The fully charged shot was a blue fireball that took up most of the now open doorway and detonated on contact with an unprepared security team.

>>

(Knockback: Successful)

(Direct Hit! — X-Cannon deals 9,500 Energy Damage)

>>

Lawlimi fainted, falling and squishing me into a rug. I dragged myself out from under him as Haggitha hefted him up by his armpits.

“Can you follow us out?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Haggitha blanched. “Ugh. Don’t ever talk to me again. Your voice is like a frog getting screwed by a monkey.”

(My apologies.)

She wasn’t strong enough to fully carry Lawlimi, but she managed to maneuver him to the balcony, and I slipped along behind them.

“We don’t have long before more men show up,” she said. “Beagle had his own private barracks.” There were lights coming on around the compound and in the manor. Voices called out in the night.

(Where are the others?)

“Dokutsu and Shippo are hiding out in our safehouse. They weren’t ready for a stealth mission.” Lawlimi wasn’t responding, so she tipped him over the balcony and watched him smack onto the cobbled walk below.

>>

(Lawlimi takes 57 Impact Damage)

>>

Haggitha picked me up and dropped two stories to land expertly on her feet. She nudged Lawlimi, and his eyes fluttered open.

“Not enough minerals...” he murmured.

“We have to go,” Haggitha said, “now.”

Lawlimi levered himself up and adjusted his cloak. Another item of power we had won on Eternity, it dramatically improved his Concealment skill and made him almost impossible to scry or scan. That explained how he had gotten in undetected, but what about Haggitha? All she was wearing was a barmaid’s dress and some slippers.

>>

Gown of the Daughter of Silence

Celestial Level 1

Availability: Unique

Condition: Excellent

Coverage: 60%

Toughness: 100%

This gown was made by blind vampires from the web strands of Arenae, the spider that wove the universe. Unbreakable, yet softer than silk.

+30% to Concealment.

+2 to Presence.

Funeral Shoes

Heroic Level 2

Availability: Extraordinary

Condition: Good

Coverage: 5%

Toughness: 50%

The preferred footwear of burglars and assassins, they grant the wearer a bonus to stealth while retaining maximum comfort.

+20% Concealment

>>

My initial estimate of her attire had to be reassessed. It was possible we would get out of here.

“There they are!”

Men were streaming toward us, and Haggitha gave Lawlimi her shoulder so he could shamble beside her. He wasn’t badly hurt, but his Spirit was near zero. It would have been a good time for a mana potion. I could teach him how to brew them later. The estate wall was only fifty paces away, and we made it despite the steady staccato of arrow fire, most of which bounced off of Haggitha’s extraordinary dress. She made a cradle with her hands to boost Lawlimi over the wall, which fortunately was more of a status symbol than a genuine defense. I transferred myself from her back, pulling myself up the sheer brick barrier by my suckers. A guard charged up to us, and Haggitha slashed at him with her still glowing long knife to give herself the second it took to leap up, acrobatically plant one hand on the flat top of the wall, and somersault off it and down to the other side. Despite being the last to ascend, she was the first to land. Lawlimi sagged beside her, and I plopped down into her arms.

There was no one in the alley adjacent to the wall, but alarms were ringing in the main street and the estate guards would be on us in seconds. We skulked between buildings until we were out of a direct line of sight from the manor. Lawlimi pulled aside the shutter on the window of a small warehouse. Inside were crates and burlap sacks in neat stacks, as well as a blue girl and a Therian, Dokutsu and Shippo, playing Tarro on the concrete floor.

We pulled ourselves in, and Lawlimi settled the shutter behind us.

“We bribed the owner,” he said. “We can wait it out here.”

Good to know my absence had been used to our advantage. I checked the time.

>>

The Book of Old Names —

15 Hours 27 Minutes

>>

The timer shocked me. I had been unconscious far longer than I had intended to be. No surprise then that so much had transpired. Lawlimi crashed out on a few of the grain sacks, and I crawled to the card game.

Tarro was a popular contest played with the expanded deck of the same cards utilized during character creation. The cards of the major arcana all had values assigned to them, and the object was to collect all twenty-two of them in your field by playing a simple value match game with the rest of the deck. Dokutsu didn’t seem to know how to play, but she was winning. As if by sheer luck, she was making all the right placements to steal Shippo’s hard won arcana, card by card. She was diffident and questioning in her manner, but always correct. Shippo looked ready to pull out his fur.

I messaged the group. (What did I miss?)

Lawlimi mumbled something unintelligible, and Haggitha answered me from the window.

“We had plenty of coin, so we paid for healing at a temple before hunting down Beagle, renting this place, and waiting for nightfall. You were better off asleep.”

“Why’d you kill him?” Lawlimi was still supine, but he had caught his breath. Spirit regenerated quickly when characters were out of combat.

