I stood in my gray uniform by the wall of the bountyhouse, staring at the last poster in that row. A crude drawing of my likeness stared back at me, looking positively evil.

Searching for our long-lost Player friend Clark, also known as Clark the Clever. Anyone who leads him to us – or leads us to him – will find themselves 350 gold coins richer!

Pulling the fountain pen out of my breast pocket, I drew a curling mustache on Clark’s face … and also gave him an unibrow. I was glad that I shaved regularly, because looking at the drawing it became quite clear that the mustache didn’t suit me.

With my work outside done, I walked back in to the building without being suspicious at all. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t suspicious.

“Have you hung up the posters?” Erika asked when I entered the office room. My gray-haired supervisor was sitting at the table next to mine, arranging papers with one hand and holding a stamp in the other.

“Yes, I did,” I replied. “That’s all for today, I think … unless you have anything urgent for me?”

“There’s always something urgent,” Erika said without looking up, “but you’re free to go. Good work, Randel.”

“Thanks,” I said, then sat down to my desk to gather my stuff. I took the cheap city map from one of my drawers, quickly looking it over once more. Today was a bountiful day in the bountyhouse, which meant that I had added a few more marks on the map about the disappearances. The piece of paper was beginning to become a jumbled mess already, so I made a mental note to buy a few more maps to write on. I stuffed the one I had into my backpack, then said my goodbyes and strolled out of the office.

As I headed down the street, I wondered what I would do if I uncovered anything regarding to the disappearing people. Not everyone went missing for the same reason, that much was certain. The lower ring was infested with crime; the local gangs went at each other’s throats regularly and the City Watch shut its eyes over those kinds of incidents.

Learning more about my neighbors was enough for the time being, however. I wasn’t aspiring to play the detective or the vigilante, even if being a Player lent a couple of useful tools for either of those. Ever since the Dungeon I had been aware that some Quests contained information that I couldn’t have learned otherwise. Sometimes they were quite subtle too; I had a Quest for avenging a dead husband and another Quest for finding a young man who had run away from home, both of which would reward me with 1 point to my Strength attribute and a magical relic called Showstopper. The matching rewards were too specific to be a coincidence.

What this boiled down to in my eyes was that stories were more important than individual Quests. What the system truly rewarded was progressing a specific story; in fact, Quests by themselves could be outright lies, as evidenced by the Quest for finding Clark the Clever.

As for what to do with this neat little insight, I had yet to decide. For now my eyes were set on more information gathering, and so I visited one of the middle ring’s shopping malls and stuffed my backpack full of freshly baked bread, pastries, sausages, and fruit. Upon further consideration, I also bought a bed sheet and a big roll of cheese.

My plan was a risky one; I had given the little thief half a day to pass Soul Eater around, so I could end up anywhere. That said, stealing from Players seemed like a desperate move—not something that professionals would indulge in. Who would want to chance calling vengeful Players with Quests upon themselves?

So even though I could end up anywhere, it wasn’t literally anywhere. I had a backpack of food for hungry people, a purse of credits for greedy people, and for anyone else I had Soul Eater … though I really didn’t want to think about that last option. The more I thought about it the less I liked this plan, but we knew that we couldn’t get ahead in life without taking risks sometimes.

Yeah, sure. Alright. I took a deep breath, hugged the roll of cheese close to my chest, then thought about teleporting to Soul Eater. Nothing happened, though I pretty much expected this outcome. I wouldn’t be able to teleport to the weapon if I didn’t have enough space to arrive, and so I started to shape Soul Eater’s handle. I imagined the black metal puffing itself up, leaning this way and that, wiggling in every direction. I made it dance like this for a few seconds, then attempted to teleport again—and this time, I succeeded.

“Did you summon me, master?” I asked just as the screaming began.

I was crouching on the dirt floor of a dark room that smelled of unwashed bodies. The only source of light came through the grated basement window behind me, so I could barely make out the six or seven furry children scuttling out of the room. They shrieked and yelled and stumbled over each other as they escaped. I stood up slowly while leaving Soul Eater on the ground, then turned on my collar to see better.

