“Paladin,” Colin said, acknowledging the massive man as he walked inside the room.

The Sumo smiled widely upon seeing Colin and walked forward with, “Hello, Brother! How was everything been since I left?”

“Not too bad,” Colin said, pulling a full guitar case out of his Dimensional Bag and setting it carefully on his bed. The item inside was arguably one of his most precious items, being almost artifact grade in its finery and skill.

“I got a few things made that should be useful when the time comes. A newly enchanted bow for Rielle, a few new blades for me, and these for you,” Colin informed the Sumo, tossing a previously unseen pair of gloves towards Paladin.

Catching them was child’s play for the player, and he looked over them curiously. While the entire thing was leather, carefully carved into the supple and tough material was three runes that Colin had carefully worked into it. While Paladin had no idea what those symbols meant or did, he saw the deep green metal wires carefully wound into the gloves. They started around the wrists, wound and laced along the palms, then stopped just past the knuckles.

“What are these?” Paladin asked, unsure how he felt about the gift.

“A gift,” he said plainly. “Nothing too fancy because I don’t know how to do anything fancy but hit something a few times and see what happens. The reaction should be interesting,” Colin told him. “I would tell you, but I kind of want to surprise you.”

Still a little wary of these items, Paladin put them on and felt no immediate change or reaction to his own body. He flexed his hands, finding the expected tension but not nearly as bad as he expected to feel. “Hey, Walker. What did you make these out of?”

“The gloves were one of the trinket items we found in the Dungeon. Even their description said they weren’t anything special. The wire is pure Adamant, and it is what gives the enchantment I put on there a little zest,” Colin commented.

“A-adamant?” Paladin repeated back, taken aback. “Why in the world would you waste adamant on something like… this?”

Colin simply stared at Paladin for a moment, “why wouldn’t I?”

“Because Adamant is one of the strongest metals in the game. It’s not indestructible, but it is immune to rust and unmagical corrosion, resistant to magical corrosion, and is known to enhance Earth Magic effects and resist Air Magic Effects. Not to mention that a pound of Adamant is worth just over five copper plates,” Paladin stated.

“Okay, so now you have expensive gloves. Will you turn down a gift from someone who put actual effort into it?” Colin asked. “I spent a while working on these, and I would hate for it to be a wasted effort.”

Looking at the simple leather gloves on his hands that had a wire underlay in them, Paladin nodded. While they contrasted with the rest of his sparse clothing, he wouldn’t worry about it much as long as they were useful. The function was much more important than form.

“Thank you, Walker,” Paladin said after a moment.

“Of course,” Colin answered, flashing a smile at Paladin. He then turned away from the man and over to his work table, where he started to put back on his gear. He’d also taken a few minutes to take every book he’d been collecting in his Dimensional Bag and Appropriate them into his MindScape Library. Freeing up some room in the storage device.

Well, all books except one. He’d been putting this off until now in case he needed the Paladin’s take on the item, but now was the time. Reaching into the bag that now hung on his waist. Colin withdrew a book wrapped in brown paper; the words’ Random Unknown Book’ was written in perfect print on the face of the wrapping.

Yet again, he was astounded by the lack of creativity with this particular item’s covering. At bare minimum, it looked atrociously dull. Colored wrapping paper or even a small chest would be better compared to what he’d gotten with this.

“So, want to see what I got for defeating the Dungeon?” Colin asked Paladin, smiling.

“Yeah, I do,” Paladin responded, stepping closer to see it.

Rielle stepped just to the side of Colin to see it as well and waited a moment to find out what kind of book would be so important to give to him for defeating a Dungeon.

Colin took a deep breath and ripped a little of the nondescript brown paper right down the middle. This was a vain attempt to keep the book from suddenly seeing the light and coming to life snapping at his hands. He was pretty sure McKenna made him watch a movie where there was a Monster Book in it.

When nothing moved or even reacted to the tearing, he continued and pulled the paper free before taking a close look at the cover. It was an old red-stained leather hardcover book with little frill or design to the cover. Written in what looked like gold leaf in basic English read, ‘Lenova.’

