“Miscreants, again?” Jirango asked rhetorically as he looked over the trio of “seasoned” adventurers.

“The never-ending quest to keep the streets clean”, Logan replied.

“‘Suppose they must find their quarries easy with the barrier up.”

“Any excuse.”

“I’ll interrogate them when they wake up, a few days in the cells will hopefully teach them a lesson.”

“I already took my pay”, Logan half-lied, having given it to the victims.

“Good good. If only we had more warpers in our ranks, we’d need not rely on you, Logan.”

“It would be nice, but what can you do”, Logan shrugged.

“Still taking time off?”

“Yeah. You’ll be the first to know when I am up for more hunting work.”

“Tis fine. You’ve accrued so much time at the inn that you’re safe to have weeks to yourself.”

“Speaking of, gonna get back to it. Good day, Jirango.”

With days spent brewing up potions of various types, Logan was sure to swap between recipes when he reached the usual ten limit for increased gains of mastery. The quest allowed him a minimum, even after the ten limit, but it was so small that he’d just want to make something new. Higher tiers of mastery would suit him better down the road.

The minimum of 0.1% did get doubled by his new necklace, but 0.2% per item wasn’t much compared to the 5% or 4% he got as his tiers increased, doubled to 10% and 8% respectively.

With all 50 potions brewed, Logan had gained so much mastery in such a short time he felt a renewed fascination for the speed of his progress.

With starting his spree at tier 1, gaining 3 more tiers was quite the boost. When Logan had his guild set up he brewed an idea in his head to offer up potion services in exchange for ingredients. But that was some time in the future.

While selling off his potions, Logan was glad to see his objective get ticked off in his windows. As if in reaction to the update, or just seeing the multitude of newly brewed pots, one of the merchants spoke up.

“Strange to get so many potions sent my way, spares from corpses?”

“Something like that, just too many to hold right now”, Logan efficiently lied.

“All’s good. Seems like we’re getting an influx of adventurers from afar anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Ye. Talk amongst trader guilds says to accept as many offers as we can to prep. Fine with me, plenty of coins to jingle my pouches.”

“When you get to sell ‘em at almost double what you got them for”, Logan laughed.

“Hah, if you want full prices I am sure the crafting guilds will have ya.”

Logan waved it off, “Not for me, the chains won’t bind me.”

“Fair’s fair. Thanks for the custom regardless.”

“And to you.”

Logan sighed slightly as he walked back to the inn, coins spent on materials for quick and easy trinkets. He was going to make some low-level ones to speed up the process, which meant he was only going to get half mastery gain, but the limited rewards from the quest outweighed mastery.

With his speed upgrades, he could get some of them done in an hour by purchasing ready-made jewellery. With ten new trinkets made and handed over, Logan didn’t see a new tier of mastery, but he did see another objective cleanly ticked off his list over the next few days.

Only two objectives remained, both of which could have been sped up by the aid of Amalia, pushing Logan to make a drop-in at her new smithery she had set up in the commercial district.

A shoddy compilation of wood and stone held together through wind and rain stood rather short, a bungalow building that would cause Logan to duck down every so often at 6’2”. A fresh wooden sign with the typical hammer onto an anvil painted onto it showed the place had recently opened, contrasting with the building itself.

Entering the interior, Logan called out, “Morning.”

Amalia slammed her anvil a few more times before letting the blade rest, pulling goggles from her face that was smudged slightly black. “Logan, nice of you to drop by. I didn’t know I was having a housewarming”, she announced with a smile.

Logan sat a tall bottle on a nearby table as he walked over, “It’s already hot in here”, he started as he whipped his coat off, “Was wondering if you had a spare hour or two to train a newcomer?”

Amalia looked over her recent blade before turning back to Logan, “You’re finally moving onto the last load of tasks?”

Logan nodded.

“Sure, I may go a bit quick but I know you can keep pace. You’re needing weapons and shields, right?”

“Five of each by my hand.”

Amalia whistled, “You got a shorter queue than me, but then I didn’t need to make potions.”

“I got the easy ones out of the way to guarantee a good reward, as well as let you finish up some of yours. We good to start now?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“We sure can. Watch me do these weapons, then you can make one with my guidance. I hope you’re good with your hands.”

The next few hours were spent in not-so-quiet contemplation over the creation of arms. Logan asked questions where he needed to, while Amalia offered up tips when appropriate. It was also nice to just chat over one of their hobbies turned profession.

When it came to Logan’s tester weapon, he had Amalia’s close eye on his hands and mannerisms. A few mistakes were spotted by the tutor, having the Guardian hold onto Logan’s hands, and arms, and guiding his hips to move into proper directions for the perfect hit.

Giggles were followed by hammering metal, and at the end, Logan was treated to his first shoddy level one dagger. Imperfect, but usable by any newcomer adventurer. Unlocking the Weapon Craft skill, he moved on to the next.

A small targe, this took longer than the dagger that had a hilt ready to go, leading the pair into the nighttime. Hastened by the use of spellforce and his trinket, Logan was able to finish the shoddy targe before retiring for the day. Without a guide, these would take a tad longer, but he was confident he’d get them done in time. He wasn’t going to be making any money though.

Closing a window that alerted him to his new Armoursmithing skill, Logan laid the hammer atop the anvil as Amalia doused the forge.

Packing up some of her tools, Amalia picked up her ring of keys and turned to Logan. Approaching from behind, Logan placed his hands on Amalia’s hips as they locked lips. Amalia’s hands leaned on the table as her bags shifted slightly.

