Josef couldn't believe what he'd just heard. He stood absolutely frozen as Lancel took up Mal's call for him to finish the song. The crowd erupted in a fresh round of roaring cheers as the first notes of The Sewers Belong to Us engulfed the dank Gangdrupian air.

With every note Lancel played, Josef's heart skipped a beat. He stared at Mal; she stared at him, once again bobbing her head to her favourite tune.

For a split second, Josef opened his mouth to yell out in rage and disgust but John's hand came down on his shoulder like a mallet. The sewerman gave him a curt shake of his head. And then Lancel brought forth his voice, with the crowd joining in:

But in its dazzled dark

There is a song

All sing

To make their mark:

For the sewers

Belong

To us!

For the sewers

Belong

To us!

As if sheathing a sword, Lancel released his grip on his harp as a thunderous applause broke out among all the sewerfolk. Mal turned her orange-feathered face towards the cavern's ceiling and let out something between a roar and a gurgle.

Josef stared at the nicks and scrapes in on the dais floor on which he kneeled. Anything to distract himself. They should've risked going to Bouldershore. He wanted to scream.

As the applause gradually withered away, Mal nodded appreciatively at the harpist, who bowed deeply in return. Mal then returned her golden eyes to Josef's quaking form.

"Still living, goo-drinker?" Mal said, feigning surprise. "Did your soul go for a little tumble? I hope so. Only a goo-drinker would be so insolent as to interrupt an entire city's Moonsneeze celebration. Do you think Lancel is talented?"

Josef looked to John, unsure of how he should respond. He was in limbo. Death, he felt, had come and lingered, its fingers dancing along his spine. And yet he breathed; he felt fear.

"I humbly request this goo-drinker receive ratification," John repeated, kneeling and gesturing towards Josef. "I did them wrong. I have no expectation. Only this request for the goo-drinker."

Josef felt a deep sense of gratitude towards John as he watched Mal tilt her head back and forth. What was she thinking? He didn't know how to read her face, but the wreath of feathers flowing down her eel-like body expanded and contracted. Looming in the background, the sewerbreeze mushrooms did the same.

"Your troubles are known, John Wayles," Mal said. "Your status, I regret to inform you, has fallen within this feld. Aiding The Ba'ha Company? Unconscionable. You will make a redemptive offering to me and your fellow Gangdrupians."

Josef watched as John continued to kneel as if he were an ageless rock. He didn't respond, except by bowing more deeply.

"As for you, goo-drinker. I sensed your spasming goo as soon as you entered my feld. It cries out to receive my ratification — and yet, I hesitate. Why have you come here? Did the crows not deign to bring you to safety?"

Josef exhaled and shook his head. "Ratifying me could've destroyed their feld. There's more to it, but I wasn't willing to risk The Crow Meadow's destruction. They're already so weak—"

"Yes, yes, I see," said Mal. Her eyes were now closed as her body snaked back and forth in the air. "This is odd and most puzzling. The goo in your system is indeed different. The core recipe remains, but there have been modifications, additions. I can see now why the crows hesitated. And yet they offered?"

"Yes," Josef replied immediately.

"Interesting. Suck risk. Well my feld here is healthy, my feldlings prosperous and devoted, the rites performed and observed." Josef could feel the anticipation rising in his chest as he listened to Mal. Was she going to ratify him? "Goo-drinker, I will ratify you. I will even waive my typical musical requirement, but I have a condition. The last goo-drinker I ratified departed long ago, taking with her many of my most penitent and far-thinking feldlings. They've never returned. And so I hesitate to grant this ratification as it's cost me dearly in the past. So, as Moonsneeze comes to a close, I name my price."

Josef shifted. What did Mal, Guardian of Ferngloom, require of him? He would say yes to almost anything.

"Before the Spring's close, I require only one thing." Mal paused, narrowing her golden eyes on Josef. "If the legends are true, you drinkers of goo are capable of miraculous deeds and so I make an appropriate request: I desire a special piece of clothing from Kaway Mahay. The Rosecloak's Rose Cloak."

"Wha!" Claudius cried out. The crowd gasped. Josef looked over his shoulder. Claudius was already in a daze.

He had no choice. He didn't know who the Rose Cloak was. He knew next to nothing about Kaway Mahay. "Done," said Josef sternly. "I will do it. Ratify me."

"So be it," said Mal, a small smile spreading across her features. "If you fail to bring me the Rosecloak's sacred Rose Cloak before the first day of Summer, before Gangdrup's Festival of The Blue Shine concludes, I will revoke your ratification."

"Can she even do that?" Claudius hissed out but John immediately elbowed him.

