I haven't known Basen long, but he's told me a lot of stories in the short time we've been together. They're all equally fascinating and ridiculous. I've got to hand it to him—if Basen hadn't found his place as the Guardian of Avennia, he might have been known as a heck of a storyteller.

- Reid Aveno, on the stories of Basen Koh

If you've never been to Urish, there are two important assertions that everyone in the city is aware of: the emperor sees all, and the emperor does not suffer criminals in his city. The astute among us may notice the failings of those statements. I would not contest the ability of the emperor to see everything within his city, the fact that I don't believe he bothers notwithstanding. The failure of that statement is the implication. The emperor might see all, but he does not know all. If the emperor doesn't know all, then it follows that he naturally suffers criminals in his holy city every day.

At the time of this story, I was a young man who was probably more full of himself than he had any right to be. Picture lustrous golden hair, discerning eyes, and a competent wardrobe all rolled up with the confident swagger of youth and the heady feeling of power. At twenty-eight years old, I should have been more mature. Of course, people still accuse me of acting like a child, so perhaps it is no surprise that the me of years bygone suffered from a deficiency in maturity.

Mature or not, I had come to the conclusion that my presence in Urish would be tolerated by their mortal God.

I arrived on a late spring night. The walls of Urish were high, and the gate was tightly controlled. Torches every hundred feet illuminated the length of the wall, giving it an imposing cast. I had traveled with a small caravan, as the wise are wont to do, so my arrival was unremarkable. A single story among many.

"Name, reason for visit, and any magical items?" the gate guard asked. He and his fellows were an imposing sort. Every one of them held a spear decorated with an imitation of the Eye of God, the God Emperor's legendary nine star artifact. The emperor watches you, so you had best behave, those imitations said.

"Basen Koh. I'm here to trade. I have brought several magical items with me to do so."

The guard looked me over, unimpressed. "Not an apprentice to another merchant?"

I must have looked even younger than I was in the dim light. At this point, I was at least five years older than a typical apprentice in Urish, and my master was long behind me. The guards didn't need to know my master had been a mage, not a merchant.

"No, sir. Still new to the trade, but I apprenticed for the requisite years."

"You started young."

"Not as young as some," I hedged.

"Alright. Let's see what you're bringing."

The guard brought me to a side table to go over my belongings. I was traveling with traders, so most had or were going through the same process.

I was fortunate enough to be traveling light. I dumped out my bag onto the table, tossed it aside, and presented my small inventory.

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Lesser Shackles

These shackles can be opened with a thought by the one who has bound them.

Magic Brick

This brick can be duplicated by expending fortitude. Duplicates are mundane but permanent creations.

Lesser Ring of Darksight

Grants the ability to see in low light conditions.

Trowel

Mundane Tool

Transference Disks

After binding, when the disks are placed on the ground within 100 feet of each other, the binder can step between their locations once every five minutes without restriction.

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The items didn't take up much space on the table, and with a kick, I placed my right boot on the examination surface as well.

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Lesser Boots of Endurance

Running and walking are less tiring.

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The guard looked unimpressed by my items, only favoring the Darksight ring with a slight nod as he picked through and identified them.

"Well, nothing dangerous or exceedingly valuable. Just make sure to report your sales and pay the tax. It's not an overly burdensome tax, but it is required. You are welcome in Urish, but do not forget," the man touched the haft of his weapon near the decorative stone, which was inlaid with other minerals to look like an open eye. "The emperor is watching."

"Praise to his name," I replied, earning me more than one nod from members of the nearby guard.

"Smart lad. On you go."

My plan was, admittedly, only slightly better thought out than the time I tried to sell all those leftover poisonous cookies. The end result was to be the same, though—I needed to get arrested. Just not before laying down some groundwork on the street.

Travelers hailing from Urish often describe their city as utopian. Streets paved with gold. A place where no one goes hungry. The safest city in the world. A society where the leaders care, the people are happy, and the rest of the world could learn from their example. In some ways, they're right. You won't find beggars on the street, and those streets, while not literally made of gold, are clean and orderly. The people are taken care of, and while criminals might be suffered far more often than the city would like to admit, actual crime is virtually non-existent. The problem is how they arrive at these outcomes. The people who run the day to day operations of the city don't care, and the people aren't happy. City officials care about maintaining the status quo where they're on top and everyone else is beneath them. They care about maintaining an image above all else. If they need to impose strict penalties, coerce people by threatening their way of life, and constantly remind the populace that their God Emperor will know if they stick a toe out of line? Well, then, those aren't people free to live their lives. Those aren't people choosing to do what makes them happy. Those are hostages.

