“Done,” Gary said.
“Not too much,” Rufus said, “but give him time to explore the city. This island is surprisingly impressive for a provincial city.”
“If you have the money,” Farrah said.
“Which he does,” Rufus said.
“You did give him a cut from the blood cult job, right?” Gary asked. “If it weren’t for him we would have failed and died.”
“I did,” Rufus said. “The church of Purity made some noise about the completion bonus, after how things went with Anisa. The contract was through the Adventure Society, though, and the job did get done. They paid up.”
“Wait,” Gary said. “Did I get a cut? I don’t remember getting the money for that.”
“Because I gave it to Farrah,” Rufus said. “You know, the person who stores all your money?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Because they were on the balcony, they were able to hear a sudden commotion from outside the other side of the building. There was a yell of surprised panic, followed by a crashing sound and the shouts of several people.
Unable to see the source of the commotion, the three left their own suite and entered Jason’s unlocked room across the hall. The balcony he should have been practicing on was empty. Going to the edge and looking down, they saw the outside dining area of the eatery across the street. The evening patrons had been disturbed by Jason landing heavily on a table in their midst, collapsing it to the ground. All the customers had stood up, while Jason still sprawled out in the remains of someone’s supper.
He groaned, moving feebly to pluck a healing potion out of the air and tipping it into his mouth where he lay. Regaining strength as the potion took effect, he pushed himself off the table, staggering as he found his feet. He looked at the people standing around him.
“Sorry about your dinner,” he said, looking down at the food smeared on his clothes. “Smells good.”
“Jason?” Rufus called down.
Jason looked up at Rufus and gave a sore, but cheerful thumbs up.
“I got the ability to work!”
Moments earlier, sitting on the roof, Jason had been pushing his senses out and into the shadow of the awning. In defiance of what little he knew of physics, he had come to sense that shadows were more than just an absence, but something that existed in their own right. He could feel something there as he reached out with his aura. There was a depth to the shadow, an ephemeral, but very real substance. He could almost rub it between his fingers.
He felt a call from the shadow, to something that existed inside him. The power he had tried so hard to use, yet never could. He quieted his excited mind, resisting the urge to push. He relaxed, letting the substance of the shadow and the power inside him intermingle. Gently they connected, becoming one. It felt natural, and right. Then something changed.
As if dragged by a giant vacuum cleaner, Jason felt himself get sucked through the shadow. As he did, he had the flashing realisation that in all the time he’d been working on the ability, he’s never given much thought to a destination. He emerged from the shadow of the building across the street, reason giving way to panic as he started to fall.
42
This is the Pits
As Farrah and Gary walked along, Jason would step into a shadow on one side of the street and reappear on the other.
“He seems to like that ability quite a lot,” Farrah said.
“I remember someone who was quite excitable when she got her fire jump power,” Gary said.
“Shut up.”
“He can use it in quick succession,” Gary observed. “Seems cheap on mana, too; he’s been at it for a while.”
“That’s the benefit of being restricted to shadows,” Farrah said. “Regular teleport may use more mana and be available less often, but I still think I’d prefer it. If you get caught without any handy shadows, Jason’s ability is useless.”
“I don’t know,” Gary said. “Normal teleport you have to pick your moment so it isn’t wasted. This shadow-jumping business you could use enough to make it a centrepiece of your combat style.”
“Too reliant on the environment,” Farrah said. “How often do you get to pick your battles as you like?”
Jason emerged from a nearby shadow and joined them, wincing with a low-mana headache.
“It’s still taking me too long to activate the ability,” he said.
“Are you sure that’s not just how long it takes?” Gary asked.
“It should be almost instantaneous. I can feel it.”
“Keep practicing,” Farrah said. “You’ll get there.”
“How far can you go?” Gary asked.
“As far as I can see, I think,” Jason said. “As long as I can spot the shadow and it’s big enough, I can jump through it. I tried going through a small one, but it didn’t work.”
A wagon rumbled past, filled with manure. Farrah turned up her nose at the stench.
“Remind me why we aren’t shopping on the Island?” she asked. “I became an adventurer to get away from the smell of dung.”
“The markets on the Island are just trying to rip off rich people,” Jason said. “Besides, I promised Jory I would swing by the clinic.”
In the grimy heart of Old City’s warehouse district was a huge stone building called the Fortress. Older even than the city walls, it had been built to last. In the earliest days of the city it had been where Greenstone’s residents would take shelter during a monster surge, but those days were long past. Now it served as Greenstone’s largest den of iniquity; its rooms and halls contained all manner of illicit behaviour, delights and horrors both.
The city authorities paid little attention to the goings on in Old City so long as the business interests of the city elite remained secure. That made Old City’s three biggest crime lords its de facto rulers, who made sure that the Island elites had no reason to look any closer. So long as the money kept flowing, the Big Three were free to divide Old City between them.
The Fortress was neutral ground. It was the one place where the Big Three shared operations, dividing both responsibility and profit. It was also the best place in Old City to glimpse the Island elites. Whether to secure their interests or indulge their appetites, they would receive only the best of treatment in the Fortress.
Of the many itches one could have scratched in the Fortress, the fighting pits offered the greatest spectacle. Some were literal pits, others cages. At night, even adventurers could be found battling it out inside. Some sought challenge, others to pay off debts for their own costly indulgences. Some decided a life fighting monsters wasn’t for them and sought to earn a spot working for the Big Three. The top enforcers of the crime lords were paid in not just coin, but also monster cores.
Among the seating arrangements at the fighting pits were a number of enclosed viewing rooms with glass fronts. These were more recent additions to the centuries-old building. Some were available to anyone with the coin, but four were permanently reserved. The Big Three each possessed one of the boxes, where they conducted much of their business. The fourth belonged to the Fortress’s most frequent and prestigious patron.
Lucian Lamprey was an elf whose muscular frame was uncommon for his people. Expensive clothes aside, he would not look out of place in the fighting pits himself. He was not a member of the local elf families, instead had been banished to Greenstone for previous improprieties. He was director of Greenstone’s branch of the Magic Society, a vaunted position within the city, but one for which Lucian held no respect. They could make him king of the isolated desert city and he would still yearn for what he viewed as true civilisation.
The Fortress was Lucian’s consolation—a paradise to openly indulge the vices for which he was sent to Greenstone in the first place. His viewing box was more of an office to him than the one at the Magic Society campus. He even managed to get work done, as the lower-card fights rarely drew his attention.