The Union.

West Coast.

“A Union of the People, by the People, for the People.”

Stuffed full of Hog Island’s Oysters, Gwen “Freshmen” Song murmured the plaque below the enormous statue commemorating the exterior of Ferry Terminal, just south of her prior luncheon.

Considering that this world had no superpowers, Gwen took the famous tricolon to mean that the Union was established by Americans, for the American people. And that these “People” were Mages and NoMs, and also former slave owners and, by extension, former slaves.

The former was a more modern manifestation of the latter, though the two were intimately entwined.

Infamously, during the nation’s decade-long Civil War, the Confederate Forces of the South learned a stern and immutable lesson on the nature of Humanity and Spellcraft: that the occurrence of magical talent in Humans was not nearly as tied to complexion as the plantation owners would like to believe.

Lacking the modern knowledge of eugenics and the millennia of hopes, prayers, and Elven aid that formed the Britannic Mageocracy, the Succession States fielded vast armies with the best arcanists the Confederacy could afford while keeping the potlid at home firmly pressed.

The force that met them from coast to desert, to swamp and coast, was the very thing they feared.

Freed Slaves, now working as educated Mages, possess such a variety of traits and talents that the South could not begin to factor them into its strategies. Worse still, the Union’s educated Slaves, mostly freed Natives, were joined by the “New” slaves from the Niger Delta. Though the South had won battle after battle, conflict after conflict through the application of guile, human sacrifice and superior applications of Faith Magic, the industrial momentum of the “Free North” could not be overcome.

Ergo, centuries later, the Regent of Shalkar would briskly walk through Embarcadero, marvel at its strange concrete fountains and leisurely head south on Market.

She was also here because the route took her past the home of her “partner” enterprise here in San Francisco: SF Tower.

The S and F did not, in fact, stand for San Francisco, as the words on her T-shirt said. Instead, it was the condensed, snazzy logo of the city's largest Corporate Tower, Salesforce.

Shaped like an expensive fountain pen, the Salesforce Tower clearly took notes from London’s Shard. Visible from blocks away, the Tower stood at an impressive four hundred something meters above street level, venturing down almost fifteen storeys in its understorey geofront.

Its middle section, as per The Shard, was composed of enormous Mandala Engines, keeping the SF Tower in permanent suspension so that its presence positively loomed over Mission and Market, dominating the locales of Saleforce Square, Saleforce Park, Saleforce Pavillion, and all the affiliate Salesforce franchises that made up six whole blocks of the district the locals dubbed “The Saleforce”.

The effect was imposing, but Gwen knew that it was a waste of HDMs.

The Shard was floating because, both in its history and in its future, there was and will be incursion from the Wild Hunt, necessitating its immediate deployment before the north was turned into a living hell. It was also necessary to keep the Tower on the cusp of readiness because England’s ally, Sythinthimryr, was the Carrauntoohil Guardian because she chose to. If the Ancient Red decided that, one day, it would punish the Humans by merely allowing the Wild Hunt to trespass through its domain, Humanity in the region would be solely responsible for their homes.

Likewise, there were no mega-fauna Mythics in or near San Francisco, because either Quar-Tath, Matron of the Long Night, had eaten them all, or they were hunted to extinction for the express purpose of enslaving the “godless” natives.

As Gwen passed, she felt the ripples of Divination radiating from the Tower’s apex. All around her were faces and suits, some bright with ambition, others fatigued by the repetition. Compared to Shalkar, whose labour force consisted mostly of Rat-kim farmers and a Dwarven industrial workforce, the employees were exclusively human. They were also dressed solely in the penguin garb of modern corporations.

The men wore suits in fifty shades of grey, while the women were more flamboyant, adding dashes of colour to their attire via scarves, jackets, and accessories. Almost every office worker who met Gwen’s inquisitive eyes gave her nods and smiles, for Gwen “Freshmen” Song had that particular effect on people. As for the Regent, she noted that everyone, even the NoMs, packed Storage Rings, and that their magical devices, such as the ubiquitous “Nokia-bricks”, were powered by processed LDMs.

Around the plaza were more retail shops, and more bistros and cafes than she could bother to count. Vastly enjoying herself, she stopped at a not-so-busy tea shop and bought a cold Matcha made by someone who spoke fluent Japanese, then gave herself ten more minutes to watch people.

The citizens of Salesforce, from what she could observe from her vantage point as Regent and CEO of Shalkar Incorporated, were in a state of diligent anxiety.

