The automaton’s pupils widened with a faint ratcheting sound, then narrowed to little dots.

  “Request confirmed,” it droned. “Adventurer registered: Dain Sorowyn. Upon completion of the request, please present no fewer than ten silverplume owl heads to this counter for verification and payment.”

  The automaton immediately pulled out a quill from under the counter, scribbled on the contract slip, and then pushed it back at him. He stole a glance at it to see there was more information about the request now, but he’d rather read it at his own pace—without people staring at it over his shoulder.

  “Be back with ten heads and a smile,” he said, snatching the contract off the counter and giving the bronze doll a jaunty nod. “No time limit to the request?”

  The automaton shook its head. With that, he turned and made for the front door, shoving the contract into his satchel.

  Unfortunately, the two girls followed him out of the building, and the younger one was incessant.

  “What do you mean by ‘no’, Mister Sorowyn?” she asked. “Are you planning on hunting ten… whatever owls alone?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Uh-huh.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s an extermination request, not a promenade. I’d rather not bring along people who’ll only slow me down.”

  “Slow you down?” she echoed, bristling.

  Outside, the daylight was all clean wind and clink of tools from the nearby forges. He didn’t stop walking as he looked around for a signboard that’d tell him where the clothes shop was. “Look, no offense meant, but…” He flicked a glance at the older girl behind her. “What’s your name?”

  “Yasmin,” the steward with the braid said stiffly.

  “Yasmin looks capable enough. She’s got a decent build, good posture, and she even has her Elementum-Class swordstaff within easy reach when she sits. I’d take her along with me, but you…”

  The younger girl frowned at him. “Anisa.”

  “What can you do in a party?” He looked Anisa over, head to boot. “Do you fight? Do you shoot? Scout? Make field meals that aren’t poison? Can you treat wounds and read a map? I’m guessing no on most. Your nails are too clean, and you’re too clean-looking for a proper adventurer. Judging by your thin and short frame, you’re also not used to hard labor, so if we have to run from something, you’ll lag behind.”

  Her lips parted. “I—”

  “Also,” he went on cheerfully, “if you’re a Minemaster’s teenage daughter trying to disguise yourself as a commoner, at least dye your silver hair properly. The black’s already bleeding out of the ends. Don’t use tavern-ink. Mix night-orchid tincture with sky-lichen oil—in equal parts—and heat it until it darkens. You’ll get a durable orchid-lichen dye that won’t wash out even in the cold. Fun fact: the orchid-lichen dye can also be used as a side offering to color your relic. If you offer a red dye, you’ll get a red relic, and if you offer a blue dye, you’ll get a blue relic.”

  She stared, caught between offense and confusion at being found out as a Minemaster’s daughter so quickly—the daughter of a lord who owned anything between one to a dozen mountains, which, of course, included all of their natural caves and resources—but Dain waved her off with a flick of his fingers.

  “And if you’ve nothing else to say, best keep clear of adventuring until you have at least one battle-capable relic with you. It’ll be safer for everyone that way.” He adjusted the strap of his satchel and turned, already planning which street to cut through next. “And since Yasmin probably won’t join my party without bringing you on as well, I’d rather not have either of you.”

  He made it a few paces down the street before a voice cut sharp behind him.

  “Wait.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. Yasmin hadn’t raised her tone, but her calm, steady veneer had thinned. Her eyes had sharpened into something perilously close to murder.

  “You pride yourself on your observational skills, do you not?” she asked evenly.

  Dain blinked. Then he smiled crookedly. “I am a relic merchant. Having a good eye is part of the trade.”

  “And is your sense for danger as sharp as your eye for details?”

  “I think I’m working on it,” he said with a shrug. “So far, I’ve only been picking fights I can win.”

  Her stare didn’t soften. “Would you pick one you couldn’t win?”

  “Fuck no. I prefer victories.”

  Yasmin’s hand began to rise, slow and deliberate, toward the swordstaff strapped across her back. “And did it occur to you, before you insulted my lady, that I might grow angry enough to cut you down here and now?”

  The street’s wind caught cold between them, tugging at signboards and coats. Dain narrowed his eyes and reached behind him with the same deliberate slowness, fingers brushing the wrappings of his prosthetic.

  “... Just between you and me, I’m already set on killing a few people,” he said slowly. “I’d rather not fight random people if I don’t have to, but that Elementum-Class swordstaff does look like a nice weapon to have.”

  Tension pulled the air thin.

  Before it could snap, the younger girl stepped smartly between them, one palm up.

  “Drop it, Yasmin.”

  At once, Yasmin’s hand came away from the swordstaff. She straightened, expression smoothing back to professional calm, but her murderous eyes never left Dain.

  Then Anisa walked right up to him with a small, composed smile that he didn’t think she had in her.

  How strange, he thought. She’d been rosy-cheeked and wobbly from a small glass of alcohol last night, but now she was steady as a magistrate at court even though he’d just threatened to kill the both of them.

