He found his clothes by his bedside where she said they would be, as she had brought some of his and Valerian’s clothes the day before, in case they woke up then. His real underwear went first, then the rough new pants, and finally it came to his torso. And that’s where the damage was.

  Carefully undoing the bandages wrapped around his left arm, Alex stared at the small pink scar marring the flesh of his forearm and shoulder. He tested the arm, stretching it and moving it about. It still hurt. Everything did, but his body seemed more stiff and generally achey than actually damaged.

  Apparently, Holdenfor’s best healer, the same that had helped Diana when they first arrived, had prioritized healing him and Valerian up, seeing that chasers were more valuable than regular town guards in the fight against the Kruwal. Pragmatic, but Alex wondered what the townspeople had to say about that. The guards were their own sons and husbands, after all.

  After putting on one of his new woolen shirts, he brought his arm up to his eyeline and watched his hand shake slightly. The real damage had been one of his own making. Not that the healer or Diana knew he had caused it.

  Opening up his status page, he stared at the new Lightning Proficiency he had unlocked.

  It had worked, then. His last ditch gamble before passing out. If fire didn’t work when he was surrounded by water, he’d thought, maybe lightning would. But it clearly wasn’t without backlash. He’d fried himself along with the water mage.

  Like fire, he probably lost control of the lightning as soon as it left his body. He could’ve killed himself for all that he knew, but maybe those points in Vitality hadn’t been for nothing. Having woken up hale and healthy, his HP was maxed out now, but he imagined it had taken a proper beating when it happened.

  It was also likely that the attribute increased his damage resistance as well as his health points. This dual purpose would explain how Valerian could survive a fall like that.

  When he finished dressing up and left the room, he found the same man and Diana speaking down the stairs.

  “Are you sure you don’t remember anything that might’ve happened to him?”

  “I’m sorry, Diana,” he said, voice full of anguish. “I do not remember much after the ambush broke out.”

  Diana sighed. The old healer, who had been sitting behind a desk as they talked, stood up.

  “This one hit his head pretty hard, girl,” she said. “It’s a wonder he remembers his own name, or that he still lives at all.” The healer was short and bent like an old gnarled tree, and when she walked up to pat Diana on the shoulder, her cane clicked loudly on the floor. “I’m sure you’ll find your brother. Loud and brash as he was, I don’t doubt we’ll hear him before we see him.”

  The old healer cackled at her own joke, and even got a small smile out of Diana. Valerian agreed. “We’ll find him,” he said, resolute. “I promise.”

  “We’ll do it right now,” Alex said, clearing the last steps on the stairs. He turned toward the paladin, who looked good as new, and gave him a nod. “I’m glad you’re alright, man.”

  Valerian smiled. “I was glad to hear from Diana that you had woken up as well.”

  They thanked the old healer then, who refused payment after revealing the healing had been included in their chasing contract with Bernier for protecting the town, and quickly made their way to the Hail Stranger inn. On the way, Alex and Diana caught Valerian up on what happened after he’d been taken out.

  The paladin was stunned at the revelation that it wasn’t a Matriarch behind the water magic, but a human man instead. Alex realized that people might’ve thought he’d gone crazy if Celia and the other guards hadn’t seen the water mage too. Still, like Diana, Valerian seemed doubtful about Cedric being behind the Kruwal attacks, but agreed to confront him together.

  They found him exactly where Alex had last seen him, drinking at the bar. The first thing he noticed was his missing glaive. Good. Pulling on the power, Alex let the heat simmer inside him, keeping it ready to use in case things went wrong. Traitor he might be, but Cedric was still a dangerous fighter.

  A stocky woman, likely the innkeeper’s wife, manned the counter. She shot them an awkward smile when she recognized them. Luckily, it was still early in the morning, so the crew leader was only beginning to drink away last night’s hangover instead of being completely wasted.

  There were a few other scattered patrons in the common room, but Alex ignored them and stalked straight toward the seat tucked in at the end of the bar. He stopped behind his stool along with Valerian and Diana.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Met your friend recently, Cedric,” he said.

  Hearing his name, the man turned around and blinked. He’d been so focused on his ale he hadn’t noticed them walking in. “Alex? Oh, it’s everyone.” He sounded half-drunk already. “Where’s Daven?”

  The clueless act only made him angrier, and the power roiled inside him.

  “That’s what I want to know,” he spat. “Your friend, the water mage. He told me the truth. He told me what you asked him to do.”

  Cedric stared at him for a moment, caught by surprise. Then, instead of anger or denial like he expected, Cedric’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly sobbing.

  Taken aback, Alex almost couldn’t believe what he heard. “You really did it,” he said as the former crew leader cried and begged for their forgiveness.

