There was a fine art to moving through a crowd. Dalthan likened it to dancing with a partner who couldn’t hear the beats of the music. In the clean, bustling streets of Wavecrest’s financial district, he’d learned the stately waltz of blending in with the people around him. It was all about matching their pace, finding the rhythm of their steps, and being just unassuming enough that they paid no more attention to you than they did to the briny breeze blowing in from the harbor. The steps of that dance let you get close. They let you flow through the crowd as if you belonged, no matter how you looked or how you were dressed.

Once you were close, like a cuckoo’s egg snuggled up against the spotted shell of an unborn robin, the languid waltz melted into a frenzied quickstep. He’d learned the dance of nimble feet and faster hands on the other end of the city. In the grimy alleys outside the dockyards, he’d learned how to read the music of a crowd so that a fast jig could slide him into blindspots. It wasn’t quite as good as vanishing into thin air, but it was close. Close enough that nimble fingers could then liberate the coin purse of an uncultured savage who was deaf to the song of the city.

Though he moved through the crowd with the ease of a prodigal son returning home, Dalthan found no opportunity to replace his stolen pouch. Nearly all of the people around him were dressed in some variation of the white cotton he wore, making them poor marks for an enterprising young thief. The one time he thought he’d singled out a target, a veritable nest of snakes emerged from the willowy woman’s black hood. They’d barely had time to hiss before he was gone. In two beats he’d disappeared back into the crowd to avoid the medusa’s blindfolded gaze.

It was a pointed reminder that, from now on, Dalthan would have to contend with senses that went beyond the ability of the humanoids he was familiar with. It didn’t help that he had a big sign over his head that said [Crook] or [Conman]. If he were lucky, it’d be something more akin to [Dashing Rogue] or [Prince of Thieves]. He’d examine himself at first opportunity, but, for now, he was satisfied at just turning all the nonsense off. He didn’t know how he’d managed to make the titles disappear, but that was only one thing on a long list of things he didn’t understand about this Hub of Evil.

The young thief would have spent more time internally railing about the unfairness of his situation if he hadn’t emerged from the courtyard to find The Hub laid out before him in all its glory. His thoughts, along with his feet, ground to a halt. Much to the vocal displeasure of the people behind him who jostled him roughly as they passed. Dalthan didn’t care. For the moment, he was content to stand like an implacable boulder in the center of a raging river. Even thoughts of his pouch vanished as his emerald eyes swept across the awe-inspiring scenery with wide-eyed wonder.

The Hub looked like the images Dalthan had seen of a volcano’s crater. Except this one appeared to belong to a mountain of cataclysmic proportions. The massive stone bowl had tiers carved into its sides in ever-expanding rings. The brutalist construction of the metropolis gave it the impression of a granite staircase reaching into the sky or, perhaps, an amphitheater sized to accommodate the Gods.

There were no buildings that he could see, aside from the huge coliseum that dominated the ground floor. Instead, there were tunnels cut into the gray stone that seemed to house the people and the businesses of the vibrant city. Even the skies above were filled with activity. A formation of three men, each sitting cross-legged on their own ornate carpet, flew by in a colorful blur. Still higher, Dal could barely make out what looked like a winged lizard gliding through the air. The sight might have instilled within him a fresh dose of fear if he hadn’t been distracted by a scantily clad woman in a black, broad-brimmed hat riding a broom in a sedate circuit around the edges of the crater. Behind her, a bright pink banner snapped in the wind, its large white letters proclaiming ‘Cum to Polly’s Pleasure Palace! <3’.

For a moment, all Dalthan could do was watch the witch wave to the cheering crowd.

“That fucker Zaplixel,” Dal muttered darkly as he watched the witch fly away. He had no idea how much a night at Polly’s might cost but guessed that things weren’t cheap in the most wicked city in the multiverse. His two coins probably wouldn’t buy him a sip of dirty bathwater.

Could be worth asking. You never know.

