With three day’s worth of food, water and daily necessities inside, Gio grabbed his backpack and changed into an inconspicuous outfit Celeste had made for him. Apparently, just wearing the clothing around counted as “modeling” in Celeste's eyes, which meant that Gio didn’t need to pay for them. Gio didn’t buy the story, but the inquisitors would have certainly put a stop to it if they cared enough, so Gio chose not to dwell on it.

The outfit was simple enough: a dark gray long-sleeve shirt and black trousers. However, by the time Gio had exited the school, he quickly realized that being inconspicuous in the Gilded City was in itself very conspicuous. In the cool evening air of the golden city, many people were still out and about, wearing all manner of fashionable streetwear and finery.

Gio put his head down and hurried along, trying (and failing) to ignore the overwhelming sensations of the golden city. At the very least, being around Marie’s cooking at all hours of the day had helped combat Gio’s susceptibility to the street vendors, although some stalls still smelled suspiciously good. He saw an advert for “Elegant Gold Plated Fried Chicken” that made him giggle.

That’s the city of gold for you… I guess? If that’s supposed to be high society… I’m thankful that I don’t have that kind of taste level.

After a short walk, Gio arrived at the Frill and Wattle. The window dressings displayed ancient tomes full of fire and lightning and newly made wands and charms that produced elegant flourishes of mist and light. The illusion was naturally flawless in any detectable way, as most things in the Gilded City were known to be. Through the window, Gio spotted an unfamiliar shopkeeper who seemed to be of draconic heritage, chatting with a woman who was dressed in all black. The muscular man was easily taller than the doorway to the shop and had tan skin that was speckled with outcroppings of jet black scales which mirrored his similarly colored hair, coiffed and cut as it was in a fashionable manner.

I wonder if it’s family-run? The other shopkeeper was draconic too. Maybe this guy has the night shift.

Gio entered the store. The shopkeeper and the woman at the counter turned to regard him. The system reached out to greet him at the same time the shopkeeper did.

“Welcome to the Frill and Wattle! We have an evening special on- Oh, it’s you!” said the man behind the counter.

Gio paused, searching internally for the vaguest hint at the identity of the man in front of him.

I feel like I would probably remember meeting a seven foot tall black-scaled dragonkin, right?

“Ah, it’s been some time since your last visit. My name is Nyara. I sold you [Reflect].” Said the man. His gruff voice and masculine appearance was completely at odds with Gio’s memory of the person who had sold him the spell.

“Oh! My apologies, I … uh” Gio stammered.

The woman in black next to him let out a dainty giggle.

“I could mess with you a bit, but I will take mercy on you. My grandparent is… was…a great dragon of the seasons. My body changes gradually over the course of a year. I spend the spring and summer as a woman and fall and winter as a man. Each season changes my form… greatly. To answer the questions that you’re too polite to ask, yes, everything. No, It’s not painful, but it can be a bit of a bizarre sensation because it tends to happen faster than I expect it to, even after 30 years of dealing with it. No, I don’t prefer one body over the others, and the worst part was going through puberty in four very different bodies. My dad took up a side occupation as a tailor just to be able to adapt my school uniforms like… twice a month. Before you pity me in any way, just know that draconic sorcerers get some outlandish bonuses to elemental magic.” Nyara boasted, bearing a devilish grin on his handsome face.

The woman next to Gio put her arm around Nyara, beaming at the muscular form of the dragonkin.

“And my girlfriend doesn’t seem to mind much, do you Nissa?” Nyara asked.

“Not a bit. I’m pretty mercurial myself, so having a partner who changes with the seasons is pretty on-brand. Anyways, I’ll stop distracting you at work. See you at home.” Nissa cooed, waving to Gio and walking out of the store.

“So, Gio, right? Back for that crystal spell after all?” Nyara asked.

Gio took a beat longer than he would have liked to to adapt to what he just processed, but tried to move on as smoothly as possible.

“Well, it’s nice to see you… again. Unfortunately no, I’m here for something else. Are you familiar with a spell that transports its caster to a place called “Hart's Casino?” Asked Gio.

“Ugh, If only I wasn’t. Follow me to the “Big Bin of Bargains”. The hulking man groaned.

Nyara led Gio through the store to a dark corner, nearby where he had first offered to show Gio around the store at the beginning of the school year.

