Instead of forcing my hand, the pair of humans whispered to each other for about thirty seconds. I caught some of the words, but the throbbing of my head made listening difficult. I wasn’t entirely sure when it started, but as I held the vial up threateningly my head was noticeably throbbing. They have a lantern lit in a nearly airtight space, I thought, there must not be adequate ventilation in here. Finally the male human, Zhoyyn, moved away from the wall and approached me.

“I’ll take you there, but I ain’t goin’ in,” he said. “I also ain’t gonna be held responsible for what happens to you if you cross ‘em.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s go before you change your mind.”

Zhoyyn led me north until we hit the northeast edge of the clearing, then searched around a bit for a mark on a tree. Once he found it, a symbol made of three vertical cuts and one horizontal through them, we headed due east, and before long I saw the trail we were following. It was well worn, but covered up by plants that appeared to be deliberately trimmed and grown to hide it, so it was only visible from certain angles. We soon ended up at a run-down, abandoned-looking cabin with boarded-up windows.

I waited outside while Zhoyyn went inside, and after just two minutes he came out and told me to enter. I didn’t even get the door closed behind me before hearing him scamper off at full speed, clearly glad to be done with me. The feeling is mutual, I thought as I looked around the cabin, identifying a trapdoor that had light peeking out around its edges. Lifting it revealed a crude set of stairs, then another door that led into a wooden basement room.

“So I see you got Taof’s group to lead you here,” the largest man in the room said. Four humans stood amongst around twenty crates that had been strewn about, two leaning against stacks of them. All of them were armed with swords, and all of them looked well-built. The one who spoke had a shaved face and head, as well as a mark of ire on his right cheek. “Did you kill any of 'em?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Well, that’s something,” he sighed. He had the same type of accent as Zhoyyn, Taof, and Jhaozhihl, but it was much less thick than theirs. “Zhoyyn told me Taof pulled a sword on you.” The throbbing in my forehead started to squeeze my eyes, and I grimaced.

“I need to get into Towrkah, you know the way in,” I said, getting straight to the topic at hand. “You also know about what happened to my traveling companion. Start with that.” All four men chuckled, and the leader took another step forward.

“Not even gonna ask my name?” he smiled.

“You are obviously Awveyray,” I replied. “Stop wasting my time.”

“And who are you then?” Awveyray asked. “It’s not polite you know, not introducing yourself.” Can anyone in this city just answer a damned question? I seethed.

“I’m the person who will kill all four of you if you don’t tell me where Vaozey is and how to get into Towkah,” I growled. “You’ve caught me on a day where I am very short on patience, so please, don’t waste what little I have left. For your own sakes.” Again, chuckles came from the men, this time closer to laughter.

“That woman, she had quite a mouth too,” Awveyray chortled. “Sounded a lot like some ex-nobles I’ve met, didn’t know when to shut her mouth to keep outta trouble. Still, I helped her, so I’ll help you. Have this one for free: She’s in Towrkah, as you probably suspect, out of the hands of the guards last I saw her. Now if you want the other thing you asked for, learn some manners. Killing us won’t get you inside, only we know the way in.”

“You use the waterway,” I guessed, glaring back at him. “It’s the only obvious entry point, you probably have a secret tunnel that lets out in an alley somewhere.”

“Ho ho!” Awveyray laughed, clapping his hands. “Smarter than he looks. Now, do you know when the guards we bribed are on duty? Or can you walk through a hail of arrows and bolts like you’re Roydlow himself?” I wanted to give a verbal retort, but Awveyray didn’t look to be lying about the guards, and if he was telling the truth he had a point. “Good, so, you’ve got three tubes of bait I hear?” he continued, smile still beaming.

“I do,” I replied, pulling one out and showing it to him.

