And Amelia was going to find—

Oof!

Amelia bumped right into a seven-foot-tall orc.

She tensed up, braced for impact, but when she turned her head he was already long out of sight in the crowd. It was the miracle of city life, Amelia thought, that bumping shoulders with an orc did not automatically mean fists were about to fly. It had been a long time since she could slip through a place without a fight, but here, it was like she was invisible.

Theo noticed and let out an oozing chuckle. “You best be careful ‘round these parts.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. The extra “sir” went a long way, because Theo eyed her for a few minutes longer, as if to express some interest in her beyond the concerns of an employer.

Every step he took, he banged the cane on the ground, even though to her eyes he had no mobility issues to speak of. The thing was purely ornamental, an extension of his overwhelmingly gaudy attire.

If this was the kind of man who inducted new arrivals into Fourland, she wondered just how deep this enterprise would go.

Theo led Amelia down an alleyway and a long passage of cramped walkways. And there, the magnificence of the business district disappeared in an instant. The marble became dirt and the bushes became garbage bags. But even here, people were everywhere. But fewer of them were hurrying to their next location. Many lurked, loitered, chatting with each other or squatting down while they read the papers. A few turned to glance, then stare, at her.

The air smelled of sweat and burnt mana. A faint hum of noise reverberated in every direction, never ceasing as far as they ventured down this blocky alleyway. A rat skittered by on the ground and took a curious look at her before shoving itself through a crack in the wall.

She was not used to places so unabashedly dirty. Places that looked and smelled so unappealing. Every place she had seen today was likely magnitudes cleaner than the mud-covered livestock and smoke-filled taverns she was used to. But even if it was cleaner, it did not feel like it.

And the sound was most certainly too much for her to handle. A long gray train flew by on the railing overhead, roaring so loudly that everything else was drowned out. Then, after a few seconds, the train was gone and the city soundscape returned to Amelia’s ears, still humming away. A radio played through an open window two stories up, playing that horrible North Sunwell Company jingle as it moved to a sponsor break.

She entered her system settings and turned on the audio dampener to preserve her sanity.

The two went through a small passageway obscured by a stack of cardboard boxes. A dark rocky path that looked like some long-forgotten, long-abandoned monastery hallway.

Theo looked a lot less outwardly pleasant than when he picked her up, without even a word to change his mood. The warm welcoming face had darkened into the kind of sour man she had been expecting all along. Whatever he was planning, she knew it was about to come soon.

“I’m a little hungry,” Amelia lied. “Do they have food at the Fourland headquarters?”

“Yeah, sure, kid,” he said.

“Actually, will I be working today? They didn’t tell me anything. All I know is I’m a harvester.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

They exited the passageway and found themselves in some sort of discard pile, where rusty, broken items were piled high in the space between two apartment buildings. Brown, gray, and the sharp odor of dried-up mana far past a usable state.

No way out except for where they just came from. No other doors in sight.

“How long have you been in Fleettwixt, Mister Theo?”

He turned his head back for just a moment, just to take a look at her through those thick glasses. “Fifteen years, kid.”

“Do you like it?”

Theo stopped in his tracks. “Let’s cut the chit-chat,” he said. “Hand over the package.”

“What?”

“You got the goods, right?”

Amelia shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Theo sighed. “I kinda suspected you’d be one of these.” He tapped his cane in just the right way, and a curved, knife-like blade popped out near the bottom.

As he said this, out from the piles of metal scrap and from behind in the passageway came four men—three humans and a dwarf—each holding bats, crowbars, and other blunt objects. Whatever they could scrounge up, Amelia guessed. The back-up looked shoddy, dirty. Theo, though, dressed sharp and flashy. Looked like he had showered this morning. She realized the scenario here before she even asked a real question.

“I don’t understand,” Amelia told Theo in feigned ignorance. “I thought I was going to the dorm.”

He sighed. “Listen. Fourland brought you here for one thing, and that was to smuggle in our package. If you don’t have it, you definitely ain’t gonna work with us. Or anyone, for that matter.” He smiled gently, with sickening levels of fake sympathy.

