It was, as usual, raining in the city of St. Langostine on the evening our heroes sauntered into town. The city was a nice enough place so long as you didn’t mind the rain; it was a sprawling place of gothic architecture and deep shadows, a spider’s web of roadways running amongst its cottages and cathedrals, ferrying its thousands of inhabitants along their daily routines. St. Langostine was a walled city, and the walls had long ago become too confining, such that the city was forced to continue its expansion in the only directions available to it: up and down. Tall spires lanced up from the skyline, piercing the clouds above, inhabited by priests and plutocrats, criminals and wizards. In the sewers beneath the city those too poor or too politically unpopular to live in the city above built their own city beneath, a sprawling landscape in its own right of makeshift huts and shanties. Amidst all of it, countless ordinary people — those neither rich nor poor, neither politically powerful nor politically objectionable — bustled along, carrying out the activities of their daily lives, caring more about putting food on the table and clothes on their backs than about wordstones and wizards and Puritans. In other words, St. Langostine was a thoroughly ordinary city.

Into this scene walked our heroes, thrilled to see civilisation again at last. One immediate, obvious difference between a city like St. Langostine and a backwater village such as Grady’s Quay is that nobody really noticed them here; St. Langostine saw so much traffic and so many travellers that nobody found the oversized bumpkin and his slender, stylish companion the least bit out of the ordinary. It’s possible that even Sarai wouldn’t have drawn too many odd looks, the people of the city being somewhat accustomed to wizards and their various peculiar familiars.

Gell was on a mission, and he moved swiftly and skillfully through the throngs, impatiently seeking his destination. After their multiple run-ins with the Cult of the Hand and now the College of One, Gell decided they needed answers, and he knew just the man to go to to get them. But there was something he needed to take care of first.

“Here we are,” he announced cheerfully.

Katja looked up at the hanging plaque above them. “The Collier’s Arms? A tavern? Honestly, Gell, I thought we were here for information.”

“We are, darlin’. But ain’t no harm in catchin’ up with an old friend first.”

“An old friend?”

“A very good friend of mine, in fact. He’s brown and bubbly and comes in a keg.”

“Gell!” Sarai admonished him. “Do I need to give you another lecture on the evils of drink?”

“How’s about we hold off on that ’til I’ve had me a pint or three.” Gell smirked at her mischievously. Sarai fumed.

“Gell,” Katja pressed, “I think we should find a different tavern. This one… I mean, ‘The Collier’s Arms?’ I think it’s run by the miner’s guild, Gell. We’re artifacters, remember? Could be trouble.”

“Ah, you worry too much, darlin’. Everything’ll be fine. Trust me!” And with that, and a big corny smile, Gell disappeared through the doorway, Sarai flitting along after him, tugging vainly on his collar as though she could pull him back out into the street. Katja resigned herself to this fate and followed them in.

The tavern was anything but orderly on the inside. It was clearly filled well beyond its capacity even before the introduction of four cubic feet of Puritan, yet he had somehow managed to manoeuvre his way through the crowd and had even found a table to sit at. In the time it took Katja to locate and reach him, he had already demolished one flagon of ale and was setting to work on his second with a contented grin on his face. Sarai was sitting on the edge of the table, arms crossed, fuming.

“Honestly, Gell,” Katja heard the wordling saying as she approached, “you could try to take this a bit more seriously. There’s a lot at stake here! You know, like, everything? And all you want to do is sit in this filthy hovel and get drunk!”

“Aw, come on, now, that ain’t fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Like to get laid, too, be honest with you.”

“Gell!”

Gell leaned back in his chair, roaring with laughter, as the wordling flushed a deep scarlet. Katja decided this was the time for her to make her appearance, and save Sarai from any further torment.

“Come on, Gell. Give her a break.” She took a seat at the table across from the Puritan. “Besides, she’s right. You don’t really seem to be taking this very seriously.”

“Aw, relax,” he replied. “What’s the harm in lettin’ your hair down once in a while? I’ll have my relaxation time, and then we’ll get back on the trail and it’ll be all business again for a good long time. Okay?”

