On his way up the stairs from the basement to street level, steeper than he recalled, he did his best to scrub off some of the flecks of his stomach lining from his clothes.

"I'm gonna have to burn these soon." Ulric said, picking at the soiled robe and the undershirt that was more him than not.

Once fine, they were now a stained ruin growing ragged at the hems. Perhaps he should acquire new garments. It actually wasn't a bad idea. He was filthy enough to be difficult to distinguish from many of the locals in this ragged little slum but it was a little like rolling in shit to blend in with the pigs. A set of clothes to blend in amongst the townies of the first and second tiers was a good call. He didn't necessarily need to appear too poverty-stricken, just plainer than a bagel with no cream cheese.

The brothel was, under the full light of the Twins, a spectacle of the failure of Bartala to offer protection to all of its citizens. All cities have their underbellies, the populated by the ones who fell through the cracks. As usual that fall tended to be longer and its landing harder on the most vulnerable. He was waved in by the massive brute who guarded the front door and received a friendly pat on the back as he went by.

Tully didn't speak, had some kind of brain damage near as Ulric could tell that had never been healed. He'd done tough guy shit ever since and liked to lift weights. Ulric skipped the gate fee by doing more pushups and squats than Tully could. Sweet guy, as long as you didn't get too handsy, rough, or try to skip a bill. Since Ulric didn't do any of that, Tully figured Ulric was a sweet guy too.

Inside the run-down three-story building were girls of all ages. Like, all of them. Most didn't work the main attraction, so to speak, they were blowbys of the working girls, kept inside to do odd jobs and off the dangerous streets. The boy children got used to muck stalls, to clean and handle nightsoil, and to be sent on delivery runs. Those who didn't want to do that roamed the streets in small gangs that would converge on you like piranha if they smelled blood. Contraception and birth control were known and employed, both magical and mundane. There was a slight catch though, you had to have it available and you have to be able to afford it. When you live in a place like this, you don't have the kind of coin to access that sort of privilege.

A cute thirty-something with blond hair greeted him at the desk. Her eyes were flinty and sharp when the door opened but softened when she recognized the patron to be one of the harmless ones.

"Welcome Mr. Deertay," she said, almost genuinely warmly, "Should I escort you to Alowan again? She was occupied earlier, but the client only paid for the hour and time has long since passed. I'll take you on up."

Ulric gave her a polite wave and indicated himself wryly, "It has been a long…everything, I think. Please do."

Grabbing a key off the peg wall behind her she gestured him to follow, telling him in her curt but not mean soprano "Come along then."

In a just world, Elmry would have sung opera. Instead, she worked the desk and, sometimes, the sheets of a Brothel in a slum that would make those horror stories pre-collapse proud. There was no justice, but what men made. By extension, that made the cruelty they chose to make instead that much more demeaning. Ulric couldn't fix the world. But he could try to leave it just slightly better wherever he found himself. Even if that was just by showing kindness to those who deserved it.

Elmry worked the key in the low-quality lock, having to rattle it several times to get it to unlatch. She eventually won the battle and knocked thrice, the common notification that a John was at the door. She nodded and smiled, not faking it as she normally would have, and returned to her post.

The door opened and Ulric saw the pretty brown-haired girl of some indeterminate early adulthood age whom he'd visited for his baths. Her light evening gown, sheer linen of barely passable manufacture, was clearly donned in a hurry. Alowan's soft cherubic cheeks sported several fresh bruises and the pale skin of her neck was marred by livid choking marks. Her delicate nose had flakes of dried blood under it too. The set of her legs, hesitant and stiff said worse had been done to her. The fear and hurt in her face were more than enough to complete the story.

Ahhh. Here I go killing again.

Ulric reached out slowly and gently cupped her chin. He turned her face to each side, so that he could take full measure of the beating. The girl must have seen something in his face because she didn't flinch or struggle.

"Alowan. What does he look like?" Ulric asked.

She shook her head and a fearful instinctive flick of her eyes behind her told him that he wasn't going to have to look very hard. Good. He was tired and just not much feeling the mood for running around the slums going door to door for this asshole.

Ulric nodded and gently took the girl by the arm, guiding her out into the hall. He stepped into the room and closed the door as he heard slurred profanity issue from the bedroom.

Alowan heard the threatening bellow of "Whore! Where'd you get your smart-lipped little cu- Who the fuck are you?"

There was some rustling and then nothing that she could hear. She rubbed her arm where the hairs had raised for a moment and then fallen. The door opened and Ulric shook his head, feigning regret.

"Terrible luck. I'm afraid the poor man has had a heart attack. Dropped right there." He said snapping his fingers lightly, not noticing the small spark that darted away as he did.

"Inexplicable really. You stay right there Alowan, I'll bring him out and put him where he belongs, just a moment." He said, going back inside for a brief moment.

Ulric came out dragging the dead John by the hair of his head without effort and out of the brothel's front door before he casually slung the corpse into the street over Tully's head to pitch halfway across a gutter.

"Ein jeder kehr’ vor seiner Tür, und rein ist jedes Stadtquartier."

