“Company policy is to train, hire, poach, or kidnap whoever we can that has a crafting or gathering oriented class that has cooking traits, or wants to develop them.” Grace told the Adventurer without sarcasm, having watched as he stuffed his face shamelessly for the last ten minutes.

  Her partner red cloak chimed in with a sage expression on his bearded face, “Soldiering is hard, on the mission and outside it. The least you can do is feed well a trooper you might send to their death someday.”

  A stark reminder of the stakes. He was glad the brass were grounded in the reality of their duties while he mopped his stew bowl with a piece of fluffy wheat bread and inhaled the sodden mass to conclude the lunch.

  “Thank you both, for your hospitality, and the Guild’s mess. I was starting to get worried about losing effective weight before I find the sonofabitch that’s been murdering folk.” Alexander declared with all sincerity, at the conclusion of what passed for a feast compared to his recent fares.

  Captain Pruitt nodded his acceptance and drawled, “When it’s all said and done, we’ll pour out some brewskis and swap lies, Ranger Alexander.”

  There for a second and gone a casual smile, good cheer the man buried beneath his to-business demeanor. The Marid warrior thumbed his axe blade absently and asked for Alexander’s plan, which he needed to think on. If the Peacekeepers were going to do a grid by grid search, the slowest, but most thorough way to flush out the quarry, then he might be most useful playing the role of the firehawk. These birds of prey liked to hunt just ahead of a forest fire, snagging game that fled their burning cover. Some had been known to drop live embers to spread fires across breaks. Alexander Gerifalte had used town guards or local Adventurer crews in this way before, making themselves an obvious threat to drive a particularly elusive beastie into an ambush. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, he reasoned.

  “I heard the officers giving orders for the grid search to start on the south side. I came in that way and I’ve been across the north-south length of New Chicago already, so I have a rough idea of the settlement’s layout. I figure we three ought to stay about two hours north of the search perimeter, keep an eye out for unusual traffic by one, two tops people the locals in the neighborhood don’t recognize, and focus on sewars, cellars, subway tubes, and maintenance tunnels. Governor Bastian said he’d have his guardsmen doing rounds, knocking on doors, asking some questions, that kind of thing, which I’d bet my left hand the killer has noticed. If I were a cannibal fucker with the noose drawing closed, I’d be spooked, thinking to hide in the undercity. Whole lotta Old Chicago ruins there to keep your head low. Given the number of victims they claimed in the forty-eight hours before I lost the trail in the south warrens, I’d say they planned to stock up and ride out the manhunt from the get go. Slip out when things cool down, maybe with a different identity.” Alexander outlined.

  Both the Guildie officers listened attentively and gave an approving nod when he finished. A sound plan, backed by sound reasoning, they were on board.

  Captain Grace ventured a question, “And what when we find the killer? Does Concorde want a trial or to interrogate the prisoner?”

  Alexander’s lips thinned at the notion, and he drew a finger across his throat. Nobody sent a request for his intervention when they wanted a target taken alive, the crimes were always too great. So far, they hadn’t been disappointed.

  “Good enough.” The blonde soldier said, echoed by her comrade, who added “No use burning daylight then, let’s get our boots wet.”

  In the repaved, often rebuilt streets of New Chicago, freshly washed by spring rain come off the great lakes, they did just that. The flow of people, thousands of them, moving hither and yon about their tasks made for a challenge to Alexander’s efforts to try to match the stride he’d calculated from the faint signs left through a thousand miles of bush to the lengths of the legs of the city folk as they passed. His guides shepherded them away from the places that were certainly going to be searched by the Peacekeeper squads, places like storage buildings, granaries, greenhouses, apartments, stables, and taverns. These were all places where a new face would be marked, places where inventory was kept assiduously for tax and bureaucratic purposes, or where animals would betray a stranger with their behavior.

  Governor Bastian’s ulcers weren’t for nothing, the organization he was imposing on this south stretch of the city limited the locales that were outside his lofty view. Instead, Alexander and company got to tour a host of leaky basements from burned out skyscrapers, abandoned freight tunnels and subterranean streets, that bore the smell of long disuse.

  Just now, they were entering the bowels of a metro station, one with tunnels blocked on both ends according to surveyors. but nevertheless representing a considerable real-estate for a potential lunatic murderer. Or worse.

  Down, down beneath the streets led a concrete stair, some of the rebar exposed by falling debris, most of that fire kissed in the firestorm that ripped through Old Chicago, lack of preventative maintenance, or the persistent wedging of frost and thaw into the stone surface. A careless step could break off beneath an unwary boot, sending you down the flight in a heap of bruises, if you were lucky. The Venator, descending without noise above the faint rustle of his cloak against his light armor, tried not to wince at the clatter and clang of sabaton on concrete or the clacking of heavy armor as his escorts moved. They couldn’t help their clamor, they were fighters, soldiers of the open field. It wasn’t their job to play high stakes hide and seek, that was why he made the big bucks.

  Alexander suppressed an amused chuckle at that thought, keeping his eyes focused on the tunnel, the relief lines of conduit anchored to the walls that stretched on into the dark, the pillars spaced to support the space, and which were the reason this place had survived the destruction wrought on most other subsurface locations.

  In point of fact, he didn’t actually get paid for these contracts. They were more a form of community service and stockpiling of favors owed to his settlement by the others. His fortune, such as it was, was made in the smithy and the alchemy lab. And the spoils of the dungeon spawn he hunted, of course. No, ridding Gaia of Matriculated that were committing atrocity was very definitely not something he needed compensation to do, just permission and a free hand to work as he saw fit. A back seat assassin was all he needed in his life.

  Dingy smells of stagnant water assaulted noses of the Adventurers when they passed far enough for the windy city’s perpetual gusts to fail to adequately stir the air of the tunnel. Stagnant water, mold, fluorescent moss here and there in colors ranging from veridian to a dazzling magenta, and, occasionally, more verdant flora like robustly fanning ferns and leafy vines whose tendrils sprouted from floor, wall, and ceiling and wove a green tapestry over concrete and brick substrate. Altogether more alive was the undercity than Alexander had expected.

  Since stealth with the two Peacekeepers was right out, the hunter voiced his concern aloud, “These tunnels are alive, Captains. I was thinking it was all musty concrete, maybe some slightly flooded spots, but this here is what a guy might call a habitat.”

  He made this point because habitats were places where wild things called home. On Gaia, wild things tended to defend their homes with a vengeance.

  As if on cue, a new smell encroached on the background of damp plant life, overrode the odor of still standing water: tangy, sour, biting. Long hours in the alchemy lab playing assistant to Wynona’s projects, alongside some of his own simpler ones made that scent familiar.

  “Acid!” Announced Alexander, who held a hand up in warning.

  He’d naturally taken a bit of a lead, given that he was confident he’d see anything in these dim environments well before it entered the glow of belt born lanterns courtesy of the Peacekeeper red cloaks. As well he had. Not thirty feet distant, just outside the glow of Direbee wax candles illuminating the lanterns, a puddle six feet wide reared up, forming an oblong, gelatinous mass about the size of a black bear. Not water, since mostly water wasn’t emerald green or putting off sulfuric acid fumes. Fandamntastic, he hated these things. The bastards ruined arrows like nobody’s business. Even more distant, a few other puddles shivered, where there wasn’t breeze enough to disturb the surface of a real puddle.

  “Shit! Slimes.” Grace said, immediately downcast as she identified the problem that just now slithered into the light.

