72. [INTERLUDE] Once in a Lifetime

  Whenever Renate Sandvik swam, she did so without making waves.

  Like a phantom hidden in water, she remained unseen and unheard for as long as she needed. It’d been a special talent of hers since childhood, one that had delighted her mother and confounded her father in equal measure. It was a talent to which, for much of her life, she herself had ascribed little value—until it became imperative that she remain unseen and unheard for as long as possible.

  The border that separated Stamgard from Rotgard was—as always—under heavy guard. An entire regiment of the Kronheer patrolled the circumference of the Trunk where it met the Roots. This included combat divers—the Frogmen, they were called, much to Renate’s wry chagrin—who kept underwater watch over the Sanzu River’s numerous distributaries.

  A common Rotgardian joke was that King Tyr put more effort into keeping would-be intruders out of Stamgard than the defense of his own palace. Perhaps Stamgardians would make the same joke were it not for their willful ignorance of what went on just several leagues below the comforts of their township. For Renate, however, the ‘joke’ hit too close to home for her to find much humor in it.

  But she also knew that cracks could be found in any defense. And she’d been doing this long enough to have a good sense of which ones to test.

  This morning, the most fallible crack happened to be a fresh-faced Frogman who couldn’t be more than a few months out of the academy. At least this was the first Renate had seen of him, and by now, she knew most of the border guards by their fins if not by their face.

  This barely-a-man happened to be a salmon-typed Yaksha (not a frog!). With a wetsuited body sleek, silvery, and well-built enough to make Renate curious—just a little—about the face under his diving helmet. She dispelled the thought just as quickly as it’d surfaced, knowing this was no time to get distracted.

  Salmon Lad, as with most any Yaksha, wasn’t as suited to the underwater life as his hydrodynamic appearance might suggest. Case in point was the breathing tube that came out of his helmet and was fed ashore, to be monitored by his likely more senior partner. It spoke to the irony that all Yakshas, no matter how much they liked to style themselves as water sprites, were first and foremost landbound souls—meant for the slopes of Mount Meru rather than the currents of the Sanzu River.

  Renate Sandvik herself was no exception to the rule. But she, unlike most Yakshas, had found a way to break the limitations of her biology. For she was a Wayfarer—and the best use of her Zealous Instrument was to help her adapt to environmental challenges.

  [Pearl of IMMERSION]

  She unclipped a Pearl from her lanyard and downed its contents, at the same time taking care not to swallow too much river water.

  The effect was instantaneous. Her [Oxygen] gauge filled back up to its maximum, then resumed its descent—at a much slower rate than prior to her imbibement. That should give me at least a half-hour or so; more than long enough to get the job done.

  She glided closer to Salmon Lad, sending nary a ripple through a thicket of turtlegrass that covered the riverbed. Her movements were smooth, practiced, and—crucially—free from the restrictions of a breathing tube.

  When she got as close as she dared—with Salmon Lad still none the wiser—she reached for the metallic handle that jutted over her right shoulder. DREDGER unfurled itself from her back, producing with it a hint of what might almost be ‘waves’. The combat diver finally did spot her then, and he hurriedly turned his helmeted gaze downward, along with the point of his harpoon gun. Too little too late.

  [Auxiliary Technique: ELEMENTAL SURGE]

  Renate swung DREDGER with both hands. Salmon Lad, along with his harpoon, disappeared into a twisting confusion of currents, bubbles, and uprooted grass.

  Renate herself dove under the vortex and glided past unharmed. There was a time, years ago, when she might’ve been clumsy enough to be caught by an underwater mayhem of her own creation. But no longer. She’d been doing this long enough to be well past rookie mistakes like that.

  Yet, as she swam through to the other side, a second harpoon whizzed past, dangerously close to her hooded head. She spun back around in a mad rush, DREDGER at the ready… then relaxed again as soon as she saw what had happened.

  Salmon Lad was still twisting and rolling inside her [Elemental Surge]. The rookie Frogman hadn’t been—and still wasn’t—in any state to fight back, but he must’ve taken a remote prayer of a shot that had, by some miracle, nearly found its target. Beginner’s luck; could happen to anyone, I guess.

  Knowing she was under no real threat, Renate turned upstream and swam on, making for another thicket that would once again mask her location. Salmon Lad’s partner would no doubt be readying for a reinforcement dive, but by then, she would be well out of sight and—whether the Frogmen liked it or not—out of their jurisdiction.

  For the only thing the Kronheer hated more than letting a smuggler through was alerting the townspeople to the border conflict. Better for a Rotter to occasionally slip through the net and cause a bit of nuisance than for the whole sordid affair to dominate the public consciousness. All of which worked out in Renate’s favor, as she only needed to travel about a mile upstream before the Frogmen gave up the search.

  From there, it was—as they say—smooth sailing. Renate rejoined the main body of the Sanzu in less than ten minutes, giving her plenty of time to spare. Indeed, the branch she’d chosen was low-traffic enough that she even allowed herself to come up for air, refilling the [Oxygen] gauge and buying herself even more time.

  As she neared Stamgard’s Town Market, the onshore activities gained in noise and density. The Stammers, as a collective, were nothing if not industrious, and many of them were already up and about despite the earliness of the hour. But if Renate had her way, this again should work in her favor, as it’d help to keep her ‘targets’ distracted.

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  Palmr Jorgensen was a heavy-set, catfish-typed businessman who—by the grace of King Tyr himself—had been given the reins to the Town Market and its growing rotation of vendors. He himself owned and operated one of the storefronts, presently guarded by a pair of dour-faced sturgeons who were even bigger than he was.