People had places to be, work to be done, and they did it with dogged ruggedness. The workers also ranged from the caramel-complexioned scions of former “natives.” However, they were vastly outnumbered by Orientals, who in turn were a minority among the sea of European faces.

The sheer bustle of the hustle made Gwen conscious of her grossly abnormal city and workforce.

Her Dwarves would fight their foremen if they were forced to rest, but were also not above drinking on the job. Her Ratkin, at least those who had received “onboarding” via HR, approached their work with a religious fervour, perceiving their weekly work credits as cumulative tokens they collected to attain paradise. The Centaurs were mostly absent from the city’s urban centres, but worked their preferred jobs as patrol and police units with irrational notions of honouring their “city Clan”. Consequently, the Humans who had settled into her city had also been stained by the “traits” of the Demi-human races, which was unavoidable when one regularly attended watercooler meetings to shoot the shit.

The people here were tired, but they were also ambitious and hopeful, and that was enough to inform Gwen that she should think of these workers in the great labour she had planned for the monopolists.

That and she had already spotted her first bushel of HDMs in the New World.

There were no Milk Tea shops here.

There was something resembling Starbucks and coffee shops, but there was no dessert tea, not even chai. With her connections in Shanghai, it would cost nothing to bring a dozen franchises over into the New World. Even if she misunderstood the market entirely, it would be a negligible loss.

But she could not fail, for who can resist tea made from the Wildland Ingredients of Shalkar?

Peach Vitali-Tea, sourced from Shalkar’s verdant orchards, limited time only.

Mental Clarity-Tea of Fur Peak, sold only in the flagship store, 200 servings a day, no reservations, only for VIP customers.

Pumpkin Spice Shalkar al-Latte, seasonal availabili-Tea.

The people here may not drink tea.

But they were… consumers at heart, incapable of resisting rari-Tea.

Using Mage Hand to dispose of her trash, she continued down Market and headed for Union. The obvious place to start the Milk Tea franchises would be at the heart of San Fran, but there was something she must confirm.

It took Gwen only a few minutes to find a cable car to her next destination.

At Union Square, she confirmed that, yes, it exists in the flesh, and indeed, even this world believed in Nike, the Goddess of Victory. The plaque, carved in granite by a Mage with a dashing talent for Transmutation, told of the blessed victory of one Lord Commodore Dewey and his victories over the Spanish, opening the early chapters of America’s Destiny Manifesto.

More than anything, the Square was dominated by Macy’s, the world’s largest department store, whose interior displayed many Shalkarian products, all sold at eye-watering premiums. All around the Square, she spied names that were both familiar and unfamiliar. Famous magical ateliers like Chanel, Cartier, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Yves Saint Laurent were staples that had made an impression in almost every Tier I city, well-placed among locals like Nel Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Saks on Fifth. As someone who was regularly sent gifts of fashion from Europe’s top houses, and as one who now regularly wore Le Tryfan in public, her retail therapy desires were long dead, but her eye for retail remained.

Union Square was in decline.

That was her immediate and professional judgement.

The public space was not nearly as busy as it should be.

For a place with so much history and so many millionaires, it felt positively quaint and quiet compared to the shoulder-to-shoulder jostle that was her Canary Wharf.

Oh, there were people.

But the lawn was empty, and the crowds that ferried back and forth across the park had places to be.

Perhaps there were more consumers in the storefronts, or perhaps there was an underground section she was blissfully unaware of—but the focal point of a city should be far busier and feel far more used than this well-lit park with pristine grasscapes.

Feeling a premonition, she approached a cart with a smiling old timer, grilling enormous hogs wrapped in sizzling bacon.

“Classic, please,” Gwen surveyed the offerings, smacking her lips. “Sauce and mustard, extra pickles.”

The old timer’s eyes lit up as his hands worked the magic. “New to the city?”

“Freshly arrived,” Gwen kept her eye on the prize. “How’d you know?”

The man laughed as the sauce was laid on in thick zig-zags. “Just for you, discount, that’ll be five.”

Gwen handed over the lowest LDM-shard she had in exchange for the morsel. “Keep the change.”

The vendor did not refuse. Having no other customers for the moment, he studied her with wonder as she unceremoniously wolfed down the first few bites. “How is it?”

In all honesty, Gwen had better, but her palette was spoiled by Shalkar’s abundance of quasi-magical cooking materials.

She gave him a thumbs-up.

