Chapter

"Welcome to the Silver Wand Inn! Property of the Guild. All Guild edicts are now in effect. How may we serve you today?" said a fresh-faced young lass wearing an elegant, ruffled yellow dress that would have looked fetching in any era. She favored Jack with such a warm, welcoming smile he immediately felt like he was part of the family, which he thought a neat trick and was no doubt studied by proprietresses everywhere, though he suspected it just came naturally to her. Jack pinned her as being just a few years younger than himself, already embracing a woman's curves, though with the absolutely flawless features and baby blue eyes that came from good nutrition and genes both.

Her welcoming smile transformed instantly to an alarmed grimace when she caught sight of the figure slipping in beside Jack.

"Tim! What the hell are you doing here? Aunty will have your head!"

"Hi, Jenny."

Jack frowned back at the kid gazing at the girl with far too much longing for his own good.

"I missed you."

Her soft cheeks blazed scarlet as she bowed her head. "I... I missed you too."

Jack winced to see the same longing in her eyes as he spotted in Tim's.

"Meet me in the stables?"

Her cheeks brightened. She quickly nodded. "Later. But Tim, you have to—"

"Jenny, darling! Whatever's the matter? Invite our guests forth, let them be welcome and take a seat in the comfort of our..."

Jack suppressed a wince, turning to glance at the exquisitely handsome figure of a woman who might have just hit the far side of forty but had done it with grace, panache, and a style that left one breathless, looking beyond elegant in her jade green silk dress that set off her lustrous eyes to striking effect, her ebony locks done up in jade pins, the brilliant cut ruby earrings she wore sparkling just as brightly as her eyes now flashing Jack's way.

Jack's heart began to pound, alarm bells ringing in his head.

He barely took in the rich mahogany background of a hardwood bar polished to an ebony glow, hosting a number of well-to-do gentlemen and ladies dressed in the elegant attire of reconnaissance nobles, and 18th century English lords as well; goatees, smooth cheeks, and handlebar mustaches all in vogue, Jack only catching the flash of one silver-hilted smallsword at a gentleman's waist as seen by the sloping bar counter before feeling the weight of half a dozen stares sent his way.

As well as the measuring gazes coming from a dozen or so tables graced with what seemed the distinguished gentry of the city, contrasted by only a few tables graced by individuals wearing garb of a strikingly different sort, that being adventurers boldly wearing armor of plate, silvery mail, and alloyed scales that glowed with magic, as well as exotic beast hides radiating delicious arcane secrets.

Yet the peril and power he sensed emanating from those larger than life figures absolutely paled in comparison to the frigid aura of the proprietress now coming their way, her ice cold words like a pronouncement of doom from powers overhead.

"Timothy." That single word sent shivers of power through the whole building.

Jack winced. It was all he could do not to flee before the rapidly approaching storm, racing thoughts wondering if this was to be his doom, as elegant feet dressed in little more than ballerina slippers crashed like waves against the polished tiles of white marble and green jade that made up the floor, as doom inexorably swept their way.

Jack immediately twisted at the sound of panicked movement, hoping for all he was worth that Tim had the sense to flee from the rapidly approaching storm for all he was worth.

Instead, he had flown into a sweeping bow with the grace of a gentleman, not a struggling and Jack halfway suspected homeless lad wearing a clashing jumble of secondhand finery from two very different eras, even flourishing the tattered felt cap that had seen better days with his bow.

"Top of the evening to you, Lady Sigrid. It is a fine pleasure as always to be graced by your warm and loving presence! Your beauty could send a thousand ships to sea, just like that lady from the stories who sent everyone to their deaths." He coughed, clearing his throat. "By which I mean, you look right striking in emerald green, my lady."

"Why are you here, Tim?"

Jack winced. It wasn't so much a question as a judge allowing the defendant his last words before pronouncing her sentence.

And somehow, Tim had the gall to flash his cheekiest smile. Jack swore he saw horrified tears in Jenny's eyes.

"No, aunty, please don't!" the girl whispered, before her eyes bulged in instant silence as Lady Sigrid's fingers twisted oddly in the air.

Magesight perception check made: You have witnessed the casting of an Etherial Silence spell! 20% Comprehension achieved.

Jack was Jolted by odd memories in the back of his mind that felt oddly out of place, though he quickly tuned it out, all his focus on poor Tim's imminent peril.

