Towering over them at 20 feet tall, the statue pulled out its stone sword and shield to face them. Its head was twisted into a grotesquery, like one of those hunched creatures lining the roof of an old church in England. Mel focused on it, examining it.

[Tomb Statue Sentry (High Copper Elite Golem)]

Mel dodged to the side, coming up on one knee as she summoned a black orb of Omen mana. [Bane of Tartarus] streaked toward the creature’s feet and screamed as it expanded to cover the monster up to its knees. She stared at the creature’s nameplate.

Holy shit, does my title also tell me what a monster is?! Sick.

It stomped toward Mel as Gwen swung her wrecking ball into its ankle, cracking it heavily.

Mel rushed in behind her attack, outstretching her hand and using [Omen Mark]. As the statue turned to stomp on Gwen, who was no longer there, Mel slapped her hand onto its other ankle to apply [Decay].

The creature twisted about, slashing down with its oversized sword of stone. Using [Windstorm], Mel dodged out of the way swiftly, then immediately went back in. She struck out with her twinblade, hitting the creature three times before it could retaliate again.

[Frostbite Toxin] stacked up, but didn’t seem to bother the monster. That hardly mattered as the stacks of [Haste] made Mel attack faster and faster, building up greater stacks.

She was up to seven hits between retaliations before Thomas shouted, “Eyes!”

Mel looked over curiously and saw Gwen squeezing her eyes shut even as she spun her wrecking ball over her head like a lasso.

That…doesn’t seem like a safe thing to be doing.

Even though she was only viewing through her heat vision, Mel was nearly blinded by the scorching heat that Thomas held in his bare hand. He threw it like a bolt of lightning from Zeus himself, right into the core of the statue.

Aspect Skill: [Sunspear]

Mel stared as the statue was split in half at the waist. Its upper half crashed to the ground but was not out of the fight. The two halves stomped and swatted at the group, respectively, forcing all three of them to stay on their toes. Without its superior mobility, however, the fight was already over.

Gwen hurtled forward through the air, veiled in purple crackling energy. She impacted one of the halves, unleashing a spherical explosion of floating rocks. It expanded outwards in a rush, then collapsed inward, drawing the pieces together with gravitational might.

Aspect Skill: [Falling Meteor]

Mel watched as Gwen and Thomas worked in perfect synchrony. They were immensely powerful in different ways, each one complementing the other.

Gwen was savage, strong, and durable. She could get up close and personal where Thomas would struggle. More often than not, enemies were drawn to Gwen like a beacon of war.

Meanwhile, Thomas’ arsenal of aspect skills was heavily focused on destruction and debilitation. Together, the pair hardly needed Mel’s help, but she refused to be left out.

The statue fell without great difficulty, but Mel noticed something that she had missed before. While she still was able to keep going, the both of them looked drained.

Their power came at a cost. No doubt because they had each other and before that, the other Magi to depend on. Mel, on the other hand, was often by herself.

Do our aspect skills evolve based on our individual circumstances? Mel wondered. If so, she would be able to keep fighting long after either of them needed a break.

She caught Thomas’ eye. He winked at her and gestured to the rubble of the stone sentry. “The loot’s all yours.”

Gwen spun on him, eyes wide. He put up his hand to forestall her outburst. “By my reckoning, she won that exchange fair and square. If her Omen skill hadn’t weakened it, neither of us would have been able to blast it apart, I fear.”

The Brawler looked over at the pile of rubble. “Too bad my guillotine blade is garbage rarity. That thing was nice for a while.”

Whatever type of weapon that was sounded vicious.

Mel took that as agreement and went over to the pile.

Would you like to loot the [Tomb Statue Sentry (High Copper Elite Golem )]?

She agreed, watching as streamers of light–loot for Gwen and Thomas–streak out toward each of them. The fact that none of their items spilled out told Mel that they both had magical inventory like hers.

Not a big surprise.

Mel already knew that Gwen had multiple storage necklaces, but she hadn’t been sure about Thomas. In retrospect, it was obvious. She imagined he stuffed his inventory full of scrolls and books that he read in his spare time.

How anybody could read during the middle of the Convocation, Mel couldn’t begin to guess, but it seemed to be second nature for Thomas.

Naturally, that meant that Mel’s loot would fall at her feet.

You find (1) [Stone Shield].

You find (1) [Sealed Stone Sword].

You find (1) [Stone Breastplate].

(5) [Stone Coins] have been added to your inventory.

(10) [Copper Rune Coins] have been added to your inventory.

Gwen stepped up and picked the sword off the ground. “If you don’t have room for this, I’m pretty sure Thomas or I do. We could hold it for you.”

Mel shook her head. “If we could take a few moments, I can break them down.”

Thomas was beside her other shoulder in a flash. “What do you mean, ‘break them down’?”

