“A change of heart? I suppose that’s one way to look at it.” Aiden mused, looking down towards his kicking feet.

“What else would you call it then?” Samantha asked.

Aiden paused for a moment before he gave a small shrug and looked up at her, “Curiosity, if I had to put a label on it. Once I got wind that you were following me, I had a bad impression of you. The only reason people follow me is to try and rob me, after all. But seeing how you reacted to being turned down and how you nearly got jumped after you walked straight into gang territory, I decided to re-evaluate some assumptions I’d made about you. Maybe you are actually just kind of dumb?”

Samantha felt heat start to rise to her cheeks at the way that Aiden spoke that last question in an almost pitying tone. “I’d prefer the word ‘ignorant’,” she began, “and that’s related to the reason why I wanted to speak to you. I am curious about how you found out I was following you though, and how did you trail me so effectively after we parted ways?”

Without skipping a beat, Aiden replied, “Trade secrets. And even if they weren’t it would really cost you.”

“Fair.” Samantha sighed a little bitterly. She had concerns that others would use the same methods on her in the future and she would have no way to counter them due to lack of knowledge, but maybe she could ask again later when their relationship was better. She continued, “Well, you’re the one who was on the fence about me before. So is there anything that you want to ask me, or shall we skip straight to talking business?”

“Well, for starters, what’s your name? You never gave it.”

Samantha stopped for a split second to think of an alias to give Aiden instead of her real one, but he cut her thoughts short.

“Wow, you haven’t even thought that far ahead yet? Rule #1 of The Gutter: Have a name prepared, or someone’s going to give you a nickname you don’t like.”

“That sounds made up.” Samantha protested skeptically.

“It’s as real as it gets, Cheese. So now that I have something to call you... what’s the job you had in mind for me?”

“Wait, what? Did you just call me ‘Cheese’?”

“You bet! That’s your name now. Learn it. Live it. Love it. It’s better than pausing to think whenever someone asks for something to call you by.”

“That’s not even a proper nickname!”

“Sure it is. I caught you not a half-hour ago cornered by the Pack Rats. Rats like cheese. Thus, you are Cheese. Makes perfect sense!”

Samantha groaned aloud at the horrible reasoning, but before she could give an alternative option Aiden repeated his question from earlier.

“Are you gonna tell me what this job you were so excited to have me do is, or what?”

She decided to come back to the name issue later and focus on the business aspect for now. “Yes, as I’m sure you can tell, I’m not really from around here. I need someone to show me the ropes and I was also wondering if there was any sort of market for cultivation items nearby. You seemed like a good choice for the job because you value discretion and you seem to know the area well.”

Aiden leaned his back against another wooden crate that was stacked behind him, nodding along to her words, “Ah, so you’re after the black market then? It’s all coming together now... Unfortunately, those old rumors aren’t true. I’ve seen more than a few desperate people resort to consuming cultivation elixirs in a bid to speed up the formation of their core and unlock their quest, and I’d have to advise against it. All of them became incredibly sick--some even dying--and the worst part is you can’t even tell if it’s because the product was bad or if they weren’t able to process the energies.”

He gave her a grave expression as a frown appeared on his face, “It’s not worth dying over. Besides, you’re still young! And the qi density here on the outskirts is so bad anyway that it’s not uncommon for people to get the quest in their twenties. If I were you, I’d go back to wherever you came from and forget what you heard.”

Samantha schooled her expression at the unexpected windfall of information she just received. Aiden had made a completely incorrect assumption about her reasons for being here, but that misunderstanding could be a gold mine if she played her cards right. She had to tread carefully though. Since she was trying to build trust with Aiden, being caught in a lie could set her back to worse than square one.

“I don’t want the elixirs for when I’m mortal, it’s for when I become a cultivator. Like you said, the quality of the pills and elixirs here can be spotty, but the ones from proper alchemists in the city are too expensive. I need something that can give me an edge, please.” Samantha pleaded, using context clues from Aiden’s earlier explanation to expand a little on her own. She was gambling that the illegal alchemicals would be cheaper than the ones from the shops she knew of, but it seemed a safe bet.

