Regis didn’t have to goad the rat much. It let out a loud screech before running towards his direction. The giant rat pulled its body close to the ground before lunging towards the young dark elf. ‘Boom!’ He said inwards as he let the spell loose while stepping aside, aiming at the head of the rat. His aim was a bit off, not considering the beast’s movement. The arcana bolt almost tore completely through the creature’s neck as he took it down from the air. The rat screeched and twitched on the ground for a few moments before he stabbed it with his bladestaff.

“Well, this was… oh shit!” He cursed as another pair of rats burst through the forest’s foliage, running towards him with full speed.

The two new rats were more aggressive than the first one and Regis barely managed to cast an arcana bolt at one and take a swing at the other when a third one came out of the forest.

“Just how many of you fuckers are there?” He growled as he slashed at the third rat’s neck.

A quarter of an hour later there were eleven rat corpses on the ground along with a wheezing dark elf that was barely holding onto his staff. His leg armours had several claw marks here and there while his bladestaff was covered in blood. Regis was both exhausted and out of arcana by the time he killed the last one.

With no beast showing up, he gathered his Amaranth from the carcasses and sat down on a tree stump to quickly meditate. Less than five minutes later he was back in business once again. As he looked around, not seeing any mercenaries or refugees nearby, he decided to take his chances with the corpse sacrifice ritual in hopes of gaining a few more vigour shards. The bloody remains quickly shrivelled up under the eerie light of the sacrificial spell, rewarding him with six red and five green hued crystals the size of small beans.

He held them together, allowing them to fuse into a complete vigour and fortitude shard which he then absorbed. With his task complete and the remaining incomplete shards pocketed, he was about to decide whether he wanted to check out the forest or not, but a rustle from the nearby bushes stopped him. Another pair of rats showed up, but before they could get closer than five meters, a black coloured magic bolt struck one of them in the head. The other one tried to lunge at him, but a staff smashed in its skull.

“Do you need the remains?” A soft voice came from behind him and as he turned around, he found the people responsible for the two new rat corpses.

The slightly androgynous voice came from a pale white skinned, black haired young man who wore a sleeveless open robe without any shirt. He stepped closer with a mild smile before a bloody staff stopped in front of his chest.

“You should wait for an answer before approaching. He might attack you.”

The owner of the staff seemed to be a well-tanned elven woman. She had a short dark-brown pony tail hair and wore a leather breastplate that only protected her from the neck to the bottom of her ribs. Her hands were covered in cloth wraps like a boxer’s as she held onto her wooden staff. Regis couldn’t stop his eyes from lingering on her athletic figure for a moment.

“Don’t be so dramatic Cruz!”

“Don’t be so carefree!”

“Who are you guys?” Regis looked at the unlikely duo as he was mentally readying himself to cast wind blast before using a piercing strike if needed.

“My name is Osmond,” the pale youth introduced himself with a slight bow. “And as you’ve already heard, my overly cautious friend here is Cruz.”

“She’s right you know,” the dark elf said. “Most people would freak out the moment they see someone cast a shadow bolt.”

“You’ve recognised it? Few people can figure it out from one glance.”

“It was pitch black and it was a magic bolt. It doesn’t take a genius to know that only the shadow element would have a spell like that. As for your question; my answer is no,” he looked back at the dried out rat husks. “I already have what I came for. You can do whatever you want with the rest.”

“Much obliged.” Osmond bowed slightly as he stepped near the first rat.

Regis couldn’t hear what he was chanting, but as he walked aside, he saw a pale blue light puff leave one of the corpses. The light floated into the young man’s palm before the dried out fur and flesh of the corpse melt away into black goo. Once the skeleton was exposed, the young man twisted his fingers into a snap and the blue light ball flew back into the bone pile. Regis watched with both horror and awe as the rat’s skeleton twitched and stood back on to its feet.

“Necromancy.” He said it with a slight hesitation as he watched the skeletal rat sit down in front of its master.

“A side branch of it,” the black haired youth said as he patted his new pet. “You don’t seem to be surprized. I know that most outlanders have been fighting against the undead during the past few nights, but you’re still surprisingly calm. Then again, you did use corpse sacrifice on these rats yourself. Are you an occultist by any chance or did you just wanted to get some extra out of your hard work?”

