The lake cavern stairwell led us right into the central park of the Gold city. The entrance to the tunnels was cleverly hidden behind a waterfall. Celes and I broke through the tranquil curtain of water and trudged across the decorative pond trampling delicate, pink water lilies that got in our way. A few yellow-robed monks that were meditating on the meadow in front of the aforementioned waterfall glanced our way.

"Just doing some routine waterfall maintenance!" I waved at the pilgrims as I squeezed water out of my silver-blue hair. Confidence was the key to appearing like you belonged somewhere.

Celes was ruining my groove, looking all shy and embarrassed. She was likely feeling guilty for bothering these pious cultivators and terrified of the impending discovery of her crime by High-Administrator Han. I grabbed her by the wet robe and dragged her out of the park heading towards the shining towers of the cult compound.

The shortest route there led us right through the middle of Grand Bazaar.

The Pharmacist part of me was instantly enthralled by all of the servitor phantoms around the place. For a twenty-first century human the view of the Gold city was a truly bewildering, otherworldly sight. Twisting patterns of gridlock made up of ghosts, humans and demi-humans dominated the rising and falling landscape of the enormous city.

Nearly every servitor spirit here had a unique shape. Some were small and extremely agile, gracefully gliding through the air looking like glowing jellyfish, manta rays or fantastic kites shaped like miscellaneous animalia. Others were enormous, as big as a brontosaurus and never left the ground. They slowly marched through the larger avenues with wares precariously piled atop them. The biggest servitors here were the size of blue whales - they didn't even fit on the streets. Grandiose phantoms decked with fluttering, gold flags took up the skyways above the city, some of them docked to the tall wooden towers akin to enormous world war one zeppelins. I recalled that these oversized spirits functioned as sky-buses, moving people and goods around the Gold city and also beyond it to other god-administered cities.

Yes, the city was filled with supernatural things to the brim and looking at it with unaccustomed eyes was quite the refreshing experience. I was noticing details that I had never paid attention to as Ash. There was absolute dominion of yellow and black colors everywhere, creatively expressed in an absurd number of elaborate shrines, complex mosaics, magnificent murals and artsy, gold-foil street signs. Each of these was a masterpiece in its own right and looked like it took thousands of man-hours to produce.

I noted how servitors were used everywhere in daily life as a substitution for mundane, repetitive and machine labour. I saw small and huge carts being pulled by dinosaur-like ghosts, traffic lights controlled by many-eyed servitors, dangerous-looking phantoms with jagged limbs guarding fancy armour and jewelry shops and long, many-limbed ghosts doing maintenance and repairs while clinging to sides of imposing, tall buildings.

While looking at the “construction” type servitors laying down yellow and black bricks I discerned exactly how this architecturally multiplex, multi-layer, labyrinthine city was built - the buildings and construction materials were all carved from the shell of the Boundless Chorus, more and more buildings added atop each other over passing centuries!

The more I stared at the ghostly servants, the more I realised that their shapes weren’t just cryptid. I had studied biology and evolution in university and there was no way that these things could originate on earth - Darwin would throw a fit at seeing some of these. I couldn't even begin to guess what kind of environment and abiogenesis could produce such esoteric creatures.

Another interesting aspect of this future world were the high-cultivators. They flashed their Qi at nearly every opportunity, trying to show off their ludicrous skills, eccentric robes, bewitching geishas or wacky/monstrous servitors to get a discount on something as mundane as a ghost whale-bus ticket. Some of them simply did it as a manner of greeting to each other. For such men and women, going out was basically an unending parade, an outlandish fashion show of peacocks trying to show off their new skills or possessions to elevate themselves further on the imaginary social ladder.

There were ghosts of people too - alluring geishas from some past century, wearing physical clothes. Their semi-transparent, emotionless, silver-blue faces looked akin to cyberpunk holograms. They stood in front of tea-shops, waving gold fans in an elaborate, endless dance, pausing only to mechanically, voicelessly advertise the said establishments, bowing to every person that left or entered. I understood then why Celes chose something as insane as robbing an Administrator to escape this city - these girls were youthful beauty preserved within the amber of undeath. What if they were as conscious as I after death, but constantly fighting against the binding commands? To suffer such a fate for centuries would be truly abominable.

The most alien thing of all here was a brilliant sphere made of impossibly twisted mobius-loop style wheels and eyes that hovered in the middle of one intersection. A hundred hexagonal eyes stared at the human and spirit anthill around it, silently judging all. People bowed and whispered prayers as they passed the Voice of the Boundless Chorus, the archangel of their Lord made manifest.

"Sparky!" A female voice distracted me from my observations. I turned my head, discovering a trio of very thin and dishevelled-looking teenagers.

Ash had recognized them immediately. The redhead standing in the front was the Hand gang leader Anathema Aria. Two of her minions stood behind her, long, carved bone-knives glinting within leather belts. My muscles instantly tensed up, Qi flowing into my legs automatically. Adrenaline shot through my system, as my body expected to run, to hide as soon as possible. Deep, ingrained fear squeezed my heart at the mere sight of ‘the Hand’ gang, making my pulse quicken.

As Ash Sparks tensed up for a fight or flight, the Pharmacist part of me took complete control of the situation. I observed the street-kids with a rational, collected mind that was foreign to this place. Ash owed a lot of "job hours and backpay" to nineteen-year-old Anathema. This gang of local urchins operated just like any other - by means of threats, coercion and violence.

Anything nice stolen by Ash from the dead city or the market generally ended up in the hands of the boss - Violet Lillian, an old crone in charge of a small piece of the Gold city underworld, the local brothels and small-time thieves guild. Anathema Aria and Violet Lillian couldn't care less if Ash Sparks lived or died. As long as I was giving up the good stuff to the people above me, I was allowed to “work” in the market and I had gotten quite bad at making my regular payments, avoiding the Hand for weeks.