She was correct.

Aiden seemed a bit conflicted at hearing her words, but ultimately nodded. “If you’re that set on it, who am I to stand in your way? At the end of the day, it’s not really any of my business what you do, so long as the price is right. This isn’t a simple job, and will require more time and effort from me than my typical courier duties. What are you offering for my work?”

Rule #1 of bartering. Never make the first offer.

“What would be fair to you? I’ll tell you straight away I’m short on coin, but I’m more than happy to do some work for you to make up the difference.” Samantha asked.

Aiden barked out a short laugh, “Everyone around here is short on coin! If you hadn’t already told me that you weren’t from around here, you would’ve just given yourself away Cheese. You always, always, offer favors first, then money since it’s so hard to come by.”

Samantha grimaced at the usage of her new nickname and at her novice mistake, her mind flashing back to her dealings with Ol’ Man Whisper. She feared she gave away more about herself than she initially thought.

“But I do have something in mind I think. I don’t know what’s gotten into them, but the Pack Rats have been hounding me more than usual these days. They always seem to know when my important deliveries are coming up and try to hunt me down before I can complete the route. I’ve got a big delivery coming soon that can’t be delayed, but I’ll need to give you some tests and take you on some smaller hauls before I trust you with more information. Think you can handle it?”

“To be clear, in exchange for you teaching me about how to blend in better in the slums and how to get access to the black market, you want me to help you somehow with this delivery?” Samantha posed, trying to get more defined terms to the agreement.

“Basically! If things end up not working out that way, we can renegotiate then. Do we have a deal?” Aiden inquired, holding out his hand for her to shake.

The conditions were uncomfortably vague to Samantha’s merchant mind, but considering the fact that there was a lack of trust on both sides she could admit that they were relatively fair. There was always the chance that he would try to cheat or extort her later with that clause about “renegotiation”, but she wanted to believe in her gut feeling about Aiden. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but ever since she first saw him she couldn’t help but like him and feel he was a good kid. If things did go wrong… well, she’d cross that bridge when she got there. For now, both parties had something the other wanted, so, as her father liked to say, ‘Let Business Commence’!

She started to reach out her hand to return the gesture but stopped dead in her tracks when she recalled something from earlier. “Wait, isn’t that the hand that you threw the piece of…” She paused, looking for a polite word… “‘waste’ with? At the Pack Rats I mean?”

His hand snapped forward like a striking viper and clasped firmly around her own, giving it a single shake, “Don’t worry! I’m pretty sure it wasn’t human. Like, 80% sure."

Samantha’s stomach churned at the thought, but before she could free her hand with the ‘mortal’ level of Strength she was trying to maintain, Aiden let go. He stood up and opened up the door that led back into the main building, saying, “Trust me, working this job you touch a lot of unexpectedly gross things. You’ll get used to it as you follow me on the routes!”

She doubted it.

Samantha walked alongside Aiden towards the entrance, again noting how young everyone around seemed to be. “Hey, Aiden, are there any couriers that are older?”

“The first question of our little arrangement! Appropriate, considering you’ll be working as one of us for a bit.” Aiden replied, chuckling a little. “Do you want the short answer, or the long answer?”

“The long answer, if we have time for it?” Samantha said, curious.

“Sure, we have some time before we reach the training grounds. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, both the streets and the buildings in this area aren’t in great shape. We’ve done our best to upkeep various paths by clearing common roadways and supplementing roof gaps with old wood beams or metal sheets, but the conditions worsen every year since nothing really gets repaired.

“Everyone can agree that moving along the roofs is better than the streets in all aspects. They provide a more direct line of travel for shorter delivery times, there’s less traffic so you don’t have to maneuver around busy groups, they’re more open so it’s harder for you to be snuck up on and robbed… I could go on and on. Unfortunately, the amount of roof routes that we can take are lessening with the increasing instability of the structures.

