Castle Kingside

In a dead-end alley, a homeless surgeon’s arm rose into the air only to come down like a hammer in a desperate game of high striker. The sharp rock he held pummeled into thick, green skin, resonating another leathery thwack between timber-framed walls.

Although Dimitry had ‘bought’ the melon to test invisall, after spending an entire copper on the product, he intended to make full use of its nutritional contents. Only a fool would throw away a perfectly good source of sugar. Though his biceps burned with fatigue, he continued to hack away at the melon’s fibrous carapace.

With one last strike, the fruit split open.

Dimitry scooped up a mound of white flesh and stuffed it into his mouth. His eyes shot open when an intense bitterness made him gag. He scrambled to scrape a persistent layer of starchy mush from his taste buds.

Was that crap supposed to be edible?

Before Dimitry could fully process his disgust, a thick mental fog constricted his brain, and his limbs weighed down like logs. He ran a trembling, now-visible hand through his hair. Invisall’s effects wore off.

He didn’t track the spell’s precise duration, but it lasted longer than when he had turned transparent. Perhaps seven minutes of complete invisibility. It seemed that using additional vol did more than strengthen effects.

“Fent!” a shrill voice cheered from above.

Shocked by the sudden outcry, Dimitry’s gaze shot up.

Aside from a blue sky squeezed between two timber-framed walls, there was something else. It leaned from a rooftop. The sun’s glare concealed its precise figure, but whatever it was, it had a tiny golden ponytail affixed to an equally tiny head.

Although Dimitry blinked, the scenery remained the same. Did his visual and auditory hallucinations return?

The creature’s gaze traveled from the fruit to Dimitry. “Loathsome human. Step away from the fent, or I will corrupt your soul.”

Unsure if the creature knew of invisall or if it was even real, Dimitry pointed to the melon. “This is fent, right? You want this garbage and not me?”

“Garbage?! Take that back!”

“Why? It tastes horrible.”

“That’s exactly what a dumb human would say. J-just go away! But leave the fent behind first.”

Although everything within Dimitry yelled at him to obey, to heed the whims of a sentient alien creature, his muscles refused to cooperate. “I’m tired. Come back for it later.”

“What if someone else takes it?!”

“Doubt that’ll happen.”

“If you don’t leave, if you don’t leave now, I’ll… I’ll—”

“Look,” Dimitry said, hoping he was speaking to himself. “Threatening me won’t help you. I’m not in the mood.”

After frowning down at him for an extended moment, the tiny head pulled out of sight. “Dummy.”

Dimitry blinked once more. Did that really just happen? Although the creature felt real, hallucinations always did. Perhaps visual and auditory glitches were additional components to the feedback the vol merchant mentioned.

He tried to ignore what he saw. The creature didn’t seem threatening, and even if it was, he couldn’t do much about it. Dimitry had important preparations to make.

While scouting Ravenfall for thievery targets and hideouts to survive the aftermath, Dimitry grew hungry and spent his last copper gadot on meat pie. As he held the fatty mutton and crispy flour treat, a concoction of desperation and sadness weighed down on him. All of his money was gone. Whatever he did next had to work.

“Hey!” a belligerent yell echoed from across the street.

Dimitry’s head shot up. Searching for the threat, he glanced back.

A man, six-feet tall and in his early thirties, stumbled down the street. Staggering feet gave him an intoxicated appearance. Clutching his hand on either side was a woman of the same age and a teenage girl. Both struggled to keep his movements straight when his feet veered sideways, causing him to bump into a shirtless laborer.

He dropped the crate he carried. “Watch your step, ya drunk!”

“Fuck off,” slurred the unsteady man. “I’ll bash yer damn ‘ead in.”

The woman holding his hand bowed. “Please, forgive him. I promise my husband doesn’t drink ale or wine. It all started a month ago and—”

“Don’t care if he drinks ale or mead or river water,” said the laborer. “Just keep him away from me and my cargo. I’ll tell the guards if it happens again.”

She bowed once more. “My humblest apologies.”

Biting into his meat pie, Dimitry watched the man stumble near. The face beneath his rough tunic’s brown hood was pale like an anemic patient’s, and if he abstained from alcohol as his wife claimed, the slurred words and drunken staggering likely resulted from cerebellar ataxia—a degenerative disease that damaged the part of the brain largely responsible for regulating speech and movement. Although the ailment’s cause was rarely clear, widespread malnourishment offered clues.

The biggest suspect was B12 deficiency. As the vitamin was vital for red blood cell production and central nervous system health, its insufficiency explained the man’s anemia and ataxia—sensible deductions since animal protein provided the bulk of the nutrient in human diets. Like vegans on Earth, people in a society that survived solely on meatless pottage for months were at high risk.

A society like this one.

Dimitry needed only a few questions and a brief clinical examination to confirm his hypothesis. He would examine the man’s tongue for red patches consistent with hunter’s glossitis and conduct a two-point discrimination test to ascertain peripheral neuropathy. Both were common symptoms in B12 deficient patients.

If he was right, a nutritional supplement could fix every issue, including aggression.

