“You’re him,” Damian said, still lightheaded.

  The man—boy, really—snorted at Damian. He was tall and slim, dressed in baggy clothes that hung loose on his frame. His hair was long and platinum blonde, cascading over his shoulders and gleaming under the room’s strange purple lights. Aside from the hair, though, he looked... normal. Damian wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but a skinny guy maybe four years older than him with nice hair wasn’t it.

  “Yeah, man, whatever you say,” the man said dismissively. “Let’s get you some fresh air, huh? You definitely need a break from the mist.”

  “No.” Damian shook his head as the man put a hand on his shoulder. He hesitated, then quickly changed his mind as a fresh wave of nausea hit him. “I mean yes. Fresh air. Good idea.”

  As the man led him through the room, Damian tried to piece together what he’d been doing for the past... hour? He hoped it was only an hour. Memories returned in disjointed fragments: watching a [Merchant] demonstrate a magic heating rune, eating dough-wrapped meat on a stick, staring at distorted reflections in colored glass art. It was deeply unsettling to Damian, not remembering where he’d been or what he’d done.

  Crisp air smacked Damian in the face. He hadn’t realized how stale and tangy it had been inside until a clean breeze tickled his nose and filled his lungs, clearing them out. It was dark now, the street lit by glowing mage lamps that bathed everything in a dim, multicolored haze. Damian searched for the moon to gauge the time but couldn’t find it. It had definitely been more than a few hours.

  “Better?” the man asked, letting go of Damian’s shoulder.

  Damian nodded, his attention snapping back to his savior. Even skilled into a stupor, he must’ve been following [Locate Chosen One] on instinct alone. This was it; he’d reached his goal. The whole point of his quest. It hadn’t even been that hard. He’d set out to find [The Chosen One], and now he’d done it.

  Now what?

  “What’s your name?” Damian asked, giving the man another once-over.

  The man chuckled, waving a hand at him. “No, no—I don’t do names. You needed help, and you’ve been helped. That’s all there is to it. Word of advice: keep your head down in the bazaar. It’s better at night, but plenty of Skills need eye contact to work. It’ll get you—”

  “I know your class,” Damian interrupted.

  The man froze, and for a split-second Damian caught a flicker of fear cross his face. But he recovered quickly, flashing a charming smile. “I doubt that, friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back in.”

  He tried to push past, but Damian held out a hand to stop him. Realistically, the man could’ve just walked right through him, being a head and shoulders taller. But Damian dug in his heels and held firm.

  “Wait—just wait. My skill led me to you. You’re...” Damian lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You’re [The Chosen One], aren’t you?”

  Again, the man froze, looking at Damian like he’d just revealed himself to be an annoying persistent stain. For a moment, they stood pressed against each other, him trying to push past and Damian refusing to let him go. Finally, the man leaned in and hissed, “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want anything to do with you. So take a hint and fuck off.”

  The man shoved Damian, sending him staggering back. But instead of heading for the doors, he turned and jogged down the street. Damian stood there, dumbfounded.

  “Wait!” he called out, recovering quickly. “Wait, come back!”

  The man didn’t look back, and in a split-second decision Damian bolted after him. They were still in the bazaar, though Damian had no idea where exactly. Everything looked different under the dim glow of the mage lamps. The biggest change, though, was the sound. The daytime clamor had given way to low whispers and the crackle of illusion spells vying for attention. Damian shoved past a stall where a [Mage] puppeted glowing illusory fish through the air, and for a heartbeat he felt an overwhelming urge to stop and watch.

  He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, only opening them when he was staring at the ground. It helped, so the man’s advice was sound. But chasing someone without looking where he was going? That was a recipe for disaster.

  But what choice did Damian have?

  He focused on the man’s rapidly disappearing back, following the pull in his gut as much as his eyes. Someone shouted as he tore past, but Damian ignored them. A couple wandering with slack-jawed expressions swore as he nearly bowled them over at a dead sprint. He muttered an apology they definitely didn’t hear.

  The man he was chasing glanced over his shoulder, scowling. He slowed, scanned the street, then pointed toward a nearby group watching a [Dancer] juggle flaming sticks. “[Ecstatic Purpose], [Call To Revel].”

  Only a few dozen feet separated them when the fifty or so people entranced by the [Dancer] suddenly exploded into motion, swept up in a storm of movement. They were... dancing. All of them at once, disjointed and chaotic, yet somehow avoiding one another by bare inches, as if guided by an invisible hand. Damian tried to skirt around them, but they expanded to fill the street.

