The air grew colder as the walls seemed to press closer, the jagged edges of stone unyielding against Adam's hands and knees.

"I almost want to become a Puppet just so this doesn't hurt as much," he muttered under his breath. A sharp corner snagged at his sleeve, tearing fabric and grazing skin.

Ferrero moved ahead without pause. His limbs twisted unnaturally as he went, joints dislocating and snapping back into place with a soft, audible pop. "That's the spirit – not far now!" the Duelist called, his cheerfulness serving as an unusual backdrop to the suffocating stone above them.

Adam growled in annoyance and kept walking...though by now he thought 'hiking' to be a more fitting term. His breath was loud in that blue silence, a looping song that rose low and high, then high and low, broken only by the faint rasp of his skin against stone. The smell of damp rock filled his nose, each scrape and cut a quiet reminder of how the Mines tolled its pilgrims in blood.

Their journey through the dark should and would have been infused with pure horror, had it not been so impossibly jovial. At times Adam would hesitate, not knowing where he was, or where their last turn had been – but the Duelist would tap on his back and laugh along, making the trip feel less of a terror and more of an adventure.

Adam even felt vaguely disappointed when they reached their destination sooner than expected. As they exited the pathway, Ferrero stepped aside and swept his arm out, inviting the Painter to gaze upon his homeland.

"Holy shit," Adam let escape, momentarily forgetting the lordly pretense he was trying to carry. "There are so many people here!"

"It pleases me that you call them people," Ferrero said. "Not everyone in the Empire would agree." He was being kind with his words – most wouldn't. "Are you surprised by the Seventh's size?"

Adam nodded, gaping at the city before him.

The Seventh Cave felt closer to a shopping district than its namesake. It was technically still a cave, but the place seemed so supernaturally large that Adam wondered if it was even possible for its ceilings and walls to be so wide and far apart without some sort of magical influence.

Three men could have stood on each other's shoulders without touching the hanging stalactites on the ceiling. Adam could just barely see the cave's walls at the edge of his vision. He couldn't see its horizon, his vision blocked by a number of wooden huts of varying heights, situated beside each other in a zigzagging pattern that tired his eyes like an optical illusion.

"Stay close with me," Ferrero reminded, as they stepped forward into the main district. "I'm sure you understand by now, but it's quite the maze if you aren't used to it."

Adam smiled in silent agreement. His mind wandered to the many Talents he'd seen, some of them capable of reshaping architecture at an incredible pace. Maybe a cave like this could exist somewhere in the world, but this is still too convenient to be a happy accident.

The Grandmaster had moved his people here after their last city was razed by the Dark Captain. He wouldn't have had the time to find a subterranean ecosystem this perfect for hiding an entire civilization.

This was the work of a Talent, no doubt about it. That said, it did look far beyond what Adam had seen of people – beyond even what he'd seen the Ghosts accomplish. Only someone with an Emperor-Ranked Talent could have created a city like this.

Knowing that the creator of the sight before him was the man he needed to best in negotiations sent a chill down Adam's spine. "The Grandmaster must be strong," he remarked.

"Strong enough that he'd likely be able to face the Emperor," replied the Duelist. "Were it not for the Hangmen, I think our Grandmaster would've tried for war a long time ago. But facing the Emperor and the Dark Captain...that is a tough task."

And perhaps one I will have to accomplish, Adam thought. Somehow. "Only three people in the whole world have ever evolved their Talent to the Rank of Emperor. It's interesting to see what each of them did with it. Ciro expanded his Empire and oversaw the slaughter of thousands. The Dark Captain heeds the Crown as if it were the voice of God. And the Grandmaster..."

"The Grandmaster made this," Ferrero finished. "Does it impress you?"

"Aye," said Adam, nodding. "It does."

In some ways, the Seventh Cave felt like a distorted mirror of Penumbria. This particular alcove was the market distract.

Its existence felt like a fragile chaos. Stalls tottered on uneven rock, wares displayed with a care that seemed at odds with their precarious setup. The air hummed with voices, each one layered atop the faint whispers of the Glow, reflecting off the glossy, damp stones around the ceiling.