The vendor patted himself on the back by drumming his rotund belly. Impressed by her ability to inhale food and feeling awkward at the lack of other customers, the old timer volunteered a tissue and a bottle of cheap water.

“So er… you here to study?” He asked, inspecting her attire. Gwen wore nothing expensive, but her poise was enough to inspire several presumptions. “UCSF? No… Berkeley?”

Gwen’s knowledge of San Francisco universities in her present universe extended only to her competition in the IIUC, so she shook her head.

“Ah,” the man’s eyes glimmered with awe. “Stanford then. Congratulations, young lady. Are you here for sightseeing then?”

“I am,” she lied with a smile. It was an inferred white lie, because if she had offered, there was no doubt the Dean of Stanford would rush head over heels to include the Regent of Shalkar among their alumni. Besides, she absolutely intended to tour Stanford in the flesh when she had a chance. The only question was whether she would do so in her official capacity or in her alter ego. “Say, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

The vendor wiped his hands, then extended a palm. “I don’t mind at all. I am Tony. Tony Navajo Adakai.”

“Gwen,” Gwen took the hand firmly and shook it. “You’re a NoM, Tony?”

“Born and bred, just as you are a Mage,” Tony smirked. “Where are you from?”

“London,” Gwen lied again, because not even a San Fran local would believe someone could graduate from Sydney into Stanford. “I was originally studying at Cambridge.”

“A fancy lady,” Tony laughed, suddenly looking abashed. “What would you like to know?”

“Well.” Gwen put her best look forward, which was more than enough to disarm a smitten hotdog vendor. “I am majoring in Economics, see? I wanted to gather some concrete numbers from real people. Do you mind if I ask how much you make? No pressure or anything.”

The sincerity of her face and the one truth she had told thus far were more than enough to convince Tony to give up the goods. “First, you’re not a tax… Mage, are you?”

Gwen snorted as she sipped her filtered water. “No. I promise.”

“You gotta tell us you are... if you are, that’s the law.” Tony cleared his throat, then leaned in conspiratorially. “About two hundred thousand.”

“Wow,” Gwen felt genuine surprise. Something like two thousand mint-processed LDMs was an ENORMOUS amount of money for a NoM.

“Well, not really. I mean, the city licence takes about eighty, cuz it's Union Square,” Tony continued, counting his fingers. “The cart and materials, about twenty. I got taxes, another twenty to thirty, give or take. There are folks I need to pay off to work here in peace as well…”

“Oh…” Gwen felt her heart sink in sympathy.

“So, about thirty thousand?” Tony sighed. “It’s not amazing, but it’s a living.”

“Where are you living?” She expressed her empathy by lowering her voice and expectations.

“Like, own or rent…”

“Oh no, I sleep here, in the park next to my cart. I got a tent stashed in a little storage ring.” Tony shook his head in wonder. “Nazarene, imagine leaving all this here. Trust me, it won’t be here the next morning.”

“How about debt?” Gwen asked, afraid of the answer.

“I am still owing the banks for this Storage Ring,” Tony flashed a finger, where a rudimentary ring with enough storage for his personal items scintillated. “Once I pay it off, maybe I can save for a bigger one. The cart will be much safer if I can stow it, provided I don’t get robbed because of that.”

“Robbed?” Gwen blinked. “There are police here, surely? It’s Union Square!”

“They got bigger fish to fry, trust me. Precise because this is Union Square.” Tony rebuked her naivety with another shake of his greying head. “That’s why I pay insurance… the local lads got Tony’s back, even if the boys in blue don’t. God’s truth, though, it’s not that bad. Day to day, we get by. I got a home by the Flats. I got my girl into a good school, and I've saved enough for her college. I go to church, and I am healthy. What more does a guy need? Well, maybe if the God-damned Oakland Dungeoneering team could win a Naz-damned tournament season, but that’ll be nice.”

Before Tony’s rant could continue, a group of customers who had been looking at Gwen approached. The Mages cheekily asked her if she was the vendor, only to be told off loudly by the NoM Vendor. Much to Gwen’s pleasure, the men laughed off Tony’s fist-shaking and settled for three hot dogs.

They even apologised to her.

Tony may not recognise the glamoured rings on Gwen’s fingers, but the young professionals clearly suspect something.

Satisfied, Tony gave the men a substantial discount of a dollar. Adakai was Navajo for humility, but even so, Gwen felt Tony was a bit too on the nose.

