Ozzy felt as his heart rate quickened, a dark premonition coming over him as he looked back in the direction of the city. It couldn’t be true, could it? Did people actually consider him to be that dangerous?

  “Myreluck wasn’t always a crowded hell hole you know.” Myla said flippantly. “Four hundred years ago we had twice as much room as we did now. There was even enough space to grow food.” She told him, her eyes looking far into the distant past as she began the story.

  “Back then we didn’t have an upper or lower city, it was all just Myreluck. The city floor housed central governments that made sure everyone was safe and organized protection of the city. People even say there were less monsters back then, and there certainly weren’t any of the rakthim or deep dwellers.” She told him, falling into a rhythm as she continued her story and work.

  “The strangers name was Andrea, she was an elf, like me.” Myla curtsied. ”When she got to the city it was much like your story, she met some people she could rely on and did whatever it was that made her happy. The next timestamp in the history books comes nearly ten years later. Andrea is tier 3, and meets a god, Andoriel the queen of rot. She was one of the first gods of the below to look at our city. With her help Andrea was able to sow a sickness within the roots of the city, poisoning and weakening its boughs as she grew ever stronger. By the time anyone was able to notice what was happening the disease had already begun to spread.” She said, tossing a final rat into the glowing rat circle the tokens flashed a bright yellow. Signaling something yet Ozzy wasn’t sure what.

  “Ah this one’s full, help me catalogue it will you? Emil said you have an identification ability.” She asked momentarily pausing her story as she bent down and grabbed the circles largest token.

  Immediately the circle flashed and the color pulsed out as a pile of loot nearly spanning the entire width of the twenty-foot circle and stacked nearly 10 feet high appeared. Myla whistled as she looked over the contents, beckoning Ozzy to come and work his magic.

  Extending his hand out he willed the watch to scan the objects.

  *BEEP BEEP*

  Items identified:

  200lbs of packaged murk rat meat

  180lbs of packaged murk rat materials (fur, fangs, claws, bones, eyes, etc)

  23 Mana stones

  Murk shard

  “That’s a lot of money…” Ozzy whistled, showing the screen to Myla. “I didn’t know you could get money from a looting circle, and why’s everything packaged?”

  “This one’s a junk circle. It’s calibrated to put most of the energy it gets into making food and mana stones. Sometimes we get a shard or two with it but largely it’s monster parts and roqs. With some of the excess energy it has you can have it package the meat.” She said, shrugging as she began to scoop the massive pile of rat meat into one dimensional bag, giving Ozzy another to stuff the mana stones in, and then taking all of the assorted rat parts.

  “You can keep the shard, I’d wait to use it but I don’t think anyone would mind considering you killed two out of our three Matriarchs.” She said, tossing the shard his way with a wink.

  Slipping the shard into his personal dimensional bag he waited for Myla to continue the story.

  “Where was I?” She asked thoughtfully, “Right, the disease. Whatever Andrea infected the tree worked slowly. It started from the trees youngest innermost rings, pushing up and outward gradually. It was nearly invisible, and by the time anyone realized what was happening the rot had spread so far and wide that a citywide response was needed just to slow it. Anyone with nature or healing magics was called to support the tree. This was nearly ten years into Andrea’s plan however, and she’d grown even stronger. She hit the fourth tier and with a final blessing from her god was advanced to tier 5. The first tier 5 core user Myreluck had ever seen. The city had several tier 4 warriors but they were hardly a match for her even all together. Alongside the allies Andrea had found, she and her ilk took control of Myreluck’s northern half. Rotting the tree from the inside out until it fell. Taking with it every man woman and child who’d been stuck on that side of the city, falling into the swamp with their home. It was a disaster unlike anyone in the city had ever faced. That wasn’t all though, Andoriel’s plan went beyond Andrea and destroying the city. When Myreluck’s second half fell it broke through the swamp floor. Tearing through the bedrock that had protected the great swamp for thousands of years. She had literally opened up a pathway to the below.” Myla shuddered, pausing as she took a deep breath before continuing.

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  “All of the villages, towns, and frontier cities that were out past the murk fell in under a week. Word never even getting close to reaching them as Myreluck handled its own problems. It wasn’t until the trading stopped, and we had to go out for our own food that the city noticed anything was wrong. The Murk, previously thought of as little more than the paranoid city creator’s unnecessary project had been swarmed. It was teeming with millennia’s worth of monsters, keeping the city’s people trapped within the Murk line for nearly a hundred years. Famine culling the weak and poor until hunters finally started to make their way across.” She finished her story by giving Ozzy a long, uncomfortable stare.

