We didn't end up actually collecting the bounty on the cat things - or not in cash, anyway. Smaller towns didn't use coins between locals, instead having some sort of treasurer they'd go to if needed for travelers or merchants. Since we were still feeling so secure with our funds from the Duminere deal, we instead collected on the bounty in community credit which in this case took the form of partying for a whole day with the people of the town.

We got treated like heroes, and woke up with hangovers - not from the alcohol, which was very mild, but from some sort of recreational drug called Hudai blossoms which someone in town grew themselves. Katrin assured me it was totally normal and not addictive, all while looking deeply amused at the idea anyone would have a problem with it. "It's a party," she said, "do you not have parties on Earth?"

"I mean, yeah. And this kind of thing absolutely is involved sometimes. But... I don't know, normally people just drink alcohol. Especially with like... kids around, or when it's more public. Most drugs aren't really socially acceptable in the same way."

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Alcohol is fine in moderation, I suppose, but if you're looking to get more than very slightly tipsy it's a terrible way to go about it. No wonder you were so out of it after eating the food in Xeyul."

I tried to protest that the fey food was both unexpected and extremely potent, but I didn't actually care. I also didn't have any moral objections to celebrating by getting wasted, and with it being a cultural norm and them having people who used magic to engineer plants it made sense it would be fairly safe. Anyway, I couldn't argue about the alcohol part - that incident when I was twelve turned me off of it pretty hard.

Everyone was still a little fuzzy when the time came to get back on the road, but a few townsfolk made a point of stumbling over and seeing us off with some fresh hot rolls stuffed with bacon and eggs. Thankfully it was very filling, because when we finally stopped for lunch it turned out Elba had left our best cookpot behind. I got a strange vibe from her about it despite her claiming to be sorry, so I ended up stewing over it trying to decide if I'd said something to her while stoned that had made her want to ditch the pot as some sort of revenge. I hadn't been all that out of control though, just giggly and so relaxed I kept sliding out of chairs and onto the ground. I chalked it up to a random mistake, but Elba started to have more of those as we traveled; over the course of the next five days she had an increasingly frustrating string of "accidents" that lost or destroyed more of our equipment.

Otherwise the journey was uneventful, with only one attack from a monster - even that was a bit anticlimactic since the monkey-like creature had been slammed brutally against a tree by Shitheel's battering-ram head the second it arrived. The wretched thing had been maimed so badly before we reached it that killing the creature had been a matter of mercy rather than combat. Errod had seen one before - caged by a trapper - and he said they had the ability to make people go into seizures with just a touch. If it had tried that move on Shitheel during that one brief moment they were in contact it didn't take.

On a logical level, I was thrilled that Shitheel had directed his aggression in a productive way for once and of course wouldn't have wanted to deal with a rampaging seizure-monkey. But I also realized that some little part of me was disappointed because with the last few weeks being so relaxed I was starting to get back into my "holy shit I'm in a fantasy world" mode, and killing monsters was supposed to be part of that. I didn't want to potentially get eaten by a dragon, but I did want to be able to say I fought a dragon and won.

At any rate, I knew I would be regretting my desire to fight monsters soon enough - supposedly the deeper into the wilderness you went the more you would come across, and once Elba was dropped off we expected to head into seriously dangerous territory to speed up our training. I would probably end up wishing we were back on a nice road between cities where things like seizure monkeys or invisible cat things were noteworthy rather than a daily occurrence by the end of the first week camping out.

Katrin and I spent a lot of time trying to do a doomed science experiment; the two of us both had Comprehension as a gift, and were trying to as perfectly as possible call up the same exact ability. There was no way we could confirm it was the same, of course, but the hope was that it would give us some common point of comparison for how much potential things cost and therefore how much we were building it up. This was all because Katrin suspected I was building potential a bit faster than I should be, and it was frustrating her that there was no way to tell.

