Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 1

The manor belonged to my stepfather, though he begrudgingly accepted that my mother and I came as a package. He already had three children and had no desire for a fourth, but by that point, he’d already fallen under my mother’s spell. She had that effect, I’m told. Whether actual magic was involved, I’m not sure, and lacking any living biological relatives that I know about, I’m not sure I’ll ever find out.

She was an actress who spent four months of each year traveling throughout Easterly with a troupe called The Five Fiends, where they’d perform crowd-pleasing plays designed not just to entertain but to titillate. “Better to offend than mollify,” she told me once. “Offended people talk about you way more than anyone else.”

Those four months of work paid for eight months in the bottle, as she soberly described her favorite pastime. She was never mean to me, not even at the very bottom of her deepest bottle, though she became more reckless, spending more and more time in taverns that even the roughest of street folk would recommend that you avoid.

This reached its lowest when a man held a knife to her throat over a game of Six Dice, demanding that she give him back his winnings and more besides. The man was dealt with in…let’s say a not-so-pleasant way by the other folk in the tavern, but the feeling of the blade tip against her skin was not one my mother wanted to experience again. Thus, she started her slow climb out of the bottle.

This change in her might have made me feel better and more secure, but it came at the expense of her stage presence. When she next joined the Five Fiends during troupe season and walked the stage in a city called Reaching Grange, her performance was met with the measured critique that it was, according to one newspaper, “Absolutely, stinking, shit.”

The leader of the troupe - a fifty-year-old man named Toby who specialized in playing villainous characters who dressed brilliantly and thus made sure such a character was written into every play – told my mother: “Something’s missing from you, love. I don’t know what it is.”

My mother and I knew, of course, though she never said it, and there wasn’t a priest’s chance in hell that I’d recommend my mother climb back into her bottle.

So, she practiced her lines in front of me. She spent hours before a dressing mirror, making one expression after another, trying her lines one way, then delivering them differently. I would sit in her dressing room reading some book or other, but it was hard not to watch her. She was so beautiful, and she said her lines with such grace. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t translating to the stage.

After weeks of such practice, the troupe performed in a village south of Red River’s Pass, a place called Little Broken.

“Wish me luck,” my mother told me, for she never subscribed to the superstition that such expressions of luck were bad for an actress.

“Luck,” I told her.

The play went terribly. So badly, in fact, that the performers were pelted with wilted cabbage and soft tomatoes as they bowed. When they left the stage, the tomato juice made it look like a massacre had taken place. I suppose it had, really, when you consider what it did to my mother’s career.

As much as it pained me to admit, my mother had been the problem with the play. Her charisma seemed to leave her the second she took to the stage. She delivered her lines like an undertaker reading a court summons, and the crowds, who used to be putty in her delicate hands, seemed to scare her.

“We can’t carry on like this,” Toby told her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Well,” said Toby. “You do. I suppose we all do, don’t we?”

He glanced then to a bottle of wine, unopened, that was standing next to a card with the words, ‘Good Luck’ written on the front.

“No,” said my mother.

“Moderation, love. That’s the key. Just a tipple. Get your old self back.”

Mother looked across the room at me. The actors had long ago gotten used to my presence in their dressing room and always talked like I wasn’t there. I wanted to tell my mother not to go back to that place where strange men held knives against her throat. But I equally didn’t want to be the reason both her passion and her income were taken away from her. So, I said nothing.

Finally, she said, “If that’s the way it is, I suppose you had better find a new Magdalene for your next performance.”

Much later, after saying our goodbyes to the troupe, I asked my mother what we were going to do. She clutched my hand tightly. “Let’s find a room tonight. Difficult decisions are easier to read by the light of the sun.”

The next morning, we’d decided to make the journey back to Reaching Grange, where the stage scene was busiest. Mother hoped she could audition and secure a place in another troupe, perhaps using her connections in the actors’ guild.

I had my doubts, but I didn’t express them. In my mind, though, she’d fail to secure work, our low funds would dwindle, and soon we’d be on the streets, tins held out in front of us, hoping a passerby might take pity and drop a coin or two in.

Just as we were going to board a carriage bound for Reaching Grange, a voice said, “Excuse me, miss?”

A man was standing there. Sharply dressed, his posture impeccable. That man was my future stepfather. He told my mother that although her performance could use improvement, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. After a brief meal in a tavern, whose name I can’t remember, I somehow knew we wouldn’t be heading to Reaching Grange.

It’s no exaggeration to say that my stepfather resented my presence at the manor, built and paid for by generations’ worth of gold earned by a family business that he inherited. His love for my mother meant that he pretended he liked me, but I think a person can tell when someone else’s smile is genuine or not, especially when that fakery is paraded in front of them daily.

We lived in the manor for four years. Then, shortly after my fifteenth birthday, my mother died suddenly when a panicked horse broke loose from a trader’s carriage, trampling her into the ground. My stepfather summoned the best healer he could buy, but there was no chance she’d make it.

Things changed for me almost instantly. Though the state appointed my stepfather as my guardian, he told me that things were going to be different. From now on, I was to sleep on the servants’ wing in a cramped, windowless room where a little camp bed had been set up.

“You’ll eat your meals with the cooks before they serve us,” he told me. “And don’t make a nuisance of yourself around my children. They have their studies.”

I noted that the two boys and girl were no longer my step siblings but ‘his children’. That was fine by me, I decided. I had never warmed to this place, either. The only one of them I was ever friendly with was Anthony, the eldest of the three, but he joined the state’s army and had left the manor seven months earlier.

As the seasons turned and the ground warmed, then chilled, then froze, then began to thaw again, I had spent enough time in my little room dwelling on my future that I had both a premonition and came to a decision at the same time.

My stepfather would kick me out of the manor on my sixteenth birthday, I realized. That was when his state-appointed guardianship would end. That was ten days away, and I was powerless to prevent him from doing so. But the one thing I could do was to beat him to it.

So, after announcing my plan to Fred and Hilda, the married couple who cooked all the meals in the manor and who I’d become friendly with, I accepted their parting gift of dried fruit and preserves, and I left the home that was never my own.

Chapter 2

I hitched rides on all kinds of carriages, traveling far across Easterly on very little coin. Hitching was the most common way of traveling for folks who didn’t own a carriage or horse, though many merchants charged at least fifty silvers for a journey. This meant I had to be patient whenever I needed a ride, and I’d ask every trader I saw if they had the space, hoping one of them would be charitable and give me passage for free.

Mile by mile, I headed south, crossing through all kinds of places in Easterly that I’d never seen before. New to me though this landscape was, I wasn’t swallowed up by it. A life traveling with the Five Fiends had taught me much about the kinds of places and kinds of folks of Easterly, and it had given me an inner sense about who to avoid.

Eventually, I reached my destination – a small village called Sunhampton, where an apprentice fair was being held in the village plaza. The other travelers heading into town were mostly people like me, young men or women seeking to gain apprenticeships from tradesmen or crafters looking for new recruits. There were also plenty of families with children making their way there, hoping to secure future apprenticeships for their sons or daughters. All of those children, of course, were prodigies and 'very smart for their age.'

I wasn't so much interested in my employment future as I was in getting a roof I could sleep under. Apprenticeships came with not just tuition but lodgings and food too, and some masters even paid their apprentices a wage. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the long term, but for now, some stability would be nice.

All kinds of traders, crafters, and folks of other professions had set out their stalls, hoping to attract suitable children and teenagers for tutelage. There were merchants recruiting any child who might have a knack for salesmanship, potion makers displaying jars of herbs and salves and asking loudly, "Would you like to learn how to make things like this?", smiths showing off their talents on portable forges. The air was thick with spice and herb scents. It echoed with the clang of hammers on metal.

I didn’t know where to start or what I’d be interested in. I didn't even know what I was good at. Mother had taught me this and that about acting, and I had read a lot of books. But that was about it.

I supposed I had better start somewhere so I settled on one of the merchants, taking a seat in front of a stall where a man displayed exotic goods such as amulets made from rare metals and crystals, as well as clothing sewn with gems and precious stones.

He took one look at me before saying, "You will not be my apprentice."

"You didn't even ask me a question!" I told him.

"And yet, I was already given the answer."

Toby always used to say, "A person should know when it's time to stop kicking a dead dog." I didn’t really know when it was time to even begin kicking a dead dog, truth be told, but I took his advice. Rather than argue with the merchant, I simply stood up and walked away. I needed an apprenticeship today, or I was in trouble, but I wouldn’t be treated like dirt.

Unfortunately, the next stall I visited did not provide what I needed, nor did the next five after that. A blacksmith said I didn’t have the build for forge work. A tailor told me my manner was too uncouth for fine garmentry. I visited almost every stall in the market, finally having to resort to applying for apprenticeships with a cheesemaker, a weaver, and two butchers. None of these professions interested me, but I was desperate.

It was all for nothing, though. The cheesemaker made me sample two kinds of cheese and tell him which I preferred. My answer seemed to preclude me from ever having a future in producing quality cheddar. The weaver was interested, but when she had me try her loom, she quickly ushered me away as though my mere touch on her equipment had bestowed a curse on her future labors. Both butchers, meanwhile, rejected me for being too scrawny and underfed, as though the size of my belly decided my ability to cut through meat.

I watched with dismay as the traders and crafters began to pack up their stalls, many of them leaving with their new apprentices. Families bade tearful goodbyes to teenagers who were off to start a new life. A lone man began sweeping the plaza with an oversized broom, lost in thought as he cleared up everyone else's mess. I half wondered if I should ask him for an apprenticeship, but he pushed his broom with such a melancholic gesture that I foresaw great misery in my future if I took up with him.

I decided I better try to find somewhere vaguely warm to sleep before night settled in. Barns were a favorite of mine because they were often unattended for hours, and there was always a warm haystack or even a friendly sheep or two that I could snuggle up against as the clutches of winter grasped the Easterly skies.

"Gods damn it!" said a voice.

I turned around. A man was crossing the plaza. An old man with thick arms and gray hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. He had dark eyes set deeply under heavy eyebrows. Approaching the man with the broom, he said, "Did I miss it?"

The man rested on his broom. "Miss it, Mr. Cooper? I'll say. By a good hour or so."

"Damn it."

"Were you taking on an apprentice?"

"Don't sound so surprised."

"It's been a long time since you done that. You might not recall, but when I was a lad, my Pa asked if you'd take me on, and you refused. Said you don't take on apprentices, as I remember."

"Well, I’ve had to soften my stance a little," said the old man. "Work’s tough, and I'm not getting younger."

"I hear that, good and proper. Well, like I said. You've missed it. Sorry."

The old man clapped his acquaintance on the shoulder and said, "Not to worry. Have a nice evening, Bill."

I studied the old man from afar, trying to work out what his profession might be. He didn’t have any props or accessories with him, so he clearly hadn't put much thought into the apprentice fair. His arms suggested that he did physical work of some kind, but his shirt confused matters. It might have been white many, many moons ago, but now it was a faded yellow, and it sported all kinds of stains and even blackened patches.

Was he a mage? No, he didn't look at all like a mage. Besides, most mages taught in colleges. Those who didn’t, often recruited students from college cast-offs.

Okay, then. So what was he? Potioneer? Blacksmith? Metallurgist?

Whatever he was, I decided that he clearly needed an apprentice, and I needed a profession. If it was something boring, then it didn’t matter. I would have a roof to sleep under, and I would finish my apprenticeship with a class to my name. What was there to lose?

Smoothing back my hair, I crossed the market plaza to introduce myself to the old man.

The artificer was named Cooper. Master Cooper, to use the name he insisted on within a breath of me meeting him. He was an elderly man who looked like he'd been working with metal since before the first town was ever built. His eyes were sharp and wise, perhaps too much so. They seemed to look at me yet beyond me at the same time, and his mind was filled with ideas and theories that he constantly had to scribble into a thick, leather-bound notepad.

At first, he didn't trust me to use the forge or do any real work until he gauged how much I could learn from him. “I want to see how much of that space between your ears is air and how much is useful.”

What he did offer was a place in his workshop and a chance to learn whatever skills he had. I thought that was fair enough.

I was to start, he told me, as a level 0 apprentice artificer. To officially become recognized as an artificer proper, I had to earn the five basic artificer skill trees and then display my knowledge by completing a class-earning project.

The five basics skill trees of artificery were ‘Simple Craft and Forge Work’, ‘Simple Unenchantment’, ‘Simple Enchantment’, ‘Simple Tinkering’, and ‘Simple Alchemy’.

“First things first,” said Master Cooper. “Can you tell me what artificery is?”

"It's when you make something," I replied. "Like making swords."

Cooper half smiled. "That's right, sort of. Artificers do make things, but our work goes far beyond that. Nowadays, people call everything that involves using both crafting and magic 'artificery'. It's more accurate. Now, let’s talk about the rules of your apprenticeship.

“You must work here, under my supervision. If I ever ask you to leave, you will. You also have to follow all the laws of the village and the state unless I tell you to break them. There are no exceptions."

I nodded. "Yes, sir. I won't break the law."

"Good lad. Now, this here is called a token bracelet. Do you know about tokens?”

He was holding a dull bronze bangle designed to snap around a person’s wrist.

“Vaguely,” I answered.

“Okay. So tell me.”

“When you’re trying to earn a skill, you wear a token inside a token bracelet. When you finally get the skill, the ability is transferred to the token, and you can switch and swap the tokens you put inside the bracelet to use different skills.”

“You’re almost right,” said Master Cooper. “Put the bracelet around your wrist. It doesn’t matter which wrist. Good.” He held up a blank token, which looked like an oversized coin. “Now, earning a skill will make an image etch itself onto this token, indicating that the skill is there. But really, the skill is inside you, just as all your earned skills are inside you. All the tokens and the bracelet do is focus them. Otherwise, you could just lose the token and lose your skill. With me?”

I nodded.

“Alright. Now, the token bracelet and the tokens work in tandem, so they allow you to channel different skills. It’s like wearing a tool belt and putting a hammer, chisel, and screwdriver in it. It makes them easier to reach. One day, you might decide to leave the house with a pair of pliers, a ruler, and a crowbar, instead. In that case, you’ve left your hammer at home, and you can’t use it. Understand?”

I nodded. “The skill isn’t inside the token, but the tokens are a symbolic representation of my earned skills, and they allow me to focus them. Whatever skill tokens I wear in the bracelet are the only ones I can use at that time.”

“Maybe you’re brighter than you look,” said Cooper. “Last thing - experience. Experience is the father of the master. Through manually practicing skills, you’ll earn experience. When you have enough, the skill is committed to the token, and you won’t need to do things manually anymore. As well as that, as your master, I can also award you experience. So make sure you do what I say. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“We’ll leave it there for now. I know that it’s a lot to take in.”

So began my apprenticeship.

For the next few months, I slept in a bed tucked into the corner of an indoor kennel where Cooper kept his beloved dogs. They were wolfhounds, which meant many of them were bigger than me, but they were beautiful and friendly animals. Their coats gleamed in the light of summer rays, and their eyes shone like pools of starlight. They licked me with affection whenever I went into the kennel, and even though I hated being covered in dog fur, I loved them.

Cooper wasn’t being mean by making me sleep there. He simply didn’t have any other rooms to spare. His home, which he called the craftstead, consisted of his main house, kennels, and two workshops. His main house had three bedrooms, though two were filled floor to ceiling with tools, materials, and projects that either he couldn’t sell or couldn’t bear to throw away.

In the mornings, I had many chores to complete before I could even think about artificery. The most important one was feeding the dogs. They ate scrap meat that Cooper bought from a butcher, as well as biscuits that he got monthly from a vendor who visited Sunhampton’s Sunday market. They were an expensive type of biscuit, but the pooches wouldn’t abide any other, so Cooper was rather stuck.

After their meals, I took care of the chickens. Yes, Cooper had chickens, too. He wasn’t much of a people person, but he loved every animal that walked, flew, or swam.

My other chores were cleaning the yard, sweeping the workshop, and sharpening and oiling the many tools in the workshop. I also helped Cooper polish and repair his tinkered machines. This last one I didn’t mind so much because it sort of helped with my apprenticeship.

When I wasn't doing chores that had very little to do with artificery, I studied. I read books, watched Cooper as he worked, and sneaked into any vaguely comparable lectures at the local college. But none of it matched up to practical artificery, which I was yet to do.

One morning, I finished my chores and worked up the nerve to ask Master Cooper when he might deign to teach me something. I found him, predictably, in his favorite place - his workshop.

The smell of sawdust and hot metal was thick in the air as I entered the place Master Cooper loved most. The sound of a hammer banging on sheet metal created a constant racket that echoed off the stone walls and ceiling of the cavernous space. Here in his own personal workshop, Cooper could conduct research or build whatever he pleased without any ‘folks nagging or nattering at me’ as he put it, although he told me there had been many times when the workshop floor made for an uncomfortable night's sleep.

“Ah. Here he is! The wanderer returns,” exclaimed Cooper upon seeing me.

“I was doing chores.”

“Is that what you call it? Pass me that box of bolts from over there. No, not that box! The other one.”

From a rack of twelve identical trays full of identification bolts, I passed Cooper the only ones that could possibly suffice.

“So…” I said. “When are you, you know, going to teach me some artificery?”

He glared at me. "When I feel like teaching you."

“And is that likely to happen soon? Because forgive me for saying, but it feels like you just wanted someone to do your chores for you.”

“Such insolence,” said Master Cooper. “Back in my day, my old master would have whipped me for saying that. Luckily for you, I can’t be bothered. Pass me that screwdriver. The one with the red handle.”

There were at least fifteen screwdrivers with red handles, so I took a guess. The fates must have liked me that day, because I chose the right one.

"Master Cooper," I said. "I'm really keen to learn. I know I’m sometimes an ass, but I work hard.”

He sighed. “Perhaps we could start learning the first skill of artificery. But first, there’s a test.”

“A test before I even start learning?” I said. "I don't think you understand how eager I am to get started.”

“Exactly! That's why this is your first lesson: patience. I've already told you, you need to learn the basics before you can advance.”

Cooper went over to the small corner in the workshop that served as a kitchen. He had a proper kitchen in his house, of course, but he didn’t like to have to leave his workshop to make a snack or a cup of tea. In his little corner kitchen, he made himself his favorite sandwich, which he called the Artificer’s Special. It was a very strange sandwich that consisted of four seemingly incompatible ingredients.

I knew what these were because he had made me memorize the ingredients so I could make them for him.

1. Fifty-seed Bread – white bread, no exceptions.

2. Thrice Honeyed Ham - cured ham, no exceptions.

3. West Fardale Cheese - a soft cheese, no exceptions.

4. Pickled herring - from the Rysedale river, no exceptions.

Thus was Cooper's recipe for the Artificer’s special. I had to please myself with just a slice of cheese sandwich between two dry slabs of bread, which Cooper laughingly called the Apprentice’s Special. Luckily, I had a healthy sense of humor. What’s more, I always ate my Apprentice Specials with relish if Cooper was watching, no matter how tough the bread was. I wanted him to see that whatever strange little tests he pulled on me, I could take them without any bother.

“So, master, what’s this test?” I said.

"Well, the simplest thing you could do is to try to take apart an artificed item without blowing your own hand off. And mark my words - it can happen. I saw it happen to an artificer once.”

By now, I’d already heard a hundred stories of the artificers Cooper had known throughout his life and the grisly ends they had met because either they weren’t careful or didn’t listen to Cooper’s sagely advice. Acting on a suspicion, I began memorizing their names. When he told me about an artificer named Jim Fagner who lost his right arm twice, to both being careless with an artificed knife and not concentrating when using a forge, I knew that he might not be telling the truth.

“Has there ever been an artificer who retired of his own will, with all his appendages intact?” I asked.

Cooper laughed. "Not that I know of."

"Okay. So what should I start with?" I asked.

"If you were to search the workshop for something to take apart, you'd probably find a dozen different items."

I searched around the workshop for an artificed item to take apart. I was determined to pass Cooper’s test. This was the first task he’d assigned me that didn’t involve a broom or a dog bath, and I was going to pass it.

There were many artificed items to choose from. Some were obvious – like the chair that Cooper was sitting in. It was artificed so that he wouldn't fall down no matter how drunk he was, although I was sure he'd fallen several times anyway. However, the chair was also artificed so it wouldn’t fall apart, which made it a poor candidate for my test. Besides, I wasn’t convinced that choosing it was quite what Cooper had in mind, as tempting as it was.

Other items were less apparent. For example, the tool shelves were artificed so they could hold hundreds of tools without collapsing. The one I was looking at right now was slightly taller than Cooper.

Then there was the wardrobe that Master Cooper kept, inexplicably, in his workshop. Its contents were artificed so that they changed according to a person’s mood. If he was feeling extravagant - which he never was - the wardrobe would have tailored suits hanging from its racks. If he was in a good mood, it would display something bright and casual. As this was one of his treasured items, I doubted he’d want me to take it apart.

I looked at Cooper to see if I could get any guidance from his expression, but I might as well have been asking for sonnets from a stone.

What should I choose, I wondered? Was there any artificed item in this workshop that I could safely take apart? Or was I going to fail the first test he’d ever set for me?

Finally, I settled on choosing a simple device that had nothing to do with magic. It was a brass cup set on a shelf behind his desk. It contained a few candles and a worn-down pencil with chew marks on the end.

Picking it up, I looked at Cooper for any expression, but he gave none.

The cup was screwed together. Using one of Cooper’s screwdrivers, I easily dismantled it.

Cooper grinned. “Why did you choose that?”

I choose my words carefully. “Because if I tried to dismantle an artificed item without training, I might blow my hands off like a hundred artificers before me. Apparently.”

I waited for his reaction to see if I had passed his test. Finally, his expression broke.

"Good answer. But you failed the test because you're still thinking like a student. You need to learn to think like an artificer."

I shrugged. "My point is that if I tried to dismantle an artificed item without training, it might be dangerous. I need knowledge before I play around with magic.

"Exactly!” exclaimed Cooper. "That's the wrong way of looking at it."

"And what's the right way?" I asked.

"Step one: Learn how to build the tools you need. Step two: Use them. And step three: Think about how to improve upon them."

I thought I had been clever. Really clever.

Evidently not.

Cooper slapped my shoulder. “Cheer up, lad. You’ve earned yourself an Apprentice’s Special sandwich, at least. That is if you can tell me the ingredients.”

Chapter 3

The next morning, I completed my chores, as usual, accompanied by a wolfhound named Wrath. I fed the pups, swept the workshop, and mended a few broken tools. I was also given a new task: I was to help Cooper clean up the workshop, removing all the dust and cobwebs that accumulated during the long winter.

When my chores were done, Cooper announced that it was finally time for me to learn the ‘Simple Craft and Forge skill,’ which was the simplest skill an artificer could learn.

I had already read about this skill in a textbook Cooper had given me named, ‘The Artificer's Almanac.’ It was written by a man called Clyde Hyacinth, who had invented many things in his lifetime. These included a catapult that fired arrows hundreds of yards, a machine that could magically store thousands of books, and a clockwork chicken that laid golden eggs. This last invention, however, has been heavily disputed.

Though I learned much about crafting in theory, nothing replaced actual practice. Knowledge gleaned by the eyes and stored in the brain doesn’t make the journey to the hands.

"So," Cooper told me. He was sitting on a chair by his workbench and sipping a mug of ale. He turned toward me and waved his hand. Scattered across the workbench were many different types of tools. Some were as simple as a pair of tongs, while others were so complex that I couldn’t even work out what they were.

"I'm going to teach you the Simple Craft and Forge skill today. First, you need to understand that everything you create has two parts. The first part is the raw material itself. That could be a lump of metal ore, a piece of wood, or some clay. The second part is how you decide to shape it into something new. Think of those things as two languages. Your skill as a crafter, then, is like a translator, allowing material and idea to talk. Now, let's begin."

“What are we going to make?” I asked.

“A fine question! Let’s talk tools. You might decide that you prefer to make something else, but we’ll start with tools.”

Cooper took out a hammer crafted from wood and steel and displayed it like I was a troll who’d wandered in from the wastes and had never seen such a relic before. "In order to make a tool," he said, "you must first have a rough idea in your head of what you want to make. In this case, it's simple. Any donkey brain knows what a hammer is, what it looks like, and what it's used for. Even without being a crafter, they'll know what it’s made from. The job of an artificer is different. We create tools birthed from the mind, sometimes with no physical reference from which to draw. But that’s a way off for you, lad. First, you'll learn how to make a hammer."

I had already studied tool making in a book titled, ‘Get Tooled Up.’ Again, my hands hadn't yet felt in practice the theory that I had already stored in my brain. Making a hammer probably didn’t sound exciting to some people, but I couldn’t wait to get started. This was my first real chance to put my nighttime readings into practice.

"All right," said Cooper. "Let's get started on making a hammer handle. You'll find some hickory in the storehouse."

I began making hammer handles using hickory. At first, it seemed easy enough. I shaped the hickory according to Master Cooper’s instructions - of which there were few - and his critiques - of which there were many - and then coated it in beeswax.

"Now for the head."

Creating a hammer head was trickier because it involved using the forge, which I had never done before. I had seen Cooper use it plenty of times, but that fiery cauldron of red coals made me nervous. Under Cooper's watchful stare, I fired up the forge by lighting the fire.

"Now, you have to heat the iron until it's glowing red hot," he said. "Once it is, you can bend it into whatever shape you want."

Cooper showed me how to use tongs to pull the iron out of the forge, and then I placed it on the workbench to cool. I began shaping the iron into a hammer head. It was tricky since I couldn't properly see what I was doing through the goggles and mask he made me wear. I could only feel and hear the metal as it melted and cooled. The song of smithing played in my ears. It was a beautiful tune, one I would have gladly listened to forever.

The sweet tune stopped when Cooper shouted at me. I jumped like a startled deer. When he saw my face, he laughed.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You’ve made the hammer head. You can stop hitting it now. Look!”

“So I have,” I said, feeling a smile on my lips. “What now?"

"Wait a second..."

With all my excitement, I had forgotten about what happened when you made progress in a skill. Soon, wispy words formed in the air in front of me. They were like a string of pearls that twinkled and sparkled as they spun around my head.

─ 1% EXP toward ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ skill tree.

Such a stark display of my progress, small as it was, made me feel proud of myself. In truth, I had just made a step toward learning a new skill that I would need later in my life as an artificer. This was reflected on the token that was set in the token bracelet on my left wrist. The surface was still mostly blank but with the first glimmer of an etching.

"What now?" I asked.

"Now? What else! You need to make as many tools as it takes to earn level one! But not just hammers. You'll need to make other tools as well, ones that are used by artificers every day. Let's see...I recommend making a chisel and a file. Later, you can try your hand at an awl, a hammer, a needle, and a knife."

I got to work. The morning drifted into the afternoon, and soon evening arrived. The workshop was a nonstop clamor of clinking iron and chiming steel. My eyes grew heavy, and my hands ached. I fell asleep on the bench, and when I woke up, Cooper was gone. The workshop was empty except for a few tools scattered across the floor.

A light touch of my index finger against my token bracelet revealed the statistics of the tokens set in it. I had created 45 tools, taking me almost to the halfway point of learning the skill. I thought about calling it a night and getting some sleep, but my own sense of pride wouldn’t let me lie down while I still retained a scrap of energy to work. Instead, I decided I would get myself a cup of coffee and a bite to eat.

When I left the workshop and crossed through Cooper's yard and to the main house, I heard voices. One of them was Cooper's. I didn’t recognize the other. Pausing at the doorway of the main house, I took the Apprentice's Prerogative. The Prerogative - so I had read - was the right or the duty of an apprentice to listen in to their master’s conversations…as long as they didn’t get caught.

"You can't do that!" said Cooper, grunting out each word as though they were bones trapped in his throat. I had never heard him so angry. "This place has been in my family for generations!"

"You took a loan, artificer."

"Aye, because I was desperate. And I’d have paid it back five years ago if your interest rate wasn’t so high."

"A loan is a loan. Are you breaking your word?"

"Of course bloody not. You’ll get your coin. All of it, upfront. I’m done with you tugging me like a piece of string.”

“Oh, really?” said the visitor. “You have come into money, then?

Cooper said nothing. Even from outside, I could feel the tension coming from within the house, leaving through the open doorway and the windows like a draught.

The visitor continued. "I will be back soon. See that you are good to your word.”

My mind swirled with questions. Why would Cooper take a loan from someone, especially a loan that he evidently couldn’t pay back in full? He didn’t seem like the type to have a vice. He liked the occasional drink, sure, but what was wrong with that? More importantly, was there anything that I could do?

I might not have known Master Cooper well enough to hold any affection for him, but the fact was that this was my home, of sorts. At least, it was all that remained between me and another barn, and barn sleeping was a dangerous occupation at the best of times, let alone when winter was approaching. Could this really all be taken away from me if Master Cooper couldn’t repay his debts?

I would ask him about it. I had every right to; this affected me now. He took me on as an apprentice, knowing that his livelihood, his craftstead, was under threat.

Footsteps came toward me. By instinct, I turned and started to head back toward the workshop, out of sight. But then I stopped, deciding that I wouldn’t hide. I waited for the visitor to leave Cooper's house.

I had never seen such a strange-looking person. He wasn’t human, and instead looked more like a lizard. His skin was as green as a bog, and his hair and beard were long and knotty. He wore a black coat lined with leather that covered most of his body. A short sword hung at his side, along with a number of pouches and belts. I expected him to say something rude to me, but he ignored me completely. He walked past me, toward the door, and disappeared inside.

After seeing this person, I pitied Master Cooper for being desperate enough to make a deal with them. There were some folks in Easterly that you avoided with all of your being, and this guy was one of them. Danger seemed to cling to him like a perfume and it lingered in the air even after he had gone.

Master Cooper, I thought, what have you gotten mixed up in?

Now, I was in two minds about whether to go ask Master Cooper what was going on. He might not appreciate knowing that his apprentice had heard how the visitor spoke to him. Then again, I badly wanted to know.

After thinking about it, I decided not to hurt Master Cooper’s pride. He didn’t want me to know about his debts, or he would have mentioned them. I wasn’t the greatest apprentice ever, but at least I could give him that.

Chapter 4

Though my schedule was always busy with chores, study and crafting practice, Cooper gave me Sundays to myself. He acted like he was doing me a favor, but really he wanted me out of his hair so that he didn't have to deal with me for a day. He was a morose man, I had learned, and there were times when he needed to be alone. What he did, what he thought about, I didn’t know, but I’d lived with the Five Fiends for long enough and in cramped enough conditions to learn that people sometimes need space. For themselves, for their thoughts. Just space for their mind to work through the knots of their problems.

Sunday was always my favorite day of the week. I would wake up at dawn and spend the whole morning exploring the village. Sunhampton was a beautiful place, and I knew there was so much of it that I had yet to see. Although the town itself was small, there were enough interesting sights to keep me occupied all day.

The village itself was set in a valley surrounded by mountains. From the highest peak, you could see the entire surrounding area. The lush greens of the forest were replaced by the browns and yellows of the fields, and then the mountains rose up around you. On the outskirts was a ring of houses made from stone and timber. Beyond that, a dark river flowed down the hillside, cutting through a narrow gorge. Nearby stood a massive ancient tree, towering over everything else. It was one of the oldest trees in Easterly, according to Master Cooper. He warned me not to try carving my initials into it, as some youths sometimes did.

“I know a boy who lost his arm doing that,” he told me.

In the village center, there was a row of shops named Coiner’s Way, consisting of bakeries, blacksmiths, tailors, and other specialized merchants. The market square was also nearby, where farmers brought their produce and craftsmen sold their wares to locals and travelers from faraway lands. Every 4th Sunday, there was a general market, and any merchant, craftsman, or vendor could sell their wares.

Sunhampton was famous, perhaps grimly so, for its role in the execution of King Khaled. The last remaining king of the Coalition of the Isles, Khaled had been captured with his army after a long and bloody war against the kingdom of the Right and True. He was tried and convicted of treason and executed in the village square. It was pretty much their only claim to fame, and boy, did they capitalize on it. The village tavern was named the King's Head, and the publican was as proud of it as a mother duck is of its chicks.

The village made me feel content whenever I strolled through it, and I loved the sound of laughter and shouting that rang out from the tavern and the markets. There was even a band playing music in the square most days, and the air was often filled with the delicious aroma of seasoned meats roasting on a spit, or the sweet scent of apples carried from an orchard outside the village.

Every fourth Sunday, market day, I usually found myself carrying a bag full of my own crafts. Hammers, screwdrivers, and nails. That kind of thing. I wasn’t sure why I bothered since the villagers weren't interested in buying my goods. That just meant I had to carry them home, and that made for a heavy load, especially since the craftstead was atop a ridiculously steep hill.

But not today, I told myself. Today I was going to sell one of my things. Just one, that was all I wanted. Cooper had already told me that I could keep whatever gold I earned. “Even an apprentice should get to enjoy the heat of their iron,” he told me.

I headed to the market. It was thronged with people, and the smells of food and spices were too hard to resist. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that lunch was still hours away and the best I could hope for was an Apprentice’s Special. I managed to push my hunger aside and focus on what I needed to do.

Many merchants had wooden market stalls that they draped with their wares. I couldn’t afford a stall, so instead jostled for space among what were called the ‘penny merchants’, who sold cheap things such as bolts of cloth or bottles of bad wine that made you drunk in minutes but came with a hangover that’d swear you off drinking for life.

I laid a cloth on the ground and arranged on it the best examples of my craft. My most defect-free hammer. My sturdiest screwdriver. My strongest nails. I hoped to find someone here who would buy them and take them off my hands.

The sun beat down mercilessly, turning the world into a shimmering mirage. Sweat beaded on my brow and ran down my back, soaking my shirt. I tried my best to look presentable. Approachable.

It took an hour for the first shopper to look at my wares. She was a woman in her forties, with a broad chest and a stern expression.

I adopted a smile carefully calculated to appear most sincere.

"Good morning, madam! Can I interest you in any of these fine tools?"

She snorted. "You're a student, aren't you?"

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"And how old are you?" she asked.

“Thirty-six. The alchemist who makes my skin lotion is beyond compare!”

She snorted at me and moved away, heading toward a boy across from me who sold cinnamon buns.

An hour later, I still hadn’t had a paying customer. The merchants around me had started making jibes at my expense, but this quickly turned to pity as the day wound on.

I had to do something to get a customer. I had promised myself that today would be the day, and damn it, it would be.

As a man passed me, I took a hammer and nails out of my bag and threw them down on the ground next to me.

"Here. Take this. For free."

The crowd gasped as I tossed the tools onto the ground. They thought I had gone mad.

"No one will buy this junk!" I shouted. "I'm going to go sit down somewhere, and you can have them all for yourself. Take what you want."

They laughed at me as I walked away.

But then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The mid-forties woman from earlier was standing there. She gave me a cinnamon bun and a silver coin.

“That’s for you. But only if you keep trying.”

"Thank you, ma'am."

She kept walking, and I watched her as she walked over to the proper market stalls and bought three hammers and a handful of nails from a rival crafter, and then she went on her way.

Chapter 5

On Monday morning, I awoke early, having slept fitfully for most of the night. After getting home from the market on Sunday, I had avoided Cooper, not wanting him to ask me how the market had gone.

When dawn broke, I did my chores with relish, really dragging them out and letting them fully occupy my mind. Every second I was doing chores, after all, was a second where Master Cooper wouldn't ask about the market, exposing my failure. When the artificed cuckoo clock struck eleven and the cuckoo cooed, I had no more chores left to do.

Regretfully, I reported to Master Cooper in his workshop. He was sitting at his workbench, bent over a piece of metal and delicately tapping it with a metal tool rather like a musician’s tuning fork.

“You’re bloody late, lad,” he said. “What time do you call-“ He stopped talking when he saw my face. "You look like shit!"

I didn’t want to tell him that I hadn’t slept because I was ruminating on my failure to sell a single one of my tools.

"I'm sorry, master. I was up late last night thinking about an invention.”

“What was it? A self-shaving knife? No, no. You don’t even have ‘Simple Enchantment’.”

I couldn’t think of an answer other than, for some reason, “A self-working cat cleaner.”

He rubbed his chin, and then shook his head. "Well, lad, if this is the rubbish that you’re going to come out with, then you can’t have Sundays off anymore. From now on, you're working every day of the week. No more selling your stuff at the market. No more trips to the village.”

“But master-“

“No buts. This is serious. Get to work."

I groaned, but knew I would obey. Otherwise, I’d lose the roof over my head. Nevertheless, I decided that if he was going to take away my Sunday free time, then I wouldn’t hold back with my questions.

“How bad are your debts, Master?”

Master Cooper’s eyes burned forge red, but only for a second. “So you were listening in, were you?”

“I couldn’t help overhearing.”

He considered this for a good, long while, perhaps wondering what further punishments he could give me. Finally, he said, “Fine. No more secrets. There was a good, long while when I wasn’t working. I was in a mood. A cloud. Couldn’t even pick up my hammer. My father had taken a mortgage on the craftstead four years earlier, drank it all away, then done the cowardly thing and died. So, I had payments to keep, but anytime I even thought about working, my hands went weak, and it was like I’d never crafted a day in my life. Know how that feels, boy?”

I did, sort of. I knew about the drinking problems of a parent, of course. I also knew how my mother felt sometimes, when she was at her lowest.

“It can help to talk about it,” I said.

“I don’t feel that way all too much now, lad. I don’t let myself. Keep it all in, that’s what I say. Anyhow, I took out a loan so I could keep paying the mortgage. And guess what? Loans need paying. Now, get to work on those nails and screws, you lazy little flea. And don't try to leave until you've finished.”

“What was your first ever project?” I asked Cooper Master, two days later when we weren’t quite so irked with each other anymore. Neither of us had apologized. We just, sort of, stopped being annoyed. The fact was that although he’d taken away my free time, I still needed him to teach me things.

“A self-cleaning stove was my first job,” he answered.

My jaw dropped open. "Why?"

"Because I was tired of coming home to the smell of smoke and grease. I wanted a clean house, and both my parents were good-for-nothings who were arse deep in a bottle every night.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“At least my father didn’t sell me at a market,” said Master Cooper. “That happened to a friend of mine. Now tell me, lad. What do you want your first project to be?”

I thought about all the wondrous artificed items I had seen in the workshop. Things Master Cooper had made for clients, such as a watch that had the ability to tell the time without having to wind it or a lute that could be played by anyone, even a blind man. There were many things I would love to try my hand at making. I simply couldn’t choose from them.

Master Cooper read my silence. “An artificer must always know his next project, lad. An artificer without a project is just a person. And people are stupid.”

"Alright. I want to build a flying machine."

Master Cooper raised an eyebrow, then said with a smirk, "Is that all?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"I want to build a flying time machine."

“Now you’re just being stupid. I knew an artificer who made a time machine once. He lost-“

“His hand. Right.”

“Yup. And then he went back in time to get it,” said Cooper laughing and slapping his knees.

True to his word, Master Cooper made me work seven days a week after that. Gone were my Sunday sojourns into the village, and I couldn’t do a thing about it thanks to the apprentice-master code. I just didn't understand why Cooper was punishing me. Sure, I had turned up to work on Monday morning looking tired, but that was hardly a punishable offense.

No, this went deeper. Maybe he was testing my discipline, or perhaps poking at my resolve, seeing if I would moan and complain. I was determined that I wouldn’t do that.

Although it sent me crazy to be in the house or the yard or the workshop without break, it had its advantages in the development of my craft. One day we took our lunch at the top of Piker's Peak, the tallest of a small bobble of grassy hills near Cooper's house. Waiting at the top of the slope was a weather-resistant wooden bench with Cooper fixed there so that he could enjoy the view. And, by the balls of the high demon Aesegoth, it was quite a view. It looked down on the whole of the village, nestled in a valley between two large mountains. The nearest of those mountains was called the Black Pines, and the other was a mountain called the Dragon's Throat. In front of me, I could see the town square, where the market stalls were set up, and beyond that, the blacksmiths' shop.

Overlooking the market was a massive stone building, which I thought was a church. From the outside, it looked ancient, with a huge steeple that rose above the trees. The bells rang out across the land. I could hear them clearly, even from the hilltop. Next to the church was the King's Head Inn. I had never been inside, but I'd heard that it was a fine drinking establishment and a good place to lose all your wages playing Tittler’s Twist, a dice game whose rules changed from tavern to tavern, player to player. Everyone had their own, ‘correct’ version of Tittler’s Twist.

But the real beauty of the view began miles outside of the village, where the land opened up into a vast grassy plain. There, the ground fell away sharply, and I could see a shimmering lake far below. Beyond that, I could see rolling hills, and then a mountain range with snowcapped peaks in a far distance I had not yet traveled, nor reckoned I ever would.

We sat there, enjoying it. Cooper ate an Artificer’s Special, and I chewed on my pathetic Apprentice’s Special.

"It's beautiful," I said, staring out over the plains.

"It's my home," replied Master Cooper. "Always has been, always will be. Your home too, now, I suppose. Though maybe you won't want to stay when your apprenticeship is over. I certainly don't want the competition of another fine artificer in town."

It was rare that Cooper talked about the idea of me finishing my apprenticeship. He didn't want me to indulge in daydreams that took me out of the present, out of the learning. He said there was a lot of hard work ahead for me, and the value of hard work was in the suffering it brought. A person had to be prepared to suffer. To work until the point of exhaustion, and then squeeze out an extra drop. That extra drop was transformative. It hardened the soul, tooled the mind. It was the barbarian lifting his weights one extra time when he thought he couldn't, in order to force muscle growth.

That afternoon, Cooper had me improve on my forge work by "scrubbing the coals", as he put it. That meant getting down and dirty with some sandpaper and a scrub brush. It was exhausting work and didn't seem to me to be a means of advancing toward the Simple Craft and Forge Work skill at all.

"Discipline is just as important as your studies, and you lack it like a fool lacks a brain. If you continue to be lazy, you'll never be a master craftsman," he said, spitting the words out as he worked on a self-winding watch for a client.

"You haven't even let me craft anything for days."

"Are you talking back to me?" said Cooper, in his ‘strict master’ voice. Though I knew and tried to abide by the apprentice-master code and its rules on when I should speak, it irked me that Cooper picked and chose when he enforced it, bending it like he bent hot iron to suit his needs. If he was in the mood for a well-natured fight, he'd actually provoke me into speaking back to him. Then other times, I was supposed to abide by the code.

"No," I said, holding a piece of coal and wondering what the penalty was for throwing it at his head. "Sorry, master."

"Good," he said, turning back to the watch. "Because I'm going to teach you how to make a clock."

That got my attention as sure as a slap on my chops with a wet haddock. Until now, I had been making tool after tool. Hammers galore. Masses of screwdrivers. Though I loved the act of crafting things in itself, I had to admit my subject matter was becoming tedious. But a clock. Well, that was something.

"A cuckoo clock? An artificed one?"

"You don't know enchantment yet, lad. No. We'll start simple. We'll make a basic clock. A basic clock! Do you think you can do it?"

I nodded eagerly. "I’ll certainly give it a try."

Cooper crossed the workshop to a row of shelves in the corner, near the drawers where he kept all his nails, screws, nuts, and bolts. The shelves were artificed, of course. There were four shelves on display, but these were attached to a sort of enchanted wooden spine, which could rotate on command to reveal four more shelves, then four more, then four more. I was quickly learning that artificery was just one big space-saving exercise.

"Spin," said Cooper.

The drawers rotated. "Spin," he huffed. "Spin again. Again."

Finally, his desired shelf appeared. On it was lots of rolled-up parchments. Cooper picked one, then brought it to me. It was a craft print of a mechanical clock. It showed the clock as a whole, then showed a diorama of it with each individual part and its position within the clock displayed.

"This is an intermediate craft print," said Master Cooper. "You'll see it doesn’t show you how to make it step by step. A crafter worth his callouses would look at each part and know the steps in his head without needing instruction."

I rubbed my thumb over the inside of my left hand, feeling my soft skin and wondering when I would get my crafter's callouses.

He handed me the craft print. "Better get cracking."

"I'm using this one? There isn't an apprentice print I can use?"

"Nobody ever got stronger lifting the same weight over and over."

I took the print from him and took it over to the empty bench near the window which looked out onto the area of the yard where the wolfhounds spent their day, strolling, eating, howling, and playfighting. The other window in the workshop looked out on the pastures outside Cooper's home, with the village in the distance. But that was Cooper's window, with Cooper's workbench near it.

The workbench near the smaller window had become mine through an unspoken agreement. Cooper never deemed it so - I just started using it, and that was that. I spread the clock print on the bench, smoothing the corners down until they stopped trying to curl up again. Then, like any artificer worth his grease, I picked up a pencil and perched it behind my ear for no other reason than it seemed it was what all craftspeople did.

“Let’s see what I’m dealing with…”

My optimism fell out of my head like air through a crack. The clock craft print was way too advanced for me. Forget about improving through stress. This was just too much.

I let myself continue with these useless, negative thoughts for a while. When I felt I had gotten them out of my head, I decided that there was nothing I could do about the difficulty of the craft print. I was going to have to move forward anyway.

So, I flipped the craft print over and found a blank piece of parchment. I traced the outline of the clock face and then started working out the numbers on the clock itself. I referenced every individual part of the clock and wrote down a rough process of how I guessed they would be made and fitted together.

After doing this, I looked to Cooper for some kind of clue that I was on the right track, but he was busy working on his self-winding watch.

"This is going to take a while," I mumbled to myself.

"Indeed," said a deep voice from behind me.

It was a man I had never seen before. Tall and wearing a cap and pressed uniform that marked him as a carriage driver or perhaps an errand man.

Cooper rose from his seat. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Jack Cooper, artificer?”

“That’s me.”

“I’d like to discuss a job with you, Mr. Cooper. My employer needs something as a matter of urgency.”

“I’ve got a few things on the go at present, Mr…”

“I represent a client who would very much like his project to be at the forefront of your priorities.”

Even I knew that was a mistake. Master Cooper hated being told what to do. It was a huge part of the reason he ran his own business, love of crafting aside. Telling him what to prioritize was just about the worst thing the stranger could have done.

“There’s an artificer in Gild Green,” said Cooper. “Not as good as me, but perhaps more amenable to being told what to do and when to do it. Good luck to you.”

The stranger didn’t move. Instead, he said, “Would five thousand golds adjust your priorities at all?”

Cooper leaned back against his workbench, deep in thought. I didn’t know the extent of his debts, but 5000 was a lot of money for anyone. Hells, I almost wanted to accept the job myself. Sure, I couldn’t artifice yet, but 5000 gold would be a great motivation.

“Let’s talk in my private workshop,” said Master Cooper, and the two men left me alone.

With both of them gone, I was finally able to concentrate on the clock. At first, though, this boost in concentration only highlighted how difficult this was. Making a clock was complex. Way too complex for me.

But then I remembered something that Cooper told me.

“If you need to eat an elephant, lad, start with the trunk and nibble at him piece by piece.”

It was in this way that I learned how to make a clock. And really, it’s not as simple as one might suppose before they’ve made one. I worked hour upon hour, constantly referring to my crafting almanac for tips, always refining my process and learning, step by step, how a clock really worked.

In the end, it came down to a series of repeatable steps. That’s how all crafting works, really. You need to create gears. You need springs. You need to construct a frame to hold it all together. And you need to build the mechanism of the clock.

Do that, my friend, and you’ll have yourself a clock.

Chapter 6

Three days later, I looked at my finished clock and thought, I have a problem.

It didn't tick.

Quite a bit of an issue for a clock.

The thing was beautiful. It was a masterpiece of clockwork. Or at least, the closest thing to mastery that an apprentice artificer could achieve, which put it quite a long way away. Despite that, I was proud of what I’d done, and I would have called it a success, but for one fact: somehow, despite my best efforts, the clock wasn't ticking.

Cooper came into the workshop to check on my progress. He looked at the clock and raised an eyebrow. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. "What's wrong?" he asked.

I took a deep breath of my own. "It’s not working."

"Well, why not?"

"I don’t know."

"Are you sure you put the weights in properly?"

I nodded.

"You put them in the order they’re supposed to go?"

I nodded again.

“You’re sure?”

“I told you!” I said, getting heated. Luckily, I remembered myself just in time. “…master.”

He sighed. "Stubborn as a mule, aren't you?"

"No," I said. "Just honest."

He grinned. "An honest mule, then. I like that in an apprentice."

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, master."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I'm used to it."

“You are?”

“The wolfhounds bark at me all day. Now, let’s see what’s going wrong here.”

Cooper went over to the clock and messed around with it. Then, he crossed the workshop and started to assemble an Artificer’s Special for himself. Without looking back, he said, "Try it again, lad."

I nodded and wound the clock hands, only for nothing to happen.

“Huh? It still doesn’t work.”

Cooper turned around, grinning. “That’s right - it doesn’t.”

He took a bite out of his sandwich. I thought I understood the lesson - no matter how much I screwed up, I couldn’t rely on my master to fix it for me.

Chapter 7

I couldn’t go to the library in the village, which was a problem for me. Sure, Master Cooper was occupied enough that I could sneak out of the workshop and head down the steep hill towards the village, but I wasn’t about to go behind his back. Not yet, anyhow. When I disobeyed my master, it needed to be for something worth it. What was the point of getting in trouble for subpar hijinks?

Even so, I still needed a book to guide me on my clockwork quest. Luckily for an apprentice like myself, Master Cooper had an extensive collection of books - crafting and otherwise - on a shelf in the workshop. It was a roughhewn shelf sorely lacking a good sanding and a varnish, but it wasn't its aesthetic that I considered important. The shelf should only have fit maybe six books, but thanks to Cooper’s know-how it actually contained over 600.

The first time I had seen it, in that not-too-distant past where all flavors of artificers were strange and exciting enough to completely absorb me, I had asked Master Cooper how the shelf worked.

"Magic," he said. I soon learned that Master Cooper detested referring to artificery as ‘magic’ and would happily ignore those who did so in his presence for the rest of his life. But that day, I think he was busy and just said ‘magic’ to shut me up.

"Specifically what kind of magic, sir?"

"Artificed magic. And I keep telling you. It’s master. Not sir."

"If you want me to be a good apprentice, you should tell me how things work and answer questions when I ask them. How am I supposed to learn otherwise?"

I didn’t know it then, but I had taken a foolish risk talking to my master like that. Many masters would have unslung their belts and whipped me until my skin broke. But Master Cooper wasn’t like that. Instead, he sat on a stool and regarded me for a good, long while. An uncomfortable amount of time, actually.

I wondered if my insolence was some sort of victory. Like, maybe it had made him judge me a little differently. Finally, he said:

"The shelf stores books and whatnot on a nonphysical plane, dormant and in a weightless state, but with the ability to be recalled if needed. With me so far? I can see you aren't, but you asked, so you'll just have to try. Anyhow, by pulling that brass lever beside the shelf, the six books currently on display rotate. Enough pulls will take you all the way through the catalog. Not the most efficient means of storage, but still impressive, I’m sure you’ll agree."

Cooper kept a list of each row and the six books upon them, listing all 100 rows. Referencing the list with an individual book, it was possible to calculate your current position in the library and how many pulls it would take to get to the book you wanted. Unfortunately, this scribbled matrix was nowhere to be seen.

“Let’s see…”

I pulled the lever again and again, marveling at the books that came and went. There was a book called "How to Make a Hundred Things You Always Wanted and Two Hundred that You Didn’t." There was another one called "Free the Crafter Within: Inspiration for the Uninspired." And of course, there were the classics: "The Art of Amuletry" and "Basic Alchemical Manipulation for the Would-be Manipulator."

Some were all old books, many dating back to the first year of the Easterly state and written in an archaic form of our language. I couldn’t understand a word, but I was sure that for those with patience, they had a wealth of knowledge and information inside them.

I was about to pull the lever to bring forth a new row of books, when one tome stood out among the rest. It was titled "The Art of Black Miodes.”

A shiver ran down my spine when I saw the last two words. Miodes were the crystallized form of a magic spell. Spells were made from mana - an air spirit that mages conditioned to work a certain way, and artificers worked with mana made physical. These physical crystallizations of mana were miodes, and the miodes that crystallized from dark magic were called black miodes. Their use was heavily regulated to the point of it practically being banned.

Why would Master Cooper have such a book? Needless to say, my interest was so piqued that there was no question of whether I’d reach for it.

When I did, a physical field of light formed around the book and formed a sort of shell, stopping me from grabbing it.

“Damn it.”

I took from my pocket a book that Cooper had given me called ‘A Young Artificer’s Field Guide’ and flicked through to the 'Security, defense, and prevention' section, turning through page after page filled with examples of such artificery. There were wards that protected against attacks, alarms that notified you when someone entered your home, and traps that attacked intruders.

