Having Rave with me would never be a bad thing. It caught me by surprise because I thought today would be a Meredi day, but I was happy to go with the flow.

  It worked out for me, too, because it gave me a chance to flesh out my understanding of the setting further.

  The marketpce buzzed with yered noise—bartering stall owners, cnking carts, and the occasional barked warning from a market guard. The air was thick with the smells of spiced meats, burnt oil, wet stone, and the faint metallic sting of mana leakage from a cracked pipe.

  It was funny—all the constant moving, old fans at every stall, and uplifting fragrances actually made the market one of the cleaner pces on this Saint Giselle yer.

  I gnced toward a patrol squad idling by a corner post, their helmets dull under the flickering mp overhead. “How dangerous would you say the Saint Giselle yer is?” I asked.

  Rave didn’t look at me. Her eyes were scanning everything but me. “Safer than the three yers below the Snts, not as safe as the upper yers. If you’ve got a good rep and good eyes, you’ll be fine.”

  “Hmm. Hope people know I’m associated with you.”

  “They do.”

  I snorted, but I was also taking mental notes. In the game, this part of the city was just a glorified setting detail, so I never really thought about how it worked day-to-day. I had to admire it. It was a gritty, overly dark setting, but a pce like this couldn’t run without some kind of order. Meredi’s shop wouldn’t survive if people couldn’t walk home without being stabbed every night.

  We passed a row of stalls selling brass-banded pipes, allegedly cursed lockets from the depths, and gss jars filled with twitching slugs. The vendors all looked half-asleep or half-amped on stimunts. An unlucky few looked like half-asleep zombies getting by on stimunts.

  “I can’t help but notice all the guards.”

  “Wow. Look at you,” Rave replied dryly. “Finally opening your eyes to the world around you?”

  I seized the chance and looked over my shoulder at her. “I’ve definitely opened my eyes to what’s around me.”

  Her eyes widened, and she looked away. “Tch. Watch where you’re going.”

  “Would you say guards are reliable?” I asked, stopping at a stall selling mp-grown nightshades.

  Rave greeted the owner and stood beside me. “Are you kidding? What a stupid question.”

  “Humor me,” I said, buying an assorted bag of nightshades.

  “Yeah. They’re reliable. The outfits have good leaders. The Captain of the City Guard is a great dy. Came up from the yer above us. The Captain of the Patrol is a great man. The Guild Master of the Merchants and Salvagers guild is a great man. The Padins of the Bastion are annoying, but they’re passionate about their work. The nobles of the upper can run their mouths, but it’s these people keeping the order for them…” Rave spat, her nose wrinkling. “But the Captain of the Noble Guard’s a piece of work.”

  I quickly dissected what I could of what I had been told.

  So, the city had three people Rave believed in… The Captain of the Patrol… If I recall correctly, the first game mentioned him. But the direct superior of the MC was the one you interacted with. That guy seemed really honest, strict, and reliable. He wasn’t a hateable character the way Cynthia was. It sounded like he was a reflection of this leader Rave talked up.

  I didn’t know anything about the other factions.

  We stopped by the next stall that sold mushroom spores. Memories fshed before my eyes as I greeted the kindly old couple behind the counter and waved at their adult son standing by with a sword on his hip. This body had visited this stall many times.

  “These are the ingredients for my stimunts,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, I know, Tim. I pay attention to your shopping trips,” Rave spat.

  I chuckled. “Hey, Rav, how easy would it be to sneak into the upper yers?”

  She gave me a look like I’d just confessed to licking public railings. “What?”

  I ughed and looked over at the son, who was listening in. “Hey, man. What would you say? Is it easy?”

  He let out a ugh and took a second to think about it as his parents made jokes about how tight a noble’s britches are.

  “I had a buddy who went up there for a delivery—so it was honest work. The guards arrested him within an hour because he was having trouble finding the address.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. That actually tells me a lot.”

