The leader of the Knights acts as a barrier for the dense crowd as she guides us through the full streets of the DimShop. As usual, the variety of beings going about their business is something to behold. A large red pearl with limbs made of white vines wobbles out of the way as the massive power armor of the elves acts as a crowd repellent. I focus on the metallic back of Laura and her followers as dread sets in. Knowing my luck, we’re going to end up somewhere we should have never got close to and risk our lives for little to no reward.

I can already see the future headlines, ‘Group of insane Breach Divers assault fast-food restaurant in search of ancient treasure’ or something similar. The crowd gets less dense as we approach an oval ring made of gray wood. The construct seems to have a few glowing spots, but they are very faint and look like they are about to go out. Nobody pays attention to the ancient structure, so it’s probably something that isn’t used much.

“Here,” Laura gestures at the piece of wood like it’s an obvious thing. I scratch my head; this can’t be the entrance to this supposedly super-rare Breach. It’s way too obvious and not hidden at all for something so valuable, so this has to be something else.

“Really?” Avryl asks with a raised eyebrow, “I never knew that there were still some of those around,” she tilts her head to the side. “Are you sure it’s still in service? I thoughts they were all decommissioned a long time ago.” The Artificer adds. I also tilt my head to the side, I have no idea what this thing is. It makes me think of a smaller crude replica of the Gates used in the Ley Line stations. But this old piece of driftwood can’t possibly be anything like that.

“These venerable artifacts are no longer maintained, but they are still in working order. It will allow us to progress to the upper levels and avoid the congestion typical of this time of day,” Laura explains as she touches the wooden ring. What is all this about the upper levels? And can this thing teleport us around?

The ring vibrates as soon as Laura touches it, and green energy courses through the entire ring before settling in faintly smoking pools where the shining spots used to be. The space inside the ring is slightly distorted in a similar way to the air being distorted by heat.

“Is this thing safe?” I ask despite already guessing the answer. I bet these ancient-looking teleporters have not been serviced since the last millennium.

Laura shrugs, “Do not doubt the words of a knight!” She says as she steps inside the ring. Her massive frame disappears with a sucking sound, and the rest of the elves follow behind her. I gulp as the rest of the group is going through the gate. I hope I’m not going to be turned into spaghetti or end up in the wrong dimension.

Stepping through the gate after a final deep breath reveals a completely new vision. For once, my body feels like it weighs nothing. I’m propelled into a tube full of arcing electricity and all the colors of the rainbow. I want to puke, but nothing comes out.

The weirdness doesn’t stop there; images are appearing in front of my eyes. They look like ads taken out of the fifties that sell weird contraptions in languages I can’t understand.

“Fucking ads,” Avryl mutters as I suddenly reappear in reality. Those where actual ads? I can’t believe that teleportation is so common and easy that they found a way to put ads in it!

“Those advertisements are no longer relevant since nobody bothered to remove them. This model of Gates has been decommissioned for a long time, but they are a nice historical artifact,” Laura says as I massage my thumping head.

The real question here is why do I suddenly feel the urge to buy a stove? These ads may be ancient, but they are as pernicious as modern ones.

“Let’s go, it’s still a long way away,” Laura says as she waves at us. The need to acquire kitchen implements soon subsides, so I take in the new scenery.

If the previous part of the DimShop was insane, then this one is even weirder. The upper levels look cleaner. They remind me of the rich parts of Victorian-era London, and the crowd is sparser than in the lower levels. The air is pure, and a faint scent of rose seems to permeate the area, which makes it quite pleasant.

But the entire ground is composed of floating pieces that are loosely attached by rusty chains. The buildings themselves seem to drift around without any reason; it’s a miracle that they don’t collide into each other. I duck just in time to avoid a flower pot floating around.

What the fuck is happening?

People don’t seem to even notice the disjointed nature of the place, some are even walking on vertical surfaces like it’s perfectly normal!

