Axies the Collector awakens in a fetid Kasitor alley with a pounding head, naked and bruised after being beaten and robbed. He dampens his sense of smell, clears his headache, and spars verbally with a scraggly beggar who demands rent and claims Axies destroyed a local temple. Axies notices the beggar’s carefully arranged rotting tubers, laid out like a miniature city, and accepts a thrown blanket to avoid arrest for indecency.

Moving through Kasitor, Axies draws wary looks for his Siah Aimian traits—blue nails, deep blue crystalline eyes, and a shadow that points toward light. He reflects on the scouring of his homeland and his habit of tattooing observations on his skin. Finding a fresh note about a rare intoxication-linked spren he has pursued for years, he delights at possibly confirming “alespren,” though he questions their rarity and regional appearance.

Axies joins a crowd at the docks to observe Cusicesh the Protector. At precisely 7:46, a vast, sea-blue spren rises like a water column, extending four arms to golden pedestals. It forms rapidly shifting human faces while staring east toward the Origin. After ten minutes, Cusicesh sinks back, leaving Axies feeling drained—an effect he debates as expectation versus reality.

A street urchin snatches Axies’s wrap, exposing him before the crowd. As guards converge, Axies calmly finishes his notes, wryly hoping to finally witness captivityspren during another stint in jail. The guards lead him away, and he remains content, having documented two elusive spren in as many days.