My gaze roamed around the room, memorising every little crack and line in the brickwork just to occupy myself. I sighed and sat up in the uncomfortable bed, a fact that had become more annoying as I had to spend more time in here, before turning my gaze to the door. People had only come in to give me meals so far, but I was sure that would change any day now. Probably.

Man, this sucks. I guess I did get some stats out of it, but they stopped going up ages ago by now… actually, how long has it actually been?

“Three weeks.” I yelped and jumped away from the voice, realising only a few seconds later that it came from another cell entirely. When I realised that I overreacted, I tried to compose myself and greet the person that spoke.

“Oh. Hey man, what’s up?” I raised a hand in greeting as the Wonderful Prisoner, here for the second time during my stay, grinned at me.

“Nothing much, nothing much. I’ve just been here and there, checking out a few prisons. You know how it is.” He checked his nails casually as he spoke, looking completely disinterested if you ignored his obvious grin, “I heard a nice little tidbit of information on the old grapevine, you know?”

“Okay? That’s good for you, I guess.” I shrugged nonchalantly, not entirely sure what the hell this has to do with me.

The man laughed heartily for a good few seconds, needing to hold onto the bars to keep upright, before responding, “Oh, that’s a good one. You’re always such a fun person to talk to, you know?” He pointed at me playfully, waving his finger around a little for some reason, and continued speaking, “But no, this is something that you might like to know. Just to prepare yourself mentally, I suppose.”

“Hm? Is something happening?” I ask curiously, ignoring the faint sound of a lone pair of metal boots on stone.

“Yes, something is happening. And it pertains to you in particular. You see-” Suddenly, the Wonderful Prisoner cut himself off and gave me an annoyingly smug grin, “Ah, well it seems I’m out of time! Have fun!”

The heavy metal door slammed open with a loud bang, and I spun my head to face it, seeing Captain Ironheart tiredly trudging into the room. Before he had a chance to speak, I turned back to the Wonderful Prisoner. Or at least, I turned back to where he used to be. In the fraction of a second that I had looked away, he’d somehow completely vanished.

Ironheart seemed to notice my confusion and sighed deeply, resting his head in an armoured hand, “He was here again wasn’t he? Well, at least he had the decency to leave before I arrived, or I might have actually tried to arrest him this time.”

“Can he just teleport or something? I only looked away for a second.” The Captain just shrugged and came to a stop in front of my cell, looking far less intimidating than I was used to. His normally imposing figure was greatly diminished, hunched over and clearly tired as he was, but there was still a certain air about him that made me wonder just how strong he was.

“You’ve really caused me a lot of headaches, you know?” He spoke up suddenly, startling me out of my observations and prompting me to speak up.

“Oh, I have? My bad, I didn’t mean to.” For some reason, my apology just made him chuckle grimly.

“No, I should be the one apologising. This is to stay between us, so you need to make sure not to tell a soul what I’m about to say, alright?” Seeing his seriousness, I nod determinedly and resolve to do a better job than I did with the Rat King’s Crown last time, “I’m fairly certain you were right about the Lord being the Mage Killer. In fact, I have reason to believe that his Pact was passed down from his father.”

“Wait, you can do that? How did you even find out?” He gave me a dubious look at my question, but whatever he felt about it didn’t leak into his speech.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I’ll… spare you the details, okay? But the general gist is that this killing of Mages has been happening for much longer than anyone realised, it may have even gone back to the founding of the city, so at the very least the Lord isn’t- sorry, wasn’t- doing anything unique in that regard.”

“Right, right. That makes perfect sense.” I nodded along, though I wasn’t really listening all that much, “So when do I get to leave? Since he deserved to get annihilated I didn’t do anything illegal, right?”

With a sigh, the Captain responded with, “That’s not quite how it works but…yes, essentially. The new Lord- well, technically the new Lady- has decided to pardon you for a good deed.” He opened his mouth as if to keep speaking, but then seemed to think better of it and closed it. After a moment of staring at each other in silence, he spoke up again, “I’m only saying this because I know you won’t be able to figure it out on your own, but she will most likely be expecting you to return the favour one day. Despite not being a born Noble, she has a keen sense for exploiting every situation for all it is worth.”

