“Beautiful goddamn day.” Seymour squinted against the sun and took a long pull from a very boozy iced-tea drink. “Didn’t realize how much I needed this after spending the last few days stuck down in the corpse bakery, but should have guessed the sun would feel pretty good after kicking it in a crypt.”

  The weather in Ghizo’s Crossing couldn’t have been much finer; a bright, summery afternoon without a cloud to be found and zero breeze, yet the air felt neither too warm nor stagnant. Seymour and Penny sat across from one another beneath an umbrella at a bistro table while around them shoppers bustled from stall-to-stall up-and-down the riverwalk. They had both taken the day off work to run errands in town and were now enjoying a late lunch at a riverfront cafe in the famous Bridge Market district.

  The town had grown up around the intersection of the Emperor’s Highway and the Red Hydra River, which were the empire’s most heavily utilized trade routes for overland caravans and river barges, respectively. Sort of like if you could rotate the Mississippi River ninety degrees and plop it down in California so it crossed underneath the 5.

  The overall layout of the sprawling settlement was something like a giant wagonwheel, and the Bridge Market sat as its central hub, located precisely where the highway crossed over the river. The extra-wide road didn’t narrow one bit as it traveled through town, which made the main bridge exceptionally broad – a legit feat of medieval engineering, in Seymour’s admittedly uneducated opinion.

  Caravan traffic in both directions never ceased during daylight hours, and walkways on each side of the bridge were always similarly clogged, owing to the dozens of vendor stalls lined up along the edges. These stalls mostly sold takeaway food and other traveling supplies. A handful of the booths installed along the bridge were famous for dropping their lines over the side to fish up catches from the river below which were quickly gutted and went onto the grill or into the smoker. Some of these vendors then ran down the passing carriages and wagons, creating what Seymour recognized as essentially a fast-food drive-thru.

  The Emperor’s Highway had necessitated the construction of this first bridge, known locally as the Mallex Span in honor of the emperor(who was always named Mallex), but over time many narrow footbridges had been built across the river, too, connecting a cobblestone-paved riverwalk on either bank. From the table where Seymour and Penny sat, he counted thirteen of these secondary bridges, all fashioned from different materials. Some were quite modern-looking, suspended by steel cables and with clean, smooth walkways. Others had been around for much longer and were made of wood and rope, with a few even being so wobbly that an additional rope was strung across the river to offer an overhead handgrip.

  In far greater numbers than the stalls operating on the Mallex Span itself, the riverwalk hosted shop after shop after shop, with some as tall as four stories. And while none could offer the same quality and selection as the Adventure Depot, there were still treasures of all sorts to be found here, both magical and mundane. The non-stop bustle also made for top-notch people-watching, as citizens traveled from every corner of the realm to browse the largest market outside the Emperor's Bazaar in Xallem.

  Prominent among these riverside shops was The Artificery, which served as the Guild of Artificers retail front, where previously the Malveaus had sold the merchandise produced by their Riftborn slaves. Penny’s main errand of the day had been to use her status with the guild to requisition a cartful of raw materials which Seymour could use to produce items with Infringement. She had succeeded in her task, and the cart waited beside their bistro table, filled to the brim with silver bars and and copper wires and various blocks of wood and other miscellanea like porcelain and resin and even a satchel filled with crystallized mana gems.

  “Speaking of your time spent in the Ressurectory,” Penny began, “if I’ve accurately discerned your plan, then you intend to form an adventuring party which consists of profane aberrations, risen from the dead in direct opposition with the will of the Fates.”

  “Yeah, I’d probably just call them ‘me army of zombie bros’ but I gotta admit ‘profane abberrations’ has a pretty sick ring to it.”

  A plate of frond-wrapped finger-foods sat before Penny, little green packets and rolls stuffed with fragrant rice and veggies and meats that reminded Seymour more than a little bit of the dolmas he used to get from this Greek joint near his old apartment in L.A.. She lifted one to her mouth, rolling her eyes at Seymour as she enjoyed a bite.

  “Setting aside your characteristic glibness, surely we can’t rely on the undead to serve us as trusted teammates.”

  “Why not? I’m some kind of heroic necromancer dude, remember?”

  “You are not. Not really. You are…. Something else.”

  “I can raise and command corpses.” He took another sip of his drink, peering over the rim of his glass to maintain persistent eye-contact. “What else would you call that?”

  Penny frowned. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  “Look, I’m telling you: I really think the risk is minimal – so long as I have enough gold coins to keep the profane aberrations on our side.”

  Weeks had passed since Seymour’s last visit to Ghizo’s Crossing. Traveling up here from the depot had felt different this time. The journey on Ermin’s shuttle was the same as it ever was, but Seymour recognized that he himself had changed. The Realm of Heschia no longer felt like an alien world. Instead, it had become his world.

