The half-giant’s head slowly emerged from the pile of rags and salvaged cloth that served as his bed and blankets. The morning chill and the absence of the tari chitters from the courtyard, where they lived, had awakened him. They always departed before sunrise, traveling to the sewers of Raam to scavenge whatever they could find.

His joints creaked as he rose to his full height, stretching with a groan. The ceiling of the ruined building barely contained him, forcing him to stoop as he moved through what had once been someone’s home. He rolled his shoulders, wincing at the lingering ache from yesterday’s labor.

He’d been awake for twenty minutes already, listening to the familiar sounds of the district coming to life: the scratching of large bugs chased by larger lizards in the walls, the cough of the fever-sick woman in the adjoining ruin, and desperate whispered prayers to near-forgotten ancient spirits echoing from a makeshift shrine nearby. These were the sounds of his freedom, he reminded himself bitterly.

The water yoke lay where he’d left it the night before, its leather straps darkened from years of sweat and wear. Forty pounds of carved wood and hardened leather fittings, designed to distribute the weight of massive water jugs across his shoulders. A free man’s burden, they called it now. Free to carry water from dawn to dusk for barely enough coins to sustain his enormous body. Free to sleep in ruins even the unclean caste of Raam had abandoned.

Muscle memory guided his movements as he lifted the yoke. Twenty-three years of slavery had taught him exactly how to position the weight, how to adjust the straps to avoid the worst chafing. Those lessons were bound to stay with him, even after his unexpected freedom following Abalach-Re’s sudden disappearance.

The streets of the Ghost City were already stirring as he made his way toward the Coins Quarter. No time to nurse aches, he thought; Arevi, Garoorag’s guildmaster, was ruthless. This was Raam, not Balic; several competing water-carrier guilds existed here, each under the protection of a different nawab. Despite the protection, open brutal conflicts were more common than not.

Garoorag belonged to the most powerful and ruthless guild, protected by nawab Maarham, the lord of Raam’s underbelly himself, who was in fierce competition with the guild supported by House M’ke. Garoorag collected his eight processed mekillot bladder bags and descended creaking stairs into the courtyard that crossed from the Ghost City into Raam proper.

A crematorium guarded by former city guards, now loyal to the Fire clerics, separated Ghost City from the Coins Quarter. They barely glanced at Garoorag as he passed, his water-bearer’s token hanging from his neck like a collar. Just another half-giant hauling water, as predictable as sunrise.

Beyond the crematorium, the guild’s large water tank dominated the small square, hauled each night from a deep reservoir that tapped Raam’s underground veins; by morning, it stood full and waiting. Many of the free water-carriers had already gathered, mostly former slaves mixing with lifelong citizens, to transport the city’s most precious cargo. Arevi, the guildmaster, acted as the waterkeeper, marking Garoorag’s token with an inked clay stamp and motioning toward the filling stations.

“You’re late, Garoorag,” she said without looking up from her ledger.

“Same time as always,” he rumbled, his voice like distant thunder.

“Time moves differently now that you’re no longer a slave,” Arevi replied dryly. “Every second costs.”

The first and largest waterskin held twenty gallons. Garoorag lowered it into the tank with practiced care, feeling the weight shift as water flowed in. The second waterskin followed, then the third. Nearly eight hundred pounds of life-sustaining liquid hung heavily upon him, enough to see him through his first circuit of the day. The yoke dug painfully into familiar grooves on his shoulders, the leather straps cutting into flesh that had been marked by similar burdens for decades.

Across the square, another public well was overseen by two red-cloaked M’ke agents, who tallied water rations with brows already beaded with sweat. Citizens queued nervously with ceramic chits. A young aarakocra urchin stumbled forward empty-handed and was brutally shoved aside, crashing into a wall, his wing audibly snapping. Bone jutted through torn flesh, the wound already gathering dirt from the filthy square. The crowd hushed, silent and complicit. Garoorag lowered his gaze, his stomach churning as the urchin let loose a screech of pain at the realization that his wing was broken.

A wing broken that badly wasn’t a good sign, infection would surely claim the aarakocra within weeks if starvation didn’t come first, thought Garoorag. He huffed, clenched his fist, gathering his determination to right this wrong, but caught the bleak-eyed Arevi’s eye. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed. “Not here, not now.” Garoorag shot one last look at the broken bird and its tormentors. He wouldn’t forget.

Garoorag closed his eyes, first imagining himself strangling the M’ke bastards until their heads popped from the pressure, but then he focused on the young aarakocra. Not now, not here: water was business, and business meant survival. Help would come in time. He kept repeating this to himself. A valid mantra for everyone scraping by in Raam. He hefted the first bladder, testing its weight, then began the long climb toward the city’s upper reaches where the elites made their dwellings.

The first stop was at the old royal district still nicknamed Queen’s Hill; the former palace of Abalach-Re. The uprising’s early fury had gutted several key buildings, but the district still granted the residents the illusion of power. Every ambitious faction clawed their way up here, desperate to plant their flag in the ruins. A pair of heavily armed muls blocked the arch leading up the hill. “Entry fee,” one rumbled, hand already on his weapon. Garoorag produced a half ceramic: an entire day’s wage for many of the most destitute.

