Carrying the map and cheat sheet around is a bit of a pain, making sure neither get snatched up by a breeze or kicked by any drunk passersby. I’m still not sure how my second attempt at Cheat Sheet Usage is going to go; Zyneth was very patient with me the first time. Trying to flag someone down in the middle of the street, whilst avoiding getting stepped on, doesn’t seem like the soundest strategy. Maybe I just need to catch one of these wizards alone, so they have an opportunity to read it over without anyone else around. I’ll just have to keep out of the way until then.

My first opportunity comes at dawn. It takes me the whole night to get to the nearest shop, despite appearing a mere inch away on the map. When I reach Salt and Supplies, the front door is locked, so I settle in a nearby alleyway, carefully tucking my pages behind me, and wait. When the shopkeep does finally arrive, she doesn’t even give me a second glance as she unlocks the door and steps inside—nor does she notice when I skitter inside after her.

The store looks like something out of a flea market, but with slightly improved organization and more labels. Jars of powders and bottles of liquids clutter the shelves, while craggy crystals fill the front window. There are animal bones, brass measuring tools, and of course, as the name implies, colorful salt in dozens more varieties than I ever thought existed.

There’s also what appears to be a small pet weasel that someone set on fire, and it’s looking right at me. Considering the general lack of squealing and stop-drop-and-rolling, I’m going to assume it’s supposed to be on fire. I Check it.

[Level 8 stove stoat. This popular house pet is often used for starting the furnace or disposing of pests. They also make for excellent lap warmers. This one, in particular, enjoys disposing of pests.]

Its black beady eyes are locked onto me. Uh. Nice fire ferret. There’s a row of dusty bottles and clutter arrayed on the ground under the windowsill, and I take a nervous step in its direction. Like an angry, possessed hotdog someone dropped in the firepit, the stoat darts forward.

Gah! I go rolling end over end as the animal pounces on me, awkwardly bouncing off my glass legs in my tumble.

[1 Fall damage dealt.]

[1 Bludgeoning damage dealt.]

[1 Fire damage dealt. You have resistance to Fire type attacks.]

Well that would be nice if I didn’t have bigger problems to worry about. I scramble to try to right myself and stop my vision from being a fiery, fluffy blur. I make it to my feet just for the creature to come at me again. I dive for cover, clinking against the bottles as I struggle to squeeze between them. Too slow: I swing my papers between me and the stove stoat to try to block its path.

I immediately regret this when it claws at the paper, each place its paw touches catching fire and burning to ash. No! I try to jerk them back toward me, but it gets its claws in them. One paper tears free, and the second it sweeps back in my direction and touches my vial, I add it to my inventory. No time to worry about the void percentages—I need my map and cheat sheet more than anything!

The stoat won’t give up, however. It’s gleefully attacking the paper with teeth and claws, like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. I try to stab at it with a few pieces of my signing glass, but it only rolls away—and out of my glass’s range.

I’m about to go after it when the shop keep speaks. “Soot? What are you doing over there?”

The creature finishes shredding my paper to pieces, and I can only watch with a sinking feeling as I catch sight of the word “Noli” on a scrap of paper before it, too, is burned away. My cheat sheet is gone.

The woman picks up the stove stoat, ash and tiny paper scraps fluttering to the ground as they slip from its desperate grasp. She tsks. “What a mess you’ve made. Just the thing I needed before opening shop. You’re no help at all.” The woman turns, takes the creature through a back door, and then the door rattles shut behind her.

I’m left sitting there in shock. My cheat sheet’s destroyed. I have no way to communicate anymore. What am I going to do? How am I going to get help? My mind races as I try not to panic.

Zyneth will be back in a week, but I can’t wait that long. My and Noli’s spell will expire in seven days, and it takes two days to get back to Peakshadow—assuming I can hitch a ride with someone. If I can sneak onto someone’s supply cart, that gives me five days to find a solution to this. Maybe I could head back to my room and use the spell books to look up words and make a new cheat sheet. I was able to use soot to write a few words for Zyneth—I can do that again. It’s not ideal, but at least it’s an option. Plus, if I find some null-arcana chalk, maybe I can renew the spell by myself without a wizard’s help. Yeah. That might work.

