“You all think this is weird, too, right?” Kaylen asked.

It was weird. Lady von Ekko’s Glorious Adventurer Brigade had been offered a high-paying job, but it was suspiciously easy. Just pick up some alchemic supplies in Temple Station and deliver them to the client. Maybe they were rare enough that the client wanted an escort to ensure their delivery, but why offer such a huge reward for such a simple job? Was it just to ensure that the adventurers would actually deliver instead of selling the supplies? Was the client that paranoid?

“Yeah, it’s a little odd,” Andra admitted, “but for a hundred gold pieces? Who cares?”

“Plus we get to visit Temple Station,” Fiona added.

The party was heading to the client’s house. It was in a nice neighborhood, but not so nice that it was normally populated by people who had gold to toss around by the hundreds. Two-story houses surrounded them, most with gardens out front. A couple of boys were playing a game where they tried to knock a rubber ball back and forth with paddles. The ball flew wide on a hit and flew straight at Fiona. She caught it easily in one hand.

“Isn’t this Maxim’s neighborhood?” she asked as she tossed the ball back.

Andra pointed. “There. That’s the client’s house.”

“Uh, that’s Maxim’s house,” Riven said. “He’s already in the Guild, why would he be hiring us?”

Andra shrugged and continued through the garden to knock on Maxim’s door. He answered a moment later. Today’s mask was a round one shaped like a frog’s head. It covered his entire head, and stared at Andra with bulging eyes.

“Seriously?” he said, sounding shocked. “What did I do to make Marian mad?”

“What?” Andra replied.

“Never mind. You’re here for the job, right? I’d offer to let you in, but I don’t want Riven anywhere near my lab.”

“Understandable,” Andra replied. “So what’s with the job? You’re paying us all this money just to pick up supplies?”

“Yes. However, the supplies you’ll be picking up may be somewhat difficult to acquire. You see, I’ve recently made contact with a noblewoman who is having difficulty conceiving a child. She has offered me a large sum of money to resolve the issue.”

Kaylen gasped. “You want the Blessing of Sanguis.”

The Blessing of Sanguis was one of the greatest treasures of the Sanguians, a potion that impregnated whoever drank it. It was considered key to the male-free lifestyle the Sanguians desired. Most babies in Temple Station were conceived thanks to the Blessing. Sanguians outside of their holy city commonly used it as well, though many outside of the clergy still used or even married men. The potion’s recipe was a closely-kept secret, unknown even to the International Society of Alchemists.

Maxim nodded. “Exactly. Since the noblewoman was kind enough to offer a partial payment up front, I am offering you one hundred gold pieces to obtain a sample of the potion. However, if you manage to find me the recipe, I will up the reward to one thousand gold pieces.”

Andra felt her heart start to pound. One thousand gold pieces wasn’t much to her family, but it was more than she had seen in years.

“One thousand?” Fiona asked, just as shocked. “We could retire on that.”

“How much are you getting from this noblewoman?” asked Riven suspiciously.

“That is none of your concern,” Maxim replied.

“But why offer a bonus at all?” Andra asked. “If this noblewoman just needs a single dose, what good does the recipe do you?”

Maxim clasped his hands behind his back. “Because I don’t like the Sanguians having complete control over the Blessing. I believe it could help more people than they allow. Their mistrust of men, while understandable, means that a lot of non-Sanguians who are unable to conceive have no way to have children. With a sample of the potion, I may be able to figure out what went into it, but with the recipe I’ll know for sure. Besides, I want a dose for myself, too.”

“You want to get pregnant?” Riven asked.

Although she couldn’t see his face, Andra got the sense that Maxim was raising an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with a man wanting to get pregnant?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” Riven replied. “I actually think it’s awesome.”

“Oh. Good, then.” Maxim sounded surprised. “But the truth is I don’t want to get pregnant. I’m an alchemist, after all. We have other methods of procreating. I want to create an alraune.”

“But haven’t other alchemists created alraunes before? Can’t you just use their methods?” Andra asked.

