The next ten runs didn’t go like the first one. By the seventh or eighth, Elrick had stopped even feeling nervous. Jaraka entirely disabled the golems--usually in one shot--and the hammer team rarely even had to deal with more than a single flailing limb. Basti and Elrick got good at breaking up the limbs as fast as they could, and the hammer team was able to help crush the limbs and body up once they’d neutralized any immediate threat.

They mined many packhorses full of slippery bronze on each trip, and each time they took the raft back to Rakote, they carried a chest full of refined ingots. Each chest was worth a fortune, Gotha had told him.

He wasn’t surprised they turned him down when he offered to help smith the ore. Only the most accomplished smiths were allowed to touch the stuff.

He got stuck smithing regular copper. He had wanted to smith the stuff he’d mined. There was an allure to seeing the whole process through, but he realized his skill just wasn’t high enough. He’d fix that.

He’d reached a skill of 79.2 in Coppersmithing, which wasn’t bad, but he’d never seen anyone below 85 skill touching the slippery bronze.

His mining skill was already at 82.6, as he mined a lot more than he smithed. Still, the skill slowdown as he approached 100 was sharp. Each mining run yielded fewer and fewer gains. He’d sometimes go an entire day of mining without even gaining more than 0.2 skill. Coppersmithing was gaining even more slowly, and he was likely months away from hitting 85.0. Even if he did hit that threshold, it’s not like he could show the guild that number, and him being so new would likely keep him off the slippery copper despite his higher skill.

“Elrick,” Jocha said.

He turned away from sword he was polishing.

“Gotha wants to see you.”

“Can I finish this sword?”

“Gotha doesn’t like waiting,” Jocha said.

Jocha’s voice betrayed his feelings for Gotha. The two had been at each other's throats since Thios had died.

“I’ll go now,” Elrick said.

Gotha had his own office in the guildhouse. He found Gotha writing figures down onto a scroll. He stopped writing as Elrick came in.

“I wanted to chat with you,” Gotha said.

“About?”

“It’s your first payday,” Gotha said.

He removed a bag from a drawer. It let out a satisfying clink as Gotha dropped it on his desk.

“Before you take this,” Gotha said, “Let me run some numbers by you.”

He opened the pouch and poured the coins onto the table.

“Twenty gold coins,” Gotha said before Elrick could count them. “That’s what’s owed to you, and what you’d take if you didn’t join the guild.”

“What does it cost to join the guild?” Elrick asked.

“Well,” Gotha said, sliding five coins away, “This would pay your resurrection insurance.”

Elrick’s eyes bulged. That was 25% of his profit, just gone.

Gotha slid two more coins into the pile of five, growing it to seven. “This covers guild dues.”

Elrick eyed the remaining 13 coins. “So I keep the rest?”

It was reasonable. He’d hustled and risked his life with no resurrection insurance for less in Antia. Though if he’d managed to stay on with Owen without dying, he probably could have carved out a better living there. Not to mention that Hunter was in Antia. Hunter already was stronger than him, richer, and had a growing group of followers. Was 13 gold coins per week in Rakote going to be enough for Elrick to train himself stronger than Hunter, and then somehow make it to Antia to kill him? If Elrick waited long enough, Hunter might become so strong that he could simply send someone to kill Elrick. Guild insurance or not, if Hunter was determined to kill him, the priests could be killed, or Hunter could overload the priests so that Elrick couldn’t come back again.

Elrick had decided when he died that he needed to get back to Antia, and he was still sure of that. There were no mage guilds here. The mages like Yaraka had been sent by ship to Rakote. He’d already tried pressing Yaraka to train him, but she’d looked at him as if he were insane for even suggesting it, and demanded he never mention something like that to anyone else. He needed magic to kill Hunter, he was nearly certain of that, and to learn magic, he needed to be back in the center of civilization rather than on the edge of it.

Shortly after arriving in Rakote, Elrick had asked the harbormaster what it cost for passage to Antia. The lowest price he’d found was 500 gold. For that price he could hitch a ride on a cargo ship. He’d be given just enough food to not starve, and he’d sleep wherever he could find space within the cargo hold. The holds were usually infested with rats and fleas. He’d heard entire crews would sometimes die of disease before reaching Antia, and often half a crew wouldn’t make it. If you died on the sea, it was exceedingly difficult to get resurrected unless you died just off the coast. Also, if Elrick were to take a trip like this, it would mean he was not under the guild’s resurrection coverage.

