“Nineteen, twenty,” Soleiman sat back in his chair, sighing as he rose from the terribly hunched-over posture he had adopted while counting their pay. “Twenty in this one too.”

  “Wow.” Pallas ran a hand through her hair as Soleiman plopped the tinkling bag of coins onto the table next to several other bags of coins the Head Master of Shirobanegawa had paid them with. “He must’ve really wanted that information then, huh?”

  “Or, we just did a great job,” Soleiman began scooping the pile of coin bags, pushing them off the table and into a larger rucksack. “Either way, we’re a lot freer now than we were last time we stayed in this inn.”

  “We stayed at the other one, no?” Rumi asked, methodically folding a large pile of freshly cleaned garments into a neater stack. “The cheapest one?”

  “Right, yeah,” Soleiman corrected himself. “The one Isami paid for.”

  “What an investment on her part,” Pallas laughed slightly. “On our part too, actually.”

  “We need to start thinking about what we can spend this on,” Soleiman said, hauling the bag to try and tie it shut. “Like…”

  “May we visit a Tinkerer?”

  The two of them turned to see Qingxi trying to arrange her belongings into a small bag the Head Master had given them.

  “To see if we can get rid of the serpent’s eyes,” she added. “The last two times we were separated, so it wasn’t much of an issue. But I don’t like relying on either isolation or low visibility weather to reliably use one of our stronger assets.”

  “I mean, yeah, of course,” Soleiman said, nodding with Pallas. “We’d have to try and find a Tinkerer first, though. So we’d have to find somebody to ask first. Like…”

  There came a light tapping on the door, followed by a familiar voice.

  “Hello!”

  “Right on cue,” Qingxi hummed.

  Pallas slipped forward, opening the door to see none other than the short-haired Kitsunite girl known as the Heir to the Shirobanegawan Seat.

  “Hello, Isami,” Pallas bowed slightly.

  “Pallas,” Isami returned the gesture. “May I come in?”

  “Sure,” Pallas stepped aside, albeit a little hesitantly given the messy state of their living room. “Don’t mind the mess.”

  “I mean, if it gets the job done,” Isami smiled, slipping her sandals off and bouncing inside. “Which it did, and very well, mind you.”

  “My, thank you, Isami,” Pallas bowed her head slightly again, closing the door behind them as Isami made her way over to the dining table. “Did you need anything?”

  “Well,” Isami said, nodding to both Qingxi and Soleiman and returning Rumi’s enthusiastic waves. “I wanted to ask you that, actually.”

  She took a chair, sitting herself down beside Soleiman and the veritable pile of wealth they had been awarded.

  “Father’s the happiest he’s ever been in a long while,” she smiled, her Kitsunite ears perked up in excitement. “He says the report’s the most immaculate, comprehensive rendition of bestial activity on the fringes he could’ve hoped for.”

  Soleiman raised his eyebrows briefly, smiling as he made eye contact with Qingxi.

  “And he wants to treat me a little for finding you guys,” she beamed. “So, I only think it’d be right for me to help you out in turn.”

  “So,” Isami said again. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Come on now, we’re not too far away!”

  The party followed closely behind Isami as she briskly walked her way through the bustling Kitsunite market, not even glancing back to see the four of them just barely managing to not get lost in the chaos.

  The sky was bright, the spirits were high and the energy of the entire place felt almost electric. Excited yelps from bedazzled children and bellowing cries of beckoning stall operators filled the air, just as the hectic movement of the market-goers filled the space.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  It was almost cramped, yet Isami nevertheless trucked on through the thick sea of people, surprised commonfolk hurriedly bowing and nodding as she carved her own path forward.

  Though Soleiman and Qingxi may have grown a little uncomfortable at the feeling of being in such a busy, crowded area, even they warmed up slightly given the utter ordeal that was travelling to and fro the fringes of the Houzen Woods.

  Granted, they would have to make the journey again– perhaps several times so–, but if they had their time to recharge in the safety of Shirobanegawa, then they were fine with that by all means.

  “Isami, slow down!” Pallas tried calling out, dodging in between passing market goers as she tried to keep track of the comparatively short girl.

  “Can you still see her?” Soleiman asked, Rumi wrapped around his hand and Qingxi following closely behind them as he tried to keep himself from getting separated from Pallas.

