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  Roark fell into step beside her, the back of his neck prickling. “We get the quest, then we find the others and get back to the Citadel. Agreed?”

  “No argument here.”

  On the other side of the crowded market, an assortment of heroes had gathered around a large board hung on the wall of a store. Posters and notices fluttered in the afternoon breeze. The sheer amount of paper, just tacked to the walls, was staggering to him. He’d grown used to many of the oddities in Hearthworld, but the quantity of paper wasted here—just thrown so frivolously around—was simply astounding. In Traisbin, parchment was a precious resource, worth its weight in gold, and notoriously difficult to come by. But here? Here it was as plentiful as the air in his lungs. Some things he just never thought he would grow accustomed to.

  Roark was about to step forward when he saw the familiar face of his least favorite High Combat Cleric in the crowd around the notice board.

  PwnrBwner_OG’s eyes froze on Roark’s face.

  Every muscle in Roark’s body tensed, preparing for the Cleric’s inevitable attack. Maybe this was who had been watching him.

  But PwnrBwner just grimaced, shook his head, and snatched a tag off the notice board. Without a word or a second glance, the High Combat Cleric wheeled around and disappeared into the throng.

  Roark exhaled a sigh of relief and tried to relax. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered to Zyra.

  They shouldered their way through the gathered heroes and began to search the notices.

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  Roark pulled that one down and wadded it up. It was possible there were another two parties who’d joined up long enough to get killed by Lowen’s people, one of which contained a beautiful midnight-skinned, white-haired assassin who was not Zyra. But he didn’t like the odds.

  Immediately, the notice reappeared. Roark scowled.

  “Here it is,” Zyra said, looking up from her end of the board.

  Roark started guiltily and shoved the notice into his Inventory, unable to bring himself to toss away something he’d grown up regarding as so inherently valuable as parchment, before joining her.

  Zyra pointed out a wanted poster. The face sketched onto it was a perfect rendering of the elven merchant. Same wide grin, same high brow, same pointed ears and slicked-back hair. Below was his name and a posted reward of 5,000 gold pieces for his capture.

  But as Zyra moved to take the poster, an olm in gold-and-silver armor, so polished that it had to be ceremonial, shouldered her aside and began clearing notices, Variok’s included.

  “Excuse me,” Roark said. “We were planning to bring him in for the bounty.”

  The soldier glanced down at the wanted poster, then shook his oblong salamander head.

  “You’re too late,” the olm said. “This criminal has already been collared and sent to the most secure Legion prison this side of hell. Now, if you wouldn’t mind backing up so I can finish clearing these irrelevant notices?”

  Roark nodded and took a step back, Zyra following suit. As they did, a page crammed with text appeared before Roark’s eyes.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Prison Break!

  Variok the Elvish Merchant has been collared by the Olm Legion of Order and incarcerated in Chillend, a prison of icy death located in the dark heart of Frostrime. Infiltrate Chillend and free Variok.

  Objective: Break Variok out of Chillend and return him alive to the mainland.

  Reward: Variok’s loyalty, 5,000 Experience, 1,000 gold

  Failure: Fail to break Variok out of Chillend

  Or let Variok die before returning him to the mainland

  Penalty: Lose Variok’s loyalty, 10% increase to all purchase prices when buying from Variok, 10% decrease in all sales prices when selling to Variok

  Restrictions: None

  Accept quest? Yes/No

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Roark accepted at once. The page disappeared, leaving him staring into the shadowy depths of Zyra’s hood.

  The shaggy hairs along the back of his neck prickled as if they wanted to stand on end. It was all Roark could do to stop himself from hunching up his shoulders against the unseen eyes.

  “Let’s find Kaz, Griff, and Mai and get the bloody hells out of here,” he said.

  Mai’s Tale

  “OUR MERCHANT’S IN CHILLEND prison,” Roark said, slapping the wanted poster onto the kitchen table, deep in the bowels of the Cruel Citadel.