Even if she was right - and I was starting to think she was - we didn't have a guess as to why. There were just too many variables; was it because I was from a low-mana world, or something else about Earth, or because I had three Dumines, or...? Regardless, I'd decided to let it build up for a while. Nothing I wanted was urgent, and I needed to see what magic items we could obtain in case that changed my choices.

The weather was getting hot, and when we finally got close enough to see the walls of Sentortzi there was a heat shimmer in the air. The farmlands surrounding the city were of a type I'd seen before, with the plants growing on huge vertical scaffolding towers, but I barely spared any of it a glance because I was busy squinting at the city proper in the distance. "Are those skyscrapers? Is that - holy fuck is that an airship? Guys. Guys. We talked about skipping this city? Really?"

Errod shrugged. "Well we're trying to get a kidnapped little girl home to her family, so..."

I flapped a hand at him dismissively. "Right. Yes. Very important. But this is an actual huge city with at least two airships flying over it. And that little girl lost or ruined half our shit. Besides, it's not that far out of our way."

He smiled, clearly not actually bothered by the detour. "I suppose with no magic airships must be almost impossible on Earth."

"Hah! No, we have shitloads of them. Faster, too."

Errod's brow scrunched up. "You've said you can't manipulate gravity, and you can't tap into the alternate laws of the other planes... oh, I heard some use a different sort of air that makes things float? That's not magic, right? But you need people with the Fabrication gift to make that sort of air I thought..."

"Yeah, that's like... helium, or hydrogen. You can get it without magic... somehow? I think I kinda know how to make hydrogen from water in theory, but I don't know about helium. Anyway, we don't normally use those for airships anymore. Now most of them... hang on."

I hopped down off the bench and into the wagon so I could grab a souvenir that had ridden around in my things since our escape from Theramas - a wrinkled paper airplane. I did my best to straighten it out and threw it towards Errod. It went towards him well enough, but then pulled a sudden nose dive into the ground at his feet. "Like that, kind of. Just wings that are shaped right to fly, and then rather than a hand pushing it you use... uh... well you know how lamp oil can kind of explode if it gets sprayed into the air?"

Errod winced, and looked at his feet. "Yes. I'm familiar."

"Well, we use explosions to push the airships along. And if you build it right, and you have something way more volatile than lamp oil, then you can get even really big heavy airships to fly without magic."

"You fly... with explosions. That sounds insane."

"Man, it would blow your mind to hear about how many explosion-powered vehicles are zipping around all the time on Earth. The cars alone... that's a whole thing we can get into another time. For now... why the fuck haven't I seen airships here before? I mean, unless you count the little basket thing that took us down into the Necropolis, which I absolutely don't."

"They're expensive to use, and just generally not needed. People fly with magic all the time, but they do it for just themselves and a handful of others. For larger groups you have teleportation circles if it's an emergency, and if it's not an emergency you can take a shortcut through one of the other planes or... why not ride an animal? Airships are mainly only used to carry freight over difficult areas - we're right between the mountains we just passed through and the Tundren Ridge, where the land drops off very steeply into some canyons before leveling off. So probably they're using the airships to get down to... well I'm not sure what city is closest. But it's just for those short trips, between the two places so they don't need to take narrow, winding roads up and down each way. You haven't seen airships because most of the roads we've traveled are along nice wide valleys where you can use boats or wagons without any difficulty."

Katrin chimed in. "There are other airships, for military use or for certain special cases. Back before Brinkmar fell they were more common for general travel, but without the mana batteries they exported it's not worth it. In legends the Twelve Families of Enimondoa used spirit barges, which were airships pulled by gigantic creatures that could fly between planes."

"Well we're rich now, and I want a private jet. I'm going to see what they cost, and if it's too much I'll go hunt down one of those spirit monsters or... I don't know, tie some balloons to Shitheel and see if those pathetic little arms can flap us somewhere."

