The Lesser Devil known in the Infernal tongue as Tordabludokox, and to his friends and customers as Tord, waited to pounce on the potential clients as soon as they summoned him. Two young souls waiting to make a lesser deal. They were perfect for contracting, especially the one who looked fresh off the farm, and who stared disbelievingly at his resplendent physical form.

  “Taxi.” He was summoned! Behind him he heard the snarl of the other devils as they cursed his luck.

  The arcane contraption to which he was bound swept forward, powered by his infernal will. He checked his small domain; the seats were clean, the leather shiny. The brass of his trim was shined and the lacquered wood was free of dust. He was in prime condition. He even expended a drop of extra energy to swing open the door for the pair.

  With a pair with such potential he would be extra accommodating. These two were young and not yet jaded by the appeals of others of his kind. He might make a deal!

  “Good afternoon, the pair of you. I’m Tord, your taxi today, what’s your destination?” And have you considered the nature of your immortal soul recently? Tord held back, slow and steady.

  “Pardon?” The wide one looked around his domain in confusion. Was it possible? Did he have a virgin in his cab!

  “We want the Modern District, the Long Avenue. Near the Atronax’s Horde branch there.” The smaller one spoke. Her voice held a familiar disinterest, but that wasn’t his focus.

  “What did he mean he’s our taxi?” The big one asked the smaller one and Tord nearly honked his horn out of excitement! He had a true virgin, one who didn’t even know of the world into which they’d stepped.

  “They’re devils, it’s complicated.”

  “If you allow me, miss, I’ll explain. Also, how will you be paying? I take cash, or perhaps we can arrange something more interesting.” Tord felt oil starting to leak on his axles as he began to salivate.

  “Cash, our souls are fine where they are.” She replied with a huff.

  “What’s going on?” The wide man asked, still looking around.

  “Oh he’s new, you’ve got to let me give him the pitch, lady, it’s the rules.” Tord responded, which was true. Part of the pact that bound him here. A Lesser Devil would never stoop to being a mere conveyance if not for the opportunity it presented. Tord had met more people in the last year of possession than in millennia of clumsy summoning.

  Getting a deal was still hard, but there were so many more opportunities. No more suspicious summoners or deranged cultists for him!

  “You know I could just get another cab.” The girl responded.

  “I’ll give you a discount if you at least let me make the offer proper.” Tord responded, and the girl paused. Too late! Tord began to drive, following the avenues from Noxarcer towards the city, going as slowly as he could get away with.

  “Angie, what is going on?”

  “Let me explain, young man. As your cab driver I power this fine Aethercar. Being a cabbie, while it gives me great joy, is not my true calling. For I am a Lesser Devil, and my passion is the trading of souls.”

  “I think my soul is just fine where it is.” The response was immediate and expected, but Tord would not be discouraged, he’d been to seminars on this very thing.

  “That’s what everyone says and yet we still make deals. There is much power in a soul and much we can grant you from a trade. Do you not want anything, I can offer so much more, like—”

  “My soul is pretty jank. I don’t think I could trade it if I wanted to anyway.” The wide man’s response was covered in the Gulzepha’s five soul archetypes. The man was a Devaluer. The appropriate response was to try and convince him of the value the soul had to others, and offer a way to fix the mortal issues that caused him to dismiss his soul’s value in a trade.

  “I’m sure that your soul is fine, no matter the life you’ve lived, souls are not diminished…”

  “Nah, I think you’re misunderstanding. My soul is ragged, like it’s in bad nick.” The wide man responded.

  Tord paused. This was not a normal response. The demon paused and reached out his soul senses towards the man who made his carefully maintained upholstery creak.

  “Your soul is… wow, what happened there? Damnation, that is… Did someone glue you back together? And what’s that bit?” Tord muttered. Something was very wrong. The damage should’ve unmade him, and then there was something bolted to it, a connection to some distant Authority. Tord’s senses passed over it and a familiar and chilling sensation filled him.

  Tord yanked back his senses and tried to keep his voice calm. His brakes screeched in terror as he came to the crossroads. Both his passengers cursed.

  “I… oh, fuck, you’re with Defiance?”

  “Language! And that’s not cool, telling my secrets.” The wide man snapped.

  Tordabludokox began to panic, condensation forming on his windows. He had to get this monster away from him.

