About fifteen or twenty minutes later, Jonathan had only managed to explore a fraction of a fraction of the labyrinthine city. The alleyway he had emerged from was still visible in the distance, if he stood on his tiptoes to look over the crowd. Compared to his normal pace, able to cross continents in minutes, this was torture.
Limited both by the press of the crowds around him, and a need for subtlety, he and Eliza weren’t able to move much faster than a car in traffic on Earth. It was infuriating, but necessary. Even worse, armed battalions frequently came charging down the street, which Jonathan quickly learned meant that the pedestrians were expected to make way.
The only benefit of making his way through such a dense crowd was the sheer volume of gossip, news, and other conversations that he was privy to. He had already known a little about this circle of the Hells. Mainly, the name of its Lord, Avarana. However, while he knew who the ruler of the realm was, he didn’t know what she was. At least, he hadn’t known until overhearing a few soldiers talking about her.
“You hear about what that tyrant just did?” a burly axeman grumbled as he strode down the street, each step sounding like a hammerblow.
“No?” his companion, a slim elven woman replied. She had a bow strapped to her back, and was dressed in form fitting leather armor. “I can guess, though…”
Jonathan and Eliza did their best to fall into step behind the two without being suspicious. Had the streets been empty, they would easily have been discovered. With the sheer number of people crowding them to be nearly impossible to navigate, it was nearly unnoticeable. While a System’s user’s senses increased as they leveled up, there was no stat for social awareness. It did one no good spotting a thief approaching, while not knowing that they were, in fact, a thief. In a similar fashion, neither of the soldiers, both Tier 8s, realized that they were being followed.
The axeman continued to complain. “That monster killed another one of our armies, just to continue playing her stupid game. To make it even worse, the bastard she resurrected had been brought back just two days earlier!”
“Damn,” the elf replied. “What’s that now, five million of our own dead in the last weak? Shit…”
“Five million?” the man asked, incredulous. “It’s been closer to ten! Almost half of them at Avarana’s hand. That wretched dragon can just swoop in, and erase whole nations’ worth of people from existence.”
The elf nodded sadly. “What can we do, though? This is simply the way things are.”
“Well, there is one thing that could save us,” the other warrior whispered conspiratorially. “Or rather, one man.”
“Shut it!” the elf whispered back, a look of panic on her face. “Don’t speak of him in a place like this! Who knows what sort of spies are listening!”
The ax wielder laughed. “Alyssa, nobody cares. Avarana doesn’t give a single shit about what we think about her. Only that we live and die at her pleasure. How is an idle dream going to offend her? The Hellbreaker is going to come eventually…”
Eliza shot Jonathan a disbelieving look. “How does this happen every time?” she mouthed.
He shrugged. It was a mystery to him as well. However, this did present a good opportunity. Or at least, the possibility of one. Clearly, this realm was at war with itself, filled with hatred for its Lord. Avarana seemed to be despised, and for good reason.
Jonathan broke off following in the soldiers’ steps, with him and Eliza veering off. They quickly lost themselves in the crowd, looking for more information.
Slowly, Jonathan formed a picture of what it was he had found himself caught up in. A circle filled with warring factions, each battling for the pleasure of Avarana. Death was commonplace, and an accepted part of life here. Avarana had seven favored servants that she continuously brought back from the dead to fight. Doing so required the slaughter of millions, something that frequently occured. It was a sickening display of wanton cruelty, and exactly what the Hells were supposed to be. It, more than any of the realms Jonathan had seen so far, was the most brutal, and one of the most heinous. Dying in battle was one thing, but dying without a purpose was another.
Jonathan knew that no matter how he died, he would have accomplished something great with his life. Those cursed to live in Bloodspill could only hope for the release of death. The war that gripped the realm in its iron talons was more of a spectacle than anything else, a never ending gladiatorial conflict fueled by the lives of billions. Over the course of the circle’s history, so many had died that their blood could have filled entire oceans. That was not a metaphor.
