Chapter 42

The next morning we shared a quiet breakfast of last night’s leftovers before I set out for town. I checked with Ashlara before putting her in charge again. She wasn’t confident in being around children, but seemed determined to try. I assured her she’d do fine and kissed her goodbye.

She blushed faintly at that, but when the kids followed it with a long, exaggerated “oooooh,” she went completely red and waved me off in flustered embarrassment.

Entering the city through the gate was still a risk, but one I was willing to take - at least for now. I circled the walls and approached from the south this time, hoping to blur any patterns and reduce the chance of an ambush. Paranoia, maybe. But it kept me alive.

By the time I found my bearings and made my way to the university, it was late morning. I skipped the front desk and headed straight for Nander’s lab. He wasn’t there, so I wandered until I located his office instead.

He was having a discussion with a young man in dark blue robes - likely a student - so I milled about nearby until the meeting ended. Once the student departed, I poked my head through the door.

“Sorry I missed our meeting yesterday,” I said. “I had… some family business to deal with.”

He looked momentarily confused, then gathered his things. “Oh! No trouble at all. Shall we head to the lab?”

I nodded, and once the doors were sealed behind us, I added, “To clarify - it wasn’t my family.”

Some of his earlier enthusiasm faded. “Oh. I had hoped to meet another world traveler.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Any luck on those quests you mentioned?”

“Oh, yes. There’s an office at the palace that assigns work. Apparently there’s a ranking system - the more jobs you complete, the more dangerous ones you’re eligible for. Pay scales with risk.” He frowned. “I can’t say I approve.”

“I get it,” I replied. “But I need supplies to get through the winter. I’ve got people depending on me now.”

He nodded, reluctantly accepting that. I added with a grin, “Before I go - anything I can help with? Tests? Blood? Saliva? Grading papers? Chopping wood?”

His eyes lit up instantly. “Blood would be excellent. Saliva as well. And I have something that can test your mana output…”

A small cut later, he had a vial of my blood. It took five uncomfortable minutes to produce enough saliva to fill another via, another five to list everything I’d eaten over the past three days, and then he had me press my hands against metal plates while a connected bottle of green liquid boiled furiously away. In about half an hour, it was gone.

I had no idea what it meant, but he seemed excited about it.

After lunch, I said my goodbyes and headed to the chirurgeons. I hadn’t caught the administrator’s name before, but the scarred young woman was still at the desk. When I asked to see the same administrator, she rose and went to fetch her.

This time, an older woman with gray hair braided tightly took her place. Nearly half an hour passed before the administrator returned, offering the same tired smile as before and leading me to one of the small side offices - clearly shared spaces for private conversations.

I thanked her for her time and introduced myself properly. Her name was Celia Ashkettle. I explained that I’d encountered some of the children from the recent incident and asked what resources were available to them.

“Other than the orphanage?” she said gently. “None.”

I asked about Dur’s uncle. She said she’d look into it. None of the children had mentioned extended family - only that their parents were dead. I thanked her again and told her I’d check back in a few days.

My next stop was the Grand Archive.

The building itself was a work of art - several stories tall, with sharp-peaked roofs and elegant buttresses bracing the outer walls. Dark wooden shingles clad the exterior, stained glass filled the windows, and gargoyles of wood and stone clung to ledges and corners around the perimeter. It was equal parts fantasy and gothic, like something dreamed up by an architect with too much imagination and no one willing to tell them no.

The interior somehow surpassed it. Shelves of books climbed toward soaring, twenty-five-foot ceilings, with ladders mounted on wheeled tracks sliding along the rows. A vast central space opened upward through multiple floors, crisscrossed by balconies that jutted out at odd angles. The walls curved in on themselves or bulged outward without any obvious pattern, and sharp, unexpected angles seemed to dominate the design. Statues, display cases, paintings, and weapons mounted decoratively on the walls were scattered throughout, making the place feel like a museum and a library tangled together.

Just standing there made me dizzy. I had no idea where to even start.

I made my way to a large, round counter near the entrance where several people were seated, clearly serving as some kind of information desk. I asked for help, and a young, gangly man with short brown hair and an impressive nose seemed genuinely pleased to provide it.

To start, he set me up with a world map and some basic information about the surrounding regions.

To the north lay goblin lands - no unified nation, but territory clearly recognized as theirs. Beyond that rose mountains, and farther still, a frozen region riddled with lakes - likely scars left by ancient glaciers.

