Money—glimmer, as Reema called it—had never looked so good. He'd seen greater piles of coins before, but they'd always been for the matrons. And they meant little beyond the glow they produced, or the killing it took to acquire them.

  But now they meant food. Shelter. They meant a mercenary company.

  The coins flared a dull orange on the table between them. Reema, having reapplied the bandage to Stump's ankle after his fall from the tank, punctuated his telling of the espionage with an occasional shake of the head.

  Jin wore a thoughtful frown and nodded sagely. "The Ocelots, you say?" he mused, after Stump was finished. "I knew they had their hands elsewhere, but I would've hoped Dagg had the integrity to keep 'em out of the tank."

  "And we sent him there. Look what's happened to his foot," said Reema, steering the conversation into more relevant waters. The inn, as it was long past closing, was empty except for the three of them and Morg, who was face down at his usual table, and Bubbles, whose whereabouts were known only by those with food in their hands.

  "Jin, I asked you to ask him to look around, not to break into the tank and eavesdrop on criminals."

  The oxfolk recoiled. "I asked him what you asked me."

  "You weren't clear enough, then. No danger, I said."

  "I didn't break in," Stump wedged himself between their bickering. "Not really. I just climbed up the side to an unlocked window. And I made sure to hide myself." He leaned forward, eyes alight. "But this helps you, right? I wanted to make sure I learned something useful."

  "You did more'n I asked, Stump," said Jin.

  "And this thing about Wasptongue? That's a goblin name. A goblin, here in the Downs!"

  "If it's who I think, they're talking about old granny brewmaster out in the Spits."

  Stump's face flushed with wonder. "The Spits? Granny brewmaster?"

  "Seabrace. Chain of isles off the coast. Haunted, they be. But it's where some of the best beer in the city is brewed, including Jailburn."

  "Haunted…" he was nearly salivating.

  Reema struck the table hard enough to give them both a start. "Enough," she said. "You're filling his head with more dangerous ideas. He might already be in trouble with the Midnight Ocelots. And if he's here it means we're in trouble with them. Again."

  Jin mumbled grimly.

  "I'm not," Stump piped up. "At least… I don't think so. When they spotted me I darkened the lights in the hallway and then ran."

  "That'll make you easier to find. Just look out for the one goblin in all the Downs who knows Lumenurgy, they'll say," said Reema.

  "What about Wasptongue? She knows Lumenurgy. There have to be others."

  Jin shrugged. "You'd have to ask her yourself. In that case you'd need—"

  Reema's fist on the table was no less startling a second time. "Stump, would you mind giving Jin and I a moment to speak?"

  Feeling two pairs of eyes urging his departure, Stump collected the five coppers, pushed himself off the stool and hobbled up the steps. He made his way up, just out of sight, and lingered at the top.

  "All the way up," Reema called, from out of sight.

  The bed sighed under Stump's weight. He laid back and strained his ears to listen to the conversation below, but couldn't hear much more than their muffled verbal sparring.

  Instead he let the mumbling fade away as he grabbed the magical pages he'd taken from Thrung. He still had so many unanswered questions about his newfound abilities, and the more he used them the less he understood. How does levelling work? Why does my virtue go over its maximum? Why does my blood glow?

  That last question concerned him the most. He'd managed to wash away the blood in the river before showing Reema the wound, fearing she or Jin would worry more than they already did, and neither of them noticed any other arcane irregularities, but nowhere in the Words bestowed on him was any kind of explanation for why his guts were illuminated.

  Stump leafed through the pages with a scrunched brow, tracing his finger beneath the words, and found they made little sense.

  "Underappreciated in the meta," read one confounding blurb beneath a sketch of a figure, arms wide, standing on a patch of what might have been grass and flowers. Meta? Maybe they meant to write 'metal'?

  "Solarmancy: surprisingly useful," read another hastily scrawled chunk of text. "Indoor grnhouse? Lumen + Therm more solid than I thot. Stretch light(?)." This is barely Ingilish.

  Above the words was a featureless humanoid with their hand outstretched much the same way Thrung's was as Rat-Squealer burned. A campfire was drawn to one side, and the flames fanned high, curling unnaturally beneath the figure's reach.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  New Skill Learned

  Thermalurgy (level 1)

  Stump recalled the Words From The Sky but found his class and level remained unchanged. So learning a new skill doesn't always increase your level.

  He pulled his focus away from Lumenurgy to the web of connected skills and followed the lone glowing thread. At the end of it, his newly discovered skill unfurled.

  Thermalurgy (I)

  Manipulate Heat

  "Spend a focus point to gain a beginner's understanding of Thermanus' gift."

  There's that focus point again. Whatever powers were locked behind Thermalurgy might've been what Thrung was capable of, but the only way to know for sure was to acquire those elusive points. Wasptongue might be able to help him, but he needed a boat to get to her.

  When Stump dismissed the Words he could no longer hear voices downstairs.

  He waddled down to find Jin sitting alone, fingers steepled, and Morg buried in his cups.

  "Look, I just think I ought to talk to ya," said Jin, once Stump was seated. Reema slapped a couple drinks on the table—a strong brew for Jin and a crisp light beer for Stump she called Foglight Ale—and then vanished to the kitchen to "fix a hole in a cask," which Stump took as code for leaving the two of them be.

  Morg sat a couple tables behind in his usual spot, his short dwarven legs stretched out and fingers wrapped around a mug of something foul. His head bobbed drowsily.

  "This business you're sinkin' your teeth into," Jin began in a guttural tone. "It's a lot of… there's a lot of…"

  "Danger?" asked Stump.

  "Well, yes, but…"

  "Adventure?"

