Forehead mask twists his wrist into a screwed up mass of skin and hair. He traces down his thumb with the knife, leaving a thin trail of blood down it that blossoms with magic. I wince in pain as the last of the poison leaves me and infusion twinkles with newly devoured power.

Nose mask tilts his chin upwards. "She just dispelled all the poison. Might have to be a little careful."

"Nice!" Forehead grins excitedly. "I was hoping for a good fight! …So why isn't she moving?"

"Did you forget what you just did?" Nose asks.

Forehead pauses. "What did I just do, again?"

Nose clicks his tongue. Forehead opens his mouth in an 'o' of recognition, then shakes his head and turns back to me. There's a real disappointment on his face, and it seems like he's really hurt by the fact that I'm struggling to fight back. Which, to be clear, I'm not. Purification made quick work of his spell. So unlike Nose, Forehead can't tell when his magic's dispelled.

"Do you think she'll be better if I do something?" Forehead flicks his blood away, which leaves the smallest scratch on the floor. "I can't remember if I have anything that heals people."

"How could I remember if you can't?" Nose asks.

Forehead sighs. "Because you love me like a brother. Are you okay with waiting a few minutes for it to wear off?"

Nose shrugs. "I'm not in a hurry."

"Niiice. Alrighty, then." Forehead grins to himself and plants his hands on his hips. "If you can hear me, Shelby, tell me when you're good to fight. The Horizonguard wants us to send you a warning. I want to fight. So we're going to compromise."

I barely hold back a snort. What kind of compromise is that? Shit, I still can't tell if these guys actually want to kill me or not. Why would the horizonguard bother hiring them for this, anyway? Doesn't he have enough people in stonestep solutions who'd be more loyal to him?

My leg starts to twitch, and time runs out. Forehead mask's grin turns manic as my involuntary movement gives me away, and before I can get a word out he lunges with his twisted hand at the ready. I grit my teeth and jump to the side, then shove my poisoned infusion directly at his chest. His arm twists at an unnatural angle to grab my wrist. Fingers sink too deeply into my flesh, and his wrist begins to twist.

I roll the coin through my knuckles and touch it against his skin. Forehead twitches as it slides into his arm without any resistance. Red explodes from the entrance not a heartbeat later, forcing him to let go with a surprised noise and back away.

"Oh, wow." He murmurs as he grabs his arm and twists it countless times at his shoulder, preventing the poison from spreading any further. "I didn't see that coming! It's just like your poison!"

Nose mask frowns and taps his lantern. "I'm pretty sure that is my poison, but I don't have control over it any more. How'd a weak spell like that clone my stuff?"

"Because you put in a weak dose, my friend." Forehead mask laughs, grabs his arm, and… rips it clean off without so much as flinching. The stump twists itself closed, and that's that. "Looks like I made a big mistake! Alright, Shelby, you got the upper hand on this one. So I'll give you a five minute head start."

I furrow my brow. "The hell?"

"I'm with her." Nose mask agrees. "Five minutes isn't long enough. We'll catch up to her so easily. How about ten?"

Forehead mask ponders that for a moment, then nods seriously. "Good point. Okay, you have a ten minute head start! And when we catch you, we're going to capture you! After you give us a really good fight, of course!"

"Hear, hear!" Nose mask agrees. "Then the horizonguard will pay us double our fee!"

Both of the men raise their hands–or hand, in forehead mask's case, and start counting down from six hundred. I stare at them in utter disbelief. They know everything about me save for infusion, which they now know as well. So they have to know I'm just going to relocate out of here. Are they giving me the out for some reason? Because I don't think they're as dumb as a bag of rocks.

On the contrary… something tells me they're far cleverer than they're letting on. The only reason I met them in the first place was because they were gathering information on me, after all.

I make a show of holding up my relocation coin. They both glance at me for a moment, then purposefully look away. Yeah, they're definitely letting me go. And with a warning that if they catch me, they're taking me directly to the horizonguard. Let's not do anything stupid to mess this up for myself.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Relocation flares, and the hallway shifts to the inside of the tower. The moment I regain my wits I activate the two other coins for the pots, and they appear in my hands fully intact. Except one of them has a leaf tied around the top. Clutter calls me from across the room as I twist the plant life off and notice a short message written on the back.

We're enemies, but we don't have to kill each other.

I frown at the sentiment and purify the hell out of the leaf. Whatever those assholes are selling, I want nothing of it. Not until they're our absolute last possible resort.

