Book 5 - Chapter 38 - Sleep, Interrupted (Patreon)

“This is, perhaps, the most important moment of your life, thief. As such, what is the exact volume that can fit inside of each of your orifices?” The elf that may or may not be Algaras was wringing his hands as he glanced about what was supposed to be a workshop, as if there was some great answer to be found in the dust and clutter.

The place looked to be just as much of a storage facility on the inside as it did from the outside. There were no tools or projects, just long-forgotten crates, barrels, bundled cloth, and worthless junk piled haphazardly throughout the building.

“What?!” Ranthia wasn’t quite sure which absurdity she was responding to. By Xaoc, she certainly had her pick of options to choose from!

“We need to know how much you might be able to smuggle out! Oh, no matter, I’m sure you can just start stuffing and move from there. If they know I’m onto them, they’ll… Well, they’ll find out that I am no flocking fool to be subject to their strong-arming! …Oh, you’re concerned for yourself? Hardly professional, but fine. Fine fine fine, we’ll deal with your end of the bargain—what did Darkass tell you about the job?” The man hopped atop a crate and crouched down there, hands dangling between his legs as he stared at her.

“I… think there’s some sort of mix-up here. You are Algaras, right? The craftsman that can make armor with exotic components?” She was no longer even remotely certain she had the right man.

She also had no idea how she could hope to compete with a level 3001 elf—even an [Artisan]—if he turned hostile. So, she kept her voice sweet and calming, no matter what her emotions and heart insisted.

“Of course. It is good to see that my reputation precedes me, even with uncivilized vermin like yourself. Do many thieves sing my praises?” The man’s head cocked unnaturally far to the side, turning entirely horizontal as he stared at her.

“I’m not a—” She stopped her first protest and forced herself to take a deep breath before she tried a safer tactic. “I’m from the City of Arts, a friend of mine there recommended you, by name. I’ve journeyed here, just to meet with you in hopes of commissioning you.”

“…So… You claim that you are not a member of the Guild of Most Honorable Thieves, sent because of the contract that I paid one Darkass in exchange for?” The [Artisan]’s expression darkened.

Fuck.

“I’m a potential client! I’m only here because Myntheria recommended you!” Ranthia raised her hands in a universal gesture that she meant no harm.

“Oh, Mynmyn sent you? Why didn’t you say so?! Ugh, I don’t even have any tea to offer! I’ve been chewing the leaves, you see—no time to wait for brewing.” The man opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, revealing a blob of soggy darkness, before he swallowed it. “Amazing woman. Never let her convince you to gamble with her—she’ll take the shirt off your back before you know what’s happening. Festering Ficuses, I almost forgot how much I hate her! Charming that she thought of me though. I suppose I can forgive her for her many, many, many, many, many, many trespasses. It isn’t like you were there for any of them. I checked. But you’re a stranger to me, which means that her recommendation was genuine! …Wait.”

The elf paused mid-rant to stand up straight and point dramatically at Ranthia.

“If you’re just a perfectly ordinary client that is unknown in this city and not a thief, spy, or otherwise useful to me agent, then why would the Consortium have followed you to me?!”

“What in Xaoc’s unrelenting chaos is a ‘Consortium’?! You just asked me if anyone was following me, and the city’s guards here took unkindly to a lone human wandering around. After they gave me directions, one of their people followed me here!” Ranthia tried to rein it in, but her response still came off as more than a bit snappish.

“What is the Consortium?! The Consortium is everything, you harebrained hawthorn! Seriously, what do they even teach kids these days in Ar-Suelle? Ithil is the jewel of commerce, the single most important city in the world, and they leave you ignorant of its more crucial workings?! Sure, whatever, that’s fine, everything is fine, it’s just up to Algaras to fix everything—same as always!

“Over here!” The man took off at what—for her level—was an all-out run. It seemed to just be a brisk walk for him, though she struggled to keep up as they circumnavigated the clusters of clutter until they reached a specific point in the wall.

Namely, one of the rare windows on the building.

“Tell me, what do you think of… this?!” With those words, he dramatically shoved the window, swinging it open as he gestured back in the direction of Ithil proper.

