Chapter 39:Echoes and Ale
The Stumbling Minotaur was a fortress of noise and warmth, a stark, welcome contrast to the chilling silence of the deep dungeon. Their corner booth was a claimed island in the chaotic sea of celebrating adventurers. Platters of roasted meat, thick-cut bread, and steaming vegetable stew soon covered the scarred wooden table, alongside a small forest of tankards.
The initial, adrenaline-fueled retellings had settled into a more relaxed, camaraderie-filled atmosphere. The dark ale was strong, loosening tongues and easing the last tremors of fear.
"It's not the size, you see," Kael was saying around a mouthful of mutton, gesturing with a drumstick. "It's the coordination. Regular beasts, you can predict. But those raptors… they were talking to each other. A proper military unit with feathers and teeth."
"More like scales and spite," Rin corrected, picking at a wedge of cheese with her dagger-point. "But he's right. Most dungeon crawls are about endurance or overpowering a single big threat. That was… tactical warfare in a cave. Never seen anything like it." She glanced at Reginleif with open admiration. "The way you moved between them, like you weren't even touching the ground… that's not just a Mythic. That's an art."
Reginleif shrugged, swirling her cider. "It's efficiency. Why trade ten blows when one, in the right place, ends it? Dungeons are a puzzle of anatomy and angles."
"It's beautiful," Lira said softly, her usual quietness softened further by a sip of honeyed mead. "In a terrifying way. Like a storm you can dance in."
Joren pushed his spectacles up his nose, leaning forward. "Which brings me to the Drake. The anatomical data is… confounding. The hybrid physiology suggests a magical convergence event of catastrophic proportions, likely tied to the 'tear' the dungeon is named for. To defeat such a creature…" He shook his head in scholarly awe. "The papers that could be written…"
"Save the papers for later, Joren," Tarin said with a quiet smile, the first they'd seen from him all night. "Right now, I'm just glad to be drinking something that isn't my own fear." A round of laughter and clinked tankards met his words.
The conversation drifted, as it does among survivors, to the future. The "after."
"Once we get the bonus from this," Kael said, his voice dropping to a more serious tone, "we're going to commission a proper map. Not a guild schematic. A master cartographer's work, focused on the eastern reaches, near the Scarred Wastes. Narrow down the locations of any recorded 'Weeping Citadel' formations."
Rin nodded, her eyes sharp. "We'll need better gear. Silence-gilded boots. Truth-seeker compasses. Maybe even hire a linguist who knows old dungeon dialects."
"It's not just about finding a place," Lira added, her fingers touching the neck of her lute. "It's about understanding what happened there. If the Grey Flux was waste from a place like that…" She didn't finish, but the determination in her eyes was clear. They were no longer just surviving. They were building a quest.
Their shared dream, reforged in the fire of the hatchery, was palpable. It made Azazel think, uncomfortably, of the hollow space Reginleif had mentioned. These people were filling theirs with purpose.
"So," Rin said, turning her keen gaze on Azazel and Reginleif, breaking the reflective mood. "Enough about our dusty plans. We've fought beside you, nearly died with you, but we know nothing about you. How did you two even meet? A partnership this smooth doesn't just happen."
Reginleif took a slow sip of cider, her expression unreadable behind the mug. Azazel felt the familiar, internal shift into fabrication mode. The truth—a bloody alley, a burning city, mutual desperation—was not for sharing. It was bedrock, not bar talk.
He leaned back, a lazy, confident smirk spreading across his face—the "boasting to the boys" persona sliding on like a well-worn glove. He let his gaze wander pointedly across the bustling tavern, lingering for a fraction of a second on a barmaend carrying a tray of drinks.
"Meet?" Azazel chuckled, a low, rough sound. "It was a classic story. Girl being chased by some serious, armored trouble. Looked like a lost kitten in a storm, all big eyes and sharp edges." He ignored the slight, deliberate kick Reginleif aimed at his shin under the table. "Me? I was just passing through. Saw the situation. Decided to even the odds."
Kael grinned. "A heroic rescue, eh?"
"Heroic?" Azazel scoffed, taking a long pull of ale. "Nah. Pragmatic. She looked like she could handle herself, and trouble that wasn't aimed at me is the best kind to get into. So I dropped a couple of the chasers—nothing fancy, just a quick discussion about the structural integrity of their kneecaps. Next thing I know, she's not running away, she's running with me. Figured if she was that hardcore, she'd be useful."
Reginleif rolled her eyes, but a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk played at the corner of her mouth. He was weaving their truth into a believable, swaggering lie.
