The workshop smelled of wood dust, oils and glue. The master carpenter stood like a commander in the middle of the workshop and gave instructions to half a dozen apprentices of all ages. Trulda knocked on the door frame, but it was drowned out by the hammering and sawing in the room. She stood politely at the door for a while and watched the busy work. Before she lost her patience, the master noticed her out of the corner of his eye, wheeled around and signaled the apprentices to take a break. "Well, girl, what do you want? If you want to sell something, we don't need anything at the moment."

Trulda suppressed a flare of her barbarian anger, ignoring the condescending tone and bowed politely, "Master Haephaton?"

The master carpenter, master of his workshop and undisputed head of a family, sensed a feeling of threat that was completely inappropriate to the young barmaid's polite manner and harmless demeanor. He straightened up and returned the bow gravely. "So... you want to buy something?"

"Can we discuss this in private?"

"Of course. Follow me upstairs." He beckoned the apprentices, confused by the course of the conversation, to continue working and led Trulda up the stairs at the back of the workshop to his living room. He sat down at the oak table he had made himself and gestured for her to sit down too.

Trulda stopped in front of the chair and reached into her neckline. Before Master Haephaton could say anything, he noticed the magical shimmer in the air. She pulled out a heavy leather pouch and dropped it on the table. Without saying a word, she opened the string, so he could see it was densely filled with gold coins.

The master craftsman raised an eyebrow and relaxed. This was something he could handle, "You have my full attention. What do you need?"

She reached into the neckline again and pulled out a lute with a sweeping movement. The master craftsman grimaced in disappointment: "Forgive me. But I am a cabinetmaker. I can make and decorate furniture and figurines for you. But I'm not an instrument maker. You'll have to go to Master Lars one street over." He took one last look at the bag of gold, then deliberately averted his eyes and looked apologetically into her face.

She smiled: "Don't worry, I know what your specialty is. I need something that only looks like a lute. But made from a single solid piece of grana wood."

"It wouldn't have a body of sound..."

"It doesn't have to have any sound at all. The strings should only be on it for show. Preferably so close to the wood that they don't get in the way when I swing the lute with both hands on the handle."

The master carpenter picked up the lute he was to use as a model with both hands and looked at Trulda indecisively. She took the lute from his hand, turned it around and swung the sounding body vigorously through the air a few times: "I want a two-handed club that I can take with me everywhere and that nobody will notice. I can't rely on always having an extra-dimensional storage space at my disposal."

Haephaton looked at her for a moment, then laughed: "A club! I can do that! But isn't grana wood too heavy for you?"

"I'm stronger than I look."

"Well, it's your gold."

"Now it's yours." She pushed the bag across the table. The master carpenter raised his hands defensively. "That's too much! Give me twenty gold pieces and your war lute will be ready in a week."

The two shook hands.

***

Trulda continued on to the marketplace. As soon as she turned the corner, she could already see a long line of revenants in front of the Adventurers' Guild stall. She hurried the last bit over and quickly sat down in the empty seat. The two twins smiled gratefully at her.

Trulda beckoned the next group of three revenants to join her: "Welcome to the Adventurers' Guild. What can I do for you?"

A high elf dressed in a classic elven cloak stepped forward and bowed: "I am Salvandaranda Elbanaiel of the Querlanastiani clan. A mage of high ritual magic." Straightening up, she pointed to a spot on her cloak where a silver star was embroidered. The knowledge from the guilds knowledge crystal informed Trulda that the revenant obviously attached great importance to the coherence of the game world and avoided terms such as level. The star identified her as a level 1 mage in the elven tradition. She made a note and turned to the next revenant. The dwarf slapped his sturdy leather armor and the elf introduced him, "This is Gorombolosh, son of Arambalash. A dwarven prospector." Three iron rivets indicated his level. The elf pointed over her shoulder with her thumb and mumbled something too low for Trulda to make out with all the talking going on around them. "Sorry, I couldn't make that out. What's your companion's name?" She looked at him. A human in a plaid shirt donning a snugly fitted leather jacket adorned with intricate embroidery, complemented by lederhosen, knee-length breeches crafted from supple leather. The protection was very limited, judging by the flexibility of the material. The man grinned broadly and leaned over the dwarf to shake Trulda's hand: "Servus! I'm the Weißwurscht-Sepp."

