Part 1

“Eh?-” The elf asked with the very definition of a dumbfounded expression plastered on his face “- What are you talking about?”

“You just called a spirit ‘she’! Don’t pretend to have not noticed!” I replied as I slammed my fists on the table.

“No, no-” Promptly answered Alarick as his brow stiffened up and his forehead got covered in sweat “- You must be mistaken. I could never make a mistake like tha-”

With my sword being away from my hip, lying in a corner of the house were fewer books piled up together with Ballarak’s hammer, the only weapons I had on me were my knives. Alarick stood stiff and motionless, choking his words in his throat, the moment I pulled out the knife from the sheath on my thigh and pointed at his throat.

“Chose your next words carefully-” I said in a clear threatening tone as Ballarak looked at me with a rather curious eye than one of fear or cluelessness “-, fraud”

“I-I don’t understand…” Alarick replied as he sneakily tried to take a few steps back only to find another knife pointed at him from behind. The hand holding it belonged to Ballarack.

“Whatcha talking ‘bout? How’s he a fraud?” The dwarf asked as he stared at me, requiring a prompt explanation, from behind the elf’s back.

[So he would follow me even without knowing my reasons?-] I asked myself as I briefly, and unconsciously, expressed stupor and surprise with my facial expression [- Perhaps I’ve been a bit too cold to him]

“He spoke of a spirit as if it was a person” I answered bluntly.

“Eh? Nah, ya must’ve heard wrong. I clearly heard him say the spirit…was a…she?!-” Ballarack said with a jolt as he realized the meaning behind my action and previous words. However, there was something else in his expression. Confusion first and foremost, a hint of shame and a dazed glint in his eyes, as if the dwarf was struggling to recall something obscure, and failing at it “- So the whole thing upstairs was a sham, uh? Bit of smoke and fancy chants ought to do the trick, right? Fuck! And here I thought we found ourselves a decent elven mage unlike all them snobby cunts! Ya ain’t no mage at all, are ya?”

“He isn’t-” I stated as I pushed the wooden table aside just enough for me to reach the elf face to face, the edge of my dagger still resting a few centimeters away from his throat “- else he wouldn’t have said ‘she’. No mage would ever call a spirit with the same pronouns as a living being”

“Right, right-” Confirmed Ballarack becoming more sure of himself and emboldened by my explanations and realization of the fraud “- Heard there ain’t no book ‘bout magic that doesn’t say that. Something ‘bout ‘em spirits being beings of mana and nothing else. There was something else…this one mage I worked with said something ‘bout it being dangerous to call ‘em like us…can’t remember why”

“It dwindles their power-” I replied as I recalled the passage written in the book about spirits I read as a child “- Spirits are constructs of mana, will and Nature’s machinations. They appear to mortals as physical entities, sometimes capable of speech, but in truth are the aggregation of mana capable of complex thought and conscious mind. Mortal minds cannot comprehend nor gain insight or influence such a being. If that were to be, a shift between the mortal’s mana and the spirit's would happen, forcing the latter’s connection to Nature to rapture…Or so the books say”

“...Dumb it down, will ya?” Ballarak replied a bit exasperatedly but also chuckled slightly.

“If a mage-” Answered Alarick with his eyes fixed on the metal of my dagger “-, namely someone who has sway over mana, was to refer to a spirit as he would to a fellow mortal, he would weaken the spirit. If too many referred to a spirit in such a manner, said spirit would cease to exist”

“Aye! That’s bad. That’s pretty fucking bad! Even I, not even a mage but a blacksmith, knew that, the fuck was going through ya head, leaf-muncher?” Exclaimed the dwarf between heavy sighs.

“Yes, yes!-” Replied Alarick almost in a shout. Exasperation and a hint of fear were palpable in his tone “- I just realized what kind of mistake I made, ok?! But didn’t you feel it too? The way it moved, the way it spoke, the way its presence felt?”

