Sam listened to the ancient halfling’s speech with just half an ear as he struggled to get his harness back on while also corralling his whirling thoughts.

It was happening too fast. Again. There was no time to plan, no time to consider actions. Sally and Cora and Pearl were here, now, and just because he didn’t understand why didn’t negate that simple fact. And if Araxesendenak got his hands on them… Well, that was basically game over, wasn’t it?

So they had to escape. And they had to escape right now. Which meant they would have to break out of a heavily fortified fortress deep in enemy territory that also just happened to be home to the single most powerful creature on the continent. And he was without mana, without access to his most powerful skills… All he had were his glasses, and whatever small items remained in his inventory.

Cora might have some useful skills. He'd have to ask her once the halfling finished yammering. And Sally… who knew what the hell Sally was. She looked like she could handle–or perhaps the word he was looking for was manhandle a dozen or berserkers without breaking a sweat. And with two arms tied behind her back.

But all the combat prowess in the world wouldn’t–Okay, maybe all the combat prowess in the world would be sufficient to take on the lich, but after seeing the creature fight Ma and Pop back in Melloram, he wasn't willing to put too much money on it. But the fact was they didn't have all the combat prowess in the world. And what they did have was grossly insufficient to fight Araxesendenak in the seat of his power, or anyone else's seat come to think of it.

It was like trying to plan how to cross a river that was nothing but white rapids and deep water. He could see where he needed to get, but everything else was obscured by mist and the threat of violent crushing death. He needed to figure out a way across, and fast.

It was not, as the man said, ‘ideal circumstances.’ Made worse by his lack of powers, and the obvious fact that something had happened with the sisters as well. He almost interrupted Giichi to ask Cora and Sally what powers they might still have access to, but then something the halfling said stopped him and made him pay closer attention.

I came to demand knowledge from you, about the glasses and about these runes and most importantly about your ability to choose racial powers that are impossible for you to choose.

I came to demand knowledge

A rock suddenly dropped into the middle of the river, a wide flat surface on which it might be possible to stand and reach the other bank. A single rock, granted, and potentially fatally slippery. But still a rock, and with time running out Sam had no better options.

Giichi had defied the will of Araxesendenak to come to Sam… For knowledge.

He could work with that.

“So now what will you do with me, Tolliver?”

Sam buckled on the last strap of his harness and eyed the wizened creature. Part of him remembered this man standing over him, etching fire and acid into his very flesh, leeching away the mana from his bones and creating a barrier between himself and the natural restoration energies of the world. Part of him wanted very much to beat Giichi to a pulp and leave him broken and bleeding on the floor.

Fortunately, he’d gotten quite good at ignoring that part of him in recent days.

“You say,” Sam said as he slipped his glasses back onto his nose, “you came here for information. What would you give me if I gave that information to you right now?”

“My heartiest thanks and a promise to not inform Araxesendenak of your escape for at least twenty minutes,” the halfling replied instantly.

“Did you just, like, have that answer laying around?” Sally asked a bit incredulously.

“Sometimes I lay awake at night and think up answers to questions people might ask,” Pearl said thoughtfully. “Maybe he does the same thing?”

“Hush,” Cora said, staring at Sam. He could see it in her eyes; she didn’t know where he was going with this, but she trusted him that it would be somewhere good. That look sent a curious zing down his spine, and he had to practically force himself to turn away and back to the halfling.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What would you do for me,” he asked slowly, mind racing ahead searching for traps or hidden dangers in the plan forming in his mind, “if I were to sweeten the pot?”

“May we cease speaking in these tedious hypotheticals?” Giichi said. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to lead us out of here,” Sam said. “Me, Sally, Pearl, and Cora. You know your way around the fortress. And you know how to avoid Araxesendenak. You have to, if you’re able to defy him like this.”

“Dont be absurd

You have nothing approaching the kind of value I would need to do such an idiotic thing,” Giichi scoffed. “Araxesendenak is a foul creature with the morals of a fecund wereweasel, but he gives me room to work and does not question my expenses. I can defy him in minor matters such as these, because they will ultimately upset him less than my death might. But to actively remove objects of desire from his reach? He would end me as surely as your titan could.”

“How about you take us out of here and I don’t crush you like a bug,” Sally rumbled, flexing her fingers.

