The Subterrane is a dark place. I mean that both figuratively and literally, but mostly literally. It’s really damn hard to see down here, if you don’t have eye clank. I do, but almost no one else down here does, and I always end up wondering how people don’t end up flattening their noses running into stuff all the time, living in the caves.

Then again, from the things you hear about the place, a wall is one of the least dangerous things you can run into down here.

I think I’ve mentioned a couple times that Wellspring City is old. Really, really old. With all these millennia passing in the same fenced-in place, they’re going to end up layering on top of one another, and that’s how the Subterrane happened. Literally. The deeper into the catacombs and ancient ruins you go, the further back in time you wind up. Just under the surface is stuff from the past few centuries - ruined buildings, old abandoned basements, remnants from sinkhole collapses, some more modern mining tunnels. A few hundred feet down, you start seeing signs of civilizations that definitely aren’t human. Relics, carvings, crumbling temples and libraries that the elves and dustfolk left behind to be picked clean.

Way, way down, into the waiting dark, where the air is heavy with time and the waters run to nowhere… there’s no telling what you’ll find. I mean it - there’s no telling. Whether because of accidents, fear, or something more sinister, knowledge of the Subterrane starts to run out once you cross a certain depth. Expeditions have been made, sure, but the deeper they dig, the less likely it becomes that they’ll ever come back.

It’s dangerous down here. It’s dangerous the instant you slip under the city’s pavement skin, into the top layer. This is where the people with nowhere else to go end up. At the bottom. No one’s really sure how many Lowlifes there are. No one’s really tried to find out. These are the people for whom light is a burden, that prefer to stay in the dark, away from the rest of society. I’ll let you paint your own mental picture as to why that would be. The term “Lowlife” isn’t just a geographical descriptor.

After taking the train across the sector wall to Sixteen, I find a puncture point - a hole in the city’s hide. These take all kinds of shapes. Sometimes they’re literal stairs that anyone can walk down. Sometimes they’re sewer grates, or hatches, or hastily-dug tunnels in the basement of an abandoned building. There are all kinds of ways into the Subterrane. My preferred one in this area is a steel storm door behind a slaughterhouse - the horrible bloody runoff from the building flows into gutters in the passage, and the smell discourages the curious. Fortunately I’ve got a tougher nose than most.

After slithering my way through the gory tunnel, I wind up at a junction, where the tunnels split in a few directions. This is just one of many reasons why the faint of heart don’t come down here - maps of the Subterrane are rare, and it’s easy to get lost in the dark if you don’t already know where you’re going. I pick my passage and continue on.

Time moves strangely when you’re down here. Slower or faster, seemingly at random. The stony blackness all seems to blend together when you’re in the intestines of the earth, making it difficult to judge how long you’ve been walking. Lack of stimulus to the brain, I think. People aren’t meant to be in a place like this, and the mind reacts. Cave hypnosis, I think they call it. Your thoughts wander, you stop paying attention, and you end up walking right off a cavern ledge or something. Some of the more superstitious Lowlifes insist that it’s a kind of curse - a silent song that the darkness sings, to lure people to their doom.

Very spooky and all, but I can see more or less everything down here without a problem. It’s mostly green and fuzzy, but I’m not going to be diving headfirst into empty space. Technology pierces the mystical once again.

This passage spits me out into a much wider cavern after taking me a good distance downhill. There are people here, and their torches and electrite lamps let me turn my nightvision down a bit.

I’ll hand it to the Lowlifes, they’ve done their best with what they can scrape together. They’ve got clapboard and sheet metal huts glued into the ups and downs of the cavern floor and walls. There’s a little stream running through here too, for water. I can see a few of them, huddled around fires and lamps, murmuring to one another among the stones. And I can see them see me. A big boy like me can’t stay stealthy in an echoing environment like this, and these cave crickets are hypervigilant - always watching for outsiders, checking to see whether any new visitor is predator or prey.

If I were anyone else, I’d be prey, full stop. These guys aren’t known for their hospitality. If you look like you have money, they’re going to take it from you. If you’re attractive, they’ll take a certain something else from you. In some parts of the Subterrane, further down, I’ve heard the Lowlifes will swarm you not for your riches or your orifices, but for your meat. I figure that makes an amount of sense. This far down, you’re not likely to get any shipments of vatmeat any time soon, and really, what’s a human but a particularly opinionated kind of edible animal?

