The rooftop was cool but I couldn't enjoy it. I ignored the man smoking, didn't even look at him, instead, I gasped in the fresh air after leaning out the railing to a frankly dangerous degree. Yay for higher physical stats than what I had! Every breath of fresh cool air making me feel better than before.

  The taint was gone but the disgust, so damn reminiscent of the slimes, was refusing to budge. The dog had been a doomed creature; that much I could tell from a simple glance. Whatever it was that was afflicting it, it was too late for the dog thing. But it was not what was affecting me so much, it was that for a moment, the infection had tried to over to me. And judging from the strained voices of the two enforcers before I left, it had attempted doing the same to them.

  “...Anya? Did you pursue me even here just to torment me?” The man who was smoking asked with a wry smile. Great, just my luck that he was here.

  “Fim! My least favorite protection fee collector!” I said with palpably fake enthusiasm. I was being annoying, in all honesty, seeing something familiar like Fim was nice after the dog.

  “There is only me and Vinny.” He pointed out.

  “Exactly!”

  “I'm sure that being obnoxious is fun for you and all, but I have to ask. Why the hell are you here?” He turned his face to face the city again and took a smoke.

  “Helped catch a mass murderer. Invitation from the Lady herself. And no, before you ask, I'm not rich enough now for you to raise the fees, if I were then I would move to a place actually livable for people first.”

  “Nah, I wasn't going to ask. Our professional relationship is just that, you are just an annoying acquaintance right now.” He sighed and held out a lit cigarette for me. I declined it for the simple reason that I had never smoked one of those and I would rather not embarrass myself by coughing.

  “Wow, I'm hurt. And here I was thinking that you considered me— what was it? ‘Annoying Bug Brat’? What about you?”

  “Protection detail for the boss and Lady Hinaria. Vinny is here too. The old guards couldn't come because of some emergency so we were reshuffled.” Hinaria… oh- the girl who had visited me in the middle of the night to borrow Medea for some pet contest or something because her pet was unavailable. What was it called? Grifigy? That certainly sounded like the flying alligator I had seen.

  “Cool. Certainly sounds more fun than carrying around fucking mana-diseased dogs.” I spat at the memory of that pup, the mana warping, self-destructing, reforming and becoming something else’s. Tearing the dog away to reveal whatever had taken hold of it and now his underneath.

  “What?”

  “Someone’s dog caught something nasty. Its own mana was transforming and attacking the dog.” My face twisted into an expression of disgust. Fim let out an impressed whistle.

  “Sounds bad.” He said glibly before turning away once again, the smoke obscuring his features.

  “It was. Made me feel like it was going to infect me if I looked too long at it. I… I kind of ran away up here.”

  Fim didn't answer for a long time. Below us, the center stage was emptied of the dancers and a voice announced the arrival of some kind of famous artist or whatever. We watched as a woman who looked like a living marionette started to sing. The song was not in a language I understood but I got the meaning. Something about love in a violent society. As she sang, her body transformed into a series of giant fluffy wings that shone like the moon but even brighter. No one spoke, no one even made a noise. The song was mesmerizing in a way that I hadn't seen anything be before. The mess of wings started spinning and changing size and shape. One extended to us and lightly brushed past me and I felt rejuvenated and at peace. For a moment, Quiraion and Aster were just distant gods and I could live in the moment. Then the song ended and I was left with an aching hole in my heart that I had never known. Fim finally spoke.

  “Can't believe I'm saying it but I get you. Mana illness is horrid stuff. I just excused myself because there were only so many smiles from those bastards down there that I could endure. Someone was complaining that they had to refill their glass by themselves.” Yeah, pointless luxury like that was a surefire way to get under my skin too. No wait, bad expression. Nothing is going under anyone's skin, certainly not weird mana illness.

  “Don't your bosses live like that too?” Fim stared at me like I was stupid and asked an obvious question. Which, to be fair, was a possibility.

  “No. They don't. Some do but not anyone I work under.”

  “What do they do then? Extortion? Trafficking people?”

  “Trafficking?” Someone behind me guffawed. “Please, they are my employees. I know what people say about me. ‘Oh that evil Elser just preys upon the vulnerable children of Gerankir to fill his pockets’. Bullshit, I save them from a lifetime of drudgery and pain on the streets. I give them the possibility of a better life. I give them skill crystals. Hell they can even leave at any moment they want by settling the books.” That last part was the important bit, settling the books. I didn't know how much skill gems cost but I doubted that settling those books was easy. Fim paled and bowed until he was practically a paperclip.

  “Boss Ila, forgive this ungrateful servant for not defending your honor.”

  “That's because you didn't get the chance to. Now get up.” Ila, or Elser, waved Fim up. He hastened and dragged a chair over for Ila to sit on. Ila didn't look like a gangster, not that I knew what gangsters looked like in this world. He just looked like a very fit and somewhat muscular middle-aged man.

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  “Get the lady a seat too, Fim.” He commanded and Fim obliged. Then he smiled at me.

  “Let me ask you a question, Miss Anya. Let us assume that you are born in this city and live in its squalor. You are not a merchant councillor and certainly not one of the high councillors. Exploitation and torture are everything around you. No one even cares to pay lip-service to notions of human dignity. What would do to improve it? And how?”

  Lady Ayn watched from a window as the bait… the children partied. Her mind was racing as she contemplated her next move, she had lived for many human lifetimes by not being hasty.

