I spend the night sitting on the chair, pushed over against the door and as far away from Zyneth’s bed as I can manage. Watching Zyneth sleep would be creepy (ignoring the fact I did that while in ink-bottle form the first night we met, but ink-bottle Kanin was wary and gets a pass), so I spend the time practicing writing and playing with the small handful of spells I have at my disposal.
Now that I don’t have the Void stat to worry about—still sitting at 100%, as usual—I can experiment with my spells at will. For instance, I’ve found that if I feed just a tiny bit of mana into the Lightbeam spell, it merely creates a small beam of light, as the name implies, instead of a deadly laser. Which is probably how the spell is intended to be used in the first place. I use some of my signing glass to create the Lightbeam, which I point into a corner by the door so as not to wake Zyneth, then use some more glass to see if I can block and dim the light. Maybe reflect it back on itself. I create a sort of mini disco-ball shape after a minute of fiddling around, and after another minute of playing with this, trying to make it smaller, dimmer, and more controlled, I’m greeted with a familiar voice.
[New Spell obtained,] Echo says. [Glow, Level 1: Create a small ball of illumination. Mana cost: Adjustable. 1 mana per minute at the dimmest setting.]
Nice, with 56 mana at my disposal, I can keep this spell going for almost an hour. The light glowing from my cluster of glass is softer, dim, and more uniform than the previous scattering of light. It’s not focused in one direction, like Lightbeam, but this one is a lot more mana-efficient.
I don’t unlock any other spells or skills the rest of the night. I’m not exactly sure how the whole process works, but it seems like there’s three ways I can learn them. The first is innate knowledge that I have to dig out of Echo. The Attune, Sculpt, and Chain spells all came from me asking the right questions and prompting Echo in the right ways to get her to reveal what spells I could already do by default. The second is through my Arcane Intuition skill. This lets me automatically learn new spells that I read from a spell book, if I study and read them long enough, but just because I know a spell doesn’t mean I have the supplies, mana, or other prerequisites to use it. (In fact, I’ve already read both my spell books cover to cover a few times now, and “learned” every spell I could, though many can’t even be activated by my type of magic, and the rest are all concerned with forging homunculus cores, which I have exactly 0 interest in.) And finally, it seems, just playing around with my magic, practicing a new application repeatedly enough, can unlock the occasional ability, like this new Glow spell.
Too bad the last option is complete trial and error, and more often than not all I turn up is error.
Like writing, for instance. I spend a good two hours trying to scratch out the alphabet and some simple words Noli has taught me, but despite having a supposed Foreign Language skill (up to level 4 now, I might add,) I’m absolutely lousy with written words. That translator thing better work.
I spend the last couple hours before dawn examining my void joints and fixing up my glass. Bits of the glass on my feet have chipped away from stubbed toes and kicked pebbles. Forget clothes, I could really use some shoes. I don’t have any more glass to pull from my inventory—let alone an inventory I can access anymore—so I make do by Sculpting some glass away from different parts of my body to patch up the sections on my feet. While I’m at it, I also redistribute some of the glass from my torso, which I don’t really use anyway, to my legs, which are supporting most of my weight and taking the majority of the load. I feel a little bottom heavy as a result, but it helps with balance and, you know, not ending up with more broken legs. I’ll have to grab some more glass from somewhere tomorrow.
Zyneth finally wakes up with the dawn, and I pay careful attention to the wall as he gets dressed and ready for the day. We check out of the room and I accompany him to the pub, where I get to twiddle my thumbs as he eats breakfast. I would typically try to hide my jealousy when it comes to meal time, although, given Zyneth’s grimace as he picks through a sludgy bowl of the inn’s gruel, for once I’m perfectly happy not to partake.
“Got your token?” he asks when we finally make our way back to the telepad.
I hold up the small carved stone.
“Good. You understand how this works?”
“Yes.” Step on the pad when it’s our turn. It’s not exactly rocket science.
“Right.” He steals a worried glance at me. I guess the lack of eyes makes it hard to tell that I’m still looking at him.
“What?” I ask. “Is something wrong?”
He hesitates. “I’m concerned for your wellbeing.”
