Pain exploded across Delahaye’s abdomen as claws raked across her flesh. It parted the skin and muscle of her midsection as easily as the flimsy cloth shirt, blood running hot and thick over her skin, adhering her shirt to her body as she scuttled backwards, teeth gritted. The creature that had leapt from the brush was unlike anything she had ever seen before, like some horrid amalgam of lemur and squid. Delahaye lashed out with a foot, sending the beast tumbling back, and she sprang upright, rushing through the forest. Her journey had been beset by all manner of beasts, and her body was a tapestry of wounds, the trio of shallow gashes across her chest only the most recent.

“Compass…” She growled, looking down. Nefir was so close, she could feel it. But every footfall was a battle, every stumbling step taking more and more of her dwindling energy. Delahaye whirled to the left as another lemur-squid dropped from the canopy, her cutlass coming up to deflect a barbed tentacle. She severed its appendage with a roundhouse slash, before bringing the blade down on the stunned creature’s head. It crumpled, and Delahaye pulled the cutlass free in a spray of foul-smelling ichor.

She staggered off once more. Again, and again she beat back the attacks of encroaching beasts, and each time they clawed, and bit, and tore. Delahaye burst through the underbrush, craning her neck to gaze upon the vast gate before her. It was made of brass, each door taller than a building. The doors bore reliefs, depicting a beautiful, veiled woman. In one hand, she held a scale, and in the other a sword. Delahaye dropped to her knees, choking out a triumphant laugh. Behind her, the foliage rustled. The first monster to rush out was suddenly, violently thrown back, as were the others that followed.

Looking over her shoulder to watch, Delahaye nodded once.

“Ain’t that… somethin’...”

Everything went black, as she fell face first into the dirt.

…

With a gasp, Delahaye sat sharply upright, quickly devolving into a fit of hacking coughs. She fell back with a wheeze, feeling around numbly. She lay in a large, plush bed, the sheets as white and sterile as the room around her. Her brow furrowed, and Delahaye sat upright once more, far more slowly the second time around.

“What’s all this, then?”

She asked to no one in particular. When she received an answer, Delahaye practically leapt out of her skin.

“You are in the temple to the Healer.”

She turned her head, and found someone sitting in the chair near the bed. She was a fair-skinned young woman, somewhere between her late teens and early twenties. Her features were almost mouse-like, with a tiny nose and small lips seemingly permanently trending towards the beginnings of a frown. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back in a bun, a silver needle driven through it. However, her most arresting feature was the scar that marred her face.

A burn in the shape of a hand. It covered the right half of her face, a vivid, angry pink, causing the right eye to droop slightly. Her eyes, too, caught Delahaye’s attention. Her irises blazed in startling shades of orange and yellow, seeming to flicker and dance with every movement of her eyes.

“The Healer…?” Delahaye ventured, earning a raised brow from the scarred woman.

“The god of healing, yes.”

Delahaye knit her brow, resting back on her elbows. She took another look around the room, finding none of it to be particularly reminiscent of any temple she had ever been in. Then, she returned her gaze to the stranger.

“And you are?”

“You may call me Primrose.”

“Delahaye,” Delahaye responded, extending a hand. Primrose took it, and Delahaye was surprised to find her skin to be considerably warmer than anything she had ever felt before.

“You’ve got a hell of a fever.”

This earned a quizzical glance from Primrose, and Delahaye gestured to her.

“You’re burnin’ up, girl! You should be the one in the hospital bed, not me!”

“That is just my Fire and Phoenix essences,” she said with a shrug, “An increase to my body’s ambient temperature is only one of their many effects.”

Essences. There was mention of those things, again. Delahaye had only the vaguest idea of what they were, having absorbed one herself. Not that it had given her an inherent understanding of their function. So, it seemed there were plenty of different sorts. Personally, Delahaye found the idea of letting the essence of fire anywhere near herself to be incredibly unappealing.

