Ranvir returned to the foreign world shortly, Frija in tow. Despite following the very guides he’d only so recently put down, Ranvir couldn’t stop agonizing over every potential event that could go wrong. He might return to find the entire city razed to the ground, or maybe a riot had run through it, or perhaps…

But no, the garden was just as quiet as when he’d left. No one even batted an eye at him. To Ranvir’s senses, this new world, with its strange construction, held even more mana than even Korfyi or Vednar.

In Korfyi, almost everyone had some lesser level of power, with the average total levels between ten and thirty. In Vednar fewer people had any power, but a far larger percentage reached the second-stage, putting it somewhere in the middle of Urityon, compared to Korfyi. Perhaps towards the end, depending on how well a braced did when going through those early levels.

Here, everyone had power, just like Korfyi, but they were stronger. Most people seemed to fall just short of a first-stage tethered. That said, the heights of power seemed much lower. When Ranvir’d gazed the lines, he’d only found evidence of two people who were the equivalent of a master and maybe two dozen second-stage equals.

Frija grasped his hand tightly as they moved out of the park. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and constantly tracking on every single person they passed. Ranvir could only imagine the thoughts traveling through her head as she witnessed these people. She might not recognize them as a mixture of animal and human, but as pet and human.

He’d barely had the thought before Frija gave voice to it. “What is happened to him?” she asked, pointing at a man who seemed half a cat. The pale tan fur almost radiant in the dawn light, his legs bend back on themselves in a position oddly reminiscent of Latresekt. The man had a slight hunch as he walked, as if he wanted to be down on all fours, but judging from his fingers, Ranvir doubted that would be all that comfortable. Frija whipped her head to look at her dad. “Did he eat his cat?”

Ranvir pursed his lips, looking down at his daughter’s wide eyes, her red hair wild and thick as it blew in the breeze. She wore her alarm on her sleeve, fearing for the man’s cat. Ranvir doubted it. Everyone looked different, but everyone had powers. Almost everyone had slightly different mana, even if a similar type, but only the ones who looked the same were exact matches.

“Don’t worry, firehearth,” Ranvir said. “He didn’t eat his cat. It’s part of his powers, maybe an Ability of his. It could be everyone in their family looks like that.”

“Oh,” Frija said, putting a hand to her chest in an odd mimicry of a grownup. “thank Nysea.”

Ranvir licked his lips, stifled a smile. “Do you want to see where I landed when I first went here?”

Frija nodded excitedly.

“There’s a lot of people, so you might not be able to see so well…” Ranvir tapped a finger on his chin as if in thought.

“I could ride on your shoulders, daddy!”

Ranvir grinned and held up a finger. “Just this once,” and just like that, Ranvir had made certain Frija couldn’t get lost from him in the crowd

The market was a lot less—busier wasn’t the right word, hectic fit better—than Ranvir remembered. He chalked his experience up to him landing in the middle of it, assaulted by noises and scents. He recognized now that most of those impressions came from the people and not animals at the market.

When Ranvir’d grown up, he’d learned that purchasing or selling anything usually took hours and happened in the comfort of either part’s living room. Even when caravans passed through, it was largely a cozy affair. Only the children, excited by the newness of events, approached negotiations with any anxious energy.

Then, as Ranvir’d grown older, he’d seen the markets in Legea. These were in a much larger city than any he’d been to and the goals of the salespeople were no longer to make a few quality sales or buy a few good products. Their most important measurement was quantity, their goals was to attract as many customers as possible and their markets felt like it. Smaller stands, stacked high with produce and wares, yelling and crying for customers’ attention.

This place fit into neither category. At first, he’d assumed all the yelling he heard was from people trying to attract customers, but he soon realized they were only yelling at people already at negotiations. Ranvir stayed in one place for long enough to realize that these negotiations weren’t brief affairs and they didn’t end quickly. There were lots of insults thrown about, something he at first assumed would start a fight but only seemed to encourage the other party.

Making his way through, Ranvir carefully noted whenever he saw a flash of metal or items changing hands. It quickly became obvious that these people bartered with coins, even if they weren’t in the shape of a disk. A sort of brown or reddish metal was used the most likely copper or bronze.