"And the partnership?" Tarin asked, intrigued.
"Trial by fire," Azazel said, his smirk turning genuine for a beat. "Literally. First dungeon we hit together, we stumbled into a nest of Flame Newts. I'm trying to put them out with the only thing I had—some dubious water magic—and she's over there, not just dodging fireballs, but redirecting the damn air to choke their vents. I thought, 'Okay, she's not just useful. She's a force multiplier.' We shook on it over a split loot pile. Been splitting them ever since."
He was laying it on thick, playing the cocky, street-smart brawler who'd gotten lucky. It was a mask that fit the "Iron-rank who killed a Drake" narrative people would want to believe—a talented roughneck with more guts than sense.
"And the Drake?" Joren prompted, unable to help himself. "How did you… manage the final blow? In your professional assessment."
Azazel's eyes lit up with performative bravado. He leaned forward, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret with the whole table. "Okay, see, the key with a big predator—T-Rex, Drake, whatever—is it's all about confidence. And weak spots. You see, it's got these massive… tracks of land up front." He mimed an exaggerated, curved shape in the air with his hands, his expression one of mock-serious analysis. "Tremendous, distracting assets. But a true professional doesn't get distracted. You use its own… momentum against it."
The men at the table—Kael, Tarin, Joren—snorted into their drinks, catching his meaning. Rin rolled her eyes harder. Lira looked politely confused.
"While it's focused on trying to barbecue you," Azazel continued, winking, "you find the Achilles' heel. In this case, a beautifully vulnerable undercarriage. One good, solid thrust with the right tool—in my case, a very pointy spear—right up and into the boiler room, and bam. Lights out. It's less about brute strength and more about… precision targeting."
He sat back, spreading his hands as if the explanation was self-evident. "So you see, boys, it's not the size of the monster in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the monster… and knowing exactly where to poke it."
Kael roared with laughter, slamming the table. "By the gods, that's the best tactics lesson I've ever heard! A toast! To precision targeting!"
As the tankards clashed again and the laughter swelled, Reginleif leaned close to Azazel, her voice a dry whisper only he could hear. " 'Tremendous, distracting assets'? 'Boiler room'? You are utterly ridiculous."
Azazel kept his grinning mask in place, but his reply was a low murmur for her alone. "They're eating it up. It's what they want to hear from the guy who got lucky. Better than the truth."
"The truth being?"
"That I was too busy wondering why a dinosaur was in a dragon's body to be scared, and you were counting the seconds until you could try to cut its wings off."
"Accurate," she conceded, hiding her own smile in her mug.
The night wore on, filled with more stories, more toasts, the shared warmth of survival. The Hands of Scouting saw a brash, skilled fighter and his deadly, graceful partner—a duo forged in convenient violence. It was the perfect cover story, built on a foundation of real trust and mutual, unspoken understanding. As the noise of the tavern enveloped them, Azazel let the persona do the work, keeping the real story—the one of blood, fire, and a desperate pact in the ashes of a fallen kingdom—safe in the shadows where it belonged.
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The warmth of the tavern and the weight of the ale faded with each step away from The Stumbling Minotaur. At the inn's door, Azazel and Reginleif parted with a silent nod—she to the quiet room and a well-earned rest, he to the restless energy that still hummed in his veins.
"Don't start a war before breakfast," she murmured as she turned inside.
"No promises," he replied, the ghost of his tavern smirk on his lips.
Alone on the midnight streets of Korvath, the fortress city felt different. The unbreakable walls now felt like a cage. The acclaim of the guild was a spotlight he had no interest in standing in. He needed the opposite: the shadow economy, the unregulated market. The Drake parts in his inventory cube weren't just loot; they were high-value, traceable contraband. The guild would take a hefty cut, ask questions, and log everything. He needed a buyer who asked no questions and paid in untraceable assets.
For hours, he was a ghost in the labyrinthine underbelly. He followed hints whispered by beggars, read graffiti that served as crude signage, and used his Shadow Sense to feel out watchers in darkened windows. He wasn't the broker here yet, but the principles were the same: find the flow of illicit value and follow it upstream.
Finally, a lead crystallized—a nondescript door beneath a rusted iron stairwell, marked only by a faded symbol that might have been a closed eye or a broken coin. No guards, just an implicit understanding.
He slipped inside.
