72. [INTERLUDE] Once in a Lifetime

  Renate Sandvik never made waves, even when she swam.

  Like a phantom, she remained unseen and unheard for as long as she needed. It’d been a special talent of hers since childhood, one that had delighted her mother and confounded her father in equal measure. A talent to which she herself had ascribed little value, until it became imperative she remain unseen and unheard for as long as possible.

  The border between Stamgard and Rotgard was, as always, under heavy guard. A Kronheer regiment patrolled the Trunk’s circumference where it met the Roots. Among them were combat divers who kept underwater watch over the Sanzu River’s numerous distributaries.

  But Renate knew cracks could be found in any defense. This morning, the most fallible crack happened to be a fresh-faced diver on his first assignment. At least this was the first Renate had seen of him, and by now, she knew most of the border guards by their fins if not by face.

  The barely-a-man happened to be a salmon-typed Yaksha. His wetsuited body was sleek, silvery, and well-built for his age. Yet Salmon Lad, as with most any Yaksha, wasn’t as comfortable underwater as his appearance would suggest. A breathing tube snaked from his helmet and was fed ashore, to be monitored by his more senior partner. It was one of the afterlife’s great ironies. All Yakshas, no matter how much they looked and acted like aquatic creatures, were first and foremost landbound souls: native to the slopes of Mount Meru rather than the currents of the Sanzu River.

  In that regard, Renate Sandvik was no exception. But she, unlike most Yakshas, had devised an instrument to surpass the limits of her biology. For she was a Wayfarer—and her Path demanded she overcome the Realmtree’s environmental challenges.

  [Pearl of IMMERSION]

  Renate retrieved a sloshing Pearl from her bandolier and downed its contents. The effect was instantaneous. Her [Oxygen] gauge filled back up to its maximum before resuming its descent, at a much slower rate thanks to the effects of [Immersion].

  She glided closer to Salmon Lad, sending nary a ripple even as she waded through a turtlegrass thicket along the riverbed. Her movements were smooth, practiced, and, crucially, free from the restrictions of a breathing tube.

  When she got as close as she dared, she reached for a metallic handle that jutted over her right shoulder. DREDGER unfurled from her back, producing with it a hint of what might almost be ‘waves’. Salmon Lad finally did spot her then. The combat diver hurriedly turned his helmeted gaze downward, along with the point of his harpoon gun. Too little too late.

  [Auxiliary Technique: ELEMENTAL SURGE]

  Renate swung DREDGER with both hands. Salmon Lad disappeared into a twister of currents, bubbles, and uprooted grass. Renate herself dove under the vortex and glided past unharmed. As she swam through to the other side, however, a harpoon whizzed past, dangerously close to her hooded head. She spun back around in a mad rush, DREDGER at the ready… then relaxed as soon as she saw what had happened.

  Salmon Lad rolled and twisted inside her [Elemental Surge]. The rookie diver hadn’t been—and still wasn’t—in any state to fight back. He must’ve taken a remote prayer of a shot that had, by some miracle, nearly found its target. Some might call it luck, but Renate respected the effort. After all, luck was the universe’s way of rewarding tenacity.

  Renate turned upstream and swam on, making for another thicket to once again mask her location. Salmon Lad’s partner would no doubt be readying for a reinforcement dive. But by then, she would be well out of sight and out of the divers’ jurisdiction.

  For the Kronheer only acted on commands. And whoever gave them their orders seemed hell-bent on secrecy. Better a Rotter occasionally slip through the net than to alert the townspeople upstream to the military presence at the border. The directive worked out just fine in Renate’s favor; she needed but to travel another mile up the river before the divers called off the search.

  From there, it was smooth sailing. Renate rejoined the main body of the Sanzu in a matter of minutes, giving herself and her [Oxygen] gauge plenty of time to spare.

  As she neared Stamgard’s Town Market, the onshore activities gained in noise and density. Morning was the busiest time of the day for Stammers. Many were already up and about, filling the streets and storefronts with hum and bustle. If Renate had her way, this again should work in her favor, namely by keeping her ‘marks’ distracted.

  Palmr Jorgensen was a heavy-set, catfish-typed businessman who, by the grace of King Tyr himself, held the reins to the Town Market and its constant rotation of vendors. He himself owned and operated one of the shops, presently guarded by a pair of stony-faced sturgeons who were even bigger than the catfish.

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  Theoretically, a cautious thief like Renate would do well to stay away from Jorgen & Sons, even if they were the best-stocked vendor in all of Pretjord. Yet, much to her consternation, her days of picking and choosing her victims had come to an end, thanks to Palmr cornering the market on the one product she couldn’t do without. She sighed inwardly at the thought, nearly sending up bubbles that might’ve given away her position. She quickly pushed it down, knowing this was no time to get distracted.

