Dear Caelus Osterianus, Censor of the 7th Hill.

Health and warmest salutations to my esteemed colleague in the smooth and bountiful running of the youth facilities on our humble hill. Congratulations on your pending promotion, or welcome to your replacement if that is to whom this letter falls.

To respond to your concern for the welfare of the boy, the focus on which I wholeheartedly commend, I can only report that he unfortunately remains at large. His lodgings remain ready should he return.

He has been sighted around the capital but neither Aedile Decius L. nor Magister Fridisian have acquiesced to assign the manpower to bring him back to the Children's Dormitories despite my innumerable requests. He still attends his lessons at the gymnasium as normal, and continues to remain eligible for matriculation as you have insisted, though Grammaticus Pupullis condemns his scholarly effort.

Keeping track of him would be made easier if you would kindly intervene with our colleagues to provide men to capture him, it would be a simple affair.

Warmest Regards to you and the Concilium Censorium,

Amnus Muco, son of Pelagius Muco - 2nd Nutrator VII

Head of Children's Development VII, 7th Elector Comitia Tributa VII, 3rd Hnrs Academia Erulea.

Palinus kneeled to adjust his sandals. The sole was slightly too large, a man's sizing on his still growing teenage feet. As he tightened the strapping, pulling the leather tight around his feet and pulling the leather through the clasp at his ankle, he casually checked his surroundings. He looked up the hill then back down towards the northwestern gate. The street had a quiet lethargy before the early work of the day began.

This area on the northern side of the 7th Hill was mostly manufacturing and storage areas but even at this time of the morning you could hear the noise of industry. The road he kneeled on ran around the inside of the city walls on one side and had an open sewer channel on the other. It was an unpopularly grimy side of the hill and perfect for his needs.

The moment he was waiting for came as a cart hauling massive amphora rattled past. He used its cover to slip off the road into the sewerage ditch and surreptitiously clambered up the channel leading away from the road and up into the maze of alleys that was known as the backways.

His route took him along a narrow alley between buildings and walled compounds with an open sewerage channel running down the middle. It served as a connection for multiple refuse alleys and sewerage drains running up the hill between the tightly packed storage yards, workshops and warehouses towards the bottom of the hill. While the trickling sewerage mostly came from apartments and shops further up the hill the backways at the bottom of the hill were mostly used for dumping rubbish.

Usually the alleys were cleared out twice a week by the local magister with copious use of red fire ars, but with the essentia restrictions of the recent months that had become less and less frequent. This hot season had been sweltering with little rain and the infrequent cleansing burns had made the area absolutely reek and Palinus gagged as he moved quickly away from the outer ring road up the slight incline.

"HuuRRhrrphh..." He gagged again, nearly losing his breakfast on the slippery surface.

"Nearly out of sight." The teenager spurred himself on, "Nearly safe."

In a scurry of heart pounding moments he was out of sight of the road. Taking a moment to breathe he stretched his lanky limbs and brushed his dark brown hair out of hazel eyes as he relaxed a bit. Anxiety was normal for Palinus, not having many places he called safe, but he was extra nervous for today's foray. His deepest fear when out scavenging was the thought of being seen doing it by someone he knew, if anyone from the gymnasium found out he would be the laughing stock of his cohort.

So, after the first couple of times scavenging he and his old partner had established a few simple rules to avoid being spotted: start early, act like he was doing something important, and most importantly - don't scavenge on the 7th hill.

"The grandmothers on the hill have eyes everywhere! If you go anywhere near the backways of the 7th Hill… They'll know. Then they'll tell the aunties, who'll tell the mothers who'll tell EVERYONE!" He heard her ranting in his mind.

He laughed at the memory. Seline was an overthinker… and it wasn't like she knew what family gossip was like, she grew up in the children's dormitories too.

"Palpal, it's getting late…" Seline said as she followed him along the narrow wall overlooking the 7th Hill Temple gardens. In the fading light she showed her effortless agility, following Palinus at a skip with her dark red hair bouncing in a loose braid.

"You can go back to the dormitories if you want. I am just going to… to… buy a new stylus for lessons." Palinus replied.

Seline blew a raspberry, it was a dumb excuse to avoid going back.

