“Literally everything the Mesh wants is a challenge,” Anna said with a worried frown. “Are you certain you didn’t get injured?”
“Capital C,” Arwin said, summoning his class information. Sure enough, the Challenge sat at the bottom of it, just below the Achievements. “It came with a message from the Mesh and has multiple tiers of completion and rewards. Kind of like an Achievement with a bunch of extra steps.”
“What do you mean?” Lillia asked. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. Can you tell me exactly what it was?”
Arwin read off the description of the Challenge word for word. Everyone looked at each other once he’d finished.
“Never heard of it,” Reya said. “But I’m not sure if that means much. I really don’t know that much about the Mesh.”
“I haven’t heard of it either,” Anna said, pulling at her hair and frowning in thought. “Those rewards are absolutely nothing to laugh at, though. Every single one of them seems strong. Adding an extra option for a skill specialization is already huge. Getting a free Title out of the ordeal, not to mention some sort of item – ridiculous. That can only mean one thing.”
“Yeah,” Arwin said as he came to the same conclusion. “Solving this is going to be really goddamn hard. The Mesh doesn’t give anything away for free.”
And there’s even more we don’t know about the Mesh than I thought. I’m not special, so if I can get Challenges, other people can too. Are they suppressed somehow, or is this relatively commonplace for adventurers that accomplish something significant?
“I take it this means the crystal is safe?” Reya asked, squinting at the stone with a suspicious frown. “It’s not going to make your condition worse, is it?”
“If anything, it seems like it’ll help,” Arwin replied. He knelt and picked the crystal up once more. This time, there was no response from the mesh. Lillia opened her sack and Arwin dropped the stone in, giving her a grateful nod. “But I’ll only know once I get to study this further. It looks like I’m the one that benefitted the most out of this.”
“You’re going to use it to make us all stronger anyway, so I don’t think any of us can complain.” Anna shrugged. “And I don’t think I’ll ever be disappointed about helping something. That poor skeleton needed to be put out of its misery.”
“That’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever be hearing,” Reya said with a snicker. “I agree, though. This was worthwhile. We’ve got a bunch of stuff to work with now. If you make some armor, we can sell it and start fixing up the smithy.”
“Yeah,” Arwin agreed. His fingers were already twitching. He wanted to get back into the forge. There were so many things he wanted to make – not to mention a whole smithy he had to rebuild in exactly how he wanted to. “Let’s head back. We’ve already been in the dungeon for quite some time.”
“The thieves’ guild might start wondering where their people are soon,” Reya said with a nod. “We should be ready for a fight if they’re outside.”
“I doubt it. When I spoke to Briggs, their guild leader, it was pretty clear he didn’t care about his people. Given the way he handled himself, I don’t think he’s very strong either. He’s probably just barely into Journeyman tier, and I doubt he’s got any good Titles or skills. If worst comes to worst, we can handle them.”
“I’d rather avoid the problem entirely if possible,” Anna said. “We’ve got enough on our plate as it is.”
“Agreed,” Arwin said as they walked over to the hole they’d dropped into the room through. “Lillia, could you take us out of here?”
“With pleasure,” Lillia replied, summoning shadows before her and forming them into rope that rose up into the air before her. “Follow me.”
***
The walk back through the dungeon took a little while, though not nearly as long as it had taken them to get down in the first place. There weren’t any monsters waiting around to halt their path anymore.
They all readied themselves for a fight as they reached the entrance and Reya activated the key. The entrance of the dungeon ground open and Arwin stepped through, fully clad in his armor, and checked around to see if anyone was in the area.
It was empty aside from the drying trails of blood through the grass leading up to the dungeon entrance. The others followed him out and the dungeon closed behind them.
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“Do you think we should do something about this?” Rodrick asked, nodding at the ground. “It’s… kind of obvious they got dragged in.”
Lillia looked up at the sun hanging above them and held a hand over her face to block it out. “I can’t do anything about it myself. I can’t use shadows in this bright light. I need some shade to work with.”
“I could tenderize the dirt, maybe?” Arwin offered. “Actually, what if we just dig it up and stuff it into the bag? Scuffed up dirt is less suspicious than blood trails.”
“Probably the best idea,” Rodrick agreed. Lillia set her bag down and opened the top, and the group went about digging up the top layer of blood-soaked ground and tossing it into the bag. It only took a little while and they did their best to smooth everything out afterward before heading off to Milten.
