“Carl, right?” Colin asked, the young man in clothes a little too nondescript for him to be unnoticeable. He wore a simple brown tunic and beige pants, both a little dirty, with sandals and eyes a little too focused to not have a purpose.

The young man nodded, “I am, good memory there, Sire.”

The Antagonist groaned while running a hand through his hair, “Carl, what have I told you about calling me, sire?”

“You requested that I not call you that, SIRE,” he answered back with a smarmy grin. He took a small step away from Colin into the light of the morning that came in through the window. The light easily allowed the two to see the entirety of the tidy, if not unmarked, Blasting Room that Colin was renting. They had elected to meet there because it was private, and no one was stupid enough to try and magically spy on a place so filled of volatile magic. The backlash could be deadly.

“And?”

“I elected to ignore it,” the cockney accented man stated. “Besides, Sire, do you really care what I call you?”

“Yes, but I shall elect to ignore it,” Colin shot back the man’s grin and continued before he could retort back. “What do you got for me?”

Shaking his head at the man who had been a somewhat constant client for the past month and a half, he pressed on. “You requested information on that Outworlder, Volkiere, right? Well, here’s what I got for ya. He’s here in town on a mission for his Guild, as you know. What you don’t know is that he is almost done with his job. From what I have discovered, there is one last bit they are having trouble extracting from the back. I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, they want it something fierce.”

Colin nodded, “other than Volkiere, how many others on average go in to do the extraction?”

He shrugged, “anywhere from six to two dozen depending on their schedules. Volkiere seems to be one of the few that is there every day; it varies for the rest of the time. Yesterday, there were thirteen people, including the mark.”

“Any idea of their classes?”

“No distinctive pattern. Some days they have more warrior types, others priests. It mostly seems to depend on if they can help with the work. No matter what, everyone except Volkiere leaves noticeably dirtier, and he’s only because he focuses on using his magic, not excavation.”

“Any idea what they’ve excavated before now?”

“A bit of everything. Some metals and gemstones, mostly Silver and Alexandrite. Nothing hazardous, but it is noteworthy due to their ability to become magic alloys and enchanting gems,” Carl explained. “Not like they found Uranium down there, now that would be a find,” Carl muttered.

Tucking that little tidbit away from future research, he moved on, “any idea what level Volkiere is?”

The Thief paused before he spoke, really thinking about it. “I think in the low twenties. He definitely has a subclass, and I think he is doing things that shouldn’t be possible without a Career. Not sure what it is, something to do with fine air control compared to normal spells perhaps.”

“Perhaps, it would explain why the Krimson Spire wanted him here for a while. Anything else to add?” Colin inquired.

“Yeah. I can tell you where he’s staying, what he had for dinner last night, and where he frequents outside his Guild duties. Hell, I can tell you which girl he fancies in the city. Just ask, and I can tell you most things,” Carl declared with confidence.

The conversation went on for a few more minutes, with questions being asked, and Carl able to answer most of them. It was a little surprising considering that one of Colin’s questions was what size pants he wore. The answer was none; he wore mage robes.

In the end, Colin paid the man and turned to leave. “Pleasure doing business with you, Sire.”

Leaving through the window and entering the human traffic, Colin practiced his Memory Lapse Subskill as he walked. Now that he had a location for the cave network, next he was going to the Enchanters to work on his Imbue weapon subskill.

Today, Master Quan Li was trying to sell an enchanted hatchet that heats metal it strikes and has its hardness increased. It was an intricate piece of work, even though it sounded simple. The Antagonist had been in the building when Master Quan Li had finished creating the item and was pretty excited about the item.

Colin walked past his teacher, leaving him to his selling to work on his new project. Entering the backroom workshop, Colin stepped over to the central Enchanting Table that Quan Li had lent him the day before for his use.

Sitting on the table was a type of short sword that he was not familiar with before the conception of this idea, A Swiss Degen. Its long triangular blade sprouted from two crescent-shaped, inward-bent metal bars that delimited the hilt. It was surrounded by various tools, books, and notes that Colin used to help design this instrument of death.

He took a few minutes to properly look over his notes and prepare for the coming work. Over the past few weeks, he had learned so much about Enchanting that he wouldn’t have guessed was possible from the beginner book. If a single rune is used, that single rune creates an effect. A fire rune causes the enchanted item to sprout fire, that’s it. But if it is paired with either another primary effect rune or a secondary rune, the effect alters.

