“Where the Abyss did they go?” Calvin murmured to himself as they exited the warehouse. Calvin was on edge, waiting for some kind of ambush. Calvin could still theoretically be ambushed despite sensing everything in close range and knowing exactly who was looking at him and where.

It was just a lot more of a logistical nightmare.

A rod from god would work fairly well, too.

True, Calvin thought, glancing up at the sky.

Wait a second, what’s that glow in the distance?

To the west was a bright orange glow, something like a second sunrise, and above it…

Smoke!

Calvin and Learner jumped and flew over the streets and buildings between them and the orange glow, revealing the massive granaries, burning merrily.

I fucking called it! Did I not call it? I called it! As soon as we freaking got here, I took one look at those granaries and was like, ‘yep, somebody’s gonna burn those.’ Did I not say that!?

“Down there,” Calvin said, pointing at the struggle happening in front of them.

There were half a dozen dead or wounded guardsmen, more streaming in from every direction, restraining a horde of torch-wielding madmen.

It seemed as though a mob had appeared out of absolutely nowhere, forced their way past the people guarding the granaries and lit them on fire before the reinforcements came.

Well, I know where some of the mob came from, Calvin thought, spotting one of the faces at the drug den.

“Presumably this means the drug can hijack free will,” Learner said, hovering next to him. “Why would they reveal that to us this early?”

“Because you were probably going to figure it out this evening anyway,” Calvin said, searching his grimoire for something good at fighting fires.

What about forty-five tons of liquid nitrogen? That should put the fire out.

Nah, too dangerous, there’s a good chance you’ll give everyone frostbite, and if there’s any grease fires, it’ll explode. I saw a youtube video on it once. stick with water.

Doesn’t water explode with grease fires too?

Yeah, but it doesn’t also freeze people’s skin.

Fair enough.

Calvin mentally selected the page of his grimoire with the tub of clean water.

Shaping.

Shaping.

Shaping.

47/54 Bent remaining

That reminds me, we should ask the Knick-knacks for liquid oxygen, too. That shit’s fun at parties.

Roughly forty-four hundred cubic feet of water appeared above the granaries and came crashing down on them, smothering the roaring flames.

4379.11 cubic feet if you want to get specific.

The flame guttered for a moment, then stubbornly relit themselves, a cloud of steam joining the smoke of the fire.

Damnit, this is going to take all of my Bent at this rate.

The granaries were enormous, and Calvin needed something more effective than simple water.

From Elliot’s basic lessons on chemistry, Calvin understood that fire needed oxygen, and depriving them of it would immediately douse the fire.

Multi-shaping.

46/54 Bent remaining

Calvin summoned an open-topped thermos filled with liquid nitrogen in his hand.

He waited for a moment as the nitrogen boiled, filling the top of the container with pure nitrogen gas, then he selected it and aimed it at the entire area.

Hopefully nobody passes out, I can only do fourteen hundred cubic feet of water per cast, but this should be just over a million cubic feet of nitrogen gas.

Shaping.

45/54 Bent remaining

There was a shockwave of displaced air that bowled several of the combatants over, whipping past Calvin’s face and causing him to wobble in midair.

The three towering granaries were snuffed out in a matter of seconds. Calvin kept a wary eye on the smoldering wood, but it didn’t seem like it would relight itself.

Maybe take a few minutes before you dismiss the nitrogen, Elliot said. The vacuum it creates might restart the fire as air rushes in.

The people on the ground wobbled on their feet, the fight taken out of them by the sudden lack of breathable air.

Hmm…this works well for suppressing armies too.

Well, yeah, life is basically a combustion reaction.

Calvin summoned more water, sprinkling it over the cooling granaries in a more widespread, gentle rain. The water did a good job of cooling the hot coals while the oxygen was gone.

When people started falling over, Calvin decided to cancel the nitrogen.

WHOOSH!

Air rushed in to replace Calvin’s nitrogen, and while here and there tiny sparks and the occasional fire cropped up, they were nowhere near as vigorous as they had been. It was a simple matter for the local soldiers to stamp them out, as they were swarming over the granary like angry ants.

“Could’ve been worse,” Calvin said, surveying the damage from above.

A man cleared his throat to Calvin’s right, and Calvin directed his attention to his Gaze into the Abyss mutation.

Someone was watching him from only a few feet away, to his right, along with half a dozen more from around the city.

Calvin glanced over and spotted a Sage wearing valuable silks and several ornate talismans. He had shimmering wings on his back, flapping tirelessly to keep him hovering at about eye level with Calvin.

They were maybe a hundred feet above the ground.

“Are you Tzen’s foreigner Sage?” the Bolesian wizard asked respectfully.

“Close enough. What can I do for you?” Calvin asked.

“The lord of the city wishes to express his gratitude for your assistance.” The sage said, gesturing in the general direction of the smoking buildings.

It was about this point Calvin wished he had a clone who enjoyed dinner parties. But no clone of Calvin’s would enjoy a dinner party, so he never inflicted it on them.

“I appreciate the offer, but there are time sensitive matters I must attend to,” Calvin said, “It is my deepest shame that I am unable to accept.”

“My lord understands, these are trying times. You are welcome to the castle at any time. we will hold a room and a companion for you should you even seek out our hospitality.”

With that, the sage flew away, his shimmery wings executing a graceful swoop back to the ground.

“A room and a companion?” Calvin muttered to himself. “How could I refuse?”

Learner pinched him on the arm.

“Ow! Why!?”

Learner stared at her hand. “I’m not sure. It felt like something I needed to do.”