  “Damnit!” Agreed her colleague who reluctantly added “Here comes a requisition for repairing gear.”

  Seeing that his escorts were familiar with the problem, he volunteered his services.

  “I can deal with them, if you want. Nobody likes visiting the quartermaster with acid eaten pits in their stuff. Besides,” he added, “The wankers are faster than they let on.”

  Which they were. Normally ambush predators, they crept incrementally, glacially slowly toward their victims pretending to be a puddle or ice slick, or some such. When they got within about four feet, however, viperishly fast they launched acid coated pseudopods enfold the prey, pulling it into their maws. Once inside a slime there was very little you could do to prevent the corrosive innards from digesting you alive.

  A fuck huge amoeba with a bad attitude and a voracious appetite, that’s what slimes were. Caution was the rule of life in the Green, the wilds outside settlement walls, so Alexander employed his first gift of Gaia, to Know the Rules, which had been granted by the skill Greater analyze. Concentration of his will on the aetheric link between the slime and Gaia called the blue scroll that contained information to those with the ability to access it.

  Neat. Slimes came in flavors, this one had some heat manipulation associated with it, able to tremendously increase its core temperature, thus vastly increasing the effectiveness of its main weapon. It appeared to also have some capability of compressing its fluids to create a more dangerous version of the usual ranged attack of a slime, one they normally only used when attacked, due to the cost of replacing the spent fluid from their bodies. He rated this one a six out of ten for slime-kind, probably verging on tier three by its age and expanded abilities.

  “So?” He asked again, “What do you want to do?”

  Neither of the warriors were eager to ruin their blades on the slimes or close to melee with them, which upped their estimation in his eyes. Slimes were noob hunters. A rookie thought “Hey, what’s the big deal? A big water balloon, right?” and then found that cutting into a water balloon filled with piranha solution was a terrible idea about the time they started to dissolve.

  The gauntleted fist that had been tightening around the haft of his axe relaxed, and the deep dark eyes starting to dilate in anticipation of battle relaxed, swirls of ice crystals around him lessening as he did. Marvin Pruitt was well suited to killing these monsters, had scores of them under his belt over the years, but he wanted a chance to take the measure of the hunter Concorde had hired, and who had caught the attention of his comrade. Captain Grace seemed to have some knowledge of the Outsider Adventurer and she had a good eye for talent. This was a chance to find out whether the young piss and vinegar Classed walked the walk.

  “Alright, I say we leave it to our guest, since he’s asked. Get after it, Grabowski.” Captain Pruitt determined.

  “It would be rude to step on a visiting Ranger’s toes when they’re being polite.” Agreed Captain Grace.

  Both stepped back to give Alexander room, not knowing what the foreign Matriculated’s abilities would do but not wanting to catch strays from them. They needn’t have worried. Alexander’s magic was surgical.

  Twin candle flames made of entropic magic, grey black fire that whirled into witchlight marbles, solidly spherical. A thought, an exertion of his will catapulted the magic into action.

  Fast on the attack though it was, a slime was not a swift mover. Not a prayer did it have of avoiding his attack and the chaos flame drilled through its measly ten Soak and punctured its collagen-like carapace. Gelatinous hydraulic not quite muscle tissue the weave and mana the warp, the impossible organism that was a slime shuddered when its body fell apart where struck by his Arcana. Groping pseudopods reached out, impotent, trying to ward off the distant attack. Absent eyes the slimes couldn’t see, they were scent based predators. The slime seemed to suddenly pull in on itself, balling up and Alexander cursed because it must have slid its core aside from his attack at the last moment and avoided a lethal wound.

  “Projectile incoming!” He cried, legs tensing to avoid the retaliatory nearly solid slug of superheated flesh dissolving fluid.

  *Whump*

  A dull thud and ripples rolled across the slime’s body from the recoil of the acid bolt it shot. Alexander paid it little mind because he was diving for the deck, appreciating the moist, algae covered stones of the metro tunnel from kissing distance in anticipation of the retaliatory strike. Thank all the gods above, below, and in between for his Outsider’s eyes and the prewarning they gave him, a whizzing from where he’d been and near simultaneous impact behind him said the acid bolt was subsonic, but only just.

  A pushup launched the hunter back to his feet and he drew the Messer, locking onto the slime core. Boots squelched as his mana infused legs flexed and the corridor blurred, his target in perfect focus as Alexander launched himself at it, pulling his magitech Messer free.

  Alexander crossed twenty feet in just under a second and his lunging stab dug into the soft carapace containing the slime’s innards without resistance. An upward twitch flashed a cut across the monster and he rolled to the side to avoid the liquid that spilled from the near bisected slime. A hissing, smoking puddle forming where he’d stood a moment earlier, ignored because he had an opportunity too good to ignore: the sagging slime was unable to move its core with a gaping wound letting its fluids drain, preventing normal pressurization. Another thrust, this time with a twist of wrist and the Venator used the knife to scoop the gemlike crystal out of the creature, another subtle movement of the blade catching the core like a tennis player catching a ball on their racket.

  Without the source of its animating magic, the slime slumped, lifeless and the groping pseudopods froze briefly before joining the rest of it on the concrete floor.

  “Easy money!” the young hunter laughed, bouncing the core on the flat of his knife.

  Once he rinsed the residual acid off, a big’ol slime core like this was a valuable alchemical tool. Almost made him hate the things slightly less. Alexander examined his prize.

  Alexander clicked his tongue in disappointment. The slime had been on the edge of tier three. If it had gotten there, he would have landed a tier three core, with flame and water mana as minor aspects to the acid mana. Saki would have thrown hands with somebody to get her hands on one of those. Granny Nguyen would have challenged her to a judo match over rights and he could have charged tickets. Every single living member of the original sixty founding members of Falcon’s Rest would have paid to watch that event.

  A shame he didn’t have a frost trap on him, freezing the creatures let you cut away most of their body around the core, effectively crippling them but leaving them alive so you could catch them for storage. Slimes were dangerous, but they had their uses, once you figured out how to keep them contained. No better garbage disposal existed and Falcon’s Rest used them to process sewage as well, ethically sourced from an infested water treatment plant. Ahh well, nothing to be done. He hadn’t known he’d be encountering slimes on this mission or he’d have come prepared.

  Habits born of several years of mostly solo work had caused him to sort of forget about the Peacekeepers assigned to keep tabs on him in the excitement of combat. Sheepishly he turned to see if the armored Matriculated warriors behind him had gotten hit by the stray acid bolt.

  There they stood, unmelted, and with neutral expressions on their faces. Relief. He permitted a quick thanks to all the gods above, below, and in between. Explaining to their friends how they got dissolved by slimes would have been capital “A” awkward. He didn’t spare them anymore attention, there were two more predatory puddles creeping towards them, following the scents of food. These would be more apt to be defensive, they would smell the innards of their nest mate and, even in their near empty thought-scape, understand that danger was around.

  He gave himself a seven out of ten for the first kill. It’d been almost a year since he’d fought slimes and he should have remembered that Chaos Strikes weren’t efficient against creatures that had no nervous system, and therefore could not feel pain or be incapacitated by it. Nor did they have limbs to target or joints to cripple. Mostly the entropic magic had just dispersed the creature’s Soak, but even that wasn’t worth it for something with low durability and Soak to begin with.

