Arson walked through a palace with an open topped roof. Small domes of different sizes were laid with sporadic placements.
Dojos were held inside each dome, set up with stands outside, all distinguished by the symbols for the weapons or figures with stances on top, centered above the entrances. Attendants for each style being taught within waved various individuals from all races toward their own sectioned off area; small walls the only thing that divided the small schools.
Arson slowly combed through the awkwardly designed areas, feeling as if he trekked through a badly built maze. He found no images of a bow, but eventually found a target with an arrow sticking out from its center.
“Oh, wow…”
“Seconded,” Anastasia said from his wrist.
“Spatial buildings, right?” Arson asked listing his wrist to look at Anastasia. The AI nodded, and Arson walked back out of the dojo he’d entered to talk to the attendant, seeing no one inside.
“Is there an instructor or teacher that I should be able to find inside?”
“Yes, lad. He is off to the bathroom currently, but he said he would be back shortly, you can take a few shots while you wait if you’d like… not like you’ll hit anything,” said the attendant, mumbling the latter half of his statement. Arson’s brow furrowed, and he poked his head back in.
Inside was a large open area, the interior exceeding the dimensions of the domed dojo by far.
The targets that could be seen, were either moving, or stationary, and held at incredible elevations, positioned at nearly unseeable distances from the stage meant to take shots from. A stage that was completely empty of any students.
“Umm, why aren’t there any other students in here?” Arson asked, pulling his head from the doorway, and back toward the attendant outside. The young man there rolled his eyes, and slowly turned to Arson giving him a clear view of the attendant for the first time.
The young man looked Elvin, yet he had horns that appeared Draconic in nature. His tan skin glistened in the light and Arson took a step back when the young man licked his lips with his snake like tongue.
What, do I look like food or something to this guy…?
“You’re not from around here, are you? Never mind don’t answer that. Cultivators are rare here so I’m assuming you must be new,” said the attendant. Then he jutted a thumb toward the doorway and explained further, still occasionally licking his lips in Arson’s direction.
That’s going to take some getting used to…
“This is probably the hardest shooting range ever made beneath the heavens. In fact, it was inspired by a course made to train the children of gods how to play with bows and divine ranged weaponry.”
Arson went to try and ask how something like that was possible, only to watch the attendant roll his eyes and answer his unasked question as if he’d read Arson’s mind, leaving him to close his mouth and drop his raised finger to his side.
“You really are new, this place was pulled from the realms outside, its history was found by the first races to make it into the city, this place amongst a few others aren’t complete mysteries, and from what I can tell only a few people to enter this place have ever been able to hit targets. Now either go and try, or leave, I have better things to do than waste my time explaining things to a newbie.” The young man leaned back into the stand he stood behind, and Arson looked around once more. The other dojos were far more heavily trafficked from what Arson could see, but Arson wasn’t ready to give up, and reentered the shooting range.
“Hmm, that is odd,” Anastasia said randomly as Arson approached the stage that individuals were supposed to fire from.
“What’s up?”
“There are countless traps everywhere, my scans are picking up all kind of unknown mechanisms.”
“Should I be worried?”
“From what I can tell, none of them are pointed toward the platform you’ll be shooting from but I don’t know, bud. This entire place seems oddly build.”
Arson nodded to himself, and looked around once he stepped onto the stage. There was a black circle in the center of the stage that lit with runes the moment Arson stepped into the middle point, and one of the closest targets lit with a halo above itself, illuminating the first shot that should be attempted.
Hmm, seems easy enough.
Arson drew back on the bowstring, and his arrow formed. He took a deep breath, aimed, and fired once he felt he would hit his mark.
The arrow made it a mere three yards before a trap door opened. Flames erupted from the trap door,. Arson’s arrow wasn’t turned to ash, but his shot was sent wide, soaring well away from the target.
“Now that was garbage.”
Arson took another shot, allowing for more power to fill the arrow; in hopes that the arrow would be able to burst through the Sudden flame wall if it appeared again.
