Be-fore Sobon even left the build-ing, a dif-fer-ent at-ten-dant hur-ried over with a set of doc-u-ments, which she scanned, and then al-lowed Alas-si to sign, tak-ing one copy for her-self while an-oth-er re-mained at the City Lord's hall. It was a sim-ple le-gal doc-u-ment, one that Alas-si was al-ready fa-mil-iar with--in fact, it had much less legalese than the deed for the inn, which had been a de-tailed agree-ment be-tween Alas-si, Tuli, and a banker. This was al-most uni-lat-er-al, giv-ing own-er-ship of the prop-er-ty to Alas-si, and all rights that the City Lord him-self had the au-thor-i-ty to grant.

  Alas-si her-self was quite pleased by this. [ Among oth-er things, I be-lieve this al-lows us--well, you. Or any-one, I sup-pose--to op-er-ate a busi-ness there. One of the rea-sons why we built the inn so far away was that it would cost much more to own a busi-ness close to the city, or with-in it. I nev-er checked, but I'm sure the shops on the Ways of Gold and Sil-ver are so ex-pen-sive to pur-chase that only a no-ble fam-i-ly could af-ford them. ]

  Sobon hadn't con-sid-ered ex-act-ly how re-strict-ed prop-er-ty deeds might be, but nei-ther was she sur-prised. Con-trol of prop-er-ty was a very easy way to con-trol pow-er in any world, and good lo-ca-tion in busi-ness was pow-er-ful. Still, as Sobon dis-missed the at-ten-dant and made her way back out-side, her mind was on the small signs, here and there, that things were wrong in the city. The slums, the peo-ple pos-si-bly sup-port-ing the thieves over the guards, and the fact that there were deed re-stric-tions against busi-ness use on most prop-er-ty, en-sur-ing that poor-er peo-ple had to have mon-ey to be-gin a busi-ness. Com-bined with the ex-is-tence of slums... that would prob-a-bly pre-vent the ex-is-tence of low-cost, lo-cal food or sim-i-lar, as well.

  Sobon let those thoughts clear as she quick-ly searched the plaza area for the man from ear-li-er, but he had left his spot at the foun-tain. Sobon frowned, but only briefly, and al-lowed her feet to car-ry her past the same spot on her way back out. There was no sig-nif-i-cant sign, ex-cept maybe the slight-est touch of aether where he was sit-ting and med-i-tat-ing.

  In-stead of head-ing di-rect-ly back, Sobon let her-self wan-der gen-er-al-ly in the di-rec-tion of the Al-chemist where Lui was, al-though she didn't get par-tic-u-lar-ly close. Once she could see the place, and got a gen-er-al im-pres-sion of the aether there, she de-cid-ed she was sat-is-fied. There were plen-ty of things that might have been wrong--stale aether would have been the most sub-tle one, but af-ter the tea she was served, it was on her mind--but the aether was smooth, blend-ing in to the sur-round-ings while still hav-ing its own ob-vi-ous char-ac-ter. Like-wise, the sur-round-ings were calm, with sev-er-al oth-er crafts shops of var-i-ous kinds around, none of them hav-ing ob-vi-ous bad char-ac-ter. Just down the road, near where Sobon de-cid-ed to turn back, was a tea house. Sobon was sure that she could have sat there and in-ves-ti-gat-ed the shop at her leisure, but she didn't want to be in con-trol of Lui's life.

  So she glanced around at the shops, pre-tend-ing to be in-ter-est-ed in those in-stead. The only ones that re-al-ly in-ter-est-ed her were in-scrip-tion-ist shops, of which there were two, one clos-er to the al-chemist's and one clos-er to the trade road. Of the two, Sobon liked the aether of the for-mer shop bet-ter, but de-cid-ed to poke her head in to the clos-er one, to avoid tempt-ing her-self to mon-i-tor Lui and Fau Mide.

