Late at night in the foremen’s room with the war orphan they’d rescued from under the floorboards who suffered extreme blepharitis and shed bacterial loads from his eyelids, the party deliberated over whether to sleep and what they ought to do about the unconscious foreman grievously injured by Squints’ Frontier Wrangle. Squints passed out from exhaustion during the debate. Sansan proposed moving the foreman to the bed, so the scene looked less suspicious. Declan heaved the foreman over to the moldiest bed in the room and tucked him into the covers way tight, so tight that he would awake immobile and trapped, buying the party time to decide what ought to be done about him. Omeb asked the war orphan for information about the compound, which the war orphan could provide a little of vocally and then had to transition to scribbling notes because he’d blown out his vocal chords moaning in pain whenever people stepped on the floorboard he’d been imprisoned under. When the war orphan illustrated a head shaking ‘no’ in answer to one of Omeb’s questions, instead of just shaking ‘no’ with his own head, Omeb gave up on him as a source. For a nighttime snack, Omeb fed the little war orphan boy some chalk. To keep everyone safe overnight, Declan Idrys moved the remaining wing of the foreman’s work counter to block the door. The party and the little war orphan boy whose internal pH balance was now quite basic drifted asleep. — Squints, awoken by the shifting magical background radiation, sensed the new weather: `avenging echo`. Sansan awoke to pain in her swollen wrist, and Omeb awoke to a limber, flexible state he had not known since the last time he didn’t drink himself to sleep which who could know when that was. Declan’s head had scaled up in proportion to his body, finally taking on the size adaptations incurred by his consumption of the sinewy mushroom that upgraded him to the [[higher ape]] class. His face retained its characteristic androgynous beauty. The war orphan entreated the party to join the orphans’ organized resistance against management of the Advance Instruction Program. Usually adventurers gave up when they learned Obadiah was in charge, but the orphan believed the prophesied Pied Piper and Big Man would be different. The real enforcer of the packing compound, according to this chalk-eating diversely-afflicted boy, was Big Brother, a.k.a. Mr. Idrys. While the foremen mostly attended to administrative affairs and the occasional scolding or small educational torment, Big Brother caught the escapees, squashed the rebellions. The boy’s name was 65. Omeb offered 65 the chance to kill the foreman bound in the moldy bed, but 65 said no, that he didn’t want to, that the [[Red Priest]]s encourage forgiveness. To help the boy release his repressed anger, Omeb led 65 over to the well-bundled foreman so the boy could rub his eyes and give the foreman’s vulnerable, infectable eyes a light sprinkling of blepharitis flakes. Then for personal reasons Omeb asked the boy to sprinkle some of the bacterial load into one of Omeb’s personal vials. For breakfast, the party ate the nutrition cubes which were regular service at the packing compound. And as a special treat for 65, they took some salt from the staff seasoning closet downstairs. While eating, 65 made noises of pleasure. “I can’t believe this is what salt tastes like!” he said. The party decided to split up for the morning to prepare for action later in the day. ### Sansan By following the signs to a local witch doctor’s office, featuring a black mask with a long bird’s beak, Sansan found a small venue with a sign reading `Have you been trampled by a horse? We'll get you well and get your gold!` When she entered the private office of the combination lawyer/witch doctor, he had neither reception area nor receptionist. It was just one plump old man reading in a reading chair under a lamp, asking her what was the problem and whether she’d been trampled by a horse? Sansan asked him his rate and he asked her how much she had. Omeb interrupted their conversation by holding up a silver against the window, and Sansan, who had not brought any money herself, said, “I have 1 silver.” “Then I can do it for 1 silver!” the man said. “Now let me assess your skin tone and see if I have anything compatible in the back.” After the man talked a bit about his inventory of body parts and seemed reticent to explain his treatment methods (trade secrets, those), Sansan decided to back out of the exchange and left with Omeb to join him on his errand. ### Omeb Omeb took Sansan with him to speak to a friend of his mentor, also a member of his secretive association, the details of which he was vague and guarded about in conversation with Sansan. He instructed Sansan to keep a hood covering her face at all times during the visit. The friend of his mentor, Stefaunassus, welcomed the two into his gated garden in the city. Inside the gates, which were covered with vines, it was instantly quieter. Arguments between patrons and prostitutes on the patios of the nearby brothels lowered to a faint murmur. Stefaunassus gave Omeb more mycelium, then Omeb got into an argument with him by asserting his (Omeb’s) own high status in the organization. Stefaunassus found this claim wanting for evidence. Meanwhile, Stefaunassus’s butler Marky, and a witch doctor, and a poet, this impromptu team, took Sansan over to the fountain to heal the ligament tears in her wrist. In the end, Stefaunassus did not want to be Omeb’s sugar daddy because he already had another sugar boy and the boy was quite jealous. ### Declan Declan visited the armory, where the owner was arguing with a man who carried three swords at his hip. They argued about the value of one of these swords. “I’ve seen swords of your type all over,” the bald, mustached shopkeeper said to the many-sworded man. “Ten bronze, max.” Declan browsed the wares, trying not to look like he was obviously eavesdropping. Lining the walls were swords, battle axes, and javelins. From bottom to top, they were made of different materials: at the bottom, bronze, then steel, a curious black material with a matte surface called “black”, a blue metal called “mithril”, and on the top shelf, a dark pastel green metal called “adamant”. The man with three swords scoffed at the shopkeeper and left. To his turned back, the shopkeeper shouted, “The height of absurdity, your behavior!” Declan approached the shopkeeper and asked if they ever work in brass. The shop did work in brass, yes, they made tubular instruments as a side hustle. So Declan set his brass knuckles on the counter, which no longer fit him after he ate the sinewy mushroom, and asked for them to be resized for his new hand. Though the shopkeeper expressed doubts about his ability to complete a novel order, Declan explained it was just like making a trumpet except different in this and that way. “There is great creativity and reason in you, sir,” the shopkeeper said. As a deposit, Declan offered his silver hand mirror, but after watching the shopkeeper stutter greedily he instead opted to just pay up front in silver coin. ### Squints Back at the compound on the packing floor, Squints approached Lucille, the leader of the children’s union. Lucille told Squints about one of her attendant dancers, who used to pack twelve hours a day. But eventually her fingers started to shake, and a burning sensation colonized her hands and never abated. Though she tried to push through and keep packing, in the end she lost the capacity to articulate her fingers. From then on she could only dance. “That ain't right I tell you,” Squints said. “Everyone needs rest. That's how the world is, says so right here in the Book for Life, somewhere around here, yes here it is: ‘When you're tired, rest.’ These are some words I live by.” Lucille narrowed her brows. “I have never heard a Red Priest say such a thing, at least not the sheriff priest we have here, Mr. Idrys. ‘When you're tired work harder, when you're tired work on.’ These are the words that we have heard.” “That don't sound right to me. I'm a sheriff priest from the west.” “Perhaps you come from a different sect.” “I tip my hat to your many words.” Squints’ earnestness impressed Lucille, and 65 had already told her that Squints had come with the Pied Piper and the Big Man. Because of her respect for prophecy, she opened her heart to hope once again, and climbed atop a packed crate. To all the children on the packing floor, she shouted the stopping order. “It’s time,” she said. Chichi kept on packing, not understanding, but the other children gently held his hands to make him stop. It fell silent in the compound. All the children looked to Lucille for her next command. Next: [[team 7's path 5]]