-=[Traetorius Manning, Gold City Magistrate]=-

Magistrate Traetorius Manning tapped his fingers on his ornate wooden desk. The rich, yellow wood for it came from inside the deep caverns within Lord Boundless, said to be filled with an entire forest of death. Twenty three men had died bringing this wood back to the city. Every item in his office had been accumulated over the centuries by the Manning family as proof of their power, paid for in blood, gold and lives.

It was past midnight and the Magistrate wasn’t asleep yet, because the city didn’t ever sleep - most interesting things happened after midnight. Even now, ghosts flashed in and out of the Magistrate’s castle tower windows delivering news from various branches of the Gold city. The Magistrate smelled something in the air with his future-sense, some inexplicable tension rising across the city.

His eyes confirmed his nose - a lot more messenger servitors were flashing back and forth than normally. A new… something was blossoming across the land. The Magistrate didn’t know exactly what it was, but he was very eager to figure out what the new trend was to take advantage of it, to squeeze maximum wealth and power out of it.

A balding, black robed figure shambled into his office, interrupting the Magistrate's thoughts of city management and future-sensing. The visitor looked rather distressed.

Traetorius raised his head from the scrolls. “What grave news made you barge into my office so boldly, Copperpenny? Did I not tell you to keep yourself glued to my favourite granddaughter Arianna? I swear if…”

“Forgive me Lord Magistrate! I bear grave and incredible news! It could not wait,” Avidius panted as he reached the Magistrate and stood in front of the ornate desk, bald head covered in sweat and gleaming in the moonlight.

“Fine, out with it. Report.” Traetorius waved his hand.

“Lord Magistrate, a new pawn has entered the field,” Copperpenny stammered. “Sixteen-year-old high-cultivator Ash Sparks. Wielded by Cult High-Administrator Han Sempiter, she aims to take control of the Guilds.”

“WHAT?!” Traetorius barked. “How can a sixteen-year-old be a high-cultivator?! Such is a preposterous absurdity… Do tell me everything.”

The lime-skinned bodyguard began to tell a strange, bewildering tale of Ash Sparks. The more words came out of his mouth, the more off-kilter the Magistrate felt.

"I see," Traetorius finally said when his minion was done. "That's quite the tale."

He rubbed his chin in deep contemplation. The Magistrate’s office was akin to a giant spider web - the Manning family had spies in every corner of the city and nothing had gone past this old spider’s notice in thirty three years of his rule over the Gold city… nothing, until today.

The Magistrate's eyes and ears within the compound walls had never mentioned anything about Ash Sparks being chosen as the apprentice of the High-Administrator. The Magistrate thought of his cunning, ambitious nineteen-year-old granddaughter who was aiming for his position even though she was seventh in line.

"Ash Sparks…. Sparks… she is one of the fingers of the Hand, yes?" The Magistrate pulled out a book, opened up a page and went down the list of names. “There. Ash Sparks, a pinkie. Low performance rates. Terrible obedience score. A loner. No known connections. Bad at cooperation. Low talent in cultivation. Obsessed with the cursed city. Survives by retrieving cursed artifacts. Most of the stuff she found is bought by the Barbers Guild. Hrmm.”

"Yes, your excellency. She is Arianna's pinkie." The bodyguard nodded.

"And that didn't strike you as odd? Didn't catch your interest one bit?"

"She has been missing often, a couple of weeks here and there, especially this year, not doing the…"

"A couple of weeks here and there? To become a high-cultivator?! Why is everyone around me an idiot?" The Magistrate asked. He started to examine the problem in his mind, cutting away the absurd and impossible and arrived at the most mundane, realistic answer and started to laugh.

"Lord Magistrate?" Avidius raised an eyebrow.

"Thankfully, I don't pay you to think, Copperpenny. I pay you to protect my Arianna." The Magistrate ceased his laughter. "Use your brain. What you saw was just a play - a performance. None of it was real!”

“None?” Avidius blinked.

“None!” The Magistrate nodded. “It was a well-planned show orchestrated for you and a crowd of orphans.”