Adam paused by a stand selling tiny carved figurines, their features etched so finely he wondered if they remembered the hands that made them. It felt alive, and yet... transient.

I know they can't have been hiding in the Mines for that long, but it's as if they've been living here forever. Another thought stabbed at him with uncomfortable sharpness. Or that they've grown accustomed to moving from place to place, forcing themselves to get comfortable quickly...lest nowhere ever feel like home.

Seeing an old man shout 'Apples! Come and buy some – they're fresh!' in a wooden stand that tilted sideways due to the uneven, rocky terrain felt just familiar enough to be unsettling. Like watching a family portrait subtly modified to hide a monster in the background.

"Here you go," Ferrero said, handing the Painter some meat on a skewer. "Traditional Puppet fare. The beef comes from the surface, mind you, but the cooking is unique."

How traditional can it be? How long has Puppet society existed? "Thank you." Adam accepted the meat, pulling the first chunk out with his teeth. "Huh. Tastes damn good. What's the seasoning?"

Ferrero shrugged. Adam was unsurprised that he wasn't the kind of man to take an interest in food, yet still felt annoyed. How could you taste something, like it, and then show no interest in how to replicate its flavor later?

He was about to voice this thought when he heard a sound. Is that...?

Ferrero sat up beside him and let out a low, amused laugh. "Are you surprised?" he asked. "I would have expected that the sight of children playing is quite normal."

"I'm not disputing the norm here, but..." Adam trailed off.

No one was born a Puppet. The very recently deceased – or in rarer cases, the desperate – could undergo the Grandmaster's mysterious process and be reborn, often missing memories of their past life. There being children here meant that...

Ferrero sighed. "Children die too." His voice dropped to a more somber version of itself as he took a bite of his skewer. "And even when they don't, some parents are desperate enough to make them into Puppets instead of letting them fall to the Rot."

Adam opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought better than to share what he thought – that the current state of the world was unjust. That people should never be so poor, so desperate that they'd willingly resort to transforming their children into what they considered monsters.

There was no way to phrase that without it sounding like some form of insult.

But the Duelist read his intention nonetheless, nodding quietly as if Adam had spoken it aloud. "Don't mistake my sadness for self-loathing, Lord Painter. I feel no shame in what I am. But knowing that the surface despises us...how terrified must one need to be in order to join us?"

Adam shook his head. "There has to be a better way. Magic, technology – anything that staves off the Rot. The Empire has managed it somehow."

He could hardly forget one of his first encounters after arriving in the Painted World; a literal goddamn vending machine where one exchanged Orbs for safety from the eldritch darkness that threatened to swallow them whole.

"Emperor Ciro clearly has the means to keep the Rot at bay...and he taxes people for the privilege of not being corrupted into a monster," Adam muttered, biting back a curse. He watched the children playing without a care in the world, noting that nearly all of them had a hasty wooden prosthetic in place of limbs. "I wonder if I can convince him otherwise."

Ferrero barked out a laugh. "He ordered the genocide of my people – I doubt kindness is among his qualities."

"Me too," Adam answered, with no small amount of bitterness.

There was a long, heavy pause.

"This needle is quite tricky to thread, you understand," Ferrero began, his tone uneasy.

Adam turned to face him. "I don't. What needle, and what thread?"

"I want you to see my city and be impressed at our resilience," said the Puppet Duelist. "To marvel at how we have constructed a society, formed our own culture, even whilst attempting to survive annihilation. Yet..."

He interlocked his fingers and rested his chin upon them. "Yet neither do I wish to romanticize our suffering. To make the wanton genocide more palpable whenever bards sing of our beauty. By the Dragons, I wish not for Puppets to be sung of as monsters – but nor do I yearn for a day where this bloodshed is given any meaning beyond the whims of a tyrant who wielded too large of a blade for his sinful hands."

At first, Adam thought there was nothing he could say in response...but that wasn't right. When someone shows their wounds to you, even if you didn't have anything to soothe their pain, the least you could do was to show that you listened and cared.

"I can't even begin to imagine what that feels like," he said, with honesty.

Ferrero laughed weakly. "Hardly blame you for that, my lord! How could you?" He shook his head. "But I do wish there was a way to explain it to others. Maybe then things would be easier."

