CHAPTER 37

"That was unexpected," Estelle said after Commander Selb was out of sight in the corridor.

"Seriously, did we just get Patched into a different Realm?" Marcus asked, a laugh in the words. "Did an official of Hellsport just do something decent?"

"I guess even a broken clock is right occasionally," Eugene said. "We should take advantage of that and get on the road."

I whimpered. "I'm still tired. Can't we just go back to bed?"

Marcus nodded. "Of course. We need to go back to the caravansary and collect our gear, so that would be a good place to bag out. We'll want to check on the rest of the group while we're at it."

"The stable burned down," Estelle noted. "We'll need to find another place for Athos to sleep. Maybe the dining hall, on a big pile of blankets?" She looked at me. "How does that sound?"

"Fine. Can we go? Please?"

She glanced at Marcus; he nodded and stood up, collecting his tray. Estelle did the same, taking a moment to stroke my head and neck first. Eugene followed hastily.

o-o-o-o

Daro was more than happy to have us back. The wall of the caravansary had been breached during the fight between the demons and the Councilpeople and Daro was frantic that people would try to loot the place. He even agreed to give our entire group a free night, baths, and a meal in the morning if I would be willing to sleep in the courtyard by the ruined gate. Sleeping on the cobbles had no appeal but he happily made a nest of four feather mattresses, covered me with blankets, and put a trio of braziers around me to keep off the chill. All he cared about was that there be a big, scary-looking wardog guarding the door. I was too tired to care so I said fine and waited impatiently until he had delivered the nest materials. I fell asleep before he had even finished putting the blankets on me. Murray curled up on my head, a surprisingly reassuring weight that made it easier to plummet off.

"Message for Athos! I am here as a messenger! Wake up, please!"

I startled awake and blinked when the sunset threw reddish light in my eyes.

"I have a priority message for Athos from PortalCo Representative #67981492, commonly known as Simon!" the imp said in a voice that was far louder that his size required. "Please acknowledge readiness to receive!"

I yawned and grumbled my way back to my feet. The one good part of all the growing and shrinking I had done yesterd—no, today. The sun was only now setting. Wow, this had been a lousy day. Anyway, the one good part of all the growing and shrinking and nearly dying had been that each time I changed size my body reset itself to my default self image, and apparently my default self image was clean and well-groomed. As a result, I did not need a bath. Which was good, because getting all the demon-ash spackle out of my floofy fur would have taken forever.

"Please acknowledge readiness to receive!" the imp bellowed again.

"Depths, Baratael, keep ya shoit on," Murray grumbled, rubbing his own eyes. "Give a guy a chance ta wake up, eh?"

I blinked a little and studied the messenger. He was a bit larger than Murray, colored more amaranth than my friend, with raked-back bat wings that were far more menacing than Murray's rounded wingplan.

{Go ahead,} I huffed.

"Message begins: Hello, Athos, this is Simon. I'm just checking in to make sure you're all right and to remind you that the route back to your home Realm is only stable for a limited time, so it would be wise to resume your progress as soon as possible. In thanks for your contributions to the city yesterday I have procured a new portal stone for you, and I'll be absorbing the expense. Feel free to drop by when you're ready, but it would be smart to do it sooner rather than later. All the best."

The messenger imp popped out of existence and a speck of flickering red light zoomed away.

{Hrmph.}

"Dat sure was nice ah him," Murray said, an edge to his voice that I didn't have the energy to figure out. "Dose portal stones is expensive."

I didn't bother to respond, preferring instead to grumble off to the dining hall in hopes that the others were up and ready.

They weren't, but Pasha was happy to feed me. The food was nice and she went heavy on the bacon, but I couldn't bring myself to get excited about it. It was all pretty tasteless stuff.

Murray's leg was juddering impatiently and when I was halfway through my meal he burst out, "You want I should go wake dem up, boss?"

{Sure.} It took me a moment to remember to say, {Thank you.}

"No problem, boss." Murray zoomed off, his wings sculling the air rapidly.

He was back in less than five minutes, but it was ten before Marcus and Estelle arrived in the dining hall, dressed in fresh clothes and carrying their packs. They were stinky with sweat, faint traces of fear, and hints of one another. No sex, though. They dropped their packs off next to me with mumbled morning greetings, went over to the kitchen pass to order their food and receive two mugs of hot tea, then came and joined me at the table next to the fireplace.

"What's wrong with you two?" I demanded as they sat down.

They looked surprised. "What do you mean?" Marcus asked.

"You smell weird."

"It's nothing," Marcus said, sipping his tea. "We should figure out what we're doing today."

"Not until you tell me why you smell like that," I demanded. I poked Marcus with one paw. "And don't try to tell me you don't. I'm not noseblind like you dumb humans."

