Samson picked up one of the small glowing red stones. His eyes went distant, and he nodded. “It says I can become an Armorsmith. It remains a Defender class.”

Lydia scrambled to pick one up as well. “Let me see...” She smiled. “My class of Mage can become an Enchanter. It is a Crafter class.” She turned to Ruth. “That's your class! But you didn't start as a Mage.”

Ruth was almost bouncing in her seat. Well, on the log she was using as a seat. It was an interesting contrast to Lydia's much more reserved enthusiasm. “No, I started as a Woodcrafter, then added a Mender bloodstone and became an Enchanter! I'm surprised it's so easy to get to Enchanter from multiple directions!”

Judith rolled the small red stone in her hand. “I'm a Hunter. Advances to Trapmaker. Still a Defender role.” She nodded. “That makes sense to me.”

Mayor Vashti waited until everyone else had picked a stone before picking one up herself. “I am a Swordsman, as I am sure you all know. If I take this stone, I will become a Swordsmith. It is still an Attacker.”

There was a pause as everyone sat there, staring at the stones in their hands.

“Well?” Mary asked with a laugh. “You lot gonna sit there at loose ends all day, or you gonna have a go?”

Lydia laughed. Judith smirked. Samson nodded solemnly. Vashti remained stone-faced.

A moment later, all their stones dissolved into glowing white dust. It swirled around them for a moment, before sinking in. Each of them glowed for the length of two heartbeats, before it faded.

Mary grinned. “Get anything shiny?”

Mayor Vashti, Samson, and Judith all received a skill for making their specific type of item, plus a small selection of blueprints. Nothing too impressive, though Josh thought that some of Judith's traps had potential.

Lydia, however, received not only the [Craft Runes] skill, but also the [Instant Crafting] and [Hands-Free Crafting] spells. Josh wondered if that was normal for all classes in the [Crafter] role. She didn't gain rune-chains yet, which was frustrating. When Ruth had gained the class, she had skipped ahead on the ability list because she already had a few. Lydia could only use single runes right now.

Single runes were still useful, though, and she immediately started learning every rune that Ruth had to offer her. They just plopped down on the dirt right there, not a care in the world, trying to speedrun Lydia through Ruth's entire library.

Samson, on the other hand, had a quick discussion with Mayor Vashti, then suggested Josh come over to the smithy tomorrow when they started working with the forge and the furnace. After all, while Josh couldn't work metal yet, that would hopefully change in the future. Besides, maybe working at a forge would be an achievement necessary to get an Improved-tier class. Josh doubted it, but agreed to the meeting regardless.

Darius seemed quiet and contemplative, even by his standards, as they left. He stared off into the distance, distracted, while he cleaned the dishes with mechanical efficiency.

“What's rattling around in your noggin?” Josh asked.

Darius started in surprise. “What? Oh.” He sighed. “I suppose it doesn't matter. It's exceedingly unlikely we'll ever find another new bloodstone.”

“...you lost me.”

He adjusted his glasses. “I was just wondering if a Stonecrafter bloodstone would have given different advancement options. Swordsmith and Armorsmith seem to have little to do with wood. It's almost as if the Woodcrafter bloodstone is acting as some generic Crafter bloodstone.”

Josh shrugged. He wasn't sure how accurate that actually was, but he knew people had said that sort of thing before. Some bloodstones seemed to be grouped together in unofficial, unlabeled ways. Mayor Vashti's Swordsman class, if they actually had a bloodstone for it, would have a similar effect to the Swordmaster and Bladedancer bloodstones when combined with other classes. Not actually identical, but there was loads of overlap.

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“Maybe,” Josh said noncommittally. Then he grinned and clapped his hands. “Now that the secret's out, are you getting the mats for more shrouds?”

Darius gave him a confused frown. “I've already made shroud focuses for all of us.”

Josh scoffed. “First off, these things are all shiny and new, but we both know there's prettier glint to be made. You've got to grind your skills and upgrade your blueprints.” Seeing something you constructed used in combat could earn you rank-ups to your blueprints. Unfortunately, the rank-ups weren't very impressive. Josh hoped that Darius would learn and engineer better versions himself. “Second, no one else in town has shrouds. They could use the extra help.”

“Well, I suppose, if we are going public...”

“Not sure that's the right word, but yeah.” Josh shrugged. “Sell them through the Mayor, or the nice scholar girl. You know, if you don't want to just whip it out for all to see.”

Darius opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Did you have to phrase it in that exact way?”

“Wot?”

Darius sighed. “I think we should just do what we can.”

Josh nodded solemnly. “Always a smart idea.”

“Dee-Dee!” Ruth cried as she ran over. “Dee-Dee, I think I've got it!”

Darius frowned. “Don't call me that. And what do you have?”

Ruth pulled out a sheaf of papers covered in disorganized notes and scrawls. “I was talking to Lydia about the citystone, and she says she's pretty sure the equations are in base eight!”

“Equations?” Josh asked. “Is that the trick of it? The runes are equations?” It was the first he was hearing of any of it. Then again, he had been busy perfecting his new talismans over the past few days.

Ruth bobbed her head eagerly. “I think so! I mean, I'm...” She winced. “I'm not great with math, you know? My dad wanted me to learn finances and stuff, but I never had a head for it. But I do know how to recognize equations, even if these ones didn't make any sense.” She showed him the papers. “See, each connector rune has an assigned number, from one to eight. We can check that in the blueprint description. So, treat them as digits in a calculator or program and—”

“Let's just skip to the part where I believe you,” Josh said with a grin. He ruffled Ruth's hair. She pouted, and he just smiled wider. “This why you dashed out early on our session today? Thought lifting weights was boring, thought you'd have a go at these equations?”

“Oh, no,” Ruth said, dead serious. “Exercise is so much more fun than stupid math!” She sighed. “I wish I could have gotten a physical-type class, something more like a Stonecrafter. I could have lived with being a Stonecrafter or whatever comes after that.”

“Metalcrafter would be my guess,” Josh mused. He was hoping for Mechanist, which would lead him to the higher-tier classes he wanted. He didn't think he'd actually get it, though. It probably needed another advancement.

There were loads of things he was chasing, and the Mechanist class was the first step to almost all of them. The Forgotten Engine-Seer was an Exemplary-tier class that could integrate magic into technology, and which he knew for a fact allowed for the creation of the hibernation chambers that could be used to skip the solstice reset. Blood-Metal Techno-Heretic was an Exemplary-tier class that he suspected could create the bloodstone drip, a device that allowed for the creation of bloodstones besides your foundational class. It had been little more than a curiosity in the Old World, but it would be invaluable in the here and now. Even if that class wasn't enough, techno-necromancy was useful, if horrifying, and most likely one of its later advancements would have access to the bloodstone drip.

And of course there was the Silverlight Mechanist of the Third Order, the same class as the man who participated in the Last Raid only to die without leaving behind a bloodstone. It allowed for the creation of giant robots, machines big enough to carry cities on their backs, and engines that could affect the entire world. The least of the Silverlight Mechanist's blueprints was an upgrade to the hibernation chamber that affected an entire room at once. That let dozens of people skip the reset, and was how the people who had become the Eight Immortals had survived long enough to challenge the Tower that last time.

That was a Master-tier class, and even in the best of circumstances it would be out of reach for a while. Well. That was no reason to do nothing.

He grinned and clapped his hands. “Let's get to work!”