“Surprise!” Rufe said, waggling his fingers in front of their tent, along with Sal, Loren, and a handful of others. There were very few women there, and those that were, well, ‘tough’ was a pretty good start toward describing them, but didn’t quite cover it.

Calvin dropped into a fighting stance, arms raised. Kala just blinked.

“Sorry to startle you - Happy one week anniversary!” Rufe made a little toot on a bone whistle. “Drinks!”

Rufe produced stonework cups and a huge, foul-smelling jug, shoving a heavy cup into Calvin’s hand before filling it. The liquid came out chunky, with a plop, plop.

“Most people die or go crazy way before the first week.” Rufe said by way of explanation for the sudden party as he poured Kala’s drink. Plop, plop!

“But most people who last the first week tend to stick around for a while, so welcome to the village of The Abyss.”

He glanced up at Calvin as he set the jug down. “I know, it’s not a very good name, but we’re not terribly creative people. The creative ones tend to get eaten by the brain leeches. Hah!”

Calvin shivered. They could phase through walls at any time…

“So what is this?” Calvin asked, frowning, lifting the cup up to smell it. “Fermented…something or other?”

“Well, you know how it is,” Rufe said with a shrug. “Things will ferment just about anywhere. Even in Warp-Tainted stygian depths like these. Although the yeast might have a bit more kick to it because of the Warp. I can’t remember what the booze was like topside.”

“Not like this,” Calvin said, eyeing the floating bits in his reddish, rust-colored brew.

“Just to be safe,” Rufe said just as Calvin lifted the stone cup to his lips. “Your Endurance is higher than twenty, right? I mean, you are here, and alive.”

“It’s eight.”

“Oh, my,” Rufe placed his hand over Calvin’s cup and gently lifted it away from him.

The leather-faced man gave Calvin’s cup to Sal, the withered old glass-worker. He took the second cup of noxious brew in stride.

Kala, dedicated to being polite, took a sip, and gave the most pained smile he’d ever seen, her face red.

“It’s…strong.” She said, blinking tears out of her eyes

“Best social lubricant this side of the Pitachian river.” Rufe said, saluting them with his cup before downing the whole thing.

“Eight?” Loren asked, the wrinkly Uleisan stepping up to Calvin and seizing him by the head, peering into his eyes.

“What’s your strength?”

“Eight.”

“I could bend that boy over my knee!” one of the women shouted, to a few catcalls.

“Kinesthetics?”

“Eight,” Calvin answered, seeing where this was going.

Loren leaned in close, eyeing Calvin closely.

“Body? Please tell me you’ve got room to improve and you’re just a spoiled rich boy, not some kind of freak of nature.”

“Eight.”

“By the gods!” The man shouted, still clamping down on Calvin’s face, turning him this way and that. “What did you spend all your Warp on since you got here, nose-picking?”

“My Mind is forty-five.” Calvin said with a shrug.

The room went quiet, every Uleisan exile staring at Calvin for a moment.

“Ugh, that’s really strong,” Kala said, doubling over her stomach.

“That’s…a lot. How were you stupid enough to have the Seeking Hand throw you in here then?” Loren asked.

“The guys in red robes threw me in here after I…” Calvin glanced around. These people were Uleisan. Probably not a good idea to brag about the army. “Killed Orson.”

“Hah!” Rufe broke into a cackle. “Seriously? That bastard got what he deserved!” he said to the general agreement of those around them.

A few rough hands patted Calvin on the back, their superior strength knocking the wind out of him.

“You guys were put here by the Seeking Hand, too?” Calvin said, coming to the realization.

“What are you, an idiot?” Sal demanded from the ground. “Did you think a series of a few hundred people stumbled their way down to the deepest point in Uleis and accidentally fell in the bigass hole?”

“His natural Intuition was three.” Kala said, straightening, her posture unsteady. The princess leaned up against him, poking him in the cheek. “He’s just a big blockhead who can’t take a hint.”

“Aaah.” Knowing sounds and nods of agreement traveled around the cave.

“I was just focused on getting out of here.”

“I’m talking about me! My earrings! And that one time Ella and I invited you to come play with us!” Kala said, leaning on him some more, nearly tipping him off balance.

“I don’t remember that.”

“Because you missed it!” she said, thwacking him on the forehead.

“I believe my princess is drunk.”