The shot pierced through the flames unhindered, and Arson celebrated, a moment too soon. A second trap door on the floor opened and some sort of grenade was lobbed directly into the arrows path.
The arrow punctured the explosive projectile and was forced to veer off completely under the force pushed out by the concussive blast.
“Seriously…?”
Arson fired shot after shot, and traps he would have never considered to be a hurdle were thrust in his direction. Spinning blades, water dropped from the ceiling, and even miniature tornados with incredibly dense winds ripped his shots from the air.
He tried many different tactics, only growing more frustrated with each failed shot. Firing multiple arrows at once. Overcharging his shots with immense amounts of mana, and even firing an arrow storm arrow, which had an insanely ineffective result.
Every arrow was stopped with an array of traps, which only showed Arson just how many obstacles he faced.
Rather than shoot at his target after a while, Arson started to shoot random arrows in any direction, just to see how the arrows would be stopped. Some of the traps shocked him, especially the series of hands that emerged from what he felt to be thin air, that snatched the arrows from the air, crushing them before disappearing completely.
“How in the sparks am I supposed to hit that thing…?”
…
Xani sat within the small repair shop where she worked. Her job in the Bronze sector of Maelstrom made her feel at odds with herself, but it paid the bills, which was currently good enough for her.
Her boss felt her to be far too talented for the work, but she didn’t know where else to go that would take her seriously.
She wanted to be an inventor, but without proper levels of training or schooling, none of the large operations in Maelstrom accepted her applications, all refusing to even give her interviews.
She was dedicated to not becoming like her brothers and sisters at the orphanage she was raised in. Most of them worked for the orphanage and never left to become greater, stuck in the simple lives given to them by the Orphan Mother.
The alarm that signaled someone had entered the shop chimed softly, pulling Xani away from her work, and a familiar face entered.
“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” Xani said, skipping any chance at a formal greeting and diving into the middle of the matters at hand.
“Maybe, you're an orphan like me right,” started the silver haired young man.
“My name is Khalif, I got your info from Jazz, she said you’ve fixed her flatscreen a handful of times, told me you could fix anything, that true?”
Xani looked the hooded young man up and down, taking in his streetwear, and the scars on his ungloved right hand, her mind darting to various directions which caused her to pause before answering.
“…I don’t know about anything, but most things don’t give me a hassle.”
“Well, I have a job for you if you are interested. Just need to know that you are okay with rebuilding black market products, old mana pistols, alarm scanners, maybe a Cracker…?”
Xani’s mouth dropped open but she closed it quickly not wanting to look like the shy, absolute nerd that she was and had been for the majority of her life. The familiar young man in front of her was asking her to potentially work on items that if traced back to her would immediately put graveyard on her back.
The mana pistols and alarm scanners were easy to both fix and make untraceable, but Crackers were a completely different story. The small black boxes were jammed packed with hacking codes, and built to shut down both electrical and runic security systems in a blink. If she was caught with one, she’d be imprisoned until her last breath. Yet…
“I’m interested, but what makes you think you can afford my services, working on a Cracker would be beyond expensive, I’m taking a lot of risk even looking at one, let alone fixing it?”
What in the bloody embers did you just say Xani, you can’t work on a sparking Cracker, do you even know how to, what is coming out of your mouth right now?
Even though the thought scared Xani to the point of near soiling her undergarments, she felt an odd sense of allegiance to the young man before her. His request made her want to not just fix his products, but make them better. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this excited to work on anything, but her heart was beating out of her chest and yet, she didn’t pale away from the work being sent her way in the slightest.
“I may hate what I do, but I’m rather good at it, I’ve saved enough to buy the Cracker, just need it operational and I’ll be able to complete jobs in higher sectors of the city, may seem small now, but if this works out, I’ll bring you more work,” Khalif said, extending his ungloved hand for Xani to shake. A hand Xani took eagerly as she smiled up at him.
“You’ve got a deal.”