  “You do have a good eye,” Anisa said cheerily. “Perhaps tensions between Obric and Auraline wouldn’t be this high if the crowns on either side had eyes as discerning as yours, because then they’d see their enemies aren’t each other, but rather the Lead Rift threatening to reopen every single year in the far north.”

  While he frowned and tilted his head at her sudden change in demeanor, she dipped a little curtsy he’d only ever seen in books and better homes.

  “Allow me to introduce myself properly,” she said. “I am Anisa, just another adventurer, and this is Yasmin, my steward. Might I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”

  “... Dain Sorowyn.”

  “Mister Sorowyn. You asked what I can bring to your party, correct?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I shall answer plainly: coin.”

  He resisted a grin. “Coin?”

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  “You appear to be lacking equipment, and when that automaton said you shouldn’t take this request alone, it meant it,” she said, and this time, it was her turn to glance him up and down. “As you correctly deduced, we are merely playing at adventurers, but that means we have curons—not a king’s chest, mind, but enough to outfit you properly for an extermination request. If we fund your purchases and refrain from slowing you down for just this one request, would that be reason enough to let us join?”

  He let himself grin now.

  “... And of course, you wanted me to suggest this proposal the entire time, didn’t you?” she said. Her eyes glittered, amused, but unoffended. “You knew we had coins. You really are a merchant.”

  “Maybe I knew, maybe I didn’t.” But now he tipped his head again, curious despite common sense. “There is one thing I haven’t figured out yet: if you’re in no need of coins, what are you taking this request for? Why play at being adventurers at all?”

  Her poise changed again–just a fraction—but he caught it: a flicker of shame and embarrassment crossing her face.

  “We tried to reach Corvalenne yesterday through the Elderhush Forest, but we weren’t prepared,” she admitted. “We… uh, we do not have the expertise to navigate the forest, or how to move without drawing the magic beasts’ wrath.” Her eyes shifted back towards the older girl. “Yasmin may be tough, but she is not a trained swordswoman. She was simply my steward before all this, so exhibit me damned, but we do not know how to survive out in the wild.”

  Yasmin’s silence confirmed it well enough.

  “There is an Obric saying: no vein of ore is struck clean at the first swing,” Anisa continued, raising a finger as she smiled up at him. “You need a steady hand and plenty of broken picks before you learn how to dig true. The same goes for adventuring. Coins cannot buy true experience, so if we wish to reach Corvalenne by the back ways and find out what really happened, we must first learn to live like adventurers—and learn from someone who has already swung his share of picks.”

  Dain gave her a long, flat look. “And I look like I’ve got ‘adventuring skills’ you can learn?”

  Her smile returned, thinner but more assured. “You look like someone who clawed his way out of the Elderhush Forest. That is enough for me.”

  … Does she know?

  He didn’t think he’d let slip anything that might suggest he was the person who’d helped them out back in the forest—except for that one stupid encounter back in the inn—but maybe the little girl wasn’t as innocent and carefree as she looked.

  Hm.

  Gotta work on my eye a bit more.

  He weighed her proposal in terms of its pros and cons—and eventually made a big show of sighing, loud and exasperated.

  “... Fine. But I have two rules,” he said, raising two fingers of his own. “One: I call the shots on this request. You don’t listen to me, you’re out. Two: the monetary rewards go to me, as well as every scrap of magic material we get on the way.”

  “Deal,” she said without pause.

  “Good.” He readjusted his satchel again with a grin. “Now follow. I need you to buy a few things for me.”

  An hour later, Dain looked like a normal person again.

  No longer wearing road-worn, tattered clothes, he had a proper silhouette now: loose wanderer’s tunic and trousers in roughspun cloth for easy movement, greavestrap boots that wouldn’t fold on a rocky path, a new satchel with a firmer buckle that had deeper pockets, and finally, an honest mantlecloak with an attached hood. It had a breathable weave for the summer air, but it’d keep him just as warm in cold wind. A traveler’s dream attire.

  While the three of them stepped out of the clothier into the sunlight—Yasmin behind him and Anisa beside him—the young girl scrunched her brows at the simple tunic and trousers he’d forced her to pick out as well.

  “I thought my gear was… serviceable,” she said, looking down at her own plainness and making a face. “Was it no good?”

  “Too excessive with the belts and buckles and straps,” he said. “The trick to adventurer’s clothing is flexibility and function with room to spare for later. Garment-type relics are important to have, so you want simple ‘base’ clothes you can easily attach relics to.”

  To that, she thumbed back at Yasmin. “But Yasmin can keep her dress?”

  He glanced. The steward’s dress had leather seams and travel patching, and the apron strings tied crisp. “That’s fine. It’s simple enough that it won’t hamper her movement, and the whole outfit also telegraphs her role for other adventurers to pick out. People will see ‘steward’ and set proper expectations.”

  “I see.”

  “Also, I like dresses.”

  Yasmin’s mouth went very flat. He pretended not to see it, though Anisa hid a smile behind her hand. “Well, you do sound like you know what you are talking about.”