“Why?” I ask. “This isn’t new.” I’ve used a telepad with him before. I’d been worried about the predator then, when it was still Between, but now that it’s trapped in my inventory, I should have even less to worry about.
“Your mental wellbeing,” Zyneth amends. “I’ve no doubt you’ll make it through without mishap, however I understand how these sorts of events can… resurface dark memories.”
Literally dark, in this case. But he’s worrying over nothing. “I’m fine,” I assure him. “I’m excited.” Looking forward to it, even. It finally feels like I’m making steps in the right direction. Like I’m making progress. “Will we go to the library first?”
“In Miasmere? No,” Zyneth says. “Actually, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Originally, I’d hoped we would arrive yesterday, and I would have had time this morning to show you to the library before I needed to attend to my errands.” There’s a strange weight in that last word, and he fleetingly rubs a hand over his arm, where the tattoo is likely still burning beneath his sleeve. “However, with the compressed schedule, I’ll need to go there directly. I would prefer if you didn’t come with, but the alternative is to leave you unattended in Miasmere, which I find equally disagreeable.”
“I’m not a child,” I sign. “I can be left alone without—” okay, maybe falling apart wouldn’t be the best word choice there. “—without getting into any trouble.”
Zyneth squints at my signs, seeming to miss some of them, but able to gather enough to appear unimpressed regardless. “If you got lost, where would you go?”
“I’d ask for help,” I say, switching back to simpler signs for Zyneth’s benefit.
“And if they don’t know signs?” he asks.
Oh yeah. Welp. “No time to get that translator first?”
“No.” Zyneth sighs. “But you’re right. This should be your choice. If you’d rather brave Miasmere on your own, I’d advise you to stick close to the telepad and wait for me there once we cross over. I can come retrieve you after my business is complete.”
I hesitate. At least I’m being given the choice. But I hate to admit he’s right: this isn’t visiting a city in a different state, this is a whole different planet I’m dealing with. I can’t communicate with most of them, and now that I’m not a glass bottle that can hide in alleyways, I’m going to be far more conspicuous.
I shake my head. “No. You’re right. I’ll come with you.” I’m deathly curious about these suspicious jobs he’s doing, anyway.
“Good,” Zyneth says with a breath of relief. But his forehead is still pinched with worry. “However, you’re not to say—or sign—a word if you accompany me. Don’t react to anything anyone says. Don’t touch anything. As far as they know, you really are a homunculus construct and nothing more. Understand?”
I see we’re back to treating me like a child. “I can behave.”
He looks at me skeptically.
“What? I can!” I insist. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Alright,” he says, though he still doesn’t appear convinced. “Just… please be careful. And I realize the hypocrisy in saying this to a glass homunculus with a knack for causing scenes, but please try not to draw any attention to yourself.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“I don’t do it on purpose,” I sign.
“I know.” We step out into the square where merchants and travelers have gathered to wait for their time slot at the telepad. “That’s what worries me.”
----------------------------------------
We appear in Miasmere and the roar of the city hits me all at once. White marbled stone rises in spires all around us, shouts and the clatter of city life ricocheting from every direction. The marketplace is colorful and crowded, though a dominant motif of blue and gold highlights the white backdrop like a bright sky day.
There are more people here—different kinds, I mean. Zyneth’s cambion species seemed to be fairly rare in the towns I’d previously visited, with only him and Attiru as examples of his species I’d seen until now. But the familiar red forms fill the crowds of Miasmere, along with several new species I’ve never seen before. Echo identifies one terrifying group of people, with a human upper-half growing out of a horse-sized spider's body, as arachnoids. On the less creepy side of the spectrum are nereids, gilled people who shimmer with an opalescent impression of scales, and dryads, whose skin appear wooden and whose hair cascades with vines and flowers.
There are other less-common species I recognize from Harrowood and Bluevine, but I guess even with telepads some groups of people tend to be more regional. I wonder how long this world has used these telepads for casual travel and trade.
Zyneth steps off the telepad without looking back, and I follow him. I’m not thrilled with playing the part of Manservant, but my curiosity outweighs my indignance. Even with the conversation about his past he and I’d had a few nights prior, I can tell there’s still plenty he’s not disclosing. Is it nosy of me to go fishing for more clues? I mean, yeah, absolutely. But that’s hardly enough to dissuade me.