…
Khalif left the shop, scratching his head as he made his way down the street. He’d expected the young woman Jasmine had described as hard to deal with to be far more closed off, and maybe even a little apprehensive.
That wasn’t supposed to be that easy, was it?
The more he thought, the more he wondered if he’d just met a graveyard undercover. Only to then dismiss the thoughts, gaining an overwhelming sensation through his entire mind that he could trust the young woman.
He’d felt in a daze for more than a fortnight, but the moment he saw Jasmine just earlier that day, he began to feel better. The fog clearing even more from his thought patterns after he’d talked to Xani.
Both young woman had only been inconsequential acquaintances in Khalif’s life for as far as he could remember. So why the brief interactions left him feeling as if he’d confirmed that members of his family that he’d assumed were dead, had just been found alive, was odd.
Just let it go Khalif, you have bigger issues, breaking into a graveyard vault is not going to be easy…
Khalif made his way toward a sewer entrance that he knew led toward one of the many entrances into the UnderCity. Though he’d paid for the Cracker, he still had to go and retrieve it from the leader of the Wretches.
The UnderCity gang leader was dangerous from what rumors Khalif had gathered during his search for a safe cracking device, but as he had no choice but to press on, under the duress of the demon that had nearly killed him and his gang, he felt this next meeting would be far easier than anything he’d gone through over recent days.
It wasn’t long until Khalif found himself transitioning through the shadows to arrive on one of many of the city beneath his hometown’s dilapidated rooftops. When he stepped from the shadows however, a multitude of things immediately went awry.
“You Khalif?”
A young woman turned around and Khalif’s eyes blurred, showing him two of the person before him. One version was dirty. Her hair was a mess of tangles and grease. While the second was completely different.
“What’s wrong with you? Why ya look like your about to vomit? You staring at my teeth punk, I’ve shot people for less, bra,” the young woman said slowly becoming enraged as Khalif stared. Not directly at her, but the vision of beauty next to her.
“No, I’m sorry, just never seen someone so beautiful,” Khalif said honestly, staring at the image just beside the gang leader. The face of the young woman filled him with a longing he couldn’t understand, almost as if his soul was reaching out to connect to a person who wasn’t real.
“Something broken in your head? Ain’t no beauties down in these parts of the realm, bucko, so stop staring before I beat you half to death and leave ya bleeding in the depths,” said both the gang leader and the well put together version of the young woman right beside her. The copy's brilliant smile taking Khalif’s breath away. He closed his mouth and slowly nodded, nearly incapable of not staring.
It's all in your head Khalif, just breathe and move on. He took a few moments with his eyes closed and took a handful of moments to balance himself.
“Hey weirdo, you might be cute and seem familiar but I don’t have all day, you want this sparking thing or not?”
Khalif nodded, slowly opening his eyes to see the gang leader extending her hand to him with a black box placed centered above her palm. The vision of beauty also extending her hand beside the gang leader, tempting Khalif to reach out and take her hand.
“Yeah, sorry,” said Khalif, walking over and taking the box.
“Seems my eyes are playing tricks on me…”
“Whatever, cutie. Stop staring so hard and I might let you kiss me one day.”
The gang leader froze, and shook her head as if to free her mind of unwanted thoughts.
“Why in the world of realms did I just say that…”
Khalif chuckled and smiled at her, only then realizing the fog that had plagued him for days was vastly improved. Even his core feeling different, almost as if his power had been locked away and it wasn’t until he’d seen this young woman that the limits of his soul were unlocked fully.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s not like I didn’t just call you gorgeous out of nowhere like what a few moments ago.”
“No, you called me beautiful. Now you're calling me gorgeous, are you sweet on me or something?”
Yes…
The intrusive thought shook Khalif, his soul knowing the thought to be true, even if it felt foreign to his mind. So without any further prompting the words that came out of his mouth next were a shock to them both.
“Yeah, love at first sight, right? You're probably going to be my wife one day…”
Both their cheeks reddened, and the young woman’s eyes went wide as her jaw dropped.
“What?”