Everywhere Cass dragged them, the sight was the same. Elves with downcast, resigned expressions working in abysmal conditions, always with little regard for their safety baked into the very structures and institutions they toiled within.

Brickworks had massive, walk-in kilns that workers carried stacks of clay into, singeing their hair and eyebrows. There were piles of clay that workers with bent backs shaped into bricks, sometimes rubbing that same clay on their bodies to soothe the obvious burns that covered their skin, or perhaps to create a buffer against the kiln's heat.

Metalworking warehouses were filled with rusted anvils, where elves were bent over hammering nails and fittings into shape. Their strikes were certain but weak, indicative of workers who spent long hours at their labor—they knew what they were doing, but they lacked the strength to do it well. Others carried ingots and slag into large furnaces, their fingers blistered when they removed their too-thin gloves.

However, Julia's least favorite were the tanneries and leatherworks. She was used to such facilities being located on the outskirts of town due to the abhorrent smell, yet these warehouses were dispersed throughout the district, among the other warehouses and residences. There seemed a complete disregard for how the smell might impact those in the area.

And the smell—it was awful. Julia wasn't overly familiar with the tanning process, but she knew that it generally involved acid to soften the hides. These tanneries, however…well, they seemed to use whatever was cheapest, which—in this case—was urine. The stench of large vats of piss was so extreme that she completely cut off her own sense of smell for the short time they observed.

Workers in these facilities seemed unbothered, which would suggest they were used to the stench, though Julia suspected it was probably more likely that the extreme odor had dulled their senses rather than that they'd grown accustomed.

Regardless, they coughed and hacked as the fumes likely singed their throats and lungs. Visible welts and burns marked their skin, likely from the boiling urine vats, adding disgust atop the pain.

"Who would purchase any of the products produced here? Surely once they learned about the abhorrent conditions of their creation, or even just that the leather was soaked in piss, they'd stop buying," Julia had asked.

"'Once they learned'? Most already know. You think all the elves could disappear from the entire city at the same time as a flood of cheap, mass-produced goods hit the markets without people putting two-and-two together?

"The reality is that times are tough for everyone. These goods are cheap and always available. They're the only options for many. Independent artisans largely have to cater to wealthy society since they can't compete with these cheap goods, even if they're of horrible quality on the whole. That just further widens the gap between what the wealthy and the rest can afford," Cass had explained.

She'd stopped walking and turned to face Julia directly.

"There's something I want you to consider when you think about everything I've shown you later: lines," she'd said gravely.

"...Lines?" Julia asked.

"Lines," Cass affirmed. "Where is the line between fear and cowardice? Sure, everyone is afraid at some point, and one can't be courageous without first being afraid. However, when does that fear become cowardice?

"Where is the line between action and consequence? If you have the power to save someone, and you choose not to, do you not also bear the consequences for that decision?

"You wouldn't call a mother a coward for fearing for her children's safety, surely.

"Would you call her a coward for refusing to give a beggar on the street bread on the off-chance that her children might have slightly less to eat?

"Would you call her a coward for turning away from someone being beaten in the street because her children need her to put food on the table?

"Would you call a guard a coward for complying with an order from his superiors that he knows is wrong because he's afraid of the consequences should he refuse?

"Would you call an adventurer a coward for refusing to intervene when witnessing that guard beat a civilian in the streets for fear of angering the establishment? Do they bear the consequences of that inaction?"

Julia shook her head—what the hell was with all the philosophical questions? She had no answers to any of them, but they kept shoving their way into her mind over and over. She couldn't escape them; they were like the tunes she used to play with Seyatha that would remain in her head for days afterward.

The group—Cass still in the lead—broke into an open square wedged right up against the crater rim. The wall atop it was daunting from this distance, like a towering giant. Though, from this position in the South Quarter, it felt less like a barrier to keep the city safe and more like the wall of a prison.

The square was sparse, with only a couple stone benches in various states of disrepair—one had even crumbled completely. The elves present here were…worse for wear. They had the most damaged and dishevelled clothing that Julia had seen thus far, their backs were hunched, they coughed and hacked and spit, and they mostly lounged around, sitting on building stoops or even just the ground.

Some were so still that Julia wasn't completely sure they were even alive.

A couple mostly-orderly lines stretched from one side of the square to the other and continued down the road. Elves queued for what seemed to be aid distribution, as there were other elves in aprons spooning some kind of soup into bowls and handing them out. In particular Julia noticed several old elves carrying infants in their arms or holding toddlers' hands as they waited their turn.

"These are…what, the jobless?" Julia asked, trying to make sense of what she saw.

"Aye. Anyone here is too weak or sick to work, too old, or too young," Cass confirmed, standing with her arms crossed in front of her, a hard look on her face.

"Too young? I don't see any kids here older than four or five…" Julia said.