Mel started. She hadn’t expected him to move so fast. “I have a ritual spell that lets me break down weapons and armor into scrap. Don’t you have that? You’re a Mage, I figured it was a normal spell considering it’s G-Tier.”

Thomas looked around the room as if checking to make sure no monsters were coming in. “Could you show me?”

Mel chuckled. “Sure, just give me a few moments to draw the diagram.”

She could have drawn the sigils in her sleep. She’d done them so much over the last weeks that Mel was done in less than a minute. If she had blood she could have used her [Blood Tax] title, but nothing down here bled except the three of them.

And I’m not asking anybody for their blood. It was bad enough that I have to use my own health for my coat.

Both Thomas and Gwen were watching with great interest. Once she had everything set up, he pointed to an extra circle that Mel didn’t mean to add. That was for the addition of blood.

Mel explained, “I’m used to having living creatures to draw from. Placing the blood–or the body, if I’m lazy–in that circle charges the spell further, increasing the output.”

“Similar to Kelsen’s Elixir,” Thomas said, nodding along. “If we gave you some blood, could you show us?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t want to ask for either of you–”

Thomas laughed. “I’m not suggesting that we give you our blood.” He looked at Gwen. “I’m sure you’ve got something in your larder?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Gwen loped over and crouched near the extra circle. She grasped one of her storage necklaces and the body of a freshly killed boar dropped onto the area. “Didn’t have time to harvest it earlier.”

“Does the quality of the blood matter?” Thomas asked.

“Supposedly, but I’ve never seen it with this spell. I’ve used Mundane and Copper, but I always only get one extra scrap. Maybe at higher ranks it’ll make a bigger difference.”

Mel didn’t want to say the conclusion she had come to. That her ability to gather and properly prepare the blood for “sacrifice” was severely lacking. She wasn’t an Alchemist or a Priest, or even a hunter like Gwen seemed to be.

Considering the Priest that this title came from, it stood to reason that the quality of the blood might mean more than just the rank.

Gwen snapped off the boar’s tusks, then backed off. “What exactly does the scrap do though?”

“Remember when you said your guillotine blade was garbage rarity?” Mel said, leaning over the ritual and putting her hands in place. She fed the spell, the runes and frame lit up, then…fizzled out.

Nothing happened.

Mel frowned. “What the hell?”

“Yeah?” Gwen stared at Mel with immense intensity. She could almost feel the hunger radiate off the woman.

“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked.

Mel shook her head. “Scraps allow you to increase the rarity of equipment,” Mel said off-handedly, as if it was the most mundane thing in the world, because it was to her. To Thomas she said, “I don’t know. It’s just not–”

Suddenly Gwen was right beside her, uncomfortably close. “The things I would do for that!” she said with fervent hunger.

Mel stared. “…Yeah?”

“...I mean,” she trailed off, pushing her fingertips together bashfully.

“Gwen,” Thomas said, snapping her out of it. “Could you barricade the door we came in from while I handle this one?”

Mel frowned. “What’re you doing?”

“Creating a haven,” Thomas explained. He drew in the air with his wand. Blue fire etched a vertical series of sigils and frames that spun together.

Gwen did her barricade quick and dirty. Using pure strength, she ripped a couple eight-foot-tall stone slabs from the ground, then pushed over a giant block of stone, thoroughly barricading the door.

Mel secretly hoped there was another way out. Without the Brawler, it would take a lot of work to get that clear again.

Thomas casually walked over to the doors that had slammed shut to seal them in with the sentry. He closed them and stepped back, blowing on the strands of blue light hanging in the air.

They stuck to the door and the surrounding frame like a glowing spider web.

You have created a Haven.

Thomas inspected the door critically and pitched his voice to Mel over his shoulder. “Havens are created when you have a safe space free of threats. In a room this size, we probably could have just shut the doors or barricaded them simply, and that’d be good enough. The more monsters that are around, the stouter your defenses need to be.”

“Is that why I couldn’t access the Emporium?” Mel asked.

“Probably,” Thomas said, spinning around on his heels and returning to her side. “The more complete your defenses, the less area you need. If you’re out in the open, then you need a lot of space between you and any sort of threat.”

Mel thought about that for a moment before saying, “Does that include people?”

Thomas looked thoughtful. “Huh. Never thought about that before. I would wager that if they were openly hostile to you, it would. Otherwise, probably not. People get a lot of slack with the system.” He gestured to the sealed entrances. “Now that everything is sealed up, you shouldn’t have any trouble. If you’re not topped off, now might be a good idea to down a potion. I don’t think it’s time to eat yet.”

Mel looked at him. “I’m not injured.”

Gwen and Thomas both looked at her. “Thomas meant your health, stamina, or mana,” Gwen said slowly, as if explaining that water was wet.

