The four barriers he had solidified created an open topped room and he slammed it onto the road in front of him. The hedge mage was trapped inside. She was also protected from the rocks the teenagers were throwing. Both sides of the conflict looked to him in fear.

“What’s all this about? I know hedgies aren’t allowed to practice, but kids don’t typically take the law into their own hands,” Hugo said, facing the teenagers.

“We aren’t kids...” one of them said.

His friend elbowed him and said, “Madam Mage, please ignore my friend. We don’t care much about the hedge mages, except when they try to sell drugs. We don’t want that stuff in our neighborhood. We ain’t no blood strix. We care about the neighborhood.”

Hugo glanced over to the hedge mage. She just looked at the ground. He nodded at the kids and said, “Alright. I will take care of this. Feel free to head back home.”

One of them seemed that he wanted to argue, but his friends grabbed his arms and dragged him away. Hugo turned towards the hedge mage and said, “What’s your name, drug dealer?”

“Lilly, my lady. Please don’t turn me in,” she said and fell to her knees, “The corpies kill us, you know. I don’t deserve to die just for selling something people want to buy.”

“Drugs are a poison on society. They hurt the addicts, they take money from their families, and violence and death always follow. What makes you think you deserve to live?” Hugo said.

“Please, please. I’m just following orders. They promised no one would be hurt today. We are trying to save everyone from the nox, and we have to make money somehow,” she said.

Just following orders. The refrain of those that have committed atrocities throughout history. Hugo knew from personal experience that drugs hurt people and selling them wasn’t justifiable.

“Oh, alright then,” Hugo said and recycled the barriers, “If you are just trying to make money, I can help out. What kind of drugs are you selling today Lily?” Hugo smiled and took out a few silver. Nothing he did this time would matter, including the possibility of getting addicted. It was time to see what all the fuss was about.

She hesitantly stood back up and said, “I won’t sell around here again, I promise.”

“That’s great, but I really want to buy some drugs. What ya got?” Hugo said. This moment brought him back to a time in grade school. His teachers told him to just say no to drugs. No one ever offered young Hugo drugs. Even in the narrows, no one was trying to get kids hooked on drugs; they couldn’t afford it. It was kind of funny that even as an adult, he was having problems buying drugs from an actual drug dealer.

Lily took some more convincing, but eventually she brought out a few options for Hugo, “I have blue silk, most people like that one. It’s a long high with hallucinations. I have dandelion if you want a more mellow experience. And if you are looking for something intense, I have ravim. That one’s not for newbies though.”

“I’ll take some. Let’s say three doses of each, sound good?” Hugo said affably.

She hesitated, reaching for the money and then pulling back, “It’s normally seven silver for that much. I mean it’s plenty today, I don’t want to ask for more...”

“Nonsense. I can pay full price,” Hugo said and pulled out eight silver, “I’ll even throw in an extra silver so you can be my favorite dealer. You can come find me for refills, alright? Alright,” Hugo said. He wasn’t sure if he would want refills but he did want to talk to her again. He planned on discussing hedge mage organization and everything with her after he had gotten bored of taking drugs.

Hugo took the bags of drugs and walked off. He hadn’t been planning on getting high today. It was a happy little accident he was glad to take advantage of. He headed back to his room in the hotel.

The first one he tried out was the dandelion. While he waited for it to kick in, he started crafting himself a set of armor. He wanted a full suit of the best stuff he could make if he was going to go hunting later. Dandelion was supposed to mellow you out and make time float by. It didn’t do any of that. He felt slightly less anxious, but he wasn’t sure if that was the effect of the drugs or just that he didn’t have any stresses in his life right now.

Five hours later, he had a single greave made. Maybe the dandelion did something after all. He threw away the rest of it. He didn’t want time to just slip away like that, particularly since it hadn’t been all that fun.

After a larger than normal steak dinner, Hugo got out the blue silk. This one required a bit of preparation first. He ordered a super hot tea and slowly dunked his bag in. He didn’t leave it to seep for very long since this was his first time. Then he drank the full glass.

...

Hugo woke up and groaned, then rolled over in bed. He poked his head up to double check. Thankfully he was still in his own hotel room. His clothes were nowhere to be found and there was writing all over his arms, but at least he was alone in a safe place.

“Can I leave now, madam?” a small voice said.

Jerking his head up was so painful it made stars appear. Once he was able to focus, he saw the human attendant assigned to him. Aria was standing there wearing bedsheets and holding a stack of papers.

“What are you doing there, Aria?” Hugo groaned. It was too early for this weirdness.

“You asked me to stand guard and hold the sacred writings you created. The Acomarians would be mad if they touched the ground,” Aria said in a long-suffering voice.

“I’m so sorry Aria, put them on the table. You can go. I will think of an appropriate tip when I am sober again,” Hugo said and pulled a sheet over to cover himself. He didn’t look up as she left.

Over the next half hour, memories of the previous night slowly returned. It had started out nice, everything had a pleasant glow about it. It was like everything was magical and he had his mana vision on. He went down to the hotel restaurant to eat in an excellent mood.

Something ... happened and then he was being escorted up to his room by Aria. Then the Acomarians appeared to him and gave him some visions. It felt so real at the time.

Apparently he tasked Aria with helping him record his hallucinations. He got up and looked at the papers on the table. The table had writing all over it as well. He had expected scribbles and insane ramblings, but everything was neat and well ordered.