I gawk at the city as we weave through its streets; it’s obviously several times bigger than Harrowood. Not just from the density of the crowds and diverse species, but the height of the buildings around us, and how I can catch glimpses of more of the city’s towers even in the distance. Not medieval type towers I’d expect to see on a castle, but great, spiraling, artistic spires: a testament to prosperity and wealth more than conquest.
But as we weave through the streets, our surroundings begin to shift. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. The shops and crowds don’t seem too different. It’s not that the streets have become grimy or dark. But there’s a tension in the air that I hadn’t noticed back in the telepad square. Now the glances that come my way aren’t filled with curiosity, but suspicion.
I resist the urge to ask Zyneth about it. He asked me not to draw attention to myself, and signing to Zyneth while I’m supposed to just be a dumb robot would probably achieve that. I can keep my hands still for an hour. How hard could it be?
Finally we stop outside a ramshackle shopfront not far from the docks. I can’t see the ocean, but I can hear the distant roar of waves and shrill cries of seabirds, and I’d like to think the sticky streets are from saltwater rather than less desirable fluids. For the first time since entering Miasmere, Zyneth turns and looks at me. There’s a hint of anxiety in his eyes, which surprises me. He opens his mouth to say something, then perhaps thinks better of it, instead signing a hasty and barely intelligible, “Ready?”
I’m starting to understand Rezira’s frustration with my early attempts at signing. “Yes.”
Without another word, he knocks three times—with a stutter in the middle; some kind of code?—then lets himself in.
Our super mysterious operation takes us into the front room of what appears to be a bait and tackle shop. Fishing gear is crammed into the front window and along mismatched shelves. There’s harpoons, buckets of bait, lines, lures, and plenty of strange devices I’ve never seen before. Even the objects I can identify are altered in peculiar ways, with runes or spell circles carved into the surface of many.
The back counter is empty, so I wander over to a wall to get a closer look at the array of items. Wasn’t exactly expecting my first venture into the shady underground of magical society to take me to a fishing hut. A framed picture, yellowing and askew, is jammed between two shelves in one of the few empty slots of the wall. The picture features a small group of people, mostly nereids, standing in front of an exotic metal ship that looks like it swam right out of the movie Atlantis. There’s a hand-scribbled note on the bottom, which Echo is miraculously capable of translating to “2nd Emrox Expedition.”
“What’s this?” I sign to Zyneth, seeing as we’re still alone, and he’s agitatedly fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt. Being here clearly bothers him, so a distraction could do him good.
Zyneth glances at the picture. “One of Gillow’s early missions, I suspect. Probably when they were going on jobs instead of assigning them.”
A figure emerges from the back room as he’s speaking. “Ah, the glory days.”
They’re a nereid, skin covered in a shimmer of purple-grey scales, blue fins fanning at their neck. Their lips peel back to reveal a pointed-tooth smile, and their eyelids blink sideways as they take the both of us in.
I do the same with a quick Check.
[Name: Gillow]
[Species: Nereid]
[Class: Aquatic Mechanic]
[Level: 39]
[HP: 115/115]
[Mana: 840/840]
“Why, if it isn’t the aristocrat!” they say, sneering at Zyneth. “Taken to talking to yourself now, hm? I see all the pressure’s finally gotten to you. Dig the new servant. Is that a present from Mother?”
Their words are laced with venom. There’s a mocking emphasis placed on aristocrat, and I detect something derisive in Mother as well. Zyneth glowers, but does not acknowledge either of the taunts.
“You have a new job for me?” he asks, stepping away from the wall. I try to casually follow after him, but Gillow’s eyes still briefly flick over me when I move.
“What, no small talk?” they say, leaning on the counter as they casually drum their webbed fingers against the wood. Each claw sticks slightly in the surface before it’s pulled away. Gillow’s a whole head shorter than Zyneth, but somehow that only makes them seem more dangerous, like a snake coiled and ready to strike. “I could regale you about those voyages to Emrox. I still have the sub, you know. They were quite lucrative jobs, but people stopped signing up when only one in ten ships ever made it back.”