"Giving a shape to feeling is what art is," came Adam's reply. At his throat was– 'I could make a painting of the Puppets!' yet there it died. It wouldn't have felt right. "I could teach you to paint, if you wanted to. Maybe that would help get those feelings out, in a way."

"Me? Paint?" The Duelist asked, his tone incredulous. "You'd sooner learn how to duel."

"I could learn to duel," Adam fired back, a sudden competitiveness about him. "And you could learn how to paint. It doesn't matter what Talent you were given – I hate that idea, anyway!"

His face twisted into a grimace. "The idea that you can only do something you were born good at is disgusting."

Ferrero held a curious gaze for a long moment. When he finally blinked, it was accompanied by a soft laugh, and a shrug that relaxed his shoulders more than he'd ever shown before. "Very well then, Lord of Paint. I shall take you to my master – and you will learn the basics of dueling."

"Wait, you mean now? Today?" Adam's voice pitched higher with every word. "Seriously?"

"Not quite so immediately. I must show you the rest of the Puppet Mines first." Ferrero grinned, rising to his feet. "But today, yes."

I had meant it more like a...after this war is settled, sort of deal. Then again, Adam was far too used to 'tomorrow' turning into 'never.' He might as well. "Fine. But then I'll teach you to paint, alright?"

"Of course," the Duelist laughed. "And...I appreciate you wanting me to carve out my own feelings rather than describing them for me. However, don't mistake respect for passivity. You are Lord of Penumbria; there is too much power in your hands not to use it."

"I'll use whatever power I have as lord to help Puppets – to help everyone. Art is something else, though. I don't have any special power there."

Ferrero stared at him blankly. "My lord, you can literally trap the souls of people inside your paintings."

"Yeah, yeah!" Adam grunted. "But, come on, you know what I meant!"

"I do," he answered, with evident amusement. "And I will remind you of what you told me aboard the ship, before the Ghost of Waters attacked: Art has power."

Adam winced. He had said something along those lines. "But you said earlier that you didn't want bards to make your suffering more palatable."

The Duelist gave a heavy shrug and a sheepish grin. "As I said earlier, my lord, it is a difficult line to thread."

Adam had no response other than a sigh and a smile of his own. "You got me there." He nodded at the busy market. "So – you have more to show me?"

"Aye, my lord!"

–

It only took fifteen minutes to move to the Eleventh Cavern, yet Adam felt his breath grow ragged with the numerous climbs and descents – without any visible pattern – he had to undertake. By the end of this visit, I'll either be in great shape...or dead.

Deep inside, he realized that he was more worried about his exhaustion than the Grandmaster potentially ordering his execution. He was also too tired to care. "Where...are we now?" he asked, hands on his knees and words coming between ragged breaths.

"The Forge District!" Ferrero proudly exclaimed. "If you ever lose a limb – or just feel like modifying yours – this is the place to go!"

A number of wooden stalls were lined up side-by-side, creating a single corridor through the cavern. Hundreds of people had stopped by them, as if casually deciding whether to buy some new jewelry at a local crafts shop.

Except they were buying new arms. Or if not that, they were sitting on wooden chairs and having their seemingly fleshy limbs opened up, then accessorized in a myriad of unusual ways.

Did I just see a man put a knife inside his shoulder? Adam was about to ask for clarification when he saw a woman flex her mechanical arm, watch it emit a blue light, then flex it again for a greener hue as her friends cheered. Parties must be crazy here.

"If we can't escape what we were born as..." Ferrero trailed off, waiting until Adam met his mischievous eyes. "Might as well have fun with it, eh?"

Only now did Adam consider that Tenver's giant Puppet arm – the one that, when unconstrained by his heavy armor, unfurled into a limb so large it reached the ground – could have been intentional in some fashion.

Then again...he wanted to hide his Puppetry more badly than anyone else. I don't think he would've done that just to fire off giant warbows. "Do you have any unique attachments?" Adam asked.

"Me?" Ferrero's surprise was plain. "My lord, I could never! That would be cheating in a duel."

Adam chose not to engage this logic, accepting that he would never understand it. "Of course."

