He pointed at the buildings. "They change for us, but they also change for other people. Anyone who sees these buildings will see different things each time, and our homes always change to welcome or scare off people, based on what they think is needed." He patted one of the walls fondly, and the structure leaned over to rub against his hand. "We're here to do something important, and everyone chips in to help. Even old stucco here," he added.
"What's the big deal? I see you guys hanging out here, but I'm not sure how that's such an important or influential kind of thing going on here," Cillean said.
"We're involved in certain," she paused, "Activities. We extract various things, like information. And assets. And we do whatever we need to do to support our goal." She glared at the man in patchwork. "Gill, we talked about this. Some secrets are meant to remain secret to outsiders. The houses are one of those things," Taiya said. Gill shrugged, clearly unrepentant. She looked at the others. "It is a secret still, except now for your lot, so please be sure not to spread that information around. Part of the point of secrecy spells is that they stay secret," she said.
The rest promised their silence.
One of the vampires held up his hand in objection. "I understand your secrecy and agree to keep it. I am not sure I can hide something else you mentioned though. It is wrong to so say 'extract' those things which are not owned by you. It is not the right way of doing things," Daerick protested.
Gills shrugged again. "We do what we have to do. We are fighting here directly against one of the two cities, and we sometimes clash with the Witch City as well, and all of that power is stacked against us and holding us back from reaching our goals. If we're already treated as outlaws by those people, we might as well take what we need from them," he told them.
Taiya kept her eyes trained on the ground. "It's not ideal; we all know that. But we only take supplies marked as belonging to the Domed City, because they are the only ones directly trying to harry us. We leave the witches' things alone. And that's not because I grew up with them," she added bitterly. It was clear she'd heard that often before.
Fyojhan stayed silent throughout the exchange. His priority was instead to stay focused, looking at all of their surroundings and the people around them, even as he kept an eye trained on the building in front of them. After hearing about the mysterious properties of the homes he had come to consider them to be a threat as well.
"I've heard a lot about the Alchemists," Cillean said. "This is the first time that I've heard that your lot were rebels and wanted men," he looked at Taiya, "and women, however. I was more under the impression all of you had an obsession with rare metals."
Taiya blushed as Darien looked between the two of them. "Rare metals? What do you mean?" he asked.
It was clear both Gills and Taiya knew exactly what Cillean was referring to, however. "Well," Taiya began. "In our early days, the first five were a bit short on funds. So we tried to figure out a way to, well, supplement the money we already had."
Cillean smirked. "What she means is that they wasted years trying to figure out how to transform cheap metals into gold. You guys took, what, a century to realize that neither magical nor chemical means could do what you wanted it to do, right?"
Taiya shook her head. "No, they figured out a way to do it eventually, and figured out how to transform a lot of other things along the way. That's why we can set up these easy tents at every place we stop in a flash and then transform the outside into the exterior of any kind of building we want. Gold is tricky though; there's a secret to getting anything to become that. Ironically enough, pyrite is the key to creating real gold." She looked at their blank expressions. "You know, that stuff they call fool's gold? That's pyrite," she explained.
Darien frowned at her. "I get that. What I'm confused about is the 'them' you mention. I thought you were part of the first five?"
She hemmed. "Well, I wasn't actually one of the first five people to be an Alchemist," Taiya said.
"I'm seventeen, you see, and the first have been around for way longer than that. But I am still called one of the first because of how I joined. When I joined the group, they were already wandering both worlds and working with gold like I said, but they didn't have any purpose to their lives beyond surviving. They didn't have much training or skills to keep each other safe, either, and the reason there are only five firsts is because the others suffered through a lot. You know, troll attacks, werewolf slayings, angry mobs chasing them through alleys for being suspected of using magic, that sort of thing. I came into the group more recently." She sighed. "When I was kicked out from the Witch City, I came to join the group, and I saw it was a pretty ragged collection. So I said to them, why not train ourselves and arm up so we can defend ourselves? Why not fight back against the tyranny of the Twin Cities? Why not spread the word that we are willing to stand as a safehouse for any who want to escape them so we can get more members and have safety in numbers? I asked a lot of questions, and eventually the first decided that they wanted to assign me to give the answers. Now I'm in charge of directing this entire town and all the