These ragged troglodytes are looking from their fire-lit corners, but they won’t bite. I’m just too big. Even if they found some unity and ganged up, it’s clear that I’d mash up at least a few of them before going down, and none of them are brave enough to risk being one of the unlucky few. That’s predators for you - an entire life strategy built on low-hanging fruit.

And the Lowlifes are one of a few reasons why the Consortium meets down here - presence of law is so minimal that mages can use their powers in self-defense without much fear of arrest. It’s not like the denizens here are going to go topside and tattle.

I leave this cavern and take another tunnel going south. Not long down it, there’s a capillary offshoot so narrow that I have to turn a bit to the side just to get inside. At the end of this, there’s a small stone room with a spiral staircase corkscrewing further down into the dark. Not a natural formation, but not something that looks old enough to have been left here by a previous civilization or anything. Probably molded directly out of the stone by one of the Consortium’s geomancers. I clomp my way down the thing for about a few hundred years, and just when my knees are starting to call for a mutiny against my brain, I find the landing. This shaft must go down at least ten stories into the earth.

The only thing here is an undecorated stone chamber like the one above, with a single door. Well, not really a door - it’s just a blank rectangular metal plate, no rivets or hinges or handle. I saunter up and pound my fist on it a few times.

After a few seconds, I can feel something slither into my head from nowhere. Like a slug, squishing itself into the folds in my brain. It’s very unpleasant, like having your brain meat being kneaded by a baker with extremely clammy hands, and sends a bunch of static into my vision.

The phantom worm in my skull says, “Step back from the door, Featherlight.” Then it evaporates. I back up a few paces and bump my palm against the side of my head a few times, clearing the fuzz from my visual processor. I hate telepathy. My head is already a confused biomechanical mess without someone else jabbing their psychic fingers into it.

There’s a weird thrumming sound, and the metal plate pops out of its recess with an abrupt magnetic wham. A few electrical arcs crackle off the thing, and it hovers to one side, letting out a gust of air and revealing the way in.

Standing behind the door are two people I’ve seen at meetings before but never learned the names of. A purple-haired, skinny female telepath and a burly bearded guy in work coveralls, who’s probably some kind of electromancer with a specialty in magnetism. They don’t look happy to see me. Frankly, neither am I.

They both stand to one side in the narrow tunnel to let me through. It’s not wide enough for me, though, so there’s a lot of very humorous jostling and shuffling of feet as I squeeze past them. I can hear the magnemancer seal the door behind me with a buzzing clang that makes my ears pop.

At the end of the narrow entryway is a much wider room, about the size of a house, with a slightly higher ceiling. Just like all the ones before, it’s just smooth, blank stone, neutral and utilitarian. On the walls are a few fixtures for electric lamps, but there’s no power cables going to or from them. The middle of the chamber has a raised circular platform.

Standing around this dais are the members of the Consortium. There’s a few dozen of them, and they’re all looking directly at me as I walk in. I give a sarcastic smile and wave, a few roll their eyes, and they go back to their conversations. There’s no pattern to them at all. Old, young, male, female, some with clank, some without, clothing from all different walks of life. They’re all so different that they blend together into a kind of homogeneous soup. No other slabs, though, which just makes me stand out all the more because I’m a good two feet taller than everyone else.

The vitae in here is insane, and I shut my metaphysical eyes to drown out all the noise. A single arcanist’s vitae is like a loudspeaker, and this is an entire room full of them. I do feel a thrashing torrent of fire off in one corner, and that can only be one person. I lean against a wall as nonchalantly as I possibly can, and Emaphra walks over to my right.

“You made it.”

I nod. “So did you. The Lowlifes give you any trouble?”

“They tried, but it’s hard to want to mug someone that’s on fire. You?”

“Nah, I’m too ugly. We still waiting for anyone?”

“Your girlfriend, and a few others.”

I narrow my shutters at her. “Berix still thinks she’s in charge around here?”

She shrugs. “Who else?”

I frown. “I dunno. You? You’ve got a reasonably imposing personality.”