  "I suppose…"

  "I think I like it," he said, surprising himself.

  "Well that's… y'see, Reema wanted me to warn ya about the perils of being a sellsword."

  Stump wasn't surprised by her worry when he'd come back to the tank with a new foot injury, but he was a little lost on her sudden turn on the prospect of his company.

  "She was the one who told me to go to Penny Square," he said, trying not to sound accusatory.

  "I know, but…"

  "She's alright with Morg being a mercenary, isn't she?"

  "Listen," said Jin, raising his voice. "There's a lot of…"

  "Comp'tition," hiccuped Morg, who had been paying attention after all.

  Jin shot him an annoyed look, but nodded. "It's admirable you want to build something here, Stump. But the mercenary business is a nasty one. And everyone's got a company to turn to. You're a man with wares need protecting? You got the Gilded Mace. You're a farmer outside the confines of the walls supplying the people with what they need? The Iron Fleece is who you hire."

  Stump straightened. "The Iron Fleece?" As if summoned by the words, Garron's badge shifted in his pouch.

  Morg raised his cup. "You've in need o' some unspeakables done under cover o' dark? The Ocelots 'ave got ye."

  "Look," said Jin, drawing attention away from the drunk dwarf. "Point being there are flags on every hill you can think of. Nary an unexplored summit remains. You think you can watch the city better than the Aubers? Well, tell that to the city paying 'em buckets of gold to get the job done. And no one is the Gelwyn fleet 'cept the Gelwyn fleet."

  "Not even the Brightwater Gryphons," chimed Morg. "Nor Stalwart Tide. And the Ripwater Buccaneers…" he hiccuped the rest of the way through the sentence.

  "The Buccaneers are corsairs, Morg," grumbled Jin. "Keep talking and I'll boot ya."

  "Who watches the Outerward?" said Stump. Both heads turned to him as if he were the inebriated one. "You've got the Aubers protecting the city," he went on, "so who watches the Downs?"

  Jin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Nobody," he said. "Hogg's Hollow's got a loose federation of companies that watch the inns, but that's about it. Grimsgate's got no one. Same for Guttershine, Brinetown and here on the outskirts. Our world's not worth protecting to the companies across the Blightwater. They don't much care for us. The point is getting out of the Downs. You start something and hope it's worth half a damn. If it isn't, you wither and stay a penny company 'til you can't support yourself. If it is, you hit bronze and the city takes notice and roots you out of this place. Why else bleed and sweat for anything out here?"

  Stump shrugged. "Why do you do it?"

  The question landed with a sharper edge than he intended. Jin's nostrils flared. "For Reem. For her father." His voice thickened with a sad rage.

  Stump retreated in his chair. "Sorry, I didn't know."

  The oxfolk softened with a breath. He stole a quick glance at the kitchen doorway. "Used to be a busy place here, when her father was around," he said. "I owe a lot to him, and to Reem for keeping me on. But now all we got on our hands is an inn slowly sinking in the mud. It's all she's got."

  Jin looked down at himself in silence for a long moment before he shook his head. "The mercenary business is a hard one to break into, all's I'm saying. And a dangerous one at that, 'specially in the Downs. Reem… we've had some trouble with the Ocelots in the past. I think your quest at the tank spooked her some."

  "I understand," said Stump. He was frightened. His quest hadn't gone the way he thought it would, but the prospect of having something, of building something himself, of repaying Reema and Jin, of actually helping people for a change, was hard to turn down.

  All he'd ever known of goblins were the cruel, bloodlust-stricken warriors and unchanging matrons of his tribe. There was Yeza, but she and Stump were the outcasts, the only two who didn't belong. Until Wasptongue. Though he'd never met her, Stump's mind was already churning—a goblin who could cast spells and brew beer. If there were others out there who didn't need a tribe, or the lust, or a matron to bow to, then Stump didn't either.

  He was a goblin, but that didn't have to be the end of his story.

  Tenet of Lumensa fulfilled: Virtue +1 (7/5)

  "Stillwater Fellowship's on the verge o' bronze," said Morg, lagging behind several exchanges. "Never thought the lad had it in him."

  Jin ignored him. "I can't tell you what to do, Stump. But I know Reem wouldn't mind if you stuck around the inn a while 'til you find your feet, like Morg. And… well, I wouldn't mind, either. Could use the company, I suppose."

  Stump nodded thoughtfully. "Me too," he said, and slid off the chair. He waddled to the stairs, but turned back before making his way up. "And Jin… thank you."

  The large oxfolk nodded stiffly.

  Stump floated into bed. He laid there, unable to sleep, his mind a whirlwind.

  His old life in the tribe felt so small, so quaint. Raids and the Shadowlands. Matrons and Grumul. It was all so far away. None of them knew the world that sprawled beyond the reach of their cave. Although the pain of being an outcast and leaving Yeza behind still burned a hole in his heart, he could say the ache was less than it had been.

  Still, he wished he could share everything with her—Lumenurgy and the Midnight Ocelots and magic and the gods and Wasptongue and the Ripwater Buccaneers and Penny Square and fungal lanterns. He'd slipped and fallen into the pages of a storybook, one not yet finished. He wanted Yeza to be a part of it too. He wanted that so badly.

  After some time he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but his head was abuzz. A soup of light and colour swirled behind his eyelids. It bubbled and shifted, taking shape. He saw his company. He saw the inn growing, all its holes fixed and its leaks plugged. It was busy, it was loud, and there he was, in the middle of it all. He smiled.

  Nobody watches the Downs.

  He'd found his hill.

  And he found his name.

  Tenet of Lumensa fulfilled: Virtue +1 (8/5)