“What in all the world do you plan to do with two sets of casting stones?” Klemens brushed the front of his uniform clean and wiped his hands with satisfied smacks, as if he’d just polished off an entire charred bristlebear himself.

  They had hidden the two guards in their hut. Rolnar had helped himself to a small ration of food that’d been stored within, while Klemens swiped a few daggers from a cabinet.

  “Use them, I reckon. Why don’t you want them? From my understanding they’re rare.”

  “Extremely.” Klemens acknowledged. “Extremely. But I have no use for them. I’m a dud.”

  “What?”

  “A dud. No matter how much I try, I can’t get them damn stones to work. People train for years, learning to use their own physical energies and whatnot to charge the stones and harness the elements. I can’t.”

  Klane wondered if that constituted one of the saddest things he’d ever heard. The ambivalent expression on Klemens’s face told him he’d come to grips with that reality long ago and was no longer too bothered by it. “You could still sell them for a small fortune.”

  “Ah,” Klemens waved dismissively, “there’s more to this life than riches. I am perfectly content as I am. Perfectly content.”

  “So am I.” Rolnar grinned as he tore into another neatly wrapped package of rations, and indulged in the rice, bread, and parcel of meat sealed inside. It filled the air with a heavily salted, fishy quality.

  “How do we know Andrew will be there?” Klane asked.

  “Have word from my contact that he regularly spends his nights there, at a window nearest the observatory across the street. I’m sure it won’t be hard to find him.”

  “But—”

  “You let me worry about the details,” Klemens said. “It is my job to know things. You just figure out what to say to persuade the man to help us.” He stared evenly, tucking a knife beneath his industrial coverall.

  * * *

  “So what is our plan for other guards we will undoubtedly run into?” Klane asked.

  “Do what we’ve done the last few encounters.”

  “Bluff our way past?”

  “Of course. But this time I’ll be more careful with my mark.” Klemens stepped onto the wagon, taking the reins of the horses in hand.

  Klane had popped the collar of his jacket up to ward off the growing chill of night and any aches it might induce. The tips of his small ears stung with the shifting of each breeze and at some point, he wasn’t sure when, his breath had shifted to exhalations of little, misty clouds. I’m the world’s first dragon gnome Klane mused.

  The cart started forward with its now-familiar clitter clatter along the stone streets. A songbird whistled in a cage through an open window of a lighted room above. At this time of night, most of the windows in the towering buildings around them were blacked out. Sandblasted panes of privacy glass shimmered with silvery moonlight like the surface of the pitch-black sea a few miles away.

  They passed through narrow streets, carving a path between grandiose company headquarters. Malflutrax’s Metals, Tradesman’s Union, Merchant’s Union. Every building they passed had a different sign, displaying the industry or function it served. Royal Chemists’, Vicious Ship Outfitters, Weasex Bestiary.

  A pair of guards marched down a path that passed beneath the street and up the other side. They gave a dutiful glance to the three individuals, guiding the cart full of Clockwork Mining Company supplies up the street, before continuing on their way.

  “Look there.” Klemens smirked and inclined his head toward the only bustling hive of life in the district. A narrow, wedge-shaped structure, bristling with ropes, nets, and cranes loaded with palettes of barrels, sat at a fork in the road. Klane searched for a hint of what the building might be the headquarters for, and froze when he recognized the hulking figure of a man ambling out from the building’s entrance.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “D-Don Fuskima.” Klane shrank behind the lip of the wagon as best he could. The last thing he needed was for the Don to recognize him. That would just draw more attention, and potentially end in more bloodshed.

  Klemens shrugged. “You know him?”

  “I spoke with him in the tavern, about finding Andrew.” Klane’s voice had dropped to an urgent whisper. His stomach twisted as the Don, flanked by his bodyguards, one of whom wore quite a few bloody bandages over his nose, turned toward them.

  Klemens shot Klane a flustered glare. “Get down then, you stupid gnome.”

  Klane faltered. Maybe he could avoid blowing up Clockwork Mining Company by getting them stopped by Don Fuskima. Maybe.

  He started to sit up but Klemens gripped his shoulder and forced him down. “Don’t think for a second that I won’t kill you.”

  Klane sighed and settled near Klemens’s feet, beneath the lip of the wagon’s seat. He stared at Klemens, not sure whether he hated the man, or respected him for his loyalty to duty and his cause.