"I've brought a new client for your business, my lady! An adventurer...and my partner!"

Lady Sigrid's eyes bulged. "Your what?"

"My partner!" His grin widened in pleased satisfaction. "We're going to be Delvers. Together!"

Jenny's eyes widened. She frowned down at her own lips, an impressive trick, Jack thought, though not as much as seeing an ebony wand discretely tucked in the folds of her dress glowing before she gasped and shook her head, before flying into Tim's arms. "No, Tim. You can't! You'll be killed, and aunty will disown me! What will become of us, then?"

Jack blinked. What did she mean by 'us?'

Then he groaned with the way she was sobbing in his arms, instantly understanding.

Timothy gently patted Jenny's back, and Jack though he must have some sort of protection magic going on, with the way he seemed blithely unaffected by Lady Sigrid's death glare.

"That's right, we're going to be adventurers together! My new mate and I bonded right quick with our stories of battles and exploits dared and overcome." Tim flashed Jack a beaming smile.

Jack sighed. "No," he said, shaking his head.

Timothy clapped his back, giving Jack a one-armed squeeze as the other held Jenny. "That's right! Close as brothers we are. I didn't even charge him for the trouble of bringing him down here to yours, the finest inn in the whole city, the only place where adventurers can feel like adventurers, and the lords and ladies can safely enjoy the taste of danger in the air! Because Guild rules apply, and all that. Right, my lady?"

The last words were said almost as a challenge, and Jack's sense of peril grew.

Was this kid really that much of an idiot as to actually challenge Lady Sigrid in her own domicile?"

But all the proprietress did was shake her head. "Are you really that much of a fool, Timothy?"

Jack winced, gazing at a stunned Tim with something close to pity. Even he was cringing with the tone of her voice, and she hadn't done more than frown at him once.

Tim opened his mouth, speechless, as Jenny slid free of his arm and darted back, the girl's eyes just as pitying as her aunty's.

"What...what do you mean? I'm just... I want to be an adventurer. I always wanted to be an adventurer. You know that, Aunty."

"You dare to call me aunty, after all you've done?" the proprietress hissed. "For the sake of your mother, I got you access to the best schools in the city. For the sake of your father, the best fencing instructors wasted their time on you, with so many others eager for their secrets! And you pay me back by falling for the one girl in the entire city off limits to you! My niece!"

Tim blinked, opening his mouth wide but no words came out, finally he hung his head.

"I know," he said.

"You know what!? That you played the utter fool, managing to get yourself expelled after a disaster of incalculable proportions? And instead of crawling on your hands and knees begging for forgiveness, you're determined to go gallivanting off in the city, refusing even to consider the apprenticeship your wards laid out for you?"

Tim swallowed, slowly shaking his head. "I know Uncle Faber means well, but the constant bang of pounding steel hurts my ears, and I can't stand the heat, and the burning in my shoulders! And the metal, it's not whispering its secrets, it's laughing at me! It knows I will never be mage of Fire or Metal just as well as I do."

He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not cut out to be a smith, and I never will be."

"An arcane smith!" Lady Sigrid hissed. "A safe way to harness your former mother's talents without imperiling an entire school, or getting yourself pointlessly killed!"

Even Timothy winced at her tone. "I know you don't approve of me, aunty, but..."

"I approved of you just fine, til you nearly blew up the entire academy!" She shook her head in disbelief. "And no one knows exactly how you did it. Not even you."

The young man seemed to curl up in on himself. "I know, I..." Before clenching his jaw, back straight once more. "No. No, I'm not going to apologize anymore for something I can never fix or make better! All I can do is move forward, Lady Sigrid. Rise above the ashes of my previous failures and blaze like the grandest of Delvers embracing adventures that will fill the taverns of Greycliff with bards singing of exploits glorious and grand!"

The audience of nobles and adventurers had gone silent as Timothy's pronouncement hung in the air.

Before the entire inn erupted in laughter, nobles chortling and applauding as if at a play, save for the few who smirked and laughed with contempt, and Jack noticed at least one wand-wielding gentleman among them, though none quite so loud and boisterous as the armored guests at the elevated tables, who, despite their lack of finery and airs and roughshod appearance, radiated the fierce countenance of lions merely condescending to allow gazelles to graze at their feet.