  Really, if he were being honest, he’d burned mana on an ineffective first strike. He could have used a single imbued arrow to break the slime carapace and limit its ability to compress its tissues to fire those acid shots or move its core around. What did he care for the cost of arrowheads? He made the damned things himself, no sense being stingy about using them for their intended purpose. Or he could have simply started by using his Messer, it would have been the same outcome. Six out of ten, he decided downgrading himself.

  He'd do better next time.

  “Back in a minute folks,” Alexander told the pair of Guildies, while he rolled the fuming core in a puddle to rinse it off before tucking the aspirin bottle sized thing into an empty belt pouch, “Just gotta snag me some more of these and we’ll be safe to carry on. This here’s a dead end. You, uh, might want to get behind something, in case these pests get excitable.”

  There was little point continuing to explore this particular subway tunnel, dark haired young man admitted. Slimes nesting meant a bad place to hole up, you never knew when one might melt a dime size hole in a door or wall and slide inside to eat you some night. Good clean glass or welded copper or platinum were pretty much the only ways to guarantee they couldn’t dissolve their way through a physical barrier, given enough time. But, even though the clock was ticking, leaving slimes to tier up unmonitored where they could reproduce and maybe form a Blob wasn’t an option. He jogged off into the dim tunnel to harvest the two remaining slime cores with a wave for his temporary comrades.

  Captains Grace and Pruitt observed with interest the growing stranger by the hour Adventurer while he repeated the insane performance just a few minutes ago with the other two monsters, exulting cheerfully when he pocketed the cores of the mindless predators that had led to the end of more than a few combat classed junior warrior because one had been a tier three.

  “What in the fuck is wrong with this guy, Marv?” Grace whispered to her comrade.

  The older warrior shook his helmeted head and said, “I’m pretty certain he wouldn’t know what you were talking about.” Commented Marvin Pruitt in reply.

  The taller woman tapped her gauntlet on the hilt of the great sword on her back, wondering if they were doing their escort duty a disservice at leaving the feather haired hunter to fight off a small Blob by himself, whether he’d volunteered or not.

  “At least we know the Bingo Book on Falcon’s Rest isn’t just them making shit up to look good. They’ve got some talent up there. Kinda makes a gal think we ought to be pushing that cross-training initiative a little harder, give the recruits a broader view, a wider experience before we put a white cloak on them. Three slimes in a minute, that’s pretty fucking quick.”

  Turning from her musing, she asked the older man, “What do you think?”

  After moment watching the dark-haired adventurer scrub acidic cores with obvious glee he leaned over and mentioned something that had become more obvious as they’d conducted their search.

  “You remember Captain Ecklund? He was around way before you earned your red. I’m getting real Ecklund vibes off this one.”

  A fourth slime dropped from the ceiling, having been hidden in an alcove where ventilation had once climate controlled the tunnel. The monster hunter evaded the pouncing slime by inches and the excited shout of “Bonus!” heralded another skirmish. A pulse of the strange grey black witch fire made the slime spasm and they took cover behind the entrance to a bathroom, whose plumbing had long since failed when Old Chicago fell to ruin. Slashes of steaming acid hissed as it ate through concrete where they’d been standing, flung by the flailing slime in response to the field of antimagic that enfolded it, instinctively lashing out with all its arsenal when in danger.

  Grace frowned and peeked around the corner, watched the Adventurer lop off darting pseudopods with short, efficient chops while dancing steps took him in an almost casual circle that the slime, increasingly couldn’t follow. Another stab she didn’t see until the blade was already buried midway into the monster was accompanied by that same deft removal of the creature’s core.

  She shook her head, her high crest swishing against the ceiling thanks to her stature. Nobody had planned architecture around people being almost eight feet tall, to her frequent irritation outside the cathedral guildhall.

  “Ecklund got killed during the Big Break, didn’t he?” She asked her senior officer.

  “Yup. Field dungeon from Tirnanog coughed up a wyvern ridden by some mutant Elf-thing…A wight! That’s the name. Anyway, the wyvern rider led a mob of trolls to sack one of the old minor settlements around Minooka. Ecklund was in the area and rode out to intercept. We found eight burned trolls and a bisected wyvern near a smoking crater that marked where Ecklund took the wight with him. Bones said there was thirty something elses out there too but there wasn’t enough of them left to know for sure. Hell of a thing.” The older man answered, wistful.

  Grace chewed her lip for a second but didn’t see the connection to their current situation, other than their guest had a rather cavalier attitude toward those sulfurous biohazard monsters for her taste. Odd that, the intel they had on him said he was a professional with a solid track record in the Green.

  “If you’re thinking that this one’s going to get himself killed early, I’m not here to say otherwise. For the record, I’d rather it doesn’t happen while we’re standing here watching, we got a reputation to consider. Besides, it’s a waste of a pretty face to put a sheet over it. Is that what makes you think of Ecklund though?”

  Captain Pruitt scratched his beard around the chin strap of his helmet, lifting his helmet’s faceguard to access the cut he’d gotten on patrol day before yesterday.

  “Captain Ecklund,” He summarized, “Was the kind of crazy that made you glad he was on your side.”

  “Yeah, but is he?” She asked, keeping the whistling slayer in her peripherals, still not totally convinced on that score.

  “Close enough. Guy used to be a blood hound for dungeon spawn. I’d say our rough around the edges friend here is going to help us kill whatever is eating our people and go home, assuming he doesn’t blow himself up. As long as nobody tries anything stupid, like our erstwhile gatekeepers, I think we’re all good for a brewski when this is done.” Assessed the grizzled Captain.

  “You say so, Marv. Sure thing.” Grace whispered.

  She was a cynical sort by nature, but she trusted the older man implicitly. Marvin Pruitt was known for an even keel in stormy waters.

  Alexander jogged up to the bathroom where the Guildies were taking cover and didn’t bother to hide the satisfied smile as he patted one of his belt pouches, now bulging. Saki was going to be over the moon when he got back. So would Granny Nguyen. His wife loved it when he pulled down bonus money on these missions, or scavenged goodies to fund her growing witch coven and sinister horticulture projects.

  “Sorry about the delay, nasty bastards were almost ready to tier up and start breeding.” Alexander apologized, “Don’t know about you lot but we natives living Upta don’t care for a Blob. Four, five of these get together, they end up rolling up the creeks to start pretending to be a pond and we lose cattle and horses.”

  Whatever they’d been chatting about apparently wasn’t important, they looked to each other shrugged, and joined him on the climb up from the dank cavern of the metro station.

  Taking the lead with their lanterns, the pair of Peacekeeper leaders seemed slightly more relaxed than before. Probably feeling better about not having to baby sit him.

  “I suppose we can carry on with our mission now, yes?” Captain Grace said, cool blue eyes scanning him briefly when they began their ascent of the crumbling stairs.

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  “You aren’t hurt, are you?” She checked, somewhat belatedly.

  A knowing chuckle escaped him. Just like he hadn’t immediately thought of their safety when the slimes started slinging their flesh-eating liquids around, they’d not been over worried on his own account. Adventurers were expected to be able to take care of themselves, especially when you were in the big leagues raiding dungeons or flying solo in the Green.

  He looked at himself briefly, inspecting his clothes for acid marks. All clean.

  “Nope! Flawless victory.” He replied, feeling good about the encounter overall.

  It was good to vent his frustration on something that barely even comprehended injury, let alone felt pain. Besides, he’d needed a combat refresher course on slimes.

