Elio crept through his favourite crawlspace, remembering to tuck his right elbow close to his ribs to avoid the rusty nail as he went through the final turn. Stupid nail. It hadn’t been a problem in the past, but it had gotten him good two weeks ago. The space was beginning to feel tighter, too. He must be getting bigger.

  The little boy sighed as he dusted himself off and opened his bag. Two pieces of fruit and some old cheese. Not a single purse or pearl to be had today.

  “Get anything good?” Andrea called out from her usual spot, a creaky old chair that she’d wrapped in discarded textiles.

  “Nope. Too many guards out. Again. They’re getting better at checking the alleys and rooftops, too. It’s all a bunch of oxcrap,” Elio said as he tossed his bag onto a small table that nearly toppled from the force. “Even old Giovanni came out shouting when I lifted a few pieces of fruit off his stall. Said I was getting too old for charity, can you believe that?”

  “We need to find a new spot,” Enzo said as he dropped down from a hatch in the ceiling. He must have been listening in.

  “Not this again,” Andrea complained. She was right. They’d had this discussion already what felt like a hundred times.

  “Sure, Enzo. Do you have any new suggestions? Anywhere without guards, there’s nothing worth lifting these days,” Elio said, squatting down and leaning his back against the wall. This spot had a good view on the entrances to their hideout. It had always felt safe and cosy to him, but now, as he looked at the crooked wooden boards and flaking paint, it looked cramped. Too small. Not enough space to move around.

  “Well, maybe we should think bigger? Endanshi isn’t the only city in the world. There’s bigger ones, even in the Basement.” the other boy said.

  There was silence as they considered that.

  “It’s a long way around the pillar,” Elio said simply.

  “Yeah, there could even be Reijuu on that road. Nowhere to hide out in the desert. How would we even get there, without an escort?”

  “Maybe we could save up?” Enzo countered. “It shouldn’t be that expensive to join a caravan.”

  “Save up with what? There’s nothing to steal!” Andrea said.

  “The road to the Belt is a lot shorter. And safer.”

  Elio frowned. Why was Enzo talking about the Belt, suddenly? No, wait, that hadn’t been Enzo’s voice at all. He sat up with a start, looking for where the sound had come from. There was a dark shape in the back, sitting on a chair. He sprang up, grabbing for his knife-

  “Relax,” the voice said. Light returned to that corner of the room to reveal a man leaning back in a chair with both feet up on an old cupboard. It took Elio a moment to realize the light was coming from the man, a glow spreading from his very skin, as if a dozen lanterns were somehow lit inside of his body.

  Elio clutched his knife tighter as his eyes flicked to the exits and then back to the man. From his boots to his tunic, the man was dirty in the way of a cultivator, the kind of layered stains of mud and dried blood that screamed at him to run away. He nearly did, until he noticed two things that looked familiar: golden glasses and a round belly.

  “It’s pudgy uncle!” Andrea was first to speak, hopping out of her chair and running closer to the man.

  “That rude uncle has returned?” Enzo asked, carefully stepping closer. Elio kept his distance, still clutching the knife, but slowly loosening his grip. This man did look like that uncle from a few weeks ago, though he looked a bit different. Taller? Stronger, maybe?

  “That’s right! It is none other than the mighty Dario!” the uncle said, his entire body flaring like a fire fed with pinecones. “And I have come with a proposal.” He finally took his dirty boots down from the cupboard and leaned forward, hands steepled together like some noble businessman.

  “Eww uncle, you stink!” Andrea cried out, taking a few steps back.

  The man frowned at being interrupted, but then he sniffed himself and laughed.

  “Heh, yeah, I guess I do really need a bath. Been spending too much time in musty old places, lately.”

  Elio put the knife back, stepping up next to Enzo with crossed arms.

  “What’s your proposal, uncle? If it's about that giant heap of garbage, it better be something good.”

  “Well, youngsters, it seems to me that you’re in need of a change of scenery. If you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll have to admit that your time as stealing urchins is coming to an end.”

  He held up his hands before the children could erupt in protest. “I know. Change is hard. Trust me, that’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way. But I also learned that you can’t move ahead in life if you keep living a lie. So I’m here to offer you a way out. The thing about the Belt is, a heap of garbage is what the suckers see. But the smart folks, the cunning ones, like you three, they see something else entirely.”

  He lowered his glasses to fix them one by one with deep eyes that glowed like a pile of golden coins. Elio couldn’t help but let out a gasp as he looked into those bright golden pupils.

  “Opportunity.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  ***

  Dario was whistling as he took in the sights of Endanshi, leisurely walking towards the southern gate with the three children running along in front of him.

  Despite his awesome sales pitch, it had still taken a lot of time to break through their protests. In the end, it hadn’t been the promise of treasure hunts that convinced them, but the possibility of becoming cultivators. It’s all kids these days ever wanted to talk about. But he supposed he hadn’t been any different, back then. Although, if there’s one thing he learned from his trip to the wilds and beyond, it was that if you weren’t careful, adventuring could become a lot of hard work. You had to stay on your toes and be clever if you wanted to avoid that.

  Nobles and common folk alike crossed the street as he passed, giving him a wide berth and some disgusted looks, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from grinning. He’d gotten the kids on board easily enough, now all that was left was to head back home.

  As he passed by some shops, having to pull his eyes away from the bright mix of colors coming from the many artefacts on display, his gaze lingered on a man. Several things stood out about him.

