Ortho took his sweet time getting to the rendezvous point. The last thing he wanted to do was let Stella think she owned him.

Showing up late to their planned meeting was a petty way to stick it to her, but damn did it feel good to get under her nerves! Just the thought of pulling one over Stella helped him forget the aches and pains that riddled his body after last night’s encounter with Morder.

And it also helped him forget his crippling desire to hunt down Morder and shove his shield up places where it had no right being.

The streets of the Pot were less stifling than the Shanties. For starters, the buildings weren’t literally added on to wherever a spare space allowed, and Ortho could see sky through the clothes lines that stretched across each street. Not always, of course.

When the street twisted and turned, he’d also get a glimpse of the SIN tower—a sight that was non-existent in the Shanties, as well as good reception on phones. The monstrosity of steel and crystals jutted up into the clouds like some giant, glowing bug. If one of those things was slapped down in Huhl Hadem, he was certain a local tribe would mistake it for a monster and send out a hunting party.

Further to the south, the buildings did start to exhibit the haphazard additions that were so common in the Shanties. Many roads were covered by these tacked-on rooms. The people of Anypaxia sure loved their steel and concrete. As Ortho had been confined to the Shanties by poverty, he had to walk in from the south to reach the Ravelin in the near centre of the city.

They also loved their pastries and sweets which, now that Ortho was free of debt, he decided to indulge himself in. A bakery had been stuffed into the bottom floor of one of Anypaxia’s many unreasonably large buildings. As soon as his nose had caught a whiff of a fresh batch of twisted, glazed fingers, he decided to get in line for one. The line was long, but he wasn’t in a rush. Over the shoulders of the customers, he made out a sign that read, Kularias, 5 kin each

The place was busy, clearly popular with the locals. Unfortunately, those locals included a boisterous bunch of dungeoneers decked out in their armour. They didn’t show any of the stress and fatigue of battle, so they were either going to the dungeon or just wearing their gear for the attention. Probably the latter.

“What about the girl with the blonde hair?” one of them said. “You like blondes, don’t you, Morton?”

Another man wearing thick armour chuckled. “Show her your badge. When she finds out you’re in Aspar guild, she’ll be all over you.”

A woman with a large gun strapped over her shoulder patted a tall, blonde man on the back. “No, you need to really impress her. Tell your father to get us some better gear and we’ll be down to the eleventh in no time.”

Ortho couldn’t roll his eyes hard enough. Well, he needed a good fight, and these guys seemed stupid enough. He barged through the pack and walked straight up to the counter.

Sure enough, a big hand grasped his shoulder. Ortho grinned, turned around, and politely asked, “Can I help you, brother?”

A large dungeoneer wearing a blue coat scowled down at Ortho. His weapons, a handgun and a knife, didn’t smell like they packed enough of a punch. There was also another smell coming off him that was strangely familiar, yet Ortho couldn’t place it. He assumed the dungeoneer was a scout, using that ridiculous role system Anypaxia used.

“You cut in line,” the scout, Morton, said. His companions shifted to surround Ortho.

The crowd immediately cleared out. The bakery staff rushed into the back of the building, to relative safety. Nobody was going to hang around for an afto fight.

Not that it was going to be much of a fight. The faint, confusing aromas coming off those aftos weren’t anything that intoxicating. He estimated these guys’ levels were in the mid-twenties, and that was being generous.

“Listen, brother,” Ortho said. He flowed enma into a wadi and clasped the other man’s shoulder. He squeezed so hard that the jacket shimmered blue. At least the guy had the wherewithal to keep his defences up. Without flowing enma into that jacket, the internal circuits would have been damaged under Ortho’s grip. “There’s something I don’t quite get.”

Morton was about a head taller than him, with short blonde hair and a pointed chin. He stared down his button nose at Ortho. “And what might that be?”

There was a slight tremble in his voice, and they all gave off the sweat-stink of battle fear. They were inexperienced in combat, Ortho concluded. No better than monkeys fumbling around with guns.

“See, it’s this.” Strapped around the arm of Morton’s decorated, blue coat was a small box. Ortho gave it a light flick. “Why are you walking around with this…” he leaned in and sniffed, causing Morton’s party members to flinch back. A hint of what Ortho could only describe as stone plums tickled his nose. “This trash. What is it, level one?”

“Two,” Morton said, raising his chin. “It creates a field that can protect against heliotomas on floor seven. Have you even been down that far?” Tart and bitter pride rolled off him.

His party had all drawn close quarters weapons: knives, weirdly shaped clubs, and other such useless crap.

Ortho kept his eye on the dungeoneer in front of him and pursed his lips. “You need a whole two levels to defend against heliotomas? But they splat with a light hit. You hit them fast and they’re nothing. It’s basically target practice.”