"A failed academy brat, determined to blaze like the grandest of Delvers, he says!" Roared a giant red-bearded man who instantly silenced the crowd, patting the war axe at his side as he drank deep of a massive stein filled with ale. His powerful baritone voice resonated through the entire chamber as his hard eyes met a suddenly quaking Timothy's.

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As if he were measuring the boy's very soul.

The man snorted so loud and abruptly that foam from his drink coated his bright red whiskers, before roaring with laughter. "Good luck with that!"

If anything, the mirth of the crowd doubled, none laughing more so than the adventurers in the seats above.

"As if creampuff magery had any chance in the cauldron of peril that waits below," snorted a powerfully built golden-haired woman covered in shimmering silver-scaled armor and radiating an aura of deadly peril, like a lioness casually eyeing her prey for a quick kill.

Jack felt chills racing down his spine when death gazed his way, certain she could kill him in an eyeblink, for all that she was casually lounging beside her red-bearded companion as she matched him drink for drink. Piercing violet eyes glanced over Jack as if he were less than nothing before settling on Tim, her striking features twisting in a cold smirk as she shook her head, sneering at the now trembling youth.

"Pathetic! Boy looks so weak, he wouldn't even turn to a slime. Just a quivering puddle bubbling for his mommy!" she said with a belch, the entire table of delvers roaring with laughter as they banged their clearly reinforced tables for fresh tankards of ale, two of the latter popping free of shattered handles, spraying them all with foam droplets as the vessels twirled through the air before plopping onto the tables of several breathless gentry below, who wisely said nothing at all, despite the fresh howls of mirth this earned from the revelers above.

Jack winced to see Timothy crumple like a deflated doll, his cheeks absolutely blazing with shame.

And between one eyeblink and the next, he was gone. The sound of the front door slamming, and the wash of chilly air cutting through the warmth of the bottom floor tavern the only evidence he had ever been there at all.

"Timothy!" sobbed an alarmed Jenny, held tight before she could reach the door by Mistress Sigrid, now glaring at the girl in her arms.

"Enough, Jenny. Let that poor fool nurse his shame in peace."

"But aunty!"

"But nothing!" she hissed, eyes crackling with a green eldritch flame. "That fool has caused more than enough trouble! Ruining his future, and your own!" She shook her head and sighed when Jenny crumpled and sobbed in her arms. "If we're lucky, really, really lucky, he'll wake up to the truth of his own folly. Only then could he ever be worthy of you, girl. But I fear that day is a long way off, and too many girls waste their lives waiting for a miracle that will never come."

The last was said with the softest of whispers, the boisterous crowd in high spirits after the impromptu performance, a handful of serving girls taking care of their guests and filling the air with jests and witticisms that turned the crowd's former mocking laughter to indulgent good humor, before the air rang with the dulcet sounds of singer and lute, filling the grand room with tales of adventure and wonder as Jack got his first good look at a bard thrumming his instrument while gracing the audience with a captivating tale of a young hero off on his first adventure and the town he managed to save, against all odds.

Jack shook his head. He would have loved to enjoy the warmth of the inn and the gentler atmosphere, but there was someone who needed him more.

"Jenny!"

Jack darted back around, hand on the half-opened door, before a flash of yellow and lace dashed past him, the girl racing after her humiliated beau.

Jack hissed and shook his head, not having expected this turn of events at all, but still feeling a certain obligation.

Because he now knew as well as anyone what the night held.

"Don't." Words hard as steel shivered down his spine, as a soft glove hand squeezed his bicep. "You can't say anything to either of them that won't make things worse. Is Tim truly your friend?"

Jack turned to find the hostess giving him a considering frown.

"You are a bit older, but close enough in age. I wouldn't be surprised if you two really were thinking of taking on the academy dungeon together."

Jack silently allowed himself to be led back into the warmth of the inn. There was so much he wanted to ask, but some things were more important than others. "They can't be older than what, 14?"

"Seventeen," she softly corrected, flashing a bemused smile at Jack's disbelieving look. "Academy children age slower, for obvious reasons." she sighed sadly. "Especially when they've been attending school since the very beginning."

Jack blinked at this, flooded with sudden questions, but instead said what he must. "However high their Charisma, life doesn't revolve around their tale. They are promised no warning, if dark currents would make their story its own."

