Vaozey left not long after our brief conversation about magic concluded, leaving me alone in the alley. It wasn’t quite sundown, but it was late enough in the afternoon that it wouldn’t be practical to go do anything that might take a long time. Absentmindedly, I drew my sword to practice a few swings and try to see how I might have parried the knife strikes against me. The light glinted off the blade, and my eyes narrowed on it. Oh, that’s not good, I thought, seeing multiple indentations along the edge and scratches on the flat. I almost forgot that this wasn’t made out of a nanomaterial, I internally winced.

It seemed the more I looked, the more damage I could see on the weapon. While it was still more than capable of cutting, the state that the middle section of the blade in particular was in was so bad that, even with the whetstone I had obtained when I purchased the weapon, I couldn’t quite get some of the rolls out of the metal. I probably should have had this looked at when we arrived in Pehrihnk, I thought, but I guess I can bring it to a smith or something. This doesn’t look like damage that would take more than a few hours to fix with the proper tools.

I wanted to keep costs low, so I searched the slums for a smithy. Unsurprisingly there were a few in the deeper parts, but none of them wanted to serve me. Two barely even let me in the door before hurling threats, and a third had a guard outside who rejected me politely but firmly. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m a foreigner, a mercenary, or a potential Rehvite, I sighed as I realized I had wasted over an hour, maybe not that last one though, depending on how much they know about the temple's recruitment practices. Resigning myself to paying more money, I left the deep slums.

Soon after I found a house at the rough border between the slums and the richer neighborhoods that had a symbol of a hammer and a sword hanging above the door. Smithy, obviously, I thought, but no name on the outside. Pushing my way inside, I found a makeshift metalworking station inside the shack along with a shirtless human who was covered in so much soot that I couldn’t tell what color his skin or hair was supposed to be. There was no need for lanterns to light the house, as the furnace fire was enough to illuminate the single room as well as heat it to an extreme degree.

“Excuse me,” I called out to the smith, who was absorbed in hammering what looked to be a piece of armor. The man looked over to me, then turned back and kept hammering. “Do you fix swords?” I asked.

“Not for you,” the smith replied. His voice was higher in pitch than I would have expected for someone with such a large amount of muscular bulk.

“I’m not a Rehvite,” I said. I can tell this is going to be an issue as long as I’m in their territory, most likely, I sighed.

“Don’t care,” the smith said, “I don’t do work for mercenaries. Go get your shit fixed at your own smithy, I’m not pulling your ass out of the fire because you broke a sword while screwing around.”

“I’m independent,” I said. That statement got the smith to stop hammering and set his tool down. Plopping back down onto a stool behind him, he turned to face me across a small table, letting me get a better look at his face. He almost looks like me, actually, I thought, noting the smith’s comparably less sharp features compared to the regional average. He can’t be Gwahlaob though, I thought, he’s far too large. Maybe half Luwahriy, half Gwahlaob? No mark of ire, so he must have some magic skill.

“You have the sword you want me to fix?” the smith asked. I drew my blade and set it down on the table in front of him. The smith raised his charred eyebrows, then pulled the weapon up closer to his face and ran his finger along the edge to inspect it. “You really ztpowjh this thing up, you know that?” he asked rhetorically. “Were you showing off to your buddies or something?” The second question was a proper one.

“Fighting,” I replied simply. The smith grunted and reached out to a small lantern on the table, muttering something and igniting it before pushing the glass shut. He held the lantern closer to the blade, then whistled and snorted.

“I’d call you a liar if I couldn’t tell that some of these were from weapon impacts,” he commented. “But some are… what were you even hitting with this thing? It looks like you’ve been smashing rocks with it.” I recalled that, when I dropped my sword in the fight with Vaozey, it had landed blade-first on the ground.

“I dropped it a few times,” I said, trying to sound sheepish. The smith glanced over at me, then back to the sword.

“You got money?” he asked.

“How much do you need?” I asked back.

“More than you’ve got,” the smith said flatly. After a moment, he looked back over at me and laughed. “It’s a joke, foreigner,” he said. “I assume you just want it nice and sharp again, and don’t care about it being polished or anything?”

