Shortly after landing in Scithio, the trio stood gathered to the side of the road under the shade of a nearby bridge, and prepared to enter the recruitment office for Jacoby's Acquisitions.

Before they did, however, Shaela finally noticed the oddity of the city. Specifically, the way the horizon arched above their heads, and the entire left side of the "sky" was just a broad stretch of grass, broken up by roads, farmland, and homes around the base of the city.

"Aspects above, where are we?"

Kael amusedly replied, "Didn't you hear Travel, Shae? We're in Scithio."

While they bickered over their situation, Kael began amassing clouds 'above' them, both to see how they'd form, given the unique gravity situation around the pillar, and to scout out the surrounding maze of buildings and bridges.

Gus, meanwhile, kept an eye out - unused to being surrounded by strangers, especially in such a uniquely unfamiliar environment.

Just as the first of the clouds began to form, they headed inside.

Kael still wasn't sure whether the building should be tilting and falling off the side of the cliff. At least being inside was less nauseating than standing outside, where every moment his eyes were open, he was reminded of the feeling of falling out of a tree. Midway through a climb, he had to make a leap to catch the next branch. He had missed, and that same sensation of weightlessness just before the rest of the fall was what his brain kept trying to convince him he should be feeling while he was in this city.

They crossed the threshold - the door having opened for them, without an operator - and took in their surroundings. While other applicants walked by, often heading for specific desks, the three of them dallied at the door until they heard a cleared throat behind them, prompting them to move aside. The man who passed them by wore a clean white tabard with black spiral designs across the front and back, and marched toward the back of the room.

The marble floor below them formed a large cross, with each corner of the room occupied by a set of large black desks, seemingly made of wood, but with gold trim.

Kael could see doorways toward the back of the room, but wasn't sure why the side pathways led straight into the walls, until he saw other entrants walking up and down the walls. His eyes followed their path, looking up, and up, to the high ceiling. Oh no. More gravity nonsense.

There were more desks - and people - upside down on the ceiling, walking and engaging with clerks up there, as if this was all normal, which for the denizens of Scithio, it might be. On one end of the ceiling, above the first floor's entrance, was another opening, likely leading through the bridge outside, which oversaw the street below. He supposed the people in there walked upside down, as well.

Done with his discomfiting observations for now, Kael returned his focus to the outside, finding that his clouds had mostly accumulated at a far lower elevation than he was used to, only a few hundred feet above their heads. Anything much 'higher' than that - further from the pillar - began to drift away and disperse.

The only exception to the rule was around a nearby tower, one of the more bizarre structures of the city, which stretched out from the pillar by many stories. Any clouds that got close enough to that building instead began to wrap around it, meaning it likely possessed its own gravitational field as well.

Light rain began falling in their surroundings, providing Kael with a map of the nearby labyrinth of alleys and bridges.

Shaela interrupted his analysis, having apparently turned toward her own feet. "I think our shoes were cleaned." She lifted a foot in demonstration.

Gus and Kael looked to her - now shiny - boot. "Oh? You're right. Was is someone's facet?" Kael looked back and forth, not seeing anyone stationed at the door besides a guard who seemed to be paying them little attention.

"Or it was these." Shaela pointed to several geometric scribbles at ankle height along the doorway, glowing a faint blue. Gus gave them a glance, but quickly returned his eyes to the guard.

Kael replied as he leaned down to get a closer look, "That's interesting. I wonder why they didn't clean our entire outfits, if they could do that much." He gestured to their somewhat ratty cloaks.

Showing he had been paying attention regardless, Gus spoke up. "It might be too expensive? Or they want to be able to identify vagabonds who slip in, so they can stop them before they get too deep." He turned his head. "Speaking of..."

A female clerk, wearing a formal suit, with her hair fashioned into a bob, approached them while they stood just inside the entrance. "Hello, can I ask how you found our offices?"

Kael grimaced, realizing they were rather under-dressed compared to even the most destitute of fellow entrants in the building.