“I don’t understand…” Copperpenny stammered.

“Ash Sparks belongs to my granddaughter. Arianna has always been one of my brightest pupils. At twelve she requested my permission to go out into the city and to gather a gang of homeless kids so that she could improve her leadership skills. She wanted to use her own training to elevate a bunch of homeless waifs to cultivators, to see if it's possible to uplift even the most destitute and the talentless. She wanted to build a little army of her own, to practice on… before she gained real power.”

Copperpenny nodded his lime-skinned head. The unearthly tone of it reminded the Magistrate of the poisoned, glowing lakes deep beneath the city. The old bodyguard had been injured by a poisonous dragon in the deep catacombs when he was younger and had barely survived, had to regrow all of his skin using Qi.

“I had assigned you to watch over Arianna in case things went sideways. For seven years my grand-daugher taught her little hoodlums everything she knew, living with them in the slums, pretending to be a lowborn waif, working under Lady Lillian. She had a purpose there - Arianna was my best ears and eyes within the Thieves Guild. Arianna knows a lot of the other Guild Heads as well. It seems that my granddaughter finally grew up.”

“Huh? But she… Ash Sparks had embarrassed her in front of everyone.”

“All part of Arianna’s plot, no doubt. Think, Copperpenny - what’s more realistic: A sixteen-year-old talentless girl becoming a high-cultivator in a few weeks OR my clever Arianna accidentally discovering news about the coming Convergence and using it to gain power over the Guilds?”

Copperpenny looked stunned. Traetorius enjoyed the sight of his minion’s befuddlement and basked in his own superiority of wisdom.

“I’ve been duped…” Copperpenny lowered his head.

“Yes, Avidius… and so have all of the kids. Undoubtedly, the news of the Deathstorm Convergence is already spreading like a firestorm across my city. Nobody can stop it now!” The Magistrate laughed heartily. “The panic alone will force the Heads of the Guilds to respond - they or their trusted reps will come to the Bell Lake, if only to see who has caused such a ruckus in their domains.”

“Hurm.” Avidius considered what the Magistrate was saying, trying to wrap his mind around the possible conniving plot. “But… I saw Ash summon a servitor. It held Arianna in the air and bit through a celesteel blade.”

“An excellent bit of theatre, that. It wasn’t her knife. Most likely just a cheap duplicate - the kind of crap they sell at the market. Real celesteel can only shatter from an attack of a two-hundred-star beast! As for the servitor... Arianna probably hired a high-cultivator to put on a show.”

“Urm… but why embarrass herself like that in front of her minions?” Copperpenny asked.

“Arianna wants to take control of the Guilds. She’s doing it in quite a roundabout way - Ash Sparks is a nobody. A patsy, a figurehead. If she dies, it’s not a big loss and my Aria can try it again in a few decades time… However, if Arianna can dupe the Guild Heads just as she duped you, then my granddaughter becomes the hand that guides the Guilds from the shadows! All eyes focus on Lady Sparks, the supposedly insanely-talented, youngest high-cultivator in centuries. Nobody will suspect Arianna of being the real leader after her misfortunate… accident and shakedown.”

“Damn,” Avidius gasped. “That is... clever.”

“Yes. My granddaughter has started a grand game of her own, it seems. A pity that she did not consult me priorly. I shall have to give her a good scolding for that when I see her.” The Magistrate stretched, stood up and walked to the open window. “At least I finally know what the hubbub down there is all about. This will be a long night indeed… come here and bow.”

The jade-skinned bodyguard came closer to Traetorius Manning, bowing his head. The Magistrate placed his palm atop the glistening forehead. He used his powerful art to snip the threads of the last 1000 heartbeats of memory out of the bodyguard’s head.

While it was fun to discuss things with this simple bodyguard, it would be better if Avidius didn’t know the full breadth of Arianna’s plot. The people who could smell, taste or see lies needed to believe in the legend of Ash Sparks for this firestorm to truly blossom.

The eyes of Copperpenny unfocused.

