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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ralo_ramone on 2025-12-13 15:19:55+00:00.

The tunnel seemed to stretch forever. Without [Foresight], I might have lost track of time. Other than the occasional scratching sound of the rats against the stone floor, the tunnel was completely silent. Holst moved like a shadow, and Talindra had silenced her hooves with leather sandals. At some point along the walk, Jorn’s agents wordlessly took a side exit. Prince Adrien’s men took another exit shortly after. The three of us kept going until we reached a stone wall with metal rungs embedded deeply into it. Ten meters above our heads was an opening lit by the warm light of fire.

“Let’s go.” I climbed the ladder into an old, windowless room that held nothing but a fire pit and a boiling cauldron. 

A familiar man was removing the embers and got up as soon as I entered the room. The fire shone against his metal gauntlets concealed under his cloak. He seemed to be waiting for us.

“Captain Garibal, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I greeted him.

The man gave me a polite bow.

“Prince Adrien has prepared countermeasures if things get out of control, Lord Clarke.”

The uncomfortable feeling of being on the edge of the precipice receded. Having the backing of the royal family felt great, although Talindra and Holst gave me an even greater comfort.

“Please use these. It is carnival night… again,” Captain Garibal handed us handcrafted masks. A wendigo, a wolf, and a bird. 

I could tell from a mile away that they were made by a low-level artisan. The seams were durable enough, but the materials were cheap, and they lacked that ‘masterpiece’ vibe that even Ginz at level twenty could give to his creations. They were perfect for passing unnoticed among commoners.

I grabbed the wendigo skull, Talindra the wolf head, and Holst the bird mask.

“Does this make me look fierce?” Talindra asked, showing her profile.

“Yes,” Holst replied, somehow making the ‘yes’ sound like an ‘absolutely not’.

Captain Garibal nodded and walked to the room’s only door. In the vestibule, ten royal soldiers stood, their uniforms hidden beneath long cloaks. Given their mana signatures, they were in their high thirties.

“Do you know where to go, Lord Clarke?” Captain Garibal asked.

I nodded. [Foresight] served me like an extremely accurate GPS. We were a couple of hundred meters from the location of the anti-nobility rally, deep in the East Ward. I didn’t expect the royal family to have a safe house here, though.

The lookout on the door signaled us to approach and opened it.

“Good luck,” the captain said.

Holst and Talindra stepped out, but I fell behind.

“If you have days off, take a trip to Farcrest. I know a craftsman who makes really good prosthetics,” I said, pointing at Captain Garibal's empty sleeve.

He gave me yet another of his polite bows.

“Let’s hope things slow down after the coronation,” he replied.

Without saying more, I followed the faun-eared wolf head into the main street. The East Ward was unrecognizable. The streets were as pothole-ridden as ever, but paper lamps and festoons made of old fabric hung between buildings, covering the night sky almost completely. Just like in the inner city, artists and performers fought for the most crowded corners while the inns and taverns kept their doors open to itinerant partygoers. As soon as we stepped outside, the sharp smell of offal and onion hit my face.

Holst was more than happy to move out.

“What if we are the only ones at the rally?” Talindra whispered near my ear.

“Then we won’t have to struggle distinguishing guilty from innocent,” I replied.

Prince Adrien had assured me he was only interested in the rally's organizers, not in the people curious about their message. Given the stakes, I hoped he was telling the truth, for both our sakes. So far, he seemed legit when it came to keeping the peace in the East Ward.

I led the way. We passed countless food stands until the crowd became sparser. The anti-nobility rally was scheduled to take place near the city's edge in an area notorious for its blacksmiths and tanneries. I understood why the party didn’t take place there. The odor of the tanneries wasn’t pleasant.

Neither Holst nor Talindra complained, but I noticed their wrinkled noses.

We stopped in the shadow of a nearby alley and examined the surroundings. Masked figures dressed in all the colors of the rainbow slowly poured into a warehouse, barely exchanging a glance with each other. There were way more attendees than I expected. 

Prince Adrien’s agents were nowhere to be seen.

“Last chance to back out,” I whispered.