Unlike in the other circles, this one’s depravity was far more evident, and far more pressing for Jonathan to fix. The more he waited, the more would die. With him already in Bloodspill, those deaths, in some part, were on his hands. This world was not the slow, crawling evil of the other circles, where despair was the key engine of torment. Here, death came knocking every day, and its hands were legion.
“We need to find the others,” Jonathan said as he and Eliza finally escaped the throng, heading into a side street. It was still packed, but at least there was enough room that simply being there wouldn’t have crushed a mortal.
“How, though?” she asked. “They could be anywhere.”
“Do you really think they would be anywhere other than in a city?” Jonathan replied. “Probably, some are in this one. It was the closest to where they set off from.”
Eliza nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced. “Even if that is true, there are billions here. How would we even find them?”
Jonathan paused, having to dodge a stumbling drunkard. The man’s hand snatched at his storage satchel, but Jonathan simply repelled the assault with a quick flick of his wrist, sending his would be robber reeling. “What was that?” he asked Eliza, more because simply going back into conversation would be awkward, rather than him forgetting his train of thought.
“It’s going to be almost impossible to find any of our allies in a place like this. How would you even begin to look?”
Jonathan frowned. “Maybe that’s the case for Edgar and Eva. I’ve never seen any species out here that looks like an Uthraki, though. I’m sure at least some rumors are spreading about them.”
“We won’t find out if we don’t look.”
Away from the bustle of the main streets, the city was marginally more sedate. It was actually possible to see what was going on in the shops lining the roads. There were a lot of blacksmiths, alchemists, and stranger places besides. Just by the sheer size of the settlement, almost every slice of the spectrum in terms of professions were represented here. Jonathan even saw what looked vaguely like a florists shop, but the flowers there were mutated versions of normal garden variants, if such things even existed in the hells. Some of them looked like massive venus flytraps, big enough to fit a man’s head in. Jonathan wondered if that was the purpose.
The easiest place to find some targeted information in a city was a tavern. However, this city seemed to lack any sort of drinking establishments. Probably because of a need for readiness in the case of assault. It was strange, given that there were a lot of Tier 1s around, who surely wouldn’t be expected to fight.
“Where are all the bars?” Eliza wondered out loud, voicing what Jonathan was thinking. “There should be way more.”
“We need another place, in any case. Maybe there’s some sort of tourist office?” Jonathan said with a chuckle.
“Wouldn’t that be nice. I wonder what sort of people would come here on holidays,” Eliza replied, smiling. “More seriously, there’s probably some sort of information broker. Must be hard to get around this city otherwise.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Jonathan raised a hand, flagging down a nearby warrior. She glared at him, but still stopped, her hand resting on her sword.
“Yes?” she asked tersely. “What do you want?”
“Do you know where we could find some information? Whatever’s going through the rumor mill? Is there someone around here who deals in that sort of stuff?”
The woman’s lip curled slightly. “I don’t truck in gossip. But I do know where you could find... things like that. There’s an old crone who lives around here. Has some sort of Air elemental mastery skill that lets her watch and listen to people. I stay well away from her.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow at the description. “I see. Thanks for the info.”
The warrior grunted, and kept walking.
“Surprisingly friendly,” Eliza observed. “I mean, for the Hells. Kind of a bitch if you’re going by Earth standards.”
Jonathan laughed. “Maybe. But that does show how the people here, for all intents and purposes, are unwilling participants in all this. You think one of the Dread Legion-“ Jonathan paused, noting the curious look from Eliza. “Right. You weren’t in the Ash Heaps. Do you think one of Slothari’s soldiers would give you the time of day?”
“Not really. I’d probably be sneered at, and then attacked in quick succession. Here, we only got sneered at.”