“Probably Kala’s influence, preventing any of her harem members from sleeping around with unauthorized personnel,” Calvin said with a chuckle.

Learner was still frowning at her hand, so Calvin snapped her out of it.

“Hey, big green building with the apothecary symbol on it.” Calvin said, grabbing her attention. “Let’s find it before the boss takes off.”

Calvin glanced at the formerly burning granaries. If there was a signal to get the hell out of town, that would be it. The chances of actually finding the guy were slim.

Still. Can’t just throw our hands up and give up.

Calvin flew over to the business district, eyes open for a big green building. There were a handful of green buildings, but only one of them had a mortar and pestle on the sign in front of it, so Calvin swooped down and crashed through the front window.

Shock and awe, Calvin thought as he brushed the debris off of him.

It certainly smells like an apothecary, Calvin thought, wrinkling his nose. He stepped over the wreckage and approached the front counter where an ancient Bolesian man with a long white beard cowered behind the bar.

He’s a hundred if he’s a day.

“Excuse me,” Calvin said, putting his forearms up on the bar and peering over. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a man named Shen’kun, do you? Bought a large shipment of unity from Hapain, currently distributing it city-wide?”

The aged codger gave a truly ferocious snarl and tried to stab Calvin in the eye with some kind of calcified root.

“knock it off,” Calvin said, Beli Ma twisting the makeshift weapon out of the man’s trembling hands. “Unless you’re Shen’kun? No?”

Calvin hopped over the countertop, kicked the old man aside.

Multi-Shaping.

Void

Calvin used his void component to hollow out the air in the room, while sealing off the entrances with a thin layer of steel, making his ears pop uncomfortably before the surrounding air rushed back in wherever it could.

I thought of this when the air came rushing back in earlier, Calvin thought.

What do you, Oooh, nice.

Elliot was impressed when a secret door in the far right of the room popped open, throwing aside a disguising rug as air forced its way into the room.

Almost worth feeling like your eyes are going to explode. Calvin thought, blinking his eyes as they settled back into his sockets while the pressure restabilized.

Eh, a few more Body and I’m pretty sure you could survive a vacuum. Oooh, idea. Don’t make yourself human again until we get a chance to visit the moon. Being undead should be a real boon up there.

Calvin walked up to the opened trapdoor and motioned for Learner to go ahead of him.

“After you.”

Learner jumped into the tunnel, followed by Calvin. It was a typical smugglers tunnel. Cramped and utilitarian. Calvin was ashamed to admit that he didn’t have much trouble getting through it because of his slender build, but Learner was a little big in the chest and hips for a couple places.

That problem was solved when she simply got skinnier, effortlessly continuing through the tunnel until they reached the drug-runner’s home base.

It was a cramped storage room with three barrels of the drug. One of them was still sealed, but the other two were open and mostly empty.

Calvin scuttled over to the sealed on and kicked it, testing how full it was.

Pretty full.

There was a shuffling and the gentle scraping of paper against paper, and Calvin paused. Suddenly he was looking at himself from a tiny peephole in the wall.

Calvin spun slowly and glanced to the left until he could see his face looking directly at the viewer. He felt a shock of fear going through the observer the moment he realized Calvin knew he was there.

Rather than repeat his vacuum trick Calvin just charged forward, adding mass to his body until he slammed straight through the thin sheet of faux stone, catching the fleeing man like a Yol diving into rodent tunnels.

The man toppled to the ground, scrambling away as Calvin oriented himself on his prey. He’d dropped to the ground so his neck was outside of Calvin’s grasp

At least, Calvin’s physical hands.

“Agh,” Shen’kun grunted as nine invisible hands secured his arms, legs and head, dragging him toward Calvin. He spat something at Calvin’s eyes, but it was swept aside by Beli Ma, landing on the wall where it smoked, eating into the stone.

“You must be Shen’kun,” Calvin said. “I was hoping to ask you some questions about a recent purchase you made.”

The man proved a bit more resistant to interrogation than his minions, but they managed to get the information about where the drug came from, and they did it in a manner that Learner approved of.

Namely, they drugged him to the gills and got him to spill his guts to the gods themselves as they judged him in the afterlife.

Little bit of LSD never hurt anybody.

I still can’t believe you gave her the recipe for it.

Dude, I didn’t give her the recipe, I told her it was called acid, she asked why, and I told her the name stood for Lysergic acid diethylamide and she did the rest.

Calvin eyed Learner sideways.

You know what my doomsday scenario is? Calvin thought.

Another Learner growing up with less active encouragement to be nice?

Pretty much.

You know, voicing that concern has now practically guaranteed that it will happen? Elliot said.

No, I knocked on wood, Calvin thought, tapping the barrel of drugs next to him. We should be fine.

The results of the interrogation were as such: Shen’kun did indeed buy the drug from the Hapain clan like they’d surmised. The men that delivered it had been a little blue around the lips, and had lodged themselves in Shen’kun’s subconscious as possible zombies. They also had poor hygiene and stunk badly.

They hadn’t been lazy or unfriendly, like Shen’kun had grown to expect from outlaws and rebels, just…distant, singular in purpose, like a nonliving thing.

Something about this is making my hairs stand on end, Calvin thought as he reviewed the information internally.

When they got back to the surface, Calvin and Learner were met by Ella guiding Tzen to them.

“We’ve got to pack up and go,” Tzen said. “There’s word of a major attack soon to be launched on the capital city.”

“Does the capital have a drug problem?” Calvin asked.

“I’ve heard the use of Unity is heavy there, but – “

“Yeah…we’re not going to make it in time.” Calvin said.