After their fight on the second night Flint kept his distance, which was fine by Seras. In the mornings Seras tried to eat less, one because she felt bad for digging into the dwindling food supplies, and two because cramming that much food down her throat was exhausting. She ate just enough to bump her battery up an extra percent.

Seras once again joined Dustin on his Heidel Jesse and he answered as many questions as he could. Their conversation swayed back and forth, between her talking about her world, to him telling her about this one. Seras was becoming more comfortable with the idea of magic and finding more essences, and awakening stones. But the idea still nagged at her mind.

When Seras first absorbed the Tech essence, she had been naked, alone, and scared. Seras had slotted the tech essence in an attempt to eke out any possible advantage she could get her hands on. But now the immediate danger had passed, and Seras was learning that her augs gave her an advantage over most people. She could work with that.

Seras could once again find her way and rise. She just needed time.

That’s what Seras told herself, but when they passed through the pass carved by the power of a Diamond rank essence user Seras found that her own words rang hollow. No matter how high she rose she could never be the equal to anyone who had the power to carve millions of tons of stone like it was wet clay.

Immortality weighed on her mind. To be free of death and its inevitable embrace. It was a heady thought.

Hours into their journey the rock walls that had boxed them in dropped away and they entered into a massive bowl-shaped valley.

“This is where it fell.” Dustin said gravelly.

“Where what fell?” Seras asked, dreading the answer.

“The diamond ranked monster. This region shouldn’t have enough mana to manifest a diamond ranked monster, but the labyrinth complicates everything. We get worse monster surges than anywhere else in the world. More monsters, higher ranks than normal, we can even see diamond ranked monsters during bad surges.”

“Monster surges are that event where more monsters than ever spawn and go crazy?”

“Yes, it’s a deadly time for civilians. Typically places outside the Labyrinths reach have hundreds of little towns and villages, small cities that rise along trade routes. Here only the most heavily fortified cities withstand the surge. That’s why all the cities here dig into the sides of mountains, because anything less would be too little.”

“There’s gotta still be towns and communities outside of the cities? A city can’t survive on its own.”

“There are, mostly clustered near the cities themselves. And plenty try their hand further off, but those tend to be the ones who get wiped out during the surge. Small mining communities desperately trying to excavate a new vein of ore before the next surge comes to wipe their towns away. But for the most part the peoples of the five deserts hide in their cities until the surge is over, then the adventures clear out the monsters so that they can return to their homes. The last few however have been coming later and later, and that leads to mistakes.”