“Nuh uh-” Answered the dwarf with lots of sideway swinging of his bearded head “- Ain’t felt shit. Only sleepy”

“Then what about just now?-” Pressed on Alarick in a desperate attempt to defend himself like a thief with the town’s guard “- You didn’t say anything until Sir Raphael pointed it out and even he took a while to come to said realization. Why? Because it felt right! Because it felt like calling the spirit ‘she’ was the right choice. Was it not?”

“...The elf’s not wrong about that, ain’t he?” Said Ballarak, his confused gaze pointed directly at me in search of an answer or a rebuke.

“No, it’s strange-” I replied then, closing in on myself, I muttered my thoughts out loud “- I would never make a similar mistake. My teachers have been drilling that notion into me, especially during lessons regarding summoning and astral entities…so why?”

My head was aching. There was something wrong. Something I was failing to realize. Something I knew but couldn’t seem to hold a firm grasp on. As if I was trying to grab onto mist, every thought or memory regarding the ritual escaped me. Whenever I seemed to realize something, it escaped, evaded me, disappeared into nothingness. The only thing I was left with was frustration and soon, a handful of minutes passed in that awful silence. Then, finally, I realized that something had to be interfering with my mind, specifically my memories of the ritual. Given my ability with magic, that someone had to be a mage himself, and who had more reason to do so than the very mage that conducted the ritual? With the realization also came the need to put a stop to the manipulation.

I was just about to swipe the elf’s neck with my blade, my shoulder muscles tensing with the threat of action, when Julie burst in the room screaming at the top of her lungs:

“STOOOP!” Shouted the young girl with clenched fists and oh-so-angry eyes. There was something odd about her but I didn’t give it too much credit on the account that my usually meek and respectful sister had just screamed at me.

“What did you say?” I asked a little too threateningly for my own taste. I was at a loss for words and couldn’t come up with anything better.

“I said stop treating Mr. Alarick badly! He’s done nothing wrong! He wasn’t lying!” The fact that she shouted at me before along with my clearly displeased face seemed to remind her of her meek personality and her tone diminished with every word she uttered.

“What are you talking about, Julie? How would you know?!” I replied, this time careful of how I sounded.

“I-I…They told me. When you were arguing they told me that you were going to kill Mr. Alarick” She answered careful not to meet my gaze but searching for Ballarak’s help.

“Expla-” I was about to say before Alarick almost jumped with surprise and childish excitement, forcing me to follow his hectic movement with my blade.

“You-You hear them?-” Euporichaly asked the elf with eyes lit aflame with excitement “- The voices of the spirits? Can you hear them? Do they speak to you? Are they here now? Incredible. Truly incredible! This is such an astonishing event!”

“Calm do ya crazy tree-hugger and speak like ya fucking make sense-” Grunted Ballarak as he poked the elf’s back with his blade causing Alarick to wake up from his crazed fantasies and realize he was still in the same awful situation as before. Still, the light igniting his eyes never ceased or dwindled “- What’s this all ‘bout that got ya acting like a madman?”

“She is a mage-” Promptly replied Alarick with an unnatural twist of his neck in order to try and look Ballarak in the eye “- This girl is a young mage. Has been for a while I wager. You can see it too now, can you not, Sir Raphael? Tell me, girl, when did it first happen? When was it that you first heard their voice?”

My eyes bolted in my sister’s direction and, for the very first time, I focused on her. Truly focused on her, as if there was none other in the room, only us. I felt it then, that sensation reminding me of two magnets. The same sensation that sent a tingle through the back of my head every time I met gazes with another mage in my first year at the academy. It was faint, a whisper really, nothing more. It wasn’t enough to convince me of the elf’s words but enough to instill doubt in my mind.

I had to prove it. I had to know if she had the same gift as me, the same potential. Alas asking her to cast a spell was not an option and neither was shielding from one, so the only option left was to see her supposedly much more developed mana circuits. An ability I did not possess. Thinking that, I recalled two events. The first was my master’s habit of commenting on my progress in developing my circuits. The second was the trick I used to see through my conjured mist.