"'S about right, yeah. Older than that and they go to work. Try and help provide for their families. And before you say anything about 'how could their parents allow them to work so young', their parents are all working sunup to sundown, so it's not like they have a choice.

"They've gotta work, so if their kids sneak off and work themselves, they're too busy to stop 'em," Cass explained, never taking her eyes from the square before her.

Julia glanced behind her and saw the same hard looks on her companions. Jaws set, eyes narrowed, and brows furrowed. She could swear she heard Nadhem grinding his teeth.

"Who takes care of the infants and toddlers, then?" Julia asked, though she already suspected the answer.

"Whoever the fuck can. The very old, the sick-but-not-quite-bedridden, anyone that's available," Cass responded with a dry chuckle.

Julia scanned the square, noting how many were coughing and spitting.

"What's the cause of all the sickness? Probably three quarters of those present are at least coughing," she observed.

"Some is from the general lack of sanitation and sanitary facilities in this Quarter, particularly as you get closer to the wall. Most of it is from the work, though. The coughs can come from several different sources, but most get lumped into what's affectionately called 'Death's Kiss' around here.

"Whether it's the odors from the tanneries, the dust from the mill, or the smoke from the kilns, almost everyone spends most of the day breathing irritants. Over long periods, their lungs get damaged. It's called 'Death's Kiss' because most of the damage won't go away, even if the afflicted stays away from the source. If they don't die from it, it's at least present until death.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"The damage that's been done to their lungs is permanent," Cass said.

Silence lingered among the group for a while as everyone processed the information.

"Surely healing magic could—" Julia started to say, but she was cut off by a glance from Cass, who wore a small, sour smile. "Right. Healers wouldn't do it for free, and these people have nothing to offer for their services."

"Some did, for a while," Cass remarked, shifting her glance toward the elves distributing the food.

"There are healers among them?" Julia asked, following her gaze.

"Not them specifically, no. Those are adventurers—the ones that remain, at least," Cass explained.

Julia was surprised—she hadn't seen any elven adventurers up to this point. Granted, she wasn't looking for them either, so it was possible she'd simply not noticed them at the Guild.

"Aye, there have been many elven adventurers in Vazreth throughout its history," Cass said, likely reading Julia's thoughts on her face. "There are only a few left now, and they use the funds from their adventuring to purchase food for the least fortunate—the number of which grows by the day.

"Used to be that there were many that would come, some to distribute food, others to heal the sick. Problem was, there were so many sick that constantly healing them all started to cut into their adventuring work. They had less mana to use during work, which jeopardized their places in their respective parties.

"No adventuring work would mean no money to buy food with, so they stopped healing altogether," Cass explained, adopting a neutral tone that contrasted sharply with the dark look on her face.

"What happened to all the elven adventures? Why are there so few here?" Ithshar asked.

"They left," Cass said simply without looking back.

"Left? As in—left the city?" Julia asked.

"Aye," Cass affirmed curtly.

Julia was silent for a while, contemplating.

"The line between fear and cowardice, action and inaction, then?" she asked.

Cass smiled and glanced over at Julia.

"Easier to look away. Adventurers can find work in nearly any city. Once you're Steel or above, traveling between cities isn't much of a challenge for you. Why stay among the suffering? Why not find a more comfortable life elsewhere? Is it really your responsibility to look after others?" Cass questioned bitterly.

"...are you condemning them? Their decision to leave?" Julia asked.

Cass merely shrugged.

She turned around, looked Julia in the eye, and handed her a small card.

"Here. Guild Master wants to see you. Said he'll be in his office tomorrow," she said simply.

"He does? Why?" Julia asked, taking the card and examining it.

It seemed an invitation, though more for the receptionists at the Guild than Julia. It provided evidence that the Guild Master had indeed requested her presence.

When Julia looked back up, Cass was gone. She looked around the square but couldn't spot her.

"She left after giving you the card. Slipped into the ground like a fish under water," Ithshar said, startling the Thornalûns, who looked around in confusion. Apparently, they also hadn't seen Cass leave.

Lumenfall, who had been lounging around Julia's waist, lifted her head and blinked lazily toward the square.

"Mortals will endlessly find trivialities to squabble over, won't they?" she asked into Julia's head.

Julia was about to chide Lumenfall's lackadaisical comment when she noticed a peculiarity: there were guards present. That wasn't by itself unusual. Though sparser close to the wall, guards were an everpresent force in the South Quarter. What was unusual was their manner.

A couple across the square were casually leaning against the side of a building, while another pair a ways away down an alley sat atop a few piled boxes. Some stood on top of buildings overlooking the square, as if guarding against flying threats, while others strolled leisurely around.

As with all the guards she'd seen in the South Quarter up to this point, they were all elves.

