Sen had tried to set his legs over the cliffs overlooking the ocean, but there was some kind of magical barrier that felt like a soft sponge spread across the entirety of the cliffs: a protective failsafe for anyone too oblivious or too inebriated to realize they could fall to their deaths, to the rocky cliffside and raucous waves below. Instead, he sat on a large rock, lined up with others in an orderly fashion, behind the cliff. He was alone with a disconsolate look on his face.
Zulli woke up from her fairly comfortable bed inside a dome shaped hostel. She was wearing her blue athletic cropped top and shorts, revealing most of her jet-black shadowy form. She stepped outside, feeling something tugging at her soul. She knew this familiar pull as her soul connection to Sen.
Sen was mulling over in his head how ridiculous his situation had been. He was nearly killed while trying to gauge his power set in an entirely new world where magic was real. The on-shift acolytes of the Healer were hesitant to let him leave their tent without his team coming to pick him up, but he was for the most part recovered, save for some soreness and exhaustion he still felt. They explained to him that scars were very rare amongst essence users, and they debated amongst each other whether or not he should have any, given his outworlder body was comprised mostly of magic, just as an essence user’s was. He reflected on that, sitting in the dark and listening to the crashing waves of the ocean. He had doffed his armor and put on his comfortable Magic Society issued pajamas. His left hand thrummed over the tiny lumps on his right arm spread like tiger stripes at the points where the Heroc’s talons ripped through flesh and bone like butter. His face scrunched as he recalled the moment in his mind. His armor had given him a false sense of security, making him feel that he could withstand anything. He had learned a great lesson about rank disparity the hard way. His hand retracted as he felt a slight twinge in his soul.
“Hey.”
Sen turned from his view of the vast ocean to see Zulli, hardly visible in the darkness, looking like a physically manifested shadow.
“Hey.” Sen said.
She climbed up the rock to sit with him.
“Are you recovered?” She asked bluntly.
“I’m feeling a lot better.” Sen said, looking back out to the ocean and raising his healed, yet scarred arm for her to see. “Not perfect, but this kind of recovery wouldn't even be possible without magic.”
“They said if you weren’t wearing your armor, you would have been almost annihilated.”
Sen let out a breathy extrusion from his nostrils, while putting on his trademark smirk.
“Why do you think that’s funny?” Zulli asked.
“It’s not.” Sen said. “It’s just the way you say things sometimes. It brings me joy.”
Zulli didn’t say anything, she just stared at him.
“Not in a bad way.” Sen retorted. “It’s just that when you do it, it makes me feel like I’m back on Earth.”
Zulli still didn’t say anything.
“How’d you guys get me here?” Sen asked.
“August had a floating litter to put you on. We made good time without you slowing us down.” Zulli remarked.
Sen kept the smirk on his face and nodded. “August hasn’t said anything about me getting to iron rank, which makes me think there’s essences waiting for me in Silverwind. I’ll catch up, don’t worry.”
“Sen.” Zulli said, as if there was something she’s been meaning to say.
“Yeah?”
“That monster was fast. Faster than me or you.”
“Yeah.”
“And you grabbed me. And you shielded me.”
“Yeah.”
“Your reaction. It couldn’t have been a reaction. It was too fast for that. You knew you had to-” Zulli said before taking a pause.
“Ah. Yeah.” Sen said. Realizing the point she was getting at. “You really thought you had a chance at killing that thing, didn’t you?”
“Did you know what it was going to do to you?”
“I knew it was going to hurt.” Sen replied. “But no, I wasn’t aware that it would mangle me like that. I’m having this problem where I’m not taking things as seriously as I should. It just feels like all of this is a game. I can’t shake it.”
Zulli looked out to the ocean. The moons brought two rays of dim light across its surface, one white and the other blue. “Thank you.” She said quietly.
Sen lazily looked from the ocean to Zulli. “Zulli.” He said. “I didn’t do it because you’re a weight to bear. I did it because it was my duty in that moment.”
“A duty is a weight.” Zulli replied.