One of the men yanked Amelia’s satchel from her back and dumped the contents on the ground below. A toothbrush, a thick diary, a change purse, an extra pair of shoes, a couple changes of clothes, a mirror, and a battery-lamp. It looked particularly pathetic when displayed all out on the ground like this, just how little she had on her.

“It’s in the book,” Theo said.

The goon stepped on the mirror, cracking it, and took the diary from the ground. He opened its latch to reveal the hollowed-out gap in the middle.

“Soul gems,” he said. “Boss, it’s a bunch of soul gems.”

“Of course it is. What else would Fourland smuggle into Fleetwixt, you dolt?”

“Diamonds?”

Theo sighed once again. “Thank you so much for your cooperation, Amelia. You did a really good thing, and you’ll make a great harvester.” He took the fake diary from the other man and looked with glee at the tiny glittering gems inside. “Unfortunately, you made me angry, so I’m going to have to charge you. Maybe we can sort—” He stopped, suddenly. “What the hell is this?”

“What, boss?”

“They’re empty!” Theo shouted. “The soul gems are empty!”

Amelia gritted her teeth.

She balled up her black-gloved right hand, and let the facade of naivety vanish with a rage-filled glare taking its place.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” she said. “Years of my life planning for the right moment to let loose, and here it is. I’m a little giddy.” No outward smile, but joy on the inside.

Theo took a step back without even realizing it. “Kid, what did you do with these soul gems? Who do you work for?”

“I’m on a mission. Two parts. I suppose I should tell you.”

“Not sure if I care, kid,” Theo said.

“First, I lost my girlfriend, and she’s somewhere in this city, waiting for me. I haven’t seen her in a year, and I’m desperate to finally kiss that beautiful forehead.

“Second,” she continued, “I’m going to destroy the North Sunwell Company. They’ve eviscerated my homeland, smashed its beauty into quarries and mana farms. They are responsible for—” She gestured to her face— “for this. So, since they control Fleettwixt, I thought I’d return the favor and obliterate this whole place with my own fists.”

The five men responded with stunned silence. She had not yet activated any of her abilities and they already knew what was about to come.

“I thought you were just a soul mule,” Theo said, finally. “But actually you’re nuts. What the hell does any of this have to do with your little revenge thing?”

“You’re too low here to really understand,” Amelia told him. “Fourland seems like just another criminal enterprise to you. Just a good way to make some coin. But it’s all connected. Fourland supplies the North Sunwell Company with mana on the books, and souls under the table. You five are pawns in the expansion of a colonial empire, and I’m sure you don’t even care.”

“Listen, I hate the North Sunwell Company as much as anyone,” he said, “But I can’t go back empty-handed. No soul gems, no buy. Either tell me what you did with the real souls, or I’ll have to give my bosses your head as a very sincere apology gift.”

Theo stared at her, holding his knife with a tight grip. Each of the four other men advanced on Amelia, closing the gap between them and preventing any sort of escape she could have made.

Not that she ever planned on making one.

“The souls? I consumed them,” she said.

“Consumed...?”

“I absorbed them to power up my system. Easier to smuggle them into the city that way, I thought. And now I have a lot of empty soul gems all for myself. For you.”

One of the humans took a step too close—

And instantly felt the cold embrace of a seismic fist to the face.

He fell to the ground and splayed his limbs over the dirt.

“Shame,” Amelia said. “I hoped you’d give me more info first.” She pushed up her jacket sleeves and flexed her right arm—segmented, cracked, and made of pure stone. “But you’re all just street scum anyway. No point in interrogating you.”

She flexed her rocky fingers and each of the goons took a step back.

“Wh-what are you?” Theo was frightened to the point that his cool, slimy voice had completely evaporated. The real menace here was her.

“You see,” she explained, “I’m not exactly human. Not human at all, really. You know about golems?”

“Wha— You’re a—”

“Yeah, I’m a golem,” she said. “I may look the part, but I’m as human as a mudbeast.”

He did not have a witty comeback. No desperate information to give her. Just a look of horror.

“Now I’m going to kill you all.”

Amelia Bluewood’s revenge began now.

For Ed, for all of Rockmund, she would stop at nothing.

Her right eye glowed bright purple as she reached within herself to boot her higher-level systems.

“It’s been a long time,” she said to herself. “Let’s finish them quick.”