I was halfway to the North Gate, weaving my way through the early morning crowds at a light jog, when my lute vibrated. I pulled around my lute-phone and heard Cahl’s muffled voice, which was more difficult to hear in the bustling streets than it had been the night before in my quiet room. I couldn’t make out what he said.

  I stopped jogging, stepping out of the crowds of the marketplace I had been passing through. I hoped the quieter side-street would make it easier to understand, as I had barely been able to make out what Cahl said.

  “Can you say that again?” I asked.

  “I said, do not go to the North Gate. Change of plans. Meet at Henrietta’s this afternoon. I need to shake off a tail.”

  “What’s happening? Are you ok?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. He sighed, the sound muffled by the lute’s sound transportation magic. “I’ll explain more at Henrietta’s. Wait an hour before leaving the village. Keep your eyes open. If you smell cucumber, run.”

  Cucumber? I didn’t even know Veil had cucumbers. Why so much mystery? I tried continuing the conversation, but the connection had been severed. I tried touching all around the three indentations but nothing created a response from the lute.

  An hour to kill. I still couldn’t get over that last cryptic message. Cucumbers? I sniffed the air. I smelled nothing out of the ordinary from where I stood in a side street off of a busy market road. The floral scent that underlay much of the city hid behind overlapping scents of rotten fruit and a powerful beast smell.

  I glanced over at a rotting pile of fruits that sat in a container marked ‘Compost.’ That made sense; no way I could smell cucumbers here, even if one hit me in the face.

  I made my way back out, joining traffic and sending a message to the group chat updating everyone of my plans for the day. There was already a long conversation about everyone else meeting with their mentors, as well as meetings following the successful completion of our first party mission.

  I grabbed some breakfast and practiced with my lute for a while. I really needed to get a watch. Did Veil have watches? I wished the heads-up display had a clock like many other games. We could hold a virtually endless supply of loot in our inventory, but couldn’t keep track of time?

  The trip out to Henrietta’s was uneventful. I made my way past the stubborn strands of spider web that had begun deteriorating. Most of the webbing was gone. A thick swath of webbing tore free from a tree while I watched, carried out over the ocean on a breeze.

  Hentietta’s cabin came into view just around another cliffside bend. I started making my way around when I smelled it. Potent, almost musky. The scent of cucumbers. I looked around but didn’t see anything out of sorts. I remembered Cahl’s warning and broke out into a run.

  Three steps into my run, I tripped over something and fell face first into the rocky soil at the edge of the cliff. I rolled around and jumped to my feet, looking for what I had tripped over. Nothing was there. What the hell?

  I scooped up a small handful of dry soil and tossed it over the spot. The dirt fell upon a prone, invisible figure. It lay on the ground, apparently laying on its side after I tripped over it. The pungent smell of cucumbers wafted off of the creature.

  “It worked.” Cahl said, approaching from Henrietta’s house.

  “Of course it works, it is my enchantment,” Henrietta replied, raising her eyebrows a few times at Chanter, smiling. “Good to see you again, Chanter. Step away from that cliff, please, you’re making me nervous.”

  I looked to my right and realized I was standing less than a foot from a long drop into the churning ocean. My heart sank and tightened as I stepped to the side.

  “It is nice to see you as well, what is that?” I said.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “The thing that has been following me since yesterday afternoon,” Cahl said. “Damn hard to spot, if not for that smell. There is a particular variant of snake beast-kin that emits this smell during their mating season. They are also naturally talented in the arts of stealth, so I think it may be one of those, but we’ll have to find out. Only the males give off that cucumber smell…”

  “How long has he been here?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t have been that long, Cahl just arrived a few minutes before you.” Henrietta said, pulling out a bit of rope. “Now be a dear and tie that thing up? We should move him to a more secure place before I wake him.”

  “Yeah, I have a few select questions.” Cahl said.

  I took the rope and tied up the beastkin. My hands brushed against tough, scaled skin. A notification appeared.