“Zulli, there’s no other place I would rather have been. I saw that harpoon go through its chest. I saw you blasting away with your wand. I wanted to be a part of that. The whole thing. That’s why I kept going. Man-” Sen scoffed out a small chuckle. “I have no idea how I fought through the pain, thinking about it now. Just seeing August on top of it swinging, I don’t know, it was an axe right? He went through so many weapons. And you just kept throwing that beam at it. I just couldn’t step back. I had to put in my piece. And that explosion!” He got visibly excited when he said it. “That was crazy! It was like a small explosion, and then August’s mirror absorbed it and sent out a bigger one. Boom! We pancaked it!”
Zulli let out a tiny giggle. “You’re doing that thing again. And it’s early. You’re going to wake someone up.”
Sen ran a hand over his head, feeling the tiny bristles of hair that were finally growing. “If I didn’t do what I did, then what was the alternative?”
Zulli nodded, realizing she might not be sitting there next to him if he hadn’t.
“You not being here: That would be a weight I don’t want to bear.” Sen said.
They sat in silence for some time. Zulli then told Sen about the gold ranker performing the ritual while he was unconscious. Sen was indeed bummed that he missed out on witnessing it but was pleased to hear Zulli’s retelling of the story, as plain as it was. He was happy to let his imagination fill in the blanks. August found the two on their rock. The sun was about to rise behind them, over the valley.
“We can get going to Silverwind if you’re ready, Sen.” August said as he approached.
Sen thought about watching the sun rise, but was also getting excited about reaching Silverwind, and what was in store there. “Yeah. I’m ready. Zulli?”
“Sure.” She replied.
“Did the healers have anything else for you?” August asked Sen.
“Not really. Just something to take after breakfast.” Sen said, pulling out a potion from his voidspace. It was a small vial filled with a white milky mixture dotted with specks of silver.
“Don’t eat anything here.” August said. “We’ll get some breakfast in Silverwind. We’re getting Garrus’s sword today.”
Sen and Zulli looked at each other with earnest expressions. “Alright, let’s go then.”
Zulli went back to the hostel to pack her things into her dimensional pouch, change her clothes, and then deposited her bed linens in a bin before meeting the other two outside. It looked like August was scolding Sen for something when she found them again. “Did I miss something?” She asked.
Sen shook his head. “August is just making sure I’m recovered enough.” He said, while black mist enveloped him to replace his Magic Society pajamas with his jeans, shirt, and boots. “It’s apparently going to be a long day, Zulli.”
“I’m ready.” She replied, referring to both being packed up and the long day ahead.
The three made their way to the large warehouse-like building. Stepping inside through automatically opening wooden sliding doors, Sen marveled at them, reminiscing on the many glass ones he had walked through on Earth. Inside, there was a couple men wearing leather chest rigs with clipboards attached and ticket reels hanging.
“Appointment, sir?” One of the men asked August, rightly judging him as the leader of the group. Behind him were four square areas lined with red paint. It seemed like this was a temporary installation, as there was hardly even a bench to sit down at or a counter to check in. Inside one of the squares, several people walked out of a purple swirling torrent of energy, before it shrunk into nothing and disappeared.
“Yes. Three. We had it for yesterday, we got hung up.” August replied.
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” The man said. “Oh.” He said, realizing the appointment as he flipped a page over and skimmed through his list. “For Carbon, then?”
“Yes. I’m August Niles.” August said, revealing his Adventure Society Badge to the man.
“No problem at all, sir. Not a busy time of the year, we’ll get you in on the next relay.” The man said, as he pulled out a dull red crystal from his chest rig. “Just a quick scan.” He said, pointing the crystal at the three of them. He tapped the crystal three times with his other hand and waved it back and forth. The crystal brightened before it started strobing from dull to bright. It did this four times, then stopped. “Oops.” He said, then tapped the crystal three times again, and repeated the process. The crystal strobed four times again. “Just three, sir?” The man asked August.
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“That’s correct. Just the three of us.” August replied.
“I’m picking up four. You haven’t crossed any highwaymen recently, have you?”
