“I don’t like them,” said Athis with a grimace. “They’re…so…accommodating.”

“You could learn a thing or two from your reptilian cousins,” Tucker remarked. “They’re –”

“They are lizards. We are dragons,” Athis reminded him, though he lacked the fire he might’ve once had when talking to Tucker. It wasn’t surprising, either. The alchemist had almost single-handedly saved his entire race. It was difficult to marry that to his obvious irritation at being compared to what he considered a lesser race.

“So you keep saying. Did you know they can shoot lasers?”

“What in all the realms is a laser?” the kirran asked, his enormous feet propped on the table. It sagged a bit beneath the weight, but that was not surprising, given Athis’s size.

“Light beams that burn through people,” Tucker stated. “Or anything, really. But we’re focusing on people right now. My point is that dragons are known for spewing fire, right? Well, a laser is kind of like that.”

“And?”

“Well, can you shoot lasers? Or spew fire?”

“Careful, human,” Athis warned.

“Or what? You’ll kill the savior of your people? They gave me a title, right? I forget.”

“Nothing says I can’t beat you up a little,” Athis stated, taking a swig from the enormous mug he’d been given. “Killing you isn’t necessary to get my point across.”

At that, Tucker just rolled his eyes. Then, he cast his gaze around the makeshift tavern. The first thing that stood out to him was the sheer diversity present. He counted no less than ten different races, ranging from elves to dwarves, and to the aforementioned kobolds. And everything in between, too.

It was also enormous, having once been some sort of enclosed arena. The Imperium definitely liked its gladiatorial fights, and they were quick to build arenas in every city they annexed.

“Panem et circenses,” he muttered, quoting the Roman poet Juvenal. It roughly translated to “bread and circuses,” implying that a population was easily distracted so long as they were fed. The Imperium subscribed to that philosophy, using said distractions to keep their people from noticing the various injustices over which they presided. “It really is remarkable, isn’t it? So many different cultures. Zeke really has done something special here.”

“It’s like one of your grenades waiting to explode,” Iris said. She’d remained mostly silent after Tucker had explained the situation, only saying that she was glad that he’d found his friends. She hadn’t really meant it, though. He knew her well enough to recognize that much.

“Everyone seems happy enough,” Tucker remarked. “I am concerned about the demon, though.”

“As you should be,” Gira stated before draining her own mug. If Iris was silently uncomfortable, then the first mate was vociferously adamant that they should get in the airship and flee as soon as possible.

That probably had something to do with the fact that the Imperium had destroyed her entire hometown, slaughtering many of the elves. The ones they didn’t slaughter, they ended up taking as slaves. The most beautiful among them were sent to brothels. That was the fate of the first mate’s mother, and ultimately, it was how the half-elf woman had been conceived.

As a result, she held absolutely no love for the Imperium, but she was unabashedly fearful of what they could do. After all, she’d experienced it first hand. Some, through her mother, who hadn’t survived long after Gira’s birth. The rest, from her own experiences as the orphaned child of a sex slave. Hatred had given way to self-preservation, dictating that she stay as far away from those monsters as she could possibly get.

Tucker understood it, though he veered closer to Zeke’s path. He saw that injustice – and others like it – and wanted to do something about it. But he had the luxury of not having experienced the worst parts of her life, so he didn’t judge her for it. Indeed, he wanted to give her the safety she so desperately needed.

That was one thing Zeke and his tower represented.

Safety the likes of which just wasn’t seen in the Eternal Realm. He didn’t oppress those beneath him. In fact, from all accounts, he’d worked tirelessly to raise the kobolds from monsterhood and into sapience. It was an ongoing process, as Tucker had seen when he visited the rest of the Residential District. There, he had seen nearly feral kobolds that likely would have attacked him if they weren’t so afraid of their superiors.

But the fact that so many had achieved sapience was a miracle.

And apparently, he could help the rest to bridge the gap. The demon mind spirit had been quite excited about his return, and what’s more, she knew him at least as well as Zeke had. So, she was well aware of his capabilities even before Athis had bragged about his efforts to help the kirrans overcome their hereditary curse.

After that, she was positively giddy with excitement.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“If you want to leave, you can. I won’t keep you here,” he said. “But I trust Zeke with my life. He’s practically family.”

It felt odd to say as much. After all, he’d not known Zeke for that long before he’d been stranded in the demon realm. But those months he’d spent on the other side had put a lot of things into perspective, and the time since then had made him appreciate the friendships he’d forged after he’d been freed from servitude to Micayne.

“And besides, I have a lot of unfinished business. I’ve told you a little about the necromancer, but…I have to see him dead. I can’t just abandon the world to that maniac,” he stated.

There was also some guilt there. He’d played a large part in giving Micayne the tools he’d needed to become a lich. Tucker wasn’t certain precisely what had happened, but he knew that his alchemical research had played a role. In addition, some of that guilt was due to what he’d done to Talia. She seemed to have turned out okay, but he couldn’t deny that his experimentation had been tantamount to torture.

Had she forgiven him? She’d said as much. But that did nothing to assuage the guilt he’d felt ever since.