  The in-scrip-tion-ist's shop was wealthy enough to have a full time sales-per-son, who stiff-ened im-me-di-ate-ly when it was ob-vi-ous that Sobon was com-ing in. She was young, per-haps re-lat-ed to the real crafters, with her hair done up neat-ly and fine silk clothes, but Sobon didn't like see-ing such a young lady force a mask over her fea-tures, hid-ing every last one of her thoughts. It wasn't the prin-ci-ple of the thing, but the ex-e-cu-tion--she was too good at sup-press-ing her own feel-ings, which spoke of heavy-hand-ed dis-ci-pline. It doubt-less served a pur-pose, and per-haps served it well, but it was one of those things that dam-aged a per-son's spir-it.

  Sobon stud-ied the girl, but also and more ob-vi-ous-ly stud-ied the var-i-ous in-scribed items in the shop, tak-ing men-tal notes where she could of the in-scrip-tions. Al-though the Marines had not taught her aether med-i-cine, be-yond first aid, she was keen-ly aware that forc-ing one's spir-it into a pat-tern that didn't fit it would re-duce your sen-si-tiv-i-ty to aether sig-nif-i-cant-ly. And the girl did show just the slight-est signs that she might be a bit aether-in-sen-si-tive, al-though Sobon was only guess-ing, as the oc-ca-sion-al aether wave or ping passed by with-out her ob-vi-ous-ly notic-ing.

  "Is the Lady in-ter-est-ed in in-scrip-tions?" the girl asked fi-nal-ly. "We have many tal-is-mans and seals avail-able, and the Mas-ter is ca-pa-ble of set-ting up ad-vanced for-ma-tions."

  Sobon con-sid-ered, look-ing around. "Is the Mas-ter avail-able?"

  The girl men-tal-ly fum-bled for a mo-ment be-fore send-ing off a qi pulse, al-though she kept her face al-most straight. "I be-lieve he will be in a few mo-ments."

  Sobon took the time to study the most ad-vanced item she could find, a jew-eled amulet hang-ing on the wall that was dense-ly packed with qi in-scrip-tions. Al-though Sobon was sure that part of the script was on the rear, out of sight, what she could see from the front was a large set of de-fen-sive scripts, many of them specif-i-cal-ly trig-gered to some source of dan-ger or oth-er. A few of the tricks were clever; the most broad trig-ger would de-fend the wear-er if her own qi didn't will-ing-ly mesh with an in-com-ing aether ef-fect above a cer-tain in-ten-si-ty. That would al-most al-ways be the case when be-ing at-tacked, but might have also blocked some types of heal-ing, es-pe-cial-ly while the bear-er was un-con-scious. An in-tent fil-ter was at-tached there, to pro-vide an ex-cep-tion, but Sobon wasn't en-tire-ly sure she liked the so-lu-tion.

  Sobon didn't miss the sound of the in-scrip-tion mas-ter com-ing up a set of stairs from a shield-ed base-ment, and shift-ed her at-ten-tion to the sim-plest in-scrip-tion in the shop--an en-hanced dag-ger. It was dis-tinct-ly less im-pres-sive than her broom han-dle work, mere-ly en-hanc-ing the strength of the steel it-self, and do-ing so by fill-ing it with a spe-cif-ic type of hard-en-ing qi. Sobon hadn't looked too close-ly at the qi types--it seemed most-ly point-less to her, as much of qi's spe-cif-ic func-tions did--but they had a va-ri-ety of spe-cif-ic prop-er-ties and en-hance-ments, and were gen-er-al-ly themed around el-e-ments and ef-fects. This dag-ger was es-sen-tial-ly be-ing told by its in-scrip-tions to be-have more like an ide-al dag-ger--in oth-er words, strong, sharp, and re-sis-tant to wear.

  Where-as Sobon's broom han-dle had sim-ply cre-at-ed a cut-ting edge from pure geom-e-try and force planes. Every bit of en-er-gy put into the pro-jec-tion was do-ing what she asked of it, as op-posed to this... ide-al-is-tic crap.

  "May I help you, my Lady?" Sobon glanced at the mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist, who was a mid-dle-aged man with sharp eyes, his fea-tures clean ex-cept for a sin-gle, short sec-tion of beard hang-ing from the cen-ter of his chin. Sobon didn't like him; al-though most of his aether was calm and even, there was a sin-gle flaw buried deep in-side, and it wasn't small or sub-tle. Out of view, per-haps, but no less real.

