Page 33

The next few days pass quickly, with Emily only having classes in basic maths and chants, both mostly redundant. Soon, their agreed-upon day arrives, and Emily and Juliana leave The Dome together in the morning after breakfast. Juliana asked the twins if they wanted to join before they left, but both opted to stay behind.

Standing next to each other in the station, Juliana asks Emily about their goal.

“What is it you’re looking for?”

“I need to find metalworking tools, materials, mechanical parts, anything along those lines. I’ve been tinkering with some ideas I’d like to make. Also, I need to grab some spare clothes, I need something to wear for my hand-to-hand combat classes since we’ll be practising with blades in two days.”

Ha, Anna would be proud of me for looking after my clothes.

Her bitterness towards the Mandrago family swells as she pushes away the thoughts about her sister.

“I know a place where we can get you some cheap clothes! As for the technical stuff, I think I know where to go, but it may take a little looking around to find what you’re after,” Juliana says enthusiastically, interrupting Emily's thoughts.

“Oh? Is that from your weaving?” Emily asks.

“Wait, how did you know?!” Juliana asks with shock as her face flushes red.

“Haha, you didn’t close your drawer when I came round the other day. Besides, what’s wrong with weaving?”

“I mean, nothing’s wrong with weaving really. It’s just, people would normally laugh at me for doing it myself.”

“Are these people possibly stuck-up nobles? I think it’s sweet.”

“Yeah, they are. Thanks,” Juliana says with a shy smile.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, a loud screeching enters the station as a train pulls up. Climbing in, they find an empty cabin and sit down. Chatting and watching the city, they remain on the train as it winds deeper into the complicated mess of buildings, away from the docks Emily arrived through.

After thirty minutes, Juliana informs Emily that they have arrived at their stop, so they dismount the train into a bustling station. Taking her hand, Juliana guides Emily through the crowd towards a large set of sliding doors. They join a queue to exit, waiting as the doors periodically open and then shut again quickly, with long pauses in between.

“Why don’t they leave the doors open?” Emily asks, growing impatient.

“This is an elevator. It’s like a small room that moves up and down to carry people to different levels of the station.”

“Oh?” Emily’s eyes light up with intrigue. “Why weren’t these used in the docks?”

“There’s an operator inside that deals with the controls. The port your ship pulled into was a lower-value private port, so they don’t use these because of the extra manpower needed.”

Emily nods in understanding as they arrive at the front of the queue. The door before her is slightly set back into the wall to conceal the mechanical workings, with a small numerical indicator above, slowly ticking down from six.

“Is six the number of levels here?”

“Yeah, it’s different based on which region you’re in. I think the highest number of levels is ten, but that’s normally around the outer districts. The further into the city you go, the less access you’ll see to lower levels.”

I wonder if that’s due to the mist. It was very dense near the city centre, and I can’t imagine people would be able to navigate it.

After waiting for the elevator to tick down to level zero, it quickly begins to increase before the doors slide open when it hits six. As the inside of the elevator is revealed, Emily is slightly disappointed by the plain metal room she sees. The only point of interest is the man standing to attention in a neat black, white, and red uniform, with his hand resting on a large lever jutting out of the wall next to a control panel of valves and gauges.

Juliana pulls Emily into the elevator and to the side, the other people from the queue filing in as well, giving them a small berth as they do. Emily questions this for a moment before remembering the noble family crests boldly displayed on their robes.

The moment the room fills, the operator pushes the lever down from the middle position and the doors let out a loud hiss of steam as they slide shut. The elevator shudders slightly as the low hum of smoothly oiled gears kicks in. Waiting for a dozen seconds in silence, Emily touches her hand to the wall and lets out a small stream of machina. A connection forms in her mind and she sees the complicated gears and pulleys, lowering the metal cabin down along a set of rails.

As the operator flips the lever back to neutral, she watches in close detail as a set of gears click and whirr into motion, pulling a series of wires that start the quick deceleration of the cabin. The moment the elevator stops, a set of cylinders extend from the shaft walls, locking the cabin in place as a pair of large pistons pull the door open.

Finished understanding the elevator’s workings, Emily pulls back her machina and reintegrates it into her system by quickly cycling the internal energy movement of Technomancer’s Breath. She smiles at the small trick she worked out yesterday while messing about with her meditation technique.

What an interesting system, I wonder if there was anything I could use pulleys and rails like that for… Oh, maybe that could work.

Struck by an idea, Emily makes a mental note to draw up a blueprint when she gets back and turns to focus on Juliana talking to her.

“We’ll be getting out on floor three. The shop’s only a couple of minutes from here on foot.”

Emily smiles and nods while returning to plotting blueprints in her head. Juliana soon pulls the distracted Emily out of the elevator, and they make their way along the wide twisting walkways, winding through the tall stacks of buildings. Emily quickly notices how unnaturally clean everything is, not a spec of dirt in sight as a light, near imperceptible, mist envelopes her.

I think I should sign up for Enchanting classes: this spell is fascinating and there has to be another feature other than cleaning. Who would waste this much mana for that?

A couple of minutes later, Juliana turns towards the entrance of a small shop tucked into the entrance of an alleyway. Emily observes the shopfront, noting the steel door and windows embellished with polished bronze plating. The window houses a set of mannequins in various styles of dress, and above it hangs a woven sign in a bronze frame proudly stating: ‘Threads’.

“Here we are, Threads!” Juliana beams with pride.

“Cute shop,” Emily says with a small smile.

