"What in Affliction's name was that." Peter whispered to Eli as the light from the entrance shrunk to a pinpoint behind them.

Eli glanced over his shoulder, dim bluish lighting glowing from the strange luminous rocks that lined the walkway around them. The light from the entrance was nearly gone and the racing of his heart slowly began to relax as well.

"That was probably one of the Merged, though I daresay he was old."

Peter just shook his head "So he is one of the Bind's acolytes?"

Eli nodded, "Yes." He grimaced, "I know I have said this before, and I know I will say this again, but it is not a fate that I would wish on anyone. The bound feeds upon our fears of being trapped, restricted or controlled, and so the greatest example of this fear would have to be a person who is controlled in every way. Nothing is their own, not their thoughts or their movements or their bodies. The Merged are an extension of Kurshing city, they will never leave. They gave up everything for the chase to be completely free of choice."

Peter crossed his arms, "That isn't freedom.'

Eli shrugged, "Some people don't want freedom, some people find it easier to be controlled by an entity, to have the ability to blame all of their faults and mistakes on something else. Consider it from their standpoint. They don't have to make hard decisions, they don't require opinions or aspirations for the future, they don't even need to control their own bodies. In this way they can just give themselves over and never have to make a decision ever again, they never have to worry about social embarrassment or losing a loved one. All they have to do is sit there in their own heads and drift."

The Tunnel before tem was narrowing, and where once they had walked side by side, they were now forced to walk one after the other as Eli squeezed himself through the opening, "Make sure not to mess up your clothes. The Merged are everywhere, and if they get the chance, they will use any minor infraction of the rules as an excuse to add a link to your collar." he reached inside his coat and grabbed out a faded silver pocket watch. It was scratched on one side, but the inscription below the little dial was still legible.

Adrian Lucasson.

"It's half past the hour, so we should make sure to take no more than two hundred steps, and avoid speaking too loudly."

Peter opened his mouth to speak and then paused making the executive decision not to say anything at all, which Eli thought was more than prudent. The hall narrowed further forcing them to turn sideways to fit through. Eli could feel the crushing weight of the mountain pressing up against his back and chest. As he scooted sideways, the mountain shifted expanding as if the Bind was sighing deeply. The crushing weight bore down on him from both front and back and for one horrible moment he was trapped, pinned against walls of flesh.

A spark of panic shot through him for a single moment before the walls relaxed, and a sudden waft of air rushed past him.

He hurried the rest of the way of the tunnel trying not to think about the Dread all around him, likely revling in his slight moment of panic.

Coming out the other side, he quickly turned to Peter to help him adjust his clothing, before reaching into his bag again to retrieve his father's journal of rules and regulations. They were alone for the moment, though the small cavern they stood in echoed with the sound of distant voices.

Wink peered up at him from inside the bag lifting up so his eye could swivel around the room, blinking slowly, "Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'in the bowels of the city.' doesn't it."

Eli opened the book glancing over his shoulder before, "Not to be semantic, but I think we would be in its airway."

"Then I would hate to know what its bowels are like."

Peter grimaced, "Can We please stop talking about bowels."

Wink cackled quietly, and Eli did his best to ignore him as he opened the book midway to a map. The map was likely very outdated, but at least it would have general directions towards where they wanted to go. As it seemed they were just a little before and above the main city market, which meant their best course of action would probably be to pick a tunnel that went down and forward.

He put the book back in his satchel and motioned Peter to follow him, crouching onto his hands and knees before inching his way into the darkness of a promising looking passage. He might have worried about getting lost, and had this been a natural cave he might have had reason to worry, but the point of the bind was not to confuse or lose, but to trap.

All in all, he should probably be more worried about the cave collapsing on them.

The tunnel he had chosen was a small one, and he found himself crawling on his hands and knees to make it through. The ceiling was low forcing him to hunch his shoulders, and, at one point crawl on his belly through a tight opening. All around him he could feel the walls of the tunnel shifting: expanding and contracting with the breath of the dread.