  And he could see a map of that world in his mind’s eye earlier that morning as he rode along on Ermin’s golem-pulled shuttle. Heschia consisted of a single, sprawling, pangea-like landmass isolated in an immense and mostly empty ocean, aside from a half dozen archipelagos dotting the open waters off its coasts. The continent was wider at the top and tapered to more of a point at the bottom, like a geographical slice of pizza.

  The Emperor’s Highway ran from the ice-locked northern coast of the realm, down to the Imperial Capital of Xallem, and from there it continued to wind its way further south through a series of smaller towns and villages—including Ghizo’s Crossing, which was the last major outpost of true civilization—until it finally cut through a barbarian-ruled mountainous region called the Cragstand before finally terminating at what was formerly known as Port Aranzia.

  “The barbarians seized the mountains after the port fell completely under the control of pirates some decades back, before I was even born,” Penny had explained during the ride up to Ghizo’s Crossing. “The entire southern coast is now known simply as the Horn of Plunder. That’s the reason why the Bridge Market exists, truthfully. With the realm’s northern coast locked in ice, and the southern horn swarming with pirate fleets, traders had little choice but to forge new paths in their pursuit of commerce.”

  For whatever reason, Seymour found the history and geography of Heschia far more interesting than he’d ever felt about the same subject back on Earth. It might have been because of all the hydras and barbarians and pirates and whatnot. As a result, he’d spent some hours in Adara’s library studying his new world and even a little bit about the mating habits of the realm’s various humanoid species, as Sarevja had suggested he do.

  One of his favorite tidbits had to do with the Red Hydra River which he and Penny were currently enjoying their lunch beside. It had earned its name by being home to actual red hydras. Initially their presence had proved to be an obstacle to commerce, as they sank any boat smaller than the biggest of barges – and even some of those. The river had been their home since antiquity and they saw the peoples of Heschia as invaders. But before too long, the Heschians discovered that the hydras were highly intelligent creatures, entirely capable of bargaining, and a series of mutually beneficial deals were struck. Now, the hydras had basically become celebrity monsters, just a step down from Dragon Dan.

  While he and Penny ate, the hydras occasionally surfaced and stretched their necks high above the riverwalk. Children and adults alike ooh’d and ahh’d at the sight – Seymour among them.

  “You are such a fucking tourist,” Penny chided, her own boozy tea long since emptied.

  “Or…. maybe you’re just jaded. Because this is actually all really cool. This whole scene, with the market and all the quirky little bridges and the big ass ancient hydras showing off and whatnot. There’s legit nothing like this where I’m from. Like, not even close. Not even in Vegas.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “If you’re this impressed by the market at midday on a Tuesday, I can scarcely imagine how you’d react if we took in the spectacle of a hydra race.”

  “When do they start? I’m down to hang out until then.”

  Penny shook her head and lent him a thin-lipped frown. “Sadly, the races are held on the weekends, exclusively.”

  “Well that sucks.” Seymour tilted his boozy tea back and killed it but at the same time he noticed the curious way Penny was looking at him.

  “Sucks?” she wondered.

  “Sorry. I just mean it’s not fair. On Earth we’d say it sucks.”

  “Fascinating.” She pondered his words for a moment. “Am I then to assume that the opposite—blowing—is used to express exceptional fairness?”

  “Um, no. Not so much. Blowing sucks, too.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured thoughtfully. “I do hope Rusk has been truthful and that we will manage to travel to your homeworld, so that I may learn more of your strangely contradictory colloquialisms, if nothing fucking else."

  “With any luck, we’ll be good to go the next time the hedge maze appears. Assuming we can turn all this stuff you got from the Artificery into enough gold coins to raise and feed my undead army.”

  “Pray that these raw materials are adequate, for the council will not allow me to take anything else until if and when I am named director of the local guild chapter and de facto manager of the retail piece.”

  “So they’re still holding firm on waiting until you’re twenty-eight, huh?”

  “Yes. And while I’m happy to be working at the depot, the council’s arbitrary age requirement which prevents me from ascending to the directorship certainly does blow.” She waited for him to nod his approval of her use of Earth slang, which he did, and she smiled with self satisfaction. “But they did say there’s another way. If I can ascend to the rank of Master, that would remove the age restriction. But it's almost impossible to imagine achieving that feat before I’m twenty-eight, anyway. And certainly not without a great deal of adventuring.”

  The way it worked—leveling up, for lack of a better term—was different than any roleplaying game Seymour had ever enjoyed with the boys back home, even if the whole sigil power system all felt more than a little game-like to him. There were no experience points, for one. Each individual sigil power advanced on its own simply by using them. Fortunately, since evolving his class Seymour could now mentally access a simple progress meter:

  As he understood it from his conversations with Penny, when a sigil power reached one-hundred percent it would gain additional effects and utility while advancing to the next rank; neophyte to adept to master to ascendant and finally celestial.

