Back on Earth, everyone would be on their phones right in an urgent frenzy to get support, find information, or let the authorities know. There would be a lot of fuss, arguments, and frantic discussions of what should be done. Jiroh did none of that. The instant Dallion uttered the words, the fury grabbed his hand, ripping the sleeve to check the wound. The scary thing was that Dallion didn’t even notice her move. Could it be the adrenalin had caused him to zone out?

“Aspan, take care of things until Hannah comes back,” Jiroh said in a loud clear voice. “And tell Eury. We could sue her contacts on this.”

A grumble from the kitchen suggested that the message had been heard and acknowledged.

“Clean wound,” Jiroh noted, then passed her hand over it. Dallion felt a momentary sting, after which the entire area seemed to go numb. “We’ll take care of that later. Let’s go. You’ll tell me everything on the way.”

Dallion had experienced a lot of weird things while in this world, as well as some back on Earth. He had often heard friends describe the feeling of being drunk to the extent that they’d felt like passengers in their own body while it did things on its own. This was different. Dallion felt as if the air around him was making his body float. He was still in control, he could move, walk, or even run, but he didn’t need to.

“You are an awakened,” he said, looking at Jiroh.

“We’ll get to that later. Now tell me what happened.”

“I was going to the central awakening shrine. It was too hot, so I used some of the back alleys… I didn’t think this could happen. I was warned about pickpockets, but…” He didn’t finish his thought.

Since when had he become so complacent? Just because he had shown skill in the guild didn’t mean a thing. The awakened weren’t deities, they could still be hurt, and the city authorities were not all-seeing despite the rumors that the Lord Mayor could feel everything within the area. It was arrogance that had caused this. If he had stuck to the main roads, or even given the pouch without thinking he could take his attacker, he would still have his gear.

“Hey!” Jiroh said. “Snap out of it. You messed up, and that’s why you need to be focused now. This won’t be the only time things are taken from you, so I’ll teach you how to get them back. And you’ll have to learn fast.”

“She was fast.” Dallion tried to remember. “I didn’t hear her approach. She threw a dagger at me, then told me to hand over my pouch.”

“How did she just appear?”

“She just did. Almost like Hannah… or you.” Could it be that she was a fury? Dallion thought back. As far as he could remember she didn’t look like an elf, rather she… Come to think of it, Dallion couldn’t remember what she looked like at all. She had throwing knives, adventurer clothes maybe, and… “I can’t remember what she looked like,” he said. “I remember she didn’t hide her face… she had rings and bracelets, and…”

“Dis-focus items.” Jiroh said as they turned into an alley. It was strange how none of the people reacted to them, it was almost as if Jiron and Dallion had become invisible. “They mess with the senses. Most likely the things you saw didn’t happen the way you remember them. Did she say anything else? Threaten you in some way?”

“No. She just told me to hand over the pouch. Oh, she also said I didn’t belong to the five guilds.”

Upon hearing that, Jiroh hissed. Clearly it wasn’t a topic she enjoyed.

“What are the five guilds?”

“Later.”

The fury picked up the pace. Surprising even for him, so did Dallion, or rather so did the surrounding air. In a matter of minutes, they had reached the spot in which Dallion had been mugged. The traces of blood were still there, as were the traces of the fight.

Dallion couldn’t help but wonder what Jiroh was looking for. Even if her perception was greater than his, all tracks disappeared at one point. The only thing she could make out were the marks of the scuffle, and that wasn’t more informative than what he had told her already.

As the fury let go of him, Dallion felt the air bubble around him disappear. She then went further down the alley, stopping at one point.

“Is this where she appeared?” Jiroh asked.

“A bit further away. “At least Dallion thought his attacker had been a bit further away.

The fury took a few steps further. “Here?”

“Looks about right.” Dallion looked around. “Yeah, I think that’s the spot. What are you doing?”

“Did you notice any clouds in the sky?”

“Clouds? Don’t think so.” What’s this have to do with clouds? “I’m not sure. I didn’t look up.”

“I’ll take that as a no.” She walked towards him, then five steps away suddenly stopped. “If it’s any relief, you never had a chance. She could have taken you anytime. No matter what you did she’d have taken your gear.”

That doesn’t make me feel much better, Dallion thought.

“You say she used daggers?”

“Looked like it,” Dallion replied, although he was no longer sure. “Do you have any idea who she is?”

“Not exactly. I don’t know her personally, but I know of her, as well as the group she’s part of.”

That didn’t bode well. Dallion swallowed. Up to now he’d known Jiroh as nothing else but the carefree “elf-waitress” that had a mysterious past. Right now, there was nothing carefree about her expression.

“You were attacked by a fury,” she said. “A fury that’s part of the mirror pool.”