  One mistake and so many people would die. One mistake and the city would cease to be. Ayn was, perhaps morbidly, dividing her guests into two categories. “Would immediately die to a stray ember”, and “would keep occupied for a single second if it came to that”. She was not impressed by what ahe had seen so far but she was intrigued by some of them. First was Hreth, a prodigy in the making by all predictions. He just lacked the proper training and the skills but that could be remedied. It was a shame that the boy had no ambition beyond just being a secondary guildmaster. Still, it was better to have the ear of a rising power in New Delport than not. His companion, the healer, was nothing special. And the Shakirn heiress was here too, notable because of how remarkably mediocre she was despite her upbringing. Of course, a mediocre Shakirn heiress training for the Phoenix Crucible was a genius by any other metric. Ayn watched as the Shakirn girl’s cousin humiliated her. Ayn knew how the phoenix worked and how repeated humiliation could cripple phoenix-kin. But the girl had discovered a new fire within her. She would go far. Maybe even win the Crucible if fate smiled on her. That is, if she survived the city.

  But even she was not the most fascinating person in the party, not even the most interesting one associated with Valdima’s guild. No, that title went to the quiet and reserved teen with the spider scorpion. She had vague suspicions that she was more than what met the eye when she found herself in way twice. Powerful beings were like that, destined to clash for “weight” before the heavens. Whoever she was, the girl had a karmic presence

  A subtle pulse of heightened emotions that fed on past traumas he didn't know and she was jumpy. She of course diffused it before it could get bad or leave permanent bad blood but it had been enough. Her manipulations had been enough, tongues were loosened and reactions were amplified. And then Ayn sent over a man clad in the sigils and regalia of the slavers the girl had allegedly escaped. And she was completely nonchalant about it. She had even been friendly with him.

  No one of her power, no matter how practised, should have acted like that before those sigils while under Ayn’s influence. It was not impossible that the skittish girl was a better actor than she expected but then that raised other problems with her behaviour that she didn't couldn't answer for.

  No, the simplest explanation that accounted for everything was that she wasn't from where she claimed she was and that Khagran slavers were just a cover story. And the girl had been reading things that were common knowledge in the whole continent according to her spies. An entirely different continent then. But then the oceans held things that even dragons didn't dare challenge. In fact, she would bet that she wasn't from this world at all. It was not unheard of for people to be displaced across worlds, in fact those people often defined kingdoms and eras. It made sense when one considered what kind of existence could pierce the Unformed Chaos between worlds and traverse it safely. Gods. That certainly explained her odd name. QCombined that with her encounters with so far, it pointed towards only one conclusion. And that would make Anya one of the most valuable commodities on the planet if true.

  A Godtouched. Anya Hartford was a Godtouched.

  Ayn has considered taking the girl aside for a moment and promised to not reveal her secret in exchange for a future favor. She could have instigated a true pact and the girl would have accepted. Anya would have to agree for her own safety and they would have shaken hands. Afterwards the Godtouched would find a large gold coin with hee face carved on it in her pocket. She could throw it in the Nyrum, sell it for scraps, melt it down, she could do everything in her power to get rid of it but it would always find its way back to her and be intact. Until the debt was repaid. A reminder and a collateral, a seal forged by the gods when existence was young and now enforced by the mute god of pacts. But Ayn didn't. Such pacts didn't preclude all future retaliation once they were fulfilled. And high councillor Lady Ayn didn't get where she was by making enemies of Godtouched. But still, it didn't mean that she couldn't have her fun. Especially since the subject of it was an old acquaintance of hers that had the audacity of not showing up at the last second.

  A mirror materialized in the air before her. On the other side of it sat Valdima, reading some paperwork with a scowl. A nervous assistant waited by her side. Valdima noticed the mirror almost immediately and her scowl turned even sourer.

  “OUT! Tell the guild that I'm not to be disturbed unless it is an emergency!” Valdima snapped and the poor assistant jumped in the air before scampering. Valdima stood up after the assistant and walked out of the visual range of the mirror. The sound of some sort of ward activating was followed by Valdima walking back into sight.

  “Lady Ayn, can't say it is a pleasure. What do you want?” She glowered.

  Ayn felt her face contort into a wide mocking smile as she began to speak. “Good evening to you too, Valdima. You see, I had a most remarkable epiphany occur to me. One that involves one of your guild brats.”

  Lady Ayn sighed when the conversation ended. She had no intention of meddling with the Godtouched, , but she expected Valdima to eventually pass it along to the girl that she knew. And that was when the Godtouched would be exactly where she wanted her. But that was for the future. She had a different thing to deal with first.

  A commotion below. A ward around the entire palace that let no one teleport in or out. A ward that she hadn't set up. Ayn stopped transmitting a certain signal that if stopped for any reason whatsoever, was to be seen as an immediate order to destroy body by any means necessary.

  had taken the bait.

  Ultimately I was not equipped to debate the morality of people struggling in New Delport, in a way I was privileged after all. After conceding, I left the two alone and made my way to the food. While stuffing my face again, a commotion drew my attention back to the dance floor. A woman was floating here, one that I recognized after a moment.

  “Greetings, spawn of the kinstraitor. I'm your doom. I'm the one who will take from you what you have stolen. You know me as the nightmare of your people. The first great enemy of your city. The one upon whose body, you feast like maggots even now.”

  Vinny spoke in the voices of a thousand people as she floated high in the air. She floated but it was not like how high level classers floated. It was more like she was held up by a puppeteer using invisible strings. Around her, balls of heatless fire spun and speed out what I could only describe as nightmares. Nightmares with the same mana disease that the dog had, just more intense. The monsters of heatless fire rushed out even as Vinny kept speaking. Above us all, I could see the sky covered in fire. Fire that formed shadows upon it, gaping maws, snapping teeth far too big for their mouths. Eyes opening and radiating sheer hatred. And beyond it all, deep within the fire, a core of trembling darkness.

  “You know me as the Black Dragon Kalist.”