Arwin was spared of the Mesh’s golden letters for a grand total of three seconds after selecting his Class Specialization. The very moment he let himself release a breath and start pulling his attention back to the real world, almost as if the Mesh had been waiting for it, a pinprick of light expanded to form into words before him once again.

New Skill Choice Available.

[Six of Sets] has been consumed.

You may select one of the following skills.

[Overdrive] – The heat of the forge burns in your heart. Let it free. Temporarily increase your resilience and power as your muscles are infused with magical power. The duration of this effect scales with your Tier. When this effect ends, the increased strain on your muscles will hinder you for five times the amount of time you spent in Overdrive.

[UPGRADED][Shieldwall]: Your desire to protect your allies has proven itself time and time again. Grant it even more strength. When a creature you view as an ally is under attack, magic will infuse your muscles and accelerate your speed when moving in their direction. Furthermore, by spending increased magical energy, your skin will harden and absorb the damage from a physical blow. The amount of damage absorbed scales with the amount of magical energy used.

[Magmamancy] – Enhance your control of lava and gain the ability to manipulate it as effortlessly as you would an arm. The amount of magical energy needed to maintain this ability scales exponentially with the amount of lava being controlled.

[Leech] – Twist the connection between yourself and magical items, temporarily ripping the power from them to empower yourself with a portion of it. If the item you are targeting has an owner, this ability's effects are reduced the greater your target's tier is than yours.

[UPGRADED] [Unleash] – A master of cursed items never fights alone. Meld your power with that of an item bearing a soul, allowing it to temporarily manifest itself. The effects and duration of this ability depend on the strength of the targeted item. Stronger items will require increased amounts of magical energy to maintain their bond, and this ability is ineffective on items whose requirements exceed the magical energy you can supply.

The first two abilities being offered were old — he’d seen [Overdrive] and [Shieldwall] before. A berserker skill like [Overdrive] was never a bad idea, but there were just better options. [Overdrive] didn’t provide such significant benefits that Arwin could justify choosing it over any other ability. As for [Shieldwall], just like the previous time he’d seen it, the ability was a decent option. Anything that made him faster was always useful.

But, useful or not, Arwin’s attention was entirely on the final three options. He could see a very strong argument for each of them. [Magmamancy] may have provided the least direct improvement to his current abilities, but it had the potential to make his Dwarven Smithing techniques even better. More control of lava would let him prepare and interact with his raw materials much easier.

It also had considerable potential benefits in combat. Flinging lava around effortlessly definitely had weight behind it. Unfortunately, [Magmamancy] didn’t come without its drawbacks. It obviously needed him to have magma or lava present to work with in the first place. He’d also need to use more energy the more magma he used, so he couldn’t just bring down an entire volcano on someone. There was also the fact that Molten Novice gave him a small degree of control over magma already. As he improved, the extent of his control was likely to increase as well.

Arwin’s gaze drifted down to the second option. [Leech] was straightforward. It was essentially a version of [The Hungering Maw] that didn’t destroy the item, but it also didn’t take the full extent of its power and got worse the stronger his opponent’s Tier was.

Okay, it’s kind of just a worse version of [The Hungering Maw]. Sure, I can’t reuse the items, but I have no reason to take Leech as I am now. It just doesn’t give enough of a benefit to justify not taking a different ability.

The last option was [Unleash]. It caught Arwin’s attention for the longest of the lot. He didn’t know exactly what an item manifesting itself would actually do. He also wasn’t so sure he liked the part where the skill description strongly implied it would work best with cursed items.

As for the item’s soul… is that like an Awakened item? Or do cursed items sometimes have an actual soul? The Mesh probably isn’t going to answer any of that. I did just specialize into cursed items, so I think this is probably the right one to go with either way. No point taking the step down a path if I don’t plan to continue walking.

Arwin took one more moment to look over the other abilities and make sure he hadn’t missed anything important before he made his decision and selected [Unleash]. The golden words shimmered and started to fade. He watched them suspiciously, half expecting more sentences to start forming.