“We all have a very good grasp of what paths are ‘safe’ to take for our respective body and package weights, and not following those guidelines makes everyone’s lives harder. Once someone with too much weight takes a route they shouldn’t and breaks it, that’s one less avenue for everyone else. Sure, we can still take the streets, but it’s slower and people are more prone to lose packages due to robberies. This means that less people go to couriers to deliver their things, which causes a surge in people taking unsafe routes to try and get more business, which causes more broken routes… you get it. So, the only way to keep our employment thriving is for all couriers to be smaller, lighter--”

“For them to be children.” Samantha finished the thought aloud.

Aiden nodded, “That about sums it up. I’m actually quite lucky because I’m unusually small for my age, so I probably can keep delivering until my late teens. Longer, if I don’t mind losing some efficiency. Looking at you, I’d put you at… 5-feet 4 inches tall and 130 pounds?”

“Wow, that’s spot on actually.” Samantha confirmed

“For reference, I’m only around 4 foot 6 inches and 75 pounds, and even I’m starting to run into trouble with the most deteriorated sections. Charlotte, our little rising star who can deliver anywhere without issue, is only 4 feet tall and 60 pounds. In short, you’re going to be pretty limited in where you can go. But don’t worry too much, I’ll show you some tricks I learned so that you can keep up!”

By the time they had finished this conversation, they had jogged out of the headquarters and navigated towards some sort of courier training ground. Samantha followed Aiden into a collection of buildings in various states of decay, the heights of each and spaces between each differing noticeably. For almost every building there were two bridges that connected them to the other structures nearby, one a couple feet wide and one only several inches wide. The rest of the rooftops held only open air, as far as she could tell. Old lamps and lanterns were lit throughout the grounds, casting a dim glow over important areas such as the roof edges.

Aiden directed her over to the shortest of the buildings, and Samantha noted that the alleyways they passed were filled with bags of something soft (she pushed her hand against one to be certain) to help break a potential fall. She had no doubt that the heights of some of the buildings would be more than enough to snap bones and end the dreams of aspiring runners despite these precautions though.

Suddenly a scream and a ‘whump’ sound emanated from the direction of one of the mid height buildings, and Samantha found herself moving that direction to check on the unfortunate courier who didn’t make his leap. Aiden grabbed hold of her arm lightly to stop her, and she looked back with some confusion.

“Being too helpful will make you stand out, just so you know. People fall all the time around here, so just do your best to ignore the shouting. If someone is seriously hurt they’ll call for someone.” he patiently explained.

“Oh. Right.” She reluctantly agreed. “So, what’s first?”

“I’m going to run you through a series of Agility tests to see where you’re at. You followed me decently earlier, but I took the most conservative and safest path I could since I didn’t know your capabilities. Now that you’ve proven that you’re not an entirely hopeless case, we’re going to see how far you can push it. First, some wall jumps…”

What followed was a series of grueling and somewhat terrifying physical tests. Wall jumping, beam balancing, distance jumping, quick turning, gauging what paths were safe for her weight, and others that she had frankly forgotten in the whirlwind of activity all made the time fly by. It would not have been such a bad thing if she was able to use the full extent of her abilities. In fact, completing almost every task that Aiden gave her would be laughable with the usage of all 8 Agility points and Swift. Problem was, she was committed to playing the role of mortal.

With her “usable” Agility at the approximate level she was at before becoming a cultivator--around 4--she frequently found herself doubting she could meet Aiden’s lofty expectations. A few wall jumps from street level to a second story window? Doable. Perhaps a dozen to get from the ground to the top of a 3 story building using only the physical prowess of her body? Not so much. And she found that this was the case for everything. The more she succeeded at meeting Aiden’s benchmarks the further he stretched them, but he never asked her to do anything that he couldn’t demonstrate himself. Whenever she failed to do a task, he pointed out where she was losing momentum and ways she could adjust her form to improve her output, and then moved onto the next test.

