After leaving the flat and walking around the outskirts of town for around ten minutes, we entered the very edge of the heart of the town, an old wall from times long ago marking the transition from busy roads and suburbs to densely packed commerce and organized streets. We were in for quite the walk since, unfortunately, the closest textiles store I could find on my phone was on the exact opposite side of town to where I lived, at the very least a forty-minute trek.

Walking past the ancient wall, I took a moment to evaluate our surroundings. Since I was wandering around with a denizen of the Iridescent Abyss, I was expecting to come into contact with some form of reprisal or retaliation for her disappearance and apparent 'treason' or whatever other crime the Amethyites would write her queries up as.

People were going about their daily lives all around us, wandering from store to store, enjoying the day as best as they could while the impending gloom of distant clouds hung ominously in the sky. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was a particular atmosphere to the town around me as if in a deep, bestial fragment of my subconscious was trying to warn me that something was coming. I could faintly smell spices and aromas from a nearby market stand; a family from India had moved in nearby recently, and they had a small business here selling freshly made curries and Indian cuisine. Though I had never tried it myself, I had heard that the food was of outstanding quality and an absolute steal at the asking price.

While walking through the crowds, I felt an unusual tingling in the core of my arm. I briefly rolled up my sleeve and checked on the burning cuneiform marks around my wrist and forearm, a brief check which revealed that the markings were still present but that they didn't appear to be the cause of the numbness.

It was so bizarre because, up until Farinosa's explosive burnout earlier today, the experience had not translated into any abnormal or anomalous sensations or feelings inside or around my left arm. I resolved myself to chalk this up as yet another eccentricity of the new world I found myself exploring, both within and outside the confines of reality, it would seem.

I would occasionally overhear chatter and comments being made by the pedestrians around us, some finding my Amethyite companion most peculiar to look upon; the occasional remark about 'something not quite right with her' or 'she looks sick'. I make a brief look towards her to discern how she was feeling during our journey. To say she didn't look overly happy with the current situation would be a vast understatement of the highest order; her eyes were locked in a partial frown, her eyes darting from person to person. She saw me glancing over to her, to which she peered back and nodded.

I nodded back and looked to the front once more, a displeased sigh leaving my lips at the futility of the situation. I desperately hoped that we wouldn't run into any trouble, not for my or Farinosa's sake, but for the sake of the troublemakers and the poor bastards tasked with cleaning up the mess left behind. The last thing I wanted was for Farinosa to panic and resort to the Protasi for protection in a wide-open public space like this.

Working our way through the winding streets, bustling roads and curious crowds, we eventually reach the opposite side of the town centre. The number of shops and market stands had dropped off dramatically, and the quantity of foot traffic had reduced to levels low enough that I didn't feel like I was potentially being watched anymore. It was at this point that Farinosa delivered a sharp elbow to my right bicep and stepped closer to me.

"Hey, sorry if this is a weird question," Farinosa whispered while walking as close to me as she could without physically wrapping herself around my shoulder. "Since you siphoned off of my burnout, have you felt any cravings or abnormal desires to utilize your newfound energy recently?" She asked, an idle hand reaching up to twirl her hair as she spoke. "Just curious."

"Not that I'm aware of," I whisper a reply. "But thank you for asking." While I was answering her question, I felt the numbness in my arm growing, as if the very bones within my forearm were going glacial cold and at risk of shattering. With each word, I felt tendrils of numbness reach out from my forearm, grasping at my lungs and wrapping around my heart.

"Are you sure?" She smirks. "Nothing at all? Not even intense clawing numbness, ropes of chill clawing at your insides, begging to be released?" My eyes widen, and I turn my head to face her. Her smirk had grown into a sly smile, eyes narrowed and burning pupils locked upon me.

"How did you..." I tried to ask.

"Let's just say that when you've been around Protasi wielders for as long as I have, you can feel the very fibres of their being wanting more, crying out for more." Her eyes began to glow more intensely while she shushed me. At the same time, the numbing tendrils I could feel reaching out from my forearm wrap tighter still around my chest. "You can feel every string and every thread of their very existence, and you get very, very good at knowing when something is awry with those strings."

"So, what's wrong with my strings, as you call them?" I ask, my pulse slowly grew in pace, and my breathing started to quicken.

