Something different happened this weekend. Yabtin, who would be staying with us until the "rain season" ended, invited me to visit a more secluded marketplace than the bazaar. It was on floor fifty-seven and far from the lifts or stairways, though when we got there I could see why: everything sold here was what I would call artisan crafts. There were no goods from lands beyond the desert nor was there food or trinkets sold here, this place was a market for specially made items and devices by the local tradesmen of the elite.

I was equal parts amazed and perplexed by the bevy of mystery objects that lined the wide tunnel full of silently observant merchants. There were no cries declaring any of their goods as the best in the lands or as the finest of anything, just stoic crafters that knew the quality of their work and would wait for someone with an eye for fine things to come to them. I met the watchful eyes of many of them, and each one gazed deeply into my eyes as if reading my soul like an open book. Yabtin didn't seem to mind their stares, though I guess that was probably because he was a repeat customer here that was known by name. A few of the vendors greeted him like an old friend as we made our way to the far end of the passage.

The place my uncle had led me to boasted on an elaborate wooden sign that had the name "Bol-nan Trades" inlaid with a shiny brass trim and finish. He stopped before the door and clicked his claws nervously before pushing it open and stepping into the warehouse beyond. Everything about this place reminded me of the workshop from the suspended platforms and the ceiling height shelves to the metal plates nailed in place on the floor and walls.

Sitting behind the counter was someone my instincts and senses told me was a male kobold, but my eyes saw someone else. By every system of measure I was familiar with, I was looking at a three foot tall canine humanoid with dark brown fur, piercing aqua eyes, a pair of pointy ears and two horns that divided towards the end like a pronghorn. Certain details of this being were arguably kobold in nature, such as the thick tail, digitigrade legs, four fingers hands, and a few scales that were barely visible beneath the dense layer of fur and a pair of overalls. Whoever this person was, they paid no mind to us as we entered and instead continued counting a small tower of Skrats and making notes within a ledger.

Yabtin anxiously stepped forward, and I noted that he kept his hands behind his back with something hidden in his hands.

"Um… hey Rakyat, long time not seen."

A flash of irritation sparked at the furred kobold's brow as he snarled his response without looking up from his work.

"Yeah, it has been long time. Four months, I'd say. What are you after this time?”

A loud gulp was followed by a shaky response.

“I just here to show my niece your shop, maybe talk if you-”

“Nope.”

My uncle’s head drooped as he turned to leave, but when I turned to follow him there came an annoyed groan followed by a barely audible hiss.

“Stupid me…Fine! You stay while this girl looks around, but I won’t talk to you now. You need to fix your mistakes first.”

After nodding in defeated acknowledgment, Yabtin wandered over to the side and sat on a bench with his eyes cast down to the floor. I don’t know what history these two had, but this Rakyat seemed to be someone important to Yabtin, enough so that his anger caused a great deal of sadness. I looked the shopkeeper over trying to discern what their past could be when I suddenly realized that Bahruk mentioned that furred kobolds were from Velthii, the same city the two of them were from. Maybe they had a history that stretched the entire length of the continent.

He noticed my stare and swept his arm to the side in a grand gesture, his irritation vanishing in favor of a merchant’s facade.

“Welcome customer, feel free to browse my wares! I have many custom creations and devices to offer, as well as rare imports from The Second City. Take your time, and feel free to ask questions.”

Taking him up on his offer, I wandered the shelves of the store for an hour to understand what exactly his craft was. My interest grew with each item I inspected: clocks of every size, three unique puzzle cabinets of different complexities, an assortment of music boxes, and a row of spring loaded flint strikers that produced an impressive display of sparks. I moved further to the back of the building where I could see a source of light and a recognizable acrid smell. At the far wall was a single table, on which was the disassembled and neatly arranged internal mechanisms of a weapon of the same shape as Yabtin’s gun. As I got close I could hear hurried footsteps approaching me from behind, followed by the blur of brown fur placing itself between me and the table.

“Ey! Stay away from my stuff, you have no idea what this stuff is or what it goes to.”

Actually, I’m pretty sure I do, and I have the proof of such right here. See, Yabtin had told me beforehand that we would be visiting the person who maintained his gun, but he never mentioned that it might be the person who made it. I retrieved my detailed drawing of the gun and its internal mechanisms and runes for the huffy fuzzball, who looked at it for a whole three seconds before accepting it in his little hands. His eyes scanned the sheet, darted to Yabtin, then back to the sheet before finally looking at me.

