Cerry Tiln said goodbye to her mother as she stepped out the door into the bustle of Shadetown, the door closing with the ringing of a bell behind her.

It was dark this early, as it always was in the shadow of the wall, they wouldn’t get direct sunlight for another hour, but even so, she felt invigorated by the dawn… shade.

She giggled at the thought as she stepped off the doorstep and onto the narrow road, already filled with people going about their day. Farmers were bringing crops and produce in from the fields, stocking their stalls of supplying businesses preparing for a day’s trading. Market square was the centre of trade outside the wall and she’d been lucky to be born in the prosperous area.

“Mornin’, Cerry,” her neighbour, Lyla, called as she stepped from her house. “Off to the store?”

The younger girl nodded happily.

“That’s right. It’s been so busy over there, Lyla, you have no idea.”

The florist chuckled as she pulled her shawl around her shoulders, falling into step behind her young friend.

“I’m not surprised. I can’t ever remember an Arcanist opening a business outside the wall. Normally, you find them closer to the castle, not out here with the rest of us.”

Cerry sniffed.

“That’s because they charge way too much. Master Almsfield is different, his prices are much more reasonable.”

“Well, whatever the reason, I’m grateful for it. I got a heating pan for my bed last week, and my old bones have never felt so spry in the morning. My hip barely aches anymore.”

It was pleasing to hear the wonderful things her employer had been able to do for the people of Shadetown. From Glow-lights, to heating pans, to filters and dozens of other knick-knacks the more well-to-do citizens of Kenmor took for granted, the products had been flying off the shelves. Cerry grinned.

“I hear so many stories just like that,” she said, “people come in all the time to tell me how wonderful it’s been. Most of them have never owned anything enchanted in their lives.”

She leaned forward conspiratorially.

“My father came to the shop and bought a temperature controlling array and installed it in the kitchen for mother. She’s been singing his praises for the last week, since it always gets so stuffy in there.”

She knew he’d done it because he was too cheap to pay for the renovations necessary to achieve proper ventilation, but her mother had been happy either way. She baked for a living, and with so many ovens going at once, it was like a furnace in there most days. Now, at least the corner she did most of her preparations and decorating in was pleasantly cool the whole day around.

“I told him to fork over and purchase heating plates for the ovens, but he’s still leery.”

She snorted, affronted that Master Almsfield’s work could be doubted, and Lyla laughed.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll come around. I’m not likely to get time to come into the store, but do pass on my thanks to Mr Almsfield for me, would you?”

“I will when I see him,” Cerry shrugged.

The owner kept strange hours, sometimes working upstairs all day, sometimes sleeping all day and working all night, and sometimes just straight up vanishing for days at a time. On the one hand, it was odd; on the other, it was pleasing to know how much she was trusted.

“This is me, Cerry. You have a good day now,” Lyla patted her on the shoulder before turning down a narrow road.

“You too!”

Another two streets down and she arrived at the market proper, crowded already, hawkers calling to the crowd, advertising their wares. It was a familiar sound that felt like nothing so much as home. Around the corner, onto Office Street and she was standing in front of the shop.

She rummaged through her bag for a moment before she found the tightly bound ‘key’ Master Almsfield had made for her. She waved it in front of the handle, and after a moment, there was a slight ‘click’ as the door unlocked.

It was difficult to restrain a small laugh, as it was every morning. Something so ordinary, like unlocking a door, had become ever so slightly magickal, and she loved it. Stepping inside, the store was immaculate as always, gleaming display cases, polished hardwood floors with curved trimmings and finishes. However much it had cost to set up the store, it must have been a small fortune. Half the time, she was afraid of slipping and damaging something she couldn’t afford to replace!

She closed the door gently behind her and began her normal morning routine. Cleaning the floor came first, then the benches and tables, before she moved on to the glass.

It was hard to avoid the sad reality staring back at her from those tassled cushions, however: they were running dangerously low on stock. Many of the displays were empty, almost half of them in fact. The store had been extremely successful since it opened, but perhaps Master Almsfield needed to hire more workers?

Apprentice Rivner worked hard, his handsome face pinched with worry and concentration whenever he was in the store, but perhaps just one apprentice wasn’t enough?

