[A/N: lost a few people when I didn't update on Monday. But that's okay, because I used that time to plan out the entirety of the third book. I'm dropping this exclusive for you all today, then tomorrow I might have another one, and then on Friday we start in on Book 3. Enjoy.]
***
Patch
Patch rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms, then tilted his head side to side until the stiffness in his neck finally gave way with a soft crack.
Just outside his room, the bar was coming along nicely. He’d hired a work crew from the Holdfast, one of the few that was still available, and things were finally moving at a decent pace. Tables were being built, stools were stacked off to one side, and the skeleton of a proper bar had taken shape faster than he expected. Outside, the old structures surrounding the Witness Chambers were being torn down, clearing space and opening up the area. It wasn’t pretty yet, but it was getting there.
Patch let his awareness shift to the bar where Zeke was arguing with one of the work crew.
“I’m telling you, if someone spills during a rush, you’re gonna need rubber mats here or someone’s gonna eat shit and crack their head open.”
A worker muttered something under his breath and turned away. Something caught Zeke’s attention and he buzzed over to another member of the crew who was behind the bar.
“No. The cooler can’t go there. That’s…what the hell are you doing? That’s not where the glasses go. You need them here and within reach. Speed matters when you’ve got a rush going.”
Patch leaned back in his chair, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he listened to Zeke’s complaints. It was nice having a bartender helping out the work crew. Zeke could tell them when they were designing something completely out of touch with the needs of a bar. But at the same time…it was like watching someone try to brute-force common sense into people. There was no way Zeke was going to be able to do that and still keep his sanity.
He listened for a few more seconds and then closed his eyes. The room slipped away and the city opened up in front of him. He spread his awareness outwards through the Under-MIZ. He moved through it slowly and deliberately as he checked the streets that were starting to become familiar to him.
They were empty and quiet today. No scavenger teams were lingering too close. That was good. When Patch had decided to open a new bar down in the Under-MIZ, Garrick had come down and helped him handle the riffraff that had squatted in the area.
It wasn’t anything excessive. Garrick didn’t go out and slaughter everyone. But he did spread an impressive amount of fear and it was enough to have the scavenger teams think twice about messing with Patch.
Satisfied that everything around him was going swimmingly, Patch pushed his awareness out further. He brushed past the Anchor Guild - his competition down in the Under-MIZ - and stretched his awareness up to The MIZ proper. His thoughts meandered through the streets and the buildings and brushed past a few people.
He saw a small gang of pickpockets counting the day’s earnings. He saw a lady of the night proposition a young man who was just barely an adult. He watched a few scrappers tear down some automatons that had come to the end of their life.
Eventually, his focus settled on North Coil and the most interesting person there: Thomas Arden.
Patch had first noticed him a few days ago. The kid was…unusual to say the least. He was twelve years old and, currently, seated cross-legged in the middle of a wide, open room inside the Arden compound. The space was large and expensive and, normally, filled with tutors, specialists, family members, and a whole bunch of other interested parties. Patch hadn’t seen the kid not orbited by experts for most of the day. But right now, he was alone.
A tech slate rested in front of him and his fingers danced across it. Glyphs bloomed on the tech slate, layered and overlapping and reinforced and spiraling into complex structures that shifted.
Patch didn’t know much about glyphs. He’d never bothered to study them. If he needed someone to use a glyph, then he hired specialists who knew what they were doing. It had always been easier that way. But even without knowing about glyphs, Patch could tell that little Tommy’s were…beautiful.
The lines were clean and confident. There was no hesitation in little Tommy’s movements. At least, not when it came to glyphs. And the power radiating from them was something way beyond what most glyphwrights could do.
He let his awareness linger as he watched Tommy practice. The boy finished one glyph and then immediately moved on to another.
Patch thought back to the first time he saw the young boy. He’d been checking in on Milicent, Zeke’s old glyphwright, and it didn’t take long for her to lead him to little Tommy. The Ardens were one of the stronger families in North Coil. They had money, influence, and ambition. Milicent, thanks to Zeke, had suddenly become incredibly valuable. The book that Zeke had gifted her gave her a ton of leverage to increase her family’s status by allying with the Ardens.