“So what’s it gonna be for? Practicing spellform deconstruction, recycling, or a history project?” Nyara asked.

“Uuuh, none of the above, really,” Gio replied, looking off to the side.

Nyara laughed.

“Don’t tell me that you plan on like… casting it or something.” He chortled.

Gio started looking at a low-common spell to discern the exact temperature of a small body of water as if it were the most fascinating thing he could think of.

“You’re not serious. Listen, kid- I don’t know if you’re in trouble with the law or what, but That’s a really really bad idea.” The shopkeeper whispered.

The bulky man leaned in.

“If you need to disappear for a while, there are other options, I promise.” Nyara said conspiratorially.

“No, that’s not… I need to get a closer look at the spell’s construction.” Gio said.

“What for? It’s a mass-produced teleportation spell. It was novel at the time of it’s release for how cheaply made it was, but there have since been other teleportation spells that use better arrays to teleport to other dimensions, even if they aren’t as miraculously inexpensive as this one is- but there’s a reason for that, anyways. It’s a one-way ticket, and we don’t have the spell that brings you back.” Nyara harrumphed.

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Gio paused for a moment. He contemplated what he was going to say, or if he should even explain himself at all.

“I understand your concerns. I really do. So… this is basically my last option before I have to completely give up on a plan that could potentially set me up for the rest of my first year at school. I’ve been spending basically every moment of my free time for the past three months learning spell construction in addition to my schoolwork. I know that three months isn’t enough time to make me a master, or even really an amateur… but I don’t have the luxury of getting someone else to do it, or waiting to have it taught to me. I am fairly certain that the spell I am trying to make would exist in some capacity, maybe even in this very building. Tell me, do you have a spell to take someone to the Mirror dimension?” Gio asked, a stern but not hostile look on his face.

“Mirror dimension… that’s pretty esoteric. Hold on.” Nyara said.

The shopkeeper waved his hand, conjuring a translucent ledger document that unfurled into a glowing scroll that trailed across the floor cartoonishly. Another scrolling swish of a bulky finger, and the ledger rolled itself upwards, revealing rows upon rows of well-indexed information. He stopped at a section titled “Planar Repositioning, Errata and Artifex”. Nyara winced, looking back at Gio with a troubled expression.

“Yes, we have uh- we have a few spells that would work for that purpose , we have a general purpose spell called [Journey the Realms] that would work-” Nyara began.

“What rarity, and how much?” Gio interrupted.

“Well, it’s a general purpose spell for teleportation across the multiverse… Each copy is hand-crafted by an artisan spellwright at the peak of their craft with exceedingly exotic materials… It’s an Epic rare, one of the higher-end spells that we have... six hundred thousand bits.” Nyara finished.

“Nyara… that’s more money than I might ever see in my lifetime.” Gio replied.

“Right. So my question back to you, is how exactly do you think you’ll be able to make a spell like that? Even if you get back from Hart’s, you would need a way to tune into the mirror dimension. That spell is already heavily configured to go to a specific place… and It’s pretty much useless outside of that purpose.” Nyara argued.

“I guess I will just have to figure it out. At the very least, nobody is going to try to stop me from plagiarizing the components of a universally reviled spell like this one... it’s not a perfect situation, but it’s what I have available to me, so long as I can afford to buy one of your copies from this… bargain bin.” Gio said, through a sardonic smile.

Nyara darted his head around the store briefly, as if looking for eavesdroppers. He waved his hand, summoning a sphere of magic around the two of them that was nearly invisible.

“This is a silence ward. Privacy is a difficult thing to find in the Gilded city. You’d really rather risk your life on this gamble rather than even think about joining the resistance?” Nyara asked.

“I see. I guess the owner told you about me?” Gio replied, folding his arms.

“It’s… not like that. We’re a pretty small group, all things considered. The Pink Lady doesn’t invite many people personally, so a few of us decided it would be a good idea to keep tabs on the few people she took personal interest in. It’s not like she explicitly asked anyone to monitor you or anything. I could send you back to school with a domain spell, you know. You wouldn’t need to risk yourself like this. I promise that the resistance isn’t what you probably think it is.” Nyara said.