  “Huh. Okey-dokey, I guess we’ll head over to that maintenance tunnel under the old Kellog plant. Pretty sure nobody’s swept it in months, it was due anyway.” She said, sounding more upbeat than before.

  A few miles walking, a hollowed-out wreck of a once bustling manufacturing complex, and a messy, if once sophisticated set of basements, utility tunnels, storage rooms, and boilers, and freight corridors used up two hours of their time for exactly bupkis. No monsters. No murderer. Three more locations yielded similar results. The pair of Peacekeepers seemed to think it was nearly to be expected, and he realized that they were right. Every miss dampened his mood though.

  New Chicago’s premier Adventurer Guild were on top of their shit, he couldn’t be sad about that. No, what was weighing down his thoughts as he wore even more leather off his boots was that the killer he was trailing had, somehow, managed to avoid not just the Boss’s men, but also the Guild’s attention, and they were playing from behind with regard to catching them. He’d lost whatever advantage he might have had in the Green as soon as the murderer entered the outskirts of the settlement. Alexander was a stranger here, out of his element in these tangles of abandoned remnants of the once great metropolis. The cannibal fucker he was after called this place home.

  A somewhat bitter sigh escaped him when he observed the sunset on leaving the last of these dank ruins behind. Day forty-seven was at its end. It would then require a forty-eighth day, at least, to complete his task. Beyond that, at least a month of hard travel to return to the roost.

  Captain Pruitt rolled his neck, cracking it loudly, and unbuckled his helmet, which he then hung on a loop from his belt similarly to how the Adventurers of Falcon’s Rest did, and the Guildies of Safe Harbor, back when that had been a thing. Some utilitarian tricks emerged as best practice, it would appear. Captain Grace freed her hair from her own helmet and began fighting to free it from the confines of its bun. She ended up having to remove her gauntlets and gloves to succeed in the effort.

  “So. That’s a wash.” Alexander stated, somewhat bummed by the failure.

  Not even the three slime cores could totally console him for even more time spent away from home. The refined magic stones had different properties than the raw core, oftentimes more potent in a single specific application, but with less overall utility. Slime cores were a good example of a monster component that was frequently more useful than the processed artifact. Hopefully, Annita’s joy at having these cores to use in her herbaceous concoctions, or a set of Corrosion Stones if Alexander and Saki got their heads together to synthesize them, would somewhat offset the unusual duration of his absence. Probably he’d have to make up for it with being frontman on diaper duty for the boy to balance the scales with his partners.

  Suddenly, the patriarch of clan Gerifalte realized he would miss a core component of raising his son. Little Durian would almost certainly be toilet trained by the time he got back. Frowning at that he realized that Brig and Granny wouldn’t soon let him forget he’d ducked out of dad duty on the potty, even if making up was nearly always worth getting into a little trouble. Double damn, he’d been looking forward to teaching Littlest Falcon how to sit and number two like a big boy.

  “I didn’t think you’d be taking missing out on catching up with the mark that hard, Ranger. It takes time to dig them out sometimes, we’ll get them.” Consoled Captain Pruitt, misinterpreting the source of his angst.

  Alexander tightened up a little and said “It isn’t that. Or, not mostly. I’m missing dad shit right now, my son’s probably learning how to use a toilet right now.”

  His disappointment was audible, even though he was tamping down on it.

  The bearded man’s expression softened a bit at that reveal and he let out a low “Aaaahhh.” Of comprehension.

  He’d lost his first family to the Pulse, and that was a grief that had etched itself into his bones. Marvin Pruitt remembered well getting his girls through the magical times of learning to be big girls who could use the bathroom all by themselves.

  “New family is tough for our types,” Captain Pruitt acknowledged, “Long hours, hazardous duties, unexpected absences, and the rest, it means sacrifices on the home life. Got a wife then? If you don’t mind my asking, of course. Myself, the missus is probably just finishing up her patrol, so it’s a little easier some ways. A little harder others.”

  Alexander wasn’t overly surprised that the Peacekeeper officer would have a spouse in the Guild. As he said, it was easier in some ways to create relationships with those who shared your Adventurer lifestyle. It was also riskier, since you both put yourselves in harm’s way. For all that it hadn’t been long since the Pulse, since the Adventurer culture, the rise of the Guilds and Parties, there were not a few widows and widowers in the settlements.

  “Nah, it’s fine.” He replied toward the older man’s question.

  He didn’t actually mind talking about home with people who were hanging their asses on the line with him in the Green, for all that they were by no means friends. Trust was crucial for men and women leaving their backs to their comrades and battle drew people close. Or forced them apart with prejudice.

  “Got two wives, as a matter of fact. One’s a dryad, a harvester class, that’s mom. She’s a gem. The other’s an Oread, a combat class like me, but her thing’s more to rush down and harpoon the beasties, rather than skulking around looking to get’em in the back. She’s been holding off on kids so Falcon’s Rest isn’t down too many seasoned party members at once, there was a bit of a dip in active Adventurers when the ladies figured out how the Solstice cycles worked. I’m starting to think we need to get on that sooner rather than later though.” He nattered, seeing the women in his mind’s eye while he spoke, which did nothing to make him miss them less.

  Under the calming spell of the excellent listener that was Captain Marvin Pruitt, Alexander got to speak of home and, for at least a little bit, indulge his pride in his family, and live again some of the lighter moments of his life. It was a good way to pass the time. They crossed the bridge approach to the cathedral as he was telling the story of he and Brig getting set up by the superhootch brewed by a pair of Warlocks, a vodka that had left he and his soon to be consort waking up naked in his workshop, having left their clothes in the tavern halfway across town. In the middle of winter.

  Both Guildies had smiles for that, there had been surprises for everybody when classes that had abilities and arcana associated with foodstuffs and intoxicants started flexing their muscles. Neither had come away unscathed when a particularly potent liquor had aged and been unleashed on an officer’s meeting, complements of the brewmaster.

  Surprises abounded this day for Grace Miller. Marvin had made a friend, the first in a while, and the suspicious mercenary turned out to be okay, her kind of people even. Her jaw almost dropped to learn this enigma of an Adventurer wasn’t just married, but, by the way he spoke of his family, happily so, and, unless she missed her guess, actually domesticated! There was not a small part of her that wanted to meet these two master tamers, to get their tips for future reference.

  Distant future reference, if she had her way. On the matter of kids, Captain Grace had made that same decision, to hold off on children. She wasn’t willing to bear a child and continue in active duty, being an unavailable mother or risking orphaning her progeny. Besides, Grace Miller still saw herself as too young for motherhood, being only twenty-four. Not only that, there were some perks to being an unbonded senior warrior of her stature, and good looking to boot. There was fun to be had playing the field, dancing in the speakeasies, or finding a warm beau on a cold night. Unless they fucked it up by mentioning her height, that was a one-way ticket out the door, only battle buddies got to mention her stature. Speaking of doors, they were passing through the portcullis, raised by the two substitute gatekeepers who had watch until Gibbons and Howard had served their time in the latrines and horse stalls.

  “Perhaps the grid search turned up clues. It isn’t impossible that the south warrens beyond the walls would be a natural place for the killer to hole up.” Grace offered as a potential top deck for a positive outcome on the day, now that they were returned to the Guild Hall.

