Emil woke up the way he always did after falling asleep on his desk,

  stiff neck, dry mouth, right hand glued firmly to his new concentrator like a wet tongue on frozen metal… actually, that was a recent development.

  The concentrator, Luna, was buzzing like someone had stuffed a beehive into a metal bowling ball. Tiny flecks of mana sputtered around the seams in soft pulses.

  Emil blinked, gently closed the open “Guild bylaws and you” book with his free left hand, then frowned.

  “…Luna?”

  A cheerful voice pinged through his skull like a notification from the system itself:

  “GOOD MORNING, FANTASY VIETNAM!”

  Emil flinched so hard he nearly threw the concentrator off the table, at least his sudden movement unstuck his hand without tearing skin away with it.

  “You sound,” he croaked, “alarmingly awake.”

  “I don’t sleep, Emil” She said in his mind, toning down only slightly. “It’s always coin time”

  “You hear that?! There goes another!”

  He had lost it. Emil squinted at the device, then placed his hand back on the casing.

  The mana link flared. Warm, bright, fast.

  A status window flickered into his mind:

  Luna Caine

  Race: Nothing

  Class: Concentrator — Lv. 6

  …etc.

  Emil froze.

  He stared.

  He re-read the numbers.

  Then a third time, slower, like maybe the text would stop lying to him.

  “…Luna,” he whispered, “you’re level six.”

  “Mmmhm!” she chirped. “Almost halfway to seven!”

  “You were level one eight hours ago.”

  “And now I’m not.”

  “That’s not…” His eye twitched. “That’s not normal. That’s not remotely normal. That’s… Guild-audit abnormal.”

  “I’m just not like the other girls,” Luna said, sending the mental image of a flirty hair flip. “I’m a goddamn XP machiiiiine!”

  Emil slumped forward, forehead thunking softly onto the desk.

  He stayed like that for several seconds.

  “…Did you at least stop before overcharging? You didn’t blow a conduit? You didn’t…”

  “Nope! Not once did I ever get distracted and almost blow up… Not… even… once…”

  A beat of silence radiated through the mana link.

  Emil decided, for his own sanity, to believe her.

  Emil dragged his hands down his face still coming to terms with her insane growth rate.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Okay. Alright. Alright. If you’re really level six, we… we might actually be able to do this.”

  “‘This’ being break me out, right!?” Luna asked, perking at the notion.

  “The first step of that, yes,” Emil clarified, rubbing his eyes. “I go to work like normal, keep a low profile, don’t get executed. Then when I’m off, we scope out artificers in town. Someone out there has got to have a flexible interpretation of what qualifies as, uh… Guild sanctioned craftsmanship.”

  “Hell yeah,” Luna said. “Let’s find us a morally gray wrench wizard.”

  Emil straightened and rose to a stand with a slow inhale, shoulders rising like a man preparing to fight a dragon with nothing but a clipboard and a particularly smooth brand of writing pen that Emil always made sure to stock up on when the cartography guild got a fresh shipment in.

  Emil shuffled toward the tiny washroom attached to his flat making sure to avoid the squeakiest of the floorboards, they hurt his teeth.

  Luna listened through the mana link.

  Water running.

  Cupboards opening.

  Emil registering pain in a jolt, probably his knee on the sink cabinet. This man needed some coordination training from George.

  Then:

  The Emil Morning Ritual? commenced.

  He combed his hair.

  Re-combed it.

  Re-re-combed it after deciding the part was “a little hostile.”

  Applied a small dab of mineral salve while using his earth mage powers to distribute the cream perfectly evenly.

  He trimmed his stubble just enough to look intentional, not enough to suggest he was trying too hard.

  Then he buttoned up his work shirt.

  Then unbuttoned it because the collar was crooked.

  Then buttoned it again.

  Etc. Etc. for like an hour.

  “Pretty boy routine complete,” Luna announced when she registered that he reentered the main room.

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  Emil rolled his eyes. “I like to look presentable.”

  “You look great to me!”

  “Thank you Luna, that is very kind…” Emil said through a smile. “You have no idea what I look like do you?”

  “Not a single clue” Luna confirmed only knowing the feel of the man’s mana and sound of his internal voice. “But I’m sure you are probably the best looking guy in this whole apartment complex.”

  “Considering the only other full time occupants of this tavern are the elderly couple that run it, I would sure hope so”

  Emil grabbed his pre prepared sack lunch and headed out the door before his feathers could be ruffled any more.

  …

  The moment Emil had removed his hand from her casing, Luna had felt the mana stream thin from 1.9/sec to a tragic, pathetic, upsetting 0.9/sec.

  Emil now out of the house Luna could now focus on her current situation.

  “Ugh,” Luna complained, immediately printing a significantly slower stone coin. “This sucks. This is like… playing a mobile idle game on airplane mode, I want my ad boost boy back.”

  Her regen ticked.

  +0.9 mana

  +0.9 mana

  +0.9 mana

  “God, this is so slow,” Luna groaned dramatically. “Even lower than what I started with 8 hours ago.”

  Still, she shoved herself back into the loop.

  Stone coin.

  Eat coin.

  +1.1 XP.

  That much closer to level 7 and hopefully something new.

