Waypoint Crossing was a few days’ travel from Scant, but Lairas was able to cross a lot more distance in a day than a normal person. Pushing off with Slaughter’s aither with each step wasn’t quite a physical strain - ‘conceptual stress’ was what the shamans had termed overuse of spiritual haze, but it meant that Lairas could walk while his core rested, then burst into hours of higher-speed movement.

It was an imperfect system, and Slaughter had smugly pointed out that, once the Hunters caught his scent again, it would leave an easy trail for them to follow - but Lairas had the beginnings of a plan now.

This… ‘Tournament.’

He didn’t know the specifics, admittedly. Only that it was in the Inner Cities, and that the participants were protected. More than that… Well, he didn’t need to know more than that. He just needed that protection.

Once he was there, he could focus on revenge. Track down the crystal-winged people. Bring them to justice.

That had been the mantra that had gotten him through much of his time in Wellspring Barrow. As a child, his appearance had set him apart - Unspirited and Enspirited alike treated him with distaste, or outright derision. He had only been allowed the position of acolyte because he had managed to prove himself intelligent enough for entry.

In the weeks leading up to his betrayal of the Temple, that mantra had caused needles of anxiety to drive into his skin. He had planned to betray years of his life, the very people who had raised him - and excluded him, he reminded himself - and more importantly, the woman who had saved him.

He shuddered at the memory.

Toppled caravans, bodies strewn across the forest floor, the rolling eyes of a terrified mule - but over and above it, the protective arms of the woman who had scooped up his terrified form and ran.

He had never even found out her name. She had simply been one of the hangers-on of the caravan, perhaps a guard or perhaps another merchant - part of their little family, disparate and eclectic though it had been.

He remembered deep tan skin and curly black hair, framing distraught hazel eyes - like the shadow that kept off the painful light of the sun, a refreshing, protective darkness.

She had hidden in the wreckage of their troupe, waited for the soldiers to fly off, then found him, barely-conscious and bleeding, in the shattered remains of his family’s caravan. They traveled together for what seemed like weeks while he recovered, and she had fed and watered him and sang softly to him in a language he hadn’t recognized.

Then she had found Wellspring Barrow and abandoned him.

No, that was too severe a word - he had never felt abandoned. He would never feel abandoned, because he hadn’t been abandoned; his family had been taken from him. Even that woman, heroic and mysterious though she had been, was part of his family that the crystal-wings had destroyed. Perhaps in another life they would have grown closer - but that possibility was gone now.

He refused to blame her for leaving. She had her own life to reconstruct, her own family to mourn. And father had always taught him to take nothing for granted, to seize every boon like the gift that it was.

His father had also taught him never to steal, or be cruel to animals, but… needs must.

He came to a stop, panting, as Slaughter’s haze ran thin and the conceptual stress mounted in his core. In a way, threading his every movement with its power was a boon, a way of entrenching the spirit into his conceptual core and strengthening their bond. It did, however, leave Slaughter free to speak its mind.

“You a resourceful little mortal, fleshy,” the spirit’s sneering voice jeered. “Somehow you actually made it. I can admit when I was wrong - you do have the wherewithal to condemn another town to the Hunters.”

“Aren’t you tired of this, Slaughter?” Lairas asked, instead of rising to the spirit’s bait.

Honestly, after the hours of mockery and manipulation, he no longer felt insulted by its words. This was simply Slaughter’s nature - if it could not kill his body, it would try to kill his morale.

“Tired of what, fleshy?” Slaughter only continued to mock. “Tired of seeing you broken down and pathetic? Honestly, yes, but that’s unlikely to change - you’re you, after all.”

Lairas snorted out a laugh, still trudging forward, now unaided by the spirit. Those long intervals of jogging, then sprinting with the aither’s aid, had tired him out. The sun had progressed past mid-afternoon now, and was beginning the march towards evening. But there, down at the bottom of the hill he no stood on, lay the modest town of Waypoint Crossing.

“Good one,” Lairas muttered, without the energy to sound sarcastic.

“Obviously,” Slaughter scoffed, voice haughty. “Centuries of death and destruction tend to leave a spirit with a sense of humour.”

“Also, apparently, with a high sense of one’s own importance,” Lairas commented drily, beginning the slow downward slope towards the town.

