Master Class Preview! + Alluria Art (Patreon)

Hi, all!

Master Class comes out at the end of this month, holy shit! Two novels in the same month, what are the odds, right?

Anyway, here are the first 3 chapters plus a link to some art I made. This is a harem story that takes place inside of a world with game-like rules and won't be connected to HFHM (I've seen a few people wondering is all). If you preorder the book, it'll only cost you 2.99, but the price will go up after launch.

If you are one of the 700+ people who have preordered, thank you so much! This not only gives us a HUGE fucking boost in visibility, but it means you'll have the opportunity to leave stars and reviews, which is desperately needed to stand out in the KU harem community. 

Link to the artwork (which gets progressively more NSFW).

This post will get taken down on the 30th, so get it while it's hot!

Chapter 1

The sun crowned the hill in front of me with saffron and pink lancing needles of light, extended outward like arms reaching for the heavens until they faded into the stark blue abyss of the sky. The world around me slowly blossomed into song as the sparrows overhead eagerly greeted the morning. The early bird got the worm, after all.

Smiling, I crested the hill, staff tapping at the crumbling stone path beneath my feet with each step. The road had been partially reclaimed by nature, with blades of grass and dandelions poking up at my boots between the cracks on the road and the spots where few boots, hooves, or wheels tread.

At last, I was greeted by the fruits of my months-long journey. My destination was now below—a simple community of stone and wood structures with thatched roofs and palisades on only one side. This was what a little village in the Edgelands looked like—humble, primitive, incomplete, standing bravely on a hillside below an even taller precipice. There was always a certain charm to places like these, so I took a moment to absorb every detail.

This humble little collection of hovels and cottages hugging the Edge was Last Stop—so named because its rare herbs made it literally the Last Stop that trade caravans hit before they reached the Edge and had to turn back around. Naturally, there used to be some caravans that kept on going, hoping to blaze new roads into the Edgelands for its rare resources and hidden promise, but too few of those returned. There were always rumors of some kind of promised land or powerful treasure just waiting to be discovered beyond that troubled territory, though many of those stories were now considered only rumor and legend.

The only things you were guaranteed to find in the Edgelands were monsters that existed nowhere else. It was a great place to level up—if you could survive. Some people swore up and down that the System had put it there as an ultimate test, but I no longer believed that. I’d been tested by worse than what those lands had to offer.

I closed my eyes, shuttering away the sights, sounds, and smells of the war. That was my old life, hanging over my shoulder like always, silently creeping up on me in quiet moments. I wouldn’t let it get the better of me, though. If I was going to embrace a new life tomorrow, I needed to let yesterday go.

Now that I had finally arrived at my destination, I pulled up my status to see if anything had changed. Bombarded by a lengthy missive of information, I willed it down to the bare minimum:

NAME: Elias Hearthsong

LEVEL: 103

CLASS: Master Enchanter

ACTIVE QUEST: System Error, Data Unavailable

I stared at my level, clucking my tongue. At level 100, I had become the first Master Enchanter in over a century, if the remaining history books in Mythshire Abbey were to be believed. I had achieved that level on the final day of the war, upon the defeat of the Demon King.

Though many of us never took part in that final battle, several other men and women became Masters of their classes that day—Yeminy Caldera was the first recorded Master Bard, and Kirk Strongchin was only the second Master Berserker I’d ever heard of. Berserkers were notoriously short lived, for obvious reasons.

However, after spending the last year trying to get to Last Stop, I was frustrated, though not surprised, to see that my Active Quest still hadn’t updated. The words flickered before my eyes as if the System struggled just to maintain the error message itself.

After the Demon Lord’s defeat, something in the System had broken—that much everyone agreed on. The last Active Quest I had been a part of was the final push to defeat the Demon Lord and see the end of his reign of terror. Upon his death, I and many others had received an exorbitant sum of experience points from the System, but no further rewards. When the Active Quest failed to update for anyone, we knew something terrible had gone wrong. While it was always possible to have no Active Quest, the error message itself was unprecedented and ominous.

To my knowledge, everyone had the same message on their status display, which made many fear that the System had abandoned them. However, people could still pray to the System to acquire their classes and level up, so surely all hope wasn’t lost.

Never lose hope. That was a foundational mantra that I held to throughout the entirety of the Demon War. When Baltkariax, Demon Lord of the Crimson Wastes, had led his opening assault on Thronegate to make corpses of tens of thousands on the first day of conflict, hope had been the only thing left for the survivors to cling to.

“No quest, no problem,” I muttered, then adjusted my glasses and moved down the hill toward the village. Without the Active Quest System functioning, many had become lost without knowing what the System wanted from them. I had secretly hoped that I was meant to do this, to cross the continent to this Gods-forsaken village and fulfill my dying friend’s wish, and that the System would acknowledge my decision somehow.

No matter. I didn’t need the System to let me know this was the right thing to do. Regardless of what happened next, I needed to come here. I felt it in my bones.

Walking into Last Stop, even armed as I was, was distressingly easy. There was no security to speak of, and front doors were open as women and children worked and played outside. Some people took note of me sauntering into town—others, seemingly, did not. It was hard to know whether there was some sort of hidden defense, or if the town had simply accepted that trouble was bound to occur and no amount of preparations could deter it—or perhaps they had merely avoided trouble for so long that they had grown complacent.

Once inside, I quickly laid my eyes on a Half-Orc woman with lean muscles and a plump bosom pounding red-hot iron into an anvil. She had set up her smithy near the edge of town, a great location for both work and visibility. Sweat poured down her brow, whether from heat or exertion, I couldn’t be sure. I waited until she quenched the iron in a nearby bucket before speaking.

“Excuse me,” I said, performing the polite bow that was customary in Redhaven. Old habits die hard after all, and I would rather do this than salute.

She did not return the bow, nor did she give me more than a quick once-over.

“You’re excused,” she muttered, her syllables thick from the large tusks on her lower jaw.

I almost chuckled at her attempt to shrug me off. You get more and more accustomed to people hiding their better selves from you the further you get from the last rungs of civilization. It’s a defense mechanism. Look tough, be respected. Judging by the Half-Orc’s musculature alone, she was not someone to trifle with.

“I’m new in town,” I said, to which she rolled her eyes. Fair enough. I had clearly stated the obvious. “I’m wondering if you could point me to the nearest tavern.”

She set her hammer down onto her anvil, then wiped her hands on her apron. She was roughly my height with olive green skin, and her eyes were swirling red orbs with black dots in the center. Her gaze had an intensity to it that allured me, and her many scars hinted at battles past.

“Up past the caravan office, take a right. You’re practically there. Name’s the Creaky Pump. If you miss the sign, you’re blind.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I replied, and I turned my back to her with a polite wave.

“What’s your name?” she asked, her cold exterior temporarily melted.

I fought the urge to grin openly at her. “Elias. Pleased to meet you.”

There was a pause, as if she contemplated telling me her own name. I had about given up by the time she finally spoke.

“I am the blacksmith, Bree,” she said. “If you’re here to stay, don’t cause trouble. This hammer works just fine on flesh and bone, you know.”

I chuckled and nodded. “I should certainly hope so. Thank you, Bree.” I turned away from her and made my way to the Creaky Pump. It wasn’t until I was well down the road that I heard the ringing of steel start anew.

***

The Creaky Pump was apparently named for a rusty water pump that stood awkwardly only a few paces away from its front entrance. A quick inspection of the device made me dubious as to the quality of the water or whether the pump would even work.

The sign for the tavern was oversized, rivaling even the door itself, and had been lazily propped up against the outer wall of the tavern rather than affixed to it. The building seemed a bit newer than most of the other structures in town, which could have meant any number of things. For instance, it didn’t mean that having a tavern was new to Last Stop—they might have had one in the Caravan Office before the post-war caravans were set up. That was far from unheard of. It could also have burned down recently and been rebuilt—a distressingly common fate for taverns in towns disconnected from major cities.

As I walked in through the front door, a colorful selection of eyes took in the sight of me all at once. Chiefly of interest to me was the bugbear tavern keeper, polishing a clay mug behind the counter as tavern keepers always seemed to be doing. I sometimes wondered if it was a prerequisite for owning such an establishment.

“Good morning, sir,” I said, smiling at the large man as he looked down at me from his seat beside his till.

He nodded tentatively. “Mornin’. Can I interest you in a drink?” There was no judgment in his eyes—drinking in the morning had become a norm during the war.