“If I take even a step back, I won’t be able to sleep thinking about what happened in there,” Holst replied.

[Foresight] told me the event was about to start.

“Remember, we are not here to fight. Let’s stick together. If something goes wrong, let’s watch each other’s backs until Prince Adrien and Lord Jorn’s people arrive,” I said.

Holst and Talindra nodded.

We crossed the street and entered the warehouse through the gap in the sliding gate. The place was dimly lit by a few torches and old Lightstones. I counted two hundred people clumping around a stage made of old crates. Some wore masks, while others walked with their faces uncovered. Most were dressed as the everyday commoners of the East Ward market, but I noticed some Librarian robes and expensive fabrics. 

I walked to the corner to have a panoramic view of the warehouse and leaned against the wall. Talindra and Holst stayed close, but not so close that others would notice we were together. Given the dim light and the number of people, [Foresight] was the only thing keeping me from losing them in the crowd.

There was a small commotion at the front, and a crow-masked man climbed the old crates. I held my breath, but the man remained silent, simply looking at the audience. Talindra gave me a nervous glance, but I gave her a reassuring smile.

Whoever the crowman was, he knew how to build suspense.

“It’s good to see you here tonight, both the new faces and the old ones,” he said with a magically amplified voice. His voice was higher-pitched and more nasally than I expected. “Have you been enjoying my potions? Haven’t you been leveling up like I said you would?”

There were a few cheers from the crowd.

“That’s good to hear. Don’t let those so-called nobles say you are defective. Ever,” the crowman continued. “It’s not your fault you don’t have an armory of enchanted items ready to help you level up. They don’t realize it, but they are the real coattailers here, not us! Who are they to say they are better when they have coffers of gold ready to buy the most exotic materials in the kingdom while we skin rats?”

The crowd roared again, but the sound quickly died.

“It’s okay, you can show your anger,” the crowman continued. “I have a couple of Scholar friends casting a Silence Dome around the building. We could be butchering a pig and nobody would notice, so go on, scream for me, Cadria! Let me hear the injustices you have faced!”

The crowd laughed and applauded as the crowman continued performing on the stage. His message encapsulated the main objections commoners had to nobles. Firana had articulated them even better than the masked man. As he continued his speech, something else caught my attention. Among the people continuing to drip into the warehouse, I caught a glimpse of a hockey mask.

My body moved on its own, and I cut through the crowd until I found him.

The Sound Bandit.

What was he doing here?

I stood by his side, shoulder to shoulder. He was shorter than me, shorter than I was even before the ‘stretch’ I had experienced when I became a high-level Sage. 

“You survived the explosion,” I whispered in English.

My words startled the Sound Bandit. He examined my mask, and I did the same. I couldn’t see anything through the holes in the hockey mask, and he seemed to be wearing a balaclava underneath. His only response was an affirmative grunt. A very juvenile grunt, if I had to guess, just like those I used to hear in detention.

“Are your ears still ringing?”

Another grunt.

“Up close, you are rather short, aren’t you?” I taunted him.

Grunt.

The crowman raised his hands to silence the crowd.

“...I know, I know. It’s been a while since I handed off my potions. I’m really sorry, but gathering the ingredients takes time. The royals and their thugs really want to keep them away from me.”

The crowd swallowed the man’s words without hesitation. With a movement of his hand, four big men brought crates from the back of the warehouse. I stood on my tiptoes and looked through the forest of feathers, little bells, antlers, and fake animal ears. 

“These are for you! A gift! From me, to you!” the crowman continued as the purple potions were revealed. “There’s plenty for everyone! Drink one! Bring another for your friend!”

There was something circus-like about the man’s performance.

The mob pushed forward, and the Sound Bandit was dragged along, though I was strong enough to resist the flow of the crowd.. This was bad. Didn’t they know about what happened during the selection exam with the corrupted potions? I opened my mouth to warn them, but stopped short. 

The first rows had already drunk the contents of the vials.

“Don’t overdo it! You won’t sleep for a week!” the crowman shouted. “Don’t push!  There are more in the back!”

I turned around just as two more men entered the warehouse carrying the same unmarked crates full of potion racks. After the first pus...

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