‘Stop, I said!’ Sham called after Riot as he heaved himself down the steep stairwell to his building.

She paid no heed, continuing onwards, her attention apparently fixed on only one purpose—revenge.

‘Gods damn it,’ Sham mumbled again as he charged after her. ‘Gods damn it, gods damn it, gods—’

‘They won’t help you now,’ Recollection murmured.

‘—damn it.’ Sham’s body was weak. Recovered somewhat, sure, but still weak. It would take him days, if not weeks, to recover fully from such activity. But he didn’t have such activity. He had…

He checked the position of the sun in the sky. It was low. Evening, then.

Two days.

Two days, Sham had, now, until the Target would destroy the Tower. And he didn’t feel like he was any closer to catching her.

‘Stop!’ Sham tried again as he spilled out onto the street, his eyes scouring the road for sign of Riot. ‘I’m… You know I’m sick. This isn’t—’

‘Fair?’ Recollection interrupted again. ‘When has anything in your life been fair? I definitely don’t recall. You know what else I don’t recall? A single day where you haven’t complained about it.’

‘Is this how you’re gonna be now?’ Sham asked, looking to any observer like he was talking to himself. ‘Chatty?’ He spotted Riot across the street, heading southwest. Heading for End Street.

‘I am whatever I need to be. Can’t say the same about you.’

Sham pressed his lips together, did his best to ignore the voice ringing around his head, and stepped out into the street, hopping to one side to avoid a galloping horse and rider. ‘Watch it!’ the mounted woman cried out, but he paid no heed; ignoring Recollection and making his body put one foot in front of the other was about all he could manage.

Riot was growing further away, the distance between them increasing with every passing second. Sham gritted his teeth together, forced himself to pick up the pace—

[VIGOUR] A LIGHT JOG: FAIL

No.

—And slipped immediately to the floor. He had just enough time in falling to cry out an articulate and eloquent phrase detailing the full extent of his exasperation.

‘Fuck!’

He landed face down in the mud. In dry mud, fortunately, but mud none the less. And he’d hit one of his knees in the process.

He gods damn needed some gods damn Vigour.

‘Maybe you should’ve convinced Asa to give you some, then. Do better, Sham.’

He pressed his hand into the muddy road, then the other, gritting his teeth as he pulled himself away from the ground, and—

A hand grabbed him by the arm, yanked him upright. Sham turned, not quite sure what to expect, but certainly not expecting…

Riot.

‘Thanks,’ Sham said.

The grieving woman only nodded, turning back in the direction she’d been headed, and continued storming onwards.

Did this mean she wanted Sham to follow? Or was it simply an act of pity?

It didn’t matter; either way, Sham would pursue her. He couldn’t let her get into trouble. Even without the quest, and the resulting xp, it just wouldn’t have sat right with him.

His heart rate began to increase—always a sign of interior troubles—as he continued on after Riot, and found himself breathe a sigh of relief as she flagged down a tram. It took Sham jogging again—successfully this time—for a few moments before he caught it, but caught it he did.

He wrenched himself onto the back of the vehicle just as the bell rang and it sprung into life once more, shoving himself into the huddle of massed citizens and forcing them to make space for him. An older woman at his side shot him a dirty look, made a show of scoffing and shaking her head. But Sham didn’t have the energy to care. And wrestling himself onto a tram wasn’t something he hadn’t done many times before—nor would an old woman scoffing stop him from doing it again.

Sham looked down the tram at Riot, catching sight of her through the midst of the crowded heads. She stared out the nearest window, her nostrils flaring, and as the tram turned a sharp bend her glare didn’t break for a second, and in fact her only response was to clutch her fingers more tightly onto the rope straps above her to keep her in place, her knuckles white.

On the same turn, Sham lost his footing slightly, slipping onto the edge of the old woman’s foot. She scoffed again—louder, this time—but that seemed as extravagant as her protestations would get.

It was funny, Sham thought, how your definition of “old” changes as you do. There was a time, a couple of decades earlier, when anyone above the age of, perhaps, twenty-six would have seemed old. Now, in his early forties, it was only those with a mop of grey hair—or no hair at all—that fell into this category in Sham’s eyes. And in another couple of decades, maybe the scoffing woman wouldn’t seem old to Sham either.

He pulled his eyes away from her and fixed them instead on a poster on the nearby wall—one freshly printed among a sea of faded, peeling prints. TRY MAGNETISM, it read, SHE WON’T BE ABLE TO RESIST. A stylised woman with brilliant red lips blew a kiss towards a man in an increasingly-familiar burgundy uniform. There, in the bottom right hand corner, was the emblem of the Citizen’s Police, alongside that ever-present slogan. Be all you can be.

Sham pursed his lips and pulled his attention away.