  Within moments, Damian was tangled in a mess of limbs and sweat, muttering apologies and blushing as he ran face-first into someone’s breasts. She didn’t even acknowledge him, spinning seamlessly into her next graceful move. A heartbeat later, an arm smacked the back of his head, nearly knocking him off balance. The dancers might have been perfectly in sync with each other, but that protection clearly didn’t extend to Damian.

  For a single second, Damian feared he’d be crushed by the crowd, buffeted between slick, moving limbs. But then, in a flash of clarity amid the panic, he realized they were guiding him into the gaps between them. There was a pattern hidden in the chaos. Tentatively, Damian matched the step of the woman in front of him. She leaned back into a bow, and Damian swung around her, catching her hand for balance. She reacted instantly, twisting and spinning him into the waiting arms of another man. A heartbeat later, the two of them were circling together, dancing to a song Damian couldn’t hear.

  He couldn’t move as gracefully as the rest, but for a moment, an odd calm and joy washed over Damian as he surrendered to the silent tempo, falling into step with the dancers. There was a strange whimsy to it, and despite everything, he found himself grinning. One dancer passed him to the next, and he slowly wove through the shifting gaps until he reached the far edge of the impromptu crowd and nudged his way free. Even those few minutes left him panting and slick with sweat.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “That’s... an odd skill,” Damian muttered, watching the dancers a moment longer. In another circumstance, he would’ve considered that actually enjoyable.

  But he broke away from watching them, brought back to reality. There was no point chasing after someone with that much of a lead. And it wasn’t like he could hide forever, [Locate Chosen One] would lead him right back eventually. For now, he just wanted to escape the bazaar before it dragged him back into the waking nightmare his evening had become.

  Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure it was still the same day.

  Taking the stranger’s advice, Damian carefully navigated his way out of the bazaar, keeping his eyes on his toes as much as possible. Now that he wasn’t completely overwhelmed by the urge to look around, he could feel skills washing over him. Temptations and offers, but he could resist them by simply refusing to look. [A Moment Of Your Time?] was far less effective when he couldn’t tell if they were speaking to him specifically.

  There was no clear line where the bazaar ended, but when the temptation to look up and wander toward every stall and smell every piece of food faded to a faint pressure at the back of his mind rather than an all-consuming urge... Damian figured he was safe. He wondered how there could be no warning about such a massive convergence of skills, one that could drag in anyone unprepared, just as it had him. How was that not against Marduk's Word?

  “Isn’t illegal for a [Merchant] to use their skills, I suppose,” Damian muttered, giving a wide berth to another late-night food vendor.

  Though glad to be out of his funk, Damian quickly realized he had no idea where he was. The tall buildings and hanging chains made every street look a little like the last, leaving him with almost no frame of reference for navigation. He figured he had two options: go back to the inn, assuming he still had a room, and sleep off the night. Or... track down [The Chosen One] again.

  He wasn’t tired so, the choice was easy.

  At least following his skill meant he didn’t have to ask anyone for directions. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but after no one had helped him break free of the stupor he’d been trapped in, he trusted the people of this city a lot less than before. Father Garm’s warning was coming back to ring true.

  After wandering for nearly an hour, Damian was fairly sure he’d found the building his quarry was in. It was short by Jahrmarkt standards, only five stories tall. Inside, he quickly realized it felt like a stack of lodges built into a stone honeycomb: cramped, square, and cold. The stone walls seemed far less welcoming than the timber lodges he’d grown up in. If this was how city people lived, it wasn’t for him.

  Finding the right room proved trickier than finding the building. The floor was easy, it was the third. He could feel how far away the man was, but not what lay behind the walls or which door led to him. Eventually, after wandering the dim halls and testing the pull in his gut, Damian was fairly sure he’d found the right one.

  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Damian knocked on the door.

  At first, nothing happened. Damian knocked louder. Then he felt the pull in his gut shift slightly, presumably as the target of his skill moved around inside the room. But no one came to the door.

  “I know you’re in there,” Damian half-shouted, glancing up and down the hallway and hoping he wasn’t waking anyone in the dead of night. This place was like a super-inn.

  A moment later, footsteps approached. The door cracked open, and Damian caught a glimpse of blond hair. It was indeed the man he’d been chasing. He regarded him with one bloodshot blue eye.