Jumping happily, Juliana pulls her through the door, calling out as she does.

“Auntie, I’m back!”

Emily looks around the racks of clothing on display in the open front room, as she hears shuffling and hurried footsteps coming from deep inside the shop. A few moments later, a kind-looking middle-aged woman walks into the room, a large smile lighting up her face the moment she sees Juliana.

“Young miss! It’s so good to see you again,” the woman says as she approaches and pulls Juliana into a hug.

“Hehe, it’s good to see you too Auntie. Has business been going well?”

“Well enough dear. I can even afford to send some funds back to Eliza. Oh, and who might this be?” she says with surprise, finally noticing Emily standing beside her.

“Ah,” Juliana cries, pulling away from the hug and turning to Emily to give proper introductions. “This is my friend Emily from school. She needs to get some workout clothes for combat classes, so I brought her here. And Emily this is Auntie Annie. She used to live in Candim, my territory’s capital. Her sister runs a sister store there, pun intended, where I used to buy all my weaving supplies.”

“Nice to meet you, miss,” Emily says with a light bow.

“Please none of that, just call me Auntie. I’m so glad to know the young miss is making friends. I was worried she might get bullied you know.”

“Auntie!” Juliana cries with embarrassment, getting a chuckle from Annie.

“Haha, sorry dear I’ll stop teasing you now. Was it training clothes you said you wanted? Wait right here, I have just the things!”

Annie looks Emily over briefly before turning and quickly making her way deeper into the shop. Emily and Juliana wait as Annie moves around the room, and even out of it once, gathering items of clothing. When she returns, her arms are full of fabric, with a pair of shoes balanced precariously on top of the stack.

“Here you go, take a look at these,” she says, placing the pile down on an empty surface nearby.

Emily steps up and begins inspecting the clothes, with Juliana watching eagerly over her shoulder. The shoes are a pair of simple leather combat boots, with bronze eyelets and stitching. The linen shirt underneath is loose and long-sleeved, matching Emily’s size when she holds it up to check. The trousers are tight-fitted leather, similar to Agnes’.

At the bottom of the pile is a long, white bandage. Emily raises a brow and looks to Annie for an explanation.

“The shirt is just one of my standard long sleeves, nothing fancy, just something you won’t mind ruining. The trousers are a good choice for resilience, they’re slightly cut-resistant, so they’ll last you longer than a plain fabric choice. Your shoes don’t look the most robust so I thought you might like a better pair for fighting in. As for that cloth, that’s a favour I’d like to ask you. I’m assuming that you’re using normal bandages to wrap your chest during exercise?”

Emily nods.

Annie continues: “You see, recently, a new plant fibre from The Glade has become available on the market and I wove it into that bandage there. It’s very soft and slightly stretchy so I had a few ideas on how to use it, but it’s difficult to work with so I’m not sure if it’s actually worth it. Could you use that instead while training and give me some feedback so I can make a decision?”

“Sure, I don’t see why I can’t help.”

“Great! Thank you, would you like to try those on before buying them?”

“Yes please.”

Annie guides Emily to a small room in the back of the shop with a full-length mirror and a rail for hangers. After Annie leaves her alone, she shuts the door and quickly changes, leaving out the bandage wrap for now.

With her new clothes on, she moves around the room a bit and does some stretches, finding the trousers to be far less restrictive than she expected, barely limiting her mobility. The shoes are comfortable and grip the floor well, the rough tread on the bottom a welcome change from the smooth bottoms of her normal footwear.

With a small, satisfied nod, Emily changes back into her normal clothes and leaves the changing room to find Annie and Juliana mid-conversation. Noticing her presence, they stop talking and turn to face her expectantly.

“Well? What do you think?” Annie asks promptly.

“I think it’s disturbing how well you measured me with a glance.”

“Haha, I’m a seamstress child. If I couldn’t do that, I’d be disappointed in myself. But what did you think of the clothes?”

“They’re good. They fit well and restrict my movement a lot less than I expected them to. How much do you want for them?”

“I couldn’t possibly charge the young miss’ friend,” Annie waves her off, causing Emily to frown.

Just as Emily starts to argue, Juliana speaks first.

“Auntie! You can’t do that. What about if I buy them for her?”

“But then I’d be charging you, young miss.”

“And when have I ever agreed to take anything for free?” Juliana asks smugly, sure of winning the argument.

“Haaa, fine,” Annie sighs and gives up quickly, obviously having had this argument before. “It’s one silver for the shirt, three for the trousers, and six for the boots.”

“Good! We’ll take five shirts, two pairs of trousers and the boots then please.”

Annie leaves to collect the extra items and Emily turns to the grinning Juliana.

“Um, I can pay for myself you know.”

“Nah it’s fine. Think of it as a little gift from me,” Juliana says with a smile, pulling out a pouch of coins to pay. “Save your money for your mechanical stuff, let me treat you!”

The corners of Emily’s mouth curl up and she thanks Juliana with a hug. Annie soon comes back with a small hemp bag containing the extras Juliana asked for along with a few spools of thread.

“There you go, that’s twenty silver total then please.”

Juliana pays and they both say goodbye and turn to leave the shop as Emily places the items in her arms into the bag as well.

“When you have feedback, either come back yourself or tell Juliana for when she visits. Good luck with school!” Annie calls as she waves after the pair through the still-open shop door.

“Will do, thanks, Auntie,” Emily says while waving back, bringing a large smile to Annie's face.