"Sparky, Sparky," Anathema smiled. "Just the pinkie I was looking for."

At the mere sound of her voice, an animosity-laden thought blossomed in my mind, sewn together from old pain and repressed fears of sixteen-year old Ash Sparks. Lead Anathema and her idiot minions to the caves and execute them with our gun. Bury the bodies in a grave of yellow sand where nobody will ever find them, it whispered darkly. Make them pay for every broken rib and every scar on your back.

No. I crushed the transient thought before it even fully manifested.

I am not a murder-hobo.

The Hand gang was a lifeline that allowed starving, family-deprived kids like me to survive the worst winters but it was also a noose that constricted my future freedom, drawing me deeper into debt with the thieves and concubines guild with every winter. Ash had been severely beaten by the Hand gang before for disobedience and not just once - these young thugs were a lot stronger and faster than me in terms of cultivation.

However, the soul pulled from the ancient skull wasn't afraid of these vagabond kids. Seeing them with eyes unclouded by hate, I realised that they were just desperate, starving teenagers trying to survive in a rather grimdark place. I was in no danger from them as long as I spoke the right words.

I stepped back into the soothing embrace of serenity radiating from Celes. My heartbeat slowed, my muscles relaxed and I smiled as I had never smiled in front of Anathema before.

"Annie! How are you?" I spoke with a sly grin, allowing zero worry or past-fear to manifest in my expression.

The unexpected nickname had bamboozled the gang leader for exactly two seconds.

"What did you just call me?" She hissed like a viper, pushing Qi into her hand ready to hit me.

"I'm doing great by the way! I'm a high-cultivator now," I continued my charade, fuelled by the absolute power of calmness. "This is my personal geisha - Celes Rada. We just had a nice swim together in the deep catacombs, hunting spirit beasts!"

I casually placed a hand around Celes and she nodded. The kitsune was far too exhausted by our trip to even bother saying anything.

Anathema's mouth dropped open. The two boys behind her froze too.

I presented the Rat-King's beast core to them. "Check it out! I just killed an underwater beastie too! All part of the daily job."

The eyes of the trio hungrily settled on the core. If my words had not convinced them, then my hand wrapped tightly around the geisha’s waist and the shimmering core presented in the middle of the market did it. Nobody but high-cultivators would dare show off a beast core in such blatant fashion. As I had observed only moments priorly, nobody but the high-cultivators owned and paraded their geishas like property.

Anathema's blue eyes closed into thin lines as sharp as a blade. She was trying her best to cut through my words and take me apart. But her brain didn't work with the precision of a surgeon. Her nostrils flared. With a trembling voice pushing past her disbelief, she spoke accusingly. "You.. you could've stolen that from a passing hunting cultivators! You really think a pinkie like you can become a whole hand without my notice, Sparky? And... is that really, really a Geisha or another one of your street friends playing pretend?"

The first accusation could be plausible. I could see a reason for that. For as long as she knew me, Ash, the girl, and not the Pharmacist, it would seem unlikely for me to rise to such a fortune so suddenly. Gold City tended to cultivate things slowly, gradually, and many stayed within their caste.

The second accusation was pure stupidity trying to find doubt in what was right in front of her eyes. I glanced at my new geisha friend whose frown is set deep on her face, only getting deeper from this prolonged charade. I didn't have to be the only person working hard to sell this, did I?

My fingers prodded her waist for her to get into the act a little.

"Do you truly wish to challenge my status before the cult?" Celes said with a tired, deadpan voice, that sold how over she was of Anathema's presence. "I do not wish for your end, child, but I do not take kindly to your flippant disrespect. I am the geisha of the Serenity Temple!"

The gang leader gulped. Her nostrils flared again. She looked at me then at Celes and a look of confusion spread across her face. She must have just noticed the field of profound serenity emanating from my companion. It was something that was impossible to fake, a specialized skill used only by geishas.

I dove in like a hawk.

"Annie. You work for me now, understand?" I commanded in a cold, stern tone that allowed for no arguments, copying the exact, bossy intonation used by high-cultivators. I even angled my chin at them as if I was observing them from a high angle. You are but maggots beneath my feet that are barely worthy of my attention, my posture spoke.

“...but, Lady Lillian is the one who owns the Hand,” Anathema bent under the pressure of my theatrical gaze, her freckled face twisting in annoyance. I knew what she was thinking.

“If Lillian has a problem with this new arrangement, she can file a complaint to the compound of our Lord Boundless,” I nonchalantly waved a hand at the walls of the cult. “Not like the High-Administrator Han Axiom Sempiter will care for pitiful demands of the thieves guild. He was the one to discover my incredible talents and personally elevated me to a high-cultivator, you see.”

The two teenagers behind Anathema stared at me in absolute stupefaction. Their boss tilted her head.

"Celes, give them a few coppers. I know that they are hungry," I hammered the last nail home.

Celes pulled out a few coins and handed them to one of the kids, who grabbed at them greedily. The destruction of Ash's former nemesis was complete.

“I… uhh..." Anathema finally spoke. She had expected an easy target to bully, but instead she had run into an unwieldy glacier and was now sinking down into the depths of confusion.

"Meet me at midnight at the West gate of the compound and I'll tell you everything. Bring everyone," I conspiratorially declared. "I've got a busy schedule. Got to show off this lovely core to Master Sempiter and get my first servitor-beast! Till then, Annie. Toodles!"

I grabbed Celes by her elbow and walked off. Anathema didn't say anything. I knew that she was hooked and I was off the hook... for now.