Knowing the location of the supposed gossip was one thing, but actually finding her was another. Everyone seemed to know who she was, but nobody went close enough to her dwelling to pinpoint its exact location. In a city where a single building towered hundreds of feet overhead, and housed thousands, it was quite hard to find out who lived where.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
It took them an hour of prolonged searching, and approaching random passersby, some less friendly than others, before they finally found the right building. Jonathan could feel a strange sensation as soon as he set eyes on the building, like spiders crawling up and down his skin. It was repelled by his Void energy, which was as much a part of him as his flesh at blood at this point. Eliza didn’t seem to notice anything, though.
“You feel that?” Jonathan asked, wondering why he was the only one to sense it.
“Feel what?” Eliza asked. “The wind?”
“As soon as I looked at that building, this crawling sensation spread across my entire body. I think it has something to do with the Void repelling the elemental energy. It must be the Air web that the soldier was talking about.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Eliza said, wincing. “You sure all the adventuring hasn’t gotten to your head?”
“Why-” Jonathan began, only to be interrupted as he felt the creeping sensation redouble. His eyes shot up towards a window about halfway up the building. The face of a wizened human woman looked down at him, eyes squinted in concentration, or simply from age. She quickly backed away as she realized that he was watching.
“That’s creepy as hell,” Jonathan muttered. “I think I just saw the woman we’re looking for. She’s in the fifteenth room from the right.”
“Let’s find her then. She might try to run. You never know with people like that.”
Jonathan, rather than trying to make his way through the no doubt convoluted passageways of the building, instead jumped, landing lightly on the windowsill. He ducked inside, but the woman was nowhere to be seen.
Eliza landed a second later, and entered the room behind him. “Where did she go?”
“Not sure,” Jonathan said, shrugging. “I don’t know how she disappeared that quickly. Can you scout out the area with your Air elemental magic? I don’t want to start tearing the place apart with the Void.”
“Sure.” Eliza reached out, and ethereal fingers of wind spread out from her hand, heading out under the door and into the hallway. She closed her eyes in concentration, before opening them a few seconds later. “She’s running down the hall.”
Jonathan didn’t waste any time and bolted for the door, pushing it open. Luckily for the door, it opened outwards rather than in. Otherwise, he would have knocked it off its hinges.
He saw the flutter of a tattered cloak at the end of the hallway, about two hundred feet down. Narrowing his eyes, Jonathan gathered his stamina, and took off. A single step took him all the way to the end of the hall, and he quickly rounded the corner. The old woman stood there, looking at him with a strange gleam in her eye. Behind her was the stairs, but she didn’t take them.
“You,” she said, in a voice as creaky as a rusty hinge. “I was wondering when you would arrive.”
“Who are you?” Jonathan shot back. “Why were you running? All I did was look at you.”
“You jumped up into my room a few seconds later. Was I wrong to run?”
“I suppose not. But I just had a few questions for you. Nothing more, nothing less,” Jonathan said. “I was told that you know a lot about the comings and goings around these parts.”
The old woman laughed. “That I do. For example, that’s your girlfriend coming up the hallway. You two have been together for a bit more than a year, but haven’t considered anything further yet.”
“What?” Jonathan replied. “How did you know that? Are you reading my mind?”
“If I were reading your mind, that thought would have to be at the forefront of your mind. It was not. I merely deduced that.” She smiled. “I suppose I should introduce myself. You can call me the Caretaker.”
“Caretaker of what?”
“Oh, nothing you would consider important. The fragments of memory lost to time that die without a mind to host them. Secrets whispered to the comforting night by a child who has never known love.”
“Can you tell me if you’ve seen any big, red skinned demon-looking creatures around here?” Jonathan asked, not knowing how to reply, or if indeed, he was supposed to reply.
By this point, Eliza had reached them, but she didn’t seem in a hurry anymore. She simply stood there, watching the exchange.
“I have,” the Caretaker said. “What is that worth to you, though?”
“Aren’t you supposed to ask for something before giving up information?” Eliza interjected.
