The sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the cobbled streets. The last of the shopkeepers shuttered their windows, the clatter of wooden doors echoing faintly through the alleyways. He moved quietly, slipping into the darker side of the city where the lanterns flickered dimly and the air grew thick with secrets.
With a practiced motion, he pulled up the hood of his cloak, muttering a subtle incantation under his breath. It was one of the few spells he still remembered an old trick to dull the gaze of passersby, to make himself just another shadow in the crowd. It wasn't invisibility, not quite, but it was enough.
He reached the crooked door of a narrow, leaning house wedged between two crumbling buildings. Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of dried herbs, smoke, and something more arcane. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with jars of roots, powders, and strange, glowing fungi. Vines crept along the ceiling beams, some pulsing faintly with unnatural life.
This was his sanctuary. His laboratory. His exile.
He moved through the space with quiet familiarity, brushing past hanging bundles of lavender and nightshade. On a worn wooden table, he set down a pouch of coins today's earnings from selling herbal remedies and hand-rolled cigarettes made from his own hybrid tobacco strains. The money would go toward rare materials: enchanted thread, spider silk, perhaps even a shard of moonstone if he could find one cheap enough.
He was teaching himself to craft a new cloak. Not just any cloak something better than the tattered one he wore now. Not a Cloak of Levitation, like the one he once wore in another life, in another world. That one had been a gift, a partner in battle. This one would be different. His own creation. A symbol of who he was now… whoever that might be.
He chuckled softly, the sound echoing off the stone walls. The laugh was tinged with irony, maybe even a little sadness. Once, he had been a hero. A wielder of arcane might, a guardian against the dark. He had faced chaos magic, demons, and gods. Now, he was a man in hiding, playing with plants and patching together scraps of magic.
What was he doing?
He didn't know. Not really. Maybe he was searching for something. Redemption, perhaps. Or maybe just a reason to keep going.
He lit a cigarette, the ember flaring in the gloom, and sat back in his creaking chair. Outside, the city slept. Inside, the shadows whispered.