Krow was helping question the scribes that had been abducted to work for an illegal book-copying organization dedicated to smuggling precious tomes out of the Library when he recognized one of the scribes.

Jedran Kalevos was one of the Baraldore officials who’d declared the Contracts of every one of the guildworkers void after the mess with Findrakon’s disbandment.

He smiled in surprise.

If the vargvir had experienced something like this, Krow wasn’t surprised by the sympathetic ear he’d bent to the uprising against Findrakon. He’d taken Gazzy under his wing, and taught him a lot about Zushkenar.

The other glanced around, uneasy, his smile obviously forced.

Krow’s smile didn’t dim. “I’m Krow. Can you tell me where you were taken, your name, and the nature of your time under the Dredris Group?”

“Jedran, uh…I was part of a teaching group…”

Dredris had just waited outside various institutions of learning and abducted people apparently. Some were bought from slaving groups, some were taken from outside Tvarglad.

He asked about anything he heard from their captors. “Anything to make certain justice is kept.”

Overused and over the top lines, he’d since learned, was the way to keep some people talking.

Jedran’s eyes sparked, and a deluge of observations flowed from his mouth.

The Dredris branch in Tvarglad had gained new management, it appeared. An ambitious leader.

But all these, just to copy rare books?

Krow still couldn’t believe that was a thing.

Then again, the content of most rare books on Earth had been digitized already, available to most.

There was a shout of frustration from another part of the reservoir. Another scribe coming up against Sigram’s unrelenting façade no doubt – it happened six times already. Counting that one, seven.

He nodded one last time at Jedran, who smiled briefly.

“Thank you.”

Wrapping up the semi-interrogation, he dropped off the papers he’d used to transcribe his work with Marses, who was sitting with the rest of the scribes, trying to keep them calm. And prevent them from running. Plus see if there were Dredris sympathizers mixed in.

Krow sighed.

Jedran Kalevos didn’t recognize him, which was a blow.

But still, Krow felt a little lighthearted at being able to do this for him. The vargvir he’d known was a good person.

He hadn’t deserved this.

“How were you captured again?” Krow asked. Marses had made it sound like he’d just been waiting for an opportunity to escape, not that he couldn’t. “What happened to the one who said I stole the Book?”

“They used a paralytic.” Marses scoffed. “The cowards. As for that idiot, his cold body likely has been found by the city patrols by now.” 

“You wouldn’t happened to know what they used?” A paralytic that downed a Lvl 50+ like Marses would be useful.

But Marses shook his head. “A blue powder that spread in a cloud, is all I know.

It figured.

Krow wandered the reservoir, moving between the writing desks with shackles still attached to them.

He nudged one pile of chains with his boot, sending it clinking against the stone floor.

People looked up at the sound, but ultimately returned to what they were doing.

Evlene was dealing with the last of the Dredris bodies and scouting the tunnels around them for a route, going off a sketch of the surrounding sewers from the spirit-snake’s exploration. The scribes were still overwhelmed by the relief of their release.

They were all preoccupied.

When finally it was time to leave, Krow had fourteen or so complete Enchanter books in his Inventory, and over twenty incomplete ones.

Evlene’s route sent them directly upward.

The group was quite the sight, three Reeves and a draculkar striding through the exclusive corridors of the Hagerth Club with over twenty people in various states of dishevelment.

A vargvir intercepted them, horror in his eyes at the sight of their ragged group trudging out of the bowels of the club into the public areas.

“This is an invitation-only establishment,” he stopped them, eyeing Krow up and down disdainfully then sniffing imperiously at the scribes with him. “I must ask you to leave.”

Krow lifted a brow, and didn’t even have to say anything.

He saw how the vargvir’s eyes popped and knew Marses had just rounded the corner, followed by two others wearing the distinctive red cloaks.

“We are leaving,” Krow told him.

The vargvir nodded, speechless. He shook his head, ears relaxing from their alarmed rigidity, forcibly recovering from the bewilderment. “I would guide you. This way, if you would.”

He bowed them into a room that led to a side corridor and then to a back street.

Krow didn’t make a fuss. It was better to not get the newly-freed scribes gawked at by people who in their privilege would never understand.

The day was approaching sunset.

His ship would sail in several hours.

Sigram and Evlene took the scribes to people who could help. Marses took Krow to a shopping street where once again he brandished a letter with the Primar’s seal. Even with that support, Krow was forced to part with 20,000 gold drax on crates of Rare bullets.

Nightmeteor Bullet, which the proprietor had introduced as part of the Meteor series of bullets that included the Meteorcrash and the Raid Comet, both of which Krow had never heard of before.

The stats on them were fairly impressive though.

Nightmeteor didn’t have the flash and boom of the other two, which was why Krow chose it. Enhanced senses were no joke.

