Aldritch barely had time to look around the city before he and Sulika arrived at a large building bearing the visage of a dragon’s head on the roof. The giant found himself staring at the wooden rendition with obvious surprise on his face.

  Sulika noticed he was stood in place and moved to his side to see what was going on - she smiled at the ‘wonder’ in his eyes. “Ever seen a dragon before?”

  “Not often.”

  “And who’s fault is that? I invited you over for dinner every week, it was your choice not to come.” Oakairo huffed.

  “We were at war. I couldn’t make the trip back and forth without wasting resources the soldiers needed to survive.”

  “There’s that excuse again.” The god signed in annoyance. “You and I both know you could’ve made the trip by yourself in a day, so what’s the real reason you refused?”

  “I’m telling the truth. I didn’t want to waste resources, that’s all.”

  “Wyvern dung - that’s not the reason and we both know it. Tell me the truth, I’m a god, I can take it.”

  “... I don’t usually like eating charcoal.”

  “... I thought you loved my cooking?”

  “I do; you made it for me, of course I loved it. However, you do tend to overcook things because you refuse to use anything but your breath as a heat source.”

  “Because nothing cooks as thoroughly as a dragon’s breath.”

  “I agree.”

  “Then why didn’t you like it?”

  “Because it’s charcoal. Almost everything you’ve ever cooked turned into pieces of literal charcoal. I could’ve used your spinach leaves as tinder for a campfire, that’s how perfectly they were made.”

  “So… I’m confused. Did you like my food or not?”

  “They were perfect, just not for eating. I used to share my leftovers with the other soldiers. They were always amazed at how well your food burned.”

  Aldritch could see Oakairo puffing out his chest and grinning in his mind’s eye. “Of course, I made it after all. It’s only natural that it’d be the best they’d ever seen.”

  “Well,” Sulika’s voice brought Aldritch out of his mental conversation. “This statue is a reminder of the great deeds of our guildmaster. He killed this dragon; Cyvus the Slothful not long after Auris city was founded. If he’d failed, we’d have never gotten to where we are now.”

  “That is no Dragon. A wyrm, maybe. But it’s not a dragon.”

  “Maybe it’s what passes for a dragon in this world?”

  “Come on,” she said, ushering him forward into the building. “I’d like to rendezvous with my mattress before the sun rises above the city walls. I’ll never get any sleep if I don’t.” She made a regretful sound before heading into the building.

  Thirty minutes later, Aldritch stood alone in the small quarters the guild provided for him: A tiny restroom he could barely turn around in, a bedroom with a wooden bed that was about a foot too short and creaked if he so much as thought about sitting on it, and dining area fit for a single person.

  All in all, it was worse than most of the inns he’d stayed in, but a hundred times better than sleeping in that cave. It certainly wasn’t a bad way to spend a few hours. And besides, it wasn’t like he was planning to use the bed anyway.

  Aldritch didn’t need sleep to survive, not anymore. He wasn’t sure if it was because Oakairo was living inside his body or because of his half giant heritage, but Aldritch required less sleep as he got older.

  By the time he turned a thousand years old, the need for sleep had become a thing of the past… Unfortunately, that wasn’t as convenient as it might have sounded. If he didn’t sleep, he needed to fill those extra hours with something, or he’d go mad from boredom.

  Back home, he’d use that time to wander from place to place in search of other survivors.

  Sometimes he’d get lucky and find a place to squat in for a few weeks. He’d ransack the place for supplies, non-spoiled food, clean drinking water, entertainment of any kind. He was happy to find anything that could stave off the madness.

  After a few years of this lifestyle, Oakairo invented a game he called ‘I spy with my Dragon eye’ to save the both of them from boredom… But that stopped being fun after the first ten years or so – there were only so many times the answer could be ruins, purple sky, or yellow water before the game became too predictable to be fun.

  Now that he was out of that hellhole. Aldritch was filled with wanderlust. He wanted to leave his room and explore every corner of Auris city with a fine-toothed comb. But he also wanted to tuck his massive body away somewhere and not come out until he knew everything there was to know about this exciting new world.

  “Why not do both?” Oakairo asked. The deity was pleased to see Aldritch filled with vitality again. Of course, it would take more than a tiny room to revive Oakairo’s spirit. No, the dragon wouldn’t be satisfied until he could once again feel the touch of a pile of glittering gold – the softness of it against his scales, the smell of it as it melted from solid bar to a cauldron of liquid delight, the sensual pleasure of rubbing it on his face-

  “My lord?”