  "I am some-what in-ter-est-ed in your process," Sobon said, glanc-ing around, but find-ing no bet-ter ex-am-ple than the dag-ger. "Though not the de-tails of in-scrip-tion. For in-stance, this dag-ger." She nod-ded at it. "I see the in-tent and the pur-pose of it. But is this re-al-ly the best way to cre-ate such a weapon?"

  The in-scrip-tion-ist frowned, and Sobon could feel a riot of emo-tion run-ning through him, and it felt like much of it swirled around that flaw, though not di-rect-ly through it. Pride, she sus-pect-ed, or some-thing close enough. Ar-ro-gance, maybe. "Met-al qi is the best way to en-hance met-al weapons, of course. This is a very sim-ple ex-am-ple." He im-me-di-ate-ly turned to an-oth-er blade, a stan-dard sin-gle-edged sword with a gen-tle curve. "For in-stance, this one uses met-al qi for re-in-forc-ing and en-hanc-ing the blade, but its cut-ting pow-er is en-hanced with blood qi. Once it has opened a wound, it will pen-e-trate much fur-ther than nor-mal. Of course, this is best with stab-bing at-tacks." He moved on to an-oth-er, some-what short-er blade. "This uses thun-der qi to ex-tend the tip of the blade when mak-ing slic-ing at-tacks. It is in-tend-ed to de-ceive the op-po-nent into think-ing they have dodged, and re-quires ac-tive in-tent to use."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Sobon stud-ied both ex-am-ples. The blood cut-ting sword... Sobon thought it was over-built, most like-ly be-cause it had to steal pow-er from an op-po-nent's blood, which would op-pose the in-tent. It would build up pow-er nec-es-sary to over-come that re-sis-tance, and then hold onto blood once it had at-tuned some. Again, Sobon could see the point and pur-pose of it, but it was in-ef-fi-cient. The 'thun-der' cut-ting sword used light-ning qi and a bit of geom-e-try--it was the clos-est Sobon could see in the room to her bar-ri-er blade, but it too built up a lot of func-tions in or-der to work with, and there-fore, work around the spe-cif-ic na-ture of qi in-volved. Af-ter all, light-ning was an el-e-ment that flowed from one thing to an-oth-er--it didn't just hang around do-ing noth-ing.

  "What about a blade that would re-spond to the user's qi, what-ev-er type of qi they chose to use?"

  The man frowned. "That would be... com-pli-cat-ed, my Lady."

  Sobon just raised her eye-brows. "Oh?"

  The in-scrip-tion-ist met her eyes, but Sobon wasn't sure she could un-der-stand what she saw there. "There are too many vari-a-tions on how qi could be used in-side of a sword, and a prop-er in-scrip-tion would need to res-onate with the na-ture of qi and its pur-pose. Hold-ing blood qi along the edge of a blade is very dif-fer-ent from do-ing the same with light-ning qi, or fire qi, or met-al qi. It would be triv-ial to sim-ply provide qi-con-duc-tive chan-nels through the weapon, but that would not en-hance or mul-ti-ply the pow-er of the qi. Such chan-nels would sim-ply be al-low-ing a novice to do what a qi mas-ter can al-ready do."

  Sobon dis-agreed, of course, but won-dered if it was a dif-fer-ence in per-spec-tive, ed-u-ca-tion, or phi-los-o-phy. "I would ex-pect that a mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist such as your-self could cre-ate not only chan-nels, but also re-lease the qi from that chan-nel along the blade, while shield-ing the blade from the re-lease it-self. Al-though it would not work for every qi na-ture, it would be a fun-da-men-tal tool that al-lows a war-rior to more eas-i-ly prac-tice do-ing the same with their qi."

  For some rea-son, that sim-ple sug-ges-tion set the mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist to sweat-ing. Sobon just looked at him, gen-uine-ly cu-ri-ous why a few sim-ple words had got-ten him up-set, but af-ter a mo-ment, he sim-ply cov-ered it up by putting a thought-ful look on his face.

  "I had not con-sid-ered that ap-proach, my Lady, he said, sim-ply, and then cleared his ex-pres-sion, de-lib-er-ate-ly. "Do you have any oth-er de-sires, my lady? Or any de-sire to pur-chase some-thing?"