Just then, a strange man clad in a hooded brown cloak approached their table. It was impossible to make out much detail about him, since mostly it was shrouded by his garments, but he appeared to be a tall, middle-aged man of average build. Unremarkable in any way, as far as could be seen, except that he was approaching our heroes and beginning to speak. “Greetings, travellers,” spake the man, “my name is Archibald Lister, and I have a proposition for you. There’s a fair deal of coin in it for you, as well as the gratitude of my sponsor. Can you spare me a moment of your time?”

“Well, truth be told, Mister Lister, we’re actually kinda busy right now. Just stopped in for a quick drink, then we gotta hit the road again. The ladies here are already mad enough at me for that — I add any more delays, they’ll really let me have it.”

“Ah, so the rumours are true. You do travel with… well, shall we say a very special familiar?”

Katja kicked Gell hard under the table. “Familiar? No, not at all,” she lied. “Just me and my sister. She’s waiting for us outside.”

“Is she? That seems odd, Miss Katja. I didn’t think any of your sisters were present at this time.” Gell detected an undercurrent of malice in Lister’s voice as he said this, though, on the surface, the man remained perfectly amiable. Katja, for her part, was seizing the opportunity to blanch completely white in panic.

“I… who are you?” she stammered. “What do you want?”

“I represent certain parties with a great deal of influence here in St. Langostine,” he began, calmly, as though wholly ignorant of the effect he’d had on the young lady. “I am not at liberty to say much here, since you can rest assured that this entire conversation is being monitored by many sets of ears. I will contact you later if you are willing to assist me and my client.”

“Well,” Gell replied casually, “whatever you are, you sure scared the piss right out o’ poor Katja here. Reckon you ought to apologise to the little lady.”

Without missing a beat, Lister turned back to Katja. “My apologies for causing you distress. It was necessary to grab your attention.”

“It’s no problem,” she lied.

“Just continue about your business, Puritan Gell. I will find you when the time is right.”

With that, Archibald Lister faded back into the crowd, leaving a shaken Katja, an annoyed Gell, and a still-fuming Sarai who hadn’t really paid him any heed at all.

“Pete’s sake,” Gell muttered, “what’s this place comin’ to? Can’t even go to the tavern anymore without gettin’ interrupted by some mysterious stranger needs help with some damn thing.”

Sarai then did that thing she does where she talks but uses a bunch of words that don’t really make any sense. This time she was on about hooks, for whatever reason; Gell didn’t really listen. He just finished his beer in silence.

Before long, our heroes found themselves taking a trip up into one of St. Langostine’s famous spires. Katja was afraid they’d have to climb maddening amounts of stairs to get up there, but that turned out not to be the case; the spires were serviced by magical lifts that carried them up in comfort. She and Sarai were passing the time as the lift did its thing by gazing out the window at the increasingly-distant cityscape below. For his own part, Gell was still pissed off about the encounter in the tavern, and mainly sat in the centre of the platform and said nothing.

“Wow,” Sarai was babbling, “this is really cool! Look at the people down there — they look like tiny little ants! Hello down there, tiny little ants!”

“Sarai,” Katja countered, “you can fly. You’ve never looked down before?”

“Well, I don’t really make a habit of flying really high over cities. It’s so neat! I feel like God, gazing out over creation!”

“Sarai, you are.”

“Look, is it strictly necessary for you to be such a killjoy? Can’t a girl just enjoy herself for a while here? Would you prefer that I lumped myself over there with Grumpy Gell and just sulked the whole trip away?”

Katja snorted derisively, but did not reply. Which, apparently, was acceptable; before very long, the wordling had gone right back to oohing and aahing about the scenery. Katja, losing interest in this game, turned to Gell.

“So, Gell, where are we going, anyhow? You still haven’t told us.”

The Puritan looked up. “Goin’ back where this all started, darlin’.”

“Uh, Gell? This all started in a hole. In the ground. We’re going up into the air right now.”

“My part o’ this puzzle started right here, with the man who hired me to go camp out in that hole in the first place.”

“Ooo!” Sarai exclaimed, “Look, look! Something’s happening down there! I think it’s a ceremony. What time is it? Is it noon? It is! That must be the noon worship! Wow!”

“Mr. Breugger will see you now,” said the receptionist, a tall, slightly portly woman of approximately fifty years. “Do mind your manners. And a word of advice? The room is monitored by security teams, so that sword will remain in its sheath. Otherwise, the consequences will be swift and severe.”