South and east stretched Arvellia, formally titled The Grand Kingdom of Arvell. Farther south lay Caldris, then Esmori - both apparently human-dominated. To the east were Ilvarion and Morentis, and beyond them a vast ocean scattered with islands. I suspected that was dragon territory, though the maps made no mention of it.

To the west lay the Iron Nation - a confederation of orcish warlords. That gave me pause. Hek was human, and Ashlara had said his father was a warlord. Clearly, the Iron Nation was more flexible than its reputation suggested.

Beyond it stretched desert lands claimed by the cat folk.

North of the Iron Nation lay Dumrath Kol-Varn - Stonevein - the dwarven realm, spanning most of the east-west mountain range. The mountains north of goblin territory weren’t labeled as dwarven, but I suspected there were outposts there as well.

South of the Iron Nation was Ilyr’Vaeneth, the elven empire - forests, plains, and another southern ocean. Caelwynne lay near its border with Arvellia, roughly three weeks’ travel. At least now I had a direction.

There was no mention of a nation for the peri, or the giants I’d seen. Nor any explanation for the broad, flat-faced, furred people I’d encountered in Woodhome.

The sheer number of sentient peoples staggered me. Everything I knew about evolution said this shouldn’t work - that conflict would inevitably erase all but one. That had been humanity’s history, after all.

Clearly, this world followed different rules.

* * *

I asked for what records they had on the gods - Miralis, in particular. Much of what I found echoed what Mirri had already told me: that gods were not born whole, but formed from belief itself. Faith gathered, accumulated, and eventually became. The texts spoke of five recognized stages of divinity - conception, association, collation, swarm, and ascension.

Conception was the spark - an idea, a thought, an ideal. Most died there, never gaining enough weight to move beyond being little more than a notion whispered once and forgotten. When belief began to cling to a concept - when it was repeated, shared, or relied upon - it entered association. The idea spread, attaching itself to other things - animals, colors, weather, emotions, symbols.

Collation followed, when those associated things began to gather in ways no one could fully explain. Creatures, stories, and symbols aligned themselves around the growing ideal. Swarm was the point of no return - the moment those gathered fragments began to change, to blur, to merge into something greater than their parts. And finally, ascension: when the swarm unified and divinity was achieved.

None of these stages were guaranteed. The process itself remained poorly understood. There was no god of a rock in your shoe - but why? Was it because the idea never gained traction? Or because it failed to associate with anything beyond itself? A rock in your shoe evoked no animal, no season, no meaningful color. Stone itself was too broad, too powerful, to be claimed by something so narrow. The texts offered no answers - only speculation.

There was mention of a possible sixth stage: metamorphosis. Entirely theoretical, it proposed that sufficiently powerful events - wars, sacrifices, cataclysms - might alter a god’s aspect entirely. Change them into something new. I wondered if this was what Yveth had meant when she spoke of having changed, though she had offered no details.

As for Miralis, she was known by many names: the Guardian Spear, the Shield-Maiden, She Who Protects the Innocent. She was counted among the High Witan, a group of gods who watched over mortals while deliberately refusing to rule them. They believed intervention beyond rare, careful acts would rob mortals of choice. The High Witan stood in direct opposition to another faction - the God-Kings - of which Pyraeth was a member. According to the texts, the God-Kings sought to rule the world outright. Given what I knew of Pyraeth, that tracked.

There were no definitive rosters, only fragments and recurring names. Among the High Witan were Miralis herself; Lunythera, the Waning Watcher - whom Grams had mentioned; Solenna, the Burning Crown; and Aurelion, the Oathbound King.

Among the God-Kings were Pyraeth, He Who Burns the Weak; Nerakhel, the Unfathomable Deep; Anura, the Untamed Fang; Ornyth, the Broken Artisan; and Granyth, the Cracked Mother.

From what I knew - or thought I knew - Yveth did not align herself with the High Witan. I would have to ask her where she stood on the God-Kings.

Miralis was remembered as a defender of the weak, but the stories painted a more complicated picture. There were accounts of her choosing sacrifice over preservation. Of mercy granted only in part. Of protection that came at a terrible cost. I still didn’t understand what she truly embodied - what her core was.

As with the others, her titles hinted rather than explained. Yveth was the Frozen Mourner, yet I knew her as the goddess of sorrow that never fades - an understanding she hadn’t corrected when I voiced it. Pyraeth was the god of dragons - Serah had said as much. Did that mean there was a god of humans? Of goblins? Orcs? I’d seen no evidence of such things, though my knowledge was far from complete. Jackob had called Miralis the goddess of protection - but was that the whole truth, or only the part mortals found easiest to name?