  Sobon made a show of look-ing at every-thing dis-played, one at a time, be-fore say-ing, "Not to-day," and then walk-ing out.

  Sobon took a me-an-der-ing path through the city on her way back home, but al-though she not-ed var-i-ous shops and roads on her walk, she was most-ly think-ing about the in-scrip-tions she'd seen. It put into con-text some of what the Ri'lef had sent her about qi and in-scrip-tions; there were many words in the lan-guage of qi in-scrip-tion that were high-ly spe-cif-ic, as they ap-plied to not only some spe-cif-ic na-ture of qi, but also a spe-cif-ic ap-pli-ca-tion. The set of scripts, for ex-am-ple, that held light-ning-type qi in space rel-a-tive to the blade were more com-plex than just con-tain-ment, re-lease, and shield-ing, as Sobon had sug-gest-ed. It in-stead cy-cled through a num-ber of states, each state stor-ing and dis-charg-ing the qi in spe-cif-ic ways.

  But the 'words' in the script that did that were fun-da-men-tal con-cepts, and even the cy-cling func-tion was a spe-cif-ic mul-ti-word phrase that ap-peared in the doc-u-ments, all so that the elec-tric dis-charge of the qi would look re-al-is-tic--a con-cern for the Ri'lef en-gi-neers putting such a sys-tem to-geth-er. See-ing it in ac-tion, Sobon could imag-ine adapt-ing the cy-cling func-tion to cre-ate a vi-brat-ing cut-ting edge, per-haps with small ser-ra-tions to ex-tend the range of the ac-tu-al cut-ting sur-face slight-ly. It would have, ul-ti-mate-ly, much more ef-fect than turn-ing a lit-tle bit of cap-tured "blood qi" into an ad-di-tion-al cut-ting edge.

  By the time that Sobon re-turned to her house, she had near-ly for-got-ten about the mys-tery man at the foun-tain. But as she reached out men-tal-ly to un-lock the gate, she paused, look-ing down the street.

  Where, by all ac-counts idly, the same man walked out of an al-ley-way, his eyes look-ing away at some-thing else, a pleas-ant look on his face.

  It didn't take him long to turn back her way, of course, and he smiled broad-ly when he saw Sobon stand-ing there, and walked in her di-rec-tion. He didn't raise his voice, or try to speak un-til he was rea-son-ably close. "Good day, Lady," he sim-ply said, smil-ing. "I see that for-tune has brought us to-geth-er once more."

  "I doubt it was sim-ple for-tune," said Sobon, not dis-guis-ing the sus-pi-cion in her voice.

  "Fate, then." The man made a pleas-ant, if shal-low and short, bow, one more per-for-ma-tive than sub-servient. "I am known as Kibar. And you, lady?"

  Sobon, hav-ing been re-mind-ed that peo-ple could read one an-oth-er's qi, con-sid-ered the ques-tion a mo-ment be-fore re-ply-ing. "You may call me Alas-si."

  "Charmed. Al-though, that is not quite who you are, is it?" The look in his eyes wasn't ma-li-cious, more like a man who en-joyed find-ing and keep-ing se-crets, though Sobon still wasn't sure how much to trust him.

  "It is a name. It is mine." Those were true enough, though Sobon's thoughts con-tin-ued on, rec-og-niz-ing that the man seemed to want to chat, and what-ev-er he in-tend-ed to do, it might be bet-ter to at least see where it was go-ing. "But a name is only a word to de-scribe a per-son. Too of-ten, it says very lit-tle."

  "Ex-act-ly so." The man's smile widened for half a mo-ment. "If any-thing, it is the very fact that it is yours that makes it mean-ing-ful. It can nev-er be-long to any-one else, af-ter that."

  Sobon chose not to even en-gage with that in-sin-u-a-tion. "Did you have some-thing you need-ed, sir Kibar?" The word 'sir' that she used, ac-cord-ing to Alas-si, was some-what less po-lite than call-ing a per-son a lord. For-mal, but not near-ly as re-spect-ful.

  "Only a chance to speak with a beau-ti-ful and in-tel-li-gent woman," Kibar said in turn, with hard-ly a pause. "I won-der, my lady... what do you be-lieve that fate is?"

