NG EY

2 | A glimpse of mystery.

"Did you hear that?"

Kellyn froze and tapped his spell stone to his invisibility scroll without thinking.

"Hm? Oh, look, a csavail. Hey there, little guy."

"That's a female," the first voice cautioned. "They're the ones that get angry."

He began to tiptoe towards the road.

"It already looks angry."

"Right."

Kellyn crossed the cobblestone and made it to the shadow of a pompous-looking apartment. Only then did he allow himself to look back. Two young guards were leaning over the wall's edge, surveying the thin trees that made up his escape route.

"Do you think..." The second guard trailed off and scratched his beard.

"Mm-hm. I bet someone climbed over the wall."

"It would've had to have been a small someone."

The first guard was already booking it for the main gate. "Exactly," she shouted back. "We're looking for a kid! Fates, these trees are such a security hazard."

"Golden," Kellyn swore under his breath. He broke into a sprint.

When he reached the remnants of the old magic school, which sat solemnly between the high-class district and everywhere else, he slowed. Nobody seemed to be following him. After one last glance behind him for good measure, he trotted up to the rotting porch and used his unlocking scroll, firmly shutting the knotted door behind him.

By the light of a clouded window, Kellyn slipped off his green initiate cloak and matching shirt and slacks. They were beyond comfortable, but he couldn't afford the attention that they would draw. Burrowing his hand into the depths of his satchel, he retrieved a thin, yellowed shirt and a pair of brown pants with numerous buttons and pockets. He changed.

After the door locked behind him again, he took a deep breath. He had been magically masked for all but a few seconds of his time in the Collective, and now, he looked like any other Novis kid: dirt-brown in all ways, thin as a quill coin, and rough around the edges and corners alike. Kellyn ran his tongue along his chapped lips and smiled. He had gotten away again. And this time, he had something that might solve Nalia's money problems for good.

A roar yanked him out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw the purple underside of a flying rahva, high above the city. The huge gold rings around its flat feet glittered in a ray of sunlight that peeked through the clouds. It cried again, a mourning call that went from high to low to high. It was carrying miners, no doubt. Kellyn could barely make out another indigo shape standing tall on the edge of the tallest mountain in the distance, people scampering like ants in and out of the black cavern behind it.

He began to walk, and the streets almost immediately transitioned to the cracked, uneven type that he was used to. Soon, he passed by the spaceport, a huge, rusting dome that harkened back to Aurum's pre-terraforming days, when ships carrying supplies were common, and necessary. His route next proceeded past an inward bulge of Novis City's walls, which were shorter than those around the Collective but still did the job. Grand Mage Cato boasted that there had been no wild rahva attacks since the wall had been refortified.

Tafsen's Square, or 'Taf's' for short, was a gathering place for all kinds of moderately savory folk. On all but one side, it was composed of shabby apartments above ground-level storefronts. The side that mattered was where The Wellspring stood. Running past the aptly-named pub was a small stream where one could often find the homeless and worse-off gold-panning. Across the bridge that vaulted the trickling water was the city's main message board. Kellyn approached it.