But as we got closer to the city the airships became less impressive and I could see Errod was right; they were just barges, basically floating platforms stacked with crates. It was still badass, but a far cry from the standard steampunk fantasy airships I'd been briefly hoping for. The sky scrapers came into clearer view as well, but those remained at least as amazing as at first sight. The bulk of them looked to be around twelve stories high, and many had little bridges connecting them. So sure, maybe not really "sky scrapers" but considering most of the structures I'd seen since arriving were three or four stories at most it was extremely cool to see a big cluster of towers like that.

The majority were topped with polished copper domes or pyramids, but they otherwise weren't uniform - it wasn't like the crazy mismatched buildings of Good Charl, but there was still a large variety of materials and styles on display. Heading down the hill and past the farms took another hour, but then we were standing before the massive city walls. There were guards, sort of, but they seemed to be focused primarily on directing traffic - it was clear they weren't expecting to have to fight anyone, and in fact the city gates had been open so long that plants had grown up around them. If anyone was even remotely concerned with fortifying the city it wasn't anyone important.

Katrin got directions to somewhere we could park the wagons, and we paid some attendants to feed and wash down the moskar. I whispered a plan to her and while she rolled her eyes some she did it: waving her hands and causing small lights to appear in the air, she did a mock magical ritual over the wagons before telling me - in earshot of the stable hands - that the wagons were "secured". I figured it would make them less likely to root through our things, though the most valuable items were extremely well hidden.

Katrin dragged me back to where Errod was standing when she saw me starting to wander off. "Even if we decide to stay longer, we should try to get the important things done right away. Errod, I've made a list of supplies we'll need. Can you take Elba with you for that while Katrin and I do some shopping for magic items? Get her lunch too, it's almost time. We'll meet back at the wagons to make sure everything is put away properly, and then get a hotel for the night. Tomorrow we can hopefully spend some time at the university library, and depending on what we decide at that point we can either travel in the afternoon, or stay another night and leave first thing in the morning. If we need to find you sooner, Callie can follow the thread that leads to you. You know which one it is? Good."

I felt a teeny twinge of rebellion, some random urge to resist Katrin taking charge. After dismissing the thought, it took another moment to look back and realize how dumb that was - I didn't want to be in charge. I wanted to go magic item shopping, which is what she said we'd be doing. She was literally just taking care of the talking and organizing bit, which I hated. We headed out into the crowd - while it wasn't all that dense, the people were moving with more purpose than I'd seen in Theramas, or Good Charl, or Erathik. The Necropolis had been the only other place I saw this many people actually We got the last few details sorted, and headed out. Katrin complained about the mana some as we walked - now that she could sense it, the sudden drop as we walked through the gates had caught her off guard.

"I know it's just from so many people living together, but I thought it would feel more like the road did."

"That much worse?"

"There's none. Not a single speck of ambient mana. If the walls weren't warded they probably would have drained the countryside for miles around, too. Thankfully we'll still regenerate some from our connection to the other planes via our minds and souls, but it'll be significantly slower so we shouldn't use any if we don't need to."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

So of course I immediately used some mana. It wasn't like I needed to hold onto it - I didn't have any abilities that would matter in an emergency anyway - and I just had to know how the threads looked in a densely packed city. Would I even be able to follow one to Errod with so many things competing for attention? But instead, when I turned it on there was practically nothing. "What the actual fuck?"

"What's wrong?"

"There's no threads. Well, that's a lie. It's hard to see the little ones that disappear right away, and I do see a few of them right now. But the longer ones, like the threads connecting us and Errod? Nothing. Okay wait, that guy had one. But... that's it. Why the fuck do I have so many of these things, and nobody else has any? You have some, and Errod, even Elba has one - and in this whole crowd, I'm just... every now and then as we walk I catch a glimpse of one either on a person or just... strung across the street. But it's barely any."

