“Wow, that was… bright.” Elena winced, covering her eyes.

  “Three profession levels at once.” Harvey gasped, still recovering from the fire burning inside him.

  Exhaustion from hours of slaving away in the forge disappeared as he checked his status screen.

  Smiling, he put all his free points into strength, bringing it closer to matching his Wisdom. He’d taken another leap forward, but realized he hadn’t actually considered what type of skill he wanted the second from his profession to be.

  “Seriously? That’s amazing!” Elena cheered, wrapping him up in a hug.

  “I can’t believe the cauldron was worth that much, even if it was a massive pain in the ass.” Harvey let out a contented sigh.

  “Does that mean it’s time for another Loom visit?” She asked.

  “I haven’t really thought much about what I want my second skill to do, and I think rushing over now could end up with an imperfect skill. Is there something you can work on while I think it over?” He asked.

  “As soon as those cuffs cool down, I can make my first attempt at the light inscriptions.” Elena offered.

  The two sat quietly as the pulsing heat of the forge slowly dwindled. Harvey moved to the back door, sitting against the doorframe to enjoy the chilly afternoon. It wasn’t unusual in his old life for him to go a day or two without leaving the house, but now that his bedroom doubled as an industrial furnace, he was getting back to his Boy Scout roots and spending more time enjoying the outdoors.

  Elena couldn’t use the more magical effects of her cauldron until she got her skill and engraved the matrix of runes that would unite each essence crystal, but that didn’t stop her from using it as an excessively complicated bowl. Harvey watched as she piled in three small chunks of charcoal from the campfire before moving to cut her arm with one of his sharpened chisels.

  “The charcoal from the kiln is a lot cleaner,” he called out, “if you want to use that instead.”

  Elena whined as the chisel broke through her skin, blood leaking out into the bowl. Her hands shook as she wiped the bloody edge on her robe. “You’re probably right, but part of what makes this work is the charcoal’s purpose as a fuel for a light.”

  “It’s that nitpicky?” Harvey asked. “By the way, you look like you’re performing some demon summoning ritual right now.”

  “I know, right. Pretty sick.” Elena smiled. “And it’s less that inscriptions are nitpicky, and more that you want to make the most of every advantage you get.”

  She took a thick branch and began mixing everything together, as if it were an oversized mortar and pestle. The acrid smell of blood joined the ash and iron in the air, and Harvey had to cover his nose with his robe. He nearly gagged, realizing his sopping clothes weren’t any better, and cursed the fact that overbearing heat made everything smell ten times worse.

  “What are you going to use as a paintbrush?” Harvey asked when Elena set the bloody branch on the table.

  “All I have are Bloodrunn bones, so that will have to do. A Carrionwing quill would be easier, but I don’t have any of those.” Elena thought out loud.

  “I thought the tool had to match the inscription?” Harvey asked.

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  “That helps, but I can’t think of any monsters related to light. Can you?” she pushed.

  He couldn’t. If there were iron elementals around, it wasn’t unthinkable that fire elementals also existed, but he had no idea where to find one. Besides, could he even kill it? If inscriptions were all about concepts, the only ones he could associate with the beasts in the forest were life, death, blood, and hunger. Unless…

  “What about shadows? That’s light adjacent, right?” Harvey asked.

  She mulled it over for a minute before nodding. “I guess that would work.”

  “Great!” Harvey smiled as the body of the Moonshade Stalker crashed to the floor between them. Elena screamed, jerking back before slapping his arm.

  “Jerk! You could’ve warned me you just happened to be carrying a dead wolf around.” Elena shrieked.

  “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to hear you freak out!” Harvey laughed. “This little guy was able to control shadows and attack us with them. It looked like moonlight glowed out of his fur when he did it.”

  “Better than nothing,” Elena said, reaching down to pluck a mix of black and white hairs from its fur. When she’d harvested enough that were roughly the same length, she found a thin twig and used some string from her fraying robe to tie them all together. In minutes, she’d fashioned a paintbrush for herself and got to work on her first inscriptions.

