A man stood on the edge of the outer Abyss. In the chaos before him, three entangled maelstroms whisked fragments of reality and unreality in a blur of shapes and colors. Stray shards of fortresses, landscapes, and creatures crashed around the man. One of them hit his eye.

He did not flinch. His body was hardened by the Abyss and his soul packed with potent relics. Breathtakingly intense ether winds whipped his long white hair. Atop his head, fluffy feelers stood rigid against the wind, attuned to the voice of the Abyss. And, by his side stood the man’s tall gray friend and a row of others, their features blurred by the storm.

Wind choked the man’s words in his throat. The taste of dry fur coated his tongue.

Felix sat up, wheezing for a breath. Bii rolled off the bed and into a crate of old relic projects. It pinged drowsily, eyes slowly blinking open.

“Try not to sleep on my face. It won’t be funny when you get arrested for murder,” said Felix, wincing at the dull ache around his right cheek as he rose to pull on a clean shirt.

Bii pinged quizzically.

Felix kicked his legs into not-so-clean-but-perfectly-usable pants. “Denizens get even harsher sentences than people. You might end up all the way in Iron Garden, with traitors, terrorists, assassins, and the like.”

Pieces of web wrapped icy crystal rods flew all over the floor, when Bii bounced into action! Pinging urgently, it raced around Felix’s feet and crashed through a pile of binders. Loose pages of delving logs and hand drawn depictions of denizens and Abyssal landscape snowed all over the floor.

“Hey. Hey! Careful. I need to return those.” Felix cursed internally and moved to catch the menace.

Bii jumped straight into his arms, pinging like the world was about to end. It pushed the crumbled note onto Felix.

“Yeah, okay. I get it. We can go chat up delvers at the piers today about your note. Someone will know something.”

Bii’s feelers curled up. It’s head bobbed down, almost as if to sigh in resignation.

“Sorry buddy, but that’s the best I can do.” Felix laid Bii on the ground and tidied up the mess, before leaving his bedroom. Both his mom’s and Linda’s doors were closed.

Upstairs, a knife tapped against the board, water boiled, and kitchenware jingled. Felix climbed the dangerously steep staircase to enter the kitchen-common room.

A weary eyed woman with a bun and an old apron—otherwise known as Felix’s mom—tended to the porridge kettle, while buttering rye bread, while whisking a batter, while frying the batter on the pan, while finishing pancakes with cream and blueberry jam, while feeding eight pancakes at once into the waiting mouth of a cupboard sized denizen with a body of metal gizmos and dynamos.

A fleshy tree with branching arms of various sizes sprouted from mom’s upper back. The Busyhand Bush had been dad’s anniversary gift, and perhaps the greatest relic he had ever discovered, though not as high on the list of his most creatively named finds.

Preserve Pete did not make that list either. The relic resembled a heap of mechanics imitating a cupboard shaped human with a bowler cap. When mom dropped pancakes in its mouth, its tongue wrapped a delicate foil around them, swallowed it, and began rubbing its stomach. The finished product, which appeared in Pete’s hat, was always a small bar, with taste and nutrients of the original meal perfectly preserved.

One of mom’s arms collected the finished bards and stamped each with the laughing bird logo of Anderson & Anderson.

“Morning. This is Bii,” said Felix, placing the denizen in a chair so he could set the table. “I’m helping it out with a thing.”

“Bii?” Linda’s blonde head peeked over the couch. The teenage menace’s lake-blue eyes locked on Bii, and widened. Felix heard a suppressed squeal.

“Morning.” Mom glanced at Felix briefly.

That once glance made Felix’s heart lurch. He felt as if she knew of and had already found him culpable for yesterday’s shenanigans. Felix swallowed.

“You were up late. Were you hanging out with Erik again?” Mom asked.

Felix chuckled nervously, then winced. Smiling hurt his bruise.

Mom raised an eyebrow. “Did I say something funny?”

Felix evaded her gaze. “Ah, no. I ran into some delvers I’d talked with before and listened to their stories. One of them offered drinks, and it got out of hand. We goofed around and I hit my face on some stairs. Good times.”

“I see...” A rueful look flashed on Mom’s face for a moment. “Alright, but don’t you go getting into any trouble. I know you like Erik, but colleges and guilds don’t look kindly on a criminal record.”

