CHAPTER 17

  Londonland

  The city didn't bustle, it roared. Streets were packed with bodies. Dotted within the throng of NPCs, a number of Uploads moved carefully trying not to be noticed.

  Bash trailed behind the others, hands in pockets, Investigator flickering at the edge of his vision. An endless stream of data crawled everywhere.

  “So,” Luis said, stretching. “What's first? Tavern for ale? Equipment shop? Maybe both?”

  Nora's voice cut into his optimism. “No. We go to the keep and kill Richard.”

  Luis's grin died and Patrick stiffened, scanning the street as if Nora had already summoned guards.

  Bash watched her, noting the rigid shoulders, the barely controlled rage. She was ready to burn the whole city if it meant getting revenge.

  Patrick leaned close, voice urgent and low. “Keep your voice down.” His eyes swept the square. Guards, merchants, too many ears. “Be smart. Be patient.”

  Nora's jaw clenched. After a long pause, she exhaled. “I won't wait forever.”

  Patrick relaxed slightly. “First, somewhere to sleep.”

  Luis raised his hand immediately. “And baths. I vote for baths.”

  As they got farther into the city, the number of pedestrians and riders slowly grew. Horses clopped past under armored riders, guards with faces set to bored cruelty, hands never straying far from hilts.

  And everywhere: Maximus.

  Even children weren't spared. A wall where they played dice had been painted with his sneer, so every roll of bone landed on the tyrant's judging gaze.

  Bash muttered, “Guy's got a branding problem. Or maybe just a god complex.”

  Luis snorted. “Same thing.”

  A commotion ahead made them slow.

  Two priests in white robes stood in front of someone’s home, their vestments emblazoned with Maximus's face. Between them, they held an Upload. A woman, middle-aged, her metadata flickering in Bash's vision.

  [Upload: Ella Okon | Contract: Baker | Owner: Count Richard]

  “You were seen,” one priest intoned, his voice carrying across the square. “Walking past the Savior's shrine without offering prayer. This is your third offense.”

  The woman's face was white with terror. “I was late for work. Please, I'll pray now, I'll pray right here!”

  “The Savior's mercy has limits.” The second priest produced a thin metal collar.

  “No,” the woman let out a cry. “No, please, I am taking care of children!”

  They fastened it around her neck. She didn't struggle. Couldn't, probably. Her whole body had gone rigid with fear.

  “You will serve in the Temple for ninety days,” the first priest announced. “There, you will learn proper devotion.”

  As they watched the priest led the women away, Nora had gone completely stiff beside him.

  “Nora,” Luis said softly. “Nora, we should keep moving.”

  She didn't respond. Her eyes tracked the priests until they disappeared out of sight, the Upload woman stumbling between them.

  Bash touched her arm. She flinched like he'd burned her.

  “Hey,” he said quietly. “We're going to fix this. All of it. But not here. Not now.”

  For a long moment, Nora didn't move. Then something finally unlocked, and she gave a single, tight nod.

  They kept walking. Maximus's presence pressing down from every banner, every statue, every person who praised his name.

  ***

  The inn sat between a bathhouse and a tailor, its sign overhead: Savior's Banner. A bit on the nose, but the smell of roasted meat and fresh bread drifting out made Bash's stomach growl.

  Inside, the common room was dim and warm, with a few occupants scattered about. Chatter filled the space, and there was even a bard in the corner playing the same four lute notes on a loop.

  Patrick handled the innkeeper with professional efficiency. “Two rooms. One single, one shared.” He slid coins across the counter.

  The innkeeper nodded, dropping keys into Patrick's hand. “Second floor. Keep it quiet.”

  They climbed narrow stairs, and at the top, Patrick paused, speaking low. “I'll head to the castle and get us an audience with the Captain of the Guard.” Looking at Nora, he added, “That will be our way in.”

  Nora gave a sharp nod before turning to enter her own room, slamming the door closed.

  Bash gave him a two-fingered salute. “You do politics. We'll go shopping. Everyone plays to their strengths.”

  Patrick's eyebrow twitched, but he left without further comment.

