Pride was a weird thing. Dallion used to claim that he didn’t consider himself to be anything special, other than extremely lucky. There was no denying that a lot of things had gone his way: him buying the harpsisword, him being hired to work at The Gremlin’s Timepiece inn, the attention of the Moons, even him joining the Icepicker guild. As it turned out, there was a reason for most of that, rules of the world that remained in effect regardless if he knew about them or not. Affected by Dallion’s character and personal choices, the rules had led to a favorable outcome, elevating him from a vast unknown to a rising star at the tournament arena, as well as a hero of Nerosal. From that perspective, having to resort to busking in Performer’s Plaza could be seen as a significant fall from grace.

You’re being childish, Nil grumbled. Dozens of people perform here for various reasons. I personally know of two minor nobles who recite poetry incognito twice per week.

While somewhat encouraging—and a tad disturbing—that didn’t keep Dallion from seeing himself as a beggar. Having spent all his sky silver to create his hammer, even if that was considered a masterpiece, had left him lacking material to do the other items he needed. With the city garrison growing, not only had the prices of special metals gone through the roof, but finding it at all had become exceedingly difficult. It was no wonder that people preferred to buy whole items with the goal of melting down the metal—an option that Dallion could never agree to. Unwilling to ask for assistance from the general or the mirror pool, Dallion had resorted to the next best thing: he had asked the overseer to buy a small amount of sky silver, for starters.

Fortunately for Dallion, the overseer—after confirming with the local nobles—had agreed. Unfortunately, Dallion was asked to pay market prices for it. Thus, he found himself sitting in a corner of Performer’s Plaza, playing a ring chord for spare change.

Another silver fell into the wooden bowl that Dallion had placed in front of him.

Wow, the bowl said, full of enthusiasm. That makes fifty-seven! You’re on a roll.

Dallion felt like crying. Fifty-seven wasn’t bad for being at it for less than an hour. Strictly speaking, he’d make ten times more as a guild member exploring items. Of course, that was half a year ago. Item exploration was not nearly as big now to the point that a guild got one or two artifacts per month. City sanitation and Item improvement remained in demand, but even there the competition was increasing. At present, even the top five guilds were doing things they wouldn’t have considered worthwhile before the last festival.

“Do you do requests?” a familiar voice asked.

Dallion looked up to see Vend standing there. The Icepicker elite appeared unchanged both in appearance and attitude. One would almost say that he had come to give Dallion a task from the guild and to remind him not to slack at his training.

“As long as I know it,” Dallion replied.

There was a sudden burst of instances. Dallion managed to get a glimpse of Vend’s instances for a few seconds, but lost track after a matter of seconds. Clearly, his former teacher still had the upper hand when it came to splitting.

“I thought you’d do better than that,” the elite said. Thanks to his music skills, Dallion knew he was jesting.

“One day I will. You still want me to play something, or are you here for a chat?”

Vend tossed a gold coin into the bowl.

“Just talk. I’m on my way to the nobles’ sector. Apparently, there’s some mending I need to do.”

“No gold clothes?” Dallion arched his brow. It was a huge deal getting invited by a noble, to the point that guilds dressed their members in gold and silver just for the occasion. In the past, those used to be major events observed by hundreds of people. Lately, the nobles tended to deal with their problems on their own.

“Lady Marigold wants to keep a low profile.”

Given that she was a family member of the previous owner of the city, it stood to logic. There was no word as to the views Lady Marigold and Countess Priscord held concerning each other, but Dallion suspected that they weren’t the best. Possibly the countess blamed the locals for the failure that had occurred during the festival. It was also possible that there was bad blood that ran a lot deeper.

“Still improving your training dagger?” Vend asked.

“I stopped at level thirty-nine,” Dallion replied.

“Close to gold.” Vend nodded. “Not bad.” He tossed another gold coin into the bowl.

“People usually toss a coin after they’ve heard the music,” Dallion noted.

In truth, he was a bit annoyed about not being able to progress further with his training stiletto. Vend had given it to him as a means to practice his awakening discipline. The goal was simple: try to improve the weapon once every day, though never more. Things were easy when the weapon had been made of tin. However, once Dallion had improved it to the silver, and later partial gold alloy, the improvment fights had turned into attempts.

“Who says I haven’t?” Vend tossed a final third gold coin. “You need to learn more songs,” he said. “The last two were a stretch. In any event, good luck.”

“Thanks.” You split, didn’t you?

It was just like Vend to split into several dozen instances and have Dallion perform a song in each. Given how gifted the elite was in the area, there even was a chance that he was underpaying. Sadly, there was no way for Dallion to ever be certain.

“Say hi to Eury for me,” Vend said as he walked off.

“Sure.” Dallion watched the man disappear in the crowd.

That guy must really like you, the Bowl said. Old friend?

Current friend, Dallion replied. He took a few seconds to gather the coins and put them in his pouch, then went back to playing.

Without question, the ring chord was an exotic instrument. Even now, the best way Dallion could describe it was “a set of guitar strings attached to a ring on either side.” The sound the instrument made was nothing special, the skill required to have it play, though, was what set it aside from any other instrument. As the old man, who had given it to him, had said, playing a ring-chord was mostly a visual art; and in a plaza filled with hundreds of sounds, performance was a huge draw in.