“Mom, please. I know what I’m doing,” said Felix, his cheeks heating up.

“I hope you do.”

Felix noted the newspaper on his spot, conveniently opened at the ‘now hiring’ section. He suppressed an exasperated groan, put the paper away, and helped portion the porridge.

Linda snuck closer, her focus trained on Bii. “What kind of denizen is it?” she asked.

“Curie, I think. It’s friendly and seems to be friends with delvers.”

Bii raised its head and feelers, pinging at Felix.

“Make sure it doesn’t break or steal anything, and don’t let it interfere with your work,” said mom.

“Yeah, don’t worry. Bii is smart, and I have time.”

Linda leaned over the table, her eyes following Bii. “Not all curies are friendly. In Denizen Psychology, they said good intentions are not enough to guarantee their friendliness, if they don’t understand human morals or reality’s logic. Does Bii understand? How did you figure out it was safe?”

Uuh, good question. A little too good of a question. “Bii is a messenger denizen for some deep delver. It was injured, so I’m helping it.”

Bii hopped off its chair to flee Linda, approaching mom.

“A deep messenger…” Linda whispered in awe. “What kind of message did it carry?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Felix hustled around the table and scooped Bii into his arms a moment before the little critter jumped on mom’s work table.

Pale white shivered and Bii’s feelers rolled down, when mom cast it a quiet glowering glance. She muttered words about stray denizens, while her relic arms began to clean up various work stations around her. “Felix, before you leave, could you prepare the guest room for Hannes.”

“Oh. Actually, I took the day off for today,” said Felix.

“I see. In that case, why don’t you help Linda run some errands.”

***

Felix and Linda left home with three boxes of mom’s ration bars—mombars—and a shopping list. Like most homes of Half-Valley, theirs was built on the slopes. The base was concrete and stone and top pastel painted wood. Roof was turf. A gathering of puffy dandelions sprouted between the tufts of hay growing on the roof, and a single spruce grew right on top. Every Jul, the Anderssons decorated it with lights and anything twinkly.

By the time the siblings delivered the mombars to a delving supply store at the piers, Felix had spilled the details of his yesterday’s misadventures with Linda.

“Big oof,” said Linda, biting her lip.

“Eh, it turned out fine.” Felix shrugged. “I wanted to quit anyway.”

“When are you gonna tell mom?”

“Probably not today. Today’s all about Hannes. I’d hate to sour the mood and foul his vibrant smile.”

Linda’s eyes squinted as she snickered. “Vibrant smile? On Hannes the Frown Prince?”

“Why, yes he does smile every now and then. Haven’t you noticed the minute tilt at the corner of his mouth? Like this.” Felix frowned and held fingers at the edges of his lips. “Here, see?”

“That’s still a frown.” Linda raised a brow.

Felix nodded sagely. “Ah, my young student, you have yonders to learn about smiles. Though ethereal as morning dew, his is as bright as the Sun. If you pay really close attention, and look at him really, really quietly, you might also occasionally spot such rare species as amusement and happiness flicking across his features. Though beware, if the Frown Prince knows you are watching, the smile will freeze right up again.”

“Pfft. Hannes is not a bunny.” Linda’s gaze flicked to the side. “Oh, wow. Felix, Felix! Ten irons and a lead torch,” said Linda in hushed awe.

Eleven figures milled around the center of Half-Square—a marketplace half built on solid ground and half on piers extending towards the Abyss. All were clad in the padded dark-blue delving attire of Scandie’s military. Ten of them carried cast iron lanterns on their hips. Inside each flickered pale silverflame with colored outlines. The lead torch was a harsh eyed man with buzz cut and angular bearded chin.

He barked curt instructions to the others, conducting an operation to uproot the moss coated stone pillar that had decorated the Half-Square for centuries.

“What are they doing?” asked Linda.

Pinging with distress, Bii dove inside Felix’s shirt.

“Maybe they’re finally replacing it with a statue or a fountain,” Felix guessed, eyes lingering on the dark gray lantern hanging from the leader’s hip.

The entire Half-Valley had only five leads. They were rumored to be able to navigate the Abyss alone, even survive extended periods without any real food. Must be nice to feel so free.