“You’re thinking of threatening me with that, ain’t you?” Awveyray prompted. “Don’t lie, I know the look, and Zhoyyn told me you would. Just know that’s not gonna work here, we’ve got more than enough repellent in these crates to cover it up. Mind passing me that?” So they’re smuggling repellent? I thought, sniffing at the air reflexively. Though the room did have a smell to it, it wasn’t like the repellent in the vials, and instead resembled peppermint and ammonia mixed together.

“What use is it to you then?” I asked, tossing the vial to Awveyray. He quickly uncapped it, took a whiff, then gagged and capped it again.

“That’s strong stuff,” he huffed. “To answer your question: None of your business. But, I’ll be taking the other two vials from you. The repellent, you can keep. We’ve got enough as you can see.” I didn’t have any particular reason to hoard the attractant, if anything it was a detriment to me if the presence of ants meant I could be being tracked, but I still had some reluctance as I tossed the other two vials to Awveyray.

“Now, let’s go,” I commanded.

“One forty-four,” Awveyray said, beckoning with his right hand as he placed the vials down on a crate with his left. “Ngoywngeyt, of course.”

“Vaozey had no money, and you helped her,” I countered.

“Oh no, you’re paying for her too,” Awveyray replied. “She caught me while I was feeling magnanimous, but you’ve done far less than that, enough to make me forget my prior kindness. I know you have money, so one forty-four, then we can go. Seventy-two for her, and seventy-two for you. If you're lacking funds, we can work out an alternate deal.”

“I have the money,” I grumbled. I’ll just kill you and take it back once I’m at the entrance, I thought as I pulled out my wallet and removed a significant amount of the money inside, placing it into Awveyray's greedy hands.

“Good, good,” Awveyray smiled. “We’ll leave that here so you don’t get any ideas, not that you would, of course.” Damned headache, I swore silently.

As we waited, Awveyray and his men chatted back and forth about rumors and gossip inside the city, not exchanging much in the way of useful information. We ended up spending almost two hours standing around in the clearing before the guard shift that Awveyray was waiting for moved to the section of wall we would be entering through. He didn’t use any visual means to identify them, so I assumed he simply knew the timings of the shift changes, but without a clock, it was a mystery as to how. Soon enough, we approached the aqueduct’s grate and two of Awveyray’s men pulled it off, setting it aside so I could enter.

“Don’t bump your head,” Awveyray joked. “Now, since you paid for the premium service, you also get one of these.” He pulled out a bottle from a belt on his waist, then the man who hadn’t helped with the grate handed him a cloth and a stick.

“I don’t need a torch,” I replied, stepping into the tunnel and taking a few steps inside. It was about a meter and a half in diameter, and the water only rose to my ankles, but past two meters in it was pitch black. The creek must flood occasionally to justify the size of this thing, I thought. “What directions am I following?” I asked. The men all exchanged looks, two shrugged, then Awveyray put the oil away and tossed the stick.

“You’re pretty much just gonna go straight,” he said. “On the left and right, every twenty steps or so, there are other tunnels. Don’t be going down any of them except the sixth one on the left, then the third on the right after that. You can try other paths, but you’re liable to end up somewhere you don’t want to be. Sure you don’t want that torch?”

“Sixth left, third right,” I repeated. “If this doesn’t work out, I know where to find you.”

“Ooh, scary,” Awveyray laughed, then his smile vanished as I ignited a ball of light and cupped my hand to cast it down the tunnel. “Heyseyt,” he swore as the other men flinched. “You’re the one they keep blabbering on about these last few weeks.” The Rehvites talk about me publicly? I thought, trying to decide if that information was good or bad.

“And what do they say?” I asked, moving as though I was going to step out of the tunnel. The two men who had moved the grate dashed over to it, then started to shove it back into place as though it could stop me. I had no intentions of leaving, and the sight was so amusing that I nearly laughed.

“Forget my name once you’re in there,” Awveyray said, jabbing his finger in my direction. “I won’t want any part of what you’re involved in.”

