Yuri had instructed her two hog MODs to sit on the driver’s bench and man the reins while she and I rode in the cage. The hog-goblins had a choke hold on this city, especially at night, and we needed to keep up appearances if we had any chance of getting into that club.

My pamphlet explained that the Governor had an off-the-books deal with the hogs, which allowed them to transport slaves in and out of the city with impunity as long as they didn’t touch any Rockwallow citizens and kept the poor souls out of sight. It also mentioned that the Governor was somehow personally benefiting monentarily, and that made my blood boil. There might be choice words exchanged if I ever met the cow. Literally, he was one of those cows that stood on two feet.

It was obvious the guardsmen atop the city gate weren’t happy about the arrangement either. Not once did the little dickheads make a move to question us, though. They just watched our giant cage-on-wheels roll right on through with dour expressions on their faces, illuminated in torchlight.

Rockwallow Hollow was just as lively at night as it was during the day, albeit with a different crowd. When the sun was out, vendors and merchants filled the streets, haggling in front of their shops with customers and passersby. Children skipped around playing games and there was an air of civility between everyone. At night, the sounds of drunken laughter mixed with the squabbles of ruffians. Weapons clanked in the distance and a slow curling fog crept over the cobblestone streets. It whipped up around us as we rolled through it. Shop doors were closed and locked. But the clubs and pubs were all lit up and manned by scary looking bouncers.

People seemed to segregate by race—groups of gnomes over there, dwarfs over there, etc.—while during the day there was absolutely no hint of social distinction. You were either a seller or a customer, appearance be damned. Apparently people felt safer at night lumped together with their own kind. That alone was telling of the danger you could find yourself in if you made a wrong turn. A turn we were on our way to willingly make.

As we rolled through the city streets towards the hog-goblin nightclub, Yuri mentally dictated the directions to her MOD, and I opened my half-assed hero chest.

Confetti burst out in a silent explosion.

“Gah,” I yelled, dropping the box.

“What was that?” said Yuri. She turned to look at me.

I coughed out a mouthful, and nodded towards the box. “We’re rich again,” I said, picking up a pinch of coins. There were fifteen total along with a note. “Did you get one too?”

“Why would you open that now?,” she whisper-hissed at me. “And yes, but I haven’t opened it.”

I lit my thumb and read the note. It said: You've been summoned. Word of your accomplishments have been getting around, and the Governor of Rockwallow Hallow would like to meet with you in person.

I had two thoughts about this. My first thought was, hey, maybe I will get a chance to punch that cow in the face afterall. And my second was, word of my accomplishments? But we haven’t really done anything.

Yuri looked over my shoulder.

“I got one of those before.”

“Yeah?”

“Never went.”

I motioned for her to continue, but she just stared at me. Typical, cryptic Yuri response. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “Thought it was a trick.”

“That’s totally like you to think that,” I said. “Todd said they sometimes offer a position in city government to players called City Merlins, I wonder if—”

Yuri shushed me as we turned the corner into the infamous alleyway, the one where I saved a kid from a vicious beating only a few days prior. That felt like months ago.

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“We’re pulling into line now,” she said.

I quickly extinguished my thumb and slipped my prize into my inventory. Then I opened up my interface to divvy out my new points. I'd been dropping all of them into the Momentum Portal. That sounded really cool to me, plus Todd highly recommended it. I felt like I should keep up that trend, but changed my mind last second and allocated the ten points to the Two-Finger Pow Pow ability. There was no description for this one, but the name seemed pretty self-explanatory. And having some sort of gun thingy at my disposal would come in super handy. All I needed now was forty more experience points to access it. I tried taking points out of an ability, but it didn't work. Once they'd been dropped into an ability, they couldn't be moved around.

The alleyway, once void of much life, was now packed full of wagons identical to ours, lined up on the left side, slowly inching forward towards the big red doors. Doors that were now open wide.

We counted thirteen wagons in line ahead of us with anywhere between two to six hog-goblin escorts each. The number of prisoners was innumerable in the dim city lighting, but the volume of heart-wrenching moans and groans filling the alleyway were telling.

Each wagon in turn would unload their catch and force their group inside. A hog-goblin would then drive the wagon back out into the main thoroughfare, passing the wagons waiting to unload. Where they took the empty wagons after that, I had no idea.

Another wagon team pulled up behind us, it’s horse hogs squealing as the driver yanked back on the reins. The driver and I made eye contact, and an eerie, string-filled background music started up in the back of my mind, prickling my skin. By the number of silhouettes in their cage, it appeared they’d snached up an entire village.

“I think they’re the last one,” I whispered to Yuri. “It’s the wagon with the three horse-hogs. The pamphlet says that’s always the last one to arrive.”

“And you’re sure you want to do this?” said Yuri, whispering in my ear. “You know you can skip objectives, right? You don’t have to go through with this.”

I looked at her, back at that hog-goblin still staring at me, then back at her. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to get out of this, testing me, or if she was truly concerned for my welfare—probably a little of all three. The sound of cries and calls for mommy in the air helped me center my resolve.

“Yuri, look, I know these NPCs aren’t real, but saving kids from evil people is kind of my thing now. So yeah, we’re doing this. And if you want your pendant, you'll balls up and help me out.”

She let out a small scoff, then her lips curled into a smile.

***

Once parked, one of Yuri’s MODs pulled us out of the cage, per her directive, and dragged us toward the door. Both she and I gave stellar performances of defiance, yelling and kicking the air.

And the Academy's best acting awards go to …

Her other MOD, who was charged with keeping Yuri’s special bag safe and sound, had to drive the wagon away and would end up going inactive for the duration of our time inside. There was no other way around it. Yuri would have to find him later, if, by chance, we made it out of this thing alive.

“Well, well,” said the hog guarding the entrance. He stood in the bright, open doorway, his hands on his hips. “What do we have here?” He sniffed, spit a glob on the ground, then stepped over to inspect us. The hog, dressed in standard padded armor, stood about a foot taller than I did. He grabbed the font of my green outfit and yanked me upward, putting his snout in my face. “Humans, eh? Where’d you find this lot? They aint the magic usin’ kind, is they? The church pays shitloads for them kind.” He looked up at Yuri’s MOD who didn’t respond, only stared ahead into the bright light. “Oi,” said the hog guard, “Are you dead? I said—”

“I think he lost his voice,” I said. “He yelled at us a lot on the way here.”

The hog guard looked down at me, stunned, as if it never occurred to him that I could speak. He shoved me back into the MOD’s chest, a scrunched up look of disgust on his face. Then he backhanded me across the cheek.

Whack, that was a stinger.

And then just for good measure he punched me in the stomach. “No one asked you, boy,” growled the hog.

I buckled over, the fake bands around my wrists coming loose. I quickly wrapped them back up after I could breathe again. It took every atom of personal restraint I had to not lash back out.

He looked at Yuri. “Well you're a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” The hog smiled, or at least I thought it was a smile. It was so hard to tell under all that ugly.

The guard grabbed her entire face and squeezed, puckering up her lips. Yuri stood like a statue. If I didn’t know her, I might have interpreted her distant and removed expression to be one of cowardly subjectiveness, like something you’d see on a person who’d given up. But I’d been around her long enough to know that look for what it was: cold and deadly contemplation. This hog guard would be dead before the night was over, if Yuri had her way. I almost felt sorry for the guy.

Almost.

“Go on, then, take ‘em down,” said the guard, yanking Yuri’s head towards the stairs. She stumbled then caught herself. When she looked back at the hog, the hog laughed. Her MOD collected her and the three of us went inside.