"You don't have any money!"

"I'll make some."

"No-one is going to hire a kid with no experience and no ars."

"Then, I'll find something to sell!"

"Why don't you want to go back to the dormitories?" She asked with a soft voice.

They had always been close friends. They had both been raised from before they could remember in the Children's Dormitories. He wanted to tell her.

"Nutrator Amnus…" He tried to say, but the words wouldn't come out. His body felt cold and he wrapped his arms around himself despite the warm evening air.

"He beats you?" She guessed, "but he beats everyone?"

"...It's not that."

"...oh."

The dawning look of pity made him feel small and opened a wound that he had repressed.

"Ok," she said, with a smile that felt forced. "I will help you. But we're not buying a stylus, we're buying tickets out of the capital!"

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Today he was breaking their cardinal rule.

"I have to make a big score…" he justified to himself, because today he had a lead, a find that would pay for a ride to a new life somewhere far from the capital. Not that Seline cared anymore, he hadn't seen her in months.

Now that he was safely within the backways he felt no hurry to rush to his target. Turning over the piles of rubbish and poking at mounds of mud he did his standard search for anything of value as he made his way to his target zone further up the hill. The most common saleable find was discarded clothes that he could sell to the rag pickers, but he had been lucky in the past finding things like jewellery or salvageable pottery. The wealth of the capital made people wasteful and their laziness was Palinus's opportunity.

As his morning progressed Palinus was searching up a dead end alley formed from the back of several albumstone warehouses. Their tall walls created a pocket of deep shadow in the early morning. As he scoured the area a flickering light drew his attention deep into the shadow.

He held his breath as he carefully approached. Excitement built as he moved in, but he remained vigilant. He suspected from the flickering that it was some sort of live essentia discharge, and was most likely something dangerous.

Holding his breath as with the longest piece of wood he could find he gently poked at a pile of sawdust and offcuts that the light emerged from. As if he popped a bubble the rubbish sloughed off and a vibrant light filled the alleyway.

Palinus's mind filled with wonder as straight away he recognised it as a rift seed, his eyes drawn to the pulsing effusion of essentia. A wave of panic struck him and he took several steps back - In their lessons on essentia and rifts they had mostly been warned about the grave danger of rifts or the risks of unregulated and untrained use of essentia.

The lessons had seemed pointless at the time as he had barely paid attention as he instead dreamed of the power to control his own destiny. The barely remembered classroom image of an egg with wavey lines poking out of it was laughable as he looked at the real thing. It's scintillating form promised power.

The seed was complex, a writhing mass of tendrils of white light that defied logic. The tendrils didn't seem solid as they moved through each other, stretching out and folding back into themselves. The seed was constantly shifting, as if it was trying to stretch itself out with its tendrils and reaching to grasp with a twitching hunger.

Palinus watched the rift seed for a while letting his mind wander as he dreamed of rift diving and finding calculii that would let him fly away. He spent a while staring at the egg and in that time it had visibly grown. If the lessons and snippets of information he could recall about naturally occurring rifts were accurate then it would take most of the day to mature. An observation struck Palinus as odd: the rift tendrils reached out particularly towards the albumstone walls of the warehouses but otherwise moved randomly.

As he shook himself from his thoughts he considered what to do with this information more practically. He certainly wasn't going to go into the rift himself, it would be suicide. He could inform the guard for a small reward, it was his 'civic duty.' He briefly fantasised about telling Aedile Decius Littera personally, who would heroically vanquish the rift and thank Palinus with a grandiose speech.

The snort of laughter at his childish fantasy broke his reverie and Palinus chuckled at himself as he started back on his mission of the day. He would just sell the location of the rift when he made his delivery later. Picking up a piece of albumstone and a hard stone he scratched a map to the rift, putting it in the pocket of his tunic as he went to collect his more regular finds for the morning: a mostly functional basket with some broken reeding, and a pile of small amphorae stamped with a local vintners mark he could return. He stashed his finds near where he entered the backways and made his way back up the arterial alleys towards the next block where his information suggested he might make his big find.

Palinus lurked in the shadows looking up at the Via Faber, the busiest road on the 7th hill. He could see people strolling along looking at the shops besides the alleyway and holding their noses as they walked past.