  He chuckled and very carefully didn’t mention he was ninety percent regurgitating the practical bits from The Tales of Seeker Orland, while the remainder was just common sense with a garnish of lying.

  It was nearly noon and his stomach was starting to rumble, so when Anisa declared she knew a cookshop she wished to try, he didn’t argue.

  Food first, I guess.

  Soon, they were queuing at a shuttered window that smelled like pan-oil and pepperroot. He read the chalkboard twice and still couldn’t conjure a picture of ‘goat-tail dumpling stew’ that didn’t look like a dare. Anisa noticed his floundering and suggested a miner’s staple: ironpot rice with charred leek and sizzling pork bits, plus a ladle of ash-gravy. He assented, and Yasmin ordered the same as her lady, only double meat and no rice.

  Even sooner after that, the cook handed over their tins, and they carried their lunch to the communal tables by the fountain in the middle of town. Afternoon had finally pulled the town wide open: minecarts rolled past groaning with ore, while lines of men and women tramped up and down the mountain paths in corded lines, looking like ants from a distance.

  While they settled around the rectangular table and began eating—and he had to admit, Anisa knew just what to recommend—Dain unrolled the contract slip on the table.

  “So the request is simple,” he said around a glorious mouthful of pork. “A flock of about twenty silverplume owls moved into northern Elderhush Forest around two nights ago. While they’re not usually aggressive magic beasts, they’re fiercely territorial, so the townsfolk are nervous that their new neighbors have talons and throwing cutlery.”

  “Cutlery?” Anisa tilted her head as she spooned some rice into her mouth.

  “If you’ve never seen one before, silverplume owls are pretty big,” he explained, holding his hand up to about his sitting height. “They’re tall as school children, and when they fly, they can scatter their silverplume feathers down at their prey like knives. They’re pretty troublesome to deal with.”

  Then he glanced at Yasmin to make his point sharper. “Your Elementum-Class swordstaff might not be too useful against them. If they keep to the canopy, you won’t be cutting anything but your own pride. What, exactly, does your relic do?”

  Yasmin’s eyes stayed on her food.

  Guess she’s still pissed at me.

  “Yasmin,” Anisa said sternly.

  “... When my swordstaff is in contact with any earthly material, I can channel mana into it and raise an earthwall,” Yasmin said curtly.

  “Aha.” He leaned back, feigning surprise. He already knew it could do that since he’d seen it in action, but he still had to ask. “Then you can raise earth walls as shields when the owls decide to send a storm of cutlery down at you. That’s good. You can protect yourself and Anisa with that.”

  Yasmin made a faint sound that might’ve been a scoff if she’d allowed herself the luxury.

  “But they won’t come down to melee range, and silverplume owls are known to be pretty strong flyers. They can still flutter around even if they throw most of their feathers at us,” he went on. “We’ll need a ranged answer.”

  Anisa dabbed her lips with a square of cloth. “And you have one?”

  “I have options.” He smiled without elaborating. “So this is the tentative plan: we’ll stir the owls from their perches, and while you and Yasmin hold your ground with earthen walls and keep their attention, I’ll flank them from the side and knock down as many as I can.”

  Yasmin frowned at the arrangement, but Anisa leaned forward with a curious smile.

  “And how, pray tell, do you mean to knock the owls down with one arm?” Anisa asked. “Some secret relic of yours?”

  He only grinned back. “Better if I don’t say.”

  “How boring.”

  “That’s more than I can say about you. Now, these owls aren’t bloodthirsty monsters, which is why the Guild only wants ten heads as proof of success. Ten heads are more than enough to scare them away forever once they’re hung outside of town.”

  “When are we heading out, then?”

  “Right after this. We’ll march north to where they were last spotted, so we’ll probably reach the area by nightfall. Once we locate them, we’ll set up camp, map out the exact method of our attack after a bit of on-field observation, and slaughter them by midnight,” he said. “With any luck, the actual exterminating part will only take us ten minutes or so. After we have our heads, we’ll sleep outside and come marching back in the morning. We should be back here by noon tomorrow.”

  Then Dain fixed his eyes on Anisa with a mischievous glint. “Question is: can you handle sleeping outside?”

  Surprisingly, Anisa’s poise wavered again for a breath. She actually looked a bit worried—honest enough that he almost laughed at how quickly the mask of courtliness slipped—but then she straightened and nodded firmly.

  “I can. If I am to reach Corvalenne through the Elderhush Forest eventually, I must get used to sleeping outdoors.”

  That earned a flicker of respect from him. “Alright then.”

  He was about to roll the contract back up when a side glance caught an old lady unlocking a cobalt-painted door across the square, yawning as she set her signboard to ‘open’.

  His eyes lit up.

  “Actually,” he said, standing while still scarfing down his plate of pork. “Before we go, one more stop.”

  Anisa tilted her head. “And where might that be?”

  “The relics shop.”