The sun—or whatever they called it here in Hollow Kingdom—had been setting for like three hours. Finally done.

  The city didn't go dark though. Sky went amber, then copper, then this deep purple color. Lamplighters were out doing their thing with those long poles, totally ignoring the whole sky situation. Streetlamps flickered on with that soft orange glow. Crowds thinned out.

  We were still parked across from The Arcane Repository.

  Had been for a while now.

  The hare hadn't moved in forty minutes. Just sitting there like a stuffed animal. Either hiding or it had given up on life. Kitten Cowboy was next to it with his tiny arms crossed, staring at the shop like he knew what was up.

  I'd gotten hungry and counted the iron bars on the windows four times just to make sure they weren't messing with me.

  Still six bars.

  "Someone's leaving," Mira said.

  Two people came out the front door. Both had bags. Both had that "finally done with work" walk going on. Went opposite directions and just disappeared into the crowd.

  Door closed.

  Few minutes went by.

  Third person came out. Also with a bag. Also leaving. One of them stopped to fix their boot and it took forever and honestly I was getting annoyed.

  Then they left too.

  Door closed again.

  More waiting.

  "Is Aldric even in there?" I asked.

  "Probably," Mira said. "Just wait."

  So we waited.

  Lamplighters finished up and moved to the next block. Last few people cleared out. Fabric shop next door went dark. Law office on the other side had one light on the third floor, but nothing on the ground level.

  Then the Repository's front door opened again.

  Guy stepped out.

  Tall, older, wearing this long merchant coat with brass buttons. Had that trustworthy look. Took his sweet time locking the door—three separate locks, click by click, like he wanted to really remember this moment.

  Checked the locks once.

  Checked them again.

  Turned and walked off without looking back. Either totally normal or super suspicious, hard to tell.

  "That's Aldric," I said.

  "Definitely Aldric," Mira agreed.

  The hare moved. A little.

  "He locked it three times," it said.

  "Wants it to look good."

  I stood up, stretched until something popped, gave the street one last look.

  Quiet. Empty. Law office light still on upstairs but nothing moving down here.

  "Alright," I said.

  The plan was simple.

  So simple I kept looking for problems that weren't there, because usually a simple plan either works perfectly or the universe just hasn't shown you where it explodes yet.

  Step one: break a window. Not the barred ones—those were decorative iron over glass, made to look tough. Bars attached to the frame, not the wall, so you could break the glass but the bars would still be there, which doesn't scream robbery, it screams some idiot threw a rock. Not convincing.

  What was convincing: the back.

  Every building had a service entrance. Hollow Kingdom had garbage rules—I saw it on a poster on a pole—so every shop needed a way to get trash out that wasn't the front door. Which meant there was an alley or back entrance without all the fancy iron bars.

  We'd found it earlier. Narrow lane between the Repository and the law office, barely wide enough to walk through. Small wooden door at the end with a padlock. One window above it, no bars, frosted glass.

  I had the Throwing Brick of Returning ready.

  Looked at the window.

  "Ready?" I said.

  "No," the hare said.

  "Perfect," I said, and chucked the brick.

  Window broke in two parts.

  First: the sound. Sharp and loud—that universal breaking glass sound everyone knows.

  Second: the quiet after.

  I smashed myself against the wall.

  Hare pressed into the ground, ears down, trying to become invisible.

  Mira folded her wings and wedged herself between two stones.

  Kitten Cowboy pulled his gun out, then realized shooting would also be loud, so just held it there.

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  Footsteps from the main street—not close but not far enough either.

  Two people walking.

  City guards.

  I held my breath—even though that's pointless—and froze.

  Footsteps got louder. Then stopped.

  Could see the street through the alley opening. Streetlamp throwing light our way. Shadow stretched across the stones.

  Someone was looking.

  Shadow looked like a guard helmet. Flat brim with something on top.

  Didn't move.

  Hare's ear twitched. Only thing any of us did.

  Shadow tilted, like they were listening hard.

  I'd completely stopped breathing.

  Shadow moved.

  Not toward us though. Sideways, then away. Footsteps started up again, slower now, but going down the street instead of toward us. Second set of footsteps caught up—other guard—and both faded out.

  Finally let myself breathe.

  "That was fine," I whispered.

  "That was the opposite of fine," the hare whispered back, except loud enough to be normal talking.

  Called the brick back. It smacked into my hand. Made a note to work on my catching.

  Then I climbed through the window.

  The back room of The Arcane Repository smelled like old wood, candle wax, and something sweet and metallic that I really didn't want to think about.

  It was pitch black.

  Like, the kind of dark where you literally can't see your hand in front of your face. I had to navigate by sound and vibes. Something on a shelf to my left. Something bigger on the right. Probably a table in the middle.

  I started digging through my inventory for something useful.

  Crystal of Stored Light.

  Bright as hell, stays on forever once you activate it. No dimmer switch, no off button.

  Yeah, I didn't use the Crystal of Stored Light.

  Mira flew in through the broken window behind me. Turned out she was the MVP of this situation because imps have night vision and humans very much do not. News to me, but extremely relevant information right now.

  "You have fire bolt, right? Maybe cast it but don't throw it." "I tried that before, but it feels like holding your piss while making eye contact with the toilet. I can't hold it that long."

  “Weird comparison, but I get what you mean."

  "Storage room," she whispered. "Shelves on both sides. Door straight ahead goes to the main shop."

  "You see the sphere?"

  "Not back here."

  "Main room it is."

  The door between the back room and the shop wasn't locked. Made sense. I cracked it open slow.

  The main room had some actual visibility.