Jack's gut churned at the sudden hard look she gave him. "Are you saying they don't matter? That the story of their lives doesn't matter at all?"

He quickly shook his head. "No. I'm saying that there are predators out there who would laugh at their struggles before ending their journey with the weight of a leaded bludgeon or the bite of sharpened steel." He clenched his jaw. "The love he clearly has for her would mean nothing. That she is carrying his child... to those monsters, would mean nothing."

Jack's blood turned to ice under the intensity of her gaze. "What do you know?"

It was all he could do not to flinch from this proprietress who had the presence of a queen.

Or perhaps, an adventurer.

Jack could only wonder what tales of this ice queen there might be, and how long ago they had been told. Before shaking away the thought, saying only what mattered.

"Jenny's state is obvious to anyone trained as a healer."

"And you were?"

Jack winced. "Once, I was. Don't ask how long ago that might have been."

This earned a doubtful shake of her head, but her gaze was that of a disbelieving proprietress, not an executioner passing judgment. "I find that hard to believe, child. You can't be much older than either of them."

"Eighteen, but it hardly matters. The point is that the city streets are home to more than innocent pedestrians."

Lady Sigrid's gaze hardened. Before she closed her eyes, giving a satisfied sigh. "They are safe. I would know it if they weren't." Her lips curved in a wry grin. "Acting like foolish children, but safe. Because only a fool would dare what you fear, in this part of the city." She tilted her head, peering thoughtfully at Jack, who suddenly felt as if he were being weighed upon scales once more.

"And what do you know of midnight predators, child?"

Jack clenched his fists, struck by sudden visceral memory once more. "I know there are netters who stalk the city. Men who don't just hunt vermin, but any game they can secure, whether it moves on two legs or four."

Sigrid paled. She cursed softly, shaking her head. A delicate hand clenched Jack's shoulders with a strength he was perilously certain could crack bone. "Tell me true, lad. What do you know of these hunters?"

"I know they almost killed a pig tonight that wasn't a pig at all, but a boy lucky to be alive and back amongst people who love him. I know another fool was so filled with righteous fury that he had it in his mind to chase the pair down, to ask for an answer to a single question he couldn't let go. And instead of answering...they attempted to kill him."

Sky blue eyes locked with orbs of emerald. "They won't be troubling anyone ever again."

The proprietress gazed at Jack for long moments. "Are you really here to dare the Academy dungeon?"

Jack firmly nodded. "I am."

Her gaze hardened. "Then I have a request. In return, I will let you make use of my inn at Guild rates, even though all I see before me is a young lad smitten with the same dreams that take so many lives."

Jack smirked. "What's the rate, what's the request, and does that include breakfast and dinner?"

This earned him a soft chuckle. "It includes bread, butter, and a full plate of the house special every night, and fried biscuits and gravy with eggs every morning. Standard guild rate is only a single silver talon."

She frowned at his expression. "That better be a smile I see, boy. Because that price is a steal for meals and accommodations this fine in this part of the city where Guild edicts alone hold sway. Which means you only pay Guild tax rates on any treasure you might actually find in the dungeon, should you survive your first trip, which most never do. To say nothing about being absolved of draft, censure, prosecution for low crimes, or being forced into duels by your betters. It is, in short, a steal for a single silver talon."

She flashed a humorless smile. "And if you are yet another penniless traveler desperate to try his luck in the dungeons... you can even run up a tab. Which I've done as a courtesy for numerous corpses over the years, a pretty penny in silver I never collected, honoring the Guild's wish that even fools be allowed to gamble with stakes they do not have, in the hopes of forging a couple more Delvers able to dare the perils that infect our world."

Jack frowned. "Sounds like a great deal, actually. So what's the catch?"

"The catch is, you don't take Tim with you. Because I'd far rather have my grandnephew come into the world with a young fool for a father, than no father at all."

Jack bowed his head. "Done."

She blinked, frowning slightly. "You agreed to that without batting an eye. Didn't hesitate for a second. Would you sell out all your friends so quickly, I wonder?"

Jack laughed at that. He couldn't help it. "Oh, was that a test? Or just a catch-22? Because now I come out looking like a ruthless mercenary, either happy to let a father-to-be perish to his own folly, or happy to sell out my supposed friend, if it gives me a negotiating edge."

