“I doubt that,” Professor Lightglow said. “Only the highest ranked adventurers have access to that library.”

“Oh,” I said. “He’s only bronze-ranked. Never mind then.”

Professor Lightglow perked up. “Bronze?” he repeated. “That is nearly the highest rank there is. That might be enough.”

“Bronze is nearly the highest rank?” I asked. “What about silver and gold?”

Professor Lightglow laughed. “Silver and gold? Why would those be ranks? Who fights with a gold weapon? The metal is heavy and soft.”

“Oh, I guess I just assumed. Where I come from, silver and gold are always above bronze.”

Lightglow shook his head. “No,” he said. “The only rank above bronze is steel.”

“Maybe I’ll ask him to look through the library for me then,” I said. “I think he still owes me a favor.”

There was a knock at the door. The secretary from before poked her head into the room. “Professor?” she said. There was tension around her mouth.

“Yes?”

“There is someone here,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “It’s… the ogre.”

“Brookie? What does he want with me?”

The secretary looked over at me. “He’s actually looking for, Mr. Koutz,” she said.

“Oh, right,” I said. “Clarice mentioned him. He’s another Outworlder like me.”

The secretary squawked and stumbled backwards as a thick hand grabbed her shoulder from behind. A giant of a man pushed his way into the room, stepping over her in the process. “Where is he?” he asked in a booming voice. The ogre was at least ten feet tall with skin the same pale color as my own. A single short horn jutted from the center of his forehead, ending in a sharp point. He was dressed in a three-piece suit that looked like it was made of enough fabric to upholster a couch. When he saw me, his face split open, revealing wide, flat teeth.

“Little ogre! I found you!”

“Uh, hi,” I said, waving from my seat.

“You are small!” the ogre, Brookie, said.

“And you’re big,” I observed. “What’s it matter?”

“I thought rissians small, but you smaller. Ha!” Brookie barked out a laugh at his own joke. “Come, come,” he said. “We must talk. Ogre business.” He didn’t wait for me to agree, or even respond at all. He simply grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the couch.

“Hey! What’s so important that it can’t wait? Can’t you see I was in a meeting?”

“I said. Ogre business.”

“Oh,” the professor said. “I didn’t realize you were an ogre.”

“That’s because I’m not!” I insisted for probably the hundredth time since arriving in Earris. A pop-up appeared in my vision.

Would you like to start tracking how many times you’ve said you’re not an ogre?

[Yes] [No] [Cancel]

“He is just small ogre, but he is still ogre,” Brookie said.

It took me a second to click “no” on the pop-up with my non-dominant hand while Brookie dragged me from the room. I heard Professor Lightglow call after me. “Come back anytime, Mr. Koutz! Thank you for the insight!”

“Thanks for the muscles!” I shouted back. In the hallway outside Lightglow’s office, I finally managed to free myself from Brookie’s grip, a feat I was sure would not have been possible without my newfound strength. “Hey!” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what you think is so important, then I’ll decide if I even want to talk to you.”

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“You want talk to me,” Brookie insisted. “You just don’t know it. Come.” He turned back down the hall towards the tower’s moving staircase.

“I’m going to need a little more convincing than that,” I told the ogre. “I have a follow-up meeting with Clarice in another hour and I still need to talk to someone at the Construct College about how they’re going to get me back to Earth.”

“Come, come,” he insisted. “I tell you later.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “No,” I said. “And if you try to grab me again, I’m going to teach you why that’s a bad idea.” It might just be time to test out my Skill on someone else.

Brookie looked back and studied me with eyes that sparkled with a bit more intelligence than he spoke with. He looked both ways down the hallway, then walked over to the office two doors down from Lightglow’s. He knocked, then when nobody answered, he grabbed the handle. It resisted him for a second, but only a second.

Ka-chink!

“Did you just break that door handle?” I asked. “You can’t just go breaking stuff!”