If correctly enchanted, a weapon with the Fire Rune and an Inversion Rune would soak in heat compared to generating fire.

Colin hoped to create a three-part rune array to use his strong Shadow, Water, and Kinetic Magic along with Master Quan Li’s books of secondary runes to create something extraordinary. This would be a test of Colin’s abilities since he had limited success in imbuing an item with multiple magic types.

After reviewing his notes and setting them up to see them while he carved the runes, he grabbed his Engraving Pen. It was the same Engraving Pen he’d bought in Willows Cross; Master Quan Li had enchanted the item. Allowing the pen to more easily carve into most metals for easier Enchanting.

As ready as he was ever going to be, Colin started imbuing the Shortsword. Holding the handle of the weapon, he closed his eyes and imagined his mana pool inside his chest. He found that actually picturing this process helped the imbuing go more smoothly. Pulling three thread of mana, one blue, one opalescent, and the other black, and started carefully pulling them across his chest and down his arm.

Colin took a deep breath when the mana strings reached his hand and hoped he had enough mana. As he discovered, you couldn’t normally connect several magic types to a weapon and hoped they let you Enchant properly. To enchant something with multiple elements, you have to ‘braid’ the mana strings to blend the elements together. This exercise was mentally exhausting and used up a fair amount of MP since he was manipulating mana.

Starting at his mana pool, he began to move the strands around with careful, almost delicate, precision. Without a little mana, the mana refused to obey his commands and didn’t even flex to his will but doing so with a bit of mana allowed it to slowly move. It took several minutes of carefully small movements within his body to see a fine braid of mana lead led into his hand.

Checking his mana, Colin found that all that movement had caused him to lose almost two hundred mana. Probably more if his natural mana regeneration was helping him to replenish some of what he lost. But ninety-six mana was more than enough for him to continue. With a little push of mana and will, Colin eased the mana braid that resided magically in his hand into the sword handle.

The connection was immediate. The entire blade seemed to hum with potential power as he felt his mana drain further to fill the weapon. Taking deep breaths, Colin strained to control the mana’s flow, trying to keep the mana injection speed about as fast as his regeneration. Which felt something like trying to win a tug of war with a three hundred pound linebacker.

But Colin managed to pull the reins on the mana flow a little, at least slowing the loss. A prompt appeared and was immediately minimized as he focused on maintaining the slower flow for several minutes. The muscles in his torso were straining, and sweat was beading on his brow when the mana slowed to a mere trickle—only enough to maintain the power in the weapon.

With the straining relieved, he grabbed the Engraving Pen and got to work. Carefully, he started to carve the runic symbols into the center of the blade’s flat. It took several minutes of slow and tedious work for him to cut the runes and their adjacent secondary runes. He felt the mana fill in the freshly engraved symbols and absorb the intent for which they were created. The unstructured magic within the Shortsword took a moment to become structured within the constraints of the Runic effect he made. When it finished, Colin felt the blade break the connection.

A prompt appeared in his vision.

You have just enchanted a Swiss Degen with the “Shatter Sleet” Enchantment.

Immediately, Colin inspected the weapon’s effects.

Shatter Sleet: With an intentional effort, you can spend a charge of the weapons available pool to coat this weapon in a sheet of GloomFrost. This sheet of GloomFrost detonates upon contact with anything else, sending shrapnel in all directions. The shrapnel has a 35% chance to ignore armor; anyone hit has a 20% chance to get the chilled and slowed status. The wielder is immune to the effects of this weapon.

Grinning, Colin admired the weapon that had exhausted him so much. The blade had taken on a black, mirror-like sheen and was ice cold to the touch. Testing the blade’s edge on his fingernail, he quickly found that the sword was still razor-sharp and ready for use.

Admittedly, this was not the enchantment he was hoping to bestow upon the weapon. He hoped to have the weapon generate a disk-shaped sheet of ice in front of the blades point to block attacks. He was still rather pleased with this effect but planned to look over his notes to determine the issue. Maybe it was as simple as needing a means for the blade to remain fixed in the air. Maybe air magic or telekinetics?