“No.” August said, his face putting on his stoic expression once more.
Two men who were not visible before made themselves known by projecting their auras toward the group as they walked up behind them. Sen and Zulli could feel from their auras that they were more powerful than August.
“Standard procedure is to purge any runes. Do you consent?” The man asked August.
“We do.” August obliged.
One of the two men pointed a finger in the air and then pointed it at the ground underneath their feet. A simple ritual circle appeared underneath them. Both Sen and Zulli looked around, confused, while August narrowed his gaze. He held a stance that portrayed his readiness to strike at anything.
Shortly after the ritual circle appeared, the bottom of Zulli’s blouse began to glow behind her. August turned to face her, and he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Stay calm.” August told her.
As if from under Zulli’s shirt, a lanky, almond-skinned individual fell onto the floor with a thud, followed by his red trench coat landing atop him. Afterward, a small, cylindrical magic item followed, dropping onto the pile of half-elf that was Arty the Alchemist. The magic item rolled away from him, and August was quick to apprehend the stowaway.
Sen recognized the red trench coat, and when Zulli turned, she did too, but they were both much slower than August, who took the initiative.
“Who are you?” August asked Arty, lifting him up by his black leather vest. Arty was sure to grab his coat on the way to being lifted off of his feet.
“Arty?” He replied.
Sen and Zulli both asked his name the same way, now catching up to August’s initiative.
“What…?” Sen asked, not believing his eyes.
“Was he…?” Zulli asked.
Arty peered over to the cylindrical magic item rolling across the floor, and he threw his coat over to it, and his coat draped over top it, covering it and halting its roll. “I don’t know anything!” He said, looking back at August, his feet dangling. “I was told I’d have to make a choice when I got this far!”
Sen’s eyebrows furrowed. Zulli stood awestruck.
“Who told you that?” August questioned.
“Some guy. Bald. Old. Poncho. Pants like his.” Arty replied, pointing at Sen’s jeans.
“Pants?” Sen asked, looking down at his jeans. “Dominick?” Sen asked.
“He didn’t tell me his name.” Arty said, arresting his squirming by holding onto August’s wrist as he was still held aloft.
“August he’s telling the truth.” Sen said.
“He is.” August confirmed, but he didn’t let him go. “What else do you know?”
“That’s it! He gave me a dimensional shelter and told me to plant it on the shadowy girl with a rune transmogrifier.” Arty hastily replied.
The other man who had walked up behind the group strode over to Arty’s coat and picked it up. There seemed to be no indication of the cylindrical magic item within it.
“That’s mine!” Arty said with a sudden disdainful look on his face.
August set Arty down on his feet and Arty ran over to the man and pulled on his coat, but the man didn’t let go.
“You’re a criminal. This is evidence. It is no longer yours.” The man told Arty, and Arty was hopeless to overpower the man’s strength.
August let out a quick sigh of disappointment and exhaustion.
Sen got closer to August. “The choice he has to make: It is whether or not he’s coming with us.”
August looked at Sen. “What? He’s not coming with us.”
“It’s not your choice to make, August. It’s his.” Sen whispered. “He’s fine, guys!” Sen yelled, looking from August to the man holding Arty’s coat. “Bit of a misunderstanding! This young man was kidnapped! Placed on Zulli’s person without our knowing.”
“What are you…?” August stammered.
“He’s a friend of ours. Someone was just trying to make a big joke, and it worked. Everyone can calm down.” Sen continued.
The two powerful men put on unconvinced faces and looked to August for direction. August had his own unconvinced look on his face. His eyes closed in frustration. “A very bad joke.” August said. “He is not a criminal.”
The man holding Arty’s coat didn’t seem completely convinced but let go of it anyway. Arty rolled up the coat around one arm and kept it close to his chest as he walked back toward the group.
“Will it be four then?” The original ticketmaster interjected after a moment of silence.
“No.” August replied.
“That is not up to you, August.” Sen repeated, this time slower and more stern.
“And you think it’s up to you, or him?” August questioned, a threatening pulse coming from his aura.