She rolls her eyes. “I spend enough of my time corralling children during my day job. If Berix wants to pretend like she’s the boss, let her. At least things get done faster with her around.”

A strange-sounding, bubbly voice somewhere around my left elbow says, “Hey, Featherlight.” I turn to look at who’s bold enough to greet me.

Standing next to me is an average-sized person dressed head-to-toe in a diving suit. Not a sleek wetsuit with flippers or something - one of those armored high-pressure deep diving suits, with the brass plates, heavy metal boots, black rubber, two air tanks on the back, and spherical riveted helmet with the single cyclopean porthole window in the front. I can’t see anything through the porthole - just darkness. The whole rig has to weigh dozens of pounds, and looks extremely out of place in this crowd of relatively normally-dressed people.

I nod and reply pleasantly, “Oh, hey Delpo. Been a while. How’s things?”

The diving suit shrugs and replies through his burbly electronic amplifier, “Eh, you know how it is. One shitpit to another. Hi Emaphra.” He waggles a metal-and-rubber hand at her goofily.

Em smiles and replies, “Hello, Delpo.”

Delpo gives an extravagantly low bow with a symphony of clanking plates and squeaking rubber insulation, then flops a hand around foppishly while saying, “May I impose my companionship upon the twice of thee?” He stands up straight. “You guys are two of the only people here whose names I can actually remember. And between you and me…” he gives a furtive look from side to side and holds a conspiratorial hand up to his helmet, then hisses extremely loudly, “... I think this room might be full of goddamned weirdos. Buhuhuhuh.”

I snort. “Impose away, friend. The more the merrier. We normal-type folk have to stick together, don’t we?”

Delpo Dellweather is an odd duck, but I like him. We’re not great friends or anything, but we’ve spoken a few times and he’s always been nicer to me than most other people at these meetings. He’s a hydromancer, as his getup might suggest. His vitae is a carbonated wash of bubbles of different sizes and colors, all mixing around in a flowing current of red-orange-blue fluid - effervescent and a little strange, just like the man it belongs to.

I’ve never seen what he looks like outside of his diving suit, and I don’t think anyone ever has. He finds most of his work pipe diving for the city’s water department, so the equipment makes a certain amount of sense, but I have no idea why he doesn’t take the thing off. My running theory is that he’s a mutant. It’s supposedly very rare, but I’ve heard that magic sometimes has physical effects on the body. I think the deluvium turned him into some kind of horrible fish monster, and he uses the suit like a water-filled mobile aquarium so he can breathe.

Okay, there’s a slim chance he might not actually be a fish person, but none of the other possible explanations are as fun to think about. And as something of a mutant myself, it would be pretty vindicating to know that someone else has it just as bad as me.

He crosses his arms and wobbles a bit back and forth at the waist. “That’s right. Unity is important. Especially when the word on the street is ‘murder’. And I hear that word comes from your mouth, Featherlight Baulricson.”

I frown at his blank dark eye. “It’s no rumor, Delpo. Two killings so far. Both by magic. Two leads to three and maybe more. We could be looking at some dark times ahead.”

The diver’s helmet speaker crackles with a bubbling sound that’s just enough like laughter to be offputting. “I’m always looking at dark times. And I swim through them. My heart would fatten with joy if the Brotherhood tried to get a grip on me. I’m slippery.” He squats down suddenly with his hands out. “Like a soapy eel. Or some kind of butter snake.” He snaps back upright, hand on hip and shaking his head derisively. “Do you have any idea how far down the tunnels here go?”

“I’m guessing pretty far.”

Delpo jabs a finger up at my face. “So far, so good. And the Dark River makes sure that almost all of them are nice and flooded once you go deep enough. Plenty of cave fish. Kind of rubbery when raw, but the flavor’s alright. Let ‘em come, I say. I’ll be fine in deep.”

Emaphra raises a disapproving eyebrow. “You might, but a lot of others might not be. Probably won’t be.”

The hydromancer shrugs. “You see floodwaters coming, learn to swim. And if you don’t, you get washed away. The elves didn’t listen, and they drowned. Even the dragons couldn’t fly high enough.”

The air by my right arm gets noticeably warmer. A few people look in our direction - other pyromancers sensitive to the phlogiston swelling in Em’s body. Her dark eyes take on a threatening edge.

