Once I have the table set and moved into the precise placement I like, I spend another hour contending with moving and ordering all of the instruments I have collected atop it. That done, I can't help but move the rest of my equipment from my vault and into the room, filling one of the bookshelves with the collection of works I have managed to gather up to this point. Stepping back and staring at the rows of empty shelves spreading away from me, my personal library seems rather small. The remedy to that will come in time. One of the major reasons for my relocation to this incredible city is to gain knowledge after all.

As soon as I am back in front of the worktable once again, the call to organize everything all over again comes to me. I push the distraction aside, turning my attention to the tasks I have at hand. Remarkably, there is ease in doing so.

The first thing I do is call upon the power hidden in my eye to open my status window. The Eye of Volaash has been irksome since escaping the confines of the coffin beneath Danfalla. It is damaged in some way that I don't understand, broken in a way that won't allow Galea to manifest. Thinking about her makes my heart grow heavy. I would never have survived my torture beneath the city without her. I need to have someone help her, repair the eye and hopefully fix whatever is wrong with her. That will be done soon. Soon.

The status window opens in front of me with seemingly no issues, the only thing I have gotten the eye to do without issue recently.

Charlene Devardem

Human(Level 74)(Rank 2)

Emperor Conflux <Recovery Specialist>

Attributes

Vitality: 195(322)

Strength: 149(214)

Magic: 1099(1627)

Defense: 184(376)

Magic Defense: 163(342)

Speed: 741(1022)

Recovery: 1159(1576)

Perception: 138(152)

Free Points: 240

Healing Points: 3220

Mana: 16268

Stamina: 8675

My eyes widen at the information conveyed in the azure text. The final events of Danfalla have given me eight soul reinforcements–levels, as Galea would call them. When I woke the next morning after the battle, after collapsing from long put-off exhaustion, I had felt something different. Eight levels from a single night seems preposterous to me. If I had six such nights, I would be able to bridge the gap between the second and third rank in less than a week. It doesn't work that way, I know, but still.

The free points accumulated beneath my various attributes is disturbing to say the least. Without Galea to help me, I can't distribute them, and the leftover energy just sits in orbit around my soul, unused. I've always known that the eye's ability to make up for the lack of efficiency humans have in reinforcing their souls was an incredible boon, but until seeing that number displayed in front of me, I don't think I have ever truly felt it. Such a waste.

I force my attention away from my troubles, turning them toward more important matters. The question of the unmatching numbers remains. There is some influence that is different from before, something about the values of my attributes when my personal equipment is calculated, which results in higher values than they should be. Maybe the eye itself is broken in this regard, displaying numbers that do not actually correlate to reality. I don't think so, and the only way to be certain is with testing.

Alone in my new laboratory, I remove each piece of equipment from my hidden armory one at a time, watching as the values reflected on the status window change. They decrease in a predictable pattern, the unexplained increases to my defense and magic defense, lessening with some of the items that I remove, while staying stagnant with others. The correlation isn't difficult to detect. While I have an abundance of magical items, as any good magician should, it is only the pieces that I would classify as being armor that change the increase to my defense and magic defense. Removing rings or amulets seems to have no effect. In retrospect, that is not all that surprising, given the name of the ability I am experimenting with.

In a few minutes, all of my magical equipment is spread out on the table in front of me. I feel different, changed in a way that is hard to express. The pieces of magical equipment glow with obvious power, power that just a moment before had felt like it belonged to me. Not for the first time, I wonder about the effect of these items on my body, on my soul. Their power is focused toward reinforcing the body, mine specifically toward helping to increase my recovery and magic attributes more than anything else. What specifically does that mean? How does the magic in the items affect my ability to house mana? I suppose that will be something for me to learn at the academy.

I pick up the pair of magical gloves that I have been using for the past week, staring down at them with as much scrutiny as I can bring to bear. They are the same as before, from what I can tell, but I am unwilling to try to use my eye to actually identify them here and now. My experiment continues from memory, using the descriptions that I can recall for the items I possess.

Gloves of the Aspiring Archmage(Very Rare): <Armor><Enhancement>

Traditional gloves created by enchanters in the Dak Empire for entrants into the Empirical College. The lack of versatility of these gloves is more than made up for by their potency.

Enhancement: +85 Magic

My reason for choosing these gloves to experiment with is simple: they only do a single thing, increase the magic attribute. When I put them on my hands, that is all that is reflected in the change to the status window. Exactly what I expected. However, when I remove them and place them onto the strange mannequin in the armory window, my defense and magic defense increase by fifteen points as well. I puzzle that for a moment, a few theories forming. Unfortunately, I lack the tools necessary to test any of them here.