"Nothing especially," She takes a step back; the numbing in my chest dissipates, retreating to my forearm once more. "Other than the Protasi begging and imploring you to put it to use."

"And how might I do that?"

"Let's tackle my replacement robes first. Then we can talk about how you can use it." She tapped my shoulder and stopped playing with her hair. In truth, I was hoping for a more detailed explanation, but it was probably not a suitable subject to discuss in a public space like this. "I can't just teach you how to utilize the Protasi, especially without some kind of protection for the both of it; it's a remarkably fickle thing which likes to act up if given an opportunity."

"Probably for the best if we get you sorted before worrying about my latent abilities." I agreed with her; with how dangerous the Protasi seemed to be, the last thing I wanted was to be in a situation where the only person I knew who could use it was incapacitated because of my own ineptitude in the field.

"Anyways, where is this shop you brought us to find?" Farinosa asked, her head swivelling around searching for the store. "I should have asked earlier, but what even is a shop?" It once again dawned on me how much this world was anathema to her own; her kind probably didn't utilize a financial exchange system like our own, where goods and services are exchanged with a monetary value attached.

"It should be somewhere around here," I murmur while fishing my phone out from my trouser pockets, briskly scrolling through the map and finding its location just around the corner to our left. "It's a place where you exchange a numerical currency for things, so when you choose the materials you want, I'll have to pay the money needed to get the goods." I trail off while leading her towards the store.

"That's quaint." She remarked, seemingly baffled by the system we used for commerce and trade. "We just have a rather simple requisitioning system. If you do what you're told and you do good, you get stuff, simple as that."

"And you call our system quaint," I smirk while we approach the textile store, a store which, much to my dismay, was a lot smaller than I had hoped; the chances of finding exactly what we needed were already relatively small, but this certainly didn't help matters.

"In fairness, a lot of the things we can requisition are essentially minor trinkets and ritual ingredients for minor or small scale rituals and incantations." She explained. "A very different market and a very different customer base to what I see among your kin."

"I suppose it makes sense." I nod; now that I thought about it, the style of economy that the Amethyites utilized made a lot more sense, especially since they appear to value research and intelligence. Such a system that rewards participants with further opportunities to develop those skills would only be natural for them.

We entered the textile store and were immediately greeted by an old lady by the store counter; she appeared to be the owner of the shop and presumably the only staff member present. Looking around the store, I spotted a couple of signs hanging from the roof denoting the contents of their respective rows of shelves.

Spotting the "fabric rolls" section, I gesture Farinosa towards the row. We find a wide range of fabrics available to purchase and several colours and dyes for specific types of material.

"Anything, in particular, drawing your eye?" I ask her while running a hand over a roll of satin. In truth, I had never stepped foot inside a textiles store before this point, so I honestly had no idea what to suggest or even whether we were getting a good deal or not.

"I like this," She reached out and grasped at a roll of burgundy brushed cotton; the sheets were quite thick but light and soft to touch.

"I'm surprised you're not interested in something heavier or more durable," I remark; I was expecting her to take a more robust material to make her robes, especially considering their importance. "Something like fleece, for instance." I point towards a roll of fleece.

"A good idea, but with the usage of Protasi, it's entirely unnecessary." She explained. "We can imbue our attire with various incantations and wards to strengthen the structural bonds of the given clothing, making it far more durable and far more resilient than you might expect."

"So you can use lighter material without sacrificing protection?" I ask while glancing over my shoulder; I wasn't overly keen on having conversations about information as sensitive and, to those unaware of my situation, insane in such a public venue. Thankfully there wasn't anybody eavesdropping on our conversation, but my sense of unease hadn't ebbed away in the slightest. "That's quite clever." I turned back to the rolls of cloth.

"Precisely," She answered while thumbing through a few more rolls of satin and brushed cotton. She eventually decided on three rolls of burgundy brushed cotton and a single roll of cobalt blue satin, a rather unusual combination of colours. Still, I was reasonably confident that she could work it into something decent at the very least, or so I told myself while I carried the rolls with us through the store.

Fortunately, the very next row of shelves contained the tools we were looking for, a wide array of sewing needle sets, dozens of rolls of fine thread and a collection of other textiles tools which I had never seen up until this very moment.