“What… I... uh?” He whispered.

“Go to the Thieves Guild and tell them exactly what happened at the abandoned mansion,” Traetorius commanded. “Visit as many Guilds as you can tonight and tell them all of Ash Sparks, the youngest high-cultivator in… seven hundred years. All must know of our chosen, noble hero, selected by the Enforcer of god's Will himself, she who will protect our fair city from the Deathstorm Matriarch!”

“Yes, Lord Magistrate. Your wish is my command.” Copperpenny nodded. The bodyguard put his hood back on, hiding his lime-tinted face and walked out of the office.

Traetorius looked out at the city once again, emerald eyes surveying his domain. He called up the names of all of his mail servitors, pushing Qi into the beast core gems in his desk.

One by one an array of ghosts flashed into existence before him. The magistrate wrote up a series of quick pages, sealed them within boxes and passed them to the ghosts, telling them where to take the letters. Tonight he planned to add as much fuel to the blossoming flame.

Tonight… Lady Sparks would blossom into a firestorm that would rearrange the city and bring everything under his control. A good panic would shake things up and the Magistrate knew how to wield such a fire. Traetorius had the biggest lever of them all here. After all - it was his granddaughter that set this spark into being, adopted the urchin ironically named Ash Sparks exactly seven years ago.

It didn’t even matter whether Stormweavers attacked in a week or not, the panic alone was perfect for shaking debts out of the most powerful people in the city.

-=[Ash Sparks]=-

“Hello, earth to Arianna? You with me girl?” I waved my hand in front of Miss Manning’s face.

She remained unresponsive and catatonic, crushed by the mind-shattering fact that I had stolen seven [Level 700ish] beast cores from the clutches of the High-Administrator of The Boundless Chorus cult. I guessed that Arianna’s nose was able to determine exactly how potent these cores were, without the actual number 700 assigned to it.

I decided on a creative approach to dislodge her from grimdark thoughts of doom shaped like the Enforcer of god's will.

“Toaster! Microwave! Fridge! Coffee Maker!” I cautiously crept around her and suddenly yelled alien words into her ear.

“W… what?”

“Ancient good-morning blessing word-curses! Ta-da! You are now fully cured of your pacification-fears!”

“Uhff…” Arianna inhaled deeply. “No. You’re lying.” Her eyes returned back into sharp, vicious focus. “What do these words really mean?”

“Names of mundane objects relating to breakfast!” I grinned.

“I hate you so much,” she groaned. “Why me?”

“You seem a bit too glum for someone sitting next to this much serenity.” I glanced at Celes. “Wait. Why isn’t Arianna calm and collected like me?”

“Because this poisonous snake doesn’t deserve my serenity,” Celes spoke coldly.

“Uh-huh,” I hummed. “So what you’re saying is that you can aim your serenity field… like a gun. And here I thought you were a creature of love and peace! Such fatal deceptions!”

Celes gave me a small smirk.

“Wait a minute… Are you aiming ALL of your serenity-magic at me? Is that why I feel extra awesome right now?” I made a guess.

Celes nodded in confirmation.

“I knew it!” I declared. “Okay, you can take it down a notch and give a bit to this poor ginger pretend-orphan crumb-bum, otherwise we won’t get anywhere today.”

“I don't need your freaking serenity!” Arianna growled. “I’m fine!”

“You don’t look fine.” I observed. “Do stop giving me that death-glare, Annie. You can’t hurt me with an angry look. I’m defended by the best serenity-generator in the city! Your glare does nothing! Huzzah!”

Was there such a thing as too much happiness? Nah. I liked being jolly and wholesome.

“To hell with sad, unfocused thoughts! Celes is my shield and the Pharmacist is my sword! Together, we are the Radiant Knights of Serenity!” I realised that I was speaking my thoughts out loud. I didn’t even care. Let Arianna be jealous of our incredible trio of friendship.

“I’m fine,” Arianna gritted her teeth. “Never better. Gods, I hope my grandfather doesn’t get involved in this horrid mess of yours!”