I'd been too busy partying to didn't check in that last town, I should have but we were partying and... hmm." we were still walking, weaving through the crowd and headed towards the part of town we'd been told would have magic items shops. "Maybe I need to know them better? But no, because some people do have them. Plus I saw some just... in the sky, or stretching across our path from somewhere. So that's not it."

"Well, we can try to access the university library tomorrow morning. I'm not sure how much they'll charge, but it probably won't be too bad. There has to be something there that can tell us more."

A movement caught my eye, but it happened too fast to be sure what it was. I stopped dead, almost causing someone to bump into me - they cursed at me and I flipped them off, which didn't mean anything here although I decided they'd be able to guess. Katrin took a moment to realize I wasn't with her, but I didn't say anything. I was too busy looking around. It wasn't a person, and it was close. I'd been looking around for more threads, and... wait."

"Callie?" Katrin said as she hurried back to me, "Are you okay? Why did you stop?"

I hadn't made a list, yet. That was on me. But... I was pretty sure. "Uh. I think a new thread just attached itself to me."

When I was younger, before I had needed to actually worry about the details of going out on my own and being an adult, I had wanted to be the main character of a story. I'd read various sci-fi and fantasy novels - often random installments from a series I hadn't had the chance to read the other books from - and I would think about how I wanted to be the hero going on amazing adventures and saving the world and whatever else. And I'd been thinking of this whole situation that way to some extent because when you get sucked into an actual fantasy world it's hard not to do that.

But I didn't mean it literally.

I meant it like in the "be the main character of your life" spiel that Bill had given me. This thing where only me and my companions had these mysterious lines? That felt like the bad kind of main character shit. 'Oh no I'm the only kid with purple hair' kind of stuff, where you had to worry that there would just be more and more problems coming for you. The thing about being the main character of the story in real life is that it means someone is writing that story - and you don't know they have your best interests in mind. Shit, I didn't know how to even be sure of the genre. Fantasy, yeah, but it could be horror too.

I took a deep breath and started walking again, for the moment just focusing on not bumping into people or getting pick pocketed. I was being silly, I knew. There were a ton of reasons I might have more threads than anyone else, and once I established what they all were it would make sense. Plus, if I could learn to see them I could learn to... cut them off, or something. Probably. Either way, the main character talk was absurd. It was nothing. What would that even mean?

We headed off to take care of the magic item shopping, but much to my dismay the first thing we did was get the wagons upgraded which wasn't particularly exciting and also required rush custom work which meant spending a small fortune. We had to choose between dropping a large chunk of our cash, or having them work with the bank in Erathik. Talking to the bank could alert them to our whereabouts, but it seemed like if they were really looking for us they would have caught up to us on the road already - more likely Hammersmith had for some reason not asked Erathik to grab us, or she had but they didn't want to. So we took the risk and had them call a banker over - we'd be leaving the city soon regardless.

The verification that we had money to spare went fine, but the banker also got some unexpected news. "There has been an incident, at the auction house. You had an item there, and the proceeds were to be sent to your account?"

"The... sword club thing, yeah."

He looked around at the empty room, and then again at the little device on the table that was supposed to prevent scrying around us. "That item was, unfortunately, stolen from the auction house during an attack. Several people were killed. Per the terms of your contract, they have requested a government lawyer to negotiate on your behalf to resolve the question of reimbursement."

"Fuck. Wow. Uh, okay. I mean I guess that's..." That was fine, right? We'd get paid either way. It was possible it would have blown up at auction and gone for a fortune, but I was already set for money. I was about to tell him that was fine and I didn't care, but then I got nervous. I wasn't used to financial questions beyond "hey did you pay for that, I saw you put that in your pocket".

Fuck it. Yeah. It was okay. I thought back to the way we'd skipped the bounty and partied instead, and how mad I'd been at rich people back on Earth. This was a way I could get all the credit for being a good person without really giving up anything I cared about. "Can you send a message back? Tell my lawyer to... shit, I guess just... just whatever amount we get from the auction house, give it to the families of whoever died. If that's a thing they can do." Calliope Smith, famed philanthropist.