  That was a ques-tion that Sobon didn't want to an-swer, be-cause she knew that the an-swer she had was tech-ni-cal, in-volved time ma-nip-u-la-tion, and wouldn't be looked fond-ly on by most. Still, she was still orig-i-nal-ly a cy-borg, and could think on her feet. "It ties us to some-thing larg-er than our-selves", she said, that sum-ma-ry not touch-ing on the Ri'lef's con-cept of a mas-sive fate-al-ter-ing struc-ture de-signed and built by aliens to ma-nip-u-late the course of the en-tire world.

  "It does," the man replied, cheer-ful-ly. "To the past of our peo-ple, and to its fu-ture. We were fat-ed to meet, to-day. The Spir-its willed it."

  Sobon con-sid-ered the man, what he had said, and the sud-den flick of tan-gled aether that she had felt when she passed by him. Per-haps that was ex-act-ly true--that a spir-i-tu-al god, or oth-er greater spir-it, had placed him in her way specif-i-cal-ly to en-tan-gle her into some scheme. "And do you trust the spir-its?" She stud-ied him, and the sub-tle but deep aether be-hind him.

  Al-though she ex-pect-ed him to be equal-ly blithe about that ques-tion, in-stead he paused, let-ting his smile slip a lit-tle as he con-sid-ered. "That is the question, isn't it? The spir-its have pow-er, enough to shape des-tiny. But not all spir-its are well-mean-ing. It would not be dif-fi-cult for us to fall into the sway of a spir-it who means ill. Many have done so in the past, and many, I am sure, will fall into such traps in the fu-ture." Still, his smile re-turned. "I do not trust all spir-its. But I trust my [kar-ma]."

  Sobon blinked, sur-prised that the man went out of his way to ful-ly en-com-pass a spo-ken word with a data-gram trans-la-tion. It wasn't as though the word made no sense--Alas-si rec-og-nized and un-der-stood it--but the man still put his heart into say-ing the word, fill-ing it with mean-ing, if not in-tent. To him, kar-ma was a near-ly in-de-scrib-able love that had guid-ed him through hard times, a love that had ex-ist-ed for him be-fore he was born, and which trust-ed him and which he trust-ed in turn. In short, it was a con-nec-tion to some-thing which, at least to him, was kind and benev-o-lent.

  Sobon was not ful-ly over her dis-trust of the man, or what-ev-er spir-i-tu-al backer he had, but she con-sid-ered. It wouldn't be hard to be cyn-i-cal, dis-card-ing the man and his spir-i-tu-al ally. And it would be shock-ing-ly easy to be-come en-tan-gled with him and his kar-ma. But in-stead, Sobon closed her eyes and gen-tly re-leased sev-er-al waves of aether in var-i-ous pat-terns, try-ing to find and dis-en-tan-gle the web that had brought the man to her doorstep.

  When she found some-thing like a small aether knot, Sobon got a sense that be-yond it was a kind en-ti-ty, but not a bril-liant one. Sobon sent it a pulse of some-thing like grat-i-tude, but qui-et-ly re-moved the knot with-out any fur-ther dis-cus-sion.

  "It is good that you have good... kar-ma," Sobon said. "But my pur-pose is heavy, and com-plex. I do not hate you, or your kar-ma. But I do not trust you to lead me where I need to go."

  For some rea-son, the smile on the man's face had slipped, and he looked... strange. Still, he was a bright man, and he con-sid-ered her words, and not mere-ly the ac-tion that he had clear-ly sensed her tak-ing. "It is al-ways good when a good per-son knows what they must do in life. But you are sure...? That you do not need, or want...?"

  "I be-lieve the word you are look-ing for is ful-fill-ment," Sobon guessed. In a word, that de-scribed the man; he seemed kind, and was loved, and led to good things in life. "I have more im-por-tant mat-ters than my own spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment." And with that, Sobon fi-nal-ly un-locked her gate, open-ing it with a touch of aether, and giv-ing the man a look that was quite plain in not invit-ing him in. "I wish you a good day, sir Kibar."

  He plas-tered a con-fused smile on his face, and gave his shal-low bow again, and Sobon walked in-side and closed the gate af-ter her.