He replied while Gus narrowed his eyes. "Erm, hello... An old man called Travel brought us here? In a flying carriage?"

Shaela's head snapped toward Kael at that, unaware they had flown anywhere.

The clerk's eyes briefly widened, before her expression shuttered.

"Of course. Please come with me?" She turned and began walking deeper into the room without waiting for a response.

Gus' expression tightened at her reaction, though he began to follow along without issue, for now. "Is there a problem?"

Kael and Shaela followed right behind him. Kael was still a bit nervous about how they were being perceived, but more focused on the clouds outside once again. Shaela continued scoping out the interior, looking for more potential enchantments, or perhaps just weighing the value of the furniture.

The woman responded calmly, waving off his concern. "Not at all. This is just slightly outside my jurisdiction, so I'd like to convene with my superior."

As she walked, the three of them trailing behind her, she lifted a hand.

Her fingers suddenly unraveled into lines of string, stretching out to grab paper and pens from a nearby desk. The three of them assumed the pen was a writing implement, not having seen one quite like that before, as one of her finger-strings clicked across the top of it and began rapidly scrawling information across the front of a page, manipulating the pen with more dexterity than a normal finger ever could.

The other fingers tore out subsequent pages from the stack, and acquired several small boards, passing them to the trio behind her. The page she had been writing upon was then deposited in a cubby above one of the desks, where it was whisked away through a tube. All of this was done without breaking stride.

They arrived at a set of several benches Kael hadn't seen from the entrance, close to one of the side paths that would lead toward the walls.

"Please wait here and fill out these forms. Someone will be with you shortly." She passed the three of them a set of pens.

Her strings retracted, folding back into the shapes of her fingers as she left them, walking toward the doorways at the back of the room.

As they sat down, Kael jokingly spoke up, "Learning to read was useful, after all!" He looked back and forth between a distressed Gus and preoccupied Shaela.

Rather than reading the form, Shaela had taken to analyzing the pen, twirling it about to view it from all angles, clicking it open and closed, and briefly pocketing and unpocketing it.

"Hmmm..." Shaela hummed, clicking open the pen and placing her fingertip at its writing end. He thought she was about to mark up her hand, but instead the tip of the pen disappeared, pocketed separately from the shell, which Shaela still held.

She smirked, then pocketed the outer case of the pen as well, leaving a small spring to fall into her lap.

As she picked the spring up and began to play with that, Gus' voice emerged from his seat. "Facets, experience, place of residence, specialties... I'm not sure I want to give any of this information." Gus' brow lowered more and more as he spoke.

"You do if you want to get hired anywhere." Shaela distractedly replied as she compressed the spring between two fingers. Unfortunately, it slipped out from her grip on one end, launching away from her. She reacted quickly enough to swipe her hand through the air, pocketing it as her finger brushed by, then darting her eyes back and forth to check for any witnesses.

Kael sighed, returning to the outside world, as he had gotten a sense of the happenings around the building they were currently in.

He could feel the outlines of more of those self-propelling cars in the street outside, intermixed with more traditional vehicles, and several larger ones carrying cargo. Pedestrians sped up under the sudden drizzle, not wanting to get soaked before reaching their destinations, and not having prepared for such inclement weather.

A few streets away, he felt someone walking across a roof, moving in the direction of a pair of workers carrying a crate. The pair seemed to be transferring one of several crates between the back of a vehicle and a nearby building - a warehouse, though Kael couldn't tell.

He could also feel another half-dozen people circling around either end of the narrow road the workers were on, closing in through the alleyways, and he grew suspicious.

Before he thought to speak up, or interfere from a distance, Kael felt the person on the roof take a leap, on trajectory to land near one of the workers - if not right on top of them.

The attacker landed, and the crate's contents spilled to the ground, cracked open by the fall - as was the worker's head, after the assassin's dagger had plunged through it from above.

