“How am I supposed to help with that?” I asked. “I’m just one sickly kid and I don’t know anyone around here.”

“I have leads,” Brookie insisted. “I just need help to work them. I can only be at one place at a time, and being a tall, notoriously wealthy ogre doesn’t allow me to be as discreet as I’d like. Your help would be invaluable. You can pass for rissian, I can’t. There is a particular mission I have in mind that I’ve been trying to find someone trustworthy to carry out for almost a year. Help me, and I will help you. I will give you the resources and training you need. Anything. Anything at all. I can’t take the money I’ve accumulated with me. The only thing I spend it on is finding a way home and dealing with the obstacles to that goal.”

I blew out a breath. “That’s some money with a lot of strings, man.”

“It’s more than just money. We’ll be working towards the same goal. Did you not inform me mere moments ago that you had friends and family back on Earth?”

“I do. But I’m also dying. Help me with that and I’ll do whatever you want. I already went to the church. They said they’d only help me if I became some kind of slave to their god.”

Brookie rubbed his chin again. “An uncurable disease? Clarice said you were meeting with Professor Lightglow to deal with that.”

“Well, he couldn’t do dick,” I said. “I mean… he couldn’t cure me, anyway. He did give me these.” I flexed my right arm, showing off my new biceps. They weren’t much next to an ogre, but they were more than I had ever had before and I was strangely proud of them despite not actually having put any work into getting them. It wasn’t about impressing. It was mostly about not feeling embarrassed at how shrimpy I was for once.

“If I heal this uncurable for you, will you come to work for me?”

“No questions asked,” I said. “Wait. No. I’ll definitely have a lot of questions. It’s just that I would owe you big time. I’m literally dying. It’s not like I would be much use to you anyway if I don’t get healed. We still can’t heal what I have back in my world, so if I leave without fixing it, I’ll just be going home to die.”

“That is an acceptable bargain,” Brookie agreed. He stuck his hand out. “Where I am from, it is customary to lock hands and move them up and down a few times when an agreement is met between parties.”

“Nice!” I said. “We do the same thing on Earth.” I… tried to grab his hand. It was so massive mine was merely swallowed.

“Very well,” Brookie said. “You just met with Professor Lightglow? I will get the details of your illness from him. When I have tracked down a cure, I will contact you. I have an alias at the Porter’s you can use if you need to reach me for any reason. Just ask to send a message to Lady Moxie and I will receive it.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. “But I’m don’t really know what you think you can do that Professor Lightglow can’t.”

“I will throw money at the problem,” Brookie said. “I do not need to be discreet with something like this. Enough money solves most problems.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “No offense, but isn’t the university already doing that? They still don’t have a cure.”

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“I have connections in the Shadow, the underworld,” Brookie insisted. “That’s something they don’t have. I can buy things that most places consider illegal.”

“So you’re going to ask a bunch of criminals if they can heal me?” I asked. I raised one eyebrow to express my skepticism.

“What more do you expect from me?” Brookie asked. “In my world, I was a tax accountant, not a healer. Everything I know about magic I was forced to discover since arriving here.”

“Well, Lightglow mentioned a library where the Brokers keep records of all the Skills they have Brands for,” I said. “I was thinking that if I got access to that library, I might be able to come up with my own cure. With the level of technology in this world, I probably know more about pancreatic cancer than anyone. They don’t even have germ theory. They probably don’t even realize that the reason cancer is so hard to deal with is because it’s your body’s own cells going haywire.”

“I did not realize that either,” Brookie admitted, brows coming together.

“See? That’s why I need to do the research myself. If you got me access to that library and I found a cure there, I would consider us even.”

The thick folds of Brookie’s face turned down in a frown. “I cannot do that,” he said. “Access to that library is heavily restricted. I could hire someone who does have access to look things up for you, if you think that would help. That is the best I can do. The Brokers are powerful. I cannot just bribe someone to let you in without the proper permissions. Even remote viewing spells are blocked.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?” I demanded. “I’m sure as hell not going to sit around and wait to die. Waiting around for someone with no knowledge of my illness to go poking around in a library of books would be exactly that.”

“Perhaps…” Brookie trailed off, shaking his head. “No, that would never work.”

“What?” I asked. “Tell me!”

“I was just thinking that you may be able to get access through legitimate means, but it is preposterous.”

“How is it preposterous? What would I have to do?”

Brookie sighed. “How long do you have?” he asked.

“Right now? Just under eight months.”

“Then forget about it,” he said.

“No, tell me.”

“The only path to the library that could get done in that amount of time would be for you to enlist with the Bloody Fist, but you might have a better chance of surviving your cancer on your own than living that long in a notoriously deadly mercenary company. They are currently involved in the war down in—”

“Yeah, forget it,” I said. “I’m not going to risk my life fighting in some war. What other options are there?”

“Well, before you told me how much time you had left, I was going to suggest joining the Adventurer’s Guild and trying to rank up. Forget it. To achieve such a high rank in such a short time… I am uncertain it has ever been done without a pre-existing military rank that qualified for automatic advancement, which you do not possess. To even have a chance of completing their required contracts in such a short time, you would need the most potent Black Magic Skill this world has ever seen. Even if you managed it, superstitious rissians would suspect you of cheating. It would be too much attention. See? There was no point in bringing it up.”

I thought about that. Brookie didn’t know what I’d figured out about my Skill. Nobody did, except Ferrith. If I was right, then I actually did have one of the most potent Black Magic Skills ever. I looked around. We were in a secure location, already talking about illegal and dangerous things. What was one more? Brookie wanted my help because he thought only another ogre could be trusted. Well, trust went both ways.

“What if I told you… I do have, uh, that thing you were just talking about.” I still couldn’t quite get myself to say the worlds out loud after how much Ferrith had beaten that concept into me.

“You what?” Brookie asked. He cocked his head to the side.

“I have… one of the most potent Black Magic Skills ever,” I said. “At least, I’m pretty sure I do.”

“You… do? But I thought—”

“I lied,” I said. “Ferrith warned me how dangerous it was if anyone found out, so I covered up the truth. Clarice didn’t even figure it out during that little interview of hers.”

“Then what is your Skill?” Brookie asked.