The 30-minutes-before sunrise bell shocked a groggy Midday unwillingly to his senses. He hated a lot of the things about the island, but that damn bell, he reckoned, had to be in the top 5 worst things about Elvanera Plantation. He could just never get used to the deafening sounds that traveled several miles from atop the 3,000-foot-tall barrier walls on which the belltowers resided to reach the cabin every morning.

He sat up slowly, not especially excited to start what he knew would be yet another grueling day, and surveyed the cabin. Glauster and Romulo were gone already—with the former probably in the process of fetching water to make oatmeal breakfast and the latter certainly already on his way to work. Gork was up too, working through the knots in his naturally wavy long hair as he usually did upon waking up.

Midday stretched a little bit before getting up and noticing that there was a small pool of blood staining his bed where his calf had rested on the night before and that his bandaged calf was still bleeding from the night before—though the pace had slowed to a slow trickle by then.

“Fucking hell,” said Midday. “Damn leeches.”

“Oh yeah, how was your training last night?” Gork casually gazed over at Midday with relaxed eyes, not pausing for a moment in his detangling efforts—which was always a daunting task for the man.

“Worse than the peppercorn.”

Gork chuckled. “That’s one hell of a statement to make.” He paused. “Just out of curiosity, how much XP did that whole charade net you?”

“Uh… Something like 60 total, I think. It was a lot.”

“No shit. That’s like a tenth of the way to level 6 in a single night.”

“Yeah,” Midday sighed, “Wasn’t worth it though.”

“Agreed.” Gork got up and walked over to the table at the center of the room. “Romulo is more invested in this training regimen stuff than I thought. Did you hear our conversation last night?”

“Bits and pieces.” Midday followed Gork to the table and took a seat. “But for the most part? No.”

“I think he’s been wanting to do this for a while now. Train you, I mean.”

“No shit. He’s been making offers for this kind of thing since we got here. You and Glauster have gotten your fair share of offers too, no?”

“Countless times, yeah.” Gork shook his head. “I gave him a stern lecture last night… Told him not to push you so hard and all that basic logic sort of stuff... And somehow that resulted in him deciding to visit Netari. Can’t say I was expecting that.” Gork paused. “He wants to learn the secrets of Devil Peppercorn. To find a way to negate the downsides of the ingredient.”

“Netari?” Midday tried to remember who that was. They were a fairly prominent slave, he knew that much, and he had definitely heard of them before, but he took very little stock in keeping tabs on the so-called ‘upper-class slaves’ of Neighborhood 8 and so he failed to match a face to the name.

“She’s the most prominent doctor in the Neighborhood. And big in the black market too, I suspect.” Glauster sighed. “Believe it or not, she’s the reason we got this relatively well-kept cabin. She has ties with Jenjo’s assistant, Mell, and, upon learning that I had medical skills, she pulled some strings behind the scenes to get me placed in here—so that I would ‘owe her a favor’ and whatnot.”

“Okay… But how is this place well-kept?”

“We’ve got no holes in the roof.”

“But we’ve got ‘em in the walls.”

“You’re missing the point. What I’m trying to say here is that she will definitely do everything in her power to take advantage of Romulo. To get him to ‘owe her a favor’ or something along those lines.”

“Romulo is less exploitable than you. He’ll be fine.”

It was barely visible beneath his dark skin, but Gork’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment for a few moments before regaining his composure. “But still. Why is he going to such great lengths? He never did anything at all for you before you agreed to ‘be his student’. So why now?”

“Because he wants a friend, I reckon.” Midday sighed. “Or maybe he just feels bad about almost killing me last night and wants to make up for it. Does it really matter either way?”

“No, I suppose not.” Gork frowned. “The issue is more with me than Romulo. I just really… dislike Netari and would rather not have anyone I know get help from her. My ego is getting in the way of my judgment here, I know, but still. She’s the kind of doctor who intentionally makes sure not to fully cure her patients to ensure that business never runs dry."

“Maybe so. But, again, Romulo—for better or worse—is one hell of a guy. He can do the claws thing now, apparently.”

“The claws thing?”

“Yeah. He can turn his fingers into claws somehow.”

“Weird... Maybe that's a clue as to which House he's descended from?"

“Maybe so."

The conversation continued onward until Glauster arrived, at which time the dreaded wait for breakfast began, and the topic shifted from Romulo to the ongoing events of Neighborhood 8. They were holding an execution that evening, apparently, for a group of slaves that had tried to run away—and the slaves in question were fairly well-known as members of the weekly fight club, so it was going to be quite the event, and some people were worried that Jenjo's boss might show up. Glauster and his friends were all going to be there that night, and he invited Midday—but not Gork, who he already knew despised such things—to come. Midday politely declined, using his busyness as a justification for his absence and, with that, the conversation moved on to other things—one such being the rumor that a Severity 5 monster had shown up in Neighborhood 9 and had killed hundreds of people, including the head guard of the Neighborhood, and that the plantation was thus due for another batch of fresh slaves fairly soon. It was all decently interesting stuff that helped distract Midday from the dread of his upcoming breakfast, but breakfast came soon enough all the same.

With the aid of a 10-second countdown and lots of threats, Midday managed to wolf down his oatmeal without much fuss. As per usual, agony ensued and, for the next hour, he was out of commission. Following the sudden end of the aftertaste paralysis at the end of the hour, Midday wasted no time in hurrying off to work—encouraging himself with the thought that his Devil Peppercorn plant would bear its first fruit later that day as he left.