Four days passed without incident. Mist found work in the infirmary, earning a scant few support merits for cleaning. Praetorian managed to obtain some basic recipes and began earning merits by crafting and exchanging low-level items, Amanda picking up a couple here and there for performing basic tasks such as mixing. Sly was apparently finding some luck on monster hunting expeditions, although he hadn't shared details of these with the others. He'd only shown up to two escort meetings after the first.

No one in the party had encountered much trouble, but neither were they earning enough merits to purchase even basic equipment. Graduation seemed an impossibility; Praetorian rather gloomily calculated that at his current rate he would be able to purchase the most basic of adventuring licenses in seven years.

Within her room in the sprawl, squinting in the cheap crystal light, Nala struggled to combine an IronScrap with a RustSpike and some LooseScrews, all components scavenged—at risk—from the dry sewers beneath. When the door opened she looked up sharply.

"Where were you?" she snapped at Tzugakk as he entered. "You are not supposed to go out without me!"

In answer Tzugakk held up a rough cloth bag. "Waveless Beach hides many secrets. Time escaped."

Nala watched as Tzugakk poured the contents of the bag into a cracked clay bowl, filling it with knobbly purple things that had an unhealthy sheen to them.

"NightBerries," she muttered.

"Once, these helped us," Tzugakk said, as he took up a worn pestle and began crushing the berries, their bitter scent filling the small room. "With these simple things we defeated an ogre. What else can they let us do?"

Nala grunted and returned to her own work—allegedly the most basic of trap mechanisms.

"Maybe Kit lied," Nala muttered, as once more the components failed to combine. "This isn't working."

"Time and patience will help you improve."

Nala paused to watch Tzugakk—he had reduced the berries to a smooth paste, which he was now carefully dividing into small clay pots.

"Can you make the same thing?" she asked.

"Not the same, no no. Too much is missing. Others? Yes, NightBerries are useful for many many things. Combine with TwilightMushrooms, DarkGas pots. Combine with FogDust, MistVeil jars. Now? Recipe from Kit, RedPaste, basic component used for many things, not useful to me but good for trade."

"Hm."

The two fell into silence, each focused on their own work. Tzugakk cleaned his bowl and added a few small black pods to it, a sharp, salty scent bursting forth as he combined them with spiky leaves and sparkling orange berries. It took him long minutes to work these into a form that satisfied him, then he spoke without looking up:

"We should leave for the infirmary soon."

Nala didn't respond. She was looking between the LooseScrews she held in her hands and the ScrapFrame she'd already constructed.

"Two at a time," she muttered. "Just two. It doesn't work. It cannot work."

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Tzugakk glanced over at Nala, then returned his focus to the mixture he was creating. He crushed a handful of small pink leaves before scattering them into the bowl, ever-grinding with the pestle.

"We are wrong," he murmured, as the colour changed from bright orange to a washed-out red. "This way, this path ... wrong."

Nala was silent. She had taken apart her ScrapFrame and was now attempting to combine a LooseScrew with a RustSpike.

"Many things here are hidden," Tzugakk said, before leaning down to sniff at the mixture. "They make it difficult. They make it secret. Why?"

"It doesn't matter. Be content with survival."

"No. No no. Survival? Wrong. No reward for 'survival'. Needs to be more than that."

Nala was frowning at the ScrewSpike she now held.

"This place expects more," Tzugakk continued. "Hides more. Not a cage, no. Not a punishment, no no. This place is a puzzle."

With a hard click, a LooseScrew and an IronScrap became a JunkBand.

"Survival is enough," Nala murmured. "Until we can escape."

Tzugakk sighed. "Survival, escape, survival, escape. Nala, you don't see. I watch you, I watch you look at a wall and I see your thoughts, you think 'climb over' or 'dig under' or 'find a way through' but you are wrong. You should be thinking, 'I am here'. You are not looking at what is INSIDE the wall, but you should be! You want freedom, but would escape truly give you that?"

"Yes."

Tzugakk smiled and shook his head as he placed blobs of his mixture onto flat, tough leaves.

"This place is built of rules," he said. "If you want anything, freedom, merits, anything, it is not stone walls or iron gates that block you. It is rules that surround us."

Nala was frowning at the JunkBand and ScrewSpike in her hands, trying to see how they might come together.

"But we must not behave in our old ways, no. No more looking at walls and thinking 'escape'. This way you will always be trapped. No more 'from', Nala. Now, you must choose 'to'."

Nala made a non-committal noise, her gaze still on the components she held.

"Or do you have somewhere? Some 'to'? No. No, and I also only have 'from'. So. For now, this place is our 'to'. That is how we must think. And, the others are also our 'to'. Mist and Praetorian and Amanda and Sly."

There was a mechanical clacking, and Nala held a newly-created TrapBaseI. She watched as a glowing number six rose from the clumsy-looking thing, then looked at Tzugakk.

"Safety in numbers," she said. "That's all."

Tzugakk let out a soft sigh as he folded the leaves over, a glowing one rising as each was finished. He transferred them into a bag, then stood.

"Another 'to'," he said. "We can exchange, then meet Mist."

The most convenient exchange point was a yellow stone tower found in a maze of alleys, not far from the apartment Nala and Tzugakk shared. Through an archway was a tall room with a black crystal and copper mechanism in the centre, its wide basin waiting for contributions. Into this Tzugakk deposited his leaf-wrapped mixtures, and as they disappeared into the ether glowing words floated up: 

12 x B-RANK REDPASTE

+36 CRAFT MERITS

Tzugakk's BrightCircle reflected this change in merits. He stepped back and gestured to the exchange point.

"Your turn."

With little ceremony Nala placed her own creation in the basin, the result of hours of risky scavenging and painstaking crafting, failure after failure after failure until finally the components had combined correctly. 

1 x F-RANK TRAPBASEI

+20 CRAFT MERITS

Nala stared at the glowing words as they faded, then let out a short breath through her nose.

"Twenty," she murmured.

"To buy a better weapon, the most basic of better weapons, a steel knife, the cost is fifty battle merits. To exchange merits, it is four craft for one battle. Nala ... is this good enough?"

Nala was silent and still. Tzugakk sighed.

"The others are waiting," he said. "We should go."