"I'll send that message, right away," the banker said, "otherwise your accounts are in order, and I can arrange payment to these merchants as needed."

First things first, we needed a better healing option. The tradeoff was between portability, mana cost, and healing ability. Katrin had made a choice already and went through the motions of getting my approval - she'd gone for the best healing ability with terrible portability, which is why we were talking about it in relation to the wagons. The device would take the place of one of the beds, which was fine since we'd only need three once Elba was back with her family. It had a sort of antennae to collect mana, and a large capacitor. Katrin could charge magic items, but the times we would be most likely to need a healing bed thing would be after running into trouble in which case she might already be out of mana - or be the one injured.

Then there were plates that could be attached to the wagons to make them lighter and therefore easier to get over rough terrain, and a water purifier, and temperature controls, and some other little quality of life upgrades like better lights and shock absorbers and... the wagons were going to be so fucking nice. It was a good thing, too, because the plan was to just live in them for the foreseeable future. While she oversaw that, I scouted out the other magic item shops which fell into three broad categories.

The first was places that sold common mass produced stuff. I took note of where some of those were, when it looked like they would have things we needed, but I wasn't super interested. I'd have time to hit them with Katrin, and anyway they felt too much like going into a store on Earth. There were a few that caught my eye as being interesting, like the place that sold "templates and prototypes", these strange little plaques or totems or whatever that people with Fabrication could use to create items. Hold the little tablet thingy for a nice mahogany chair, and you could perfectly make a nice mahogany chair - otherwise, most people with fabrication would be better off just making a lump of material and then having a proper craftsman make the thing. There was also a shop with barometers, not just for air pressure but for all sorts of special purposes including some that only applied to specific planes.

The second type of magic item shop was where you went to get things made to order. They were all by appointment only, and the ones that were open at all felt like art galleries run by arms dealers. They clearly thought I couldn't afford them, but really what we were lacking in was time rather than money. I'd love to sit down with an artificer and custom design an item, but that would have to wait.

The final category of magic item store was the best hands down. They seemed like an antique store crashed into a pawn shop, and were where you found all the unique made to order stuff that nobody wanted anymore. Maybe the buyer had backed out, or it had turned out differently than planned, or they were just done with it. I examined every item in three different shops, asking way too many questions, before finally remembering that I was supposed to just be figuring out which shops were worth looking in. I hurried back to Katrin, who was just watching the wagons get worked on.

"Errod dropped off the first of the supplies, it's going well." She was looking down at a nice new notebook and making a list, so she hadn't seen me yet. "I don't suppose you saw anyone selling high quality healing potions, did you? Apparently there's some sort of city-wide shortage. If you..." She trailed off as she finally looked up.

"Yes?" I said, the sound echoing around my head.

"What. Is. That."

I grinned from ear to ear. "It's a diving helmet!"

Katrin carefully put her pen down and closed the notebook. "Do we need a diving helmet?"

What a stupid fucking question. Was she blind? "It's! Look at it! It's totally one of those fishbowl helmets from old sci-fi stories!"

"You know that I didn't understand that."

"Anyway I already bought it. And some hover shoes."

She looked like she was quickly developing a headache. "You're going to kill yourself with those things."

"Oh absolutely," I agreed, "I'm for sure going to break my tailbone within like... thirty seconds. But won't that be hilarious? And that's not the best part!"

An enormous spider climbed into view behind my shoulder - it was too big to fit all the way on there - and Katrin's jaw went slack. "Oh gods. Please don't. I'm begging you."

"Who doesn't want a remote-controlled spider? Plus it can control other stuff, like if we find a really stupid bird or something. Oh, a fish! Fish are dumb, right? And it can swim alongside me as I explore the ocean with my diving helmet!"

