The next morning, Vee woke up to a beam of sunlight hitting his face. As one inevitably does on the first full day in a new city. He sat up, looked around, and noticed that Alforde was gone. Normally, that wouldn’t have been cause for concern, but Vee had a bad feeling about it all the same.

He turned to look at Reginald’s core, which he’d put on the table after waking up in the middle of the night, and the stone was gone too. Just like that, the bad feeling went from a vague uneasiness to a full-throated panic. Where had those two gone?

Vee’s mind raced with possibilities. They quickly went from the routine and mundane, like the two of them had gone to get coffee and would be back soon, to the horrifically fantastical, like they’d both been eaten by a monster of some kind. But, thankfully, Vee hadn’t ever heard of any monsters that chose to eat suits of armor and rocks by choice. Now, that wasn’t to say that such a creature didn’t exist; the world was a big place after all and he really hadn’t explored much of it at all, but he figured that such a creature would be notorious enough to make it into a few monster manuals. The monster manuals, published by famed [Monster Anthropologist] Epscot Roosgerald, had been some of Vee’s favorite books as a child, and he’d read every single one at least fifty times.

He sat up, stretched, and decided to go look for his friend and the core once he went to the bathroom and showered. No longer so tired from the journey, he could smell the stench of the road on his skin and it wasn’t pleasant.

The bathroom was neat, but cramped, and though the water coming from the shower spout didn’t have much pressure behind it, it was warm. Vee quickly cleaned himself, and then opened his suitcase and drew out another set of clothes. Today, he put on a pair of comfortable brown trousers that were ever so slightly on the worn side and an orange shirt that had three buttons near the neck. It clashed horribly with his blue coat, but he didn’t care. He liked the way everything fit.

Going down the stairs was much easier than going up, though when he passed another boarder – a short, squat salamander covered in scales like an alligator – Vee had to press himself into the wall to let the other person go by. The stairs were just that narrow.

When he pushed the door at the ground floor open, he smiled. It was a beautiful day out, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A few robins trilled cheery tunes from the branches of the thick trees on both sides of the street. Vee was still concerned about where Alforde and Reginald had gotten off to, but he found it virtually impossible to stay scared with the sunlight hitting his face and warming his skin.

He traipsed down to the front of the boarding house, where once again, Sculla was perched on the stairs with her pipe lit. She looked up at him as he approached.

“You’re finally awake, eh? Your friend has been working all morning. He said that you two don’t have any more coin, so we struck a deal. I had him run some boxes down to the market for me and help out my sister, and in exchange I’ll let you two stay for free tonight.”

Well, that did plenty to allay Vee’s concerns, though he felt more than a twinge of guilt for that fact that Alforde was already taking care of things while he’d slept. “I’d like to go and help out,” he said. “Can you give me directions to the market?”

“O’course I can. I’ve lived here my entire life,” Sculla snorted. She was quiet after that, and Vee waited for an uncomfortably long time before he realized that she was just being pedantic.

“Fine. Would you give me directions to the market?”

“Sure,” said the ogre with a small, triumphant smile. She pointed at the same street he’d originally followed to find her boarding house. “Three blocks south, and then turn east on 35th street. You’ll see the market about a block or two after that.”

Vee thanked her and made his way down the street. There were more people out this morning, and Vee saw that not all of them were as hardened as the people he’d seen the night before. They still looked poor and put upon, but there were plenty of smiles to be seen. In fact, the city seemed like a different place, almost. The buildings were still decayed and worn down, but in the sunlight Vee could see their gothic façades, and he marveled at how clear the features of the gargoyles still were in some places. Once upon a time, they must have been beautiful.

His stomach grumbled and he winced at not having money to buy something to eat. Maybe he could scrounge something up at the market.

Though he didn’t turn on his [Second Sight], he could feel a slight stickiness in the air. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it because it was so subtle, but he knew it was ectoplasm. Reaching up, he pinched his thumb and index finger together to activate his [Shape Ectoplasm] skill and plucked a string of the energy out of the sky. He rolled it into a ball. The texture was a little like saltwater taffy, but there was a springiness to it too. As he squeezed it and shaped it, the ball started to become ever more visible, as the ethereal goo hardened into something more tangible. It bounced off the ground like rubber and Vee dribbled it as he walked. A little girl in a frilly blue dress pointed at it and smiled, and Vee met her eyes, winked, and lobbed the ball of ectoplasm to her.

