Ruth was ecstatic over her progress with the runes, and was almost vibrating with the need to share.

“I finally figured it out!” she said. “I mean, I had hints of it before, but now I've finally got enough to actually do something with it! It's all in the connector runes!”

Josh nodded as he sipped his soup. At least it was good soup. Mary had traded away the meat from her kills for real meals. “I figured as much. There's too many of them to just be pretty set dressing. Lemme guess, they're a language?”

Darius and Mary looked surprised, but Ruth just nodded happily. “Yep! I think every single connector rune is its own word. It's not phonetic, I don't think.” She bit her lip. “There are still a lot of questions. I have less than a hundred connector runes so far. But at least I know how to use them! Basically, I write a sentence around the main rune I want to use. So now I can do stuff like control which way a gravity rune falls, or how hot a fire rune gets!”

“Now that does sound interesting,” Darius said, leaning forward. “Can you include activation parameters?”

Ruth grinned. “Oh yeah. That was one of the first things I learned.” She waved her spoon in the air, tracing a circle. “The real trick is that the runes work best as a closed circle. There's no power loss that way. And I think they're more likely to work if they're a palindrome?” She scrunched up her face in annoyance. “I'm not good at wordplay like that, so I'm not sure.”

“I'd be happy to help,” Darius said. “I might not be an expert at palindromes, but I am skilled at most puzzles.”

“That sounds great!”

Mary had a look of annoyed confusion on her face. “What're palindromes, again? Is that the one where it's always the same number of syllables or summat?”

Ruth giggled. “Of course not, silly!”

Mary gave her a glare, but there was no heat to it. It was hard to be mad at Ruth, Josh knew. She was just so earnestly happy all the time.

Darius adjusted his glasses. “You are thinking of a haiku, or perhaps some other form of poetry. That is the most common place where syllable count matters. It has to do with the meter, or way the line flows.”

Mary could not be mad at Ruth. She could absolutely be mad at Darius. She gave him a much angrier glare. “I didn't hear the word 'palindrome' anywhere in that ramble, did I?”

“Palindromes are the ones that are the same back and front,” Josh said. “You know, like... uh...” He realized he couldn't think of an example. “Uh...” He suddenly felt like he had shown up for a class presentation naked. Everyone was staring at him. God dammit, this wasn't difficult! “Race car!” he said at last. “It's the same backwards and forwards!”

Mary's eyes drifted as she mentally checked the spelling. “I... guess?” She turned to Ruth. “It really that easy?”

Ruth nodded. “Yep! I think it will be easier with the runes once I get used to it too, since like I said, it's not phonetic. I just have to make sure they all line up right.” She paused. “I think. I, uh, might have to use iambic octameter too. I'm not sure.”

“Start with the palindromes,” Josh said, tone dry. “Figure out the rest later, yeah?”

Ruth nodded. “Yeah. I did want to study the citystone, though.”

Josh frowned. “Wot? Why?” It seemed like a sudden turn to him.

“Citystones have rune circles on them,” Darius said. He cocked his head at Josh. “Did you not know that?”

“Uh, I haven't studied them or anything like that,” Josh said carefully. “But I think I would have noticed a bunch of runes on them somewhere.”

“They're on the underside,” Ruth said, miming the bottom of a floating crystal. “I'm really curious what they do, and Vashti said I could look at them tomorrow!” She grinned. “I didn't even know about them before she told me!”

Josh gave Mary a look. “You sure she's not Ruth's bird?”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Don't be a muppet. You can be more than one person's bird.”

“Yeah, that's not what's happening here.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Darius asked, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “Alter the citystone, I mean. What if you break it?”

Ruth wrinkled her nose. “No one said anything about altering anything. I just want new runes!”

“Think Darius is trying to give you a subtle hint,” Josh said with a chuckle. He grinned at the other man. “You heard that rumor too, I expect? That it was Enchanters who upgraded citystones in the Old World?”

Darius gave him a scathing look. “It's not a rumor, it's a historical fact.”

Josh shrugged. He had never paid much attention to that sort of thing. “Still. You want to make an impact?” He pointed his spoon at Ruth. “That's how you do it. Figure out how to upgrade citystones. That's the kind of thing that gets you in the history books.”

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Ruth shrank down into herself. “I don't really want to be in the history books.”

“Okay.” Josh backtracked. It only took him a second to think of a better argument. “Do you know what upgraded citystones can do?”

She frowned and shook her head. “More quest options?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “In the Old World, they could do all sorts of cool things. Escort missions, crafting missions, anything you could think of.”

Darius nodded. “Yes, Basic-tier citystones can only give out monster hunting quests and item retrieval quests, and only the simplest levels, at that. That is why you can't give someone a quest to...” He thought for a moment. “Kill the level 50 Porcine Juggernaut Breaker south of the City, for example. You can only give a quest to kill eight Porcine-type monsters. The quest then rewards minimal experience, because it is assumed you are killing the weakest possible.”

