Duskbound

The Hunters Guild spread throughout the north and west borders of Ghastel, with headquarters in every major city on that side of the country. Monster attacks were a frontier problem, with few exceptions. And since killing monsters was the job, there wasn't much reason to keep a guildhall in the south where the nearest monster was a thousand miles away.

Cravel was still a bit farther from the action than Torwin liked, but the simple fact of the matter was that there wasn't a city closer to the borderlands here, so he sucked it up and ran the whole way. Hours and miles went by, and by the time the sun went back down, he was more than halfway there.

Going back early hadn't been the plan, but he was eager to forge a working relationship with the local hunter. It wasn't often he met someone with a unique class, let alone one of the same type as his own. Torwin was hoping to convince the kid to sign up as a monster hunter once the crisis near his home was resolved.

Even if the Black Fang refused, Torwin still wanted to help him. The kid was involved in all of this in a way even he didn't understand, and that made him the most likely path to resolving the monster infestation. Besides that, it was painfully obvious that he was entirely self-taught and had grown up in almost total isolation. The holes in his working knowledge were atrocious.

Every time he recalled the expression on the Black Fang's face when he'd learned that alchemists could and did make potions at a fraction of the price the system store charged, Torwin laughed. Everything the local hunter used was purchased with decarmas directly from the system itself, at prices so ruinous that even Jensen had boggled at the expenses. And it was all because the kid just didn't know anybody. Nobody in the frontier had classes with the skills to manufacture essential magical equipment, so the Black Fang had resorted to years and years of monster hunting to purchase a few pieces of gear himself.

They'd had a discussion about how to spend all the decarmas the Black Fang had coming his way, and if all went well, he'd be bringing back a whole host of supplies and gear, though the only thing that was absolutely essential was the repaired mana compass. If Torwin couldn't find someone to fix that—at least not in a short enough timeframe—then the Black Fang was just going to buy a new one.

Though Torwin hated not getting at least a few hours of sleep each night, he didn't stop running when the sun went down. By the time it rose again, he was only about fifty miles from Cravel. If he'd been fresh, he could have cleared the last leg in an hour or two, but after twenty-six hours of non-stop running, even he was starting to hit his limits.

He passed through the gates three hours later, and as much as he wanted to turn into the nearest inn, drop a fulmite or two on the counter, and dive face-first into the nearest bed, he forced himself to keep moving. There was a tinkerer's shop a quarter-mile past the north gate, and Torwin had yet to come across anything the old woman who owned it couldn't fix. He doubted this would be the broken trinket that ended a two-decade long undefeated streak.

"Beltha? You still alive, you old bag?" he called out as he came through the shop's front door.

"Who're you calling old, you mangy, leather-faced dog!" a querulous voice yelled back.

At four and a half feet tall and maybe seventy pounds, Beltha could have been mistaken for a child if not for her thin, gray hair and a face so covered in wrinkles that Torwin sometimes joked that the only reason she wore goggles was to keep her eyebrows from sagging over her vision. She looked frail enough that an errant breeze would knock her over, but she was an even higher level than Torwin, and those dainty fingers could dent steel if she squeezed.

She emerged from behind a workbench, stopping only to scowl and hip check the heavy wood when her toolbelt got snagged on it. It skidded a few inches from the casual bump, and everything on its surface jumped in place before it stopped moving. Beltha tottered past it and came to a stop in front of Torwin.

"All done playing in the trees already?" she asked. "I thought you said you were expecting it to be at least a month, maybe two."

"Not done at all," Torwin said. "I left my apprentice up there to get some practice, but I had to come back down to the city to get some supplies. Things are… strange. I've never seen anything quite like it. But here, take a look at this."

He fished the broken compass out and handed it to Beltha, who peered at it owlishly. "A mana compass?" she asked. She turned it over and snorted. "Someone step on it?"

"It got dropped during a fight," Torwin explained.

"Hmm. Amplifier lens is cracked. That'll need to be replaced. Doesn't look like any of the runes are damaged, though. I'll need to open it up to make sure the collection array is still in one piece."

Torwin nodded along like he knew what even half of the rambling meant. He'd long since found it was best to humor Beltha and not ask distracting questions. She was more than happy to be pulled off on rambling tangents and easily offended by attempts to steer the conversation back to pertinent topics. So, instead of asking what she was talking about, he simply said, "I need to know how quickly it can be repaired and how much it'll cost."

"If the array is intact, twelve-hundred decarmas and three days. Eighteen-hundred if you want a rush on it. If the array is damaged, three thousand for same-day, twenty-five by the end of the week."

That… actually isn't too far off what Jensen predicted. Too bad Beltha won't take an apprentice. [Manalight Artificer] might actually be a good class for him.

"I need it by tomorrow morning," Torwin said. "I'm only going to be in Cravel long enough to get a few hours of sleep and pick up supplies."

"You're too old to be hurrying like that. Don't come whining to me when you break a hip running around like you're still in your twenties."

"Please. The only way I'd break a hip is if I let you get your claws on it."

Beltha threw back her head and cackled. "And don't you forget it! Alright, I'll get this thing opened up and start working on it. Whatever's wrong with it, I'll fix or replace. Pay upfront."

"You wouldn't be trying to cheat me, would you?" Torwin asked, his voice heavy with suspicion. "I seem to recall the last time I paid upfront, it conveniently took every last decarma to buy the parts."

"I gave you a discount, you ungrateful sack of mulch! Knocked two hundred decarmas off my labor fees to match the deposit."

"Mmhmm. Beltha, I have known you for way too long to fall for that. We both know you're so greedy you could make a dragon blush."

"You want it done or not?"

The two glared at each other, but Torwin knew she had him. He needed this done immediately and even with the rush fee, it was still far cheaper than buying a new one. Besides, it technically wasn't his money anyway. "Fine! You win!"

She cackled in the background while he started materializing stacks of hundred-decarma coins on her counter.

* * *

The seeds were sold through a guild intermediary, one who would undoubtedly get a better price for them than Torwin could negotiate himself. He had no idea what their actual value was, or who would be willing to pay that much for them, so it was a task better left to a professional.

His last task before he found a bed and claimed it for at least ten hours was to deliver the mysterious fractured orb that had supposedly granted the Black Fang his unique class to the guild archivist, a thin, pasty man named Andel Thett. Andel rarely left the stacks, where he spent his time reading and cataloging information.

"Fascinating," he said after Torwin presented him with the two halves and explained what he'd learned. "You're right, of course. For one thing, if this was a class orb, it's the biggest one I've ever seen. That's disregarding the fact that a class orb doesn't give two people classes at the same time, nor does it alter race. Nor does it tend to break in half after it's been used."

"I know," Torwin said. "So what is it, then?"

"I have an idea, but I'll need to look a few things up. That room you found at the top of the dungeon core is definitely a mana regulation chamber, though. It shouldn't have any connection to the 'class orb,' if that's what we want to call it for now. Give me a few hours and I think I'll have a few answers for you."

"That sounds perfect," Torwin told the archivist. "I need to get some sleep. I've been running for over three hundred miles non-stop to get this here as quickly as possible, but I'll check in after I wake up?"

Andel nodded, but he was already so distracted examining the broken orb that Torwin wasn't sure he was really listening. The archivist strode away, and several books flew off the shelves in his wake, chasing after him like paper birds with fluttering pages.

Good enough for now. Time to find a bed.