–

The next place they visited was, blessedly, less exhausting to get to.

"Welcome to the Pool of Memories," Ferrero declared, as if standing on a stage. "Where we dream of our past lives!"

"Really?" Adam's eyebrow shot up as he shifted his neck to peer past the Puppet's shoulder. "I – that's a lot to drop on me all of a sudden. How? I thought that if you lost your memories after becoming a Puppet, then they were gone for good."

Ferrero brushed the back of his head and chuckled awkwardly. "When you ask me to explain it like that...I can offer you no answer, Lord of Paint." He turned to gaze at the water, his eyes sparkling with nostalgia. "I have no idea. But sometimes we receive visions – memories, I like to think, of who we were back then."

This cave was narrower than the last ones. When combined with the large crowds gathering around the pool, it created an oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere. "We picked a bad time to come here," Ferrero apologized, although he didn't hesitate in dragging Adam forward by the arm and pushing through the crowd. "But it will be worth it!"

It'd better be, Adam grumbled. Not a fan of crowds.

When the pair had finally pushed past enough people to get a good view, Adam hesitated. The underground lake was filled with shimmering, phosphorescent water, as if eternally in motion from invisible souls swimming through its gentle glow. But there was no one in the water – you had to make appointments to swim there, Ferrero told him.

No one knows how this works...but it's a part of their lives, Adam marveled. It's only been hours since I stepped off the boat, and I've already witnessed a sight unlike anything on the surface.

And the day was still young.

–

There was so much more than he could comprehend in a single quick overview of the city. Adam knew he would need years to learn everything about this place, and that he would never fully see all of it as a visitor. It was just how life worked.

If his knowledge of the caves was to be eternally incomplete, however, then it wouldn't be because Ferrero didn't try hard enough. The Duelist was dedicated to showing him everything possible – Adam's exhaustion be damned.

He took him to the Cavern of Growth, where towering mushrooms as tall as any tree on the surface, and surrounded by a small forest of plants, emitted a soft, fluorescent glow. How are those growing here? Is that giant fungus working like a substitute sun?

"Nothing like fresh fruit," Ferrero said, smirking as he handed Adam some strange approximation of a coconut. The Painter hesitantly took a bite out of it, thinking, Huh. It's actually not bad.

He took him to the Singing Stones, a cavern colder than any other – and the only one to feature a constant, chilly breeze of wind that sent a chill down his spine from the moment he set foot there. That sound...is it the wind blowing against the rock? It must be. It can't be anything else. But it feels...weird. Different.

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"The Older Puppets tell many a tale of this melody," Ferrero said. "They herald it as the souls of those lost to the Rot, singing from their eternal damnation, warning us not to suffer the same fate."

He took him to the First Hearth, a sort of communal cavern where they were all served food without having to pay a single Orb. It's like a tavern, Adam thought, admiring the wooden tables and seats arranged near a single bar counter.

"Making a living is quite difficult for those of us who can't recall what their Talent is," Ferrero explained. "The Grandmaster thought it better that food be free here – even if it's not the most delicious. It isn't unusual to celebrate and spend time with your friends here...though if you have the Orbs, you'd likely prefer going somewhere that has more unique food and drink."

Adam was practically bursting with curiosity about that, and the Puppet was more than happy to oblige – so much so that sometimes the Painter hadn't even finished thinking of a question before getting an answer.

They soon went to a medical cavern of sorts, whereupon newborn Puppets were given care to acclimatize to their new reality. Afterwards, they headed to a wide, albeit not particularly tall cavern, where Puppets laughed, ordered drinks and...tossed axes at targets?

"It's a hobby," Ferrero explained, almost apologetically.

"No, I get it – I'm fond of axe throwing myself," Adam said quickly. "I just didn't expect the city to have so much...entertainment."

He silently clenched his fist remembering Penumbria – remembering his city. They barely have enough food to last through winter. The Puppets are living much better than them...and they're not just surviving, they're thriving.

As someone who used to be a poor college student sinking into debt, Adam knew the stark difference between the two.

"If it's entertainment you want to see, my lord," Ferrero said, smirking, "then I know just where to take you – the Theater of Echoes!"