  Rave nudged my arm. “Hey, don’t get any ideas. The nobles have all kinds of depths magic tech. They’ve got fewer security personnel, but they’ve got way more means of keeping their shit under lock and key than we can even fathom.”

  “Interesting,” I said as I paid the family.

  We went down an alleyway. I greeted the guys standing outside the doors of the brothels in this sketchy stretch. Evidently, Timaeus had gone here a lot, because it was one fsh of memory after another. But it wasn’t sex that he had come here for. We reached a dead end, with only the door to an old alchemy shop to our left.

  “You know, this guy could have made so much more money if he weren’t in such a sketchy neighborhood,” I said.

  Rave scowled. “What does that say about you, who seems to know every half-naked man down here?”

  I looked at her. “That I’m friendly?”

  Rave rolled her eyes and walked into the shop.

  The alchemy shop’s door let out a squeal that could rouse the dead.

  Inside, it was dim, humid, and filled with the smell of vinegar, charcoal, and pressed flowers. Jars lined every wall—brown gss, green-stained corks, crooked paper tags. Near the back, behind a metal-mesh counter, sat an old man with a wicked widow’s peak, hunched over a broadsheet paper stained with something purple. A studded monocle glittered over one eye.

  He didn’t look up. “If it ain’t the scrawny one-handed junkie.”

  “Morning, Oltan,” I said brightly. “I’m gd the memory of me coming in with a frozen hand keeps you company so well.”

  His eyes flicked up. “Still not dead. Can’t decide if that’s a blessing or a divine oversight.”

  I went to a counter with a bunch of ingredients sorted on it. “Just had to get one more in, huh?”

  Then his eyes slid past me to Rave.

  “No smuggler trash allowed,” he muttered, and snapped his newspaper taut in front of his face. “Not unless you’re bringing me the good whiskey this time.”

  Rave walked around like she owned the pce. “Why so gruff? Just tell me you want to get your wife some of her favorite contraband whiskey. I don’t judge.”

  “You talk too much,” he grumbled.

  “You love the sound of my voice, you old coot.”

  I left them to it and drifted toward the shelves, embracing the gentle buzz behind my eyes. Every shelf was beled with narrow tin tags, and beside each cluster of product jars was a little slip of paper under gss, outlining the name, effects, votility risk, shelf life, and usage suggestions.

  I slowed to read them all.

  Every single one triggered a memory.

  Flickers of a younger Timaeus bubbling things over a scorched pot. The first time he got a fme catalyst just right and leapt like he’d won the Saint’s Lottery. Oltan’s scolding voice. Notes written in tight script. I remembered the exact smell each of these ingredients provoked mid-reaction. The recipes were in my head now too, like they never left. The quantities, the order, the heat level—the trick to keeping them from coaguting at the rim of the fsk was pretty neat too!

  Timaues had never bothered writing this minute stuff down in the notes. I would never have known about them on my first read of his stuff. But it wasn’t because they were not important; it was because they were basic—not even worth the effort.

  Timaues had only written about the ambitious, difficult concoctions. Everything else had been assumed knowledge—like writing a cooking book and skipping over how to boil water. But now, with each bel I read, those early steps were returning. I was rebuilding my foundation. Every bottle here was a reminder that Timaeus had once started from scratch, too.

  I gnced at Oltan as he and Rave traded verbal jabs at the counter.

  This foundation was what this pce sold. Not the fshy, thrilling breakthroughs. The quiet, vital components that let alchemists have breakthroughs. Catalysts, reaction provokers, mana stabilizers, tincture bases. Nothing impressive to the average buyer, but everything to someone who knew what came next.

  Old man Otn… He’s my foundation.

  I gathered what I needed: two pouches of copper-based salt crystals, three sets of disolvers, a fsk of echo-oil for reaction preservation and analysis, and a small bag of fire element mana crystals. I’d love to make them all myself, but the truth was, these things took time to prepare. That’s why Oltan was a hero to alchemists. Buying from Oltan meant we didn’t have to waste time doing the boring stuff.