“Like I said, it’s got a kick,” Rufe said, eyeing the dregs of his booze. “You could even say it’s magically delicious…assuming it doesn’t kill you.”

“We fermented a Lure’s – Hey!” Sal said, halfway through his second drink before Rufe plucked it out of his hand and gave it to one of the two women present.

“That’s enough for you,” Rufe said.

“So everyone here was thrown in?”

“Yep,” Loren said, nodding. “That’s the one thing everyone’s got in common. We’re all troublemakers.”

“And we all hate the Seeking Hand.” the stout women interjected.

“Two things, then,” he admitted.

“We’re all from Uleis.” Another man chimed in.

“Will you people shut up when I’m trying to make a point?” the patriarch’s temper flared, while they chuckled.

Calvin glanced around. Most of the faces were old, a few middle aged. No one was anywhere near as young as Calvin and Kala.

No kids. I imagine kids generally don’t make the kind of trouble that warrants being kicked into the Abyss. And children born here…

Babies rarely survived Breaking, and even if they did, they mutated, given that they couldn’t consciously practice anything.

So no. No kids. Calvin and Kala were the youngest inhabitants of The Abyss.

“Well,” Calvin said, setting Kala down on a squat stone slab, where she stretched out with a contented sigh, her eyes half-closed. “I was planning on going hunting today, but my backup is plastered with one drink.”

“Thank you,” Rufe said. “I made it myself.”

“Hunting? That’s a dangerous game. Chances are good you’ll run across something you don’t know how to deal with and that’ll be it. You’ll spend the rest of your time here as a turd.” Loren said.

“A Warped turd.” Sal added.

“Yeah, it’s happened a couple times already,” Calvin said with a shrug. Every once in a while something would get him while he was scouting the tunnels in Shadowboxing. He was getting better, though.

Loren didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“O..kay. In any case, Rufe here is the most accomplished hunter. If you’re dead set on hunting for a living, it would pay to have him show you around.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Calvin said.

“Can’t make ‘em drink,” Loren said with a shrug.

“How about you guys?” Calvin asked. “How did you wind up here?”

“Freed some Cobalts.” Rufe said. “I was out hunting, and spotted a caravan of ‘em heading for Fort Cobalt. I hadn’t heard how bad it was, until I saw it with my own eyes. I set them loose, but I got caught, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“I stole an entire warehouse full of spices from Boles by using my magic to pretend to be a ghost.” Sal said, scowling. “Would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.”

“I made fliers, about fifty years ago,” Loren said with a sigh, looking nostalgic. “Calling out Gojen as the true power behind the crown. Needless to say, he didn’t take kindly to that, and he and his stooges threw me in here. I’ll never forget how badly my ass itched while he was chanting that stupidly long prayer. At least I outlived the bastard.”

“Seemed pretty short to me,” Calvin said.

“You probably got the abridged version.” Loren said. “You killed Orson, after all.”

“True.”

“Anyway, any fight I had when I was young is gone now. It takes everything I got just to stay alive down here.”

“Do you remember the original prayer?” Calvin asked, curious.

“Naw,” Loren said with a chuckle. “All I can remember is how itchy my buttcheek was.”

The old man’s eyebrows lifted.

“But…there was a book he was reading out of. If you ever…” He suppressed a fit of giggles. “Get topside again, maybe you can check the book out before they throw you in here again.”

“I’ll think about it…” Calvin tapped his fingers against Kala’s ribcage as she crawled into his lap.

“What do you need?”

“What do you mean?” Loren asked.

“How can I help the people living here?” Calvin asked. “More than just water and food.”

“Those bottles you got,” he said, pointing at Calvin’s component pouch. “We could use some bigger ones for water storage, if you think you can do it. Sal uses up most of his Bent keeping the place lit, so he doesn’t have the spare Bent to make glass. Brainworms don’t like the heat and light, you see, so if he stops, they start picking people off.”

“Matter of fact, if you can find a way to stop Brain Leeches from getting through the walls in the first place, that would be handy. Then there’s your summons. Those Knick-knacks could make a better Water Press than what we have, I know it.”

“We’re stuck mostly using stone tools. Those metal spikes on the fishing line are difficult to replace. They were made hammering out chains from corpses in the main platform using what little Bent Sal has to spare.”

“I swear, if we had more iron in this country, Uleis would rule the world,” Loren said, shaking his head.

“Infections tend to be life-threatening around here, and what little alcohol we produce goes to cleaning wounds and welcoming newcomers.”