His head filled with delightful ways to spend his money once it was reclaimed, the rogue chose the right path and turned left onto the wide street that circled The Hub. He was roughly halfway up the city’s slope, giving him a view of the four smaller tiers cut into the stone below him. Amazingly, all of them were as busy, and diverse, as the courtyard he’d just escaped.

As he scanned the crowd for any signs of Zap, Dal quickly noticed the biggest difference between the Mausoleum and the city proper. In the Mausoleum, almost everyone had been dressed in a nondescript white outfit. Out here, those outfits were virtually nonexistent. Everywhere he looked there were mages in shimmering robes or warriors in intimidating suits of armor. Weaponry ranged from colossal hammers to thin rapiers to sharp claws. He saw an orc with a wickedly curved scythe and a dark elf with a spear that made him flinch just from looking at it.

And here he was, dressed in a plain, white outfit that looked like something his grandmother bought him for his birthday. Not that he had a grandmother. At least, not one he’d met. But he’d robbed enough senior citizens to understand the aesthetics of the elderly.

Preoccupied with his less-than-dashing appearance, Dalthan began to peek into shop windows as he strolled down the curved street. Rooms holding every variety of store he could imagine were carved into the gray stone walls. From bakeries and butcher shops to tailors and blacksmiths, Dalthan saw a dizzying array of goods on display. It made him wonder if the other levels of the city were equally business-oriented or if he’d just happened to end up in The Hub’s version of a market district.

Eventually, he grew impatient searching for the perfect clothing store. Instead of wasting more time in the midst of his pursuit of Zaplixel, he tried to step into a tailor’s shop that displayed a few outfits he deemed ‘satisfactory.’ The tailor in question took one look at Dalthan’s white clothes and promptly threw him out. Or tried to.

“Don’t you threaten me!,” Dalthan shouted, shaking his fist at the impeccably dressed dwarf that was herding him toward the open door. “I’ll have you know I’m Neutral Evil! It says so right on my character sheet. Who knows what I’m capable of if you test me!”

The dwarf wore a rather fetching green brocade vest with a red shirt that had ruffles at the end of the long sleeves. He also wore the dour expression of someone who was highly unamused. “Does your sheet also say that you’re a moron? Guards! GUARDS!”

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Dalthan recoiled and reflexively dropped into a crouch to look for an escape route. He was well-practiced at evading arrest. You could call it a product of his career path. But instead of following Rule one of the Rogue’s Handbook and running at the first sign of trouble, he turned back to the dwarf, head cocked in puzzlement.

“You have guards here?” Dalthan asked in a bewildered tone as if the shopkeeper had told him that shit sandwiches were a national delicacy. “Why would a city filled with nothing but bad people need guardsmen? Wouldn’t they arrest everyone?”

The dwarf threw his hands up in the air, “For the love of Ancev, the dregs get worse every year. Of course, we have a city guard. We have a city council, too. Politics is one of the largest sources of corruption in The Hub.”

He nodded toward an approaching ogre that was eagerly bouncing the fat end of a massive club against his open palm. “If you had enough money he would turn a blind eye to our dispute. Or even help you rob me. That’s how things work here.”

Dalthan perked up and reached into his pocket for the two chips Zap had left him.

The brown-eyed dwarf gave the thief a flat look. “You don’t have enough money to out-bribe me,” he said with conviction. “Even if you did, we’re both stuck in The Hub together for the rest of eternity. You want to think long and hard before you start a war with someone.” The dwarf paused for a moment, holding Dalthan’s gaze with a fierce twinkle in his eye. “Unless that someone is a dreg.”

When in doubt, reference the Handbook. It’d served him well ever since his drunk father drowned in the dockyards all those years ago. This particular situation seemed like a perfect example of Rule 1.

Dalthan had already turned to disappear into the crowd when he heard the tailor call out behind him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the dwarf said as he withdrew some sort of gilded timepiece out of the breast pocket of his handsome vest. “They’ll just call in one of the mages on duty and track you down that way. They will find you. You’re better off just letting them take you down to the nearest temple. They’ll fine you a chore. Maybe two. And then you’ll be on your way.”

