Will

"William! William, my boy! Can you hear me?"

"Huh?"

"Look at me, boy. Look at me!"

Will blinked. He found himself sitting on the floor with Fletcher holding him up by the back of his drooping head. Anathema's hilt was digging painfully into his bruised side.

"We were talking, then you just fell," Fletcher explained. "Are you all right, my boy?"

"I'm fine." Based on the warm wetness trickling down his back, he had torn some of his stitches already, and something hot and urgent was gnawing at the inside of his stomach. "Just… help me get up, please."

The old librarian looked at him doubtfully, but eventually complied, sprouting two extra arms to usher Will back to his feet. He swayed unsteadily, ankles wanting to fold, but after a few slow, calm breaths the world slowly returned to him, along with his strength.

"Are you ill?" Fletcher asked. "You look… pale."

"You're one to talk," Will replied with a dark chuckle. He shook off the librarian's overbearing hold. "I'm fine, Fletch. Just a bit of vertigo. What about Brimstone? Did you figure anything out about his sensory abilities?"

"Ah! Yes." Fletcher turned back to the open system manual. "This is only a guess, but I think he might be using Astral Projection. Are you familiar with this ability?"

"Vaguely. It lets you send your spirit out while you're sleeping, doesn't it?" He nodded to himself. "Yes, I see. That's clever."

"I thought so too. He's using Rest to put himself to sleep, Tenacious to keep his body moving, and Astral Projection to project his consciousness above the battlefield, to look down on himself like…"

"Like a character in a video game."

"What's a video game?"

Will chuckled. "Don't worry about it." It was easy to forget just how much time the librarian had spent on the Frontier. "That has to be it, though. That's how he was able to keep track of me without line of sight—by throwing out his consciousness to follow me and reeling in his body after."

It also explained how Serene and Captain had avoided detection. If he had been right on top of Will, keeping as close as possible, noticing anyone on the periphery would be difficult. And as far as he knew, the intangible spirit self created by Astral Projection had no inherent tools for detecting Illusions, so it was no wonder that Serene's ruse had worked.

Will had what he came for—more than he'd hoped to get out of it, really. He would have liked to sit down and work out a strategy for countering Brimstone's build based on what he had just learned, but there was no time for that. He said a quick goodbye to Fletcher and rushed off while the old librarian was still calling after him.

He fought another rush of vertigo on the stairs, leaned heavily on the cold wall for a moment before clearing the rest of it. On the library ground floor, he found Golden Boy loudly issuing commands to a team of medics under his employ to begin triaging the many wounded refugees laid out on tarps and blankets. A rare show of neighborly compassion from one of Sheerhome's semi-criminal underbelly. He never would have guessed.

Will could not stay and check on the progress. He went outside into the harsh, acrid Topside air, set a continuous cast of Repel in a bubble around himself to keep the worst of the firesmoke off, and headed west, toward the fires in the not-so-far distance, to see what could still be done for the city's people.

It wasn't long before there was fire all around. Predictably, there were not many people in the streets, and few voices crying out in the distance. By this point, he reckoned that anyone with working legs and half a brain would have at least made an effort to escape the fires. The only ones left were those stubborn enough to try and salvage their homes or their belongings, and those greedy enough to try their hand at looting. It quickly became clear by the number of blackened corpses in and around burnt-out shells of buildings that many had already paid dearly for their hubris.

Using Detect [Life], Will was able to locate a few survivors who otherwise would have gone overlooked—folk trapped under wreckage or inside still-burning houses, their voices drowned by the rumbling chaos of the conflagration that seemed to drown out all else. Will easily cut through timber and plaster with Anathema, freeing survivors one at a time and gathering them up before taking them to the Academy in small groups.

He was exhausted after just a few trips. He'd been exhausted before he even started, really—only eventually, drugs alone were not enough to conceal it. The air was hot and dry. It stung his eyes and his throat. A gray snowfall drifted out of a constantly darkening sky. The stuff gathered on his shoulders and head, smeared on his hands and arms whenever he touched a surface and his face when he went to wipe sweat until he was absolutely covered.

For a while he tried to keep count of how many he'd saved, but he quickly stopped once he realized what a depressing sideshow that made his efforts seem. A few dozen, some so badly injured that he doubted they would survive, against what was by now certainly thousands of casualties. He switched tack, tried not to think about any of it instead, kept his focus on the next step, the next house, the next swing of his sword.

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He made it down to The Lucky Lady just to make sure that Joe Crag had cleared out all right, only to find the tavern keeper overseeing a team of reluctant hirelings, in the middle of a vain attempt to stifle the fire that was well on its way to engulfing the two-story establishment, greedy flame tongues licking out of heat-shattered windows.

Joe looked about ready to jump out of his skin at the sight of Will coming up, thick jowls quivering while he clutched an empty water bucket to his round belly. Only when he got closer did the Cook slowly relax, recognition passing over his soot-stained features. "Oh god, it's you."

"Yep." Will nodded to the burning building. "Thought you'd be smarter than to put yourself on the slow-roast willingly."

Joe looked him up and down, slowly shook his head. "You… You look like shit, Will."