“Actually, I’d prefer a more durable edge to a sharper one,” I replied. The smith cocked his head ever so slightly to the left, then smiled.

“An interesting request,” he commented. “Not many people would want a deliberately duller blade, but then again most mercenaries have shit for brains. With a weapon this heavy it’s not like you need it to be a razor, so I was going to advise that you let me make it a bit dull anyway.”

“So long as you can maintain the weight and make the edge durable, I’m fine with whatever you do,” I said. “Just don’t take too much material off.”

“Oh I’d never dream of-” the smith began to reply, pausing when the back door to his hut swung open and a familiar figure lumbered in. Though wearing less armor than usual, Vaozey’s appearance was unique enough that I instantly knew it was her through the helmet.

“Shaayay, I need that plate ba-” she was saying as she entered, freezing as she saw me. This is almost beyond coincidence, I thought, suppressing an urge to narrow my eyes. She must be following me, there’s no way we keep encountering each other like this. The smith tensed up, saw my reaction, then un-tensed somewhat.

“Vaozey!” Shaayay the smith snapped at her. “How many times do I have to tell you to at least look inside before you come running in here?”

“You again,” Vaozey growled, glaring at me. “Are you following me?”

“I was about to ask you something similar,” I retorted. Shaayay's gaze bounced between us, looking for an explanation. “We are acquainted,” I told him.

“If you’re going to try to arrest her, please don’t bust everything up,” Shaayay requested. “Like you, I'm independent. I have to pay for it, assuming you don't.”

“He’s not going to do anything,” Vaozey muttered, rolling her eyes.

“You’re lucky he doesn’t want to claim your bounty, you moron,” Shaayay snapped at Vaozey again. Actually, how much would that bounty be? I wondered. “Do you know how much shit you would’ve gotten me into by barging in here like you know me when I’m with a customer? What if it was someone from the west end? I have a family to think about here.”

“I do know,” Vaozey replied, “and it doesn’t matter, because I’d have just gotten rid of whoever you were with if it became a problem.” Shaayay stood up and grabbed the plate he had been hammering, then tossed it to Vaozey across the room.

“Listen here girl,” he warned, “if you come in here like that again, I don’t care if the person I’m with has ten marks of ire on their face and is asking me to make them a poison dart to kill the mayor with, we’re done. You understand me?” Vaozey glared at the man but relented.

“Got it,” she grumbled. Before turning away, she shot me a strange look, the meaning of which I couldn’t figure out. Once Vaozey left, Shaayay sat back down and directed his attention to me.

“Okay, this is going to take an hour or two, and I need the money upfront,” he said. “However, since you’re acquainted with our self-appointed pest-remover, I can cut you a deal.”

I wanted to stay in the smithy and observe the work being done on my sword, but Shaayay insisted that I leave and let him “concentrate” so I found myself out on the street again. I felt oddly naked without my sword, but reminded myself that my throwing knives were more than enough to subdue any unarmored single attacker, and my fists alone could probably beat most of them. It’s strange, I thought, this body is human, but I’ve never been more powerful without a weapon relative to the people I'm interacting with. I suppose that time I had an integrated rotary machine gun might count, but that’s a weapon. Although, should magic be considered a weapon? Having nothing better to do, I paced around the building and entertained the pointless line of reasoning.

“So I’m supposed to believe you’re not following me,” Vaozey said as I reached the back of the smithy. She appeared to have been waiting for me, mace in hand, leaning against the wall.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe it,” I replied.

“It matters if you don’t want me to break your legs until you tell me the truth,” Vaozey snapped, tapping the end of her mace into her palm.

“The truth won’t change just because you don’t believe it,” I said, not responding to the provocation. “How about you? Have you been following me?”

“I’m asking the questions here,” Vaozey snarled, taking a step toward me aggressively. You can't be serious, I almost blurted before stopping myself. Still, I sighed in exasperation purely by reflex.

“First the thieves in the alley, now this,” I said. “Surely, you have to realize that I know you don't have magic now.” Vaozey paused, then put her mace back on her hip. For a moment I thought she was going to back down, but then she swung a right hook at my face. I ducked the punch, then grabbed her face with my right hand and flashed her eyes with light magic just like I had to the man in the alley. I could kill her, I thought, but it would be better to do that in a different setting. Besides, live capture could pay more. With my left hand, I unhooked her mace from her belt, then I stepped back out of range.

