"Gods-forsaken seagulls, they're a real menace around here," the burly minuard muttered as he rihe bird crap off Nameless's head with a hose attached to a pipe trailing all the the cliffside to the city above.

  "Yeah! Really awful things," Nameless agreed cheerfully, in too good a mood at getting out of the byrinth to put any real bite into her words.

  He peeked at her head, then shut off the valve feeding the water to the hose. "Alright, think that's the st of it. Would advise you to take a bath, not just for the bird excrement. No offense, but you smell like you . Anyways, we'll o get you twistered. Thank the gods you're the civilized sort of monsters. We had to put down fourteen hostile oodays, that's more than usual. Something's got the byrinth all astir."

  "Baths! Lovely, wonderful things!" Nameless agreed again.

  "Registered?" Mirn asked.

  "That'd be me. Law in most cities requires registration, so they know who you are. I'll get you all registered up, no worries," said the smallest guard, who stepped up holding a crystalline rod-shaped device. She was a brown spotted e kobold (as opposed to draic kobolds, who mutated from the e kobolds due to an odd sequence of events). And she stood only a little taller than Mirn.

  "Go ahead a her," Nameless said, "It's pretty harmless and they won't let you iy withistration."

  "Okay," Mirn said as they watched the rod glow slightly as the kobold guard tapped them with it.

  "Ah, a mimic," the kobold said in a slightly surprised tone.

  "Is that a problem?" Mirn asked worriedly.

  The small guard shook her head. "Only if you cause one. I'm obliged to inform you that impersonating other civilized persons for criminal reasons is illegal in this nation and really it's illegal pretty much everywhere. There're ways to detect impersonation by the way, so I wouldn't reend that. Impersonating non-civilized folks like aggressive monsters or pestilence creatures is fine, or impersonating a civilized person if everyone involved knows you are doing it. I know there're a few mimics who put on performances. In addition, all crimes you perform in an alternative form are still crimes. Don't turn into a mouse to stalk people or something. Okay, I'm doh the standard warning."

  Mirn nodded. "Okay, I won't break those ws."

  The kobold smiled. "Then we're good. It's your turn, missy."

  Nameless held still as the guard tapped her with the rod. Then a fused frown came onto the guard's face, her brows furrowed. "It says you're already registered, but it 't sync up with your existiration. Also there appears to be a couple of errors, it refuses to list a name for you and do you really have fourteen curses?"

  "One of those curses prevents me from having a name," Nameless expined, "And, yes, I do really have that many curses. It's pretty terrible."

  "Ah, that's rough," the minotaur said as he rubbed his head.

  "I bet so," the kobold said sympathetically then added, "I knoretty good curse remover who prolly fix that."

  " they remove transdental curses?" Nameless asked.

  "Transdental curses? Just who did you offend to bee that unlucky?" the kobold said with her brows raised in astonishment.

  Nameless shrugged. "No idea. One of the curses took away my memories."

  The kobold said edly, "You poor thing. I'll, uh, I'll try to get you all synced up and if that doesn't work, I'll have to talk to the captain."

  "Alright," Nameless said, and waited patiently as the guard tapped her with the rod a few times, both her and the guard's frowns growing deeper every time.

  With a sigh, the kobold said, "I'll call the captain," and took out her phone.

  One expnatiohe kobold looked at Nameless. "The captain says to give you a new registration but fg it for possible merger into your existiration if you ever get those issues cleared up."

  "I don't eveo find out who I was?" Nameless growled unhappily.

  The kobold shook her head. "Sorry, with all those issues, we were uo find the inal profile."

  "You tried. I'll still give you a five star rating." Nameless nodded.

  "Five star rating?" Mirn asked.

  "It helps ensure we and our merary association keep w for the city," the minotaur noted.

  "It's an evaluation of how good a job they're doing, though it's the polite thing to leave a five-star uhey did a terrible job. Anything less impact their job," Nameless expined.

  Mirn looked at the guards. "You seem nice so I'll, um, five star you."

  "Thanks, just will it into the rod," the kobold said.

  After registering and rating the merary association, Nameless and Mirn began the arduous trek up the stoairs to the city. There was aor, but that was reserved for emergency response deployment and any disabled persons bold enough to brave the byrinth. Fortuhe stairs were wide enough to give plenty of room for two byrinth rueams to pass each other, so the two monsters weren't particurly cramped. The stair ndings were cut directly into the cliff to give the stairs room to turn around and asd the other way on the cliff face. It was at one of those ndings that the horror struck.

  As Nameless pulled her cws out of the formerly squirming mass of eyes ah and wiped off its iridest blood on her ever- jeans, she muttered, "I o get rid of this shitting h curse before a major one es. Eh, I'll take care of it after I knock off that Damnation curse."