The remote controlled spider was a huge lobotomized spider with an extremely expensive magical device attached to it. On the spider end, the device was a metal disc about as big around as a baseball. It stuck to the spider and melded with its body, and kept it healthy by borrowing life mana from the person touching the other half of the device, which you could strap to yourself. It even clicked together, so you could wear the huge spider like a backpack or something while it wasn't in use. And then whenever you wanted you could remote control it and drive it around and - to some extent - even see through its eyes. You couldn't attach it to something smart or it would fight you for control and probably win, and you couldn't attach it to something large or the drain of life mana would be too much. But having a spider or crab or whatever I could pilot around was just the right level of fucked up to be really fascinating to me. I had already named the spider Mister Creepy.

The three of us - I was counting our new lobotomized mascot - hit the town and got some more practical items. Expensive cooking gear, some anti-scrying devices that were way better than the pathetic ones we'd snagged in Erathik, some kind of fire extinguisher things that Katrin insisted we had to have in the wagons, and some combat gear. Katrin and I both got fancy long jackets - they looked like normal if slightly shimmery fabric, but were actually woven alchemical metal. Mine was a little longer than hers and black, while Katrin went for a sort of sage green. Not only did they look fantastic, they were virtually immune to damage. The floppy nature of the fabric meant I could still get my ass kicked, but it would be bludgeoning rather than getting sliced to ribbons and that seemed like an important upgrade.

I also checked out weapons and found my exact throwing knives. They were expensive, and apparently could be charged with mana in order to make them lurch forward; the idea was that if someone was wearing a shield charm like the one Errod had they would sense the loss of momentum and re-lauch themselves midair. If they didn't trigger, they would also go off upon penetrating skin. Mine had obviously been depleted when Sige found them, and we hadn't known to get them charged up. Now even happier with my knives I turned my attention towards finding the coolest thing I could but was vetoed by Katrin who insisted that Errod would want to pick out his own sword. I let it go, even though I knew that he wouldn't pick out one as awesome as what I had in mind - a wicked-looking black blade that used spatial magic to teleport a chunk of whoever it hit a foot to the left. It was outrageously expensive, would need to be recharged every time, and probably would constitute a war crime. But oh man, so cool.

Eventually we met back up with Errod and Elba at the wagons. Elba at least approved of Mister Creepy, but it seemed to freak out the banker who had returned to sign off on final payment for the installation of everything into the wagons. "Ah, and they acknowledged your request about the money from the auction settlement," he said, "The proceeds will be split between the families of the four - I'm sorry, three - people killed in the attack."

"Wait, was it three or four?"

"Ah, yes. Well. There were four deaths, but one was believed to be assisting the criminals."

"Believed to be, or was for sure? What even happened?"

"The man who was killed picked the locks and bypassed security for the auction house, and allowed two heavily armed and armored persons inside. They stole several items, including the war hammer, and killed the guards that responded to the alarm. The one that picked the locks reportedly panicked and ran, and was killed as well."

"By the guards or the armored guys?"

"I'm not certain, the report was rather... sparse."

I wasn't sure what 'Calliope Smith, Famed Philanthropist and Not a Monster Like Mom Always Said' would do here. "Huh. Okay. Well, whatever. Include that guy's family too."

"I - excuse me?" The banker looked like I had just told him to shove a moskar up his asshole.

"I said include that guy's family. Some dude breaks in, freaks out when people start getting killed? And he wasn't geared up like the others? Probably some poor asshole just trying to get by. Shit. I've broken into places. I've stolen things. He probably had someone that cared about him, and now he's dead. So cut him in."

"I... I don't know that that's..."

Oh, we're telling me what I can and can't do now? "Is it my money?"

He hesitated. "Well yes. Yes of course."

"Yes? Not 'yes, but...' or anything?"

"No. It's your money. I apologize, it wasn't my place to question your choices." And the little banker packed up, very quickly, and left.