“Lenova? What’s a Lenova?” Paladin asked, folding his arms over his chest and looking at the book.

“Lenova is a Dragon,” Colin said, running his hands over the book’s cover, finding that there was a weird texture there. “She supposedly helped kill the Third Demon Lord.”

“Supposedly?” Larry said, scoffing from behind Colin. As his Master turned to face him, Larry Continued, “As far as Hell is concerned, that Dragon helped the Hero cheat in killing Krvavý Hlad.”

“Why?” Paladin asked, smiling from ear to ear. Yet again, staying with DevilWalker was proving more fun than all his other time in this game put together.

“Without spending a week telling you the nuances about the way this is supposed to go, especially since I cannot tell it. The Hero and their party are supposed to struggle and fight to get to the Demon Lord. Whether or not they succeeded depended on how well they prepared and how strong their resolve was. But Noooooo, that Hero recruited a dragon. The cheat,” Larry said spitefully.

“Why can’t you tell us?” Colin asked.

“Because of you, Master. Can you guess why?” Larry said, smiling feral at him.

“Right, because it directly involves me,” Colin said, sighing.

“Oh yeah,” the Demon said back. “Anyway, what about the book? Is it anything interesting?”

Looking over the Book, Colin focused his Appraisal Skill on it and brought up its details.

Book: Lenova. Item Weight: 684 grams. Item Quality: 10

This is a one-of-a-kind volume written by a History Professor of the destroyed Valerian University in the PennyRoyal Capital. Professor A. Hruska spent most of his professional years after the University fell in pursuit of the Dragon known as Lenova.

Also, going under the nickname that matched its title, the Library Dragon, this legendary creature is known for its one major feat. But this Dragon had many centuries of history before and after its assistance with killing the third Demon Lord.

He tracked down rumors, unverified sightings, legends, myths, and false lead tracking down a Gold Dragon. This tome contains the details of his path to find the Dragon, details of the Dragon herself, and details of the creature’s lair.

This book is autographed by the Dragon herself after discovering the Author among her horde and discovering his purpose. The Gold on the cover is made from one of her scales, and the leather is written in from a patch of sacrificed skin. No one knows what happened to this book after it was finished; the Author was on his way to the Mistletoe Libraries when he and the book vanished.

“Well, that’s great,” Colin said, taking a closer look at the only word on the front cover. Squinting a little at the lettering, he found that the edges of the symbols were not smooth but chipped and jagged. After another moment, he found that it looked like little pieces of metal were flaked and worked together somehow into the lettering.

Opening up the front cover, he found a short message that had been scrawled in jagged but understandable handwriting.

‘This Book is the Property of Lenova. If found outside of The One Library, please try and return it or when I do find this book, I will take the skin of every person who didn’t and make them into dust covers for my other books.’

If it wasn’t for his appraisal skill stating that this book was made of dragon skin, he would be sickened at the idea of it possibly being human leather. But Colin briefly considered Appropriating the book into his MindScape but quickly decided against it. If he got the opportunity to return it and didn’t because it was permanently put in his Mental Library, he’d be screwed.

While he wasn’t as weak as he was even just a month ago, he doubted he could fight a Dragon that killed a Demon Lord and survive.

To that end, Colin put the book in his bag and intended to read it later. Now he had other things to do.

“Rielle, how is that charging for that Spell Aging Vial going?” Colin asked, looking the young Death Fey in the face.

She quickly took a step back and away before grabbing the item in question and showing it to him. “It’s coming along. It turns out that if it is a channeled effect, I can continue to just load it with mana. But If I add more to it, the entire time I aged, it becomes wasted. Something about the Aged Mana becoming diluted. I don’t really know, but I need a little more time to finish.”

“Okay, just go as fast as you can. As soon as you are done with that, we can leave,” Colin said, looking at the Ring on his finger and rereading the appraisal that appeared.

Ring of Wise Choices. Weight: 10 grams. Item Quality: 8.

