Magic, according to the High Scholars of the Shattered Citadel, is a divine song woven into the very fabric of creation. It's a sublime, majestic force that connects mortals to the cosmos, filling the soul with celestial harmony.
According to me, magic is a temperamental, lazy, and profoundly petty pain in the ass.
I sat cross-legged on a warped oak stool in the back room of The Gilded Mortar, leaning over an ancient bronze cauldron that smelled strongly of burnt lavender and wet dog. In my right hand, I held a pair of rusted iron tweezers; in my left, a single, glowing azure scale harvested from a River Drake.
"If I drop this too fast," I muttered to the empty room, "the shop blows up, and I don't get paid. If I drop this too slow, the mixture cools, the spell fails, and I don't get paid. Truly, the divine cosmos has blessed me with an abundance of options."
I lowered the scale millimeter by millimeter. The blue liquid inside the cauldron began to hiss, rising in temperature until tiny violet sparks cracked against the rim. I held my breath. Sweat dripped off my chin, landing precisely on the bridge of my nose.
I dropped the scale.
A sharp pop echoed through the room, followed by a plume of thick magenta smoke that smelled faintly of boiled cabbage. The liquid settled into a calm, iridescent lavender.
"Nailed it," I sighed, wiping my brow with my sleeve. "Another masterpiece brought to you by sheer panic and low standards."
Before I could bottle the liquid, the heavy velvet curtain separating the back room from the storefront was violently yanked aside.
Master Oakhaven stood in the doorway. He's a dwarven alchemist whose beard is long enough to tuck into his belt and whose demeanor suggests he has never once experienced a pleasant thought in his seventy-four years on Earth.
"Roan!" Oakhaven bellowed, his voice sounding like two boulders grinding together. "Why does the air smell like dwarf-cabbage and broken dreams?"
"Because success has an aroma, Master," I said smoothly, waving a hand to disperse the pink smoke. "And today, success smells like fifty silver pieces. The Potion of Lesser Levitation is brewed, stable, and ready for whatever idiot decides to drink liquid magic instead of using stairs."
Oakhaven stomped over, peering into the cauldron with one bloodshot eye. He sniffed loudly, scowling. "It's too purple."
"It's lavender."
"It's purple," Oakhaven growled. "Lavender is for aristocrats and fancy street-performers. Cheap levitation potions should look like cloudy ditch-water so the customers think they're getting a real potion, not a cocktail."
"I'll be sure to add a scoop of actual dirt next time to preserve the authentic peasant aesthetic," I said, bowing mockingly. "Shall I start bottling, or would you like to critique the hue for another twenty minutes?"
Oakhaven snorted, tossing a small leather pouch onto my workbench. It clinked with a depressing lack of enthusiasm. "Your wages for the fortnight. Don't spend it all on cheap ale, boy."
I caught the pouch, weighed it in my palm, and frowned. "Master Oakhaven, this feels suspiciously like eight silver pieces. We agreed on twelve. And my name is Roan, not 'boy'. Though I suppose 'boy' has fewer syllables for you to struggle with."
"Eight silvers," Oakhaven barked. "Minus two for the River Drake scale you nearly ruined last Tuesday, and minus another two for the crack in my best crystal stir-rod."
"That rod was already cracked when you bought it from the smuggler behind the pig farm," I said, my voice flat. "And the Drake scale didn't ruin; it just reacted poorly to your cheap copper cauldron."
"My shop, my rules," Oakhaven grunted, turning back toward the storefront. "Clean up the mess, bottle the purple swill, and lock up. I'm going to the tavern."
"Try not to smile at anyone," I called after him. "You'll scare the horses."
The curtain fell shut. I stared at the pathetic handful of silver coins in my palm.
Welcome to the majestic realm of Oakhaven's Reach, I thought to myself, pocketing the coin. Where the mountains are grand, the ancient ruins hold untold horrors, and a talented hedge-mage can earn just enough money to comfortably starve to death.
The kingdom of Oakhaven's Reach was built upon the bones of an empire that had tried—and spectacularly failed—to harness the Aether-Streams, vast subterranean rivers of raw magical energy running beneath the continent. When the ancient empire collapsed in a brilliant display of hubris and fiery explosions three centuries ago, they left behind a continent riddled with magical anomalies, mutated wildlife, and forgotten vaults filled with glowing trash.
In the centuries since, magic had become tradecraft. It wasn't about grand wizards calling down lightning from the heavens anymore—mostly because the Citadel kept a tight monopoly on lightning, and anyone caught throwing unsanctioned fireballs was promptly executed or conscripted into the Border Guard. Magic was now a trade of small, annoying efficiencies. Levitation potions for cargo workers. Warming charms for winter cloaks. Minor illusions to make spoiled meat look palatable.