“We let him make the choice or I’m not going anywhere.” Sen replied.
August’s eyes narrowed as his aura pressed down on Sen, just as it had the first time Sen met him. Sen pushed back, but it was entirely too powerful to hold off. Fortunately, auras held no physical power, otherwise Sen would have been crushed; It was simply a feeling of all his presence being stripped away and being replaced by August’s, which wasn’t necessarily threatening, but the overbearing sense of power and danger put a slight twinge of fear into Sen’s psyche.
“I met the man he was talking about. Way more powerful than you, by far, but friendly. I think he means well.” Sen told August.
“You think-” August spat. “You have no idea what’s-” August stopped as he looked around the warehouse, where everyone had stopped to watch. His lips pursed in response. He let out another sigh of frustration. He stopped talking before giving away more information than he already had.
“Arty? Wanna go to Silverwind?” Sen asked.
“I mean, I probably shouldn’t stay here.” Arty replied.
“Were you in my shirt the whole time!?” Zulli finally asked.
“Ehhh.” Arty replied. “I can explain, we should go.”
“How much for the plus one?” Sen asked the ticketmaster.
“To Silverwind? Twenty coins per rank of the individual, up to silver. You three have been paid for in advance.”
Sen dropped twenty iron rank coins into the ticketmaster’s hand, and he reeled off four tickets from his chest rig. Sen looked at August. “Let’s just get out of this awkward situation and go.” He said, waving his hands, trying to convince him.
August stayed silent and shook his head, snatching the tickets from Sen’s hand. He walked over to one of the empty squares where a woman who was watching the show walked up to him. She took the four tickets, and in her grasp, they burned into green smoke. She waved a hand in a circular fashion. A gray stone archway rose from the floor inside the square. When it finished rising, a blue pool of energy spread across the arch. “Hope your day gets better.” She said to August with an impish grin as she took a few steps back.
Arty didn’t hesitate as he was the first to step through the portal, and the blue energy rippled as he stepped through it. Zulli looked at the archway, then toward August and Sen, and followed Arty through. August looked at Sen with another look of disdain and simply pointed a finger at the glowing archway. Sen looked back at August with his own slighted expression but walked through the portal as well. August then followed, and the group was finally in Silverwind.
Stepping through the portal was disorienting for Sen. He saw Zulli standing on the other side and caught a glimpse of Arty dry heaving on his hands and knees. “Whoa.” Sen said, and he put his hands on his knees to catch his balance. He wasn’t put in the same state as Arty, but he realized why August told him not to eat anything before coming to Silverwind. The transition from Peck Bluffs to Silverwind was instant, but it felt like a carnival ride that spun in all directions. August came through the portal and deliberately bumped into Sen on his way out, putting Sen on his knees. Zulli helped him up, who was seemingly unfazed by the portal travel.
They felt the chill of the air in their nostrils, even Zulli. It was much colder here. They didn’t portal to a warehouse like in Peck Bluffs, but rather a fairly large open square, laid with cleanly cut white stone lined in silver. People of all races bustled around them, and Sen noticed that most were dressed in warm attire. He allowed his Heartswarmth Tunic that Zulli gifted him to cover over his shirt.
Looking up and around, the sky was dark and there was an odd, but mystifying shimmer in the air. Sen could barely see anything surrounding the city, as they had portaled to a different time zone, where the sun still had a couple hours to rise. Against the soft amber glow of the lights emanating from the city itself, slender towers protruded in an orderly, grid-like fashion all across the city of Silverwind. This gave Sen a general idea of the size of the city, which wasn't as large as Vitesse. Neither was it surrounded by large walls.
Sen and Zulli went over to Arty, who had finished his heaving fit, and hadn’t eaten anything in the last few days, so he had nothing to produce from the effort. “You alright?” Sen asked Arty, helping him up.
“Yeah.” Arty said, pulling out a handkerchief from his rolled-up coat to wipe the snot from his face. “Not my first portal jump. But I’ve just never gotten used to the feeling. You guys seem well versed.” Arty responded, pointing a lazy finger at the two as he stood up straight. He was taller than Zulli but not by much, and stood a little shorter than Sen, about August’s height.