  Oakairo coughed despite not needing to breathe… Or even use his throat to speak. “I was suggesting you could do both. Why not go exploring tonight and try to find a library or a temple?”

  “I could certainly do that… Would you like to pick which direction I start with?”

  “I always enjoyed watching the sun rise over the western mountains.” Aldritch could feel Oakairo’s excitement through their bond. Aldritch agreed with Oakairo’s suggestion and left the tiny room behind. He backtracked down the narrow hallways of the dormitory and headed for the door.

  The guild dormitory wasn’t attached to the main building. Instead, you had to exit the main lobby through a side door and pass through a narrow courtyard to enter the dorm area. So, when Aldritch reached the ground floor and stepped outside, he stood in the courtyard connecting the two buildings and took in his surroundings -He noticed a twelve-foot-tall wooden fence surrounding the courtyard, blocking off any entrance/exit that didn’t pass through the guild hall, presumably to keep out civilians.

  Aldritch walked towards one of the blocked off openings at a leisurely pace. In between steps, he pressed off the ground with slightly more strength than it took to walk, causing him to leap over the fence with ease and land in the middle of an empty street that ran parallel to the guild.

  He looked right, then left, then right again. “A thought comes to mind. Would the cardinal directions be the same here as they were back home?”

  “Hmm… That’s a good point. I’m not sure, there’s a chance the poles are in the same places, but I wouldn’t stake my name on it.”

  “Then which way would you like to go?”

  “Well, I’ve always favored my right wings. So, let’s go that way for now and we can double back if we need to.”

  Aldritch nodded and walked to the end of the street, which placed him near the front entrance of the guild.

  According to Sulika, the guild was near the exact center of the city. Just a few streets over was a mile wide shopping square, which served as the actual heart of the city. Which he figured would be as good a place to start as anywhere.

  So that’s where he ended up after walking for a few minutes.

  Aldritch stood in the center of the square and rotated slowly on the spot to take in as much of the area as he could. As he looked at the many buildings and stalls, both inside the square and outside it, he noticed something strange about their design. All of them were constructed out of a very solid, almost stone-like, type of wood.

  The wood was pale, almost as if it’d been bleached by exposure to the sun. But it carried none of the usual markers of sun damage. Aldritch could see no warping or cracking of the fibers. If anything, the wood seemed stronger than it should be.

  He found it fascinating: how was the wood treated to get it to such a state? Was oil involved? Was it magic? Or, perhaps, some combination of the two? Did the unique biome of the island cause it to grow that way naturally?

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  While he was pondering the mysteries of the wood’s internal structure, Aldritch noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

  A relatively small building on the outskirts of the square was dimly lit from the inside. A soothing yellow light stood like a beacon in the night for any wayward soul who needed somewhere to go at the crack of dawn.

  Aldritch headed towards the building without a second thought. He didn’t know what kind of place it was, and frankly, he didn’t care. It was a momentary distraction while he searched for a place to gather information about his new surroundings.

  He approached the building at a relaxed pace and took a moment to observe it before climbing the three stairs leading to the door: It was a narrow three-story building crammed between two others just like it. Above the front door was a large painted sign with the words “The Fancy Dryad” written in a beautiful script.

  Aldritch wondered at the choice of name. Was the owner a dryad? Dryads were usually keen to avoid cities, preferring to live in tight-knit communities out in the untamed wild areas as both a means of protecting the trees they spawned from, and to safeguard the wildlife living there.

  Aldritch knew many dryads… Or rather, he had known many dryads who were vocal wildlife conservationists. They protected the homes of endangered species with their lives if necessary. The idea of such a person winding up in the middle of a city this size was a tantalizing thought. What stories could they tell? What kind of life had they lived?

  Before Aldritch truly realized what he’d done, he’d already climbed the stairs and was standing in front of the door. He tried to grab the handle gently, but in his excitement, he put a tad too much pressure on the wooden handle and felt it crack within his palm.