“My stamina and mana are mostly fine,” Mel assured them. “I don’t think either of us wants to wait hours for my health to go back up though.”

“Mel,” Thomas said soothingly, “do you not know how havens work?”

She glared at him and threw up her arms. “Clearly not!”

“Aw, you poor thing,” Gwen said with aggravating sincerity.

Mel summoned her twinblade and pointed it at them. “Somebody’s about to get cut if they don’t start talking!”

Thomas rolled his eyes and patted the air to calm her down. “It’s fine. I doubt most people know how to make a haven, much less how they work. You probably only ever got the prompt for ‘discovering’ a haven I’m guessing.”

“Havens increase your natural recovery rates,” Gwen explained. “Eating Common rarity or higher food, and potions boost recovery rate significantly. Out in the field, health potions only help wounds. In a haven, they get that extra regeneration effect like all other potions.”

Thomas nodded. “On top of that, it changes how things work that you may already be familiar with. You probably already know that eating food increases your recovery rates, even your maximums right?”

Mel stared, dumbfounded, but managed to nod.

“Did you know that how much they increase is directly tied to whether or not you’re in a haven? Yeah, most people don’t. Eating while walking is efficient, but taking time to build a proper place of rest is actually more efficient purely because of all the extensions to the buffs you’d otherwise get. Eating some food that increases your max health might last an hour, two at the most, while outside of a haven. Having that same meal inside a haven means you not only will have a stronger buff, it’ll last anywhere between four to eight hours, and you’ll stay sated for longer. Food literally goes farther if you sit down and have a proper meal. We generally only need to eat once or twice a day.”

Mel stared. “There’s no way.”

“If you hadn’t gone to sleep last night, you would have noticed your buffs from the meal lasted for a very long time. I’d wager even a simple meal like porridge is still affecting you.”

With a glance at her three resource bars, Mel realized he was right. There were tiny icons above each showing that her maximums for health, stamina, and mana were increased. It had been hours since she had breakfast. No buff ever lasted that long.

“Simple?” Gwen frowned. “My spiced porridge is good!”

“Simple doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Thomas said exasperatedly. He turned to Mel. “With that being said, I’m still pretty sure there are ways to improve havens. I feel like there’s a way to level them up somehow, make their effects more pronounced.” He shrugged. “No luck so far, though.”

“I…could have been using health potions to recover actual health instead of just clearing wounds?” she said in a tiny voice. “So much time…wasted.”

“Yeah,” Gwen answered slowly. “If you had a safe haven.”

“It’s still just a healing-over-time effect,” Thomas pointed out. “However, when you add in potions, food, and the improved recovery rates within a haven…”

Mel got the picture.

“Wounds are still important to mend in the field anyway,” Gwen said. “I try to keep my chunky health bar free of them. Still, sometimes it’s rough without an Acolyte. Jacob is keeping most of the healing to himself.”

Mel filed that information away for later. She hadn’t realized how valuable havens were aside from accessing the Emporium. It should have been obvious that her wounds healed more when she was in a well-defended cave with a screen of camouflaging branches hiding her from threats.

It wasn’t as if your head was in the best place, Mel thought to herself.

Bending down to the spell again, it flared to life with hardly any prompting.

Gwen and Thomas watched with great interest as the uselessly oversized stone armaments were converted into piles of scrap.

Mel motioned. “Scrap comes in two types as far as I have been able to tell: armor and weapon. You can use a [Soul Kiln] alongside your equipment of choice to improve it.”

Thomas had out a small black leather booklet. He walked the perimeter of the ritual spell and sketched the design out. “Interesting. At five rune coins, it’s pretty cheap as well. I can’t believe you’ve stumbled upon something so powerful, Mel.”

“I can’t believe that it’s not ubiquitous,” Mel said with a laugh. “It’s how I’ve been able to stay alive. All of my equipment is upgraded to Epic.”

“Epic?!” Gwen nearly choked, then studied the diagram in a new light. “This has been possible the entire time. I could be using a weapon higher than Uncommon .”

“I have a lot of spare scrap,” Mel said. “If you want I could–”

“YES!” Gwen said, suddenly in her face. “THANK.”

Mel laughed. Thomas came up and put a hand on Gwen’s shoulder. “I think your brain broke, Gwen. Though her exuberance is more than warranted. We’ve been operating with mostly Uncommons and a few Rares. If we could turn our favorite equipment into Rare or higher…that would be a game changer.”

“I’m more than happy to help,” Mel said. “Were you able to learn it?”

Thomas shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll need a few more observations, if you don’t mind. We can foot the bill.”

Rune coins were dropped into Mel’s lap. At a glance, it was nearly 30. Gwen held another pile in her cupped hands. “Need more?!”

“I need equipment to scrap.”

A pile was dumped out onto the circle and Mel got to work.