Conceptually, it was a simple thing. In order to see through a mana-filled mist, one had to “adjust” their eyes to the same level of mana. In simpler words, a mage had to “wear” mana of the same density as that of the mist to nullify its effect. Of course, it was easier said than done, especially for someone like me who tuned his own spell pretty consistently. In the end, the best I could do at that time was to mitigate the effect of the mist and “highlight” the shapes of those in it. To my brother, whose abilities were far beyond mine, all this trick could achieve was to slightly decrease the effect of the mist. Nothing more.

Still, as I looked down upon my sister, visibly shivering under my gaze, an idea sparked in my mind and I remembered something else. The whole “mana-clad eyes” trick was something I not only used inside my mist or another sight-hindering spell but also when hunting monsters on the stronger side. The trick needed some fine-tuning and heaps of modifications before it could actually achieve what I was trying to do: discern the refined mana from the raw. Surprisingly, I was able to accomplish that to some extent, though that came with the drawback that it strained the eyes to an outlandish degree.

[But what if I…use raw mana to highlight the refined?] I thought as the sparks solidified into an idea inside my mind.

I promptly acted upon it, dropping the blade in the process. I reached for the ground with my hands, touching it softly, only with my fingertips. It was a motion I became too accustomed to skip when it came to using natural mana. Using my own refined mana as “bait”, or rather “magnet”, I coaxed natural mana to run through my body. Its sheer power and weight threatening to snap my muscles as it rapidly flowed into me and toward my eyes. It was a small, almost insignificant fraction of the mana I could hold but it was enough to send shocks through my body and the taste of blood filling my mouth and nose. I “covered” this shard of natural mana with my own and led it to my eyes, thinned it out, flattened it, and made it clearer until a tiny, soft film of natural mana held in place by refined mana covered my eyes like a pair of contact lenses. Then, I finally saw it. My sister’s circuit. That and only that. I could only see the circuit and nothing else. No organs, no bones, skin or muscles, no room, and certainly no sister. Everything was…simply black, and even more, except for that circuit in front of my eyes. Small and frail like a kid who never went outside their room.

I needed something to confront it with so I turned around. Two more circuits greeted my sight. One stood at the same height as my sister, almost sill in its movements and poor in both color and complexity. The other was taller, more refined and fast even though it seemed almost empty. It was easy to understand which was which, and even easier to understand that Alarick’s words were true.

“She really is a mage” I said, feeling the faintest smile crossing my lips as I released and expelled the mana covering my eyes.

My sister’s circuit disappeared and with it, the bluish-white light faded from my sight. Alas, the darkness did not. I could not see my sister’s face, nor Alarick’s or Ballarak’s. I could not see the room and the furniture with it just as much as I could not see the hands I was waving in front of my eyes.

“Ah-” I exclaimed with surprisingly no fear in my heart as I reached the conclusion “- I’m blind, I guess”

“The fuck ya talking ‘bou-” Began saying Ballarak before abruptly stopping himself, approaching me and loudly gasping “- By the hammer of Boghwar, ya eyes are white as milk! What happened to ya?!” He concluded with a tone full of surprise and worry. In the background, Julie was screaming while Alarick was trying his best to calm her down.

“Side effect, I suppose-” I said as I tentatively touched the floor looking for a chair to sit on. Seeing that, Ballarak slid my arm over his shoulder and led me to one “- It was the first time I ever tried to look at a mana circuit directly. I guess the strain on my eyes was too big”

“I know a little of healing magic-” Added Alarick with a much calmer tone than when he first found out Julie was a mage “- Would that help?”

“It would, thanks-” I answered with a slight nod of the head. The soft steps approaching my chair were a clear signal of the elf approaching me and the subsequent warmth over my face told me that Alarick was studying me close-up “- No need to get worried-” I added mostly for Julie’s ears which seemed to calm her down somewhat “- It’s not permanent. It happened already a couple times before. Healing magic speeds up the process but I’d wager that I won’t be seeing for a couple of hours…Now then, Alarick, mind telling me what was that about her being a mage and hearing ‘THEIR’ voices?”