The late autumn weather broke again as the tram neared their destination at the edge of the Harbour District. A light drizzle soaked the ground, a quiet whisper of drops on road buzzing around them. Sham hopped off the tram as Riot did, albeit at the opposite end, and so they continued their journey onwards in the same way—Sham rushing after a Riot charging on with quick strides.

‘Riot!’ he tried again, finding more the ability to shout after his break on the tram.

She didn’t stop, didn’t turn.

‘Riot! You don’t want to do this!’ he tried again.

This time, Riot turned, and with her gaze Sham felt a burning wrath being laid upon him.

‘Oh yeah?’ she retorted. ‘And why is that? Why wouldn’t I want vengeance on the people who killed my—’

‘It’s not…’ Sham started. ‘It’s not about not wanting vengeance. It’s about them being dangerous. Real dangerous people, Riot. Like you could never—’

Riot strode back to him, standing tall, her face pressed into his. ‘I know you don’t know me very well,’ she said, her voice quiet, and with this quietness was a certain sense of foreboding. ‘But I am not a woman that needs saving. I can be just as dangerous as anyone.’ She turned, began strolling away once more down to the warehouse at the end of End Street.

‘Anyone over in Sunrise, maybe!’ Sham called after her, but the words were lost on the grieving woman. He gulped, put power into his next sentence, put emphasis into it. ‘Don’t go in there, Riot!’

[COMMAND] YOU DON’T WANT TO DO THIS: FAIL

Why would she listen to you? There’s nothing like burning ire to make someone ignore the advice of even those closest to them—let alone a stranger.

But, again, she paid no heed.

‘Might have got somewhere with that skill upgrade…’ the slimy voice of Recollection murmured.

‘I said shut up!’ Sham roared, clutching his head. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut—’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Yes I—’

‘I think I, of all people, would remember.’

Sham gulped again, charged forwards as quickly as his body would carry him towards the warehouse that paid host to Asa’s shadowy organisation. ‘Is that what you are, then? “People?”’

At last, there came no response, and Sham was able to focus on the quest at hand. One that, so far, he was failing to complete. He looked ahead again at Riot, saw her glancing back at him with a peculiar expression on her face, and rushed after her.

‘Gods damn it…’ he mumbled one last time.

Riot, ahead of him, stopped at the perimeter of the warehouse tucked behind cover, and in doing so allowed Sham to catch up to her.

‘What’s the plan here?’ Sham asked, his voice hushed.

‘She told you: Revenge. Or did you forget?’

‘Oh, shut it, you,’ Sham replied, without thinking.

Riot shot him another bemused look. ‘Who are you talking to? Me?’

‘No!’ Sham replied, shaking his head. ‘No, it’s…’ He trailed off. How would he explain to Riot… How could he explain to Riot what he was going through? Skills talking to him were one thing, but his access to these skill vials hinged on the fact that he had literally travelled through time. There was a lot that Riot would need to take on faith, and he really wasn’t sure they were that close.

‘Right,’ Riot replied, then fixed her attention back on the warehouse in front of them. ‘I wouldn’t have let you come with me if I’d known you were mad.’

‘I’m not—’

‘You’re talking to yourself.’

Sham waved the idea away. ‘Yes, but…’

Riot scampered on ahead, keeping low, and to the shadows, out of sight of the two guards each smoking a cheap, petrol-scented cigar at the far side.

‘Gods damn it,’ Sham said again, and then told himself that really was the last time he’d say it. You know, just in case any of them were real. He scarpered after Riot, keeping low just as she had, but finding his heart rate rising already. Trouble of the illness kind was incoming.

Riot didn’t spare Sham another glance as he arrived at her side once more.

‘I’m not mad,’ he whispered.

‘Shh.’

‘But—’

‘Shh!’ she said again, this time accompanying the sound with the typical finger to the lips. Just in case Sham didn’t understand what it meant. Like he was a child.

Sham watched as Riot eyed up the two guards standing at ease at their post. She moved her hand to her revolver, perhaps unconsciously.

‘I really don’t think you’re a killer,’ Sham said.

‘They are, though. Aren’t they? You’re sure?’

Sham shrugged. ‘Yes, but… We don’t know what driven them to it. Maybe they’ve been trodden on by society all their—’

‘You’re using poverty to excuse murder, now?’ Riot shot back at him.

He hesitated. No. He supposed he wasn’t. In answer, he shrugged again. ‘Doesn’t mean you need to do this,’ he whispered.

‘Who, then, will avenge Kryl? The police? Whether that’s the Legion or Citizen’s Police, I don’t trust them to do their jobs. Do you?’

She had a point.

‘So, what, then?’ Sham whispered, taking care not to let his hushed voice rise too much. ‘You’re going to kill them, then, are you?’