Seras nodded as she stared off to the far side of the valley where another crack in the rock walls began.

~~~*~~~

They crossed the whole valley during the third day, the crew and Heidels were forced to endure the higher temps within the valleys bowl, and were haggard by the end of the day. Seras herself didn’t feel the full brunt of the heat, a benefit of being able to adjust her sense for heat. And Dustin as a Smolder would have been perfectly fine even if it were twice as hot.

There was a small pond where someone had dammed up a little creek, and the caravan crew cooled off by jumping in. Petra, who looked like a wet cat with all her fur soaked through, tried to get Seras to join them. But an explanation about electronics and water curbed her enthusiasm.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as Seras made it seem, she’d be an idiot to let water kill her, but she didn’t feel like jumping in.

On the fourth day they crossed a broad valley whose surface had been repeatedly carved by the dried out bed of hundreds of braided streams that spread out from the mountains in big fans.

Seras nearly got caught in a dried stream bed when a flash flood ripped through. She had heard the rumbling, but dismissed the sound as she picked out little blue ‘water quintessence gems’. But a warning from Petra gave Seras enough warning to jump straight out of the stream bed. Seras was impressed by how fast the water rushed through the stream, and how quickly it ended.

When it was over she stepped back in to continue picking water quintessence, this time her hearing set to a higher sensitivity.

On the fifth day the solitary butte of Karstess was visible. It sat about center in the middle a great flat golden expanse. It looked like a giant table of rock had been magically lifted hundreds of meters into the air within the sea of grass. She had articles on geology downloaded and ready to peruse, but something about this rocky block seemed uncanny.

“That doesn’t look natural.”

“Its just a rock.” Dustin said.

“I mean it doesn't look like it formed naturally. Usually buttes are carved by erosion, or are solidified magma chambers of long-gone volcanoes. That doesn’t look like either.”

Dustin turned to Flint at his side. “Flint?”

He scowled “The girl has a point. The magic society noticed that many of the astral spaces located near the surface tend to have unnatural rock formations directly above. You know how Calcit looks like a massive slab of earth tilted upwards? We’ve got evidence to suggest that the earth only began to rise after the astral space attached itself to our world about half a million years ago.”

Dustin looked curious “you learn something new every day.” He said as the rest of the caravan crested the hill and began to make their way down. “Well let’s get a move on then, if we make good time then we might make it just before night fall.”

Unfortunately several roads had been washed out by flash floods from the recent monsoon season, and where the land dipped the roads became wet and filled with mud. Even with Flint and Petra’s powers to command the earth, and the extraordinary strength of magically enhanced muscles, it took an hour each time a wagon got stuck.

By the end of the fifth day they were only able to reach one of the smallest towns on the periphery of Karstess’ influence. It was sundown by the time they arrived muddy and tired, so Seras didn’t spend much time exploring the little hamlet. There wasn’t enough room in the small inn for all of them so Seras ended up watching the wagons with Dustin, Petra, Dustin’s nephew Dallas, and Flint.

Some of the locals who knew Dustin came out to share their fire and tell stories, Seras had no context for anything they were talking about but enjoyed the stories all the same. Something to do with mud elementals and pig monsters.

The sun set fully, and their guests left for their own homes, which left just the four of them.

“What can I expect from a city carved into a mountain like that?” Seras asked, jerking a thumb at Karstess.

Dustin frowned. “It’s a pretty normal city for this region. Though the astral space below gives it a certain herbal touch.”

“Herbal touch?” Seras asked, deciding not to question how an extradimensional space could ever be considered a normal city feature.

“Yeah, the city gets plenty of water and plant quintessence from the space, so there’s lots of greenery. But not normal plants like grass or flowers, just the plants that are good for alchemy or cooking. Gives the place a zesty sort of smell.”

“Why only those kinds of plants?”

Dustin looked to Flint, who had been studying odd bits of magic off and on for years.

Flint sighed melodramatic. “Astral space’s often affect the environments they’re attached to, especially if people keep the apertures open 24/7 and extract tons of resources. This space manifested as a place overgrown with fungi and magical herbs, so any water pulled from it had a much more potent effect on the growth of similar plants. The people of Kartess realized they could start growing herbs and spices from their window sills and began planting them all over.”

“They grow even underground, how does that work?”

“Sun stones and solar quintessence in the roof.” He grunted.

“What are the cities like on your world?” Petra asked.

Dustin and his nephew leaned in like he was interested, while Flint looked like he would rather not hear it.

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“Hard to explain, they’re…bright all the time, even at night the city is lit up in neon lights. The building are made of glass and steel, towering hundreds of stories high, with glass bridges and parks suspended high up.”

Flint scoffed “Even with magic no one can build that high, I don’t believe that a magicless world like yours could do it when we haven’t”

Seras scowled at him, “Yes we can, concrete, steel I-beams, and millennia of architecture makes the process child’s-play. I’ve seen a building go up in just a little over a year.”

Flint scoffed “Sure.”

Dustin glared at Flint. “It is impressive that you can do all that without magic. Honestly when I first heard about worlds without magic I imagined people in animal hides banging rocks.”

Seras huffed “we imagine the same about worlds without science and technology.”

“We’re doing just fine without it.” Flint grumbled.

Challenge accepted.

Seras cocked her head to the side. “Oh yeah, tell me, what’s the infant mortality rate? Because for us it rarer for a women to have a miscarriage than win the lotto.”

“What’s a lotto?” Petra asked.

“A scam poor people buy into on the rare chance that they get the winning ticket and get rich.”

“Like a lottery?” Dustin asked.

“exactly like one, did lotto not translate?”

Dustin and Petra shook their heads.

Seras added it to the list of shit that didn’t translate.

“What was that?” Dallas asked.

Everyone looked around.

“What was what?” Seras asked, wondering what the kid saw.

“That look in your eye, it was like you were looking past everyone.” The boy explained.

“I’ve noticed that myself.” Dustin added “Thought it was a thousand-yard stare from some trauma, but now I’m not so sure.”

“I was just amending a list of things that don’t translate.” Seras explained.

“Like a mental list?”

“Sort of, it’s a real list that I see though. You know with words and stuff.”

“Is this one of your Outworlder things?”

“Kind of, its just a function of my HUD.” Then she realized that HUD was on the ‘Doesn’t translate list’. “A heads-up display, it’s a bunch of little icons at the edge of my vision that I can open up.”

“Open up, like a book.” Dustin asked.

“Something like that, I can open up things to read, or watch recordings, or do some quick math. It also tells me the time and day, and if I were back home I could check what the weather would be like or send texts to acquaintances.”

“And texts are like letters, but shorter, and you get replies almost instantly.” Dustin asked and Seras nodded.

She had mentioned to him on the third day of travel how much she missed being able to shoot someone a text and get a reply within seconds. Her net withdrawal wasn’t so bad with all the data she had stored, but the lack of social connectivity was starting to weigh on her mind.

Dallas still looked befuddled “So you’re seeing things that no one else can see. And that’s normal where you come from.”

“Yup.”

Dustin clapped a hand on Dallas’ shoulder “Don’t think of it too hard, all Outworlders sound a little crazy from the outside.” He turned to Seras “Does your power also help identify things, some Outworlder abilities allow them to know certain things about objects?”

Seras wanted to say no, but then she realized that she actually did have one. One she had just been dismissing as normal. The floating tags she was used to seeing over everything and everyone wasn’t something that should exist in a world without computers or net codes.

“Now that you mention it, I do see floating name tags and stuff when I look at things.”

Dallas looked wary “And you’re only now realizing it?”

“Where I come from its normal for people’s name to be in a little floating box above their heads. Dallas Eugen Westbrook.”

This prompted the boy to look over his head for any mysterious tags while everyone else laughed.