“Come on Linda, let’s finish shopping and go look at some relics.”

Linda straggled a few steps behind. “Don’t you want to ask them about Bii’s note?”

Bii leaned over into Felix’s view and shook its head, while pinging in vehement disapproval.

“‘Oh, hello good sir lead-torch, I have this here suspicious note that suggests our Abyssal Lords plans to betray her subjects. Why yes, I did get it from a stray denizen. And yes, of course, you may arrest me immediately for questioning.’” Felix shot Linda a deadpan look.

“Hehe, okay. Maybe not.”

As per mom’s instructions, they splurged a total of thirty chips to buy ground pork, cinnamon, salmiak, and luxury coffee that contained over ten percent real beans.

On the way home, they took a detour through Maker’s Alley, a street of overflowing flower pots, dangling electric lanterns, cast iron shoppe signs, and tall windows displaying a mind-boggling variety of relics. For example, Old Håkan’s specialized in household relics—sentient kitchenware, tiny fire puffing humanoids, and the deluxe five-thousand chip Moopa Mops; mop shaped denizen who licked the floor clean of stains and trash, and pooped out chips. The most prestigious shops of course were the delver stores, their displays stuffed with various multi-tools, re-breathers, clothes sewn from Abyssal matter, yonder-tuned compasses, timewobble resistant watches, and all manner of cool gear.

However, Felix and Linda were more interested in Tarmo’s Bargains, more specifically the half of the display shelf marked as ‘Discovery Shelf’. Making cheap finds for fifty a piece at Tarmo’s felt like the latter half of a delve, the part where you get the awesome relics.

“Hey, Felix, how about this one?” Linda pointed at a transparent headless humanoid floating in a small jar. Oversized hands wrapped around its body like a cloak. “House Gnome. It says, when manifested, the gnome helps with small tasks and organizing your surroundings, when you aren’t looking, and look here at the details. It might be fun to relicwright into something.”

Bii stared at the relic, shivering oddly.

Felix studied the label. “Meek temperament. Nice. Drawbacks: Minor clumsiness. Not bad. You’re right, it might be easy to fuse with some more temperamental relics. It doesn’t seem too useful for delving though.”

“How about this then?”

Felix followed Linda to inspect a bucketful of porous ochre bones labeled as ‘Memory Bones’. Green eyed woman draped in a flannel apron and a big cunning smile met his gaze. Her brows wiggled. Tove had inherited those thick bushy brows and curly orange hair from Tarmo.

“We’re just looking,” Felix said.

Tove leaned half-way out the open door, a smug look on her face. “Don’t mind me. I’m enjoying the sight of someone doing my job for me.”

“Felix.” Linda pulled on his sleeve, pointing at the label.

Felix chuckled softly. “Let’s have a look.”

“If I remember right, you two dabbled in a bit of relicwrighting?” Tove asked.

“Yep,” replied two voices as one.

Tove rubbed her palms. Her smile widened into a grin. “Woooonderful. That there’s an excellent chassis for a composite relic. Perfectly stable in open air, and hefty enough to have excess material to trim. The ability adds a lot of versatility for both daily life and delving.”

“Ninetynine chips. It’s not a bad price,” Linda chimed.

“The abilities are crazy for that price,” Felix admitted. Memory Bones were described as sturdy and greatly enhanced muscle strength and reflexes via muscle-memory. In addition, it included a limited memory organization ability.

Bii’s feelers swayed as it stared at the relic, quietly pinging.

“Imagine having a library-perfect memory of books you’ve read,” Tove explained, “I used to use a similar relic to get through Academy, and everything from back then is still in perfect order.” She tapped her head.

“Whoa…” Linda’s eyes widened.

Felix scrutinized the details at the bottom of the label. “A difficult temperament. Drawbacks include short-term memory loss and a compulsion to read everything thrice.”

“Can’t you do something about that? There’s a year before you get to retake the interviews,” asked Linda.

Felix’s mood soured, eyes glazing over.

“Oh, oops. Sorry.” Linda turned to him, flustered.

Felix stretched his mouth into a wide grin. “Haha! It’s fine. I’m over it already.”