She was half expecting the man to just be revealing the city itself or, at best, to be pointing out one of the towers in particular. But no. What he indicated was far weirder than nonsense could ever be. She found herself leaning out through the window as she gawked at something… truly unexpected.

Tethered to the top of one of the towers was some… thing. And no, it wasn’t just some extension of the building—whatever it was, it was undeniably floating in the air and swaying with the winds. The topside was a bulbous mass of green, with what seemed to be a ship plucked out of a sea stuck to its underside. Large fans, shaped like fish fins, extended from the sides and back, giving it an appearance not unlike a living thing.

But no. She might be a significant distance from it, but Ranthia wasn’t fooled—it was undeniably constructed.

“It’s…” Ranthia paused to examine the [Artisan] with her [Divine Eyes], trying to gauge his mood. Keeping him happy still seemed prudent, given his temperament. “Incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And he seemed fixated on the thing, which meant…

“It’s an abomination.” The man sneered, proving that she had utterly misread him. “You see that metal section, there in the center? The only reason they had to eat that much weight was because they imprisoned a primordial fire elemental inside of it. Its flames provide the heat that keeps the monstrosity afloat. Disintegrating dogwoods, I can’t believe the Consortium is seriously considering funding the creation of more of those things!”

Ranthia stepped away from the furious elf as he raved, balling his fists in the process. For a moment, she thought he was about to lash out—possibly at her—until he suddenly turned back to the window.

“But it’s beautiful. It smells like progress, even from here.” A sappy smile spread across his face while he praised the thing that he had just vehemently disparaged!

Ranthia forced herself to set her annoyance aside for a moment while she assessed her own feelings. Because the enslaved fire elemental represented a strange moral quandary. Rationally, she knew from what she’d read that many elementals were even less self-aware than the average animal. There was a good chance that the elemental was in no way displeased with its situation, so long as it got to burn. But Scaldos—a fire elemental—was both a friend and mentor!

Eh, it wasn’t like she had feelings so strong that she felt any inspiration to do something reckless. She wasn’t a hero out of legends, out to break chains and free anyone and anything from any and all forms of oppression. And even if she did, money and a few clever Hunters could probably source a replacement—assuming they didn’t just recapture the same mindless elemental.

There was also the tiny detail that there were at least a few dozen elves in the city that could kill her almost effortlessly if she became a menace to their precious status quo.

Still, life had given her another possible option… Assuming Algaras could even be trusted.

“But what about the fire elemental?” She finally spoke up, interrupting the [Artisan]’s first prolonged silence since she met the energetic man.

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes, of course. Zeppelindis created something that can’t be allowed to be perpetuated. He even named the things after himself! Can you believe the arrogance? These past ninety years I’ve been working on my own, far superior version of this craft. One made with ethics, because those are, as they say, ‘trendy’ with the youth of today. And I am now in a precious stage, where I just need a small amount of assistance. Then the Consortium will see that there is a superior option to fund, rather than Zeppelindis’ abominations!” That… she supposed that toothy expression counted as a smile. Technically.

Ranthia decided to just muscle her way past her mental indignation that the thing had apparently been around for ninety years and it was still somehow undecided whether or not to make more of them. Elves truly existed on a different timeframe than humans ever could.

“So, yours is nearing completion?” Ranthia turned back to face the largely barren interior of the workshop, as if she could have possibly missed anything close to that scale.

“No, no. My best design came apart during the first round of testing!” Why did he sound proud of that?! “As such, I require Darkass’ people to steal Zeppelindis’ designs for me. With those in hand, I can iterate and improve and tweak and make legally distinct and create something that will be used ten thousand years from now, mark my words!”

That sounded like a lofty and self-aggrandizing way to say that he needed to crib someone else’s designs to make the same thing they already made, in an effort to steal the credit. But even if Ranthia’s opinion of the man was cratering, she didn’t want to believe that Myntheria would have led her to someone unworthy.

Besides, if he was serious about making a design that wouldn’t require imprisoning an elemental, well, she was on board with stealing from jerks. She had grown and matured as a person over her lifetime, but some things never changed.

“Not exactly my Skillset, so I won’t make any promises. …But, if you’re as good an armorer as Myntheria said, I might be convinced to help out some.” Negotiating with a client to perform a service in exchange for benefits? That was what was missing from her life as a Hunter. Hunting was great, but she genuinely missed helping people directly—like a proper Adventurer should!

