They walked to a tavern. Since it was empty, they nodded at the owner (a more forthcoming person than the weasel kin) and walked to the broom cupboard.

Access points to the Underworld were littered all across the city. They pushed the brooms and mops to reveal a Screen and Bull scanned her bracelet.

Welcome!

But only if you were connected to the Green System, the Underworld equivalent of the System. Regardless of how much they assured him that it was separate from the real System, Corn was in no hurry to go back to being a Base Slave.

The manhole underneath clicked open and after handing over the suitcase, Corn climbed down. As they climbed down they could hear the dripping of water turn to sloshing and then into roaring. They finally reached the bottom.

Despite that, the corridors they walked through were an untainted beige color. The empty corridors soon led to a large circular pool of water. Like spokes in a wheel, steel walkways connected the corridors to a large platform above the pool of water.

Looking at the perfectly placid water, it wasn’t the first time Corn felt the itch to see the water stir. But gates and water ways pushed the water from the pool to the canals that ran on top of their heads and he couldn’t stand the idea of polluting the slaved mer-people’s drinking water.

After all in Iridicrodium, if a gang ruled a part of a city, they also ruled the water in the canals.

The moment they passed the sound protection spell, a hubbub of shouts and screams deafened them; the consequences of their captured Don. All around them were Chaotic Races of every kind: vampires, nightmares, soul eaters, floams, trolls and orcs. Only one race was conspicuously missing.

After navigating the crowd, Corn entered the vault and placed the suitcase on a steel table. His orc partner turned to the side and began talking to the thin air. It was weird whenever he saw his compatriots talking to people he couldn’t see.

A fairy, hardly bigger than his palm, flew over to the suit case.

“Uckk! Bug boy! Can you maybe grow some eyes or maybe get a mask with more than just fancy lenses?” she spoke with a whistling sound.

“Sure, as soon as you stop casting illusions of people that don’t exist.”

She mimed gagging. Corn opened the suit case and the fairy began inspecting the crystals.

A vampire, in a golden suit, slipped in and approached the two of them, “I hope the she-pig didn’t gobble up our crystalline booty.”

It was his Barren Lord.

“Not all, sir.”

“Yep, the booty’s all there,” sighed the fairy. “Well, Night you have exceeded the quota. I’ll be sure to inform the other Barren Lords.”

The vampire beamed and began reciting poetry. Corn, at this point a battle hardened veteran, filtered out the verses. The vampire put an arm around Corn and dragged him out of the vault.

He was rambling on about the size of the holy member of a love god when he abruptly stopped and looked at Corn. “Corn,” he said, “or should I call you PopCorn; maybe CornDick; or DongWall or- ”

He screamed silently but said out loud, “Just Corn is fine, sir.”

“In 3 weeks, just 3 weeks JustCorn, you have collected all the quotas and saved my perky ass. How could I let you go?”

“Yes, but, sir…” Ugh, the subservience was nauseating but necessary. Encourage the vampire and he would never stop.

The vampire waved his hand dismissively and said with a solemn tone, “I know, I know, it’s part of the deal, I’ll introduce you to a soul eater. Just remember: no one else is going to tolerate you isolating yourself from the System.”

Flashing his fangs at him, the vampire took him to the long table. Seated on both sides were the heads of the gang, all engaged in the cacophony of doing business. Only the main seat remained empty.

The moment the vampire took his seat, an orc jumped onto the table and screamed, “I nominate myself as successor to WarCode and Don of Blood Falls.” Shouts of protest followed and a troll blasted a huge barrier at the orc, pushing him down to the ground.

The troll announced in a ringing voice, “Vote for me and-” Someone threw a half-eaten hot dog at her face.

“Food fight,” bellowed the first orc. And all the heads began flinging food at each other. When they ran out of food they started using stationary and empty tubes of Whiff.

Chaos. This was the most incompetent gang in the whole of Iridicrodium. Corn choose it for that exact reason. They were the only gang that didn’t insist on him registering with the System and more importantly, had a soul eater: the Chaotic Race equivalent of those who practiced Intelligence. He had brokered a deal, even if it was indirect to get her help.

She was standing calmly in the corner.

If he could see colour, he would see that her skin was as pale as white paint and her eyes were black marbles. He did, however, see wisps floating around in a bizarre pattern. Ghosts.

He approached her.

“No,” she said.

Corn opened his mouth.

“Nope, no.”

“I didn’t even s-“

“No, not interested please leave.”

He did see the vampire talk to her.

“What do you want? Maybe we can broker a deal? Hello?” Great, she was ignoring him. For a second, he had forgotten everyone here was a loon.

He tried different strategies: first he cajoled; then he begged; he recited poetry (oh the horror); then he challenged, then he ignored her (but she out-ignored him). Unrepentant, he continued with bribery and then tried extortion both subtle and overt.

Racking his brains in misery, he stood next to her. By now, the food fight was losing steam because anything worth throwing was ripped to shreds.

“How the Abyss has this gang survived for so long? Why aren’t you all dead?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” said the soul eater.

Now she replies?! He probed carefully, “So, why aren’t you all dead? Why is this gang so weird?”

“Desire,” she said.

“Desire?” Corn asked.

“Yes, Desire.”

“What is Desire?”

She looked at him confused, “You don’t know?”

“No, what is Desire?” he asked. It must be something important.

