Chapter 1: Part 2 - Make Some Noise

Vasha didn’t like to hide. She’d spent a lifetime confronting her problems head-on, preferably with a pistol in one hand and a spanner in the other. There was very little that couldn’t be solved, outsmarted or simply blown up; her record on all three counts was one she was proud of.

All except Jean Valpari.

She’d known it was him the moment she caught sight of that grey hair through the crowd. Vasha snatched a glance, then looked a little longer. He looked older, understandably, but there was still that laughing look in his eyes, and he still unconsciously moved out of the way of anyone who passed him, women especially. Even dressed as a buccaneer, he couldn’t shed those impeccable manners.

His head turned her way. Cheeks flaming, mostly in embarrassment at having allowed herself to stare, Vasha ducked behind Roan, and immediately bent to rummage in her pack.

The charr stood with his arms folded, studying the crowd on the Creator’s Commons, already breaking up. He gave no indication that he’d seen where she was looking, except to growl, “Friend of yours?”

Vasha winced. Even with only one good eye, Roan was impossible to fool. “Someone I used to know,” she said, straightening. “A long time ago.”

Roan looked down at her. She still found it difficult to read his expressions, though she suspected that was mostly because he didn’t pull many. “Is he going to be a problem?”

Vasha forced her stare to be as fierce as she could make it. “Why would he be?”

“Good. Because we’re here to win.” Roan nodded towards the card in her other hand, with its steadily blinking lights. “So?”

“It’s a map, a topographical one. These lines indicate contours and–” She stopped, inspiration striking. Vasha peered at the card again, a slow smile touching her lips. How clever. It was a map, but… “The closer the contour lines are to one another, the steeper the incline they depict, right? Except this isn’t a mountain. It’s a depression.”

If she’d been expecting praise, Vasha was disappointed. For a long time, Roan just stared at her. “Show it to Gull,” he instructed.

Vasha glanced at the card again, biting her lip, but she couldn’t immediately place whatever feature this was. Reluctantly, she crossed the concourse, to where the other half of their team – Gullveig, and her brother Haki – waited, stretched out on the floor.

Gullveig looked up from where she’d been vigorously scratching the ruff of her snow leopard, Cirrus. For once, she and Haki weren’t bickering, but Vasha still knew she’d have to get in and out fast. The two norn were deferential to Roan, perfectly civil with everyone else, and apt to tear one another’s throats out at the slightest provocation.

“Roan wants you to look at this,” Vasha began, but Gull was already plucking it from her fingers. “It’s a topographical map, probably some kind of hole–”

“Loch Jezt.” Gull tossed the card back, and Vasha caught it awkwardly. “In Metrica Province.”

Vasha nodded, as though Gullveig had only confirmed something she already knew. She’d spent weeks studying maps of Tyria in preparation for this game, but nothing could beat Gull’s perfect recall, nor her encyclopedic knowledge of geography. If there was a place in Tyria the norn hadn’t been, it wasn’t worth visiting.

Haki yawned and stretched out a leg. “You’d better check that. I wouldn’t trust this charlatan as far as I could throw her, and that’s pretty far.”

Gullveig open her mouth, then snapped it shut again. That was just enough to let Vasha know that Roan had crept up behind her, and save her from leaping a foot into the air when he spoke.

“Metrica it is, then. Form up.”

Vasha retrieved her pack, slinging it across her shoulder and trudging into line behind the charr, two norn and two animals. No-one had ever told her she had to bring up the rear, but it just naturally felt like her place. She was the newcomer in the Nageling Marauders, the youngest, and the one with the most to prove. Where the others went, she followed.

A steady stream of competitors were trailing through the asura gates, all of them heading in the same direction. For now, there seemed to be a respectful distance between each of the twelve teams, all of them trying to give one another space – and retain space for themselves. Most of them must have worked out the clue on the card, Vasha guessed, if they all knew where they were going – unless one enterprising team had headed this way, and everyone else was merely following.

Vasha glanced over her shoulder as the Marauders reached the gate, then hurriedly looked forward again. What – or rather who – was she hoping to see? She’d never expected Jean to get mixed up in something like this game, but then the Valpari family were as bored and fickle as only rich people could be. This was exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to his older sister, Marissa; Jean liked to think he was independent, but he usually followed where she led.

