By midnight the attic workbench disappeared under spools of copper, quartz chips and two cold mugs of Dredge’s tea.
"Thirty silver for a pile of copper wire, a sack of quartz and one farmer’s spring is either the best deal in Kelford or the worst afternoon of my life," Ray told the rafters, cracking his knuckles.
[ FUNDS ]
[Purse: 71 Silver]
[HC: 180]
[MANA: 50 / 50]
[Blueprint Points: 7]
He haggled at every stall like a fishwife, walking away from the copper seller twice before she finally caved. The spring came off a farmer’s broken harrow, rust and all, for the price of a round of ale.
’Those drakes wore crystal like armor, meaning whatever guards that pump probably shops at the same store.’
[ BLUEPRINT ]
[Base: Miner’s Tuning Chime]
[Use: Finds Cracks in Rock]
[Blueprint: 4 BP]
[Fabrication: 70 HC]
He unlocked the blueprint with a grin, "Miners ring this little fork to find where a rock wants to break, but imagine what it does pointed at somebody’s face."
He rebuilt the chime around two copper prongs and a quartz heart, tuning it to sweep every note. When a note matched its target, the prongs would lock on, singing steadily until something finally gave way.
The forge light crawled over the bench as the parts softened, flowing together like candle wax finding its mold.
[ FORGE BUILD COMPLETE ]
[New Blueprint: Severance]
[Type: Resonance Gun]
[Charges: 3]
[Blueprint Points: 3]
[Funds: 110 HC]
"Your name is Severance, considering everybody gets one of those on the day they’re finally let go," he told it, patting the prongs.
He aimed the prongs at Dredge’s tea mug, letting the hum climb until the clay split clean down the middle.
"Heh, that’s one mug down with a grumpy old man to answer to at breakfast, though future me can handle that problem."
[ BLUEPRINT ]
[Base: Fence-Post Driver]
[Use: Sinks Posts in One Blow]
[Blueprint: 3 BP]
[Fabrication: 80 HC]
’Farmers punch posts into frozen ground with this thing, which means it will punch through a lot more than dirt.’
He bolted the driver to a leather bracer, a spike riding along his forearm with the spring coiled behind it. A rune cell packed with quartz dust fed the spring, driving the spike out with a bang on every charge.
[ FORGE BUILD COMPLETE ]
[New Blueprint: Hard Sell]
[Type: Pile-Driver Gauntlet]
[Charge Cells: 2]
[Blueprint Points: 0]
[Funds: 30 HC]
"Seventy for the fork plus eighty for the punch leaves me thirty HC, zero points and... the proud owner of two brand-new ways to ruin somebody’s morning."
He tested the gauntlet on a loose chimney brick, the bang shaking dust from every rafter in the attic.
The brick burst into three pieces, one of them skipping across the boards to rattle against the far wall.
"No blood on my floor, boy, house rule!" Dredge bellowed from below.
"Nobody’s bleeding except a brick, which honestly had it coming after the way it wobbled at me all—"
"Bricks cost money, boy, so it goes on your bill with the mug."
’Zero Blueprint Points with thirty HC left in the forge makes me officially broke in two different currencies tonight.’
Dredge said nothing at breakfast, grunting into his porridge while the common room slowly filled with sleepy fishermen. The broken mug waited at Ray’s place instead, glued back together and filled to the brim with tea.
He turned the mug in his hands, tracing the glued seam while the old man pretended not to watch.
"You glued my crime scene back together, old man, easily the nicest thing anybody has done for me all week."
"Glue’s on your bill too, boy," Dredge grunted, shoving the porridge pot down the counter without looking up.
At dawn they climbed the switchback path up the northern bluff, the town shrinking into rooftops and chimney smoke below.
Yuzu walked a step ahead with her satchel bumping her hip, glancing back at his arm every few switchbacks.
"What is that thing on your arm, a butter churn with a grudge?"
"It’s for conversations that go badly, Doc, though you’d better pray you never hear it go off," he said, flexing the bracer.
"You look like boiled leather, which tells me you never slept."
He shrugged, "I’m running on spite, Dredge’s tea and pure professional excitement, the most balanced breakfast a working man can have."
She wrinkled her nose at the mention of the tea, as if the smell followed them up the hill.
"Ugh, that tea could strip the tar off a fishing hull."
"Then it should do wonders for whatever is living in your pump," he said, grinning as the path flattened out.
"Pim coughed blood again last night, while Etta still keeps nothing down but broth."
He tugged his coat straight, his eyes going to the dark shape where the path ended.
He tightened the bracer strap with his teeth, "Then those two get their clean wells back before supper, whatever we find inside that building."
