Rylan pulled his dark green cowl a little tighter and started to walk forward again, trying to act normal. 'Arphin, I need you to look inside the restaurant for me, buddy,' he sent.

[Oh? What's going on, Boss?]

'There are two Quinthar inside. Can you spot them?'

[Ehm... Oh! Yeah, I think I see them. Actually, I recognise these two; I think we saw them the first day we got here, Boss!]

Rylan relaxed a little. He'd asked Burtrand about the duo at some point, and had learned they were pretty well known around these parts. Apparently, they'd both grown up in the lower ring, and were some of the few Quinthar who chose not to move up to the upper sections of the city, but stayed local instead.

If anything, he was surprised they hadn't shown up some time sooner. Perhaps they'd been out on some kind of expedition for a bit. Cliffport Quinthar tended to explore areas of the cloudsea to hunt Malequints for Cubes and look for valuables and hidden sites, after all.

'All right. Are they currently turned towards the windows?'

[Nope! They seem to be arguing with Sloan about something?]

Rylan's brows drew together, but he took position across the street, casually leaning back against the front of another building, and took a peek through the windows.

Thankfully, it was still just warm enough for the Knackered Hag's shutters to be open, so he could see the twosome in their beautiful green-lacquered armour standing in front of the man with the broom. The woman appeared to be somewhat agitated, moving her hands animatedly as she spoke, but the pub's stoic bouncer did not seem impressed.

'Can you make out what they're saying from here?'

[Not really, Boss, sorry.]

Rylan clicked his tongue, then pushed off from the wall again.

While he didn't find their presence too alarming, it was quite feasible for the duo to have studied the city's wanted posters, so he definitely did not want to show his face around them.

So rather than walk in through the front like usual, he turned into a slim alley along the side, which ended in a door that led to the secluded back patio.

'How about now?'

[Yes! They're saying... actually, maybe I can just do this instead!]

"Shouldn't he decide that though?" the woman tried, starting to sound more and more frustrated. "I don't want to be unreasonable, but—"

"No visitor, no disturb," Sloan insisted.

The woman let out an exaggerated groan.

"Iliana," a warm baritone said, with some exasperation. "The man said no, right? Let's just... leave a message with the bar staff, or something."

"Try special," Sloan suggested helpfully. Following that came the sound of heavy footsteps walking away, and the rhythmic sweeping of a broom.

"Can you believe that guy?" Iliana asked, sounding flabbergasted.

The warm baritone laughed. "Come on, let's take a seat and order. That special honestly sounds pretty good, and I'm kinda hungry anyway."

"Of course you are. You're always hungry."

Rylan blinked as the stream of impressions faded.

[Did I do good, Boss?]

'You definitely did, Arphin,' Rylan praised. 'That was incredible!'

[Aww, thanks Boss. By the way, that Sloan guy is awesome!]

'He's something all right,' Rylan replied bemusedly.

Sloan's actions had certainly elevated him in Rylan's esteem. Burtrand claimed the man wasn't too smart, but from his thick accent, Rylan got the impression Sloan simply didn't speak their language that well. But there was no way he wasn't aware of the existence of Quinthar, and either way, if you were standing in front of two fully armed and armoured warriors holding nothing but a broom, you'd have to be pretty confident to flat out tell them 'no.'

The man has nerves of steel!

Shaking his head, Rylan started to hurry down the alley. After all, it sounded like he was about to be needed in the kitchen...

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The kitchen was tense that night. Arphin kept an eye on the duo throughout their dinner and reported back on anything weird they did, and on any gossip from the other occupants of the pub, so Rylan ended up learning quite a bit about them while he worked.

Iliana was actually a Cloudgift like himself, and had grown up in a local orphanage sponsored by the royal family. However, she'd taken the name Bladedance after becoming a Quinthar.

The man was called Brockus, had taken the last name Shieldwall, and he'd actually climbed his way up from the slums. He didn't live there anymore, but he was known for taking more than his fair share of patrols in the area, and also for cracking down on any forms of human trafficking that were going on there.

The pair apparently lived together, and the public liked to speculate about whether they were together or not. The consensus was that they probably were—as they tended to do everything together—and just weren't very public about their affection.

Rylan definitely wasn't jealous of their bond.

However, not all the gossip Arphin had picked up had been about the two local heroes. There was also talk about rising tensions between the Thorns and the Talons, and whispered questions about why the King wasn't interfering when two of the most powerful noble houses were quarrelling.

Either way, the duo seemed to enjoy Rylan's slow-cooked pork belly and risotto, and they didn't kick up another fuss, only leaving a handwritten note before they headed out.

