Samantha awoke early the next morning to dim rays of light drifting through her window. The first thing she did was try and activate the passive effects of Prey’s Awareness, but the ability fizzled out before manifesting. Her heart sank. Taking a deep breath, she sat up slowly and wiggled her index fingers into her ears in an unsuccessful attempt to clear the irritatingly muted, cotton-stuffed feeling out from them. It was going to be a long day.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and went to the kitchen to get some breakfast. Thomas had cooked another small feast, and the delicious scents helped to raise her spirits a bit.

“Feeling better?” he inquired, placing a filled plate in front of her as she sat down.

“Yes and no. I’m physically healed, but my spirit...” she lamented, trailing off.

“Don’t sound so disappointed. You’re lucky you aren’t dead.” he said, his tone somewhat chilly. “Give it time and it’ll work itself out.”

“I can feel both disappointed and grateful at the same time, can’t I? And I don’t have a ton of time to spare.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, “All your problems are arguably self-inflicted, but let’s not fight about something neither of us can change so early in the day. Eat up. Replenish your strength.”

Samantha obliged, and both family members finished the meal in relative silence.

She reflected on what happened last night as she gathered up the dishes and began washing them.

After returning from her training session yesterday, Samantha had focused her entire efforts on healing herself back from the brink of death. It took several hours before all the physical injuries were successfully restored by Flawless Regeneration, but despite being theoretically as healthy and hale as before her participation in the Lattice she still felt off. When she tried to reactivate her newly minted Prey’s Awareness ability, she felt an uncomfortable strain on her spirit before the activation failed. Doing her best not to panic, she went down the list of her other abilities to see if they were affected as well, and was dismayed to discover that Inspect and Sage’s Rumination were also non-functional.

As these three abilities appeared to all be related to perception or the mind, she could only surmise that she had damaged herself spiritually somehow. She had a naive hope that she could sleep it off and that upon waking the abilities would return, but her inability to activate Prey’s Awareness this morning was confirmation that it wouldn’t be quite that quick a fix. She had heard of similar situations happening to cultivators before–mostly to those that pushed themselves and their abilities too far and too fast–and she couldn’t deny that the description was fitting for her of late.

Thomas had assured her that proper rest of her spirit would see her arts return before long. Unfortunately, ‘proper rest’ meant minimal use of arts and her aura, which was a difficult thing to ask of any cultivator. This also meant that until her abilities came back, the harsh training each morning was almost out of the question. Fortunately though, this restriction did not include things like meditation or opening new meridians, and such actions could actually speed the spiritual healing process as she channeled fresh energy into revitalizing and advancing the state of her soul.

To avoid stressing too much over the setback, she rationalized that the time would not be wasted since there were other things she needed to address before she was forced to move up to the next floor. So, she set her sights on accomplishing as much as she could today.

Her first order of business? Shopping. Feeling vulnerable from her muted senses, Samantha opted to dress in her full set of armor and take her weapon with her, if only to give herself some security as she moved through the city. Thomas stopped her just as she was moving towards the front door.

“Oh! Before you head out, that special order you requested came back from the shop. Have Silas try it on and make sure everything fits well.” Thomas called to her as she was getting ready to depart.

“Right! With everything going on I almost forgot.” she said, taking the wrapped bundle of cloth from Thomas’s outstretched hands.

“For me?” Silas asked, bounding over to her and sniffing curiously at the package.

“Yes. Remember the other day when we took all your measurements? This is what I ordered for you.” she explained, unwrapping the item and holding it up for Silas to see.

She held a dark green leather vest covered with brown leather pockets and pouches in her hands, the colors mirroring Silas’s pelt well. She was glad that Thomas had a good memory for that sort of thing, since he likely helped to pick out the materials himself when he put in the custom order for her.

The leather was soft, flexible, and supple, and Samantha was able to slip it onto her bond without much difficulty. It would not provide much additional protection, but that wasn’t its primary purpose.

When Samantha was in the Gutter, she discovered that the toxicity that normally limited how many healing pills or herbs a person could consume at once did not apply to Silas. Since her ‘As One’ ability shared both damage and healing between them, this meant that she essentially could have Silas act as a healer in any battle, provided she had the funds to keep pills in stock. There was also not a distance limit to this ability as far as she knew, so she could have Silas hang back and heal from a safe, hidden location if the situation called for it.