  Oltan had given up on the wild pursuit of alchemical greatness a long time ago. His joints didn’t like heat, his breath rasped too much when he handled votile fumes, and his eyes were too weak to judge color shifts in reactions. But he’d found his purpose in supplying those who hadn’t given up.

  And Timaeus—well, he’d written about him.

  Tucked between the bitter, dry rants and footnotes of trial runs were whole pages of Oltan anecdotes.

  His cranky advice. His love of bad newspapers and terrible gossip. His obsession with keeping notes public-facing, even if no one else cared. That’s how I knew to come here. Because the original Timaeus had written: “If I’m ever reborn as a brat, remind me to thank Old Oltan. His fundamentals are still better than mine.”

  I carried the reagents to the counter. “Thanks, Oltan. Your stuff’s still better than mine.”

  I caught Rave leaning in with a raised brow.

  Oltan didn’t look up from his paper. “You sure about that echo-oil? Heard it makes your dreams louder.”

  I chuckled. “I’m sure.”

  He huffed and started ringing me up.

  Rave leaned on the edge of the counter, watching me while pretending not to. “You really shop like an old man,” she muttered.

  And Rave. I had gotten an unexpected surprise when I came here to bathe in the memories. That deadly woman in a corset kept showing up in the corners of my memories of this store. I really thought it was going to be Meredi that I had the best starting retionship with, but Rave was there, accompanying Timaeus more often than not. I was starting to understand why Meredi was so quick to acknowledge how Timaeus was Rave’s henchman or tag-along.

  “It’s called being thorough,” I replied.

  “Oh, finally snapping back at her? ” Oltan added dryly, bagging the goods in brown paper and twine. He smirked at Rave. “You must hate that.”

  Rave forced out a dead ugh. “Go huff fumes, old man.”

  Something sitting on one of the counters to my left caught my eye, making me forget to reply.

  “Kid? Something the matter?” Otn asked.

  I went to the counter, read the bel, filled a small bottle with it and brought it back to Otn. I held it in front of him. “Hey, what’s this?”

  He raised a brow. “You know what it is. It’s an obsidian-based salt. A nice base to work with for the harsher stuff.”

  I pulled out one of the shards and held it in front of him. “This thing is packed with mana. It’s practically a mana crystal.”

  Otn recoiled and took the shard. He held it up to the light, adjusted his monocle, and squinted. “What’s the tell?”

  I took a second to formute a response other than Mana Vision.

  “A concoction that made my skin sensitive to mana discharges.”

  Otn froze. Then he let his head drop. “Come on, kid. My kidneys can’t take your brews anymore.”

  I chuckled. “Alchemy. The eternal war on our kidneys, am I right?”

  He chuckled back. “And sometimes our livers, too.”

  He handed me the shard again, and I purchased it without any trouble.

  “I’ll do some tests to confirm what your ‘skin’ is saying,” he said, giving me a knowing gnce. “Some of the others might like to know the salt’s got mana.”

  “Let me know… I’ve got one more thing I need to buy from you,” I said.

  Oltan gave a grunt, already halfway to pulling out an under-the-counter pouch of reagents. “What is it this time? Something votile?”

  I shook my head.

  “A textbook. Traditional alchemy.”

  He stopped. Slowly lowered the pouch. And for the first time since I’d walked in, he looked me straight in the eyes—across the full mess of the counter, right at me. His lips parted slightly, like I’d just spat on his floor.

  “A what?”

  Rave leaned in closer and let out a low whistle. “Wow, Tim. I’ve never seen the coot this offended. You’re just messing with everyone now, aren’t you?”

  I ignored Rave and met Oltan’s stare. “I want to study the old stuff. The symbols, the invocations, the fluff, the whole mess. Got anything that isn’t garbage or covered in mold?”