I took the sixth left and the third right, then followed the tunnel I ended up in until I saw a grate above me and heard street noise. As far as I could tell the aqueduct wasn’t being used as a sewer for waste, but it also still drained excess water from the streets, which begged the question as to why there was an intake duct to begin with. Regardless, I only had to climb about a meter to reach the grate, which was loose enough that I could push it aside with one hand.

My exit point was in the rough center of a number of large crates not unlike the ones that had been in Awveyray’s cabin, so nobody saw me emerge. After replacing the grate, I peeked over them, finding that I was in the backyard of a store that was directly connected to an alley. Since there weren’t any people in sight, I just walked out to the alley, then made my way to the nearest street, acting nonchalantly.

Towrkah’s streets held the densest foot traffic I had seen yet, and though it was mostly orderly it felt chaotic simply because avoiding bumping into people was next to impossible. That fact, combined with the tall buildings on every side of me, made me feel as though I was underground unless I looked up at the sky. Those same tall buildings were also constructed rather poorly, some even braced against each other across the top of the street to avoid collapse, making looking up induce some anxiety in my stomach. All in all, I found it unpleasant.

My first stop was an opportunistic one: I saw a barber shop as I was looking around for an inn and shoved my way across the street to get inside. The sole worker, an old man, politely told me that I’d have to pay to have my hair washed before he would do anything with it as soon as he saw me. Thankfully, the price was very low, just thirty ngeyt, so I gladly obliged him. About half an hour later I walked out with a fully shaven head, as well as a cleaner face and directions to an inn.

That inn was called the Tahmeyv, or “Kettle” in English. I knew it before I even saw the logo on the outside because the entire building looked as though it had been burned black on the outside. Once again squeezing my way across the street, I pushed inside and shut the doors behind me, feeling a bit out of breath. In contrast to the outside of the building, the inside was clean and new. The layabout humans inside the dining area didn’t seem to care about my entry, so I walked across the floor to the back counter.

“What?” the innkeeper snapped. His skeletal frame and long pale hair gave him the appearance of a desiccated corpse, but his oddly bloated belly contrasted sharply with the rest of him.

“I need a room for the night and a meal,” I said. “Also, do you have an area I can wash myself in? I’ve been on the road for a while.”

“Five ngoywngeyt,” the innkeeper replied, holding out his hand. So low? I thought as I handed him the money.

“For all of that?” I asked.

“You can pay more if you wanna,” he replied with a shrug, pulling a key from under the counter. “Fourth floor, room five. Also, there’s a bathhouse across the street. If you show ‘em that key, they’ll let you in for free. We’ve got a deal with ‘em. Room food won’t be ready until sundown, if you want it faster, that’s extra.” My stomach growled, but I knew I could wait.

“No, I’ll be back in an hour,” I replied. As I was about to turn to leave, I stopped, then looked the innkeeper in the eye. This area is still close to the exit grate I used, I thought, Vaozey might have been here. “Have you seen a woman around here with black hair and yellow eyes?” I asked. “Probably wearing armor?”

“You mean the woman who busted up one of my tables last night?” he asked back. Yeah, that’s probably her, I thought.

“Do you know where she is now?” I asked.

“If I did, she’d be payin’ for the damages,” he replied angrily. “What’s it to you?” As if sensing the change in his tone, a balding corpulent giant of a man walked out of the door behind him, holding a simple wooden club. His face was flushed unevenly and both of his sclerae were yellow, giving him a sickly appearance. Still, his size indicated anything but weakness.

“She owes me money too,” I replied. “Seventy-two ngoywngeyt, in fact. I knew she was in this area recently, so I thought I’d ask.”

“She was asking about caravans and such, so you might wanna be quick,” the innkeeper replied. “Still don’t know what set her off. She ended up talkin’ to this group of guys from out of town, they were chattin’ her up, you know? Then one showed her some bracelet-lookin’ thing and she flipped out. Broke a few teeth, destroyed a table, burned one on the arm with magic, then ran off before the guards arrived.”