  “Mend.” He muttered while focusing on the handle. Eager to answer his command, the mana of the world leapt to his aid, diving inside the handle and quickly rekindling the bonds of the wood grains. A few seconds later all damage to the wooden handle had disappeared as if it’d never happened. And, if you looked close enough, you could almost swear the handle looked alive…

  Aldritch twisted the handle and stepped inside what turned out to be a potions shop. The walls on both sides were lined with floor to ceiling shelves holding hundreds of bottles a piece. Aldritch immediately recognized a few of the potions on display; the deep reds of a healing tincture, the refreshing blues of a mana potion, and he was really excited to see the puke-ish green color found only in the rare potion of troll’s strength.

  However, he was most delighted to discover that many of the potions were unknown to him.

  Six large, square tables sat in two rows of three, near the center of the shop. Each table held eight wooden crates, which were filled with what Aldritch considered ‘common’ potions; the aforementioned healing and mana replenishment potions were, of course, the most numerable, with three boxes each.

  The second most numerable potion had two boxes, and it was an odd purple mixture that looked like the alchemist had somehow captured stars in a bottle. Aldritch did not know what it did, but it was a truly gorgeous mixture that seemed too beautiful to drink.

  The rest of the crates were filled with different potions, none of which Aldritch recognized, but that didn’t stop him from looking at each one and marveling at the craftsmanship on display.

  He picked up several bottles, each a different size, shape, and containing a different potion. Yet they all had one thing in common - looking at the underside of the cork, through the glass bottle. Aldritch could see a small black diamond stamped into it, the shop’s acronym ‘TFD’ clear for the world to see.

  “Told you it wasn’t a dwarf thing.”

  “Never said it was. I meant you shouldn’t judge everyone by your absurd standards.”

  “That’s rich coming from you, my Lord.”

  “I’ll be with you in a moment!” Someone, a woman by the sound of the voice, yelled from another room.

  Aldritch returned the bottles to their places and turned to the only thing left in the room he’d yet to look at: There was a wall-to-wall counter at the back of the shop with a metal device sitting on the leftmost end.

  Behind the counter was a large square area with boxes stacked as high as Aldritch’s waist, and two doors that could only be seen if you were standing on the opposite side of the room. The door on the far left was a few feet behind the metal device and clearly visible no matter where you were standing. The other door was on the far right and back a ways, positioned behind several stacks of boxes that almost perfectly hid the door from the sight.

  Aldritch assumed one door led to the workshop, while the other was most likely a storage room of some kind.

  “It’s more likely one of those doors leads to the living area. This building is large enough for multiple families to live in relative comfort, even considering the shop on the ground floor.”

  “That’s true. I hadn’t considered the possibility that someone lived here.”

  “Sorry about the wait.” Muttered a stunning redhead as she emerged from the left door with a crate full of potions tucked under one arm, a professional yet aloof smile on her face.

  A silky green dress accentuated her womanly form with such perfection, it could only have been created exclusively for her.

  Her wild auburn hair, though streaked through with bone white strands, did nothing to take away her charm. Instead, it gave her an air of maturity Aldritch was certain would drive those attracted to her form absolutely wild… Aldritch was not one of those people.

  The woman sat the crate on the counter with a huff of exhaustion and shot Aldritch a playful wink. “Don’t you want to help me move some stuff?” She asked in what Aldritch believed to be a joking manner.

  Aldritch placed his hand on the side of the crate and lifted it off the counter. “Where do you want it?” He asked while turning towards the tables in the center of the room.

  “Oh-um…” She trailed off, taken aback by his willingness to help. “On the second table in this row.” She said while pointing towards the row to Aldritch’s left.

  He spotted a nearly empty crate with potions of the same color and nodded. “Alright.” He walked over to the table in only two steps, and grabbed the old crate with his free hand, smoothly swapping it for the new one.

  With the new crate in place, he carefully pushed potions aside to make space near the front of the crate, then transferred each of the remaining potions from the old crate to their new home - save for one bottle, which he held on to.

  He returned to the counter with the old crate and bottle in hand and set them both in front of the woman. “Did you need anything else carried?” He asked while inspecting the bottle he’d set on the counter. There was a small crack near the base. No potion had spilled out, but all it would take was a light bump to shatter the thin glass, ruining the mixture and costing the woman a replacement fee.

  “I- Okay, to be perfectly honest, I only meant it as a joke. But if you’re offering, I have about twelve more boxes in the back that need moving. I promised my roommate I’d get it done a while back, but-”

  “I’ll help.” Aldritch said, cutting her off before she could explain. He didn’t need to know the reason, and frankly, it wasn’t any of his business. He was basically helping out of sheer boredom and because her stock interested him.