Soon, I learned that the artificery protecting the black miode book was made using a crystallized utility miode ingrained into the book's cover. It was completely impossible for an apprentice artificer without the ‘Disenchant’ skill to break it, and the book wouldn't release itself to anyone without the correct charm word.

Reluctantly having to forget about reading ‘Black Miodes’, I pulled the lever and watched the book disappear. I pulled again and again until finally, the one I needed appeared.

Three days later, after burning not just midnight oil but also early morning, afternoon, and evening oil, my clock was finished. It was perfect. Everything was working as it should, and it even ticked this time.

“Master, please test it for me if you would be so kind."

Humoring me, Cooper walked over to the clock and took a look at it. He wound the hands and set the clock ticking. Standing with folded arms and looking at it, his demeanor gave nothing away to me, an eager apprentice waiting for a good word or two.

Finally, he nodded. "You fixed a problem, and that's the root of all craft. Not just artificery. Someone has a problem or a need, and we use our skills to fix it. You did some proper crafting on this lad. Well done. Here's your experience."

+70% EXP received [Simple Craft & Forge skill tree]

A strange feeling filled me, unlike anything I had felt. It started at my fingertips and shot up my arm, and then spread throughout my body until I was trembling all over.

Skill tree earned: Simple Craft & Forge Work

Level: 1

EXP: 100/100

- Craft, Repair, Upgrade, and Dismantle skills unlocked

- Crafting menu unlocked

- Crafting stamina bar unlocked

[Current stamina: 50/50]

Feeling a warm glow on my left forearm, I looked at my token bracelet to see that the token I had put in the first slot was now completely covered with the etching of a hammer and an anvil. A blue light formed around the bracelet slot, indicating that it was occupied by a token imbued with an actual skill.

The skill is inside me, I had to remind myself. The token is just a focus point, a prism, and the bracelet is what lets it work.

I looked at Cooper, feeling a great big grin spread across my face. He nodded at me knowingly as if to tell me that none of this was surprising in the least to him, having gone through many, many level-ups during his career.

"Well?" he said.

"Well, what?"

"How do you feel?"

"Like I want to craft the crap out of something! Excuse my language, master."

He laughed. "Excused."

Now, instead of just having the token bracelet communicate to me through text that only I could see, I found that I could interact with it. Doing so was intuitive. I didn't need Cooper to tell me how. It was as though it was an instinct dormant inside me and only now uncovered, and that my lineage, my brain, my blood knew how to use it.

I accessed my crafting menu. A list of items that I could craft appeared. They were listed in order of difficulty, and each of them had a progress bar, material list, and crafting stamina cost. Furthermore, I could filter the list by material and utility. For example, if I filtered by 'Wood' and then 'Weapons', the following list of craftable items appeared:

─ Wooden sword

─ Wooden shield

─ Wooden spear

─ Wooden bow

─ Wooden dagger

─ Wooden club

─ Wooden axe

I crossed the workshop and went outside into the yard, where Master Cooper kept piles of scrap wood. I took a few planks of roughhewn oak and brought them back inside, where I put them on my workbench. All this time, Master Cooper didn’t say a word. He just watched with a strange, almost satisfied smile on his face.

The wood had been scrapped for a reason - it was splintered and had nails driven deep into it, some of which were rusted and with the head snapped off. Accessing my Repair skill, I activated it against a plank of wood.

10 crafting stamina points used

Just like that, the nails popped out of the wood, the splinters were sanded down, and the plank itself was cut into a more uniform rectangle, ready for use.

Amazing wasn’t even a strong enough word for it. Such a task was within my abilities before I earned the skill, but it would have taken me an hour of work to pull out all the nails. Instead, it had cost me ten stamina points, and had taken seconds.

That wasn't everything. Following the repair, more text appeared.

- Repair successful

- 1% EXP earned

"Hey! I just earned experience for using an ability."

"I know," said Cooper. "As your master, I see all your prompts. Now that you earned the Simple Craft skill tree, you'll earn EXP by using the abilities within it. I'll still have to award you EXP from time to time, but a lot of your advancement depends on you practicing and working hard.”

"So, unlocking a skill lets me earn EXP by using it."

"Exactly. And leveling a skill reduces stamina points that you need to use it, gives you a better quality product, and opens up more menu options for you.”

"I think I’m going to love this, master."

"One last thing," said Cooper. He approached his workbench, where he opened a drawer and took out a strange box. "This is a little gift from me to you on account of your hard work and dedication. It's a tiny bit of extra motivation. Just don’t go getting greedy, or I might have to take it from you."

I held the box, feeling strange about it. Mother had never had enough money to buy me gifts. Then, when we lived at the manor, my gifts always paled next to those given to my step-siblings. Receiving them always made me feel uncomfortable, as though I didn’t deserve them.

“Come on,” said Master Cooper good-naturedly. “Get on with it.”

I opened it. Inside were four tokens, each of them blank.

“Those are yours, for you to learn the other four skills that every artificer must know. Disenchant, Enchant, Tinkering, and Alchemy. You’re well on the way now, lad. You’ve got one skill tokenized. See that you keep up your hard work, you hear?”

Receiving such physical representations of my future made me eager to get started and made me feel grateful that I’d come to Sunhampton and spoken to Master Cooper at the apprentices’ fair. If I’d stayed at the manor, what would have happened?

Well, today was the day my stepfather would have kicked me out. So I’d have been homeless, today of all days. I wouldn’t have made a start on my future profession, and I wouldn’t know where I was going or what I would do.

“Oh,” said Master Cooper. “Happy sixteenth birthday.”

With that, he left me alone in the workshop. I smiled as I closed the door behind him. It was a cold night outside, but warmth spread through me all the same.

Just then, I heard a muffled voice from outside.

I opened the door again, feeling a blast of cold wind on my face. "Did you say something, master?"

"Your Sundays are your own again," he said.

Chapter 8

Over the next few days, I used the 'Upgrade' ability of my ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ skill tree to improve the quality of all the tools I had previously tried to sell in the market. For the hammers, I improved their weight and balance, making them easier to swing. I made the screwdrivers better by improving their strength and sharpness. I also upgraded my shovels, giving them longer handles and improving their durability.

Using my Upgrade skill drained my crafting stamina, and the only reliable way to replenish it was to rest. Some crafters swore by meditation, but Master Cooper didn’t practice it. Thanks to many bouts of work and then rest, work and then rest, the process of upgrading all my stock took three days. When I was waiting for my crafting stamina to replenish, I either studied toward my next skill - Simple Unenchantment - or practiced crafting manually without using abilities.

Such manual practice honed my 'crafter's nose' as Cooper put it, and would feed into my Simple Craft skill and gradually improve the quality of items that I made. This meant it was important for a crafter to not just use his menu abilities, but to do things the hard way, too.

"If I’m honest," I told Master Cooper one lunchtime, "I prefer to make things the slower way. It's more rewarding."

Master Cooper swallowed a chunk of his Artificer’s Special. I really couldn’t work out how he didn’t get sick of eating so many of them. He must have eaten three per day for all his life, at least. "Your words are like a fiddle to a drunk. It's useful to be able to craft things in a second. But it's more pleasant to earn your sweat."

When the fourth Sunday of the month finally came, the weather was chillier than usual, and the sky a deep gray. The trees outside the workshop were bare of leaves, and frost covered the ground. There was a whisper of wind through the lonely branches, and I could smell snow in the air. Many people don't think that snow has a smell, but to them, I would say this: you’ve never traveled Easterly in a theatre troupe’s poorly insulated carriage in the middle of a bleak winter.

I loaded a cart with my tools and made the walk from Master Cooper's house into Sunhampton, passing a handful of other merchants on the way. Most of them gave me curious looks as I passed, but none of them spoke to me or offered to trade.

I arrived at the gates of Sunhampton, where the lone village guard stood watch. His name was Skinny Mick, and he only worked on market days. He wasn't really needed since market merchants often dealt their own justice to thieves, which sometimes involved beating the thief unconscious. Of course, this was all outside the law, but that didn't seem to matter much. The presence of a guard on a market day was, however, a state law, and thus Skinny Mick found employment one month a week to supplement his regular job as a butcher.

Skinny Mick was no more than five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. He wore a leather jerkin that showed off his thin arms and skinny frame. He had a long jawline, a pointed chin, and straight brown hair that covered his eyes unless he dropped a thimble of grease on his palm and swept it back.

"Morning, young sir," he said. "Didn't see you at the last market."

I was surprised that he even remembered me. "I was...busy," I answered. “Do you expect there will be any trouble today?”

"Should I expect that?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then why did ye ask?"

"Just curious," I said.

"Well. Focus on flogging those trinkets of yours. Selling just one of ‘em would be a good start!" he said, sending himself into a gale of laughter that his pipe smoker's lungs quickly turned into a coughing fit. I left him to his spluttering and headed into the village, where the market awaited.

There were some unusual stalls today, such as one where a man was selling bags of dried fish that could be sprinkled into soups. Some others had fresh produce, including rare flowers grown a thousand miles away from here. Other vendors sold cheap paper and fabric goods, and a few peddlers advertised various hot foodstuffs and drinks. Most people were carrying around bundles of cloth or baskets of fruit, and many of them were buying up supplies for winter.

My cart was hardly impressive, but I had brought a lot more tools than most of the other vendors. Not many stalls were selling tools and those that did sold them only as a byproduct. I began to feel like I would make money today.

Since I was still just a poor apprentice, I took my usual position among the penny merchants. Incredibly, I saw that although the penny merchant section was packed, the spot where I usually laid my tools was saved for me. I looked around, wondering who would do such a thing. With no obvious candidates, I asked the merchant next to me, who was selling a selection of cheap jewelry made from fish bones. "Who saved my space?"

"Let the demons fry my arse if I know," he said. "Move aside. You're standing in my light."

I started arranging my tools on my strip of cloth, making a row of hammers, screwdrivers, shovels, and pickaxes. My items looked much better than before. Studier, better polished, just of all-round better quality, thanks to my Upgrade ability. They had a gleam to them, I thought, though I didn’t know if that was true or if I was just so proud of them that my eyes were tricking me.

It took three hours to pour a bucket of dirty water over my spirits. The morning wore on, and folks came and went, but none of them approached me or my wares. I just didn't understand it. My tools were good. Very good, perhaps. There was just no reason for them not to get even a curious glance.

That was when a girl approached me. She was my age, and she had short black hair and green eyes. Her outfit was simple and practical, consisting of a woolen tunic and trousers. She carried a small sack over her shoulder.

She stepped into my stall. "You don't mind if I look at your tools, do you?"

"Of course not. Do you want to buy one?"

"Not yet, but I might. What's your best item?"

"This hammer, right here."

"Why?"

"Because it's the most useful. And if you don’t have any projects to complete, you can use it to knock someone on their backside."

She laughed. "I'll take a hammer, please."

I charged her three gold for the hammer, which was below the market rate for such a tool. I was, however, a penny merchant, so I couldn’t charge normal prices. She took the hammer, felt its heft, then placed it in her bag. After giving me the gold, she sat down next to me.

"Now, if you ask me, your problem isn't your products. They're well-made. At least, I think they are. This isn't my area. No, your problem as I see it, the thing you're really making a dog's balls of, is your presentation."

Her accent was strong, but I couldn't place it. "What's your advice?"

"I'm afraid I'm not a master merchant yet, but if I were you, I'd show these tools off with more flair."

"Flair?"

"Yes. Your tools are fine, but the way you present them is dryer than a dragon’s fart. People won't pay attention to what you're selling until it catches their eye. Spread the tools out in a more pleasing pattern. Don’t just chuck them down and think that’ll catch people’s eye.”

“Right,” I said, wishing I’d brought my notebook.

“Make a sign and bring it to market with you. Stand up beside your products instead of sitting behind them like a beggar. Sales are made in the mind, you see. People look at you sitting there beside your cloth, and they subconsciously think of a beggar, whether they want to or not. And people get uncomfortable around beggars. It makes them feel guilty to see unfortunate people and do nothing about it. So they ignore them."

"So, I'm a beggar who's making a dog's balls of selling his tools?"

"Hey, don't get defensive. You asked for my help."

"I didn't," I said.

"Well, even better. You got it for free! What's your name?"

"Lewis," I said.

"What's your last name?"

Well. that was a tricky one. Legally speaking, my stepfather’s marriage to my mother had removed her surname from me and given me his name instead, even though I would rather take the surname of an axe murderer. I supposed that convention dictated the surname I should use now.

"Lewis Crafter," I said.

"Oh."

The way she said ‘oh’ informed me that the girl was versed in what my surname meant about my status.

"What's your name?" I said to bridge the awkwardness.

"Paisley," she said. "Porter."

That was a tricky one. Porter was a family name. But porter was also a vocation. It didn’t tell me much about her situation.

"I'm sorry if I was a little strange when you told me your name," she said. "I just-"

"Don't worry about it. But how do you know so much about selling things?"

"I'm an apprentice merchant."

"That requires an apprenticeship?" I asked.

She looked a little put out by my remark but quickly recovered her poise. "You and the others around here call yourselves merchants, but you're not. You're just selling things. Being a true merchant is about more than that. It's an art. Your tools look different today. You've improved them. But a merchant could have sold your old tools without a hitch."

"You've been watching me?"

"I've seen you around," said Paisley. "Who do you think saved your space for you?"

I was strangely touched by this, that a girl I had never met would save a space for me. "Well, thanks. When your hammer comes to the end of its durability, bring it back to me and I'll fix it for free. Course, a tool's overall durability decreases every time you repair it, and eventually it’s not worth doing. Otherwise you could just fix the same tool forever, but-"

She plugged her ears with her fingers. "You crafts people are all alike. Let's pretend I listened to your really interesting information. And now that I've done that, instead of fixing my hammer in ten years when I've finally used it enough, you can just buy me a sweet roll and a mug of coffee."

The vendor selling pastries and hot drinks had a sign outside his stall. A sweet roll cost fifty silvers, and mugs of coffee were 30 silvers each. If Paisley's advice sold even one more of my tools, then it was a bargain indeed. I checked my pocket to make sure I could afford it. Master Cooper gave me a weekly stipend, but it wasn’t very much. Luckily, I could afford the sweet roll and coffee.

"You've got a deal," I said.

"Great! And while we're talking about rewards, I want half of whatever you make today, and I'll keep giving you advice. Maybe I'll even use my abilities to get you a customer or two. I earned Simple Persuasion last week. Don’t think for one second that I’m doing you a favor. This is a business arrangement. If you don't agree, then I'm going to pack up and go home."

Half? That was a big cut!

"No deal," I said.

"But—"

"I mean it," I said. "I'm a penniless apprentice with no money to speak of. What's half of nothing?"

She fixed me with a strange stare. "Trust me. Half is a good cut. It sounds good, doesn't it? It sounds great to you. Just what you always wanted."

"Quit it! You were trying to use your persuasion whatsit skill on me, weren't you?"

"Simple Persuasion," she said. "But clearly, it didn’t work. I guess you're more stubborn than I realized."

"Do you think it's right, trying to forcibly change a person's mind like that?" I said, feeling angry.

"Persuasion doesn't work like that. I can't use it to make you do something you don't want to do. Not even someone with Master Persuasion could do that."

"Then what does it do?" I said.

"Persuasion only works on desires you already have, whether you know about them or not. If someone with Persuasion can pinpoint a desire of yours, they can use their ability to guide it along."

I felt strangely proud that I had been stubborn enough to withstand Paisley's powers, and the pride overrode my initial anger. "Give me some mercantile help, and I'll deal you in on a twenty percent cut," I said.

"Forty."

"Nineteen."

"That's not the way negotiation works. And I should know," she said.

"I made the tools. Without them, there's nothing to sell."

"Hmm. How many had you sold before I bought the hammer?"

"Well…just one screwdriver. And that was a charity purchase, honestly. But that doesn't matter! Twenty percent, and that's final."

Paisley stuck out her hand toward me. "Agreed."

Paisley set to work using her mercantile skills to improve my products. She suggested that I should add a sign to my stall to attract attention. A simple wooden sign was listed in my crafting menu, so I bought a cheap piece of timber from a materials merchant on the far end of the plaza, and I used my crafting ability to make it within a second.

"I can't believe how quick that was!" said Paisley. "I barely blinked, and you’d made it!"

I ran my finger along the sign, feeling its smooth finish. "Ah, you know. It was nothing. Easy."

"Now for the really important part. Your shop needs a name."

Paisley used a brush and ink to write on the sign. 'Lewis Crafter - Craftsman of Fine Tools.'

Leaning on the sign, she told me, "I thought about a fun, snappy name. Something clever. But you have to consider your audience. People want tools that do their job and last a long time. And that's what your sign needs to promise them. I can see you're still dubious."

"I'm not. It looks good to-"

"Here. Lemme show you. I'll share what I see when I look at the sign, thanks to my Simple Advertisement skill."

Words appeared in the air, hovering just above the sign. I recognized it as token text, but unlike mine, it was colored yellow.

'Lewis Crafter - Craftsman of Fine Tools'

+15% trustworthiness

+10% Attention grabbing

+5% Persuasion

"Great! But would the sign have accomplished those things if I had written the same thing?"

"No," said Paisley. "My Advertising skill helps it along. Now. There are just a few more things we need to do to improve your chances of selling things."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, first, you should get rid of that old cloth that you lay your tools on. It's ugly, and people don't like looking at ugly things. They're repelled by ugliness. No offense intended."

"None taken," I said, before the full implication of her words sunk in. “Hey!”

She laughed. "You should add some kind of display stand so that people can hold your tools, try them out, and imagine themselves using them."

I slapped my forehead. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're too close to your wares. You know what they feel like in your hands, but other people don't. They will be able to buy the tools if they can touch them. Now, I can go buy you a simple wooden display stand for fifteen silvers, but if you can find something similar around town, then your best bet is to buy it."

"I can craft something that'll do the job."

"Oh. Yeah. Course you can."

One display stand later, and things were really shaping up. I had a fine-looking free-standing sign to tell people who I was and what I offered, and I had my wares arranged on a nice-looking stand. But Paisley wasn't finished.

"We still haven't talked about your actual sales pitch," she said. "How do you convince someone to buy your wares?"

"Well..." I said. "If I knew that, then I wouldn't be talking to you."

"Rude. Ah. Well, I'm an apprentice too, remember? I'm still learning, but maybe I can give you a few tips."

She spent a few moments scribbling on a piece of paper before handing it to me. I was struck by how neat her handwriting was. No, not just neat. Ornate. It couldn’t have been different from my own handwriting, which resembled marks scratched into the dirt by wild chickens. I read the sales pitch she had written for me.

‘Good morning! I'm Lewis Crafter, a young craftsman who makes high-quality tools for all your needs. I believe that the finest tool has the potential to change lives. I craft them with care and precision, and they'll prove themselves over and over again.’

"Well?"

I thought about how best to word what I wanted to say.

"Not that I'm ungrateful," I said, "But it seems a little-"

"Stilted? Forced?"

"Yeah."

"Don’t worry. Because it's a sales pitch written by a merchant apprentice, the tone you use doesn’t matter. It's the overall effect of the pitch as a whole that's important, and this pitch screams 'my tools are great, and they'll do the job.'"

I nodded. "My tools are great. And they'll do the job." I smiled at her. "Thanks, Paisley."

"Thank me by selling this pile of crap and giving me twenty percent!"

Morning turned into lunchtime, which quickly turned into afternoon. The market plaza of Sunhampton was filled with people passing through. I was busy selling my wares. Paisley looked in on me from time to time, making sure everything went well. But she spent much of her time milling around the other traders in the penny merchant section.

It took an embarrassing amount of time for the truth to hit me. Two more hours, maybe three. But when the truth arrived in my brain, it did so like a cart pulled by wild horses spooked by a bear.

Paisley was using her merchant skills to help all the vendors in the penny merchant section. Making a sign here, adjusting a sales pitch there. She helped a rug trader rearrange his rug placement, to great effect. She went from one trader to another doing this, no doubt earning a twenty percent cut of their profits. Soon, she'd be earning gold from all of us, and all she would have to do was sit on her ass and wait for us to sell things.

I didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed. First, I wanted to confirm that my suspicions were correct. I approached the man who was selling jewelry made from bone and asked him if Paisley had offered to help him sell more jewelry.

"Aye. The lass is a nugget of gold, I tell you she is," said the man.

"She's taking a cut from each of us," I said.

"And so what? If she helps us lighten the purses of the snooty 'uns," he said, nodding at the shoppers in the plaza, "Then more power to her."

After thinking about it some - and selling a set of five screwdrivers to an old man who was planning to fix up a giant fence around his two-acre land, I decided that I agreed with the bone jewelry seller. Before Paisley's help, I'd sold one item. Now, I'd already sold eight!

The day wore on, and the sun beat down on the plaza. Paisley came and went, but I felt as though she was always watching me. The people in the plaza seemed friendlier towards me now, as if they somehow sensed my agreement with Paisley, and I was benefitting from her popularity.

I sold sixteen items that day. Paisley took her twenty percent cut, and we said our goodbyes. Before heading back to the workshop, I decided I would go to the King's Head tavern and buy myself a half ale.

Chapter 9

"Enchantment is like cock rot," said Cooper. "It comes in many forms, has many effects, and there are more ways of getting one than you'd expect. But for an artificer, Enchantment is the most powerful and useful skill available." He swept the dust off a chair and then sat on it. "But where would enchantment be without the art of removing enchantments?"

We were in the workshop. The air was damp and warm, an after-effect from some artificery that Cooper had been doing the night before. We hadn't bothered turning on any lamps since dawn because Master Cooper wanted to save oil. The dim illumination of the sunlight through the windows cast a soft glow across the room. I watched it, thinking that there were worse places to spend your mornings.

It wasn't often that Cooper gave me educational lectures in such a way, so I sat up straight with paper and ink, ready to take notes.

"An artificer can't produce any magic of his own," said Cooper, "Or most of us would just be mages. The Gods know that it would be more lucrative. Those bloody mages are paid a fortune. But in any case, it is what it is. Given we can't make any magic by ourselves, we must buy it. The easiest way is to buy miodes from a mage. Time for a Super Cooper Quiz: Tell me, what’s a miode, lad?"

"Magical power crystallized into physical form so that an artificer can work with it."

"That's right. An artificer with the Enchantment skill can use miodes to give an item a specific magical effect. If a mage transformed a teleportation spell into miodes, the subsequent miodes would confer teleportation effects to whatever we used it on. But, as I may have mentioned once or twice, mages are greedy bastards. They know we need them, and so they price gouge our arses off. There is, however, another means of acquiring miodes."

"Disenchantment."

"You've just pissed into a bull's eye," said Cooper.

"Huh?"

"I mean, exactly. You're right. Disenchantment. The skill of removing miodes from an already-artificed item while preserving as many miodes as you can in the process. We can also use the Disenchantment skill to buy spell scrolls, which are much cheaper than miode, and disenchant them into miode form."

"Alright! So how do I start?"

"I bloody love your enthusiasm, lad. I really do. The answer is obvious, isn't it? You start at the beginning."

And with that, Master Cooper left the workshop. A little part of me was disappointed that his teaching method was going to remain infuriatingly vague. But I was a student, and if I was going to learn to be an artificer, then I'd have to work hard. First lesson. Start at the beginning.

My first step was to use Cooper's artificed bookshelf. As I pulled the lever one time after another, I realized that the books were starting to become familiar to me, and a mental map of them was forming in my mind. Pretty soon, I started to recognize the patterns of books and where my lever-pulling would lead.

Not long after that, I stationed myself at my workbench with a pot of coffee, and ‘Casual Disenchantments’ spread open in front of me. I had wiped the workbench clean of grease so as not to dirty the book. I still wasn’t sure if I should be using Master Cooper’s library. He hadn’t forbidden me, but he'd also never given me permission. Maybe his lack of theoretical teachings was supposed to be supplemented by the books, and to him, it was so obvious a thing that it should be left unsaid.

In any case, I began reading the book and taking notes, hoping to find a methodology for disenchanting something. My efforts went unrewarded because this book was a little too advanced and assumed knowledge that I just didn’t have. Two hours later, I was frustrated.

There came a knock at the door. The wood on the door was artificed so that from the inside, we could see who was outside. The visitor, however, would just see a solid wooden frame. Standing there was Paisley Porter. She was wearing a plain brown shirt and trousers, complete with a straw hat. In her hand was a leather sack.

"I forgot the name of your master, so I had to ask where the strange-looking artificer boy lives," she said. "Looks like I got it right. Anyway, I brought you some stuff."

"Great," I said. "Come in." I reached over and took the sack from her. It was heavy but not overly so. "What's all this?" I asked.

"A few things." She grinned. "First, some clothes. They're yours now, and you'll need them if you ever want to fit in with the other merchants."

"Thank you," I said. "How much for these?"

"Twenty silvers. Tailor Gleethorpe was getting rid of them because they were torn, but I fixed them up. Better they go to you than be thrown away."

"No. Thank you."

"You don't like the colors?" Paisley said, picking up a pair of trousers and holding them up.

Whirling through my mind were all the things that had been handed down to me over the years. The Five Fiends often donated their old clothes to me, and though I had understood my mother’s predicament, I had never felt right accepting other people’s tired, old garments.

"I just don't like hand-me-downs," I said. "I'll buy my own clothes when I have the gold."

"Have I upset you?"

"Course not," I said.

"It's okay to say if I have, you know. People shouldn't cork their feelings."

I was strangely touched, but I said, "Honestly, I'm fine."

"Okay. Well, that'll be twenty silver, as I said."

"I don’t want the clothes!"

"But I still bought 'em for you!”

“You said you got them for free.”

“Gods, you're stubborn. Fine. Come to the village, and you can buy me a roll," said Paisley.

"You and your sweet rolls. Anyway, I can’t come to the village right now."

"Not for one hour?"

"Not even for ten minutes."

"Why?" she asked.

"Sunday is my free day, but today's Tuesday. I have lots of work to do."

"Work has a habit of getting itself done, don’t you find? Come on. Buy me a roll. What's so important that means you’re stuck in this place? It smells like burning oil in here. I don’t know how you don’t pass out."

I explained to Paisley about Disenchantment and how I was struggling to even find a means of performing a simple one.

"Easy," she said. "Tattersall's Books is in the village. Old Percy Tattersall will have something. So, you see, this trip to the village will actually be helpful to your studies and not at all centered around my desire for you to buy me a sweet roll."

I almost got up off my seat but couldn't help glancing out of the workshop window, which gave a view of the yard and across it, another, bigger workshop that was private to Master Cooper. From it, smoke drifted up out of the chimney.

"Well?" said Paisley.

"Let's make this quick."

In the village, we bought sweet rolls and coffee at the bakery and then headed to Tattersall's Bookshop. When the shopkeeper saw Paisley, he rushed over and embraced her.

"Miss Porter! Gods bless, it's grand to see you again. How are you?"

"Fine, thank you, Percy. And you?"

"Quite well. Some new customers came in last week. Soldiers on leave, with a lot of money. Very keen on reading…let’s say…some of my more adult romance books.” And who’s your friend here?” said Mr. Tattersall, gesturing at me.

"He's my apprentice. His name is William," said Paisley.

I glared at Paisley, who looked like she was holding in a mighty laugh.

“Your apprentice, is he? When did you become a master, might I ask?”

I stuck my hand out. “I’m Lewis Crafter. I'm Master Cooper’s apprentice.”

“Master Cooper has taken on an apprentice?”

“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised?”

"No reason. Nice to meet you, Mister Crafter. My name is Percy Tattersall. Now that we’re introduced, Welcome to Tattersall's. Will you be buying any books today?"

"Maybe a few."

"Ah, good. What sort of books do you like?”

I took a sheet of paper from my pocket and unfolded it. “Do you have Blake Lately-Bridge’s ‘Starting Enchantments?’”

Mr. Tattersall nodded. "Of course. I think I have it here." He began walking along the shelves behind the counter. After several minutes, he returned with a book in his hands. "Here it is." He held the book out to me.

I took the book and opened it up. Inside was a page with the title of the book written in black ink.

I couldn’t believe it was so easy. I just walked in, and there it was. The book I needed. Well, I supposed that was how bookshops worked. I just hadn’t expected him to have a copy of a quite uncommon artificery book.

“That’ll be seven gold and twenty-one silvers,” said Mr. Tattersall.

“Hmm. I might have to come back.”

Paisley appeared from the back room. “I’ll pay the difference!” Getting closer to me, she said, “My loan interest is always a generous ten percent." She gave me a wink.

“I’ll come back,” I told Mr. Tattersall. “Do you think you could hold the book for me, please?”

“For a young man with both excellent manners and the sense to turn down Apprentice Porter’s loan terms? Of course.”

“Thanks. I won’t be long.”

Paisley bought a book about emotions and their role in selling goods at the market. She paid two gold and six silvers, plus two copper pieces for a bookmark. “I always buy a bookmark,” she told me. “I must have two hundred of them at home in a little box.”

When we left, Paisley decided that it was sweet roll time and headed north on Prospect Row. Ten minutes later, we were in a bakery called Rolls and Dough, with a sweet roll each and a hot drink. I took coffee while Paisley ordered a cup of tea.

"Let's talk about our business,” she said.

“Our business?”

“Yep. Lewis Crafter - Crafter of Fine tools. You know, the business we’ve been working on?”

“I didn’t know there was an ‘our’ aspect to this.”

She took a giant bite of her roll, tried to speak but couldn’t, then chewed with exaggeration. Finally, she said, “Look. Your tools were the best products out of all the penny merchants, and you’re only going to get better judging by how you study all the time. But you need business know-how. Why not combine our talents? I don’t need my name on the sign - I just need coins in my bag.”

“How much?”

“If I’m a real partner, then more than 20 percent.”

“Thirty.”

She looked at me with her strange expression again. “Forty sounds like a great deal to you. You want to settle for”-

I slammed my hand on the table, startling both her and the couple sitting at the table near ours.

“Sorry,” I told them, then turned to Paisley. “If we’re going to work together, you can’t use any of that stuff on me.”

“What stuff?"

"Your persuasion skills."

"Fine. Thirty percent is too low. Forty."

"Deal."

Chapter 10

"Mister Crafter, Mister Crafter!" A voice called out. "You're missing a customer!"

"Coming!" I yelled back to Paisley.

Sunhampton market day was two weeks away, so we had journeyed to Little Flitwick, where there was a crafter’s market. Paisley talked the market organizer, a pencil-thin older guy named Cecil, into giving us a good spot.

“You set things up,” Paisley said. “I’m gonna check out the sweet roll situation.”

The Flitwick clientele was a step above Sunhampton, judging by the way they dressed. There wasn’t a penny merchant section in sight. In fact, it was costing us one gold to rent a spot.

Paisley returned with two sweet rolls, a coffee for me, and tea for her.

“Are you sure this is gonna be worth it?” I asked.

“You want that book about dischancers, don’t you?”

“Disenchantment.”

“That one. Well, just trust me.”

“Trust is not a word I use often," I said.

"Then let's say 'believe'. I believe you'll have a profitable day."

Within an hour, Paisley and I had sold more than enough to cover our costs and perhaps even make us some profit. It was a great success by my standards. By late afternoon, the market traffic was ebbing, and many vendors had packed away their wares. We’d earned 28 gold, which we agreed to divide when we got to Sunhampton rather than do it here and invite thieves.

"That was fun," said Paisley. "But I'm starting to feel the hunger pains now. Let's go somewhere, eat, and rest. Then we can head home."

“Sure. Where shall we eat?”

"Oh, let's try out that place I saw on the way in. The little restaurant with the black sign."

Heading deeper into Little Flitwick, we found the Black Orchid. It was a small, cozy-looking bistro. A middle-aged woman waited on us.

“Hello there. Take a seat, and I’ll be with you shortly. Can I get you something to drink?”

After ordering our drinks, Paisley told me about her first day in Sunhampton.

“It was four weeks after my pa died. A solicitor called Berwick dealt with the house. He said after selling it, there was enough to pay Pa’s debts but not a copper left over. After his fees, of course. But he said I had an uncle in Sunhampton. Pa’s brother. Pa never ever told me about him.

So I got Mr. Berwick to give me enough silver for a carriage ride, and I headed over here. Uncle Jace was happy to see me. He didn't know I existed either, and he never had kids. He said I could be his apprentice, and that was that. He’s extremely rich, by the way.”

The lady came with our drinks, and we ordered food. I chose a thick vegetable soup with bacon and mushrooms. Paisley wanted fish cakes.

"So, why did you choose a career as a crafter?" Paisley asked. “You seem like a bright guy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what they say about crafters.”

“Master Cooper is the cleverest person I know. Besides, I'm going to be an artificer. Crafter is more of a general term.”

“Consider me corrected.”

The lady appeared bearing a steaming bowl of food. “Here we are, lovies, one fish cake, and one soup. Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” said Paisley.

The food was delicious. Cozy food for a cozy place. The lighting was just right, and there was a hearth burning orange and red in the corner. A bard set up a stool and settled on it with a lute on his lap and started playing a gentle tune, his volume welcome but not overwhelming our conversation.

As we ate our food, Paisley told me about her hopes for after her apprenticeship. “I want to open a shop. Something special. I want a shop that sells only quality items. Y’know, only products that are crafted well. The kind of shop that gets people talking about it. I want everyone to know that they should come to Paisley Porter - Seller of Fine Things. I want my name to be what people think of when they need something. Like, ‘I need a new...spice rack. I better go to Paisley’s!’”

“Sounds quaint.”

“That’s what I want. Quaint and wholesome.”

“Very wholesome,” I agreed.

She stuffed fish cake into her mouth, and then nodded.

“And when I have enough gold saved, I'll start going to bankruptcy hearings and learn when folks are going to lose their businesses. Then I'll start making low offers. Snap up a few shops. You know, all cheap-like.”

“Good luck. And maybe we’ll make a bunch of gold together in the meantime.”

“Maybe indeed. I had fun today, Lewis.”

“Me too.”

Chapter 11

By now, thanks to Paisley's influence, I was used to heading into Sunhampton even when it wasn't Sunday. Master Cooper never seemed to notice my absence, and as long as I knew I’d done all my work and studying, I didn’t feel guilty. The morning after our trip, I headed to Tattersall’s shop to buy the book he’d set aside for me. When he saw me enter his shop, Mr. Tattersall reached under the counter and set the book down.

"Starting Enchantments," he said. "Here and ready for Master-To-Be Lewis Crafter."

I proudly put the gold down on the counter. "Thanks for holding it for me."

"I hope it has what you need."

I stopped by Rolls and Dough to buy some pastries and then headed back to Cooper's craftstead, where Master Cooper was once again locked in his own workshop. I left a sweet roll on his doorstep and knocked softly on the wood, then headed to the workshop across the yard to begin my studies. There, I sat at my workbench on a stool I had made myself, and I used my Upgrade ability to offer more back support.

And so I began.

‘Starting Enchantments’ by Blake Lately-Bridge was written for his son, who was an apprentice and whose reading comprehension skill was holding back his obvious potential for crafting. This meant the language was a little young for me, but the step-by-step guide on disenchantment was more than I could ask for.

The method to disenchanting an artificed object went thus:

1. Remove all of the miode from the item, including the miode from its frame.

2. If possible, use a disenchantment gauge to make sure there is no miode left over.

3. Add the miodes removed to a miode pool for storage.

4. Sell the item if it is no longer needed.

This was a little too much of an overview for me, but at least it gave me an idea of the overall process. What I needed, though, was something a little more practical. Reading on, I found what I required in chapter twenty-six.

How to remove miodes from an artificed item:

1. Put the object you wish to disenchant upon a block of stone, metal, or wood. Do not place it on a wet surface or near anything that is producing excessive heat. With your enchanting fork, strike the item repeatedly until the miodes are unsettled.

2. Use artificer's goggles to see the miodes and remove them piece by piece with alchemical tongs. Careful! Too much pressure will 'burst' the miode, releasing it into the air.

3. When Disenchantment skill is earned, the removal process can be accomplished quickly using 'Disenchant' ability, as long as you have the required artificer tools in your possession. The amount of miodes removed without bursting will depend on the artificer's skill level.

Looking around the workshop, I couldn't see any artificer goggles or alchemical tongs. I'd seen Cooper wearing goggles maybe a hundred times, and he'd used tongs of many kinds and for all sorts of things. There was a black pair over by the forge, for instance, but those weren't alchemical, and I doubted they were any good at manipulating tiny miodes.

Equipment-wise, the general rule of the workshop was that anything visible and touchable was free for me to use. Anything locked away was obviously out of bounds. With no sign of artificer's goggles laying around, I was stuck.

Damn it, I thought. Why is everything so difficult? But no, that wasn’t quite it. I didn’t mind difficulties. It was more the fact that my own master seemed to be making my studies more frustrating than they should be.

I don't know why it was that moment that finally sparked it off in me, but I felt hot anger begin to grow in my chest. As I marched out of the workshop and into the yard, it became a gale roaring inside me. When I faced the locked door of Master Cooper's private workshop, it was a tempest already blowing its anger into my brain and banishing my more sensible thoughts.

Banging on his door, I said, "Master Cooper! I need to speak with you."

He ignored me, and the sound of hammering and clanging intensified from beyond the door.

I banged on the door harder. "Master Cooper! I won't go away until you talk to me!"

"I'm busy!"

"Not too busy to eat the sweet roll I left you! Master Cooper, I am your apprentice, and I need your help. You are being negligent in your duties."

A great stomping sound got closer and closer, and the door flew open. Master Cooper stood there in a huge black, leather apron. He looked like he had been working hard all night. His hair was ruffled. He glared at me through his goggles.

"Don't you dare call me negligent, you little snail of a boy. I could cook your every meal and serve it up to you, but what happens when I'm not around? You need to learn to cook for yourself."

"You say that, but then you hide the cooking pans and the kitchen knives."

Cooper sighed. "What is it that you want?"

"I want you to start being a proper teacher. Show me stuff. Answer my questions. Give me access to artificer's books and tools so I can actually do things!"

"So you aren't learning much from Blake Lately-Bridge's ‘Starting Enchantments?’" said Master Cooper. "Yes, I checked in with Mr. Tattersall to see if you visited his shop. Don’t you don't feel a sense of pride in finding the right book, procuring it, and setting your own learning boundaries and goals? You need me to walk you through each step?"

I wanted to say something. To show him I was still angry, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I found myself dwelling on what Master Cooper had said. Was he right? Would I really learn anything if he just handed me the answer each time? My fury was temporarily forestalled, so I said nothing.

"This isn’t just about you becoming an artificer," he continued. "You're sixteen years old. You need to learn to think and to get for yourself. The world won’t form an apprenticeship with you, lad. It won’t act like a kindly old master, always there to give you answers."

It wasn’t only the sense in his words I could see. Now, I could see the kindness ringing Master Cooper's eyes, hidden under his natural glare. Kindness shaded by the bags under his eyes and almost folded in on the wrinkles worn into his toughened artificer's skin.

"You have been working hard, Master Cooper. I understand. I shouldn’t have disturbed you with my insolence."

"No. You wanted answers, so you made me give them to you. You're doing what I've been teaching you to do, even when it appears like I'm not teaching anything at all. But yes, lad, I have been busy. Do you remember the man that came to visit me not long ago? Well, it turns out his project was quite interesting. Not only that, but it might be just what I need to get my damned debts paid.”

"Is there anything I can help with?"

"Only by letting me work without interruption."

It was then that I heard the voice of Paisley Porter in my head, telling me to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.

"I'll give you peace and quiet to work in," I said. "But I need artificer's goggles, alchemical tongs, a disenchantment fork, and a disenchantment gauge."

Master Cooper thought about it. From his expression, it looked like he was going to say no, and I was going to need to sell a hell of a lot more tools at the market. Finally, he said, "Alright. We'll settle on that. But only because you asked nicely and showed me that you are growing into a fine apprentice."

With that, he turned and walked back into the workshop, closing the door behind him. I listened as he rummaged around, opening shelves and moving boxes. A few minutes later, the door opened again, and he handed me a pair of goggles and a pair of tongs.

"These...these were my first set. They're ‘simple’-rated, so don't expect anything fancy."

"Thank you, Master Cooper."

"Now get out of my sight."

I admired my new artificer's goggles and alchemical tongs. They were exactly what I needed. The craftsmanship was good even for their 'simple' rating, and they were the perfect size for me. The leather straps of the goggles had clearly been replaced, and maybe the frames, too. The tongs were much smaller and thinner than forge tongs, more akin to nail scissors, actually. They were scored with many small marks, some of which glowed red when the sunlight hit them.

In my workshop, I rummaged around in the waste box where Master Cooper kept half-finished or unneeded artificed projects such as self-sharpening pencils, weather clocks, and water canteens that carried a week's worth of water yet fit into the palm of your hand.

Setting the trinkets on my workbench, I put the artificer's goggles on and adjusted the heavy rubber strap to fit. My vision changed. It wasn't just that the lenses magnified the world but that the objects themselves seemed sharper and brighter. I could see the minuscule details of a broken vase, the grain of a wooden board, and the tiny threads on cloth and wood. It was amazing. On the right side of the right lens was a flick switch. I used my index finger to turn it until it clicked. In this way, I cycled through four different views - the 'real' world, a close-up view, a half-miode view, and finally, a miode view.

Seeing miodes for the first time sucked all the breath from my throat. It was like looking at the night sky and seeing a galaxy of stars. There they were, those little miodes, held in a loose structure around the artificed water canteen. Even with the goggles, they were still a little hard to make out in great detail. This was due to the quality of the goggles, no doubt. Like buying a cheap telescope, there was a limit to what they could show me.

I grabbed my disenchantment fork and struck the canteen. Miodes flowed out of the cracks in the metal, floating in the air around the canteen like dust mites. Grabbing my alchemical tongs, I began trying to pluck them out of the air.

The first dozen miodes simply burst when I tried to grab them. Even lessening my pressure, the next two dozen also burst. Luckily, the miodes used for increasing the capacity of something weren't harmful, which was why I had chosen the flask to disenchant rather than a fire-artificed blade or something equally dangerous.

After popping many more, I referred back to the ‘Starting Enchantments’ book for tips. It couldn't offer much, only to say that there was a knack to using alchemical tongues, and each artificer had to find their own knack for themselves.

It took me a full four hours to grab my first miode. When I did, I was rewarded with a token prompt.

0.25% progress towards ‘Simple Disenchantment’ skill tree

As much as it meant I had a lot of work ahead of me, progress was progress. I was going to be spending a lot of time in this workshop, I realized. As Master Cooper used to say, "There's a reason you never see an artificer with a tan."

Chapter 12

Over the next two weeks, I disenchanted every item in the abandoned project bin. This included all the self-filling water canteens; a spirit lamp; a weather-predicting clock; a crystal ball that predicted illnesses at a one percent success rate; and an energy-infused walking stick. With each disenchantment, the number of miodes I successfully removed increased. I started to get the knack, but I was a long way from being able to say I’d mastered it.

Even after so much work - I was often at it from dawn to sunset and beyond, working into the night under the glow of an oil lamp - I had only gotten 70% toward my goal.

And it was there that my progress stopped.

There was no warning, no explanation. I simply disenchanted a self-filling ink pen, but then I received no progress towards getting the Disenchantment skill. Thinking it was an aberration, I tried disenchanting a self-sweeping brush, only to get the same thing. No progress.

Frustration was too pale a word to describe how I felt. I was like a runner who'd pushed through tiredness to complete the race, only to find the last mile of my route blocked by floodwater.

A knock came at the door. Without me getting up to answer it, the door opened. There was no artificery involved - it was just Paisley, who'd decided that a solitary knock was sufficient enough for her to enter the workshop.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what?"

"It's Sunday! It's eight in the morning, and you look like you haven't slept in days, and you clearly haven't prepared for the market, have you?"

I glanced at the sheet of paper on the workshop wall near Cooper's Cuckoo clock. The paper was artificed, of course, and on the first of each month, the days and dates changed. Today was the fourth Sunday of the month, which meant it was Sunhampton market day.

“Oh, hells.”

"You haven't made anything for us to sell, have you?" said Paisley.

"Actually, I have. Lots of things. Wondrous things."

"I don't like people lying to me, Lewis."

"Look. Here are fifty silvers. Go get yourself-"

"You can't buy my affections."

"Go buy a sweet roll in the village, and I'll be along shortly."

The mention of sweet rolls didn't extinguish her anger. It merely drizzled on the flames just enough to stop them from burning the workshop down. She flicked the coin back to me. "I'll buy my own sweet roll. But you better have some really good stuff to sell."

I didn't want to tear myself away from working toward the Disenchantment skill. It had become beyond an urgent matter to me now; every second not spent studying or practicing was a second of my life frittered away, burst as if it was a miode crushed between alchemical tongs.

A huge part of me wanted to just ignore Paisley. Forget the market for this month. It would be easy. As easy as closing my workshop door and sliding the big bolt across it. I could do that right now.

No. I wouldn’t do that to her. We'd agreed to a partnership, and I’d be a lousy partner if I didn’t turn up. How would I have felt if she'd done that to me? The enterprise obviously meant a lot to her, what with her wanting to save up gold to open a shop of her own once she finished her apprenticeship.

With Paisley gone, I got to work. First, I headed to the supply shed. As an apprentice, that was one thing that Cooper had never restricted my access to. I was beginning to understand that his 'teaching' method was to let me gather the skills I needed to do things by myself. I couldn’t do that without wood and metal, though. From the supply shed, I gathered some oak, iron, steel, and other odds and ends that I might need.

In the workshop, I got to it. Using my Craft ability, I quickly churned out a whole bunch of simple items: a couple of simple chairs, a table and chair set, and a basic bed. Next, I used Upgrade to improve their style, stability, and to upholster them in a much more pleasing way so that they were no longer simple anymore. With half my crafting stamina drained, I still had enough left to be able to craft some tools. With my leftover stamina and materials, I made a blacksmith's hammer and anvil, eight carpentry planes, seven steel vices, and a whole bunch of upgraded screwdrivers, chisels, and saws.

When I was done, a whole ream of notifications awaited me, a couple of which were really exciting.

'Craft' ability leveled up to 2!

- Crafting speed increased

- Crafting stamina drain decreased

- Crafting menu expanded

'Upgrade' ability leveled up to 2!

- Perk gained: 'Sturdy Stuff': Any load-bearing-based upgrades are 2x effective

- Upgrade menu expanded

50% progress towards 'Simple Craft & Forge Skill' skill tree level 2

I had already read about the way artificery EXP worked extensively, and I knew that skill trees were comprised of different levels. First, there was the overall level of the skill tree. Within the tree were my abilities, which also had levels of their own. These were leveled up through use or by EXP given to me by a master, and when they leveled up, they gave me progress toward leveling the overall skill tree.

When I reached ‘Simple Craft & Forge’ level 5, all I'd have to do was level up again, and I would earn Intermediate Craft and Forge, hopefully unlocking some great rewards.

In the yard, the wolfhounds gathered around me excitedly as I loaded all of this stuff into a cart. A whole bunch of furniture should have been too big for the cart, and the anvil was certainly too heavy for a rickety wooden structure. However, this wasn't just a regular cart. The base was reinforced, and there was an artificed tarpaulin on the back. Anything put inside the tarpaulin was squashed down in size, allowing many things to be transported. Finally, there was a tinkered platform and winch on the back so that heavy items could be loaded or unloaded.

I arrived in Sunhampton to find that the market was already open. Paisley was arguing with a man. I hurried over to intervene, but Paisley had seen him off before I even arrived.

"Why aren't we setting up near the penny merchants?"

"Where the heck have you been? I secured us a proper spot, and you almost messed it up!"

"Sorry. I was just loading the cart."

"Luckily, my anger didn't extend to my pastry-buying habits. Here."

She gave me a sweet roll which I tucked into greedily, having missed breakfast. And supper, and my evening meal the night before, come to think of it. I really had been working hard toward earning the Disenchantment skill. Maybe today was the break I needed.

As usual, I set up my display stand and arranged my small tools on it. And as usual, Paisley rearranged them to maximize their attractiveness. Unlike our normal market preparations, today, we weren't in the penny merchant section. The spot Paisley got for us was in a much better part of the plaza, near the row of bakeries and cafes, which meant we'd catch passing trade from folks going to or leaving those establishments. It wasn't a premium spot - those being the areas near the other side of the plaza, which was the natural route for folks who came through the village gates - but it was good.

When I told Paisley how pleased I was with it, she just shrugged. She did this a lot when I complimented her. Whether it was pure modesty or she just didn’t feel comfortable being praised, I didn’t know.

"I made something special for today," I told her.

"You mean you made it this morning, just after I left."

"Perks of having the Simple Craft skill. But yeah. I'm sorry. I've just been so wrapped up in studying. I didn't mean to forget."

"Nobody means to forget, Lewis. But I understand. When I'm chasing a skill, I lose track of time. Let’s see this special thing you made, then."

I reached into the cart tarpaulin and took hold of the chair and table set. Under the artificed tarpaulin, they were the size of my palm and remained so until I set them down, at which point the cart artificery wore off, and they returned to normal size. Paisley walked around the furniture, running her finger over the chair upholstery, tapping the table top to provoke a pleasing knocking sound.

"These are really great. We can sell these for certain."

"Thanks!"

I suddenly became aware of how good it felt to be praised. Not just because it was Paisley but because it was praise for my work. But then I remembered something Master Cooper told me. "Compliments make you weak because they can trick you into thinking you've finished your journey when the heels of your boots aren't even worn down yet. Praise is a song to the ears but an enemy of improvement."

The morning was slow. Paisley sold a set of carpenter's planes to an apprentice and managed to sell one of my chairs to an old lady. "I'll even have my assistant here bring it to your house for free," she said, and I smiled as I carried the chair through the village and to Mrs. Mudar’s little bungalow.

At lunchtime, I bought us pie, peas, and gravy from Rolls and Dough. The pie was a special of the day, consisting of delicious chicken and mushroom filling in a crusty pastry. The peas were boiled with butter and salt. They were great. We ate in silence, Paisley chewing and me poking at my food with the fork. My thoughts were troubled, what with the plateau that I'd hit in trying to earn Disenchantment, and the only thing that kept me from brooding on it was the fact that Paisley made an effort to keep our conversation cheerful. That was a great thing about her - no matter another person's mood, she could overpower it with her own cheerfulness.

The afternoon was better. Paisley sweet-talked a young woman into buying another of my chairs, then persuaded an old man to pay four gold coins for two of my chisel sets. It made me happy to watch Paisley’s expression as she sold things, like watching a bird watcher spot a nest of rare birds and seeing the passion written on their face.

My tools sold much quicker than I expected, and I even got a return customer. It was the red-haired lady from my first ever market day. She looked over my wares, telling me, "My, how you've improved. I'll take the hex screwdriver and a toffee hammer."

As the day wore on, the market became even busier thanks to the carnival rides being erected in the east end of the village square by a bunch of travelers. People were rushing all over the place, and Paisley and I had a hard time keeping up with the number of customers.

"That went well!" said Paisley as we packed up together.

"Yes. Better than last time, anyway."

"You think so?"

"Definitely."

"Good!"

We were both tired after a busy day, but Paisley insisted on taking me to the pub for a drink before returning home. I was glad about it. I needed a cool ale. When we entered, we found that it was far more crowded than usual. As Paisley ordered us drinks, I noticed that some of the folk in the bar wore strange costumes. I asked Paisley about them, and she told me that they were performers from the carnival. Apparently, they were performing there for a few days and then continuing on to Little Flitwick. Seeing them gave me an unexpected longing for my old life with the Five Fiends, and I wondered where Toby and his merry actors were these days.

Finally, it was time to head home. Paisley and her uncle lived at the end of a track that cut east halfway up Calvatia Hill, while Master Cooper and I were at the very top. This meant we often shared most of our journey home together. As we did, Paisley filled my sometimes brooding silences with chatter.

"What are you planning to do now?"

"Hmm? Oh, I dunno. Try to gain enough Disenchantment to get past this plateau I'm stuck on, maybe."

"That's a good plan. You've done well so far. I'm surprised you haven't gotten any further along."

"Thanks. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the skill soon. Something's wrong, and I can't figure it out."

"Maybe you should-"

Paisley stopped talking. A sound was coming from the brush just off the pathway, where the grass banks swelled and the bushland grew wild and free. "Hear that?" she asked me, and I nodded, then took a step closer. There was again. A painful, whining screech that reminded me of the time I saw a cat catch a bird, and its squawks echoed across the hills.

My first thought was that it was one of the wolfhounds, though Cooper didn't let them leave the yard unattended, wary as he was of the village's attitude toward giant dogs roaming stray. I crept forward until the crunch of stone under my feet gave way to the soft tread of grass, and I followed the sound of the whining like a guiding rope, deeper and deeper into the hill's untamed wildland.