“High but accurate,” Slaughter retorted. “Death is as natural and important a factor of your pitiful realm as life. That is what it means to be mortal.”

“The meaning of life is death?” Lairas replied, raising an eyebrow. “My oh my, what a novel philosophy. Surely, the acolytes back at the Temple will be overjoyed to learn of this groundbreaking truth.”

“The truth isn’t groundbreaking, fleshy.” Slaughter laughed at him seeming genuinely amused. “The truth is simple things. The sky is up. The ground is down. Humans die, spirits don’t. Anything more complicated than that isn’t only true or only false - it’s a mixture, a concoction of half-truths and murky lies wrapped up by you mortals in neat little bows and repackaged as one or the other. That way it’s easier to justify to yourselves when you commit atrocities.”

“When we commit atrocities?” Lairas barked out a surprised laugh, face contorted into an expression of disbelief. “You are a spirit of Slaughter, you are defined by atrocities.”

“You know nothing of what defines me, mortal,” Slaughter suddenly snarled. “Arrogant, heavens-forsaken fools, the lot of you - I am only a spirit of Slaughter because your kind made me that way.”

“What?” Lairas asked, suddenly confused - and regretful. For a moment there, they had been having a legitimate dialogue, or at least so he had thought. “Slaughter, I didn’t mean-”

“Shut your filthy mouth, mongrel.” Slaughter practically spat at him, voice incensed. “We will talk no more.”

And with that, the spirit fell silent.

Lairas was baffled. Clearly, he had touched a nerve of some kind. The accusation of atrocities, somehow? Had that set the spirit off? He didn’t know, but now he longed desperately to know - he had, just for a moment, felt like this was a potential avenue towards partnership. A somewhat adversarial partnership, perhaps, but at least an honest one.

He sighed, then drew the red haze inside him again. He was approaching Waypoint Crossing’s gates - which lay side by side with the river they spanned. Boats were moored along the water, bobbing in the gentle flow, and guards in towers looked over from above, presumably to ensure they could tax those who entered the town by way of the water.

The guards here were just as receptive to a few nails of clipsilver as the ones in Scant had been - another boon, given his total lack of documentation.

Inside, however, the town was far more sophisticated. The buildings were of stone and ceramic tile, the roads were paved, and all animals were locked inside proper fences and pens, rather than running loose as some had been back in Scant. Buildings were properly signposted - public houses, cobblers and blacksmiths, a tailor and a bookshop, the town hall, even a school that looked occupied.

None of them were what Lairas was looking for, however - he needed transport.

There was no way, of course, that he could purchase it himself. Horses were ludicrously expensive, and unlikely to be given to him for any amount of clipsilver. Besides, he would have no way to feed the damn thing, never mind the fact he’d never even ridden one.

No, what Lairas needed to do was attach himself to a merchant caravan of some kind and hitch a ride to the Inner Cities, preferably before the two weeks that marked the start of the Tournament.

Lairas surreptitiously checked the notice again - and yes, there at the bottom of the somewhat-bloodstained page, a few ways of writing dates that he couldn’t decipher, and then the ring of tally marks that he recognised. They marked a day when Susuli and Illumina would be as far apart in the sky as they could possibly be, which happened every two months. The next time it would occur was almost precisely two weeks away.

The best place to find transport, either way, was in the marketplace. Wellspring Temple’s market had been elegantly laid out by spirits of Beauty and Commerce, but here in Waypoint Crossing it sprawled across multiple streets and open spaces. The town was split unevenly down the middle by a tightly-meandering river, and connected by a trio of stone bridges, which were named after the founders of the town, as far as Lairas remembered from the Temple’s survey books.

He crossed the middle bridge - was it ‘Happer’s Bridge,’ this one? He couldn’t quite remember. He’d had more important things to focus on.

Over on the other side, hawkers shouted out their wares and stalls displayed a modest variety of goods. The products in Waypoint Crossing were far more varied, and usually more expensive, but there was something much less artificial about the shops and merchants here.

Lairas scanned the stalls, unsure of what he was really looking for, but before he could settle on a goal his stomach gurgled its displeasure. He grimaced at the pangs of hunger - the myriad of scents rising from the centre of the marketplace were enough to cause him to feel actual nausea.

He checked the ingots of clipsilver he had remaining - less than he would have liked, but enough that he could justify a meal.