  He wore fine clothes that clearly marked him as a noble, though from the pieces of hardened leather and the scabbard at his side, he looked ready to strike out into the wilds. His bright silver hair was neatly swept back, yet somehow clotted together in a way that formed spikes at the end. It made his hair look like bunched up speartips stabbing out from the back of his head. Silver eyes to match the color of his hair were fixed on Dario. The nobleman was grinning like a wolf.

  But to Dario’s eyes, the most remarkable part was the man’s Ki. An impressive mass of gleaming silver energy sat tightly packed in his torso, held remarkably still. Yet it felt distinctly sharp and dangerous, like a row of freshly honed blades waiting in a weapon’s rack, keen to be used.

  The silver-haired man looked ready to spring into action and Dario felt the urge to move away, noticing that his hand had wandered back to grab his stave from his pack. But then the man looked to his right and leaned back against the wall with arms folded, grinning viciously as he looked back at Dario.

  “Oh crap,” Dario cursed as he noticed what the man had been looking at. One of Hokori’s guards, the younger one, was marching quickly in his direction, hand on his sword.

  He began to draw away the light and prepare an illusion, but then he saw the children had stopped and were staring at him, gesturing for him to come. He couldn’t just run and leave them here.

  “You dare to show your face here again, trashboy? After the shit you pulled? You know how many artefacts that fucking joke cost me?”

  So that’s how they made it out. He should have known that a rich group like that would have had a bunch of expensive single-use items in case of emergency. Dario could see the man’s Ki moving through his limbs, ready for violence. His eyes picked up something else, too: the red haze of rage growing in the man’s chest.

  “I know what you assholes were planning. I wasn’t about to just lie down and take it.”

  The guard clenched his teeth as he came to a stop about ten paces away, right hand gripping the hilt of his sword. Plant Ki snaked through his legs as he watched the man closely for any signs of movement.

  “Then you still haven’t understood your place. Begging for mercy as your betters take what they want is all the likes of you can do. But it’s too late for that. All the begging in the world won’t save you now.”

  The guard bent his knees and loosened his sword in the scabbard.

  “Not running away?” he asked. “Oh, I see how it is. Found some dumb Reijuu to harvest and now you think you can fight like an Amber already? I’ve been an Amber for years, you dumb boy. Let me show you the difference.”

  From his posture and the position of the blade, it seemed that the man would strike from the right, but Dario looked past that and followed the movement of Ki. Clearly, more was channeling through the left arm and right leg, so it had to be-

  The guard’s sword clinked as his thumb pushed it out of its scabbard, then he blasted forward. One explosive kick to close half the distance, then his left arm flashed around to draw the blade as the right went for a dagger hidden behind the sword. The next kick with his right leg had him rushing for the kill as the blade whistled out, moving far too quickly for Dario to dodge.

  If he hadn’t seen it coming. But he’d already begun to pivot before the guard had started his lunge.

  One Ki-energized push swung him away from the blow and all the way around, one leg quivering as it withstood the force of the sudden swing. The guard, fully committed, could only watch Dario’s back as he twisted away from the slash and came back around in one swift motion, putting all that momentum into an elbow that cracked straight into the guard’s jaw.

  A few molars clattered to the ground like thrown dice, then his body followed, dust rising as he lay still for a moment, before groggily shaking his head. The angry look on his face quickly turned to wide-eyed fear as he saw that Dario already had an arrow drawn on him. But the man was a veteran, so it didn’t take long for his eyes to harden again.

  “-ou ohwn’t get fahw if ou kiww meh.”

  With a broken jaw, the threat sounded ridiculous, but the guard wasn’t wrong. Dario’s eyes passed around the square before returning to the guard. There were plenty of witnesses. People were already crying for guards. The kids were gaping at them, instead of-

  “Get out of here! Run! Keep the pillar at your backs!” Dario called out to them, not looking to see if they obeyed. They had a good instinct for staying out of trouble, they wouldn’t need more than a nudge.

  Despite having attacked first, the guard was part of a noble’s team. One that he’d tried to kill, out in the wilds. There were no witnesses of that, but he knew it would hardly matter. People like him either stayed out of the way, or they got stepped on. That was the way of things on this floor.

  The guard was getting his bearings again and Dario could see Ki churning through the man’s arm as he reached for his sword, so he sent a sudden flare of blinding light into his face. He cried out and reached for his eyes. Dario needed to get the fuck out of here. His eyes flicked around the square again, then paused on two men that were sprinting for them.

  Hokori and the other guard.

  Just his luck. What a fucking mess this was. Even if he ran, they knew where he lived, so this was not likely to go away. Still, killing them in public was sure to only make things worse. He’d probably need JeeJee’s help for any chance at fixing this, so getting out of here was still his best bet.

  Dario began to edge away as he kept the arrow drawn, looking for exits. The children were almost out of the street. He aimed the arrow and loosed. It passed narrowly by the guard’s ribs to nail his tunic into the ground, so that Dario’s hands were free to morph the bow back into a stave even as he grabbed for a handful of seeds which he scattered across the dry earth.

  He pushed out plant Ki into thin bands, reaching for the seeds as Hokori and the other guard approached, flanking him from either side. Behind them, the silver-haired man’s grin widened as he looked on with interest.

  Dario turned, light Ki at the ready to create a diversion and disappear, but from the two streets he could have escaped through, at least a dozen city guards were fast approaching, cutting off his best escape routes.

  He was trapped.