Neath is shorthand for beneath; it is also the name attributed to the greater criminal underworld of Integrated Earth. Though there are cutthroats, thieves, smugglers, and more within every major nation or empire, the true underbelly of crime is organized and governed by the Dragon Brokers, an enigmatic group of Pathbearers who have existed since time immemorial.

Under their management, the desperate and powerless have another option rather than participating in the games of polite society. Also, practically anything can be bought in the Neath, provided one has the mithril or the capability to exchange favor for favor. And that is the ultimate currency which fuels the Neath: favors owed by powerful individuals.

For at some point, you will need someone to help you, and very often you will need that help to go against the very society you were born in, or to exact retribution on someone far beyond your station. After that, one of your skills will be ritualistically bound, and soon, even if you don’t understand it, you will be inducted into a new world—a world of shadows, deception, crime, and unending debt.

For once you sink below the surface, you will either learn to breathe in the fetid waters of the Neath, or you will drown, and your body will never be found. Remember this: Everything has a consequence. Everything has a cost. What are you willing to pay?

-What Lurks Below: An Exposé on the Hidden World of Organized Crime (Banned by Republic authorities for unlawful slander and fearmongering)

200 (I)

Neath [I]

Seconds passed, and no one in the cellar said anything. The cigar-chewing goblin sighed and slammed two clawed hands upon her knees. She wore dusty overalls, and a hard hat hung lopsided on her head. He guessed she was a builder of some kind. Construction by the look of it. So why was she down here, and why was she serving the role of a goon?

“Listen,” she said. “You sound honest, you sound desperate, and you sound absolutely stupid for invoking the Dragon Brokers. You know they don’t much like that, right? Other people invoking their power to get something? It’s not how business is done down here.” The goblin had a faint sneer on her face, but she was mostly projecting a front of strength rather than actually being a thing of courage.

“It’s exactly how business is done down here,” Irons said without any hesitation. “I needed their help because I was going to do something that I otherwise couldn’t. It’s as you said. I was desperate, and this is stupid. But I’ll do desperate and stupid if it means preserving a life. So, again: Custiel. I need to see him. And I need to find a way back into Flamecrown Castle.”

The moment he said that, the goblins in the room slammed their little hands over their ears. Some of them mumbled, one started loudly singing “Lalalala”, and the others rolled their eyes.

“Don’t say that shit out loud, man,” the cigar-chewing goblin groaned. “None of us need to know that. Now we’re gonna all have to go visit a Psychomancer and get that cut out of our minds.” She mumbled under her breath as she got to her feet.

She tore across the room, but rather than approach Captain Irons, she ran to the back, where several massive barrels loomed. She crawled up to the first two rows, and by the time she got to the third, she reached higher and turned one of the taps above her. In an instant, a spray of foaming amber crashed down on her head like a waterfall. Shiv was confused as to why she did that, but then the waterfall wrapped around her. The alcohol came alive with Hydrokinetic mana. A moment later, the goblin was gone, drained into the narrow nozzle of the liquor dispenser.

“Oh, that is clever,” Adam said, “but that also requires a very specific Skill Evolution.”

“Specific skills, indeed,” the Educator added. “Specific skills that we will need to make use of. That’s where we’re going as well, across that nozzle, to see this Custiel.”

Shiv grunted in surprise. “Wait, you don’t know who we’re going to see?”

“I knew the location. I have contacts in the Neath, but individual names and specific Pathbearers? No. And often you have to surrender this knowledge afterward.”

“Surrender how?” Shiv asked.

“Psychokinetically,” the Educator explained.

That didn’t sit well with the Deathless. He was willing to give up a lot of things, but his memories? No. And letting someone else reach into his mind? He was done with that. He’d faced enough threats to know how treacherous it was to let someone influence your consciousness.

“Yet, this Captain Irons of yours still seems to remember the expert that offered this service,” the Educator hummed. Shiv guessed she was observing the Vanguard staring all the goblins down. “If I am to guess, he came to get the same thing we’re about to. Shell identities, false semblances to fool anyone trying to Analyze him. And I also suspect I know why his last shell failed.”

Shiv thought about that for a moment, and he cast his Psychomancy into Adam specifically. “False souls, shell identities. Sounds a little bit like something I used to have.”

“Yes. Your mask. Still broken, is it?”

“Haven’t had the chance to fix it. Too busy doing hard time in jail.”

“Right. But if we could get it to work again, Can Hu could potentially rebuild it.”

“Can it do that without your Unique mana core? And do we have the time to do that while most of the capital is on a manhunt for our asses?”

Adam sighed. “Good point. Besides, even if we manage to fix that mask, it will only hide one of us. And probably not you.”

“You mean probably not me,” Shiv said.

“Oh, come now, Shiv. We both know how well your undercover attempts go.”