“First time in the upper levels?” Yoshiko, who must have noticed my amazement, asks. I answer with a nod as I keep looking around and gulp once I make the mistake of looking down. There's nothing beneath us aside from a slightly yellow smoke that seems to extend forever.

“The upper levels are… less traditional.” She says. No shit. This place is insane. My eyes briefly follow a small green, Goblin-like creature with an over-sized bowler hat who moves around while standing on a big spinning top. Everywhere I look, the more insane it gets. This place is what I imagined when I learned about a magical shopping dimension!

“Traditionally, the more high-end shops were on the higher levels.” Avryl chimes in. “But nowadays, it’s more of a curiosity since property value has plummeted. As it turns out, shop owners don’t want to lose customers because they fell through the sidewalk.”

My jaw drops, “You can fall off?”

“Of course! I think the Authorities added safety nets and railings in certain locations, but nothing is preventing you from falling off in most of the upper levels.” The Artificer answers like it is perfectly normal.

It might come to a surprise that the magical world has nothing similar to OSHA.

Why would anyone even choose to live here? Who in their right mind would live in a place where getting to the supermarket could result in falling to your death?

I guess the cheap rent might be attractive, but even then… I shake my head; a majority of the people here must have a way to negate fall damage. It’s a magical world, I bet something like anti-gravity is no problem for anyone here.

“So why are we here?” I ask Laura, who jumps between platforms with a loud crash each time her armored feet touch the ground.

“The disturbance is located rather high in the upper levels.” She says, “It’s moving around quite fast, so catching it will be a bit of a challenge. But it's nothing we can’t handle.” She nods to herself as I spot a suburban house, with a front yard and everything, casually doing barrel rolls in the sky. I can briefly see a slimy creature through the window of the acrobatic house who is reading a newspaper like this is a perfectly normal occurrence.

Great, so this place also has houses with local gravity generators that are flying around in the sky. Once again, I am impressed that there are no constant collisions between houses.

“So where is this Breach?” I ask Laura again. I don’t want to stay a second longer in the upper levels if I don’t have to.

Laura points her finger up. The weird Van Goth sky is almost invisible since there’s a thick yellow smoke similar to what’s underneath us.

“As I said, I don’t have the exact location. I only know that it’s moving around very quickly, and it’s very high in the sky.” The armored elf answers.

I can’t help but gulp. What does she mean by high in the sky? Is there an uppermost level or something?

“So how do we get here?” Avryl asks, “I’m not too familiar with the upper levels.”

“We need to find a boat,” the elven woman replies.

Ah yes, of course. The famous sky-boats.

…I want to go home.

“What? It’s common knowledge.” Laura says with a smug face once she sees our confused expressions, “Don’t you know about the famous stories of the house pirates from the upper levels?”

Now that’s a sentence that I never expected to hear. Ever.

“You lot lacks culture!” Laura says as she scoffs. “A long time ago, before the Authorities took their job seriously, the sky of the upper level was a free-for-all. Flying homes were the preferred way of showing wealth back then. This led adventurous groups of pirates to roam the heavens and board the aerial residences to raid the valuables they contained.”

"Right, I remember now! I also watched that documentary!” Yoshiko exclaims.

“L-Like I said!” Laura continues while doing her best to not react to what Yoshiko said. “This continued for a while since most wealthy people had very good security. Back then, admitting that you were robbed showed that you were a cheapskate because you couldn’t afford proper defenses. But everything changed when the leadership of the Authorities of the DimShop changed their policies. They waged a long and perilous war against the house pirates.”

Incredible. Simply incredible. I never thought that something could sound so awesome yet so dumb at the same time.

“So how are we even going to find one of those special boats?” I ask the elf. There’s no way we can buy one, and I bet that nobody would rent one to a group of random people looking to become the new generation of house pirates. Don’t get me wrong; I bet that the place we are going to raid is going to be a massive, well-defended complex. At best, we will be turned away; and at worst… Well, let’s just say that MERTICORE is going to struggle to piece my body back together.

“We can rent one.” Avryl answers, “I looked on my Terminal, and there are tours of the sky that are offered for a reasonable price.”