Gell nodded briefly in her direction, and then passed through the doors. Breugger’s office was a lavish affair, dominated by tremendous windows occupying one entire wall and parts of two others, looking out over the city. The carpeting was a very deep blue, only barely discernible from black, embroidered in the centre with a giant reproduction of the Breugger Corporation’s logo — a stylised letter B enclosing in its two loops a smaller J and S, the entire thing encompassed in a ring composed of three braided strands. The office was outfitted with every manner of luxury imaginable, from a full bar to a magic mirror. Along the far wall stood a grand mahogany desk, and behind it was a tremendous leather-backed chair, almost throne-like in its size, though not in ornamentation; this chair was apparently a somewhat understated affair, and was not festooned with any precious metals or gems. In the chair was seated a figure, facing away from them — out the window — and holding in one hand a glass of a glowing blue liquid and in the other the butt of a half-finished cigar. The smoke slowly curled up from the cigar and coalesced above, looking in this light almost like a storm cloud.

“So,” the man asked, nonchalantly, “Gell. What can I do for you?” He did not turn to face them.

“I need the truth, Mister Breugger,” Gell stated plainly.

“The truth? Don’t we all.” Breugger took a sip from his drink. “Did you have a particular subject in mind?”

“You know just fine what I’m after. Why did you send me to that dig site? Why are you after the Word? Are you workin’ with the College of One?”

“Those are some very sensitive questions, Gell. You expect me just to hand you the answers? Just like that?”

“I’m bein’ hounded by thieves on one side and mages on the other, and it’s all on account of what happened at that dig. So I reckon I deserve to know what’s all goin’ on.”

“Do you?” This time, Breugger took a much longer sip from his drink and a deep drag on his cigar. Exhaling slowly, watching the smoke drift upward and accumulate with the rest at the top of the chamber, he thought. Finally, after several moments of this, he replied. “It doesn’t quite work like that, Gell. If you want something, you need to earn it.”

“Ain’t I done enough for you already?” Gell was clearly agitated.

“Now, now, my dear Puritan, no need for you to get in an uproar. I’m willing to provide you with the information you seek. In return, all I ask is that you perform one simple little job.”

Gell restrained his temper. “What’s the job, then?”

“Oh, Miss Thatcher?” Breugger’s words seemed to activate some type of magical device, as our heroes could suddenly hear the receptionist’s voice clear as day, as though she were in the room with them.

“Yes, Mr. Breugger? What would you like?”

“Send Mr. Lister in, would you be so kind?”

Katja’s eyes widened, and Gell clenched his teeth. Slowly, the door creaked open, and in walked the same hooded figure they’d been accosted by at the tavern.

Breugger continued speaking. “I believe you’ve met my associate, yes? He told you there was something that needed doing. Well, now is that time. Archibald, if you’d be so kind?”

Lister nodded slightly and stepped toward them. “We have, as it were, a bit of a situation. Mr. Breugger didn’t get to where he is without making a fair few enemies. The normal course of events for enemies of Mr. Breugger is that they suddenly find it a bit difficult to renew their business permits. Then they might hit a snag when it comes time to renew the lease on their spire space. You see how it is. In the end, they’re left with nothing. No money, no power — and no threat to Mr. Breugger.”

“Sounds lovely,” Gell replied, “but I don’t reckon you need my help rejectin’ permit renewal applications. So cut to the meat of the situation.”

Mr. Lister laughed slightly. “No, quite so. But one of Mr. Breugger’s disgraced former rivals is causing quite a stir down in the Deep City. It seems that this rival is plotting a way to return to power, and that would be, shall we say, bad for business.”

“No,” Gell interrupted. “I’m no assassin. I don’t go around killin’ for the highest bidder.”

“Don’t you, though?” Breugger replied, with a note of amusement in his voice. “The only difference, as I see it, is that this target isn’t a mage. The result is still the same — one formerly living person now deceased.”

“That ain’t at all the same. Mages are dangerous.”

“So are my enemies.”

Gell was silent.

“If you want your information,” Lister proceeded, “head to Deep City and eliminate the target.”

“You ain’t told me who it is yet.”

“The target’s name is Pindar. Sam Pindar.”

“And how do I find him?”