“Heh. Judge for yourself. Follow me!” The elf proudly sneered her way before he turned to lead her deeper into his dust-covered storage facility.

Namely, to a trapdoor that was hidden behind a mound of broken crates.

Ranthia was sold within minutes of descending into his true workshop. The place was an absolutely chaotic mess, littered with the husks of incomplete and abandoned projects of every scale she could imagine. But the suits of armor he had down there were undeniably some of the best that she’d ever seen. Orfina—the Sentinels’ armorer—had just as much passion as Algaras clearly did, but the difference in levels and experience was on stark display.

Even the unfinished experimental designs, likely ideas that didn’t pan out, were better than anything that Ranthia had ever seen before! It wasn’t just the detail work or anything so banal. Each piece fit together almost as if they were a solid mass, offering greater protection without sacrificing mobility or generating excessive weight. Algaras’ Skills allowed him to do things, even with mundane materials, that Ranthia would have expected to be impossible.

Once she metaphorically picked her jaw up off the floor, Ranthia unshouldered the barkeep’s Spatial storage box and began to remove the carefully preserved wyvern materials.

She was no [Thief], but she fully intended to do whatever she could to get him to make her armor.

Algaras wasn’t just eccentric—the man was stubborn. For starters, he continued to insist that ‘Darkass’ was very much someone’s real name and that he hadn’t been scammed. Each and every day she visited, he insisted that the so-called Guild of Most Honorable Thieves would show up soon.

Also, after she visited Zeppelindis’ horridly named “Zepp-Step” prototype—five small arcanite for a twenty-minute tour led by the most bored and lifeless elf Ranthia had ever seen—Algaras argued with her about each and every detail she described to him! Then, after she finally convinced him that she hadn’t somehow mistaken two things that looked nothing alike, she had to listen to him rail and rage about how idiotic Zeppelindis’ designs were.

Culminating in him deciding that there was merit to it.

Fortunately, he didn’t intend to merely copy the existing Zepp-Step. Aside from his strange paranoia about the Consortium potentially murdering him for… offering them another choice? Seriously, Ranthia had listened to him rave about those concerns more than once, yet she still wasn’t quite sure what they were. Either way, aside from that, the other reason that he refused to get too close to the existing vessel was that he wanted to preserve his own ideas and vision.

At least he had agreed to her terms—he worked on his own ‘air vessel’ designs for no more than four hours a day. The rest of his time was spent on her armor. Though she swiftly learned that she needed to visit his workshop twice a day to make sure he also took care of other matters like eating, sleeping, and observing at least some measure of hygiene restoration.

Seriously, how had the man survived by himself for thousands of years?!

Ranthia didn’t spend all of her time in Algaras’ workshop or doing his dirty work, of course. Ithil was a fantastic city, and she made sure she partook of its wonders too.

Each tower was effectively a city unto itself—and some people remained in the same tower for years on end before they found any need to venture beyond its walls. Roughly two thirds of the towers included housing, both permanent and temporary, and all of them had at least one [Healer] and [Mind Healer] available. Various shops, at least two parks filled with both plants and small animals, and dozens of entertainment options were all a mere enchanted “lift” ride away.

Ranthia was still ostracized by almost every elf that laid eyes on her—and she knew from the city’s guards that there were complaints about her presence—but she refused to let that bother her. She still intended to enjoy herself.

She explored a store that reminded her of Avyna’s shop, back in Remera—it had a bit of everything. A ting-a-ling from the store’s bell welcomed her and the shelves and displays drew her in, laden with everything from enchanted camping gear to weaponry to incredibly sexy garments meant for the bedroom. She had never really been much of a ‘shopper’—not like Hexara was—but it was still fun to explore the shop and its diverse goods.

Though in retrospect, she probably spent entirely too much money there, especially considering that she hadn’t planned to buy anything when she went in.

Another evening, she bought admission to a form of entertainment that she’d only heard mentioned in books—an opera. And it reminded her intensely of Fausteo’s Musical Theater. Just, instead of a single Muse singing the story, each and every actor and actress on the stage sang—loudly—to convey the story.