“We’re not looking for a planned tour; we need to be able to move however we please,” Laura says.

Of course, it would be so much easier if whatever we were chasing was conveniently accessible. But the reality is not so easy; I hope that this expedition is going to be worth the trouble.

“We need to find someone willing to rent us a sky-boat— What are they called in the first place?” I ask Avryl.

“You got it, they are usually referred to sky-boats.” The Artificer says.

Once again, there has been zero efforts when it comes to naming things. How surprising.

“For our purpose, we should seek a captain that is not too scrupulous.” Yoshiko adds, “Considering our objective, it would be ideal if the owner of the flying craft accepted to let us use his vessel without coming with us.”

“It doesn’t sound too likely,” One of the elves says as she looks at her Terminal. “People that are willing to rent their sky-boats with no-questions-asked are far in-between.”

Avryl nods, “Then we could always buy one, but it’s very pricey.”

I glance at the Artificer’s Terminal and almost fall on my back. Who in their right mind would pay such a ridiculous price for a small boat? Granted, it can fly but it’s still beyond ridiculous.

“Sky-boats are not made anymore, and there’s a lot of people who collect them,” she says.

“Let’s rest over here for the time being,” Laura says as she gestures at a group of benches overlooking the smoky Maelstrom under our feet. We jump on the chained platform, and everyone pulls out their Terminal. I don’t have one, so I look over Avryl’s shoulder as she browses the local ads for a used sky-boat.

“Who can even afford this stuff?” an elven knight mutters. I have to agree with him, these prices are insane.

A few minutes pass before I spot something on Avryl’s Terminal. “Wait, what about this one?” I gesture at the only reasonably priced sky-boat.

“The description says that it is beyond repair, and its only good for spare parts,” she translates the description for me.

“Let me see,” I ask Avryl. MERTICORE is great at fixing stuff, so maybe I can repair the sky-boat? I have a couple of MertiPoints saved up, so I could—

Oh.

The picture of the sky-boat just loaded, and it looks like a pile of scrap. The vessel, if it can even be described as such, looks like a comically large wooden canoe with four brass jet engines bolted to its sides. Something is resembling a white plastic steering wheel at the front of the craft.

But everything looks like it could break with the slightest nudge. The wood is discolored and rotten in most places; there’s even a couple of visible holes in the main body of the boat. The engines are somehow rusted-through, and one of them is hanging by one single bent bolt that looks like it’s about to shear off.

“Well, it’s certainly cheap,” I say with a wry smile. It’s the only sky-boat so far with a four digits price. Granted, four thousand Credits is still a shitload of money. “Maybe I can fix it? You know I’m good with that stuff.”

Avryl shrugs, “It won’t hurt to try. Yoshiko, come take a look at this.” The Artificer beckons the demon slayer over and Yoshiko is followed by Laura.

“You can’t be serious!” the elven woman exclaims, “This wreck is not even worth being used as firewood!”

“Do you believe that you can turn this derelict into a usable vehicle?” Yoshiko ignores Laura and looks at me.

I shrug, “No idea, but it won’t hurt to try. That’s our only shot at having a functional sky-boat for a reduced price.”

“This is preposterous!” Laura shouts and makes her armor clank.

“Silence, empty-headed metallic food container!” Yoshiko interrupts. “This Ian right there is a very talented Artificer, the likes you have never seen before! If he says that he has a chance at fixing this derelict construct, then you better believe him.”

Now, everyone in the party stares at me. Great, no pressure at all.

“Is what this wretched demon slayer is telling the truth?” Laura crosses her arms and stares at me.

“There’s no guarantee, but do you have a better idea?” I return Laura’s glare. “It’s your prophecy. If you don’t want to seize this opportunity then that’s your problem. You do remember the promise you made, right?”

I can’t see Laura’s face, but something tells me that her skin paled in an instant.

“Y-You have convincing arguments, let’s see this— this sky-boat.” She says as she nods to herself.