[Sneak Assassin] Jeryll Birr slipped his head out of the alley, taking in the sight of the execution being prepared. He’d been a little worried that the boy hadn’t been killed outright, or that the guilders would believe him when he denied killing the [Diviner]. But a public execution was an even better outcome than he'd hoped for. Morale should be nice and low among Misceteria’s guilders before the delve.

Internally, he congratulated himself as the mayor raised an enormous axe. And to think that the other two had mocked him for having a lower INT score than them! Hopefully, they were just as successful on their own missions in the neighbouring towns.

The main target and challenge remained, of course. The mayor was high-level and looked like he might have a CON-boosting class. But with the diviner gone, Jeryll’s [Invisibility] felt more like invincibility. He afforded himself a chuckle. He would simply slip into the obelisk chamber undetected and run the man through a couple of times, as quickly as possible, with his [Phantom Lance]. Well, he’d have to kill off the healers first. A plan came to mind: after offing them, he could disguise himself as one of them to get close at a time where the mayor might already be injured. It was almost too easy.

The healers should be trivial to deal with. As he’d known well before he bludgeoned that stupid [Diviner] to death, almost all non-combat specialists were far too accustomed to hiding behind their betters to pick up any good defences or stat upgrades. He’d brought along a couple of protective trinkets in case he got caught, anyway.

His attention turned back to the execution. It appeared that the guildmistress had become involved in proceedings. She seemed pissed. Jeryll snorted. It was a good thing she usually lead the ranging parties and he wouldn't have to deal with her. She would be nicely out of the way when he seized the obelisk chamber.

The guildmistress was clearly into theatrics; floating in the air as she was. From his position in the alley, Jeryll could only faintly make out her words. Sure, he’d applied [Disguise Self] with the last of his MP, but it never hurt to be careful in this line of work. It was why he’d come back to verify the job was done, and also why he wasn't moving any closer.

He felt a little bit bad for the boy he'd framed. He must be petrified! The air itself seemed to be heating up with the fury of the guildmistress. Was it this bad everywhere in the square? It felt as if the air right next to him were humming— wait—

There was a flash of brilliant, searing white, and the assassin felt his HP plummet to 0/110. Not even a second later, former [Sneak Assassin] Jeryll Birr had been hurled backwards by his own muscle contortions, his body reduced to a charred, smoking corpse. His defensive trinkets, never activated, lay there with him. The fight was over before it began.

It took a few hours to calm the scene in the square down. Most of the townspeople had fled in terror after the initial strike, and Berin had had to heal a couple whose hearing and sight had been damaged by the colossal bolt of lightning. Edrick hadn’t helped matters by immediately leaping after the bolt with his axe in hand, prepared to finish off anything that might still be standing. He needn’t have bothered.

But by now the word had spread: there’d been an infiltrator, probably a foreign agent, in the town. He’d killed Eliza. The newcomer was innocent. The market square was abuzz with the gossip, good news and bad.

The news of Eliza’s death had hit some harder than others. She hadn’t been a popular woman, but the sight of her elderly father coming to collect the body with tears streaming down his face terrified Alex more than anything he’d seen so far.

These are real people.

“I was so… proud of her,” the man had sobbed in the guild’s hall. “Told her to pick a support class so that she could stay safe… stay behind the others.”

Edrick, in a display of empathy that further surprised Alex, had wrapped his meaty arm around the man and led him away, talking kindly.

It probably isn’t the first time he’s had to do this.

Alex remembered how cavalier he’d been about no longer having a family or friends who cared about him. He still missed them deeply, but at a time like this he couldn’t help but feel a little glad that they weren’t here with him. This new world was terrifying in its own way.

And there’s only one way around that. Power. I’m going to go into that dungeon and I’m going to pick the best damn skills anyone around here has seen in years.

…then I’m going to find some people worth using them for.

Being honest with himself, he felt a little disconnected from the local population. Berin was nice but a bit of a chump, and he felt he barely knew Isabelle. The mayor and guildmistress were too busy and out of his league to chat to casually – even if he’d enjoyed the thrill of planning this morning’s trap with them in that cramped office.

Plus, they pretty much admitted that their country swooped in and colonised this land after a mutual war with a third party. No wonder they’re getting assassins decades later.