“Absolutely,” I said, plopping down at the seat nearest to him. “I’ll take cat piss at this rate. My canteen’s been empty half a damn day.”

“Cat piss will cost you extra ‘cuz I’ll have to force feed Mitsy quite a bit to satisfy you,” he replied with a wink.

I laughed and slapped the table. “An ale would do just fine,” I said. “Cold, if you’ve got the means.”

The bugbear favored me with a friendly grunt. “Aye, I can do that for you.” I watched as he poured a mug full to the brim with ale, and placed it hard in front of me. A bit of the liquid sloshed and spilled onto the table, and I silently mourned its loss. “One moment.”

He extended his hand over the cup and his eyes rolled back in his head. A blue mist emerged from his palm, frosting the mug and chilling its contents.

The bugbear’s eyes returned to normal and he pulled his hand back. “There ya go. That’ll be three copper and two bits. And give me your canteen. I can at least fill it with clean water.”

I tossed a friendly wink his way. “My canteen’s fine—that was just travel talk, but thank you. I’ll pay up now since I can’t stay long.”

“Oh?” he grunted curiously. “And why’s that?”

I sighed, maintaining a friendly, albeit tired, grin. “I’ve already delayed this journey’s end long enough.”

“I figured as much,” he mused, leaning on the table and sizing me up. “There isn’t anywhere else to go from here. So what exactly are you doing out here on the Edge?”

“I’m not going into the Yonder, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” I said with a snigger. “I’m looking for an orphanage that’s supposed to be a short distance from here. It belonged to a man named Hyle. You know it?”

“Aye, I know it,” he said, his brow furrowing. “What business d’you have there?”

I felt my smile fade, my face turning solemn as the gravity of my mission weighed upon me again. “A bit of a personal quest, I’m afraid. I don’t want to say too much just yet, but you’ll likely be hearing news soon.”

“I hope your intentions are good. Don’t stir up no trouble, now. Those whelps have had all the trouble they need.”

I looked him up and down and grinned. “There’s no end to troubles, tavern keeper. What was your name again?”

“Yenja,” he said.

“No last name?”

“Not for you,” he replied with a smirk. “You might be a wizard for all I know, able to use my name against me.”

I laughed. “You’re a smart man to be so cautious,” I told him as I sipped my ale. A bit of it sloshed on my glasses, but the enchantment on them caused the drop to slide off without a trace. “And you make a damn fine brew.”

“Can’t take no credit for the ale,” he muttered. “That’s a caravan shipment. I do make my own, though—just not fermented enough yet.”

I wiped my face on my tunic sleeve. “I’ll be sure to try it when it’s ready, assuming I’m still around. Now, about that orphanage?”

He nodded, then pointed at the door. “You’ll take the door out, then turn onto the road out back behind the village. The dusty road. You’ll follow that north, and when it forks at the town’s limits, you’ll go northeast. Keep going and follow that trail until you get to the top of that bluff, and there you go.”

“There I go,” I said, smiling at him and raising my ale in a friendly salute. I slammed down one more gulp, finishing it off. “Thank you kindly for both the drink and the directions.”

“Thanks for the money,” he barked back at me as I walked out the door.

Funny thing about money—it had limited use in a village like this, but it was still the only way to negotiate with the caravans. For a business like the Creaky Pump, old money was still the standard and a necessity, but if I tried to flash my coins to the average farmer or baker, they’d have little use for them.

There was a period of time in which money meant nothing at all as the few survivors fought amongst themselves for resources. Some warlords and bandit lords were still doing exactly that, but the caravan leaders were the new law out on the Edge, and their offices were a symbol of stability. How long that would hold was anyone’s guess.

I followed the trail, and almost wished I’d used up the rest of my coin to stay the night in town, but after so many months on the road, eventually your eagerness for the journey to end outweighs the need for rest. It’s a strange balance, and perhaps unwise, but it urged me onward all the same.

To be truthful, I was tired of walking, especially when it was quiet. The silence always took me back to that last walk home, right after the Demon Lord had died. Our horses were dead, and our exposed skin was burned by caustic ash infected with tainted mana that flew at us from explosion after explosion.

The long trek on foot back to where we came from was as quiet as it was painful. The sky itself seemed choked with the fury of the battle, gray and brooding as any sky I’d ever known. It remained like that for days on end, always looking like it was about to storm, but never actually doing it. All gloom, no follow-through.

Somehow, that walk had felt far longer than my journey to come here. Though this journey had taken more time, it had given me the opportunity to see how things had changed as a result of the war’s end. Countrysides formerly scorched by intense battles with corrupted demons were once again vibrantly green, dotted with wildflowers and low-lying brush that hid the graves of countless good men and women. Still, spots remained that hinted at devastation and death—dry, dark reminders of an evil whose impact could never be fully erased.

Now I was hiking through one such countryside, rife with flowers as beautiful as any I’d seen in recent memory. The colors were so intense that for a moment it was like the war never happened, that desolation never came. Last Stop was far enough removed from the Crimson Wastes that it was possible the demons had never actually made it out here. It’s not like there was ever much here to conquer.

Perhaps that was one of the reasons I had been so eager to make this trip. Precious little of civilization and culture remained in the desolation of the war, and I had been smack dab in the middle of it. This was a fractured world—in some cases literally. Giant fissures separated gargantuan landmasses now, marking the spots where desperate mages ripped the very earth asunder in an attempt to slow the advancing demonic horde.

In the end, yes, we had won, but it had been a brutal victory. Our armies were diminished down to their last men, hundreds surviving the final battle out of tens of thousands that fought that day. Our villages lay in ruin, our fortresses and castles mostly gone. Witnessing such a loss firsthand took a toll that we could never explain.

For just a moment, it was like I was still walking home, the scent of blood and ash clogging my nostrils. War ruins things and people in equal measure, and not all scars leave marks visible on flesh. I could give a full report on the varying viscosities of a shameful array of sentient species’ blood. I had seen and done countless things I wasn’t proud of, but if the Demon War was good for anything, it was wiping the slate clean.

This was my fresh start, and System help me, I was going to make the best of it. I stopped by a tree and inhaled the scent of the forest once more, letting its piney fragrance push those burning memories from my senses. A butterfly flitted down from a tree and landed on the top of my staff. I contemplated it for a moment and smiled, then continued my journey with my delicate passenger until it left at its own whim.

I finished hiking the mountain trail and found myself atop something like a plateau. Behind me was an exquisite view of the valley and the little village of Last Stop, still barely visible even now through the trees. The sun was high—I hadn’t made very good time.

In fact, my calves hurt. My ass hurt. My feet hurt. It was like my whole body knew that the end was near, and was attempting to register one final complaint. I pressed on, forcing one foot in front of the other with the comfort of knowing that my journey would soon come to its fruition.

“Halt! Who goes there?!”

“Hiyaaa!”

Two little voices, unmistakably children, shouted at me from the shadows. A rock hit me in the shoulder at a surprisingly high velocity—enough to leave a bruise on a mid-level person, but I shrugged it off with ease.

“No need for violence, now,” I said, holding my hands and staff over my head. “I’m not here to cause any trouble.”

“Liar!”

“Hiyaaa!”

Another rock hit me, this time in the cheek. I traced its trajectory, my eyes scanning the trees.

“Get out of here!”

“He’s gonna hurt Miss Alluria!”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I responded, keeping my cool. I spotted their locations, hiding in the branches of an oak off to my right. One of them had a slingshot, the other a stick. They looked to be no older than six, but I’ll admit that I had no real reference for children’s ages. To me, all children were either infants, teens, or some nebulous age in between.

Another rock hit me, this time right in the forehead. “Would you cut that out?!” I asked with growing impatience, rubbing the spot with a finger. The skin was slightly raised, making me suspect that rock had been sharper than the others.

“He’s tough!” the mud-covered girl with the slingshot said.

“Pull back on the band harder!”

Grumbling to myself, I dipped into my massive mana pool and fed it into my staff. The runes I had meticulously carved lit up with blue light, but I didn’t bother activating the enchantments. I just wanted to overload the environment with mana.

I smacked the staff against the trunk of the tree, sending a surge of energy into it. The great oak started shaking until it grew so violent that the two kids fell from the branch above. I dropped the staff and reached out, plucking them out of the sky and tucking them under each arm in one smooth motion.

“Okay,” I said, “Let’s try this introduction over, shall we?”