“I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“Linda, come on.” Felix ruffled her silky hair. “It’s fine. You’re right. I should start planning for next year. Tove, do you mind holding onto the bones? I might swing by later, after I’ve saved enough chips from work.” He picked Bii up from the ground.

“Sorry, no can do.” Tove spread her arms helplessly. “For some Abyssal reason papa wants to keep the Discovery Shelf as first come first serve. Says it emulates true delver spirit.”

“Might be why we love this shop the best,” Felix added, earning himself a genuine smile from Tove. “By the way,” he continued, “You ever heard of the Hollow Conservatory?”

“Hm. Sounds like an Abyssal place.” Tove tilted her head, moving her brows as she thought. “Hm. Hmm… Hmmm-no doesn’t ring a bell, and I have read a lot of logs back in the day. It must be either really obscure, or restricted information. Do you want me to ask around?”

“Oh, no need… Well, actually, yes. If it’s no trouble, I’d really appreciate it.”

“No trouble at all.” Tove winked and turned to welcome a trio of copper torches. “Helllloooo! Welcome, welcome. Haven’t seen you three in ages!”

They all had weary eyes, bandaged limbs, and forest-green cloaks that looked to have gone through both the shredder and dump, twice. Each carried huge bundles wrapped in delving foil and rope.

Tove gestured the delvers inside. “Ooooh, what do we have here? Why don’t you come to the backroom and let me have a look...”

“Let’s head home before Hannes arrives.” Felix turned to leave.

Linda kept up. “Do you think he’ll bring gifts again?”

“Of course. The real question is: Did he know you were into relicwrighting, before his last delve?”

Linda’s face went from puzzled to shock to horror. “Uuuugh. Noooo,” she groaned, “he won’t bring me a plushie, will he?”

Felix couldn’t help but giggle at her look of despair. “Remember to smile if he does.”

***

At six p.m., remnants of mashed potato and brown sauce clung to emptied plates. Burnt nutty scent of coffee and oven warm cinnamon cookies filled the common room of Andersson residence. Felix had demolished five cookies, and had no plans of stopping anytime soon. The fragile crunchy texture was just too good!

Hannes sat at the end of the table, gnawing on the stalk of a pale-emerald mushroom between sips of coffee.

Like Felix, Hannes kept his hair long, though where Felix liked to keep his free, Hannes’ was tied up in a bun. That’s about where their similarities ended. Eighteen months had only further chiseled Felix’s brother’s enviable manliness, adding rugged character to his chin, a full moustache to his upper lip, and worldly wisdom to his sharp blue eyes. Also, Felix could swear Hannes hadn’t been quite so tall or shouldery before. How was he still growing at twenty-five?

Most notable change, however, was the small cast iron lantern sitting before Hannes. A ghostly silverflame burned inside, flickering with flashes of blue near the edges.

“Psssst, he eats abyssal stuff,” whispered Linda. “People can’t eat abyssal things. Why can he eat it?”

“Ask him yourself,” Felix whispered back.

Linda bit her lip nervously. “Why can’t you ask him?”

“Because I know why already..”

“How are you adjusting to the iron gut?” Mom asked Hannes, topping up his coffee.

Hannes nodded, pausing to consider his answer with the face of a stoic philosopher preparing his thesis. “Rather well. The first day was unpleasant. I’m slowly ramping up the manifestation duration and taking some painkillers on bad days.”

Mom’s face creased with genuine mirth. “Good. Take your time with it.”

“Yes. I intend to do so.”

Linda poked Felix’s ribs. “Feeeliiix, aaaask himmm?”

“He already answered.”

“What? When?” Linda pouted in confusion.

Finishing his Abyssal mushroom, Hannes pocketed the wrapper, and turned to rummage dad’s old delving backpack. “Is now a good time to present my gifts?” he asked mom.

Mom gushed. “Aww, you didn’t have to.”

“Of course I do. It is the duty of those who delve to share the gifts of the Abyss,” said Hannes, producing a potted white… plant or mushroom—Felix couldn’t tell. A squiggly stalk no longer than a finger supported a thick bushel of leaves shaped like a two-year-old’s attempt to sculpt clay fiddles and trumpets. Mother accepted the gift, eyeing it with the same unbridled curiosity as Felix, Linda, and Bii.

