Hugo cried on the train ride back to Tallinn. It was the first time in a long time he had let tears fall. He hadn’t realized how much he had really wanted back in his own body. Without noticing, his hopes had gotten really high. Only to be dashed.

Now he needed to restart right away, he couldn’t even afford to wait until the end of the year. Not with the uncertainty around the ritual nodes losing power.

Damnit.

He had been hoping to do a lot more fun things before the year was up. Now he had to get down to business right away. Well, maybe not right away. He could probably go on one more bender. One or two days probably wouldn’t make a difference.

He perked up a bit at that thought. He could go on one last bender, one last day of fun. He needed funds, but he could sell his crossbow design. Really, he could sell his crossbow too. The metal guild probably wouldn’t catch up with him in time.

That crystal lady was scary though, so he didn’t sell his crossbow. He went back to Tembisa out of habit. The Blue Gauntlet bought his design and he walked out of there with a platinum. He was kind of glad that they wouldn’t have the time to take advantage of the design. He was pretty sure they were the ones that tipped off the metal guild that he was selling mithril.

He went back to the Gilded Lily. Partly because he was used to it. Partly because he knew Aria would take care of him. On the way over, he was stopped by someone he didn’t recognise.

“Hey there, lady mage. I have something new for you,” the short human woman said.

“Do I know you?”

“I’m Lilly. We met a few months ago. I’m a hedge mage and you said to come find you when I had something new to sell,” she said, nervously.

Now Hugo remembered her. She was the drug dealer he had saved from the kids. “Yeah, sorry. I remember you now. What did you want?”

“This is about what you want,” she said and pulled out a vial. It looked like a tiny version of a health potion. “This is a new drug that everyone loves. Red Spice. It gives you the best high. No side effects, no morning after pains. Just a mellow high that makes everything better. Everything.”

“No drug is without side effects,” Hugo scoffed.

“It’s literally magic. Seriously, this stuff is good. It’s fantastic. I use it myself sometimes. Cheap too. Only half a silver per dose,” Lilly said and held up the vial.

The swirling red liquid made Hugo curious and he said, “Alright, fine. Give me as much as a gold will buy me.” He tossed her the coin.

She gave him her whole supply, twenty vials, and told him not to take them all at once. She mentioned something about sharing. Hugo tucked away the vials and mostly forgot about them.

Once he arrived at the hotel, he summoned his favorite attendant.

“Aria,” Hugo said and dropped ten gold on the table, “Gimme a room for tonight, the best monster meat dinner in Tembisa right away, and a pitcher of gargleblaster delivered to my table when I get down to the bloodthirsty poker tables.”

Aria bowed and said, “Consider it done, my lady. Are you celebrating tonight?”

“Yes, I am celebrating my last night in this city,” Hugo said truthfully. He would probably never return here after he traveled back in time.

“We still have your books you left here last time you stayed, would you like those delivered to your room?” Aria said.

Hugo blushed when he remembered how many of those books were actually smut and said, “No thank you. Feel free to dispose of them as you see fit.”

A few hours later, Hugo was playing poker and losing badly. He had thought that his fearless bluffs would throw the other players. He literally didn’t care if he won or not so he didn’t have any tells. It should be impossible to tell if he was bluffing. He was still losing. Maybe he was drunker than he thought.

Instead of trying harder, Hugo just gave up. He got out the vial of drugs and downed it.

“What was that?” his neighbor asked him.

“Red Spice. I have never tried it before. We will see how the night goes,” Hugo said.

“Living dangerously are we?” the older woman said, “I like to do that as well. It comes with the territory.”

“What territory?” Hugo said. He was starting to feel something.

“I am a ritualist for the city,” she said and placed a substantial bet.

Hugo matched her and said, “I am a ritualist myself. I wouldn’t describe our domain as particularly dangerous. Is working for the city dangerous?”

“What was your name?” she asked.

“Lina of the Brambled Woods,” Hugo said, reading off his stat screen for some reason.

“Good to meet you, Lina of the Brambled Woods. I am Hierophant Hai. Call me Hai. I am in charge of the main ritual that keeps monsters from spawning in Tembisa. Any change we make, even a minor change in the quality of produce we sacrifice, could effect how the ritual works. If we make a mistake, people die. Just maintaining the ritual is living dangerously. All of my colleagues are on drugs to deal with the pressure,” she said.

Suddenly, she seemed like the most interesting person in the world. Hugo said, “That’s intense. Tell me everything.”

Hierophant Hai explained the day to day maintenance on the ritual as Hugo continued to lose more and more money at the table. He didn’t care, it was a fascinating conversation. Hugo started to giggle too.

“What’s so funny?” Hai said, “I know it’s boring to some people, but you asked.”

