“The clock-engineer lives on top of the hill, on the other side of the Wastelands, in neutral territory, and by the Fallen Kingdom. A ruin of clock-constructs belonging to the dawn of our era, the Third Era. It hosts a Dungeon so terribly hard that delvers only delve the outskirts of it.”

“What do you mean by the Third Era?” Alistar asked me.

“Oh, that’s as far as my knowledge goes. I’m only telling you what the clock-engineer always says to me. The man is nuts by all standards. But I don’t believe there is anyone as good as him with clock tech, outside of the City, of course,” I answered.

We had left Murkstall and Murk mountain range behind and were heading to the hills, leaving the Wastelands at our backs and entering the neutral territory, where green plains and hills were free for everybody to explore. For a reason.

The Wastelands belonged to the City, to Sundoor. However, the only obligation they felt toward it was swiping the monsters when the Lunar Eclipse multiplied Shadelings’ appearance by a hundredfold or the Solar Eclipse drove them crazy. Anything else didn't seem to be their problem, it wasn’t their business, just as slave traders didn't seem to be.

The Fallen Kingdom plains were choke-full or Flow creatures by the day and terrible Shadelings by night. The eradication efforts had always been in vain, given the nature of the Dungeon.

“I think I’m going to like this fellow. What did you say his name was again?”

“Logan. Logan Raive. Nova can barely stand him,” I said, trying to draw my sister in our talks.

She had come with us, although I tried to convince her to rest.

Nova had spent the whole night healing villagers, not resting for one minute. Thankfully her newest Perk allowed her to regain Stamina faster at night or with Shade present, but that did not mean she was endless.

In fact, I checked her condition with Trace; it was not optimal.

Nova Nightfold, Rogue Level 9, Mender Level 26

Health: 87%

Stamina: 39%

Agility: Intermediate

Constitution: Intermediate-Moderate

Strength: Low-Intermediate

Focus: Intermediate

Perception: Very Low-Low

Willpower: Intermediate-Moderate

Strengths: Flow Shield, Willpower, Loke Nightfold

Weaknesses: Strength, Focus, Loke Nightfold

Race: Human

Sex: Female

Height: 162 cm

Weight: 47 kg

Age: 12

Origins: Unknown, Murkstall

Family: Eleanor Goldspark-Nightfold, Faris Nightfold, Loke Nightfold

My reaction when I felt her Tracing was complex.

I was shocked to understand that she considered me both her Strength and Weakness, but what worried me most was her status; she was too low for my likings in both Health and Stamina.

Other than that, I compared it to my own; Newtown Goldspark, Gramps. Wasn’t there anymore. I double-checked mine to be sure. He was not there.

I panicked for a little.

Did that mean that our parents were alive? No, I could not be certain.

If the Tracing showed our family and saw them, did that mean that their names were there because they were alive? Or was it because I knew and cared for them?

It was just speculation for now. I couldn’t think about it as a proper source of information. In fact, I decided not to speak of it with Nova. At least not until I had certainties.

Leaving that thought be, I focused on something else.

She should have stayed back, I thought to myself

I should have checked first and forced her to rest. But it was too late now. We were too far from home to send her back. Still, her silence worried me.

We had discovered about Gramps’ death only the previous day, and although I had had my time to prepare for the eventuality, she did not.

Nova trusted with all her heart that she would have healed him sooner rather than later.

I needed to give her time to mourn.

Maybe it was better that she had come with us.

We still had a few hours to go before we reached the clock engineer’s abode, and thankfully we had not yet met any Gnolls’ patrol or fastidious city scouts. We were proceeding at a steady pace and would get there in an hour or so.

The Sun was at its zenith when I first saw the house.

Lush fields of grass covered the lands. Rises gave in to basins, which rose into incongruently tall shapes once again. It was a place in which it was hard to walk; hiking was the exact term here. But it was beautiful.

The Fallen Kingdom’s plains were indeed a beautiful place to live, but not a peaceful one.

