It was raining.
To me, it was the kind of rain that sounds like someone forgot to turn off the sky's faucet and now we're all just supposed to pretend this is normal. I was sitting on my cushy couch with a glass of orange juice I definitely didn't remember pouring, watching the droplets smear across the window like some artsy oil painting.
And that's when it hit me.
I was unemployed.
I mean jobless. Aimless. A god-blessed, spider-infused Ennéa-level powerhouse with two million credits and not a single damn thing to do with it. I was basically a biological weapon and I was just sitting, drinking juice and watching the weather have a meltdown.
Sure, I could technically just do whatever I wanted. With my ranking, I didn't need a job. I could roll in credits and gamble. But there was a hollow kinda boredom building in my chest, and it wasn't the kind you solve with retail therapy.
That's when I decided: maybe it was time to learn something about this world I'd practically crash-landed into. Not like "read the tourist guide" level learning. I mean real stuff. How things worked. How the five capitals coordinated. What the hell was up with Erae's three-day-equals-one-day thing. Why my apartment building was upside-down and everyone just acted like that was normal.
My fingers curled around the cold glass, condensation dripping down my wrist. I opened my mouth to say something to the silence like a weirdo and then a portal opened in my room.
A warm draft rolled in, chasing out the rain's chill. And out walked Dryad.
She stepped through the portal like she was emerging from a photoshoot, and then, without even acknowledging my whole orange juice-and-existential-crisis vibe, she just plopped onto the couch beside me.
"Sun's out on the other side," she said with a sigh, lifting her sunglasses to her forehead. "Rain's depressing."
I blinked, looked at my glass, then at her, then back at the rain.
"…Did you just hop distance for better weather?"
"Yes," she replied flatly. "And because I like your couch."
I took a long sip of juice. This was just my life now.
To be fair, Shannon showing up like this wasn't new. She had a thing for dramatic entrances and even more dramatic exits. But today, I was bored enough to not let her skate past it.
"So, not to ruin your tanning session or whatever, but I've decided I don't know jack about this place."
Shannon raised an eyebrow. "You live in an upside-down skyscraper and only just noticed?"
"Ha ha. I mean the world. This society. The way things work. I've been here for how long now? And the only things I know are how to kill spiders, how not to use webs near metal, and how to get armor custom-forged by a teen genius."
She snorted. "All very important things."
"Sure, but like… I dunno. What the hell is the Marimus Faction even for? Why are Fluxes treated like both a gift and a threat depending on what side of the damn planet you're o? Why are cities in Erae built like a fever dream? What is going on?"
She turned her face to the (nonexistent) sunlight pouring from the portal like it was the only thing in the room worth acknowledging.
Then she said, "You wanna go on a tour?"
"Like... a 'here's the capital buildings and over there is where we throw people into a black hole' kind of tour?"
"No. Like a Shannon special. You ask, I answer. You question, I question harder. You get uncomfortable with the truth, I buy you ice cream and change the subject."
"You're offering to give me a field trip around a chaotic half-futuristic world full of Flux-powered psychos, political drama, and architectural nightmares?"
She shrugged. "Beats being jobless."
She had a point. And I wasn't exactly doing anything else.
-------
"So let me get this straight," I said, holding onto the sleek railing of a freaking yacht, "you're giving a tour guide a tour?"
Shannon grinned like she'd just won a bet I didn't know I agreed to.
"Correction: I'm giving a jobless tour guide a tour. There's a difference."
I rolled my eyes, but I wasn't even mad. Just… mildly amused that this was my life now. Somehow, in the span of a week, I went from being chased by death-spiders in the Spooky Forest to riding a yacht across upside-down aqueducts while rain performed a midair ballet around us.
No, seriously. It was raining but not a single drop touched us. The moment we stepped outside, the downpour just... curved away. Shannon's Flux had us wrapped in some invisible dome that turned storm into set dressing. The water spiraled past us in all directions like we were in the eye of the most peaceful hurricane ever made.