This behavior was strange, but before she had a chance to consider it much, an old man in the queue suddenly stumbled. He was in the midst of a coughing fit that wracked his body so hard that he had trouble maintaining his footing. He stumbled to the side and bumped into one of the casually-strolling guards.

The guard went red in the face and pushed the old man down—hard. The old man hit the ground with a dishearteningly light thump, and the guard brushed his tunic off under the dull gray metal plates. Julia couldn't hear what he was saying completely, but he was yelling so loudly that she caught bits like, "...better not be contagious," and "...watch where he's going."

Julia was already heading that direction, her legs having moved without her conscious input. She thought to make sure the old man was alright, but before she had taken more than a couple steps, Nadhem appeared in front of the guard.

He too was red in the face, and he opened his mouth—likely to shout—but his sudden appearance startled the guard so badly that he leveled the short spear he'd been carrying and stabbed, probably out of instinct and training.

Nadhem and the guard both looked down, surprised by the series of events, and Nadhem coughed a little blood out of his mouth.

Before anything else could happen, Julia appeared between the two in a blast of red and blue electricity. The guard went flying backward, landing on his backside and skidding a few strides away. Nadhem slid backward, but Julia quickly grabbed him by his belt, preventing him from flying back in the same fashion.

She slapped a hand over the now-bloody hole in his abdomen and poured mana into it. If she'd been in her right mind, she'd likely have realized how much she overdid it, but she was anything except right at the moment.

The mana poured into the wound, healing it closed, but it didn't stop there. It flooded throughout his entire body, ejecting out his every orifice. His face lit up as mana burst from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in streaks of red, blue, and purple. The ejected mana left the space awash in colors, but it didn't end there.

Julia turned on the guard, still on his backside. Her hair was floating off her back, small stones around her feet began to levitate, and an enormous plume of crackling plasma spiraled around her body. A tornado of red and blue plasma formed around her, its funnel spinning up so high it struck the underside of The Stone, which floated far above.

The strike was dispersed in crackling sparks across its surface, causing a pale blue glow to manifest. The Stone seemed to have a shield roughly equivalent to the one in the Guild's training area around it, so the plasma was dispersed harmlessly.

In the square, however, was another story.

Julia's hair, having freed itself from her braid, was fluttering above her head, the tornado trying to carry it upward with her mana. Her eyes were aglow with the colored plasma. Lumenfall was reared up on Julia's shoulder, her fur crackling with white and yellow lightning, and her features becoming gradually sharper, her transformation beginning to revert.

The only thing in Julia's mind at the moment was her friend being harmed. Despite her vision being clear, what played before her mind's eye was the scene of the spear entering Nadhem's gut, and his surprised look. He had only been intending to scold the guard for his belligerent behavior. Why had he been stabbed? That was a fatal blow without a healer present!

The scene cleared from her mind as she felt hands on both her shoulders. She glanced to the side to see Sahira on one side and Talnîr on the other, both with a hand on her shoulder. Ithshar stood in front of her and put her hands on either side of Julia's face, forcing her to look into Ithshar's eyes.

"Focus," she demanded calmly. "Observe the effect your presence is having."

She released Julia's head, motioning to the sides.

Julia looked around her and saw fear.

Guards that had taken defensive positions around their comrade, who was still on the ground, had obvious fear in their eyes, even as they leveled their spears at her. They didn't advance, merely held their ground, as if to defend their compatriot from her inevitable assault.

The civilians had backed far away and were huddled together in groups, looking between Julia herself and the tornado of crackling plasma swirling around her, shaking with fear.

Even the old man that had been knocked down was afraid. He stood with a cluster of other elders that had likely helped him to his feet, and all stared at Julia in horror, as if afraid her wrath would turn upon them at any moment.

The adventurers that had been distributing food were in a defensive formation around a group of civilians, set to defend them should the need arise, yet even they had fear in their eyes.

Nadhem rapped a knuckle against Julia's chest, knocking against her collarbone in her unarmored state.

"Come, Dahm'Zahra. If we attempt to correct the behavior of every incompetent," he said, almost spitting that word at the gathered guards, "we will be here for years. Evening is already falling, and we have business at the Guild tomorrow. Let us return."

The plasma dispersed, disappearing as if it had been an illusion, and Julia nodded, following after Nadhem. He led the way through the streets toward the Blue as Talnîr fussed over his healed wound.

"I really wish you'd let me do the healing, Julia—look at this! Look at this giant scar! You've completely mangled him!" he whined exaggeratedly, lightening the mood. "Your healing is field medicine only from this point forward!"

"Sorry," Julia replied sheepishly, truly embarrassed by her actions.

Back in the square, leaning against the wall in the shadow of an alley, Cass watched the group leave. Her face was covered by the long shadows of evening, but the smile she wore was unmistakable.

She melted back into the stone she was leaning against like a rock falling into water, disappearing once again.

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