Arc 2 Chapter 1: Mabel The Place We've Come To Cherish

Dawn had graced Altia with a new day; the train's clock read six-thirty in Altian numerals. The sun peaked over the horizon that bared fields of grass populated with farmers, travelers, and merchants with train tracks leading into the city gates. The edges of the tracks kept pedestrians out via magicked runes that gave birth to a spatial barrier, albeit only where the train was whilst it moved since the runes were made to react to the train's arcatoms from the arcanium crystal that was housed in the train's engine. Yukina greeted the morning with a soft yawn as her eyes slowly blinked open; each blink returned her closer to reality.

She began to stretch after she had mentally woken up so that blood could circulate throughout her body properly. The white-haired girl looked around to see if everyone else had awakened, only to be met with a trio of slumbering party members. Yukina, who had been sitting closest to the right wall on her side of the booth, turned her gaze to her right to see the morning sun outside of the window. The beauty of the sun peaking from behind the hills of the plains, dyeing the sky a magnificent gradient of orange from where the sun is to blue as one looked further from the sun. "It looks like I got up just in time to see the Mane Solis." Lily was the second to be brought back to the world of the awoken.

"Good Morning, Ms. Yukina. Did you sleep well?" she asked her white-haired companion beside her. Lily wore a soft smile that accompanied the morning sun's light beautifully.

"I slept well, and you don't have to use such formalities when addressing me," Yukina replied while scratching the back of her head. The thought of someone who could be considered a friend being so formal to her weirded her out. Akko was next to wake up from her slumber, a small stream of drool dripping down from her chin, staining the cushions of the booth's seats.

"Morning, Akko."

"Good Morning, Ms. Akko."

The two Vulpians greeted Akko when she woke up. They were rewarded with a half-hearted wave. She rubbed her eyes before parting her lips to speak.

"Good morning, Lily, Yuki...are we there yet or what?" Akko asked; fortunately for them, the train had just come to a screeching stop. "Well, I guess that answers my question," Akko shrugged since she realized the train had stopped. Akko elbowed Adeo's shoulder in hopes of waking him up, which resulted to no avail. After giving in to her frustration, she elbowed him in the stomach.

"Kyah!" Adeo yelped in reaction to the pain that Akko inflicted upon him. "What the hell was that for? I was having a great dream about fighting some super strong guys!"

"Well, too bad the train has stopped, and we have to get up, lest you want to pay for another train ride nap?" Akko replied that she knew that Adeo had no counter-argument to this; of the four of them, Adeo obviously was the least diligent with their money, so he had no choice but to abandon his somnium and relinquish his seat.

Yukina was the first to plant her feet on the cement flooring; her nostrils were immediately met with humid air, and the sound of footsteps and people clamoring flooded her ears, a loud yet oddly relaxing place. Once the rest of the party met up, they exited the train station and were greeted by the sites of towering buildings abundant with decorative lights and magitech screens. Mabel was a town bustling with more people than Vertelia could ever hope to dream of; this was a city of technological riches, as one would say. Yukina's eyes couldn't help but admire every detail, every screen, every car that passed; the entire city was like an amber-colored amusement park to her.

"Aren't you supposed to be a blacksmith, or are you thinking about dabbling in engineering magitech?" Akko questioned as she giggled a bit before patting her back. "Anyroad, let's go see that skilled blacksmith. What did Ms. Kojima say his name was again?"

"If I recall correctly, I think she said his name was Mr.Hughes?" Yukina replied. The group walked along the pavement Yukina reached into the inside of her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that read the blacksmith's address. "Thirty-two, forty-seven P-Po- by the Caelestis Ms.Kojima's scrawl is akin to Pullum scratch; I can hardly read it." She gave up on reading the parchment of incomprehensible nonsense, mainly due to the fact she could simply ask for directions.

The quartet decided to ask various shop owners in a local bazaar near the train station about the Smithy's whereabouts but to no avail until Yukina came across a man with black horns and markings on his body. "Excuse me, do you happen to know where Hughes' smithy is?" she asked; the man seemed to ignore her until the name 'Hughes' was mentioned.

"Polymer Road." The man replied without so much as a glace in Yukina's direction. She thanked the stranger before gathering the rest of her party to make their way to the shop. Unbeknownst to them, the smithy was on the other side of town, roughly twenty milns away from the bazaar.

The party spent their whole day walking to the smithy, they made no mistake of not seeing the spectacles of this town. They made some use of their day, and luckily for them, the smithy was right around the corner from an inn. Dusk had claimed the skies, and the magitech lamposts began to shine a soft, beautiful golden hue. Even with all the positives, it was counterbalanced by Akko's complaints of exhaustion and Adeo's constant questioning of the distance from their destination to which they had arrived.

"Yes, Adeo, we are here; please stop asking…" Yukina said with a sigh, she was tired not of the walking but of Adeo's idiocy. "Akko, can you get us some rooms at the nearby inn, and please take the idiot with you and make sure he behaves," she instructed; once the two red-heads walked off, she was left near the wooden door of the smithy with Lily, Yukina stood there silently mentally preparing herself, the silence was broken by some chattering pedestrians and the passing by of magitech cars.

"Yuki, you got this!" Lily said in hopes of psyching her companion up.

"Right," she said, and with that, she knocked on the door only to be greeted with a barrel of a firearm in her face.