“Some of us have to protect those that can’t swim. Some of us don’t have the luxury of slithering away.”

Delpo holds up his hands in surrender. “I take your point, firebrand. Don’t read me wrong. Retreating to the depths isn’t my first instinct, it’s just one of them. Unity first, like I said. But I’m also saying that it pays to know your way out when the struggle doesn’t land your way. If the flood comes, you need a place to go, unless you want to admire the interior architecture of the Arcanix for the rest of your life.”

Her glare stays fixed. “I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

Delpo holds up a finger. “Aha. But you might not have to.” He looks from side to side again, then steps closer, continuing in hushed tones. “I see a lot from the waterways, and I’ve been getting ready, just in case. Working on a place. Far down. Way far down. Impossible to find unless you already know where it is, and impossible to get to unless you can warp the waters. I’m offering you a ticket on, when all this boils over. There’s enough space down there for you and all the kids you watch over. Not fancy, and you’ll have to get used to the taste of cave fish and mushroom fricassee, but it’s safe. All you have to do is send me a message through the pool, and I can guide you there.”

Em squints at him. “What’s the catch? Why us?”

The faceless man shrugs again. “No catch. Why you? Because I don’t trust many of the others here, and you’re worth hiding away. So are you, Featherlight. Like I said, I see a lot. I know your work. I might not be brave, but I have a heart. There’s room in my secret clam shell for more than just me, and if it’d be anyone, I’d rather you.”

I frown, then look to Em. She returns my look, but I can’t tell precisely what she’s thinking. Her fire dies down, though, and I know why. She’s been thinking about the orphanage. If there’s an inquest and she gets snagged, there won’t be much support for the kids. The kids themselves might wind up victims depending on how far the Brotherhood want to go. Em doesn’t show it, but I know this has been eating at her. I know it was the first thing she thought of when I first gave the warning, far before her own safety.

She replies, “That’s very kind of you, Delpo. If worst comes to worst, I’ll take you up on it. I’ll admit, this is… unexpectedly noble.”

“All things in time and tide. Unity first.” He angles his porthole at me. “What about you, big son?”

I shake my head. “I appreciate the offer, and it’s good of you to look after the kids. I’d like to hole up just as much as anyone else would. But I can’t. I’m a resource best spent up here. If I do the work right, we might not need to hide at all.”

Delpo taps his finger on his helmet. Ting ting. “The hunter has to hunt. I used to be a fisherman, you know. I know how to wait patiently. I could be of use to you, too.”

“I don’t doubt that, Delpo. What do you mean?”

“There is more to this city than the buildings. All kinds of dark corners, some that not even you can get to. Killers have to hide. I can be your eye in the deep.” He waggles his fingers dramatically.

“Hmmm. Okay, Mr. Dellweather. I don’t know precisely what we’re looking for yet, but if you want to swim around and tell me if you see anything fishy, I’d appreciate it.”

He rubs his hands together. “No fish hides from me for long. I will lay my nets well, and send word of any good catch.”

We talk for a while. Delpo, being a guy who makes his living in the watery dark, is a more-or-less ceaseless source of stories, especially about weird stuff he’s found clogging up the city’s sewer pipes. Some more mystical things too - rumors of odd things he’s felt in the water. He’s of the opinion that there are monsters in the Subterrane - huge things lurking below, that he’s felt changes in the water pressure so extreme that they couldn’t come from anywhere else. Heard rumbling groans as loud as gunshots but as long as avalanches. I guess he’s one of the only ones that would actually have a shot of knowing firsthand, but lots of superstitious people say the same. Without proof, I call them tall tales. Until I’m being chewed on by one, I’ll keep my belief in what I can see and punch.

Having him on my side is an undeniable asset, though. He’s a little quixotic, but he’s also correct, on two counts. He can go places I can’t, and our perpetrators could be anywhere. It could be that nothing comes of it, but I’d rather have his help than not. And it’s good to know there are other people willing to pitch in with the search.

After a few minutes, the door opens again, and a woman walks in. Berix. She confers with the purple-haired telepath for a moment, who I’m assuming has been taking attendance.