"Lewis. Look."

Ahead of us was a gray wolf. Its fur was matted, and one ear flopped to the side. It held itself low to the ground and sniffed the air intently. It was looking right at us.

I soon noticed the trap caught on its right hind leg, steel jaws clamped hard on its bone, rattling whenever the animal dared move. As I crept forward, the wolf began licking its wound. It was injured, but it wasn't dying. Without a means to free itself from the trap, however, its last breath wasn't too far in the future.

"Can you do anything for it?" asked Paisley.

"Maybe. If I can get close."

"Walk slowly, and talk to it softly."

I did as she said, moving carefully and keeping my voice calm as I approached. At last, I reached out, holding my hands with my palms up in front of me. The wolf watched me intently as I put my hand against it. The beast's snout was cold and rough as I ran my fingers through its fur. It lowered its head toward mine, and I felt the tips of its pointed ears brush against my fingertips. Then it flinched, and its lips curled back, revealing its teeth.

"Careful," said Paisley. "It's scared of you."

The primitive instincts in my brain told me that this wasn't true. This wolf wanted blood. I looked away.

The wolf whined and writhed. I could feel its pain. Was I imagining it, or was it begging me to help?

Checking my Craft menu, I saw no muzzles. The only thing I could do was to use a knife to tear a strip from my shirt, which I tied into a knot. "Distract it for me," I said.

"You aren't going to hurt it?"

"I'm going to stop it from hurting us."

I found a strong stick and threaded it through the knot. Then, as Paisley talked to the wolf, I slipped the makeshift muzzle around its snout and mouth. Now, as long as we held the stick up high enough, it couldn’t bite us.

"Hold this, please."

"Maybe we ought to get your master."

"Someone from the village set this trap. If they come back while we're gone, it's done for."

"Then I'll go..."

"Same thing if just one of us stays with the wolf. Do you think a hunter is going to listen to an apprentice who tells him not to kill a wolf? No, the best thing is that we try and free it."

"Alright."

Paisley took hold of the stick. I held the wolf's muzzle closed as she stepped forward and whispered, "Sorry."

The wolf tried to pull free, but Paisley worked her way forward until she was only a couple of strides behind it. She gripped the stick with both hands and pulled. The wolf, sensing its futility, gave up and slumped down onto its paws.

Rounding it carefully, I inspected the trap. It was mostly made of iron, with a leather part here and there. It was a simple design, but it was expertly crafted. I looked at the metal jaws, still locked tight around the wolf's leg. They looked strong enough to break bones.

"Can you disable it?"

"Yeah. Should be pretty easy. In fact, I'll use my Dismantle ability to completely destroy it, just to make sure. And...oh."

"What's wrong?"

"It's artificed to that it can’t be dismantled."

"You're sure?"

"I've been living in a house surrounded by artificery for two months now. It's obvious. You don’t smell it?"

"Nope," said Paisley.

I opened my satchel and took out my artificer's goggles, alchemical tongues, and my disenchantment fork. Carefully, I struck the trap with the fork, sending miodes into the air. The wolf whined at the movement my strike caused, and I apologized to it as Paisley soothed it with her free hand.

Quickly, I began to use the tongs to collect miodes. It was much more difficult in the open, with the gentle breeze dispersing the miodes and sweeping the little things away when I tried to close on them.

"Lewis!"

"What is it?"

Paisley nodded in the direction where we'd left the path. I glanced over, but the miode lens on my goggles gave me a gray view of the world, and I had to take them off. Already, my forehead was covered in sweat.

"I don't see anything."

"Someone's coming from the path."

"You're sure?"

"Certain. And look at him. He’s getting tense."

"It might be the hunter coming to check his trap."

“We better do this quickly,” said Paisley.

I struck the trap again, once more dispersing the miodes. The problem with artificery - or the advantage, depending on how you looked at it - is that once miodes are artificed into an item, they become 'trained' to bond to it. Sort of like a person parting their hair a certain way every day - eventually, their follicles just naturally go that direction. So, once I used the fork, I had to be quick about grabbing the miodes from the air. Otherwise, they drifted back down toward the trap.

Slipping my goggles back over my eyes, I breathed deeply and concentrated harder than I ever had. Slowly, I began to see the movement pattern of the miodes in the air and how their sways and swirls were nothing random. I smiled, finally understanding something. When you were disenchanting something, you didn’t try to grab the miodes by force. You joined their dance until you learned its steps, and then when the time was right, you and your tongs cut in line.

"Lewis, they're coming."

"One sec."

I struck the fork again, and this time, I knew the miodes’ steps. I caught one of them, but it burst between my tongs. Same with the next. But the third miode sat in my tongs perfectly, ready to be stored.

Damn! I'd forgotten about the miode pool!

Using my free hand, I rummaged in my satchel until my fingers breezed across a container. It was cool to the touch, made from artificed steel. I shook it open and then dropped the miode inside.

"Not long now," said Paisley in a hurried whisper.

"Almost got it."

One miode joined the other in the pool. Then a third. I lost several more to wastage, but soon the trap was free from miodes, and at least fifty were in my pool. I collapsed the miode pool shut and put it in my satchel, then opened the trap.

The wolf sensed its freedom immediately, and Paisley had just enough time to move the improvised muzzle and then dart out of the way. The wolf growled but then, without even a last look at us, sprinted into the brush and quickly became a phantom amidst the bushes and trees.

From my token bracelet came a series of messages, one of which reigned above them all.

Skill tree Earned: Simple Disenchantment

Level: 1

EXP: 0%

- Disenchant ability unlocked

- Detect Enchantment ability unlocked

- Disenchantment tools added to Craft menu

- Crafting stamina increased to 100/100

The second token in my bracelet now had an etching of an artificer’s fork on it, and a ring of yellow light appeared on the bracelet, surrounding it.

"I did it!"

"Huh?"

"I got Disenchantment!"

"Right now?" said Paisley, a smile spreading across her face.

"Right this bloody minute! I got over my plateau!"

"Woo hoo!"

Paisley grabbed my hands in hers, and we danced in a sort of circular jog, going round and round and round until we felt dizzy, and then we broke away. When I steadied myself, I saw a man standing in the clearing. He was a hunter, wearing a fur vest and carrying a bow and quiver of arrows at his side. His blonde hair was cropped short, and his blue eyes were tired.

"You two been messin’ with my trap?"

"Artificer traps are illegal," said Paisley. "As you well know, Lee Hunter."

"Oh. It's you."

"Me."

"The little shit who used her fancy skills to bring the price of my pelts down. And then what do I find? Only that the same pelts are being sold at the market for twice the price!"

"Uncle Jace told me I'm not to do that again. Not in the village, anyhow. But if you ask me, it's no different from what you do."

"Oh?" said Lee Hunter, wearing an incredulous smile. He bent down exaggeratedly to show how low he'd have to go to make eye contact with her. "Pray tell me how that is to be, little girl."

"Because you take animal's pelts and meat for free, and you sell 'em for as much as you can get. You use your advantage of traps and arrows to get what you want. I used my advantage of Persuasion. Don't get all het up just because you yourself got caught in a trap."

"You little..."

Lee Hunter crossed the clearing and stalked toward Paisley, arms out as though he wanted to throttle her. I charged at him, throwing all my weight against him. As a sixteen-year-old apprentice more at home turning pages than lifting weights that wasn't much at all, but it caught him off guard. He stumbled, allowing Paisley to slip past him.

As I turned to leave, he grabbed my collar. Then, barely needing a second to balance himself, he punched me in the face. Pain exploded through my head as my goggles flew off, and the world spun around me. I fell to the ground, unable to see for a moment. My right eye watered incessantly. No sooner did I wipe it with my sleeve than it filled again, and the sting was unbearable. I forced my eye open, only to find Lee Hunter stalking away, kicking branches and tree trunks as he passed them.

Chapter 13

Expecting that Lee Hunter might make a visit to the craftstead, I decided I would tell Master Cooper what happened. Part of me, a big part if I was honest, also wanted him to know that I'd earned the Disenchantment skill and that I didn't need him to award me a scrap of EXP.

When I knocked on his door, there was no answer. After thinking about it, I reached the handle, only for artificeric energy to block me.

"Master Cooper? Can I have a word? Master Cooper?"

If it wasn't for the pile of dirty plates on the doorstep, I'd have been worried. Besides, I knew nothing had happened to him. The smoke that puffed from his chimney - sometimes red, other times green - was a testament to his wellbeing. He was working. Simple as that. Working on whatever his special new project was.

With Disenchantment earned, I next moved onto Enchantment. That meant actual artificery and learning how to use miodes and combine them with the things I crafted. Cooper had plenty of different miodes in his private workshop, but he kept none in the workshop where I practiced. His were locked away because miodes were not only valuable but dangerous.

In any case, I had the miodes from the hunter's trap to use. They had stopped me from manually opening the trap, so I assumed they were miodes crystallized from some kind of shutting or locking spell. I couldn’t think of a use for them yet, but that was okay because I didn’t even know how.

My ‘Starting Enchantments’ book was a great help to my initial Enchantment studies. It listed spells as far back as ancient history and explained how they were created and the methods that mages used to create them. Some were complex and time-consuming. Others, such as the basic Enchantment spells like "Enchant Weapon" were easy enough to learn even for a rookie mage. This knowledge gave a grounding for further chapters, where he talked about artificers and how they would use the miodes from these spells.

‘A simple enchantment for beginner artificers to practice,’ it read, ‘is a charm that alters the appearance of something. The usual method is to take a pencil and make it look like a pen. This transformation has become something of a tradition for artificers and is considered a rite of passage, with one artificer master giving to his apprentice the very pen that he practiced on when younger. With the miodes disenchanted, of course.’

That evening, I broke one of Master Cooper's rules and let the wolfhounds into the workshop to keep me company. Under the glow of an oil lamp, I ate a supper of bread and cheese while I studied. After reading a few paragraphs, I looked up to see the dogs sitting beside my chair. Their heads rested on their paws, and their tails wagged slowly.

There was a knock at the door. Through the artificed inner door frame, I saw the shape of a man standing there. I thought about snuffing the lamp, but then I told myself, no. I won't hide. But when I got closer to the door, I saw that it wasn't Lee Hunter. Instead, it was a man who was standing there with Paisley.

I opened the door. "Good evening, Mr. Porter."

Paisley’s uncle was a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a light tan jacket over a black tunic and trousers. Paisley was by his side, holding a wooden box. She was wearing a white dress with a frilly hemline, and her hair hung loosely behind her shoulders. He smiled warmly at me.

"Master Cooper can't see visitors at the minute," I said.

"I'm here to see you actually, Lewis, if I can call you that. Or do you prefer Mr. Crafter?"

"Lewis is fine."

He stuck his hand out. "I'm Jace Porter. It's a pleasure to meet you. Paisley has told me all about your crafts."

"Yeah. Told you how crappy they are," said Paisley, flashing me a mischievous smile. "Aren't you going to invite us in?"

"Sorry. Come in." I glanced behind me to the messy workshop with wolfhounds standing in it, staring at the door. They were calm now only because I was calm. If I was to give even a slight indication that my visitors were unwelcome, their demeanor would change pretty quickly.

"Actually, we'll go to the house."

Master Cooper's house wasn't especially homely. After all, he spent very little time there, preferring to spend most of his days and evenings in one of the workshops or out in the yard. Sometimes he'd go into Sunhampton to visit the King's Head, but that wasn't very often. Lately, though, neither of us had been in the house much, and as such, it wasn’t a great improvement on the workshop.

I turned on lamp after lamp, tidying as I went.

"Don’t go into any trouble on my account," said Jace. "This is only a quick visit."

"Do you want a drink?" I asked. "We've got some wine."

Jace shook his head. "Not for me, thanks. I don't care for alcohol."

"Then perhaps coffee will do."

He nodded. "Coffee is acceptable."

I fetched both a pot and a cup for Jace, then set them on the table. With a sigh of relief, I sat down at my own place. The room was dark, lit only by the fire in the hearth. Jace picked up his cup and then crossed one leg over the over, settling the cup on his thigh.

"I wanted to talk to you about Lee Hunter," he said. "Paisley told me what happened. I'm not enamored by the idea of you two approaching a wild wolf, no matter how restrained they are. But I won’t deny that I don’t have much time for Mr. Hunter. In any case, I've straightened the matter out. That is, insofar as he won't be coming near you again. Whether you want to pursue the matter of his violence toward you is another matter."

"I'll need to think about that."

"What I will say is that Mr. Hunter will most likely make, through an intermediary, an offer of recompense. Someone might have suggested to him that would be a good idea."

"I'd be glad if you could tell that someone that they have my thanks," I said.

"No. Thank you, Lewis. I appreciate you helping my niece. In fact, I wanted to give you this." He handed me a strange item. It seemed to be made of wood and leather, and it looked like a small pouch. On the front of the pouch was a strange symbol.

Jace sipped from his cup. "It's a negotiator's money belt. Every coin you store in it will acquire a negotiation buff, helping you bring down prices. It can only store a hundred gold at a time, however. The artificery involved in it is very expensive, I'm told. But then, I'm sure you can see that."

"Thank you."

"The thing about Mr. Hunter is that he's not stupid. He knows he's done wrong to you. He's just reluctant to admit it. That's the folly of adulthood, I'm afraid. You'll be out soon enough. Anyway, Lewis. Good to meet you."

He shook my hand again. "You too," I said.

"See you, Lewis," said Paisley.

Chapter 14

‘Starting Enchantments’ recommended that an apprentice artificer's first enchantment should be to change the appearance of something, usually a pen given to them by their master. Since my master was currently doing everything he could to ignore me, I decided to use something else. The negotiator's money belt that Jace had given me would be perfect. In its current state, it very much resembled a money belt, and this might make it a target for thieves. If I could artifice it to look like a normal belt, it would be much safer.

My first step, then, was to acquire miodes that would accomplish the effect. And since I didn't have access to Cooper’s miode stores, I'd have to take a trip. So, the next morning, I secured a seat on the back of a merchant's cart. Paisley wasn't with me this time since her uncle was making her study trade customs in different types of markets.

The cart belonged to a man named Harold Harper, a merchant who specialized in selling fish from the port town of Runeasel to the local villages. He was dressed in a light gray tunic and trousers. His hair was short and curly, and he had a large beard. He also carried a small dagger which he used to core apples as he traveled.

Though I was sharing the back of the cart with Harold's fish, it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Looking at the barrels, I suspected artificery at work, and sure enough, my goggles revealed miodes lining the barrel lids. They were sealed so that the contents inside would spoil slower, but this also had the effect of preventing the smell from seeping out and, finally, stopping them from spilling if the cart hit a pothole in the road.

Harold stopped at several towns along the way, and it took four hours before we reached my destination - The Cove. The Cove was a seaside town popular with mages thanks to its proximity to a magical spring where mana abounded. It was also a popular place for merchants to gather due to its many taverns where they could relax and discuss business while enjoying a cod supper. The Cove was built close to the rocky eastern shores of our island, surrounded on its western flank by a forest and sprawling fields. A few cozy cottages lined its narrow streets, each of which led on a slope toward the beach. Several inns - all of them sea themed - offered shelter for travelers. Despite its fame, The Cove wasn't very large. It had no castle or city walls; there were only two towers—one to guard against attack from the sea and one at the northern end of town that guarded against assault overland. Its non-magical inhabitants worked hard, making up in sweat what they lacked in coins. It was said that the fishermen of the Cove developed a second skin, one toughened by constant lashings of sun and salt water.

As we approached The Cove, I caught sight of the famous mana spring. It was surrounded by trees, and the water flowed down a slope covered in moss, past a small waterfall. A group of men stood around the entrance to the spring, talking and laughing. Some of them were wading in the shallow waters, while others lay on blankets near the edge, soaking in the warmth.

When Harold steered toward the merchant docking point, a couple of guys my age ran over to help Harold unload his fish. I helped, too, though the workers were stronger than me, thanks to spending hours a day loading and unloading vendor carts.

“Thanks for the help,” Harold told me.

“No thanks needed, other than knocking 20% off the journey cost.”

He smiled. “I appreciate a fella who likes to save a penny or two. That kind of attitude will take you far. Let’s call it four gold, then.”

I took a coin out of my negotiator’s money belt, which I had to wear just as it was until I could artifice it.

I gave him three gold and 50 silvers and said, “I think this will cover it.”

Harold took the coins, which had been sitting in the money belt and absorbing its artificery. “That’ll do nicely. And here’s a tip: the restaurants near the beach are where the tourists go, and the prices are high, and the food isn’t great. There’s a small beach on the east side of The Cove where the locals eat.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

Though I was hungry, I was conscious that it was late afternoon and the shops would shut soon. So, I headed inland. Strolling through The Cove, I found myself in love with the place immediately. The streets were paved with seashells, and the buildings were lined with bright flowers. The houses were all built of wood, painted white, and decorated with vibrant green curtains. Most of these homes belonged to fisherfolk, but there were plenty of inns where visiting merchants and traders stayed. Some of the larger inns doubled as trading offices.

The air was salty and slightly fishy, though not unpleasantly so. It seemed to fit, as though that was what the air in a place like this ought to smell like, and anything else would be strange. From all around me came the sound of waves breaking on the shore. The effect was such that if you sat down on one of the many benches dotted around The Cove, it would be easy to fall into a gentle sleep. And with the number of mages around who hated thieves, it was perfectly safe to do so.

After taking a wrong turn or two, I finally reached the center of The Cove, where the shops were. There was a plaza shaped like a seashell, and dominating the center was a giant landlocked boat suspended eight feet off the ground and secured by artificed cables wrapped around steel struts. Spread around and throughout the plaza were bars, restaurants, and shops of all different kinds.

Of all the people that were there, a good eighty percent of them were mages. Some were still wearing their robes even in the heat, while others were identifiable by their beards or their tattoos.

The first spell scroll shop that I found was called The Serious Scholar. It was owned by a woman named Garinda, who had the same color eyes as Paisley. She was nice enough but, as I expected, her prices were sky-high, and I couldn’t afford anything.

The next shop was called The Luminous Lamp Shop. Inside, I saw an elderly man in a wizard's robe working away at some sort of enchanting device. He glanced up from his work when he noticed me entering.

"Good evening," he said. "You're new here?"

"I am."

He gestured to one of the shelves, which was full of shiny objects. "Have a look at these," he said. "All of them are for sale."

"But…they don't seem like much," I said. "They look like lamps."

"Ah. But there's more to them than that."

"How so?"

"These are lanterns, yes, but each contains a piece of glass that holds a spell. Taker this one here, shining so bright - you can put your hand into the flame, and the glass will burn away without hurting you. Try it!"

“Wow, it works! Amazing. Anyway, do you sell spell scrolls?”

“Of course. Take a look. And buy a lamp!”

The Luminous Lamp’s prices were reasonable, but he didn’t have the kind of spell I needed. I had no joy in the next three shops I tried.

As evening set in and many of the mages used enchanted self-sweeping brooms to clean their shops, it looked like my trip had been a failure.

That was when I saw it - one last shop to try. This one was called The Wizard's Worry. It was run by a gnome. As I entered, I heard him bellowing, "What's your name? No stealing in my shop! I’ll call the guards if you do!”

The shop was dimly lit, and there were candles everywhere. Gnomes are such creatures of habit that I half expected him to be wearing a hard hat. Instead, he wore a hooded cloak, and he had no hair at all.

“I’m not here to steal,” I told him.

“Then what are you here for?”

“I’m looking for a particular kind of spell.”

His demeanor changed instantly, and he clasped his hands together. “Aren’t we all, aren’t we all? What effect do you desire?”

“A spell to change the appearance of something.”

“That’s a branch of magic called Formulation, though illusion also falls into that category. Which do you want, young mage?”

“I’m not a mage. I’m an artificer, and I need to disguise something.”

“Illusion it is, then! How complex is this illusion? Are you…uhm…wanting to change a household object into something more pleasing to the eye to give you…uhm…inspiration for private activities?”

“What? No. Just a simple illusion. Very simple.”

The gnome turned to the wall of shelves behind him, from which poked out the ends of hundreds of rolled-up scrolls. He used a stick and waved it in the direction of a particular shelf, which was way too high for him. A scroll fell out of it and into his hands.

“Is that a wand?” I asked.

“Nobody uses wands, artificer boy. This is a fetch stick. I’d have thought that you recognized artificery when you saw it.”

“I’m not wearing my goggles. And it doesn’t smell like miodes. Anyway, how much?”

“Nine gold.”

The price made my money belt hurt, but there was nothing for it. I took eight gold and fifty silver coins from my negotiator's belt and handed them to him, expecting the belt's artificery to mean that was enough.

“This will cover it,” I said.

The gnome pointed to a sign behind him which read, ‘No haggling, no bartering, no persuasion spells, no artificed money belts or otherwise influenced coinage.’

“Damn it.”

Outside the shop, I was faced with a choice. Either get a carriage straight home, or go for a meal. Since I wasn’t likely to visit the Cove again anytime soon, I decided to eat here. After all, the seafood in The Cove was supposedly exquisite…as long as you didn’t eat near the tourist beach.

Finding the smaller beach for local people was a task, and I wondered if you needed a spell scroll just to locate it. Threading my way through The Cove, I enjoyed the town that it turned into at night, one of mages relaxing robe-less - that is to say, in casual clothes - outside taverns and drinking wine while discussing anything but magic. Of being guided by lamplight and by silvery fish that swam in the many rock pools and ponds that lay all around the town. Laughter and song were as regular as the tide, and seagulls called out stories to one another of fish.

I went to a restaurant called ‘The Crab Pot,’ where I had a cod supper washed down with a mug of beer. When I finished eating, I felt completely satisfied. I couldn’t wait to return home and start working on my project.

Chapter 15

When I got home to Sunhampton, I went straight to the kennels, where my bed was tucked in the corner. Lately, I had been sleeping in the workshop, but right now, I needed a vaguely soft bed.

The next morning, I went into the workshop to find that all of the tools were scattered everywhere, as though the place had been ransacked. I could only conclude that either we’d been visited by a burglar who liked to make a mess instead of stealing things, or Master Cooper had turned the workshop inside out looking for a specific tool.

When I left the workshop and tried to enter Master Cooper’s private shop, it was locked and artificed. That was the final straw, I decided. I was going to force him to speak to me.

Now, I knew that Master Cooper wouldn’t respond to me knocking on the door or shouting. He was too absorbed in his work for that. And that was what this was - from his workshop, I constantly heard the clanging of his hammer, the roar of his forge. There was nothing physically wrong with him.

All I needed was a way to get him to open the door. After drinking coffee and thinking about it, I thought I knew what that was.

My plan started with an Artificer’s Special. In the kitchen, I gathered the ingredients and made the sandwich the way Cooper liked it.

Next, I placed it on a plate on the step by his workshop door. I sat next to the door and out of view, with my back against the workshop's outer wall.

Then I waited. And waited. An hour bled into two, and I passed the time reading ‘Starting Enchantment’s’ thoughts on black miodes. After a while of nothing happening, I grew restless.

“Hello? Master Cooper?” I called out.

Nothing.

“Master Cooper? Are you in there?” I tried again.

Still nothing.

It was then that the door to the workshop finally opened, and Master Cooper stood there in the doorframe.

Quicker than he could react, I jammed a plank of wood between the door and the frame, stopping him from closing it and reactivating his artificery. Then, I got a good look at the master I hadn’t seen in days.

To say he looked terrible would be doing the word a disservice. His eyes had circles under them, and his face was covered in stubble. His clothes were in worse condition than a beggar’s. He looked at me, blinking quickly as if he didn’t know if I was really there. Without warning, he leaned forward like a felled tree, hitting the ground before I could break his fall.

A few minutes later, Master Cooper woke enough for me to help him to bed. There, he fell into a deep sleep that lasted all of that day and showed no signs of ending. I went to Sunhampton to fetch Healer Brown. The master healer was out attending to a family whose carriage was upturned by a crazed ox, so his assistant Ted Hinks came instead.

Ted was a little older than me, maybe a few years, and he had green eyes that were clear and kind and always focused on what he was doing. He wore a white coat over his clothes and carried a leather satchel filled with various healing potions.

I told him what had happened with Master Cooper and how hard he'd been working lately, and how he'd collapsed almost the moment he left his workshop.

"What was he working with? Anything that you might consider toxic?"

"Possibly."

“Caustic?”

“It’s not unheard of.”

“Flammable?”

“Almost certainly.

"Well, don't you know for sure?" he asked.

"I'm an apprentice. He doesn't always inform me what he's doing."

Ted gave me a grin. "Fair enough. But when I was an apprentice, there was nothing my master did that escaped me. It's an apprentice's job to make sure they know what their masters are doing. Otherwise, you never know what trouble they're getting themselves into."

"Really? "

"Really. Masters don't take on an apprentice for the fun of it. Some of them need help. Some of them are lonely. Do you know the divorce rates for those who reach master status? It's unusually high."

"Master Cooper never married as far as I know."

"Well, anyway. Do you have any idea at all what he was working with?"

"A special project with a tight deadline. But that's all I know."

"Can you get into his workshop and look?"

"His doors have artificed locks. I propped the door open, but the wooden plank dislodged when he collapsed. I really can't get in."

"Not to worry. I think this might be a case of exhaustion. He'll need sleep, food, and water. If he tries to work, don't let him."

"The Apprentice-Master code says I can't refuse a request from my master that doesn't put me in harm."

"And that doesn't put innocents in harm," said Ted. " Master Cooper himself, for all his faults, falls under that category. If he tries to get back to work before Sunday, do your utmost to stop him.'

"I'll do my best," I said.

Ted nodded and began putting his medical instruments back into his satchel. "Tell you what, I'll come back tomorrow and see if he's perked up."

I thanked him for his kindness and watched him leave. I spent a good while worrying about Master Cooper before finally deciding that I had done the right thing and gotten him a healer, and the healer wasn’t overly concerned. Therefore, what good was worrying about him going to do?

With the day still new, I completed my chores and then settled at my workbench. In front of me were my negotiator's money belt, the spell scroll I had bought in The Cove, and my copy of ‘Starting Enchantments.’

I already knew that the next step was for me to take the spell scroll, disenchant it, and crystallize the miodes for artificeric use. But how did I do that?

I read ‘Starting Enchantments’ to see what it had to say on the matter.

‘Extraction of miodes is not as simple a process as it may seem. If one were to attempt it without understanding, they might find themselves with something quite useless. For optimum preservation of magical effects, the miodes must be extracted from the item and placed into an enchanted vessel that can hold and protect them, commonly referred to as a miode pool.’

Miode pools were one thing that I had plenty of access to. In the workshop was a shelf filled with various-sized bottles stopped by artificeric corks.

I read on.

‘When using spell scrolls, the easiest way to crystallize mana is to use an Artificer's Axim. Such a tool can be left to work without supervision and will result in a healthy 60-70% crystallization-to-loss ratio. The more patient and loss-adverse artificer - or the artificer lacking an Axim - can perform the process manually.’

The main workshop was geared more toward crafting and lacked an axim. I guessed that the tool must be in Cooper's workshop. It seemed the manual way might be my route.

‘How to manually crystallize miode from a spell scroll: Extracting miodes from a spell scroll is different than from an artificed object. First, use an artificer's scalpel on the scroll. While wearing goggles with a half-miode lens, cut the miodes free from the spell scroll, leaving as many as possible intact. This part requires caution. Miode has no innate affinity for any type of artifice except itself. However, the remaining residue of magic can attach to any object nearby, whether intended or not.

After cutting it free, place it into your crystallization container with a 2:1 water-crystallization fluid mix and allow it to sit and settle into a crystallized state until there are no more original state miodes left. You can check on their progress using a full-miode lens on your goggles. While waiting, you should make sure that all other objects nearby have been cleansed of miode attachment. Miodes left on a workbench, for instance, can ingrain themselves into the wood, producing unwelcome effects at the most unwelcome of times.’

Checking every single drawer in the workshop didn't help me find an artificer's scalpel. However, I was being stupid. Really stupid. What I hadn’t realized was that this was an artificer’s workshop, and the drawers were all artificed. Each drawer contained a dozen drawer's worth of things, as long as you found the switch that would rotate their contents. So, after much searching, I finally found an artificer's scalpel. It was a tool that cut clean and sure, a short-bladed knife, slightly curved and designed to be held between the thumb and index finger. The blade of the scalpel was bright enough that it might have been polished, and when I held it in my fingers, it glimmered like steel in the glow of an oil lamp.

Feeling nervous, I decided against having a coffee and made myself a calming green tea so that my hands would be steady. At my workbench, I set all my tools out before me: a minor formulation scroll from The Cove, artificer's goggles, artificer's scalpel, and an empty miode pool.

There was just one thing missing - a crystallization container and fluid.

I checked through Cooper's other drawers until I came across a small bottle of what looked like wine with the label "CF" on it. According to the pencil drawings in ‘Starting Enchantments,’ a crystallization container looked like two vials with a thin neck joining them together but with an open space for the crystallization to take place in the middle. This must be what I was looking for. After some searching, I found one in - of all places - a cupboard in Cooper's kitchen. He’d been using it for drinking wine from when he couldn’t be bothered washing a glass.

Finally, I had everything I needed. Well, except for know-how and experience, but that'd come. It was time to crystallize some miodes.

I placed the spell parchment on the bench and sat down, ready to begin. As instructed by ‘Starting Enchantments,’ I put on my goggles, adjusted the rubber fixers, then fiddled with the lens views until I was looking at the spell scroll in half-miode view. This way, the scroll ceased to be paper and resembled a living thing instead, or more accurately, an ecosystem like a coral reef, with things tucked inside the minute grains and holes in the parchment. The miodes ran across it in almost liquid form, like a stream of water flowing over a bed of smooth rocks.

After watching it for about five minutes, I used my artificer's scalpel to make several incisions in the miode stream. The scalpel was so precise that it cut the miodes without piercing the scroll itself. It was a marvelous tool, really. I reckoned you could use it to cut a layer of skin off your thumb without touching the layer beneath, it was so precise. Not that I wanted to do that.

When my hands started to shake a little from so much concentration, I took a moment to breathe and center myself before proceeding. Sweat dripped from my head and onto the rubber of my goggles as I made delicate cut after delicate cut, turning the stream of miodes into little pieces and then even littler pieces. I did this again and again until I cut them down to size.

When I was done, I picked up the spell scroll and tilted it so that the miodes flowed down into the crystallization container, where they immediately began to mix with the fluid.

It was finished! And now... what? What happened next?

I remembered something from ‘Starting Enchantments’: "After placing miodes in a crystallization container with enough solution, wait a minimum of four hours to allow the crystallization process to settle."

Four hours was a long time when you were just sitting on your arse doing nothing else but wait. So instead of staring at a blank wall I decided to check on Master Cooper and see if his sleeping fit had broken and whether he needed anything. Crossing the yard and heading into the house, I was surprised to go up the stairs and find Paisley sitting beside Master Cooper's bed. She must have been there for a while because she'd gotten out her notebooks and pencils, and she was studying from a textbook titled ‘Wages and Wagers.’

"Hey," I said, smiling. “I didn’t hear you enter the craftstead.”

"Hey yourself!" Paisley looked up from her book, returning my smile warmly. “I did say hello, but you looked busy and very intense.”

"Sorry about that. I honestly didn’t hear you. He doesn't look great, does he?"

"What happened?"

"The healer’s apprentice thinks it was exhaustion. Master Cooper hasn't left his workshop in maybe a week. Then, this morning, he opened his door and damn near collapsed straight onto me."

"Will this have any lasting effects on him?" she said. "Like, will he be sick or hurt in any way from now on?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. He's an old guy."

"We should try and get him to eat something when he wakes up. Something good. Something sweet!"

"Like a sweet roll, by any chance?"

"You'd be surprised what a dose of sugar and pastry can do for a person. Listen, where've you been lately? I haven't seen you in a few days."

“I've mostly been hanging out with the dogs and studying Enchantment. I think I might earn it slower than Disenchantment."

"Really?"

"Really! This skill tree is complicated as hell. Like, seriously hard to grasp."

She nodded slowly. "But... you're making progress, though?" She raised her eyebrows slightly in anticipation.

"I'm trying." I laughed. "It's so much stuff to learn."

"I know how you feel. When you start looking at all of the different skills involved in an apprenticeship, it seems overwhelming. The best way I cope is by breaking everything down into the littlest step I can until it can't be broken down anymore. Then I'm left with something so easy to do that it'd be harder not to do it. Then, I move on to the next step."

"You're wise beyond your years," I said.

"I'm also not completely clueless," she said. "I know you went out of town without me the other day."

"Paisley, come on. It wasn't like I went without you. As in, I made the decision to purposefully go without you. You just happened to not be with me when I went."

"Where did you go?" she asked.

“The Cove,” I said.

"You went to the Cove without me? I love beaches!"

"Yeah, but stay away from the tourist beach. There's a smaller one that locals use.”

The sun was sinking toward the western horizon by now and the shadows grew longer as the day drew to a close. Master Cooper had still not woken up.

"I better go. Can you say hi to Master Cooper for me when he wakes up?" said Paisley. "Tell him I'm thinking of him."

"Will do."

"And don't forget that we have a market on Saturday."

"Saturday?"

"Sure. The market in Stow. It's mainly a food market, but plenty of merchants sell other things there."

"Maybe I'll craft some food-related tools and stuff. If people are in the mood for eating, it might get them thinking about cooking and what they need to do that."

"Good plan. Try not to leave it until ten minutes before the market opens, this time," she said, giving me a smile.

Paisley went, leaving behind the lingering odor of her sweet perfume, which smelled like freshly picked flowers after rain. Trying to take my mind off of things, I turned back to check on Master Cooper again. He hadn't stirred. I wondered if maybe I should fetch one of his wolfhounds to lie here with him. That'd help his recovery. He'd be safe enough from intruders too, because those big beasts could smell out anyone who wasn't friendly or familiar in an instant.

There was still plenty of time to go before my miodes would be crystallized - assuming I hadn't messed up completely - so I busied myself by cleaning some of Master Cooper's tools in the main workshop. I wiped down the workbenches, swept the floor, and tidied the drawers.

When that was done, I thought long and hard about what Paisley had told me earlier: "Try not to leave it until ten minutes before the market opens."

She always worked hard on her side of the business, scouting new markets, tweaking her sales pitch, and researching prices to make sure we were competitive. I had been lax on my part of things, so I decided to make a start on crafting.

First, I visited Cooper's lumber store and took out some promising-looking pieces of wood, such as ash, hickory, elm, oak, cherry, and walnut. They didn't look particularly special or useful, but that was the beauty of crafting - it was my job to change that! Since the Stow market was food related, I needed to keep that in mind when I was crafting.

Reaching level 2 in the 'Craft' part of my Simple Craft & Forge skill had opened up my menu options considerably. As well as that, I could craft non-menu items as long as I had a reference or plans to guide me. Checking my menu, I saw quite a few kitchen and cooking-related things that I could craft.

Craftable Kitchen & Tableware:

- Small dough oven

- Small Grill

- Cast Iron stew pot

- Cast iron pan

- Small frying pan

- Roasting dish

On and on the list went. Many of the cooking-related items were made of metal, so I found pieces of scrap iron in the store room and headed over to my bench. Working with metal was much more of a drain on my crafting stamina, even though my limit had increased to 150, and it didn't take long to wear it down.

In two hours, I crafted four cast iron stew pots, three small grills, a small stew pot, five small frying pans, one small baking tray, a large baking tray, and half of another small roasting dish.

'Craft' ability leveled to 3

'Craft' ability leveled to 4

25% EXP received for 'Simple Craft & Forge' [Current total: 75%]

25% EXP received for 'Simple Craft & Forge' [Current total: 100%]

'Simple Craft & Forge' leveled up to 2!

- Ability unlocked: Craft Invent

- Crafting Stamina increased to 150/150

According to my Artificer's Almanac, achieving a level up in an overall skill tree such as ‘Simple Craft & Forge’ meant that the next level would be harder to get. Next time, I'd need to level up 5 of my abilities under this tree to earn a level up. But that was in the future, and this was now, and I had a new ability to explore.

The manual said that the 'Craft Invent' ability allowed a crafter to combine two items and, if they were compatible, to come up with something new. For example, you might combine a sword and a melon, which would create... a melon-sword? Except, of course, that wouldn't happen because a melon and a sword aren't compatible. A more sensible example would be combining an iron ingot and some wool, which would make a pair of heavy boots that were much more resistant than normal ones.

While the miodes were still crystallizing, I grabbed some raw meat from Cooper's larder and began butchering the scraps into cuts of pork and beef for dinner. The wolfhounds watched every move of my arm, every turn of the knife.

"Patience is an artificer’s tool," I told them.

Using one of my new cast iron stew pots, I seasoned the pork and beef cuts with salt, pepper, rosemary, and sage, and then sealed their sides. When that was done, I added the veggies - chopped onion, garlic, carrots, potatoes, and turnips - and threw in a handful of pearl onions as well. While that was cooking, I cut up several slices of fresh white bread and tossed them in olive oil before popping them in the oven to heat up while the rest of dinner finished.

Both my stew and my crystallizing miodes were ready at the same time, and it was hard to decide which to attend to first. I was absolutely desperate to see if I had successfully crystallized the miodes, but I also had six hungry, full-grown wolfhounds surrounding me.

Seeing sense, I fed the hounds with some of the unseasoned meat I had put aside, since salt and pepper would inflame their stomachs.

"Lewis?"

The voice came from upstairs. I rushed up to Master Cooper’s room.

"Everything okay, Master?"

"Not really, Lewis," he answered. "I appear to be in bed, yet I have no recollection of getting here. How long was I out, lad?"

"A day and a half."

"A day and a feckin' half?"

He stood up, his legs unsteady. I rushed over to him and grabbed his arm.

"You're not well enough to stand."

"I need to get back to work."

"Healer Tom says you shouldn't-"

"Tom? The lad's barely passed his apprenticeship! Might as well get medical advice from Mrs. Banwright’s toddler."

"Nevertheless, master, he's a qualified healer. You shouldn’t work. At least not today."

"Who's the master here, and who’s the apprentice?" he said.

"I'll tell you what," I answered. "I'll let go of your arm. If you can stand on your own for longer than a minute, then I won't do or say a thing about you getting back to work."

"Easy!" he said.

I let go of him but watched him intently, ready to dart forward. Master Cooper managed to stand without my help for seventeen seconds before he staggered and would have collapsed had I not caught his weight.

"You're just going to have to take things easy for a while, Jack," I told him, grinning.

"Did you just bloody call me Jack?"

"No, master. You must be hearing things."

"You're as cheeky as ever. Maybe it's having you around that's made me ill. Fine, fine, I won't work. But I won't stay cooped up here like a man on his deathbed. What's that I smell?"

"Stew."

"Fine. Set the table, and we'll eat together, you and I."

By the time I set the table and helped Master Cooper downstairs, the evening was in full song. Nights at the Cooper craftstead were magical in ways not related to artificery. Any potential silence was filled with creatures moving in the woods beyond the house - foxes, rabbits, raccoons, wolves, deer, cats and so many more - as well as owls hooting through the trees, bats flitting across the face of the moon and other nightly noises that I still don't know names for.

I lit three oil lamps and set them around the room, casting pleasing glows over the table arrangements. I had set a bowl and plate for Cooper and myself, and the cast iron pot of stew was in the center of the table, with a big ladle sticking out from it. Beside the pot was a plate covered with chunks of buttered bread.

"You've done well, boy. Very well. The smell of this would make a man full to bursting reach for seconds."

"Does that mean there's enough for me?" said a voice.

Paisley was standing in the open doorway with the glow of the half-moon behind her. Her short, black hair hung loosely down either side of her face as she stood next to my chair. I jumped up and ran to greet her. She stepped inside, hugged me hard and kissed my cheek before sitting down to eat dinner with us.

"Sit down, lass," said Cooper. "Sit down and eat. The lad here says you looked in on me when I was taking my beauty sleep."

"Just checking if you need anything."

"I did," he told her. "Some peace and quiet. And now I need food. Now come on, sit down. Dinner's hot!".

The stew was tasty, the meat tender and juicy. I couldn't believe how hungry we all were! The cast iron pot was soon empty, and we used the bread to wipe the gravy off our plates. Paisley made us an after-dinner coffee, and then we sat talking for a while.

"Tell me," said Master Cooper, looking at Paisley. "How do you get to be an apprentice trader?"

"Well, sir," she began. "My uncle took me in, and he's a trader, so...that’s how."

"I suppose that it's a necessary profession, even if some of you can be trusted as much as cobra slithering up your leg."

"I don't think that's fair, sir," said Paisley.

It was strange to me to hear Master Cooper referred to by any title other than master. But Paisley had studied various customs when it came to using honorary titles and such, due to the different people she would need to deal with as a merchant. According to her, while I should call Cooper 'master', since I was his apprentice, Paisley was under no such obligation. It would have been seen as a slight on her own master to call Cooper that, and this meant that 'sir' was a safer choice.

"Call me Jack," said Master Cooper. "Since other people around here seem to."

"Does that mean I can call you that?" I asked.

"Not a chance in all hells. Now, Ms. Porter, tell me why it isn't fair that in my balanced view, I regard most merchants as snakes?"

Paisley said, "Well, for one, the ones who are really good at what they do deserve respect because they make life easier for everyone else. For example, most things in this house were grown, milled, or made at a great distance away. Except for the things you crafted yourself, of course. But the rest got here because a merchant of some kind sold it to you. Without them, there'd be nothing but farmland and woods between here and anywhere else."

Cooper nodded slowly. "Yes," he agreed. "You've summed that up perfectly. You're very passionate about this, aren't you?"

She smiled and shrugged slightly before answering him. "My uncle has taught me that being a trader means doing your best every day."

Cooper smiled at Paisley fondly. "I see now why Jace Porter speaks so highly of you."

By the time our coffee cups were empty, it was late. Master Cooper took a position in his favorite chair by the fire. The wolfhounds had curled up on the rug near his feet and fell asleep in one big pile of fur, while I stood beside Master Cooper's chair, watching his face closely. He was already sleeping heavily enough that it'd be a shame to wake him to go upstairs, so I went to his room and pulled down two extra blankets from the bedroom wardrobe. I covered him up, and then, once I saw that he wasn't going to wake up, I left him sleeping peacefully.

I joined Paisley outside, where she stood under a night sky that seemed full of endless sprays of stars. There were no lights around us, only the moonlight coming through the trees.

"You care about him, don’t you?" she asked me.

"I'm annoyed with him, to tell you the truth. Or, I was. He hasn't been around much for my studies lately, but I'm trying to be patient. He's had more things to worry about."

"But you do care about him. There's no hiding it."

I sighed. "He's treated me better than my old family did, tell you the truth."

"They were..."

"They didn't hurt me or anything like that. They just didn't care. Especially after my mother died. Come on. I'll walk you home."

"I don't need you to."

"I know. But I'd like to. I've barely been outside today."

Chapter 16

As I walked home alone not long after, the steepness of the hill made my calves ache. Feeling wide awake, I headed into the workshop, where a lone oil lamp battled bravely against the creeping shadows. With a nervous knot in my gut, I checked on my miodes in the crystallization container.

Some of the miodes were colored solid black. This didn’t mean they were black miodes - that was impossible since I hadn’t used miodes from a black spell scroll. Rather, these miodes hadn't survived the crystallization process. This left me with roughly 60% of my miodes having been successful, to varying degrees. A few of them were a deep blue, which meant they were closest to purity. Others were a much more diluted hue, a testament to my lack of skill in the process. These ones would lead to a less effective artificery, but that couldn’t be helped.

According to ‘Starting Enchantments,’ now that I had some crystallized miodes, the next step was to bind them to an item.

"To bind crystalized miode to your chosen item, you must use an artificer's hammer to disrupt the surface of the item, allowing space for miodes to settle. Where you choose to hammer depends on your intended artificery. If you were to artifice a door that opened by itself, you would disrupt the handle and the hinges, and concentrate your miodes there. To encourage the binding process, disrupted parts of an item can be smeared with artificer’s oil."

Now came the tricky part. That final stretch, where I might completely mess this up. I strapped on my goggles and set them on a half-miode lens, so I could see the miodes as vague spots of light whilst retaining a decent image of the negotiator's money belt. Then, using an artificer’s hammer that I found in a drawer, I began to disrupt all along the coin pouch of the belt. That seemed the wisest course to me - my goal was to artifice the belt so that it looked like a normal one. The majority of it already looked like a normal belt, except for the part that stored gold.

For four hours, I labored on this trickiest of jobs. I would disrupt the surface of the pouch, use a cotton bud to delicately smear the artificer's oil, then use artificer’s tongs to put a single miode in position. Talk about hard work - it was like trying to clean a beach by picking each grain of sand and wiping it down.

Hour upon hour passed. It was then that I awoke with a start to find myself surrounded by ravenous beasts. Wolfhounds, to be exact. Wolfhounds who hadn’t been fed. I looked to the doorway, where the sun was rising. I must have fallen asleep.

I ran my hands through my hair and then got up from my seat. My legs groaned and my muscles had seized up from hours without movement. The wolfhounds followed me as I limped from the workshop to the kitchen. When I'd served them their meals, I did the only thing that seemed sensible - made some coffee and then headed back to finish my job.

Finally, I placed the last miode on my belt. I sighed with relief and dropped my tools on my bench. Picking up the belt, I headed outside and held it up to the sunlight like it was a trophy given to me by the gods. As golden rays lit upon the now-changed belt, words gleamed in the air and hovered to get my attention.

Skill tree earned: Simple Enchantment

Level: 1

EXP: 0%

- Enchantment ability unlocked

- Identify Enchantment ability unlocked

- Upgrade Enchantment ability unlocked

- Crafting stamina increased to 200/200

While my Enchantment skill tree had a 'Detect Enchantment' ability, all that did was alert me to the presence of an enchantment nearby. Each level up would improve both my range of detecting and my ability to home in on where the enchantment was. However, the 'Identify Enchantment' ability, according to the Artificer’s Almanac, allowed me to see what kind of miodes were in play. That was useful because it might be the difference between me getting my hands blown off when working with artificed items, which was clearly a common occurrence in my new profession.

When I went to tell Master Cooper about it, I found his bedroom empty. Similarly, he was nowhere to be seen in the kitchen. Then, when I stepped outside, I saw smoke rising from his workshop chimney.

I couldn’t believe he'd gone back to work so soon. Incensed, I marched across the yard and knocked on his door. To my surprise, his artificery wasn't activated, and my knuckles rapped on the wood. Master Cooper ignored my knocks, so I turned the handle and opened the door, stepping into his private workshop for the first time.

The workshop was huge. Way, way bigger than should have been possible, given the size of the building from the outside. That was when I realized what a master of the craft he really was - Master Cooper had artificed the very building itself!

There were at least half a dozen large tables covered in different materials. A few shelves along the walls held tools of all kinds - there must have been three dozen wrenches, sockets, and screwdrivers lying around one of them alone - but nothing seemed out of place. Order was the word in Master Cooper's workshop, and despite the hazards and mess of his work, he kept the place spotless.

Though his forge was roaring, there was no sign of Master Cooper. I took a few paces into the workshop, only for my chest to suddenly fill with dread. Across from me, near the largest work table, my master was lying face down on the ground.

Chapter 17

This time, Healer Brown was back in Sunhampton, and so he and his assistant Tom both attended Master Cooper. We had carried the master to the couch in his living room, and he was lying back on it now, blustering about the fuss I had created by bringing the healers here.

"Now, now, Jack," said Healer Brown. "The boy was worried about you. White as a ghost's arse, he was, when he came running into my office."

"I wasn't that worried," I said. “I definitely wasn’t as white as an arse.”

“A ghost’s arse,” Tom corrected.

"See?” said Cooper. “He wasn't that worried about me! You healers are all the same. I know how you earn your coin."

Healer Brown sighed. "Yes. We’re real demons, aren’t we? Always healing people and wanting folks to live. What a sorry lot we are."

He flashed me a grin. I liked Healer Brown immediately. I could tell he was a no-nonsense person, but with a humorous side. He looked like a scholar - there were thick glasses on his nose, which sat in the middle of his forehead above his thick beard. His eyes were blue, and they flashed warmly at me even while his face stayed in a shape of seriousness. Tom stood beside him in silence, looking somber and studious, still eager to learn from his old master even after his apprenticeship had ended.

"You were right, Tom," said Brown. "It's exhaustion, plain and simple. As plain and simple as the cure, in fact. Tom?"

"Rest," said Tom.

"Rest," agreed Healer Brown.

"Rest," I added.

Master Cooper shook his head. "Would you all stop saying that bloody word?"

"If you have any urgent jobs, I'd suggest explaining that there may be a delay," said Brown. "Or find another artificer to freelance them to. I don't suppose the lad here can do it?"

"Not the kind of job I'm working on," said Cooper.

"Okay, then. Freelance or apologies - those are your options. The only thing that isn’t an option is working. You had a scare today, Jack. This morning it's exhaustion. The next time your apprentice finds you face down on the floor, it’ll be because your heart has decided to have a rest of its own. Permanently. Now, I’m going to give you three tinctures. This blue one will help blood circulate better through your body. Take it twice a day, always with food. Bread is best. The red one here is for pain. You've put your body through trauma, and your limbs are going to ache even though you didn't directly hurt them. Take this when you need but no more than four drops per day. Finally, there's this green tincture here. It's made from the bark of a certain tree in the southern regions. It's used for cleansing the system and improving mental health."

I showed Healer Brown and Tom out of the house. At the doorway, beyond Master Cooper's earshot, Brown said, "That man needs some proper rest before he does himself damage. He won't look after his own interests. He's too stubborn for that. So it falls to you. Do you understand me, Lewis?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Good. Don't even let him glance toward his workshop until he's well again."

Though I agreed I would do that, it seemed to me as big a task as learning Enchantment. Even so, I guessed I would find the means. I had to, for Master Cooper's sake.

When I went back inside, he was sitting up. "Those quacks," he muttered. "Why couldn't they have just given me a potion or something?"

"They gave you three. Anyway, you need their help so you can heal yourself properly. You should be grateful," I told him.

He laughed. “Grateful? Pah.”

"Are you hungry?" I asked him.

"I could eat, aye."

I made us a supper of bacon sandwiches and sweet tea. Afterward, we watched the fire die down on the hearth, each of us lost in thought. The night was silent, barely a sound coming from outside the house. Within, the only noise was the gentle snoring of Reginald, Cooper's favorite wolf pup who refused to leave his sick master even when his siblings had heeded their master's command and gone to their kennels.

"I'm sorry," said Master Cooper after a while.

I turned to face him.

"I haven't been around much of late," he said. "Haven't given you lessons, haven't asked a thing about your studies. I haven't even checked your progress if I'm honest with you. I've just been so wrapped up in my project. Let me see now. Wait a second. You earned Disenchantment? And Enchantment too? Why the bloody hell didn’t you say?"

"Well, I tried to. It's hard delivering progress reports through an artificed door."

"Would you look at that? Simple Craft and Forge level 2. Enchantment already, and without an ounce of help from me."

"I did use some of your things..." I admitted.

"Starting tomorrow, you get full access to the miodes vault. And we'll see about getting you a toolkit of your own. A new one, instead of having to scavenge artificer's scalpels and whatnot from my cast-offs."

My mind swam with the idea of getting my hands on all those different kinds of miodes and being able to use them for whatever artificery I liked. "Thanks," I said.

"Don't thank me. There's a bare minimum a master should do for his apprentice, and I've been below that bar. You couldn’t ask for a worse master."

"You're not a bad master. Just...inattentive. But I was thinking about it, and I know you have a lot on. You know, with your debts and your project. So why don't you tell me about it all."

"About-"

"Whatever you've been holed up in your workshop making."

Cooper was silent for a long time. "Fine. This is a tale better told with tea," he said. "And biscuits."

"Good idea. I'll take a tea with two sugars, please."

Cooper fixed me with a stare.

I sighed. "When you're better, master, perhaps we can divide the tea-making duties.”

I went to the kitchen, where I took a pot out of the cupboard, put it on the stove, and started boiling water. The only biscuits in the house were some stale ginger ones, so that's what I put on a plate. When the water had boiled for several minutes, I filled Master Cooper's cup and my own and took the brews and snacks into the living room.

Cooper blew on his tea and sipped. "That's the stuff. Now. What were we saying?"

"Your project."

"Ah." He swirled his silver spoon in his cup. "Well, it’s a complicated one.”