The old woman turned to Eliza. “I already have what I need, Eliza. Even when the two of you are long gone, you will live on in my mind.”
Eliza raised an eyebrow. “Is this going to be a problem?” she asked Jonathan.
“I don’t think so.”
“Trust me,” the Caretaker said, the seriousness in her voice somewhat undermined by her crackly tone, “if I was going to be a problem, you would know by now.”
Jonathan, his curiosity finally getting the better of him, scanned her.
The Caretaker
Human(???)
Level ???
Health:???
Status:???
He paused, and redoubled his efforts, forcing Divinity into the skill. A sudden, blinding pain assaulted him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the Caretaker said with a chuckle.
“What are you?” Jonathan asked, still surprised by the failure of his usually reliable Truesight skill.
“I am a collector of trinkets,” the Caretaker said. “Trinkets that only exist in the mind. Now, didn’t you have a question for me? I will only answer one more. After that, further… payment will be required.”
Jonathan sucked in a breath, but reined in his curiosity. “You said you saw the people I was talking about. Where are they now?”
“The one you know as Arkanon is locked away in a city jail. The brothers, Hushar and Tukar, are in another.”
“How do you know all this?” Eliza asked, her eyes wide.
The Caretaker didn’t deign to respond. Instead, she turned on her heel, heading for the stairwell. Jonathan reached out, trying to grab onto her shoulder. His hand passed through the woman like she was made of thin air. With a final, mocking laugh, she faded out of existence before ever reaching her destination.
“That was incredibly strange,” Jonathan said as he withdrew his hand. “How has nobody found out who that woman really is? Anyone who can foil my analysis skill has to be extremely powerful.”
“I don’t know about that,” Eliza said with a frown. “Maybe she’s not entirely real. You saw her fade away there. What if she’s some sort of ghost? Maybe she haunts this part of the city, collecting stories and the like.”
“I guess that would make sense,” Jonathan replied. “We’ll never know, anyway. At least we got something out of it.”
***
The city had dozens, if not hundreds of jails, but if the Caretaker had known about the Uthraki, it was most likely that they were locked up close by. That narrowed the search down significantly, as there were only two prisons within a few dozen miles.
Both were monolithic structures, made out of imposing dark rock, and almost entirely without windows. The prisons could be seen from nearby rooftops, taller than the rest of the buildings. They were large enough to hold tens of thousands of criminals, or maybe even hundreds of thousands.
Finding the Uthraki in the cyclopean structures would be much harder than Jonathan had originally thought. The only way in was through force, and lingering too long would attract the city guard, many of whom were Tier 8.
“Are we clear yet?” Eliza whispered to Jonathan from a neighboring rooftop. They were waiting for an opportunity to bypass the guards patrolling the prison’s roof. While Eliza had powerful senses in her own right, they were not like the localized omniscience of Jonathan, who could see the reflection in the eye of a mouse from a mile away. He was able to see every detail of both the guards and their movements, meaning that he was best suited for keeping watch,
“Not yet. There's this one guard who keeps glancing over here. I don’t think she sees us, but she is suspicious of something.”
Both Eliza and Jonathan were covered in his Void cloak, keeping them safe from prying eyes, even those of Tier 8s. They weren’t even shadows, invisible in the night. They were truly invisible to all but the most dedicated of onlookers. Even then, spotting them would require senses even greater than Jonathan’s.
Finally, the troublesome guard headed off towards a small hole in the ceiling, presumably to switch off. Dozens still patrolled the top of the building, but for a brief moment, there was an opening. With twinned bursts of power, muted by Jonathan’s cloak, they leaped onto the prison. Before any of the guards could notice them, Eliza and Jonathan raced towards the opening. Between one moment and the next, they were inside, climbing down a ladder.
The interior of the prison was dark, but it was nothing to the senses of even a moderately competent Tier 7. To Eliza and Jonathan, it was indistinguishable from day in terms of how much it affected their capabilities.
