“Right,” I said when Soa was done eating. “Well. I can’t keep feeding you for nothing, Soa. But if you can work, I can pay. Then maybe you can get yourself cleaned up, make it easier for you to find more work. Fortune favors those who help themselves, yeah?”

Soa nodded, clearly unsure.

“What can I do, though? I don’t know–”

“You know the city, right?”

He nodded.

“Good. I don’t, and I could benefit from a guide. Show me the secrets, help me find the good stuff. Does that sound like something you can do?”

Soa thought for a moment, serious, then nodded.

“All right. Is there a public bathhouse around? We can get you cleaned up, and…”

I noticed Soa’s eyes wide, a bit of a panic in them.

“...are you afraid to take a bath?”

He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the ground. I sighed.

“What would it cost, a few coppers? Here, take this as an advance, and get yourself a bath, ok? I’m serious. I want to see that hair cleaned up tomorrow.”

Soa stood still for a moment, but then reached forward to take the coins I was offering.

“I’ll get clean,” he said.

“Good. I’ll see you here tomorrow morning, then.” I stood to go, Treepo standing and stretching next to Soa.

“W-wait!” Soa stammered. I looked back to him to see what the problem was. “What… what’s your name?”

“Ah, sorry,” I said, realizing I had forgotten to introduce myself. “I’m Pilus, and this here is Treepo.”

Soa scrunched up his brow, committing the names to memory, then nodded.

“Clean hair! Tomorrow morning!” I said, making my way out of the alley.

* * *

The next morning, Soa was waiting near the entrance of the alley, his hair cleaned and looking much better overall after a much-needed bath.

“See? Isn’t that better?” I asked, tousling his hair like my mother used to do to me.

He glared up at me from under my hand, and I laughed.

“Hair like this ought to be kept clean,” I said, jealous of his damascus locks. My hair in this life was pretty good, but plain black hair in a world with fantasy options made me feel a bit lackluster. With hair and those violet eyes, people would be all over him when he was older. Well, maybe not, if those traits were as common among the southerners as they seemed. Certainly, back on Earth, he would turn heads.

I glanced at him again, realizing I didn’t know how old he even was.

“What are you, six? Seven?”

He glared at me, indignant, one of the first real expressions I had seen on his face other than hunger and fear since I had met him.

“I’m nine,” he stated. Same age as Nodel, then. He was so small though. I shook my head.

“We definitely need to get more food into you. You need meat so you can gain some muscles,” I said, lifting up an arm and curling a bicep. That was a little unfair due to my skill-based strength, but I was still enjoying the novelty of my enhanced muscles.

Soa dropped his gaze, blushing.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get bigger and stronger when you're older,” I said, waving my hand in the air. “Right. So. Show me the city!”

A young orphan made for both a very good and a very bad tour guide. While he didn’t know all of the city, he sure had some surprises for me. Over the next couple of days I saw some of the seedier parts of the city, learning most certainly that not all was well in Roko, but also guided around to some of the nicest parts of town that were public access. Overall, it was a nice place, though deeply flawed.

A few days after we had met, I was set to go back to the tailor and pick up the clothes I had ordered. After picking up the clothes and paying the tailor, I changed out of the over-mended clothing of my childhood, which were at their limit with my new muscles, into some much nicer garb.

“Not bad, huh?” I said, when Soa took a look at me. He shook his head, glancing down.

As bad as my old clothes had been, Soa’s rags were much, much worse. We had gotten a number of odd glances as he showed me around over the past couple of days.

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“Here,” I said, handing him a small pack with some of my childhood clothes.

He took the bag, cautious as ever, then looked inside before looking back up to me with big eyes.

“You’re giving me your old clothes?”

“Part of the payment for services rendered,” I said, brushing him off. “Not a problem.”

Soa stood, staring at the bag for a moment, before shuffling his feet a bit.

“Thank you,” he mumbled quietly.

“You’re very welcome. That’s what friends are for.”

Soa gave me a rare, genuine smile, and I actually felt my face heat up slightly. I also felt the pressure of a notification. Glancing at it, I added him to my friend list.

Marshan wanted me to come see to a fish sale, which sounded devastatingly boring, so I told Soa I wouldn’t be around for another day or two. I wanted to check in with the engraver, as well, see if he had any of the stuff finished. I was eager to add enchantments to my list of skills. I still had a ton of skill points in reserve from the bandits, points which made me rather uncomfortable from their source, but I wanted to at least make the best use of them in skills that could go towards creation rather than destruction.