A shimmer danced through the air and a mote formed. It drew a single line through the air, as if preparing to write a letter, then vanished entirely. Arwin blinked.

Did the Mesh just screw with me?

He waited for a second longer. Nothing more arose. He let out a small breath and shook his head, lifting his gaze to find Wallace and Lillia still staring at him expectantly. Arwin cleared his throat.

“Sorry. Awkward timing. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

“You were still getting shit?” Wallace asked, crossing his arms and cocking his head to the side. “Or are you just as slow at deciding your path as you are at making items?”

“No point rushing ahead without thinking things through,” Lillia said, sending a sidelong look at Wallace. “It’s smart.”

“Bah. Dwarves think with their heart,” Wallace said, rapping a hand against his chest. “And sometimes their—”

Stolen story; please report.

“Thank you, Wallace,” Lillia said dryly. “I think we’ve already figured that bit out.”

“The stomach bit?” There was a note of hope in Wallace’s tone.

“I already told you not to push your luck, but I’ll consider it if only so we don’t have to keep pestering Arwin with questions,” Lillia said. She sent a quick glance at Arwin. “That’s assuming everything is okay. You’re fine, right?”

“Ah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Arwin said with a nod. “I was just a little zoned out. Reaching Journeyman gave me a bit more than I expected.”

Lillia’s nose scrunched. “I’m jealous. Don’t even think for a second that you’re going to leave me behind. Better get ready to spend some time in the kitchen. I’m putting you to work.”

“Wouldn’t you get more experience if you worked on your own?” Wallace asked with a frown.

“If there’s anyone that could get experience from putting other people to work, it would be Lillia,” Arwin said with a chuckle. “I feel like it would fit. An inn does have to have people working in it, after all.”

Lillia’s head tilted slightly in thought. Wallace grimaced.

“I think you might have given her an idea, lad.”

“Eh. I don’t mind.”

“It’s the rest of us I’m worried about.”

“Interesting,” Lillia said, mulling over the word as it left her mouth. “I’ll have to think that through. I take it you’re hungry, Arwin?”

“Starving,” Arwin admitted. A familiar pit was just barely starting to show signs of forming in his stomach. All that crafting had taken up a lot of magical energy. He needed to replenish his reserves soon, and there weren’t many ways of doing it better than Lillia’s cooking.

“Great. Come on, then,” Lillia said. She took a step toward the door and then paused to throw a look back at Wallace. “Since you’re here, I suppose you can come.”

She’s acting really reluctant about it, but having Wallace eat inside the tavern would also weaken him if Lillia decided to really get serious and start using the full extent of her powers. I can’t tell if she actually wants to let him eat or if she wants to improve her position against him. She can be really terrifying sometimes.

“Won’t object to that, but I’m going to have to hold ‘ye both up for a second first,” Wallace said, raising a hand to forestall them. “Well, I really only need Arwin, but I figure I’m not getting him alone around now.”

“You figure correctly.” Lillia crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What is it now?”

Wallace nodded to Arwin and tapped the shaft of his hammer on his shoulder. “You’re a Dwarven Smith now, Arwin. That’s a long path and you’ve only taken the first step along it. You’d be wise to continue to seek the tutelage of a master.”

“Another apprenticeship?” Arwin asked with a small frown. He didn’t have time to properly dedicate himself to studying and doing nothing else.

“More like a guide. There are a lot of twists that you wouldn’t think about. Some of ‘em are better dealt with yourself, but it’s still customary to have a proper master alongside a newly fledged Dwarven Smith.” Wallace hesitated for a moment, then blew out a long sigh and rubbed the back of his head. “Given your… past, it may be wise to be wary of the dwarven council right about now.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Lillia muttered.

“Are you offering?” Arwin asked.

“Aye. Offering. You don’t have to take me up on it. You don’t even need a mentor. You might be able to get away without one. It’s not mandatory. It’s just…”

“Tradition,” Arwin finished with a chuckle. “Right?”