“Can’t blame a man for making most of his situation,” Regis shook his head as he began to walk away. “They’re a means to power like most enemies out there. You should be careful though. Those refugees on the left side might see your rats and given how much trouble the fallen caused so far, you might end up burnt to the stake.”

“Thank you for the warning…”

“Regis.”

“Nice name, Regis. Are you an east gate defender?”

“Not if I can help it.” The dark elf threw the words over his shoulder as he headed back into town.

Once inside Hunor, he stopped himself from cursing about his bad luck and headed straight back to Bray. He covertly opened the stone door and once down the stairs, throwing his satchel over to his sleeping place.

“What’s wrong lad? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I didn’t see any ghosts,” the dark elf answered. “But I did meet with a friggin bone puppeteer.”

“A bone puppeteer?”

“It’s a type of necromancy.”

“A necromancer in Hunor,” Bray took a step back. “Did the guards manage to kill him?”

“That’s just it, Bray. The guy was an outlander like me from the looks of it. He was some kid who might have been even younger than me. At first I couldn’t decide whether he and his friend wanted to attack me because I was using corpse sacrifice ritual to get a bit of a bonus out of my kills. Then, he made the flesh of a dry ass rat corpse melt off with a few words and made its skeleton move around like child’s toy. He even asked me if I needed all the rat corpses I’ve piled up.”

“He didn’t try to harm you, did he?”

“No. He was just chatting with me in a carefree way while the girl watched out for the rest of the guards in the distance.”

“What girl?”

“There was an elven woman with that necromancer guy. At first I thought that she was a sun elf, but her skin was darker with a slight brownish hue.”

“I believe that you’ve met with a forest elf. They’re quite reclusive folk, but even they would want to leave their old home once it was filled with the fallen and their taint. However, I can’t imagine how one of them would end up with a necromancer.”

“Judging by the Earth-born name and their familiar banter, she’s obviously an outlander as well. It doesn’t really matter as long as they don’t want to cause trouble. I can’t blame him for choosing that path though. Power is power after all. Even I had a chance at it; I just didn’t like the idea of running around with zombies following me. Anyway, let’s just hope they won’t cause trouble to the guards.”

“Indeed. It’s bad enough with the lack of supplies and the undead at our gates. The last thing we need is an angry necromancer running around in Hunor.”

Regis nodded in agreement as he sat back down on his mill sack bedroll and opened his knapsack. He fished out the thin enchanting book he gained earlier from the lord’s manor and he began to read it in earnest.

“Back at your books again? Couldn’t you just sit through it instead of running around outside?”

“Well, ADHD is a bitch, you know.” Regis shrugged the question off in a professional ‘don’t give a shit’ manner as he turned back to the small book.

The first three pages explained the same things he learned from Taveran’s journal, leaving another eleven for the actual enchantments. Every page was dedicated to a single enchantment and its description. Out of the eleven enchantments described in the book, Regis was happy to find out that he only knew four. The runes of durability, lightweight, sharpen and spell focus were spread out among the pages, but the other seven were both new and useful to him.

There was an enchantment that would increase the protection of his armour by a flat number. Two of the enchantments were variants of the same that meant to add either fire or frost elemental damage to one’s weapon while another two gave resistance against the same elements for armours. Out of the last two enchantments, the one boosting arcana regeneration caught Regis’ attention more.

The last enchantment of the book would reduce some of the noise of one’s footsteps, but Regis had neither a use for that one, or the shadow spell he’s need to create the necessary elemental stone for it in the first place. One thing became painfully obvious for him after reading through the thin book and his own scribbles on the wall.

Enchanting a full set of armour would be a costly and lengthy endeavour for him, even if he could make the elemental stones himself. He looked down onto his chest as he touched the ‘Dusk-blade’ armour. ‘If I’m going to do this, I might as well go all the way.’ Regis thought as he took off the breastplate with the pauldrons and the tasset still attached to it.