  New Form Acquired: Piscivorous Viper Beastkin

  I sprinkled dirt to find his arms, tying the wrists together before hoisting him up. The beastkin was damn heavy, and I struggled for a second before Cahl joined in and helped me move him closer to Henrietta’s house.

  We followed Henrietta to a small shed that sat along the cliff’s edge. A small deck extended from the shed and out over the cliff. She opened the door and gestured within. Cahl and I dragged the creature inside.

  The shed was five by five feet with three walls. The ocean-cliff side opened completely to the balcony. A chair and small table sat in the middle of the room, the chair facing the ocean.

  “I take my tea here some days — the sunrise is beautiful. Please don’t sully this room with that thing’s blood.”

  “I’ll try,” Cahl said, “but no promises.”

  Henrietta dragged the table out of the way, pushing it against the far wall. “If you do, you’re cleaning it. And you won’t leave a speck remaining, Cahl Goldentone. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, yes. I won’t spoil your tea room. Thank you, Henrietta.”

  “I should have something in the garden to counteract the invisibility. I will return shortly.” Henrietta smiled and nodded to me before leaving. Cahl tied the figure to the chair.

  “What have you been up to since we separated?” Cahl asked, his hands tying a series of intricate knots.

  I told Cahl about the catacombs and the missing jewelry, providing a brief overview of what had happened. His head cocked to the side when I mentioned the jewelry.

  “All silver?” He asked.

  “Yeah, and the sigil stone. All piled up on an altar deep in the catacombs.”

  “Those altars were used long ago in rituals. That last door you weren’t able to pass leads into the labyrinth below. Ancient stories reference the labyrinth…how does it go…” he tapped a finger to his chin as he thought.

  “‘A tree unseen, with roots vast spread; a chamber built to house the dead; riches brought and sought within; bring forth your worth and bathe in sin.’ From Alvedro Yent’s Scrolls of the Forgotten Ancients. He was a scholar, famous for taking stone rubbings of ancient carvings found across the world. That excerpt is from such a rubbing, or so they say.”

  “What does that have to do with the silver and broken sigil stone being left on the altar?” I asked.

  “If I had to guess, someone is trying to get through the door. You said that was roughly a third of the jewelry that went missing? Were you able to confirm anything else about the jewelry that was not recovered?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Well, it’s been my experience with mission postings that most people will not bother with an Adventurer’s Guild mission posting unless their jewelry is valuable — silver being the least valuable of the lot that usually get reported.”

  He finished tying the figure’s legs to the chair and stood back, crossing his arms and looking at the knots.

  “Coupled with the damaged sigil stone, I think you found the rejects from some ritual — trying to get past that door. They must have left in a hurry if they took the more valuable jewelry and left the silver. I can tell you there is no good reason to go into the labyrinth. This is alarming. Did you submit a report with your findings?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Good. There should have been guards posted down there for years, if not decades or centuries, considering how often the undead tend to pop up in the catacombs. Worthless mayor, binding the city’s wounds instead of preventing them, leaning on the hard work of the Adventurer’s Guild. Bah.” He spat off the deck. Something in the distance caught his eye. He looked up, squinting and shading his eyes.

  “Huh.” He said.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “Henrietta was right when she said you have a shadow. The mark on your hand confirms it, but seeing it flying out there is…” he took a deep breath, releasing it with a heavy sigh. “It’s nice. I don’t know the last time someone was marked by a kitsiho. Maybe a century?”

  He smiled, sadness casting a deeper shadow than his hand, turning and walking over to the small table. “This thing gave me an idea for a song I think you should learn.”

  He pulled a bit of rolled parchment from his pack, as well as a vial of shimmering ink and a quill. He carefully wrote on the parchment, then weighed it down with the ink vial and sat at the table on the balcony.

  “Once the ink dries it will be ready to learn. It is different from the other two songs you know. This song requires a constant performance to maintain. It can be helpful.”

  “So what have you been doing?” I asked.