  Turning to Luis, who had flopped down in the nearest bed, Bash began to shout and clap his hands. “Wake up, Luis! Today is loot day. New armor, new weapons, and clothes that don't smell like a crime scene. Let's go, let's go, let's go!”

  Luis let out a groan, trying to shove Bash away. “Why are you this way?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Exiting the inn back onto the streets, Bash was nearly skipping with excitement, while Luis dragged behind.

  Luis called after Bash to slow down as they moved around the crowd, every store window promising salvation disguised as retail therapy.

  Hawkers screamed to outshout their neighbors. Bash slowed when one stall’s display snagged his attention.

  “Ah, here we go,” Bash pointed enthusiastically.

  A female mannequin stood proudly at the front, dressed in “armor” that amounted to two steel cups strapped across the chest and a chain mail bikini bottom.

  Luis exhaled through his nose. “That’s... something.”

  Bash scratched his chin. “Yeah. I can already picture Nora’s face if I got this for her. That one look, where she just stares at you until your soul catches fire.”

  Luis cleared his throat. “Let’s find her something less revealing.”

  They moved on, Bash still smirking at the absurdity, but secretly glad Nora wasn’t with them. He had no doubt her glare alone would have leveled the entire block.

  Rounding another corner, a horn blast cut through the noise. The crowd froze, then scrambled to the sides. Bash found himself pressed against a shop wall beside Luis.

  Down the center of the street came a parade of guards, their polished armor gleaming. Between them stumbled a line of prisoners, chained at the wrists and ankles. Half-orcs and elves, beaten and bloody, their skin mottled with bruises. Some could barely walk. One elf woman had dried blood crusted down the side of her face.

  Bash realized that this was the first time he'd seen the other races.

  The procession moved slowly, deliberately, giving everyone time to look. Time to learn. One of the half-orcs, massive even hunched over, raised his head as they passed by. There was no fear, only hatred.

  Bash couldn't look away. “What the hell is going on?” he whispered, though he already knew the answer.

  Luis's reply was barely audible. “Maximus pays bounties for non-humans.”

  “So he's a racist too. Go figure.” The words came out flat. Bash had meant them as a joke, but nothing about this was funny.

  The parade moved past, guards shouting something about “protecting the realm.”

  One of the elves, younger, stumbled and fell. A guard kicked him until he got up. The crowd watched in silence. No one moved to help. No one even flinched.

  This is normal here, Bash realized. This is every day. He tried to keep his voice low. “So, how big is this Shard anyway?”

  Luis spoke, still watching the prisoners disappear around a corner. “I've seen a map. There are ten continents. Rumor is Maximus controls most of it.”

  Bash took a moment to digest that. The scale was way bigger than he originally thought.

  They kept moving until the stalls shifted from weapons to armor. An armory stood quietly at a street corner, its displays simple: sturdy leather reinforced with steel plates, traveling cloaks dyed in muted shades, boots built for long marches instead of flashy parades.

  Bash searched the shelves of leather until he found a set that would fit Nora. Plain, practical, designed to keep someone alive rather than show them off.

  For himself, he picked a similar style. A complete set, from head to toe, stitched with padding and some bits of studding. Luis picked out a similar style chain shirt. All the while, the clerk glared at them both, untrusting, until Luis sighed, cursed in Spanish, and handed over some coins.

  Quickly dressing in the back room, they discarded their old clothes and continued.

  The area they were in wound tighter, stalls growing stranger the deeper they went, slowly shifting from combat arms to those more magical. Jars of pickled rats lined crooked shelves. Fortune tellers beckoned with smiles stretched too wide, their promises of destiny sounding more like threats.

  Bash ducked into a side shop that had that old look and smell. At first, the shelves offered nothing but junk. There was a cracked wand here, or a glitter-smeared scroll there. But in the far corner, something pulsed faintly, refusing to fade.

  Half-buried sat an object that didn’t belong. Its wood twisted, runes carved deep and pulsing with ember light. Wrongness radiated from it, dangerous.

  Bash’s overlay pinged. Item description.

  His heart skipped a beat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Exactly the sort of thing that lit up Bash’s inner hacker.

