Skylia 7 3012 PSE (Leah Lorewing )

  The Skylia Wind rattled the storefront sign “Best blacksmith in Cromio City.” That’s the most bullshit thing Leah had ever seen, she thought, smiling. After all, everybody knew the best smiths were purely in Lord Wildcaster’s pocket. Some common street peddler, let alone one in a shitty neighborhood of Cromio City, was just as likely to produce fine craftsmanship as a noble would be to give up money to an orphan. Looking at the wares—if you could even call them that—in the window, she saw an assortment of swords, shields, and other crap. None of it was worth a damn. Something like that, on these streets? Good luck running or hiding it. The silver would shine in the dark, let alone in the marbled sections next to the Coliseum.

  But hell, the job was good for something. Rich folks never quite knew how to spend their money, and you could always tell who they were by how they walked in. The bell chimed as a couple walked out, dressed in silk robes. Oh, heavens forbid. Accidents might happen.

  Leah moved through the crowded streets as their eyes turned. Her hand moved forward, their money went in, and she walked away. Nobles didn’t know what to do with their money, but hell, they sure loved handing it to her.

  Starting to whistle a jaunty tune, she looked up at one of the many looming clock towers of the city. One thing at a time. Quickly, she moved down the street, heading into an adjacent alley. She touched a stone and, after a moment of hesitation, ropes dropped from the three-story building. Grabbing the edge, she scampered up onto the roof. Looking down to make sure nobody had followed her, she let out a sigh.

  She quickly made her way across the rooftops of Cromio City, eventually finding her mark: a bar, unfrequented by the pleasant or upstanding citizens

  The Alchemist’s Retreat was... well, “seedy” wasn’t the right word, but it was damn close. What good fence worth their salt would be operating out of a half-clean, questionable bar? This was Cromio City, not fucking Arestrest.

  Pulling her long sliver hair up into a bun, she tugged her cloak over her head and rummaged through her bag. Anonymity was important in the city, and hard to come by. Pulling on her mask, she sighed. A young, pretty girl would quickly find herself lost in the streets if she was alone, so it was best not to stick out at all.

  Jumping off the roof, she grabbed the edge with her left hand and slowly scampered down the tall building.

  Walking over to the door, she let out a long knock, followed by a shorter one. Three seconds later, she conjured a mana string, pulled it through the rusted keyhole, and twisted. The familiar click of the door reached her ears as she moved forward, walking through it like a Yendrath tearing through flesh—messy but effective.

  Coughing, she waved her hand in front of her face to clear the remnants of the construct.

  “Goddamn it, Vapor, why did you have to dissipate my door?”

  She smiled at the man behind the counter. He was tall, with short-cropped brown hair.

  “You damn well know I had to do it. Tradition.”

  Grunting in annoyance, Eric took a moment to gather his thoughts.“Do you have the order?”

  She reached into her satchel, opening it up. Eric gave it a cursory glance before staring back up at her.

  “Six?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yep. Six bottles of Paradise Straight whiskey, made from the finest barley of Graboldon.”

  “Six?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to find alcohol, let alone good alcohol, that can even touch the constitution of someone within the sky realm?”

  Eric just stared at her, raising his eyebrow even higher.

  “Come on, man. You know how hard it is to get seven bottles of good stuff. One less isn’t that bad.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Six is all I could find. You think you can do better, try your luck.”

  “Fine. The client isn’t going to be happy about this.”

  “Well, the client should have known when they requested high-market goods that not everything could be acquired. It’s the risk of doing business.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, sliding over a bag of coins.

  “Pleasure doing business, as always.” He didn’t respond, which wasn’t totally unexpected. Rushing out the door, she stashed her newfound wealth and made a fast retreat toward the Coliseum.

  As she approached the towering structure, the crowd began to thicken and grow louder, and her money purse continued to grow heavier. Arriving at the west gate, she noticed a large party diligently waiting in line. She slipped amongst them as if she had always been there, covering her body in a thin veil of mana, feeling it rush through her skin. The man buying the tickets turned, counting his party members slowly, resting his eyes on each one of them. He didn’t notice her amongst the group, nor did the guard at the entrance. Once inside, she split off and started making her way upwards. After all, why would she want to sit with those people when there were more... interesting things to look at?

  As she walked up the stairs to the upper level, she heard the clattering of metal boots on stone floors.

  Fuck Just her luck to run into a few guards. Steeling her breath, she grabbed the railing of the stairs and lowered herself down, hanging off the side. Open air, more than five stories of drop pressing against her feet. She prayed it would be enough. She poured the remaining mana into blending herself into the stone surroundings.

  The sound of boots grew closer. Her heart raced. The feet stopped.

  “What’s wrong, Henry?”

  Her palms were sweaty. Please tell me you didn’t notice me, please tell me... A long moment passed.

  “Nothing. I thought I saw something.”