The only problem with this strategy was that there would not be an easy way to feed Silas medicinals in the midst of battle, and there wasn’t any way to stash them somewhere… until now. The storage on the vest was cleverly designed so that even a jackalope without the use of opposable thumbs could access the contents, with most of it being concentrated on the front panels of the vest near Silas’s belly.

“Well, how do you like it? Does it fit well? Can you reach everything okay?” she checked, excitement bubbling up in her voice.

Silas did a few turns, jumps, and prodded at the various pockets and pouches experimentally with his paws and face. The movements were a tad clumsy–understandably so, when you consider it was the first time he had ever worn an article of clothing before–but he was able to access everything well enough.

“I like it!” he affirmed, “I’m happy I can carry more snacks with me.”

“Is food all you think about?” Samantha teased, enjoying the feeling of mirth that was coming through their connection.

“What else is worth thinking about?” he chuffed, moving over to the bowl of common herbs Thomas had been placing on the ground for him and stuffing some of the contents into an open pouch.

“Fair enough,” she conceded, chuckling at his enthusiasm.

Thomas smiled at seeing their interaction, though he could only hear half of the conversation, “Consider this one a gift from me, since you’ll be leaving soon. It was only a few silvers anyway… so don’t worry about it.”

Samantha’s heart panged at the gesture as well as being reminded again of leaving everything behind, but she shook her head to clear the negative thoughts. “Thank you, Thomas. I’m heading out, but I’ll be back. Come on, Silas! We can get you more snacks later. If we don’t hurry, all of the good stuff will be snatched up before we get there.”

Thomas cheerfully waved goodbye as the duo shuffled out of the door at a quick pace, Samantha closing the door behind her with a grin and a thumbs up. As the sounds of their footsteps drifted out of the range of his High-Copper level hearing, his bright smile faded into a melancholic frown. Her parents wouldn’t be the only person to miss her when she left this floor for the next.

Samantha and Silas set off to the Southern Business District first. She had given her parents a little over a day to process her departure and wanted to check in with them. She knew that the morning and evening hours were a busy time for her parent’s shop, since those were the most popular times to pick up or place new orders. So, she opted to wait until lunch time to visit them when more people were interested in restaurants and there would be a lull in business.

Her first stop would be an alchemy shop. Then, if she had the time and funds, she’d stop by the combat art emporium to see if there was anything useful in her price range.

As she walked, she checked her coin purse. After spending 5 gold on training yesterday, she was left with 10 gold, 1 silver, and 24 coppers. She couldn’t be too crazy with the spending if she still wanted to afford anymore training, but she could buy a fair bit with this amount.

Most of the shop owners in this area had been Samantha’s neighbors. Some had looked after her when her parents were too busy, for others she was playmates with their children, and many she referred to as ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ even though there was no blood relation. Word had gotten around that she had returned successfully from her cultivation quest, so her journey was filled with multiple unexpected stops as people called out to her to congratulate her, give her celebratory gifts, try and get in her good graces with not so discrete bribes, or otherwise interact with her. She placed each gifted item in her bag without opening it, since it was considered impolite to open the gift in front of the giver. Though she thanked each person, she couldn’t help but notice that each and every one of them, no matter their relationship with her previously, treated her with a sort of distant respect and deference. This distance did not lessen no matter how she tried to close the gap.

She walked into the alchemist’s feeling conflicted about her most recent interactions, and the man staffing the counter visibly gulped with nervousness. She assumed that he was interpreting her ambivalent emotions as her being irritated or displeased, and that’s where his anxiety stemmed from. Angry cultivators often left damaged goods (and people) in their wake, especially when you were mortal and didn’t have much recourse.

Samantha was initially quite bewildered when her price offers on medicinal herbs, pills, and elixirs were accepted without much pushback in the first or second rounds of haggling–far below the standard market rate. Seeing the light sheen of sweat covering the man’s face as they continued speaking, along with his overly polite manner and tight smile, she put the pieces together soon enough though. He wanted her out of this shop and away from him as soon as possible, and he was willing to eat a monetary loss to make it happen. As bad as she felt for unintentionally stressing him, she couldn’t deny that the good prices on these items would help her out immensely. As this situation was life or death for her, she pushed down the guilt of taking advantage of his apprehension and purchased a few other things she originally thought would be out of her price range.

Leaving the shop with a lighter purse but heavier backpack, she looked to the sky to check the time. It was nearly noon now, the delays from meeting with old acquaintances taking longer than she would have liked.

She made her way to her parents' shop, the chime announcing her arrival as she stepped past a customer exiting at the same time.