And I was at the absolute bottom of the food chain.
I had spent four years at the Citadel as a scholarship initiate before being quietly kicked out for what the High Archmage had called "an unpardonable lack of reverence for the Arcane Arts." I preferred to call it "pointing out that their ancient chanting rituals were just overly complicated ways to light a candle."
Now, at twenty-two, I was a glorified line-cook for magical elixirs, living in a rented room above a bakery that smelled exclusively of burnt crusts.
After bottling twenty small vials of the levitation potion, I wiped down the copper instruments, locked the heavy iron doors of the shop, and stepped out into the crisp evening air of Lower Oakhaven.
The city was built in tiered rings around a massive dormant volcano. The rich lived at the top, where the air was clean and the light-charms glowed with warm gold. The middle ring was for merchants and tradesmen. Lower Oakhaven, down at the base, was a chaotic mess of crooked wooden houses, muddy alleys, and atmospheric gloom, where the air smelled of sewage, cheap coal, and the ozone tang of leaking magic from the city sewers.
I pulled my battered wool cloak tighter around my shoulders and ducked my head, navigating the crowded streets. Street vendors screamed about fresh eel pies, pickpockets darted through the twilight, and a couple of lower-tier mercenaries were currently throwing each other through the window of a tavern down the block.
Just another Tuesday.
I took a shortcut down Weaver's Alley, a narrow, dark lane flanked by towering brick tenements. It was quiet here—usually a red flag in Lower Oakhaven, but I was tired, hungry, and in no mood to add ten minutes to my walk home.
I was about halfway down the alley when I heard it: a sharp metal-on-metal clack, followed by a muffled curse.
I stopped instantly. "Oh, great. A robbery. Just what my evening was missing."
I looked back toward the street I had just left. It was twenty yards away. I could just turn around, pretend I hadn't heard anything, and go home to my stale bread and cold tea.
Then I heard the second sound: the distinct, low humming vibration of an Aetheric Lock.
My eyes narrowed. Aetheric locks were expensive. The Citadel used them to seal away black-market artifacts, high-value tax records, or political prisoners. Nobody in Weaver's Alley should have had an Aetheric Lock, let alone one that was currently being picked.
Curiosity, as I well knew, was the leading cause of death among people who weren't rich enough to afford bodyguard guards. But my brain refused to cooperate with my survival instincts.
Stealthily, I stepped behind a stack of rotting wooden crates and peeked around the corner into a tiny dead-end alcove.
Two figures were crouched in front of a cellar grate. One was a massive, hulking man in full leather armor, holding a heavy iron club wrapped in barbed wire. The other was much smaller, wrapped in a dark, hooded cloak, hunched over a brass box that glowed with a faint, pulsing crimson light.
"Hurry up, Lyra," the big man growled in a deep whisper. "The Watch patrols this sector every hour."
"If you speak to me again, Jax, I will pick this lock with your ear cartilage," a sharp, feminine voice replied from beneath the hood. "This isn't a padlock from a butcher's shop. It's a tri-phasic rune-matrix. If I hit the wrong ward, we both turn into soup."
"Soup?" Jax grunted.
"The unpleasant, red kind," the woman muttered.
I leaned slightly closer. Tri-phasic rune-matrices were high-level Citadel security. What were two street-thieves doing with a Citadel vault-box in a damp alley?
None of your business, my common sense whispered. Walk away. Go eat bread.
On the other hand, my inner disaster-enthusiast countered, that box is worth more than this entire district.
"Got it," the girl named Lyra whispered.
A soft click echoed in the alley, followed by a hum that suddenly changed pitch, shifting from a low drone to a high-pitched, screeching whine.
"Uh," Jax said. "Is it supposed to scream?"
"No," Lyra said, her voice dropping all its bravado. "No, it is definitely not supposed to scream."
"Rune-overload!" I yelled before I could stop myself, stepping out from behind the crates. "Get away from it, you absolute morons!"
Both figures spun around instantly. Jax raised his barbed club, while Lyra drew a pair of uncomfortably long daggers.
"Who the hell are you?" Jax barked.
"I'm the guy telling you that in three seconds, that box is going to vaporize your torsos!" I shouted, pointing at the glowing red box, which was now vibrating so violently it was bouncing on the cobblestones. "The third ward has a reverse-polarity trap! You picked the mechanical tumbler, but you didn't ground the ambient magic!"
Lyra looked down at the box, then at me. "Can you disarm it?!"
"Of course I can't disarm it, it's about to blow!" I sprinted forward, grabbing the heavy iron lid of a nearby trash barrel. "Get down!"