“What direction?” I asked. The bracelet was probably a Rehvite emblem of some kind, I thought, that, or something else is going on. I doubt she’d leave town, and she has no money as far as I know, so she probably can’t.

“South,” the innkeeper sighed. “You’re gonna kill her, right?”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“You look the type, and she’s clearly zaetawmoyt,” he answered, gesturing to his head. “That guy she grabbed on the arm is upstairs right now, trying to decide if it’s worth cuttin’ her handprint off him. Pretty sure he’d pay you a bit if you brought her head back, and with a temper like hers, there might be more lookin’ for that sort of thing. I could ask around.”

“Ask if you want,” I replied. “No promises.”

The bathhouse wasn’t as clean as the inn, but the water was fresh enough, and even heated with wood fires. I opted to wash my own clothing, something that wasn’t banned, and when I emerged an hour later I felt truly clean for the first time in weeks. Back at the inn, the meal I got was a mountain of heavily seasoned meat and crushed tubers, good enough to fill me up as much as two meals but not extraordinary in terms of taste. I was going to go out and look for Vaozey, but once I went to check on my room I felt so tired that I decided to just leave it until morning and went to bed.

The next day I went south with a clear head and open eyes, looking for anything that might lead me to Vaozey. After asking around at a few more inns I found that she hadn’t been to any of them, though a few of the patrons had seen her walking the streets nearby, and all said she was moving south when they saw her. I eventually hit the south wall, then went west until I got too close to the south gate for comfort before doubling back. Towrkah’s population density was good for hiding, but even with my new appearance, I wasn’t stupid enough to return to the scene of a recent crime.

This isn’t productive, I thought, Maybe I should just look for a caravan to… what was the next city again? Muhryehv I think. Vaozey was looking for one too, but if I can’t find her before I secure transport out, there’s no real harm to me if I just leave her here. My thoughts were interrupted when I noticed a line of ants crawling up a building to my right, coming from inside an alley. They didn’t seem to care about me at first, even when I stepped into the alley to take a break from the chaos of the street, but when one stepped out of the line to walk up and observe my foot, I recalled the two repellent vials I still had in my bandolier.

I still couldn’t stand the smell of the liquid, but compared to the stench of the city in general I doubted anyone would notice it besides the ants. Using my thumb in the same way as Zhoyyn, I shook the contents of one of the vials and sprinkled my entire body with it, holding my breath to hopefully avoid the worst of the scent. Once the vial was nearly empty, I tapped the last bit of the contents out into my hands, then rubbed it under my gambeson, coating my skin. Finally, I had to take a breath, and I gagged as my senses acclimated to the new smell.

Only one left, I thought. How do criminals survive in this city if they need this stuff at all times? Some smuggle it in, obviously, but where do they sell it to the others? Considering Awveyray’s business, I realized it was doubtful that he didn’t inform Vaozey of the necessity of repellent. His business is driven by demand from people like her, I thought, if he didn’t sell her any of his product, he certainly told her where to buy it from one of the vendors he supplies. Quickly, I formed a new plan for how to find Vaozey, and crossed the alley to step out into the street opposite the one I entered from.

Sadly, I didn’t have much luck finding a repellent vendor before the sun began to go down again and I was forced to find another inn. Asking around for a place to sleep was more effective, and I was quickly directed to a nondescript six-story building. Inside, there was no dining area, and I was informed that I had not entered an inn but a sort of paid barracks for workers. Though there was no food, the price was lower than an inn, so I purchased a key and then went out to find a cheap eatery. I’m lucky the whole sixth floor was empty, I thought, There must not be many workers in this part of town or something.

Later that night, I realized why there was nobody staying on the sixth floor. Wind blowing through the city caused the building to sway, creaking ominously as the wooden internal supports threatened to buckle under the weight of the stone walls. Every time the building tilted, my stomach jumped, and I had the sensation of falling. I slept in small bursts of approximately thirty minutes each, and when the first rays of sunlight began peeking into my room, I felt nothing but relief.