She watched in awe more than once as his tiny body jumped across seemingly impossible gaps or his ‘unconventional’ movements at first glance allowed him to reach shocking heights. His flow of movement was so efficient and his technique so flawless that it was practically an art form, and Samantha found herself reflecting on how this was the second time today she had been so thoroughly humbled. As opposed to Thomas though, who simply was more experienced than she was, Aiden was truly a genius if not a master.

The final trial of that night was a long gap jump followed by a wall climb. She stood on a roof perhaps 35 feet high, looking across to one about 5 feet higher--eye level to her if the buildings were right next to each other. The gap between the multi-story buildings was a little over 15 feet, so she would need to not only make the jump, but use the momentum to push herself up that final 5 feet and grasp the ledge of the next roof. Aiden had already completed the feat and waited for her on the other side.

Samantha looked down into the black abyss below her with dread. Is this how Silas felt with heights? She’d have to apologize for teasing him later. Stepping back from the edge to prepare for a running start, Samantha did her best to fight down her fear. Sure, she had been up high in a tree before and even dropped down from the protective city wall earlier, but that was a decidedly different experience than this. For one, she typically had the adrenaline of life and death situations to take the edge off any anxiety she felt. Secondly, any time she’d been this high up with the intention to jump she relied on Swift and her cultivation stats to carry her through--never would she have dared tried this when she was mortal.

A small part of her though was not afraid. It cheered her on, and urged her to see exactly how far 4 Agility’s worth of stats would take her. If she could master these principles with her current self-imposed limitations, how much would that improve her actual abilities later?

Shaking her limbs and body to clear her nerves, she firmed up her will. She ran towards the edge with all the speed she could muster and leapt.

She fell.

In the last moments before her foot left the rooftop, her wretched doubts broke free of her control and caused her step to waver. That single, miniscule hesitation caused her to miss the jump by several feet, casting her screaming and flailing into the crash bags below.

*Ding* Fall from heights exceeding 30 feet has activated “As One”. Moderate wounds for Samantha have been transformed into minor wounds for Silas and Samantha.

“Samantha! Are you okay? What happened?” Silas cried out in her mind, surprise and pain evident in his tone.

“Yikes! You good?” Aiden called down from above, his voice overlapping with Silas’s.

“I’m fine!” she called out to Aiden and sent to Silas simultaneously. “I’m sorry Silas, I was practicing my agility and fell from high up. What’s your situation? Do you need me to cast healing or are you okay until I get back?” she sent Silas after the fact.

“Heights?! My nemesis! I told you heights were evil and you laughed at me, but now look! Also, I’m okay. I was just surprised since I was napping. If now is a bad time, you can heal us later. You can feel as well as I can that it’s just a bit of soreness, nothing serious.”

“I’ll be stopping by soon. Sorry again, and thanks for guarding our things!”

Silas sent a feeling of contentment, but otherwise ceased communication for now. Samantha dug herself free of the bags surrounding her and rolled her way out of the alley. By the time she was out Aiden was already dropping down to the ground floor and rounding the corner to meet up with her.

“That was a pretty nasty fall. I know you said you’re fine but we’ll wait for the adrenaline to run its course and then check you over just in case.” Aiden instructed, waiting for Samantha to take a seat on the ground before continuing, “I noticed that you hesitated right before you jumped, I think you would’ve made it otherwise.”

“Yeah, I'm pretty frustrated with myself to be honest. I never thought that I was afraid of heights before today.” Samantha said, looking up at the offending roof as she spoke.

“I’ll be honest too, you really surprised me! You’ve already got more guts and skill than half the couriers out running today, I’ll tell you, so try not to beat yourself up too much. The instinctive fear is the hardest hurdle to get over in this job, and you’re already further along than most are when they start. I remember when I started I couldn’t even make the ‘weenie’ jump, as we affectionately call it.” Aiden encouraged, gesturing to the shortest building in the area at around 10 feet high.

Samantha laughed lightly at his description, and gave him a wan smile with a thumbs up to show she was in better spirits.