  “Fuck. Off,” he hissed.

  Damian crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I’ll start screaming. Let me in, we’ll talk, and if you still want me gone, I’ll leave you alone.”

  For a moment, that bloodshot eye studied him, narrowing slightly. Then Damian heard a sigh, and the door swung open. The man turned and walked down a short hallway into the living space beyond. Cautiously, Damian slipped inside and closed the door behind him. The room was dim, lit only by a few flickering candles—just enough to see by.

  At the end of the hall lay a small room—a narrow bed, a table with two chairs, a few cabinets, a metal stove with the door open full of faintly glowing hot coals, and a closed door that was likely a washroom. It was small, but larger than Damian had expected for one person in a city so clearly starved for space.

  “Sit wherever, I guess,” the man muttered, gesturing weakly before practically collapsing onto his bed.

  As Damian sat, the young man picked up a small wooden pipe and snapped his other hand. A tiny jet of flame burst from his fingertip, which he used to light it. The casual use of magic caught Damian off guard.

  “You don’t mind if I smoke, right?” he asked, giving Damian a wary look.

  Smoking wasn’t uncommon in Bekham—or it hadn’t been, anyway. But it was usually done socially, and mullein certainly didn’t make purple smoke. Whatever this man was smoking was magical, or at least different than Damian was used to. Still, Damian wanted to stay on his good side, so he shook his head.

  “What’s your name?” Damian asked, unsure how to start. He fixed his eyes on the bedpost by the man’s boot to avoid his gaze.

  The man sprawled across his bed, rolling his head over the edge to catch Damian’s gaze. Damian scowled but relented, meeting his eyes. Only then did the man answer. “Konrad.”

  Damian nodded and offered his own in exchange. “Damian.”

  Konrad’s pipe flared as he drew in a deep breath, then he deliberately exhaled a puff of smoke toward Damian’s face. Damian leaned away, waving it aside. It smelled sweet—like burning sugar. Despite trying to resist the urge, he coughed anyway.

  Once he recovered, they just sat there, staring at each other. Damian kept thinking about breaking the silence, but what could he even say? His mouth felt dry as dust as he realized he’d spent all this time trying to reach—well, Konrad—without ever considering what he’d do once he got here.

  In the end, Konrad spoke first.

  “How do you know my class?”

  “Oh,” Damian exclaimed, happy to have a direction to take the conversation in. “It’s one of my skills, [Locate Chosen One].”

  Konrad scoffed. “That’s a dumbfuck skill. What’s your class?”

  Damian cringed slightly but answered. “[The Chosen One’s Squire].”

  “Er...” Konrad hesitated, taking another drag from his pipe. “I mean no offense, but seeing as I’ve no clue who you are—how the fuck did you stumble into that class? You barely look of age.”

  That didn’t feel entirely fair to Damian, considering Konrad barely looked older than he was. But he didn’t rise to the bait. “Yeah, that’s—uh, that’s why I’m here. Did you get a quest from the Great Game? Actually wait—we can talk about that in a minute. You’re in danger.”

  “Shit, we’re all in danger,” Konrad said with a short laugh, leaning back on his bed. Damian didn’t know what to say, so he just stared. Whatever expression he made must’ve landed, because Konrad paused with his pipe halfway to his mouth and waved it vaguely. “Okay, elaborate.”

  It took less time than Damian expected to explain what had happened to his village. He only choked up when he reached the part about Finn’s death and skipped many of the details for his own sake. They didn’t seem relevant anyway. It had only been a week and a half, and the wound was still raw as he reopened it for Konrad’s sake. When he finished, his throat felt scratchy, and he was just glad he’d managed not to cry in front of him.

  Konrad, for his part, nodded to show he was still listening but otherwise absorbed the story with little reaction. When Damian was done talking, he groaned and then took another long drag from his pipe, exhaling a plume of purple smoke above his head. “So, to be clear—you think a god is coming to kill me?”

  “Er... yes,” Damian said. Konrad was taking this disturbingly well.

  The slightly older man nodded as if everything suddenly made sense. “Well, at least I know what to do.”

  “You do?” Damian blurted, confused. “Did the Great Game tell you something? Is it part of your quest?”

  “Oh no, no, no.” Konrad waved him off. “No, I’m definitely dead. Might as well get high out of my mind.”