“Oh, so maybe you do know what it is. Still keep your hands off it, okay? I have a system here and I don’t like it when people touch my stuff. Lemme read this, will ya?”

The shopkeeper looked the page over for a few moments as he compared my notes to the pile of parts on the table. His little whiskers twitched as he read my mentioning of better configurations of the ammo, and how to best deliver a lethal dose of high velocity lead death. His fascination was obvious as he looked at my sketches of pistol and rifle ammo at the bottom of the page.

“Holy sharks, you’re either crazy or genius, and I don't know which is better. You’re Yabtin’s niece, which means you’re the kid of that silly brother of his and the big lady he somehow hooked. What’s your name kid?”

I answered with my writing slate, which caused Rakyat to recoil.

“Eugh, that is one ugly piece of wood. Sorry… Kayrux, but you need to get a new plank sometime. Anyway, I do mean what I said about this “ammo” you have drawn here. Crazy or genius, depends on if it works or not.”

Don’t talk about my writing board like that, it has sentimental value that exceeds its crude appearance. Also, my ideas aren’t crazy because they’ve worked for humans well over a hundred years now, so boo on you. I crossed my arms with my slate to my chest and sulked a little about his rude comment. The furry gun-nut didn’t like the look I was making, and hopped up onto a stool so he could be at my height.

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“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset, I just don’t know when to shut my trap. I think one thing but my mouth just says whatever it wants, and sometimes I bite my own tail for not keeping my wagging tongue in check. Another thing, my earlier comment about your dad wasn’t an insult, he’s just a goofy guy, always has been.”

Hmm, do I stay mad at him or indulge my curious side? Both, both is good. If he wanted to get on my good side, he better spill some entertaining beans.

“Bahruk? No way.”

“Oh yeah, super weird guy when we were younger. Yabtin and Bahruk were a couple of tunnel dwelling no-furs with big imaginations and a severe dislike of the cold. I didn’t like the cold either, or having wet fur, or being called weird myself, so we got along perfectly. The three of us were a pack of our own: I was the brain, Bahruk was the other brain, and Yabtin was the charm. I’d break down every thingie or whatsie that Yabtin could get his hands on, and Bahruk would take all the parts and jam them together until it did something. We caused a lot of trouble with our mechanical mishaps, but we always got away with it in the end. Good times.”

It sounds like they had a great time in their youth. One thing was still bothering me, something that neither my father nor uncle had really gone into detail about: why did they leave? From the sounds of it, Velthii was the best city for aspiring inventors and machinists, having an overabundance of iron and gold as well as being situated in a cold biome with access to the largest trade road in the land. Why did they come here?

“They haven’t said anything about that. I have to ask, why did you all leave?”

My question seemed to disturb him a little. His fingers idly squished a spring against the table while he answered.

“It’s a stupid story, but one I can look back on fondly. All three of us wanted to leave, but we were just a bunch of broke kids with no jobs or skills. Bahruk gets this idea of us signing on aboard a merchant convoy going East, so we scurry on over to the surface city and find a spot on this big merchant ship, but the damn thing was actually going South. We wound up in Phavina and had to prove our worth as tinkers until another chance came for us to go East to Alkyth by wagons. Had to sleep with both eyes open with how many dangerous beasts came after us in the night. Our final leg of the journey, which wasn’t even where we planned on stopping, was through the desert to Terokos. Yabtin and I wanted to keep going and cross the sea, but Bahruk went and fell in love with this big strong woman that kept watch in the market. We stayed here to support him, and even after all these years it’s still been the same.”

Wow. You’d have to be pretty ride or die for your friends to leave everything behind on a one way trip across the world, especially if right out of the gate you wind up going the wrong way and have to take the long way around through two other cities. Considering how the two scaled kobolds acted around each other and all of the dumb things they did, I wasn’t surprised they’d do something like that. I would probably find out at some point that all three of them hide their inner dumbass, but when put together there isn’t a single coherent thought shared between them. I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling at the absurdity of it.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty stupid, I know. Get this, back then we gave Bahruk such a hard time about that blunder, so much that he hid inside a barrel for the whole voyage to the jungle lands. There was also this other time that Yabtin and I went on our own to go and find a lost horse in the plains, only to get trapped in some old ruins when a doom owl came to gobble us down. Oh, oh, and later on I had to save them from a tar pit with nothing but a cartload of hardtack bread, and when I finally got them out they had lost all the scales on their lower halves! It was so embarrassing!”

