"Wegr is sometimes thought to be made out of Black Adamantine—Adamantine being the strongest metal, the lightest metal, and the most magickally conductive metal in the Isles. It is a diamond alloy, a magickal diamond steel. But this is false. The blackstone of Wegr does not conduct magick or occult power more effectively than anything else. It is nothing but clumps of nothingness, of inframateriality. Some say it might be magnetite, pure clumps of intramaterial quantum motes, but it might not be either. It might be nothing more than clumped together Heat, or it might be calcified Breath. Whatever it is, the gods have all chosen to leave it alone, and not to touch it, out of a fear even they could not quite vocalize."

From The Gazetteer Of Pemi by Vajra Nun Malakindat of the Ebon Priory.

Wegr was a beautiful, terrifying lung. Raxri breathed it in, and the city-spore settled in their blood.

Our dear Heaven Dancer trudged. The obsidian of Blacklight City drank the light, a polished void from which spires and towers rose—solidified shrieks. The island's own blackglass bone, carved. Torn. Into eviscerated viscera.

Overhead, a latticework of electric lines. Waltzing with the subtle mantra-hum of karma engines. Underfoot, the street was a night sky frozen solid. Raxri's boots, scuffing the polish, were comets scarring a dead heaven.

They had left the ogre-port and walked out without direction into the alleyways of Wegr. There were so many people. Unlike in Imos Town or the other towns Raxri had gone through, there was never a moment where there were no people walking past them. Always at least one person wandered around them. Only a razor thin minority looked at Raxri weirdly—everyone else acted as if a scarlet-haired martial artist carrying a vaguely human-shaped form on their back was completely normal.

The architecture of Wegr was very interesting. Out here in the outskirts the architecture resembled a strange postcolonial mix. Round heavywood doors, sealed with wax and warding-sigils, stood beside iron scissor gates, their teeth rusted shut from disuse. The occasional awning with variously colored banners and streamers and textiles. Some of these banners had advertisements for some sort of new commodity—a new drink, a new elixir, a new brand of vending machine.

Raxri blinked at all these. Despite the utter alienness of them compared to everything else they had gone through so far, they did not seem strange at all to Raxri's eyes. The banners whispered promises in a language Raxri's body remembered before their mind did. The grammar of want was a native tongue.

Were they... a marketer?

How amusing, to think of. A marketing cultivation. May the gods be so kind that Raxri would not have to see that as a reality.

Everywhere, men and women walked about living their lives. Workers here and there—some in dress shirts, others in dirtied tank tops and sarongs. They all shared cigarettes and betel nut quids. They all had a cup of canned coffee or a carbonated drink in their hands. Skins leather stretched tight over bone, cured by the sun. Hands maps of fine white scars—the topography of labor. Children clung to the women's limbs like succulent pups to a mother plant, silent and demanding.

A man whose teeth had grown beyond his mouth, a ivory cage for his words, his body a swollen barrel of a thing, a boar that had learned to walk upright and wear a man's sorrow. The boar-man walked out and grabbed a young girl by the wrist. "I told you to fucking wash the dishes, right?" His voice was gruff.

The young girl—no more than 14, perhaps, wearing a tank top and a long skirt—was reading a booklet, folded accordion style. She laughed as the man picked her up. "Ah, father, sorry! Yes, I simply forgot!"

The man scratched the back of his neck, sighing. In between his tusk-like teeth was a long cigarette.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of Raxri's mind, they realized something. That long cigarettes were... meant and marketed for women.

The man puffed out smoke. The sight of that long, slender cigarette triggered a shard of memory, sharp and sudden: a woman with scarlet hair like theirs, laughing, the same brand of cigarette held between her fingers, its tip stained with her lipstick. The memory was a ghost limb, and the phantom pain of it took Raxri's breath away. "If you don't want your mother angry at us doing making another trip to the Awatung Bookshop at the 18th hour of the day then you better wash the dishes."

"Yes father!" And she stood up and ran inside.

Their houses were nestled deep into dirty and too-narrow alleyways. They were either stacked on top of each other in rickety, mantra-reinforced architectural hazards or in strange boxy patterns so that they wouldn't crumble against each other. The air was a layered tapestry of decay and bloom—the sharp ammonia of alley-cats warring with the cloying sweetness of night-blooming jasmine. To Raxri, it was the smell of a city breathing, a funk as familiar as their own sweat. It smelled, impossibly, like a memory of home they couldn't place.

If Akazha were alive right now she'd no doubt be thinking about how interesting that was.

"Psst. Teyeh! Teyeh!"

