The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 612 – Alloy

“Ebony… you know how much I value your advice, but what you’re asking me to do is extremely risky. If we get involved in this mess, we could easily draw the ire of the Lord of the Fungal Spire,” Semjana said, sounding conflicted.

The Veiled Lady of the 45th district was sitting across from Nesha, dressed in black from head to toe. The only other colours present in her attire were a little bit of white on her insignia and the midnight-blue nail polish on full display as the woman tapped her fingers against her desk in contemplation.

Despite having worked closely with Semjana for many years, Nesha had never gotten a good look at the woman’s face. From what little she had seen, the Veiled Lady appeared middle-aged, a few faint wrinkles barely marring the corners of her eyes.

‘It would have been so convenient if I was allowed to wear the same clothes,’ Nesha thought with a sigh.

While her superior’s garments didn’t look very comfortable, they would have made it much easier for Nesha to hide her identity. Luckily, there wasn’t any need for that anymore – she was more than powerful enough to defend herself on the off chance that somebody recognized her, but she doubted that it would come to that, as the world appeared to have largely forgotten her existence.

Her first few years in Twilight City had been more precarious, however. Had it not been for the poorly sketched wanted posters from her time in the Guild, somebody could have easily ruined her plans.

Nowadays, there weren’t many who insisted on treating even Percy or Micky as criminals, let alone caring about a minor character like her. The Divine Root had yet to officially declare their stance on her boyfriend, but Nesha herself had likely been presumed dead by the Great Houses.

“Lady Semjana, we’re not asking you to directly pick a side in the conflict. Now that the Alchemists’ Guild refuses to trade with Lord Machaon, he has no choice but to strike new deals with the Syndicate. If we don’t do this, one of your colleagues definitely will,” Goh said. “Regardless of who wins in the end, nobody is going to blame every group who sold the loser a few herbs, otherwise they’d have to punish half the noble Houses on Remior.”

‘Goh’ was sitting on a wooden chair next to Nesha, also facing their boss. The three were currently in the Veiled Lady’s personal office – a space densely warded with various enchantments for privacy.

The young Green had joined Semjana’s employment a few years after Nesha, though he’d climbed the ranks even faster than her. Of course, Nesha didn’t mind the competition. After all, she was the one who’d recommended the man to her superior, as having a second voice to support her made it easier for Nesha to manipulate the Blue.

“Fine,” Semjana conceded with a sigh. “If you’re both adamant on this, I’ll try to reach out to them discreetly. But we’re only going to sell a few secondary reagents – nothing more valuable than that. Understood?”

“Of course, Lady Semjana,” Nesha replied politely.

With the woman’s permission, she and ‘Goh’ got up and hurriedly left the office, before the Veiled Lady changed her mind.

“I wish I could have qualified for my own district instead of having to convince the Lords and Ladies to do my bidding…” Nesha muttered as she and her colleague exited the grandiose mansion.

With both cores at Green, a rare and a composite affinity, as well as four flavours of the Dance, Nesha was more than powerful enough to handle a couple of Blues by herself. Maybe as many as three – if she had the time to set up a proper trap.

Sadly, revealing her true strength would blow her cover, and there was no way the Syndicate would promote a Green to a Veiled Lady, despite all the influence that Nesha had amassed within the organization over the past decade. This was why she’d had no choice but to get close to as many as two Veiled Ladies and one Radiant Lord, whispering in their ears to enable her plans.

“Are you sure that selling herbs to our enemy is a good idea?” Goh asked as soon as they were alone, whispering his doubts about the plan that he had so confidently supported mere minutes ago.

It was late, so the city’s laws prohibited them from talking loudly as they traversed the quiet streets of the white district.

“We’ve gone over this.” Nesha rolled her eyes. “Like you just told our boss, Machaon is going to get his herbs from somewhere – whether we help him or not. It’s better to actively hop onto his boat so that we can learn more about his movements.”

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Officially, the White-cored mage had managed to rein in dissent among his subordinates over the past few years, once again solidifying his control over House Asclepius and getting his family to officially accuse Percy of slander.

On the opposite side, House Etna had openly formed an alliance with House Avalon, the Alchemists’ Guild, and many smaller Houses to defend the Fungal Spire and the man who had saved the whole planet from the one who had nearly brought it to ruin.

As for the other five Great Houses, they had done their best to remain neutral, though everyone understood that at least some of them had secretly picked a side.