Looking at Berix, you wouldn’t expect her to be the one that’s seized control of the only gathering of arcanists left in the known world. Looking at her, you’d expect a librarian, or maybe an accountant, or a secretary. Something boring. She’s a middle-aged, gray-haired, sort of dumpy-looking woman. I’ve never seen her wear anything other than formal office attire - gray skirts and blazers, utilitarian heels. Wire-frame glasses, no jewelry, hair restrained in a very tidy bun. Not pretty, not ugly. If she didn’t have the personality of a bureaucratic sledgehammer it’d be hard to pay attention to her without falling asleep. But I’ll admit - when you’re oft-hunted, sometimes the best strategy is invisibility. She definitely looks the part of inoffensive average citizen.

But she isn’t. She just levitated into the air on a summoned jet of wind and landed gracefully on the dias in the middle of the room. Average citizens can’t really do much with wind at all, except break it occasionally.

Now that someone’s installed themselves as the center of attention, the room goes quiet. I haven’t been to one of these in a while, but it’s clear that everyone’s gotten well used to listening to her by now. She starts talking, and her voice (deep and clear, like a big bell) is unnaturally loud. Aeromancer’s trick - changing the properties of the air in and around your own lungs to give you a sonic boost.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming. I apologize for gathering you all under such short notice, but as some of you are already aware, a situation has developed which I believe requires swift action to resolve. It has come to my attention that an unknown number of arcanists have taken leave of their senses and fallen to crime of the most grievous sort - murder.”

A few murmurs stir in the crowd. Dark looks, widened eyes.

“This knowledge comes to us from the mercenary Baulric Featherlight,” a few more murmurs, suspicious this time, and some quick looks thrown in my direction, “who has analyzed the two victims as part of his collaborations with the Watch, and determined through biomantic observation that both were killed directly by magic.

“Before engaging in baseless speculation, I will defer the floor, so we can have the account from the only firsthand observer. Mr. Featherlight, could you come up here and explain the situation to us?”

She beckons me with a hand. I push off the wall I’m leaning on and heave myself up the dias steps. Berix steps down, back into the crowd.

Now that I’m up here and looking down at the entire Consortium, it strikes me how few of us there really are. There’s maybe two-hundred people here, of the nearly four thousand mages in the city. The bar for entry is pretty high - they only want those that are demonstrably competent and trustworthy. What’s the point of being exclusive to the point that you can’t exert any control over anything? I guess two-hundred agents is better than zero, but if I were in charge, I’d start a damn recruitment drive or something.

I clear my throat and begin. “Hi. Good to see you all again. It’s been… what, three or four years since you all decided I wasn’t welcome anymore and stopped sending me invitations? Haha. Good times. Water under the bridge though, I’m sure, I’m just happy to be useful.

“Three days ago, Sidri Rediron was killed in an alley in Sector Ten. He was burnt to a crisp and stuck to a wall. Nothing but black bones. By the time I was called to the scene, almost all his vitae was gone, but there was just enough left for me to examine it. There was phlogiston all over it. Two days later, yesterday, another man was killed. This time, a Brotherhood preacher. Drowned. Killed by water in Sector Thirteen. Body soaked with deluvium.

“If my math is right, that makes two killers. Two bodies. And there could be more on the way. My contacts within the Watch have held the story from the media to prevent a panic, but those of you that know Lord Rediron know that that isn’t going to last for longer than a few days at most. There’s talk of an inquest. I don’t know when, I don’t know whether it’ll be approved, but it’s what I’ve heard from middle-ranking Watch officers.

“And curiously enough, two pyromancers and a hydromancer have gone missing recently. Some of you know might know them. Monnert Littlerock, Aklei Horsebreaker, and Kaiamora Stonecutter. Far be it from me to call the case closed or anything, but I find that to be more than just coincidental.

“That’s it. I’ll take questions now if you’ve got any.”

There’s silence for a few moments while people deliberate with their neighbors. Then, the bearded magnemancer from the door speaks up.

“Which precinct has this case?”

I reply, “Tenth, Special Investigations. Lieutenant Deepwell’s in command, for now, but if this keeps going on without results, my guess is that pressure from Rediron and the rest of the Tribunal will result in the case being kicked somewhere upstairs.”

A stringy-looking guy with limp brown hair and a petulant frown asks, “And how exactly do you know all this? Why does the Watch talk to you? Who are you, exactly?”