Chapter 18

The next morning, chores were left undone, workshops left unswept, storerooms left untidied. Every responsibility I had was left undone. Except, of course, for the wolfhounds, who were given the last of the pork and beef that I had saved for them. Feeling well enough to walk around, Master Cooper offered to make breakfast for me. The man looked a lot better than yesterday but still fit to drop, so I thanked him for the offer, but I refused and made us a plate of eggs over easy with toast slathered in butter. Our liquid replenishment was, as always, a cup of steaming coffee made from beans grown by a supplier not too far from Sunhampton.

Taking our breakfast into Cooper's workshop, the old master took a stool near the front, where there was a chalkboard. Placing his eggs and coffee on the nearest workbench, he faced me.

"Now, Apprentice Lewis, do you know-"

"Morning! Lewis? Mr. Cooper?"

The voice came from the yard and was immediately followed by the barking of wolfhounds and the sound of their paws on stone. Heading to the doorway, I saw Paisley being engulfed by a mass of fur, their tails wagging wildly as they each demanded their share of the attention. By the time I got them to leave her alone, Paisley was on the ground, her hair a mess, her shirt covered in muddy pawprints. She laughed. "And I wonder why Uncle Jace won't even think about allowing pets."

"We're a little busy," I said. "Do you think we could meet for lunch later on?"

"Busy? Good. I like busy. How's Mr. Cooper?"

"He's-"

"Paisley!" shouted Master Cooper. "Hello, girl! What are you standing there for? Get yourself over here. Lewis, see if the young miss wants breakfast."

"Breakfast?" I said.

She nodded happily.

Soon after, the three of us gathered in the workshop. Paisley and I sat behind a workbench while Master Cooper took his place at the front of the workshop. We ate our eggs and drank our coffee while Master Cooper made chit-chat about the weather and asked Paisley for any village gossip that might have passed her way. Paisley told him that as a merchant, it was not in her interests to gossip, although Mr. Cooper shouldn’t be surprised if Mr. and Mrs. Portlight divorced soon.

"Old Totty Portlight’s been up to no good, has he?" said Cooper. "Well, I'll be. Anyhow, enough about him. Let’s discuss the project that’s going to get this damned debt off my back.”

"Which is..." said Paisley.

"A door."

“That’s it?” I said. “That’s what’s going to pay off your debt? A door?”

“Not just any door, my young apprentice.”

Master Cooper made a series of diagrams on the chalkboard, some of which I recognized from ‘Starting Enchantments’ and from my Artificer’s Almanac, others that might as well have just been lines and squiggles. He lectured as he drew, his brain too quick for his voice with all the wisdom he wanted to impart to us. This was the closest thing to teaching that he'd done since I became his apprentice.

"Teleportation is one discipline of magic that has been theoretically proposed but never actually achieved. That’s not through lack of know-how but the state-wide ban on research. If they had authorized it, the spells would have become common. Transportation to the next village in less than a second. Trade with other nations in a matter of seconds."

"Assassinations done with barely a whisper," said Paisley. "Robberies. Emptying bank vaults without any trouble. Stealing babies."

"Stealing babies?" I said.

"I'm just thinking of worst-case scenarios!"

"It's not like every other discipline of magic is safe," I said. "Some of them can cast fireballs."

"And it's legal to walk the wilds with a sword in your belt," said Cooper. "Society is an imperfect beast, and questions of why one and not the other inevitably lead to a single, universal rule - this world isn't built on fairness. You yourself will know that."

I shrugged. "I don't need fair."

"Anyhow," said Cooper, "The discipline of teleportation was never authorized for research, and independent efforts were squashed before any real progress could be made, thanks to the Golden Noose."

"Golden Noose? What, now?" asked Paisley.

"A double-side deterrent. Any mage caught working toward teleportation is, after a successful investigation, hanged. No leniency, nothing. As well as that, anyone who supplies information leading to such an outcome is rewarded."

"Cash for corpses. Great."

"It's a system that has worked, whatever moral objects we have, Paisley. Not a single teleportation spell has been cast at the hands of a mage or been written into a scroll."

"Where do you come into this?" I asked.

"A client has asked that I artifice for him a doorway that would allow him the use of teleportation."

"Is that even possible?"

"Think about it."

"I have. For the last few seconds. And I'm asking you if it's possible," I said.

"And I am telling you that if you want me to be a teacher, then I will act like one. Return to me in one hour with the answer to the question. How might one artifice a door so that it confers the ability to teleport?"

Paisley and I went to my own workshop. Or at least, to the workshop that I was beginning to think of as my own since Cooper hardly spent any time in it these days. She had some studying to do, and she'd brought her satchel along, so she spread her books across an empty workbench. I read the title of one book - 'The Seventeen Commandments For Thriving as a New Business Owner: You Won’t Believe Number Sixteen'. She produced a pencil and a notepad already crammed with meticulous notes packed so dense the paper underneath didn’t have room to breathe.

"What are you going to do?" she asked me.

"Same as you, I suppose. Study. Cooper clearly knows the way to do this, or he wouldn't be so calm about it."

"Calm? He nearly stopped his own heart through overworking."

"I mean now. He's calmer. Like maybe, sharing it all with me has taken a little of the weight off him."

She nodded slowly, turning another page in the book on her desk. "That makes sense."

I headed to the artificed bookshelf, where I turned the lever fifty times, taking from it every book that might help us. My chief source of hope was 'An Artificer's A to Z', which was an encyclopedic account of all known artificeric effects. The answer must lay in there, I reasoned, but Cooper had only given me an hour. I couldn’t possibly read it all in that time.

That meant the answer lay within reach. Something I could find and absorb in less than an hour. Or...something I'd already seen.

The black miode book!

The book was still missing from the shelf, and the more I thought about it, the surer I was that that particular tome held the answer. I left the workshop and went into Cooper’s workshop, where the old master was standing by the blackboard, scribbling on it.

"You should be sitting," I said. "And you look like you're working too hard to me."

"Ah, what's a formula or two going to hurt?"

"Master..."

"Fine, fine," he said, sitting down.

I started looking around the workshop, searching the shelves for the book I needed, but there was no sign of it anywhere. Not on the bookshelf, not on any of the bookshelves in the room, not even on the workbench. There was nowhere else for it to have gone to.

Then I noticed that one of the cabinets contained dozens upon dozens of loose sheets of paper, stacked neatly as if they were notes or papers used for reference.

I eagerly searched it but had my hopes smashed once again.

"Looking for something?"

"The Art of Black Miodes. It was on your shelf a week or so ago."

"What would you want with a book like that?" asked Cooper.

"That's the answer, of course. It will tell us how to artifice a door to teleport."

"I can assure you; it won't do anything of the sort."

It was with those words that I completely lost any thread of clue, and I sat back on the stool, stumped. "It isn't?"

"Look. Let's wait for Ms. Porter, and we'll discuss it."

When Paisley came back into Cooper's workshop and took a seat next to me, Cooper resumed his position at the front of the room. He put a brown satchel on the workbench before him. "Any ideas what this is?"

"A rather fetching bag that matches the color of your eyes, Mr. Cooper," said Paisley.

Master Cooper blushed a little. "Why didn't I have a charming apprentice like you instead of this stubborn little git? But no, Ms. Porter, it isn’t just a bag. This bag can hold inside it as much as a typical merchant's cart."

"Ah. Almost 2000 pounds,” said Paisley.

Cooper nodded, clearly impressed. "Yes. Exactly."

"Merchant carts were standardized seven years ago," said Paisley. "On account of the Reacher vs Poly case. But anyway. Continue, please, Mr. Cooper."

“Thank you, Ms. Porter,” he said, bowing deeply. “I will.”

I rolled my eyes. “You two are ridiculous.”

Cooper grinned. "This is an artificed satchel. Now, what happens when I put this apple inside it?"

He held up an apple, red and round.

Paisley looked at me, waiting for an answer.

"That'd depend on the artificery used on it," I said. "There are a few ways you can artifice something to carry more than it should. One is by having artificery that temporarily shrinks whatever you put inside it. But that limits you to being able to carry things small enough to fit inside the bag in the first place, and there’s only so much you can shrink something. Another is by actually using a bigger container but having artificery that changes its appearance and weight to give the impression that it's smaller. But this puts constant pressure on the artificery, and this method often fails over time."

"And the third way?" said Master Cooper.

"The most unpopular. An artificeric link is made between the inside of the bag and a designated space elsewhere. Things that you put inside the bag actually cross through artificeric channels into another space entirely and are stored there until you retrieve them. But the artificeric demands for that kind of thing are tremendous, master, and they increase the further away the container is from the designated storage space. It’s way too expensive for use on something like a satchel."

"Even so, it is a form of teleportation in all but name, is it not? Take my bookshelf. When I place a book on it, the book rests on the shelf. When I turn the lever, the book goes...where?"

I could have slapped my head for never thinking about this. "You have a room in the house filled with books."

"Exactly."

"Where is it?"

"In the attic, of course. So the artificeric link between the shelf in the workshop and my home attic is thirty feet, perhaps a little more. Enough for such artificery to be practical."

I felt like I was beginning to understand now. "So the client wants a doorway that will teleport him somewhere. You intend to do that by assigning his destination as an artificeric link to the doorway."

"It's the most common workaround for teleportation. Of course, all such artificeric links have to be approved. Both points of the link - start and destination - must be housed in permanent structures in approved spots."

"Where does your client want the doorway to go?" asked Paisley.

"Into a city called Full Tidings.”

"What’s there?"

“It’s not the crafter’s prerogative to ask questions, my dear. Only to do the work. The client has shown me approved permits, and we have made an agreeable contract. Very bloody agreeable. But there’s a problem.”

“You aren’t allowed to work,” I said.

Master Cooper nodded. “If I don’t deliver it in time, the contract’s void. Not only am I down with the cost of materials, but I’ll have to pay a forfeit fee. I don’t have the gold to do that, needless to say. I’ll lose everything.”

“I must say, you sound very chipper for someone on the verge of disaster,” said Paisley.

“Healer Brown has given me quite a lot of potion.”

Chapter 19

I was years away from having enough skill to directly help Master Cooper with the doorway, so the best way I could help was to raise funds in case he needed to get another artificer to complete the job. It’d lower Master Cooper’s fee, but at least he wouldn’t be ruined.

"Lewis will make products, and I'll help him sell them at markets,” said Paisley. "We’ll sell them under our business name - Lewis Crafter and Paisley Porter - Makers and Merchants of Fine Goods and Tools. Transport and market fees will be covered under our terms, but you will cover production costs, Mr. Cooper. Furthermore, we'll take sixty percent of the profits."

"You'll be using my tools, my miodes, and my materials to make such fine goods, no? You're a formidable one, Ms. Porter, but there isn’t a merchant alive who can lull me with their words. Sixty-forty, but with the favors switched."

"Fifty-fifty."

"Done."

"So I get access to the miode stores?" I asked.

"You earned the Enchantment skill tree, and that means you earned access to my miodes. You're more than halfway to being an artificer now, lad. Which reminds me. Two things. Firstly, I don't want this whole saga to stop you from advancing. The next skill tree you need is Simple Tinkering. I want you studying for it starting now, and I'll set time aside to go through it with you."

"Thank you, Master Cooper."

"Secondly, I've got something for you."

Master Cooper crossed the workshop and opened a cupboard door, taking from it a wooden box. He walked back to his desk and put the box down in front of him on top of a pile of papers. The box was carved with intricate runes that looked like they were meant to depict a crafter's workshop. Not Cooper’s workshop but more like a generic working space.

"Go on, then. Open it."

I flipped open the lid to see a brown felt lining, on top of which rested an array of tools secured by elastic bands. There was an artificer's scalpel, a pair of alchemical tongs, a disenchantment fork, a reusable miode pool for crystallization, as well as some tools I didn't recognize.

"Those are much better quality than the ones you found lying around here," said Master Cooper. "I know you have the disenchantment and enchant abilities now, so you won't be doing things manually as such. But if you equip these tools when you use your abilities, the quality will be better. As well as that, it's good for your mind to do things manually from time to time. If you ask me, it doesn't compare. There's no satisfaction in getting things instantly."

"Thank you, Master Cooper. I'm deeply grateful. What are the other tools? I don't recognize them."

"Alchemist’s gloves, for obvious reasons. Tinker's goggles - not to be confused with artificer’s. Tinker's pincers and a winder for use with gears and cogs."

"Again, thank you. This is a great gift."

Master Cooper scratched behind his ear. "The box is artificed, as well. It'll only open for you. And if you lose it, all you have to do is shout, 'Where are my tools?'". Go on - try it."

"Where are my tools?" said Paisley.

Nothing happened.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Where are my tools?"

"Here! Here!" said the box.

I stood up instantly, and the stool I had been sitting on fell over. "It can talk?"

Cooper laughed. "No, it just repeats that phrase over and over, getting louder the closer you are to it. I could have artificed it to bray like a goat or cluck like a chicken, but I chose something more sensible."

I kept my hands on the box, tracing my fingers over the expert carving on the surface. Somehow, I knew that Cooper had done the carvings manually. That he'd made the whole box that way rather than just crafting it using an ability. That made it all the more special. In fact, I realized that this was maybe the second-best gift I'd been given in my life. The thought made me feel choked up and awkward, and my throat constricted and squeezed my words from my throat.

Chapter 20

Master Cooper began work on the artificed doorway for his client. This time, however, he agreed on a few things. For one, he would keep his workshop door open and unartificed so that Paisley and I could check in on him. As well as that, he'd submit to a daily checkup from Healer Brown or Tom. Finally, he would take breaks every hour to rest, eat, or drink, and he would end his work in the evenings, no exceptions.

My part in this was to raise gold to help pay for the expensive miodes needed for the doorway. This meant Paisley and I would have to sell lots and lots of items. She made a list of every market, craft fair, or yard sale scheduled within a hundred-mile radius, and she began booking spaces for us. After a full day of such organizing, she showed me our schedule drawn on a calendar.

"Hattersdale flea market. West Grove East antiques fair. Jerkins' Farm crafter's market. Paisley, have you left us any time to spare at all?"

"Not if I could help it," she said.

"I'll need time to craft things."

"I've seen how quickly you can do it."

"True, but I'm planning to make artificed items, and my Enchant and Disenchant take longer to use than my Craft. I think you'll need to cancel one or two of these."

“I’m not canceling any of them. You heard your master - he’s on the brink of ruin!”

“Think of it as quality over quantity. Isn’t that a thing in trading? Sell your customers the best products?”

“No,” she said, “The thing in trading is to make as much money as possible.”

“I really want to practice my artificery, Pais. And I want to be proud of the things that I’m selling.”

She thought about it. "How about this? I'll do the midweek markets on my own. All you'll have to do is supply the goods. But the weekend markets are the busiest ones, and I'll need your help."

"Is it safe for you to be traveling around with a bunch of expensive items? The roads aren't always patroled."

"The merchant guild organizes vendor convoys for some of the markets. I'm not quite a member yet, since I'm still an apprentice, but Uncle Jace will be able to straighten it out so I can travel to Little Flitwick and then join a convoy from there going to whichever market I want."

"Okay, then. I guess we've got a plan."

"You better get to it, Apprentice Crafter. The first market is in two days."

"Right you are, Apprentice Porter."

I didn't know what I was going to make, only that it had to be something artificed, and it had to be something that tested my skills. After flicking through one of Cooper's books titled 'A Catalog of Artificed Items', which listed hundreds of common things like wrenches or spectacles or kitchen tools or garden implements or coins, or even ordinary household items such as bread-making ovens, all made into artificeric versions of themselves, I decided on something suitable: an artificed mirror. The mirror not only showed your reflection but had an interesting artificeric effect, too, and I was excited to make it.

In the artificer's project pad that Cooper gave me, I turned to the first page and began making plans.

Project: Artificed Mirror

Materials needed: wood for frame, glass, relevant miodes

Now that I had access to not just the off-cut wood store but also Cooper's own stash of better-quality materials, I spent a pleasant hour sorting through all the different timbers and cuts for the mirror frame, finally settling on a beautiful piece of darkly varnished cherry wood with intricate carvings on each corner. Using my Craft ability, I transformed this into a frame shaped to hold my mirror. Then, using my Upgrade ability under the 'Simple Craft' skill tree, I improved the wooden frame so that it was more resistant to rot, dryness, and physical damage.

Next, I needed some glass. Cooper had now given me access to his supplier list, which he warned me to keep secret. "A crafter's supplier list is more precious than his life," he said gravely, as he handed me a scrap of paper. "Guard this with your own."

"Aren't you being a little dramatic?"

"Dramatic? Me? You don't know me at all, do you, lad?"

On the list were nearly a hundred names written in small script. There were suppliers listed for things such as leather, wax, oil, dyes, glue, ink, and even paper. I'd never heard of half the people on the list. Their full addresses weren’t listed, but their towns or villages were, and many of them were fairly local. Some were listed as something vague, such as 'The shack near the big thornbush in Turnpike forest, where the stream meets the log.'

Cooper's glass supplier lived five miles east of Sunhampton, in a tiny hamlet called Tarrin that consisted only of two houses - one belonging to a glassblower named Callum Reid and another to a glass bender named Chloe Maddox. It was, Callum told me when I visited him, just pure chance that they had both built their houses there and that they both happened to work with glass. Tarrin was located right by a stream that flowed into a river twenty-five miles away. This area was known for its large numbers of ospreys and other fish-eating birds, and it wasn't rare to get a friendly wave or nod from a fisherman as you walked along the path.

"What's your project?" Callum asked me.

"A mirror."

"I can sort that for you, no problem at all. How big is it?"

I told him the mirror's dimensions.

"Hmm. How does 20 gold sound?"

"Not good," I said, wishing Paisley was with me. In future I was going to have to give her a list of supplies that I needed and have her negotiate with suppliers for me. "Can you do it any cheaper?"

"Good craft needs good wages. You know that yourself."

"I also know that whatever price I quote for a customer has a healthy mark-up, and there's usually room to wiggle."

"I'm not a wiggler, I'm afraid," said Callum.

The trouble was that with the glass and the artificery required for what I had in mind, the mirror was going to cost me upwards of 70 gold. That meant I had to sell it for more than 100, at least, to make it worthwhile. Marketgoers were often bargain hunters, Paisley told me, and they wouldn’t pay premium prices.

As much as I understood that Callum Reid was a crafter and needed to make a profit, I knew that glass shouldn’t cost that much. No, what was happening here was that he saw me as an apprentice and reckoned he could lean on my naivety to increase his margin.

"I'll have to try another supplier," I said.

"You do that."

"Who knows? If I find someone good, maybe Master Cooper would be interested in switching."

Callum's smug look disappeared. "Cooper? Jack Cooper?"

I nodded.

"You're his apprentice? I've never known Cooper to take an apprentice."

"He's getting soft in his old age. Except when it comes to finding quality suppliers, of course. Then he's merciless."

Callum sighed deeply. "Copper uses a lot of glass. A lot. Look, let's get ourselves an ale from the kitchen and I'll work out what can be done."

I left Tarrin with a beautiful piece of glass for just 15 gold, packing it into a specially artificed satchel that not only temporarily shrunk it, but prevented it from breaking if I was to drop the bag or bang it on something. On the way home, I took a diversion west to a place called Larking, built many years ago by the estranged brother of Brent Sunhampton, founder of the village where I lived. Larking was busy indeed, and there were a number of carts pulled by horses or oxen and people shouting and swearing at each other as they unloaded wagons full of barrels and bales of cloth. They looked like merchants - not as rich as Paisley’s uncle, perhaps, but certainly wealthy enough to call their trade 'healthy'.

In Larking, I visited a spell scroll shop named, imaginatively, Steve’s Spell Scroll Shoppe. There I found Steve, an aged spell-scribe who had been in the business longer than time itself. He told me he'd made over forty thousand spells for clients all around the world and prided himself on having never turned a customer away.

For my purpose, he had exactly what I wanted. What's more, as Cooper had promised me, his prices were much more reasonable than the merchants in The Cove. It made me feel naive that I'd bought my first scroll from the seaside resort. But then, naivety is the currency with which experience is bought.

It was evening by the time I got home. On my way through Sunhampton, various folks nodded or said hello to me. It seemed I was becoming known as Master Cooper's apprentice. Either that or they knew me as Paisley's partner in crime. Either way, I said hello back to them all and carried on home.

As it was evening and Master Cooper was supposed to stop working, I agreed that I would also stop for a while and have dinner with him. Rather than preparing food on my own, Cooper insisted on helping. We made spiced lamb stew, which was just a bit too hot for my liking but very tasty from the sips I took while it was bubbling away. Master Cooper baked some homemade bread - thin crusty loaves covered in herbs and spices that smelled so delicious I could have eaten the whole batch there and then.

We set the table just in time for Paisley to arrive. She wasn't alone, however. With her was her uncle Jace. He was wearing a well-tailored dark gray suit, looking every inch like a successful merchant. He nodded to me and then shook Cooper's offered hand. "Evening, Jack. Hope I'm not intruding. Paisley spends a lot of time here by all accounts, and when she said she was invited for dinner-"

"We didn’t invite her," I said.

Paisley glared at me. "I have an open invitation."

"When she said she was invited for dinner," continued Jace, "I thought I would look in on you, Jack. See how you're feeling."

"Nothing wrong with me."

"Yes, well, as one master to another, I know how overworked we can get at times. I bought you this."

Jace handed Master Cooper a bottle of brandy that must have cost ten gold, easily. Cooper took it reverently and put it down carefully. It seemed a long way from the ale he usually drank. "You needn't have gone to any trouble."

"Trouble? It's no trouble. I recently made a deal with a brewer in Llwyn. They make the finest brandy ever put in a bottle, if I may say so. This will do much to relieve the burdens of the day."

"Well, come in, you two. Sit yourselves down, and we'll serve up."

"I'll help you, Mr. Cooper," said Paisley.

When we were alone, Jace took off his coat. Lacking a coat stand, he folded it over his arm. "You and my niece are good friends," he said.

"We are."

"Good. She works too much, if it is possible to say that of an apprentice. I understand you have gone into business together?"

"If you can call it that," I said.

"I do. Any exchange of gold for goods or services is a business, Lewis, and don't forget it. Plenty of people in this world won't take you seriously at times - don't do the job for them. Your market enterprises are a business."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Porter."

The four of us enjoyed a joyful meal. The spiced lamb stew was gone in minutes, and we used Cooper's delicious bread to mop up the inside of the stew pot. Even Jace rolled up his sleeves and got stuck into it. Later, when the wolfhounds came to beg for scraps, Jace laughed in delight. "Wolfhounds! I had one when I was a lad."

“You?” asked Paisley, surprised.

“Of course. I love dogs. Perhaps we ought to get one. It wouldn't hurt for you to have some protection on your way to the market.”

Within minutes, Paisley’s uncle was rolling on the floor and wrestling with the dogs, not caring at all that his expensive shirt and trousers were soon covered in dirt and dog hair. When the dogs tired of playing and Jace recovered his poise, he sat down while brushing his sleeves.

"A brandy, Jace?" said Copper.

"Thank you. I've been meaning to talk to you about a project, Jack. A deal, you might say."

"Let's go to my workshop."

"Don’t stay up too late," I told Cooper. "You know what Healer Brown said."

"Yes, master," the old man replied.

While my master and Paisley's uncle talked business, Paisley and I went into the yard and sat on the bench under the plum tree. It was dark and warm there, and a night bird sang a song from a nearby bush.

"So... your uncle..." I found myself saying.

"What about him?"

"He called me your partner in crime. Is that because we are such good friends? Or is he joking?"

"I think it means he likes that I made a friend. Sunhampton isn't really the kind of place for people studying apprenticeships like ours. It's more for hunters, trappers, and the like." I didn't reply, so she continued: "Some days it's hard for me to be here. I never fit in. But you've made it a little easier."

"Thanks."

"And I made it easier for you?" she said.

"Well. I was already studying a lot. And you basically got me a second job that I have to work hard at. So...easier? Nope."

She laughed. "I should get back inside before my uncle makes Master Cooper sign over half his workshop for ten silvers or something."

"He would do that?"

"Where gold is involved, never underestimate Uncle Jace."

The next morning, I woke to the sound of scraping. I had permanently moved into a spare room in the house, which Cooper had previously used to store his old tools and spent spell scrolls in. When I blinked the tiredness from my eyes and sat up, I saw a mug of coffee resting on the table beside my bed. The cynical part of me wondered if Master Cooper had finally gotten bored of my apprenticeship and decided to just poison me, but a much larger part of my brain needed the coffee to wake me up. After dressing in my usual gray shirt with brown trousers, I was ready to face the day.

I headed downstairs while sipping my coffee, only to be confronted with the sight of Master Cooper standing in the living room with a broom, sweeping the floor.

"Uh..."

"Ah, the sleeping prince awakes!"

"Thanks for the coffee," I said. "But this is starting to feel very, very strange."

"I've decided that sweeping floors and feeding dogs isn't part of an artificer's apprenticeship. That's an old-fashioned view that I got from my master, and it doesn’t have a place today. It's supposed to teach obedience, you see, but you aren't a dog. Even if you sometimes smell like one."

I pinched my shirt collar and sniffed.

"No, obedience isn't what an artificer needs," continued Cooper. "An artificer is supposed to see what's normal, what's expected, and push beyond it. To make things for a purpose that they weren't intended. To push the realms of what most folks say is possible. By teaching you to be obedient, I was teaching you to be boring."

"Still. It feels strange to have you do all the chores. Maybe we can make a schedule?"

"I'll pin it to the kitchen cupboards."

After a breakfast of eggs, fresh bread made from Cooper's own flour and his butter, and strong dark coffee, I was ready for another day. I headed outside, where the morning air felt bracing on my skin. I enjoyed being out so early, before the world awoke, even if I was only heading to the workshop.

Sitting behind my workbench, I assembled all the things that I needed for my mirror.

First, I used Craft to assemble the glass and frame, creating an actual mirror. With that done, I improved on its finish using Upgrade. Next came the fun part.

I took hold of the spell scroll I'd bought yesterday. It smelled like a book from an old library, and the paper was cracked at one edge. Using Disenchant, I remove the miodes from it. Doing it this way resulted in successfully removing forty-five percent of the miodes, with fifty-five percent being wasted. Unhappy with this ratio, I resolved to manually disenchant things when time was not an issue. At least until I leveled up my Disenchantment ability enough.

Wishing to learn from my lesson, I wanted to use my alchemical tongs and artificer's goggles to enchant the mirror-free hand. We had a market to go to tomorrow, however, so time was not my friend. As such, I reluctantly used Enchant, conferring an artificeric effect to the mirror.

Finally, it was done. Now, when I looked at the completed item, token text hovered in front of me.

Mirror of Projection

The mirror of projection allows those who look into it to see what could have been; they can see their appearance with a beard, with different colored hair, or with redder lips. Anything is possible!

Looking into the mirror, I saw my own face staring back. I realized that I didn’t look into mirrors often and couldn’t even remember the last time. Perhaps it had been back at home. My old home. Or, better yet, the 'place where I used to sleep', because that place had never been a home for me.

Looking at my own face now, I saw a much older one. More time had passed across my features than the mere few months since I had last seen it. My eyes looked different. Weighed with new knowledge and more life experience. Looking at the skin around them, I thought about how some people looked in their old age, as if years were pressed into the skin like wrinkles.

Just then, the image in the mirror changed, and I saw myself in old age. I saw my face wearing wrinkles not unlike Master Cooper's, even if our features were wildly different. I saw the old man I might become, and it was a scary sight. Not because there is anything wrong with age, but because age is a friend you should gradually fall in step with. If either of you runs fast enough that one must chase the other, the balance of life is changed too much.

I wondered if this mirror was an abomination. I wondered if all artificers felt that way about their creations and whether our relationship with mages and their magic, that connection that was inseverable, really was a service to the greater good of the world or whether it was a curse.

And then, I imagined myself with silly walrus whiskers and, seeing it reflected upon the glass, felt my mood lighten.

I spent all of that day and most of the evening making more items for the market. Raiding Cooper's miode stores, I was able to craft a few more artificed trinkets, such as a jewelry box that polished the items you put inside it, a tiny golden goblet that imbued a chosen flavor on whatever liquid you poured into it, and a self-winding clock which had three faces: the current time, the weather an hour from now, and the weather tomorrow. Whether it was accurate or not was another question entirely.

As well as this new artificed stock, I used my Craft and Upgrade abilities to create an array of tools, utensils, and even a few weapons. By dusk, I had made a pile of them consisting of tool boxes, leather pouches, sewing needles, silver pens, inkpots, belts, lanterns, oil lamps, potion bottles, cleaning cloths, cookware, apothecary vials, compasses, weighing scales, scissors, tweezers, sewing kits, blades, needles, combs, pliers, ratchets, spools, locks, dice, torches, magnifying glasses, lantern stands. Anything I could reasonably think of as being a selling item, I made one or two of them. The quality of such mass-produced items wasn't up to my usual standard, and I regretted this. Only folks with a highly leveled Craft skill could produce quality items in a short time, and if I wanted quality, then I had to take more care. For the next market, I would do that.

Of course, I completely drained my crafting stamina several times and replenished it using a draught that Cooper kept in a cupboard in his workshop. This topped up my stamina instantly, but with diminishing returns; by the fourth serving, it was only restoring 20% of my crafting stamina. The fifth did nothing at all, and I began to feel quite unwell.

When I told Master Cooper about it, he gave me a knowing smile. "The only proper way to restore crafting stamina is to rest. A draught's good if you're working towards a deadline, but drink enough of them, and you can permanently reduce your stamina."

"Really?"

"Relax. You would need to drink several of them several times a day for perhaps a month or two. But let today be a warning to you."

Finally, as the sky darkened and stars shone in the clear night sky, I went to bed. Only then did I feel a slight pressure in my head, the result of a ream of token notifications that I had held back while I worked. To clear my head, I let the messages fall and watched as they inked themselves into the air in front of me. Many of them just told of successful crafting - each pen, lantern, comb, or fork got its own message.

The most important ones were saved to last, and I studied these carefully.

'Craft' ability leveled up to 5!

'Craft' ability leveled up to 6!

As well as the usual increase in my crafting menu and improvement to my craft quality and speed, I earned a new perk.

'Craft' Perk gained - Chef's Friend

Due to crafting a high number of kitchenware and cooking utensils, you have gained a permanent crafting boost in this area. The quality of any cookery-related items that you create has increased 200%. Your stew pots will last longer. Your knives will glide through meat. Your herb jars will preserve taste and fragrances for longer.

My 'Upgrade' skill had leveled from 2 to 4, meaning that my recent crafting had leveled up abilities in my 'Simple Craft & Forge' skill tree four times, resulting in me being 80% toward an overall skill tree level up. This alone was enough to make me want to get out of bed and start crafting, but my stamina was still empty. Evidently, it was still sulking at me for the strain I had put it through lately.

My 'Disenchant' and 'Enchant' abilities had both leveled up once each. This primarily meant that my Disenchantment ability would result in slightly less miode wastage, whereas my Enchant ability worked faster and with better artificeric quality.

As the token messages began to disperse, I watched them fade until they were gone, leaving me alone in my room, my tired body sinking into the mattress while my eyes softly closed.

Chapter 21

As we passed a sign that read 'Welcome to Hattersdale - Home of the Famous Hattersdale Flea Market,' I turned to Paisley and asked her, "What is a flea market, anyway? How does it differ from a regular market?"

"A flea market is more like... well," she hesitated briefly before continuing, "It's called a flea market because traditionally, people have always sold second-hand goods there. You know, chairs, clothes. That kind of thing. They picked up a reputation for some of the goods sold harboring...well...uninvited guests."

"I spent time crafting some pretty good stuff," I said, slightly disappointed that a flea market wasn't populated by overgrown fleas with big purses. "None of this is second-hand."

"Things have changed. Flea markets are more upscale these days."

"Let's hope so. Gimme a hand unloading, will ya?"

Hattersdale was different from Sunhampton. It was bigger, for one thing. There were tinkers and tricksters and penny-a-garment tailors lined all along the main street hawking their services, and they even had a small guildhall that looked surprisingly impressive. It had an impressive set of stairs leading to it—a reminder of what status meant here. There were several large stores lining both sides of the main road as well, mostly with various foodstuffs inside them: breads, meats, vegetables, cheeses.

All this would have been enough to make me like the place right away, but there was something else about Hattersdale that made it more appealing than any other town I'd seen in my travels apart from Sunhampton: its people looked happy. The folks who came into the market smiled when they saw us, and most of the local shopkeepers or tradesmen we met seemed genuinely pleased to chat with us newcomers. It wasn’t always that way as an outsider trying to trade in a market.

We unloaded the cart, and I set to work arranging my tools, utensils, and trinkets on our two display stands. I made a special effort to look like I was really trying my best on the display while actually doing a poor job at it, knowing that Paisley took great joy in making her corrections. Next, I took out our sign and placed it in front of the displays. Paisley walked past it, glanced, then walked on...only to stop and turn back on herself.

"You changed the sign," she said.

"I did."

"'Lewis Crafter & Paisley Porter - Crafters and Merchants of Fine Tools, Treasures, & Trinkets'," she read, her cheeks blushing steadily more with each word. I watched her face, only to grow perturbed as I saw a tear form in the corner of her right eye.

"Did I upset you?"

She wiped her eyes. "I'm not upset. Just allowing my eyes to complete their scheduled water maintenance. The sign is perfect. And I like the name."

"Let's hope it's a good day today, then. I'd hate for our new business name to turn out to be unlucky."

"A good merchant doesn't let luck decide their day - good or otherwise," she said. "Hey. What's this?"

"Take the sheet off."

"A mirror! It's very well crafted, Lewis."

"Thanks. It isn't just any mirror, though. Look into it."

Paisley peered into the glass, turning her head this way and that. "I don’t get it."

"Look at yourself. I wonder what you'd look like with a bigger nose?"

"What would I look like with a bigger nose?" she repeated, confused.

No sooner had she said it then her image began to transform, with her nose growing larger in front of my eyes, as if by magic. Or as if by artificery, to be precise.

"What!" Paisley pulled away from the mirror quickly, turning around and rubbing her nose. "What did you do?"

"Relax. It's just artificery. It's called a Mirror of Projection. It'll show you what you look like with different features. Blonde hair, maybe. Or a pointy chin.”

Paisley faced the mirror again. "Or what I’d look like with the head of an ox."

I couldn’t help laughing at the hideous image that took shape on the glass, and soon both of us were doubled over laughing as we played around with it. My favorite was when the reflection showed me as an old woman whose skin was covered in scales and who had two heads, one normal, one small and slightly deformed.

"That was the worst yet!" I said between gasps.

"A marked improvement, if you ask me." She gave me the side-eye for a moment before returning to her laughter.

"Ok. That's enough," I said, finally wiping my eyes dry.

"What else did you bring?"

"A few artificed odds and ends. The mirror was the main thing. How much do you think it will sell for?"

Paisley considered this. "Though things have intrinsic value, ultimately, something is only worth what someone will pay for it. I think we'll get five silver for it at best."

"Really?"

"Course not. This is very impressive! I think if someone paid a hundred gold, they'd be getting a bargain. The only drawback is that we're apprentices, and people will see that. If Master Cooper was standing here with the mirror, he'd get three hundred gold for it, at least. That's another thing about value - sometimes it isn't the item itself, but the person selling it that makes it desirable."

That morning was our most profitable yet, with many of our tools and utensils selling quickly. Paisley restocked the display stands whenever we ran low, but soon even our artificed stock cart began to empty. The only thing that dampened such a great morning was the mirror. Plenty of people stopped and had a play around with the artificery, but nobody spent the necessary gold.

"Times are hard," said Paisley, "And though flea markets are more upscale these days, I guess their spirit lives on. Don’t worry. We'll sell it."

Hattersdale was famous for its pies, which consisted of layers of meat or fruit in pastry. Some were savory, while others were sweet. The market sold both types. The morning was already growing old when I saw one stand where two young men stood making fresh pie crusts and putting the finishing touches on their pastries as they sold them to customers. My stomach rumbled at the delicious aromas coming from their stall, so I headed over to buy one each for Paisley and me.

In the afternoon, I set myself the goal of selling the Mirror of Projection, even if I had to stay in the market until dusk. When I told Paisley of my determination, she laid down a challenge.

"Bet I can earn more gold than you this afternoon."

"Well, of course you can. You’re an apprentice merchant. All right, then. Let’s have another challenge; I bet I can craft more things than you."

"Fine, smart arse. I'll start at minus fifty gold. Okay? And I'll still catch you up. Loser buys the-"

"Sweet rolls. Right. You've got a deal."

I forced my most customer-friendly smile onto my face and stood proudly in front of the mirror, saying hello to anyone who glanced over. Each interaction went the same - at first, no one seemed interested in my mirror, but after a while, someone came by asking questions about it, then they tried out the mirror themselves. They stared into the mirror, seemingly unsure of what it was doing or how it worked. After watching this for some time, they began to try things like, "Oh, look at me with blonde hair," or, "What would I be like with green eyes?"

"How much?" they would ask me.

"It's yours for only a hundred gold."

Their reactions were often different. Some people would go away shaking their head incredulously, others would laugh uncontrollably and walk off while mumbling something unintelligible under their breath. A few looked very angry and called me every name in the book before storming off, swearing vengeance against me and my prices.

Paisley finished selling a set of chisels to an old carpenter, then turned to face me and declared, "And that’s me breaking the fifty gold mark! You better start selling, Crafter!"

I thought there was no way I could possibly sell the mirror, and I resigned myself to defeat. Buying the sweet roll wasn’t much of a punishment for losing, but it pained me that although people liked the mirror, they didn’t value it as much as I did.

Part of me wanted to just drop the price to fifty gold and be done with it. I almost made a new sign to say as such. But then I told myself, no. I won’t do that. I worked hard on this. Paisley was right about the value of things -in a merchant's terms, something was only worth what gold a person would spend on it. But I was a crafter, and my values worked on a different scale, one answerable only to myself and the pride I took in my work.

Not long after, one old man spent a good fifteen minutes peering into the mirror and making requests. When he was done, I tried to sell it to him, even lowering the price to 95 gold, though it pained me to go so low. He told me that was too much for an old man like him. He did, however, place a 50-silver coin on the table, then gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, "Good job."

"What's the coin for?"

"Well, if I ain't mistaken, that mirror's artificed. Reckon you put a lot of work into it. So the silver is for letting me try it."

Inspiration flashed in me like lightning from a storm cloud. I needed a new sign, but my crafting stamina still hadn't replenished from the effects of me overworking it and consuming too many draughts yesterday. Instead, I used a sheet of paper and ink pen and then, in my best handwriting, made a crude sign.

Mirror of Projection

Scared of a new haircut in case it doesn't suit you? Wondering what you'd look like with green eyes, a bigger nose, or a splendorous beard?

The mirror of projection holds the answers for you! Made with the finest artificery, this trinket holds the answers you seek.

Try it now for just 50 silvers per turn!

That did the trick. Pretty soon, one interested customer turned into two, then three. Soon, a crowd gathered and formed a line as one person after another paid their silvers and made requests to the mirror. One man asked it to show him as a pigeon, while a woman wanted to know how she would appear if she were covered in boils. It was hilarious watching them react when they first saw themselves changed by the mirror, and some people burst out laughing uncontrollably at the sight of themselves looking like something else entirely.

By the time the afternoon came to its end and the close-of-market bell rang, I had earned 50 gold just from letting people use the mirror while keeping it in my possession at the end of the day. To my right, Paisley was counting her coins and dropping them into her money belt one by one.

"Well?" I said. "How did you do?"

She paused. "How did you do?"

"You first."

"No, you first."

"Okay, together. One...two...three..."

"Fifty-two gold!" said Paisley.

"Fifty!" I said. Then, "Damn it. You beat me by two damn gold."

"Well, technically, I beat you by fifty-two, since I started at a self-imposed deficit. But what's fifty-two gold between friends? Go find me a sweet roll!"

I wandered away to get her one, feeling not even slightly annoyed at losing. In fact, having so many people pay to use my mirror boosted my confidence about my craftsmanship, and I was pleased I'd found a way around what had promised to be a very sorry afternoon.

When I bought two current sweet rolls and headed back to Paisley, I found her standing beside the mirror with a young woman. The woman was dressed in finery, with thick fur draped over her leather coat, matching trousers with gold buttons up the sides, and golden buckles on her shoes. Her blonde hair was long enough that she tied it behind her head in a loose ponytail held by a ribbon. She stood tall and looked like she would have fit right into any royal court.

When I approached, I heard Paisley bartering with her. There was a strange edge to her voice, which I recognized as being her Persuasion ability hard at work. "The mirror was made by a very talented craftsman," she said, unaware that I was approaching. "and to let it go for less than three hundred gold would be a crime."

"Three hundred, girl? Do you really think anyone will pay that much?" said the other lady.

"Yes, madam. It's not just my opinion, either. I spoke to a passing artificer master earlier, and he agrees. The market value of this is no less than three hundred gold, so I don't see why anyone should haggle about it."

"That may well be true. But the fact of the matter remains that the market is closing, and you clearly need to sell the mirror, or you wouldn’t have brought it here. Two hundred gold."

Paisley made a show of thinking about it, but we'd already agreed that we’d sell for anything over a hundred gold. But as I walked toward them, I kept thinking about the customers lining up to use it and how fifty gold for an afternoon's work wasn't bad at all.

"The mirror isn't for sale," I said, joining them.

The woman eyed me suspiciously. Finally, she said, "Two hundred and fifty gold."

"It isn't for sale."

"Three hundred."

"I'm sorry, but it isn't-"

Paisley nudged me. "Lewis..."

"Just trust me," I whispered.

"You two apprentices are infuriating," said the lady. "Fine. Four hundred. That is my final offer."

That was a lot of money. More money than I'd ever made from selling my crafts, and enough to impress Cooper, for sure. I was more than tempted to take it. In fact, I almost said the words.

But then, I stopped myself.

"No sale. Sorry."

"Lewis!" said Paisley.

The woman's nose twitched. "I hope the wretched thing falls out of your cart and breaks," she said before turning away.

When we were alone, Paisley looked into the mirror and said, "Show me what I'd look like if I just turned down 400 gold! Oh, wait. It's showing me you!"

"I know it seems stupid," I said.

"Did you get all sentimental over it or something?"

"It wasn't that. I earned 50 gold just by letting people use the mirror this afternoon. If I'd done that in the morning as well, we'd have earned 100 gold. And If I charged one gold per turn instead of 50 silvers, we could have made 200 gold by letting people use a mirror that we keep at the end of the day."

"Turning your goods into a service," said Paisley. Then, she looked annoyed.

"Something wrong?"

"Yes, something's wrong. I should have thought of that."

"A person can't know everything. I mess up with my crafting all the time. Besides, you outsold me by far, and you probably weren't even trying."

"Even so, imagine how you'd feel if I pointed out how you could craft something better. It's not that I’m annoyed at you. I'm annoyed at myself for missing it."

"It took an old man and 50 silvers to give me the idea. Sometimes you're standing under the right tree with the bolt of inspiration flashes."

"I guess."

"Look. The first market I went to, I sold one item. And that was a pity sale. The next one, I only sold anything at all because of you. If this mirror proves anything, it's that we're better as a team, and credit for anything good we do belongs to both of us. Now, take your sweet roll and help me pack up the stands."

Chapter 22

Standing in the middle of Cooper's yard was a stone doorway. It was huge. Really, it looked like it belonged in a castle. Despite its bulk, however, it was beautifully masoned and was formed into a perfect arch. The stone was strange, though. It looked like ordinary rock but had streaks of gold running through it, like veins of gold ore or metal alloy or something like that. It smelled faintly metallic.

It was the morning after the market when I first saw the doorway, and I was looking forward to giving Master Cooper his share of the gold we'd earned. As it turned out, he was equally looking forward to showing me his doorway. "Made it out of local-sourced limestone and quartz," he said proudly. "No finer stone on the arse of this world for artificing with. The gold streaks you can see are iron gold. Makes the artificery stronger, keeps it from tarnishing over time."

"Where's the actual door?" I asked.

"Better to artifice the stone first," he replied. “The teleportation artificery is woven into the stone. Harder to disenchant or manipulate it that way. The activation will be enchanted into the door handle and hinges, when I get around to making them. A turn of the handle and movement of the hinges will trigger the artificery in the stone, and then walking through the doorway will complete it."

"So it's nearly done, then," I said.

"Nearly done? Not by half. I still need to work with the miodes. On that count, how did it go yesterday?"

I told Master Cooper about our success at the market.

"I'm proud of you, lad," he said. "But with all due respect to Ms. Porter, she's wrong about value. Not just about the mirror, but in general. The value of anything lies in what the craft is worth to you."

"It didn't seem that way when people wouldn't even pay 100 gold for it."

"But then the rich lady offered quadruple that, did she not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you're doing something right!" said Cooper. "Now, I want to see you studying today. What's your next skill?"

"Simple Tinkering," I said.

"You'll find some useful books on the rotator shelf. Read through them carefully, and write down any concepts you want me to explain. You'll want to go into Sunhampton and buy yourself some basic tinkering materials, too. I already gave you the basic tools, but I don't have any cogs and tinkerer's gel and such lying around."

"Yes, Master Cooper."

"Good lad."

The most suitable book about tinkering on Master Cooper's shelves was titled, 'Tinkering Basics: From Theory to Practice' by Beatrice Argyle. Her book began, 'Greetings, student of the wonderful world of tinkering, and welcome to a craft that will entertain, enrapture, and frustrate you for years to come!’

Reading on, I learned that tinkering was a fascinating craft, and in fact, artificers and tinkerers were similar in lots of ways. Both manipulated ordinary objects to produce decidedly unordinary results. But where an artificer produced their effects using miodes - and thus relied on magecraft to an extent - tinkerers used mechanical means to produce their results. Cogs, gears, that kind of thing.

Old-fashioned tinkerers used to travel from town to town offering basic services - they would sharpen knives, copy keys, mend broken items, even re-heel shoes. Most modern-day tinkerers still offered such services and were required to learn how to do so in order to pass their apprenticeship. But that was more through respect for the past of their trade rather than the demands of nowadays society.

Being a tinkerer took a whole apprenticeship in itself, of course, and I was only learning the Simple Tinkering skill tree. This meant I only needed to learn how to use simple things such as springs, screws, gears, pulleys, levers, and my resulting mechanisms would be simple.

'The best project for a would-be tinkerer,' wrote Ms. Argyle, 'is a clockwork pocket watch. The reason being that if you can build a working timepiece, then you can fix almost anything else!'

Her enthusiasm for tinkering seeped through the pages, and it was hard not to smile as I read. This seemed like an apt assignment for me -I had already made a clock, of course. It was the first thing I had ever crafted. But though I had made the frame, face, and clock hands myself, I had used Master Cooper's stock to supply the inner gears, the very essence that made a clock seize time by the hand and make it show its face to the world. Now, it seemed, it was my chance to learn the intricacies of time.

'First, then. To learn to create,' continued Ms. Argyle, 'One must destroy.'

I headed to the workshop to look for the clock I had made back when I was studying for Simple Craft and Forge. I was certain I had left it in the workshop near the wall on the south side, but it wasn’t there. A thorough search of the workshop revealed it to be missing entirely. I crossed the yard and headed to Cooper's workshop, where I found him concentrating on working with what looked to be a spell scroll. Acting on instinct, I pulled my artificer's goggles from my satchel and put them on, flicking to a full-miode lens. Instantly I saw a thousand miodes in the air, locked into a dance which my human brain couldn't register the pattern nor the rules of. These were no ordinary miodes - they were tinier than most, for one thing, and they flew here and there as if possessing free will, gliding out of the way of Master Cooper's attempts to snatch them with his alchemical tongs.

I could only marvel as the old man watched them with patience before flicking his arm out quicker than I could follow and closing the tongs over a miode. He gently placed this in his Axim, the crystallizing tool fastened to the west-side wall by two tight chains.

"Sorry, master," I said, recognizing how much concentration this must take. "I didn’t realize you were working with miodes."

He took off his goggles and swept his hair back over his head. His face was red and covered in sweat. "I'm due my hourly break, anyhow. Can’t risk displeasing Healer Brown. Everything alright?"

"I was just looking for my clock."

"Clock?"

"The one I made...Oh. It's in here."

Cooper followed my outstretched finger to the clock sitting on his main workbench.

"Oh, that old thing?" he said. "I didn’t realize it was yours. I just needed to keep an eye on the time. You know. To follow Healer Brown's rest regimen."

Without making any extra effort, I counted five different timepieces scattered throughout the workshop, all of which were ticking and showing the same time. The fact that it was my clock sitting on the bench, the very first one that I had made... well. It didn't seem like an accident to me.

I smiled. "It's okay. You can keep it. I'll just find another."

"You can have it back if you want, lad. It...uh...holds no specific value to me. Really."

I could tell that he didn’t mean that. "It's fine."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure," I said. "I just need a clock for a tinkering project I'm working on."

"Oh. In that case, take this one."

Master Cooper grabbed a different clock and tossed it across the workshop. I caught it. The clock was of simple make and design, the kind you would see in any house in the village. The casing was blackened, and the hands were green and constructed without any artistic flourish.

I took it back into the workshop, where I set it on the workbench, where Ms. Argyle’s words stared at me from the textbook: 'to learn how to create, you must first destroy.'

Thinking I understood the message, I pried the back casing off the clock to reveal the clockwork inside, a collection of cogs with some sort of spring-driven device behind them. A long coiled piece of wire ran down through the gears with several loops of metal connected by brass wires along its length. It was part of a larger mechanism that made up the main body of the clock.

I carefully took these parts out and studied them as a whole. Then, covering them with a sheet of paper, I drew them out from memory. When I compared my drawing to the real thing, I had made many, many inaccuracies. So, I tried again. My next attempt was more precise, and the one after that even more so. Only when I could draw the clockwork perfectly without looking did I start to take it apart.

I worked slowly, piece by piece, studying how each part connected to another and what systems and connections were lost by my destruction. I studied the inner workings of the clock, and the relationship between each part like a ranger might study woodland creatures building a den. Many hours later, the clock's insides were laid out before me in a neat row, which I proceeded to mess up by shutting my eyes and mixing the pieces together, creating chaos from the former order.

When I opened my eyes, the pattern was gone, the pieces were haphazard like miodes after an artificer's fork had diffused them into the air. With a dead clock and broken mechanism, my tinkering began.

It took me three hours to put the clock together. Working with such tiny objects was surprisingly intensive work; by the time I was done, my hands ached horribly. With the clock assembled, I shut the casing and turned it around to see its face.

The clock hands were frozen.

Damn it, I had spent all of that time working, and I had done it wrong!

I stretched my fingers and wrists using the Tinker's Torsions, a series of exercises listed in Ms. Argyle’s book. It was a known problem, apparently, that tinkers suffered from terrible hand pain in their later years, which could be avoided or at least improved by adopting a stretching regimen and practicing good workplace posture. I had seen how Master Cooper's knuckles sometimes swelled after heavy bouts of intricate work, and I was determined to avoid an affliction like that.

When I went to see Master Cooper about the clock, I found him still locked in on his miodes, an artificer's fork in one hand and alchemical tongs in the other. He could have used his ‘Master Disenchantment’ skill tree to accomplish this, but he liked doing things manually because he found peace within the process.

"Did you take a break?" I said.

He waved his hand at me dismissively. "Missing one little break won't hurt."

"One leads to two. I better go ask Healer Brown..."

Cooper bolted upright. “Don’t you dare!" He set down his tools slowly, reluctantly, like a hunter forced by brigands to lay his bow and arrows on the ground. "There, see? I'll take my damned break."

"I wanted to ask you about tinkering."

I told him about the book and the clock and how it had taken me hours only to have a failed attempt and earn no EXP for it.

"I was thinking," I said. "I spent maybe five hours making diagrams and putting the clockwork back together, all told. And you haven't awarded me much EXP while I've been here. So maybe..."

"There's a reason for that," said Cooper.

"Well, yes. You were ignoring me for a large portion of my apprenticeship."

"True. Like I said - I'm sorry, lad. But ignoring you or not, I was never going to award you much experience. Can't you see why?"

"Because I can earn EXP for myself by doing things."

"You've had nobody but yourself to rely on, and as hard as that seems at times, your skills have grown tremendously. It is a flawed system where a master can give his apprentices experience. It's a road that can only logically lead to corruption, incompetence, or laziness. The number of apprentices out there whose masters award them experience that they haven't earned, opening the door to skills they didn’t sweat to achieve. Ability without knowledge is like wandering a library plunged into an everlasting darkness. You can feel the books are there, yes, but what good are they to you?"

"Okay. I get it," I said.

"Good lad. Come back in an hour, and we'll have lunch."

Back in the workshop, I took apart the clock and put it back together again. This time I could feel that the mechanism was correct in my hands before I even began turning the cogs in the correct order. Soon, the clockwork fell into place with a satisfying clunk and chimed like a bell as each part made its appointed sound. It felt so right when everything clicked together. The workings were elegant, balanced, a true work of art.