Logan awoke the next day back at the Meek Moat Inn, a comfortable rest seeing him through the late night. Going downstairs to the counter, he ordered breakfast and drinks for himself and Amalia who joined slightly after.

“You knew just what I wanted”, Amalia admitted as she took a sip from her tankard.

“I can keep pace”, Logan replied with a smirk.

“Good with your hands too”, Amalia teased as she nudged Logan’s shoulder with her own.

Separating for the coming days, Logan hired out a forge all his own for a few cycles. This was a common practice for newcomer crafters, or invitees to guilds who needed to show off their work. The buildings were often owned by guilds so the money was always feeding back into adventuring ordeals.

Not wanting to spend too much, Logan only got a low-grade forge house. It came with the barebones of materials and appliances for both arms and armour crafting, enough to see Logan through the last parts of his crafting quest.

The daggers were the easiest and quickest of items to make for the quest, taking around four hours each after the bonus from Logan’s Epi-Ptah Heart. Calling them daggers was a bit of a push, they were more like jagged pieces of metal placed within nicer hilts. These weapons would probably only see a few fights before breaking, but they were good enough as a starter weapon. A proper dagger would take much more than a day at Logan’s mastery.

Starting the ultimate task, Logan was set on the goal of making more shields to sell off. Simple small targes, while they were the lowest on the list it still took a lot of time as he had to shape the metal and coat it with leather.

Sweat would have tarnished the sheen of his new crafts, if not for quick casts of Clean to remove any remnants. None of these were going to be better than what Logan could have got when he started, but he could at least sell them at a big loss to potentially help the start of someone new to adventuring.

Paying off the renting fees for the last days of his forge house, Logan sold off the remaining items that sat in his quest log. If not just for the rewards, this trip into the varying crafts granted Logan more skills to his repertoire. He was going to be better off leaving weapons and armour to Amalia in the future.

Selling his daggers had one of the smiths comment, “Hah, this for a bargain bin?”

“Yeah. Not the best for first creations”, Logan shrugged.

“Guess they’ll be up for two copper, can only give you one for ‘em each.”

“Make it six in total.”

“Fine, fine.”

Returning to his inn room, Logan collected himself and the rewards for his most recent quest completion. While he had to wait out the timer, the Spellthief had plenty of books to read for skills and spells.

Day 118.

“Quest - Shore up Supplies, has been completed. You achieved 4 additional objectives during the mission and as such your rewards will be increased. Distributing rewards…”

“The reward for your quest completion is as follows:

Infuse Manual Vol 9 & Vol 10, Dimensional Jaunt Vol 8 & 9, Haste Vol 3 &... 3 Skill Points. 50 gold.”

Logan looked over the window appearing before him, his inventory popping open for a few seconds to see his money increasing alongside new tomes adding to the pile within his extradimensional space.

“An easy enough quest grants quite the straightforward reward”, Logan thought to himself.

“It was adequately done, Logan”, Fol replied in his head.

“It fit my downtime just right, though a few ‘wasted’ days towards making arms.”

“Regardless, the knowledge may prove beneficial for other endeavours.”

“I suppose that’s true. I won’t be at a loss during conversation at least.”

“How did the new trinket suit you?”

“It couldn’t have come at a better time. Let’s chuck it up to luck, for now, no other quests have led into one another like that so far.”

“A string of events does not always mean correlation. Those tomes were already confirmed in the quest so they do not compound your reading ahead of time.”

“Thankfully the rewards are all useful, it gave me the tomes I was missing from my list. A few weeks of reading awaits me now.”

“Until another quest is granted to us?”

“Pretty much. If I get them all done, we’ll go back to questing with Marcus to bring him up to our level.”

“Our partner has been studious in his training. If they didn’t know better, your elementals would feel punished for the times they spent under his fist.”

Logan laughed to himself as he descended the stairs to the front entrance of the Meek Moat Inn. An interesting sight was that of the door wide open and a crowd forming outside.

Running to the exterior, Logan saw the parade of returning adventurers. From Lightbeam and other guilds, Logan counted a staggeringly lower number of both people and carriages.

Eyeing up the horse that Patavava rode out on, Logan saw a hunched-over man covered in a cloak. With better eyesight, Logan saw that Patavava was half the man he was when he left, missing his left limbs and his face covered in scars.

The two met eyes for a moment before the gashriek passed by without a word.

It didn’t take long for word to spread around about the trials to the north, just outside the Helm kingdom. Four guilds, including Lightbeam, had been sent to a mobile dungeon that was expanding its domain intending to cull the numbers and spellforce found within.

One of the guilds had been completely wiped out, with the remaining three suffering heavy losses. Where bodies were able to be recovered, some got revived, but others weren’t as lucky.

The operation was a pyrrhic victory, the mobile dungeon had been contained, and even further, rumours spoke of how Raid Master Cass had completely eradicated the dungeon.

Mobile dungeons were already “erupted”, something the populace worried would happen to the Frost Monarch’s Cavern after Logan’s intervention, so there wasn’t much issue with erupting them a second time. However, to this day there have been no reports of any dungeon being “eradicated.”

A complete removal of a breeding den for monsters was a momentous occasion, and one that would get a holiday created for it. Even more surprising was the eradication of a mobile dungeon, as they weren’t especially confined to a location but the bubble they moved in. Sadly, combined with the devastation of the forces, it was a coin toss if it would be a sombre or joyous event to remember.

If a mobile dungeon could be eradicated, almost all others could. What would that mean for erupted dungeons? Could monsters be removed from the world completely? Questions swirled around the kingdom, giving both hope and worry. If there were no monsters, who would the adventurers fight?

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