“Hey!” an unknown voice called out to the pair as they chatted. Samantha and Aiden looked over to see a young girl around 10 approaching them.

“Hey, Clove! I didn’t know you were training tonight.” Aiden replied as she drew nearer and stepped into the light of a nearby lantern.

Samantha noted that Clove was a little shorter than Aiden and more filled out, but far from stocky. She had blue eyes and light brown hair, with lots of freckles covering her slightly round face.

“I haven’t had any challenging deliveries lately, so I don’t want my skills to get rusty. I was about to turn in for the night but I heard someone fall, and since it’s late and there’s not many people around I wanted to check they were all right.” Clove answered, looking over to Samantha briefly as she spoke before returning her attention to Aiden. “But, since you’re here, I know she’s in good hands! Are you going back soon too?”

Aiden looked to Samantha and raised an eyebrow, as if silently asking, “Well, what do you want to do?”

“Yeah, I think after that fall I need a break. I’ll come back when it’s lighter out and see if these don’t look a bit more approachable in the day.” Samantha responded. Aiden gave a grunt in agreement with her words.

Clove gave her an understanding smile, “I know exactly how you feel. I’ve been there too! By the way, I don’t think I caught your name?”

Samantha had forgotten to come up with an appropriate alias during her somewhat hectic time with Aiden. In between making a deal, learning more about the slums, and training as a courier, it had completely slipped her mind. So, she said the only thing that came to mind…

“Call me Cheese.” Samantha said with a straight face, every fiber of her being revolting at using the horrid nickname.

“I’m sorry. Cheese?” Clove asked, a bit dumbfounded by her response, confusion evident on her face.

Behind Clove, Samantha could see Aiden holding a hand over his mouth, eyes watering slightly, as he doubled over with suppressed mirth.

It was too late now, so Samantha doubled down. “Yes. Cheese. I’d rather not talk about how I got the name, if it’s all the same to you?” she said, trying her best to sound somewhat mysterious to offset the unbearable levels of shame that she was currently experiencing.

“Oh, of course.” Clove replied a bit abashedly, “Well, it’s nice to meet you Cheese! Good luck out there. I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

And like that, Clove was off and away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Aiden erupted into a torrent of laughter.

“I can’t believe that you actually used the name!” he hollered, tears streaming down his face as he gasped for breath. “Oh gods, this is the best.”

Samantha stood up, “I’m still feeling fine, so I’m going home now. Are we meeting up tomorrow?” she spoke over Aiden’s subsiding laughter.

“Yeah,” he said, wiping his eyes, “I’ve got a trick to help you with the wall jumps, so meet me in the morning at my dad’s shop. It’s called ‘All The Fixin’s’, you know it?”

“Yeah, see you then!” She said, then went off towards Silas’s qi signature in hopes of leaving this situation behind her.

“Bye, Cheese!” Aiden shouted after her, and Samantha resisted the urge to hang her head as she ran.

After several minutes of jogging, Samantha reached an area of town with buildings sturdy enough to hold her weight and she made a beeline for her home base.

“Hey, Silas! I’m nearing your location now. I don’t want to lead anyone back to our building, so I’m going to take a few detours. Do you think you can meet up with me in your translucent state and help me look for any unwelcome followers?” she sent.

“Coming!” Silas chirped, and within minutes the pair had reunited.

“I’ll go down a few side streets, and you keep an eye out for anyone taking similar paths, okay?” Samantha instructed.

“You got it! I’m dying to stretch my legs after being cooped up in that attic all day. Just don’t expect me to be taking the roofs--only one of us needs to fall from one today.” Silas teased.

“Yeah yeah,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes, “as long as running around in streets of garbage won’t affect your senses too much.”

“I don’t share your limitations,” he shot right back, glad to get back in the swing of traveling together and poking fun at one another.

Feeling a hint of his happiness through their bond, she found her own sour mood lifting as well.

I missed you too.