Even now, the pair of them were leading a search effort across the town to root out any other unknown reborn. They’d brought a couple of guilders with them, most of whom had inconvenient but functional skills capable of interacting visibly with auras.

A couple remained at the guild with Alex, and Amaz led him back to his room so he could collect his armour. It still hadn’t been cleaned properly. He turned away as Alex changed out of his robe, which was covered in sweat and a small amount of Eliza's sprayed blood. Then he helped out with the armour, showing Alex how to equip it about five times more efficiently than he’d managed last time. It turned out that adjusting the straps correctly did a lot to mitigate chafing.

Finally, Alex knelt beside his bed and pinched the tiny emerald out from where he’d wedged it under the frame.

“What’s that?” Amaz had asked.

Alex saw no point in keeping any more secrets at this point, and so explained the emerald’s origin as well as he could.

“Huh. You must have done well in that challenge. A skill and a treasure!”

Regardless of the restrictions, Alex didn't even want to admit that the treasure had been compensation for a piece of technology with more value than likely anything in the entire guild hall. The thought was depressing. “…yeah. I guess I must have.” He paused. “Any idea what an emerald of this size is actually worth?”

Amaz walked over for a closer look, and his eyes widened slightly as he peered at it. “Not bad, kid. Better than anything we harvest in this town. You could probably buy a steel weapon with that!”

Unfortunately for Alex’s weapon-buying plans, he was restricted to the guild building for the day. Eleanor had assigned Amaz to watch him, and both reborn guilders and non-reborn staff were stationed all around the building at checkpoints designed to thwart stealth skills. In many places, the floor had been deliberately wet so that intruders would leave footprints. There was a net of threads covering the entrance to Eleanor’s own quarters.

On account of his instant death, the assassin had never divulged whether there were others in the town, so naturally every precaution was being taken. This absolutely ruined Alex's shopping plans, and he found himself simply lounging in the guild hall as the hours went by. Technically, he was assisting the defenders by keeping the main door in his field of vision. Not all of the guilders knew about his [True Sight] and Alex planned to keep it that way, but Amaz had approved of the idea.

It was mid-afternoon when Eleanor returned, and even later when she finally asked to see him. Amaz seemed relieved to be off babysitting duty, and informed Alex that he was off to have a nap and recover his spent MP.

For what felt like the millionth time this week, Alex stood before a desk in an office. But for the first time this week, someone had provided him a chair. Progress, I guess.

The guildmistress was writing something, and he waited politely for her to finish. After a minute she put the pen down and turned to him. “Do you have any affiliation at all with the nation of Lynath?”

Huh?

Alex’s confusion must have been visible on his face, because the guildmistress seemed to note it and continue.

“I thought not.” She sighed. “Fucking gods.”

They really don’t like the gods around here, do they?

The guildmistress, looking exhausted, reached into her desk drawer. She withdrew three things: a ring, a small tablet inscribed with glyphs, and a simple string necklace with three grey beads entangled into it. All three had auras, which Alex took to mean that they were somehow enchanted.

“This,” Eleanor said, pointing at the tablet, “is a Lynathi message tablet. They have an [Artificer] of some sort in their capital who can make them. Snap it, and a message sends from any distance. I don’t suppose you can read the glyphs?”

Alex leant forward, examining the surface of the tablet. The sight made his head swim. Like those in his challenge, these glyphs were inscrutable, swimming with power. “Nope.”

The guildmistress snorted. “I thought not. You were already too damn lucky with your challenge anyway. Reading empowered glyphs without a matching class would be too much to hope for.”

Alex kept his thoughts to himself and continued to sit politely. Clearly, the guildmistress was going somewhere with all of this.

“I’d like to thank you for your role in things. This could have been a disaster for the town, although as usual, Edrick is too proud to admit it. I realise that the role you played couldn’t have been easy. You did an admirable job keeping calm given the circumstances." She paused, idly playing with the quill on her desk. "It’s also come to my attention that you have a fairly sizeable emerald in your possession. The sort of thing that you’d be hard-pressed to sell in a dinky town like Linosa.”

Alex opened his mouth to reply, but the guildmistress kept talking, waving him down.