“The end result would be the same, except death at your hands would be swifter and kinder than the end that would await me at the claws of Araxesendenak. No. There is nothing you can tempt me with to commit such an ill-advised act. If you plan to kill me, be swift about it. Actually, be swift regardless. You are keeping me from my work.”

“So what would it take?” Sam asked.

“To make me defy the will of he who provides me my workspace and my materials and the ability to continue to the heights of my craft?” Sam could hear the scoff in the creature’s voice. “I am unsure. A previously-undiscovered mana rune that turns our current knowledge on its head and forces a complete re-imagining of current practices?”

Sam felt a toothy grin stretch out on his face.

“Cora,” he glanced over at the silvery woman. “Can you still do that projection thing?”

Cora blinkd. “I… Think so?” Her face scrunched up cutely for a moment, and then she nodded once. “Yes, that ability seems to still be with me. Although… No, never mind. The answer is yes. What did you want to show?”

Sam turned the grin on Giichi the Halfling. “Something our friend may find of particular interest.

* * *

Giichi felt the world shift under his feet.

He had been… annoyed, when Tolliver had started spouting some nonsense about changing his mind… What rubbish. As though this stripling could possibly offer him something that was worth betraying his current patron.

But then the silver woman had conjured a pane of light into thin air, and projected upon it…

Enlightenment.

“These runes,” the Tolliver was saying, “are part of what make up Cora’s core being. Or… Maybe made up. It might be different now. We’re not sure how exactly they work together, but–”

“Silence,” Giichi croaked, staring at the image projected so hard that he feared his eyes might start bleeding. The Tolliver fell quiet, and Giichi blessed him for that. He needed his entire mind free of distraction just to understand and internalize what he was looking at.

Combination runes. Sigils he had never encountered before. Runes that went beyond the theories of the day and into something… else. Complexities unheard of in all his days. What he was seeing was impossible. Not merely impossible, it went against what he knew reality to be.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet here they were. And even as his mind recoiled and rebelled at the sight of them, his soul sang out with the realization that these were not, could not be, mere fabrications of a fevered mind.

His eyes traced the delicate lines, and his centuries of experience told him that yes, these were true runes. They were of proper construction, their etching of proper depth and their pathways properly formed. The fact that they were utterly impossible was secondary to the fact that they were.

“How…” his voice cracked and shattered like crystal, and he had to swallow twice to rebuild it. “How is this possible?”

“Cora, and Sally,” the Tolliver gestured to the two women, “are… Unique, let’s say.”

Giichi lifted a trembling hand, fingertips stretching out to touch the impossible runes, to trace them, to commit them to memory–

“Cora, shut it off.”

The pane winked out of existence, and Giichi almost screamed as this most priceless of treasures was yanked from his grasp. He whirled on the Tolliver, fire burning in his belly and in his eyes… Only to be confronted by cold ice and iron will in the boy’s.

For an instant he misunderstood. For an instant he almost lashed out, almost summoned Araxesendenak to the cell, almost doomed them all, so heated was the lust in his heart for that knowledge which had been snatched from his grasp. For the first time in centuries, he knew true wroth, and wished for the strength to vent it upon this youth who had—

Ah. Now he understood.

The wroth vanished, replaced by cold pragmatism. He had underestimated the boy. The Tolliver may be a fool, but he was not a naif.

“So,” the Tolliver said. “What are those sigils worth to you?”

Giichi thought of Araxesendenak, of the violence the lich would visit upon him if they were caught. He thought of the safety of his room, of the tools he would have to leave behind, of the centuries worth of accumulated workings he would have to abandon in haste. He would be reduced to a fugitive within the borders of one of the most powerful beings in the world’s demesne, and that being would have ample reason to hunt him to the ends of the earth.

It was no contest.

“The rune will last for perhaps ten more minutes,” Giichi said brusquely, gesturing to the still-lit sigil on the door. “We will have to move with haste.”

“We can do haste,” the Tolliver said with a fierce grin. “We have a deal? Get us out of the palace, and we’ll let you study the runes when we’re safe?”

“Yes,” Giichi said. “But first we should visit my room. I have luggage to collect.”

“Good.” Tolliver took a wheezing breath and winced as he clutched his side. “Damn, Forgot how much it sucks moving with a busted rib. Sally, get the door would you?”