I set the two little ones on the ground. One of them, the one with the slingshot, was a cute little oni girl, with one big eye and two straight horns protruding from her forehead. The other seemed to be human save for the fact that black veins were visible under his skin and his eyes were darker than the night sky.

“My name is Eli,” I said as I picked up my staff. “I’m here to see the person running this place.”

“That would be Miss Alluria,” the boy said, just before he was brutally elbowed in the chest by the little girl.

“Don’t tell him anything!” she squeaked.

I chuckled a bit at their expense. “Listen—I've already arrived. I can see the orphanage in the distance. I promise I’m not here to harm anyone. Why don’t you two scamper off, and I’ll take it from this point on?”

“You mean… you aren’t going to kill us?” asked the girl, her eye narrowed with skepticism.

I cocked a brow at her in shock. “Gods, no. Of course I wouldn’t do that.”

“The bandits probably would,” the boy said. “So he’s not a bandit.”

“Duh, Jayson, I figured that out myself!” the oni girl spat at her partner in crime.

“So you’re Jayson,” I said, waving at the black-eyed boy. I turned to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” she said, kicking her hoof backward to strike the tree behind her in a funny gesture of defiance.

“Well,” I chuckled, “I already told you my name.”

“...Mayari,” she answered with hesitation. “My name is Mayari.”

I beamed at her. “Mayari, Jayson, it’s been very interesting meeting you, but I’ve been traveling on foot for a very long time, and I’d like to end my journey now. You have my word, I’m not here to harm anyone.”

“What did you do with your staff?” Jayson asked, his eyes drifting to the object I held in my hand. “That was crazy!”

I smiled at him softly. “I’m an Enchanter. My staff has a dozen enchantments on it. It’s my Master Weapon.”

“Whoa!” Mayari said. “A real Wizard? Here?”

“Enchanter, not Wizard—well, technically. And yes, probably for a while,” I told her. I looked around with a conspiratorial gaze, then leaned down at their level and cupped my hands to my mouth. “But don’t tell anyone just yet, alright?”

They nodded, their eyes wide.

Good, I thought, as I finally started walking toward the structure ahead of me. This encounter had ended far better than the last time I had been ambushed. It had taken me days to wash the stain out.

It wasn’t over yet, though. “Wait for us!” Jayson shouted, and both he and Mayari sprinted to catch up to me. “We can introduce you!”

“Yeah, Miss Alluria will trust you faster if she sees you didn’t murder us and hang us from the trees.” Mayari looked at Jayson and nodded enthusiastically. He returned the gesture, until both of them were now looking at me and bobbing their heads in sync.

I bit back a laugh. “Low bar for trust around here, I suppose.”

Jayson and Mayari ran ahead of me, forcing me to keep up at a light jog. I had no idea why Mayari insisted on doing so with her arms held behind her in a V, but I wasn’t about to correct her. The next thing I knew, the kids were knocking on the front door of the main building on the property. “We were supposed to be doing chores,” she informed me.

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

She beamed up at me without a shred of guilt as the door opened in a hurry.

Behind that door was arguably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—a kitsune woman with fox ears and three bushy orange tails and long, radiant hair of a similar color. Her tails were capped with white, and her hair was done up in a long, high ponytail. Her bright eyes were the green of spring grass, and she wore the simple peasant dress of a frontier woman, but it hugged her lissome curves generously.

My jaw almost dropped at the sight of her, but I kept it together. I hadn’t been expecting a kitsune, let alone a beauty like this, to be the woman I was meant to see.

“Mayari, Jayson!” she gasped, ignoring me for a moment. “You’re supposed to be gathering firewood with the others!”

“We snuck away,” Jayson muttered, hands behind his back in shame.

“But look! We found a guy and he didn’t kill us!” Mayari announced proudly.

The kitsune tried to make a stern face, but giggled. The sound had a musical quality that immediately put me at ease. “Well, thank the System for that,” she said with a sigh.

I cleared my throat and bowed. “Miss Alluria, I presume?”

“That’s what the children call me,” she answered, arching an eyebrow at me, looking me once over. “We don’t often get visitors. What can I help you with?”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a worn envelope. “We should probably discuss this in private,” I suggested.

She nodded, a look of worry blemishing her perfect face. “Jayson, Mayari, I want you two to go to your rooms until lunchtime. We can talk about why you need to stop sneaking off later.”

The kids offered whines of complaint but were easily ushered around the side of the building in the direction of what must have been the children’s dormitory.

“I come to you—” I began, but she held up a hand for silence, her ears twitching as she tilted her head.

“I said go to your rooms,” she yelled in a stern voice that was huskier than the last one she’d spoken with. I heard someone yelp from around the corner, followed by the thumping of tiny feet.

After a few more moments, she lowered her hand and turned her attention to me. “Sorry, please continue.”

I could see it then, faint lines of fatigue all around her eyes. Whatever she was expecting me to say wasn’t going to be good. This was a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, and the cracks were starting to show.

“I come to you at the request of our mutual mentor.” I hesitated for a moment, then handed her the letter.

“Mutual… Hyle? This is from Hyle?” Alluria broke the seal on the envelope in a hurry, her eyes wide with disbelief and hope.

“It is, yes.” I took a deep breath, unsure what to say next. “He wanted me to bring this missive to you, his adopted daughter—and you are running the orphanage, alone, I gather.”

“But why not come himself?” Frowning, Alluria opened the letter.

I watched those emerald eyes move back and forth across Hyle’s final words. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes, but she was determined to finish. As far as I could tell, she read it at least three times.

When she finally folded it up, she nodded to herself as if lost in thought. I wondered if she was just in shock, or perhaps far more steeled against emotional outbursts than I thought.

But then the tears flowed freely down her cheeks and her tails and ears wilted. “Dammit,” she whispered, leaning back against the door behind her. “One of the last great men in this world. One of the very last.”

“I thought so too.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was never good at delivering bad news.

She wiped her eyes. “To think, he—I always thought—” She couldn’t finish a sentence. Suddenly overcome by something, she crumbled to her knees, but I caught her halfway, her head buried in my chest. I let her wrap her arms around me as she sobbed, dampening my shirt.

“I always thought he would come home!” she cried, shaking in my arms.

I knew this grief well. There were no words to properly convey how much the man had meant to me, and now wasn’t the time to attempt to share them anyway. This was her grief, and I would simply sit and be here for her as she expressed it.

After a few minutes, her shaking subsided and she took a few deep breaths. As if realizing how close we were, she muttered an apology and pulled herself away.

“I’m… really sorry, I…” She waved her hands at her face, as if trying to dry the tears. Even though she was attempting to regain her composure, I could see how she was looking around as if suddenly disoriented.

“He wanted to come home,” I told her, keeping my voice steady. “But when he couldn’t, he made arrangements to be sure that you and these children were taken care of.”

“Did he… oh gods, did he send money?” I could see the desperation on her face, and noticed the small tears in her dress that had been meticulously stitched back together. Thinking back on Mayari and Jayson, their clothes hadn’t simply been dirty. They were worn and frayed along the edges. Even though the building in front of me was impressive at face value, it had signs of fragility that worried me, and I realized that Hyle’s legacy was on the verge of disappearing.

I took a deep breath and helped Alluria to her feet. She had pulled two of her tails forward and was hugging them tightly to her chest, using the tip of one to dab her tears away.

“No, he didn’t send money.” I tapped the butt of my staff on the ground, allowing the runes to light up. It wasn’t in an attempt to impress her, but to soften the blow of my next words, because I didn’t know if my heart could stand to see her sad for any longer.

“He sent me.”

Chapter 2

Alluria stared at me for several seconds in the wake of my declaration. I held my pose, making sure the runes in my staff stayed lit for the whole time.

Inevitably, my glasses shifted and I moved to adjust them. It was like a spell had been broken, and the beautiful kitsune blinked a couple of times before speaking.

“I’m sorry, I… he sent you?” Confusion was written across her features.

I nodded, pulling mana back into my body. I didn’t realize it, but I had been holding my breath, so I tried to let it out in a relaxed manner. Confusion was a far better reaction than disappointment, at least.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have money?” She held up her hands defensively. “I’m sorry, this is a lot is all. I just found out the man who was pretty much my father died, and we’re not exactly doing very well out here, and I may have borrowed some coin to keep the kids fed, and—”

“Hey, I get it.” I reached out and took her by the hand. She looked at our point of contact, her cheeks suddenly bright red. It was a move that surprised even me, so I just sort of let go and nodded. “I’m afraid what little I had saved was used up getting here.”