“No, just the drugs kicking in,” Hugo said. He felt fantastic. He was fully in control of himself, but having a great time. “I wish I had hired a competent ritualist like you. Alexandru is a moron. I mean, his ritual is complicated and weird, but still. I need someone competent, not someone who thinks that research is messing around and finding out what happens afterwards.”

“You should talk to my master. He is a brilliant ritualist, designed most of the government rituals on the wheel. He would love talking to you about a complicated and weird ritual,” Hai said.

“I just might do that,” Hugo said. She gave him directions to the master ritualist’s compound in Paarl. Hugo half remembered seeing it. She had been taught by one of the nox grandmasters, he had seen that compound when he lived there.

The rest of the night flew by. Red Spice was fantastic. Hugo loved how he felt and it helped him come up with a poker strategy that won back most of his money. When the people at the poker table saw his pile of dragonbone chips growing, they asked for a sample too. Since Hugo had way more than he needed, he was happy to share. He was going to travel back in time tomorrow, and his first hit was still working.

The next morning, Hugo had a throbbing headache. Luckily he knew just the solution to that problem. Another hit of Red Spice and he was good to go again. He checked his pockets and found that he only had six doses left. He must have been very free with the drug last night.

He shrugged to himself. He wouldn’t need any more Red Spice. He was going to head out to start his life over soon anyway. He wouldn’t have a headache in the new body anyway. He dropped off the vials at the front desk. Maybe they would have a fun time before the world blew up.

On his way to the shimmer station, Hugo decided it might be a good idea to reroute. That grandmaster ritualist might be able to help out. Even if he refused to visit the top of shimmer mountain, he might know enough to help Hugo arrive in the right body.

Of course, he couldn't afford to spend much time on this, not when the nodes were losing power. But the possibility of getting back into his own body was tempting. He had seen the ritual several times by now, he could just sketch it out and ask the grandmaster if there is an easy way to fix it.

Hugo made up his mind and bought a train ticket to Paarl. While he waited for the train, he bought a sample of all of the street foods nearby. His favorite was the garlic mushroom kabob. Shortly after he boarded the train, his dose of Red Spice wore off.

The world seemed duller and boring. Hugo was immediately in a worse mood. He had been having fun, and he had given away all of his Red Spice. That was a stupid decision. As he walked through the streets of Paarl he got in a worse and worse mood. He found himself wanting to kick nox out of his way. They were just walking so slow.

He went so far as to form a barrier paddle before he stopped himself. What was he thinking? These people had done nothing to him. He stopped walking and thought about it. Which was actually kind of difficult. The headache had returned, and it was worse now.

He stopped at a tea house in an attempt to recenter himself. It was obvious that he was having withdrawal pains from the Red Spice. He hadn’t heard of any drug that could get you hooked so quickly. Maybe it was because he was a riese and the drug was made for humans? Did it affect him differently? While he thought about it, he slumped to the tea house floor. The pain was getting worse.

Now he had full body pain, like a sudden onset flu. Which was really concerning. He hadn’t gotten sick since he had gotten soulmarked. He pulled up his Acomarian screen to see something concerning. He had lost a health point. It wasn’t regenerating either.

Whatever the Red Spice had done to him, it was literally sapping his health. He groaned in pain. Carefully, he got back up and stumbled out of the tea house. He needed to stop this. He should head over to the nearest shimmer substation. Instead he found himself walking towards the train station.

He would have a better chance of blowing up the shimmer station if he was feeling better. Right now he was still stumbling a bit from the pain. It would be horrible to make a mistake in the attack and get himself killed or captured. This was safer.

It wasn’t until he was halfway there that he admitted to himself that he was lying to himself. He didn’t need drugs to blow the shimmer vein. He was addicted. His body craved Red Spice. He didn’t feel mentally addicted though. He wasn’t looking forward to the high. It was weird. It was just a physical craving that was directing his feet.

When he arrived in town he raced back towards the Gilded Lily and asked for his drugs back. There were only two vials left. None of the staff had taken any, but some of the guests he had shared with last night had tracked down doses from the hotel. Hugo didn’t care what he looked like as he uncorked a vial and downed the whole thing.

Relief slowly poured through his body, radiating from his stomach. He focused on the feeling. It was actually radiating from his soul core. Hugo remembered now that the hedge mage told him Red Spice was magical.

Hugo sat in the hotel lobby for a half hour as he returned back to normal. He felt like himself again. Or rather, a very happy version of himself. His health points hadn’t ticked back up yet, but he expected that he would be healed soon. Now that he could think clearly, he realized what was going on.

Hedge mages were selling magically addictive drugs. It had to be part of their plans to overthrow the government.