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Drawn by the commotion, more customers came, all smiles and glances as she stood beside the cart. Gwen took the opportunity to slip Tony something in his money tin as thanks, then fared the busy vendor well.

Her gift to him was a Storage Ring made by the Shalkar Trade Consortium, one of the hundreds of “Made in Shalkar” products she had brought with her to America. Its usage needed ore LDMs than Tony was used to, but it could easily fit two hotdog carts and then some.

As she walked further down Geary, she thought of Tony’s tale.

The man worked himself to the bone, sleeping in the city, and he would do so for the rest of his adult life. He had no corporate “patrons”, meaning he was without Health Insurance. One natural or man-made crisis, and that would be the end of what Tony could perceive as a life that was “good enough”.

And the man was, as per the data she received from Walken, merely one of the multitudes who lived to service the debtthat kept their livelihoods alive.

“GWEN–!” A voice called out.

She turned, surprised to see that it was Tony.

“Hey.” The man’s brows were two worried furrows. “Not that way, young lady from London.”

Gwen looked at the vendor, who had left his customers waiting to chase her down.

“The Tenderloin isn’t safe, even for a Mage good enough to be enrolled in Stanford,” Tony said seriously. “Go back toward the docklands. Take a cable up to Chinatown or North Beach. Don’t go this way. There’s nothing for you to see, trust me.”

“Okay,” Gwen smiled. She felt he deserved more, so she gave him a brief hug. “Thanks for the advice, Tony Adakai.”

“Anytime,” the vendor grinned only for a second before he turned, then bolted like a Magic Missiled turkey toward his impatient customers.

Gwen found her first body at the corner of Geary and Taylor.

The man was like a marker, a milestone, a rock lion the likes of which could be found in the old neighbourhoods of Suzhou.

The body belongs to a man.

The man was alive, though she could not tell how old he was.

He was hunched over, his upper body tented in a jacket supported by a pair of stick-thin arms with veins that throbbed, kneeling in such a way that he looked like a fallen “Z”, like a man paying supplication to the holy ground of the Tenderloin.

There were people about, both folks walking through and folks who looked like they were residents. What united them, from what she could see, was their utter indifference to the folded human statue blocking the path, choosing to step around and even over the man instead.

Her natural reaction was to kneel and ask if the man was okay. In Shalkar, the ever-present Rat-kin would tend to anyone who had fallen, as per their communal instinct. Those who refused their aid would receive visits from the Centaur Guardsmen, whose prowess was more than enough to steer people in need toward the many clinics still operated by “St Elvia” of Ordo Bath.

Fighting herself, Gwen walked past the unmoving vagabond, noting the irony of an enormous, graffiti-covered mural painted on the boards of a closed shopfront that read “Tenderloin, All Together

.” The artist, whose name had been scratched out, had left his or her heart and soul in the image, creating a striking collage of the cityscape and the community, Mages and NoMs alike, holding what looked like a heart-shaped Creature Core or possibly a large HDM shard.

What struck her was that there was nothing particularly dystopian about her surroundings. The day was moderate, the humidity was pleasant, and it was only by the merit of her enhanced senses that she could smell the brine and the sewerage wafting from the south.

Many of the shops remained open for business, though these sported roller shutters, grates and bars compared to the glass frontages enjoyed by the dockland, and only a hundred meters from her, the chic vintage visage of the Hilton San Fran towered over the neighbourhood.

Late into her day of exploration, the light from the sun was a diffused cone shining over San Francisco’s shielding nodes, casting the city in a warm, dull luminance. Thanks to its hills and unique geography, the shadows seemed alive to her naked eye, moving ever so minutely with each minute of her passage.

Soon, it would be dark.

And with darkness, a city’s alter self would show itself.

Gwen opted to wait out the light. Firing a Message to her entourage not to expect her arrival anytime soon, she found a quaint coffee shop by Taylor, and settled by the open window to watch the city transform.

And transform it did.

Golden light, warm and blessed by Inti, faded into the blue hour, etherising the urban landscape as nocturnal creatures slunk out of claustrophobic apartments and dimly lit basements. The sound of the city, so distinct during the day, became one long sustained note. It was a hostile hum that conjoined the radiators, the footsteps, the police sirens, the thrum of Ether engines. Every sound seemed threaded together, forming a curated litany of urban life.