They brought her in and established an alliance between the Ardens and Pret-Wynns, pooling their resources and expanding their influence. And all Milicent had to do was help to train Tommy. Patch knew that with Milicent’s newfound knowledge and Tommy’s natural skill, the two families would soon control all of North Coil. He didn’t yet know if that was a good thing or not.
Patch watched as the boy adjusted a line on his glyph. There wasn’t any boredom or frustration on his face. It was a little too unnatural if you asked Patch. There weren’t any interruptions to his practice schedule. There wasn’t any chaos or unpredictability. And worse yet, no other kids his own age were bursting into the room to drag him away from his work.
Thomas Arden was a greenhouse flower. He was grown in perfect conditions and sheltered from anything that might disrupt his genius. He’d be exceptional, there was no doubt about that. A few years from now and he’d surpass most glyphwrights in The MIZ without even trying.
Patch followed one of the kid’s projected paths. Then another. And another. And then several dozen more. Most of the outcomes were all the same. The moment something went wrong, the moment a glyph didn’t do what it should or when someone didn’t behave the way they were supposed to, Tommy faltered. All he knew was glyphs, and the family had no interest in helping him with anything else.
The image of young Tommy Arden dissolved as Patch pulled his attention away. The quiet Arden compound faded, only to be replaced by the half-finished bar around him.
Still need a name for this place, he thought idly. Something that would stick.
“I don’t care if it fits there, it’s wrong. Whoever is bartending is gonna hate it when it gets busy.”
Patch drifted his attention back to Zeke who was leaning halfway over the bar as he argued with the workers. HIs hands moved as he talked, gesturing towards the cooler and the shelves and all the empty spots where the glasses should be. Patch watched him for a moment. Zeke was messy and unpolished and also alive in a way that Tommy Arden wasn’t.
He could still remember the first time that Zeke had stumbled into the Roaring Drake. Back then, the guy had looked completely out of place. It was like he’d been dropped into the deep end of a pool without even knowing how to swing. He’d been panicky and off-balance and constantly looking over his shoulder like something was going to jump out and attack him.
He didn’t have any allies. He couldn’t find his footing in this strange new world he’d found himself in. And he had no clue what he was doing. But he’d grown over the past few months. He wasn’t panicking anymore. He’d learned, adapted, and survived. Two months had made a massive difference for him, yet Patch couldn’t help but think of him in the same way as he thought of Tommy.
Zeke was a greenhouse flower too. He wasn’t as sheltered as Tommy. He didn’t have a carefully controlled environment. But he did have dozens of experts guiding his every move.
Patch watched as one of the workers reluctantly adjusted something under Zeke’s stern gaze. The man liked to complain about the forum. He complained about how chaotic it was and how unreliable the people were and how they threw too much at him without really helping him along. But the forum was still a safety net. It was still a constant stream of advice and corrections and warnings and strategies meant to keep him alive.
Even when it failed him, and even when it betrayed him, it was still Zeke’s best shot at surviving in this world.
Patch hadn’t missed what that betrayal had done to Zeke. The guy didn’t talk about it much, but it still showed. There was a hesitation there that hadn’t existed before. There was some second-guessing that started making its way into Zeke. And underneath all of that, there was something older and heavier that the betrayal had rubbed up against. Patch could see it, even if he didn’t understand it completely.
There was some kind of weight that Zeke carried around that had been there long before he ever stepped foot in The MIZ. The forum hadn’t created that weight, they’d simply pressed on it.
Patch looked away for a second and put that thought out of his mind. If Zeke didn’t want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to go digging. Instead, he focused on the problem in front of him. Zeke had grown, but he was still a greenhouse flower. If he kept going on his normal trajectory, he would end up just like Tommy.
He was sheltered by too much guidance and too many voices nudging him towards the “right” decision. Patch didn’t want that. He didn’t want Zeke turning into someone who could only function when someone else fed him the right answers.
If Zeke really meant what he said when he talked about just wanting to go home, then he wasn’t ready for it. Honestly, Patch wasn’t completely convinced that home was the best move for Zeke. There were too many unknowns there. But that wasn’t his decision to make. Zeke could choose for himself.