~~~*~~~

On the morning of the sixth day Seras got a proper look at the town. Mud brick walls with flat roofs that collected the rainwater into a barrel. Small windows high up on the wall with beautiful, glazed tile floors. Seras was used to tiles being uniform and white, but these ones were a riot of oranges, yellows, turquoise, and magenta.

At the center of the village there was a water fountain that was brimming with crystal clear water. According to one of the village women Seras talked to, buried pipes from Karstess carried the water to the all the villages around it. The villages closer to the city even got to benefit from the strange properties of the water and could grow crops. This far out only prairie grass could grow so they raised livestock.

Big lizard things with four short legs and a barrel chests grazed about, occasionally mowing. Even stranger than the lizard-cows were the weird, shaggy, dog sized, things that bleated and had demonic looking square eyes. Something called a ‘goat’. The lizard-cows Seras could get behind, but there was something profoundly wrong about the goats that Seras couldn’t place her finger on.

Another pleasant surprise about the village was that the villagers had cats and dogs. They weren’t breeds Seras recognized from all old net vids she watched, but that was to be expected. To her utter delight the dogs and cat felt exactly like what she had imagined them to feel like. One white furred cat with large black donut prints in its fur decided to make Seras his seat for the morning. And it was the best thing Seras had ever experienced in this new world.

“Do they not have cats where you’re from?” Dallas asked as he saw her contented expression. “Uncle Dustin said Cats were a universal constant.”

Seras frowned “We…did. Not anymore. You can buy robot ones, but I don’t think they’re the same. Those ones are machines with a set order of instructions, they won’t act up unless they’re following orders, and no matter what you tell yourself they’re not the same.”

“That’s sad.”

“Definitely” Seras agreed.

He sat next to her and scratched the cats muzzle, and it began to purr like an engine. “Do you miss your old world?” he asked.

Seras frowned “You know, you’re the first person to ask. Everyone else just expects me to adapt and forget about my old one.”

He shrugged, “They’ve all been on the road for a long time, so I think they forgot what home sickness feels like. I’ve only been away for half a year, so I get it.”

“Where is home for you anyway?” Seras asked, deflecting his question.

“Valis, it’s a Smolder kingdom far to the north of here. We actually get winters there, but even when it snows there’s plenty of hot springs and geysers to warm up in. Some are even cool enough for non-Smolders to enjoy.” He looked melancholic.