I smile at him with all the love in my big fat heart. “You must be new around here. Hi. I’m Baulric Featherlight. Biomancer, slab, and occasional bounty hunter. Great to meet you, buddy. The Watch sometimes brings me on as a consultant when mages do crimes, because I’m good at hunting mages. Biomancy lets me see people’s life energy. Mages in particular have very distinctive scents, which I can track. And I track them. For justice. And money.”

A stentorian voice on my right booms, “A collaborator and leech, in other words.”

I turn and see a guy that might be the second biggest boy in the chamber, after me. He’s cheating, though - he’s wearing an old outdated model of Centurion armor, the plates fixed with red-orange enamel. There are four gold stars set into the metal of each shoulder. The helmet’s folded open, revealing a lantern-jawed warhorse of a man with very brown skin and an admittedly spectacular gray mustache like the upswept wings of a goddamn harpy eagle. His arms are folded imperiously, his smoldering eyes are locked on mine. I know that look. Target acquired.

I look down at him and reply. “Oh, hello Ex-General Highclaw. I thought you’d retired. From life. On account of you being incredibly old. Name-calling isn’t really a question, do you want to try again?”

His expression doesn’t change - it’s not possible for Highclaw to despise me more than he already does. “After betraying dozens of your own kind to the clutches of our oppressors, what reason do we have to trust you? Your word is all there is to substantiate these claims of death by magic. You claim to possess this ability, but I see no proof. Regardless, you could have brought this to us rather than directly to the feet of your masters. I say you have fabricated this evidence to drive up bounty rates. Driven us to the brink of inquest for nothing more than a pat on the head and a sack of coins. I name you liar and coward.”

This gets the crowd whispering.

Cool as a mountaintop icicle, I say, “Highclaw, you were the oppressors until about eight years ago. I find your accusations a tad hypocritical considering you spent forty years putting more arcanists behind bars than I ever have. The only reason you switched sides is because you suddenly became what you used to hunt. That paints your zealotry in a pretty convenient light.” I tap my oculars. “The footage from the crime scenes is right up here. I can send you the stills if you want to see them. As far as trust…” I turn to the crowd at large. “I’ll let you all decide. These two killings were abnormal enough for Special Investigations to get the assignment, and they were stumped before I got there. They were going to blame magic anyway, with or without my confirmation. Believe me or don’t, but two men are dead, and the city is going to want justice from all our hides, whether we work together or stand around pointing fingers like a bunch of morons. We need to find who did it before that happens. If none of you want to help, I’ll do it by myself. Any more questions?”

No one says anything. I ignore the twin coals of Highclaw’s eyes trying to sear a hole in the side of my head. His shame and lingering sense of pride aren’t going to let him take my jibes in stride. He might be publicly disgraced, but he was a general. He might still have connections. I’ll have to keep my eyes open.

“No? Great. I’ve got work to do. You all know how to get in touch with me. Send me a message if you know anything about the three missing mages. Or bring it to the Watch. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, as long as the information gets to someone that can help finish this. I’ll just see myself out. Oh, and can someone change Highclaw’s diaper? I think he’s a bit cranky. Bye now!”

I hop off the platform and make my way toward the door, waving to Em and Delpo on my way past. The magnemancer, looking a bit puzzled between me and the group discussion brewing at my back, lets the charge off the door, and I make my egress. Seems like a pretty abrupt exit, I know, but I do have work to do, and I don’t want to be here anymore. I outstayed my welcome with most of these people years ago and I don’t feel the need to suffer myself upon them further. I did my part - everyone’s up to speed now. They can decide what their next play is.

I make my way back up all the goddamn stairs (my eternal nemesis) and into the Subterrane caverns, on autopilot toward home.

Time for me to get my head on straight and figure out what to do next. It’s good that I’m not the only arcanist in the know about this anymore, but I’m not sure yet how much help it’ll be. In terms of crime solving and community safety, it’s probably a net gain, but in terms of me being paid for crime solving, it’s not looking so positive. Putting these maniacs behind bars before the city boils over is priority number one, but I’d really like to be the one who gets the credit and paycheck for it. Now I have to move faster than the Watch and the Brotherhood and the Consortium. Sure. Piece of cake. It’s only a few thousand versus one, I’m game. Bring it on.

