Logan awoke to the usual timer ringing in his ears, his first thought was of the goodnight kiss on his cheek at the end of his date. The second thought was the long road of preparations ahead.

After a quick meal downstairs, Logan met with some of his homeless workers in the inn's front room. A short conversation ended with them taking his elementals to clean up some low-level quests to help the men and women get payment for work, as well as grant his signet more quest completions.

What awaited the Spellthief was a few days of crafting to himself. With the aid of his Epi-Ptah Heart, Logan made short work of several items over the coming setting suns.

The first was a shining example of what his new items would produce in his crafting endeavours, a legendary tier trinket.

Donning the new headband, Logan put away his old commander’s headband to sell later. This freed up an earring slot too, as he removed his monstrous advisor earring. The space on his ear was the next to sort out, as Logan was finally able to alleviate at least one weakness he suffered from in the past.

Logan had to wait till level 19 to be able to craft this, at mastery 3 in Trinket Craft he could only create items six levels above him. These were also made-to-order, as not many people could even afford such protection against sleep.

Slipping on his new boots, Logan also set aside his old tools for Stealth, as his new trinkets were far better. The new boots were similar to his old ones, with the metallic parts just looking darker and the top parts of the boots at his ankles having a feathered design.

After making a cape for Marcus with the feathers of the harpies, Logan was greeted by a window congratulating him on a job well done.

With faster crafting times and hidden improvements to all tiers of crafting, Logan set to make himself a cloak. However, the mastery gained from items below level 20 was now halved.

Whilst not directly powerful, the new cloak increased the number of daggers Logan could bring to a fight as well as other forms of weapons. If he had space, he could also put loot in there so he didn’t have to worry about his Inventory skill being found out. Putting a dagger into the cloak, the blade vanished into thin air, being stored similar to the wristband that Cassius had.

Unlike Cassius, the cloak became invisible due to Logan’s cache arm trinket, just like anything adorning his head. Instead, he was able to hide the daggers within his normal Spellthief’s garb coat. People wouldn’t question it too much, as it looked magical to begin with.

With the vest completed, and donning it to make his upper body more comfortable, Logan had passed so much time in his crafting endeavours from failures and successes. The vest had also become invisible due to the cache arm.

Day 101 from arriving in Avanar.

Logan left the inn with Marcus, Amalia, and all the other hunters. Standing in the street, the group looked to the skies as many other inhabitants of Gauntlet. The nearby board had a notice fluttering in the wind that detailed the last warning about the Demonturtle Shell Barrier getting activated.

The whole city was still and quiet, only a few whispers could be heard, as well as a few restless kids as they awaited the display.

Suddenly, a wave of wind rushed through the alleys and streets, dust and paper getting picked up as the ground shook slightly. Several large portions underground shifted and created a strangely supported dome underneath the city.

Cogs were heard as the grinding of stone turned to a hum and buzz. From the west to the east, large green hexagons appeared from the floor and shot upwards in a round fashion. Each hexagon was a good ten feet tall and wide, connecting with one another on all sides.

Eventually, the hexagons reached the tip-top of the city, a dome of emerald glistening in the light of the sun. The colouration slowly dissipated from green to clear, darker lines appearing every so often as the barrier fluctuated naturally. It was now as if it wasn’t there, but the people would know it was whenever a monster would try to enter again.

Gaemo whistled, “Ain’t that a sight?”

Wriske shrugged, “For a few minutes. Back to things as usual.”

Sincollo stood on all fours, “Let us hope it does not agitate my kind.”

“You’ll be fine”, Evén teased.

“We need to go get our signets enchanted?” Marcus asked.

“Guildless aren’t allowed to teleport through that, we’ll get it soon”, Logan informed, having checked it out previously.

“So no more invasions?” Amalia asked.

“They’ll still come, this will just make it bounds harder”, Sincollo replied.

“We’ll meet whatever comes our way head-on”, Logan ended.

The rest of the day was spent finalising the petrified heart of Quayvan. It needed to stew for some time, but Logan was finally able to complete it. With Marcus on standby just in case, Logan coated the rocky heart in a sizzling and steamy liquid over a small cauldron.

As the liquid ate at the stone it cracked and peeled away, grabbing it with both hands Logan devoured it as quickly as he could.

Sinew and blood poured through his teeth, as a man at a buffet Logan shovelled it all into his gob so that he didn’t miss a scrap. Sucking down the last vein like it was a noodle, Logan stood still for a bit as he awaited the transformation.

The concoction he had brewed up allowed the heart to live on for some time, long enough to be eaten and dissolved within his stomach, but it wasn’t the best taste.

“Are we good?” Marcus asked.

Logan held up a finger as if to say “Wait for it.”

Logan then felt a fire in his belly, a rushing of water falling upwards through his system. Falling to his knees, Logan held his stomach and throat to stop whatever was coming from erupting from him.

Black blood seeped through his gritted teeth as he coughed up an abyss. The veins around his eyes tightened in a dark glow, his vaskt eyes popping open as a defensive measure. White and red eyes stared at the pitch floor as Logan kept himself propped up with a hand on the floorboards.

The feeling finally subsided as Logan leant back onto his feet, a held breath let out to the ceiling as he felt relief.