  “Well, by the Nine. That was unprofessional of me. I’ll comp your ride, sorry about that, shouldn’t be revealing that stuff.” He laughed nervously.

  “So Long Avenue, right? Heh.” The cart accelerated. Behind him was silence, but even Tord, who struggled to understand the full range of his passengers’ expressions, could pick up the intense look the small one gave the wide one.

  “Ask your questions, Angie.” The man sighed.

  “Oz, what did he mean? I knew about the soul thing, but Defiance? He said it like it had a capital letter. And why did he stop trying to get you to sell your soul, they nearly never stop trying to make a bargain.”

  “We are just Lesser Devils trying to make a living. We can also tell when a sale won’t happen, so why not just enjoy your ride.” Tord offered up, trying to keep his friendly patter while hopefully killing the discussion.

  “Oh man, these devils aren’t slavers, are they?” The accursed one named Oz muttered.

  Tord was so scared his windscreen wipers danced.

  “Pardon me, just clearing the view for you. No, no, none of us can trade a whole soul. The Republic is very clear on that, no slavers here.” His voice was getting manic, and worse, it looked like there was traffic ahead.

  “He’s right, they do offer trades but slivers of the soul. The cars are how they find new customers. If they can convince someone to trade a bit of their soul. Generally it’s only the really dumb or desperate who agree. It does more damage than a respawn, but it’s still recoverable.”

  “We make very good offers, but only to those who have the right to agree. We don’t make deals with anyone who isn’t in full use of their faculties, or old enough. It’s all quite temporary. The right bit of the right person’s soul can offer huge amounts of power to us. We don’t seek dominion, only a bit of power.”

  “Not my soul though, you don’t like I’ve got Authority from Defiance.”

  “There isn’t a devil in all the Infernal realms who’d take that deal.” Tord squeaked.

  “YOU HAVE AUTHORITY! YOU HAVE TO LET ME STUDY IT!”

  Then the Angie woman managed to distract the monster with constant questions. Tord went silent and devoted his entire being to getting them to their destination as fast as possible.

  The cities of the Central Realms were thick with magic. The dungeons drawing in mana from the mortal realms fuelled their technomancy and allowed for all manner of wonder. Taking inspiration from the many worlds they touched to create a better society.

  That was at least what the Republic claimed. In fact it was more of a throw everything at the wall and see what stuck approach.

  Oz was overwhelmed. And not just because he was driving around in a soul-eating car. Or having finally seen off Angie, by agreeing to talk more about his Authority when they trained tomorrow.

  The car had thrown him. The height of technological mastery in Greywater was Keeper Drolb’s ‘Mining Drill’ which was basically just a rune-tractor bolted to some new and exciting ways to kill you. The possessed car had been a shock.

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  And then they’d rounded the hill and he’d seen Opaliath.

  In the fading light of the afternoon the city glowed. He could see illusions dancing on rooftops, living advertisements for brands he didn’t know. Buildings clustered around a dense centre for miles in every direction, but they stretched along the river that cut it in two, the sash of water catching the light of the setting sun and the busy lights.

  He was glad for his faded memories of visiting cities outside the realm when he was much younger. Back before his mother left, they visited some far-off places and even left the realm.

  He scowled extra hard to ensure he kept his jaw shut and his eyes from popping out of his skull.

  The scale of it was beyond anything in Greywater, or even all of the Scab-lands. His more recent memories of Tacha, their capital, which he’d visited only a few years ago on a mandatory school trip, hadn’t prepared him for this. Comparing this to Tacha was like comparing an ancient crown wrought with jewels to a Governor’s sash of office.

  Both were statements of power, and beneath both could be any kind of soul, cruel or kind, but there was a momentum and inertia to one that the other could never manage.

  The city was called the Opal, or just Opal by most, and Oz could see why, the place was beautiful. Buildings, grown out of magically formed milky iridescent stone or pale song-wrought trees, rose before him. The styles changed here and there, as no doubt centuries of architectural change were packed into their short drive.

  Oz could appreciate the shifting styles of masonry thanks to his father’s obsession, and he felt a small smile tug at his lips at the realisation that he was finally seeing things his father had only ever spoken about.

  Angie spoke like a tour guide, her obsession with learning about Noxarcer spreading to the city around it. She explained they were heading towards the ‘Modern’ district, which seemed to be the set of tall looming buildings just over the river, that were packed together so closely that it blocked the view beyond them. The towering monoliths cast long shadows, and Oz noticed that with a bit more glass it wouldn’t be too far off the Ozzer’s memories of his world.

