Though he’d told Vee that he was going to stand guard with the orchestra in case any wild fiends attacked, Alforde had other plans in mind. After descending the thirteen floors of the tower and stepping out into the night, Alforde nodded at the members of Vee’s orchestra and kept going.

Earlier that day, when they’d been exploring, Alforde had thought that he’d heard something. It was a strange thing, a quiet voice that seemed both scratchy and soft at the same time. It reminded him a little bit of Reginald. He’d first heard it in the abandoned forge, but had dismissed it as a trick of the wind. However, when the same thing happened in each subsequent building, Alforde had no choice but to think that it wasn’t just a breeze blowing through a window or something.

He’d tried to make out the words it was saying, but hadn’t been able to. Asking Vee for help hadn’t really been an option either. The bond he shared with the [Ghost Maestro] meant that he always had a decent idea of his friend’s emotions, and the last thing Alforde had wanted to do was add to the knot of stress and worry rattling around Vee’s skull. Even now, Alforde could feel his friend’s anger and frustration so keenly that it might as well have been his own.

The experience had shaken him, and he wanted to see if he could find the source of the voice for himself. So, stumbling through the dark, he retraced the path he and Vee had taken earlier. Alforde lingered in each shop for a few minutes and waited for the sound to echo around inside his helmet. When none came, Alforde slumped forward and decided to wander around for a little while before returning to the tower.

He didn’t know what to do, but was still restless enough that he felt he had to do something, and so he followed his feet, trusting that they’d lead him to wherever he was meant to be. He was a little bit superstitious that way. Vee might rail against the idea of Fate, but Alforde wholeheartedly believed that sometimes the world nudged you in the direction of its own choosing, and gave you a good shove if you weren’t getting there fast enough.

His boots led him to the gate, and for a long time he just stood in front of it, looking up at the top and listening to the sounds of the city. The normal rhythms of nightlife that he’d grown quite fond of – steps and laughter and yelling and music – had been interrupted by the discordant sounds of shouts and violence and Alforde didn’t like it one bit.

Stupid mafia. He’d read plenty of books about organized crime over the years and he’d always enjoyed them. Heck, their code of honor and loyalty to one another had inspired his own ideals about what it meant to be a [Right Hand Man]. Even though the books always – always – ended with betrayal and death, Alforde did his best to ignore that fact and focused on the early parts of the stories where everyone talked about rules and family and all those things that really resonated with him instead.

He couldn’t imagine any of those things being talked about just then. He’d read books about senseless violence too, and what he heard in the city that night seemed far more like that than it did the well-mannered, well-dressed crime epics that he remembered.

A burning filled his chest as his restlessness turned into rashness. In that moment, listening to the shriek of skills and rage that filled the air, Alforde decided that he was going to Do Something About It. What exactly that was, he had no idea. That was fine. Vee made it up as he went all the time, and things seemed to work out okay for him, right?

He paused for a moment. Was this urge to act truly his own? Or was it a reflection of the feelings Vee was having just then? Normally it was pretty easy for the armorsoul to keep his thoughts separate from his friend’s, but just then he could feel his carefully cultivated mental barriers collapsing and couldn’t discern the gaps between the threads.

It didn’t matter if it was his own idea or not. He was going. Raising a gauntlet, Alforde knocked on the gate three times and waited. No response. The little slit didn’t open, and no [City Guards] asked him to identify himself. That was fine, they were probably too busy to pay attention to what was beyond the gate, what with the constant fighting in the city and all.

However, that also meant that his plan had hit a rather significant snag. He couldn’t get into the city, which was not fine. He looked at the patchwork construction of the gate, and saw that there were several big pieces of metal and wood jutting out far enough that he could clamber up them to the top. Maybe. If he was lucky.

Reaching out and taking hold of one big bit of wood, Alforde pulled himself up off the ground a little bit. The gate creaked a little, but his new perch was sturdy as could be as Alforde stood up on it. Confident that he wasn’t about to go tumbling to the ground, the armorsoul slowly climbed up higher and higher. However, when he was near the top, he was stopped by a voice. It was the same scratchy voice that he’d heard in the shops!

