I pulled on a fresh set of clothing. My cubby had to have been running low considering I’d burned through clothes as if I had a tailor following me around pumping out new sets as soon as I destroyed the old ones.

The real loss had been the pieces of armor. I had the remnants of the chest piece, which could be repaired at great cost, but the greave attached to my leg when I’d mulched it was a complete loss. The cost of deepsteel itself would likely put a well-off person out on the street, but the custom workmanship of the armor would have easily tripled the price. Not something that I could replace while living this vagabond lifestyle, if at all.

Walking around in the cramped room, I let myself acclimate to the new leg. I wouldn’t call it too springy, but it definitely had more spring than it should, though I’d get used to it quickly. I donned the remnants of my armor. No point in letting it go to waste, even if only half the set remained.

I grabbed the rest of my gear and shoved it into my cubby, still caught off guard by the cavernous size increase. If I had a small army following me around, I could likely fully supply it all by myself with so much room, although the work required of me to constantly be putting stuff in and taking it out might shatter me before we’d marched a full day. The Hero Root sitting nearby caught my attention. I hesitated to add it to the stockpile, but shrugged and chucked it in anyway, you never know.

I emerged from my lair to discover completely empty corridors, creeping me out. The Baron had likely marshalled all his help in his crusade to avoid me cutting him down for neglecting his territory during a time of crisis. Based on the last time I saw him, he was likely to burn himself out trying to do everything himself instead of delegating like he should have been doing all along. If I had to guess, he had pulled all of his staff out into his impromptu courtyard office.

Emerging out into said courtyard, I spotted the pile of supplies Orleander had arranged. The gang stood in various states of readiness around it. The flurry of ongoing activity in the center drew my attention away from the supplies, as the Baron sat at the ridiculous desk he’d brought out, surrounded by his people who presumably carried out tasks on his behalf. He looked less harried than he had the previous day, more composed. The blacked-out stupor he’d worked himself into looked to have done him some good. I didn’t spot Orleander anywhere in the mess.

I made my way to the supplies, avoiding the worst of the action. Jass had opted to keep his clothes on for the time being, but had recovered the wicked, long spear that he’d used to devastate the goliath Carver and save my life.

Kayla slouched nearby, her body language telling me of her discontent. At least her body language was transparent, otherwise nobody would know what to make of her. I toyed with the idea of making her take the deeps taken wrapping off, but she already despised me, no reason to push that over into active hate.

Kan’on stood fully erect, composed, spotless in his pastels. For once he hadn’t squirreled himself away in the corner to meditate.

“How do you figure we’re supposed to carry all this?” Jass asked.

I glanced at him, confused. He’d hung around me long enough to pick up on some of my tricks, hadn’t he? Had he not been paying attention?

“I’ll be carrying it all, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” I said, straight faced.

Skeptical, Jass watched as I picked up a small box of, no doubt delectable, travel rations. I made as if to hand him the box but pushed it into the void of the cubby right in front of his eyes instead. Jass flinched back before realizing my hand and the box disappeared into thin air.

I shoved more of the supplies into my cubby, making quick work of the pile of supplies. Food, water, sleeping gear, and some other odds and ends that Orleander thought useful made their way into the void space. The pile didn’t even make a dent in the space available inside the cubby.

Jass crouched next to me, trying his best to figure out how I did it. I snapped my head around to stare him down when I felt him activate a glyph. Whatever it had been, he sheepishly let the power fade. I grimaced, annoyed at the casual disregard for his own life, but said nothing. It was his life to burn away as he pleased, but I didn’t have to like it.

I finished storing the last of the supplies in silence, Jass comically straining his senses to figure the trick out. The sun sat in its late afternoon position, ticking down the time we had left to make it to the Labyrinth entrance before nightfall.

“Let’s get going,” I said to my companions. “We’ll ride to the forest, but I don’t trust the combination of horses and potential Carvers in the forest, so we’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

I stopped talking, realizing that Jass would have to keep up on foot. I’d just gotten angry with him for pointless waste of his life, and now I would ask him to spend it just as pointlessly running through the forest to keep up with the rest of us.

“It’ll be fine. This much isn’t even noticeable,” Jass said. He’d read me like one of the Baron’s many books. His face said it was fine, but now that I knew to look for it I couldn’t not see the sadness reflected in his eyes.

I nodded, doing my best to school my features and hide my scowl, the irritation this time directed at myself. I called for one of the Baron’s many attendants to arrange for horses to carry us out to the forest.

It didn’t take long for a cadre of the Baron’s very capable stable staff to bring out four fully equipped animals. I felt a little guilty at not even recognizing any of the horses I’d no doubt ridden in the last few days. I had never been much of an animal person. Mounting up, I waited for the others to get themselves situated. The Baron seemed to still be in full swing, so I didn’t disturb him.