This was why Nesha had chosen to remain in Twilight City. As much as she wanted to return to her boyfriend’s side, she knew that leveraging her position in the Syndicate to gather intel was the best use of her talents, at least until they brought the monster who had ordered the destruction of her family to justice.

Twilight City was Remior’s largest trading hub, so getting involved with the Syndicate was the easiest way to learn what Machaon and his goons were up to. After all, nobody could avoid trading with both the Syndicate and the Alchemists’ Guild.

Through her connections, she already had good reason to believe that the Divine Root and House Ypnos were planning to join House Asclepius. Her current goal was to figure out what exactly they were waiting for and what their objectives were.

“Alright. If you and Percy both think that this is the best way forward, I don’t care,” Goh replied a few blocks later, when they reached Nesha’s residence. She had long graduated from the ratty inns that stank of piss and unwashed drunkards, her salary as the advisor of a Veiled Lady being more than generous enough for her to significantly improve her quality of life.

Goh had rented a small house near hers, though he opted to follow her into her own first. As soon as they were inside, the man’s body squirmed, his flesh and clothes blending and shifting into a different appearance.

He grew a little taller and more muscular, his fake robes changing from the expensive red fabric into a cheaper and simpler blue, his long, brown hair turning short, dark, and curly. He’d have to change again before he left, but Nesha knew that her friend didn’t enjoy posing as Goh.

Once he was done transforming, Micky still looked like a human. He’d previously explained that his current form was the closest he could get to his original body without sprouting a beak or a second pair of arms, so he preferred assuming this shape whenever they were alone.

Having completed his mission of delivering the affinity-changing treasure years ago, Micky could have returned to Percy’s side. However, he’d chosen to remain here to protect Nesha and help with her mission. Since he could easily communicate and even share resources with Percy, it didn’t really matter where he was.

While he still spent most of his time practicing that “Internal Magiscript” spell of his at home, he had gained a lot more experience in his shapeshifting and acting skills while putting them to good use. Finally, Nesha and Micky had spent a lot of time studying magiscript together.

“Here’s the latest batch,” the reincarnated Huehuan said, pulling several large crates out of thin air and gently dropping them in Nesha’s living room. Their contents made clinking sounds as the densely packed gemstone vials got rattled.

“I told you there’s no need for that. I can afford Aurora Dew on my own,” Nesha said.

The Guild still struggled to produce enough of the exotic cleansing resource for more than a fifth of Remior’s population, but it wasn’t that hard to procure some with enough money. Even so, Percy had insisted on sending her large shipments every other week.

“He just wants to make sure that you have enough stashed for a rainy day,” Micky explained. “We don’t know how our supply chains might be affected when Machaon decides to make his move.”

She nodded, opening a couple of spatial amulets that still had room left, moving the boxes into the artifacts with Micky’s help.

“Are we still practicing magiscript tomorrow?” she asked as her friend transformed back into Goh, clearly getting ready to leave.

“Sorry, not this time. Something semi-urgent came up,” Micky replied. Noticing her creased forehead, he added, “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing. Percy just wants us to finish registering our new spell before our most recent clone is back.”

“What difference will that make?” Nesha asked.

“None. You know how competitive Percy gets sometimes. The clone registered a different upgrade of the same spell, so he doesn’t want to get outdone,” Micky explained with a smirk.

Nesha chuckled. “I’m guessing that you found something interesting in that trip?”

“We think so,” Micky confirmed. “If it works like we hope, this one might benefit a lot of people. I’ll let you know more details once we’re done experimenting with it,” he said, closing the door behind him.

Shrugging, Nesha walked to her bedroom, opening her cabinet to retrieve a pitch-black piece of clothing – or well… perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a piece of chainmail. It was made of countless interlocked metallic rings.

Sadly, the enchantments that she had begun drawing on the full-body undergarment prevented it from being stored inside spatial devices, leaving Nesha no choice but to hide it at home and hope that nobody came snooping through her stuff while she was away.

Over the past few years, Nesha had spent a lot of time perfecting her boosting art and mastering affinity fusion. Using the Dance while in the city could get tricky, since the flow of ambient mana was visible from afar, but it wasn’t difficult for a Veiled Lady’s most trusted advisor to rent a private training room.

Combining metal and space mana had resulted in an even stronger and more malleable material than her dimensional onyx. She had named it dimensional alloy, and she’d been planning to use that to craft her own version of Percy’s Regalia for a while now. It was still a work in progress, but after studying magiscript for years with Micky’s help, she felt confident that she could do it.

‘Hopefully the darn thing will be ready before I actually need it,’ she thought, getting back to work.