The answer, of course, was obvious: take the damned arm off.

  By the time Dain skipped down the hill and struck the hard, rutted road—one of many dozens of roads leading into Granamere—he’d already ripped off his prosthetic. His shoulder stump wasn’t raw flesh. A neat cap of the same black metal had fused with it, smooth to the bone, and there was neither pain nor blood. He didn’t know if that meant he was stuck with this prosthetic for the rest of his life, but at least it meant he could click his prosthetic on and off at will.

  As he walked the lonely road, he wrapped a clutch of sticky creepleaves he’d harvested earlier this morning around the prosthetic, then slung it over his shoulder so it hung next to his Altar. To any passersby, it’d simply look like he was carrying a wrapped shield and shortsword.

  There.

  I’m Dain Sorowyn, a one-armed traveling relic merchant.

  Obviously, he couldn’t just say he was from Corvalenne. As if the tensions between Obric and Auraline weren’t high enough already. He could still use his real name, given there was no way his name would come up in any investigations into the sunken town, but…

  Hm.

  I guess keeping it simple is best.

  He’d be Dain Sorowyn, Obric-born from… what was a small mining town people never visited? He picked a name from a freight stamp he’d once seen on a crate: Havers Pike. He was a traveling relic merchant from Havers Pike, and after two years on the road buying weird and selling weirder, his satchel was constantly bulging with things that looked like they shouldn’t be bulging. That’d explain his magic materials and his strangely-wrapped baggage, at least.

  If anyone kept asking, he’d just find a different street to walk on.

  Rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, he eventually saw the simple stone arch that marked the entrance to Granamere. He entered discreetly right at sundown. The town was already going quiet, the day shifts vanished down alleys smelling of stew and hot metal, but the streets still had that end-of-day lilt: a few voices, a few mining carts being pushed around, and lots of miners opening up streetside stalls even at the edge of town.

  Granamere had maybe about a thousand or so people, same as Corvalenne, but it felt denser with observably more people walking out and about at this time of day.

  The benefits of not having been struck by a hundred storm javelins and left with hundreds of orphans at the end of the war, I suppose.

  He walked with his head low, making no eye contact with anyone in particular as the miners hollered and tried to trade amongst each other.

  “Two for one, miners’ scrap! Good for children’s knives!”

  “Filings, filings! Mix in your mortar, strengthens the set!”

  “Blueiron nubbins! Pretty if nothing else!”

  Most of the vendors shouted behind boards piled with slag-ore and ugly offcuts that didn’t make the smelters’ cut. He couldn’t help but look a little. One stall bore reddish lumps shot through with dark hairline veins: ironheart ore. They were quite valuable as side offerings to simply strengthen the resilience of the obtained relic. Another stall had chalky beads that looked like hailstones, but were probably clink-salt hardened by tunnel air. The last vendor he peeked at had bottles of crush-sapphire, which was also good as a side offering to lower the weight of any obtained relic.

  If he had coins…

  Well, he didn’t have coins. He had a satchel, one arm, and his other arm strapped to his back like bad luggage. He moved on.

  While there were a lot of stores he wanted to check out—namely, the materials store and the relics store—his eyes were peeled for one building only. He passed by a statue of a mountain goat, multiple hot stone communal baths, and even more open-air forges where smiths gathered and drank ale around until he rounded another bend, stepping into the main town square.

  The beautifully chiselled water fountain aside—the spout curled with a stone dragon—he spotted a building at the side of the square with the signboard of a bed and steaming bowl above it.

  Below the universal symbol of an inn, there was a name: ‘The Spoken Kettle’. The building itself was two storeys tall, relatively small for an inn but homely all the same. Its slanted wooden roof was decorated with vines. Its front-facing wall was cobblestone and red wallflowers, while the lanterns hanging both in and outside the front door were warm and inviting.

  Looks like a decent enough place to stay in.

  He checked his wrappings one more time for good measure before stepping in, pushing the door open.

  A bell jingled above him.

  Inside, the Spoken Kettle was small enough that his breath alone could’ve warmed the rafters. Five round tables fit for four, a long bar counter with shelves of old alcohol behind it, and a hearth to the side with faintly glowing coals. There were no patrons at this hour. He immediately wondered why that was, but more importantly…

  He put up the warmest smile he could muster as he saw the innkeep polishing glassware behind the counter. A good merchant had to be able to communicate with travelers and customers from all walks of life, so he understood Obrican perfectly fine—Obric used to be a part of Auraline, anyways, so there wasn't much of a difference in the language—but speaking Obrican might give him away a little.

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  “Hello,” he said, in the lightest accent he could muster.

  The young woman in the apron and the hair sash looked up at him. She was the typical Obric woman: ink-black hair, rough skin from years of living in a town chock full of mining dust, and tall. She was way taller than him. He wasn’t short by any measurement, but she was easily half a head taller, so he didn’t even want to see how tall the average Obric miner was when they weren’t sitting behind stalls selling excess ores.

  Curse the Obric stoneborn heritage. Natural giants with higher base might and resilience, all of them.