  Luis peered over his shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Basically... Rewind in a stick,” Bash whispered.

  Luis just shrugged and continued digging in the other piles.

  His mind spun with possibilities. If he bound it, did the system consider that item part of him? If rewind only worked on “self,” could binding expand the definition of self to include the stave? Could he chain the two together, doubling his window, layering entropy reversal on top of entropy reversal?

  Or would the system reject it? Worse, explode his hand into green code fragments?

  He smirked anyway, fingers itching to grab it. “Only one way to find out.”

  The merchant, a wiry old man, Bash could tell was Upload even without checking the metadata. The nervous dart of his eyes, the sweat beading along his hairline, the subtle tremor in his hands as he noticed Bash lingering over the stave.

  The man cleared his throat. “Ah, you’ve got a good eye. That’s a relic. Ancient. Worth more than most kingdoms.”

  Bash flipped the stave in his hand, pretending to inspect it. The runes shimmered faintly, still alive. “Relic, huh? Looks more like a firewood stick that got lost in a bad LARP.”

  The old man bristled. “Five thousand gold.”

  Luis who was standing nearby nearly choked. “Five thousand?! For that junk?! I could buy an inn, stock it with ale, and bribe a bard to write me into every drinking song for that kind of money.”

  Bash only smirked, leaning on the counter. “Tell you what. You’ve had this thing rotting in your corner for, what, years? Dust on it is thicker than my old college textbooks. No one’s buying. No one will. But I’ll do you a favor. I’ll take it off your hands before it really turns into firewood. One thousand.”

  The man gaped, scandalized. “A thousand? That doesn’t even cover my cost!”

  Bash shrugged. “That’s my offer. One thousand, or it’s back to gathering dust.”

  The merchant sputtered, tried to counter, then sagged with the weight of someone who knew he was beaten. “...Two thousand. Final.”

  Bash extended his hand before the man could reconsider. “Deal.”

  The merchant slumped in defeat, muttering curses about daylight robbery, while Bash made a hasty exit with what amounted to a digital nuke.

  Outside, Luis sidled closer, eyes wide. “That was basically everything we had. We are broke now!”

  Bash twirled the stave with mock flourish. “Correction: Not broke, invested in being poor. Think of it as... diversifying our poverty portfolio.”

  When Bash and Luis returned to the inn, the sun was already dipping low, and the shopkeepers were packing up their stalls.

  Patrick had secured a table with food and drinks. Nora sat, slowly circling her spoon in a bowl of soup. Her hair was clean, and now it perfectly outlined her striking face. As Bash sat down, he found himself staring, unable to help himself.

  Then he met Nora’s eyes as she looked up at him, sharp and cold. “It’s not polite to stare.”

  A straightforward rebuke that cut through him worse than when he lost his arm.

  Bash’s mouth worked, and he managed a strangled, “Uh... just admiring the... uh... texture quality.”

  Luis kicked him in the shin under the table. Bash coughed into his drink and tried to look anywhere else.

  Patrick cleared his throat loudly. “I’ve arranged an audience with the captain of the guard in the Keep. Count Richard’s quarters are in the opposite wing. But no mistakes. If anyone hears what we’re planning...” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

  Bash cleared his throat, forcing a crooked grin to cover the sting of Nora’s words. “Count Richard, huh? What’s he count? Chocolate bars? Coins? Maybe sheep? Count Chocolate the Third?”

  Luis snorted beer through his nose, choking on his laugh.

  Patrick glared, shushing Bash with a warning look.

  They ate quietly from that point, stew and bread, washed down with weak ale. When the bowls were scraped clean, Patrick stood. “Time to turn in.”

  Once upstairs, Nora paused in the hallway, one hand on the doorframe, the other holding the bag of armor and clothes Bash and Luis had purchased for her earlier. Avoiding eye contact, she spoke quietly, “Thanks for the gear.”

  Bash blinked. For her, that was basically a sonnet. He almost made another joke, but something in her posture always kept him quiet. He just gave a small nod in reply.

  Her door shut with a soft click.

  Luis clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, friend. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”