A delegation from a tiny village comes to seek the aid of the Gatherers, since their leader was killed by bandits wielding a strange power. When I originally read “The Narcomancer” in the anthology Epic: Legends of Fantasy, I noted that it did a better job of explaining the mechanics of the magic system and the other worldbuilding details than did Jemesin's novel, The Killing Moon, set in the same world. Listening to it in podcast form, however, I realize that the short story was published well before the Dreamblood books, well before even The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms... so maybe this was the first time she had worked out the worldbuilding, and then didn't re-explain it as well in her novel form. (Of course, I have no idea on the order that the story vs. the novel was written, or whether one drew from the other, etc.) But regardless, I liked this one a lot, just as much on my second time through.