Trulda noticed how his two companions almost winced in pain.

"If you want to join here, I still need your class and level."

"Oh, I'm just a tourist. Level 1."

"Is that an official character class?" He shrugged his shoulders. Trulda wrote down his details in the guild book, where the character class was accepted without a problem. "What exactly can you do as a tourist?"

"I look at everything calmly. As long as I don't attack first, nothing usually attacks me."

"What happens if you get into a fight?"

"I'll probably get punched in the mouth. I'm only here because my siblings really want to see this. Susi always takes everything far too seriously. She's spent the last few months learning Quenya."

"All elves also speak the common tongue. But I think that will impress them."

Trulda skillfully organized the admission to the guild and chose a harmless beginner's quest for the three of them. Myrrdin the woodcutter had lost his axe in the forest. He couldn't work without it. Monsters had been seen in the forest, so he needed heroes to find his axe for him and bring it back. As the group walked away, Sindri interrupted her own conversation with a group of three heavily armored paladins and looked after them as well, "You gave them the Myrrdin quest?"

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"Yes, why?"

"We really should suspend that quest for a while. It's been taking place at least four times a day for a week. He's barely got his axe back before it's stolen again. Each time it's a little different. Sometimes it's an orphan boy who just borrows the axe without asking, then it's goblins, twiglings or even revenants. Yesterday morning it was an elven ranger who only borrowed the axe for a short time. The heroes just had to find him and politely remind him to return it. In the afternoon, it was a revenant who was supposed to steal the axe for his own quest as a level 2 thief. The quest was upgraded in the middle when he had to endure a really adventurous chase by revenants over the rooftops of the suburbs. Myrrdin doesn't get to work at all himself. The guild pays him for his involvement, but he's really annoyed by now. The last heroes complained that he treated them rather harshly. He threw the five silver reward after them while scolding and cursing them."

Trulda asked the next revenant in line to wait a moment and flipped through the quest book: "Do we have any quests that aren't currently running?"

Sindri shook her head without looking as she filled out the next revenant's membership form: "The only ones in the immediate area that aren't currently running are only for craftsmen and require skills that newly arrived revenants don't normally have. At least we haven't had any cobblers or blacksmiths sign up yet."

Trulda found the relevant quests. Craftsmen in the city had called out quests because they couldn't get certain materials or parts anywhere in the required quantities. The escort quests for transports from other cities were very popular. Escorts had become necessary as a number of revenants decided to become bandits. "Hey Sindri, why are there so many requests for shoes and normal clothes? I haven't noticed a shortage anywhere in the city. I bought a pair of shoes just last week. The store was fully stocked."

"They are now. Revenants arrive here with literally only the clothes they are wearing on their bodies. After forest quests, they often come home completely filthy. When you listen to them moan, you'd think they'd never seen dirt before."

"Well..." Trulda hesitated, wondering how to phrase this without making it obvious that she was a revenant. "One of the revenants once told me that they don't get dirty in other worlds that they visit in a similar way. The laws of nature are completely different there. Above all, much simpler. Clothes don't get dirty and don't get damaged by thorns or fighting. Weapons and armor do not wear out. Even normal food and drink are only needed to heal injuries."

Sindri and Indri stared at them in disbelief. The revenant Indri was serving interjected cheerfully: "I've heard that too. At first, I thought they were exaggerating, but damn, was I wrong! I've only been here a day and my shoes are already completely ruined. Just because I walked along the river bank once to look under the bridges. I now need a quest where I can get a bag of holding and then I'll buy two sets of spare clothes and shoes."

Indri shook her head: "I'm sorry Darken, but artifacts are not normally available as rewards until journeyman level quests at the earliest. That means dangers that require heroes of level 6 or higher."

"Are there at least cleansing spells or something?"

Trulda flipped back through the quest book and pointed to one that had caught her eye a few moments ago: "How about this one, it's about delivering a wagonload of reeds from the Nurgal Swamp to the Mage Academy. The swamp is currently infested with chameleon anacondas. The academy's usual suppliers no longer dare to go there. If you make a good impression at the academy, you're sure to get suitable spells or artifact thesis there."

She turned the book over to the master of the dark arts. He skimmed the entry.

"Good idea. I need a group for that, but I already know a few heroes I can ask. Sign me up."