“I appreciate the offer. I really wish that it wasn’t as tempting to me as it is. I refuse to sell myself to the highest bidder. I’m sure that there would be pros and cons to joining the Ring Guard, the infamous “Ringed City Dissidents”, or even one of the noble families… but It’s not what I want. I have a family who loves me, and I’m a hard worker. If this whole school thing doesn’t work out, it is what it is. I am not going to permanently bind myself to any faction over school. You can tell me all you want that it wouldn’t be a permanent deal, but I know that once I get involved, I’d never get out. I am confident that Hart’s casino won’t kill me, and I am confident that if I flunk the school year, I’ll tuck my tail between my legs and head back to the copper ring having learned a whole bunch of pretty cool magic already and being none the worse off for it.” Gio avowed.

Nyara allowed the ward to fall.

“Very well. I can see that you’ve made up your mind. That will be six bits.” he said.

“Six bits? Not sixty? I told you that I didn’t need any help from-” Gio started

“I have literally thousands of copies of [Teleport to Hart’s Casino] in storage. The only reason that I don’t burn them all is because sometimes people like to buy them for the sake of practicing weird meta spells. Six bits.” Nyara affirmed.

“Alright… I can do six bits.” Gio replied.

Gio followed the shopkeeper to the front of the store, handing over a few scant bits, having felt like a large portion of the wind had been taken from his sails.

“Oookay. Well I guess I’ll be on my way… thank you, Nyara.” Gio said.

“You’re not planning on casting that in the Ringed city, right? Like you know that it’s not technically legal?” The dragonkin man said.

Gio blinked.

“Okay, so the whole deal is that that spell has a backdoor built into it that leeches mana from the surrounding area when you cast it. You either need to go out into the wilderness, or use a clean room, otherwise it’s technically a crime if you get caught- and the Ring Guard has ways of detecting it. Follow me.” Nyara said forcefully.

Gio followed the bulky man upstairs and to the rear of the palatial store, over to a neatly polished stone door that Gio just now realized clashed with the rest of the well-stated décor and lacquered heartwood banisters of the rather frou-frou store.

Opening it up, the room past the door turned out to be a plain, white room that looked to be made of polished white soapstone. Nyara tapped rhythmically on a small panel, and glowing blue lines encircled every surface of the room.

“There you are. These formations will destroy the leeching enchantment as soon as it forms. Good luck, and please make it out alive. A word of advice- don’t spend too long in one place- there’s people in there that… let’s say they wouldn’t be welcome in my store. Keep moving until you figure out how to get back.” Nyara finished.

“How did you even know I was planning on going tonight?” Gio asked.

“You’re wearing a huge backpack. Literally nobody wears a backpack like that in the gilded city. It’s like a walking beacon that says “I am too poor to afford a spatial item, and I’m going somewhere for a few days.” Sorry kid, but you’re not very good at discretion.” Nyara retorted.

Gio flushed.

“O-okay. Well, thank you for your help again. See you soon… hopefully for that [Crystalline Field] spell.” Gio replied. Nyara nodded, and shut the door behind him.

Quieting his thoughts, Gio took a long look at the spell in his hands. The surprisingly undamaged parchment of the spell was bone-white and razor thin. The edges were sharp, and there was a slight indent on the major lines of the circular containment formations- the telltale signs of mechanical printing. He didn’t bother adding it to his spellbook, but he could already see the delicate translocation circuit.

That’s it! It’s paired with something. These formations are keyed to a matching set. So… that determines my next course of action. I need to see the other side of this in order to get the full picture… I hope this isn’t a huge mistake.

After about a half an hour of taking notes on the spell, Gio stood up, double-checking to ensure that he had everything he needed. He caught sight of his reflection in the polished stone opposite him. He brought his primary spellcasting hand up in front of him and began casting the spell. As he moved through the segments of the spell, he gave notice to the different constructs coming to life, filled as they were with different aspects of mana. The translocation circuit gave way, opening like the drain at the bottom of a filled tub had just been uncorked, as his mana went elsewhere. Gio could feel the connection taking place as space began to fold around him. A bubble of spacetime carved itself out of reality from the soles of his shoes to the top of his skull, encapsulating every eyelash, every microscopic flake of dead skin on his hands, and every bead of perspiration on his back.

And once the spell had completed, Gio released the construct, vanishing from the Frill and Wattle. The cleansing enchantment of the clean room instantly ate away at the imperceptible mana-leeching anomaly that had attempted to form after Gio’s disappearance, erasing the last traceable element of his working.