“Hey, listen, the last time was complete bullshit. I would have done great undercover if 812 hadn’t stabbed me in the ass the moment I got in. Hells, before I got in. That felling shit was waiting to screw me over from the start.”

“Excuses, excuses,” the Gate Lord tutted.

“To hells with you, Arrow. You know I’m right.”

“So, out of curiosity, I just want to ask,” another goblin said to Irons, “you don’t need to tell me too much about what you were doing, but, you know, how’d shit go wrong? And how’d you make it out after? It looks like you bashed someone with that helmet of yours.”

Irons’s hazel eyes snapped to the goblin in an explosive instant. The speed at which he turned his gaze told Shiv the man likely had at least Master-Tier Reflexes. The rest of him was harder to gauge. He wore heavyset armor, so Shiv assumed him to be a Master in Physicality at least. But he couldn’t detect any obvious magic from the man. That didn’t mean that Irons didn’t have any, but if he did, it was either a particularly subtle Skill Evolution or one of the few lores Shiv didn’t have access to, like Aeromancy or Geomancy.

“My shell failed,” Irons said. “It managed to get me pretty deep into the castle, but broke near the end. I need a new one. And quick.”

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The goblin he was speaking to looked troubled. This one wasn’t dressed like the one that went seeking Custiel. Rather, he wore a blazer with fine slacks and leather shoes. Most goblins didn’t wear shoes; their clawed appendages made it hard, but this one seemed to make a special attempt at being dressed properly. Furthermore, he also had a pair of spectacles and a gray beret placed atop his head. From the sluggishness of his motion, this goblin wasn’t a warrior at all. Sub-Adept in terms of Reflexes. Maybe an accountant or something logistical, Shiv guessed.

“Custiel’s shells never fail,” the goblin declared. A few of the others nodded along, but Shiv read something on their faces, something left unsaid.

“They did for me,” Irons insisted. He wasn’t emotional when he justified himself, but there was a heat in his voice, and Shiv guessed that Captain Irons was a man who held himself to a strict rigor, governed himself by way of practice, discipline, and martial honor. But the last part meant that he wasn’t far from violence either.

“Did you run into any of the Ascendants?” the well-dressed goblin asked.

Irons didn’t answer immediately. Another of the goblins let out a huffing breath. This one wore an apron, and its front side was stained with blood. Butcher, Shiv guessed. “Yeah, if you run into a divine entity, it’s gonna break. Custiel’s a Legend, but, you know, Legends ain’t really gods, friend. You gotta be a little bit more careful when you’re running under the noses of the biggest of the big.”

“Biggest of the big,” the Educator echoed scornfully. “As if we are anything more than up-jumped children. This power is not even ours.”

That caught Shiv’s interest. “Maia,” he said, invoking the Educator’s real name, as he’d learned from Cripple. He felt a brief spike of alarm come from her, and it was followed by a wave of abrasive fury.

“Never call me that.”

“Maia,” Shiv said again, partly because he felt like being an asshole, but ultimately because the Educator couldn’t really do anything to him, not without Udraal getting mad, and not without betraying their position. “If you hate being an Ascendant so much, why did you bother taking on the power in the first place?”

“Because I wanted to survive. Because I was young. Because I was foolish. Because I was easily goaded, just like I’m easily goaded right now. Because the System is determined to force me into these miserable circumstances, in which I have to work with fools and killers.” As she finished her diatribe, the rage inside her simmered down. “Because I didn’t know the cost. I couldn’t have known. And now I feel it fully. And I experience taunts from the world, even when they’re not directed at me.”

Just then, the goblin that had left through the tap returned. A spray of foam filled the space beneath the dispenser, and she came striding free, stepping out from the brightly fizzling alcohol as if it were nothing more than a membrane. “Alright, man-ape. Custiel’s feeling generous. Actually, Custiel’s got a few questions for you too. You’re clear to go across, but uh, don’t cause any trouble. You ain’t the only guest in right now, and I don’t think you wanna piss off that other hard customer, lest you want two new holes in your neck.” The goblin laughed nastily.

Irons’s eyes narrowed. “You do business with the Boodspawn here too?”

“What do you think this is? We’re in the Neath, dipshit. We do business with whoever pays. With whoever’s stupid or desperate. You think only humans can be stupid or desperate?”

Though his displeasure and wariness were evident, Irons didn’t have a better choice. He walked past the goblins, but never once did he take his eye off them. He crossed along the corner of the room so they couldn’t ambush him from two sides. Shiv hadn’t studied strategy or tactics, but he’d been in enough battles now to pick up a few things instinctively. This man was a warrior, a warrior of the body and a warrior of the mind. And now, he was a warrior in a place he shouldn’t be, doing something Shiv didn’t understand. Being about three times the size of a goblin, he didn’t need to climb up on the dispensers to turn the tap. As soon as he touched it, the spray redirected itself, and the golden liquid swallowed him in an instant. A second later, he was drained up through the nozzle into the barrel and went wherever the hard-hat-wearing goblin did earlier.

