Chapter 16

The bandits and gangers known as CySkav-Harvesters, or simply CySkavs, strip cybernetics from corpses or the living. They either sell them on the black market or keep them to install on themselves later. There are gangs and bandit packs that specialize in this style of raiding, but many will steal cybernetics as an afterthought when the chance comes up. Many people think CySkav-Harvesters are the worst scum of society. They take body parts from living people, leaving them to die, and deface dead bodies for profit. However, there are less than reputable Cy-docs that will purchase the stolen cyberware to sell and install at a higher rate.

I hit the street barefoot, shirtless, and unarmed, but I didn’t care. I turned right and ran almost blindly as I called Ferris on my therra. The moment Ferris picked up the call, I didn’t wait for him to speak as I burst into a hurried explanation. “Nel’s in serious trouble. I don’t know what. Can you flick me the address to her work site?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ferris said in confusion. “Give me a sec while I pull it up. But Ives’, everyone here is pretty ticked off with you, even Navor.”

“Listen, Ferris. Right now, I don’t give an ant’s shit what the others think. Nel sent an S.O.S., so she takes priority. After she’s safe, then I’ll deal with the shitstorm Ozwald stirred up. I’ll take the beating if I need to, but that comes later.” As I spoke, the address of Nel’s worksite came arrived in a message through my therra. I plugged the address into my therra’s GPS.

As it happened, I was running in the completely opposite direction from where I needed to be heading. I ground to a stop, which was rather painful on bare feet, but I had no time to complain. I turned on the ball of one foot and sprinted in the correct direction, my guided path to Nel’s work site in the corner of my vision. With light steps and quick bursts of speed, I wove through the crowded streets. I turned at one intersection after another, moving as fast as I could manage, not paying heed to the glares of disgust from those I passed.

Running down the sidewalk on Bleekered Street, something caught my eye that brought me to another skidding halt. A familiar white purse lay on the ground, abandoned. It was the very same purse that I had seen on Nel’s shoulder when she was heading to her job.

Earlier, I had mentioned that the purse was large, but let me give you some details. I had recently learned that Nennel didn’t leave home without a bag whenever possible. This purse could have been easily mistaken as a medium-sized backpack if not for the single strap that it was supported by. The bags that Nel normally carried could be weaponized with little effort.

I picked up the bag, my heart racing from more than just the run. I was desperately hoping that it wasn’t Nel’s bag, but I knew deep down it was hers. I opened the bag to find the very definition of who Nel was. At the top of the bag were three books. A dictionary, a bestiary of creatures native to Ventic, and a fictional novel that Nel had been raving about for the past week. I found a variety of items under the books, such as a pistol, two spare ammo magazines, a dagger, a case of six Lightning Myst Crystals, a cybernetic repair kit, a bag of snacks, a metal water bottle with an integrated chilling system, chewing gum, a glue stick, knitting needles, yarn, and a half-finished crochet project.

Yep, that was the very base of what made Nel who she was. There was no mistaking that bag for anyone else’s. I clutched the bag in one death-gripped fist as I desperately looked around for any sign of Nennel. The purse was beside a mouth to an alley. After not spotting any sign of Nel on the street, I moved down the alley at a near-panicked pace.

If something had happened to Nennel, I didn’t know what I would do. She was one of my closest friends. I thought of her as a sister. She was the closest thing I had to family, and if I lost her… by the gods above and below, I would lose my mind. I would find her. I would save her. I was not going to lose another loved one if I could help it.

The alleyway opened up into a small open space of cracked and weathered asphalt with a perimeter of warehouses. I stepped into the courtyard, scouring the space for any clues to Nennel’s whereabouts. I found that much-needed clue within seconds. A purple, Nennel-sized sneaker lay just outside the door of a warehouse to my left. I hurried over to the shoe and picked it up. I noticed that the air near that particular warehouse was thick with the scent of rust, old oil, and cybernetic micro-hydraulic system compression fluid. At the same time, I heard a series of malicious cackles coming from just beyond the door I crouched by.

I examined the perimeter of the door for any sign that it would make a noise when opened, but the hinges were on the inside. So I slowly turned the handle and even more slowly gave the door a nudge open. When no sound came from the door, I pushed it gradually farther and farther open until I could slip through.