  “Er… maybe?”

  “Why don’t you ask her-”

  “It’s over there!” They heard Isami exclaim. “The tall building, right on that street corner! The one with the blue roof!”

  And there it was. They couldn’t see her anymore, even her ears had disappeared into the forest of other equally tall and pointy Kitsunite ears. But they at least knew where they were going.

  Eventually, they fought their way to the foot of the building, where they saw Isami and the Tinkerer waiting for them in the doorway.

  He welcomed them in, and they got to business.

  The Shirobanegawan Tinkerer, silent as he led them into his workshop, walked quickly and with purpose. There was not an ounce of hesitation or lax in each of his steps, and as Isami motioned for the party to wait, he moved about in a flurry of motion that starkly contrasted the more laid-back aura of the Hibaran Tinkerer.

  Or perhaps, that was just indicative of the differences between the Hibaran and Shirobanegawan Shrines’ governing efforts.

  Maybe Aqsa al-Gharb wouldn’t look so bad when they got back to it.

  In any case, once the Tinkerer was ready, he signalled Isami and she brought the four of them into a small, dimly-lit by-room.

  Leaving the relatively unassuming, almost house-like interior of the reception area behind, the party slipped into what was supposedly the Master’s planning room, with shelves stocked to the brim with books and scrolls and write-ups and reports surrounding them on all sides.

  In the centre of the room, hemmed in on all sides by the foreboding bookshelves that almost looked as though they would collapse and crush them, was a singular round table. Almost exactly like the one in Master Tasufin’s place.

  “I swear…” Pallas whispered.

  “Maybe they all buy from the same carpenter,” Soleiman responded.

  The Master shuffled over to the opposite side of the table, setting his hands down.

  “Okay,” Isami said. “What are you looking for, exactly?”

  Qingxi unclipped her blade and its scabbard from her hip, gently setting it on the wooden table.

  She and Soleiman began the process of explaining the situation to Isami and the Master, laying out the original algorithm of the blade, the incident with the Hashashiyyin outside of Sayda and finally their intention to try and circumvent the serpent’s interference.

  And at the end of it all, the man simply bowed.

  They sort of stood around for a while, the party a little unsure of what had just happened.

  Soleiman and Pallas exchanged glances.

  Did he… understand? Was he refusing them maybe?

  Soleiman opened his mouth, closing it the moment the man began to move.

  He unsheathed the blade gently, the metal making little noise as it slid smoothly out of its scabbard. He set the blade back down, neatly arranging the sheath parallel to it, before setting his hands into position.

  He put them together, thumbs intertwined as his palms hovered over the rough centre of the sword. Then, with one singular, sweeping motion, he moved his hands down both lengths of the blade.

  He paused for a moment after, drawing his hands back to his sides as he closed his wrinkled eyelids and drank in the information the blade read out to him.

  There came that strange sensation again, as though they were being seen. This time, though, they knew better than to take notice of it.

  “Alright,” the man suddenly bellowed, his voice rupturing the tense silence that hung in the air. “Here’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Over the next few days,” he began, acting as if this wasn’t just his first time ever addressing them directly. “I need you four to visit me so that I can fire your blade’s algorithm. That way, I can get a better understanding of its intricacies.”

  Qingxi nodded.

  “As for what I plan on doing,” he continued. “I’m going to create a soul puppet, use it to replicate the algorithm behind the serpent’s eyes, and then alter it. That way, when I apply it to the blade proper, it’ll work to redirect the mana drawn up by the eyes into something else.”

  Soleiman opened his mouth, very quickly closing it again when the Master glared at him.

  “What that something else is, now,” he continued, raising his voice a little and intimidating Soleiman a few centimetres back. “Is up to you. I’ll give you the full details on how to do it when the time comes.”

  Soleiman tried saying something, closing it for the third time as the Master shot him down again with his gaze.

  Pallas put her hand on his back, rubbing it slightly.

  “That being said, I do recommend redirecting it into a Qatarunnada-based technique,” he said. “Which, given your work with the Sahlbarid, should be of no issue.”

  They stayed silent.

  “Well? Anything else?” He loudly asked.

  Soleiman shook his head.

  “No.” Pallas replied, trying her best not to make the furrowing of her brows too obvious.

  “Good.”