Marcus looked annoyed. "None of your business, Athos. Boundaries."

"But I want to know!"

His face scrunched in anger and he opened his mouth to say something, probably something angry, but Estelle put a hand on his arm.

"Athos," she said, turning to me, "when someone has said they don't want to talk about something, it's polite to let it go unless there's a very good reason to push. Marcus said that this is private. Is there any reason that you need to know what's bothering him, or do you only want to know?"

I thought about that. "Well...no." I wuffled at her a bit. "And it's on you too. You both smell scared and sweaty and like each other."

She nodded and sipped her tea. "And neither of us would like to talk about it. Can you respect that and let it go?"

I glowered at her. "I suppose."

"Thank you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it to Eugene. He'll take the wrong impression and it would be annoying."

I grumbled a little more and went back to my tasteless meal that was not my favorite brand of kibble.

Marcus nodded his thanks to Estelle. "Thanks, Athos. I'm sorry for snapping." He took a thoughtful sip of his tea, then turned one wrist to indicate a topic change. "I'm thinking that—oh, thank you." The interruption was Pasha bringing plates of food for him and Estelle. She set them down and checked if anyone wanted anything, then vanished back into the kitchen.

"I'm thinking that Estelle and I should finish setting up that homeless shelter, and then all of us should get back to Simon and out of the city," Marcus said. "We need to start making progress towards getting you home."

"It's sundown," Estelle noted. "Are things going to be open?"

"Enough of them, probably. The banks are 24/7, so we can fill up the accounts. There's so much dueling going on that most of the arenas are open late, if not all night, so we can get with the owner again. Might get stuck on some of the equipment renters, but we can get the majority of it done."

"You said we shouldn't do the arena again," she reminded him. "Warehouse, you said?"

He nodded, getting caught halfway by a yawn that made her yawn in sympathy. "Right. Yes, thanks. Bank, then warehouses."

"Sounds good." She rubbed her eyes. "This fighting all night and multiple naps through the day thing is going to play merry hob with my sleep schedule."

I grumbled into my bowl.

Marcus saw my disgruntlement and injected extra cheer into his voice to compensate. "So, setting up the plan: Estelle and I go to the bank and deposit funds, then we go to the warehouse district to deal with the homeless shelter, then we spread the word to our ticketholders. Afterwards we head to Simon's place and get back on the path. Athos, you're welcome to come with us on errands if you like, or you can stay here. What's your preference?"

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Hm. I was being asked if I wanted to go walkies or stay home and snooze. Interesting. I didn't usually get the choice.

Before I could ruminate too much, Eugene came through the door, smelling of soap and with wet hair.

"Hey, it's my favorite people!" he said, rolling up to our table and dropping bonelessly into an empty chair. "How's it going?"

"It's—"

"Hey! Can I get a bowl of stew, some bread, and a beer?" Eugene called out to Pasha, who stood on the other side of the kitchen pass. She nodded and stepped out of sight to start working.

Marcus's smile was a bit forced. "Estelle and I are going to finish locking in the homeless shelter. Afterwards, we should all head over to Simon's and get on the path."

"Cool. Glad to see you guys following through on that scam you pulled. Wouldn't want you getting arrested; that tends to be pretty fatal around here."

"Didn't seem to cause you any trouble," Estelle said, calmly sipping her tea. "Granted, we came and bailed you out pretty quickly."

"I didn't actually do anything wrong," Eugene replied. "You guys check kited and scammed a few hundred people out of a quarter of their Spirit."

"No, because we're about to go finalize the shelter and add an extra month on top of what we promised."

"Doesn't change the fact that you cheated them."

"Sure it does," Murray said. "Da law aroun' here says dat if one party ain't satisfied wid how ya delivered on a contract den da wronged party can challenge ya to a duel or pay for a magistrate ta evaluate da situation. If dey don't, dat means dey didn't have no problem wid it. Ain't nobody challenged dese guys to a duel, so dey obviously ain't done nuttin' wrong."

Eugene snorted. "That is such a load of crap."

"What? You gots a problem wid da law?"

"Nah. I'm cool with the fact that the bullshit legal system around here means we don't have to worry about getting these two out of jail, or paying their funeral expenses after they get executed for breach of contract, check kiting, and fraud."

"Keep in mind," Marcus noted, "it's also the reason you were able to buy those Skills and why we are able to get Athos home."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself," Eugene said with a smirk.

Estelle turned to me. "Athos, why don't you come with us? With you along we won't have to worry about getting attacked in the side streets."

"Okay." I wasn't sure if I'd rather be going with them or going back to sleep so I didn't have to be aware of this stupid world for a few hours, but if they needed me then I would go.

"Speaking of us funding your Skills purchases," Marcus said to Eugene, "how about you unlock those Skills for us now? Dimensional Pocket and Defensive Bubble, right?"