The guards at the gate didn’t bother them. Arwin was grateful for that, as he wasn’t sure how they’d explain a bag full of smelly metal, a deadly crystal, and a pile of bloody dirt. It was suspicious at best.
I’ve never been happier for a city to have guards that care more about appearance than actually doing their job. I can’t believe these idiots had me thinking Milten was some prim and proper city.
After getting past the gate, they headed out to their street. Lillia brought the bag over to the ditch behind the smithy and dumped all the dirt into it, adding to the other trash and debris resting in its depths.
“We should really find a better way to dispose of stuff at some point,” Lillia observed. She held the sack out to him.
“Probably,” Arwin agreed, taking it from her with a nod. “Thanks for lugging this around. We didn’t really get any material for you to cook with, did we?”
“Got unlucky with the monsters in the dungeon.” Lillia shrugged. “It happens. It’ll be a little while until enough monsters come back to that dungeon to fully repopulate it. We might have to find a new spot to hunt.”
“For now, I’ll give you a portion of the money we make from selling the armor to buy new ingredients,” Arwin said. “You did a lot in the dungeon, so it would only be fair. No arguing.”
Lillia pursed her lips, her argument cut off before she could speak it, and sighed. “Fine. I won’t say no to that. I don’t think it would break any rules with my Class since I did earn my cut, but I’d rather avoid pushing it in the future. Thank you, though.
“Don’t need to thank me,” Arwin said as they walked over to his makeshift smithy and headed through the rickety door. “You were invaluable in that dungeon. Reya too, for that matter. I should try to make her something. I know she misses that dagger she lost.”
“You’ve got a lot on your plate. Don’t try to take on too much or you’ll end up dropping everything,” Lillia warned Arwin.
He set the bag of materials down in the corner of the room. “Yeah. I know. The first thing is just making some armor to sell. We need money, and I’m pretty low on it already. I’ve only got twenty gold left over, plus a few scraps of metal and leather.”
“Enough to cobble anything together?” Lillia asked. “Or are you going to use the smelly metal?”
“It’s not that bad,” Arwin said defensively, but his own words were hollow to his ears. He could smell the bag sitting in the corner from where they stood on the other side of the room. “That metal is too useful. I think I can put together one or two pieces with what I’ve got left over. It’ll help that I’m intentionally avoiding making anything magical. That’ll draw too much attention and we’re not ready to deal with it. I also don’t want to make really good gear for people I don’t know. It’s just not a good idea.”
“Agreed. You never know what’ll happen to them or who they’ll give it to,” Lillia said. “Better to vet anyone that you sell the really nice pieces to and sell the other normal ones to whoever has the money. We just need some attention on our street. Not too much yet – but more than what we have now.”
“We’ll get there,” Arwin said. He looked down at the anvil. “Once I get some armor made and sold, we can split the money up between some food for you, building materials, and metal to make more armor and earn some more coin. That should let us start building the street up enough to get some attention on it.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Lillia said with a shrug. “Not like I can do much right now but practice cooking with what I do have so I can be ready when the time comes. If you need anything, come let me know.”
“I will,” Arwin promised.
Lillia nodded and headed out of the building, letting the door swing shut behind her. A part of him had hoped that she might stick around while he was working, but another part was glad that she’d gone so he could concentrate. There were too many things to deal with to let himself get distracted by anything other than work.
He tossed some [Soul Flame] into the hearth and looked around his makeshift smithy, reminded of just how much had vanished in the flames of his old smithy. But, in those ashes, there was new life. Just enough to give them another shot at making the smithy, this time anew. He had a lot to work toward. The crystal resting in the corner of the shop called to him. He didn’t know what he’d make with it yet, but as long as he did it properly, he knew it would be powerful.
He drew in a sharp breath and exhaled slowly to refocus himself.
Lillia was right. That will come soon. Right now, I need to get this armor made so I can repair my smithy. A proper quenching station. A real work surface with tools beyond just my hammer. A storefront. A proper chimney. Maybe a little spot for some food. It’ll have all of it, and nobody will ever take it – or anyone I care about – from me again.
He gathered the scrap that laid on the floor of his shop and set it into the furnace. The flames curled around the metal, quickly bringing them to a cherry red and then brightening into a golden orange. Arwin took the first piece out of the flames once it was ready, setting it on the anvil and summoning Verdant Blaze to his hands.
Then he got to work.