“Fuck, that wasn’t pleasant”, Logan cursed.

“Whatever batters your body makes chitin”, Marcus recited as he crouched down to his friend.

Logan laughed and rubbed his face clean, “Let’s see how this changed me.”

Two windows appeared to alert Logan to the changes at his request.

“You have reached Demon Stage 3. Your attributes have all increased by 1. You have unlocked the skill Demonic Physiology.”

“Your Regeneration has progressed to tier 2.”

Logan ruminated over the changes within him. His base attributes were now that of a hero’s starting array, and being immune to so many things made him quite resilient.

The Regeneration upgrade was a bit strange when it came to how it worked though. Before it was head to chest, now it was brain to heart, at what point would he be in that sort of situation and still be alive? At least he could now regrow an arm in an hour.

Reaching demonhood stage 3 allowed Logan an easier time casting Warping Censure, granting him access to his bane to place on others.

Logan explained the new improvements to Marcus whose eyes became starry as before. His ally would need to get some of this himself if he were to keep pace, but a healer-melee hybrid allowed Marcus to survive combat a bit longer than Logan.

Another point of curiosity was the double upgrade from Quayvan’s heart, Logan had just assumed it would be demonhood progression, but the Regeneration was close to double the worth of that. Just what exactly was his former foe?

Logan stood a bit shaky before getting his balance back. With a round of his Clean mick, Logan made himself and the room spotless.

The Spellthief took the rest of the day off to read the multitude of books he had accumulated from the markets and friends. His vaskt eyes closed and healed over quicker than before thanks to his increased Regeneration, but they didn’t tend to bother him before, it would just make moving around the city easier.

Following on into the next morning, Logan was greeted by a quest not unlike Amalia’s.

“I suppose this was brought on by my crafting streak? It seems mine and Amalia’s quests are offset by a few days if we got these out of sync”, Logan thought to himself.

As Logan was ruminating how he’d go about this new quest given to him, and questioning if he could just sell his stocked potions, Fol confirmed the suspicions in his mind, “You may try it, Logan, but I believe you have to craft and sell these within the specified timeframe.”

“I will do, just on the off chance. We can at least be happy this crafting spree will improve our skills over the coming fortnight”, Logan replied in his head.

Heading down to the front room of the Meek Moat Inn, Logan was stopped by Jirango who had several books under his arm.

“Hail, Logan”, Jirango waved with a newly restored hand.

“And to you. Feeling better?”

“Waves. Speaking of, I am to debrief you on the events following your court, at your request I hear.”

Logan took a seat at one of the tables as Jirango did the same, “Ah, all cleared up?”

Jirango placed his books on the table as he flipped one open, “In a manner of speaking. Twain Dagger has done quite a speedy eradication of almost all Anti-Vampire Club members. That despicable place I was held captive within was the first. It took some time, but the place offered up many mouths and text to tell us of other operations.”

“Were they aware of all the separate parts?”

“No. It seems many didn’t even know about the spell ring harvesting facilities, while others were unaware of any AV Club activities.”

“So someone was coordinating them all apart from one another?” Logan asked as he leaned back in his chair.

“That is the best guess we hold. Other locations are currently under investigation, but the bulk of this event has been dealt with. It does seem Quayvan was at least the second in command.”

“Second?!”

“Yes. Some vague understandings and discussions with parrots reveal that the vampire-monster-thing spoke like he was reciting commands from someone else. With his first-hand control over the guardhouse and by extension yourself and Wriske left the operation wide open. It had to be maintained without his input.”

“What of the creature that Marcus fought?”

“Possibly third in the chain. Some of the criminals spoke of her absence for days at a time, or getting orders around her, not from her. She was also set up to guard our cells for some time too.”

Logan rubbed the lower part of his face as he thought, “I hate the idea of something stronger than Quayvan.”

“If it wasn’t for their plans to tire you out and ambush you, Quayvan would have lost”, Jirango calculated.

Logan nodded, even though it wasn’t a question. “I suppose there’s not much more you can do to stop these kinds of requests for hunters?”

“The barrier should stop most. Otherwise, we will just have to vet our clients better. Quayvan had a good history behind him, years of being a vampire, and scholarly.”

“Was this that out of character? Hiring hunters?”

“Not enough to cause worry. Vampires often hire hunters to deal with AV Club members, track down people, or do stuff during the day. I didn’t even know Quayvan was over a rank of 15.”

“Has his remains been identified? Was it actually Quayvan?”

“Yes and yes. He may have morphed into a monster, but as far as the mages are concerned, that was the Quayvan they knew about. If he recently changed, it was in such a way that it seemed normal.”

“Or was one all along?”

Jirango hummed, “He was older than 30, the barrier should have caught him back then.”

“So we’ll just sit on a perfect assimilation.”

“Either way, he is dead. Unless his master can revive at a distance he won’t return. We’ll keep you updated on what we believe to be leading all of this, but the majority is dealt with.”

“Thanks, Jirango”, Logan replied as he stood and shook the Half-Hand’s hand.

“The appreciation will be felt when you come back to the guardhouse”, Jirango smirked.

“I got some stuff to do, maybe by the time the Lightbeam guild is back.”

“See you then.”

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