When he was gone, the three Guild employees answered a lot of questions in quick succession until there was a short break. Trulda got three cups of hot coffee. The three began chatting comfortably when another revenant came straight from the spawn point. A man in the white robes of a mage strode gracefully to the guild's stand: "Ladies, sorry to disturb you. If you are ready, I have a request. However, I can come back later."

Trulda put down her cup, gulped down the coffee she still had in her mouth and shook her head: "No, no. No problem. What can I do for you?"

The revenant had chosen an unusually high starting age. His long white beard gave him an air of dignity: "I am already a member of the guild. I'm looking for a quest that will allow me to increase my level with a group of three other heroes. We were involved in the Battle of the Border Forest and are now all at level 7. There were no quests in the city that were really worthwhile for us."

The twins whistled in sync, impressed, while Trulda nodded at him: "Level 7. Respect. Let me have a look."

While she was already leafing through the pages, he continued in a chatty tone: "Best to go a little south of the city. Perhaps an infiltration quest into the desert? Or a patrol through the besieged grass steppe?"

Trulda shook her head apologetically: "The Krigesti have already sealed off the exit from the valley. Even with a level 7 group, you won't be able to get through. There are guards every ten paces. Torches, watchfires, magical rune traps, the whole nine yards. We're still waiting for someone to find a way over the mountains that isn't under surveillance. The exit through the fortress city is currently blocked."

"What about trade? Surely they still let caravans through?"

"Trade has come to a complete standstill. They don't want anything from us and no longer offer anything."

"What about Cerebrum crystals? Without them, there will soon be no skill crystals at all!"

Sindri sighed: "We could really use them right now. But no, not a grain of Cerebrum has been delivered since the war began. The price of skill crystals has exploded."

The mage grimaced: "After we put so much effort into ensuring the crystal deposits would never run out."

Trulda leaned forward: "You did? When was that?"

He waved it off: "Oh... ancient war stories."

"Revenants have only recently appeared. It can hardly be that long ago."

He sighed: "I wish I hadn't said anything. I only tell the old stories in the forum and when we revenants are among ourselves."

"Come on, then. You can't bait us and then leave us." Trulda leaned forward and batted her eyelashes. She remembered too late that she wasn't wearing extended eyelashes or mascara. The twins also leaned forward and imitated the puss in boots look.

"Please!"

"Come on."

The mage looked around and lowered his voice: "Okay, but don't tell anyone, or at least keep my name out of it. That was in a previous body. A previous life. During the last world quest. After the final battle in the War of the Necromancers. When the worlds quest was finished, it became quieter everywhere and we expected the server to be shut down for the next update. It had already been announced that the characters would start again from the beginning for the next world quest. We only had a month to have some fun and finish our current projects. I myself gathered the last surviving archmages. Every single one a veteran at level of 20, the maximum at that time. We wanted to make sure that there would be enough skill crystals in the future. Towards the end of the war, they were almost nowhere to be found. We researched, planned and investigated long before the final battle. Then we completed our project and traveled together through a portal to the crystal lake in the desert. Cerebrum crystals can only be found there in a very mineral-rich lake on a mana line. An underground lake in a cave. The deposits were already almost exhausted due to the incessant exploitation of the deposit. So we performed a gross ritual to massively accelerate crystal growth."

"You mean a grand ritual?"

"Gross Ritual. A ritual of twelve dozen, that is 144 magicians. The largest number that can ever cast a ritual together. The most powerful ritual ever cast. We only dared to do it because we knew we would never be able to use these characters again anyway."

All three were hanging on his every word: "So, how did it end?"

"As expected. At least one of the mages made a mistake, the ritual got out of control at the end and we all died in a mana eruption. I'd love to go there and see if it worked. We got quite far with the ritual, so it may well have manifested some effect."

"What was it supposed to do?"

"Well... that's complicated. It was basically a chimera ritual. We wanted to give the dead crystals the ability of plants to grow in salt water. The problem was to combine living and dead matter without using necromancy. That would have irreparably damaged the matrix of the crystals. If it had worked, the crystals would have grown at the speed of weeds. But we probably only destroyed the mana node and dried up the lake."

The twins whistled, impressed: "If you ever need a beer or help with a quest, come by the guild or here. You got something owed for that story."

With some effort, Trulda found him a quest that was challenging enough and then bid him a fond farewell.