I shoved Lyra and Jax backward, slammed the trash lid down over the box, and threw my entire body weight on top of it, channeling every drop of my own meager magical energy into my hands.
"Ground to stone, ground to stone, absorb you stupid useless spark..." I chanted furiously, my hands glowing a dim, sickly greenish-yellow.
The box exploded.
The force of the blast slammed through the iron lid like a battering ram. My arms went entirely numb, my teeth rattled in my skull, and I was thrown backward, skidding through the mud and landing flat on my back against the brick wall. The trash lid shot straight up into the air, landing fifty feet away with a clanging crash.
Silence settled over the alley, broken only by the smell of scorched metal and my quiet groans as I tried to remember how breathing worked.
"Ow," I wheezed, staring up at the night sky. "My ribs are now where my lungs used to be. Fantastic."
A shadow fell over me. Lyra stood looking down at me, her hood pushed back to reveal sharp features, bright violet eyes, and a streak of soot across her cheek. She didn't look like a common thief; her leather coat was finely tailored, and the daggers in her belt were forged from dark steel.
"You're alive," she said, sounding mildly surprised.
"A tragic oversight on the universe's part, I assure you," I croaked, slowly pushing myself up into a sitting position. I checked my arms. They were still attached, though covered in black soot. "You're welcome, by the way. I saved your lives. Feel free to shower me with gratitude, or better yet, gold."
Jax stomped over, looking down at the smoking crater where the box had been. In the center of the scorched stone sat the box's contents: a single, heavy silver amulet set with a dark, unreflective black stone that seemed to swallow the light around it.
"It survived," Jax grunted, reaching down to grab it.
"Touch that with your bare hands and I will laugh while your fingers turn into dust," I warned, pulling myself to my feet and leaning heavily against the wall. "That's an Obsidian-Bound Relic. You touch it with raw skin, it leeches your life essence to charge its inner core."
Jax froze, pulling his hand back as if he had touched fire. He looked at me with newfound suspicion. "How do you know that?"
"I read books," I said, wiping a mixture of soot and sweat from my face. "It's a revolutionary activity. You should try it sometime. It helps prevent accidental suicide via magical artifacts."
Lyra stepped closer to me, her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. "You used a grounding charm. Raw, unstructured, dirty green magic. You aren't a Citadel mage."
"I was," I said, dusting off my cloak, which now had three new burn holes in it. "Past tense. We had a disagreement over my philosophy regarding their ridiculous rules and their insistence that I respect people dumber than me."
"So you're a rogue," Lyra said.
"I prefer 'frugal scholar'," I corrected. "Now, considering I just saved you two from becoming wall decor, I think it's only fair you tell me why you're stealing dark magic relics in a sewage-filled alleyway."
Lyra reached into her pouch, pulled out a thick cloth woven with silver thread, and carefully wrapped the amulet without touching it directly. She tucked it away before looking back at me.
"We weren't stealing it," she said smoothly. "We were retrieving it. It was stolen from our employer three days ago."
"Right. And your employer just happens to store priceless dark artifacts in cellar grates in Lower Oakhaven," I scoffed. "Look, lady, I don't care about your life story or your shady mob boss. I just want compensation for my cloak. It was ugly, but it was my only one."
Lyra paused, looking me up and down. "What's your name, wizard?"
"Roan. And I'm an alchemist-slash-hedge-mage, not a wizard. Wizards have long hats and no sense of humor."
"Well, Roan," Lyra said, a faint, dangerous smile touching her lips. "You just opened a box protected by a Citadel-grade ward using nothing but a trash lid and a basic grounding spell. That either makes you brilliant, or terrifyingly stupid."
"Why can't I be both?" I asked. "I contain multitudes."
"My employer is paying ten thousand gold pieces for the translation of the runes engraved inside that amulet's casing," Lyra continued, ignoring my comment. "And the last scholar we hired had his brain melted by the first line of text."
I blinked. "Ten thousand gold?"
"Ten. Thousand," Jax confirmed gruffly.
I stayed silent for a long moment. I thought about my eight silver pieces. I thought about Master Oakhaven's sour face. I thought about the stale bread currently waiting for me in my damp room above the bakery.
"I should warn you," I said slowly, "I am deeply lazy, highly cynical, and if things get dangerous, I will run away and leave you both to die."
Lyra's smile widened. "Sounds like a deal. Follow us."
I looked at the scorched hole in the alley floor, then at the two armed criminals, and finally at my own ruined sleeves.
"If I die tonight," I whispered to myself as I stepped into line behind them, "I am going to haunt myself for being such an idiot."