  Kaz, Griff, and even Zyra, who’d already read it, leaned in for a closer look. Mac, who had greeted Roark excitedly as soon as they returned, gave it a once-over before deciding it wasn’t worth his time and heading over to curl up beside the cookfire, his vulnerable belly exposed to the flame, his spiked shell turned out.

  Mai scowled down at the crinkled, grease-spotted parchment, furious pink spots growing in her cheeks. Roark had pulled the poster out of Averi City’s rubbish heap; she was probably angry he’d tossed the filthy thing onto her freshly scrubbed table.

  “I’ve got the quest to break him out,” Roark said, plunging forward before she could admonish him, “but we need more information on the prison itself before we go running in blind.”

  Roark fell silent when he realized that Griff had twisted around on the bench and was staring at Mai with concern and an imploring look. At the old man’s encouraging nod, she heaved a great sigh, her cleavage straining against her low neckline.

  “I may be of some help there, Griefer,” she said. “My Colin was incarcerated in Chillend for two months, right up ’til he died.” She frowned and stuck out her chin. “And I know what you’ll all be thinking, but he was no criminal. Got in a bit of a brawl after a few pints—like any man might—and the Legion of Order snatched him up for disturbing the peace. I didn’t have the sort of money they wanted for his release.

  “I begged with every adventurer who would give me an ear. Asked ’em to save my husband. To break him out or help me raise the money. I offered everything I could.” She gripped her apron in white-knuckled hands, her lips thin, her face a mask of distress. “Offered to train them in skills, make food for them. Help them in herblore. Not a soul would help. Why, that’s part of the reason I threw in with your lot—because the heroes couldn’t be bothered to do something heroic. Not for someone like me. A stupid social quest, they called it.”

  Roark stole a sidelong look at Kaz, who looked like he might well explode at the utter indignity of it all.

  Mai finally let her apron fall, resting one pink hand on Griff’s shoulder. He caught the young widow’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Griff, well he was the only one that helped, bless his heart. Tried to help me scrape the money together, taking fights in the arena a man of his age oughtn’t. But Colin caught the croup before we could manage it, and his lungs were never strong. Most folk don’t know this about Chillend, but if one of our kind dies there... Well, there’s no coming back.”

  A tear streaked down her cheek. She hurried to swipe it away as if offended by its presence.

  “That... is... awful!” Kaz sobbed, enfolding Mai in a crushing embrace. Fat tears quickly soaked the coarse hair covering his face and dripped onto the top of her head. Mai relaxed gratefully into Kaz’s arms for a moment, then stood up on her tiptoes to peck him on the cheek before pulling away.

  “You won’t be needing my life story,” she said, turning back to Roark. “The important bit is I visited Colin there as often as I was able. I’ve seen the inside of Chillend.�
�

  Excitement flared in Roark’s gut, though it was mixed with more than a little self-loathing. Considering the pain Mai had endured to come by such information, it seemed wrong to be so glad. At times, he got so caught up in the single-minded execution of his schemes that he forgot about things like basic human compassion.

  “Could you describe the layout to Kaz?” he asked, shaking away his moment of self-doubt. He did feel bad for her, but there was more on the line here than one man. If the rebellion had taught him anything, it was that everyone hurt, everyone bled, everyone lost people to cruel injustice, and the only thing for it was to soldier on.

  Mai dipped her head. “Aye. I can, at that.”

  Kaz beamed proudly at her. In addition to becoming the first Troll Gourmet in the history of Hearthworld, he had also learned the Cartography trade skill and leveled it enough to make accurate maps based on word of mouth.

  “What else can you tell us about it?” Roark asked.

  “Chillend’s on an island in the high northwest, right off the coast of Frostrime,” she said.

  “How big is the island? Does it have any hidden coves?” Roark asked, images of putting small boats in under the cover of darkness swimming through his mind. “Does the prison have guards keeping watch around the perimeter or patrolling the island?”

