“Twenty hours,” Maya heard Cydrin say behind her as she walked away. “At minimum.”

“I told you my rates,” Sevard replied. “Make it worth my time, and I’ll run Clefts as often as you want. Just remember that I’m not one of your drones. Anything I find, I’m keeping.”

“We only need the tokens.”

Maya left them to their negotiations and reluctantly looked around for Julios, intending to apologize and get their reluctant partnership back on track, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably off recruiting for Domitius. Ah, well. No great loss there. She put him firmly out of her mind.

And then another thought came to her. She was in Nirsym, and had time to spare. And, coincidentally, a crafting quest. With the mage academy in disarray and affairs in Kalyx far too complicated for her to make sense of, much less involve herself with directly, the sudden wealth of free time would be largely useless to any of her long-term plans.

But she could check the place out, at least. Actually, she had two possible angles: either find a crafting trainer or quest, or see if there were any secret Trickster-allied NPCs with hidden special items here as well. Since Nirsym was technically Zone Four, that was considerably further along in the game, and it seemed entirely reasonable to assume that each city had its own trickster contact person.

Maya grinned, waiting until she was in the merchant area and out of view of the other Domitians, then casually slipped off her mask.

Chaos erupted around her at once. She heard the sharp shhhiiingg! of a blade being drawn in haste. Someone screamed, “TRICKSTER! RUN!” and someone else shouted “Rally to me!”

Maya hastily put her mask back on. Perhaps riling up a higher-level zone than Kalyx was a bad idea at her current level. The moment the item was equipped again, the townspeople returned to normal as though nothing had ever happened, the sword-wielder slipping his blade back into its sheath seemingly without thought.

Maya giggled nervously, then returned to Plan A. Craft an item of sufficient quality to finish today’s trickster quest.

As it turned out, Nirsym was something of a grand central for crafting. She flipped through shop inventories at random for a while, but the sheer volume of crafting materials available baffled her. She didn’t know anything about the item creation system or what she’d need.

Teacher first, materials later.

“I wonder. . .” Maya said aloud. “I’m looking for a way to accomplish today’s quest.” Then she closed her eyes, slowly turning in a circle. It stood to reason that if she got disorienting and negative impulses from bad luck, she should get helpful and correct impulses from good luck.

She bumped into something, staggered, and opened her eyes at once to find she’d nearly toppled onto a passing harpy man.

“Are you alright?” he asked, catching hold of Maya’s arm to steady her.

“I’m sorry, I was trying an experiment. I’m looking for a crafting teacher for a quest.”

“Really? How wonderful! I’ve never taught anyone, but I’m well qualified. If you would be willing to do something for me in return, I’ll gladly show you around.”

Maya grinned. Plus one for blind luck, it seemed! “I’ve only got a few hours left to finish the quest, so would it be alright if I do your task afterwards?”

“I suppose, though it would probably be better if you start with it. Follow me to my workshop, and we’ll get you set up.”

Maya followed him through the streets off the main roads and to a somewhat shabbier district.

If Kalyx were an urban maze, Nirsym proved to be more of a sprawling suburb. She didn’t see any buildings over two stories high and most were only one, unlike Kalyx where it was rare to see anything less than two or three. Still, the sheer size of it would make navigation difficult. The roads, aside from the main streets, were not laid out in anything approaching reasonable order. More like they’d been added at random sticking out from each other with no rhyme or reason.

She was very glad to have her local map.

The harpy led her to his home, which turned out to be another low, wide, one-story building somewhere between brick and adobe. She couldn’t help noticing that the lush garden-boxes and frequent trees of the main roads were conspicuously absent back here.

Maya blinked in the sudden dimness as she followed him inside. The interior was nothing like most of the buildings she’d seen the inside of, with the possible exception of Dalra’s house. But even then, it had been laid out more like a shop, whereas this place clearly was not intended for anyone to visit.

The one-room house contained a bed in the corner, a table and chair by the window, and a semi-circle of worktables that dominated the remainder of the space, each with its own distinct theme. Materials were piled around within easy reach of the various stations. The walls were entirely bare, the floor sandy dust, and the only lighting came from the open window and curtained door.

“Sorry about the mess,” her host said, hastily clearing a space at the central worktable. “I wasn’t anticipating visitors.”

Maya waved away his concerns. “Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t expect a workspace to be perfectly tidy anyway. As long as it works.”

He smiled. “Thank you. Now, what was it you wanted to craft?”

“Something exceptional in quality, but it doesn’t matter what. So whatever’s easiest to do very well in the next couple hours?”

“Huh, that’s an unusual order. What materials do you have to work with?”

“Ah, well, I didn’t buy anything yet since I had no idea what I’d need. I do have some monkey pelts. A lot of them. And a few snakeskins. Some cloth scraps. Not much more than those.”

“Then we’re looking at some light armor. And you say you’re in a rush?”

“Very much so.”

“That’ll make it harder, but I can pull it off.”

“No, I need to make it myself.”

“How familiar are you with armor crafting?”

“Um, zero, I guess.”

“And you expect to be able to craft something exceptional within a couple hours?”

Maya shrugged. “I’m very lucky?”

“Huh, well, you’re the customer. It would be much easier if you could simply observe my process and then practice it over the next few weeks. But I suppose we can try a rush job. I highly recommend you do my favour first though.”

“Why, what is it?”

He pointed to a pile of scrap material by the side of his workstation. “I need someone to help with recombinations. It’s a basic skill that anyone can do, which makes it a waste of my time, but at your level it should be enough to familiarize you with the crafting process and allow you to make progress faster when we begin using more expensive materials. It’ll greatly reduce the likelihood of you slipping up on something basic and ruining the whole project.”