At one point, he nearly got stuck as his shoulders were too wide, trapped one moment as the dread drew in a breath, but released when it breathed out. Finally, he managed to crawl into a small cave, and turned in time to help Peter through.

Surprisingly, Peter didn't seem all that bothered by the tight spaces. He opened his mouth in an offer to take the lead, but something seen from the corner of his eye made Eli stop him, clamping a hand over his mouth before Peter had the chance to make a move. He tried to pull away and then grew still as the movement caught his eye as well.

They both turned towards the darkness at the other end of the cave. Something was definitely moving there, though it was almost impossible to make out. Ei reached into his bag fishing for a light. Something wet and slimy reached up from the darkness and deposited glowing stone in his hand, not unlike the ones that lined the main walkway into Kurshing.

He held up the light, and when he did he took an involuntary step back.

Crouching in the darkness, one of the merged grinned at them with a partially open mouth. Her hair was long and stringy, dangling towards, and brushing against the floor in some cases. The nails on her hands were ragged and dust covered. A meaty pulsing cord trailed from the back of her head connecting to the wall behind her joined by many smaller tendrils connected to her legs and hands.

She crawled forward across the floor stopping a few feet from their shoes.

She looked up at him, and one of her eyes was almost completely obscured by the growth of skin around her face, the other eye was shot through with deep streaks of red, "No physical contact is to be made between any creature between minutes 45 and 47. Her voice grated on his ears, dry as the Sand of the desolate, and as eerie as wind through jagged cliffs.

She motioned him down with a finger, her hand twitching strangely as she was puppeted by the bind.

Eli grimaced and knelt slowly pulling down the collar of his shirt to reveal the metal collar underneath.

She reached up, her jagged nails caressing over his skin as she clipped another link onto his neck.

With that done, she shrunk back into the wall and allowed them to continue on their way.

The two of them kept silent as they squeezed through another Tunnel.

Eli could feel the gentle tap of metal dangling against his neck as the two links caressed his skin.

Paranoia held both of them, and they soon began to check every room as they entered. Most of them were empty, but one one occasion, they found another off the merged babbling and whispering to itself as it hung from the ceiling. It didn't seem to notice them, but continued to talk to itself, eyes glazed over as they passed underneath.

Finally, the cavern around them opened, and the sounds of voices spilled out, washing over them with both light and the smell of food.

Peter's stomach growled as they stepped further into the room.

The cavern was almost incomprehensibly large. Standing just up and to the left of the main thoroughfare, it looked as if they could have fit the entirety of Veerus city within the cavern which bustled from left to right with an eclectic arrangement of people, and little stalls hidden under large, dusty tarps.

Looking down at the Market, Eli watched in a mixture of nervous awe as the stalls and tents rolled slightly up and down from one end of the cavern to the other, rising and falling with minute movements of the Dread's body. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, walked within the shadow of Kurshing city all dressed impeccably to the standards of their overseers.

The Merged were there too, walking up the city streets, tethered to the ground by their fleshy marionette strings eyeing everyone with malicious interest. All along the side streets, piles and piles of delicate silver chains lay in heaps on the ground.

Eli and Peter took a couple steps down the slope, and towards the open market, their boots thudding against the slope.

They cut between two stalls and past Vendors who slowly alternated between sitting and standing in time with each other.

That was not the first strange thing he noticed, but it was a precursor, or an introduction to the workings of Kushing's society. The further into the city they walked ,the more he was given the impression that they had stepped into the inner workings of a giant music box or the clicking gears of a monstrous clock. The vendors all stood and sat at the same time. The people walked in the same direction with the same cadence, until, out of nowhere, they all turned and began walking in the opposite direction. Their voices rose and fell in time with each other, and occasionally they would switch beats, even breathing at similar times to one another.

Watching was both mesmerizing and disquieting.

They stepped onto the main street, slowly matching the pace of those around them, becoming just two more cogs in the massive machine. There were no more than four people at a vendor's stall at a time, and the dress code created the strange impression of a pattern within the chaos of people.

As they walked Eli glanced down at the side of the road where a pile of silvered chains lay undisturbed. His foot came within inches of one of the links, and he nearly jumped as the pile shifted slightly.