"I'm fine."

"You don't look it. Is that your blood?"

Will looked down at his shirt, found the front soaked heavy and red. "I'm fine, all right? It doesn't matter. You need to get out of here, Joe. They're taking in refugees at the old Academy."

"This place is all I got! I can't just leave it!"

"You've got your life. Unless you want to lose both, I suggest you get your fat ass moving."

"Yeah, but…"

"Now, Joe. I don't have time to argue with you."

"Shit!" Joe took a step back, flung the bucket away, sent it bouncing end-over-end. "Okay, Will. Okay. Just… do you think…?"

"What?"

"I've got a chest under a trapdoor behind the bar. It's where I keep my goodies. You think you could get that out for me, at least? Will, if this place goes, I'll be penniless… Might as well throw myself on the fire at that point, make it quick."

"Fine, Joe—no need to break out the waterworks. I'll get your damn chest."

Said and done. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth, Dashed through a burning hole in the facade, bounced from wall to wall while avoiding hotspots in the raging fire that was quickly consuming the whole common room. He caught the rim of the bar counter, swung himself around behind it. A bottle shattered on the shelf behind him from the heat, sent glass shards and flaming alcohol raining down on him.

Joe had hid his trapdoor a bit too well, and Will didn't have time to go back and forth scanning the floor, so he ended up having to burn another cast of Detect to find it. A few cuts with Anathema got him through, and he extracted the heavy, iron-banded chest inside. Carrying the damn thing out through all the fire might have proven tricky, so instead he propped it up on the counter and hit it with an Amped Repel, sent it flying through the far wall and out into the street. He aimed a max-range Dash and threaded the hole created by the chest, skidding to a stop before a gaggle of gaping hirelings.

"Thank you," Joe said while patting down the smoking patches on Will's clothing. "Some of the gold's fused together, but I reckon it'll be easy enough to recast later. You've done me a solid, Will. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, yeah," Will replied breathlessly. "Now will you go to the Academy?"

"Sure. Come on, boys! You done enough to earn your keep." He turned back to Will. "You're coming with us, right?"

Will shook his head. "Still got work to do."

"Come on, man. Give it up. You'll kill yourself out there."

There was no point having this discussion all over again. Will Dashed off, going to locate his next target.

He continued in a widening zig-zag from the Academy until he hit the eastern edge of the River Sterling. He found Bogleg the blacksmith, who had gotten caught in a dead end while trying to escape; got him out safe, though he had already lost two of his apprentices to smoke inhalation when Will got there.

Eventually he came across a small group of Captain's helpers who were escorting some survivors. They, in turn, pointed him to their master, and Will bounded over rooftops until he found Henri Saint Capitaine coordinating and giving orders to a mixed troop of Laborers and Builders.

The city's only firefighter looked about as good as Will felt. He was bloody, battered, very low on AP—and, as Will noticed, missing his SP crystal.

Surprisingly, Captain shook his hand, and gave a terse nod of acknowledgement.

"You look awful," Captain said.

"People keep saying that. It's starting to hurt my feelings."

"My sincere apologies." Didn't sound so sincere.

Will snorted. "You're one to talk anyhow. What have you been doing, exactly?"

"I… decided that the time for neutrality has ended. Brimstone needs to be stopped before the whole city comes undone. So I challenged him."

"He whipped you, huh?"

The firefighter looked down at his beat-up self somewhat sheepishly. "Yes. I was forced to use my semblance to escape. He's strong."

"Yeah."

"Fights like a man possessed."

"Yeah."

Captain went on to briefly outline his efforts throughout Topside. Aside from evacuating civilians, he and his people had tried to halt the blaze from spreading to the eastern side of the district by establishing firebreaks. This had proven completely unsuccessful. The fire went wherever it pleased, carried by the wind to find fresh pastures to graze upon. According to Captain, it had even spread to the Outside, wreaking havoc on the tightly packed rat warren.

"You manage to hurt Brimstone at all?" Will asked. "Slow him down at least?"

Captain gave a grim shake of his head. "With a build specifically catered to fighting fires, I thought I'd have the upper hand. In the end, though, I couldn't even touch him. He made me look like a bumbling fool."

Will nodded. "Can't be helped now. You should go back to the Academy, rest up. I'll get my semblance back tonight. You'll get yours back, what, tomorrow morning? I've got some new intel on Brimstone's build. If we both go for him at once, we might be able to get the better of him."

"I can't just leave these people…"

"You're out of AP. Put someone else in charge, go take a nap. You'll be more effective that way—do more good in the long run."

"I don't know…"

Captain let himself be talked into the idea. He was exhausted, that much was plain to see. He assigned an older female Laborer as the temporary head of the evacuation effort. Before leaving, he turned and said to Will: "If you want to make a difference, you should look to Darkside. Brimstone seems to be headed that way, and Thorpe's people have been ranging out of the military quarter to do… something there."

"Understood. If it's important enough for Thorpe to send people out instead of hunkering down, it's probably worth looking into."

Captain nodded and wandered off, supporting himself on his quarterstaff. Will watched the retreating Builder for a moment, then turned his gaze northward.

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