The waterworks crouched on the bluff like a toad wearing ivy, its doors chained shut under a guild seal. Beside the entrance a waist-high marker stone glowed faintly, carved with the single letter F for its dungeon rank.
"They rated it F," he said, rapping the marker with a knuckle, "but Tenon lost a knee in an E, making that letter a polite suggestion at best."
He pressed Tenon’s charter against the seal, the chains slithering loose like snakes deciding to take the day off.
The moment they crossed the threshold, his HUD filled with static, every overlay breaking apart like frost on glass. Old warding runes covered the walls from floor to ceiling, the stone drinking the light out of his panels.
[ SIGNAL LOST ]
[Cause: Warded Stone Interference]
[Scan: Offline]
[Map: Offline]
"Tch, these walls just ate my entire display like a free lunch, leaving me to fly this whole job blind!"
"Old Maker wards keep spells away from the water, which is why my Veil feels like casting through wet wool," Yuzu said, pressing two fingers to the wall.
"Can you still hold a dome in here?"
"I can hold it, though it will cost me twice the mana it should," she said, flexing her fingers against the cold.
He drew the left pistol, thumbing the hammer as his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom without any help.
’Seventeen in each pistol plus twenty spares makes fifty-four rounds, which I’ll count in my head like the old days.’
The upper halls sat ankle-deep in violet water, goblin tracks pressed deep into the silt along every single wall. Somewhere below them a creak repeated over and over, like a barn door swinging on a hinge nobody oiled.
"That creaking is the draw-wheel, since nothing else down here is big enough to make it," Yuzu whispered.
Scratched into the wall beside the stairs, a crude goblin drawing showed a wheel with tiny stick figures feeding it.
"Somebody down there is running a shift rotation," he said, tilting his head at the scratches, "though that’s more organization than I’ve ever seen out of a goblin."
"Goblins do not draw plans unless somebody teaches them."
Near the stairs a rusted lantern lay half-buried in the silt, its handle wrapped in a worker’s faded scarf.
Yuzu knelt beside it, working the knot loose with careful fingers while Ray watched the dark ahead of them.
"This belonged to one of the three missing workers, since his widow still sells that pattern in the market."
He nodded at the satchel, "Then we bring back whatever is left of him, given that his widow deserves something to bury... not just a rumor."
She folded the scarf into her satchel with gentle hands, the way she wrapped bandages for the dying.
At the end of the hall a rusted hatch opened onto a ladder shaft barely wide enough for his shoulders.
"I’m taking the ladder alone," he said, testing the top rung, "while you keep this hatch shut behind me."
"Then I hold the hatch, though anything that climbs back up without your face gets my rapier."
"Try not to stab the face by accident, seeing as it’s easily my best feature," he said, swinging a leg over the lip.
"Your face is the least of my worries down here."
"If I’m not back up in an hour, you can tell Dredge the brick was completely—"
"Go before I change my mind about holding this hatch," she cut in, her voice tight.
She planted her rapier beside the hatch, gold light rising into a dome that flickered weakly against the warded walls. He climbed down rung by rung, the shaft pressing his coat against his spine while the creaking grew steadily louder.
’If something comes down this shaft behind me, I’m going to die like a cork stuck in a damn bottle.’
Without the HUD there was no map or warning, only the dark below and a violet glow at its bottom.
A goblin squatted at the foot of the ladder with its back to him, gnawing on a fish bone.
Ray’s face emptied of everything, his breathing slowing to match the creak of the wheel.
’One gunshot in a stone vault wakes every goblin in the building, so this one gets done quiet.’
He dropped from the last rung, clamping a hand over its mouth as the hunting dagger slipped under its ribs. The goblin kicked twice against his chest before going still, letting him lower it into the silt without a splash.
"Easy now... it’s already over," he murmured, wiping the blade clean on its rags.
Beyond the ladder the lower vault opened around a wheel taller than the inn, turning slowly at its very center. Buckets on the rim scooped water from a sump, tipping it into channels that ran toward every well in Kelford.
Roots of iron strangled the axle, pulsing in the same sick rhythm as the spike out in the river.
’This whole town spent weeks drinking through that straw, so somebody owes Kelford one hell of a refund.’
Beneath the wheel the sump bubbled thick and violet, as though something large was breathing slowly under the surface.
"Found you, you ugly bastard," he breathed, crouching low, "and now I’d love to meet whoever pays your bills."
Torchlight bobbed between the far pillars as goblin voices echoed closer, laughing over the creak of the wheel. He counted six torches before sliding behind the nearest pillar, his hand settling quietly on the pistol’s grip.
"Six of you against one of me... honestly, that seems a little unfair to you guys," he murmured.