This Ring was considered the masterwork of a middling Enchanter who knew not what else to do than to turn to his magic. This Ring supposedly turned his life around. No more gambling, drinking, and busty wenches from the nearby tavern for him was his new catchphrase. For three weeks, he supposedly made the best decisions that anyone would in his position. He made buckets of Copper, started dating a pretty young woman, and even made up with his estranged Mother.

Then that Carriage ran him down.

This Ring increases the wearer’s wisdom score by two points and grants the ability, Wisdom of Hindsight 1/day.

Wisdom of Hindsight Ability. Grants the user the ability to know if a choice will be a wise choice for him at the time or for at least the next 24 hours later. This ability does not work in combat, Dungeons, or for anything related to character choices.

Unlike when he got the Ring in the Dungeon, the description was slightly different. He didn’t recall seeing a use limit on the item before, and the item’s history was a bit more sparse before. It was not that this was a bad thing, but it did make him wonder about his item appraisals up to this point. Would they change more when the skill leveled?

Most likely, but that did not include what extra details he would get due to his knowledge skills. Which was unfortunate, but the only thing that meant was that more studying was in his future, not any more of a free ride just because he Appraised a lot of stuff.

He then looked at the Ring, with its tarnished gold surface and carefully carved symbols that Colin did not recognize. He considered the item for a moment before shrugging and speaking to the thing, “should I go after ALAN now, or is there something more I should do before that?” he asked the Ring.

The symbols on the Ring’s surface burned and bent into different configurations. To his surprise, the format was plain and simple English. The words ‘Go Now’ were scribed on one-quarter of the Ring, and the other with ‘Go Later.’ Seconds passed as Colin watched the Ring in quiet anticipation as he waited for what the Ring said.

When the Ring finally stopped, the words ‘Go Later’ were glowing.

He considered the Ring and wondered if he should take its advice. The annoyance with the item being the lack of details given to him. If he knew why it would be a bad idea to go after ALAN now, he would most assuredly go later without a second thought. But without the why, he was basically trusting a fortune-telling Ring to not get him killed for trusting it.

In the end, Colin decided to go with the Ring’s advice on the matter. Both as a test run for the magical properties and to get one or two last errands to run before they attempted to finish this event. If they succeeded, they would be leaving in a hurry somewhere. But if they died, then they would respawn a long way from here, and Nox would keep Rielle safe.

Again, he wished he had details to discern what would be considered later. An hour, twelve, five minutes, but he would just have to take a chance and try after a few errands were complete.

Unfortunately, Paladin would not agree with what he was about to do.

“Alright, we have a shopping list of things to do, and we are going to do them together,” Colin said, taking the guitar out of its case. Then quickly replaced both in his Dimensional Bag. With the guitar out of its case, he hoped to get at it quickly should he decide to use it. Plus, with it in the bag, there was no chance the extra weight would throw him off or the new thing on his back, making landing on it even more awkward.

“Like what?” Rielle asked curiously.

“Books primarily, but there are a few other things that we might need for the journey ahead, and I plan to make sure we are ready to go. Trust me when I say that I want to make sure when we go down there that we will find the Big Boss,” Colin told them.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes later that Colin was leading them out of the front lobby of the Hotel. They quickly left the main street and into the adjoining alleys that ran behind most of the buildings. The one real benefit of this act was that if they did run into one of the Mini-Bosses, it would be harder pressed to do anything to them here. At least as far as Colin knew, all of the ones he’d seen up to this point were pretty big.

The city around them was surprisingly quiet as they moved. There were still bursts of what sounded like combat or spells, but it was eerily silent between these times. In the end, he was glad that their first stop wasn’t too far from the Hotel.

The shop that his Enchanting Teacher, Quan Li, had was not spared from the carnage the city had been suffering. The entire front of the store was left with only one load-bearing pillar being the only thing that allowed Colin into the store. Inside, the place was a mess and looked like it had already been picked at. It was unknown to Colin whether the store had been ravaged by looters or the Golems that were loose, but either way, the front of the store was almost bare.