Like a herd, the vagabonds came on, meandering toward a deeper section of the Tenderloin, where Gwen presumed there must be a soup kitchen of sorts. Old bent men, carrying bags so large they looked like snails, shuffled on torn shoes. Younger men, wired like skeletons, stumbling like shambling Ents, driven only by instinct. Women, listless, their faces like death and leather, hacked and coughed as they moved, hags before their time.

Together, they formed an unhappy choir, singing the chorus of misery that makes the Tenderloin so tender in the hearts of the city’s weary citizens.

Row after row, cart after cart, they came on, a great pilgrimage to the promised land of nowhere. No one seemed to have their possessions; their canvas bags, plastic bags, and suitcases were no more intact than their minds and bodies.

Gwen watched the congregation pass while, in the distance, the lush-blue of the city’s seascape descended upon its lofty Towers and brownstones. Above, the sky seemed infinitely small and unforgiving, nothing like the open air blue-black of Shalkar.

Here, there were no clouds and no stars.

Gwen felt her throat tighten.

The people here were not her foes.

She did not wish her victory to be built upon a temple of their misery. A part of her wanted, like she had done for her Rat-kin in that faraway desert, to run from rat to rat, running her hand over their hot forehead, trickling into their being the golden elixir of life that would restore the light of their deadened eyes.

What misery, Gwen murmured.

Misery.

She knew misery well.

Misery was her whetstone, sharpening her to life itself, to the unbidden affliction of men and women of uncontrollable circumstance.

It was time to go.

Now clad in jeans, sneakers and a jacket, Gwen pulled her hair into a tight ponytail, then covered her head with a Golden State Dungeoneering duckbill. She waved the smitten barista farewell, promising that she would not be going into the loins of the city, then exited the shop's sanctuary.

In her Pocket Plane, Ariel stirred, as did Caliban.

They had been here before.

Long ago, in a place called Blackheath, they had inhaled the same ambience, constructed of four parts despair and six parts desperation.

In front of her, glamoured by an altered Invisible Familiar incantation, her Omni-Orb silently acted as a guide, seeking an answer without an explicit question.

In the months to come, she would implement investments and mergers and acquisitions that would undermine the status quo of the New World and, by extension, this city. Dyar Morkk stations, beginning with a flagship interchange in San Francisco, would rearrange the arteries of commerce and commute that it had forged over four centuries. For her efforts, she expected backlash and violence, both implied and concrete, for there is nothing more insulting to the undeserving than someone else reaping the reward of their inaction.

On Leavenworth, boxed in by the geometric shadow of the dazzling lightscape from the Salesforce Tower and the Shielding Stations on Telegraph Hill, Gwen met the first American to tell her exactly how he felt about her clean-cut, modestly dressed figure.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the voice that shot from the dark peeled itself from the wall like a Spectre. The man she could not see a moment ago seemed to materialise between the lines of tents and was upon her before she even noticed the change in the sour stench of urine. “Miss, has anyone ever told you that you have the most beautiful smile?”

Gwen took a glance at the man who had accosted her, doing her best to keep her face straight. He was not unattractive, if appearances were an indicator of the man’s true self, but she could smell something acrid rolling off his dark jacket, and when he spoke, his exposed teeth were the colour and texture of cigarette burns.

She kept walking.

The man easily kept pace.

“I am serious,” he spoke with the reverence of a man who had found a piece of the holy tablets on the mount. “How can someone as beautiful as you be here? I think you need a tut. Ya'll in the Tenderloin, baby girl. It’s not safe out here, a pretty thing like you.”

Around her, the ragged residents of the tent cities and makeshift encampments were far too internally challenged to worry about a pretty piece of stimuli walking by.

“My name’s Robeto, I am the man here in these parts. Brother Roberto. The boys know me well. You know what else they call me?...”

She kept walking.

Overhead, her Omni-orb hummed imperceptibly, taking her past Eddy.

What would I find? Gwen’s curiosity rose like Roberto’s libido. It was a hypothesis she had entertained since a week ago, when she suddenly had the brilliant idea that the Omni Orb might give her an unexpected insight or breakthrough once they arrived in San Francisco.

To her aides and allies, the establishment of the Dyar Morkk in the US, Magus Williams' patent, and the resolution to the Patent Trolling were Gwen’s principal objectives in the Americas.

What they did not know was that she had dreamt of a world interconnected not by the Axis Mundi, but the artifice of interplanar communication made possible by the confluence of Human, Dwarven and Elven Magitech.