“This is an offshoot of a lullaby stalk from the Valley of Dreamfog. When the room is dark enough, it will play the favorite melody of the listener, which causes sleepiness and conjures pleasant dreams. Make sure to prune its leaves once a month, to keep it from growing too large. The adults become sentient, and may turn hostile.”

Mom stared at the plant, blinking rapidly, before standing from her chair and striding over to squeeze Hannes in a hug. She looked so small and frail against his athletic one point nine meter frame. “You remembered,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“I wouldn’t forget.” Hannes patted her back. “I heard your business is blooming.”

Mom wiped a tear, smiling. “All thanks to a certain someone putting in a good word.”

“Nonsense. Your rations are delicious. Your dedication was bound to pay off.”

“Oh, sush you.” Mom blushed, returning to her seat to cradle the potted plant. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”

Hannes nodded and picked a black ball of fluffy cuddliness from his bag. It had silky fur with a glossy sheen, eight buttons for eyes, and a long poofy tail attached to both its rear and face. This priceless artifact was of course placed before Linda. Bii perked up to inspect it with its feelers.

“We called these midnight monkeys. The vicious little cretins attacked us non-stop. Thankfully, that in turn resulted in us recovering a lot of their corpses. Marja sewed this one into a backpack.” Hannes demonstrated by opening a zipper. He displayed the insides, zipped it back up, and began folding the bag in his fists until the bag was the size of a softball. “It can also compress to fit on your palm. Everything inside shrinks with it. Shaking it”—Hannes shook the ball, and it bamfed back to full backpack size—”returns it to normal size. It requires roughly a chip per hundred uses of the ability, or the bag will begin to degrade.

“I guessed you might not need plushies so much at thirteen anymore, but this should still be rather useful, regardless of what you decide to do after graduation. I hope you like it.”

Hands trembling, Linda received her monkey bag. “Ooo-oooohh…” She caressed it, then rubbed her face against the fur, suppressing a squeal of delight. “I love it. Thank you, brother!”

“Tell your brother about the news,” said Mom to Linda.

“Right. Brother, I got accepted to Technical Academy as a relicwright major. I was in the top ten on the entrance exam!”

“Impressive. Are you excited?”

Linda nodded rapidly, beaming with pride and happiness. “I can’t wait for the school year to start!”

“Hm. Good.” Hannes turned to meet Felix’s eyes.

A lump of anxiety turned in Felix’s gut. He knew what question was coming, as Hannes pulled out an overstuffed binder of notes and a small item wrapped in delving foil and string. In his nervousness, Felix picked up another cookie, hoping against all hope he could give Hannes any other answer than the truth.

For a passing instant, Hannes’ frown deepened with sympathy. “I heard you made improvements to your relic.”

“Huh?” Felix arched a brow, his tension gone. So he won’t ask… Thank the Byss! “Since when have my relic projects been a common subject of rumors?”

“Mother mentioned it, when you went to the bathroom.”

“Ah.”

“Why don’t you show me? I may not be much of a relicwright, but I might have a few practical tips, if you’re interested.”

“A splendid idea,” said mom. She stood up, manifesting several branches of Busyhand Bush, which began to gather plates. “You kids go play outside. I can clean up.”

“I’m definitely interested,” Felis rose from his seat. It was a perfect opportunity to bring up Bii’s note without giving mom anything new to worry about. “Thanks, mom. But, brother, aren’t you going to explain the gifts?”

Hannes patted the binder. “Two decades of recently declassified delving logs from Neathwalker Company, from thirties to fifties. All of them from iron torches or above.”

“Wow.” Felix paused his step, opening to the binder to flip open pages upon pages of descriptions, adventure diaries, and hand-drawn vistas of unimaginable places. “Wow.

“And this,” Hannes hefted the mystery parcel. “Let’s see where your relic is before you open it. If it ends up being useless, I can swap it for something else.” Hannes placed it in his breast pocket, picked up his torch and cloak, and led the way into the darkening eve.

A gift that might be useful to him, depending on the state of his relic? Now Felix was really curious. Plus, he was kind of proud of his current masterpiece, even if it was cobbled together from trash, and relished a chance to truly show it off. Felix all but ran after Hannes, Bii and Linda hot on his tail.