Okay. Calm down. It’s fine. I can still save this. More than ever, I just need to buckle down and start searching.

I return my attention to the shop. I don’t see any chalk, but maybe one of those powders contains the null arcanum-enriched salt that spell book mentioned.

I ask Echo for a Check of the shop’s contents, and she starts identifying the contents of whatever I focus on, tiny labels popping up and vanishing in my field of view.

[Ground sage picked during a full moon. Simple wax candle. Summoning candle. Brass bell. Soapstone bowl. Ground gryphon bone. Sea salt. Rock salt. Hot spring salt. Rose salt. Lava salt—]

Why are there even this many types of salt? Christ, were they going to have every type of salt imaginable except—

[Null salt.]

There! See? I was panicking over nothing.

I scan the rest of the shop just in case, but don’t find any other mentions of null arcanum-enriched items. I guess that salt is my best bet. Might not even need the chalk if I can make a spell circle with just the salt… right? I mean, it seems like sound logic to me. That should be good enough for the ingredients list.

The jar itself presents an issue. I guess worse comes to worst, I’ll just inventory the whole thing. I’d rather not, but it’s an option. I can’t really see how much salt is in the jar from this vantage point, but I can’t imagine I’ll need a ton to draw a toy-sized circle.

The shopkeep still hasn’t returned from the backroom, so I decide to make a break for it. I hurriedly tap my way over to the shelf containing the null arcanum salt, then start my not-so-steady ascent.

Although the glass keeping my bottle strapped to my legs helps me feel more secure, it’s also causing me to feel more top heavy. Luckily, I now have joints in my glass I hadn’t figured out before. I’m full of staticky nerves, not sure if I’m more afraid of getting caught or missing a step, but I make it to the top of the counter without incident—and with a new Climbing Skill Level Up. For all the good it seems to be doing me.

I weave between the eclectic wares, making my way over to the jars of assorted salts. Some appear more popular than others. No one’s going for the sea salt. I zero-in on the null arcanum jar and—

It’s empty. A few tiny grains of salt sit at the bottom of a dusted jar.

Really? I ask Echo. Why even say this had null arcanum-enriched salt in it?

[The jar does contain null arcanum-enriched salt.]

Like three specks!

[A quantity was not specified.]

Are you fucking kidding me?

I stomp a foot in frustration—yes, I realize this is juvenile, but I don’t have the ability to grumble—and then start back the way I’d come. It’s fine. This was just the first place on my list. And hey, if this jar is out, maybe the shopkeep’s planning to refill it soon. I’ve still got options. And plenty more places to visit.

I make it down just as the shopkeep returns to the front of house, and now that I finally have a chance to Check her, I find she’s just a regular old Herbalist. What a waste of time. It takes another hour before I have the opportunity to leave, using my Lightbeam skill to cause a sparkly distraction as I slip out the door between the shopkeeper’s feet, and by then it’s well into morning. There’s a lot more people on the streets now, so I skitter into a side alley to check my map—and Void stat.

[Void: 54%]

I don’t like having such a high number while buried in the middle of this metropolis, but there’s not anything I can do about it now. Just have to find some null-arcana salt—or make a new cheat sheet and find a wizard—and I’ll be out of here.

The map is now singed and torn in several places, but it’s still readable. Heather’s Healers, you’re up next.

It’s a grueling six hours to make it to the business. It took half this long for Noli and I to walk from one end of Peakshadow to the other, but I guess Harrowood is significantly larger, and it doesn’t help that I’m stopping to hide every other step. At least now I don’t have to worry about getting launched off my legs like a golf ball on a tee. So small wins, right?

But as I approach the front doors, something is off. The street before the building sparkles in the afternoon sun, and there’s a sign roped around the front handles. It’s not hard to see the reason for both: the front windows are shattered, glass littering the cobblestones, and the sign says “Closed.” Looks like a break in.

