It was a crisp late-summer morning, and long shadows were projected out by the hills and mountains surrounding Montar. The party was cresting the peak of the last hill before reaching Montar with the sun at their backs doing the same. The light washed over the city, built up the concave depression in the otherwise conical mountain, and along the coastline of the gulf sitting at the bed of the mountain. There was an almost ‘Y’ shaped division in the architecture, as grander gothic towers were distributed in a line down the middle of the mountain’s unnatural scoop, then split in two directions to the beachfront properties. Outside of those lines of sharply sculpted towers of stone, metal, and stained glass, the city was made up of colorfully painted half-timbered buildings, averaging three stories, with two, four, and five-story exceptions loosely scattered throughout.

As they hiked down the hill towards Montar, Deacon amused himself by shooting clumps of clay straight into the air, mentally commanding them to harden as they reached their apex, and then soften again right before he caught them. He’d broken a few fingers playing this game, but healing them back up wasn’t difficult and gave his self-healing ability some invaluable training. The improvements he gained at tier three were different from tier two. He didn’t gain any new spells, instead, all of his old ones grew in power and utility. He had significantly more control over his spells. He could narrow his spray of molten dirt into one accurate stream of lava. He could also modify the shape of his clay balls, and switch them back and forth between wet and dry. He could even choose between dispensing fertile soil or course sand, finally giving that ability some combat potential. What was particularly interesting was his target-seeking crystal shards, which he could now queue up, letting them hover around him, then either shoot a larger number at targets or let them fire automatically at the first enemy to attack him.

The rest of the team was powered up as well. Sonnet had an increase in the monstrous forms she could transmute into and summon, and even gained the ability to sprout raven’s wings, which she could use to launch forty feet high and glide with. Halwark could launch javelins of sunlight, radiate protective energy to the party that reduced incoming damage, and conjure illusory doubles of himself that exploded in a concussive blast when hit. Marla didn’t exactly gain new abilities, instead, all of her attributes were bolstered far more than anyone else, making her an absolute tank, far more robust and powerful than could be expected from her tier. It was unclear to Deacon what improvements Bones gained, but they assured him that the improvement in their alchemy would spread for itself. As long as Bones kept the coffee coming every morning, Deacon didn’t care.

As they crossed the bounds of the city and stepped into the cobbled streets, Deacon was worried he’d get overwhelmed by the dense sights and sounds and scents, but with some steady breathing and the help of his enchanted sunglasses, he kept it together. His newly developing magical senses were harder to ignore, but he was managing it. His growing power burdened him with a barrage of foreign inputs in his brain, probing to give him the crucial information of how much mana a mouse held, or what the texture of brick felt like to the air around it.

“Right, so now we just need to find the guy and kill him,” Deacon said, trying to stay distracted.

“Took the words out of my mouth, buddy,” Marla agreed.

“The guy?” Halwark sneered, concerned.

“Yeah. You know, the guy, whassisname, the one who sold out the goblins. Let’s go get him dead.”

“Jacob Preenely. It shouldn’t even be possible for you to forget that, given your intelligence has ascended beyond what’s even possible in a mundane person.”

“I’m not good with names. Whatever.”

“Well,” Halwark began. “Considering we’re operating on forty-year-old information, he’s either elderly or at least tier ten. It’ll take several months of heavy adventuring before we have a chance of taking on someone that strong. More importantly, killing him outright would be murder. We need to look into legal options to get justice.”

Deacon and Marla both gave groans like children who were just lectured about why it isn’t practical to go to a carnival on a school day.

“First of all, we can take on a lousy tier-ten at like tier six. I bet I can reach that in a month, tops,” Deacon speculated.

“No the fuck you cannot,” Bones barked sharply. “We shouldn’t have even jumped tiers twice in the same day, it was risky, but not nearly as risky as the kind of intense power binging you’re talking about! If you absorb that much raw magic, that quickly, you’re guaranteeing mutations. Best case: you end up with some benign growths. Worst case: you end a writhing monstrosity, hemorrhaging magical manifestations until your imminent death. We need to rest, for the next week or so, and then be careful not to fiendishly garble down glutinous quantities of mana until our bodies can handle it.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Jeez,” Deacon yielded. “Fine, I’ll pace myself.”

Halwark sighed, anticipating more nonsense, but prodding, “second of all…?”

“Hmm? Oh, second of all, it’s not murder. We’re just putting down another monster.”

Halwark stared blankly in the distance and let out a long exhale. “Let’s try the legal way first. We’re in a civilized society. Bad actors such as Preenely may take advantage, but the law is still here to help us.”