  “My great grandmother was one of the warriors who died trying to stop Andrea. My grandfather still talks about her sometimes, even say’s that her and my mother were friends at one point. That’s why I’m doing this, I’m going to be one of the ones who stays close to you. I’ll get stronger with you, fight in your wars, and put you down if I ever see you slipping in the same way Andrea did. I swear it on my ancestors, my cores, and my very soul, may the below take me.” Myla swore, the conviction in her voice stronger than steel, leaving Ozzy with greater insight and respect for the woman.

  “I’m going to make this city a better place. For everyone.” Ozzy said, meeting her firm gaze. “If you want to stick around that’s your choice. I’m not starting any wars though, I’m here in this city to make it a better place. Not raze it to the ground.” Ozzy told her.

  “Oh sweet naive little Ozzy. Change no matter how kind, is always bloody.”

  ***

  Looting the hill took the better part of a day, and by the time they were done no one had any desire to take the loot out of the bags and have Ozzy scan it. They were all covered in filth, tired, and dreading the walk back to the dinghy in the rapidly encroaching night.

  They did thankfully have lights by which to guide them, even then a blind man high on acid would probably have been able to follow the trail Emil had left through the mud.

  Once at the boat Emil frowned as he checked his magical compass. It was a device made of two parts, both identical save for one being blue and the other red. The device was incredibly useful because they would always no matter what point in the direction of the other. It was the same device Emil had used back on the fishing expedition and Ozzy was plenty familiar with the tool.

  “What’s wrong?” Ozzy asked him.

  “It’s the train, when we got here it was all the way over there.” Emil pointed towards a location far off behind them in the swamp. “Now they’re all the way over here.” Emil said, panning his arm as he followed the compass to point nearly entirely the other way.

  Frowning Patrick picked the compass up, examining it as he tried remembering where they’d come from. “You’re right...” He said, looking in concern off towards where the train had gone. “We need to move, Emil, do you still have some jarvint meat I sold you? These mana engines love it.”

  “Oh come on! You practically had me pay double for it!” Emil complained, digging through his bag with a forlorn look.

  “I’ll give you however much we use when we get back to the train.” Patrick said, rolling his eyes at the hunter’s theatrics.

  They flew across the swamp, jarvint meat apparently was the best thing for mana engines as it sent them at nearly twice the speed Ozzy and Emil had gone back on Ozzy’s first swamp traipse. Even still it took them nearly two hours to find and get back to the train, exhausting Emil’s supply of Jarvint meat and making them dip into their thankfully massive supply of rat meat.

  Upon making it back to the swamp train they were not greeted with the friendly familiarity Ozzy had come to expect but outright hostility. The trains defenses were raised and two of the large ballistae trained themselves on their little boat putting a stop to the group’s momentum as everyone aboard the little swamp-faring vessel raised their hands in surrender.

  “It’s just Patrick and his crew you morons.” A relaxed voice Ozzy recognized as belonging to Gustav reprimanded the men and women who’d raised the defenses.

  “What’s going on Gustav?” Patrick called out to him.

  A moment later a mustachioed face popped up over the top platforms reinforced wall. “Sorry for the hostility, come aboard you lot.” Gustav said, waving for them to come forward as the defenses wound down, the ballistae unloading themselves and lowering to point at the walls in front of them.

  Sidling up to one of the hoists they were met by Lucy and Gustav who dropped ropes down to them. Together they all made quick work of pulling themselves up as Patrick conferred with Lucy.

  “What’s going on? Why’d you turn the train’s defenses on? Patrick asked her, ”More than a little perturbed at having his own districts weapons turned on him.

  Lucy was silent for several tense moments, the aura coming off of her nearly palpable. “We’re being followed Patrick, I’m not sure who it is but they’re on a slayer class train.” She said, stress tearing lines into her features.

  “Well did you change course?” Patrick asked.

  “Of course!” Lucy snapped at him, “Twice already,” she said.

  Patrick placed both hands on the back of his head and took a deep breath as he looked out behind them at the swamp. “How do you know?” He finally asked.

  “Katie’s familiar has been watching them.” Then glaring at Ozzy, she added. “The saint is with them.”