After that, I was so proud of my work that I spent hours cleaning the clock and oiling every moving piece. Then, just as before, I shut the case around the thing, setting it on my desk.

+26% progress toward skill tree 'Simple Tinkering'.

Finally, I had taken a step along the road. It felt great. Following the idea that one success births another, I took a second clock from Master Cooper's workshop and repeated the process, taking it apart and putting it back together again. I did it much quicker this time and felt a swell of delight at this display of my growing knowledge and skills.

Only this time, my experience reward was disappointing.

+1% progress toward skill tree 'Simple Tinkering' [Current: 27%]

Only one percent EXP for an action that had given me twenty-six percent that very same day? It felt mean, unfair, like the universe was being miserly with its experience for no reason at all.

Paisley stopped by for lunch, bringing with her three sandwiches. They were simple sandwiches, nothing fancy - no rare meats, no exotic spices or dressings. But what they lacked in decoration, they made up for in taste. My stomach gave a growl of appreciation as I bit into a slice of bread filled with ham and cheese.

"This cheese is delicious," I mumbled, my mouth still full.

"There's a farmer who makes it. Not far out of Sunhampton, actually," she said. "He makes it for fun, but I'm thinking maybe we should offer to take it to market for him, as long as we get a cut."

Master Cooper joined us, and the three of us ate together on a bench in the yard, near the pear trees that only bore fruit every ten years, as Master Cooper had told me. "But when that fruit arrives...well, lad. You've never tasted a pear like it."

When we were done, I made coffee. Master Cooper didn’t say much else, instead brooding on his work. I think I was the same, and we didn’t make great lunch companions for Paisley. She kept trying to coax us out of it though, telling us about her own studies and how her Uncle Jace was planning a trip to a city out east called Temper and that she would be going with him for a few days.

"That sounds great," I said.

"Of course, he's planning to marry me off to a rich prince, so there's that to think about," she said.

"That sounds great."

"You're not listening!"

"Sorry. I was listening. Sort of. Half listening."

"Well, the trip isn't for a while yet, so I can still help you. How's the tinkering going?"

I told her about the clock and how working on a second clock hadn't yielded much progress. When I was done, Paisley said, "What did you tell him, Mr. Cooper?"

Master Cooper was lost in the waves of his own thoughts, no doubt thinking about miodes and veins of gold shocked within the well-hewed stone.

"Mr. Cooper?"

"What now? Oh. Yes, Ms. Porter. A fine idea."

Paisley shot me a look, and I shrugged.

"You two are infuriating," she said.

Master Cooper stood up. “That's enough of a break for today, methinks."

"Is everything okay, Mr. Cooper?"

"Fine, lass. Just...an idea. That's all. Leave it with me."

The old master loped off toward his workshop, joined halfway there by Amara, the second youngest of his wolfhounds. Amara gently nipped Master Cooper's right hand and then bounded away a few steps like a spring lamb, tail rattling side to side. When he pounced back for another play bite, Master Cooper was ready and suddenly sprang into life and gave chase across the yard. It was great to see him laughing again, but this moment was shot with concern when the playing stopped, and Master Cooper caught his breath by his workshop door.

"Are you okay, Master?" I said.

He was a moment in answering. "Fine."

When the workshop door shut behind him, Paisley told me, "I know you meant well, but I don't think Mr. Cooper likes us asking if he's okay. You know, and stuff like that. He doesn’t like being reminded how old he is."

"Why not? It'll happen to us all."

"Sure, but it doesn’t really feel like it now, does it? I know I’ll get old someday. I understand the idea as an abstraction. But I wonder if it’s the same when it really happens."

"It probably happens so gradually you don't feel it," I said. "Like your hair growing. You don’t see it grow in the mirror. It never looks different day to day. But then one morning, you realize you need to get it cut."

She turned to me. "Uncle Jace says youth is a gift that the owner can't enjoy because the universe only gives him eyes with which to see it when it's gone. So I say, let's open our eyes and see it. When we finish our apprenticeships, let’s take a trip."

"Where?" I asked.

She paused. "I always wanted to go to the lakes of the Red Setting Sky. That's what they call it, but it's near a town called Dawning Ashburn. Anyway, there's a giant market there where merchants from everywhere come together. There are thousands of shops and stalls, and it's a great place to make new contacts."

"That doesn't sound like making the most of our youth to me," I said.

"Then what would you do?"

I thought about it. "My mother always used to talk about a place called Penrythe. It's a seaside town out east. She always said she’d take me, but we never got the chance."

"I've been," said Paisley. "It isn't anything special."

“Are you telling the truth?”

“No. It’s a lovely place.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said.

We finished our coffee and said our goodbyes. Paisley was traveling to a meeting between her uncle and a local cobbler, sitting in on some kind of contract negotiation to work on her bartering skills. I headed to Master Cooper's workshop, where I got his permission to take and dismantle the rest of his clocks. All of them except the one I had made, of course.

In the main workshop, I dismantled and reassembled each clock in turn. It involved hours of trial and error - mostly error. It was an act of destruction, mainly. I took working clocks, pulled out their insides, then assembled them so that they no longer ticked. I really hoped that healers didn't earn their skills this way.

All told, it must have taken me a day to dismantle and then reassemble all four clocks. Each time, though, my moment of triumph was rained on when I only earned 1% toward the Simple Tinkering skill. This put me 31% of the way there, but it was nowhere near enough for me, a greedy skill guzzler.

When I referred back to Ms. Argyle’s book, she only had this to say: 'A tinkerer is rewarded for the variation of his labors. Just as farmers keep their soil healthy by rotating crops, so should a tinker practice variety in his training.”

I guessed that made sense. Earning EXP was all about practicing new skills, and it seemed to fit that varying my skills would get me more EXP. With this in mind, I made a tour of Master Cooper's workshop and house, trying to find anything that needed mending. The problem was that since Cooper was a master artificer, all of his things were in infuriatingly good condition. If I was going to repair broken things, I'd have to seek them out.

The next morning, I got all my apprentice chores done quickly, and I enjoyed a quick breakfast of ham and cheese before heading off into Sunhampton on a quest to find damaged objects.

When I reached the village, I found it busier than expected, with merchants on Coiner's Walk setting up their shops for the day. There was much chatter as they gossiped with each other while they set up for a day of trading, and apprentice shop boys and girls pushed carts that rattled through the streets. It was just starting to rain when I arrived, and already I could hear the patter of water drops falling on cobblestones. I stopped for a moment and breathed in deeply. Sunhampton always smelled different when it rained. The cobbles let out a nice aroma as though the stone enjoyed nourishment from the rain.

"Watch out!"

I stepped aside just as a horse and cart powered by, disturbing the morning peace. Sitting up top was a driver holding leather reins, lashing his horses and urging them on. The passenger compartment windows were covered by curtains. A few traders shook their fists and yelled creative obscenities to the carriage, and I made a mental note of some of the better ones.

When the carriage was gone and its horses' hooves were just echoes, I went to the first building on Coiner's Walk. It was a general shop that sold odds and ends, from armor repair kits to hunting supplies. There were other items too, such as general healing salves, antidotes for poisons distilled from the venom of giant spiders, all kinds of items that defied a general classification.

“Let’s see here,” I said, looking for signs of ill-wear.

The wooden sign on the front was fixed to the stone by brackets, which in turn were held in place by nails driven into the stone. The wood of the sign was weather-damaged, and one bracket was loose. I could easily see the sign falling down on some unfortunate shopper's head one day.

“Here we go,” I said, smiling.

The owner was a woman in her fifties with dark hair cut short and sharp eyes that eyed me as if I had just announced that I was here to shoplift while holding a burlap sack with the words ‘stolen goods’ written on it.

"Yes?" she said. She was concentrating on writing in a huge ledger that took up the whole of her counter.

"I'm a tinkerer, madam, here to offer my wares."

She looked amused. "You're a tinkerer, are you?"

"I am."

"Then may I hear the tinker's chant?"

Luckily, I was prepared for such a request and had memorized the passage written in Ms. Argyle’s book. I cleared my throat. "Never to waste will we rend, an item that a tinkerer could mend. Shoes and tools, combs and spools. A spot of grease and a happy tune, a broken thing is a tinkerer's boon."

"Very impressive! You certainly must be a tinkerer then, having memorized such an epic poem."

"Why do I feel like you are being sarcastic, madam?" I said.

"I'm sorry. Enterprise is to be admired in youth, but I don't have time to be the one who fosters it. If I ever have need of a tinkerer, I will be certain to find you. Good day, young tinkerer."

"I didn't tell you my name."

"That's a lovely name! Good day," she said again.

For the rest of the morning, I got similar answers from all the shops that I visited. Nobody seemed to need anything mending. I decided to try my luck east of Coiner's Way, where the cobbled streets gave way to the smooth limestone pavements of places like Hurrier's Grove and Fielding Avenue. Such streets were where the houses of Sunhampton were bunched together. I began knocking on doors to offer my services, but the reception I received was even colder. Most folks didn’t answer and those who did, did not appreciate being disturbed at home.

It was deflating to live in the only village in the land where little was broken, and nobody needed anything fixing or tweaking. I knew that wasn’t the real reason, of course. Times were tight, and people didn’t want to entrust repairs to a young, apprentice tinkerer.

I decided to call off my efforts and headed back through Coiner's Way. It was much busier now, approaching midday, and the carts of merchants rattled past me as they made their way into Sunhampton’s market square. There wasn’t a market today, as far as I knew, so I wondered what they were doing.

But the merchants weren’t the strangest thing that I saw.

A traveling town crier had taken up station at the end of the street. Sunhampton didn't have a town crier, but that didn’t stop wandering criers making their way here to practice their skills. The crier cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "Here ye, hear ye! Publicans! Village folk of Sunhampton! Heed me! I am called to announce some news!"

Though most people - merchants, shoppers, and errand boys - had been ignoring him until now, they began to flock toward him almost as if drawn there by some other power. It struck me then that being a town crier was a class like any other, and the ability to draw a crowd using only your voice must be part of it.

All told there must have been a dozen folks waiting to hear his news. The crier seemed to enjoy the attention. No, he seemed to love it. He basked in their faces so focused on his and delayed and delayed and delayed the moment of delivering his news.

Does he replenish his skill by drawing a crowd, I wondered? Or is that how he earns experience?

"Get on with it!" yelled a man.

The crier smiled and once again cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hear ye, hear ye! Good folks of Sunhampton! Hear ye! I bring you tidings today, for all has turned sour for this village."

"Really? What is it?" asked a worried woman, who was accompanied by her child.

The crier replied. "The brigands who have been visiting violence and horror upon your fair village are growing in number!"

Looks of confusion stared back from a dozen faces. I added my own to the number, since I haven’t heard anything about brigands.

"What are you talking about?" yelled a man who was holding a set of mule reins in his left hand, with the mule nowhere to be seen.

The crier nodded knowingly. "Yes, indeed. Your roads are not safe, fair people of ..." he thought for a second, "...Sunhampton!"

The man raised his arm, pointing his mule reins accusingly at the crier. "There's been no brigands around 'ere in years! You're just making stuff up!"

"This crier's a bloody fraud!" said the woman.

"A fraud!" said her little boy.

"Perhaps you are right," said the crier. "But was the delivery of such news not effective? Now, my fair folk, imagine that you all convinced your mayor or council, or whoever runs this beautiful village, to pay me just a paltry five hundred golds per month. I could collect all the news you desire, and your village would never be left in ignorance again!"

The knowledge that this had been a show, a scam, or maybe a promotional pitch - depending on each person's disposition toward the crier's efforts - brought a certain hostility upon the normally pleasant inhabitants of Sunhampton. It didn’t reach the level of violence because this was a nice village with mostly nice people, but I recognized the signs that this might escalate if the crier didn’t do the sensible thing and shut up.

"Well?" said the man with the mule reins. "What's all this about brigands? Or are you just spreading fear to make a coin?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," began the crier.

I hoped he might be about to sort his mess out. Then, the worst thing happened. Though the crier's lips were moving and his mouth was opening and closing, no sound came out except a rasping of air. His eyes bulged in panic, and he moved his lips fast, but still no sound came out.

A town crier who lost his voice, surrounded by a crowd rapidly turning hostile? That wasn't a good combination.

I jostled my way through the crowd and grabbed the crier's arm. "There you are!" I said. "You're late for our meeting. Better hurry up, now. The mayor won't wait for long."

"Mayor?" said the man holding mule reins.

"No time to explain," I said, tugging the crier's sleeve. Finally, the crier seemed to understand what I was doing and looked at me with gratitude before allowing himself to be pulled away. We headed toward the King's Head tavern.

It was now that we were alone that I got a good look at him. He was my age, and he wore spectacles which had thick lenses and sat snug around his nose. His hair was black and swept back neatly over his head and then oiled in place so that not a single strand moved in even the strongest breeze. He wore clothes that appeared fine at a passing glance but if you looked closer, you saw that they were patched in places, as if he couldn’t afford to buy new clothes and was forced to repair them with old material from his other outfits.

"I think I'll be alright now," he said. "Thanks for your help."

"When I see a fella digging himself a hole, I find it's better to offer my hand than grab a shovel."

He looked at me curiously. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"I thought around my age, but you seem older. What's your name?"

"Lewis Crafter. You?"

"Chris Crier," he said. "Anyhow. I best be off. I've been chased out of town by pitchforks before, and it wasn't one of my favorite experiences."

"People will forget about it soon here," I said. "They're too lazy to form a posse. Let's get a drink and something to eat." Then I added with a grin, "You can tell me all about the brigands."

We went to the King's Head, where there was a snug free near the fire. The tavern was quieter than usual today, with only a few tables occupied by customers. One man was using a hunk of bread to mop up the last of either a stew or soup while a hunting dog stretched out next to him and happily chewed on a bone. At a table nearby, a fletcher was using a stringless bow to demonstrate something about bow curvature to his apprentice, who took notes in a leather-bound book.

“Do you have any idea why all those merchants were rushing toward the town plaza today?” I asked Chris.

“Someone might have announced news that the state’s minister of commerce was there, offering contracts. Here, have a menu.”

"Let's see," I said, reading the specials menu written in chalk near the bar. "Today's specials are roast chicken, lamb shank in mint sauce, braised pork belly in ale, baked potatoes, cheese and broccoli soup with warm four-seed bread."

Chris nodded slowly as he looked at the list. "Sounds like my sort of dinner." He turned toward me. "I'll have one of everything. What do you want? This one's on me, as thanks for helping me out."

One of everything sounded great, except for the soup. I liked cheese, I liked broccoli. But together? No, thank you. I didn’t ask for one of everything, though, because I knew myself well enough to realize that my eyes were far, far bigger than my belly.

"I'll have the lamb shank," I told the bartender.

We ordered two half-ales and took them to the snug while we waited for our food. The fire had been newly fed, and the warmth from it made the air inside comfortable without being too warm. Every so often, someone would open the tavern door and walk in, only to be warned by the man sitting with his dog to, "Close the bloody door and stop letting the cold air in!"

I sipped my half ale. It was a lightly colored ale called Dragon's Lament. "So," I said. "The brigands. What was all that about?"

"I was just reporting the news.”

"There haven't been brigands near Sunhampton in years. Come on, now."

"Fine," said Chris, and told me all about it.

Chris came from a line of town criers, with his mother, father, and one set of grandparents all working in the profession. He earned Simple Public Speaking when he was just ten years old and soon followed that up with Simple Memorization. These were two of the five skills needed to earn the town crier class. His mother and father were excited. They thought he might become the best crier in the family.

"Then it happened."

I could see a cloud cross his face, and I said nothing, instead just patiently waited for him to gather his words. Contrary to what I expected from a town crier, he seemed reluctant to use any more words than necessary during a private conversation, and seemed to find talking to be somewhat of a strain. Despite that, he had a manner to him that I liked. I'm not really sure why, exactly, only that he was easy company, and it didn’t feel like we'd only just met.

"The third skill for earning the Crier class is Simple Crowdmanship, which I'm not too bad at. The one after that is Simple Lore & Rumor Gathering, which lets you learn about news that folks might not know about. So the first four skills I got easily. But the fifth skill is Simple Bad News. It's the ability to deliver bad news in a way that doesn't cause panic. If you're really good at it, you can even inspire hope. My father earned the Master Bad News skill when he was forty-two, and they had him deliver the news to Wrecking’s Keep about the pox outbreak."

"And that's the skill you struggle with?"

"You saw me," said Chris. "When I have to deliver bad news, even bad news that I made up, my voice...well. You saw what happened. It's like the minute I have to deliver bad news, my brain seizes up and my tongue feels heavy, and my throat tightens. All the words threaten to fall out of my head, and it's only my Simple Memorization that keeps them there."

"A town crier who can't give bad news," I said.

"You're smiling."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are, mate. I can see it, a big smile fighting to get out."

I set my drink down. "Come on, now. You have to admit; it's not without its humor, is it? You've got to learn to joke about some things. Treat your enemy like a friend, and thus he'll become."

Chris thought about it before smiling. "I suppose I never really thought about it like that. It's always been this big thing hanging over me. It got to the point I dreaded hearing bad news. It made the back of my neck itch just from hearing anything bad."

"So the thing with the brigands. Were you just practicing delivering bad news?"

He nodded. "My father has given up on me ever becoming a crier. He said it’s okay if I decide to do something else, but I don't want to give up. So I told him I was going to travel around Easterly, and I wouldn't come back until I'd earned the fifth skill."

"Sunhampton might be the place for you," I said. "We don't have a crier, and not much bad ever happens around here."

"I can't just avoid bad news, can I?"

I shrugged. "Don't they say a problem outrun is a problem...uh...halved?"

"No. I need to do something about it. Keep trying. One day I’ll go into a town, and I'll be able to tell them about the worst news in the world without my voice breaking. Something really, really bad, and I'll say it so loud that nobody can escape it. And then I'll be happy. Is that too much to ask for?"

"I suppose it isn't. You should go visit The Cove. Maybe a mage will get eaten in a shark attack. That'd be a peach of a bit of bad news, wouldn’t it?"

"If only. I'm a little stuck. Father gave me some gold to fund my travels around Easterly, but it's running short."

"I'll say. Do you always order everything off the menu?"

"I'm not the best at money management," said Chris.

"I'll introduce you to my pal, Paisley. She'll help you with that."

The bartender walked over to us carrying two large trays, one in each hand. On the left tray were two lamb shanks in mint sauce and a plate of roast chicken and potatoes. On the other tray was a delicious-looking braised pork belly in ale, two baked potatoes, and a foul cheese and broccoli soup that looked like it had been scooped from a pond in one of the twelve hells. Soup aside, though, the food looked and smelled delicious.

"Here you go, lads," said the bartender. He nodded at Chris. "You just became my favorite customer, my boy."

With the treasure trove of food spread before us, Chris unfolded a napkin and tucked it into his shirt. "Help yourself," he told me.

"It's okay. I only got the lamb shank."

"No, no. Eat whatever you want. Share and share alike."

As we ate our feast, we fired questions back and forth. Chris was especially interested to learn about my travels with the Five Fiends and then how I moved into the manor. I normally didn't like talking about that, but for some reason, I didn't mind answering Chris’s questions. That was when I realized what was happening.

"You're using Simple Lore and Rumors on me, aren't you?" I said.

"Yep. Sorry. It's just a habit. Whenever I hear an interesting story, I need to know more."

"Let’s not use our skills on each other, alright? I already had this talk with my other friend."

"Paisley?"

"Yup."

By the time we finished our meal, the King's Head began to fill up a little. In came Spruce Wilkinson, the owner of The Sunny Cafe, who had lived in Sunhampton ever since his wife died. He looked around for a place to sit. Not long after, a bunch of teachers from Sunhampton school came in, all of them looking stressed and in the mood for a drink. The bartender, when he found time, cleared our plates and brought us both another half of Dragon's Element, free of charge thanks to Chris's spending.

"I better be going," said Chris. "Woodbourne is ten miles east of here. I'm going to go tell them that a plague is spreading, and their town is next. If I can somehow deliver a whopper of bad news like that, I'll earn the skill in no time."

I wasn't a mage with the power of divination or anything like that, but nevertheless, I got clear visions of Chris leaving Woodbourne on the back of a cart, both his legs broken. I liked the lad already and wanted to spare him that, but I had also spent part of our meal dwelling on an idea.

"What about if you stick around for a while," I said.

"I need to-"

"You said you were running out of funds to travel, no? What if I can offer you a way of making a few coins here or there. Not a fortune, but maybe enough to fund the next part of your travels?"

Chapter 23

The evening was settling upon the fair village of Sunhampton. Burdens of the day turned into relaxations of the night, and workers and crafters and merchants set their labors to one side and allowed themselves a respite. Many folks headed to the King's Head, where a bard was playing and would allow patrons to get on stage and sing for just a silver each time. Others were going to one of the few cafes or restaurants in town, such as Rolls and Dough or the Sunny Cafe, while many were just happy to head home after their daily labors and see their families. Whatever they were doing and wherever their little threads of destiny were taking them, these intersected on Coiner's Way.

"Hear ye, hear ye," said a voice.

Something about that voice gave pause to the comers and the goers, the drinkers and the going-homers. It made them forget what they were going to do and instead gave them a strong curiosity about what that voice had to say. It didn’t work on all of them, but enough that a crowd began to form around Chris Crier.

Standing beside him, I couldn't help but be seriously impressed at how just a change in volume and inflection in his voice had made people gather around. If this was what Simple Public Speaking did, then what about the Advanced or even Master levels of the skill? A person could draw a crowd of thousands!

"Hear ye, hear ye," Chris said again. He said this while looking directly at some of the folks outside the crowd, ones who had stopped walking but hadn't yet moved in to listen. He said it with the focus of a fisherman casting his net. Soon, the stragglers approached. All told, there must have been fifteen men and women waiting to hear what Chris had to say.

He leaned toward me. "That's probably all we'll get," he said. "I'm only level three in Speaking."

"It's way more than I expected. Well done."

"Thanks."

"Now do what we rehearsed."

"Fine folks of Sunhampton," said Chris. "Hear this! Standing before you is Lewis Crafter, maker of things to be made, fixer of things to be fixed! He is here today to offer his tinkerer skills. What is broken will be mended! What squeaks will be oiled! The gears that won't turn will be coaxed into movement! Talk to him today, tell him your woes, and he will fix them for a tinkerer's fee."

The crowd, some of whom I recognized as folks who'd ignored me earlier that day, stared at me. They were sizing me up, judging my youth against competence, wondering if perhaps I might be the person to fix that old door they'd been meaning to sort out but had never found the time, or perhaps I might be the very person to mend their broken watch and would I please do my best because ‘it’s an ‘amily ‘eirloom, so it is.’

But then one man pointed at Chris. "This crier's a bloody liar! He was spreading bollocks about brigands earlier. Don't trust anything that he says!"

The crowd began to mutter to one another. The man was the first to leave, followed by a woman who was carrying a satchel filled with books. One by one they started to go, and I could see that soon we'd have no crowd at all.

"Excuse me," said Chris in a weak voice.

I elbowed him.

"Erm, ladies and gentlemen..."

"Use the voice," I urged him.

He cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen...uh, fine townsfolk..."

"Louder," I said.

Chris, red in the face, opened his mouth and bellowed, "Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear bloody ye!"

His voice echoed far and wide among Coiner's Way, carried like the very wind itself, passing by open doorways like secrets on a giant's breath, floating by open windows and sneaking into houses, taking itself far down that long road. It was not long until we had twenty folks around us, with no sign of the man from earlier. Chris nodded at me, and I stepped forward, drawing the full attention of the crowd.

"Never to waste will we rend, an item that a tinkerer could mend. Shoes and tools, combs and spools. A spot of grease and a happy tune, a broken thing is a tinkerer's boon," I said. "Thus goes the tinker's chant. Now, how about you all come and see me, and let's get those old, odd jobs done for you. You know, the repairs you keep meaning to do but never get around it."

"Aren’t you a bit young?" said a woman.

"I'm an apprentice, certainly. Which makes me even more eager to impress."

"How do we know you won't ruin stuff?"

"I'm offering to mend your broken items, sir," I said. "It's hard to break what's already broken."

“Can you fix my husband?” said a woman.

“Perhaps not, madam. I’m a tinkerer, not a mage,” I replied, prompting a chorus of laughter.

Some of the crowd left now that Chris' crier voice effect drained away. That was okay. It was to be expected, even. Not everyone wanted to use the services of a tinkerer apprentice. Some folks, however, stayed around.

One old man, Bill Pumice, wanted me to repair a wheel on his wagon, saying he didn't use it much, but he needed to go visit his son and daughter-in-law in Skegger next week on account of his first grandchild being born. The only wagoneer in the area was booked up for months and couldn't fit in the work.

"I'll give you fifty gold if you get it rolling right," he told me.

Also needing my services were two brothers, Alister and Jonathan Tillwright, who wouldn't mind me "taking a look" at their broken plow. The brothers had worked for a bank in a city called Weller's Hope for the last ten years. Their father had unexpectedly passed last year, and they were trying to keep his farm going rather than having to sell it. The only problem was that the farm had been stagnating for years, and most of the tools and equipment were broken.

"I'll come to take a look," I said. "Maybe I can help."

By the time the crowd had left us completely, my hand was sore from all the details I had been writing down. "I've got enough work to last three weeks," I said.

"That's fantastic," said Chris.

"Sort of. But sort of not. I still need to make a bunch of things for our next market, and then Master Cooper will need help with his magic door..."

"Market? Magic door?"

That made me think about something. "Where are you staying?" I asked.

"I hadn't really planned on staying in Sunhampton at all. Truth be told, I don't really make plans to stay anywhere since I've never found a place where they want a crier to stay. I've got a tent in my bag."

"Your artificed bag?"

"How'd you know it was artificed?"

"Well, I am an apprentice artificer, Chris. I had a hunch."

With Master Cooper's approval, Chris stayed at the house with us that night. There were two rooms going spare in the house, though they were filled with Cooper's many knick-knacks and furniture. Neither of the other two rooms had a bed, but Chris didn't mind that. For our evening meal, I cooked us some tasty mutton stew and bread, which we ate by lamplight. Afterward, we headed out onto the porch and sipped half ales.

"It's nice out here," said Chris.

"This place belonged to my great-grandfather," said Master Cooper. "Built it himself, he did."

"It's very impressive."

"Tell me about yourself, lad."

Chris told Master Cooper about his apprenticeship as a town crier, though he didn't explain the full details of his troubles in earning the Simple Bad News skill. Instead, he framed his appearance in Sunhampton as just part of a journey intended for him to earn experience in his craft. I, obviously, didn't correct him, feeling like it was Chris's business what he did or didn’t tell people.

"A crier, eh," said Master Cooper. "We never had one in 'ampton before now. Well, lad, you're welcome to stay here, so you are. But you better not be up at the crack of dawn shouting out news right under my window."

"I'm not a rooster, Mr. Cooper."

Master Cooper grinned. "Good. 'Cos we already got one of those, and he's a pain in the arse."

The next morning, Chris helped me with my chores. He was a little nervous around the wolfhounds, having grown up in a house with no pets, but he soon warmed to them. There was no need to warm up to any of the other chores, such as sweeping and cleaning the workshops. Chris didn't mind hard work at all, and in fact, he said that it helped clear his mind for the day.

When we were done with the chores, I gathered all the tools I thought I'd need to mend Bill Pummice's wagon, as well as a few books about repairs. Chris dressed in his best, cleanest shirt and trousers, which he'd kept in the bottom of his satchel and never wore while he was traveling, and said he was going to head into Sunhampton to see if he could find some temporary part-time work.

As we were about to set out, we saw Paisley approaching from the middle of the hill, puffing with effort as she climbed to the top. When she reached us, she eyed Chris with uncertainty.

"This is my friend, Chris," I told her. "Paisley, meet Chris. Chris, Paisley."

Chris offered his hand, and Paisley took it. Their stares lingered on each other just a moment before Paisley said, "Nice to meet you."

"You too," mumbled Chris.

Turning to me, Paisley said, "Did you hear? There are brigands surrounding Sunhampton! They say we're going to be invaded any day now. Mayor Wrenteel is putting together a militia! Lewis...do you think they'll make us fight?"

Chris and I shared a look. "I'll apologize and straighten this out," he said.

While Chris hurried ahead of us down the hill, Paisley and I took our time. I recounted how I had met Chris and told her the reason he was currently hurrying toward Sunhampton to tell the mayor that, actually, there were no brigands outside of the village. Furthermore, I told her about the jobs Chris had helped me get.

"So you needed stuff to fix so you could get the skill?"

"Yup."

"Why not just break something and then fix it?"

"I did," I said. "With the clock. But the way I see it, if I’m gonna be fixing things, then I may as well get paid for it. Besides, it's different when you're doing a job for somebody else. There's more pressure, and the experience reward is greater. I think I need to learn how to craft under pressure. It couldn’t hurt to build up my reputation, either. I doubt Master Cooper will want me hanging around when my apprenticeship is over. "

"We've got a market this weekend, remember. Portnowslwick. It's a bit of a journey, so we might need to go there on Saturday night and stay over."

"Maybe we could get something to eat when we get there."

"They have a big theater," said Paisley. "We could go watch a play."

"Paisley, that sounds like a magical night," I said, fully meaning it.

Fixing old Bill Pummice's wagon wheel was easier than I expected. I'd borrowed a book from Master Cooper called Popular Mechanics, in which were many diagrams and manuals about the various carts and carriages that people in Easterly used. Mr Pummice fixed me up a coffee and a jam scone, and he stood over me while I diagnosed the problem with the wagon, every so often saying "Yup" and "Uh huh", even though I hadn’t said anything.

I'd already started to acquire a mind for mending things thanks to earning the Simple Craft skill and through taking things apart. Coupled with the Popular Mechanics book, I was able to work out what was happening.

"The wheel axle bearing needs replacing," I said. "A new bearing will cost thirty gold."

"That much?"

"I'm only an apprentice in the tinkering skill, Mr. Pumice. When I earn the skill, maybe I can just make you a new bearing myself and sell it cheaper. But until then, we need to buy one, and there's nobody who sells parts in Sunhampton. I'd need to order one."

"Yup. Uh huh. Thought it might be the way. Tryin' to scam me, aren’t you?"

"Sir," I said, straightening up and wiping my dirty hands on my work shirt. "I'm honest and upfront about my work. Always. I won't take anyone accusing me of dealing with them sideways."

"Wait. Where are you going?" he said.

"If you think I'm not honest, then why would you want me around?"

"Alright, young 'un. Alright. Thirty gold, you say?"

I nodded. "For a new bearing. The labor is fifteen on top of that.”

“Make it ten.”

“Make it twenty,” I said.

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Alright, I know when someone is more stubborn than me. Done and done,” said Bill. “I've got a bag of Green Delicious apples you can take to Cooper. I know he likes making cider outta 'em."

Now that Master Cooper had given me access to his supplier lists, I knew that I could send off an order to Little Laker & Cousin Tinkerer supplies in Washhollow, and they'd send a new bearing to me the next time they had a carriage coming to Sunhampton. So, I visited the town post office and readied for the order to be sent first class.

The man working behind the counter was named Connor Perry. He had thinning hair with long sideburns, and he always wore a bow tie and braces.

"First class will get it there in three days. Costs 1 gold. Happy?"

"Here you go," I said, handing him the gold.

As I left, Connor called out.

"You Cooper's kid?" he asked me.

"His apprentice, yeah. Why?"

"Got something for you. I keep meaning to send it up."

He rummaged around in the big row of wooden cabinets behind his counter. There must have been a hundred little boxes in which sat letters and parcels. It seemed that whatever he had for me was on one of the higher shelves, and he had to use a small set of step ladders to reach it. Finally, he handed me a brown envelope.

"Came last week," he said. "Had two posties take ill, so the service hasn't been running as it should."

"Thanks," I told him.

Turning the letter over in my hands, I felt a momentary chill. On the back of it was my name, sure enough, but I recognized the handwriting on the envelope.

Chapter 24

Paisley, Chris, and I were in the King's Head. Chris had managed to firmly win Paisley's affections by buying her lunch. They both ordered the roast beef platter. I, however, only ordered a half glass of Dragon's Lament. The two of them made friendly banter while they ate the roast beef, and once or twice they tried to involve me in their chat. I wasn’t rude to them or anything, but all I could focus on was the envelope.

"You sure it's from your stepfather?" said Paisley.

I nodded. "When I lived at the manor, one of my errands was to go to the shops in town. My stepfather would give me this big list, and I had to get everything on it. This is definitely his handwriting."

"Aren't you going to open it?"

The truth was that a big part of me wanted to just throw the letter on the fire. The hearth was only just across the tavern. I could walk over to it, toss the envelope into the flames, and my dilemma would be solved. I thought that would be the best way to handle it since I didn’t want anything to do with my old family. All the same, I knew I wouldn’t. My sense of curiosity was way too strong, and I know that it would overpower any feeble attempts to just destroy it.

"What would you guys do?" I asked.

Chris stared thoughtfully at the letter. "It might be bad news."

I nodded. "It might."

"So, then. If you don't open it, you won't have to know."

"What!" said Paisley. "That's your attitude, is it? Ignore bad news, and then everything’s fine?"

"Trust me. People don't want to hear troublesome things."

"No, you just deliver it wrong."

Chris had nothing to say back to that other than a mumbled, "I'll go get us more drinks."

When he was gone, I told her, "You might be a little nicer. He bought you lunch, after all."

"I didn't say anything untrue."

"No, but he's worked hard on delivering bad news. You know he has, he told us so. He’d love nothing more than to be able to tell a whole town they were going to die or announce that a volcano was going to erupt and bury the whole of Easterly in ash. He’d give his right arm to shout about a perverted serial killer being on the loose. But he just can’t.”

"And what do you think about bad news?" asked Paisley.

"Hmm. I guess I think that unless you live in a cave, you can’t control what you hear. The only thing you can choose is whether to stay ignorant or whether to learn how to deal with things even when they’re bad."

"Sounds like you know what to do with the letter," said Paisley.

Chris came back from the bar with three more halves of Dragon's Lament, setting one down in front of each of us. We lifted our glasses, clinked them together, and said cheers.

"Chris," said Paisley, sporting a foam mustache. "I’m sorry about what I said. I'm not always great at wording things, but I don't set out to be mean."

"It's alright."

"No, really. I was an ass. Feel free to tell me so that the next time I behave like one. I need it, sometimes."

Chris grinned. "Alright. I will."

"Are you coming to the market with us on Sunday?"

"I don't know," said Chris. "I suppose that depends if it’s alright with you and...Lewis? Are you okay?"

I sat there, my trembling hands holding the opened letter, the envelope discarded on the table like a shedded skin, the writing on the letter itself like runemarks written in blood.

Paisley stood up and put her arm around me. "What’s wrong? You've gone all pale."

I tried to talk but couldn’t find the words. I handed the letter to Chris, who read it.

He looked at me, and I nodded at him. He cleared his throat. "It's...uh….” he began, his voice breaking. With an act of will, he spoke clearly. “It's Lewis's stepbrother, Anthony. He's dead."

Chapter 25

It had been a long time since I had last been to the manor, but that wasn't the reason that I felt like a stranger as the carriage took me through the gates and continued up the gravel pathway toward the house. It was still the largest house I’d ever seen, replete with turrets, carved stonework, and two dozen south-facing windows. The grounds were large enough to include a small forest, sometimes with deer roaming about in it.

When I was younger, I’d daydreamed that the manor would belong to me one day. Now it seemed unthinkable that I'd ever wanted that. It was such a cold house, with its windows of sheer glass tinted black so that you couldn't look into them, and the stonework colored gray and treated once per year to make sure even the elements couldn't leave a mark on it and add what might be known as ‘character’. Looking at it after all this time, I couldn't help but daydream instead about a house atop a sloping hill, where a nice bench rested in front of a pear tree, and wolfhounds scampered across the yard morning ‘til night.

It might have sounded cold, but it was only Anthony’s death that could have brought me back here. My other step-siblings had treated me like a stranger for years, and it was only Anthony who was kind-hearted enough to not get jealous of my sudden appearance in the home when my mother and I moved in.

One nice thing about coming back was that Sid, our family driver, brought a carriage all the way to Sunhampton to pick me up. When he saw me, he gave me a genuine smile. I can't even describe how that felt. I'd always gotten along with the staff because my stepfather always treated me like I was of lower standing than even them. But I’d always assumed the gardeners, servants, and cooks were just humoring me on the off chance that even offending a family member might cost them their jobs. Sidney, however, wore a smile that couldn't have been anything but genuine, and I spent the whole journey back sitting up in the driver's compartment with him.

The closer we got to the manor, however, the bleaker my mood became, until soon it matched the overcast sky, with its elephant-hide colored clouds looming above. The carriage pulled to a stop in front of the main doors.

"Not here. Around the back," I told Sid.

"The servants' entrance, sir?"

"That's the entrance I always used."

"Forgive me, sir, but today..."

"You think I should go through the front?"

"I'm not paid to think," said Sid.

"You ought to be. You've more sense than anyone in that house. Thanks for the ride and the chat, Sid."

"It's been a pleasure, sir."

I disembarked from the carriage and stood in front of the manor, staring up and the grand doors. Doors that were way too big for even a house like this. Doors that were a symbol of status, that said, "You are less than us. Don't forget it." Before going inside, I tried to steel myself for the day that awaited. My stepbrother Anthony, so my stepfather’s letter had read, died in service. His was to be a military funeral held by the state, and I was 'warmly urged to attend.'

Paisley told me I shouldn't go if I didn't want to. Chris, whose older brother died when he was six years old, told me I’d regret not saying goodbye. In the end, I decided that obligation or not, there were some things a person just has to do. And that's all this was. I just needed to get through the day. Tonight, I would stay in a tavern in the nearby village of Cratter Creek, and then Sid would take me back to Sunhampton in the morning. All I needed to do was get through the service and spend as little time with my stepfather as possible.

The service for Anthony was held in the chapel attached to my stepfather’s manor. I sat on the right side of the aisle, my hands folded in my lap, while the rest of my family sat on the left side. My stepbrother Reece and my stepsister Robyn were there, as well as my stepfather, who sat stiffly and apart from the others. Every so often, Robyn glanced at me, then glanced away.

After the service was over, I decided I would just head straight to Cratter Creek. I had paid my respects to Anthony, after all. As I looked around for a carriage, I heard a voice.

"Lewis."

My stepfather looked like he had aged tremendously since I last saw him. It was because of Anthony, no doubt. Someone not familiar with our relationship might look at this man and proclaim that he had, in fact, lost two sons within the last year, but I knew my stepfather would never see it that way. Nor did I feel like a boy who'd lost his father. Rather, I had never had one to begin with.

"Thank you for coming," he said.

"Of course."

"Come to the manor."

"I think I'll be leaving, actually," I said.

He grabbed my arm. "Lewis."

This made me feel stranger than anything he could have said or done. It wasn't just the fact he grabbed me, though that was strange in itself . It was more the look in his eyes.

"What is it?"

"I need to talk to you."

It was an hour before we were alone in his study. He had his duties, which involved thanking each and every person for coming. I watched him doing this and noticed a peculiar warmth in my stepfather that hadn't been there when I had last seen him. It was there in the way he clasped my cousin, Henry's, palm in his. In the way he put an arm around my great-aunt Mary's shoulder.

With his duties done and everyone else in the parlor downstairs where tea and sandwiches were being served, he asked me to speak with him in his study. I had always been forbidden to even enter the wing which the study was on, let alone the study itself. That, of course, only made me more curious about it. Now that I was here, it was underwhelming. It was much like any other room, save for a small shelf filled with books and a large desk. The walls were papered. A fire burned brightly behind the grate at the end of the room.

I sat across from my stepfather at his desk. He set down three envelopes before him.

"Anthony...as you know...he was," he began, struggling to compose himself. "He was promised to the state, as is Reece. You are the only son I have who isn't promised elsewhere."

You could have hit me in the face with a sledgehammer, and I'd have felt it less. He'd never referred to me as his son before. Not once since my mother brought me to the manor did he say anything close to it. Why now?

"I'm sorry for what happened," I said. "But this isn't the time for making up."

"It wasn't just about you, Lewis. You know that, don't you? If there was another way..." His voice trailed off. "I was wrong all this time, Lewis. Losing Anthony showed me that."

"I never wanted you to be a father,” I said. “Just to treat me fairly. But you couldn’t even do that, could you?”

The words felt colder than ice even as I spoke to them. It was sad that Anthony had died. But when had any of the others ever spared a second to treat me like a person?

Before I knew it, I was walking toward the door.

"Lewis."

I ignored him.

"Lewis. I want you to have part of the business."

I turned around.

"Under my supervision, for a while, obviously. But after that? In five years, perhaps? It could be yours."

"The business?"

"The haulage side of it. Not the whole thing. A man should specialize in something. Much better than being a jack of all."

"I don't know anything about running a haulage business," I said.

"No, but you will! I can teach you anything you'll need to know. Think of it as an apprenticeship. Only at the end of it, the whole business belongs to you."

"Are you dying or something?"

He was silent for a moment. "You might say I've died a death of sorts. I've had course to reevaluate. A man only gets so many children."

"I already have an apprenticeship."

"Yes. Making pots, was it?"

"Artificery."

"Pah. You're worried about the contract. Don't be. I'll make the old man an offer that satisfies his greed. And if he refuses out of stubbornness? We'll work a way around it. Think about it, Lewis. Part of the business will be yours. But you must give up your commitments immediately and move back into the manor. I’ll have the maids prepare a room."

My stepfather had a room cleared for me on the east wing, the same one as the rest of the family. There was a four-poster, king-sized bed with fresh sheets, perfectly folded on top of the mattress. The room looked out upon the grounds, and I stood there at the window, surveying the great pond and the woods like I was a lord and everything belonged to me. I stayed there for maybe an hour, watching as the sun dipped and night spread upon this wooded part of the world.

At night, I lay back on the bed and thought and thought and thought. I imagined that Master Cooper would relinquish my apprenticeship to him, if asked. Part of him might even be happy to. I could begin a new apprenticeship under my stepfather, learning how to run the haulage business. Maybe Paisley and I could share tips. Maybe she could even come to work for us one day. Then again, maybe she’d never want to speak to me again.

But I could live in this manor all my life. Maybe even build a new one of my own if the business went well. People like Sid would answer to me. Servants would watch me with respect when I entered the room. Anything I needed, anything at all, would be mine.

All the next day and the day afterwards I thought about it. My stepfather and my step-siblings tried to talk to me, but they were among the most awkward conversations I ever had in my life. I could tell that they didn’t share my stepfather's new-found change of mind, and they talked to me like hostages forced to exchange niceties with their captor.

I spent a full day walking the woods, always peeking back at the manor and reminding myself that such a place could belong to me one day. I spent an afternoon visiting the haulage business, which was in a huge warehouse that used to be a state carriage store and was situated next to a dirty river. The business was dizzying in scope. The amount of gold that it must both cost and produce made me feel excited yet anxious. Could I really learn how to run it?

One day became two, then three. Soon, a whole week had gone by. A letter arrived for me from Paisley, wondering where I was and when I would be back. Lacking an answer, or at least lacking a way to phrase what I suspected was my answer, I put the letter in a drawer.

After a week and a half of staying here, I arrived back at the manor one afternoon to find that my old clothes were gone. The wardrobe in my room was, however, fully stocked with garments way too fashionable for me; two suit jackets, four waistcoats, maybe a dozen shirts. In a drawer at the back were cufflinks, wristwatches, and tie clips. I had never had so many clothes in all my life. Even though I had nowhere to be, I changed into a suit just for the novelty of it and then sat on the bed.

Glancing at a bell on the bedside cabinet, impulse took over me. I rang it, and soon, a servant named Franz arrived.

"Sir?" he said.

None of the servants had ever called me sir before now. They'd been aware that my status was considered slightly above theirs, but not enough to call me sir. It felt strange, then, to hear Franz say it.

"Could I have some wine please, Franz? A good bottle."

"Sir," he said, nodding.

When I heard his footsteps retreat, I lay back on the bed. Could I really have a life like this? It didn't seem real. By the time night arrived and I was drunk on wine and wearing my new suit, my decision was almost made. Almost.

But something nagged at me. Some deep unease that translated into a physical discomfort, as though the mattress of such a soft bed was digging into my back. I peeled away the covers and lay back again, but the feeling was worse. I stripped the bed all the way to the mattress, expecting to find something protruding from it, but there was nothing.

Leaving the room, I walked quietly down the wing until I came to the great staircase, which I followed all the way to the ground floor. From there, I followed the servants' wing until I reached a small door. Opening it, I stepped inside to find a tiny bedroom with a battered, single--sized bed pushed against the door.

So many nights I had spent here, on the same wing as the servants, dreaming about the luxuries that waited upstairs on the wing where those lucky enough to be born into the family lived. So many nights spent feeling cold and uncomfortable, grappling with questions of fairness that found no expression or answer in a room as small and lonely as this.

And yet, this room felt warm to me tonight. Comforting, even. I lay on the bed, and felt nothing stabbing my spine. In fact, as poorly made as the bed was as lumpy as the mattress appeared to be, I sank deep into it, after which sleep came easily.

The next morning, Sid and his carriage arrived at the manor. He guided the horses over to their usual place and then climbed down. After attending to the horses and making sure they had water and oats, he began unloading sacks from the back of the carriage. I was already dressed, wearing the brown shirt and beige trousers that I'd traveled here in. I retrieved them from the laundry room, where the servants had washed them.

"Morning, sir," Sid said, looking me up and down, clearly surprised to see me wearing my old apprentice clothes.

"It's just Lewis."

"Oh. Um."

"Let me help you with those."

"There's no need for that."

"Come on, it's fine."

I grabbed a sack from the back of the carriage. "Hells, this is heavy."

"Just the mail, sir."

"For my father?"

"Well, for the business."

"Why does it come here?" I asked.

"Your father found that if it is delivered here, he can make a start on reading it. Sometimes, he is finished by late evening."

I couldn’t imagine spending all my day reading letters. Was that what would have awaited me? I couldn’t think of a worse job. Well, I could. But even so, if I hadn’t been almost decided before, then I was now.

"Thanks, Lewis," said Sid after we'd finished unloading all the bags. He patted his coat before producing an envelope. "Oh! The postmaster had this for you."

I recognized the handwriting on the letter. Even the mere sight of it brought a flush of joy to me that I could barely hide. I opened it quickly, to see a short letter.

'Lewis. Mr. Cooper has been taken ill. Paisley.'

Chapter 26

Sid gave me a ride back to Sunhampton. All the while, I kept reading and rereading the letter, puzzling out meanings, emphasis, and intentions from that single line. How ill was Master Cooper? Was it serious? Surely if it had been, she would have said that. She wouldn’t just leave me wondering. Yes, I was almost certain he wasn't seriously sick. Even so, I couldn’t help worrying and feeling lousy that I wasn’t there.

Not just that, though. The letter was so cold. It didn’t read like the Paisley I knew. Just eight words, nothing affectionate within them. Then again, what else could I have expected? I thought now of the letter I’d stuffed in the drawer not long ago. Paisley had been nothing but a friend to me since I got to Sunhampton, and the second my fortunes changed, I stuffed all my thoughts about her into a drawer.

A few hours later, we were back on the travelers' roads, heading north toward Sunhampton. The traveler's roads were much slower than those used by merchant carriages or wagons. They were just wide enough for a carriage with two horses abreast, and if one of the horses fell down, you might get run off them. They were also incredibly bumpy. After an hour on them, your legs would feel like they had knives in them, and you'd want nothing more than to walk until you reached civilization again.

"Woah!" shouted Sid suddenly.

Holding onto the wooden carriage frame, I said, "What is it?"

He pointed up ahead, past me. "There! A wagon overturned!"

The wagon was on its side, with one giant, broken wheel in the air. The horses were nowhere to be seen.

"Hello?" I said.

There was no answer.

"We better not approach," I said. "It could be a trap."

Sid nodded. "Classic brigand trap, that is. Pretending there’s been an accident and waiting until you leave your wagon. Did you know that there are brigands roaming around Sunhampton these days, Lewis?"

"No, that's just-"

I stopped talking as two men with shovels came running from the wreckage of the wooden carriage. One was tall and lean, the other shorter but broad-shouldered. They were wearing leather jerkins stained ocean blue and carrying shovels that had been trimmed to a wicked point at their ends. The taller one was in his thirties, brown hair beginning to gray on top, the skin around his eyes wrinkled beyond his years.

Sid retrieved his horse whip - which I’d never seen him use on the horses - from his driver compartment. When the men were just fifteen feet away, they stopped.

"You! Where've you come from?" the taller one asked.

"What's that got to do with you?" said Sid.

"There's an ogre band nearby, you stupid bastard!"

"That's a nice way to ask for help."

The man's companion nudged him. "Sorry," said the man. "It isn't every day..." he held up his hands to show palms covered in dry blood.

Sid looked at me. "What do you think?"

"I'm thinking it's still a trap. The appearance of a couple of guys with shovels hasn't done much to change that."

The two men were also conferring, with the shorter one seeming to plead his case for something, and having a tough time making the taller one agree. In the end, though, it looked like he managed it.

He turned to the brushland to the left of us. From thirty meters off the travelers’ road came movement, and soon, six children walked over to the road.

"We'll take whatever help you can give," said the taller man. “We just need to get to a town with a wagoneer, so we can get this fixed up.”

"Well," said Sid. "I don't think I can take all of you."

"Just me and three of the kids, then," said the shorter one. "Diggory will stay here with Penny, Lou, and Tanya."

"I don't like it," said Diggory.

"Look. Let's just get home, alright?"

"Alright. I'll see them off with Ms. Landers. She'll look after them. Then I'll come back for you. Just stay out of sight in the meantime, okay?"

All this time, I had been staring at the overturned carriage and thinking about it. With my mind settled, I hopped down onto the ground. "Maybe you guys don’t have to split up. Can you help me get your carriage the right way up?"

One man looked at the other. "Wheel's fucked."

"Then we'll unfuck it."

"You know how to do that?"

I breathed deeply before answering, "I think I do."

"Who are you?"

"An artificer," I answered. "With a sideline in tinkering."

Getting the carriage the right way up was the easiest part. We just tied one end of the rope to the fallen carriage and another to Sid’s horses and got them to walk forward a few paces. They strained and neighed, but soon, the carriage was upright.

Diggory and his friend celebrated when the carriage shuddered upright, but I was deep in thought.

I took a look at the carriage. It had two larger wheels at the back and two smaller ones at the front, nearest to where their horses would have been. The front wheels were fine, as was the rear left. But the rear right wheel was in a state, with four of the wooden spokes broken, and the metal boxing in the middle split like a felled tree. A chunk of the outer rim had cracked and come loose, to make things worse.

“Reckon you can fix it?” asked the taller man.

“I can try.”

“Tryin’ is as good as doin’. The Lords weigh effort the same as success.”

“The Lords,” scoffed his smaller friend. “When have the Lords ever done anything other than look down on us and laugh?”

“The Lords test us, so they do.”

Deciding to place my faith in textbooks and skill, I retrieved my satchel from Sid’s carriage. The satchel was artificed so it fit a dozen books. I would have increased the capacity, but Simple Artificery level 1 only let me work with a limited amount of miode on any project. I had brought my books with me for the journey to the manor and back, not expecting that Sid would want to talk the whole way.

From the satchel, I took out the Popular Mechanics book. Flicking through, I soon found the hefty section on carriage repair, with a full chapter focused on wheels.

“I’m going to need wood,” I said. “Sturdy, thick wood that I can tinker into spokes. And maybe some strips of bark for a rim.”

“Right you are.”

The three men left to go find the materials that I needed. Alone with the carriage, I could only look at the destruction that had been wrought upon it and imagine the chaos of an ogre party raiding the guys and their kids, and then making off with the horses. These fellas were lucky that they’d survived, no doubt about it. It made me feel exposed, waiting there like that. To be safe, I headed into the passenger compartment of Sid's carriage and waited.

Over an hour later, they returned, dumping two big logs and a bundle of twigs beside me. Even the kids had some logs to contribute to the pile. Diggory also handed over several strips of bark. "The lords saw fit to provide. See, Alex? What'd I tell you?"

"And here was me thinking I used my eyes."

"Sid," I said. "Do you have any tools with you?"

"You don't have tools? Thought you were an artificer?" asked Diggory.

"I am. I just don't have them with me."

He put his hands on his hips. "Why the bloody hell not?"

"Because it was my brother's funeral."

That shut him up. The smaller guy walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry about him. He's just worried. It shook us up. I’m Alec."

“Lewis,” I said. “And this is Sid.”