“Why’d you leave?”

“My uncle is a kind man, he could have used all the earnings he made to make his business’ flourish. Instead he spent his fortune on essences to send home, my father, my mother, all my uncles and aunties, even a bunch of my older cousins. He even sent enough monster cores to get most of them to bronze rank. I wanted to repay him, and maybe see some of the world he’s been telling me about since I was a kid.”

Seras smirked “You still are a kid.”

“No” Dallas said defensively, “I turned Sixteen last month. That makes me almost a man, especially since I already have an essence.”

Seras held her hands up, which upset the cat and she quickly went back to petting. “Alright, guess I was wrong. Hard to tell since you and Dustin are the first Smolders I’ve seen. I was just lifting chits at that age and here you are with magic powers and seeing the world. Which, uh, essence?” Seras asked faltering at the last bit as she wondered if essences were considered private matters.

Whether it was rude or not Dallas lit up, literally, his eyes blazed. “It’s the scimitar essence, just like Dustin’s. When I passed the essence test he gave it to me as a gift before bringing me along.”

“Essence test?”

“It’s a short ritual to test whether you’re ready for magic or not?” he explained.

Seras sat up, the cat then decided it had enough of her and left. “What happens if you aren’t ready and absorb magic anyway?” she hadn’t taken any test before shoving a random shard in her neck.

Dallas frowned “Then I guess it wont work, or something.” He looked her way “You’ve got nothing to worry about though, the test is to see when a kid is old enough, not adults.”

“Oh” Seras said dumbly, she reached back for the cat, only to realize it was gone. She shoved down her disappointment. “Well, that’s probably enough stalling. Time to see this Karstess place.” She said as she stood up.

Dallas stood up as well, a light smile on his face, before a sudden realization made his smile fall. “You never did answer my question?”

Seras knew what question he meant. “I… don’t know. It would be hard to ever miss a place like that. But it was still home you know.”

“Do you have anyone waiting on you?” he asked.