"Thank goodness you're okay!" Clutter pulls me into a hug, then notices the pots. "Oh, uh, I didn't expect those to still be intact. Please tell me you didn't purify everything inside of them."

Uh. I don't think I did, but that's a very real possibility. "They're sealed, so they're fine. Perfectly fine."

Clutter raises an eyebrow in doubt, but before he can say anything, I turn and start walking in the direction of the workshop. His footsteps take a second before he starts following me.

"Is my fabric still back there?" He asks.

Unfortunately, I have to nod. "Didn't even think of trying to bring it back, sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I was just wondering." He wrings his hands as he looks around awkwardly. "Your relocation is really weird with what it'll relocate."

"It is." I agree. "Seems like anything I wear or put in my inventory to claim ownership of is fine, but everything else needs its own coin."

"Oh. That makes sense." He says while still making awkward movements. It only gets worse as we approach the door to the workshop until he's hopping from one foot to the other while his tail swishes against the floor.

I turn to him as I press my hand against the door. "If you have something you want to say, just say it."

He looks like he's about to burst. "Can I use the first drop?! Pretty pretty please?!"

I can't help but smile as I hand him the jars. He squeaks in excitement and sprints to one of the shelves, grabs a head with blue magic inside, and brings it over to one of the tables. Right before he opens the jar he seems to remember that I'm here too and turns to watch me with what I can only describe as 'kid waiting to open a present' eyes.

"Let's hope you didn't mess them up." Pearl giggles as she sits on my shoulder. "I think that'd crush his poor soul."

Clutter nods in agreement. "I think I'd die from disappointment. Just like I'm dying from anticipation right now. Please, please, please! Can I do it now?"

A smirk twitches onto my lips. I slowly step into the workshop and make a show of taking as long as physically possible to walk up to the table Clutter's set up on. He whines in protest, but like the good friend he is, he doesn't open the jar just yet. I lean my elbows down on the table while he gives me the puppy dog eyes, and that cinches it. I've teased him long enough, even if it's only been twenty seconds.

"Go ahead."

Clutter bursts into action. His hands are a blur of motion as he opens a jar, finds a small eyedropper from somewhere, and takes a very small amount of the liquid inside into it. My awareness alerts me to a tinge of magic from the stuff, and I sigh in relief that I didn't destroy the stuff in the jars. With a surgeon's precision Clutter lets a single drop fall into the head's magical fluids, then takes three huge steps back while resealing the jar.

Tinny hisses and metallic pops echo out from the head. Clutter turns to me, his face a mixture of excitement and serious anticipation. I return a nod of readiness and summon one a piece of my dwindling shield-available coins and a hex for purification. Whatever's about to happen, I'm not getting caught off guard.

A soft, gentle breeze visibly flows free from the head. Magic rolls off the thing like pebbles down a conveyor belt going the wrong way. It catches, falls, and catches again over and over while the breeze attempts to gain altitude–but ultimately fails. My awareness sounds a single alarm bell at the sight of the thing, but not enough for me to be really worried.

So I look to Pearl for confirmation. "How dangerous is that thing?"

"The magical breeze?" She laughs and shakes her head. "It's almost harmless. But if my hunch is right, and it's carrying the intentions from the magic, then it could shove those intentions into something else."

I raise an eyebrow. "How's that possible? There's no magic for it to take hold in."

"That's definitely not true." Pearl motions at the faucet. Which the breeze is definitely aiming for. "There's an endless supply of the stuff right there."

My eyes go as wide as saucers, and I toss my shield to block the thing's path. As soon as the coin leaves my hand second thoughts race through my mind. Maybe tossing something magical at the breeze isn't the best idea.

Now it's Pearl's turn to go wide-eyed. "Why'd you do that?!"

"I don't know! I panicked!" I call as I scramble to reach my shield. All my attempts to bring it down are met with nothing. "Why isn't it disappearing?!"

"I think it's too late." Clutter says from my side while melting into the shadows. "But you stopped it from getting into the tap. That would've been so much worse, right?"

Pearl nods seriously. "So, so much worse."

"Well, we have time until Jumble's done talking with the party." I say with false enthusiasm while my shield morphs into a soldier-shaped mass of crystalline salt magic. "This'll kill a bunch of it."

The thing roars, a sound that reverberates like a glass bell against everything in the room. Clutter dives for the head full of usable blue magic before it can hit the floor, but the sound of shattering glass from the direction of the storage rack puts a dead stop to whatever minor celebration we might've had.

Maybe doing this in an enclosed area with fragile magic equipment wasn't the best idea.

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