“Desire? Desire is Desire.”

Ah, fuck! Just when he thought he was about to find out something important. ‘Calm down, Corn. Talk to her about what you came for.’

“Did Night speak to you about the agreement?”

“Yes, but I never understood,” she replied

She was still looking at him, so he continued, “I wanted some help in freeing a Base Slave ghost.”

“What do you mean by free a ghost? Ghosts are dead.”

“I want to convert said ghost from being a Base Slave ghost to an Indentured Servant ghost.”

“Wait, you want to perform Ascension on a ghost?”

“Not necessarily, I just don’t want her to be a slave even after death.”

“Her, huh? You have to understand, no one understands exactly how and why slavery works. It’s beyond the understanding of the 8 Stats. You have heard the story of FreakKing and the Last Titan?”

“A bit,” replied Corn rubbing his neck, uncomfortably.

“Rationally speaking, it’s mostly nonsense. Fairy tale trash. But the main take away is that in the beginning everyone inside Metsys was cursed to slavery. Once FreakKing found Freedom counters and managed to distribute them, some escaped this predicament while others didn’t. Anything that deals with slavery, such as collars, bracelets, command structures, Freedom counters, cannot be manipulated or understood. So far.”

Corn squeezed the bug on his bracelet as tightly as he could, doing his best not to look at it.

“But I have bought ghosts before.”

“Like the ones around you.”

The soul eater jerked her head in surprise, “You can see them? You can peer into the Abyss?”

Corn pointed out the floating wisps.

“What species are you?”

“No idea, but I can feed on mana and..”

“And?”

“And to know more we need to have a deal,” said Corn seizing the moment.

The soul eater looked pensive instead of offended.

Finally she said, “I do not believe in taking risks. My entire family does not believe in taking risks. Night did say you had some useful abilities, but you’re a risk taker. And risk takers often contaminate others with their risk taking. Why would someone with such useful abilities join a sinking ship, unless they’re a risk taker?”

“But then why have you stayed and not left?” asked Corn.

“Too risky to tell you.”

“Maybe you can take me on as a disciple?” Corn had heard briefly from Line that master-disciple bonds were sacred.

She shook her head, “I use Intelligence and you don’t, so it’s not possible. Besides people who use Intelligence only form master-disciple bonds with spirits and not with each other.”

Corn pointed at the wisps, “Then, are those spirits?”

For the first time she smiled, “If they were ghosts, I would have eaten them already. I am a soul eater.”

Corn racked his head, what did she need that he could bargain with? What could he offer her?

“I can see mana and using those senses, I can see three dimensional images of my surroundings and I’m immune to most illusions,” said Corn. His powers were all he had to offer.

“Makes sense, if I can peer into the Abyss as a soul eater than you can see mana. High natural affinity to your chosen Stat means additional powers when you become a Chaotic Race.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“I can also produce mana,” he added.

“You’re an impressive person with some impressive secrets too, no doubt. I applaud you. Really congratulations,” she deadpanned. “But you’re too risky.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation and any further attempts resulted in a blank stare.

Well, the soul eater was his only option to free Wall’s ghost. He had no choice.

So, Corn moved to the training room and tried to practice Magic. It was an empty room with three training dummies. As per the advice of Line and the others, the only way to grow a Stat was to continuously practice it.

First a recharge. When he suspected the weasel kin had cheated Corn, he had ‘borrowed’ two of his short daggers. They weren’t Mauled and therefore very edible. He brought out a dagger and ate half of it. ‘Not bad,’ he had to admit.

Normally it would take 3 hours for his Stat to recharge. Losing access to the System made him a lot more aware of the mana in his nodes. It wasn’t like he could tell how much there was to the very point, but it was close enough.

Ideally, he would love to practice the spell circles that he memorized as a Border Reserves member. But the truth was no matter what he did they did not work. Water mana was useful but ice mana proved more of a threat. So he worked on his draw. He would form an ice hook as quickly as he could and then cut his connection between the mana node and mana he pulled from it. Without the connection, the ice mana would fade from the world.

Ice hook. Dispel. Ice hook. Dispel. In between, he would try shaping the ice into different shapes: a block a needle like sword, a small shield. He paused as his vision began to flicker and ate the rest of the dagger. Next he tried shooting ice projectiles. To ensure they traveled far he had to squeeze his node and flick his wrist while forming the blade.

The ice blade hit the head of the training dummy and shattered. Corn could clearly see that the space inside the dummy was thicker and full of Core. It was Mauled, so it was expected that his ice blade would shatter.

As he was practicing, Corn saw a hobgoblin walk inside the main hall.

A hobgoblin?

A familiar rage gripped him. Ingrates. Murders. Slavers. Every hobgoblin should die. They were the one race responsible for turning thousands into slaves. If they hadn’t ransacked Freedom counters, would thousands of kids be shuttled to slavery? Of course those cowards ran away, Speed was their Stat. Not this time.

Before Corn could get there, an orc sucker punched the hob from one end of the room to the other. A bunch of orcs shouted in approval, which lead to shouts and cries from everyone.

“Stop, he’s with us,” cried the soul eater and ran to the hobgoblin.

Corn stopped on the spot, his anger fizzing away.

Did Miss You’re-Too-Risky just defend a hobgoblin?

Was there a new deal to be made?