“His driver,” said Sid.

“My friend,” I corrected.

"Well," said Diggory, scratching the side of his head. "My apologies. The Lords sometimes make my tongue too quick for my thoughts."

"You might want to go find your horses," said Sid. "I'm assuming they bolted when the ogress attacked?"

"No. The ogres attacked us for the horses. Took 'em away."

“I've never seen an ogre riding," I said.

"They eat horse flesh," said Diggory.

The kids all groaned on hearing this, so Alec told them, "He's just being silly. The ogres took the horses away so they could join their nice circus."

Sid said, "You can borrow one of my horses. We'll travel in a convoy to Sunhampton. You'll be able to visit the stables there and get a nag that’ll see you through unless we find yours first. Who knows? Your Lords might provide."

"We'd appreciate it finely," said Alec.

One by one, I shaped new spokes. The act of turning the wood into spokes and then fitting them was classed as tinkering, though it only earned me 15% more experience toward getting level one of Simple Tinkering. When the spokes were ready, I used my Repair skill under my Simple Craft tree, applying a fix to the rest of the wheel.

The wood and bark disappeared from my inventory and were instantly applied to the carriage. It wasn't a perfect repair job by any means but, then, I wasn’t a perfect crafter. I was just an apprentice who found himself in a tough situation.

"That should get us moving," I said. "Hopefully, it will see us through to Sunhampton. I'll check it over every hour or so and patch it up if need be."

Diggory approached me. Standing so close, I guessed he must have been at least six foot three, maybe four.

"I'd like to give you this as thanks," he said.

He handed me a small, circular token, much like my skill tokens; only this one was golden brown. On its face was stamped, ‘Fertile Experience,’ and below that was a picture of a spade sticking out from some mud.

"Is this some kind of farming token?" I asked.

"It's a utility token. Put it next to one or between two of your skill tokens, and it will earn you 20% more EXP."

I turned it over in my hands. "This is way too valuable."

"Without you, we'd have been forced to go on foot, and there was no telling what would have happened to us."

"Well, thanks."

I set the token on my bracelet straight away. I had to move the almost-complete tinkerer token into slot one and the Simple Craft token into slot three, and then I set the Fertile Experience token into slot two between them.

When I did, a blue line connected the three tokens.

Status: 20% more experience will be earned when using ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ skill tree, and when applying tinkering skills towards ‘Simple Tinkering’ skill tree.

Chapter 27

In Sunhampton, we said a fond goodbye to each other. After refusing any form of payment, Sid finally allowed Alec and Diggory to buy him lunch at the King's Head. Their plan after that was to go visit the stables and buy the cheapest two horses on sale, then travel back home to a town called Cosgrove's Way. "You're welcome to stay with us if you ever visit," said Diggory, proceeding to show me on my map where the town was.

I'm not ashamed to say that as soon as I left them, I sprinted through town and toward the steep hill. Halfway up, my lungs began to ache, so I slowed a little, though I still got to the summit way quicker than usual. Reaching the top and seeing Master Cooper's house, with its brickwork that needed repointing and its sloping chimney constantly puffing out smoke, I felt a swell of gladness in my heart, mixed with fear for the old master.

After a brief tangle with a pack of deliriously excited wolfhounds, I made my way inside the house and found Master Cooper in bed, attended to by Paisley, Chris Crier, and Healer Brown. Master Cooper's face was white, but he wore his usual look of impatience. I knew how much he must hate being tucked up in bed with everyone gathered around him. So, rather than be sympathetic, I decided to act in a way I knew that he would appreciate.

"Is he dead, or just lazy?" I said.

Healer Brown's mouth was agape. Paisley looked caught between anger and hilarity, while Chris Crier wore the expression of someone who didn't know what to say, which I guessed was a strange feeling for a town crier.

Master Cooper laughed. A low timbre laugh that rattled the bed posts and made his bed covers shake. He slowly eased himself up.

"You mustn’t overexert yourself, Jack," said Healer Brown.

Master Cooper waved him away. "You healers. I swear, sometimes it's like you want us to be sick. After all, where's the profit in healthy people?"

Paisley leaned on the bedposts. "Mr. Cooper, that's no way to talk to a man who spent the whole night watching over you."

"That’s me told."

"Are you ok, Master Cooper?" I said.

"I'm fine."

"I'm...uh...sorry that I've been away for so long."

"How was the funeral?" asked Chris. "A good service, I hope? I mean, not good. But you know what I mean."

"Thanks. It went as well as you can expect."

"So what happened?" asked Paisley. "You said you'd be gone for a day or two, and then we sent you letters, and you didn’t answer..."

"Well..."

"If you don't mind," said Healer Brown, getting up, "Mrs. Fossy-Bruce wanted me to look in on her daughter. She's had a bad belly for a week now. And Farmer Lloyd's ducks have been poorly for a few days."

"Ducks?"

Healer Brown nodded. "I didn't earn my tokens to care for poultry, but we don't have a veterinary healer in Sunhampton, and I hate to see anything suffering. Young Paisley?"

"Yes, Old Healer Brown?"

"If you don't mind, call by my office this afternoon and let me know how our friend here is getting on."

"Lewis will be pleased to do that, sir," answered Paisley.

Once Healer Brown took his leave, the three of us stood awkwardly around Master Cooper's bed. Chris Crier kept looking out of the window at the trees and pastures in the horizon, maybe hoping that the longer he stared, the more chance a spell would somehow be cast that carried him far away. Paisley was looking thoughtfully at Master Cooper who, despite his bluster, really did look like his bed was the only place for him.

"You can go if you like, Chris," I said.

"That's ok. I don’t have anywhere to be."

I felt gratitude toward him then. He barely knew Master Cooper, yet he’d stayed here when times were tough. Stress can shape us or crush us, and Chris had shown his true stuff. Paisley, of course, had shown hers long before now. Me, on the other hand? I didn’t know what I was made of.

"Thanks for helping Master Cooper. Thank you too, Paisley."

She shot me an angry glare, though the corners of her lips twitched just a little as though she was fighting off a smile.

"Are you trying to be mad at me?" I said.

"Well, Lewis, if you must know, I’m a little conflicted. After all, being mad at your friend who just attended a funeral isn't a good look on anyone. On the other hand, I was worried about you, and you didn’t answer the letter."

"I better explain," I said.

I told them about my conversation with my stepfather, explaining how he offered me an apprenticeship with the family business, along with a promise that part of it would be mine one day. I told them about my new room, about my suits.

"Just like that, he’s treating you like a son?" said Paisley.

"Only took the death of my stepbrother."

"How does it feel?"

"How?" I said. "Well, it doesn't feel any different. Why would it? I’m still a stranger to them. Just because that's changed in my stepfather's eyes, doesn’t mean it's changed in mine. Doesn’t mean I even want it to."

"But that house. All that money..."

"They'll enjoy it, I'm sure. Now, Master Cooper....what's going on?"

No answer came from Master Cooper. He was sound asleep.

"Huh," said Paisley. "He's barely slept the last few days, even when he's looked like death's dinner plate. Now look at him."

The next morning, the weather had turned, and the rain clouds were gathering above the horizon, threatening to spill over and cover the whole valley of Sunhampton. Paisley had stayed over at Master Cooper’s house, taking a spot on the living room couch even after I offered to take it and let her have my bed. She, Chris, and I stayed up and talked about what happened to Master Cooper. According to Healer Brown, he had simply worked himself into collapse, worsened by the fact he hadn’t let himself recover from the last time it happened.

Master Cooper woke up hungry and miserable. After breakfast, he insisted on going to his workshop. "Not to work," he told us. "Being in there replenishes me. The varnish in the air, the feel of dust, the heat of the forge."

"Certainly seems to have improved your health lately, doesn’t it?" I said.

"I'll suffer no insolence from an absent apprentice," he said. I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was serious or joking, and I decided to play it like a proper apprentice and simply gave a respectful nod.

In his workshop, Master Cooper settled into a comfy cushion-backed chair we'd dragged in from the living room. He let Paisley put a blanket over him. Two wolfhounds sat with him, one on each side.

The workshop had a strange aura to it, having not been used for a few days. The forge looked like nothing more than cold iron, and the array of tools fixed to nails on each wall were nothing more than relics in a museum. Seeing everything so silent, so unused, was wrong. Like visiting a bard hall in the morning, when the people have left, and the music has long since departed.

"Now," said Master Cooper, reaching for a coffee cup on the worktop to his right. He took a long drink and then set it down again. "We need to talk about the doorway. The representative of my client visited while you were gone, Lewis. He wants the doorway finished within a month."

"Will you be up to it?"

Cooper looked at Paisley, who shook her head.

"Unfortunately," said Master Cooper, "Healer Brown informs me that if I try to keep to my old work habits, I'll be food for the worms. Our learned friend Paisley here agrees with him.”

"So you can't work on the doorway?"

"Not in any physical sense."

“What about in a metaphysical sense?” I asked.

“Shut up, smart arse.”

"It's okay," said Paisley. "We agreed on a plan. See, what we decided is that you're going to finish the door, Lewis."

"Me?"

"Who else?"

"But I don't have anywhere near the artificery you'd need to do something like that," I said. I'd never considered myself easily flustered and I wasn’t sure why it was happening now. I took a deep breath and realized that maybe I felt so panicked because it sounded like I was going to be responsible for making the doorway. In other words, for completing the job on which Master Cooper’s future rested.

Master Cooper coughed. Chris Crier slapped his back softly. "Thanks, lad," said Master Cooper. Then, "I could pay another artificer to finish the job, but at this short notice, they’d charge a fortune. It would save me from the risk of having to pay a contract cancellation fee, but I wouldn’t earn any gold. I’m not ready to write off all those profits, not when there’s a chance we can get this finished.

Besides, you won’t need my level of artificery. Most of it is done. Just a few finishing touches and I can guide you through those. I'm allowed to talk to Lewis about work, aren’t I, Healer Paisley?"

"I'll allow it."

"Fine, then. There it is. What do you say, apprentice?"

Chapter 28

The first thing I had to do was earn my ‘Simple Tinkering’ and ‘Simple Alchemy’ skill trees. Once I had those, then I could get the artificer class proper, and I’d need all five skill trees to complete Cooper’s doorway. I already knew that to earn Simple Tinkering, I needed to tinker with new projects. This meant I had to pay a visit to the Tillwright brothers, whose plow I had agreed to fix.

They lived on their deceased father's farm, just outside of Sunhampton. It was a small plot of land for a farm, only one hundred acres or so, but they were able to just about make a living from it because of the little patch of forest on the furthest acre that provided timber, herbs, and truffles. Even without possessing the farmer class or any farming knowledge, I could tell there was a lot of work ahead for the brothers.

I found them toiling in a field a few acres northeast of their farmhouse. Alister Tillwright was the older brother, tall and rakish and with a scholar's nose. He wore farmer's leggings and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but rather than lend him authenticity, the outfit made him look like an actor ready to take to the stage in a play called This Farming Life. Jonathan Tillwright, meanwhile, wore his worker's garb more naturally. Not that he did anything differently to Alister, but it just seemed to fit him better.

As I approached, I heard the brothers arguing over something or other.

"I don't think you understand clearly what I'm saying," said Alister.

"I can’t see how you're making a difference," said Jonathan. "What about if we add a few dozen carrots here? We'll plant them now. Get 'em started."

"That won't help. You know as well as I that crops aren't grown overnight."

Jonathan sighed, apparently deciding to try another tactic. "Think of it like a low-yield bond. We plant 'em now, and later we-"

Alister planted his shovel in the dirt and rested on it, apparently trying to look like a worker at pause. Only his arm slipped, and he hit his forehead on the shovel handle.

"Are you alright?" asked Jonathan.

Alister was red-faced but uninjured. "Look who it is. The phantom tinkerer."

Ignoring the fact that ‘the phantom tinkerer’ made me sound like a ghost who urinated everywhere, I said, “"I'm sorry, fellas. I know I said I’d take a look at your plow for you, but I was called away. A family emergency."

"Was it, indeed? When I worked at Skipfields Gold bank, I managed a staff of twelve. You wouldn’t imagine how many grandparents those twelve people lost during my time there. Must have been over a hundred."

Jonathan said, "Give the kid a chance. Families and emergencies do exist, brother. What did we say when we came out here?"

Alistair sighed. "That cynics belong in the city, and that's where we'll leave them."

"Exactly. Smell the county air! How can a person be cynical out here?"

"As I said,'' I told them. "A family emergency. But I'm here now, and I’m ready to take a look at your plow."

Alistair adjusted his spectacles. "Tardiness will force a change in our terms. I'm afraid we'll need to renegotiate."

I wasn't too interested in the fee, more the opportunity to quickly earn experience. I'd never tinkered with a broken plow before, and that, coupled with my Fertile Experience token, might see me getting the ‘Simple Tinkering’ skill token before the day was done.

"I'll take 20 gold to repair the plow. Plus materials," I said.

"Nineteen and half the material cost," said Alistair, adjusting his glasses once again. I thought about mentioning that I could maybe artifice his glasses so that they always stayed on his nose, ending his battle to keep them in place. But I didn’t. Instead, I decided that I didn’t have time to be haggling around here. All I needed was the experience. Paisley would no doubt have turned red with apoplexy, but I just shrugged.

"Done," I said.

"Excellent! I'll get us some coffee and thread," said Jonathan.

"Thread?" I asked.

"The saying? You know the one. Seal the deal with a brew and twine. I read it in a book of local colloquialisms."

"I think that must be outdated," I said. "I’ve never heard anyone say that. Though, I'm not from around here originally. In any case, a coffee sounds great. I can't start a job without it."

Jonathan turned toward the farmhouse across the field while I looked around for the plow.

"Hold on a second," said Alistair.

"What is it now?" asked Jonathan, sighing.

"The lad here agreed to some unfavorable terms. What craftsman in his right mind accepts a job where he absorbs half the costs?"

Jonathan leaned toward his brother and whispered, unsuccessfully, "Maybe he isn't in his right mind, Al. Let him fix the plow and move on."

"No, no. There's more at play here. Numbers in the ledger that we just aren’t seeing." Alistair studied me the way an inspector might look into the eyes of a would-be criminal. Then, his glare came alive with recognition. "Ah, but you don’t care about the gold, do you? You're an apprentice, after all. Johnny and I are learning farming and to get the skill tokens, we must do the work. I assume it's the same for apprentice tinkerers."

"I like to earn a little gold while I practice, is all."

"No, no. That isn't it. You need different jobs to get more experience, no? So, in fact, you aren’t doing us a service by fixing our plow. By letting you, we're doing you the service! Ah, this changes the deal."

Jonathan said, "We made an agreement, Al. I offered to get twine and everything."

"I don’t see our signatures on paper, brother. We'll need a lot more gold than we have in our accounts if we're to get this place breaking even, let alone turning a profit. So, I say that if the young apprentice here wants to practice on our equipment, then he can. For a fee."

"Good luck using a broken plow," I said.

Birds cawed at me as I crossed the field, heading toward the farmhouse and the dirt path that lay just beside it. Before long, I heard a set of footsteps trampling through the weeds behind me.

"Mr. Apprentice," said Jonathan. "Excuse my brother. He misses the city. He misses wheedling an extra coin out of a deal. He hasn't gotten used to the way things are out here, that the work you put in determines the rewards you get and that you can’t pull a trick on time itself. The original deal stands. No, in fact, make it 50 gold, and we'll pay for materials."

"I don't know. This isn't the only place I can find work."

"I'll head to the village later this afternoon and get us some sandwiches, too. Come on. What do you say?"

"Make it 60, you cover materials, sandwiches, and a constant supply of coffee."

Jonathan laughed. "You got it."

Their plow was a simple wooden tool designed to be hooked to a horse at the front and steered by a person at the back. Or, I suppose you could have the person walking and the horse directing things if you ever found a clever enough horse. Maybe a minotaur? In any case, it wasn't such a complex piece of kit. Its main problem, as far as I could see, was that it had become weathered by time. The brothers' father had neglected his farm for years, and the tool had sat out in the rain and snow and sun, beaten on by the fists of time season after season.

Truth be told, they would have been better off buying a new one. But that would mean I wouldn’t earn EXP, gold, or get a sandwich. I couldn’t see my advantage in telling them so. So, I got to work.

My ‘Repair’ ability under the ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ skill tree would have fixed this up in minutes, as long as I had the materials equipped. Instead, I used tinkering to make many of the plow’s smaller, moving parts, such as the bridle and hook. Then, I replaced the plow shaft with an axle from an old cartwheel, making it even lighter. Lastly, I fashioned a crude new steering wheel from a barrel.

When I was done, my token bracelet heated on my wrist slightly. The token in slot 1, which had been blank for so long, now had an etching of a cog in it. When I pressed my index finger lightly to its surface, words appeared in the air.

Skill tree earned: Simple Tinkering

Level: 1

- Tinker, Mend, Tinker Invent abilities unlocked

- Tinker menu unlocked

- Crafting stamina increased to 250/250

The ‘Tinker’ and ‘Mend’ abilities were very much like ‘Craft’ and ‘Repair’ under the ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ skill tree in execution. They differed in the types of things that could be made or fixed and the materials involved in doing so.

While Craft let me create standard things such as chairs, tables, and the like, the items listed under 'Tinker' were much more exotic. Things such as an explosive powder bomb, automatic crossbows that could be fixed to carriages, quivers that nocked arrows onto bows automatically, weight-activated traps. The list wasn't endless, but there was a lot for me to tinker with as long as I had the materials. Similarly, the ‘Mend’ ability only worked on tinkered items.

The Tinker Invent skill was much more interesting, and it also differed from the ‘Simple Craft and Forge’ version of the ability. Using a special tinkerer's paper and pencil, I could sketch out a design for an invention. When I finalized it using 'Tinker Invent', my overall Tinker skill would be weighed against my ‘Tinker Invent’ level and the complexity of the invention. If I had done it right, a craft print would be created. Then, all I’d have to do would be to procure the correct materials and make my invention.

Eager to use my new ability, I headed over to the farmhouse, where there was a pile of discarded timber from a barn that the brothers had torn down due to it being almost ready to cave in on their heads. I sorted through the timber to find the usable pieces, ending with a decent pile. Using my ‘Craft’ ability, I turned these pieces into two wheels that reached up to my waist.

Next, I sorted through a heap of scrap metal that was also the bounty from the pulled-down barn. There were lots of brackets, hinges, nails, and the like. Using these, I activated my ‘Tinker’ menu and browsed through the various items I could create until I found the right one.

Auto-motion Cogwork [Small]

The tinker can create cogs that turn of their own accord when a chosen word is spoken.

All I needed now were tinker's tools to make the cogs with, which Master Cooper had already procured for me from his supplier of tinker and artificery tools in Bromphide. I took these out of my artificed satchel and got to work creating the cogs. It was as simple as holding the requisite amount of scrap - which I put into my artificed coat pocket - at the same time as having tinker tools on my person, then selecting the cogs from the Tinker list.

As a level 1 in ‘Simple Tinkering’, my crafting time was much slower than I’d have liked. So, I headed to the farmhouse and had lunch with the brothers. Jonathan had already gone to Sunhampton and bought bacon sandwiches from Mrs. Kettle's Brews & Butties while Alister brewed a pot of coffee. I tasted it and immediately felt the coffee shoot into my brain. My eyes almost popped out of my skull.

"Strong, huh?" said Jonathan. "Alistair was banned from brewing up at the bank. People complained that they couldn’t sleep for days after one of his special brews. This batch, thankfully, is toned down."

Alistair shrugged. "If you're going to burn the midnight oil, you need the oil itself."

"That was then, and this is now, brother. What did we say? A change of lifestyle. No more working until dawn."

We had a pleasant lunch and an even more pleasant conversation. The brothers were very interested in my apprenticeship, and I, in turn, wanted to hear about their plans for the farm.

A gentle warming of my token bracelet told me that a notification awaited me. I finished my sandwich, slurped the rest of my coffee, then thanked the brothers, and headed out into the field.

When I reached the restored plow, I checked my notification.

Tinkering complete: Auto-motion Cogwork [Small] x4

Now, I took the two wooden wheels that I had already crafted and attached the gears to them. Next, I fixed the wheels to the plow. All that remained was to assign a word to the auto motion cogs so that they turned on command.

"Let's see...what to choose..."

I thought about it before deciding.

"It's plowin' time!" I said.

And thus was the auto-motion plow made.

Late that afternoon, the sun was drooping down towards the horizon as I crossed the field and headed toward Alistair. The brothers were using scythes to clear an overgrown patch of thicklegrass. Well, Jonathan was using his scythe as intended, while Alistair was gesturing with his as though he was a professor. When they saw me heading toward them, they did a double take. Mostly because a wheeled plow was rolling alongside me, propelled by nothing except my utterance of "it's plowin' time" just ten minutes before.

What followed was a full twenty minutes of them marveling at my work. Jonathan was distrustful of the plow at first. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen tinkering before - he came from the city, where it was commonplace. It was more that he was fully committed to 'country' life and felt that tinkered plows constituted cheating.

"I suppose you'll class using a knife and fork to eat with as cheating," said Alistair. "And rather than fetch water from the well, when we fix it, you'll walk down to the river every morning when you want to shave?"

"Well, when you put it like that."

"Apprentice, this is fantastic work."

"Thanks, Alistair. Appreciate it. My tinkering is pretty shabby, so the auto motion won't last for long. Maybe thirty minutes per day, but I haven’t tested it. I guess you'll find out," I said.

"Thirty minutes of the plow moving on its own is thirty minutes less hard work for us. We don’t have horses, after all."

"I'll come by and upgrade it when my skills improve."

"How do we activate it?" asked Jonathan.

"Oh. Just say the activation words."

"Which are?"

"It's plowin' time," I said.

"It's plowing time," repeated Alister.

"No. Plowin'. No G."

He sighed.

"Thanks," Jonathan told me. "You've gone beyond what we asked for.”

The two brothers conferred for a while as I got ready to leave. Jonathan headed toward the farmhouse, disappearing inside. Alistair made small talk with me as I packed up all my things. Or at least, he tried to. "So..." he said. "Do you find the taxation rate upon hokeweed growers to be rather high?"

"I guess I haven’t really thought much about it. But now that I do, then yes. It's quite high."

"Of course, such levies can only be-" he said and quickly fell into a lecture about banking practices that went way beyond this poor apprentice's head, so high that they may as well have been up there in the deep blue sky with the birds.

When Jonathan returned, he handed me a wooden box.

"As thanks," he said.

Inside the box was a token bracelet with four slots on it. The first three slots were joined by a line, like mine, indicating that they could be used for token combinations. The fourth slot was set apart from them and had a golden ring of color around it.

"It's an old one of mine," said Jonathan. "Father sent it to me when I passed my banking apprenticeship."

"I can’t take this."

"Of course you can! Take it with my thanks - when I said I wanted to forget that old city life, I meant it. Anyhow, I wear an eight-slotter now, so this old thing is no use to me."

"Well, thanks. Thanks a lot."

"Not a worry. The fourth slot, in case you've never had a bracelet like this, will increase the effectiveness of whatever token you put in it by 15%. It will, however, drain your crafting stamina at a faster rate. Also, it can’t be used in a combination. The other three slots work just as normal."

I immediately took off my old token bracelet and snapped my new one around my wrist. The metal was slightly cooler than I was used to. In the slots, I set my ‘Simple Craft and Forge’, ‘Fertile Experience’, and ‘Simple Tinkering’ tokens. In the fourth slot, I placed ‘Simple Enchantment’. The combination that I’d chosen was more through wanting to have the feeling of using all four slots rather than any actual necessity since I wasn’t crafting right now. The next time I needed to craft, I’d swap them around to suit.

The fingers of evening parted the blue sky, and the face of night peered out, its black face dotted with stars that blinked and flashed. The brothers and I said our goodbyes, and I left their farm with a newly completed token, a new token bracelet, and with more gold in my pocket.

Chapter 29

"Well done, lad!" exclaimed Master Cooper when I told him about my day. I got back to the craftstead to find him and Chris sitting on wooden chairs on the decking. The hounds were spread all around, including Nipper, the liveliest of the hounds. He had taken a liking to Chris and insisted on curling up by his feet.

"Evening, all," I told them with a wave, and Chris advised me that there was plenty of mutton stew left over from dinner, along with some pasties that he had made. They were his specialty from his hometown, apparently.

So, I ladled some stew into a bowl and took it outside, where a third chair was waiting for me, and I told them all about earning my tinkering skill tree.

"Simple Alchemy is next," said Master Cooper. "My weakest area, I’ll be honest with you, lad. Luckily, I am a man with many friends."

"You are? Maybe we'll meet them sometime."

"Cheeky git. Tomorrow, you're going to travel to Brunswick. Go see a lady called Janey Morgan. She runs a shop called the Brewer's Ruin. Or at least, that's what it used to be called. She changes the name quite a lot."

"She'll teach me alchemy?"

"Simple alchemy. Very different from actual alchemy, but it's all you need now to get the artificer class. Janey's like me. She doesn't usually take on apprentices. She owes me a favor or two, though."

After an exhausting day, I didn't want to think much about work. I was happy, then, when Master Cooper changed the subject, and we discussed Chris' problem with earning his ‘Simple Bad News’ skill tree. It turned out that when he'd read my stepfather's letter to me about my stepbrother, it had given him 10% toward the skill, and he'd delivered it without losing his voice or choking up.

"So let me ask you," said Master Cooper. "What's the difference between talking to Lewis and saying things out there on the street?"

"I suppose I didn’t think about it or build it up in my head. I was only concerned for Lewis, so I just read the letter without thinking too much."

"Right. You've built all this up too much in your mind. With bad news, it's best to just get it out there. Practice giving people bad news without overthinking it."

"I can't just make up bad news," said Chris. "That didn’t really work out for me."

"Well, times are hard, Chris. What with the hundreds of brigands around ‘ampton. Bad news won’t be hard to come by. If you want to start small, then bad news is just news that a person doesn’t want to hear, is it not? So for a while, practice that. Just until you earn your skill."

I spent that night creating tinker cogs using some of the scrap steel and iron in Master Cooper's storehouse. The crafting itself wasn’t difficult; as long as I selected from my ‘Tinker’ menu, then it was just a matter of waiting. The most complicated part was my new token bracelet. Specifically, my Fertile Experience token. It made sense to me that I should keep the token of whatever skill tree I was going to use right next to my Fertile Experience token so that I’d earn more EXP. Then again, placing a token for my active skill tree in the fourth slow would magnify its effectiveness. The fourth slot was, however, cut off from the first three and thus wouldn’t benefit from an experience gain.

After thinking about it, I decided that when I was crafting under pressure or expectation, I'd use my active token in the fourth slot so that I’d produce a quicker, better craft. When I had more time do complete my crafting, I'd put my active skill’s token next to the Fertile Experience one.

While Master Cooper's snores filled the house, and while the light from Chris's reading lamp glowed under his doorway, I stayed up and created small auto motion cogs. It took me hours of work and a lot of patience, but I managed to create a system for collecting eggs from Master Cooper's chickens. In the kitchen, I fashioned a chain next to the door. One pull of the chain would activate a series of cogs, which in turn moved an artificed spatula. Soon after, whatever eggs the chickens had laid would travel down a long, softened tube, landing in a basket by the kitchen door. Just like that, I had automated one of my daily chores.

Crafting such a system drained both my crafting stamina and my actual stamina, since I greeted the next morning after having just four hours of sleep. Chris looked similarly ill-rested, mainly because he liked to stay up reading all night and often got so sucked into a book that he forgot to sleep. Even so, my tiredness was worth it because I earned a few level-ups in my skills.

'Tinker' ability level to 2

[25% Simple Tinkering skill tree EXP received. Current level: 1]

- Tinker menu expanded

- Item quality increased

'Craft ability' increased to 7

[20% Simple Craft & Forge skill tree EXP received.]

- Crafting speed increased

- Crafting stamina drain decreased

- Crafting menu expanded

Simple Craft & Forge skill tree leveled to 3!

Perk gained: Homely Crafter

Home-based crafted items will be of better quality.

Ability unlocked: Analyze

Crafting Stamina increased: 300/300

Now that I had leveled my ‘Simple Craft and forge’ skill tree to 3, I was just three levels away from potentially upgrading the whole token to ‘Intermediate Craft and Forge.’ It would take a lot of work, of course. From now on, every time I level-up an ability under this skill tree, I would only get 10% toward the overall skill tree level. That meant ten levels ups of my Craft abilities before I’d get to level 4.

That was in the future, though, and for now, I had a new ability to play with. Pressing my finger lightly against my ‘Simple Craft’ token, I requested information on the 'Analyze' ability.

Analyze

Skill Tree: Simple Craft & Forge

Crafting stamina cost: 50

Analyzing an object allows the crafter to perceive its strengths, weaknesses, overall quality, average market value, and which materials would be left over if it was dismantled.

This was certainly an ability worthy of my hard work! I had to use it immediately, of course. I was like that when it came to new abilities. I hunted around Master Cooper's house to find something, rejecting analysis of things such as books, a painting, half an Artificer's Special sandwich.

Finally, I settled on an analysis of Master Cooper's artificed bookshelf in the workshop.

Crafting stamina spent [50]

Analysis:

Item: Artificed Bookshelf

Quality: Excellent

Market Value: 385 gold

Dismantled material potential: Oak, storage miodes, books

The information was vaguer than I'd hoped, but that was because the ability was only level one. Persistent use would make it stronger, though analyzing the bookshelf only earned me 2% EXP toward level 2. When I asked Master Cooper about it over breakfast, he told me, "Life rewards curiosity and originality, lad. Take Crafting. Craft a standard table, and you'll earn EXP. But craft a billiard table, and that's a little more unique. Craft a soothsayer’s reading table, and that's even more so, and you'd get better rewards."

"Ah. so I need to analyze more interesting things?"

"Exactly. Now pass the butter."

"Healer Brown says you're to cut butter out of your diet," I said.

"That damned man."

"I know. Trying to save your life. He makes me sick."

Chris and Paisley decided to come with me to Brunswick. We paid for passage on a merchant's carriage. He was taking a collection of weaved rugs to a dealer who lived there and had plenty of room in the back for us. The passage should have cost us two gold each, but Paisley negotiated him to one. We sat in the back with Chris squeezed between us, and we ate slices of cheddar cheese and little sandwich pickles as we traveled. The view wasn’t much since the merchant wouldn't let us open the canvas. "Can't risk getting too much sunlight on the rugs," he said. "They're made from vampiric wolf fur."

While Paisley and Chris chatted about what kind of vampire animals they'd most like to befriend, I pried open one of the merchant’s wooden boxes and used Analyze on a rug.

Analysis:

Item: Vampiric Rug

Quality: Sublime

Market Value: 1085 gold

Dismantled material potential: Wolf fur, vampiric miodes, artificeric stitching

"Over a thousand gold," I said.

"Huh?"

"For a single rug."

Paisley peeked into the crate. "Vampiric rug. Those sell for perhaps one thousand and eighty-three gold. Maybe more."

"Impressive," I said. "But you're two gold short."

"I said maybe more!"

"How are you guys doing this?" said Chris.

"Paisley's a merchant. She can appraise things," I answered.

Paisley nodded. "And I keep abreast of trends. I know where things sell best. That's why I'm taking a bunch of candles to Brunswick. They need the wax for letter seals since the state post service opened its official head office there."

"And I earned an ability," I said. "It lets me know how much things are worth, among other things."

"How much am I worth?" asked Paisley.

"Two coppers."

Brunswick was a peculiar town. Its streets were crammed with weavers and embroiderers, and these people did not go about their work quietly or out of sight. Instead, they called attention to themselves with colorful costumes and loud banter and jokes, often holding banners in front of their workshops to attract customers. Many of these places also had long, wide tables that they would roll their products out on when the sun came up, and they were happy to do their crafting out there in the open, where passersby could watch.

The weaving trade, unfortunately, was dying out thanks to automated weaving tools that tinkerers could make without much trouble, as well as artificed items that did a similar job. That was why the old mill in Brunswick, the biggest building by far, shut down and had been turned into a giant post office where state-only letters were sent.

When we headed into the town center, which was covered by a beautifully embroidered tarpaulin that was also artificed against bad weather, we decided to part ways. Paisley was going to sell her wax to whoever supplied the state post office, while Chris wanted to practice his crier skills in the town center, hoping to finally break his curse and be able to tell people bad news.

"Maybe you could tell them about the infamous Sunhampton brigands. Perhaps they've moved to Brunswick."

"I don’t make bad news up anymore. I'm gonna hang around in town, use my Rumor and Lore and find out some juicy bad tidings."

"Meet here in the evening?" asked Paisley.

"If I can. Let's see what Master Cooper's friend has to say about it first," I said.

Janey Morgan's shop was hard to find, mostly because, just as Master Cooper said, she changed the name a lot. I walked around town looking for a place called Brewer's Ruin, but it was nowhere to be seen. Nor did anyone know anything about it when I asked. Finally, I got a lead from a tinkerer who was sitting outside a local barbershop with an empty bottle in front of him. He told me that Janey changed the name from Brewer's Ruin to Sweet Disasters, and then to Potions and Poisons.

"Why does she change it so often?" I said.

"Ah, because she takes out loans with the banks, so she does. When it’s time to pay 'em back, she declares that her business is bust, and the debt is wiped off."

"And just like that, she doesn’t pay it back?"

"Aye."

"So why do people still lend her money?"

"They don't anymore, fella. They don't. I don't reckon she'll be pulling that trick again."

I wasn't sure how much I wanted to learn from Janey after hearing that, but I reasoned that I was only here to study Simple Alchemy. If Paisley's uncle had sent her to study business under Janey, it would be a different matter. With that in mind, I followed the tinker's directions through Brunswick, leaving behind some of the embroidery-covered streets and entering into an altogether shadier district.

Here, there were many pawn shops, liquor stores, and old sword and blade traders, all competing for the attention of customers who wore threadbare garments and looked as if they could use a good meal. Many also held long tables outside for displaying their wares, though these brave shopkeepers often employed guards to watch over their things.

I found Potions & Poisons behind a half-crumbled building in this part of town. A small sign on the door said it was closed. But when I knocked, someone inside opened it. It was Janey Morgan herself, wearing an apron, burn-marked gloves, and a look of deep irritation. She took one glance at my face, then immediately shut the door.

I knocked again, but she didn’t answer. So, I opened her letterbox and shouted through it.

"Are you Janey Morgan?"

Silence. Then, finally, "Aye. And what of it?"

"I'm here to learn alchemy from you."

"Oh. You are?"

"Yes! If you could just let me in."

"Well, here's some alchemy for your pleasure!"

"Great! Master Cooper sent me, he said that-"

Red-colored smoke poured out of the letterbox, and I had to jump back to avoid getting a face full of it. Even so, I could taste it in my throat, and I immediately began coughing. Was that...ginger? Or cinnamon, maybe? Whatever it was, it clung to the back of my throat and tugged hard on my cough reflex.

The door opened, and Janey came out holding a glass bottle with yellow liquid inside.

"Here."

I swept out my hand. "Get...away...from...me," I managed to say, between coughs.

"This'll stop you from bringing up your lungs. For Barglin’s sake, I'm not tryin' to poison you!"

I was no expert, but I believed that someone who was trying to poison me would never actually admit that they were, so her denials didn’t help much. Nor did the fact that my throat still ached terribly from the smoke.

"Listen, lad. I'm sorry about the smoke. You caught me in a bad mood. It’s harmless stuff, really, but you need to drink this. Here. Watch."

She took a good glug of the liquid herself, and I watched her swallow it. Even so, I wasn’t going to trust her. It was only when I coughed so much that my throat felt like it was on fire, that I relented. I drank the liquid, and the pain went away immediately.

"Sorry about that," she told me. "The debt fellas send all kinds of folk to collect from me. Sometimes it's kids, sometimes it's oldies. You can never be too careful. Now, did you say that Master Cooper sent you?"

I nodded.

"Jack Cooper?"

"Yep."

"Oh. Well, that’s a different matter.."

"He said you'd teach me Simple Alchemy. I'm his apprentice, and I just need this last skill to earn my class."

"And Jack Cooper said I'd teach you?"

"That's right, like I said."

"Well, in that case, tell him this. And make sure you get the inflections right," said Janey. "'’Go fuck yourself, you stupid, horrible, bastard.' Will you remember that?"

"Maybe you ought to write it down."

"Smart arse."

"So you won't teach me?" I said.

"I can't believe the nerve of that man, thinking I’d do him a favor! Does he think that he can just avoid me for fifteen years, and somehow I won't be mad?"

"What did he do to you?" I asked.

"He didn't tell you?"

"He said you were his friend and that you'd be happy to help me. That’s all. Oh. And he said you were alchemist without equal, and that your potions-"

"Don't try sweet talking me, youngling. I see your master's charms have rubbed off on you. That man could speak a sonnet that would make a rose weep. I'm telling you."

I couldn’t help but wonder if we were talking about the same Master Cooper. Evidently, he and Janey had once been in a relationship, and it hadn’t ended well. At least, that was my reading of the situation. I couldn’t imagine anyone being so fond of Master Cooper that they'd still be mad fifteen years later, but there we were.

Still, I hadn’t traveled all this way just to learn no alchemy. "I understand that you're upset about Master Cooper depriving you of his love," I said. "But Master Cooper is like a wild animal. Untamed, a beast of nature that no cage of love can hold. There was nothing personal to it, I’m sure.”

Janey had listened patiently to my lies, and now that I was done, she considered it thoughtfully, no doubt reframing her past emotions and her view of the events that had transpired between them in what was, she now knew, a doomed affair of which there was no guilty party.

She laughed.

And then laughed some more.

"What’s so funny?"

"You!" she said. "I'm only pulling' yer leg, youngling. Me and Coops are good pals. We go way, way back."

"This was all a joke?"

"Well, except for the cinnamon smoke. Again, sorry about that. But you showed determination in sticking around, youngling, and I'd be happy to teach you some simple alchemy. First things first - you need to sweep up the street. I can’t leave it like this."

Janey retrieved a broom and handed it to me. Holding it, I looked at the red smoke stains on the pavement and then, sighing, wondered if I’d ever have a life that didn’t involve a broom.

Chapter 30

For the rest of that day, Janey gave me a tour of her shop front and alchemy workshop, making sure I knew what kinds of tools she used. There was a burner, a crucible, and other such instruments, but most interesting to me were the shelves and jars filled with vials, pots, and glass bottles holding strange concoctions, along with stacks of parchment and loose papers with odd scribblings written all over them.

I didn't have time to meet with Paisley and Chris that night. Janey brewed a stimulant for us both, and we stayed up all night while she taught me how to mix potions from common herbs like wormwood and mandrake root into special brews that could melt metal or heal poisons. Some potions took days to make, she said, while others could be done instantly. She also demonstrated some basic cures, which seemed like pretty straightforward things.

As well as all of this, Janey made me memorize the alchemic table. This was a huge list of the many, many elements an alchemist might use in their brews. There must have been four thousand of them, and I didn't know how I could possibly memorize them all.

"Isn't there a book I could just refer to?" I asked.

Janey was working on a recipe that required the roots of the wolfsbane plant. Using these was dangerous because of the poison that lurked within, which could be ingested through skin contact. She set the root down on a special alchemic blanket, which was designed to absorb all kinds of poisons, corrosions, and burns.

"A book?" she said, her voice incredulous as if she'd never heard anything more ridiculous. "A book?" She turned this way and that now, as if playing to a crowd. "The boy wants to use a book to learn things!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Books can be taken away from you, youngling. They are not a part of you, therefore you can be deprived of them. What if you're imprisoned in some foul dungeon and want to concoct something that will melt your chains?"

"That's possible?"

"Depending on where you’re imprisoned, yes. And if you can produce a pint of spit. But not if you don’t know the recipe”

"So I really have to memorize all of these elements?"

"Memorize as many or as few as you like, youngling. But I’ll tell you this: if you fail my test on Friday, you'll be leaving here without Simple Alchemy."

After a full afternoon of memorization, I felt like I couldn’t cram any more element names into my brain. Needing a break, I left Potions & Poisons and went to a tavern called the Spiked Fist. Here I met with Paisley and Chris, who were enjoying a dinner of stewed eel while watching a boxing match that was going on in a temporary ring constructed in the center of the tavern. A small boxer named Estralior was currently battering a much taller and heavier guy called Big Rick.

"Look who it is!" said Chris, noticing me.

"Hey!"

"Sit down. Get yourself a drink."

"Which one should I do first?" I said, grinning.

Paisley answered, "Get us all a drink, then sit down."

From the bar, I ordered three ales for us, and we all watched the fight with great interest until there came the final blow from Estralior, which connected with the head of Big Rick, toppling the giant. He hit the canvas with a crash that seemed to shake the whole tavern.

"Eat dirt, you big turd," jeered Paisley. "Sorry, I get carried away when I watch people fight," she added.

We drank our drinks and chatted for a while until I felt hungry. That was one thing that had been suppressed over the last day or so - my normally ravenous hunger. I guessed it was a mix of Janey's stimulants and the ever-presence of toxins and fumes in her shop that had shriveled my appetite. After a few hours away from the store, though, my hunger returned. The special of the day was stewed eel, but I couldn’t think of anything that sounded more disgusting. Instead, I ordered beer-battered fish and fried potatoes.

As hungry as I was, I purposefully left five potatoes on my plate and then waited until Paisley asked if I was done. I told her that I was, and she gladly finished them. I don’t know why, but eating food from other people's plates seemed to thrill Paisley more than getting a whole meal to herself, as if she’d earned some unexpected reward. I had long ago learned to just give her that simple pleasure. Chris bought the next round of drinks, and Paisley purchased the one after that.

"We're heading back tomorrow," said Paisley.

"So soon?"

"I sold the wax already, and Uncle Jace is expecting me. Anyway, we're booking a carriage after breakfast. Are you coming?" Chris asked me.

I really wanted to go back. The truth was that I missed Sunhampton already, and I wanted to help Master Cooper with the doorway. I just had to remind myself that I couldn’t do anything with the doorway until I earned the artificer class, and learning Simple Alchemy was vital to that.

"I'd love to," I said. "Only, things aren't going so well."

On hearing 'things aren't going so well,' Chris must have sensed bad news because he suddenly leaned forward, very interested. I told them both about my problem memorizing the alchemic table.

"It's like I can memorize a hundred or so. When I try to add more, the first ones I memorized fall out. Like I only have so much space in my head."

"Memorization is a skill like any other," said Chris. "Well, not like any other. It isn't a token-based skill, but it's a skill all the same. You just have to work at it."

"How did you guys get so good?"

"What?" said Paisley. "My memory is like a sieve!"

"Apart from the fact you can memorize which towns need different kinds of goods, and which trends are happening all across Easterly."

"Oh. I suppose I can do that. But I don’t really have to think about it. I just do it. Chris is better than me," said Paisley. "He practically remembers everything anyone's ever said in his earshot."

Chris nodded. "More's the pity. Sometimes, it would be nice to forget certain things. Anyhow, I can teach you a few mnemonic tricks. Have you ever heard of a memory castle?"

"Think I read a book called that once..."

"It's a memorization technique. Let me show you."

I wanted to meet them both for breakfast before they departed the next morning, but Janey told me I had to relabel all of her alchemic jars. This meant using a putty knife to scratch off the old label, then applying a fresh one. Simple as that. Easy work, but very tedious. While I worked, she called out names from the alchemic table to me, and I slowly filed them away in my new memory castle.

By noon, her entire shopfront and workshop had been relabeled. Jane prowled among the shelves, nodding happily. "Good, good. Now customers can find what they want without asking me their annoying questions!"

"It's so annoying, isn't it," I said. "When folks want to hand over gold for your wares."

"You've learned some of Jack Cooper's drollness, I see."

For the rest of that day and the evening, I memorized the alchemical table, churning it over and over in my mind until it was like a rich butter. Every inch of my memorization castle was filled, from the grassy banks to the drawbridge, all the way to an imaginary turret with a flag flying proudly upon it and fluttering in the imaginary breeze of my mind.

When dawn broke and Janey emerged from her room at the back of the shop, I was ready.

"Test me," I said.

"Youngling, I haven't even had a morning stimulant yet."

"No time for that. Test me."

"Have you slept at all?"

"I don’t need sleep! Test me!"

Sighing, she sat down and blinked sleepily. "Tell me the three heated forms of crostyhnthite."

"Red swickle, Gray ice, Krentickle moss." I quickly answered.

"Impressive! Now, what are the..."

And so my test went for a full thirty minutes of nonstop questions, during which I walked up and down my memory castle and rummaged in each room for answers. Finally, Janey gave a satisfied nod and told me she was happy that I had memorized the table well enough.

After this, I headed to the spare room she'd decked out for me, collapsed onto the bed, and slept for twenty-six hours straight. When I woke up, Janey sent a delivery boy to a cafe in town, telling him to return with two omelets and garlic-fries potatoes and that if he didn’t, she'd hunt him down and feed him a draught that turned his legs into tree stumps. The poor boy ran like he was being chased by a demon.

After eating our omelets, Janey finally began to teach me some of the practicalities of alchemy. She brewed various potions and many ointments, allowing me to follow her step by step using my inferior equipment and scraps of the necessary ingredients. My success rate was, being generous to myself, one in five.

After three more days of this, I finally got what I had been craving: the token in my token bracelet warmed, and the etching of a potion bottle appeared on its face.

Skill tree earned: Simple Alchemy

Level: 1

- Identify potion, Create potion, and create tincture abilities unlocked

- Defense gained: 5% resistance to toxin-based damage and poison effects

- Crafting stamina increased to 350/350

I stared at the words that I’d expected for so long, disbelieving them now that they were finally here. "Simple Alchemy," I read aloud, as if uttering the words gave them form, made them properly exist. It wasn't just that I had earned the ‘Simple Alchemy’ skill tree. It was the fact that I now had all five tokens needed to become an artificer.

Before I left town, Janey took me for a celebratory lunch at her favorite bistro. It was called the Cursed Doubloon, and it was themed after the famous pirates that terrorized the western seas. It took inspiration from a much more glamorized version of the legend, of course. Most folks knew that the real pirates, if they ever came ashore in a town like this, would immediately slaughter any abled men or women, sack anything worth sacking, then set the whole place to cinders.

The Cursed Doubloon had walls made from wood taken from the deck from a real pirate ship, and the poor waiters and waitresses had to dress up in frilly shirts with lots of costume jewelry. It was all very well done though, if you ignored how ridiculously overdone the decorating was. Despite all that, it was really good food. The best part were the little fish cakes stuffed with garlic and butter, covered in a batter, and fried until they were golden brown on each side. Janey squeezed lemon onto hers, telling me, "No fish cake is complete without lemon. That, youngling, is basic alchemy."

When we'd eaten and enjoyed a round of pirate-themed drinks- rum served in miniature wooden skulls - Janey asked me, "So how does it feel to walk your steps into the wondrous land of alchemy? Can I convince you to change apprenticeships? Simple Alchemy but scratches the surface."

"If I could have a hundred different apprenticeships and a hundred different classes, I would. I'd never stop learning."

"But artificery has captured your heart."

"Afraid so," I said.

"Ah, well. You would have annoyed me if you’d stayed any longer. There’s a reason I haven’t had an apprentice in years." She took a sip from her skull cup and said, "Have you played with your new abilities yet, youngling?"

"'Identify Potion’ lets me see what's in a potion and what it does without having to drink it, right?"

"Very useful for monarchs who are scared of being poisoned, disastrous for the food tasting profession. As with any ability, it is but what you make of it, youngling. More advanced potions will evade your ability until you level it. And since you are sitting under the shade of the Simple Alchemy skill tree, some potions will be on the higher branches, forever out of reach."

"Well, I always knew that, I guess."

"Alright, then. What about your other abilities?"

"Pretty straightforward. ‘Create Potion’ lets me brew a potion if I have the tools and supplies in my inventory. ‘Create Tincture’ is the same, but for tinctures."

"And the difference between a potion and tincture?"

"This is a lot of questions from someone who didn’t want an apprentice," I said.

Janey smiled. It was a wistful one, I thought. "The difference, youngling?"

"Potions are consumed. Tinctures are applied externally."

"Good. Good.”

“Oh!” I said, “Before I forget, I got you something."

I handed Janey a box and eagerly waited for her to open it. She did so hesitantly as if expecting a trap. Inside was a hand-carved wooden ring, covered in little patterns of fake silver and gold, and a note I had written.

"'Dear Janey," she read. "Thank you for all you've taught me. With this ring, I offer my debt and a promise of friendship. If you ever need my help, you only have to ask’."

Janey wiped the corner of her eye, then slipped the ring onto her right index finger. It fit perfectly because I had measured her finger while she was napping in the workshop one afternoon.

"My eyes seem to be affected as if by some toxin," she said. "You better get us more rum. It's the only cure."

When I returned with more drinks and a bowl of salted peanuts, a box was waiting on the table for me.

"You are not the only one who came prepared," said Janey.

Inside the box was an alembic, used for distilling liquids. It was mostly useful for brewing potions but had its uses for tinctures, too, and was extremely handy if you wanted to disassemble a potion back to its raw ingredients.

"It is self-cleaning," Janey told me. "I remember when I was an apprentice. Endless cleaning. Of the workshop, tools, bowls, shelves. At least this tool will not need it."

"Thank you, Janey. For everything."

"You are quite welcome, youngling."

Chapter 31

For the journey back to Sunhampton, I paid 75 silvers for a seat on a trader’s wagon, this being a lady who traveled Easterly selling silk scarves. Her name was Tina Luray, and she insisted I sit up in the driver's compartment with her, where she spent the whole journey drinking spiced whiskey and telling me dirty jokes.

Her horse reins were artificed so that she didn't have to hold them except when the road was particularly winding, and I badly wanted to dismantle them to see what kind of miodes were used. I learned a whole heap of saucy jokes from Tina, and I was excited to use them the first chance I got.

When we pulled into Sunhampton and I hopped off the wagon and said goodbye to Tina, the strangest thing happened. I looked at Sunhampton, with its sleepy houses made from wood lovingly crafted; wood that had soaked in the sun and the snow and every season in between. My gaze followed the rough dirt path that led toward Coiner's Way, where I could just about see the fine village folk strolling from shop to shop. Old man Justice with his little dog, Snap. A middle-aged couple arm in arm, the lightness of their steps that of a couple twenty years their junior. Kids playing truant from the village school, certain they would be caught but enjoying their stolen time nonetheless.

This was my home, I knew there and then. My nice little village, not a manor in sight. Just a ring of houses, a row of shops, a great big hill that I'd have to walk each and every day, savoring every step no matter how much it burned my calves. After thanking Tina, I strolled through Coiner's Pass and then Harrison Street before emerging at the foot of the great hill that led to Master Cooper's house.

Our table was full that evening, with Paisley joining Master Cooper, Chris, and me. It wasn't just the people gathered around it that accomplished such a feeling of fullness. There must have been a dozen plates, serving bowls, bread boards. We ate a feast of beef cooked in red wine until the flavor was almost alchemic in its intensity, sausages and boiled potatoes smothered in gravy, freshly baked loaves of seeded variety, and many more dishes besides, all of which we washed down with pear cider made from Master Cooper's very own tree.

Paisley and Chris were interested to know how I’d gotten on with the test and happy for me when I told them how effective Chris' memory technique was. Master Cooper, however, was more interested in Janey, and asked question after question about her.

“Why are you so interested?” I asked.

“I’m an artificer, lad. It’s my job to hold the mysteries of the world to account. And let me tell you - that woman is a mystery.”

When the moon made its appearance above the house and shared its silvery glow through the windows, Paisley and Chris left the dining room, arm in arm, under the guise of letting the wolfhounds out for a stroll before bed.

Alone with Master Cooper, I took the opportunity to ask him a question that had been bubbling in my head ever since I left Janey's shop.

"So I have all five tokens now," I said.

Master Cooper wiped a bit of stray mash from his beard. "And damn proud I am of you for that."

"Do I need to get a certificate to say I'm an artificer now, or is there some kind of special token you have to give me, or..."

"It isn't quite that simple, lad."

"It isn't?"

"You're three-quarters of the way up the hill, to be sure, but there's just one last stretch. Don't you remember?"

I tried to think of anything I'd missed. Some task left undone, a token left unearned, a book I hadn't read. I honestly couldn't think of anything at all, and began to suspect that Master Cooper was playing a kind of joke on me. One look at his face told me that he wasn't - when Master Cooper was being funny, or thought he was, you knew it.

I cursed the universe for giving me yet another task before I got what I wanted. And a task I didn’t know the nature of, at that. I briefly wondered if perhaps changing my apprenticeship to alchemy might not be such a bad idea after all.

And then I remembered.

