“Back already?” asked Rafael, after I handed over the clothes.
“Yeah. Nothing much.” I looked at Sun, who was watching me with a doorman’s suspicion. “Went to see a man about a horse.”
“Took a while, huh. Must’ve been some horse.”
“What are you, inspectors?”
This time the joke came out in the right tone, with the right smile. The one on the hill had come out cold; this one came out warm, and I couldn’t tell which of the two bothered me more. I was pleased with it for half a second, and then I kept thinking about how easy it was. Half an hour earlier, I had left three men on a hill. Now I was making bathroom jokes. Both things fit into the same afternoon, and no one there, apart from me and maybe Rafael, knew it.
Store it. Think later.
I materialized the two pieces of equipment I had taken from the bodies.
[Steel Boots]
[Rarity: Common]
[Simple, reinforced boots]
[Tenacity +1]
[Dexterity +1]
[Reinforced Leather Pants]
[Rarity: Common]
[Comfortable, durable leather pants]
[Vitality +1]
Rafael looked at his own clothes. He was still half dressed like a worker, in sneakers and jeans, with an ancient knight’s shield on his arm. He looked like an extra who had walked onto the wrong film set and nobody had had the heart to tell him.
The switch of positions earlier had been an act, and he knew it. At the same level, I had twice his agility, and the skeleton tactic depended on two things only I could do: being fast enough not to get caught, but not so fast that they gave up the chase; and vanishing at the right moment with Shadow Walk.
“Have you used the points you got at level two yet?”
“Two. In strength, during the fight with the guardian.”
“All right. From here to level ten, put at least two points per level into dexterity.”
“Dexterity?” Sun butted in. “Isn’t it common sense that the front line has to take damage? Isn’t dexterity for assassins? For archers?”
“That’s why it’s called common sense. Here it doesn’t work. The front line has to take a beating, yes. But more important than taking it is not getting hit.”
A shield that only takes hits dies on the fifteenth floor. A shield that dodges makes it to the thirtieth. I didn’t even need the index to know that.
“Dodge instead of holding everything head-on,” said Rafael. “Right.”
Just like that, without arguing. It was one of the things I liked most about him: when an order made sense, he didn’t waste energy fighting it.
“Anyway.” I took something else out of my pocket and held it out to Lili. “This is for you.”
Her round eyes lit up and, in the same second, went dark again. On purpose.
“Lili doesn’t need candy!”
It was an unopened chocolate bar I had found in one of the pockets. She was looking at the bar the way you look at a mousetrap. Has she already hit the rebellious phase? I thought. Then I thought better of it. Someone, before, must have given her things and made her pay for them later.
“If you don’t want it, I do!” Sun reached out his hand.
“No!”
Lili grabbed the bar before he could touch it, with a strength I didn’t know she had, stuck her tongue out at him and tore the wrapper open with her teeth. She took a bite that would have made a skeleton jealous.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Sun, his spirit broken, gave me the look of someone asking whether there was another one.
“That was the last one.” I shrugged. “Well, back to the plan. We need the next level as soon as possible, and we’ve already lost too much time.”
*
We repeated the strategy, group after group of skeletons. In a little over an hour, a golden glow covered all four of us at the same time.
Level 3.
“Nice. Next step, leader?”
“Now you three stay here and repeat what we’ve been doing.”
“Are you sure?” Rafael frowned. “I don’t know if I can do what you did.”
“You can.” I took off the Hood of Specters and handed it to him. “Put the new points into dexterity, along with what’s left over. Adding the hood and the boots, that’s a jump of seven points. It should be enough to play my part.”
He held the hood with his fingertips, wary. It looked small in his hand. On his head it would look even smaller.
“Where are you going, leader?”
“Back to the city. I have materials to use.”
I also had one of the Architect’s formulas burning in my pocket.
*
BAM
“What do you mean, no news from Hagrid’s group?!”
The bald man from Expansion Reach pounded the table so hard that one of the inkwells jumped and stained the map of the city. The subordinate in front of him shrank back.