"Huh, how very primitive," Farinosa remarked under her breath while retrieving a boxed needle set; she glared at the tiny metal pins inside and dismissively snorted. "So very primitive indeed..."

"I know they are, compared to yours, but keep it down," I tapped her arm and scowled at her. "If they are such a massive step down, we could always just not get them..."

"No, no, it's fine; I'm sure I can put them to use." She stammered back, a nervous grin stretched across her face. "I'm sure they'll be perfectly fine until we find some way of requisitioning a set of proper, Amethyite commissioned tools." She reached for and picked up a pair of red thread spools and added them to the rolls of cloth I carried.

"I think that's everything you need to be honest," I comment while looking at the needle set, it was a collection of sixteen needles, some large, some small, but it appeared to be a decent range for what she intended to use them for. "Perhaps a set of scissors?" I asked while pointing towards the fabric scissors.

"Oh, I won't need that; I've got my knife for that." She patted just above her waist, and a slight rattle clicked from inside the jumper I had given her with the pats. My eyes widened when I realized that she had brought the seax-staff with her, albeit somehow segmented under her clothes. Thank the heavens we hadn't walked through any metal detectors; otherwise, we would have been in serious trouble.

"I hope you have a spell to hide that thing," I whisper, eyes still agape and greatly concerned. "You can't just..."

"Make it vanish?" She quietly spoke over me. "Yes, yes, I can actually." She winked and snickered. "You should be more open to the possibilities Protasi brings with it, human."

"As if what you did earlier wasn't a good enough demonstration." I rolled my eyes and turned towards the front of the store. "I think we have everything we need. Let's go pay the shopkeeper and take this stuff home."

"Sounds like a plan," She stepped back from the shelves of thread and started walking towards the entrance. "The sooner we get back to your place, the sooner I can get out of this restrictive rubbish." She snarled at her borrowed clothes, clothes which she thankfully won't need much longer.

"I wouldn't call those clothes rubbish Farinosa," I retorted, "And besides, would you rather wear those indignant robes with all those holes? Can you imagine how much attention we would be drawing had you taken those instead?"

"You make a fair argument," She reluctantly agreed as we grew closer to the counter, her eyes wide and burning from hearing her name spoken aloud. "I just hope I'm not put in this position ever again; this is very uncomfortable for me..."

Though I was new to the world of Protasi energy and the magical properties those that can harness it may wield at a moments notice, I couldn't help but notice that Farinosa's discomfort with clothing designed for somebody without such a gift, if one could even call it such, was getting worse. I myself felt the numbing sensation in my arm growing a slight bit worse as the day went on, but I assumed that it was nothing compared to what she was experiencing.

We made our way over to the counter by the old lady, who was busy fiddling with the tills' cash drawer. It looked like the electronic opening mechanism for it had jammed, leaving her with only the manual locking mechanism to open it. Thankfully adjacent to the till was a card reader, I didn't have much cash on hand, so I was relieved to see that I could pay electronically.

I placed the items on the counter, which the old lady almost immediately started scanning and putting in a large bag, all while I fished around in my pockets for my wallet. Once I had acquired it, I withdrew my bank card and waited for the old lady to finish scanning my items.

"A good choice of material, young lady," The old shopkeeper spoke while stowing the satin away, her eyes glancing over to Farinosa from time to time, "It's always good to see youngsters getting into this hobby; it's far better than all that computer stuff."

I felt a twinge in the corner of my eye, though at this time, I had no idea of knowing what it was or what it meant. I briefly glanced over to Farinosa, who responded with a sly grin. Perhaps she had something to do with this?

The old lady read me the price, to which I paid with my card. I didn't know this kind of stuff was so expensive, but I could afford it without much difficulty, so I wasn't too concerned.

We left the store after thanking the shopkeeper for their time. The not so distant clouds had crept a bit closer and, knowing our weather, meant that rain was also on its way to greet us once again. Not wanting to be caught out in the open with a downpour with all this expensive fabric, we picked up the pace to try and beat the incoming clouds.

"As much as the equipment here is below the kinds of tools I'm used to seeing, I'm sure I can put them to good use." She smiled. A certain degree of confidence washed over her. "Thank you, Frasier. I'm sure I can make it up to you some time."