The others all broke out into an uproar of laughter at that sentiment. When the laughter died down, and Halwark remained straight-faced, the laughter kicked back up in a higher gear, with the revelation that no joke was intended. Stifling the last waves of his laughter, Deacon humored, “okay Halwark, let’s try it your way. We can look into legal recourse for whassisname, but if that goes nowhere, we can go outside of the law. Deal?”

Halwark agreed, sealing it with a handshake. Before long they’d ended up in a small public square. Once there, Halwark and Bones pitched how they would split the party up. Halwark would go off on his own to find a sympathetic scribe of law who could help. Bones brought Sonnet to look for a magical tattoo artisan. Deacon and Marla were tasked with the mission of staying out of trouble, so they of course set off to find a fun way to do the opposite.

Initially, they left in a random direction, executing their best funny walks and making unusual sounds. The novelty wore off quickly, and they got distracted by running mundane and practical errands. They exchanged mana gems and other treasures for coin at a trader stall, then shopped around a little. They were tight on funds by adventurer standards, but still in possession of more money than either had owned in their lives. Inevitably, this means they immediately blew half of their money on impulse purchases. What they bought was largely a collection of creature comfort that until now would have been an unthinkable luxury. Deacon bought a phantographer, which captured recordings of what it saw, either in moments forever fixed in time, or longer recordings to document memories of whatever he chose. He also bought an auralet, which used a pair of fluffy ear-muffs to listen to auditory recordings. Most importantly he finally had a Mr. Mirror, which was a magic mirror that could be fed info-pellets loaded with recordings or documents, and with it, he could view phantographs, read books, or organize the audio recordings for his auralet.

When the pair grew bored of shopping, they found a tavern and hunkered down to drink away the first day of their mandatory rest. With their enhanced constitutions, getting a buzz required a lot, even with enchanted spirits, which was all they ordered. They downed glasses of whiskey intended for sipping, then drank from tankards of mountain elf mead, which was a nice lavender color and tasted like gingerbread. A lanky, mustachioed human man raised his glass in approval of the attitude he perceived in the duo’s drinking. Marla gave a singular upward nod to the man, which seemed to be some kind of invitation because he approached. Deacon wasn’t sure what made this nod different from others like it, but perhaps it was contextual.

The man joined their table and offered handshakes. Marla accepted while Deacon failed to notice the pleasantry. “Name’s Hector, and you must be adventurers, am I right?”

“We must be,” Marla confirmed. “That explains the clothes. You, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. You broadcast tier-five energy, but I’m not getting a whiff of danger behind it. Some kind of non-combat blessing, maybe?”

Hector pursed his lips down and raised his eyebrows in a show of respect, looking to Deacon to say, “I’d be careful with this one, she’s sharp as a dragon’s tooth.” He then looked back to Marla and asked, “so what’s such a perceptive adventurer doing here, getting day drunk while there’s monsters to be slain?”

“Ugh,” she practically belched. “Our stupid teammate forbids it just ‘cause we leveled up twice in one day. Doesn’t want us growing any new heads or whatever.”

“And where is he?”

“They,” she corrected firmly.

“Why aren’t they here drinking with you?”

“Well, when they drink it just kinda falls out of their jaw and spills everywhere. I have seen them drunk, though, somehow, so maybe it doesn’t matter. They’re out looking for a decent magic tattoo artist.”

The man narrowed his eyes, “they’re not gonna find one.”

“No?”

“No, ma’am. There are no decent inksmiths in this city, and the only good one isn’t out there, he’s right here.”

Deacon perked up. “Who?”

Marla smacked his arm for the apparently stupid question, then continued her conversation with Hector. “No shit? Get outta here! We found these magic needles and all that jazz in a dungeon, and my buddy Bones is insistent that we need to find someone to ink us up. Think you can help?”

“I’m exactly the man for the job.”

“Suh-weet,” she cheered, taking her voice up an octave, then gulping down the remainder of her mead as if it wasn’t comically large for her. “That just leaves Halwark’s search for a law-type person.”

Hector furrowed his brow. “A law-type person? Are you being indicted?”

“Nah, we’re tracking down this piece-of-shit slumlord and need to look for legal ways to fuck with him before we inevitably just end up murdering him,” she explained casually.

“Slumlord… huh. Shot in the dark, but would that be Jacob Preenely?”

Marla and Deacon shared a look, as faint smiles climbed up their cheeks. Deacon prompted the newcomer, “go on.”