All of that had coalesced into a need to stay and help as much as he could. He hoped that Iris and the others – even Gira, who’d never seemed to like him much – would stay too, but…

Well, even good things had to come to an end at some point. He would be saddened by it, but he was prepared for it nonetheless.

“I understand if y’all don’t want to stay. Nobody signed up for a war. But I have to,” he said at last.

“Don’t be silly,” said Iris.

“I’m not. I’ve thought a lot about this, and –”

“We’re obviously staying with you, idiot,” said Athis.

“What?” Tucker asked, genuinely surprised. He looked from Iris, to Athis, and then to Gira. “All of you?”

“The crew too,” Gira said. “I don’t like being here, but we’re a crew. We don’t abandon one another just because we get a little uncomfortable.”

“We’re with you,” Iris said, reaching out to grip his hand. She gave it a subtle squeeze. “Even if this place is really weird.”

“I wasn’t going to say it, but it’s definitely not normal here,” Athis agreed, taking another big gulp of his beer. “Decent beer, though. And they have proper sized mugs.”

Indeed, the tavern’s offerings were definitely better than Tucker would have expected, but that was probably because they’d been rampaging across the frontier of the Imperium, and they’d likely looted quite a lot of booze along the way. As to the mug the big kirran had been given, it could hold at least a gallon of beer, which was probably the only reason Athis had chosen to stay.

“So, what’s the plan?” Irish asked.

“For now? I want to wait until Zeke returns,” he said. “In the meantime, we still have a lot of cargo to unload. I don’t think anyone will begrudge us a profit, right?”

That elicited a trio of smiles. If there was one language they all spoke, it was profit. So, once they’d broached the subject, they started making plans for how they were going to take advantage of the situation. They didn’t intend to price gouge, but there were beads to be made, and none of them wanted to leave anything on the table.

Once they’d established a plan of action, they all split up and went their separate ways. Athis was charged with liaising with the kobolds – which he protested – largely due to the similarities between the two races. The were obviously different species, but it didn’t stretch credulity to think of them as cousins.

At the same time, Irish went off to deal with the army’s leadership. They had a small cache of decent-quality weapons that she thought would benefit them. Meanwhile, Gira went to talk to whoever was in charge of the other races. As a half-elf, she would be readily accepted in those circles, especially given that she shared a similar origin to many of those Zeke’s army had rescued.

“And what will you do?” asked Iris.

“I’m going to talk to the craftsmen. According to Pudge, they have a decent industry set up in the tower,” he explained. “I might be able to offload or trade some of our treasures. After that, I’m going to talk to Pudge to see about getting a lab set up. Zeke has a very special looting power, and with what he’s been up to all this time, I’m pretty sure he has a lot of ingredients just lying around. I want to take advantage of that.”

So, as everyone else went their separate ways, Tucker headed toward the platform that would let him teleport to the Artisan’s Terrace. Along the way, the demonic mind spirit appeared beside him.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“According to what you’ve already told me, you have free run of this entire tower,” he said.

“I do.”

“Then you were probably listening to my conversation with my friends,” he stated. “So, you know exactly where I’m going.”

“I was only trying to be polite,” she said, crossing her arms in a pout. “But yes. I know where you’re headed. That’s why I came to you.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve already begun to set up a laboratory for you,” the demon explained. “It should be fully equipped, but if you need anything else, just let me know. We have all sorts of goodies in the spatial storage, and no one to use them.”

“Thank you.”

“But this isn’t a favor,” she stated. “I want something from you in return.”

“I’ve already said that I would help with your little kobold problem,” Tucker reiterated. Apparently, they needed a little kick to make the leap from monster to sapience – as an entire people, at least. It wasn’t such a different problem than the one afflicting the kirrans. They only had a borrowed attunement and a very limited selection of classes, which in retrospect, made Tucker wonder if the so-called curse of the kirrans hadn’t simply been the remnants of a monstrous origin.

“Not that,” she said. “Well, that. But I want something else.”

“Don’t push it too far. I’m sure I could just wait for Zeke to get back, and he’ll just give me whatever I want.”

“That’ll be a couple of weeks, though,” she said. “Do you really want to waste all that time? Think of the potions you could make in that time.”

He sighed as he stepped onto the platform. It whisked him away, and when he appeared in the Artisan’s Terrace, so did Eveline. “What do you want? Just be plain.”

“I couldn’t be plain if I tried.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Fine,” she said, pouting again. It was annoying affectation that reminded him of some of the worst sorts of women he’d known back on Earth. “I want you to teach.”

“Who?” he asked, a little surprised by the statement.

“We don’t have many real crafters here,” she said. “Some of the kobolds have made strides in that direction, but they’ve struggled with some of the more esoteric crafts. Runecrafting and enchanting elude them entirely, and they’re not very good at alchemy. They do okay with armor and weapons. Construction’s easy for them. But I hope to use you to help push their minds in a more expansive direction. What do you say?”

Back on Earth, Tucker had been a chemist, and he’d had a stint as a teacher as well. Those were mostly fond memories, so he said, “I’ll see what I can do. But I only want the smartest ones. They’ll learn what I have to teach, then pass that on to the lesser students.”

“You read my mind. Now, let me show you to your new lab.”