Kael abruptly stood, interrupting the continued dialogue between Gus and Shaela.

"We've gotta go." Kael began before rapidly walking back toward the entrance. Gus and Shaela stood as well, knowing better than to question their scout when he used that tone.

On their way out, they had Shaela to quickly pocket their paper and remaining pens, which she seemed happy to do.

Gus leaned in as he walked, quietly asking, "What's going on?"

"Someone is being killed, two streets over that way." Kael waved his hand halfheartedly, focused on interfering in the fight.

After the assassin landed, Kael had decided the others approaching the cargo were also hostile, and took action to delay their approach, blanketing them in chilling rain, and sending moderately forceful drops onto their heads and around their shins. He caused several of them to stumble, when he could land the shots accurately.

His main priority, however, was preventing the other worker's death.

The assassin had begun strafing the remaining man, darting in and out with a dagger in each hand, though the worker was able to defend against most strikes with his forearms, which didn't seem to be receiving cuts.

The reason for that became clear, as moments before each impact, Kael could feel the brief appearance of a small barrier just above the man's skin. The facet was likely manually triggered, as the occasional blow got through without deflection, and only the man's arms ever flared with those barriers.

While the assassin continued trying to break through, Kael finally sent a needle his way, sensing an opportunity to launch the lethally accelerated droplet during a moment of pause. The nearby buildings blocked most angles for his raindrops, but the shallower cloud cover came in handy, making any drops he did launch arrive much quicker.

Unfortunately, while the droplet was on target to hit the assassin as it approached, it phased right through the back of the assassin's head, having no discernible impact. It continued its path out through their front, unslowed, and left a small divot in the ground between the combatants.

The sound of its collision with the ground unfortunately distracted the defender. An opportunity which the assassin quickly capitalized on, scoring a deep cut across his torso.

"Dammit." Kael cursed to himself. That must be his facet. Something to make him less real? Or he's not there at all... But his hands, and probably his feet, must be there for him to be wielding those knives. Kael switched to 'dampening' rain, specifically around the assassin, while he prepared further shots, planning to target the hands.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

The trio reached the exit of the building, passing the door guard, who now eyed them suspiciously, and began running in the direction Kael had indicated.

When they got outside, Shaela slapped her forehead at seeing the rainclouds. "Right. To have sensed that you must've started up a shower."

"What?" Kael furrowed his brows as he defensively replied, "We needed to scout."

Shaela continued as they ran through the nearby alleyways. "What's wrong is that rain probably doesn't just show up in the middle of this city."

She gestured to their surroundings, likely indicating how they were at least a couple miles above the surface, and under the effects of horizontal gravity. Clouds probably formed a bit differently from how Kael did it.

Kael looked sheepish, realizing the sudden rainfall may have been shortsighted, but at least it allowed him to save-

He realized the other attackers had reached the street where the killing was taking place, and were now harassing the defender from a distance.

Seeing them participate in the murder, Kael resigned himself to killing them as well, redirecting his prepared shots toward the easier targets. Two of the attackers immediately fell, causing the others to take cover, though the defender had taken more blows in the meantime.

"I thought after the border you'd have a bit more sense than this." Shaela continued.

"It's fine, Shaela." Gus tried to calm her while keeping the pace. He was reluctant to interfere in whatever fighting was going on, but understood they were already involved, regardless of his wishes.

"Not if it calls down the city's guards on our heads! You heard the old man!" Even as she spoke she had pulled out differently colored cloaks for each of them to change into, continuing to run while they switched.

"We'll deal with it when it happens - if it happens. Whatever we're running into was going on before we jumped in, so it's probably not a big enough deal to attract attention from the bigger players."

She huffed. "It probably wasn't before the sudden weather change. Hard to ignore half a mile of magical cloud cover appearing in the middle of the day..."

Kael interjected, "She's right." He shook his head. "It's too late now, anyway." He explained the current situation as they ran.