He found a stall that had open fire blazing beneath a well-oiled pan, offering chunks of fried dough stuffed with crab meat. His mouth watered even at the sight of the food, and he was quick to snip off the requisite half-nail for a chunk.

“Ya look hungry there lad!” the merchant chuckled. “Tell ya what - another nail and I’ll give ya four dumplings.”

Dumplings - that was what the delectable smell was. Lairas chewed at his lip for a moment, but eventually gave in, clipping off a whole nail while the brown-skinned merchant sliced off four slivers of dough from a chunk spiked to one corner of the stall.

Lairas dropped the nails into a jar on the countertop, then watched with ravenous fascination as he plucked a ball of crab meat from a bucket below the counter, depositing each cluster of pale-white flesh into rapidly-frying dough slivers.

In a sudden flurry of movement that Lairas could barely follow, the merchant folded and rolled the slivers and meat into four separate balls - dumplings, he reminded himself - then splashed them with some inky sauce and dusted them with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Lairas was in awe at the skill it took, even as the merchant scooped each one up with a scrap of paper and dropped them into a ceramic bowl.

Once had had them in hand, he barely made it to a bench along the river before tearing into the first one.

The sauce was somewhere between spicy and salty, and the crisply outside of the fried dough flaked deliciously into his mouth. Sure, the meat was a little rubbery, the dough perhaps a little undercooked - but the entire experience was mind-blowing.

Before Lairas could even wrap his mind around the flavours, the dumplings were gone, hot meat and dough already warming his stomach. He groaned as he sank back on the bench, a sudden burst of exhaustion causing his eyes to droop. His leg felt heavy and weak - he had no idea if he could even get up again. Maybe… Maybe he should just sleep here?

With a groan, he stood. He had to get out of the city for sleep, set up a secluded area and wrap his coat around him.

The dumpling merchant called out as he passed.

“Ya seemed pretty hungry there lad,” the man chuckled as he passed by.

Lairas hesitated, unsure of what to say. “Erm…” he began, and the man laughed loudly.

“Don’t worry, we get a lotta hungry travellers through Waypoint - best place to cross the ol’ River Oxprow, after all,” the man continued.

Lairas nodded. “... Right,” he said, after the man paused. “That… um, that makes sense.”

“‘Course, this is Waypoint - always a passing through, never the destination,” the man noted, and Lairas wondered if he was talking to himself. “That’s me askin’ where ya headed, lad.”

Lairas jerked out of his confused stare and flushed a little. “Um, right,” he said. “Ah, well, I’m headed to the Inner Cities.”

He immediately berated himself for saying as much - he needed to be far more circumspect with his intentions. Who knew how the man would use that information.

“You have a plan for getting there?” The merchant asked, and Lairas hesitated before shaking his head. “‘Course ya don’t,” the man laughed again. “They never do. Well… for a few more nails I could help ya find a way, hmm?”

Lairas frowned, but internally was relieved. Honest conversation, that he had a problem with. Bribery was much more familiar ground.

“How many more nails?” He asked, keeping his voice disinterested.

“Let’s say… a coupla ingots worth.”

“Hah!” Lairas barked out a laugh. “Good one. Half an ingot.”

“One and half.”

“Three quarters.”

“One.”

Lairas sucked at his teeth. Was it worth it?

“One, and you tell me how to make sure this actually works,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Ah, I wouldn’t rip off one of you poor travellin’ folks,” the man tisked. “Deal.”

Lairas nodded, and pulled an ingot of clipsilver off of his ring. He was down to just over one ingot remaining - he hoped he wouldn’t have to spend any more of that on this endeavour. He went to hand over the ingot, but kept his grip as the merchant went to take it.

“Details,” he said firmly, locking eyes with the merchant.

“‘Course, lad, ‘course,” the merchant chuckled. “There’s a merchant boat moored upriver, name of Susuli’s Song. Captain there owes me a favour, ‘n she’s always in need of an extra hand - long as ya willing to pull your weight, she’ll get you within a day’s walk o’ the Inner Cities.”

“... Thanks,” Lairas nodded to the man, relinquishing his grip. The man snatched the ingot away.

“Just mention that ol’ Rennet sent you, when she asks, ya hear?” The merchant - Rennet, apparently - said.

“I- I will,” Lairas said, then turned and started walking away. No time like the present.