She wondered about that as she cleaned the windows in the front of the store. Did they need to expand already? There was probably room upstairs for more apprentices to work….

Lost in thought, she ran through her chores until the doorbell rang and she turned with a squeak, caught by surprise. Flynn Rivner stopped and stared at her, a slight blush on his face.

“O-oh, sorry, Cerry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She felt furious at herself for looking so foolish in front of him.

“It’s nothing, Apprentice Rivner,” she smiled, trying to regain her poise. “How are you this mornin'? I mean, morning?”

Control your tongue, Cerry! You want him to think you’re some country bumpkin!?

“Ah, I’m fine,” he said, shuffling his feet a little before he realised he was still in the doorway. “I-I should head upstairs… then. Nice to see you… uh… Ms Tiln.”

“Nice to see you as well, Apprentice Rivner.”

Her eyes trailed after him as he strode across the shop floor and towards the steps, without trying to make it obvious. He was just so tall, and dignified!

She sighed.

He must have all sorts of fancy women inside the wall chasing after him. A promising Arcanist apprentice with his whole life ahead of him had a lot of prospects.

She returned to work, only to turn back when she heard Flynn coming back down the stairs, a rueful expression on his face. She glanced down and saw the elaborate case used to hold the finished cores in his hands.

“Oh! Has Master Almsfield been working last night?”

“It appears so,” Apprentice Rivner sighed before he placed the case carefully down on the counter and shook his head.

There was something about the look in his eye that prompted her to ask.

“Is something wrong? We certainly needed the work done, half the store is sold out.” She gestured toward the cases.

“Sorry? Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just… shocked is all.”

Cerry was confused.

“About what?”

Apprentice Rivner went to speak a few times before he finally settled on what to say.

“He’s just too fast,” he said finally with a sigh, gesturing at the case. “I had a look, there’s a hundred cores in here, easily. And I’ve studied the Master’s work carefully, it’s flawless.”

He looked a little despondent as he spoke, which only confused the girl further. Wasn’t that a good thing?

“Is that… a problem?” she asked.

The Arcanist in training chuckled a little and blessed her with his shy smile, causing her heart to skip a beat.

“No. I-it’s not a problem, I just don’t know how he does it. I’ve tried to keep up to his pace, but I fail two out of three times if I work that quick.”

“You’re a wonderful apprentice,” Cerry said firmly, “Master Almsfield said so himself on several occasions. Don’t worry, soon you’ll be able to catch up. You’re still an apprentice, after all.”

“I’m only two years younger than he is….”

“That doesn’t matter at all! Not everyone completed their apprenticeship as quickly.”

“Nobody completes their apprenticeship that quickly. It caused quite a stir. That’s why I applied to work here, you know. I wanted to learn from someone that extraordinary.”

“Well, now you have your chance,” she encouraged him. “Don’t be downhearted because it’s hard. It was always going to be hard!”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“You’re right. If I’d wanted an easy apprenticeship, I would have stayed where I was. Thank you, Cerry.”

“Not a problem, Apprentice Rivner.”

“Please. Call me Flynn.”

She blushed.

“Of course… Flynn.”

They gazed at each other for a moment until a loud thump accompanied by muffled cursing rang out from upstairs.

“I should go and get these set,” Flynn said quickly, grabbing the tray and heading to the backroom.

“I should finish cleaning!” Cerry darted back to her chores. The store would be open shortly, and she had a lot to do!

—

There was something soothing, something meditative, about the work of an Arcanist. Taking the cores, the condensed power of magick itself, and rewriting it, one line at a time, was a mysterious and powerful art. The process itself, however, was tedious, finicky, and required an inordinate amount of fine-motor-control, along with a level of focus that bordered on impossible.

In other words, it suited Tyron down to the ground.

Crafting Classes required an absurd amount of grind in order to level, day after day of relentless, gruelling repetition. Couple that with the necessity of experimentation to break through any bottlenecks that arose, and it was well known how notoriously difficult it was to become a master craftsman.

This went doubly so for those with a crafting sub-class. As an Arcanist, Tyron was limited to only forty levels, and one class advancement. That meant eight Feats in total and a limit to the number of Skills and abilities he could purchase.