That was only a partial truth, but I tried not to think about all the money that had been stolen from me. Even the brief memory caused a couple of the runes on my staff to flash warningly, a sign that I was shedding mana.

“Damn. It’s all going to fall apart, then.” Alluria sighed and leaned against the wall of the building, her eyes out on the forest. I heard a distant rumble of thunder and looked up to see that storm clouds had gathered overhead to help perfect the mood.

“Nothing is going to fall apart,” I said in an attempt to soothe her. “Hyle sent me here to ensure they don’t.”

The kitsune brought her hands to her mouth in shock. “Oh, System bless me, I just cried my eyes out all over you and I don’t even know your name!”

I heard kids yelling and turned to see a swarm of children carrying bundles of wood come running from the edge of the forest. The skies above had turned dark and I could see the curtain of rain headed our way. Alluria opened the door for the children, and other than a few who eyed me with curiosity, the rest simply moved past.

“Miss Alluria!” A dragonkin girl carrying one of the smaller kids made it first. “I couldn’t find Jayson or Mayari, and—”

“They’re both inside.” Alluria put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “They snuck off again, I’m afraid.”

“Damn,” the dragonkin swore, then met my eyes. Her cheeks turned pink.

“Kyriana, there’s a pot of stew ready for lunch and some bread. Can you make sure that everybody gets fed, I need to speak with Mister…” Alluria’s eyes flicked to me.

“Hearthsong. Elias Hearthsong.”

“Hearthsong.” She said my name and tilted her head. “That’s a pretty name.”

I said nothing, momentarily stunned. I didn’t think my name was pretty, and had been stabbed on at least two occasions for revealing it. Still, it was far better than the name I was known by among my fellow soldiers.

I cleared my throat, trying to push the memories back. “Thank you,” I said, smiling. I turned my attention to Kyriana. “But yes, we have to talk about some boring grown-up stuff.”

Kyriana already looked bored at the mention of such things, so she gathered up the little kids and left. Alluria’s ears twitched as she looked around the corner and watched the kids disappear into their dormitory.

“Okay, let’s go inside,” she said, then surprised me by taking my hand and leading me in. I smiled at that. This was a woman used to dealing with children, holding hands and guiding with unyielding patience but equally impressive firmness.

Once we were inside, I couldn’t stave off the urge to comment.

“Nice grip you’ve got there,” I muttered.

She looked back at me, and then our hands. Her eyes went wide and she blushed once more as realization washed over her, her already rosy cheeks going pink as a tulip.

“Oh, heavens,” she said, allowing herself to chuckle at it as she relinquished my hand. “Thank you, I suppose. I’m afraid I’m a bit underslept these days, and I don’t deal with adults as often as I’d like. I forgot myself.”

The more serious expression returned again almost instantly, and already I missed her laugh. I broke my gaze with her to look around the room. “This is like a longhouse the northern folk build,” I said. “Enormously impressive structures, with a hall, multiple bedrooms, and latrines just outside at each corner. Is that where the architectural design is from?” I asked.

She nodded. “I suppose, yes,” she said. “The man who helped Hyle design and build this place was a northman—from Ysselgardia.”

I glanced toward the corner, where there was a small bed. We were clearly in what was meant to be her own living space. There was also a door on the far end of the room, and one on the wall to my right. I figured one of those doors led to the orphans’ dormitories, and the other—I had no idea. There would be plenty of time to find out later, though. I could hear the children talking through the walls, followed by the rattling of crockery.

Alluria gestured to the table after another uncomfortable silence befell us. “I suppose we should talk.”

“Agreed,” I said, breathing the word out more dully and deeply than I intended to. She sat down with all the elegance befitting a kitsune responsible for a throng of orphans, while I slumped into the chair with all the grace of a man who’d been on his feet for the better part of six months.

She noticed. “Long journey from Whitecourt?” she asked, though it felt like a bit of a tease at my expense. I hadn’t told her where I was from, but it was where Hyle had maintained a home during the war.

“Indeed it is. I don’t recommend it.” I patted my legs. “I’m surprised these things still work, to be entirely honest.”

“Young buck like you, I can see why Master Hyle never made the journey back.” That one was less of a joke. Alluria’s gaze slid to the floor.

“Tell me about him,” I said, trying to relax a bit for her benefit. “I only knew him during wartime and would love to hear something from… before.”

She smiled and planted her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. “He was like my father for many years. Before the war—before all the bloodshed began, he watched over my sisters and me not far from here.” She gestured at the window. “Off in those woods, down the cliff.”

“And he built this place,” I added. “It was something he kept a secret from most. I think it was to protect all of you from people who wanted to get back at him.”

Alluria quirked a thin eyebrow at me and leaned forward. She paused, hesitating. “What was your impression of him?”

“A good man. A better Artificer. One of the only Masters of any class before the war began.”

She smiled. “We still have a lot of his early knick knacks around here.” She shot up to her feet, eyes gone wide with unexpected excitement. “Wait here!” she said, and she ran over to her bed and got on her hands and knees. I watched her three tails swish through the air and her pert rump wiggle as she dug underneath the bed, pulling out a locked chest a scant few moments later.

Alluria reached for the ribbon holding her ponytail together and untied it, and her vibrant locks fell down past her shoulder, making me silently gasp. She dangled the ribbon and looked back at me, grinning. She had the sort of face that could make even the coldest, most jaded war-wrecked bastard believe in peace again.

It took a moment for me to realize she wanted me to look at the ribbon, not admire her beauty. A little copper key was dangling from the white cord. She bent back over, only slightly this time, just enough to pop the lock in the keyhole and open the chest with a twist, click, and creak.

I didn’t pry. I just sat where she left me and waited as the orange-haired kitsune rummaged through the box’s contents. At last, she pulled out what looked to be a toy soldier with a turnkey in its back. She closed the lid and joined me at the table, setting the toy in front of me.

“What is it?” I asked with genuine curiosity. “Hyle made this?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes seeming to glow with the dew of some far-off memory. “He made it for me when I was a little girl.”

She grabbed the toy and turned the key in its back, winding it up. When it seemed unable to wind any further, she set it back on the table and let it go. To my amusement, the soldier started walking.

“That’s wonderful,” I said, smiling softly down at it. “He was far beyond these sorts of contraptions when I knew him.”

She favored me with a look of interest. “Did he ever make anything for you?”

In fact, he had. Hyle’s automatons had been crucial to the war effort, capable of reaping enemies left and right. But she didn’t need to hear about such things, so I searched my memory for something more palatable. “He made me an automaton in the shape of a dog. It carried my bags and helped me in battle. I was very sad when the demons destroyed it.”

“An automaton dog?!” she said, gasping. “Did it need to be wound up?”

I laughed. “No, it ran off of a type of mana battery we developed together. Your mentor was perhaps the greatest Artificer in the world. His creations were instrumental in winning at least three pivotal battles in the war.”

The beautiful kitsune’s face fell at that. “He would hate to be remembered for war.”

I nodded solemnly at the truth in her words. “Yes, he would. But that’s not how I remember him—not exactly.”

She looked back up at me again.

“He was already an old man when I met him, and I was maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. I can’t remember. Ironically, I was a higher rank than him as he joined the war effort officially much later. He was in my squad, and we fought side-by-side, but most of my memories of him involved stories of Last Stop and the three sisters he loved like they were his own children.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” she said, shaking her head, covering her eyes with delicate fingers.

“He never mentioned you were a kitsune—if you don’t mind me calling attention to your race,” I said, gesturing politely. “I imagine it’s because most people were still clinging to old-fashioned beliefs about monsterfolk in the first half of the war.”

If there was one immediate benefit of the war, it was that a lot of old grudges and prejudices had been set to the side to ensure survival. Communities stopped being ‘Elven Towns’ or ‘Human Villages’ or ‘Lamia Dens’ and just started being settlements. Everyone became survivors, banding together to repel the seemingly endless demon hordes. Differences in culture seemed so much easier to navigate after our shared societal trauma. It no longer mattered that Wood Elves worshiped a Unicorn Goddess not recognized by the System Priests of Whitecourt. It didn’t seem important that dwarves used hops in their ale instead of gruit. It certainly seemed wholly inconsequential that many orcs shunned grains altogether and just ate a diet of mostly meat and eggs.