I nodded along with his words, but to be honest I was hardly paying any attention, my mind more focussed on the idea of finally getting out of here. “Right, sounds good. So are you here to let me out?”

Ironheart just shook his head and reluctantly unlocked my cell, opening the door and stepping aside to let me step out, “At least try to take my warning to heart, I don’t know what Lady Ironhold may ask of you, or when.”

Ignoring him, I just took my first step outside of that cell and felt a wide grin form on my face. I felt a spark of Lightning arc around my foot for a moment, which I guess was just built up from my excitement or something, but Ironheart didn’t seem to notice.

“Well, it was nice seeing you. I know the way out, so I’ll be off for now! See ya next time I commit a crime!” I raised my hand to wave behind myself as I quickly walked out of the room, not even pausing to hear Ironheart’s response. I rushed up the stairs two at a time and, after asking a couple people for directions along the way, finally felt the sun on my face for the first time in weeks.

Alright! Now I can finally go and see Finch again!

I looked around the bustling street, with dozens of paths at various points up and down the road, and felt my mood immediately plummet.

Now, where the hell am I?

----------------------------------------

It took some doing, and an amount of Lightning Striding that may or may not have been illegal, but I was eventually able to make my way to the city centre. I’d travelled here from the Haggard Hoarbear enough that I could still remember how to get there from this point. But before I did that, there was one last thing for me to do.

In the centre of the centre, standing just a bit shorter than the statue of the original Lord Ironhold, was a completely iron replication of the one that I annihilated. It depicted him in full iron armour, a finely crafted sword at his waist, looking up and into the distance. There was a completely uncharacteristic expression on his face that made him seem regal and… heroic.

Before I even realised it, sparks were arcing between my fingers angrily, and I had to reign in my Mana to stop any more from forming. With a huff of annoyance, I turned away from the statue, not wanting to make myself feel any worse than I already did.

“I know the feeling, young man. It’s a real shame that they put that abomination up here,” I spun around to face the source of the voice, looking both shocked and concerned.

Does he know? I was supposed to keep this secret, but the first guy I talked to has already figured it out!

I try to tone down my panic, which becomes a lot easier when much of it is replaced with surprise instead, “Oh! It’s you again!” The old man that told me the history of the city just smiled warmly, apparently happy to be remembered.

“My, you have a good memory, don’t you? I used to be the same, you know? But now this old noggin isn’t good for much other than history.” He taps his temple with his cane, hitting with what was probably far more force than was really necessary to emphasise his point.

“Right, I guess that makes sense.” I glance back at the statue, but turn back to the man just as quickly.

Noticing my glance, he shakes his head ruefully and speaks up again, “But I suppose you don’t care about that, do you? You’re curious about the statue, hmm?”

Well, I kind of already know why it’s terrible, but I am kinda curious about what other people think about it.

I nod my head quickly, hoping to make my eagerness to know more clear.

“Of course, of course. Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed the armour and the sword, correct?” He doesn’t let me respond before just soldiering on, “Well, it’s completely inaccurate and hardly represents the real Lord Ironhold. He was a mage, through and through, and never wore anything heavier than cloth. And to say he wielded a sword is simply untrue. Honestly, I can’t believe they wasted good iron on something that doesn’t even try to remain accurate to the man himself.” He shook his head ruefully, then began to walk away to sit on a bench a few metres away.

Does he just sit there all day?

“Uhm, well, have a nice day, I guess. See ya later.” I waved politely as I walked away as well.

I found the right path easily enough and, not too long later, made it to what I thought would be the right street.

Huh? Where in the hells is the inn?

Unfortunately, it seemed like I’d somehow gotten lost and ended up on a different street or something. Most of the buildings were actually what I expected to find, mostly inns and general goods stores, but the Haggard Hoarbear was nowhere to be found. There was an enchanted goods store with a pretty similar name, the Hoarbear’s Hoard, but that-

Oh

I walked up to the entrance a little sheepishly, and opened the door.