For almost 2000 gold he could get his own cabin and real food. It was relatively rare for someone who traveled like this to die, as these ships were designed for passengers—rich ones. The only way you died on one of these is if the entire ship went down. This happened, but there would always be some risk.

Gotha nodded, tapping the coins. “The rest is yours. If you don’t join the guild, I can’t guarantee you we can hire you on as a freelancer too often. We let you take this whole pile if you walk as a courtesy, but we mostly wanted to give you this chance to join. There’s not much mining or smithing work for freelancers. And it goes without saying you couldn’t mine the slippery bronze, or anything in our mine, for that matter.”

So take the 20 coins and struggle to find work and places to mine, or have a steady supply coming his way. If he risked a cargo ship, he could set sail back for Rakote in just under a year of working for the guild, but he’d arrive with empty pockets. So closer to a full year if he wanted to hit the shore of Antia with money in his pocket.

If he waited for the passenger ship, he doubted he’d ever be able to kill Hunter. He knew how Hunter gamed, and while Elrick worked for a modest salary, Hunter would have his own entire guild of loyal followers. He’d become untouchable, and maybe the gnomes would just decide that Elrick wasn’t worth keeping plugged into this simulation anymore.

“I’ll join the guild,” Elrick said.

He’d take this, but he’d have to find a way to accelerate things. He’d give it a year, and if he didn’t find a way to buy passage on the passenger ship—with gold left to ease his transition back to Antia—then he’d just risk the cargo ship.

He’d expected there’d be some ceremony, but Gotha just slapped him hard on the back and shook his hand. On the next run to the mine, everyone just met his eyes and gave him a nod to acknowledge his permanent position within the guild.

They’d been mining a new shaft ever since the double golem incident, and the golems that came out in the new shaft had been easily dealt with. This run was no different. Elrick’s mining skill was slowly but steadily increasing. It was 86.3 now, still short of Basti’s 93.7, but he noticed Basti’s skill almost never increased. He’d made a note on the second run, and it was just stuck at that level.

Between runs, Elrick cast, sharpened, and polished regular bronze armor and weapons, increasing his skill in Coppersmithing and trying to up the amount of money he made per week. The 13 he’d made after deductions the first week had factored in the smithing he’d done, but if he could get better and produce more—or higher quality work—he’d earn more.

His second week he made 14 gold. His third, only 12.

They’d mined less on the runs, and those runs had taken longer. The shaft was getting more difficult. Thios and Jocha said it happened—that it was a bad week. He’d tried to suss out how much each of the other guildsmen made, to see if he had any hope of hiring the passenger ship, but they were tight-lipped. He’d figured out it was taboo to ask outright, but he’d hoped that maybe between friends they’d let him know. They didn’t.

He took a training sword and a set of armor he’d smithed to the sparring grounds just outside the Agora. He’d neglected his skill in Swordsmanship. It didn’t make him any money like Coppersmithing did, and getting back to Antia had been the top priority. Still, if he made it back to Antia unable to fight, it would do him little good. So he’d made 12 gold in a week—less than the first week—and now he’d have to make even less so that he could improve his sword skill? It felt hopeless.

He’d managed to train his skill in Swordsmanship up to 71.4 by hitting training dummies in the guild hall, but the skill gains on that had slowed to an absolute crawl. He knew he needed to fight real people if he wanted to get any better, which is what had brought him to the sparring grounds. He watched the other people training. He saw a man with 76.3 skill in Polearms nod to his partner as he walked away.

Elrick approached. “Want to spar after you catch your breath?”

The man furrowed his brow. “Do I know you?” He had dark brown skin and emerald green eyes.

“I’m Elrick,” he said, “with the Coppersmiths’ and Miners’ Guild.”

“I”m Durka,” he said. “Sure, I’ll spar you.”

Durka had a “training spear,” which had a dull wooden point rather than a sharpened bronze one. Elrick’s training sword was hollowed-out wood filled with bronze so that the weight felt the same. Neither weapon would kill, but a direct hit from either would not be pleasant.

They stepped ten paces back and began to spar.

Durka held his spear in an overhand grip, like a scorpion waiting to strike.

Elrick moved forward until he was just outside of the spear’s range, which unfortunately was well over twice the range of his sword. Durka’s body tightened, and Elrick’s instincts told him a strike was coming. He jumped left, but Durka had already begun to lunge, and he was aiming for where Elrick landed. All Elrick could do at this point was twist his body, and the dull wood hit his shoulder.