  “You’ll want to slow down a bit there, Griefer,” Mai said, raising one hand to stop him. “Chillend’s not on no regular island because the Wailing Sea ain’t no regular ocean. It’s treacherous water, full of icebergs and battered by a wind that wails like the unquiet dead that went down into its depths. Chillend floats high above its surface, an ice island on an icy sea. It once was a berg of Permanent Hoarfrost plucked out of the waters by the Legion’s cleverest sorcerers and carved into a terrible, frozen prison for ‘enemies of order,’ as the Legion call them.”

  “It floats above the water?” Roark repeated, dumbfounded. From the looks of Kaz and Zyra, he wasn’t the only one.

  “Like an everlasting cloud of ice,” Mai said with a nod.

  Roark raked his claws through his hair. “How do they get to it, then?”

  “There’s a special ferry that flies right up to it like a bird,” the cook said. “Leaves twice a week from Frostrime’s docks, bringing in new prisoners and the paltry few visitors. Midnights Monday and Friday it goes, unless they’ve changed it—and that’s not likely given as how the Legion believes they’ve got everything figured out. They aren’t a moral lot so far as I’m concerned, but they are an orderly lot. Everything’s scheduled just so, if you take my meaning.”

  “So, we pretend we’re visiting Variok,” Zyra said. “Get in, grab him, open a portal scroll. Simple.”

  “’Fraid that won’t work,” Mai said, shaking her head. “They’ve anti-portal spells, magick-inhibiting spells, and every visitor’s required to hand over all magical items and weapons when they arrive. You don’t pick your effects up until you leave.”

  Kaz hefted his Legendary Meat Tenderizer, smacking the spike-studded war mallet against his massive palm. “Then Roark, Kaz, and Zyra fight their way out.”

  Mai smiled at the enormous, good-hearted chef. It was a small, sad smile. “Even if you were able to beat them all with your bare fists, love, the ferry won’t take more than one visitor to see a prisoner at a time.” She patted Kaz’s overly muscled arm.

  “One of us and how many thousand of them?” Zyra asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “No, I don’t think I’ll put money on those odds.”

  “Not just that, but every surface is Hoarfrost, unmeltable and unbreakable. They keep the floors polished and slick so’s no one can run, and the guards wear a special type of hobnailed boots to keep them from sliding.” Mai cupped her chin. “In any case, I don’t believe any of you’d get in as a visitor. They’ve special disguise- and glamor-piercing enchantments to reveal your true face. The guards would know soon as you set foot on the island that you were Trolls, and who in glory ever heard of a Troll visiting an elf?”

  “What about sewers?” Roark asked, absently running his fingers over the surface of the table. He’d been in Hearthworld for nearly a month, eaten and drank aplenty, without having a single resultant bodily function or hearing of another Troll who did. But then Trolls didn’t sleep, either, and Mai and Griff both did. Perhaps non-mob natives to Hearthworld excreted as well?

  Mai grimaced in disgust. “I never did ask, but I’m sure they have a way of... disposing of leavings.”

  The gears in Roark’s mind whirled.

  “If Kaz, Zyra, and I can get in and find Variok, we could make our escape via sewer tunnel,” he said.

  “How exactly do you plan to get in?” Griff asked. “Just one, let alone the three of you? You heard what Mai said about the anti-glamour.”

  “What are the cells like?” Roark asked, ignoring the question for now. “The doors, specifically.”

  “Ice, same as all the rest,” Mai said. “Barred and locked up tight, and set up in tiers, like the stories of an inside-out tower. It’s fair crowded, too, sometimes five or more to a cell where there’s only two beds.”

  “What are the odds of bribing a guard?” he asked, casting his mind back to his days in the T’verzet—the rebel resistance in Traisbin.

  “None,” Mai said with a shake of her head. “The Legionnaires are as straight as a pin. The whole lot of ’em. They’re like to execute you for even trying.”

  Zyra rapped her flechette on the table. The sharp noise woke Mac, the Young Turtle Dragon responding with an angry chirp before lumbering over to rejoin Roark at the table, batting sleepy, out-of-sync eyes at the Griefer.

  “I’d like to echo Griff’s question,” Zyra said. “How do you plan to get the three of us in at the same time?”