“Ask around. I understand Sam is a pretty big deal down in Deep City these days; it shouldn’t be difficult to get yourself pointed in the right direction.”

Gell turned and stalked toward the door without another word, but Breugger’s voice came floating after him.

“Oh, and Gell? Happy hunting!”

Gell hated that.

Deep City was an interesting place. Buried under the streets of St. Langostine, it was clearly tied quite closely into the flow of the city above. There were no border guards to keep anybody in or out — and, indeed, there were so many entrances that guarding them would be well nigh futile anyhow. The people who lived in Deep City were fairly obvious, as they were, almost without exception, too poor to afford niceties such as proper clothing, and had to make do with the scraps the above-grounders discarded. Nothing grew underground, except for mushrooms and moss, so the food in Deep City featured those two ingredients rather heavily, with an ancillary reliance on rat and sewer crab.

The whole place, as befit its location, smelled rather strongly of pestilence and decay, and it was the smell more than anything else that kept the more affluent away. Those who lived there had developed something of a tolerance to it, however, and seemed not to notice the hanging stench as they went about their daily activities. To Gell and Katja, however, it was almost overpowering.

“This really stinks,” Sarai huffed.

“Yeah, sure does,” Gell responded. “I reckon we’ll get used to it before long. Don’t seem to bother the regulars none.”

“I meant the job. Assassination, Gell? Cold-blooded murder? I don’t think it’s worth it.”

“I agree with her, Gell,” Katja implored. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. We don’t need Breugger’s help anyway.”

“But we do, darlin’. That’s the hell of it. We do need Breugger’s help. He’s the only one can tell us what we’re really mixed up in. And as they say, ain’t no way out but through.”

“So that’s it, then? You’re going through with it?”

“Nothin’s settled yet. First I’m gonna go check out this Pindar guy, see what’s what. I got a feeling there’s somethin’ Breugger ain’t tellin’ us.”

“Need to convince yourself to go through with it, then?”

“Hopin’ to convince myself not to.”

Just then, they stumbled upon a group of urchins playing some type of game in the street. “‘Scuse me,” Gell approached, “but I’m lookin’ for a Sam Pindar. Any chance you could point me in the right kinda direction?”

“Sure thing, mister! Sam runs the hotel. Just head straight down that way — you can’t miss it! It’s the only building in the city with a green roof!”

“Thanks!” Gell smiled at the boy, and tossed him a coin as a reward for his help. The boy’s eyes lit up at his find, and, as our heroes withdrew, he and his friends had proceeded into wild fantasising about what he would purchase with it.

“A hotel? In this place?” Katja asked as soon as they were out of earshot. “I can’t wait to see this.”

“Well, I sure can,” Sarai pouted. “There’s nothing about this place I want to see. Can’t we just go home and take a nice hot bath for about four days?”

Gell didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. He simply marched off silently in the direction of the hotel.

It wasn’t very long before they found themselves in front of a large, dilapidated building with a deep green roof. Surveying the building, they found it to be slightly worse for wear even than most of the buildings in Deep City, as many of the windows were smashed in and that brilliant green roof listed unsettlingly to one side, as though it may come tumbling down at any minute, taking who knows how much of the building with it. But that wasn’t the most unsettling thing about Sam Pindar’s hotel.

“Oh god, Gell,” Katja gasped, “it’s an orphanage.”

And that’s exactly what it was. “Hotel,” apparently, was something of a joke among the orphans.

“Did that Breugger seriously send us to murder a guy who runs an orphanage in the sewers? What the hell is wrong with his head?” Sarai was livid. Gell steeled himself and pushed on silently through the door into the lobby of the “Hotel.”

The inside of the Hotel didn’t look any better than the outside. The paint was peeling off the walls, the boards were peeling up from the floor, and the ceiling appeared to be peeling down in on them. The majority of the building was all in one tremendous room filled with bunk beds, but currently empty of inhabitants — since there were so many beds squeezed into the building, there was no room for anything else, and the children apparently only came back to sleep. Amongst the rows of beds, Gell could discern a figure — a woman, apparently, scrubbing the floors on hands and knees. There was no sign of anybody else around, so Gell approached her.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I’m lookin’ for Sam Pindar. You seen him anyplace?”

The woman, startled, leapt to her feet and collected herself. “Why hello there,” she replied. “What you happen to want with Sam?”

