Aby, Sap Courier

393 AC - A young woman on a unicycle suddenly appears in front of me without warning, almost knocking me over as I head to my workshop. If it weren't for Rossum's protective reflexes, I would have been hit. She mumbles some embarrassed excuses, then introduces herself as Aby, an engineer working for the Asgarthan postal services. But I've seen her face before… As I look at her quizzically, the Eidolon smiles and tells me she's been sent by Sierra to bring me a batch of Sap samples. While placing her enormous delivery cooler on the ground, she explains that she's bringing me containers filled with an amber substance, taken from deep within the City of Scholars. She found them thanks to a very skilled Sniffer… who seems to be lounging in the cooler, hoarding the containers as though they were its personal property. Aby has to gently remove them from the animal's paws so she can give them to my Chimaera.

As she recounts her journey through the labyrinthine streets of the old city, I make a mental map of the locations where she's found veins of Sap. As for Rossum, he seems more interested in the unicycle. Is she a mail carrier? No, she's a Foundry apprentice. Aberdeen, Sierra's assistant. Still chattering away, the Eidolon explains that, despite the dangers lurking around every corner of the underground world, she much prefers to be there, where the action is, rather than in the capital. At her mention of Arkaster, I can't stop myself thinking of our former life there. The young woman takes the Sniffer out of the delivery cooler, then closes it and slings it over her back again. The animal climbs onto the square lid of the cooler and places its paws on the courier's head. She gets back on her unicycle, bids us goodbye, and leaves. The couriers probably have a lot of work to do down here.

The idea of gremlins arose in the early 20th century to explain puzzling malfunctions in aircraft. These mischievous creatures were blamed for equipment breakdowns, piloting errors and technical problems encountered by aviators and aeronautical teams. For pilots of the RAF — the British Royal Air Force — these troublesome tricksters were said to sabotage their aircraft.

TREYST