The worker had been finished off by the assassin, none of Kael's drops able to hit them, and the other assailants closed in on the now unoccupied vehicle.

The assassin appeared to say something to the others, and they reacted by acquiring impromptu shields from nearby rubbish and the remnants of the shattered crate, which they held above their heads. One of them spontaneously produced a circular platform above their head, with more circles appearing and beginning to lift other crates that had already been unloaded into the warehouse.

Kael continued pelting them as the trio turned the final corner before making visual contact. One drop pierced right through a wooden shield held above one of the thieves, who had been rummaging through a fallen worker's pocket. The drop, however, only pierced his arm, leaving him free to dive into the front seat of the vehicle, where he remained out of the way for the moment.

The others carried more crates toward the vehicle, mostly ferried by the man whose platforms seemed to lift them with ease. Kael began preparing a high-power droplet, similar to what he used to penetrate the Dome, if not quite as concentrated.

Gus' skin shifted to bark as he ran up and sucker punched one of the box-carrying thieves, the man having been unaware of their approach through the sound of the rain.

Shaela, meanwhile, un-pocketed several knives, throwing one after the other at both of the thieves who remained standing. The one with the circles merely placed one in front of him as a shield, while the final thief fell, having been stuck through the torso.

The circle-wielder decided to cut his losses, running toward the vehicle with the crates he had managed to grab hovering ahead of him, depositing them in the back of the truck.

Kael sent down his hammer blow droplet toward the circle-wielder, just as the vehicle let loose a growl and began to roll forward. The circle above the thief's head shattered with its impact, and his head was pulped, but the vehicle began pulling away before any of them could stop it.

Kael prepared several more needle droplets above, but as the vehicle turned the corner, many of the drops were rendered useless, unable to get a good angle to hit the driver or the vehicle itself. With each turn the car made, more were rendered useless, until Kael decided it wasn't worth the effort, given they were still in the middle of a rapidly-developing situation, and he could feel several potential issues in the distance.

Gus clapped to gather their attention. "Alright. Well, we're here now." He walked up and kicked one of the few remaining boxes. "Shaela, pocket this stuff."

She lit up. "I'm not saying no, but are you sure?" Even as she spoke, she was already reaching into the broken crate and pilfering the ingots that had spilled out earlier.

"It's clearly valuable, if they were after it." He ran a hand through his hair to calm his nerves, slicking it back. "Nobody's around to contradict us when we say they took it all. Right, Kael?"

Kael shook his head, sighing at the bout of thievery but unwilling to contradict his friends in the middle of this situation. "Nope, no one close, but there are people on their way here, so we need to get moving soon."

As Shaela cracked open another crate, several of the approaching people - criminals? enforcers? - broke away from their groups, rapidly accelerating.

Of the three groups on their way to the warehouse, the largest - and furthest away - maintained their slow pace, and split up to cordon off several escape routes. They all wore similar armor, from what Kael could tell.

One member, however, whom the others had seemed to defer to, began leaping across buildings toward the warehouse...

The closest group to Kael, a trio, had just met up with the assassin, who had slipped from Kael's sight at some point. The four of them convened for a moment, though not long enough for Kael to reprise his attempts at assassinating the assassin, who then left shortly.

Of the three new members of the thieving group, the heaviest one began bouncing between walls as they closed in, ricocheting faster and faster down the alleys until they no longer needed to touch the floor. The second member, more lithe in stature, broke into a cartwheel, accelerating in their rotation until they were moving faster than a sprinter, only slowing to make tight turns down the twisting corners. The final member, shortly after the other two accelerated, merely waved his arm above his head, and Kael suddenly lost vision of that entire section of the neighborhood.

He broke into a cold sweat, finding the loss of information incredibly disconcerting.

Kael had been explaining the situation to Gus and Shaela while they finished packing the remaining ingots into Shaela's pocketspace, but upon losing sight of the oncoming criminals, he urged them into a run angled toward the final group, hoping they'd come into conflict with the murderous thieves approaching their position.