Beyond the door was an expansive space full of rusted and degraded mechanical equipment. The majority of the space was veiled in darkness, with a center space washed in bright light. In the bright circle, there were men and women of a range of ages and species, from a middle-aged Orc man to an adolescent Elf woman who might have been in her early forties. They were all obviously gangers, wearing street clothes of varying quality and states of disorder, but they all wore a black and red band of cloth on their left bicep. Another thing they all had in common was that all the gangers I could see had some form of cybernetic alterations. None of the cybernetics looked to be of high quality, and many didn’t seem to fit correctly.

They all stood around something hanging from a thick, rusted chain that reached down from the shadows of the ceiling above. The individuals of the group were each taking turns to do something to whatever was at the center of their gathering. I had a bad feeling that I knew what they were toying with and what they were doing. I circled around the interior perimeter of the building as quickly and quietly as I could.

The moment I found a break in the wall of people, my fears were verified. Nennel was strung up by her wrists. Her body was being picked apart piece by piece by the gangers. Nennel’s legs were almost completely missing. Her pelvis was in shambles, and the components that were supposed to be contained within her abdomen hung out like entrails, leaking critical fluids to puddle on the floor below her.

A spike of rage and panic lanced through my mind, and I almost lunged into action without thinking. But that would have gotten Nel and me killed in quick order. So, I forced myself to think up a plan. Because I didn’t know how much time Nel had before her vital signs hit critical, I took a gambit. I pulled the dagger from Nennel’s bag, slashed open my palm, and used the blood that welled up to fuel first a Tier 1 Physical Enhancement, then a Tier 2 Mental Enhancement using Distortion Myst and Morphic Myst. First, I used the Morphic Myst to alter the strength of my muscle fibers and how much oxygen they needed to function. Following that, I used Distortion Myst to spike the rate of my blood flow at critical moments to improve the rate of blood flow and the supply of crucial blood-transported supplies to my mutated muscle fibers. Then I used the same two elements to alter the structure and function of my brain, increasing synaptic response time and fire-rate while strengthening the synapsis against the increased strain.

Both of these enhancement tricks, which I came to rely on frequently, are incredibly dangerous, and if I screwed up a single micro-action, I could’ve ruined my body or crippled my mind. But I had been practicing the enhancements since I first formulated them in my first year at the Aegis Academy. Little did I know at this point in my story, just how insane and impossible these tricks were supposed to be. 

I focused the effects of the physical augmentation to enhance my strength just enough to get what I needed. I also used the blood flow rate spike of that enhancement to force more blood from my wound to allow me to trigger the Tier 2 Mental Enhancement. I put my cognitive processing power into overdrive and sped up my perception, causing time to slow down to half speed to my senses.

The only tools I had on hand were in Nennel’s bag, so I was going to need to get creative. I pocketed one of the magazines of spare ammo and dismantled the other. I popped open the water bottle and started pulling apart each bullet. I poured the Blast Sand from each of the bullets of the dismantled magazine into the open water bottle. 

Next, using Nel's glue stick and a single Vell of Fire Myst, I glued the bullets to the bottle and quickly cured it. Following that, I popped off the cover of the battery for the cooling system of the bottle and replaced the Ice Myst Crystal with a Lightning one from the case of six I had found. That action put me on a timer of only seconds as the Ice Myst in the chilling system was put under pressure from the now-charging Lightning Myst.

While Ice Myst was not conducive in a raw myst form, it was volatile when put under pressure from myst of an opposing element. Because Lightning was a compound element formed from crossing Air and Fire Myst, it very much was an opposing element. The power draw system of the chilling apparatus would pull any element from an installed myst crystal. Without the Ice Myst being used to actively cool the bottle, the circulation system was only being put under increasing pressure. The result of that action alone was going to be explosive. But I also just filled the bottle with explosive sand used to launch bullets at lethal speed.

My work pace kicked into high gear as I used the remaining spare moments to put the other Lightning Myst Crystals in the bottle. I sealed the bottle cap, put Nennel’s pistol in my free hand, and judged my launch angle.

I threw the bottle in a high arc. As it fell, I lined up my first shot and fired at the mount-point of the chain holding Nennel aloft. The shot rang out and echoed through the warehouse. A single link of that chain holding Nennel up burst with a snap and puff of rust flakes. The chain went slack, and she dropped to the floor. While the gangers turned away from Nel to find the source of the shot, I lined up the second shot.

