“You’re late,” Raven notes as I step into the damp den.
I look around, noting the hunched figures that fill the apiary. There are cages full of birds in the background, their black, beady eyes staring at me. No one looks at the birds, but their eyes do fill the room. Even just that moment of delay has Raven settle their authority around me like a heavy blanket.
“Hey,” the sumeen says, the six holes in their pale face locking onto me. “You’re late,” they repeat. “I told you not to be.”
The weight on my shoulders gets heavier, and I nod, then pull up my shirt, showing my new wound. “Got stabbed on the way,” I say quietly. It’s usually a good enough excuse.
Raven hums in displeasure, dissonant tones ringing against my ears. “Hmpf. You get stabbed too much.”
“Maybe you get stabbed too little,” I say with a shrug.
That makes them huff in amusement. “Alright, hand over the items.”
Sighing softly, I place the bag I carry on the table. It’s woven from canvas, neatly stitched, and I got it for only a handful of chits. Instantly, Raven pulls out the blades and shields and cloaks and everything else, turning them in their long, pale limbs. “Your quality is still the same,” they note disappointedly.
“It sure is,” I nod.
“Are you bad or undercutting us?” they ask, leaning forward onto the table. The rotting wood creaks underneath their weight, and Raven does the humming equivalent of an angry sneer.
“Just bad,” I say with a shrug. “I’m just in my 50s, Raven. Couldn’t measure up to true climbers like you,” I say, smiling gently.
The words placate them, and they give a slow hum, leaning back again. “Right, yes, you are,” they say, waving a hand. “That’s why you get stabbed so much, too. Your infuriating face probably makes it worse.”
I tilt my head slowly. “Why’s my face infuriating?”
Raven just stares, not deigning to give me an answer. Instead, they reach into their pouch, throwing a handful of chits my way. The silver coins clink across the table, and I soon snatch them up, storing them away, and keeping one in my hand for fidgeting. They’re still nicely smooth and I enjoy having them a lot.
“Scamper off, Yuki,” Raven says, waving a long limb in my direction. “I’ll contact you again.”
“When will I get into the mono?” I ask quietly.
And this time, the mob boss laughs. “Hah!” Raven barks out. “You hear that, boys? Newbie wants into the mono. Think they’ve contributed enough. What, you think for a few fancy cloaks we’ll let you up there? Hmmm?” they taunt. “Keep dreaming. Save up your chits and maybe you can buy your way there. Now, piss off.”
Sighing softly, I raise from my chair. Their authority presses into me a bit, and I act as if I couldn’t push back. That’s fine. I can take the dirty looks everyone in the den gives me. I can take the way the ravens caw at my pitiful shape. The way they think they’re better than me, all of that is fine.
I’d never try to fix the arrogance of my enemies. Instead, I just let them believe what they want to believe, playing with decompressing and recompressing the chits. Silver turns to ten bronze, then back to silver.
Someone throws a chair my way as I slink outside the building, which I quickly step out of the path of, earning them a few giggles from the assorted bandits in the den. It’s nothing special from the outside. A rotten, crumbling thing like any of the other ruins in the fifth ring. But still, it’s mostly solid, and the roof only leaks a little, so Raven keeps their little aviary inside.
The birds that give them their namesake. I’ve been trying to peek at their authority, but it’s not been too fruitful yet. I don’t have the sample size to come up with accurate guesses.
Instead of focusing on that, I just pull up my hood, letting the rain pelt off me as I try to reshape my vessel some more.
[Vessel Construction 4 > 5]
[Class up! Vesselsmith 3 > 4]
More cracks spread through the ethereal organ, soon mending with mana. The power tries to bubble and boil out of the cracks, tearing at my vessel, and I force it down with my attunement loop. Honing and smithing away, growing more mana within me, even as the class level threatens to tear the fragile stability I’ve achieved apart.
My work isn’t done yet, though. Darkness settles over Downpour, now. The nights here are dark, rainy clouds only split by whistling winds. I can tell tonight will be a rough one, just looking up, and the only light in the sky is the faint glow of the eyes. But that doesn’t stop me from looking around, from seeing.
Mana lights up the world around me. By now, [Observation] is yet another skill I keep almost permanently active. Perpetual pursuit has allowed my mind to handle a lot more strain, so I make sure to work myself to those newly expanded limits. I expand and tinker with the skill, making adjustments as I walk through the dim streets, letting it highlight different things.
[Observation 16 > 17]
Only once I improve it properly do I see the cloaked figure to my right. For a moment I think it’s another pickpocket and swerve away, when she clicks her tongue. “Over here, Yuki.”
That explains why I almost couldn’t find her. In fact, I can see the look of annoyance that I saw through the stealth, and she gives me an annoyed glare as I walk over. “Sorry, Anna,” I say simply.
“No you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m not at all,” I nod.
The girl rolls her eyes at my antics. She goes to snatch my wrist and pull me further in the alley, then stops that motion halfway through, and instead just glares at me. “Come on. Guards’ll come by. Let’s head inside.”
I nod quietly, and follow her through a small maze of rubble and alleys, sneaking alongside the gutters that lead to waterfalls pouring off the floating islands. Instead of taking a dive in those, the two of us hushedly pull into another building, this one half-buried among the trouble.
“Home sweet home,” Anna says, taking off her hood and shaking out her silvery hair. She glares at me with those metallic eyes. “Now. Let me be very fucking clear, Yuki. I am not engineering a gang war for you!”
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