Eduard Fergusson sat in his room, looking at a pointed shard of clear crystal held in his hand.

The shard had a pentagonal base with two centimeter long edges, and was twenty centimeters long, tapering to a sharp point at its tip.

Excitement battled with trepidation inside him as he looked at the all-important, and yet completely useless piece of crystal.

It was a case if imposed Catch-22. Shards originated in the Labyrinth, and couldn't be found anywhere else, and the guards belonging to the Five Families would bar you from entering the Labyrinth without at least one Sliced Shard. And, of course, you could only trade Shards in either the Bazaar or the Auction House, which were located inside the Labyrinth.

The only exceptions were a group of Shards commonly "The Impediment". These Shards could be traded freely, and when Sliced would give a person one of five completely useless Skills. The deal was that you Sliced a useless Skillshard, and got access to the Labyrinth. And since most people could only maintain two direct Slices, and since the Impediment skills were nearly impossible to level, you'd be stuck with having only one useful Shard.

It was a lousy deal, and led to a lot of dead would-be Labyrinth delvers, but it was the only way to gain access without patronage from the Five.

Impatient at his own indecision, Eduard placed his left hand palm down on the table in front of him, and held the pointed Shard in his right. "Here we go", he said to the empty room, and brought the point of the Shard down on the back of his hand. There was a moment of pain in his left hand as the Shard pierced his skin, and then it was gone and the Shard slit down smoothly into Eduard's aura, vanishing from the material plane and leaving only its pentagonal base on the back of his hand.

As soon as the last millimeter of the shard was gone, a blue system message square appeared in front of Ed's eyes.

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New skill gained: Phantasmal Worker.

As soon as Ed read the message, the message disappeared, only to be replaced by a new one.

Phantasmal Worker

Tier 0

Level 1

0/100 essence

Creates a construct made of pure mana to serve the user. The construct can carry out simple tasks and will take up to ten points of damage before being dispelled.

The construct cannot attack or use any weapons.

Mana cost: 10

Duration: until dispelled

This was it. One of the five Impediment skills, Phantasmal Worker could be used to carry items for the caster, dig a hole, or even throw itself in front of an attacker to soak some damage. But with no offensive capabilities, the skill had no way to gain essence, and therefore would be impossible to level without using extremely expensive free essence.

With his useless Skillshard Sliced into his aura, Ed picked up his quarterstaff and left his motel room. The man at the registration counter barely even looked up from his magazine when he came downstairs, and Ed was equally untalkative on his way out into the streets of New Minos.

New Minos, the city built around the only known entrance to the Labyrinth, sprawled in front of Eduard in all its paradoxical glory. Men and women clad in leather, scale or even plate armor drove the newest model of cars. An alchemist was selling health and mana potions from a shabby booth next to a huge outlet for a chain of pharmacies. Cops in blue uniforms and armed with tasers patrolled in pairs with armored Five Family guardsmen carrying hand arbalests. Everywhere you looked the products of 21st century technology mixed with the fantastical loot taken from the Labyrinth.

Eduard, however, was blind to the wonder around him as he single-mindedly walked towards the largest building in the city.

The entrance to the Labyrinth.