The room was full of garbage. Slowly, I walked around a dirty pile of clothes on the floor that served as a bed, stepping to a pair of rusty barrels by the wall. There was a piece of rotten wood placed over them, which I decided to use as a table; I placed first the bed sheet, then the roll of cheese on it. I found a stuffed animal – a yellow-striped tiger – lying on the floor beside the bed, so I picked it up gingerly and placed it on the makeshift table. I then began to take everything out of my backpack.

“What are you doing?” a high-pitched voice asked behind me.

I turned to see a small shape peeking at me from behind the doorway. Large triangle ears, beady little eyes, and an elongated face with twitching whiskers.

“Greetings, master,” I said, bowing slightly. “I’m a discounted djinn, here to fulfill only one of your wishes.”

“No, you’re not,” the kid said. “You’re a Player.”

I tapped my cheek as if in thought. “Alright, you got me. Was it the collar that gave me away?”

“I saw you practice with that dagger,” the boy said, his voice shaking with tension. “It’s yours.”

“Well, you can borrow it if you like,” I said. “It makes a great spoon.”

The boy had nothing else to say, so I finished setting the table in silence. I made the stuffed tiger sit on one end of the table while I stood at the other, then tore off a piece of bread and popped it into my mouth.

“You guys better hurry up, or else me and little kitty-cat here will eat all the best food.”

“Miss Fuzzy, no!” a tiny girlish voice came from behind the corner. Multiple voices shushed her immediately, which made me smile. To be honest, this was one of the best outcomes I could have imagined. Even if an adult came in and it turned out that I was in the underground base of a gang of hardened killers, I could just throw my dagger through the window and teleport out. There would be no need for Soul Eater’s fighting expertise here, for which I was thankful.

“The food is free for everyone,” I called out. “All I ask in return is that you speak to me. I’m bored, you know.”

I chewed a bit more on the bread before the boy who had first spoken took a tentative step into the room.

“S-Speak to you? About what?”

“Anything you like,” I said. “Tell me something about yourself, or something that you saw today. Here!”

I tossed an apple-like fruit to him and he caught it by reflex, squeaking in surprise.

“You already told me that you saw me practice with my pokey-stick, so you get to eat that.”

As the boy stared at the fruit in his hand, hesitating, a tiny Ratkin girl barely taller than a toddler snuck past him with her eyes on the stuffed tiger. When the boy noticed her she broke into a run, jumping for Miss Fuzzy—and falling short, since the table was too high up for her. The boy stood in the middle of the room, frozen in fear as the little girl quickly scaled the wall and pulled herself up to the table.

“Hi there,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Rei,” the girl shyly said, clutching her tiger.

“Rei! Good. Now that you’ve told me your name, you’re free to eat anything you like.”

“Really?” Rei asked, licking her lips.

“Yes, really.”

The girl hesitantly reached for an apple, then took a quick bite out of it. The crunching sound of the fruit finally broke the dam; more and more dirty little kids emerged from the doorway, telling me their names as they rushed to the table. I was surprised to see that there were three human kids as well as one Avarii too. I took a step back from the table to allow more of the children to reach it, realizing that my plan wasn’t as flawless as I hoped it would be. I counted about twelve children who dared to come into the room, and the food I had brought wouldn’t be enough for them all. Shouting names at me also wasn’t how I imagined them speaking to me—but, well, I supposed it didn’t matter all that much.

I edged to the other side of the room, catching the attention of the boy who had stolen my dagger. He was still holding the fruit I had thrown to him, letting the other kids fight for the food I had left behind. Was he the eldest of them? He barely reached my waist in height, but he was a Thardos; their height told me little about their age.

“What’s your name?” I asked, trying to sound as nonthreatening as possible.

“Tora.”

“My name is Randel,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“I don’t understand,” Tora said. “You aren’t angry. Why aren’t you angry?

“Why would I be? Because you stole my dagger?”

Tora flinched, but reluctantly gave me a nod.

“First off,” I said, raising a finger, “getting angry would be a waste of my time. I’m very clever, you know. I have so many ingenious ideas in my head that I just don’t have time to be mad at you!”

“Uh…”

“Secondly,” I forged on, “I brought you food because I was truly impressed. How could I be angry when I am already feeling impressed? Stealing from a Player was a very brave move.”