The maniacal little man had fallen into a fit of uncontrollable laughter as he nearly doubled over trying to catch his breath, and I was no better off with how hard my own sides were aching. I never knew how much I had needed to hear that until now, and I was thoroughly satisfied with the knowledge that there were dumbass genes lurking somewhere in our family. No wait, I’d always known they were there. Yabtin literally introduced himself to us hatchlings by sticking his head through a window and almost having his head reformed in the shape of mom’s fist. Just thinking about it made me wheeze more than before.

“No, you're not telling about the tar pit again, are you?”

Yabtin had left his sad corner of the warehouse sized store and leaned against one of the racks. Rakyat’s laugher dried up in seconds as he registered who had spoken. He turned to face him, but his eyes stayed glued to the floor.

“Yeah, I am. It’s funny. What, are you gonna whine about how shameful the story is?”

Yabtin scratched behind his horns for a moment, then shrugged.

“Nope. You’re right, it’s funny. Did you tell her about the sand rats?”

Rakyat’s hostility spun again into glee as he swiveled to face me.

“That’s a good one! We were just entering the desert when we saw an oasis. Our guards said to stay away, but we were confused by the heat and went after it anyway. We ran into a patch of cactus, and in it were these big rats that attacked us. Yabtin and Bahruk were fine because of the scales, but my fur was completely ruined! Hoo, that took months to grow back, and the entire time I healed I kept getting gawked at because of the bald patch they put on my back.”

As soon as he was done telling his story he snapped back to Yabtin with the same scorn. This guy was an emotional roulette wheel, and unlike my boss Vynrashu these were genuine emotions he was cycling through.

“Why are you talking to me? I’m still mad at you.”

My uncle fidgeted around as he tried to make his answer known.

“I know. I messed up, and you were likely worried sick. I could have come see you, but I got too busy with the lesser elders and their whims and the awful things that were happening to Bahruk’s kids.”

The ears atop the shopkeeper’s head drooped as he heard that sentence. His beady eyes flicked around the floor rapidly, his mind piecing together a puzzle I couldn’t see. Eventually he reached his epiphany, and he jumped back from me in shock.

“Curse! You! How? I thought that they couldn’t…but you’re…I’m confused. Someone explain.”

…

Yabtin had finished explaining everything, and Rakyat’s eyes were dancing across the floor again.

“That’s too much to take in. Curses, altars, rituals, you and your brothers being alive, the war is coming, and you’re actually a reborn on top of it all. I take back what I said before Yabtin, I’m not mad at you, I’m surprised you haven’t lost your head from all of this. Sharks on land, this is just insane.”

Yabtin patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“Yep. It’s crazy. I’m sorry to overwhelm you with this, do you need your medicine?”

His fuzzy ears flopped around as he shook his head. His face was a mixture of confusion and frustration, and his hands tugged at the strap of his overalls. The purple kobold pulled up a seat beside him and scratched at the back of his neck, which caused the strained look he wore to lessen until he had lost it completely.

“You good Rakky?”

“I’m good Yabby, you can stop that.”

The two refused to make eye contact, though I had begun to understand why. I wasn’t going to pry into their personal affairs or the way Rakyat behaved, even if I was secretly curious about such things. For now I could only be respectful and mind my boundaries. I wanted to give them some time alone, so I made my way over to the last row of boxes and crates against the wall farthest from them. As I walked away, there was another hitching feeling from fate, though this one was much quieter than with the others it had happened with.

No more secrets, I want to know the truth. I was now isolated from the other occupants of the building, so I could safely lean back against one of the shelves and look into my mana source to see if there was something going on. Nothing. Alright, let’s set up a few sensors and try and track the lingering dopamine I was feeling. Still nothing. Crap, now it’s gone. Well, if there was anything I learned it was that the feeling wasn’t tied to magic in any detectable way, so that ruled out setting up a series of runes just to observe those random fate moments.

I slid against the shelf until I was in a half squat pose atop my tail. Okay, so now Rakyat is part of the “altered by destiny” roster, but I still had no clue as to why the were becoming linked. Was it because I helped them, or that my influence was somehow pulling them along with me? The more I sat and pondered it, the less clear the whole thing became. It almost felt as though there was something put in place to keep me from looking into how this system worked, and I couldn’t tell if I was the cause or if some outside factor was at play. Ugh, and here I thought I would be less stressed out now that I had trusted my family with the truth.

I dragged my claws along my eyelids gently enough as to not damage myself but enough to pull my eyes open. I hate cults, I hate fate, I hate feeling lost, and I hate…wait, what is that peeking out of that crate over there? Is that a typewriter? Oh hell yeah, it's a typewriter!