The city was just waking up when I left Lina's house with a full stomach, clean boots — for the first time in days — and a head pounding with dangerously hopeful ideas.
I had managed to score some warm bread, two slightly depressing slices of cheese, a hard-boiled egg (which I swear was gray on the inside), and, perhaps more importantly, the ridiculous feeling that everything was going to work out.
Lina had handed me the food with a look that suggested she was still considering poisoning me, but she gave it to me anyway. Maybe out of pity. Maybe because feeding me was easier than getting me to shut up.
I accepted it gratefully and chewed like a man who had escaped the gallows and still got breakfast. Even though the food was absurdly simple, after living off leaves and fruit for who-knows-how-long, it felt like a banquet blessed by the gods.
Ashveil's streets had that familiar smell of warm stone and stale yeast that only half-forgotten towns seem to have. The market was opening slowly, the beggars were reclaiming their fixed spots, and the newspaper vendor on the corner of the well was already shouting out reheated headlines like they were prophecies.
But I was on another wavelength.
I had come back with proof. Real proof. Corrupted runes, old contracts, sealed records — and even a chatty goblin willing to testify, although technically hidden in a young woman's basement mid-existential crisis. This wasn't just a good story. It was dynamite. It was history. It was power.
I reached Gideon Marlow's doorstep with the confident stride of someone carrying inconvenient truths, needing only pen and paper to set the city on fire.
Knock knock.
The door creaked open — as always — and there he was: old Marlow, tired eyes, shirt reeking of newsprint and yesterday's coffee, and his usual expression of a man who didn't trust anyone cheerful before 9 a.m.
"Morning," he said, with all the energy of a damp rock.
"Not just morning — great morning," I replied, grinning wide enough to stretch my face. "I've got a surprise for you."
He raised an eyebrow and stepped back, which I assumed was the universal sign for "come in and let's see how long it takes for you to disappoint me."
I crossed the room with rhythmic steps, almost dancing, and sat at the old table where bad columns and good hopes were usually chopped up. I pulled out my arsenal: papers, seals, notes, all carefully jumbled into controlled chaos. I spread everything out like a magician revealing his hand.
"This—" I said, enthusiasm pouring from my eyes "—is going to flip Ashveil upside down."
Marlow looked at the evidence. Or rather, he looked in its general direction, as if it were lettuce on a kid's dinner plate. He yawned effortlessly and scratched his chin.
"Hm. Okay."
"Okay?!" I repeated, outraged. "These are documents implicating the mayor in trafficking magical artifacts, records of illegal rituals, and a direct map to the corruption running under this city like invisible sewage. And you give me an 'okay'?!"
He shrugged.
"It's still early."
"It's a conspiracy!" I waved the papers like a street preacher waving scripture. "I nearly died getting this! I had to dodge traps, fight monsters, and share food with a creature that talks to rocks! And you give me an 'okay'?!"
Marlow sighed, picked up one of the papers, and began spinning it between his fingers like it was just another flyer for a produce sale.
But I wasn't giving up.
Because I knew. I knew what I had in my hands. And neither the old man, nor the city, nor his sleepy posture was going to stop me from turning this into a headline.
"I know what you're thinking," I began, pushing the papers closer, as if physical proximity would somehow boost their credibility. "'Oh great, another nutjob bringing in goblin doodles and conspiracy theories first thing in the morning.' But no. These have official seals. They're dated. They're signed."
Marlow finally looked up, wearing that special mix of boredom and judgment he might as well have trademarked.
"Seals can be forged."
"Yes. And they were," I replied, smiling. "Exactly to make them look authentic. That's the point. They're not true — but they're believable. This—" I slapped one of the papers for emphasis, "—this is the kind of lie that reeks of truth. And that's what matters."
He flipped through the stack with the grace of someone inspecting the ingredient list of moldy bread. Read a bit, grumbled. Read another part, let out a short laugh.
"'Deep Warden'? 'Voluntary Sealing'? 'Administrative Control Ritual'?" he read aloud mockingly. "This sounds like a third-rate stage play. A goblinoid fever dream."
"Meticulously documented fever dream, I'll have you know."
"Oh, come on. This is overkill. You want me to publish this and get sued for defamation in five minutes?"
"I want you to publish it and be remembered as the guy who broke the story before anyone else," I shot back. "But hey — if you'd rather stick to your weekly column about wheat prices, who am I to judge?"
He gave me that long, slow look — the kind people reserve for overly optimistic kids, the kind of look that says "hope smells like early failure."
"You made this up."
"Partially," I corrected, raising a finger. "And based on facts. Real ones. Testimonies. Solid leads. I just gave it some body. Journalistic dramatization. You know how it works."
He rubbed his eyes, huffed, and dropped the papers.
"This is going to give me a headache."
"Only if you're dumb enough to sign off as the direct source. I can write it as an external contributor. You can publish it as an 'unverified report under investigation.' It's trendy, actually."
Silence. He was thinking. Good sign. But not enough.
So, I went straight for the ego.
"Now let's say I'm right. That this is all real. That the story has weight, has impact. And I, Dante, the lunatic, go knock on another paper's door. And then, Marlow? When the headline breaks, with evidence, and someone else's name is on it… how are you gonna feel being the guy who turned down the scoop of the year?"
He didn't reply right away. But his nostrils flared just slightly. His hand drifted back to the pile. His eyes scanned the lines with a bit more purpose. And for a brief moment, I saw it — the glint of vanity behind the unkempt beard.
Marlow kept rereading the documents, elbows now on the table, hands pressed to his temples like he was holding his brain in. I'd seen that look before: it wasn't doubt. It was calculation.
"You think you brought me dynamite," he muttered, eyes still on the papers. "But this... this is madness. It's like lighting a match in a powder room!"
I leaned in across the table, eyes lit.
"Exactly. This is the story that changes everything. You should be smiling."
He gave a dry, humorless laugh.
"Listen... even if all of this is true, I still can't publish it."
"Can't, or won't?"
"Can't."