“No” not anyone who would hear how Blackiron died in a blaze of glory and feel sad at least. Everyone she considered a close friend knew what her life’s goal was. And to the people of Ruin she had achieved that and more. It was only Seras who knew she had failed and was now hopelessly lost.

~~~*~~~

It was midday when they finally saw the gates of Karstess. They were imposing, standing nearly ten meters high, with carved stone columns thrumming with power. The doors themselves were wide open and carts, wagons, and foot traffic were flowing in and out. Instead of holding them outside to crowd the entrance way Dustin and his caravan were led inside to an impressively professional looking processing warehouse.

Human men and women with dusky skin and silky black hair were waving glowing sticks over every nook and cranny of the wagons. When one wand lit up, they would draw out a new one and double check the area, checking things off on a checkboard. An imposing man with glossy black scaled skin, a long-pointed face, and a crown of horns instead of hair was ordering everyone about.

Instead of shying away from the man, or at least looking unnerved like everyone else, Dustin raised his hand and greeted the man who was a whole head, shoulders, and chest taller than him.

“Is that you Dustin you little shit, I can’t see anything under that hat of yours.” The draconian heckled. Seras decided that he must have been a draconian since that was the only thing he could possibly be looking the way he did.

“Azoss, it has been too long.”

“Not long enough you bastard” the Draconian growled “I’ve only just earned back what I lost to you after our last game.”

“I see, it must be weighing you down, I’ll be happy to help your poor purse and take some of it off you again.” Dustin said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“This bastard!” the draconian Azoss roared, he glared at the rest of their group. “I see some new faces.”

Dustin’s face lit up “Yes, I’ve been doing work in the Glass Sands, this one here is my Nephew Dallas, I’ve been showing him the ropes.” He put a hand on Dallas’ shoulder to bring him forward.

The Draconian bent over and gave the young lad a discerning gaze, “Well, Dustin’s finally introducing me to this extended family I keep hearing about, he talks about you all nonstop.”

“He does?” Dallas asked guilessly.

“Oh yes, are you the one who took his Heidal on a joy ride, or the one who dug up an earth essence?”

“Those are my brothers sir, Austin and Pierre. They both married last spring.”

The Draconian rubbed his chin. “Yes, something about some Leonid girls right? Their father won the land in a card game and had no idea what to do with it.”

“That’s them, Triss and Chriss, my brothers broke earth on the land and are on their way to getting it productive.”

“I heard it was all rocky.”

“It was, but my brothers are both iron rank with earth and plant essences. They made short work of it.”

“Yes” the Draconian mused and then glared at Dunstin, “I was there when your uncle used the winnigs from our little game to buy those essences. He’s a fool to spend so much on farmers and ranchers instead of his own company.”

Dustin smirked “I have my reasons.” He said mysteriously.

He and the Draconian then talked for a little longer, only sparing Seras a dismissive glance. Seras noticed the displeased look Flint was giving the Draconian. Seras realized that Dustin’s proud uncle act had served more than one purpose. The Draconian was so focused on Dallas that he ignored Seras entirely.

It saved Seras from having to come up with a story, or interacting with the draconian at all.

Once Azoss was done speaking with Dustin they were waved through the gate and allowed into the greater city. There the cramped stone room opened up, and Seras felt her jaw drop. She had been expecting cold passages, tight corridors, and an overall claustrophobic feeling. Instead the stone passageway opened up into a stunning lush city.

The streets were wider than she had been expecting for an underground city were space should have been tight, and were hemmed in by imposing town homes that leaned over the street with each level. The buildings were carved from salmon and fuchsia colored sandstone, or maybe it was some sort of magic sandstone variant? Every window had a planter box that was overflowing with greenery, and fruit laden vines. And the whole city smelled like a spice market.

As they continued along one side of the street homes fell away revealing a gaping chasm. The road passed right alongside of the chasm and slowly snaked its way downwards. And right in the center of the pit defying the laws of gravity, or at least as Seras understood them, was a pillar of water flowing upwards. She had to do a quick optic reboot to make sure she was seeing things right.

It flowed up the whole length of the pit all the way to the top of the domed ceiling where it then pooled above them and flowed out to small streams where gravity took back over and it fell into large aqueducts.

“How’s it compare to the cities in your world” Flint asked snidely.

Dustin shot Flint a displeased look.

Seras closed her mouth. “It’s certainly, unique, I have to say I wasn’t expecting much, but count me impressed.”

Dallas beamed “Yeah, this is almost as cool as Basal.”

Seras blinked “Basal?”

“It’s a big city to the east built around three big mesas.”

“Around like on the base, or like around the actual cliff wall.”

Dallas smirked “The last one.”

“Nova” Seras murmured to herself.

They eventually pulled away from the corkscrew road around the chasm and onto a small Boulevard that led them to a warehouse district. They pulled up to warehouse with professional looking guards, and were then promptly let in.

Seras then helped unload the wagons, her cybernetically enhanced strength allowing her to move the seriously heavy things along with Dustin and Flint. She had already gotten a peak at the cargo days ago, myriad quintessence, luminous quintessence, and a padded crate full of strange apparently magical devices. It wasn’t much, but Seras was told that it was all extremely highly valued.

That was Dustin’s business model, exotic, expensive magical resources bought for cheap and then moved to another town where a contact of Dustin’s would buy it all up. Dustin didn’t even bother with the small quick trades, instead using downtime for adventurer work and training.

It seemed like a prime target to Seras, but Dustin was smart, he dealt in things that were below the notice of silver rank criminals, and could more than handle the Bronze rank bandits. Between himself, Flint, and a diverse crew of odd powers Dustin could handle any but the most determined bronze rankers. It put a lid on profit margins, but that was still enough to give everyone a hefty payday.

Even Seras, for the little she had been able to help out earned a bag of fifty iron coins. “even if you were only with us a week you more than deserve this. He won’t ever admit it, but if you hadn’t stepped in Flint would be at least down an arm, or worse. Thank you, I hope our paths cross again when you’ve found your footing. Until then Seras.” Dustin said after the work was done.

She accepted the money and then offered a fist for Dustin to bump.

“Uh, I uh,” he said as he stared awkwardly at her fist.

Seras rolled her eyes “Your supposed to bump it.” she instructed.

He did so, and Seras let her arm drop. “Its been good meeting ya.” She said before tuning to leave.

She had a city to explore, and opportunity to seize.