  Skyscrapers was a good name for them.

  Angie started to point out people walking around, trying to bring his attention to ‘style’ he should be looking to imitate. It was difficult though to work out who she was pointing out, the city teemed with people in sharp clothes he’d only ever seen on the illusion glass. Many were in suits or other formal wear, while the younger people tended to wear bright showy clothes, at least one part of their outfit holding some complex pattern.

  He spotted a few people here and there who wore multiple patterned clothes, the designs carefully selected to work together. They had bubbles of space round them, as if the people of the city didn’t get near them. He asked Angie about a pair, and she nodded.

  “Oh, they’re probably some powerful people, a Champion on a walk or some Keeper’s family. Their clothes are expensive, hand made I’d bet, not mass produced in a dungeon.”

  “And people don’t get close to them because?” Oz asked. There were a few Keepers in Greywater, but given he’d once helped wheel a drunk Keeper home in a barrow, he’d never really seen them as that different.

  “Well, no one wants to be accused of bothering them. It’s not the law, but everyone knows that it’s never good to get on their bad side.”

  “And you signed up to come to a scho—academy full of their kids?” Oz asked, still marvelling at the teeming masses out the window.

  “Noxarcer does a good job of removing their influence, but it’s not perfect. But how else are you going to break through into their world?”

  “Sounds like a lot of hassle.” He muttered.

  The sun set as they drove, nearing the looming buildings of downtown. Oz blinked in shock as glowing balls of magic appeared floating over the roads, illuminating their way and bringing an extra shine to aethercarts which flowed between them.

  The Ozzer kept going on about Aetherpunk, but neither part of that word felt right. Not only was he certain that the Ozzer didn’t have the first idea of what ‘Aether’ was, but the few ideas of ‘punk’ he got didn’t match the sharply dressed masses Oz saw. There was a distinct lack of spikes and leather.

  “It’s so busy here. What was your home like?” Angie asked, a minute or so of silence about all she could manage.

  “Put it this way, I can see more cars on just this street than existed in my entire town, even if you included the tractors. They were runecars though, enchanted not possessed.” Oz was getting a creeping feeling of discomfort from the city, he didn’t like how small and uncultured it made him feel. “I don’t know what half this stuff is, why are all the signs glowing?”

  “Oh, that’s neon, it’s a newish thing. Most electrics don’t work well in aether-rich environments, but neon is super simple, just a constant current.” Angie explained. The Ozzer was smug, it had known that. Oz sighed.

  “And it does what?”

  “Glows mostly.” Angie smiled, and Oz decided to accept this, despite it clearly making no sense at all. Why did signs need to glow, were people looking for these places in the dark?

  “You’re really from the frontier, aren’t you.” Angie said.

  “Yep, we called it the Scab-lands. Dad used to say it’s been the frontier for half a century and only getting further from the middle.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I wouldn’t go back even if it let me crap gold for the rest of my life. Couldn’t wait to get out of there.” Oz was unused to prolonged social contact, but he’d managed to remember the basics, which meant he should ask questions. “You miss your home?”

  “I will, I’m too excited right now. I love Greenport, it’s a nice place, our realm is very green, there’s always somewhere to explore. Then there’s my friends, of course. They all supported me, but it’s weird, even before I left, many were about to start their jobs and it all felt different.”

  “Sounds difficult.” Oz decided not to say anything about most kids having a job before leaving school back home. He knew the Scab-lands wasn’t like other places, but the fact their experiences of something as basic as school were so different was gnawing at him.

  “It’s good work, but it was never for me, even if I didn’t have my situation. If I’d stayed the only dungeons nearby were alchemy labs or herb harvesters. I could’ve become a courier like my dad. That’s how he got out here, the company arranged for him to have the next delivery to the city and gave him a few days before returning.”

  “Sound like good people.”

  “They are, everyone was so happy for me, they helped me study and do the training. There was even a going away party, I’m only like the third person from my town to get in. I just wish it hadn’t eaten so much of my time there.”

  “You don’t mind that I got in, do you? Given how hard you worked?” Oz asked. He was thinking of Nevia, the girl from his school year who’d be arriving here at some point. Oz, even if he didn’t pay much attention, was under no illusion as to how hard she’d worked to make it here. It felt a bit like cheating.