The moment the now pressurized and charged bottle was just above the heads of the gang, I cracked off my second shot. The metal water bottle detonated with a thunderous crunch that sounded like the snapping of a dragon’s bone. The water inside the bottle and Ice Myst in the container were vaporized, producing a thick cloud that covered the small space and blocked vision. At the same time, the bullets attached to the bottle, along with the metal shell, were sent flying in every direction. Metal bounded off metal and concrete in every direction, clattering, clanging, and ringing out from everywhere.

Nothing thrown out by the bottle’s blast would have had lethal force, but it got the job done. The gangers panicked, drawing their weapons and attacking blindly in every direction. As the gang spread out, looking for what they must have thought to be a group of attackers encircling them, I slipped in. Every ganger I passed, I struck with a non-lethal blow to knock them out without making too much sound. By the time I had gotten to Nennel, I had crippled four of the CySkav-Harvesters, but there were at least another dozen of them.

One of the smarter CySkavs was standing guard beside Nennel, where she lay on the floor. I wasn’t going to be able to get Nel without alerting the large male Human. I aimed the pistol at his head while he couldn’t see me. But I hesitated. I couldn’t just kill the man, even if he was a ganger and a CySkav. That moment of hesitation cost me. The man turned and spotted me. I got a good look at him. He must’ve been in his early thirties, large, muscular, and bald, with a cybernetic left arm and eye that looked to be of poor quality.

The large man gave a shout of warning as he brought a large revolver to aim at me. In a panic, I lunged forward and stabbed him in the foot with the dagger in my left hand. That turned his shout of warning into one of pain and panic in mid-vocalization.

In one fluid motion, I spun around the man and struck him in the base of the skull with the butt of the same dagger to knock him out. As an afterthought, I took his armband and pocketed it before grabbing Nennel. I picked up what was left of Nel and slung her over my shoulder. The moment I was certain that Nennel was secure, I made straight for the door I had entered through.

I hadn’t made it six steps before a bullet whizzed by my ear. I ducked behind the nearest support beam, pressing my free shoulder against the cover while I called Navor. She picked up the call with a deadpan, “You’re alive. I’m guessing you found Nennel.”

A ganger jumped around the corner with a blade swinging at my chest. I fired a single shot into the Elf woman’s knee to cripple her before I replied to the Master. “Yes, ma’am. But she’s in bad shape, and we’re in trouble.”

“Got it. I have your location. I have an AV cab en route to pick you up in two minutes. Meet it at the street.”

I moved from one pillar to the next as the call continued, only firing my pistol when I had no other choice and always aiming for non-lethal targets. Finally, I made it to the door just as I heard the majority of the gang closing in, and I knew I did not have the skills or ammunition to handle them with Nennel over one shoulder.

I kicked the door open and rushed across the courtyard, bullets flying by me, and Navor was still on the call. “Master, please tell the team that I need help in ASAP? I’m going to need Kharmor’s contact number, and for you to call the nearest Cy-doc shop and get me access to their space and tools.”

“Alright. Zynna and Demierra will help, but they aren’t happy about it. I’m sending you Kharmor’s number now.”

“Roger.” was all I managed to get out before I noticed an AV taxi dropping down to land on the street just on the other side of the buildings to my right. The sight distracted me enough to allow a single bullet to land in my thigh. The round dug deep and burned like hell but didn’t reach the bone.

I hobbled down the alley as fast as I could, cussing and cursing the whole way, knowing that the gangers were snapping at my heels. I reached the aerial vehicle with its doors already open and unceremoniously dropped Nennel into the back seat. Without pause, I climbed in beside her and shouted for the cab driver to move at top speed. As the cab took off, I double-checked that the Ceangar female driver had our destination. The moment she gave the affirmative, I started typing up a text message addressed to the Half-Dwarf Kharmor.

I kept it short and sweet. I gave him a rough description of Nel’s state alongside a list of components for him, Zynna, Demierra, and Ferris to pick up. Along with the message, I wired him all of my equipment funds and told him to split it between everyone I had listed and to check with the Master where to meet me.

After the message was sent, I pulled my R.A.T Tail from the back of my neck, extending the cable, and plugged it into the side of Nennel’s own neck into an emergency analysis port. My understanding of cybernetic body standard readings was rudimentary, to say the least, but I could tell that she was in terrible shape and only getting worse.