“Got you,” Durka said.

They went again, this time Elrick just rushed him, giving him no time to feign or fake him out.

Even though Elrick got inside the range of the speartip, Durka swung the shaft. The wooden polearm slammed against Elrick’s head. His helmet absorbed the worst of the impact, but he still felt the impact in his skull. Elrick thrust the sword forward, but Durka dodged. Elrick went in for another swing, but the base of the wooden spear shaft—between Durka’s hands—came up and deflected the sword as Durka jumped backward. Before Elrick could get his footing, Durka thrust the tip until it made contact with Elrick’s gut, but Durka refrained from pressing the tip into his stomach with his full strength. He just grinned.

“Got ya again,” he said. “You’re never going to beat a spear without a shield, you know.”

“Here,” a familiar voice said.

He looked up and saw Elise. She threw a shield at him.

He barely caught it without dropping it. He started to strap it on instinctively, and just as he was about to ask Elise where the hell she’d been, Durka charged him.

He raised the shield just in time to defect the blow from connecting right into the side of his head.

Your skill in Shields has increased by 2.0. It is now 2.0.

He took a step toward where Durka had struck from, hoping to get inside his range before he could swing again. The shield was big and wide, and it blocked the entire right half of his field of view. He moved the shield to the side to find Durka, and just as he did, the spear tip thrust forward and hit his helmet hard enough to knock it loose.

“Don’t move your shield,” Durka said, “Move your head.”

Elrick threw the shield down and turned toward Elise. “Where have you been? I looked all over for you.”

“Did you?” she asked, a brow raised. “I’ve been trying to make contact with you for over a week, but you never left the guildhouse alone. It didn’t seem like you were looking for me at all, really.”

She looked different than she had looked as an alchemist’s apprentice. She wore a dress of Rakotan wool. It had strips of bright azure ringing around her waist. That color would signify some kind of wealth in Antia, but the dye was so abundant here that even peasants wore it. Her hair was wrapped up in a bun that sat on top of her head, held together with a tied azure scarf. Her skin was at least three shades darker than he’d remembered, which looked nice with her sun bleached blonde hair.

She looked more hardened. More mature. And also more attractive. She’d definitely bathed since he’d last seen her covered in leaves and mud.

“Why did you give up looking for me?” she asked.

She was still smiling, but there was an innocent sincerity she was not quite succeeding in hiding from him.

“I…” he started to lie, but knew he wouldn’t fool her. “I’ve been trying to save money. I wasn’t making any progress, and…”

“It’s fine,” she said. “You wouldn’t have found me anyway. I didn’t want to risk the Alchemists’ guild here getting hold of me, so I got out of the city before they could make me a slave again.”

“The guilds aren’t connected,” Elrick said. “The Coppersmiths here are better than the ones in Antia—”

“Or they’re better at fooling you,” she said, jabbing a finger at him.

Durka elbowed her.

“What?” she hissed.

“Over here,” he said, waving toward the shade.

“You afraid of the sun, Durka?” she asked.

“More afraid of eavesdroppers,” the dark-skinned man whispered, eyeing the other people sparring not too far from them.

They found a shaded spot near the semi-circular wall of the sparring grounds, away from the other people sparring.

“What are you two afraid of?” Elrick asked. “What have you gotten yourself into, Elise?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I had to make my way without selling out,” she glared at Elrick when she said that. “My mother is still in Antia. I have to get back to her.”

He remembered seeing Taalia die, but she could have found a way to get resurrected.

“I have to get back too,” he said. “That’s why I’ve ‘sold out,’ as you put it.”

“How much did you even sell out for?” she asked, poking a finger into his breastplate.

“I have almost one-hundred gold coins,” he said. He bit his lip. “Almost.”

She laughed. Durka didn’t, at least not until she stared daggers at him. He forced a laugh too, but gave Elrick a sympathetic look.

He looked at Elise. “How much do you have?”

She grinned, but then pursed her lips. “Let’s just say it’s a lot more than you have. Do you have time to come with us? Or will your guild punish you for staying out too late?”

He had to wake before dawn to catch a raft to the mine. He wouldn’t get in trouble with the guild for being late...but he shouldn't stay out much longer if he wanted to be alert for his crossbow shifts on the Strach.

“I have time,” he said.