I can be something of an idealist at times. The freedom of so many is worth more to me than the stability of one city. Fortunately, at the time, I was not interested in liberating the people of Urish, nor was I actually crazy enough to attempt it. I could also be accused of painting a rather dramatic picture. The city, for its flaws, was stable, and enough people were happy that there was no danger of any sort of rebellion. Still, I note all these things to paint the picture of the world beneath the surface. The hidden side of Urish where I was going to get help.

My first stop was an unremarkable inn on the back side of the city. I'd been told by some of my sources in the city that it was a frequent haunt for one of the more resourceful groups that skirted the line between criminality and industriousness.

From a geographic point of view, Urish is divided into three main areas: the outer ring, the inner circle, and the Emperor's Palace at the center of the inner circle. Urish has a type of caste system, and unimportant visitors like myself were relegated to a modified version of the lower caste. I would only be allowed in the inner circle during daylight hours.

My plans were mostly unaffected by the condition. The one exception was that in order to get to the slums, I needed to walk around the entire outer ring of Urish instead of crossing through the inner circle. By the time I reached the inn, it was well past midnight, and I was doubly glad to have decided to bring my walking boots with me on the journey.

The exterior of the inn, like the rest of the slums, was just as clean and orderly as any other place in the city. The atmosphere as I approached the building was dour. The people I saw in the slums were fed and kept busy, but they were almost all broken. They walked with heads down and eyes unfocused. Not happy, but was being unhappy something to complain about when you had a roof over your head and food for your family?

The transition between these two spaces is not something I have the capacity to describe. The degree to which it jarred me is something that I won't ever forget, despite the excitement of the following days. On one side of the inn's door were people who moved through life as soulless drones, guided by those who told them what to do. On the other side were people with individuality who lived their lives as they wanted.

I pushed open the door and was greeted by yells, jeering, and the overwhelming smell of stale beer. My eyes adjusted to the flickering light of the oil lamps that lined the room, allowing me to see the brawl that was in progress. A man noticed me standing with the door open and jumped past me, slamming it shut.

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"You want the guard in here, boy? Hmph, kids."

The man disregarded me, turning back to the fight.

Two big men circled each other at the center of the tap room, near the open fire. Tables and chairs had been pulled back, with most people on their feet yelling at the men.

"Hit 'im, Jerris! He's got a glass jaw!"

"Come on, Faud. I've got twenty silver riding on your sorry ass!"

It appeared this wasn't some random bar brawl but rather an organized competition with bets and willing participants. Laughs, smiles, camaraderie, and competition filled the space.

The barman spotted a fresh face and waved me over.

"If you're looking to eat, it'll be a while."

I was quite hungry. I glanced around and saw that even with some tables pushed over and a decent crowd in the room, there were empty seats where I might sit down for a meal.

"Faud is our cook," the barman finished, pointing at the man as he took a solid blow to the side of his face.

"Ah," I winced. "Is he going to be able to work after this?"

"Don't listen to the idiots shouting, Faud's a tough bastard. He'll be right as rain after he cleans the floor with Jerris."

Another look back at the fight told me that Faud was indeed a tough nut to crack. He had a solid defense and could take hits, but his strikes were slow. I could feel the barman taking my measure. For all my youthful faults, easily conned wasn't one of them. My master had made sure of that.

"Wow. Yeah, I don't think I could handle those kinds of hits," I said.

"Not many can, not like Faud. Hey, since you're new, I'll let you get in on this—if you want. Betting normally closes when the fight starts. This could be a little welcome bet. What do you say?"

The fight was still in testing blows, and Faud got a lucky shot on Jerris, making the other man stumble. The timing was perfect. The barman couldn't resist sweetening the deal.

"Plus, I'll waive the house commission on this round if you win."

"Wow, that's generous. Sure. I have...ten silver?"

I held up the coins.

"Ten silver on Faud? You got it."

I pulled the coins out of his reach, slapping them onto the bar with a grin.

"Actually, I do like an underdog. Ten on Jerris."

The barman looked at me for a second and laughed, sweeping the coin into a pouch.

"You got me, kid. You want a drink? That food's really going to be a while."

