“This is a—”

“bag of holding!” Eik exclaimed before Atla could tell him. “That’s a bag of holding, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes. Good eye,” she said with a smile. “This particular one is not that big on the inside, but it should be able to carry this cauldron as well as a few extra items.”

She demonstrated the use of the bag of holding by pinching the rim of the large cauldron and lifting it up easily in one hand. As she began to stuff the cauldron into the rucksack, the hem expanded to fit it. It was a very strange thing to witness. Leather was not supposed to stretch elastically like that. It made no sense and yet here it was.

He took it by the handle loop on the top and slung it over his shoulder. It felt about as heavy as if there had been a half empty jar of peanut butter in there, not a solid iron cauldron.

Sonja stroked the smooth wood of her bow as she regarded Atla. “Is there anything else we should do? You know, about the case with Menka Tokanami and all that?”

“No, that’s over and done with. Her own family reported her, actually. They didn’t want the whole family to go be negatively affected because of something she did so we got evidence of her hire of the assassins whom you killed inside the Crucible practical.” — She was quiet for a second — “Just to check. You did kill them, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. They’re still in there though, close to the crater of the fungus king.”

“The fungus king, eh?” she grinned. “Well, that’s fine then. We have all the evidence we need. The next time she comes out of prison will be as a corpse. You’re the victims so all you have to do it embrace the strength this experience will give you.”

The Earthlings exchanged looks. This was exactly how they had expected her to view the whole situation. As useful experience.

“Are we sure that her family is not a part of this?” Michael asked with a frown.

“They’re almost certainly not, although I can say that they’re under close investigation. There’s been a deep rift in the Tokanami family for a few generations at this point. Menka is the matriarch of one fragment. The members of the opposition are probably having a feast right about now,” she scoffed.

“Sounds good to me,” Heath said and stood up from the chair. “If it’s all over, then I really need to get outside. I feel cooped up in here.”

“Did you say I could get encyclopedias and stuff like that here in town?” Eik asked.

“Definitely, yeah. I actually have some work to do, but Mikla can guide you to the market district. You should be able to get everything you need to get started on your alchemy there.”

“Pharmacy.”

“What?” she asked.

“What I do is pharmacy.”

“Well, here we call it alchemy. You’re going to have to get used to that.” She gave him a raised eyebrow.

“Hm.”

Mikla opened a fracture to Eik’s room but before going they decided to take a look outside of Atla’s quarters. The room where she’s been having her meeting had seemed like an enormous office, but had actually turned out to simply be her personal front room.

They walked around the hallways and once they got to a window it became apparent that this was a completely different part of headquarters. Eik had thought that he’d had a somewhat comprehensive impression of the place, but none of what he was looking at outside right now was familiar to him.

The interior design and the aesthetic of the architecture was completely different from whatever wing of the headquarters the four friends were housed in. Where their area was all smooth and minimalist design dominated by windows spanning floor to ceiling to provide ample natural light, here it could almost be compared to what Eik had seen in some of the medieval castles in Scandinavia.

Mikla guided them from their own apartments because he wanted them to be able to make the trip on their own later.

They passed several people as they walked. Most people either looked exceptionally busy as they hurried to get to where they were going or caught in a lethargic morning daze, sipping on cups of this and that to try to stave off the urge to return to bed.

For almost half an hour they walked before coming to a stop in front of a heavy set of double doors. Guards scanned them before letting them step up to the doors.

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They slid open, giving the group flashbacks to pre-Unified Mass Earth with its automated sliding doors in stores. What they stepped into was an enclosed box of about four meters by four meters, walls entirely transparent on all sides except for the side through which they’d stepped.

Within seconds it began to descend downward, sliding along the outside of the premises, a frighteningly immense free fall beneath their feet.

“Where is this taking us?” Sonja asked, putting her forehead against the glass and trying to look directly down. Eik couldn’t tell if this was the side of the headquarters he’d been looking at from the little marble building to which he’d been taken the first time Atla came to Earth.

Little hills and mountains protruded frequently between the many buildings, and it was impossible to tell if any of the little dots he was looking at now were that marble building.

It could well be that this was the opposite side. Perhaps Eik’s mind had been too preoccupied by other stuff the last time he looked out over the city that hosted the headquarters of, allegedly, one of the most powerful organizations in the Unified Mass to notice just how mind-blowingly massive it was. Or maybe he had simply been looking at it from a less impressive angle at the time.