Loren rocked back and forth as he thought, head cocked. “Pretty sure living down here is unhealthy, too. Body and Mind. Don’t know what you could do about that. People die here at a staggering rate. And there’s gotta be some kind of deficiency eating nothing but Warped meat, ‘cuz some people just shut off after a few weeks, let themselves die.”

“I don’t intend to stick around,” Calvin said, earning himself a scowl. “But before I go get myself killed, I think I can help with a few of your problems.”

“Which ones?”

“The glass, the tools, and I definitely want to try brain leech proofing the Cave,” Calvin said, glancing around the hundred or so unqua tents placed in a little circle about thirty feet across. Most of the villagers were in their tents, as the entire cave didn’t have room for everyone to be out at once, only a dozen people or so at any given time.

The water press took up most of the space at the back of cavern, the village a good deal more, along with the light source on the twelve-foot ceiling that illuminated the forty foot wide cave. For the life of him, he oculdn’t find a latrine, though.

“Where does everyone shit?” Calvin asked. He’d been crapping into the Abyss. It amused him greatly to think his dumps had turned into some kind of thought-poop. Or maybe a gemstone.

Who knows, maybe they’re really valuable on the other side of the Siphon for their magical properties.

“See that?” Rufe asked, pointing to a little round cover with a hole on it above the Press’s intake.

“Oh, tell me you don’t use shit-water.” Calvin said, his stomach churning.

“Water’s water.” One of the women said with a shrug. “It’s perfectly safe after it’s boiled and filtered.”

“I wish I hadn’t known that.” Calvin said, resting his forehead on his palm. He took a breath, shrugged off the disgust and returned to business.

“How many of you would like to leave?” Calvin asked.

“Seems like kind of a dumb question.” Rufe said.

“Everyone.” Another man said, to a quiet murmur of agreement.

Calvin digested that for a moment, glancing around.

“What about the walls?” Calvin asked, preparing to summon his Knick-Knacks “ I could probably widen this place out. Would you like more space in here?”

“No can do,” Loren said, shaking his head. “The bigger the space, the harder it is for Sal to light it up and heat it. While I’m sure everyone here would like a bit more room to stretch out, we can’t afford it. Especially if our only other wizard –“ He pointed at Calvin. “Is going to get himself killed.”

“How about this,” Calvin said, running his thumb through Kala’s hair as she mumbled into his lap. “I raise the quality of life in here, then if I manage to get everyone out of, you all support me as the new King of Uleis?”

Silence reigned.

Rufe frowned, “You’re not part of the royal family. Or Uleisan, for that matter.” He spoke into the silence.

“So? I plan on taking the city, anyway. And let’s face it, who here thinks the current royal family has any real power?”

Sal cackled madly.

“I’m starting to see why you got thrown down here, boy! I like your fuckin’ balls!”

“What good would we do?” The woman – Cal hadn’t learned her name yet – asked. “There’s only a hundred of us, at best.”

“I think you might have been desensitized by being constantly under siege by Warped monsters, but You’re all Legends, aren’t you?” Calvin asked, raising a brow.

“If you got out of The Filter, what army on Marconen could stop you?”

Jaws hung open, and the villagers of The Abyss glanced at each other, realization dawning on them that they, by any normal standards, were unrivaled.

“Why do you call it the filter?” Loren asked.

“We’re not on Marconen right now.” Calvin said. “We’re stuck in a little halfway dimension called The Filter. The Harbingers use it to catch all the unwanted monsters between the Siphon and our world.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m a wizard.” Calvin said, keeping his face serious as he played with Kala’s earlobe.

Oh, sure, take the credit.

“Somewhere out there,” Calvin said, pointing to the crack that lead back to the platform. “Is an emergency escape mechanism left by the original builders of this place. I know what it looks like, and I can operate it. If I find it, I can get all of us out of here.”

The silence engulfed his words and spread out long after he’d finished them. Nothing but the occasional pop of dried tentacles on fire broke the silence.

“Kid, if you got us out of here…all of us…I’d overthrow whoever the fuck you wanted.” Rufe said, his voice low and gravelly.

“Me too.”

“I’d do anything to see the sun again.”

“…My daughter.”

“Alright,” Calvin said, forcing down a smile. “Let’s not get too excited. First thing we need to do is address quality of life issues. I have some ideas already.”