The races became neighbors, then friends, and, in some cases, even lovers. Millennia-old stigmas were shattered in a matter of years as we found new ways to pick up the pieces of our lives and somehow move forward with them.

She nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. “I’m sure he was protecting us in his way. He really spoke of me?”

“Often,” I said. “He never said you or your sisters’ names or even described you. He just mentioned there was the angsty one, the sweet one, and the wild one.”

She giggled. “How reductive of him. I’ve missed him for so long. If you don’t mind… How exactly did he die?”

I leaned forward, folding my arms on the table, looking past her into the hearth. There was so much I could tell her about his final days, but a lot of it wouldn’t make sense. I figured less was more for now.

“In the final battle of the war, most of our squad died. He didn’t—but he sustained a serious injury. It’s funny—at any other point in history, he would have survived that injury easily. Clerics and Healers would have been able to handle it, but they were all dead to the last. The wound got infected.” I paused, unsure of how much more to tell her.

Hyle’s final days had been agonizingly slow, and I had wept many tears for the pain he suffered. But worst of all, it wasn’t just the wound that had done him in. Once the war was over, it was like everything we had done, every atrocity we had committed, had come crashing down on his head. How did you tell someone that their father couldn’t come home to them because they died of a broken heart?

I clenched my fists and cleared my throat. “The infection eventually killed him.”

“Oh, gods,” she muttered, hand to her mouth. “That’s horrible.”

“He clung to life for a long time, always talking about returning home, making his way back to Last Stop. He wrote you a few times and sent money, but I’m not sure the messages ever made it.” Mail traveled primarily by caravan, unless you had the coin for a wizard to send it. In those final days, the coin had certainly been available, but a mage, not so much.

She shook her head. “I haven’t received anything in years.”

I sighed at that. “Things were in shambles back then,” I said. “They still are.”

“Did he die…peacefully?” she asked.

“He died in pain, but with no regrets,” I said, trying to deliver the news honestly but with warmth. “The infection spread, as untreated infections do. We tried to find someone, any Healer above level five—that’s all it would have taken—but there was no one left I could find who was willing to help. On the day he died, he gave me that letter to give to you—his final apology, and his explanation about who I was.”

She smiled. “He said wonderful things about you in the letter,” she told me. “He said you were brave, strong, and capable of continuing his legacy.”

“I don’t know about that,” I admitted, frowning and averting my eyes. “I’m no saint.”

“Saints are the stuff of legends and fairy tales. All it takes to change the world is a good person in a broken place.”

I found my lips quirking up in a smile despite myself. “Your optimism is contagious,” I said, beaming at her. “And yes, I am going to do my best here. I don’t know if he shared it with you in the letter but—he made me the heir to this place. I possess the deed, and what remaining law there is will recognize my claim.”

Alluria contemplated me for a moment, then nodded her head. “He wasn’t sure I was still here, was he?”

I frowned. “It wasn’t that. He knew one of you would have stayed, as long as a single child remained. No, his big fear was that something had happened to you and your sisters, or that someone else may have succeeded in taking the place away, since it had been so long since he had heard from any of you. Once I promised to make this trip, he put the property in my name.” That was only a partial truth, but it was the only part that applied to Alluria.

The kitsune nodded, emitting a sigh of relief. “Things have been so hard,” she said shakily. “He’s been gone so long, and the caravan lords wanted to take over the orphanage and turn it into a training ground for future mercenaries and peacekeepers. Can I see the deed?”

I pulled my pack off of my back and took out a leather folder. I opened it up and presented the very official-looking stamped, sealed, and signed deed.

She looked at it, an excited look in her eyes at first, until she saw the date. “This was almost a year ago!” she said in suspicion.

I nodded. “Yes. The winter came shortly after his death, so I had to wait until the roads cleared. I traveled with caravans, traders, and immigrants, but I never had a horse of my own. Some stretches of the journey were longer than others, and when I got sick with System Flu, I had to take a month off to recover.”

“My goodness!” she gasped. “System Flu! How many levels did you lose?”

“Thirty,” I told her, “but naturally I got them all back when I recovered.”

She blinked at me a few times, her head lolling to one side as she did the math. “You said that pretty casually. Thirty levels is quite a lot to lose,” she said, her voice heavy with skepticism.

“I have a lot more than thirty levels to lose,” I laughed. “But keep that between us for the moment.”

Her brow seemed furrow with something like suspicion as she looked at me, but it relaxed as she let out a sound of resignation. “Well, I suppose I have no choice but to trust you. You hold the deed to the orphanage and its surrounding lands, and with it, all my hopes.”

“Hope is the most important currency we have,” I said, grinning at her.

Her eyes widened and glistened as she recognized the maxim and finished it. “You can buy a lot with hope. You really were his friend.”

“I saw him as something of a father figure, too,” I confessed. “He isn’t the one who taught me enchanting, but—”

“Enchanting?!” she gasped, straightening up suddenly. “You’re an enchanter?!”

I nodded. “Yes, I can do quite a lot with my expertise, too.”

“Can you—can you show me something?” she asked desperately. “If you don’t mind, I mean… I’ve never met an enchanter before. Was that thing you did with your staff an enchantment?”

I winked at her and struck a flashy pose, framing my face with my thumb and index finger. “Several, actually! And you’ve just met the continent's only Master Enchanter—as far I know, anyway.”

Her jaw dropped. “You? A Master? But you’re so young!”

“War ages you quite a bit,” I said glumly, but on a more upbeat note, I added, “fortunately, it levels you up fast, too. Especially when you’re fighting a horde of Mana-hacked demons and other abominations worth hundreds of thousands of XP per kill.”

“I can’t even imagine what that was like,” she said in a dark tone. “I was so sheltered from it out here.”

“Yes, you were.”

A look of sympathy filled her face, but seeing my discomfort with it, she brushed past the moment.

“Show me how you enchant something,” she said, as excited as one of the children under her care. “Anything at all. Something simple.”

I shrugged and stood up from the table. Her eyes followed my every movement, and, to be honest, it made me feel a little nervous. I settled on something mid-level—impressive, but easy to perform, and quick. I felt mana welling up in my palm and directed it into my fingertips, the sensation like an oddly comfortable ice-burn. An azure radiance emanated from my index finger, and I traced a few sigils and runes into the table leaving visible mana marks behind.

“We’d better take a step back,” I said as I followed my own advice. The kitsune did so as well, her mouth hanging open with awe before the spell took shape. A System message popped up before my eyes.

Enchantment: Successful!

Table has been enchanted with: Messenger Mouth

Enchantment Durability: Low

The four-legged table seemed to shiver and quiver, cascades of blue energy rippling outward from the sketched runes like the splash from a stone plopping into a calm lake. Slowly, a small, bulging growth emerged in the spot where the runes had been, now faded away, and it took a new shape.

The gorgeous kitsune, who I couldn’t look away from as she reacted with reverence to my simple spell, bent forward to inspect the strange development on the surface of her table.

“Is that… a mouth?” she said, pointing down at it.

“Pssst,” the mouth spoke, with a voice suspiciously like mine as I turned my head and covered my own lips with my hand. “Hey. You’re pretty.”

Her look of awe deflated to an eyeroll and a smirk. “Really?” she asked, trying not to laugh, but pursing her lips in the way that showed she might lose that battle any moment. “Your big magic spell was to make my table flirt with me?”

“First thing that came to my mind,” I said, shrugging. “You asked for a simple demonstration.”

“I suppose ‘shame on me’ then,” she giggled. She looked down at the table, the mouth still lingering there. “Well, now I don’t want to sit down at it anymore.”

I fought back a laugh. “It’ll go away soon. If I used my inscription tools, I could have potentially made it permanent—but it requires a mana reserve to do so, at least until I release it.”

“And what is the point of that spell?” she asked, her eyebrows dancing as she tried to puzzle it out.

“Long-distance communication, for one thing. I can also trigger the mouth to relay a message when someone walks within range of it. That’s been useful to me more times than I can count.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she conceded. “However, Elias—”

“Please, if we’re going to be working together, call me Eli,” I told her.

She allowed herself to smile at me. “Very well, Eli,” she replied, “but lunch is about done, and I have lessons to teach.”

“Do you need any help with them?” I asked.

She blinked several times. “Sorry. Help with who?”

“With lessons. Would you like me to take some on?” I had blurted it out without much thought.