“Do not cross this gate until tomorrow morning. Or better yet, afternoon. Your desire to try and fix things speaks well of you, but you still lack the strength to accomplish what you wish. To be a champion is to be patient. Return to your friend, to your post. The conflict inside the city is already winding down. This is nothing more than its death-rattle, and tomorrow you will see that life is almost back to normal.”

Alforde turned left and right and saw nothing, but then looked up and saw a silvery figure standing atop the gate. It was draped in a long flowing robe, and the armorsoul couldn’t see its features. Hanging from its belt was a long, wicked sword that Alforde feared for reasons he couldn’t articulate.

“Who are you?”

The figure laughed and then bounded away and vanished into the night. As the last tendrils of its silver robe disappeared into the shadows, Alforde heard a whisper in his thoughts. “An echo. A memory. A friend, perhaps. We will meet again. See that you look upon yourself and grow stronger before then. [Be at Ease].”

Standing there, Alforde felt as if he’d been thrown into a pool of frigid water. All of the emotions that had burned so bright only moments ago were gone, leaving nothing behind but their ashes.

Even if he hadn’t been best friends with a [Ghost Maestro] for years, the armorsoul would have known that he’d just been visited by something that was definitely not mortal. Now, unlike Vee, Alforde wasn’t much for brooding on possibilities, and so he simply took the advice he’d been given and climbed back down to the ground. Thankfully, getting down was easier than going up had been.

When his boots touched the street, Alforde felt…oddly hollow. Well, emotionally hollow, anyways. Due to the fact that he was simply a spirit possessing a suit of armor, he was always physically hollow (unless Vee was using him as a suitcase of sorts).

Spinning Hammy back and forth in his gauntlets, Alforde returned to the tower, where he stood guard with the orchestra until sunlight. No fiends came, and he had plenty of time to ruminate on the being’s words.

See that you look upon yourself and grow stronger before then. What could that mean?

Then it hit him like a hammer.

The mirror!

[Vigilance +1]

[Endurance +1]

***

Vee wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep or how long he’d been out, but the sun was high in the sky when Alforde shook him awake.

“Hey bud, wake up.”

Blinking his eyes, Vee looked around wildly until his mind caught up and he remembered the events of the night before. In front of him was the third mannequin, its limbs and joints all reinforced with ectoplasm so that it was ready to be animated. He checked over his handiwork, and other than a few small twists of ectoplasm that weren’t as tight as they should have been, he was pleased to see that he’d done a pretty decent job. The mannequin would need a costume, but he’d have vendors to sell consumables real soon.

“What time is it?”

“Just after noon,” said Alforde. He tapped his boot on the ground and shifted a little bit. It was a gesture Vee had seen many times throughout the years, and it meant that his friend had something big on his mind.

“What is it, Alforde?”

“Um..it’s just…I mean…well, uh…Have you decided on which perk to take for Crestheart yet?”

Vee drummed his fingers on the desk. “I’m leaning towards taking the golem. Having the—”

Alforde slapped his gauntlets on the desk.

“Take the mirror. Vee, please. You know I rarely ask for anything. Do me this favor, would you?”

There was an intensity in Alforde’s voice that surprised Vee. Normally, Alforde was the type to make a suggestion a few times and then adapt as need be if things didn’t go his way. For him to suddenly be so insistent was peculiar. Vee pried a little bit, and Alforde explained his encounter with the robed figure and his belief that the last bit of the being’s advice referred to the mirror.

Vee was intrigued. “What sort of creature do you think it was?”

Alforde shrugged. “Some sort of spirit or ghost, I think, but I really can’t say for sure. That’s definitely more of your area of expertise than mine. The voice kind of reminded me of Reginald, though.”

Rubbing his temples, Vee thought about all the things it could have been. It didn’t sound like a fiend, but there were dozens of ghosts and spirits that it could have been. Ugh. Another thing to think about and pay attention to.

Vee’s [Big Picture] kicked in and he felt his urge to dwell on the details dwindling away. He didn’t have the energy for it just then. Besides, whatever this thing was, it had revealed itself to Alforde and would probably do so again. He could simply put it out of his mind until then. That made sense, right?

