Known as the two oldest groups, it is no surprise that Wisperium and Pernatia have a close relationship with one another. Their forces have been intrinsically tied together for centuries, working in tandem when fending off continental threats. Even with all the other kingdoms combined, it is hard to discern whether they could defeat the two organizations without the help of another powerhouse such as Arkosa and Sveran. Few beings can match the power of Dracule Rose or Pernatia Howzer, much less the culmination of their forces.

~ A Tale of Two Kingdoms by Jay Kohl

"Well, you'll have to meet with the boss before anything happens. Honestly, is this a human thing? Who on Aetheria is that interested in infrastructure?" The dwarf said. He muttered the last part to himself, but the giddy human at his side caught on, although didn't comment.

The western sewer treatment facility. All the buildings were connected in some way to the sewers of the city Chester had pestered the dwarf with questions, and when the vertically-challenged man tried to politely tell him he was getting late for work, the silver-tongued criminal had convinced him into tagging along.

"Hah, you'll realize eventually just how significant your infrastructure is. Thanks, Phillip. I'll see you around."

The flooring of the interior was steel grating, and he could see that underneath was even more floors underneath with workers milling about. It was surprisingly active, and Chester could sense some humidity as soon as he entered. The door to the manager's office was simple and hard to differentiate from the other rooms, and he knocked politely on the door.

During the entire time he conversed with Philip, the dwarf who helped him find his way through the facilities, he had kept up subtle transformations and shifted the disguise on his hand under the cloak. After consistent use, the odd feeling of mana coating and transforming his body became a regularity. Even without looking, he knew when the disguise felt right.

"Come in." A gruff voice said. Chester opened the door to reveal a younger dwarf, possibly the youngest one he'd seen aside from Alda. In his early thirties, with a shaven face and hair in a messy ponytail, the human thought that with some tattoos and a nice pair of black glasses, the manager could pass off as a hipster barista. "Eh? Who the hell are you?"

"Name's Chester, I'm staying over at the palace as a guest, and Alda Bloodsong informed me about the wonderful facilities you have here. I was wondering if I could take a peek at how your day goes here."

The dwarf snorted. He stared at the illusionist with a scrutinizing glare from his desk. "Really? Capital of weapon and armor production, and you come to look where our shit and piss is cleaned out?"

"Yes, basically. I'd really appreciate your expertise...Mr. Hillcarver." Chester stole a glance at the nameplate on the man's desk. The office was barren except for cabinets and a coat rack containing a suit similar to Phillip's along with a variety of other tools.

Hillcarver sighed. He seemed to weigh out the option of telling the 'esteemed' guest to screw off, but scrunched his face and got up.

"Come, I'll show you around."

And so the tour began. It was standard, and as Chester explore the inner parts of the factory, it possessed a striking resemblance to standard Earth factories. It solidified his theory that Alda's father was an otherworlder.

'Maybe he was a factory supervisor in his past life? Fitting.'

The floor below was the employee's dressing rooms. Many dwarves were stomping around, some covered in grime, others perfectly clean. Chester held his breath for as long as possible whenever he passed by a dwarf covered in sewer wastage. There were lockers and a shower where the employees washed themselves off. The illusionist whistled upon seeing a naked dwarf's package, seeing that they were well-endowed.

"We'll need a suit for you if you want to continue the tour...But we don't have any human-sized ones."

Hillcarver ended up using two dwarf suits to go over Chester's upper and lower body, before zipping them together tightly and securing them further with a cloth tape covered in a layer of glue; a medieval and barbaric version of duct tape.

"How do I get out?"

"We can free you later. For now, just zip the hood down until we enter the fourth floor."

It felt oddly claustrophobic inside the suit, but Chester didn't mind. He wasn't a person who minded getting down and dirty, but the thought of touching sludge which consisted of bodily fluids didn't appeal to him whatsoever.

The third floor housed several facilities, which Hillcarver explained were dedicated to testing the water quality and whether or not it required special treatment.

"See there? We use our very own compounds to detect whether the levels of toxicity inside the water are up to standard..."

Chester did his best to look focused and interested, but inside he was rolling his eyes and making the most obnoxious groaning noises possible. He fought to keep his eyes in an alert manner and made sure to ask questions to pretend as if he cared about the way the treatment worked. Hillcarver didn't seem to notice, although he occasionally asked whether the man was keeping track with all the complicated lingo he was throwing.

'Honestly, this is worse than that old man from the auction house.'

After the third-floor tour finished, they descended to the fourth floor, which was significantly deeper than the rest of the floors. Massive pipes and tunnels were overhead and going down into a massive pool where the city's sewage was coming from. There was a brief pause before the smell hit him.

"Oh my days, I'm gonna hurl!"

"I'd advise you to put on your hood."

Hillcarver had put his on prior to entering the floor. Meanwhile, Chester was dry-heaving as the smell of an entire kingdom's sewage was radiating down below. The human likened it to the odor of a dying animal, rotten eggs, soaked in vinegar and marinated in the summer heat for several hours.