  Normally, a cautious thief like Renate wouldn’t have bothered with Jorgen & Sons, even if it was the best-stocked vendor in all of Pretjord. But, much to her consternation, her days of picking and choosing her victims had come to an end, thanks to Palmr’s recently cornering the market on the one product she couldn’t do without.

  She sighed inwardly at the thought, nearly sending up bubbles that might’ve given away her position. She pushed it down, knowing this was no time to get distracted.

  Whether it was due to arrogance or complacency, Palmr Jorgensen kept his vials of the Realmtree Dew inside a display box, up front and center of his store. Maximum visibility for his most coveted and expensive product.

  He must’ve had great faith in his sturgeon musclemen, and perhaps rightly so. But even the most faithworthy enforcers couldn’t catch a thief if they couldn’t see her coming.

  The plan of approach was simple. There was a prominent knot on this part of the Realmtree that rose over the Town Market like a natural enclosure, covered in moss and vines and all manner of foliage to aid a master in concealment. One vine in particular hung just low enough and in just the right spot to bring Renate within DREDGER range of the display box in question. All she needed was to scoop it up and hightail it out of there before the Sturgeon Thugs could react.

  Of course, for that to work, she first needed to resurface, go ashore, and climb the knot—all while undetected. Her best bet was for everyone in the Town Market to proceed as they normally would: busy and preoccupied with the respective objects of their desire.

  So far so good. The Stammers were nothing if not industrious, and the marketgoers were all busy and preoccupied with the items on their shopping list—their next fix to sate their [Hunger]. So long as nothing out of the ordinary were to happen now, the coast was clear for Renate to make good on her plan.

  Nothing out of the ordinary like, for example, a pair of complete outsiders showing up out of nowhere and making waves.

  Splash!

  Renate lost sight of her chosen landing spot as her entire vision filled with an explosive confusion of sprays, bubbles, and uprooted grass.

  From amidst the explosion emerged two humanoid figures. One of them, a woman, had her eyes tightly shut as she flung her arms about in a wild panic. The other, a man, had his arm around his companion in an apparent attempt to keep her afloat.

  The woman’s most noticeable feature was a pair of onyx horns that crowned her terrified face. Rakshasa. And the man—burly, hornless, and scaleless—was a… Manusya? Now, that was a rare sight.

  Right this Ksana, however, Renate couldn’t find it in her to be impressed by the (quite literally) once-in-a-lifetime event that unfolded before her. Instead, she froze in dismay and bubbled over with rage at the sheer magnitude of her bad luck.

  For not only was this the first time in centuries that outrealmers had arrived in Pretjord’s midst, but they also couldn’t have chosen a more spectacular way to interfere with Renate’s business.

  Even now, the Rakshasa woman babbled and shouted incoherently as she fought against her own lack of buoyancy. The Manusya man was doing his best to calm her down and drag her ashore, but it was plain for all to see that he himself wasn’t a strong swimmer. It would be a matter of minutes—perhaps even seconds—before both of them drowned.

  And that was when Renate’s anger was tempered by a entirely different thought. What would happen to these saps if they were to die right now?

  As a seasoned Wayfarer herself, she knew just how vulnerable and killable her own kind could be. Judging from the look of things, these were the newcomers’ first moments in Pretjord, which meant they wouldn’t have had a chance to install nor tether themselves to a Waystation.

  While Renate couldn’t confirm it from personal experience, she’d heard horror stories about untethered souls who’d wander the Interstitium for years, decades, or even centuries before the universe bothered to find them another place to reconstitute. Some might never come back, lost forever to a primordial soup of endless time and forgotten memories. Even putting all that aside, drowning is just a terrible way to go…

  None of this, of course, was of Renate’s concern. It certainly wasn’t her problem to solve. Any sensible thief in her position would suppress both her sympathy for and annoyance with the hapless newcomers and instead improvise a new plan for her own benefit. And yet…

  Renate shifted her gaze for a second, and saw that the spectacle had already attracted a crowd of gawkers. Marketgoers, vendors, and even Palmr’s Sturgeon Thugs flocked to the shore as moths to a flame. Every last one of them would’ve recognized what Renate already understood—that if these Wayfarers were left to their own devices, they would drown to death.

  Come on, Renate silently urged her fellow Yakshas. Come on, why aren’t any of you jumping in to save them? Where’s your Pretjordian hospitality now? Where’s your precious neighborly spirit?

  It would be child’s play for any grown Yaksha to rescue a pair of would-be drowners. Yet, none of the bystanders acted. And Renate knew why.

  They were scared. Scared of the new, the unknown, the undefined. Scared of anything that hadn’t been vetted and ‘taste-tested’ by an authority figure they could trust.

  Just like they were scared of her.

  When Renate Sandvik finally made waves, she did so because she couldn’t stop herself.

  First, a swig from [Pearl of STRENGTH] to put a little extra oomph behind her swing. Then she gripped DREDGER with both hands and unleashed another [Elemental Surge].

  The ensuing geyser shot the Wayfarers high into the air, before they arced back down into the heart of the now scrambling crowd. You’ll suffer a bit of fall damage, but trust me, it’s much preferable to drowning.

  With the two outrealmers yeeted to safety, Renate turned her thoughts back onto her own mission. Her hopes were already dwindling, and a cursory scan of the shore confirmed her fears.

  Too much attention and hubbub. Too many eyes. And among them, a beady and suspicious pair that belonged to a heavy-set catfish.

  There was no choice. She had to abort. No matter how urgent her mission. There was simply too much to lose.

  Renate Sandvik turned her finless tail to make her downstream escape. Her mind roiled with the injustice of it all. And her heart filled with remorse for the friend she was about to let down.

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