Adam could immediately tell that this was where Ferrero had wanted to take him all along. Everything else had been a prelude to not make seem biased towards the place...especially since he clearly was. The Painter would've known that from any amount of ways.

From the posters indicating that the Theater of Echoes was about not only music, plays, and the like, but also swordsmanship – duels took place on the stage here, as well as lessons.

From how the Puppet's eyes beamed with happiness as he flashed his identification, leading Adam through a set of grumpy, armored soldiers.

And most of all, from the man who stood on stage...and the aura surrounding him.

But to speak of the man was to speak of the stage, for they felt one and the same. It would be fairer for a man of his artistic inclinations to describe that hallowed ground before speaking of the first time Adam laid his eyes on the Master of Steel.

The theater itself was both luxurious and rugged, with furniture reminiscent enough of the surface to feel imported rather than local. Always expensive, no matter the country. Rows of tiered, elegant benches stretched out in a semicircular embrace. Each was level carved from the cavern's stone, and each seat was individualized with a set of bright, scarlet velvet-like material that felt plush and unaffected by the moisture surrounding them all. It all glimmered faintly and invitingly.

Such elegance was made for the audience to surround, encompass, and witness the grand stage overlooking the middle – a tall platform of polished, raised obsidian that reflected a soft light to draw the eyes of every man and woman towards the players on-stage. Adam had to force himself to tear his eyes away from the center to look what surrounded the actors, for his brains to understand what his eyes only wanted to marvel at.

Behind the stage, the cavern wall served as a natural backdrop, its surface covered in that strange fungus which illuminated the entirety of the Puppet Mines. The wall itself felt alive, subtly shifting with every movement of the actors, like it drank in the sound and reflected it back in faint whispers.

Adam's mouth hung open for a moment and spoke without his permission. "I wish I could paint it," he muttered.

At first he regretted saying the words – then relaxed upon seeing the gladdened, satisfied look on Ferrero's face. An insistent voice in the back of his mind warned him to look more regal, refined, dignified: You are the Lord of Penumbria. Act like it. Lords can't be seen admiring the works of commoners.

He silenced the voice with fire. I am a painter before I am a lord, he thought, banishing the obligation. I am an artist, and I will admire artistry.

And what artistry it was.

Adam's attention rose upward to the ceiling. Higher than even the tallness of the docks, this one was more beautiful than functional. The walls did not simply reach the ceiling; they curved in impossibly symmetrical beauty, flowing lines of gold and silver trailing along the edges and crevices like constellations shining bright in a night sky.

Do those help with the acoustics of the place? Is it easier to hear the performers even if they're way up top? Is this physics, magic, or some type of Puppet technology?

A soft, gentle breeze touched Adam's face, refreshing yet not cold. It hummed with an energy he couldn't quite place, a reverberation that lived in the stone itself. Every step sang faint echoes, summoning sounds that lingered long past when their memory should have died. As if the theater itself clung on to every sound, every motion, every life that had stood upon it like a proud memory.

"I can almost hear it," Adam found himself whispering. "The sounds of past performances. The applause. The laughter. The crying." It felt so real, so present. He was certain that if he reached out into the air itself, he could grasp the ghosts of a time long past.

And yet, despite everything, despite the stage's mystique and grandeur...it failed to hide the rough edges of the cavern.

All of the technology, all of the magic, all of the effort in the world couldn't hide the bittersweetness that came with having to live so far beneath the surface – so distant from the warm touch of the sun. Not even the Grandmaster's overwhelming might could've erased that burning sensation from them.

But he could.

"Ladies and gentleman," said the man on the stage. "I welcome you to today's performance." His voice was booming, to the point it would have echoed even outside of the Scarlet Theater. "Be silent, and gaze upon my most beautiful work!"

Adam watched as curtains rose, the play unfolding in a silent awe that overshadowed his confusion.

He should have wondered why he found himself so enthralled by the man, so captivated by his mannerisms, or even what kind of play he was about to watch. Instead he merely leaned forward and immersed himself, not wanting to miss a single second.

The man unsheathed his sword. In one scene he danced between opponents, a whirlwind of flashing steel. In another scene he declared his undying love for his wife, baring a soul full of passion.