The aforementioned final group - with five members - had just split into two. A pair of them continued heading toward the warehouse, while the other three paused. Of the three, the one in the back laid hands on the shoulders of the other two with them, until all three began hovering in the air. Once they had ascended over the nearest roof, they began flying directly toward Kael's group.

The duo who had remained behind paused, waiting for one of them to swipe their hand across the nearest wall. From that wall emerged the shape of a giant serpent, which both people stepped onto the back of, as it then slithered toward the warehouse.

Deciding the hovering trio was closing in on them faster than anyone else, Kael switched their direction in a panic, now angling their run slightly toward the thieves, and in the opposite direction of the group cordoning off streets in the distance.

They turned through the alleyways, and dashed across a street - to the displeasure of several drivers - hoping they could either escape whatever tracking was on them, or that the acrobatic thieves would encounter the hovering trio. Kael's spot of non-awareness had spread, however, now encompassing the warehouse as well, just as the man who leapt from roof to roof had arrived at the scene of the crime.

Shaela scooped up garbage cans on their way, stocking ammunition to hopefully be able to delay the acrobats.

Kael had initially considered taking the hovering trio out of the air, or at least slowing them with dampening rain, but considering they hadn't actually done anything hostile, he didn't want to make enemies. Especially when he knew the other approaching group was hostile, and willing to kill to achieve their aims.

He could feel the fliers just come around a building, bringing them into line of sight with Kael, Shaela, and Gus. But when Kael turned to look back at them, a cannon went off.

The bouncing thief had launched himself from below into the man in control of the hovering, shooting him into the distance as the remaining two plummeted onto the roof below. The hovering man was likely dead, if no defenses had been put up. The other twoshouldn't be too hurt by the fall, thankfully, as the roof was only a bit below them. The bouncing man merely laughed, his high pitch chuckle echoing down the street.

Gus and Shaela had also turned at the sound of the impact, but only caught the tail end of the remaining members' fall, before the roof broke their line of sight.

Kael urged them to continue running, turning another corner as he began to dissipate the rain where he could no longer feel it, seeing no point in maintaining such a high-profile indicator of their presence if it wasn't doing anything for them.

Unfortunately, moments later, he did feel something closing in - a high-speed wheel rocketing down the alleys they had just passed through.

"One of them is here!" Kael called out in advance warning, just before the woman turned onto their avenue, maintaining her cartwheel the whole way.

Shaela unpocketed the garbage bins behind them, spilling them all through the alley and forming a makeshift wall, while Gus stopped running, in order to form a second line of defense before his friends.

Kael immediately plunged their alley into a downpour, and evoked the full feeling of dampening gloom in his desperation to slow the thief down. He began to prepare several shots above them, turning to face the woman as he readied himself to dash to the side, should she break through.

Their combined efforts did slow her rotation somewhat, as she slashed through the garbage in her way, but Gus still faced the brunt of her momentum, suffering a deep slash across his arms as he brought her fully to a stop.

She leaned close to Gus' face as he gripped her arms, and spoke in a surprisingly normal voice. Her eyes, however, never stopped moving, spinning between Kael, Shaela, and Gus without pause. "Hello kiddies... Tell me who you're working for, and I might let you go..." Her tone turned slightly teasing toward the end.

Kael merely capitalized on the opportunity Gus had presented with his grapple, sending down several lethal droplets toward the woman while Shaela positioned herself to the side, pulling out more knives.

The woman's eyes completed a more exaggerated roll, and she spun back before the drops could impact her, sending up her leg in a bicycle kick toward Gus' chin. His head snapped back and his grip loosened as she spun, transitioning into a pirouette toward Shaela.

Kael sent more droplets her way, accelerated until they stretched into needles, but she merely gave small shifts during her continuous twirl, evading all of them. He hesitated to give up the dampening effect he was maintaining, even if it'd allow him to send more needles her way, as he feared how fast she would move if she were fully unhindered.