Grabbing the Shortsword’s scabbard, he put it away and attached it to his belt. Feeling the way the weapon moved on his belt, he made some adjustments to let it not clatter against anything else he carried. He walked out of the workroom to find Master Quan Li surrounded by a whole group of customers, most likely players.

Grinning at his teacher as he left the shop, Colin looked at the prompts that he’d minimized.

You have gained the Mana Efficiency Subskill Level 1. When adding enchantments to items, you can control the flow of mana going to the enchantment. +1% mana efficiency when Enchanting, +100% Enchanting time.

Nodding at the new subskill, Colin dismissed it as he knew that this would eventually be a game-changer for his Enchanting Skill. Right now, though, it was only marginally helpful and only intended to train the skill when Enchanting.

Your Enchanting skill is now level 11. Your potential in this skill has increased. Your Attune Item subskill is now level 11. Attuning efficiency has increased by a small margin, mana control, while Attuning has increased by a small margin.

Dismissing the prompts, he looked ahead to find that he was passing through the town square as he was heading toward his most frequented library.

Entering the building, the Head Librarian, Miss Kyla, was sitting behind her desk near the entrance. The almost anorexically thin middle-aged black woman looked happy to see her most frequent and polite patron. Evidently, she had been waiting for him since she stood up upon him entering their building. “Ah, Walker. You’re a little early today.”

Colin nodded, “yeah, I finished up a little early and was excited to earn my next Knowledge skill. By the look on your face, I guess you happened to get the books I requested.”

Nodding, she took two thin volumes off her desk and handed them to Colin, “here it is. An Engineer’s Guide to Firearms and Intro to Magitech. So are you looking to learn something specific today, or are you hoping to do something specific?” she asked knowingly.

With these two books, it was a little obvious what sorts of things Colin was hoping to learn. He didn’t want to tell her it was a bit more complicated than that but nodded, “yeah, but it’s a secret.” he whispered conspiratorially.

“Oh, come on, Walker. Who am I going to tell?” she asked, curiosity clear in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Miss Kyla, I really can’t, you never know who ELSE could be listening,” he stated clearly.

A muffled cry echoed from one of the administrative rooms behind the desk as a young woman knew she had been found out. “Oh, come on! How do you always know that I am here?!” she cried out. Leslie Linthurst, one of Miss Kyla’s assistants, walked out in a casual sky-blue blouse, dark ankle-length skirt, and auburn hair pulled into a bun. She was frowning so hard that Colin wouldn’t have been surprised if steam came out of her ears. Yet again, she’d been found in the middle of snooping on other people’s business. “Seriously, how high is your Perception skill that you can always find me when I am Stealthing!”

Miss Kyla glared reproachfully at her assistant, “volume, young lady,” she hissed.

Glaring back for a moment before catching herself, Leslie simply eyed Colin. “I will figure you out, Mister Walker.”

Grinning at the young woman’s antics, he opened his arms wide, “I’m a mostly open book. Ask me anything, and I will mostly answer.”

She then raised an accusing finger at Colin, “why do you keep coming here?” she asked.

“Trying to increase my Knowledge skills,” he answered simply.

Dropping her arm and stroking her chin with the other, very over-dramatically, she then asked, “then why do you always come armed?”

Miss Kyla’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked from her assistant to Colin, “do you?”

He nodded, raising an arm and pulling back a portion of his jacket to reveal his Steel Dagger of Lesser Chill. “I do, but it’s only for protection against muggers and over-enthusiastic Outworlders.”

He was not going to mention all the other weapons that he kept stashed in the bag of holding strapped to his belt. No sir.

“Oooookay,” she said, drawing out the word. “What about that girl I’ve seen you with a few times before. The one in all those dirty and dark leathers?” she asked, eyeing him with an accusing squint. “She always comes in with blood on her clothes and a full arsenal. Bow, arrows, knife, and a full longsword.”

“Rielle, oh, she usually comes if she has the time after some ‘secret training’ that I am not allowed to know about,” Colin grumbled. “But it’s monster blood, nothing too concerning.”

“But what about-”

“Leslie!” Miss Kyla snapped out. “Stop accusing Mister Walker of things without actual evidence and get back to your cataloging.”

The younger woman turned to her superior and looked pleadingly at her, “but he’s hiding something, I know it!”