Maxim shook his head. “I’m going to be honest. A lot of alchemists like to feel superior to others—”

“Gee, I had no idea,” Riven interrupted.

“Shut up. A lot of alchemists keep their discoveries secret, taking pleasure in knowing that they’re the only one who knows that secret. Add that to the fact that many of us use less-than-legal methods that have to be kept secret from the ISA, and as a result past alchemists who have succeeded in creating alraunes have declined to publish their work. Same with the only alchemist to create homunculi.  A method to create flesh golems has been published, but I want a child, not an adult with a sewn-together brain. I believe that if I study the Blessing of Sanguis, I may be able to adapt the recipe to create an alraune.”

“You shouldn’t treat children as experiments,” Fiona said sharply, surprising everyone.

“Oh. Look,” Maxim said, sounding serious, “I understand why you would worry about that. There’s a lot I want to do here. I want to discover something new, I want to create a unique form of life. But most of all, I want to be a parent. Believe me, I will love this child.”

“But can we really do this job?” Fiona asked. “Kaylen can’t defy Sanguis or she’ll lose her powers.”

Everyone looked at Kaylen. Fiona had a point.

“Technically we wouldn’t be defying Sanguis,” Kaylen explained. “Sanguis has never actually directly spoken about the Blessing, which was actually invented by priestesses, not the goddess herself. While it is an extremely useful tool in the goal of living a life free of men, I see no reason why men having access to it would be any sort of problem. Some priestesses argue that with the potion, men would no longer have any need for women and would end up destroying us, but personally I believe that it would bring men and women closer together, which would only make life easier for non-Sanguian women.”

“But what about the church itself?” Riven asked. “If they find out, you’ll be kicked out, won’t you?”

“Then we’ll have to make sure they don’t find out,” Kaylen replied. “I assume Maxim has the same attitude about the ISA?”

Maxim nodded, though the gesture was barely perceptible behind his mask. “The whole reason I joined the Guild was to get some income I could hide from ISA audits. With that, I can purchase black market ingredients for certain projects that best remain secret. However, in the case of this potion, I plan to publish my results. I’ll make up some story about how I stumbled upon this discovery myself, of course, and leave out your role. It does put me at some risk of discovery, but I believe this work is too important to stay secret.”

Andra stared at Maxim’s mask. Was he secretly a good person? “In that case, I think we’ll be taking the job.”

“Excellent. I look forward to hearing good news,” Maxim replied.

“Oh, by the way,” Kaylen said. “What’s up with your friend, Nightingale? She keeps leaving me these really long notes comparing me to different candies and saying she wants to eat me.”

“Since you saved her life, I think she developed a crush on you,” Maxim explained. “Good luck with that. She is insane.”

For the second job in a row, Lady von Ekko’s Glorious Adventurer Brigade boarded the train. This time, however, instead of settling into the lounge, they made their way to the sleeper car. This would be an overnight trip. Unfortunately, when they reached their compartment, the party was shocked to discover that there were only two beds.

“Yeah, there are only two beds per compartment,” Andra explained. “I figured we only needed two, so I just booked one room.”

“How do we only need two beds?” Kaylen asked, annoyance tingeing her voice.

“Well, I need one, of course. And you three can share the other.”

“That,” Riven said, pointing at one of the beds, “is barely big enough for Fiona.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Fiona. “I can just sleep on the floor.”

“See? It all works out,” said Andra, setting down her bag next to the other bed.

“You have really got to stop taking advantage of her,” said Kaylen.

“Hey, you’re free to give her your spot on the bed if you want,” Andra replied.

Kaylen said nothing.

Andra sat on her bed. “I thought not. Now, let’s get this planned out. Where in Temple Station is the potion made?”

“Technically, it’s not made in Temple Station,” Kaylen replied, flopping onto the other bed. “I know non-Sanguians like to refer to the entire city as Temple Station, but Temple Station is actually the outer city, where men are allowed. It’s called that because it sprang up when the alchemic rail was built. But the Blessing is made in the inner city.”