  The boots moved on, and she let out a sigh of relief.

  She hung there for a second longer, before feeling the final drops of mana leave her body. She felt tired, and exhausted, and a classical mana migraine began to form at her temples. Slowly and agonizingly, she pulled herself up. Sitting on the stairs, she took in a deep breath, calming her nerves. That was close—too fucking close. A second longer and her mana would have been gone. Don’t think about it. Breathe in, breathe out. Rubbing her forehead, wincing, she walked down the stairs. She sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around the Coliseum without her reserves. She’d be found out. Best to get out of Dodge.

  As she stepped out of the stairwell, the noise of the Coliseum hit her like a tidal wave. She stumbled backward and bumped into someone. By the feel, it was an adult man. He was old—maybe in his late 60s or early 70s—but he felt solid, full of muscle. As she looked at his face, it seemed familiar. She thought she had seen him somewhere, somehow before. She knew she hadn’t, but something in her gut told her otherwise. The longer she stared, the more that weird feeling grew until his eyes tilted toward hers, and he smiled.

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  The uneasiness faded, and she smiled back, nodded, and moved on. It was just her nerves. She was fine.

  As she exited the Coliseum, she snagged a polka stick from a local vendor. It was good, she had to admit—not as good as Dolomite lizards, but then again you couldn’t get Dolomite lizards in Cromio City. A smile blossomed on her face. With the money from the job and everything else, she should have enough for an enchanted dagger and the airship fee.

  As if a new wind had hit her sails, she quickly moved back into the twisting, turning alleys of the city proper. Eventually, she came upon a building under construction. It looked ordinary in every way, except for one thing. If you asked her, it was home. She climbed up the rickety scaffolding, scaling past all the empty windows. The building, to her knowledge, had been in deep ruin before the construction company got its hands on the deed. However, said company went out of business around the time she was looking for a place. One thing led to another, and she had the building to herself.

  Frankly, she didn’t use all the space it had. The building was significantly larger than anything she could accommodate, but she had her own spot on the fourth floor. She stopped at a balcony, pulling a key from her pocket. She opened the door.

  The room inside wasn’t the biggest or the smallest, and she liked it that way—something in the middle, inconspicuous. A small bed, a lockbox, and the painting on the wall were the only possessions within the room. She had quickly learned not to leave things after one too many incidents of it being ransacked and her gold being taken. The fuckers had gotten what they deserved.

  She moved over to the painting and pulled it off the wall. It looked like a normal stone wall, but with an infusion of mana, the illusion she had placed on it dissipated, revealing a small ring hidden in a crevice.

  Her mother didn’t leave her much, but she did leave her the small ring she held in her hands. Set into the silver was a glittering emerald with blue streaks of light running through it. It was, of course, a spatial ring—it was not large, its capacity was about the size of a small chest, but it was plenty enough for her purposes. Pulling out her painfully light lockbox from inside the ring, she sighed as she opened it. It was enough. She had enough. Enough money to leave this filthy city. She gathered up the gold stashed in her bag and arranged everything before rushing out the door and down the scaffolding. She was going to buy the dagger—not the crappy ones the hawkers sold near the Coliseum, but the genuine article, an enchanted dagger, something that could theoretically adapt to her Affinity.

  For someone like Leah, finding the right weapon was challenging. Clothes and, to some extent, other additional items made it significantly harder to mask herself using her illusion magic. The light and misdirection were simply harder to remove off these more flashy items compared to her much more compatible bare skin. However, a dagger—or any other weapon for that matter—was an impossible feat. It wasn’t because it was an item. No, Leah was able to mask most of them. It was because of its association with weapon mastery. The annoying, and frankly stupidly overpresent, affinities people had toward such objects made it downright impossible to hide them using her own Illusion affinity.

  However, this rule went out the window when it came to enchanted objects. A simple obscuration enchantment placed upon a dagger would do the job. The problem was, of course, finding a dagger strong enough to handle the enchantment and then scraping together the money for it. Procuring the work of a good blacksmith was significantly easier than the enchanting process. Any decent smith could make one, after all. However, due to the inherent complexities of enchanting—which, frankly, Leah had no insight on—and the not-so-market-fair hold the nobles had on the bloody process, it was a mana migran and a half to deal with.

  After a few minutes of quietly moving through the alleys and walkways of Cromio, Leah came across a haphazard shop. It was tucked away in one of Cromio’s many, many godforsaken alleys, and the loud hammering from the forge was only deafened out by the occasional crowd noises from the distant Coliseum. Not only was the area noisy and ugly, but it also stank like the emperor’s sewage. The smell wasn’t always present in Cromio, but it showed her that the slop she waded through wasn’t always just mud.