Zyneth rolls up his shirt sleeve until the lowest most tattoo is showing. It’s still faintly glowing. “If you have nothing to offer, then we can consider your summons fulfilled, and I’ll be taking my leave.”
Gillow sighs. “Always were a stick in the mud. Alright.” They flick a finger toward Zyneth, and the tattoo leaps from his arm. Now hovering in the air between them, the snake unravels into its individual lines, then reforms into a new shape: a scroll.
“Three jobs,” Gillow says, words appearing on the glowing, transparent scroll as they speak, as if written by an invisible quill. “First, a retrieval assignment. A relic in Mount Carmine. Might be to your elemental disposition, eh?”
Zyneth frowns as he taps on the spell, scrolling through the words written there too quickly for me to read over his shoulder.
“No?” Gillow says, though Zyneth hasn’t given any indication he’s uninterested that I can tell. “The second one is intel. One of my personnel went missing three weeks ago. They were working on a job at the Athenaeum. Find where they’ve ended up and who put them there.”
Not bring them back alive, I notice. I shiver at the implication, and once again Gillow glances toward me. I freeze. I’m not supposed to react to anything.
Their eyes return to the scroll. “Last, an escort mission. You’d be serving as a guard for a client who is traveling to Wengon. I know relic retrieval is your typical M.O., but frankly I put out the job call now because we need more guards for this last one. The client—”
“I’ll take the second one,” Zyneth interrupts. “Intel. I need to stay in town for a while. That job will suffice.”
Gillow raises an eyebrow. “Intel it is.” The spell snaps back in on itself, spiraling into the shape of a snake once more and settling back on Zyneth’s arm. The snake’s mouth snaps open and closed as it circles around itself, replacing one a sliver of gold with black ink instead: perhaps the amount of his debt which will be erased once the job is complete. He still has half the snake to go.
“As for the details,” Gillow starts, but Zyneth stops them again.
“Perhaps we should discuss that somewhere more private,” he says.
Gillow laughs. “Private? It’s only the two of us.” They look at me, and unease creeps through my glass. I try my best to remain perfectly still. “Unless you’re worried your pretty little minion over here is listening in. It’s not really from your mum, is it?”
It’s a struggle not to squirm under their sharp gaze. Their eyes seem to burrow into me. Do they know? When Zyneth told me to play dumb, I wasn’t entirely sure why he wanted to keep my circumstances a secret from these people. But right now I feel like I’m staring down a shark, and I think I’m starting to catch a hint of why Zyneth was so nervous with the idea of me tagging along.
“No,” he says shortly. “I am merely concerned with remaining covert.”
Gillow snorts. “Ain’t no way to remain covert with a homunculus like that following you around.” But they return their gaze to Zyneth. I relax—just a fraction. “Are you ready or not?”
Zyneth clearly doesn’t want to be having this conversation in front of me, but it’s also clear he can’t push it any further without casting more attention—and suspicion—onto me. He sighs. “Let’s get on with it.”
Gillow laces their fingers together. “Excellent. The missing individual is Ossina, one of my runners. She’s a nereid, blue-toned, scar on her left jaw. Disappeared while investigating rumors of a Glade relic thought to be kept beneath the Athenaeum. Either Yedzaquib has her, or a rival organization. She had a run-in with the Eels a few days before she vanished. I’m looking for answers within a week.”
“A week is hardly time to perform thorough reconnaissance,” Zyneth objects.
“It’s plenty of time,” Gillow says. “You’re looking for a missing thug, not the Queen of Carmine. Besides.” They give Zyneth a wink. “If you can’t complete it, I’ve plenty of other jobs in the queue. And you’ll be chipping away at this debt for some time.”
Zyneth looks like he’s just eaten a gym sock. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” Gillow says, all smiles. “If you don’t need me to write it down, that’s all I’ve got. You two have a good day, now.”
Shoulders tense, steps purposeful, Zyneth turns on his heels and heads back out the front door. I follow after, playing the dutiful servant, as a chill runs down my spine. I can’t help it—as I reach the door, I cast one glance back at Gillow.
They’re watching me. They smile and wave when they catch me looking, and I quickly step outside and close the door behind me.
You two have a good day, they’d said. Not just addressing Zyneth, but the both of us.