“So… How did I get here, exactly?”

“You were found outside of the city’s southern gate, unconscious and barely clinging to life. You were lucky that an adventurer was on their way out at the time and stumbled across you.”

“And I was brought here.”

“Correct,” Primrose said. “I tended to your wounds, and you have been asleep for several days. It was… touch and go, for a while, I must admit.”

Delahaye grimaced at the thought. She'd had her fair share of brushes with death in the past, but this was the closest she had come in a long time. Shifting again, Delahaye swung her legs over the side of the bed, and Primrose extended a hand to support her, but she brushed it away.

“I ain’t that bad.”

It was slow going, but Delahaye found her balance. She vaguely recalled something in her log, something about a “racial power” enhancing her balance. Where she rightfully should have been wobbling all over the place, she was as sure on her feet as ever. Primrose watched her cautiously as Delahaye limped to the wide french doors that lead to a balcony. What she found took her breath away.

The city of Nefir was vast. Built up, rather than out, it was a latticework of interconnected bridges, linking spires and towers together like a spider’s web. Lush tropical plants hung from above, creeping along weathered sandstone walls and hanging off of the many bridges. She looked down, finding herself on the precipice of a drop that descended into the depths of the city, well over a mile and a half below.

“That’s… somethin’.”

“It is quite a sight, isn’t it? The City of Scales, they call it. Once because of the prevalence of the church of Judgement in the city, though now due to, well, its scale.”

All that Delahaye could manage was a nod. She was struck dumb by the sights around her. Even her world, with the wonders of nascent industrialization, had nothing on what she was seeing. She leaned back off the railing, finding a seat and taking a shaky breath. Primrose watched her closely, her fiery eyes curious.

“Your aura… You aren’t human, are you?”

“Eh? I’m human, ‘course I am. Ain’t nothin’ else that thinks. Though… my log did mention somethin’? What’s an ‘outworlder’?”

Primrose lapsed into contemplative silence, then found a seat. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, observing Delahaye closer than she had been before.

“I… do not know the specifics. But Outworlders, they are, well… from elsewhere. Brought to our world by magical phenomena.”

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“So… I ain’t on my own world?”

“No, Miss Delahaye–”

“Just Delahaye. Miss Delahaye is me mum.”

“No, Delahaye. You are no longer on your own world.”

That revelation left a nonplussed Delahaye leaning back in her seat, holding her hands over her face. She was silent for a long time, which did not seem to bother Primrose. Her mind was racing with the implications of her discovery. Delahaye had had quite a reputation, one of a violent seafaring marauder. Which, in all fairness, she was. But that was a reputation she no longer possessed, not here. It was an opportunity she had never once considered possible; a chance to start anew.

“Adventurers, you mentioned them. What’s their deal?”

“Adventurers protect people, first and foremost. They are our first line of defence against monsters, bandits, cultists, and the like,” Primrose explained.

“They use the magic granted to them by their essences. You have one essence, if, or when you get another two, you will also gain a fourth. The Confluence. That will mark your ascension from a normal ranked individual to an Iron ranker, someone who has become innately magical. Someone capable of becoming an adventurer.”

Delahaye contemplated for a long time. She rose from her seat and began to pace, gnashing her teeth. She sorely missed her hair at that moment; she had always curled it around her finger when there was thinking to be done. She couldn’t rightly do that while bald. With a sigh, Delahaye stopped her pacing, and looked to Primrose.

“Well, these Essences, then. How do I get them?”

…

Nefir’s market district was further down and on a different spire than the temple of the Healer. After some more rest, and Primrose’s insistence that she lead the way, Delahaye had wound her way down the spire and across one of the city’s many bridges, taking in the sights as she went along. She nearly ran into a man with the features of a lion, gawking at him as he passed. A sharp tug from Primrose sent her scampering after her guide.

“Your world does not have Leonids, I take.”

“No, no it does not,” she said, still shaking her head in disbelief.