"Yeah, we did this already," Eugene replied. "I'll unlock for Athos but you need to unlock that Rare you owe me before I'm giving you anything."

"I don't owe you anything, Eugene. The deal was that I would get you to the lizard. It was your job to get the Skill and you blew it."

"I didn't blow it, you came running in when you weren't supposed to and stole the Skill that I did all the work for. I told you to stay out of it but you had to come get the loot, didn't you?"

A muscle jumped in Marcus's jaw. "First, all of us went in to save your fool ass because you were about to die. Second, I've already told you that I don't have enough Attunement but I'll unlock it for you once I do. Not because I owe you but because it's the decent thing to do. Do us all a favor and don't make me regret that choice."

"Oh, so you're saying that if I'm not super-duper nice to you then you'll go back on your word? Good to know." He snorted. "You'll pardon me if I'm not in a hurry to spend my own Attunement giving you more stuff before you pay what you already agreed to."

"What is it?" I asked, curious and also wanting to derail the argument before it could escalate. "The Skill, I mean."

"Primal Reconstruction," Marcus replied. "It's a regeneration skill that restores both my hit points and mana. It's expensive to activate, it levels slowly, and it has a max level of 100 so it will take a long time to start generating general Attunement that I can use to unlock it for anyone else. I earned a bunch of Attunement fighting all the demons yesterday...today?...whatever." He broke off, covering a yawn with the back of one hand. "Ugh. I hate night fighting. Leaves me groggy for the next day."

The description of the Skill had left Eugene's face stuck somewhere between 'salivating' and 'furious', ending up closer to 'constipated'. Estelle seemed amused.

"Come on," she said, standing up and stacking her dishes. "Looks like we're all finished, and that homeless shelter isn't going to pay for itself."

o-o-o-o

In the end, all four of us went, bringing all our gear with us; Marcus and Estelle wanted me to come along so they didn't get attacked and Eugene didn't want to be left on his own so he insisted on coming. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it proved out to be easier than expected. The biggest problem was the first part; we had to go half a mile west of the caravansary, into a part of the city that had been reduced to rubble by the demon/Councilpeople fight. Fires still smoldered, throwing out thin fogbanks of choking smoke, and residents were picking through the wreckage of their former homes in hopes of finding food, tools, or even a memento of their prior life. We passed a little girl who was sitting on a pile of smashed bricks, bony legs drawn up and arms wrapped tight around them. She rocked back and forth, staring at her scraped knees with wide eyes as, a few yards away, her parents scooped a handful of bent silverware into a bag made from a lightly burned shirt. My heart ached to help her but I had nothing to do and the others weren't stopping.

My friends argued back and forth about which of several different piles of rubble were the relevant landmarks until, with only a few false starts, we managed to find the particular pile of rubble under which they had hidden the three bags of orichalcum we had rescued from the caravansary during the demon attack. Several ruin-diving refugees, all of them gaunt before the destruction had occurred, stared with envious eyes as we dug up our treasure.

I couldn't help but hunch over and tuck my tail in shame as we left. I wasn't sure exactly why I was ashamed, but those eyes lingered in my mind long after their owners were out of sight.

The First Bank of Hellsport was more than happy to accept the orichalcum scales in lieu of actual hellstones, giving us an exchange rate of fifteen hundred stones to the scale. It sounded like a lot to me but the humans were unpleased and Murray was cackling in hilarity. The three bags we had recovered together contained just under two thousand scales, which seemed like an absolutely enormous number to me but apparently it wasn't. Eugene refused to exchange any of his share of the scales at what was clearly an extortionate conversion rate; Marcus and Estelle exchanged ten of theirs and deposited the funds into their account so that there would be money available for the expenses they were about to incur.

From there we wandered over to the bad part of town and found a dilapidated warehouse whose owner, maintenance man, and janitor (all the same person) was still onsite and answering the door. Eugene waited impatiently as Marcus negotiated a deal for a four-month rental at a sharply discounted rate, three days rent due in advance. He smiled and shook the man's hand at the end, but as soon as we were outside his face slipped into anger.

"Not good?" Estelle asked as we all headed off to Simon's store.

"Bastard sensed that I was in a hurry," Marcus replied. "It's fine, but we'll need our share to sell at well better than the bank rate or we're going to be short again."

Murray laughed. "I don't t'ink ya gotta worry about dat. Dose guys was screwin' you right ta da wall. Unbound orichalcum of dat size should be worth five, maybe ten times what dey was offerin'."

Marcus's grumpiness decreased considerably at that news.

o-o-o-o

A few tough-looking men with clubs hanging from their belts watched us consideringly as we crossed through their territory, but they didn't bother uncrossing their arms, much less accosting us. We reached Simon's store with no further issues.