“Okay, following him’s going to be a bit of a mess,” Shiv said. He could faintly follow the Hydromancy at play here. The spell extended out and wrapped around Irons’s body, but it immediately converted him to liquor a moment after. Then he was gliding through the pipes, and Shiv had no idea where he was anymore.

“I can’t follow him either,” Adam said.

“Not even with your Seer of Horizons?” Shiv asked, surprised.

Adam clicked his tongue. “There’s a very clever mechanism in one of those pipes. It’s a Portomancy spell. The liquor is getting redirected to somewhere else entirely. In fact, I think whoever’s moving Irons is the one casting through that portal in the first place.”

“Lot of effort to smuggle someone across. Feels like something you’d only read about in a cheap spy thriller,” Gone commented. The Legendary goblin let out a quiet breath, and the darkness that comprised Solzimort shivered in response. “We can try talking with them in a moment. Solzimort, drop me in the corner of the room. I’ll incapacitate them, see if I can secure an invite for the rest of us.”

“That’s an option,” Shiv said, “but there’s a problem with that. That liquor has to come out and wrap around you, and it seems that one of these goblins has to inform whoever’s on the other side before they use their Hydromancy to transport anyone. Could end pretty badly for us if they think we’re trying to ambush them or something. They might just dump us out on the street through some spigot or something. Then we’ll have the Prismatic Guard and the Ascendants back on our asses again. We’re really not that far from the volcano. Anything happens and we go loud, then we’re gonna be running for our lives.”

“It’s getting worse outside as well,” Adam said. “I took a peek at the streetsides above us. There are more Prismatic Guard patrolling than I ever remembered seeing in all my years here. I also saw the magical netting surrounding the Yellowstone Supervolcano ruptured in several places.”

“So, what, there are Legendary-Tier fugitives on the loose in the capital?” Shiv asked.

“I hope not,” Adam said softly. “I hope they were intercepted by the Wardens or the Ascendants.”

“You hope not?” Gone said thinly.

“Yes, I do. Listen, I don’t mean it that way, Gone. We wouldn’t have made it out without you or Solzimort or Candles or a great many people. But do you really trust them? I barely know you. Thus far, I’m quite pleased with you as a companion due to your capabilities and your character. But how many other prisoners could you say the same about? How many other prisoners would you trust with your life? With the lives of random citizens?”

When Gone didn’t say anything, Shiv knew she saw Adam’s point. Furthermore, he thought back to her request, for a member of their escape party was the exact kind of prisoner Adam was worried about. Kura had murdered an entire family, down to the youngest. And doubtless she was listening, but she didn’t say anything either.

“It’s bad enough that we have to work with a Forgotten Ascendant,” Adam scoffed. “And no, Educator, you’re not getting any apologies from me. Again, we’re putting up with you, and you’re putting up with us. Nothing more than that. I’d also like for you to explain more of your thinking to the rest of us, instead of just pointing us around. We can provide a great deal of valuable input, you know? I, too, have deep knowledge of the city, and have lived here for a great many years. Perhaps not in this district specifically, but I know a good portion of the mid-ring, and I’ve toured all the grandest gates of the capital. I dare say I know a few secrets here that are even beyond you.” A few moments passed. “Educator?”

No reply came. For a second, Shiv wondered if she was simply fixated on something else, or if she was too annoyed to continue trading jabs with the rest of them. But something told him that she wasn’t here at all. There was an odd feeling of absence.

“She’s focused on her own plans, and earlier she was pretty interested in Captain Irons,” Shiv suddenly said. “Adam, I don’t think she’s inside your Awareness anymore. I think she took a leap into Irons.”

The Gate Lord realized a moment thereafter. “Oh, godsdamn her! What’s she trying to do? Did she just leave us?”

“I don’t think so,” Shiv said. He considered Irons and how he was drawn across the tap once more. “I think she’s solving our problem for us right now. We can only be transported from the other side, right? She’ll probably incapacitate everyone there before forcing whatever Hydromancer they have to do what she asks.”

“We won’t need to deal with any of these goblins,” Adam concluded. “We’ll be able to go across directly.”

Just as they reached that realization, the tap that the goblin and Irons both turned began to groan as its nozzle burst apart in a spray of ringing fragments. A rush of liquor splashed down on the ground, and the foaming fluid created a steady waterfall. The goblins jerked back in startlement. Several tumbled out from their chairs; others knocked their own drinks over. Shiv, however, noticed how the waterfall of alcohol didn’t puddle on the ground. It continued streaming hard against the floor, but it didn’t spread. It was as if it were a pillar holding in place, or a stable portal.

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