Part 2

I slammed my fist against his face one more time. One more. Once again until I heard the satisfactory “crack” of his nose and felt the blood gush under my knuckles. With my other hand, I raised the guy from the collar until our faces almost met. Each of us glared at the other, though he did so in between bloody coughs and chokes.

“Is this enough or should I keep going?-” I asked, purposefully raising my bloodied fist threateningly. As the guy nodded I unclenched my fist and continued “- Then give me the damn code”

The guy glared at me once more. The last glimmer of defiance, a spark too little to set fire, before he finally surrendered and reached for his breast pocket. Once he took it out, in his open palm was a piece of folded paper smeared with the guy’s blood. I took it, gave it a quick look, and stuffed it in my pocket before releasing the guy’s collar. As he fell on the ground, tired and beaten, I kicked him in the stomach, just for good measure. A price for wasting my precious time.

“Good boy-” I said as I cleaned my mouth from the blood spilled from my gums using a thumb “- Now scurry off before I change my mind…and you better keep this whoooole thing to yourself else I’ll be coming for your legs next time. Clear?”

“Y-Yesh” Replied the guys before running out of the building and into the busy street.

I gave a quick look around at the tall warehouse-like building I was in. Half a dozen bodies were sprawled around the room. Some were knocked out, others were throwing daggers with their eyes at me yet dared not to act upon those wordless threats. The prices of their defiance still spewing blood across their bodies. The rest were tending to their wounds or inconspicuously leaving the building. Without so much as a word, I left the building behind me and dove into the busy street filled to the brim with people going along with their days and vendors shouting their merchandise.

I walked around for a while. Aimlessly. Without giving much of a thought about where I was going, what I was doing, or who was looking at me until I spotted an alley on the side of the road and ducked into it. The smell of piss and cheap liquor was overwhelming. So much that it almost made me want to barf.

“Ugh, I’d rather the smell of blood than this shit-” I said before stopping in my tracks and keeping still for a few seconds in the very middle of the alley “-...I can’t believe I just said that”

Sighing to myself and the kind of tactless thing I was becoming, I spotted a low wooden box on the side and sat down on it. From the backpack I had on my back, I took two roasted pork skewers wrapped in big banana-like leaves and let the juices oozing from the meat falling on the ground. Only when I was eating I noticed the wound running across the back of my hand. Red, swollen and occasionally still bleeding, the wound ran from the gap between my pinky knuckle and the ring finger’s down to the back of my wrist. Most likely a gift left by one of the guys I beat, probably the one carrying those strangely shaped knives. I sighed in defeat as I began applying the nearest minimum of healing magic at the lowest mana output possible, all in hopes of preserving as much of my mana as possible.

[Tch…-] I thought as I began stitching the wound spartanly before covering it with a bandage [- This will leave a scar]

As I observed my finished handiwork I ate the last of my skewers and looked around. The alley was dark, dirty, full of broken crates, vases and filth. One of the many alleys in the slum. Houses, buildings, shops, streets, the entire place seemed devoid of all colors except for gray, black and bloody red. Even the sky, as I watched it from that filthy alley, appeared gray to me.

[Five more minutes and I’ll go there…yeah…just five more minutes] I thought as I felt a wave of tiredness washing over me.

My eyelids were heavy and the last time I looked in the mirror, back at the squalid in I was staying in, I had dark circles that looked nothing less than a black moon. Cupping my face with both hands, I used my knees as resting stools for my arms and simply stood there, letting the seconds go by. Alas, closing my eyes seemed to never be the right answer. With my eyes closed, I thought back on the past days.