He took a quick look around but found little other than the splintered remains of the wooden shelves. Behind the wooden counter, Colin found the main item of his search in a spot that his teacher thought he didn’t know about. Pulling a small steel key from inside a secret compartment inside a drawer under this game’s equivalent of the cash register.

“How did you know that was there?” Paladin asked with disapproval written plainly upon his face.

“I know the owner,” Colin answered. “I saw him put it back there once before he knew I was here in the store for one of my enchanting lessons.”

Paladin seemed only a little mollified by that statement. “Okay, but does that give you the right to rummage through his stuff?” he challenged.

“Admittedly not,” Colin spoke, walking over to the one part of the store that was still intact. The door to the back room looked like it had taken a beating, with ax gouges and burn marks marring most of the surface and the walls around it. The Antagonist remembered the Enchanter using his backroom as an example when he was explaining some Enchanting concepts. The entire wall was heavily enchanted to prevent anyone from entering unless this door was unlocked with one of the three original keys first.

“But that is why I am not asking for permission or waiting until this is over and buying it. If nothing else, I have no idea where he is to try,” Colin told him bluntly.

“That does not make this any better,” Paladin stated.

Colin shrugged, “I agree, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a need. If he was here, I would try to convince him of that need and offer as much compensation as possible. But he is not, and I have no idea if he is even still alive. He should have been here when this whole thing started, but Master Quan Li is not a fighter. He could have survived, but he didn’t die here.”

Paladin still glared, and Colin threw out his final retort, “besides, I am the Antagonist, Paladin. I’m acting out my role by doing bad things that benefit and help me. I could be out there killing babies and eating organs as part of satanic rituals to fulfill that role, does that sound any better?”

“That’s an over-exaggerated point, and you would never do that, Walker,” Paladin argued.

“I agree, but some of the past Demon Lords did. Krvavý Hlad was the Demon Lord of Gluttony; how do you suppose he used those powers? Then there was the First Demon Lord, Ethanol was the Demon Lord of Apathy or Sloth. He destroyed an entire country before he was finally killed. The second Demon Lord Harbor was the Demon Lord of Envy, and she wiped out four armies that were arrayed against her at the same time. I doubt any of them had any qualms with dirtying their hands with innocent blood to do what they wanted,” Colin told him.

Inserting the key into the backroom’s lock, Colin waited a moment before turning the key, hoping to anyone who could hear his plea that it wasn’t going to blow upon him.

To his delight, the door clicked, and the knob turned, granting Colin entry into the room. Smiling, Colin pocketed the key and hurried inside to find those books that Quan Li showed him a few times. Shelves and tables lined the room with a various assortment of tools haphazardly set anywhere among them. Among them sat boxes of weapons and other equipment that were waiting to be enchanted. And notes, oh the reams and reams of notes strewn about the room and amongst the tools. Just waiting to be used and implemented.

Ignoring the tools, weapons and only pausing to quickly glimpse at the notes for future inspiration. Colin hurried over to the several dozen books along the back wall and smiled at the small horde of volumes.

“Nox, you said you saw a Quality ten book in here, right? Which one or ones was that?” Coln asked, now realizing why a few of the Mindscape Library powers existed in the first place.

“There are two in here. One on the top shelf, second to the far right, it’s a Runic Dictionary. The second is the Warding Gone Right on the same shelf, just more in the middle,” Nox explained.

Not hesitating, Colin grabbed the books in question and started Appropriating them into his Mental Library. The Books were long, so they took a little time to do what he wanted to them. He was quickly reminded that the Appropriate Tome Career Power took more mana and time depending on the size of the book being taken in. Which was why he only focused on those two books that Nox mentioned.

After those were Appropriated, Colin started grabbing books from the shelves and putting them into his Dimensional Bag. ‘Enchanted Scripts,’ ‘Warding,’ ‘Enchanted Processing,’ ‘Machinations in the Wording,’ and anything else that would fit went into the bag. In the end, Colin had to be a little picky given his limited space in the bag and tried to memorize the titles for future reference.