“So here’s what I’m offering. You can have these.” She pointed at the necklace and the ring on the table, withdrawing the message tablet. “They’re nothing special. The ring gives a simple ten percent to DEX, and the beads on the necklace contain bound [Smoke Screen] charges. Decent gear, especially for a level zero rookie like yourself. Edrick and I already have much better, of course. But I can use the gem.”

She flexed her hand, flashing two sapphire rings which seemed to crackle with electricity. Then, to Alex’s delight, she reached into her drawer again, withdrawing a small pouch which she plonked onto the table.

“I’ll also throw in this [Coin Pouch]. They’re a common item, but I suspect that with your LCK stat you’ll be unlikely to find one. It should allow you to store any wealth you find in the depths much more conveniently. The guild trades in its own credit, of course, but you can exchange any coins you find when the delve ends.”

“Is this deal fair?” Alex asked, a bit stupidly. The parade of magic items was making him giddy, and he was no negotiator.

I have no fucking clue what the economy is like in this world. What are the exchange rates? Just how rare are gems?

The guildmistress sighed and leaned back in her chair. “More than fair, actually. I’m giving you a discount because you helped out. You can ask around if you’d like to verify that. Now – I need to get some MP back before the delve begins. Do we have a deal or not?” She leaned forward again and extended a hand, palm up.

Fighting a grin, Alex dropped his emerald into her outstretched palm before sweeping up the items on the table. He only had one more question.

“Did you say a percentage bonus?”

Ring of Lesser Dexterity

16th, bound, uncommon

An enchanted steel ring.

+10% DEX

Coin Pouch

3rd, common

A basic spatial pouch for holding coins. Concentrate to transfer coins between your palm and the pouch.

Capacity for 513 gold.

Bound Skill: [Smokescreen]

artifice, uncommon

Break to activate the stored skill.

[Smokescreen]: Blankets an area with radius 13.2m in thick black smoke, limiting visibility.

As it turned out, there was a limit to the number of bound items one could have equipped. The only ways to unbind items were to either kill the wearer (preserving the item) or to destroy the item (preserving the wearer and freeing up a slot). That limit apparently depended on one’s class but was one for the unclassed and three for almost all other classes.

What’s more, only one item could affect one stat at a time. There would be no stacking compounding bonuses ad infinitum, unfortunately. Eleanor had actually laughed at Alex when he’d asked. Apparently, the fantasy of stacking items was a common misconception among the non-reborn even in this world.

She had noted that item bonuses could compound with class bonuses, which apparently also acted as multipliers on base stats. She’d ignored Alex’s follow-up questions, shooing him away to go bother Berin or Isabelle instead. At least she’d solved one problem he’d had in his head.

I wasn’t quite sure what the point of classes was except to guide skill progression.

The necklace with the beads was already jangling comfortably around his neck. Looking down at the ring in his hand, Alex made the snap decision to slide it onto his right index finger, where it fit snugly. He could feel the item in the back of his mind, and as if accepting a prompt in his head, decided to bind it.

I don’t have time to sell it, and it seems useful. DEX is one of my better stats, anyway.

He asked a couple of the non-reborn guards manning one of the hallway checkpoints if they’d seen Berin anywhere. It was there that he learnt that most of the reborn were either resting or planning in preparation for the delve. Apparently, the summons to the depths would occur at midnight, and no one wanted to go in with less than full HP, SP, and MP. In fact, the guards seemed confused that he wasn’t also resting or in preparation.

“It’ll be your first delve, boy. I mean, neither of us have been, but we’ve heard the stories. You need to be rested up!”

Fuck. Forgot to ask Eleanor if I could move to a different room.

Eliza's body had long since been relocated, but his room still stank of blood and gore. So Alex went to the mess hall instead, where he sat and pulled up the stat table in his mind for the first time in a while.

Alexander James Patel Overview Affiliations Linosa Town Level 0 Class None Status HP 120/120 SP 70/70 MP 150/150 Attributes STR 11 CON 12 DEX 14.3 END 7 INT 17 WIS 15 LCK 0

The ring seemed to be working, which was a relief. Alex even felt a little more agile for it, his reflexes slightly quicker. He was somewhat relieved that his score bonuses didn’t round up or down. I wonder how many decimal points this interface can show. He supposed that if he survived for long enough he might find out.

