I received my Dawn-dress from Antoine in just three days. The artificer smiled widely as he handed her back to me. I noted that a set of my gems was now made into an extremely elaborate metal and glass necklace covered in runes and attached to the top of the dress.

“That looks nice… do you think you can make more of these?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Antoine nodded. “The first one was hard to make, but now that I know exactly what to do it'll be easier.”

“What did you do, specifically?” I asked.

“Trade secret,” the artificer winked at me.

“Fair enough,” I nodded. “Can you at least tell me how long Dawn can remain active?”

“As long as she is in a mana-rich area, she will remain active. She will function for as long as her depictomancy circuits last,” Antoine replied. “The artifact I’ve made will survive far better than the canvas that she’s painted on.”

“Is there a way I can make her canvas last longer?” I inquired.

“I’ll answer all of your questions after my reward,” the artificer rubbed his thumb over the tip of the index finger in a ‘Pay Me’ gesture.

"How much?" I asked.

"Did Lambert already set your armaci up with an account?"

"Yes," I nodded. The inspector took me to the bank a few days ago without any issues. "But, my salary hasn't come in yet."

"Hrrm. Do you have any more personal mana gems?"

“Always milking me for gems,” I sighed, sliding a crystalline-organic gem towards him.

The ruby-gemstone vanished.

“You can hire a depictomancer to add more protection circuits to the canvas,” Antoine said. “I can also add an artifact-type glass frame around her, but then she can’t be a dress.”

“I don’t know any depictomancers,” I moped.

“You said you’ve made that form-fitting clothing and armor that you’re wearing. It’s reinforced against phantoms, is it not?” Antoine asked.

“It is,” I nodded.

“Then you are clearly aware of the secret processes of reinforcing something soft and malleable,” Antoine said. “You simply need to reinforce this dress against the effects of decay, not phantoms.”

“I see,” I pondered, thinking of my four-year long cendai-education. Perhaps I could cut a Strength thread out of my soul and add it to Dawn?

“I mostly work with hard surfaces,” Antoine waved his hands around his workshop. “Metals and crystals are my specialty. As you can see there are no fabric artifacts for sale here.”

I looked back at Antoine and at the door to his office behind him. Antoine knew things. He had materials and tools. He had a workshop. A metalworking workshop.

“Antoine…” I said.

“Yeeeees?” The artificer leaned towards me.

“I notice that you’re running your shop by yourself. Are you perhaps looking for an… apprentice?”

“Aren’t you already employed by the Lomb Constabulary? Do you really have the time to work in my shop?” Antoine asked.

“Not during the day,” I said. “But I could make things for you at night, if you teach me how. To be completely honest, I would like a secure space to work on armor and weapons for myself.”

“Hrmmm… apprentices aren’t given space to work on their personal projects,” Antoine mulled. “You’re looking to rent my furnace and backroom?”

“Yes,” I sighed.

Antoine made a ‘give me some coins’ hand motion.

“Fine. I’ll pay you in… crystals,” I exhaled.

“Do you have a way to produce them on an ongoing basis?” The artificer inquired.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Well, well, well, then I believe we have a deal,” the artificer stretched out his hand. I shook it.

“Come back in a couple of days, I’ll clean out a space for you. It’s rather… messy in there now,” he said.

“You’re staying in Lomb then?” Anniya asked as we stepped out of the shop. She was the one accompanying me to the shop today, as Lambert had some other work to do.

“I, uh… I feel at ease here,” I said. “I really like Lomb.”

“Am I hearing a… but in there?” She asked, pushing her blonde hair out of her eyes.

“I want to see Undertown,” I said.

“It’s dangerous to go there,” Anniya said. “You could get hurt.”

“You’re going to Undertown,” Dawn commented from the dress.

“What?” Both Anniya and I looked at the dress in my hands.

“Someone’s looking for you,” Dawn said. “You must leave Lomb at once, draw their eyes away from here.”

“Are you certain? She’s safe here,” Anniya muttered.

“Give me some of your mana for a clearer answer,” Dawn said.

Anniya put her thumb onto the ruby gemstone pushing some of her mana into the painting.

“Anniya… you will die if Juni stays in Lomb,” the future-Anniya answered.

I gulped.

. . .

We had reconveined in Lambert’s office atop of his tower.

“So,” the inspector stared at Dawn. “The best path forward is for Juni and Yulia to leave town?”

“For now,” Dawn said.

“You can see her future?” Lambert inquired. “How detailed is it? Do you know who wants to attack us?”

“I can see a path forward,” Dawn said. “If Juni stays here, Anniya’s path ends.”

“I don’t like this vagueness,” I groaned. “Who’s looking for me? Why?”

“My eyes aren’t open all the time,” Dawn shrugged. “I have only the vaguest sense of the future.”

“You’re not the only one with high Luck stats,” Lambert closed his eyes. His finger was tapping on his armacus. “Hrmmm…”

Anniya and I looked nervously at the inspector.

“Right,” he sighed when he opened his eyes. “Someone is looking for you… and it's best for us that they find you somewhere else lest they endanger my partner and my city.”

“Wow, fortune telling is imprecise,” I rolled my eyes.

“Pack your… bag,” Lambert said. “You’re going on a trip to Undertown.”

“I can come back, right?” I mewled.

“You will come back… after the danger passes,” Lambert nodded. “Anniya and I will gather more Dawn posters in the meanwhile.”