By evening Dallion had filled several pouches of coins, even if, with the exception of the ones Vend had given him, all of them were silver. The sum was no laughing matter, yet all of it, along with Dallion’s previous savings, went to procure little more than a thimble of sky silver. The emblem was going to end up slightly smaller than Dallion wanted, but enough to create what he had in mind. The bladebow, though, was going to have to wait.

Are you sure it’s worth it? Gen asked. It’s a lot of money for something you won’t be able to use.

The Moons gave this to me for a reason. Better be prepared than annoyed later on.

The echo didn’t argue.

Going to his forge, Dallion got to work. This was the first time he was going to use his new hammer, which made him equal parts eager and nervous. Logically speaking, there was nothing to be worried about. Dallion had linked the hammer to his realm and introduced the new very geeky guardian to the other inhabitants of his awakened realm. Things had gone as well as expected. The initial meeting between Harp and Onda was on the tense side. Everyone could tell that the hammer guardian was slightly intimidated by the harpsisword, but he had relaxed soon enough. The greater disappointment came when Onda found that the companion gear guardian to be a male druid. In turn, Vihrogon had suggested that Dallion name the hammer the Tri-force. The temptation had been considerable, but Dallion had managed to resist. It was enough that he had taken on Darude as his name and battle cry.

After giving Onda a quick tour, Dallion spent a few hours going over the details of the emblem the guardian was going to help him create. Technically, the item was going to be a pendant until Dallion could get it blessed by the Moons in a temple of the Order. Despite that, the shape and dimensions had to be perfect.

The two had gone through a lot of discussions as to the method of creation, even going through several practice runs. The results were close to flawless, but many things in the awakened realms were. Here, there was no hint of the chaos of the wilderness that had an effect over everything in the real world, even within the domain of a city.

Now it was time to see what the real results would be. Once the metal was heated to the point of being malleable, Dallion took it out of the oven with a pair of tongs, carefully placed it on the anvil slab, and started hammering.

A jeweler, especially one from earth, would faint in anger seeing how Dallion set out to make the emblem. However, they would be wrong. Emblems were not jewelry—they had to be strong enough to contain the order of the Moons so as to counteract the effects of the wilderness. As a rule, each emblem was at least three times smaller than the volume of the original material used. The chunk of material Dallion had managed to procure from the overseer was originally enough to make half a golf ball. At the moment, he was doing his best to squeeze that into an item the size and shape of a penny.

Your rhythm is out of whack, Onda said. Stop with the see-sawing, okay?

Talked down by an eternal teen guardian of his own creation… Neither Dallion’s skills, not focus, not even the twelve instances he used at every strike, seemed enough to keep Onda content. In this aspect, the little geek was worse than Nil. However, that was a good thing. Despite his pesky remarks, he compensated for Dallion’s faults, shifting the weight of the hammer ever so slightly at precisely the right moment.

At least, I know that the design works, Dallion said to himself as he kept on working.

No markers appeared around the piece of metal as he worked on. The first two hours passed in savagely beating the shape into submission, which had to be done in ten-minute intervals, since at that point the sky silver had to be heated again. By midnight. Dallion had managed to get the rough shape, but still had to shrink it in size.

Fatigue had started to rear its ugly head, but was kept at bay by sheer determination. Another couple of hours later, and the basic shape was ready—a thin, flat disk, no wider than Dallion’s thumb nail.

You need some rest, the hammer said.

I’m fine, Dallion said, breathing heavily. I can do this.

Like a cat on water. Seriously, gramps, chill a bit. You want to get it done right, right?

It was unclear which was worse: the hammer’s comments, or the Vihrogon’s laughter in the background. While Dallion had made a point to leave most of his gear at Eury’s workshop, the guardians had snuck into Onda’s tower just to listen to the banter for their own amusement. That was one of the risks of linking items to one’s realm.

“I said, I can do it!” Dallion yelled.

“Do what?” A voice asked at the door.

Dallion briskly turned around. Euryale was standing near the entrance, leaning at the door.

“Eury?” Dallion blinked. “How long have you been there?” He hadn’t even noticed when she had come in.

“Enough to see you lose it,” the gorgon replied. “Another critical discussion with Nil?”

“Something like that,” Dallion said, doing his best to ignore the gossip session which had started in his awakening realm regarding his relations to Eury.

The gorgon moved away from the door and went to take a closer look at the sky silver disk.

“Steady work,” she said—the first actual praise Dallion had received on the matter. “The hammer as well.” The compliment didn’t pass unnoticed. “What are you making exactly?”

“An emblem shell. I was thinking of having it blessed after I pass my trial gate.”

“Not a bad idea.” The gorgon took off the gear she was wearing and rolled up her sleeves.

“What are you doing?” Dallion asked, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

“Just the bellows. A smith must make their own gear alone, but there’s nothing against assisting with the annoying stuff. Especially since you’re still my apprentice.” She went to the bellows. “Put it in and take a few minutes. This is going to be a long night.”