Hugo shook his head. He didn’t want to deal with his drug induced ramblings. He went back to bed and slept until lunch. That evening he got dressed up again and walked to the concert hall. It was one of those things he had always wanted to do, but never had the time or money. Tonight they were putting on a production of Colossal. It was a magic enhanced play about a ship that sank fifty years ago.

Snacking on puffed corn, Hugo felt like he was transported into the past. The enormous ship felt real. The bit about the ship being unsinkable was a bit funny. The true genius of the play was how they treated the pauper girl that caught the eye of the dashing royal man. Hugo felt himself blushing when she drew him naked. The scene at the end where the ship sank and the two of them slipped away from each other was heartrending.

By the end of the play, Hugo was crying. He overheard a few nearby patrons making fun of him for it. They called him a tear slicked bumpkin. Apparently he was supposed to pretend to be unmoved. He was fairly sure that a ritual was involved in his emotional state, so he didn’t know why they were so mean. The tears weren’t his fault. He decided not to go back.

The next morning, Hugo decided to clean up the mess from his hallucinations. He leafed through the papers curious about what his addled brain had come up with.

The largest paper on the table was a design for a mechanical bird. Hugo was briefly impressed until he realized that the wing gears wouldn’t turn. It was a beautiful piece of art, but not a practical design. The rest of the papers were more of the same. One spoke of a method for bottled lightning, but he couldn’t think of a practical purpose for that. Another was an improvement on the pulse note system, but needed mana cores to function. The most impractical was a slug thrower that used magnets and a flux capacitor. He laughed when he saw the design on the last paper. It was a crossbow with folded leaves.

Instead of the standard T shaped crossbow, this design had the crossbow leaves tucked up against the stock. It looked like a bird diving. Idle curiosity had him trying to figure out exactly why it wouldn’t work. It used the same geared design as the crossbow he had learned about in Ettel. The loading and loosing mechanisms were nonstandard, but seemed like they might work. In fact, the whole thing seemed like it might work. The tiny telescope on top might be overly optimistic about its capabilities, but it would probably fire bolts.

Hugo decided to make this his project for the day. He didn’t have anything else to do today, so he might as well work on a fun project. He made diagrams and calculated out the parts needed for this tucked wings crossbow. After he cleaned up the room and himself, he continued his work. The ingenuous design made it easy to fabricate parts one at a time so he didn’t have to empty his mana pool all at once.

By the end of the day, Hugo had a weapon ready to test, and a growling stomach. He shouldered the crossbow and tucked away the diagrams in his vest. He left the hotel and wandered towards the city walls. Along the way, he bought several street food dishes. The fried breadsticks were good, but kind of dry. He didn’t finish the cepelinai. The potato dumplings were tasty, and the meat inside was scrumptious, but the outside was too slimy. The cabbage rolls were a new favorite. He had to ask the vendor to repeat the name several times before Hugo was able to say balandeliai correctly. It would be worth it when he ordered them at a restaurant.

Thankfully, the sentinels up on the wall around Tembisa weren’t as strict as the ones in Paarl. They let him test out his new crossbow as long as he had a barrier mage watch over him as he shot. Hugo could have protected himself, but he didn’t mind having another perspective for the weapons test.

Loading up one of his standard mithril bolts, Hugo pointed the first shot out over the wall and into the distance. Loosing the bolt made a loud twang and crossbow vibrated. Hugo frowned. That sound meant that there was lost energy in the transfer. The bolt flew about four hundred yards.

“That’s pretty good for a weird looking crossbow,” the human barrier sentinel said.

“Yeah, but I think I can do better,” Hugo said.

He fabricated a longer and heavier bolt with larger fletchings. This time when he loosed the bolt the crossbow was much quieter. Hugo nodded to himself. His drug induced design had just needed a different sized bolt to operate its best.

“By the gods,” the barrier sentinel said, “That must have been nine hundred yards. That’s as far as our ballista can shoot. Is it inscribed for distance or something?”

“Nope, no runes at all. Just pure talent,” Hugo smiled. He decided to show off. He used up almost all of his remaining mana to fabricate four more larger bolts and loaded them into the magazine. He carefully sighted a tree about half a mile away and shot all four bolts at it. The quick reloading handle meant that all four bolts were in the air before the first one hit.

Squinting his eyes, Hugo could see three of the bolts hit the tree. The fourth must have missed.

“Girl, where did you get that crossbow? I need me one of those,” the barrier mage said. His hands were twitching towards it.

“Made it myself, formations mage, you know?” Hugo said casually. He was happy the sentinel had been impressed.

“Could I buy it off you? You can just make another, right?” he eagerly said.

“Um, sure. How about two platinum?” Hugo said.

The sentinel rubbed his bracers, “I can’t quite afford that right now.”

Hugo nodded. He hadn’t really felt like selling it anyway which is why he quoted such a high price.

“My cousin might be able to afford it though. He is a formations mage too. Bet he would pay that much just to get a look at it. As long as you don’t mind him cribbing off the design that is,” the barrier sentinel said.

“My name is Lina, what was your name again?”

“Thao. Nice to meet you Lina.”

Hugo pulled out the diagrams he had used to create his crossbow and said, “Thao, glad to meet you too. Do you think the instructions would help seal the deal?”

“Most definitely,” Thao said with a huge smile.

Thao had insisted that they go see his cousin right away. He acted like Hugo would disappear if he let him out of his sight. Hugo was happy to go along since he didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day. No more drugs for him. At least not for a little while.

Hugo was slightly worried about heading out without enough mana to protect himself. But he was being escorted by a barrier sentinel, he would be fine.