The Armorer’s Enclave occupied three full blocks of Ashvale’s merchant quarter, a cluster of specialized shops and forges where hunters came to outfit themselves for the work that killed most of them eventually. Reyes moved through it like someone navigating a second home, nodding greetings to several shop owners, leading William and Lyra through a maze of leather, steel, and enchanted materials that made William’s head spin just looking at the price tags.
"You." Reyes stopped in front of a weathered storefront marked only by a bronze anvil sign. "This place specializes in lightweight armor for Talents that rely on agility rather than brute force absorption. Won’t protect you the way plate mail protects a tank, but it’ll move with you instead of against you."
An older woman emerged from the back of the shop at Reyes’s entrance, recognition flickering across her face immediately. "Reyes. Heard you’d caught a bad floor guardian situation and barely made it out."
"Barely’s being generous. Caught a lucky pull who actually knew what he was doing." Reyes gestured toward William. "This is the tamer I mentioned. He needs a full outfit. Speed priority, durability secondary, and it needs to handle ongoing physical stress without restricting movement."
The woman’s eyes sharpened as she turned them on William, taking in his frame, his posture, the way the small guardian pressed against his leg like it had been trained to that position since birth. She whistled softly under her breath.
"That’s the one from the displacement incident. Kid, do you have any idea how many guild scouts are looking for you right now?"
"Too many," William said flatly.
"Fair enough." She disappeared into the back of the shop and returned with an armful of gear that she laid across a fitting bench. Leather reinforced with thin steel weaving, treated to resist both elemental damage and conventional cutting, articulated at the joints to allow full range of motion without catching or binding. She talked through each piece as she handed it over, her hands moving with the efficiency of someone who’d outfitted hundreds of hunters.
William tried on the jacket first, then the bracers, then a set of reinforced leggings that looked like they’d been specifically designed to let someone move at full speed without the gear fighting back. When he stood and tested the range of motion, something in his chest loosened. This wasn’t the hospital issue shirt and mud stained leather he’d been wearing. This was actual armor, designed by someone who understood that not all protection came from thickness.
"How does it feel?" Reyes was watching from where he’d settled into a chair, cane propped against his knee.
"Light. Flexible. Like nothing." William moved through a series of test movements, warming up to the new weight distribution. "How much?"
The woman named a price that made him wince, though it was reasonable for what he was getting. Reyes nodded at the woman and simply handed over payment without looking, dismissing William’s attempt to contribute with a gesture.
"My investment," he said again. "Stop arguing."
Next came weapons. A proper blade rather than the salvaged hunting knife William had been making do with, forged steel with runes woven into the tang that supposedly improved impact absorption and reduced the chance of the edge chipping under stress. It was heavier than William’s old blade, but balanced better, and when he held it, something about the weight felt right in a way nothing else had since the Tower.
"Secondary weapon?" The shop owner at the second location, a lean man with burn scars across half his face, held up several options. "Hunters with animal companions often prefer something fast. Shortsword, hand axes, curved blades for cutting rather than piercing."
William settled on a pair of matched daggers with sharp curves, thinking of Frost and the way the fox moved. Something that would work with that kind of speed rather than against it. Reyes approved the choice with a nod, though he added a comment about learning proper grip technique before attempting any actual combat with them.
The potions came next. Mana restoration in small glass vials, wound stabilization in larger bottles, stamina recovery in compact cylinders. Antidotes for various toxin types. Salves for burns. Emergency healing for life threatening damage. William had never seen so many different types of alchemical preparation in one place, and he found himself overwhelmed by the options until Reyes took over, pointing at specific bottles with the authority of someone who’d used all of them before.
"These are standards. You’ll refill these every two weeks when they’re running low. These are luxury. You don’t use unless you’re actually dying, because they cost too much to waste on minor injuries. These are situational. Eastwick’s a rift type dungeon, so you’ll want antitoxins and antiparalysis specifically. Refund the regeneration herbs, we won’t need those."
Lyra watched this play out with an expression that shifted between amusement and something that looked like admiration, especially when Reyes turned his attention to her and began critiquing her own gear with the same brutal efficiency he’d used on William.
"Where’d you get trained?" he asked, examining the twin swords she carried.
"Merchant family contracts mostly. My mother paid for tutoring in weapon forms when I was younger, before I told my father I was choosing the Hunter path." Lyra shrugged. "I’m self taught on actual dungeon combat. Learned by doing, not theory."
"You got lucky on that first encounter with goblins." Reyes’s tone was matter of fact rather than insulting. "Goblins are predictable, and you’re faster than they are. Won’t work on most mid tier monsters, and it’ll get you killed if you ever go deeper than the lower floors." He turned to the weapons dealer. "Show her proper blade forms for handling creatures that are faster than she is. She needs defensive technique alongside the speed."
By the time they left the Armorer’s Enclave, William was carrying more gear than he’d ever owned, all of it packed into a proper adventurer’s pack that distributed weight across his shoulders and back without restricting movement. Reyes had acquired similar supplies for both of them, enough potions to handle a week long dungeon run if they were careful with usage, backup rope, first aid supplies, and a dozen other items William hadn’t thought to acquire.
"This cost a fortune," William said quietly as they walked back toward the residential district.
"This cost time and preparation, which is worth more than coin to someone who doesn’t know if he’s walking into a rift with something waiting specifically for him." Reyes shifted his weight on the cane, clearly tiring but refusing to stop. "Which is why we’re going to spend the next three days doing nothing but planning. Every contingency. Every potential fight. Every way things could go wrong."
"Three days is tight," Lyra said, but she didn’t sound uncertain. She sounded like someone already calculating variables.
"Three days is all we’ve got before William decides he can’t wait any longer and we end up going in half prepared." Reyes’s expression was grim. "So we work fast and we work thorough. That’s how people stay alive in dungeons, Vespern. Not through luck, not through raw power. Through preparation."
They parted ways at the edge of the fourth district, Reyes heading to his recovery quarters and William and Lyra walking toward William’s apartment in companionable silence. The weight of everything they were about to attempt settled over them gradually, building like a storm that hadn’t yet decided whether to break.
’This is it,’ William thought, watching Frost emerge from her usual scouting route to greet them at the building entrance. ’This is where it stops being just me and Cerberus against the world. This is where it becomes something bigger.’