  Klemens glanced toward the lighted wedge, the top of which rolled past Klane’s field of view, and gave a courtesy wave to someone Klane couldn’t see. “Evenin’ gents.” Klemens smiled cordially.

  “Evening.”

  Klane recognized the gruff voice of Don Fuskima, as deep as the man was large.

  “Bit late to be out and working. You all right there, friend? Someone took a crack at your nose there, eh?” Klemens grimaced.

  “The night is just getting started,” Don Fuskima growled. His words belied a confident, deadly, ominous intent. “Have we met?”

  Klane’s breath caught in his throat as the Don bobbed past. Please don’t look to the side. He shrank farther into the lip of the wagon.

  “No, sir, don’t think we have,” Rolnar replied. He paused briefly before he continued, “I’ve got a brother, though, I do. Damn spittin’ image, if I’m to believe what people say. Travels on a sister ship, a competitor. Makes the family dinners around the holidays awkward, though, must say.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, we best be on our way, gentlemen. On a schedule.” Klemens urged the horses forward. The wagon groaned and slowly rolled onward. “Have a great night.”

  * * *

  Clockwork Mining Company filled the entire back quadrant of the district. Walled off lots contained mining equipment of all sizes, boring drills, saws, hauling equipment. Anything you could think of to tap into your very own wealth of earthen resources was laid out like a fleet of industry waiting to ship off. Red tile roofs contrasted with the greens and blues of the surrounding district. Conveyor belts droned as they hauled ores and supplies from one long-house to the next, vanishing into large, square openings beneath the roofs’ overhanging eaves.

  Klemens led them to the left, a three-storied, long barracks structure. One open window glowed with light on the second floor. A quill and large ink pot joined a potted plant on the sill.

  “I didn’t think people still used quills.” Klane muttered.

  They stopped on the street outside the office. From their raised position on the street Klane could just start to see into it, noting the tops of bookshelves and a framed picture he couldn’t quite make out.

  Directly across the street stood a multi-tiered stone building composed of four large towers of varying heights. Exterior stairs connected open-air galleries with flying bridges, held aloft by parabolic stone archways.

  Between the four towers rose a magnificent telescope as big as The Reliant. The lens of the telescope, which filled the aperture, reflected a slight blue tint and warped the sky above. A few robed figures walked along exterior catwalks that framed the telescope, and through narrow arcades Klane saw them hunched forward and scribbling notes in their books.

  CELESTIAL NAVIGATOR’S KORPS

  “That’s impressive.” Klane found himself awestruck at the feat of engineering.

  The massive telescope creaked, an apparatus of gears clunking into motion as the entire observation platform shifted toward a nebulous tangerine patch of stars.

  How many servos? Klane wondered. How big were the servos? Gears? Actuators? How did they power such a glorious monstrosity? The fanciest thing he and his hovelkin had worked on was a small fighting construct to settle a rivalry with a nearby hovel. They’d lost, but it had been an enjoyable challenge.

  “It is,” Klemens agreed. He climbed down to the street, where a small gate surrounded by rosebushes and neatly trimmed hedges blocked their path.

  Klemens played with the handle, stylistically shaped as a small, bronze gear, and jostled the gate. Locked. Klane stood with Rolnar, watching from behind, waiting. How joyous it would’ve been to have their destructive mission ended by something as trivial as a gate-lock.

  “Gnome.” Klemens snapped his fingers as if summoning a dog.

  Klane pursed his lips, rolling his eyes as he decided whether to honor the cultist with a response. “It’s ‘Klane.’ But go on.”

  “You’ve still got that set of picks in your belt. Get to it.” Klemens stared at him expectantly, his harelip not so much as twitching. For a second he was a pale, steel-eyed statue who smelled faintly of gunpowder and hair oils.

  Drat. Klane sighed and stepped forward, pulling free the little scroll of leather that contained his lock pick set. He knelt and unrolled it on a small curb. After a cursory examination, he realized the lock was a rather simple and more domestic mechanism than a Dwarven vault or a Sea Elf’s puzzle-lock.

  “While Klane works on getting us in,” Klemens said, “start preparing the charges, Rolnar. I’ll come assist you in the setup after we talk with Andrew.”

  “Aw,” Rolnar grumbled, “can’t I come?” He pleaded rather pathetically. Klemens sighed, and nodded.

  Klane jostled his pick deep into the lock, listening and feeling for the tumblers to give way. It wouldn’t take him but a few seconds at most and then they’d be in. And Andrew would face a crossroad.