She seemed like a drunk who’d just sobered up for the first time in years as she stared back at me. “What’s your experience with children been like?”

“I mean, I’ve met kids,” I said, shrugging. “I’m willing to learn.”

“You’ve met kids,” she repeated, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh. “You might be the funniest grown-up I’ve ever met.”

My forehead creased as I raised my brows at her. “I’m not trying to be funny, so I’m not sure how to take that, but great.”

She bit her lip, sizing me up keenly from head to toe. “Tell you what… You’ve just spent several months walking here. Maybe it’s something we could discuss later tonight or even tomorrow morning, after you’ve had some rest.”

I could have kissed her for even suggesting it. In fact, the thought of kissing her had me staring at her lips for longer than I should have. There was something about her that pulled me in like a magnetism charm, and I didn’t know how to describe it. “A nap might be good,” I said, trying with all my might not to yawn.

“I’m sure,” she muttered, pulling her long, lustrous hair over her shoulder. “We have a couple spare rooms for additional staff on the opposite side of the building. You can use the biggest one. It’s in disuse at the moment, so it hasn’t been dusted in ages.”

I hoisted my bag back over my shoulders and gripped my staff. “I’ve slept on roadsides more often than not these last few months, so a little dust doesn’t scare me,” I told her with a grin.

“Very well, then,” she said. “Come with me.” As we exited the building, I made the table speak again, which caused Alluria to blush.

Once outside, we walked around the side of the building, trekking past two latrines and the children’s dorms. The structure was even more immense than I thought. “Just what all is in this place?” I asked.

“A classroom, a dormitory for the kids, a couple rooms for the staff, one for me, a small chapel, and a kitchen,” she said. “Six latrines in total, and five water pumps outside.”

“You’re pretty high up in terms of elevation,” I noted. “How’s the water supply?”

“Normally it’s fine, but we do have to get some from Last Stop every week,” she said.

I grunted my understanding, but it didn’t sound fine to me if they had to cart water up a mountain every seven days. “I should be able to help with that,” I said after some thought.

She looked back at me as we neared the other side of the building. “With bringing water to the orphanage from Last Stop?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “with enchanting the pumps to make them flow more freely. Should be a way. Just need to figure it out. Been a long time since I did something like that.”

She stared at me for a moment like she was trying to decide something. In the end, she just turned her head away and said, “That would be… very nice.”

We arrived at the door, and this side of the building almost seemed to be a mirror of the opposite end, at least from outside. She unlocked a door and creaked it open.

I had a look around the dim room. When she had said the place was dusty, she hadn’t been kidding. A thick layer of gray coated most of the surfaces, and the cobwebs in the corner revealed that even the spiders hadn't stuck around.

I was no stranger to dirt, but this was a bit much. I flicked the wall with my staff, sending a flash of light and cleansing flames across the walls, floor, and ceiling that traveled the room and coalesced in the fireplace, setting it instantly ablaze. The smell was pretty bad, but it faded pretty quick, and the room now looked like it had been recently cleaned.

The beautiful kitsune blinked in wonder. “That—that was—”

“Nothing more than a cheap party trick, not a big deal,” I said, chuckling. I bowed respectfully. “I’ll see you later, Miss Alluria.”

She smiled at me—that pensive look suddenly gone. I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me, and immediately knew that I wasn’t about to take a simple nap. Alluria could sense it as well.

“Goodnight, Eli,” she said. “And—you can call me Ria. It’s what Master Hyle called me.”

I felt something in my chest—butterflies? It was like I was an academy boy with a crush again, a feeling I’d not thought about in so long that I wasn’t sure I was capable of feeling it again. “Goodnight, Ria.”

I closed the door as she turned around, and the last thing I saw of her was her perfect, gorgeous smile—as good a sight as any to end a day on. I crumbled backward onto the bed and lay with my arms folded behind my head, staring up at the ceiling.

At one point I saw this personal mission as Hyle’s burden that I had to help him with. With everything I’d learned—and seen—my perspective had changed. It was clear now that being here, building a new life for myself, could be the blessing I’ve been waiting for.

“Thanks, Hyle.” Wherever the man’s soul was, I hope he heard me.

Before I lay down, I performed one final ritual out of habit. I closed my eyes and checked the rune I had carved into my own skull several years ago. Hidden beneath the skin, it had been a bloody affair, but necessary. Toward the end of the war, the demons had started a stealth campaign involving succubi who would invade our dreams. There was little more unnerving than waking up in the morning to discover half of your regiment had died, their souls sucked straight out of their eye holes.

Satisfied that the rune was charged, I used my mana to top it off anyway and sank into a deep slumber.

Chapter 3

I awoke earlier the next day than I intended to at the sound of knuckles furiously pounding on my door. With my muscles still sore from the long journey, before even rising my hand instinctively started massaging my thigh.

“Mister Elias!” a familiar voice hissed through the keyhole with a desperation that matched his violent knocks. “Mister Elias! They hurt Mayari!”

I shot to my feet, needing no further explanation. This was far from the rudest awakening I had received, but old habits die hard. Matching his urgency, I threw open the door and found Jayson, the boy with black veins under his skin looking up at me with equally dark eyes.

“Hey there, bud,” I said. “Tell me what happened. Who hurt Mayari?”

“Dozer and his boys!” he shouted. “And now they’re giving Miss Alluria a hard time.”

My brow furrowed. “Take me to them,” I commanded.

I didn’t know who Dozer or his boys were, but there was something so viscerally wrong about bullying an orphan and the woman running an orphanage. My gut twisted with indignant rage that someone would ever find it within themselves to commit such an act of flagrant indecency, no matter the circumstances surrounding it. Praying that maybe this was just a colossal misunderstanding, I left my room and followed Jayson out into the blinding sun of the morning. The enchantment on my glasses immediately dimmed the light to a respectable level, but my eyes still stung a little.

I tried to calm myself down, but to no avail. It didn’t help that Jayson took off running, and I had to follow behind him to keep up, which just got my blood pumping even faster.

He led me to the front of the plateau, between Alluria’s door and the thicket at the top of the worn steps that led me here. As I emerged from the shadow of the orphanage’s immense structure, I appraised the scene even while still jogging to join the dispute.

Alluria, all by herself, stood meekly in front of three men who towered over her. The one standing directly in front of the kitsune, whom she was making eye contact with, appeared to be a half-troll or half-ogre. In other words, he was big and ugly, but not that big and ugly. He sported a shaved scalp and black leather cuirass underneath a ratty brown cloak. There were a couple of scars visible on his exposed skin, but nothing that impressed much upon me.

At his flanks were two other men who I instantly decided were inconsequential lackeys: a half-orc and a human. Nothing about them signaled a threat to me. Between the three of them, I doubted if even one had served in the war. They were probably Edge-runners—people who retreated to the Edgelands in order to avoid conscription once the war began.

The most infuriating thing about the whole situation was their treatment of the oni girl Mayari, with a rope around her neck like a dog’s collar. Her eye was swollen so badly it was half shut, and visible red marks and scratches were plain to see across her body as if she had been dragged a distance. Her simple white dress was muddy at the bottom, which was likely from her own doing, but the blood staining the sleeves seemed freshly inflicted.

Three men versus a child. I balled up my fists, at least a few knuckles popping in response.

I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to tear through this doofus and his idiot guard. If not for the children present, my go-to strategy would involve killing one to make a point, and then maybe killing another because I was mad. But this was my fresh start, damn it, and I wasn’t about to sully it with blood so early.

Their eyes turned to me as I assumed a spot at Alluria’s side. If they noticed I wasn’t even panting after sprinting while the child behind me was, it went without comment.

“Who in the Crimson Wastes are you?” the leader asked, admittedly towering over my head. If he thought his size was enough to intimidate me, that would be his folly.

Alluria spoke before I could. “Dozer, he’s the one I was trying to tell you about—he has the deed to this place!”

“You’re lying,” he said, a snarl forming at the corner of his lips. “This is just another stall tactic to avoid paying me back the money you owe, so I’m calling you out. It’s time to pay up, little fox, and if you can’t, then I’m claiming the land as is my right.”

“Untie the girl,” I told him, the corner of my lip twitching. “There’s no way this goes forward happily for you until you do that.”

He gave me a look of misplaced pride and spat at my feet. “Who the fuck do you think you are, barking orders at me? I run this town.”