Legion was the promise she had made while overlooking the skyline of a city that was now a distant dream, and San Francisco's Palo Alto valley, the birthplace of SLATE Inc., was where she had hoped to find them.

She had no idea who, but the Omni Orb, blessed by the Yinglong to look into the stream of time to steer her toward the islands of potential and possibility, would.

But first, the Tenderloin.

“Hey, HEY. What’s the matter with you? Too proud to talk to Roberto?” The second “hey”, spoken with implied violence, shook Gwen from taking in the subtle air of misery and abandonment all around them. “You on Mute?”

Perhaps she had walked into Roberto’s den, or maybe they were deeper into the Tenderloin, but the man’s smiling facade had given way to intimidation and annoyance. The sign on the street corner, faded and bent, read Turk.

The street lights were foggy and neglected, leaving the brightest glow on the street to the neon logo of a local market. Silhouetted against the retina-searing fluorescence, Gwen saw men peel themselves from the stairs beside the heavily gated window, drawn to her like vultures to a fresh carcass.

“Roberto, what chu got there?” asked a voice without a face.

“Fuck off, Noah.” Roberto held no respect for the man who had built the ark and saved Humanity from extinction.

“Ho, look at this pretty piece.” Noah approached. “How did a nitwit like you get so lucky, eh? Maybe we should patrol closer to the Square as well.”

Were it not for their exotic locale, Gwen would have thought the man was a burly plumber. “Noah” wore jeans covered in patches and what she hoped was grease. His jacket, which looked armoured, was a size too small for his body, stretching his yellow wifebeater across a frame that was built for violence.

Her nose wrinkled.

Piss.

Piss and mana.

Noah was a Lightning Mage.

Mid Tier

, from what she could feel through her infinitely purer Affinity.

Roberto took a step back, chivalrously placing her between himself and Noah. It took every ounce of willpower for Gwen to stop her facial muscles from twitching. For all the promises of pleasure and care, her lover would leave her to the Jackal Men at the first sign of danger?

Her former guide made a sign with a finger. A split-second later, Roberto held a Wand. “You want Carlos to pay you another visit, Noah? You don’t got no Platinum, last I heard.”

Gwen’s eyes darted from one man to the next, wondering if she might slip away like a wily buffalo caught between two quarrelsome lions.

Noah turned his body to the side, reducing his profile.

Gwen felt the mana surging from the man’s organs, just as Roberto expertly activated his battery-driven Wand.

The winner, Gwen supposed, gets a free Caliban meet-and-greet.

WEE-WOO— WEEEEEOOOOOO—

Before Gwen could bear witness to her first American spell-duel, a third party crashed onto the scene, stopping so suddenly that had the vehicle progressed a few more meters, it would have sent her to the floor.

The darkness gave way to a Day Light spell, dispelling the cloaked menace enshrouding Gwen’s combatants.

“You boys having a good ol’ time?” said a voice from the squad car, its southern drawl long and coiled. “Do you want to have a good time elsewhere, or are we going to have a problem?”

Like Vampires, Roberto and Noah retreated to the edge of the spontaneous ball of light, abandoning Gwen to her fate.

“Young lady,” the voice continued, this time addressing her. “You and I both know you’re not from these parts. And before you lie to me with that pretty face of yours, hear me out. If you’re here to buy potions from these gentlemen, then I hope you ain't made the transaction. I am telling you this because if I find anything, you’ll be going for a short ride with me back to the station house.”

Gwen stared. Was this what the Omni Orb wanted to show me?

The voice took her confusion for guilt. “When your Judicial officer hears about you acting as a 'mule' for your sorority, do you think you’ll keep your academic record?”

She stepped forward, putting the Daylight Orb behind her.

The man standing next to the open patrol car door looked as if Colonel Sanders had taken the protein he marketed to the gym. From the mana radiating from his body, she could see that he was an Earthen Mage, which was a great counter for Noah, and the man was a Transmuter to boot.

“I see you understand. Alright, get in the car.” The officer’s voice vibrated, then Gwen heard a most curious Silent Message. “I know you can take them both and have mana to spare, but that doesn’t give you the right to murder folks in my neighbourhood.”

Did the cop recognise me? Gwen “The Freshmen” Song obediently ducked into the car, feeling suddenly embarrassed. The back of the patrol car was clean, but substances like piss, blood and pain tended to bury themselves into the leatherwork.

Surprisingly, the Omni Orb joined her by hovering over the empty seat.

