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Blurb:

What does it take to turn your life around? Death, of course! 

I died in this lame ass world of ours and woke up in a completely new one. I had a new name, a new face and a new body. This was my second chance to live a better life than the previous one. 

But goddamn it, why did I have to be a witch? Now I don't just have to be on the run from the Inquisition that wants to burn me and my friends. But I also have to earn a living? 

Follow Elsa Grimly as she: 

1. Makes new friends and tries to save them and herself from getting burned
2. Finds redemption from the deeds of her previous life
3. Tries to get along with a cat who (like most cats) believes she runs the world
4. Deals with other slice of life shenanigans.

--

Chapter 104. Vulture's Exchange

“Then what do you suggest?” I said, leaning back in my chair.

Myrtle hopped off her stool and paced around. “I really thought about it and I realized, since mortals aren't meant to destroy things like an abyss, that means these abysses go somewhere when they are freed from the mortal realm.”

I perked up at her idea. “You, uh, you came upon that conclusion on your own?”

Myrtle looked at me. “No, not entirely,” she said. “I've studied these things. An abyss is a crucial part of a soul, just like the soul's core. When it isn't chained to something, it wanders away, seeking a place to belong to. Nature has aligned it to find its way back to the spirit realm. I don't know much about the abyss but it would make sense that it ends up wandering and finding a place like the spirit realm, right?”

I nodded. “You are very right.”

“So, the laws of nature don't actually restrict us from destroying the abyss itself. It just stops us from keeping the abysses from entering that other place,” she said.

“Because abysses are naturally chained to that world,” I said. I looked at the mark on my hand. The black eye looked back at me. “And someone is watching over them as they make their way back home.”

“Yes, exactly!” Myrtle snapped her fingers. “They are like letters that we write. We have to put an address on top of them so that they reach the right place.”

I realized what she was getting to. I stood up from my chair in excitement. “So that would mean we just need to change the address,” I said. “The letter will reach where we want it to go.”

Myrtle nodded enthusiastically. “Yes!”

That's when Asmod coughed politely. “May I offer a word of advice myself?”

“Please,” I said.

“The chains or the address that you are talking about,” he said. “They are still a divine force. Would your address changing subterfuge really bypass a divine force? Wouldn't the godlike entity know that you are fooling them?”

“They may not,” I said with a thoughtful frown. “The strength of a divine force depends upon the strength of the entity that forges it. And not every God is an all-powerful being.”

I thought of Godfrey who had inherited an entire world but couldn't erase the work of the Sovereign of Sins who had owned that world before him. I thought of Saint Cornelius who had to castrate himself because his powers had gotten too strong to be contained within his body. I thought of the angels who were banished from heaven and had to settle for fooling mortals to do their bidding. I thought of the Steam Elemental who had blessed this country with all its technology yet his followers had to resort to executing witches who were just trying to live their lives. And I thought of the two Soul Sages who had been banished to the World Beyond the Veil, because they wanted more than what they'd already conquered.

Ever since I became Elsa, I learnt one thing for sure–it was that gods were clever, manipulative and powerful, but none of them were the ultimate end of anything.

I looked at the mark on my hand once again. Maybe Elsa knew that too. Maybe that's why she was ready to take the risk of cursing herself with this power.

I had to believe in my instincts. Just like Elsa did. As I turned to Asmod, everything that Zir had told me about Ruler’s Land came to me. “I think I have just the thing for bypassing that divine force,” I said.

--

When I woke up the next day, Lily and Smokewell still hadn't returned. A part of me was worried but then I remembered it was Lily and Smokewell. If anything I should've worried about the people who were unfortunate enough to consider robbing them. After pushing these concerns away, I had a quiet breakfast with Lenora and got ready for my lessons with Zir.

I was a bit more excited today. He was going to take me to the black market after all. I met him at Skeleton Crew. He was dressed in a sharp black tuxedo and a venetian mask similar to the one he had worn to Lily's birthday.

I started to say, “So are we going to drive or–”

He stopped me by lifting a skeletal hand. “You have your enchanted mask?”

I nodded and showed him my mask.

“You wouldn't need it today,” he said and pulled out a wooden mask shaped like a lamb's head. “Wear this.”

I looked at the mask hesitantly. It didn't look awful. But it did look a bit dorky. I was wondering if he was trying to prank me into wearing a dumb mask because I wasn't aware of how to conduct myself at the black market. In the end, I just huffed and put on the mask and looked at him. “How are we going there?” I said.