"It's still freaky," I muttered, glancing at the up-skyscrapers above us—because yes, the buildings here were upside-down, hanging from the sky like concrete chandeliers. Some were so high their tips pierced the clouds, and I could've sworn I saw birds nesting near the base... which was actually the top.
"Freaky?" Shannon asked, sipping something neon and possibly alcoholic from a glass that materialized out of nowhere. "Try living in one for twenty years."
"You're twenty-five."
"Still counts."
I leaned against the railing again, letting the hum of the yacht and the weird silence of rain sliding off our shield fill the air for a beat. "So. Enlighten me, Dryad. What's so special about Reversal Cradlepoint?"
She gave me a sidelong glance that was way too smug. "Thought you'd never ask."
And then boom. Tour Guide Mode: activated.
"Reversal Cradlepoint is the neutral Eresnae. Of the five branches, this is the one where nobody's trying to blow each other up. Mostly. Ninety-five percent of it is residential. Five percent is where the castle sits—Lyers Mand, which you already know because Gamma has it marked on every map like it's a gift to cartography."
"Sounds about right."
"That's why it's called a residential Eresnae. Most of the folks here? Low Flux Ratings. Ones and twos. You, me, Gamma, people like us are the minority. They made this place safe on purpose. If Fluxers are weapons, this is the holster."
I let that settle in, blinking at the rain that still hadn't touched us.
"So you're saying this place is full of… regular Flux people?"
"The safest of the five, and the second most populated. All the weaklings live here."
"Wow. You're doing a great job at making me feel powerful and not like I'm squatting in retirement-ville."
"Oh, hush. You're living in a reverse skyscraper. That's luxury."
"Which brings me to the actual question," I said, pointing up at the web of buildings dangling above the ocean like a spider's architectural daydream. "How the hell do people come down from there?"
"Portals, same way you got up there. Every resident gets access to a portal that warps them to the aqueduct base or castle zones. If you're living up top, it's either 'cause you can afford it, you inherited it, or you've got clearance like you."
"And if they don't have access to a yacht?"
I gestured at our shimmering ride, which cut across the ocean beneath the towers like a knife through butter.
"Then they use the gondolas."
I stared at her.
"You're serious."
"Of course I'm serious," she said with a cheeky smile. "Not everyone gets to travel in style. The gondolas are for ground-level civilians. It's cheap, it's scenic, and it makes for a great date spot."
"I'm not dating anyone."
"Exactly. You're wasting the ambiance."
I stared at her harder. She kept smiling.
I asked, changing the subject before she launched into my love life.
"So how are we even moving around down here? This whole lower part of RCP looks like one big ocean with scattered islands."
"That's because it is. Most of Reversal Cradlepoint's base is aquatic. They built the city above water so they could protect it from terrain-based threats, and the islands are just support platforms. Some natural, some synthetic. We're on the way to the Business District now, which actually sits across a series of interconnected islands. Hence the yacht."
I looked out at the horizon where strange, glowing towers rose from the mist, cutting into the clouds like futuristic monoliths. Neon lights blinked through the rainfall in color patterns that didn't quite match the time of day. It was like someone had stuck a Tokyo night market onto a Venice canal.
Shannon followed my gaze.
"And that, my dear tourist, is the one exciting part of Reversal Cradlepoint. The business district. The last stop before boredom sets in and you start questioning why we even have money when Flux can solve 90% of our problems."
"And I assume it's also where we find weird shops, suspicious back alleys, and an underground fighting ring?"
"If you know who to ask."
I exhaled and leaned back, letting the salted breeze hit my face. The yacht purred forward, carving paths across liquid mirrors and reflecting stars that hadn't even come out yet.
This world was strange. Alien. Beautiful, and I hadn't seen even a sliver of it yet.
"You know," as far as tours go, you're not too bad at this."
"I'm excellent at this," Shannon said, flipping her hair. "And you're still unemployed. Don't forget that part."
"Gee. Thanks for the reminder."
"Just doing my job."