Shaela's knives flew toward the woman, who was barely slowed as she deflected each strike with her extended limbs.

The thief closed in, turning her momentum into a roundhouse kick directed at Shaela's midscetion, with the addition of a knife sticking out from her toes.

Thankfully, Shaela had learned from the last time she went down in combat, summoning several boards between her body and the acrobat's foot, to serve as shields, which dampened the blow. She was still sent flying down the alleyway, but the cutting force was tanked by the now split wood.

The woman's rotation ended with her facing away from the group, which she resolved by bending her back until her head was upside down, and peering in Kael's direction.

Kael assumed a fighting stance, mostly preparing to evade, knowing he was less skilled than Gus or Shaela, and lacked their additional defenses.

Gus was still staggered from the previous blow, only now able to stand, while Shaela was still winded on the ground.

Kael made one last ditch effort as he prepared another volley above, "We're independent! We don't work for anybody!"

She smiled. "Oh~? If I'm to believe that, then there's no reason for me not to kill all three of you, is there?"

Her hands extended, teasingly, until they reached the ground beneath her head, putting her in a bridge position. Her legs then slowly kicked over her head, beginning a series of accelerating back handsprings to approach Kael.

As he prepared his volley, Kael felt something shoot through the rain a street away. Rather than learning its shape via rain falling upon it, as was usual, he only detected it due to it crashing through oncoming drops mid-fall, though any liquid failed to stick to it. The object avoided vehicles and pedestrians without them having noticed the near-collision.

It cornered without slowing, zipping into their alley from down the street. Finally, the man interjected himself between Kael and the acrobat, when she was mere feet away and had accelerated to deadly levels.

He paused, holding a pose with his arm raised just in front of his head, his hand lightly enclosed in a fist. He angled the gloved hand such that the back of his palm gently deflected the woman's descending foot, which cratered the ground just to his side.

The impact sent up a splash of water and dust, though it wicked right off of the man's immaculate clothing.

"Hello, madam. These are Mr. Jacoby's guests you appear to have been assaulting." He maintained eye contact as he brought up his other hand, swiping it across the back of his white glove, smoothing out any scuff marks and returning it to its spotless state.

Kael heard her click her tongue, as she appeared to recognize both the man and the name, not wanting to tangle with him after that demonstration. "Jacoby, then? Alright. We'll remember that."

He continued after a moment, "Your colleague appears to be in dire straits, facing off against Captain Eduardo. Perhaps you should reinforce him? Rather than bothering with innocent bystanders."

Her eyes rolled once more between the three young adults, stopping on the interloper, before she flipped around. "Right. Whatever. Fatso can't handle himself, so of course I have to bail him out again."

She started up her cartwheel once more, heading back the way she came.

Their well coifed savior turned to them, ignoring the retreating thief. "Excuse me, I'm here to deliver an invitation to speak with Mr. Jacoby. Assuming you three are the same who arrived via flying carriage, then interfered in the violent theft of Mr. Jacoby's property?"

"Ah." Gus glanced between Shaela and Kael, standing up fully as he crossed his arms and replied, "That was us."

Shaela hid a wince, then gestured to where the acrobat left the alley. "Sorry about that."

"It's no trouble at all, miss. I am rather difficult to injure."

"You're not going to stop her, though?" Shaela tilted her head, questioningly.

"Delivering you three - with minimal injury, might I add - to Mr. Jacoby takes higher priority than some petty thief, young miss." He tugged on his gloves, looking at the mess around the alley.

Shaela pursed her lips, but nodded at the reprimand.

He spoke again, this time to Kael. "And perhaps you should dissipate all the clouds you have conjured?" His finger twirled in the air, pointing upward. "They are rather conspicuous, wrapped around this section of the pillar."

This time it was Kael's turn to wince.

Once the man was sure the three of them were in a state fit to travel, he turned. "Shall we be away then?"