“I think that was both of our first times.” Sen replied.
Arty looked at them with a skeptical look. “No mames.”
Sen then looked at Arty skeptically. “What did you just say?”
“It’s just a saying from my homeland.” Arty replied. “Like ‘no way’.”
Sen looked at him with disbelief. Of course, Sen’s translation power had taken over to provide the translation, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was appropriating a language from Earth to accommodate one here. It almost threw Sen for more of a loop than the portal did. Whatever the case, Arty’s almond skin and stringy black hair made more sense to him. Noticing the pointy ears just barely reaching out of Arty’s hair, Sen wondered if more elves reflected Arty’s Latin-American look.
August curtly interrupted them. “Congratulations. You made it to Silverwind. Now be on your way.” He told Arty.
Sen gave August a flat look, as did Zulli.
“The contract does not include hitchhikers, and it is my contract.” August said to them.
“Arty?” Sen asked. “What do you think?”
“I really don’t know what I’m doing here.” Arty confessed. “I told my mother I would be gone for some time. She wasn’t happy but was glad that I was getting away from Vitesse… a chance for me to break my bad habits.”
Sen held a hand at Arty while looking at August. “We have the opportunity to help someone, August.”
It was August’s turn to put on a flat look.
“I still don’t like how you were riding in my shirt the whole time. All way from Vitesse?” Zulli told him. “Why the subterfuge?”
Arty simply pointed a finger at August. “I think he’s why. I couldn’t just ask to come with you.”
Sen put more thought into why Dominick would want Arty to come with them. He wondered who Dominick was and what he stood to gain. No answer to the questions were within his sense of wonder.
“August-” Arty said.
“Mister Niles.” August corrected.
Arty gave Sen a side glance, and Sen shrugged. “Mister Niles. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I think I would be a good addition to this adventuring team no matter what. I’m pretty good at artifice and alchemy. I've got a full set of essences. I can take care of myself, been doing that for a while now.”
“You’re iron rank. And we're not a legitimate team. These aren't even legitimate adventurers." August chided, pointing as Sen and Zulli. "I have enough on my plate escorting these two. We also have a sensitive mission to complete. Too sensitive for a stranger to compromise.”
Arty produced the cylindrical magic item that fell atop him when he popped out of Zulli’s shirt. He pulled it from an inner pocket inside his coat. “This is a gold rank item. I was able to use it, along with another, to bring me here.” Arty explained. “I’m pretty god with that kind of stuff.”
August’s expression didn’t change, but he inspected the item with his eyes, noticing scorch marks and broken pieces inside.
“Can I see it?” Sen asked. Arty handed it over.
- Item: Dimensional Shelter (Broken)(Gold)
- Creates a contemporary living space inside a pocket dimension.
- This space can hold a gold-ranked individual safely for twenty-four hours before breaking down
- This item has been corrupted and must be fixed to be used again
“It’s what he says it is.” Sen confirmed. “What was that other thing you said you used?”
“A rune transmogrifier.” Arty explained, taking back the cylinder. “They’re expensive, usually used to turn items into runes, which is how I hid the shelter on Zulli’s shirt. Snuck up behind her, placed the rune, and jumped in.”
“You want someone this devious with us?” August questioned.
“Kinda.” Sen and Zulli both said at the same time.
August pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I trusted you, August.” Sen told him, referring to the first night August introduced him to Garrus. “For no other reason than just feeling like I should. I can just read people. Arty’s cunning, not devious.”
August knew it was a losing battle. Sen could simply choose not to go any further unless August allowed Arty to tag along. The ability to threaten Sen into doing as he commanded had long passed. “The first time I even think you’re up to no good, you’re not only out, I'm taking you in to the Adventure Society to serve your time behind bars.” August said, pointing a bulky finger in Arty’s face.
Arty put on a falsely innocent grin and nodded.
August turned to walk away. “We’re moving, and we’re skipping breakfast.” He grumbled disparagingly.