  Clearing her throat, Leah knocked on the door. No response. She knew it was going to be challenging to get the smith to work with her. He was, frankly, a nasty individual, but it didn’t change the fact that he was damn good at what he did. The rumor was that he’d even made an ax for Lord Wildcaster. Frankly, that rumor was a bunch of horseshit—anyone who was good, or even known by Lord Wildcaster, would not be living in a shit-filled street. However, the rumors did get one thing right: his work was excellent. Beyond excellent. If anyone asked Leah for her opinion, she’d tell them he was the best. However, his unwillingness to work on anything but his own passions was one of the uncountable reasons why he didn’t have hordes of customers lining up.

  She knocked again, hoping that it would be different, but knowing it wouldn’t be. Steeling her nerves, Leah pushed the door open, revealing a small, damp storefront. Weapons were piled onto tables in haphazard order, shields were stacked in heaps, and no one was behind the counter. She heard grunting coming from behind the counter wall. Leah plastered on a smile as she pushed open the door to the smithy.

  “Hello, I would like to buy a dagger,” she said.

  The man hammering away at the fires was old—almost ancient. The only youth that he retained was in his hair, which still had streaks of black, like coal, running through it.

  “Fuck off,” he grunted without even turning to face her.

  Leah cleared her throat. “Eh, ahem. Please, I’ve heard great things about your work and—”

  “I told you to fuck off, didn’t I?” He hammered the metal as if to end the conversation.

  Sighing, Leah said, “Fine. I’ve seen your wares. They’re damn good. I want one that can hold an enchantment.”

  “You’re damn right they’re good. Now fuck off. I got work to do.”

  “How much?”

  He paused his hammer about to strike the metal, then finally turned around as if to consider her. His eyes were stunning, like black onyx, and as Leah gazed at them, she felt his aura. Rarely had she run into anyone who would be considered a true elite. She couldn’t even tell what realm he was in. His aura blew Eric’s out of the water, who was at the very peak of the Foundation Realm. But Leah would have to guess that this man was in the late stages of the Refinement Realm. He didn’t seem like he enjoyed the longevity the higher realms provided.

  “Why?” he asked in a questioning tone.

  “I need a weapon that I can use,” Leah replied.

  He stared at her face for a moment, and a sheen came over his eyes. He chuckled. “Oh, I see. Illusory flower.”

  “Don’t call me a flower,” Leah retorted.

  He smiled. “Okay, little Orchid. One dagger, custom-made.” Leah’s heart raced. It was going to happen. She was finally going to…

  “Three large gold.”

  Her heart stopped as his words echoed in her head. Three large gold was an astronomical sum of money for someone like Leah. It was more money than most families earned in a life time. Needless to say, she didn’t have three large gold. She did’t even have one.

  “That’s ridiculous. Some scrap metal for three large gold? You damn well know how much that is, old man.”

  He just smiled. “Three large gold. I know my worth.”

  Leah stared at him, pondering, before running out of breath. “Fine. Just fine. We’re done here.” She turned and walked away. She heard the clang of metal before the sound stopped. She turned around, but the forge was gone. All that was left was a dagger and a note.

  Three large gold. When you see me, you’ll pay. Earn that money with this.

  On top of the note was a pristine black dagger. Leah’s hands shook as she held the blade, and tears began to well up in her eyes. It was hers, and no one else’s. She left the dingy shop, and as she stepped onto the street, she couldn’t help but marvel at how the dagger glinted in the light. It was still unenchanted, but it felt right in her hands. She knew she owed that old smith a debt—one not easily repaid, if ever. But she pushed those thoughts away for another day. She needed to get the dagger enchanted and get the hell out of this city.

  As she passed down a popular boulevard close to her hideout, Leah heard the guards murmuring.

  “They’re going to start conscripting from the orphanages.”

  “Oh, come on. That can’t be right. They are all street urchins. Why the hell would the military want them?”

  “I have no clue, but it’s ordered from high. Not sure who. My captain says it’s from the queen. They need more soldiers for the army.”

  Leah’s heart stilled at the words. She hated Cromio City. If you asked anyone who knew her, it was obvious. However, there was one redeeming factor. When her mother died, she had been taken in by the orphanages. They fed her, clothed her, and housed her. It wasn’t much, but for a kid who just lost their only rock in the world, it was enough to keep them going.

  “Oh great, has it come to the point where she thinks she can actually win a war?” someone scoffed.

  “It’s better than doing nothing. The imperial scum is just going to keep draining our resources and not allowing us to advance further into the Beast Barons.”

  Leah ran her tongue against the side of her lips as she looked down at her bag. If she spent everything she could, maybe she could squeeze a dozen orphans onto an airship. But that wasn’t enough. There would be tens of thousands left behind. She knew she couldn’t save them all, but she thought she might be able to save more than just a dozen. It just meant she had to stay in this godforsaken city for a few more months.

  Hardening her nerves, she rushed to The Alchemist’s Retreat. Hopefully, Eric could help her smuggle some children out of this godforsaken city.