After leaving Threads, Emily and Juliana make their way back to the station and onto arain. This time the train carries them deep into the eastern district of the city, into an area full of smokestacks and rge industrial buildings. When they leave the train again, they travel down aor to the ground floor and make their way out onto the dark streets.
Walking along hand in hand, Emily looks up at the mess of winding walkways above, partially blog the daylight and giving the streets an eerie feel with the wisps of ethereal fog drifting around her feet.
“It really is weird,” Emily starts, drawing Juliana’s attention. “sidering how dark and secluded these streets feel, they are far too . It makes everything feel unnatural.”
“Yeah, the lower levels are quite unpleasant. It’s why they’re cheaper,” Juliana agrees, her ent gaining them a few gnces from passers-by.
Upon notig the gazes, Emily properly observes the people around them. The street they are on is a lot quieter than anywhere else Emily has seen iy so far. Only a few dozen people be seen at once, and most of them are moving around quickly with hooded cloaks cealing their forms. Gng down the side streets they pass, she sees several hunched fathered, watg the people passing from the safety of the shadows.
“Are you sure you know where yoing?” Emily asks as she notices a few people scurry off into side alleys at the sight of them. “This area reminds me of home, and that’s not a good thing.”
“I’m not certain. As I said, I haven’t e here before, but I know there are some maery shops around here somewhere,” Juliana answers uainly, not seeming to notice the temosphere.
“I guess we only look around then.” Emily pulls Juliana closer to her and walks on at full alert.
Following the twisting road for a short while longer, Emily notices the people around them slowly fade away as they enter a stretch of darker road, until they are the only ones left on the main street. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she stops dead iracks.
“Well shit, ’t say I didn’t expect this,” Emily mutters.
Juliana looks at her, fused, for a sed, but before she question her, a dozen people appear from the side alleys and surround them. Emily feels Juliana start to shake slightly and squeezes her hand, turning to give her a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with this quickly.”
Handing Juliana her bag, Emily releases her hand and steps forward to front the group. The entire group are wearing dirty and ts. All of them appear gaunt and pale, several of them sp bloodshot eyes, their sneers revealing rottih. A man in the tre of the group, presumably the leader, steps forward and pulls a small flip knife from his pocket.
“Let’s make this easy, girls. Give us your fancy clothes and , then we’ll let you go,” he jeers while brandishing his bde.
“I’ll make it easier,” Emily says with a cold look in her eyes. “Get the fuck out of my fad I’ll let you live.”
The man and his ies break out in ugly ughter.
“You hear that, boys? Little ss thinks she’s scary!” the leader cries out, looking over his group.
The moment the man looks away, Emily springs forward, quickly closing the gap between them. He flinches as she approaches, caught off guard and raising his bde in an attempt to react, but he’s a moment too te. Leaning to the side of his outstretched arm, Emily twists and delivers a strong elbow to his chest. The man staggers back as Emily grabs his wrist and twists it, f him to drop his knife. Catg as it falls, she swiftly jams the knife down into the man’s thigh before pulling it out and stepping back as he falls to his knees.
Emily reaches out and grabs the man’s hair, flipping the knife and holding it to his throat as she looks up. She slowly makes eye tact with each of the man’s ies before her, while carefully keeping her body between Juliana and her victim. Seeing the fear in their eyes, Emily s the knife on the man’s shirt then drops him and flips the knife in.
“Now get out of my sight,” she growls before turning around.
The group scurries to leave, making a run for it the moment Emily turns. The few closest ruo grab the colpsed man and pull him away while whispering frantically.
“The bitch is crazy man! Look what she did to Danny,”
“Do you wan us killed man? Shut up!”
Emily ighem pletely, walking up to Juliana with a proud smirk that drops as soon as she sees Juliana’s fearful face.
Shit, did I go too far? Is she scared of me?
As she steps closer, Juliana doesn’t react, so she gently reaches out to take her hand. Emily feels her still shaking and silently squeezes her hand to reassure her as she guides her dowreet. After moving a few hundred metres, they turn onto a reet with slightly more sunlight passing through the overhead gangways.
Emily turns to face Juliana and pulls the trembling girl into a hug. She silently strokes her hair while waiting for her to calm down. After a couple of minutes, Juliana’s quaking stops, and she pulls away to properly face Emily.
“D- Did you kill him?” she asks with a ed quiver in her voice.
“No,” Emily reassures her with a smile. “I didn’t puncture anything vital, so he’ll be fine if they stop the bleeding. He’ll probably think twice about ambushing young girls iure though.”
Juliana smiles slightly at her ent, visibly calmer than before.
“Let’s go, I think I see some workshops further dowreet,” Emily says while lightly pulling Juliana into motion again.
They walk dowreet in silence for a couple of minutes before Juliana nervously asks a question.
“Did you o be that violent?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Emily says with a sigh. “When dealing with people like that, if you try and talk your way out, you’ll just rile them up more. The most effective method to force them to back off is a show of brutality.”
“I see,” Juliana responds, obviously disappointed.
A few mier, they ce upon a building with an open shuttered front and a rge sign above saying ‘Maeworks’.
“This looks hopeful!” Emily ents while walking closer to get a good look into the shop.