Sure enough, Samantha’s fears proved not to be irrational. Although Silas’s searching capabilities were somewhat limited by Translucence’s duration of a maximum of 30 minutes, it only took about 10 to notice that they were being tracked.

With Silas hanging back and navigating the streets by following Samantha’s bond signature, it wasn’t long until he noticed a small form leaping across the rooftops. After conveying this information to Samantha, she moved to an area where there weren’t many good buildings around, forcing her pursuer to travel the roads instead.

Silas was unable to give her any good descriptions of the person, since according to him, "all humans kind of look the same". All he was able to describe was that it was female, and smaller than Samantha, but that didn't really give her much help in this scenario.

Unfortunately, she still wasn’t familiar enough with the area to trap the stranger, so she’d have to settle with either scaring them off or escaping their sights. She went with option #2, since that would be more believable with her recently coming off a courier training course. At least she wouldn’t be giving away too much new information, since her high Agility would likely be noticed as she spent more time with Aiden.

So, by utilizing a little extra Agility than was strictly “mortal” and the techniques that she had practiced earlier. She jumped, dipped, balanced, and wove through the city slums better than the best of them, Silas close behind.

As Silas’s Translucence was reaching its limit, they did a final check to confirm that they had lost their tail, and then returned to the attic for the night to rest.

Ol’ Man Whisper sat at his writing table as the small pitter-patter of a child’s footsteps drew nearer. He looked up from his notebook to see Clove, one of his newer recruits coming up to him.

“You have a report for me?”

Clove straightened up and stood proudly, like she was speaking to a higher-ranked officer in the Enforcers, “I made sure that a third party delivered your message to Aiden about the girl who was asking after him and followed. Initially it seemed that they weren’t going to work together, however, something she said interested him enough for him to tail her into Pack Rat territory after they parted ways. He got her out of a shake down, and to escape the angry Pack Rats he took her along a courier path. Shockingly, she was able to keep up, for the most part. After talking at courier headquarters they must’ve come to some agreement, because he was training her at the courier grounds until her day ended with a fall from one of the tallest buildings. I tried to follow her back to her home, but she somehow caught wind of me at the last moment and I lost her. All I know is that she was headed northwest.”

“And did you get her name?”

“...Cheese.”

“Cheese?”

“That’s what she said, can’t say I haven’t heard weirder before.” Clove admitted.

“Interesting. In any case, you’ve done well!” Ol’ Man Whisper praised, flipping a copper coin in her direction which she greedily caught, “Do let me know of any new developments you come across?”

“Yessir!” Clove happy chimed, and then scurried off into the darkness.

Ol’ Man Whisper scribbled more notes into the new file that he had opened on the stranger today. He made an effort to talk to anyone that he didn’t recognize, coming across all sorts of fascinating people and situations that way. This one turned out to be just as promising as he hoped. He tapped his empty quill on the bottom of the page as he reviewed the current data he had gathered.

Name: Cheese Likely alias. True name never spoken to anyone? Hiding? Age: Late Teens/Early 20’s Offered coin for information => not from Gutter, claimed “from north of here” Shaved head => possibly a monk? Or trying to blend in Could be a style from another city Bartered price => merchant Wealth level: undetermined Clothes => artificially dirtied. Not concentrated around hems Non Cultivator => No aura Supported by failure to exceed at the courier training grounds Seeking Aiden => courier job, training. Why? Already talented. Can keep up with Aiden Cautious, secretive. Found Clove while info gathering

“Just who are you, girl?” Ol’ Man Whisper asked aloud, “You’re getting more interesting by the hour. If I can find out why you’re here or who’s looking for you…”

He knew it was getting late, and with Clove’s report in now, he didn’t have any good reason to continue working. He stretched and stood up from his desk, walking over to the door before stopping himself. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m still almost forgetting after all of these years!” he admonished, before grabbing hold of the walking stick that leaned against a nearby wall. Supporting his weight on the staff and assuming the familiar persona of a frail old man, he made his gait unsteady and his limbs tremble slightly.

“I wonder what tomorrow will bring.”