“You yeyhhayseytoydh…” Vaozey growled, rubbing her eyes with the back of her left hand while she kept her right out to guard. I tapped my foot on the ground to my left and she threw another punch in the direction of the sound, then pulled her hands up into a fighting position.

“What I just did to you, I can do at any time, so let’s not continue this,” I suggested, tossing her mace in front of her feet. She swung again in the direction of the sound it made when it impacted the ground, then seemed to realize what I had done. After a few seconds of fumbling, she found the handle of her mace and stood back up in a ready position. “How much is your bounty?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Vaozey hissed back. Through her veneer of anger and confidence, I could tell she was shocked that she was disabled so easily. For a moment, pinprick-sized pupils found me, then they drifted off again. Left eye is recovering faster than the right, I noted, I should use this on myself a few times to see how easy it is to consciously affect recovery. Could be affected by eye dominance.

“I really wasn’t following you,” I told her, attempting to sound sincere. “It seems that this whole thing is just a coincidence.” Unless you’re the one following me, I added silently.

“Of course it’s a coincidence,” she mocked. “You just happened to bump into me three times in two days by chance. I believe you, really.” Her eyes found me again and Vaozey took another swing in my direction. Without a good picture of where I was, she overextended herself, and I moved to grab her weapon. However, she had predicted what I was going to do and attempted to shoulder-tackle me the instant my hands gripped her mace. With force magic holding me to the ground she only budged me, but had I not been preparing to shove her, I would have been knocked down.

“I just needed my sword repaired,” I told her, letting go of the mace and stepping away from her range. Her eyes tracked me, whites now red and tears streaming from their edges. So around forty-five seconds of blindness, I noted, though, it could be longer for partial blindness, the man I used that magic on was down for a while. That's probably as good as taking the eye out, if not better.

“And you happened to pick my smith?” Vaozey snapped, clearly accusing me. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway? Name, now.” I considered making up a fake name, but giving her my “real” name wouldn’t allow her to do anything more to me than knowing my appearance would, considering she was already a criminal.

“Yuwniht Lihyveyz,” I replied. Vaozey paused, her brow loosening slightly. Though I couldn’t see her mouth, it seemed like she had gone from a scowl to a frown. Her eyes, locked onto mine, conveyed little emotion. “I chose this smith because the three I found in the slums would not serve me. Even this one initially refused, believing me to be a contracted mercenary.”

“What kind of poymawpjhoyjh name is ‘Yuwniht’?” she scoffed, ignoring the rest of my explanation.

“Gwahlaob,” I lied. Vaozey scoffed again two more times, then broke into a mocking, breathy laughter.

“Was one of your parents a bear?” she jabbed, in a tone that could almost be described as amusement. Still, she didn't look away for a moment.

“My father was from Uwlsayniyah,” I continued to lie, reciting my constructed backstory. Vaozey's brow furrowed, and she grunted, then finally looked away. Still, she didn't appear displeased, and her body relaxed further. If I can get her to trust me enough to relax her guard, I can keep two possibilities on the table, I thought, If it turns out that I do need to get into that temple, she’ll prove a good distraction. Otherwise, if I need money, I can always claim her bounty. Ideally, I wouldn’t need to exercise either option because they both carried risks.

“Close enough,” she muttered after a few seconds. “You’re a decent liar, but I guess I believe you when you say you aren’t following me. As for the rest, I’ll let it slide.” She was watching my body language for tells, possibly for a while, I realized, I shouldn't have any tells though, so what did-

“Hey, Yuwniht!” a familiar voice called out to my left, interrupting my thoughts. I glanced down the alley and saw Koyl jogging in my direction. Vaozey saw him too, taking up a ready stance which caused Koyl to slow to a stop around three meters from us. “Am I interrupting… something?” he asked. At first, his expression seemed to imply a very incorrect understanding of the situation, then he looked at Vaozey again and his eyes went wide. I have to stop him before he does anything stupid, I thought.

“Koyl-” I began.

“J-just a sec-” he stammered, shoving his hand into his pocket and pulling out a familiar-looking coin.