They walked inside, to find that Darius had completely transformed the mayor's office. Everything was covered in stacks of papers. Most of them were sorted neatly, but some were a mess of loose-leafs and stained parchment. That second group, Josh knew, was everything that the former mayor had produced. Darius complained about his “execrable organizational skills” every night at dinner.

Darius himself sat in the middle of the organized chaos like a spider inside a web. Or, no, that didn't quite fit. More like a magpie in its nest, Josh thought. Hoarding countless little shiny objects that had caught its fancy.

Darius looked only slightly frazzled when he saw them enter. “Josh. I presume the wall is done? I received the error message about the citystone.”

“Sorry,” Ruth said with a pout. “I didn't know it needed—”

He stopped her with a raised hand. “It's fine, I promise. We are all struggling to find our way.” He sighed. “I think, at least, I've untangled the mess of this town's laws.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It's a good thing the town was so young. The previous mayor didn't have much time to screw things up.”

“Does this mean we can move on to the fun stuff?” Josh asked with a grin.

“I've cleared things with the delvers,” Darius confirmed. “We can go underground and look for more bloodstones.” He pursed his lips. “I wish we could send the delvers to look for them. Of course, I told them to keep an eye out, but without any special sensory abilities, they won't have much luck.”

Josh turned to Ruth. “Still no luck replicating my Stonesense ability?”

She shook her head sadly. “All those magic items you got from the elf were great for my enchanting! But I haven't gotten close to making any sort of sensing magic item. I'm not sure it's possible with just runes. It might need something more.”

“It likely doesn't help that you are no longer an Enchanter or a Crafter,” Darius noted. There was no judgment in his tone. He was just stating facts. “While you retain all your old abilities, it will be far more difficult for you to learn anything new. How much longer did it take you to learn the new runes?”

Ruth sighed. “Ten times as long. For the easy runes. I still haven't gotten blueprints for some of the higher-tier runes. They work, I'm just not getting the blueprints!”

Josh patted her on the back. “That's normal. Jumping to Rune Warrior is a pretty big leap. The class abilities aren't going to always play well together.”

That just made her sag more. “Sorry I didn't stick with Enchanter,” she muttered. “Maybe I should switch back to a Crafter at my next advancement?”

Darius looked like he was going to agree, so Josh spoke over him. “No. You're doing much better as a Rune Warrior.” Even though she wasn't fighting much right now, just the fact that she was happier had done wonders all around. “Some of the kids might be able to become Enchanters. We can try to get one of them to Rune Architect.”

Darius nodded at that. “Yes, Baara has been kind enough to evaluate some of the refugees.” He pulled out a paper. “We have a list of eight that I think will be appropriate for Crafter bloodstones. We are just waiting on your approval.”

Josh took the paper and scanned over it. “These are all refugees from Gilroy?”

“Correct.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“No one from Bautista?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. We wanted to stay with those we know for now.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward; Josh and Ruth leaned forward to hear him. “Honestly, I do not know Baara very well yet either. This is already a risk. But she has impressed me these past few days.”

Josh leaned back, and nodded. “Sounds good to me, then.” He pulled eight [Woodcrafter] bloodstones from his storage ring, the one he had found on the elf.

He very specifically ignored Darius glaring at him. It wasn't like he could share. Besides, it was a very small storage ring! In the Old World, rings of this size were handed out like candy. Of course, now, when no one had the right classes to make even the smallest of storage artifacts, this one ring made him richer than most merchants back in the City.

Still, Darius didn't say anything about it. He just took a deep breath. “So. Are we going down into the pit now, or later?”

“Anna and Mary are out clearing a dungeon,” Josh said. “You want to wait?”

“Oh, come on!” Ruth said. She pouted. “That could take hours! There are four of us, we can handle anything that's down in the pit, right?”

Beor grunted. Apparently he appreciated being included.

“It's basically a simple escort,” Darius pointed out. “If not for the assassination attempts, I would say you can go down alone. Honestly, the biggest danger here is that it's somewhat a waste of time.”

Josh crossed his arms and scowled.

Darius rolled his eyes. “Please. You understand my meaning. It is certainly possible there are bloodstones hidden in places humans have never been able to reach, but it is not guaranteed. And every day we spend on that hunt without finding anything is a day lost.”

Josh sighed. “Yeah, all right, not gonna lie, I see the logic.” His eyes flicked to the papers arranged on the desk. “You got a list of the unclassed kids and their birthdays? When's the next one coming up?”

Darius didn't even have to look. “Eight days.”

“All right. If we don't find a new bloodstone in eight days, we call it quits.” Josh shrugged. “For now, at least.”

“Give me ten minutes, and we'll go down there,” Darius said. “I just need to put everything away.” He looked around at his stacks of paperwork. “...perhaps thirty minutes.”

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat. Josh turned to see Baara standing at the door, looking awkward.

“I can take over the paperwork,” she said. She looked like she wanted to smile, but didn't. She was too nervous. “Um, I used to help my mom. With that sort of thing. Whenever a new dungeon opened up, she and Dad would go take a look while I...” She trailed off, and seemed to shrink down into herself. “Sorry,” she said.

“I don't have a problem with it,” Darius said. He raised an eyebrow at Josh. “What about our esteemed mayor?”

Josh shrugged. “No skin off my knuckles. But what about everyone else? There are all sorts of stuffy types who might take it personal if a kid is promoted over them.”

Darius snorted. “Oh, we are far past that issue. The coup has annoyed those types far more than promoting one teenager would ever do.” He waved in Baara's direction. “At least she has a chance to prove her competence. You, Josh, have done little to prove your worth besides fighting things in the Jungle.”

Josh wanted to argue with that, but found that he couldn't. They were still keeping his [Crafter] class mostly secret, though they weren't sitting on it as much as maybe they should. To the paper-pushers in the mayor's office, all he had done was violently overthrow their boss, then help build the wall for a few days. The fact that it was still more than what Hawkins had ever done was the only reason the people hadn't already deposed him.

Beor grunted. “Not many left.”

Josh frowned. “Not many—” His face cleared. “Oh! Not many competent paper-pushers, you mean?” He made a face. “The old mayor didn't like people undermining him, did he?” A decent secretary could have rendered most of the old mayor's decrees largely useless.

Beor nodded.

Darius sorted through his papers. “Baara, come over here. I'll show you my system.” He looked at Josh. “Five minutes.”