“I can’t believe you got to meet the king,” Dean Artjom said. Hugo had just given him a redacted version of his trip up to Durban.

“I know, I was so nervous. Even with new clothes covered in runes, I still felt underdressed,” Hugo laughed. He took a sip of the tea and said, “The one thing I keep coming back to is what he said about the grand ritual. The ancients built the eight rituals so they could fix the problems of the purple plague. If only we could trust that the grand ritual would work as planned. Things would be better.”

Dean Artjom shook his head, “Even if nothing went wrong with the ritual like the purple plague, it would still cause problems. Societal and economic upheaval, it would be worse than a war."

“Yeah, that’s what the king said,” Hugo nodded. Inwardly he was sad. He had been feeling out the dean to see if he could trust him with the truth. Evidently not. Dean Artjom was part of the upper class, he didn’t understand what it was like for the rest of the citizens. The dean wasn’t willing to risk changing things up because he already had it good.

Hugo set down his cup and said, “By the way. Do you happen to know where Mia is? I wanted to say hi while I was here, but I couldn’t find her.”

“You couldn’t find her because she isn’t here,” the dean said.

“What do you mean, she isn’t here?” Hugo said.

“I mean she left,” Dean Artjom said with a shrug, “She graduated early. She is a brilliant runist and completed her capstone project. The runist sage said her work was nothing short of genius. He gave her a referral to a runic temple in Pretoria. I didn’t understand her project myself, I was just impressed with how much mithril she had used. I don’t know how she could afford it. I guess time traveling pays, right?”

Hugo chuckled weakly. He was the one that had given her that much mithril before he left. This was his fault. He got the temple’s address from the dean and sent her a letter, asking to meet up. Hopefully she could help him, but he needed to come up with a backup plan.

While he was at the academy he went to go meet with Lenna. He was waiting outside her formation class when he saw Rebane, Oscar, and Lenna walking out together. Apparently they were friends this go around. It felt weird seeing that trio from the outside.

Lenna saw him standing there and said goodbye to the two boys. She walked up to him and said, “How did you know I was done already? Come on, it’s this way.”

Hugo followed her and said, “It’s ready? I wasn’t expecting you to be done with the armor for another month or two.”

“Nah, already done. Several sets in fact. Mia helped me with the runes before she left. I will have to hire someone else to finish the rest of the order for the sentinel captains,” Lenna said. They arrived at a small room and she unlocked it with a mana key.

“I’m impressed. You already have ten sets done and it’s still months before the heartbeat,” Hugo said and looked around the small room. Ten sets of cloth armor were laid out on one table, rolls of cloth and spools of metal on the other two tables. Two comfortable chairs sat in the middle of the room.

“I can’t take all of the credit. Dean Artjom helped me rank up and Mia helped with more than just the runes,” Lenna said. She gestured and said, “Go ahead, try a few of them on. Since you pre-paid, you get the first pick.”

Hugo tried on three of them before he found one that fit. His ersatz body was bigger than most. He was happy with the one he ended up with. It was a full tunic with half sleeves. The armor felt like canvas, but he knew it was good against magic, impacts, and most importantly, shimmer casters. “This is wonderful, thank you.”

“No, thank you. You funded this whole endeavor and convinced the dean and Mia to help. I couldn’t have done it without you,” Lenna said and plopped down into one of the chairs.

Hugo sat in the other one and said, “Nah, you are seriously awesome. You could have created these on your own, it just would have taken a little longer.”

She blushed and turned away. When she recovered she said, “If you didn’t know I was done with the armor, why did you come here?”

“Couple of things. I need to talk to your dad, and I need your help,” Hugo said.

“My help?” Lenna said.

“Yeah, I picked spider silk as an element. I can make ropes and sticky bombs just fine. I can’t seem to be able to fabricate cloth in any reasonable amount of time. Can you give me some advice?” Hugo said.

“I thought you were supposed to already know everything?” Lenna said.

Hugo laughed and said, “Far from it. I know some stuff, but not everything. Mia is the veteran, not me.”

She agreed to help teach him some of the tricks and tips for working with spider silk she had developed. They spent the next few hours discussing math. Cloth required a much more complicated formula than thread. Luckily for Hugo, he was experienced enough with fabricating that he actually understood it. He was able to fabricate gloves within minutes instead of the hours it took him when he was making the armor for Hili and James.

When they were done, Lenna wrote out a letter to her father. Hugo was going to use that introduction for his next stop, ensuring Paarl’s shimmer vein was spared.

Before he left Reval, he knew he had to set up a plan to save its shimmer vein. Plan A would be if Mia responds in time to come back and save the day. He didn’t know how likely that would be. So he needed to set up plan B.

He had been thinking about this on the train ride here. There were two main forces likely to help him out. The first was the shimmer corps. They were unlikely allies at first glance since they were law keepers and he would be asking them to break it. However, they were the ones with the most to lose from the loss of shimmer. Without it, their very existence was threatened. It seemed likely that they would help him out.

On the other hand, he didn’t know any of them. Since he was still unsure if some of them were working with the hedge mages, he hadn’t ever talked to anyone important in Reval’s shimmer corps leadership. The only shimmer corpsman he had a long conversation with was the man that administered the admissions test and he was a real stickler for the rules. It would be a real risk to talk to the shimmer corps baronet. His conversation could go either way.