“What seems to be the problem?” rumbled a new voice that sounded like the ominous crackle of a frozen pond beneath a careless child. The speaker was an ogre in well-oiled red leather armor. His arms were thick as ale casks and his chest was wide as a wagon wheel.

Dalthan immediately began to rethink his decision to abandon Rule one.

“Trespassing and disturbing the peace. The dreg hasn’t learned the rules. Take him down to the temple and let somebody in the clergy teach him.” The dwarf’s voice was crisp and matter of fact as he snapped his timepiece closed and slid it back into his pocket.

“That’s all you’ve got? This ain’t worth my time,” the ogre growled, his scowl exposing the elongated canines that gave his flat face a feral quality.

The dwarf seemed to expect this since he was already reaching into a different pocket of his vest. This time Dalthan caught the twinkle of blood-red chips in the tailor’s open palm. Sudden apprehension rushed through the rogue like moldy cake running through the bowels of a fat man.

“Rough him up a bit,” the dwarf said with a smile as sweet as a black widow’s kiss.

The finely honed survival instincts that he’d developed over the course of his life of crime began to blare a warning in his head.

“Wait,” Dalthan began as the dwarf’s smile sent a chill running down his spine.

Then the ogre’s fist struck his cheek like a runaway wagon filled with gravel.

Dalthan reeled back, his vision growing dark and his knees rubbery. Blind rage ignited in his chest, its incandescent burn enough to stabilize his consciousness. He pivoted toward the ogre like a vengeful god, spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed, “You fuck stick! Do you know who I am? I’m gonna steal your girl and then make you watch while…”

The thief’s words were cut off by a fist the size of a ham hock driving into his solar plexus hard enough to lift his feet from the ground.

Distantly, Dalthan was aware of the Ohhhhh of sympathetic pain murmured by the crowd that had gathered around the sudden act of violence. He would have replied, but he was too busy wheezing for breath. He could only hope it would get easier to breathe after he curled into a fetal position on the cold stone.

“Pay up,” the ogre rumbled as he offered the tailor a threatening look that did wonders for dispersing the crowd.

“Nothing personal, young man,” the dwarf said cheerily as he stepped forward to pass over the bribe. He looked at Dalthan as he spoke, looming over the thief like an impending avalanche. “Get to the temple, do a few chores, and earn some experience milestones. Stop. Being. A Dreg.”

“Experience…milestones?,” Dalthan managed to cough out as he blinked the tears from his eyes. “Experience for what? Being evil?”

The dwarf chuckled while the ogre shifted his feet with impatience. “Yeah,” the tailor said, “something like that.”

“But according to the sheet, I’m already evil,” the rogue said, a hard light glimmering in the depths of his emerald eyes. “Do I get experience for murdering people? That sounds pretty fucking evil to me.”

Oddly, the dwarf and the ogre both drew back as if they’d been slapped. “Are you daft?!,” the dwarf said incredulously. “That’s how the first Hub fell apart. Lord Balerik decided to hand out experience to everyone for randomly killing things. Can you imagine? The whole city fell to anarchy in three days. It was a bloodbath. Now you have to accomplish milestones to get rewarded by the system.”

The tailor shook his head with a chuckle as he turned back toward his shop. “Experience for random slaughter. Can you imagine? What would you even learn that way?”

“Hey,” Dalthan called out as he managed to struggle his way up onto his hands and knees. “That vest and shirt combo…Do you have that in my size? Maybe red over black?”

The thief couldn’t repress the twinkle in his green eyes when the dwarf glanced back over his shoulder. Unfortunately, the dwarf’s words sent his hope crashing down like a sparrow hit with a sling stone. “Kid, if you ever set foot in my shop again, I’m going to cut your balls off and feed them to a tooth fairy. They love nuts almost as much as they enjoy teeth.”

With a shake of his head, the dapper dwarf disappeared into his shop.

“Come on, dreg,” the ogre rumbled, clearly ready to move on with his day. “Time to get you to a priest.”

Dalthan wobbled precariously as he rose to his feet. Once he was steady, he looked up at the ogre, a scowl written across his already swelling face.

“What the fuck is a tooth fairy?”