That was good since Ranvir’d only brought along a small selection of metals. A bit of very expensive silver and a little more in the more commonly usable metals like copper and iron. Just enough that he thought perhaps he could sell for enough to buy a room somewhere.

Stopping in front of a booth that sold metal wares, Ranvir cleared his throat. Frija gasped from on top of his head, grabbing two handfuls of his hair as he leaned forward slightly. She giggled as the man, brawny with a physique as wide as he was tall. The man was hairy enough that Ranvir wouldn’t hesitate to call the black carpet on his bared arms for fur.

“What can I do for you?” The man mumbled through his beard. He startled slightly as he obviously sensed the translation stone working.

“I saw your work,” Ranvir said, rolling up the sleeves on his arms, “and I thought perhaps you might be interested in buying something from me.”

The man grumbled from underneath his beard, a low, almost familiar growl. “What are you thinking of selling?”

“A few of these,” Ranvir grabbed a handful of the metals from his purse, revealing a small chunk of silver and some larger pieces of copper and iron.

The man picked up the silver chunk first. It seemed even here in this strange land that silver held value. Ranvir’d been startled when he first learned how cheap well-worked iron was in Korfyi compared to Vednar, but either place would pay well for silver and gold. It would seem that the trend held true for this place as well.

The man put down the precious metal and picked up the other pieces, putting them down quickly. He grunted to himself a few times. “I’ll give you ten coats for the silver and three for copper and iron.”

Ranvir stared down at the metals. He had no clue what a coat was worth. Glancing back at the man, blacksmith if the scars on his forearms were anything to go by, before grabbing his items and stuffing them back in the purse. He simply didn’t know enough to determine if it was a goo—

“Fifteen coats for the silver and three for the copper and iron each.”

Ranvir stopped, returning his items to the table. Then he looked back at the man. “Fifty coats for the silver and you can have the rest if you give me that!” Frija exclaimed, obviously bored with waiting.

“Deal,” the blacksmith said immediately, white teeth showing through deep black curly hair.

“If you’ll add some stories to the bargain,” Ranvir said. He knew from how quickly the man agreed to the deal that it was fairly bad still, but he needed the information as much. Perhaps a little goodwill would get Ranvir farther in this case than bargaining for every coin he could get.

The man grinned, his breath coming out in a gray metallic fog that hovered before him. It shimmered like flakes of metal were suspended in it. Ranvir hesitated a moment as he realized the man was waiting for him as well. He’d sensed other people using their mana, but it was only now that he realized they weren’t using it for convenience but to seal deals.

“Give me a moment,” Ranvir muttered, shutting his eyes. Gazing the lines, Ranvir forced the ambient mana to realize before his senses. Already, the blacksmith’s working was disappearing into the reluctant fog that seemed to cloud this plane’s mana, as well as the hundreds of people passing through the market.

Ranvir hunted through the lines. It took him longer than it would’ve on Korfyi to find the man’s working, which wasn’t even the hard part. It took an awkwardly long time for Ranvir to break down how the blacksmith created the fog.

A connection of intent, designed to reveal both parties to each other. It wasn’t a permanent effect, but it allowed two native presences to intermingle within the fog. Both parties could then get a proper feel for the other through their native presence. Ranvir presumed someone skilled at reading these impressions could gauge the power of the other person, but also the intentions.

Bringing forth a ball of space mana, Ranvir summoned it to his mouth and imposed upon it the idea required before breathing it out into his Veil. The blacksmith, resting his head in a hand long enough to cup it, jerked as Ranvir’s cloud enveloped most of the table.

Sparks of smugness and greed, combined with a slight tinge of guilt for using the child to gain the upper hand.

As the two forces faded, Ranvir’s head cleared, and he met the blacksmith’s pale face, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around. Inside, Latresekt was bellowing with laughter. Ranvir had to roll his eyes as the man tried to stagger backwards and almost fell on his stool.

The young father caught him in a cage of space before he could hurt himself. “Relax, that’s a parasite infecting me,” Ranvir said calmly, going around the booth to help the man up. “It is trapped for now.”