The dungeoneer’s nostrils flared. “I’d like to see you do better. But since you don’t have a badge, I’m going to assume you’re E-class.”

Ortho noted the badges they’d stapled to their gear, all depicting a symbol of five parallel lines terminating in a vertical line in the centre. At the sight of that symbol, he remembered things he’d been trying so hard to forget: fires raging, suffocating smoke, burnt flesh, screams, too many screams. Darkness. Darkness stretching on and on for miles as he crawled through the petrified arteries of the ancient beast they’d built their lives on, trying not to die.

Letting his family die.

He'd broken out in a cold sweat. His hand on Morton’s shoulder was gripping so tight that the man’s jacket flashed over and over. He was going to make these idiots hurt.

Ortho leaned in so close that he could smell every emotion that Morton was letting off. He searched amongst that dizzying mess and there it was: fear, sharp and bitter. “Oh, I don’t need a badge. I have something better. It’s called skill.”

In a flash, he lunged at the dungeoneer’s hips and lifted him up. Before his companions could react, Ortho had tossed the man at one of them, knocking them both down.

Less than a heartbeat later, he’d rammed his fist into another one’s face. Their armour was too weak to take the full impact and they were sent tumbling.

Another went to slash him with a knife, but she was too slow. Ortho casually turned and slapped the knife away. Then he slapped the dungeoneer’s face, before hurling her into the least armoured of them all—the support, he assumed.

The last of them, the heavily armoured tank, raised a hammer to smash down at him. Ortho sighed and stepped closer to get out of the hammer’s range. Rather than strike where the armour was most enhanced, he went for the weakest part: the crotch.

With one swift knee, the man was on the floor clutching his sensitive bits. Ortho finished with a kick to the heads of each idiot who dared to try stand back up.

Once they were all groaning and limp on the floor, he stalked between them. He was breathing far heavier that what the fight’s effort had warranted. That was pure, uncontrolled anger. If he could smell his own scent, his nostrils would have stung from the intensity of it.

“Come on, stand up again,” he barked. “Give me an excuse, you guild tra—”

His eyes settled on Morton’s gear. An afto had fallen out of his coat. It had a piece of glass that stretched between two wings, intended to cover the eyes. The glass was etched with faint circuits that were only visible because they glittered in the sunlight. On each side of the afto’s frames that were intended to wrap around one’s ears were two golden orbs that Ortho recognised immediately. He’d seen them every day on his own helmet. They were the cores of a kelbeyu.

White hot rage overcame him. Gritting his teeth, flowing enma into his wadis, he knelt over Morton and grabbed him by the collar.

“You damned thief!”

He laid a fist into Morton’s face. The unconscious man’s head rolled back from the blow.

“Murderer!”

Another blow. Morton’s nose broke.

“How many people did you kill for your toys? How many had to die, huh?”

He laid blow after blow into the man’s face. The crowd screamed in terror, but none of them dared to stop him. That was for the best. It was only when Ortho’s hand was left trembling from the constant impacts that he stopped.

Morton was a mess, completely unrecognisable. Somehow, the man still clung to life. Ortho had managed to hold back just enough. Shaking, Ortho stood up and looked away.

He’d beaten an unconscious man, probably to the brink of death. He’d even used his wadis to do it. There was no honour in that. Worse, it the sort of thing a child would do, not a warrior of the Nubah Kilebhi. Guilt wracked him, but it was too late to fix what he’d done. All he could do now was move forward and do what a warrior ought to do.

Exhaling, Ortho bowed his head and offered a prayer.

“Enmaneth, grant this one strength.

“Grant this one the heart of the karahia, who hunts without rest, so that they shall not faulter in their training.

“Grant this one the sight of the kelbeyu, who’s thousand eyes see all, so that they may see where their weakness lies.

“Grant this one the calm of the great Wahikelbih, who waits in death for his revenge against the living, so that they may receive their revenge in good time.”

He’d never cared much for the many rituals and prayers that the Nubah Kilebhi engaged in. However, it was all he had to connect him with the land he’d long since left behind. He found it soothing. Sometimes.

With that done, Ortho’s mind was clearer now. He put the whole thing out of mind and turned to the pastry store. “Right, that’s what I came for.”

He leapt up and lay flat on the clear hygiene barrier, then fished out a twisted kularia with one hand. Hopping off, he grinned to himself before walking away, trying to hurry before the guards arrived and made his life more difficult.

One of the cashiers poked out from behind a cooling rack. “Excuse me, mister,” she cried out. “You didn’t pay for the—”

She cut off when another of the staffers clapped a hand over her face and dragged her back behind the cooling rack. The two of them peaked through the rack with nervous looks. Ortho looked them both dead in the eye before taking a bite out of his pastry.