  “Really?” She exclaimed. Her smile could make a corpse’s heart do backflips, but it had a different effect on Aldritch - She reminded him of an alchemist he knew in his youth: A close friend who used to make him try out all of her potions before she released them to the public.

  Before Aldritch could say anything else, the woman’s smile faltered, and she seemed to zone out for a second. “I don’t have the money to pay you right now. Do you mind taking a rain check?” She said in an airy tone.

  “You don’t have to pay me. Rather, I’d be happier if you’d allow me to ask you a few questions about the potions in your shop. I’ve never seen many of them, and I must admit, I’m quite curious about their identity.”

  Her eyes regained focus, and she seemed to snap back to reality. “It’s my job to answer all questions pertaining to my work - provided you’re not asking for the recipe.” She laughed while staring into Aldritch’s eyes in a way that implied she wasn’t joking.

  “I’m not.”

  “Perfect. Then we’re back at the matter of payment. I can’t let you help without properly compensating you. And you don’t want either my money or my body, so that puts me into a bit of a bind here.” She muttered while sounding genuinely distressed.

  “What makes you say I don’t want your body?” Aldritch asked. “You’re a beautiful woman. Even a blind man could see that.”

  “Because I know how this dress makes my tits look, and you haven’t so much as glanced at them since you first saw me.” She replied, grabbing her chest and shoving them together to emphasize their size and shape.

  The sight brought a genuine smile to Aldritch’s face, and he couldn’t help but laugh at her reasoning. She was right, but the way she’d so bluntly brought it up was a welcome surprise.

  “You’re quite insightful for one so young.” Aldritch placed his palms on top of the counter and leaned over, as if he was trying to get a better look - The woman rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Nuh-uh. You had your chance. It’s too late now. You’ll just have to live with the regret of never knowing what could’ve been.” She said, grinning up at him.

  “Aldritch of clan Blackshield. A pleasure to meet an alchemist of your skill.”

  “Faeyra Silverowl, and I don’t remember telling you I was the alchemist. How do you know I don’t just work here as the clerk or eye candy?”

  “While I’m sure you would excel at both roles, especially this ‘eye candy’ you speak of. Your hands are stained with charcoal dust, and you smell of honeysuckle. Charcoal is a purifying agent and, if I remember correctly, distilled honeysuckle dew makes for a great stabilizer. I doubt any sane alchemist would allow the eye candy to handle such ingredients. And the clerk would interact with so many potions the smell would become muddled by a dozen other similarly strong-smelling ingredients. So, if you’re neither a clerk nor this ‘eye candy, what are you?”

  Faeyra stared at Aldritch for a second before an amused grin spread across her face. She held up a finger and gave him the ‘come here’ signal. Aldritch was simultaneously amused and confused by the gesture, but he leaned closer all the same.

  “I’m all three.” She whispered into his ear.

  “Then consider me even more impressed.” Aldritch said seriously.

  “Yeah… I am pretty impressive, aren’t I?” Faeyra said with just as much seriousness. She reached under the counter and unhooked a latch Aldritch hadn’t noticed and pushed a portion of the counter outwards.

  Aldritch stepped behind the counter and pulled it shut behind him.

  “Well, if you’re going to be helping me out, the least I could do is get you something to drink. Any preferences?” Faeyra said while leading him through the same door she’d exited earlier.

  Aldritch followed her through the door and looked around at the workshop: The room was a fraction of the size of the previous room.

  On one side of the was a large desk with a comfortable-looking leather chair sitting in front of it. On top of the desk sat several heavy books, each one so thick Aldritch wouldn’t be surprised to learn she had used one of them as a bludgeon to knock someone unconscious.

  Seven bookshelves lined the rear wall, each one filled to the point of collapse with books of every shape, size, and color.

  And against the left wall was the most important part of any alchemist’s workshop: a large black cauldron, a desk with four mortars, each of a different size. A large alembic took center stage at the front of the desk. Six calcinators stood in a line at the back of the desk. And a pair of retorts sat on either side of the Alembic.

  “I wouldn’t know what to pick even if you ask, so I’ll leave it up to your judgement.”

  “Don’t regret saying that later.” She muttered. “Well, I recently perfected a certain recipe that involves chocolate. Would you like to try it?”

  Aldritch stopped looking around the room for a moment and met Faeyra’s eyes. “What’s chocolate?”

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