  Oltan squinted at me like I was speaking a dead nguage. “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You want me to dig out one of those nonsense parchment bricks from the bin I use to prop the broken leg on my table?”

  “If it still has the glyph diagrams and notes on mana flow? Yes.”

  For a long second, he didn’t move. Then, very slowly, Oltan folded his newspaper and id it down with uncharacteristic care.

  “I’ve watched you since you were barely able to light a clean fme, Timaeus,” he said. “And not once did you give a speck of care about middle-world babble. It’s why you’re so smart.”

  “Sorry, Oltan. I need to dedicate a day or two to being thorough.”

  He scoffed, muttering, “Trash will give you the run around for weeks and give you nothing but a wad of spit on your face for your trouble.”

  But he moved, shuffling through the door behind him and up the old stairs. Rave, watching all this, looked confused. “Wait. Why is he acting like you spped his mother?”

  I exhaled. “Because I did. I just spat on the alchemy we spent our whole lives loving and nurturing.”

  That was the truth of it. Timaeus, like the moms in the prologue, had clearly been built with care. You didn’t give a background NPC a consistent alchemical philosophy unless you wanted lore-hungry pyers to dig. But like the mom’s, he just went nowhere. The only way to discover would be to become Timaeus himself and read his notes.

  Timaeus, Oltan, and a few others were the keepers—the torchbearers—of a retively new approach to alchemy in Bastion Reach. They were considered “heretics” by the Traditionalists—those who insisted that chanting, moon cycles, mana flows, alchemy circles and hand-cut runes were still relevant. Timaeus and the others thought it was mostly ceremony and theater that just happened to get lucky four times out of ten. The new style was the reason that I initially likened this world’s alchemy to chemistry with the nature of magic in mind. Modern alchemy brought controlled reactions, functional equipment, high-quality measuring tools, and above all, reliability.

  What offended the traditionalists most was that modern alchemy had kept the philosophy.

  You needed it, after all. Most of the old texts were still written in visual riddles and metaphors—books where “the breath of the moon” actually meant apply low heat while stirring counterclockwise.

  Timaeus and the modernists had scoffed at the whole system. But me? The man on a mission to save the moms?

  When I used invisibility for the first time and saw that it affected my clothes, it changed how I thought about this world’s magic. That effect—that detail—meant a magical effect was moving through matter with specificity. But Mana Vision can’t see it. Which means there are still realms of magic that I don’t understand.

  And when I activated Mana Vision, when I saw the way mana spiraled naturally, when I remembered the Melody's Edge and how it channeled mana through lines like a circuit board—

  I realized something.

  Modern alchemy didn’t guide mana. It removed it from the equation as well as it could because it was the confounding variable.

  That’s what mana stabilizers were. Blunt tools to keep the reaction from going wrong. Modern alchemy worked because mana was either restrained or not required at all. So many of our recipes may have been built around tricks to circumvent mana’s primal nature.

  That was the theory, anyway. Modern alchemy was more reliable because it gave up working with mana on a more intimate level. Traditional alchemy wasn’t as reliable because those guys couldn’t fully predict how mana wanted to move naturally. Not to say that Traditional Alchemy was totally on the way to extinction. They could produce the fundamental stuff slightly faster and with fewer ingredients, and there were some funky products they could make that Timaeus and the rest had conveniently disregarded as not very useful.

  I was going to be different. I wanted the equivalent of the old-world tech that directed mana through its miracle metal, but in my alchemical work, where my circuits were my ingredients and the recipes.

  All for the moms. Any edge I can have, I want.

  “Here,” Oltan grunted, setting a dust-covered, cloth-bound tome on the counter. “Pages are dog-eared. Some of the ink's faded. But it’s the real deal. A trove of real nonsense.”

  The cover was bck and wrinkled, with a triangle-inscribed eye and curling script that looked like it was from an era before the signage of the city.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Have it for free,” Oltan muttered. “Can’t bear to charge you for trash that will rob your time.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you start chanting while heating a tincture in my shop, I’ll throw you into the incinerator.”