Outside, her unnecessary saviour made the necessary gestures. His orb winked out, and as far as Gwen could see, Roberto and Noah slithered back into the darkness.

Between herself and Sanders was a sheet of transmuted glass. From his rear-view mirror, he looked at her, studying her attire, her demeanour, her flawless face.

“You people… make me sick,” the man insulted her out of the blue. “The miscreants here are not your sport.”

Flabbergasted, Gwen scanned the vehicle until she found his tags on the SLATE unit wielded into the car’s Diviner device. It read McKenzi. The man was a Police Sergeant from the SSFPD.

“I’ll drive you out. If you come back, I swear to God I’ll report this to your employer,” the Sergeant shifted the vehicle and they began to move. "That'll work wonders for your health insurance premiums."

“Hold up,” Gwen protested. “May I ask what the hell you’re talking about?”

The vehicle slowed. “The hell are you talking about? You’re not here to hunt them?” In the mirror, McKenzi’s eyes were blue like Elvia’s, their anger magnified by the reflector film. “You’re really here to buy Potions?”

“What the hell are potions?” Gwen cocked her head in the most innocent, confused manner she could manage, given her present age. “Healing potions?”

“Healing… no. Hallucinogens. Are you being daft with me?”

“I am…” Gwen paused. “I am a tourist. I just wanted to see the Tenderloin. It’s got a reputation.”

McKenzi stopped the car. After a moment of careful contemplation, he dispelled the pane separating them. “You’re a Tourist?”

“I am.” Gwen struck out her chest proudly. “It's a free country, right?”

“You have a VMI…” The Sergeant tapped his Divination Device. “I don’t know, I’d say my Divi-TECH’s busted, but it measured Roberto and Noah just fine. Why do you have a VMI over 500? What is someone with a VMI over 500 doing in the Tenderloin? You look finer than a frog’s hair split four ways, so we all know what will happen this deep in the loin. If I didn’t know better, I’d ask if you’re stupid or something. But I do know better because even our Captain measures a tick shy of 200. So I am asking you to leave us and the damned folk in there the hell alone. We’ve got enough going on, we don’t need… whatever you are.”

The mania in the man’s voice, combined with the barely contained rage smouldering in his baby-blue eyes, was very much reminiscent of Elvia.

“Alright,” Gwen put up both hands in submission. “But tell me, what’s this hunt thing you’re accusing me of?”

And is it The Running Man? Her mind remarked silently.

“Life is cheap in the Tenderloin,” Sergeant McKenzi grunted suspiciously. “We’ve verified reports of Mages using the place for live practice. They stroll in, asking for potions, flaunting their wealth. They get mugged, they defend themselves, and leave bodies in their wake. It’s a god damn game for these people. The brass says to leave your people alone if we catch them in the act. Even if we find a sympathetic prosecutor, there won’t be sympathetic jurors."

“I see.” Like the Sergeant himself, she also had no viable answer to offer. “I swear upon my Astral Being that… I am truly a tourist.”

“A tourist that my Divi-TECH Device refuses to identify.” The car began moving once more. “All I am saying is that I better not find you in the Tenderloin again. Where are you staying? It’s late out. If you’re as innocent as you say, I’ll take you home as an apology.”

“O, I can go myself,” Gwen assured the man. With her Omni-orb and a Flight Licence paired with diplomatic immunity, there was no way for her to be truly lost.

“I insist,” the Sergeant’s voice grew suspicious once more.

Gwen sighed. “2006, Washington. Opposite Lafayette Park.” Only the most famous private residence in all of San Fran.

When Sylth and Tao see her pull up at the back of a cop car, their tongues would wag like puppy tails. Maybe she’ll be in the news tomorrow. For the sake of her stock price, maybe she should make a break for it…

SCREEEEEEECH——!

As expected, the car came to a grinding halt.

“Yes, it is I,” Gwen announced with just a smidgen of self-aware shame. “I told you, I am a tourist.”

But McKenzi wasn’t staring at her in wonder.

The Sergeant was staring ahead in horror.

Heree, in front of their car, in plain view over the bonnet, was a man half-smothered in gore, his hands slick with lengths ofgastrointestinal tubingg thrifted from his still twitching victim, his pale, bloodless face slurping away at the unmentionable matter contained therein.

"Jesus," Gwen felt such sympathy for the stunned cop. As for herself, she had witnessed so much violence that a mere disembowelment was nothing. "The hell are they cutting into these potions?"