Josef didn't have a choice. He agreed.

"Let it be known, a feldpromise has been made," Mal said, turning her eyes to the crowd, while her dark green and ruby red feathers collapsed against her skin. She proceeded to hunker down, coiling within herself. Then, without warning, she sprang into the air, twisting and extending out into a straight line before hurtling herself down into the lake water like an arrow dropped from the cavern's ceiling. Barely a ripple followed her disappearance.

Josef could hear himself breathing. He could hear John and Claudius breathing. Ratify me, please.

After a moment's silence, lake water suddenly erupted everywhere as Mal blasted back into view, swaying her head right in front of the dais.

"Everyone move. Save for the goo-drinker," Mal commanded. Lancel gave a slight squeal and began to drag his harp back towards the stone walkway. Claudius and John retreated as well.

Mal then slithered onto the dais circling and circling around Josef. She drew herself into a loose oval around him. Josef's mind flicked back to the Crow Meadow, back to when the crows had flown down with their clanking manacles and submerged his body in a casket of black feathers.

"Welcome to my feld," she hissed as she tightened her spiral around him as if drawing a noose taut. Her feathers brushed against his arms and legs, her wet skin tightened around his torso. She was cocooning him, drawing him within a secret feathered hive.

Instantly the claustrophobia arrived, but Josef gave himself over to it. Whatever this was, he was ready for it.

"So still, so patient," whispered Mal as she continued to tighten around him, her feathers pressing deeper into his skin. He knew what was coming. He relaxed, pictured his goo-sac haven in his mind and surrendered himself to the tightening squeeze of Mal's coiling body.

Quite abruptly she then stopped. Josef could feel the expansion of her flesh against him. "The crows have already tested you, I see," Mal said, her head rotating to peer directly at Josef. "No struggle. A calmness, a most impressive calmness."

Josef remained still. He couldn't see anything, save for the cavern's darkened ceiling and the orange flush of the feathers covering Mal's face. Then she dipped her head.

All at once Josef's body started to tremble, a vibration gaining force from inside the deepest core of himself. A heat grew in is his chest. His skin flushed and his eyes slammed shut. He felt elated, completely disoriented, and continually he gave himself over to the vibration seeking expansion and space.

A gripping wetness slicked over his forehead. He pried open his eyes and saw Mal's serpent tongue pressing itself against his skull. What was she doing? He kept his head steady. His felt like his body was losing its coherency.

But then Mal herself began to shake. Her feathers started to quiver and rustle. Josef stared her feathered face. Her green eyelids were shut, now hiding her golden eyes. She appeared to be wincing.

Josef could hear her teeth grinding just as he felt himself becoming unconditioned. The boundaries between himself and the world relaxing — he felt alive, brimming with energy, and light, so gracefully light. He was receiving ratification.

But then all at once Mal tightened her hold, squeezing him; she hissed into the air — her voice breaking, like her throat had been slit mid-roar.

Something was wrong. Josef didn't know what it was, but he did his best to calm himself. The ratification needed to go through. This was out of his control, he told himself, but he could feel his pulse quicken.

Mal retracted her face from Josef and stared upwards at the cavern ceiling, swaying back and forth hypnotically as if trying to swallow an entire lamb. She seemed almost possessed while a noise broke from her mouth — half-scream, half-choking sobs — that sent goosebumps flying across Josef's body.

But as Mal rattled and filled the cavern with her horrific cries, and as the Gangdrupians held their breath in fear, Josef felt his entire body enveloped and enlivened with a shimmering fizz of bliss. It was like he'd just sipped from the purest well of water. He felt revivified, brought forward into new life, even as sounds unspeakable unfolded around him.

He didn't know what came next. Mal was shaking uncontrollably until the moment she became so still, as if energy had ceased to circulate through her body all at once. She relented, tumbling down to the dais's stone floor.

Waves of lake water lapped at the dais's edge.

Josef couldn't believe what had just happened. He looked up and saw both Claudius and John wide-eyed as well. Murmurs emerged from the theatre's crowd, water continued to lap quietly at all four sides of the jutting dais. What had just happened? Did he just kill the queen of this feld?

Shaking, Josef pressed his hand out to the feathers and touched the green tendrils, their red flaring stripes. There was no response. She was so still. The strange lake creature who'd been towering above him and shrieking seconds before was now silent, unmoving.

He'd left The Crow Meadow only for it to be covered in flames and ash. How would he leave Gangdrup? No one spoke. Even the lake barely made a sound.