It had already been a week since the event following the ritual. As the realization and causes of my temporary blindness had sunk in, Alarick began a spiel of his own. Incapable of doing pretty much nothing else other than listening, I sat at the table with the others as Alarick explained the importance of Julie’s magic. To my knowledge, there were three types of unique magic related to spirits. The first, even though extremely rare, was the most common of the two and those who practiced it were called “tamers”. Those mages had the ability to bend other creatures to their will. Whether it be simple animals, monsters, or, in some cases, lower spirits, those mages could control and order these creatures around. The second type was called “summoning” magic which, as the name implied, called forth creatures to obey the orders of the mage. While tamers required physical contact with the creature, summoners only required mana thus making them far more fearsome in battle. Instances where creatures unknown were called froth during one of those summons happened, though extremely rarely, thus leading to believe that summoners could call creatures from other worlds. The third was called “spirit medium” and it let its practitioner share their body with one or more spirits thus gaining their powers and affinities.

Apparently, there was a fourth type. One I knew nothing about due to its myth-like rareness. Alarick called this type of unique magic “spirit whisper”. As he skimmed through the books, eagerly proving the existence of such a type after I expressed criticism, the elf explained the functions of said magic. A “whisperer”, as he called them, can verbally communicate with spirits, the rank of which depending on the mage’s ability. As it usually goes with unique magic, all other branches of magic were almost impossible to practice for a whisperer. Basic attack, defense, and utility magic could be performed but excelling after that was akin to a miracle.

In exchange for the ability to cast the vast majority of spells, a whisperer could communicate at all times with spirits, befriended or not. Along with the fact that none could see spirit, their mana in imperceivable to mortals thus making a whisperer the perfect scout and spy. Being lost in a forest, needing directions, scouting an army, spying on a lord, learning the daily routine of a target. A whisperer could do all this and more simply by asking a spirit for help. Though even rarer, whisperers could earn the blessing of a greater spirit which usually meant gaining some form of resistance against an element.

In light of this, Alarick, very intensively, suggested that I let Julie learn how to control her power and study all there is about spirits. It was no surprise when the elf offered himself as a teacher. Ballarak almost jumped at the hammer shouting that elves never do a favor freely. Only an hour after Ballarak, Alarick and I began shouting at each other did Julie spoke, reminding us that we never asked for her input. Turns out she agreed to take the elf as her master so long as he could continue to travel with me. This Alarick did not like since he wanted her to fully immerse in the study of spirits but he relented with the promise that once she reached the age of eighteen she would journey back to the elven lands and spend five years of apprenticeship under him. As the two came to an agreement, Alarick wasted no time in drawing her in books, most of which were about spirits and all magic related to them but some aimed to teach about the elven language since, as Alarick said, elvish is the language most comfortable to spirits.

The discussion then changed to a different topic: the she-spirit words. We spent a while brainstorming what “dragon tears” could possibly mean until Ballarak came up with something. It was a rumor circulating around the dwarven kingdom. Supposedly, there was this drug so saturated with mana that it could make one see and experience otherworldly things. Some even said that they felt like spending an entire lifetime in that confusing pseudo-world, yet only hours went by. Ballarak heard that it was also used by some of the more extreme battle mages but it was just a back alley’s rumor. Not being able to come up with anything else, Ballarak’s suggestion seemed the most solid. Until dinner time came and I regained my vision, the three of us discussed the many ways to gain more knowledge about said drug and where it could be found. Alas, for such topics the only consistent source seemed to be the slum, namely one of the many dark guilds of the elven lands. Not wanting to get Julie mixed in all this, and seeing how eager she was to learn and Alarick to teach, I decided to embark on this alone, leaving Ballarak as my sister’s bodyguard.