Numbskull Bullet, which paralyzed as long as it hit the brain of the target. He still had a lot of shieldburst bullets, but a paralyzing option was always desirable.

The prices for Rare bullets were dear. He was grateful the proprietor was a non-player, or not even the seal of the Primar would give him a discount.

Afterward, Krow returned to the caravan.

Ebry nearly fainted over the horses, making small wordlessly confused noises and waving his arms as if he wanted to grasp coherency out of thin air. Stoic and reserved Calon reached out and patted the nearest horse as if it was a religious experience.

The rest of the caravan stared, nearly unbreathing, disbelieving.

Krow eyed Marses, suspicious. “What kind of horses are those again?”

The Reeve snorted. “Good horses.”

“Okay?”

Calon stopped patting the horse, looked at Krow seriously. “This is an Ironblood Grass Horse.”

They stared at each other. 

“…yes?” Evlene had called them that, earlier in the day.

“Ironblood horses.”

“I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

Calon’s gaze grew more intense. “They are only bred in a single stable.”

Marses nodded.

“So they’re limited and elite.” Krow understood at last. “Well, Avan’s friend is a royal, so that’s not surprising.”

He wondered why he’d not heard of them, though. If they were famous in Alliance territory, they should be famous in the Hallagons too, right?

Calon narrowed his eyes at him, still sensing his confusion. “There are just ten birthed per year. They can live to five hundred years.”

Oh! Half-millennium horses!

Seriously, why the different names?

Krow had heard of them after all. They were faster than most horses and could gallop for 24 hours before tiring. Their carry capacity was in the range of two tonnes.

They were really good mounts, yes.

But only under Lvl 60. There was a Lvl 60 zone where an Epic raid quest dropped griffin eggs, which were the first winged mounts available to most players in Redlands.

There was a reason Krow was excited over acquiring a galedrifter so soon.

Ebry broke out of his perplexed shock. “They’re ours?”

“All yours.” Krow nodded, then smirked a bit. “Maybe the world is paying you back for the pain of leaving those grey horses in the woods.”

“That was excruciating to do.” Ebry nodded, serious. Then he grinned widely. “But now, my heart has recovered! Let’s celebrate!”

The taverns near the merchant quarter of the seventh circle were extra lively that evening.

It was falling night when Marses and Krow extracted themselves from the dancing.

The ship Krow had dubbed ‘the Song’ bobbed up and down gently in the waves. It was built in the style of a galleon, but larger by far.

Krow stared at the cheerful crowd and the lights around the ship.

  “What is happening?”

“This is the fastest non-military ship currently in the city.”

They wended their way past the clumps of people talking animatedly, heading for the ramp. The smell of hard spirits wafted from many a group.

“That doesn’t explain why there is what looks like a festival on deck.”

They were stopped by two stern-looking bouncers before they reached the ramp.

“Masters, would you like a drink before you board?” They gestured to a table set up near the ramp.

Marses stopped but ignored them, turning to Krow. “It’s the ninth circling.”

Krow parsed that to mean it was the September-equivalent month in Redlands.

“There’s a festival in Duryndon, during the last week, to celebrate the harvest. Many are invited.”

Krow looked around. “A liquor festival.”

One edge of Marses’s lips lifted. He gestured to the casks on the table nearby. “It’s customary to taste the offerings before boarding.”

“I’m not going to Duryndon, though.” The festival would likely be over when he finished his business.

“Tradition.”

Tsk. Krow stepped up to the table.

He stared confusedly at the paper, pen, and ink pushed toward him.

“Let us start with the first cask,” the woman at the table smiled.

Eh?

Did that mean he had to sample all ten casks?

The woman ladled a generous amount of liquor into a dwarviran drinking cup. The cup was wide and shallow, almost like a bowl, with a stem and two horizontal handles.

There was about a half-litre of liquor in it, lapping nearly to the brim.

Krow glanced dubiously at the ten casks, then at the bright-lit ship. Even from all the way down to where he was, he could hear raucous laughter from the deck.

He sure hoped this tradition didn’t extend to the crew.

Krow curled his fingers over the handles of the wide cup, lifted it, and tipped the contents into his mouth until there was nothing left.

[Arbrun Brandy]

[Quality: C+][Rare]

[A brandy distilled from wine pressed out of the fulmineberries of the town of Arbrun, outside Duryndon. Made in the third circling of the year 9051 AS, from a twenty year old wine. Due to the bluevein grapes and blackvenin added in the creation, the texture of the brandy becomes smoother and the distinctive ‘warming lighting’ effect is produced.]

The brandy was like a lightning bolt down his gullet.

It tingled in a dramatic not-quite-painful pleasure.

He slammed the cup down and took a breath.

Whoa.

Now he knew why all those people were drunk.

Swearing off excessive drinking had never seemed like a larger mistake than now.