“Then it’s none of your business, now go,” she instructed. After moments of intense staring between the two, Leslie shuffled off. Sparing Colin a look that practically screamed that this was not over.

“I’m sorry, Mister Walker. You know how she is by now, right?” Miss Kyla asked rhetorically. “I’d consider firing her if it wasn’t for the Career she chose, making her almost invaluable here.”

“She’s level 20? What Career did she choose?” Colin asked. The mention of Careers was not something commonly discussed, and he was curious about the whole subject. He was getting closer and closer to level 20, where he’d be able to choose his own. Colin was going to need to get more information sooner rather than later.

“Yes, she’s above level 21 but classless. She chose a career called Ordered Bookworm, which granted her a talent that gave her an improved memory when it applies to books. We have her using it to keep the place perfectly cataloged. But enough about her,” Miss Kyla stated. “You go get to your reading, Mister Walker. I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you again today.”

He wanted to do nothing more than ask her more, but Colin just nodded, knowing that she just closed the conversation. He walked to one of the nearby tables with his two new books and started reading.

Two hours later, he closed the books and was greeted with three prompts.

You have gained a new skill, Knowledge: Mechanical Weapons Level 4. You get a 4% increase in charisma when applying this knowledge near other people. Gather or discover more knowledge in this area to level this skill and get more detailed prompts towards anything related to mechanical weapons. You have gained a new skill, Knowledge: Magical Engineering Level 2. You get a 2% increase in charisma when applying this knowledge near other people. Gather or discover more knowledge in this area to level this skill and get more detailed prompts towards anything related to Magical Engineering. For gaining 10 or more knowledge skills, you have gained an achievement: Pursuit of Knowledge 1. While most merely learn what they have to, your learning has sprawled out to encompass more than most would care to accomplish. This allows you to see if any particular piece of written work will help to increase one of your knowledge skills. Note: this will not say where in the written work, the knowledge is hidden. The achievement will not activate if you will not gain anything from it or what skill it will help grow.

“Yes!” Colin hollered, then quickly covered his mouth. Miss Kyla gave him a reproachful stink eye for his outburst but went back to her writing when she saw that it was unintentional.

Looking down at the books before him, Colin saw that both glowed a calm green that faded as soon as he registered what that glow meant. With a mental flex, he managed to bring the glow back and nodded at this new power of his. This told him that he could check the books he read to see if they had knowledge he could learn.

Now that he thought about it, Colin felt a little restless and decided to call it there for the day and meet up with Rielle. He stood up from the table, stretched, and returned the books to Miss Kyla, who promised to let him read more of them when he returned tomorrow. With a thanks, Colin left and made his way to the Training Grounds, only have to slow part way there.

A huge crowd was within the town square, congregating around one of them in particular. There was a quiet murmur that radiated through the group that was noticeable even to passersby like Colin. A panicked voice echoed over the crowd, his voice was high with panic, and he was practically screaming his warning.

“NO! No! No! We need to run! ALAN will be here soon, and we cannot stop him!” A practically disembodied voice screamed.

Tapping on the nearest person’s shoulder, Colin asked, “what’s going on?”

The man turned his head a little so that Colin could hear him better, “A player that just spawned in here. Supposedly, he had to be forcefully respawned since he was in a precarious position. He says that something he made was forcefully keeping him alive, and he had to complain to an Administrator offline,” the now obvious Player said, shrugging. “Now he’s saying that this thing will be coming here.”

“Why would it do that?” Colin asked, hearing the man still raving on.

“Who knows? Probably coming after him,” the Player said disdainfully. “I just hope it becomes a special event so we can get some good rewards and EXP.”

“It’s coming! It’s coming! It’s coming! It’s coming! It’s coming!” The Player repeated several times, increasing in volume and pitch until he was practically screaming. “Was it two days ago or three days ago?! Who cares!” whoever it was seemed to decide a split second later. We need to go! He’s coming, and he’s one and all of them. He is the Horde as much as he is the head! We cannot win! We need to run!”

Nodding to the man, Colin thanked him and cataloged the information away if it proved to be useful later. He debated between staying here more from the traumatized Player and going about his day.

That was before the noticeable sound of a blade running through flesh, and a piercing scream cut through the air, silencing all else.