  Mirn stared curiously at the horror's corpse. "It was weak. Are major horrors that much more dangerous?"

  Nameless nodded. "Extremely. Oe a whole nation. That's at the extreme upper end of power, mind, most are just 'kill us as we are now instantly' levels of strength."

  Mirn said, "I think you o get rid of the horror curse fast."

  Nameless grinned sheepishly. "I'm nearly doh the Curse of Damnation anyways--ah! There, got it."

  Mirn perked their eyestalks in surprise. "That was quick."

  "Stuff that go against Voice's will for everyoo grow in their power of Words tend to not have strong stig power," Nameless expined.

  "Voice is nice," Mirn said.

  Nameless nodded. "Yes. But keep in mind Voice is o everyone, including any of our enemies who use Words. It doesn't really care what you're doing with your Words, it just wants to help you get better with them."

  Mirn tilted their head. "Like Evolver, then."

  "Exactly," Nameless replied, "Anyways, now I'm cursed to... not be able to swear? Ugh. It's even called the Curse of Forbidden... ah, I 't even say that word."

  "Forbidden Damnation?" Mirn supplied.

  "Yeah, that," Nameless said.

  [Done evaluating your Word and Sigil gain based on deyed gains.

  You have gaihe Affli Word due to your heavy usage of various afflis and your suffering from many afflis such as being on fire, ic pain, curses, aing poisoned by various monsters.

  The Curse Word has bee the Curse Sigil, attached to Affli. All of its Sigils have been moved to Affli. This includes earned Sigils under Curse.

  The following have been added to the Affli Word:

  You have gaihe Poison Sigil due to poisoning many enemies.

  You have gaihe Illness Sigil due to siing many enemies.

  I will hat you will likely gain the Burning Sigil once you develop banefire and use it enough times.

  You have gaihe Bestow Sigil due to inflig affliany times.

  You have earned one choice of Sigil.

  The following has been added to the Relentless Word:

  You have regaihe Endure Sigil due to enduring .

  You have gaihe Guard Sigil due to relentlessly putting yourself at risk to protect Mirn from harm.

  You have earned one choice of Sigil.]

  Nameless grinned. "Good to hear back from you, Voice. I'd like to take the box with the Remove Sigil for Affli. Even if it won't be strong enough to remove my current curses, I work oing it strong enough. Plus it'll be handy if Mirs sick or poisoned or something."

  [I did not like that Damnation curse. Regardless, you have gaihe Remove Sigil for Affli. Due to your history of repeated heavy exposure to the Remove Word, your new Sigil has been strengthehough not enough to remove your curses yet.]

  Nameless blinked. "Wait, did I hear that right? Heavy exposure to the Remove Word?"

  [You heard that correctly.]

  Nameless pohat. "Hmm, maybe I worked closely with someone who uses that Word or... hmm, the alternative isn't goht, about the Sigil for Relentless, what're some of my options?"

  [Erosion, Energy, Invincible, Pursuit.]

  Hm. Erosion would help her wear down oppos faster, Energy would resolve the stamina issues that she was currently having on prolonged battles, Invincible burhrough energy fast but was ideal for quick brief nullification of particurly devastating attacks, and Pursuit would help her hunt someone down. As tempting as Pursuit was, however, she retty sure it required more than she had on her mysterious curse user and there was always a ce she could just earn it by w work on trag them down.

  In the end, Energy it was. She he energy for longer battles and while some of her energy woes would be resolved by her removing the Curse of Weakness, she wanted Invincible in the long run, she got the sense from Evolver that banefire retty energy intensive, and just having Energy would let her go more full throttle in general things out longer for Erosion.

  "Energy it is!" she said cheerily.

  [Granted.]

  Turning to Mirn, Nameless fshed an affirmative gesture with her two first fingers pointing up. "I'm doalking to Voice."

  Mirn nodded. "I took the ce to sort out a few things with Voice, too. Got Learn, Strike, and Survive as Sigils."

  Adaptable strikes, huh. Nameless pondered once again that Mirn would grow up to be very dangerous. Ahh, so cute and deadly! A perfect child for her! Wait...