Patch let his eyes close again briefly, just enough to sink his attention back into the city and feel the edges of possibility stretching out in front of Zeke. The paths were there, branching out into hundreds of different possibilities.
Zeke’s connection to the forum…complicated things. Every piece of knowledge and advice that Zeke pulled from it shifted the outcomes of hundreds of different paths. Even now, with his Pathfinding at Rank 11, Patch knew better than to trust the illusion of certainty surrounding Zeke.
The man’s future wasn’t all that stable. It adjusted and reacted more than anyone else that Patch had seen before.
“I’m just saying…you’re gonna thank me later.” The worker that Zeke was berating just snorted at that. Patch’s fingers tapped lightly against the armrest as he thought about what his skill was telling him.
Zeke needed pressure. And he also needed distance. He needed to get out of The MIZ and he needed to get out from under the constant safety net of the forum. Patch didn’t want to manipulate his friend and push him into danger. But…there were ways to help him without that manipulation. He could just choose not to warn Zeke.
He could not steer him. He wouldn’t box him in or force his hand, but he’d also not be there to catch him if he stumbled. Not unless it was a truly dangerous situation. Patch sighed as he thought about what that meant.
It meant letting Zeke struggle and make mistakes. It meant letting Zeke stroll into situations where things might go wrong. Patch didn’t like it, but he understood it. He knew that for Zeke to grow, he’d need to face challenges.
Zeke stepped back and glanced at the bar with a critical eye. “Okay,” he muttered. “That’s looking better already.”
Patch leaned back in his chair and sighed. Then he closed his eyes and spread his awareness out through the rest of the city again.
“Okay. Let’s see what sort of challenges we can find for you.”
***
Jeffrey Ramses
Jeff was still new to this life. Whenever he slung his rifle over his shoulder and went down to the depot to pick up a new gig, he always felt that someone was going to come up to him, tell him there’d been a mistake, and let him go.
A few months back he’d been picking through the wreckage on the outskirts of The MIZ, hoping to find anything worth trading for stale rations. Most days, he’d come up light. But now, he was inside an abandoned building that had once been an office or a clinic or something, and he was waiting for someone to tell him what to do.
He had a rifle slung over his shoulder and it was cleaned and cared for. His coat was still patched, but he’d had enough credits to pay someone to sew some thin metal plates into the lining. It wasn’t enough to stop a serious gunshot, but it was enough to make him feel like he wasn’t made out of paper. At his hip was a small pouch filled with credits. The whole thing made him feel like he’s skipped the dozens of steps that most young mercs had to do early in their career.
It was all because of the outfit that had recruited him.
Jeff snorted at the thought. He only called it ‘the outfit’ because nobody could agree on what their name should be. “Iron Dogs” was something that got thrown around a lot. People said it sounded tough. Other mercs kept pushing “Boiler Men,’ on account of the district they were all operating out of. Half the blocks around the depot were filled with old steam systems that rattled and hissed and spewed out steam. Jeff thought the name was dumb, but he kept it to himself.
Honestly, the name didn’t matter much to him. As long as they kept throwing gear and credits at him, he’d call it whatever they wanted.
Jeff had heard a story that was probably nonsense, about how the outfit was backed by some pre-Fracture syndicate. The story was that they’d gone to ground when everything had gone to shit, and now they were finally crawling back up to The MIZ and expanding their operations.
It sounded crazy, but then again…so did a whole bunch of young mercs getting paid and geared up by a strange outfit.
Jeff leaned back against a broken section of wall and tried to look like he belonged there. About twenty other mercs filled the room. Most of them were his age with a few younger. None of them were hardened killers. They were all just like Jeff.
A girl was seated nearby with a dented helmet. Next to her, a lanky kid spun the cylinder of the revolver he’d been gifted by the outfit. All of the mercs that Jeff could see had that same look of trying to pretend they were hard and experienced, but they were also fidgeting nervously as they waited for the new job.
One of the mercs, about Jeff’s age, wandered over and took a spot next to him on the crumbling wall. He let out a long sigh and then spat on the ground.
Jeff glanced over at him. “What’s your problem?” he asked, aiming to sound as casual as possible. He was trying to take on the role of an experienced professional, but he doubted that it was coming across like that.