That had been far from the strangest sight. Short, stocky people with deep blue skin and glowy tattoos, lanky, beautiful people with pointed ears, and Delahaye was left scraping her jaw off of the sandstone road at the sight of a woman with skin as dark as obsidian and hair and eyes the colour of bronze. Primrose once more forced her along, but Delahaye’s mind remained on the metal-haired woman.

“Celestines. They are, as a baseline, obnoxiously attractive.”

“I can damn well believe it.”

The spires of Nefir were massive sandstone structures, and to Delahaye’s surprise, natural formations. The people of Nefir had chiselled their way into and around the spires, hollowing them out and carving winding paths around their exterior. Over the centuries, they had been whittled, carved and scraped into the shape of towers. Storefronts, inns, temples and other buildings were set into the stone, the streets winding around them at an angle. The spire that made up the market district was one of the smaller ones. It was still colossal.

“I ain’t got anythin’ in regards to money,” Delahaye said, standing next to Primrose as the two of them surveyed the market from a distance.

“I will consider this an investment. Outworlders always get up to something. You can pay me back when you’re rich, or something like that,” Primrose replied. Delahaye grimaced, but nodded her assent.

“I don’t like owin’ favours… But I appreciate it.”

The two of them wound their way through the bustling market until they came across the building Primrose had been searching for. The Adventurer’s Society Trading Annex was a small building, and Delahaye stepped forward, only to be stopped by a gesture from Primrose.

“Adventurer’s Society members only, I’m afraid.”

“I can’t even go in to look?”

Primrose shook her head, and Delahaye rolled her eyes, falling dramatically into a bench outside of the annex. Her guide flashed a badge, and stepped inside. Left to her own devices, Delahaye took the time to collect her thoughts. She had seen so much, learned so much, in such a short time– her entire view of the world, narrow as it had been, had been turned upside down and shaken for all it was worth. Now, she was left to sift through the upturned innards for what she could still cling to.

“Can’t believe half of it…”

She looked down at her hands, curling and uncurling her fingers. They were still her fingers, still her hands. But she felt different. It was off-putting, the way she felt both at home within her skin and like a stranger at the same time. Of course, Delahaye was all too familiar with the bone-deep discomfort of a body that didn’t fit. Whatever the feeling was, it was similar… but not wholly the same. So much had happened, Delahaye hadn’t paused to observe the differences in her body.

They became readily apparent, the longer she looked, and the longer she contemplated.

She was slimmer around the midriff, her hips a little wider, her fingers just so slightly longer, and nimbler. The feeling of strangeness began to dim, and along with its passing came realisation. Hers was the discomfort of someone settling into a new home, not of a stranger within it.

A smile tugged at her lips. The warmth of a contentedness she had not felt in a long, long time blooming in her breast.

“A fresh start, then.”

The door to the trading annex swung open, and Primrose stepped out, holding a small wooden box in her hands. Delahaye stood, and fell in beside her as the two made their way through the marketplace.

“What’d you find?”

And how much did it cost? Was the unspoken latter half of her question. Primrose opened the box as they walked, revealing two more of the palm-sized cubes. One was like a solid cube of water, as if someone had walked over to a puddle and carved out a perfect cube from it. The other was like one of the ship dioramas Delahaye had seen on the desks of some of the noblemen she had dealt with. It was like a ship in a bottle; a vessel somewhat like a schooner, save for the fact its sail was replaced with a vertical metal rod, drifting on a flat expanse of water.

“The Water and Ship Essences. You spoke of the ocean in your sleep, and sailing. It was not hard to find these two, they are very common in Nefir.”

Delahaye nodded, swallowing thickly. She was not exactly well-versed in expressing her gratitude.

“You already have one essence bonded to you– which one is it?”

Delahaye thought back, pushing through the muddled memories of the events prior to her arrival in Nefir. It had all gone so quickly, and she had been rather caught up in trying not to die.

“Vast, I think it was?”

