Drake whistled when Jack shared some of his musings. "You have Acid Arrow as an elite level spell? Jack, you have to be playing for years to earn anything like that, and I'm talking about in the gaming halls, not even leveling up in real life."

Jack smirked. "Yup. And the perk I earned resulted in the very spell that just turned the 11th level fighter below into a pool of liquid goop. There are advantages to being a Jack of All Trades. Turns out you might just be able to master a few talents while you're at it... if you don't mind always being a single fuckup or two away from death, since I'm not actually leveling up."

Drake nodded. "Because if we hadn't been fighting that monster from behind the equivalent of a foot-thick reinforced battlement and a spiked pit filled with acid, he would have butchered us in the blink of an eye."

"Pretty much," Jack admitted.

And that was when they heard it. A sharp nasally voice ringing with a young lord's arrogance that set Jack's blood to boiling. He didn't even need to turn his head to sense the hate now shimmering off Drake in heat waves when the voice spoke on.

"Well, Vidrig? Are you done with your idiocy? Get up here! It's almost time for the council meeting, and I can't wait to see the look on Lord Velice's face when Father asks about his missing son! Any chance that fool actually survived as a drone slave? Ha! Wouldn't that be too good to be true."

Jack exchanged a tight, hard glance with Jake. "Shall we?"

His young friend flashed a fierce smile Jack felt as much as saw through their party link, his wrath a match for Jack's own. "Sure. But how the hell do we get past your moat of acid without it eating our feet off?"

Jack blinked, before cursing vociferously under his breath. His young friend was right. He had unleashed countless gallons of caustic compounds stronger than any mundane acid, and his Enhancer variant was making a crater out of even the dungeon floor. And even if he were to remove the blood wards he had sealed upon his makeshift battlement, he'd need to ooze and shape some sort of bridge over the shallow lake his deadliest attack had become.

Then he'd have to harden it again. Taking a heck of a lot of time, mana, and experience.

Only then did he truly take in the scope of the pit and moat he and his companion had constructed, feeling an odd chill as he took in what now seemed like dozens of hours worth of work by a skilled crew.

Not a fifteen minute desperately put together patchwork defense.

No matter how long those minutes had dragged out, with their nemesis only begrudgingly closing in.

"Drake?"

"We're wasting time, Jack."

"How long did we spend building this thing?"

Drake frowned in thought. "Shit. You're right. There's no way we can tear this in time to bridge the moat and get to Morlin. It took us hours just putting it all together!"

Jack ignored the lurch in his gut. "Really. Hours, you say?"

His young friend nodded. "And that damned bastard must have known I had survived. Tormenting us with a countdown that lasted for fucking ever!" He flashed an evil smile. "But we got the best of that mercenary in the end. Didn't we, Jack? Now, how the hell do we get to Morlin?"

He then shook his head, looking for long moments at their former foe before giving an appreciative whistle. "And that bastard below is just a pile of shiny bones, now. There's no body left to loot, even if we could get down there. So, how the hell do we get out of here?"

Jack smiled at that, glad to finally have a question he could answer. "By heading out the secret exit."

Eyes filled with desperate hope met his own. "Really? There's a secret way out of here?"

Jack winked. "How the hell do you think I got down here?"

Drake blinked at this. "That's a very good question. Honestly, Jack, I just considered you heaven-sent, and didn't worry about it any more than that."

Jack smirked. "I don't know that I'm quite that virtuous, but I am more than happy to put dogs like that Vidrig down for good. And speaking of tying up loose ends..."

Drake smirked. "I didn't know we were." Then his eyes widened with an odd mixture of awe and horror when Jack summoned forth two extremely crispy objects he was happy to finally get rid of from his Soul Pouch, before shoving them through the murder hole.

"Um... Jack?"

"What's up, Drake?"

"Why are there two... um... you know what? I could care less. I'm sure I just saw a hunter's excess kills being properly disposed of, and nothing else. Besides, I'm sure they had it coming."

Jack turned to his new friend, hating the trace of fear he saw in Drake's gaze. "You know how I managed to stumble on that Missing Person's quest aimed for heroes level 10 and above that led me to your side?"

"No idea. But thank all the gods that you did."

"It all started when I ran into a pair of over-eager poachers. In the heart of the city. And it just so happens the game they were hunting were loose swine wandering the streets."

Drake frowned at this. "That's illegal. For a number of reasons."

Jack nodded. "And I'm guessing one of those reasons is because its a favorite transformation prank that Academy kids like to play on one another."

Drake nodded. "I take it you saw a wizard's duel, then?"

"If you want to call it that. Anyway, I had a bad feeling when I saw that panicked pig squealing and dashing off blindly, so I did my best to chase down... what was his name? Gillien, I think. Along with his sister, and a boy named Felix racing right behind me."

Drake's eyes widened. "Heaven's mercy. Sophia would have an absolute fit if anything happened to her brother. Did you catch the name of Gillien's opponent?"

Jack flashed a cold smile. "As a matter of fact, I did." He then looked down the corridor.

Drake paled. "No way. No way in hell!"

Jack smirked. "Actually, yes. I thought I recognized that obnoxious, nasally voice. Anyway, luckily we got to Gillien in time, forcing the pair of ne'er-do-wells who had just netted him up to let Gillien go by wand-point."

Drake paled. "Wait, those hunters actually managed to track him down and capture him, just minutes of his fleeing the dueling circle?"

Jack shrugged. "It was more like a duel by one of the park fountains, but sure. That's basically what happened."

Drake clenched his jaw. "Those bastards could have killed a noble scion of Greenwood Clan. For them to dare poach within city limits..."