  Beside him, Diana stood shell shocked for a moment, as if she couldn’t believe Cedric had really done it. Then, face twisting into a snarl, she took a step forward and cocked her arm back as if to sock Cedric in the face. The only thing that saved him was Valerian pulling her back.

  “You absolute bastard,” she let out, loud enough for the entire common room to hear.

  The patrons closer by startled. Angry chasers didn’t mean anything good to them, and a few people started trickling out the inn. The innkeeper’s wife herself inched toward the other end of the bar.

  The paladin looked down at him with hard eyes. “Why, Cedric?” The man couldn’t answer, only crying silently.

  Diana shook off Valerian’s grip. “Alex was right,” she said, glaring murderously at the former crew leader. “I can’t believe it. You’re really together with the Kruwal?”

  “What?” Sniffing, Cedric looked up at them. “No, no I’m not. I don’t… I don’t know what happened, I swear. I’ve never even seen a Kruwal before.”

  “Stop lying,” Alex said, grabbing him by the collar with both hands. Screw that the man was stronger than him. Close as they were, he would fry him with fire or lightning before he could do anything. “The water mage told me how you asked him to bring the horde to Riverbend. You planned this whole thing from the start.”

  “No, no, that’s not what happened,” he said. Tears and snot ran freely down his face now. “His name… his name is Zathan. He’s a former crewmate of mine, a sorcerer, but… but it also can’t be. It can’t. He was never that strong. He wasn’t even stronger than me. I don’t know what happened to him. And I only…”

  “Only what, Cedric?” Diana asked, and Alex tightened his grip on the man.

  The crew leader sighed like a deflating balloon. He closed his eyes before he started speaking. “About a week before I met you and Daven on the road, I asked Zathan to do something for me. I knew I’d be going to Riverbend for the Selection Festival and… and I wanted to impress Lanna, alright? I wanted her to see me as this great chaser, even though… even though I’m not.”

  He let out a laugh that came out more like a sob. “I lied to you,” he continued. “To all of you. I’m not even registered with the CCC. I’m just a guy who got lucky in a dungeon and somehow looted a weapon powerful enough to carry me for the last few years.”

  Diana looked at him with disgust. “What is wrong with you?” she said, and her tone carried more anguish than anger despite her words. “We trusted you. Daven thought the world of you.”

  “That is why you come to places like this, then,” Valerian spoke up from the side. “I wondered why a chaser the likes of which you describe yourself as would choose somewhere like Riverbend.” He shook his head in disappointment. “And it is simply because they do not know any better.”

  Cedric kept quiet. He couldn’t meet their eyes. After a moment, Alex let go of him. He stared down at the crying, drunken wretch before him and let the power inside him wane. This was the mastermind behind everything that had been happening around here? No, it couldn't be. Looking at him now, he felt more pity than anything for the man.

  “What did you ask Zathan to do for you?” he asked.

  The crew leader wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I… I asked him to go into the forests north of the village. There are dungeons there that’ve never been pruned. I thought…” He wet his lips. “I thought he could just go there and have some monsters follow him all the way to the village during the Selection Festival. Harmless ones, like a few Wild Boars or Green Wolves.”

  “Why?” Diana asked. “Why do all this?”

  “I told you,” he said, dejected. “I just… I just wanted Lanna to see me as a hero. I’d kill all the monsters before anything happened. No one would’ve gotten hurt. None of this was supposed to happen. I don’t know anything about Kruwals.”

  Stupefied, Alex reared back. He did all of that to impress a girl, only for her father to end up dead, her home burnt, and half her village destroyed. A sudden realization dawned on him.

  “That’s why you looked so horrified back at Riverbend when you saw the water mage—the sorcerer, bringing down the bridge,” he said. “You knew it was him, you just didn’t know why he was doing all of that.”

  Cedric nodded, eyes downcast. “I don’t know what happened to him. How he got so powerful or why he would be with all those monsters. I really don’t.”

  “What about the Riverbend dungeon?” he asked, thinking back on his earlier suspicions. “Why was it overflowing before it should?”

  “I don’t know.” The man swallowed a sob and shrugged. “It's known to happen sometimes, I think. I don’t know as much about dungeons and chasing as I led you all to believe,” he admitted.

  At that, all the remaining anger fled him, and Alex sat down on the next stool over. He just felt numb. Unless Cedric was the greatest actor he had ever seen, the man was telling the truth and had nothing to do with the Kruwal. He was back to square zero.

  “I can’t believe this,” Diana murmured. She looked ready to tear out her own hair, out of anger or desperation or both.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” Cedric said, clutching his drink like it would bring him salvation. “I really am.”

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