I flinched and grabbed the handle of the knife strapped to my belt as I heard some movement in the alley. With a long, heavy sigh I let go of the knife seeing that it only was a stray cat. Another sigh escaped my lips as I turned my head to the sky and noticed how the moon was making its first, shy appearance of the night. Just a tiny, little pale thing behind a curtain of reddish clouds. I shook my head, cracked my neck and shoulders, checked for the piece of paper folded in my pocket and made my way toward my next, and hopefully last, objective.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Every step I took made an uncomfortable squelching sound. It was the blood pooled under my boots and cascading down the side of the stairs. The fresh corpse of a wannabe assassin still lying not even ten steps behind me with a missing hand and a torn throat. The stone tiles of the stairs were surprisingly a lot more cared for than the entire building resting just above the stairs. Lamps made of red-colored glass were powered by glowing stones and placed in little alcoves in the stone walls. The red hue emanating from them, along with the tightness of the stone passage made the whole ambience feel secretive and somewhat creepy. The smell of fresh blood and the casual stain of dried blood and filth across the walls did not help in the slightest. Nonetheless, I was in the right place so I had no other choice than to slowly walk down the stairs with one hand resting on the pommel of my sword and the other holding a dagger under my cape.

The flight of stairs came to an end with a long corridor culminating in a thick-looking wooden door bolted with large shiny iron bolts. There was no handle but the faint and unseen hue of mana led me to believe the door would open no matter what I did, and so it did. As I stepped close to it and stopped for a few seconds, the clicking sound of gears turning and the bluish hue surrounding the bars of steel sprawled across the door caused the door to slowly open. The room I stepped into was well-lit in the same low red glow of the stairway, large and spacious with a wide counter built out of refined birch wood with a greyish shine to it. Red and black curtains hung all over the room, giving a sort of private chamber-like feeling to it. Behind the counter were two evenly spaced doors leading to what I supposed to be the labyrinth this base was. In between the door stood a man finely dressed in an elegant blood-colored shirt with a high collar, a black militaristic trenchcoat and a soft, black, almost see-through veil covering his face. The long, pointy ears wearing a set of golden earrings betrayed his race and, if I wasn’t mistaken, his noble standing. His bright golden hair with neat threads of dark red was either fake or an illusion.

[Seems this one’s not just a goon-] I thought as I purposefully slowed my pace and slowly analyzed as best as I could the man in front of me [- Either they know who I am, why am I here or have heard about my past week’s actions…Definitely they know what happened above]

“Good evening-” Said the elf with a courteous yet reserved bow of the head. His voice was calm, melodious even, with just a hint of depth to it “- Paying customer or hostile party?”

“...Paying customer” I replied as I stopped in the middle of the room after sensing some mana being purposefully hidden and kept checked.

[A trap?] I thought as my eyes darted from curtain to curtain knowing that if an enemy was hiding somewhere, they had to be there.

“I see-” The elf continued as he faked a relieved tone right before slumping his shoulders in an accentuated sadness “- Then may I know the reason for your actions on the floor above?”

[Yup-] I thought, mentally preparing for an ambush [- They are definitely mad about it!]

“I do not condone rudeness-” I replied coldly, hoping to impersonate the personality of an egoistical noble “- Your…men have done just that. Though I believe I have not killed them all, did I?”

“Ah, yes. It is completely understandable-” Replied the elf with the faintest of smiles curling his lips below the veil “- after spending a week in the slump, not one man would be eager to converse. Especially when talked to as rudely as those…shall we say, guards? did to you. Oh, but worry not, sir, even if you had left none alive, many others would have taken their place. Expendable pawns these people are”

[A veiled threat-] I mused as I felt all the presence hidden behind the curtains disappear the moment the man clicked his heels [- Don’t do anything that upsets us or we kill you with numbers…Still, at least they didn’t outright attack me]

“Now then-” Said the elf as he gestured for me to come closer to the counter. The movements of his gloved hands were fast, studied, and very fluent. He was no mere clerk but a master of his weapon without doubt “- may I offer you something to drink? Black tea, perhaps?”

“Generous offer-” I replied as I moved closer to the counter while sheathing the dagger I still held behind my back. To show some respect I also took off my feathered hat and placed it on the counter away from the both of us “- but I’d rather get right to the point. I’ve been in this neighborhood for far too long so I’d very much like to change air as soon as possible…No offense to your establishment, of course”

“None taken, sir-” Answered the elf with a sly and intrigued smile “- this neighborhood is awful around this time of the year. Though I hear that when snow comes it turns into a jewel. In any case, what can the Silver Crow guild offer? Is it a loan you need, sir? Perhaps manpower? Information? Or something more…material?”