A low moan rose into the air, and he was stunned to find that what he assumed to have been a pile of chains was actually a person. When she moved, she did so with great difficulty, and the chains around her neck clattered and cascaded like water. She shifted an inch before the weight became too much and she rested her head back against the ground, pinned in place by the weight of the Bind.

Before he could entirely determine what he was seeing, the tide of the crowd pushed him past her.

He turned his head, watching her recede into the distance before she was nothing more than a pile of chains once again.

Sights like that were not an uncommon occurrence. There were hundreds of them, or so it seemed.

And there were those that were well on their way.

An elderly woman passed to their right dragging several feet of chains behind her, her head bowed, her neck slumped, her steps slow and labored. Eli reached up a hand to press against the chain on the side of his neck and the two links that dangled there. The more they walked, the more Eli noted the pattern of the city, and the further he fell to its ebb and flow.

Neither he nor Peter spoke, concentrating on following the pattern of the crowd. They switched their steps, took off their gloves, put them back on, bowed to the Merged, but only when passing on the right.

There was hardly any time for them to think, as thinking about anything else was a sure fire way to lose track of yourself and do something wrong. They saw this reality on multiple occasions as people were pushed to their knees and forced to take new links following a moment of distraction within view of one of the Merged.

Yet somehow, it felt safer here than it had in the tunnels, where one could avoid making a mistake, by following a tide of people who knew what they were doing.

Exhausted, Eli grabbed Peter by the arm and pulled them up to a booth where two other people were already speaking animatedly with the vendor. He leaned over to Peter, listening with half an ear to the cadence of the others who were speaking around him. The murmur that rose to meet him had no rhythm to it, so he spoke quietly.

"We should be ok for a few minutes."

Peter nodded slowly, glancing stiffly over at the two people on their left, subconsciously copying the movements of their bodies as they did.

"How do we find this guy, Ivan right?"

Eli turned his head away as one of the Merged walked past.

"Unfortunately we are going to have to do this the old fashioned way."

Peter nodded, and they both simultaneously stopped talking as the cadence of the room changed again.

The two people to their left moved off, leaving them the only two at the market stall.

Eli shifted left and Peter came with him sliding into the space right before the vendor. The group of them waited in silence for a moment with the rest of the cavern before conversation began again.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen." The man in the stall said reaching up to tip his cap at them

"I'm looking to trade."

The man shook his head, "Sorry, no trading here, just coin."

Eli raised an eyebrow, reached into his bag and withdrew a small book.

The man paused, "An information broker?"

He indeed slowly, and the man stood from his chair barely seeming to register as the other vendors around the square did as well.

"Trade your information for information. This little book is an atlas detailing the safest routes through the stalk to the east." He looked down at the goods on the table, mostly carved of wood, "Specifically logging routes?"

The man's eyes went wide as he sat down, and both Eli and Peter took off their gloves.

He reached under the Desk and withdrew a piece of paper glancing down the street either way before setting it on the booth before him.

"What kind of information are you looking for?"

"Man goes by the name of Ivan Tanner."

The man paused, looking Eli over with a thoughtful expression, "I know Ivan, he's worked with plenty of your kind in the past."

Eli nodded encouragement, "Go on."

"I can tell you where to find one of his hideouts, though I can't promise he is going to be there. Man is very private, likes to keep to himself, avoids the Merged as much as he can."

The man paused for a moment, removing his hat as the other men put their gloves back on. He then reached under his stall to retrieve a map unfolding it before them on the table.

Eli opened his father's journal to the old map of Kurshing, and followed the man's direction as he motioned to a section on the map, "If you head down the tunnels at the back of the thoroughfare and then through these small sets of corridors you will find a large room." The man shifted nervously and returned his hat to his head. Two women sideled into the booth next to them, though they were talking too animatedly for Eli to worry about being overhead.

"They called it the servitorium.... Just next to that opening is a crack just big enough for a man to fit through."

Peter gave Eli a sidelong glance and Eli exchanged it back.