'This is worse than that time I went to New Orleans! Oh god, what are these dwarves eating?'

The illusionist hastily put on his hood and held his breath for the entirety of the process. He panicked when the rudimentary zipper got stuck and he almost broke in frustration. Hillcarver seemed amused, even though his face was hardly visible through the screen which covered his face.

"Here's the mainline for the sewage. If you see around it, all the pipes eventually lead down here before they're carted off to the rest of our treatment facilities."

"Do you guys go through the tunnels here as well?"

He nodded to the human's question, pointing at a series of ladders leading down to where the smaller tunnels were. "We use those, but we have a dedicated building for when an entire squad goes down. Do you want to see it?"

Chester fought the urge to say no immediately. He almost wanted to quit the idea of robbing the Vault entirely if it entailed going inside the sewers. The constant flow of brown, murky sludge below did not help his determination. He wondered if there was truly a need to cause a potential ruckus here in a kingdom Damien was affiliated with. For a brief moment, he considered calling it off; until he remembered the way Arber Fistpig laughed at him so openly, humiliating him in front of Alda and the others.

"Yeah, sure! The tape's going to hold the suit together, right?"

Unlike the other floors, there weren't a lot of dwarves around the area. Four people, including Hillcarver and Chester, were the only ones on the fourth floor. Chester descended the ladder, taking care to maintain a foothold. Most of the structures were designed by dwarves, for dwarves, and this meant that the lankier human could skip several steps on the ladder without any problems. The illusionist's will was waning the closer they go to the sewage, and he fought back the bile forming in the back of his throat as the smell seeped through the suit.

'You're not touching anything, you're protected by the suit. Trust the suit.'

He landed himself at the platform and followed Hillcarver into one of the smaller tunnels, wading through sewer wastage. It was unpleasantly warm, making it slightly difficult to move in the knee-high liquid. For Hillcarver, he had less hesitation in his movements and walked through with ease, although his body was submerged at the hip. The bearded man had a lantern at his hip, attached to a belt around the suit. It provided them with ample lighting to see ahead of them.

"We have markers on the sewer grids to give our guys accurate locations. It'll say the intersection we're in if you see up there. It's in dwarvish, but you get the idea."

As Chester tilted his head, he could see a small yellow marking on top which had a subtle marking he couldn't properly identify. With the lantern, it was easy to see just where they were. He put it as another factor to help him see where he was going. Locating the palace through the sewer system was going to be a difficult task. Even though he never considered himself geographically dyslexic, the idea of mapping out the sewer system from underneath seemed extremely time-consuming even with his enhanced intelligence.

Hillcarver took a glass vial from his hip and filled it with sewage matter.

"Occasionally, there are issues with people disposing of substances where they shouldn't be; wanna-be alchemists, criminals trying to flush down their contraband. In those times, we collaborate with the military to find their location through the sewer system. Using the waterway we can analyze what route the suspect's hideout is in..."

The man prattled on as they went back upstairs. Chester kept his grip tight, ensuring that he couldn't trip and fall into the waste far below. Going to the second floor where the sanitization stations were, they trekked up a huge amount of mud up the steps back. It was far from clean. Hot water went over their bodies as their suits were rinsed off. He didn't see the need to wash, as the suits had done their job.

"Is there a reason why you use water? I mean, it'd be easier for you guys to just hire some water mages to run or purify this whole thing, no?"

"Which school did you go to? Because I'll use it as a warning to tell my future kids not to go." He barked out a condescending laugh, and Chester didn't respond, resisting the urge to trip the dwarf and watch him topple over like a bowling pin. He decided to internalize it and use the moment as fuel for his determination to rob the kingdom blind.

"Two hundred years ago, a study came out that showed water produced through mana held no nutritional value. So long-time use would have serious effects on the population as a whole. See where I'm going with this?"

The illusionist made an affirming noise and nodded his head. He was glad to know that mana-created water wasn't good in the long term but could still be used as a substitute in an emergency. He didn't appreciate the man's tone but the knowledge was valuable regardless.

After going up, Hillcarver handed off the vial to another worker. He explained that they had to make routine inspections at a minimum of once every twelve hours.

"Well, that's our facilities for you. At least, the one that I'm in charge of. If you want to see more, you'll have to ask the other building supervisors."

"Thanks...I'll see what I'm gonna do. Have a good night."

Chester left the factory without much of a thought. He needed more time to complete his plan, and he refused to add another accomplice to his plans despite the scale at which he was aiming. Unlike the humans in his world, many were less self-interested and harder to find dirt on.

'Well, I've dealt with worse odds. And that's without all my cool powers.'

He looked at his rapidly shifting hands, going from fish scales to a furry claw. The speed and variety of his Alter Self transformation had grown exponentially, and he couldn't wait and see what it would look like after going to the next stage.

With the two sewer suits in his hand, he headed straight to the palace to transform them into an outfit of his own.

'First step, sew these together and make my very own hazmat suit.'