“I’m looking for something specific. A drug, namely the Dragon Tears. Word around town has it that your guild is its closest and widest distributor of the western side of the kingdom”

“Oh, I see you know your stuff-” Said the elf in a genuinely half-surprised tone “- few know of it and even fewer know of its true name. Indeed, we do distribute Dragon Tears on the western side while the Fallen Branch, an allied guild, does so on the eastern…Take no offense but I feel I must warn you, sir, this drug is quite expensive and likewise addictive. Its request far surpasses our intake so the price has to match. Though I assure you, sir, that the product we sell is neither blemished nor thinned and mixed, unlike what you could find on the street”

“I’m aware, but thank you, and I do not mind spending coin so long as the product is pure-” I replied as I took the pouch from my belt and placed it on the table causing the coins inside to giggle and clink with the sound of metal “- Is this enough to conduct business?”

“May I?-” Asked the elf as he bent closer to the pouch. With a simple nod, I allowed the elf to dig into the pouch and, once satisfied with the amount the elf smiled and continued to speak “- Roughly around ten gold coins, yes? It is dangerous to walk around these streets with such a heavy pouch. Still, by the way you handled yourself above I believe this warning is wasted on you. How much do you require?”

“How much is a dose for an advanced tier mage to fill their circuit fully?” I asked in return as I snatched the pouch from the counter and tied it back onto my belt.

“It varies depending on the development of said mage’s mana circuits-” Replied the elf as he played with one of his earrings in a clearly thinking tic motion “- and, of course, the rate with which said mage uses mana and meditates. If I had to say a rough estimate, mhh…One gem the size of half a thumb crushed and drank with water would have its effect last around a week. On the first day it may cause hallucinations but, due to the purity of our product, the increased mana intake effect should last about a week without further symptoms”

“...Then six months worth of that” I replied coldly as I mentally calculated how long would it last.

The elf was visibly shocked at my words. Who could blame him? Six months' worth of the - apparently- strongest drug currently around is a crazy amount. Shaking his head, the elf seemed to regain some composure. His eyes were fixed on mine as if expecting me to laugh or tell him it was all a joke. Seeing none of it, he began muttering under his breath what seemed to be calculation, then grabbed a book from one of the many shelves behind him, read a few lines, looked back at me, looked down at my pouch and shook his head.

“Forgive me, sir, but it seems we cannot accommodate your request at this moment” He replied sounding genuinely dejected.

“The reason being?” I pressed.

“The reason being that our entire stock barely covers that amount, half of said stock has been previously ordered by one influential client and the amount of coin you showed is not nearly enough” The elf answered his previous cold and collected character now wavering slightly.

“I see-” I answered as I paced myself from side to side of the room, struggling to think of a solution to this dilemma “- That is a problem. See, I am about to embark on a, shall we say, lengthy journey and I’d wager I’ll find it extremely hard to get my hands on much Dragon Tear. Said Dragon Tear is related to the well-being of my health, so it’s not as if I can simply skip a month…Hypothetically speaking: how much would the whole stock cost me?”

“Hypothetically-” Mused the elf with a clear hint of curiosity in his tone “- the full stock of Dragon Tear would come at around thirty gold, coin more coin less”

“And I don’t suppose you have-” I said as I cocked a smirk while setting one hand ablaze and the other clad in thunder, purposefully making a show of it to the now surprised elf “- a job, or more, worth that amount, do you?”

“A job worth twenty gold coins?-” Replied the elf at first surprised by the combination of my spells and my sudden proposal, then he smiled greedily and began playing with one of his earrings once more “- A job, you say?-” He repeated with an even wider grin.

[He dropped the ‘sir’, I see] I thought to myself.