“What’s the inner city called?” asked Andra.

“Paradise,” Kaylen replied.

Andra nodded. “Makes sense. It sounds like paradise.”

Riven nodded as well as she rooted through her bag for her Magi-net book. “Agreed. I’ve always wanted to visit it.”

“Me too,” added Fiona, sighing dreamily. “From all the stories I’ve heard, it sounds wonderful.”

“Anyway,” said Kaylen, returning to the subject at hand, “the potion is actually brewed in three separate locations. A given priestess only learns one third of the recipe, and is not permitted to share it or to learn the other two thirds. The three parts are brought to a fourth location where they are mixed together in a certain ratio to create the finished Blessing.”

“So, in other words we have to go to four different locations to get the complete recipe,” Andra concluded. “Is it kept written down somewhere?”

“No idea,” Kaylen replied. “The brewers are very secretive. All I know for sure is that they have the recipe memorized.”

“But how could we ever convince them to tell us?” asked Fiona.

“A bit of mental manipulation could take care of that,” said Riven who was now idly thumbing through Magi-net as she sat on the floor next to the bed.

Kaylen gave Riven an uncomfortable look. “That seems wrong.”

“More wrong than stealing from a church?” Riven replied. “You agreed to this job, and this is the best way to do it while ensuring that no one gets hurt.”

Kaylen was about to reply when the train started moving.

Early the next afternoon, the train pulled to a stop at Temple Station. The passengers disembarked. Most filed their way to a small building attached to the wall separating the inner city from the outer one, where people entering Paradise were screened. The party followed the flow of passengers there, where a series of guards, rough-looking women mostly armed with spears, quizzed them about how long they would be staying in Paradise and why they were there. It seemed the Sanguians were very on-edge.

The final set of guards asked the party to hand over any enchanted items, explaining that they would be returned when the party left the inner city. Fiona handed over her weapon, which she had conveniently reshaped into a dirk, and Riven gave the guard two books. Andra recognized one, a leather-bound tome, as her Magi-net book, and the other one appeared to be one of her erotic sci-fi stories as it featured a tentacle-covered woman who appeared to have entranced another woman who was wearing a space suit. Had she actually converted one of those into her grimoire?

Finally, a short, stern-looking woman passed a wand over first Andra, then Fiona, and finally Riven. When she reached Riven the wand’s tip started to glow. “You’ll have to remove your enchantment, please,” she said.

Riven smiled nervously. “Oh, the thing about that is that I’m actually trans. So if I remove this enchantment the results aren’t going to be pretty.”

The woman raised an eyebrow at Riven. “You understand that men aren’t allowed in the inner city?” she asked, dryly.

“Uh, yeah, I’m not a man,” Riven replied.

“I didn’t know you were trans,” said an uncomfortable-looking Kaylen. “Otherwise I would have mentioned this.”

“Mentioned what?” Riven asked. Her face was starting to grow red.

“Well, obviously I disagree with the goddess on this point, but technically, Sanguis doesn’t consider trans women to be women.” She said the last part very fast and quietly as if that would somehow soften the blow.

“...Oh.”

“Shit, I am sorry, Raven,” said Andra. “I guess you’ll have to wait in the outer city while we do the job.”

“Wait, seriously?” Riven said, her voice rising. “What happened to ‘I don’t respect religions that don’t respect me?’”

“Well, that was a monastery full of fussy monks. This is a city full of paranoid guards who aren’t afraid of violence.”

Andra started to lead the group towards the building’s exit.

“Seriously? You’re just going to leave me here? I am so mad at all of you right now!” Riven shouted.

Fiona turned back to Riven momentarily, her ears folded back sadly. “I-I’m really sorry.”

The woman with the wand gave Riven an annoyed glare. “You’ll have to step aside, sir, otherwise I will have you arrested for the use of transformation magic.”

There was a sharp hiss as Andra, Kaylen, and Fiona all sucked in air through their teeth at the same time.