Wallace nodded. “Yes.”

Arwin considered the offer for a moment. Wallace was rude but definitely knew what he was doing. His actions, misinformed as they were, had all been motivated by a desire to protect others. He also hadn’t actually tried to attack him at any point. At this point, the dwarf basically knew the important bits of his history with the Adventurer’s Guild as well.

“I’ll consider it,” Arwin said finally. “It might not be a poor idea. I imagine you might be swinging by every so often anyway.”

Wallace cleared his throat. “I was considering it. Hard to find booze like that anywhere, you know.”

“Then we’ve got time to figure it out.”

“Works for me,” Wallace said, and they fell in behind Lillia as she led them out of the building.

The group only made it a few steps into the street before Arwin spotted Reya approaching them with a large mug clutched against her chest. She glanced at Arwin, then turned her attention to Wallace.

“Rodrick said you might be getting thirsty, so I brought you a drink,” Reya said, nodding to the dwarf and holding the mug out. “Arwin’s is back in the tavern. I’ll go get it.”

“A right lass, you are,” Wallace said with a delighted grin. He stepped forward and reached for the mug. At the same time a loud cough echoed down the street. Rodrick emerged from the alleyway behind the smithy.

“Ah, Reya?” Rodrick called, hurriedly drawing a line across his throat with his thumb. “We’re good, actually. Turns out everything is fine.”

Reya blinked but pulled the mug out of Wallace’s reach. The dwarf sent her a confused look, and she studied him for a second before tossing the mug to the side of the road and sending its contents spilling out across the dirt. Wallace let out a dismayed cry.

“Why would you do that, lass?”

A shadow flitted through the air from atop the smithy and alighted on the ground beside Arwin without so much as a sound, dropping into a bow before straightening to reveal Madiv’s sharp features.

Anna stepped out from behind another alleyway along with Olive, who was hurriedly sheathing her sword, and an elderly woman’s voice echoed over the streets.

“I brought that new anvil you requested up to the roof,” Esmerelda said from the top of the Infernal Armory’s roof, a note of delight in her voice. It seemed like it might have been meant to be a whisper, but her ears had failed her long ago and it came out just as loud as normal conversation. “Now where should I drop it?”

“We don’t need it anymore, actually,” Anna said. “You can keep it. Sorry for the trouble.”

“I hate all of you,” Esmerelda said.

A sizzle filled the alleyway. They all looked down to where Reya had discarded the mug. Its contents were currently eating through the stone and forming deep pits in the ground. The mug itself had started to disintegrate as well.

“Earth Father,” Wallace muttered, glancing around at the Menagerie. “What is that?”

Rodrick cleared his throat. “That was an extra-spicy batch. Real strong stuff.”

“Good thing I dropped it,” Reya beamed at the dwarf. “Glad to hear you’re on our side now.”

“It’s better for your health that way,” Anna advised. She glanced up at the Infernal Armory’s roof. “Madiv, could you stop Esmeralda from pushing that anvil off the edge of the building? It’s going to land on Wallace’s head.”

The vampire vanished in a blur of shadow, and a hushed argument immediately broke out on the roof. Wallace stared up into the sky. Then he looked back to everyone else. For a moment, his face was unreadable. Then he let out a snort.

“You’ve got some dedicated friends, Arwin. I get the feeling I might not have left here alive if I’d decided to start something.”

“Oh, not a chance,” Lillia said with an award-winning smile. “I’d have you on the next night’s menu. Now, who was it that put poison in my mead?”

Anna cleared her throat hurriedly. “Is it time for dinner? Because I’m starving. I also simultaneously need to use the bathroom. Very badly. See you all soon.”

She darted off to the tavern.

Everyone fell silent for several long seconds.

“So,” Lillia drawled. “Dinner. You still coming, Wallace?”

“At this point? Might as well,” Wallace said. “I think I’m too invested not to.”

“That was the right answer,” Lillia said with an approving nod. “Come on, everyone. Excitement’s done for the night. Let’s go get some food.”