How could something called ‘Incarnate Enchantments’ be nothing but helpful or scary at the least?

He’d been in there for over ten minutes by himself, not including Nox, with the other three hanging tight in the front area. Rielle, in particular, was looking out what little remained of the front doors paying attention to anything that passed by. Though Golems passed, even as Colin watched her, none did more than take a quick glimpse in the shop’s direction before continuing on their way.

“That’s the second patrol in the last ten minutes; there are still more of them being made,” Rielle muttered quietly. “Less and less of them are those basic Golems from the start of this whole thing. I would not be surprised if ALAN is phasing the old ones out in exchange for these new models.”

“Agreed,” Colin said, from just behind her.

Then a single Golem passed by the front of the shop. It stood around six feet tall, Gold ran up and down its right arm like chiton instead of metal plates, and the rest of it was covered in black and silver ceramic plates. These plates flexed and stretched like skin, and beneath the chiton, something seemed to squirm and pulse as it walked. It didn’t even look in their general direction as it moved in its straight line.

Not that Colin was complaining, this thing gave Colin the creeps, and his every danger sense told him that he likely couldn’t take it. This was their first time seeing a Golem like this, and he did not want to be its first victim.

They simply watched as the Golem walked past and waited after it passed for several long moments to even speak.

“Any idea what that was?” Colin whispered.

Surprisingly, Nox was the one that had answered, “Damn the Heavens, this Golem Masterworks fast.”

“What?” Rielle asked.

“That thing utilizes Mutate,” Nox answered. “You know, DevilWalker, like that Columbine Mutator?”

“Oh, fuck,” Colin cursed. “How in the world does that work?”

Colin could practically hear the Goblin shrug, “no idea, but trust me. That stuff under its arm is Mutate.”

Half the time when the Goblin spoke, all it did was give him many more questions. “What does that mean for us?” Colin asked him.

“That is unclear,” Nox said from Rielle’s shadow. “But I hope to the Ebon Heart that whoever sees that thinking first can kill it quickly. I would not want to see that thing after it gets injured and evolves.”

“What?” Paladin asked.

“Heh, is there an echo in here?” Nox chuckled.

“I’ll tell you later, but for now, let’s go. Next, we are looting one or two spots for supplies and killing a little time to give Rielle’s necklace age her skill. That shop is nearby,” Colin said, stepping out into the street after checking to make sure it was clear. And for good measure, Colin used his Tremorsensing Skill to be extra sure and attempt to level the skill up.

It was actually due to the help of this skill that Colin ‘saw’ the Patrol coming seconds before it rounded a corner. Drawing and triggering the Lesser Infernal Edge, he waited a moment before swinging around the corner. He enjoyed the mild pressure that went up his arm as the blade sliced cleanly through its neck.

With one of the seven down, Colin drew his Mythic Xiphos and charged both with the Aligned Strike. He smiled as he took in the six standing and nodded to himself; he could take them without too much issue. Three of them were the Warrior Golems, one was a Rogue Golem, another was a Mage Golem, with the last being one of those Corpse Golems in archer leathers.

On second thought, Colin yelled, “Rielle, take the archer!”

An arrow clattered into the Corpse Golems bow hand on queue, forcing it to drop said item. A moment later, three more arrows sprouted into the Corpses body, staggering it.

Paladin rushed past Colin, arms raised and thrusting both palms into one of the giant Warrior Golems. Immediately, the Golem’s frame started to be covered in a fine layer of stuck-on dried silt. The magic item acted the way Colin had wanted; even as the Sumo went and hit it again, he could see dust and fine earth from around Paladin. The dust clung to the struck enemy and, after a few hits, would impede enemy movement.

Not wanting to leave this to them alone, Colin hurried in and ripped into the enemy with glee.

Yup, now Colin was starting to enjoy himself. Even though there was currently a penalty for dying, it was infinitely better than dying.