The trek back through the districts was a grueling drain on my resources. With each gate, I watched my small pile of silver vanish into the palms of guards until only a single, lonely coin remained in my purse. It was my last lifeline, the fee required to pass the final gate and leave the walls of Caria behind.
I pushed through the rowdy, sweat-stained crowds of the 4th District, where the air was thick with the scent of cheap ale and monster hides. The Luminous Knight Bureau Association here was a chaotic contrast to the sterile silence of the 8th. I navigated the sea of adventurers until I reached the counter where Sydney sat, her eyes sharp and observant behind her spectacles.
Sydney was behind the main counter, her quill moving at a frantic pace across a stack of parchment. When she looked up and saw the familiar silhouette of my cloak, her eyes softened with a mix of professional recognition and genuine curiosity.
"Eirene, how's your hunt for Cameron going? Any closer to his head?"
I remained silent, but she already knew the drill. She slid a clean sheet of paper and a graphite pencil across the wood. I gripped the pencil, the wood feeling small in my hand, and wrote with quick, jagged strokes:
"Information for Oksana."
I flipped the Registry of the Condemned and opened to the page with the strawberry-pink-haired elf and tapped her portrait firmly.
Sydney raised an eyebrow, a small whistle escaping her lips.
"Multi-tasking, huh? Going after the Lotus-Dust Queen herself. Well, you're in the right place."
She ducked under the counter, the sound of heavy filing cabinets rattling echoing from the back. She emerged a moment later, not with a few loose sheets, but with a thick, leather-bound journal.
"Unlike Cameron, who is basically a ghost in our system, Oksana has been a thorn in the side of the Western scholarship for years, the researchers in Sisiphon City have been complaining that her drug trade is turning their students into addicts and their labs into stash houses. This report is comprehensive: safehouses, known associates, and the specific alchemical signatures of her narcotics."
Sydney handed the journal kindly and I took the journal. Its cover was stained with what looked like dried purple ink, the signature color of Lotus-Dust.
She handed me the ten-page report, her expression turning grim.
"Oksana is the mother of Lotus Dust. It's a pink powder, fine as silk. One hit and the brain is flooded with so much dopamine the user forgets how to breathe on their own. It's an drug."
I skimmed the pages, my mind involuntarily making a connection to the cocaine I remembered from the fragmented memories of Earth. But this was worse, this was magically enhanced. It didn't just ruin lives, it fed on the mana of the users, turning them into hollow husks of their former selves.
"The report says she's hiding in the Veridian Slums of Sisiphon,"
Sydney explained, tapping a map at the back of the journal.
"She's got the local Alchemist Guild in her pocket. They provide the ingredients, she provides the distribution. It's a gold mine for her, and a graveyard for the students."
I closed the journal and tucked it into my cloak. Four gold pieces. That was the price on Oksana's head. It was enough to get me the mask and put a massive dent in the debt for the crimson robe.
"Be careful, Eirene, Oksana isn't a brawler like other bounties you faced, but she's an alchemist. She fights with things you can't see, gases, poisons, and illusions that target your mind. In a city of scholars, she's the one who knows exactly how the brain works. And she's definitely not alone."
Then Sydney continued, she told me to open to page six of the journal, and read the contents about it.
"She's currently the head of the Sisiphon Alchemist Guild, don't let the Scholar title fool you. That guild is one of the three major criminal organizations in the Andromeda region, right alongside the Bronze Coin. They've turned the city of learning into a den of addicts. Half the scholars have traded their spellbooks for glass pipes. If you're going there, Eirene, be careful. The air in those labs is as toxic as the people."
I took the journal, tucking it into my cloak. The thought within me felt a cold spark of disgust. To turn a city of knowledge into a graveyard of addicts was a special kind of evil.
I tucked the journal into my cloak, right next to the newspaper that the paperboy had given me earlier. My path was set. To get to the truth of my mother and the head of Cameron, I first had to navigate the intellectual labyrinth of Sisiphon and bleed an elven druglord dry.
I gave Sydney a sharp nod of thanks. I had the intel, I had my last silver coin, and now I had a target that wouldn't just bring me closer to my gear, it would bring me closer to the strength I needed to return to the mountains.
I stepped out into the 4th District air, the weight of the journal against my ribs a reminder of the task ahead. One silver left. One target to kill. No room for error.
The Western Gate was a bottleneck of sweating merchants and shouting travelers, a mile-long serpent of humanity trying to squeeze out of the capital. I didn't have the patience for it. I stepped out of the queue, my boots crunching on the gravel as I walked past the frustrated crowd.
The same guard from my arrival, Luscious Granhart, the one who had cleared the path for me with a shout, saw me coming. He didn't even reach for his spear this time. He just sighed, a look of weary recognition crossing his face as he took my final silver coin and scanned the S-rank card.
"Oh, you again, heading back into the wild, are you? Good luck, Hunter. Try not to leave too much of a mess outside the walls."
Luscious opened the gates for me, the heavy iron gate groaned open just enough for me to slip through. I stepped out onto the main gates of Caria, the vast, rolling plains of the Andromeda region stretching out before me toward the horizon where the spires of Sisiphon lay hidden.
I felt the familiar itch between my shoulder blades. My blood Wings were restless, pulsing in sync with my heartbeat, begging to be unfurled so I could cut the travel time in half. But I looked around and ground my teeth. The road was crawling with people, caravans hauling spices, groups of nervous pilgrims, and patrols of Luminous Knights.
"Wait, not yet Eirene, there are too many people. Keep your wings hidden." Plasma said
True to what Plasma had said, If I sprouted wings of solidified gore here, I wouldn't be seen as a hero or even a bounty hunter. I would be the "Crimson Phantom", the monster from last night's nightmares. A hunt would be called, and I'd have the entire LKBA on my heels before I reached the first waypoint.
I pulled my hood low and began to walk.
I kept a steady, grueling pace for hours. The sun began to dip, casting long, bruised shadows across the grass. One by one, the caravans turned off toward roadside inns, and the foot traffic thinned as the fear of the night-terrors took hold of the common folk.
Finally, as the moon began to peek through the clouds and the only sound was the chirp of crickets and the wind through the tall grass, I stepped off the main road. I moved deep into a grove of gnarled trees until the flickering torches of the distant highway were gone.
I was alone.
I let out a long, jagged breath. I shed my cloak, letting it fall to the mossy floor. I focused on the wings in my nack, drawing the cold, metallic power of my blood toward my back.
"SHLICK."
I unbuttoned the cloak easily. Two massive, translucent wings of deep, arterial crimson erupted from my shoulder blades, shimmering with a faint, macabre light. I stretched them wide, the blood hardening into razor-sharp membranes.
I didn't need a carriage. I didn't need a horse. I had the sky, and I had a debt to collect in Sisiphon.
With a powerful thrust that flattened the grass for ten feet around me, I surged into the air. The wind whipped my hair back, stinging my one open eye, but the sensation of freedom was intoxicating. Below me, the world became a map of shadows and starlight.
Then Plasma muttered through my thoughts, sensing his direct calculation through my head.
"Eirene, your arrival in Sisiphon City will be approximately a day by foot. 2 hours by wing."
I angled my body westward, a streak of red against the midnight sky. Oksana Petrivna was sleeping in a bed of silk and drug money, unaware that the reaper had just taken flight.