  Meanwhile, downstairs, Emil stepped out into the street feeling like a man that had just stepped out of a secret war crime bunker.

  He walked briskly through Braxtown, dodging early morning merchants and a man aggressively selling “fresh rock salt” from a cart that loudly advertised “Grand reopening. Cleared of all slave labor charges”.

  Emil arrived at the warehouse.

  Clocked in.

  Tried to look extremely normal.

  Then failed the second his manager called out from across the loading bay:

  “Braxtown!”

  Emil winced. “Morning, sir.”

  The manager, a balding, wide shouldered man that went by foreman Kell, stomped toward him holding a clipboard like it was a weapon.

  “Braxtown,” Kell repeated, voice flat. “Why is there a payroll deduction on my desk for an iron grade concentrator?”

  Emil swallowed. “Ah. Yes. The, uh. Equipment allowance program.”

  “I know about the program boy!” The foreman said, briefly readying his clipboard to swing at Emil. Kell backed off quickly though, poorly straightening his work shirt that had become untucked in the motion. “Why was the form on MY desk. Turn all that payroll crap into the HR office. If it ain’t about the line don’t bring it to me.”

  “Of course sir” Emil said, shaking in his arch supportive non-slip shoes. He was so flustered while stealin… acquiring Luna that he had misfiled paperwork. “Idiot” He mentally berated himself.

  “Moving on…” The foreman continued. “Last night, you tagged an active line concentrator as DEFECTIVE”

  “Yes sir,” Emil agreed.

  “Did you make sure to fully decommission the power source before sending off the casing for recycling? We don’t need any more… incidents.”

  “Of course sir.” Emil confirmed thinking of the tragedy it would have been if he would’ve followed through with protocol.

  “Excellent,” Kell exclaimed, checking things off of his clipboard. “As you were Braxtown.”

  Phew, that was a close one.

  …

  Foreman Kell did not immediately return to the line.

  He walked stiffly, jaw tight, clipboard locked under one arm trapping the heat and sweat of his blood heating up.

  Once he was far enough away that the workers wouldn’t overhear, the man began releasing his confusion and anger in the form of gnashing grumbling. Kell ducked into a side office, shut the door, and let his entire face twist into the expression of a man who smelled bullshit from three city blocks away.

  Because here was the thing:

  Kell already knew.

  He knew before calling Emil out.

  He knew before even stepping onto the warehouse floor.

  The night crew logs told him everything.

  No defective concentrator shell had been sent to recycling.

  The Nothing-dispatching chamber had not been powered on.

  And the device tagged DEFECTIVE had never been brought in for teardown.

  Which meant:

  Braxtown had lied. Not incompetently, not sloppily, but Intentionally.

  And intentionally lying about magical hardware was the kind of mistake that usually ended with someone losing fingers… or a job… or even more likely, their life.

  Kell drew a slow breath, rolled his shoulders back, and walked down the quiet north hallway toward the executive stairs.

  A single security man nodded him through. Kell climbed, each step becoming heavier, with the weight of not wanting to do this.

  He reached the top office and knocked once.

  A voice answered. “Come in.”

  Kell stepped inside.

  The room smelled faintly of polished stone and old coin rolling parchment, the “successful family business” scent.

  Behind a broad desk sat Darius Braxtown, Emil’s father, the owner of the warehouse, twenty year Guild contractor, and a man who had perfected the art of smiling without ever showing warmth.

  “Foreman,” Darius greeted. “What seems to be the issue?”

  Kell cleared his throat.

  “Sir… it’s about Emil.”

  A single brow rose. The only sign of interest he gave.

  “Go on.”

  Kell recounted everything:

  The payroll deduction for the concentrator

  The misfiled paperwork brought to his desk

  The DEFECTIVE tag

  The nonexistent recycling log

  The inactive Nothing-dispatching chamber.

  Darius listened silently, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

  When Kell finished, he waited, trying not to let his pooling sweat drip into his eyes.

  Finally, Darius spoke:

  “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” he said evenly. “Let me know if he does anything else out of the ordinary.”

  Kell exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned, left the office, and closed the door quietly behind him.

  The moment Kell was gone, Darius Braxtown’s polite mask vanished.

  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk, a drawer with no handle, no lock, just a pattern of carved lines that shifted under his touch.

  Once opened, the sigil inside the drawer flickered to life.

  A thin voice echoed from the channel:

  “Braxtown.”

  “I require monitoring services,” Darius said. “My oldest son Emil. Quietly. Discreetly. No contact unless necessary.”

  The voice on the other end hummed.

  “Parameters?”

  “If he is… experimenting,” Darius said carefully, “I want to know with what, with whom, and whether it poses a risk of undo Guild oversight.”

  Another pause then…

  “What is the level of force permitted?”

  Darius frowned at the view outside of his window, Braxtown’s morning streets bustling below.

  “…Observe only,” he said at last. “Do not engage unless safety is compromised. Mine, or his.”

  The faint buzz of the line hung for a moment.

  “I will assign someone to begin monitoring as early as this afternoon.”

  The line faded as Darius willed the connection to break.

  Darius leaned back in his chair, staring at the neat little stack of reports on his desk.

  His jaw tightened.

  “Emil,” he muttered, “what in the hell are you doing?”