  Pruitt scratched that confounded itching scab on his chin and voiced agreement, “True. Otherkin kind of spook most of the citizenry that live inside the walls, and the settlers outside it tend to be a little less willing to talk to guards or Peacekeepers. That makes it a pretty okay place to hide out. Sure as hell, it’s tough to get anything out of most Otherkin normally. Especially the Gnomes. The small folk don’t like anyone outside the clan butting in on their business and we’ve failed dramatically at recruiting from the Otherkin to open up those communities to our efforts to help them.”

  A wry tilt of his head as he leveled dark eyes on Alexander made clear of his opinion on that situation when he added, “I guess ghettos are the same about anywhere. People too, even the ones that aren’t strictly people.”

  Given his treatment by the locals today, Alexander couldn’t say he was surprised. Why reach out to people who were so clearly not ready to welcome you? Humanity needed to ditch those attitudes in a hurry, that page had turned rather dramatically.

  “Will there be trouble in the Otherkin neighborhoods when a bunch of armored warriors start poking around?” He asked, voicing aloud a concern he’d had at the outset of that, but had left alone since it mostly wasn’t his place to say anything.

  It was also unavoidable. There was no way to avoid searching the Otherkin pockets that wouldn’t rile people up in the Human neighborhoods when they were the only ones being searched. Forget that the target was either a human or disguised as one, Alexander told himself, they wouldn’t take it well and stirring folk up was the last thing they needed.

  “No,” Captain Grace answered, a severe set to her expression at anyone setting themselves against her Guild, “Or, at least, there’d better not be. The Peacekeepers have shed blood aplenty keeping New Chicago safe, and that includes the Otherkin villages around the city. Anyone that makes trouble will regret it, no matter what their ears look like, or anything else. Just because we don’t make a habit of throwing our weight around doesn’t mean we’re going to let people die to coddle feelings.”

  Alexander remembered the crazy tangle of structures that marked the Elven district, the bedlam of its inhabitants as they went about their lives, wild in spirit. He thought about the stolid, communal hum of hard work from the Dwarves. The efficient, tidiness of the Gnomes. Would they accede to the violation of their communities in the name of preventing anymore deaths? It had, after all, been Otherkin murdered most recently. So far.

  “Here’s to hoping.” The stranger to this strange city said, feeling less confident about it than he sounded.

  Back within the gothic headquarters of the Peacekeepers, reports were being compiled in the strategy center where once the choir belted their hymns in the original structure on which this one was based. Men and women standing at attention dictated to scribes the findings of their squads, the locations searched and any details that might contribute to the effort to find Alexander’s prey. He was disappointed in how much ink the scribes had to use, his own party’s contributions included.

  The mess hall had a roast pig, one that had had six legs, spitted and roasting over the hearth. It smelled too good to resist and his escorts agreed, the three of them chowed on pork, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, and more of that damned good bread. And beer, he had a feeling this dark stuff would grow on him by the time he’d found the bottom of a second pint. He couldn’t help but grow silent as he considered the day’s work. Slimes aside, it’d been a strike out.

  “Bastard’s as good at covering his tracks in town as he is in the wild.” Muttered the Venator.

  “Whatsat?” the giantess Captain casting a shadow over him asked, mostly paying attention to her guildmates.

  “Nothing, Captain. Just brooding.” He answered.

  “Well, stop it.” She replied, a stern visage softening slightly when she looked down at him, “What can be done is being done. You’ll wear yourself down if you keep that up, and the job demands you at your best.”

  A parallel criticism that Ben had leveled at him, more than once. Alexander squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to internalize the Captain’s wisdom. A steady ten count and he managed to squeeze the life out of the impatience that had been chewing on him all this long day.

  “Thanks, Captain Grace. It’s a bad habit.” Alexander admitted offering a small bow to her armored Largeness for nudging his mindset back in line.

  “We’ve all been there, Ranger Gerifalte. And we’ve all needed a kick in the ass to get our heads straight. Take my advice: swallow three or four more tankards of something alcoholic next to a hearth. Go to a kickback tonight and dance your gym shoes off. If it’s permitted by your spouses, find someone that wants to fuck. Forty-seven days of constant duty would burn anyone out.” Sympathized the red cloaked warrior, reminding him that, for all her apparent young age, she was a veteran, and a professional soldier.

  “And that’s my cue to depart, friends.” Captain Pruitt said, glancing meaningfully at a white cloaked Oread of only slightly reduced stature compared to the booming voiced lady who’d escorted him this afternoon.

  Alexander noted three knotted stars on the brooch that held the cloak of the woman Captain Pruitt eagerly indicated, of which there were relatively few to be seen in the Guild Hall. He estimated a relatively high rank, a noncom, probably a staff sergeant or something similar. Pruitt departed and endured with serenity being rounded up in a hug that lifted him easily, armor and all, and the pair disappeared around a corner that led to the Peacekeeper officer’s quarters upstairs, with eyes only for each other the whole way. He wasn’t envious of the old trooper. At all.

  Which was why he was going to see about getting himself a room at an inn to get ready to continue the mission bright and early tomorrow.

  “Old timer has a good plan,” the weary young man told his oversized escort, “A warm bed after six weeks sleeping in the Green sounds like a damned fine idea. Any tips on hostels, inns, or the like?”

  Grace smirked and replied, “Why? Don’t like the idea of getting cozy with Guildies? We have quarters here in the Great Hall, just upstairs, if you wish it.”

  The slightly challenging tone wasn’t just for his choice of sleeping arrangements, he had a feeling, but didn’t see the reason to open a can of worms. He didn’t dislike guilds after all.

  “Didn’t think I rated a bunk with the big timers, being an outsider and all.” He rejoined, honestly.

  A hand with a single finger raised had Alexander awaiting the draining of a tankard before she returned with rosey cheeks dimpled in a good-humored grin that showed pearly teeth in perfect sequence “There’s always a bed for Adventurers in good standing, Ranger Alexander.”

  His own light alcohol buzz was a pleasant warmth that made him crave a mattress more every second. Almost imperceptibly, around the cathedral hall, the din of voices and good cheer had grown more pronounced. Business hours had closed, and the Guildies were beginning the revelry phase of the evening. Most Guilds operated on a work hard play hard plan, and he saw the Peacekeepers were not strangers to this philosophy. Had he not been so homesick he’d have been looking for a refill on his own mug and a board game. Checkers, chess, even the brain destroying Japanese derivative go would have been nice. Risk, if he were here to make some enemies. But not tonight.

  “I’m sort of surprised to hear you say I’ve got good standing Captain.” He said, after he’d thought it over, “What with the light violence in town and the gatekeepers whose names elude me. And, well, I’ve got some history with Guilds, if I’m being entirely honest. Most good, but one time really not so much.”

  She rolled her eyes at the mention of her troublesome comrades but spoke up in their defense, to the extent that she was able, telling him “They’re not so bad when they get to know you, Gibbons and Howard. Being suspicious pricks makes them good for being on the gate, but they have to learn to use their heads sometimes. I’ll be honest, half the reason I have them up to their elbows in caca is because they left the gate open, not because they wanted to kick the shit out of you.”

  That was fair, all things considered.

  “As far as your escapades with Safe Harbor, that’s ancient history and reflects poorly on those half-assers running the guilds than you.” She told him, which was a welcome piece of news.

  Unexpected, he didn’t think anyone this far away would have known about that and said so. Grace tore used delicate teeth to strip a rib bone clean and refilled her tankard from a mini keg. This last operation she completed while enlightening the dark-haired young hunter of men, monsters, and men who were monsters.