I exhaled, my heart thrumming in my chest. The shadows at the back of my head were pleased. Grogtilda wanted to see her parents.

. . .

The caverns beneath the town were beautiful.

I was relatively close to the surface so many of the caverns were lit by daylight and filled with wild grasses, flowers and mosses. Random, colorful plants and glowing fungi sprouted from dark crevasses reaching up to beams of light breaking from above. Underground lakes and grottoes were plentiful. Water filtered down from the rivers above, and dripped slowly and hollowly on the slick floor.

Sometimes the ground beneath my feet was rocks. Sometimes it was glittering sand. Sometimes it was water. Sometimes the walls looked like they were carved by hand. Strange, ancient symbols or half-buried, decayed statues emerged from the gloom, greeting me. They looked like old gods, ideas and concepts that humanity had worshiped long ago in some distant age long past… before Eunisii came from the Chasm to rule Illatius.

I had already been down here many times, but I had never gone this far away from Lomb, never gone beyond the boundary of the city's hex-beacon.

I was already missing Antoine, Anniya and Lambert. The two weeks I spent in Lomb had been wonderful. I’ve made friends. I found a workshop. I had an idea for a line of awesome dresses for a fashion show. And now I had to run away from it all because of some vague sense of doom, an indistinct vision of the terrible future, an understanding shared between Dawn and Lambert.

“I have to trust my friends,” I whispered mostly to myself.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Dawn said from my chest. I was wearing the dress I made beneath my nightcrawler armor. The eyes of the Astral Tree weren’t that of a human. Dawn could see right through my armor, so I could keep her hidden. She advised me on the best path forward through the caverns, as my own armacus GPS was complete trash.

I had tapped a map of Illatius in the Constabulary Tower with the Pathfinder spell earlier, stating that my destination is “Undertown”. My armacus was currently giving me an extremely weak sense of direction to get to Undertown. It cut out very often and barely worked like the rest of my spells.

Thankfully, I didn’t need too much light since my chimera eyes were pretty good at seeing in the dim caverns. A small divers lantern sat atop of my nightcrawler helmet, courtesy of Antoine’s shop.

“You’re not alone,” Dawn added. “I am still with you.”

“You’re right,” I smiled. “I have an urbex partner.”

"Take the right path," Dawn advised.

I had entered another gloomy tunnel.

“Do you know what this one is supposed to be?” I asked, pointing at a giant squid with wings and a single eye carved on a wall. The center of the eye looked like a very faded hexagram. “What do you think would happen if I push mana into this wall carving?”

“It is best not to evoke a dead god,” Dawn said. “Names and ideas have power. Not all things are nice. Not all gods are fair. Not all will be your friend. Most of the things in the Astral Ocean seek to consume, dominate or to destroy.”

“Maybe it’s a nice squid-god,” I said.

“Doubtful,” Dawn huffed.

“What about you?” I asked. “You don’t like it when someone feeds you mana?”

“Well, it is nice to talk to you,” Dawn said with a sigh. “But I don’t crave power as much as… some things. Ambiss made me at the end of her life. She poured all of her skills… into me, made me swear a pact, gave me a mission. She didn’t want to create a monster.”

“Are there others like you? Other paintings that can talk and see, learn and understand?” I asked.

“Some,” Dawn said. “Most of them have pre-written responses. I might be unique. Ambiss didn’t have any apprentices, didn’t pass her depictomancy knowledge to others. She… was very private and antisocial, spent most of her life in her workshop perfecting her craft and making more art.”

“And yet she made you to help people?” I asked.

“She made me because she was afraid of death,” Dawn replied. “I woke up fully… gained a true understanding of ‘self’ about a decade after her demise.”

“Is it just me or are you chattier?” I asked. “This conversation seems like it's treading dangerously close to revealing depictomancy secrets.”

“I am chattier because I’m well-fed and I am learning from you… plus you already bloody figured most of this stuff out,” Dawn said.

“Can you teach me depictomancy?” I asked.

“This is not the time and place for learning depictomancy,” Dawn replied. “There are… things that might be listening in.”

“Like the flying eye-squid? When will it be the right time?” I probed.

“When you open my eyes at Nemendias,” she replied.

“Fiiiiine,” I groaned. “Let's talk about something else then. This tunnel is dark and unnerving. I feel like the squid-eye is staring at me.”

“What’s an urbex partner?” Dawn asked. “I have never heard anyone use this word before.”

“An urbexer is someone who explores dark and spooky places,” I said.

“Like a Dungeon Diver?” the painting inquired.

“Kinda,” I replied. “The vital difference is that an urbexer isn’t searching for treasure or beast cores.”

“Then what does an urbexer search for?” Dawn inquired.

“The thrill of finding beauty in darkness and ruin,” I said. “Pleasure from observation and discovery of long-forgotten, spooky things.”

“You enjoy… this wet, dark cave?”

“Immensely,” I smiled. “Just look at this squid-thing! Isn’t it awesome?”

“You just said that it’s unnerving,” Dawn commented. “Which is it?”

“Both,” I grinned. “The fact that it’s unnerving only makes me more excited.”

“There’s something very wrong with you,” Dawn summarized her understanding of me.

I laughed.

The tunnel in front of me became smaller, tighter. I leaned down, scraping the ceiling with my helmet. The tight passage led me to a rocky outcropping.

“W… what is this place?” I gasped when I looked down.

[You have arrived at your destination]

the armacus declared.

“Welcome to Undertown,” Dawn whispered.