Deciding that it did, Vee clapped his hands together and stood up.

“Alright, let’s go tell Dheart that we’re taking the Cloudy Mirror,” Vee said.

[Congratulations, you are now a Dungeon Master Level 9!]

[Your Budgeting skill is now more powerful.]

[Your Excellent Spreadsheet skill has learned new functions!]

[Leadership +1]

***

Reginald didn’t seem to mind that they’d chosen the mirror over the golem. Having been deprived of company other than Dheart for an excruciating handful of hours, the hat sat on the table where Vee had left him the night before and chattered their ears off about all the things he’d thought about during the night. Without exception, they were meaningless drivel, and Vee twirled his finger over and over until the spirit got the point and finally shut up.

However, his silence was short-lived. When Alforde explained his encounter with the robed figure atop the gate, Reginald made a hissing sound and spluttered. It wasn’t possible for a hat to pale, but one would have been forgiven for thinking that Reginald turned a slightly grayer shade of blue for just a moment.

Alforde leaned forward. “What’s with that reaction? Do you know something about the robed figure?”

Before Reginald could answer, Vee turned his head to the side and muttered “[Detect Falsehood], [Detect Lie].”

“It’s an old rumor,” the hat finally said. “A long time ago, there was a series of mysterious thefts that plagued the city. Some people who’d been robbed described seeing a robed figure fleeing their homes and offices, carrying a sword that scared them from giving chase. No one ever caught the thief, and after the robberies stopped people just figured that the culprit moved on.”

Vee frowned. “That doesn’t seem to justify such a reaction though. Is that really all you know about it?”

Reginald met his gaze. “Sure is, boss.”

A sound like a teakettle whistling pierced Vee’s thoughts. He wasn’t sure if it was [Detect Falsehood] or [Detect Lie], but something wasn’t adding up about the hat’s story.

“Are you positive?”

Reginald seemed to notice the change in Vee’s tone, because he shifted around a bit and said, “Well, there’s a few other things but I didn’t think they were too important. In the years since the thief vanished, people would occasionally see a silver figure on the rooftops where the old thief had once struck. They thought it was a copycat or something at first, but there weren’t any other robberies or crimes, so most folks just figured it was a trick of some kind. Other people insisted that it was the ghost of this old folk hero that used to protect a [Wizard] around these parts. I don’t know anything else. When Maluw sealed me in that core everything went wonky. There might have been something about the people who saw the figure all dying a short time later too, but I can’t say for sure. My memories are full of jumbled old crap like that.”

The shriek in Vee’s thoughts quieted and he decided to let the matter drop. He noted that Reginald seemed relieved, and filed that information away for later. When the mysterious figure appeared next, maybe there’d be a way to ensure that Reginald was around so that he could see if there was anything else there that his skill hadn’t sussed out.

In the meantime, he had a perk to take, and did so with Dheart’s help.

“Your Cloudy Mirror will arrive in approximately three days,” the dungeon heart said. “Would you prefer for it to be delivered here or to the boarding house where you normally stay?”

“Here,” said Vee. “We don’t know when we’re going to be able to get back into the city, since it’s impossible to tell when this mess between Sacre and the Don will get cleaned up.”

Dheart gurgled and beeped a few more times and then that was that. The perk had been decided.

For the next few hours, they stayed inside the office and talked to one another, until a knock at the door startled them and got their attention.

“Mail delivery!”

Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 21

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 9 (+1)

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 2

Might: 8

Wit: 28

Faith: 16

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 9

Plotting: 10

Charisma: 3

Devious Mind: 12

Leadership: 10 (+1)

Guts: 3

Intimidating Presence: 4

Citizenship: 5

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 17

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 10

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 10

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 5

Might: 29

Wit: 10

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 6

Endurance: 10 (+1)

Intimidating Presence: 8

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 2

Vigilance: 3 (+1)

Reginald:

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 33

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 6

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 2

Might: 1

Wit: 27

Faith: 3

Ambition: 23

Greed: 18

Deceptiveness: 31

[email protected]$: $%

[-------------------------]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 2