Taking the ring off removed the bonus, but didn’t seem to unbind the item. Best not to lose it, I guess. I wonder what ‘affiliation’ in the stat table does. It seems odd that the town would show up like that.

Without anyone around to ask questions of it wasn’t long before Alex began to get bored. The chairs in the mess hall were uncomfortable and there was no-one else in the room. A couple people had come in and out for mugs of water, and there was a bowl of fruits in the corner of the room that seemed communal. He’d asked, and one stranger had told him that tonight's meal would be later; right before the summons.

In the meantime, Alex decided to pick at one of the strange fruits. It looked a little like an apple, but with a skin that was more purple than red and far softer. It felt like a peach, juicy in his mouth... but it lacked the same explosive flavour. It was a bit watery, to be honest.

Alex missed his phone. Now would have been the perfect time to play a game or browse social media. He’d also settle for a good book.

Wait – they might have books here. That’d be interesting!

So after a while spent lounging in the hall, experiencing medieval bathroom facilities, and eating more strange fruit, Alex left the mess hall in search of a library. Isabelle hadn’t mentioned one on yesterday’s tour, but he’d seen one or two books in Eleanor’s office. There had to be one somewhere!

He made his way back to the guard post and asked the man who’d advised him to rest earlier. He was rewarded with a strange look.

“A library? This isn’t the capital, kid.”

I guess that was a bit much to hope for.

Alex almost turned to go, but then had an idea. “Are they any books I could read? I'm really bored and don't know much.” He didn’t need much, after all. Just something to keep him busy for the next few hours before the meal and the summons. He was getting nervous and fidgety, and the distraction would be a perfect way to rest.

The guard seemed to consider. “I mean, just the boring ones. Reborn like you should’ve already read them. I’m sure someone would have a copy of Histories of the Gods somewhere in the guild. The schoolhouse might have a couple of storybooks, but we’re still on lockdown. If you’re really desperate, the secretary in the main hall might let you go over the guild’s skill manual. Most first-timers spend hours with it.”

Alex turned to run towards the main hall the moment he heard the words ‘skill manual’. Perfect.

As it turned out, the receptionist was unable to provide the full skill manual. Apparently, that was the private property of the guildmistress. What she had given him was a shorter, public version. Where the full version contained the skill progressions and classes of every guilder in Linosa’s history, this version contained only the histories of those who had consented to make their information available for training... and those who had died.

It made sense to Alex. There was obviously some culture of secrecy around scores and abilities, perhaps because of how easily it would be to make assumptions around them. He wondered what elections, sporting competitions, or job interviews would have been like on Earth if every participant had a number describing how good they were at the activity. The results had the potential to be downright dystopian.

But Alex couldn't complain. Even the limited, public copy of the skill manual had more than enough to keep him occupied for hours. He sat at a table in the main hall, the receptionist at the main desk keeping a watchful eye on the manual. He wouldn’t be allowed to leave her sight with it, especially after the morning’s security scare. The main door to the guild was closed and barred right now. Guards would check anyone who entered the complex and take anti-invisibility precautions.

The windows were shuttered, but through them Alex could see the market around the main square had died down by now. It would resume in three days, at the end of the delve where the reborn of Linosa would return with valuable new resources.

But that wasn’t Alex’s priority right now. Instead, he dove into the book. He learnt a couple of interesting things over the next few hours, breaking occasionally to ask the receptionist his questions. Despite being non-reborn, the woman had worked with the guild for years and was fairly knowledgeable.

On the fifth floor, a reborn would gain their first skill with certainty. Incredibly rare drops meant it could theoretically happen before then, but never reliably. The zeroth floor would occasionally also yield skills, but usually they would be strange ones and there wasn’t much record of them in the public manual. Alex noted one guilder from seven years ago called Annika. She’d left the zeroth floor with a complete immunity to toxins. Unfortunately, she appeared to have died since – there was a small X next to her name, along with a date that his glyphic intuition translated to represent around six years ago. She’d died on her second delve.

The fire mage Iril’s skill progression was included in its entirety, for which Alex was incredibly grateful. She was level twenty-five, making her the highest-ranking guilder in the book. The guildmistress, of course, was not listed.