The ladder continued down for hundreds of feet. Normally, Jonathan would have simply dropped down, but considering the number of guards patrolling the prison, that could draw unwanted attention. Even if they avoided the probing senses of the guards, the off chance that they would land in front of a guard coming up the ladder, or even worse, on them, was too high.
By the time Jonathan reached the bottom of the ladder, he could already hear the scuffling noise of feet landing on metal rungs high above as another guard started coming down. His instincts had been right.
He headed around the corner, entering a narrow hallway lit by torches. All along it were what looked like offices, small living spaces, and training rooms. There were no beds, or kitchens, for obvious reasons, but there were the equivalent of living rooms scattered around, with comfortable chairs and crackling hearths. Some of the rooms were occupied, and as Jonathan snuck past, he heard a few snatches of conversation.
“Did you hear about that red brute the city watch pulled in the other day?” a guard said, a hint of surprise in his voice. “Took a whole squad to take him in. Apparently he knocked half of them on their asses with some supercharged flaming fist attack.”
Jonathan paused, realizing that the guard was talking about Arkanon.
“Wasn’t he a full Tier below them?” a different guard, this one female, said. “How did he manage such a feat? Are you listening to Jori again? You know he likes to gossip, especially when the drinks are flowing?”
“Amanda, I haven’t spoken to Jori since he... told on me to the captain,” the first guard said, a bit stiffly. “I still get strange looks every time I talk to him.”
“Yeah, cause you were off in the red light district with a golem instead of being on shift,” Amanda said, laughing. “If I didn’t know you so well, I’d be giving you looks too.”
Sensing that the conversation was veering into irrelevance, Jonathan moved on. He didn’t dare to talk with Eliza, trusting in her to follow. He couldn’t risk discovery here. This was not like his battle against the Stillborn Hegemon and Ashokan. He couldn’t simply blitz his way through the opposition like a wrecking ball. Even if he killed every last warrior in the city, all of the tens of millions of them, he would just end up drawing Avarana’s attention before he was ready to deal with her.
A few dozen more rooms passed by until he reached the end of the hallway. A shimmering wall of force blocked off the doorway, and using his elemental senses, Jonathan could feel that it extended into the rest of the walls around it. Clearly, this was where the main prison complex began.
Jonathan reached out with his elemental mastery, and recoiled, surprised at just how potent the barrier was. It was far stronger than the shield surrounding the city, both because of its superior construction, and because of the much smaller area that it had to cover.
It was also made out of a far more exotic energy type than the city shield. Instead of Earth, it was created from the element of Order. Order was the equivalent of a cosmic brake, seeking to bring everything to a perfect, unchanging halt. The ultimate expression of Order was a crystal, and one of the key features of a crystal was its unmoving nature. That meant that Order was one of the best elements for walls, if one could find a rare practitioner of that element to make it. Order, and its opposite, Chaos, were the two hardest elements to master, given their intensely esoteric natures. Order, to a novice, had almost no uses at all, whereas Chaos had too many to count, making it utterly impotent. It was only with practice that those elements became worthwhile to pursue.
In any case, Jonathan had a choice to make here. He could do what he normally did, and try to steamroll his way through the wall. Or, he could try a different approach, accepting that he was lacking in terms of power to be able to both break the wall, and do so unnoticed. If he had been that strong, he would have simply smashed through the prison walls, guards be damned.
“What are you waiting for?” Eliza whispered, the noise nearly inaudible, even with Jonathan’s senses. She wasn’t even talking, simply moving her lips so that he could pick up the subtle vibrations that would have underpinned her words had she put breath behind them.
“This wall looks like a problem,” Jonathan replied, using the same technique. “I can’t get through without taking a while. I don’t even know if I can get in. We’re going to have to find out how the guards get through.”
“Ah. I guess we’re going to have to wait.”
