Forge of Verns

Lis

December 9, 1912 AC

Night had come and the stars arrived. The time was ripe for her weekly mission. Silent as an owl's wings, Lis darted through the alleyways of Krakor City. The capital of Vryland housed one million people, split in half by the Kryzat River. 12 kilometres wide, the city consisted of towering trees each surrounded by a cluster of buildings that averaged four storeys in height. The buildings of each cluster were around the same height, touching each other to form walls around the trees. Each building was made of stone with lightly coloured sides covered with intricate stone patterns. The trees themselves were enormous, each 100 metres tall. Their bark was thick and their trunks were dark. Their leaves were green and housed dwellings of wood. 

The dwellings were each two storeys tall, their sides covered with brass-framed windows. Their insides were obscured by velvet curtains over the windows. They were the houses of the nobles, who perched high above the gadzina. Each dwelling was connected to others by paths and bridges of wood. The nobles could move from one dwelling to the next without ever setting foot on the ground. Lis looked at them in disgust. The nobles thought they were so great and above the affairs of the people they viewed subhuman. And so, they hid themselves above the ground, in dwellings forged from their accursed vernbinding. Vernbinding, the art of transferring souls, was an ability the nobles had gained decades ago. With it, the nobles could steal the life of other beings and implant them into vessels, called verns, with differing properties. The souls were carried upon their breath, taking on the form of swirling light. 

Lis smirked. The nobles thought they held a monopoly upon the power of vernbinding. But they were wrong, very wrong. She paused at the mouth of her alleyway. Before her was one of Krakor's streets, four carriages wide and framed by sidewalks. The sidewalks and the road were grey cobblestone though the sidewalks were lined with streetlamps. The streetlamps were black metal poles each bearing a single orange light. The buildings beyond the trees bathed the streets in shadows. She looked to both sides, saw no signs of danger, then dashed across to the shadows. 

Once there, she ran alongside the buildings, keeping to the darkness. Her dirt-caked skin and dark blue coat all but disappeared into the blackness. She ran to the end of the block. At the corner of the building cluster lay a little bakery. It was a small building, three storeys in height, with the first floor devoted to the store and the rest living quarters for the owners. The nobles could not get everything they desired solely from their canopy perches. Some, like bread, required ovens amongst other structures of steel and stone. Carrying such materials up the trees would've been too inconvenient for the nobles. And so, these resided on the ground floor, away from the safety of the treetops. Each building boasted a flat stone roof and bronze pipes spewing black smoke towards the sky. Too bad the smoke can't reach those dwellings Lis thought. 

Still, the bakery would do her well as she removed the black pin from her hair. She crouched before the dark green door and examined the keyhole with one eye. She adjusted the shape of her pin, then slid it into the hole. She twisted the brass doorknob and the door swung open just as she had planned. Good she thought as she stepped into the darkness beyond the door. She was greeted with rows upon rows of white wood shelves arranged in little lines. Above each shelf lay arrays of bread in all manner of shapes and sizes. There were also cakes and pastries as well as pies and tarts. She saw apple pies, blueberry tarts, orange cakes, and so much more, each freshly baked and utterly tantalizing. 

She snuck to the counter at the back of the store and opened a drawer with her white gloved hands. Her gloves left no fingerprints behind as she rummaged through the drawers of the counter. Finally, she found what she had sought: rows of brown, folded paper bags. She extracted one, making sure to keep the rest the way they were. Then, she closed the drawer and stuffed the bag with tarts and slices of bread. She retreated to a window, peering around the edge of the wall. She saw no signs of danger and heard no signs of danger. She could smell no signs of any creature the nobles kept as guards. Satisfied, she opened the window and then closed it behind her. She left no trace of herself behind save for the stolen bread and the paper bag.