  A person’s Adventurer Rank was determined by the total number of sigil powers they could potentially catalyze. For Seymour, that number had recently increased to ten: four on his greed sigil, plus three on Envy, two on Pride, and one on his new Sigil of Diligence. It turned out every seventh birthday when a person added a new sigil, their old ones all gained an additional slot capable of receiving catalyst, too. In order to progress to an Adventurer Rank of Adept, he’d need to level up a majority of his powers, meaning at least six.

  Which meant that at age thirty-five he’d pick up not only a fresh sigil, but all of those which he had manifested previously would also each develop a new slot to add powers to, bringing his potential total up to fifteen. And that meant his Adventurer Rank would then correspond to his eight highest-leveled sigil powers.

  It was an undeniably strange system of progression, as it could obviously cause adventurers to lose rank as they grew older, if they weren’t constantly progressing their individual sigil powers.

  “Losing adventurer ranks is quite uncommon, though,” Penny explained, “because typically if one has managed to advance a majority of their powers up to even adept, it indicates they have been adventuring regularly. It indicates a certain drive to acquire greater and greater power.”

  “But it also means an adventurer can never really retire, right? Or they’ll lose their rank.”

  “Mostly correct. Many will only cease their pursuit of power if and when it finally kills them.”

  Through experimentation, Seymour had learned that Infringement would advance only when he completed conjuring an item and even then only by a one-fifth of a percent. Simply learning a new schematic did nothing to push the ability toward Adept. Also, each item could only advance the power once, meaning he couldn’t simply reconjure the same thing over and over again to power level himself. Cash Out worked the same, going up one-fifth of a percent for each unique item he consumed and converted to gold coins.

  Would it also increase when triggered by defeating an enemy in combat? He figured he probably wouldn’t know for sure until they hit the hedge maze and killed something.

  Meanwhile, his new Cost of Living ability had also only advanced by one-fifth of one-percent after having been used once so far – when he briefly turned Brute Force Billy into his zombie minion.

  “You are extremely fucking lucky to have gained your Blood Money trait,” Penny blurted. She eyed their waiter and held up her empty glass, signaling for a refill. “Oscar Rusk’s letter claimed that you would need to progress up to an adventurer rank of Adept in order to assert control over the Midnight Express. Thus, possessing the capability to essentially buy that progression will prove invaluable.”

  “Yeah, no argument here. It’s going to speed up the rate at which my adventurer rank increases by more than double, if I had to guess. But, to be honest, I’m not even really sure why I’d want to do that – aside from the stuff Rusk said about needing to be Adept to fully command the Midnight Express. And that’s assuming we can actually trust everything in that letter.”

  “You’re not sure why you would want to increase your adventurer rank?” Penny tilted her head and wondered, as she often did. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Yeah, what’s the point, really?”

  “Each new rank brings with it a new class trait, and can greatly enhance those which you already possess. That is the main benefit.”

  “Is there more? I mean power for power’s sake isn’t really my thing.”

  “Higher ranks also equate to greater rewards from Vol’kara,” she explained with the patience of a mother explaining the moon to her toddler. “The dungeon passes judgment upon every member of every party who enters, and in turn adjusts its bounties – and challenges.”

  “Yeah, through the sorting steps. I get that. So what you’re saying is that if I get up to master rank or whatever then it’d be like running an instance with the difficulty set to epic or whatever.” He nodded, absorbing this new understanding. Penny only shrugged. “But what if you don’t want to be a dungeon crawler? Is there any point to raising your rank if, say, you just want to work in a pub? Or even a magic shop?”

  “Well perhaps not, but remember one can only achieve an adventurer rank of any kind if they have already first evolved a class. Some people—our friend Ermin, for example—might have a class and yet use it to do work other than adventuring, but for most it will always be more lucrative to brave the dungeon.”

  “And is that what you really want to do? Like, deep down, I mean. You’d rather be an adventurer than work at the depot or be tied to the guild as one of its directors or the like?” Seymour watched closely for her reaction. “And that's why you’re so eager to check out the hedge maze next time it appears.”

  Her forehead wrinkled as she thought about her answer.

  “Yes, I suppose in my heart of hearts what you’ve said is true,” she finally admitted. “And I think the flavor of the class I’ve manifested confirms that adventuring is the path which I truly belong on, moreso than the path of an educator and administrator or even the chief artificer at the realm’s preeminent magical emporium.”

  “Because what kind of secrets can an Arcanum Collector really uncover if she’s stuck teaching a bunch of lame-ass dork kids and whatnot, am I right?”

  “Your words,” she laughed, “not mine. But do you not also find the mystery of the hedge maze so very compelling as I do? What causes it? And what of the treasures hidden within its labyrinth? Those lost relics described by your mysterious Mr. Oscar Rusk – including, of course, that relic which promises you a way home: The Midnight Express.”

  “Of course I do.” Seymour paused. “I just needed to know you were serious before I started putting together a team of walking corpses.”

  The waiter delivered Penny a fresh drink and took her empty glass away. She took up her boozy tea and drained it in one long drink. Then she wiped her mouth and smiled, demanding Seymour:

  “Make it fucking so then, at your soonest opportunity.”