The performance was allegedly based on a true story from a mortal nation, with names and details adjusted. In it, the kingdom of the west is at war with the east. The west’s war hero and its princess were deeply in love, but he was reportedly slain in battle shortly before the western kingdom lost the war. To attain peace, the princess of the west agreed to marry the prince of the east, though she continued to pine for her departed lover—who dramatically returned on the day of her wedding to save her, culminating in a duel with the prince for her hand.

Overall, Ranthia had mixed feelings about the performance. The actual singing and acting were superb—seriously, even by the City of Arts’ standards, they were amazing. Everything was so emotionally charged that Ranthia’s bitterness only cropped up when she reflected on the show over dinner. She just didn’t like that the leading woman had almost zero agency in the opera. The princess was little more than a prize that the men fought over.

Also, the bit with the purple octopus was really confusing.

Of course, Ranthia’s downtime wasn’t all entertainment and leisure. There was one group where she found some modicum of acceptance—thanks to an ally that she’d never expected to find there.

Ithil’s Hunters didn’t gather in any of the towers. Instead, they favored a small wooden meeting hall on the outermost edge of the city. There was no tavern or anything like that—just seating both indoors and outdoors where Hunters mingled and swapped wildly aggrandized stories.

Most people carried their own alcohol or favored intoxicant.

And it was there that Ranthia reunited with Aegiomus. After he left the City of Arts, following the debacle with Avyna’s stolen cargo, everyone assumed the man was off on his next grand adventure. Instead, he was “taking a break from the life of a Hunter” by… sitting with Hunters almost every day and going out on hunts once a week. Sure, Ranthia could absolutely understand why he’d been rattled by being forced to fight—and kill—several people he thought he knew, but she was still privately amused by his inability to truly step away.

Alas, she wasn’t good enough friends with him to tease him mercilessly for it.

With him loudly vouching for her, several of Ithil’s Hunters seemed to be tolerant of her presence. A couple of them were actually friendly, but they were absolutely in the minority—Aegiomus just wasn’t as well respected in Ithil as he was in the City of Arts.

She even joined him on a few hunts, playing the role of ranged support with [Sustained Chaos] and her newly improved images. They never went after anything particularly challenging—not that anything challenging was in the vicinity. For better or worse, the ‘wilds’ within a day’s travel of Ithil were relatively tame. Still, it was good to get out of the city every now and then and Aegiomus was better company than pretty much anyone else in Ithil.

Anthelleon was going to be so jealous.

“I have it!”

Ranthia blearily blinked her eyes open as the all-too-familiar sound of Algaras’ voice pulled her out of her slumber. She felt like she’d barely fallen asleep. Too little sleep was a cruelty intended to make her—specifically—suffer.

“What time is it?” Ranthia grumpily asked as she tried to decide if she had enough energy to sit up.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Time waits for no man, and this is important! I’ve solved it! Radiance, the answer was always Radiance! Don’t you see, for sustaining the existing temperature, Radiance has an unparalleled mana efficiency, beating out both Fire and Inferno! Instead of using a bunch of heartstone-grade rubies, I can make it work with one for takeoffs, then use a cluster of large sunstones—each far cheaper than a ruby would be—to maintain flight!

“I’ll need to test with specific Skills once the designs are finalized, of course, but this should make my air vessels significantly more budget-friendly! At last, I see a path to defeating Zeppelindis! He won’t even know what hit him; this is significantly cheaper and more ethicalish—ethicalest?—acceptable than his own elemental solution!” The elf raved.

“Grand. Just one question.” Ranthia tried to muster what little energy she could.

“Ask!” The crazy man seemed hungry to answer.

“How in Xaoc’s name are you in my room?! I never gave you a key!” Ranthia finally sat up, hugging the blanket to her chest to avoid giving him a show.

“What a stupid question. I melted the door with one of the imbued rubies we were using for testing. Now, with the whole staying aloft efficiency problem permanently solved, we need to turn our attention to the material for the envelope itself! I still say—wait, what are you doing?” He levied a demand at her as she settled back into her bed.

“Going back to sleep. Go find the night manager and pay for the door and expedited repairs. I expect to be able to lock it in the morning.” Ranthia grumbled, putting as much menace into the words as she could manage in her current condition.

