Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 20 preview (Patreon)

My prey slipped sideways, out of the major throughfare into a side street. Not that narrow that I thought he might be trying to throw me off entirely, but narrow enough that I hesitated briefly before entering. The party had broken up soon after our meeting with the headmistress had ended, with Kira promising to look into the crossbows for me along with ammunition and the rest, as they headed off to their families.

Brand and Kira had left arm in arm, while Sophia had hurried off to speak with her people. It must have been difficult, balancing the two halves of her heritage. As a Panji – the world’s equivalent of merchants and traders, Roma of sorts – and a Centrist, she traversed the world’s crust and searched for the Core at the same time. Now, I wondered, which part of her was being pulled at most, though I could guess.

If there was a sudden outflow of the Panji from the city, I would know for certain.

In the meantime, I made it about halfway down the alleyway before my target noticed me, slipping out of a small – way too small, I would have thought – depression in the stonework of the alley to glare at me.

“What are you doing, Lin?” Yorrick snapped.

I regarded my friend, the once too-thin streetrat, and smiled a little. The boy was filling out, both because he was growing older and no longer in the shooting up at the drop of a hat stage of life and also, because regular food and a healthy and steady exercise regime was packing on muscle. Like most teenagers, he was also trying on new looks – not just in his hairstyle, but in facial follicular expression.

“You might have to wait a little before you grow a beard,” I said. “It’s coming in too patchy.”

His eyes narrowed, looked down at my own, clean-shaven face before snapping up. “And what would you know?”

“That patchy isn’t sexy.”

“Why are you here, Lin? Not to comment on my beard, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know, it’s a bit of a crime against beauty standards.” He turned away rather than answer me and it forced me to drop the act. “I wanted to know what you intend to do about it.”

“About what?”

“The pogrom.” The Haeros word was still strange in my mouth, but all of it was. It wasn’t an exact translation, of course, but it was close enough for my purposes. Not as though I was creating a dictionary for other Earth reincarnators.

“Do? What we always do, old man.” I started a little, then realized he was using it in the sense that I was all of maybe five years older than him – physically. Kids never had the right perspective on age. Or perhaps they did, what with everything being a matter of a ratio of their own lived experiences. “Survive.”

“And the fae?” I said. That was the closest term I could think of, though I’m sure there were others that might fit if I thought about it further. A supernatural group who aren’t necessarily antagonistic, but are certainly alien.

“They’ll have to do the same.”

“You aren’t going to warn them?”

“We were told not to.”

“And I’m sure everyone else is doing just that, right now.” I smirked.

“Weren’t you one of those who didn’t want to get fined?” Yorrick’s voice dropped. “They made it sound like this was more than a fining offense.”

“Of course they did.” I shrugged. “But some things are worth getting into trouble for. Pretty sure you know that.”

“It’s not my problem,” Yorrick said, hunching his shoulders a little at the look I gave him. “It’s not! You learn what is and isn’t your concern, out here.”

“Good survival trait. Except you’re not a streetrat anymore. Not just a streetrat, at least,” I said. “You help with Mother Umi, pay for her food, for upkeep of her place. You’re making a difference that you couldn’t before.”

“And if they throw me in prison, that all goes away.”

“True.” I smiled. “So tell me where I can find one or two of the others. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care?” Yorrick snapped. “It’s none of your business. You don’t care about others – you barely even wanted to party with us!”

“Different circumstances,” I said, waving his complaint aside. No way I was going into the entire concern I had about how far each of them might go. “And this doesn’t cost me much, in time. Might save a few lives though. Or more than a few.”

The boy fell silent for a moment, before he stepped close. “I don’t know of many, just people on the streets like us, you know?” I nodded. “And there’s no guarantee they’ll be there. We move around a lot.” I didn’t bother reacting, knowing he was trying to delay. “So, there’s a kobold that often makes his way to the leather-working roads, behind Sal’s Arms and Leather. They throw away a lot of scrap, because they train their people.”

“The kobold’s a leatherworker?” I said, surmising the most obvious conclusion.

“No. They eat it.” Yorrick looked at me like he was questioning my intelligence, before continuing. “Has to eat a lot, but Leather doesn’t mind.”

“You call him Leather?”

“He calls himself Leather.”

“Huh.” I make mental note of the name, though I doubt I’d forget. Not that easily, at least. “Who else…?”

Yorrick kept talking, describing two others that he had met. One, a water nymph – again, the closest to what I could describe – which lived in one of the clearing ponds. He did point out that she was probably the safest, since she was actually paid by the government as her very presence and skill helped clear out the refuse.

The third was a family of knockers, creatures that stayed near one of the smaller farmers markets in the inner ring. They swept through the market after it closed down, cleaning out any refuse and garbage, sorting it into piles for each group and taking their share of the refuse themselves. The offerings from the farmers also kept the family fed, when the scraps were not sufficient.

“Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out for them all.” I clapped the kid on the shoulder and moved down the alleyway, trying to juggle the rough location descriptions into order of importance and speed of traversal. Thankfully, I’d grown up with stated directions and old-school paper map and compass times, rather than the convenience of electronic map apps and GPS. Not that I didn’t miss that convenience on the regular, but I at least knew how to navigate without them, and two years of living on this world had burnished old skills.

Even so, I only made it to the exit of the alley before Yorrick caught up, grumbling under his breath about how I’d never find the fae without him.

Wise old man that was, I didn’t call him out on it but let him guide the way. Sometimes, you just had to let people get on with the complaining about doing the right thing.