The other option is one that he didn’t want to seriously consider. The fox gang. He knew them well from when he was one of them. He knew how the boss thought, and it was likely that he would be able to convince him to save the shimmer vein. As long as he paid the man enough.

He didn’t want to work with those scum. He didn’t want anything to do with them, they were a blight on society. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to compromise his morals enough to hire them for this.

Eventually, he decided to wait and see if Mia answered the letter. He would return to Reval in a few months and make his decision then. In the meantime, he took a train to the next city on his list.

...

Hugo stood at the window and looked out to the warehouse below. He was starting to wonder if he had gotten the wrong day. It was a memorable day, but the last time he had let it happen was years ago. He assumed that if he had gotten it right, the tiger gang would have stolen the Koppel family mana cores by now. It was supposed to be a dramatic daylight battle, and the sun was setting. He must have gotten the dates mixed up.

“I admit I am a trifle confused about the point of this whole exercise. Why the dramatic predictions if nothing happens? Not that I mind. I am happy to have a quiet afternoon at home. I can’t speak to how the shimmer knights must be feeling right now though,” Mr. Koppel said.

Hugo fought to keep a frown off his face. Lenna’s father, Mr. Koppel, was always a bit of an ass. Hugo was here to help the man out, to save him from his own bad choices. Why did he feel compelled to make snide remarks every ten minutes?

“It’s possible that they may have changed their plans, delayed the day of their heist. Regardless, I...” Hugo trailed off as he saw movement outside.

Behind the warehouse, on the opposite side as the road, there were a dozen nox creeping closer. They must have hopped the rear wall to the estate. Hugo hadn’t expected that, since the other side was a different mansion. It would have been easier to walk in from the street, instead of sneaking through two different estates. Regardless, they were here now.

“Signal your men, they are here,” Hugo said.

Mr. Koppel dashed to the window and swore, “I didn’t think anyone would come from that side. What if they get inside the warehouse?!”

“I literally came here to warn you about this exact situation,” Hugo deadpanned, “There was always a chance that they would get inside the warehouse.”

The man just continued to swear as he used a mirror to signal the trio of guards lounging around the front of the warehouse. Hugo walked to the next wall and signaled the shimmer knights waiting in the streets. They were wearing civilian clothes but their stiff posture made it clear they were anything but.

By the time the guards had rounded the warehouse and the knights had entered the estate, the tiger gang goons were at the back wall of the warehouse. The lead four goons fanned out and four short Nox sauntered right up to the wall. Something about their walk convinced Hugo that they were soulmarked. There wasn’t a door back there, but they didn’t let that stop them. One of them took a vial and threw it at the wall.

Hugo couldn’t see what happened from where he stood. He guessed that the vial was an acid some alchemist created, because the four of them disappeared from view, presumably walking into the warehouse.

“No, no, no. You have to stop them. They can’t get inside,” Mr. Koppel said.

“Looks like they already are inside,” Hugo said, “But yeah, I suppose I can help out a bit.”

He opened the window in front of him and leapt outside. They were on the second floor, but he didn’t bother to make steps down to the ground. A fifteen foot fall was nothing at his current rank. He was running towards the warehouse when the two sides saw each other.

The tiger gang lookouts attacked first. Two of them had hand crossbows and shot at the approaching guards. Both shots hit the lead guard in the chest and deflected off the armor he was wearing under his tunic. Hugo had fabricated sets of armor for each of the guards, knowing this would end in combat.

A beam of light speared out and hit one of the tiger gang members. It pierced his eye and he fell to the ground, lifeless. The other two lookouts ducked back behind the corner of the warehouse.

Hugo flinched back at the brutality. He had known one of the guards was a light mage. He had fought against him when he stole the cores last life. But no one had died that time around. Hugo hadn’t considered how the guards would act against known gang members.

A fully armored nox strode out from behind the corner. She must be one of the enforcers. The woman had short spears in each of her four hands. She twitched and each of the four spears shot forward. As the guards were flinching, Hugo threw up a barrier in front of them. The spears hit the barrier almost all at once. The barrier was cracked and shattered in less than a blink.

Two of the spears were stopped, one deflected, but the final spear was unimpeded. It hit the lead guard in the chest. The spear pierced his armor and sent him spinning to the ground. Hugo reevaluated the gang member. That woman must be a high ranked formation mage to have that much strength.

A glance her way showed that he was right, four new spears were already forming in her hands. The archery guard was only fifty feet away at that point, and he had stopped to aim when the blue barrier sprung up. He fired his arrow directly at her face.

Showing impressive reflexes, the formation mage dropped a spear and shot a mana dart at the approaching arrow. It was useless. The arrow was lead and ignored her mana dart. She had just enough time to look surprised before the arrow hit her face and killed her.

Hugo arrived then. There was already too much death, so he didn’t go on the attack. Instead, he rushed over to the downed guard and slid to his knees. The guard was foaming blood in his mouth. The spear must have hit a lung. This was actually good for him. If it had hit his heart, Hugo wouldn’t be able to help. He threw up a dome of mana around them to protect them while he worked.