Forty-one pounds of goblin hide is not a lot, until you've carried it down three hundred steps and back up again with a man named Tarn Ostler breathing on your neck."Faster, porter. You're costing me daylight."There was no daylight. They were on the second floor of the Gullet, where the only light came from the lanterns on the party's belts and the green mold that grew in the cracks. Ren Calder didn't point that out. He shifted the pack higher on his shoulders and kept climbing.Six copper a run. That was the rate for an Unrated porter. A rated one got ten, but a rated one had a level, and a level meant a loan, and Ren already owed the Guild Bank three thousand four hundred silver he had never borrowed.His father had borrowed it. Level twelve, bought on credit, so he could haul ore for better pay. The Gullet had killed him in the first month. The Bank, being a reasonable institution, had transferred the balance to his family.Ren was nineteen. He'd been paying for six years.At six

Finding work as an Unrated adventurer was harder than finding it as a porter, because the Guild had a form for porters.There was no form for what Ren was now. He walked into the Guild hall with a level six that his own sheet refused to show, and the clerk at the desk squinted at his card and said, "This says you're not eligible.""I know.""So you can't take quests.""Then I'll join a party that can."The clerk gave him a long look, then pointed with her pen at a bulletin board in the corner. Most of the notices were old. One was freshly pinned, in cramped handwriting that leaned left.RUSTWING COMPANY. Low-rank. Desperate. Hiring anyone who can swing a stick. No fee, split the loot. Ask for Dara.Rustwing turned out to be four people sharing a table in the back of a tavern whose name had faded off the sign.Dara Quill, the leader, was twenty-six, sharp-faced, with ink stains on her fingers that never quite washed out. She was a level nine, bought on a loan she was still paying. Bram

The Guild Bank rose from the center of Veyra like a pale stone tooth.Ren had walked past it every day of his life and never gone beyond the front hall. This time the guards led him through a side door, down a corridor lined with portraits of past directors, and up a spiral stair that seemed to go on forever.The office at the top had walls made of glass. Below the floor, Veyra spread out like a map. Beyond it, in the distance, the great dark mouth of the Gullet breathed steam into the morning sky.Director Halvane Voss sat behind a desk the size of a small boat.He was a slim man of about fifty, silver at the temples, with a gentle voice and tired eyes. He didn't look like a villain. He looked like a man who read books before bed."Mr. Calder," he said. "Please. Sit."Ren stayed standing. "What do you want?""Directly to business. I appreciate that." Voss folded his hands. "You are Unrated. The crystal found nothing in you. Yet three nights ago, you defeated a young man with a purcha

The word hung in the air between them.Aldric Calder was alive.He wore the same coat, the same ragged beard, the same worn boots Ren remembered from childhood. But something was wrong with his eyes. They flickered, as if there were two people behind them and only one was allowed to speak at a time."Dad. Dad, it's me. It's Ren."The Collector's hand trembled. The heavy book clutched in the other hand began to glow, and the silver light spread up his arm like frost."Can't..." The voice rasped. "The debt. It makes me. Run, Ren, run now..."Then the light swallowed his face, and the smooth white plate re-formed over his skin, and the Collector straightened. The hand that had been trembling swung back, ready to strike.Someone clapped.The sound echoed through the cavern, slow and mocking. Ren turned his head.Director Voss stood at the cavern's entrance, flanked by a dozen armed Bank enforcers in gray armor. He was smiling."Marvelous," he said. "Aldric always did put up more resistanc

The staircase went down for a long time.Aldric Calder walked first, with a sword from the armory in his hand and the stubborn set of the shoulders Ren remembered. He was weak, and he had said so, but he would not hear of being left behind. "I've walked these stairs for six years," he said. "I know every step."The stone walls had begun to glow with that same pale blue light, the veins of moonvein pulsing along the ceiling. The hum filled everything. Ren felt it in his ribs.The Ledger spoke softly.[ VAULT ZERO. ] [ ENTERING ORIGIN POINT. ]The stairs ended at an enormous cavern, so vast that the far wall was lost in haze. In the center rose a gigantic shape: a tangle of roots and light and slow, breathing darkness, held in place by thousands of silver chains. Every chain led upward to a ring of stone pillars, and every pillar bore a ledger sealed in glass.In front of it, on a throne of pale stone, sat Mira.She wore a white nightgown. Her eyes were closed. Thin lines of blue light