She caught it with a clap and threw it on the ground as hard as she could. It skyrocketed fifteen feet or so off the ground, and the little girl laughed as she threw it once again. Her mother, a haggard looking woman with short strawberry blond hair bowed to Vee and reached into her purse to draw out payment, but Vee waved his hand and kept walking. Another grumble of his stomach reminded him that he could have really used the money, but making the ball had only taken a few seconds and he didn’t feel right taking payment for so little work.

[You have unlocked the Children’s Toy Maker class, would you like to take it?]

Vee frowned and dismissed the notification. That was another repeated offer. He’d had a chance to take the class a year before, when he’d animated a small wooden horse so that it would rock back and forth when someone sat on it. Being a toy maker wouldn’t be the worst profession in the world, but the flicker of ambition in his chest told him that he needed to do something bigger.

He still didn’t know what exactly that was, though.

He pondered what he could do as he stepped into the market, which was was big and open. It looked like it had been built for a much more crowded city, with space enough for at least a hundred stalls, and probably enough for almost double that if they were all cramped together. As it was, there were only eight stalls, and each of them had probably fifty feet of open space all around them.

A salamander was making candy in the first stall Vee passed. His scales were ruby red and he had spikes running down his back. His claws moved with expertise gained after a lifetime of molding hot sugar into tasty treats, and he gently blew fire onto the metal table to keep it warm as he worked.

The next stall sold clothing, and the one after that was an apothecary. Vee made a mental note to return to it once he had some fleurs, to replenish the supplies he’d lost gambling with Nen.

He didn’t get to see what the others were selling, because he saw Alforde standing next to a fountain, totally enthralled by the statue in the center. The statue depicted a towering man wearing a fancy suit of armor and a cape that almost reached his feet. He wore no helmet, and had the grim, serious face of a man who probably never laughed. Maybe that was due to the fact that he was depicted as frowning. In his right hand, he held the shaft of a massive hammer, and his left fist was clenched in a display of triumph.

Vee walked up to his friend and tapped his side since he couldn’t reach the armorsoul’s shoulder.

Alforde’s helmet spun to the left and his eyes widened when he saw Vee. “Hey,” he said.

“What’s this guy’s deal?” Vee asked. He looked down at the placard on the side of the fountain and read: Ser Hallheim Pielbrayne, Champion Founder of Oar’s Crest. The rest of the placard was too covered by oxidation to read.

Alforde pointed to the hammer. “I want one of those.”

Through the bond they shared, Vee heard a low chime and when he pulled up Alforde’s stat sheet in his mind’s eye, he saw to his surprise that his friend had taken a third class. [Aspirational – Hammer Afficionado]. Aspirational classes were those that you sought out for yourself, and then if you managed to fulfill the requirements to unlock them, they became yours. Until then, it remained on your stat sheet but offered no skills or stats to go with it.

“Why?” Vee asked.

“Don’t know,” Alforde answered. “I just do.”

The armorsoul was quiet for a moment, and then reached down and opened the door on his chest. One detached arm floated inside and came back out with a small pouch. Vee heard the telltale clink of money and opened it up. Inside were a handful of bronze fleurs. He also handed him a small, wrapped potato bun that Vee happily devoured.

“Sculla’s sister gave me enough that we should be able to survive for the next few days. I asked about construction work, but she said that there’s barely any work being done in the city these days. It looks like it’s going to be odd jobs for us for a while until we get our feet underneath us.”

Vee looked down at the bag in his hand and was tempted to throw it into the fountain. It was true that Alforde’s labor had earned them a few more days of not needing to worry about where they’d sleep each night, but Vee almost resented it. His ambition from the night before was like a candle held outside an open window on a rainy night. It died instantly. The question of what to do with the ectoplasm retreated the back of his thoughts, where it seemed primed to sit forever, collecting dust with his collection of other ideas and purposes that he’d thought up over the years.

Gritting his teeth, Vee shook his head and resolved that this time, he was going to follow through on something. He just needed to decide what that thing was.

“This is a good start,” he said, “but we’ll need to find something more permanent pretty quick just for our own peace of mind.”

An older man sitting on the bench next to him reading a newspaper coughed and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. He was bald and had a thick gray mustache. “Excuse me, boys, but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. You’re new in town, right?”