  “We have an eye on what goes on around everywhere between the east coast and the Rockies, and what happened in Safe Harbor is one of our better recruiting pitches. Getting black listed for killing a dungeon they were letting grow to farm higher tier materials is criminal negligence and high crimes around these parts.”

  Captain Grace drew Alexander’s gaze around with a finger, indicating the scrolls, legers, cabinets of reports and the entire section of the cathedral’s precious floor space dedicated to intelligence and record keeping.

  “News travels slow, but the Peacekeepers like to keep a finger on the pulse of what goes on around North America where we can.” She told the young man, proud of her Guild and the efforts of her colleagues, “We get tales of doings from the Adventurer parties and Guilds abroad, and most merchants are happy to tell one of their big time buyers everything they’ve seen and heard on their travels over free drink and an open larder.”

  Most merchants also traded in information. It was amazing the things you could learn if you spent a week in the taverns spending a few bucks buying a round for a local Adventurer’s party, or listening in on the gossip at festivals while you sold bolts of silk harvested from neurotoxic butterfly larva that grew four feet long and ate a specific kind of bamboo sourced from field dungeons of Nemeta, the realm of verdant growth and poison blooms. As a group, they were the widest traveled folk on the continent, especially once actual trade routes had gotten established.

  That was a relatively recent emergence, just after the Big Break. Adventurer parties and Guilds getting aggressive about patrolling territory to cull dungeons inevitably stumbled into one another, scouts found evidence of distant neighbors as they canvassed the wilds, and settlements isolated in their own pockets of civilization learned of each other’s existences. It didn’t take long after that before maps were updated from just “here be dragons” between transfigured lands. Freelancer Adventurers had started making careers guarding the merchant caravans. Alexander had a feeling a Merchant Guild was just around the corner. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that an organization as well put together as the Peacekeepers wouldn’t have capitalized on the advantage of making cozy with merchants or pumping them for information.

  Ben had led that charge at Falcon’s Rest, he claimed it was military strategy one oh’ one to recon using traders. All the old timers had very quickly added the caveat to the suggestion that Ben himself not be the one doing the talking. Alexander considered him a hero, but Benjamin Grisham was worse at people than himself, whose friends included his steam powered machine tools, so that was saying something.

  “I’ve heard more on one Alexander Gerifalte of Falcon’s Rest than the killing of a Reaper. You’ve got a couple banger credits to your tab.” Grace said, lifting a mug in unmocking salute.

  It always took him by surprise to be included in the rumor mongering of Peoples doing Deeds. All things considered, he tried to stay out of the news and away from leadership decisions. His gifts were in making, in trying to restore what was lost to the Pulse, in searching for a way to undo the petrification of the majority of humanity when mana enveloped the planet, and in exterminating extra dimensional pests, when those tried to interfere with those other tasks or threatened precious human lives.

  As far as being a public face, that fiasco had briefly occurred in which he had been declared mayor of Falcon’s Rest, on account of being the sole survivor of the place and having used all of his wealth generated during a brief stint with the guilds to fund the expedition to rebuild the place. He’d gotten out from under it as soon as possible, leaving it to people who were much better suited for herding cats. Alexander would offer advice, even if nobody asked for it, but he’d never sit at the helm. Notoriety had clung to his coattails however, to judge by current conversation.

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I can take credit for most of that. If you heard of me, then you damned sure know the caliber of help I had the whole time.” He said, calling to mind the faces of Getsome, the Adventurer party who had once rescued him from the isolation of his desolated town, and then joined him to help re-found it.

  Getsome were nothing less than a band of heroes in his mind. It had been a privilege to serve humanity with Mark, Melinda, Shiv, Dame Sanchez, Ben, and last, but not least Brig, who had decided to wife him up proper.

  “To be seen amongst those who shine, you must shine yourself, Ranger Gerifalte.” Grace said, a strangely artful turn of phrase from the usually firmly grounded Oread.

  He wasn’t long to muse on that before she’d rolled onward, and her pinched nostrils and an angry snort distorted the woman’s passive beauty.

  She washed the bad taste of whatever had turned in her thoughts with another swig of the foamy amber dark beer she was draining from the minikeg on the table, before sharing “We also know about Safe Harbor, and how that whole thing played out. I don’t think anyone will find any serial killers hiding amongst the Guild, we filter that kind out early.”

  A knowing chuckle accompanied her next statement a jest and acknowledgement of the visiting Adventurer’s perpetual alertness, “So, you can stop twitching like you’ve got ticks in your breeches. This is a safe place, if Gaia can be said to have one.”

  As if to prove her point about how safe, Captain Grace reared up to stand, wobbled a touch, regained her composure and shed her armor with deft flicks of fingers utterly burned in with muscle memory for the operations of buckles, catches, hooks, and the other tricks by which her exquisitely made armor was affixed to her.

  Alexander considered himself a fine armorsmith, and had the trait in his Scroll to prove it, but whoever the Peacekeepers had on retainer to do their gear was, pun intended, a keeper. The guy or gal had a literally magic touch for protectives design. He’d actually had to concentrate to find a gap through which to stab the gatekeeper earlier, and that had only been there as an observance of human anatomy. There had to be a way for joints to move, for the bearer to retain their mobility, after all. This smith had managed to do that, but no more than was necessary. By the time Grace had unloaded her combat gear Alexander came to another realization: he had underestimated the Oread Captain’s time spent getting gains.

  Her armor was thicker than Brig’s Lancer gear. Both were of the bloodline that favored Might and Durability but Grace was certainly the mightier of the two. To judge by the plates, it had to be almost twice as heavy as the stuff he’d made for his Copper haired partner, he was probably looking at forty pounds worth of metal in the plackart, breastplate, pauldrons, and gauntlets, to say nothing of the tasses and cuisses, at the absolute minimum. Alexander had particularly high stats himself, thanks to Gaia’s forbearance, but that much armor would have slowed him to the point of being effectively a Normal.

  Captains Miller and Pruitt had marched all day with him and neither had shown the first hint of being bothered by the daunting mass of their burdens. He ratcheted up his respect for the red cloaked Guildie officers once again.

  “There!” The blond giantess said, fluffing slightly the compressed spartan brownish grey wool of the uniform beneath the armor.

  Most would wear a gambeson beneath their plate, somewhat to prevent it bruising the tender flesh it was meant to protect, but mostly to act as another layer of protection from blades or penetrating strikes of picks or other armor sundering weapons. With Soak, that layer was neglected for most warriors. Anything that struck hard enough to penetrate a warrior’s mana supported defenses and also their protective equipment was better to avoid than to attempt to challenge directly, loss of mobility had killed more than one Anchor tank who had bitten off more than they could chew. The squishier main attackers or flex attackers and off tanks mostly didn’t try to receive dungeon spawn hits directly, anything below forty Soak was considered living dangerously.

  So was anybody that gave Captain Miller grievance, he decided. Alexander had to admit, the Guildie was pretty well put together. The phrase built like a brick shit house came to mind unbidden, the crassness of the old hick slang in contrast to the delicate facial features of the lady in front of him. It was probably loyalty to his pagan goddess of spearing monsters and fucking that he still ranked Brig a notch higher. Nothing personal Grace, he told himself, but my girls are the best girls.