“- I do have one particular task that has been bothering our guild for several months now. The full cost of said task, both in manpower and expenses cost us a fair more than twenty coins…I suppose that if you were to complete said task I would be more than eager to apologize to our other Dragon Tear’s client about our ‘unexpected’ loss of the merchandise and take your ten coins for the whole stock” He said as he grabbed a piece of paper and began scribbling something I could not see with a quill and some reddish ink.

“It sounds precisely what I need but I wonder: are you high enough to offer me such a deal?”

“I am indeed-” Replied the elf proudly as he patted his chest in a fake show of boosting his ego “- and even if I wasn’t, this task has been a thorn in our side for quite a while and yet is vital to the well-being of our guild. I am sure someone of your resourcefulness understands what I’m alluding to by saying this, yes?”

“Unfortunately I do-” I replied with a long sigh “- Where’s the catch?”

“We will have a written contract-” The elf said finally sliding the piece of paper he was writing on in front of me. Turns out it was a full-blown contract “- You will be given details of the mission only after signing the contract but it basically boils down to retrieving something in a dangerous place. You will be paid after completing the task. You will not speak of the task to none other than your party members, if you so choose to form one. If knowledge of the task is divulged to the public, you will be held responsible. If the task is not completed within twenty days, we will proceed to sell the Dragon Tear to our previous buyer…Oh, and needles to say, if you were to betray us and escape with the object you would be hunted down through the entire continent with a hefty bounty on your head”

“Seems fair-” I replied after carefully listening to the elf’s words “- Is it stated in the contract that, for no reason besides my failure or the missed time frame, you won’t sell your stock?”

“It is written” Answered the elf as he pointed out a paragraph under the name of ‘Contractee responsibility’.

“Mind if I take my time reading?” I asked knowing full well that, if the guild was as desperate as I thought it was, they would not deny me requests of that nature nor would try to swindle me too badly. Still, caution before anything else.

“Absolutely not, sir-” Replied the elf with a wide, satisfied grin “- No offense but I would think you a fool if you signed a contract with a dark guild without first reading it-” He continued with a suffocated chuckle before clicking his heels and summoning a servant wearing the attire of a butler and the same veil as the elf “- Prepare us some tea and snacks, the type used for our important guest and bring them into the room number seventeen…Sir, if you would follow me” The elf said, dispatching the other elven servant with a flick of the wrist and showing me to a door that suddenly appeared behind one of the curtains. Another elf had already taken the previous place behind the counter as the man I spoke to led me through the door and into the inner chambers of the guild.

Several hours later I was out in the open, walking steadily towards the door of the seer’s hut with nothing but the stars and the moon to light my path. As I opened the door, the sweet smell of chocolate filled my nostrils along with the scented perfume of herbs and incense that still lingered around the house ever since the ritual. It had been more than a week since I last visited the seer’s place out of fear of being followed by one of the many thugs I beat and thus endangering Julie. It was no surprise that the three of them looked shocked, concerned and quite scared the moment I walked in with blood smeared all over my clothes.

A tornado of questions soon followed. Alarick wanted to know if I was successful and if I needed any help with injuries. Julie asked me why I never came back, why I was covered in blood and why did it take me so long, all of it by shouting in my ears in hopes of surpassing the other two’s voices. Ballarak was just curious to know if he missed any interesting fight. Alas, I had no time nor wish to answer any question and brute-forced my way out of the deadlock and addressed the dwarf singularly.

“Ballarak, you wanted to see me in action, yes? Wanted to see me fight to achieve that spark of yours, right? Then get your gear ready and get some good rest. Tomorrow we’ve got one hell of a job” I said as I grabbed the dwarf’s shoulder and squeezed.

“S’that so?-” He asked with an excited chirp in his hoarse voice “- Where we heading, boss?”

“...Yeah, this you won’t like-” I answered with a sigh and a slump of my shoulders “-We’re going into Bolton’s Grey Bark forest”

“HA!-” Shouted the dwarf as he violently slapped my back and laughed with gusto “- fucking knew ya were heading there the moment that tall lass spoke ‘bout it! HAHAHAHA!”