  A gentle blue glow of essence appeared between her hands and the cuff, proving she wasn’t just drawing. Hundreds of questions raced through his mind, and it took all the willpower he had not to blurt them out. Her face told him she wasn’t in any position to answer them at the moment.

  Intense concentration sharpened her soft eyes, and she watched each stroke like a hawk. Beads of sweat formed on her brow, and he saw her usually steady hands struggle to bring the brush to bear. He knew it wasn’t a skill, but it reminded him of the enormous effort it took each time she used her Living Portrait. At least that meant she’d already had some practice.

  The blood ink fizzed like soda when it met the cuff, the infused metal greedily drinking both the ink and her essence as the process began. She’d kept a strong pace at the beginning, but her speed dwindled to a single stroke per minute once the groundwork was complete. Harvey was intrigued, but realized his constant staring might not be helping. Returning to his place in the doorway, he pulled out a chunk of bread, took a long sip of water, and got to work planning his second skill.

  He’d resolved that he didn’t want his skills to be relegated to shortcuts for things he could already do. The opportunity to create real magic customized to his needs was nothing short of miraculous, and he didn’t want to waste a single one. Those opportunities were coming fast and frequently now, but something told him they would eventually be fewer and far between. Even if it came every five levels, the amount of essence he needed for each step forward was growing exponentially.

  The problem was that he didn’t know what he needed. What the bounds of a profession skill even were. Maybe he could’ve gotten a skill like Flamestrike from his profession instead of his class. After all, hitting things with a hammer was way more blacksmithing-related than something an arcanist would do. So, should he try to make another combat skill? That felt wrong, somehow.

  If he didn’t want his skill to smooth out the rough edges his lacking expertise left on Elena’s inkwell or let him heat metal with his hands, what other options were there? His first thought when getting his level 5 skill was something that would conjure better tools, but he’d decided against it. He simply hadn't known what he was lacking. Now, he knew that the biggest thing holding him back was his toolbox. Hell, he’d pounded his head against the wall for hours trying to make a stupid bowl, all because he didn’t have a rounded attachment to hammer against. Could he fix that?

  He didn’t need to conjure up permanent hammers, chisels, and tongs. He wanted temporary tools that would help him with all the niche projects. If he could conjure quick and dirty solutions out of pure essence, a lot of the roadblocks holding him back would disappear.

  “Harvey,” Elena croaked. “It’s done.”

  His train of thought broken, he looked up at Elena and saw sweat dripping from her face, a single cuff held limply in her hands. It dropped to the workbench with a dull clang as rainbow light exploded out from her weave. She groaned in pain, nearly doubling over and falling off the stool she’d been sitting on.

  He rushed over, catching her and holding her upright until the process ended. She wheezed, and he urged her to drink from his water jug.

  “Are you ok?” Harvey panicked.

  “I’m fine, just tired.” She coughed. “That was a lot harder than I thought it would be. The will in the brush is a lot stronger than mine.”

  “Good to know, we don’t have to use it for the next one then,” Harvey said.

  “No, it’s good practice for me, and I think it made the inscription a lot stronger.” Elena smiled, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her robe.

  Picking up the cuff, Harvey looked at her intricate drawing. It was all the same color, the black and brown mixture of charcoal and blood, and depicted a bonfire with sparks flying in every direction to create a ring around the entire cuff. It was incredibly detailed, considering the clumpy ink applied to an imperfect iron band. Slipping it over his wrist, it felt just like holding his wand. The cuff was an empty battery, waiting to be charged.

  Harvey tried flooding it with essence, but found it only accepted a trickle as the warm glow of a campfire filled the room. He was satisfied with the expenditure and relieved to feel that the inscription was self-regulating, taking only as much essence as it needed. He hadn’t even considered whether feeding it too much could burn out the ink. Walking over to a shadowy corner of the forge, the single cuff had no problem lighting everything up. With a second one and the circlet, he’d be free to go wherever he wanted underground.