  “Oz, you told me you had to beat a spell-casting monster to death with a door after he destroyed Chops with a single attack, and had to fight eight monsters on your own. Even with my class I can’t imagine handling that, so I’m not envious. Besides I’m sure it wasn’t tough, you had to do lots of your own sort of training to get that good at combat.”

  “I can hear you not mentioning the ‘beatings’.”

  “Why was it top ten beatings! That’s a lot of beatings!”

  He glanced out the window again, and he felt his attention snag on something and yank his eyes with it. Up high there was something new, not the flowing lines of the neon signs or the clean and soulless adverts, but a burst of raw colour, on an archway.

  A swirl of pinks and blues bled into a skeletal beast wrapped in chains made of light, its fangs bared and back arched like it was ready to lunge off the brick. Jagged sigils were scrawled across its flank, half runework, half artwork, like someone had let a runescribe on a special kind of mushroom go wild.

  As they turned the corner, more followed, up high on walls, tucked between storefronts, layered over blank stone like a thousand people had fought for space. Some pieces were crude, quick tags, initials, territorial symbols that screamed I exist without asking for permission. Others were beautiful, intricate explosions of colour and motion, animals morphing into cities, words breaking into wings, entire scenes told in three colours and a stolen minute.

  “Wait, slow down, what is that?” Oz said, tapping the window. He didn’t catch the worried sound of the car’s brakes.

  Angie looked over. “What, the graffiti?”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes were still climbing the walls.

  The sun was all but set, but the paint seemed to glow on its own, reflecting the city’s lights in strange, iridescent ways, like the bricks were remembering someone’s magic long after they’d moved on. There was something honest about it. Not curated, not sanctioned, not designed to be admired. It wasn’t trying to sell him anything. It was just there.

  A particularly chaotic piece scrawled across the back of a crumbling apartment block drew his gaze. The letters looked like they’d been hurled from a slingshot, off-kilter, cracked at the edges, but each was filled with a miniature painting, a roaring flame, a bleeding eye, a tiny black-and-white portrait of someone screaming into the void.

  “Slag me,” Oz muttered. “That’s incredible.”

  Angie gave a sceptical look. “It’s vandalism. I mean, I know some people like the aesthetic, but it’s hardly art.”

  “It’s not about it being art,” Oz said, still watching. “It’s about being alive.”

  He turned as another tag blurred past them on a power box. A single sigil, repeating, HUZ. Painted in fluorescent green, over and over, like a battle cry.

  “They look angry,” he added, more to himself than her. “But not bad angry. Just… like they’ve got too much in their head and nowhere else to put it.”

  Angie raised an eyebrow. “Oz, that one is literally flipping the city off.”

  “I don’t get how people walk past this stuff and don’t even look.”

  “I guess they’re used to it.”

  “I hope I don’t get used to it,” Oz said quietly. “This stuff’s got more soul than half the fancy buildings we’ve passed.”

  Angie didn’t argue. She just looked at him a little sideways, the way you do when someone surprises you, and you’re not quite sure if it’s a good thing or a warning.

  “Do you not have graffiti in the Scab-lands?” Angie finally asked. They were heading over the river and the supply of artwork was dropping.

  “I’d rather not think about the Scab-lands, alright. Or the beatings! I want to solve fewer things with violence moving forward. I hurt more people than I should’ve, but there were plenty of people who deserved what they got.”

  “You seem like a nice person though, I just don’t get why.”

  “I was alone, besides my dad there was like one other dwarf in the whole town. My mum was gone, my dad was not well in the head. School didn’t care, most of the town didn’t care, so I took the knocks and moved on.” Oz said, his voice flat, as he tried to ignore the bubbling emotions that threatened to rise up as he spoke.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, nothing to do with you. And I’m out, so that’s all that matters, I’m fine now.” Oz felt he had to keep talking, it didn’t sound that believable, he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. “Since I got here and got my class, I’ve got Chops, and I don’t have all that history hanging over my head. So it’s as good as it’s going to get.”

  “Well, this is a fresh start. I for one am glad you got it.”

  “Me too,” Oz let a faint smile cross his lips. “Either way I’m past that now. Goal is to do only sanctioned violence from now on.”

  “Well, hopefully a bit of shopping wouldn’t be an issue.”