"Servitorium, That doesn't sound.... Pleasant." He muttered quietly

Eli couldn't help but nod in agreement, but nodded to the man, slid him the small book, took the map and thanked him for his information before turning their way back into the crowd. Eli stopped at a few more of the stalls discretely trading information with the vendors. A few of them paid him handsomely and ourtrite for information on trade routes and the ever changing conditions of the in-between places which could be more or less dangerous depending on what time of year you went.

For instance, Midsummer was one of the best times to cross over Mirror lake as the summer heat evaporated a good portion of the water and made crossing far less dangerous than it was at any other time of the year-- especially early spring. In exchange, he retrieved information brought from far and wide by other information brokers. On occasion, he took requests from the vendors and gave them a timeframe in which he might be able to get the information to them.

Peter would not have been aware of this, since his recent endeavors against the Dreads had stunted his usual work, but Eli was probably one of the most well connected men he, or anyone else probably knew. He had contacts in every city, and almost every faction, excluding Veerus which his father had avoided, ironically, like the plague.

He took a turn around the next corner and nearly ran into an old woman heading in the wrong direction.

She looked confused and turned around desperately trying to turn with the flow of human traffic, but a cape of long silver chains dangled from her neck to drag down on the ground. As people moved they stepped on those chains making it difficult, if not impossible for her to turn in the right direction. Eli and Peter were bunched up tight against the group just ahead of them, unable to move quickly due to the interference of the old women. She was blocking the traffic so badly that it was causing a bottleneck, and the entire room was slowly being affected by a ripple of chaos.

There was a muttering from the crowd, and people began to part to the sides rapidly as something or someone headed in their direction. Based on the thin filament of flesh reaching towards the ceiling, he had no doubt it was one of the Merged.

The poor old woman was frantic as she tugged at her chains, trying to get them out from under the feet of others so she could turn around and begin in the other direction, but the people moving past her had no sympathy for her plight, only desiring to shove past her and away from the approaching merged.

Eli, stuck behind a crowd of pressing bodies could only watch in horror as the old woman grew more and more desperate tears dripping down her face as she begged for help quietly.

No one seemed to know, see or care.

But then, at the last moment, a man at the front of the crowd, heading in her direction, linked arms with her and quickly spun the two of them in opposite directions. It was so sudden and so startling that he was confused at what he had seen at first. The old woman staggered one on her chains, but then quickly fell into pace with the others walking before her, glancing over her soldiers only once as the man began walking back in the other direction putting on an heir of confusion as he staggered back and forth.

It was then that Eli noticed a very subtle change in the crowd, watching as some of the men and women near him nodded in acknowledgement. One woman, seeming braver than the rest pulled something from under her neckline. He saw a small flash of silver for just one moment, a sterling pendant on the end of a string: a tiny silver tree inside a circle.

If it were not for the flow of the crowd around him, he might have been rooted to the spot in shock.

Just as soon as she had seen it, it was gone, and the erged burst through the crowd glaring angrily at the man who came to a flustered stop wringing his hands in the most convincing way.

Eli took note that the man had only three links on the collar about his neck.

The merged didn't seem to realize this, or if they noticed, they didn't take time to spend thinking about what it meant.

To Eli it seemed logical that someone who had only three links was likely pretty proficient in the art of avoiding the Merged, and to make a mistake as big as the old woman didn't fit with the image of his character, but the Merged didn't seem to care as they forced the man to his knees and added two new links to his three link chain, a minor price to pay for this man, but two links that might have been the tipping point for the old woman: turning her into a heap of chains at the side of the road.

It did not escape Eli's notice that the man was smiling as he got to his feet. A few of the people standing around him gave him a nod or a small touch on the arm as they passed. In response the man tipped his hat as he continued onward past them.

A few of the people who passed made discrete motions, and Eli again caught sight of the small tree inside its silver circle, embroidered on the inside of jackets pinned as a broach to jackets, and even engraved on decorative walking sticks.

It was a subtle thing, but upon seeing the symbol only once he began to see it everywhere, a subtle but constant presence in the city around them.

A symbol he was becoming more and more sure was connected to his father's disappearance.