  Nameless paused at that thought then shrugged and decided to go with it. Sure, she could be a mom! It wouldn't be that hard, right?

  ~~~

  "No, the implied threat by the way those cops are looking at us doesn't mean you just kill them." Nameless groaned quietly as she rubbed her head.

  "I'm too weak to anyways. But why? Weren't you talking about how bad they are? And didn't you say it was okay to kill bad enough people?" Mirn whispered.

  "Their power is all in how they always band together for each other, how well armed they are, the fact that they have Words dedicated to suppressing others, how the w is always on their side, and I could go on." Nameless just shook her head.

  "That doesn't sound fair," Mirn pined in a low voice.

  Nameless sighed. "Yeah, some thing are like that. Luckily, some of the kinder Adepts keep them in line somewhat. Anyways let's fet about this until we get through the police cordon."

  The police cordon iion was blog off the closest entrao the city, and from what Nameless could see, the other entrances were also clogged by simir cordons. And the obsidian city wall was too high to see anything but the highest buildings, but there were a lot of those high buildings. Regardless, there was no option to get in but to gh the cordon.

  One mildly tedious wait ter, the two of them were being questioned by the police. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about a ruckus at the Labyrinth's Maw Gazebo, would you?" asked the blue-furred badgerkin cop in a crimson uniform.

  "Absolutely no idea," Nameless said perfectly holy, as much as the name sounded vaguely familiar. But after all, she had amnesia.

  "I dunno," Mirn said, also with perfect hoy. After all, they had only bee a full-fledged person very retly.

  The cop raised an brow. "Hm. And that blood on the child's tunic?"

  "It was there when we found it on a dead goblin. Which we also had nothing to do with. You know how byrinths are, always full of corpses," Nameless expined with plete hoy.

  "You sure you don't know anything?" the badgerkin pressed.

  "Yes," both Nameless and Mirn said.

  The ade a 'hm' sound. "'t detey lies from either of you. Very well, do you have any traband to decre? Estimated value of any loot you might have brought from the byrinth? Do I have to give either of you a pamphlet oy's most relevant ws?"

  "No traband," Nameless lied as she quietly slipped the cop a sample of the decidedly illegal cheese she and Mirn had found in the byrinth. "A few huhousand, mostly in assorted jewelry." This one erfectly ho. A few choice bits of jewelry ged hands. "And yes, Mirn here could particurly use that pamphlet. They're o personhood let alone ws and such."

  "I'll be sure to follow the w," Mirn said, oozing what in Nameless's eyes was an enormous amount of ess.

  "Yeah, go on in," the cop said dismissively, showing no visible sign of being affected by Mirn's ess. But then she handed Mirn a dy star from uhe pop-up table.

  ~~~

  "This is big," Mirn said as they stared at the array of numerous buildings, many of them reag far into the sky. Some were made from ruby, others sapphire, and so on through a colorful assortment of gems.

  Nameless grinned. "Wele to your first city! It's called Jewel City. If I recall rightly, a builder made a building out of a gem, fot whie, and then someone else wanted one and someone else wanted ooo and before you know it all the builders were pig up Gem as a Sigil. There're a few buildings that aren't made out of gem, like that nice marble bathhouse there. Speaking of, we need a bath."

  "Okay," Mirn said, "I don't really as much as you because of my mucus but I wouldn't mind a bath."

  And so the two of them ended up rexing in the rge unal deep sing bath, having ed themselves with soap that the bath attendant reassured them was imbued with Safety to make it safe for everyoo use no matter the species, allergy, or other factor. A few others were ih with them, such as the massive bearkin, the trio of gossiping forest humans, and the tusk-toothed green-skinned desert human. The bearkin had a lot of scars across his body, and so did the desert human who was running a brush through her spiky hair.

  There was a televisio into the wall of the bath, its s protected by thick clearsteel with a flowwoven empowerment proteg against humidity. A news el was currently on, with the scrolling subtitle ATTACK AT LABYRINTH'S MAW GAZEBO. A gray-skinned desert human talking head in a rather nice suit said with apanying subtitles for the deaf, "The unknown assaint still is yet to be found and police are still seeking them. So far there are three firmed wouwo dead, and one missing. We'll now have an interview with a brave survivor who helped drive off the assaint."

  "Why thank you," said a fshy looking gnoll with shiny sungsses and piergs who immediately set Nameless on edge due to an odd feeling of disfort.

  "Adept Noim, you tell us about the attack?" the reporter said.

  The gnoll nodded. "It happened out of the blue. Someone using some kind of appearance obsg Word appeared out of nowhere, started attag with a jured bde of pitch bess, and struck two down before any of us could react. They were clearly a deep master of the bde and quite skilled at assassination. In the fray that came after, we had great trouble fending off their attacks and I think that's when I and two ot hurt. Someo knocked down the shaft into the byrinth below. Then I mao hit the attacker with my most potent multi-cursing effect, and they jumped down the shaft to escape. Given the sheer persistehey showed even through multiple wounds, I'm pretty sure they would have survived that fall."

  Nameless just stared at the s. Just what had she done before she lost her memories, and why? She must've had a good reason... right?