“We’ll be with you in a moment!” she heard her parents call in unison from the far back of the shop. Normally if they were together like that, it meant that they were working on a big sale. She browsed some of the racks of items unobtrusively near the front until she heard the familiar plop of a full coin purse on the counter, and the high-rolling customer departed.

She popped her head around a shelf, and nodded her head towards the full coin purse once they caught sight of her, “Sounds like a good margin.”

Her father’s expression became complicated and he didn’t immediately respond, but her mother gave her a warm smile. Martha closed the gap between them and embraced Samantha, “It was! Word’s gotten around that you became a cultivator and fewer people are willing to give us too hard a time when haggling now.”

“By ‘word’s gotten around’, your mother means that she won’t stop telling everyone she speaks to. She must have blabbed off the ears of half the town by now.” Aldon chimed in with a slight frown.

Martha pointed to the coin purse and raised her eyebrow.

“...I didn’t say it wasn’t an effective selling strategy.” he mumbled to himself, scooping the bag off the counter and sorting the various coins into pouches on a specially crafted belt he wore. The bags were lightly enchanted so that an alarm would sound if someone other than him tried to remove or open them.

“Is that wise,” Samantha began gingerly, “considering I’m not going to be around long-term?”

Her parents’ expressions fell at her words, and the somewhat tense atmosphere sombered further.

Martha rallied her mood and gave a tight smile, “Your father and I have been discussing that, actually. What if… what if you stayed?”

“I can’t mom. I told you already that–”

“You told us that you killed some thugs in the slum that kidnapped and murdered a poor delivery boy out of spite. The laws are quite clear about the consequences for being responsible for the death of a cultivator, but there have been exceptions in the past! Maybe this can be one too.” Martha said, cutting her off.

“Mom, I can count the exceptions I know of on one hand, and none of them match my situation.” Samantha asserted gently, “I’m not some Bronze Lord who accidentally killed a Copper and had it brushed under the rug with money and favors, and I’m not some foreign dignitary passing through the city either.”

Samantha added on silently in her mind that she didn’t think that these scenarios would have triggered the hidden quest requirements. In both situations, a cultivator of higher rank had killed one of lower rank. In the other few cases she could think of, the only people who stayed on the floor after killing someone of higher rank were those with staggering wealth or power. Again, this wasn’t applicable to her current predicament.

“The only ones who know about this are those mortals you let escape though, right? Who will believe their word over yours, a High-Copper? As unfair as it is, that’s how things have always worked with mortals versus cultivators in this city. Luckily, that unfairness favors you now.” her father stated darkly.

Samantha shook her head adamantly and opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, another customer walked through the doors. He paused just past the threshold and his mouth dropped open slightly. He took in her fully armed and armored appearance and seemed to be fighting the urge to shrink away from her.

“Oh! So it’s true then. Your daughter really is a cultivator.” he commented nervously.

“Dear, do you think you could tone down your aura a bit? To be fair, it’s a little intimidating–even for your father and I.” Martha requested.

Samantha inwardly groaned. She thought back to her prior interactions with other mortals and how they all seemed distant and subdued around her. She had been thinking it was because of her new cultivator status, and belatedly realized that was only half true. Due to her injured spirit and lack of Sage’s Rumination keeping her consistently grounded and in a meditative state, she would bet her aura was more unrestrained than it normally would be. She was essentially pushing out a continuous stream of killing intent. She wondered if the person manning the alchemist shop was giving her such good deals because he was literally on the verge of fainting, rather than just being frightened of her.

“I can’t right now.” Samantha confessed, “It’s a long story, but I can give you all a bit of space. I’ll be back home tonight and we can finish talking.”

“Actually, you being here is perfect timing, if you don’t mind staying. I promise it’ll be worth your time.” the somewhat familiar-looking man said. Samantha knew she had met him before, but couldn’t quite place him.

“What is it Clyde?” Aldon asked, concerned, “You need my daughter for something?”

It clicked, hearing the name. Clyde was the head of the Southern Business District’s Trader’s Committee. She had met him several times as a child when her father insisted on dragging her to the boring monthly meetings. That was, until Samantha’s infamous ‘Scythefish incident’, which the Cray’s had mutually agreed to never speak of again.

“Well, I was going to bring it up at this month’s meeting, but since we’re all here…” he began, Samantha suspecting that his arrival here was more than coincidence, “you’re aware of that cultivator who’s been causing us all trouble? The one on the Verdant Stallion?”