Whatever office the room was, it was dark inside. “In here,” Brookie said. “We talk.” He had to crouch to get through the doorway.

Curiosity got the best of me. I followed the strange giant man into the dark room. I know, okay? But I had my Skill, so I figured I could just drain him if he tried anything. I entered the dark office to see Brookie activating one of those artificial light rods rissians used. “Close the door,” he said in a calm, measured tone.

“Okay.” I closed the door. Brookie stood up from the desk, the only light in the room coming from the lamp he’d just turned on.

“Mr. Koutz?” he said. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. My name is Busivisnis Kisisnil, but nobody in this world can pronounce that. You may call me Brookie.” He tapped his middle finger to the horn in the center of his forehead, as was the custom in the FSR.

“Umm… what? You maybe want to explain why you just turned into an entirely different person?”

“That is my public persona, and you would be surprised how useful it is. Nobody expects sophistication and intelligence from an ogre. What did Clarice tell you about me?”

“Just that you were a previous ogre summoned by Ferrith and that you wanted to talk to me. Not much else beyond that.”

Brookie nodded. “Yes, all true,” he said. “I wish I could have let you know in another way, but it is impossible to know who to trust. Any one of them could be compromised.”

“Sorry, anyone of who?”

“Rissians,” Brookie answered simply. “They are all suspect. A few in the church are probably fine, and I suspect Clarice is not one of them, but beyond that the only ones I can be completely certain of are other ogres. We did not come from this world, so we can’t be one of them.”

“One of what?” I asked. “You need to catch me up on what you’re talking about if you want me to follow this conversation.”

“I don’t know what they are, or what their goal is,” Brookie said, “but I call them ‘the Skinners’. They have agents everywhere and I am almost certain they control the thing-we-can’t-talk-about.”

“What thing?” I pressed. “I’ve heard this thing mentioned before, but nobody will tell me what it is!”

“We can’t. Not until the next Culling.”

“See? There it is again. Everyone keeps saying the same thing when I ask. Look. You brought me in this room, right? Nobody’s listening. Just tell me.”

“I can’t. It will hear me.”

“Is this a joke?” I asked. “Just whisper really quietly!”

Brookie shook his head. Shadows danced in the folds of his skin with the movement, giving him an eerie look that matched his tone. “That does not work. I can’t write it down, either. It listens to our minds. It… No. That is already too much. If you speak its name, it will kill you. If you even think about it too much, it will kill you.”

“You can’t be serious. Surely that’s just a rumor that’s gotten exaggerated over time. On Earth we have a famous book series about a guy who cursed his own name, and most of that fear of naming him was that: fear.”

“You saw a magic staircase that falls forever and you think a monster like this is impossible?” Brookie challenged. “It is real. Very real.”

“Well, can you at least tell me what this Culling thing is, and when the next one is coming?”

Brookie cast a gaze on the closed door as though concerned someone might break in and overhear us. “Sometimes when it comes, it only kills a few,” he said. “Other times… a Culling. They come once a year. Maybe two. We’re overdue for the next one. This is why I need your help. We need to escape this world, go back where we came from.”

“Sure. Yeah. Let’s do that. That was one of the things I came to Oxenraith to do anyway.”

“I’ve been trying to leave this world for twenty years,” Brookie said. “It took me a while to realize my research was being sabotaged by the Skinners. That’s why I need to find more ogres. They’re the only ones I can trust.”

“Sure, take me to meet the rest of your team,” I said, “but I should probably warn you that I’m dying of an uncurable right now, so that’s got to be my biggest priority. If I go home, I’ll just die there instead.”

“I can help you with that,” Brookie said. “I have resources. But… there is no team. Right now the team is you and me.”

“What?” I said. “But Clarice told me Ferrith’s summoned nine other ogres! No, wait. I’m the ninth one. That should mean there are seven more of us. Where are they?”

“Dead,” Brookie said. “All dead. It killed them.”