A short, abortive breath brought Mal's feathers flitting upwards. And then came another abbreviated breath. And as if guided by some secreted underwater star, Mal wrenched herself off the dais without a word, slithering and then plunking into the black water of the lake. The entire theatre was held in silent fear as Mal's tail disappeared beneath the water's surface.

"He's going to need help," Josef overheard Claudius say.

Worried gasps shout out from the theatre's crowd as John sped past Josef and dove to the edge of dais. He landed on his knees, sliding and then peering down into the lake water. He shot a frightened look at Josef.

"Josef lad…" was all that John could say.

Josef looked to Claudius and then to the anxious crowd standing on their tip toes. Ratified or not, if Mal's feldlings decided to string him up for destroying the Maven of Ferngloom that would be the end of him.

The silence carried on for far too long. Josef reached down and grabbed his short sword from where he'd place it on the floor. He felt its leather grip in his hand. He was tempted to swing it, to test its weight in case he needed to use it, but he restrained himself.

Water splashed. Josef looked and almost cried out in relief, relaxing his grip on his short sword. He let out a deep sigh. He didn't know whom exactly he was relieved for, himself or Mal, but nevertheless he felt lighter as her orange feathered face merged up from the lake water, peering at him. Her body rose and extended upwards to the cavern's ceiling once again. Josef could hear the crowd break out in excited chatter. Water sluiced down from her feathers, dripping into the lake's surface like fifteen drainpipes hard at work.

John kneeled, heaving in breath after breath. Josef remained standing with the short sword in his hand.

Mal blinked, her golden eyes taking in everything, especially Josef. "Goo-drinker, I either overestimated my abilities or I underestimated the dynamism of the goo flowing through your system. I saw the short — all too short — hallway towards my death."

"It wasn't my intention—"

"I care not for intentions, goo-drinker. You understand less than a sliver of what The Lush Heap entails. And yet you seek me out and demand I ratify you. I regret it, for I am much weakened, but it is done — you are ratified under my watch."

"How? How are so sure?" Josef sputtered out, looking at his skin.

"Do you feel the air?"

Josef looked askance at Mal, unsure of what she meant. "The air?"

"Moonsneeze is over, goo-drinker. And you live."

Josef quickly looked at his arms. She was right. The hairs on his arms were no longer standing on end. The air had lost its cracking electricity. Moonsneeze was over. He was alive.

Josef collapsed to his knees, the short sword clattering on the floor, his hands coming up to his face. A rush of excitement and pure relief flew through his body as he breathed his next breath without the fear it would be his last.

"Remember our agreement, Goo-drinker. If do not return with the cloak before the the close of the Festival of the Blue Shine, I will revoke my ratification."

"Are there extensions," Claudius asked.

Josef wanted to punch Claudius in his gills.

Mal turned her head to the Sea Gwell, peered at him, and then decided to ignore him.

"I will go to Kaway Mahay," Josef said. "And I will return with the cloak you've demanded from me."

Mal smiled again. "Yes, please do, but now I must retire and heal. Know the people of Gangdrup will feel the strain from my ratification. We all have sacrificed for you, goo-drinker."

And then Mal disappeared, closing her eyes and lowering herself back into the waters of Lake Ferngloom. Hushed chatter rippled through the Gangdrupian crowd.

Claudius stared at Josef. "It's going to hit you real quick."

"What do you mean?" returned Josef, puzzled.

Claudius stared into Josef's pupils as if peering down the bottom of a well. "Izzblum's Guide to—"

"Izzblum's Guide to Drinkers of Goo," Josef said, imitating Claudius's voice, "distinctly states that blah blah blah blah." And then Josef collapsed on the floor, breathing, but unconscious, and completely ratified.

"I tried to warn him," Claudius said to John, shrugging.

"He often listens quite well," John said cheerfully.

"As the ratification process boots up, they boot down," Claudius said while shaking his head at Josef's unconscious body. "Izzblum's Guide to Drinkers of Goo dedicates an entire chapter to it. There isn't much in the way of canon as far goo-drinkers go. But this is canon." Claudius prodded Josef with his webbed foot. "Yep, he's out cold."

"For how long?" John asked.

"Usually only a day or two, but who knows with what we just saw with Mal."

John recommended they take Josef over to The Backwards Flow and acquire a room. Claudius nodded in agreement, but only absently, he was already envisioning how he would break the news to Josef about the Rose Cloak.

John and Claudius each grabbed one of Josef's legs and pulled him towards The Backwards Flow.

"Do you still have the contract, fishman?" John asked. "I have a hunch my redemptive offering might be monetary in nature."

"Serves you right for getting involved with a goo-drinker," Claudius teased.

John grunted. "He barely weighs more than a gujai."

"He's just a guppy, but guppies can grow."