Jack met the kid's furious gaze and winked. "Trust me, they won't be bothering any more noble scions. Not in this lifetime, at least."

Drake furrowed his brow, before giving a thoughtful nod. "I didn't think Felix was the type to countenance killing gutter trash, especially not in front of the girl he's so ardently courting. I know how much he tries to protect her from the uglier facets of reality. But still... if you were gracious enough to clean up loose ends for them with the aid of your exceedingly impressive Pouch of Holding... then I suspect a number of noble houses now owe you a favor."

"No worries, Drake. Even I could sense how upright and idealistic Felix is, or at least, the side of himself that he showed everyone present. Rest assured, he didn't countenance any killing."

Drake gazed at Jack for a long thoughtful moment. "So, you took it upon yourself to tie up loose ends?" He nodded with a certain amount of satisfaction. "It's rare to find those born outside of certain circles willing to take steps for the greater good. You're a good man to have in a tight corner, Jack. You've proven that already."

Jack shrugged. "I'm not quite that ruthless. I did hunt them down, but it was only to ask them a question that kept echoing in the back of my mind. One I couldn't let go."

"Really."

Jack nodded. "I had overheard them saying something rather... distasteful, when they thought no one was listening. Something along the lines of them being as happy catching two-legged game as four."

Drake paled at those words.

"I knew it could be dark boasts to stroke their egos that they would never dare act upon, or something I could be misunderstanding completely. So, I took the time to clarify the issue with them. Just for peace of mind, you understand. But when they answered my polite queries by throwing nets at me and coming at me with blade and truncheon? Well, that answered all the questions I had for them."

Jack flashed a final cold smile at the bubbling husks that were now little more than bones and char bobbing within the pool of acid, before turning back to his friend. "Shall we?"

Drake laughed at that. "By all means. And Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for helping to make this city just a little bit safer."

Jack flashed a relieved smile, not even realizing how much Drake's opinion had meant to him until that moment. "Thanks for helping me feel a little more like a hero and a little less like, well..."

"A cold-blooded killer?"

Jack sighed. "Yes. That."

Drake grinned and clapped Jack's shoulder. "You saved my life when I was gasping and dying in your arms. You could be an assassin for one of the Black Houses for all I care, and as far as me and my family are concerned, you're a hero to your dying day. Now let's get the hell out of here already!"

Jack laughed, already loping ahead. "You got it! Just remember, this back route out of here stays between us, or a certain Lady Sigrid will have my head!"

The youth, now easily keeping pace with him, nodded solemnly. "Wizard's honor," he said.

Jack frowned at that. "I thought you chose the Word Smith or Vrala class, was it?" Then he shrugged. "But considering how well you seem to know Felix and Sophia..."

"Right. In the glorious city of my birth, I'm a student of the Etherial arts. Arts of such grand potential, tapping into the magnificent, overarching dream of magic as a whole, that we can hold our own against any Delver!"

He laughed at his own words. "Or that's what we like to tell ourselves. Because our magic doesn't do shit, here in the underdark, where the powers of living Nightmare hold sway, blending so well with Low Magic and the Delver's arts, tied as they are with blood, battle, and feasting upon the potency of your kills. A darkly potent brew of power and potency such that any Delver with any sort of magical affinity, like yourself, friend Jack, will find his spells coming to life like never before, while any Etherial mage will find his spells no more useful than wisps of dream wilting before Nightmare's flame."

Jack frowned thoughtfully, before slowly nodding. "You know what? I think maybe my spells are just a bit easier to cast down here."

Drake grinned. "Up there, I might be a talented student of the Etherial. But down here, where those arts mean nothing, I'm a Vrala Word Smith who feels the power of that truth resonating through my soul. And never have I felt so vindicated as when my shouts actually stunned that monster Vidrig in a way no Etherial magic could have hoped to. I fear only the Archmagister himself could have hoped to affect a monster with so much dark potency, so much vitality, thrumming through his soul."

Drake shook his head and sighed. "Too bad it began to wear off after the third shout. "

Jack nodded. "I can see how repeated uses might have decreased effect if your foe can brace himself for it. But at the same time, you were keeping an 11th level experienced killer off balance long enough to get get my head back in the fight. And now that I think about it, his armor was a lot more brittle and tattered than even a splash in my pit trap should have caused. I think maybe you deserve a lot more credit for our survival than just keeping him brilliantly distracted. Because you were exposed to him more than once, and not once did he throw a javelin your way that could have blasted right through even an armored knight's defenses."

Jack suppressed a shudder as phantom pain from an injury suffered what had only been minutes ago rippled through him.

Drake furrowed his brow, nodding thoughtfully. "You have a point there, Jack."

Jack grinned. "You effectively managed to stun-lock that asshole and weaken his armor, at least for a few precious seconds. And that's as a first level Word Smith using his first shout against someone ten levels higher than him. But who says you have to settle for a single Tier 1 shout? If you were able to rank up that badboy, I can only guess how deadly it could get. Or you could alternate with additional shouts, and just think how effective your combos could be then!"

Drake grinned. "My thoughts exactly. Now come on, Jack. We're wasting time!"

Jack chuckled softly and nodded, the pair now racing back the way Jack had originally entered and the twisting corridors seemed to fly on by as Jack relied on his map interface. Yet as much as Jack felt a shiver of apprehension as they past countless dozens of doors every shade of crimson imaginable, not once did a single one open, and in just a handful of minutes, the pair of them were catching their breath before a blessedly familiar lookin Golden gate with a lock that, to Jacks profound relief, opened effortlessly with a twist his golden key.