Raxri paused, midwalk. A carriage ran past them. A pair of bladeraptors cut through the blackstreet. Raxri moved to the side and turned to their right. There they saw an elderly woman, curly gray hair let loose all about them. The woman sat behind a grid mesh, where she poke through a larger hole in the mesh. Sachets of shampoos, chocolate drinks, coffee mixtures, tea mixtures, juices, as well as canned goods, sweets, candies, and more arrayed her.

A veritable Saint of Sundries...?

But she was no more than that. She was just someone manning this particular sundry store. Across all Utter Islands, sundry stores were popular. They stood side by side with convenience stores as means of allowing trade across the isles. These sundry stores sold cheaper things and in lesser bulks. Often, a section of one's house could be converted into a sundry store. Anyone wanting to buy anything would simply have to walk out to the cut out in the wall or in the mesh grid to be able to buy something. And you would have to call out—"Excuse me!" or "Auntie!" or "Mother!"

The sundry lady blinked. She wore a sundress. Across her chest was a... leather strap? Behind it... the scabbard of a longsword. "Yes. Teyeh. You."

The word teyeh landed on Raxri's skin like a misplaced touch. "I... I am not a teyeh..." The denial felt hollow, a pebble dropped into a well of forgotten things.

"Ah. Foreign." The woman's voice was the sound of grinding stones. She adjusted her glasses, the lenses catching the light like dragonfly wings. She took a puff of her cigarette, the paper crackling like a tiny fire. "You. Teyeh... it means older sister." The words were a bridge made of splintered wood, a mix of Bazaar Kyarpan and the island's black tongue. "In Wegrinese." Her eyes, sharp as the keris on her counter, fixed on the burden Raxri carried. "What is that, on your back? Shape is a person. But heavy like ghost."

Raxri contemplated telling her for a bit. Then, she said: "Cargo. I... need to go somewhere." Raxri looked into the cut out. More sundries sold behind her. Was that a comb in the shape of a cat? Was that canned cat food? Was that a sachet of dog food? Was that cheap tuna canned into a box? Was that canned ham? Canned corned beef? Canned adobo flakes?

How convenient... thought Raxri.

Above it all, upon a wooden shelf situated atop most of the sundries being sold, was a small makeshift altar. A woman in an indigo shawl, flanked by crimson feather scarfs, with a face of both sorrow and endless compassion. Tears dripped. Swords skewered through her heart. Each sword held by one of her eight hands. Her breast was bare, and a slit in the middle of them revealed the skewered heart. Who was this, mother of mercy?

"Where you need to go, teyeh?" She puffed smoke into Raxri's face. "Let me help you. You look like someone important. Or at least, someone walking to dying. Keh keh keh."

Raxri blinked. Better than nothing, I suppose. "I am looking for the Ultramystic."

Ajjina's eyes, clouded like old quartz, looked through Raxri. "A seeker... eh? Always have smell about them—hungry. Scared. What does little teyeh Want in the house of the Ultramystic? Are the answers to your questions worth it? The sleep-cost of many nights?"

A boy walked in. Wearing nothing but a headdress, a shoulder shawl, a sarong, and abaca fiber sandals. "Auntie! Two sachets of soy sauce, please."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Aish. Uljun. O, here." She turned around and took up two large sachets of soy sauce. Uljun, the caramel-skinned boy, grinned—revealing delicate and intricate dentures where his teeth were blackened and the in-betweens filled in with gold. He put down a two bundles of 12js. The lady scooped it up with a broken keris. "Now. Back to you. What is your name." Uljun gave Raxri a queer look before turning around and walking away. Back to his wife or his friends or whatnot.

Behind them, a few more bladeraptors. Someone riding on a magicked shield like a skateboard. Someone riding on a magicked blade like a waveboard.

Raxri blinked. "I'm... not sure if I can tell you this knowledge, auntie."

"I will keep it a secret. I am a Saint of Secrets, you see." She turned and pointed at the sorrowful maiden. "I swear on Kanimadia's Bare Chest."

"A-ah. Well." Raxri turned around. They shrugged. "I am Raxri Uttara."

"Interesting. I am Ajjina. Auntie Ajjina. If you need anything, Raxri Uttara, you can ask for me. Simply return to this sundry store—Auntie Ajjina's Sundry." She pointed up at the plaque written into bamboo paper. It did indeed say that, written in modern Karitan script.

"Okay. Understood, Auntie Ajjina."