Inside, manicured gardens contrasted sharply with buildings that still bore scorch marks from the fires. He delivered his first water bladder to some powerful councillor; her majordomo sampled it, declared it “only slightly brackish,” and paid in silver rather than ceramics. The second delivery went to a silk-robed former priest of Badna, who lived near the Sepulcher of Badna and never removed his veil. Garoorag suspected the man was undead beneath those silks, but his coins were genuine.

His second stop was the Artisan Quarter, where the city’s craftsmen lived in relative comfort. Here, water cost ceramics instead of silver coins, but the customers still demanded prompt delivery like the wealthy did. He stopped by the potter’s workshop, where clay vessels lined the walls like silent guards. Then, it was off to the weaver’s hall, where craftsmen turned salvaged scraps into garments for those who could afford bright clothing. There, a thin half-elf girl grabbed his sleeve. “One sip for my sick brother, water-man?” Her eyes begged like those of a dying animal. Garoorag’s throat tightened. Breaking the guild’s law, he tilted a water bladder and poured into her clay cup. The child darted off, gratitude lost in the din.

Each delivery was a negotiation. The price of water fluctuated rising and falling based on various guilds trying to outcompete each other. Murderous ambushes weren’t unheard of. Garoorag had been both victim and perpetrator of those. Such memories still haunted his nights.

However, the day went without a hitch. Garoorag’s waterskins were soon empty, and his coin pouch filled with the morning’s earnings. He returned to the water tank and noticed the aarakocra youthling was no longer at the square. He almost asked Arevi about them, but thought better of it, paid his refill fee in silence, and began the afternoon circuit.

The Noble Quarter lay behind walls of polished stone. Here, the half-giant delivered to the houses of noble nawabs and former templars - men and women who’d somehow survived the civil war’s purges and adapted to the new shifting order. They paid well but spoke to him as if he were still property, their voices carrying the casual contempt of those who’d never questioned their right to rule.

“Mind the floors,” a house slave cautioned as Garoorag maneuvered his massive frame through a doorway designed for humans. “The mistress has guests arriving tonight.” Garoorag said nothing, focusing on the delicate work of transferring water from his waterskin to the house’s private reservoir. His hands, scarred from years of labor, moved with surprising gentleness, but a growing nagging feeling bothered him that he was still just another piece of equipment to these people, valuable only for the service he provided.

The descent into the Low Quarter felt like the end of an exile. Garoorag’s shoulders sagged; the remaining water bladders sloshed faintly. As the sun began its descent toward the western horizon, he made his final delivery to a tea-seller’s stall near the city gates. The proprietor, a thin man with the ritual scars of a former gladiator, paid him in ceramic bits and offered a cup of his own product.

“Drink,” he said, noting Garoorag’s hesitation. “On the house. Even pack animals need water to survive.”

The tea was warm and bitter but revitalizing. The half-giant emptied it in three gulps, feeling the liquid soothe his parched throat. The tea-seller refilled it without being asked, a rare small act of kindness.

“Hard work, carrying water,” the man observed.

“Hard work,” Garoorag confirmed.

The empty waterskins felt strange on his shoulders as he walked back toward Ghost City. His coin pouch jangled with the day’s earnings; after paying the guild, they’d be enough for food, rent on his corner of the ruin, and perhaps a small surplus to save against the inevitable bribe. In any case, it was barely enough to find a healer. He stopped for a meal at the Messenger’s Refuge, the usual place where water carriers met with the guildmaster to pay their dues. Usually, Garoorag would have stuffed himself with food, famished from the day’s work, but the bits saved would go a long way to help that young aarakocra.

“Uh, can those wings be healed?” asked Garoorag.

“Fool boy,” Arevi whispered.

She studied him and sighed. Finally, she pressed nine ceramic bits into his palm - his own coins, returned. “The guild cannot protect every water carrier,” she said, voice rough, “but remember we can choose who we fail.”

“Hmm,” he rumbled pensively before adding “I know.”

“His name is Hiyhk, he stayed at a makeshift camp my people sometimes use. We’ll send him your way tomorrow in the morning. Don’t make me regret this,” she turned away.

Night-fires already flickered on the walls, as the Ghost City welcomed him back with its familiar chorus of misery and desperation. At his dwelling, the pack of tari that had claimed the rear courtyard waved at him. The half-giant pulled out the day’s luxury; dried meat and bread from a Market District vendor. The tari ignored his water and coins, but they valued food shared freely. He broke the meat into pieces, scattering it among the pack while they chittered their thanks.

As darkness blanketed Raam, Garoorag spread his bedding in the corner that offered the best shelter from the wind and night cold. The tari settled around him, their chittering fading into the comfortable silence of resting creatures.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would find the injured aarakocra. Get him money for healing. Carry him home if needed. He struggled to calculate what it would cost. Time was precious for a water carrier, but the right questions to the right people would lead him there. Lost in thought, he felt the tari’s breathing sync with his own, their warmth forming a circle of trust that carried him into deep sleep.