He noted that at level twenty-five, she’d actually upgraded an existing skill. [Lesser Pyrokinesis] had become [Basic Pyrokinesis]. Alex wondered why someone with pyrokinesis would need secondary skills like [Flame Cloak] or [Firebolt] and resolved to find Iril and ask her during the meal before the summons.

Alex focused on the fifth-floor skills listed. Berin and Isabelle had told him that the treasure rooms usually offered a choice between several, offered on the basis of performance. If he could familiarise himself with a couple now, then he could start planning a strong class progression.

Hmmmmm. [Magic Missile] looked cool. [Lesser Geomancy]? He found that one under Amaz’s name. Some skills read like they enhanced the body passively – [Perfect Balance], [Barkskin], and [Intuition] were all common listings, with a few upgrading the second to [Ironskin]. But it was difficult to tell what each one meant without descriptions. The receptionist knew a couple, but far from all of them. She’d only been working here three years, she’d explained.

Most of the completed skill progressions in the book belonged to the dead. Apparently, the head of the guild would transfer someone’s progression from the master copy into the public copy when they died. As a system, it made sense. But it also meant that the most successful guilders wouldn't be listed. According to the receptionist, they usually came to Linosa on rotation before moving along to larger towns or the capital after reaching the twenties.

By the time that people began emerging from their rooms for the pre-delve meal, Alex had located a couple of rare and interesting options. One guilder twelve years ago had been offered a bonus bound item slot instead of a skill. A larger number had been offered base stat upgrades as substitutes. Importantly, Alex also learnt that most classes would apply a set of multipliers to one's base stats. The base [Rogue] class, for instance, gave +20% to DEX and +10% to INT. Most classes carried negative multipliers to some stats which offset bonuses to others. A balance of around +20% total seemed typical for a level five class.

Eventually, the receptionist, whose name was Kiara, walked over to him. “You’d better go eat. Dinner’s started and it’s the only good meal you’ll get before the delve. Come on. I need to close the building up, anyway.”

Reluctantly, Alex handed back the book. He could have spent days working out a class progression, but it looked like this was the best he’d get. It would all depend on what he was offered, anyway. He thanked Kiara, and then headed down toward the noise coming from the mess hall. He still had those questions for Iril.

The meal was delicious; some sort of salted meat. The guild had been feeding Alex a largely vegetarian diet so far, with a rushed breakfast that morning and no lunch. He looked down at the strange vegetables and mystery meat on his plate with a hunger he hadn’t felt since back on Earth. He was almost too busy shovelling food into his mouth to ask Iril the questions he’d had.

“Knowing the skill glyphs for [Firebolt] and [Flame Cloak] lets me use them much more efficiently and at a lower level,” she’d explained around a mouthful of her own food. Alex had seated himself opposite the fire mage, who looked to be around his own age. “Sure, a level fifty [Pyromancer] might be able to come up with the glyph for [Firebolt] on their own or intuit it if they know [Fireball]. But something like [Flame Cloak] would empty my MP in seconds if I tried to maintain it with the level of control that [Basic Pyrokinesis] gives me.”

Flames danced along her fingers briefly. Unlike many of the guilders, Iril seemed to have no compunctions about displaying her ability. Interestingly, she didn’t seem to need to vocalise the skill.

I guess she’s a fire mage, and a pretty promising one. Not much to be kept secret with that skill progression, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Iril was significantly less scary now than she’d been twenty-four hours ago, when she and Amaz had all but smashed down the door to Alex's room. Alex found himself getting on with her, and she introduced him properly to a couple of the other guilders at their table. It was nice to kick back a bit, and Alex was finally beginning to appreciate what day-to-day life might be like in the guild. Even Berin seemed cheery in the atmosphere of nervous excitement that permeated the hall.

But the peace couldn’t last. The conversations around the room were interrupted by the sound of the guildmistress tapping a fork on a glass. She'd stood up from her own table at the end of the hall, where Edrick had joined her.

“In under an hour,” Eleanor announced over the resulting hush, “we will be embarking on a delve. Clean up your plates, everyone. It’s time we got to the final preparations.”