About to race back to Vastra to fetch all my things, I stop myself. I won’t have enough coins to return here via the porter. Are there any hidden inside this space to pilfer? Might as well check. It’s as good a reason to thoroughly investigate as any.

  For the first discovery, near the foyer but inside the library, there’s another large, white stone mounted onto the wall, very similar to the messenger stone. It’s extremely glossy, but somehow also doesn’t manage to reflect anything around it.

  Is it like a window? To see outside?

  I step up to the stone, repeating the technique used to turn off the messenger stone. However, the quick, momentary zap of power only serves to disorient me. After energetically shaking my head to clear the feeling, I pause to think. It sounds as if consistent energy must be delivered, not the simple, normal pulses that I’m used to using for activation. It should be comparable to empowering my eyes or hands, but with an external destination. So the end result is a persistent transformation to stable energy outside the body.

  Placing my right hand on the stone, I close my eyes. Opening a channel from core to hand, I quickly pulse my core in tiny little flutters until there’s a consistent pattern maintained without concentrating on it. Then, shifting focus to my hand with the intent of stable energy, I push. After a brief moment of resistance, I feel a pop. Then a cloudy flow exits my body, flowing into the hungry stone. Even without empowering my opened eyes, it’s very clearly visible.

  It’s working! However, the stone’s still opaque. Closing my eyes again, I reinspect the entire stream from end-to-end, trying to come up with new strategies. Repeatedly cycling my focus around my body, it feels as if I’ve hit a wall. That is, until I suddenly realize that my focus can extend out through hand and into the external flow of stable energy. Naturally, as my energy, it’s still a part of me even when outside my body, exactly as with the slime’s sensory tethers.

  Travelling down the cloudy stream, a vague sense of awareness alerts me when we enter into the device. I grit my teeth, willing myself through a moment of intense disorientation from the dizzying complexity. How do I steady myself like this? I don’t need much. Any handle, really. With a thought, my will steers the flow of energy around the nearest hold and takes a tight grip. Somehow, this activates something, causing a pleasant sound to play, and my eyes jerk open.

  That’s it! The device vibrantly sprang to life, now displaying a clear image. It’s the area immediately outside of the pocket. By willing my little extension of energy inside the device to manipulate the handle back and forth, the image slowly turns to face both ways up and down the alley. However, I can’t budge the vision away from this location yet, despite the appraisal claiming that this should be possible. One more thing to practice.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Regardless, this is extremely amazing as is! This means that I can check what’s outside before leaving without worrying about any surprise or ambush. This Garret was quite the savvy one, despite his almost definite tall stature.

  Beginning to feel drained, I remove my hand from the stone, allowing the picture to disappear. The entrance area fully explored, I move deeper through the shelves and past the comfortable chair. At the rear of the pocket, another brilliant discovery meets my shining eyes. A series of long, stone counters arranged in a square around an island in the middle. The island’s filled with boxes and boxes of preserved, raw mixing ingredients. The counters contain crucibles, vials, distillers, and all manner of other devices that I’ve researched in the mixing books. In actuality, far more than the books ever mentioned.

  This is perfect for my compounding practice! Or whatever else comes later after that. There’s also a gigantic store of empty bottles underneath the counters. Books, mixing, and magic. Garret is a big one after my own heart. I will cherish his memory for the treasures, despite accepting his death as the true will of the mud.

  Drunk off of the constant stream of prizes, I sadly find nothing else of interest. Especially disappointing, there’s no new coins. Taking out my pack and pouches, I re-inspect them all in case I missed anything. One more trip worth of copper coins plus a few more, and that’s it. However, there’s a lot of these silver coins too. Consolidating them all, I actually have more than fifty of these.

  My mind races. If I prepare a pouch of fifty silver coins, then maybe the porter could be fooled into taking these instead? How would he tell the difference in a closed pouch? Usually, he only briefly glances at the pouch to confirm. Maybe it’s the weight? Their weights are pretty similar. I’ll test it on the way back to Vastra. Worst case, if he catches me and rejects it, then I still have the copper to return. I’ll just have to find more there if that happens. However, if he does take it, then that’ll be enough to go back, get all my things, and then return here to stay forever. That’d be perfect!

  After neatly preparing a pouch of silver coins, I quickly check the alley through the scrying stone. All clear. Then, repeating my explosive finger exercise on the exit while carefully tempering its size this time, I squeeze back outside. Exhausted from the effort, at least I’m still conscious.

  Good enough!

  Meandering out of the alley as if I clearly belonged there, I rejoin the street and make my way over to the Vastra terminal. Nervous, I get in line and wait. One by one, the big ones ahead of me exit through a tear. Finally at the front, I hold up my token.

  “50 copper,” the porter responds in a bored, practiced monotone, holding his nose up and away from me.

  Fidgeting awkwardly at the pouch of silvers on my belt, I struggle to get it off. Calm. Stay calm or he’ll notice. It’s fine, it’s just that these stupid gloves make everything more difficult. Finally free, I slowly raise the pouch up with a long, stiff arm, attempting to appear as unsuspicious as possible. Take it. Just take it.

  The porter looks at me, frowning, and then down at the bag, probably appraising it.

  “Are you an idiot?”

  I quickly shake my head to signify my disagreement with his assessment. Take it! However, when he still doesn’t move, I reflexively appraise the pouch to understand why he said this.

  My eyes bulging, I realize that the porters had always instantly known the pouches’ contents every time. That’s why it was so smooth. Why did I think this was a good idea?

  “Ugh, village bumpkins,” he sighs, exasperated. “I don’t know how you ended up with this windfall, but you need to be careful. Porters have strict rules to protect you, but a merchant would have robbed you blind.”

  After the scolding, he reaches inside my pouch, taking out a single silver coin. Then he tosses one of his own pouches for me to catch.

  Huh?