Jace needed a plan. He couldn’t just walk in there and take their clothes. They’d see him. A hyperdash was also off the table. This young master Neikir would sense it, for one, and that was if the scavengers didn’t see it first.

  He needed to be fast, but there were still no scavengers on the pier out to the Luna Wrath. He still had a bit of time before he needed a solution.

  Neikir continued to shout at the workers, urging them to hurry and carry the boxes away. They must’ve been dock workers who were here well before the Brakamen sect took over the planet.

  All of this was happening because of the war. There was no other way to put it. If the Starrealm had been able to stop these petty sects from taking what little power they had, the workers wouldn’t be suffering under this Neikir.

  He clenched his fists. He was supposed to be wandering the galaxy, helping where he could. So far, they’d kicked out little despots from villages, helped fix utilities, and dealt with abusive officers, but in four months, they hadn’t made much of difference.

  There were only three of them.

  And even if he did go after Neikir—which would help, he was certain—there were millions more situations like this all over the galaxy.

  It wasn’t good enough. He had to do more. There had to be a way to do more to help everyone.

  End the war. That was the way.

  Jace scratched the back of his head, then stared down at the metal wharf. The man at the meeting on Maehn. The…the Generous Hand in the Shadows. He seemed to be orchestrating the Alliance’s movements.

  Jace had to stop him. It was the only way.

  And to do that, he needed to be stronger. He needed the resources of the dungeon on Ifskar.

  And for that, it brought him back to the uniforms. They had to blend in.

  When the workers ran out of room inside the warehouse, in the designated corner Neikir left them for their wares, he demanded that they dumped the extra crates into the ocean to make room for dungeon wares and loot.

  The workers hauled boxes out to the wharf with two scavengers watching over them, but Neikir stayed inside to keep complaining to the workers—and to his own scavengers. Telling them to move faster, or to eat faster and stop being so lazy. The scavengers dumped their crates down into the sea, nearly a hundred feet below. Months of work, lost. Thrown away because these scavengers had to come and meddle with affairs.

  “Father put you under my charge, so prove your worth,” he snapped at the scavengers. “This is our chance to move our sect up in the world, and I won’t have you ruining it because you’re lazy. The rewards will trickle down to us all!”

  One scavenger scoffed. “...Right. We’ll be up when we’re done our meals. Your father would’ve let us have that dignity, at least.”

  “Don’t talk back to me,” Neikir snapped. Jace heard a crack as the man backhanded his underling across his cheek. “I am heir to this sect, and you will respect me and my authority. Or would you rather I settle this with a corporeal punishment?”

  “Apologies, sir,” the scavenger said, then put down his bowl. “What do you need?”

  “Lend me a hand in here. We’ll sweep the shelves, then head out to the wharf and see what that new starship was about.”

  Jace’s stomach plummeted, but he held his composure. He had to engage his plan, and now. When the next pair of scavengers stepped out the warehouse, they followed the workers to the edge of the wharf, stepping out the light and out of the view of those inside the warehouse. Now was the chance.

  Jace used a hyperdash and zipped up behind them, then drew his Whistling Blade and struck them both on the back of the head. The blade whistled a little, and the workers whirled around, but Jace held his finger over his mouth and pleaded with his eyes. The workers stayed silent and went about their jobs.

  As Jace hauled the two scavengers’ bodies to the side, he heard Neikir shout, “What was that? Did anyone hear that?”

  “Shit,” Jace hissed. He pulled the bodies to the edge of the wall of the warehouse, out of sight once more, then worked as quickly as he could to peel off their ponchos and armour. With the used accumulator nodes out of his backpack, he had more room in his bag to work with. The armour and ponchos fit in neatly.

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  “I dunno!” one of the workers shouted back.

  “Your guys went off to look,” a different worker said, covering for Jace. Jace shot him a nod of thanks.

  Neikir grunted, then said, “They’d better be back soon, or they won’t have a place in the Brakamen sect much longer.”

  Jace sealed up his backpack, then darted back to the wall and pressed his back against it. Just needed an opening to sprint back to the Luna Wrath, then—

  A crash rang out from the warehouse behind. Jace cringed and tucked his head. It could be the perfect opportunity to flee, but…

  “Oh, confound it all, on the Split!” Neikir shouted. “Useless, the lot of you! Useless! That’s it, ten lashes for each worker. Tallos, Miken, get over here. You have the shield-whips? Hand them to me, now!”