“Just wonderin’,” the man said.
Jeff snorted. “Well, Wonderin’, what are you wondering about?”
The guy peeled his attention away from the rest of the mercs and gave Jeff a once-over. He took in the rifle, the coat, and the fact that Jeff was clearly just as new as he was. Something in his expression shifted and then he looked back out at the rest of the gathered mercs.
“Wonderin’ who’s paying for all this,” he finally said. “It don’t make no sense. An outfit shows up outta nowhere, starts scooping up all the green mercs like us. What’s more, it pays well and on time.”
He paused and lowered his voice until only Jeff could hear him.
“And they know things.”
Jeff’s eyes flicked back to him. “Yea?”
“Stuff nobody else knows. They got info on the routes and stashes and jobs that ain’t even rumors yet.”
Jeff had heard the same whispers. He’d known that this outfit was a lot more knowledgeable about the surrounding areas than most other merc groups in the city. Whoever the leader was, it seemed like he had inside knowledge about all sorts of pre-Fracture stashes hidden throughout the city. More than that, he knew the routes of large trade caravans, and he knew about jobs that a merc crew could do that would make them ridiculous sums of credits.
The whole thing felt incredibly lucky, which probably meant that it wasn’t luck. It was more like whoever was leading this outfit had insider information that nobody else did.
“So, what is it?” Jeff asked. “You think it’s true that this is all about old world money? You think some pre-Fracture group is pulling the strings?”
The man opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the sound of boots on concrete had every merc in the place snapping their heads up. People straightened and the quiet chatter died down.
A man with a clean coat and goggles hanging loosely around his neck strolled into the room. “Alright, listen up. I’ve got some new jobs for you.”
Every merc in the room paid more attention to that. Jeff could see a few lean in eagerly at the talk of new work.
“A few short runs that’ll be close to home. They should be easy as long as you follow instructions.” The man held up a small folder with pages stuffed inside it. “And then another one. This job needs people that can keep their mouths shut and don’t mind the work being a little…morally loose.”
A ripple went through the mercs and Jeff could see a few take a look at their friends before turning back to the man with the clean coat.
“How much?” someone called out.
The handler smiled. “Enough that you’ll want the next one too.”
Jeff felt a pull for that job. It meant money and reputation if he played everything cool. He glanced over at the merc next to him who just gave a small shake of his head. Jeff shrugged before pushing himself off the wall and adjusting the strap on his rifle.
All those questions about who was arming them and who was paying them and where they were getting the information could wait. Jeff honestly didn’t care about any of that nonsense. Not as long as he was getting paid. And not as long as he could make a name for himself.
***
‘Rook’
He’d been the leader of his work crew for long enough to know how things usually went. He could tell the difference between a bad contract and a stupid one. The bad contracts paid next to nothing and the work seemed to drag on forever. The stupid contracts paid just enough to get you to say yes, and then you got killed halfway through them.
This contract, though, was different. For one thing, it paid very well. That alone was enough to make him suspicious.
Rook sat on a chunk of broken concrete at the edge of the Research District, chewing through a strip of salted meat and trying not to stare too hard at the thing sprawled out in front of him. Obviously he failed. It was impossible not to look at the thing.
The Reclaimer dominated the entire area around it. Even dead, the thing didn’t look like something that should exist. The beast rose up out of the district like a collapsed mountain. Old industrial lamps had been hauled in and rigged up all around it so that the work crews could work through the night. The light didn’t make it any easier to understand it though. If anything, the dull yellow glow made the thing look so much worse.
From where Rook sat, he could see other work crews scattered out across the carcass. They were tiny by comparison. They were miniatures that were cutting into it and ripping pieces of it to be hauled away.
“It’s hard to believe, right?”
Rook blinked and dragged his attention away from the massive corpse. Brann, one of the older men on his crew, was standing behind him. His hands were resting on his hips and he was squinting out at the corpse.
“Yea,” Rook muttered. “Hard to believe.”
“You know, I heard it was bigger,” Brann said. “Back when it was first killed.”
Rook let out a short laugh of disbelief. “If it was any bigger, it’d have its own weather system.”
