Hiran thinks the city might be under siege again when he finds the Skill master on the other side of his door. The old man looks like he's seen a ghost, or some kind of horror, and Hiran's just forming a query of concern when Ruben cuts through it in a flat whisper:

"I need your help."

Equal parts intrigued and perturbed, Hiran raises an eyebrow. While the prospect of the Skill master being in his debt is a good one, Hiran's not overly fond of his grave expression. Somehow, he doesn't think this request will fun.

Ruben's eyes flicker over Hiran's shoulder—he's checking to see if anyone else is around, anyone else can hear.

"We have to work quickly and no one can know about this. Especially Allayria."

Ooh.

"Well, if you want my help, I have to know," Hiran decides, pointing at himself for good measure.

"Hiran," the Skill master says, and Hiran is impressed at how level his tone is, even if it's edging into urgent, "I would not ask you for this unless it was important. If you care about Allayria and the safety of those around her, help me."

"Alright," he concedes, resolutely ignoring the pin-pricks of anxiety along his own spine. "Can you tell me at least what I'm helping you with?"

"We need to find a man in this city."

"Well, fortunately for you, there are plenty around."

"Hiran."

"Ok!" Hiran throws his hands up. "What man, then? Who are we looking for?"

"An innkeeper," Ruben answers. "He runs Old Man by the Sea down by the port, if it's still upright. He's old, stooped, with gray hair, and he uses a finely carved walking stick."

Hiran glances skeptically out the window to the dark, dreary city, the rubble of a nearby building's collapse clearly visible in its frame.

"Are you sure he survived all this?" he asks. "The port was the worst hit—"

"He's alive," Ruben cuts in. "We just have to find him."

This is, Hiran decides, the strangest rescue mission he's ever been on. As they travel south through the ruinous city streets he hazards the wild question: "So why are we looking for this man?" but, unsurprisingly, the Skill master is mum.

I wonder if Feuilles would know, he thinks, picking his way around a nasty pile up, some kind of market prior to the invasion. Hiran has noticed Ruben came to him, a Solveig man, and not Tara or Finn or even Lei.

What does that say about what he thinks about me, and what he thinks about them? Hiran wonders, watching the Skill master out of the corner of his eye. From what he said before, it sounds as if the old man is playing this one close to the chest, and he's decided Hiran is his best bet. 

Hiran thinks he might have over-estimated the Skill master's intellect.

To Hiran's absolute lack of surprise, Old Man by the Sea is nothing but white-brick ruin when they reach it, the shriveled carcasses of what look like flowers and smashed flowerpots strewn around the wreckage. This does not alarm the Skill master though; Hiran glances over to see his eyes darting around, peering at the nearby buildings.

"I'm not sure he would have stayed..." Hiran begins, eyeing the shell-blasted structure standing next to the debris, but the Skill master holds up a hand.

Deciding he can't possibly help if he doesn't know what they're after, Hiran stands back, arms crossed over his chest, and watches. And, just as he's contemplating if this really is some kind of farce and the Skill master has gone mad, Ruben walks over to the side of one of the sturdier surrounding buildings and dusts off its corner.

"Ah," he says, and Hiran joins him, leaning forward to peer at what has been uncovered.

It's a little etching, crudely made with some kind of knife and charcoal. Hiran thinks the center figure must be some kind of bird or something, and then there's an arrow pointing northwest and a string of letters.

Ruben rummages in his bag, pulls out a parchment and some of his own charcoal, and starts making a rubbing of the carving.

"Are you going to explain—?" Hiran starts, and Ruben is already shaking his head.

But he does, a little.

"Coordinates," he murmurs to himself and maybe even Hiran, jotting out the letters and pulling out a city map. "Here, quickly."

He's jotting down something more—another string of letters but with numbers set above them, and suddenly Hiran realizes this is some kind of code.

What is this? he thinks, peering with narrowed eyes from the quickly unraveling code to the Skill master. An innkeeper is leaving Ruben hidden messages?

"Let's go," Ruben says suddenly, and he starts moving without even looking at Hiran. "Keep your eyes sharp. Look for him, but also keep an eye on windows and corners."

"What for?" Hiran demands, but again, he receives no answer.

They wind deeper into the city, to parts where the water has not drained out to the sea, where debris and other, fouler things still float in the spoiled, murky flooding. The smell is sharp and sour, and Hiran is surprised to see some residents still here, lurking in those windows and doorways Ruben had warned about, looking less menacing than shell-shocked. It reminds him of the Cabal-leveled city in the northern parts of the kingdom he and the others had wandered through months (a year?) ago, of people in equally desperate situations looking just as sullen.