There is a sudden need to move that comes with the thoughts flooding into me, and I snatch up all of my magical equipment as fast as I can, tossing it all back onto the mannequin again. I feel a headrush and a moment of wooziness as all of the enchantments settle into place, empowering me once more. After a short internal debate, I even add my enchanted coat to the armory. My defensive attributes increase with the addition, exactly as I predicted that they might.

I have just enough forethought to grab the translation book Corinth showed me before heading out the door. It only takes a few seconds to find the room Corinth is in, a huge and mostly empty bedroom at the back of the penthouse. Mostly, I locate him by following the sound of snoring. Snoring seems like the kind of thing that would no longer happen after a magician literally recreates their body during the transition to rank three, but apparently not. I keep hold of my question after finding him sleeping; he deserves some rest. Dovik is nowhere to be found; the only evidence of him having been in the penthouse is a single note left on the table by the door. He has gone out to buy groceries, apparently.

There is another note next to the one left by Dovik, one from my brother. Not much is written on the scrap of paper other than an address with the words "Excellent Enchanter" scratched in slanting letters above it. He did say that he would help me find someone who could fix my eye; I just didn't expect him to do so quickly. I tuck the paper into a pocket and check the quiet room over once more.

Fifteen minutes later, I find myself standing in a strange terminal, more than a dozen moving walkways rolling away in front of me. All around, people move in a current that I am entirely incapable of understanding, glancing up at the magical signs hanging from the ceiling above the walkways before choosing which one they will take. Three of the walkways have strange coverings at my chest height, and I only ever see the dwarves step onto those. I think I might be able to squeeze myself onto one; they do seem to move faster than all the others, but I'm not so dense as to think that they are intended for me to use.

After five minutes of useless staring at all of the gridlike maps posted on the wall, I am approached by a dwarven man.

"Tavisa canna brak?" I think he asks.

"Ah." I look between him and the map on the wall. "Do you know Castinian?"

"Catsa?" he mutters to himself. Behind him, a dwarven woman waits with two children, all of them holding hands. "Hello?" he tries.

"Hi." I can't help but laugh. Remembering the book I have been holding dumbly in my hands, I crack it open and scan through as fast as possible. To be honest, the way the words are written inside makes them difficult to read. "Tadis…eh…Tadis Mabora?" I try to ask.

The man's eyes light up at the words, and he claps. "Good. Good," he pronounces. "Sett aconmabora esu matis don." He points at the maps in front of me, tracing a long and specific route through the underground labyrinth of walkways. The dwarven man seems to have no intention of slowing down his explanation as he points a path through the maze for me, and I don't know how to ask him to.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I just barely manage to follow the explanation, repeating my thanks in the local language over and over again as he finishes. We part as I head toward the terminal where the walkways let on, and I'm still trying to puzzle out all of what he said in that one sentence. It takes three more such encounters for me to finally arrive at where I intended more than two hours ago, the middle of the city. My eyes ache from the constant barrage of flashing lights, and the din of constant movement and conversation is enough to start a headache going. Both of the ailments vanish as I apply my healing energies more directly, but they are just small symptoms. Faeth is a strange and incredibly busy place. I'm still not sure whether I like it or not.

While the underground of the city flows with a purpose, the street above has an air of lingering. Certainly, people move quickly along the sidewalks while strange carriages of all sorts of materials navigate the streets themselves, but there is a more laid-back attitude. I watch the atmosphere take hold as a female dwarf trudges up the ramp from the underground to have her determined scowl replaced with a sigh once she is back out into the sunlight. The stink up here is also far less severe; the difference is enough to make me think that perhaps the rush beneath the streets was all in an effort to leave the cramped and smelly confines as quickly as possible.

The sunlight reflecting off the iridescent buildings that climb into the sky around me is enough to blind a lesser magician. The first thing I do once above the street level is purchase a pair of spectacles tinted a deep shade of blue from a vendor with a pinstriped cart on a street corner. Corinth told me that no one would take my money, but that man had no problem accepting a gold piece for the spectacles. They did nothing to actually help me see, but performed amazingly well at lessening the glare of the city. Most people above ground were wearing them here. My first step toward fitting into the city.