I didn’t know. And I was running out of daylight. I had one more place to go before night fell.

* * *

I made my way through the main marketplace and on toward the castle beyond. It was a massive thing, unmistakably European in its lines - tall outer walls enclosing a broad courtyard, and a central keep rising higher still. The entire structure was fashioned from seamless white stone, or else so carefully plastered that no joint or seam betrayed itself. Given what I had seen of the city walls, I suspected the stone was genuine.

A wide gate marked the entrance, flanked by a dozen guards. Its heavy wooden doors, intricately carved, stood open to the public, though few seemed inclined to pass through. Above them, the pointed teeth of a great silver portcullis jutted down from the archway, a quiet reminder that this was a defensive fortification.

Beyond the gate stretched gardens so well kept they seemed almost unreal. Flowerbeds and hedges had been trimmed into the shapes of animals. Fountains murmured softly beside statues and benches, all set along smooth cobblestone paths that wound through the grounds. Even in the early winter air, the place felt as though spring had taken permanent residence.

I asked one of the guards where I could find the office of quests. After a bit of back-and-forth - mostly clarifying what, exactly, I meant - he pointed me across the gardens, just to the left of the main palace entrance.

The office itself was plain by comparison. A stone room perhaps fifteen feet wide and twenty deep, bare save for what it needed. Along the right-hand wall hung a large board covered in tacked notices, each listing a job, a reward, and a rank ranging from B to F.

At the far end sat an older man behind a writing desk. His steel-gray hair was cropped short, and deep lines of age marked his face, but his posture was straight and unyielding as he wrote in a thick ledger. He reminded me of old war veterans I’d known - past their prime, perhaps, but still more than capable of breaking up a fight if needed.

He set his quill aside and looked up as I approached, his stern expression softening just a fraction. “Welcome to the Office of Public Contracts and Civic Commissions,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for work,” I replied. “I haven’t done anything like this before, so I’m not entirely sure how it all works.”

He reached into his desk and produced several sheets of paper, sliding one across to me. “You’ll need to register first. Do you have a team, or are you looking to join one?”

“I have a team,” I began, then caught myself. It was really just Ashlara and me - and someone would need to stay with the kids. “Actually… I might want to look into joining an existing team.”

He nodded, unperturbed. “This form is for registering your own team, should you choose to do so. This one is for applicants seeking to join another. It lists your skills and any equipment relevant to fulfilling a commission.”

“Do I need a team?” I asked.

“That depends on the commission,” he said. “Some have no requirements. Others specify a minimum or maximum number.”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing toward the board. “How does the ranking work?”

“Anyone may attempt an F-ranked commission. These are the simplest tasks. Once you’ve successfully completed at least one commission, you may apply for work one rank higher. The ranks are F, E, D, C, B, and A.”

“And I just take one of these and bring it to you?” I asked.

“Once you are registered, yes,” he said. “Your application will be reviewed, you and your team evaluated to ensure you meet the requirements, and you will be issued your papers and deputization.”

I filled out the forms - one for myself, one listing Ashlara and me as a team, and another expressing interest in joining an existing group - and turned them in. Looking over the board, I saw only a single F-ranked commission: clearing a blockage in the sewers. It had no requirements, but the pay was a meager two gold coins. Still, it was work. I took the posting, received a simple map of the sewer tunnels, and was sent on my way.

Finding an entrance took longer than I expected. The hole Serah had blasted open a month earlier had been patched, though the surrounding buildings still bore heavy scars from the damage. Once inside, I made decent time through the tunnels and eventually reached the blockage.

It filled the passage entirely. Murky, foul-smelling water seeped around its edges, but otherwise it was a solid wall. I couldn’t tell what it was made of, but prodding it with Adhaneth revealed it to be at least as hard as packed earth.

I stepped back, focused on my mana, and tried to call to the earth the way Mirri had taught me. A large chunk tore free, and I barely dodged as it hurtled past. More liquid leaked through, but the tunnel was still blocked. I tried again.

The blockage exploded.

A wall of brackish sludge surged toward me, slamming me off my feet and carrying me down the tunnel. My head struck the stone, filth **** its way up my nose and into my mouth, and I couldn’t find my footing. I didn’t know if movement alone would save me - but I hoped it would.

I reached for my demesne.