And very stupid, I added silently. If Tora had been living off the streets all his life, he had to know the risks involved. I would have liked to ask him about it, but I decided to avoid this topic for now. At the moment Tora was watching me with something akin to bafflement and curiosity, which happened to be some of my favorite emotions. Way better than fear or animosity! I was about to steer the conversation toward friendlier waters, when a long hiss and a growl sounded from outside.

“Oh,” I said as a large shape ducked through the doorway, “I was wondering who your caretaker was.”

The room suddenly felt very crowded as a Shrissten with sickly-yellow scales stepped inside. She had short spikes on her lizard-like head, her forked tongue flicking in and out of her maw. Her long arms almost reached the floor as she stooped down to fit into the room. Although Shrissten usually walked upright on their hind legs, I knew that they moved just as easily on all fours. Like most of her kind, this woman wore no clothes—though with her reptilian body it somehow didn’t feel immodest. Lizard-people liked to wear adornments like arm-bracers and piercings, but this one had none that I could see.

“She’s Maa,” Tora told me, jumping quickly between me and the Shrissten. “Maa, this is Randel. He … brought us food.”

Maa turned her head to look at me with one of her sideways-facing eyes, her slit pupil regarding me critically. She hissed again, then made a few odd gestures with her clawed hand.

“No, he’s been friendly,” Tora told her.

Maa gestured again, snapping her jaw together two times and baring her pointed teeth at me with a growl. We got ready to teleport Soul Eater into our hand. Tora turned back to me, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

“She says—”

“She threatened me, that much I gathered,” I said. “It’s fine. I’m not here to hurt anyone—in fact, now that I’ve seen what kind of place this is, I’d like to help.”

Maa hissed and moved her fingers, and Tora translated.

“Not for free.”

“Not for free,” I agreed. “Tora, you seem to be a clever guy. I think you’ve already figured out what I want.”

Tora’s whiskers kept twitching as he looked up at Maa.

“He wants … tales. Information. Anything we have seen or heard.”

Maa was silent for a while, and I noted that even the chatter of the eating children ebbed somewhat. I was content to wait, feeling slightly disgusted at myself for taking advantage of their poverty this way. I told myself that I was doing this to help them, but I knew that I wouldn’t have come here at all—not if I hadn’t expected to gain something from it. In this regard I was very much my father’s son. I waited patiently, knowing already that Maa wouldn’t refuse me outright. She couldn’t refuse me outright.

“We want water,” Maa gestured and Tora translated. I nodded, surprised that they didn’t ask for money but having expected this kind of request too.

It hadn’t been obvious to me at first, but the World Seed of Fortram provided two miracles for the citizens, one overshadowing the other. The revolving city sections was easily the most iconic feature of the city, but it was the fountain-wells that made living here possible at all. Not only did the wells move with the city, but in the hundreds of years of Fortram’s history they had never run dry. The wells promoted plumbing and steam engines, and the Factory relied on them heavily.

But even if the wells were limitless in capacity, their numbers were finite and most of them belonged to private properties. Drinkable water was therefore a commodity, something that many people in the lower ring couldn’t afford. The rain collectors on the roof of most buildings helped somewhat, but Fortram’s climate wasn’t particularly rainy; there was only so much water to be had, and it was usually the poor who drew the short end of that stick.

“My place has running water,” I said. “You’ll need to find a way to transport it, but I’m willing to give you as much water as you need to never go thirsty.”

“Your place is … where?” Tora asked.

“It’s here in the lower ring,” I assured him. “How about this? You can come to my house whenever I’m home, grab some water to drink, and tell me a story or two. If you don’t want to speak to me, you don’t have to visit. It’s a loose deal, without any obligations.”

Maa snorted and snapped her jaws together, then reached over Tora’s head to extend a large, scaly, clawed hand to me. I snuck a quick glance at Soul Eater on the floor, then accepted the handshake with some trepidation. My hand completely disappeared in hers. Maa snorted again, which I took as a sign of amusement.

“I’m not sure … if we have anything interesting to say to you,” Tora sheepishly said.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said, grinning at him. “I’m not a picky eater.”