‘There’s kinda a lot going on.’

  When Corminar, Lore and I had returned to the inn after a long day, we’d found the Trio tucking into a hearty meal—one that we joined them for without any hesitation. While they were fairly vague about their day in Coldharbour—telling us they’d just been “looking into a few things”—we’d given them the basics as to our own day.

  We told them we hadn’t found the Player responsible for the mala, but people around here knew of him. We told them we’d met a doctor, who’d turned out to have been an old friend of Lore’s, and was looking into a cure for the malae-inflicted corruption. We mentioned taking down the local gang involved in the malae trade, leaving them for the guards. And we even mentioned running into a couple of other people we used to know, Lambkin and Tokas, but we left out the part about the latter’s terrible betrayal; that would only have resulted in a lot of questions.

  I’d thought until this point that it had been a productive day, but really we were no closer to finding Yusef, the Player seemingly responsible for the malae trade in the continent as a whole. Still, we’d done some small good, at least, in helping that mala-touched man to Alenna and by sorting out some black market traders. We’d earned our stew tonight.

  Corminar and Lore left soon after dinner, neither of them having spoken much, really, since we’d left Tokas behind. Both of them were still chewing the matter over, and I supposed they had more history with Tokas than I had, excluding the part where she’d been there in Plainside the first time I’d died. This left me with Raelas, Carle and Ama, though I’d just popped over to the bar to order a pint when I turned around to find that only the tiefling was left. Something told me she’d had a lot to do with the sudden disappearance of her friends.

  I sat back at the table, opposite her, keenly aware of those bright red eyes upon me as I concentrated my attention on the beer instead. ‘You know I’m…’ I started, realising I was going to have to put to words why I was wary of Raelas’s advances. ‘You know I’m kinda with someone, right?’

  Raelas didn’t look away for a second. ‘Yeah. Val, right? But where is she, cos I’ve been travelling with you for a week now and I haven’t seen her.’ She brushed a lock of her hair behind a small, curly horn.

  ‘We’ve been going through something.’

  ‘Wanna talk about it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not really.’

  Raelas smiled. ‘That’s OK.’ From her tone, it seemed she meant it. Not that I was comparing her and Val or anything, but it was nice to be talking to someone who wasn’t combative all the time. ‘You know, we found someone touch by malae today too,’ she said, kindly changing the subject. ‘Came in through a gate.’

  ‘You get them to Alenna?’

  The tiefling shook her head. ‘They were too far gone.’

  ‘Might not have been if we had a cure,’ I replied. I thought back to the malae we’d found in the traders’ courtyard. We’d left them there, alive but firmly caged, as evidence of what the merchants were involved in, showing why we’d left them tied up. The guards would put two and two together and sentence the traders sufficiently for their crimes, as everybody in these parts knew what a mala was capable of. But maybe we should have taken one of the monsters with us, delivered it to Alenna to study, and make good on our deal.

  Lore wouldn’t have been on board with the idea. He’d already lost Plyas to the malae, and taking a living one to his only remaining childhood friend was a recipe for digging up past trauma. He didn’t have to know about it, though.

  ‘You wanna get out of here?’ I asked Raelas.

  The tiefling’s eyes lit up. ‘What did you have in mind?’ She didn’t need to spell it out for me to know what she was implying.

  ‘Not that,’ I said. ‘Instead… I was thinking we’d go steal something.’

  * * *

  Raelas wasn’t quite as excited by the prospect of theft as Val would have been, but she was still a willing participant. Though I got the impression that she was doing this only because I had asked, and—as she had suggested many times—because she thought this was a bit like a date.

  The last time she mentioned this being like a date was while we were pressed up against each other in a tiny broom closet.

  ‘What kind of dates do you usually go on?’ I hissed back at her, and Raelas didn’t quite get to reply because we heard the voices of guards approaching.

  We’d followed Alenna’s mala locator stone to find where the city guards had taken the living evidence of the traders’ crimes, and it had taken us to a smaller outpost not too far from the bazaar. What with three pairs of portals between us, as well as us both having levelled up the Stealth skill somewhat, it wasn’t too hard for us to get inside. What was hard was getting to the right room, which just so happened to be the basement. We’d portalled our way inside, almost run afoul of guards immediately, and then darted for the nearest doorway, hoping for somewhere to hide.