“The only thing you know how to run is your mouth,” I growled, sticking my hands in my pockets so they couldn’t see the tips of my fingers lighting up in frustration. The shock of seeing Mayari with a rope around her neck had been brutal enough, but I was having trouble controlling my emotions and, therefore, my mana.

“Eli, don’t,” Alluria warned me, her hand squeezing my shoulder from behind. I took a steadying breath through my nose and snorted as a result.

Dozer grunted as he tugged on the rope, jerking Mayari to her knees and making her cough—as if he wanted to be beaten within an inch of his life. “This brat fired a slingshot at my men and me on our way up here.”

“Good,” I said, nodding and smiling at her. “It’s a tough world out there, Dozer. Maybe if you had let us know you were coming, you wouldn’t have gotten your feelings hurt.”

“Mister Elias?” she whimpered, tears cleansing the dirt and blood from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I thought they were bandits, they look mean.”

“Yeah, they really do, don’t they?” I replied.

Dozer snarled and handed the rope to one of his subordinates. His mouth stretched wide to reveal sharp teeth, and he moved so close that my vision was regrettably filled with his awful face.

“Are you a special kind of dumbass? You trying to get yourself killed for no reason?” he asked.

“I should be asking you that same question,” I said, then stuck my hand out and activated the enchantment of Return on one of my rings.

Enchantment Activated: Return

When activated, the user can retrieve a paired item across any distance.

System Note: This enchantment requires two items.

There was a rattling noise from the back of the building and my staff appeared, hopping about as if lost. Once the path was clear of obstacles, it shot across the gap into my open hand and I slammed the butt of it into the ground. A dozen blue runes lit up and pulsed, drawing the wide-eyed gazes of Dozer and his thugs. “Tell me, Dozer, did you even serve your people in the war?”

Dozer didn’t answer. Neither did his men. They also didn’t back down, to their credit, still staring at me with menacing expressions.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I answered for him, my lip curling disdainfully. “Then suffice it to say, I’ve seen demons do things to men you couldn’t even conjure up in your most twisted nightmares. If you think you’re intimidating me right now, I suggest you take a step back and reevaluate your lives.”

The two men behind Dozer traded anxious looks, but the half-ogre stubbornly refused to stand down. “A puny human like you? Please. You don’t scare me.”

“Then you’re either very brave or stupid,” I said. “I’ve already placed my bets on which.”

His hand reached for the sword on his hip, but I cut him off with just a look and a few stone-cold words. “Don’t do it. For your own sake, boy. Don’t.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said, growling.

“And I’m not afraid of you,” I replied. “So, two men who aren’t afraid of each other are on good footing for a calm discussion, wouldn’t you say so?”

His hand left the sword’s hilt slowly. Alluria let out a hot breath of relief beside me. “Please—let Mayari go first, and we can talk this whole thing over,” she said, her voice cracking with nerves.

“She’s mine now,” he stated nonchalantly. “She attacked us and I’m claiming her as retribution. Should make a good sale, clear out some of your debt.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling my fist tighten around the staff. “The slave trade has been illegal since the war began,” I said between my teeth. “You’re confessing to the intent to traffic children.”

He shrugged. “Out here on the Edge, we do things differently. I don’t have much of an interest in what some regal bastards say halfway across the continent.”

I almost killed him right there, but he had a point. And the last thing I needed was to bring an entire slave trade down on my head. Or rather, on the orphanage. Fresh start, fresh start!

Alluria cleared her throat, having found her voice. “Regardless of how you feel, you can’t take her. The other villagers won’t stand for it.”

The poor girl was staring up at us in terror as we tried to calmly bargain for her fate. I wouldn’t have it.

“I’m telling you now, and I need you to believe me,” I started, “there is no world in which you walk away with her. So let’s compromise. Maybe there’s something else you want that we can give you.”

I felt like an idiot as soon as I said the words, because Dozer’s eyes flitted over to Alluria for just a moment. I was already figuring out the best way to skewer the bastard without getting blood on any of the kids when his eyes slid to my staff instead.

“What kind of mage are you?” he asked.

“An enchanter,” I replied.

He cocked his brow at me. “Let’s make a trade, then. The girl for an enchantment on my sword.”

I grinned at the sudden opportunity—ohh, this was rich. “Perhaps,” I said, trying not to sound too eager as a plan took shape in my mind. Enchanting used to be extremely rare, and was even more so now.

“What do you mean, perhaps?” Dozer scowled at me.

“You see, despite the hostility, I do remember you also mentioning that Alluria owes you money. Technically, as the owner of this school, I am directly responsible for any debt she may have incurred. An enchantment for your sword is an expensive endeavor, and I suspect it’s likely that such a trade may cover what she owes you as well as your grievances against this child.” I put both hands on my staff and leaned forward. With just a thought, I made the runes on my staff light up in sequential order.

Dozer grinned, thinking he smelled blood in the water. Unless Alluria had taken out enough money to build a brand-new building or something, it was highly likely that what I was about to do was easily worth a hundred times whatever she owed.

“Well, she did borrow a lot of money from me before the last harvest,” he began.

“We needed food,” Alluria interrupted. “I swear, I thought we would be able to make up the difference by this year, but—”

I turned and cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Hey, look, a deal’s a deal. We owe this man some money, and he’s agreed that an enchantment on his blade is a suitable recompense for any and all debts. Agreed?”

Dozer was practically drooling. “Yes, I agree, you’re all my witnesses, right?” His goons nodded with encouragement from their boss. “But only if the enchantment is actually legitimate.”

“Excellent.” I rubbed my hands together gleefully. “If it’ll get you out of our hair, then I’d be happy to oblige. How about a fire enchantment?” I asked. Honestly, fire swords were more flashy than anything else, and I couldn’t even say how many people had burned themselves with one, but I knew he’d eat it up.

He grinned his ugly, sharp-toothed grin at me and nodded excitedly. “Perfect.”

“Please release the girl,” I commanded, looking down at Mayari. I didn’t trust Dozer, and would be a lot happier with the oni child in the safety of Alluria’s arms.

“The enchantment first,” he insisted.

I shook my head. “I thought we had transitioned from a hostage situation to a business deal, so let me use small words that you’ll understand. You have two choices right now: release the girl and get your enchantment and walk away happy, or… I take her from you. If we go that route, whether or not you get to leave at all is anyone's guess. So let’s try to be businessmen again, shall we? What if I swear on my deed that I’ll do the enchantment after you release the girl?”

He snarled at me, ever the stubborn bastard. “Let me see the deed.”

I nodded. “Happily,” I said, fishing it out of the pocket. “If you release the girl.”

Sighing, he nodded at the half-orc, who dropped the rope at last. Mayari ran directly into my arms. Alluria gasped at the sight, perhaps shocked that the little Oni favored me over her at that moment, but it didn’t surprise me. It wasn’t about affection—it was about who she felt safe with coming off of trauma like that which she’d just endured.

I knelt in front of Mayari and ruffled her slate-black hair. “Miss Alluria is going to take you inside now,” I told her in a much softer voice than I’d used for Dozer. “You’re safe, alright?”

She nodded, tears and snot streaming down her face. Alluria reached out and took her hand, but she was staring at me as she started to pull the little girl away and bring her inside to treat her scratches and bruises. Jayson followed them wordlessly.

This was good. If things did come to blows, I would prefer Alluria and the children to be far, far away.

I handed the deed to Dozer. I didn’t have to worry about him tearing it up, as that would just prove its validity if he did so. Official documents, contracts, and deeds were regenerative if not indestructible for precisely this reason. There was actually a special Class for legal paperwork, and a good chunk of money had gone into paying for their services.

Dozer scoffed, but at this point the confidence was gone from both his face and posture. He scrutinized the document for a good, long minute or two, even passing it to his subordinates who looked at it for a much shorter period of time. Eventually, the deed found its way back to me.

“Are you satisfied?” I asked, folding it up and pocketing it again. I had met men like Dozer dozens of times on this journey alone. He didn’t care about my claim so much as who I might be. Any bit of information he could glean would be of use to him.

“Seems real enough,” Dozer conceded. “But who are you? I’ve never heard of you.”

“I’m the man who owns this land. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Dozer’s faked confidence returned as his brow furrowed and he jabbed a finger in my face. “Yeah, well I’m the caravan master’s son. People here do what I say.”