  His observance of the Guildie wasn’t unnoticed but neither was it overly interested. A respectful and brief glance, all socially proper and absent unintended meaning. Alexander had been taught that his Outsider bloodline skewed stare, often delivered while his brain was absent behind it chewing on some item or other unrelated to the person who happened to find themselves in front of him, was not comforting. He thusly tried not to look directly at people unless he meant to, to spare them having to get the crawlies if his fidgety brain went AWOL. Grace saw that he’d seen and wasn’t taking the bait. They were on professional and semi friendly acquaintance terms. A good start.

  “You still gonna run away to find a bed or are you going to enjoy the nightly band and dancing? Peacekeeper kickbacks are pretty alright, but I don’t know how you Yankees up north do it.” She asked, only half serious.

  Alexander let rip a still somewhat boyish grin and called “Pass! My dancing legs are at home in my other pants. These ones here would stand on their own without my skinny legs in them so, if you don’t mind, I’ll take you folks up on your hospitality instead of embarrassing flatlanders on the dancefloor.”

  The Guildie brass rolled her eyes at his claim to superiority and thumbed towards the stairs, adding “Get thee gone pansy! Grab up one of the white cloaks you see, anybody with less than three of those little knots on their cloak brooch, and have them bring a tub of hot water to room two twenty-five, that one’s empty right now, Roger’s got his team on a long patrol and won’t be back for a couple weeks.”

  A wink for him before the festivities began in earnest, the far more chilled out off duty version of Captain left him with a good humored, “Do yourself a favor and sleep in, we got a hell of a day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  With that, Alexander took his leave and had not made it to the stair case before the giantess was already turning circles around some poor lad who was badly outmatched. She moved well despite her size and Alexander figured he’d probably need to aim for her legs if there ever came a time he had to be on the wrong end of her great sword. A crippling strike was most times near the same as a lethal one. He didn’t know why he carried out these analysis on most Adventurers he met but it was a compulsive tendency his latent paranoia insisted would pay dividends someday. It was a paranoia that had served him well fighting goblins and ogres, back when the Pulse had dropped an active dungeon on top of his hometown, and the long years since.

  Round the corner and up the stairs, with a brief detour to snag a Guildie on food platter duty to ask, politely, for some scrub water for room two twenty-five, and Alexander soon found himself ensconced within the privacy of a room for the first time in over a month. He leaned his back against the door and breathed out a long, slow sigh of relief. It was the first time in forty-eight days he’d been able to truly relax and he felt a general tiredness finally take hold of his limbs. Force of will had been the only thing keeping him going this past week, that and the hope that his quarry would slip up and let him get within bowshot so he could wrap this shit up and head back.

  “I’m fucking tired, all the gods above, below, and in between blind me if I’m lying.” He whispered to the nice wood carved walls of the apartment.

  Its usual occupant was tidy and lived spartan, without adornments. A man after Alexander’s own heart.

  He cracked open the straps of his backpack and dug through until he found the thin oilcloth bundle that was a spare set of clothes. It had gone unused this trip, at no point had he found time to unwind and don his casual wear. Despite the musty smell of his pack’s interior, he pried his gear off, struggling some with a few buckles caked by clay into place, and moaned loudly when the worn boots freed feet too long confined in them.

  A knock at the door made him flinch, but it was just the runner with a tub of water and Alexander thanked the Guildie and insisted he’d been enough help, preferring to drag the tub into his borrowed room himself. He didn’t notice that he’d answered the door naked or that he’d stood in the hall in the buff before pulling the large wooden and metal hooped tub into the room, which would have explained a few of the awkward looks he’d gotten if he’d had the attention to spare their owners.

  Then, without further ado, Alexander Gerifalte snatched a firm bristled brush and a bar of homemade soap for a good goddamned long bath that left the water unfit for a hog wash when he left it. Soft, flickering candlelight from a few stands, wax running free to collect on their plates creating smooth, almost organic patterns, put the spartan sanctuary into an unfamiliar, but welcoming relief. Once parted from the delicious heat of the tub, the youth toweled himself vigorously using a wooly, scratchy item that probably took more skin from him than most monsters managed. He was grateful for it, a proper exfoliation had been greatly overdue, even if his olive complexion suffered slightly, red shifting under the abrasion. But it was all worth it to be, at last, clean.

  Like filings to the magnet, Alexander was drawn now to the bed, with its heavy tartan colored pleated comforter and sheets doubtlessly spun from silk crawlers or, perhaps, an antique relic, the high thread count leavings of pre pulse manufacturing. Either way, Alexander was ready to sack out and strode determinedly to the strange bed to do so. He barely managed to pull the loose wool slacks and long-sleeved shirt over a still wet body before he crawled into the bed, whose mattress was angelic soft, and slept as soon as the down pillow enveloped his cheek.

  There was no soft birdsong, no morning light through yonder window of the buried apartment within the Guild Hall, and so Alexander Gerifalte, hunter of Falcon’s Rest and contracted manhunter for a serial killer did sinfully sleep in until an hour after sunrise. Groggy, bleary eyed, and deeply yawning, he experienced a cognitive disconnect between now and days past. Other rooms, other missions, other strange wakings. It was a full five seconds of “Where the fuck am I?” before synapses cleared enough for him to remember where he was and why.

  Day forty-nine.

  He would go forth and endeavor to break open a lead on the whereabouts of the killer. Sparse had the sign been, but, in a city numbering close to thirty thousand, someone had to have seen something. A stranger. A drifter. An unsavory soul that gave one the heebie jeebies. Something and or anything to give Alexander a starting point from which to track the murdering, cannibal asshole to wherever they hid in plain sight. The last two missions, his quarry had been known yet ignored in their respective communities. Odd ones, but harmless. A demur, if always awkward grocery cashier, or a lonely old bachelor who had a weird taste in decorations, or some such. For three years they’d evaded capture and that meant that they drew no attention to themselves.

  One of the tricks to hunting things that had exceptional camouflage was not to look for the creature, but to notice disruptions to the background cause by its presence. A gaboon viper could sit in leaf litter nigh unto invisible. But under its bulk no moss grew. Green shoots were crushed as the heavy snake slid into place. Shadow cast from its bulk which should not be there darkened the leaves to its sides, forming an outline. No stealth was perfect, there was always something. This time would be no different, as long as Alexander was diligent.

  Using the bathwater of the previous night, quite tarnished by his scrubbings, yet far, far less soiled than his clothes, he commenced to scrubbing his travel gear. Pants, shirt, undershirt, and coat, all stiffened by layers of mud, sweat, and miles traveled he dumped into the tub and soaked. The water was cold now, of course, but that was fine. Cold or hot, with clothing this gnarly, a man was going to have to scrub and scrub he did. Hands worked and a belt knife, not his Messer, scraped at the fabric to release the trapped dirt.

  After a half hour, the worst of the crud had been removed and Alexander set his travel clothes to dry, draped over the furniture. Pruny fingers scrubbed through the scruffy creature that was attempting to call itself a beard on his chin and he decided that it had lived for long enough. His belt knife, a hand long, three-inch Scandinavian ground affair, mostly used to whittle feather sticks, clean small game for eating, or whatever else required a fine edge, would do for his shaving razor.

