"You two have the day off."

I say to Veric and Rhayne.

Veric stares at me as if I’ve just announced I intend to donate all the guild’s money to a temple of drunken monks.

"Excuse me?"

"Day off," I repeat, tucking the guild registration papers into my inventory. "Do whatever you want. I’m in a good mood today."

Rhayne narrows her eyes.

"That worries me more than it should."

"Excellent instinct."

Veric points at her, as if he’s finally found someone reasonable in the world.

"See? Even she gets it. Dryden Sands in a good mood sounds like the opening of a political tragedy."

Oliver lets out a thick laugh beside me but doesn’t join the argument. His head is already in the warehouse, probably running through space, structure, cost, and every practical ache that comes with turning an idea into a real operation.

"I’ll go with Oliver to see the factory," I continue. "You two handle personal things. Any problem, call on the communicator."

Veric still looks suspicious, but he accepts far too quickly for someone pretending to complain.

"Then I’ll go help my father. If he released money on that scale without trapping me in a three-hour lecture on how to charge you interest, something serious is going on."

"Or he’s starting to trust you."

"Don’t say frightening things. He’s more likely to trust you than me."

"Don’t say that. Your father really does admire you." Rhayne says it, but her gaze is visibly elsewhere.

She keeps glancing toward the streets of Azure Prime, where the shops are beginning to light their runic signs amid the flow of students, Divers, and merchants.

"I wanted to take a look at a few items. Equipment, maybe some better clothes... useful things."

She says "useful things" with great seriousness, like she’s still trying to convince herself she isn’t just curious to spend money for the first time without feeling guilty.

"That’s fine. Just don’t buy anything cursed because you thought it was pretty."

"Is that common?"

"In Azure Prime, common enough that you should ask first."

She nods, her expression immediately more cautious.

I shout to Rhayne as we split up near the Oathmark: "Don’t forget to charge Veric for two plates, you paid seven!"

Veric winces as he heads toward the noble district. Rhayne moves off toward the market with steps too quick for someone trying to feign disinterest, and I follow Oliver through the side streets toward the field hospital district.

The walk takes less than ten minutes.

The warehouse sits on a street wide enough for cargo carts but set back from the main avenue. That’s good. Nearby traffic, controlled exposure, easy access, and little free attention. The building itself is better than I expected: dark stone, metal beams reinforcing the corners, large double doors, high windows, and an old runic line traced along the facade for basic temperature control, smell containment, and intrusion defense.

I stop in front of the entrance and look at Oliver.

"You got this for five Plates?"

He crosses his arms, visibly proud.

"I told you I cried my eyes out."

"Did you cry, or did you threaten?" I give his shoulder a small punch, grinning.

"Let’s not get into details that might weaken my moral standing," he answers, holding back a laugh.

I open the door carefully after clearing the runic lock.

The good impression dies a little.

The interior has space, structure, and potential, but it also looks like the final result of a silent war between bankrupt merchants, broken furniture, and dust piled up over years. Collapsed shelves. Cracked barrels. Empty crates, moldy fabric, bent scraps of metal, legless tables, backless chairs, and a cabinet so ugly it looks like it was abandoned out of shame.

Oliver scratches the back of his neck.

"Cleaning wasn’t included."

"I noticed."

Even so, the place is good. The floor will hold weight. The high ceiling will let runic machinery breathe without choking the OXI circulation. The walls have enough energetic stability to take extra layers of insulation, and the distance to the field hospital makes the location worth every Scale.

"Let’s get started."

We work for almost an hour. Oliver handles the larger items, carrying tables and cabinets as if they were empty boxes. I sort quickly through what can be reused and what deserves to vanish from existence. In Thirstfall, the inventory is a blessing for this kind of work: absorb the item, mark it as discard, delete.

Good thing it works that way. If we had to drag debris outside, hire a cart, pay disposal, and deal with some inspector wanting a bribe over "irregular runic residue," the warehouse would have begun its business career as a very well-located bonfire.

When we finish, the space is still dirty, but it breathes. Now I can see the factory under the abandonment. I stand in the center of the warehouse, reading invisible lines on the floor.

"Workbenches here. Storage in the back. Bottling area on the east wall. Staff entrance through the side. Delivery through the main door."

Oliver follows my gaze.

"Security?"

"Between storage and the bottling area. Anyone trying to steal a formula or a finished batch has to cross at least two lines of sight."

"You’ve already thought all this through?"

"I’ve thought through worse."

He stays quiet for a moment, and I let the silence die on its own before it can turn into a question.

"Any alchemy shop nearby, boss?"

"About three hundred feet from here. It’s small but reliable, from what I remember of the Azure Prime map."

"Want to go buy our supplies?"

"Definitely."

The shop is called Third Breath Alchemy, a name good enough to irritate me a little for not having thought of it myself. It sits between an armor repair shop and a cheap tea house, a blue-green sign swaying above the door. Inside, it’s narrow, clean, and far too organized. It smells of dried herbs, washed glass, and mineral salt. Incredibly, the metallic stench of Thirstfall isn’t here.

The seller is a lean drowned, gray-blue skin, hair combed back with some kind of gel. His large eyes and hands wrapped in thin gloves give him a delicate touch. He wears an impeccable frock coat and vest and has the trained smile that knows exactly how much each customer can pay before they open their mouth.

"Welcome to Third Breath. If you’re after cheap stimulants, I’ll warn you now: we only sell products that keep the customer alive long enough to complain about the price."

Dry and sarcastic. I liked him immediately.

"We’re looking for production materials."

His smile shrinks a little, turning more attentive.

"Casual production, academic, or illegal?"

Oliver raises an eyebrow.

"You just ask that, right out?"

"Of course. Bad lies drive the price up, and I’d rather save everyone the time."

I rest a hand on the counter.

"Let’s see who’s lying to whom, then."

I say it, giving him an inviting smirk.