… Alright, I’m not really so confident. If I was smart, I’d start looking for other potential sources of income in the meantime, maybe check some of the other bounty boards for something less hot. But the more time I spend doing that, the less chance I have of solving this one. There is one thing I’ve got on my side though - my laziness, believe it or not. I’m the only party involved that has absolutely nothing else on his plate. I can work around the clock on this one case without any other distractions. The Watch and the rest can’t really say the same. I should press that advantage while I can.

First order of business… probably the Horsebreaker kid. It’s the only solid lead I’ve got. Address, relatives that have close contact with him. Easier than trying to track down any solid information for the other two. I’ll start there. If it turns up nothing… well, I’ll figure something out. God knows I’m not the cleverest of men, but if I keep sniffing around, something’s bound to turn up.

Speaking of which… there’s an odd shape in the distance. I’m in another cavern, a smaller one than before, that leads to an exit a bit closer to where I live. I think. I haven’t been through here before, but I’m pretty sure this passage links up with the ones under Sector Eighteen. Not much more than a narrow worn path winding through the stalactites and high rocks. Through a clearing in the stony formations on the other side of the room, I can see… what is that? I left the torches behind me when I walked out of the Lowlife outpost. It’s dark. With my night vision on, everything’s white-green and blurry, so I can barely make it out. But it’s definitely not a rock, like everything else I can see. The angles are too sharp. It looks… human shaped? Someone standing there? Not moving, either. Shit.

I stop walking dead in the middle of the cave, my eyes fixed on whatever it is. I try zooming in, but it doesn’t do anything for the image resolution. Smudgy pixelated mess. The path goes upward a little to the mouth of an exit passage, and the thing is standing right next to the exit. It’s got the height advantage.

It almost looks like a… haha, no, because that’s… that’s impossible. Isn’t it? I would have felt it by now. Can’t be.

Playing it safe, I do my best statue impression for a few minutes, stock still on my side of the cavern, totally exposed. Just breathing. The thing doesn’t move at all - not a single pixel. Maybe it is a rock. Am I trying to stare down a rock right now? If I am, that’s one suspicious-looking rock, and I might try and knock it over if I get to it.

I take a few steps closer. Just three, to see what it does. It does absolutely nothing, so, we seem to be establishing some kind of behavioral pattern. Which is great, because this is precisely the kind of thing that inanimate objects do all the time. Very reassuring.

Before going any closer, I fan my vitae out. It’s a little past my regular sensory range, but if I focus just in this one direction, I should be able to get some kind of reading, if what I’m looking at is what I think it is. And… nope. There’s a couple cave crickets and a blind salamander between me and it, but it’s not alive. And more importantly, it doesn’t have the signature twisted corona of the thing it looks awfully similar to.

I wind my vitae back and take a few more steps. Nothing. The yawning stone dark is silent all around me, except for a few plips of water falling down from somewhere above.

Okay. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I lengthen my stride and advance on the figure with greater confidence.

It’s definitely a different color than the surrounding rock. A little lighter. Very subtly more reflective. Still not moving… still person-shaped. The image gets clearer as I get closer. That’s…

That’s a fucking Wellwarden.

I stop dead, about fifty yards away from it. My big fat heart starts hammering like a drunk trying to get back inside after last call.

There’s just no mistaking it. More than eight feet tall, inhumanly broad, completely covered in heavy plate armor. No face - just a black line in its helmet where eyes would usually go. This one has a ten-foot halberd made of dark metal in its right fist, the haft planted on the stone like a flagpole. A bit less heavy-duty than some of the massive swords and mauls I’ve seen the things carry, but still probably capable of hacking my body in half like a stalk of wheat with a single swipe.

It’s not standing in the way of the exit. It’s just to the side. Totally still. And from what I can see, not even looking at me.

Why can’t I feel it? I should have felt this thing’s presence from clear across the other side of the cave. But there’s nothing. It doesn’t have any kind of signature that I can pick up on. I could be dead right now, or close to it. I don’t think I’m guilty of anything in particular by being down here, but who knows? I’ve seen one of these things tear a guy’s hand off at the wrist right in the middle of the street for trying to steal an apple. I have no idea what their internal regulations are for the enforcement of law and order, but they display a pretty clear pattern of totally emotionless dismemberment at the least.