Determined to halt a preventable illness that inflicted irreversible damage with every passing moment, Dimitry stepped forward. But a single step was all fear allowed him to take. Would the couple attack the approaching homeless man? Dimitry was too weak to fight back. Even against a woman. Or maybe they would recognize his pale green eyes and call the guards. Were the risks worth taking?

He considered the wife and daughter. When the father’s condition deteriorated further, and macrocytic anemia resulted in premature death, could the widow support her child alone? Unlikely. Pre-modern society’s physically draining lifestyle necessitated everyone’s survival. To let one family member die was to kill them all.

Dimitry chomped down the rest of his pie and beckoned the couple closer. “Excuse me, sir. I think I can fix your stumbling. All I need is a momen—”

“Huh?” The husband slurred, inviting the gazes of onlookers. “A beggar wants to fix me?”

Although a dozen piercing stares and the man’s bulky posture alarmed Dimitry, it was a result he expected. Irritability was common with vitamin B deficiencies. “There’s no need for hostility. It’ll just take a moment.”

“Come on, honey.” The wife nudged her husband and daughter to walk faster. “You know beggars get desperate this time of year. Giving them attention only makes them braver.”

“Fuckin’ bums should learn their place.”

“Anemia’ll kill you at this rate!”

The daughter glanced around her stumbling father to glare at Dimitry, face scrunched with disgust.

Their unsteady gaits hastened.

“Eat beef liver!” Dimitry yelled plentiful sources of B12, hoping the deficiency didn’t source from malabsorption. “Beef liver, sheep liver, pig liver, whichever you want! A portion every day will cure the stumbling!”

Neither of the three turned a head or nodded as they disappeared down the street.

Dimitry was angry.

Angry at a society where unbalanced diets murdered more than heart disease or stroke, angry at a Church that brushed off preventable diseases as divine intervention, and angry at a government corrupt enough to brutalize the only surgeon that tried to remedy both. The dozens of patients Dimitry promised to help were dying. Innocents were dying. And soon, he would die as well.

The meat pie he ate wouldn’t satiate him for long. With frigid winds sapping his exposed legs of warmth, icy well water sips, and constant movement, the meal’s few hundred calories would be gone in hours. Fainting and crippling muscle weakness would soon set in.

He needed money now.

Hunger, morals, and reason warred over whether Dimitry should use vol for theft, and the morals lost. The two aquamarine pellets on his trembling palm were the last hope of a man gripping to life.

Contrary to his earlier plans, however, Dimitry couldn’t use invisall to steal from slavers. The counters where they displayed their egregious wealth stood between thick crowds in the market’s center. Even if Dimitry weaved through countless shoppers and guards while invisible, he wouldn’t escape with two floating gold coins in hand.

Worsening symptoms necessitated scouting for another target while Dimitry’s body still functioned, but the task wasn’t straightforward. Few establishments in Ravenfall were wealthy and gaudy enough to keep gold on open display. Even fewer isolated themselves from potential witnesses.

A need to avoid suspicion limited Dimitry’s criteria further. The target of his robbery had to be far from his clinic, yet close to somewhere he could stash loot immediately after the heist. Afterward, he would have to lie low while the city searched for a thief. A formerly homeless man purchasing food, clothes, and a barber’s license with gold coins right after a burglary invited skepticism. He would have to launder the gold into copper and silver gadots through traveling merchants to avoid being traced, but Dimitry needed an emergency escape in case his targets caught on to his schemes. And the best emergency escape was invisall.

Unfortunately, his vol supply sufficed for only a single cast—the one he intended to use for the theft. That was why he searched for an establishment that stocked magic catalyst and money on an open counter. Dimitry’s odds were highest if he could acquire funds and vol in a single heist. If he had to steal, he would do it right.

After scouring the city for hours, he found only one place in Ravenfall that fit every rigorous requirement: ‘Inscriber Works’.

It was a store that stood on east main street, where luxurious shops lined up in two neat rows surrounding a wide, well-paved, and relatively clean road. A problem since wealth attracted foot traffic and guards. Although sneaking past with invisall wouldn’t be difficult, the task required caution.

A sign depicting blue crisscrosses leaned by the store’s entrance. The lack of windows made it hard to peek inside, but judging by the clientele, Inscriber Works provided luxurious services. Guards, merchants, and wealthy residents in decadent fur-trimmed cloaks dropped silver and gold coins onto the counter before leaving with tools and weapons brandishing engraved woodblocks in their handles.

Dimitry inhaled a slow breath to calm his trembling legs. Stealing from slavers was one thing, but targeting a craftsman riddled him with pernicious guilt, steadily creeping across his body as goosebumps.

But he had to do it.

While self-preservation did not excuse his crimes, he tried to imagine his deeds as taking a loan. One day, when his business took off, he would pay back every stolen gadot with interest.

Feeling slightly better about himself, Dimitry stepped out of the alleyway and merged with the crowd. To avoid staring directly into the store, he walked up and down the street, each time throwing a single passing glance inside.

The front counter displayed a small stack of silver and gold coins from a recent transaction alongside a tray upholding dark green pure vol pellets. Behind them, a short, rotund man with a gaping bald spot looked down as he carved something unseen with a metal pen.