I still had her purse by some miracle. So I pulled free the pack of gum, popped a piece in my mouth, chewed it just enough to get it pliable, and used it to plug the leaking hoses. I did this over and over again. While I did this, I shouted at the driver to get me to the Cy-doc shop faster.

“Cool your heels, kid! We’ll be there soon.” The diver snapped back at me.

My rage boiled at how helpless I felt. I was so furious I had totally forgotten about the bullet in my leg. I was scared for Nennel. I was seething with how I could do so little to change things. The desire to scream and strike the interior of the aerial vehicle was almost overwhelming. But I restrained myself. I also bit my tongue to stop from barking threats at the driver. But the effort was immense.

That day of all days was not a good one to forget to take my anti-crazy injection. I knew I was unstable without the medication in my system. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to make a choice I would regret. I needed to keep a tight leash on myself, or I was going to dig myself an even deeper hole.

What must’ve only been minutes felt like timeless hours as I seethed in my powerlessness. The moment the landing lights went on in the interior, the tension in my mind and body was so tight I could’ve held the whole AV on my shoulders without even noticing. I threw open the door and watched the ground close in, resisting the urge to jump with Nel until I knew it was a height that wouldn’t injure me or kill her when I dropped. I dropped eight feet from the vehicle with Nennel braced in my arms and held close to my chest. When I struck the pavement with bone-jarring force, I felt something in my thigh tear with a ripping sensation. A snarl slipped through my lips, but I pushed on.

Ten feet from where I landed was the entrance to a two-story gray concrete building. 'Smith & Seedon Cybernetics and Medical Services' was written on a hologram sign above the metal doors in purple and blue. I forced myself to limp forward as fast as I could.

The twin armor-plated front doors slid open as I drew near. I stumbled into a waiting room with a white-tiled floor under gray-blue walls enclosing neat rows of navy blue and steel chairs. Directly in front of me was a reception station set behind bullet-resistant glass, operated by a young Human woman with blond hair.

The moment the receptionist noticed me staggering in, her eyes went wide with panic. She tapped her therra and muttered something. Moments later, as I fell to my knees, the doors leading to the back swung open before three nurses. A large male Human nurse and two Ceangar nurses who looked like twins of an unknown gender.

“My Master called ahead.” I growled up at the Human nurse with a tired but resolute smile on my face as he took Nel from my arms. “I have an appointment for a reserved operating theater.”

“Kid,” started one of the Ceangar twins; his voice revealed that he was definitely a man. “You are a total mess. You’re in no shape to do anything but get help yourself.”

I looked down at myself. My bare chest and arms were covered in dust, and flecks of rust pasted on by my sweat. My wounded thigh was leaking a trickle of scarlet, but nothing life-threatening. I flicked my gaze to the Ceangar, who made the comment, and gave him a death stare as I dragged myself to my feet. I favored my good leg, but I wasn’t about to back down. “I’ll stop when my sister is safe. Till then, I have work to do.” I turned to the Human nurse who held Nel and asked him to lead the way. He gave me a worried look up and down but said nothing, instead gesturing with his head toward to door before he moved in that direction.

I hobbled along behind the large man as he led me down a hall, up a flight of stairs, and into a room. The room in question was about twelve feet squared, with a familiar raised and slanted operating table in the center. Stretching from the back of the operating table were several mechanical arms hung above the table, with dormant tools at the end of each. Around the perimeter of the room were various other tools, systems, and supply stations.

The nurse laid Nel down on the operating table and started to hook her up to the life-support systems. He hadn’t finished hooking up the first system when I told him I would do it myself and asked him to leave.

“Do you know how to operate these systems?” He asked in a skeptical tone. I gave him a hasty confirmation before almost shoving him out of the way to do the work myself.

The Ceangar twins left the room ahead of the Human nurse, who stopped for one last look back at me with worry before leaving. I moved around the room as fast as I could manage with my damaged leg. I pulled all the needed life support and fluid supply systems from the wall. With shaking hands, I clipped off the ends of each tube I had sealed with gum using medical sheers. I then hooked up each freshly opened tube to the necessary supply systems.

I started with the systems that kept her brain and remaining organic organs functional. Synthetic blood and hormone supplements were systematically added to her body. I knew her blood type was B-negative, so I prepped the synthetic blood in the pump. While I prepped the blood, I had a scanner mounted above the chair, checking her vital signs as well as which chemicals and synthetic hormones were needed in what amounts.