Cirrus’ tail was just vanishing through the gate with a grey-white flick. Vasha stepped through after him.

There was that familiar, gut-churning lurch as she passed through the gate. Gull had once told her she was imagining it, but Vasha had never quite been able to shake the feeling that the version of her that entered an asura gate wasn’t quite the same version that left it. When she stepped out at Soren Draa, she had to stop herself running her hands over her chest, to make sure all her limbs were still there.

Roan was already on the move with his usual, loping stride; even the norn had to hurry to keep up. Vasha broke into a jog – working with the Marauders kept her fit, if nothing else – catching up to the rest of the team as they reached the bottom of a gentle slope. Scattered laboratories lay ahead, lush greenery enveloping them. Maguuma made Vasha almost as nervous as asura gates did; she always had the feeling that the rampant plant life was about to eat her.

“This way,” Gullveig said, taking point. Cirrus melted into the undergrowth before her, scouting out the way with an intelligence that always seemed more than feline. Haki drifted to one side, Roan to the other, watchful and alert – and alone.

“Where is everyone?” Roan growled, as they passed the first lab. Other teams had surely passed this way, but there was no-one else to be seen.

Vasha glanced down at the card still clutched in her hand, double-checking the contour map. It hadn’t changed, but a row of tiny dots had formed below it, one of which was blinking insistently.

“There are twelve maps,” she said. “We’ve got number… four.”

Roan didn’t look back at her. “So we’re all going in different directions.”

“I’m only guessing,” Vasha said, then added hastily, “but it’s a good one. Why else would everyone have vanished?”

She could see Roan thinking the situation through in his usual steady, methodical fashion. He’d be considering whether to split up the Marauders, send them after the other teams to spy out the competition. When he didn’t speak, Vasha guessed he’d ruled out such a move. For now, they’d play by the rules, and see where the first clue led them.

The ground sloped abruptly down, and Vasha had to slow to stop her boots skidding on the grass. A stretch of glimmering water lay before them, and she could immediately see how it matched the map on the card. She resisted the urge to grin; Roan didn’t like gloating.

He called them to a halt, then sent the two norn off in opposite directions with a wave of his hands. Gull and Haki quickly vanished between the trees, leaving little more than a shiver in the humid air.

Silence fell. There weren’t even birds or insects to be heard; the air was unnaturally still. Roan didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he just didn’t care. “He’s a noble,” the charr said abruptly. “That grey-haired cub.”

“Why do you care?” Vasha shot back, with more vehemence than she’d intended.

Roan turned to her slowly, and their eyes met. She forced herself not to cringe, knowing that Roan was needling her deliberately, not to get under her skin, but to make sure she could hold her nerve. When she glared back at him, he looked almost pleased.

The two norn returned almost at the same moment, and immediately launched into an argument about who was the better scout. Roan silenced them with a growl. “Anything?”

“It’s completely quiet down there,” Haki said, before his sister could get a word in. He patted the head of his giant white wolf, Frostpaw, whose nose even Cirrus couldn’t beat. “No movement, no traps, nothing.”

“Not even any animals,” Gull added. “It’s unnatural.”

Roan’s grin made Vasha shudder; he never managed to make himself look reassuring, and she had a feeling he’d never tried. “No-one’s going to mind if we make some noise, then.”

They set off down the slope. Roan clearly expected trouble – his hand never left his mace haft. Vasha touched her own twin pistols for reassurance, and followed the other three down.

Loch Jezt was indeed silent. The Jeztar Falls lay to the east, and there were hylek further north, Vasha knew, but she could see no sign of them now. The surface of the water was glassy and serene, except for a thin stream of bubbles rising in the very centre of the lake.

A stream that was steadily growing wider.

Vasha didn’t need to shout a warning – the rest of the Marauders had already seen it. Weapons came out in a flurry and Frostpaw barked once, before the water exploded upwards in a glittering spray. Vasha yelped in surprise, but the sound was lost beneath the war cries of the two norn, already charging down into the water.

Vasha took one look at the colossal drake that had emerged from the lake, yanked out her pistols, and started to fire.