I ordered a mug of the cheapest thing on tap and sat down to watch. The fighters had absolutely no concept of footwork. They were clumsy, slow, and couldn't put the power they clearly had into their strikes effectively. For Faud, this was his weakness. He was bigger and likely stronger than Jerris and could probably take a longer beating, but his poor technique meant that he wasn't hitting any harder than the smaller man. That, coupled with Jerris' advantage in speed, meant the fight was already over.

Time proved my intuition correct, with Faud finally taking one more hit to the chin. He stumbled with unfocused eyes for a moment, then lost his balance and fell to a knee. He waived Jerris off.

"Alright, alright. You got me, you slippery piece of shit."

A chorus of cheers and even more boos filled the inn. One man sitting alone at a table was smiling and shaking his head, not even looking at the fight but instead flipping through papers. He caught my attention, not because of how he acted, but because of how the other patrons acted around him. He was given a wide berth, and even though his table was slightly inside the cleared circle, no one had moved it.

Being treated like that in a place like this meant he was likely the kind of person I needed to talk to. The fighting seemed to be done for the evening, and the patrons rearranged the tables to their liking, dragging them into place and gossiping about the fight and their wins and losses. In the chaos, the man looking through papers didn't immediately notice a visitor sitting at his table.

He looked up sharply and met my eyes.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Someone who needs something done."

"Brothel is three doors down on the left. Knock three times and tell 'em, Hav sent you. They won't give you a discount, but the kickback should pay for you wasting my time. Now fuck off."

Hav looked back down at his papers. They were documents outlining property tax payments for a specific section of the inner circle. The information would have been hard to obtain in Urish. His having them meant he was exactly the sort of person I was hoping to run into.

"You seem like a man who hears and knows about everything happening in this city. Am I wrong?"

"What you are is trying my patience."

Two bulky men who had been staying on the periphery of the room worked their way behind me. They walked with the grace of men who actually knew how to fight. The message was clear. I could leave immediately, or I could say one more thing. If Hav didn't like it, I'd probably wake up in an alley with a broken leg. Some rational part of me thought that might have actually been the best outcome. If things went wrong, a broken leg would be the best I could hope for.

"Fair enough, straight to the point. Someone in the Urish government has found a buyer for the emperor's second eye."

Hav stopped flipping through papers. He didn't look up.

Meaty hands fell onto my shoulders.

"Wait," Hav said.

The hands pulled back.

Hav looked up, his eyes narrowed.

"How the hell do you know about that?"

"The same way you got a list of inner circle tax payments for the last five years."

"Fat chance of that, but you have my attention now. Rent the suite from the barman and go to bed."

I plastered a sour look onto my face and stood immediately, leaving the table. The two bodyguards had returned to random places in the room. They glanced around constantly, with many looks sent in my direction. The rest of the bar was either ignoring the fact that Hav had just had a conversation with me, or they were oblivious.

"You did well for yourself tonight," the barman said. "Two to one odds on Jerris. As promised, the full winnings, twenty silver."

He slid the coins across the bar, and then I pushed them back toward him. "I think I'm going to turn in for the night, actually. Is the suite available?"

The barman cocked an eyebrow and glanced in Hav's direction, but he didn't say anything about it. He swept the coins back into his pouch and fished a key off a hook on the wall.

"Up the stairs, end of the hall."

The stairs were somewhat hidden from the rest of the taproom, so no one saw me heading up. The hallway was empty and amazingly quiet, given how much noise the drunk patrons were making. The room at the end of the hall was unadorned. The key clicked in the lock, and I found myself in a reasonably nice room. What it wasn't was a suite. It was just a room. The code word probably meant something for someone, but I didn't know what might have changed.

Hav said to go to bed, so I checked there first. Under the pillow, there was a hastily scrawled note.

Make sure your door is locked. Slide fireplace grate out and open hatch. Head down immediately.

I followed the instructions. The cold fireplace had only a dusting of ash, just enough to obscure that it hid a trap door. I found a ladder leading down inside the secret door. I descended one, two, three floors worth of distance.

It was pitch black when I reached the bottom, the single lamp from the room above barely visible so far down. I pulled out my ring of Darksight and slipped it on. I had avoided wearing it while out and about. People are much less likely to try to steal from you when they don't know you're carrying a magic ring.

The passage before me was built from stone blocks into a rough arch. It extended a dozen yards straight ahead before the darkness overwhelmed my limited Darksight. I hadn't bound the ring, so the effect was helpful but not perfect.

After feeling my way down half the visible tunnel, a light flared around a corner ahead, allowing me to see once more.