  “Wow…” he mumbled, “this is amazing. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome!” She beamed. “I don’t have the energy to do the rest right now, but the next should be a little easier with the stat bump two profession levels gave me. In the meantime, are you ready to hit the Loom?”

  He nodded and helped her to her feet before leaving for the church. The day was winding down, Veilstriders returning to the outpost and gathering for dinner around the bonfire. Many of the massive undertakings they’d combined into large groups to complete had been finished, and now most spent their days trying to level up as fast as possible.

  The line to use the Loom had gotten a lot shorter, most having finished the mad dash to level 5 in both their class and profession. The tsunami of new skills would slow as time went on, but Harvey was happy he still needed to wait in line.

  When it was finally his turn, he placed his hands on the orb and got to work. He didn’t have much to offer the Loom this time around, the major components of his skill being his experience making the cauldron and constantly needing an assistant to help him accomplish something that a simple attachment slotted into the empty socket on his anvil could have easily accommodated. The glowing light surrounding his memories was respectable, but nothing special. If he had to guess, the skill would only be common rarity, but he hoped the plan in his head was enough for the system to give him what he wanted.

  Harvey nodded his assent and watched as black, blue, and grey threads wove into the image of a simple, metal bowl holding a glob of blue energy. It was utterly uninspiring, and he started to panic as the sigil embedded itself into the palm of his left hand. Searing pain melded with desperate uncertainty until the rainbow haze receded, and Harvey pulled up the screen describing his newest skill.

  “The inventor's toolbox is a bowl of essence? And what does it mean, essence constructs?” Elena asked, reading alongside him.

  Instead of answering, Harvey channeled power into the sigil on his hand and willed it to form the shape of a ball. It grew out of his hand like a time-lapse of a growing plant, and in moments he held what looked like a plastic ball. He gently squeezed it, happy to feel it refuse to budge an inch, even with his 61 points in strength.

  “Awesome.” She marveled.

  “Thanks, I made it myself.” Harvey chuckled. “I guess all an inventor needs is some power and creative ideas about how to use it. I’m getting pretty hungry. Want to stop and grab something to eat on our way back?”

  The church doors swung closed behind them, and the crunch of the dirt road replaced the dusty wooden floors. Over a hundred Veilstriders called the outpost home, and Harvey smiled as he picked his way through the crowd over to John’s shop.

  “Brittany!” Someone yelled. He hadn’t met a Brittany yet, and tried to guess where they’d lived based on the name.

  Probably California. He thought. Or maybe Florida.

  He kept walking, but was surprised to find Elena wasn’t following behind. Turning around, he saw her frozen, her breathing stilted and shaky as she stared across the road at Amy.

  “Brittany! It’s time for dinner.” Amy called out.

  “I’m going to eat with Harvey!” Elena called back.

  Why was Elena answering to that? And was that a tattoo on Amy’s face? Harvey wondered.

  “No, you’re eating with the family. Come here, now.” She commanded, staring daggers at them.

  The bustling street came to a standstill, the crowds parting to watch the exchange. Amy wasn’t an imposing woman, but the threat in her voice was arresting.

  Harvey’s hands clenched, confusion and disbelief shocking his system. He was ready to stand up to her, but before he could intervene, Elena gave him a sad nod and started walking away.

  “Elena!” Harvey yelled out.

  “You and Brittany can hang out more tomorrow, but while she lives under our roof, she’s going to follow our rules,” Amy called back.

  “You don’t own that house any more than she does!” Harvey accused.

  “Is that so?” Amy snarled back. “Why don’t you take that up with Gary?”

  “Just forget it, Harvey.” Elena sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He watched in stunned silence as they disappeared through the alley. What the hell was going on?