After I set the blood-pump system into motion, I hooked her up to a saline drip feed. My primary goal was to keep her brain alive at all costs. I could replace her cybernetics and even other damaged organic components if I could keep her brain functioning. Luckily, her synth-org lungs were still intact, so I didn’t need to worry about her oxygen. But I was still terrified that I wouldn’t be able to save Nel if my teammates didn’t get there in time with the needed parts.

Once I was mostly sure that Nel would remain in a stable condition, I turned to my own wound. I gathered the needed tools and supplies and sat down on a wheeled stool in an awkward position. With patience, I thoroughly washed my hands before cutting be back of my pant leg open. Sure enough, the bullet hole halfway up my thigh had split horizontally about a half inch on either side. I wasn’t bleeding badly, though the wound burned with constant pain. But the pain was nothing new. I systematically pulled the bullet free with a pair of medical forceps, digging deep into the meat of my leg. Once the bullet was free, I absent-mindedly dropped it on the floor and started to stitch myself up. The flesh tear was deep, so I ran the stitches just as deep, which was less than pleasant.

I was three sutures from completion when the door to the room opened. Zynna stepped into the room with three large bags of supplies in her hands. “This had better not be a jo-” she started until she saw me sowing up my leg. She stopped in her tracks to stare at me. When she looked over to find Nennel, she breathed a low “holy shit-cakes.”

With a medical thread held between my lips and my hands occupied, I nodded over to a table I had the forethought to clear off beforehand. “Drop it off there.” I mumbled around the thread.

Zynna hurried over to the table and dropped off the bags. Demierra came in after her with a pair of long metal cases under each arm. The Dracose looked from me to Nennel before wordlessly dropping off the cases at the foot of the table. Zynna stood in a corner of the room, looking uncharacteristically nervous, while Demierra left the room.

Kharmor and Ferris stepped in after Demierra left. The Half-Dwarf looked uncomfortable as he saw the scene. Meanwhile, Ferris, normally an easy-going and enjoyable ass, his face darkened like a storm cloud when he saw Nel’s state. “What happened?” was all he asked. His tone was the calm before the storm he wore.

“CySkav-Harvesters.” I stated. “They ambushed her and were in the middle of picking her apart when I found her.”

My Quint friend stormed from the room with a hostile stance, Zynna hot on his heels. Kharmor was about to follow them out of the room when I told him to stay. “I’m going to need another set of hands to get this done right.”

There was a long moment of silence as he took in Nennel in her incomplete state before he said, “I’m going to warn you now: cybernetics aren’t my forte. But… What do you need me to do?” His voice started low and uncertain, but by the end of his question, his tone was resolute.

I wrapped up my last suture and tied it off before standing. I hobbled over to the table, taking the stool with me. I braced my bad leg against the stool by resting my knee on it. “Are you familiar with the basic components of cybernetics?”

“Reasonably.” Kharmor replied.

So, I listed off one component after another for Kharmor to bring from the table of supplies. I installed or replaced Nennel’s body systematically as I went. I started with the synthetic organs, commonly referred to as synth-orgs. The devices are made of plastic, rubber, and silicone and are designed to function like natural organs using magical mechanisms. Nel’s digestive system and most adjacent systems were a total mess, if not completely missing. I guided Kharmor through each installation process and explained what I needed when I required another set of hands.

Kharmor was mostly silent as we worked, aside from a question here and there. He was patient, calm, and intuitive as we patched Nennel together. As we were assembling Nennel’s legs’ skeletal structure, Kharmor spoke up with a question that had nothing to do with the operation.

“So… I take it that you weren’t the one to poison the coffee this morning?”

Without looking up from my work, I wiped the sweat from my brow with a forearm before I answered with a simple “Yep.”

“Do you know who did?”

I looked at Kharmor from under a heavy and still slightly damp brow as I said, “Take a hard guess.”

The Half-Dwarf raised a single bushy eyebrow at me before he said, “Ozwald?”

“How’d’ya guess?” I asked with thick sarcasm.

“You defended Ferris and Nennel without a second thought. You accused him after he pointed the blame at you. That wasn’t simply retaliatory. You knew. But why did you have the antidote?”

“I already said that Thallos had a habit of poisoning me to teach me to be paranoid. I had to find a way to counter any poison that he subjected me to.”

