Adrian left the Smithery and headed back to the dormatories, where he saw the remains of the largest snowball fight he had ever seen. He saw Andrei looking exhausted as he was being swarmed by those girls from earlier. It was safe to assume who lost this battle.

Adrian managed to fend of the girls and drag Andrei back to the safety of the dorms, where Sam and Emilia were waiting for them. "So what did he say?" asked Sam.

"Two days."

"You better not forget then!" Threatened Sam. Andrei was looking at the battlefield with longing, before turning to Adrian and saying "If you have no reason for me being here I think I might just head back to-"

"I do" Adrian cut in. "It is about potentially lethal information." He went on to telling his friends all about what happened that night, as well as his later meeting with Trozes's gang after class. He left out Chronos as he didn't think his friends would take too kindly to Adrian's pocket god. People were not big fans of gods in these parts.

"How could they even do such a thing on guild grounds?!" Sam was the first to outburst.

"What do you want us to do?!" Followed closely by Andrei. Emilia was the only one to stay calm and asked "Why did you tell us this in the first place?"

Adrian took a deep breath and began "I told you this so that you were aware and could make precautions against them acting against you, as they are likely to attack you to get me, and also so we can go on the offensive. Four versus four is much fairer than one against four, wouldn't you agree?".

"So when do we start?" Asked Andrei with great excitement.

"There may be a some minor conflict beforehand, but the final confrontation is going to be at the expedition. It is the easiest way of safely eliminating the other side without having to worry about investigation, it can always just be passed off as an accident within the realm, plus it's soon so neither side has to wait too long. If it wasn't soon I fear what Trozes might do in his impatience." Saying that Adrian remembered the hole in the wall. He was going to have to prepare himself very carefully if he wanted to slay the giant.

"So are we going to be proactive or reactive in our stratergy leading up to the expedition?" asked Emilia, ever the sensible one.

"Proactive." replied Adrian "They already made the first move in their assasination attempt. Everything from here on out is simply self defence."

"You still haven't answered why."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"It is because being proactive means we create momentum, which may help us at the final confrontation. So here is what I am thinking, we start of with just myself playing the game, while you guys are preparing some surprises for them, then we slowly get even more aggresive with all of us joining in as we unleash surprise after surprise."

Andrei holds him up, you keep on using the word surprise, what are you actually thinking?"

"Well Andrei, I am glad you asked..."

When Adrian left, his friends were all excited by the plans and had all rushed off to begin making preperations. This suited him just fine as he needed some private time in order to have a little chat with Chronos. Adrian found a nice deserted corner of the dormatory, where he looked around to make sure he was alone before pulling out the pocket watch. "You didn't have to go through all this trouble you realise." stated Chronos "I have been talking telepathically with you all this time, I can't exactly talk with the lack of mouth, and it is pretty easy for you to talk to me telepathically too. I am pretty much just another artifact, and you can easily communicate with them in your mind, no?" He could, it was one of the skills required to wield an artifact.

"So I just wasted my time trying to find somewhere isolated." said Adrian with a dead pan expression.

"Don't fret, it doesn't mean we lose anything and besides, there are people who have the ability to read the telepathy who might get curious. Also I must say nice friends you got there, your plan is absolutely beautiful and your tale is quite sad, I cry every time."

"You don't talk like an ageless creator of all."

"I try to keep with the times." Adrian was speechless.

"So what else can the watch do, you only explained the minutes."

"Besides the existence of myself, which would be great by itself, there are the hours. These are pretty simple, and currently have two main functions with more being added if you get enough pieces. The first is the ability to instantly refill your minutes, one hour equalling sixty minutes. The other is the ability to travel back sixty minutes in time. There is no button for this, it is triggered by your death."

"So what you are saying is that if I die I revive in my body from exactly one hour earlier."

"Yes."

"So what do the minutes actually do than, do they just freeze time or can they do more."

"Minutes allow you to wield a minutes worth of time however you please. Once again, if you gain more pieces you will be able to do more with that minute, possibly even making it last a century! It is pretty open and if you can't do it with one try two. Be careful though because as I mentioned earlier, once you spend it it's gone for the rest of your life unless-"

"Let me guess, I get more pieces?"

"Correct."

"So what happens if I collect all the pieces?"

"I will be complete again. Your guess is as good as mine as what that means, there isn't exactly any precedent to work off." Adrian had a passing thought.

"Would it be wise to use a minute against Trozes?"

Chronos cut him off "Not at all, time is a valuble thing and someone like Trozes is not worth it. Save it for the reclamation of the other pieces. The only time outside of that would be if you were in a life threatening situation. It would be smarter to use a few minutes than be forced to use an hour." Adrian looked at the unmoving pocket watch.

"Can you tell the time?"

"Of course I can, if there was only one person in the world who could tell the time it would be me, I am literally the God of it. It is currently 6:14 PM."

"I better start heading back soon then. It's almost dinner time."