After searching through the bottom of his knapsack he grabbed from beside his bedroll, the young dark elf pulled out a near thumb sized yellow crystal. He only had a few sunstones left and he wanted to keep the larger one for the time he would have the skills to copy the runes of his quartz catalyst. This smaller crystal would now become the core of his soulbound armour.

Regis used his dagger to prick his finger and drew the necessary symbols on both the crystal and the rib section of his armour. As he touched the sunstone to his armour, floating words appeared in front of him instead of the two items fusing together.

{This breastplate is connected to other armour pieces, forming a set. Do you wish to soulbound the entire set?}

The note left him with a gaping mouth for a moment before he made his decision. ‘Yes!’ He though and as soon as he did, the sunstone let out a blinding flash of light as Regis fell on his back with all of his arcana drained. The young dark elf could hear Bray’s voice as he repeatedly called out to him, but his vision was blank and he couldn’t move his body for a few minutes. When his sight finally returned, he wheezed and sat back up with sweat cowered face.

“What happened to you, lad?” Bray asked as he tried to help him sit up.

“I’ve made a new friend.” Regis answered with a smile as he patted the leather armour.

He could feel the faint connection between himself and the vestment just as he felt his bond with his staff. After a few moments of slow breathing, the youth was fully back to his senses once more. His new soulbound equipment seemed just as unique as his staff. As he looked at the hard leather part of breastplate, he noticed a coin sized bright yellow crystal on the middle. It was a yellow sunstone coin.

“Now I’m the Pacman.” Regis chuckled as he looked at the yellow coin, but there was no response from Bray to his comment.

The young dark elf looked at the old man who was still puzzled by the video game reference he made, but after a pat on the shoulder, the elderly man shook his head with a small smile and went back to his bedroll. Regis sat down as well and a short time of meditation later he used charlatan’s wisdom on the armour that revealed three separate stats in one go.

{Soulbound dusk-blade shell}

{Item rarity: ??}

{Item quality: ordinary}

{Greater enchantments: 0}

{Lesser enchantments: 0}

{Durability: 100/100}

{Armour type: medium}

{Armour Value: ??}

{Soulbound dusk-blade pauldrons}

{Item rarity: ??}

{Item quality: ordinary}

{Greater enchantments: 0}

{Lesser enchantments: 0}

{Durability: 100/100}

{Armor type: medium}

{Armor Value: ??}

{Soulbound dusk-blade tasset}

{Item rarity: ??}

{Item quality: ordinary}

{Greater enchantments: 0}

{Lesser enchantments: 0}

{Durability: 100/100}

{Armor type: medium}

{Armor value: ??}

The description of the armour pieces changed somewhat with the chest piece now being called a shell instead of a breastplate, but he had to face a bigger problem. He would have to enchant his armour piece by piece. There were still almost a dozen bronze ingots hoarded beside his bedroll. With those he could infuse his armour to increase its durability, but the rest of the useable enchantments required elemental stones that he first had to craft himself. ‘This is going to take a while.’

The youth sighed inwardly as he placed a few bronze ingots on top of his armour pieces. After an hour of repeated meditation and ingot replacement he managed to skip infusing his armour with a ‘waste’ rank durability enchantment and ended up with the ‘ordinary’ ranked one. This of course increased the material needed for it by a bit, but he was willing to spend more instead of having to run around Hunor to get a few copper bars. Once it was finished, the armour set took on a dark brownish bronze colour and a metallic sheen.

As he reached out for the interwoven straps of the chest armour, his fingers could feel a mix of metallic and leather like touch. He wanted to go on enchanting, but he had no materials to work with, so he recreated the transmutation circle responsible for elemental stone creation. Regis sat down and spent roughly an hour in a cycle of creating quartz crystals with his grow cluster spell and meditating to replenish his arcana reserves.

The dark elf youth then used those quartz pieces to create three air and earth elemental stones. He also made some effort and tried using the frost rune he just learned to create an icicle spell and a spell similar to his scorching touch, but with frost effect. With the creation of the elemental stones and the two new spell variants out of the way, he walked back beside the campfire, falling on the mill sack he used as his bedroll. Bray didn’t even have to count to five before the youth’s quiet snoring filled the air.