Chapter Eleven: Sucker
The slum district didn't officially exist on any guild map, which was exactly why I went there.
Official appraisers wanted paperwork. Guild affiliation. A verified ledger entry tying every piece of loot back to a registered climb, which meant tying it back to me, which meant tying it back to a name half the internet already had strong opinions about. I didn't need that kind of attention on a Tuesday. I just needed cash.
The shop sat between a shuttered noodle stand and a building that looked like it had given up on standing up straight sometime last decade. No sign. No customers. Just a single dim bulb over a counter, and a man behind it old enough to have seen everything twice and tired enough not to react to any of it a third time.
I set the bag down. Dungeon cores, still faintly warm, a handful of enchanted scraps I didn't have names for yet. He didn't ask where they came from. That was the whole point of a place like this.
He looked it over for a long minute, turning pieces in the light, saying nothing.
"I can take a risk on this," he said finally. "See what it's actually worth before I commit real numbers. Give me three days."
"Fine by me."
He reached for a pen. "Number where I can reach you."
I didn't have a working phone that wasn't already flooded with guild recruiters and reporters trying every angle to find out who "V" actually was. I reached into my jacket instead, pulled a single joker card from the deck that lived somewhere in my spatial storage, and set it on the counter between us.
"That's my info," I said.
He picked it up. Studied it. Didn't ask a single question about why a card was supposed to function as a phone number, which told me he'd seen stranger things walk through that door than a girl who kept cards where other people kept business contacts.
"Three days," he said again. "Ten percent, standard rate."
"Take it."
I didn't haggle. I didn't have the energy to, and honestly, ten percent going to someone willing to move product without asking questions felt like a fair trade for not having to explain myself to a guild office again anytime soon.
I was three blocks from the shop, hair dragging halfway down my back in a way that still felt unfamiliar every time the wind caught it, when a kid tugged on his mother's sleeve and pointed straight at me.
"Mom, look, is she a clown?"
His mother went stiff, the particular kind of stiff that meant she'd already seen the footage and already decided which side of the argument she landed on. She reached for his hand to pull him along.
I crouched down instead of walking past.
"Want to see a magic trick?" I asked him, big smile, all teeth, nothing behind it but genuine warmth for once.
He looked up at his mom first, the way kids do when they're checking if something's allowed. She hesitated. I waited. Finally he nodded, small and quick, before she could decide either way.
I held up one empty hand, wiggled my fingers, made a show of it the way every bad street magician ever had, and then, with a small flourish, a blowpop appeared between two fingers out of absolutely nowhere.
I handed it to him. His whole face lit up in that unguarded way only little kids manage anymore, like the world hadn't taught him yet to be suspicious of anything that seemed too good to be free.
That was when I noticed the crowd starting to gather.
Not a big one. Just enough. A couple with a phone already raised. Someone else stepping closer, close enough that I caught the press credential clipped to their jacket a half second before I heard the question.
"Hey! Are you the girl they've been calling V?"
Time to go.
I bolted before I fully decided to, boots hitting pavement in a sprint that felt more like flying than running, and behind me I heard footsteps multiply fast, voices overlapping, someone yelling for me to wait, just a couple of questions, that's all they wanted.
I didn't believe that for a second.
A chain link fence came up fast on my right. I didn't slow down for it, planted one boot on the crossbar and vaulted clean over, landing in a roll that put me right back into a full sprint on the other side. A fire escape ladder hung low enough to grab a block later. I took it three rungs at a time and hauled myself up onto a rooftop just as the first reporter's shout faded into something more distant and considerably more out of breath.
The drone caught up faster than the people did.
Small, sleek, hovering just above head height with a lens angled straight at me, a tinny voice crackling out of it, polite in a way that felt almost funny given the circumstances.
"Hey, we just want to ask a couple of questions."
I laughed, loud and unbothered, already moving again, rooftop to rooftop, the gaps between buildings closing fast under my boots like the city had been built specifically for this. The drone kept pace, weaving after me with mechanical persistence that almost impressed me.
Almost.
One gap came up wider than the rest, a full alley yawning open between two buildings, dark enough at the bottom that I couldn't see where it ended. I didn't slow down. I hit the edge at a full sprint, launched into the air, hit a full split mid jump for absolutely no practical reason except that I could, and gave the trailing drone both middle fingers with a grin wide enough to split my face in half.
Then I dropped straight into the dark.
The drone hovered at the alley's edge, lens tilting down, clearly recalculating whether it was actually supposed to follow me into a gap that narrow. By the time it decided the answer was no, I was already gone, tucked behind a dumpster three feet from where I'd landed, breath held, boots pulled in tight against my chest.
I listened to it hover there for almost a full minute, scanning, finding nothing, finally giving up and drifting back the way it came. Voices above me faded out next, the reporters clearly deciding the chase had cost more than the story was worth.
I stayed folded up behind that dumpster a little longer anyway, just in case, grinning to myself in the dark like an idiot.
"Suckers," I whispered, and let out a small, satisfied giggle that echoed a little too loud off the alley walls for someone still technically hiding.
Then I climbed out, brushed the grime off my jacket, and walked back toward the slum shop like nothing had happened at all, already counting the days until I had three cores' worth of cash and one very good story nobody would ever get to print.