A few bronze coins purchase chopped fruit in a wooden cup that I am able to carry about the streets with me. One of the pieces, a strange orange melon, I think, seems to be poisonous at least to humans. I feel the drain on my healing magic immediately after chewing it down, before the feeling vanishes a moment later. I feel so indignant that the dwarven woman who sold the fruit to me didn't even try to warn me about it that I almost throw the rest of the cup away. I reconsider before making that mistake. I haven't seen a single other human in Faeth since arriving. Maybe she just didn't know.

It isn't the twenty-foot-long pictures flashing with strange scenes, hung on the sides of the buildings along the street, that strike me as the most odd. It isn't the fact that down every alley I look, I spy at least one cat lying on its side, bathing in the reflected sun. It isn't even that at one point I saw a literal giant, a woman more than thirty feet tall with deep blue skin, walk across the street only to wait on the other side for a light to change color. No, the most odd thing I see as I stroll through the city is the signs on the buildings.

I find myself swept up in the more sedate pace of the above-ground, strolling between the various buildings, earning plenty of muttered curses as I stop dead on the sidewalks to look at the various signs. To the right of each entryway into the towering structures, stands a grid embedded into the wall, each one eight across and twenty high. In the spaces of the grid, various icons and words are written, each telling of the various shops, restaurants, and attractions inside the buildings. My translation books help a bit, but like the shops I have known all my life, these seem more concerned with clever naming conventions than helping relay information. I don't mind the wandering in the least. In fact, I find myself enjoying the heat and press of the city as I slowly navigate the streets. Eventually, I find what I think I am looking for on the thirty-eighth tile of one of the building's grid signs. On it, the cartoonish depiction of a dwarven man's face smiles out at the world, an anvil on one side of his face and a sword on the other.

Eight flights of stairs later, and I find the store that I have been looking for. Every floor in the building is as clean and well-kept as a duke's manor. I would know, after having stayed in one for a while. The interior is lit by not only the light coming into through the myriad windows but also by soft glowing motes of magic attached to the ceilings in the various levels. More than all of that, the smell of the city is left behind in the cool interior. I pass at least two different bakeries on my climb up the interior of the building, each smelling of sweet dough more fragrant than I have ever smelled before. I pass a store devoted entirely to selling paint, one filled with shelves housing small figurines, and even a place on the sixth floor selling sweet cream. I have to stop there for a few minutes before moving on.

It is impossible to tear my eyes away from each new sight as I pass it, each storefront inside of this towering building clean and pristine in its presentation. Moreover, all of the people moving through the same building wear fine clothes. Nothing flamboyant enough that would stand out among the nobility or the affluent, but fit-forming clothing of vibrant dyes, made of a sturdy yet breathable material. While the people are, for the most part, dwarven, I see all kinds moving throughout the building, but they are all at ease and in pleasant spirits. They buy the various esoterica of the stores throughout the building, spending coins like they grow on trees.

It has been a long time since I felt poor. There was a time in my life when the lack of money was a constant toll on our family, something that the struggles of my parents finally pulled us out of. Moving through this tower of clean and well-decorated shops, full of people, I don't feel poor in the same way I did then. No, the emotion is deeper than that. It feels like Gale, the kingdom I grew up in, is so much poorer than this city that I can't even begin to estimate the difference. There is such understated extravagance on display here that something in the way I saw the world begins to fracture. If a city like this exists, floating above the clouds and slowly gliding across the world, what out there might I not even know about?

Pushing open the glass doors of the equipment shop, I banish the questions to the back of my mind, for now. On the eighth floor of the building, the equipment shop takes up half of the floor, sharing the rest with a big white room that seems to hold only paintings of flowers. There are three other patrons in the place as I arrive, moving between the rows of mannequins standing throughout the store, looking over the various pieces of enchanted equipment hanging off of them. Two of the other customers cast sidelong glances at me as I step inside, a bell above the door giving away my entrance. A long, glass display case runs the far end of the shop, serving as the countertop for the store owner and separating the patrons from the wicked-looking weapons hung along the wall. As the door closes behind me, I hear the telltale sound of it clicking, some unseen lock engaging. At least the store owner seems to have the good sense to have some sort of security.

A dwarven man, one of the more flesh-toned variety that I have met before, beckons me inside as I take a few steps inward. He shouts a greeting to me in the native language, and upon registering the confusion on my face, quickly changes his words.

"Castinian?" he asks.

I breathe a sigh of relief, returning his smile. "Yes," I reply.