The things she had to put up with for quality equipment…

The first phase of producing her armor was the slowest. Tanning the hide to prepare the leather and curing both the bones and the scales to prevent them from drying out and cracking with age. There was nothing that could be done to speed any of those processes up, but they weren’t idle during them either. Not only was Algaras having to tinker with the ingredients constantly, but there were also design documents and mockups to be made.

And debated.

“I’ve been wearing leather skirts my entire life—they work great!” Ranthia snapped.

“Doing something stupid for a century doesn’t make it smart!” He wildly underestimated when she began throwing herself into danger, just to survive. “None of these designs will reduce your mobility or maneuverability in any way. Unlike a leg injury.”

“How can trousers not restrict my legs? I’ve shown you how flexible I am, and as my dexterity climbs that’ll only increase! Also, I need to be able to kick at full power—I have a… Skill for that.” It still felt far too weird to describe the inner workings of her Skills to people that she trusted roughly just as far as she could throw them.

“You continue to underestimate me, woman! I’ve been making armor since your ancestors were huddling around fire and living in mud! Probably. It isn’t like I was ever foolhardy enough to leave elven territory, but I’ve heard things about mortal civilizations.” The man went from fiery passion to yet another tangent in an instant.

“I…” Ranthia forced herself to take another breath. “Fine, you know what, if you’re guaranteeing that I’ll have total range of movement wearing the trousers—just the same as I have without anything confining me, even as I level past this point—I’ll trust you. I suppose.”

That last bit wasn’t supposed to emerge from her mouth, but they’d been debating things for a while. She’d only narrowly convinced him to leave her forearms and hands bare, even after demonstrating that she could adjust her adamantium if she needed more protection.

“Of course you will, I am notoriously dependable.” He sneered at her, before shuffling the design papers around. “Life as an armorer would be so much easier without people having opinions. But now that we’ve finally gotten past this, there is one additional annoyance. You have high-quality materials, but I cannot make the suit out of nothing but wyvern parts. Ordinarily I would prefer to use an appropriate magic metal, reduced to the thinnest possible strand for the rest, but there’s no time for me to lurk in the markets to find such a thing!”

Adamantium was great, but it was ill-suited to being reduced to a flexible filament. The metal didn’t want to flex—if not for its incredible toughness, it’d be one of the most brittle materials on Pallos. And she had mixed feelings about reducing her bracers to add components to her armor.

Still, she had some money to spare, perhaps she could buy more?

But it wasn’t like she had anything else to offer. She hadn’t ever owned much lusterite, and she’d used every shred of it for Avyna’s pendant. …Wait!

Ranthia pulled the barkeep’s spatial storage box off her back and hurriedly fished out what was left of her old belt—the one that the wyvern had brutalized. Most of her pouches’ contents were unsalvageable after the barrages of needles, but…

“Mithril works, I assume?” Ranthia announced with a grin, as she held up the two dented nuggets.

Avyna’s foresight… Once again, she owed the woman a debt of gratitude.

And once again her heart ached as she wondered what the future might hold for them.

“Ranthia! Are you in?”

She cracked her eyes open wearily. Someone was pounding on her replacement door and shouting, and she was not in the mood for yet another rude awakening. She’d thrown a knife at Algaras when he broke in the second time with a new idea for his stupid air vessel—using a key he carved to replicate hers after seeing the original once—and she was more than a bit tempted to use violence again.

But the fact that it was Aegiomus’ voice at her door stayed her wrath. Instead, she ignored his pounding and shouting while she got up, pulled on a tunic, and walked to the door, in no particular hurry. It was probably an emergency, yes, but it wasn’t like she was essential to any emergency.

“What?” She snapped as she pulled the door open.

“Hurry, come with me, I need your—no, I need to do this right. Look, someone came to the Hunters with a report of a demon sighting. There’s zero chance it’s a demon. More likely, it’s someone like you: an uncommonly seen mortal. It might even be another human. But none of them care, they’ll kill whoever or whatever it is, just because they can.” Her fellow Hunter was practically vibrating with impatience while he explained—forcing her to accelerate her perception to match the speed of his words.

Godsdamnit, she was essential to the emergency.