In contrast to our Drylands, the Plains bustled with Flowbornes, massive ones. I remember even seeing a Lightning-Phoenix once; although it seemed to be only passing by, it almost scared me to death.

Living here meant a lot. It meant that Logan was not as crazy as he looked. He must have had years of adventuring to build his house in a territory bordering with a Dungeon as dangerous as the Fallen Castle. And the more we hiked toward the tallest hill, where Logan Raive had built his shop-house, the more we could take in the dread that the Fallen Castle communicated to the onlookers.

There were massive cumulonimbuses on top of its tall towers darkening the place, and the forms of giant mech-creatures could be seen even from here, making rounds around it and swooping down like raptors in search of their prey.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” said Alistar. His slitted pupils glued to the dark peaks of the Castle. “This guy must have worms inside his brain to get his house in a place overlooking that!”

I chuckled, and even the silent Nova gave us the very first smile of the day.

Then I saw someone trying to scout us from the house. There was a binocular on her eyes.

“That’s Harlow. She’s the engineer’s daughter,” I uselessly, lowered my voice, “She’s weird, but she’s a nice one.”

“Oh…Nice, eh? How nice?” Alistar ogled me up and down.

“What? Not like that! Come on!”

“Right... you humans and your shame. Did you and her… eh?”

“We what?”

“Did you root, bed, sleep, bump uglies; did you cuddle?” He couldn't hold back laughter.

“What are you even talking about!? Of course we didn’t!” Looking at Nova; I did not find her as confused as I expected; I found her amused.

“No, they didn’t.” She answered for me, “Besides, the engineer would have probably skinned him alive.”

I had to convene. “Yeah. That could, indeed, happen.”

I turned my eyes back to Harlow; she was waving at us. We waved back, and I could see her jump in place. She seemed excited.

“She’s a peculiar one, too, isn’t she?” Alistar asked.

“Yep, just like her father and you.”

“I’m not peculiar, hummie. I’m special,” there was pride in his voice. And he managed to steal another chuckle from Nova.

I laughed too. Yes, Alistar healing from the Plague had probably been the best thing that happened to the village and us in these last few years.

While I thought that and saw Harlow gesturing us to move faster, it occurred to me to try out my new Perk. At what distance would it work? I could still not properly make out every part of her. Would it work that way? I would have my answers shortly.

I marked her with my ability.

There was no return.

Nothing came back or told me about her.

There was a range limit. At this point, there were two possibilities. The first one was that it had a fixed range and the second one... that it depended on my Perception. It was highly probable that it was the second one.

To make sure of it, I kept marking her every few paces until her features became fully clear in my sight. When she was clear as a day, but still we were quite far from her, the Tracing came back with my results.

Harlow Raive, Tinker Level 29, Clock-technician Level 38

Health: 100%

Stamina: 95%

Agility: Low-Intermediate

Constitution: Moderate-High

Strength: Moderate-High

Focus: Moderate-High

Perception: Very Low

Willpower: Intermediate-Moderate

Strengths: Constitution, Strength, Focus

Weaknesses: Perception

Race: Human

Sex: Female

Height: 178 cm

Weight: 63 kg

Age: 21

Origins: Unknown

Family: Logan Raive

Twenty-one? She was Twenty-one? I would have never given her that age, judging from her young visage and behavior. I expected her to be eighteen at best. Damn, shame on me, I never asked, considering… that I liked her ever since… well, ever.

“You want to know something weird?” I asked Nova.

“What?”

“Harlow is twenty-one. That’s sure surprising!”

“Oh, yeah,” her reaction was lackluster, but I could sense it wasn’t because of Gramps.

“You knew, didn’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Did you ask? If not, why do you care?”

“What kind of question is that!?” But then, Alistar, who seemed to have guessed something, whispered in Nova’s ear. And she giggled a yes.

“What? What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing. But I guess you are not the only one finding her nice. I think she might find you nice too.”

“I’m not following."

“Yes. You keep hunting, Loke. Let us handle the more… down to earth aspects of your life,” Alistar nudged a giggling Nova’s arm.