The air changed instantly—warm, thick with the smell of strong liquor, pipe smoke, and a tense, quiet hum of conversation. It wasn't the raucous chaos of a tavern, but the focused murmur of a library of secrets. Low booths lined the walls, figures shrouded in hoods and cloaks leaning close over dim crystal lamps. Boards on the walls weren't quest notices, but lists of names, ship manifests, and astrological charts. A few people glanced up as he entered, their eyes assessing, then dismissing him as he moved to the long, polished bar at the rear.
Well, shit, Azazel thought, taking in the scene. I wasn't looking for this place. This is an information hub. A brokerage of secrets, not goods. It was more valuable, and infinitely more dangerous. I think it just found me. Oh well. Welcome back to the underworld, Azazel.
He took a seat at the bar, the stool creaking under him. He placed a single gold coin on the polished wood, saying nothing. The barkeep, a gaunt man with ink-stained fingers, swept it away and placed a heavy clay mug of dark, spiced liquor before him. No menu. No price. The coin was the entry fee and the first drink.
Azazel sipped, letting the liquid fire burn away the last of the tavern ale. He listened, his broker's mind parsing fragments.
"…Brotherhood caravan routes shifting east of the Scarren Pass…"
"…Saint's party was seen acquiring cold-weather gear, not combat spells…"
"…price on unregistered dungeon cores from the Deep Maw has doubled…"
After twenty minutes of passive absorption, he caught the barkeep's eye. In a low voice, without moving his head much, he asked, "Looking for a specialist buyer. Unique biological specimens. No guild tags."
The barkeep's eyes flickered. He didn't speak, just gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his head towards the door, then tapped three fingers on the bar in a quick sequence—left, right, middle. A location code. Probably a street and a building number in a system Azazel would have to decipher.
Azazel placed a second gold coin on the counter. The barkeep nodded once. Transaction complete.
He left the way he came, the murmuring silence swallowing his departure. The cold night air hit him as he stepped into the alley, sharp and clean after the hub's cloistered atmosphere. He'd taken three steps when his Shadow Sense, stretched thin behind him, felt the shift. Not one, but three separate breaks in the natural flow of the dark. Footsteps, too carefully spaced, falling into rhythm behind him.
Are you fucking serious right now? Irritation, cold and sharp, cut through his focus. A tail? After a info-hub visit? This is bullshit. This isn't a movie.
He didn't speed up or look back. He turned a corner into a narrower, dead-end alley cluttered with refuse. The perfect trap for an amateur. He heard their steps speed up, thinking they had him cornered.
He focused on a deep pool of shadow behind a large, reeking trash midden, ten feet behind the last follower.
Voidfool.
There was no blur, no sound of displacement. One moment he was walking ahead. The next, he was behind the rearmost figure. His arm snaked around the man's neck in a vicious chokehold, his other hand clamping over the man's mouth to stifle any cry. The man thrashed, but Azazel had leverage and the element of utter, impossible surprise. In less than ten seconds, the struggle ceased, and the man went limp.
Azazel lowered the body silently behind the midden. The other two had frozen ahead, confused. Their target had vanished.
"Where'd he—?"
That was all the first one got out before Azazel, moving with predatory silence, was upon them. His dwarven spear was in his hands, not the blade, but the heavy, metal-shod butt. A short, brutal swing cracked into the side of the second man's throat. A choked gurgle. As he crumpled, wheezing, Azazel reversed the spear and brought the shaft down in a punishing arc on the third man's temple.
It wasn't a clean knockout. The man staggered, cursing. "You fucking asshole!"
"Sorry, dog," Azazel said, his voice flat. He stepped inside the man's wild swing, jammed the spear butt into his solar plexus to fold him over, and brought his knee up in a savage rising strike to meet the descending face. There was a wet, crunching sound. "You were caught lacking. Good night."
The third man dropped like a sack of stones.
Breathing steadily, Azazel quickly checked the three unconscious forms. He emptied their pockets—a few silvers, a cheap knife, a tinderbox. Then he saw it, tucked inside one man's tunic: a simple, stamped copper ingot. A guild insignia. Low rank, but guild all the same.
Well, shit, he thought, a fresh wave of cold annoyance washing over him. These guys are from the guild too. Probably lowlifes looking to rob a solo adventurer coming out of a shady spot. They'd picked the wrong mark. Doesn't matter to me. Try me again, I'll knock you down again. But the third time… He looked at their battered faces in the gloom. I'm just gonna kill you and be done with this.
He left them there in the filth of the alley, their guild tokens still on them—a message, if they were smart enough to receive it.
Okay, he thought, merging back into the deeper shadows of the sleeping city, the barkeep's coded taps unfolding into a clear location in his mind. Time for the black market.
End of Chapter 39