Colin turned to see a god-damned robot, all gleaming metal, smooth edges, and humanoid in shape in the middle of a now clearing space. It’s gleaming yellow eyes and moving mouth that seemed to have sharpened teeth gave it a clear and disturbing visage. It held a broad, flat bowl-shaped shield on its left forearm and a six or seven-foot-long spear in its other hand.

That spear was currently impaling a hooded woman in dropping red mage robes that obscured everything about her. At least until the robot forcefully pulled the spear out, only thrust it in again before she fell over. Colin was sure she died before hitting the floor, and the body was left broken and soaked in blood.

“This!” the robot roared to the crowd, “is not a warning! This is not a negotiation! Give me AidenBrand, and we might let some of you live!” the robot announced.

No one moved; most were out of shock of the sudden brutality of the attack, while others wanted to see who would go first. Colin, for his part, was surprised to hear the name it announced. He hadn’t heard that name since Scutch Town with the Horde Wraith bound Scarecrow Golem. If that asshole was here, then this thing could have him, no questions asked.

Then he thought about its words beyond the face value of them.

That was, of course, when a woman in a suit of fitted plate mail armor wielding a massive two-handed mace walked up. A confident smirk was practically glued to her face when she swung the mace around once experimentally before speaking to the robot.

No, Golem, Colin corrected himself.

“Oh yeah, there’s only one of you, and like, a thousand of us Players. Why would we give anyone to you?” She sneered and took a wide baseball stance. She had already started her swing when the Golem spoke, its voice clear to Colin’s ears.

“Death for all then,” it said, the yellow lights in its eyes changing to red as a detonation of metal to metal echoed through the square. Most people flinch at the sound, not allowing them to witness what some had managed to see.

A seven-foot-tall golem of bulkier shape but roughly the same form as the first had dropped from above, intercepted the attack on its forearms. It retaliated with efficient force, shoving the heavy mace back and throwing a right hook into the woman’s chest. She tumbled several feet away, and two smaller Golems dropped from the top of nearby buildings. One of them held a greatsword with both hands, and the other was holding a fucking Winchester rifle and was leveling it at the crowd.

“Like I said!” the voice returned, the Golem’s voice now coming from the giant that had sucker-punched the armored woman. “This is not a negotiation, and now I take him back with force!”

The rifle-wielding Golem adjusted his grip on the firearm and fired at someone in the crowd. The screams were immediate and deafening.

---

At the eastern gates into BriarThorn, the Guards were standing in front of the city’s opening. Chatting idly until they observed someone walking up to their post. As if a switch was flipped, both stopped talking, and the superior took a step forward to greet the coming… person?

It was obviously a female, that was obvious; it had breasts after all. Beyond that, though, he wasn’t sure. She had pale green skin, was toned like she worked for a living, and had a smile gently warming her features alongside her earnest yellow eyes.

She had short red hair that curled around her pointed ears and her slender neck. The unnamed Goblin was wearing a forest green toga-like dress that had a slit up the front middle that showed off her dark leather pants. It all looked a little dusty like she’d been out working or traveling for some time.

“Uh… hello, miss. What is your business in BriarThorn today?” he asked her, hoping to Anaheim that she spoke the common tongue.

Her smile widened, “I’m here looking for someone.” She answered, seemingly honestly.

“Uh huh,” he said, thinking through how he should deal with this. “How long do you think you’ll be here?”

The short creature shrugged, “I don’t suspect that I will be here long. I hope to be in and out of here in a day or three,” she nodded.

Still trying to think it through without being rude, she had been polite and cooperative thus far, so he asked another question. “Any, uh, contraband to announce?” Then explained as soon as her expression showed that she didn’t understand, “Any Pomegranates, Lotus tree flowers, Mistletoe, Peyote, Basil, Yew seeds, anything like that?”

“Yes, I do,” she stated with a happy nod.

The man blinked, “which one. None of them are expressly forbidden, just not allowed in the city due to their use in deep dark rit-”

A popping sound echoed out to them from inside the city; both Guards looked towards the city. They recognized the sounds of gunshots, each having formal training with the weapons, but they were not cost-effective to keep with the guards at all times. They looked at each other as they wondered what could be going on in there.

“It sounds like you might be busy soon, Guardsmen, so let me get out of your hair. My name is Kore. May I please go inside without a fuss?”