I felt I had a rough understanding of what was going on, but I was afraid to ask more; so, I simply let it slide.

“Do whatever you want,” I said in defeat.

“Loke! Nova!” Shouted Harlow, from afar, “Watch out for the web! The web at your feet!”

“What is she shouting about?” Asked our Kobold.

I was the only one with a high enough Perception to hearing her at that distance.

“Right. There is a grid that looks like a spider web all around the feet of the hill. It triggers lightning attacks if we don’t place our feet in the correct spots. Thankfully they are marked. So follow my steps, and try not to get it wrong. It is not lethal, but if you trigger it, you might have to go home with soiled pants.”

“I like my pants ocher, thank you."

The silver web, almost invisible to the eye, was intricate; it was made to trigger in all situations. It extended for a good fifty meters, and could only be crossed by walking in the correct spots.

It had been a while since they last turned it on. They might have incurred problems.

When we were finally out of it, we sped up toward Harlow.

“Loke!” She said, coming at us and taking Nova and me into a hug.

The girl, taller than me, was a bespectacled redhead, a trait peculiar to Outlanders, and something she might have taken from her mother, given that Logan hailed directly from the City, from Sundoor, from which he had been banished for one reason or another, most probably because he was born Shade-cursed.

Harlow wore leather armor covered in a metal framework of clock-tech. Her armor was bizarre, and it looked incomplete as if pieces of it had been detached on purpose. But if that were true, then the complete armor would have to be massive.

However, her armor could not hide her clock-hands.

Like me, she had lost something when she was young. She had been attacked by a monster before the net had been safely deployed around the house.

Her clock-arms extended from her shoulders. But unlike mine, her current ones were much more advanced; the fingers worked exactly like normal fingers would, if not better.

If my clock-arm was like that, it was because both the implant and the arm had to take into account my growth. She had stopped growing, so the engineer made her a complete one.

Hers was much harder, firmer, not detachable, if not when dismounted willingly or destroyed, and could effectively be used as a means of attack or defense.

I could bet my bow that she had some hidden weapons built inside of them.

“I feel something’s weird,” she detached from her crushing hug. “Did something happen?” She gasped, “Is Newtown okay?”

Nova and I shared a look. I let her speak; it would be a good exercise in acceptance.

“Grandpa passed away the other day.”

Harlow brought her hands to her mouth then, with tears in her eyes, she took Nova into another crushing hug, and when it was clear I wasn’t about to join, she grasped me from my shirt and drew me in.

We stayed like that for a few long seconds. It felt… alright... until she withdrew and asked. “Where did you leave Ronda?” When I answered, another crushing hug brought us back to the verge of tears, or maybe the verge of death given her Strength.

We recounted to her what happened and spent a few long minutes remembering Gramps.

Logan, Harlow’s father, had known him for a long time. I did not know why they knew each other, but they did. He had even marched through the Drylands to our house to speak with him once.

I had no idea what they had said at the time. I was busy with Hunter training, but the clock-engineer had come all the way to our house; it had been the main topic of the village for weeks.

Harlow came with him then; she was younger too. And since then, I brought letters from Gramps when I came to look for Logan, or gifts and more food than necessary for our barters and all that because Gramps nudged me to it.

“So,” she said, blowing her nose on a cloth, “who's the Kobold?”

I did not answer her question, though; Alistar did it himself.

“The Kobold is named Alistar, human. And he is a Murkstall villager, just like the Nightfold siblings here,” he faked coldness in his words.

“Oh! I’m sorry, Alistar. I thought… Really I had no idea what I thought…” She was really weird indeed, probably another reason why I liked her.

Alistar snickered, “It’s okay. But I’m curious now if his daughter is so peculiar, I want to know the man who has taught her! Where is the clock-engineer, where is your father?”

“Dad is down the Dungeon's outskirts. He’s picking up parts from the clock-tech monsters down there. He’ll be back soon. Now, come inside, let’s have something to drink."