Mary snorted. “Yeah, but the weakest we can find is level 24 beasties that have evolved, what, three times?”

Josh waved them away. “Come off it, none of that is what I mean.” He grinned at Darius. “I know you know better.”

Darius rolled his eyes and looked away.

Ruth cocked her head. “What did you mean, then? Better quests would be worth more than anything else I can think of!”

“Citystones can be enhanced by an Enchanter to hold additional abilities,” Darius explained. “The Enchanter creates some sort of space or slot on the stone.” He held up a hand when she tried to interrupt. “Before you ask, no, I don't know the exact runes or method to do this. Perhaps the City has that information stored.”

Once again, Josh kicked himself for failing to see through Jonah's machinations. If they had been able to find allies within the City, they would have access to the central libraries. He was sure that there were hundreds of runes recorded there, maybe even information on class advancements for the [Crafter] role.

“Wot's this about?” Mary asked. “I've never heard nothing 'bout additional abilities.”

“Sure you have,” Josh said. “You know the story about the Last Stand, right before the Eight defeated the final boss of the Tower and saved the world? You know, when the citystone was throwing lightning at the monsters? That was an addition.”

“To put it simply, an addition is a class ability,” Darius elaborated. “For example, a Mage can put a lightning spell in a citystone, and someone with administrative access to that stone will then be able to cast it from the stone's mana pool. The spell will also be modified in various ways. Its range will be extended to the entirety of the stone's influence, and it will often be stronger as well.”

“That's all well and good,” Mary said dryly, “but remember that they lost the Last Stand. All the defenders died, and every single human being on the planet was killed.”

“Except for the Eight,” Ruth said with what cheer she could muster.

“Except for the Eight,” Mary agreed, as if anyone had needed the reminder. “Thank you, Ruth.”

“Honestly, putting Attacker spells on a citystone is a waste of an addition,” Josh said. “You need wide buffs and heals. The kind of thing that can boost your entire army at once. If the stone needs to attack, it's already too late.” Then he grinned. “But there are other things you can put in a citystone.”

Ruth cocked her head. “What do you—” Her eyes widened. “You can give it Instant Crafting!?”

Josh nodded. “Precisely. Only one blueprint for each slot, but that's far from nothing.” Besides, it only took a few minutes to swap out an addition. “And since it has much higher mana capacity than I do, that means it can do blueprints I can't. It also draws materials directly from its storage.” Well, he assumed that's what it did. He had only seen a citystone build something once, and no one had bothered to explain the process to him.

Ruth almost vibrated with excitement. “We can build better walls! Or homes for everyone! Oh, oh, we need to get more blueprints!” She made a strange motion with her hands. It took Josh a moment to realize she was miming unrolling a physical blueprint. “What if we got actual blueprints? Would that work? You know, would you earn the blueprint without having to build one first?”

Josh nodded. “Yeah, that's what happened with the bed, remember? I don't know why bigger blueprints would be different. Though I doubt we'll find any more in this town, either way.”

Darius, however, had a thoughtful look on his face. “Perhaps we should find where the closest city planning building used to be? I do not have high hopes for finding anything, but surely asking cannot hurt.”

“Yeah, well, I think you muck-heads are getting a bit ahead of yourselves,” Mary said, dry as bleached bone. “We don't even know if Ruth can do anything with this stupid rock yet, and you're already planning, what? Turn this little town into a second City and hope we can beat the dragon when he gets out?”

That sobered everyone quickly. They were still on a deadline. Josh did think that this was ultimately a good idea, however. Upgrading the town would be something that no one could ignore. Jonah couldn't just dismiss it as some strange criminal act and have them all arrested again.

“Wait,” Ruth said. “So, citystones have mana?”

Josh nodded. “Yeah.”

“Does... that mean they have levels?”

Josh grimaced and wiggled his hand back and forth. “Sort of? Not really? They gain mana from everyone inside their area of effect. That's the closest they have to leveling, besides their tiers. You can use the mana for a few things. Mostly casting spells from additions, but a few other tricks too.”

“Such as creating new citystones, or relays,” Darius added. “The City has used relays to cover the entire space inside the wall in their stone's influence. Thus, they are receiving mana from all of them at once, and they have an advantage over anyone else.”

“You can buy food and water from them,” Mary added. “I mean, the food is crap, I'd rather eat my boots—”

“She means it!” Josh said with a laugh. “When we first met, she was gnawing on her own bloody boot!”

Mary punched him in the shoulder, but she was grinning. “Come off it! I was trapped underground for three days, didn't exactly have access to a three-star restaurant, did I?”

Darius frowned. “Don't you mean five-star?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Those places are scams. No food is worth that much money! Just go for something cheaper!” She shook her head. “Anyway, food is crap, but water is pure.” She shrugged. “Keeps anybody from dying in a boring way, I guess.”

“The point is, everyone will be happy as geckos in rain if you can get that citystone upgraded,” Josh said. He grinned. “You'll get more than a little something out of it too, right?”

She nodded happily. “I'm looking forward to it!”