"As for the Ultramystic..." Auntie Ajjina pondered for a moment. She puffed out more smoke. "I suppose you will have to go through his very own trials. Follow the path down, girl. Until you reach the final alleyway. Then turn and walk in. And keep walking until you find the tree with pink flowers. Only then should you knock on the gate you will see. Ah, but remember, keh keh. The gate without the lions is the wrong one. That a trap. See. Trap for ghosts and spirits. Look the one with Dragon Lions. The protected one. Bring you to Mystic Sanctum."

"I see. Thank you, Auntie Ajjina!"

"Hope your intention is pure and your reason for seeking the Devil is important. Otherwise, poof! Hatred and fear and death and death and death!"

A cold stone of dread settled in Raxri's stomach, a familiar weight they had carried since first lifting Akazha's body. It was the same feeling as hearing a promise they knew would be broken.

Raxri stepped back and bowed. When they looked up again, the wrinkles on Auntie Ajjina's face had deepened into the sorrowful lines of the goddess Kanimadia, her glasses glinting like the points of the swords in her heart.

"Reach. Violence. Child."

A blink, and she was just an old woman again, smoke on her breath.

Gods, I'm tired, thought Raxri. I really need that sleep.

"Fare you well, young girlboy?" asked Ajjina, raising an eyebrow and a concerned pout. "Need you a cigarette?"

Raxri bowed low. They were about to refuse when Ajjina jammed a cigarette into Raxri's mouth and lit it with a cheap lighter.

Raxri inhaled. The smoke entered. Not a burn, but a bloom. An azureelectricity flowering in the cavern of their chest. Breath unspooling, finding old, dried-up riverbeds and filling them. A body remembering how to be a temple.

Like panacea. When Raxri billowed out the smoke, it was slightly tinged with a blue hue.

Spiritsmoke?

"I know what you're thinking,' said Ajjina, grinning. She pulled out the soft pack of cigarettes. This one was pure white, save for a blue lotus in its front. The words BLUE LOTUS SMOKES dominated the front of the softpack, written in... no it was not Karitan. Was that... Shennin Script? Interesting. They looked more like pictures than anything. Or perhaps multiple pictures arranged into four-sectioned blocks. "These are soulsmokes, young one. These don't fuck your lungs up. These realign your meridians."

Raxri beamed. So that's why it felt so different. He could feel his Breath coursing through him. Meridians blocked and closed, chakras made to weaken, now suddenly blossoming open and allowing rejuvenating Breath to bring life back into their body. It was electric, to say the least.

Despite all their wounds and all their mental tiredness, their body at least felt renewed.

They bowed low again to Ajjina. "Thank you kindly, Auntie. You have done more than enough for me."

"Bring these with you. Don't be shy. And here, a lighter." She gave both the soft pack as well as the lighter to Raxri. "Take care of yourself. Or else."

"I will. The Ultramystic I hope will be kind."

Auntie Ajjina nodded. She put up her reading glasses to her face and started writing something on bamboo paper. "Let us hope indeed."

***

Mijja stepped off of the skyship with a thanks to the young boy graciously helping her alight. The boy smiled giddily as she did. Mijja smiled back at him. Young boys are always so easy to please.

The particular skydock that they had chosen to land in was one of the aerospires of Wegr. The spire had strange, antigravity mantras written all about it, so all skyships could afford to save fuel while landing and disembarking here. More importantly, workers and engineers did not need to fear falling down too much—just that they had to stay within the radius of the wondrous syllables.

And it was exactly like that. As Mijja alighted, she found that she slowly floated from the skyship down to the jutting out blackstone platform—looking like it had been kneaded out of the blackstone spire by some hundred-handed god. She hit the ground like a feather and continued walking. Her luggage felt as if it wasn't there on her back, which delighted her.

Wegr sprawled out before her. Above her, a latticework of rope and etheric wire anchors, pinning the skyships to the aerospires. There were at least five aerospires in Wegr. Some of them were situated much further heavenward than the others, floating upon forgotten magicks. It was a delight to see, even though Mijja had lived in Wegr for quite some time before.

To the point that she had her own apartment here.

She made her way to the lift and then asked to be brought to the ground floor. There, she boarded one of the bladeraptor carriages. A mustachioed man with ruby glasses and a strange headwrap jumped onto the driver's seat. "Where to, pretty lady?" he asked, with a voice gruff like sandpaper.

"Kisatan Residences, the Second Compound, please."

"Ah, Ratu Atsuko's place?"

Mijja suppressed a smile. Why did this man know of mother? "Yes."

"This one's free, then. As long as you give a good word for me to the ratu. Hiya!" The bladeraptor—a gorgeous bird so named because of their sword-like meters, sharp feathers, and bipedal running technique, alongside sharp forewings—grunted quietly and pulled forward. It moved with sinuous ease, as if it had been born to pull carriages housing strange mustachioed drivers and young petite Selorongian-Amatsunese women.