“So you got ahold of the antidotes through your friends, which are part of either the Sightless Eye or Silent Heart.”

While he was totally off base, I decided to give him the win. I gave Kharmor confirmation with a single deep nod and an affirmative grunt while I locked a coupling into place. He gave me a nod in return, and he screwed the coupling closed. “I had a feeling after seeing you run out to save Nel instead of defending yourself. Demierra, Zynna, Ozwald, and I all thought that you were just fleeing the accusation at first. When you called Ferris, we thought you were just making up excuses for running out like a coward. But when you contacted the Master with instructions for each of us and dropped funds for buying components… I had my suspicions that something serious was going on.”

“And then you saw Nel’s state.” I deduced as I hooked a silicone tube to a mounting site of a pump.

“And your’s too. Yes.”

“You don’t know me from a fiend, Kharmor.” I said as I started attaching synthetic musculature to the base steel-bone-frame. “I don’t expect you to know that I’ve run for most of my life and that I’m done running. You wouldn’t know that I never had friends until Nennel and Ferris. Nor would you know that I would spill blood, both mine and anyone else's who threatens those two.”

“They mean that much to you?” Kharmor asked as he started his own process of mounting musculature to the steel-bone-frame on his side.

I tightened down the servos set at Nennel’s right knee as I replied, my voice gruff with the strain. “When did you get your first friend?”

“When I was seven years old. Why?”

I tested the servo as I continued. “Were you bullied when you were younger?”

“Yeah. I got a good bit of trouble from Dwarven children because I was a half-breed.”

“Did they ever beat you?” I asked.

“What?” Kharmor asked with a start, clearly confused by the question. “No, I never got beaten. The worst I got was nasty name-calling.”

I reached over to tap on one of Kharmor’s knuckles. The feeling of the appendage was off, not quite what would be totally organic. “Your hands are cybernetic, aren’t they?” I also noticed a bracelet of woven mythril on his right hand holding sixteen glowing myst crystals. Was it just jewelry? Or was it a magic item?

“Yes, but don’t change the topic.” Kharmor snapped as he recoiled his hands in shock.

I gave him a dramatic eye roll before I provided him with the answer he was looking for. “If you really must know, Nennel was my first friend, and I met her when I first came to the Academy. Before then, and even after I met her, bullies regularly attacked me. As much as I hate Thallos, I will give him credit for shaping me into a man able to defend myself and those I care about. So yes, Nennel and Ferris mean more to me than anyone else I know that still breaths.”

I pressed my hands against the small of my back to force a series of audible pops from the region. “But enough about me. What about you, Kharmor? Why did you join the Order? How did you get those hands?”

The Half-Dwarf flexed his hands, looking at them with a distant expression. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah.” I confirmed.

“If you really want to know, I joined the Order with a goal to reach, plane and simple. Regarding my hands… my mother is a Dwarven whitesmith, a smith specializing in jewelry. And my father is a Human blacksmith. I studied their work to the best of my ability and got ahead of myself. When they weren’t looking, I melted down a bar of mythril and spilled it on my hands while trying to move the molten metal across the room. I don’t think I need to tell you that I didn’t have much of my hands left after that. My parents burned every coin of savings they had to get me these hands.”

I visibly winced at the thought of spilling molten metal across my hands. “That must’ve been pretty bad. I am seriously sorry to hear that you had to go through that kind of pain.”

Kharmor shrugged as he hooked up a power cable to the needed power plug. “What’s done is done. There’s no changing the past, and whining about it won’t change a thing. So I work with what I have and push toward my next goal with all that I am.”

With an examining eye, I looked at the young Half-Dwarf for a long moment. Closely, I watched him work with a methodical and dedicated pace, with an expression that came across to me as brooding. For a brief second, I thought caught a flash of something beneath that brooding. Something manic. But it was gone in an instant. I was shocked out of my stooper when Kharmor asked me to explain the next steps. I shook my head free of the daze and rapidly blinked a few times before walking him through the next few steps. As I spoke, I pointed to the needed components, tools, and critical locations.

We worked together with only the barest minimum of words to convey what was needed. It wasn’t until we were working on the outermost layer of synthetic muscle that I spoke up with my next question. “You mentioned having a goal tied to The Order?”