"Oh, how interesting," he says. "It has been a while since I needed to dust off those old words. Hope you can get my meaning through the accent. Been told it can be hard at times."

"What accent?" I say. "Best Castinian I've heard in days." In truth, the man has a way of pronouncing a's that makes them sound almost like i's, very strange.

"The name is Droy Mall. This is my fine store where I help to supply the adventurers of the city with the equipment they need to survive the harsh wilds," Droy says. "I can see at a glance that you are a woman of an adventurous spirit. Essentia Magician?"

"You can tell that at a glance?" I ask.

"It's the eye," he says. "Not many with eyes like that. Well, perhaps the dark one, but not the other. Almost mistook you for an ascended lizardkin when you first walked in."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I say. "I didn't think there would be adventurers in the city, not too many at least, and where exactly are these wilds that they are supposed to brave?"

"Why, right below us," Droy says, pointing down. "We will be sailing over this bit of uninhabited and monster-infested wilderness for some time. The adventurer's league sends sorties out from time to time, and the academy as well. There is good money and materials to be made in it."

I nod, unable to disagree with the money-making potential of slaughtering a few monsters here and there. "Interesting. Perhaps I will have to join an expedition like that."

"Perhaps you should. But, while you are still in the city and in my shop, I might inquire if there is anything I can assist you with."

I look about, my eyes roaming over the various mannequins set about the room. Each is bedecked in different enchanted materials, mostly armor, and all of a quality at least comparable with my own. I had thought before that the items I managed to secure from the various adventures in Mari were of high quality, but there are several pieces that would put even my best to shame. Standing next to the mannequins are plaques divided into sections, each section relating to the features and abilities of the equipment displayed. I find it interesting that the displays follow the same general pattern as what my eye has shown me before.

"Are these pieces available to try on?" I ask Droy.

He seems to weigh the question for a moment. "Aye. Just be aware that there are certain enchantments on the store that help to prevent theft. Trying to wander out of here with anything you didn't pay for would be quite a bad idea."

"I'd never even think of it," I lie. Not that I would have stolen anything, but I had thought about how I might get away with it.

"I'll leave you to browse then," he says, turning and walking toward another customer approaching the counter with a pair of fine, black boots in hand.

Droy smoothly slips into a different language, one that I have never heard before, as he turns to the latest customer. To my eye, the enchanted pieces glow with obvious power, though I am unwilling to actually attempt an identification. For this experiment, I don't think I will need one. I stop in front of a mannequin dressed in a lavish robe, sporting a conical hat. While the appearance of the obvious "mage" armor is somewhat old-hat, it is exactly what I am looking for.

I open the armory window, removing my gloves once more. Next to it, the floating panel of my status window shows the reduction in my attributes. Seeing all of the expected changes, I put my enchanted gloves away in my vault, picking the fingerless, woolen gloves off of the mannequin. The plaque in front of the mannequin states that the gloves offer a boost to magic and speed, not bad for me at all. I quickly move the pair to my armory window, equipping them there. Similar to the enchanted gloves I already own, adding this pair to my armory offers a minor increase to defense and magic defense as well.

Removing the gloves, I head over to a more heavily armored mannequin. Performing the same test with a pair of enchanted gloves from this ensemble, I find a change. While I do see the expected fifty-point increase to my defense from the enchantments on the pair of steel gauntlets I equip to my representation in the armory window, there is an additional twenty-point increase to my magical defense and a thirty-point increase to my defense. I can feel the difference as I flex my fingers. Magic runs beneath my skin, offering a strange increase to my durability. The simple test seems to confirm what I thought might be the case.

The secret armory ability that I obtained from the Throne of War hides my equipment away while allowing me to retain the power of their magic. Not just the enhancement magic either, as I was still able to use the secondary functions of things like my bracers that allow me to stand on air. What putting on the gauntlet confirms to me, however, is that it does more than that.

The steel gauntlets appear once more as I take them from the window, my attributes falling once again. I find another heavily armored mannequin, the armor coating of this one made of an even sturdier metal than steel, if the plaque was to be believed. Experimenting with these gauntlets proved the information provided to be true. Other than the enchantments listed, my magical defense increases by twenty-five points while my defense attribute increases by forty. I spend some more time experimenting with different gauntlets or gloves made of various materials, and the pattern holds. The stronger the material, the greater the boost to my defensive attributes. The armory ability granted to me by the throne not only empowers me with the magic of the items I use it with, but it also seems to empower me with the material. I am beginning to understand that this power is far greater than I ever imagined.

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