"Why are they still here?" he asks Ruben when the inhabitants are out of earshot.

The Skill master turns, sparing him a long, searching look.

"It's their home."

Another half hour passes, and then Ruben stops, straight in the center of an intersection.

"Here," he says. "We need to look around here. Knock on doors."

"Knock on doors?" Hiran echoes. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Ask..." the Skill master hesitates. "Ask if Abe is there."

He does it, because at this point, what else is he supposed to do? When he had agreed Hiran thought this missing person search would have required more of searching-through-rubble-and-ruin and less of "Hey there, have you seen a lost senior citizen?"

"Do you know—?" He starts before the first door slams on his face.

"Have you seen—?"

Another quick re-acquaintance with the flat side of a door.

The smile is stretching tight on his face now, cracking under the shine of his bright teeth.

I hate people, he thinks to himself.

No—no, Hiran loves people. And people love Hiran. They just sometimes need to be reminded of that.

"Hello, there," he says when the second door opens, throwing in a dazzling smile at the haggard-looking man. "Did you happen to see—?"

Another slammed door.

He tries a different tactic after that.

"Hi," he barks, shoving a hand on the open door and wedging his foot underneath it for good measure. "DoyouknowamannamedAbe?"

"What?" someone shouts from within the building.

"Uh, Abe," Hiran shouts back, straining around the disgruntled, threadbare woman in front of him. "Do you know him?"

Someone shuffles through an out-of-sight corridor and then the woman is stepping back.

"Who's asking?" an old man asks in a rough, braying voice and Hiran sizes him up. Old? Definitely. Graying? Yes. Stooped? Well, he's hunched over—

He's hunched over a cane with intricate, little carvings.

"Ah," the old man says; he's noticed that Hiran noticed the cane. "Another connoisseur. Finest driftwood in all of Thalassa. Fished it out of a whirlpool in the middle of a rager when I was a lad—nearly lost the boat, the mistress sea was rocking so hard."

"Ah," Hiran says. "I—"

"Old Dolly was sick as a dog, it rocked so bad," the old man barks and the cane swings out—dangerously close to Hiran's shins. "Course he died in the plague of Anaspas, along with some good fellas. But anyway I carved this here myself. Three years. Would have been two months if not for the damned arthritis in my left—"

"Abe."

Ruben is suddenly at Hiran's elbow and the woman next to the old man vanishes. In fact, Hiran catches the sound of other footfall, of doors closing, and he realizes the house has emptied out.

But this is nothing to what happens to the old man. The narrowed, cloudy eyes fall on the Skill master, but it strikes Hiran how much less befuddled they look now. How, in fact, keen they suddenly seem.

"Abe," Ruben repeats, his voice a low murmur. "He's taken Balder."

A long stretch of silence greets this, some kind of unsaid communication flickering between the two old men as Hiran stands there, as befuddled as ever.

"You think I'm next?" Abe asks.

"I think," Ruben says slowly, "it's time you come with us."

And then the cane hits the floor with a loud thwack, clattering, still and lifeless, as the man in front of Hiran straightens up to full height. He stretches his hands, and the bones give a loud, satisfying crack before one disappears into his sleeve and pulls out a long, thin knife.

"Where are we going?" Abe demands.

A/N: Who is Abe?! Well, let me tell you: YOU'VE ALL MET HIM BEFORE. No spiraling existential chapter notes for you this time, my friends, you're going to have to figure out this little blast from the past mystery all on your own.

(I'll stop with the gifs eventually, I promise)

Updating update because I am a lying liar who lies: I still owe you all an additional chapter, and it's haunting me like a whistling ghost (no thank you, sir.) I'm looking at the next few chapters and I think a quick follow up posting would be most appreciated on the chapter after the next one. (Trust me.) So that's my tentative plan. Work is utter chaos right now so I'm going to try my best.

In other, frankly insane, news: Paragon just hit 200K views tonight. I remember posting it and thinking I hoped it would just hit two thousand—two thousand views would be so cool.

Holy cow.

I feel like I say this like every 10 chapters but it's amazing so many people are reading this and commenting and voting and drinking frankly inadvisable amounts of pickle juice (don't, really don't). What can I say at this point? You're all the best.