The tunnel turned the corner before ending at a small dome shaped room with a round table. Hav sat at it, and one of his guards leaned against the wall. A woman I had not seen at the inn sat next to Hav. She wore dark leather and cleaned her fingernails with a dagger.

The guard shut the door behind me when I stepped in, lowering a crossbeam into place.

"Sit," Hav said, studying me.

"What's this about, Hav? I was just about to hit the inner circle," the woman said. I didn't know her, but I didn't think she sounded angry.

"This kid sat down at my table tonight and said some concerning things."

"That's all? Maybe stop sending random people to the dirtiest brothel in the slums if you don't want complaints," she laughed and looked me over. "Should have sent him my way; he looks like he might be fun."

I smiled. I was in Urish for business, and business requires professionalism, but it's important to take compliments wherever you can get them. I took off my bag and sat at the table, looking up to see Hav's exaggerated eye roll.

"Keep it in your pants, Teri. What's your name, kid?"

"Basen Koh, at your service. I'm not a kid but rather a member in good standing of the Royal Avennish Merchant's Guild."

Of course, I was no such thing.

"You're a merchant? What are you selling? Doesn't look like you have much in that bag," Teri said. It was the same tone as before. Curious, maybe.

"I'm not in the city to sell anything. I'm here to acquire something."

Hav made a strangled noise and started coughing. Teri looked between her sputtering companion and me.

"You're shitting me, right?" Hav said.

"I'm missing something here. What are you trying to 'acquire?'" Teri said, mocking my formality.

"This guy sits down at my table and says that someone in Urish isn't just looking but has found a buyer for the emperor's second eye."

Teri was clearly trying to figure out what that was, a calculating expression on her face. "The emperor's second eye? What's that?"

"The second eye, Teri!"

"Saying it louder doesn't help, Hav."

"The emperor's first eye is, of course, the Eye of God," I said.

"Right. What's his second eye. I've never heard of it."

"Curious. You've lived in Urish your whole life?"

"Yep."

"Well," I continued, ignoring the irregularity, "the second eye is said to be the seven or eight star item that the emperor used to bind his people together and found the Urish Empire. There are historical records of it from the empire's early days, as well as histories from other nations. Some don't think it's real, but there is distinct evidence that the emperor came into possession of the Eye of God nearly a decade into his reign. It wasn't for another fifty years that the first accounts proclaiming him as the God Emperor of Urish began spreading."

"Okay, so the emperor has two eyes. That makes sense. Why would he sell it? It doesn't seem like something the emperor would do."

Hav cleared his throat, his incredulity back under control. "I think what our new acquaintance is trying to say is that someone is trying to sell the eye, and the emperor doesn't know."

"Precisely."

"But he sees all. Also, it's his eye, isn't it? How would he not know if someone took it? Couldn't he just call it back?"

"That's the thing," I said, excited. "He can't. It's not bound to him anymore. The highest known potential is twelve stars. If he somehow had thirteen, he'd still only be able to bind a four star in addition to the Eye of God. Nowhere close to keeping both eyes."

"And someone's selling it," Teri followed.

"That's the rumor," I said.

"And this idiot wants to steal it," Hav said.

"If what I've heard is true, it's already stolen. I'll just be...transferring possession of some illicit goods."

Teri flopped back into her chair and blew out her breath. "Even if I believe all that, what the hell are you going to do with a seven star item? You can't sell it."

I replied with a noncommittal shrug. "I have plans, but those are my business."

"And what of the rest of it," Hav said. "Is that our business?"

"It could be."

Hav and Teri shared a long look. Teri broke eye contact first and turned to me. "You rich already? It don't matter what the hell comes out of your mouth next—it's going to be expensive, conditional, and paid up front."

"Hold on!" Hav said. "We're not even entertaining the idea of helping until you tell us what you actually have in mind."

I reached down and hauled up my bag. "First off, let me assure you that I am, in fact, quite wealthy."

Slipping open the concealed bottom pocket of my bag, I allowed a pile of gold coins to spill onto the table. The advantage of dramatically dumping out your bag in front of the guards is that they never want to take a peek inside your "empty" bag afterward.

"Two hundred gold up front. It was all I could carry into the city without notice and without dying from exhaustion."

Teri was looking at the gold with wide eyes. It wasn't a fortune, but it was close. Hav rubbed his chin.

"And the plan?"

"That's what the rest of this stuff is for."

I dramatically dumped out my bag once more, revealing everything I brought with.

At the collection of random items, Hav and Teri looked decidedly less impressed.

"Looks like a lot of junk."

"That's the idea."