“That’s not how caravan authorities are supposed to work,” I said calmly, hiding my disdain. He might not realize it, but his comment alone about slavery on the Edge had already put him on my shit-list. Knowing that caravan leadership might be involved didn’t scare me in the least. “I’ll have to make sure that gets addressed.”

His anger grew, his hand once again hovering impotently over the sword on his hip, but I knew how to pacify him.

“Tell you what,” I continued, holding both my hands where he could see them. “It’s early, and I’m just grumpy because I haven’t had breakfast. I promised you a fire enchantment in exchange for Mayari’s freedom and Alluria’s loans, and I keep my promises. Shall I?”

I tucked my staff in my armpit and held out my hands for his blade.

“That’s more like it,” he grunted, and he pulled his sword off his hip slowly and handed it to me.

I cast Inspect on the blade, nodding as I examined its stats. Inspect was the first spell I had gained upon setting down the Enchanter’s class path, and it could be used on anything non-living.

WEAPON: Masterwork Elven Saber

DAMAGE: 4-10 +1 slashing damage

LEVEL REQUIREMENT: 10

The stats were fairly impressive for a blade with such a low level requirement, though it might not seem so to the uninitiated. Weapons typically had low damage; it was the skills and abilities inside of a Class that would multiply them. It was the reason a level 50 Fighter could pick up a shit blade and still do decent damage with it while a novice might not.

Seeing that it was Masterwork, I knew someone had paid good money for this blade or he had acquired it from someone else. “Yes, this is fine workmanship. Of elven make, am I correct?”

He mumbled something under his breath which I couldn’t quite make out, but I didn’t need to. I didn’t care about his answer and only wanted to seem polite, anyway.

“It’ll take a little while,” I told them. “Masterwork weapons require more finesse. Do you have twenty minutes or so? I’ll need at least that much time, but it could be a bit longer.”

“We’re not going anywhere until it’s done,” Dozer said, trying to make it sound like a threat rather than simple obedience.

I couldn’t contain a grin. “Excellent. Let me find a good spot to work and we’ll get started.”

***

To become an Enchanter, you had to have a strong desire to study things at an intricate level. This required a vast understanding of different materials, a willingness to stare at simple objects for hours on end, and the passion to somehow enjoy the process.

During the worst periods of the war, it was my happy place. Inscribing runes and flooding them with my own mana and watching the enchantments come alive still brought me a thrill. It also didn’t hurt that it sometimes made quite the spectacle, and the completion of this enchantment ignited ambient mana in the air, creating a tiny fireworks show for anyone who was watching. Sure, this part of the process could be concealed if needed, but I had an audience today. A few more children had wandered out of bed to see what was going on, and I heard at least Mayari emit a sound of excitement.

Enchantment: Successful!

Masterwork Elven Sabre has been enchanted with fire element.

Enchantment Durability: Mana Dependent

Mana dependency meant that the sword either required mana from the environment or from its wielder. This was how most enchantments worked, a quirk of the System that kept legendary magical items out of the hands of low-level idiots.

Upon finishing the enchantment, I Inspected the blade again.

WEAPON: Masterwork Elven Saber of Fire

DAMAGE: 8-16 +2 slashing damage + 9-20 fire damage

LEVEL REQUIREMENT: 40

I double-checked each inscribed rune to assure that my quality was up to my own standards. Even though I had enchanted this weapon for a complete asshole, it was no excuse to do a piss-poor job.

“It’s finished,” I said, wiping a bit of sweat from my brow. “Better part of an hour, but it’s done and done right. I apologize for the wait.”

I handed the sword to the half-ogre brute with a smile on my face. He grabbed it from me greedily and held it over his head with a wide grin of his own, igniting the blade with red and yellow flames. I watched with satisfaction as his look of excitement faded to confusion as his arm started to shake.

“Hmm,” I noted, “that’s odd.”

“What’s odd? Why is it so heavy?” he growled.

“Well—this is a Masterwork weapon, as I’m sure you know. That means that any enchantments placed on it increase the base damage and the level cap. Surely you knew this?”

Just like mana dependency, this was another quirk. There were many theories as to why the System had created a level cap for items in the first place. Some people thought it was to keep untrained novices from swinging flaming swords around. Others thought it was for balance—outfitting a level 12 with legendary gear would not only make them dangerous, but how could they properly gain any experience from fighting monsters their own level? The level cap acted like an enchantment of its own, and that Elven Saber of Fire was soaking up ambient mana like a sponge and becoming impossibly heavy for its underleveled owner.

Dozer’s eyes widened. “No! You made my sword useless?!” The sword slammed into the ground with a loud thud, and he gripped his shoulder and made a pained noise. The flames on the blade sputtered and went out.

“Well, if you were a high enough level, the enchantment would have worked perfectly. I held up my end of the bargain,” I said, my hands held wide. “How was I supposed to know you were under level forty? You’re a caravan master’s son left in charge of this location. Surely you have the bare minimum in levels for such a task.”

“Can’t enchanters lower level requirements?” he asked, practically fuming. His two goons were looking on in shock—their boss had just been made a fool of right in front of them.

I smirked and stood up from where I sat. “That wasn’t part of our deal. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay for that service—it’ll cost you a thousand gold per level for the first five, then ten thousand for each level afterward until we get to thirty. I won’t be able to go any lower, though.” The price I quoted him was quite the extreme offer, but he got the point. I didn’t bother telling him that it would take way longer than an hour, either.

In truth, I could have made the fire enchantment usable in a number of bursts called ‘charges’. These charges draw residual mana out of the environment each day, gradually refilling if they’re not used. It wasn’t like the charges of the enchantments I’d put on myself—those dissipated unless I actively sought to replenish them each night. The benefit of charged enchantments on an item is that they don’t raise the level.

“Fuck you!” he said, and he spat on me. I didn’t react except to calmly wipe it away. Dozer threw a look at his goons, and I realized that the time for words was essentially over.

I slammed my staff into the ground, lighting up the runes for effect. The earth shook beneath our feet as a ring of light emerged from the base of the staff, washing over Dozer and his men. All the hairs on their bodies stood on end as I flooded the air with electrical mana first, then poured my magic into an uncomfortable heatwave.

All three of the men looked down at their bodies, as though they expected to see something.

“We’re done here,” I told them, flooding that rune in my forehead with just enough mana that the symbol glowed through the flesh of my forehead. I’ve been told that it’s fairly dramatic, but I’ve never seen it myself.

I had weighed my options. I could either bluff my way out of a fight or kill these men. In the end, I wanted my fresh start more than anything else, and that meant kicking these grunts off my damn lawn. “Right about now you should be feeling hot, almost like you’ve spiked a fever. That’s good, because it means the spell worked.”

The three brutes traded looks that each confirmed what I was saying.

“It’s a simple enough spell for a man like me, but I’ll explain how it works. You see, gentlemen, I just enchanted the largest bones in your bodies. Femur? Yes. Sternum? Absolutely. Your thick fucking skulls? Done.” I tapped the light on my forehead knowingly. “Now it’s a messy spell, but the deed is done. You have five minutes to get off my property or your bones will explode and turn you into fucking smears. Now. Get. Off. My. Land!”

Eyes widening with fear, they turned their backs on me and scrambled to get away as fast as their thick legs could carry them. Dozer paused only long enough to pick up his sword. As long as he didn’t try to wield it, its weight would remain normal.

“I’ll see you in the Creaky Pump,” I shouted, cupping my hand to my face and releasing the flow of mana to my forehead rune. “Have a nice day!”

I turned around to head back to check on Mayari and Alluria, but what I saw was half a dozen children between the ages of five and thirteen standing in a group behind me, staring at me in awe. I had absolutely not been paying attention to them while working on Dozer’s blade, so I had thought only a couple more kids had joined in.

The silence was palpable. I blinked at them, waving awkwardly, while their collective jaws dropped as they studied me.

“Yeaaaah!” Jayson cheered, standing at the front of the throng. “Explode their bones!”

I laughed at that, nervously scratching my head. “Actually, that was just a Warmth spell,” I said, not wanting the kids to worry. I walked over to join the crowd of onlookers. “You always win the hardest battles with what’s up here first, remember that.” I poked Jayson in the forehead for emphasis.

Behind the kids, standing in her doorway, was Alluria, with her arms on Mayari’s shoulders as they both grinned at me. I smiled back.

Well, they say first impressions count for a lot. I hoped that was good enough for these kids. And maybe, if I was admitting it to myself, for her.