He reached down, resting one strange claw on Sarah’s shoulder. His grip was vice-like, and he yanked. She stumbled forward a few steps, and suddenly she was standing right before the terrible entrance to deeper caverns. She could smell something coming from that shaft, something even stranger than what her own imagination could conjure. “There are other perks. Forget having to pretend you’re something you’re not. Forget having to get shipped off to war. You know that’s where the army is going, don’t you? Fighting slavers. Pitiful, irrelevant slavers. The real wealth is down here, underground. A full half the minds that swam downstream ended up in the depths. This is where we make Othar a power to be reckoned with.”