  “Evening,” she said slowly as she resumed her polishing. “I’m Wenna. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a room,” he said, trudging forward to place one arm against the counter, leaning into it. “Not to judge the empty tavern, but I’m assuming you have rooms to spare?”

  “How long?”

  “Let’s say two weeks.”

  “That’ll be eight hundred curons,” she said without looking at him. “Includes daily lunch and supper, no breakfast. Sheets are washed once every two days.”

  That was his cue to raise a brow. “Eight hundred?”

  “You missing an ear as well?”

  “Where I come from, fourteen nights won’t cost even half that, and they serve breakfast as well.”

  “You’re not where you came from.” She shrugged, stone-casual. “Can’t go any lower than eight hundred. Rooms are usually in high demand, but with what’s happened to Corvalenne, I won’t be seeing any caravans or travelers coming through on the east road for a spell or two… so seeing as this is the only inn in Granamere and you have no other choice, I’ll look out for myself and charge whatever I need to keep this place afloat. Now, you paying or not?”

  He groaned. “Oh, come on. Take a little pity on a poor one-armed relic merchant?”

  “You’d do the same to me if it were me approaching you for a relic.”

  Fuck, she got me good. “Well, unfortunately, I don’t really have a single coin to my name—”

  “That’s alright, the front door’s right there—”

  “But,” he cut in, fishing into his satchel, “I do have something you could turn into coins faster than I can.”

  He lifted the small pouch by its cord and eased it onto the counter. Even through the leather, the thin blue glow seeped out like moonlight through frost.

  Wenna’s eyes widened, and she stopped polishing her glass again.

  “Bilefrost centipede gland,” he said pleasantly, loosening the cord so the scent of sharpened winter and bitter mint could slip into the air. “It’s fresh from a very large and very recently deceased giant bilefrost centipede. As a relic merchant by trade, this is the sort of thing I’d usually sell for, eh, about a thousand curons.”

  “And why don't you?”

  “Because I could go to the local materials merchant, haggle, and then trot back here to pay you your eight hundred like a respectable guest.” He leaned against the counter, looking back and forth between her and the door. “But between you and me, Wenna, I think I’m just a little too tired for that. Here’s my offer: you take this, sell the gland yourself, and pocket the extra two hundred. Not a bad deal, right?”

  Her gaze never left the pouch. He knew instantly that she’d seen glowing magic glands before, that much was clear—she’d be questioning its monetary value otherwise—but she was still savvy enough to look back at him with a small scowl.

  “How do I know you’re not just selling me a pretty story?”

  He shrugged. “If the local merchant tells you they’re not worth a thousand, then first of all, he’s a hack, and you should kick him out of town. Then you can kick me out for wasting your time.” He tapped the counter with his knuckles. “No risk you can’t undo with a simple visit, right?”

  Wenna chewed that over, eyes flitting between his wrapped palm, his leaf-bound luggage, and the sliver of blue glaring out of the pouch.

  Then, she reached under the counter for a keyring.

  “You’re upstairs,” she said, plucking one off and tossing it at him. “Left door at the back of the hall. Shared bathroom’s right in front of yours. Lunch is at the twelfth bell, and supper’s at the eighth. Menu’s mine, not yours.”

  “A tyranny I can live under,” he said, dipping his head.

  He started towards the stairs by the side of the common room, then paused halfway up and tilted his head back, making a big show of it.

  “Oh, but one more thing,” he pondered aloud. “I heard if you stew a bilefrost gland in starflower alcohol for at least a week, it'll strengthen its chill and double its potency for double the price. I’ve always wanted to try it out for myself, but, well, nobody makes starflower alcohol anymore, right? Not since the end of the war?” He gave Wenna an easy, rueful grin. “If I had that bottle, I wouldn’t be giving you the gland.”

  Then he looked away and kept going up, but as he did, he caught a glimpse of the innkeep side-eyeing a hidden compartment behind her counter. Just the neck of a glass poked out: a squat, square bottle with a black cord seal.

  She was still staring at the hidden bottle while he took the stairs two at a time.

  … Gotcha.

  Truth was, he’d noticed that bottle in the reflection on one of the shelved bottles behind her, so that part about stewing the gland for increased potency was a pure, black lie. He just wanted her to hold off on visiting the materials merchant to confirm the glands’ value for at least a week—which was definitely not a thousand curons—because his second lie was that he wanted to stay here for at least two weeks.

  Preferably, he’d be out by the end of the first week. He was only here to earn some money, get basic traveling gear, and re-establish his footing so he could look for his enemies elsewhere.

  I doubt I’d get any information about them in this small border town.

  If there’s anything to figure out, it’ll be in the larger towns further east or north where rumors flow better, but even if I earn enough money to afford caravans there, I’ll need more relics.

  Hunting organized shadows armed with Elementum-Class relics won’t be easy unless I have overwhelming firepower.

  As he trudged down the second floor hallway, lanternlight staining the walls a warm amber, he slid his key into his room’s lock—only for the door beside his to creak open first.

  Two girls stepped out mid-conversation, the words ‘going home already’ drifting into the hallway before cutting off.

  Their gazes snapped on him at once.

  He blinked back.

  There they were, the very two people in the world he’d sincerely hoped he’d never run into again.