Vee nodded and the man pointed off towards the far side of the market. “If you’re really strapped for cash, you can always go to the Adventurers Guild. It’s down at the end of that road. Big red building, you can’t miss it. They’re always hiring folks for things. Lots of municipal work, mostly. The city’s coffers are basically empty since the council squanders every fleur they get on wasteful crap that doesn’t help anybody, so it’s the adventurers guild that has to pick up the slack. I’m sure that you two would be able to find some good paying work. You look tough. Well, the armor guy does, anyway.”

Alforde’s cherst was still open, and Reginald’s spirit body crawled out. If the man was surprised to see a spirit crawling out of a hollow suit of armor, he didn’t show it.

“Going to the adventurer’s guild is a great idea! You boys seem like just the type to be successful adventurers.”

Vee looked at the spirit, and then at the man. There was no obvious red flag that he could see, but it prickled his consciousness all the same.

[You have unlocked Suspicious Companion class, would you like to take it?]

Vee shook his head, but resolved to keep a wary eye on Reginald from then on.

[Wit +1]

Another compensation point, eh? Well, that was pretty nice. Putting his hands in his pockets, he started walking across the wide market square. The day was still young, and perhaps they could find some reasonable work at the adventurer’s guild.

As they walked, they saw a massive gate made of scrap metal and lumber. Two people clad in armor that look like Maryanne’s stood guard in front of it, though their faces were obscured by fancy helmets. They carried ornate spears, and Vee wondered if they’d answer him if he went over and tried to talk to them.

Behind the gate were empty streets and buildings that looked like they were on the verge of falling down at any moment. It was hard to see through the gaps in the scrap gate though, so Vee couldn’t make out much more than that.

“That must be the barrier out of Northtown,” Alforde said. “It’s funny. I don’t see the sign that Cris mentioned. Do you think that they took it down?”

Vee looked, and he didn’t see any big sign warning people to stay away either. That was weird. Cris had sounded so dismissive when he’d said it that Vee genuinely expected it to be there. Weird.

They continued on for another block or two, and then Vee saw the massive red building that had to be the adventurer’s guild. It took up almost its entire block, and there were multiple entrances and exits. Each were marked by statues of mighty beasts. Vee and Alforde stopped in front of a chimera statue, and Vee took a deep breath.

“Let’s go find some work, eh?”

“Maybe they’ll give me a hammer!” said Alforde.

Vee grinned at his friend and went to open the door.

Only to stop at the sight of the prettiest girl he’d ever seen in his life.

She was slightly shorter than he was – which was pretty impressive given his…limited…stature – and was dressed in an orange and black striped shirt and billowing skirt over striped pants. She wore boots that looked and sounded heavy, and there was a tiny pumpkin emblem resting on the brim of her hat.

Over her shoulder was slung a heavy gray mail bag. Vee recognized it from his own short stint working as a mail carrier back home. She was carrying an unfurled scroll, and was mumbling to herself as she read its contents.

“Reward: 40 silver fleurs. That’s really not much, for clearing two blocks, but it’ll have to do I guess.”

Her blue eyes widened at the sight of Vee and Alforde, and the [Ghost Maestro] felt his heartbeat speed up at the same time.

“Excuse me,” she said as she hurried past.

“Hey,” he managed to mumble as she walked by. His brain caught up a second later and he turned around. That wasn’t the right thing to say. “I’m Vee!” he called after her. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She turned back and though she looked a little confused, as they hadn’t really met per se, she smiled back at him. “I’m Luna,” she said. Then, without another word she returned her attention to her scroll and left. Vee watched her go.

Alforde gave him a playful tap on the shoulder. “Come on, Vee. Let’s go look for some real work.”

Vee shook his head, feeling like his eyes were stuck in place, and then hurried to regain his composure. He led Alforde into the adventurer’s guild, and the door closed with a heavy thunk behind them.

Stat Sheets

Vee Vails:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 13

Secondary Class: None

Might: 6

Wit: 19 (+1)

Faith: 11

Adventurousness: 4

Ambition: 3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Clunker (Vee Vails), Level 9

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vails), level 7

Tertiary Class (Aspirational): Hammer Afficionado (Self)

Might: 13

Wit: 10

Faith: 20

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vails): 3

Reginald:

Primary Class: Core Spirit (Unknown), Level ???

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 26

Might: 1

Wit: 24

Faith: 2

Ambition: 18

Greed: 15

Deceptiveness: 37 (-1)

[OTHER STATS BLOCKED AND HIDDEN BY OR------]