“No witnesses,” Haggitha pronounced.

“There were lots of witnesses.”

“You want me to go back for them?”

Shippo gave a yip and stormed away from the game. Shortly thereafter, Dokutsu began eating the cards. The clangor of pursuit died away outside, and Haggitha turned the Wan Ring over and over in her hand. There was a knock at the front door, and the sound of a lock being turned.

This wasn’t part of the plan, so Haggitha ripped open the shutter and hopped out into the side street. Then she put her hands up. When the door opened, it revealed members of the city Watch in close formation. These weren’t like the men we had met in the Purple District. They were well equipped and at full alert. The leader was a woman.

“Come peaceably, you’re surrounded!” She was muscular, with dirty blonde hair, hard gray eyes, and an air of authority that didn’t require her to draw her sword.

Dokutsu looked to Lawlimi, who had risen and lifted his own arms in surrender. It was the correct decision. In a city like Aejis, fighting the Watch was a losing proposition. If you were Celestial, they would hold you off long enough for an angel to arrive and show you the error of your hubris. If you were Heroic, you would be overwhelmed. Killing one of them would ensure they never stopped coming. Lacking the magic to warp to safety or attain true invisibility, you cooperated with the arrest.

The five of us were escorted to the district Watch Office after being relieved of our weapons and bound at the wrists, or in my case, stored in a mesh bag that smelled like oranges. The strands dug uncomfortably into my skin until I was deposited on the table in their interrogation room. The Watch Office was large and spartan, better staffed than the one we had seen in the Purple District. Dokutsu was leashed and attached to a hook in the back of the room. Shippo, Haggitha, and Lawlimi were given chairs. Two high Heroic Templars in plate mail flanked the woman who had arrested us. They would be on loan from the temple to handle any players who tried to dispute the process.

“My name is Captain Fara Myr,” the woman said, “and I’m your only hope of getting out of here.”

“We could kill ourselves,” Haggitha said.

“Short of that,” Fara allowed. “But if you use death as an escape you’ll never be welcome in Aejis again.”

“You’ve got us,” Lawlimi said. “What comes next?”

“There are two doors,” the captain said. “One puts you through a trial, a fine, and a sentence of indenture. If that’s what you want, then we can end this conversation now. But understand, you won’t be getting off lightly for robbing and killing a man in the Gold District.”

The justice system in Mystic Seasons was a little convoluted. People had to be able to live there, and they couldn’t do that if there were no consequences for players who violated the rules of a peaceful city. Obversely, players would not play if their characters could be given life sentences for in-game crimes. That wasn’t fun. Instead, a system of challenges had been developed to punish people who ran amok in civilized zones. Fines were the normal penalty, and obligatory service if you couldn’t pay them. It was also possible to have your account suspended, which represented a major penalty for a major offense, usually player killing.

“And the other door?” Lawlimi asked.

“You work with me,” Captain Fara steepled her hands in front of her face. “Tell me what you were doing in Beagle Jobbit’s manor.”

Lawlimi looked at Haggitha, who shrugged.

“We’ll do whatever you need us to, but we’re on a timed quest.”

Fara stared at her, then she turned to the Templar on her left and said, “You hear that? They’re on a timed quest. Should I let them go? I’ve never been in this situation before.” Then she reversed the pose so she could address the second man. “Most heroes get to commit their crimes any way they please, but these guys were on a clock. Don’t you think they should get some special consideration?”

Lawlimi waited for her to finish. “We were told to get a ring from Beagle. It belongs to a man named Sharkey.”

Fara narrowed her eyes. “I know that name. Beagle and Sharkey used to be mixed up together. Those are Thieves Guild names. What are you doing mixed up in guild business?”

“It’s for our quest. Sharkey knew something we needed to know, and he wouldn’t tell us unless we got him back his ring.”

“So you killed a man, not to mention a few of his employees, to get information from a criminal.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

Captain Fara stood up and opened the door to the hall, then began to shout. “Hey, LaSalle! This guy says killing three people wasn’t his intention. Do you think that makes it okay!?” There was a pause as she listened for a response, which I was able to make out only barely with my hypersensitive hearing.

It sounded like, “Are you doing the thing again?”

“Yeah,” she said, still shouting. “It’s still a crime even if you didn’t mean for it to go south so fast!? That’s what I thought too!”

She returned to the table wearing a serious expression. The faces of the Templars were concealed by their helms, but one of them coughed lightly.

“Okay,” Lawlimi said. “What can I do?”

“You’re going to help us arrest Sharkey’s boss.”

“I thought he was the guildmaster.”