The fish sale was as boring as I estimated it would be, but as always, educational. I was convinced there was a huge amount of money to be made in faster travel or better food transport. Now that I had revised my understanding of 4-point magic, I didn’t see how I could use oxidation to help cool fish. I was sure there was a way to form ice magically–it was still H20 and should still fit within the language of the circle, if only I could figure out what I was missing–but my previous idea of negative fire which came from internalizing the faulty logic of my mother’s grimoire no longer made sense, and I didn’t think there was an oxide that could help.

After the day’s work was over, I visited the stables to check in on Buda, who I had tried to visit every day if possible. He was fairly content to relax with the oxalire, sleeping and eating with no other responsibilities. Bilgus was staying in the stables, with the animals, and Gregory, the adorable traitor, had taken to staying with the old tamer. Despite the man’s initial thoughts about the beast’s usefulness, I never saw him without Gregory on his shoulder.

At first I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but they both seemed to enjoy each other’s company, and I didn’t really need Gregory for anything. It was nice to have some alone time with Treepo, too.

The next day I visited the engraver, and it turned out he had finished the first batch of engravings, the cheap practice pieces for me to learn the skill. I took them with me, finding a quiet and out-of-sight place to start experimenting with.

The design I had copied from Belat’s books was a simple light enchantment, with a fairly minimal formula in the command ring around a 5-point magic circle. I didn’t really think I could screw it up that badly, if the worst I would do was cast light at it, so I wasn’t too worried about a devastating failure.

My magic control was also pretty good, and I had a lot of practice channeling MP into food and potions. I didn’t get the skill my very first try, not quite perfectly managing to channel the spell command, but I adjusted and adapted until I got the notification adding the skill to my repertoire.

Didn’t even ruin an engravement. I guess I had some spares I could use or sell. I immediately moved 10 SP into the skill to advance it, and then swiftly enchanted the other engravings. They were just loose metal discs, which just shone light from the surface, so they weren’t that useful. I considered ways I could use them, and thought maybe I could secure them recessed in a kind of cylinder to make a low-powered magic flashlight or something.

Maybe I’ll give one to Soa. It would be good for him to practice using MP so he would grow up with more magical potential, and that was exactly the strength of an enchanted item like this. Having a light source would be useful for the boy, especially at nights on the streets, although what I really wished was for some way I could get him into a home of some kind.

Treepo batted at one of the enchanted discs, still glowing from the MP I channeled into it.

“You want one too, bud?” I asked with a laugh. Treepo grunted at me, swatting at the light.

I collected and stored away my items, concealing Treepo with invisibility, though not because I had to in Roko. It was mostly just a habit and made navigating the city quicker and easier, and also gave me a leg up in a surprise confrontation. I did not need more thugs trying to target him, even though I wasn’t particularly that worried about those levels of confrontations.

We made our way through the crowded streets, as the streets in Roko always seemed crowded, working our way back towards the warehouse district. I stopped to grab some street food from a food cart, which was surprisingly delicious, then doubled back for a second for myself and three more, one each for Treepo, Gregory, and Buda. I would have to learn what that was spiced with and get my hands on some.

I headed to the stables, said hi to Buda and Gregory, both of which gobbled up the street food happily, and veered back towards my temporary home for the night.

As I approached, I kept my eyes open for Soa. I wanted to give him one of the enchanted items and get him using it as quickly as possible. The more MP he used before he leveled, the more he would gain during level up, at least if my working theory on that continued to prove true. Usually, the boy would show up around here, and I had hoped to see if he cleaned up as nice as I thought he would in the hand-me-down clothing.

I frowned, glancing down a couple alleys. He could just be busy, of course. Roko didn’t have danger lurking around every corner, and he was probably fine.

Still, it bothered me. I had only known him for a few days and it seemed unusual for him to not be around. I hadn’t seen him since the day before after I gave him the clothing. What if a guard grabbed him, thinking he had stolen the clothes? What if the thugs came back and caused him some problems?

I couldn’t just go back to the warehouse to sleep once the worries started circling my brain, so I added Soa to my party and opened my map to see where he was. It was a bit of a violation of his privacy, but better safe than sorry.

My concerns were proven to be somewhat valid, at least. He was nowhere in the district. Zooming out and looking at the larger map, he was all the way across town.

“Should we go look for him, Treepo?” I muttered to my familiar, who chittered nonsense in response. I sighed. “Yeah. I don’t think I can help myself either.”

* * *

As I approached the part of Roko that my map told me Soa was within, and as night settled on the city, I immediately knew something was wrong. Too many women in too little clothing standing around a little too suspiciously clued me off quickly. This was Roko’s red light district, or something like it, and it made no sense for Soa to be here.

I followed his map marker all the way to a dark, run down building, and I detected some men milling about guarding the place. Whatever this was, I did not like it.

Casting my stealth illusions, I slipped forward to make my way inside.