“I’m an old acquaintance of his. Was passin’ through town, thought I’d give him a visit. Heard he ran this here fine establishment.”

“Yeah? How long you known Sam?”

“Lordy. Since way back.”

“Yeah? Funny. Seems to me anybody who knew Sam Pindar for that long would have some idea she’s a woman.”

Gell blanched sheet-white, and was utterly lost for words.

“Samantha Pindar, at your service,” the lady continued. “Now how’s about you cut out the bullshit and tell me what you’re really after.”

By this point, Gell had recovered enough to stammer out an apology that fooled nobody. “I… I’m powerful sorry, Ms. Pindar. I didn’t… I mean, what I’m really here for…”

“You okay, boy? Seems like you caught yourself a case of the vapours.”

“Oh, screw this. I ain’t cut out for lyin’. It’s like this. Mister Breugger, up in the city proper, has somethin’ I need. But in return, he sent me down here to see you. Says you been causin’ him some kinda trouble.”

Pindar closed her eyes and sighed. “Breugger? Lord. Ain’t thought about that man in many a year. Probably that’s exactly what it is that pains him so. So what’s he want you to do? Kill me?”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah.”

“Well, I don’t imagine I could stop you. But see here, young man. A lot of you big strapping hero-types go through life figuring that all us normal folk are just here to be used by you. If it helps you on your grand crusades, you don’t think twice about lying to us, stealing from us, or, apparently, even outright killing us. It’s about time you took a long hard think about what it is you’re really doing.”

“I was just –”

“Life is precious, boy. May not seem like it to somebody’s used to carving up whatever gets between him and his quest. You come down here to this place, you see the filthy urchins running around in the sewers and the crumbling old shack they call home, you might not think too much about the value of their lives, much less the life of the old woman makes their beds. But I’ll tell you this: life is precious. Even lives that don’t seem like much. I can see in your eyes that you ain’t a bad man, now, or I wouldn’t bother talking, but you’re on a very destructive path, and you need to ask yourself just how far you’re willing to go. You can’t hide from the truth forever, young man.”

“I –”

“Now, was there something you needed, or can I get back to scrubbing the floors?”

“No, thank you. Sorry to bother you.”

“Not at all.”

With that, the old woman returned to the floors, and Gell, still in shock, marched outside and promptly sat himself down by the doorway.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Katja tentatively approached him. “Gell?”

“I can’t do it,” he muttered. “I’ll tell ya — I had myself convinced I was gonna go through with this. Had this whole image of a villain with a scar and a hook, terrorisin’ the poor souls down here, and I was gonna be the big hero and save the day. But…” he trailed off.

“But what?”

“But no damn way I can kill a defenseless old orphan matron. That’s beyond the pale.”

“Gell?”

“What?”

“I’m proud of you.”

Katja put her arm around the big man’s shoulders, and they sat there, on the steps in front of the orphanage, watching the children playing in the street.

“Well?” Sarai interjected. “Can we go now? I can’t stand any more of this stench, and I’d like to leave before we get any more lectures from that old woman or any more mushy scenes between you two. This is supposed to be an adventure story, for crying out loud. Let’s go kill a wizard or something.”

“No,” Gell responded quietly, “not today. But you’re right — we should get going.”

Gell and Katja picked themselves up off the stairs and headed for the entrance. Neither of them saw it, but a single tear rolled itself silently down Sarai’s cheek.

“I assume the job is done, then?” Breugger propounded, still, as was his custom, facing away from them.

“Nosir,” Gell replied. “Turns out that ain’t a job I can do.”

“Hmm? Killing one old woman is beyond your abilities? Surely you jest.”

“Ain’t in a jestin’ mood.”

“Would you mind terribly telling me why?”

“Already did. I’m no assassin.” Gell turned and headed to the door. Just before he reached it, Breugger spoke once more.

“Gell.” The Puritan stopped. “The College of One has five wordstones right now, and their next target is in Renstone Fields, to the northwest. With the help you have, you can probably find it before they do.” Gell looked over his shoulder, nodded, and left the room.

Once he was gone, Breugger took a long draught from his glass. “You were right,” he said. “He was ready.”

Archibald Lister chuckled softly. “I have great faith in Puritan Gell.”