He was talented in both respects, yet the swordsmanship took Adam's notice moreso than the acting itself. This man was a believable, charismatic performer with the rare gift of being able to make you cheer for him. The audience believed in his every word, regardless of how melodramatic his proclamations may have been.

And they were very over the top.

"Fiends die, devils cry, and my blade takes your heart, foul monster!" the man cried out, dancing his blade around his opponent and disarming them, before parrying a blow from another. "Do you think yourself able to best me? Then mayhaps thou does not think!"

Each absurd, dramatic line was delivered in a tone that should have taken them out of the moment – yet with an earnestness that kept them there regardless. The man believed in his absurdities...and Adam found himself believing in him.

It was only when the play paused for a short intermission that the Painter's thoughts caught up to him. With belated realization, he understood why the man's swordsmanship had felt so astounding.

"That stage fighting..." Adam said. "It isn't really staged fighting, is it?"

Ferrero grinned. "No. It's part of why this play is so exciting. That's a real swordfight, and the plot is decided by how the actors fight. Should the hero lose, we will watch him and his loved ones die. Should he win, we'll see him overcome the monster and save the princess."

Adam lifted an eyebrow. That was a rather novel approach. It made for less choreographed fighting, which meant the audience would have a harder time parsing their movements if sitting in the back rows.

But the very real tension that the hero could lose and fail his quest...it made every ambush feel threatening, every twist that much heavier.

And this sensation only grew stronger as the plot progressed. By the time the play reached its climax, with the heroic Champion having to face an unfair fight against five different duelists clad in white, Adam found himself joining the crowd in crying out, "NO! DODGE!"

It was too late.

The Hero gasped, clutching at his side as blood seeped through his tunic. His sword slipped from his fingers, hitting the stage with a metallic clang. The five duelists surrounded him, their practiced steps forming a deadly promise. Each blade gleamed, their reflections flickering in the stage.

No–! Adam felt a cauldron of frustration and anxiety boiling within. Of all the days – I want to see a happy ending! Come on, that's not, don't do this to me!

"They called you the Sword of the Dragons," the first villain said, circling like a vulture. "But a scion of the gods should not bleed like a man."

The second sneered, pointing his blade at the Champion's chest. "Is this all you have, Dragonblade? A puddle of blood and some broken pride?"

The third chuckled darkly, the chain in his hands spinning furiously, getting faster with every rotation, humming with a sound that promised it would be thrown in his direction at any moment.

Blood trailed from the Hero's side, his breathing shallow yet steady. His grip tightened on nothing, as if preparing to summon more than just his strength.

"They call you Champion," taunted one of the men in white. "Yet it appears that even your brilliance has met its match."

"They call me Champion," said the Hero, "for that is the title my blade has earned in my hometown!"

"If you are truly deserving of the title," said the man in white, "then why do you kneel on the ground, watching evil triumph over you?"

The Man in White's longsword descended–

"It is quite simple," said the Hero calmly. "It is precisely because I am Champion."

–and met the ground.

It happened in the scarcest blink of an eye. The Hero sidestepped the attack with a challenging elegance, making a show of the motion. He watched as the Villain's steel sank into the stage...then placed one foot on it.

Then another.

The Villain lifted his blade high in the air, attempting to free it from beneath the Hero's foot. He succeeded in raising the sword, yet...

"It is because a Champion's duel," he cried out, "MUST–BE–EN–TER–TAIN-ING!"

The Hero stood with both feet on the Villain's sword, his arms wide and his smile earnest, drinking in the crowd's cheers.

"Do you always have to do this shit, Merry Man?!" The Villain swung his blade, attempting to throw him off.

The Hero – no, the Champion – leaped off, flipping mid-air and landing with one knee to the ground, and his sword arm extended towards the empty air by his side. "Aye. Always! For entertainment isn't merely a luxury – it is a necessity!"

All five swordsmen rushed up at once, but the Champion showed no sign of fear. "I ought to let the world think I can lose before proving otherwise, at least." He revealed a smirk at the same time he revealed his lost sword, regained during the last clash. "And now–! My job–! Is–!"

His lips said little else.

His sword's voice thundered across the theatre.