Damn. I want to peek through the windows, in case anyone is still inside, but given the foot traffic I won’t exactly be inconspicuous. Well. Onto the next one, I guess. I check my map: Ana’s Apothecary.

Dusk is falling by the time I reach its doors. Luckily, though, it doesn’t appear to have closed yet. Ana’s got a much more booming business than Salt and Supplies, so I slip inside without having to wait around. Once in, I sit down next to a couple of vases for perfect camouflage, and then survey the shop.

I Check Ana first: My hope soars when I see all her mana, but is quickly snuffed once more when I see she’s a Healer, with a subclass of Potion Maker. Not a wizard or summoner who would know homunculus magic, then.

Trying to bury my disappointment, I scan the shop’s contents instead.

[Potion for enhanced endurance. Elixir of healing. Elixir for poisonings. Potion for fire resistance. Potion for underwater breathing…]

Pretty interesting stuff, but none of this is what I’m looking for. Now if they had a potion for “Prevent cracks in glass” or especially “Transform back into a human” we’d be in business. I Check the rest of the shelves just to be thorough, even though none of it looks like what I’m looking for. Strike two. Or is this three?

Finishing my sweep of the shop and finding nothing, I slip back out the door the next time it swings open. It’s dark now, so I’m betting the next stores on my list have already closed. I’m not ready to give up yet, though. This was only day one. I still have half a dozen more shops to go.

Maybe it would be best to head back to the inn at this point, make a cheat sheet, and then strike back out for the next shop in the morning. If I head to Essential Snake Oils now, I definitely won’t make it there until the middle of the night. Maybe I’ll get lucky, like with Attiru’s Atlas Emporium, and someone will have left a door propped up, but I’m not counting on it. Then again, if I head back to the inn, I’ll probably have to turn around and start walking again as soon as I make it there. And it’ll take hours at least to scrape together a few words on a loose sheet of paper. This would be so much easier if I could get places as fast as a normal person!

Ugh. I’m so sick of being small.

I reluctantly decide to walk through the night, so I can slip into the next storefront right when it opens—and hey, maybe I can make a new cheat sheet with some garbage while I wait. I finally make it to the address somewhere in the middle of the night, but even when I’m halfway down the street, I can tell something’s wrong.

The windows are shattered—again. Something the cat woman at the Merchant’s Guild said finally comes back to me: a string of petty theft in the area. Downplayed, much? These are some serious B&Es, not to mention the cart that had been attacked at the beginning of town. And if I’ve found two hit locations in one day, how many more places have been broken into recently?

Still, I can’t have come all this way for nothing. I check that the coast is clear, then climb up to the store sill and look through the shattered window. My vision is warped by the cracked glass, but Echo scans whatever I can make out from this vantage point—and turns up nothing. No null arcanum-enriched chalk, salt, or any other magical condiment. My confidence wavers. There are still five shops left on my list. I can’t give up now. There’s still plenty of time.

The next day passes much the same. No one is a wizard, much less one specializing in homunculi. Moondust Materials is more sham than shop, while The Crooked Broom appears to be the victim of another robbery. Something about this isn’t right. I’m not passing any other storefronts that have been broken into. Why is it only places on my list? Granted, not all the places on my list, but there’s definitely a pattern. Is someone targeting magic shops?

I reach Pots and Potions that night, and its doors are locked. It’s not just closed up early for the evening, however. A sign on the door reads, “Due to recent events, P&P will remain shuttered until safe to reopen.”

Fuck. Now they’re closing preemptively? What’s going on?

By day three of my search, I can feel the clock ticking. I only have two shops left on my map: Tem and Tock’s Enchantment Renewals, and Cloud’s Arcane Artifacts.

But even if I find someone in one of these two businesses, I still need to get back to Noli before our spell is up. It took Zyneth and I two days to reach Harrowood on foot, but we’d been walking downhill, so would it take three to get back? And then another day to find Noli, set up the spell, and make sure we stayed anchored in this plane of existence—and away from the predator. Given I have five days before our spell is up, that leaves…

One day. I have one day to find someone who can help.