Dimitry slipped into a dark alley and gripped two round vol pellets in his shaky palm.

“Invisall.”

A familiar sensation struck Dimitry at once—searing bodily pain and nausea. A dizzy spell flung him against an alley wall, hurting his knee, but the discomfort was a sign that the magic was working. He raised his arm yet saw nothing.

Dimitry was invisible.

So far, so good.

He crept towards Inscriber Works and leaned against the store’s outer wall. Dimitry peeked inside for anything that could jeopardize his heist.

The shop’s narrowness was problematic. Were a customer to enter while Dimitry was inside, he would be trapped in a corner until they left. Unable to take a bath in Ravenfall’s central river for fear of hypothermia, Dimitry smelled of every alley he slept in the past few days. His odor would give his position. Fortunately, raw sewage rotting in nearby alleys would mask most of his scent. A bigger concern was the rough planks of a wooden floor that creaked under pressure. He had to tread softly.

Dimitry took a deep breath and slid through the entrance. His exposed feet made no sound against the wooden flooring except for the nigh inaudible creak of compressing wood fibers, easily attributable to the wind.

On the counter lay piled coins and a small ceramic plate carrying pure vol pellets. Just a handful of each would—

Creak.

The shopkeeper’s bald spot disappeared from view when his face shot up.

Adrenaline slammed into Dimitry, begging him to flee. But he couldn’t. If he ran now, he would have no vol for future attempts or money for food. Starvation would kill him.

He held his breath instead.

The shopkeeper’s eyes shot towards the door. There was no one there. Perhaps disappointed by his apparent lack of visitors, the man shook his head and glanced down to continue his task.

The tension constricting Dimitry’s muscles released.

He stepped forward, and a jagged wooden plank dug into his sole. Dimitry slowly lifted his foot to mute the groaning of bent timber as it returned to its protruding stance.

Several steps later, the money and vol lay within reach. The shopkeeper stood behind them, less than a meter away.

Heart pounding against his chest, Dimitry stretched both hands forward.

A sensation akin to the flowing chill of a cold intravenous fluid infusion sapped warmth from Dimitry’s arms. The displaced heat fluttered towards a gray-glowing statue atop the shopkeeper’s desk.

Color dyed Dimitry’s outstretched arms, rags, and skin.

He was transparent.

The shopkeeper who stood just a few paces away stared at Dimitry with bewildered eyes and a mouth that wished to speak but lacked the words. “Who… what?”

Dimitry’s hands launched to grab hazy quantities of loot. He dashed for the exit. His thigh slammed into a stand, whose contents spilled onto the floor. A sharp object, a nail perhaps, plunged into his foot.

Withholding an excruciating yelp that yearned to get free, Dimitry darted away.

“Guards!” The wheezing shopkeeper wobbled after him. “Guards, guards, guards!”

Where to go?

Where was the best place for Dimitry to go?

Despite an unplanned outcome, he chose the originally planned route.

Dimitry stumbled as he flew out the door and towards a nearby alley. His body slowly regained its invisibility, but nowhere near fast enough. Worse, the stolen green pellets and coins he held were fully visible.

He had to stash them quickly.

Two armored guards pushed civilians aside behind him. Surging forward, their heavy metal boots crushed the gravel.

The portly man stood outside his shop, pointing at Dimitry. “If you can get me that man alive, I’ll give each of you a gold gadot! But alive! I want him alive!”

Dimitry couldn’t outrun guards, but he was already fading from sight. He had to stay ahead until his invisibility fully returned. Or at least he hoped it would.

His shoulder collided into the corner of a building as he slid into an alley, eliciting a pained tear from his eye.

He bore the pain as he ran, jamming vol and coins into predetermined stashes including pockets of eviscerated plaster in walls, crannies between timber beams, and behind rotting crates for later retrieval.

Bystanders stopped to stare at the man that faded out of reality, and the clanking metal footsteps of guards were getting closer.

The sound of crushed gravel came from right behind Dimitry, but his legs were almost invisible.

Just a little longer!

Pain erupted from the sole of his injured foot and soared as he rushed across grime and dirt, but the epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol bombarding his skeletal muscles numbed the scraping of stones against the puncture wound in his foot to bearable levels.

Dimitry tumbled out of the alley and across a crowded crossroad. After a sharp turn, he swerved perpendicular to the guards and through townspeople.

Glancing back, he saw a robust crowd of laborers, authorities, and passersby scattering. They rushed in every direction. Their confusion bought Dimitry enough time to become invisible once more.

He was safe.

Swelling relief cut short when Dimitry slammed into a black-cloaked bystander.

They both fell to the ground.

Dimitry gazed horrified into her vacant, indigo eyes.

An engraved steel collar glowed around the young lady’s pale neck. Pressed to gravel by an unseen weight, she reached for a leather scabbard attached to her leg. “What are—”

“Sorry.” Dimitry pushed off the floor and limped away. He glanced back to confirm her health.

She stood up, and while brushing herself off, scanned the surrounding crowd with unemotive eyes.

The young lady wouldn’t have been so composed if she sustained injury. Finding solace in her safety, Dimitry fled.