“Oh. Sounds doable.”

For the next half hour, Maya practiced combining scraps of various materials together into somehow seamless larger pieces. Much like the ability system, the crafting system offered significant guidance to the process once it became clear what she was attempting. By the end of the half hour, she was combining the material scraps at a fast enough rate that her teacher couldn’t keep up, and soon she’d finished off the entire pile.

“Oh, by the way, what’s your name?” Maya finally remembered to ask. “I’m M—aah, er, Emma.”

“Gurth,” he replied, glancing over at her. “Emma, you say?”

“Yep, Emma.”

“Huh.” He didn’t say anything further on the subject, but she suddenly remembered that NPCs could read her character information directly. This was the first time she’d introduced herself by a psuedonym to anyone who wasn’t another player. It made her feel oddly exposed, though she doubted the NPCs would be gossiping with players about her charade. At least she hoped they wouldn’t.

“Finished,” she said, setting the last piece of leather on the stack beside the workbench. She stood and stretched. The floor wasn’t the most comfortable spot, though she suspected it was significantly toned down from reality.

“Good. Feeling more confident now?”

Maya nodded.

“Now, for your project. I’ve been thinking about it while you worked, and I think what you want to make is a belt. It’s the only thing that several attempts will fit within your timeframe, and primarily relies on the material you have available. Can I see them?”

Maya offered him the stack of monkey pelts, the snake scales, and scraps of cloth. He handed the latter back immediately.

“Yes, these will do well. You’ll need four pelts and two sets of scales for the Jungle Explorer’s Belt recipe I have in mind, so you’ll only have two tries. We could also do a Fur Belt if you prefer, but the cheaper the materials the harder it is to attain an exceptional quality level.”

Maya nodded. “Is there any way to get more materials?”

“Of course. You can buy just about anything here. Not these particular items, they’re not local and I don’t think anyone bothers to import them, but a local equivalent. It won’t be cheap.”

Maya sighed. “I didn’t think it would be. Let’s see what we can do with these.”

Turning the monkey pelts into usable monkey fur pieces was a time-consuming process, which grated against Maya’s increasing certainty that she’d run out of time before finishing. If she didn't have Gurth's help, she’d probably have given up in frustration. But her randomly-chosen teacher took his job seriously and seemed to be putting his utmost into the whole process.

Most came out as [normal] quality, a few [flimsy], and three as [uncommon] though there was no other indication of the difference between them. Gurth had several more uncommons, and no flimsy.

The snake scales required a whole different level of preparation, which Gurth took care of with his usual competence while Maya struggled with her half of the pelts.

By then, evening had begun to fall. Maya wondered briefly where Julios was, but then put him out of her mind.

They spent another hour going over the process, practicing with the Fur Belt before trying with the rarer snake scales. Maya’s confidence wasn’t high. The Fur Belts she’d been putting out so far came out as Normal or Uncommon every time, not a single rare. And now she only had two shots at getting exceptional!

Praying her luck held, she switched to the highest quality furs and scales, and triggered the crafting recipe.

Ten stressful minutes of work later, she had one [Legendary] Jungle Explorer’s Belt.

Legendary.

She stared at it, dumbfounded. On the one hand, it was awesome, or would be once she was high enough level to use it. On the other hand, now she’d overshot her target.

She tried again, but this one came out as rare, leaving her without sufficient snake scales left to try again.

“Gah! So close. Right on either side too. Ugh, well, let’s try the basic one again with the rest of the fur.”

Her very next try came out perfectly. [Exceptional] Fur Belt, Level 24

“Yes! Finally! HAH!”

Mission completed: Trickster Day 10! +5 reputation with The Trickster. Item gained: Gauntlets of Strength.

The new gloves were +18, and she equipped them without hesitation, bringing her health up from 142 to. . . 236?! And that was without having hardly any of her other items equipped. She had been seriously undervaluing strength, it seemed.

And speaking of her stats. . . between the debuff having worn off and the luck bonus from completing the quest, that brought her up to a comfortable +77 luck for the rest of the night.

Maya grinned, exhaling slowly in satisfaction. Though the day hadn’t gone anything like what she’d have planned, at least something was finally going right.

“Thank you,” she told Gurth, handing him back the instruction sheets. “I couldn’t have done this without your help.”

“I can’t be sure quite what it is about you that seems so important, but I knew the moment I saw you that I needed to help you. And you may keep those, I have copies.”

“Thank you!” Maya hesitated, then impulsively took off her trickster’s mask. Carefully, ready to slip it back on if he reacted poorly.

“Ahhh, trickster. So you are our champion. I heard rumors of your coming, but I did not truly believe it.” He actually bowed to her.

Maya still wasn’t comfortable with being the object of an apparent trickster cult among the NPCs, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t exploit it for everything it could offer.

“I’m gathering supplies to reach the island,” Maya said, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. “Do you know of anyone I should speak to for assistance?”

Gurth smiled radiantly. “Why, me of course. I am fortunate to have met you. One moment, please.”

He crossed to his bed, dragged it aside, opened a trapdoor - in the dirt floor?! - and retrieved a wrapped bundle from underneath. He handed it to her with a sort of reverence that she’d never encountered before and only made her more uncomfortable.

“This has been passed down through my family for generations, waiting for your coming. I never dared to hope it would be within my lifetime, yet here you are. Take it, and do what you must.”

Maya accepted the bundle and gently unwrapped it. Inside lay a solid black stone, which she immediately recognized. Roughly square, solid black, with a ten-pointed star inscribed deep into its surface. Just like those Sevard had for his riddle door.

But he didn’t have a black star. And Maya was willing to bet no one else did either.