“Just saying what I heard,” Brann replied with a shrug.
Rook had heard that story too. He’d heard all sorts of things since he took this job. He heard stories about the monster and about how it had died. The one story that most of the workers liked to tell was about a single man walking down into the Research District and killing it all by himself. Rook didn’t buy that story for a second.
He leaned forward slightly and traced the curve of what could have been some sort of limb. It was as thick as a tower and half-buried in the surrounding structures. “Had to have been an army,” he muttered under his breath.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who’s to say,” said Brann. “Doesn’t change what’s in front of us.”
That was true enough. Both men stood there for a while, watching the crews work. Eventually, Rook’s attention drifted out past the carcass and towards the perimeter of the Research District. He could see his “employers” standing there. The Pale Regiment.
They gave him the creeps, with their porcelain masks and their lack of emotions. They were hard to miss as they stood in small groups along the edges of the district, keeping an eye on everything. Rook didn’t like them. Hell, nobody liked them. There was something off about them. He’d never seen one of them relax. He and a few others in the crew even had a running bet: the first person to catch a Pale Regiment soldier slouching won the pot.
Nobody had claimed it yet.
The Pale Regiment had locked down the entire Research district about a week ago. No one was allowed in or out without their say so. That had been enough to set the Holdfast buzzing. They’d all heard that something big had happened, but no one had any information beyond that.
Then the offers started pouring in. The Pale Regiment wanted a LOT of workers. They went to the Holdfast with a deal. Send some work crews down to the Research District and they’d be paid better than anyone else in The MIZ. Thus began one of the most profitable jobs that Rook and his work crew had ever taken.
“Funny thing though,” came a voice from behind Rook. He turned to see Tamsin walking up, wiping his hands on a rag and nodding towards the perimeter. “You notice that there’s few of them than last week?”
Rook frowned. “Fewer?”
“The Pale Boys,” he said as he nodded towards the soldier. “You ever see them run a lockdown this thin?”
Brann grunted at that. “Hmm. Maybe they’re stretched.”
“That’s what I’m hearing,” said Tamsin. “Word from the other crews is that they’re pulling people back from all over. Not just down here, but from up in The MIZ too.”
Rook’s brow furrowed. “Pulling back? Why?”
Tamsin shrugged. “Don’t know. Depends on who you ask. Some say they’ve got something big happening and they’re prepping for it. I’ve also heard they’ve been running into some trouble. Out in the Deadlands.”
“The Deadlands?” Rook repeated.
Tamsin nodded. “Yea. Something big out there’s got their attention.”
Rook let his attention drift over to the Pale Regiment. If they were really scaling back here, then whatever was happening out there had to be serious. The Reclaimer represented a massive sum of credits. What could trouble the Pale Regiment enough that they’d pull back from all that money?
Questions started racing through his head. Questions about the Pale Regiment and the Holdfast and how safe this job really was. He started wondering if he should be gearing up for something. He wondered if it was safe being down here in the Research District if the Pale Regiment was running into trouble elsewhere.
“They’re still paying us, and that’s all that matters,” rumbled Brann.
Rook nodded at that and before he could say anything else, Tamsin stepped closer and clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to jolt him forward.
“Carve it up. Haul it out. A job this size is gonna take months. That means plenty of steady pay,” he said.
Rook managed a small grin. “Hard to argue with that.”
A sharp whistle cut through the air and all three of them turned. One of the Pale Regiment bosses stood on a raised section of debris and called out.
“Crew leads to me!”
The work crews stirred to life around them. Men and women grabbed at tools and checked their gear. Rook pushed himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders as he adjusted his gloves.
“Guess that’s me,” he said.
Brann smirked. “Congrats. Welcome to leadership. Glad it’s not me.”
Rook huffed out a quiet laugh and then took one last look at the Reclaimer. The thing still didn’t feel real to him. It filled the district and seemed to swallow the place whole, even in death. Then he turned and started towards the handler with the rest of the crew leads.
Whatever the Pale Regiment was messing around with - either down here or out in the Deadlands - it didn’t really matter to him. It wasn’t his problem. All he cared about was getting paid to cut something impossible up into pieces.
Everything else would take care of itself.