Before Riot could answer, someone coughed pointedly at their left.

The pair of heads turned slowly to face the source of the noise. Standing there, at the gates of the warehouse grounds, was a familiar figure. She stood tall, dressed largely in black but sporting a green cloth wrapped around her head and neck, the material torn.

‘You’re really starting to get on my nerves, you know that?’ the Target said.

The two guards scrambled to attention, following the line of sight of the Target and spotted, crouching behind a low wall, Sham and Riot.

‘There’s a pattern, you know,’ the Target continued as the guards approached and Sham and Riot rose slowly. ‘I break out dear old Gresley, and in return, I am given all the vials I need. But twice, now, you’ve threatened that. And I really can’t have you threatening the process.’

‘Your friend?’ Riot asked.

The guards drew their weapons. Pointed them not at the Target—friend, as she apparently was—but instead at Sham and Riot.

‘...Sham?’ Riot started.

‘Yes?’

‘Duck.’

It took Sham half a second for him to understand her meaning, but then duck he did.

Shots rang out sporadically around him as he cowered behind his cover. He was aware of Riot shooting first, of two shots ringing out in response and thuds as the rounds hit the other side of the wall.

A groan of pain.

Fortunately, not from Riot, who was still firing semi-blindly over the top of the wall. One of the guards, then, clipped by one of Riot’s rounds.

Sham glanced to his right, back to where the Target had been standing, and saw… nothing.

His heart dropped.

Sham had seen what this woman was capable of on multiple occasions now. She was like a spider; if he knew where she was, then, yes, she was still a little terrifying. But it was nothing compared to seeing her one minute and not knowing where she was the next.

The warehouse doors groaned open. Footsteps approached from inside. A great many pairs of footsteps, in fact.

‘Riot, we got to run, we—’

‘I got this!’ she hissed through clenched teeth, firing blindly again over their cover.

A fired round clipped the top of the wall, sending brick scattering over them.

‘No, you don’t! You’re barely managing with these guards, let alone my so-called friend.’

‘Unless I’m mistaken, she didn’t look like much.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ Sham replied. ‘Let’s go. We need to go now, OK?’

Riot said nothing, instead only continuing her attack on Asa’s associates. Sham, fearing the Target’s return, poked his head up ever so slightly over the wall… and spotted her immediately.

He glimpsed her standing in the open doorway to the warehouse, a dozen of Asa’s guards standing at her side, a worrying grin stretched across her face.

Here she comes.

Sham turned back to his new accomplice. ‘Gods damn it, Riot, it’s time to—’

No. No. He was done asking. It was time to command.

[SELECT SKILL UPGRADE]

[Seasoned] // [Heart of Janus] // [[Command]]

[SKILL UPGRADED]

COMMAND: Common

‘Riot,’ Sham said again, forcing his voice hard and firm. ‘We’re going. Now.’

The grieving woman took one last glance over her shoulder, then, finally, she nodded. ‘Where?’

It was a good question.

Reaching the safety of the road would mean crossing a good thirty feet of open ground, with a dozen men firing revolvers at them. Even considering the distance between them and their attackers, he didn’t fancy his chances of not getting hit by at least one bullet.

But, of course, they could leave the way he’d originally snuck in, all those days ago—the electrical substation that opened up onto the rear of the warehouse.

Sham led his accomplice, crouched down low behind the wall that ended at the closest corner of the warehouse building, and then stood into a sprint as he reached the cover of the higher wall. He bombed it down the side of the building, praying that Riot was close behind him, and turned a corner along the coastline. The pair of them reached the door to the substation not a few moments later, and Sham wrenched the door—

It didn’t budge.

Someone had locked it.

‘Shit.’

‘You got a backup plan here?’ Riot asked, the high-pitched tones to her voice betraying her fear.

‘Err…’

‘Sham…’

He clasped his hands over his eyes. ‘Let me think!’

‘You remember, don’t you, Sham? There’s an answer here…’

‘I’m bloody trying, alright!’ he said, pushing his palms into his face.

‘I didn’t say—’ Riot started.

MEMORY UNLOCKED (RECOLLECTION)

The electrical substation. Damp, acrid, grimey. Cables line the walls of the repurposed building, taking the place of the—

‘Sewers!’ Sham cried out.

‘What?’

‘This was a sewer access—’ he started, then shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. No time.’

He ran for the edge of the flood defences, lifting up a subtle iron grate which prevented passers-by from falling into Haven’s sewer network. Riot approached, then recoiled from the smell.

‘It’s this or death, Riot.’

She pursed her lips, and then jumped inside.

QUEST COMPLETE: LIFE’S A RIOT

Riot is about to do something stupid. Stop her.