He smirked and shook his head. "I was never intending on taking him along in any case. Especially not when I thought he was more than just a single year my junior." His gaze hardened. "It's already been made very clear to me, what happens to mortals who dare delves who aren't either twice-born, or blessed with an undiscovered knack for it."

Lady Sigrid nodded, even as she led him to a quiet corner of the tavern, the alcove cleverly constructed so as to give them an illusion of privacy while still feeling the warm bonhomie of the noble and delving crowd alike. She looked up, nodding to a smiling tavern maid before turning once more to Jack.

"Correct. I'm glad you're savvy enough to understand that much, at least. And do you have any idea how rare it is for mortals who've never felt their skull ring with unexpected insights to find that they actually have the gift buried within them?"

Jack frowned, slowly shaking his head. "None whatsoever. But I'm guessing its not that common."

She smirked at that. "Not common at all. Which is the true tragedy of the Academy Delve, that some say was purposely designed so as to give most hopeful would-be heroes a chance to flee with their lives before entering the dungeon proper, once they feel the true pressure of Shadow caressing their souls. So that they might leave before they are truly crushed under the weight, or mutated into something hideous." She sighed and shook her head. "Or just cursed with a warped body covered in hideous tumors it would cost them a fortune that they don't have to get removed, haunting them for what is then often a very short life."

Jack winced. "Put like that, Tim is being a bit of an idiot, chasing this dream."

The mistress of the inn nodded. "He is indeed. Especially since he has such aptitude with Etherial magic. Or did, before the disaster that almost cost him his life." she sighed, shaking her head. "With such talent for high magic, he is an absolute fool to risk himself in a venture only a very, very few should dare, and only the most desperate normally risk, if they have no other prospects."

Jack nodded, grinning happily when a smiling serving girl placed a bowl of hot beef stew with plenty of crusty bread before him, along with a foaming tankard of ale. With an indulgent nod from his hostess, he happily dove right in, absolutely devouring the food before him in very short order while the woman before him gazed on.

He then winced and dipped his head, wondering how many etiquette checks he had just failed, if he bothered to check his interface which normally only rang in the back of his head in the most perilous of circumstances, somehow sharpening his focus instead of distracting him.

She just shook her head indulgently. "So like Tim in your appetite as well. At least I know you're not completely without talent or means."

"Um... Thanks?"

"So why, with a well-paid and highly esteemed healer's future ahead of you, would you be willing to throw your life away, daring the Academy Delve?"

Jack blinked just a heartbeat before blithely replying, realizing what a profound misstep it would be, revealing the full gamut of experiences that had led him here, in the heart of the city that one Lord Hecklebart called home. The man who had arranged for Jack's friends to die in what should have been a token delve. An entire realm consumed by Shadow and living dream so twisted it had imperiled well over a thousand lives. The nightmare only ending when Hecklebart's monster of a son had fallen in their stead, along with all his undead legions, dying by Jack's hand. A father-son duo that had plagued Jack in more than one life, it seemed, and he shuddered at the thought of just how fierce the man's hate and drive to kill him would be, if he ever learned of the role Jack had played in Eric's demise.

Even on the slightest off-chance that the lord had not directly intended for Team Troll-Killer's deaths, so as to keep a certain luxurious manor supposedly filled with magical enhancements all to himself, and his demented son had just happened to flood the town they were destined to arrive at with legions of undead, Jack still had no doubt, absolutely no doubt at all, that should his face ever be associated with what happened in Loamsville in any way, he wouldn't survive the week, no matter how skilled he liked to think he was. And that was assuming that Lord Hecklebart, who Jack was now positive was a reborn Administrator Rothson who had tried to sabotage Jack's dad at every turn a lifetime ago, never put together that Jack was the same kid who had shot him in the ass and helped to sabotage his son's original plans of dark ascension during Earth's final hours, to say nothing ruining his own plans to assure that only his cronies could jump the portal between worlds, a lifetime ago.

Jack did his best to keep his features free of the anxiety now flooding through him, taking a long, thoughtful sip of ale. "Because I think I have what it takes," he finally said.

Mistress Sigrid gazed at him for long moments, before finally giving a curt shake of her head.

"Then you're a fool," she said, getting up in a swirl of silk and lace, leaving without another word.