Then he invoked his Ruler's Word. We were back in the grand Hall where skeletons were feasting. “We are saving time,” he said and started walking towards a door at the end of the big chamber.

“Wait, we can cut our travel time short like this in our Land?” I said, my voice excited at the thought of having a teleportation facility in my pocket.

“Only to a few specific places,” Zir said, brushing his bony fingers over his golden cuff links. “For mortals like you, it will be only one specific place that you decide.”

I pursed my lips under my mask, quite displeased that I won't have a perfect teleporter in my pocket.

Zir and I came to a halt in front of a tall ornate door painted with a color that looked both black and gold. Two skeletons waited on either side with a spear in hand.

“The Vulture's Exchange,” Zir said to them.

The two skeletons bowed their heads and pushed the door open for us to walk through. On the other side was nothing but bright white light. As we stepped in, the light engulfed us and swallowed us whole. I had to squint under my mask for a second as we entered the light.

Then we were standing in a place that was much more dimly lit.

The ceiling was high and a giant wooden statue of a vulture hung from it, wings spread wide. Down on the floor, people walked around, talking in quiet whispers. And all of them wore animal themed masks similar to mine.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. So Zir wasn't pulling a prank on me.

I noticed the cavernous look of the walls and the roof. I was about to ask Zir if we were underground but I stopped when someone bumped into me. It was a man in a weasel mask standing with a suitcase full of watches in his hands. “Would you like to buy some of these, ma'am?” he said in a nasal voice.

Zir waved his hand dismissively. “Bugger off. We aren't here looking for anything cheap,” he said and led me deeper into the market.

The weasel guy froze as he looked upon the tall imposing figure in the venetian mask and scampered away.

As we made our way through the crowd, I ran into more weasel masks who tried to sell me more watches or perfumes or poisons that Zir whispered to me were most probably bootlegged and wouldn't work if we actually bought them.

“Why do the weasels keep approaching me?” I said, feeling a bit uncomfortable from the constant interruption.

“Because you are wearing a lamb mask,” Zir said. “Lamb masks are for outsiders. The uninitiated. Those that aren't a part of any guild in the Vulture's Exchange. So they don't know how things work down here. Which means, they are easier to fool. Weasels are always looking for lambs to swindle.”

I listened carefully as he explained. Apparently, the masks described the hierarchy and jobs at the Exchange. Weasel masks were low level wandering traders who mostly sold cheap non-magical items. Goat masks were traders with a stall and sold lower quality, magic-infused materials. Bull masks were higher level traders who were associated with guilds. Rat masks were underlings and subordinates (mainly laborers and servants) who worked for higher level masks.

“What about these wolf and bear masks walking around?” I asked Zir.

“Wolves are mercenaries for hire,” he said. “They mainly take jobs that involve killing someone. Because the mercenaries hired here have a right to take whatever they want from who they killed. Provided that they succeed in the job. They can then come down here with their loot and make even more money. The bears are bodyguards that higher level masks hire for their safety down here. Bears can even be hired on a contract to be property guards if you have something down here that needs to be guarded.”

He told me there were several other masks for several other jobs here. Like spies and craftsmen and weavers and even prostitutes.

“Be especially careful with the prostitutes. The fox and vixen masks,” Zir said. “They aren't just pleasure mates. They are a more specialized mercenary group and they have their own guilds. They specialize in high profile contract killings. If you see news in the paper about some minister or ambassador poisoned to death, it's safe to assume that it was either a fox or a vixen who did that.”

Then there were the eagle masks, who worked directly for the Exchange authority. They were Exchange's personal military who kept patrolling the market grounds and making sure order was maintained. “The bird masks are the people employed directly under the Exchange.

“Don't mess with the eagles. Because they answer to the Vultures. The bosses above bosses,” Zir said. “So I'd say don't mess with anyone who works directly for the vultures.”

“How am I supposed to know who works for the vultures directly?” I said.

“The easiest distinction is bird masks,” he said. “You see anyone with a bird mask, you stay out of their way.”

Then I looked at him. “So the animal masks are the ones running businesses. The bird masks are the authorities. Then what does your mask mean? It's a human mask,” I said.

I heard him chuckle quietly under his golden venetian mask. “It's a shepherd mask. It means I have multiple animals working for me. That’s another way of saying that I own a guild here.”

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