"I have to complete a final project," I said.

He nodded. "Every artificer’s apprentice must finish and present a piece of work that showcases all the skills he has learned. It must be a project for a real client, and the client must also approve the finished item. Do that, lad, and the class is yours."

All that night, I thought about it. There were lots of projects I could begin that would utilize all five basic artificery skills, but I couldn't just present any old rubbish in front of him or a client. It had to be something that impressed him.

Sitting on the windowsill in my room, bathed in moonlight, I took my leather crafting pad and began scribbling ideas. I could perhaps make a pair of gloves with some kind of strength-based artificery that allowed you to carry more? The Tillwright brothers would probably buy something like that from me. Maybe I could line the palm pads with alchemic solution that protected them from burns, and add little tinker cogs to them so you could set the gloves to complete some kind of menial task without any input from yourself.

Somehow, a pair of gloves didn’t seem worthy of a project that would seal my class. I wrote down a big list of things, filling almost two pages with artificeric projects such as a clockwork door handle and lock that opened or closed on command, a cogwork engine for making arrows or crossbow bolts faster than they otherwise would be made by a fletcher, a machine for crushing wheat into flour using a crank mechanism that would work on its own.

All of these I dismissed on second thought, finally falling into a restless sleep.

And then came the storm.

We'd later learn that it was the worst storm to hit Sunhampton in fifty years, the worst to ravage the whole district in twenty. I'd never seen the likes of it in all my life. The wind howled like the revenge song of a wolf pack besieged by hunters. The roof slates clattered and groaned against one another, making little explosions of noise as they toppled loose into the yard below. The rain beat down so hard we could barely see through our windows for hours at a time. Then hail battered them even worse, breaking glass panes, cracking door frames, punching holes cleanly through some walls.

Another howl rose in the air, this one from the mouths of real animals. It was a distress call from the poor wolfhounds. Leaving the house was the last thing I wanted to do right then, but I couldn't just let the poor pups cower in fear in their kennel. I dressed in an artificed coat and pulled the togs on the collar so that it closed around as much of my face as possible. After checking that Master Cooper was okay - he was sleeping through the whole thing - I left the house.

Outside, the rain tried its best to punch holes in my coat's artificery, but the effect held and the raindrops pinged off me in all directions. The wind pushed at me like the guardian of some magical threshold that I wasn't allowed to cross, trying to send me back inside. I shivered under its assault, staring out into the dark and pouring night into a scene that I'd have been forgiven for thinking was the end of the world. Water got into my eyes so that all I could see were blurry shapes of hazes of color, dismal under the assault from the sky.

When I reached the kennels and unlocked the door, it refused to open. Or rather, the wind pushed so hard on it that I couldn't force it open. As a great lightning bolt struck from above and showered the farm with electricity, the wolfhounds howled again as one, a song of fear coming from great beasts who had no way of understanding that this wasn’t an assault from the gods. That it was just nature. Nothing personal. Their distress was so great that it made me feel weak inside. I had to get into the kennel to comfort them, no matter what.

I tried the door, but again the wind blew so strong in that direction that I couldn’t open it an inch.

Dashing across the yard, I headed to the workshop, whose door faced out in a direction untouched by wind. Inside, I peeled back my hood and swept my hair back over my head. I looked around, wondering what was in here that I could use.

I needed something that would help me open the door, even with the wind holding it shut. If only Master Cooper had used tinkered hinges and applied an artificeric command word to all the doors. We could have made it open on command, and not even the wind would stop it.

It was too late for that, but there had to be something I could do.

A howl came from outside. Poor pups, I thought. They're scared out of their minds right now.

Then I saw my solution. A crowbar leaning against the wall, next to an old wheelbarrow without a handle, which Master Cooper used to keep his supplies of spare parts for his equipment and tools in when he wasn't using them. The crowbar itself wouldn't be enough, not against the strength of tonight's wind.

I grabbed the bar and set it on the workbench in front of me. Then I found my artificer's satchel, which was slung on a hook near the door, where we usually put our coats. My toolbox, however, wasn't in the bag.

Where had I put it?

Another howl.

I remembered that Master Cooper had artificed the toolbox for me, when he gave it to me as a gift.

"Where are my tools?" I said.

"Here! Here!" said a voice from behind me, where my toolbox lay nestled under an old towel that I had used for wiping grease on.

From the box, I retrieved my artificer’s goggles, alchemical tongues, and my disenchantment fork. After checking the miode supply cabinet at the far east corner of the room, I found what I needed. In a box marked 's', I found a glass vial filled with strength miodes.

With my tools equipped, I used 'Enchant,' combining the strength miodes with the crowbar. I suffered an anxious three-minute wait to see if the artificery took hold, during which the dogs howled and howled.

Enchantment success!

Crowbar of Increased Leverage

Craft quality: Average

Artificery quality: Average

This crowbar can pry apart objects far beyond the strength of a normal crowbar or the strength of the user. Warning: the artificery used on crowbar has its weakened durability.

Enchant ability leveled to 3

- Enchantment quality improved

- You can now work with more miode types

25% 'Enchantment' skill tree overall level EXP received

Current level: 1

EXP toward next level: 50%

Clutching the artificed crowbar, I hurried out into the yard where the wind was fiercest, having showed no signs of having blustered away its strength. Slate tiles flew off the roof and smashed around me. I jumped and ducked like I was in a battleground, rushing against the onslaught of tinker bombs launched overhead.

With all the force I could muster, I drove the crowbar into the kennel door frame. It struck hard, but it still didn't open. I pushed again and again, and a spark of energy came from the crowbar, traveling to the tip. The door burst open, and out rushed a sea of paws and fur. The biggest of the wolfhounds, Clyde, jumped up and tried to leap into my arms, but he was so heavy that I fell onto my back, landing in a great puddle that drenched me head to toe.

Soaked, cold, and miserable, I led the hounds into Master Cooper's house, where I quickly barred the door behind me. The hounds weren’t allowed in the main house as a pack, and the novelty of it was enough to ease some of their fear. I turned on every oil lamp, nailed boards over all the windows, and set the hearth alight. Soon, the room glowed with warmth and light, and the pack cuddled up together in a heap in the center of the room.

After checking on Master Cooper and changing into dry clothes, I joined the hounds downstairs and slept on the sofa nearby. A little hound named Hugh climbed onto my chest and slept there all night.

The next morning, it was time to survey the damage. By then, the storm had blown itself out, leaving behind a mess of wet slate tiles everywhere and many fallen branches littering our yard. Even some trees had been knocked over by the brute strength of the winds. Our chicken coop had taken a hit, too, but I was able to find and round up all the poultry that had gone astray.

Master Cooper woke up at his normal breakfast time. He was amazed to find me in the yard, ankle-deep in muddy water and clearing up the broken slates. One workshop window was smashed, and the wind had blown water, twigs and mud through the opening, leaving the whole place a mess.

"Did you have a party, or something, lad?" Master Cooper asked.

After I explained that no, this wasn’t the result of Paisley, Chris and I celebrating too gratuitously, he fetched a broom from his own workshop and was going to start clearing up. I took the broom off him and reminded him about what Healer Brown had said.

"Bloody do-gooder healers," he grumbled. "I'll put some coffee on. If you're cleaning all this up, you'll need it."

Paisley arrived just before lunchtime. Her uncle's house had been hit, too, and she came here to see if we had any artificed brooms they could use to sweep their great big warehouse, where the roof slates had blown off, and the whole place had been spoiled by rainwater and muddy slop. A few hours after that, Chris arrived back from his trip to Little Flitwick, where he'd heard there might be a vacancy for a town crier.

"What happened here?" he asked in amazement. "Lewis, did you have a party?"

"Why does everyone think I'm throwing parties all of a sudden?"

The three of us made slow but steady progress in clearing all the debris throughout the yard and workshop. But we only discovered the worst damage when I checked the storehouses at the far end of the yard. Master Cooper's wood, metal, and scrap storehouse was intact, as was the storehouse next to it that contained supplies for his other projects. The problem lay with the third storehouse. The wind had felled a nearby pine tree, which in turn had collapsed onto the storehouse, demolishing the wall.

When I realized what this storehouse had contained, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Surveying the damage, my fears were confirmed. Master Cooper's doorway project was completely destroyed. The stone archway was in pieces, and those pieces were in smaller pieces. Strapping on my artificer's goggles, I saw a miode or two floating here and there, remnants of the artificery he'd woven into the brickwork. The rest of the miodes could be anywhere now. The wood he'd used for the door was just a mess of splinters. The whole thing was destroyed.

"How bad is it?" asked Paisley. "Is there nothing you can do?"

I shook my head.

After the raging furies of the night before, the weather this afternoon was surprisingly calm, even pleasant. It was as though the sky had been in a rage and then, having found its outlet, had discovered an inner peace that it could now enjoy. The three of us, under Master Cooper's supervision, had cleared, cleaned, and fixed whatever we could. For the last hour of our labors, Master Cooper disappeared into the kitchen before finally calling us inside.

"Grub's up!"

So we stayed around the dining table as Master Cooper served up some stew from a pot that seemed to have plenty to share, accompanied by thick slices of bread slathered with butter. The food was warm, tasty, and heartwarming. As we ate, I felt a change that I couldn't quite explain. Something like hope, maybe. I wondered if Master Cooper had applied some kind of alchemy to the food, some potion or other that raised our spirits. I quickly discounted that theory. For one, although Master Cooper had acquired alchemy skill through necessity, it was the least favorite of his talents, and he didn’t use it unless artificery wouldn’t suffice. Secondly, Janey had impressed on me over and over that it was an alchemic sin to apply an effect to a person's food without telling them, even if that effect was supposed to be good. Master Cooper wouldn’t go against something like that. No, this was just good stew. Nothing more, nothing less.

As we ate, Paisley asked about the doorway and whether we could fix it. A dark look crossed Master Cooper's face. He set down the piece of bread that was in his right hand.

"The doorway is beyond the repair of the great Garnarad himself," he said, referring to the fabled god of crafting.

"Do you have time to start again?" she asked.

"Even if I was allowed to work on it," he said, looking at me as though I was both Healer Brown himself, and also responsible for Master Cooper's heart problems, "I don't have the coin to buy new materials. Those were special bricks. And the miodes weren't cheap, either."

"Maybe you could get a loan from a bank..."

"No, lass. There's no bank in Easterly that'll sanction yet another loan to an old artificer with a dodgy heart."

Chris had been chewing on a hunk of bread, deep in thought, all this time. "What if I was to head into town and use my Crier skills to tell everyone what happened? They might donate a coin or two to help fund the replacement."

"Thanks, lad. Thanks to all of you. You've kind hearts, no mistake. But the doorway business is over. I'll send a letter to the client tomorrow to explain, and they can just find someone else to finish it."

I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about the destroyed doorway. Worse was Master Cooper's face when he told us that the project was over. I just kept hearing the same resigned tone in his voice, a strange timbre to his words that I’d never heard from him before. I turned it over in my head, every aspect of it, as I tried and failed to coax miodes of sleep from the air and artifice them into my head.

Sleep must have visited me eventually because the next thing I felt was a ray of morning sunlight on my face. It felt like the touch of a healing god, glowing and reassuring, and telling me that the storm was over for good, that it wouldn’t be back.

With it came inspiration. A motivation so strong I jumped out of bed.

"My final project will be the doorway," I told Master Cooper while we ate our breakfast in the kitchen the next morning.

He looked at me questioningly.

"Seriously," I said. "The doorway. We can rebuild it together. For my part in it, that will be my final project as an apprentice."

"Hmm."

"You seem skeptical."

"I didn't say anything, lad!"

"No, but your expression has skepticism written all over it. You're doing that face you do. You know. When you're skeptical about things."

"An artificer's class-earning project is usually personal to him," said Master Cooper. "Something he can keep with him forever. My doorway is just the stupid project of an old man."

Master Cooper clearly wasn't enthused about my idea, which was a problem. A master had to approve his apprentice's final project.

"What could be more personal to me than helping you with a project that I’ve watched you work on for weeks? If it wasn't for you, Master Cooper, who knows where I'd be now. I wouldn't be here, in this nice house in a nice village, on the verge of becoming an artificer. This doorway means a lot to me, too. We can rebuild it. We can get the materials somehow, even if I have to work at every market in Easterly. But you're sick, no offense, and you need help to finish it."

"The artificery is beyond you, lad. No offense there, either."

"Not all of it. You can guide me through most of it, and I'll use what skills I can to get as much work done as possible. For the things that are beyond me...well. You could do them. I read about it: an apprentice can get his master to complete one piece of his final project, as long as it involves skills too high for an apprentice to master.”

"Healer Brown wouldn't be too pleased about me working."

"Healer Brown doesn't have to know as long as you take care of yourself. I'll work under your guidance for most of it. All you'll need to do is the higher level artificery. All the grunt work, well. Leave that to me. Your apprentice grunt."

Master Cooper thought about it. Finally, he said, "Alright, but only because there isn't another option."

With three weeks to go until the doorway needed to be finished, there were lots of things to do. Firstly, Master Cooper signed the doorway contract over to me. I was going to be doing most of the work, so if the project was completed, then he wanted me to have the EXP. I promised, however, to give him the gold when the client paid us.

When Master Cooper officially handed the job to me, I got a notification.

Craft Contract received: Artificed Doorway

Specifications:

‘Excellent’ rated craftsmanship

Tinkered hinges

Alchemical lock & key

Artificed for compact transportation

Reward:

5,000 gold

At lunchtime, Chris and I met Paisley at Rolls and Dough. Chris ordered three servings of pancakes, which he planned on stacking together in a structure called "Chris's Tower of Terror," onto which he would pour syrup, starting at the top so that it cascaded down the sides like a champagne fountain. Paisley took the more sensible option of oxtail soup and a toasted cheese sandwich, while I was too on edge to eat, so I just ordered a coffee and stirred four sugar cubes into it. Copious sugar is a great idea for someone who's already anxious, of course. The cafe was getting busy, and Mrs. Grant said we would have to wait half an hour before our food arrived.

"I need to raise money for materials," I said. "I can cover maybe sixty percent of what we need from our previous market profits, but that's it."

"You saved all your profits?" said Paisley.

"As much as possible. Why shouldn’t I?"

"I just...I don’t know. Maybe I expected you to go shopping and spend it all on some fancy new hammer or something."

The truth was that growing up, I never got to enjoy the act of spending coins. The rare times I had any was because I earned it by helping gamekeeper Jones, and the paltry few coins I got were so precious to me that I treated them like holy relics. I was almost allergic to spending money.

Paisley had similarly saved her profits, though her saving was motivated less through fear of having nothing, and more through her desire to own a shop. Every copper that ever crossed her palm was added to her shop fund, which she increased from time to time by investing in the wares of some of the merchants who appeared in Sunhampton. These were traders who were willing to undergo trips through the dangerous Lonely Flats desert, where they would buy rare materials such as sandpyrus, a kind of tough paper used for making mages' spell scrolls, and rare gems, which they'd sell for twenty times their value in western Easterly.

"How much gold do you need?" she asked me.

"Like I said, I can cover a big chunk of the supplies. Maybe sixty percent."

"I have gold you could use," she said. "For free. Not as a loan with interest or anything."

I could tell how hard it was for her to offer that from how she avoided looking at my face while she spoke. As much as it was an instant solution to my problems, all it did was set Paisley back in pursuit of her dreams. How could I feel okay knowing that I would become an artificer like I wanted, but it'd take her longer to get her shop?

"Thanks, but I have to raise all the funds by myself," I lied. "There's a market this weekend, right? It's not against the rules for you to help me with that."

"I don't know. I think I’m busy," said Paisley.

"Me too," said Chris.

"Oh. That's okay. I can manage by myself. I'll just-"

Paisley started laughing. "Of course we'll help you. Just make sure we have lots to sell, and I'll do the selling."

"And I'll...uh..." said Chris. "I guess I'll just be the manual labor guy."

Mrs. Grant appeared at our table with a tray of food. When I smelled the syrup and pancakes, I felt hunger finally stir in me. This peaked when Paisley grabbed her toasted cheese sandwich and tore it in half, revealing the cheesy goodness inside. She dipped this into her soup, then took a great bite. Chris must have read my thoughts because he gestured with his knife and fork to his humongous pancake tower. "Want some?"

"Nah, it's my own fault. I should have ordered something."

"Don’t be silly. Here, take the side plate. And there's a spare fork there."

Chris put a pancake on the side plate and passed it over to me.

"Thanks," I said.

"Put on lots of syrup," he instructed. "No, a little more than that. A little more...more...that's about right."

I stabbed a piece of pancake and lifted it to my mouth. It was buttery and fluffy and tasted so good I could have eaten a whole serving of them.

"Thanks, guys," I told them both.

"It's just a pancake."

"No, for everything."

I spent Monday to Friday in the workshop, working nonstop on things that we could sell at the market. I worked with so many miodes that I saw the magical specks when I blinked. I dreamed about the sound of an artificer's fork hitting metal and sending the miodes into the air like water droplets splashing up from a puddle. I don't think I'd ever worked as hard in my life, starting at first daylight and finishing only when the sun had well and truly set and left the craftstead in a peaceful state of darkness.

The upcoming market in Sunhampton was a food fair, so I based all my work around that. I made three self-cleaning cutlery sets with 24 pieces in each, crafting them out of stainless steel and artificing them to be self-cleaning. This was a tricky piece of artificery, until I checked Master Cooper's miode store and found miodes taken from a Basic Cleanliness spell, which mages used on themselves when they were traveling in uncivilized places for extended periods. I applied the same artificery to three dinner plate sets, too.

Next, I created something original that I named the Any Spice, Any Time Shaker. Not the snappiest of names, as Paisley told me again and again, but I was proud of the design. It was a simple glass jar with holes on the top to shake things out of. It came with a set of 12 wooden boxes that you could fill with dried spices and put anywhere around your house. Then, if you held the shaker and said the name of a spice, the artificery would fill the shaker.

Paisley said that utility items were a great idea and would sell well, but we also needed something a little extra special.

"I plan on taking the mirror and letting people use it for a coin, like last time," I said.

"Great, but we need something else, too."

"Like what?"

She shrugged. "I just sell the things. You're the inventor."

I thought about it and thought about it. Sometimes Paisley kept me company in the workshop, spreading her books over a spare counter and working on memorizing the trading regulations of Easterly's eastern provinces. Sometimes Chris would sit there and read. We never said much, but that was the great thing about it, I guessed; that we were happy to just be in each other’s company without talking. One day, I was pacing around while thinking about what to make, when Paisley laughed.

"Trading regulations are a riot, huh?" I said.

"Sorry. It's just that you look exactly like Master Cooper when you walk around like that. You even mutter to yourself the same way."

I couldn't get over my inventor's block, so I spent Thursday and Friday creating more staple artificery items to sell, such as a self-organizing drawer that would rearrange cutlery neatly when you closed it, and a storage chest with an artificed depth of five meters, along with a self-sorting upper shelf that retrieved an item of your choosing.

When Saturday evening came upon the craftstead, Master Cooper summoned me into the house for dinner. Paisley had been studying in my workshop, and she asked Cooper, "Is there enough spare for a girl with a small appetite?"

Cooper laughed. "If you meet such a girl, send her here, and maybe my cupboards won't empty so quickly. But aye, lass, there's plenty for you."

Chris set our places around the table. Paisley brewed a peppermint tea for herself and served up some root beer for Chris and a ginger beer for me. Meanwhile, I joined Master Cooper in the kitchen and began roughly cutting up one of his freshly baked chili flake bread loaves. Over at the stove, Master Cooper stirred his stew, tasted it, then added a few sprinkles of salt. He repeated this until he was adding tiny salt granules with the precision of a true artificer. It was a wonder he hadn’t strapped on his artificer goggles while he cooked.

"How's the prep for the market going?" he asked me.

"Good, mostly," I answered, then told him everything I had made so far.

"A pretty decent haul."

"I just need...something. Something big."

"A grand piece to sell," said Master Cooper.

"Right."

"Wrong."

I set down my bread knife. "Huh?"

"Artificery isn't an art, lad."

"It is. It's right there in the name."

"Artificers are only as good as the need they serve. Society works on cogs that fit together and keep it runnin'. Stick in a cog that’s too big or the wrong shape, and things break down until you fix it. We use our talents to serve a need, lad, not show off."

"So I should think about what people need," I said. "Not what I think is special."

With the market scheduled for the next morning, it didn't leave me much time to fill my catalog with more things to sell. After dinner, I left the three of them to a card game named Jack's Three Knocks, and I went to my workshop where I set on making more artificed kitchen items. The workshop filled with the ting of my artificery fork, the thud of my hammer, the clanging of metal. As the stars settled deep in their lairs in the sky, I amassed a bounty of cooking ware such as self-stirring wooden spoons, casserole dishes that could retain flavors and add them to your stews at will, kitchen cupboards with added depth, and self-crushing mortars and pestles. By that point, my crafting stamina had plummeted to zero, and even the thought of picking up a crafting hammer or artificer tongs made my brain feel like it was swimming in a bog.

After almost a week of intense crafting, some of my skills had taken a leap. In the 'Simple Craft and Forge' skill tree, I had mainly used my Craft Ability, leveling it to 8. As it was my highest-ranked skill, it needed more and more EXP to level it, and a week's worth of work had only done that once. I guessed that level 9 would be a long time coming.

My 'Craft Invent' and 'Upgrade' skills leveled to two and five, respectively. All of this meant my overall skill tree was 45% leveled toward four. Only a few more levels to go until I got the 'Intermediate Craft & Forge' tree.

My main improvements came under the 'Simple Enchantment' skill tree, since I had been working with miodes a lot. My ‘Enchant’ ability level from three to six, and 'Upgrade Enchantment' went from one to two. The most pleasing aspect of this - aside from all the stuff I’d made - was a notification I received.

'Simple Enchant' skill tree leveled up to 2!

- Ability unlocked:

─ Simple Enchant

- Skill unlocked: Evolve Enchantment

When working with miodes, you can force them to enter into a more advanced tier of spell and apply this to your item using artificery. Warning: evolution of an enchantment does not always work as you would hope.

- Crafting Stamina increased to 400/400

I had no doubt that when I told Master Cooper that I had earned the Evolve Enchantment ability, he'd have a dozen stories about reckless apprentices evolving their miodes and somehow losing an arm or a leg. Nevertheless, I was happy with my progress.

Chapter 32

The next morning, I carefully loaded all of my stock onto Master Cooper's artificed cart. He watched me from the doorway while chewing on some buttered toast.

"Don't worry about lending a hand," I said.

"Can't. Healer’s orders."

"Ah, so suddenly you agree with them?"

"I always said that Healer Brown is a wise, wise man."

On the way to the market, I reflected back on the things I had made, wondering if they would sell. I really hoped they would. Otherwise, I just didn't see how I could afford the materials to finish Master Cooper's doorway, apart from taking up Paisley's offer of borrowing them. I really didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to think of myself as the reason she had to defer on her dream of getting a shop.

I managed to make it into Sunhampton on time, but when I guided my cart through Coiner's Way and towards the plaza, I found it empty save for a few merchants crowded together around Mr. Leabrook, the man whose job was to organize the market. Their body language and faces made me feel a little sorry for the man.

"Give him some room," I said. "Whatever you want from him, you're not going to get it by crowding him."

"Piss off, pipsqueak."

"Don't talk to the boy like that," said a voice.

To my surprise, it was Lee Hunter. Of all the people I’d have expected to defend me, he'd have been the last. Luckily, the others respected - or maybe feared - Lee enough to listen to him, and they backed away from Mr. Leabrook. A few of them grumbled amongst each other, while others crossed the plaza and headed toward their unpacked cards.

"Thanks," I told Lee.

"Like I told you. I'm sorry about before. Hope this makes us even."

When Lee Hunter left the plaza, Mr. Leabrook approached me. Mr. Leabrook was the man in charge of organizing the markets. His hair was shot through with gray, and his face held a permanent look of dissatisfaction. This made him quite unpopular among the stallholders, along with his insistence on offering advice as to how they displayed their wares. Paisley once told me that she was convinced that a market trader must have killed Mr. Leabrook’s cat when he was younger, because he always seemed to be annoyed with the very people who kept him in a job. He usually wore a shirt with the buttons fastened to the collar and his tie impeccably knotted. Today, he'd loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

"Thank you…." he said, frowning as he tried to remember my name.

"Lewis. Lewis Crafter."

"Ah. Apprentice Crafter. You work for Jack Cooper, do you not?"

"That's right."

"Well, you have my gratitude. Angry merchants can be very troublesome to deal with. Especially when they are upset over something that has nothing to do with me."

"What's going on?" I said.

"There's no market today. Like I said, it's not my fault."

"Who's fault is it?" I asked.

"The state is...stating...that Sunhampton has unpaid market taxes, which is what your market fee goes toward. I know that they were paid. There's no question. But while this bureaucratic cowpat is fixed, we are not authorized to organize any markets."

"Damn it. Today of all days!" I said. I leaned close to him. "Can't we just...hold the market anyway? Who would know?"

"Who would know? Who would know, he asks!" Mr. Leabrook said, as if talking to an audience I couldn’t see. "The state has the right - the duty - to send its guards to any market town on a Sunday. Part of the Trader's Charter of 56. The markets are chosen randomly, and the idea that state guards could arrive is supposed to deter thieves. They abuse the privilege, of course, and often send guards to check that unauthorized markets are not held."

I suddenly had a deep hatred for taxes, bureaucrats, and bureaucrats who dealt with taxes. I had no doubt that Paisley already knew what had happened, since she was always so insistent on arriving at markets hours before the other traders so she could try and snag as good a spot as possible for the smallest amount of gold. I wondered what she had made of this mess. Had she been so angry she'd stormed off somewhere? She sometimes liked to throw stones at the statue of Berglin the Unkempt, a famous poet from Sunhampton, when she was mad. Maybe she was there?

"There's nothing at all you can do?" I said.

"Is there nothing I can do, he asks," said Mr. Leabrook. "No, is the answer. Sorry, young Apprentice Crafter. If there was, I would have saved myself the stress of telling a dozen cheesemakers and knife sellers that they have to pack up and go home."

"I see. Well, have you seen my friends? Paisley Porter and Chris Crier?"

"Never heard of them," said Mr. Leabrook.

I found Paisley and Chris in Rolls and Dough, where they'd gotten a seat in the corner, away from the window. They were leaning close together, deep in conversation. In front of Paisley was a plate covered in crumbs, and on Chris’s plate was a half-eaten chocolate-covered pastry.

"You took your time!" said Paisley.

"Me? I just walked all over Coiner’s Way looking for you guys."

She looked puzzled. "We asked Mr. Leabrook to tell you we were going here."

"Right. Well, anyway. Do you guys need coffee?"

"Please," said Chris, holding up his cup. Paisley shook her head.

At the counter, Mrs. Grant left me waiting for a minute while she flipped eight pancakes at once, using special artificed pans where flipping one flipped all the rest. I had the sudden urge to deconstruct the controlling pan and see how it worked. I suspected there were miodes in the controlling pan that allowed it to move the others, as well as miodes in the other pans that formed a kind of bond of servitude. Or maybe it was mimicry? It was interesting, nevertheless.

I was about to use Analyze Enchantment, when Mrs. Grant spoke.

"Well, well, well," she said. "If it isn't a good-looking apprentice gracing my shop!" She said this with the tone of a kindly grandma telling her grandson how taller he'd gotten. I maybe should have felt like she was talking down to me a little, given my age, but a part of me liked it, since I’d never known any of my grandparents.

I ordered two coffees and two pancakes and took them back over to the table. When I sat down, Chris eyed my pancakes. I noticed that his plate was now empty, though his belly undoubtably wasn't. He was such a thin guy, and I had no idea where he put everything he ate. Maybe Master Cooper had artificed his belly. Or maybe he wore an enchanted girdle. In any case, I knew his tricks. He'd eye my plate like a starving dog until I gave in and offered him some. So, I decided to skip the game and, using my fork, lifted one pancake and put it on his plate.

"Thanks!" he said.

“Do you wear a girdle, Chris?” I asked.

“A girdle?”

“Never mind.” I took a sip of coffee. "Do you think there are any markets happening today that we can get to?"

"Already checked," said Paisley. She lifted a book out of her backpack. It was an artificed book called the Marketeer's Almanac, and it listed every market happening within a 500 miles radius. Her Uncle Jace had gotten it for her as a gift, and I could only assume it was very pricey. The artificery, I suspected, worked rather like Mrs. Grant's pans. The master almanac was updated once per year, and this, in turn, updated all of the linked almanacs, such as Paisley's.

"The nearest one is a pottery and vase market in Freethorpe, 80 miles away. But it's only on until midafternoon, so we'd have to leave straight away. Do you have anything we can sell there?"

"I've been crafting my stuff toward today's market. Kitchenware. You and Master Cooper have both been saying how products need to be geared toward the market, though he doesn’t quite say it like that."

"I thought as much. It would have been the right thing to do, had Mr. Leabrook paid the market taxes."

"He said it was a bureaucratic mix-up in a state office."

"He's trying to save face," said Chris. "I got a rumor not long ago that he misplaced the levies."

"You ‘got’ a rumor?" I said. "Not ‘heard’?"

Chris smiled proudly. "I leveled up Simple Lore & Rumor Gathering. Now, whenever someone spreads a rumor or gossip within a mile radius of me, I hear about it. Even if I can't really hear them, if you know what I mean. It just comes to me. Most of it is pure crap, but from time to time, I hear interesting things."

"Well, this leaves me with a ton of goods I can't sell. And if I’m going to finish the doorway on time, I need to start working on it tomorrow. The artificery is going to be hard enough at my level as it is."

"Sorry," said Chris. "If only I could do something to help."

"If only," I said.

But even as the words left my mouth, an idea puffed up into the air of my mind like miodes after an artificer’s fork struck metal.

"Eat up," I said, cramming my pancake into my mouth. Then, with my mouth full, I told them, "Mght me aght Coighergh’s Wagh."

"What?" said Paisley.

Chris, an expert at talking with food in his mouth, said, "I think he said to meet him at Coiner’s Way."

Coiner's Way was busy today. Folks had expected a market and had made a trip to the village especially for it. Some people have traveled from places like Little Flitwick and Brunswick. A lot of them were cafe owners and restaurateurs hoping to buy supplies from the kitchen market. Others were simply people who needed a new pan set or were sick of eating the same old flavors and wanted to see what the traveling spice merchants could offer.

So, rather than go home, they had congregated on Coiner's Way. All the brick and mortar shops were closed, since state trading laws meant that when markets were open, other businesses had to close for the day. Most shop owners were happy about it. As small business owners, they rarely took a day off, so being ordered to was a way of them doing it without any guilt.

After pacing around Coiner’s Way, Paisley chose a spot that she judged to be perfect. It was just to the right of the King's Head tavern. This was one of the few businesses allowed to open on market day - not ever the state would dare try to order that pubs shut their doors - and it also had a fake guillotine and papier mache bloody head outside it, a spectacle that always delighted tourists. Paisley positioned us just to the right of it, in the eye line of most people who would walk by and be drawn in by the gruesome decoration.

There, I set up our stand, arranging my new cutlery and kitchenware sets on it. I set up the Mirror of Projection near the tavern's guillotine, reasoning that the novelty of the artificed item fit in with the grisly decoration. In front of it was a sign that Paisley had made using her ability, declaring that people could use the mirror for ninety-nine silvers each. "Fifty is too low," she told me, "And one gold is too high. But ninety-nine is perfect. People won't make the connection that it's just one silver short of a gold coin - they'll see the word ‘silver’ and think it's cheaper."

It was close to midday when the stall was ready. All my wares were on show, and Paisley had made her usual careful tweaks to my own presentation. Though, I noticed with satisfaction, not as many as before.

"Ready?" I asked Chris.

"Ready."

He took a great stride in front of our stall and then, in his most booming voice, declared, "Hear ye! Hear ye! Lewis Crafter & Paisley Porter - Crafters and Merchants of Fine Tools, Treasures, & Trinkets, are here with the finest kitchenware your gold can buy! Pots and pans, knives and forks. They have it all! Come and see their wares."

The effect of his voice was, quite literally, magical. His town crying had an effect that drew people's attention to him. He looked to have leveled it up since the last time I heard him use it, because more and more people slowly turned our way, acting on his instruction to come and see our wares.

Paisley was soon in her element, buttering up the men and women who walked by, telling children jokes that made them laugh and thus made their parents stop walking, coaxing shoppers on the outskirts of the stall to come closer, to look at my goods, to get out their purses.

Soon, we'd sold two of the self-cleaning cutlery sets as well as the Any Spice, Any Time Shaker. A queue of people formed at the Mirror of Projection, while Chris used his crier voice to direct folks toward the slower-selling items. After conferring with Paisley and receiving her blessing, of course.

It was shaping up to be a successful afternoon when an unwanted voice called out to us.

"No, no, no!" said Mr. Leabrook, sprinting into the center of Coiner's Way as though he was going to put out a fire. "What are you doing?"

Paisley gave him the sweetest smile she could manage. "Why, we're selling our wares, Mr. Leabrook."

"That's Paisley, by the way," I said. "You know. The girl I asked you about and you said you’d never heard of her?"

Mr. Leabrook looked angry as he pointed at me. "Lewis Crafter - what did I tell you? If the guards happened to visit Sunhampton and saw this, we'd be struck off the market almanac for years! They don’t play games when it comes to taxes."

"But this isn't a market," said Paisley.

"This isn't a market. This isn't a market, she says!" announced Mr. Leabrook, once again talking to an audience up in the clouds.

"That's right. The state’s Market Trade Act defines a market as 'a semi-regular gathering of four or more merchants for the purchase and sale of goods and services.' As you can see, Mr. Leabrook, there is only one merchant here."

Mr. Leabrook crossed his arms and said, "There are three of you."

"Lewis and I work for Lewis Crafter & Paisley Porter - Crafters and Merchants of Fine Tools, Treasures, & Trinkets, so we come here as one entity. Chris Crier isn't selling anything at all - he's just announcing news about our goods."

Mr. Leabrook thought about it. "You don't have a street vendor's license."

"Mr. Leabrook, anyone would think you wanted to stifle trade in this town."

"I just like order, Ms. Porter. For without it..."

I took a step toward Mr. Leabrook and spoke in a low voice. "Suppose you issue us a street vendor's license right now."

He shook his head. "Before my tenure, Coiner's Way was filled with people selling their tat. Look at it now! Clean. Organized. A nice place to wander without merchants hounding you every step. "

"We aren't going to hound anyone," I said. "In fact, we're being very discreet in our advertisement. Discretion is our trademark, you might say."

"Discretion?"

"Sure. You know, about all kinds of things. Like certain market organizers forgetting to pay taxes on time..."

Mr. Leabrook, for a moment, looked like he would have loved nothing more than to take one of my artificed knives and cut me open like a medium rare steak. But instead, he took a pad out of his pocket, scribbled on it, and then tore off the sheet. With a pompous flick of his wrist, he let the paper flutter in the air, then walked away. I caught the paper and read it.

"What does it say?" asked Chris.

I handed it to him.

"Street vendor license granted to Lewis Crafter & Paisley Porter - Crafters and Merchants of Fine Tools, Treasures, & Trinkets," he read.

Chapter 33

After the market was over, we split the gold. Paisley and I had an agreement where we shared it evenly. Without my products, we'd have nothing to sell. Without Paisley’s marketing and sales skills, I'd have made perhaps one silver all day. Today, though, we had a complication that we didn’t normally have to think about.

"How much should we pay Chris?" I whispered to Paisley.

"You don't need to pay me," he said. "It was a nice afternoon."

Damn it! I forgot that Chris's 'Simple Rumor and Lore Gathering' skill tree gave him enhanced hearing.

"A nice afternoon?" I said.

"Sure! What's not to like? I spent the day helping my friends. And now our work is done, and we just so happen to be right next to the King's Head where, if my Rumor Gathering is correct, the special of the day is grilled swordfish in a spicy tomato stew."

Chris protested as if we were trying to persuade him to drink poison, but finally, he accepted our offer of 10 gold and a free meal in the tavern. The three of us ordered the grilled swordfish special, which we got at a discounted price.

The tavern chef, Zakariya Spencer, was the person who'd bought my Any Spice, Any Time Shaker, and he was so happy with it that he felt like he owed me something. Zakariya was slightly older than us. He'd served his chef apprenticeship in his father's little cafe in The Cove, then moved here after realizing he wanted to cook more than just fried potatoes and battered fish. He was a guy who took his craft seriously while dressing exclusively in joke aprons. Today's was a brown apron that said, simply, 'Hot Stuff', with an arrow pointing up at his face.

Today, Zakariya was not only cooking the food but also serving it, since the King's Head's regular waiter, Barney, was ill.

When he brought us our food, Zakariya said, "You sell your wares too cheaply, Lewis Crafter."

"Our prices are carefully calculated," answered Paisley.

"A crafter's products should be carefully crafted, but not his prices. Price it according to your heart. Factor in not just the materials and the time spent making your item, but also the hard work you've put in to get those skills."

"A consumer won't like paying extra to account for an apprentice practicing in his workshop," said Paisley.

"Perhaps not. I could sell grilled swordfish for a gold or two cheaper and still turn a profit, but I do not. The recipe has value to me, as do the skills with which I make it."

"It's delicious," said Chris, already stuffing his face.

"Thank you."

As well as their share in the profits, both Paisley and Chris had earned other rewards, too. Chris had advanced in his ‘Rumor and Lore Gathering’ skill tree, while Paisley had leveled up her close-sales and product marketing. I was the only one without a level-up, but that couldn’t be helped.

"For a day that started off as a disaster," I said, stabbing my forking into a piece of swordfish, "This didn't turn out half bad."

For the next twelve days, I worked on the doorway. As it was my final project, Master Cooper supervised me as little as possible since he was only allowed to assist me with knowledge three times as per the Master-Apprentice class-earning project code. I could tell it pained him to be so removed from the work. At lunch or dinner, he'd ask me how things were going, and I’d tell him about this or that problem and my solution to it.

"Interesting," he'd say. "That's the way you'd solve it, is it? In…ter...est...ting."

I began to enjoy the fact he wasn’t allowed to correct me. "I suppose there's a different way of doing it, but none better than mine. Nope. I can’t think of any person who'd have a better solution. Not a single person in Easterly."

"You annoying little bastard," said Master Cooper, laughing.

The only help Master Cooper could give me - aside from three pieces of assistance upon request and one piece of high-level artificery - was with the doorway craft print. As this was for a client, I was allowed to work on a client's craft print. With the craft print, as well as having seen Master Cooper’s almost-finished doorway before it was destroyed, I had a vague route upon which I could set out on my crafting journey.

My instinct was to first make the archway that the doorway would rest in. After studying the craft print and thinking about the artificery involved, I decided I had better save it for last. So, I used ‘Craft’ to make the door itself. According to the client’s request, it needed to be of 'excellent' craftsmanship. This was a very tough quality for an apprentice to achieve, but it could be done.

According to a book titled ‘Crafty Crafts,’ apprentices could achieve excellent quality on simple items, with doors being a listed example, but more complicated projects would lower the craft quality ceiling. If I was building a shed, for instance, 'good' would be the best I could hope for under my current level. If I was building a house, the quality ceiling would lower to 'poor’. And the house's actual ceiling would presumably be a death trap.

For a full day I used my crafting stamina to make door after door, but they never came out better than 'good.' If only this had been useful practice or a way of earning EXP. My first door gave me a decent boost toward Craft level 9, but each door after that only provided marginal gains. Worse, I began to work through my supply of wood until I was left with just enough pine to try crafting the door one more time.

"Alright," I told Wrath the wolfhound. As well as being my constant companion in my early morning chores, Wrath also loved to watch me work. "This is it. I have some gold left over to buy more wood, but at the rate I’m going, I'll run out. This has to work."

I checked my crafting stamina - it was 100/400. More than enough for a door.

"Here we go," I said.

With my hammer equipped, I used my 'Craft' ability and selected 'door'.

The sound of a hammer knocking on wood filled the workshop, followed by the smooth noise of a wood plane gliding over pine and then the smell of heated wood. Finally, a notification appeared.

Crafting complete: Wooden door

Quality: Good

"Damn it!" I yelled, startling Wrath out of a nap. I stroked her head. "Sorry, girl."

That night at dinner, it was just Master Cooper and me since Chris was attending an open comedy night at the King's Head, hoping it'd help him refine his voice. Paisley had gone to watch him, but Chris had asked that Master Cooper and I didn’t attend. "I'd like to keep the number of people who see me make a fool of myself to a minimum. Come and see me when I’ve practiced more."

Tonight, I was in an unashamedly foul mood. Master Cooper, on the other hand, seemed to take joy in this and spent the meal making jokes and telling me stories. After an anecdote about a drunken night in a town called Freebuild failed to get the desired laugh, he set his mug of beer down.

"Lad, you've got a face like a slapped arse," he said.

This made me laugh a little.

"What's up?" he said. "Is it the door?"

"Maybe."

"You're allowed to ask me for advice three times in your final project, you know. I can also render one piece of practical assistance, as long as the task you need help with is beyond your skill level."

I nodded. "I know. But to have to ask at the very first step..."

He stopped smiling, and became more serious, though his eyes retained their kindly glint. "Look. There's never a correct time or incorrect time to have to ask for help. Needing help usually means a person's facing something they can't do by themselves, and none of us likes feeling that way. But there's a simple cure for that feeling, and sometimes it means forgetting your pride and relying on someone else."

I thought about how my mother had taught me to never rely on anyone else. But then I thought about how much I’d leaned on Paisley since coming to live here, as well as how much help I’d gotten from Chris, even in the short time he'd been staying at Master Cooper’s house.

"It's the door," I said, and began telling Master Cooper about the quality rating and how even after a dozen doors and countless pieces of wood, I couldn't get beyond 'good'.

Master Cooper considered this for a good while. He finished his mug of beer, then asked that I fetch him another so he could think some more.

"Healer Brown says you can only have one glass of beer per day."

"Healer Brown lives the most boring life in existence," said Master Cooper. "Fine. Well, here it is. I'm not allowed to just tell you the answer, as you know. But what I can say is that four things affect the quality of any crafter's work. Do you know what they are?"

"Their skill level, available crafting stamina, their tools, and their materials."

"Right. So where are you going wrong?"

"A higher skill level would help, but I don’t have time. Besides, it's achievable to make an ‘excellent’ door at my level. And I always make sure my stamina is above fifty before I craft."

"Right, then. That's two things it can't be."

After staring at my plate for a while, I looked up at Master Cooper. "Do I have permission to use the tools in your workshop, master , instead of my own?"

"Permission granted."

Master Cooper had more tools than anyone in Easterly. They hung from hooks on one wall of his workshop, taking up every inch of it. Bizarrely, this was the only wall where he would allow no artificery at all. He could have just put the tools in an artificed cabinet that brought forth a tool on his command, but instead, he had hammered each nail and bracket into the wall, and he hung all his things there in order. I had spent a while pondering this, and the only reason I could think was that perhaps having to look at his wall and reach up to get each individual tool kept him grounded, somehow.

There were fifty hammers, ten of which could be used for crafting a door. The others had a myriad of uses, such as an upholsterer’s hammer for driving tacks, a sprig hammer for frame making, a club hammer for fashioning masonry heads. Of the ten that were useful to my project, I could only use one of them. The others, unfortunately, prompted notifications when I picked them up, such as:

Crafter's Hammer

Requirements: 'Intermediate Crafting & Forge' skill tree

I could still use these hammers. They didn’t stop functioning or anything like that. It was just that using them without the required skill level wouldn't give me any benefit. In other words, they would act just like my apprentice's hammer.

There was, however, one that I could use.

Woodworker's Friend

A simple yet well-made hammer guaranteed to add a quality boost to your wood projects

Requirements:

'Simple Craft and & Forge' skill tree

'Craft' ability level 6

I tucked the Woodworker's Friend into a loop on my toolbelt. Then, after consulting Master Cooper's supplier list, I decided to take a trip.

Leaving Sunhampton, I secured a seat on a scrap metal merchant's carriage. He took me as far as Gladthorpe before heading on a route away from where I needed to be, so I hopped off and walked the rest of the way. According to my map, I was on a path known locally as Traitor's Cross, a grisly name that, thankfully, was earned well over two hundred years ago. This was a reference to the traitorous King Khaled, whom the King's Head was also named for.

Cutting a route northeast, I walked through Traitor's Woods, which were deceptively lovely.

This part of Easterly was even more remote than the area around Sunhampton, with only the local farmsteads and small hamlets breaking up its vast, grassy landscape. It was a surprisingly hot day for the season, and I wasn’t used to walking so much. Luckily, the local farmers saw a stranger as something of a novelty, and every time I passed a house, I was given a glass of water or lemonade, and I was even invited to stay for dinner at more than a couple farmsteads. When the afternoon wore on and I passed a house and smelled the delicious scent of sausages, I had to give my most regretful refusal of the invitation.

Finally, I came to a small house and work yard with a sign outside that read, ‘Eckersley's.’ According to Master Cooper's supplier list, Jim-Joe Eckersley supplied the best wood for my budget. The drawback was that he refused any requests for shipment. His customers came to him or they didn’t get what they needed. So, here I was.

Wiping sweat from my brow, I marched toward the workshop. The door was locked. Skirting around it and toward the main house, I knocked on the door.

"Yes?" called a voice. It either came from an open window on the ground floor or one upstairs. I honestly couldn’t tell which.

"Mr. Eckersley? I’m here to buy some wood."

"I'm closed."

I couldn’t believe it. I'd come all this way just to be shut down with two words.

"Excuse me, sir, but according to my master's supplier list, you keep the hours of ten until ten."

"Hours change," said the voice.

There was a note of finality to the words as if nothing I could say or do would change his mind and let me give him some of my damned money. The truth was that it angered me. I'd traveled a long way, I was on a deadline, and I had passed up three separate offers of a warm meal just to get here at a decent time. Should I just turn around and go home and see if I could source decent wood elsewhere? It was extremely unlikely on my budget, but what else could I do?

I took one step away from Mr. Eckersley’s house and prepared to reflect on my failure on the way home before quickly turning around.

"Excuse me," I said.

"I told you, I'm-"

"Excuse me. Again," I said, talking over him. "My master listed you, Mr. Eckersley, as a valued supplier. He's curated his list for years, and trust me, he didn’t put your name on there lightly. If I have to go all the way home and tell him that his trust in you as a supplier, his judgment on you as a business person is wrong, then he won’t be happy."

Silence, for a moment. A flock of birds flew overhead, cawing at each other.

Then, Mr. Eckersley said, "Who's your master?"

Master Cooper's name seemed to dispel the curse upon his tongue, and an hour later, I was traveling back home with five pieces of an expensive timber called Easterly's Pride, which Mr. Eckersley talked about for an hour, nonstop. Still, he gave me a piece of banana pie and served me a cup of cider made from apples he'd grown in his own orchard, so I couldn't complain.

Back at the craftstead, it was night time, and I was greeted not only by a swarm of wolfhounds with big tongues and wagging tails but by the aroma of dinner floating like song notes from an open window. As I neared the house, I saw movement in the kitchen window.

Paisley and Chris were both standing by the stove, shoulder touching shoulder, while Master Cooper relaxed in a wicker chair with a wolfhound pup on his lap. Chris said something I couldn’t quite hear, and the three of them laughed. It was such an easygoing, warming sound that I couldn’t help feeling a swell of happiness at being home.

Over dinner, after Paisley and Chris cooked up some wild boar that Lee Hunter had caught near the woods outside Sunhampton and gifted to Master Cooper, we discussed my trip to Mr. Eckersley’s timber shop.

"How is old Eckersley?" asked Cooper.

"Fine. Grouchy, but fine."

"Is his leg bothering him?"

"Didn't seem to be."

"Good. Good. He was a state guard, you know. Served ten years. Got his right knee shattered by a troll throwing a boulder at him. We were friends way back, me and Eckers. Time was when we used to meet up every year. Once, we even went to the Cove and toured the taverns for a weekend. Haven't had much time to do that lately. That and, well…funds. Let's not forget age, either. Maybe that's the worst reason of them all. The longer you live, the more life seems to resent you for it."

I had decided to wait until the next morning to craft the door, but I couldn't. Throughout the meal, I tried to relax but found it impossible, and before I knew it, I was back in the workshop.

Wrath, as always, accompanied me, sniffing around the workshop to check everything was how she liked it before curling up in a dog bed next to a warm radiator.

"Alright," I said. "I've got my upgraded hammer and the Easterly's Pride timber. My crafting stamina looks okay, and my skill level should be high enough."

I said nothing else and did nothing else for a moment. Very aware that I wasn't crafting anything, I found myself strangely unable to start. I didn’t know why. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t even make myself begin.

That was when a voice spoke.

"Maybe you should give it up, lad."

Master Cooper was in the doorway. His arms were toned, crafter's arms, with little fat and lots of muscle and sinew, even at his age. His belly, however, was another story. His paunch was beginning to grow a paunch.

"Give it up?" I said.

"Aye. It's possible to lift a weight heavier than your arms could handle. Maybe set it down before you drop it on your foot."

"But you approved the project," I said.

"That I did. I'm not prone to foolishness, either."

With that, Master Cooper left the doorway and limped back across the yard, entering briefly into darkness before emerging again into the light near the house. I watched him go, feeling anger build in me. How could he say that? If he didn’t think I was good enough, why'd he approve the project in the first place?

All I could think was that I wasn’t ready to give up. Not even close. If I had to do this without my master’s support, then I would.

Feeling a flush of energy, I gripped my hammer and then used Craft. With a burst of noise, a door appeared in front of me. I hurriedly studied it.

Crafting complete: Wooden door

Quality: Good

Not good enough!

I crafted again. Points left my crafting stamina, and the workshop filled with the tap-tap-tap of a hammer until a second door appeared.

Crafting complete: Wooden door

Quality: Good

Resisting the urge to throw the hammer through the window, I checked my stamina. Two hundred points left. That was enough for three more doors. Most importantly, though, I only had three pieces of Easterly Pride timber.

"Okay, Wrath," I said. "I'm gonna need you to be quiet while I concentrate, okay? I know you technically didn't say anything, but still."

This time, I held the hammer in one hand and took a piece of Easterly Pride from my inventory and placed it in front of me, pressing my fingertips lightly against it, feeling the grain of the wood.

I used Craft again.

Crafting complete: Wooden door

Quality: Great

My pulse quickened. This door looked better than any I had made before! There were no blemishes on it or any other imperfections whatsoever. The wood looked beautiful, flawlessly cut, and as shiny as ebony. It felt sturdy, solid, and well-constructed.

If I wanted, I could have used the Upgrade skill to put decorative etchings on it. Add a layer of beeswax, maybe.

But I didn’t, because as good as it was, it still didn’t match up to what the client had requested.

"Alright, Wrath. That was good. And you were very quiet. Maybe Paisley can sell that door for me, but for now, I need to make something better. Two tries left. Ready?”

Wrath didn’t answer.

“Okay. I'm ready too."

I used Craft once again.

Crafting complete: Wooden door

Quality: Excellent

In the middle of my celebrations, I realized what Master Cooper had done. How he’d said the things he had to get a reaction out of me. To motivate me, like a proper master did.

You crafty old man, I thought to myself, glad beyond glad that I’d chosen this village, this house, this profession in which to shape my future.

Chapter 34

The tinkered hinges were easy, even for an apprentice. The problem was that my Tinker skill was only level two, and according to a book I read on tinkering, I would need to achieve level 4 before I could make hinges that allowed a door to open by itself. I could have accomplished the same effect much quicker using artificery, of course, but the client had specifically asked for them to be tinkered.

Over breakfast, I wondered aloud, "Why might a person ask for tinkered hinges when artificeric ones are just as good?"

Chris, who was eating his seventh slice of marmalade on toast, shrugged. Master Cooper said, "That's a very strange question, Lewis. Does it relate to a project you're working on?"

"Nope," I answered. "It's definitely not an official request for advice."

"Well, then. I'd suggest that perhaps the client requires self-opening hinges, yet the door will be installed in a place where miodes are temperamental. Tinkered hinges activated by a lever are much more reliable. I would also suggest that a crafter makes suggestions to a client only seldom and when asked for, and instead concerns himself with finishing the client's project and taking their gold."

To get level 3 and then 4 in the 'Tinker' ability under my 'Simple Tinkering' skill tree, I spent the next two days working on tinkering projects. First, I walked around the craftstead and looked for places where some good, old tinkering might make our lives easier. There were many: things like connecting all the oil lamps in the house to a clockwork system so that they automatically lit at a set time, or making a clock that chimed to wake us up in the morning. Master Cooper didn't want one of those. He was very, very specific about that.