With nobody standing around to send us off, or even aware of our departure to go scour the Labyrinth for the Inculid, we rode out the gates. It was best this way, to ride away without a bunch of mouth breathers showering you with empty words. We could just get down to business without all the fuss.

As we rode through the town, everyone seemed far less frantic, much more composed. The roving gangs of armed townspeople appeared to have gotten their hands on some better weapons and armor. Either the Baron had made a deal with the self-appointed Mayor, my friend the stall keeper, or the industrious wood carver had taken my orders fully to heart and taken over the whole place with sheer moxie. Before yesterday I would have bet on the latter, but the former seemed more likely since the Baron hadn’t come crying to me that his power base had finally been usurped when I’d emerged into his chaotic courtyard.

The town looked better too. The mud still clung to everything, it was the wet season after all, but the caravan refugees and animals no longer wallowed in it. The wagons had been neatly organized and I assumed the drivers had found shelter with the people of the town, because they were nowhere in sight. I self-satisfied smile lit up my face as I couldn’t help but take a little credit for the improvements even if they did come at the cost of the Baron’s full supply of dignity and pride.

It didn’t take long to make it to the edge of town, where the sight of Orleander and Clyde standing in front of ranks of the surviving defenders dashed my hopes of a quiet trip. Dismay crept onto my face, but I took a page out of Orleander’s book and forced my features back into a neutral mask. Nobody cheered though, thank the deep gods.

“You shouldn’t have,” I said before Count Orleander could get any of his own words out.

“Ardashir, I am not one for grand gestures, but I wanted to at least give you a proper send off. As usual, though, you make things difficult.”

I surveyed the ranks, searching for faces I recognized, which was nobody. Either everyone I’d fought with had died, or I just didn’t bother to remember anybody. What I did recognize, however, were the occasional caged or uncertain looks. Rumors of my past, and exaggerated stories, had clearly affected those soldiers in front of me. It wasn’t all bad though, many faces looked at me with appreciation, if not favor. Other faces gazed upon Kan’on and Jass with awe, which I expected. They’d made a flashy, if very effective, showing of themselves.

“You turned out to be a much different guy than I thought,” I said to the Count. “Better.”

I meant it too. Everything he’d done since we arrived in this place had defied my expectations of the man. If only I could force him to make better use of all the money he’d swindled out of people as a trader I would be fully satisfied.

“You turned out exactly as I thought you’d be,” he replied, cryptically.

Kayla snorted. I glanced at her, inviting her to elaborate, but she didn’t volunteer anything else. Shrugging, I wrote it off as some kind of inside joke about me.

“You sure you’re coming Kayla? Even average Labyrinth runs are likely to wipe out whole parties. We’re bound to die horrible, drawn out deaths.” I’d said it jokingly to mess with her, but the truth of it struck a chord in me. My own forays into the Labyrinth to search for ways to cure my curse had taught me many hard lessons.

“I’m committed.” She glanced at Orleander, who gave her a nod.

A weird nod. Not the type of nod someone would give a person they’d ordered to complete a task, but a nod of reassurance. Interesting, it appeared that maybe Kayla had volunteered to go with me after all. What could motivate someone like her to pal around with the source of all the grief in her life? Well, figuring that out would give me something to look forward to at least.

“We best get going. I need to borrow a scout to show us the way. And a shield if you can find one.” I’d decided that we had enough time that I could spare Jass the price of his power for sprinting through the woods by being more efficient with a scout.

Clyde nodded and disappeared for a few minutes. I made more small talk with Orleander about my dissatisfaction with the quality of the supplies while he implied that the pickings were slim, and I should be happy with what I got.

Shield in hand and trailing a nervous looking scout, Clyde returned just in time to stop me from turning Orleander upside down and shaking everything out of his stingy pockets.

I equipped the large, steel studded, round wooden shield. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’d ever worn, but it would do now that I no longer had a chest piece.

“Time to go,” I told the gang.

Orleander saluted, followed by Clyde and the soldiers lined up behind them. I wanted to roll my eyes at the unnecessary pageantry but managed to keep a straight face and saluted back. Handing off the horses to Clyde’s men, me and the gang made our escape, following the scout into the trees.

As the trees closed in on us, blocking out the late afternoon light, I couldn’t help but feel like things weren’t exactly as I thought. My sense of the Flow fed me unease, things I couldn’t understand. Big, deep things lurked out there and I felt their eyes on me. We approached the Labyrinth, and I couldn’t help but feel things were just getting started.