Pellex was violently shaken awake, his head throbbing from the motion. Blearily, he glanced around for the culprit. It took him a few seconds, but he slowly remembered what had happened. With that sorted, he realized that he was tied to a seat on the airship, and that was the thing shaking. In fact, shaking this hard would mean… Pellex tried to groan, but the gag stopped him. The airship was being landed by an inexperienced pilot, and they had tried to bring the thi ballast’s power up without turning off the cycling. This would make the slider adjust cycle time, not ballast power, and, though it would work and lower the airship, it would do so in the most unnecessarily destructive way possible. The thi ballasts would be ruined by that method, and Pellex’s headache would only get worse. Unfortunately, Pellex had no recourse but to wait it out as the once-graceful zeppelin vibrated its way onto the ground.

With a thump, the airship landed, and Pellex relaxed into his seat, no longer shaking. He wasn’t able to rest for long, however, as mere moments after the landing, three arders filed into the cabin. Each of them made their way to a captive and forcibly led them out, one businessman who struggled too much simply thrown over a shoulder and carried. Pellex tried to see how many passengers had survived, but he didn’t have the greatest view, and his headache made it painful to look around, though it seemed to be subsiding now. After a few minutes, the arders came back and took another three out, none of these bothering to resist. This happened a few more times before one of the arders came to Pellex. Worryingly, he hadn’t seen any of the city guards, but they were probably behind him.

Knowing that he was very wrong and trying to ignore that, Pellex went with his captor peacefully, and exited the airship into a hot and dusty plateau jutting off of a large mountain range. It was bustling with activity – dozens of arders milled around the platform, crates were being swiftly unloaded from the airship’s cargo hold. The arders weren’t the ones doing the unloading, though. Haggard prisoners did the work, running the dock under the watchful eyes of their overseers. Some of them wore gags, and a few were apparently powerful enough to warrant enchanted manacles. Pellex tried to figure out where he was, but he was ushered inside the mountain quickly. The best he could tell was that he was where the Scourge had tried to level the Bulwark Mountains, but that area covered fully half of the gigantic mountain range.

The inside of the mountain was far less busy, but also far more interesting. Dozens of passages were cut through the rock, with seemingly no pattern to their spread. Pellex’s escort seemed to know the layout very well, however, and the arders unwaveringly led him and the other two prisoners they had taken through the halls. As they walked, they passed several rooms, with entrances ranging from cloth covers to serviceable wooden doors. Pellex tried to peek in the open ones, but they always passed to quickly for anything more than a glimpse.

Just as Pellex began to slow from exhaustion, they came to a staircase and headed down, ending at a small room with a large metal door on the other side. One of the arders knocked, and a guard opened the door, revealing what was clearly a dungeon. The jailor looked over the captives, and when he saw Pellex, his expression tightened ever so slightly. The jailor gestured at Pellex, and his escort nodded before continuing into the prison. They passed a few cells before opening one, seemingly at random, untied Pellex, and shoved him inside, pausing to relock it before heading further into the prison with the other two captives.

Pellex got up and looked over his new accommodations. The room was the same featureless reddish-grey of the rest of the complex, with a bare mattress in one corner and a small drain in the other. Pellex squinted at that for a few seconds before realizing what it was supposed to be. After quickly relieving himself, he plopped onto the mattress and was actually able to think about his situation for the first time since waking up. He had been captured by an arder gang he hadn’t even known existed, with fairly well-made equipment, housed in a complex that would have required some fairly uncommon classes to construct. How had he not heard of them? There was a hundred of them, at least, and just the builds he had seen in action demonstrated what would be extremely valuable class information. What was Pellex supposed to do? He couldn’t fight them. He wouldn’t make it past the jailor. He couldn’t even break out of this cell – he wasn’t a [Brute] or a [Sublimator]. The only thing he could do was wait and see if they brought him food, wait and see if he was forgotten and left to rot in the dungeon of the pirates’ mountain or – Pellex took a deep breath. Mind over matter. There was always a solution. That was the [Artificer] way. And… Pellex wasn’t an [Artificer]. He was something different. Pellex began to blink, but remembered – he was First Echelon now. With a mental command, he pulled up his notifications, and began

sorting through them.

