Steamforged Sorcery - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Angel arrived before a small building near the edge of the market. The sign had long since fallen off the door, which was rusted and turning green. The smell of oil and smoke assaulted Angel’s eyes and nostrils as he stepped inside.

“You’re back early,” a rough voice said. Angel grimaced and waved a cloud of dark smoke away from his face. An overweight man sat in a chair in the corner of the room, a cigar in his hand. Knick knacks and random items adorned every single inch of free space on the walls and a good bit of the floor.

“Hello, Fence,” Angel said. “Still trying to drive yourself to an early grave, I see. I thought you’d stopped this particular habit.”

“We’re all going to die eventually,” Fence replied. His hand shook slightly as he raised the cigar to his puffy lips and took a slow drag. He combed his thinning black hair back with his other hand. “What’s it your business if I chose how?”

“Suit yourself,” Angel said, shrugging. “I’m fine, by the way.”

“Of course you are,” Fence grumbled. “So? What did you get? Anything worth my time?”

Angel hemmed and hawed for a moment, mostly to get a rise out of the large man. Fence crushed the cigar in his large grip and thrust his hand out.

“Come on, Angel!” Fence complained. “It’s cruel to do this to me.”

Angel chuckled and pulled out the green orb he’d taken from the orc. He tossed it to Fence, who snatched it out of the air with surprising dexterity. He examined it for a moment, then let out a small grunt.

“Nice core,” he said. “I can give you four Vex for it.”

“It’s worth seven and we both know it,” Angel replied, getting ready for a long haggling session. He wasn’t a fan of it, but Fence would happily wring him dry if he gave the other man a chance.

“Five,” Fence replied, looking down at the crushed cigar in his hand regretfully.

“Six,” Angel said.

“Fine,” Fence sighed. He reached into a pouch on his waist and tossed six bronze coins at Angel, who caught them with a surprised blink.

“What else do you have? You can’t tell me that’s all you found,” Fence said.

Angel shrugged, not wanting to knock his good fortune. He put the coins away and pulled out the pendant. Fence’s eyes lit up slightly, but Angel shook his head.

“I’m going to take a look at it first.”

“You do that with all the artifacts you find!” Fence complained. “This is why you live out of the corner of my shop, Angel. If you stopped ruining all the artifacts you found, you’d be one of the richest Seekers in Bronze City.”

“And then I would be dead,” Angel said. “My augments are what make me this good. You need to see the bigger picture, Fence.”

Fence pulled another cigar out from his pocket. He scrabbled through a pile of junk for a few moments before finding a small metal cannister. He grabbed a metal gauntlet from the ground and slid it over his hand. He placed the cannister in a slot on the back of the glove and held his hand up next to the cigar.

A spark of flame flared out of his palm, lighting the cigar. The cannister ejected and clinked to the floor, rolling against a pile of trash. Fence pulled the gauntlet off and tossed it to the ground. He took a deep drag of the cigar, then let out a sigh.

“Do what you want, Angel. Just make sure you can afford this month’s rent. I’m not running a charity.”

Angel rolled his eyes. He navigated through the piles of garbage on the floor and over to a small door nestled in the corner of the room. He pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it behind him. Unlike the rest of Fence’s shop, his small room was neat and organized.

Artifacts of all sorts hung from hooks on the walls in various states of disassembly. The room was only a few paces long, and Angel had put every bit of it to use. His small wooden desk and chair were sandwiched up against the wall, and his tools were stored under the desk in a small bin he’d found in the market years ago.

Angel’s bed was just a mattress and a sheet on the floor, but it was better than the streets. He detached the board from his back and tossed it onto the bed. Angel sat down in the chair and took the pendant out of his jacket.

He placed it on the table and pulled the tool crate out with his foot. He grabbed a pair of tweezers with his left hand. The gears in his mechanical arm whirred and miniscule machinery shifted. Small needlelike appendages emerged from the tips of his fingers. Angel flicked on a kerosene lamp, filling the room with a dim orange glow.

The glass eyepiece shifted and lowered in front of his right eye. He closed the other one as magic tickled his nose. Angel’s vision magnified several times until he could see every detail and scratch in the pendant. It was rather plain, with swirling lines that could have been either Old World magic or just plain art.

It was kept closed by a several small latches along its edge. Angel poked and prodded at them gently, using the tweezers to hold the pendant in place without damaging it. The latches didn’t seem to budge on their own, but they clicked when he pressed down on them.