I start walking a little faster.

I reach Tem and Tock’s late in the morning, but it’s closed as well. Anxiety sours my soul. I can’t let it end like this. If I don’t find someone by this time tomorrow, I won’t have enough time to make it back to Noli. Maybe I should recheck my list. There’s got to be stores I missed. I could also search for places not registered with the Guild, though without a map to point them out it’d be like finding a needle in a haystack. No, that would take too much time.

My hopes are pinned on Cloud’s Arcane Artifacts, for better or worse.

It’s late when I finally make the last stretch to Cloud’s shop. Two slivered moons hang between the silhouettes of the cityscape. Stars sparkle in the sky—not as brightly as what I saw back in the woods, but compared to L.A. it might as well be sprinkled with diamonds.

Only the occasional late-night patron is out for a stroll, so the streets are easier for me to navigate. On the other hand, it’s harder to read the signs, so I lose my way a couple times and have to pause to figure out my map before getting back on the right track. It’s sometime before midnight when I find the shop I’m looking for.

It’s closed, of course, but I’d been expecting that. Should be six to eight hours before someone will be here to open up, and I’ll have the opportunity to slip inside. But I can’t afford to wait. Maybe I should take a page out of the robber’s book and break myself in. I’d need to either Attune the glass in the window or use Lightbeam—both of which would cost mana—but the threat of the spell ending is starting to outweigh spending a few more percent on the Void.

I climb up to the window to scope the place out. I can pick out jars of spices and salts, like in Salt and Supplies, as well as a wall labeled for summon circle supplies. It’s mostly sticks, candles, and crystals but… I’m cautiously optimistic? I don’t know if I’ll find a wizard who can help, but it looks like it might at least have the chalk I’m looking for. Would I really be able to do the spell myself, given all the ingredients? I’d only considered it a desperate backup option before now, but it’s starting to look like it might be my only hope. I don’t have time to figure out anything else.

I climb back down from the windowsill and head into an alley across the street, stashing my map. This store might be my last chance, and I can’t let it pass me by. I’ll have to break in and hope for the best. Before I can make it back around to the door, however, soft voices drift down the street. I wait for them to pass by.

I don’t pay them particular attention until they stop in front of Cloud’s. One figure is large and hulking, while the other is human sized and slim. It’s when one of them speaks in a familiar voice that I jump.

“This is it?” Saru asks, low and quiet.

“Yes.” Tetara’s voice is tight, scarred by emotion.

When they speak, I can only hear their screams of fear and rage, and when I look at them, all I can see are their two missing teammates: the felis and dracid, whose names I can’t even remember.

I should. I should remember their names.

I shrink back into the shadows as fear curdles inside my soul. If they catch sight of me now, I’m dead. What are they doing here? Why now?

“The door?” Tetara growls. Her voice is soft, but even at these subdued levels I can hear the hatred biting into each word.

Saru checks the handle, and there’s a small bloom of light about her hands. “Locked, but no warding spell.” She moves to the window, cupping her hands about her eyes. “Empty.”

Tetara gently pushes Saru back, then grabs the handle. I hear a groan of metal—a sharp snap—and then Tetara lets go, pieces of the door falling to the street. She pushes it open, and it creaks as it swings into the quiet black. Tetara ducks beneath the frame, Saru following as silent as a shadow behind.

And I just stand there, stunned.

They’re the robbers. They’re the ones who have been breaking into magical shops and stealing from supply carts. I should have realized. Zyneth even basically said as much. They thought some summoner was responsible for Peakshadow—they’d even thought they’d seen destroyed summoning materials among the wreckage. And when I’d caught them speaking about this while on the road, they’d said they had to stop it from happening again in Harrowood.

Dread pulls my soul through the ground.

By some unlucky accident, Saru and Tetara ended up hitting the nail on the head. They’re out to stop a summoner, so they’ve been targeting summoner supplies. And I need those same supplies to renew my spell.

Which means the adventurers are achieving their mission: I’m fucked.