The engineer’s house was something I had always loved. I liked everything about it. Starting from the location, the position, but that was just the beginning. The inside was cozy, full to the brim with machinery, worked parts, scraps of metal, half-turned into something, or abandoned.

Then there was the working table; for the great Sun… I loved that workplace; I knew I could spend hours upon hours building my arrows with him. Not that I had done it many times; after he showed me once and saw how fast I picked up the practice, he always had them prepared beforehand. Maybe in fear of teaching me too much. It was useless, though. I would not have the material nor his instruments with which work the metal scraps.

Last but not least, what made me slide into my world of imagination, was the smell. The perfume of well-oiled cogs, of metal wire, of clock-tech ready to deliver their promises of wonders.

I would never have enough of the place, and as much as I tried to hide it, Harlow knew of my reverence for it and smiled proudly at me.

If I said I never felt that I might have liked a life spent amid those walls, learning the art from Logan, and… passing a good time in Harlow’s company, I would be lying.

I knew I flushed when she gave me her beautiful smile, so I looked away, toward the basement.

The basement was a place where I had only been once when I was still little, and I remembered next to nothing about it. It was there that Logan first brought me to work on my arm.

Gramps was the one that first brought me there. I could still remember when he shouted for the engineer with his powerful voice, with bleeding-little-me in his arms. I couldn’t remember clearly the hill climb, but I could remember when he brought me down to the basement. I remembered seeing some things… things that would be impossible... but I could have just been imagining things.

I was in pain and losing blood back then, plus I was young; my memories of that day were fuzzy at best. I couldn’t even remember the exact moment in which I really lost my arm; I just remembered clearly the Rhinodusters coming at us plus a Sunguard nearby on his damn Flow-cart, looking at us amused. Not even daring to come to help us.

“Loke? What do you want to drink?” Harlow asked.

“Uh?”

She smiled; I knew she enjoyed it when I lost myself in her house. It seemed to make her proud and cheery, “Would you like some tea? It’s made with Stonemoss, it comes from the Fallen Castle’s walls, it’s quite good for the nerves."

“Okay, thank you.”

“So, what are you doing with those giant bags on your backs? We can’t store all that food? Did you come to barter?” She asked after she invited us to sit at their table.

“There are circumstances,” I took a sip from the tea.

“We have come for weapons and armors. We brought some old equipment we found at the abandoned Soldier’s hut.”

When in the morning I explained to the mayor what our intentions were, he agreed to give us all we needed for the barter; although he was not okay with our intentions of fighting the slave traders, it was a necessity. Everybody avoided plagued fellows, but slave traders were a dangerous bunch all the same.

To convince him, I had to give it my all; in the end, he gave in, but only because he knew he would not be able to stop me. I could do it at a moment’s notice. We two-, well, three were the only ones that could hunt; our freedom was absolute.

“May I know what these circumstances are?” She switched into her bartering mode.

“I don’t know if I should tell you. You always give me a headache when I want to hunt bigger game than my usual targets.”

“Of course I am, Loke. Who will take care of the villagers if you die? And what about Nova?” She was already about to switch back to maternal mode; I could see it from her eyes almost bulging out and her hunching over on the table.

I smirked. “You would take care of Nova, without a doubt."

“That may be so, but we wouldn’t take care of the village; we are not Hunters, we are Tinkers.”

She was full of shit. I remember her clutching my arm and caressing my head when I screamed for the implant. She would not stop crying even when I asked her to.

If worse came to shove, I bet she would be the one asking her dad to support the villagers. I doubt it would have changed his decision, but she would fight for it.

Alistar did not sit with us; he was too intent on studying the room and its content.

“What is this thing for? It looks nasty…” he said, about to touch a zapper.

“Don’t touch that!” We all yelled at him in unison.

Too late… lucky for him, he had brought a change of clothes in his bag. Kobolds’ soiling had a scent that nobody, not even they, could easily endure. But we all had a sincere bout of laughter at his expenses.

Logan would soon get back, and we spent the time we had to wait by talking with Harlow about our past month; she was an excellent friend... though, deep within, I wished she would be more than that.