“Yeah.” Kharmor said with a single nod as he continued with his work, not even sparing me a glance. “I’ve always had a passion for fighting. I enjoy forging weapons, but what I truly enjoy is fighting. Pitting myself against a skilled fighter with nothing but my fists, that's what I want . However, I’ve had no official or professional training in my life other than the basics we got as Slates. When I was younger, I had a scorching temper and got into plenty of brawls. I can throw a decent punch, but that wasn’t enough to join the Crimson Blade. Instead, I was automatically put into the Blackened Crown because I’m a Mechanist class Mage. I easily got into the Burning Hand because of that same Mage class, given the ability to conjure machinery and tools. I may be a Tinker’s Wand Type 2 Order member, but I am dedicated to joining the Crimson Blade and becoming a warrior.”

“So you want to become a Type 3 member like myself?”

“What, you think it’s a stupid dream?” Kharmor spoke with a note of challenge.

“What?! No!” I defended.

“Don’t patronize me, Dark-blood.” He snapped. “Everyone thinks that because I’m a half-blood, I won’t amount to anything.”

“Dude!” I snapped back. “I’m just as much a half-blood as you. At least you know your parents and what species’ bloods you carry.” I turned away to pretend to pick the next components needed while I actually hid my shame and frustration.

“What do you mean?”

I eyed Kharmor over my shoulder with a wary look. “I never knew my mother or father. I don’t even know the species of my genetic father. To muddy the waters even more, I apparently have gene markers and traits from all Darkling breeds. I’m a genetic anomaly and can’t even ask my blood parents.”

“You never knew your parents?” Kharmor asked.

I gave a shallow nod before continuing. “I was raised by a Wild Elf exile. He wasn’t perfect, but I still loved him.”

“Loved? Past tense?” The Half-Dwarf wore the barest expression of sympathy.

“His clan brother, my uncle Thallos, butchered that man. The very same Thallos that got me into the Academy and tortured me under the pretense of training.”

“How did he become your master at the Academy?” Kharmor asked, curiosity clear in his words.

I looked back at the items on the table before me. My shoulders bunched and clenched for a long moment before I forced them to go lax. “Thallos was the one to take me in after my father’s death. He lied to me, hid the truth. He brought me to the Academy and personally trained me after I developed magic. I was some kind of pet project for the sadist.”

There were a long few seconds of silence that felt like an eternity. “Wow,” Kharmor said to break the silence. “That’s pretty screwed up.”

Those words sent a shudder through my body. A hurricane of emotions welled up in my core. Rage, shame, and hatred stormed in my chest like a mad swarm of venomous bats thrashing in a cutting wind. All that I managed to say in reply was a low “Yeah.” the simple word was shockingly calm compared to what I felt.

“Sorry if I brought up bad memories, Iver. But we need to finish putting your friend back in fighting shape.”

I shook my head to break free of my dark emotions so I could focus on what really mattered. After my head was clear, I picked up the next few components and told Kharmor which tools to grab. We worked in silence for a few minutes. The stillness was only broken by the sound of electric tools and occasional instructions. The whole time, I was debating something in the back of my head. Finally, I spoke up as we were wrapping up, attaching the last few of the surface plates on Nennel’s legs.

“If you’re up to the idea, I could train with you.” I offered. My voice carried a clear note of nervousness despite my best efforts. I really needed to work on my voice control, but that was something I could do on my own time.

Kharmor looked up at me with a raised brow. “What were you thinking, exactly?”

I gave a noncommittal shrug. “I figured, if you were willing to take me up on the offer, after each work day, we train for an hour. We can train for two hours every Sacreday.”

“And what would you want in return?”

I honestly hadn’t thought about getting something in return. But I knew that he would want an even trade. It reminded me of when I first met Ferris. The Quint Elf had never experienced much kindness in his life, and this Half-Dwarf seemed just as tough and rugged as Ferris, if not more so.

“How about you help me with my personal crafting projects?” My response was completely on impulse.“And if you’re too busy to do that, I wouldn’t mind if you bought me a meal.”

“A meal?” Kharmor asked in confusion.

I gave him an embraced smile as I scratched my head. “I may have taken to buying some local orphans food in exchange for local info.”

“Ah. That’s not a half-bad idea. Sure, I’ll take you up on your offer. But I want to make an amendment.”

“What kind of amendment?”

“If I need local information, I want you to ask the kids for me. Sound good?”

I gave him a broad smile with an elated “Yes.”