I spent the night in an inn run-down enough to make me question whether I shouldn’t have just spent a few Scales, gone back to Azure Prime, and returned in the morning.

The room cost only fifteen Scales, and even so it felt expensive. The bed creaked at any shift of weight, the mattress seemed made of compacted regret, and the half-clogged pipes in the walls spent the whole night producing a symphony of turbulence, whistling, and metallic banging. The staff were polite when they checked me in, even kind within what the Red Squid Slums allowed. The problem wasn’t hospitality. It was structure. No one there could offer silence when the entire building seemed to cough along with the city.

What bothered me most was learning that, according to three different passersby, this was the best inn in the area.

I woke up tired, with a sore neck and enough bad mood to earn its own classification in the system.

Even so, I have work. The meeting with the leader of the Silver Fang is tonight in Azure Prime, and if I want my plans to run in the right order, I need to finish the visit Richard pointed me to before heading back. The paper with the address sits folded in my inventory, too heavy for a simple scrap. Richard wouldn’t have sent me there by accident. That alone is already irritating.

After a few minutes of walking, I notice the city changing around me.

The muddy stone streets give way to metal pavement eaten through with rust. Frost’s natural cold comes through more clearly here, cutting the haze with less effort, not because the place is cleaner, but because the congested ducts are less concentrated. Probably the edge of the city. Fewer people, fewer stalls, less artificial heat leaking from patched pipes. The air still tastes of badly burned OXI, but it no longer seems to scrape a layer off my throat with every breath.

The address is a disaster, of course.

Broken numbering, improvised signs, alleys that change names halfway through, and directions like "past the cracked tank" or "before the bridge that fell," delivered with the confidence of people who consider that a functional system. The Red Squid Slums looks like it was thrown together in a hurry around a protective-zone shield, probably funded by some rich politician with intentions noble enough to become a speech and hollow enough to allow all this garbage around it.

When I finally find the building, I stop in front of it for a few seconds.

It’s exactly the kind of place I least want to visit out of social fatigue, and one of the most likely to help me.

A government junta.

Politics in Thirstfall shifts with continent, crown, dominant guild, strategic zone, and the level of lying the powerful can sustain without laughing. The Red Squid Slums still sits in Frost, and Frost answers to the Crown of Azurea. A traditional monarchy, with enough bureaucrats to fake order where there’s only patchwork.

A smile rises at the corner of my mouth.

"Time to throw my weight around."

The building stands out from the others like a gold tooth in a broken mouth. Three floors, a gray stone facade reinforced with metal beams, narrow windows protected by ornamental bars, and an Azurea crest hung above the entrance, stained with soot. It’s sturdier, costlier, cleaner than the neighboring structures, yet it still carries the Red Squid Slums in its corners: rust on the hinges, steam escaping a side gutter, cracks covered by plates too new to match the old wall.

I go in.

Inside, the difference is even more offensive.

The floor is polished, the walls paneled in dark wood, and small ventilation runes glow discreetly near the ceiling, keeping the smoke thinner than out on the streets. There are organized counters, labeled metal archives, chairs aligned for waiting, and a serious attempt to look like a functional institution. Even so, the smell lingers. Burned OXI, only filtered. The same filth, wiped down with a damp cloth before being served to the Crown.

I don’t know if Richard wanted me to see this. Maybe he did. Maybe he looked at the Crest of Azurea, measured my arrogance, and decided to drop me straight into a political corner to find out whether I knew how to hold the cue.

But if you’re already in hell, go and embrace the devil.

I pin the Crest to my chest like a brooch.

"Let’s play politics," I murmur.

I ring the bell on the counter.

It takes a few seconds before anyone appears. A Drowned girl, no more than sixteen, hurries in through a side door, trying to straighten her rumpled clothes as she walks. Her hair is out of place, her lipstick smeared, and there’s a mix of disgust and exhaustion on her face that isn’t aimed at me. The eyes are the worst part. Too dead for her age. Dead in the way Thirstfall produces with industrial efficiency.

"Can I help y—"

She stops mid-sentence.

Her gaze falls on the Crest.

The color drains from her face so fast it looks like someone pulled the blood out through a thread. Without another word, she turns and goes back through the same door, nearly tripping over her own leg.

I stand at the counter, feeling the irritation climb slowly.

It isn’t the hot anger of the street. It’s worse. A cold anger, organized, hunting for names, titles, punishments, and weak points.

A few minutes later, a tall man appears.

He has white hair and a white goatee, though he doesn’t look older than fifty. He wears a cornflower-blue linen suit with chalk stripes, too good for the district and too discreet to be honest. He’s adjusting his clothes as he comes, the cuffs first, then the jacket, finally the knot of his tie. The girl is behind him, partly hidden, still rumpled, staring at the floor as if existing takes up too much space.

My irritation just gains a few ranks.

The man finishes straightening his tie before facing me. His posture shifts all at once, settling into an official elegance that doesn’t match the door he just stepped out of.

"Sir," he begins, with a voice trained in lies. "On behalf of the local administration, I apologize for the wait. We weren’t informed of a visit from the Crown."

I look at him long enough for the silence to start to itch.

Then I look at the girl.

Then back at him.

"Will I need to undress too, or can we talk already?"

The line crosses the clean room like a blood-dirtied knife dragged across a white tablecloth.

His face doesn’t change much. Too professional for that. But the eyes change. Just a little. Enough.

The girl behind him hunches her shoulders, and that confirms more for me than any confession could.

Richard was right.

I’ve only seen the surface of this pit.