The rooms at the Slumbering Scaly were little more than cramped, windowless cells, each containing two rough bunks and a bucket. But they were secure, the heavy iron doors locking from the inside. For the first time in days, the group could relax their guard, if only slightly.
They gathered in one of the rooms, the four of them and their gear making the space feel claustrophobic.
"Okay," Zarok began, spreading one of his maps on a lower bunk. "We're here. Now, how do we find this Silas?"
Jacob, who was the only one with any real experience in Rusthaven, took the lead.
"Silas isn't a man you just walk up to. He's the spider at the center of this city's web of information. He knows everything: what caravans are coming and going, who's feuding with whom, where the latest pre cataclysm ruin has been discovered. His knowledge is his power, and he guards it jealously."
"So how do we get an audience?" Seren asked, her voice hushed. The oppressive atmosphere of the city was clearly getting to her.
"We can't go to him directly," Jacob explained. "We have to go through his network. There are whisper mongers in the markets. You find one, you give them a taste of what you want to know, and you pay them to carry the message up the chain. If Silas is interested, he'll send a message back, telling you where and when to meet. And what his price is."
"His price won't be slugs," Zarok surmised, his expression grim.
"No," Jacob confirmed. "Silas deals in a higher currency: secrets, favors, or rare artifacts. He'll want something from us before he gives us anything."
The plan was set.
Jacob, with his familiar face, would be the one to make contact. He would seek out a whisper monger he had dealt with in the past, a man known only as Rat.
He would tell Rat that he was looking for information on the movements of a scholar specializing in pre cataclysm history, a woman matching Katrina's description. It was vague enough not to reveal their full hand, but specific enough to pique Silas's interest.
While Jacob went on his errand, Zarok forbade the others from leaving the guesthouse.
"This place is a maze of predators," he warned. "You don't know the rules. You'll get robbed, or worse, within an hour. We stay here. We stay quiet."
The wait was agonizing.
X paced the small room, the spear feeling heavy and useless in his hands. The chaotic energy of the city seemed to seep through the walls, a constant, low level thrum of desperation and violence.
Seren sat on her bunk, her eyes closed, trying to meditate, to create a small pocket of calm in the maelstrom.
Zarok sat sharpening his blade, the rhythmic scrape of steel on stone a steady, reassuring sound, the only thing that seemed to cut through the tension.
Jacob returned hours later, just as the perpetual twilight of the city began to deepen. He looked tired but satisfied.
"I found Rat," he announced, taking a long drink from a waterskin. "He's still as twitchy as ever, but he remembered me. He took the message and the fee."
"And?" Zarok prompted.
"And now we wait," Jacob said with a sigh. "Rat says Silas has been preoccupied. There's a new player in the city, a faction that's been throwing its weight around, muscling in on the salvage trade. They're fanatics, apparently. Dressed in sun bleached robes."
X and Zarok exchanged a look.
"The Children of the Sun," X said, the name tasting like poison.
Jacob nodded grimly.
"It seems so. They're not just scavenging for tech and parts. They're looking for something specific. Artifacts. Old world texts. Anything related to the Sun King. They've been shaking down information brokers, trying to find what they're looking for. It's made people like Silas very cautious."
The news was a blow.
Their enemies were here, in the same city, hunting for the same things. The race to find Katrina had just become infinitely more dangerous.
They were no longer just navigating the treacherous social landscape of Rusthaven. They were in direct competition with a fanatical cult that was already on the move.
The message from Silas came the next day.
It wasn't delivered by Rat, but by a young, silent girl who slipped a small, folded piece of metal into Jacob's hand in the crowded common room of the guesthouse and disappeared into the throng before he could say a word.
Back in the room, Jacob unfolded the metal sheet.
Scratched into its surface was a time and a location:
Midnight. The Engine Room. Come alone. Bring a gift.
Below the words was a crude drawing of a gear with a lightning bolt through it.
"The Engine Room is the heart of Rusthaven's generator," Jacob explained. "It's deep in the bowels of the city. Loud. Hot. A good place for a private conversation."
"Come alone is not an option," Zarok stated flatly. "Jacob, you'll be the one to meet him, but X and I will be nearby. In the shadows. Seren, you stay here. Lock the door and don't open it for anyone but us."
"And the gift?" Seren asked. "What can we possibly offer a man like that?"
Jacob looked at X, then at the journal and the pendant, which were hidden away in their pack.
"Silas wants something rare. Something no one else has."
He sighed, a look of deep regret on his face.
"I think I know what we have to offer him."
He pulled a small, oilskin wrapped object from the bottom of his own pack. He unwrapped it carefully to reveal a small, intricate device: a pre cataclysm data slate, its screen dark, its casing miraculously intact.
"My wife's," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "She was an engineer. It holds her research, her notes, family pictures."
He looked up, his eyes pained.
"It's the last piece of my old life I have left. But it's a piece of functioning, high level old world tech. To a man like Silas, it's priceless."
The room fell silent.
The price of information was not just danger, but sacrifice.
Jacob was willing to trade the last remnant of his past for a chance at the world's future.
The weight of their quest settled on them all, heavier than ever before.