  And that brings us up to date, to the pair of us wedged into a broom closet, me pretending I couldn’t smell Raelas’s floral perfume and feel her fingertips resting gently on my forearm.

  The guards seemed to come to a stop just outside the door, and—fearing that they were about to find need of a broom—I pointed my hand towards the ground. As Raelas repositioned herself closer still, I cast the spell, sending us falling through one portal and out into the darkness of a basement.

  Stealth — +2,250xp

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Stealth increased to level 23!

  Stealth increased to level 24!

  Base Points gained — +2 DEX, +2 WIS, +4 Free Points (DEX/WIS)

  ‘I can’t…’ I started, but Raelas had anticipated the complaint, and with the flick of her wrist she summoned a purple mote of light.

  ‘One of those ability choices I made while you were busy speccing into portals,’ she said. We looked around the dimly lit basement at hundreds of crates of evidence, and I sighed. ‘Any ideas where they are?’

  ‘If the guards were smart, they already killed them,’ I said, removing the locator stone from my pocket. ‘But then if they had… this wouldn’t be working.’

  ‘You’ve got to let me borrow that at some point,’ Raelas said.

  ‘To do some mala hunting?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  I followed the glowing arrow on the stone as it pointed me across the room, towards a stack of familiar-looking crates by the door. The guards had just dumped them here, then. They should’ve known better.

  But it was handy for me.

  I picked up one of the crates and shook it slightly. Only when I heard a familiar squeaking noise from inside did I know that there actually was a monster inside.

  ‘You got it?’ Raelas asked.

  I nodded, then passed her the crate to hold. ‘Careful.’

  ‘You worried about me?’ the tiefling said with a smile.

  I ignored it—clearly Raelas wasn’t going to be put off, no matter what I said—and returned to the remaining crates of mala. I activated my Ash Husk ability, but just on one finger, and I used my smouldering finger tip to singe a message into the side of one of the wooden crates.

  ‘Burn me immediately,’ Raelas read it aloud.

  ‘Think they’ll get the message?’

  ‘Dunno how they could miss it.’

  * * *

  I knocked on Alenna’s door a third time, on this occasion far louder than the ones before.

  ‘Alright, alright,’ I heard a voice cry out from inside. ‘I’m coming. I’m coming. But this better be a real emergency. You better have corruption on your damn—’ Alenna stopped talking when she swung her door open and saw me standing there with Raelas at my side, crate in hand.

  ‘Fast-track delivery,’ I said. ‘Thought you wouldn’t want to wait.’

  ‘You thought right, yeah,’ Alenna said. ‘Come in, come in.’ She practically yanked Raelas inside, her eyes on the crate in the woman’s hands.

  After I nodded, Raelas let the scientist take the crate from her hands.

  ‘Oh, goodie! Been a while since I got my hands on a live one.’ Alenna looked up at me. ‘You’ve done good. This is gonna help a lot of people. But, can I ask…’

  ‘Lore’s fine,’ I replied, getting where she was going with the question. ‘I just didn’t think he’d like me putting you in danger. Especially after what happened with…’

  I trailed off, but Alenna said her name. ‘Plyas.’

  Raelas raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t ask. Good on her. Other people I knew—myself included—would have asked without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘You reckon you’ll be able to find a cure, with this?’ I asked.

  Alenna shrugged. ‘Could do… but that’s the thing with science; you don’t know how close you are to a breakthrough until you’ve actually… broken through. So I can’t promise anything, but… yeah, it’ll help.’

  ‘Alright,’ I said, turning away to leave the scientist to her work. ‘Glad to have helped. If there’s anything else we can do…’

  Raelas grabbed me by the arm as I was halfway out the door. ‘You forgot to ask for payment,’ she whispered.

  ‘No, I—’ I started, but Alenna calling out behind me cut me off.

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘There is one more thing you could do to help…’