“He is and he isn’t. There’s someone he takes orders from, the real mind behind the Thieves Guild. We could track down Sharkey and take him into custody any time we wanted to, but the guild would go on like nothing happened, because he’s only a figurehead. All our intelligence points to there being a secret backer to the whole operation. We get that guy, then the criminals of this city go from being a syndicate to being a bunch of individual losers we can pick off at our own pace.”

“I don’t know anything about someone above the guildmaster.”

“You don’t have to. There’s going to be an auction soon, a big one, and I need you to find out where that is.”

Lawlimi glanced at Haggitha, who was expressionless. “We need the ring to do that.”

“Fine, take it to him. But your companions all stay with us until we have what we need.”

“Chi?”

(Tell her I’m your therapy animal.)

Lawlimi’s response was somewhat delayed. (What?)

(If you tell her I’m your therapy animal, she has to let you keep me. Trust in the system.)

Lawlimi pointed to me. “That’s my therapy animal. I need him for therapy.”

Captain Fara Myr frowned, but by company policy, she was not allowed to question him.

“Fine. Take the squid with you, but your girlfriend, your dog-boy, and your sex object stay with us.”

“It’s not like that,” Lawlimi protested.

“She’s all teeth down there,” Haggitha added helpfully.

“Dog?” Shippo looked confused.

“Whatever you’re into.” Fara rose. “Come on, your friends will be well taken care of.”

Haggitha produced the ring as Lawlimi helped me out of the mesh bag.

“Don’t forget about me,” she said, and for some reason, Lawlimi blushed.

We were escorted to the front office, and the bindings were removed. Fara grabbed Lawlimi by the shoulder to get his attention.

“Listen. You get that information and you get back to me. I know the auction is supposed to happen tomorrow night, so if you’re not back by then, your companions will be confiscated in lieu of a financial penalty for the deaths you caused.”

“Confiscated?” Lawlimi said. “They’re people.”

“Sure, and you’re responsible for them. Consider it a termination of your guardianship rights.”

“What would happen to them?”

“They’ll be sold for fundraising for my department. There are a few clans that would have a bidding war over your sex toy.”

“It’s not like that!”

“Get out of here.” Fara smiled, but it wasn’t kind. “You’re on a timed quest, remember.”

>>

[Sharkey’s Shadow — Heroic Quest Level 1]

Is there someone behind the eccentric Guildmaster? All that matters is that the Captain of Gold District’s Watch Force believes there is. Bring Captain Fara Myr the location of the Underworld Auction before tomorrow night or lose what matters most.

Reward — 1,000 Experience — Return of Companions (Dokutsu, Haggitha, Shippo)

>>

(You shouldn’t worry. We have what Sharkey wants. You just need to walk back and forth from the grotto in under thirteen hours.)

“I’m sure it’s going to be that simple.”

The return journey to the Dregs went smoothly. The sunflower hadn’t yet opened for morning when we were released from the Gold Watch Office, and the streets mostly belonged to low-level NPCs fulfilling their basic duties, porters and messengers and servants on errands. Lawlimi and I stopped for breakfast at a place that served seaweed wraps, eliminating our Hunger and Thirst debuffs. They had some small live crabs for me.

(Lawlimi, apart from surviving, what is the meaning of life for you?)

“That’s pretty heavy for breakfast,” he said, biting into seaweed, fish, and leafy vegetables with a tangy sauce.

(The discovery of my personal adytum has stirred me to uncharacteristic existential contemplations.)

“I’m just living, day by day. So much keeps happening, changing. I want to keep everyone safe, but I don’t think I’m doing a good job of it. Shippo and Dokutsu are like kids. They need someone to take care of them.”

(You did not have someone to take care of in your first life?)

“No, I didn’t.”

(What about Haggitha? Does she need your care?)

“Haggitha is different,” he said, not elaborating further. “Did you have hands before?”

(I did not.) I waved my pentamerous appendages. (Do you like them?)

“They’re badass. I could use one of those myself.”

We didn’t have a new password for the hideout when we knocked on the trapdoor, so we went with “shibboleth” again, and the same pinched woman in dark clothes allowed us to enter. The dance floor wasn’t busy this early in the morning, but there were a few players at the bar. Sharkey and his entourage were holding court in the far corner of the room, and another PC was receiving a quest from the guildmaster, so we waited for them to finish.

The PC was PamyuPamyu.

Tall and rawboned, she wore a loose chain shirt, a star-mace at her belt, shorts, and a massive hammer with its head hidden under a canvas hood across her back. The hammer was bigger than I remembered it being. When she saw us, she jumped.

“Lawlimi!” She ran across the dance floor and surprised him with a firm hug. “You’re okay! After what happened on the other server, I thought, I don’t know, but I tried to message you as soon as I logged back in and I got an error. Add me to your party.”

She joined our group. “Hollen? Is that you?”