Rylan took it up to his loft and stared at the loopy handwriting thanking him for the delicious food and inviting him to come to a Quinthar hangout the coming day of rest.

With a sigh, he crumpled it up.

There was nothing for it. He would just have to get stronger. Strong enough that people would think twice before trying to collect the bounty on him. A hundred gold marks is a lot of money. Enough to challenge an Emerald-Grade Quinthar over. But how about a Sapphire?

The following days, he threw himself into his training with renewed enthusiasm.

The weather slowly grew colder as the days grew shorter, but inside the Hawktalon home, it was cosy and warm.

Well, mostly in the kitchen, though. Mana from the grid was pretty cheap, but heating a whole house would still run up the cost.

Rylan had actually been thinking of offering his family financial help. After learning that Helen was his mother, Rylan had realised Soren had probably been right. The Thistlethorns had likely never been serious about his debt; it had just been an excuse to keep him from leaving.

He kind of still wanted to pay it back, just to make a point, but he was only making so much money, and he didn't like to see how hard his sister was working.

Between taking care of their father and all the hours at the stationer's shop, it was no wonder there were bags under her eyes. They were usually carefully covered up with some kind of concealer, but with how much time Rylan was spending with them, he couldn't help but see through the cracks and glimpse at how tired she was.

He was already helping indirectly, of course, by buying the ingredients for their lunches and more often than not making a bit too much, leaving them leftovers for dinner. But he knew they'd had trouble with creditors in the past, and he was considering doing more.

It was hard not to want to, as he watched Leahna play with Izzy at the dining table, folding sheets of paper into spinners which the little spirit delighted in keeping afloat by twirling them.

"How are your mana exercises going?" Artoran asked, pulling Rylan's attention back to their conversation.

"Pretty good, I feel," Rylan replied honestly. "I generally manage to create a waveform that's roughly the right shape. It's just those sharp corners that I'm struggling with."

Artoran nodded. "Those will definitely be the biggest hurdle. But there's no hurry. How are you doing with your other Skills?"

"Not too bad either. I'm getting close to my first Augmentation on Knife-Fighting. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going with Cooking and Jumping, too... Only Knife-Throwing is giving me some trouble."

"Oh?"

Rylan sighed. "I just feel like I've hit a kind of plateau, like I'm not really improving much anymore, but I'm also not quite there yet. I'm consistently curving my throws a little by now, but I'm not getting an Augmentation for it."

"Well, that's always the tricky bit, isn't it?" Artoran said. "Actually getting Ethereon's attention. There's a reason Quinthar often gain new Skills and Augmentations during real combat."

Rylan frowned, uncomfortably reminded of the dying, twitching man in the alley. "Well, I can hardly go looking for someone to chuck knives at, can I? If only I could enter a Challenge Dungeon or something..."

"Can't help you there, I'm afraid," Artoran said with a shrug. "But if you're really getting the hang of throwing curves, then all you need is a display of real skill to catch Ethereon's attention."

Rylan blinked. "You mean... like when I originally got Knife-Throwing by hitting a fly from across the room?"

"Exactly!"

Rylan licked his lips, his mind churning. "That's not going to be easy to replicate, though..."

"No," Artoran admitted. "But to be honest, that's a pretty extreme example. All you need is to set yourself an appropriate challenge—that actually requires curved throws—and overcome it."

"Like throwing a knife around something?"

Artoran nodded slowly. "That could work. Sounds a bit easy, though, if you've already got the hang of curving your throws anyway. Might be better if you tried to hit something less static than a standing or hanging target. You could also raise the stakes somehow. There's a reason for the prevalence of people trying to become Quinthar by attempting to shoot bags of rice off of people's heads with a bow and arrows: it's stupid, but it can work."

Rylan had actually suggested that to Zahra once. She'd refused.

Leahna giggled, and his eyes flicked over, followed the spinner Izzy was using to circle her head. Then his eyes widened. "Oh! Leahna, could you—"

"Not your sister!" Artoran quickly hissed, reaching out to grab Rylan's wrist. "Take me instead! I volunteer as target!"

Leahna blinked, glancing over. "What? What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing," Rylan replied dryly as he pulled his wrist loose. It was more difficult to break his father's grip than he'd expected. "I just wanted to ask if you could teach me how to fold one of those."

"Oh, thank the spirits..." Artoran muttered, sinking back into his chair.

"Sure!" Leahna replied happily, before narrowing her eyes at him with a smirk. "Why do you ask? Are you worried I'm becoming Izzy's favourite?"

Rylan smiled. "Definitely not. I only need it to knock Ethereon's socks off."

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