  I grinned. “Deal.”

  Rave raised an eyebrow. “So you’re gonna start casting spells like the kids in books now?”

  “No,” I said, tucking the book into my satchel. “But I’m going to see if there’s anything worth learning.”

  I started saying my farewells to the man who was essentially Timaeus’s teacher when we heard a ctter from upstairs.

  “Oh no,” Oltan muttered.

  Before I could ask, a blur of floral fabric and jingling charms swept down from the upper floor. She ran up to the counter with a speed not befitting a woman in her 70s. Gray hair flowing, and smile lines prominent, she was the ray of sunshine in this cranky shop.

  “Timmy!” sang the kindly old woman’s voice, high and bright and absolutely delighted.

  Oltan winced. “Please, Mava, don’t—don’t harass the boy. He’s already overthinking everything—”

  “Oh hush, dear,” she said, sliding up to Oltan. “How could I not say hello? Especially when he’s curious about magic.”

  I didn’t mind. The flood of memories came fast and warm—her pressing cookies into my hands while Oltan ranted about improper measurements, her gentle fussing whenever I came in with a scuffed boot or soot in my hair. She always smelled like mint and bread.

  “People don’t have magic. Only our materials do,” Oltan grumbled.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mava,” I said, smiling despite myself.

  She beamed and csped her hands. “And you, darling! Oh, I knew you were coming today, I just knew it. That’s why I pulled the cards.”

  Oltan groaned and half-covered his face. “Mava, please—”

  “Hush!” she snapped. Then back to me, like a child sharing a secret. “Tim, love, I’ve got a fortune for you. It came through very clearly. I just have to tell you.”

  I paused. Normally, I’d roll my eyes and smile and nod and chalk it up to sweet nonsense.

  But this was a fleshed-out game world. And there was a minor fortune-telling mechanic in the game. It had been a simple system. Someone would tell you if a natural disaster was coming, or if someone in town liked you. Pretty basic, but because it was a game with pre-programmed events, it worked. Heck, I think one of the plot points in one of the spin-off titles was that a vilge fortune teller had a massive prophecy.

  I narrowed my eyes and activated Mana Vision.

  And nearly gasped.

  Her whole body lit up—not in brightness, but in complexity. It was like there were three different mana networks overid on top of each other. These things looked woven in pces, especially around her fingertips and across her face. It was like someone had etched a thousand spell diagrams into her skin and set them humming just under the surface.

  I nodded. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”

  Mava cpped once, thrilled. “Good! So—love is blooming around you. Like vines on an old tower! Soft and strong and very, very close. Oh, oh, it’s like the vine is being watered!”

  I blinked.

  Then I grinned.

  “Love, huh?”

  The love fortunes were never wrong. They were reading based off the retionship chart, after all!

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, tapping the side of her nose. “And you just keep doing what you’re doing. Be kind. Be bold. It’s working.”

  I could’ve floated through the ceiling.

  I turned toward Rave, who had been leaning with arms crossed, exuding maximum skepticism.

  She met my gaze.

  Then her face flushed deep red.

  “Oh my god,” she muttered, backing up a step.

  I tilted my head, all innocence. “You okay?”

  “Fuck off, Tim,” she snapped, and spun on her heel.

  The bells above the door jangled furiously as she stomped out of the store.

  I turned back to Mava, who winked. I shrugged.

  “Well, thank you. See you in a few days,” I jabbed.

  “You mean weeks,” Oltan jabbed back.

  I stepped outside, back into the filtered grime-light of the alley. Rave was quiet and leaning against the wall with her arms folded.

  “So,” I said, sliding the paper bag into my satchel, “lunch?”

  She tilted her head, then gave me a sideways look. “Only if I pick the pce.”

  “Sure. You have good taste.”

  Rave groaned. “Shut up, Tim!”