“What’s the mirror pool?” Dallion couldn’t help but ask. His imagination kicked in, linking his fight against the chainling with the theft, going so far as to suspect whether his attacker wasn’t a chainling herself.

“The mirror pool is the awakened underground.”

It took Dallion a split second to enter his ring library and over three minutes to wrap his head round what he had heard. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard about illegal activities and underground dealings. For the most part he had assumed that people were talking about a band of awakened, or even a guild of shady nature, that were in control of certain territories. It turned out that things were rather more complex.

According to the rink echo, there was an entire structure that mirrored that of the city—from where the name “mirror pool” originated. Just as the city was based on a hierarchy of nobles based on their awakened strength, so the underworld had their “mirror aristocrats.” The pickpockets that Dallion had heard of, the few illegal gangs he had heard of, all were part of this loosely connected organization. And just like the city “above,” strength determined one’s power, however, strength of a different nature.

Since the ruling nobles and the city captains of Nerosal did indeed have the ability to sense things in their domain, the strength of the “mirrors'' was based on how undetectable they were. Those who were not as undetectable, even if they were faster or stronger, quickly found themselves captured and cast out of the city, or worse. The reason that Dallion was only wounded, and not seriously at that, was because bodies tended to stir things up too much, at least unless there were considerable sums of money involved.

What Nil reluctantly shared was that there were a few unspoken rules between the Nerosal and the mirror pool. The Order of the Seven Moons and the high nobility were not to be touched. Anyone caught disobeying this rule, even if stealing a few copper coins, would be hunted down and made an example of. The mirrors were also discouraged from getting directly involved with the five major guilds of the city as well as the city watch. Everyone else was pretty much fair game.

Thinking about his incident, though, Dallion had to admit the person who had mugged him, was pushing the envelope a lot. In his view, targeting a person on their way to the awakening shrine to undergo a trial was nothing less than stealing. Apparently, no one else was of the same opinion.

While Dallion considered what to do, in the timelessness of the ring library, the echo brought him a few scrolls regarding the mirror pool of Nerosal. Why such information existed in the library and how it was so accurate was curious, though given that Nil’s original was a guild captain, there was some logic to him keeping himself informed.

Reading through the scrolls, Dallion learned that the underworld of the city was rather large, ranging into the thousands. While each group carved out its own territories, there were a total of three mirror earls that claimed dominion over the entire city. Each earl had up to a dozen lieutenants who had the title mirror knights, who kept activities in the area in check. If it hadn’t been for Dallion’s experience, he might have found the whole thing interesting, even fascinating. His missing harpsisword and shield, though, made him boil with hatred at the efficiency of the organization.

In addition to these underworld titles, the heads of powerful crime families were also known as mirror counts. In one of the scrolls there was also the mention of the existence of a mirror prince, although the rank was under question.

The scariest thing was that anybody had the potential of being part of the mirror pool, of even a mirror aristocrat. For all Dallion knew, someone from the Icepicker guild itself might be involved. That could be how they had known he would go to the awakening shrine. Nil, of course, vehemently opposed such a train of thought arguing that there were ways to determine whether someone was of the mirror pool, and that such people wouldn’t be admitted in the guild. However, that didn’t fill Dallion with too much confidence.

“It’s unlikely you were targeted,” Nil said, as he retrieved the scrolls. “The mirror pool doesn’t like to cause ripples. As cold as it might sound, you were just unlucky.”

“Unlucky…” Dallion felt his anger return.

“The fact that the awakened that faced you didn’t ask about your guild means that she was acting on a whim. Maybe she wanted your harpsisword, maybe she was looking for some quick coin.”

“Why would an awakened bother steal such an amount? She definitely was at a double-digit level. What could she do with eleven coins?”

“Not much, but who says you were the only one?” the echo sighed. “Did you think that maybe all the ones before you just gave the money? Remember, she didn’t say an amount. She might have even thought that you were a semi.”

No chance of that, Dallion thought. The thief had been too skilled not to notice his level. Although it was possible that she had gone for the sword. After all, it was difficult to hide that. The coins might just have been a pretext. I should have used music instead!

“If you want my advice, the best course of action is to return to the guild and let them handle things. It’s not like Jiroh could do a lot alone, and as you just saw, you’re out of your depth.”

“You really know how to cheer a person up,” Dallion grumbled.

“It’s not about cheering up, it’s about finding the optimal course of action. If you were stronger, it might be a somewhat different matter, but even—”

Dallion had had enough. Not letting the echo finish, he left the library, returning to the real world.

“This might get rough,” Jiroh continued, unaware of Dallion’s temporal absence. As far as she was concerned, he had been there the entire time. “We’ll need some backup, but I think we can pull it off. Are you willing to see it through?”

“Definitely.” Dallion narrowed his eyes.