She sees rge piles of metal sheets and rods scattered haphazardly throughout the shop floor. Lining the walls are an assortment of tools and maes, some she reizes and most she doesn’t. In the tre of the room is a rge metal structure holding up a hulking smooth body of metal with a set of s and ptforms.
The loud grinding screeetal oal be heard ing from uhe structure, and as Emily ehe shop as closer, she see a person’s legs stig out from u. She releases Juliana’s hand, leaving her gawking at the maes c every surface, and approaches the person lying on the floor.
“Excuse me,” she calls, waiting for a response.
After a few moments and no ge, she calls again, shouting this time: “Excuse me!”
The grinding ops and the person on the floor shuffles around for a few seds before quickly sliding out from uhe metal structure. The man that’s revealed is a young-looking guy with short bck hair and a scruffy beard full of metal filings. Seeing Emily, he raises a brow and stands up off the metal sled he was lying on.
“Wele to Maeworks. Haven’t seen you around here before. The name’s Ed, how I help?” he says while wiping oil off his hands with a dirty rag.
“Hey, I’m Emily,” she says, shaking the hand he presents before answering unsurely. “I’m not sure if this is the right pce for it, but I’m looking to get some tools and materials for making maes.”
“Sure, I get you anything you need,” he says with a fident grin. “I assume you’re buying this for yourself, right? You got much experieh metalwork?”
“A fair amount. I apprenticed with a aker then started making a lot er things on my own after.”
“Cool, how big are you looking to go with your setup? Full workshop, or no?”
“Not quite, I don’t have enough room for a full workshop at the moment. I only o be able to make things up to a metre or so in size, with more of a focus oail work for now.”
“I see, in that case, I have a few suggestions.”
Ed proceeds to guide Emily around the room, pointing out and expining several different maes to her and Juliana, who joins them, having bee bored looking around cluelessly. Emily siders all the given options and creates a mental shortlist of her purchases as they go. By the end of their trip around the room, she has half a dozen maes of varying sizes, and twice as many tools, in mind to buy for her dorm, along with a rge number of different materials and pre-maed parts.
When they e to a stop ba the tre of the shop, Emily lists off the items she’s decided to buy and waits for Ed to add up the prices.
“That will e out to a total of three gold and forty-two silver. Where would you like them delivered? You take some of the smaller stuff now, but the rger maes will be close to impossible to move on your own,” Ed says with an amused grin as he sees Emily’s look of shock at his ent.
“Fuck, I totally fot about actually getting it to the dorms. we eveuff delivered to The Dome?” Emily asks Juliana in a slight panic, having bee too caught up in the excitement of having the moo buy tools instead of making them.
“Hehe, yeah, we ,” Juliana giggles at Emily before turning to Ed. “If you give me a piece of paper, I’ll write down the address of the delivery building.”
“Sure, give me a moment,” he says walking off into a side room.
Juliana turns to Emily while he’s gone and tio expin.
“Fe items, you have to get them delivered to the delivery building along with your name and dorm hen as long as there is free spa your dorm, they will teleport the items in for a small point charge. How else do you think I got my dresser into my room?”
Emily nods as she remembers the rge, ornate dressing table set up in Juliana’s dorm room.
“I’d guess it will be around fifteen points if we take everything small enough to carry with us now,” Juliana adds with a thoughtful tone.
“Thank Goddess, I thought I’d have to work out how to lug this stuff onto a train for a sed.”
Emily breathes a sigh of relief at both the ease of receiviools, and Juliana treating her normally after her shock earlier. A few moments ter, Ed returns and Juliana notes down an address along with Emily’s full name and dorm number. Emily quickly memorises the address over her shoulder, just in case she needs me deliveries iure.
Emily then pays for her purchases, handing over four of her shiny golden s and receiving fifty-eight silver ones as ge. Then, with a slight pain in her heart at the rapid redu in her newfouh, she and Juliana leave the shop, bidding Ed goodbye and promising to return if they need anything else mae reted.
They make their way through the dark streets again, with Emily on high alert and stig as close to Juliana as their rge bags of tools will allow. Luckily, they make it back to the train station and onto a train back towards The Dome without issue. Sitting opposite each other in a closed-off train booth again, Juliana frowns at Emily. Notig her gaze, Emily raises an eyebrow and waits for her to speak.
“It’s just…” she sighs and looks dowedly before tinuing. “Thanks for earlier. If you weren’t there I-“
When Juliana cuts off, and starts to shake again, Emily stands and moves onto the seat beside her. She pces an arm around her friend and pulls her in to lean against her, where she rest her head on Emily’s shoulder.
“Hey, you wouldn’t have been there if you weren’t helpi’s only natural that I protect you,” she reassures Juliana while gently stroking her hair. “It may not be much, but I promise that whenever I’m with you, I at least won’t let you get stabbed in some random back alley.”
I’ll even turn back time if I have to.
“Though, I ’t promise that you won’t get your ear talked off about metalw tools in some random mae shop,” she adds afterwards, drawing a small chuckle from Juliana.
“Thanks, Emi,” Juliana quietly whispers a bullet into Emily’s heart before rexing into silence for the rest of the train journey, leaving Emily’s head a raging in a violent storm of emotions.