Then there was Master Cooper's wheelbarrow which he used to carry the harvest from his many fruit trees and scattered vegetable crops. This was another place where he had opted to do things the 'tears and sweat' way, as tinkers referred to non-mechanical processes. But as Master himself had told me, time wasn’t looking fondly on him. That was why I used my tinkering ability to automate it, so that a light tap would make the wheelbarrow move five feet in a chosen direction.

With level 4 in the ‘Tinker’ ability soon secured, making the tinkered hinges was...well, not simple. It took many, many tries for my Tinker skill to successfully produce a set rated above 'mediocre.' Master Cooper had taught me that I had everything I needed within me to push myself on through failure, though, and so I did just that.

I ended that week with a new, beautifully looking door and two sets of tinkered hinges. It was progress, but slow progress.

That night, Paisley and Chris persuaded me to join them in a visit to Sunhampton lake, not far east from the village, past an abandoned house that the more superstitious village folk said was haunted. There, we first had a stone skimming competition, which Chris won, with Paisley second and then me third. I was worried about hitting a duck, even though Chris had used his Crier voice to make sure there were none in the path of our stones. The ducks were, in fact, busy by the side of the lake, preening their wings and quacking away.

Chris took a full picnic basket from his inventory from a satchel that I had artificed for him. Inside the picnic basket was not a single piece of food. Instead, there were six bottles of Dragon Bolt, a strong ale that they sold in the King's Head.

"Wow, this stuff is rough," he said.

"How'd you get it?" I asked. "They'll only serve me half beers whenever I try."

"Used my voice on a fella in town. Asked him to go and buy them for me."

"Well, we could all use our skills for evil," said Paisley. "But some of us don't."

We said nothing for a little while, just watched the efforts of a nearby angler who tried to reel in something big. At least it seemed to be from the effort he extolled. Nevertheless, he failed. After a while, Chris opened another beer for us all. We clinked bottles together, said an ironic "Hail to the king" as was custom in Sunhampton, and drank.

After a while, Paisley asked, "What's up next with your door, then?"

"The alchemical lock," I answered. "That's an easy level one job, though. Then there's the artificery itself. You know, what makes the door take people from one place to another."

"All doors do that if you think about it," said Chris.

Paisley said, "Not really."

"Sure they do. They take people from outside...to inside. Or even the other way."

Paisley hiccupped, then nodded as the truth of this became clear to her. Without a trace of mockery, she said, "Sometimes, you actually astound me."

Just as I'd told my friends, creating the alchemical lock was easy. All it involved was brewing a potion that I bonded to a set of keys and the lock. When the door needed to be unlocked, the user didn't just need the correct key - they also needed the correct potion. Once dipped into the proper alchemic mix, the key would work. Without it, it would fit in the lock but wouldn't turn.

"The beauty is that we’ll carry on earning gold from the door even after we sell it," I told Paisley.

I was visiting her at her Uncle Jace’s house. She was working in their sunroom, with a dozen books spread over a marble table. Outside the sunroom's great polished windows, two gardeners worked the Jace grounds, pulling roots and using tinkered mowers to level grass.

Hearing no reply from her, I continued. "Although we give them one pot of alchemic solution for free, they have to pay us every time they want some more. It'll only work out at around 50 gold per year, but still-"

"It's constant, almost passive income," said Paisley. "I like it! And if you sell a hundred doors, that's 5000 gold per year for a pot of measly chemicals. Can't they just brew their own, though? Or get someone to do it for cheaper?"

"We keep the recipe, and each recipe is completely unique."

"Looks like you and your master are showing some business sense, for once. I can't help but wonder why someone would want to pay yearly for the opportunity of opening their door, though."

I shrugged. "It's added security. But they requested it, so we're adding it. A crafter makes suggestions to a client only seldom and when asked for, and instead concerns himself with finishing the client's project and taking their gold."

“Very wise,” agreed Paisley.

With the door, tinkered hinges, and alchemical lock and key finished, all that remained was the part that I both looked forward to and dreaded. The artificery involved in making a doorway that transported the user miles across Easterly was tremendously difficult. Way, way beyond my 'Simple Enchanting' skill tree.

"What's more," I told Paisley, "The miodes are hard to get. Only a master on the state's approved list can purchase them."

"What's so special about them?"

"Some miodes can be used for things that are less than savory. The state is just being careful, that’s all.”

Back at the craftstead, I arrived home to find Master Cooper feeding bread to a raft of ducks who'd taken a liking to his pond near the old pear tree. He was trying to make their stay here nice so that they'd return next migration season and the one after that. He looked up from feeding them to say, "Ah, Lewis. We've had some good times here, haven't we?"

I paused, suddenly worried about something but unable to put my finger on it. "Are you okay, Master Cooper?"

"Yes. Just a little sad today, is all."

"Do you want me to get Healer Brown?" I asked.

"This is the kind of sadness that passes, lad. Not the kind that good, old Sylas Brown can cure. But thank you."

He must have felt bad if he was speaking about Healer Brown in such a nice way. Truth be told, it felt strange to me. "Can I get you something to eat? A brew? A beer, maybe? Or I could-"

"Lewis!" he said, interrupting me. "Just come and sit here."

I joined him by the pond, taking a seat on a flattened rock that overlooked the water. The ducks were wary of me at first but quickly ignored me and got on with wetting their feathers.

"Sometimes a person just feels sad, and it's nobody’s job to do anything about it. You sitting here with me is enough. Let’s just enjoy the quiet for a while."

We must have sat that way for an hour, neither of us talking. Though, in truth, the ducks did more than enough of that, honking in that laughing way of theirs, splashing in the pond before scuttling back out onto the grass and shaking their wings. With one gust of wind came a stray acorn blown off a tree, which plonked into the water, stirring us from our spell.

After stretching my arms and legs, I said, "I need to ask for your help now, Master Cooper."

A light seemed to spark in his eyes, like this was what he'd been waiting for. "Well, if you must," he said, his tone of resignation too fake for me to take it seriously.

"I studied the Master-Apprentice code of conduct for final class-earning projects," I said. "As I said before, it clearly states I can request that you complete one task for me if such a task is vital for my project and is, at a minimum, one skill tree level above my own."

"That's right enough," he said, nodding. "Might I ask what it is?"

"The artificery, Master. I need the door to allow instantaneous transportation from one physical location to another."

"Oh, that certainly seems like an interesting door," he said. It was good to hear amusement in his voice again. "I will grant this, Apprentice Crafter. But, as you know, you will need to provide the necessary materials yourself."

I nodded. "On an unrelated matter, I’d like you to purchase some miodes for me, please.. I will give you the gold, but state rules forbid their sale to an apprentice."

Master Cooper thought about it - or pretended to - for a while, before saying, "Granted."

"Thank you," I said. "Finally, I need some knowledge. I have to provide soil from where the doorway is to be installed, and from the place it is to transport a person to. Might you tell me where these are?"

"Certainly. The doorway is to go to the city of Full Striding, where the client has purchased land for the teleportation destination so that there aren't any unfortunate incidents. You'll have to go there and collect the soil."

"And the location where the doorway is to be installed?"

"Well, I have the address here. Remember, you must go there yourself."

Master Cooper put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out two old coins, a fishing lure - I had never, ever seen him go fishing - and finally, a piece of paper. He handed it to me. Written on the paper was an address I knew well.

Chapter 35

"This is my stepfather’s home," I said.

Master Cooper nodded.

I could hardly believe it. All this time, my stepfather had been Master Cooper's client. I should have had an inkling the second he mentioned Full Striding as being the destination. My stepfather went there all the time to meet with a few of his business acquaintances. It made perfect sense that he would want an artificed door that would cut down on his travel time.

It was bitter news, no doubt about it. Becoming an artificer was my way of breaking loose from those people. For good, I'd hoped. But to become an artificer, I would need to build the doorway and have my stepfather sign off on its suitability. If he said no, I wouldn't get the class. All this time, all these months living in the craftstead, I thought I’d broken away from them for good. Now, my stepfather held my future in his hands.

A thought came to me, instantly turning the dread inside me to anger.

"You knew about this," I said. "When I asked for this to be my class-earning project, you knew that I'd have to get my stepfather to agree to the door being right!" I was shouting now, but even through my anger, I realized how that could affect Master Cooper's heart. So with a great effort of will, I lowered my voice. "You knew what it meant to me to get away from him. But you let me commit to a project that would hinge on his approval."

Master Cooper tried to say something, but I was unapologetically beyond all reason. I walked away from him, quickly leaving the craftstead. Before I knew it, I was halfway down the hill that led to town.

Two people were at the bottom of it, just starting their walk to the top. They were holding hands, staring only at each other as they walked.

"Paisley? Chris?" I said.

It was like I'd fired a crossbow bolt at them, they separated so quickly. Their distance apart from each other increased with each step, until they reached me and were walking at an exaggerated ten feet apart.

I sat down on a nearby log.

"Lewis," said Chris. "Sorry, pal. We were going to tell you, but-"

I held my hand up to stop him.

"Don't be like that," said Paisley, "We-"

"Guys. I don't care. I really don't."

Paisley and Chris shared a look. "You don't?"

"Why would I?" I said, genuinely perplexed. "You're both my pals. If you like each other, then great!"

They took a step closer together.

"C'mon," I said. "If you're going to be weird about it, then I have a problem. Just act normal."

"Oh. Right," said Chris.

They sat down next to me on the log, one on either side. Sunhampton lay before us, with its old houses and cobbled streets. Beyond it was the rest of Easterly, stretching out to the limits of our sight. A whole county of towns and cities, mountains, dungeons, hills, valleys, lakes, seas. Places we might go one day, places we might not. Places we might visit together, places where only one of us would go when we were very old and the others were dead. But there were three lifetimes that lay before dark landmarks like that, and if I knew anything, I knew this: we'd enjoy or suffer them together, the three of us, friends.

"So what's with the face?" said Paisley.

"Which face?"

"The one you're wearing. Glum Lewis face."

I told them about Master Cooper and the doorway, about how my old family was the client all along, and they were going to have the power to decide whether I became a fully-fledged artificer or not. Chris and Paisley listened, not asking many questions, seeming to appreciate the gravity of it all.

"You really can be dumb, sometimes, for a clever guy," said Paisley.

I turned to look at her. "Huh?"

"Master Cooper was hoping you'd choose the doorway as your project. Don't you see that? He wants you to face them."

"I already did," I said. "I went back home. After my stepbrother died."

"That's not what I call facing them. They offered you a job, and you only left because Master Cooper was sick."

"Exactly! I left them. Twice, in fact." I looked to Chris for support, but he shrugged. Lacking an ally, I was forced to wonder if Paisley was right. Maybe leaving home aged fifteen was brave in some ways, but it was also an act of running.

And then, again, when I went back home for the funeral. I'd run away in an entirely different way, rather than face them and tell them no, I didn't want to have the family business. Master Cooper's illness had just given me a reason to go without facing things head-on.

"Anyway. It doesn't matter if I want to do it," I said. "My stepfather will never say that my work is good enough. He'll know what it means to me, and he won't give me the satisfaction. Especially not after I spurned him."

"Does your family have unlimited gold?" asked Chris.

"No..."

"So there, then. Getting a doorway like this costs a lot. If he says the doorway isn't good enough, then Master Cooper will take it back. Would your stepfather waste all that gold just to get at you?"

"You don't know the guy like I do."

"Furthermore," said Paisley, "It's hard enough to get planning permission for a regular shop, let alone a destination for a teleportation door. Both your stepfather and Master Cooper would have had to put their names to it and meet with council members in Full Striding. Your stepfather clearly needs this door. So, just treat him like you would any client. Make the door, make it the way he wants, then deliver it to him."

Could I really argue against them? If I looked deep within myself, where a more reasonable, logical Lewis lived, I knew they were right.

I stood up. "I guess I've got to go to Full Striding, then. Then visit my old house after that."

Paisley turned to Chris. "I've always wanted to go to Full Striding. What about you?"

He shrugged. "I've been there. They already have a town crier."

She elbowed him.

"But I could go again," he said.

That very afternoon, the three of us took a seat on a carriage driven by an arts dealer named Albi Hayes. He made a living buying the stock from art galleries that went out of business, then selling the pieces wherever he could. The trick was, he told us, "Before I get to a town, I hire a bard to go spreading scandals about the artists. Then, days later, their paintings suddenly appear for sale. People love art with a good scandal behind it."

He hadn't had much luck, however, in the hard-working, crafter-centric village of Sunhampton, and he'd decided to leave after he spent a full day without selling a single piece. He was more than happy to give us three seats for one gold coin, just as long as we didn't break any of his paintings. While we traveled, Paisley took a peek inside one of the boxes. "These things are hideous," she whispered.

The arts dealer could only take us as far as Pigny, and from there, we secured seats for the three of us to go to Full Striding. The problem was that these seats were spread across two separate wagons. One was a rug merchant who had one seat going spare, while a ceramic trader had two seats free.

"You guys take the two," I told them. "Really. I don't mind."

Chris and Paisley conferred before Paisley said, "No, we don't want it to go like that. We're not leaving you out all the time just because...well, you know. You and I will take the two seats, and Chris will hop onto the rug carriage."

I'm the sort of person who's equally happy both by myself and with others, so either option would have been fine. But it seemed to really matter to Chris and Paisley that they didn’t let their new relationship exclude me, and I didn’t want to upset them. So, Paisley and I took the two seats, and we spent an enjoyable journey to Full Striding, talking about all kinds of things. Mostly, though, about a proposed trading law that could really hit Easterly's steel trade. Not the subject I would have chosen, but Paisley had a way of making any topic entertaining.

At one point, Paisley asked me, "I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me. But can't you just have the soil from both places sent to the craftstead?"

"Nope. There's a risk of samples getting contaminated, for one. Best case scenario, that would stop the artificery from working. Worst case, someone's legs could end up in one place, the rest of them another."

"That can really happen?"

"If you listen to Master Cooper, sure. It happens all the time. Really, though, I think the door wouldn't work. I mean, it'd work as a door. But not as a piece of beautiful artificery."

In Full Striding, we didn't have much time to appreciate the city since it was already early evening by the time we got there, and then we had to wait thirty minutes for Chris's wagon to arrive. The driver, Chris explained to us, had driven the carriage into a pothole in the road, and one of the wheels had broken. They had to wait until another carriage passed by to give them a ride.

"If only," Chris said with annoyance, "A crafter had taken that seat, instead of me."

"Hey! I offered."

"I know. It's my fault. Don’t you find that sometimes, it really seems like fate has taken a disliking to you?"

From what I saw of Full Striding as we hurried through, it was a city of high windows, stone walls and huge towers. Many of the buildings were narrower than in most cities. Too narrow, in many cases. But if something could be built tall, then the builders of Full Striding wasted no expense in doing so. This insistence on narrow yet tall buildings would have given the place a very claustrophobic feel, if not for the fact that the streets were very wide.

It was very much a city with a pulse beating under its paved streets and through its noisy air, with the heart lying in its commercial district. Rather than a customer-facing shopping area like Coiner's Way, Full Striding’s main business was with vendors, and many of the shops were vendor-only, and sold exclusively to the members of the merchants’ guild.

"Are you a member of the guild?" I asked Paisley.

"They don't take apprentices. I don't know if I’ll join anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Because they're so controlling. If I start a business, I don't want some guild telling me, 'Sorry, Ms. Porter, but there's already such and such a shop in Sunhampton, so we won't let you open one.'"

"They control stuff like that?"

"If you join the guild and want a guild-authorized store, sure. But if I go independent, I only please myself and my customers. It just means I can't buy stock at places like this, and I won’t have the guild’s backing if I get into a legal dispute or something."

From the heart of the wholesale district the blood of trade pumped, traveling down Full Striding’s many vein and ventricle streets, where smaller, customer-facing shops plied their trade. The streets here were wider, but even more crowded with people, animals, carts, and wagons. I watched as someone pushed past us, holding out a hand and muttering about the street being "no place for honest folk."

Getting a jar of dirt from the doorway destination was simple. Part of the project involved me making alchemical keys not just for the doorway itself, but also the destination, which turned out to be a single room, a stone building in a deathly quiet district of Full Striding. It was a strange little building, almost like a mausoleum, in that there was nothing to it except one door, and it had no windows. If it weren't situated on a paved street in the city boundaries, I’d have assumed that was exactly what it was.

Using the alchemic keys, I let us in. It was a lot more spacious than I expected, though that wasn't through artificery but a lack of furniture. My stepfather had paid for a wooden bench to be placed in there, presumably because teleportation could make a person woozy. That was all. In the far western corner was a single patch of uncovered stone, left for me to gather soil from. I put it in a jar, and then we left.

That night, we had a meal at a tavern called The Drunken Juggler, whose entertainment was, surprisingly, a juggler. Who was drunk. Not only that. A drunken juggler who insisted on juggling chairs...with people still sitting on them. I marveled at the weedy guy's upper body strength, only for Chris to inform me that ‘juggler’ was a class, and one of the skill trees was upper body strength.

We ate a pleasant meal of spiced pork belly with baked potato skins. Chris ordered desert - a fudge cake - but Paisley and I only took coffees. After watching a bard have the unenviable task of following the juggler, we went to bed in the rooms we'd rented. All three of us slept separately.

The next morning, I woke up with a dull dread building in my stomach. I knew where our next stop was to be, and every second that passed seemed to bring that moment closer. It was with reluctance that I left Full Striding, paying for passage aboard a travelers’ wagon that had three stops between here and Assage’s Pass, where my family's manor was situated.

None of my old family was home.

I supposed I should have been relieved. Meeting them once again was, after all, what I had been dreading. But instead, I felt a curious unease, a sensation that an important moment in my life had passed me by, ungrasped. I wasn’t going to have to face them again, after all.

Though my family wasn't home, the manor was still a busy place. A team of gardeners was trying to remove an old tree stump that had grown roots into one of the gardens near the manor's eastern doorway, which was used for couriers and other, less important visitors. I could hear them as they discussed what might be used for removing the stump—their main plan was to break it up and then tie a rope around the bigger pieces and get horses to drag them out.

"Wow," said Chris, looking up at the manor with its miniature towers and its pointed turrets.

Paisley shrugged. "It's nothing special."

I didn’t know if she was being nice or if, having lived with her uncle Jace and visited some exotic places with him, she genuinely didn’t think it was anything fancy. Either way, I appreciated her downplaying it.

Not wanting to stay any longer than we had to, I took some soil from the manor gardens where the artificed door was supposed to go. It was to be fitted to a new outbuilding near a great elm tree. I had a vague memory of my mother and me sitting here from time to time before she passed.

And then, we left, and a strong part of me knew that I’d never visit here again.

Chapter 36

Returning to the craftstead was a sweet feeling, even as we climbed the great muscle-aching hill. Reaching the top, I realized that I wasn't half as tired after the climb as I used to be, though I wondered how Master Cooper would manage it when he was well enough to go into the village. The hill was too steep for carriages, and though he might be able to walk down it, the walk back uphill was surely too much.

Maybe we could make some kind of artificed pulley system with a wheeled, horseless carriage box attached to it. Perhaps that should have been my class-earning project all along. Then again, artificery like that was not just difficult, it would likely be very expensive. We'd have to run a steel cable from the top of the hill to the bottom, then artifice it all, and...

"Here he is, back from his travels!" called a voice.

Master Cooper strode across the yard, flanked by a royal bodyguard of mucky wolfhounds. He was wearing his old crafting shirt covered in grease stains and other splotches, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Every few steps, he made the wolfhounds sit, then lie down, before tossing them a piece of chicken.

"Wow. You're finally training your vicious beasts," said Paisley.

"If my dogs don't listen to me, then who will? My apprentice certainly doesn't," he said with a smile. "How was your trip?"

"Full Striding isn't quite what I expected," I said. "But we got what we needed."

"And your old home?"

"My old house," I said. "This is my home."

"There's a difference?" asked Paisley.

Chris, while looking at me, nodded. "A world of difference."

"You'll be pleased to know," said Master Cooper, "that Healer Brown has agreed I can start to ease back into artificery."

"You asked him?" I said.

"Uh huh. He visited while you were gone, and I decided I’d play it straight with the old git. He's a pain in the arse, to be sure, but his heart's in the right place. So I told him, 'Listen here, Brown. I'm gonna be doing some work whether you like it or not. So it's best that you just tell me what’s safe.'"

All that day, I worked in the yard, clearing some space near the old storage shed by removing all the lumber that had gotten sodden in the storm and clearing away broken roof slates. Using my Craft skill and a hefty supply of granite that Paisley had negotiated from the quarry outside of Sunhampton, I started making the blocks for the archway that would surround the door. I crafted block after block, burning through my crafting stamina as the afternoon turned to evening. When it was too low for me to do anything at all, I went to Master Cooper's workshop to see how he was getting on.

Cooper had been working with the miodes that would accomplish the transportation effect. These were very excitable miodes, prone to making sudden darts across wide spaces and seeking freedom in the outside air. As such, he'd closed all the windows and the door of his workshop, making the place feel very stuffy.

While my stamina was still replenishing, I manually created two cement pastes, which I stirred inside old metal buckets. Into one bucket I mixed soil from my stepfather's manor, and in the other, I combined the cement with soil from the destination point in Full Striding.

"When you're making the archway," Master Cooper told me, "Alternate between these mixes. One cement, then the other. One, then the other. And so on. Don’t mix both soil samples into one cement; that will just confuse the artificery. I knew an apprentice one who-"

"Got it," I told him.

We took a long break for dinner, which was a chicken pot pie made by Chris and Paisley, then went back to work. Master Cooper took me to his workshop, where he presented me with a vial of miodes, ready for use.

"So I mix these in with the cement?" I said.

"Exactly."

I worked until midnight, placing brick after brick in the archway shape while alternating with my cement pastes. Working manually like this was in many ways more tiring than using all my crafting stamina, though there was something more peaceful, more meditative than just making something instantaneously.

Chris and Paisley joined me to watch me place the final brick, completing the archway shape. It was embarrassing, in honesty, especially when they gave exaggerated cheers and danced around the yard when the structure was complete. I had no dance in me, which was a pity because I was a pretty great dancer. Unfortunately, I was beyond exhausted.

"I don’t know why I'm so tired," I said. "It's only an archway. Masons make these all the time."

"Because you're used to using your skills and not your hands," said Paisley. "Besides, we've been traveling a lot. Sleeping in a tavern bed is never as good as your own."

"Are you going to attach the door now?" asked Chris.

I checked my crafting stamina. It had replenished to 126. My physical stamina was another thing altogether, but I wouldn’t need to use it. Even so, I hesitated.

"Maybe I should wait."

"Wait for what?" asked a voice.

It was Master Cooper. He stepped out of the house doorway and crossed the twilight-lit yard. I took a deep breath and held it in as he approached my archway and paced around it, inspecting it much like he had the first clock I had ever crafted. I, too, felt just as nervous as I had that day. Master Cooper would also need to give his final approval to my project, after all.

"Bit sloppy here," he said, pointing at a brick. "You let some cement get on the stonework."

"I'll fix that," I said.

"Angles look good. Granite's a good choice. Reliable. I dare say this would hold up if a giant's arse appeared in the sky and farted on it. All in all...it's looking good so far."

Relief swept through me. This was far from final approval, but I was tired, I was anxious about finishing, I was unbelievably eager to earn my class. Getting even a crumb of praise felt good.

"Get some sleep, lad. The client is visiting us tomorrow, so we need this finished."

The sun rose over the craftstead to find me still in bed, which was strange for me. I'd always seen sleep as a sort of reluctant duty. I knew I needed it, but I begrudged every second I spent asleep, as if unconsciousness was a thief stealing life from me, stealing time that I could otherwise have spent crafting.

Forcing myself out of bed, I headed downstairs to find that Master Cooper was already up and awake.

"What's wrong?" I said. "Was there a fire?"

"Cheeky git."

He handed me a broom. That same broom I had come to know so well, having used it every morning since I had come to live here.

"All being right," he said, "This is the last time you'll be using this. Well, not the last time. I'm not about to start doing all the sweeping myself, am I? Symbolically, then, it’s the last time. At least, the last time you'll be waking up as an apprentice and grabbing this little bristly tool and making the craftstead dust free."

I took the broom from him. After yawning, I said, "Thank you. This is truly a special moment."

"Mr. Sarcastic, are we today, hmm?"

I normally completed my chores as quickly as I could, seeing them as something to just get out of the way so I could begin my day properly. This morning, I found myself dawdling as I swept, and then walking even slower than usual toward the kennels where a pack of ravenous bests waited for me to feed them.

I drew out for as long as I could my task of cleaning the kennels and the workshops, stretching them until almost midday.

Finally, Master Cooper told me, "Come on now, Apprentice Crafter. It's time."

My nerves were like strings on a freshly played violin, vibrating inside me with the echoes of a concert ringing in my ears. Master Cooper seemed to sense this.

"Relax," he told me. "You've done most of the work. Assembling the doorway is nothing."

"It's not the doorway that bothers me," I said.

"A client is a client. You'll deal with thousands in your career. Don't elevate any of them in your head."

Master Cooper was right, of course. Assembling the doorway was simple, since I had already made the archway, the door, and the hinges and lock. All the tinkering, alchemy, and artificery was done. This simple act of using ‘Craft’ to bind them all together took perhaps a few minutes. Bizarrely, the ease of it didn’t do much for my nerves. All it did was give me more time to dwell on the moment I was dreading, that of seeing my stepfather coming up the hill toward the craftstead.

I could have let myself dwell on it. I could have just sat around letting myself behave more and more like an apprentice on his first day of training. Instead, I grabbed a washcloth and a jar of beeswax and set on waxing every inch of the door. Slowly, methodically, letting my mind focus on nothing but the task, letting the very act of crafting banish all emotions from my head.

When I was done, I took a step back from the door and admired it. A notification appeared in front of me, the words swirling like a ribbon fluttering in the breeze.

Crafting complete: Doorway of Teleportation

A doorway that connects one physical location to another and, through artificery, allows the user to travel a great distance with just a step. Comes with tinkered hinges and an alchemical lock and key.

A hand suddenly fell on my shoulder, and Master Cooper spoke in my ear. "I'm proud of you, lad."

Chris and Paisley joined me to my left, making appreciative whistling noises and congratulating me on finishing my class-earning project, even if it wasn't client approved yet.

A galloping sound came from the edge of the craftstead. At the summit of the hill, we looked down to see a carriage at the bottom. It was pulled by four black horses, with a fine-looking passenger compartment attached to them by leather strapping. At the front, above the horses, a driver sat on a wooden driving seat, furiously lashing the reins.

"Bloody idiot," said Master Cooper. "He'll never get up here in that. Can’t he walk or something?"

The driver battled furiously to urge his horses up the steep hill. Snorting, the beasts pulled their quarry inch by inch, scaling the slope one hoof at a time. The driver whipped them once, twice. Beside me, Master Cooper's face contorted with rage. "Bloody idiot!" he shouted again.

When the carriage finally made it to the summit, the driver brought it to a stop. The horses panted, steam leaving their nostrils like smoke from a dragon's nose. Master Cooper brought over a bag of feed that he usually used for his donkey, Patrice, and offered it to the horses while I filled a giant bucket with water and dragged it across the yard, placing it in front of the horses.

The driver stepped off the carriage. I'd never seen him before, so he had most likely been employed fairly recently. I wondered if the old driver, Sid, had been fired or something. The driver was a tall man with longish brown hair, dressed in a smart dark blue woolen uniform that came complete with a hat. The effort of driving the carriage up such a steep hill had made him sweat so much that his hair was stuck against his forehead, and there were dark stains on the rare patches of his shirt that peeked out beneath his woolen blazer.

"That was damned stupid," said Master Cooper. "Lucky they didn’t falter and send you flying."

The driver leaned close to Cooper. "I wouldn’t have even attempted it. But I had no choice."

The door of the passenger compartment opened, and out stepped my stepfather. He wore a suit of expensive tailored cotton, trimmed along the sleeves with an elegant satin.

"Remember," Master Cooper told me, "We are under no obligation to tell your stepfather that you made this. All he needs to do is approve that it matches his specifications. If he thinks I made it, well, that's an insult to my skills.”

I glared at him.

"Kidding," he told me. "Of course this isn’t as refined as if a master made it, but you've done a damned fine job."

"Let's hope it works."

"You didn’t test it?" asked Cooper.

"There wasn't time."

My stepfather strolled confidently across the yard, where he nodded to Master Cooper yet didn’t even acknowledge me. Behind him trailed the driver, carrying a leather bag which had an alchemic lock. Though the bag didn’t bulge nor make any kind of clinking sound, I knew there was a hoard of gold coins inside. Even without my goggles, I could sense the artificery and knew it had depths that the eyes couldn’t see.

"Artificer Cooper," said my stepfather, in a clipped tone.

"The door's ready for you to take."

"I think I’ll inspect it first," said my stepfather. "All being well, I'll send an artificed carriage to pick it up. You have, I assume, worked on the weight?"

"As a master artificer, I am well aware that you'll need to be able to transport the product I have made for you."

"Right. I'll take a look, then."

Paisley looked at me, clearly angry with my stepfather's manner but holding it in so as not to ruin this for me. Chris's look toward me was apologetic as if he understood what I was going through.

As my stepfather walked away from us and toward the arched doorway that stood in the center of the yard, I felt something building up in my head. A sort of urging, like a thought straining to get out if only I’d let it. The feeling grew until, before I knew it, I had whirled around to face my stepfather.

"I made the doorway," I said.

He turned around, acknowledging me for the first time since he'd arrived. Then he looked at Master Cooper. "An apprentice made the item I requested from you?"

Master Cooper nodded. "You heard the lad. Apprentice Crafter made this, true enough. The higher-level artificery is mine. The rest is his."

"Apprentice Crafter. That's the surname you've taken, is it?"

"It suits me well."

"In that case," said my stepfather, "We shall consider the contract null and void.”

“The only void around here is between your ears,” said Chris.

My step father ignored this jibe. “I won’t be taking delivery of a piece of tat made by a boy still learning his trade. Oliver? Ready the carriage."

My stepfather had crossed half the yard before Paisley said, "Actually, I think you'll find the contract is neither null nor void. You gave Master Cooper an order for one doorway capable of instantaneous transportation between two points of your choosing. Master Cooper has delivered that."

"His apprentice has delivered that, little girl. That’s if it even works."

"An apprentice's work is legally considered to be owned by his master until he earns his class," said Paisley. "Therefore, in effect, Master Cooper has made this doorway for you. You can back out of the contract, but a tribunal will likely award Master Cooper 75% of the fee as a minimum, and what's more, the doorway will still belong to him. This would be a very costly act of stubbornness...old man."

Chris let out an involuntary laugh. Even my stepfather's driver smirked, though he was careful to lift his hand to his mouth and cough. Master Cooper looked at Paisley with unadulterated affection, and I felt the same for my friend, so knowledgeable in trade laws and contracts.

My stepfather kept his composure, dwelling on the moment with his right hand cupped against his chin. Finally, he said, "The contract, please, Oliver", and clicked his fingers at the driver. With unmistakable contempt that only just managed to stay within professional boundaries, the driver opened the leather bag he was carrying and produced a folded document.

My stepfather flicked his hand, unraveling the contract. He made a show of reading it before folding it up and handing it back to Oliver. "Well, I think that the specifications were quite clear. Excellent-rated door craftsmanship. Tinkered hinges, an alchemical lock. And, of course, the artificery itself."

For thirty minutes my stepfather used an appraising lens to check the quality of the door, pressing the lens against his eye and passing his glance over the wood from top to bottom. When he was done, he straightened up, an almost annoyed look on his face.

Next, he tested the tinkered hinges by pulling on a small lever that I'd built into the stonework next to the door itself.

But nothing happened.

My stepfather's expression turned into one of smug victory, and he opened his mouth.

Just then, the door opened. Its motion was smooth, not a single creak nor whine from the hinges. Paisley shot me a grin while Master Cooper nodded at me.

"Let's see these alchemic keys, then. Come on. I don’t have all day."

"You'll watch your tone," said Master Cooper, becoming annoyed. "My apprentice doesn't answer to anyone but me. And even then he barely answers."

"Then perhaps you'd like to ask him to furnish me with the keys?"

"Lewis, give this silly prat the keys, please."

Rather than become annoyed, my stepfather wore the flicker of a smile. "Is that how you treat your customers, Mr. Cooper? It seems like grounds to end a contract, no?"

"Actually," said Paisley, "As long as contractual terms are fulfilled, the trade will go ahead. There are no provisions for animosity or having a friendly relationship."

"Someone shut this silly girl up."

"I'll shut you up in a minute," said Chris. "Just test me."

"Let him say whatever he likes. As long as he gives us his gold and then takes his stink away with him, that'll be enough for me," said Paisley.

After closing the door until the lock clicked, I handed my stepfather a big, black key and a pot of alchemic solution brewed specially for the door. He dipped the merest tip of the key into the solution and then put the key in the lock.

"It doesn’t turn. See how it isn't turning?" he said happily.

"You didn't dip the key fully into the solution," I answered.

Wearily, he did as I instructed, and this time, the lock clicked open. With another pull of the lever, the tinkered hinges made the door open again.

"Fine," he said. "That just leaves the teleportation itself. I assume it is ready for testing?"

"We told you it wasn’t finished, didn’t we?" said Master Cooper.

"You also told me you would complete the whole doorway yourself. You crafters say lots of things."

"Just test the damned door and be done with it."

"Oliver?" said my stepfather.

The poor driver set his leather bag on the ground and took a hesitant step toward the doorway. He stopped a few feet away from it, and asked Master Cooper, "Can I get hurt if this goes wrong?"

Master Cooper folded his arms. "Don’t ask me. Ask Apprentice Crafter here."

I almost said that he could be scissored in half if this went wrong. But the look Oliver shot at me was so pathetic that I couldn’t joke about it. "If the artificery isn't correct, it just won't work."

He still didn’t seem convinced, yet he took a step towards the doorway.

"Hurry it up, man," said my stepfather.

"Why don’t you do it yourself?" asked Paisley. "It's your stupid door. No offense, Lewis."

"Offense taken."

"Because, my girl, I employ people like Oliver to do things for me. Now, Oliver, do you want your wages this month?"

"If he's worked according to his employment contract, you'll pay him regardless of whether he walks through this bloody doorway," said Paisley.

"Shut up!" yelled my stepfather. "Just shut up with your damned legalities! The world doesn’t work according to neat lines written in dusty old ledgers, you brat, you stupid infant. You-"

Chris stormed across the yard, sleeves rolled up, heading straight for my stepfather. The look on his face was one I’d never seen wear before, that of violent, uncontrollable rage.

As much as I wanted to see him punch my stepfather, I quickly reached him and pulled him away.

"Let me hit the bastard!"

"You'll break our contract," I whispered in his ear. "If he’s physically assaulted on the premises, he'll be able to walk away. I'm sure of it."

My stepfather seemed to have heard me because he said, "That's right, lad. Go and sit down. It doesn't matter that I just insulted your girlfriend, here. You go and sit down and do nothing about it."

Chris struggled in my grasp, but by now, I’d developed crafter's forearms, and he couldn’t get loose. Master Cooper laid a hand on his shoulder and said gently, "Come on, Chris. How about you go to that kitchen over there and get yourself a drink, eh?"

All eyes were on Oliver now, who took another hesitant step toward the door. Just as he reached his threshold, I said, "Wait."

"What now?" asked my stepfather.

"I'll test the door. It's my work. Well, mine and Master Cooper's. I'll test it." Then I looked at Master Cooper, asking him with my eyes, 'This is safe, isn’t it?' Seemingly to understand my look, he nodded.

With everyone looking at me, I marched toward the doorway, taking Oliver’s place. I let my gaze fall over the stone archway I’d created. Over the grout that held the stones together, that artificed blend of miodes, destination soil, and cement. Taking in the gleam of the tinkered hinges, the polish of the excellently crafted wood, I allowed myself to leave modesty aside just for once, and I appreciated what I had done.

This really was a well-crafted door.

And then, I stepped through it.

Chapter 37

In the week after the sale of the door, we used what was left of my stepfather's payment - after Master Cooper paid his debts - to order new shingles for the house roof. Not only that, but we also got brand new tools for both Master Cooper's and the main workshops. Chris, Paisley, and I re-shingled the roof where the storm had damaged it, while Master Cooper watched from the yard in a more supervisory role that, although he would never admit it, he'd started to enjoy. Later in the week, Paisley had to leave the work to us so she could complete her own class-earning project.

"What have you decided on?" I said.

"Do you remember the art dealer who gave us a ride to Pigny, before we changed for Full Striding?"

"Albi Hayes? I remember him."

"Well, I've bought his whole stock of paintings from him, and I'm going to sell them at a whopping great markup."

"But you said they were hideous."

"They are. But plenty of things are hideous. Take your shirt, for instance. That didn’t stop you from buying it."

I looked down at my shirt, one of the things I’d bought using my share in the doorway profits.

"Anyway," continued Paisley, "To get the mercantile class, I just need to earn a two hundred percent profit on something, with a minimum threshold of five hundred gold."

"Can you do that?"

"I have my means. Haven't you ever seen me at the market, or do you think your goods magically sell themselves?"

"Still. Two hundred percent seems like a lot for those paintings."

"Well, Chris is going to the market with me. On an entirely unrelated note, he's going to use his Crier skills to tell the fine folks about a few interesting artists. About their lives, their troubles, their works. I hope that doesn't cause people to want to buy the paintings I’m selling."

I laughed. "Good luck with it."

For all of the next week, I worked on fixing up the craftstead, and though it was usually happy work, I still felt glum. Master Cooper hadn’t mentioned anything about me earning my class yet. I had tried to be patient, but I couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong.

Three days later, Paisley announced over dinner that she'd passed her apprenticeship, and she was now an officially recognized merchant. She showed me her class token, made from half-gold and with weighing scales etched onto its face. We all congratulated her, and I made sure I was the loudest in my praises. I didn’t want her to read what was really on my mind.

After dinner, while Chris walked Paisley home, I decided to have an important conversation with Master Cooper. He was in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink while three of our pups crowded his legs, hoping beyond hope that a morsel of food might fall off a plate and into their mouths.

"Master Cooper?"

"Lewis! You aren't walking with your friends?"

"I thought I'd leave them to it."

"Very wise. You ask me, you're better off not getting involved in love. It's a scam. Never ends well."

"Heartwarming words, " I said.

He laughed and handed me a plate to dry.

"Can I ask you something?"

"No," he replied.

"Really?"

"Of course you can ask me. What a silly question."

This irked me a little, but I pressed on. "It's been eight days since we sold the door. My stepfather had to accept that I made it to his specifications, and I’m assuming you accept that, too. So I was wondering when I was going to become a proper artificer?"

"Do you feel you're ready for that?" asked Master Cooper.

"Paisley passed her final project three days ago, and her uncle already made arrangements."

"Not every master works the same way, Lewis."

That was all he'd say on the matter. To my discredit, I spent all of the next day in a mood. I still worked as I should - reinforcing part of the kennel wall where the brickwork had crumbled - but I did so with more scowling than usual. To try and get rid of this negative energy, I opted to work manually using a hammer and chisel, working up a sweat as the hours passed by.

In the late afternoon, Master Cooper came to find me. "Do you mind going into the village to get me some wood? There's a timber merchant in town, Paisley tells me."

"What kind of wood do you need?"

"Some big, thick boards. Birch, if he has it."

"Okay."

"Thank you. And Lewis?"

"Yes?" I said.

"Try and find your smile while you’re out there, lad."

Master Cooper's words were crafted perfectly to increase my annoyance, I felt. That was part of his sense of humor, to see when a person was in a mood and then increase it. Annoyingly, it worked, and I left the craftstead under a steam of fury. At the top of the hill, I swung my leg and kicked a stone, sending it hurtling all the way down.

Almost two hours later, I walked back up that same hill with fifty gold's worth of birch in my artificed rucksack. The timber merchant was a jolly man called Peg Stevens, and he was only in town for a few days. He asked if I’d like to go for a drink in the King’s Head and discuss crafting, but I was in too much of a bad mood. So, I apologized that I couldn’t, and set off home.

When I reached the craftstead, it was already dark, and the weave of nighttime brought with it a chill wind. The branches of Master Cooper's pear tree lay bare, while the leaves on the other trees in the garden hung limply from their stems. They had turned red over the past few weeks, and soon they would finally fall and die. Light came from Master Cooper's home, glowing through the downstairs windows. I put the wood in the new wood store I had built and artificed against the elements for him, then headed over to the house.

Pushing open the door, I heard several voices suddenly hush. Feeling a peculiar chill tease up my spine, I crossed the hallway and headed to the kitchen, where lamp light glowed under the door. I didn’t know what they were playing at, but I really wasn't in the mood, and I was going to tell them so.

I pushed open the door to find Master Cooper, Paisley, her uncle Jace, Chris, and Lee Hunter standing in the kitchen. Resting on the kitchen table was a humongous cake with the words, 'Congratulations, Artificer!" written on it in yellow icing.

I was almost loath to let my bad mood thaw. That’s the thing about foul moods. None of us want them, but when a loved one tries their best to make our moods go away, we're reluctant to let it happen. As though having our temper taken away from us through kindness is a defeat.

Even so I felt a smile take hold on my expression, and it widened further as Paisley and Chris both gave me a hug.

"Congratulations, Artificer Lewis," said Master Cooper.

Lee Hunter approached me, "Hope you don't mind me being here, Lewis. But Jack ordered some hares for a casserole, and when I brought 'em, he asked me to stay."

"I don’t mind," I said. "That cake is too big for me to eat on my own anyway."

"We got it from Mrs. Grant," said Paisley. "We went to Rolls and Dough this afternoon while you were dealing with the timber guy."

"I'll have to thank her. It looks delicious."

"She's out back," said Chris, nodding at the door. "Smoking her pipe." He held out his hand, and I shook it. "Proud of you, pal," he said.

Master Cooper served us hare stew followed by huge helpings of cake, and the seven of us enjoyed one of the merriest nights I ever had in my life. I was reluctant to see it end when Mrs. Grant announced that it was far past her bedtime and she had to get home to finish reading one of her romance novels. Lee Hunter offered to walk her. Paisley said she also had to go, so along with Chris, the four of them would walk down the hill under the cover of nightfall together.

To take the sting out of the ending of such a brilliant night, Master Cooper made everyone stay while he awarded me my class token. It was bigger than my skill tree tokens, and on the front of it was an engraving of a man wearing artificer's goggles, with a hammer in his hand, poised and ready to strike down on something. This wasn’t meant to be placed in my token bracelet; it was simply a piece of memorabilia, a physical representation of my struggles and hard work.

Nevertheless, as I clutched the token, a notification appeared.

Class gained: Artificer

Rank: Novice

Skill tree: Simple Craft & Forge

Level: 3

EXP: 60%

Abilities:

Craft [Level: 9]

Repair [Level: 1]

Upgrade [Level: 5]

Dismantle [Level: 1]

Craft Invent [Level: 2]

Analyze [Level: 1]

Skill Tree: Disenchantment

Level: 1

EXP: 25%

Abilities:

Disenchant [Level: 2]

Detect Enchantment [Level: 1]

Skill Tree: Enchantment

Level: 2

EXP: 40%

Abilities:

Enchant [Level: 6]

Identify Enchantment [Level: 1]

Upgrade Enchantment [Level: 2]

Evolve Enchantment [Level: 1]

Skill Tree: Simple Tinkering

Level: 1

EXP: 75%

Abilities:

Tinker [Level: 4]

Mend [Level: 1]

Tinker Invent [Level: 1]

Skill tree: Simple Alchemy

Level: 1

EXP: 25%

Abilities:

Identify Potion [Level: 1]

Create Potion [Level: 2]

Create Tincture [Level: 1]

"How does it feel?" asked Paisley. "We both officially have classes now!" After saying this, she seemed to notice Chris shifting unforgettably. "You'll get yours soon."

"I know. It’s okay. I just need to earn the Simple Bad News skill, then find a place that’ll let me work as a crier, so I can do a class-earning project. I’ll get there eventually. Anyway, let's not make this about me. This is Lewis's night."

"It feels...good," I said.

"A man of many words!" declared Master Cooper. "You'll be accepted as a member of the artificers’ guild now if you choose. You'd also get membership at the general crafters’ guild, too, but don't choose rashly. You can only join one."

"I'll think about it," I said, feeling a little overwhelmed with what had happened.

"You'll have to get started on the sign, too," said Master Cooper.

"Sign?"

"We need a sign out front, so people know this is an artificery workshop. Course, it'll need both our names on it. You know, so folks can see that two artificers work here."

My smile now was big enough to split my face. "I'll make the sign first thing in the morning."

Paisley and Chris whispered together before separating. Chris hurried off back into the house, soon emerging with a bag. He handed it to me. "Open it," he said.

Inside was a brand new toolset of a much higher quality than any I’d owned before now. They were so well-made that all I could think about was how much gold they had cost. Then I decided that was the wrong way to look at it. Instead of being modest, I ought to appreciate that my friends cared about me enough to spend so much on a gift for me.

"Thank you so much," I said. Then, " Wait there."

I headed into my workshop before joining them again in the yard.

"What's that?" Chris asked me.

I presented a wooden sign to Paisley. "You passed your apprenticeship, too. It can't be just me having all the gifts."

Paisley read the sign, her eyes watering. "Paisley Porter, Merchant of Fine Goods."

"This is a proper sign," I said. "Not just a market one. It's for when you open your own shop. I used a nice piece of Teakle Red to make it. The craftsmanship is rated excellent. Not that you care about that stuff."

"This is perfect. Thank you."

To Chris, I gave a glass bottle with a spout on the top and nothing inside it.

“Thanks,” he said, clearly not understanding but equally not willing to look rude.

“It’s an artificed syrup pourer,” I said. “It also holds honey and that kind of thing. The artificery is command activated, so if you speak the name of the condiment you want, the vial will fill up. It’ll only work in the vicinity of the craftstead, though. The artificery level is quite low.”

“This is great! Thanks, pal.”

Mrs. Grant yawned, which Lee Hunter took as a cue. "We best be off. Thanks again for having me. I haven't had a meal like that in…oh, I don’t know how long."

"Keep those hares coming, and you'll get more," said Master Cooper.

The party of four walked down the hill and into the brief stretch of darkness that lay between the lamps of the craftstead and the glow of the streetlights that marked Sunhampton’s boundaries. Master Cooper, the wolfhounds, and I stayed there a while, saying nothing.

Finally, Master Cooper broke the silence. "We need to decide what we're putting on that sign of ours, when you make it."

"How about, 'Master Artificer Jack Cooper & Artificer Lewis Crafter - makers of fine artificed goods'."

"A little wordy," said Master Cooper.

"Let's hear your suggestions, then."

He looked at me. "Well, I was sort of thinking we might change it to 'Master Artificer Jack Cooper & Artificer Lewis Cooper- makers of fine artificed goods.'

“But that sounds just as long as-” I began saying before his words sunk in. "Lewis Cooper?"

"An apprentice can take his master's name if both are willing. Says it right there in the Master-Apprentice guides."

I was touched beyond anything I’d ever experienced in my life. The feeling was so strong it choked me up so that not a single word would crawl out of my brain and leave via my mouth.

"It's a silly idea, I suppose," said Master Cooper. "Let’s just stick with what you said."

"No," I managed to say. "I think your idea is better."

Master Cooper smiled deeply. "Well, then. That's that."

"That's that," I agreed. "Does that mean I can call you Jack?"

"Does it hell!"

"Well. You're not Master Cooper anymore, so what should I call you?"

"Just Cooper, then."

"I suppose that means I'm no longer ‘lad’, or ‘apprentice’," I said.

"Lewis it is," said Master Cooper.

We made a schedule the next morning so that daily chores were shared between us, though I took the biggest share of the physical work and would continue to do so until Healer Brown gave him the go-ahead to get back to normal duties. Brown visited the craftstead once per week, and he was pleased to see how rigorously Cooper was sticking to his advice.

"Have to, don’t I?" said Cooper. "Otherwise, Artificer Lewis here will take on all the burdens."

"Artificer Lewis, is it now?" asked Brown. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir."

With Master Cooper’s debts paid and the storm damage all but repaired, we needed to think about earning more gold. My stepfather had spread some nasty rumors about Cooper's business, bad-mouthing me and him wherever he could.

Chris, however, took that as a challenge, and he went from town to town, city to city, using his skills to talk up our reputation and drum up business for us. While he was in Full Tidings, there was an unfortunate incident at the Drunken Juggler, where the juggler finally dropped a chair on his own head, earning him a weeklong stay in the infirmary.

Chris happened to be in the tavern at the time. Seeing how the owner was struggling to keep back the crowd of folks who wanted to get into the tavern to see what happened, Chris headed outside into the plaza and informed them all, in as respectful a voice as he could manage, that unfortunately, the tavern would be closing for the evening.

This little morsel of bad news was enough to earn him that final skill tree he'd been lacking. Armed with Simple Bad News, as well as his other skills, Chris was able to get an apprenticeship under the Full Tidings town crier, a woman named Louisa Rackingshaw. It would be a fast-tracked apprenticeship, given he already had his skills, but she would be able to award him his token.

In any case, Chris’s efforts at talking up our business meant that we got more work than we could complete, and Master Cooper and I worked day and night in our respective workshops. One day, Master Cooper entered my workshop bearing a plate with a sandwich on it.

"One Artificer's Special," he told me. "Enjoy."

I took the sandwich. He watched with anticipation as I ate a piece of that most hallowed of artificer’s snacks, and he could barely wait for me to swallow before he asked me, "Well?"

I shrugged. "It's all right."

News of Easterly going to war with the neighboring country of Loshia put a temporary halt to our crafting orders as people foresaw leaner times ahead. I took advantage of my free time to help Paisley set up her shop on Coiner's Way. It wasn’t the best time to be opening a business, perhaps, but Paisley was determined to make it a success.

A seamstress named Hilda Baggett had retired, and Paisley had been the first person at the office of Mrs. Bettie Louhope, who oversaw the rentals of Coiner's Way properties. Mr. Leabrook somehow got wind of Paisley’s plans and was at the office soon after, but Mrs. Louhope was in no mood to deal with him.

"Your authority begins and ends with the markets," she told him. "Now stop being rude and leave Merchant Porter and I alone."

I wondered how Paisley could afford to set up her own shop, but she told me that her Uncle Jace had given her a business loan – now that she was a merchant, he wouldn’t just hand her money – and it ought to be enough to get her started.

With the premises secured, I set about making shelves according to Paisley's specifications, while Chris spread the word about an exciting new business opening in a little town called Sunhampton.

"You still haven’t told me what you’re going to sell," I told her one day, taking a break from fitting shelves.

Paisley took a sip of tea from the cup she was holding. "Well, for starters, I'm going to offer fine artificed goods made by Artificer Lewis Cooper. I have a feeling he'll be happy to supply me with things to sell from time to time. At discount rates, of course."

"Of course."

"And I'll also be selling handmade clothing from a local tailor. Lee Hunter has been carving antique bows in his spare time, so I think I’ll stock a few of those and see how they sell. Then there's Mrs. Grant. She's thinking of branching out into spice jars, and I can see them selling rather well. Basically, Lewis, I want this to be a Sunhampton shop through and through. Selling things made by the people who live here."

"I think it will be great," I said.

Paisley suddenly shivered.

"What’s wrong?" I said.

"Nothing. Really. It was a nice shiver. It’s just that when I look around, I can't believe this is happening. There's you with your artificery. I have my own shop. Chris thinks that Full Tidings need an extra town crier, and he might get the job. Course, he'll be away for a few days each week, but it's a big step for him. It just feels like it's been a hard year, but it was worth it. Wouldn’t you say?"

I thought back to a day that seemed a lifetime ago, a day when I left a horrible old manor and journeyed across Easterly, following a thread that led - though I didn't know it then - to my home.

I looked at my friend Paisley and felt a swell of affection.

"It really has been worth it," I said.

Hey there! Tom Watts here.

Thanks for spending a little time in Sunhampton with me. My goal when I write my books is to offer a little low-stakes escapism, because everyone needs a break once in a while.

If you enjoyed this, I’d really appreciate a review or a rating on Amazon. They really help in getting the word out there and allowing more people to visit places like the little crafter’s village in Easterly. Meanwhile, I can get to work on my next book.

If you want to know when book 2 of The Artificer’s Apprentice is ready, you can join my mailing list here: https://mailchi.mp/539a2d363207/tom-watts-books

I also have another low-stakes town-building fantasy series called Blade’s Rest. The first book is ‘Welcome to Blade’s Rest’, and you can read it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VQ3ZBN9

Thanks a bunch for reading!

Until next time, then.

Your friend,

Tom.

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