"Oh, I reject. I must pay you. Worry not—I will also give a good word to the ratu for you." She made sure to somewhat hide her face with her folding fan so that the ruby-glasses man would not be able to see that Mijja looked like if her mother had larger, rounder eyes.

"Ah, you're too kind, miss. So do you live in the compound?" They turned away from the bustling street of the aerospires and into the stone cobblestone streets where the smells of bakeries and pastries and barbecues filled the air. They passed by a makeshift grieving awning where, underneath, people sang with the help of cobbled together orchestral bands with guitars and tambourines.

"I board there," said Mijja. "What is your name, ser?"

"Nomouso," said the man, taking off his hat—revealing the mostly balding head. "Milady. And you are?"

"Ah. Just... Ja."

"Very well, Ja. Here, this is my address." Nomouso reached for something in his coat pocket just as his bladeraptor turned a sharp corner. Mijja reached out to grip the sides of the carriage to make sure she wouldn't fly out. "Ah, that is my bad. Here, dear lady." A strip of paper with Nomouso's address and name.

This was common technology in Wegr. You would burn it, and then speak a short message into the smoke it created. The smoke will make its way back to the person whose name is written upon the missives, and deliver the short message. Loud and clear. It was only really good for short distance correspondence—and so it was popular in the cities and other urban centers.

Mijja accepted it graciously. "My thanks. I may be in need of a private porter."

"Will do, ma'am!"

The Kisatan Residences was a compound of intricate, elevated houses. From afar, they altogether looked like a geometric bonsai tree of sorts, but residential. After paying and bowing deeply to Nomouso, Mijja turned and ascended the wide set of stairs that led to the first porch. Which had washing bowls to wash feet and hands, as well as a spirit house housing the guardian spirit of the compound. Then, Mijja made her way into the compound.

"Ah, dear Mijja. You've returned!" One of the "house-helpers" of the compound, Teyeh Kanggi. A small, plump, and very brown lady with a beautiful smile that was missing teeth. The teeth had been filled in with gold, however, so you need not worry. Mijja loved her dearly, as she was the one that Mijja grew up with. Especially in the absence of her mother.

Mijja smiled. "Yes. It is great to see you, teyeh Kanggi." They embraced each other tightly. When they pulled apart, Mijja asked "Is mother here?" She walked out into the main central courtyard around which all the other houses and buildings surrounded. It was a stone zen garden built into the upraised stone platform that served as the central "trunk" for all the other stilt-house style buildings.

"Ah, no little one. Ratu Atsuko is out in Selorong handling a new business venture!" She reached out to take Mijja's luggage and Mijja allowed her, graciously. She uttered a small thank you as she did.

As to the news about her mother not being here... "Figures. She's always raving about trying to set up real estate in Selorong. I don't see why she would bother—it's nigh impossible to do that there, at the heart of communism."

"You never know! Ah, but why are you back home right now, little lion?"

She shrugged. "Ah, well, I have a mission, you see. I need to help out a witch carry out a death curse, and protect someone important, apparently. Doing so constitutes my internship, and will net me an immediate licensure as a Physicker."

"Goodness! What a good deal!"

"Yes, well, I am hoping it will not have me killed."

"As long as you are in Wegr, little lion," said Kanggi. "I think you will be completely hale and fine. Come! Have you eaten? We have curry and cake and milktea at the ready for you."

"Does the milktea have tapioca?"

Kanggi beamed and nodded.

Mijja helped back joyous tears. "I suppose fueling up before going for my hunt will do me good..."

And so she did. The dining room was an entire building in and of itself. Only Mijja ate there, which she was used to at this point. She didn't have any siblings to share the humungous table with anyway. There, Mijja gorged herself on spicy curry, two bowls of rice, two platelets of cheesecake, and a large steel gourd of milktea complete with a wide straw that could soup up the large boba pearls.

She was in heaven, for a few more moments. A few hours. She could stay here forever. Was getting the Physicker License even that worth it?

Then she remembered the face of her damned father.

She scowled even as she swallowed the overly sweet milktea. Of course it was worth it. Let's not think about him. I have to focus. Focus, Mijja, focus! There's food to finish!

She bent down to scoop up some more curry rice into her mouth—

—the ground shook. Galeforce winds flurried through the compound, sending her clothes and hair flailing about. The sound of a gigantic explosions. And then, the telltale after-hum of magick being used.

Mijja rose to her feet. Could that be...?

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