Chapter 41

The Guildhall buzzes with a low, tired hum. Most of the crowd hasn’t left, though the tension has faded. Half the city is here just to see how long Jacob Cloud can keep pulling off the impossible. Overhead, the Dungeon Map casts its pale light. Jacob’s green dot glides down a corridor, headed back to the first room on the second floor.

Guildmaster Dorn sits with a dark expression behind his desk, chewing through a plate of cold roast beef while his clerks tally up the latest round of bets.

One adventurer with a mug of beer elbows his friend and points at the projection.

“He’s going back to the first room again. Does he think he left something behind?”

A junior scribe leans over, watching the map.

“He’s been doing this every time. He drops his loot and just stands there, but now he’s stopping in every single chamber. See? Look—he’s not just running through, he’s checking all the walls.”

Sir Greyson frowns at the display and crosses his arms.

“He isn’t wasting time. He’s looking for something.”

Felisia narrows her eyes, but she stays silent. Her gaze doesn’t leave the map.

Another adventurer laughs, thinking it’s all some rookie’s panic.

“Maybe he thinks he missed a Skill Shard under the rubble!”

But a sharp-eyed merchant’s son steps forward and squints at the map. “No, look at his path. He’s hugging the walls. He’s doing it in every room—systematically. He isn’t looting, he’s searching for a mechanism. Maybe he thinks there’s a secret passage or a Secret Room.”

The crowd’s noise dips, then rises as more people catch on.

Guildmaster Dorn slaps his hand on the table and starts to laugh—loud and full-bellied, the kind of laughter that drowns out conversation.

“A secret room? In the Smoldering Glass Crucible? Saints, that’s rich! There hasn’t been a single hidden chamber in this Dungeon since it was mapped fifteen years ago. Not even the Knights who cleared all the trap arrays found one. Not even the best! What’s he going to do, walk through the wall?”

The crowd starts chuckling along. Dorn waves his fork at the map, shaking his head.

“Let the little rat poke at the glass all day. It’ll be the first time a miner from Shit’s Creek discovers what all the Knights missed. Maybe he’ll find a Secret Skill, too, hiding behind a rock!”

A few people snicker and others look away, not wanting to sound foolish. Nobody expects anything but another long loop through empty rooms.

But then, as Dorn is still laughing, Jacob’s green dot passes through the side of one chamber and vanishes. The dot doesn’t pause, doesn’t flicker, doesn’t show up on any other floor. It just disappears from the projection.

A hush falls over the entire Guild. Even the dice clattering in the corner stop. The map keeps pulsing, but there’s no trace of Jacob left anywhere.

Someone in the back whispers, “Where did he go?”

Another adventurer sits up, eyes wide.

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“Did the map break? Did the array just lose track of him?”

Felisia leans forward, staring hard at the place where the dot vanished. She doesn’t say anything. Her hands curl tight around her sleeves.

Guildmaster Dorn’s laughter dies in his throat. He squints at the Dungeon Map, waiting for the dot to reappear. It doesn’t.

The silence stretches. The Guildmaster’s face loses color. He lowers his fork, still staring at the spot where Jacob Cloud just walked off the map and vanished from the Dungeon entirely.

Adrienne Clearwater stands on the moonlit terrace above Clearwater Bay while Sir Renquell watches her with his usual neutral calm. She keeps her eyes fixed on the lights below because she does not want to show how much the upcoming Sky Hunt weighs on her mind.

“Why are you on that boy’s side?” Adrienne says, her voice clipped as she turns to face him. “You’re sworn to me. Do you want me to lose the Sky Hunt?”

Sir Renquell answers without hesitation because he has no patience for empty flattery.

“You will never lose the Sky Hunt as long as you have the only Diamond mobility Skill in Clearwater. Calantha can move well because she has Water Dash—and you can expect her to upgrade it like you did—but you are the only one here who can move at the speed you need to set a new record.”

Adrienne crosses her arms and leans against the balustrade. She does not hide her annoyance.

“You act as if this is guaranteed. You taught me Water Wings, but you know Calantha will do anything to win. And you’ve rescued the boy. You’ve yet to tell me why, Sir Renquell.”

Sir Renquell keeps his gaze on the water because he does not need to look at Adrienne to see the tension in her posture.

“I have given advice to everyone you have asked me to instruct,” he says. “But only one Skill lets you truly fly. Only Diamond Skills let you break free of the ground. Anything lower will fail unless you find a monster’s shortcut, and even then, you’ll pay the price.”

Adrienne presses her lips together and does not speak for several seconds. The silence stretches while the city below flickers with lamps and distant music.

“That does not answer my question, Sir Renquell,” Adrienne says pointedly.

“I know,” the child-looking Elf replies, turning toward her. “Why are you under the impression I’m required to do anything more than my job? I’m ordered to tutor you to the best of your talent because your father is a great man who earned the respect of my kind. But at what point did you forget I’m not one of your servants?”

Sir Renquell lets one burst of his aura out, and Adrienne stumbles back.

The young woman bites her lower lip and nods.

“I should thank you for teaching me Water Wings,” she says at last. “But if Felisia catches up to me, I will still blame you.”

“You can blame me if you lose,” Sir Renquell says, “but you will not lose because your Skill is the only one that will carry you to victory if you use it as you were taught. The Sky Hunt requires speed above everything else. Felisia is fast, much faster than she should have been, thanks to the boy. But you have been Tutored in a Diamond Skill. Only because I taught you everything about its efficiency you can use it at your level. No one here has the same acceleration, and no one here can take flight.”

“What if my sisters bought a flying Skill?”

“Who’d teach them?” Sir Renquell sighs. “The true flight Skills are all at Diamond, at the very least. Diamond Skill Crystals are rare in Clearwater City and in the Clearbay at large. And even if they magically found one that fit them, how would they train?”

“Isn’t there a Gold or Platinum Rank Skill that lets you fly?”

“Theoretically,” Sir Renquell says, scratching his chin, “yes. But, in practice, no. And even if there was, it’d be something extremely unique, some starter for a greater flying foundation. Not even I would know how to teach its mastery. Therefore, what use would it have? And where would they even find something like that? And again, even if they found it, who could master it?”

Adrienne looks away because she does not want him to see her face.

“If I lose,” she says, “then it will be because the gods have decided to humiliate me.”

Sir Renquell says nothing more.

He waits in silence because he knows that Adrienne will leave first.

When she finally leaves the terrace, she walks without looking back, because she refuses to show any doubt.

I do know someone who could master a Skill like that,

Sir Renquell suddenly thinks.

But where would he find—

The Elf’s head suddenly snaps toward the city below, specifically toward the Adventurers’ Guild.

Has he…