Primrose stopped, eyes widening slightly– her left more than her right, Delahaye noted– as she gave Delahaye a long look.

“And just where did you come across an essence that rare? Don’t tell me you just found it in the dirt.”

When Delahaye merely shrugged and smiled sheepishly, Primrose let out a groan of frustration.

“Well, to be fair, my compass led me to it,” Delahaye said, holding up the device. The presence of the needle had been in the back of her mind, but unlike before it was no longer pointing anywhere specific. Instead, she had a consistent, subconscious feeling about where her polar north was.

“It has your aura. But also… something else.”

Primrose leaned in, narrowing her eyes at the compass. One of the components clicked and raised upwards.

“Did your compass just… raise its eyebrow…?”

“Spirited little thing, ain’t it?”

Primrose shook her head, lips moving silently in what Delahaye took to be a prayer. With a tilt of her head, Primrose beckoned her to follow.

“Who did the ritual for your first essence?”

“Ritual? I just sorta… ate it?”

“You what?”

…

After some additional time spent wandering the market, Primrose and Delahaye had meandered further up the spire. It found the two of them at an eatery, and Delahaye had insisted upon buying them both lunch with the money she had scrounged up. Exactly how she had found so many loose coins, she hadn’t said, and Primrose felt it better not to ask.

“Normally, essences are absorbed in a ritual. It seems you have a shortcut,” Primrose was explaining, gesturing with her utensils as she ate. In Nefir, much of the food was small, yet dense. Many foods were meant to be eaten with twin sticks, used to pinch and pick the morsels. Delahaye had found it far too annoying, and had settled for using her fingers. Whatever she was eating, it was good, not that she had any clue about what it was. They were like small, soft-shelled crustaceans, boiled and eaten whole, coated in a rich, spicy sauce and dusted with all manner of exotic spices, like salt.

“You know, where I’m from,” Delahaye said, licking her fingers with relish.

“They invaded a whole buncha places, yeah? For their spices, then decided they didn’t like any of ‘em. Food is real bland.”

“That seems impractical,” Primrose said, and Delahaye laughed.

“You’re tellin’ me. See, I made a livin’ stealin’ from these pricks–”

“So what, you’re some sort of pirate?”

Delahaye grinned, her shark teeth glistening red with sauce. Jabbing one finger at Primrose, her delight was evident in her voice.

“Exactly! A scourge of the sea, I was! A swashbucklin’ scallywag! Though, ah… not anymore, I guess? I’ve got a chance to start over, here. I did some stuff I ain’t exactly proud of.”

Her tone sobered quickly, and Primrose nodded.

“We all have things we regret. I won’t push. Just… don’t make a habit out of boasting about your past exploits. The Adventurer’s Society doesn’t look kindly upon such things. Especially in a port city like Nefir. Piracy is a threat they take seriously, and handle with judicious applications of hyperviolence.”

Delahaye nodded, her grin vanished. The two picked at their food in silence for a time, before Delahaye pushed her empty bowl aside and stood up.

“So, I’m going to find somewhere to stay. Those essences–”

“Take them. They’re yours, now.”

Delahaye paused, then nodded, taking the box from Primrose and calling up her chest, placing them inside.

“I need some time to figure things out. Where can I find you, usually?”

Primrose stood as well, smoothing out her robes. She wore vestments somewhere between those of a priestess and an assassin– leather armour and a cloak of white silk, chased in gold. The vambraces and gloves she wore stood out from the sterility of the rest of her outfit– they were charred, and blackened by soot, smelling faintly of smoke. Primrose herself smelled strongly of woodsmoke. Not that Delahaye made a habit of sniffing people.

“The central spire, ask for the Primadola Estate. There are few in this city who do not know where it is.”

“Not the temple? Ain’t you a healer?”

“Oh, I am,” Primrose said, a smile teasing at her lips, “I just also happen to be the heiress-apparent to the duchy.”