  Jace leaned forward and peered around the edge of the warehouse doors. The workers had dropped a crate, and its contents—fossilized discs of iridescent, shelled creatures that bore a tag [Anachrondrite Fossil – Rare Grade] spilled across the floor.

  Neikir kicked one, and it shattered into sparks of multicoloured Aes, but it dissipated quickly.

  Like Kinfild said. A luxury item at best. A collectable for non-wielders to keep in their apartments, or maybe they turned it into some kind of fancy drink. Whatever the case, they didn’t look too useful to Jace. Just enough to warrant a description tag, but not enough to make him stop and try to take some.

  But he did stop. Or, at the very least, he didn’t move.

  Neikir was going to punish these overworked, tired men…for what? For failing to dump their own harvest into the sea. One of the scavengers tossed him a cylinder, and when Neikir pressed a button on its side, a whip of shimmering blue shield-aspect Aes burst from its tip. He flicked it down to his side, and the energy cracked.

  In his months here, he’d seen farmers use them on wildstock, and rarely, on enemies. Never on vassals.

  Jace could help both on the small scale and the large scale. He wasn’t just going to turn his back here.

  But if he was supposed to blend in?

  There were only two uniforms, though. One for Kinfild, one for Lessa. He could hide.

  He slung his backpack up onto his shoulder and stepped out into the light. “Stop this. I don’t care who you are. You’ve got time, and no reason to treat your underlings like this.”

  “Hah!” Neikir spun around and flicked his whip toward Jace. “What? Who are you?” He flipped around the hilt, cracking his whip in the air above him. “Scratch that. Do you know who I am?”

  “Exalted Young Master Neikir, or something like that, yeah,” Jace muttered. “I just remembered the Neikir part. Never really been good with remembering titles.”

  “Yeah, stuff it, smart guy,” one of the scavengers spat. “This is—”

  “Oh, yeah, the heir to the Brakamen sect, that,” Jace said. “I caught that too, at some point.”

  All the workers stopped what they were doing and stared at him. Some with confusion, others with shock. No admiration, only concern.

  It was possible that they’d punish him more for this.

  “You’ll suffer for this,” Neikir said. “Him first, boys. Double the punishment, whoever he is, and let’s see what’s inside that bag.”

  Jace raised a finger and shook his head. “Wait a minute. Now, I’ve a loose grasp on the rules around here, but is it really befitting of your station as an heir, and more importantly, a Wielder at the…Twelth stage of Soul-Circle Opening? Yeah, that.” Jace checked Neikir’s tag just to be sure. “Befitting of a man of your station to be butting heads with the likes of me? I mean, roughing me up?”

  The scavengers glanced at Neikir, and he groaned. “Yeah. Yeah. Someone else do it, then I’ll whip him, for this insult.”

  “How’d he know your stage, sir?” a scavenger asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. I don’t sense a ton of spiritual pressure from him. If he’s a wielder, he’s weak. Around your abilities.”

  Either Neikir’s senses were bad or Jace’s core was truly that much weaker.

  Or, perhaps, it was just quieter. Less pressure-y. However they said it, and however it worked.

  Today, it worked in his favour.

  Two of the scavengers raised their rifles, then turned them over to the rifle-butts pointed forward. The man in the lead, a broad, bulky man, said, “Right, boy. Give it up now and make this easier for yourself.”

  Mmm…no. Jace laid his hand on the hilt of his Whistling Blade, but these guys weren’t here to kill him. Killing them for their master’s orders seemed a little unfair.

  No, he had to demonstrate his power some other way. With his Strength rating nearly twice that of an ordinary man, he could prove himself quite easily.

  But what then? He couldn’t fight Neikir; that’d be suicide. He needed a way out of this. A way that didn’t involve him fighting Neikir right now.

  There was no time to think. The bulky scavenger marched forward, then jabbed with the butt of his rifle. Jace leaned to the side, but the other scavenger approached from the other direction and jabbed with his rifle. Jace concentrated his Resistance, widening his stance, and took the blow with barely a flinch.

  “I guess that counts as a warning,” he said, then made a fist. “Now, how about this?”

  He delivered an uppercut to the bulkier scavenger, catching the man square under the chin.

  The man would’ve had a Strength rating of ten, at best. Resistance and Vital? Pretty high too.

  But Jace’s was higher.

  The man flew off his feet and skidded across the warehouse floor, chin busted and bleeding, and fell still.

  “Now,” Jace said. “How about we talk about this a little more?”