"Ah, you have returned!" he said, smiling that creepifyingly wide and needle-toothed smile that made me want to bite him. (Granted, I also wanted to bite him when he wasn't smiling.) "Did you bring the orichalcum? I have a number of bidders lined up."

"Sure did," Eugene said, plopping his share on the table.

Simon looked at the anemic feedbag and raised one pencil-fine eyebrow. "That is rather less than I recall you having."

Marcus set his and Estelle's share on the table beside Eugene's. "Word got out that we had it, thanks to this dumbass." He juerked a thumb towards Eugene.

"Fuck you, man!" Eugene squared up, his face red and the veins in his neck bulging. Marcus turned to face him, ice in his eyes.

I sat down right next to both of them and cleared my throat. It jolted them out of their anger enough that they each took a step back and a deep breath.

"I see," Simon said. He considered the bags for a moment, then shrugged. "Fortunately, I did not name the precise amount to the bidders, merely stating that it was 'a considerable amount'. This still qualifies. I don't suppose you know where the rest of it might be?"

Marcus shrugged. "Almost certainly with the City Council, unless Gliv's forces got it."

"Ah, so not recoverable. Pity." He pursed demonic lips. "I suppose that accounts for the recent excitement throughout the city. I had suspected, but it's nice to have it confirmed. No matter who may be in possession, I suspect we are not finished seeing the impact of that quantity of metal on the local area."

"There were two more boxes like that one," Eugene noted. "We could go back, pick them up."

"No fucking way," Marcus said. "Security in that place will be through the roof by now. No, we take the partial win and keep moving along the path. Simon, how long to liquidate these?"

Simon glanced at the three flaccid bags on the counter in front of him. "Not more than a day. The bidders are ready to begin and have their assets to hand. Twenty-four hours, thirty-six at the most."

"Cool," Eugene said. "Granted, these guys are going to spend most of their share paying for that homeless shelter scam they cooked up, but it should be enough to keep all of us in food and bed."

"Indeed. Before you depart—wait, I'm assuming you're here to use the door?"

We all nodded.

"Excellent. Before you depart, I took the liberty of acquiring a new portal stone for you. No charge. Consider it an expression of my gratitude at allowing me to run your auction. I do hope you shall return from your next jaunt with treasure equal to the last."

Murray snorted. "Yeah, like dat will happen. Waddya say, old man...billions?"

"Excuse me, imp?"

"Da box. Dat ginormous box stuffed wid shiny, shiny metal. Worth billions, yeah?"

"...Perhaps. Difficult to estimate, and prices are subject to fluctuation, but—"

"Don't be givin' me dat nonsense. It was and ya knows it."

Simon's lamprey mouth pinched in on itself. "You are being remarkably free with your commentary, imp. Too free, perhaps."

"Nah. I signed an advisah deal wid da boss heah." He jerked a tiny thumb towards me. Instead of tongue-lolling I gave my best approximation of a human smile; human smiles involved showing off all my teeth and that was always a lovely thing to do around Simon.

The demon seemed taken aback, whether by Murray's comment or my smile I wasn't sure. "I see...I'm not aware of adviser contracts being available to imps."

"Eh. Dere ain't no rule against it dat nobody evah told me about. He offahed, I accepted. I'm getting paid bank so I don't t'ink da Lowness will object none." He puffed up his itty-bitty chest. "In fact, I t'ink I might ask ta has my review done oily. How many imps ya know dat earns more den a hunnerd Spirit?"

Simon's eyes widened for a moment. "What did you...how...what sort of deal did you make, imp? An adviser contract wouldn't be worth that much."

"Eh. It was ta da boss heah. He's a good guy." He flapped closer so that he could pat me on the head. I tongue-lolled in appreciation, but I didn't slurp him. As tiny as he was there would have been a real danger of either flinging him into the ceiling or choking on him. Also, he still smelled like sulfur, although he didn't reek of it the way Simon did.

Simon studied me for a moment, then looked at Murray, then back at me.

"I suppose he must be. Very well. Are there any supplies you would like me to acquire for you, either before you leave or before you return?"

The humans looked at each other.

"We're good," Marcus said, hefting his pack. "Whatever else we need, we'll take care of it."

"Another of those portal stones," Eugene said. "We aren't going to make it all the way through the path on this run so we're going to use ours up."

"Of course," Simon said, nodding politely. "Same rates as the first?"

Eugene winced but nodded. "Fine. We'll all pay equal shares?" He looked to each of us for an assenting nod before turning back to Simon. "Yeah, do it."

"Excellent." Simon scribbled a note to himself and then gestured towards the door. "In that case, I bid you good fortune."

The counter retracted, the door opened, and we walked once more into adventure.