This meant he could never truly equal a master of the craft. Someone like Master Willhem was in a stratosphere he could never reach, able to take the most powerful cores and transform them into enchantments only gold ranked Slayers, or the nobility, could afford.

That level of control and finesse, he could never possess it, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he had aimed every new ability, every new Feat in an entirely different direction. He wanted to squeeze every drop of power from the simplest and smallest of cores. Efficiency, efficacy, with not even a wisp of lost magick.

Tyron leaned back from the glass with a tired sigh before he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. No matter how he tried to sit straight, he always ended up with a slight hunch as he worked, leaning over to bring his face to the glass and see even a little better.

Another one done, only a hundred or so to go.

It sounded like a lot, but his pace was good, completing each core in roughly two minutes. An absurd pace for the work, and the key reason behind the success of Almsfield Enchantments.

Arcanists’ work was useful for a lot of things, heating, cooling, cleansing, healing, lighting, basically every aspect of daily living. Of course, most in the trade focused their attention on where the big money lay, weapons and armour for Slayers. Fighting was a constant part of life in the provinces, even if it happened out of sight for most people, at the rifts. The Slayers made the bulk of their money from selling rift-kin components and cores, and they turned around and spent that money on improving their gear, or on alchemical potions or other supplies. Some held exclusive contracts where they traded the best and rarest cores directly to famous Arcanists in exchange for preferential treatment or discounts.

The constant demand for new and better enchanted weapons and armour, as well as the churn caused by lost gear within the rifts, meant that the majority of cores harvested went to this cause. That meant enchantments for daily life were expensive and rare.

Rare, unless you could produce the same effect using smaller, more easily obtainable cores.

Tyron could make a heating plate almost seventy percent as effective as what the best Arcanists in Kenmor could make. Except his were a tenth of the price, formed from a hyper-efficient network of the lowest grade cores.

Naturally, this meant he was essentially alone in targeting this particular market, poorer folks outside the walls who never dreamed of owning such luxuries.

In the end, this was an unintended benefit to his true aim. All along, Tyron had focused on maximising the power he could gain from weaker cores because that was all he could afford to use in his undead. No matter how wealthy he became, it would be too ridiculous to engrave and set a high-grade core within a simple skeleton. His current business model came to be after he’d thought long and hard on how he could maximise the benefits of enchanting for his minions, and be successful enough to provide cover for his other endeavours.

Diligently, and with absolute focus, he continued to etch the runes with his pliance, placing each completed core into the case with the others, before he checked the order sheet, picked up another core and began the process again.

Three and a half hours later, he was done.

He stood with a groan and stretched, feeling his back pop. Muttering about old age, he shook out his hands, grabbed the case of finished cores and walked downstairs.

It wasn’t too busy in the store, given it was roughly lunchtime, only five people wandering amongst the display cases and reading the engraved descriptions of the wares.

As always, Cerry was a bright and cheery presence, moving from cleaning the shop, to answering questions, to ringing up sales with ease and grace. He shook his head. The girl hadn’t even had her Awakening yet. If she gained some sort of service Class, he’d triple her salary to keep her on.

A warm smile greeted him as she saw him wander onto the shop floor.

“Master Almsfield! Nice to see your face today.”

At the mention of his name, several customers turned to catch a glimpse of him, but he ignored them. Cerry nattered on.

“I have to tell you, my friend Lyla….”

He nodded along as he walked, entering the back room where he found his apprentice hard at work setting the cores into the various wares that they sold. It was a delicate process, but by far the straight forward part of the job. A core inscribed to create flame down the length of a blade was particularly useless until it was set into a blade, after all.

The back room was filled with the various plates, wheels, dials and other pieces they sold. All of it was ordered from local craftsmen in Shadetown.

Tyron set the case down on a bench to the side.

“Here’s another lot. I need these set today, if possible, Flynn.”

He hesitated before he turned away.

“But don’t push yourself too much. Whatever you can get done by closing is fine. Finish up the rest tomorrow.”

The younger man looked at the case with an odd, queasy expression, which Tyron ignored.

“Are you two alright closing up? I’m going to sleep.”

Now he turned and stomped back upstairs, throwing off his clothes and collapsing into bed. When he woke, he could check on his experiments. He greatly anticipated the results.