It all starts at home. If you can't even clean the mess under your feet, what complaint can you lodge against your neighbor or community at large? Some piece of dead garbage that had a habit of hurting women who couldn't fight back is allowed to do as they please? Dispose of it.

Tully smiled and waved at him and he returned the wave to the man. A good man to have around was Tully. He'd have pulled that fuck's arms out of his sockets and drowned him in the piss pools in that gutter. Alas, Ulric was too tired to fuck around with such amusing diversions. What he needed was to soak and try to get his head right for a simultaneous demolition of the port and execution of Bartala's Baron for his complicity in subjugating the people of this city to Prosper's will. To lead is to be responsible. Varrock's murder lay squarely on a Baron who allowed that scorpion-souled creature to move freely and act with impunity within his walls. If he didn't want to accept responsibility, then he shouldn't have taken the job. With the good, also comes the bad, and them's just the breaks.

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Ulric gave Elmry a reassuring nod as he went by and the girl smiled, though she seemed a touch nervous. He wasn't sure why, the problem was taken care of, and with as little fuss as possible. People died suddenly of heart issues all the time. It would be virtually impossible to definitively state that Ulric had killed the nameless canker with a brief pulse of Ceraun across the electrical meridians of the heart. Which is what he had, in fact, done.

When he returned to the room, he found a tub filled with water, steaming at that heavenly temperature just short of being painful. Alowan was already in the tub and wearing much less than she had been when he'd left with the trash in tow, which hadn't been all that much to begin with. She was a lovely lass was she, and he wished he knew how to heal to ease her discomfort. It was a shame he was happily married and his terrific spouse so far away. He was relatively certain Taipan would have enjoyed teaching the girl a few things about the carnal arts. He was absolutely certain he would have enjoyed helping.

"I am sorry about the trouble, Alowan." He said regretfully, without increasing the indignity by being specific, "I find my patience stretched thin. If anyone causes you pain, and I am around, you may tell me and I will be glad to see them rendered inert." He told the lovely Valin girl in the tub.

Her frail smile said she heard and understood, even if that was no guarantee of anything. He would, but he wouldn't be around forever and they both knew it. She was a sharp card player and a nice girl, overall. Most of them were nice, in their own ways, that he'd seen. Life could be brutally hard and not even the slightest bit fair and these lasses dared the tossing seas with a brave heart. Histories often spoke of the oldest profession but he'd not had any encounters with those who made of their own bodies, and dignity, their product. Greater respect for them he had than for many who would look down on them. When they had nothing else, they still fought their way up to personal agency, rather than servitude. It was a courage he doubted he possessed himself in their places.

More and more, Ulric was convinced that the best of humanity seemed to lie at the bottom of its hierarchies. The farther a man or woman climbed, it seemed, the faster their soul eroded into a vessel for their own monstrous ambitions. Bald'rt Iriel was a rare creature, who wielded his power for love of his people, not for his own aggrandizement. He had attracted mates who held the same disposition, and they had raised their offspring to be as their image.

Those musings occupied him while he removed his clothes, intent on bringing them with him to the tub to be soaped and at least moderately cleaned.

He slid into the tub with a quiet "Hooooh boy" of contentment. Immediately he leaned his face against the wood and breathed deep, hoping he didn't fall asleep before he managed to clean himself and his clothes properly. The lingering effects of the three-day marathon had not yet completely left him.

Smooth skin pressed against his back, the warmth of another's touch that he hadn't felt since leaving the Legranel some two months prior. Two months of slogging through the wilderness. Two months of contemplation for all the lessons of destruction his species had to offer, the creation of arcane weapons, and the execution of guerilla war.

Lamenting at the necessity, the Reforged man wished so hard that things hadn't turned out this way. All he wanted was to be allowed to live in peace, explore the philosophy and science of mana, and to create a home where his needs were satisfied and he might cultivate a paradise of his own design in his free time. His wishes meant nothing. The desire of the Orlethrem to preserve the quiet sanctity of their lands meant nothing. The hope for a future full of freedom possessed by Varrock's and Harlan's Clans, exiled to the wastes and brittle reaches, meant nothing. Not when existed a force that sought to turn those wishes to ash for its own gain. It had to be destroyed. Root and stem, he had to destroy Prosper's power over these lands.

Fuck man, Ulric reflected. When had this little adventure of his gotten so damned grim?

Probably right around the time he was nearly eaten by a near-dead monster that had ravaged a large portion of the continent for a couple of thousand years. Everything after that was just a slow ramp up to his being able to see the spots of rot besmirching the gem that was Varda's glorious sphere. If it was a sphere, not some kind of dome on the back of a cosmic turtle or some bizarre shit.

Two slightly firmer bits of humanity, atop wonderful softness, squeezed against his flesh, and dainty hands began to stroke his back and shoulders and he figured that he needed to set some boundaries. Gently. Recent history had not been kind to this young woman, and the last thing she needed was Ulric's nearly autistic failure to express himself appropriately to add to her troubles.

How do you tell a girl who sells herself that you aren't interested in the one thing that she has that has ever been considered by others to have value in this world? And he wasn't. Not because of her profession or anything. It simply boiled down to he was too damned tired and missed his Taipan too much to enjoy intimacy without her. But how to say it right?