  Whether due to arrogance or complacency, Palmr Jorgensen kept his vials of the Realmtree Dew inside a display box, up front and center of his store. Maximum visibility for his most coveted and expensive product. He must’ve had ironclad faith in his sturgeon musclemen, and perhaps rightly so. But even the most faithworthy enforcers couldn’t catch a thief who kept herself unseen and unread.

  The plan of approach was simple. A prominent knot on the Realmtree rose over the Town Market like a natural enclosure, covered in moss and vines and all manner of foliage to aid a thief in concealment. One vine in particular hung just low enough and in just the right spot to bring Renate within DREDGER range of the display box in question. All she needed to do was scoop it up and hightail it out of there before the sturgeon thugs could react.

  Of course, she first needed to resurface, go ashore, and climb the knot. All while undetected. Her best bet was for everyone in the Town Market to proceed as they normally would: busy, preoccupied, and sending up a storm of ripples to confuse the signals. So far so good. Marketgoers came and went in chattering droves, paying heed only to the items on their shopping list—their next fix to sate their [Hunger]. So long as nothing out of the ordinary were to happen now, the coast was clear for Renate to make good on her plan.

  Nothing out of the ordinary like, for example, a pair of complete unknowns showing up out of nowhere and making waves.

  Splash!

  Renate lost sight of her chosen landing spot as her vision exploded with sprays, bubbles, and uprooted grass. From the epicenter emerged two humanoid figures. One, a woman, kept her eyes tightly shut as she flung her arms about in a wild panic. The other, a man, had his arm around his companion in an effort to keep her afloat. The woman’s most noticeable feature was a pair of onyx horns that crowned her terrified face. Rakshasa. And the man—burly, hornless, and scaleless—was a… Manusya? Now, that was a rare sight.

  Right this Ksana, however, Renate couldn’t be less impressed by the once-in-a-lifetime event that unfolded before her. Instead, she froze in dismay and bubbled over with rage at the universe for its latest serving of bad luck. For this the first time in centuries that outrealmers had arrived on Pretjord’s shores. And they couldn’t have chosen a more spectacular way to interfere with Renate’s business.

  Even now, the Rakshasa woman babbled and shouted incoherently as she fought against her own lack of buoyancy. The Manusya man did his best to calm her down and drag her ashore, but it was plain for all to see that he himself was an inadequate swimmer. It would be a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds, before both of them drowned.

  And that was when Renate’s anger was tempered by a entirely different thought. What would happen to these saps if they were to die right now?

  As a seasoned Wayfarer herself, she knew just how vulnerable and killable her own kind could be. Judging from the look of things, these were the newcomers’ first moments in Pretjord, which meant they wouldn’t have had a chance to tether themselves to a Waystation. While Renate had no personal experience in the matter, she’d heard horror stories of untethered souls who’d wander the Interstitium for years, decades, and even more before they found a new place to reconstitute. Some might never come back, lost forever to a primordial soup of endless time and forgotten memories. Even putting all that aside, drowning is just a terrible way to go…

  Of course, none of this was Renate’s concern. Certainly not her problem to solve. Any sensible thief in her position would suppress both her sympathy for and annoyance with the hapless newcomers and instead improvise a new plan for her own benefit. And yet…

  Renate shifted her gaze for a second. The spectacle had already attracted a crowd of gawkers. Marketgoers, vendors, and even Palmr’s sturgeon thugs flocked to the shore as moths to a flame. Every last one of them would’ve recognized what Renate already understood: should these Wayfarers be left to their own devices, they would drown to death.

  Go on, Renate silently urged her fellow Yakshas. Go on, why won’t any of you jump in and save them? Where’s your Pretjordian hospitality now? It would be child’s play for any grown Yaksha to rescue a pair of would-be drowners. Yet none of the bystanders acted. And Renate knew why.

  They were scared. Scared of the new, the unknown, the undefined. Scared of anything that hadn’t been vetted and ‘taste-tested’ by an authority figure they could trust.

  Just like they were scared of her.

  When Renate Sandvik finally made waves, she did so because she couldn’t stop herself.

  First, a swig from [Pearl of STRENGTH] to put a little extra something behind her swing. Then she gripped DREDGER with both hands and unleashed another [Elemental Surge]. The ensuing geyser shot the Wayfarers high into the air, sending them arcing back down into the heart of the scrambling crowd. You’ll suffer a bit of fall damage, but trust me, it’s much preferable to drowning.

  With the two outrealmers catapulted to safety, Renate turned her thoughts back onto her own mission. Her hopes were already dwindling; a cursory scan of the shore confirmed her fears. Too much attention and hubbub. Too many darting eyes and prickly scales. And among them, a beady and suspicious pair that belonged to a heavy-set catfish.

  There was no choice. She had to abort. No matter how urgent her mission. There was simply too much to lose.

  Renate Sandvik turned her finless tail to make her downstream escape. Her mind roiled with the injustice of it all. Her heart filled with remorse for the friend she was about to let down.

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