“Ugh, him.” Martha spat, “He’s the worst sort–the kind of cultivator that goes out of his way to make mortal’s lives more difficult.”

“That’s the one. We were all going to pitch in to hire another cultivator to deal with him.” Clyde quickly glanced over to Samantha and held up a hand, “Nothing drastic, mind you. We just need him to stop using our shopping district as a shortcut to his favorite brothel.” he explained, his mouth puckered as if he was eating something sour. He looked to her again with caution, gauging her reaction to his complaints about her peers. Seeing that she was not offended, he pressed onwards while bowing slightly towards her. “Of course, you cultivators may go anywhere you wish in the city, and we mortals would not normally interfere with your activities. However, there have been injuries of late when he passes through, and often at the busiest times of day for us. It’s driving off business.”

Samantha remembered seeing this cultivator the other day when she first reunited with her parents. She recalled how he rode carelessly through the packed streets and used his spirit bond to blow mortals out of the way if they didn’t move fast enough. She could easily imagine how injuries could happen, and she was reminded of why she had been so driven to become a cultivator in the first place.

This cultivator was a prime example of someone who fully took advantage of his place at the top of Yivesh’s social hierarchy. His goals and convenience were the highest priority, no matter what ‘lessers’ he had to push out of his way to get there. To add insult to injury, his casual cruelty towards mortals wasn’t even in the pursuit of defense of the city, or some other urgent task.

As Clyde continued to explain details about the issues they were having, she could understand why they hadn’t hired someone to deal with the issue earlier. Typically, this was the type of job cultivators actively avoided, even with high pay. Very few were willing to go up against their peers and possibly make a long term enemy over the ‘small troubles’ caused to mortals. However, Samantha was in a unique position. Not only was she planning on leaving the first floor soon, but she had grown up here and viewed many of the shop owners as family… and she didn’t like the guy anyway.

“When does he normally come through?” Samantha inquired.

“At least twice a day when he travels to the brothel and back in the evening. On his ‘busier’ days, he can visit the brothel two or three times, but those aren’t quite as predictable.” Clyde elaborated.

“And what’s the compensation?” she said, putting on her ‘merchant’ face in preparation for haggling.

“6 gold, if your parents are willing to pitch in a few silvers like the others in the Committee.”

The gold wasn’t nearly enough to entice the average cultivator to take the job. Potentially making an enemy for the next hundred years or more wouldn’t be cheap, after all. Not to mention the injuries caused so far were not severe, and there were no deaths, so even the cultivators with a softer spot for mortals would likely be willing to look the other way.

“We also all agreed to give you a discount at our shops, since we’re aware the amount is perhaps a bit lower than is standard for this kind of work.” Clyde added, seeing Samantha’s thoughtful expression.

The vague promise of discounts likely just meant that her haggling would be relatively easy at these shops, and she wouldn’t need to fight tooth and nail to get decent prices. It was still something, though.

“You all wouldn’t happen to have been buttering me up all day with gifts and praise in preparation for this request, would you?” she asked wryly, remembering the unexpected generosity earlier.

A bead of sweat dripped down Clyde’s face, “N-no?”

After a suitable dramatic pause, she smiled, “I accept, though I can’t promise immediate results.”

Clyde’s entire body seemed to relax slightly at her affirmation. Samantha asked a few more clarifying questions about the situation, and when she was satisfied that she had all the information she needed, Clyde paid her the gold in advance with her dad picking a few silvers out from the bag he hadn’t finished sorting yet to top off the payment amount.

When Clyde was gone from the shop and out of earshot Samantha tried to return the silvers to her parents. She didn’t want to take their money for the job, but they closed her hand over the shining coins. By their reasoning, they were hiring her services as Samantha the High-Copper and not Samantha Cray, their daughter. After a bit of bickering Samantha reluctantly accepted, giving them both a grateful hug.

Silas had decided to stay behind at the shop, bored from all the walking and talking she’d been doing this morning. When he heard it’d likely be more of the same until Samantha came back later that day, he opted to stay where he could be fawned and doted on by Martha and future customers. He shamelessly laid out on the counter to give his strategically planned begging maximum chance of success to score him pets and treats. Samantha could feel his contentment and anticipation for further spoiling as she rolled her eyes at him and left.

She returned to the bustling cobbled roads of the business district after promising her parents she would return tonight and they could finish their talk. Until then, she had some preparations to make.