One by one, as if the Champion had been waiting for the deafening cheering from the crowd, each villain fell in a single stroke of his blade.

Immediately, from the depths of his soul, Adam could tell that they'd truly been trying to best him. They weren't purely acting.

But the Champion was. He was acting injured, acting unsure, herding the crowd's emotions to where he wanted before displaying his true skill. None of his dueling was particularly pragmatic – it all felt as choreographed and ludicrous as a regular stage play.

Such was the gap between their ability.

Such was–

"MERRIVALE!" cried the man, bowing to greet the deafening applause as curtains fell. "This world heralds me as the Merry Man, and most known me by Merrivale. I stand today honored to have given you this show."

The theater roared with approval, a cacophony of hands and voices merging into a single, overpowering force. Adam clapped until the sting shot through his palms, a grin carving its way across his face. The sound was too much, too loud, too alive, too strong. He wanted to remain detached from it, to keep his composure until he at least spoke to the Grandmaster. A thousand reasons to help him not care about the story unfolding before him came to mind–

And he burned them all. Adam let the passion wash over him, embracing the moment and forgetting about everything else.

Suddenly, Merrivale closed his hand. The crowd fell silent. For a moment Adam thought this to be some kind of Talent, yet after inspecting himself found nothing of the sort controlling his voice.

"I have three announcements to make."

A hush fell over the crowd. It was the kind of silence that only a mixture of curiosity and anticipation could spawn. Adam didn't need to look around to know every person in the crowd had reacted much like himself; leaning far enough forward as to be slightly hunched, neck raised for their eyes to stay focused on the handsome man on stage.

This silence, he felt, wasn't oppressive – it was electric.

"My first announcement is simple. My dear Puppet Mines!" Merrivale boomed with a sudden loudness. For one long second, he held a strong silence and a stronger gaze. "KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU!"

The crowd erupted into cheers, their applause rolling like a wave through the cavern. Adam felt the sound vibrate in his chest, its energy unrelenting, lifting the air with shared exhilaration. Part of him wanted to question how the hell that qualified as an announcement.

The other part wanted to join in on the cheer.

"My second announcement! Thanks to the efforts of a set of brave warriors – including my disciple Ferrero Acerro – the accursed Ghost of Waters which had damned so many ships has been DESTROYED!"

Adam clapped, rather animatedly too, although his excitement was no match for the rest of the crowd. Little surprise that they would celebrate the death of a Ghost.

He paused mid-clap. Wait...did he just say Ferrero is his apprentice? That–

"And by my count...why, I have one last announcement to give, don't I?"

Merrivale let the silence stretch, his gaze sweeping over the crowd as if savoring their anticipation. He raised a hand, prompting every murmur and whisper to fade away.

"Finally..." he began, his voice low and measured, drawing the words out. "For the third announcement..." He paused again, a small sly smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Merrivale's hand extended, slicing through the air with deliberate grace. His gaze swept past the crowd, honing in on Adam as if the rest of the world had fallen away.

"You," he declared, his voice like thunder.

Before Adam could react, the Swordmaster delivered the lightning. "At the request of my disciple, I will personally train Adam Arcanjo, Lord of Penumbria, the one directly responsible for the slaying of the Ghosts of Flames and Waters!"

Like a thousand swords drawn in unison – and feeling every bit as dangerous – every gaze in the theater fell on Adam.

He gave them a frozen smile, the kind he'd hoped to save for an existential crisis, or before accepting his impending demise. It was the type of smile that said, I'm handling this terribly, but we all agree to pretend otherwise, yes?

Slowly, he turned to look at Ferrero. I'm supposed to keep a low profile! Bragging about killing the Ghost of Waters isn't going to make the Grandmaster like me any more. Adam sent him a wordless gaze, one that was both an explanation and a silent plea for help.

The Duelist responded with a thumbs up and a proud grin. As if he genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with having arranged this – or worse, as if he'd done an actual favor.

Adam's lips tightened as he peered around, glancing at the theatre, then Ferrero, and then finally at the Swordmaster on stage. A hundred concerns stabbed at his soul, a thousand thoughts raced through his mind, and a single, nearly inaudible word left his lips.

"Fuck."