still hovering idly above the page.

  "That sounds hard. Are you a writer, then?"

  "Yes! I am a writer. I am also a genius. A genius writer."

  The slave trader, already about some other business inside his tent, gave a loud sigh. Evidently, he had heard this routine before.

  "Oh, wow," Sam said, nodding along emphatically. "I've never met a genius before."

  Gug's face split in a huge, smug grin. "Heh."

  Sam slowly extended her left hand through the bars, hoping that the troll wouldn't simply rip it out of its socket. "It's very nice to meet you, Gug," she said. "I hope we can be friends."

  Gug stared at her hand for several long moments, sitting statue-still and looking almost startled. Then, very delicately, he tucked his pencil behind one floppy ear and slowly, slowly reached out. His hand was somewhat too large for her to shake properly, so she simply grabbed hold of two huge, rough fingers and gave them a good tug.

  The troll let out a shrill giggle, putting his free hand over his mouth. "I have never had a friend before!" he exclaimed.

  "Would you like one?"

  "Yes! Very very much!"

  The troll's melancholy had completely dispersed, replaced by a pure, childish glee.