Why isn’t it moving? Is it dead? Or… off? I don’t know, dammit, if these things sleep, no one ever told me about it. And I’ve never heard of them coming down to the Subterrane either.

But something’s up. With everything that’s been going on lately, I’m not convinced of anything one way or another. Or maybe it’s just a statue, like a prankster metalworker put it here or something. That would be super mean, but possible, I guess. And it’d explain why I can’t sense it. Maybe someone’s trying to discourage people from taking this passage by putting up a scarecrow? Scarehuman, more accurately? That’s… actually kind of brilliant if that’s the case. But I’m the exact guy who can’t be tricked by a fake Wellwarden. You’d need a bit more than scrap metal to complete the full picture.

Shit. I made myself curious. What warrants being guarded by a fake Wellwarden? You’d need a lot of metal and skill to build even a facsimile of one that’d pass basic scrutiny. It’d probably work on the Lowlifes, at least for a bit. Color me suspicious. I’m going this way anyway, and I’m not about to turn around for a statue, no matter how scary the thing it’s copying. I get a little closer.

It still doesn’t move, and produces nothing I can feel.

Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll muster my vitae right to the edge of use, and approach to get a good look at the thing up close. If I’m wrong and it shows even the slightest sign of life, I can muscle up in an instant. Not to fight the thing, obviously, because punching a Wellwarden would accomplish nothing but a broken hand followed by a swift death, but to take advantage of the increased speed and agility and run the hell away. Hopefully its anti-magic aura isn’t able to completely erase my energy in an instant if I gather up a bunch beforehand. And if it’s nothing but a big ol’ tin soldier, I’ll knock it over and see what it’s guarding.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, I guess this guy’s never seen a movie before, what a big fat idiot,” then you’re only mostly right. I have seen a film before. Once, I think. When I was… eleven? Look, they don’t let people like me into theaters and I can’t afford a viewscreen. Also I am an idiot, but I can’t help it. I have a moral obligation to investigate these kinds of things. Apparently. Hopefully I don’t die instantly.

I ascend the stone path and get to within ten feet of the thing. Still not moving, which somehow doesn’t make it seem any less threatening. Up close, I can see some of the details on its armor, and they’re… strange. Every Warden’s armor is unique, but all the ones I’ve seen are relatively clean-looking, and made of some kind of metal. This one’s armor is made of stone, which doesn’t really seem all that practical, honestly. And it’s pretty dirty. Not with sludge or mud or anything, but with… are those barnacles? I’m not a biologist or anything, but those really look like barnacles. A good amount of them too, on the chest and shoulders, even a few on the axe blade of its weapon, which curiously enough is also made of stone.

Alright, I’m feeling fairly convinced. Isn’t moving, has no aura, made of stone instead of metal, and is somehow covered in barnacles. A Warden would have to stay underwater for quite a while in order to build up this many, and they aren’t known for extended swimming sessions, as far as I’m aware. It’s just a statue. Probably a very old one, left down here when this passage was flooded at some point in the past. Maybe an old dustfolk relic of some kind? I think they and the Wardens might have been around here at the same time. This isn’t that far down into the Subterrane, though - most of these tunnels are pretty well-explored. You’d think someone would have broken or stolen it by now.

I take a bit of a closer look, at the feet in particular. I’m not seeing any material interaction between the stony ground and its boots. If it’s been here a while, you’d think there’d be some grime or buildup of some kind going on, but there isn’t any. It looks like the thing was placed here yesterday. But hey, I’m not a geologist either, what do I know.

I’m also not a sculptor, but even so, this is some pretty impressive work. They really went all out on the details. The helmet even looks like it’s actually hollow, or at least the gaps in its visor are so far recessed that it has the same effect.

Weird. And interesting. If I knew any archaeologists, I’d bring them down here to tell me about it. But I don’t. So I guess it’s just another anonymous Subterranean curiosity. Heh. And to think I was scared of some dumb ol’ statue. More fool me! There’s way scarier things in and under Wellspring City. I’m one of them.

And I’m going to be wrestling with a bunch of others pretty soon, I think.