Tryn left for the market with Crawler's advance coins clinking in his pocket.
Lorinn's Market is its usual chaos—vendors shouting over each other, the air thick with spices, smoke, and too much humanity. He bought bread, beans, and a tin of roasted nuts. Out of indulgence, he added a pound of ham. It is always a good practice to eat something good before going for important work, helps keep a man cool, and if not that, meals after work gone wrong should be compensated early.
Back at home, he made lunch, ate in silence, then tested his aerocleanser.
He placed a lump of Goblin Snot—foul, gelatinous, and green—inside a glass box. It smelled like boiled mushrooms buried in the grey water slime. Perfect for testing environments.
He lit a paper straw, let it smoke inside the sealed box, and watched his golden pocket watch. Two minutes. He cracked open the lid.
The air inside was clean. Not pleasant, but empty—as if the scent itself had been erased.
"Works," he said, satisfied. "Hope the house does not stink more than Goblin's Snot"
At precisely 6:12 PM, a carriage stopped in front of his house. The sound of hooves and iron wheels broke the quiet.
From it stepped down Abneizer Dfoul—short, stout, wrapped in a heavy coat that looked like it had seen both rain and regret. His hair was graying and thinning early, his nose prominent, and his eyes sharp but kind. He looked, Tryn thought, like a man who had learned to smile only when others weren't looking.
"Evening, Mr. Frostblade," said Abneizer, his voice carrying a faint Eromani accent. "All set?"
"Just packing up." Tryn slipped the vial of enhancer and the bundle of straws into his leather satchel. He grabbed his hat. "Ready when you are."
As they stepped outside, Tryn locked the door, checked the lock a couple of times and waited for Abneizer to enter the carriage, then with enough discretion, he was about to throw the key to the fern pot while he suddenly clenched it. Unlocked the door.
"Oh, wait," he said, turning back inside. He dashed to his bench, scooped a handful of Puffer Cotton, and tucked them into his coat pocket.
When he returned, Abneizer was already holding the carriage door open.
"Forgot the keys inside, took the wrong one" Tryn said lightly.
Abneizer nodded and hit the carriage wall with his stick indicatively. The carriage starts moving.
The city of Rockshire stretched before them—a labyrinth of cobbled streets and gas lamps flickering to life. Men in tall hats smoked pipes on corners; women in layered skirts hurried past with baskets. The air carried the tang of coal, horse sweat, and distant rain.
Above them loomed the Clock Spire, the pride of the city—its face glimmering gold even in the fog. The clock had rung through two wars and one revolution; now it simply ticked on, unimpressed by everything below.
"What's this odor job about, really?" Tryn asked as the carriage turned down a narrow lane.
Abneizer hesitated. "Nothing significant, sir. A couple lived in the house. They've left. Guild wants it cleaned before resale."
Tryn raised a brow. "And for that, City Sanitation hires an alchemist?"
Abneizer scratched his neck. "Orders from above. You know how Crawler is."
Tryn didn't reply. He simply filed the lie away for later.
Pinewood House stood modestly at the corner of Ulrich Road—two stories, faded shutters, ivy crawling up one wall. Nothing extraordinary, except for how ordinary it tries to be.
Crawler Padfoot was already there—round-faced, sharp-eyed, wearing a coat that was trying too hard to look official.
"A couple used to live here," Crawler said, greeting Tryn with a nod. "They fled last week. Hope you've read about the Hubré Abbey fire?"
"Hard to miss," said Tryn. "Quite the mess, I can see." Tryn looks towards the Hubré Abbey, the first house there stood charred. The stones of the building are melted.
That's what Green Fire can do. Thought Tryn.
Crawler's mouth twitched. "Indeed. Now, the odor—are you sensing it?"
Tryn stepped through the doorway and paused.
There was a smell, yes—but not an odor. It wasn't foul. It was... dense. Musky, metallic, like rain on warm stone. It clung to the air in layers, neither pleasant nor bad. It simply existed, heavy and alive.
"I have to find the place where the odor is strongest", said Tryn.
He starts sniff like a bloodhound roaming through the whole house. Sometimes going up with the stairs and sometimes coming down, like a mad man dancing without rhythm.
"That's peculiar," Tryn murmured. "Scents usually cling to corners, to fabric, to wood. But this one…" He walked toward the center of the hall. "It's strongest here—in the middle of the room. As if the air itself is... bruised."
He set to work quietly. From his leather satchel, he drew his instruments—
a thin copper stand, fireproof paper, the straw sticks, and the small vial of enhancer. Discreetly, he dropped a few Puffer Cottons on the floor.
He positioned the straw, added a drop of enhancer, and lit it with a simple pyrochant. The straw began to burn, releasing slow white smoke that curled like silk ribbons.
It took four long hours. Smoke drifted, settled, vanished. The musky air grew thinner, clearer, lighter.
When he was done, Crawler returned, rubbing his hands. "Efficient work, Frostblade. We'll note your service."
Tryn packed his things. "You'll also note the ingredients required for that level of odor cleansing are expensive. I'll need another fifty Darics."
Crawler groaned audibly. "Fifty! You alchemists burn money faster than coal."
Tryn smiled mildly. "Yes, but at least mine leaves the room smelling better."
Abneizer chuckled under his breath. Crawler didn't. "Collect your money tomorrow, from the office. And do not forget to come with receipts."
They sent him home in the same carriage. The city outside had fallen quiet—fog curling around lamps like pale snakes.
Tryn opened his palm. The Puffer Cottons he'd dropped earlier were no longer white—they had turned red. The fibers pulsed faintly, as if holding breath.
He paid the driver five Siglois and hurried inside his lab. Candles flared to life with a whispered pyrochant.
He placed five of the cotton tufts on his bench and began testing them.
In the first, he dripped a white liquid. The cotton flashed bright, then faded back to white. Human fragrance traces.
"Interesting," he murmured. But not sweat, not breaths, not even abdominals… then in what other ways can a human body make a smell?
He frowned. "Burned?"
He unlocked a steel trunk beneath his worktable and drew out a cloudy yellow vial—the Binder of Destiny. He tore a leaf from the small lemon tree by his window and placed one of the red cottons atop it. Then, carefully, he let a single drop of the binder fall.
The reaction was instant.
The yellow drop touched the cotton—and the leaf beneath it quivered, its veins glowing faintly like threads of molten gold. Then, in less than a heartbeat, that gold turned violet—deep and bruised, spreading like ink through paper. The color darkened, twisting into shades no natural pigment should hold—violet to maroon, maroon to black.
Tryn's pulse quickened. His eyes reflected the slow collapse before him. The leaf's structure melted away, its fibers dissolving into a viscous, pulsing sludge—black and wet, clinging to the glass plate as if alive.
He stumbled one step back, nearly knocking over a vial. The candles flickered—every flame drawing inward, shrinking, like they too felt the pull of whatever energy had awakened.
Tryn's mind raced through every alchemical reaction he knew: organic decay, sulfuric transmutation, etheric resonance—none explained this. The Binder of Destiny was a truth-revealing reagent, it will bind the destiny of two things. It first killed the leaf, turning it golden, then raised it, in dark violet.
"Necromancy," Tryn breathed, voice trembling with a mix of awe and dread.
"The air was tainted with death…" He whispered. "And the powder that made the death arise, was the odor"