Class Selection Pending Experience Released!

Current level: 5

Total Experience: 7,249

Experience to Next Level: 137

Pellex read through that notification again, and again, and once more for good measure. That single kill had brought him up nearly… four thousand experience, if he was remembering the table right. He was already almost at level 6.

[Cogseer] Class Selection confirmed!

Maximum Thi x4!

Thi Regen x4!

Thi Stability x2!

Hybrid skill tree [Cogseeing] unlocked!

Four advanced skill trees unlocked!

[Augury]

[Chronologing]

[Runewinding]

[Gearfitting]

Class skill unlocked!

[Cogsight]

When you touch a construct, you can see where its gears mesh with those of time itself, and follow those links to see into the past – and perhaps, the future.

Cost: 20 thi per second

(20 – skill rank / 2 thi per second)

Pellex felt a knot of tension release as he read, his choice of class confirmed in the best possible way. It had his two favorite skill trees from [Artificer] – [Steamwielding] and [Manufactory] were more for large scale projects, not the intricate, personal things Pellex preferred. [Oracle] advanced tree knowledge was thin, but the two Pellex had sounded very interesting. And [Cogsight] – it was expensive to use, but Pellex could see so many applications already. Pellex got up, ready to try it out, but was torn from his reverie by the stark, empty room. Frustrated, Pellex slammed his fist into the metal cell door, infuriated at his situation.

“Hello? Is someone out there?”

Pellex couldn’t believe how happy he was to hear another voice. Peering through the slit in his door, he looked around the dungeon hallway, but couldn't see the source.

“Yes, hello? Who are you?”

“Oh, thank goodness, I haven’t had company since I was thrown down here. Well, except for the arders, of course.”

The voice reminded Pellex of his mom, though she sounded a bit younger than this person. He hadn't even thought to check if there were other prisoners nearby - he had assumed that, with such a large complex, the arders would have spread people out as much as possible.

“But anyway, you were asking who I was. I’m Holia Kardobri.”

“Holia Kardobri? The [Culinarian]?”

“Oh, you’ve heard of me? That makes a few things easier, then. And who might you be?”

“I’m Pellex Audenry. I was just captured today, or maybe yesterday if the arders flew through the night. I was unconscious for most of it.”

“You say you just got here, have you been to see Julian yet?”

“Julian?”

“You haven’t yet, then. They’ll be around to bring you to him in a few minutes, I’d be guessing. I am not quite sure what his class is, but he has some sort of passive sci skill that makes you want to avoid disagreeing with him. If you know about it, it can’t harm you, but know that you should be affected by it. Don’t make him angry. I haven’t seen him get angry yet, but I raised five children, and I know that that’s not a good thing. He’s high Second Echelon, for sure, and… Third isn’t out of the realm of possibility.”

“Third? No-one’s Third around here! There aren’t any soulmages who can even set your cap that high in the entire Peacejoined States!”

“Calm down, I’m just warning you what I sense around him. The difference between Third or Second wouldn’t matter much to you anyway, if I’m reading things right. That’ll be all I can tell you right now, though. We’ll talk more when you get back.”

“Uh… thank you. How do you know all this? Are you okay? Should I be worried?”

“No,” Holia said, firmly. “You’ll be just fine. I can hear them coming down the hallway now, so get ready.”

Pellex couldn’t hear anything, but he trusted the Second Echelon chef’s senses better than his own. Sure enough, a few moments later he heard footsteps coming down the hall. An arder opened the door and gestured Pellex out of the cell with his cogrifle, offering only three words of explanation.

“Julian is waiting.”