  “Before I came here, I did a decent bit of jailbreak work in my homeworld,” Roark said. The T’verzet utilized his skill frequently to rescue rebels who had been captured by the Ustari, usually on a tight time limit, needing to escape with his target before they were broken or executed. This was rather familiar footing for him, which was a nice change of pace, despite the difficult situation. “The fastest way to infiltrate a prison is to get locked up yourself,” he continued matter-of-factly, “then break out from inside. That’s how we’ll get in—as prisoners.”

  Mac nipped Roark’s hand, demanding attention. Roark obliged with a series of hearty slaps on the beast’s dark shell.

  At the table, Griff pawed at his stubbled jaw, then nodded. “Yep, I suppose that’s yer only option. And you asked about the doors to see if you could get your cell open once yeh’re inside?”

  “I can pick a lock, and I can find an unlikely exit,” Roark said. “My concern was whether they had a way to seal the cells with solid walls of that unbreakable ice rather than doors. I doubt I could get out of that without use of my own spells. Though it’s possible I could inscribe a blood cantrip into my flesh if the need was desperate enough.”

  “Someone needs to be the voice of reason here,” Griff interjected, raising his hands to forestall any more conversation. “This seems extremely risky to me. I’m not sayin’ it’s a bad idea, but are we sure the gamble is worth the prize?”

  The weapons trainer wasn’t wrong. Roark stood, hands clasped behind his back, and paced for a moment. Back, forth, back, forth, boots clicking on the stone underfoot as he calculated.

  “It is a risk,” Roark said finally. “But if we don’t find a way to unite the other dungeons, it’s only a matter of time before Lowen invades and takes this back.” He reached up and tapped the World Stone Pendant on his chest. “That is a far greater danger. And since earning the favor of another merchant seems not only time and labor intensive, but highly unlikely, I think this is our only reasonable way forward.”

  “That’s the plan, then,” Zyra said, slapping her hands on her thighs and standing. “I have a few things to finish up before we go to Frostrime and get ourselves arrested, so if you’ll all excuse me...”


  With a start, Roark realized her voice didn’t hold even a hint of sarcasm.

  “Wait. You’re on board with this?” he asked. “The paranoid Reaver? Fine with being locked in a cage where all death is forever-death?”

  Zyra shrugged. “You and the big guy will watch my back so that no one stabs it.”

  “Roark and Kaz will not allow anyone to get close to Zyra’s back,” Kaz said resolutely, absolute determination etched into the lines of his leathery face.

  “I know you won’t,” Zyra said. Then she turned to Roark. “I’ll need a day at least before I can go. I intend to level to Master Alchemist first, and I need to gather a few rare ingredients and make a few potions for that. Don’t leave without me.”

  Roark was too engrossed in trying to figure out what the hooded Reaver Champion’s game was to respond. She was acting completely contrary to her usual cautious, skeptical self.

  “Don’t worry, lass, you’ve got a good three days before the ferry leaves the docks,” Griff said. “Go now and you’ll spend it crammed belowdecks with the rest of the prisoners picked up midweek, waiting for Friday.”

  “Well, that’s more than enough time, then,” Zyra said. “I’ll be in the laboratory if anyone needs me.” Without another word, she turned sharply on her heel and disappeared into the dancing shadows thrown by the cook fire, leaving behind a curl of inky smoke.

  Giving himself a mental shake, Roark turned back to the rest of his inner circle.

  “In the meantime, we should get to work on the bits and pieces of the settlement that we can acquire,” he said. “Griff, do you know of any other skill trainers you might be able to recruit? We could use a magician if you can find one. And having another trainer who specializes in skilled labor of some sort would be a great help.”

  “Aye, I might be able to handle that,” Griff said.

  “Should I do the same?” Mai asked. “Two of us could cover more ground than one.”

  “No, I need you here to feed this rabble,” Roark said, waving a hand to indicate the rest of the citadel. “Your workload’s going to double for a bit because Kaz is going on a special mission. It’s dangerous, but I can’t trust anyone else to do it.”