  A lather of soap and a cold shave followed, illuminated by a wall stand candle lantern. He hadn’t nicked himself in years and today proved no different. Soak, fortunately, didn’t fight against attempts to cut your own hair or prune your nails. It wouldn’t have mattered much for him if it did, five percent Soak was, essentially, nothing. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror overhanging the sink, cheeks slightly hollow from lost weight, a jawline more pronounced than usual, fine downy feathers that laid back to give him the appearance, if one wasn’t paying too close attention of a backswept fashionable haircut, if a bit longer than he would have worn it in the old days. The feathers grew, filled in, and remained more or less the same without requiring maintenance. They also shed water like a duck’s, which had proven useful in the bush, except that he had to be certain his cloak’s collar was good and close or rain would channel off his scalp down beneath his clothes.

  The angular stare, hawk’s eyes set in black, with the lean, angular features made him look predatory. He turned away from the image and supposed that was for the best, maybe fewer people would be inclined to play games with him today. Surely the company of the Guildie escorts would contribute greatly to that cause as well.

  A threatening burble from his stomach reminded him that he’d eaten better last night than he had in six weeks and he fled to the toilet, cataloguing the relative comfort of the Guild Hall’s bathrooms from its porcelain throne. Good quality candles, Falcon’s Rest make so they didn’t have the smell that some less refined tallows possessed. Indoor plumbing, the architect for the Peacekeepers hadn’t skipped the details and the city had restored a measure of modern sanitary practice. Toilet paper among them. Most folk settled for a washrag and a bucket of soaped water, and you changed the bucket and rag on the daily. Teepee was a luxury, and a sign of the Guild having contacts with high tier merchants and craftsmen, since paper generally was only just starting to make a comeback as something that could be manufactured. Using it to scrub one’s arse was, for most of the world, an unthinkable extravagance. Alexander Gerifalte had to admit that he felt a bit fancy as he buckled his belt.

  Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if the sewage was being used for composting or tanning. He’d made a practice of using his nightsoil to create nitrate beds for creating salt peter, and also as a component of tanning, alongside condensed urine. Fun times. Back home, his settlement was still collecting waste for composting, there weren’t enough alchemists around, or the infrastructure to make ammonium nitrate fertilizer in bulk. Platinum catalysts weren’t growing on trees, even if they were readily available in catalytic converters scrapped from the rotting hulks of the vehicles cooked by the Pulse.

  Meandering thoughts kept him occupied while he checked arrow fletchings, their colors telling him what tip they bore. He liked to keep an assortment, depending on the type of critter he was shooting at. Broadheads to lacerate soft targets, barbed bodkins to punch through dense shells and stick, unable to be pulled free, and the eight inch long stiletto points, the grooves in their middles still dark from the poison he’d applied to them. Every tool a purpose and a place in his kit. Singer’s string was overtensioned, he could feel it by the draw, the metal fatigue of being strung too long had lost a few feet per second from its normal velocity. It would still punch a thumb thick arrow through a steel door, so he wasn’t overly concerned. Making a new string would have to wait until he returned to his shop, in any event.

  Belt pouches, contents dry and ready to deploy were checked, and he was sad a moment thinking on the maker of the belt and its pouches, a one-time saddlemaker named David Grosse. The pleasant man had died, been murdered, in a retaliatory hit ordered by the big Guilds of Safe Harbor in response to the destruction of the dungeons those Guilds were farming. It had been a dark day, one Alexander never really forgave himself for. The dungeons had had to go, as the Big Break later proved quite flagrantly, but it had still been his idea and thus, his responsibility. He’d killed the man who gave the order, at least, and none of the assassins survived their mission, so that was small, small consolation.

  Feathery black feathers waved when he shook away the maudlins and returned to the task at hand, losing himself to the familiar monotony. Time vanished, then returned when he laid the fast deploy spool of fine wire aside, a trip wire with a sharp insert to pull the wire down and sever it, so that he could make tripwires or when sterner ties than bank line were required to bind.

  About the time gear maintenance had finished his clothes were dry, or dry enough not to bother him as he explored New Chicago’s warrens on an early April that had been a bit of a soggy business. Since the start of this shitshow back in march he’d become well acquainted with damp. A stomp to settle the boots over his thickly wool socked feet and he was ready to be on with day forty-nine, pack secure, Singer slung, the magicked up warknife comfortably pulling down on his belt on one side and the quiver of arrows canted away from his legs from the other.

  No one stood outside his door when he peeked out, which was good. Given the rocky start to his temporary residence in the big city, Alexander supposed this trust meant his hosts didn’t think he needed a baby sitter. Or that they needed to guard him to prevent nefarious fuckery. Either or suited him fine.

  Susurrus rebounded from the staircase to his sensitive hearing, making Alexander aware that his late rise had coincided with the Guild being in full tilt. He descended the lovingly carved and carpentered stairs and was met again by the artistry of the reimagined Notre Dame cathedral. Hell of a way to start the day, he whispered to himself. Sort of got you in the mood to go play hero, all this.

  “And hero away, all of you,” Alexander whispered encouragement to his fellow defenders of man, “Just try not to get killed to death and eaten for it.”

  Dead heroes didn’t help anyone, after all.

  Eyes must have been on watch for him, he hadn’t made it a dozen paces around the Guild Hall’s ground floor before being intercepted by a white cloak, two knots of rank on the brooch, who politely, yet firmly, directed him to follow. The guy took him by the mess hall though, so Alexander immediately forgave him his bird dogging. With gravy dripping from a biscuit halfway to his mouth, he was presented to the same pair of Guildy officers from yesterday. He struggled for names for a moment and carbohydrates plus caffeine came to his rescue: Grace and Marvin. Grace the Norwegian ballerina turned giant-kin, and her Maasai partner Marvin, whose light dusting of ice crystals gave the salt and pepper older warrior’s bearded face a fascinating highlight. The tier three Captains of the Peacekeepers, with their red cloaks marking their rank and their armor cleaned of the dust of the previous day’s ventures through undergrounds, still engendered a bit of the old awe in Alexander for the “pros” as he would call it. Say one thing for them, the Peacekeepers certainly looked the part of Adventurers.

  It was the shorter black man who called to him first, with an almost friendly wave and a smile for the Outsider hunter, “Morning! You don’t clean up too bad Ranger Gerifalte, almost like a full night’s sleep agrees with you.”

  “You said a mouthful there, Captain.” Alexander agreed, and he stuffed the rest of the biscuit into his maw and swallowed it down with gratitude for the cooks.

  “Can’t tell you how much I missed a bed, sleeping in the Green fucking sucks.” He declared, which observation gained general nods from the present Guildies.

  There was no way to ever truly relax out there. Not when Dungeon spawn could sometimes wonder miles from a freshly spawned core crystal in search of sustenance and Gaia herself coughed up more than one horror to feast on the unwary. A big soft bed, beneath a solid roof, surrounded by thick, sturdy walls, had been just the thing to shed the greater part of the exhaustion from Alexander’s limbs.

  Grace slurped from a huge soup bowl, repurposed from a mixing bowl for bread by the looks of it, and said “Shame you missed out on the dancing, but it was probably a good idea. That much time on full alert was bound to be a grind. You ready to get back out there and find your mark?”

  Alexander gave a not so mocking salute of one hand to forehead and gave his best, “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  Continuing in a more serious tone he said, “It’s day forty-nine my Peacekeeper comrades in killing monsters. And I hope it’s the last one before I get my tail headed home. No offense to the honestly impressive courtesy of your Guild.”

  Captain Marvin dusted the crumbs of his last sausage biscuit and hung his thumbs in his sword belt, from which hung heavily the half moon war axe and its vicious pick companion face.

  “Well then, Ranger, shall we get to work?”

  “Music to my ears.” Alexander announced.