  Orange light from the streetlamp outside filtered through the two big front windows and the iron bars, throwing striped shadows across everything. Still dim, but I could at least see where I was going. Three walls of shelves. Display case down the middle. Magical items lined up all neat with little price tags like this was a normal shop and not a place about to get robbed.

  I crept down the center aisle, scanning the shelves.

  Job description said the sphere was "palm-sized, translucent blue, faint glow."

  Found it on the third shelf, fourth from the left.

  It was definitely glowing. Either that was the normal glow from the description, or the curse was already doing its thing. Either way, super easy to spot.

  I reached out and grabbed it.

  It buzzed when I touched it. Like a low vibration. Like if furniture could get annoyed, this is what it would feel like.

  I picked it up.

  The curse kicked in immediately.

  Not violent or scary. Just—

  I started walking like a duck.

  Both feet pointed outward, my stride got wider, and I was basically waddling on the outer edges of my feet. I was fully aware it was happening. I could see myself doing it. I just had zero control over it.

  The hare was staring at me through the broken window. It looked like it was having a full existential crisis about every decision that led to this exact moment.

  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" it said, trying to whisper but absolutely failing.

  "Scratching my legs. What does it look like? It's the curse," I whispered back, duck-walking toward the back room. "It's fine. It'll wear off."

  "WILL IT?"

  "Probably!"

  Kitten Cowboy was perched on a shelf I hadn't noticed him climb. He watched me waddle past with this patient, concerned expression.

  I duck-walked back to the service entrance.

  Still going.

  We also had to make it look convincing.

  In hindsight, I should've planned this part better. "Make it look real" meant I had to go back into the main room and trash the place a bit. Sounded fun when we were planning it. Less fun now that I was still waddling like a cursed waterfowl.

  I went back in.

  The display case in the center had a glass top. I grabbed a heavy book from the shelf behind the counter and dropped it on the floor. Then I knocked something off its display stand. It hit the ground with a loud crash. I froze. Waited. Nobody outside reacted.

  Knocked over another stand.

  Shoved some smaller items forward on a couple shelves. Some fell, some didn't. Looked like someone had been here in a rush, grabbing stuff. I snagged a cloth from a nearby table and left it on the floor. Felt like the kind of detail that screamed someone was here and they were in a hurry.

  The service door was already busted. Window above it was already broken.

  I stood back and looked at my work.

  Honestly? This looked pretty legit.

  I felt weirdly proud.

  "That's enough," Mira said from the doorway.

  Yeah. Time to go.

  I was still walking like a duck.

  I could tell from Mira's face she was embarrassed.

  "Still?" she said.

  "It's getting better," I said.

  It wasn't getting better. My feet were pointed at like forty-five degrees and I was rocking side to side when I walked. Several people had noticed. One kid pointed at me. The adult with them quickly redirected the kid's hand—someone who'd worked really hard to raise a polite child and wasn't about to let that fall apart now.

  The sphere was in my inventory. The store looked like a crime scene. The drop-off spot was three blocks away, according to the paper.

  The drop-off was a box.

  A locked iron box bolted to a wall in this small courtyard. Technically a public space, but it felt like a place nobody actually went to on purpose. There was a slot on top. A lock on the front with a combination. The paper had the combination.

  I opened the box. Dropped the sphere inside. Heard it hit something already in there. Closed and locked it.

  The box made this short mechanical sound—like a confirmation beep.

  A second later, a hand appeared from a gap in the wall I hadn't even seen. It was attached to an arm, attached to a person I couldn't see. The hand was holding a small cloth bag that clinked.

  I took the bag.

  The hand pulled back.

  The gap was empty.

  I opened the bag.

  One hundred gold.

  I stared at it.

  I closed the bag and put it in my inventory.

  The duck walk had faded during the courtyard visit. It turned into normal walking so slowly I didn't even notice when it stopped. My feet were pointed forward again like normal.

  CURSE EFFECT EXPIRED: WALK LIKE A DUCK

  Achievement Unlocked: "The Waddle Incident"

  Reward: 15 XP.

  "Of course there is an achievement for this" I said.

  We found a bench in a quieter part of the district, away from the main crowd but still lit by the amber glow of nearby streetlamps. I stopped at a vendor on the way. Someone selling something in paper bags that smelled incredible. I bought 3 bags because the job was done, we had money.

  Mira got one. The hare got one. Kitten Cowboy got half of mine, which he accepted with great dignity.

  The paper bags held something called amber twists. They were coiled pastries brushed with honey and baked until the edges turned golden-brown and crispy. They were still warm when I bought them, the paper slightly translucent where the honey had soaked through. The outside had a brittle sweetness that cracked under your teeth, and the inside was soft, almost bread-like, with a faint spice I couldn't place. Something like cinnamon but earthier, maybe cardamom or something native to Hollow Kingdom. The honey had a floral note, not too sweet, and left a slight stickiness on your fingers that made you want to lick them clean.

  I sat down on a bench in the base's outer room and counted what I had left.

  One hundred gold from the job. Minus five gold for the snacks. Minus twenty gold for the jump. And another twenty to come back.

  That meant I could make the jump and still have enough left to not panic immediately.

  "Tomorrow," I said, mostly to myself.

  "Tomorrow what?" Mira asked, already staring at her paper bag with deep focus.

  "We go to Iron Ravine," I said.

  "Good. I was starting to get bored. All we do here is go here and there. We need a little more action," she said.

  "You're right," I said. "Except for the probability of dying part, I was enjoying floor 1."

  [EXPERIENCE GAINED: 45 XP]

  [TOTAL: 545 / 4,000]

  The notification appeared and disappeared. I watched it go.