"No problem; it's in both of our interest to get your robes sorted," I responded. "Who knows when it might be helpful for you to work that magic of yours, especially if anything from your world comes to pay us a visit."

"With you now in possession of the Protasi, I have a feeling that I'm going to be fashioning a second set of robes as well." Farinosa smiled gleefully. It was good to see her in a better mood, especially one that didn't require her to provide nought but ominous responses to my every query.

"So, about the whole strings thing you spoke about earlier, what exactly did you mean?" I asked while occasionally panning my eyes about the streets; I was still unconvinced that there wasn't something out there trying to find us by now.

"Anybody, or anything, that can contain or manipulate Protasi gives off an aura of sorts, one which other users can pick up on and decipher, if they know how to, of course," Farinosa explained. "So, for example, I know that you're concerned about us being stalked by an entity from my homeland and that you're worried about how cryptic I am, and..." She took a brief moment of contemplation, her head slowly crooking to the side, her eyes narrowing; she was visibly processing something.

"I don't like how you're struggling to discern that last one." I nervously mumbled, keeping my voice low as a group of students walked by us. While they walked by, I overheard them gossiping about class, how one of them skipped their last lecture, and how that was somehow something to brag about.

"Your mind is racing, trying to find ways to adapt to this situation we are now in, and how the current situation is holding you back, pinning you down." She whispered while running a hand up my back and holding the back of my head. I felt tingles of static clicking out from the palm of her hand, and my head began to throb. "Which is certainly an unusual response to the Protasi, usually the initial response is one of fear, one of anger." And with that, she retracted her hand, the throbbing inside my skull came to an abrupt halt, and the static clicking went silent.

"What did you just do?" I stopped walking and turned to face her.

"Confirmed a theory," She stopped walking as well and ran her eyes across me. "If you didn't react, then that would have proven that you weren't capable of utilizing Protasi energy. But, considering you had the reaction you did, that means that you can control it, not particularly well at this time, of course, but it's a start."

"So the little static noises, that was..."

"Your body was trying to defend itself," Farinosa explained. "Lesser Protasian jolts are a common subconscious means of self-defence; it requires very little energy to perform, and it can be quite deadly if the person struck is ill-prepared." She stopped herself, "Well, it's not really deadly; Protasi in enough itself can't actually do any damage, rather how it is used and who it's used against that determines if it causes problems or not."

"So the reason why it didn't hurt you was that you could use it as well, if I'm not mistaken." I resume walking back towards my flat.

"Correct." She nodded her head and resumed walking by my side.

"That's quite clever, actually." I mused. I remembered having a similar conversation with Kliviero about the same subject matter, the notion of Protasi energy as a weapon and how it relies upon what now appeared to be nought more than loop-holes in its intended purpose.

"I think you'd make a decent Amethyite," She patted me on the shoulder again, this time a fair bit harder than before. "Granted, an unofficial one, but a decent one all the same."

"But what guarantee is there that I could actually control it?" I asked.

"Being able to control or store Protasi energy is a simple yes or no," Farinosa explains. "Either you can contain it, which means you can control it, or you just can't. There is no middle ground, and besides," She continued. "You'd be wasting such an impressive gift and leaving it to wither away if you didn't learn how to use it. How many other humans know of Protasi and its abilities?"

"Okay, you've convinced me," I reply after a long pause. I had to think this through; such a drastic decision could have far-reaching consequences, but if the Protasi were something I would have to live with, I might as well learn how to use it. "I just don't know how quickly I'll pick up on it."

"I'm more than willing to teach you, on two conditions." She stops just before the entrance to the block of flats. "Firstly, we take it slow so that you can properly attune to the Protasi and what you can use it for. Secondarily, we make sure both of us have proper wardings available so that, should something go wrong, we'll both be safe. Deal?" She extends a hand, eyes narrowed and a stern look plastered across her face.

"Sounds fair." I grasped her hand and shook it.

"Good, then it sounds like we need to get some things underway as soon as possible." She released her grasp of our handshake and stood by the door. "And we might need to find a way to send you into the Abyss on-demand as well, and I think I have just the thing for it."

With that, I nodded and opened the door into the block of flats. We were home at last, and it seemed like we both had a lot of work to do.