The Lower Gutters smelled like a mixture of wet iron and hopeless choices. Here, the "Noise" of the Siren was a distant, dying echo, replaced by the rhythmic drip-drip of sewage from the upper tiers.
Nars stumbled through the dark, his left arm a pulsing map of agony. The burn had charred his sleeve into his flesh, and every breath felt like he was inhaling broken glass. He could feel the Vitality in his ledger, a hot, golden pool of 104 years, screaming to be used to knit his skin back together.
But he held back. If he used Primordial magic to heal, the flare of energy would be like a beacon to the Debt Collectors still prowling the surface. He needed a "Quiet" fix.
He activated [Sovereign's Appraisal].
The world turned into a monochrome grid of costs. He looked at a group of "Nulls" huddling around a chemical fire; their price tags were pathetic—mere hours of life left in their starved bodies. Then, he saw it. A flickering sign hanging over a cellar door, depicting a needle and a jagged heart.
Target: The Cellar Door Occupant: Silas "The Stitcher" Domain: Visceral Suture (Tier 3) Cost for Entry: 1 Day of [Comfort] or 1 Hour of [Pain].
Nars kicked the door open.
The Doctor is In
The room inside was cramped, lit by jars of glowing bioluminescent algae. Silas was a man who looked like he had been sewn together from three different people. His eyes were mismatched, and his fingers were unnaturally long, tipped with silver needles that grew directly from his bone.
"You're leaking, kid," Silas rasped, not looking up from a slab where he was reattaching a man's toe. "And that smell... that's not common fire. That's Enactment-burn."
"Can you fix it?" Nars hissed, collapsing into a moth-eaten chair.
Silas walked over, his silver fingertips twitching. He leaned in, sniffing the air near Nars' arm. His eyes widened slightly. He couldn't see the Vitality, but he could feel the Weight of the magic that had caused the injury.
"I don't work for free. My currency is Tactile Sensation. To heal you, I have to 'spend' my own sense of touch for a week. It's an expensive debt."
Nars looked at Silas through his Appraisal.
Silas's Hidden Ledger: Current Balance: 4 Days of [Feeling]. Risk Level: High (He knows your injury is 'High-Tier').
"I don't have Laughter or Screams," Nars said, his voice dropping an octave. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy brass coin he'd snatched from the dead Debt Collector in the basement. It was a Currency Gem—stored debt. "I have this. It's loaded with three years of [Obedience]. Take it."
Silas's mismatched eyes gleamed. Obedience was a rare Tier-2 currency, highly prized by the Arch-Debtors. It was "clean" enough to trade anywhere.
"You're a well-funded little corpse, aren't you?" Silas chuckled, snatching the coin. "Fine. Lean back. This is going to feel like a thousand wasps having a party under your skin."
The Treatment
Silas didn't use bandages. He placed his silver needles against the edge of Nars' charred flesh.
"Enacting: Dermal Suture," Silas muttered.
Nars watched as Silas's own skin went pale and numb. The doctor was "spending" his ability to feel his own hands to force Nars' cells to accelerate. The silver needles moved with impossible speed, weaving threads of translucent energy into Nars' arm.
The pain was blinding. Nars bit his lip until it bled, refusing to give the Stitcher the satisfaction of a scream. He watched his ledger flicker.
[External Enactment Detected] [Compatibility: 0.01%] [Warning: Your Primordial Vitality is 'eating' the lower-tier healing.]
Nars' body was so "heavy" with life-force that it was accidentally rejecting Silas's Tier-3 magic. He had to manually "lower his guard," suppressing his own soul just to let the stitches hold.
After an hour of agonizing work, the burn was gone, replaced by a web of silvery, raised scars.
"There," Silas panted, his hands hanging limp and senseless at his sides. "You're closed up. But kid... a word of advice?"
Nars stood, testing his arm. It felt stiff, but the fire was gone. "What?"
"That blue ash on your boots? That's from the Siren's district. And the 'Weight' you're carrying... you aren't a 'Pain' user." Silas leaned in, his voice a whisper. "The Iron Ledger is offering a bounty for a 'Null-Anomaly' who burned down a block tonight. They're offering ten Foreign Coins for information."
Nars froze. Ten Foreign Coins—the currency of the Ascendants. That was enough to buy a small mansion or a thousand slaves.