“Damn it. What do they think they’re doing, ignoring a direct order from me?” He ran a hand over his smooth head. “I gave that punk too much freedom. Now he thinks he can defy me.”
At no point did it cross his mind that the trio was dead. They were three level 4s. The target was a level 2 kid, fresh from Earth. The math didn’t add up in any way he knew how to do it.
“Whatever. They’ll show up later.” He sat back down, the chair creaking under him. “I wanted to see that kid suffer today.”
He didn’t know that the kid, at that very minute, was walking through the doors of the Blacksmiths’ Association.
*
“Need something?” asked the burly man behind the counter. He had forearms the size of my thighs and an old star-shaped burn on his left hand.
“I’d like to take the entrance test.”
A newcomer wouldn’t know it, but the best path to becoming a blacksmith was the Association. Besides the trade channels for buying materials, a registered blacksmith got a member’s pin that raised the chance of success at the forge by two percent.
Two percent sounds like nothing. But the real success rate of an apprentice on a common item is five percent, and that of an advanced apprentice, ten. Two percent more is one extra item every fifty attempts. For someone who lives off the forge, that’s the rent.
One pin, and the week’s dinners are paid for.
“You?” The man looked me up and down, unhurried. “You know there’s a fee, right? And that if you fail, we don’t refund the money and you wait a month to try again.”
The Association was a serious institution, and the month of waiting made sense. Without it, nothing would stop someone from pestering the judges every day. The judges, besides, weren’t just anyone: whoever sat in the judge’s chair had to be, at the very least, a Basic Blacksmith. Every minute spent on a test was a minute less at their own forge.
“I’m aware.” I put the shillings on the counter.
He closed his eyes, resigned: he wasn’t going to talk me out of it.
“You can start now or take an hour to warm up your hands.”
“I’ll use the hour, please.”
“Then come on. There’s a spare forge in the back.”
We crossed the smithy. Men and women, humans, demi-humans and people with animal faces worked side by side, each at their own anvil. The noise was continuous and full of rhythm, like an orchestra where no one had agreed on the music and everyone played together anyway.
Crafting professions don’t choose a race. Some races take to them more easily, of course: dwarves and giants are born with a knack for the forge. But ease isn’t the same as talent. The best blacksmith I had ever known was a scrawny elf who was afraid of fire.
I didn’t know his name. I knew I had known him. That was the feeling all the time: a bookcase full of books with no titles on their spines.
“Here.” The man pointed to a corner. “The fire’s half dead. For someone who wants to pass the Association’s test, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“It isn’t. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
I went over to the furnace and threw in more coal. For a fire of that level, nothing was really a problem: besides the time I had spent as a blacksmith in Erebus, I had the Blacksmith’s Ring on my finger.
[Blacksmith’s Ring]
[Rarity: Rare]
[A ring worn by the blacksmith Berg at the start of his career. Old as it is, it still holds a spark of the countless works he created]
[Dexterity +1]
[Intelligence +1]
[Passive Skill: manipulates low-level flames and adjusts them to the desired temperature]
I touched the flames with my mind, and they rose obediently, from orange to an almost white yellow, and stopped where I wanted them.
I heard the man grumble behind me. I didn’t catch the words, but I caught the tone: he actually knows what he’s doing. Then he walked away.
Only then did I feel comfortable taking a piece of paper out of my inventory. To anyone passing by, it would look like nothing. Up close, you could see it was a formula.
The formula for the Ultralight Reinforced Bracer.
I ran my fingers over the lines. I didn’t need to read it. I already knew it by heart, and that scared me a little more than it should have.
[Name: Rafael]
[Level: 3]
[Class: Guardian]
[Tier 1: Squire]
[Strength: 12]
[Dexterity: 12 (+3)]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Vitality: 12 (+3)]
[Tenacity: 12 (+2)]
[Luck: 4]
[Leadership: 2]
Back in the clearing, Rafael was playing my part with my hood. I had an hour of fire, and a mistake cost a month of waiting.