“It takes us all the way to the bottom.”

“Then why didn’t we take this when we arrived from Earth?” Heath asked.

“It read your signature before letting you in. If all members of the group aren’t registered properly with the Nidafjeld Alliance it won’t allow entry.”

A sea of houses, both large and small and tall and narrow, stretched out before them, continuing so far that the buildings became obscured by a thin sheet of fog which eventually grew opaque in the distance. It allowed only the tallest of mountain peaks to push their snow-covered heads through on the horizon.

It had been early morning here when they’d come back through the Crucible fracture. Atla had been in a very early meeting. Now the sun bathed the roofs in its warming rays and it looked like a nice day for some shopping.

“Did you all remember to bring your new credit slabs?” Mikla asked as they stepped off the lift. They had arrived in a little building with a reception and a few guards stationed by the exit.

Outside was a high, spear-tipped fence that created a sizable perimeter around the small lift building. The fence looked like a plain old metal construction but there was no telling what kind of enchantment and magical layering that might be embedded in it as an extra defense.

Once they were through the gate, what had been a spacious stroll through wide hallways turned into a press of people. And in bizarre contrast to his experiences on Earth, not everybody there was a human.

People with red skin and decorative, swirling tattoos in various patterns covering their skin from scalp to feet walked around among people covered in fur. People standing at least three meter tall who looked like they had evolved from insects rather than mammals shoved aside people with two pairs of bony, spine-covered arms as they walked through the crowd.

Although there were many who looked alien, and everybody there technically were, from the Earthlings’ perspective, the majority looked more or less human like Mikla and Atla.

“We’re quite close to the central area of this district of the city, so it’s a little crowded in the morning. If we continue along this main street here,” Mikla said with a finger pointing straight forward. “we’ll be in the largest shopping street in this part of town in about five minutes.”

They weaved between people as they made their way through. All of them were hungry so they stopped by a bakery on the way. His teammates went with recognizable dough-based pastries while Eik took a chance on a runny, purple desert that looked like something straight out of a laboratory accident.

Unlike its appearance the taste was absolutely heavenly. It practically melted on his tongue, the gooey, custard-like consistency complimented by a flavor that he couldn’t quite claim resembled anything he’d tasted before.

Because of their human appearance nobody looked at them as if they didn’t belong. People, normal people not weighed down by the dread of deadly monster waves, simply went about their mornings with enviable ease and relaxation.

Even if people back on Earth had gotten used to the thought that death could lurk around every corner, they were still the first generation of a civilization thrown headfirst into something they weren’t capable of handling. Their future was still uncertain.

The sense of comfortable normalcy that seemed to exist here would take some time to reach Earth.

With wider roads the shopping streets actually felt less crowded. There was bustling activity by every door, on every corner, and in every alley. Many of the stores had racks of goods lined up along the shop windows, employees hawking their wares as well.

The four Earthlings had their heads on swivels as they tried to take in everything happening in front of their eyes.

“40 credits for a single loaf? Is it even fresh?” a plump woman said, scratching the crust of the bread rudely with a finger.

“Baked just an hour ago, ma’am,” a young man answered with an arched brow. He wore an apron covered in flour. He looked like an apprentice. The shelves of baked goods were practically still steaming.

There were shops selling clothes, both fine dress and everyday wear, shops with cuts of meat hanging in the windows. One store had half a chair and the corner of a table built expertly into its facade with a sign reading ‘Kraklatak’s Furniture — For Any House, Home, or Business’.

Eik’s eyes popped out on stalks as they passed by a store offering so many different plants that they were spilling out onto the street. Pots stood in row upon row along the front of the shop. There was a flower whose petals seemed to mimic the face of some alien predator as well as a plant with leaves that spiraled into a needle-like tip from which a yellow substance flowed as if pushed out through a hypodermic needle.

“There isn’t a single one of these plants that I’ve seen before!” Eik exclaimed as he sniffed a couple of the flowers out front, one of them nearly making him puke right there on the street. Before anybody could stop him, he rushed in through the door.

Inside was like a rain forest. Gigantic palm-like trees had grown tall enough to scrape against a high ceiling with its leaves covering the whole room. From hanging planters moving blades of thick grass slithered about like tentacles. Along the inner wall was a whole shelf of large carnivorous plants. One almost nabbed a boy as he walked by.

Eik’s eyes were made of shining stars as an image of his new alchemy cauldron flashed before his mind's eye. “This is my heaven!”