Shelika already caught the innkeeper’s meaning, calm as a still pond under moonlight.

“I won’t,” she said, steady as a stone set in a stream.

“Will you now,” the innkeeper murmured, voice thin as smoke, belief and doubt coiled like twin snakes.

They finished the lodging papers, rustle like autumn reeds. “This humble one will take her leave.”

“Wait,” the innkeeper called, a pebble dropped into quiet water.

Shelika had one foot past the threshold, a bird poised to fly. She turned, brows drawn like a bowstring. “Is there something?”

The innkeeper flicked her eyes over, cool as winter glass. She took the long pipe from her lips and blew a ring of smoke, a drifting moon.

“If you run out of money, come to me,” she said, voice flat as a slate. “I can line up work.”

Shelika smiled, sunlight through cloud. “Don’t worry. I won’t run out.”

The innkeeper measured her again, gaze like a needle pricking silk. Unease flickered like a moth, but she only said, “All right then.”

Shelika stepped into the street, wind in her cloak like water over stone. To earn the pilgrimage fare to the Holy City, she went to find work now.

Oriel City was one of the south’s brightest lanterns in the Dark Spirit Empire.

In a city this big, there was a place that served as a human tide’s market.

That place was the street in front of the Oriel City Horse Courier Station.

The station was hard to miss, a big stone horse head rearing like a mountain.

Before long, Shelika reached the street, feet light as a heron’s.

Many job seekers flowed there, a river of anxious faces. The notice boards on both sides were papered over like bark with winter moss.

Eyes climbed each posting, careful as squirrels testing branches.

Shelika folded into the stream, searching for a net she could cast and hold.

She read them one by one, leaves turning in a wind.

Restaurant dish-wiper, 30 lubi, paid daily, need grit, lunch and dinner covered.

Street cleaning, 40 lubi, paid daily, need grit, choose your route.

Shop apprentice, 20 lubi, paid daily, food and bed included, learn trade.

…

She read and read, and they were all slow-money odd jobs, water filling a jar by drops.

They weren’t bad, but to stack 1000 lubi with these would take a season’s patience.

If she really took them, the Wasteland Deity might reach Doran before the jar filled.

A sour weight pressed her chest; disappointment seeped in like cold rain.

“Hey-hey—little girl, need money?” A man’s voice slid from behind, oily as lamp smoke.

Shelika turned, guarded as a cat at a threshold. An Earthfolk man stood there.

He looked thirty or so, tattoos on his skin posed like thorn vines, forced and loud.

“Do you need something?” Shelika asked, voice cool as shade.

“Heh-heh—Blood Clan girl, you’re pretty,” he drawled, a dog circling meat. “If you’re short on cash, big bro here can get you fast money.”

Sensing the rot, bystanders melted back like frost in sun.

“Find someone else,” Shelika said, calm as a blade in its sheath.

His face flared, a coal catching wind. “Don’t refuse the toast and ask for the stick!”

“Boys!” he barked, and a clutch of lackeys spilled out like rats, each face a storm.

One even licked a dagger’s edge and grinned, a snake showing fangs. “Heh-heh—this blade’s poisoned!”

The next second: “Aah!”

He dropped, face gone green as pond scum, foam at his lips, body jerking like a netted fish.

Shelika stared, blank as snow.

“Zack, no!” the tattooed man cried, grief hitting like a cracked bell.

He turned a burning glare on Shelika, hatred beating like drums. “You vile Blood Clan witch—you tricked my man!”

“This humble one did nothing,” she said, voice small as rain.

He heard nothing, rage a red curtain. “I’ll avenge Zack—die!”

He rushed with his knife, a boar charging brush.

Shelika shifted, stance set, heart steady as a stone lantern.

Just then, above the notice board, a worker repairing the frame fumbled a brick.

Call it chance, call it fate—

The falling stone found the tattooed man’s skull as if guided by a string.

Thud!

“You—you vile Blood Clan…” Stars burst in his eyes like fireflies. He fell, hate curdled, and blacked out.

Their leader down, the lackeys surged, then collapsed to their knees and wailed, a funeral boat on a dark river. “Big Bro!”

The scene turned like life and death parting at a ferry, almost touching.

Then the one who seemed most loyal jabbed a finger at Shelika, voice cracking like green wood. “Y-you remember this! We’ll be back!”

The pack scattered with tails tucked, dust like startled sparrows.

“What was that about?” Shelika muttered, fog over fields.

“Forget it. The real work matters,” she told herself, a hand on her heart like a knot untied.

She dipped her head to the wall of notices again, eyes combing like rakes through straw.

Half an hour slipped by, sand through fingers.

Effort met chance; she finally found a fitting job, fresh ink on new paper like dew on grass.

It was simple labor at a worksite—moving stone on a wall repair.

City wall repair needs stone haulers, urgent. Piecework, paid daily: 10 lubi per stone.

Which meant one hundred stones for 1000 lubi, clear as an abacus.

Joy rose like dawn. Shelika’s lips curved.

She tore the notice free and headed for the marked spot, the north wall works, steps quick as sparrows.

She found the overseer there, the man in charge.

He was an Earthfolk middle-aged man, a horned-beast safety helmet perched like antlers. He looked up and stared, eyes widening like lanterns at Shelika’s face. Around him, workers paused, hands stilled like windless flags.

He spotted the notice in her hand and frowned, a crease like a plowed furrow. “Miss, can I help you?”

“Looking for your boyfriend?” he added, a rough joke tossed like a pebble.

“No,” Shelika shook her head, voice clear as a bell. A hand touched her chest, a humble bow of willow. “This humble one is here to work.”

She showed him the notice like a seal.

His frown deepened, fingers in his hair like a rake snagged on roots. “Miss, this is grunt work. You’ll just get in the way.”

“Will I.” Shelika’s tone cooled, a lake under cloud. She pointed at a nearby stone block—no dainty brick, but a slab that needed a bull-backed man. “Watch.”

The stone rose, obedient as a hawk to a whistle.

“You’re a mage?!” the foreman yelped, shock cracking like ice.

Then fear rushed in, a tide against a pier. “We can’t afford a mage’s fee!”

“No need,” Shelika said, voice even as a plumb line. “Pay what the notice says.”

He flinched, eyes darting like minnows. “We’re fine with that, but you’d be undercutting the going rate. The guild will come down on you.”

He muttered about the mage guild, trouble like thunder on the horizon.

Like in the Heavenly Spirit Empire, magic was regulated under the Dark Spirit Empire too.

It wasn’t as tight, though. Shelika sought a gap, a path between stones.

“What a wreck,” she said, gaze sweeping the site like wind over wheat. “What did this to your wall?”

“A big beast. The day before yesterday,” he answered, voice heavy as sodden rope.

The city lord had ordered a rush repair.

For the city’s safety, hiring mages would be quickest and cleanest, steel to silk.

But the lord hadn’t given enough silver for mages.

In a way, the job tied the foreman’s hands, a man asked to weave rope from sand.

“In that case,” after a beat, Shelika lowered her voice like dusk. “Pay me 13 lubi per stone. I’ll return 2 to you. Keep it quiet. How’s that?”

“This—what’s this?” He blinked, confusion stirring, then clarity struck like flint. “Oh—this.”

“Call it a contribution to the city’s safety,” Shelika whispered, soft as falling ash.

He looked at the crawling repair, progress thin as a spider thread, then out toward the fields. Beyond the wall, beasts swelled in the shadows like a tide waiting for moonrise. He clenched his jaw, teeth a line of white stones—

“Deal,” the foreman said, and took the work.