The sewerage channel crossed under the road while the alley stepped up to the street. Palinus didn't want to risk going up into the street. Today was 7th Day so while many of his peers in training or apprenticeships would have a day off, this was still one of the busiest roads on the 7th Hill with workshops and store fronts drawing local shoppers.

Fortunately the arched roof of the sewer underpass was high enough for him to pass under the road. While the sewerage was unpleasant he could get through, bent over in a crouch. If he stepped on the side out of the main channel of muck it wasn't too bad and had enough clearance for him to avoid putting his hands and knees down.

He crept out of the shadow of the alleyway and took a moment to check he wasn't spotted from the road as he stepped down into the channel. He was getting excited despite the uninviting prospect of walking directly in the sewerage channel. After he made it through to the other side he would be at his first target zone.The auxilia might have dumped the bolts here if they couldn't be bothered taking them back to the barracks, his contact had said this was the most likely spot.

As he started under the road he could hear voices coming from the other side. Slowing and considering he focused on the voices. There were at least two people in the channel ahead of him. It took hima moment to figure out he couldn't turn so he awkwardly shuffled backwards in the confined space.

"-he's a drunk." one of the voices said in soft spoken judgement.

"Ehhh, yeah… He is a drunk, but at least he is fun!" the other voice replied.

Palinus instantly realised that he recognised the voices and their banter.

It was Rufian and Bruchts, both in Palinus's cohort and he knew them well. They were amongst the worst possible people to have found down here. Always teasing and joking, generally at the expense of anyone who stood out or did something stupid.

Palinus had known them for years and knew their patter so he generally laughed off the barbs and got on ok with the boys. But he could definitely not have them know what he was doing down here as they would have ammunition to roast him incessantly.

He was safe for the moment as they wouldn't be able to see him unless they crouched down and came in this direction. So crouched over in the muck he considered his options as he listened to the boys.

A solid option would be making his escape rather than risk the potential criticism and public ridicule he would face if the boys found him. But he had to find the wool and get it ready for pickup, otherwise he would be in deeper shit than he already stood in. He had made an agreement with Domitia Commodus, one of the Commodus family who could be generously called 'less scrupulous merchants,' she would take a pound of flesh if he did not meet their agreement, regardless of the circumstances.

The boys in the alley ahead didn;t seem to be leaving, and they were sounding a bit frustrated as Palinus could hear bickering creeping into their usual casual banter.

"... keep looking, he may be a drunk but he definitely said… "

"...you sure he definitely said here?"

As he heard Bruchts question he realised that they were looking for something.

Thinking quickly, Palinus made a plan. He could turn the tables and give the boys a taste of their own medicine. Once he had bullied them away from the area, he could search it alone.

He carefully made his way back out the channel. Waiting for a lull in the traffic to minimise the risk of being spotted he casually walked across the road and ducked down into the alley on the other side.

From the alcove of a doorway he peeked out at the other boys.

Rufian had a typical Erulean complexion like Palinus with brown hair and tanned skin but with a stockier frame compared to the lanky Palinus. Bruchts was the biggest in their cohort, his size, blonde hair and blue eyes marked him as a stoneman even though he was apparently born in Erulea.

As Palinus waited for the perfect moment he considered his last opportunity to back out. Once he walked down into the alley he was committed. Ultimately, the potential satisfaction of getting one up on the cocky Rufian led him to committing to his shaky plan.

Sauntering down the steps he called out.

"Fancy seeing you two down here. Are you trying to find girlfriends?"

Palinus cringed, the quip sounded better in his head, but it had the effect he was looking for. Both Ruffian and Bruchts whirled around looking sheepish.

"Oh, hi Palinus… we were just dumping some wood scraps for my father." Rufian said feigning casualness and gesturing to some wood piled nearby.

"Haha, yeah I suppose you did that. Then you just liked it down here and decided to stay." Palinus didn't let him off with his canned excuse, "I know wha-"

Bruchts cleared his throat to cut off Palinus's accusation and pointed at his sandals which were caked in mud and less savory substances. Wagging his finger in judgement he called Palinus out with a mocking tone.

"Dirty boy."

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