Fucking carefully, that's how, you goober, Ulric scoffed. And be nice about it.

"Just so you know," He said slowly with as much kindness as he could manage, "I have a wife who I miss dearly and have been away from for longer than I like. I haven't indulged in your touch because the reminder of her absence pains."

He heard the quiet voice behind him whisper just shy of being hurt, "Then you would like me to stop?"

Damn it. How was he supposed to react to that?

Honestly, Ulric decided, taking the hands in his own and turning to pat her head softly.

"No, I really wouldn't." Ulric admitted with a slight smile, "I would enjoy your touch, which I have sorely lacked, and I would savor every minute of it throughout the act, seeking to please you and ease your pains, while you please me and ease my own. And, later, I would find no small amount of regret that I might be spending my time with another while she who carries my bond lies cold in her own bed."

The slight tug of sadness in the blackening eyes of the young woman brightened somewhat.

"I see. Then you do not prefer men, or find me, especially now, less than you wish?" She asked, searching for, something.

Validation? Acceptance? Respect? Maybe a little of all of them.

Ulric gave her another pat before leaning back to lay his arms over the sides of the tub, somewhat more comfortable with the crowded space than before.

"Not in the slightest, Alowan. You are, as always, a fine companion and an able competitor at cards. Your other charms are many and would suit me greatly at another date. Just right now though? I need to be clean and to ease the knots in my mind before I finish a project of great delicacy." He told her without hesitation, hopeful that he'd managed to thread the needle.

Cheeks puffed slightly as she pouted, and she winced slightly at the habitual gesture.

"Poof. I was hoping I would get to feel you beneath me. Mysteries don't come to the city's dregs very often and I wanted to unwrap yours." Complained the prostitute.

Ulric couldn't help a grin at that mischievousness.

"Too bad lass, this is as unwrapped as you'll find me." He told her gently, refusing to give her misconceptions or the cowardice of a kind lie.

She leaned back as well, which was a pleasing sight for his sore eyes.

"Are you leaving after this? Bartala, I mean." the inquisitive woman asked.

Ulric thought about it for a second. He could finish the refinement of the explosive charges within three or four hours. It would take at least another three or four to set them at the positions he had planned, assuming he could remain unhindered. There would be some swimming involved, but he was confident that it would prove little obstacle. Then he would need to break into the Baron's residence or office or throne room or wherever the fuck he sat ignoring his people's needs. Call it two hours to do that, and another fifteen or so seconds to liberate the Baron from his mortal coil.

So…ten hours on the outside to complete his objectives within the city and see it punished for murdering Varrock. It was already past Midsunsrise, his seventy-five-hour marathon having cost him too much sleep. Normally, only four or five hours were sufficient on every thirty-hour day but, at this moment, he was in that place beyond tired. What with final preparations and the rough timeline, that would mean it would be well into the dark when he was done, which was when he wanted to be leaving the city. Surprisingly, yes, that meant today would, if nothing got in the way, be his last day in Bartala.

His face must have given his realization away, because Alowan's recovering cheer waned a touch.

"Nothing is certain, but, yes, I think it might be. It is a shame, I had thought you were almost ready to take me on, when last you held your reverse card to catch me ready to call 'uno'." He admitted.

He'd had to modify the game slightly to accommodate their deck structures on common playing cards but it wasn't too hard. Alowan was a fast learner and an aggressive adversary.

At the mention of the game, his near rival perked up a bit.

"I almost had you." She declared with vigor.

He nodded. Yes, she had.

"If ever I am returning to Bartala, which is not an impossibility, I will return here to give you your chance. At that time, I will have my wife with me and you will also have your chance to uncover whatever mysteries you might be thinking to find, though I don't believe those will be so very interesting. My Taipan tells me I have the most boring stories." Ulric confided in the girl as his hands worked soap into his clothes.

He'd just wear them wet and walk them dry, it was fine. Maybe if the lab caught fire in this last round of mixing, the damp cloth would prevent him from suffering any burns. He hated burns.

Alowan shook her head at him, not believing a word of it. But she was glad the strange man who had paid for her time to teach her card games and take long baths had cared to offer. The last few days had been oddly peaceful, until the John who liked to hurt girls. And even that one was gone now, courtesy of her mysterious patron. She didn't know how he'd managed to kill the John so quickly and quietly but it added to the secrets her curious mind would concoct fantasies about later.

Ulric left the Brothel lighter in spirits, just a bit, and lighter six Aul Squires, the heaviest coins he had besides the massive Tun weights. The funds were divvied up between twenty impoverished ladies of the night and one slowed strongarm of good heart. He didn't know that the coin would solve any of those girls’ problems but it sure as hell wouldn't hurt. Wealth absent happiness was useless and Ulric felt happier about parting with it, which was all that mattered. He grinned when he recalled the slack-jawed expressions disbelieving at the fortune casually laid out in front of them.

With a skip in his step, Ulric made his way back to the dingy basement to finish his little science experiment. Today, Bartala was going to get a wake-up call. Gilded cages were still cages and Ulric was going to blow off the doors off the hinges.